FEUDALITY AND REVOLUTION.
I.
THE ANCESTOR.
[Illustration 133]
A lamp stood on the flags of the dungeon, beside the square air-hole of
the oubliette.
There was also to be seen a jug of water, a loaf of army bread, and a
truss of straw. As the dungeon was cut out of solid rock, any prisoner
who conceived the idea of setting the straw on fire would have had his
labor for his pains,--no risk of a conflagration for the prison, and
certain suffocation for the prisoner.
When the door turned on its hinges, the Marquis was walking up and down
in his prison, with that mechanical pacing to and fro peculiar to caged
wild animals.
At the sound of the opening and closing door, he looked up, and the
light from the lamp that stood on the floor between Gauvain and himself
struck full upon the faces of both men.
They looked at each other with such an expression that each stood there
as if transfixed.
The Marquis burst out laughing and exclaimed:
"Good-evening, sir. Many years have passed since I have had the
pleasure of meeting you. You honor me by your visit. I thank you.
Nothing could please me more than a little conversation, for I was
beginning, to be bored. Your friends are wasting their time,--proofs
of identity, court-martials, all those ceremonies are tedious. Were
it my affair I should proceed more rapidly. I am at home here. Will
you be good enough to come in. Well, what do you think of the present
state of affairs? It is original, is it not? Once upon a time there was
a king and queen in France; the king was the king; France herself was
the queen. They have cut off the king's head and married the queen to
Robespierre; and to this pair a daughter has been born,--they call her
Guillotine, and it seems that I am to make her acquaintance to-morrow
morning. I shall be as pleased to meet her as I am to meet you. Is that
perchance the object of your visit? Have you been promoted? Shall you
officiate as headsman? But if this be simply a visit of friendship,
I feel grateful. You may perhaps have forgotten, Viscount, what a
nobleman is? Allow me to present you to one. Behold me; it has become a
rare specimen; it believes in God, in tradition, and in the family; it
believes in its ancestors, in the example of its father, in fidelity,
in loyalty, in its duty towards its princes, in reverence for ancient
laws, in virtue and in justice; and it would order you to be shot
with much pleasure. Will you do me the favor to take a seat? I must
ask you to sit upon the floor, since there is no arm-chair in this
salon; but he who dwells in the mire may well sit upon the ground. I
do not say this to offend you, for that which is mire in our esteem,
represents the nation in your eyes. You will not, of course, require
me to shout for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity? This is an old room
in my house, where in former times the lords used to imprison their
peasants; nowadays, it is the peasants who imprison the lords. And
these follies men call revolution! It seems that my head is to be cut
off in thirty-six hours. I have no objection to offer; still, had they
been well-bred they would have sent me my snuff-box, which is upstairs
in the mirror-chamber, where you used to play when you were a child,
and where I have dandled you on my knee. Sir, let me tell you one
thing: your name is Gauvain, and strange as it may seem, you have noble
blood in your veins,--yes, _pardieu_! the very same blood that flows
in mine; and this blood which has made a man of honor of me, has made
of you a scoundrel. Such are the idiosyncrasies of the human race! You
will tell me that it is not your fault. Nor is it mine. _Parbleu_! one
may be a rascal unconsciously. It depends upon the air one breathes.
In times like ours, no man is responsible for what he does; revolution
is the scapegoat for all mankind, for your great criminals are supreme
innocents. What blockheads! To begin with yourself. Allow me to admire
you. Yes, I admire a youth like yourself, who, well-born, with an
excellent position in State affairs, possessing noble blood fit to
be shed in a noble cause, Viscount of this Tower-Gauvain, Prince of
Brittany, a duke in his own right, belonging to the hereditary peerage
of France,--which is about all that a sensible man can desire here
below,--a youth who, being such as he is, amuses himself by playing a
part like yours, until his enemies believe him a scoundrel, and his
friends regard him as an idiot! By the way, give my regards to the Abbé
Cimourdain."
Perfectly at his ease, the Marquis spoke slowly and calmly, without
emphasis, in his society voice, his eyes clear and tranquil, and with
both hands in his waistcoat pockets. He paused, took a long breath, and
then continued:--
"I do not conceal from you that I have done all in my power to kill
you. As I stand before you, I have three times in person aimed a cannon
at you. A discourteous proceeding, I confess, but it would be relying
upon a false maxim did we allow ourselves to fancy that in time of war
the enemy proposes to make himself agreeable. For we are in a state of
war, nephew. Everything is put to fire and sword, and they have killed
the king besides. A fine century!"
He paused again, then continued:--
"And when one thinks that none of these things would have happened if
they had hung Voltaire and sent Rousseau to the galleys! Ah, those men
of intellect! What a scourge they were! For what crime did you reproach
the Monarchy? The Abbé Pucelle was sent to his Abbey of Corbigny,
it is true, allowing him the choice of conveyance and as much time
as he required in the journey; and as for your Monsieur Titon, who
was--begging your pardon--a wretched libertine, who visited abandoned
women before going to the miracles of Deacon Pâris, he was transferred
from Vincennes to the fortress of Ham in Picardy, which is, I admit,
rather a disagreeable place. Those are your grievances; I remember
them, for I too inveighed against them in my day. I have been as stupid
as you."
The Marquis fumbled in his pocket as though he expected to find his
snuff-box; then he continued:
"But not so wicked. We talked for the sake of talking. There was,
moreover, the mutiny of demands and petitions; and then those
gentlemen the philosophers appeared upon the scene, whose works they
burned,--they would have done better had they burned the authors:
Court intrigues were mixed up in the affair. Then came all the dunces,
Turgot, Quesnay, Malesherbes, the physiocratists, and so forth, and the
wrangling began. All this was the work of scribblers and rhymsters.
The Encyclopædia! Diderot! D'Alembert! Ah! the malicious scamps! Fancy
a well-born man like the King of Prussia joining hands with them! I
would have made short work with all those paper-scribblers. Ah! we know
how to administer justice; you can see here, on this wall, the mark
of the quartering-wheels. There was no jesting in the matter. No, no;
let us abolish scribblers! So long as there are Arouets there will be
Marats. So long as there are men who scribble, there will be wretches
who murder; while there is ink, there will be black stains; so long as
men's claws can hold a goose-quill, frivolous nonsense will engender
atrocious follies. Books are the authors of crime. The word 'chimera'
has a double signification,--it means a dream and it means a monster.
