A FRIEND RE-ENTERS AND EVENTS MOVE ON
On the morning of July first, 1794, Jean sat on the edge of his straw
mattress, listening intently for the slightest sound in the corridor
without. He had been in the Conciergerie over eight months. How he had
come to be left so long without undergoing a trial was a mystery to him,
except that it might be explained by the fact of his age. Under fifteen,
the Republic considered people as children, and these they did not
punish with death. Over it, he would have to suffer as an adult. Now his
fifteenth birthday having occurred the day before, he held himself in
readiness for trouble!
How he had endured those long, dreary weeks, he could scarcely himself
have told. Sometimes it seemed as though the solitude, combined with
his fears for his loved ones and himself, and the despair at this
frustration of all his hopes, would deprive him of his reason. But Jean
was a lad of many and varied resources! For one thing he had made
friends with his jailers on the very first day, and had lost no
opportunity since to improve their acquaintance. With them he held long
conversations, and tried thus to learn as much as possible of the state
of affairs in the city. But the turnkeys, though friendly, were rather
chary of information, and Jean gleaned but little intelligence in this
direction. Yesterday, however, one of them had casually dropped a remark
that filled him with an unreasoning joy:
"We are hideously crowded now, and there's no place to be longer
reserved for solitary confinement. So by to-morrow you may have a
lodger, my friend!" Jean dared not exhibit the pleasure this
announcement caused him. To see and speak to a human being other than
these almost inhuman monstrosities, the turnkeys, was almost too good to
be true!
"Oh, well! I'll not object, only do not crowd in too many, I beg!" he
replied with greatest indifference. But his heart sang in a very jubilee
of thanksgiving. Therefore was he waiting in breathless expectancy, for
either one of two events,--a companion in his solitude, or a call to
himself face the tribunal of justice and its almost certain result.
Which would it be?
He waited till noon in eager suspense, but the corridor remained silent.
Jean began to be very impatient. He longed for anything to break the
monotony of this waiting, even were it to mean his own call to judgment.
At last, about two o'clock, voices were heard along the corridor,
tramping footfalls, the hoarse growl of the turnkeys, and finally the
unbolting of the cell-door. But his joy was beyond all words when the
two turnkeys flung into the room a stranger, and closed the door with a
bang and the cheerful remark:
"There you are! Keep each other company till you go to make your call on
Mistress Guillotine!" The stranger fell heavily on the bed, as though in
a stupor, and so remained for many minutes. While in this state, Jean
had time to look him over and judge what manner of companion he had been
given. The man was clothed in the peasant costume, evidently of Picardy.
His face was covered with a five days' growth of beard, and his
expression indicated no large amount of wits. As he lay on the mattress,
he seemed overcome by a very paroxysm of terror. When he appeared to be
somewhat recovered, Jean broke the conversational ice:
"And what may be _your_ crime against the Republic, Citizen Friend?" The
peasant started at the sound of his voice, sat up and gave the boy a
scrutinising look. Then his face underwent the strangest transformation
Jean had ever seen. The stupid expression vanished, the eyes sparkled
brilliantly, and a smile played about the bearded mouth. In that
instant Jean recognised him.
"The Baron de Batz!" he exclaimed, springing forward.
"Hush!" whispered the Baron, as he wrung the boy's hand. "This is luck
indeed! I knew that you had been sent here, but I thought regretfully,
that you had long since perished!" Jean explained the supposed reason
that he had been so far spared.
"But tell me, I beg, how you come to be here!" he ended.
"Oh," said De Batz, "it's not under my right name that I have been
arrested, as you probably surmise. Of course, I'm still devoted to the
cause of rescuing my little king, but up till now all my plans have
failed, chiefly through just such misfortunes as that which spoiled the
one in which you took part. But there is something on foot now,--or will
be soon,--that is of greater scope than any yet conceived!
"As to how I came here?--well, I was prowling this morning about the
Temple, in this disguise of a peasant of Picardy, seeking to obtain some
needful information. For this purpose I engaged a guard in conversation,
in the course of which he remarked that the country was going to the
Evil One! 'Not _going_, but there already!' I responded, when I felt a
hand on my shoulder. I turned, and confronted--who but Simon the
cobbler!
"'That's a remark inimical to the Republic!' he roared. 'For that I
order your arrest!' And in two seconds I was in the grasp of a couple of
gendarmes who hustled me, followed by Simon, to this prison. Simon made
the charge, and I gave the name of Antoine Lecoste. The rest you know!
