The 24 Frimaire, at ten in the forenoon, under a clear bright sun that
was melting the ice formed in the night, the _citoyens_ Guénot and
Delourmel, delegates of the Committee of General Security, proceeded to
the Barnabites and asked to be conducted to the Committee of
Surveillance of the Section, in the Capitular hall, whose only occupant
for the moment was the _citoyen_ Beauvisage, who was piling logs on the
fire. But they did not see him just at first because of his short,
thickset stature.
In a hunchback's cracked voice the _citoyen_ Beauvisage begged the
delegates to seat themselves and put himself entirely at their service.
Guénot then asked him if he knew a _ci-devant_ Monsieur des Ilettes,
residing near the Pont-Neuf.
"It is an individual," he added, "whose arrest I am instructed to
effect,"--and he exhibited the order from the Committee of General
Security.
Beauvisage, after racking his memory for a while, replied that he knew
no individual of that name, that the suspect in question might not be an
inhabitant of his Section, certain portions of the _Sections du Muséum_,
_de l'Unité_, _de Marat-et-Marseille_ being likewise in the near
neighbourhood of the Pont-Neuf; that, if he did live in the Section, it
must be under another name than that borne on the Committee's order;
that, nevertheless, it would not be long before they laid hands on him.
"Let's lose no time," urged Guénot. "Our vigilance was aroused in this
case by a letter from one of the man's accomplices that was intercepted
and put into the hands of the Committee a fortnight ago, but which the
_citoyen_ Lacroix took action upon only yesterday evening. We are
overdone with business; denunciations flow in from every quarter in such
abundance one does not know which to attend to."
"Denunciations," replied Beauvisage proudly, "are coming in freely, too,
to the Committee of Vigilance of our Section. Some make these
revelations out of patriotism, others lured by the bait of a bank-bill
for a hundred _sols_. Many children denounce their parents, whose
property they covet."
"This letter," resumed Guénot, "emanates from a _ci-devant_ called
Rochemaure, a woman of gallantry, at whose house they played _biribi_,
and is addressed to one _citoyen_ Rauline; but is really for an _émigré_
in the service of Pitt. I have brought it with me to communicate to you
the portion relating to this man des Ilettes."
He drew the letter from his pocket.
"It begins with copious details as to those members of the Convention
who might, according to the woman's tale, be gained over by the offer of
a sum of money or the promise of a well-paid post under a new
Government, more stable than the present. Then comes the following
passage:
_"I have just returned from a visit to Monsieur des Ilettes, who
lives near the Pont-Neuf in a garret where you must be either a cat
or an imp to get at him; he is reduced to earning a living by
making punch-and-judies. He is a man of judgment, for which reason
I report to you, sir, the main gist of his conversation. He does
not believe that the existing state of things will last long. Nor
does he foresee its being ended by the victory of the coalition,
and events appear to justify his opinion; for, as you are aware,
sir, for some time past tidings from the front have been bad. He
would rather seem to believe in the revolt of the poor and the
women of the humbler classes, who remain still deeply attached to
their religion. He holds that the widespread alarm caused by the
Revolutionary Tribunal will soon reunite all France against the
Jacobins. 'This tribunal,' he said, in his joking way, 'which
sentences the Queen of France and a bread-hawker, is like that
William Shakespeare the English admire so much, etc....' He thinks
it not impossible that Robespierre may marry Madame Royale and have
himself named Protector of the Kingdom.
"I should be grateful to you, sir, if you would transmit me the
amount owing to me, that is to say one thousand pounds sterling, by
the channel you are in the habit of using; but whatever you do, do
not write to Monsieur Morhardt; he has lately been arrested, thrown
into prison, etc., etc...."_
"This worthy des Ilettes makes dancing-dolls, it appears," observed
Beauvisage, "that is a valuable clue ... though certainly there are many
petty trades of the sort carried on in the Section."
"That reminds me," said Delourmel, "I promised to bring home a doll for
my little girl Nathalie, my youngest, who is ill with scarlatina. The
fever is not a dangerous one, but it demands careful nursing, and
Nathalie, a very forward child for her age, and with a very active
brain, has but delicate health."
"I," remarked Guénot, "I have only a boy. He plays hoop with
barrel-hoops and makes little montgolfier balloons by inflating paper
bags."
"Very often," Beauvisage put in his word, "it is with articles that are
not toys at all that children like best to play. My nephew Émile, a
little chap of seven, a very intelligent child, amuses himself all day
long with little wooden bricks with which he builds houses.... Do you
snuff, _citoyens_?"--and Beauvisage held out his open snuff-box to the
two delegates.
"Now we must set about nabbing our rascal," said Delourmel, who had long
moustaches and great eyes that rolled in his head. "I feel quite in the
mood this morning for a dish of aristocrat's lights and liver, washed
down with a glass of white wine."
Beauvisage suggested to the delegates going to the Place Dauphine to see
if his colleague Dupont senior was at his shop there; he would be sure
to know this man, des Ilettes.
So they set off in the keen morning air, accompanied by four grenadiers
of the Section.
"Have you seen '_The Last Judgment of Kings_' played?" Delourmel asked
his companions; "the piece is worth seeing. The author shows you all the
Kings of Europe on a desert island where they have taken refuge, at the
foot of a volcano which swallows them up. It is a patriotic work."