What a price one pays for all this idle nonsense! What is it you keep
repeating to us about your rights,--the rights of man, the rights of
the people! Has it any sense whatever? Could anything be more stupid,
utterly imaginary, and devoid of meaning! When I state the fact that
Havoise, the sister of Conan II., brought the Comté of Bretagne to
Hoël, Count of Nantes and of Cornwall, from whom the estate descended
to Alain Fergant, the uncle of that Bertha who married Alain le Noir,
lord of Roche-sur-Yon, and bore unto him Conan le Petit, grandfather
of Guy or Gauvain de Thouars our ancestor,--I make a plain statement,
and claim my rights. But the knaves, the rascals, the scoundrels of
your party, what rights do they claim? Deicide and regicide. Is it
not frightful? Ah! the ragamuffins! I am sorry for you, sir; still,
you come of that proud Breton blood; you and I have a Gauvain de
Thouars for our grandfather, and furthermore we have an ancestor in
that famous Duke de Montbazon, a peer of France and decorated with the
Grand Collar, who attacked the Faubourg de Tours and was wounded at
the battle of Arques, and who died Grand-veneur of France in his house
of Couzières in Touraine at the age of eighty-six. I could tell you
of the Duke of Laudunois, son of the Lady de la Garnache, of Claude
de Lorraine, of the Duke de Chevreuse, of Henri do Lenoncourt, and
of Françoise de Laval-Boisdauphin. But to what purpose? Monsieur has
the honor of being an idiot, and he delights to lower himself to the
level of my groom. Learn this: I was already an old man when you were
still a nursing infant. I watched you, and I would watch you still. As
you grew up you succeeded in degrading yourself. Since we ceased to
meet, each of us has followed his inclinations; mine have led me in
the direction of honesty, while your course has been the very reverse.
Ah! I know not how all this will end; but your friends are consummate
villains. Oh, yes, I acknowledge it is all very fine, the progress
is marvellous; they have done away in the army with the punishment
of the pint of water, inflicted for three days in succession, on
drunken soldiers; they have the maximum, the Convention, Bishop Gobel,
Monsieur Chaumette, and Monsieur Hébert; there has been a wholesale
extermination of the past, from the Bastille to the calendar. The
saints are replaced by vegetables. Very well, citizens; be our masters
if you will, reign over us, take your ease, act your good pleasure,
stand upon no ceremony. All that will not prevent religion from being
religion, nor alter the fact that royalty has occupied fifteen hundred
years of our history, and that the old French nobility, even though
beheaded, stands higher than you. And as to your sophistries concerning
the historical right of royal races, what care we for that matter?
Chilpéric was really nothing but a monk by the name of Daniel; it was
Rainfroi who invented Chilpéric to annoy Charles Martel,--we know that
as well as you. That is not the question. The question is this: that
there shall be a great kingdom, old France, a well-regulated country,
where men consider first the sacred person of the monarchs, absolute
rulers of the State, then the princes, then the officers of the crown,
naval and military, as well as the controllers of finance. Then there
are the officers of justice of the different grades, followed by those
of the salt-tax and the general receipts, and finally the police of
the kingdom in its three orders. All this was fine and well-regulated;
you have destroyed it. You have destroyed the provinces, without even
understanding--so great was your ignorance,--what the provinces were.
The genius of France was made up from that of the entire continent,
and each of its provinces represents a special virtue of Europe; the
frankness of Germany is to be found in Picardy, the generosity of
Sweden in Champagne, the industry of Holland in Burgundy, the activity
of Poland in Languedoc, the grave dignity of Spain in Gascony, the
wisdom of Italy in Provence, the subtlety of Greece in Normandy, the
fidelity of Switzerland in Dauphiny. You knew nothing of all this;
you have broken, shattered, crushed, demolished, behaving like stupid
beasts of the field. So you wish to have no more nobles? Very well, you
shall have none. Prepare your mourning. Your paladins and heroes have
departed. Bid farewell to all the ancient glories. Find me a D'Assas
at the present time, if you can! You are all trembling for your skins.
You will have no more Chevaliers de Fontenoy who saluted the enemy
before killing him; you will have no more combatants in silk stockings
like those at the siege of Lérida; you will have no more of those days
of military glory when plumes flashed by like meteors; your days are
numbered; the outrage of invasion will descend upon you. If Alain II.
were to return, he would no longer find a Clovis to confront him; if
Abdérame were to come back, he would encounter no such foe as Charles
Martel; neither would the Saxons find a Pépin waiting for them. You
will have no Agnadel, Rocroy, Lens, Staffarde, Nerwinde, Steinkerque,
La Marsaille, Raucoux, Lawfeld, Mahon; you will never have another
Marignan with Francis I.; nor a Bouvines with Philip-Augustus, who
took Renaud, Count of Boulogne, prisoner with one hand, while with the
other he held Ferrand, Count of Flanders. You will have Agincourt, but
you will not have the great standard-bearer, the Sieur de Bacqueville,
wrapping himself in his banner to die. Go on, go on, accomplish your
work! Be the new men. Dwarf yourselves!"
Here the Marquis paused a moment; then he continued:--
"But leave to us our greatness. Kill the kings, kill nobles and
priests, if you will; sow broadcast over the land destruction, ruin,
and death; trample all things under foot; set your heel upon the
ancient laws, overthrow the throne, stamp upon the altar of your God,
and dance over the ruins. All rests with you, cowards and traitors as
you are, incapable of self-devotion and sacrifice. I have said all that
I have to say. Now have me guillotined, Monsieur le Vicomte. I have the
honor to be your most humble servant."
Then he added,--
"It is but the truth. What difference can it make to me? I am dead."
"You are free," said Gauvain.
And he advanced towards the Marquis, unfastened his commander's-cloak,
and throwing it over the shoulders of the latter, he drew the hood down
over his eyes. Both men were of the same height.
"What is this that you are doing?" said the Marquis.
Gauvain raised his voice and called out,--
"Lieutenant, open to me!"
The door was opened.
Gauvain cried,--
"You will be careful to close the door behind me."
And he pushed the astonished Marquis across the threshold.
It must be remembered that the low hall which had been turned into a
guard-room was lighted by a horn lantern, whose dim rays served only to
deepen the shadows; it threw an uncertain glimmer on the surrounding
objects, and in this indistinct light those of the soldiers who were
not sleeping saw a tall man walk past them towards the entrance,
wrapped in the cloak and braided hood of the commander-in-chief. The
soldiers saluted him as he passed out.
The Marquis slowly crossed the guard-room and the breach,--not without
hitting his head more than once,--and went out. The sentinel, supposing
that it was Gauvain whom he saw, presented arms.
Once outside, within two hundred steps of the forest, feeling the turf
beneath his feet, and space, the protecting night, liberty, and life
before him, he paused and stood for a moment motionless, like a man who
has allowed himself to be influenced, has been overcome by surprise,
and who, having taken advantage of an open door, asks himself whether
he has acted nobly or ignobly, and hesitates before going on,--giving
ear, as it were, to an afterthought. After some moments of deep
reverie, he raised his right hand, and snapping his thumb and finger,
cried,--
"Faith!"
And he went on.
The door of the prison had closed again, and this time it was upon
Gauvain.
II.
THE COURT-MARTIAL.
Nearly all the court-martials of this period were arbitrary tribunals.
