There seemed no end to these trials for conspiracy in the prisons.
Forty-nine accused crowded the tiers of seats. Maurice Brotteaux
occupied the right-hand corner of the topmost row,--the place of honour.
He was dressed in his plum-coloured surtout, which he had brushed very
carefully the day before and mended at the pocket where his little
Lucretius had ended by fretting a hole. Beside him sat the woman
Rochemaure, painted and powdered and patched, a brilliant and ghastly
figure. They had put the Père Longuemare between her and the girl
Athenaïs, who had recovered her look of youthful freshness at the
Madelonnettes.
On the platform the gendarmes massed a number of other prisoners unknown
to any of our friends, and who, as likely as not, knew nothing of each
other,--yet accomplices one and all,--lawyers, journalists, _ci-devant_
nobles, citizens, and citizens' wives. The _citoyenne_ Rochemaure caught
sight of Gamelin on the jurors' bench. He had not answered her urgent
letters and repeated messages; still she had not abandoned hope and
threw him a look of supplication, trying to appear fascinating and
pathetic for him. But the young juror's cold glance robbed her of any
illusion she might have entertained.
The Clerk read the act of accusation, which, succinct as was its
reference to each individual, was a lengthy document because of the
great number accused. It began by exposing in general outline the plot
concocted in the prisons to drown the Republic in the blood of the
Representatives of the nation and the people of Paris; then, coming to
each severally, it went on:
"One of the most mischievous authors of this abominable conspiracy is
the man Brotteaux, once known as des Ilettes, receiver of imposts under
the tyrant. This person, who was remarkable, even in the days of
tyranny, for his libertine behaviour, is a sure proof how dissoluteness
and immorality are the greatest enemies of the liberty and happiness of
peoples; as a fact, after misappropriating the public revenues and
wasting in debauchery a noticeable part of the people's patrimony, the
person in question connived with his former concubine, the woman
Rochemaure, to enter into correspondence with the _émigrés_ and
traitorously keep the faction of the foreigner informed of the state of
our finances, the movements of our troops, the fluctuations of public
opinion.
"Brotteaux, who, at this period of his despicable life, was living in
concubinage with a prostitute he had picked up in the mud of the Rue
Fromenteau, the girl Athenaïs, easily suborned her to his purposes and
made use of her to foment the counterrevolution by impudent and
unpatriotic cries and indecent and traitorous speeches.
"Sundry remarks of this ill-omened individual will afford you a clear
indication of his abject views and pernicious purpose. Speaking of the
patriotic tribunal now called upon to punish him, he declared
insultingly,--'The Revolutionary Tribunal is like a play of William
Shakespeare, who mixes up with the most bloodthirsty scenes the most
trivial buffooneries.' Then he was forever preaching atheism, as the
surest means of degrading the people and driving it into immorality. In
the prison of the Conciergerie, where he was confined, he used to
deplore as among the worst of calamities the victories of our valiant
armies, and tried to throw suspicion on the most patriotic Generals,
crediting them with designs of tyrannicide. 'Only wait,' he would say in
atrocious language which the pen is loath to reproduce, 'only wait till,
some day, one of these warriors, to whom you owe your salvation,
swallows you all up as the stork in the fable gobbled up the frogs.'
"The woman Rochemaure, a _ci-devant_ noble, concubine of Brotteaux, is
not less culpable than he. Not only was she in correspondence with the
foreigner and in the pay of Pitt himself, but in complicity with
swindlers, such as Jullien (of Toulouse) and Chabot, associates of the
_ci-devant_ Baron de Batz, she seconded that reprobate in all sorts of
cunning machinations to depreciate the shares of the Company of the
Indies, buy them in at a cheap price, and then raise the quotation by
artifices of an opposite tendency, to the confusion and ruin of private
fortunes and of the public funds. Incarcerated at La Bourbe and the
Madelonnettes, she never ceased in prison to conspire, to dabble in
stocks and shares and to devote herself to attempts at corruption, to
suborn judges and jury.
"Louis Longuemare, ex-noble, ex-capuchin, had long been practised in
infamy and crime before committing the acts of treason for which he has
to answer here. Living in a shameful promiscuity with the girl Gorcut,
known as Athenaïs, under Brotteaux's very roof, he is the accomplice of
the said girl and the said _ci-devant_ nobleman. During his
imprisonment at the Conciergerie he has never ceased for one single day
writing pamphlets aimed at the subversion of public liberty and
security.
