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Taking the Bastile

<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> WHY THE POLICE AGENT CAME WITH THE CONSTABLES. About six that morning a police-agent from the capital, accompanied by two inferior policemen, had arrived at Villers Cotterets where they presented themselves to the police justice, and asked him to tell them where Farmer Billet dwelt. Five hundred paces from the farmhouse the corporal, as the exempt's rank was in the semi-military organization of the police of the era, perceived a peasant working in the field, of whom he inquired about his master. The man pointed to a horseman a quarter of a league off. "He won't be back till nine," he said; "there he is inspecting the work. He comes in for breakfast, then." "If you want to please your master, run and tell him a gentleman from town is waiting to see him." "Do you mean Dr. Gilbert?" "Run and tell him, all the same." [Pg 39] No sooner was he notified than Billet galloped home but when he entered the room where he expected to see his landlord under the canopy of the large fireplace, none were there but his wife, sitting in the middle, plucking ducks with all the care such a task demands. Catherine was up in her room, preparing finery for Sunday, from the pleasure girls feel in getting ready for fun. "Who asked for me?" demanded Billet, stopping on the threshold and looking round. "Me," replied a flute-like voice behind him. "Turning, the yeoman beheld the police-agent and his two myrmidons. "How now? what do you want?" he snarled, making three steps backwards. "Next to nothing, dear Master Billet," replied the unctuous speaker: "we have to make a search in your premises, that is all." "A search, hey?" repeated Billet, glancing at his gun, on hooks over the mantelpiece. "Since we had a National Assembly," he said, "I thought citizens were no longer exposed to proceedings which smack of another age and style of things. What do you want with a peaceable and loyal man?" Policemen are alike all the world over in their never answering questions of their victims; some bewail them while clapping on the iron cuffs, searching them or pinioning; they are the most dangerous as they appear to be the best. The fellow who descended on Farmer Billet was of the hypocritical school, those who have a tear for those they overhaul, but they never let their hands be idle to dash away the tear. Uttering a sigh, this man waved his hand to his acolytes, who went up to Billet. He jumped back and reached out for his musket. But his hand was turned aside from the doubly dangerous weapon to him who made use of it and her whose pair of slight hands was strong with terror and mighty with entreaty. It was Catherine who had rushed to the spot in time to save her father from the crime of rebellion to justice. After this first outburst, Billet made no further resistance. The police agent ordered him to be locked up in one of the ground floor rooms which he had noticed to be barred, though [Pg 40] Billet, who had the grating done, had forgotten the precaution. Catherine was placed in a first-floor room and Mrs. Billet was shoved into the kitchen as inoffensive. Master of the fort, the Exempt set to searching all the furniture. "What are you doing?" roared Billet who saw through the keyhole that his house was turned out of windows. "Looking, as you see, for something we cannot find," replied the police officer. "But you may be robbers, burglars, scoundrels!" "Oh, you wrong us, master," rejoined the fellow through the door; "we are honest folk like yourself—only we are in the wages of the King and we have to obey his orders." "His Majesty's orders," repeated the farmer: "King Louis XVI. gives you orders to rummage my desk and turn my things upside down? When the famine was so dreadful last year that we thought of eating our horses; when the hail on the thirteenth of July two years back cut our wheat to chaff—his Majesty never bothered about us. What has happened at my farm at present for him to concern himself—never having seen or known me?" "You will please excuse me," said the man, opening the door a little and warily showing a search-warrant issued by the Chief of Police but as usual commencing with "In the King's Name"—"His Majesty has heard about you, old fellow; though he may not personally know you, do not kick at the honor he does you, and try to receive properly those whom he sends in his royal name." With a polite bow and a friendly wink, the chief policeman slammed the door, and recommenced the ferreting. Billet held his tongue and with folded arms, trod the room: he felt he was in the men's power. The searching went on silently. These men seemed fallen from the skies. No one had seen them but the farm-hand who had pointed out the way to the farmhouse. In the yard the watch-dogs had not barked; the leader of the expedition must be a celebrated man in his line and not making his first arrest. Billet heard his daughter wailing in the room overhead. He recalled her prophetic words, for he had no doubt that the investigation was caused by the