Dossonville by the collar, he shook his fist in his face. "I swear that
if he is acquitted, I myself will cut his throat."
"The Citoyen Javogues," Dossonville continued, without changing the
level of his voice, "unfortunately for me, from the day we met has
hated me with an obstinate hatred. I adopted the subterfuge only
because I believed that otherwise I never could have reached the prison
alive. The proof is, I denounced it immediately and explained my
reasons. You will find it there. I will now tell you with whom I passed
the day."
He waited a moment for quiet, Javogues thundering:
"He lies! He lies! He lies!"
"The man whose testimony I invoke is known to you, Citoyen Maillard.
Of his patriotism there can be no question. Unfortunately, he left
immediately after for the Army of the Rhone. From ten o'clock of the
night of August 9th until ten o'clock of the morning of August 10th I
was in the house of the Citoyen Héron."
There was a movement of stupefaction in the assemblage, even Javogues
recoiling. But the first words of Maillard fell upon the ears of
Dossonville as the sudden fall of a sword.
"The Citoyen Héron did not leave for the frontier. Let the Citoyen
Héron be roused and corroborate the accused!"
Two or three threw themselves upon the sleeper to bring him forward.
The mind of Dossonville, thus faced with certain defeat, did not give
a second to despair, but, with the last instinctive grasping for life,
gathered for a supreme effort.
"It is unnecessary," he cried hurriedly. "That night I performed secret
services to the Nation that cannot be made public. But my life is at
stake; I demand Santerre. Santerre will vouch for me."
But what he said was lost in the chorus:
"Spy!"
"Liar!"
"Traitor!"
"Liar! Liar!"
"Santerre now!"
"Robespierre next!"
"He was nursing Danton, perhaps!"
Dossonville stretched out his hand appealingly, but recognizing,
himself, the impossibility of his position, he changed the gesture into
one of command, and looking Maillard calmly in the face, said:
"Well, hurry it up then!"
"To La Force!"
Dossonville, wheeling to meet his escorts, found himself face to face
with Javogues.
"Ah, traitor," the Marseillais cried, planting himself in his path with
folded arms, "have I caught you at last?"
With a sneer, he turned contemptuously on his heel, while Dossonville,
seized by his two guards, began the fatal journey. Already from the
gates savage faces peered in expectation, while from the courtyard
cries of warning arose:
"Another! Another!"
"Make ready, comrades!"
"A tall one this time!"
"Make ready!"
Half-way to the gate, Dossonville stumbled and went down, sprawling.
Instantly he was up, but catching at the arms of his guards, who,
trying to shake him off, cried:
"Let go, there, or I'll stab you."
"Citoyen," answered Dossonville with an exclamation of pain--"Citoyen,
I have turned my ankle. Support me!"
"Come, come, no nonsense!"
"Citoyen, it is because I do not wish to appear to shrink. Remember
that I am a Frenchman; I desire only to die bravely. Give me your
support."
"Give it to him!" growled the other.
"Citoyen, I thank you; unfortunately, we shall not meet again."
The one who had spoken continued gruffly:
"When you pass through the gate keep your hands behind your back;
you'll suffer less."
"Thanks again."
The next moment the door of the human furnace flung open upon his eyes
the horrid spectacle of dead and living: of the living more horrible
than the dead.
"One step more!"
The butchers, but five deep, seeing a man borne to them by their
comrades, relaxed their tension; those farthest away even lowering
their dripping blades.
"There, citoyens, steady me one moment."
With a sudden powerful lunge Dossonville threw the two guards back
and leaped headlong into the gauntlet, pierced it, bounded across the
open, and dove headlong into the friendly crowd, disappearing like an
enormous fish, with only an eddy in the crowd to show his passage.
XIV
GOURSAC AS ACCUSER
For two days, while the massacre ran its course, Paris, in terror of
a few hundred assassins, was silent and empty. Bands of marauders
scoured the streets, robbing and pillaging under pretext of the right
of search. No shops were opened, all industry was suspended, while the
law-abiding occupied themselves with fortifying their doors against
immediate assault.
Nicole, broken with the horror of her experience, remained in her room,
in utter collapse. Barabant, who likewise was ignorant of the escape
of Dossonville, sick at heart, passed the day in the room of Goursac,
mourning the fall of the Revolution of Ideas. Louison, alone of all
the court, ventured out, bringing back such tales of the ferocity of
Javogues that Goursac in his anger vowed that he would strike him down.
