ONE CROWDED HOUR OF GLORIOUS LIFE
§1
And all the while, the people were shouting:
"Le voilà!"
"Robespierre!"
The Fraternal Supper was interrupted. Men and women pushed and jostled
and screamed, the while a small, spare figure in dark cloth coat and
immaculate breeches, with smooth brown hair and pale, ascetic face,
stood for a moment under the lintel of a gaping porte-cochère. He had
two friends with him; handsome, enthusiastic St. Just, the right hand
and the spur of the bloodthirsty monster, own kinsman to Armand St. Just
the renegade, whose sister was married to a rich English milor; and
Couthon, delicate, half-paralyzed, wheeled about in a chair, with one
foot in the grave, whose devotion to the tyrant was partly made up of
ambition, and wholly of genuine admiration.
At the uproarious cheering which greeted his appearance, Robespierre
advanced into the open, whilst a sudden swift light of triumph darted
from his narrow, pale eyes.
"And you still hesitate!" St. Just whispered excitedly in his ear.
"Why, you hold the people absolutely in the hollow of your hand!"
"Have patience, friend!" Couthon remonstrated quietly. "Robespierre's
hour is about to strike. To hasten it now, might be courting disaster."
Robespierre himself would, in the meanwhile, have been in serious danger
through the exuberant welcome of his admirers. Their thoughtless
crowding around his person would easily have given some lurking enemy or
hot-headed, would-be martyr the chance of wielding an assassin's knife
with success, but for the presence amongst the crowd of his
"tappe-durs"--hit-hards--a magnificent bodyguard composed of picked
giants from the mining districts of Eastern France, who rallied around
the great man, and with their weighted sticks kept the enthusiastic
crowd at bay.
He walked a few steps down the street, keeping close to the houses on
his left; his two friends, St. Just and Couthon in his carrying chair,
were immediately behind him, and between these three and the mob, the
tappe-durs, striding two abreast, formed a solid phalanx.
Then, all of a sudden, the great man came to a halt, faced the crowd,
and with an impressive gesture imposed silence and attention. His
bodyguard cleared a space for him and he stood in the midst of them,
with the light of a resin torch striking full upon his spare figure and
bringing into bold relief that thin face so full of sinister expression,
the cruel mouth and the coldly glittering eyes. He was looking straight
across the table, on which the debris of Fraternal Suppers lay in
unsavoury confusion.
On the other side of the table, Mme. de Serval with her three children
sat, or rather crouched, closely huddled against one another. Joséphine
was clinging to her mother, Jacques to Régine. Gone was the eagerness
out of their attitude now, gone the enthusiasm that had reviled the
bloodthirsty tyrant in the teeth of a threatening crowd. It seemed as
if, with that terrific blow dealt by a giant hand to Bertrand who was
their leader in this mad adventure, the awesome fear of death had
descended upon their souls. The two young faces as well as that of Mme.
de Serval appeared distorted and haggard, whilst Régine's eyes, dilated
with terror, strove to meet Robespierre's steady gaze, which was charged
with sinister mockery.
And for one short interval of time the crowd was silent; and the
everlasting stars looked down from above on the doings of men. To these
trembling, terrified young creatures, suddenly possessed with youth's
passionate desire to live, with a passionate horror of death, these few
seconds of tense silence must have seemed like an eternity of suffering.
Then Robespierre's thin face lighted up in a portentous smile--a smile
that caused those pale cheeks yonder to take on a still more ashen hue.
"And where is our eloquent orator of a while ago?" the great man asked
quietly. "I heard my name, for I sat at my window looking with joy on
the fraternisation of the people of France. I caught sight of the
speaker, and came down to hear more clearly what he had to say. But
where is he?"
His pale eyes wandered slowly along the crowd; and such was the power
exercised by this extraordinary man, so great the terror that he
inspired, that every one there--men, women and children, workers and
vagabonds--turned their eyes away, dared not meet his glance lest in it
they read an accusation or a threat.
Indeed, no one dared to speak. The young rhetorician had disappeared,
and every one trembled lest they should be implicated in his escape. He
had evidently got away under cover of the confusion and the noise. But
his companions were still there--four of them; the woman and the boy and
the two girls, crouching like frightened beasts before the obvious fury,
the certain vengeance of the people. The murmurs were ominous. "Death!
Guillotine! Traitors!" were words easily distinguishable in the confused
babbling of the sullen crowd.
Robespierre's cruel, appraising glance rested on those four pathetic
forms, so helpless, so desperate, so terrified.
"Citizens," he said coldly, "did you not hear me ask where your eloquent
companion is at this moment?"
Régine alone knew that he lay like a log under the table, close to her
feet. She had seen him fall, struck by that awful blow from a brutal
fist; but at the ominous query she instinctively pressed her trembling
lips close together, whilst Joséphine and Jacques clung to her with the
strength of despair.
"Do not parley with the rabble, citizen," St. Just whispered eagerly.
