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"It must be that old imbecile, the Duc de Sairmeuse, who has manoeuvred so skilfully, and with so much address," he said. "But who advised him? I cannot imagine who it could have been." Who it was Mme. Blanche knew only too well. She recognized Martial's hand in all this, as Marie-Anne had done. "Ah! I was not deceived in him," she thought; "he is the great diplomatist I believed him to be.
He drew a copy of Kant from his blouse, but in his confusion several other volumes dropped from his bosom on the ground. The Baronet picked them up. "Ah!" said the Philosopher, "what's this? Cicero's 'De Sonertute, at your age, too! Martial's 'Epigrams, Caesar's 'Commentaries. What! a classical scholar?" "E pluribus Unum. Nux vomica. Nil desperandum. Nihil fit!" said the Boy enthusiastically.
"Death of the devil!" objected Gringoire; "I shall break my neck. Your stool limps like one of Martial's distiches; it has one hexameter leg and one pentameter leg." "Climb!" repeated Clopin. Gringoire mounted the stool, and succeeded, not without some oscillations of head and arms, in regaining his centre of gravity.
Was I not right to take a most friendly farewell of a man who wrote a poem like that about me, and do I do wrong if I now bewail his death as that of a bosom-friend? For he gave me the best he could, and would have given me more if he had had it in his power. And yet what more can be given to a man than glory and praise and immortality? But you may say that Martial's poems will not live for ever.
Martial's countenance had changed so much during the three minutes he had been absent that there was an exclamation of terror when he reappeared, holding an open letter in one hand and leading with the other a young peasant whom no one recognized. "Where is my father?" he demanded, in a husky voice; "where is the Marquis de Courtornieu?" The duke and the marquis were with Mme.
Standing on the shore, erect, immovable, indifferent to this scene, the widow, pensive and absorbed, kept her eyes fixed on Martial's window, which could be distinguished, through the poplar trees, from the shore. During this time the two boats moved slowly off toward the opposite side.
Martial's testimony, as well indeed as Pliny's, goes also to another point, viz, that the deaths of these men were martyrdom in the strictest sense, that is to say, were so voluntary, that it was in their power, at the time of pronouncing the sentence, to have averted the execution, by consenting to join in heathen sacrifices.
However inexperienced Maurice might be, he could no longer fail to comprehend Martial's intentions. This man whom he mortally hated already, dared to speak of love to Marie-Anne, and before him, Maurice. In other words, the marquis, not content with having ignored and insulted him, presumed to take an insolent advantage of his supposed simplicity.
But Martial's was one of those natures which become exasperated by the least shadow of suspicion. The idea that anyone should suppose him influenced by threats, when in reality, he had yielded only to Marie-Anne's tears, angered him beyond endurance. "These are my last words, Monsieur," he said, emphatically.
She had desired to know the truth; certainty was less terrible to endure than this constant suspicion, And, as if she found a little enjoyment in proving the extent of Martial's love for a hated rival, she took an inventory, as it were, of the magnificent appointments of the chamber, feeling the heavy brocaded silk stuff that formed the curtains, and testing the thickness of the rich carpet with her foot.
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