The day was pervaded with the stillness of night. Across the roof
arrived the faint traveling cries of victims; beyond that, the air was
empty.
After three days of butchery, came the reaction. The assassins, after
slaughtering indiscriminately women, children, old men, priests,
forgers, and other criminals, blinded with lust of blood, hurled
themselves on La Correction, where the children of the people were
confined, maltreated and covered with vermin. Thirty-three were led out
and put to death.
Then at last Paris revolted. The Commune, itself horrified, rose up
and ended the slaughter. On all sides the nursed wrath of the people
exploded in cries of vengeance, as they thronged to the section-halls
with angry denunciations and demands for prosecution.
After two days of fever and stupor, haunted by visions of the mocking
face of Louison and of Barabant, Nicole made an effort, and rising from
her bed, set out for the section-hall in the company of Geneviève.
When they had entered the hot, choked hall and had taken seats, they
found Goursac at the tribune stirring the assembly with pictures of the
massacre of women and children. The audience, relieved of its personal
fear, vented its anger in wild cries for vengeance. Goursac, having
demanded the arrest and condemnation of the Terrorists, descended.
Across the boisterous hall Nicole beheld, with a sudden thrill,
Barabant springing impetuously to take his place. But as he reached the
tribune and turned to address the crowd, her eyes, which had followed
his every movement, were distracted by a violent interruption at the
entrance. A cry of indignant anger exploded from the crowd, a cry of
despair from Geneviève, whose fingers buried themselves in Nicole's
arm; and Nicole, seeking through the overheated, clamorous atmosphere,
beheld, flanked by two companions, the wild figure of Javogues.
The crowd, taken unawares, remained vacillating; while the Marseillais,
confident of his reception, advanced, and lifting his hideous arms,
shouted:
"Citoyens, behold the blood of traitors and rejoice!"
No answering shout was returned.
"Citoyens, France has been purged of its tyrants!"
Nicole, shrinking from the horror of the Marseillais, was yet
fascinated by his scornful courage.
For a moment the individual dominated the mass, as yet divided,
awaiting the moment that should produce its leader. From somewhere in
the back came the answer:
"And La Correction? Is the blood of children also on your arms?"
At this solemn denunciation, Javogues, for the first time realizing his
danger, drew back a step, seeking the speaker in the craning of the
crowd.
"Butcher! look this way! It is I--the Citoyen Goursac--who challenge
you."
With a sweep of his arms, Goursac freed himself and began a zigzag
descent down the benches toward his enemy, pausing at every step to cry:
"Butcher! Assassin! Cutthroat!"
Javogues, watching his approach, was at first too astounded to gather
his senses; but when Goursac, piercing the last rows, emerged with
accusing finger, Javogues advanced a step and closed a hand over his
knife.
The mass, watching every motion of these two men, with one movement of
its hundred arms loosened its weapons. The action unified it. It became
an organism, hostile, menacing, and alert for the first outburst.
Goursac, gathering anger as he advanced, cried:
"Assassin of children! butcher of women! murderer! cutthroat! do you
dare to show yourself in this assembly?"
Javogues's answer was lost in the clamor. From all quarters arrived the
accusing question:
"La Correction? La Correction?"
"I was not at La Correction!" Javogues thundered above the tumult.
"There is no blood of children on these arms."
"And of women?" Goursac caught up. "If you say those arms have not been
stained with the blood of women, I tell you, you lie!"
Javogues snatched up his cutlass, but, changing his tactics, appealed
to the assembly:
"Hear me!"
From all sides they cried angrily:
"No! no!"
"I demand the right of speech."
"No! no!"
"Hear him!" Barabant cried from the tribune. "Condemn no man without
hearing him."
Nicole, with a swift premonition of an overhanging vengeance, started
to cry:
"No, Barabant, no!"
But Geneviève, entwining her arms about her, besought her, crying:
"Mercy, Nicole, mercy! I love him!"
At points in the crowd others caught up Barabant's cry, until, after
five minutes of fury and storm, the noise dwindled and went out.
Javogues, facing his accusers, returned his weapon to his belt, spread
his legs as though to withstand the impending shock, folded his arms,
and ran his eye over the banks of his enemies.
"Citoyens, I have answered that I was not at La Correction. You ask me
if on these arms there is the blood of women. This is my answer: I do
not know!"
"He mocks us!"
"Insolent!"
"Liar!"
"Impostor!"
