THE FATE OF A KING
December was a month of turmoil and raging dissensions. Faction fought
faction, party abused party, and all was confusion and clamour. In the
great Hall of the Convention, speaker succeeded speaker, Deputy after
Deputy rose, and thundered, rose, and declaimed, rose, and vituperated.
Nothing was done, and in every department of the State there reigned a
chaos indescribable. "Moderation and delay," clamoured the Girondins,
smooth, narrow Roland at their head, mouthpiece, as rumour had it, of
that beautiful philosopher, his wife. "To work and have done with it,"
shouted the men of the Mountain, driving their words home with sharp
accusations of lack of patriotism and a desire to favour Monarchy.
On the 11th of the month, the Hall had echoed to the Nation's indictment
of Louis Capet, sometime King of France.
On the 26th, Louis, still King in his own eyes, made answer to the
Nation's accusation by the mouth of his advocate, the young Deseze.
For three hours that brave man spoke, manfully striving against the
inevitable, and, having finished a most eloquent speech, threw his whole
energies into obtaining what was the best hope of the King's
friends--delay, delay, delay, and yet again delay.
The matter dragged on and on. Every mouthing Deputy had his
epoch-making remarks to make, and would make them, though distracted
Departments waited until the Citizen Deputies should have finished
judging their King, and have time to spare for the business of doing the
work they had taken out of his hands; whilst outside, a carefully
stage-managed crowd howled all day for bread, and for the Traitor Veto's
head, which they somehow imagined, or were led to imagine, would do as
well.
The Mountain languished a little without its leader, who was absent on a
mission to the Low Countries, and, Danton's tremendous personality
removed, it tended to froth of accusation and counter-accusation, by
which matters were not at all advanced. At the head of his Jacobins sat
Robespierre, as yet coldly inscrutable, but amongst the Cordeliers there
was none to replace Danton.
In the early days of January, the Netherlands gave him back again, and
the Mountain met in conclave--its two parties blended by the only man
who could so blend them. The long Committee-room was dark, and though
it was not late, the lamps had been lighted for some time. Under one of
them a man sat writing. His straight, unnaturally sleek hair was
brushed carefully back from a forehead of spectral pallor. His narrow
lips pressed each other closely, and he wrote with an absorbed
concentration which was somehow not agreeable to witness.
Every now and then he glanced up, and there was a hinted gleam of red--a
mere spark not yet fanned into flame--behind the shallows of his eyes.
The lamp-light showed every detail of his almost foppish dress, which
was in marked contrast to his unpleasing features, and to the custom of
his company; for those were days when careful attire was the
aristocrat's prerogative, and clean linen rendered a patriot gravely
suspect.
By the fire two men were talking in low voices--Hebert, sensual, swollen
of body, flat and pale of face; and Marat, a misshapen, stunted creature
with short, black, curling hair, pinched mouth, and dark, malignant
gaze.
"We get no further," complained Hebert, in a dull, oily voice, devoid of
ring.
Marat shrugged his crooked shoulders.
"We are so ideal, so virtuous," he remarked viciously. "We were so
shocked in September, my friend; you should remember that. Blood was
shed--actually people were killed--fie then! it turns our weak stomachs.
We look askance at our hands, and call for rose-water to wash them in."
"Very pretty," drawled Hebert, pushing the fire with his foot. "There
are fools in the world, and some here, no doubt; but after all, we all
want the same thing in the end, though some make a boggle at the price.
I want power, you want power, Danton wants it, Camille wants it, and so
does even your piece of Incorruptibility yonder, if he would come out of
his infernal pose and acknowledge it."
Robespierre looked up, and down again. No one could have said he heard.
It was in fact not possible, but Hebert grew a faint shade yellower, and
Marat's eyes glittered maliciously.
"Ah," he said, "that's just it--just the trouble. We all want the same
thing, and we are all afraid to move, for fear of giving it to some one
else. So we all sit twiddling our thumbs, and the Gironde calls the
tune."
