He sought his friends, but the movement of the crowd had divided them.
"After all, it is better so," he said to himself; "farewell would
be equivalent to a warrant." He turned to his captor: "Where are you
taking me?"
Le Corbeau, without change of feature, ignored the question and kept
the silence. Resigning himself to the situation, Goursac allowed
himself to be conducted with the crowd; but all at once, as they
entered the Rue Antoine, he felt an impress on his other arm and
another voice saying:
"This way."
This time he perceived Sans-Chagrin, who, without other recognition,
drew him off the thoroughfare. They penetrated abruptly into a nest
of narrow streets, winding and twisting in a manner that left him
completely in doubt as to their direction. But as their general
progress seemed to be leading them toward the Cour des Miracles, that
cesspool of beggars, thieves, and cutthroats, he began to fear that
this capture had some other design in view than his imprisonment.
He quitted his attitude of indifference and summoned all his faculties
to find a reason for this strange course. Observing that at each corner
they turned his captors were forcing him into a wider circle, the
conviction grew in him that they took this subterfuge to see if they
were followed. At the next corner he himself turned--without success.
But at the third attempt he distinguished, lurking behind, the three
incongruous figures of Cramoisin, Boudgoust, and Jambony!
Then no longer doubting that he was being led to his death, he resolved
that no weakness of his should add to the satisfaction of his enemies.
But at this moment, as for the twentieth time they turned a corner, he
was seized under the arms and rushed at a run down an alley. Through
an entrance in the end he was propelled through courts, hallways, and
passages innumerable, and suddenly emerged into a distant street.
Goursac, now utterly at a loss, made no resistance to this sudden
doubling. Only when, after a few anxious blocks, he perceived that they
were no longer followed, he again sought to enter into conversation
with Sans-Chagrin, to be met by the same obstinate silence.
Their attitude increased his perplexity, which was now augmented by
their totally ignoring the direction of the prisons and striking out
for the barriers of the city. Not until the Barrière du Trône Renversé
itself was in sight did his captors stop. Entering an inn, they gave
a sign of recognition to the host, passed down a hallway, and pushed
their prisoner into a large room, where he found himself in the
presence of Dossonville. At the sight of the agent de sûreté, Goursac
drew himself up haughtily.
"So, Citoyen Dossonville, you turn with the wind," he said. "I did not
suspect your versatility."
"Heavens, my dear Goursac, yes!" cried Dossonville. "But if I go with
the wind, I hope to be of some use to those who oppose it." He pointed
to the table. "That package will interest you."
"There is some mistake," Goursac said, as he scanned the document.
"This is a passport for the Citoyen Jacques Monestier."
"Well, what of that--Citoyen Monestier?"
Goursac looked at the passport, and from it to the laughing countenance
of Dossonville.
"Then it was to save me," he said slowly, "that you had me arrested?"
"Parbleu! You are waking up!"
With one bound, Goursac caught Dossonville in his arms.
"Pardon, pardon! What a fool I am!" he cried. "My noble, my generous
friend! Head of an ass that I have on my shoulders! You risk your life
for mine! Thanks, thanks; a thousand times, thanks!"
"Good!" Dossonville broke in. "We understand each other now. We have
but little time; listen to me." He stopped the other in the torrent of
his protestations. "Only remember this, that if a weather-vane turns
to every breeze, it relinquishes its base not a jot, not even to the
hurricane. I find therein a great moral." He dismissed the thought with
a gesture. "Now for you. You must pass the gates immediately. When
Javogues discovers your escape, he may give orders to watch all the
gates. See here, my friend--you must listen to me."
Goursac was paying not the slightest attention. Seated on a chair, his
face aglow, he regarded Dossonville with almost adoration, while from
time to time his emotion exploded in words.
"Dossonville, you are heroic! You are sublime! Oh, if I only could
acquaint the world with such an action! Magnificent! Heroic! Heroic, I
tell you!"
Dossonville, perceiving his joy, thought to himself, "Yes, heroism
before death is all very well, but how the hope of life transforms a
man!" Aloud he continued, "Take the passport and hurry."
Then Goursac, retreating a step, said but one word:
"No!"
But in the word, with the flash of his eye, with the toss of his head,
with the resolution of his lips, there was the eloquence of an oration.
This time it was Dossonville who was overcome with astonishment.
"You are mad!" he exclaimed, seizing him by the lapel. "If you return,
it is to the guillotine."
"So be it!"
"Reflect."
"I have. Had I wished to save myself, I should have done so long ago."
