The sword of Damocles.
"In the name of the Republic!"
Absorbed in his thoughts, his dreams, his present happiness, Déroulède
had heard nothing of what was going on in the house, during the past few
seconds.
At first, to Anne Mie, who was still singing her melancholy ditty over
her work in the kitchen, there had seemed nothing unusual in the
peremptory ring at the front-door bell. She pulled down her sleeves over
her thin arms, smoothed down her cooking apron, then only did she run to
see who the visitor might be.
As soon as she had opened the door, however, she understood.
Five men were standing before her, four of whom wore the uniform of the
National Guard, and the fifth, the tricolour scarf fringed with gold,
which denoted service under the Convention.
This man seemed to be in command of the others, and he immediately
stepped into the hall, followed by his four companions, who at a sign
from him, effectively cut off Anne Mie from what had been her imminent
purpose--namely, to run to the study and warn Déroulède of his danger.
That it was danger of the most certain, the most deadly kind she never
doubted for one moment. Even had her instinct not warned her, she would
have guessed. One glance at the five men had sufficed to tell her: their
attitude, their curt word of command, their air of authority as they
crossed the hall--everything revealed the purpose of their visit: a
domiciliary search in the house of Citizen-Deputy Déroulède.
Merlin's Law of the Suspect was in full operation. Someone had denounced
the Citizen-Deputy to the Committee of Public Safety; and in this year
of grace, 1793, and I. of the Revolution, men and women were daily sent
to the guillotine on suspicion.
Anne Mie would have screamed, had she dared, but instinct such as hers
was far too keen, to betray her into so injudicious an act. She felt
that, were Paul Déroulède's eyes upon her at this moment, he would wish
her to remain calm and outwardly serene.
The foremost man--he with the tricolour scarf--had already crossed the
hall, and was standing outside the study door. It was his word of
command which first roused Déroulède from his dream:
"In the name of the Republic!"
Déroulède did not immediately drop the small hand, which a moment ago he
had been covering with kisses. He held it to his lips once more, very
gently, lingering over this last fond caress, as if over an eternal
farewell, then he straightened out his broad, well-knit figure, and
turned to the door.
He was very pale, but there was neither fear nor even surprise expressed
in his earnest, deep-set eyes. They still seemed to be looking afar,
gazing upon a heaven-born vision, which the touch of her hand and the
avowal of his love had conjured up before him.
"In the name of the Republic!"
Once more, for the third time--according to custom--the words rang out,
clear, distinct, peremptory.
In that one fraction of a second, whilst those six words were spoken,
Déroulède's eyes wandered swiftly towards the heavy letter-case, which
now held his condemnation, and a wild, mad thought--the mere animal
desire to escape from danger--surged up in his brain.
The plans for the escape of Marie Antoinette, the various passports,
worded in accordance with the possible disguises the unfortunate Queen
might assume--all these papers were more than sufficient proof of what
would be termed his treason against the Republic.
He could already hear the indictment against him, could see the filthy
mob of Paris dancing a wild saraband round the tumbril, which bore him
towards the guillotine; he could hear their yells of execration, could
feel the insults hurled against him, by those who had most admired, most
envied him. And from all this he would have escaped if he could, if it
had not been too late.
It was but a second, or less, whilst the words were spoken outside his
door, and whilst all other thoughts in him were absorbed in this one mad
desire for escape. He even made a movement, as if to snatch up the
letter-case and to hide it about his person. But it was heavy and bulky;
it would be sure to attract attention, and might bring upon him the
additional indignity of being forced to submit to a personal search.
He caught Juliette's eyes fixed upon him with an intensity of gaze
which, in that same one mad moment, revealed to him the depths of her
love. Then the second's weakness was gone; he was once more quiet, firm,
the man of action, accustomed to meet danger boldly, to rule and to
subdue the most turgid mob.
With a quiet shrug of the shoulders, he dismissed all thought of the
compromising lettercase, and went to the door.
