HOURS OF ANGUISH
Once in his room, Robespierre sank exhausted into a chair. At last
he was alone! He could now give free vent to his long suppressed
emotion. The feeling uppermost at the moment was one of dread
dismay, as the terrible position rose before his mind, with all its
fearful consequences. He gave no thought to the insult, it was the
fate of the two women which haunted him. If he saved them it would
atone for all in the eyes of his son. They had been arrested, thrown
into prison, and cast for death, but he would set them free.
Who had arrested them? What had they done? Were they implicated in
some seditious plot which would render it difficult to deliver them?
As to Olivier's release, he would see to that. By causing things to
drag a little, Olivier's trial could be put off until Robespierre had
the power in his own hands, and could act as he liked towards his
son. It was after all his concern, for it was he whom Olivier had
insulted, and not the Republic, which he could not yet impersonate.
Had he even been proclaimed dictator, and sole representative of
France, he would, he supposed, have had the right to pardon. It
would seem but natural that his first act on accession to power
should be an act of clemency! The most important thing then at
present was that Olivier should remain in prison as long as possible
under the closest supervision.
But again, why had the women been arrested? By whose orders? They
were perhaps at that very moment at the Conciergerie, on their trial,
before the Revolutionary Tribunal. He could, no doubt, secure their
acquittal, but what if the inquiry brought Olivier's name to light?
"I am wandering!" he caught himself exclaiming. How, indeed, could
the name of Olivier be mentioned during the trial? The young man had
nothing to do with it. He had insulted Robespierre, it was to him
personally he had to answer.
The Incorruptible rubbed his eyes, unable longer to follow the thread
of his own thoughts. He was suddenly reminded of the law to be
submitted by him next day to the Convention, the vindictive law which
would ensure conviction without proof, evidence, or even
cross-examination. This law would be of twofold service to him; it
would rekindle the Terror, would help Robespierre to get rid of those
who were still in his way, and be the means of reducing the two women
to silence, thus saving not only Olivier's life, but theirs also.
Olivier would then see that Robespierre was not the monster he
imagined, for he would owe the lives of his mother and of his
_fiancée_ to him, the very man he had so wantonly insulted!
Robespierre's reflections were suddenly interrupted by a knock. He
started up. Some one was calling him. He listened, and recognising
Lebas's voice, hastened to open the door.
"I saw a light through your window," said Lebas, "and knew you had
not yet gone to bed."
"Well, what have you learnt?" Robespierre asked anxiously.
"They are still at the prison of La Bourbe."
"Both of them?"
"Yes, both of them."
"Ah!" sighed Robespierre, with relief.
"And I have given strict instructions in your name, that they were
not to be allowed out, under any circumstances. I am quite satisfied
on that point, since the Concierge knows that they have been arrested
by your orders."
"By my orders?"
"Yes, alas!"
And he whispered to the Incorruptible, as if fearing to be heard--
"They are the two women from Montmorency."
"The women of the forest?"
"Yes!"
Robespierre leant back against his desk for support. Lebas pulled an
armchair towards him, into which he sank quite overcome.
"You could not have prevented it!" said Lebas gently; "nowadays
surprises of that sort are common enough. How could you know?"
The Incorruptible gave no reply, but seemed lost in a dream.
"Take some rest now.... You must feel exhausted.... I feel so
myself.... _Au revoir_ till to-morrow. After all, why should you
worry? Are we not the masters?"
"That is the question!" murmured Robespierre, without lifting his
eyes.
But Lebas had just closed the door, and wished him good night.
Robespierre, left alone, resumed his train of thought. He had,
himself, then, ordered the two women to be arrested. This made
everything clear to his mind! He now understood why Olivier had
insulted him, and matters were more complicated than he had imagined.
But what was Clarisse doing at Montmorency? How had she gained
acquaintance with that man Vaughan, who had proposed to him the
Regency in the name of England? For one moment he was vain enough to
think that Clarisse had acted in conjunction with the Englishman.
She had perhaps an idea of winning Robespierre over to the Royalist
cause, and of rendering homage to his exalted position and power,
realising all the good he could do. If this were indeed the fact,
then she knew everything, was aware of the Englishman's proposals,
and of the forest interview! She was in possession of his secret and
could by a single word completely ruin him!
No! No! He was raving! ... Why! he was accusing the mother of his
child! For she was the mother of his son! Then he alone was in
fault; ... he who had her arrested for no reason! For no reason?
Was that so certain? And he sought about in his mind for excuses.
Yes! he was the dupe of Fate, the tool of blind Destiny! Why had
Clarisse been there? Why had she been implicated with the secret
interview? Why? Ah! why?
