If at Faust You Don`t Succeed

CHAPTER 9

Mack came at last to a clearing, and beyond it was the village of Sommevesle where Mack hoped to find the duc de Choiseul, the great white hope of the royalists. He discovered him sitting outside an inn at the edge of town and reading the used horses ads in the Paris newspaper.

"You are the duc de Choiseul?" he asked.

The man looked up from his newspaper and peered at Mack over wire-rimmed spectacles. "I am he."

"I have news of the king!"

"Well, about time," the duc de Choiseul said. He folded the newspaper to the front page and pointed to a dispatch from the Paris Revolutionary Journal.

"Have you seen this? Danton and Saint-Just are calling for the king's blood, and for Marie Antoinette's, too. We used to call that libel in the old days, and punish it severely. But nowadays people can publish what they please. And they call that progress! Where is the king, sir?"

"He is coming here," Mack said.

"When?"

"I'm not really sure," said Mack.

"Oh, that's great," the duc de Choiseul said sarcastically, screwing a monocle into his left eye and peering at Mack disapprovingly. "Hours late already, the villagers ready to mob us because they think we're here to collect taxes, and you tell me he's coming. And just exactly when is he coining?"

"The royal peasants are on their way, too," the duc de Choiseul said, gesturing. Mack looked and saw a mob of peasants armed with pitchforks gathered in a compact crowd at the foot of the street.

"Well, what of it?" Mack asked. "They're only peasants. If they cause you any trouble, shoot them down."

"Easy for you to say, young fellow. You're obviously a foreigner. You don't live around here. But I have estates filled with these fellows. I need to get along with them next year when I exercise the droit du seigneur. This is France, where sex is important! And anyhow, these peasants are only the visible few.

There are thousands more just beyond town, and more gathering every hour. They could peel us like a peach. And you advise me to shoot them down!"

"It was only a suggestion," Mack said.

"Hello," the duc de Choiseul said, turning away. "Who's this?"

A rider in black was galloping up the road, coat-tails flying. It was Faust. He clattered into the courtyard, vaulted off his horse, and approached the duke.

"Your orders have been canceled," Faust said. "Sir, get your troops out of here at once."

"Hoity-toity," said the duc de Choiseul, who was addicted to humorous English expressions. "And who might you be?"

"Dr. Johann Faust, at your service."

"No," Mack said, "actually, I'm Johann Faust."

"Two Fausts bearing contradictory messages," the duc de Choiseul mused. "Well, tell you what. I think you fellows had better stay here with me until we find out what's up. Soldiers!"

The men seized Faust's horse and his person. The magician struggled in vain against their iron hands.

Mack, seeing which way matters were going, bolted away before they could grasp him, bounded across the leaf-blown little square, and vaulted onto his own horse. He set spur to flank and galloped off at a good clip, with Faust, seized by the soldiers, shouting curses at him from behind.