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But a hum and swish suddenly came once more, and a sleek and graceful aeroplane, which he knew to be the Arrow, sank to the earth close to him. Lannes, smiling and triumphant, stepped forth and John hailed him eagerly. "I met Caumartin in an aerial road," said Lannes, in his best dramatic manner, "and he described this place, at which you were waiting.
In this state he returned to his house, and went the next day to Versailles. There he made the most bitter complaints to the King, of the Abbe de Caumartin, by whose means he had become the sport and laughing-stock of all the world. The King, who had learned what had passed, was himself displeased. Pontchartrain executed the first part of his commission, but not the second.
They have had them printed and are selling them at Nancy; but in this copy there are many omissions. A lady at Paris, Madame Caumartin, has a copy in which there is not a word deficient; but she obstinately refused to lend it that the others may be made complete.
One judicious friend, 'M. Caumartin, took the young fellow home to his house in the country for a time; and there, incidentally, brought him acquainted with old gentlemen deep in the traditions of Henri Quatre and the cognate topics; which much inflamed the young fellow, and produced big schemes in the head of him.
The church, the sovereign, and the oligarchy, were crowning themselves for the sacrifice. Opposite the Rue de Luxembourg, and parallel with the Rue de Caumartin, there stood, in the year 1782, a little villa-cottage or rustic pavilion. It was separated from the Boulevard de la Madeleine by a green paddock, and was concealed in a nest of laurustinus and clematis.
After breakfast, I set out in quest of the consul, and found him up a court, at 51 Rue Caumartin, in an office rather smaller, I think, than mine at Liverpool; but, to say the truth, a little better furnished. I was received in the outer apartment by an elderly, brisk-looking man, in whose air, respectful and subservient, and yet with a kind of authority in it, I recognized the vice-consul.
The Abbe de Caumartin was at that time Director of the Academie. He knew the vanity of M. de Noyon, and determined to divert the public at his expense. He had many friends in power, and judged that his pleasantry would be overlooked, and even approved.
He turned, and beheld the face of the woman whom, through so many dreary weeks, he had sought to shun the face of Julie Caumartin. Julie was not, as Savarin had seen her, looking pinched and wan, with faded robes, nor, as when met in the cafe by Lemercier, in the faded robes of a theatre.
It's lucky that aeroplanes are such unstable gun-platforms. When platforms and targets are alike swerving it's hard to hit anything. We're going to rise and dive, and rise and dive and swerve and swerve, John, so be ready. I'll signal to Caumartin to do the same, and maybe the machine gun won't get us."
Though not many days passed before he discovered the imposition, prudence prevented him from denouncing the impostors; and this blunder would have remained a secret between himself, Bonaparte, and Talleyrand, had not the unusual expenses of Caumartin excited the suspicion of the Russian Police Minister, who soon discovered the source from which they had flowed.
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