the process of smoothing the creases as much as possible from that
priceless document. That done he took up a pen and attached his own
signature alongside of Robespierre's; then into the blank space above he
filled the name of Anatole d'Ombreval ci-devant Vicomte d'Ombreval.
He dropped the pen and took up the sand-box. He sprinkled the writing,
creased the paper, and dusted the sand back into the receptacle. And
then of a sudden his blood seemed to freeze, and beads of cold sweat
stood out upon his brow. There had been the very slightest stir behind
him, and with it had come a warm breath upon his bowed neck. Someone was
looking over his shoulder. An instant he remained in that bowed attitude
with head half-raised. Then suddenly straightening himself he swung
round and came face to face with Cecile Deshaix.
Confronting each other and very close they now stood and each was
breathing with more than normal quickness. Her cheeks were white, her
nostrils dilated and quivering, her blue eyes baleful and cruel, whilst
her lips wore never so faint a smile. For a second La Boulaye looked the
very picture of foolishness and alarm. Then it seemed as if he drew a
curtain, and his face assumed the expressionless mask that was habitual
to it in moments of great tension. Instinctively he put behind him his
hands which held the paper. Cecile's lips took on an added curl of scorn
as she observed the act.
“You thief!” she said, very low, but very fiercely. “That was the paper
that you left behind you, was it?”
“The paper that I have is certainly the paper that I left behind,” he
answered serenely, for he had himself well in hand by now. “And as
for dubbing me a thief so readily”--he paused, and shrugged his
shoulders--“you are a woman,” he concluded, with an air suggesting that
that fact was a conclusion to all things.
“Fool!” she blazed. “Do you think to overcome me by quibbles? Do you
think to dupe me with words and shrugs?”
“My dear Cecile” he begged half-whimsically, “may I implore you to use
some restraint? Inured as I am to the unbounded licence of your tongue
and to the abandon that seems so inherent in you, let me assure you
that--”
“Ah! You can say Cecile now?” she cried, leaving the remainder of his
speech unheeded. “Now that you need me; now that you want me to be a
party to your treacherous designs against my uncle. Oh, you can say
'Cecile' and 'dear Cecile' instead of your everlasting 'Citoyenne'.
“It seems I am doomed to be always misunderstood by you,” he laughed,
and at the sound she started as if he had struck her.
Had she but looked in his eyes she had seen no laughter there; she might
have realised that murder rather than mirth was in his soul--for, at all
costs, he was determined to hold the paper he had been at such pains to
get.
“I understand you well enough,” she cried hotly, her cheeks flaming red
of a sudden. “I understand you, you thief, you trickster. Do you think
that I heard nothing of what passed this morning between my uncle and
you? Do you think I do not know whose name you have written on that
paper? Answer me,” she commanded him.
“Since you know so much, what need for any questions?” quoth he coolly,
transferring the coveted paper to his pocket as he spoke. “And since
we are so far agreed that I am not contradicting anything you say--nor,
indeed, intend to--perhaps you will see the convenience of ending an
interview that promises to be fruitless. My dear Cecile, I am very
grateful to you for the key of this room. I beg that you will make my
compliments to the Citizen your uncle upon his return, and inform him of
how thoroughly you ministered to my wants.”
With that and a superb air of insouciance, he made shift to go. But
fronting him she barred his way.
“Give me that paper, sclerat,” she demanded imperiously. “You shall not
go until you surrender it. Give it to me or I will call Duplay.”
“You may call the devil for aught I care, you little fool,” he answered
her, very pleasantly. “Do you think Duplay will be mad enough to lay
hands upon a Deputy of the Convention in the discharge of the affairs of
the Nation?”
“It is a lie!”
“Why, of course it is,” he admitted sweetly. “But Duplay will not be
aware of that.”
“I shall tell him.”
“Tut! He won't believe you. I'll threaten him with the guillotine if
he does. And I should think that Duplay has sufficient dread of the
national barber not to risk having his toilet performed by him. Now, be
reasonable, and let me pass.”
Enraged beyond measure by his persiflage and very manifest contempt
of her, she sprang suddenly upon him, and caught at the lapels of his
redingote.
“Give me that paper!” she screamed, exerting her entire strength in a
vain effort to boldly shake him.
Coldly he eyed this golden-haired virago now, and looked in vain for
some trace of her wonted beauty in the stormy distortion of her face.
“You grow tiresome with your repetitions,” he answered her impatiently,
as, snatching at her wrists, he made her release her hold. “Let me go.”
And with that he flung her roughly from him.
A second she staggered, then, recovering her balance and without an
instant's hesitation, she sped to the door. Imagining her intent to be
to lock him in La Boulaye sprang after her. But it seemed that his
mind had been more swift to fasten upon the wiser course than had hers.
Instead, she snatched the key and closed the door on the inside. She
wasted a moment fumbling at the lock, and even as he caught her by
the waist the key slipped in, and before he dragged her back she had
contrived to turn it, and now held it in her hand. He laughed a trifle
angrily as she twisted out of his grasp, and stood panting before him.
“You shall not leave this room with that paper,” she gasped, her anger
ever swelling, and now rendering her speech almost incoherent.
He set his arms akimbo, and surveyed her whimsically.
“My dear Cecile,” quoth he, “if you will take no thought for my
convenience, I beg that, at least, you will take some for your good
name. Thousand devils woman! Will you have it said in Paris that
you were found locked in a room with me? What will your uncle--your
virtuous, prudish, incorruptible uncle--say when he learns of it? If he
does not demand a heavy price from you for so dishonouring him, he is
not the man I deem him. Now be sensible, child, and open that door
while there is yet time, and before anybody discovers us in this most
compromising situation.”
He struck the tone most likely to win him obedience, and that he had
judged astutely her face showed him. In the place of the anger that had
distorted it there came now into that countenance a look of surprise
and fear. She saw herself baffled at every point. She had threatened him
with Duplay--the only man available--and he had shown her how futile it
must prove to summon him. And now she had locked herself in with him,
thinking to sit there until he should do her will, and he showed her the
danger to herself therein, which had escaped her notice.
There was a settle close behind her, and on to this she sank, and
bending her head she opened the floodgates of her passionate little
soul, and let the rage that had so long possessed her dissolve in tears.
At sight of that sudden change of front La Boulaye stamped his foot. He
appreciated the fact that she was about to fight him with weapons that
on a previous occasion--when, however, it is true, they were wielded by
another--had accomplished his undoing.
And for all that he steeled his heart, and evoked the memory of Suzanne
to strengthen him in his purpose: he approached her with a kindly
exterior. He sat him down beside her; he encompassed her waist with his
arm, and drawing her to him he set himself to soothe her as one soothes
a wilful child. Had he then recalled what her attitude had been towards
him in the past he had thought twice before adopting such a course. But
in his mind there was no sentiment that was not brotherly, and far from
his wishes was it to invest his action with any other than a fraternal
kindness.
But she, feeling that caressing arm about her, and fired by it in her
hapless passion for this man, was quick to misinterpret him, and to
translate his attitude into one of a kindness far beyond his dreams. She
nestled closer to him; at his bidding her weeping died down and ceased.
“There, Cecile, you will give me the key now?” he begged.
She glanced up at him shyly through wet lashes--as peeps the sun through
April clouds.
“There is nothing I will not do for you, Caron,” she murmured. “See, I
will even help you to play the traitor on my uncle. For you love me a
little, cher Caron, is it not so?”
He felt himself grow cold from head to foot, and he grew sick at the
thought that by the indiscretion of his clumsy sympathy he had brought
this down upon his luckless head. Mechanically his arm relaxed the hold
of her waist and fell away. Instinctively she apprehended that all was
not as she had thought. She turned on the seat to face him squarely, and
caught something of the dismay in his glance of the loathing almost (for
what is more loathsome to a man than to be wooed by a woman he desires
not?) Gradually, inch by inch, she drew away from him, ever facing him,
and her eyes ever on his, as if fascinated by the horror of what she
saw. Thus until the extremity of the settle permitted her to go no
farther. She started, then her glance flickered down, and she gave a
sudden gasp of passion. Simultaneously the key rang on the boards at
Caron's feet angrily flung there by Cecile.