"It is right to say, with regard to Marthe Gorcut, known as Athenaïs,
that prostitutes are the greatest scourge of public morality, which they
insult, and the opprobrium of the society which they disgrace. But why
speak at length of revolting crimes which the accused confesses
shamelessly...?"
The accusation then proceeded to pass in review the fifty-four other
prisoners, none of whom either Brotteaux, or the Père Longuemare, or the
_citoyenne_ Rochemaure, were acquainted with, except for having seen
several of them in the prisons, but who were one and all included with
the first named in "this odious plot, with which the annals of the
nation can furnish nothing to compare."
The piece concluded by demanding the penalty of death for all the
culprits.
Brotteaux was the first to be examined:
"You were in the plot?"
"No, I have been in no plots. Every word is untrue in the act of
accusation I have just heard read."
"There, you see; you are plotting still, at this moment, to discredit
the Tribunal,"--and the President went on to the woman Rochemaure, who
answered with despairing protestations of innocence, tears and
quibblings.
The Père Longuemare referred himself purely and entirely to God's will.
He had not even brought his written defence with him.
All the questions put to him he answered in a spirit of resignation.
Only, when the President spoke of him as a Capuchin, did the old Adam
wake again in him:
"I am not a Capuchin," he said, "I am a priest and a monk of the Order
of the Barnabites."
"It is the same thing," returned the President good-naturedly.
The Père Longuemare looked at him indignantly:
"One cannot conceive a more extraordinary error," he cried, "than to
confound with a Capuchin a monk of this Order of the Barnabites which
derives its constitutions from the Apostle Paul himself."
The remark was greeted with a burst of laughter and hooting from the
spectators, at which the Père Longuemare, taking this derision to
betoken a denial of his proposition, announced that he would die a
member of this Order of St. Barnabas, the habit of which he wore in his
heart.
"Do you admit," asked the President, "entering into plots with the girl
Gorcut, known as Athenaïs, the same who accorded you her despicable
favours?"
At the question, the Père Longuemare raised his eyes sorrowfully to
heaven, but made no answer; his silence expressed the surprise of an
unsophisticated mind and the gravity of a man of religion who fears to
utter empty words.
"You, the girl Gorcut," the President asked, turning to Athenaïs, "do
you admit plotting in conjunction with Brotteaux?"
Her answer was softly spoken:
"Monsieur Brotteaux, to my knowledge, has done nothing but good. He is a
man of the sort we should have more of; there is no better sort. Those
who say the contrary are mistaken. That is all I have to say."
The President asked her if she admitted having lived in concubinage
with Brotteaux. The expression had to be explained to her, as she did
not understand it. But, directly she gathered what the question meant,
she answered, that would only have depended on him, but he had never
asked her.
There was a laugh in the public galleries, and the President threatened
the girl Gorcut to refuse her a hearing if she answered in such a
cynical sort again.
At this she broke out, calling him sneak, sour face, cuckold, and
spewing out over him, judges, and jury a torrent of invective, till the
gendarmes dragged her from her bench and hustled her out of the hall.
The President then proceeded to a brief examination of the rest of the
accused, taking them in the order in which they sat on the tiers of
benches.
One, a man named Navette, pleaded that he could not have plotted in
prison where he had only spent four days. The President observed that
the point deserved to be considered, and begged the _citoyens_ of the
jury to make a note of it. A certain Bellier said the same, and the
President made the same remark to the jury in his favour. This mildness
on the judge's part was interpreted by some as the result of a
praiseworthy scrupulosity, by others as payment due in recognition of
their talents as informers.
The Deputy of the Public Prosecutor spoke next. All he did was to
amplify the details of the act of accusation and then to put the
question:
"Is it proven that Maurice Brotteaux, Louise Rochemaure, Louis
Longuemare, Marthe Gorcut, known as Athenaïs, Eusèbe Rocher, Pierre
Guyton-Fabulet, Marcelline Descourtis, etc., etc., are guilty of
forming a conspiracy, the means whereof are assassination, starvation,
the making of forged assignats and false coin, the depravation of morals
and public spirit; the aim and object, civil war, the abolition of the
National representation, the re-establishment of Royalty?"
The jurors withdrew into the chamber of deliberation. They voted
unanimously in the affirmative, only excepting the cases of the
afore-named Navette and Bellier, whom the President, and following his
lead, the Public Prosecutor, had put, as it were, in a separate class by
themselves.
Gamelin stated the motives for his decision thus:
"The guilt of the accused is self-evident; the safety of the Nation
demands their chastisement, and they ought themselves to desire their
punishment as the only means of expiating their crimes."
