THE SALAD COURSE.
Citoyen Tithon Riouffe _et femme_ had yet to experience the most
extraordinary instance of that favouritism, by an after-display of
which, towards those whom she has smitten without subduing, Fortune
proclaims herself the least supernatural of goddesses. Truly, they had
never thrown into the lottery of events with a faint heart; and now a
first prize was to be the reward of their untiring persistency.
Possibly, indeed, the papers of recommendation might have sufficed of
themselves; yet that they would have carried us (having regard to our
moulting condition, poor cage-worn sparrows! and the necessary
slowness of our advance) in safety to the coast, I most strenuously
doubt.
Dear God! the soughing of the May wind, the whisper of the grasses,
the liquid flutter of the stars, that were like lights reflected in a
lake! The hour of ten saw us lifted to the plain in body--to the
heavens in spirit. For freedom, we were flying from the land of
liberty; for life, from the advocates of the Rights of Man. We sobbed
and we embraced.
“Some day,” we cried to Gusman, “we will come back and roll thee under
a hogshead of schnapps!”--and then we set our faces to the north, and
our teeth to a long task of endurance--one no less, indeed, than a
sixty-league tramp up the half of the Isle de France and the whole of
Picardie. Well, at least, as in the old days, we should walk together,
with only the little rogue that laughs at locksmiths riding sedan
between us.
It was our design to skirt, at a reasonable distance, the east walls
of the city, and to strike at Pantin, going by way of Gentilly and
Bercy--the road to Meaux. Thence we would make, by a north-westerly
course, the Amiens highway; and so, with full hearts and purses
tight-belted for their hunger, for the pathetically distant sea.
And all this we did, though not as we had foreseen. We toiled onwards
in the dark throughout that first sweet night of liberty. For seven
hours we tramped without resting; and then, ten miles north of the
walls, we lay down under the lee of a skilling, and, rolled in one
another’s arms, slept for four hours like moles.
* * * * * * *
I woke to the prick of rain upon my face. Before my half-conscious
eyes a hectic spot faded and went wan in a grey miasma like death. It
was the sun--the cheek of the virgin day, grown chill in a premature
decline.
I sat up. From the south-west, like the breath of the fatal city
pursuing us, a melancholy draft of cloud flowed and spread itself,
making for the northern horizon. It wreathed in driving swirls and
ripples, as if it were the very surface of a stream that ran above us;
and, indeed almost before we were moved to a full wakefulness, we were
as sopt as though we lay under water.
A swampy day it was to be. The drops soon fell so thickly that heaven
seemed shut from us by a skylight of blurred glass. The interval from
cloud to earth was like a glaze upon the superficies of a fire-baked
sphere. The starved clammy fields shone livid; the highway ran,
literally; the poplars that skirted it were mere leafy piles in a
lagoon. Then the wind rose, shouldering us forward and bombarding us
from the rear in recurrent volleys, till I, at least, felt like a
fugitive saurian escaping from the Deluge with my wet tail between my
legs.
I looked at my comrade, the delicate gallant lady. Her hair was
whipped about her face, her skirt about her ankles. The red cap on her
head, with which Gusman had provided her, hung over like the comb of a
vanquished cockerel. She was not vanquished, however. Her white teeth
clicked a little with the cold; but when she became conscious of my
gaze, she returned it with an ardour of the sweetest drollery.
“_Enfin, mon p’tit Thibaut_,” she said; “I prefer Liberty in her
chilly moods, though she make a _noyade_ of us.”
“It is almost come to that. With a brave effort, it seems, we might
rise to the clouds by our own buoyancy. Take a long breath, Carinne.
Canst thou swim?”
She laughed and stopped a moment, and took me by the hands.
“I should be able to,” she said; “I feel so like a fish, or a lizard,
whose skin is a little loose on his body. Am I not a dreadful sight,
Jean-Louis?”
“Thou art never anything but beautiful in my eyes.”
“Fie, then, fie then! cannot I see myself in them! Very small and very
ugly, Jean-Louis--an imp of black waters.”