And for such offences are thousands of poor wretches doomed to death in
these glorious days!"
"But what a misfortune," sighed Jean, "that you should be so imperilled
when you are the soul of the noble schemes for releasing the little
fellow! You stand about one chance in a million of being acquitted, from
all I hear!"
"Do not fear for me, lad! One can never tell what may happen, of course,
but, hark you! I have a band of trusty followers, and in view of the
very thing that has happened, my arrest, we concerted, some time ago, a
plan to rescue me if I am caught and condemned, even were I on the way
to the very scaffold itself. And trust me, Jean, should it so fall out
that we travel that road together, you shall share my rescue. If I go
before you and am rescued, I will surely devise some scheme for your
escape when your time comes. Only, if you are called to go before me,
heaven alone can aid you!" Jean pressed his hand with a gratitude too
deep for words.
"Meanwhile," ended the Baron, "it is best that we do not seem too
intimate, when our jailers are around. What a horrible place this is!
How long have you been here?" And Jean gave him a history of his
imprisonment. The two talked nearly all that night. Jean had heard
practically no news from the outer world in all the eight months, and he
learned now much that astonished him. One of the events most amazing to
him was the resignation of Simon from his post of tutor to Louis XVII,
and the young king's solitary confinement. The other was that Danton,
the great original Terrorist leader had perished on the scaffold as far
back as April.
"How came it about?" inquired Jean in wonder. "I cannot understand it!
He was head and front of every thing!"
"Simple enough, in these days!" responded De Batz. "It is like the
mountainous waves of the sea. One towers above all for a moment, only to
be overtopped by the one behind it next instant. Robespierre became both
tired and jealous of his great friend and compatriot, and decided to get
rid of him. Nothing easier! He denounced Danton to the Convention, and
he was tried and condemned by the very tribunal he had himself
instituted. Right here in the Conciergerie at that! You should have seen
him during his trial! He sat and made paper pellets which he threw at
his judges! Oh, Danton was a cool one, and he died bravely! But, let me
tell you something. Robespierre's turn is coming next! The people are
weary of him and his underhand ways, and 'tis whispered that he wishes
to sweep all others out of his path and make himself Dictator. But it
won't do! They are furious at him for causing Danton's death,--his
closest friend, mind you!--and something is going to happen. The pot is
on the point of boiling. It will take but a few days at most for it to
boil over. And let me tell you who will be the next man of the
hour,--Barras! He is already very popular. Keep your eye on Barras,
Jean!"
Two days passed, and the friends were left unmolested. During this time
they exchanged thoughts on many subjects, and waited with apprehension
lest one or the other should be called away, and strove to pass the
hours as best they might. Jean begged De Batz to tell him what was the
new plan for rescuing Louis XVII.
"That I cannot tell you just yet," said the Baron. "For it is not
perfected, and I am under oath to reveal nothing. But if we get out of
this alive, be sure that you will hear more about it later. But one
thing I will say. I may have to disappear for a time to another part of
France. If I am not in Paris, _find Caron_! You know who he is?" Jean
nodded assent. Then he asked about how they were to escape.
"It is best that you should not know," said De Batz. "The manner of it
will be attended with great risk, and you will come through it better if
you are ignorant. Only, do not be surprised at anything that may
happen!"
On the third day, the jailers entered the cell at noon, accompanied by
a court-crier. Jean and the Baron exchanged a look, for they knew that
the fate of at least one of them was to be sealed that day. To their
joy, both their names were read to appear before the tribunal. The
jailers left them saying that they would be back in half an hour.
"This is a godsend!" exclaimed the Baron. "Nothing could have been
better than that we should go out at the same time. If we are rescued it
will be together, and if not,--well, at least we will die in each
other's company!" The jailers came back in a few moments and bound the
hands of the two behind their backs. In the courtyard they found a band
of thirty more victims, in charge of a corps of gendarmes, all petrified
into a very apathy of fearful anticipation. Strangely enough, there was
not even a tear shed by the band of the condemned. The sobs and
lamentations came wholly from the friends they were leaving.
Out from the courtyard, and along dark galleries and passages they were
herded like so many cattle, till at length they were pushed into the
great gloomy room where sat the far-famed Tribunal of Terror. Three
judges robed in black, wearing plumed hats, sat on a high platform, and
scribbled occasional notes. A clerk called out the list of names, to
which each prisoner responded. Then, one by one, the names were read
again, and a charge against each was hastily gabbled over, which the
prisoners scarcely heard and in nine cases out of ten did not
understand. When asked if they had anything to say in their defence,
each murmured calmly and hopelessly, "No!" After this, one of the judges
rose and pronounced the sentence:
"You are all found guilty of conspiring against the Republic! I
pronounce upon you the sentence of immediate death!"
