Jean paid the Colonel’s score and set out for home.  The walls were all plastered over with posters and proclamations.  He read one that was half hidden under bulletins of victories: 

“Article IV. All persons detained in custody by the verdict of the jury of accusation shall be hostages of the people of Paris.

“Article V. Every execution of a prisoner of war or a partisan of the government of the Commune of Paris shall be followed by the instant execution of thrice the number of hostages detained in virtue of Article IV, the same being chosen by lot.”

He frowned dubiously and asked himself: 

“Can it be I have denounced a man as hostage?”

But his fears were soon allayed; Colonel Tudesco was only a wind-bag, and could not really arrest people.  Besides, was it credible that Bargemont, head of a Ministerial Department, was still in Paris?  And after all, if he did come to harm, well, so much the worse for him!

XXXIII

Two days after a cab with a musket barrel protruding from either window stopped before the bookbinder’s shop.  The two National Guards who stumbled out of it demanded to see the citizen Jean Servien, handed him a sealed packet and signed to him to open the door wide and wait for them.  Next minute they reappeared carrying a full-length portrait.

It represented a woman of forty or thereabouts, with a yellow face, very long and disproportionately large for the frail, sickly body it surmounted, and dressed in an unpretending black gown.  She wore a sad, submissive look.  Her grey eyes bespoke a contrite and fearful heart, the cheeks were pendulous and the loose chin almost touched the bosom.  Jean scrutinized the poor, pitiful face, but could recall no memory in connection with it.  He opened the letter and read: 

  “Commune of Paris—­General Staff.

  “Order to deliver to the citizen Jean Servien
  the portrait of Madame Bargemont.

  “Tudesco.

  “Colonel commanding the Subterranean
  Ways of the Commune.”

Jean wanted to ask the National Guards what it all meant, but already the cab was driving off, bayonets protruding from both windows.  The passers-by, who had long ceased to be surprised at anything, cast a momentary glance after the retreating vehicle.

Jean, left alone with Madame Bargemont’s portrait before him, began to ask himself why his disconcerting friend Tudesco had sent it to him.

“The wretch,” he told himself, “must have arrested Bargemont and sacked his apartments.”

Meantime Madame Bargemont was gazing at him with a martyr’s haunting eyes.  She looked so unhappy that Jean was filled with pity.

“Poor woman!” he ejaculated, and turning the canvas face to the wall, he left the house.

Presently the bookbinder returned to his work and, though anything but an inquisitive man, was tempted to look at this big picture that blocked up his shop.  He scratched his head, wondering if this could be the actress his son was in love with.  He opined she must be mightily taken with the young man to send him so large a portrait in so handsome a frame.  He could not see anything to capture a lover’s fancy.