“And I see babies in thine, Carinne. That is what the peasants call
them. And I never loved my own image so well as now. It has a little
blue sky to itself to spite the reality. It is a fairy peeping from a
flower. _Ma mie_, and art thou so very cold and hungry?”
“Truly, my teeth go on munching the air for lack of anything better.”
“It is pitiful. We must brave the next town or village to procure
food. There are no berries here, Carinne; no little conies to catch in
a springe of withe and spit for roasting on an old sabre; and if there
were, we must not stop to catch them.”
“It is true we must eat, then. The plunge has to be made--for liberty
or death. _Formez vos bataillons!_ Advance, M. le Comte, with thy
heart jumping to the hilt of thy sword!”
She cried out merrily. She was my own, my property, the soul of my
confidence; yet I could have cheered her in the face of a multitude as
(God forgive the comparison!) the mob cheered the _guenipe_ Théroigne
when she entered the Bastille.
So, once more we drove and were driven forward; and presently, six
miles north of St Denis, down we came, with stout courage, I hope,
upon the village of Écouen, and into immediate touch with that
fortune that counselled us so amiably in the crisis of our affairs.
Yet at the outset this _capricieuse_ essayed to terrify us out of all
assurance of self-confidence, and was the coquette to give us a bad
quarter of an hour before she smiled on our suit. For at the very
barrier occurred a _contretemps_ that, but for its happy adaptation by
us to circumstance, threatened to put a short end to our fugitive
romance.
We assumed a breezy deportment, under the raking scrutiny of five or
six patriot savages--mere arrogant _péagers_, down whose dirty faces
the rain trickled sluggishly like oil. Foul straw was stuft into their
clogs; over their shoulders, nipped with a skewer at the neck, were
flung frowzy squares of sacking, in the hanging corners of which they
held the flint-locks of their pieces for dryness’ sake. By the door of
the village taxing-house, that stood hard by the barrier, a
ferret-faced postilion--the only man of them all in boots--lounged,
replaiting the lash of his whip and drawing the string through his
mouth.
“Graceless weather, citizens!” said I.
A squinting _bonnet-rouge_ damned me for _un âne ennuyant_.
“Keep thy breath,” said he, “for what is less obvious;” and he surlily
demanded the production of our papers.
“A good patriot,” growled another, “walks with his face to Paris.”
“So many of them have their heads turned, it is true,” whispered
Carinne.
The squinting man wedged his eyes upon her.
“What is that?” he said sharply--“some _mot de ralliement_? Be
careful, my friends! I have the gift to look straight into the hearts
of traitors!”
It was patent, however, that he deceived himself. He snatched the
papers rudely from me, and conned them all at cross-purposes.
“_Sacré corps!_” he snapped--“what is thy accursed name?”
“It is plain to read, citizen.”
“For a mincing aristocrat, yes. But, for us--we read only between the
lines.”
“Read on them, then, the names of Citizen Tithon Riouffe and wife.”
The indolent postilion spat the string from his lips, looked up
suddenly, and came swiftly to the barrier.
“How?” said he, “what name?”
I repeated the words, with a little quaver in my voice. The man cockt
his head evilly, his eyes gone into slits.
“Oh, _le bon Dieu_!” he cried, in acrid tones, “but the assurance of
this ragged juggler!”
Carinne caught nervously at my hand.
“I do not understand the citizen,” said I, in my truculent voice.
“But I think, yes.”
“That that is not the name on the passport?”
“I know nothing of the passport. I know that thou art not Riouffe, and
it is enough.”
Squint-eyes croaked joyously.
“Come!” he said; “here is a sop to the weather.”
As for me, I could have whipped Gusman for his talk of a fortuitous
resemblance.
“I am Riouffe,” said I, stubbornly, “whatever thou mayst think.”
“Well, it is said,” cried the postilion. He chirped shrilly like a
ferret. “And, if thou art Riouffe, thou art a damned aristocrat; and
how art thou the better for that?”
“Bah!” I exclaimed. “What dost thou know of me, pig of a stable-boy?”
“Of thee, nothing. Of Riouffe, enough to say that thou art not he.”
