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Updated: June 8, 2025
He muttered that he did not understand; that we must be mistaken. What evidence had we? "The best!" I answered grimly. "If you wish to hear it, I will send for it; but witnesses have sometimes loose tongues, Bareilles, and he may not stop at the Capitaine Martin." He started and glared at me. From me his eyes passed to Parabere; then he shuddered, and looked down at the table.
On all sides I found the peasants oppressed, disheartened, and primed with tales of the King's severity, which those who had just cause to dread him had instilled into them. Bands of robbers committed daily excesses, and, in a word, no one thing was wanting to give the lie to the rose-coloured reports with which Bareilles, the Governor of Gueret, had amused the Council.
The glittering table, the lights, the arrested dicers, all the trivial preparations for a carouse that at another time must have given a cheerful aspect to the room, produced instead the most sombre impression. I waited, but, seeing that Bareilles did not move, I struck the table with my gauntlet. "The order!" I said, sharply; "the order!"
Let us understand one another therefore, I propose to sup with you, but I shall not sit down until he hangs." It would be useless for me to attempt to paint the mixture of horror, perplexity, and shame which distorted Bareilles' countenance as I spoke these words.
The stranger was splashed to the chin, and his face wore an expression of savage annoyance; but this gave place the instant he saw us to one of intense surprise, while the words he had had on his lips died away, and he stood nonplussed. I turned to M. de Bareilles. "Who is this?" I said harshly. "One of my lieutenants," he answered in a stifled tone. "M. le Capitaine Martin?"
"Well, as a fact, M. Bareilles, save for one thing we should have lain there." "And that thing?" he asked, his tongue almost failing him as he put the question. "The fact that you have a villain in your company," I answered. "What?" he stammered. "A villain, M. le Capitaine Martin," I continued sternly.
I confess that, at sight and thought of these things of this country so devoured, the King's authority so contemned, all evils laid at his door, all his profits diverted my anger burned within me, and I said more to Parabere than was perhaps prudent, telling him, in particular, what I designed against Bareilles, of whose double-dealing I needed no further proof; by what means I proposed to lull his suspicions for the moment, since we must lie at Gueret, and how I would afterwards, on the first occasion, have him seized and punished.
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