In the Legislative Assembly, Dumas had drawn up a rough plan of
military legislation, afterwards improved by Talbot in the Council of
the Five Hundred, but the final code of councils of war was not drawn
up until the time of the Empire. From that time also, be it mentioned
by way of parenthesis, dates the law imposed on military tribunals in
regard to the taking of votes, that of beginning with the lower grade.
This law was not in existence during the Revolution.
In 1793, the president of a military tribunal might almost be said to
personify the tribunal itself; he elected the members, arranged the
order of the ranks and regulated the method of voting; he was master
as well as judge.
Cimourdain had selected the identical room on the ground-floor where
the _retirade_ had been, and where the guard was now posted, for
the judgment-hall of the court-martial. He was anxious to shorten
everything,--the road from the prison to the tribunal, and the passage
from the tribunal to the scaffold.
In accordance with his orders, the court opened its session at noon
with no more display of ceremonial than three straw chairs, a pine
table, two lighted candies, and a stool placed in front of the table.
The chairs were for the judges and the stool was for the prisoner.
At each end of the table stood another stool, one for the
commissioner-auditor, who was a quartermaster, and the other for the
clerk, who was a corporal.
On the table there was a stick of red sealing-wax, a copper seal of
the Republic, two inkstands, bundles of white paper, and two printed
placards, spread wide open,--one containing the sentence of outlawry,
the other, the decree of the Convention.
The middle chair was pushed back against a group of tricolored flags;
in those times of rude simplicity, decorations were quickly arranged,
and but little time was needed to change a guard-hall into a court of
justice. The middle chair, intended for the president, faced the prison
door.
The audience was composed of soldiers.
Two gendarmes stood on guard beside the stool.
Cimourdain was seated in the middle chair, with Captain Guéchamp, the
first judge, on his right, and Sergeant Radoub, the second, on his left.
He wore a hat with tricolored plumes, a sabre by his side, and two
pistols on his belt. His scar, of a vivid red, increased the ferocity
of his appearance.
Radoub had at last consented to allow his wounds to be dressed. He
wore a handkerchief tied round his head, on which a blood-stain was
gradually extending.
At noon, before the Court opened, a messenger stood beside the table
of the tribunal, while his horse impatiently pawed the ground outside.
Cimourdain was writing; and this was what he wrote:--
"_Citizen members of the Com. of Public Safety:_"
"Lantenac is taken. He will be executed to-morrow."
After dating and signing the despatch he folded and sealed it, and then
handed it to the messenger, who took his leave.
Whereupon Cimourdain said in a loud voice,--
"Open the dungeon."
Two gendarmes drew back the bolts, opened the dungeon, and went in.
Cimourdain raised his head, crossed his arms, glanced at the door, and
exclaimed:--
"Bring forth the prisoner!"
Beneath the archway of the open door appeared a man between the two
gendarmes.
It was Gauvain.
Cimourdain started.
"Gauvain!" he cried
Then continued:--
"I demand the prisoner."
"It is I," said Gauvain.
"Thou?"
"I."
"And Lantenac?"
"He is free."
"Free?"
"Yes."
"Escaped?"
"Escaped."
Cimourdain trembled as he murmured:--
"True, it is his own castle, he is familiar with all its outlets; the
crypt perhaps communicates with one of them. I ought to have thought of
this; he probably found means of escape; he would need no help."
"He has been helped," said Gauvain.
"To escape?"
"To escape."
"Who helped him?"
"I."
"Thou?"
"I."
"Thou art dreaming."
"I went into the dungeon, I was alone with the prisoner, I took off my
cloak and wrapped it about him, I drew the hood over his face; he went
out in my stead, while I remained in his. Here I am."
"Thou hast not done this?"
"I have."
"It is impossible."
"It is true."
"Bring me Lantenac."
"He is no longer here. The soldiers, seeing the commander's-cloak, took
him for me and allowed him to pass. It was still dark."
"Thou art mad."
"I tell you what happened."
A silence ensued. Cimourdain stammered:--
"Then thou deservest--"
"Death," said Gauvain.
Cimourdain was as pale as a corpse, and as motionless as a man who
has been struck by lightning. He seemed to have lost the power of
breathing. A great drop of sweat formed upon his forehead.
He controlled his voice, forcing himself to speak firmly as he said:--
"Gendarmes, seat the accused."
Gauvain took his seat on the stool.
Cimourdain continued:--
"Gendarmes, draw your sabres."
This was the usual formula when the accused was under sentence of death.
The gendarmes bared their sabres.
Cimourdain's voice regained its ordinary tone.
"Accused," he said, "rise."
He no longer used the familiar "thee" and "thou."
III.
THE VOTES.
Gauvain rose.
"What is your name?" asked Cimourdain.
"Gauvain," was the reply.
Cimourdain went on with the interrogatory:--
"Who are you?"
"I am commander-in-chief of the expeditionary column of the
Côtes-du-Nord."
"Are you a kinsman or connection of the man who has escaped?"
"I am his great-nephew."
"Are you acquainted with the decree of the Convention?"
"I see the placard on your table."
"What have you to say in regard to this decree?"
"That I have countersigned it, and have ordered its execution; that it
was I who had that placard written, to which my name is affixed."
"Choose your defender."
"I will defend myself."
"You may speak."
Cimourdain had become impassible. Only his impassibility was more like
the calmness of a rock than that of a man.
For a moment Gauvain remained silent and thoughtful.
Cimourdain continued:--
"What have you to say in your defence?"
Gauvain slowly raised his head, and without looking at any one,
replied:--
"This: one thing has prevented me from seeing another. A good deed,
viewed too near at hand, hid from my sight hundreds of criminal
actions; on the one side, an aged man, on the other, children,--all
this interfered between me and my duty. I forgot the burning villages,
the ravaged fields, the massacred prisoners, the wounded cruelly put
to death, the women shot; I forgot France betrayed to England: I have
set at liberty the country's murderer. I am guilty. When I speak thus I
seem to speak against myself, but it is not so; I am speaking in my own
behalf. When he who is guilty acknowledges his fault, he saves the only
thing worth saving--honor."
"Is this all you have to say in your defence?" returned Cimourdain.
"I will add, that being the commander I should have set an example, and
that you in turn as judges must offer one."
"What example do you require of us?"
"My death."
"You think it just?"
"And necessary."
"Take your seat."
The quartermaster, who was commissioner-auditor, rose and read, first
the decree pronouncing the sentence of outlawry against the ci-devant
Marquis de Lantenac; second, that of the Convention sentencing to
death any one whomsoever who should aid or abet the escape of a rebel
prisoner. He ended with the few lines printed at the bottom of the
placard, forbidding men to "aid or abet" the rebel aforesaid, "under
penalty of death," and signed: "Commander-in-chief of the expeditionary
column, GAUVAIN." The reading ended, the auditor-commissioner again
took his scat.