Already, as no reply had come to the third word of command, it had been
thrown open from outside, and Déroulède found himself face to face with
the five men.
"Citizen Merlin!" he said quietly, as he recognised the foremost among
them.
"Himself, Citizen-Deputy," rejoined the latter, with a sneer, "at your
service."
Anne Mie, in a remote corner of the hall, had heard the name, and felt
her very soul sicken at its sound.
Merlin! Author of that infamous Law of the Suspect which had set man
against man, a father against his son, brother against brother, and
friend against friend, had made of every human creature a bloodhound on
the track of his fellowmen, dogging in order not to be dogged,
denouncing, spying, hounding, in order not to be denounced.
And he, Merlin, gloried in this, the most fiendishly evil law ever
perpetrated for the degradation of the human race.
There is that sketch of him in the Musée Carnavalet, drawn just before
he, in his turn, went to expiate his crimes on that very guillotine,
which he had sharpened and wielded so powerfully against his fellows.
The artist has well caught the slouchy, slovenly look of his loosely
knit figure, his long limbs and narrow head, with the snakelike eyes and
slightly receding chin. Like Marat, his model and prototype, Merlin
affected dirty, ragged clothes. The real Sanscullottism, the downward
levelling of his fellowmen to the lowest rung of the social ladder,
pervaded every action of this noted product of the great Revolution.
Even Déroulède, whose entire soul was filled with a great,
all-understanding pity for the weaknesses of mankind, recoiled at sight
of this incarnation of the spirit of squalor and degradation, of all
that was left of the noble Utopian theories of the makers of the
Revolution.
Merlin grinned when he saw Déroulède standing there, calm, impassive,
well dressed, as if prepared to receive an honoured guest, rather than a
summons to submit to the greatest indignity a proud man has ever been
called upon to suffer.
Merlin had always hated the popular Citizen-Deputy. Friend and
boon-companion of Marat and his gang, he had for over two years now
exerted all the influence he possessed in order to bring Déroulède under
a cloud of suspicion.
But Déroulède had the ear of the populace. No one understood as he did
the tone of a Paris mob; and the National Convention, ever terrified of
the volcano it had kindled, felt that a popular member of its assembly
was more useful alive than dead.
But now at last Merlin was having his way. An anonymous denunciation
against Déroulède had reached the Public Prosecutor that day. Tinville
and Merlin were the fastest of friends, so the latter easily obtained
the privilege of being the first to proclaim to his hated enemy, the
news of his downfall.
He stood facing Déroulède for a moment, enjoying the present situation
to its full. The light from the vast hall struck full upon the powerful
figure of the Citizen-Deputy and upon his firm, dark face and magnetic,
restless eyes. Behind him the study, with its closely-drawn shutters,
appeared wrapped in gloom.
Merlin turned to his men, and, still delighted with his position of a
cat playing with a mouse, he pointed to Déroulède, with a smile and a
shrug of the shoulders.
"_Voyez-moi donc çà,_" he said, with a coarse jest, and expectorating
contemptuously upon the floor, "the aristocrat seems not to understand
that we are here in the name of the Republic. There is a very good
proverb, Citizen-Deputy," he added, once more addressing Déroulède,
"which you seem to have forgotten, and that is that the pitcher which
goes too often to the well breaks at last. You have conspired against
the liberties of the people for the past ten years. Retribution has come
to you at last; the people of France have come to their senses. The
National Convention wants to know what treason you are hatching between
these four walls, and it has deputed me to find out all there is to
know."
"At your service, Citizen-Deputy!" said Déroulède, quietly stepping
aside, in order to make way for Merlin and his men.
Resistance was useless, and, like all strong, determined natures, he
knew when it was best to give in.
During this while, Juliette had neither moved nor uttered a sound.
Little more than a minute had elapsed since the moment when the first
peremptory order, to open in the name of the Republic, had sounded like
the tocsin through the stillness of the house. Déroulède's kisses were
still hot upon her hand, his words of love were still ringing in her
ears.