With closed eyes, still repeating that unanswered "Why?" he fell into
a half sleep. Little by little the image of a cell in the prison of
La Bourbe rose before him; Clarisse was there. She appeared to him,
as he had seen her in her youth, at the Rue des Lions, with her sweet
pale face, large blue eyes, fair silken hair, so fair ... so fair....
He began to wonder that one so young and frail should have a son so
big as Olivier! His dream-thoughts became more confused.... She was
now Olivier's _fiancée_.... He was promising her to marry them in
London, through the intervention of Vaughan ... of Fox.... Fox was
all powerful in England, as he, Robespierre, was in France.... His
head gradually sunk on his shoulder, and he fell asleep at last.
The lamp, turned very low, shed upon him a flickering light, pale and
subdued as the glow of a sanctuary lamp, softening as if in pity the
stern lines of his troubled countenance, which even in sleep did not
relax the painful contraction of its features. He had fallen asleep,
dressed as he was, his head aslant, his arms hanging by his sides
listlessly. Now and then, his whole frame would twitch and quiver
nervously, and vague, incoherent words escaped his lips at intervals;
harsh, guttural sounds fell from him suddenly in that silent
apartment, whose curtains and drapery in the subdued light assumed
the soft and delicate tints of a young girl's chamber.
Its hangings were really of damask, with designs of white flowers on
a blue ground, cut out of an old dress by Madame Duplay. This was
the one obvious attempt at ornament. The Incorruptible's room was
otherwise very modestly furnished, containing only the armchair in
which he had fallen asleep, a few cane chairs, a very simple desk, a
plain deal bookcase overladen with books and fastened to the wall,
and a bed of walnut-wood.
The room was situated, as already said, in a wing which connected the
main building occupied by the Duplay family with an outhouse opening
on the Rue Saint-Honoré. It also communicated with little Maurice's
room, to whom the Incorruptible in his leisure hours gave lessons in
history, and on the duties of a citizen. The child, who had been
sent early to bed on the arrival of the police-agents with Olivier,
now slept soundly.
At about three o'clock, the boy awoke with a start. He heard a noise
in the next room, and, thinking he recognised Robespierre's voice,
turned over to sleep again. It was not the first time his good
friend had talked aloud in his sleep. But he was awakened again by
the falling of a chair, and jumped from his bed anxiously and ran to
open the door. In the flickering light of the nearly extinguished
lamp he discerned the Incorruptible standing erect, still dressed,
and gesticulating wildly as if pushing some one back. The boy
advanced towards him, asking what was amiss. Robespierre stared at
him with a frightened look, then folding him in his arms, he fell on
his knees moaning. Between his groans the child could catch the
words--
"My son! ... My son!"
Then the lamp went quite out.
The child gently disengaged himself. _Bon ami_ had called him his
son! Yes, he was his son, his affectionate and dutiful son. Then
with tender solicitude he helped him to rise. The day was already
peeping through the half-closed shutters. Maurice with some
difficulty succeeded in replacing his friend on the armchair in which
he had passed the night, and asked him if he wished for anything.
But Robespierre had fallen asleep again.
The boy returned to his room, walking backwards on tiptoe, fearing to
awaken him, and went to bed again.
At seven o'clock in the morning Robespierre opened his eyes. He
remembered nothing. The fact of having slept in his clothes, and in
an armchair, did not surprise him. He had often done so in the days
of sore trial. He drew aside the curtains, and the room was suddenly
flooded with daylight. Some one knocked. It was Maurice Duplay,
asking if he could come in.
The boy's early visit surprised Robespierre.
"Are you well, _bon ami_?"
"Yes, why?"
"Nothing ... only ... last night ... you know..."
"Last night? Well!"
"You rather frightened me!"
"Frightened you?"
"Yes, you frightened me!"
The child then told him what had taken place in the night.
"Are you quite sure?" asked Robespierre anxiously.
"Oh! quite sure, and since you called me your son it shows you
recognised me, and had not the fever so badly after all."
"Yes, you are right! It was nothing since ... as you said ... since
I recognised you; ... for it was you of course I called my son: ...
you _are_ my good little son, are you not?"
And he patted his cheeks, adding--
"But you must not speak of it to anybody! not to anybody, mind! It
is not worth while worrying your father and mother."
"Oh no! I have never said anything!"
Robespierre began again to feel uneasy.
"How do you mean? You have _never_ said anything?"
"Why, it is not the first time it has happened to you."
"Have you heard me before, then?"
"Oh yes! speaking loud in your sleep."
"And what did I say?"
"Oh, I never understood anything, ... disconnected words, that's
all.... And then I was so accustomed, I did not pay much attention.
But last night it was too much and I got up."
