_Done into English by the Editor_
On the twenty-second of January, 1793, about eight o’clock in the
evening, an old lady was walking down the steep hill that ends in front
of the church of Saint Laurent, in the Faubourg Saint Martin in Paris.
It had snowed so much throughout the day that foot-falls could scarcely
be heard. The streets were deserted. The very natural dread inspired
by the silence was augmented by all the terror which at that time
caused France to groan; then, too, the old lady had not as yet met any
one; her sight had long been feeble, so for this and for other reasons
she could not discern by the lights of the lanterns the few distant
passers-by, who were scattered like phantoms on the broad highway of
the quarter. She went on courageously alone through that solitude, as
though her age were a talisman which would preserve her from all evil.
When she had passed the rue des Morts, she thought she could
distinguish the heavy and resolute steps of a man walking behind her.
She fancied that she had heard that sound before; she was frightened
at having been followed, and tried to walk more rapidly in order to
reach a brightly lighted shop, hoping to be able in the light to settle
the suspicions that had seized her. As soon as she found herself within
the direct rays of light which came from the shop, she quickly turned
her head and glimpsed a human form in the haze; that indistinct vision
sufficed. She faltered a moment under the weight of the terror which
oppressed her, for she doubted no longer that she had been followed
by the stranger from the first step that she had taken outside of her
home, but the desire to escape from a spy lent her strength. Incapable
of reasoning, she doubled her pace, as though she could escape from
a man who was, necessarily, more agile than she. After running for
several minutes she reached the shop of a pastry-cook, rushed in, and
tumbled rather than sat down upon a chair in front of the counter.
The moment she rattled the door-latch, a young woman who was occupied
in embroidering raised her eyes, recognized through the glass
partition the old-fashioned mantle of violet silk in which the old
lady was enveloped, and hastened to open a drawer, as though to take
out something which she intended to give her. Not only did the young
woman’s movement and expression indicate a wish to be rid promptly of
the unknown, as if she were one of those persons whom one is not glad
to see, but she even allowed an expression of impatience to escape her
upon finding that the drawer was empty; then, without looking at the
lady, she rushed from the counter, turned toward the back shop, and
called her husband, who appeared immediately.
“Now, where did you put--,” she demanded of him, with a mysterious air,
and designated the old lady by a turn of the eye, without finishing her
sentence.
Although the pastry-cook could see only the immense black silk bonnet,
surrounded by knots of violet ribbons, which formed the head-dress
of the unknown, he turned away, after having given his wife a look
which seemed to say, “Did you suppose that I would leave _that_ on
your counter?” and quickly disappeared. Astounded by the old lady’s
silence and immobility, the tradeswoman walked toward her, and as she
examined her she was conscious of a feeling of compassion, and perhaps
also of curiosity. Although the stranger’s complexion was naturally
pallid, like that of a person vowed to secret austerities, it was easy
to recognize that some recent emotion had given her an extraordinary
pallor. Her head-dress was so disposed as to hide her hair--doubtless
whitened by age, since the neatness of the collar of her dress
proclaimed that she did not use hair-powder. That article of adornment
lent to her figure a sort of religious severity. Her features were
grave and dignified. Formerly the manners and the habitudes of people
of quality were so different from those of people belonging to the
other classes that one easily divined a person of the nobility. So the
young woman was herself persuaded that the unknown was a member of the
outlawed nobility, and that she had belonged to the court.
“Madame--” she said to her, involuntarily, and with respect, forgetting
that this title was proscribed.
The old lady did not respond. She held her eyes fixed upon the window
of the shop, as if some terrifying object had there been descried.
“What is the matter, Citizeness?” asked the proprietor of the shop who
reappeared at that moment.
The citizen pastry-cook aroused the lady from her revery by handing to
her a little pasteboard box, covered with blue paper.
“Nothing, nothing, my friends,” she replied in a mild voice.
She raised her eyes to the pastry-cook as though to cast upon him a
glance of gratitude; but upon seeing him with a red bonnet upon his
head, she allowed a cry to escape her:
“Ah! you have betrayed me!”
