Resisting all Marietta’s entreaties to stay and sup with her--resisting
blandishments that might have subjugated sterner moralists--Gerald
quitted her to seek out his humble lodging in the ‘Rue de Marais.’ Like
all men who have gained a victory over themselves, he was proud of his
triumph, and almost boastfully contrasted his tattered dress and lowly
condition with the splendour he had just left behind him.
‘I suppose,’ muttered he, ‘I too might win success if I could stifle all
sense of conscience within me, and be the slave of the vile thing they
call the world. It is what men would call my own fault if I be poor and
friendless--so, assuredly, Mirabeau would say.’
‘Mirabeau will not say so any more then,’ said a voice close beside him
in the dark street.
‘Why so?’ asked Gerald fiercely.
‘Simply because that great moralist is dead.’
Not noticing the half sarcasm of the epithet, Gerald eagerly asked when
the event occurred.
‘I can tell you almost to a minute,’ said the other. ‘We were just
coming to the close of the third act of the piece “L’Amour le veut,”
where I was playing Jostard, when the news came; and the public at once
called out, “Drop the curtain.”’
As the speaker had just concluded these words, the light of a street
lamp fell full upon his figure, and Gerald beheld a meanly clad but
good-looking man of about eight-and-twenty, whose features were not
unfamiliar to him.
‘We have met before, sir,’ said he.
‘It was because I recognised your voice I ventured to address you; you
were a Garde du Corps once?’
‘And you?’
‘I was once upon a time the Viscount Alfred de Noe,’ said the other
lightly. ‘It was a part my ancestors performed for some seven or eight
centuries. Now I change my _rôle_ every night.’
Through all the levity of this remark there was also what savoured
of courage, that bold defiance of the turns of fortune which sounded
haughtily.
‘I, too, have had my reverses; but not so great as yours,’ said Gerald
modestly.
‘When a man is killed by a fall, what signifies it if the drop has been
fifty feet or five hundred! _Mon cher_,’ said the other, ‘you and I were
once gentlemen--we talked, ate, drank, and dressed as such; we have now
the _canaille_ life, and the past is scarcely even a dream.’
‘It is the present I would call a dream,’ said Gerald.
‘I ‘d do so too if its cursed reality would let me,’ said De Noe,
laughing, ‘or if I could throw off the cast of shop for one brief hour,
and feel myself the man I once was.’
‘What are you counting? Have you lost anything?’ asked Gerald, as the
other turned over some pieces of money in his hand, and then hastily
searched pocket after pocket.
‘No; I was just seeing if I had wherewithal to ask you to sup with me,
and I find that I have.’
‘Rather, come and share mine--I live here,’ said Gerald, as he pushed
a door which lay ajar. ‘It’s a very humble meal I invite you to partake
of; but we ‘ll drink to the good time coming.’
‘I accept frankly,’ said the other, as he followed Gerald up the dark
and narrow stairs.
‘A bed and a looking-glass, as I live!’ exclaimed De Noe, as he entered
the room. ‘What a sybarite! Why, my friend, you outrage the noble
precepts of our glorious Revolution by these luxurious pretensions--you
insult equality and fraternity together.’
‘Let me at least conciliate liberty then,’ said Gerald gaily, ‘and ask
you to feel yourself at home.’
‘How am I to call thee, _mon cher?_’ said De Noe, assuming the familiar
second person, which I beg the reader to supply in the remainder of the
interview.
‘Gerald Fitzgerald is my name.’
‘Le Chevalier Fitzgerald was just becoming a celebrity when they changed
the spectacle. Ah, what a splendid engagement we all had, if we only
knew how to keep it!’
‘The fault was not entirely ours,’ protested Gerald.
‘Perhaps not. The good public were growing tired of being always
spectators; they wanted, besides, to see what was behind the scenes; and
they found the whole machinery even more a sham than they expected, and
so they smashed the stage and scattered the actors.’
Gerald had now covered the table with the materials of his frugal meal,
and brought forth his last two bottles of Bordeaux, long reserved to
celebrate the first piece of good fortune that might betide him.
‘It is easy to see,’ cried De Noe, ‘that you serve a Prince; your fare
is worthy of Royalty, my dear Fitzgerald. If you had supped with me,
your meal had been a mess of _haricot_, washed down with the light wines
of the “Pays Latin.’”
