WHAT SORT OF MAN THE CITIZEN MAURICE LINDEY WAS.
While Maurice Lindey, having dressed quickly, proceeds to the section
of the Rue Lepelletier, of which, as we already know, he was secretary,
we will endeavor to lay before the public the antecedents of this young
man, introduced upon the scene by one of those impulses so familiar to
powerful and generous natures.
The young man had spoken the plain truth the preceding evening, when
in reply he had said his name was Maurice Lindey, resident in the Rue
du Roule. He might have added he was a child of that half aristocracy
accorded to the gentlemen of the robe. His ancestors, for two hundred
years, had distinguished themselves by that invariable parliamentary
opposition which had rendered so illustrious the names of Molé and
Maupeou. His father, honest Lindey, who had passed his life grumbling
against despotism, when on the fourteenth of July, '89, the Bastille
had fallen by the hands of the people, died from sudden fright and the
shock of seeing despotism replaced by a liberty militant, leaving his
only son independent in fortune and republican in principle.
The Revolution which had closely followed this great event found
Maurice in all the vigor and maturity of manhood befitting a champion
about to enter the lists; his republican education improved by his
assiduous attendance of the clubs, and by his reading all the pamphlets
of that period. God alone knows how many Maurice had read. Deep and
rational contempt for the hierarchy, philosophical consideration of the
elements which form the social body, absolute denial of all nobility
which is not personal, impartial appreciation of the past, ardor for
new ideas, a sympathy with the people which was blended with a belief
in aristocratic organizations,--such were the morals, not of the hero
we should have chosen, but of him whom the journal from which we draw
our facts has given us as the hero of our narrative.
As to his personal appearance he was in height five feet eight inches,
from twenty-five to twenty-six years of age, and muscular as Hercules.
His beauty was of the cast characteristic of the Frank,--that is to
say, fair complexion, blue eyes, curling chestnut hair, rosy cheeks,
and ivory teeth.
After the portrait of the man comes the position of the citizen.
Maurice, not rich, but still independent, bore a name much respected,
and above all popular. Maurice, known by his liberal education and
principles still more liberal than his education,--Maurice placed
himself, so to speak, at the head of a party composed of all the young
citizen-patriots. It was well that with the sans-culottes he passed for
rather lukewarm, and with the sectionaries as rather foppish. But the
sans-culottes no longer remembered his lukewarmness when they saw him
snap in twain the knotted cudgels, and the sectionaries pardoned his
elegance when he one day scientifically planted a blow between two eyes
that had been for some time watching him in an offensive manner.
And now for the physical, moral, and civic combined. Maurice had
assisted at the taking of the Bastille; he had been on the expedition
to Versailles, had fought like a lion on the 10th of August; and in
this memorable journey, it is only justice to observe, he had killed
as many patriots as Swiss,--not being more willing to tolerate an
assassin in a blouse than an enemy to the Republic in a red coat. It
was he who in order to exhort the defenders of the chȃteau to surrender
themselves, and to prevent the shedding of blood, threw himself
before the mouth of a cannon which a Parisian artillery-man was about
to discharge; it was he who by a window first entered the Louvre,
regardless of the firing of five hundred Swiss and as many gentlemen
in ambush; and when he perceived the signal of surrender, his avenging
sword had already cut through more than ten uniforms. Then, seeing his
friends leisurely massacring some prisoners, who having thrown down
their arms and clasping their hands supplicated for life, he furiously
attacked these friends, which gained for him a reputation worthy of
the good days of Rome and of Greece. War declared, Maurice enrolled
himself, and departed for the frontier in the rank of lieutenant, with
the first 1500 volunteers the city sent against the invaders, which
volunteers were each day to be followed by 1500 others.
At the first battle in which he assisted--that is to say at
Jemappes--he was struck by a ball, which after having divided the
muscles of his shoulder lodged against the bone. The representative
of the people knew Maurice, and sent him back to Paris for surgical
treatment.
