The House in the Rue St. Claude.
THE RUE ST. CLAUDE, in which the Count de Fenix had appointed to meet the Cardinal de Rohan, was not so different at that period from what it is at the present day but that some vestiges of the localities we are about to describe may yet be discovered. It abutted then, as it does now, on the Rue St. Louis and the boulevard, to the latter of which it descended with rather a steep inclination. It boasted of fifteen houses and seven lanterns, and was remarkable besides for two lanes, or culs de sac, which branched off from it, the one on the left, the other on the right; the former serving as the boundary of the Hotel de Voysins, while the latter took a slice off the large garden of the Convent of St. Sacrament. This last-mentioned lane, shaded on one side by the trees of the convent garden, was bordered on the other by the high dark wall of a house, the front of which looked toward the Rue St. Claude.
This wall, resembling the visage of a Cyclops, had only one eye, or if the reader like it better, only one window; and even that, covered with bars and grating, was horribly gloomy.
Just below this window, which was never opened, as one might perceive from the spiders’ webs that curtained it over, was a door studded with large nails, which indicated, not that the house was entered, but that it might be entered, on this side.
There were no dwellings in this lane, and only two inhabitants. These were a cobbler in a wooden box, and a stocking-mender in a cask, both shading themselves from the heat under the acacias of the convent garden, which threw their broad shadow on the dusty lane from nine in the morning. In the evening the stocking-mender returned to her domicile, the cobbler put a padlock on his castle, and no guardian watched over the lonely street, save the stern and somber eye of the window we have spoken of.
Besides the door just mentioned, the house which we have undertaken to describe so accurately had another and the principal entrance in the Rue St. Claude. This entrance was a large gateway surmounted with carved figures in relief, which recalled the architecture of the times of Louis XIII., and was adorned with the griffin’s head for a knocker which the Count de Fenix had indicated to the Cardinal de Rohan as distinguishing his abode.
As for the windows, they looked on the boulevard, and were opened early in the morning to admit the fresh air. But as Paris, at that period, and above all in that quarter, was far from safe, it occasioned no astonishment to see them grated, and the walls near them bristling with iron spikes. Indeed, the whole appearance of the house, at the first glance, suggested the idea of a fortress. Against enemies, thieves, or lovers, it presented iron balconies with sharp points; a deep moat separated the building from the boulevard, and to obtain entrance on this side it would have required ladders at least thirty feet long, for the wall which inclosed, or rather buried, the courtyard was fully that height.
This house, before which in the present day a spectator would be arrested by curiosity on beholding its singular aspect, was not very remarkable in 1770. On the contrary, it seemed to harmonize with the quarter of the city in which it stood, and if the worthy inhabitants of the Rue St. Louis, and the not less worthy denizens of the Rue St. Claude, shunned its neighborhood, it was not on account of its reputation, which was then intact, but on account of the lonely boulevard of the Porte St. Louis, and the Pont-aux-Choux, both of which were in very bad odor with the Parisians. In fact, the boulevard on this side led to nothing but the Bastille, and as there was not more than a dozen houses in the space of a quarter of a league, the city authorities had not thought it worth their while to light such a desert region. The consequence was, that after eight o’clock in summer, and four in winter, the vacuum became a sort of chaos, with the agreeable addition of robbers.
It was, however, on this very boulevard, toward nine o’clock in the evening, and about three quarters of an hour after the visit to St. Denis, that a carriage drove rapidly along. It bore the coat of arms of the Count de Fenix on its panels. The count himself, mounted on Djerid, who whisked his long and silky tail as he snuffed the stifling atmosphere, rode about twenty paces in advance. Within it, resting on cushions, and concealed by the closed blinds, lay Lorenza fast asleep. The gate opened, as if by enchantment, at the noise of the wheels, and the carriage, after turning into the dark gulf of the Rue St. Claude, disappeared in the courtyard of the house we have just described, the gate of which seemed to close behind it without the aid of human hands.
There was most assuredly no occasion for so much mystery, since no one was there to see the Count de Fenix return, or to interfere with him had he carried off in his carriage the treasures of the Abbey of St. Denis.
In the meantime we shall say a few words respecting the interior of this house, of which it is of importance that our readers should know something, since it is our intention to introduce them to it more than once.
In the courtyard of which we have spoken, and in which the springing grass labored by a never-ceasing effort to displace the pavement, were seen on the right the stables, on the left the coachhouses, while at the back a double flight of twelve steps led to the entrance door.
On the ground-floor, the house, or at least as much of it as was accessible, consisted of a large antechamber, a dining-room remarkable for the quantity of massive plate heaped on its sideboards, and a salon, which seemed quite recently furnished, probably for the reception of its new inmates.
From the antechamber a broad staircase led to the first floor, which contained three principal apartments. A skillful geometrician, however, on measuring with his eye the extent of the house outside, and observing the space within it, would have been surprised to find it contain so little accommodation. In fact, in the outside apparent house there was a second hidden house, known only to those who inhabited it.