doctor's book. [Pg 41] Nine o'clock struck, and Billet could count his hired men returning for their morning meal from the fields. This made him comprehend that, in case of conflict, he could have numbers of not law on his side. This made the blood boil in his veins. He had not the temper to bear inaction any longer and grasping the door he gave it such a shaking by the handle that with such another he would send the lock flying. The police opened it at once and confronted the farmer, threatening and upright before the house turned inside out. "But, to make it short, what are you looking for?" roared the caged lion: "Tell me, or by the Lord Harry of Navarre, I swear I'll thump it out of you." The flocking in of the farm lads had not escaped the corporal's alert eye; he reckoned them and was convinced that, in case of a tussel, he could not crow on the battlefield. With more honeyed politeness than before, he sneaked up to the speaker and said as he bowed to the ground: "I am going to tell you, Master Billet, though it goes dead against the rules and regulations. We are looking for a subversive publication, and incendiary pamphlet put on the back list by the Royal Censors." "A book in the house of a farmer who cannot read?" "What is there amazing in that, when you are friend of the author and he sent you a copy?" "I am not the friend of Dr. Gilbert but his humble servant," replied the other. "To be his friend would be too great an honor for a poor farmer like me." This unreflected reply, in which Billet betrayed himself by confessing that he not only knew the author, which was natural being his landlord, but the book—assured victory to the officer of the law. This man drew himself up to his full height, with his most benignant air, and smiling as he tapped Billet on the shoulder, so that he seemed to cleave his head in twain, he said: "You have let the cat out of the bag. You have been the first to name Gilbert, whose name we kept back out of discretion." [Pg 42] "That's so," muttered the farmer. "Look here, I will not merely own up but—will you stop pulling things about if I tell you where the book is?" "Why, certainly," said the chief making a sign to his associates; "for the book is the object of the search. Only," he added with a sly grin, "don't allow you have one copy when you have a dozen." "I swear, I have only the one." "We are obliged to get that down to a certainty by the most minute search, Master Billet. Have five minute's farther patience. We are only poor servants of justice, under orders from those above us, and you will not oppose honorable men doing their duty—for there are such in all walks of life." He had found the flaw in the armor: he knew how to talk Billet over. "Go on, but be done quickly," he said, turning his back on them. The man closed the door softly and still more quietly turned the key: which made Billet snap his fingers: sure that he could burst the door off its hinges if he had to do it. On his part the policeman waved his fellows to the work. All three in a trice went through the papers, books and linen. Suddenly, at the bottom of an open clothespress, they perceived a small oak casket clamped with iron. The corporal pounced on it as a vulture on its prey. By the mere view, by his scent, by the place where it was stored, he had divined what he sought, for he quickly hid the box under his tattered mantle and beckoned to his bravoes that he had accomplished the errand. At that very moment Billet had come to the end of his patience. "I tell you that you cannot find what you are looking for unless I tell you," he called out. "There is no need to 'make hay' with my things. I am not a conspirator, confound you! Come, get this into your noddles. Answer, or, by all the blue moons, I will go to Paris and complain to the King, to the Assembly and to the people." At this time the King was still spoken of before the people. [Pg 43] "Yes, dear Master Billet, we hear you, and we are ready to bow to your excellent reasons. Come, let us know where the book is, and, as we are now convinced that you have only the single copy, we will seize that and get away. There it is in a nutshell." "Well, the book is in the hands of a lad to whom I entrusted it this morning to carry it to a friend's," said Billet. "What is the name of this honest lad?" queried the man in black coaxingly. "Ange Pitou; he is a poor orphan whom I housed from charity, and who does not know the nature of the book." "I thank you, dear Master Billet," said the corporal, throwing the linen into the hole in the wall and closing the lid. "And where may this nice boy be, prithee?" "I fancy I saw him as I came in, under the arbor by the Spanish climbing beans. Go and take the book away but do not hurt him." "Hurt? oh, Master, you do not know us to think we would hurt a fly." They advanced in the indicated direction, where they had the adventure with Pitou already described. Catherine had heard enough in the words about the doctor, the book, and the search-warrant, to save the innocent holder of the treasonable pamphlet. Since the double errand of the police was