break-a-neck came the wild figure of the Jacobin.
The surge of the fleeing crowd held Dossonville a moment against the
tumbrel, where he heard through the confusion a cry of despair from the
boy, "I could have borne anything but hope!" Then, as Dossonville was
swept away, he saw the child's head fall upon the shoulder of Nicole.
The next moment he was buffeted and hurled aside; then a horse struck
him and flung him to the ground, where a dozen feet trampled him.
Stunned, covered with dirt, and bleeding, he stumbled to his feet. The
tumbrels, surrounded by cavalry, were disappearing in the distance,
moving swiftly. He ran after them, shaking his helpless fist, and as he
turned the corner, a groan burst from him. Over the heads of the people
the twin shafts of the guillotine sprang into view.
Numb and half unconscious, seeing only, in the third cart, the distant
blot of blue, he limped on, following as best he could into the square.
He fought his way to the front, beside the cordon of naked swords that
girdled the scaffold, repeating to himself a hundred times:
"I must not stay! I will not stay!"
But still the pitiful hope of a deliverance held him there, to snatch
at every message of the air that floated over the distracted city. One
after another the condemned mounted the steps and passed across the
stage like phantoms, hurried on by the remorseless Jacobin, while
those about him cried:
"Oh, for two hours--for one!"
"Cursed Henriot, we could have saved them!"
"Why does the Convention delay?"
"Ah, the monster! He is afraid to lose a single one!"
She came at last, a patch of blue, a white face against the stretch
of heads. She saw him not at all, nor any one. The maternal instinct
of the woman that had raised her above her companions on the journey
was gone, and with it all consciousness of the world and the sorrows
and the responsibilities which had so transformed her. Only once did
she notice her surroundings, when the bourreau, with impatient hand,
bared her throat. Then for a moment her hands went instinctively
to cover herself from the multitude. Almost immediately her face
became grave and reverent. The assistants advanced to take her to the
guillotine. Then with a rapid motion she made the sign of the cross,
raising her eyes to the deep sky, as though already she saw beyond the
grave,--the timid question of a child who hesitates in wonder before
the incomprehensible.
With a sob, Dossonville turned, shrinking from the sight of the
mutilating knife, and waited with averted face.
There was a vast moment, then a shock of steel, and a woman who had
seen his tears whispered:
"It is over!"
Then, fleeing from the inexorable machine, he plunged, weeping, through
the crowd, stumbling aimlessly on into the frantic city, where, too
late, every street was echoing to the fear-releasing shrieks of
rejoicing:
"Robespierre is fallen!"
"The Terror is ended!"
EPILOGUE
An hour later Dossonville was arrested, thanks to his political
somersault, which had brought him twenty denunciations before the
Committee of Safety as having always spoken ill of the Jacobins and
defamed the character of Robespierre. The accusation of a day served to
cleanse the record of months.
Imprisoned for a few months at the Maison Talaru, he gained the
frontier at a favorable moment and embarked for South America. Then for
ten years, at sea or in the colonies, he was buffeted from continent to
continent, always embroiled, always running on the lead of adventure,
which he called his one bad habit.
When he again saw Paris, the Empire was at its crest. The city he had
left a wilderness had flowered with the riotous luxuriance of the
tropics. The Tuileries Gardens were again noisy with the laughter of
promenaders, thronging to a review in the Place du Carrousel. Wherever
he went his eye caught the flash of martial splendor and the sheen of
sabers.
A little sadly he spent the days in the strange Babylon, seeking some
trace of the great Revolution that once had rolled through the city, of
the thundering mobs, the fervid cafés, the tricoteuses, and the creak
of the roiling tumbrels.
The Cabaret of the Prêtre Pendu, its gibbet banished, had become the
Cabaret of a Hundred and One Victories. The greeting of "citoyen" no
longer resounded in the street. Of all the familiar faces in the Rue
Maugout, not one confronted him. La Mère Corniche had been replaced by
another concierge, bent and wrinkled after the manner of concierges, as
though her life had been passed at her post.
Among the counts and barons, marshals and princes, of the Empire,
galloping in glory, shouting frantically "Vive l'Empereur!" Dossonville
recognized with bewilderment figures of Jacobins and Girondins, once
worshipers of the sacred Republic. He sought out the Maison Talaru;
lackeys were lounging before the door and a stream of carriages rolling
through the restored porte-cochère. Once, hearing the rumor of a great
execution for the afternoon, with a revival of interest he asked a
passer-by:
"And the executioner, what do you call him?"
"Sanson."
"Charles Sanson?"
"His son."
Recalling the prophecy of the father, indifferent servitor to republic
or kingdom, he returned pensively to the boulevards, where, to rid
himself of black memories, he selected among the pomp and the glitter a
fashionable café, and installed himself.
Presently, reviewing idly the gorgeous clientele, his eye rested on
a knot of generals. The figure of the speaker caught his memory by a
certain trick of exuberant gesture that recalled a comrade of other
days. Calling a waiter, he demanded:
"That man over there, decorated with medals and laughing, in that
cluster of fighters, do you see him?"
"The Baron de Ricordo--yes, sir."
"What's his name?"
"The Baron de Ricordo; a great man in the Senate, sir."
"Ah, I thought he resembled some one else. Thanks."
Almost immediately, dissatisfied, he recalled him.
"And his family name? Find that out."
"Monsieur, he is a Barabant, of the well-known Barabants of the Midi.
The family is honorable and old. I--"
"Never mind. Ah, one thing more. Is he married? Tell me that."
"Monsieur, he marries this month,--a great marriage."
"Enough. That's sufficient."
At this moment the party pushed back their chairs and came straggling
toward him.
"When you're young all folly's possible," said the voice of Barabant at
his elbow.
"It's a wonder, I say, that we survive to middle age."
"Dame, yes!" replied the baron. "Will you believe it of me--at
twenty-five I wept because I could not die for an idea!"
Dossonville, who was on the point of rising, fell back and lowered
his head. The resplendent group swaggered down to the sidewalk, where
presently a magnificent equipage rolled up, a lady extended her hand
to the Baron de Ricordo, who, nodding to his comrades, sprang into the
carriage and drove off.
Pushing back the untasted glass, Dossonville rang for his bill.
"Monsieur doesn't take his drink," the garçon objected.
Dossonville, looking down, saw that it was true.
"There is something the matter, monsieur?"
"Exactly."
"Monsieur complains--"
"Ah, I have looked at the bottom of the glass, my friend," he answered;
but his glance was in the street. "When one drinks one should never do
that."
Leaving the perplexed garçon to turn over his words, he sauntered
among the thronged tables, and joining the slow procession of the
promenaders, was swept gradually away.