The young woman and her husband replied by a gesture of horror which
caused the Unknown to blush--perhaps for having suspicion, perhaps from
pleasure.
“Excuse me,” she said, with a childlike gentleness.
Then, taking a _louis d’or_ from her pocket, she presented it to the
pastry-cook.
“Here is the price agreed upon,” she added.
There is an indigence which the poor know how to divine. The
pastry-cook and his wife looked at each other and watched the old lady,
while they exchanged the same thought. That _louis d’or_ seemed to
be the last. The hands of the lady trembled in offering that piece,
which she looked upon with sadness and without avarice, for she seemed
to realize the full extent of the sacrifice. Fasting and misery were
graven upon that face in lines quite as legible as those of fear and
her habits of asceticism. There were in her garments some vestiges
of magnificence: the silk was threadbare, the cloak neat though
old-fashioned, the lace carefully mended--in short, the tatters of
opulence! The tradespeople, placed between pity and self-interest,
commenced to solace their consciences by words:
“But Citizeness, you seem very feeble--”
“Perhaps Madame would like to take some refreshment?” asked the woman,
cutting the words of her husband short.
“We are not so black as we are painted!” cried the pastry-cook.
“It’s so cold! Madame was perhaps chilled by her walk? But you may rest
here and warm yourself a little.”
Won by the tone of benevolence which animated the words of the
charitable shopkeepers, the lady avowed that she had been followed by a
stranger, and that she was afraid to return home alone.
“It is no more than that?” replied the man with the red hat. “Wait for
me, Citizeness.”
He gave the _louis_ to his wife; then, moved by that species of
restitution which glides into the conscience of a merchant when he has
received an exorbitant price for merchandise of mediocre value, he went
to put on his uniform of the National Guard, took his chapeau, thrust
his sabre into his belt, and reappeared under arms; but his wife had
had time to reflect. As in many other hearts, reflection closed the
hand opened by beneficence. Disturbed, and fearing to see her husband
in a bad affair, the pastry-cook’s wife essayed to stop him by tugging
at the skirt of his coat. But, obedient to a sentiment of charity, the
brave man offered to escort the old lady at once.
“It seems that the man who frightened the Citizeness is still prowling
about the shop,” said the young woman nervously.
“I am afraid so,” artlessly replied the lady.
“If he should be a spy! If it should be a conspiracy! Don’t go; and
take back from her the box.”
These words, breathed into the ear of the pastry-cook by his wife,
froze the impromptu courage which had possessed him.
“Eh’ I’ll just go out and say two words to him, and rid you of him
quickly,” cried the pastry-cook, opening the door and rushing out.
The old lady, passive as an infant, and almost dazed, reseated herself
upon the chair. The honest merchant was not slow in reappearing; his
face, naturally red, and still more flushed by the heat of his oven,
had suddenly become livid; such a great fright agitated him that his
legs trembled and his eyes looked like those of a drunken man.
“Do you wish to have our heads cut off, miserable aristocrat?” he
shrieked at her with fury. “Just show us your heels, never come back
here again, and don’t count any more on me to furnish you the stuff
for conspiracy.”
As he ejaculated these words, the pastry-cook tried to take from the
old lady the little box which she had put in one of her pockets. But
scarcely had the bold hands of the pastry-cook touched her vestments
than the Unknown, preferring to face the dangers of her way home
without other defense than God, rather than to lose that which she had
come to purchase, recovered the agility of her youth; she darted toward
the door, opened it abruptly, and disappeared before the eyes of the
stupefied and trembling woman and her husband.
As soon as the Unknown found herself outside, she began walking
rapidly; but her strength soon failed her, for she heard the spy by
whom she was pitilessly followed make the snow craunch under the
pressure of his heavy steps. She was obliged to stop--he stopped. She
dared neither to speak to him nor to look at him, whether on account
of the fear with which she was seized or from lack of intelligence.