“Go!” she exclaimed, in a suffocating voice, “and never let me see your
face again.”
For a second or two he sat quite still, his eyes observing her with a
look of ineffable pity, which might have increased her disorder had she
perceived it. Then slowly he stooped, and took up the key.
He rose from the settle, and without a word--for words he realised,
could do no more than heighten the tragic banality of the situation--he
went to the door, unlocked it, and passed out.
Huddled in her corner sat Cecile, listening until his steps had died
away on the stairs. Then she cast herself prone upon the settle, and in
a frenzy of sobs and tears she vented some of the rage and shame that
were distracting her.
CHAPTER XX. THE GRATITUDE OF OMBREVAL
What La Boulaye may have lacked in knowledge of woman's ways he made up
for by his knowledge of Cecile, and from this he apprehended that there
was no time to be lost if he would carry out his purpose. Touching her
dismissal of him, he permitted himself no illusions. He rated it at its
true value. He saw in it no sign of relenting of generosity, but only
a desire to put an end to the shame which his presence was occasioning
her.
He could imagine the lengths to which the thirst of vengeance would urge
a scorned woman, and of all women he felt that Cecile scorned was
the most to be feared. She would not sit with folded hands. Once she
overcame the first tempestuous outburst of her passion she would be
up and doing, straining every sense to outwit and thwart him in his
project, whose scope she must have more than guessed.
Reasoning thus, he clearly saw not only that every moment was of value,
but that flight was the only thing remaining him if he would save
himself as well as Ombreval. And so he hired him a cabriolet, and drove
in all haste to the house of Billaud Varennes, the Deputy, from whom he
sought to obtain one of the two signatures still needed by his order
of release. He was disappointed at learning that Varennes was not at
home--though, had he been able to peep an hour or so into the future, he
would have offered up thanks to Heaven for that same Deputy's absence.
His insistent and impatient questions elicited the information that
probably Verennes would be found at Fevrier's. And so to Fevrier's
famous restaurant in the old Palais Royal went La Boulaye, and there
he had the good fortune to find not only Billaud Varennes, but also the
Deputy Carnot. Nor did fortune end her favours there. She was smiling
now upon Caron, as was proved by the fact that neither to Varennes
nor Carnot did the name of Ombreval mean anything. Robespierre's
subscription of the document was accepted by each as affording him a
sufficient warrant to append his own signature, and although Carnot
asked a question or two, it was done in an idle humour, and he paid
little attention to such replies as Caron made him.
Within five minutes of entering the restaurant, La Boulaye was in the
street again, driving, by way of the Pont Neuf, to the Luxembourg.
At the prison he encountered not the slightest difficulty. He was
known personally to the officer, of whom he demanded the person of the
ci-devant Vicomte, and his order of release was too correct to give rise
to any hesitation on the part of the man to whom it was submitted.
He was left waiting a few moments in a chamber that did duty as a
guard-room, and presently the Vicomte, looking pale, and trembling with
excitement at his sudden release, stood before him.
“You?” he muttered, upon beholding La Boulaye. But the Republican
received him very coldly, and hurried him out of the prison with scant
ceremony.
The officer attended the Deputy to the door of his cabriolet, and in
his hearing Caron bade the coachman drive to the Porte St. Martin. This,
however, was no more than a subterfuge to which he was resorting with a
view to baffling the later possibility of their being traced. Ombreval
naturally enough plied him with questions as they went, to which La
Boulaye returned such curt answers that in the end, discouraged and
offended, the nobleman became silent.
Arrived at the Porte St. Martin they alighted, and La Boulaye dismissed
the carriage. On foot he now led his companion as far as the church of
St. Nicholas des Champs, where he hired a second cabriolet, bidding the
man drive him to the Quai de la Greve. Having reached the riverside they
once more took a short walk, crossing by the Pont au Change, and thence
making their way towards Notre Dame, in the neighbourhood of which La
Boulaye ushered the Vicomte into a third carriage, and thinking that by
now they had done all that was needed to efface their tracks, he ordered
the man to proceed as quickly as possible to Choisy.
They arrived at that little village on the Seine an hour or so later,
and having rid themselves of their conveyance, Caron inquired and
discovered the way to the house of Citoyenne Godelliere.
Mademoiselle was within, and at sound of Caron's voice questioning
the erstwhile servant who had befriended her, she made haste to show
herself. And at a word from her, Henriette admitted the two men
and ushered them into a modest parlour, where she left them with
Mademoiselle.
La Boulaye was the first to speak.
“I trust that I have not kept you waiting overlong, Citoyenne,” he said,
by way of saying something.
“Monsieur,” she answered him, with a look that was full of gratitude and
kindliness “you have behaved nobly, and to my dying day I shall remember
it.”
This La Boulaye deprecated by a gesture, but uttered no word as the
Vicomte now stepped forward and bore Suzanne's hand to his lips.
“Mademoiselle,” said he, “Monsieur La Boulaye here was very reticent
touching the manner in which my release has been gained. But I never
doubted that I owed it to your good efforts, and that you had adopted
the course suggested to you by my letter, and bought me from the
Republic.”
La Boulaye flushed slightly as much at the contemptuous tone as at the
words in which Ombreval referred to the Republic.
“It is not to me but to our good friend, M. La Boulaye, that you should
address your thanks, Monsieur.”
“Ah? Vraiment?” exclaimed the Vicomte, turning a supercilious eye upon
the Deputy, for with his freedom he seemed to have recovered his old
habits.
“I have not sold you to the Citoyenne,” said La Boulaye, the words being
drawn from him by the other's manner. “I am making her a present of
you--a sort of wedding gift.” And his lips smiled, for all that his eyes
remained hard.
Ombreval made him no answer, but stood looking from the Deputy to
Suzanne in some hesitation. The expressions which his very lofty dignity
prompted, his sense of fitness--feeble though it was--forbade him. And
so there followed a pause, which, however, was but brief, for La Boulaye
had yet something to say.
It had just come to him with a dismaying force that in the haste of his
escape from Paris with the Vicomte he had forgotten to return to his
lodging for a passport that he was fortunately possessed of. It was
a laissez-passer, signed and left in blank, with which he had been
equipped--against the possibility of the need for it arising--when
he had started upon the Convention's errand to the Army of Dumouriez.
Whilst on his way to Robespierre's house to secure the order of release,
he had bethought him of filling in that passport for three persons, and
thus, since to remain must entail his ruin and destruction, make his
escape from France with Mademoiselle and the Vicomte. It was his only
chance. Then in the hurry of the succeeding incidents, the excitement
that had attended them, and the imperative need for haste in getting the
Vicomte to Choisy, he had put the intended return to his lodging from
his mind--overlooking until now the fact that not only must he go back
for the valise which he had bidden Brutus pack, but also for that far
more precious passport.
It now became necessary to explain the circumstances to his companions,
and in explaining them the whole affair, from Robespierre's refusal to
grant him the life of the Vicomte down to the means to which he had had
recourse, could not be kept from transpiring. As she listened, Suzanne's
expression changed into one of ineffable wonder.
“And you have done this for me?” she cried, when at last he paused, “you
have ruined your career and endangered your life?”
La Boulaye shrugged his shoulders.
“I spoke over-confidently when I said that I could obtain you the
Vicomte's pardon. There proved to be a factor on which I had not
counted. Nevertheless, what I had promised I must fulfil. I was by
honour bound to leave nothing undone that might result in the Vicomte's
enlargement.”
Ornbreval laughed softly, but with consummate amusement.