At the corner of the Rue du Harlay Delourmel's eye was caught by a
little cart, as brilliantly painted as a reliquary, which an old woman
was pushing, wearing over her coif a hat of waxed cloth.
"What is that old woman selling?" he asked.
The old dame answered for herself:
"Look, gentlemen, make your choice. I have beads and rosaries, crosses,
St. Anthonys, holy cerecloths, St. Veronica handkerchiefs, _Ecce homos_,
_Agnus Deis_, hunting-horns and rings of St. Hubert, and articles of
devotion of every sort and kind."
"Why, it is the very arsenal of fanaticism!" cried Delourmel in
horror,--and he proceeded to a summary examination of the poor woman,
who made the same answer to every question:
"My son, it's forty years I have been selling articles of devotion."
Another Delegate of the Committee of General Security, noticing a
blue-coated National Guard passing, directed him to convey the
astonished old woman to the Conciergerie.
The _citoyen_ Beauvisage pointed out to Delourmel that it would have
been more in the competence of the Committee of Surveillance to arrest
the woman and bring her before the Section; that in any case, one never
knew nowadays what attitude to take up towards the old religion so as to
act up to the views of the Government, and whether it was best to allow
everything or forbid everything.
On nearing the joiner's shop, the delegates and the commissary could
hear angry shouts mingling with the hissing of the saw and the grinding
of the plane. A quarrel had broken out between the joiner, Dupont
senior, and his neighbour Remacle, the porter, because of the
_citoyenne_ Remacle, whom an irresistible attraction was for ever
drawing into the recesses of the workshop, whence she would return to
the porter's lodge all covered with shavings and saw-dust. The injured
porter bestowed a kick on Mouton, the carpenter's dog, which at that
very moment his own little daughter Joséphine was nursing lovingly in
her arms. Joséphine was furious and burst into a torrent of imprecations
against her father, while the carpenter shouted in a voice of
exasperation:
"Wretch! I tell you you shall not beat my dog."
"And I," retorted the porter brandishing his broom, "I tell you you
shall _not_...."
He did not finish the sentence; the joiner's plane had hurtled close
past his head.
The instant he caught sight of the _citoyen_ Beauvisage and the
attendant delegates, he rushed up to him and cried:
"_Citoyen_ Commissary you are my witness, this villain has just tried to
murder me."
The _citoyen_ Beauvisage, in his red cap, the badge of his office, put
out his long arms in the attitude of a peacemaker, and addressing the
porter and the joiner:
"A hundred _sols_," he announced, "to whichever of you will inform us
where to find a suspect, wanted by the Committee of General Security, a
_ci-devant_ named des Ilettes, a maker of dancing-dolls."
With one accord porter and carpenter designated Brotteaux's lodging, the
only quarrel now between them being who should have the assignat for a
hundred _sols_ promised the informer.
Delourmel, Guénot, and Beauvisage, followed by the four grenadiers,
Remacle the porter, Dupont the carpenter, and a dozen little scamps of
the neighbourhood filed up the stairs which shook under their tread, and
finally mounted the ladder to the attics.
Brotteaux was in his garret busy cutting out his dancing figures, while
the Père Longuemare sat facing him, stringing their scattered limbs on
threads, smiling to himself to see rhythm and harmony thus growing under
his fingers.
At the sound of muskets being grounded on the landing, the monk trembled
in every limb, not that he was a whit less courageous than Brotteaux,
who never moved a muscle, but the habit of respect for human conventions
had never disciplined him to assume an attitude of self-composure.
Brotteaux gathered from the _citoyen_ Delourmel's questions the quarter
from which the blow had come and saw too late how unwise it is to
confide in women. He obeyed the _citoyen_ Commissary's order to go with
him, first picking up his Lucretius and his three shirts.
"The _citoyen_," he said, pointing to the Père Longuemare, "is an
assistant I have taken to help me make my marionettes. His home is
here."
But the monk failing to produce a certificate of citizenship, was put
under arrest along with Brotteaux.
As the procession filed past the porter's door, the _citoyenne_ Remacle,
leaning on her broom, looked at her lodger with the eyes of virtue
beholding crime in the clutches of the law. Little Joséphine, dainty and
disdainful, held back Mouton by his collar when the dog tried to fawn on
the friend who had often given him a lump of sugar. A gaping crowd
filled the Place de Thionville.
At the foot of the stairs Brotteaux came face to face with a young
peasant woman who was on the point of going up. She carried a basket on
her arm full of eggs and in her hand a flat cake wrapped in a napkin. It
was Athenaïs, who had come from Palaiseau to present her saviour with a
token of her gratitude. When she observed a posse of magistrates and
four grenadiers and "Monsieur Maurice" being led away a prisoner, she
stopped in consternation and asked if it was really true; then she
stepped up to the Commissary and said in a gentle voice:
"You are not taking him to prison? it can't be possible.... Why! you
don't know him! God himself is not better or kinder."
The _citoyen_ Delourmel pushed her away and beckoned to the grenadiers
to come forward. Then Athenaïs let loose a torrent of the foulest abuse,
the filthiest and most abominable invective, at the magistrates and
soldiers, who thought that all the rinsings of the Palais-Royal and the
Rue Fromenteau were being emptied over their devoted heads. After which,
in a voice that filled the whole Place de Thionville and sent a shudder
through the throng of curious onlookers:
"Vive le roi! Vive le roi!" she yelled.