"This is the blood of traitors," Javogues cried when the outburst had
subsided, "and that is all I know. Traitors have no sex. When I see a
traitor, I do not stop to ask if it be man, woman, or child, old or
young! A traitor is a traitor! Were the mother who brought me forth or
the child of my flesh to conspire against the Nation, I would strangle
them with these my own hands!"
Again the clamor rose to drown his words, but this time Goursac,
rushing from side to side, shouted:
"Let him continue! Let him continue!"
"Of what I have done I am ready to give an accounting," Javogues
continued disdainfully. "At the prison of Les Carmes, my hatchet sent
down to Hell the soul of that arch-conspirator Dulan." He lifted his
arms. "That is the blood these arms bear, and I glory in it. At the
Abbaye, I myself purified the Nation of five traitors. At La Force--"
But from the angry crowd rose the cry:
"Enough! Enough!"
One voice, deep and rumbling with an accent of doom, made itself heard:
"We give the right of speech to a citoyen to defend himself, not to a
criminal to recite his crimes!"
Goursac, mounting to the tribune, secured a lull.
"You have recited these executions," he cried, addressing Javogues. "By
what authority did you constitute yourself a judge?"
Javogues, opening his arms, said:
"By the authority of popular justice."
"Where is your warrant?"
The Marseillais did not answer. The section, seeing where he was
being led, kept an intense silence as Goursac's voice, rising in
denunciation, continued:
"You admit these deaths. You claim popular authority. Show us your
warrant from any popular body, from any section, and you march from
here unmolested."
Javogues, turning to his companions, said in a low tone: "Save
yourselves. I remain." The two moved--but forward to his side.
The eyes of the assembly were on Goursac, who, white with the intensity
of his passion, slowly stretched forth his finger:
"Well?" He waited a moment, his figure rigid in denunciation. "No
answer? Then I pronounce, before this assembly, that you have lied! I
here declare that what you have done is not the work of a judge, but of
a murderer! That when you declared you acted by popular authority, you
slandered the Nation, and tried to fasten on it the stain of your guilt
and the odium of massacre!" Then assembling all his powers, he shouted
at the top of his lungs, "Slanderer of the Nation!"
He turned to the section.
"Citoyens, these are the vipers that assail every life. No one of us is
safe. They threaten the Assembly. They do not conceal their desire for
its massacre. But to-night we hold one, this monster, this scum of the
earth. We hold him, self-confessed and convicted. Citoyens, I declare
to you we shall be guilty of cowardice if we now allow this monster to
live another day!"
"Aye, to prison with them!"
"À la mort! À la mort!"
"À la guillotine!"
Above the confusion one shrill voice rose victorious, bearing the final
decree of the mass.
"No, citoyens! À la lanterne! À la lanterne!"
The next moment all other cries were swallowed up in the wild outburst:
"À la lanterne!"
A hundred hands were stretched out to grasp the Marseillais, when
Barabant, to the despair of Nicole, flung himself in front of Javogues,
and with appealing arm sought to be heard. But the torrent he faced
was relentless. He saw nothing but open mouths, clenched fists, black
brows; pistol, knife, and hatchet tossing above the surge of arms. His
friends thundered in his ear:
"À la lanterne!"
Those in the back, climbing on the benches, bellowed down:
"À la lanterne!"
From the tribune, frenzied and terrible in his anger, Goursac whipped
on the tempest:
"À la lanterne!"
Barabant, with all effort of his lungs, could not utter a sound against
the storm. Those that were near shouted to him:
"Barabant, do not balk us!"
"Barabant, look out for your own neck!"
All at once, through the crowd, the terrified figure of Nicole
struggled toward him. She flung herself to his side, catching him
violently by the shoulders, panting and hysterical.
"Barabant--for my sake--Barabant--for your own safety--Barabant--if you
believe in a woman's premonitions, do not save that viper!"
He shook his head and firmly but gently put her from him. The girl,
covering her face with her hands, yielded to her despair and fell back
into the crowd; while Barabant, never flinching, fought the uproar
until he forced the frantic audience to listen.
"This man," he cried at last, above the persisting clamor--"this man is
guilty; he should die!" The uproar broke out afresh. "He has put human
beings to death without authority from the people. He _must_ die!"
"À la lanterne!"
"Listen!"
"Shut the doors! Lock the doors!"
"But, citoyens," Barabant burst out, "neither have we the right of
death. Denounce him, arrest him, but obey the law. Respect the law;
respect justice. Citoyens, I demand the arrestation."
The shouts rose in conflict.
"No! no!"
"Yes! yes! yes!"
"Death to him!"
"Arrest him!"