The President pronounced sentence in the absence of those it concerned.
In these great days, contrary to what the law prescribed, the condemned
were not called back again to hear their judgment read, no doubt for
fear of the effects of despair on so large a number of prisoners. A
needless apprehension, so extraordinary and so general was the
submissiveness of the victims in those days! The Clerk of the Court came
down to the cells to read the verdict, which was listened to with such
silence and impassivity as made it a common comparison to liken the
condemned of Prairial to trees marked down for felling.
The _citoyenne_ Rochemaure declared herself pregnant. A surgeon, who was
likewise one of the jury, was directed to see her. She was carried out
fainting to her dungeon.
"Ah!" sighed the Père Longuemare, "these judges and jurors are men very
deserving of pity; their state of mind is truly deplorable. They mix up
everything and confound a Barnabite with a Franciscan."
The execution was to take place the same day at the _Barrière du
Trone-Renversé_. The condemned, their toilet completed, hair cropped and
shirt cut down at the neck, waited for the headsman, packed like cattle
in the small room separated off from the Gaoler's office by a glazed
partition.
When presently the executioner and his men arrived, Brotteaux, who was
quietly reading his Lucretius, put the marker at the page he had begun,
shut the book, stuffed it in the pocket of his coat, and said to the
Barnabite:
"What enrages me, Reverend Father, is that I shall never convince you.
We are going both of us to sleep our last sleep, and I shall not be able
to twitch you by the sleeve and tell you: 'There you see; you have
neither sensation nor consciousness left; you are inanimate. What comes
after life is like what goes before.'"
He tried to smile; but an atrocious spasm of pain wrung his heart and
vitals, and he came near fainting.
He resumed, however:
"Father, I let you see my weakness. I love life and I do not leave it
without regret."
"Sir," replied the monk gently, "take heed, you are a braver man than I,
and nevertheless death troubles you more. What does that mean, if not
that I see the light, which you do not see yet?"
"Might it not also be," said Brotteaux, "that I regret life because I
have enjoyed it better than you, who have made it as close a copy of
death as possible?"
"Sir," said the Père Longuemare, his face paling, "this is a solemn
moment. God help me! It is plain we shall die without spiritual aid. It
must be that in other days I have received the sacraments lukewarmly and
with a thankless heart, for Heaven to refuse me them to-day, when I have
such pressing need of them."
The carts were waiting. The condemned were loaded into them pell-mell,
with hands tied. The woman Rochemaure, whose pregnancy had not been
verified by the surgeon, was hoisted into one of the tumbrils. She
recovered a little of her old energy to watch the crowd of onlookers,
hoping against hope to find rescuers amongst them. The throng was less
dense than formerly, and the excitement less extreme. Only a few women
screamed, "Death! death!" or mocked those who were to die. The men
mostly shrugged their shoulders, looked another way, and said nothing,
whether out of prudence or from respect of the laws.
A shudder went through the crowd when Athenaïs emerged from the wicket.
She looked a mere child.
She bowed her head before the monk:
"Monsieur le Curé," she asked him, "give me absolution."
The Père Longuemare gravely recited the sacramental words in muttered
tones; then:
"My daughter!" he added, "you have fallen into great disorders of
living; but can I offer the Lord a heart as simple as yours? Would I
were sure!"
She climbed lightly into the cart. And there, throwing out her bosom and
proudly lifting her girlish head, she cried "Vive le Roi!"
She made a little sign to Brotteaux to show him there was a vacant place
beside her. Brotteaux helped the Barnabite to get in and came and
placed himself between the monk and the simple-hearted girl.
"Sir," said the Père Longuemare to the Epicurean philosopher, "I ask you
a favour; this God in whom you do not yet believe, pray to Him for me.
It is far from sure you are not nearer to Him than I am myself; a moment
can decide this. A second, and you may be called by the Lord to be His
highly favoured son. Sir, pray for me."
While the wheels were grinding over the pavement of the long Faubourg
Antoine, the monk was busy, with heart and lips, reciting the prayers of
the dying. Brotteaux's mind was fixed on recalling the lines of the poet
of nature: _Sic ubi non erimus_.... Bound as he was and shaken in the
vile, jolting cart, he preserved his calm and even showed a certain
solicitude to maintain an easy posture. At his side, Athenaïs, proud to
die like the Queen of France, surveyed the crowd with haughty looks, and
the old financier, noting as a connoisseur the girl's white bosom, was
filled with regret for the light of day.