The people were wild; and presently a man hustled the supposed officer.
Others cried fiercely: "Hang him!" Another screamed out: "Robespierre is
dead!" and the crowd took up the cry. A dozen hands seized on Francois.
"What the deuce is all this?" he shouted. "Take care, or the law will
have you."
"Robespierre is dead! _A la lanterne!_"
Upon this, the duke exclaimed: "Let him go; it is a good fellow, and not
an officer"; and then, amid a maddening tumult, succeeded in hastily
explaining enough to secure the release of the officer.
"_A bas la guillotine!_" cried Francois. "Down with the Terror!"
The crowd thickened, and went its way with wild cries. Meanwhile the
boy Des Illes was lost, and madame in tears. They went on, asking
questions, and hearing of the execution of Robespierre, Couthon,
Saint-Just, and the rest. The thief said: "Let us go straight to M. des
Illes's house."
At the door madame fell into her husband's arms; and soon after dusk the
boy came running back with his father, who had gone out to search for
him.
Then all was hastily made clear, and the long story told of Des Illes's
release, and how he had found the dog, and in the cave the Jacobins both
dead, and of his vain efforts to discover his own people. They were fed
and reclothed; and now, it being ten at night of this 10th Thermidor,
Francois rose. "I must go," he said.
"You? Never!" said madame. "Our house is your home for life. You will
wander and sin no more."
On this, Francois looked about him, from one kind face to another, and
sat down, and broke into tears.
"It shall be as madame desires. I am her servant."
And this is the end of the adventures of Francois, the thief. Let who
will judge him.
*EPILOGUE*
_Wherein is some further account of Francois and of those who helped
him._
In a little book which has found many friendly readers I related a
strange story of the French Revolution.[#] In it was promised some
further account of the most remarkable of the personages concerned. I
have now fulfilled my desire to relate the adventures of Francois. The
singular incidents I record are not without foundation.
[#] "A Madeira Party," The Century Co., which contains a tale called "A
Little More Burgundy," to which the reader is referred.
In the story above mentioned I have told how I chanced to meet Francois
and those with whom he spent his days after the stormy period during
which they first came together. My acquaintance with M. des Illes and
the old Duc de St. Maur slowly ripened into friendship. I was a lonely
student in the Latin Quarter, and felt deeply the kindness which never
ceased insisting that their house should be to me a home. In the
summer, and often after that, I was a guest at Des Illes's chateau in
Touraine. There I came to know Francois, as one may know a French or an
Italian servant. During these visits he acted as my valet, serving me
with admirable care, and never better pleased than when I invited him to
talk about himself. He had long since shed his thief-skin, but I fear
that it was only the influence of fortunate circumstances which left him
without excuse to be or to seem other than as honest as the rest of the
world about him.
I have known a great variety of disreputable folk in my lifetime, but
never one who had so many winning qualities, or who was so entirely at
his ease. A scamp in the company of men of better morals usually
becomes hypocritical or appears awkwardly aware of breathing an
atmosphere to which he is unused. Francois had no such difficulties.
For half a century he had been for Des Illes something between friend
and servant. His former life and habits were well known to the few who
came to his master's house. He was comfortable, with some forty
thousand francs in the _rentes_, for his old acquaintance, the marquis,
had not forgotten his services. He had no necessity to exercise what he
still tranquilly called his profession. Like a clever street-dog
adopted by a respectable family, though for a time uneasy, he ceased by
degrees to wander for the joy of stealing a bone, and became contented
with the better and less perilous chances of a dinner at home.
I learned from M. de St. Maur, the duke's son, that while Mme. des Illes
lived Francois remained the most domestic of animals. Her death caused
him a grief so profound that for a time his master was troubled lest his
reason might suffer. She herself would never hear a word against him.
Unlike her husband, she was a fervent Protestant, and had now and then
some vain hope of converting Francois. While she lived he considered
himself her special servant, but after her death transferred his regard
to young Des Illes, the son. For many months Francois pined, as I have
said. He then became restless, disappeared for a week at a time, and it
is to be feared that once, or more often, he courted temptation. When I
knew him all this was in a remote past. At the chateau he usually came
to my bedroom an hour before dinner to set out my evening dress, and was
pretty sure, when this was done, to put his head in my little salon and
ask if I needed anything. Perhaps, like M. des Illes, I might desire a
_petit verre_ of vermuth for the bettering of appetite. As I soon found
what this meant, I commonly required this sustaining aid. When by and
by he returned, carrying a neat tray with vermuth and cognac, it came to
be understood that he should be led into talk of himself over the little
glass, which would, I am sure, have paid toll before it got back to the
buffet. Pretty soon I got into the way of making him sit down, while I
drew from by no means unwilling lips certain odd stories which much
amused me. With an English or Irish servant such familiar intercourse
would have been quite impossible; but Francois, who had none of the
shyness of other races, soon came to be on as easy terms with me as he
was with M. des Illes. When I asked him one evening to tell me his own
story of the famous escape through the catacombs, he said, "But it is
long, monsieur." When I added, "Well, sit down; I must have it," he
replied simply, "As monsieur wishes," and, taking a chair, gave me an
account of their escape, in which he drew so mirthful a picture of the
duke's embarrassments that I saw how little of the humor of the tale M.