"Then you seek death?"
"I will not fly from the scum," Goursac said proudly. "I am a Girondin
and a Frenchman. When I can no longer live as a Girondin, I am ready to
die as a Frenchman. Liberty? What do you offer me? Exile and a daily
cringing from discovery, a miserable, hunted existence in the mud and
rain? No!" He took a step forward and grasped his hand. "For what you
have risked for me accept my benediction; may it bring good luck."
"At least, take the passport," said Dossonville, desperately, holding
it out to him, "so that if you change your mind--"
"So that I may not change my mind--there."
With a rapid motion Goursac tore the passport in two, embraced
Dossonville, and went out. Before the Prêtre Pendu, Cramoisin,
Boudgoust, and Jambony, more dead than alive, hung their heads in
terror while Javogues, like a wounded bull, strode backward and forward
before them, filling the air with his imprecations.
"Come, you lie, one and all. You lie, Cramoisin; you lie, Boudgoust;
you lie, Jambony. He has bought you with gold! You have sold
yourselves!"
"I swear they escaped us through some passage!" Boudgoust cried.
"We searched an hour," Cramoisin put in.
"Shut up!"
Javogues seized him furiously by the shoulders, and approaching his
gleaming eyes as though to force the truth from his face, he shouted:
"You lie! You lie! I see you lie!"
Abandoning him, he seized Jambony, shaking him like a whip; but as he
opened his mouth to roar forth fresh denunciations, he stopped short
and dropped the cub in amazement. At the same moment a murmur ran
throughout the crowd, which, parting, disclosed the approaching figure
of Goursac.
The Girondin perceived his enemies by the same motion of the crowd; but
without faltering, he continued nodding to the acquaintances who now
shrank before him.
He had passed the cabaret and was almost at the entrance of No. 38
before Javogues could recover. Then, with a roar, he cried:
"Stop!"
Goursac wheeled, returned, and halted.
"What do you wish of me?"
Javogues, brought thus to the long-desired moment, folded his arms and
said brutally:
"You do not rejoice, citoyen, at the death of traitors."
"I always rejoice at the death of traitors."
"You rejoice to-day, then?"
"I grieve."
He pronounced the words sadly.
"You are against the Revolution. Say it."
"I believe the Revolution is so great that its ideas can survive even
the massacre that you assassins have begun." Then interrupting the
catechism disdainfully, he said: "Enough. I should never have survived
this day. Arrest me."
Javogues, too overcome with rage for utterance, consigned him with a
furious gesture to his body-guard. From all sides went up a shout of
hatred and anger. Children and women crowded about, vying with one
another to insult the prisoner; men shook their fists in his face and
hooted. Amid curses and raillery, the Girondin walked with collected
steps, looking into the ranks of his foes with steady eyes.
They had gone but a block when they encountered Nicole and Barabant.
At the sight of Goursac in custody, surrounded by the snarling pack,
the two, obeying only their generous impulses, sprang forward with
outstretched hands:
"What, you, my friend!" Nicole cried, in astonishment and sorrow. "They
have arrested you!"
"No, they are liberating me," he answered, with a smile. He pressed
their hands. "Adieu, Nicole; adieu, Barabant; and thanks."
But suddenly the voice of la Mère Corniche rose shrilly:
"He is the friend of the Girondin. He is contre-révolutionnaire. Arrest
the man Barabant!"
Cramoisin took up the cry.
"He who pities an enemy of the Nation is a traitor. Arrest him!"
Boudgoust and Jambony, joining in, shouted:
"Arrest him! Arrest him!"
In the abject crowd, terrified by these four men, a murmur, a
muttering, a rumble, circulated, which it waited to convert into either
protest or approval as Javogues should pronounce.
As the Marseillais unwillingly approached, Nicole, dragging Barabant
back, whispered in his ear that eternal cry of woman:
"Save thyself. Thy life belongs to me."
"Citoyen Barabant," Javogues said sternly, "did you greet this man as a
Girondin?"
"I greeted him," Barabant said slowly, "as a man who has done me
kindnesses in the past."
Before this allusion to his own indebtedness Javogues hesitated, but
the cries of the crowd urged him on.
"He evades the question!"
"He's a Girondin!"
"Ask him if he's a Girondin!"
The last cry, from la Mère Corniche, imposed itself above the rest.
"Citoyen Barabant," Javogues asked, "are you a Girondin?"
