JESUIT CAMPAIGNING.
While these events were taking place at the abode of advocate Desmarais,
a royalist cabal was in full swing in St. Roche Street, on the fourth
floor of an old house built at the rear of a courtyard. An ex-beadle of
the parish, devoted to Abbot Morlet, and generously feed from the
strong-box of the clerical and aristocratic party, received the
conspirators in his lodge, consisting of two mansard buildings huddled
together. A secret issue, contrived in the bottom of a pantry,
communicated from the rear-most of these two buildings with the garret
of the neighboring house, which was also kept by royalists. In a corner
of the garret opened a trap which gave access to a _cachette_, as they
were called in those times, a hiding-place large enough to hold four
beds, and sufficiently supplied with air and light through a section of
drain-pipe running up along the chimney which formed one of the sides of
the perfectly contrived refuge. In case of a sudden descent upon the
home of the ex-beadle, the latter, warned by the porter, who was in his
confidence, would give the alarm to the refugees sheltered with him;
these then decamped by the secret issue and gained the cachette, where
they were doubly secure; for even if the trap in the pantry were
discovered, one would suppose the fugitives to have escaped by the
staircase of the neighboring house. There were in Paris a number of
these places, designed for refractory priests, ex-nobles, and suspects,
who conspired against the Republic.
So on this night in question, the royalist cabal was met at the home of
the ex-beadle. The Count of Plouernel was there, and his younger
brother, the Bishop in partibus of Gallipoli; also the Marquis of St.
Esteve, that insufferable laugher, who four years before had attended
the supper given by the Count to Marchioness Aldini; and Abbot Morlet.
The members of the cabal were seated in camp chairs about a clay stove;
all were dressed like bourgeois, and wore their hair without powder. The
Marquis alone was frizzled like hoar-frost; he had on an elegant coat of
purple cloth with gold buttons, and purple trousers to match; his
stockings of white silk were half hidden by the legs of his
jockey-boots. Good humor and joviality were written all over his
countenance, as expansive as if that very moment he were not staking his
head. The Bishop of Gallipoli, the junior of the Count of Plouernel by
several years, was dressed as a layman; both he and the Marquis, for a
long time emigrated, had recently succeeded in crossing the frontier and
regaining Paris, where they lay in concealment, like a great many other
aristocrats returned from abroad. The face of Jesuit Morlet was still,
as always, calm and sardonic; he wore a carmagnole jacket and red
bonnet.
Eleven o'clock sounded from the Church of St. Roche.
"Eleven o'clock," quoth the Count of Plouernel. "We were to have been
all met at ten; and here we are only four at the rendezvous. There are
twenty members on the committee. Such negligence is unpardonable! The
absentees are incurring grave responsibility."
"Their negligence is all the more reprehensible seeing that we must act
to-morrow; it is to-morrow that the King is to be taken to that den of
knaves, known as the Convention," added his brother the Bishop.
"Our friends must be kept away by some serious obstacle," continued
Plouernel. "Gentlemen can not be suspected of cowardice."
The Marquis let loose a peal of laughter. "Gentlemen! And that
money-changer, that Monsieur Hubert! That blue head! At first I would
not be one of the party, when I learned I had to sit with that
bourgeois. But after all, he bears the name of the great St. Hubert,
patron of hunters! Hi! hi! And so, out of regard for his patron, I
admitted the clown!"
"For God's sake, Marquis," broke in Plouernel, "put a bridle on your
hilarity. Let us talk sense. This Monsieur Hubert is a determined clown,
and very influential among the old grenadiers of the battalion of the
Daughters of St. Thomas."
"Hi! hi! hi!" shrieked the Marquis, "a battalion of girls given the
title of St. Thomas, who had to touch in order to believe! Hi! hi! hi!
Bless me, Count, I could teach that battalion an evolution which would
amuse us. Load and empty! Hi! hi!"
"No one else is coming; we are wasting precious time. Let us take
counsel," put in Jesuit Morlet, sourly. "The porter is to whistle in
case of alarm. At that signal, my god-son, on the watch on the second
floor, will come up to warn the beadle, and we shall have time to flee,
or to gain the cachette through the pantry. Let us take account of the
state of affairs--"
"This double-bottomed pantry reminds me," struck in the uproarious
Marquis, "of a certain gallant adventure of which I was once the hero.
