THE MUSCADIN.
It was near two o'clock. Lorin was promenading up and down in Maurice's
room, while Agesilaus polished his master's boots in the antechamber,
only for the greater convenience of conversation the door remained
open, and during his walk Lorin often stopped and questioned the
official.
"And you say, Citizen Agesilaus, that your master left home this
morning?"
"Oh, upon my soul! yes."
"At the usual hour?"
"It might be ten minutes earlier, or ten minutes later, I cannot say
exactly."
"And you have not seen him since?"
"No, Citizen."
Lorin continued his walk, and after three or four turns again stopped
and renewed his questions.
"Had he his sword with him?" demanded he.
"When he goes to the section he invariably carries it."
"Are you sure he has gone to the section?"
"He told me so, at least."
"In that case I shall join him," said Lorin; "but in case I miss him,
tell him I have been here, and am coming back."
"Wait!" said Agesilaus.
"Why?"
"I hear his footstep on the staircase."
Almost at the same moment the door opened, and Maurice entered. Lorin
bestowed a hasty glance upon him, and perceived nothing extraordinary
in his appearance.
"So you are come at last," said he. "I have been waiting here these two
hours."
"So much the better," said Maurice, smiling; "that has afforded you
plenty of time to compose distichs and quatrains."
"Alas! _mon ami_," replied the improvisator, "I do not make them now."
"Why, is the world coming to an end?"
"My dear Maurice, I am very unhappy."
"You unhappy?"
"Yes, I am miserable. I am suffering from remorse."
"Remorse?"
"Oh, by Heaven! yes," said Lorin. "Between you and her I had to
choose!--between you and her I could not hesitate; but, you see,
Arthémise is in despair, for she was her friend."
"Poor girl!"
"And it was she who gave me her address--"
"You would have done much better to have allowed things to take their
natural course."
"Yes; and at this very moment you would have been condemned in her
stead. Powerfully argued, dear friend. And I came to ask your advice! I
thought you were wiser than that."
"Never mind, ask away."
"This poor girl: do you understand? I wish to attempt some means of
saving her. Even if I could only give or receive a blow in her defence,
I feel as if it would do me good."
"You are mad, Lorin," said Maurice, shrugging his shoulders.
"Perhaps if I made an appeal to the Revolutionary Tribunal?"
"It is too late, she is condemned."
"Truly," said Lorin, "it is dreadful to see this poor girl sacrificed
thus."
"The more so since it was my safety that has entailed her death. But
after all, Lorin, we have one consolation. She was a conspirator."
"Goodness!" said Lorin, "does not every one conspire nowadays? She has
done no more, poor girl, than every one else does."
"Grieve for her neither too much, nor too loudly, my friend," said
Maurice, "for we have to bear our share in this trouble. Believe me, we
are not so fully cleared from the accusation of being her accomplices,
that no stain remains behind. To-day, at the section, I was termed
'Girondin,' by the Captain of the Chasseurs of Saint Leu; and I, at the
same time, found it necessary to convince him by a stroke from my sword
that he was mistaken."
"Then that was the reason you returned so late?"
"Just so."
"But why did you not inform me?"
"Because in affairs of this nature you cannot restrain yourself, and
the thing had to be concluded immediately, that it might make no noise."
"And that scum called you 'Girondin,' Maurice,--you, a thoroughbred
Republican?"
"By Jove, he did! and this will convince you that another adventure of
this nature and we become unpopular; and you well know, Lorin, in these
times unpopular is a synonymous term for _suspected_."
"I know it well," said Lorin; "and that word appalls the bravest heart;
but never mind--It is repugnant to my feelings to allow this poor
Héloïse to be led to the guillotine without asking her forgiveness."
"What do you wish to do?"
"I wish you to remain here; you have nothing to reproach yourself
with, so far as she is concerned. With me, you see, the case is very
different. Since I can do nothing for her, I will meet her on her way.
I wish to go there, Maurice; do you comprehend me? Were she to give me
only a wave of her hand--"
"I will accompany you then," said Maurice.
"Impossible, my friend: you are a municipal, secretary to a section,
and you have just been tried, while I have only I been your defender.
They would think you guilty, therefore remain here. As for me, it is
quite another thing. I risk nothing, and therefore go."
"Go then," said he, "but be prudent."
Lorin smiled, shook Maurice's hand, and left.
Maurice opened his window, and waved a sad adieu; but before Lorin
had turned the corner of the street, Maurice could not help gazing
wistfully at him more than once, and each time, as if drawn by magnetic
influence and sympathy. Lorin turned round, looked at him, and smiled.