Hebert swore, and spat into the fire.
"Now Danton is back, he will not twiddle his thumbs for long," he said;
"that is not at all his idea of amusing himself. He is turning things
over--chewing the cud. Presently, you will see, the bull will bellow,
and the whole herd will trot after him."
"Which way?" asked Marat sarcastically.
"H'm--that is just what I should like to know."
"And our Maximilian?"
"What does he mean? What does he want?" Hebert broke out uneasily,
low-voiced. "He is all for mildness and temperance, justice and
sobriety; but under it--under it, Marat?"
Marat's pointed brows rose abruptly.
"The devil knows," said he, "but I don't believe Maximilian does."
Robespierre looked up again with calm, dispassionate gaze. His eye
dwelt on the two for a moment, and dropped to the page before him. He
wrote the words, "Above all things the State"--and deep within him the
imperishable ego cried prophetic, "L'Etat, c'est moi!"
The room began to fill. Men came in, cursing the cold, shaking snow
from their coats, stamping icy fragments from their frozen feet. The
fire was popular. Hebert and Marat were crowded from the place they had
occupied, and a buzz of voices rose from every quarter. Here and there
a group declaimed or argued, but for the most part men stood in twos and
threes discussing the situation in confidential tones.
If intellect was less conspicuous than in the ranks of the Gironde, it
was by no means absent, and many faces there bore its stamp, and that of
ardent sincerity. For the most part they were young, these men whose
meeting was to make History, and they carried into politics the excesses
and the violence of youth.
Here leaned Herault de Sechelles, one of the handsomest men in France;
there, declaiming eagerly, to as eager a circle of listeners, was St.
Just with that curious pallor which made his face seem a mere
translucent mask behind which there burned a seven-times-heated flame.
"I say that Louis can claim no rights as a citizen. We are fighting, not
trying him. The law's delays are fatal here. One day posterity will be
amazed that we have advanced so little since Caesar's day.
What--patriots were found then to immolate the tyrant in open Senate,
and to-day we fear to lift our hands! There is no citizen to-day who has
not the right that Brutus had, and like Brutus he might claim to be his
country's saviour! Louis has fought against the people, and is now no
longer a Frenchman, but a stranger, a traitor, and a criminal! Strike,
then, that the tocsin of liberty may sound the birth hour of the Nation
and the death hour of the Tyrant!"
"It is all delay, delay," said Herault gloomily to young Clery. "Deseze
works hard. Time is what he wants--and for what? To hatch new
treasons; to get behind us, and stab in the dark; to allow Austria to
advance, and Spain and England to threaten us! No, they have had time
enough for these things. It is the reckoning day. Thirty-eight years
has Louis lived and now he must give an account of them."
"My faith," growled Jean Bon, shaking his shaggy head, to which the
winter moisture clung, "My faith, there are citizens in this room who
will take matters into their own hands if the Convention does not come
to the point very shortly."
"The Convention deliberates," said Herault gloomily, and Jean Bon
interrupted him with a brutal laugh--
"Thunder of Heaven, yes; talk, talk, talk, and nothing done. We want a
clear policy. We want Danton to declare himself, and Robespierre to
stop playing the humanitarian, and say what he means. There has been
enough of turning phrases and lawyers' tricks. Louis alive is Louis
dangerous, and Louis dead is Louis dust; that's the plain truth of it."
"He is of more use to us alive than dead, I should say," cried Edmund
Clery impetuously. "Are we in so strong a position as to be able with
impunity to destroy our hostages?"
Hebert, who had joined the group, turned a cold, remembering eye upon
him.
"Austria does not care for Capet," he said scornfully; "Antoinette and
the boy are all the hostages we require. Austria does not even care
about them very much; but such as they are they will serve. Capet must
die," and he sprang on a bench and raised his voice:
"Capet must die!--I demand his blood as the seal of Republican liberty.
