A LITTLE BREAKFAST AT ST. HILAIRE'S
The Marquis Jean Raphael de St. Hilaire was giving a breakfast-party. It
was not one of those large affairs for which the marquis was noted,
where a hundred guests would sit down in his large salon to a repast
costing the lavish young nobleman a princely sum. This being merely the
occasion of a modest little dejeuner, the covers were laid in the
marquis's morning cabinet on the second floor, which was more suitable
for such an informal meal.
There were present around the table the Count and Countess d'Arlincourt;
the old Chevalier de Creux; the witty Madame Diane de Remur; the Count
de Blois, dressed in the very latest and most exact fashion; and the
Marquis de Lacheville, with the pallor of recent illness on his face. At
the lower end of the board sat a young poet who was riding on his first
wave of popularity; and next to him was a philosopher.
The guests, having finished the dessert, were lingering over a choice
vintage from the marquis's cellar.
The host, leaning back in his chair with half-closed eyes, listened
carelessly to the hum of conversation while he toyed with a few sugared
almonds.
"And so you think, chevalier," said the Countess d'Arlincourt in reply
to a remark by the old nobleman, "that our troublesome times are not yet
over?"
"Not yet, my dear countess, nor will they be over for a long time to
come."
"Oh, how pessimistic you are, chevalier; for my part I do not see how
affairs can be worse than they have been for the last year."
"For a longer period than that," remarked her husband, the Count
d'Arlincourt.
"Well, I remember particularly, it was a year ago when you first told me
that you could not afford to make me a present of a diamond crescent to
wear in my hair at the Duchess de Montmorenci's fancy dress-ball. You
had never used that word to me before."
"You have been extremely fortunate," said the Chevalier de Creux,
turning a pair of small, bright eyes upon the countess and speaking with
just the slightest accent of sarcasm. "Even longer ago than a year, many
persons were in need of other necessities than diamonds."
"Oh, yes, I know," interrupted the countess hastily, anxious to show
that she was not as ignorant as the chevalier's tone implied,--"bread.
Why don't they give the people enough bread? It is a very simple demand,
and things would then be well."
"My dear child," put in Madame de Remur, "it would do no good to give
them bread to-day; they would be hungry again to-morrow. The trouble is
with the finances. When they are set right everything will go well; and
the people can buy all the bread they want, and you can have your
diamond crescent," and the speaker smiled at the chevalier and shrugged
her white shoulders.
"Yes, but," persisted the countess, raising her pretty eyebrows, "when
_will_ the finances be set right? The people cannot go forever without
bread."
"Nor can women go forever without diamonds," laughed Madame de Remur.
"Women with your eyes, fair Diane, have no need of other diamonds," said
the Marquis de St. Hilaire debonairely. The lady smiled graciously at
the compliment. She was a young and attractive widow and she looked at
St. Hilaire not unkindly.
"We have frequently had financial crises in the past," said
d'Arlincourt, "and gotten safely over them; and so we should to-day,
were it not for the host of philosophical writers who have broken loose;
who call the people's attention to their ills, and foment trouble where
there is none. Of course you will understand that I make the usual
exception as to present company," he added, bowing slightly to the
philosopher. But the latter seemed lost in thought and did not appear to
hear the count's remark. The poet took up the conversation in a low
tone.
"Should we not look to these very men, these philosophers, these
encyclopaedists, to point the way out of the difficulty?" and he turned
from one to the other with a shrug.
"Bah, no! They are the very ones to blame, I tell you," repeated
d'Arlincourt.
"My dear count," cried Madame d'Arlincourt, "I cannot permit you to
speak slightingly of our philosophers. They are all the fashion now. The
door of every salon in Paris is open to them. The other night, at a
great reception given by the Duchess de Montmorenci, half the invited
guests were philosophers, poets, encyclopaedists. They say that even some
of the nobility were overlooked in order to make room for the men of
letters."
The Marquis de St. Hilaire threw a small cake to the spaniel that sat on
its haunches begging for it.
"We cannot very well overlook this new order of nobility of the
ink-and-paper that has exerted such an influence during the last
generation," he said carelessly.
"I should not overlook them if I had my way," cried the Count
d'Arlincourt. "I should lock them safely up in the Bastille."
