THE PRISON OF LA BOURSE
Olivier found himself on the threshold of a vast courtyard enclosed
by high walls, and by two enormous stone and brick buildings with
cross-barred windows. The roof of these buildings was bordered by a
spiked fence, in order, as it seemed, to make escape impossible.
These were the very structures he had seen from the street. They
were connected by a stone corridor with a terrace at the end, running
parallel with it, where a sentinel patrolled with shouldered arms.
The entrance to this corridor was secured by an enormous grating,
which when opened put the courtyard in which Olivier now stood in
communication with another open space planted with trees.
The young man advanced with some hesitation, for he saw some of the
prisoners walking in the shade of an acacia, whose blossoms were
bathed in the rosy light of the setting sun. A mound of grass
surrounding the tree lent rustic freshness to the scene.
Olivier scanned these moving groups with beating heart, anxiously
examining every one that passed him. There were men, women, and even
children. But he had recognised no one. His mother and Thérèse
apparently were not there.
He would have questioned some one but dared not, vaguely fearing to
compromise his dear ones, forgetting that the people before him were
also prisoners, and their companions in suffering and misfortune.
Just then a young woman, pretty and graceful in her simple toilet,
wearing a white cambric cap finely goffered, came briskly towards him.
"You are perhaps looking for some one?" she said in a sweet voice.
"My mother and my _fiancée_, the citoyennes Durand."
"Oh! they are still at table! Look, the young girl will not eat, and
the elder lady is trying to persuade her."
In his hesitation to advance further Olivier had not perceived, on
the other side of the acacia, a table laid with coarse earthenware,
which was being cleared by several turnkeys and waiters, and at which
a few prisoners still lingered.
Yes, it was they, his beloved ones, at last! Olivier remained dumb,
divided between his longing to hold them in his arms and the fear of
taking them too brusquely by surprise. His unknown ally seemed to
divine his feelings, for she said--
"If you like, I will go first to them." Then, as if to reassure him,
she introduced herself: "I am the Countess de Narbonne."
Olivier, deeply moved, thanked her in broken phrases, and followed
his friendly guide at a distance. Soon she was whispering in
Clarisse's ear, as if preparing her for the unexpected visit.
Clarisse turned round, and seeing her son, grew deadly pale. She
rose and fell into his arms.
"Arrested? You also, my son?"
He pressed her to him, reassuring her.
"Oh, no! ... I am free! ... Be at peace, mother ... I have had
permission to see you."
He then kissed Thérèse, who, still trembling, asked--
"Is it really true, you are free?"
Olivier again reassured them. Clarisse wished to find a secluded
spot where they could talk undisturbed, and Thérèse having espied an
empty bench under another acacia, they took possession of it.
Olivier now anxiously questioned his mother, wanting to know every
detail of her arrest, but Clarisse interrupted him. He must first
tell them about himself. Was he really safe? How did he get to
Paris? Where was he staying? Olivier was obliged to answer, telling
them his adventures as quickly as possible, that he might return to
their arrest. When he had satisfied them, he asked breathlessly--
"And you? Tell me everything. I must know all."
Clarisse then told him of their arrest, departure, and halt at
Montmorency; of the long drive to Paris, their arrival in the prison
more dead than alive, and how they gained heart on learning it was
one of the least cruel in Paris. She had been able to judge for
herself when she awoke in the morning, and was so cordially received
by her fellow-prisoners, men and women who, as she discovered on
their introducing themselves, belonged to her world.
She then pointed out to Olivier among those taking their after-dinner
promenade Madame de Narbonne, so gentle, so compassionate, and her
little girl, such a darling child! then the Count and Countess de
Lavergne; the Marquise de Choiseul, who had taken such kind and
delicate interest in Thérèse at breakfast; the whole family de
Malussie; the Count de Broglie; the Chevalier de Bar; the Maréchal de
Mouchy and his lady, whom Clarisse had met in her youth at
Versailles; Mademoiselle de Béthisy, and the Marquis d'Avaux.