“A sans-culotte with a sense of honour is such an anomaly--” he began,
when Mademoiselle interposed, a note of anger sounding in her voice.
“M. d'Ombreval means to pay you a compliment,” she informed La Boulaye,
“but he has such an odd way of choosing his expressions that I feared
you might misunderstand him.”
La Boulaye signified his indifference by a smile.
“I am afraid the ci-devant Vicomte has not yet learnt his lesson,” said
he; “or else he is like the sinner who upon recovering health forgot
the penitence that had come to him in the days of sickness. But we have
other matters to deal with, Citoyenne, and, in particular, the matter of
the passport. Fool that I am!” he cried bitterly.
“I must return to Paris at once,” he announced briskly. “There is no
help for it. We will hope that as yet the way is open to me, and that
I shall be permitted to go and to return unmolested. In such a case the
rest is easy--except that you will have to suffer my company as far as
the frontier.”
It was Mademoiselle who accompanied him to the door.
“Monsieur,” she said, in a voice that shook with the sincere intensity
of her feelings, “think me not ungrateful that I have said so little.
But your act has overwhelmed me. It is so truly noble, that to offer you
thanks that are but words, seems tome little short of a banality.”
“Tut!” he laughed. “I have not yet done half. It will be time to thank
me when we are out of France.”
“And you speak so lightly of leaving France?” she cried. “But what is to
become of you? What of your career?”
“Other careers are possible in other countries,” he answered, with
a lightness he did not feel. “Who knows perhaps the English or the
Prussians might be amenable to a change of government. I shall seek to
induce one or the other of them to became a republic, and then I shall
become once more a legislator.”
With that, and vowing that every moment he remained their chances of
leaving France grew more slender, he took his leave of her, expressing
the hope that he might be back within a couple of hours. Mademoiselle
watched him to the garden gate, then closing the door she returned
within.
She discovered her betrothed--he whom La Boulaye had called her
lover--standing with his back to the fire, his hands clasped behind him,
the very picture of surliness. He made none of the advances that one
might look for in a man placed as he was at that moment. He greeted her,
instead, with a complaint.
“Will you permit me, Mademoiselle, to say that in this matter you have
hardly chosen the wiser course?”
“In what matter?” quoth she, at a loss to understand him.
“In the matter of my release. I advised you in my letter to purchase my
freedom. Had you done so, we should now be in a position to start for
the frontier--for you would have made a passport a part of your bargain.
Instead of this, not only are we obliged to run the risk of waiting, but
even if this fellow should return, we shall be affronted by his company
for some days to come.” And the Vicomte sniffed the air in token of
disgust.
Suzanne looked at him in an amazement that left her speechless for a
moment. At last:
“And this is your gratitude?” she demanded. “This is all that you have
to say in thanks for the discomfort and danger that I have suffered on
your behalf? Your tone is oddly changed since you wrote me that piteous,
pitiable letter from Belgium, M. le Vicomte.”
He reddened slightly.
“I am afraid that I have been clumsy in my expressions,” he apologised.
“But never doubt my gratitude, Mademoiselle. I am more grateful to you
than words can tell. You have done your duty to me as few women could.”
The word “duty” offended her, yet she let it pass. In his monstrous
vanity it was often hopeless to make him appreciate the importance of
anything or anybody outside of himself. Of this the present occasion was
an instance.
“You must forgive me my seeming thanklessness, Mademoiselle,” he
pursued. “It was the company of that sans-culotte rascal that soured
me. I had enough of him a month ago, when he brought me to Paris. It
offended me to have him stand here again in the same room with me,
and insolently refer to his pledged word as though he were a gentleman
born.”
“To whom do you refer?” quoth she.
“Ma foi! How many of them are there? Why, to this fellow, La Boulaye?”
“So it seemed, and yet I could not believe it of you. Do you not realise
that your ingratitude approaches the base?”
He vouchsafed her a long, cold stare of amazement.
“Mordieu!” he ejaculated at last. “I am afraid that your reason has been
affected by your troubles. You seem, Mademoiselle, to be unmindful of
the station into which you have had the honour to be born.”
“If your bearing is to be accepted as a sign that you remember it, I
will pray God that I may, indeed, forget it--completely and for all
time.”
And then the door opened to admit the good Henriette, who came to
announce that she had contrived a hasty meal, and that it was served and
awaiting them.
“Diable!” he laughed. “Those are the first words of true wit that I have
heard these many days. I swear,” he added, with a pleasantness that was
oddly at variance with his sullen humour of a moment back, “that I have
not tasted human food these four weeks, and as for my appetite--it is
capable of consuming the whole patrimony of St. Peter. Lead the way, my
good Henriette. Come, Mademoiselle.”
CHAPTER XXI. THE ARREST
Facts proved how correct had been La Boulaye's anticipations of the
course that Cecile would adopt, Within a half-hour of his having quitted
the house of Billaud Varennes, she presented herself there, and demanded
to see the Deputy. Upon being told that he was absent she determined to
await his return.
And so, for the matter of an hour, she remained in the room where the
porter had offered her accommodation, fretting at the delay, and only
restrained from repairing to some other member of the Convention by the
expectation that the next moment would see Varennes arrive. Arrive he
did at last, when her patience was all but exhausted, and excitedly she
told her tale of what had taken place. Varennes listened gravely, and
cross-questioned her in his unbelief--for it seemed, indeed, monstrous
that a man of La Boulaye's position should ruin so promising a future
as was his by an act for which Varennes could not so much as divine a
motive. But her story hung together so faithfully, and was so far borne
out by the fact that Varennes himself had indeed signed such a document
as she described, that in the end the Deputy determined to take some
steps to neutralise the harm that might have been done.
Dismissing the girl with the assurance that the matter should have
his attention, he began by despatching a courier to Robespierre at
Chartres--where he knew the Incorruptible to be. That done, he resorted
to measures for La Boulaye's detention. But this proved a grave
matter. What if, after all, that half-hysterical girl's story should be
inaccurate? In what case would he find himself if, acting upon it in the
meantime, he should order Caron's arrest? The person of a Deputy was not
one to be so lightly treated, and he might find himself constrained
to answer a serious charge in consequence. Thus partly actuated by
patriotism and the fear of Robespierre, and partly restrained by
patriotism and the fear of La Boulaye, he decided upon a middle course:
that of simply detaining La Boulaye at his lodging until Robespierre
should either return or send an answer to his message. Thus, whilst
leaving him perfect freedom of movement within his own apartments, he
would yet ensure against his escape so that should Robespierre demand
him he could without difficulty be produced.
To this end he repaired with a sous-lieutenant and six men to La
Boulaye's house in the Rue Nationale, intending to station the soldiers
there with orders not to allow the Deputy to go out, and to detain and
question all who sought admittance to him. He nourished the hope
that the ci-devant Vicomte might still be with La Boulaye. At the
Rue Nationale, however, he was to discover that neither Deputy nor
aristocrat was to be found. Brutus informed him that he was expecting
the Citizen La Boulaye, but beyond that he would say nothing, and he
wisely determined to hold his peace touching the valise that he had been
ordered to pack and the fact that he knew the Deputy meditated leaving
Paris. Brutus had learnt the value of silence, especially when those who
sought information were members of the Convention.
Alarmed at this further corroboration of Cecile's story of treachery
Varennes left the military at Caron's house, with orders not to allow
the Deputy to again depart if in the meantime he should happen to
return, whilst to every barrier of Paris he sent instructions to have
La Boulaye detained if he should present himself. By these measures he
hoped still to be able to provide against the possibility of Caron's
seeking to leave Paris.
But Caron had been gone over an hour, and as a matter of fact, he was
back again in Paris within a very little time of these orders having
been issued. At the Barriere d'Enfer, although recognised, he was not
molested, since the orders only, and distinctly, concerned his departure
and nowise his arrival.