She continued her way, walking slowly; thereupon the man slackened
his steps so as to remain standing at a distance which permitted him
to keep his eye upon her. He seemed to be the very shadow of that
old woman. Nine o’clock was striking when the silent couple repassed
in front of the church of Saint Laurent. It is in the nature of all
souls, even the most infirm, that a feeling of calm should succeed
one of violent agitation, for if our feelings are infinite, our
organs are limited. And so the Unknown, not experiencing any harm
from her supposed persecutor, chose to see in him a secret friend,
eager to protect her. She reconstructed all the circumstances which
had accompanied the Stranger’s appearances, as if to find plausible
arguments for that consoling opinion, and she then took pleasure in
recognizing in him good rather than evil intentions.
Forgetting the fright which that man had inspired in the pastry-cook,
she advanced with a firm step into the higher regions of the Faubourg
Saint-Martin. After a half-hour of walking, she reached a house
situated near the junction formed by the main street of the Faubourg
and that which leads to the Barrière de Pantin. Even to-day that spot
is one of the most deserted of all Paris. The north wind, passing over
the Buttes Chaumont and from Bellville, whistles athwart the houses, or
rather the hovels, scattered about in that almost uninhabited valley
where the dividing lines are walls made of earth and bones. That
desolate place seemed to be the natural asylum of misery and despair.
The man who had persisted in the pursuit of the poor creature who
had the hardihood to traverse those silent streets at night seemed
impressed by the spectacle presented to his eyes. He rested pensively,
standing and in an attitude of hesitation, in the feeble light of a
lantern whose uncertain rays with difficulty pierced the mist.
Fear gave eyes to the old woman, who fancied that she could perceive
something sinister in the features of the Stranger. She felt her
terrors reawake, and profited by the sort of uncertainty which had
retarded the man’s advance to glide in the darkness toward the door of
the lonely house. She pressed a spring, and disappeared like a ghost.
The Stranger, immobile, contemplated that house, which stood in some
sort as the type of the miserable habitations of the quarter. That
rickety hovel, built of rubble, was covered by a coat of yellow
plaster, so deeply cracked that one thought to see it tumble before
the least effort of the wind. The roof, of brown tiles and covered
with moss, had so sunk in several places as to make it seem likely
to give way under the weight of the snow. Each floor there had three
windows, whose sashes, rotted by dampness and disjointed by the action
of the sun, announced that the cold must penetrate into the room. That
isolated house resembled an old tower which time had forgotten to
destroy. A feeble light shone through the windows which irregularly
cleft the mansard roof by which the poor edifice was crowned, while
all the rest of the house was in complete obscurity. The old woman
climbed, not without difficulty, the steep and rough staircase, whose
length was supplied with a rope in the guise of a baluster. She knocked
mysteriously at the door of the apartment which she found in the attic,
and dropped hastily upon a chair which an old man offered her.
“Hide! hide yourself!” she said to him. “Although we go out very
rarely, our movements are known, our footsteps are spied upon.”
“What is there new in that?” demanded another old lady, seated beside
the fire.
“The man who has been prowling around the house since yesterday
followed me to-night.”
At these words the three occupants of the attic regarded one another,
allowing signs of profound terror to appear on their faces. The old
man was the least agitated of the three, perhaps because he was in the
greatest danger. Under the weight of a great calamity, or under the
yoke of persecution, a courageous man begins, so to say, by making the
sacrifice of himself; he looks upon his days as just so many victories
won back from destiny. The looks of the two women, fastened upon this
old man, made it easy to divine that he was the sole object of their
intense solicitude.
“Why despair of God, my sisters?” said he in a voice low but
impressive. “We sang His praises amid the cries which the assassins
raised, and the groans of the dying at the Carmelite convent. If He
decreed that I should be saved from that butchery, it was doubtless
in order to reserve me for a destiny which I must accept without
murmuring. God protects his own, He may dispose of them at His
pleasure. It is of you, and not of me, that we must think.”
“No,” said one of the old ladies; “what are our lives in comparison
with that of a priest?”
“When once I found myself outside of the Abbey of Chelles, I considered
myself as dead,” said that one of the two nuns who had not gone out.
“Here,” replied the one who had come in, handing the priest the little
box, “here are the wafers.... But,” she cried, “I hear some one
mounting the stairs!”
All three thereupon listened intently. The sounds ceased.
