They were armed with swords and
musketoons, and had more the air of a royal bodyguard than of a
company of attendant servants.
Our coming was in a way well timed. I doubt if we could have
stayed the execution of Saint-Eustache's warrant even had we arrived
earlier. But for effect - to produce a striking coup de theatre -
we could not have come more opportunely.
A coach stood in the quadrangle, at the foot of the chateau steps:
down these the Vicomte was descending, with the Vicomtesse - grim
and blasphemant as ever, on one side, and his daughter, white of
face and with tightly compressed lips, on the other. Between these
two women - his wife and his child - as different in body as they
were different in soul, came Lavedan with a firm step, a good colour,
and a look of well-bred, lofty indifference to his fate.
He disposed himself to enter the carriage which was to bear him to
prison with much the same air he would have assumed had his
destination been a royal levee.
Around the coach were grouped a score of men of Saint-Eustache's
company - half soldiers, half ploughboys - ill-garbed and
indifferently accoutred in dull breastplates and steel caps, many
of which were rusted. By the carriage door stood the long, lank
figure of the Chevalier himself, dressed with his wonted care, and
perfumed, curled, and beribboned beyond belief. His weak, boyish
face sought by scowls and by the adoption of a grim smile to assume
an air of martial ferocity.
Pages:
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236