"Yes," she said, with a sad smile. "I have not found myself in such
elegant company since we left Pontivy."
"That is easily explained," replied Olivier; "the prisons of the
Republic are used only for the nobility."
"You are mistaken," Clarisse answered gently. "Among the prisoners
there are, I can assure you, men and women of the lower middle-class,
who have given proofs of the highest nobility of soul."
"That is exactly what I mean--they are eminent in virtue, as the
others are in birth. And they are consequently not wanted. All that
is wanted is equality.... Equality in infamy!"
"Hush! Be quiet, you may be heard!"
"Be quiet? I shall be quiet when they tell me of what you are
accused; for, after all, why have you been arrested? What have you
done?"
"That is just what we ask ourselves," answered Clarisse. And then
she continued as if she were thinking aloud--
"At first I fancied that some one had denounced us, but I put that
thought aside at once, for who could have done so?"
"Who?" exclaimed Olivier, astonished that his mother as yet knew
nothing. Looking at her fixedly, he continued--
"What! Is it possible they have not told you?"
"Told me? Who could tell me? ... Then it was...?" she asked
breathlessly.
"It was Robespierre!"
She bounded from her seat as if under an electric shock. Incredulous
and stupefied, she protested in spite of herself.
"It is not true!" she exclaimed.
"How can it not be true? Leonard heard it from the driver who took
you to Paris. Robespierre was a few yards off our house at the
Carrefour de la Chèvre. It was from that very spot he set his agents
upon you."
These details brought back the scene to Clarisse's memory. And she
thought of Vaughan, undoubtedly arrested also.
Olivier recalled her to the present, continuing to speak.
"Yes, it was Robespierre, the infamous wretch!"
She threw herself on him.
"Oh no! Hush! I implore you!"
He struggled to continue, but she prevented him, trying to drown his
words.
"I am sure you are mistaken.... Leonard is mistaken.... It is
certain.... I should have known.... If it were he ... I should have
known!"
"No! You could not have known. You yourself said so just now. Why
should they account to you for their actions? It is he ... he and no
other!"
And Olivier then gave her minutely every detail as the gardener had
told it to him. How one of the agents had conferred with Robespierre
after the arrest, at the Carrefour de la Chèvre, where he was
enjoying a picnic.
Ah! Clarisse needed no such explanations. It was he, she knew it
too well. But how was she to persuade Olivier to the contrary? How
prevent the son from cursing his father?
She tried to excuse Robespierre, attributing to him other motives.
"You see," she said, "he doesn't know who we are.... He is
mistaken.... His agents have misled him.... There could be so many
misunderstandings...."
Olivier shrugged his shoulders.
"How credulous you are! Bah! he knows very well what he is doing!
It is his thirst for blood. Oh! you don't half know what he is, that
Rob...."
Clarisse, horror-stricken, put her fingers to his lips, to arrest the
words.
"No! No! Don't pronounce that name in such a way!"
And seeing him look at her in bewilderment, she tried to give him
plausible reasons.
"You might be heard, and you would be compromised."
"But how? Here? Where everybody holds his name in execration?"
"Yes; but then there are turnkeys coming and going at every moment.
And what if there are spies among the prisoners...?"
And, as if clutching at a straw, she followed up the idea.
"Yes, spies--traitors? You must not betray your feelings before
them."
"True! there is no lack of infamy among the populace!"
He then told his mother of the incidents of his wanderings in Paris,
of his utter astonishment at the apathy of the crowd round that
accursed scaffold which was being transported to the Place de la
Bastille, amidst the preparations for the Festival of the Supreme
Being.
And yet he knew that much of their indifference must be assumed. How
many thought as he did! How many had the long-awaited cry of
deliverance on their lips: "Down with the scaffold!" Only they dared
not speak out! If but one had the courage to give utterance to that
cry, there would be enough brave men found in the crowd to take it up
and re-echo it, carrying the more timid along with them. When once a
move is made the multitude will quickly follow.