Thus, not until he had reached his lodgings did he realise that all was
not as he had hoped. And even then it was only within doors that he
made the discovery, when he found himself suddenly confronted by the
sous-lieutenant, who was idling in the passage. The officer saluted
him respectfully, and no less respectfully, though firmly, informed him
that, by order of the Citizen-deputy Billaud Varennes, he must ask him
to confine himself to his own apartments until further orders.
“But why, Citizen-officer?” La Boulaye demanded, striving to exclude
from his voice any shade of the chagrin that was besetting him. “What do
these orders mean?”
The officer was courtesy personified, but explanations he had none to
give, for the excellent reason, he urged that he was possessed of none.
He was a soldier, and he had received orders which he must obey, without
questioning either their wisdom or their justice. Appreciating the
futility of bearing himself otherwise, since his retreat was already
blocked by a couple of gendarmes, Caron submitted to the inevitable.
He mounted leisurely to his study, and the ruin that stared him in
the eyes was enough to have daunted the boldest of men. Yet, to do him
justice, he was more concerned at the moment with the consequences this
turn of affairs might have for Mademoiselle than with his own impending
downfall. That he had Cecile to thank for his apprehension he never
doubted. Yet it was a reflection that he readily dismissed from his
mind. In such a pass as he now found himself none but a weakling could
waste time and energy in bewailing the circumstances that had conspired
to it. In a man of La Boulaye's calibre and mettle it was more befitting
to seek a means to neutralise as much as possible the evil done.
He called Brutus and cross-questioned him regarding the attitude and
behaviour of the soldiery since their coming. He learnt that nothing
had been touched by them, and that they were acting with the utmost
discreetness, taking scrupulous care not to exceed the orders they had
received, which amounted to detaining La Boulaye and nothing more.
“You think, then, that you might come and go unmolested?” he asked.
“I think that I might certainly go. But whether they would permit me
to return once I had left, I cannot say. So that they will let you pass
out, that is all that signifies at the moment,” said Caron. “Should they
question you, you can tell them that you are going to dine and to fetch
me my dinner from Berthon's. As a matter of fact, I shall want you to go
to Choisy with a letter, which you must see does not fall into the hands
of any of these people of the Convention.”
“Give me the letter, Citizen, and trust me to do the rest,” answered the
faithful Brutus.
La Boulaye searched a drawer of his writing-table for the blank passport
he required. Having found it, he hesitated for a moment how to fill it
in. At last he decided, and set down three names--Pierre, Francois,
and Julie Michael, players, going to Strasbourg--to which he added
descriptions of himself, the Vicomte, and Mademoiselle. He reasoned that
in case it should ultimately prove impossible for him to accompany them,
the passport, thus indited, would still do duty for the other two. They
could easily advance some excuse why the third person mentioned was not
accompanying them. From this it will be seen that La Boulaye was far
from having abandoned hope of effecting his escape, either by his own
resourcefulness or by the favour of Robespierre himself, whose kindness
for him, after all, was a factor worth reckoning upon.
To Mademoiselle he now wrote as follows:
I am sending you the laissez-passer filled in for the three of
us. I am unfortunately unable to bring it myself as my
abstraction of the order of release has already been discovered,
and I am being detained pending the arrival of Robespierre. But
I am at my own lodging, and I have every hope that, either by
the use of my own wit, or else by the favour of my friend
Robespierre, I shall shortly be able to join you. I would
therefore ask you to wait a few days. But should I presently
send you word not to do so any longer, or should you hear of
events which will render it impossible for me to accompany you,
you can then set out with Ombreval, travelling under the guise
described in the passport, and informing any questioners that
the other person mentioned has been forced by ill health to
interrupt his journey. As I have said, I have every hope of
winning through my present difficulties; but should I fail to
do so, my most earnest prayer will be that you may make your
way out of France in safety, and that lasting happiness may be
your lot in whatever country you may elect to settle. You may
trust the bearer implicitly, patriotic though he may appear.
He subscribed the letter with his initials, and, having enclosed the
passport and sealed the package, he gave it to Brutus, with the most
minute instructions touching its delivery.
These instructions Brutus carried out with speed and fidelity. He was
allowed to quit the house without so much as a question, which left his
plan for readmittance the greater likelihood of succeeding. In
something less than an hour--for he hired himself a horse at the nearest
post-house--he had delivered his letter to Mademoiselle at Choisy.
Its contents sowed in her heart the very deepest consternation--a
consternation very fully shared by the Vicomte.
“Tenez!” he exclaimed, when he had read it. “Perhaps now you will admit
the justice of my plaint that you did not make a simple purchase of
my liberty, as I counselled you, instead of entering into this idiotic
compact with that sans-culotte.”
She looked at him a moment in silence. She was suffering as it was
at the very thought that La Boulaye's life might be in danger in
consequence of what he had done for her. With reluctance had she
accepted the sacrifice of his career which he had made to serve her.
Now that it became the question of a sacrifice of life as well she was
dismayed. All the wrongs that she and hers had done that man seemed to
rise up and reproach her now. And so, when presently she answered
the Vicomte, it was no more than natural that she should answer him
impatiently.
“I thought, Monsieur, that we had already discussed and settled that?”
“Settled it?” he echoed, with a sneer. “It seems none so easy to settle.
Do you think that words will settle it.”
“By no means,” she answered, her voice quivering. “It seems as if a
man's life will be required for that.”
He shrugged his shoulders, and his face put on a look of annoyance.
“I hope, Mademoiselle, that you are not proposing to introduce
sentimentality. I think you would be better advised to leave that
vulgarity to the vulgar.”
“I do not propose to pursue the discussion at all, Monsieur,” was her
chilly answer.
“The way of woman,” he reflected aloud. “Let her find that she is being
worsted in argument, and she calmly tells you that she has no mind
to pursue it. But, Mademoiselle, will you tell me at least what you
intend?”
“What do I intend?” she questioned. “What choice have we?”
“Whenever we are asked to follow a given course, we have always the
choice between two alternatives,” he theorised. “We can comply, or not
comply.”
“In the present instance I am afraid your rule is inapplicable. There is
no room for any alternative. We can do nothing but wait.”
She looked at him impatiently, and wearily she sank on to a chair.
“Monsieur,” she said, as calmly as might be, “I am almost distracted by
my thoughts as it is. I don't know whether you are seeking to complete
the rout of my senses. Let me beg of you at least not to deal in riddles
with me. The time is ill-chosen. Tell me bluntly what is in your mind,
if, indeed, anything.”
He turned from her peevishly, and crossed to the window. The twilight
was descending, and the little garden was looking grey in the now pallid
light. Her seeming obtuseness was irritating him.
“Surely, Mademoiselle,” he exclaimed at last, “it is not necessary that
I should tell you what other course is open to us? It is a matter for
our choice whether we depart at once. We have a passport, and--and,
enfin, every hour that we remain here our danger is increased, and our
chances of escape are lessened.”
“Ah!” She breathed the syllable contemptuously. “And what of La
Boulaye?”
“Pooh! he says himself that he is in no great danger. He is among his
fellows. Leave him to extricate himself. After all, it is his fault
that we are here. Why should we endanger our necks by waiting his
convenience?”
“But surely you forget what he has done for us. You are forgetting that
he has rescued you from the guillotine, dragged you out of the very
jaws of death. Do you think that to forsake him now would be a fair, an
honest return?”
“But name of a name,” rasped the Vicomte, “does he not say that he is
far from despairing? His position is not half so dangerous as ours. If
we are taken, there will be an end of us. With him matters are far from
being so bad. He is one of the rabble himself, and the rabble will look
after its own.”
She rose impatiently.
“Monsieur, I am afraid the subject is not one that we may profitably
discuss. I shall obey the voice of my conscience in the matter, and I
shall wait until we hear again from La Boulaye. That is the message I am
about to return him by his servant.”
The Vicomte watched her fling out of the room, and his weak face was
now white with anger. He rapped out an oath as he turned to the window
again.