"Oh!" cried the ladies in one breath; "barbarian!"
"These men are doubtless responsible for the inflamed state of the
public mind," said St. Hilaire, again taking up the conversation.
"Of course they are," agreed the count.
"And so are Calonne and Brienne," continued the marquis. "They
mismanaged affairs during their terms of office."
Here the philosopher smiled an assent.
"But the blame rests more heavily upon other shoulders than those of
scribbling writers or corrupt officials," and the marquis paused to look
around the table.
"I am all attention," cried the Countess d'Arlincourt, prepared for
something amusing. "Upon whom does it rest?"
"Upon the nobility themselves," answered St. Hilaire.
For a moment there was silence; then came a storm of protests from all
sides, only the chevalier and the philosopher making no audible reply,
although the latter said to himself:--
"You are right, monsieur le marquis."
"St. Hilaire is in one of his mad fits," de Lacheville exclaimed.
"If it were not for the nobility there would be no poetry, no wit,"
murmured the poet.
"The nobility is the mainstay of the throne, the vitality of the
country," said d'Arlincourt.
"What have _we_ done?" cried the ladies in concert. "We ask for nothing
better than to have everybody contented and happy." And they shrugged
their pretty white shoulders as if to throw off the burden that St.
Hilaire had placed there.
"Look at me," exclaimed St. Hilaire, rising and speaking with an
animation he had not shown before. He was a man of twenty-five with a
face so handsome that dissipation had not been able to mar its beauty.
"I am a type of my class."
"An honor to it," said the poet.
"Thank you; then you will agree that the cap which I put on will fit
other heads as well. I have wasted two fortunes."
"St. Hilaire is in one of his remorseful moods," whispered de Lacheville
in the ear of Madame de Remur.
"I have spent them in riotous living with men like myself." Here he
looked at de Lacheville.
"I feel deeply honored, my dear marquis," said the latter, bowing.
"When I wanted more money I knew where to get it."
"Happy fellow," called out de Lacheville with a laugh.
"I went to the steward who managed my estates. I have estates, or rather
had them, for they are now mortgaged to the last notch, in Normandy,
Picardy, Auvergne and Poitou--I would say to my steward, 'I need more
money.'"
"'Very well, monsieur le marquis, but I must put on the screws a little
to get it.'
"'Put on a dozen if you like, but get me the funds.'
"'It shall be done, monsieur le marquis.'
"Again and again I went to him for money. He always responded in the
same manner, but each time the screws had to be turned a little tighter.
Do you suppose my peasants love me for that? No, they hate me just as
yours hate you, de Lacheville, and yours hate you, d'Arlincourt." De
Lacheville laughed, and the count lifted up his hand in denial. "I knew
that the day of reckoning would come," St. Hilaire went on. "Every time
I went to Monsieur Rignot, my steward, every time he put on the screws
at my request, I knew it was bringing us nearer the final smash."
"Us!" repeated d'Arlincourt, with a gesture of impatience.
"Yes, us," said St. Hilaire; "we are all in the same boat, but we have
all done the same thing in a greater or less degree. We shall all have
to pay the penalty."
"There is where I differ with you, my dear marquis," said the Count
d'Arlincourt; "I am willing to take what responsibility falls to me by
right, but I emphatically refuse to pay the penalty of your follies."
"My follies are but those of my class. You may have been an exception
yourself, d'Arlincourt, but that will not save you."
"What penalties must we pay? Save him from what?" demanded the pretty
countess, looking at St. Hilaire with her large blue eyes.
"From the revolution," was the answer. There was a general exclamation
of surprise. D'Arlincourt took up the word.
"Like all men given to excess,--pardon the remark, marquis, but you have
yourself admitted it,--you exaggerate the present unquiet state of
affairs. The people will not revolt. They have no real cause. If you had
made such a statement twenty years ago during the ascendancy of the
infamous du Barry I might not have contradicted you. But now the people
as a mass are loyal. They love their king."
"I still affirm," said St. Hilaire, "that the time is ripe for a
revolution. Sooner or later it must come."
The chevalier from the further end of the table said quietly; "It _has_
come."
"Surely you are not serious," said d'Arlincourt, turning to the
chevalier, "in calling the disturbance of the past few days a
revolution. Why, I have seen more serious revolts than this blow into
nothing. Our Paris mob is a fickle creature, demanding blood one moment
and the next moment throwing up its cap with delight if you show it a
colored picture."
