There is a strange similarity between the moral and the physical evils
of life, which extends even to the modes by which they are propagated.
We talk of the infection of a fever, but we often forget that prejudices
are infinitely more infectious. The poor man, ill-fed, ill-housed,
ill-clad, destitute, heart-sick, and weary, falls victim to the first
epidemic that crosses his path. So with the youth of unfixed faith
and unsettled pursuits: he adopts any creed of thought or opinion warm
enough to stimulate his imagination and fix his ambition. How few are
they in life who have chosen for themselves their political convictions;
what a vast majority is it that has adopted the impressions that float
around them!
Gerald Fitzgerald supped with Marat at the Rue de Moulins: he sat down
with Fauchet, Etienne, Chaptal, Favart and the rest--all writers for the
_Ami du Peuple_--all henchmen of the one great and terrible leader.
Gerald had often taken his part in the wild excesses of a youthful
origin; he had borne a share in those scenes where passion stimulated
by debauch becomes madness, and where a frantic impetuosity usurps the
place of all reason and judgment; but it was new to him to witness a
scene where the excesses were those of minds worked up by the wildest
nights of political ambition, the frantic denunciations of political
adversaries, and the maddest anticipations of a dreadful vengeance. They
talked before him with a freedom which, in that time, was rarely heard.
They never scrupled to discuss all the chances of their party, and the
casualties of that eventful future that lay before them.
How the monarchy must fall--how the whole social edifice of France must
be overthrown--how nobility was to be annihilated, and a new code of
distinction created, were discussed with a seriousness, mingled with the
wildest levity. That the road to these changes lay through blood, never
for a moment seemed to check the torrent of their speculations. Some
amused themselves by imaginary lists of proscriptions, giving the
names and titles of those they would recommend for the honours of the
guillotine.
‘Every thing,’ cried Guadet, ‘everything that calls itself Duke,
Marquis, or Count.’
‘Do not include the Barons, Henri, for my cook is of that degree, and I
could not spare him,’ cried Viennet.
‘Down with the aristocrat,’ said several; ‘he stands by his order, even
in his kitchen.’
‘Nay,’ broke in Viennet, ‘I am the first of you all to reduce these
people to their becoming station.’
‘Do not say so,’ said Gensonné: ‘the Marquis de Trillac has been a
gamekeeper on my property this year back.’
‘Your property!’ said Marat contemptuously. ‘Your paternal estate was
a vegetable stall in the Marché aux Bois; and your ancestral chateau, a
room in the Pays Latin, five stories high.’
‘You lived at the same house, in the cellar, Marat; and, by your own
account, it was I that descended to know you!’
‘If he talks of property, I’ll put him in _my_ list,’ said Laroche. ‘He
whose existence is secure is unworthy to live.’
‘A grand sentiment that,’ said another; ‘let us drink it!’ and they
arose and drained their glasses to the toast.
‘The Duc de Dampierre, has any one got him down?’ asked Guadet.
‘I have ‘--’ and I ‘--’ and I,’ said several together.
‘I demand a reprieve for the Duke,’ said another. ‘I was at college with
him at Nantes, and he is a good fellow, and kind-hearted.’
‘Miserable patriot,’ said Guadet, laughing, ‘that can place his personal
sympathies against the interests of the State.’
‘_Parbleu!_’ cried Laroche, looking over his neighbour’s arm. ‘Gensonné
has got Robespierre’s name down!’
‘And why not? I detest him. Menard was right when he called him a “_Loup
en toilette de bal!_“’
‘What a list Menard has here!’ said Guadet, holding it up, as he read
aloud. ‘All who have served the court, or whose families have, for
the last three generations--all who employ court tailors, barbers,
shoemakers, or armourers----’
‘Pray add, all whose names can be traced to baptismal registries, or who
are alleged to have been born in wedlock,’ said Lescour. ‘Let us efface
the vile aristocracy effectually!’
‘Your sneer is a weak sarcasm,’ said Marat savagely. ‘Menard is right:
it is not man by man, but in platoons, that our vengeance must be
executed.’
‘I have an uncle and five cousins, whom, from motives of delicacy, I
have not denounced. Will any one do me the favour to write the Count de
Rochegarde and his sons?’
‘I adopt them with pleasure. I wanted a count or two among my barons.’
‘I drink to all patriots,’ said Marat, draining his glass, and turning a
full look on Fitzgerald.
‘I accept the toast,’ said Gerald, drinking.
‘And I too,’ cried Louvet, ‘though I do not understand it.’
‘By patriot, I mean one who adores liberty,’ said Marat
‘And hates the tyrant,’ cried another.
‘For the liberty to send my enemy to the guillotine, I am ready to fight
to-morrow,’ said Guadet.
‘For whom, let me ask, are we to make ourselves hangmen and headsmen?’
cried a pale, sickly youth, whose voice trembled as he spoke. ‘The
furious populace will not thank you that you have usurped their
hunting-grounds. If you run down _their_ game, they will one day turn
and rend you!’
‘Ah, Brissot, are you there, with your bland notions stolen from Plato!’
cried Guadet. ‘It is pleasant even to hear your flute-stop in the wild
concert of our hoarse voices!’
‘As to liberty, who can define it!’ exclaimed Brissot.
‘I can,’ cried Lescour. ‘The right to guillotine one’s neighbour!’
‘Who ever understood the meaning of equality?’ continued Brissot,
unheeding him. ‘Procrustes was the inventor of it!’