Clarisse looked at him. A new thought had dawned on her mind, a
horrible thought!
What if Robespierre should have Olivier arrested without knowing who
he was?
She interrupted him.
"Is the house where you lodge quite safe?"
As Olivier replied in the affirmative, and was continuing the
narrative of his adventures, she took up the thread of his thoughts.
Suddenly a gleam of hope shone in her eyes, as if her mental
speculations had assured her.
"Ah! I did well to write to him!" she thought.
To him, to Robespierre! For she had written to the Incorruptible
that very morning.
She now turned this letter over in her mind, in which she had
informed him of her imprisonment, telling him her fears about her
son, whose age she particularly mentioned as nineteen years. It was
a hint for Robespierre, who would understand, and perhaps be touched
to pity, and set her and Marie Thérèse at liberty, and spare the lad
who was her son and his own.
Clarisse had confided this letter to a prisoner set at liberty, whom
she earnestly entreated to see it safely delivered.
"It will be the easiest thing in the world," the man had replied;
"you can be quite at rest."
Clarisse did not suspect the irony of this reply, or that the
supposed prisoner was one of the spies to whom she had unwittingly
alluded a little while before. Ah, yes; she could be at rest, truly!
The letter would reach Robespierre. But under what conditions? He,
who received so many! Alas! It is in the wounded heart that most
illusions take root! Clarisse did not dream that anything could
interfere with her scheme, and began to speculate on the future,
counting the hours, and saying to herself that in all probability the
letter could reach Robespierre the next day.
The best she could do till then, she thought, was to moderate
Olivier's zeal, by showing him that their prison-life was not so
unbearable; and she imagined it would distract him if she presented
him to some of her companions in misfortune. They had just taken
away the tables, so making the courtyard appear larger, and leaving
more room for the promenade. Olivier was now noticing more clearly
the people in this little prison-world taking air and exercise in the
open space to which the green acacia-trees gave some semblance of a
garden.
The women, dressed simply in summer toilets, retained an air of
elegance in spite of the plain ribbon band fastening their hair, and
their fresh, newly ironed caps. The men were gay and smiling, polite
and distinguished; they talked and played cards or chess together on
the benches, exchanging courtesies as if they were in a drawing-room.
"After you! ... I should not think of it! ..." And in and out the
groups the concierge Haly came and went, giving his orders,
accompanied by two bulldogs, with enormous spiked collars.
Just then a fair-haired, bright-eyed boy of fifteen knocked up
against Olivier.
"Oh! pardon, monsieur!" said the lad, who was playing a game of fives
and running after the ball.
"What a nice lad!" said Olivier.
"It's young de Maillé," said Thérèse. "Nobody knows why he has been
arrested. His doom is settled, however, for they say he threw a
rotten herring at the head of the concierge."
Here Clarisse stopped her.
"So they say, but it is not true, for the concierge is a fairly
honest fellow."
And addressing a lady who was just passing, she continued, "Is it not
so, madame? Haly is not a bad fellow, is he?"
"No, but a blockhead; a lamb, however, compared to the jailers of
other prisons."
Clarisse thus presented Olivier: "My son--Madame la Marquise de
Choiseul."
Olivier bowed courteously, and as Madame de Choiseul, struck by the
distinguished air of the young workman, held out her hand, Olivier
took it in his and kissed it. In this high-born company all the
grace of his early education came back to him.
The marquise smiled and turned to Clarisse.
"Behold a son who betrays his mother! Your name is not Durand. You
belong to us. I had thought as much."
And as Clarisse was about to reply, she added: "Hush! I am not
asking your secrets."
She then assured the young man that his mother was right: the
concierge Haly, though rough, was rather kind than otherwise, letting
visitors enter, and even bring in provisions, sweets, and linen.