des Illes had allowed himself to put into his recital.
Francis's long life amid people of unblemished character had by no means
changed his views. Yes, he had been a thief; but now he was out of
business. He had retired, just as M. des Illes had done, there being no
longer any cause why he should relieve his own necessity by lessening
the luxury of others; monsieur might feel quite secure.
As for politics, he was all for the Bonapartes, who, he said, were
magnificent thieves, whereas he had never been able to rise to the very
highest level of his business. M. des Illes objected, and the last time
he had indulged himself in a prolonged absence--monsieur would
comprehend that this was many years ago--there had been a serious
quarrel; and how could he annoy so good a master, even though they
disagreed as to matters political? If monsieur were still curious as to
his life, he had a few pages in which he had set down certain things
worth remembering, and would monsieur like to see them? Monsieur would
very much like to read them. Thus came into my possession this
astonishing bit of autobiography, which at last I had leave to copy. It
was oddly written, in a clear hand, and in a quaint and abrupt style,
from which, in my use of it, I have generally departed, but of which I
fear some traces may yet be seen.
Two evenings later, and before I had found leisure to read all of it,
Francois said to me, "Does monsieur think to give my poor little account
to the world?" I said I did not. At this I saw his very expressive
face assume a look which I took to mean some form of regret. As he
spoke he was standing in the doorway, and was now and then mechanically
passing a brush over my dress-coat. Presently he said: "I only desired
not to have set forth in France, when I am gone, such things as might
give concern to M. des Illes, or trouble him if he should outlive me."
I replied that it should never be published; and when, after this, he
lingered, I added, "Is that as you desire?" It was not. His vanity was
simple and childlike, but immense.
"Monsieur will find it entertaining," he said; and I, that this was sure
to be the case, and that it were a pity the world should lose so
valuable a work. At this his lean face lighted up. Perhaps in English
it might some day be of interest to monsieur's friends; and as he
understood that the English were given to stealing whole countries
belonging to feeble folks, it might seem to them less unusual than it
would to people like those of France. But monsieur was not English. He
asked my pardon. I kept a grave face, and inquired if it were a
treatise on the art of theft.
This embarrassed him a little, and he made answer indirectly: did
monsieur entirely disapprove this form of transfer? He seemed to regard
it as merely a manner of commercial transaction by which one man alone
profited. I returned that as to this nations held diverse opinions, and
that some Oriental people considered it a creditable pursuit, but that
personally it did seem to me wrong.
M. des Illes was distinctly of that opinion; but, after all, his
(Francois's) account of what he had seen and been was not limited to
mere details of business, and I might discover his adventures to have
other interest. When he heard at last that some day I might, through
his writings, enlighten the nations outside of the pale of Gallic
civilization, he went away with the satisfied air of a young author who
has found a publisher with a just appreciation of his labors--a thing
both rare and consolatory.
His personal history, as I have said, was well known to the entire
household; nor did he resent a jest now and then as to his disused art,
if it came from one of a rank above his own. The old duke would say,
"Any luck of late in snuff-boxes, Francois?"
"M. le Duc knows they are out of fashion."
"_Eh bien_; then handkerchiefs?"
"_Diable!_" says Francois. "They are no more of lace; what use to steal
them? M. le Duc knows that gentlemen are also out of fashion. M. le
Bourgeois is too careful nowadays."
"True," says the duke, and walks away, sadly reflective.
This Francois was what people call a character. He had a great heart and
no conscience; was fond of flowers, of birds, and of children; pleased
to chat of his pilferings, liking the fun of the astonishment he thus
caused. Had he really no belief in its being wrong to steal? I do not
know. The fellow was so humorous that he sometimes left one puzzled and
uncertain. He went duly to mass and confession, but--"_Mon Dieu_,
monsieur; nowadays one has so little to confess, M. le Cure must find it
dull."