“Explain, citizen!” growled a curt-spoken patriot, spitting on the
ground for full-stop.
“_Mes amis_,” cried the deplorable rogue. “Myself, I conveyed the
Citizen Tithon Riouffe to Paris in company with the Englishman. The
Englishman, within the fifteen days, returns alone. He breaks his
journey here, as you know, to breakfast at the ‘Anchor.’ But, for
Riouffe--I heard he was arrested.”
Grace of God! here was a concatenation of mishaps--as luckless a
_rencontre_ as Fate ever conceived of cruelty. My heart turned grey.
The beastly triumphant faces of the guard swam in my vision like
spectres of delirium. Nevertheless, I think, I preserved my reason
sufficiently to assume a _sang froid_ that was rather of the nature of
a fever.
“The question is,” said I, coolly, “not as to whether this lout is a
fool or a liar, but as to whether or no my papers are in order. You
will please to observe by whom they are franked.” (I remembered, in a
flash, the deadman’s statement.) “The name of the Citizen Deputy, who
assured me a safe conduct _to_ Paris, being on this return passport,
should be a sufficient guarantee that his good offices did not end
with my arrival. I may have been arrested and I may have been
released. It is not well, my friends, to pit the word of a horse-boy
against that of a member of the Committee of Public Safety.”
My high manner of assurance had its effect. The faces lowered into
some expression of chagrin and perplexity. And then what must I do but
spoil the effect of all by a childishly exuberant anti-climax.
“I will grant,” said I, “that a change in the habit of one’s dress may
confuse a keener headpiece than a jockey’s. What then! I arrive from
England; I return from Paris--there is the explanation. Moreover, in
these days of equality one must economise for the common good, and,
rather than miss my return seat in the Englishman’s carriage and have
to charter another, I follow in his track, when I find he is already
started, in the hope to overtake him. And now you would delay us here
while he stretches longer leagues between us!”
Carinne gave a little soft whimper. The postilion capered where he
stood.
“_Mes amis!_” he cried, “he speaks well! It needs only to confront him
with the Englishman to prove him an impostor.”
_Misérable!_ What folly had I expressed! It had not been sufficiently
flogged into my dull brain that the islander was here, now, in the
village! I had obtusely fancied myself safe in claiming knowledge of
him, while my secure policy was to have blustered out the situation as
another and independent Riouffe. That course I had now made
impossible. I could have driven my teeth through my tongue with
vexation. Carinne touched my hand pitifully. It almost made my heart
overflow. “Thus,” I said by-and-by to her, “the condemned forgives his
executioner,” and--“Ah, little Thibaut,” she whispered, “but you do
not know how big you looked.”
* * * * * * *
For the moment they could not find the Englishman. He had finished his
breakfast and wandered afield. That was a brief respite; but nothing,
it seemed, to avail in the end.
In the meantime they marched us into the taxing-house, where at a
table sat a commissary of a strange figure. I had blundered
desperately; yet here, I flatter myself, I turned my faculty for
construing character to the account of retrieving my own.
In Citizen Tristan I read--and quite rightly, as events showed--a
decent burgher aggrandised, not against his will, but against the
entire lack of one. His face was shaped, and something coloured, like
a great autumn pear. It was narrow at the forehead, with restless,
ineffective eyes, and it dropped to a monstrous chin--a
self-protective evolution in the era Sainte Guillotine. Obviously he
had studied to save his neck by surrounding it with a rampart of fat.
For the rest he was very squat and ungainly; and he kept shifting the
papers on his desk rather than look at us.
“Here is a man,” thought I, “who has been promoted because in all his
life he has never learned to call anything his own.”
Our guard presented us arrogantly; the wizened post-boy laid his
charge volubly.
“Call your witness,” said I in a pet. “The case lies in a nutshell.”
My words made an impression, no doubt, though they were uttered in
mere hopeless bravado.
“But, it seems he cannot be found,” protested the commissary,
plaintively.
“Then,” I urged, “it is bad law to detain us.”
“You are detained on suspicion.”
“Of not being ourselves? Oh, monsieur----!”
He took me up peevishly.