For a whole month, consumed by fever, he tossed upon his bed of
suffering; but in January was able to resume his command, if not by
name, at least in fact, of the club of Thermopyles,--that is to say
of one hundred young men of the Parisian citizens, armed to oppose
any attempt in favor of the tyrant Capet. And yet more, Maurice, with
contracted brows, dilated eyes, and pale face, his heart filled with a
strange mixture of moral hatred and physical pity, assisted, sword in
hand, at the execution of the king, and perhaps he alone of all that
throng remained silent when the head of the son of Saint Louis fell
on the scaffold; and then Maurice only raised on high his redoubtable
sabre, while his friends, loudly shouting _Vive la liberté_, omitted to
notice that on this occasion at least one voice did not unite itself
with their own.
This was the individual who on the morning of the 14th of March bent
his steps toward the Rue Lepelletier, and of whose stormy career our
history will furnish further details.
Toward 10 o'clock, Maurice reached the section of which he was the
secretary. The commotion was great. The question in agitation was, to
vote an address to the Convention in order to repress the conspiracies
of the Girondins. They impatiently awaited the arrival of Maurice.
The only subject talked about was the return of the Chevalier de
Maison-Rouge, the audacity with which this arch-conspirator had for the
second time entered Paris, where he well knew a price was now fixed on
his head.
To this circumstance was attributed the attempt made the preceding
evening on the Temple, and each one expressed his hatred and
indignation against the traitors and aristocrats.
Contrary to the general expectation, Maurice appeared preoccupied and
silent, wrote down the proclamation, finished his employment in three
hours, demanded if the sitting had terminated, and receiving an answer
in the affirmative, took his hat, and proceeded toward the Rue Saint
Honoré.
Arrived there, Paris appeared quite different to him. He revisited
the corner of the Rue du Coq, where during the night he had first
seen the lovely unknown struggling in the hands of soldiers. Thence
he proceeded to the Pont Marie, the same road he had travelled by her
side, stopping where the different patrols had stopped them, repeating
in the same places (as if they had preserved an echo of their words)
the sentences exchanged between them; only it was now one o'clock
in the afternoon, and the sun, shining brilliantly upon this walk,
reminded him at every step of the occurrences of the past night.
Maurice crossed the bridges, and entered directly the Rue Victor, as it
was then called.
"Poor woman," murmured Maurice, "she did not reflect yesterday that the
duration of the night was only twelve hours, and that her secret would
not in all probability last longer than the night. By the light of the
sun, I will endeavor to find the door through which she vanished, and
who knows but I may perhaps even see her at a window?"
He then entered the old Rue Saint Jacques, and placed himself in the
same spot as the unknown had placed him on the preceding evening. For
an instant he closed his eyes, perhaps foolishly expecting the kiss he
had then received would again impress his lips. But he felt nothing but
the remembrance; 'tis true that burned yet.
Maurice opened his eyes and saw two little streets, one to the right,
the other to the left. They were muddy, dirty, and badly paved,
furnished with barriers, cut by little bridges thrown over a kennel.
There might be seen the beams of arches, nooks, corners, and twenty
doors propped up, fast falling into decay. Here was hard labor in all
its misery, here was misery in all its hideousness. Here and there was
a garden enclosed by a fence, others by palisades of poles, some by
walls; skins were hanging in the out-houses, diffusing around that
disgusting odor always arising from a tanyard.
Maurice's search lasted for nearly two hours, during which he found
nothing, and divined nothing, and ten times he had retraced his steps
to consider where he was. But all his efforts were in vain, his search
was a fruitless one, as all trace of the young woman seemed to have
been effaced by the fog and rain of the previous night.
"Truly," said Maurice, "I must be in a dream. This filthy place could
not for an instant have afforded refuge for my beautiful fairy of last
night."
There was, in this wild Republican, more real poetry than in his friend
of the Anacreontic quatrains, since he clung to this idea, fearful to
sully, even in thought, the spotless purity of the unknown. But all
hope had now forsaken him.
"Adieu," said he; "mysterious beauty, you have treated me like a child
and a fool. Would she have led me here if she really lived in this
wretched locality? No; she would only pass as a swan over the infected
marsh, and like a bird in the air leave no trace behind."