THE FEUD.
The two men, on facing each other, looked without the nobleman making
the plebeian cower. More than that, it was the latter who spoke the
first.
"The count does me the honor to say he wants to speak with me. I am
waiting for him to be good enough to do so."
"Billet," began Charny, "how comes it that you are here on an errand of
vengeance? I thought you were the friend of your superiors the nobles,
and, besides, a faithful and sound subject of his Majesty."
"I was all that, count: I was your most humble servant--for I cannot
say your friend, in as much as such an honor is not vouchsafed to
a farmer like me. But you may see that I am nothing of the kind at
present."
"I do not follow you, Billet."
"Why need you? am I asking you the reason for your fidelity to the King,
and your standing true to the Queen? No, I presume you have your reasons
for doing this, and as you are a good and wise gentleman I expect your
reasons are sound or at least meet for your conscience. I am not in
your high position, count, and have not your learning; but you know, or
you have heard I am accounted an honest and sensible man, and you may
suppose that, like yourself, I have my reasons----suiting my conscience,
if not good."
"Billet, I used to know you as far different from what you are now,"
said Charny, totally unaware of the farmer's grounds for hatred against
royalty and nobility.
"Oh, certainly I am not going to deny that you saw me unlike this,"
replied Billet, with a bitter smile. "I do not mind telling you, count,
how this is: I was a true lover of my country, devoted to one thing
and two persons: the men were the King and Dr. Gilbert--the thing, my
native-land. One day the King's men--I confess that this began to set me
against him," said the farmer, shaking his head, "broke into my house
and stole away a casket, half by surprise, half by force, a precious
trust left me by Dr. Gilbert.
"As soon as I was free I started for Paris, where I arrived on the
evening of the thirteenth of July. It was right in the thick of the
riot over the busts of Necker and the Duke of Orleans. Fellows were
carrying them about the street, with cheers for those two, doing no
harm to the King, when the royal soldiers charged upon us. I saw poor
chaps, who had committed no offense but shouting for persons they had
probably never seen, fall around me, some with their skulls laid open
with sabre slashes, others with their breasts bored by bullets. I saw
Prince Lambesq, a friend of the King, drive women and children inside
the Tuileries gardens, who had shouted for nobody, and trample under his
horse's hoofs an old man. This set me still more against the King.
"Next day I went to the boarding school where Dr. Gilbert's son
Sebastian was kept, and learnt from the poor lad that his father was
locked up in the Bastile on a King's order sued for by a lady of the
court. So I said to myself, this King, whom they call kind, has moments
when he errs, blunders or is ignorant, and I ought to amend one of the
faults the King so makes--which I proposed to do by contributing all my
power to destroying the Bastile. We managed that--not without its being
a tough job, for the soldiers of the King fired on us, and killed some
two hundred of us which gave me a fresh wrinkle on the kindness of the
King. But in short, we took the Bastile. In one of its dungeons I found
Dr. Gilbert, for whom I had risked death a hundred times, and the joy
of finding him made me forget that and a lot more. Besides, he was the
first to tell me that the King was kind, ignorant for the most part of
the shameful deeds perpetrated in his name, and that one must not bear
him a grudge but cast it on his ministers. Now, as all that Dr. Gilbert
said at that time was Gospel, I believed Dr. Gilbert.
"The Bastile being captured, Dr. Gilbert safe and free, and Pitou and
myself all well, I forgot the charges in the Tuileries garden, the
shooting in the street, the two hundred men slain by Marshal Saxe's
sackbut, which is or was a gun on the Bastile ramparts, and the
imprisonment of my friend on the mere application of a court dame. But,
pardon me, count," Billet interrupted himself, "all this is no concern
of yours, and you cannot have asked to speak with me to hear the babble
of a poor uneducated rustic--you who are both a high noble and learned
gentleman."
He made a move to lay hold of the doorknob and re-enter the other room.
But Charny stopped him for two reasons, the first that it might be
important to learn why Billet acted thus, and again, to gain time.
"No; tell me the whole story, my dear Billet," he said; "you know the
interest my poor brothers and I always bore you, and what you say
engages me in a high degree."
Billet smiled bitterly at the words "My poor brothers."