"You should not have done so, it was nothing more serious than usual,
only the worry and bother that upset me so."
"It was the cross-examination of the Chouan yesterday which unstrung
you, I suppose?"
"Perhaps; ... it may be.... But, you see, now I am quite well."
As the lad was going he called after him.
"Now you know, and you won't give it another thought, will you? And
not a word, mind, not a word! Now go, child."
He was subject to such nightmares then?
"Perhaps I don't take enough exercise," he thought, and he resolved
to go out at once into the open air. A good walk to the
Champs-Elysées would completely revive him. He changed his clothes,
shaved, powdered and perfumed himself as usual, and had actually
started, but went back and took from a drawer in his desk the draft
of the new law which he had prepared the day before, and put it in
his pocket. He had decided after reflection not to submit it
himself, but to confide it to Couthon, one of the most faithful of
his friends on the Committee with Lebas, Saint-Just, and Augustin.
Couthon would read the document from the tribune, and this would
leave him fresh and fit for the ensuing debate.
Having called at Couthon's house, and concluded this arrangement,
Robespierre made his way to the Champs-Elysées through the Tuileries
with his dog Blount, who gambolled joyously in his new-found freedom
after a three days' confinement in the house. The Incorruptible
walked quickly and briskly as usual, in spite of the intense heat,
which was but little diminished by the shade of the chestnuts lining
the avenue. He was already telling over in his mind those among his
enemies who would be the first victims of the new law. As to Olivier
and the two women, it was quite decided. They should remain in
prison in the most absolute secrecy until the time came for him to be
master.
At the end of the avenue he turned into the Allée de Veuves and went
towards the Seine. Blount, who had scented the water, leapt and
bounded forward in high glee. On fine summer days the dog used to
swim in the river under the eyes of Robespierre. When he reached the
banks of the Seine Blount was awaiting him, and at a sign jumped in
the water, and the Incorruptible found some release from his
harrowing thoughts in watching the gambols of his dog in the river.
At the Convention the Bill read by Couthon was received with loud
protests, and the subsequent debate opened amid turbulence and
uproar. That the judgments of the Revolutionary Tribunal should be
accelerated by the suppression of evidence and cross-examinations had
already frightened not a few; but when it became a question of
transmitting to the Committee of Public Safety the right of life or
death, the whole assembly was filled with fear. Up to that time the
Convention alone had the right to sit in judgment on a representative
of the people!
A voice was heard exclaiming--
"If that law is passed, nothing is left but to blow out our brains!"
Robespierre appeared in the tribune. The Bill was voted. The next
day several attempts were made in the Convention to repeal the
atrocious law which brought the Terror into their very midst, but all
such efforts failed.
With so trenchant a law, a two-edged weapon which could be turned at
will either against the Committee of Public Safety or against the
Convention, according to the intricate windings of his subtle policy,
with such a weapon Robespierre could keep his enemies of the
Committee at bay. He had in future but to accuse them, and have them
replaced by creatures of his own, satellites of his will.
However, all was going well. His adversaries, blind and unwary, had
begun to tear each other to pieces in party disputes, and to split up
into factions, the very day after the passing of the atrocious law
which made him so dreaded.
The Incorruptible tried to take advantage of these cabals, but he was
too hasty. The Committee, realising their danger, united against
him; and this was the prelude to a terrible and decisive struggle,
for in case of failure there remained nothing for Robespierre but to
have recourse to force. Realising this to the full, he no longer
attended the sittings of the Committee, but worked silently in the
shade, preparing the _coup d'état_ which was to rid him at once and
for ever of all his enemies,--with Saint-Just, whom he had sent for
from the Northern Army, with Hauriot, Commander-in-Chief of the armed
force; Fleuriot-Lescot, Mayor of Paris; Payan, Agent of the Commune;
and Dumas, President; and Coffinhal, Vice-President of the
Revolutionary Tribunal. His design was very simple. He would
denounce his adversaries of the Committee of Public Safety at the bar
of the Convention and ask for their arrest and judgment. Should the
Convention resist, he would subdue them with the help of Hauriot and
his troops, and of all sections of the Commune, who on a sign from
him and from Fleuriot, Payan, Dumas, Coffinhal, and their friends,
would be stirred to insurrection, and would take the Tuileries by
storm.
As to Olivier and the two women, they were always under his hand.
Olivier, at La Force Prison, was in no way disturbed. Clarisse and
Thérèse had been kept at La Bourbe by his orders. Twice the names of
Olivier's mother and _fiancée_ had appeared on the list of the
Revolutionary Tribunal, and twice their names had been struck off by
Robespierre, who, anxious and watchful, took care that all lists
should be submitted to him.
