here and warm yourself a little."
"The devil is not as black as he is painted," cried the pastry-cook.
Won by the kind tone of the charitable shopkeeper's words, the lady
admitted that she had been followed by a stranger, and that she was
afraid to return home alone.
"Is that all?" replied the man with the red cap. "Wait for me,
citizeness."
He gave the louis to his wife; then, impelled by that species of
gratitude which finds its way into the heart of a tradesman when he
receives an extravagant price for goods of moderate value, he went to
don his National guardsman's uniform, took his hat, thrust his sabre
into his belt, and reappeared under arms. But his wife had had time to
reflect; and, as in many other hearts, reflection closed the open hand
of kindliness. Perturbed in mind, and fearing that her husband might
become involved in some dangerous affair, the pastry-cook's wife tried
to stop him by pulling the skirt of his coat; but, obeying a charitable
impulse, the good man at once offered to escort the old lady.
"It seems that the man who frightened the citizeness is still prowling
about the shop," said the young woman, nervously.
"I am afraid so," the lady artlessly replied.
"Suppose he should be a spy? Suppose it was a conspiracy? Don't go
with her, and take back the box."
These words, whispered in the pastry-cook's ear by his wife, congealed
the impromptu courage which had moved him.
"I'll just go out and say two words to him, and rid you of him in short
order!" cried the man, opening the door and rushing out.
The old lady, passive as a child and almost dazed, resumed her seat.
The worthy tradesman soon reappeared; his face, which was naturally
red, and moreover was flushed by the heat of his ovens, had suddenly
become livid; he was so terribly frightened that his legs trembled and
his eyes resembled a drunken man's.
"Do you mean to have our heads cut off, you miserable aristocrat?" he
cried angrily. "Just let us see your heels; don't ever show your face
here again, and don't count on me to supply you with materials for a
conspiracy!"
As he spoke, the pastry-cook tried to take from the old lady the small
box, which she had put in one of her pockets. But no sooner did the
man's insolent hands touch her clothing, than the stranger, preferring
to brave the dangers of the street with no other defender than God,
rather than to lose what she had purchased, recovered the agility of
her youth; she rushed to the door, opened it abruptly, and vanished
from the eyes of the dazed and trembling woman and her husband.
As soon as the stranger was out of doors, she walked rapidly away; but
her strength failed her, for she heard the snow creak beneath the heavy
step of the spy, by whom she was pitilessly followed. She was obliged
to stop, and he stopped; she dared neither speak to him nor look at
him, whether as a result of the fear which gripped her heart, or from
lack of intelligence. She continued her way, walking slowly; thereupon
the man slackened his pace, so as to remain at a distance, which
enabled him to keep his eye upon her. He seemed to be the very shadow
of the old woman. The clock was striking nine when the silent couple
again passed the church of St.-Laurent. It is in the nature of all
souls, even the weakest, that a feeling of tranquillity should succeed
violent agitation; for, although our feelings are manifold, our bodily
powers are limited. And so the stranger, meeting with no injury at the
hands of her supposed persecutor, chose to discover in him a secret
friend, zealous to protect her; she recalled all the circumstances
which had attended the unknown's appearance, as if to find plausible
arguments in favour of that comforting opinion; and she took pleasure
in detecting good rather than evil intentions in his behaviour.
Forgetting the terror which that man had inspired in the pastry-cook,
she walked with an assured step into the upper parts of Faubourg
St.-Martin. After half an hour she reached a house near the junction of
the main street of the faubourg and that which leads to the Barrière
de Pantin. Even to-day, that spot is one of the most solitary in
all Paris. The north wind, blowing over the Buttes Chaumont and
from Belleville, whistled through the houses, or rather the hovels,
scattered about in that almost uninhabited valley, where the dividing
walls are built of earth and bones. That desolate spot seemed to be
the natural refuge of poverty and despair. The man who had persisted
in following the wretched creature who was bold enough to walk through
those silent streets at night, seemed impressed by the spectacle
presented to his eyes. He became thoughtful, and stood in evident
hesitation, in the dim light of a lantern whose feeble rays barely
pierced the mist.