I'll tell it to you--"
"Devil take the bore! Give us a rest with your stories," quoth the
Count.
"Marquis, why did you return to France? Answer categorically," said the
Bishop to him.
"Idiot! To save my King! To snatch him out of the hands of the
Philistines!"
"And is it thus that you pretend to save him, by interrupting our
deliberations with your buffoonery? With jests out of season?"
"But you are not deliberating on a thing! You're sitting there like
three sea-storks! Hi! hi! hi! You're not going ahead with the business
any more than I am."
"The giddy fellow is correct," said Morlet, for once taking the
Marquis's side. "We shall never finish if we do not introduce some order
into this. I shall take the chair, and open the meeting."
"You--take the chair--my reverend sir? And by what right?" was the reply
of the Bishop of Gallipoli.
"By the right which a man of sense has over fools like the Marquis; by
the right which my age gives me. For I am here much older than any of
you."
"So be it; preside," said Plouernel.
"If it is only a question of the precedence of age, I yield," said his
brother.
"Oh, and I also! Hi! hi!" cried the Marquis, holding his sides.
"By heaven, Marquis, we shall have to toss you out of the window!"
impatiently shouted the Count.
"Shut your heads, one and all of you," commanded Abbot Morlet. "I shall
put the case to you in two words. To-morrow Louis XVI will be conducted
from the prison of the Temple to the bar of the Convention. The occasion
seems favorable for rescuing the King during the passage. Here is the
means proposed. Five or six hundred resolute men, armed under their
cloaks with pistols and poniards, will meet at different places
previously agreed on, and locate themselves in isolated groups along the
route to be taken by the King; they will mingle with the crowd, affect
the language of the sans-culottes, and propagate the rumor, designedly
launched several days ago, that the majority of the Convention is
resolved to spare the life of Capet, and that the people must take
justice into its own hands. Our agents will strive thus to inflame the
people; during the passage of the King they will cry, 'Death to the
tyrant!' At those words, the signal agreed upon, they shall resolutely
attack the escort with pistols and daggers. It is our hope that, favored
by the tumult, we may be able boldly to seize Louis XVI, and carry him
off to some safe retreat prepared in advance. Our men will then march to
the Convention and exterminate its members; this being successfully
accomplished, proclamations already in print will be placarded over
Paris calling all honest men to arms against the Republic. A part of the
old elite companies of the National Guard, all the royalists and
constitutionalists of Paris, the Emigrants who have been arriving for a
fortnight--all will respond to the call to arms, and conduct the King to
the Tuileries. Numerous emissaries will be sent at once into the west
and south, and to Lyons, all of which places are ready to rise at the
voice of the nobles and priests in hiding there. Civil war will flare up
at once in several parts of the kingdom. The foreign armies, demoralized
by their defeat at Valmy, are now beating an offensive retreat to the
frontier; it is hoped that, through the civil war and the consequent
chaos, the allies will regain the advantage they had at the opening of
the campaign, advance on Paris by forced marches, and inflict terrible
chastisement upon it. This culmination, prepared with a long hand--the
only way to save the King--was about to occur just before the September
massacres. The massacres had their good and their bad side."
"You dare to say there was a good side to that carnage? Your language is
odious!" interrupted the Bishop.
"The massacres of September had a good side and a bad side," calmly
reiterated the Abbot. "Here is the bad: The most active chiefs in the
conspiracy, detained as suspects in the prisons, whence they were
carrying on their plots, were killed; the royalists of Paris and the
provinces, struck with terror, lay low and ceased their activity. It
took three months to knit together all the threads of the conspiracy
which had been snapped by the death of its leaders. The September
massacres had also the bad aspect for us that they were combined with an
outburst of patriotism. The volunteers, flocking in mass to the front,
changed entirely by their bedevilled fury the previous tactics of the
war. The Prussian infantry, the best in Europe, was overcome by the
mad-caps--there is danger lest it may long remain in the panic into
which it was thrown by the bayonet charge of the volunteers at the
battle of Valmy."
