A DOMICILIARY VISIT
"This country is going to the dogs!" It was Bonaparte who spoke,
striding up and down thoughtfully, his head bent, his hands clasped
behind him. The two friends were taking an evening stroll in the Jardin
des Plantes, and discussing, of course, the affairs of the nation, which
were the only matters that interested anyone in those stirring days.
"Yes, the country, and especially this city is going to the dogs, and I
think I'll leave it!" Jean was thoroughly startled.
"Leave it!" he echoed. "Oh, Citizen Bonaparte, where would you go?"
"I believe I'll go home to Corsica," replied Bonaparte. "I love my home,
and I've always been happy there, poor though it is. And besides, my
sister Elisa has been a student at the royal school of St. Cyr. I have
just received word that this school was closed and suppressed by the
Assembly on August sixteenth. So I must go there and take Elisa home. I
don't want to return. Paris is a horrible place!"
"But what shall I do without you?" wailed Jean. "You are my best friend!
I have almost no others in these dreadful days."
"Come with me, then!" generously responded Bonaparte. "Have you never
thought of becoming a soldier? I have received news of my reinstatement
in the army, and I would gladly take you with me."
"Ah, but would I not love to do so!" answered the boy sadly. "It has
ever been my secret wish to serve my country in the army, and in these
days when we are struggling for liberty, I desire it beyond everything.
But how can I leave Mere Clouet and Yvonne? The good mother has cared
for me ever since she took me, a homeless waif from the Foundling
Hospital, and it would be wrong to leave her and the little Yvonne
unprotected in this mad city. It is true I am young, but I am all they
have! And besides, I have set my heart on being of service to the poor
little Citizen Dauphin in prison, if I can. We owe that debt to him and
to his parents, who helped us in our hour of need."
"You speak truly!" said Bonaparte. "Your family is your first concern,
and nothing appeals to me more than the desire to pay a debt, whether of
money or gratitude. But should the opportunity ever come, I'll take you
with me in the army, lad, for I like your spirit. Would that Paris had
in her many more such!
"But Paris is insane, blood-intoxicated!" he went on thoughtfully. "It
is amazing how blind she has become to the real peril! She seems to
think that the whole danger to her new liberty comes from within her
midst, in the persons of suspected royalists. Whereas, look you! France
is really menaced from _without_ by the foreign powers Austria and
Prussia, whose armies are threatening our borders everywhere. These
powers think that the conquest of this nation will be a mere summer
picnic, because she is internally torn by a great Revolution. What the
country needs is a _head_! Oh, for someone who could mass all her
squabbling factions in one united whole, and lead her to a glorious
victory!"
So declaimed Bonaparte on this dusky, starlit night in the Jardin des
Plantes. What if the curtain of the future could have rolled back for an
instant and revealed to Jean's astonished gaze this same shabby young
man, eight years later! He is the hero of a hundred, victorious battles!
He has raised the perishing land of France and set her on the highest
pinnacle of power in the world! He is the emperor of his country and the
king of Italy! He has made his impoverished brothers and sisters kings
and queens. He is at once feared, obeyed and adored! He has truly
fulfilled his destiny! But the stars twinkled down on the Jardin des
Plantes. Out of Paris rose the subdued murmur of an ever restless
populace. The two friends walked together in silence for a space, and
the future still darkly guarded the wonderful secret!
Suddenly the stillness of the night was broken by a roll of drums from
the Rue Saint Victor. In an instant everyone was hurrying in that
direction, realising that it was a signal of importance. Jean and
Bonaparte lost no time in joining the ranks of the curious. What they
learned that night served to add in no way to their peace of mind.
It seemed that the brain of Danton, ever fertile in inventing outrageous
and unbearable measures, had hatched a new scheme. This was no less than
to apprehend all aristocrats who had been concealing themselves since
August tenth, all who had belonged to the late Court or were in any way
connected with it, and all who were suspected of royalistic sympathies.
This was to be effected by a series of _domiciliary visits_. At the roll
of the drums, all citizens were to repair at once to their homes and
remain there two days, during which time they would be personally
visited by a committee of surveillance. Suspicious evidences found in
any house, would subject all its inmates to immediate imprisonment.
"You are to disperse at once!" ended the soldier who delivered this
message. "By ten o'clock not a soul must be abroad! Citizens, retire at
once to your homes!"