And now this awful, deadly peril, which she with her own hand had
brought on the man she loved!
If in one moment's anguish the soul be allowed to expiate a lifelong
sin, then indeed did Juliette atone during this one terrible second.
Her conscience, her heart, her entire being rose in revolt against her
crime. Her oath, her life, her final denunciation appeared before her in
all their hideousness.
And now it was too late.
Déroulède stood facing Merlin, his most implacable enemy. The latter was
giving orders to his men, preparatory to searching the house, and there,
just on the top of the valise, lay the letter-case, obviously containing
those papers, to which the day before she had overheard Déroulède making
allusion, whilst he spoke to his friend, Sir Percy Blakeney.
An unexplainable instinct seemed to tell her that the papers were in
that case. Her eyes were riveted on it, as if fascinated. An awful
terror held her enthralled for one second more, whilst her thoughts, her
longings, her desires were all centred on the safety of that one thing.
The next instant she had seized it and thrown it upon the sofa. Then
seating herself beside it, with the gesture of a queen and the grace of
a Parisienne, she had spread the ample folds of her skirts over the
compromising case, hiding it entirely from view.
Merlin in the hall was ordering two men to stand one on each side of
Déroulède, and two more to follow him into the room. Now he entered it
himself, his narrow eyes trying to pierce the semi-obscurity, which was
rendered more palpable by the brilliant light in the hall.
He had not seen Juliette's gesture, but he had heard the _frou-frou_ of
her skirts, as she seated herself upon the sofa.
"You are not alone Citizen-Deputy, I see," he said, with a sneer, as his
snakelike eyes lighted upon the young girl.
"My guest, Citizen Merlin," replied Déroulède as calmly as he
could--"Citizen Juliette Marny. I know that it is useless, under these
circumstances, to ask for consideration for a woman, but I pray you to
remember, as far as is possible, that although we are all Republicans,
we are also Frenchmen, and all still equal in our sentiment of chivalry
towards our mothers, our sisters, or our guests."
Merlin chuckled, and gazed for a moment ironically at Juliette. He had
held, between his talon-like fingers, that very morning, a thin scrap of
paper, on which a schoolgirlish hand had scrawled the denunciation
against Citizen-Deputy Déroulède.
Coarse in nature, and still coarser in thoughts, this representative of
the people had very quickly arrived at a conclusion in his mind, with
regard to this so-called guest in the Déroulède household.
"A discarded mistress," he muttered to himself. "Just had another scene,
I suppose. He's got tired of her, and she's given him away out of
spite."
Satisfied with this explanation of the situation, he was quite inclined
to be amiable to Juliette. Moreover, he had caught sight of the valise,
and almost thought that the young girl's eyes had directed his attention
towards it.
"Open those shutters!" he commanded, "this place is like a vault."
One of the men obeyed immediately, and as the brilliant August sun came
streaming into the room, Merlin once more turned to Déroulède.
"Information has been laid against you, Citizen-Deputy," he said, "by an
anonymous writer, who states that you have just now in your possession
correspondence or other papers intended for the Widow Capet: and the
Committee of Public Safety has entrusted me and these citizens to seize
such correspondence, and make you answerable for its presence in your
house."
Déroulède hesitated for one brief fraction of a second. As soon as the
shutters had been opened, and the room flooded in daylight, he had at
once perceived that his letter-case had disappeared, and guessed, from
Juliette's attitude upon the sofa, that she had concealed it about her
person. It was this which caused him to hesitate.
His heart was filled with boundless gratitude to her for her noble
effort to save him, but he would have given his life at this moment, to
undo what she had done.
The Terrorists were no respecters of persons or of sex. A domicillary
search order, in those days, conferred full powers on those in
authority, and Juliette might at any moment now be peremptorily ordered
to rise. Through her action she had made herself one with the
Citizen-Deputy; if the case were found under the folds of her skirts,
she would be accused of connivance, or at any rate of the equally grave
charge of shielding a traitor.
