A TRIAL AND A WEDDING
Of the hours that passed after that death-like swoon of hers Mlle de
Rochambeau never spoke. Never again could she open the door behind which
lurked madness, and an agony such as women have had to bear, time and
again, but of which no woman whom it has threatened can speak. Hebert
had given his orders, and she was thrust into an empty cell, where she
lay cowering, with hidden face, and lips that trembled too much to pray.
Hebert's threat lay in her mind like a poison in the body. Soon it
would kill--but not in time, not soon enough. She could not think, or
reason, and hope was dead. Something else had come in its place, a
thing unformulated and dreadful, not to be thought of, unbelievable, and
yet unbearably, irrevocably present.
Oh, the long, shuddering hours, and yet, by a twist of the tortured
brain, how short--how brief--for now she saw them as barriers between
her and hell, and each as it fell away left her a thing more utterly
unhelped.
When they brought her out in the morning, and she stepped from the dark
prison into the warm, sunny daylight, she raised her head and looked
about her a little wonderingly.
Still a sun in the sky! Still summer shine and breath, and beautiful
calm space of blue ethereal light above. A sort of stunned bewilderment
fell upon her, and she sat very still and quiet all the way.
Inside the hall citizens crowded and jostled one another for a place;
plump, respectable mothers of families, cheek by jowl with draggled
wrecks of the slums, moneyed shopkeepers, tattered loafers, a wild-eyed
Jacobin or two, and everywhere women, women, women. Women with their
children, lifting a round-eyed starer high to see the white-faced
aristocrat go past; women with their work, whose chattering tongues kept
pace with the clattering needles; women fiercer and more cruel than men,
to whom death and blood and anguish were become a stimulant more fatally
potent than any alcohol.
There were men there too, gaping, yawning, telling horrible tales, men
whose hands had dripped innocent blood in September. There was a reek
of garlic, the air was abominably hot and close, and wherever citizens
could get an elbow free one saw a mopping of greasy faces going forward.
As Mademoiselle de Rochambeau was brought in, a sort of growling murmur
went round. The crowd was in a dangerous mood: on the verge of ennui,
it wanted something fresh--a sauce piquante to its daily dish--and here
was only another cursed aristocrat with nothing very remarkable about
her.
She looked round, not curiously, but in some vague, helpless fashion,
which might have struck pity from hearts less inured to suffering. On
the raised stage to which they had brought her there were a couple of
rough tables. At the nearest of the two sat a number of men, very dirty
and evil-eyed--Fouquier Tinville's carefully packed jury; and at the
farther one, Herman, the great tow-haired Judge President, with his
heavy air of being half asleep; and Tinville himself, the Public
Prosecutor, low-browed, with retreating chin--Renard the Fox, as a
contemporary squib has it, the perpetrator of which lost his head for
his pains. Behind him lounged Hebert, hands in pockets, light eyes
roving here and there. She saw him and turned her head away with the
wince of a trapped animal, looking through a haze of misery to the sea
of faces below.
There is a peculiar effluence from any large body of people. Their
encouragement, or their hostility, radiates from them, and has an
overwhelming influence upon the mind. When the crowd cheers how quickly
enthusiasm spreads, until, like a rising tide, it covers its myriad
human grains of sand! And a multitude in anger?--No one who has heard
it can forget!
Imagine, then, one bruised, tormented human speck, girl in years, gently
nurtured, set high in face of a packed assemblage, every upturned face
in which looked at her with appraising lust, bloodthirsty cruelty, or
inhuman curiosity. A wild panic unknown before swept in upon her soul.
She had not thought it could feel again, but between Hebert's glance,
which struck her like a shameful blow, and all these eyes staring with
hatred, her reason rocked, and she felt a scream rise shuddering from
the very centre of her being.
Those watching saw both slender hands catch suddenly at the white
throat, whilst for a minute the darkened eyes stared wildly round; then,
with a supreme effort, she drew herself up, and stood quietly, and if
the blood beat a mad tune on heart and brain, there was no outward sign,
except a pallor more complete, and a tightening of the clasped, fallen
hands that left the knuckles white.
It was thus, after months of absence, that Dangeau saw her again, and
the rage and love and pity in his heart boiled up until it challenged
his utmost self-control to keep his hands from Hebert's throat.
Hebert smiled, but uneasily. This was what he had planned--wished
for--and yet-- Face to face with Dangeau again, he felt the old desire
to slink past, and get out of the range of the white, hot anger in the
eyes that for a moment seemed to scorch his face.
Dangeau had come in quietly enough, and stood first at the edge of the
crowd, by the steps which led to the raised platform on which accused
and judges were placed. He had shot his bolt, had made a vain effort to
see Danton, and was now come here to do he knew not what.