If he lives, there will be endless plots and intrigues. I tell you it
is his life now, or ours before long. The people is a hard master to
serve, my friends. To-day they want a Republic, but to-morrow they may
take a fancy to their old plaything again. 'Limited Monarchy!' cries
some fool, and forthwith on goes Capet's crown, and off go our heads! A
smiling prospect, hein, mes amis?"
There was a murmur, part protest, part encouragement.
Hebert went on:
"Some one says deport him; he can do no more harm than the Princes are
doing already. Do you perhaps imagine that a man fights as well for his
brother's crown as for his own? The Princes are half-hearted--they are
in no danger, the crown is none of theirs, their wives and children are
at liberty; but put Capet in their place, and he has everything to gain
by effort and all to lose by quiescence. I say that the man who says
'Send Capet out of France' is a traitor to the Republic, and a
Monarchist at heart! Another citizen says, 'Imprison him, keep him shut
up out of harm's way.' Out of harm's way--that sounds well enough, but
for my part I have no fancy for living over a powder magazine. They plot
and conspire, these aristocrats. They do it foolishly enough, I grant
you, and we find them out, and clap them in prison. Now and then there
is a little blood-letting. Not enough for me, but a little. Then what?
More of the breed at the same game, and encore, and encore. Some day,
my friends, we shall wake up and find that one of the plots has
succeeded. Pretty fools we should look if one fine morning they were
all flown, our hostages--Capet, the Austrian, the proud jade Elizabeth,
and the promising youth. Shall I tell you what would be the next thing?
Why, our immaculate generals would feel it their duty to conclude a
peace with profits. There would be an embracing, a fraternising, a
reconciliation on our frontiers, and hand in hand would come Austria and
our army, conducting Capet to his faithful town of Paris. It is only
Citizen Robespierre who is incorruptible--meaner mortals do not pretend
to it. In our generals' place, I myself, I do not say that I should not
do the same, for I should certainly conclude that I was being governed
by a parcel of fools, and that I should do well to prove my own sanity
by saving my head."
Danton had entered as Hebert sprang up. His loose shirt displayed the
powerful bull-neck; his broad, rugged forehead and deep-set passionate
eyes bespoke the rough power and magnetism of his personality. He came
in quietly, nodding to a friend here and there, his arm through that of
Camille Desmoulins, who, with dark hair tossed loosely from his
beautiful brow, and strange eyes glittering with a visionary light, made
an arresting figure even under Danton's shadow.
In happier days the one might have been prophet, ruler, or statesman;
the other poet, priest, or dreamer of ardent dreams; but in the storm of
the Red Terror they rose, they passed, they fell; for even Danton's
thunder failed him in the face of a tempest elemental as the crash of
worlds evolving from chaos.
He listened now, but did not speak, and Camille, at his side, flung out
an eager arm.
"The man must die!" he shouted in a clear, ringing voice. "The people
call for his blood, France calls for his blood, the Convention calls for
his blood. I demand it in the sacred name of Liberty. Let the scaffold
of a King become the throne of an enduring Republic!"
Robespierre looked up with an expression of calm curiosity. These wild
enthusiasms, this hot-blooded ardour, how strange, how inexplicable, and
yet at times how useful. He leaned across the table and began to speak
in a thin, colourless voice that somehow made itself heard, and enforced
attention.
"Capet has had a fair trial at the hands of a righteous and
representative Assembly. If the Convention is satisfied that he is
innocent, maligned perhaps by men of interested motives"--there was a
slight murmur of dissent--"or influenced to unworthy deeds by those
around him, or merely ignorant--strangely, stupidly ignorant--the
Convention will judge him. But if he has sinned against the Nation, if
he has oppressed the people, if he has given them stone for bread, and
starvation for prosperity--if he has conspired with Austria against the
integrity of France in order to bolster up a tottering tyranny, why,
then"--he paused whilst a voice cried, "Shall the people oppressed
through the ages not take their revenge of a day?" and an excited chorus
of oaths and execrations followed the words--"why, then," said the thin
voice coldly, "still I say, the Convention will judge him."