"Hang him!"
"The law! The law!"
The mob was divided, threatening to clash and annihilate itself. The
result was a dozen times in doubt, but after half an hour of lull
and tumult the verdict was for the course of the law. Barabant again
mounted the tribune and put the resolution of arrest.
Javogues and the two Marseillais were led away; the storm rolled out;
the hall emptied; a few loiterers straggled down the benches, staring
at Nicole, who, exhausted, sobbed on the shoulder of Goursac:
"What a mistake! What a mistake!"
Barabant, leaving the tribune, approached his friends. Now that the
passions of the moment were cold, he began to doubt the wisdom of his
act.
"I could not help it, Nicole," he said, moved by her utter grief. "It
was right, Goursac, was it not?"
Twice he repeated the question without success; nor did the other
answer until they reached the Rue Maugout. Then, at length, his
bitterness broke through.
"Barabant," he cried, "I will say but one thing: my life is on your
head."
"That is absurd," protested Barabant. "Javogues is in prison. He will
be condemned."
"He will not remain there one hour!" Goursac replied curtly; but
conquering his dejection, he extended his hand. "Barabant, I know you
meant well--but you made a mistake. Remember what I say!"
"Meaning I have betrayed you?"
Goursac made no answer.
Barabant, turning brusquely, repeated the question:
"Citoyen, did I do wrong?"
"Barabant, my young friend," Goursac answered, avoiding the question,
"when I meet a snake, I do not stop to ask if it is another's property!"
"Then I was wrong?"
"If Javogues loses his neck and we keep ours, no. If Javogues keeps
his--"
He rubbed his own solicitously, it being unnecessary to complete the
sentence.
* * * * *
By six o'clock the prophecy of Goursac was confirmed, and the
inhabitants of the Rue Maugout learned, without astonishment, that
Javogues had been liberated and was in hiding.
XV
LOVE, LIFE, AND DEATH
From above there came the shrill, rebellious cry of a woman. Below,
in the court, the tenants were gathered, seeking refuge from the heat
of the night. A few lights upon the sheer walls and the faint glow of
the descended moon illuminated the dim groups: the men against the
wall, the women clustered in the center. The cry was repeated, rising
shriller. From the wall the exclamations arose:
"It isn't gay!"
"Sangdieu, two in a week! There's no peace left!"
"Eh, citoyen, if we're to fight all Europe, we must have soldiers!"
A peddler, a transient from la Mère Corniche's cellar, added in high
tones:
"Thank God, just the same, we're men!"
The crones listened critically, without emotion, resuming their old
wives' tales when the cry had ceased. Once a child, more keenly
responsive to suffering, burst into a frightened whimper; but the
mother, with an exclamation of impatience, sprang up and with a slap
silenced the child, crying:
"Little brat, who told you to do that!"
Under the torch that lighted the entrance to the stairs the ghoulish
figure of la Mère Corniche hobbled forth, returning from her inspection.
"Well, what news?" a voice cried.
"Eh, it'll be all night now," she answered peevishly. "I'm going to get
some sleep."
The women, hearing this, broke up and departed to their rooms; the men
began to grumble:
"What the devil's to be done?"
"I'm for the cabaret."
"You can't stay here."
"There's no sleep to-night. Come on to the cabaret."
"You'll join us, Citoyen Goursac?"
"No; I'm remaining here."
"And you, Citoyen Barabant?"
"I also."
"Morbleu, you've strange tastes!"
They shuffled away, leaving Barabant and Goursac, with their backs to
the maple-tree, in possession of the empty darkness.
Presently lights began to splotch the walls, and at the windows
appeared the silhouettes of feminine forms, while a running comment
resounded:
"Where are the men?"
"Gone to the cabaret, probably."
"They are, if my man's among them."
"They're all weak-kneed."
"The cowards!"
The cry of the woman returned.
"Aïe, what lungs!"
"I yelled so, the police came up."
"You were right."
"Pardi!"
"Let's hope she'll give us some rest."
"Amen!"
The lights, one by one, flattened into the darkness. A single window,
under the eaves, continued bright, from which ever descended the cry of
battle.
"Does that affect you?" Goursac asked, following the momentary shadows
across the panes.
"I don't like to hear it."
"You get accustomed to it, as to all things. Tiens! I was forgetting. I
heard to-day that Dossonville had escaped."
"Absurd."
"They said he had been seen with Louison."
"But Nicole says she saw him cut to pieces."
"Then doubtless it was a mistake."
"No news of Javogues?" Barabant took up.