"Blue death! my reverend sir, you would best hold your tongue in matters
of war, of which you know nothing!" the Count of Plouernel impatiently
declared. "I served in the Emigrant corps which stormed the position of
Croix-aux-Bois at the battle of Argonne; I was at the side of the Duke
of Brunswick in the affray at Valmy; and I say that if the Prussian
infantry was beaten down by these bare-feet, who precipitated themselves
upon us like savages, it is now recovered from the panic, and asks
nothing better than to avenge its disgrace. Yes, and let a war come, a
real war, a great war, and the allies will make a butchery of these
undisciplined hordes. The Prussians will feed fat their vengeance!"
"And I in turn tell you, that in this matter you are completely off your
base," was the Abbot's unmoved rejoinder.
"By heaven, my reverend sir!" flared back the Count, "measure your
terms!"
And the giggling Marquis cried, "Plague on it, Abbot, all you need is a
switch to give us a flogging! Hi! hi! hi!"
"And in your case in particular, Marquis, it would fall where it was
deserved. But to continue, I come now to the good, the excellent side of
the September massacres."
Again the mere mention of such a possibility was more than the Bishop
could contain himself under. "It is impossible," he broke in, "to sit
still and hear it said in cold blood that that abominable carnage
produced any good results."
"Monseigneur," was Morlet's reply, "it does not at all become you to
discredit events in which you did not participate. Disguised as a
charcoal burner, and with my god-son as a chimney-sweep, I saw these
massacres at close range. Do you remember, Count, what I told you over
the supper-table, four years ago, the evening the Bastille was taken:
The ferocious beast must get the taste of blood to put it in the humor
of slaying? Well, so it was. And, to make the blood flow, I rolled back
my sleeves to the elbow, and set to work! So I say again, the massacres
of September held this much good for us, that they aroused general
horror throughout Europe and exasperated the foreign powers, even
including England, which was until then almost neutral, but is now
become the soul of the coalition. Even in Paris, this execrable hot-bed
of revolution, where, it must be admitted, the massacres were, in a
moment of vertigo, accepted by all classes of the people as a measure of
public safety, they now inspire unspeakable horror! The revolutionists
themselves are divided into two camps--the patriots of the 10th of
August, and the Septembrists--a precious germ of internal discord among
the wretches. All in all, there is good, much good for us, in the days
of September. The terror evoked by them will come to the assistance of
the present plot. Everything is prepared; the posts are assigned, the
depots of arms established, the proclamations printed. Lehiron, a knave
for any trick, if you grease his palm well, is in charge of the band of
make-believe sans-culottes which is to assail the King's escort. I can
answer for his intelligence and courage; he awaits his final orders next
door. Finally, this very evening, and in spite of the careful guard kept
about him, Louis XVI is to receive from his waiting-man Clery word of
the project, merely that the prince may not be frightened at the tumult,
and that he may follow with confidence those who give him the pass-word,
'God and the King! Pilnitz and Brunswick.' That, then, is how matters
stand. A plot has been framed, it is on the eve of being carried out.
Now, I put this question: Is the time ripe for action?"
Mute with astonishment, the Count, the Marquis and the Bishop stared
blankly at one another. The Count was the first to break the silence:
"How is that! You give out the details, the agencies, the object of the
plot, the execution of which is fixed for to-morrow, and still you seem
to be in doubt as to whether action should be taken?"
"I ask deliberation on these two plain propositions: First, would it not
be more opportune to await the day set for the execution of Louis
XVI--his condemnation is not a matter of doubt--and only then attempt
our stroke, in the hope that the horror of regicide will add to the
number of our partisans? And secondly,--it is I, on my own initiative,
on my own responsibility, who propose this grave question--would it not
be more expedient, in the manifest interest of the Church and the
monarchy--simply to allow Louis to be guillotined?"
The Jesuit's proposal, as strange as it was unexpected, threw his
hearers into such amazement that they were struck dumb anew, and sat
with their mouths hanging open. Three taps at the door, given like a
preconcerted signal, were heard in the stillness.
"It is my god-son," whispered the Jesuit; and in a louder tone, he
added: "Come in!"