"This is a grand moment for you. Let the people of their own accord
condemn those who dared to defame you."
And even Couthon, the prudent, added sententiously:
"Such an opportunity may never occur again."
The people, in truth, were over-ready to take vengeance into their own
hands.
"À la lanterne, les aristos!"
Gaunt, bedraggled forms leaned across the table, shook begrimed fists in
the direction of the four crouching figures. With the blind instinct of
trapped beasts, they retreated into the shadows step by step, as those
threatening fists appeared to draw closer, clutching at the nearest
table and dragging it with them, in an altogether futile attempt at a
barricade.
"Holy Mother of God, protect us!" murmured Mme. de Serval from time to
time.
Behind them there was nothing but the row of houses, no means of escape
even if their trembling knees had not refused them service; whilst
vaguely, through their terror, they were conscious of the proximity of
that awful asthmatic creature with the wheezy cough and the hideous,
toothless mouth. At times he seemed so close that they shut their eyes,
almost feeling his grimy hands around their throats, his huge, hairy
arms dragging them down to death.
It all happened in the space of a very few minutes, far fewer even than
it would take completely to visualise the picture. Robespierre, like an
avenging wraith, theatrical yet impassive, standing in the light of a
huge resin torch, which threw alternate lights and shadows, grotesque
and weird, upon his meagre figure, now elongating the thin, straight
nose, now widening the narrow mouth, misshaping the figure till it
appeared like some fantastic ghoul-form from the nether world. Behind
him, his two friends were lost in the gloom, as were now Mme. de Serval
and her children. They were ensconced against a heavy porte-cochère, a
rickety table alone standing between them and the mob, who were ready to
drag them to the nearest lantern and immolate them before the eyes of
their outraged idol.
"Leave the traitors alone!" Robespierre commanded. "Justice will deal
with them as they deserve."
"À la lanterne!" the people--more especially the women--demanded
insistently.
Robespierre turned to one of his "tappe-durs."
"Take the aristos to the nearest Commissariat," he said. "I'll have no
bloodshed to mar our Fraternal Supper."
"The Commissariat, forsooth!" a raucous voice positively bellowed. "Who
is going to stand between us and our vengeance? Robespierre has been
outraged by this rabble. Let them perish in sight of all!"
How it all happened after that, none who were there could in truth have
told you. The darkness, the flickering lights, the glow of the braziers,
which made the inky blackness around more pronounced, made everything
indistinguishable to ordinary human sight. Certain it is that citizen
Rateau--who had constituted himself the spokesman of the mob--was at one
time seen towering behind the four unfortunates, with his huge arms
stretched out, his head thrown back, his mouth wide open, screaming
abuse and vituperation, demanding the people's right to take the law
into its own sovereign hands.
At that moment the light of the nearest resin torch threw this hulking
person into bold relief against a heavy porte-cochère which was
immediately behind him. The mob acclaimed him, cheered him to the
echoes, agreed with him that summary justice in such a case was alone
satisfying. The next instant a puff of wind blew the flame of the torch
in a contrary direction, and darkness suddenly enveloped the ranting
colossus and the cowering prey all ready to his hand.
"Rateau!" shouted some one.
"Hey, there! citizen Rateau! Where art thou?" came soon from every side.
No answer came from the spot where Rateau had last been seen, and it
seemed as if just then a strong current of air had slammed a heavy door
to somewhere in the gloom. Citizen Rateau had disappeared, and the four
traitors along with him.
It took a few seconds of valuable time ere the mob suspected that it was
being robbed of its prey. Then a huge upheaval occurred, a motion of the
human mass densely packed in the Rue St. Honoré, that was not unlike
the rush of water through a narrow gorge.
"Rateau!" People were yelling the name from end to end of the street.
§2
Superstition, which was rampant in these days of carnage and of crime,
had possession of many a craven soul. Rateau had vanished. It seemed as
if the Evil One, whose name had been so freely invoked during the course
of the Fraternal Supper, had in very truth spirited Rateau away.
On the top of the tumult came a silence as complete as that of a
graveyard at midnight. The "tappe-durs," who at their chief's command
had been forging their way through the crowd, in order to reach the
traitors, ceased their hoarse calls of "Make way there, in the name of
the Convention!" whilst St. Just, who still stood close to his friend,
literally saw the cry stifled on Robespierre's lips.
Robespierre himself had not altogether realised what had happened. In
his innermost heart he had already yielded to his friends' suggestion,
and was willing to let mob-law run its course. As St. Just had said:
"What a triumph for himself if his detractors were lynched by the mob!"
When Rateau towered above the four unfortunates, hurling vituperation
above their heads, the tyrant smiled, well satisfied; and when the giant
thus incontinently vanished, Robespierre for a moment or two remained
complacent and content.
Then the whole crowd oscillated in the direction of the mysterious
porte-cochère. Those who were in the front ranks threw themselves
against the heavy panels, whilst those in the rear pushed with all their
might. But the porte-cochères of old Paris are heavily constructed.