“Mad!” he muttered, through-set teeth. “Mad as a sun-struck dog. The
troubles she has lately seen have turned her head--never a difficult
matter with a woman. She talks as if she had been reading Rousseau on
the 'Right of man'. To propose to endanger our lives for the sake of
that scum, La Boulaye! Ciel! It passes belief.”
But it was in vain that he was sullen and resentful. Suzanne's mind
entertained no doubt of what she should do, and she had her way in the
matter, sending back Brutus with the message that she would wait until
La Boulaye communicated with her again.
That night Caron slept tranquilly. He had matured a plan of escape which
he intended to carry out upon the morrow, and with confident hope to
cradle him he had fallen asleep.
But the morrow--early in the forenoon--brought a factor with which
he had not reckoned, in the person of the Incorruptible himself.
Robespierre had returned in hot haste to Paris upon receiving Varennes'
message, and he repaired straight to the house of La Boulaye.
Caron was in his dressing-gown when Robespierre was ushered into his
study, and the sight of that greenish complexion and the small eyes,
looking very angry and menacing, caused the song that the young man had
been humming to fade on his lips.
“You, Maximilien!” he exclaimed.
“Your cordial welcome flatters me,” sneered the Incorruptible, coming
forward. Then with a sudden change of voice: “What is that they tell me
you have done, miserable?” he growled.
It would have been a madness on Caron's part to have increased an
anger that was already mounting to very passionate heights. Contritely,
therefore, and humbly he acknowledged his fault, and cast himself upon
the mercy of Robespierre.
But the Incorruptible was not so easily to be shaken.
“Traitor that you are!” he inveighed. “Do you imagine that because it
is yours to make high sounding speeches in the Convention you are to
conspire with impunity against the Nation? Your loyalty, it seems, is
no more than a matter of words, and they that would keep their heads on
their shoulders in France to-day will find the need for more than words
as their claim to be let live. If you would save your miserable neck,
tell me what you have done with this damned aristocrat.”
“He is gone,” answered La Boulaye quietly.
“Don't prevaricate, Caron! Don't seek to befool me, Citizen-deputy. You
have him in hiding somewhere. You can have supplied him with no papers,
and a man may not travel out of France without them in these times. Tell
me--where is he?”
“Gone,” repeated La Boulaye. “I have set him free, and he has availed
himself of it to place himself beyond your reach. More than that I
cannot tell you.”
“Can you not?” snarled Robespierre, showing his teeth. “Of what are you
dreaming fool? Do you think that I will so easily see myself cheated of
this dog? Did I not tell you that rather would I grant you the lives of
a dozen aristocrats than that of this single one? Do you think, then,
that I am so lightly to be baulked? Name of God? Who are you, La
Boulaye, what are you, that you dare thwart me in this?” He looked at
the young man's impassive face to curb his anger. “Come, Caron,” he
added, in a wheedling tone. “Tell me what you have done with him?”
“I have already told you,” answered the other quietly.
As swift and suddenly as it changed before did Robespierre's humour
change again upon receiving that reply. With a snort of anger he strode
to the door and threw it open.
“Citizen-lieutenant!” he called, in a rasping voice.
“Here, Citizen,” came a voice from below.
“Give yourself the trouble of coming up with a couple of men. Now,
Citizen La Boulaye,” he said, more composedly, as he turned once more
to the young man, “since you will not learn reason you may mount the
guillotine in his place.”
Caron paled slightly as he inclined his head in silent submission. At
that moment the officer entered with his men at his heels.
“Arrest me that traitor,” Maximilien commanded, pointing a shaking
finger at Caron. “To the Luxembourg with him.”
“If you will wait while I change my dressing-gown for a coat,
Citizen-officer,” said La Boulaye composedly, “I shall be grateful.”
Then, turning to his official, “Brutus,” he called, “attend me.”
He had an opportunity while Brutus was helping him into his coat to
whisper in the fellow's ear:
“Let her know.”
More he dared not say, but to his astute official that was enough, and
with a sorrowful face he delivered to Suzanne, a few hours later, the
news of La Boulaye's definite arrest and removal to the Luxembourg.
At Brutus's description of the scene there had been 'twixt Robespierre
and Caron she sighed heavily, and her lashes grew wet.
“Poor, faithful La Boulaye!” she murmured. “God aid him now.”
She bore the news to d'Ombreval, and upon hearing it he tossed aside
the book that had been engrossing him and looked up, a sudden light of
relief spreading on his weak face.
“It is the end,” said he, as though no happier consummation could have
attended matters, “and we have no more to wait for. Shall we set out
to-day?” he asked, and urged the wisdom of making haste.
“I hope and I pray God that it may not be the end, as you so fondly deem
it, Monsieur,” she answered him. “But whether it is the end or not, I am
resolved to wait until there is no room for any hope.”
“As you will,” he sighed wearily, “The issue of it all will probably be
the loss of our heads. But even that might be more easily accomplished
than to impart reason to a woman.”
“Or unselfishness, it seems, to a man,” she returned, as she swept
angrily from the room.
CHAPTER XXII. THE TRIBUNAL
At the Bar of the Revolutionary Tribunal stood Deputy Caron La Boulaye
upon his trial for treason to the Nation and contravention of the ends
of justice. Fouquier-Tinvillle, the sleuth-hound Attorney-General,
advanced his charges, and detailed the nature of the young
revolutionist's crime. But there was in Fouquier-Tinvillle's prosecution
a lack of virulence for once, just as among La Boulaye's fellows,
sitting in judgment, there was a certain uneasiness, for the Revolution
was still young, and it had not yet developed that Saturnian habit of
devouring its own children which was later to become one of its main
features.
The matter of La Boulaye's crime, however, was but too clear, and
despite the hesitancy on the part of the jury, despite the unwonted
tameness of Tinvillle's invective, the Tribunal's course was
well-defined, and admitted of not the slightest doubt. And so, the
production of evidence being dispensed with by Caron's ready concurrence
and acknowledgment of the offence, the President was on the point of
formally asking the jury for their finding, when suddenly there happened
a commotion, and a small man in a blue coat and black-rimmed spectacles
rose at Tinvillle's side, and began an impassioned speech for the
defence.
This man was Robespierre, and the revolutionists sitting there
listened to him in mute wonder, for they recalled that it was upon
the Incorruptible's own charge their brother-deputy had been arrested.
Ardently did Maximilien pour out his eloquence, enumerating the many
virtues of the accused and dwelling at length upon his vast services to
the Republic, his hitherto unfaltering fidelity to the nation and the
people's cause, and lastly, deploring that in a moment of weakness he
should have committed the indiscretion which had brought him where he
stood. And against this thing of which he was now accused, Robespierre
bade the Deputies of the jury balance the young man's past, and the much
that he had done for the Revolution, and to offer him, in consideration
of all that, a chance of making atonement and regaining the position of
trust and of brotherly affection which for a moment he had forfeited.
The Court was stirred by the address. They knew the young sans-culotte's
worth, and they were reluctant to pass sentence upon him and to send him
to the death designed for aristocrats and traitors. And so they readily
pronounced themselves willing to extend him the most generous measure
of mercy, to open their arms and once more to clasp to their hearts the
brother who had strayed and to reinstate him in their confidence and
their councils. They pressed Robespierre to name the act of atonement
by which he proposed La Boulaye should recover his prestige, and
Robespierre in answer cried:
“Let him repair the evil he has done. Let him neutralise the treachery
into which a moment of human weakness betrayed him. Let him return to
us the aristocrat he has attempted to save, and we will forget his
indiscretion and receive him back amongst us with open arms, as was the
prodigal son received.”
There was a salvo of applause. Men rose to their feet excitedly, and
with arms outstretched in Caron's direction they vociferously implored
him to listen to reason as uttered by the Incorruptible, to repent him
and to atone while there was yet time. They loved him, they swore in
voices of thunder, each seeking to be heard above his neighbour's din,
and it would break their hearts to find him guilty, yet find him guilty
they must unless he chose the course which this good patriot Maximilien
pointed out to him.