Little Rodin was togged out in a red jacket and bonnet the same as the
prelate. He saluted the company.
"What news, my child? What have you to tell us?" inquired his
preceptor.
"Gentle god-father, there is a man down below, with the porter,
disguised as a woman. He gave the pass-word, but the porter, not
recognizing him, replied that he knew not what he was after with his
jargon. Scenting a possible spy, the porter sent his wife up to me on
the second floor, to warn me of what had happened."
"Doubtless it is one of our men, obliged to take refuge in disguise,"
began the Count.
"It is more serious than that," the Bishop dissented. "How are you to
make sure he is one of us?"
"A man tricked out as a woman!" exclaimed the Marquis. "Is this carnival
time?"
"You know all our people by sight?" asked Morlet of his god-son.
"Yes, dear god-father. When I've seen a person once, I do not forget
him. The Lord God," and he crossed himself, "has blessed His little
servant with the gift of memory, which he has so much use for."
"Go down to the porter's lodge," returned his dear god-father. "Examine
the personage in question. If you recognize him, tell the porter to let
him come up. If not, come back and let me know."
"Yes, good god-father, your orders shall be followed to the dot!"
responded little Rodin, sliding out of the door, while the Bishop asked,
dubiously:
"But may not that child make a mistake? Meseems the errand is poorly
entrusted."
"My god-son is a prodigy of cleverness and penetration," returned the
Abbot.
The interrupted topic of discussion was immediately resumed by the
Count.
"I refuse to sit under a chairman," said he, "a priest, a subject of the
King, who has the sacrilegious audacity of bringing up for consideration
the abominable question, Is it, yes or no, expedient to allow Louis XVI
to be guillotined?"
"Such abomination would seem incredible," chimed in the Bishop, "did one
not know that the Society of Jesus often preaches regicide."
"The Society of Jesus has preached, has counseled regicide whenever it
became important to suppress Kings _ad majorem Dei gloriam_--to the
greater glory of God! The church is above monarchs," retorted the
representative of the Society.
"A capital pleasantry!" put in the Marquis. "Here we are met to advise
on measures to save the King, and the priest proposes to us to let them
clip his head! The idea is brilliant!"
At this moment little Rodin returned, and reported to the Jesuit:
"Good god-father, in the person rigged out as a woman I have recognized
Monsieur Hubert."
"Let him come in," ordered the recipient of the information.
Still in Madam Desmarais's hat and fur cloak Hubert entered the room. At
the sight, the Marquis greeted him with a roar of laughter. Pale with
rage, Hubert threw at his feet his feminine head-gear, dashed off the
cloak which hid his vest and grey trousers, rushed at the Marquis, and,
shaking his fist under the latter's nose, cried:
"You shall give me a reason for your insolence, you pigeon-house
tenant!"
But the Count of Plouernel and his brother the Bishop interposed between
the two, and succeeded in calming the financier's irritation, explaining
to him that the Marquis was a hare-brain, and should not be taken
seriously. Apparently bent upon proving his reputation, the Marquis
cried out:
"Pardon, dear sir, hi! hi! or, rather, dear madam! Ah, ah, ah! if you
knew what a winsome face you had! Pardon me, I am all upset over it--it
is too much for me. Ah, ah, ah! Oh, the idea! I shall die of bottled-up
laughter if you don't let me give vent to it!"
Suiting action to word, the Marquis went off into another roar of
hysterics. Hubert's violent nature was about once more to get the better
of him, but once more was it appeased by the solicitations of the Count
and his brother. At last he cooled down sufficiently to make known to
the company the secret of his transfiguration, and how he owed his life
to his sister's devotion. During these confidences, the laughter of the
Marquis gradually died out.
"Then, that part of St. Honore Street where you have just missed arrest,
dear Monsieur Hubert," said the Count, "will to-night be watched by the
police, and I may, on leaving here, fall into their hands. For the
refuge where I have hidden myself since my return to Paris is situated
close to the St. Honore Gate. The wife of a former whipper-in in the
King's Huntsmen is giving me asylum. From the window of my garret I can
see the house of this Desmarais, your brother-in-law; whom I now regret
not having allowed to die under the cudgels when I had him flogged by
my lackeys."
