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Updated: September 20, 2025
Unfortunately, he had nothing whatever to guide him in his researches; no clew, however vague. All that was known in Montaignac was that M. Lacheneur's horse was killed at the Croix d'Arcy. But no one knew whether Lacheneur himself had been wounded, or whether he had escaped from the fray uninjured. Had he reached the frontier? or had he found an asylum in the house of one of his friends?
He removed the covering from M. de Courtornieu's face he was almost compelled to use force to do it examined the patient with evident anxiety, then ordered mustard plasters, applications of ice to the head, leeches, and a potion, for which a servant was to gallop to Montaignac at once. All was bustle and confusion. When the physician left the sick-room, Mme. Blanche followed him.
He was still hoping that Chupin had exaggerated the danger; but when he reached the Place d'Arms, which commanded an extended view of the surrounding country, his illusions were put to flight. Signal-lights gleamed upon every side. Montaignac seemed surrounded by a circle of flame. "These are the signals," murmured Chupin. "The rebels will be here before two o'clock in the morning."
Chupin had not taken time to sleep, nor scarcely time to drink, since that unfortunate morning when the Duc de Sairmeuse ordered affixed to the walls of Montaignac, that decree in which he promised twenty thousand francs to the person who should deliver up Lacheneur, dead or alive. "Twenty thousand francs," Chupin muttered gloomily; "twenty sacks with a hundred pistoles in each!
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.
It was impossible to induce her to leave his bedside for a moment. It was only with great difficulty that they could persuade her to sleep for a couple of hours, in an armchair in the sick-room. But while she was playing the role of Sister of Charity, which she had imposed upon herself, her thoughts followed Chupin. What was he doing in Montaignac? Was he watching Martial as he had promised?
We have good walls, strong gates, and three thousand soldiers at our command. These peasants are fools! But be grateful for their folly, my dear duke, and run and order out the Montaignac chasseurs " But suddenly a cloud overspread his face; he knit his brows, and added: "The devil! I am expecting Blanche this evening. She was to leave Courtornieu after dinner.
The signals had said: "Montaignac must be regarded as in a state of siege. The military authorities have been granted discretionary power. A military commission will exercise jurisdiction instead of, and in place of, the courts. Let peaceable citizens take courage; let the evil-disposed tremble! As for the rabble, the sword of the law is about to strike!"
M. de Courtornieu vainly tried to penetrate the bride's real motive. "The order to Montaignac must be sent at once," she insisted. Had she been less excited she would have discerned the gleam of malice in her father's eye. He was thinking that this would afford him an ample revenge, since he could bring dishonor upon Martial, who had shown so little regard for the honor of others.
To the inhabitants of Sairmeuse and its environs, "the city" meant the country town of the arrondissement, Montaignac, a charming sub-prefecture of eight thousand souls, about four leagues distant. "And was it at Montaignac that you bought the horse you were riding just now?" "I did not buy it; it was loaned to me." This was such a strange assertion that his listeners could not repress a smile.
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