Cimourdain, crossing his arms, said:--
"Attention, accused, and let the public listen, look on, and keep
silence. The law lies before you. It will be put to vote. The sentence
will be determined by the vote of the majority. Each judge will in
turn pronounce his decision aloud, in the presence of the accused; for
justice has nothing to conceal."
Cimourdain continued,--
"Let the first judge cast his vote. Speak, Captain Guéchamp."
Captain Guéchamp seemed unconscious of the presence either of Gauvain
or Cimourdain. His eyes, riveted upon the placard of the decree, as if
he were absorbed in the contemplation of an abyss, were hidden by his
downcast lids. He said:--
"The law is clearly defined. The judge is more and less than a
man,--less than a man, inasmuch as he has no heart; more than a man,
in that he wields the sword. In the year 414 of the building of the
city of Rome, Manlius put his son to death because he gained a victory
without waiting for orders. That infraction of discipline required an
expiation. Here, the law has been violated; and the law stands higher
than discipline. A man has been overcome by the emotion of pity, and
the country is once more endangered. Pity may rise to the level of
a crime. Commander Gauvain has connived at the escape of the rebel
Lantenac. Gauvain is guilty. I vote for death."
"Write it down, clerk," said Cimourdain.
The clerk wrote, "Captain Guéchamp: death."
Gauvain said in a firm voice,--
"Guéchamp, you have voted well; I thank you."
Cimourdain continued,--
"It is the turn of the second judge. Speak, Sergeant Radoub."
Radoub rose, and turning towards Gauvain, he made the military salute,
exclaiming,--
"If that is the way things are going, then guillotine me; for upon my
most sacred word of honor, I would like to have done, first, what the
old man did, and then what my commander did. When I beheld that man of
eighty rushing into the flames to save the three midgets, I said to
myself, 'Good man, you are a brave fellow!' And since I hear that it
was my commander who saved this old man from your beastly guillotine,
by all that is holy, I say, 'Commander, you ought to be the general;
and you are a true man; and by thunder, I would give you the Cross of
Saint-Louis if there were any crosses or saints or Louises left!' Are
we going to make idiots of ourselves, for pity's sake? I should say
so, if this is to be the result of winning the battles of Jemmapes,
Valmy, Fleurus, and Wattignies. What! here is Commander Gauvain, who
for these four months past has been driving those donkeys of Royalists
to the sound of the drum, who saves the Republic by his sword, and who
did something at Dol that needed brains to accomplish it; and when
you have a man like that, you try to get rid of him, and instead of
making him your general you propose to cut his throat! I say that it is
enough to make one throw one's self head-foremost from the Pont-Neuf!
and if you, citizen Gauvain, were only a corporal instead of being my
commander, I would tell you that you talked a heap of nonsense just
now. The old man did well when he saved the children, you did well
to save the old man; and if men are to be guillotined for their good
actions, then we might as well go to the deuce; and I am sure I don't
know what it all means. There is nothing to depend upon. This must be
a sort of dream, isn't it? I pinch myself to see if I am really awake.
I don't understand. So the old man ought to have let the midgets burn
alive, and my commander did wrong to save the old man's head? See here!
guillotine me; I wish you would! Suppose the midgets had died; then
the battalion of the Bonnet-Rouge would have been dishonored. Is that
what they wanted? If that is the case, then let us destroy one another.
I know as much about politics as you do, for I belonged to the Club
of the Section of the Pikes. Sapristi! we are getting to be no better
than the brutes! In a word, this is the way I look at it. I don't like
such an upsetting state of affairs. Why the devil do we risk our lives?
So that our chief may be put to death. None of that, Lisette! I want
my chief; I must have my chief. I love him better to-day than I did
yesterday. You make me laugh when you say that he is to be guillotined.
We'll have nothing of the sort. I have listened. You may say what you
please; but let me tell you in the first place, it is impossible."
And Radoub took his seat. His wound had reopened. A thin stream of
blood oozed from under the bandage, from the place where his ear had
been, and ran along his neck.
Cimourdain turned towards Radoub.
"You vote that the accused be acquitted?"
"I vote to have him made general," replied Radoub.
"I ask you whether you vote for his acquittal."
[Illustration 134]
"I vote that he be made the head of the Republic."
"Sergeant Radoub, do you, or do you not, vote for Captain Gauvain's
acquittal? Yes, or no?"
"I vote that you behead me in his place."
"Acquittal," said Cimourdain. "Write it down, clerk."
Then the clerk announced,--
"One vote for death, one for acquittal: a tie."
It was Cimourdain's turn to vote.
He rose, took off his hat, and placed it on the table. He was no longer
pale or livid; his face was the color of clay.
Had every man present been lying in his shroud, the silence could not
have been more profound.
In solemn, measured tones Cimourdain said,--
"Gauvain, the accused, your case has been heard. The court-martial, in
the name of the Republic, by a majority of two against one--"
He broke off; he seemed to pause. Was he still doubtful whether to
vote for death or for life? The audience was breathless. Cimourdain
went on,--
"--condemns you to the penalty of death."
His face revealed the torture of an awful triumph. When Jacob in the
darkness forced a blessing from the angel whom he had overthrown, he
must have worn the same terrible smile.
It passed like a flash, however, and Cimourdain again became marble. He
took his seat, replaced his hat on his head, and added,--
"Gauvain, you will be executed to-morrow at sunrise."
Gauvain rose, bowed, and said,--
"I thank the court."
"Remove the prisoner," said Cimourdain; and at a sign from him the door
of the dungeon was reopened, Gauvain entered, and it closed behind him.
Two gendarmes with drawn sabres were stationed on each side of the door.
Radoub, who had just fallen senseless, was carried away.
IV.
AFTER CIMOURDAIN THE JUDGE, CIMOURDAIN THE MASTER.
A camp is a wasps nest, especially in time of revolution. The civic
sting which exists in the soldier darts forth at a moments notice, and
after driving out the enemy, will often turn without ceremony upon its
own chief. The brave army which had taken the Tourgue was alive with
conflicting rumors. When first the escape of Lantenac was discovered,
it was all against Gauvain; but when the latter was seen coming out of
the dungeon where they had supposed Lantenac to be imprisoned, it was
like the transmission of an electric spark, and in less than a minute
the whole army knew of it. A murmur broke forth from the little band;
at first it ran: "They are getting ready to try Gauvain. But it is all
a farce. He is a fool who trusts these ci-devants and calotins! We
have just seen a Viscount save a Marquis, and presently we shall see a
priest acquit a noble!"
When the condemnation of Gauvain became known, there was a second
murmur: "That is an outrage! Our chief, our brave chief, our young
commander, a hero! He is a Viscount, to be sure, but so much more to
his credit that he is also a Republican! What, he, the liberator of
Pontorson, of Villedieu, of Pont-au-Beau: the conqueror of Dol and
of the Tourgue! the man who has made us invincible! the sword of the
Republic in the Vendée,--he who for five months holds his own against
the Chouans, and corrects all the blunders of Léchelle and others! And
Cimourdain dares to condemn him! Wherefore? Because he saved an old
man who had rescued three children! Does it become a priest to put a
soldier to death?"
