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Updated: June 5, 2025
Arguments and persuasions were useless. The condemned man no longer existed. Still, as this view of aspirants to her hand amused her, she encouraged her father in his efforts. He was beginning to despair, when fate dropped the Duc de Sairmeuse and son at his very door. When he saw Martial, he had a presentiment of his approaching release. "He will be my son-in-law," he thought.
Among the officers present there was one, an old lieutenant, medalled and decorated, who had been deeply wounded by imputations uttered by the Duc de Sairmeuse.
M. de Sairmeuse shrugged his shoulders. "And how will you procure a hundred feet of rope at this hour in Montaignac? Will you go about from shop to shop? You might as well trumpet your project at once." "I shall attempt nothing of the kind. What I cannot do the friends of the Escorval family will do." The duke was about to offer some new objection when his son interrupted him.
Ah! does he also love her? There will be three rivals in that case." But the more difficult and even perilous the undertaking seemed, the more his passions were inflamed. "My failures can be repaired," he thought. "Occasions of meeting shall not be wanting. Will it not be necessary to hold frequent interviews with Monsieur Lacheneur in effecting a formal transfer of Sairmeuse?
When the duke arrived at Sairmeuse, Chupin, the old scoundrel, with his two rascally boys, and that old hag, his wife, ran after the carriage like beggars after a diligence, crying, 'Vive Monsieur le Duc! The duke was enchanted, for he doubtless expected a volley of stones, and he placed a six-franc piece in the hand of each of the wretches.
For example, he declared that he disliked to come to the Hotel de Sairmeuse, that the servants treated him as if he were a mendicant, that after this he would write. And in a day or two there would come a letter bidding her bring such a sum, to such a place, at such an hour. And the proud duchess was always punctual at the rendezvous.
No one, save his daughter, knew the truth; he had only to keep silence and Sairmeuse remained his. Yes, he had still the power to keep Sairmeuse, and he knew it, for he did not share the fears of the ignorant rustics. He was too well informed not to be able to distinguish between the hopes of the emigres and the possible. He knew that an abyss separated the dream from the reality.
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!
"Monsieur," said the young man, "my father sends me to inform you that the Duc de Sairmeuse and his son have just arrived. They have asked the hospitality of our cure." M. Lacheneur rose, unable to conceal his frightful agitation. "You will thank the Baron d'Escorval for his attention, my dear Maurice," he responded.
"At least," she interrupted, "you have here what will almost make you forget the gardens of Sairmeuse. Who sent you these beautiful flowers?" Marie-Anne turned crimson. She did not speak for a moment, but at last she replied, or rather stammered: "It is an attention from the Marquis de Sairmeuse."
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