La Boulaye stood pale but composed, his lips compressed, his keen eyes
alert. Inwardly he was moved by this demonstration of goodwill, this
very storm of fraternity, but his purpose remained adamant, and when at
last the President's bell had tinkled his noisy judges into silence, his
voice rose clear and steady as he thanked them for leaning to clemency
on his behalf.
“Helas,” he ended, “words cannot tell you how deeply I deplore that it
is a clemency of which I may not avail myself. What I have done I may
not undo. And so, Citizens, whilst I would still retain your love and
your sympathy, you must suffer me to let justice take its course. To
delay would be but to waste your time the Nation's time.”
“But this is rank defiance,” roared Tinvillle, roused at last into some
semblance of his habitual bloodthirstiness. “He whose heart can be so
insensible to our affections merits no clemency at this bar.”
And so the President turned with a shrug to his colleagues, and the
verdict was taken. The finding was “Guilty,” and the President was on
the point of passing sentence, when again Robespierre sprang to his
feet. The Incorruptible's complexion looked sicklier than its wont, for
mortification had turned him green outright. A gust of passion swept
through his soul, such as would have made another man call for the death
of this defiant youth who had withstood his entreaties. But such was
Robespierre's wonderful command of self, such was his power of making
his inclinations subservient to the ends he had in view that he had but
risen to voice a fresh appeal.
He demanded that the sentence should be passed with the reservation that
the accused should have twenty-four hours for reflection. Should he
at the end of that time be disposed to tell them where the ci-devant
Vicomte d'Ombreval was to be found, let them reconsider his case. On the
other hand, should he still continue obdurate by the noon of to-morrow,
then let the sentence be consummated.
There was some demur, but Robespierre swept it fiercely aside with
patriotic arguments. La Boulaye was a stout servant of the Nation, whom
it must profit France to let live that he might serve her; Ombreval
was a base aristocrat, whose death all true Republicans should aim at
encompassing. And so he won the day in the end, and when the sentence
of death was passed, it was passed with the reservation that should the
prisoner, upon reflection, be inclined to show himself more loyal to
France and the interests of the Republic by telling them how Ornbreval
might be recaptured, he would find them still inclined to mercy and
forgiveness. Allowing his eyes to stray round the Court at that moment,
La Boulaye started at sight of an unexpected face. It was Mademoiselle
de Bellecour, deathly pale and with the strained, piteous look that
haunts the eyes of the mad. He shivered at the thought of the peril
to herself in coming into that assembly; then, recovering himself, he
turned to his judges.
“Citizen-President, Citizens all, I thank you; but I should be
unappreciative of your kindness did I permit you to entertain false
hopes. My purpose is unalterable.”
“Take him away,” the President commanded impatiently, and as they
removed him Mademoiselle crept from the Court, weeping softly in her
poignant grief, and realising that not so much for the President's ear
as for her own had La Boulaye uttered those words. They were meant to
fortify her and to give her courage with the assurance that Ombreval
would not be betrayed. To give her courage! Her lip was twisted into an
oddly bitter smile at the reflection, as she stepped into her cabriolet,
and bade the driver return to Choisy. Caron was doing this for her.
He was casting away his young, vigorous life, with all its wealth of
promise, to the end that her betrothed--the man whom he believed she
loved--might be spared. The greatness, the nobility of the sacrifice
overwhelmed her. She remembered the thoughts that in the past she had
entertained concerning this young revolutionist. Never yet had she
been able to regard him as belonging to the same order of beings as
herself-not even when she had kissed his unconscious lips that evening
on the Ridge road. An immeasurable gulf had seemed to yawn between
them--the gulf between her nobility and his base origin. And now, as
her carriage trundled out of Paris and took the dusty high road, she
shuddered, and her cheeks burned with shame at the memory of the wrong
that by such thoughts she had done him. Was she, indeed, the nobler? By
accident of birth, perhaps, but by nature proper he was assuredly the
noblest man that ever woman bore.
In the Place de la Revolution a gruesome engine they called the
guillotine was levelling all things, and fast establishing the reign of
absolute equality. But with all the swift mowing of its bloody scythe,
not half so fast did it level men as Mademoiselle de Bellecour's
thoughts were doing that afternoon.
So marked was the disorder in her countenance when she reached Choisy
that even unobservant Ombreval whom continuous years of self-complacency
had rendered singularly obtuse--could not help but notice it,
and--fearing, no doubt, that this agitation might in some way concern
himself--he even went the length of questioning her, his voice sounding
the note of his alarm.
“It is nothing,” she answered, in a dejected voice. “At least, nothing
that need cause you uneasiness. They have sentenced La Boulaye to
death,” she announced, a spasm crossing her averted face.
He took a deep breath of relief.
“God knows they've sentenced innocent men enough. It is high time they
began upon one another. It augurs well-extremely well.”
They were alone in Henriette's kitchen; the faithful woman was at
market. Mademoiselle was warming herself before the fire. Ombreval stood
by the window. He had spent the time of her absence in the care of his
clothes, and he had contrived to dress himself with some semblance of
his old-time elegance which enhanced his good looks and high-born air.
“You seem to utterly forget, Monsieur, the nature of the charge upon
which he has been arraigned,” she said, in a tired voice.
“Why, no,” he answered, and he smiled airily; “he was sufficiently a
fool to be lured by the brightest eyes in France into a service for
their mistress. My faith! He's not the first by many a thousand whom a
woman's soft glances have undone--”
“The degree in which you profit by the service he is doing those bright
eyes, appears singularly beneath the dignity of your notice.”
“What a jester you are becoming, ma mie,” he laughed and at the sound
she shuddered again and drew mechanically nearer to the fire as though
her shuddering was the result of cold.
“It is yet possible that he may not die,” she said almost as if speaking
to herself. “They have offered him his liberty, and his reinstatement
even--upon conditions.”
“How interesting!” he murmured nonchalantly. “They have an odd way of
dispensing justice.”
“The conditions imposed are that he shall amend the wrong he has done,
and deliver up to the Convention the person of one ci-devant Vicomte
d'Ombreval.”
“My God!”
It was a gasp of sudden dismay that broke from the young nobleman. The
colour swept out of his face, and his eyes dilated with horror. Watching
him Suzanne observed the sudden change, and took a fierce joy in having
produced it.
“It interests you more closely now, Monsieur?” she asked.
“Suzanne,” he cried, coming a step nearer, and speaking eagerly; “he
knows my whereabouts. He brought me here himself. Are you mad, girl,
that you can sit there so composedly and tell me this?”
“What else would you have me do?” she inquired.
“Do? Why, leave Choisy at once. Come; be stirring. In God's name, girl,
bethink you that we have not a moment to lose. I know these Republicans,
and how far they are to be trusted. This fellow would betray me to save
his skin with as little compunction as--”
“You fool!” she broke in, an undercurrent of fierce indignation
vibrating through her scorn. “What are you saying? He would betray you?
He?” She tossed her arms to Heaven, and burst into a laugh of infinite
derision. “Have no fear of that, M. le Vicomte, for you are dealing with
a nature of a nobility that you cannot so much as surmise. If he were
minded to betray you, why did he not do so to-day, when they offered
him his liberty in exchange for information that would lead to your
recapture?”
“But although he may have refused to-day,” returned the Vicomte
frenziedly, “he may think better of it to-morrow-perhaps even tonight.
Ciel! Think of the risk we run; already it may be too late. Oh, why,” he
demanded reproachfully, “why didn't you listen to me when, days ago, I
counselled flight?”
“Because it neither was, nor is, my intention to fly.”