Fear gave eyes to the old woman, who fancied that she could detect
something sinister in the stranger's features; her former terror
reawoke, and, taking advantage of the uncertainty which had checked
his advance, to glide in the darkness towards the door of the solitary
house, she pressed a spring and disappeared with magical rapidity.
The stranger, motionless as a statue, gazed at that house, which was
in some measure the type of the wretched dwellings of the faubourg.
That unstable hovel, built of rough stones, was covered with a layer of
yellow plaster, so cracked that it seemed in danger of falling before
the slightest gust of wind. The roof, of dark brown tiles covered with
moss, had sunk in several places so that it seemed likely to give way
under the weight of the snow. On each floor there were three windows,
the sashes of which, rotted by the dampness and shrunken by the heat
of the sun, made it clear that the cold air must find an easy entrance
into the rooms. That isolated house resembled an old tower which time
had forgotten to destroy. A faint light shone through the irregular
windows of the attic at the top of the tumble-down structure, while all
the rest of the house was in absolute darkness. The old woman climbed,
not without difficulty, the steep, rough staircase, which was supplied
with a rope instead of a baluster; she knocked softly at the door of
the apartment in the attic, and dropped hastily upon a chair which an
old man offered her.
"Hide! hide yourself!" she said. "Although we go out very seldom,
everything that we do is known; our footsteps are watched."
"What is there new, pray?" asked another old woman who was seated by
the fire.
"The man who was prowling around the house last night followed me
to-night."
At these words the three occupants of the attic looked at each other
with indications of profound terror on their faces. The old man was
the least moved of the three, perhaps because he was in the greatest
danger. Under the weight of a great calamity, or under the yoke of
persecution, a courageous man begins, so to speak, by preparing to
sacrifice himself; he looks upon his days simply as so many victories
over destiny. The eyes of the two women, fastened upon this old man,
made it easy to divine that he was the sole object of their intense
anxiety.
"Why despair of God, my sisters?" he said in a low but powerful voice.
"We sang His praises amid the cries of the assassins and the shrieks
of the dying at the Carmelite convent. If He decreed that I should be
saved from that butchery, it was doubtless because He reserved me for
another destiny, which I must accept without a murmur. God protects His
people, He may dispose of them at His pleasure. It is of you, not of
me, we must think."
"No," said one of the old women; "what are our lives compared with that
of a priest?"
"When once I found myself outside of the Abbey of Chelles, I looked
upon myself as dead," said that one of the two women who had not gone
out.
"Here," replied the other, handing the priest the little box, "here are
the wafers.--But," she cried, "I hear some one coming up the stairs."
Thereupon all three listened intently. The noise ceased.
"Do not be alarmed," said the priest, "if some one should try to
enter. A person upon whose fidelity we can rely has undoubtedly taken
all necessary measures to cross the frontier, and will come here to
get the letters which I have written to the Duc de Langeais and to the
Marquis de Beauséant, asking them to consider the means of rescuing you
from this terrible country, from the death or destitution which awaits
you here."
"Then you do not mean to go with us?" cried the two nuns gently, with
manifestations of despair.
"My place is where there are victims," said the priest simply.
They held their peace and gazed at their companion with devout
admiration.
"Sister Martha," he said, addressing the nun who had gone to buy the
wafers, "the messenger I speak of will reply '_Fiat voluntas'_ to the
word '_Hosanna_.'"
"There is some one on the stairs!" cried the other nun, opening the
door of a hiding-place under the lower part of the roof.
This time they could plainly hear, amid the profound silence, the
footsteps of a man upon the stairs, which were covered with ridges of
hardened mud. The priest crept with difficulty into a sort of cupboard,
and the nuns threw over him a few pieces of apparel.
"You may close the door, Sister Agatha," he said in a muffled voice.
