It was Baron Suire, the
President of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation. He possessed a
great fortune and occupied a high position at Toulouse.
"Where is Berthaud?" he inquired of one bearer after another, with a busy
air. "Where is Berthaud? I must speak to him."
The others answered, volunteering contradictory information. Berthaud was
their superintendent, and whilst some said that they had seen him with
the Reverend Father Fourcade, others affirmed that he must be in the
courtyard of the station inspecting the ambulance vehicles. And they
thereupon offered to go and fetch him.
"No, no, thank you," replied the Baron. "I shall manage to find him
myself."
Whilst this was happening, Berthaud, who had just seated himself on a
bench at the other end of the station, was talking with his young friend,
Gerard de Peyrelongue, by way of occupation pending the arrival of the
train. The superintendent of the bearers was a man of forty, with a
broad, regular-featured, handsome face and carefully trimmed whiskers of
a lawyer-like pattern. Belonging to a militant Legitimist family and
holding extremely reactionary opinions, he had been Procureur de la
Republique (public prosecutor) in a town of the south of France from the
time of the parliamentary revolution of the twenty-fourth of May* until
that of the decree of the Religious Communities,** when he had resigned
his post in a blusterous fashion, by addressing an insulting letter to
the Minister of Justice.
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