"And above all," she added, "he does us the great favour of letting
us walk about and disport ourselves here until night time."
She then pointed out to Olivier the various games in which the men
and children took part.
"As you see," she added, "they take full advantage of the permission."
Clarisse, well pleased with the tone of the conversation, tried to
retain the marquise.
"Tell him, madame, how you pass your evenings."
"What! Have you not yet told him?" asked the marquise, who had been
a silent spectator of the meeting between the mother and her son.
"You must not forget that I only arrived yesterday," said Clarisse.
"I know nothing myself but what I have heard."
"Ah, true!" said Madame de Choiseul, who with a mother's heart now
understood Clarisse's kindly motive.
At once she pointed out to Olivier the windows of one of the
buildings.
"That is what we call our drawing-room--a large apartment in which we
gather in the evening. There we play at guessing riddles, charades,
and _bouts-rimés_. Some read verses, or recite to us, and we even
have music. Look! Do you see that gentleman seated over there under
an arch, turning the pages of an album? That is the Baron de
Wyrbach, who plays some charming airs every evening on his _viola
d'amoré_. He exhausts his ingenuity to find something new for us."
Olivier listened in astonishment, beginning to be really reassured.
"You see," continued the marquise, "we might imagine ourselves still
at Versailles."
Then she added with a sad smile--
"And so we are in one sense, for all that remains of Versailles is
now in prison."
And she mentioned many names, singling out among the prisoners those
who belonged to the old Court: the Prince and Princess de
Saint-Maurice, the Chevalier de Pons, and the Count d'Armaille, whose
nephew, young d'Hauteville, had been a page to Louis XVI.
A group had formed round a young woman seated on the grassy knoll,
her back against the acacia, fanning herself daintily.
"Look now! Would you not think it a court of love in one of the
groves of Trianon? It is Madame de Méré receiving the homage of her
admirers."
Madame de Méré rose at that moment to meet another lady who was
coming towards her, pretty, neat, and natty in her spotless toilet;
and Madame de Choiseul explained to Olivier who the newcomer was.
"That is Madame de Verneuil, who remains, though in prison, as
coquettish and as fashionably dressed as she used to be at Court.
She even finds time to make her usual change of toilet regularly
three times a day, without the assistance of maid or hairdresser.
Not only does she dress herself, and do her own hair, but she washes,
dries, and gets up her own linen! And all this in such good-humour
that it brings tears to one's eyes."
Olivier was now quite reassured with regard to the severity of the
prison rules to which his mother and Thérèse were subjected. He was,
nevertheless, astonished at the careless indifference which he saw
around him. If the populace had revolted him on the Place de la
Révolution, this aristocratic company in the prison dumfounded him.
He could not hide his feelings, or refrain from expressing his
surprise; but he did so respectfully, with tact, and in perfectly
good taste.
Clarisse essayed to interrupt him; but Madame de Choiseul had already
replied--
"You have just come from the country, perhaps, and have not mixed in
the Parisian world for some time. What you take for indifference is
in reality mere habit. You cannot change the French people. The
moment they find a struggle useless, they gaily make the best of it.
Believe me, their seeming frivolity only masks the resignation of a
Stoic. There are still rebellious and desperate spirits to be found,
but they are in a minority. The majority are heart-sick and ready to
go, that is, to die; and they do die with a smile on their lips,
French to the last!"
Voices and sounds of applause interrupted the marquise, and cries of
"Bravo! Bravo! That was very good!" were heard. A young girl, her
arms tied behind her back, was bowing from the top of a ladder on
which she was standing, and to which she had mounted by the aid of
chairs and stools placed upon tables and benches. As she tried to
descend all arms proffered assistance, and when she had reached the
ground another lady came forward, the Marquise d'Avaux, whom Madame
de Choiseul named to Olivier, and began to climb the improvised
ascent with faltering steps.