Maximilian Robespierre took up his pen and wrote on. Something in his
words had fanned the scattered embers into flame, and strife ran high.
Jules Dupuis, foul-mouthed and blasphemous, screamed out an edged
tirade. Jean Bon boomed some commonplace of corroboration. Marat spat
forth a venomous word or two. Robespierre folded the paper on which he
wrote, and passed the note to Danton at his elbow. The great head bent,
the deep eyes read, and lifting, fixed themselves on Robespierre's pale
face. It was a face as strange as pale. Below the receding brow the
green, unwinking eyes held steady. The red spark trembled in them and
smouldered to a blaze.
Danton looked strangely at him for a moment, and then, throwing back his
great shoulders and raising his right hand high above the crowd, he
thundered:
"Citizens, Capet must die!"
A roar of applause shook the room, and drowned the reverberations of
that mighty voice--Danton's voice, which shook not only the Mountain on
which he stood, and from which he fell, but France beyond and Europe
across her frontiers. It echoes still, and comes to us across the years
with all the man's audacious force, his pride of patriotism, and
overwhelming energy! raised it now, and beckoning for silence----
"We are all agreed," he cried, "Louis is guilty, and Louis must die. If
he lives, there is not a life safe in all France. The man is an open
sore on the flesh of the Constitution, and it must be cut away, lest
gangrene seize the whole. Above all there must be no delay. Delay
means disintegration; delay means a people without bread, and a country
without government. Neither can wait. Away with Louis, and our hands
are free to do all that waits to be done."
"The frontiers--Europe--are we strong enough?" shouted a voice from the
back.
Danton's eyes blazed.
"Let Europe look to herself. Let Spain, Austria, and England look to
themselves. The rot of centuries is ripe at last. Other thrones may
totter, and other tyrants fall. Let them threaten--let them threaten,
but we will dash a gage of battle at their feet--the bloody head of the
King!"
At that the clamour swallowed everything. Men cheered and embraced.
There was shouting and high applause.
Danton turned from the riot and fell into earnest talk with Robespierre.
In Hebert's ear Marat whispered:
"As you said. The bull has roared, and we all follow."
"All?" asked Hebert significantly.
"Some people have an inexplicable taste for being in the minority," said
Marat, shrugging.
"As, for instance?"
"Our young friend Dangeau."
"Ah, that Dangeau," cursed Hebert, "I have a grudge against him."
"Very ungrateful of you, then," said Marat briskly; "he saved Capet and
his family at a time when it suited none of us that they should die. We
want a spectacle--something imposing, public, solemn; something of a
fete, not just a roaring crowd, a pike-thrust or two, and pff! it is all
over."
"It is true."
"See you, Hebert, when we have closed the churches, and swept away the
whole machinery of superstition, what are we going to give the people
instead of them? I say La Republique must have her fetes, her holidays,
her processions, and her altars, with St. Guillotine as patron saint,
and the good Citizen Sanson as officiating priest. We want Capet's
blood, but can we stop there? No, a thousand times! Paris will be
drunk, and then, in a trice, Paris will be thirsty again. And the
oftener Paris is drunk, the thirstier she will be, until----"
"Well, my friend?" Hebert was a little pale; had he any premonition of
the day when he too should kneel at that Republican altar?
Marat's face was convulsed for a moment.
"I don't know," he said, in sombre tones.
"But Dangeau," said Hebert after a pause, "the fellow sticks in my
gorge. He is one of your moral idealists, who want to cross the river
without wetting their feet. He has not common-sense."
"Danton is his friend," said Marat with intention.
"And it's 'ware bull.'"
"I know that. See now if Danton does not pack him off out of Paris
somewhere until this business is settled."
"He might give trouble--yes, he might give trouble," said Marat slowly.
"He is altogether too popular," grunted Hebert.