The manly pride in him rebelled at the thought of owing his immediate
safety to a woman, yet he could not now discard her help, without
compromising her irretrievably.
He dared not even to look again towards her, for he felt that at this
moment her life as well as his own lay in the quiver of an eyelid; and
Merlin's keen, narrow eyes were fixed upon him in eager search for a
tremor, a flash, which might betray fear or prove an admission of guilt.
Juliette sat there, calm, impassive, disdainful, and she seemed to
Déroulède more angelic, more unattainable even than before. He could
have worshipped her for her heroism, her resourcefulness, her quiet
aloofness from all these coarse creatures who filled the room with the
odour of their dirty clothes, with their rough jests, and their noisome
suggestions.
"Well, Citizen-Deputy," sneered Merlin after a while, "you do not reply,
I notice."
"The insinuation is unworthy of a reply, citizen," replied Déroulède
quietly; "my services to the Republic are well known. I should have
thought that the Committee of Public Safety would disdain an anonymous
denunciation against a faithful servant of the people of France."
"The Committee of Public Safety knows its own business best,
Citizen-Deputy," rejoined Merlin roughly. "If the accusation prove a
calumny, so much the better for you. I presume," he added with a sneer,
"that you do not propose to offer any resistance whilst these citizens
and I search your house."
Without another word Déroulède handed a bunch of keys to the man by his
side. Every kind of opposition, argument even, would be worse than
useless.
Merlin had ordered the valise and desk to be searched, and two men were
busy turning out the contents of both on to the floor. But the desk now
only contained a few private household accounts, and notes for the
various speeches which Déroulède had at various times delivered in the
assemblies of the National Convention. Among these, a few pencil
jottings for his great defence of Charlotte Corday were eagerly seized
upon by Merlin, and his grimy, clawlike hands fastened upon this scrap
of paper, as upon a welcome prey.
But there was nothing else of any importance. Déroulède was a man of
thought and of action, with all the enthusiasm of real conviction, but
none of the carelessness of a fanatic. The papers which were contained
in the letter-case, and which he was taking with him to the
Conciergerie, he considered were necessary to the success of his plans,
otherwise he never would have kept them, and they were the only proofs
that could be brought up against him.
The valise itself was only packed with the few necessaries for a month's
sojourn at the Conciergerie; and the men, under Merlin's guidance, were
vainly trying to find something, anything that might be construed into
treasonable correspondence with the unfortunate prisoner there.
Merlin, whilst his men were busy with the search, was sprawling in one
of the big leather-covered chairs, on the arms of which his dirty
finger-nails were beating an impatient devil's tattoo. He was at no
pains to conceal the intense disappointment which he would experience,
were his errand to prove fruitless.
His narrow eyes every now and then wandered towards Juliette, as if
asking for her help and guidance. She, understanding his frame of mind,
responded to the look. Shutting her mentality off from the coarse
suggestion of his attitude towards her, she played her part with
cunning, and without flinching. With a glance here and there, she
directed the men in their search. Déroulède himself could scarcely
refrain from looking at her; he was puzzled, and vaguely marvelled at
the perfection, with which she carried through her rôle to the end.
Merlin found himself baffled.
He knew quite well that Citizen-Deputy Déroulède was not a man to be
lightly dealt with. No mere suspicion or anonymous denunciation would be
sufficient in his case, to bring him before the tribunal of the
Revolution. Unless there were proofs--positive, irrefutable, damnable
proofs--of Paul Déroulède's treachery, the Public Prosecutor would never
dare to frame an indictment against him. The mob of Paris would rise to
defend its idol; the hideous hags, who plied their knitting at the foot
of the scaffold, would tear the guillotine down, before they would allow
Déroulède to mount it.