"The disturbance of to-day will become great enough to shake France to
its centre," said the chevalier.
"One would think that you possessed the gift of second sight," laughed
de Lacheville.
"I do," replied the old man impressively.
"Give us an example of it, then," demanded d'Arlincourt. "What part am I
to take in the new revolution?"
"I see behind you, my dear d'Arlincourt," replied the chevalier, leaning
back in his chair and looking in the count's direction through
half-closed eyelids, "the shadow of a scaffold."
Unwittingly the count turned with a start, to see Blaise standing behind
him in the act of filling his glass with wine. There was a general
laugh.
"Madame de Remur will bare her white shoulders to the rude grasp of the
executioner. De Lacheville will escape. No, he will not. He will die by
his own hand to cheat the scaffold."
"And I," interrupted the Countess d'Arlincourt, "shall I share their
fate?"
The chevalier looked at her with a peculiar expression in his eyes. "My
sight fails here," he said. "I cannot foretell your fate. Yet you may
live; your beauty should save you. People do not kill those who please
them; those who bore them are less fortunate." And he turned his
snapping brown eyes in the direction of the gentle poet and the
venerable philosopher.
"St. Hilaire's sudden and great interest in the people's welfare may
prove of service to him," remarked d'Arlincourt significantly.
"It will not save him," replied the chevalier. "He will finally come to
the same end. The shadow of the scaffold is behind him also."
St. Hilaire laughed as he cracked an almond. "Though I may sympathize
somewhat with a people who have been oppressed and robbed, I should feel
unhappy indeed to be left out in the cold when so many of the
illustrious had gone before. But you have overlooked yourself. That is
like you, chevalier, unselfish to the last."
"Oh, I am too old to be of importance; I shall die of gout," said the
old nobleman.
"You have disposed of us effectually," said the poet, "and I shall be
greatly honored at being permitted to leave this world in such good
company. But may I ask, are we to be the sole victims of your
revolution?"
"Far from it," answered the old chevalier, closing his eyes and speaking
in an abstracted manner, as if talking to himself, while his friends
listened in rapt attention, half inclined to smile at the affair as at a
joke, and yet so serious was he that they could not escape the influence
of his seriousness.
"I can see," he continued, "a long line of the most illustrious in
France. They are passing onward to the block. They are princes of the
blood; aye, even the king's head shall fall."
"Enough!" cried out the voice of d'Arlincourt, above the general
exclamations of horror that the chevalier's pretended vision called
forth. "You overstep the line, Chevalier de Creux. I do not object to a
pleasantry, but when you go so far as to predict the execution of the
king you carry a jest too far. It is time to call a halt."
"But was it a jest?" asked the chevalier dryly.
"A very poor one," said de Lacheville.
"My dear friend," said the chevalier in his blandest tone, "I am not
predicting what I should like to have take place. Not what ought to be,
but what will be."
The count scowled and de Lacheville turned away with a shrug and began a
conversation with Madame de Remur.
"We all know that the chevalier is a merry gentleman, yet no jester,"
said St. Hilaire. "What will be, will be. I, for one, am willing to
drink a toast to the chevalier's revolution. Blaise, bring out some of
that wine I received from the Count de Beaujeu. I lost fifty thousand
livres to him the night he made me a present of this wine; it will be
like drinking liquid gold."
Blaise filled the glasses amid general silence.
St. Hilaire rose to his feet, holding his wine-glass above his head.
"What, my friends, you are not afraid?" he exclaimed in a tone of
surprise, looking about the table where only the chevalier and the
philosopher had followed his example. "Is it possible you have taken the
chevalier's visions so much to heart?"
They all rose from their places, ashamed to have it thought that they
had taken in too serious a vein the little comedy played by the
chevalier.
"Any excuse to drink such wine as this," said de Lacheville, with a
forced laugh.
"We drink to the revolution!" cried St. Hilaire in his reckless
manner--and he touched glasses with Madame de Remur and then with the
Countess d'Arlincourt. As the glasses clinked about the table, a heavy
booming sound fell upon the ears of the revelers.