Mademoiselle looking straight before her, with eyes that now saw
nothing, was not aware of his presence, as in a strained, far-away voice
she answered the questions Fouquier Tinville put to her.
"Your name?"
"Aline Marie de Rochambeau."
"You are a cousin of the late ci-devant and conspirator Montargis?"
"Yes."
A sort of howl went up from the back of the room, where a knot of filthy
men stood gesticulating.
"And you were betrothed to that other traitor Selincourt?"
"Yes."
The answers dropped almost indifferently from the scarcely parted lips,
but she shrank and swayed a little, as a second shout followed her
reply, and she caught curses, cries for her death, and a woman's scream
of, "Down with Selincourt's mistress! Give her to us! Throw her down!"
Tinville waved for silence and gradually the noise lessened, the
audience settling down with the reflection that perhaps it would be a
pity to cut the play short in its first act.
"You have conspired against the Republic?"
"No."
"But I say yes," said Tinville loudly. "Citizen Hebert discovered you
under an assumed name. Why did you take a name that was not your own if
you had no intention of plotting? Are honest citizens ashamed of their
names?"
Dangeau swung himself on to the platform and came forward.
"Citizen President," he said quietly. "I claim to represent the
accused, who has, I see, no counsel."
Herman looked up stupidly, a vague smile on his broad, blond face.
"We have done away with counsel for the defence," he observed, with a
large, explanatory wave of the hand. "It took too much time. The
Revolutionary Tribunal now has increased powers, and requires only to
hear and to be convinced of the prisoners' crimes. We have simplified
the forms since you went south, Citizen."
Fouquier Tinville glanced at him with venomous intention. "And the
Citizen delays us," he said politely.
Aline had let one only sign of feeling escape her,--a soft, quick gasp
as Dangeau came within the contracting circle of her consciousness,--but
the sound reached him and came sweetly to his ears.
He turned again to Herman.
"But you still hear witnesses, or whence the conviction?" he said in a
carefully controlled voice.
"It is Dangeau, our Dangeau!" shouted a woman near the front. "Let him
speak if he wants to: what does he know of the girl?"
He recognised little Louison, hanging to her big husband's arm, and sent
her a smiling nod of thanks.
"Witnesses, by all means," shrugged Tinville, to whom Hebert had been
whispering. "Only be quick, Citizen, and remember it is a serious thing
to try to justify a conspirator." He turned and whispered back, "He 'll
talk his head off if we give him the chance--devil speed him!" then
leaned across the table and inquired:
"What do you know of the accused?"
"I know her motive for changing her name."
"Oh, you know her motive--eh?"
Dangeau raised his voice.
"A patriotic one. She came to Paris, she witnessed the corruption and
vice of aristocrats, and she determined to come out from among them and
throw in her lot with the people."
Mademoiselle turned slowly and faced him. Now if she spoke, if she
demurred, if she even looked a contradiction of his words, they were
both lost--both.
His eyes implored, commanded her, but her lips were already opening, and
he could see denial shaping there, denial which would be a warrant of
death, when of a sudden she met Hebert's dull, anxious gaze, and,
shuddering, closed her lips, and looked down again at the uneven, dusty
floor. Dangeau let out his breath with a gasp of relief, and spoke once
more.
"She called herself Marie Roche because her former name was hateful to
her. She worked hard, and went hungry. I call on Louison Michel to
corroborate my words."
Hebert raised a careless hand, and instantly there was a clamour of
voices from the back. He congratulated himself in having had the
forethought to install a claque, as they listened to the cries of,
"Death to the aristocrat! Down with the conspirator! Death! Death!"
Dangeau turned from the bar to the people.
"Citizens," he cried, "I turn to you for justice. What did they say in
the bad old days?--'The King's voice is God's voice,' and I say it
still." The clamour rose again, but his voice dominated it.
"I say it still, for, though the King is dead, a new king lives whose
reign will never end,--the Sovereign People,--and at their bar I know
there will be equal justice shown, and no consideration of persons. Why
did Capet fall? Why did I vote for his death? Because of oppression
and injustice. Because there was no protection for the weak--no hearing
for the poor. But shall not the People do justice? Citizens, I appeal
to you--I am confident in your integrity."
A confused uproar followed, some shouting, "Hear him!" and others still
at their old parrot-cry of, "Death! Death!"
Above it all rang Louison's shrill cry:
"A speech, a speech! Let Dangeau speak!" and by degrees it was taken up
by others.