‘And why, or how, do you suspect in whose service I am?’ asked Gerald
eagerly.
‘My dear friend, every man of the emigration is known to the police, and
I am one of its agents. I am frank with you, just to show you that you
may be as candid with me. Like you, I came to Paris as a secret agent of
“the family.” I plotted, and schemed, and intrigued to obtain access
to information. All my reports, however, were discouraging. I had no
tidings to tell but such as boded ill. I saw the game was up; and I was
honest enough or foolish enough to say so. The orgies of the Revolution
were only beginning, and no one wished to come back to the rigid decency
and decorous propriety of the Monarchy. These were not pleasant things
to write back; they were less pleasant, too, to read; besides that, a
man who spent some three thousand francs a month ought, surely, to have
had something more agreeable to report, and they intimated as much to
me. Well, I endeavoured to obey. I frequented certain coteries at the
Abbé Clery’s; I went of an evening to D’Allonville’s; and I even used
to pass a Sunday at St. Germains with old Madame de St. Leon. I
familiarised my mind with all the favourite expressions, and filled my
letters with the same glowing fallacies that they ever repeated to each
other. This finished me; they called me a knave, and dismissed me. I
had then to choose between becoming a secret agent of the police, or
throwing myself into the Seine. I took the humbler part, and became a
spy. They assigned me the theatres, the small, low “spectacles” of the
populace, and for this I had to become an actor. It was a vow of poverty
I took, my dear Chevalier; but I always hoped I was to rise to a higher
order, which did not enjoin fasts nor disclaim clean linen. Seventeen
long months has this slavery now endured, and during this time have I
had seventeen hundred temptations to pitch my career to the devil,
who invented it, and take the consequences, whatever they were; but
somehow--shall I own it?--the chances and changes of this strange time
have grown to assume to my mind the vicissitudes of a game. Even from
the humble place I occupied have I seen those that seemed fortune’s
first favourites ruined, and many a one as poor and needy and friendless
as--as you or myself--rise to eminence, wealth, and power. This thought
has given such an interest to events that I am reluctant to quit the
table. What depressed me was that I was alone. Our old friends looked
coldly on me, for I was no longer “of them.” Among the others, I knew
not whom to trust, for in my heart of hearts I have no faith in the
Revolution. Now I have watched you for months back. I knew your purpose,
the places you frequented, the themes that interested you; and I often
said to myself, that man “Gerard”--for so we called you in the police
roll--would suit me. He was a Royalist, like me; his sympathies are like
my own, so are his present necessities. I could, besides, give him much
information of value to his party. In a word, I wanted you, Fitzgerald,
and I felt that if I could not make _my own_ fortune, I could certainly
aid _yours_.’
There are men whose influence upon certain others is like a charm;
without any seeming effort--without apparently a care on the
subject--the words sink deep into the heart and carry persuasion with
them. Of these was De Noe. Poor and miserable as he was, the stamp of
gentleman was indelibly on him; and as Gerald sat and listened, the
other’s opinions and views stole gradually into his mind with a power
scarcely conceivable.
The ranges of his knowledge, too, seemed marvellous. He knew not only
the theory of each pretender to popular favour, but the names and plans
of their opponents. His firm conviction was that Mirabeau not only
could, but would have saved the monarchy.
‘And now?’ cried Gerald, eager to hear what he had to predict.
‘And now the cards are shuffling for a new deal, Gerald, but the
game will be a stormy one. The men who have convulsed France have not
received their wages; they are growing hourly more and more impatient,
and the end will be they ‘ll murder the paymasters.’
By a long but not wearisome line of argument he went on to show that the
Revolution would consume itself. Out of anarchy and blood men would seek
the deliverance of a dictator, and the real hope of the monarchists was
in making terms with him.
‘You will meet no acceptance for those opinions from your friends; they
are too lukewarm for sanguine loyalty; they are, besides, to be the work
of time. But think and ponder them, Fitzgerald. Go out to-morrow
into the streets, and count how many heads must fall before men will
condescend to reason; the gaunt and famished faces you will meet are
scarcely the guarantees of a long tranquillity. If the Monarchy is ever
to come back to France, it is the mob must restore it.’
‘These are Mirabeau’s words,’ said Gerald quickly.