fulfilled, the commander of the expedition was only too glad of the excuse to get far away. So he bounded on his men by his voice and example till they ran him into the woods. Then they came to a halt in the bushes. In the chase they were joined by two more policeman who had hidden on the farm with orders not to run up unless called. "Faith, it is a good job the lad did not have the box instead of the book," said the organizer of the attack, "we would be obliged to take post-horses to catch up with him. Hang me if he is a man at all so much as a deer." "But you have the prize, eh, Master Wolfstep?" said one of the subordinates. "Certainly, comrade, for here it is," answered the police agent, to whom the nickname had been given for his sidelong "lope" or wolfish tread and its lightness. [Pg 44] "Then we are entitled to the promised reward, eh?" "Ay, and here you are," said the captain of the squad, distributing gold pieces among them with no preference for those who had actively prosecuted the search and the others. "Long live the Chief!" called out the men. "There is no harm in your cheering the Chief," said Wolfstep: "but it is not he who cashes up this trip. It is some friend of his, lady or gentleman, who wants to keep in the background." "I wager that he or she wants that little box bad," suggested one of the hirelings. "Rigoulet, my friend," said the leader, "I have always certified that you are a chap full of keenness; but while we wait for the gift to win its reward, we had better be on the move. That confounded countryman does not look easily cooled down, and when he perceives the casket is missing, he may set his farm boys on our track; and they are poachers capable of keeling us over with a shot as surely as the best Swiss marksmen in his Majesty's forces." This advice was that of the majority, for the five men kept on along the forest skirts out of sight till they reached the highroad. This was no useless precaution for Catherine had no sooner seen the party disappear in pursuit of Pitou than, full of confidence in the last one's agility, who would lead them a pretty chase, she called on the farm-men to open the door. They knew something unusual was going on but not exactly what. They ran in to set her free and she liberated her father. Billet seemed in a dream. Instead of rushing out of the room, he walked forth warily, and acted as if not liking to stay in any one place and yet hated to look on the furniture and cupboards disturbed by the posse. "They have got the book, anyway?" he questioned. "I believe they took that, dad, but not Pitou, who cut away? If they are sticking to him, they will all be over at Cayelles or Vauciennes by this time." "Capital! Poor lad, he owes all this harrying to me." [Pg 45] "Oh, father, do not bother about him but look to ourselves. Be easy about Pitou getting out of his scrape. But what a state of disorder! look at this, mother!" "They are low blackguards," said Mother Billet: "they have not even respected my linen press." "What, tumbled over the linen?" said Billet, springing towards the cavity which the corporal had carefully closed but into which, opening it, he plunged both arms deeply. "It is not possible!" "What are you looking for, father?" asked the girl as her father looked about him bewildered. "Look, look if you can see it anywhere: the casket! that is what the villains were raking for." "Dr. Gilbert's casket?" inquired Mrs. Billet, who commonly let others do the talking and work in critical times. "Yes, that most precious casket," responded the farmer thrusting his hands into his mop of hair. "You frighten me, father," said Catherine. "Wretch that I am," cried the man, in rage, "and fool never to suspect that. I never thought about the casket. Oh, what will the doctor say? What will he think? That I am a betrayer, a coward, a worthless fellow!" "Oh, heavens, what was in it, dad?" "I don't know; but I answered for it to the doctor on my life and I ought to have been killed defending it." He made so threatening a gesture against himself that the women recoiled in terror. "My horse, bring me my horse," roared the madman. "I must let the doctor know—he must be apprised." "I told Pitou to do that." "Good! no, what's the use?—a man afoot. I must ride to Paris. Did you not read in his letter that he was going there? My horse!" "And will you leave us in the midst of anguish?" "I must, my girl, I must," he said, kissing Catherine convulsively: "the doctor said: 'If ever you lose that box, or rather if it is stolen from you, come to warn me the instant you perceive the loss, Billet, wherever I am. Let nothing stop you, not even the life of man.'" "Lord, what can be in it?" [Pg 46] "I don't know a bit. But I do know that it was placed in my keeping, and that I have let it be snatched away. But here is my nag. I shall learn where the father is by his son at the college." Kissing his wife and his daughter for the last time, the farmer bestrode his steed and set off towards the city at full gallop. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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