"You live near the St. Honore Gate, you say, Count? What is the number
of the house, if you please?" asked the Abbot with a start.
"Number 19; the entrance is distinguished by a small gate-way."
"You could not have chosen your refuge worse! I am glad to be able to
warn you of your danger. At No. 17 of that same street live two members
of the Lebrenn family, John the iron-worker, and that beautiful woman
whom you knew under the name of Marchioness Aldini. Be on your guard,
for if these people came to know where you were hidden, they would not
let slip the opportunity to wreak on you the hate with which they have
pursued your family for so many centuries."
"Now that that fool of a Marquis has become almost reasonable, let us
resume the course of our deliberation," replied the Count, thanking
Morlet for his information; and addressing Hubert: "When you came in,
the priest was having the presumption to propose for our consideration
the question whether it would not be wiser to postpone the projected
stroke until after the King was sentenced, instead of to-morrow, as we
purpose."
"Any such delay would be all the sadder seeing that this very evening a
case of arms, containing also several copies of our proclamation, was
seized in my brother-in-law's house. The Committee of General Safety
thus has by this time the most flagrant proof of a conspiracy. So then,
I say, we must make haste. Yesterday and day before I saw several
officers and grenadiers of my old battalion, who are very influential
in their quarter. They await but the signal to run to arms. The
bourgeoisie has a horror of the Republic."
"Confess, Monsieur Hubert, that it would be better for the bourgeoisie
to resign itself to what it calls 'the privileges of the throne, the
immunities of the nobility and clergy,' than to submit to the tyranny of
the populace," rejoined Plouernel.
"Monsieur Count, a few years ago you administered through the cudgels of
your lackeys a good dressing down to a man whom I have the unhappiness
to possess for brother-in-law. I, in his place, would have paid you
back, not by proxy, through hirelings, but in person. Now, great
seigneur that you are, what would you have done in that case?"
"Eh! My God, my poor Monsieur Hubert! If I did not, in the first moment
of anger, run you through the body with my sword, I would have been
under the obligation of asking for a lettre de cachet and sending you to
the Bastille."
"Because a man of your birth could not consent to fight a bourgeois?"
"Certainly; for the tribunal composed of our seigneurs the Marshals of
France, to which the nobility refers its affairs of honor, would have
formally prohibited the duel; and we are bound by oath to respect the
decisions of Messieurs the Marshals. For the common herd we have nothing
but contempt."
"It seems to me we are wandering singularly astray from the question at
stake," interposed the Bishop. "Let us come back to it."
"Not at all, Monsieur Bishop," retorted Hubert. "We must first of all
know what we are conspiring for. If we are conspiring to overthrow the
Republic, we must know by what regime we shall replace it. Shall it be
by an absolute monarchy, as before, or by the constitutional monarchy of
1791? Well, gentlemen of the nobility, gentlemen of the clergy, what we
want, we bourgeois, we of the common herd, whom you despise, is the
constitutional monarchy. Take that for said."
"So that the bourgeoisie may reign in fact, under the semblance of a
kingdom? We reject that sort of a government," sneered Plouernel.
"Naturally."
"Whence it follows that you wish to substitute the bourgeois oligarchy,
the privilege of the franc, for our aristocracy?"
"Without a doubt. For we hold in equal aversion both the old regime,
that is, the rule of unbridled privilege, and the Republic."
"Let us come back to the subject," snapped Jesuit Morlet. "The
bourgeoisie, the nobility, the clergy--all abominate the Republic. So
much is settled. Let us, then, first attend to the overthrow of the
Republic; later we may decide on its successor. Let us decide
immediately whether we shall or shall not delay the execution of our
plot of to-morrow--the first question; and the second, which, to tell
the truth, ought to take precedence over the other--whether it would not
be better after all, in the combined interests of the Church, the
monarchy, the nobility and the bourgeoisie, simply to let them, without
any more ado, send Louis to the guillotine!"