There was no surprise and scarcely any interest created by this. Why
should there be! They had expected it from the beginning! For the most
part they were as those already dead. The gendarmes hurried them out by
another passage, and they came to an open gate, beyond which stood the
tumbrils waiting for their daily load. Here a great crowd of the
populace had collected. But where months ago they had hooted and jeered
at the doomed ones, now the sympathy of the majority was with the
victims, and the carts were loaded in a sorrowful silence, broken only
by the occasional cry of some outsider who beheld a friend among the
condemned.
Jean and De Batz were reserved for the last cart, and just before they
entered, the boy saw his friend make an almost imperceptible motion of
the head to a man in the crowd who instantly disappeared. "Courage!"
whispered the Baron to his little comrade, as they were flung
unceremoniously into the tumbril, accompanied by ten or twelve others.
That ride was a thing to be remembered as one recalls a shuddering
nightmare. Crowded in as they were, Jean saw no possible hope of rescue,
and the cart jolted on roughly through street after street. They had
approached very near the Place de la Revolution and the termination of
their ride, when a heavy cart that had driven in between them and the
forward tumbril, suddenly broke down, a wheel flew off, and the way was
completely blocked.
"Good!" muttered the Baron to Jean. "The first step is a success!" The
driver of their tumbril swore roundly, but nothing could be done except
drive back a block or two and proceed through a very narrow street,
scarcely more than an alley. Meanwhile the crowd had forsaken them, and
had hastened on to the guillotine, lest it be too late for the first of
the day's executions. The last tumbril would doubtless arrive in good
time without their assistance!
The narrow alley into which they now turned was lined with rickety
wooden houses, and Jean noticed that De Batz watched one of these
narrowly, so he also kept his eye upon it. They had almost reached it
when suddenly, out from it rushed ten or fifteen men, all shouting,
swearing, lunging at each other with knives and bludgeons, apparently
engaged in a fierce dispute that could only be settled by drawing blood.
They surged about the tumbril, while the astonished driver sought to
clear the way by flourishing his whip, and shouting for a free passage.
In the midst of all this confusion, Jean presently felt a knife inserted
between the cords that bound his wrists, and in a second his hands were
free. Then he saw that De Batz had likewise been released from his
fetters. In the midst of the greatest racket he heard the Baron whisper:
"Slip down! Get among them!" Fortunately they were both seated at the
rear end of the cart. Before Jean realised it, he was down and in the
midst of the noisy group shouting and struggling like the rest. If the
other inmates of the cart realised what was happening, they were either
too apathetic to care, or too glad that even a few might escape, to make
any outcry. The struggling, fighting men, gradually ceased their blows
and pretending to be appeased, gathered into a group, carefully
concealing in their midst the Baron and Jean. The wrathful driver of the
tumbril shook his fist at them, swore to have them all arrested later,
gathered up his reins, and the cart lumbered heavily away, while he
remained entirely in ignorance of the fact that his load was lighter by
two! When it had disappeared, they all hurried into the house from
whence the men had issued.
"Oh!" sobbed Jean, now that the terrible tension was relieved, "if we
could only have saved the rest! It seems horrible that they should go on
to what we have escaped!"
"It could not be done," said De Batz. "It was an awful risk even for
_one_, and for _two_ a still greater peril. But had there been
more,--why all would have perished! You yourself would not have been
saved, had I not given my men a sign." The men now gathered about their
leader, who congratulated them on the successful outcome of the plot.
"But we must not remain here," he ended. "One by one you must leave the
house, all but Jean and myself. It would not do for us to be seen in
broad daylight so soon. We will hide in the cellar till to-night."
Gradually the men dispersed, and till long after midnight, Jean and the
Baron kept each other company in the dark cellar, for the house was an
abandoned one. At length the time came for them to part.
"Return to the Rue de Lille," ordered De Batz, "and keep hidden there
for a few days. Things are going to happen, as I told you, and after
that it may be safe to go out. I must leave Paris, perhaps for some
time. But one injunction I leave with you,--_find Caron_! No,--do not
thank me, my boy, for helping you to this escape! It is only what we
owe to each other, and to Louis XVII! But thank God for helping us to
accomplish it. Adieu! adieu! _Find Caron!_"
And so they parted!
THE TENTH THERMIDOR