“Eh, eh! _voilà ce que c’est!_ Monsieur to me? Art thou not an
aristocrat, then?”
I answered pregnantly, “The question in itself is a reflection upon
him that signed this passport.”
He looked about him like a trapped creature, dumbly entreating the
Fates for succour. It was my plain policy to harp upon the strings of
his nerves.
“Well,” said I, “a citizen commissary, I perceive, must have the
courage of his opinions; and I can only hope thine will acquit thee
when the reckoning is called.”
He shifted in his chair; he spluttered little deprecatory
interjections under his breath; he shot small furtive glances at his
truculent following. Finally he bade all but us two out of the room,
and the guard to their post at the barrier. The moment they were
withdrawn grumbling, he opened upon me with a poor assumption of
bluster--
“Thou art very big with words; but here I am clearly within my
rights.”
“Are not my papers in order, then?”
“It would at least appear so.”
His lids rose and fell. Patently his self-possession was an insecure
tenure.
“Citizen,” I said, shaking my finger at him. “Since when hast thou
learned to set thy will in opposition to that of Barrère?”
“_Oh, nom de Dieu!_” he whimpered, in great distress; and rose and
trundled up and down the room. “I oppose nobody. I am a most unhappy
being, condemned by vile circumstance to give the perpetual lie to my
conscience.”
“It is an ignoble _rôle_,” said I, “and quite futile of itself.”
He paused suddenly opposite me. His fat lips were shaking; his eyes
blinked a nerveless anxiety.
“I contradict nobody,” he cried; and added afflictedly, “I suppose, if
you are Riouffe, you are Riouffe, I suppose.”
“It all lies in that,” said I.
“Then,” he cried feebly--“what the devil do you want of me?”
I could have laughed in his poor gross face.
“What, indeed,” said I. “My account with you will come later. You will
be prepared then, no doubt, to justify this detention. For me, there
remains Barrère.”
“No, no!” he cried; “I desire only to steer wide of quicksands. You
may guess, monsieur, how I am governed. This _fripon_ takes my fellows
by the ears. He gives you the lie, and you return it in his teeth.
What am I to say or think or do?”
“Is it for me to advise a commissary?”
He rumpled his limp hair desperately as he walked.
“You will not help me! You drive me to distraction!”
He stopped again.
“Are you Riouffe?” he cried.
“You have my passport, monsieur.”
“Yes, yes, I know!” he exclaimed in a frenzy; “but--Mother of God,
monsieur! do you not comprehend the post-boy to swear you are not the
Englishman’s Riouffe?”
“Confront me, then, with the Englishman.”
“He cannot be found.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“I can only recall monsieur’s attention,” said I, “to the fact that
certain citizens, travelling under safe-conduct of a member of the
Committee of Safety, and with their papers in indisputable order, are
suffering a detention sufficiently unwarrantable to produce the
gravest results.”
The commissary snatched up his hat and ran to the door.
“Go thy ways!” he cried. “Myself, I will conduct you through the
village. For the rest, when the Englishman is found, and if he denies
thee----”
He did not finish the sentence. In a moment we were all in the rainy
street. My accuser was vanished from the neighbourhood of the barrier.
A single patriot only was in evidence. This man made a feint of
bringing his musket to the charge.
“_Qui va là?_” he grunted. “_Est-ce qu’il se sauve, ce cochon!_”
Fear lent the commissary anger.
“To thy post!” he shouted. “Am I to be made answerable to every dog
that barks!”
Red-bonnet fell back muttering. We hurried forward, splashing over the
streaming cobbles. The street, by luck of weather, was entirely
deserted. Only a horseless _limonière_, standing at the porch of the
village inn, gave earnest of some prospective interest.
Suddenly I felt Carinne’s little clutch on my arm.
“The Englishman!” she whispered, in a gasp.
My teeth clicked rigid. I saw, ahead of us, a tall careless figure
lounge into the open and stop over against the door of the carriage.
At the same moment inspiration came to the commissary. His gaze was
introspective. He had not yet noticed the direction of ours. He
slapped his hand to his thigh as he hurried forward.
