Ange Pitou by Alexandre Dumas part three

“No, abbé!” said Pitou, “the Spanish swords and Swiss pikes would be of no use.”

“It is well you see it.”

“Not those arms, abbé, but those capital muskets I cleaned so often when I studied under you.

‘Dum me Galatea tenebat,'”

added Pitou, with a most insinuating smile.

“Indeed,” said the abbé; and he felt his few hairs stand erect as Pitou spoke; “you want my old marine muskets?”

“They are the only weapons you have without any historical interest, and really fit for service.”

“Indeed,” said the abbé, placing his hand on the handle of his lash, as the soldier would have seized his sword. “Back, now! the traitor unveils himself.”

“Abbé,” said Pitou, passing from menace to prayer,

“give me thirty muskets—”

“Go back!” The abbé advanced towards Pitou.

“And you will have the glory of having contributed to rescue the country from its oppressors.”

“Furnish arms to be used against me and mine! Never!” said the abbé.

He took up his whip.

He wheeled it above his head.

“Never, never!”

“Monsieur,” said Pitou, “your name shall be placed in the journal of Monsieur Prudhomme.”

“My name in his paper!”

“Honorably mentioned.”

“I had rather be sent to the galleys.”

“What! you refuse?” asked Pitou.

“Yes, and tell you to go—”

The abbé pointed to the door.

“That would be very wrong, for you would be accused of treason. Monsieur, I beg you not to expose yourself to that.”

“Make me a martyr, Nero! I ask but that.” And his eye glared so that he looked more like the executioner than the victim.

So Pitou thought, for he began to fall back.

“Abbé,” said he, stepping back, “I’m an ambassador of peace, a quiet deputy. I come—”

“You come to rob my armory, as your accomplices did that of the Invalides.”

“Which was most laudable,” said Pitou.

“And which will here expose you to a shower of lashes from my cat-o’-nine-tails.”

“Monsieur,” said Pitou, who recognized an old acquaintance in the tool, “you will not thus violate the law of nations.”

“You will see. Wait.”

“I am protected by my character of ambassador.”

The abbé continued to advance.

“Abbé! Abbé! Abbé!” said Pitou.

He was at the street door, face to face with his dangerous enemy, and Pitou had either to fight or run.

To run he had to open the door, to open the door, turn.

If he turned, Pitou exposed to danger the part of his body the least protected by the cuirass.

“You want my guns? you want my guns, do you?” said the abbé, “and you say, ‘I will have them or you die!'”

“On the contrary, Monsieur, I say nothing of the kind.”

“Well, you know where they are; cut my throat and take them.”

“I am incapable of such a deed.”

Pitou stood at the door with his hand on the latch, and thought not of the abbé’s muskets, but of his whip.

“Then you will not give me the muskets?”

“No!”

“I ask you again!”

“No! no!”

“Again!”

“No! no! no!”

“Then keep them!” and he dashed through the halfopen door.

His movement was not quick enough to avoid the whip, which hissed through the air and fell on the small of the back of Pitou; and great as was the courage of the conqueror of the Bastille, he uttered a cry of pain.

On hearing the cry, many of the neighbors rushed out, and to their surprise saw Pitou running away with his sword and helmet, and the Abbé Fortier at the door brandishing his whip, as the angel of destruction wields his sword of flame.

1 A great French tragedian.

Chapter XXXV

Pitou a Diplomatist

WE have seen how Pitou was disappointed.

The fall was immense. Not even Satan had fallen from such an eminence when from heaven he was thrown to hell. Satan fell, but remained a king; while the Abbé Fortier’s victim was only Ange Pitou.

How could he appear before the persons who had sent him? How, after having testified such rash confidence, could he say that he was a boaster and a coward, who, armed with a sword and a helmet, had suffered an old abbé to whip him and put him to flight.

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