When I would know his true ethics as to thine and mine, he cried,
laughing, "_Le mien et le tien_; 't is but a letter makes the
difference, and, after all, one must live." It seemed a simple
character, but there is no such thing; all human nature is more complex
than they who write choose to think it. If character were such as the
writer of fiction often makes it, the world would be a queer place.
He is dead long ago, this same Francois, as my old friend Des Illes
wrote me a few years later. He was very fond of a parrot he had taught
to cry, "_Vive Bonaparte!_" whenever the aged duke came by his perch.
One morning Poll was stolen by some adroit purveyor of parrots. This
loss Francois felt deeply, and vastly resented the theft,--in fact, he
described himself as being humbled by the power of any one to steal from
a man bred up to the business,--and so missed his feathered companion
that for the first time he became depressed, and at last took to his
bed. He died quietly a few weeks after, saying to the priest who had
given him the final rites of the church: "M. le Cure--the gold snuff-box
the duke gave you--" "Well, my son?" "The left-hand pocket is the
safer; we look not there." Then, half wandering, he cried: "Adieu,
Master Time! Thou art the best thief, after all"; and so died, holding
Des Illes's hand.
I learned from the duke and his son, as well as from M. des Illes, many
more facts as to Francois than he himself recorded; the good old Cure Le
Grand, who was a great friend of mine, also contributed some queer
incidents of Francois's life; and thus it was that, when years had gone
by, and I became dependent on my pen, I found myself able to write fully
of this interesting product of Parisian life.
After considering the material in my possession, I soon discovered that
it would not answer my purpose to let Francois's broken memoirs tell his
story. There were names and circumstances in them which it were still
unwise to print. Much of what I may call the scenery of his somewhat
dramatic adventures was supplied by the singular knowledge of the
Revolution which the cure delighted to furnish. The good priest was by
far the most aged of this group, and yet to the last the most clear as
to memories of a tragic past. Thus it came that I was led to write my
story of Francois in the third person, with such enlightening aid as I
obtained from those who knew him better than I.
In his defense I may be permitted to quote the cure's cautiously worded
opinion:
"Oh, monsieur, no man knows another, and every man is ever another to
himself. For you Francois is a thief, strangely proud of an exceptional
career and of his victories over the precautions of those from whom he
stole. Is it not so, monsieur?" I said it was. "But the _bon Dieu_
alone knows all of a man. I was not a priest until after the great wars.
God pardon me, but I like still to tell tales of Jena and Austerlitz,
and of what we did in those days of victory. To kill men! The idea now
fills me with horror, and yet I like nothing better, as monsieur well
knows, than to talk of those days of battle. And Francois--'t is much
the same. How could one live with these dear people, and get no lesson
from their lives? Our gay, merry-minded Francois loved to surprise the
staid folks who came hither to visit us; but I know that--ah, well,
well, priests know many things."
I thanked him, but still had doubts as to whether the moral code of our
friend Francois was ever materially altered by precept, example, or by
the lack of necessity to carry on his interesting branch of industry.
Before telling his story I like to let him say for himself the only
apologetic words I could discover in this memoir:
"I have no wish to write my whole life. I want to put down some things
I saw and some scenes in which I was an actor. I am now old. I
suppose, from what I am told, that I was wicked when I was young. But
if one cannot see that he was a sinner, what then? The good God who made
me knows that I was but a little Ishmaelite cast adrift on the streets
to feed as I might. I defend not myself. I blame not the chances of
life, nor yet the education which fate gave me. It was made to tempt
one in need of food and shelter. 'T is a great thing to be able to
laugh easily and often, and this good gift I had; and so, whether in
safety or in peril, whether homeless or housed, I have gone through life
merry. I had thought more, says M. le Cure, had I been less light of
heart. But thus was I made, and, after all, it has its good side. I
have always liked better the sun than the shadow; and as to relieving my
wants, are the birds thieves?"
I noticed on the margins of Francois's memoirs remarks in a neat female
handwriting, which he told me were made by Mme. des Illes, who alone had
read his story.
At the end I found written: "If ever another should read what is set
down in these pages, let them have the comment of charity. He who wrote
them was by nature gifted with affection, good sense, and courage. He
had many delicacies of character, but that of which nature meant to make
a gentleman and a man of refinement, desertion and evil fortune made a
thief and a reprobate. She who wrote this knew him as no one else did,
and, with God's help, drew him out of the slough of crime and into a
long life of honest ways. CLAIRE DES ILLES."