"None."
"That makes three days. You see, he's left the city."
"I doubt it." Goursac added after a moment: "I'll tell you something
curious. You know Geneviève?"
"That child who lives with Nicole?"
"She's in love with him."
"What! that little ogre?"
"Eh, the ogre has the spark of the woman in her!" He jerked his head
toward the lighted window. "Who's with her?"
"Nicole and Geneviève."
"Much good it'll do them."
"Hanh?"
"Good night. I'm going to philosophize! Are you staying?"
"Yes."
Scarcely had Goursac departed before the form of a young girl emerged
from the stairs, and Nicole's voice said softly:
"Barabant, are you there?"
"Here I am."
He sprang eagerly to meet her, but Nicole, retreating before the
decisive word, hastened to say:
"Poor girl, it is not going well. Geneviève is staying with her. Have
you been waiting long?"
"I? No. I was talking with Goursac. He has just left." Barabant,
determined to bring matters to an issue, added relentlessly, "I was
just leaving for the cabaret."
"What! you were not waiting for me?"
"I could not count on your coming."
Nicole's eyes filled with tears, and, unable any longer to bear the
unequal contest, she cried bitterly:
"Barabant, you are cruel!"
"I?" he answered, with a last effort. "I who have offered you
everything? I whom you will not believe when I tell you I love you?"
"I do! I do!"
Barabant, no longer resisting her weakness, cried:
"But I adore thee, Nicole. I am out of my mind with love for thee!"
He seized her in his arms and kissed her on the cheeks, on
the forehead, on the wet eyelids, with all the overpowering,
reason-consuming flame of love.
She withdrew from his grasp, and looking him anxiously in the face,
said:
"You thought me heartless and capricious, didn't you?"
"I have forgotten."
"But you did."
"Perhaps."
"Ah, Barabant, it was because I loved thee that I avoided thee."
"Why?"
His face expressed so much bewilderment that Nicole passed her hand
gently over his eyes.
"No, that thou wilt never understand. If I could only tell thee how
I love thee!" She wanted him to know the deep maternal longings that
he had stirred within her, but all she found to say was, "I feared
to love thee too much, and so I fought against myself." Then, with
the first awakening of coquetry, she nestled on his shoulder and said
confidently, "Forgive me."
"But why? Why?"
"It absorbed all that was in me, and I was afraid."
"Of what?"
She did not want to tell him of her doubts, so she said:
"Women have foolish ideas, Barabant; you must not try to understand
them."
She joined her arms around his neck and laid her head upon his
shoulder. Suddenly the silence was rent by the inexorable cry. In
the heart of Nicole something penetrated like a knife. She began to
tremble.
"Why do you shake so?" he asked.
"It is from joy."
"You love me so, then?"
When the silence returned, she said:
"Barabant, promise me but one thing."
"I promise it."
"When the day comes that you are leaving me for another woman, tell me
first." She added low, as though she did not want him to hear: "I can
kill myself without seeing her in his arms!"
Barabant, recoiling before such a picture of the future, cried from the
bottom of a heart of pity:
"Never! Never!"
"No--I could not leave thee, even so," she said, weeping herself at the
thought she had conjured. "Let me always be thy servant. I am only an
ignorant girl, not fit to be thy companion. Let me take care of thee,
though, whatever happens!"
"No, never that! Never! Nicole, it is for life, forever!" he cried with
the sincerity of the moment, which is the sincerity of the lover. He
was young, generous, quick to pity, and he adored her. "You do believe
me?"
"Almost."
He redoubled his protestations, while Nicole, laughing through her
tears, cried gaily:
"Go on, Barabant. It is good to hear. Don't stop--more, more!" At last
she herself arrested his protestations: "Yes, Barabant, I believe thee.
Oh, anything you can say to me I'll believe at this moment!"
"That I want thee while I live?"
"Yes."
"Forever?"
"For--ever." She drew herself up to his lips. "I have been so miserable
waiting for thee."
Their lips met and they stood in the darkness as one body, while above,
unheeded, from the darkness broke out the cry of life and death.
"Thou wilt not leave me, Nicole, again, neither now nor ever?"
"Do I not love thee?" she said simply.
They passed from the shadow and moved, tightly enlaced, through the dim
region of the dwindling torch, slowly up the steep, hard steps into the
enveloping darkness beyond. Again was lifted up the cry of anguish and
rebellion, the cry of Prometheus, heritage of woman, and again came
silence.
PART II
(One Year Later)
I
FAMINE