LOVE ENDURETH ALL THINGS
Cyrène, when she found herself in darkness, had a confused idea that she
was waking from a dream and lying in her bed at the house in the Rue
Honoré. Under that impression she drew a breath of relief. A curse from
a woman's voice somewhere near by made her realise the truth; the cry of
Dominique, "They have finished me!" and the circumstances of his
disappearance from her side returned vividly, and her heart sickened.
But misery is like a thermometer; after reaching a particular degree it
can fall but slightly lower. The death of Dominique only benumbed her
brain. Her next impression was that this place in which she lay must be
a dungeon, and as her eyes could make out nothing whatever in the
darkness she concluded that the woman she heard must be a prisoner in an
adjoining cell.
In a short time a stealthy step approached. It stopped, a wooden door
swung back, and a band of greyish light showed a low room of rough beams
without a window. At the door Wife Gougeon peered in, and behind her was
the cheerless perspective of the shop, additionally cheerless in the
grey of early morning.
"Well, wench, how do you like being a _Sans-culotte_? You slept too soft
in the Old _Régime_."
Cyrène had not noticed how she had been sleeping; she now saw that her
bed was a pile of straw on a box.
"Get up, you sow, and sweep my floor!" exclaimed the ragman's wife. "Get
up!"
Cyrène's first instinct was to lie still in tacit disdain. The
recollection of Germain, however, crossed her mind. Rather submit to
anything than exasperate his enemies; so she rose, with an effort. Her
limbs felt heavy.
"Out now, take this broom, you sot, and sweep the floor."
Cyrène came out and proceeded to brush aside the dust between the piles
of metal. Wife Gougeon sat back on a block of wood and laughed, in
immense enjoyment.
"So you were a baroness once, one of the heretofores? Well, I like
baronesses to do my dirty work for me and Montmorencys for my sweeps.
You never thought the people would arrive at this, eh? You thought, you
aristocrats, that you could have the fine houses and we could do all the
scullery work. How do you like it? Oh, I have dirtier work than that
that I will make you do. This is only the commencement. Sweep that board
clean, you pig!"
The woman fumed at Cyrène's silence.
"Have you no tongue, animal? Why don't you answer when I speak? I'll
teach you," and, her eyes glittering, she picked up an iron bolt and
threw it at her victim. It struck Cyrène's arm, bruising it severely.
The girl winced, but continued wielding the broom as meekly as before.
"Ah," went on Wife Gougeon, "do you know what I will do with you? I will
have your head sliced off. What nice necks you 'heretofores' have. I've
seen many a one chopped through."
"Hush, hush, dear citizeness Gougeon," said the Abbé, appearing near
by. "I brought the citizeness to you for protection; I wish to speak to
her apart--say in the chamber there."
Cyrène looked at him in sorrowful relief.
"Citizeness," he said, making the greatest effort at ingratiation, "I
have a few things to speak to you. You will excuse us, citizeness
Gougeon?"
"Republicans do not excuse and excuse like you 'heretofores.' If it were
not for the Galley, I would slice your neck to-morrow too. Go, and be
quick about it, Blacklegs, while I wait to see her sweep for me again."
Cyrène staggered after him in her weakness into her chamber again, and,
while she sat upon her pallet, he shut the door, took a candle down from
a beam, and lit it.
"Do not mind her," he said while doing so. "She is a Jacobiness."
She looked at him as closely as her fevered sight permitted, and saw
that he was shivering with excitement and his long face and downcast
eyes contorting.
She sat speechless, unable to comprehend him.
"Madame Baroness," said he, "have you never wondered at your long escape
from the perils of these times? When the mansions of others were burned,
your house has been free from molestation; when their goods were
appropriated by the nation, yours have been left intact; when all
aristocrats have been sent to the guillotine, you have slept in safety.
Have you not thought this strange?"
The questioning seemed to be lost upon her, except for a nod.
"Did you never," he went on, "suspect that some power was protecting
you, and ask by whose influence you were thus surrounded and your peace
secured? Did you never recognise a faithfulness which relaxed at no
moment, a care which was unlimited--in a word, a secret friend at the
source of affairs? Madame, I was that friend."
He stopped and looked at her, his increasing excitement overcoming his
stealth. She was moved, and tears brimmed in her eyes.
"I am grateful, Abbé Jude; let me say it from my heart. You have been
wronged by us. We believed you were different."
At the tribute his eager look intensified itself into a piercing gaze
which made her feel dread of him.
"Yes, I was that secret friend," he cried. "It was I who protected you
at the sections, I struck your name from the lists of proscriptions, I
diverted the marches of the patriots from your portals. Do you think all
this would be done for three years without true faithfulness?"
"You have indeed proved yourself a loyal friend."
"More than that," he exclaimed; "it was more than loyalty, it was
worship! Madame, believe me your name has always been to me a sacred
adoration, a passion, an affection beyond expression. Do you doubt it?
Know that I loved you from the first moment I saw you in the house of
the Princess de Poix. I loved you, I adored you secretly, I sought for a
favourable time to declare my passion."
Her eyes opened wide as she listened, and she would have given worlds to
escape, yet her feeling was mainly of pity.
"This is very unfortunate. Calm yourself, Abbé. I will ever have a
lively feeling of gratefulness for your devotion. Think of me on those
terms."