Thus murmured the victorious and dissatisfied camp. On every side a
dull sense of anger prevailed against Cimourdain. Four thousand men
against one might be supposed to constitute a power; but it does not.
These four thousand men were nothing more than a crowd; Cimourdain was
a will. They all knew that his frown was easily provoked, and this
knowledge sufficed to hold the army in awe. In those times it needed
but the shadow of the Committee of Public Safety behind a man to make
him formidable, and to convert an imprecation into a whisper, and
that whisper into silence. Before, as well as after their murmuring,
Cimourdain was absolute master of the fate of all, as well as of that
of Gauvain. They knew that it would be vain to entreat him; that he
would listen only to his conscience,--that superhuman voice audible to
himself alone. Everything depended upon him. What he had done simply
in his capacity of military judge, he could undo as civil delegate. He
alone could pardon; there were no limits to his authority; it needed
but a sign from him to set Gauvain at liberty; life and death were in
his hands; the guillotine was at his command. In this tragic moment he
held supreme authority.
There was no resource but to wait.
The night came.
V.
THE DUNGEON.
Once more the hall of justice was changed into a guard-room; and as on
the previous evening, the sentinels were doubled, two of whom guarded
the door of the closed dungeon.
Toward midnight, a man, bearing a lantern in his hand, crossed the
guard-room, where he made himself known, and ordered the dungeon to
be opened. It was Cimourdain. He entered, leaving the door half open
behind him. The dungeon was dark and silent. Taking one step forward
in the gloom, he placed the lantern on the ground and stood still. The
even breathing of a sleeping man could be heard through the darkness.
Cimourdain stood dreamily listening to this peaceful sound.
On the truss of straw at the farther end of the dungeon lay Gauvain
sound asleep. It was his breathing that he heard.
Cimourdain moved as noiselessly as possible, and when he had drawn
near, he fixed his eyes upon Gauvain; no mother gazing upon her
sleeping infant could have worn a look more unutterably tender. The
expression was probably beyond his control; he pressed his clenched
hands against his eyes as children sometimes do, and for a moment stood
perfectly still. Then he knelt, gently lifted Gauvain's hand, and
carried it to his lips.
Gauvain stirred. He opened his eyes, with the vague surprise of sudden
waking. The feeble glimmer of a lantern dimly lighted the dungeon. He
recognized Cimourdain.
"Ah, is that you, master?" he said.
Then he added,--
"I dreamed that Death was kissing my hand."
A sudden influx of thoughts will now and then startle a man, and so it
was with Cimourdain; at times this wave rolls in so tumultuously that
it threatens to submerge the soul. But Cimourdain's deep soul gave
forth no sign; he could but utter the word "Gauvain!"
And the two men stood gazing at each other--Cimourdain's eyes alight
with flames that scorched his tears, Gauvain with his sweetest smile.
Gauvain raised himself on one elbow, and said:--
"That scar I see on your face is the sabre-cut you received in my
stead. It was but yesterday you stood beside me in the mêlée, and all
for my sake. If Providence had not placed you by my cradle, where
should I be to-day? In ignorance. If I have any sense of duty, it is
to you that I owe it. I was born in fetters,--I mean the bonds of
prejudice,--which you have loosened; you promoted my free development,
and from the mummy you have created a child. You have implanted a
conscience in a being who bade fair to prove an abortion. Without you
my growth would have been cramped; it is through your influence that
I live. I was but a lord, you have made of me a citizen; I was only
a citizen, you have made of me a mind; you have fitted me to lead
the life of a man upon the earth, and have shown my soul the way to
heaven. It is you who placed in my hands the key of truth that unlocks
the domain wherein we find the realities of human life, and the key
of light to the realms above. I thank you, my master! To you I owe my
life."
Cimourdain, seating himself on the straw beside Gauvain, said,--
"I have come to sup with you."
Gauvain broke the black bread and offered it to him. After Cimourdain
had taken a piece, Gauvain handed him the jug of water.
"Drink first yourself," said Cimourdain.
Gauvain drank, and then passed the jug to Cimourdain, who drank after
him.
Gauvain had taken but a swallow.
Cimourdain took deep draughts.
During this supper Gauvain ate, and Cimourdain drank,--a proof of the
calmness of the one, and of the burning fever of the other.
A certain awful tranquillity pervaded this dungeon. The two men
conversed.
"Gauvain was saying,--
"Grand events are taking form. No one can comprehend the mysterious
workings of revolution at the present time. Behind the visible
achievement rests the invisible, the one concealing the other. The
visible work seems cruel; the invisible is sublime. At this moment
I can see it all very clearly. It is strange and beautiful. We have
been forced to use the materials of the Past. Hence this wonderful
'93. Beneath a scaffolding of barbarism we are building the temple of
civilization.
"Yes," replied Cimourdain, "these temporary expedients pave the way
for the final adjustment, wherein justice and duty stand side by side,
where taxation will be proportionate and progressive, and military
service compulsory; where there is to be absolute equality in rank; and
where, above all things else, the straight line of the Law is to be
maintained,--the republic of the absolute."
"I prefer the republic of the ideal," said Gauvain.
He broke off, then continued:--
"But, oh, my master, where in the picture you have just drawn in words
do you place devotion, sacrifice, abnegation, the sweet intermingling
of kindliness and love? An accurate adjustment of proportions is a
good thing, but harmony is still better. The lyre stands higher than
the scales. Your republic deals with the material interest of man;
mine transports him to the skies: it is like the difference between a
theorem and an eagle."
"You are lost in the clouds."
"And you in your calculations."
"There is an element of dreaminess in harmony."
"So there is in algebra."
"I would have man fashioned according to Euclid."
"And I like him better as described by Homer."
The stern smile of Cimourdain rested on Gauvain as though to stay the
flight of his soul.
[Illustration 135]
"Poetry. Beware of poets!"
"Yes; that is a familiar warning: beware zephyrs, beware of sunbeams,
beware of perfumes, beware of flowers, beware of the stars."
"That sort of thing can never supply us with food."
"How can you tell? There is mental nourishment: a man finds food in
thought."
"Let us indulge in no abstractions! The republic is like two and two in
mathematics: two and two make four. When I have given to each man his
due--"
"Then your duty is to give him what does not revert to him as a right."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean those mutual concessions which each man owes his neighbor, and
which go to make up the sum of social life."
"There is nothing beyond the just limits of the law."
"Ah, but there is--everything!"
"I see nothing but justice."
"I look higher."
"What stands higher than justice?"
"Equity."
Now and then both paused, as though a sudden light had flashed across
their minds.
Cimourdain continued,--
"Explain your assertion. I challenge you to do it."