‘And for fraternity: what is it--who has ever practised it?’
‘Cain is the only instance that occurs to me,’ said Guadet gravely.
‘I drink to America,’ said Marat. ‘May the infant republic live by the
death of the mother that bore her!’
A wild hurrah followed the toast, which was welcomed with mad
enthusiasm.
‘The beacon of liberty we are lighting here,’ continued he, ‘will be
soon answered from every hill-top and mountain throughout Europe--from
the snow-peaks of Norway to the olive-crowned heights of the
Apennines--from the bleak cliffs of Scotland to the rocky summits of the
Carpathians.’
In a strain bombastic and turgid, but marked at times by flashes of real
eloquence, he launched out into one of those rhapsodies which formed the
staple of his popular addresses. The glorious picture of a people free,
happy, and prosperous was so mingled with a scene of vengeance and
retribution, that the work of the guillotine was made to seem the chief
agent of civilisation. The social condition of the nation was described,
in the state of a man whose life could only be preserved at the cost of
a terrible amputation. The operation once over, the body would recover
its functions of health and stability. This was the image daily
reproduced, till the public mind grew to regard it as a truism. The
noblesse represented the diseased and rotten limb, whose removal was so
imperative, and there were but too many circumstances which served to
favour the comparison.
Gerald was of an age when fervour and daring exercised a deeper
influence than calm conviction. The men of warm and glowing impulses,
of passionate words and desperate achievements, are sure to exercise a
powerful sway over the young, especially when they themselves are from
the accident of fortune in the position of adventurers. The language
he now heard was bold and definite: there was nothing of subterfuge or
concealment about it. The men who spoke were ready to pledge their lives
to their words; they were even more willing to fight than preach. There
was, besides, a splendid assertion of self-devotion in their plans;
personal advancement had no place in their speculations. All was for
France and Frenchmen: nothing for a party; nothing for a class. Their
aspirations were the highest too; the liberty they contended for was to
be the birthright of every man. Brissot, beside whom Gerald sat, was one
well adapted to captivate his youthful admiration. His long fair hair,
his soft blue eyes, an almost girlish gentleness of look, contrasting
with the intense fervour with which he uttered his convictions, imparted
an amount of interest to him that Gerald was not slow to appreciate. He
spoke, besides, with--what never fails in its effect--the force of an
intense conviction. That they were to regenerate France; that the
nation long enslaved, corrupted and degraded was to be emancipated,
enlightened, and elevated by _them_, was his heartfelt belief. The
material advantages of a great revolution to those who should effect it,
he would not stop to consider. In his own phrase: ‘It was not to a mere
land flowing with milk and honey Moses led the Israelites, but to a land
promised to their forefathers, to be a heritage to their children!’
It is true his companions regarded him as a wild and dreamy enthusiast,
impracticable in his notions, and too hopeful of humanity; but they
wisely saw how useful such an element of ‘optimism’ was in flavouring
the mass of their dangerous doctrines, and how the sentiments of such a
man served to exalt the tone of their opinions. While the conversation
went on around the table, the speakers, warming with the themes, growing
each moment more bold and more animated, Brissot turned his attentions
entirely to Fitzgerald. He not only sketched off to him the men around
the board, but, in a few light touches, characterised their opinions and
views.
At the conclusion of a description in which he had spoken with the most
unguarded frankness, Gerald could not help asking him how it was that
he could venture to declare so openly his opinions to a perfect stranger
like himself.
Brissot only smiled, but did not answer.
‘For, after all,’ continued Gerald, ‘I am here in the camp of the enemy!
I _was_ a Royalist; I am so still.’
‘But there are none left, _mon cher_; the King himself is not one.’
‘Ready to die for the throne------’
‘There is no throne; there is an old arm-chair, with the gilding rubbed
away!’
‘At all events there was a right to defend------’
‘The right to live has an earlier date than the right to rule,’ said
Brissot gravely; and seeing that he had caught the other’s attention, he
launched forth into the favourite theme of his party, the wrongs of the
people. Unlike the generality of his friends, Brissot did not dwell on
the vices and corruptions of the nobles. It was the evils of poverty
he pictured; the hopeless condition of those whose misery made them
friendless.
‘If you but knew the suffering patience of the poor,’ said he, ‘the
stubbornness of their devotion to those above them in station; the tacit
submission with which they accept hardship as their birthright, you
would despair of humanity--infinitely more from men’s humility than
from their cruelty! We cannot stir them; we cannot move them,’ cried he.
‘“They are no worse off than their fathers were,” that is their reply.
If the hour come, however, that they rise up of themselves----’
Once more did Gerald revert to the hardihood of such confessions to a
stranger, when the other broke in----
‘Does the shipwrecked sailor on the raft hesitate to stretch out his
hand to the sinking swimmer beside him. Come home with me from this,
and let me speak to you. You will learn nothing from these men. There
is Marat again! he has but one note in his voice, and it is to utter the
cry of Blood!’
While the stormy speaker revelled wildly in the chaos of his incoherent
thoughts, conjuring up scenes of massacre and destruction, the others
madly applauding him, Brissot stole away, and beckoned Gerald to follow
him.
It was daybreak ere they separated, and as Gerald gained his chambers he
tore the white cockade he had long treasured as a souvenir of his days
of Garde du Corps in pieces, and scattered the fragments from his window
to the winds.