This was Déroulède's stronghold: the people of Paris, whom he had loved
through all their infamies, and whom he had succoured and helped in
their private need; and above all the women of Paris, whose children he
had caused to be tended in the hospitals which he had built for
them--this they had not yet forgotten, and Merlin knew it. One day they
would forget--soon, perhaps--then they would turn on their former idol,
and, howling, send him to his death, amidst cries of rancour and
execration. When that day came there would be no need to worry about
treason or about proofs. When the populace had forgotten all that he had
done, then Déroulède would fall.
But that time was not yet.
The men had finished ransacking the room; every scrap of paper, every
portable article had been eagerly seized upon.
Merlin, half blind with fury, had jumped to his feet.
"Search him!" he ordered peremptorily.
Déroulède set his teeth, and made no protest, calling up every fibre of
moral strength within him, to aid him in submitting to this indignity.
At a coarse jest from Merlin, he buried his nails into the palms of his
hand, not to strike the foulmouthed creature in the face. But he
submitted, and stood impassive by, whilst the pockets of his coat were
turned inside out by the rough hands of the soldiers.
All the while Juliette had remained silent, watching Merlin as any hawk
would its prey. But the Terrorist, through the very coarseness of his
nature, was in this case completely fooled.
He knew that it was Juliette who had denounced Déroulède, and had
satisfied himself as to her motive. Because he was low and brutish and
degraded, he never once suspected the truth, never saw in that beautiful
young woman, anything of the double nature within her, of that curious,
self-torturing, at times morbid sense of religion and of duty, at war
with her own upright, innately healthy disposition.
The low-born, self-degraded Terrorist had put his own construction on
Juliette's action, and with this he was satisfied, since it answered to
his own estimate of the human race, the race which he was doing his best
to bring down to the level of the beast.
Therefore Merlin did not interfere with Juliette, but contented himself
with insinuating, by jest and action, what her share in this day's work
had been. To these hints Déroulède, of course, paid no heed. For him
Juliette was as far above political intrigue as the angels. He would as
soon have suspected one of the saints enshrined in Notre Dame as this
beautiful, almost ethereal creature, who had been sent by Heaven to
gladden his heart and to elevate his very thought.
But Juliette understood Merlin's attitude, and guessed that her written
denunciation had come into his hands. Her every thought, every living
sensation within her, was centred in this one thing: to save the man she
loved from the consequences of her own crime against him. And for this,
even the shadow of suspicion must be removed from him. Merlin's
iniquitous law should not touch him again.
When Déroulède at last had been released, after the outrage to which he
had been personally subjected, Merlin was literally, and figuratively
too, looking about him for an issue to his present dubious position.
Judging others by his own standard of conduct, he feared now that the
popular Citizen-Deputy would incite the mob against him, in revenge for
the indignities which he had had to suffer. And with it all the
Terrorist was convinced that Déroulède was guilty, that proofs of his
treason did exist, if only he knew where to lay hands on them.
He turned to Juliette with an unexpressed query in his adder-like eyes.
She shrugged her shoulders, and made a gesture as if pointing towards
the door.
"There are other rooms in the house besides this," her gesture seemed to
say; "try them. The proofs are there, 'tis for you to find them."
Merlin had been standing between her and Déroulède, so that the latter
saw neither query nor reply.
"You are cunning, Citizen-Deputy," said Merlin now, turning towards him,
"and no doubt you have been at pains to put your treasonable
correspondence out of the way. You must understand that the Committee of
Public Safety will not be satisfied with a mere examination of your
study," he added, assuming an air of ironical benevolence, "and I
presume you will have no objection, if I and these citizen soldiers pay
a visit to other portions of your house."
"As you please," responded Déroulède drily.
"You will accompany us, Citizen-Deputy," commanded the other curtly.
The four men of the National Guard formed themselves into line outside
the study door; with a peremptory nod, Merlin ordered Déroulède to pass
between them, then he too prepared to follow. At the door he turned, and
once more faced Juliette.
"As for you, citizeness," he said, with a sudden access of viciousness
against her, "if you have brought us here on a fool's errand, it will go
ill with you, remember. Do not leave the house until our return. I may
have some questions to put to you."