Being the deposition of citizeness Fanny Roussell, who was brought up,
together with her husband, before the Tribunal of the Revolution on a
charge of treason--both being subsequently acquitted.
My name is Fanny Roussell, and I am a respectable married woman, and as
good a patriot as any of you sitting there.
Aye, and I'll say it with my dying breath, though you may send me to the
guillotine ... as you probably will, for you are all thieves and
murderers, every one of you, and you have already made up your minds
that I and my man are guilty of having sheltered that accursed
Englishman whom they call the Scarlet Pimpernel ... and of having helped
him to escape.
But I'll tell you how it all happened, because, though you call me a
traitor to the people of France, yet am I a true patriot and will prove
it to you by telling you exactly how everything occurred, so that you
may be on your guard against the cleverness of that man, who, I do
believe, is a friend and confederate of the devil ... else how could he
have escaped that time?
Well! it was three days ago, and as bitterly cold as anything that my
man and I can remember. We had no travellers staying in the house, for
we are a good three leagues out of Calais, and too far for the folk who
have business in or about the harbour. Only at midday the coffee-room
would get full sometimes with people on their way to or from the port.
But in the evenings the place was quite deserted, and so lonely that at
times we fancied that we could hear the wolves howling in the forest of
St. Pierre.
It was close on eight o'clock, and my man was putting up the shutters,
when suddenly we heard the tramp of feet on the road outside, and then
the quick word, "Halt!"
The next moment there was a peremptory knock at the door. My man opened
it, and there stood four men in the uniform of the 9th Regiment of the
Line ... the same that is quartered at Calais. The uniform, of course, I
knew well, though I did not know the men by sight.
"In the name of the People and by the order of the Committee of Public
Safety!" said one of the men, who stood in the forefront, and who, I
noticed, had a corporal's stripe on his left sleeve.
He held out a paper, which was covered with seals and with writing, but
as neither my man nor I can read, it was no use our looking at it.
Hercule--that is my husband's name, citizens--asked the corporal what
the Committee of Public Safety wanted with us poor hoteliers of a
wayside inn.
"Only food and shelter for to-night for me and my men," replied the
corporal, quite civilly.
"You can rest here," said Hercule, and he pointed to the benches in the
coffee-room, "and if there is any soup left in the stockpot, you are
welcome to it."
Hercule, you see, is a good patriot, and he had been a soldier in his
day.... No! no ... do not interrupt me, any of you ... you would only be
saying that I ought to have known ... but listen to the end.
"The soup we'll gladly eat," said the corporal very pleasantly. "As for
shelter ... well! I am afraid that this nice warm coffee-room will not
exactly serve our purpose. We want a place where we can lie hidden, and
at the same time keep a watch on the road. I noticed an outhouse as we
came. By your leave we will sleep in there."
"As you please," said my man curtly.
He frowned as he said this, and it suddenly seemed as if some vague
suspicion had crept into Hercule's mind.
The corporal, however, appeared unaware of this, for he went on quite
cheerfully:
"Ah! that is excellent! Entre nous, citizen, my men and I have a
desperate customer to deal with. I'll not mention his name, for I see
you have guessed it already. A small red flower, what?... Well, we know
that he must be making straight for the port of Calais, for he has been
traced through St. Omer and Ardres. But he cannot possibly enter Calais
city to-night, for we are on the watch for him. He must seek shelter
somewhere for himself and any other aristocrat he may have with him,
and, bar this house, there is no other place between Ardres and Calais
where he can get it. The night is bitterly cold, with a snow blizzard
raging round. I and my men have been detailed to watch this road, other
patrols are guarding those that lead toward Boulogne and to Gravelines;
but I have an idea, citizen, that our fox is making for Calais, and that
to me will fall the honour of handing that tiresome scarlet flower to
the Public Prosecutor en route for Madame la Guillotine."
Now I could not really tell you, citizens, what suspicions had by this
time entered Hercule's head or mine; certainly what suspicions we did
have were still very vague.