Marat shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, popularity," he said, "it's here to-day and gone to-morrow; and
when to-morrow comes----"
"Well?"
"Our young friend will have to choose between his precious scruples and
his head!"
Marat strolled off, and Jules Dupuis took his place. He came up in his
short puce coat, guffawing, and purple-faced, his loose skin all creased
with amusement.
"He, Hebert," he chuckled, "here 's something for the Pere Duchesne,"
and plunged forthwith into a scurrilous story. As he did so, the door
opened and Dangeau came in. He looked pale and very tired, and was
evidently cold, for he made his way to the fireplace, and stood leaning
against it looking into the flame, without appearing to notice what was
passing. Presently, however, he raised his head, recognising the two
men beside him with a curt nod.
Hebert appeared to be well amused by Dupuis' tale. Its putrescent
scintillations stimulated his jaded fancy, and its repulsive denouement
evoked his oily laugh.
Dangeau, after listening for a moment or two, moved farther off, a
slight expression of disgust upon his face.
Hebert's light eyes followed him.
"The Citizen does not like your taste in wit, my friend," he observed in
a voice carefully pitched to reach Dangeau's ear.
Dupuis laughed grossly.
"More fool he, then," he chuckled.
"You and I, mon cher, are too coarse for him," continued Hebert in the
same tone. "The Citizen is modest. Tiens! How beautiful a virtue is
modesty! And then, you see, the Citizen's sympathies are with these
sacres aristocrats."
Dangeau looked up with a glance like the flash of steel.
"You said, Citizen--?" he asked smoothly.
Hebert shrugged his loosely-hung shoulders.
"If I said the Citizen Deputy had a tender heart, should I be incorrect?
Or, perhaps, a weak stomach would be nearer to the truth. Blood is such
a distressing sight, is it not?"
Dangeau looked at him steadily.
"A patriot should hold his own life as lightly as he should hold that of
every other citizen sacred until the State has condemned it," he said
with a certain quiet disgust; "but if the Citizen says that I sympathise
with what has been condemned by the State, the Citizen lies!"
Hebert's eyes shifted from the blue danger gleam. Bully and coward, he
had the weakness of all his type when faced. He preferred the
unresisting victim and could not afford an open quarrel with Dangeau.
Danton was in the room, and he did not wish to offend Danton yet. He
moved away with a sneer and a mocking whisper in the ear of Jules
Dupuis.
Dangeau stood warming himself. His back was straighter, his eye less
tired. The little interchange of hostilities had roused the fire in his
veins again, and for the moment the cloud of misgiving which had
shadowed him for the last few days was lifted. When Danton came across
and clapped him on the shoulder, he looked up with the smile to which he
owed more than one of his friends, since to a certain noble gravity of
aspect it lent a very human, almost boyish, warmth and glow.
"Back again, and busy again?" he said, turning.
"Busier than ever," said Danton, with a frown. He raised his shoulders
as if he felt a weight upon them. "Once this business of Capet's is
arranged, we can work; at present it's just chaos all round."
Dangeau leaned closer and spoke low.
"I was detained--have only just come. Has anything been done--decided?"
"We are unanimous, I think. I spoke, they all agreed. Robespierre is
with us, and his party is well in hand. Death is the only thing, and
the sooner the better."
Dangeau did not speak, and Danton's eye rested on him with a certain
impatience.
"Sentiment will serve neither France nor us at this juncture," he said
on a deep note, rough with irritation. "He has conspired with Austria,
and would bring in foreign troops upon us without a single scruple.
What is one man's life? He must die."
Dangeau looked down.
"Yes, he must die," he said in a low, grave voice, and there was a
momentary silence. He stared into the fire, and saw the falling embers
totter like a mimic throne, and fall into the sea of flame below. A
cloud of sparks flew up, and were lost in blackness.
"Life is like that," he said, half to himself.
Danton walked away, his big head bent, the veins of his throat swollen.