Woodwork that had resisted the passage of centuries withheld the
onslaught of a pack of half-starved caitiffs. But only for a while.
The mob, fearing that it was getting foiled, broke into a howl of
execration, and Robespierre, his face more drawn and grey than before,
turned to his companions, trying to read their thoughts.
"If it should be----" St. Just murmured, yet dared not put his surmise
into words.
Nor had he time to do so, or Robespierre the leisure to visualise his
own fears. Already the massive oak panels were yielding to persistent
efforts. The mighty woodwork began to crack under the pressure of this
living battering ram; when suddenly the howls of those who were in the
rear turned to a wild cry of delight. Those who were pushing against the
porte-cochère paused in their task. All necks were suddenly craned
upwards. The weird lights of torches and the glow of braziers glinted on
gaunt necks and upturned chins, turned heads and faces into
phantasmagoric, unearthly shapes.
Robespierre and his two companions instinctively looked up too. There,
some few mètres lower down the street, on the third-floor balcony of a
neighbouring house, the figure of Rateau had just appeared. The window
immediately behind him was wide open and the room beyond was flooded
with light, so that his huge person appeared distinctly silhouetted--a
black and gargantuan mass--against the vivid and glowing background. His
head was bare, his lank hair fluttered in the breeze, his huge chest was
bare and his ragged shirt hung in tatters from his brawny arms. Flung
across his left shoulder, he held an inanimate female form, whilst with
his right hand he dragged another through the open window in his wake.
Just below him, a huge brazier was shedding its crimson glow.
The sight of him--gaunt, weird, a veritable tower of protean
revenge--paralyzed the most ebullient, silenced every clamour. For the
space of two seconds only did he stand there, in full view of the crowd,
in full view of the almighty tyrant whose defamation he had sworn to
avenge. Then he cried in stentorian tones:
"Thus perish all conspirators against the liberty of the people, all
traitors to its cause, by the hands of the people and for the glory of
their chosen!"
And, with a mighty twist of his huge body, he picked up the inanimate
form that lay lifeless at his feet. For a moment he held the two in his
arms, high above the iron railing of the balcony; for a moment those two
lifeless, shapeless forms hung in the darkness in mid-air, whilst an
entire crowd of fanatics held their breath and waited, awed and
palpitating, only to break out into frantic cheering as the giant hurled
the two lifeless bodies down, straight into the glowing brazier.
"Two more to follow!" he shouted lustily.
There was pushing and jostling and cheering. Women screamed, men
blasphemed and children cried. Shouts of "Vive Rateau!" mingled with
those of "Vive Robespierre!" A circle was formed, hands holding hands,
and a wild saraband danced around the glowing brazier. And this mad orgy
of enthusiasm lasted for full three minutes, until the foremost among
those who, awestruck and horrified, had approached the brazier in order
to see the final agony of the abominable traitor, burst out with a
prolonged "Malediction!"
Beyond that exclamation, they were speechless--pointed with trembling
hands at the shapeless bundles on which the dull fire of the braziers
had not yet obtained a purchase.
The bundles were shapeless indeed. Rags hastily tied together to
represent human forms; but rags only! No female traitors, no aristos
beneath! The people had been fooled, hideously fooled by a traitor all
the more execrable, as he had seemed one of themselves.
"Malediction! Death to the traitor!"
Aye, death indeed! The giant, whoever he might be, would have to bear a
charmed life if he were to escape the maddened fury of a foiled
populace.
"Rateau!" they shouted hoarsely.
They looked up to that third-floor balcony which had so fascinated them
awhile ago. But now the window was shut and no light from within chased
the gloom that hung over the houses around.
"Rateau!" the people shouted.
But Rateau had disappeared. It all seemed like a dream, a nightmare. Had
Rateau really existed, or was he a wraith, sent to tease and to scare
those honest patriots who were out for liberty and for fraternity? Many
there were who would have liked to hold on to that theory--men and women
whose souls, warped and starved by the excesses and the miseries of the
past five years, clung to any superstition, any so-called supernatural
revelations, that failed to replace the old religion that had been
banished from their hearts.
But in this case not even superstition could be allowed free play.
Rateau had vanished, it is true. The house from whence he had thus
mocked and flouted the people was searched through and through by a mob
who found nothing but bare boards and naked walls, empty rooms and
disused cupboards on which to wreak its fury.
But down there, lying on the top of the brazier, were those two bundles
of rags slowly being consumed by the smouldering embers, silent proofs
of the existence of that hulking creature whose size and power had, with
that swiftness peculiar to human conceptions, already become legendary.
And in a third-floor room, a lamp that had recently been extinguished, a
coil of rope, more rags, male and female clothes, a pair of boots, a
battered hat, were mute witnesses to the swift passage of the mysterious
giant with the wheezy cough--the trickster who had fooled a crowd and
thrown the great Robespierre himself into ridicule.