The priest was hardly hidden when three taps on the door caused a shock
to the two holy women, who consulted each other with their eyes, afraid
to utter a single word. Each of them seemed to be about sixty years
old. Secluded from the world for forty years, they were like plants
habituated to the air of a hot-house, which wilt if they are taken from
it. Accustomed to the life of a convent, they were unable to imagine
any other life. One morning, their gratings having been shattered, they
shuddered to find themselves free. One can readily imagine the species
of imbecility which the events of the Revolution had produced in their
innocent minds. Incapable of reconciling their conventual ideas with
the difficult problems of life, and not even understanding their
situation, they resembled children who had been zealously cared for
hitherto, and who, deserted by their motherly protector, prayed instead
of weeping. And so, in face of the danger which they apprehended at
that moment, they remained mute and passive, having no conception of
any other defence than Christian resignation.
The man who desired to enter interpreted that silence to suit himself;
he opened the door and appeared abruptly before them. The two nuns
shuddered as they recognised the man who had been prowling about their
house, making inquiries about them, for some time. They did not move,
but gazed at him with anxious curiosity, after the manner of the
children of savage tribes, who examine strangers in silence. He was
tall and stout; but there was nothing in his manner, or appearance, to
indicate an evil-minded man. He imitated the immobility of the nuns,
and moved his eyes slowly about the room in which he stood.
Two straw mats, laid upon boards, served the two nuns as beds. There
was a single table in the centre of the room, and upon it a copper
candlestick, a few plates, three knives, and a round loaf. The fire on
the hearth was very low, and a few sticks of wood piled in a corner
testified to the poverty of the two occupants. The walls, covered
with an ancient layer of paint, demonstrated the wretched condition
of the roof, for stains like brown threads marked the intrusion of
the rain-water. A relic, rescued doubtless during the pillage of the
Abbey of Chelles, adorned the mantel. Three chairs, two chests, and a
wretched commode completed the furniture of the room. A door beside the
chimney indicated the existence of an inner chamber.
The inventory of the cell was speedily made by the person who had
thrust himself into the bosom of that group under such alarming
auspices. A sentiment of compassion was expressed upon his face, and
he cast a kindly glance upon the two women, but seemed at least as
embarrassed as they. The strange silence preserved by all three lasted
but a short time, for the stranger at last divined the mental weakness
and the inexperience of the two poor creatures, and he said to them
in a voice which he tried to soften: "I do not come here as an enemy,
citizenesses."
He paused, and then resumed: "My sisters, if any misfortune should
happen to you, be sure that I have had no part in it. I have a favour
to ask of you."
They still remained silent.
"If I annoy you, if I embarrass you, tell me so frankly, and I will go;
but understand that I am entirely devoted to you; that if there is any
service that I can do you, you may employ me without fear; that I alone
perhaps am above the law, as there is no longer a king."
There was such a ring of truth in these words that Sister Agatha,
the one of the two nuns who belonged to the family of Langeais, and
whose manners seemed to indicate that she had formerly been familiar
with magnificent festivities and had breathed the air of courts,
instantly pointed to one of the chairs, as if to request their guest
to be seated. The stranger manifested a sort of mixture of pleasure
and melancholy when he saw that gesture; and he waited until the two
venerable women were seated, before seating himself.
"You have given shelter," he continued, "to a venerable unsworn priest,
who miraculously escaped the massacre at the Carmelite convent."
_"Hosanna!"_ said Sister Agatha, interrupting the stranger, and gazing
at him with anxious interest.
"I don't think that that is his name," he replied.
"But, monsieur," said Sister Martha hastily, "we haven't any priest
here, and----"
"In that case you must be more careful and more prudent," retorted the
stranger gently, reaching to the table and taking up a breviary. "I do
not believe that you know Latin, and----"
He did not continue, for the extraordinary emotion depicted on the
faces of the unhappy nuns made him feel that he had gone too far; they
were trembling, and their eyes were filled with tears.
"Do not be alarmed," he said to them cheerily; "I know the name of
your guest and your names; and three days ago I was informed of your
destitution and of your devotion to the venerable Abbé of ----"
"Hush!" said Sister Agatha innocently, putting her finger to her lips.
"You see, my sisters, that if I had formed the detestable plan of
betraying you, I might already have done it more than once."
When he heard these words, the priest emerged from his prison and
appeared in the middle of the room.