I prepared the soup for the men and they ate it heartily, after which my
husband led the way to the outhouse where we sometimes stabled a
traveller's horse when the need arose.
It is nice and dry, and always filled with warm, fresh straw. The
entrance into it immediately faces the road; the corporal declared that
nothing would suit him and his men better.
They retired to rest apparently, but we noticed that two men remained on
the watch just inside the entrance, whilst the two others curled up in
the straw.
Hercule put out the lights in the coffee-room, and then he and I went
upstairs--not to bed, mind you--but to have a quiet talk together over
the events of the past half-hour.
The result of our talk was that ten minutes later my man quietly stole
downstairs and out of the house. He did not, however, go out by the
front door, but through a back way which, leading through a
cabbage-patch and then across a field, cuts into the main road some two
hundred metres higher up.
Hercule and I had decided that he would walk the three leagues into
Calais, despite the cold, which was intense, and the blizzard, which was
nearly blinding, and that he would call at the post of gendarmerie at
the city gates, and there see the officer in command and tell him the
exact state of the case. It would then be for that officer to decide
what was to be done; our responsibility as loyal citizens would be
completely covered.
Hercule, you must know, had just emerged from our cabbage-patch on to
the field when he was suddenly challenged:
"Qui va la?"
He gave his name. His certificate of citizenship was in his pocket; he
had nothing to fear. Through the darkness and the veil of snow he had
discerned a small group of men wearing the uniform of the 9th Regiment
of the Line.
"Four men," said the foremost of these, speaking quickly and
commandingly, "wearing the same uniform that I and my men are wearing
... have you seen them?"
"Yes," said Hercule hurriedly.
"Where are they?"
"In the outhouse close by."
The other suppressed a cry of triumph.
"At them, my men!" he said in a whisper, "and you, citizen, thank your
stars that we have not come too late."
"These men ..." whispered Hercule. "I had my suspicions."
"Aristocrats, citizen," rejoined the commander of the little party, "and
one of them is that cursed Englishman--the Scarlet Pimpernel."
Already the soldiers, closely followed by Hercule, had made their way
through our cabbage-patch back to the house.
The next moment they had made a bold dash for the barn. There was a
great deal of shouting, a great deal of swearing and some firing, whilst
Hercule and I, not a little frightened, remained in the coffee-room,
anxiously awaiting events.
Presently the group of soldiers returned, not the ones who had first
come, but the others. I noticed their leader, who seemed to be
exceptionally tall.
He looked very cheerful, and laughed loudly as he entered the
coffee-room. From the moment that I looked at his face I knew, somehow,
that Hercule and I had been fooled, and that now, indeed, we stood eye
to eye with that mysterious personage who is called the Scarlet
Pimpernel.
I screamed, and Hercule made a dash for the door; but what could two
humble and peaceful citizens do against this band of desperate men, who
held their lives in their own hands? They were four and we were two, and
I do believe that their leader has supernatural strength and power.
He treated us quite kindly, even though he ordered his followers to bind
us down to our bed upstairs, and to tie a cloth round our mouths so that
our cries could not be distinctly heard.
Neither my man nor I closed an eye all night, of course, but we heard
the miscreants moving about in the coffee-room below. But they did no
mischief, nor did they steal any of the food or wines.
At daybreak we heard them going out by the front door, and their
footsteps disappearing toward Calais. We found their discarded uniforms
lying in the coffee-room. They must have entered Calais by daylight,
when the gates were opened--just like other peaceable citizens. No doubt
they had forged passports, just as they had stolen uniforms.
Our maid-of-all-work released us from our terrible position in the
course of the morning, and we released the soldiers of the 9th Regiment
of the Line, whom we found bound and gagged, some of them wounded, in
the outhouse.
That same afternoon we were arrested, and here we are, ready to die if
we must, but I swear that I have told you the truth, and I ask you, in
the name of justice, if we have done anything wrong, and if we did not
act like loyal and true citizens, even though we were pitted against an
emissary of the devil?