"Very well, then. You demand compulsory military service. Against whom?
Against mankind. I object to military service; I would have peace.
You desire to help the wretched; what I wish is the abolition of
their misery. You demand proportionate taxation; I would have no taxes
whatsoever. I would have the public expenses reduced to the lowest
level, and paid for by the social surplus."
"What do you mean by that?"
"This: In the first place, it is for you to suppress sycophancy,--that
of the priest, the soldier, and the judge. Then, use your wealth to
the best advantage; distribute over your furrows all that fertilizing
matter which is now thrown into your sewers. Three quarters of the
soil lies fallow; plough it up; redeem the waste pastures; divide
the communal lands; let each man have a farm, and each farm a man.
You will increase a hundredfold the social product. At the present
time, France affords her peasants meat but four times a year; well
cultivated, she could feed three millions of men, all Europe. Utilize
nature, that gigantic auxiliary; enlist every breeze, every waterfall,
every magnetic current, in your service. This globe has a subterranean
network of veins, through which flows a marvellous circulation of
water, oil, and fire; pierce this vein of the globe, and let the water
feed your fountains, the oil your lamps, and the fire your hearths.
Consider the action of the waves,--the ebb and flow of the tides. What
is the ocean? A prodigious force wasted. How stupid is the earth, to
make no use of the ocean!"
"There you go, in full career with your dreams!"
"You mean with my realities."
Gauvain continued,--
"And woman,--how do you dispose of her?"
Cimourdain replied,--
"Leave her as she is,--the servant of man."
"Yes, under one condition."
"What is that?"
"That man shall be the servant of woman."
"What are you thinking of?" exclaimed Cimourdain. "Man a servant?
Never! Man is the master. I admit but one kingdom,--that of the
fire-side. Man is king in his own home."
"Yes, on one condition."
"What is that?"
"That woman shall be its queen."
"You mean that you demand for both man and woman--"
"Equality."
"'Equality'! Can you dream of such a thing? The two beings are so
entirely unlike!"
"I said equality, not identity."
There was another pause, a sort of truce as it were, between these two
minds exchanging their lightning flashes. Cimourdain broke it.
"And the child? To whose care would you intrust that?"
"First to the father who begets, then to the mother who gives him
birth, later to the master who educates, and to the city that makes a
man of him, then to the country which is his supreme mother, and lastly
to humanity which is his great ancestress."
"You have not mentioned God."
"Each step--father, mother, master, city, country, humanity--is but a
rung in the ladder that leads to God."
Cimourdain was silent, while Gauvain continued:
"When one climbs to the top of the ladder one has reached God. God is
revealed, and one has but to enter into heaven."
Cimourdain made the gesture of one who calls another back: "Gauvain,
return to earth. We want to realize the possible."
"Do not begin then by making it impossible."
"The possible may always be realized."
"Not always. Rough usage destroys Utopia. Nothing is more defenceless
than the egg."
"Still, Utopia must be seized and forced to wear the yoke of reality;
she must be circumscribed by a system of actual facts. The abstract
must be resolved into the concrete: what it loses in beauty it gains
in usefulness; although contracted, it is improved. Justice must enter
into law; and when justice has become law, it is absolute. That is what
I call the possible."
"The possible includes more than that."
"Ah, there you go again, soaring away into the land of dreams!"
"The possible is a mysterious bird, always hovering above the head of
man."
"We must catch it."
"And take it alive too."
Gauvain continued:--
"My idea is this: Ever onward. If God had intended that man should
go backwards He would have given him an eye in the back of his head.
Let us look always towards the dawn, the blossom-time, the hour of
birth. Those things which are falling to decay encourage the new
springing life. In the splitting of the old tree may be heard a
summons to the new one. Each century will do its work,--civic, to-day;
humane, to-morrow: to-day, the question of justice; to-morrow, that of
compensation. Wages and Justice are in point of fact synonymous terms.
Man's life is not to be spent without a suitable compensation. When He
bestows life, God contracts thereby a debt: justice is the inherent
compensation; remuneration is the acquirement thereof."
Gauvain spoke with the calm serenity of a prophet; Cimourdain listened.
The parts were changed, and now it seemed as if it were the pupil who
had become the master.
Cimourdain murmured,--
"You go at a rapid rate."
"Perhaps because I have no time to lose," replied Gauvain with a smile.
He continued:--
"Ah, master, here is the difference between our two utopias. You would
have military service obligatory; I demand the same for education.
You dream of man the soldier; I, of man the citizen. You wish him to
strike terror; I would have him thoughtful. You establish a republic of
swords, while I desire to found--"
He broke off.
"I should like to establish a republic of minds."
Cimourdain looked down on the flag-stones of the dungeon.
"And in the mean time what would you have?" he asked.
"The existing condition of things."
"Then you absolve the present moment."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it is a tempest. A tempest always knows what it is about. For
every oak that is struck by lightning, how many forests are purified!
Civilization has a plague; a strong wind is sent to expel it from the
land. It may not choose its methods wisely, perhaps, but can it do
otherwise? Its task is no light one. Viewing the horror of the miasma,
I can understand the fury of the wind."
Gauvain went on:--
"But what matters the storm to me, if I have a compass; and what power
can events gain over me, if I have my conscience?"
And he added in that undertone which produces so solemn an effect:--
"There is One to whose will we must always yield."
"Who is that?" asked Cimourdain.
Gauvain pointed upwards. Cimourdain looked in the direction of the
uplifted finger, and it seemed to him that he could see the starry sky
through the dungeon vault.
Once more they relapsed into silence.
Cimourdain continued:--
"A supernatural state of society; I tell you it is no longer
possible,--it is a mere dream."
"It is a goal; otherwise, of what use is society? Better remain in a
state of nature; be like the savages. Otaheite is a paradise, only
in that paradise no one thinks. Better an intelligent hell than a
stupid heaven. But, no,--we will have no hell whatever. Let us be a
human society. Super-natural? Yes. But if you are to add nothing to
Nature, why leave her? In that case you may as well content yourself
with work like the ant, and with honey like the bee. Rest content
among the laboring classes, instead of rising to the ranks of superior
intelligence. If you add anything to Nature, you must of necessity rise
above her: to add is to augment; to augment is to increase. Society is
the exaltation of Nature. I would have what bee-hives and ant-hills
lack,--monuments, arts, poetry, heroes, men of genius. To bear eternal
burdens is no fit law for man. No, no, no! let us have no more pariahs,
no more slaves, no more convicts, no more lost souls! I would have
every attribute of man a symbol of civilization and an example of
progress; I would present liberty to the intellect, equality to the
heart, fraternity to the soul. Away with the yoke! Man is not made
for dragging chains, but that he may spread his wings. Let us have no
more of the reptile. Let the larva turn into a butterfly; let the grub
change into a living flower and fly away. I wish--"
He broke off. His eyes shone, his lips moved, he said no more.