Clarisse, Thérèse, and Olivier watched this performance,
understanding nothing of it. Madame de Choiseul looked at them to
note their expression, and with one accord the three turned to
question her--
"That is a new game, is it not?"
"Yes, and a rather gloomy one," answered Madame de Choiseul. Then
she added solemnly, "Those ladies are learning how to walk to the
scaffold."
She explained to them that the wooden steps which the condemned had
to climb to reach the guillotine were difficult to ascend. The women
encountered serious obstacles in mounting, being without the
assistance of their hands, which were tied behind them. They
stumbled and slipped, their dresses sometimes catching in the
woodwork, to the great amusement of the rabble crowd.
"It is to avoid these accidents," she said, "and to be able to meet
their martyrdom respected by the mob, that they rehearse the role
which they may be called upon to play on the morrow, perhaps, in
public."
Olivier was dumb with admiration before this contempt of the
scaffold, the general resignation to the thought of death.
Presently peals of laughter were heard. The Marquise d'Avaux, just
before reaching the last stool, caught her dress on the back of a
chair. She laughed with the rest, and said gaily, showing her torn
skirt--
"Some more work for this evening!"
"You see," continued Madame de Choiseul, "what the indifference which
revolted you so much just now hides in reality. Many of those young
women keep up the failing courage of the men at the scaffold, and
offer to die first."
But Clarisse, whose curiosity was now satisfied, tried to turn
attention from these gloomy subjects, her mother's heart telling her
they would reawaken Olivier's apprehensions. She soon found a
pretext. Madame de Narbonne passed them with her little girl,
holding a basket of fruit, of which the child partook without
restraint.
"What lovely cherries!" exclaimed Clarisse.
Madame de Narbonne stopped to offer her some, but Clarisse declined,
and when pressed, said--
"Not for me, thanks; but my niece will perhaps taste them."
When Thérèse also asked to be excused, Olivier intervened.
"Only taste," he said, and as she still declined, "Will you allow me,
mademoiselle?" he asked, taking a bunch from the basket which the
child now carried. And he held one of the cherries up to his
_fiancée's_ lips. "Won't you take one to please me?"
Clarisse could not help smiling. Olivier saw the smile. "And you,
also, mamma!" he said.
Clarisse allowed herself to be persuaded, looking gratefully at the
kind prisoner to whose good nature that little family scene was due,
and Olivier was beginning to renew his playful persuasions to
Thérèse, when a bell sounded from behind the big grating, tolling
slowly.
Madame de Narbonne turned pale.
"The call!" she gasped.
All conversation now ceased; men and women fell into groups, or left
each other abruptly, looking anxiously towards the iron gate, as if
expecting some one to appear. Olivier felt the universal shudder of
dread, and his fears were again awakened.
"The call! What call!" he asked.
But the Marquise de Choiseul had gone away with Madame de Narbonne,
carrying the little child along with them, in great haste. Olivier,
turning round, met only the supplicating look of his mother, who had
perhaps understood.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said, with an effort.
Thérèse clung tremblingly to Clarisse, feeling that something
terrible was to happen, and Olivier going towards one of the
prisoners to question him was soon joined by Clarisse and Thérèse.
"The call? Why, it is the summons to such of the prisoners as are
destined to appear before the Revolutionary Tribunal. The bell had
been rung to assemble all the prisoners to meet the Recorder, who,
with list in hand, will read the names of those selected by the
Revolutionary Tribunal for trial."
"You mean for condemnation!" interrupted Olivier, with indignation.
The prisoner nodded assent.
"So all those who are named..."
"Will be taken in a cart to the Conciergerie, and..."
"And?"
"Ascend the scaffold two days after," said the prisoner in
conclusion, apparently resigned to his fate.
"Then it may be one of us, mamma?" asked Thérèse, bursting into tears.
Clarisse tried to master her emotion.
"No..." she said. "It's too soon ... isn't it? ... tell her..."
And she implored Olivier with a look.
"How can one know?" he said, driven to distraction.