In the antechamber, close beside a statue of the god Harpocrates — who, with his finger on his lips, seemed to enjoin the silence of which he is the symbol — was concealed a secret door opening with a spring, and masked by the ornaments of the architecture. This door gave access to a staircase which, ascending to about the same height as the first floor on the other staircase, led to a little apartment lighted by two grated windows looking on an inner court. This inner court was the box, as it were, which enclosed the second house and concealed it from all eyes.
The apartment to which this staircase led was evidently intended for a man. Beside the bed, and before the sofas and couches, were spread instead of carpets the most magnificent furs which the burning climes of Africa and India, produced. There were skins of lions, tigers, and panthers, with their glaring eyes and threatening teeth. The walls, hung with Cordova leather stamped in large and flowing arabesques, were decorated with weapons of every kind, from the tomahawk of the Huron to the crid of the Malay; from the sword of the crusader to the kandjiar of the Arab; from the arquebuse, incrusted with ivory, of the sixteenth century, to the damasked barrel inlaid with gold of the eighteenth. The eye in vain sought in this room for any other outlet than that from the staircase; perhaps there were several, but, if so, they were concealed and invisible.
A German domestic, about five-and-twenty or thirty years of age, the only human being who had been seen wandering to and fro in that vast mansion for several days, bolted the gate of the courtyard; and, opening the carriage-door while the stolid coachman unharnessed his horses, he lifted out Lorenza in his arms and carried her into the antechamber. There he laid her on a table, covered with red cloth, and drew down her long white veil over her person.
Then he left the room to light at the lamps of the carriage a large chandelier, with seven branches, and returned with all its lights burning. But in that interval, short as it was, Lorenza had disappeared.
The Count de Fenix had followed close behind the German, and had no sooner been left alone with Lorenza than he took her in his arms and carried her by the secret staircase we have described to the chamber of arms, after having carefully closed both the doors behind him. Once there, he pressed his foot on a spring in the corner of the lofty mantelpiece, and immediately a door, which formed the back of the fireplace, rolled back on its noiseless hinges, and the count with his burden again disappeared, carefully closing behind him with his foot the mysterious door.
At the back of the mantelpiece was a second staircase, consisting of a flight of fifteen steps covered with Utrecht velvet, after mounting which he reached a chamber elegantly hung with satin, embroidered with flowers, of such brilliant colors and so naturally designed, that they might have been taken for real. The furniture was richly gilt. Two cabinets of tortoiseshell inlaid with brass; a harpsichord, and a toilet-table of rosewood, a beautiful bed, with transparent curtains, and several vases of Sevres porcelain, formed the principal articles; while chairs and couches, arranged with the nicest order in a space of thirty feet square, served to complete the decoration of the apartment, to which was attached a dressing-closet and a boudoir. These latter had no windows; but lamps filled with perfumed oil burned in them day and night, and, let down from the ceiling, we’re trimmed by invisible hands. The sleeping-chamber, however, had two windows hung with rich and heavy curtains;, but, as it w-as now night, the curtains had nothing to conceal.
Not a sound, not a breath was heard in this chamber, and an inhabitant might have thought himself a hundred miles from the world. But gold, cunningly wrought, shone on every side; beautiful paintings smiled from the walls; and lusters of Bohemian glass glittered and sparkled like eyes looking on the scene, when, after having placed Lorenza on a sofa, the count, not satisfied with the trembling radiance of the boudoir, proceeded to light the rose-colored wax-candles of two candelabra on the chimney-piece.
Then, returning to Lorenza and placing himself before her, he knelt with one knee on a pile of cushions, and exclaimed softly, “Lorenza!”
The young girl, at this appeal, raised herself on her elbow, although her eyes remained closed. But she did not reply.
“Lorenza,” he repeated, “do you sleep in your ordinary sleep, or in the magnetic sleep?”
“In the magnetic sleep,” she answered.
“Then, if I question you, you can reply?”
“I think so.”
The Count de Fenix was silent for a moment, then he continued:
“Look in the apartment of the Princess Louise, whom we left three-quarters of an hour ago.”
“I am looking.”
“What do you see?”
“The princess is praying before retiring to bed.”
“Do you see the Cardinal de Rohan in the convent?”
“No.”
“In any of the corridors or courts?”
“No.”
“Look whether his carriage be at the gate?”
“I do not see it.”
“Pursue the road by which we came. Do you see carriages on it?”
“Yes; several.”
“Do you see the cardinal’s among them?”
“No.”
“Come nearer Paris — now?”
“Now I see it.”
“Where?”
“At the gate of the city.”
“Has it stopped?”
“Yes; the footman has just got down.”
“Does the cardinal speak to him?”
“Yes; he is going to speak.”
“Lorenza, attend! It is important that I should know what the cardinal says.”
“You should have told me to listen in time. But, stop! — the footman is speaking to the coachman.”
“What does he say?”
“The Rue St. Claude, in the Marais, by the boulevard.”
“Thanks, Lorenza.”
The count wrote some words on a piece of paper, which he folded round a plate of copper, doubtless to give it weight; then he pulled a bell, pressed a string, and, a small opening appearing in the wall, he dropped the note down. The opening closed again instantly. It was in this way that the count, in the inner apartments of his house, gave his orders to Fritz, his German servant.