“_Mon Dieu!_” cried he, “it is simple. Why did I not think of it
sooner? Prove, then, thy knowledge of this Englishman by giving me his
name!”
With the very words I set off running. A startled cry, to which I paid
no heed, pursued me.
“I hold a hostage! I hold a hostage!” screamed the commissary; and
immediately, as I understood, nipped Carinne by the elbow.
But by then I was come up with the stranger. He turned and received me
straddle-legged, his eyes full of a passionless alertness. I lost not
an instant.
“Monsieur,” I panted, “we are fugitive aristocrats. In the name of
God, help us!”
I could have adored him for his reception of this astounding appeal.
He never moved a muscle.
“_Tout droit!_” said he; “but give us the tip!”
“Riouffe is dead” (his eyelids twitched at that)--“I have his
passports. I am Riouffe--and this is madame, my wife.”
Simultaneously, in the instant of my speaking, the frantic commissary
brought up Carinne, and, to a metallic clang of hoofs, our fateful
post-boy issued from the inn-yard in charge of his cattle. For a
moment the situation was absolutely complete and dramatic,--the
agonised suitor proposing; the humorous and heroic _nonchalant_
disposing; the petrified jockey, right; the hostage _chevalière_ in
the grasp of the heavy villain, left. Then all converged to the
central interest, and destroyed the admirable effectiveness of the
tableau.
“Goddam milor’ the Englishman!” shrieked the commissary; “he does not
know thy name!”
The stranger put out a hand as he stood, and clapped me on the
shoulder so that I winced.
“Riouffe!” he cried, in a very bantering voice--“not know his friend
Jack Comely!” (“_ne savoir pas son ami Jack Comely--pooh!_”)
“That he will swear to, my Jack,” said I.
The commissary released Carinne, and fell back gasping.
“_Pardon! les bras m’en tombent!_” he muttered, in dismayed tones, and
went as white and mottled as a leg of raw mutton.
But the stranger advanced to Carinne, with a blush and a gallant bow.
“Madame,” said he, “I cannot sufficiently curse my impatience for
having cut you out of a stage. It was an error. _Entrez, s’il vous
plait._”
He spoke execrable French, the angel! It was enough that we all
understood him. We climbed into the _limonière_; the stranger
followed, and the door was slammed to. The landlord, with a hussy or
so, gaped at the inn-door. The post-boy, making himself
infinitesimally small to the commissary, limbered up his cattle--three
horses abreast. One of these he mounted, as if it were a nightmare. In
a moment he was towelling his beasts to a gallop, to escape, one would
think, the very embarrassment he carried with him. From time to time
he turned in his saddle, and presented a scared face to our view.
“Well?” said the stranger, looking at us with a smile.
He was a fair-faced young man, bold-mouthed, and ripe with
self-assurance. His dress was of the English fashion--straight-crowned
beaver hat, with the band buckled in front, green tabinet kerchief,
claret-coloured coat tight-buttoned,--altogether a figure very spruce
and clean, like a _piqueur d’écurie_.
I regarded him in solemn amazement. The whole rapid incident had been
of a nature to make me doubt whether I was awake or dreaming.
“_Ma mie_,” said Carinne, reproachfully; “Milord awaits your
explanation.”
I rose a little and bowed.
“Monsieur,” said I, stupidly, “we are Jorinde and Joringel.”
* * * * * * *
Sir Comely, a fine scapegrace, had journeyed to Paris out of curiosity
to witness a guillotining. With him, in the packet, crossed Monsieur
Tithon Riouffe, an _émigré_ returning, under safe-conduct of the
ineffective Barrère, to snatch his wife from the whirlpool. The two
gentlemen met, hobnobbed, and shared a four-wheeled carriage as far as
the tragic city, whence (as agreed between them) on a certain day of
the fifteen during which the vehicle remained at the _Remise_ at their
disposition, they--accompanied, it was to be hoped, by madame--were to
return in it to Calais. The day arrived; M. Riouffe failed to keep his
appointment. The other awaited him, so long as a certain urgency of
affairs permitted. At length--his own safety being a little
menaced--he was driven to start on the return journey alone.