"The girl is innocent. Will you, just Citizens, punish her for a name
which she has discarded, for parents who are dead, and relations from
whom she shrank in horror? I vouch for her, I tell you--I, Jacques
Dangeau. Does any one accuse me? Does any one cast a slur upon my
patriotism? I tell you I would cut off my right hand if it offended
those principles which I hold dearer than my life; and saying that, I
say again, I vouch for her."
"All very fine that," called a man's voice, "but what right have you to
speak for her, Citizen? Has n't the girl a tongue of her own?"
"Yes, yes!" shouted a big brewer who had swung himself to the edge of
the platform, and sat there kicking his heels noisily. "Yes, yes! it
's all very well to say 'I vouch for her,' but there 's only one woman
any man can vouch for, and that's his wife."
"What, Robinot, can you vouch for yours?" screamed Louison; and a roar
of laughter went up, spiced by the brewer's very evident discomfort.
"Yes, what's she to you after all?" said another woman.
"A hussy!" shrieked a third.
"An aristocrat!"
"What do you know of her, and how do you know it?"
"Explain, explain!"
"Death, death to the aristocrat!"
Dangeau sent his voice ringing through the hall:
"She is my betrothed!"
A momentary hush fell upon the assembly. Hebert sprang forward with a
curse, but Tinville plucked him back, whispering, "Let him go on; that
'll damn him, and is n't that what you want?"
Again Aline's lips moved, but instead of speaking she put both hands to
her heart, and stood pressing them there silently. In the strength of
that silence Dangeau turned upon the murmuring crowd.
"She is my betrothed, and I answer for her. You all know me. She is an
aristocrat no longer, but the Daughter of the Revolution, for it has
borne her into a new life. All the years before she has discarded.
From its mighty heart she has drawn the principles of freedom, and at
its guiding hand learned her first trembling steps towards Liberty. In
trial of poverty, loneliness, and hunger she has proved her loyalty to
the other children of our great Mother. Sons and Daughters of the
Republic, protect this child who claims to be of your line, who holds
out her hands to you and cries: 'Am I not one of you? Will you not
acknowledge me? brothers before whom I have walked blamelessly, sisters
amongst whom I have lived in poverty and humility.'"
He caught Mademoiselle's hand, and held it up.
"See the fingers pricked and worn, as many of yours are pricked and
worn. See the thin face--thin as your daughters' faces are thin when
there is not food for all, and the elder must go without that the
younger may have more. Look at her. Look well, and remember she comes
to you for justice. Citizens, will you kill your converts? She gives
her life and all its hopes to the Republic, and will the Republic
destroy the gift? Keep the knife to cut away the alien and the enemy. Is
my betrothed an alien? Shall my wife be an enemy? I swear to you that,
if I believed it, my own hand would strike her down! If there is a
citizen here who does not believe that I would shed the last drop of my
heart's blood before I would connive at the danger of the Republic, let
him come forward and accuse me!"
"Stop him!" gasped Hebert.
Fouquier Tinville shrugged his shoulders, as he and Herman exchanged
glances.
"No, thanks, Hebert," he said coolly. "He's got them now, and I 've no
fancy for a snug position between the upper and the nether millstone.
After all, what does it matter? There are a hundred other girls" and he
spat on the dirty floor.
Undoubtedly Dangeau had them, for in that pause no one spoke, and his
voice rang out again at its full strength:
"Come forward then. Do any accuse me?"
There was a prolonged hush. The jury growled amongst themselves, but no
one coveted the part of spokesman.
Once Hebert started forward, cleared his throat, then reflected for a
moment on Danton and his ways--reflected, too, that this transaction
would hardly bear the light of day, cursed the universe at large, and
fell back into his chair choking with rage.
It appeared that no one accused Dangeau. Far in the crowd a pretty
gipsy of a girl laughed loudly.
"Handsome Dangeau for me!" she cried. "Vive Dangeau!"
In a minute the whole hall took it up, and the roof rang with the
shouting. The girl who had laughed had been lifted to her lover's
shoulders, and stood there, flushed and exuberant, leading the cheers
with her wild, shrill voice.
When the noise fell a little, she waved her arms, crying, with a peal of
laughter:
"Let's have a wedding, a wedding, mes amis! If she 's the Daughter of
the Revolution, let the Revolution give away the bride, and we 'll all
say Amen!"
The crowd's changed mood tossed the new suggestion into instant
popularity. The girl's cry was taken up on all sides, there was
bustling to and fro, laughter, gossip, whispering, shouting, and general
jubilation. A fete, a spectacle--something new--oh, but quite new. A
trial that ended in the bridal of the victim, to be sure one did not see
that every day. That was romantic. That made one's heart beat. Well,
well, she was in luck to get a handsome lover instead of having her head
sliced off.
