Several months had elapsed, when chance so willed it that Mademoiselle de Scudéri was crossing the Pont Neuf in the glass coach of the Duchesse de Montpensier. The invention of those delightful glass coaches was then so recent that the people came together in crowds whenever one of them made its appearance in the streets. Consequently a gaping crowd gathered about the Duchesse’s carriage on the Pont Neuf, so that the horses could hardly make their way along. Suddenly Mademoiselle de Scudéri heard a sound of quarrelling and curses, and saw a man making a way for himself through the crowd, by means of fisticuffs and blows in the ribs; and as he came near they were struck by the piercing eyes of a young face, deadly pale, and drawn by sorrow. This young man, gazing fixedly upon them, vigorously fought his way to them by help of fists and elbows, till he reached the carriage door, threw it open with much violence, and flung a note into Mademoiselle de Scudéri’s lap; after which, he disappeared as he had come, distributing and receiving blows and fisticuffs.
La Martinière, who was with her mistress, fell back fainting in the carriage with a shriek of terror, as soon as she saw the young man. In vain Mademoiselle de Scudéri pulled the string, and called out to the driver. As if urged by the foul fiend, he kept lashing his horses till, scattering the foam from their nostrils, they kicked, plunged and reared, finally thundering over the bridge at a rapid trot. Mademoiselle de Scudéri emptied the contents of her smelling-bottle over the fainting La Martinière, who at last opened her eyes and, shuddering and quaking, clinging convulsively to her mistress, with fear and horror in her pale face, groaned out with difficulty, “For the love of the Virgin, what did that terrible man want? It was he who brought you the jewels on that awful night.” Mademoiselle de Scudéri calmed her, pointing out that nothing very dreadful had happened after all, and that the immediate business in hand was to ascertain the contents of the letter. She opened it, and read as follows:
“A dark and cruel fatality, which you could dispel, is driving me into an abyss. I conjure you—as a son would a mother, in the glow of filial affection—to send the necklace and bracelets to Master René Cardillac, on some pretence or other—say, to have something altered or improved. Your welfare, your very life—depend on your doing this. If you do not comply before the day after tomorrow, I will force my way into your house, and kill myself before your eyes.”
“Thus much is certain, at all events,” said Mademoiselle de Scudéri, when she had read this letter, “whether this mysterious man belongs to be band of robbers and murderers or not, he has no very evil designs against me. If he had been able to see me and speak to me on that night, who knows what strange events, what dark concatenation of circumstances, would have been made known to me, of which, at present, I seek, in my soul, the very faintest inkling in vain. But, be the matter as it may, that which I am enjoined in this letter to do, I certainly shall do, were it only to be rid of those fatal jewels, which seem to me as if they must be some diabolical talisman of the Prince of Darkness’s very own. Cardillac is not very likely to let them out of his hands again, if once he gets hold of them.”
She intended to take them to him next day; but it seemed as if all the beaux esprits of Paris had entered into a league to assail and besiege her with verses, dramas and anecdotes. Scarce had La Chapelle finished reading the scenes of a tragedy, and declared that he considered he had now vanquished Racine, when the latter himself came in, and discomfited him with the pathetic speech of one of his kings, until Boileau sent some of his fireballs soaring up into the dark sky of the tragedies, by way of changing the subject from that eternal one of the colonnade of the Louvre, to which the architectural Dr. Perrault was shackling him.
When high noon arrived, Mademoiselle de Scudéri had to go to Madame de Montansier; so the visit to René Cardillac had to be put off till the following day.
But the young man was always present to her mind, and a species of dim remembrance seemed to be trying to arise in the depths of her being that she had, somehow and at some time, seen that face and those features before. Troubled dreams disturbed her broken slumbers. It seemed to her that she had acted thoughtlessly, and was to blame for her delay in grasping the hands which the unfortunate man was holding out to her for help. She felt, in fact, as if it had depended on her to prevent some atrocious crime. As soon as it was fairly light, she had herself dressed and set off to the goldsmith’s with the jewels in her hand.