"Oh no! ... I assure you! ... You will see.... It is impossible! ..."
And still she murmured brokenly: "You will see.... It is impossible!
..."
The Recorder of the Revolutionary Tribunal now passed the grating,
accompanied by Haly, the concierge, and followed by turnkeys and
gendarmes, who, on entering the courtyard, formed themselves in line.
The Recorder was a little man, fat and full-blooded, his face twisted
into a sly, ugly smile. He seemed highly amused at the spectacle,
and seated himself under the acacia, talking to the concierge, who
seemed surprised to see him, and said--
"I thought the Tribunal would not sit to-morrow on account of the
Festival of the Supreme Being?"
"You are right! But they will sit the day after to-morrow. You
understand, I want to be free to-morrow and to take part in the
festival...."
And with a cynical laugh he called for a glass of wine, which he
emptied at a draught.
"Attention! We must begin business!" he said; and with this he
unfolded the paper, the terrible paper, wherein the fate of the
victims had been decided in advance. But the day was near its close,
the Recorder could not see, and had to ask for a lantern.
The courtyard was full now.
Prisoners from the neighbouring yards had assembled in answer to the
call. All this little world was affected by various feelings; some
were resigned, some hopeful, some indifferent or frightened as they
looked at the messenger of death, who seemed quite unconscious of his
ignominy.
What names would fall from his lips? There were some, worn out and
weary, looking forward to death as a release, who would have
willingly put theirs into his mouth. Others, more feeble, who were
undergoing the full horrors of suspense, stood in breathless fear,
almost choked with anguish. Oh! that horrible hope of hearing
another's name called, rather than one's own! And yet...
The Recorder was becoming impatient.
"Where is that lantern!" he shouted. "Is every one asleep here?"
A few of the prisoners had refrained from joining the anxious crowd;
either from habit or indifference, without disturbing themselves,
they continued playing or conversing as before. Clarisse and Thérèse
were seated at a little distance, their eyes fixed on the dread
official, while Olivier, standing near, ready to defend them, watched
the affecting scene with strained anxiety.
The Recorder was swearing now.
"Is that cursed lantern never coming? So much the worse! I shall
commence without it."
And he rose and tried to decipher the names in the dark.
"The first name is Bour ... no, Lour..."
Here a voice interrupted him in indignant protest.
"Oh! don't read like that! You double their sufferings. It is
horrible! too horrible!"
It was Olivier.
"Who dares to speak here?" thundered the Recorder.
Clarisse desperately pulled her son by the arm.
"I implore you! ... my child! ... I do implore you!"
At that moment some one appeared with a light.
"Ah! there's the lantern!" cried the concierge.
When the man had explained that he had not been able to find any
matches, the Recorder began to read the paper--
"Sourdeval!" he cried out.
Other lanterns were now lighting up the courtyard and the distracted
crowd, and every eye was turned in the direction of the prisoner who
had been named.
"Here I am!" cried a voice.
And a man advanced, his head erect, calm and impassive, without
casting a single glance on the spectators, knowing no one perhaps.
He crossed the line of gendarmes, and disappeared behind the grating
to fetch his belongings.
The Recorder proceeded with his grim and gloomy task, drawing tears
from some, heart-rending cries from others, and interrupted by
murmurs of pity or defiance.
The young de Maillé, who was called among the first, stopped playing
with the children to go to his death. An old man, Monsieur de
Mauclère, at the sound of his name fainted away, and was carried out.
Madame de Narbonne, called also, confided her little daughter to
Madame de Choiseul.
"Where are you going, mamma?" asked the child.
And Madame de Narbonne had the courage to reply--
"I shall be back in a moment, my darling."
"Don't go, mamma! ... don't go! ... I don't want you to go!"
Madame de Narbonne hurried away to hide her tears, then, breaking
down entirely, leant on the grating and sobbed aloud.