At last, when the latter had disappeared at the corner of the quay,
Maurice closed the window, threw himself into a fauteuil, and fell into
one of those dreamy moods which in people of strong mind and vigorous
constitution are often the presentiments of misfortune, as they
resemble the calm which is the precursor of the storm. He was softly
awakened from his revery, or rather state of stupor, by his official,
who, on returning from the execution of some commission, entered with
the sprightly air of a servant anxious to communicate his budget of
news. Seeing his master preoccupied, however, he dared not interrupt
him, and consoled himself by constantly passing and re-passing before
him, without any reasonable cause for so doing.
"What is it?" at length said Maurice; "speak, if you have anything to
tell me."
"Ah! Citizen, another desperate conspiracy."
Maurice merely shrugged his shoulders.
"A conspiracy enough to make the hair of one's head stand upright,"
continued Agesilaus.
"Indeed!" replied Maurice, like a man accustomed to hear daily of
thirty conspiracies at this epoch.
"Yes, Citizen," replied Agesilaus; "it drives me to frenzy, you see.
The very thought of it makes a good patriot's flesh creep."
"Let us hear this conspiracy," said Maurice.
"The Austrian has all but escaped."
"Nonsense!" said Maurice, beginning to listen with greater attention.
"It seems," continued Agesilaus, "that the Widow Capet was in
communication with the girl Tison, who is to be guillotined to-day. She
has not escaped that fate, unfortunate creature!"
"How had the queen communication with this girl?" demanded Maurice, who
felt the perspiration exuding at every pore.
"Through a carnation. Can you imagine, Citizen, how they could have
conveyed the plan to her in a carnation?"
"In a carnation? Who did this?"
"Monsieur le Chevalier de--wait then! His name is notorious, but as for
me, I forget all these names. A Chevalier de Chateau--what a fool I am!
It is not a Chateau--a Chevalier de Maison."
"De Maison-Rouge?"
"That is it."
"Impossible!"
"How impossible? when I told you they have found the trap-door, the
subterranean passage, and coaches."
"On the contrary, you have told me nothing of all this."
"Well, I am going to tell you, then."
"Go on, then. If it is a story, it is at least a good one."
"No, Citizen, it is not a story, very far from it; and in proof of
that, I had it from a citizen porter. The aristocrats had dug a mine,
and this mine commenced at Rue de la Corderie, and terminated in
the cellar of the little cabin belonging to Madame Plumeau, who has
narrowly escaped being arrested as an accomplice. You know her, do you
not?"
"Yes," replied Maurice; "go on!"
"Capet's wife was to escape by the subterranean passage. She already
had her foot on the first step, when Simon caught her by her robe--
But stay, they are beating to arms in the city, and the recall in
the sections. Do you not hear the drum? There! It is said that the
Prussians are at Dammartin, and have reconnoitred as far as the
frontiers."
In the midst of this maze of words, a medley of truth and falsehood,
probability and impossibility, Maurice seized the guiding thread.
All sprung from the carnation presented before his eyes to the
queen, and purchased by himself from the poor miserable flower-girl.
This carnation contained the plan of a plot which had just come to
light, the details of which, more or less true, had been reported
by Agesilaus. At this moment the noise of the drum came nearer, and
Maurice heard the crier proclaim in the street,--
"Tremendous conspiracy discovered at the Temple by the Citizen Simon!
Grand conspiracy in favor of the Widow Capet discovered at the Temple!"
"Yes, yes," said Maurice; "it is just as I thought. There is some truth
in all this. And Lorin, in the midst of this popular excitement, goes
to offer his hand to this girl and be cut to pieces."
Maurice snatched up his hat, buckled his sword-belt, and with two
bounds was in the street.
"Where can he be?" said Maurice to himself. "Probably on the road to
the Conciergerie," and he rushed toward the quay.
At the extreme end of the Quai de la Mégisserie some pikes and
bayonets, bristling in the midst of the crowd, attracted his attention,
and he fancied in the centre he could distinguish the uniform of a
National Guard, and in the group signs of hostile movements. He ran,
his heart oppressed with the dread of impending misfortune, toward the
assemblage on the banks of the river.
The National Guard pressed by the company of Marseillais was Lorin. He
was very pale, his lips compressed, his eyes menacing; his hand upon
the handle of his sword, measuring the place best calculated to strike
the blows he fully intended to inflict on his cowardly assailants.