“Do not be affrighted,” said the priest, “if some one should essay to
enter. A person upon whose fidelity we can count has undoubtedly taken
all needful measures to pass the frontier, and will come to seek the
letters which I have written to the Duc de Langeais and to the Marquis
de Beauséant, asking them to consider the means of rescuing you from
this terrible country, from the death or the misery which awaits you
here.”
“You do not mean to go with us, then?” cried the two nuns gently,
manifesting a sort of despair.
“My place is where there are victims,” said the priest with simplicity.
They remained silent, and gazed at their companion with devout
admiration.
“Sister Martha,” he said, addressing the nun who had gone to get the
wafers, “that messenger I speak of will reply ‘_Fiat voluntas_’ to the
word ‘_Hosanna_.’”
“There is some one on the stairs!” cried the other nun, opening the
door of a hiding-place under the roof.
This time they could easily hear, amid the most profound silence,
the footsteps of a man resounding upon the stairs, whose treads were
covered with ridges made by the hardened mud. The priest crept with
difficulty into a species of cupboard, and the nun threw over him some
garments.
“You may close the door, Sister Agatha,” said he in a muffled voice.
The priest was scarcely hidden before three taps on the door gave a
shock to the two saintly women, who consulted each other with their
eyes, without daring to pronounce a single word. They each seemed to be
about sixty years old. Separated from the world for forty years, they
were like plants habituated to the air of a hothouse, which wilt if
they are taken from it. Accustomed to the life of a convent, they were
no longer able to conceive of any other. One morning, their grating
having been shattered, they shuddered to find themselves free. One can
easily imagine the species of artificial imbecility which the events
of the Revolution had produced in their innocent hearts. Incapable of
reconciling their conventual ideas with the difficulties of life, and
not even comprehending their situation, they resembled those children
who have been zealously cared for hitherto, and who, abandoned by
their motherly protector, pray instead of weeping. And so, in face of
the danger which they apprehended at that moment, they remained mute
and passive, having no conception of any other defense than Christian
resignation.
The man who desired to enter interpreted that silence in his own
manner. He opened the door and appeared suddenly before them. The two
nuns shuddered as they recognized the man who for some time had been
prowling about their house and making inquiries about them. They
remained stock-still, but gazed at him with anxious curiosity, after
the manner of savage children, who examine strangers in silence.
The man was tall and large; but nothing in his demeanor, in his
air, nor in his physiognomy indicated an evil man. He imitated the
immobility of the nuns, and moved his eyes slowly about the room in
which he found himself.
Two straw mats, laid upon boards, served the two nuns as beds. A single
table was in the middle of the room and upon it they had placed a
copper candlestick, a few plates, three knives, and a round loaf of
bread. The fire on the hearth was meagre. A few sticks of wood piled in
a corner attested the poverty of the two recluses. The walls, coated
with an ancient layer of paint, proved the bad state of the roof, for
stains like brown threads marked the infiltrations of the rainwater.
A relic, rescued doubtless from the pillage of the Abbey of Chelles,
adorned the chimney mantel. Three chairs, two coffers, and a wretched
chest of drawers completed the furniture of the room. A door beside the
chimney allowed one to conjecture the existence of a second chamber.
The inventory of the cell was speedily made by the person who had
thrust himself under such alarming auspices into the midst of that
group. A sentiment of commiseration painted itself upon his face, and
he cast a benevolent glance upon the two women, at least as embarrassed
as they. The singular silence preserved by all three lasted but a
short time, for the Stranger at last divined the moral simplicity and
the inexperience of the two poor creatures, and he said to them in
a voice which he tried to soften: “I do not come here as an enemy,
Citizenesses.”
He paused, and then resumed: “My sisters, if there should come to you
any misfortune, believe that I have not contributed to it.... I have a
favor to ask of you.”
They still maintained their silence.
“If I seem importunate, if ... I embarrass you, tell me so freely....
I will go; but understand that I am entirely devoted to you; that if
there is any good office that I am able to render you, you may employ
me without fear; and that I alone, perhaps, am above the law, since
there is no longer a king.”