‘It was a craftier than Mirabeau explained them, though,’ broke in De
Noe, ‘the shrewd and subtle Maurice de Talleyrand! But let us turn
to ourselves and our own fortunes. What are we to do that France may
benefit by our valuable services? How are our grand intelligences to
redound to the advantage of the nation?’
‘I confess I have no plans. I grow weary of this inglorious life I lead.
If there was an army in whose ranks I could fight, I ‘d turn a soldier,
and care little in what cause.’
‘I guess the secret of your recklessness, Gerald; I read it in every
word you speak.’
‘How so? What do you mean?’
‘You are in love, _mon cher_. These are the promptings of a hopeless
passion.’
‘You were never more wrong in your life,’ said Gerald, blushing till his
face and forehead were crimson.
‘Would you try to deceive a man trained to the subtleties of such a life
as mine? Do you fancy that a “mouchard” cannot read the thoughts that
men have scarcely confessed to themselves? It is not their privilege to
win confidences, but to extort them; and so, I tell you again, Gerald,
you are in love.’
‘And again I say, you are mistaken; I have but to remind you of the
life I lead--its cares and duties--to show you how unlikely, if not
impossible, is such an event.’
‘Bah!’ said the other scoffingly. ‘You stand at the door of the opera.
As the crowd pours out, a shawled and muffled figure hastily passes to
her carriage; she speaks a word or two, and the tones are in your heart
for years after. The diligence drives at daybreak through some country
village; a curtain is hastily withdrawn, and a pair of eyes meet yours,
in which there is no expression save a pleased surprise; and yet you
think of them in far-away lands, and across seas, as dear remembrances.
Something more than these, an impression a little stronger, will
oftentimes give the motive to a whole life. You doubt it; well, listen
to a confession of my own.
‘When I first took service under my present masters, they assigned to
me, as the sphere of duty, a small and miserable theatre in the cité.
When I tell you that the entrance was four sous, you have the measure
of its pretensions. What singular destiny brought our strange corps
together I cannot think; we were of every class and condition of life,
and of every shade of temperament and character. There was a Catalonian
condemned for life to the galleys in Spain; a Swiss, who had poisoned a
whole family; a monk, whose convent had been burned, and he himself the
only one escaped; a court lady, who had been betrothed to an ambassador;
and a gipsy girl, who had exhibited her native dances through all the
towns of Italy. These were but a few of our incongruous elements, and
it is with the last of them only I have to deal--the gipsy. Whence she
came, or with whom, I never could learn. I only know that one evening,
from some illness of our first actress, we were driven upon our own
resources to amuse the public. Each, after his fashion, delivered
some specimen of his talents, by repeating some well-known part, some
oft-recited speech or song. When it came to her turn to appear, she
evinced no fear or trepidation; she did not even ask a question of
advice or counsel, but walked boldly on, stood for a second or two
contemplating the dense crowd before her, and then began a strange, wild
rhapsody, illustrating the events of the time. She told of the nobles
living in splendour, ignoring the sorrows of the poor, forgetting their
very existence. She described their life of luxury and pleasure, how
they beguiled their leisure hours with enjoyments. She counterfeited
their polished intercourse. She was a duchess; her ragged, tattered
shawl swept the ground as a train, and she curtsied with a grace and
dignity the highest might have envied. She presented her daughter to
some great noble: the young girl was asked to sing; and then, taking
her guitar, she sang a troubadour melody, and with a touching tenderness
that brought tears over cheeks seared and sorrow-worn. Her aim was
evidently to throw over the haughty existence of a hated class the
softened light of a home; to show that among that proud order the same
sympathies lived and reigned, the same affections grew, the same joys
and griefs prevailed. Therein lay the power of vengeance. “They despise
and reject you!” cried she; “they hold themselves apart from you, as
beings of another destiny; of all this fair world contains they will not
share with you, save in the air and sunlight; and yet their passions are
your passions--their hates, loves, and jealousies are all your own. All
their wealth teaches no new affection, all their civilisation can stifle
no old pang. If you be like them, then, in all these, why not resemble
them in their cruelties? Down with them! down with them!” she cried,
“for the brand to burn, and the axe to cleave.” She shrieked the wild
scream of an incensed populace. The chateau was attacked on every
side--but why do I continue? The terrible roar of the famished crowd
before her is still in my ears, as she sank dying on the stage, the
martyred girl of the people, pouring out her blood for her brethren.