"Well, then," he replied, "I will tell you all; with regret that your
poor brothers--particularly Lord Isidore, are not here to hear me."
This was spoken with such singular intonation that the count repressed
the feeling of grief the mention of Isidore's name had aroused in his
soul, and he waved his hand for the farmer to continue, as Billet was
evidently ignorant of what had happened the viscount whose presence he
desired.
"Hence," proceeded the yeoman, "when the King returned to Paris from
Versailles, I saw in it sheerly the return home of a father among his
children. I walked with Dr. Gilbert beside the royal carriage, making
a breastwork for those within it of my body, and shouting 'Long live
the King!' to split the ear. This was the first journey of the King:
blessings and flowers were all around him. On arriving at the City Hall
it was noticed that he did not wear the white cockade of his fathers,
but he had not yet donned the tricolored one. So I plucked mine from my
hat and gave it him as they were roaring he must sport it, and therefore
he thanked me, to the cheering of the crowd. I was wild with glee at the
King wearing my own favor and I shouted Long Life to him louder than
anybody.
"I was so enthusiastic about our good King that I wanted to stay in
town. My harvest was ripe and cried for me; but pooh, what mattered a
harvest? I was rich enough to lose one season and it was better for me
to stay beside this good King to be useful, this Father of the People,
this Restorer of French Liberty, as we dunces called him at the time. I
lost pretty near all the harvest because I trusted it to Catherine, who
had something else to look after than my wheat. Let us say no more on
that score.
"Still, it was said that the King had not quite fairly agreed to the
change in things, that he moved forced and constrained; that he might
wear the tricolor cockade in his hat but the white one was in his
heart. They were slanderers who said this; it was clearly proved that
at the Guards' Banquet, the Queen put on neither the national nor the
French cockade but the black one of her brother the Austrian Emperor.
I own that this made my doubts revive; but as Dr. Gilbert pointed out,
'Billet, it is not the King who did this but the Queen; and the Queen
being a woman, one must be indulgent towards a woman.' I believed
this so deeply that, when the ruffians came from Paris to attack the
Versailles Palace, though I did not hold them wholly in the wrong--it
was I who ran to rouse General Lafayette--who was in the sleep of the
blessed, poor dear man! and brought him on the field in time to save the
Royal Family.
"On that night I saw Lady Elizabeth hug General Lafayette and the Queen
give him her hand to kiss, while the King called him his friend, and
I said to myself, says I: 'Upon my faith, I believe Dr. Gilbert is
right. Surely, not from fear would such high folks make such a show of
gratitude, and they would not play a lie if they did not share this
hero's opinions, howsoever useful he may be at this pinch to them all.'
Again I pitied the poor Queen, who had only been rash, and the poor
King, only feeble; but I let them go back to Paris without me--I had
better to do at Versailles. You know what, Count Charny!"
The Lifeguardsman uttered a sigh recalling the death of his brother
Valence.
"I heard that this second trip to the town was not as merry as the
former," continued Billet; "instead of blessings, curses were showered
down; instead of shouts of Long Live! those of Death to the lot! instead
of bouquets under the horses hoofs and carriage wheels, dead men's heads
carried on spear-points. I don't know, not being there, as I stayed at
Versailles. Still I left the farm without a master, but pshaw! I was
rich enough to lose another harvest after that of '89! But, one fine
morning, Pitou arrived to announce that I was on the brink of losing
something dearer which no father is rich enough to lose: his daughter!"
Charny started, but the other only looked at him fixedly as he went on:
"I must tell you, lord, that a league off from us, at Boursonne, lives
a noble family of mighty lords, terribly rich. Three brothers were the
family. When they were boys and used to come over to Villers Cotterets,
the two younger of the three were wont to stop on my place, doing me the
honor to say that they never drank sweeter milk than my cows gave, or
eaten finer bread than my wife made, and, from time to time they would
add--I believing they just said it in payment of my good cheer--ass
that I was! that they had never seen a prettier lass than my Catherine.
Lord bless you, I thanked them for drinking the milk, and eating the
bread, and finding my child so pretty into the bargain! What would you?
as I believed in the King, though he is half a German by the mother's
side, I might believe in noblemen who were wholly French.
