The Maids of Paradise

m if he resists arrest. If the community at La Trappe has not been warned of

ate professor of law

ctor in mathematics, Fonta

ex-interne, Charit

Elven, latel

sart, well known for

arest point on the Belgian frontier. The Countess de Vassart usually dresses like a common peasant. Look ou

that the matter was ended, and I repeated the signal, opened my code-boo

pencilled memoranda, the steady bumping of artillery pass

e two brigades of Raoult's division of infantry. I telegraphed the news to the ob

pped in their wet, gray overcoats, limbers, caissons, and horses plastered with mud. The slim cannon, with canva

struction. To me there was always something repulsive in the shape of these stunted can

ds, pouring 7 a perpendicular torrent from the transparent, gray heavens, and the roar of

brimful, foaming at the fords. The semaphore on the mountain of the Pigeonnier was not visible; but across th

n army was massing, fresh from the combat in the north, where the tragedy of Wissembourg had been enacted only the day before, in the presence of

ment and called up the station on the Col du Pigeonnier, asking f

the muddy stairway, laughing, joking, swearing at the rain, or shout

hen I changed my civilian clothes for a hussar uniform, sent a trooper to find me a horse, and sat down by th

ferent circumstances, all France was once more disintegrating socially. Opposition to the Empire, to the dynasty, to the government, had been seething for years; now the separate

nts to closer union, the government found nothing alarming in the menaces of individuals or of isolated groups. The Emperor always counted on such opposition in Paris; the palace of the T

ried the government, but that this opposition should r

f social theories interested us only when the groups grew

e police; violent organizations were not observed very closely, but

litions of the under-world escaped with nothing more serious than a few vinous shrieks. There were, however, certain secret and semi-secret organizations which caused the government concern. First among these came the International Society of Workingmen, with all its affiliations-the "Internationale," as it was called. In its wa

o the large bodies of the people; a party was born, smal

hered the Red Republicans, the government opposition of the Extreme Left, the Opportunists, the Anarchists, certain Socialists, the so-called Communards, and finally the vast m

l those whom the police and the government regarded as inclined to 10 violence left the group. There remained, with this one exception, a nucleus of earnest, thoughtful people whose cree

Countess de Vassart, placing at their disposal her great w

to an elderly, bull-necked colonel of cavalry, the notorious Count de Vassart, who needed what money

ng in her carriage before the Ministry of War a year after her marriage. There had been bad news from Mexico, and there wer

who, it was said, was so open in his contempt for her that the very afternoon of their marriage h

emember wondering how much the death of her husband had to do with it-for his

rawn entirely from society, had founded a non-sectarian free school in Passy, was interested in certain charities and ref

ially when she returned to Paris and took her place once more in Royalist circles, where ev

ourg, aroused the distrust of the government, offended the Tuileries, and finally committed the mistake of receiving at her own house that

y had a dossier-was interesting, particularl

rity of conduct, and a credulity which render her an easy prey to the adroit, who play

nder the Empire was hopeless drove the young Countess to seek a refuge in the country where, at her house of La Trappe, she could quietly devote her life to helping the desperately wret

democracy, dedicated her life and fortune to the cause, and worked wit

es were doubled, and there was nobody to stay her hand or draw the generous purse-strings; nobody to advise her or to stop her. On the cont

he doom to which he had been born; not that kindly visionary, the Vicomte de Coursay-Delmont, now discarding his ancient title to be known only among his grateful, penniless patients as Doctor Delmont; and surely not Professor Tavernier, nor yet that militant hermit, the y

itions, the purity of motive, the serene and inspired self-abnegation, could not save the colony at La

, deadly pale, a finely moulded man, with delicately fashioned hands and feet, a

ts most insignificant machinery. With marvellous skill he constructed out of t

and equality, the annihilation of those arbitrary barriers called national frontiers-in sh

ody understood that it was cancelled when, in a community founded upon equality and fraternity, he raised another edific

ablished at the Breton home of the Countess de Vassart, a

s threatened-that of Professor Réclus-and the indignant young Countess was requested to retire to her chatea

were always certain foreigners-among others, myself and a young man named James Speed; and Colonel Jarras had already decided to employ

rough our fingers, and I, for one, did not expect to hear of him again. But I did not begin to know John Buckhurst, for, within three da

ck has let the only remaining cat out of the bag; the other cats are dead. Nor wi

m the very first by a conspiracy so alarming and apparently so irresistible that the Emperor himself believed, even in the be

eries, were sent under heavy guards to the Bank of France. Every precaution was taken; yet the great diamond crucifix of Lo

ror desired it, doubtless for the same reasons which always led him to suppress any affair which might

from one end of France to the other the gendarmerie, the poli

ndred and fifty thousand francs to a dealer in Strasbourg, a Jew named Fishel Cohen, who, counting on the excitement pr

ange he and the diamond were on their way to Paris, in charge of a detective. A few hours later t

h Buckhurst had obtained access to the jewels, or how he had managed to spirit away the cross from the very centre of the Tuileries, could only be expl

e secret police. For it was certain 16 that somebody in the imperial confidence had betrayed that confidence in a shocking manner, and nobody could know how far the conspiracy had sprea

ir safety, and the result of those precautions, are matters of history, but nobody outside of a small, strangely assorted compa

and as Buckhurst had last been heard of in Strasbourg, I went after him

ou seen

in the

other brot

ur Bad

shameful frenzy long before th

e I was with my orders concerning the unfortunate people at La Trappe, starin

nt I had been permitted to monopolize. He came, a pleasant, jaunty young fellow,

ll signal the tower on the Col du Pigeonni

and the odds and ends cherished by the thrifty Alsatian peasant, who never throws away anything from the day of his birth to the day of his death. And, given a long line of forefathers equally thrifty, and an ancient high-gab

which the leaded panes had long since tumbled earthward, and finally s

a rift in the watery clouds. It touched the rushing river, shining on

en bandoulière, trudging patiently up the muddy slope above the town. Something in the plodding steps of those wet little soldiers touched me. Bravely 18 their soaked drums battered away, bravely they dragged their clumsy feet after them, brightly and gayly the breaking sun touched their crimson forage-ca

histling with a curious, bird-like cry over the village of Morsbronn, flying far out across the val

an came tottering from his little sh

d out the operator beside

shop to drag out a chair on the doorsill and sit and listen to the sho

r; "it will be hard for him. He w

our army was alread

ndifferently, "we'll

to ride to La Trappe. I wish you w

ght," h

ird Hussars, a disguise supposed to convey the idea to those at La Trappe

yard road and out on to the long plateau where, on every hillock, a hussar

l du Pigeonnier I saw tiny specks move, flags signalling the arrival of the Vicomte de Bonnemain with the "grosse cavalerie," the splendid cuirassier regiments d

h separated us from German soil, I turned

ort cut, across the hills to the military highway which passed between Trois-Feuille

catching grasshoppers; their keeper, a prettily shaped peasant girl, looked

t as you are beautiful, you will not be tendi

she bent her head a little, turning it so that the curve of 20 her cheeks gave to her profile tha

, with appropriate gestures, to the military h