La loi, dont le regne vous epouvante, a son glaive leve sur vous:
elle vous frappera tous: le genre humain a besoin de cet
exemple.--Couthon.
(The law, whose reign terrifies you, has its sword raised against
you; it will strike you all: humanity has need of this example.)
“Oh, joy, joy!--thou art come again! This is thy hand--these thy lips.
Say that thou didst not desert me from the love of another; say it
again,--say it ever!--and I will pardon thee all the rest!”
“So thou hast mourned for me?”
“Mourned!--and thou wert cruel enough to leave me gold; there it
is,--there, untouched!”
“Poor child of Nature! how, then, in this strange town of Marseilles,
hast thou found bread and shelter?”
“Honestly, soul of my soul! honestly, but yet by the face thou didst
once think so fair; thinkest thou THAT now?”
“Yes, Fillide, more fair than ever. But what meanest thou?”
“There is a painter here--a great man, one of their great men at Paris,
I know not what they call them; but he rules over all here,--life and
death; and he has paid me largely but to sit for my portrait. It is for
a picture to be given to the Nation, for he paints only for glory. Think
of thy Fillide’s renown!” And the girl’s wild eyes sparkled; her vanity
was roused. “And he would have married me if I would!--divorced his wife
to marry me! But I waited for thee, ungrateful!”
A knock at the door was heard,--a man entered.
“Nicot!”
“Ah, Glyndon!--hum!--welcome! What! thou art twice my rival! But Jean
Nicot bears no malice. Virtue is my dream,--my country, my mistress.
Serve my country, citizen; and I forgive thee the preference of beauty.
Ca ira! ca ira!”
But as the painter spoke, it hymned, it rolled through the streets,--the
fiery song of the Marseillaise! There was a crowd, a multitude, a people
up, abroad, with colours and arms, enthusiasm and song,--with song, with
enthusiasm, with colours and arms! And who could guess that that
martial movement was one, not of war, but massacre,--Frenchmen against
Frenchmen? For there are two parties in Marseilles,--and ample work for
Jourdan Coupe-tete! But this, the Englishman, just arrived, a stranger
to all factions, did not as yet comprehend. He comprehended nothing but
the song, the enthusiasm, the arms, and the colours that lifted to the
sun the glorious lie, “Le peuple Francais, debout contre les tyrans!”
(Up, Frenchmen, against tyrants!)
The dark brow of the wretched wanderer grew animated; he gazed from the
window on the throng that marched below, beneath their waving Oriflamme.
They shouted as they beheld the patriot Nicot, the friend of Liberty and
relentless Hebert, by the stranger’s side, at the casement.
“Ay, shout again!” cried the painter,--“shout for the brave Englishman
who abjures his Pitts and his Coburgs to be a citizen of Liberty and
France!”
A thousand voices rent the air, and the hymn of the Marseillaise rose in
majesty again.
“Well, and if it be among these high hopes and this brave people that
the phantom is to vanish, and the cure to come!” muttered Glyndon; and
he thought he felt again the elixir sparkling through his veins.
“Thou shalt be one of the Convention with Paine and Clootz,--I will
manage it all for thee!” cried Nicot, slapping him on the shoulder: “and
Paris--”
“Ah, if I could but see Paris!” cried Fillide, in her joyous voice.
Joyous! the whole time, the town, the air--save where, unheard, rose the
cry of agony and the yell of murder--were joy! Sleep unhaunting in thy
grave, cold Adela. Joy, joy! In the Jubilee of Humanity all private
griefs should cease! Behold, wild mariner, the vast whirlpool draws thee
to its stormy bosom! There the individual is not. All things are of the
whole! Open thy gates, fair Paris, for the stranger-citizen! Receive in
your ranks, O meek Republicans, the new champion of liberty, of reason,
of mankind! “Mejnour is right; it was in virtue, in valour, in glorious
struggle for the human race, that the spectre was to shrink to her
kindred darkness.”
And Nicot’s shrill voice praised him; and lean Robespierre--“Flambeau,
colonne, pierre angulaire de l’edifice de la Republique!” (“The light,
column, and keystone of the Republic.”--“Lettre du Citoyen P--; Papiers
inedits trouves chez Robespierre,” tom 11, page 127.)--smiled ominously
on him from his bloodshot eyes; and Fillide clasped him with passionate
arms to her tender breast. And at his up-rising and down-sitting, at
board and in bed, though he saw it not, the Nameless One guided him with
the demon eyes to the sea whose waves were gore.