"So, when the youngest of all, Valence, who had been away from our parts
for a long time, was killed at Versailles, before the Queen's door, on
the October Riot night, bravely doing his duty as a nobleman, what a
blow that was to me! His brother saw me on my knees before the body,
shedding almost as many tears as he shed blood--his eldest brother,
I mean, who never came to my house, not because he was too proud, I
will do him that fair play, but because he was sent to foreign parts
while young. I think I can still see him in the damp courtyard, where I
carried the poor young fellow in my arms so that he should not be hacked
to pieces, like his comrades, whose blood so dyed me that I was almost
as reddened as yourself, Lord Charny. He was a pretty boy, whom I still
see riding to school on his little dappled pony, with a basket on his
arm--and thinking of him thus, I think I can mourn him like yourself, my
lord. But I think of the other, and I weep no more," said Billet.
"The other? what do you mean." cried the count.
"Wait, we are coming to it," was the reply. "Pitou had come to Paris,
and let a couple of words drop to show that it was not my crops so much
in danger as my child--not my fortune but my happiness. So I left the
King to shift for himself in the city. Since he meant the right thing,
as Dr. Gilbert assured me, all would go for the best, whether I was at
hand or not, and I returned on my farm.
"I believed that Catherine had brain fever or something I would not
understand, but was only in danger of death. The condition in which I
found her made me uneasy, all the more as the doctor forbade me the room
till she was cured. The poor father in despair, not allowed to go into
the sickroom, could not help hanging round the door. Yes, I listened.
Then I learnt that she was at death's point almost out of her senses
with fever, mad because her lover--her gallant, not her sweetheart, see!
had gone away. A year before, I had gone away, but she had smiled on my
going instead of grieving. My going left her free to meet her gallant!
"Catherine returned to health but not to gladness! a month, two, three,
six months passed without a single beam of joy kissing the face which
my eyes never quitted. One morning I saw her smile and shuddered. Was
not her lover coming back that she should smile? Indeed a shepherd who
had seen him prowling about, a year before, told me that he had arrived
that morning. I did not doubt that he would come over on my ground that
evening or rather on the land where Catherine was mistress. I loaded up
my gun at dark and laid in wait----"
"You did this, Billet?" queried Charny.
"Why not?" retorted the farmer. "I lay in wait right enough for the wild
boar coming to make mush of my potatoes, the wolf to tear my lambs'
throats, the fox to throttle my fowls, and am I not to lay in wait for
the villain who comes to disgrace my daughter?"
"But your heart failed you at the test, Billet, I hope," said the count.
"No, not the heart, but the eye and the hand," said the other: "A track
of blood showed me that I had not wholly missed, only you may understand
that a defamed maid had not wavered between father and scoundrel--when I
entered the house, Catherine had disappeared."
"And you have not seen her since?"
"No. Why should I see her? she knows right well that I should kill her
on sight."
Charny shrank back in terror mingled with admiration for the massive
character confronting him.
"I retook the work on the farm," proceeded the farmer. "What concern
of mine was my misfortune if France were only happy? Was not the King
marching steadily in the road of Revolution? was he not to take his part
in the Federation? might I not see him again whom I had saved in October
and sheltered with my own cockade? what a pleasure it must be for him to
see all France gathered on the parade-ground at Paris, swearing like
one man the Unity of the country!
"So, for a space, while I saw him, I forgot all, even to Catherine--no,
I lie--no father forgets his child! He also took the oath. It seemed to
me that he swore clumsily, evasively, from his seat, instead of at the
Altar of the Country, but what did that matter? the main thing was that
he did swear. An oath is an oath. It is not the place where he takes it
that makes it holy, and when an honest man takes an oath, he keeps it.
So the King should keep his word. But it is true that when I got home
to Villers Cotterets,--having no child now, I attended to politics--I
heard say that the King was willing to have Marquis Favras carry him
off but the scheme had fallen through; that the King had tried to flee
with his aunts, but that had failed; that he wanted to go out to St.
Cloud, whence he would have hurried off to Rouen, but that the people
prevented him leaving town. I heard all this but I did not believe it.