"Outrage! Unwarrantable outrage! This is worse than the Bourbon
tyranny!" muttered Bonaparte, as the two separated, for it lacked but
half an hour of the required time. "But go cautiously, Jean, when the
inspectors visit your house! Remember, you've something incriminating
there!"
When the following morning dawned, Paris was a singular sight! Streets
that had been populous with passing throngs and carriages, or swarming
with the crowded masses of the poor, were silent and deserted. Everyone
sought the vain protection of his own roof, which was soon to prove no
protection at all, and waited in fearful expectation for the threatened
visit. No one, were he never so innocent, could be certain of immunity.
Valuable property was hurriedly concealed, and persons who had the
slightest reason to think themselves objects of suspicion were carefully
hidden, some even going so far as to have themselves nailed up within
the walls of their houses!
For two days Mere Clouet, Yvonne and Jean remained within doors in
nerve-racking uncertainty, trembling at the slightest sound, or the
faintest cry in the streets. For they had in their midst, as Bonaparte
had said, "something most incriminating,"--the pretty, coal-black
spaniel of Louis Charles, so lately imprisoned and deprived of his
title.
"What shall we do with Moufflet, when the committee of surveillance
comes?" whispered Yvonne, who with all the others, instinctively lowered
her voice in this time of peril, lest the very walls betray her.
"Leave that to me!" commanded Jean. "I've decided what I shall do and
say, only be sure you do not contradict me, either by word or action!"
"I wish we could have hidden the little animal," sighed Mere Clouet,
"but of course it would have been useless to try. He would surely betray
both himself and us by some bark or whine!" So the hours wore away. The
two days of suspense drew to an end, and the Clouet family were
beginning to hope they had escaped the ordeal, when at dusk that night,
a thundering knock was heard at the door.
"Open, or we break in!" growled a voice, and Jean hastened to comply.
"Coming, coming!" he called cheerfully. "You are welcome, citizens all!"
"That's a gayer greeting than we get at most places!" answered a high
nasal voice as the door was opened. And without further ceremony there
tramped in six huge pikemen, headed by one of the committee of
surveillance,--the owner of the nasal voice. He was a singularly
unprepossessing specimen of humanity, thin, wiry, short of stature,
evil-faced, with little, claw-like hands. He had a curious habit of
slinking about with soft, noiseless steps and a watchful look in his
beady eyes that reminded one irresistibly of a mouse. The pikemen
addressed him as Citizen Coudert.
"Pikemen, do your duty," he commanded, "while I question these people!"
And while the pikemen tramped through the house, emptying drawers, boxes
and barrels, thumping the walls and floors, tearing up clothing and
destroying china on the pretence of a more thorough search, Citizen
Coudert proceeded to put the inmates upon a rack of torturing questions.
He had just touched upon the ticklish subject of sympathy for the
ex-king and the royal family, when a shout from one of the pikemen
announced the discovery of Moufflet, curled up in a distant corner.
"That's a dog I'll swear I saw at the Tuileries garden many a day this
past year, with the little Wolf-Cub! I know dogs well, and am never
mistaken in one!" Jean's heart was in his throat, but he maintained an
indifferent air.
"Aha! is it so!" snarled Coudert, rubbing his claw-like hands, and with
a gleam very like satisfaction in his beady eyes. "Answer me in regard
to this dog, if you please, young sir! Is he the property of that
Wolf-Cub brat?" Then Jean played his boldest card.
"He was, I suppose, Citizen Coudert, but he's mine now! And when you
hear how I got him, you will say I did well, and acted worthily as a
good republican citizen. I went with the throng to the palace on June
twentieth, to see the sights. There I found this little dog, and I said
to myself,--'Won't it be a fine joke on royalty to take this animal and
train him in good republican ways!' So I caught him and carried him
home." Citizen Coudert looked incredulous.
"You do not believe me, Citizen," continued Jean eagerly, "but hark! I
will prove it! Here, Moufflet! Bark for Liberty!" The little animal ran
to him, crouched, and barked once. "Now for Equality!" Moufflet barked
twice. "Now for Fraternity!" The dog gave three short, sharp barks, then
sat up and lifted its paws to beg. And Mere Clouet and Yvonne realised
now why Jean had been diligently training the intelligent animal in this
new accomplishment during the past two days of seclusion.
"Bravo!" applauded the pikeman. "That's a rare trick for a royalist dog!
You've done well, my boy! I imagine we've no fault to find with you!"