"Ah, Madame, those were the only terms which might have been possible in
former days; but they do not belong to the new _régime_. We are all
equal now. Nothing will satisfy me short of possessing you entirely."
"Abbé, you are excited."
"No, citizeness, I have long been determined you shall be my mate." She
shrank from the word and the uncanny passion of his gaze.
"When you will have reflected a few hours you will see that this is
impossible."
"What! impossible? And why impossible? Ah, yes, I know, it is because of
your pretty-faced lover Répentigny. I know all about that. I could have
crushed him between my fingers; and I will crush him yet. What!--that
man between myself and you! Why, then, did I bring you here? Was it to
allow his interference with my object? After all I have done for you, am
I to be met with answers of this sort?"
"I appreciate entirely your services, Abbé; they are too great to be
underrated."
"They shall be more, citizeness. In these days it is _my_ turn to
dictate."
"Am I to understand that this has been your aim all along?"
He hesitated, but replied boldly, "It has, and were it not for that, I
might long ago have pointed out both you and your doll-head lover to the
Committee of Public Safety."
"Then your whole service has been abstention from positive treachery for
your own ends?"
"You dare me? Caution, citizeness! You are in my power."
"In your power? You are a coward as well as a knave, then?"
"Remember still more," he hissed, losing all control of himself, "that
your lover also is in my power; he is captured."
"My God! you have brought us to this!" she cried.
The door creaked and the Admiral entered.
"Be off, you cur!" said he, standing sternly over the Abbé, who shrank
as if struck. "Go to your work, you----"
A look of terror upon his countenance, Jude precipitated himself through
the doorway.
The Admiral closed it, and returning, sat down by the candle and began
to talk to Cyrène. Seeing his features so close and large and
accentuated by the candle-light, their coarseness and horror filled her
with wonder.
"So that fellow boasts of his fidelity!" he exclaimed, in a repulsively
modulated and familiar tone. "What a wealth of tenderness such a
kidnapping shows! Possibly you knew his profession, citizeness?--that of
salaried spy. Your protector he claims to be? Excellent--when he could
not turn a straw in your favour. He has deprived you of your freedom;
that was easier in these times. I, on the other hand," he added, smiling
yet more hideously, "am here to return it to you."
"I thank you," she replied wearily, without hope.
"I shall reveal to you the true reason of your immunity for so long from
the wrath of the people. It was because of Répentigny, not of yourself.
I arranged it, and you were then unknown to me. Through him Bec and
Caron, two friends of the people, had died six years ago, in the days of
the tyrant. It was I, as avenger, not the worm Jude as lover, who
watched over your household in the Rue Honoré, reserving Répentigny for
prolonged punishment. It was I whose power surrounded you as it has
surrounded all Paris." He paused proudly.
"Citizeness, last night I saw you for the first time. Your wonderful
courage, your astonishing beauty, overcame the most martial of hearts."
She started and shivered violently. Was she to endure two proposals
within the hour, from such revolting creatures, and at what violence
would their outrages end?
"Come," he said, offering to embrace her. She started back in terror.
"Do not tremble," he went on patronisingly; "you have nothing to fear
from me, everything to expect. I am able to give you whatever you
ask--mansions, carriages, jewels, pleasures, unlimited wealth, unlimited
power. These are in my hands. I rule Paris--yes, France--and shall rule
Europe. You shall sit by my side, and the whole world shall serve you.
They shall fear or love you as you will, but I am able to see that they
obey you or sink under my hand. Do not fear the squalor of these brutes
whom I govern; you shall see nothing of them, for we shall sit upon the
heights of the Revolution. Around us Paris shall always be gay and
fascinating. Tell me your slightest wish, citizeness; it shall be
yours."
"You will grant me a wish?" she exclaimed.
"Assuredly," he answered.
"Take me, then," said she, "to him you call Répentigny."
"Répentigny or Lecour?" he said, pointing to the name. "Citizeness, he
is unworthy of you--totally unworthy."
"Maligner!"
"Keep your coolness, Madame; the man has long deceived you. The story
that he is a plebeian is true. I can prove it."
"I asked you nothing of that sort; take me--only take me to him. Keep
your promise."
"Very well, citizeness, there is but one condition. He is in the
Conciergerie--in going to him you must, like him, be committed to be
condemned."
"Gladly! gladly! Take me to him--take me to him--for the love of
heaven."
"I love not heaven very much, citizeness, but, curse you, you seem fool
enough to be granted what you ask. Look out of this door."
Obeying, she saw that a crowd of _Sans-culottes_ had filled the shop.
Carmagnoled and sabred, they lounged in slothful consultation and
obscured the air with bad tobacco-smoke. On the Admiral opening the
door, they rose in a disorderly way and made him a sort of salute.
"Arrest her," he ordered, beckoning the two foremost and waving his
skinny hand back to Cyrène. They came forward and grasped her arms.
"To the Conciergerie!" he said, "and each of you answers for her with
your head."
As terrified as she, the two guards tied her hands and marched her off
through the Street of the Hanged Man.
In times of great misery strange things bring us happiness; the thought
of her condemnation to death lifted her like an aerial tide, because
being with Germain went with it.