"I cannot believe, monsieur," he said to the stranger, "that you are
one of our persecutors, and I trust you. What do you want with me?"
The priest's saintlike confidence, the nobility of soul that shone
in all his features, would have disarmed an assassin. The mysterious
personage who had enlivened that scene of destitution and resignation
gazed for a moment at the group formed by those three; then he assumed
a confidential tone, and addressed the priest in these words:
"Father, I have come to implore you to celebrate a mortuary mass for
the repose of the soul of a--a consecrated person, whose body, however,
will never lie in holy ground."
The priest involuntarily shuddered. The two nuns, not understanding as
yet to whom the stranger referred, stood with necks outstretched, and
faces turned towards the two men, in an attitude of intense curiosity.
The priest scrutinised the stranger; unfeigned anxiety was depicted
upon his face, and his eyes expressed the most ardent entreaty.
"Very well," replied the priest; "to-night, at midnight, return here,
and I shall be ready to celebrate the only funeral service which we can
offer in expiation of the crime to which you refer."
The stranger started; but a feeling of satisfaction, at once
grateful and solemn, seemed to triumph over some secret grief.
Having respectfully saluted the priest and the two holy women, he
disappeared, manifesting a sort of mute gratitude which was understood
by those three noble hearts. About two hours after this scene the
stranger returned, knocked softly at the attic door, and was admitted
by Mademoiselle de Beauséant, who escorted him into the second room
of that humble lodging, where everything had been prepared for the
ceremony.
Between two flues of the chimney, the nuns had placed the old commode,
whose antiquated shape was covered by a magnificent altar-cloth of
green silk. A large crucifix of ebony and ivory, fastened upon the
discoloured wall, heightened the effect of its bareness and inevitably
attracted the eye. Four slender little tapers, which the sisters had
succeeded in standing upon that improvised altar by fixing them in
sealing-wax, cast a pale light, which the wall reflected dimly. That
faint gleam barely lighted the rest of the room; but, in that it
confined its illumination to the consecrated objects, it resembled a
ray of light from heaven upon that undecorated altar. The floor was
damp. The attic roof, which sloped sharply on both sides, had various
cracks through which a biting wind blew. Nothing less stately could be
imagined, and yet perhaps there could be nothing more solemn than this
lugubrious ceremony.
A silence so profound that it would have enabled them to hear the
faintest sound on distant thoroughfares, diffused a sort of sombre
majesty over that nocturnal scene. In short, the grandeur of the
occasion contrasted so strikingly with the poverty of the surroundings
that the result was a sensation of religious awe. The two old nuns,
kneeling on the damp floor on either side of the altar, heedless of
the deadly moisture, prayed in unison with the priest, who, clad in
his pontifical vestments, prepared a golden chalice adorned with
precious stones, a consecrated vessel rescued doubtless from the
plunderers of the Abbey of Chelles. Beside that pyx, an object of regal
magnificence, were the water and wine destined for the sacrament,
in two glasses hardly worthy of the lowest tavern. In default of a
missal, the priest had placed his breviary on a corner of the altar.
A common plate was provided for the washing of those innocent hands,
pure of bloodshed. All was majestic, and yet paltry; poor, but noble;
profane and holy in one. The stranger knelt piously between the two
nuns. But suddenly, when he noticed a band of crape on the chalice and
on the crucifix--for, having nothing to indicate the purpose of that
mortuary mass, the priest had draped God Himself in mourning--he was
assailed by such an overpowering memory that drops of sweat gathered
upon his broad forehead. The four silent actors in that scene gazed at
each other mysteriously; then their hearts, acting upon one another,
communicated their sentiments to each other and became blended into the
one emotion of religious pity; it was as if their thoughts had evoked
the royal martyr whose remains had been consumed by quicklime, but
whose shade stood before them in all its royal majesty. They celebrated
an _obit_ without the body of the deceased. Beneath those disjointed
tiles and laths, four Christians interceded with God for a king of
France, and performed his obsequies without a bier. It was the purest
of all possible devotions, an amazing act of fidelity performed without
one thought of self. Doubtless, in the eyes of God, it was like the
glass of water which is equal to the greatest virtues. The whole of
monarchy was there, in the prayers of a priest and of two poor nuns;
but perhaps the Revolution, too, was represented, by that man whose
face betrayed too much remorse not to cause a belief that he was acting
in obedience to an impulse of unbounded repentance.