The door had remained open. Sounds from without penetrated into the
dungeon. The distant echo of a trumpet reached their ears,--probably
the réveille; then, when the guard was relieved, they heard the
butt-ends of the sentinels' muskets striking the ground; again,
apparently quite near the tower, so far as the darkness allowed one
to judge, a noise like the moving of planks and beams, accompanied
by muffled and intermittent sounds resembling the blows of a hammer.
Cimourdain turned pale as he listened. Gauvain heard nothing. Deeper
and deeper grew his reverie. Hardly did he seem to breathe, so absorbed
was he in the visions of his brain. Now and then he moved, like one
slightly startled. A gathering brightness shone in his eyes, like the
light of dawn.
Some time passed thus.
"Of what are you thinking?" asked Cimourdain.
"Of the future," replied Gauvain.
And he fell back again into his meditation. Unobserved by the latter,
Cimourdain rose from the bed of straw whereon they had both been
sitting. His eyes rested yearningly upon the young dreamer, while he
slowly moved backward towards the door. He went out. The dungeon was
again closed.
[Illustration 136]
VI.
STILL THE SUN RISES
It was not long before day began to dawn on the horizon; and together
with the day there sprang to light upon the plateau of the Tourgue,
above the forest of Fougères, a strange, stationary, and wonderful
object, unfamiliar to the birds of heaven.
It had been placed there during the night,--set up rather than built.
From a distance, against the horizon, it presented a profile composed
of straight and rigid lines, resembling a Hebrew letter, or one of
those Egyptian hieroglyphics which formed part of the alphabet of the
ancient enigma.
The first thought that entered the mind at the sight of this object was
its uselessness. There it stood, among the blossoming heather. Then
came the question, could it be used; and for what purpose? Then came
a shudder. It was a sort of trestle-work, supported by four posts. At
one end were two long upright beams, united at the top by a cross-beam,
from which hung a triangle that looked black against the pale blue
of the morning sky. At the other end of this trestle stood a ladder.
Between these two beams, beneath the triangle, could be distinguished
a sort of panel composed of two movable sections, which, fitting into
one another, offered to the eye a round hole about the size of a man's
neck. The upper section of the panel ran in a groove, by means of which
it could be raised or lowered. For the moment the two semicircles that
formed the collar were drawn apart. At the foot of the two pillars
supporting the triangle was seen a plank that moved on hinges like a
see-saw. Beside the plank stood a long basket, and in front, between
the two posts at the end of the staging, a square one. This object was
painted red, and made entirely of wood, except the triangle, which was
of iron. One might know that it was built by men, so ugly, sordid, and
contemptible did it look; and yet so formidable was it that it might
well have been transported hither by genii.
This shapeless structure was the guillotine.
In front of it, a few paces off, in the ravine, was another monster,
La Tourgue,--a stone monster, companion-piece to the monster of wood.
And let us add, that after wood and stone have been manipulated by man
they lose something of their original substance, taking on a certain
similitude to man himself. A building is a dogma; a machine is an idea.
The Tourgue was that fatal product of the past called in Paris the
Bastille, in England the Tower of London, in Germany the Fortress of
Spielberg, in Spain the Escurial, in Moscow the Kremlin, and in Rome
the Castle of Saint-Angelo.
The Tourgue was the condensation of fifteen hundred years,--the
period of the Middle Ages, with its vassalage, its servitude, and its
feudality. The guillotine showed forth but one year,--'93; but these
twelve months were a fitting counterpoise for those fifteen centuries.
The Tourgue was the personification of monarchy; the guillotine, of
revolution.
A tragic encounter.
On the one hand, the debt; on the other, the requirement thereof. All
the hopeless entanglement of the Gothic period--the serf, the lord,
the slave, the master, the plebeian, the nobility, a complex code
with all the ramifications of practice, the coalition of judge and
priest, the infinite variety of shackles, fiscal duties, the salt-tax,
the mortmain, the poll-tax, the exception, the prerogatives, the
prejudices, the fanaticisms, the royal privilege of bankruptcy, the
sceptre, the throne, the arbitrary will, the divine right--opposed to
that simple thing, a knife.
On one side, a knot; on the other, the axe.
For many a year the Tourgue had stood alone in this desert, and from
its battlements had rained the boiling oil, the burning pitch, and the
melted lead; there it stood, with its dungeons paved with human bones,
its torture-chamber alive with memories of its tragic past. For fifteen
centuries of savage tranquillity its gloomy front had towered above the
shades of the forest; it had been the only power in the land,--the one
thing respected and feared; its reign had been supreme, without a rival
in its wild barbarity, when it suddenly saw rising before it, with an
aspect of hostility, a thing,--nay, more than a thing; a creature as
hideous as itself,--the guillotine.
Stone seems at times endowed with the sense of sight. A statue
observes, a tower watches, the front of a building contemplates. The
Tourgue seemed to be examining the guillotine.
It was as if questioning itself,--
"What can this object be?"
One might fancy it to have sprung from the soil.
And so, indeed, it had.
Like a poisonous tree it had sprouted from a fatal soil. From that soil
so plentifully watered by human sweat, by tears, and by blood, from the
soil wherein men had dug countless graves, tombs, caves, and ambushes,
from the same soil wherein had rotted the innumerable victims of
every kind of tyranny, from that soil covering so great a multitude of
crimes, buried like frightful germs in the depths below, had sprung
forth, on the appointed day, this stranger, this avenging goddess, this
fierce sword-bearing instrument; and '93 cried out to the Old World,--
"Behold me!"
The guillotine had a right to say to the dungeon: "I am thy daughter."
And yet at the same time the keep--for these fatal objects live a
certain obscure life--recognized its own death-warrant.
At the sight of this formidable apparition the Tourgue seemed
bewildered. One might have called it terror. The immense mass of
granite was both majestic and infamous; that plank with its triangle
was still more dreadful. Deposed omnipotence felt a horror of the
rising power. It was criminal history studying judicial history. The
violence of former days was comparing itself with the violence of the
present time; the ancient fortress, both the prison and the dwelling
of the lords, where the tortured victims had shrieked aloud, this
structure devoted to war and murder, now useless and defenceless,
violated, dismantled, discrowned, a pile of stones no better than a
heap of cinders, hideous to look upon, magnificent in death, dizzy with
the vertigo of those terrible centuries, stood watching the passage of
the awful living hour. Yesterday shuddered in the presence of To-day.
The old ferocity beheld and did homage to the new terror, and that
which was mere Nothingness unclosed its spectral eyes before the
Terror, and the phantom gazed upon the ghost. Nature is pitiless; she
never withholds her flowers, her melodies, her perfumes, her sunbeams,
from human abominations. She overwhelms man by the contrast between
divine beauty and social ugliness; she spares him nothing, neither the
wing of butterfly, nor song of bird; on the verge of murder, in the
act of vengeance or barbarity, she brings him face to face with those
holy things; nowhere can he escape the eternal reproach of universal
benevolence and the implacable serenity of the sky. Human law in all
its hideous deformity must stand forth naked in the presence of the
eternal radiance. Man breaks and crushes, lays waste, destroys; but the
summer, the lily, and the star remain ever the same.
