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Updated: June 26, 2025
Tournefort even now broke into a grim laugh. He had just undone the bundle which Jean Victor had thrown over the parapet of the bridge. It contained two heads of cabbage and a bunch of carrots. Then he ordered the agents to march on with their prisoner, and they, laughing and joking with Jean Victor, gave a quick turn, and soon their heavy footsteps were echoing down the flagstones of the bridge.
I can get to horse within ten minutes." "To horse, then, as quickly as you can. Pay off your men and dismiss them all but Tournefort, who had best accompany us. Do not lose a single moment. I'll be ahead of you and may come up with Rateau before you overtake me. And if I were you, citizen Gourdon," he concluded, with ominous emphasis, "I would burn one or two candles to your compeer the devil.
This acquisition was part of the Linnæan reform.... ‘Tournefort,’ says Decandolle, ‘appears to have been the first who really perceived the utility of fixing the sense of terms in such a way as always to employ the same word in the same sense, and always to express the same idea by the same words; but it was Linnæus who really created and fixed this botanical language, and this is his fairest claim to glory, for by this fixation of language he has shed clearness and precision over all parts of the science.’
Nothing was revealed of where Madame la Comtesse was in hiding, or how the diamonds were to be disposed of once they were found. Tournefort would have given much to have at least one of his colleagues with him. As it was, he would be forced to act single-handed and on his own initiative.
We are not surprised to hear from a school-fellow of the Chancellor Somers, that he was a weakly boy, who always had a book in his hand, and never looked up at the play of his companions; to learn from his affectionate biographer, that Hammond at Eton sought opportunities of stealing away to say his prayers; to read that Tournefort forsook his college class, that he might search for plants in the neighbouring fields; or that Smeaton, in petticoats, was discovered on the top of his father's barn, in the act of fixing the model of a windmill which he had constructed.
To make matters more complicated, the shades of evening were drawing in very fast, and these narrow streets of the Faubourg were very sparsely lighted. Just at this moment Tournefort had once more caught sight of Rateau, striding leisurely this time up the street.
One of the agents gave reply: "It is old Victor, the landlord of the 'Bon Copain. He is just a fool, who has been playing a practical joke." Tournefort, too, at sight of the prisoner had uttered a cry of dismay and of astonishment. "Victor!" he exclaimed. "Name of a dog, citizen, what are you doing here?"
At this moment he appeared to be suffering from a cold in the head, for his eyes were streaming and his narrow, hooked nose was adorned by a drop of moisture at its tip. In fact, poor old Grosjean looked more like a dilapidated scarecrow than a dangerous conspirator. Tournefort literally gasped at sight of him, and Grosjean uttered a kind of croak, intended, no doubt, for complete surprise.
What he could not make out was what had happened to Chauvelin and to Gourdon. They had been less than three hundred metres behind him when first this wild chase in and out of the Rue Contrescarpe had begun. Now, when their presence was most needed, they seemed to have lost track both of him Tournefort and of the very elusive quarry.
"I will tell you this much, citizen Tournefort," broke in Chauvelin with some acerbity, "that though we have traced the diamonds and the thief so far, we have, through your folly last night, lost complete track of the ci-devant Comtesse de Sucy and of the man Bertin. We want Rateau to show us where they are." "I understand," murmured the other meekly. "That's a mercy!" riposted Chauvelin dryly.
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