THE NEW TYRANNY
Before telling you how the Chevalier de Vaudrey got out of Caen and
how he fared forth to his love, it is meet that the reader should
understand the rapidly changing conditions that converted the New
France into a veritable Hell on earth.
After the Fall of the Bastille, and even after the mob's sortie on
Versailles which enforced the royal family's return to Paris where
they lived in the Tuileries, it was the hope of the moderate patriots
that constitutional monarchy might prevail.
These hopes were dashed, first, by royalty's intrigues and double-dealing,
and, secondly, through the pressure of the revolting emigres and the
threat of foreign invasion that welded all the defenders of France,
willy-nilly, into a traitor-crushing and invader-defying Republic.
Of all the personages of that unhappy time, the locksmithing King
Louis XVI least understood what was going on about him.
A true Bourbon with an ancestry of nearly a thousand years' possession
of the French throne, he never learned anything and never forgot
anything. He played at being a limited monarch but his sympathies were
naturally with the riffled aristocrats--the nobility whose privileges
had been taken away, their estates commandeered, their chateaux fired
or sacked, and themselves obliged to flee for their lives to the
protection of the foreigner.
Not comprehending the nature of the Storm that wiped out old tyranny,
Louis dangerously rode the Storm, he could not guide it. His lack of
understanding is sadly shown in the closing scene at Versailles when
they brought him news of the people's coming.
"Mais, c'est une revolte. Why, that is a revolt!" exclaimed the
bewildered monarch.
"No, Sire," replied the Minister gravely, "'tis not a revolt. It is a
revolution!"
Within a few hours the yelling maenads and bold satyrs of the
sansculottes possessed the gorgeous Salon de la Paix, whilst the King
and his family were on their way to Paris....
Then followed many weary months of royalist intrigue, plot and counter
plot, secret dickers with foreign Powers, attempts at escape, fresh
indignities by the mob, until at last Royalty is suspended from its
function, becomes the prisoner instead of the ruler. Turned out of the
Tuileries, Louis and Marie Antoinette are no longer King and
Queen--henceforth Citizen and Citizeness Capet. At the end of dreadful
imprisonments, looms for the hapless pair the dread Scaffold....
A real Republic teeters for a short period on the crest of the
Revolutionary wave. Men are mad with the joy over the new thought of
universal brotherhood. Little do Danton and the other Utopians realize
that the Pageant of Brotherhood is but the prelude of a new
Despotism.
For a dark ring of foes--spurred to invasion by the King's
misfortunes--surrounds France on every side. Within, the cry
re-echoes: "The traitors to the prisons!" and all the aristocrats as
yet at large are hunted down and put in durance.
As Minister of Justice, Danton, the idol of the people, acts quickly
to subdue aristocracy, and ceaselessly organizes--organizes--organizes
the raw republican levies into troops fit to resist the advancing
Prussians, Austrians and Savoyards.
Lashed to uncontrollable rage by the preliminary successes of the
invading Prussians, the Paris proletariat break into the prisons and
massacre the unfortunate members of the nobility there immured. Few
are spared. Young equally with the old--girls and women no less than
the sterner sex--the noble, the wise, the cultivated, the beautiful,
are murdered in cold blood. The September Massacres shock moderates
everywhere with the feeling that France is at last running amuck--the
mad dog of the Nations.
Yes, France now is running amuck--'ware of her when she strikes!
Lafayette and other moderates--indeed, several of the Generals
commanding the patriot armies have fled over the border, disgusted
with the national rabies, utterly unable to quench it.
The patriot ranks close up. The wilder element of the sansculottes
grasps the helm of State. In the desperate need of a dictatorship to
cope against the foreign invasion, Danton procures from the
Legislature absolute power for a little inner group, the Committee of
Public Safety.
Working on the passions of the people, worming himself into favor
by denouncing moderate suspects and advocating the extremest
measures, our sly acquaintance of the faubourg lodgings--Maximilien
Robespierre--becomes the head of this Committee--thereby the Tyrant of
France.
The foreign foe is indeed driven back, but at what a cost! The rule of
Robespierre's fanatical minority that has seized the State,
inaugurates the dreadful Reign of Terror. The great Revolutionary
leader Danton--Minister of Justice in the earlier time--has himself
caused to be established the Revolutionary Tribunal for the quick
trial of the public's foes, and the guillotine for the guilty.
Robespierre uses it as a ready forged weapon for destroying all who do
not think as he does.
In this storm-wracked world Jacques-Forget-Not is now a great judge
and a most fanatical patriot. The avenger of the de Vaudreys heads the
Revolutionary Tribunal. He is in his glory now, for the aristocrats
that the mobs overlooked are sent in batches to the guillotine--on the
most trifling charges, or finally without accusation at all. The mere
fact of being an aristocrat is a capital offence!
And in and among these slaughters is intermixed the destruction of
Robespierre's personal and political rivals--a work in which the
vengeful Jacques-Forget-Not studies and obeys every whim of his
master, for does not Jacques also have private grudges as yet unpaid?
... But Danton remains a popular hero. For his work in driving back
the foreign foe, he is upraised in chair of state by the multitudes,
heading a huzzaing procession and preceded by young girls strewing
flowers.
None of the bloody butchery has been Danton's. He has been too busy
fighting Prussia, Austria and Savoy. Today, as he sits in the chair of
state acknowledging the acclamations, his heart wells in gratitude to
Henriette who had once saved his life--no face of treasured memory so
dear as hers!
[Illustration: LOVE, MASTER OF HEARTS.]
Confessedly, under the New Tyranny, there is nothing to engage the
great heart and soul. Sick of the murderous scramble for pelf and
power, he withdraws from most political activity, though still able to
exert a wide influence.
* * * * *
About this time twenty-two political rivals of Robespierre--the
Girondists--were sent by one decree to the guillotine. Danton, vainly
pleading for mercy, saw that the Committee of Safety machine was being
made an instrument of slaughter. "France must be purged of all vice!"
was Robespierre's sanctimonious reply to his passionate protest. Not
long after, the rival masters of France faced one another in the hall
of the Revolutionary Tribunal, whereof Jacques-Forget-Not was
President.
"Well works this Tribunal you established, Danton!" said Robespierre,
in glee at the increasing number of executions.
"It was established," replied the pock-marked man solemnly, "to punish
the enemies of the people. Now through you--Robespierre--France rivers
with innocent blood!"
... God help our hero and heroine if they should encounter its dread
fury!