“What?” he cried, and, his jaw fallen and his eyes wide, he regarded
her. Then suddenly he caught her by the arm and shook her roughly. “Are
you mad?” he cried, in a frenzy of anger and fear. “Am I to die like
a dog that a scum of a Republican may save his miserable neck? Is this
canaille of a revolutionist to betray me to his rabble Tribunal?”
“Already have I told you that you need fear no betrayal.”
“Need I not?” he sneered. “Ma foi! but I know these ruffians. There is
not an ounce of honour in the whole National Convention.”
“Fool!” she blazed, rising and confronting him with an anger before
which he recoiled, appalled. “Do you dare to stand there and prate of
honour--you? Do you forget why he stood his trial? Do you forget why
he is dying, and can you not see the vile thing that you are doing in
arguing flight, that you talk of honour thus, and deny his claim to it?
Mon Dieu! Your effrontery stifles me! La Boulaye was right when he said
that with us honour is but a word--just so much wind, and nothing more.”
He stared at her in uncomprehending wonder. He drew away another step.
He accounted her mad, and, that he might humour her, he put by his
own fears for the moment--a wonderful unselfishness this in the most
nobly-born Vicomte d'Ombreval.
“My poor Suzanne,” he murmured. “Our trouble has demoralised your
understanding. You take a false view of things. You do not apprehend the
situation.”
“In God's name, be silent!” she gasped.
“But the time is not one for silence,” he returned.
“So I had thought,” quoth she. “Yet since you can be silent and furtive
in other matters, I beg that you will be silent in this also. You talk
in vain, Monsieur, in any case. For I am not minded to leave Choisy. If
you urge me further I shall burn our passport.”
And with that she left him, to seek the solitude of her own room. In a
passion of tears she flung herself upon the little bed, and there she
lay, a prey to such an anguish as had never touched her life before.
And now, in that hour of her grief, it came to her--as the sun pierces
the mist--that she loved La Boulaye; that she had loved him, indeed,
since that night at Boisvert, although she had stifled the very thought,
and hidden it even from herself, as being unworthy in one of her station
to love a man so lowly-born as Caron. But now, on the eve of his death,
the truth would no longer be denied. It cried, perchance, the louder by
virtue of the pusillanimity of the craven below stairs in whose place
Caron was to die; but anyhow, it cried so loudly that it overbore the
stern voice of the blood that had hitherto urged her to exclude the
sentiment from her heart. No account now did she take of any difference
in station. Be she nobler a thousand times, be he simpler a thousand
times, the fact remained that she was a woman, he a man, and beyond that
she did not seek to go.
Low indeed were the Lilies of France when a daughter of the race of
their upholders heeded them so little and the caste they symbolised.
Henriette came to her that afternoon, and, all ignorant of the sources
of her grief, she essayed to soothe and comfort her, in which, at last,
she succeeded.
In the evening Ombreval sent word that he wished to speak to her--and
that his need was urgent. But she returned him the answer that she would
see him in the morning. She was indisposed that evening, she added, in
apology.
And in the morning they met, as she had promised him. Both pale,
although from different causes, and both showing signs of having slept
but little. They broke their fast together and in silence, which at last
he ended by asking her whether the night had brought her reflection, and
whether such reflection had made her appreciate their position and the
need to set out at once.
“It needed no reflection to make me realise our position better than I
did yesterday,” she answered. “I had hoped that it would have brought
you to a different frame of mind. But I am afraid that it has not done
so.”
“I fail to see what change my frame of mind admits of,” he answered
testily.
“Have you thought,” she asked at last, and her voice was cold and
concentrated, “that this man is giving his life for you?”
“I have feared,” he answered, with incredible callousness, “that to save
his craven skin he might elect to do differently at the last moment.”
She looked at him in a mighty wonder, her dark eyes open to their
widest, and looking black by the extreme dilation of the pupils. So vast
was her amazement at this unbounded egotism that it almost overruled her
disgust.
“You cast epithets about you and bestow titles with a magnificent
unconsciousness of how well they might fit you.”
“Ah? For example?”
“In calling this man a craven, you take no thought for the cowardice
that actuates you into hiding while he dies for you?”
“Cowardice?” he ejaculated. Then a flush spread on his face. “Ma
foi, Mademoiselle,” said he, in a quivering voice, “your words betray
thoughts that would be scarcely becoming in the Vicomtesse d'Ombreval.”
“That, Monsieur, is a point that need give you little thought. I am not
likely to become the Vicomtesse.”
He bestowed her a look of mingling wonder and anger. Had he, indeed,
heard her aright? Did her words imply that she disdained the honour?
“Surely,” he gasped, voicing those doubts of his, “you do not mean that
you would violate your betrothal contract? You do not--”
“I mean, Monsieur,” she cut in, “that I will give myself to no man I do
not love.”
“Your immodesty,” said he, “falls in nothing short of the extraordinary
frame of mind that you appear to be developing in connection with other
matters. We shall have you beating a drum and screeching the Ca ira in
the streets of Paris presently, like Mademoiselle de Mericourt.”
She rose from the table, her face very white, her hand pressing upon her
corsage. A moment she looked at him. Then:
“Do not let us talk of ourselves,” she exclaimed at last. “There is
a man in the Conciergerie who dies at noon unless you are forthcoming
before then to save him. He himself will not betray you because he--No
matter why, he will not. Tell me, Monsieur, how do you, who account
yourself a man of honour above everything, intend to deal with this
situation?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Once he is dead and done with--provided that he does not first betray
me--I trust that, no longer having this subject to harp upon, you will
consent to avail yourself of our passport, and accompany me out of
France.”
“Honour does not for instance, suggest to you that you should repair
to the Conciergerie and take the place that belongs to you, and which
another is filling?”
A sudden light of comprehension swept now into his face.
“At last I understand what has been in your mind since yesterday, what
has made you so odd in your words and manner. You have thought that it
was perhaps my duty as a man of honour to go and effect the rescue of
this fellow. But, my dear child, bethink you of what he is, and of
what I am. Were he a gentleman--my equal--my course would stand clearly
defined. I should not have hesitated a moment. But this canaille! Ma
foi! let me beg of you to come to your senses. The very thought is
unworthy in you.”
“I understand you,” she answered him, very coldly. “You use a coward's
arguments, and you have the effrontery to consider yourself a man of
honour--a nobleman. I no longer marvel that there is a revolution in
France.”
She stood surveying him for a moment, then she quietly left the room. He
stared after her.
“Woman, woman!” he sighed, as he set down his napkin and rose in his
turn.
His humour was one of pitying patience for a girl that had not the
wit to see that to ask him--the most noble d'Ombreval--to die that La
Boulaye might live was very much like asking him to sacrifice his life
to save a dog's.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE CONCIERGERIE
It wanted but a few minutes to noon as the condemned of the day were
being brought out of the Conciergerie to take their places in the
waiting tumbrils. Fourteen they numbered, and there was a woman amongst
them as composed as any of the men. She descended the prison steps in
nonchalant conversation with a witty young man of some thirty years of
age, who had been one of the ornaments of the prerevolutionary salons.
Had the pair been on the point of mounting a wedding coach they could
not have shown themselves in better spirits.
Aristocrats, too, were the remaining twelve, with one exception, and if
they had not known how to live, at least they could set a very splendid
example of how to die. They came mostly in pairs, and the majority
of them emulating the first couple and treating the whole matter as
a pleasantry that rather bored them by the element of coarseness
introduced by the mob. One or two were pale, and their eyes wore a
furtive, frightened look. But they valiantly fought down their fears,
and for all that the hearts within them may have been sick with horror,
they contrived to twist a smile on to their pale lips. They did not lack
for stout patterns of high bearing, and in addition they had their own
arrogant pride--the pride that had brought them at last to this pass--to
sustain them in their extremity. Noblesse les obligeait. The rabble, the
canaille of the new regime, might do what they would with their bodies,
but their spirits they could not break, nor overcome their indomitable
pride. By the brave manner of their death it remained for them to make
amends for the atrocious manner of their lives, and such a glamour did
they shed upon themselves by the same brave manner, that it compelled
sympathy and admiration of those that beheld them, and made upon
humanity an impression deep enough to erase the former impression left
by their misdeeds.