Had I not with my own eyes seen the King hold up his hand to high heaven
on the Paris Parade-ground and swear to maintain the nation? How could
I believe that a king, having sworn in the presence of three hundred
thousand citizens, would not hold his pledge to be as sacred as that of
other men? It was not likely!
"Hence, as I was at Meaux Market yesterday,--I may as well say I was
sleeping at the postmaster's house, with whom I had made a grain deal--I
was astonished to see in a carriage changing horses at my friend's door,
the King, the Queen and the Dauphin! There was no mistaking them; I was
in the habit of seeing them in a coach; on the sixteenth of July, I
accompanied them from Versailles to Paris. I heard one of the party say:
'The Chalons Road!' This man in a buff waistcoat had a voice I knew;
I turned and recognized--who but the gentleman who had stolen away my
daughter! This noble was doing his duty by playing the flunky before his
master's coach."
At this, he looked hard at Charny to see if he understood that his
brother Isidore was the subject; but the hearer was silent as he wiped
his face with his handkerchief.
"I wanted to fly at him, but he was already at a distance. He was on
a good horse and had weapons--I, none. I ground my teeth at the idea
that the King was escaping out of France and this ravisher escaping me,
but suddenly another thought struck me. Why, look ye; I took an oath to
the Nation, and while the King breaks his, I shall keep mine. I am only
ten leagues from Paris which I can reach in two hours on a good nag; it
is but three in the morning. I will talk this matter over with Mayor
Bailly, an honest man who appears to be one of the kind who stick to the
promises they make. This point settled I wasted no time, but begged my
friend the postinghouse keeper to lend me his national Guards uniform,
his sword and pistols and I took the best horse in his stables--all
without letting him know what was in the wind, of course. Instead,
therefore, of trotting home, I galloped hellity-split to Paris.
"Thank God, I got there on time! the flight of the King was known but
not the direction. Lafayette had sent his aid Romeuf on the Valenciennes
Road! But mark what a thing chance is! they had stopped him at the bars,
and he was brought back to the Assembly, where he walked in at the very
nick when Mayor Bailly, informed by me, was furnishing the most precise
particulars about the runaways. There was nothing but the proper warrant
to write and the road to state. The thing was done in a flash. Romeuf
was dispatched on the Chalons Road and my order was to stick to him,
which I am going to do. Now," concluded Billet, with a gloomy air, "I
have overtaken the King, who deceived me as a Frenchman, and I am easy
about his escaping me! I can go and attend to the man who deceived me as
a father; and I swear to you, Lord Charny, that he shall not escape me
either."
"You are wrong, my dear Billet--woeful to say," responded the count.
"How so?"
"The unfortunate young man you speak of has escaped."
"Fled?" cried Billet with indescribable rage.
"No, he is dead," replied the other.
"Dead?" exclaimed Billet, shivering in spite of himself, and sponging
his forehead on which the sweat had started out.
"Dead," repeated Charny, "for this is his blood which you see on me and
which you were right just now in likening to that from his brother slain
at Versailles. If you doubt, go down into the street where you will find
his body laid out in a little yard, like that of Versailles, struck down
for the same cause for which his brother fell."
Billet looked at the speaker, who spoke in a gentle voice, but with
haggard eyes and a frightened face; then suddenly he cried:
"Of a truth, there is justice in heaven!" He darted out of the room,
saying: "I do not doubt your word, lord, but I must assure my sight that
justice is done."
Charny stifled a sigh as he watched him go, and dashed away a tear.
Aware that there was not an instant to lose, he hurried to the Queen's
room, and as soon as he walked directly up to her, he asked how she had
got on with Romeuf.
"He is on our side," responded the lady.
"So much the better," said Charny, "for there is nothing to hope in that
quarter."
"What are we to do then?"
"Gain time for Bouille to come up."
"But will he come?"
"Yes, for I am going to fetch him."
"But the streets swarm with murderers," cried the Queen. "You are known,
you will never pass, you will be hewn to pieces: George, George!"
But smiling without replying, Charny opened the window on the back
garden, waved his hand to the King and the Queen, and jumped out over
fifteen feet. The Queen sent up a shriek of terror and hid her face in
her hands; but the man ran to the wind and by a cheer allayed her fears.
Charny had scaled the garden wall and was disappearing on the other
side.
It was high time, for Billet was entering.