The Abduction of Avedick [pp. 414-433]

THE ABDUCTION OF AVEDICK.
were vain, and had no echo. In the passage there was no rencontre with pirates-a thing Ferriol feared and no doubt the
prisoner desired, for to fall into their hands would have been a
hundred-fold better than the treatment that awaited him in
France. However, it was givenhim to indulge some hope. Contrary winds drove the vessel to Gena. There Avedick, watched
as he was by his guardian, deceived his vigilance, and entrusted
to a Greek named Spartaly two letters, one addressed to the first
interpreter of the Porte, Maurocordato, the other to the Armenian, Theodat; in which letters he named the authors of his
abduction and demanded vengeance. But misfortune was implacable toward the old Patriarch. Spartaly, carried to Smyrna
on an Englishb, ship, and at the moment of repairing to Constantinople to bear thither the letters that contained the revelation,
entered into relations of confidence with another Greek, a
Chiote, named Justimany, who went and sold the secret of his
compatriot to the French consul. He, understanding all the
importance of the revelation, sent for Spartaly, bought him in
his turn and kept him at Smyrna. While the consul was sending
to Ferriol himself the letters that had been seized, and that, instead of saving the prisoner, were to draw upon him greater
severities, Avedick, supposing he might count on their happy
effect, and hoping for prompt deliverance, arrived at Marseilles
and was given into the hands of M. de Montmor, intendant of the
galleys, and then thrown into the dungeons of the Arsenal. It
was not at Mlarseilles that Avedick was retained a prisoner. Louis
XIV. was too prudent, and his vigilance too much awake, to leave
in a Mediterranean port a personage whom his co-religionists,
sustained by the Ottoman Porte, were energetically demanding
and were seeking with restless solicitude. As soon as the French
government had been informed of the noise made in the East by
the disappearance of the Grand Patriarch, an officer was sent to
Marseilles, to M. de Montmor, to withdraw Avedick from the
prisons of the Arsenal and to conduct him "under good and secure guard" to the other extremity of France. At the same time
it was enjoined on "all governors, mayors, syndics and other officers to give this officer all protection, succor and assistance in
case of need"-a precaution very useless toward the inoffensive
and feeble old man.
Near the ancient border of Brittany and Normandy there rises
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426