Within two feet from Lorin stood Simon. He was laughing ferociously,
and pointing him out to the Marseillais and the populace, saying,--
"Look at him! look well at him! He is one of those that I drove from
the Temple yesterday for an aristocrat. He is one of those who favored
the correspondence with the carnations. This is an accomplice of the
girl Tison, who will pass here presently. Well, do you see?--he walks
quietly on the quay while his coadjutor goes to the guillotine; and
perhaps she was even more to him than an assistant. She might be his
mistress, and he is here to bid her farewell, or to try to save her!"
Lorin was not the man to endure more. He drew his sword. At the same
time the crowd opened before a man who charged headlong into the group,
whose broad shoulders had already knocked down two or three spectators
who were preparing to become actors in this scene.
"Be happy, Simon," said Maurice. "You regretted, no doubt, that I was
not with my friend to enable you to turn your new title of Denunciator
to full account. Denounce! Simon, denounce! I am here."
"Faith! yes," said Simon, with his hideous sneer; "and your arrival
is very apropos. This," continued he, "is the elegant Maurice Lindey,
who was accused at the same time as the girl Tison, but was acquitted
because he was rich."
"To the lamp-post with them! to the lamp-post!" cried the Marseillais.
"Yes, forsooth, you had better make the attempt!" said Maurice, and
advancing a step he pricked one of the foremost of the cut-throats in
the forehead, so that the blood from his wound nearly blinded him.
"Have at the murderer!" cried the latter.
The Marseillais lowered their pikes, raised their hatchets, and loaded
their guns, while the frightened crowd dispersed, leaving the two
friends to contend alone against this storm of blows. They regarded
each other with a last sad, yet sublime smile, while calmly awaiting
their destruction from the whirlwind of iron and flame which threatened
them, when all at once the door of the house against which they were
leaning opened, and a swarm of young people, attired in the habits of
those termed "Muscadins," or "Fops," each wearing a sword and brace of
pistols in his girdle, rushed upon the Marseillais, and were instantly
engaged in a terrific contest.
"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Maurice and Lorin, simultaneously, animated by
this unexpected relief, without reflecting that to fight in the ranks
of the new-comers was to confirm Simon's accusation,--"Hurrah!"
But if they were forgetful of their own safety, another thought for
them. A short young man, about five-and-twenty years of age, with blue
eyes, who fought without any intermission, with infinite science and
valor, with a heavy sword which any one would have thought his delicate
and feminine hand incapable of wielding, perceiving that Maurice and
Lorin, instead of escaping by the door which he seemed to have left
open for that purpose, remained fighting by his side, turned to them
and said in a low voice,--
"Fly directly through this door; pay no attention to what we do here,
or you will uselessly compromise yourselves."
Then, seeing the two friends hesitate, he suddenly cried, addressing
himself to Maurice, "Away! no patriots among us, Citizen Lindey; we are
aristocrats here!"
At these words, united to the audacity which would induce a man
publicly to accuse himself of what at this period must lead to certain
death, the crowd uttered a loud shout.
But the fair young man and two or three of his friends, without
evincing any symptoms of alarm, pushed Maurice and Lorin into the
alley, and closed the door behind them. They then threw themselves into
the mêlée, which was now considerably augmented by the approach of the
fatal cart.
Maurice and Lorin, thus miraculously saved, regarded each other in
amazement. The outlet seemed to have been designed for the express
purpose of their escape. They entered a court, and at the end
discovered a small private door which opened into Rue Saint Germain
l'Auxerrois.
At this moment a detachment of gendarmes issued from Pont-au-Change,
who had soon swept the quay, although, from the cross-street where our
two friends had concealed themselves, they heard for an instant the
noise of an obstinate struggle. These gendarmes preceded the cart which
conducted the hapless Héloïse to the scaffold.
"Gallop!" cried a voice,--"gallop."
The cart proceeded at a quick pace, and Lorin saw the unfortunate girl
standing, a smile upon her lips, and calm reliance in her eye, but
was unable to exchange even a gesture with her, as she passed without
seeing him, in the midst of a perfect maelstrom of people, shouting,--
"To the guillotine with the aristocrat! to the guillotine!"
The noise decreased in the distance till it reached the Tuileries.
Then the little door through which Maurice and Lorin had escaped,
again opened, and three or four Muscadins, with their clothes torn and
stained with blood, passed through. It was probably all that remained
of the little troop. The fair young man went through the last.
"Alas!" said he, "this cause is then accursed!" and casting from him
his sword, notched and bloody, he rushed toward Rue des Lavandières.