"Vive Dangeau! Vive Dangeau and the Daughter of the Revolution!"
Up on to the platform swarmed the crowd, laughing, gesticulating,
pressing upon the jury, and even jostling Fouquier Tinville himself.
Hebert bent to his ear in a last effort, but got only a curse and a
shrug for his pains.
"I tell you, he 's got them, and no human power can thwart them now."
"You should have shut his mouth! Why in the devil's name did you let
him speak?"
"You wanted him to compromise himself, and it seemed the easiest way.
He has the devil's own luck. Hark to the fools with their 'Vive
Dangeau!' A while ago it was 'Death to the aristocrat!' and now it 's
'Dangeau and the Daughter of the Revolution!'"
"Speak to them,--do something," insisted Hebert.
"Try it yourself, and get torn to pieces," retorted the other. "The
girl 's not my fancy. Burn your own fingers if you want to."
Dangeau was at the table now.
"We await the decision of the Tribunal," he said, with a hint of sarcasm
in the quiet tones.
Fouquier Tinville's eyes rested insolently upon him.
"Our Sovereign has decided, it seems," he said. "For me--I throw up the
prosecution."
Hebert flung away with an oath, and Herman bent stolidly and wrote
against the interrogatory the one word, "Acquitted."
It stood out black and bold in his gross scrawl, and as he threw the
sand on it, Dangeau turned away with a bow.
Some one was being pushed through the crowd--a dark man in civil dress,
but with the priest's look on his sallow, nervous face. Dangeau
recognised the odd, cleft chin and restless eyes of Latour, the
Constitutional cure of St. Jean.
"A wedding, a wedding!" shouted the whole assembly, those at the back
crying the more loudly, as if to make up by their own noise for not
being able to hear what was passing on the platform.
"A wedding, a wedding!" shrieked the same women who, not half an hour
ago, had raised the howl for the aristocrat's blood.
"Bride, bridegroom, and priest," laughed the gipsy-eyed girl. "What
more do we want? The Citizen President can give away the bride, and I
'll be brides-maid. Set me down then, Rene, and let 's to work."
Her lover pushed a way to the front and lifted her on to the stage. She
ran to Mademoiselle and began to touch her hair and settle the kerchief
at her throat, whilst Aline stood quite, quite still, and let her do
what she would.
She had not stirred since Dangeau had released her hand, and within her
every feeling and emotion lay swooning. It was as if a black tide had
risen, covering all within. Upon its dark mirror floated the reflection
of Hebert's cruel eyes, and loose lips that smiled upon a girl's shamed
agony. If those waters rose any higher they would flood her brain and
send her mad with horror, Dangeau's voice seemed to arrest the tide, and
whilst he spoke the reflection wavered and grew faint. She listened,
knowing what he said, as one knows the contents of a book read long ago;
but it was the voice itself, not the words carried on it, that reached
her reeling brain and steadied it.
All at once a hand on her hair, at her breast; a girl's eyes shining
with excitement, whilst a shrill voice whispered, "Saints! how pale you
are! What! not a blush for the bridegroom?" Then loud laughter all
around, and she felt herself pushed forward into an open space.
A ring had been formed around one of the tables; men and women jostled
at its outskirts, pushed one another aside, and stood on tiptoe, peeping
and applauding. In the centre, Dangeau with his tricolour sash;
Mademoiselle, upon whose head some one had thrust the scarlet cap of
Liberty; and the priest, whose eyes looked back and forth like those of
a nervous horse. He cleared his throat, moistened his dry lips, and
began the Office. After a second's pause, Dangeau took the bride's hand
and did his part. Cold as no living thing should be, it lay in his,
unresisting and unresponsive, whilst his was like his mood--hotly
masterful. After one glance he dared not trust himself to look at her.
Her white features showed no trace of emotion, her eyes looked straight
before her in a calm stare, her voice made due response without tremor
or hesitation. "Ego conjugo vos," rang the tremendous words, and they
rose from their knees before that strange assembly, man and wife in the
sight of God and the Republic.
"Kiss her then, Citizen," laughed the bridesmaid, slipping her arm
through Dangeau's, and he touched the marble forehead with his lips.
The first kiss of his strong love, and given and taken so. Fire and ice
met, thrust into contact of all contacts the most intimate. How strange,
how unbearable! Fraught with what presage of disaster.
"Now you may kiss me," said the bridesmaid, pouting. "Rene isn't
looking; but be quick, Citizen, for he 's jealous, and a broken head
would n't be a pleasant marriage gift."
Like a man in a dream he brushed the glowing cheek, and felt its warmth.
Yes, so the living felt; but his bride was cold, as the week-old dead
are cold.