The Jesuit's words were again received with imprecations by the Bishop
and Monsieur Plouernel, while the Marquis, finding the idea funnier and
funnier, burst into irrepressible laughter. Hubert, greatly surprised,
but curious to fathom the Abbot's purposes, insisted on knowing the
reasons on which he based his opinion. Accordingly, when silence was
restored, the Jesuit commenced:
"I maintain, and I shall prove, that the sentencing and execution of
Louis XVI offer to us precious advantages. This sovereign--I leave it to
you, Count, and to you, Monsieur Hubert--is completely lost, both as an
absolute King, because he lacks energy, and as a constitutional King,
because he has twenty times striven to abolish the Constitution which he
pledged himself to support. So much is self-evident and incontestible.
Accordingly, the death of Louis XVI will deliver us from the unpleasant
outcome of an absolute King without vigor, if absolute royalty is to
prevail; and will spare us a constitutional King without fidelity to his
oath, if constitutional royalty wins out. That settles the first and
extremely interesting point. Second point, the execution of the King
will deal a mortal blow to the Republic. Louis XVI will become a martyr,
and the wrath of the foreign sovereigns will be aroused to the last
notch against a rising Republic which for first gage of battle throws at
their feet the head of a King, and summons their peoples to revolt. The
extermination of the Republic will thus become a question of life and
death for the monarchs of Europe; they will summon up a million
soldiers, and invest vast treasuries, coupled with the credit of
England. Can the outcome of such a struggle be doubted? France, without
a disciplined army; France, ruined, reduced to a paper currency, torn
by factions, by the civil war which we priests will let loose in the
west and south--France will be unable to resist all Europe. But, in
order to exasperate the foreign rulers, to excite their hatred, their
fury, they must be made to behold the head of Louis XVI rolling at their
feet!"
"Reverend sir, you frighten me with your doctrines!" was all the Count
of Plouernel could say. With a paternal air the Jesuit continued:
"Big baby! I am through. One of two things: Either to-morrow's plot
works well, or it works ill. In the first case, Louis XVI is delivered;
the Convention is exterminated. A thousand resolute men can carry out
the stroke. But afterwards? You will have to fight the suburbs, the
Sections, the troops around Paris, which will run to the succor of the
capital."
"We shall fight them!" was Hubert's exclamation.
"We shall cut them to pieces! Neither mercy nor pity for the rebels!"
cried Plouernel.
"We shall have the bandits from the prisons set fire to the suburbs at
all four corners! A general conflagration!" suggested the Bishop.
"And these worthy tenants of the suburbs," giggled the Marquis, "seeing
their kennels ablaze, will think of nothing else but to fire in the air,
to check the flames. Hi! hi! hi! The idea is a jolly one!"
Morlet the Jesuit again brought the conversation back into its channel.
"Monsieur Hubert," he said to the banker, "at what number do you
estimate the energetic bourgeois who will take part in the fight?"
"Five or six thousand, old members of the National Guard. I can answer
for that number."
"I am willing to concede you ten thousand. There are ten thousand men.
And you, Count, how many do you think there are of the returned
Emigrants, the old officers and soldiers of the constitutional guard of
Louis XVI, and finally of the ex-servitors of the King and the
Princes--coachmen, lackeys, whippers-in, stable-boys and other menials,
who form your minute-militia?"
"I figure on four thousand--or less," replied the Count.
"Let us say five thousand. Add them to Monsieur Hubert's ten thousand
National Guards, and we have a total of fifteen thousand men. Now,
although Paris has vomited to the frontiers since September fifty
thousand volunteers, how estimate you the number remaining of these
sans-culottes and Jacobins of the suburbs, the Sections and the
federations, and finally the regiments of infantry, cavalry and
artillery which are republican?"
"There are fifteen thousand men, about, troops of all arms, not in
Paris, but within the constitutional limits, that is, within twelve
leagues of the capital," Hubert answered.
"These troops could reach Paris in one day's march. There you have
fifteen thousand men in trained and equipped corps, cavalry, infantry,
and artillery, devoted to the Republic and the Convention; troops equal
in number to your fifteen thousand insurgents. We can number the Jacobin
population of the suburbs and the Sections, and the hordes of the
federations, at thirty thousand--scamps, armed with pikes or guns, and
provided with cannon as well! Now, suppose the King liberated, and the
members of the Convention exterminated. You then find yourselves face
to face with a regular and irregular army of forty-five thousand
determined villains, while you number only fifteen thousand men, without
artillery, and extremely ill provided with supplies."