The Maleyssie family, father, mother, and two young girls, threw
themselves into each other's arms, thanking heaven they were not to
be separated in this supreme hour, and would walk hand in hand to the
scaffold. An old couple with white hair, the Maréchal and Maréchale
de Mouchy, worn with age, each walking with the aid of a stick, were
called together. At once she took his arm, and so they made their
way with calm courage through the prisoners, who bared their heads in
reverence before such sublime resignation. Another couple drew forth
cries of admiration: the Comte and Comtesse de Lavergne. The Comte,
alone named, was taking leave of his wife, who, after assuring
herself she was not on the list, implored the Recorder to include
her. On his replying that he had no orders to do so, she uttered the
cry of sedition punishable by death: "Vive le Roi!" and was inscribed
forthwith on the fatal list.
Olivier now held his mother pressed against him, while Marie Thérèse
and Clarisse, nestling together, followed the terrible spectacle with
joined hands. All hearts were moved to admiration or to pity,
according to the acts of courage or faint-heartedness which were
displayed. But brave deeds predominated. A Monsieur de Gournay,
called out whilst engaged in filling his pipe on a bench, rose
quietly and lit it at a turnkey's lantern, and went towards the gate
without a word. The Comte de Broglie, interrupted in a game of chess
with the Chevalier de Bar, as he rose pointed to the chess-board, and
said--
"You see, you would have lost, chevalier. But cheer up! I shall let
you have your revenge in the other world."
Then, calm and composed, taking leave of the chevalier, bowing to his
acquaintances, kissing the hands of the Marquise d'Avaux and of
Madame de Méré, he followed the gendarmes to his fate.
A discussion was taking place near to where Olivier was standing over
a name which had just been called.
"Leguay!"
Two men were speaking to each other; one was of middle age, turning
grey; the other quite young.
"Are you also Leguay?" asked the young man, who when his name was
called was surprised to see his fellow-prisoner advancing with him.
"Yes," was the reply.
"Are you married, or a bachelor?"
"Married, and father of two children."
"I am a soldier, and have neither wife nor child.... Go no further."
The Recorder, who was growing impatient at the conversation of the
two men, whom he took for relations taking leave of each other,
shouted--
"Well! Leguay?"
"It is I," answered the young man.
Only Olivier, Clarisse, and Thérèse had witnessed this sublime
self-devotion. Olivier made a movement as if to offer his hand to
the young hero, but he had already crossed over to the gendarmes.
The Recorder now scribbled something on the list, and the people
expected him to commence a new series. But he folded the paper, and
after asking for another glass of wine, said--
"That is all for to-day."
At these words an immediate feeling of relief ran through the crowd,
awakening them from that terrible nightmare.
"Thank God!" said Clarisse, with a sigh.
"And you told me you were quite safe!" exclaimed Olivier.
Again she had the courage to conceal the truth.
"Oh! my anxiety was for others, not for ourselves."
Olivier shook his head incredulously, and was about to reply, when
the voice of Haly announcing the hour for the visitors to leave
interrupted him.
"All visitors out! It is time to close!"
The Recorder by this time disappeared, preceded by gendarmes. The
prancing of horses was heard in the neighbouring courtyard, amidst a
confusion of orders and counter-orders. It was the men on duty who
were putting the prisoners in the cart, now ready to start. Haly,
posted at the grating of the gate by which Olivier had entered,
received the cards of the visitors, examining them by the light of
his lantern, which he suspiciously lifted to a level with their faces.
Olivier did not hurry his departure, in spite of the insistence of
his mother, who was terrified at the thought that the gate might shut
on him. But the concierge saw him.
"Hallo! You there! If you want to stay, you know, you have only to
say so."
"He is coming!" cried the two women.
And kissing him quickly, they pushed him towards the gate.
Olivier, before leaving, had promised his mother not to try and see
them for some days, but to rest satisfied with writing, without
giving his address.
The two women glanced in spite of themselves at the neighbouring
courtyard, whence came a noise of wheels and the tramp of horses.
