THE FAREWELL
Louise, guided by her faithful attendant Pierre, had left the
courtroom directly after the condemnation. Leaning heavily upon him,
the blind girl had staggered out, or pressed by the awful knowledge
that her sister Henriette was doomed to die. "Oh, take me to her!" she
had cried.
There was only one thing to do: to follow the route of the death
tumbrils, in the slight hope of overtaking her. The crippled Pierre
could not walk fast, and the steps of Louise had to be most carefully
directed. Now and again Pierre could see the death carts a long way
ahead, he tried to hasten their steps, but presently the transports of
death were out of sight again.
A traffic tie-up and street delay that halted the tumbrils just beyond
the scene of the bacchanalian Feast of Reason, gave them their
opportunity. Here the revelers had burlesqued Henriette as the "Woman
of Sorrows," and here the guardsman had thrown off the chaplet and
rebuked the crowd.
During the halt Pierre and his companion came up with what speed they
could; he led Louise to the back of the death cart, and placed her
hands on the bound and standing figure of poor little Henriette.
"It is your sister!" said Pierre softly.
Gently the blind girl's fingers traveled up to the wet face of her
little foster-mother, now bending towards her. With a handkerchief
Louise tenderly wiped it, her fingers gave loving little pats of the
heaving neck and bosom, she kissed the stained cheeks, and then the
girls' lips met--met long and passionately! No words were spoken, none
was needed for a reunion that was also a farewell.
The cart moved. The loving lips were parted. Now one might see
Louise's imploring arms still held out toward the sad receding little
figure.
* * * * *
It was indeed a busy day for the executioners. Batches of men and
women preceded Henriette and Maurice. Two of these were beautiful
young girls who, in default of priest, were saying the last offices of
the Church as they knelt on the bare ground. In tragic glory Faith's
clear credo rang out: "_I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live!_"
Their lovely heads dropped in the basket as the knitting women clicked
their needles and cried "Two!" Henriette, with a physical retch at the
sight, fell back half-fainting on Maurice. Roughly the soldiers yanked
them asunder.
"Citizeness, your time is come!" said one of the brawny butchers. He
half led, half supported her up the steps of the guillotine....
The Chief executioner turned Henriette about, inspecting her fine
points as an equine connoisseur would inspect a filly. He gloated over
her not yet budded form, the swan-like neck, unlined piquant features,
the golden head-curls that fell in ringlets.
"A pretty one--eh, Jean?" he commented to his assistant.
Between the two, they had strapped her unresisting on the board. They
lowered it below the razor edge of the knife, so that she lay prone
with her neck directly underneath. The finale was to fasten on the
neck piece, a round-holed cross board which prevented the head from
drawing back....
Alas! what avails it that five miles away--in the heart of the
city--the hoofbeats of a company of cavalry resound rhythmically over
the flagstones?
Danton and his Northern riders are straining every nerve, galloping
their steeds furiously--eyes fixed on the seeming-impossible goal.
Rather are they modern centaurs, each rider and steed a unit of
undivisible will and energy: Danton a furious resistless hippogriff,
fire-striking, fire-exhaling, in unity with his white charger; the
lean-jawed, sternly set Captain on his lean galloping Arabian,
cyclonic, onrushing like some Spectral Horseman; the rest riding like
the Valkyries--as it were, twixt Heaven and earth--their galloping
beats scorning the ground as they rush by to the hissing of the
cleaved and angry winds.
But what avails it?...
Even on the straightway 'twere a quarter-hour ride to the outer-suburban
locality where the guillotine does its dreadful work. Ancient Paris with
its tortuous streets delays them. Ahead, are Jacques-Forget-Not--Jacobin
troops--barriers--gates.
Poor little Henriette's golden head!
Is it not fated to drop in the basket long, long before they can
appear?