‘As the curtain fell I rushed forward to raise her; she was fainting.
The emotion was not all unreal. I had seen her a hundred times before;
we used to salute each other as we met, and perhaps exchange a word or
two; and though struck by her uncommon beauty, I only deemed her one of
those unhappy shreds that hang on the draggled robe of humanity, without
intellect or mind--of those who are unfortunate without pity; but now
as I lifted her up, and carried her to a seat, I saw before me the
marvellous artist--one whose genius could conceive the highest flights
of passion, and who had powers also to portray it. It was some time
before she came to herself; her faculties seemed to wander in a sort of
dreamy vagueness. She dropped words of Italian too, and muttered strange
rhymes to herself. I tried to soothe her and calm her. I told her of the
immense success she had achieved, and that even in that rude audience
there reigned a fervour of enthusiasm that would have carried them to
any excesses. “Poor wretches,” muttered she, “who are insensible to real
wrongs, and can yet be moved by a mockery of woe.”
This was all she said, and turned from me with a gesture of aversion.
Half stung by the insult of her manner, half wounded in the instincts
of my class--for it is hard to forget that one was born noble--I stooped
down and whispered in her ear some bitter words of reproach. She started
like one bitten by a serpent, and stared at me with wide eyeballs and
half-opened mouth. I saw my advantage, and used it. I told her that
those she insulted were incomparably above the base herd she dared to
place above them; that in self-devotion, courage, and single-heartedness
the world had never yet displayed their equals. The perils that others
encountered in pursuit of vengeance or plunder were dared by them in the
assertion of a noble cause and to avenge a glorious martyrdom. With a
fierce look she scanned my features for above a minute, and then said,
“I know it, and hate them for it.” You might imagine that such a speech
so uttered had made her odious to my eyes for ever; and yet, Gerald,
from that very moment my heart was all her own. Some would explain this
by saying we live in times when every human sentiment is inverted; when,
having confounded right and wrong, made peace seem death, and anarchy a
blessing, that men are fascinated by what should repel, and deterred
by what should attract them. There may be truth in this manner of
reconciling the strange caprices which seem to urge us even to what we
have hitherto shown repugnance. I have neither taste nor patience for
the inquiry; enough for me the fact that I loved her, with an ardour
intense as it was sudden.
‘I will not weary you with any story of my passion. It was the old
narrative of a hopeless love, affection unreturned, a whole heart’s
devotion given without the shadow of requital. There was not an artifice
I did not practise to cure myself of this baleful infatuation. I
reasoned, I pondered, I even prayed against it. I tried to invest
her with all the “traits” of that “canaille” multitude I hated. I
endeavoured to believe her the very type of that base herd who exulted
over our ruin and downfall; but no sooner did I see her, and hear
her voice, than I forgot all my self-deceptions, and loved her more
ardently, ay, more abjectly than ever. We live in strange times,
Gerald,’ said he, with a deep sigh, ‘and we learn hard lessons. That
this poor and friendless girl of the people should despise a Count de
Noe tells to what depths we have fallen.’
Gerald listened with deep interest to this story. He never doubted
in his own mind that this girl was Marietta, nor did he wonder at
the fascination she exercised; still was he careful to conceal this
knowledge from De Noe, and affecting a mere curiosity in the adventure,
asked him to continue.
‘I have little more to tell you,’ said the other. ‘I know not if my
attentions persecuted her, or that the promptings of a higher ambition
moved her, but she left us, some said, to become the mistress of
Mirabeau; others declared that Collot d’Herbois was her lover. The truth
was soon apparent when she appeared at the Français under the name of
Gabrielle. Ay, Gerald, the great genius of the French stage, the gifted
pupil of Talma, the marvellous artiste whose triumphs are trumpeted
through Europe, was the other day but the gipsy actress of the Trou de
Taupe, as our little stage was politely named.’
De Noe described with enthusiasm the fervour of admiration La Gabrielle
had excited; how the foremost men of the time had offered to share
fortune with her; that she had but to choose throughout France the man
who would be her protector--from Dumourier to Tinaille, there is not one
would not make her his wife to-morrow.
‘I see,’ added he, ‘that you account all this exaggeration on my part.
Well, there is happily a way to test the faithfulness of my report.’
‘How so?’