There was such an accent of truth in these words that Sister Agatha,
the one of the two nuns who belonged to the family of Langeais,
and whose manners seemed to say that she had formerly known the
magnificence of fêtes and had breathed the air of the court, instantly
pointed to one of the chairs, as if to ask their guest to be seated.
The Stranger manifested a sort of joy mingled with sadness as he
recognized that gesture; and he waited until the two venerable women
were seated, before seating himself.
“You have given shelter,” he continued, “to a venerable unsworn priest,
who has miraculously escaped the massacre at the Carmelites.”
“_Hosanna!_” said Sister Agatha, interrupting the Stranger, and gazing
at him with anxious inquiry.
“I don’t think that is his name,” he replied.
“But, monsieur,” said Sister Martha hastily, “we haven’t any priest
here, and----”
“In that case, you must be more careful and more prudent,” retorted the
Stranger gently, reaching to the table and taking up a breviary. “I do
not believe that you understand Latin, and----”
He did not continue, for the extraordinary emotion depicted on the
faces of the two poor nuns made him feel that he had gone too far; they
were trembling, and their eyes were filled with tears.
“Reassure yourselves,” he said to them in a cheery voice; “I know the
name of your guest, and yours; and three days ago I was informed of
your destination and of your devotion to the venerable Abbé of----”
“_Chut!_” said Sister Agatha naïvely, putting her finger to her lips.
“You see, my sisters, that if I had formed the horrible design of
betraying you, I might already have accomplished it more than once.”
When he heard these words, the priest emerged from his prison and
reappeared in the middle of the room.
“I cannot believe, monsieur,” he said to the Stranger, “that you can be
one of our persecutors, and I have faith in you. What do you want of
me?”
The saintlike confidence of the priest, the nobility that shone in
all his features, would have disarmed assassins. The mysterious
personage who had enlivened that scene of misery and resignation gazed
for a moment at the group formed by these three; then he assumed a
confidential tone, and addressed the priest in these words:
“Father, I have come to implore you to celebrate a mortuary mass for
the repose of the soul of a--a consecrated person, whose body, however,
will never repose in holy ground.”
The priest involuntarily shuddered. The two nuns, not understanding as
yet of whom the Stranger was speaking, stood with necks outstretched,
and faces turned towards the two speakers in an attitude of curiosity.
The ecclesiastic scrutinized the Stranger; unfeigned anxiety was
depicted upon his face, and his eyes expressed the most ardent
supplication.
“Very well,” replied the priest; “to-night, at midnight, return, and I
shall be ready to celebrate the only funeral service which we can offer
in expiation of the crime of which you speak.”
The Stranger started; but a satisfaction, at once gentle and solemn,
seemed to triumph over some secret grief. After having respectfully
saluted the priest and the two holy women, he disappeared, manifesting
a sort of mute gratitude which was comprehended by those three noble
hearts.
About two hours after this scene the Stranger returned, knocked
discreetly at the attic door, and was admitted by Mademoiselle de
Beauséant, who conducted him into the second room of that modest
retreat, where everything had been prepared for the ceremony.
Between the flues of the chimney the two nuns had carried the old
chest of drawers, whose decrepit outlines were concealed beneath a
magnificent altar-cloth of green moiré silk. A large crucifix of
ebony and ivory was fastened upon the yellow wall, which served to
emphasize its nakedness, and irresistibly drew the eye. Four little
fluttering wax-tapers, which the sisters had succeeded in fixing upon
that improvised altar by means of sealing wax, threw a light pale and
sickly, which was reflected by the wall. That feeble glow scarcely
illuminated the rest of the room, but by shedding its glory only over
those holy things upon that unadorned altar, it seemed a ray from the
torch of heaven. The floor was damp. The roof, which on two sides
declined abruptly, as in a loft, had several cracks, through which
passed an icy wind.
Nothing displayed less pomp, and yet perhaps nothing could have been
more solemn than that sad ceremony.