Instead of saying the Latin words: "_Introibo ad altare Dei_," etc.,
the priest, obeying a divine inspiration, looked at the three persons
who represented Christian France, and said to them, in words which
effaced the poverty of that wretched place:
"We are about to enter into God's sanctuary!"
At these words, uttered with most impressive unction, a thrill of holy
awe seized the stranger and the two nuns. Not beneath the arches of
St. Peter's at Rome could God have appeared with more majesty than
He then appeared in that abode of poverty, before the eyes of those
Christians; so true it is that between man and Him every intermediary
seems useless, and that He derives His grandeur from Himself alone. The
stranger's fervour was genuine, so that the sentiment which joined
the prayers of those four servants of God and the king was unanimous.
The sacred words rang out like celestial music amid the silence. There
was a moment when tears choked the stranger's voice; it was during
the paternoster. The priest added to it this Latin prayer, which the
stranger evidently understood: "_Et remitte scelus regicidis sicut
Ludovicus eis remisit semetipse!_ (And forgive the regicides even as
Louis XVI. himself forgave them!)."
The two nuns saw two great tears leave a moist trace on the manly
cheeks of the stranger, and fall to the floor. The Office of the Dead
was recited. The _Domine salvum fac regem_, chanted in a low voice,
touched the hearts of those faithful royalists, who reflected that
the infant king, for whom they were praying to the Most High at that
moment, was a prisoner in the hands of his enemies. The stranger
shuddered at the thought that there might still be committed a new
crime, in which he would doubtless be compelled to take part. When the
service was at an end, the priest motioned to the two nuns to withdraw.
As soon as he was alone with the stranger, he walked towards him with a
mild and melancholy expression, and said to him in a fatherly tone:
"My son, if you have dipped your hands in the blood of the martyr king,
confess to me. There is no sin which, in God's eyes, may not be effaced
by repentance so touching and so sincere as yours seems to be."
At the first words of the priest, the stranger made an involuntary
gesture of terror; but his face resumed its tranquillity, and he met
the astonished priest's eye with calm assurance.
"Father," he said to him in a perceptibly tremulous voice, "no one is
more innocent than I of bloodshed."
"I am bound to believe you," said the priest.
There was a pause, during which he examined the penitent more closely;
then, persisting in taking him for one of those timid members of the
Convention who sacrificed a consecrated and inviolate head in order to
preserve their own, he continued in a solemn voice:
"Remember, my son, that to be absolved from that great crime, it is
not enough not to have actually taken part in it. Those who, when they
might have defended their king, left their swords in the scabbard, will
have a very heavy account to settle with the King of Heaven. Ah, yes!"
added the old priest, shaking his head with a most expressive movement,
"yes, very heavy! for, by remaining idle, they became the involuntary
accomplices of that ghastly crime."
"Do you think," inquired the thunderstruck stranger, "that indirect
participation will be punished? Is the soldier guilty who is ordered to
join the shooting-squad?"
The priest hesitated. Pleased with the dilemma in which he had placed
that puritan of royalty by planting him between the dogma of passive
obedience, which, according to the partisans of monarchy, should be
predominant in all military codes, and the no less important dogma
which sanctifies the respect due to the person of kings, the stranger
was too quick to see in the priest's hesitation a favourable solution
of the doubts by which he seemed to be perturbed. Then, in order to
give the venerable Jansenist no longer time to reflect, he said to him:
"I should blush to offer you any sort of compensation for the funeral
service which you have just performed for the repose of the king's
soul and for the relief of my conscience. A thing of inestimable value
can be paid for only by an offering which is beyond all price. Deign,
therefore, to accept, monsieur, the gift that I offer you of a blessed
relic. The day will come, perhaps, when you will realise its value."