Like heroes, like sainted martyrs, they died, these men who, through
generation after generation, had ground and crushed the people 'neath
the iron heel of tyranny and oppression, until the people had, of a
sudden, risen and reversed the position, going to excesses, in their
lately-awakened wrath, that were begotten of the excesses which for
centuries they had endured.
Last of this gallant and spruce company (for every man had donned his
best, and dressed himself with the utmost care) came Caron La Boulaye.
He walked alone, for although their comrade in death, he was their
comrade in nothing else. Their heads might lie together in the sawdust
of Sanson's basket, but while they lived, no contact would they permit
themselves, of body or of soul, with this sans-culotte. Had they known
why he died, perhaps, they had shown him fellowship. But in their
nescience of the facts, it would need more than death to melt them into
a kindness to a member of the Convention, for death was the only thing
they had in common, and death, as we have seen, had not conquered them.
As he was about to pass out, a gaoler suddenly thrust forward a hand
to detain him, and almost simultaneously the door, which had swung to
behind the last of his death-fellows, re-opened to admit the dapper
figure of the Incorruptible.
He eyed Caron narrowly as he advanced into the hall, and at the
composure evident in the young man's bearing, his glance seemed to
kindle with admiration, for all that his lips remained cruel in their
tightened curves.
Caron gave him good-day with a friendly smile, and before Robespierre
could utter a word the young man was expressing his polite regrets at
having baulked him as he had done.
“I had a great object to serve, Maximilien,” he concluded, “and my only
regret is that it should have run counter to your wishes. I owe you so
much--everything in fact--that I am filled with shame at the thought of
how ill a return I am making you. My only hope is that by my death you
will consider that I have sufficiently atoned for my ingratitude.”
“Fool!” croaked Robespierre, “you are sacrificing yourself for some
chimaera and the life you are saving is that of a very worthless and
vicious individual. Of your ingratitude to me we will not speak.
But even now, in the eleventh hour, I would have you bethink you of
yourself.”
He held out his hands to him, and entreaty was stamped upon
Robespierre's countenance to a degree which perhaps no man had yet seen.
“Bethink you, cher Caron--” he began again. But the young man shook his
head.
“My friend, my best of friends,” he exclaimed, “I beg that you will
not make it harder for me. I am resolved, and your entreaties do but
heighten my pain of thwarting your--the only pain that in this supreme
hour I am experiencing. It is not a difficult thing to die, Maximilien.
Were I to live, I must henceforth lead a life of unsatisfied desire. I
must even hanker and sigh after a something that is unattainable. I die,
and all this is extinguished with me. At the very prospect my desires
fade immeasurably. Let me go in peace, and with your forgiveness.”
Robespierre eyed him a moment or two in astonishment. Then he made an
abrupt gesture of impatience.
“Fool that you are! It is suicide you are committing. And for what?
For a dream a shadow. Is this like a man, Caron'? Is this--Will you be
still, you animal?” he barked at a gaoler who had once before touched
him upon the arm. “Do you not see that I am occupied?”
But the man leant forward, and said some words hurriedly into
Robespierre's ear, which cast the petulance out of his face and mind,
and caused him of a sudden to become very attentive.
“Ah?” he said at last. Then, with a sudden briskness: “Let the Citizen
La Boulaye not go forth until I return,” he bade the gaoler; and to
Caron he said: “You will have the goodness to await my return.”
With that he turned and stepped briskly across the hall and through the
door, which the gaoler, all equality notwithstanding, hastened to open
for him with as much servility as ever the haughtiest aristocrat had
compelled.
Saving that single gaoler, La Boulaye was alone in the spacious hall
of the Conciergerie. From without they heard the wild clamouring and
Ca-iraing of the mob. Chafing at this fresh delay, which was as a
prolongation of his death-agony, La Boulaye was pacing to and fro, the
ring of his footsteps on the stone floor yielding a hollow, sepulchral
echo.
“Is he never returning?” he cried at last; and as if in answer to his
question, the drums suddenly began to roll, and the vociferations of the
rabble swelled in volume and grew shriller. “What is that?” he inquired.
The gaoler, on whose dirty face some measure of surprise was manifested,
approached the little grating that overlooked the yard and peered out.
“Sacrenom!” he swore. “The tumbrils are moving. They have left you
behind, Citizen.”
But La Boulaye gathered no encouragement, such as the gaoler thought he
might, from that contingency. He but imagined that it was Robespierre's
wish to put him back for another day in the hope that he might still
loosen his tongue. An oath of vexation broke from him, and he stamped
his foot impatiently upon the floor.
Then the door opened suddenly, and Robespierre held it whilst into the
room came a woman, closely veiled, whose tall and shapely figure caused
the young Deputy's breath to flutter. The Incorruptible followed her,
and turning to the gaoler:
“Leave us,” he commanded briskly.
And presently, when those three stood alone, the woman raised her veil
and disclosed the face he had expected--the beautiful face of Suzanne
de Bellecour, but, alas! woefully pale and anguished of expression. She
advanced a step towards Caron, and then stood still, encountering his
steadfast, wonder-struck gaze, and seeming to falter. With a sob, at
last she turned to Maximilien, who had remained a pace or two behind.
“Tell him, Monsieur,” she begged.
Robespierre started out of his apparent abstraction. He peered at her
with his short-sighted eyes, and from her to Caron. Then he came forward
a step and cleared his throat, rather as a trick of oratory than to
relieve any huskiness.
“To put it briefly, my clear Caron,” said he, “the Citoyenne here has
manifested a greater solicitude for your life than you did yourself, and
she has done me the twofold service of setting it in my power to punish
an enemy, and to preserve a friend from a death that was very imminent.
In the eleventh hour she came to me to make terms for your pardon.
She proposed to deliver up to me the person of the ci-devant Vicomte
d'Ombreval provided that I should grant you an unconditional pardon.
You can imagine, my good Caron, with what eagerness I agreed to her
proposal, and with what pleasure I now announce to you that you are
free.”
“Free!” gasped La Boulaye, his eyes travelling fearfully from
Robespierre to Mademoiselle, and remaining riveted upon the latter as
though he were attempting to penetrate into the secrets of her very
soul.
“Practically free,” answered the Incorruptible. “You may leave the
Conciergerie when you please, thought I shall ask you to remain at your
lodging in the Rue Nationale until this Ombreval is actually taken. Once
he has been brought to Paris, I shall send you your papers that you may
leave France, for, much though I shall regret your absence, I think that
it will be wiser for you to make your fortune elsewhere after what has
passed.”
La Boulaye took a step in Suzanne's direction.
“You have done this?” he cried, in a quivering voice. “You have betrayed
the man to whom you were betrothed?”
“Do not use that word, Monsieur,” she cried, with a shudder. “My action
cannot be ranked among betrayals. He would have let you go to the
guillotine in his stead. He had not the virtue to come forward, for all
that he knew that you must die if he did not. On the contrary, such a
condition of things afforded him amusement, matter to scorn and insult
you with. He would have complacently allowed a dozen men to have gone to
the guillotine that his own worthless life might have been spared.
“But he was your betrothed!” La Boulaye protested.
“True!” she made answer; “but I had to choose between the man it had
been arranged I should marry and the man I loved.” A flush crimsoned her
cheek, and her voice sank almost to a whisper. “And to save the man I
love I have delivered up Ombreval.”
“Suzanne”
The name burst from his lips in a shout of wonder and of joy ineffable.
In a stride he seemed to cover the distance between them, and he caught
her to him as the door slammed on the discreetly departing Robespierre.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Trampling of the Lilies, by Rafael Sabatini