Even that bloodthirsty tiger, Jean Paul Marat, has had his apologists.
His friends have called him a martyr, a selfless and incorruptible
exponent of social and political ideals. We may take it that Simonne
Evrard loved him, for a more impassioned obituary speech was, mayhap,
never spoken than the one which she delivered before the National
Assembly in honour of that sinister demagogue, whose writings and
activities will for ever sully some of the really fine pages of that
revolutionary era.
But with those apologists we have naught to do. History has talked its
fill of the inhuman monster. With the more intimate biographists alone
has this true chronicle any concern. It is one of these who tells us
that on or about the eighteenth day of Messidor, in the year I of the
Republic (a date which corresponds with the sixth of July, 1793, of our
own calendar), Jean Paul Marat took an additional man into his service,
at the instance of Jeannette Marechal, his cook and maid-of-all-work.
Marat was at this time a martyr to an unpleasant form of skin disease,
brought on by the terrible privations which he had endured during the
few years preceding his association with Simonne Evrard, the faithful
friend and housekeeper, whose small fortune subsequently provided him
with some degree of comfort.
The man whom Jeannette Marechal, the cook, introduced into the household
of No. 30, Rue des Cordeliers, that worthy woman had literally picked
one day out of the gutter where he was grabbing for scraps of food like
some wretched starving cur. He appeared to be known to the police of the
section, his identity book proclaiming him to be one Paul Mole, who had
served his time in gaol for larceny. He professed himself willing to do
any work required of him, for the merest pittance and some kind of roof
over his head. Simonne Evrard allowed Jeannette to take him in, partly
out of compassion and partly with a view to easing the woman's own
burden, the only other domestic in the house--a man named Bas--being
more interested in politics and the meetings of the Club des Jacobins
than he was in his master's ailments. The man Mole, moreover, appeared
to know something of medicine and of herbs and how to prepare the warm
baths which alone eased the unfortunate Marat from pain. He was
powerfully built, too, and though he muttered and grumbled a great deal,
and indulged in prolonged fits of sulkiness, when he would not open his
mouth to anyone, he was, on the whole, helpful and good-tempered.
There must also have been something about his whole wretched personality
which made a strong appeal to the "Friend of the People," for it is
quite evident that within a few days Paul Mole had won no small measure
of his master's confidence.
Marat, sick, fretful, and worried, had taken an unreasoning dislike to
his servant Bas. He was thankful to have a stranger about him, a man who
was as miserable as he himself had been a very little while ago; who,
like himself, had lived in cellars and in underground burrows, and lived
on the scraps of food which even street-curs had disdained.
On the seventh day following Mole's entry into the household, and while
the latter was preparing his employer's bath, Marat said abruptly to
him:
"You'll go as far as the Chemin de Pantin to-day for me, citizen. You
know your way?"
"I can find it, what?" muttered Mole, who appeared to be in one of his
surly moods.
"You will have to go very circumspectly," Marat went on, in his cracked
and feeble voice. "And see to it that no one spies upon your movements.
I have many enemies, citizen ... one especially ... a woman.... She is
always prying and spying on me.... So beware of any woman you see
lurking about at your heels."
Mole gave a half-audible grunt in reply.
"You had best go after dark," the other rejoined after awhile. "Come
back to me after nine o'clock. It is not far to the Chemin de
Pantin--just where it intersects the Route de Meaux. You can get there
and back before midnight. The people will admit you. I will give you a
ring--the only thing I possess.... It has little or no value," he added
with a harsh, grating laugh. "It will not be worth your while to steal
it. You will have to see a brat and report to me on his condition--his
appearance, what?... Talk to him a bit.... See what he says and let me
know. It is not difficult."
"No, citizen."
Mole helped the suffering wretch into his bath. Not a movement, not a
quiver of the eyelid betrayed one single emotion which he may have
felt--neither loathing nor sympathy, only placid indifference. He was
just a half-starved menial, thankful to accomplish any task for the sake
of satisfying a craving stomach. Marat stretched out his shrunken limbs
in the herbal water with a sigh of well-being.
"And the ring, citizen?" Mole suggested presently.
The demagogue held up his left hand--it was emaciated and disfigured by
disease. A cheap-looking metal ring, set with a false stone, glistened
upon the fourth finger.
"Take it off," he said curtly.
The ring must have all along been too small for the bony hand of the
once famous Court physician. Even now it appeared embedded in the flabby
skin and refused to slide over the knuckle.
"The water will loosen it," remarked Mole quietly.
Marat dipped his hand back into the water, and the other stood beside
him, silent and stolid, his broad shoulders bent, his face naught but a
mask, void and expressionless beneath its coating of grime.
One or two seconds went by. The air was heavy with steam and a medley of
evil-smelling fumes, which hung in the close atmosphere of the narrow
room. The sick man appeared to be drowsy, his head rolled over to one
side, his eyes closed. He had evidently forgotten all about the ring.
A woman's voice, shrill and peremptory, broke the silence which had
become oppressive:
"Here, citizen Mole, I want you! There's not a bit of wood chopped up
for my fire, and how am I to make the coffee without firing, I should
like to know?"
"The ring, citizen," Mole urged gruffly.
Marat had been roused by the woman's sharp voice. He cursed her for a
noisy harridan; then he said fretfully:
"It will do presently--when you are ready to start. I said nine o'clock
... it is only four now. I am tired. Tell citizeness Evrard to bring me
some hot coffee in an hour's time.... You can go and fetch me the
Moniteur now, and take back these proofs to citizen Dufour. You will
find him at the 'Cordeliers,' or else at the printing works.... Come
back at nine o'clock.... I am tired now ... too tired to tell you where
to find the house which is off the Chemin de Pantin. Presently will
do...."
Even while he spoke he appeared to drop into a fitful sleep. His two
hands were hidden under the sheet which covered the bath. Mole watched
him in silence for a moment or two, then he turned on his heel and
shuffled off through the ante-room into the kitchen beyond, where
presently he sat down, squatting in an angle by the stove, and started
with his usual stolidness to chop wood for the citizeness' fire.
When this task was done, and he had received a chunk of sour bread for
his reward from Jeannette Marechal, the cook, he shuffled out of the
place and into the street, to do his employer's errands.