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Updated: May 26, 2025
Greatly alarmed, he decided to go and see his former friend, and fearing another repulse, he begged Abbe Midon to accompany him. It was on the 4th of March, at about half-past four o'clock, that M. d'Escorval and the cure started for the Reche. They were so anxious and troubled in mind that they scarcely exchanged a dozen words as they wended their way onward.
"A good half-hour elapsed before he had completed his inspection, when he threw himself back in his armchair. Monsieur Lecoq," he said, slowly, "Monsieur d'Escorval has informed me by a note on the margin of this file of papers that you are an intelligent man, and that we can trust you." "I am willing, at all events."
During the bloodiest epoch of the Reign of Terror, M. d'Escorval had wrested from the guillotine a young girl named Victoire-Laure d'Alleu, a distant cousin of the Rhetaus of Commarin, as beautiful as an angel, and only three years younger than himself.
He rose, and in the tone of a man who is resigned to anything, he said: "Decidedly. I should risk more in attempting to save the baron" in his anxiety he gave M. d'Escorval his title "a thousand times more than I have to fear from my enemies. So, Mademoiselle" he no longer said "my good girl" "you can utilize your document."
Does not this circumstance prove that their friends are masters of the town, and that they are awaiting them in force? They advance, so certain of success that those who have guns do not even take the trouble to load them. M. d'Escorval and the abbe alone foresee the catastrophe.
When he left the office of his chief, Lecoq was fully authorized to proceed with his investigations, and in his pocket was a note for M. d'Escorval from M. Segmuller. His joy was so intense that he did not deign to notice the sneers which were bestowed upon him as he passed through the corridors. On the threshold his enemy Gevrol, the so-called general, was watching for him.
He had need of all his energy to regain his couch. For a moment he felt that he was dying. But he was ashamed of this weakness, which he judged unworthy of him. He determined to know what had passed to know the details. He rang, and told the servant that he wished to speak to his father. M. d'Escorval promptly made his appearance. "Well?" cried Maurice. M. d'Escorval felt that denial was useless.
Return at once to the Hotel de France and tell the cure to meet me on the Place d'Armes, where I go to await him." Though among the first to be arrested at the time of the panic before Montaignac, the Baron d'Escorval had not for an instant deluded himself with false hopes. "I am a lost man," he thought. And confronting death calmly, he now thought only of the danger that threatened his son.
At night he barricaded the doors, and drank, drank, drank; and until daybreak they could hear him cursing and singing or struggling against imaginary enemies. Still he dared not disobey the order brought by a soldier, summoning him to the Hotel de Sairmeuse at once. "I wish to discover what has become of Baron d'Escorval," said Martial.
He said that all the peasantry for ten leagues around were under arms, and that the Baron d'Escorval was the leader of the revolt. He did not doubt the final success of the movement, declaring that Napoleon II., Marie-Louise, and all the marshals of the Empire were concealed in Montaignac.
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