Soon the decisive hour approached. It was the 7th Thermidor. Six
weeks had elapsed since the memorable Fête of the Supreme Being, and
the passing of the horrible Prairial law, which had sent hundreds of
victims to the scaffold. The Terror was at its height, and France,
prostrate before the knife of the guillotine, was awaiting in
distracted anxiety the result of the struggle. The guillotine was
also waiting, ready to devour whichever of the two parties was
vanquished--Robespierre's opponents or Robespierre himself and his
partisans.
The Incorruptible, driven to the last extremity, had fixed the battle
for the next day, the 8th Thermidor, when he would throw off his mask
and accuse his adversaries of the Committee of Public Safety in
presence of the Convention. Although he was almost certain of the
issue, he deemed it none the less prudent to take infinite
precautions, and to put Olivier and the two women in perfect safety,
in case of defeat, however impossible it might seem. They must be
taken from prison, and all three placed in some secure retreat, out
of the reach of danger, from whence they could escape if necessary.
Robespierre thought of the Hôtel de Ville, where he reigned supreme.
Behind this, in the Rue du Martroy, were some unoccupied apartments,
in a building connected with and forming part of the hotel. Clarisse
might live there with her niece and Olivier until they could with
safety leave Paris. He unfolded his projects to Lebas, who alone
knew of the secret drama which poisoned the private life of the
Incorruptible at the very moment when his public career was reaching
its climax. Lebas approved the plan.
"I am entirely at your service!"
"Thanks. I was counting on your help. But don't let us be too
hasty. To-morrow will be time enough. Everything depends on the
sitting. If you see that the majority hesitate from the
commencement, go immediately to La Bourbe and take the two women out,
then to La Force and see about my son. The apartments are ready.
You have only to take them there. But save the women first. Olivier
must find his mother and his _fiancée_ when he arrives."
Then taking two papers from his pocket, he added, "Here are the
warrants of release."
"Agreed!" said Lebas, after reading them.
Next day at the Convention, Lebas, a parliamentary expert, judged
that Robespierre would come out victorious from the contest, nor was
he mistaken. The Incorruptible had brought a general accusation,
without mentioning names, against members of the Committee of Public
Safety and General Security. This was received in anxious silence, a
few only daring to protest. But the printing of the speech, and its
circulation in all the communes of Paris, was none the less voted.
It was an official accusation, by the voice of Robespierre, of his
adversaries, before the whole of France. It was victory; and nothing
was left but to name the victims.
But the implicated members of the Committee of Public Safety did not
give him time. Vadier boldly made for the tribune, followed by
Cambon, who, feeling it was a case of kill or cure, played a daring
game, and replied to the general accusation of Robespierre by a
direct, personal accusation, denouncing him openly to the astonished
Assembly. The real traitor, he declared, was this masterful
Robespierre, who paralysed the will of the National Convention!
There was a counter-wave of feeling among the members of the Assembly
at this public indictment, and censure of their slavish submission to
Robespierre. They seemed suddenly to realise their position, and the
more daring members, seeing the tide turn, prepared for the fight.
Thus the attacked were in their turn attacking.
Billaud-Varennes succeeded Cambon at the tribune.
"The mask must be torn aside, no matter whose face it covers!" he
cried. "I would rather my corpse should be the stepping-stone of the
ambitious than by my silence be an accomplice of their crimes!"
Others succeeded Billaud-Varennes, reiterating his accusations more
boldly and insultingly. Robespierre, disconcerted, tried to face the
storm, but it was too late. In confining himself to a general
accusation, in mentioning no names, he had frightened every one. The
Assembly revoked their previous decision, and amended the Bill. The
speech was not to be sent to the Communes, but to the Committee, to
be examined.
"What!" cried Robespierre, "I have the courage to make before the
Convention revelations which I believe necessary to the salvation of
the country, and my speech is to be submitted for examination to the
very men whom I accuse!"
Victory had been followed by defeat; a partial defeat, it was true,
for, seeing the hesitating attitude of the Convention, Robespierre
hoped to win them back again the next day. He must, however, be
prepared for every emergency! That very evening he would take steps
to organise an insurrection of the Communes, which, in case of
resistance, would annihilate the whole set of dastardly cowards. The
Incorruptible wished to act within legal bounds as long as possible,
and only to overstep them when forced to do so.
Robespierre looked round for Lebas, but he had disappeared, and this
gave him grounds for hope that the two women, and perhaps Olivier,
had reached the private apartments chosen by him in the Rue du
Martroy.
"I must go and make sure that all is well," he said to himself;
"there is not a moment to lose"--and leaving the Convention, he
hastened in the direction of the Hôtel de Ville.