An Historical Mystery | Page 4

wish to miss, a lynx."
The dog, a magnificent spaniel, white with brown spots, growled.
"Hah!" said Michu, talking to himself, "spies! the country swarms with
them."
Madame Michu looked appealingly to heaven. A beautiful fair woman
with blue eyes, composed and thoughtful in expression and made like
an antique statue, she seemed to be a prey to some dark and bitter grief.
The husband's appearance may explain to a certain extent the evident
fear of the two women. The laws of physiognomy are precise, not only
in their application to character, but also in relation to the destinies of
life. There is such a thing as prophetic physiognomy. If it were possible
(and such a vital statistic would be of value to society) to obtain exact
likenesses of those who perish on the scaffold, the science of Lavatar
and also that of Gall would prove unmistakably that the heads of all
such persons, even those who are innocent, show prophetic signs. Yes,
fate sets its mark on the faces of those who are doomed to die a violent
death of any kind. Now, this sign, this seal, visible to the eye of an
observer, was imprinted on the expressive face of the man with the

rifled carbine. Short and stout, abrupt and active in his motions as a
monkey, though calm in temperament, Michu had a white face injected
with blood, and features set close together like those of a Tartar,--a
likeness to which his crinkled red hair conveyed a sinister expression.
His eyes, clear and yellow as those of a tiger, showed depths behind
them in which the glance of whoever examined the man might lose
itself and never find either warmth or motion. Fixed, luminous, and
rigid, those eyes terrified whoever gazed into them. The singular
contrast between the immobility of the eyes and the activity of the body
increased the chilling impression conveyed by a first sight of Michu.
Action, always prompt in this man, was the outcome of a single thought;
just as the life of animals is, without reflection, the outcome of instinct.
Since 1793 he had trimmed his red beard to the shape of a fan. Even if
he had not been (as he was during the Terror) president of a club of
Jacobins, this peculiarity of his head would in itself have made him
terrible to behold. His Socratic face with its blunt nose was surmounted
by a fine forehead, so projecting, however, that it overhung the rest of
the features. The ears, well detached from the head, had the sort of
mobility which we find in those of wild animals, which are ever on the
qui-vive. The mouth, half-open, as the custom usually is among
country-people, showed teeth that were strong and white as almonds,
but irregular. Gleaming red whiskers framed this face, which was white
and yet mottled in spots. The hair, cropped close in front and allowed
to grow long at the sides and on the back of the head, brought into
relief, by its savage redness, all the strange and fateful peculiarities of
this singular face. The neck which was short and thick, seemed to tempt
the axe.
At this moment the sunbeams, falling in long lines athwart the group,
lighted up the three heads at which the dog from time to time glanced
up. The spot on which this scene took place was magnificently fine.
The /rond-point/ is at the entrance of the park of Gondreville, one of the
finest estates in France, and by far the finest in the departments of the
Aube; it boasts of long avenues of elms, a castle built from designs by
Mansart, a park of fifteen hundred acres enclosed by a stone wall, nine
large farms, a forest, mills, and meadows. This almost regal property
belonged before the Revolution to the family of Simeuse. Ximeuse was

a feudal estate in Lorraine; the name was pronounced Simeuse, and in
course of time it came to be written as pronounced.
The great fortune of the Simeuse family, adherents of the House of
Burgundy, dates from the time when the Guises were in conflict with
the Valois. Richelieu first, and afterwards Louis XIV. remembered
their devotion to the factious house of Lorraine, and rebuffed them.
Then the Marquis de Simeuse, an old Burgundian, old Guiser, old
leaguer, old /frondeur/ (he inherited the four great rancors of the
nobility against royalty), came to live at Cinq-Cygne. The former
courtier, rejected at the Louvre, married the widow of the Comte de
Cinq-Cygne, younger branch of the famous family of Chargeboeuf, one
of the most illustrious names in Champagne, and now as celebrated and
opulent as the elder. The marquis, among the richest men of his day,
instead of wasting his substance at court, built the chateau of
Gondreville,