As Barabant hesitated, Nicole sought the glance of Goursac, invoking
his aid. The Girondin, who saw no one but her, perceiving her motive,
thought bitterly: "I die, and she cannot spare me a look of pity!"
The crowd was clamoring.
"He hesitates!"
"He refuses!"
"Arrest him!"
At their cries, Barabant decided.
"I am not a Girondin," he said.
A chorus of approval greeted the renunciation, but la Mère Corniche,
not to be balked, cried:
"He is deceiving us!"
Those who wished to save him called to him: "Cry, Vive les Jacobins!"
Barabant, all escape denied him, shouted:
"Vive la Nation! Vive les Jacobins!"
Then, while la Mère Corniche and the three were silent in helpless
rage, the crowd, which adored Barabant, surrounded him, slapping him on
the shoulders, shaking his hand, congratulating him. With one accord
the shout went up: "Vive Barabant!"
When the shouting died, Nicole heard the rasping voice of Goursac
saying to his captors with triumphant sarcasm:
"I see no further need of delay; proceed."
VII
THE MADNESS OF JEALOUSY
The victory was to the woman, but it was a victory fraught with menace.
Nicole understood her danger, but in her anxiety she adopted the wrong
defense. On the stairway she infolded Barabant with her arm, seeking
to communicate to his depressed body the gaiety and relief in hers,
while with all the artifices of the woman who feels herself menaced she
sought to belittle the importance of the scene, little realizing the
deep wound to the pride of Barabant.
"It was for me you did it," she whispered. "You would not leave me. I
alone understood."
He did not answer, and once in their room, fell into a chair, burying
his head in his hands. Alarmed at his obstinate silence, Nicole,
groping for the right attitude, began to reason, walking the floor in
her earnestness.
"After all, mon ami, that is what the Terrorists want--to guillotine
the Moderates. Goursac was foolish; he played into the hands of his
enemies. You are wise. The duty of the Moderates is to keep silent, to
preserve themselves for the good of the Nation. How can you serve the
Nation without your head? The times will change, mon ami, and you'll be
here to help set things aright."
"Oh, that voice," cried Barabant, "I hear it always."
"Mon ami, you are suffering!" she exclaimed. "I know. I understand."
She threw herself at his feet, trying to separate his hands, seeking to
take his head upon her shoulder; but Barabant resisted, saying:
"No, Nicole, no; leave me to myself."
"Don't put me away," she begged. "You are suffering; let me share it."
He took her hands from his neck and compelled her to rise. She went to
the window, twice turning to look at the dejected figure that remained
unaware of her glances.
"I have made a blunder. Yes, I have made a blunder," she said to
herself, pressing her hand against her lips to quell the rising sob.
"He blames me."
The next morning she received another shock when he informed her that
he wished to be alone all day.
"Then we don't lunch together?" she cried, frightened.
"Not to-day."
Not daring to contradict him, she let him go without a word.
"He blames me. He blames me," she told herself, until all at once, like
a thunderclap, came the thought: "Or is it only a pretext?"
Her judgment tumbled before the suggestion, and on the moment she was
surrounded by the old doubts. She hurried out, morbidly sensitive to
the glances of the concierge, of the loiterers before the cabaret, of
the bouquetières her comrades; seeing everywhere mocking glances or
looks of sympathy. Despite Barabant's wish and her better judgment, she
scoured his haunts with the one desire to know what he was doing.
After a day of agony spent in fruitless travel, she returned to their
room, without a glimpse of Barabant. Having prepared the meal, she
sat down before the fire to wait impatiently the hour of seven, when
he would return. Beside her chair she placed a redingote of his and
sewing-material. In the disorder of her mind all her naturalness had
departed, and seeking everything with artifices, she wished him to
come upon her as she watched their supper and busied herself with his
wardrobe.
"That will soften his resentment, perhaps," she thought. "And that
everything may be cheerful, I must be singing."
So, when later the stairs gave out the sounds of footsteps, she
hurriedly possessed the mending, humming as she sewed; but the steps
ceased two flights below. The redingote slipped from her hands, the
song stopped, and, overcome with disappointment, she cried:
"Oh, mon Dieu, it is not he!"
When seven arrived and she began to be anxious, she consoled herself
with the thought that the effect would be better if he found her
waiting without complaint. A burning smell warned her that the dinner
was spoiling. She removed the pots from the fire, placing them for
warmth in the ashes, and, abandoning all thought of the picture she had
imagined, went to the window, where she remained, pressing her hands
against her temples, staring into the misty night.