All this we learned of him, and he of us the broad outline of our
story. A full confidence was the only policy possible to our dilemma.
He honoured it _en prince_.
He was quite admirably concerned to hear of the fate of his
fellow-traveller--_le malheureux chevreuil_! he called him. The
extraordinary concatenation of chances that had substituted us for
that other two did not, however, appear to strike him particularly.
But he “strapped his vitalities!” (that is, as we understood it,
“lashed himself into merriment”), in the insular manner, very often
and very loudly, over this chance presented to him of hoodwinking the
authorities.
“It’s rich, it’s royal, it’s rare!” he cried, “thus to double under
the nose of the old cull of a bigwig, and to be sport in the next
county while he’s hunting for a gate through the quickset. I pledge
you my honour, monsieur, to see the two of you through with this; but,
egad! you must draw upon my portymanteau at the next post if you are
to win clear!”
_Grâces au Ciel_ for the merry brave! It was like endeavouring to
read inscriptions in the Catacombs to interpret his speech; but one
phrase he had trippingly, and that in itself was a complete index to
his character--
“_Je ne me mouche pas du pied_”--I know better than to blow my nose
with my feet.
And now, if for nothing else, I loved him for his boyish, shy, but
most considerate attitude towards Carinne.
* * * * * * *
And thus was our escape accomplished. Winged with our passports, and
cheered to the finish by the assurance of this gay and breezy
islander, we came to the coast on a memorable afternoon, and bade
adieu for ever to the family despotism of Fraternity.
* * * * * * *
“Tell me, _ma belle épousée_--for five days (the guests, the
property, the _protégés_--what thou wilt--of this Sir Comely, this
excellent Philippe le Bel) we have shut our eyes, here in this
immeasurable London, to our necessitous condition and the prospect
that faces us. Carinne, _mon enfant_, it is right now to discuss the
means by which we are to live.”
“I have thought of it, little Thibaut. I will paint portraits.”
I started.
“Oh!” I cried, “I am very hungry! Let us signalise this last
consumption of the poor Crépin’s purse by a feast of elegance. Be
assured his ghost will call the grace.”
We entered an inn, opportunely near the spot whither we had wandered.
It was in an important part of the town, close by the lion-surmounted
palace of some monseigneur; and coaches and berlines discharged
themselves in frequent succession in its yard. We walked into the
_salle à manger_, sat down, and endeavoured to make our wishes known
to the waiter. The room was fairly empty, but a party of half-a-dozen
young “bloods”--_hommes de bonne compagnie_--sitting at a neighbouring
table, seemed moved with a certain curiosity about us, and by-and-by
one of these rose, crossed over, and, addressing me in very good
French, asked if he could be of service in interpreting my
desires--“For,” says he, with a smile, “I perceive that monsieur is
from over the Channel.”
“Alas, monsieur!” I answered. “We are, indeed, of that foundered
vessel, _La Ville de Paris_, the worthless wreckage of which every
tide washes up on your coasts.”
Some compliments passed, and he withdrew to join his companions. A
little whispering was exchanged amongst them, and then suddenly our
dandy arose and approached us once more, with infinite complaisance.
“Monsieur,” he said, “I cannot, I find, convince my friends of the
extent to which your nation excels in the art of making salads. Would
you do us the favour to mix one for us?”
I hesitated.
“It is one of thy accomplishments,” said Madame la Comtesse, at a
hazard.
It was, indeed, though she could not have known it; or that
Brillat-Savarin himself had once acknowledged me to be his master in
the art.
“I shall be charmed,” I said.
I called for oil, wine, vinegar, sweet fruits, the sauces of soy and
ketchup, caviare, truffles, anchovies, meat-gravy, and the yolks of
eggs. I had a proportion and a place for each; and while I broke the
lettuces, my company sat watching, and engaged me in some pretty
intimate conversation, asking many questions about Paris, my former
and present conditions, and even my place of abode.
I answered good-humouredly on account of my dear Philippe, who was of
the very complexion and moral of these frank rascals; and presently
they pronounced my salad such a dish as Vitellius had never conceived;
and, from their table, they drank to its author and to the beautiful
eyes of Madame la Comtesse.