A profound silence that would have permitted them to hear the faintest
sound on distant thoroughfares diffused a sort of sombre majesty over
that nocturnal scene. In short, the grandeur of the occasion contrasted
so strongly with the poverty of the surroundings that the result was a
sentiment of religious awe. On either side of the altar, the two old
nuns, kneeling on the damp floor, heedless of the deadly moisture,
prayed in concert with the priest, who, clad in his pontifical
vestments, prepared a golden chalice ornamented with precious stones,
a consecrated vessel rescued doubtless from the pillage of the Abbey
of Chelles. Beside that pyx, a monument of royal magnificence, were
the water and wine destined for the sacrament, contained in two
glasses scarcely worthy of the lowest tavern. In default of a missal,
the priest had placed his breviary on a corner of the altar. A common
plate was provided for the washing of those innocent hands, pure of
bloodshed. All was majestic, and yet paltry; poor, but noble; profane
and holy at the same time. The Stranger knelt piously between the two
nuns. But suddenly, when he noticed a band of crape on the chalice and
on the crucifix--for, having nothing to indicate the purpose of that
mortuary mass, the priest had draped God Himself in mourning--he was
assailed by such an overpowering memory that drops of sweat gathered
upon his broad forehead. The four silent actors in that scene gazed at
one another mysteriously; then their hearts, acting upon one another,
communicated their sentiments to one another and flowed together into a
single religious commiseration; it was as if their thoughts had evoked
the martyr whose remains had been devoured by quicklime, and whose
shade stood before them in all its royal majesty. They celebrated an
_obit_ without the body of the deceased. Beneath those disjointed tiles
and laths, four Christians had come to intercede before God for a king
of France, and perform his obsequies without a bier. It was the purest
of all possible devotions, an astounding act of fidelity, accomplished
without a selfish thought. Doubtless, in the eyes of God, it was like
the cup of cold water which balances the greatest virtues. The whole of
monarchy was there, in the prayers of a priest and of two poor women;
but perhaps also the Revolution was represented, by that man whose face
betrayed too much remorse not to cause a belief that he was fulfilling
the vows of an immense repentance.
In lieu of pronouncing the Latin words, “_Introibo ad altare Dei_,”
etc., the priest, by a divine inspiration, looked at the three
assistants who represented Christian France, and said to them, in order
to efface the poverty of that wretched place:
“We are about to enter into the sanctuary of God!”
At these words, uttered with an impressive unction, a holy awe
seized the assistant and the two nuns. Beneath the arches of St.
Peter’s at Rome God could not have appeared with more majesty than
He then appeared in that asylum of poverty, before the eyes of those
Christians; so true is it that between man and Him every intermediary
seems useless, and that He derives His grandeur from Himself alone.
The fervor of the Stranger was genuine, and so the sentiment which
united the prayers of those four servitors of God and the king was
unanimous. The sacred words rang out like celestial music amid the
silence. There was a moment when tears choked the Stranger; it was
during the paternoster. The priest added to it this Latin prayer, which
was evidently understood by the Stranger: “_Et remitte scelus regicidis
sicut Ludovicus eis remisit semetipse!_ (And pardon the guilt of the
regicides even as Louis himself forgave them!)”
The two nuns saw two great tears leave a humid trace adown the manly
cheeks of the Stranger, and fall upon the floor. The Office for the
Dead was recited. The _Domine salvum fac regem_, chanted in a deep
voice, touched the hearts of those faithful royalists, who reflected
that the infant king, for whom at that moment they were supplicating
the Most High, was a prisoner in the hands of his enemies. The Stranger
shuddered at the thought that there might yet be committed a new crime,
in which he would doubtless be forced to participate. When the funeral
service was terminated, the priest made a sign to the two nuns, who
retired. As soon as he found himself alone with the Stranger, he walked
towards him with a mild and melancholy expression, and said to him in a
paternal voice:
“My son, if you have dipped your hands in the blood of the martyr
king, confess yourself to me. There is no sin which, in the eyes of
God, may not be effaced by repentance as touching and sincere as yours
seems to be.”
At the first words pronounced by the ecclesiastic, the Stranger allowed
an involuntary movement of terror to escape him; but he resumed a calm
countenance, and regarded the astonished priest with assurance.
“Father,” he said to him in a perceptibly altered voice, “no one is
more innocent than I of bloodshed.”
“I am bound to believe you,” said the priest.