At nine o'clock she returned into the middle of the room, and looking
about at the scene of her happiness, she said with conviction:
"It is ended!"
Traveling ceaselessly back and forth like a panther, she cried: "Yes,
yes, it is ended!" Still, as long as she repeated it, she continued to
hope, and at each fancied creak she ran to the landing, leaning over
to catch his first footfall. But when she returned, she still said:
"No, no; I knew it. It is ended--ended!"
At ten she ceased to repeat it,--she was convinced. She collapsed on
the bed, brain and body incapable of effort, while the cruel minutes,
in their inexorable procession, inflicted each a separate torture.
When midnight announced itself, the last thread of hope snapped within
her. She bounded up, lit a candle, descended the flight, and entered
the room, calling, "Goursac!"
She had forgotten the arrest. The fact appeared to her as an evil omen,
presaging calamity.
In fear of the sepulchral stillness, she fled back, rushing in a panic
to her room, where she gazed about helplessly, asking herself what she
was to do. All at once, at the window, staring at her old room, she
cried:
"If it is Louison!" And emitting an "Ah!" that had in it the note of
murder, she passed out of the window.
The night was filled with fog, out of which descended the sharp sting
of rain. She moved slowly, her body pressed to the roof, seeing with
her fingers until the dormer-window struck against her foot. Once into
Louison's room, she crept to the bed, stretching out her hand. It was
empty.
"Oh! oh! oh!"
The cry was of something collapsing in her soul. Without returning to
her room, she sped down the stairs, through the two courts, and into
the street. In her unheeding rush, she turned to the right, missing
Barabant, who was at the moment returning from the opposite direction.
When she could run no longer, she dropped into a walk until, recovering
her breath, she broke again into a run. At the street corners the
bracketed lanterns suffused the fog with a floating radiance that
guided her over the glistening, slippery stones. The mist that
threatened the world with a destiny of gloom, the rain that gathered
on her eyelashes and weighted her hair, she welcomed as the fitting
touch to her misery; but the chill abated not a jot of the fever in her
veins. Out of the blurred night occasionally long lines of watchers
emerged, crouching under shawls, hugging the walls to escape the rain.
A dozen brutish arms snatched at her, but eluding all, she arrived,
panting and trembling, at her destination, crying to the servant who
answered her knock:
"Citoyenne, is this the Committee of Safety?"
"Yes."
"I must see them."
"Do you come to denounce some one?"
"I do."
"Enter."
Nicole found herself in a hall.
"Name, citoyenne?"
"The Citoyenne Nicole, bouquetière. The Citoyen Couthon will know me."
The servant passed to a door at the back and knocked timidly. At the
second repetition a voice cried:
"Come in."
The door opened on a group of men about a table littered with papers.
"What is it?"
"A citoyenne who wishes to make a denunciation."
"Name?"
"The Citoyenne Nicole, bouquetière."
"Tiens! I know her," exclaimed a voice. The spokesman, on this
evidence, gave a sign of permission to the servant, who ushered in
Nicole.
A voice said approvingly:
"Look--she is pretty."
"Haven't the time."
Several, attracted by the exclamation, gave her a casual glance; the
rest, without raising their heads, continued the low hum of their
conference. From the farther side a man wrapped in blankets, deformed,
infirm, seized with sudden chills, greeted her.
"Well, Nicole, you've come to denounce some one? That's right."
"Citoyen Couthon," Nicole blurted, "I--"
At the aspect of these machine-like men industriously busy with the
lists that fed the guillotine, all her anger dissolved--she could not
pronounce there the name she had loved.
"Well, well," Couthon said encouragingly, "you want to denounce whom?
Come, let us get at it. Not the Citoyen Eugène Barabant, at least," he
said, with a good-natured leer.
The sound of that name in this spot, without pity, terrified Nicole;
she now sought only an excuse to retreat.
"What name's that?" cried a little man from the table. "Eugène
Barabant? Wait a moment; wait a moment. Let me search."
Couthon lounged to the side of the speaker, who, turning to his
neighbor, demanded the list of suspects to be arrested, while Nicole,
flattened against the wall, dazed by a sudden fear, remained trembling
at the snatches of conversation that reached her.
"A man offered me one thousand livres to-day if I'd slip in the name of
his wife."
"That was cheap!"
"Héron is becoming insupportable. He's sent in the name of every one in
his building. To-day it's the woman above him."
"She makes too much noise, no doubt."
"What's the difference? The Nation needs the funds. We must coin money
on the Place de la Revolution; the guillotine is the mint of the
Nation."