Never had the fair sky of early dawn seemed lovelier than on that
morning. A soft breeze stirred the heather, the mist floated lightly
among the branches, the forest of Fougères, suffused with the breath
of running brooks, smoked in the dawn like a gigantic censer filled
with incense; the blue sky, the snowy clouds, the clear transparency
of the streams, the verdure, with its harmonious scale of color, from
the aqua-marine to the emerald, the social groups of trees, the grassy
glades, the far-reaching plains,--all revealed that purity which is
Nature's eternal precept unto man. In the midst of all this appeared
the awful depravity of man; there stood the fortress and the scaffold,
war and punishment, the two representatives of this sanguinary epoch
and moment, the screech-owl of the gloomy night of the Past and the bat
of the twilight of the Future. In the presence of a world all flowery
and fragrant, tender and charming, the glorious sky bathed both the
Tourgue and the guillotine with the light of dawn, as though it said to
man: "Behold my work, and yours."
The sun wields a formidable weapon in its light.
This spectacle had its spectators.
The four thousand men of the expeditionary army were drawn up on the
plateau in battle array. They surrounded the guillotine on three sides,
forming themselves around it after a geometrical fashion in the shape
of the letter E; the battery placed against the centre of the longest
line made the notch of the E. The red machine was, if we may so express
it, shut in by these three battle fronts, a wall of soldiers, extending
in a sort of coil and spreading as far as the edge of the escarpment of
the plateau; the fourth side, left open, was the ravine itself, which
looked upon the Tourgue.
This formed an oblong square, in the centre of which stood the
scaffold. The shadow cast upon the grass by the guillotine lessened as
the sun rose. The gunners with lighted matches stood by their pieces. A
faint blue smoke curled upward from the ravine,--the last breath of the
dying fire on the bridge.
This smoke obscured without veiling the Tourgue, whose lofty platform
overlooked the entire horizon. Only the width of the ravine separated
the platform from the guillotine, and voices could easily have been
heard between them.
The table of the tribunal and the chair shaded by the tricolored
flags had been conveyed to this platform. The sun rising behind the
Tourgue brought into relief the black mass of the fortress, and upon
its summit, seated on the chair of the tribunal, beneath the group
of flags, the figure of a man, motionless, his arms crossed upon his
breast.
This man was Cimourdain. He wore, as on the previous evening, his civil
delegate's uniform, a hat with the tricolored cockade upon his head, a
sabre by his side, and pistols in his belt.
He was silent. The entire assembly was silent likewise. The soldiers,
their eyes downcast, stood at order-arms. They touched elbows, but no
one spoke. They were thinking vaguely about this war,--the numerous
battles, the hedge fusillades so valiantly faced, of the hosts of
furious peasants scattered by their prowess, the citadels conquered,
the engagements won, the victories; and now it seemed as though all
this glory were turned to their shame. A gloomy expectation oppressed
every breast. They could see the executioner walking up and down the
platform of the guillotine. The growing light of day deepened until it
filled the sky with its majestic presence.
Suddenly was heard that muffled sound peculiar to crape-covered drums;
nearer and nearer came their funereal roll; the ranks opened, and the
procession, entering the square, moved towards the scaffold.
First came the black' drums, then a company of grenadiers with lowered
muskets, then a platoon of gendarmes with drawn sabres, then the
prisoner, Gauvain.
Gauvain walked without constraint. Neither hands nor feet were bound.
He was in undress uniform, and wore his sword.
Behind him marched another platoon of gendarmes.
The same pensive joy that had lighted his face when he said to
Cimourdain, "I am thinking of the future," still rested upon it.
Nothing could be more sublime and touching than this continued smile.
When he reached the fatal spot, his first glance was turned to the
summit of the tower. He disdained the guillotine. He knew that
Cimourdain would feel it his duty to be present at the execution; his
eyes sought him on the platform and found him there.
Cimourdain was ghastly pale and cold. Even those who stood nearest
heard no sound of his breathing.
When he caught sight of Gauvain not a quiver passed over his face; and
yet he knew that every step brought him nearer to the scaffold.
As he advanced, Gauvain looked at Cimourdain, and Cimourdain looked at
him. It seemed as though Cimourdain found support in that glance.
Gauvain reached the foot of the scaffold. He ascended it, followed by%
the officer in command of the grenadiers. He unbelted his sword and
handed it to this officer; then he loosened his cravat and gave it to
the headsman. He was like a vision. Never had he looked more beautiful:
his brown locks floated in the wind (at that time they did not cut the
hair of those about to be executed); his fair throat reminded one of
a woman's; his heroic and commanding expression gave the idea of an
arch-angel. He stood upon the scaffold, lost in reverie. There, too,
was a height. Gauvain stood upon it stately and calm. The sun streamed
about him, crowning him, as it were, with a halo. Still, the prisoner
must be bound. Rope in hand, the executioner advanced.
At that moment, when the soldiers saw their young leader so near the
knife, they could no longer restrain themselves; the hearts of those
warriors burst forth. Then was heard a startling sound,--the sobs of
an entire army. A clamor arose: "Mercy! mercy!" Some fell on their
knees, others threw down their muskets, stretching their arms towards
the platform where Cimourdain stood. One grenadier, pointing to the
guillotine, cried, "Here I am; will you not take me as a substitute?"
All repeated frantically, "Mercy! mercy!" The very lions would have
been moved or terrified; for the tears of soldiers are terrible.
The headsman paused, uncertain what to do.
Then a voice, quick and low, and yet in its ominous severity distinctly
heard by all, cried from the top of the tower,--
"Execute the law!"
They recognized the inexorable tone. Cimourdain had spoken. The army
shuddered.
The executioner hesitated no longer. He moved forward, holding out the
cord.
"Wait," said Gauvain.
And turning towards Cimourdain, he waved his free right hand in token
of farewell; then he allowed himself to be bound.
When he was tied he said to the executioner,--
"Pardon,--one moment more. Long live the Republic!" he cried.
He was laid upon the plank. The infamous collar clasped that charming
and noble head. The executioner gently lifted his hair, then pressed
the spring; the triangle detached itself, gliding first slowly, then
rapidly: a frightful blow was heard.
At the same instant another report sounded; the stroke of the axe
was answered by a pistol-shot. Cimourdain had just seized one of the
pistols that he wore in his belt; and as Gauvain's head rolled into the
basket, Cimourdain sent a bullet through his own heart. A stream of
blood gushed from his mouth, and he fell dead.
Thus these twin souls, united in the tragic death, rose together,--the
shadow of the one blending with the radiance of the other.
[Illustration 137]
THE END.