



Produced by John Bickers, Bonnie Sala, and Dagny





VENDETTA


By Honore De Balzac



Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley




                             DEDICATION

                  To Puttinati, Milanese Sculptor.





VENDETTA



CHAPTER I. PROLOGUE


In the year 1800, toward the close of October, a foreigner, accompanied
by a woman and a little girl, was standing for a long time in front of
the palace of the Tuileries, near the ruins of a house recently pulled
down, at the point where in our day the wing begins which was intended
to unite the chateau of Catherine de Medici with the Louvre of the
Valois.

The man stood there with folded arms and a bowed head, which he
sometimes raised to look alternately at the consular palace and at
his wife, who was sitting near him on a stone. Though the woman seemed
wholly occupied with the little girl of nine or ten years of age, whose
long black hair she amused herself by handling, she lost not a single
glance of those her companion cast on her. Some sentiment other than
love united these two beings, and inspired with mutual anxiety their
movements and their thoughts. Misery is, perhaps, the most powerful of
all ties.

The stranger had one of those broad, serious heads, covered with thick
hair, which we see so frequently in the pictures of the Caracci. The jet
black of the hair was streaked with white. Though noble and proud, his
features had a hardness which spoiled them. In spite of his evident
strength, and his straight, erect figure, he looked to be over sixty
years of age. His dilapidated clothes were those of a foreign country.
Though the faded and once beautiful face of the wife betrayed
the deepest sadness, she forced herself to smile, assuming a calm
countenance whenever her husband looked at her.

The little girl was standing, though signs of weariness were on the
youthful face, which was tanned by the sun. She had an Italian cast
of countenance and bearing, large black eyes beneath their well arched
brows, a native nobleness, and candid grace. More than one of those who
passed them felt strongly moved by the mere aspect of this group,
who made no effort to conceal a despair which seemed as deep as the
expression of it was simple. But the flow of this fugitive sympathy,
characteristic of Parisians, was dried immediately; for as soon as the
stranger saw himself the object of attention, he looked at his observer
with so savage an air that the boldest lounger hurried his step as
though he had trod upon a serpent.

After standing for some time undecided, the tall stranger suddenly
passed his hand across his face to brush away, as it were, the thoughts
that were ploughing furrows in it. He must have taken some desperate
resolution. Casting a glance upon his wife and daughter, he drew
a dagger from his breast and gave it to his companion, saying in
Italian:--

"I will see if the Bonapartes remember us."

Then he walked with a slow, determined step toward the entrance of the
palace, where he was, naturally, stopped by a soldier of the consular
guard, with whom he was not permitted a long discussion. Seeing this
man's obstinate determination, the sentinel presented his bayonet in the
form of an ultimatum. Chance willed that the guard was changed at that
moment, and the corporal very obligingly pointed out to the stranger the
spot where the commander of the post was standing.

"Let Bonaparte know that Bartolomeo di Piombo wishes to speak with him,"
said the Italian to the captain on duty.

In vain the officer represented to Bartolomeo that he could not see the
First Consul without having previously requested an audience in writing;
the Italian insisted that the soldier should go to Bonaparte. The
officer stated the rules of the post, and refused to comply with the
order of this singular visitor. Bartolomeo frowned heavily, casting
a terrible look at the captain, as if he made him responsible for the
misfortunes that this refusal might occasion. Then he kept silence,
folded his arms tightly across his breast, and took up his station
under the portico which serves as an avenue of communication between
the garden and the court-yard of the Tuileries. Persons who will things
intensely are very apt to be helped by chance. At the moment when
Bartolomeo di Piombo seated himself on one of the stone posts which
was near the entrance, a carriage drew up, from which Lucien Bonaparte,
minister of the interior, issued.

"Ah, Loucian, it is lucky for me I have met you!" cried the stranger.

These words, said in the Corsican patois, stopped Lucien at the moment
when he was springing under the portico. He looked at his compatriot,
and recognized him. At the first word that Bartolomeo said in his ear,
he took the Corsican away with him.

Murat, Lannes, and Rapp were at that moment in the cabinet of the First
Consul. As Lucien entered, followed by a man so singular in appearance
as Piombo, the conversation ceased. Lucien took Napoleon by the arm and
led him into the recess of a window. After exchanging a few words with
his brother, the First Consul made a sign with his hand, which Murat and
Lannes obeyed by retiring. Rapp pretended not to have seen it, in order
to remain where he was. Bonaparte then spoke to him sharply, and the
aide-de-camp, with evident unwillingness, left the room. The First
Consul, who listened for Rapp's step in the adjoining salon, opened
the door suddenly, and found his aide-de-camp close to the wall of the
cabinet.

"Do you choose not to understand me?" said the First Consul. "I