"You're a financier."
"I'm proud of it. Guillotine the rich--there's my finance."
Couthon raised his head.
"That's strange; I too thought I'd seen the name."
The others, attracted by his exclamation, asked:
"What name?"
"Barabant. Eugène Barabant."
A small man spoke up.
"Denounced last night by the Citoyen Javogues and an old hag the size
of a child. Do you remember?"
A chorus of assent greeted him.
"Barabant denounced!" Nicole cried. "Barabant denounced!" She extended
her hand. "La Mère Corniche?"
"That's the name."
"Come, Nicole, a lover is easily replaced. I've sacrificed two already
to the Nation," Couthon cried. "Don't lose your time; denounce your
suspect. We are short to-night."
"A pretty patriot like that has right to a dozen suspects," cried
another, amid laughter.
Overwhelmed, dizzy, and horror-stricken, she shook her head, felt with
her hands until she found the door, and, backing from the room, fled
from the house--fled back through the ghostly city.
Goursac's door was opened; Geneviève herself, with solemn face flushed
with the light of her candle, was waiting for her.
"Tell me quick!" she cried, apprehending what had happened.
"You know, then?"
"Know what?"
"Barabant has been arrested."
She recoiled to the wall shrieking:
"Arrested!"
"An hour ago."
"Where?"
"Here."
"Here? Then he came back?"
"Yes."
Without waiting to hear more, she fled to their room. The lantern he
had lighted shone over the stone floor, the cheerless walls, and the
kinks in the roof. It was all empty--terribly empty. On the bed she
perceived the belt and the coat he had left. Forgetting her jealousy,
her anger, her mission, remembering only that he had returned, knowing
only that her dream was ended, she stretched out her helpless arms and
cried:
"Barabant! Barabant!"
Then, overcome with hunger, weariness, and the ravages of her emotion,
she slipped to the floor in a heap.
VIII
LA FÊTE DE LA RAISON
On the 20th of Brumaire, day of the Feast of Reason, maddest day the
world has ever known, the Revolution, having overturned the social
order, abolished the clergy, introduced the monetary system, instituted
fraternal banquets, established popular education, and renamed the
calendar, now, as though unwilling that aught should exist save in its
image, decreed the abolition of religion and set up the cult of Reason.
The neighborhood of the Prêtre Pendu, accustomed as it was to the
vagaries of its tyrants, was yet astounded at the pitch of frenzy to
which exultation stirred the Marseillais and his companions.
The ecstasy of Javogues terrified all with its frantic joy; for him the
consummation of the human race had arrived. He spent the morning before
the cabaret, astride a vat, dispensing wine and hand-shakes, his arms
in the air haranguing the crowd that trembled to be present and dared
not stay away.
"Religion is dead!" he bellowed to all comers. "The farce is ended! The
impudent bubble is pricked!"
Boudgoust and Jambony, on either side, imitated his fury and his
gestures, while Cramoisin, twisting in the crowd, made all he met shout
to the cry of:
"Vive la Raison!"
The listeners for the most part simulated enthusiasm, with an eye to
escape. A few echoed:
"Down with superstition!"
La Mère Corniche, hobbling into the midst of them, extended her hand to
Javogues in rough familiarity, crying:
"Well, my big fellow, are you happy? What a day, hanh? No more
superstitions for us! Touch hands."
"Touch there, mother!" Their hands met with a clap. "Didn't I tell you,
from the first, there is no God?"
"Aye, you did. He never feared, that man!"
"I say it now," Javogues cried, and thrice he shouted: "There is no
God!"
Suddenly, flinging from the vat, he cleared a space about him with his
arm, and, seizing Geneviève by the shoulder to steady himself, cried:
"If there is a God, let him strike me down. Let the moment decide
between us. I defy him!"
He raised his fist to the sky and remained waiting, while more than
one closed their eyes in terror. Then as the skies disgorged no
thunderbolt, his arm relaxed, descending to his side, and the scornful
lips with a sneer pronounced:
"Bah!"
"Vive Javogues!"
It was the voice of Cramoisin that acclaimed the victor.
Abandoning Geneviève, Javogues caught from the crowd a bakeress and a
fille de joie and forced them into each other's arms, crying:
"Embrace; the Revolution declares you sisters!"
Leaving the frightened women cowering, he again seized Geneviève as
a prop, and clearing the throng, rolled up the street, invoking each
window with the exulting shout:
"Vive la Raison!"