It was all comical enough; but, by-and-by when, having finished our
meal, we found ourselves in the street again, Carinne thrust a folded
slip of paper into my hand.
“What is this, _mignonne_?”
“Look, then,” said she. “It was conveyed by the _élégant_ under thy
plate.”
I opened and examined it. It was a note for five pounds.
“_Au diable!_” I murmured, flushing scarlet.
Carinne placed her hand on my arm. She looked up in my face very
earnest and pitiful.
“Jourdain,” she said, “makes his living by turning his knowledge of
weaving to account; De Courcy begs his by ‘_parfilage_.’ Which is the
better method, _mon ami_? Is it not well to face the inevitable
courageously by taking thy accomplishments to market?”
“I will become a salad-dresser,” said I.
* * * * * * *
On the following day arrived a very courteous note from my
_petit-maître_ of the dining-room, entreating me, as a special
favour, to come that evening to a certain noble house and make the
salad for a large dinner-party that was to be given therein. I went,
was happy in confirming the great opinion formed of my powers, and was
delicately made the recipient of a handsome present in acknowledgment
of my services. From that moment my good little fortunes rolled up
like a snow-ball. Within a period of eighteen months I had
accumulated, by the mere “art of selection,” a sum of near a hundred
thousand francs--truly a notable little egg’s-nest.
* * * * * * *
One morning, not so very long ago, Madame de Crancé came to me with
her eyes shining.
“Little Thibaut,” said she, “thou hast a great heart. Yet--though
doubtless thou wert right to insist that the husband should be the
bread-winner--it has grieved me to stand by and watch my own
particular gift rusting from disuse. Well, sir, for thy rebuke I have
at last a surprise for thee. Behold!” and with that she fetched a
canvas from behind her back, where she had been secreting it, and
presented it to my view.
“Is it not like?” she said, her throat swelling with joy and pride.
I made my eyes two O’s,--I “hedged,” as the sportsmen say.
“It is, indeed, _ma mie_. It is like nothing in the world except, of
course----”
I stopped, sweating with apprehension. She relieved me at once.
“Ah!” she cried, “is it not baby himself--the dear, sweet rogue! I
threw all my soul into it for thy sake.”
“Carinne!” I exclaimed, passionately grateful; “I knew I could not be
mistaken.”
[The End]
NOTES.
[1]
“Nothing would appear to more graphically illustrate the moral
influence of the ‘Terror’ than that common submission to a force that
was rather implied than expressed. Now it seems a matter for marvel
how a great many thousands of capable men, having nothing to hope from
the intolerable tyranny that was massing them in a number of professed
slaughter-houses, should not only have attempted no organised
retaliation, but should, by unstiffening their necks (in a very heroic
fashion, be it said) to be the footstools to a few monstrous bullies,
have tacitly allowed the righteousness of a system that was destroying
them to go by implication. Escapes from durance were, comparatively
speaking, rare; resistance to authority scarcely ever carried beyond
the personal and peevish limit. Yet it is a fact that many of the
innumerable prisons--of which, from my own observation, I may instance
St Pélagie--were quite inadequately guarded, and generally, indeed,
open to any visitor who was prepared to ‘tip’ for the privilege of
entry.”--Extracted from an unpublished chapter of the Count’s
Reminiscences.
[2]
#Décadi# the Revolutionary Sabbath.--Ed.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES.
The cover from the Dodd, Mead and Co. edition (New York, 1898) was
used for this ebook. This edition was also consulted for the changes
listed below.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ caldron/cauldron, say’st/sayst,
wineshop/wine-shop, etc.) have been preserved.
[Text edition only] _#_ is used to indicate bolded text.
Alterations to the text:
Convert footnotes to endnotes, and add a corresponding entry to the
TOC.
Silently correct a few punctuation errors.
[CHAPTER II]
Change “with her priestesses of the _Salpétrière_” to _Salpêtrière_.
[CHAPTER XIV]
“cockt as it had been to the _out-cry_” to _outcry_.
[End of text]