They stooped, and saw through the large grating the cart with its
load of the condemned roll away by the light of torches held by the
turnkeys, and driven by a coachman in a carmagnole and red bonnet.
As the vehicle was disappearing the two women recognised Madame de
Narbonne in tears, sending kisses to the prison, in which her little
girl had now wept herself to sleep.
"Oh! it is horrible!" said Thérèse.
And she fell on Clarisse's shoulder, thoroughly broken by the
terrible emotions of the day.
At this moment the cart reached the street, and passed close to
Olivier, who commenced mechanically to follow it, while the people of
the quarter, seated at their doors, and accustomed to this daily
spectacle, looked on with indifference. But at a bend in the road
Olivier let the cart go out of sight, lost in reflection. He walked
straight on as a man in a dream, stopping on the quay to look down at
the Seine. The cooling freshness of the water seemed to revive him.
He breathed the air gratefully, and continued his walk along the
river, feeling less depressed.
Suddenly from the heights of Port-Royal his eyes were dazzled by a
rush of unusual light. Showers of golden fire trailed in the air
over the Tuileries gardens. It was a trial of the fireworks to be
let off the next day. Olivier crossed the bridge, and hastening his
steps reached the Place de la Révolution, which at that hour was
filled with loungers from the boulevards, curious to see the
preparations for the _fête_. Under a sky studded with stars, the
immense space lay extended before him, with its stands already decked
with flowers; its masts connected by garlands of foliage and coloured
glass; its flags, and plumes, and banners floating in the wind.
Here and there fiddlers, standing on chairs, taught to choirs of
young girls and young men the new anthem by Gossec, to be sung at the
_fête_, a hymn to the Supreme Being, composed specially for the
occasion. Some, carried away by their enthusiasm, followed up the
hymn with a waltz or a gavotte.
Olivier opened his eyes in astonishment, asking himself if all this
was real, or if he was in an extravagant dream. On one side he saw
but sorrow, on the other only joy! On one side, tears, despair, and
the scaffold; on the other, laughter, revelry, and flowers! And the
laughter and flowers were to honour and glorify the very one who was
the cause of all this misery, who tore children relentlessly from the
arms of their mothers as he sent them to death!
At this very moment the abhorred name fell on his ears: "Robespierre!
... There's Robespierre!" he heard the crowd whispering.
He turned round and saw some of them looking curiously at a man who
was crossing the square, seemingly in great haste, with a woman
leaning on his arm. Olivier understood that it was the Incorruptible
who was passing within barely an arm's length of him! He watched him
disappear in the crowd.
They were right; it was Robespierre, who had been enjoying a walk in
the Champs-Elysées with Cornélie Duplay. Returning home to supper,
at Duplay's house in the Rue Saint-Honoré, he could not resist
crossing the square to have a foretaste of the rejoicings in honour
of _his fête_, to contemplate behind the curtain the scene of his
approaching triumph. Cornélie had just said to him in delight,
indicating the dancing groups,--
"The people seem to be devoted to it, heart and soul."
This flattered Robespierre's pride, who rewarded her with a gentle
pressure of the arm.
They continued their walk, deep in their own thoughts. Cornélie was
wondering if her dress would be at home when she arrived, that
beautiful dress for the _fête_, confided on this special occasion to
a private dressmaker. Robespierre, always suspicious and alert, was
asking himself if he had done well to listen to her, and thus cross
the Place de la Révolution at the risk of suggesting to the Committee
of Public Safety the idea, absurd in itself, that he had wished to
attract the notice of the populace.
The couple now reached the door of the Duplays, in the Rue
Saint-Honoré, and Robespierre stepped aside gallantly for Cornélie to
pass in.
At the same moment Olivier, who had stopped in deep thought at the
Place de la Révolution, retraced his steps homeward, fired with a
sudden resolution for the morrow.
"I will be at that _fête_," he said.
And the dark night swallowed him.