I Will Repay | Page 3

if you and De Quettare will honour him, I think he
should be grateful."
M. de Quettare, adjutant to M. le Colonel, was ready to follow in the

footsteps of his chief, and the two men, after the prescribed salutations
to M. le Marquis de Villefranche, went across to speak to Déroulède.
"If you will accept our services, monsieur," began the Colonel abruptly,
"mine, and my adjutant's, M. de Quettare, we place ourselves entirely at
your disposal."
"I thank you, messieurs," rejoined Déroulède. "The whole thing is a
farce, and that young man is a fool; but I have been in the wrong and..."
"You would wish to apologise?" queried the Colonel icily.
The worthy soldier had heard something of Déroulède's reputed
bourgeois ancestry. This suggestion of an apology was no doubt in
accordance with the customs of the middle-classes, but the Colonel
literally gasped at the unworthiness of the proceeding. An apology?
Bah! Disgusting! cowardly! beneath the dignity of any gentleman,
however wrong he might be. How could two soldiers of His Majesty's
army identify themselves with such doings?
But Déroulède seemed unconscious of the enormity of his suggestion.
"If I could avoid a conflict," he said, "I would telle the Vicomte that I
had no knowledge of his admiration for the lady we were discussing
and..."
"Are you so very much afraid of getting a sword scratch, monsieur?"
interrupted the Colonel impatiently, whilst M. de Quettare elevated a
pair of aristocratic eyebrows in bewilderment at such an extraordinary
display of bourgeois cowardice.
"You mean, Monsieur le Colonel?" - queried Déroulède.
"That you must either fight the Vicomte de Marn to-night, or clear out
of Paris to-morrow. Your position in our set would become untenable,"
retorted the Colonel, not unkindly, for in spite of Déroulède's
extraordinary attitude, there was nothing in his bearing or his
appearance that suggested cowardice or fear.

"I bow to your superior knowledge of your friends, M. le Colonel,"
responded Déroulède, as he silently drew his sword from its sheath.
The centre of the saloon was quickly cleared. The seconds measured
the length of the swords and then stood behind the antagonists, slightly
in advance of the groups of spectators, who stood massed all round the
room.
They represented the flower of what France had of the best and noblest
in name, in lineage, in chivalry, in that year of grace 1783. The
storm-cloud which a few years hence was destined to break over their
heads, sweeping them from their palaces to the prison and the guillotine,
was only gathering very slowly in the dim horizon of squalid, starving
Paris: for the next half-dozen years they would still dance and gamble,
fight and flirt, surround a tottering throne, and hoodwink a weak
monarch. The Fates' avenging sword still rested in its sheath; the
relentless, ceaseless wheel still bore them up in their whirl of pleasure;
the downward movement had only just begun: the cry of the oppressed
children of France had not yet been heard above the din of dance music
and lovers' serenades.
The young Duc de Châteaudun was there, he who, nine years later,
went to the guillotine on that cold September morning, his hair dressed
in the latest fashion, the finest Mechlin lace around his wrists, playing a
final game of piquet with his younger brother, as the tumbril bore them
along through the hooting, yelling crowd of the half-naked starvelings
of Paris.
There was the Vicomte de Mirepoix, who, a few years later, standing
on the platform of the guillotine, laid a bet with M. de Miranges that his
own blood would flow bluer than that of any other head cut off that day
in France. Citizen Samson heard the bet made, and when De Mirepoix's
head fell into the basket, the headsman lifted it up for M. de Miranges
to see. The latter laughed.
"Mirepoix was always a braggart," he said lightly, as he laid his head
upon the block.

"Who'll take my bet that my blood turns out to be bluer than his?"
But of all these comedies, these tragico-farces of later years, none who
were present on that night, when the Vicomte de Marny fought Paul
Déroulède, had as yet any presentiment.
They watched the two men fighting, with the same casual interest, at
first, which they would have bestowed on the dancing of a new
movement in the minuet.
De Marny came of a race that had wielded the sword of many centuries,
but he was hot, excited, not a little addled with wine and rage.
Déroulède was lucky; he would come out of the affair with a slight
scratch.
A good swordsman too, that wealthy parvenu. It was interesting to
watch his sword-play: very quiet at first, no feint or parry, scarcely a
riposte, only en garde, always en