‘To-morrow evening is Madame Roland’s night of reception. You have heard
of her as the great leader of the advanced reformers--they who would
strip the nation of everything to clothe it in rags of their own
pattern. Come with me there; I will present you as a young friend from
the provinces, or better still, an exile fled from Italian tyranny. You
will meet the most distinguished men of that extreme party; you will
hear their sentiments and their hopes. A stray phrase about despotism,
a passing word of execration on kingly rule, will be enough to make you
free of the guild, and you will not fail to glean information from them.
At all events, there is a great chance that you may see “Gabrielle;” she
rarely misses one of these evenings, and you will see her in the sphere
she loves best to move in, and where her influence is unbounded. It may
be she will give me leave to present you.’
‘I will not ask so much,’ said Gerald, with an affected humility.
‘You cannot say so till you have seen her,’ cried the other. ‘I tell
you, Gerald, that the men whose pride would scorn the notice of royalty
would kneel with devotion to do her homage. She is not one of those
whose eminence is a recognised conventionality, but one whose sway is
an indisputable influence, greater as she is in real life than when
depicting imaginary sorrows; and then that wondrous gift, the heritage
of her gipsy blood, perhaps heightens the power she possesses to
something almost terrible.’
‘Of what do you speak?’ asked Gerald eagerly.
‘I scarcely know how or what to call it. It savours of the old Egyptian
art called “fate-reading.” I am sceptical enough on most things; and had
I not seen with my eyes, and heard with my ears, I had scouted the very
thought of such revelations.’
‘And what have you seen?’
De Noe paused for a few seconds, and in a voice slightly tremulous for
agitation, said: ‘I will tell you what I myself witnessed. It was
one night late at Madame Roland’s: the company had all gone, save the
Gabrielle, Brissot, Guidet, and myself, and we only waited for carriages
to fetch us away, as the rain was falling in torrents. The Gabrielle,
shawled and muffled, ready to depart, seated herself in the antechamber;
and refusing all entreaties to return to the salon, remained in a sort
of reverie, with closed eyes and clasped hands--the attitude bespeaking
one who would not be disturbed. Madame Roland said it was an “extase,”
and would not suffer any one to speak. After a long pause, during which
her countenance was perfectly motionless, she slowly raised her arm and
pointed with her finger toward one corner of the room. ‘There, there,’
whispered she, in a low voice, ‘what a number of them! There are more
than fifty; and see, they are saddling more! The black one will not let
himself be bridled. Ah! he has kicked the groom; poor fellow! they are
carrying him away. Hush! take care, take care, or the secret will be
out. Silly man,’ said she, with a mocking smile, ‘he would paint out
the arms, as if any one could be deceived by such a cavalcade.’ At this,
Brissot whispered in my ear: ‘It is the royal stable that she sees. I
will soon test the truth of this vision’; and he stepped unnoticed from
the room. He had not gone many minutes, when with a long-drawn sigh
she opened her eyes and looked about her. “How late my carriage is
to-night,” said she to Madame Roland, “and how ashamed am I to keep
you up to such an hour!” While Madame Roland answered her in tones of
kindness and affection, I watched the Gabrielle closely. There was not a
line in that pale face that indicated the slightest emotion; perhaps the
most marked expression was a look of weariness and exhaustion. At length
the carriage arrived, and she drove away. We, however, all remained, for
Brissot had promised me to return, and I told them whither he had gone.
It was past two when he came back, pale as death, and covered with
a cold perspiration. “It is as she said,” cried he, in terror: “two
commissaries have brought the news to Bailly that the king was about to
fly to De Bouilly’s camp; and all the horses at Versailles were ready
for the start. Two hundred mounted royalists were in the Cour when
the commissaries arrived.” I could tell you of other and more striking
scenes than this,’ said De Noe; ‘some are yet unaccomplished; but I
believe in them as I believe in my own existence.’
Gerald sat without uttering a word for some time. At last he said, ‘You
have given me a great curiosity to see your priestess, if I could but do
so unobserved.’
‘Nothing is easier. Come early to-morrow evening; and I will take care,
after your presentation to the hostess, to secrete you where none will
remark you.’
‘I agree, then, and will ask you to come and fetch me at the proper
hour.’
‘Remember, Gerald, that in your dress you must adopt the mode of the
Jacobins.’
‘Marat himself could not be more accurate in costume than you will find
me,’ said Gerald, as he squeezed his friend’s hand to say adieu.