There was a pause, during which he examined his penitent more closely;
then, persisting in taking him for one of those timid members of the
Convention who sacrificed an inviolable and consecrated head in order
to preserve their own, he continued in a solemn voice:
“Remember, my son, that it is not enough, in order to be absolved
from that great crime, not to have actually taken part in it. Those
who, when they might have defended the king, left their swords in the
scabbard, will have a very heavy account to render before the King of
the Heavens.... Ah, yes!” added the old priest, shaking his head with
an expressive movement, “yes, very heavy; for, by remaining idle, they
became the involuntary accomplices of that hideous crime.”
“Do you think,” demanded the stupefied Stranger, “that an indirect
participation will be punished?... The soldier who is ordered to join
the shooting-squad, is he also culpable?”
The priest hesitated. Pleased with the dilemma in which he had placed
that puritan of royalty by planting him between the dogma of passive
obedience, which, according to the partisans of monarchy, dominates
the military codes, and the no less important dogma which consecrates
the respect due to the persons of kings, the Stranger was ready to see
in the hesitation of the priest a favorable solution of the doubts
by which he seemed to be tormented. Then, in order not to allow the
venerable Jansenist any more time to reflect, he said to him:
“I should blush to offer you any sort of compensation for the funeral
service which you have celebrated for the repose of the king’s soul
and for the relief of my conscience. One cannot pay for an inestimable
thing except by an offering which is also priceless. Deign, then,
monsieur, to accept the gift of a blessed relic which I offer you. A
day will come, perhaps, when you will understand its value.”
As he said these words, the Stranger handed the ecclesiastic a small
box of light weight; the priest took it involuntarily, so to speak,
for the solemnity of the man’s words, the tone in which he said them,
and the respect with which he handled the box, had plunged him into a
profound surprise. They then returned to the room where the two nuns
were awaiting them.
“You are,” said the Stranger, “in a house whose owner, Mucius Scaevola,
the plasterer who occupies the first floor, is celebrated throughout
the section for his patriotism; but he is secretly attached to the
Bourbons. He used to be a huntsman of Monseigneur the Prince of Conti,
and to him he owes his fortune. If you do not go out of his house,
you are in greater safety here than in any place else in France. Stay
here. Devout hearts will attend to your necessities, and you may await
without danger less evil times. A year hence, on the twenty-first of
January”--(in uttering these words he could not conceal an involuntary
movement)--“if you continue to adopt this dismal place of asylum, I
will return to celebrate with you the expiatory mass.”
He said no more. He bowed to the silent occupants of the attic, cast a
last glance upon the evidences which testified of their indigence, and
went away.
To the two innocent nuns, such an adventure had all the interest of
a romance; and so, as soon as the venerable abbé informed them of the
mysterious gift so solemnly bestowed upon him by that man, the box
was placed upon the table and the three faces, unquiet, dimly lighted
by the candle, betrayed an indescribable curiosity. Mademoiselle de
Langeais opened the box, and found therein a handkerchief of very
fine linen, drenched with perspiration; and, on unfolding it, they
recognized stains.
“It is blood!” said the priest.
“It is marked with the royal crown!” cried the other nun.
The two sisters dropped the precious relic with horror. To those two
naïve souls the mystery in which the Stranger was enveloped became
altogether inexplicable; and as for the priest, from that day he did
not even seek an explanation.
The three prisoners were not slow in perceiving that in spite of the
Terror a powerful arm was stretched over them.
In the first place, they received some wood and some provisions; then
the two nuns realized that a woman must be associated with their
protector, when some one sent them linen and clothing which enabled
them to go out without being remarked on account of the aristocratic
fashion of the garments which they had been forced to retain; and
lastly, Mucius Scaevola gave them two cards of citizenship. Often,
advice necessary to the priest’s safety reached him by devious ways;
and he found this advice so opportune that it could have been given
only by one initiated in secrets of state.