"A brave man doesn't count his enemies--he attacks them!" exclaimed
Hubert.
"We shall have for auxiliaries the foreign armies," interjected
Plouernel, "and the civil war in the west and south."
"Let us not be carried away by fancies. We are considering a levy of
defenders which must be made to-morrow, in Paris; we are considering a
fight which will be over in one day, in the capital," returned Abbot
Morlet, coldly.
"If we are beaten in Paris, we shall retreat to the revolted provinces!
We shall be new food to the civil war!" cried the Bishop.
"The mitre weighs too much for your head, monseigneur," retorted the
Jesuit. "Retreat to the provinces, say you? But if the insurrection is
defeated, how are you going to slip through the hands of the victors in
the fray? All or nearly all of you will be massacred or guillotined."
"Eh!" cried the Count, in a rage, "our friends the foreigners will
avenge us! They will burn Paris to the ground!"
"And the King? He will have been, I suppose, delivered by a bold sortie.
But the insurrection worsted, he will be retaken and will not escape
death."
"Well, we shall avenge him by a civil and a foreign war," was the lame
solution of the problem proposed by the Count.
"Let us proceed," continued the Abbot. "Since, taking your own figures,
it is a hundred to one that, even if you succeed in snatching Louis from
his jailers for an instant, he will not fail to be retaken and have his
head shorn off, what will your insurrection have availed you? Let the
good populace, then, tranquilly trim the neck of this excellent prince.
His death will be the signal for civil war, for the foreign invasion,
and for the stamping out of the Republic. Do not uselessly endanger your
lives and those of your friends; they can, like you, render great
service at the proper moment. Accordingly, I sum up: the interests of
all--bourgeoisie, nobles and clergy--will best be served by letting
Louis XVI be guillotined with the briefest possible delay. I have
spoken."
The inflexible logic of the prelate made a keen impression on his
auditors. He spoke sooth in regard to the certain defeat of the royalist
insurrection, and in relation to the redoubled fury into which the death
of Louis would throw the rulers of the surrounding monarchies. Nothing,
indeed, could be more formidable than their concerted efforts and
activity against the Republic--impoverished, torn by factions and almost
without trained troops as the latter would be. But the Jesuit suspected
not, was unable, despite his profound cunning, to conceive, what
prodigies love of country and the republican faith were soon to give
birth to.
"By the Eternal! my reverend sir," at last cried the Count, "why, then,
have you approved of our projects, why have you put at our service
Lehiron and his band of frightful villains after his own pattern, to
help undertake the affair?"
"Firstly, because I might have been mistaken in my conjectures--_Errare
humanum est_--to err is human. A man of sense is not obstinate in his
error. Secondly, and this is supreme to me, I have received from the
General of my Order, at Rome, these instructions: '_It is important to
our holy mother the Church that Louis XVI be crowned with the palm of
martyrdom_.' So that, having tested the danger and uselessness of an
uprising, I declare point-blank my determination not to take the least
part in it; I declare that I shall withhold from it whatever means of
action I can in any way control; in short, I shall oppose it in all
possible manner, licit and illicit. On the which account," concluded the
Jesuit, rising and bowing, "I shall now withdraw, so please you, my
humble reverence from your honorable company. I have nothing more to do
here."
The Abbot moved impassively toward the door, only replying to the looks
of wonder on every face with the words, "I have said."
But Hubert blocked his passage, and cried: "Miserable cassock,
hypocrite, cock-roach! Would you be also capable of denouncing us?"
"I am capable of everything to the end of preventing an act reprobated
by the General of my Order. The General of the Jesuits has spoken; all
must obey him--even Kings, even the Pope. Silence and obedience are the
words!"
So saying, and profiting by the stupor into which his audacity and
self-possession threw the other conspirators, the Jesuit left the room.
"We are off, god-son," he said to little Rodin when he had descended to
the second floor. "Come, my child; other cares call me elsewhere."
"Me also," responded the boy, blessing himself and rising. "I am ready
to follow you, good god-father. Command. To hear you is to obey."