"Be silent, Citizen Prevot!" growled Coudert. "Pay attention to your own
duties, and leave these things to me! Now, young sir, this is all very
well, but what business had you to appropriate to yourself any property
that belongs to the people at large? This dog should have been delivered
to the Assembly. He is valuable, and might have been sold and the money
turned to helping our starving poor. Hand him over to me! I will do what
is right with him, but I'm going to keep a strict watch over you, do you
understand? You have given me cause to be suspicious of you! Here,
Prevot, carry this dog! To the next house, pikemen!"
It was all Jean could do to be silent and submissive under this act of
injustice and outrage, but imploring glances from Mere Clouet and Yvonne
helped him to hold his tongue. The committee of surveillance left the
house, accompanied by yelps of protest from Moufflet, struggling in the
grip of Prevot. When they were gone, Jean tramped up and down the room
in a fury of rage and disappointment.
"That sneak of a Coudert!" he exploded. "Has he any more right to that
dog than we have? He'll never give it to the Assembly, that I know! He
wants it for himself, or else he just took it for the sake of robbing
us! And now I cannot restore Moufflet to his little master, as I had
hoped some day to do!"
"Hush! hush!" begged Mere Clouet. "We were lucky to have gotten off
without being dragged to prison! Had it not been for that dog's trick,
which you were clever enough to teach him, I doubt not but we would have
all been in La Conciergerie within an hour!" But Jean was not to be
passified by such reasoning, and he went to bed in wrath and tears, and
Yvonne followed his example.
Events, however, shortly came to pass that made him sincerely thankful
they were all yet alive and going about with heads still secure on their
shoulders. The domiciliary visits of the last of August had so filled to
overflowing every prison in the city with victims (sad to say, for the
most part absolutely innocent of the crimes imputed to them!) that a
still more horrible plan was determined upon by those two arch fiends of
the Revolution, Marat and Danton,--one which should at once clear the
prisons for more victims, and strike such terror to the hearts of any
remaining royalists as to suppress absolutely all further tendencies in
this direction. This was nothing more nor less than a general massacre
of all the prisoners without trial, justice or mercy.
At two o'clock on Sunday, September 2, 1792, this wholesale slaughter
commenced, and for five days the prisons of Paris were scenes of
unspeakable and indescribable carnage till at last they were empty.
Never was there in history so revolting a sacrifice of innocent lives.
Twelve thousand victims perished, and with this fearful prelude, the
Reign of Terror began!
Three days later, Jean went to make his farewell visit to his friend
Bonaparte, now no longer a resident of the Rue Clery, for he had in the
meantime brought his sister to the city from St. Cyr, and was staying at
the little hotel De Metz in the Rue du Mail. Bonaparte introduced the
boy to his sister, a slender, rather pretty girl of fifteen in the
tight-fitting black taffeta cap of the St. Cyr school. As she had little
to say for herself, Bonaparte suggested that she remain in her room,
while he and Jean repaired for a walk to their favourite spot, the
Jardin des Plantes. Once there, Jean reported to him the outrages of
their domiciliary visit and discussed with him the horrors of the past
few days.
"Oh, Citizen Bonaparte," he ended, "I am sorely tempted to go away with
you and join the army! I want to fight for better things for France.
This is not liberty, here in Paris! It is oppression and butchery! But I
dare not leave yet! I feel that I have a sacred trust to fulfil! Yet all
has gone wrong! Moufflet is stolen and I shall never see him again. We
are constantly in danger from that spying Coudert; it was only
yesterday that I saw him again sneaking about our street! To help the
royal family seems utterly impossible. And now you are going to leave me
too,--you who once saved my life, and to whom I can never be grateful
enough!"
"I am sorry, little Jean! I truly am!" answered his friend. "Many things
call me away, but cheer up! The tide will turn, and there is no telling
what you may yet do--or what I may yet be! I tell you I believe in my
fortunate star! But one thing I will say to you, my lad. You have a
brave loyal spirit, than which I admire nothing more heartily. I like
you, and I will surely come back some day,--and who knows what we may
yet do together! Au revoir now! Be true to your trust, and don't forget
the friend you once made by butting him flat on his back!" Jean could
not even answer. He seized the young man's hands, kissed them
passionately, and with a sob fled down one of the long, green alleys of
the Jardin. Could he have guessed how long it would be before he and
this thin young man with the marvellous eyes should meet again, his
despair would have been deeper yet. But that also was guarded with the
secret of the future!
ENTER THE COBBLER,--EXIT THE KING