_An Explanation from Théophraste_
|NOW in reading the last chapter one would immediately think that M.
Longuet had gone mad. What had possessed him? Where did he go? In order
that you might fully understand his peculiar actions I will give you the
extract from his memoirs relating to this incident. He writes:
I am a man of sound body and mind. I am a good citizen and recognize
all the laws. I believe laws are necessary for the proper regulation of
society. I dislike heartily any formalities, and in determining my lines
of conduct I have always chosen the simplest way.
I dislike imaginative people, and the occult has always been repulsive
to me. However, this is not through want of understanding, for
my friend, Adolphe Lecamus, had given himself up to the study of
spiritualism. Whoever teaches spiritualism teaches foolishness, and the
desire to question the spirits of the dead by means of the planchette
seems to me to be beyond belief, it is grotesque. However, I have
assisted at some of Adolphe’s seances which he had given for the
benefit of Marceline and myself. I have even taken a certain part in
them, desiring to prove the absurdity of his theories. My wife and I
once rested our hands on a table for a quarter of an hour waiting for it
to move. Nothing happened, and we laughed heartily at him. However, my
wife was more sympathetic, and was inclined to be a little more serious.
Women are always more susceptible to the occult and ready to believe in
the mysterious. Adolphe bought her books, which she read eagerly, and he
amused himself sometimes by willing her to sleep, by making passes with
his hands and breathing on her eyes. It seemed foolish, and I should not
have allowed it from any one else, but I have always had a liking for
Adolphe, and know that it amuses him. Marceline and he said that I was
a skeptic. However, I am not a skeptic, as a skeptic is one who doubts
all. I believe in progress, but do not believe that one person having an
unnatural influence over another tends towards progress. Therefore I am
not a skeptic, but rather a philosopher.
During his travels Adolphe read a great deal. I have had to work hard
all my life, therefore, while he is an idealist, I am a materialist.
It seems necessary for me to thus describe my character so that it may
be well understood that the happenings of the day before yesterday were
not due to any occult reasons. I visited the prison in just the same
manner as I would go to a store to buy a cravat. I wanted to learn, that
is all. Having sold my business, I have more leisure, and so I said to
myself: “I will visit the interesting places of the city of Paris.”
Fate decreed that the Conciergerie was the first place to be visited. I
do not know whether I really regret it.
At present I am calm and collected and can relate all I remember of what
happened.
While we were in the Towers nothing happened worth recording. I remember
trying to picture to myself in the little room which looked like a
grocery store all the horrors of the place, how the executioners and
their assistants approached the prisoners with their monstrous machines,
how so many illustrious persons were martyred, and all the terrible
griefs and agonies which had been witnessed within these walls. But
the transformation had taken all the romance away, and the labels,
“Senna,” “Hops,” etc., did not inspire imagination. Even the Bon
Bee Tower, also called Bavarde, on account of the terrible cries which
were heard in it, has been changed into offices. However, I must not
complain. These are all the signs of progress and a more enlightened
age.
But we penetrated into that part of the Conciergerie which has changed
little during all these centuries, which had not been spoiled by the
plasterer and in which all the stones could tell their own history; then
it was that a most inexplicable fever took possession of me, and when we
had reached the dark end of the walk of the “Straw Dealers,” I cried
out from my soul, “Zounds! this is the walk of the Straw Dealers.”
I turned around immediately to find out who had uttered these words.
They were all staring at me, and I was convinced that it was myself who
had cried out. It seemed so strange. The voice was not like mine, but it
had emanated from me. Even now it is unaccountable.
The Warden pretended that we had passed the walk of the “Straw
Dealers.” I told him that I knew the place better than he, for I had
lain there on the straw myself. But I had never been in the Conciergerie
before, and yet I was sure of it. It is difficult to explain. While
we walked through the chapel of the Girondists, and the Warden was
explaining the story to us, I played with my umbrella. I tried to appear
natural and collected. Although the things which happened were quite
natural, and not the result of any effort, a cold perspiration seized me
and I shook like a leaf. I remember that I found myself at the bottom
of the stairs, standing before a grating. I was endowed with almost
superhuman strength. Shaking the grating, I called out for the others to
follow. However, the others had gone ahead and did not hear. I called to
the Warden to open the grating. I don’t know what would have happened
if he had not done so, quickly. I was crazy, and yet everything was
natural to me. Truly, I was in a state of great nervous excitement, but
everything was lucid to me. Never before had I seen so clearly as when
in that dark cellar. Never before had I recognized a place so vividly as
when I was down there where I had never been before. My God! I did not
know them, and yet I recognized them.
Without hesitating I groped around, feeling the stones in the dark, and
my feet trod a soil which seemed familiar but which had not been trodden
for centuries. I seemed to know these very stones, forgotten in the
darkness of those cellars. I slid the length of the damp flagstones as
if I had been accustomed to the way. My finger-nails came in contact
with sharp stones in the wall and I counted the seams as I passed. I
knew that if I turned round I would see a certain square light in
the distant gallery, a single ray in all this place where the sun had
forgotten to shine since France’s history had begun. I turned and saw
it, and I felt my heart beat violently.
Here there was a momentary interruption in the writings. M. Longuet,
having explained what had happened to him in that strange hour in the
Conciergerie, was greatly agitated. It was with difficulty he remained
master of his thoughts. It was difficult to follow them; they seemed to
come and go, just leaving faint traces on the paper of the record.
He resumed the pen with feverish hand. Continuing to busy himself with
the subterranean passages, he writes:
It is necessary to pause here as one pauses at the edge of a precipice.
My very thoughts make me shiver!...
And the Bavarde, there it stands. There are the walls which have helped
to make history. It is not on high in the glorious sunlight that the
Bavarde tells its history. It is here in the blackness of the earth.
There are some large iron staples in the wall here. The very chains
of Ravaillac! I recall no more; but towards that ray, the sole ray of
light, as eternal and immovable as the very walls— towards that small
square beam, which since the beginning of things has taken and kept the
shape of a sentinel, I advanced. There was some impelling force which
urged me on. I rushed ahead while the fever was in me and seemed to
intoxicate me. Suddenly I paused, my feet seemed held to the ground and
my fingers ran sliding and pressing the length of the wall. What it was
that impelled my finger, what was the thought, I cannot tell. All at
once I let my umbrella fall, and drawing my pen-knife, began to scrape
steadily between two stones. The dust and cement powdered away easily,
and soon my knife struck something between the stones, and I pulled the
thing out.
This is why I am sure I was not mad. This thing has been before my
eyes. In my most peaceful hours I, Théophraste Longuet, see it in my
writing-desk. It is not I who am mad, but this thing itself! It is a
piece of torn paper, stained. . . a document of which it is easy to tell
the age and calculated to plunge any man into the deepest consternation.
The paper is, as you must know, terribly decayed. The dampness has eaten
into half the words, which seem, on account of their reddish tint, to
have been written with blood.
I took the document to the small ray of light, and on looking it over my
hair seemed to stand on end with horror. _There I could recognize my
own handwriting_, and I give you this precious and mysterious document
clearly translated:
“Dead and buried all his treasures after the Treachery of April
1st. Go, take a look in the barroom! Look at the furnace! Look at the
weathercock! Dig a while and you shall be rich!”