Despite the famine which prevailed in Paris, the outcasts found at
the door of their lodging rations of white bread which were regularly
brought there by invisible hands; nevertheless, they believed that
they could recognize in Mucius Scaevola the mysterious agent of that
benefaction, which was always as ingenious as it was discerning. The
noble occupants of the attic could not doubt that their protector was
the person who had come to ask the priest to celebrate the expiatory
mass on the night of the twenty-second of January, 1793; so that he
became the object of a peculiar cult of worship to those three beings,
who had no hope except in him, and lived only through him. They had
added special prayers for him to their devotions; night and morning
those pious hearts lifted their voices for his happiness, for his
prosperity, for his health, and supplicated God to deliver him from
all snares, to deliver him from his enemies, and to accord him a long
and peaceable life. Their gratitude, renewed every day, so to speak,
was necessarily accompanied by a sentiment of curiosity which became
more lively from day to day. The circumstances which had accompanied
the appearance of the Stranger were the subject of their conversations;
they formed a thousand conjectures regarding him, and the diversion
afforded them by their thoughts of him was a benefaction of a new kind.
They promised themselves not to allow the Stranger to evade their
friendship on the evening when he should return, according to his
promise, to commemorate the sad anniversary of the death of Louis XVI.
That night, so impatiently awaited, came at last. At midnight the sound
of the Stranger’s heavy steps was heard on the old wooden staircase;
the room had been arrayed to receive him, the altar was dressed. This
time the sisters opened the door beforehand and both pressed forward to
light the stairway. Mademoiselle de Langeais even went down a few steps
in order to see her benefactor the sooner.
“Come,” she said to him in a tremulous and affectionate voice, “come,
we are waiting for you.”
The man raised his head, cast a sombre glance upon the nun, and made
no reply. She felt as if a garment of ice had fallen upon her, and
she said no more; at his aspect the gratitude and curiosity expired
in all their hearts. He was perhaps less cold, less taciturn, less
terrible, than he appeared to those hearts, the exaltation of whose
feelings disposed to outpourings of friendliness. The three poor
prisoners, understanding that the man desired to remain a Stranger to
them, resigned themselves. The priest fancied that he detected upon
the Stranger’s lips a smile that was promptly repressed the moment he
saw the preparations that had been made to receive him. He heard the
mass, and prayed; but he disappeared after having responded negatively
to a few words of polite invitation upon the part of Mademoiselle de
Langeais to partake of the little collation they had prepared.
After the ninth of Thermidor, the nuns and the Abbé de Marolles were
able to go about Paris without incurring the least danger. The first
errand of the old priest was to a perfumer’s shop, at the sign of _La
Reine des Fleurs_, kept by Citizen and Citizeness Ragon, formerly
perfumers to the Court, who had remained faithful to the royal family,
and of whose services the Vendeans availed themselves to correspond
with the princes and the royalist committee in Paris. The abbé, dressed
according to the style of that epoch, was standing on the doorstep of
that shop, between Saint-Roch and _Rue des Frondeurs_, when a crowd
which filled the _Rue Saint-Honoré_ prevented him from going out.
“What is it?” he asked Madame Ragon.
“It is nothing,” she replied; “just the tumbril and the executioner,
going to the Place Louis XV. Ah, we saw him very often last year; but
to-day, four days after the anniversary of the twenty-first of January,
we can look at that horrible procession without distress.”
“Why so?” said the abbé. “It is not Christian, that which you say.”
“Eh, it’s the execution of the accomplices of Robespierre. They
defended themselves as long as they could, but they’re going now
themselves where they have sent so many innocents.”
The crowd passed like a flood. Over the sea of heads, the Abbé de
Marolles, yielding to an impulse of curiosity, saw standing on the
tumbril the man who, three days before, had listened to his mass.
“Who is that?” he said, “that man who----”
“That is the headsman,” replied Monsieur Ragon, calling the executioner
of the great by his monarchical name.
“My friend, my friend,” cried Madame Ragon, “_monsieur l’abbé_ is
fainting!”
And the old woman seized a phial of salts, in order to bring the old
priest to himself.
“Without doubt he gave me,” said he, “the handkerchief with which the
King wiped his brow when he went to his martyrdom.... Poor man! ...
That steel knife had a heart, when all France had none!”
The perfumers thought that the unhappy priest was delirious.