"What noise is that?" cried the countess nervously. They stopped to
listen, holding their glasses aloft. The booming ceased, then followed a
roar like that of the angry surf beating upon a rockbound shore.
"It is the chevalier's revolution," exclaimed Madame de Remur.
"Are we to be frightened from drinking our toast by a little noise?"
cried St. Hilaire. "What if it be the revolution? Let us drink to it.
Come!" and they drained their glasses to the accompaniment of what
sounded like a volley of musketry.
The ladies looked pale and were glad to quit the table for the salon,
where they were joined by the poet and the philosopher, leaving the
others still at their wine.
The Marquis de Lacheville took another glass, and then a third.
"You had best be careful how you heat your blood with this rich wine, de
Lacheville, while that wound in your side is scarcely healed," remarked
d'Arlincourt.
"Confound the wound, and curse the young villain who gave it me,"
growled de Lacheville. "I have been forced to lead the life of an
anchorite for the past fortnight; but such nectar as this cannot
inflame, it only soothes," and he reached out his hand toward the
decanter. As he did so, the sound of guns reverberated again through the
room, making the windows rattle and jarring the dishes on the table. The
ladies in the adjoining room cried out in alarm, and d'Arlincourt rose
and went to reassure them.
"I will go with you," said the chevalier, and he joined the count.
De Lacheville threw his napkin down upon the spot of wine that had
splashed from his upraised glass upon the damask cloth.
"The devil take them!" he cried petulantly; then filling his glass again
with an air of bravado, "will they not permit a man to breakfast in
peace?"
"Your nerves must be badly shaken, de Lacheville, if you permit such a
slight thing to disturb you," laughed St. Hilaire, filling a glass to
the brim.
D'Arlincourt entered from the next room hurriedly. "I am going to see
what all this firing means," he said. "Will you accompany me,
gentlemen?"
"I make it a point never to seek for news or excitement, but rather
allow them to come to me," said St. Hilaire leisurely. "You would better
sit down and let me send a servant to ascertain the cause of this
turmoil."
"Why leave the house in search of truth when we have with us an oracle
in the shape of the chevalier?" interposed the Marquis de Lacheville.
"I shall be able to bring a more accurate account," replied d'Arlincourt
with an impatient shrug.
"As you will," said St. Hilaire. "Blaise, give the Count d'Arlincourt
his hat and sword. Are you quite sure you do not want some of my lackeys
to accompany you?" he asked.
D'Arlincourt declined the offer and hastily left the room.
The two marquises were left in possession of the dining-room and the
wine. They both continued to drink, each after his own fashion. With
each successive glass, de Lacheville became louder in voice and more
boastful, while as St. Hilaire sipped his wine, he became quieter and
more indifferent.
Within ten minutes d'Arlincourt returned to them, his face betraying
great excitement.
"A mob has attacked and captured the Bastille. The multitude is surging
through the streets. They will pass before this very door."
"It is impossible that they could have taken the Bastille!" exclaimed de
Lacheville, rising to his feet and steadying himself by holding to the
back of his chair.
"There are thirty thousand of them," replied d'Arlincourt, "and through
some treachery they have obtained arms. In order to save bloodshed
Governor Delaunay surrendered the fortress on receiving the promise of
the insurgents that the lives of all its defenders should be spared.
They are now dragging him through the streets, crying out for his blood.
The man was mad to trust the word of such a rabble."
"Let us go into the salon," remarked St. Hilaire quietly. "There we can
reassure the ladies and also view this interesting spectacle."
The three gentlemen entered the room which fronted upon the street,
d'Arlincourt with compressed lips and flashing eyes; de Lacheville,
unsteady of gait and with wine-flushed face, murmuring maledictions
against the beast multitude; and St. Hilaire, cool and calm as was his
wont.
In the salon they found the chevalier entertaining Madame de Remur with
an anecdote which was the occasion of much laughter on her part.
The poet was reciting some of his own verses to the countess, while the
philosopher was asleep in an arm-chair.
"The crowd have torn down the Bastille," cried de Lacheville, speaking
in a thick voice, "and they are now coming down this street, seeking
whom they can devour."
The ladies cried out in terror.
"Marquis, you have interrupted one of my best stories," said the
chevalier petulantly.
"But, chevalier, the mob have taken the Bastille."
"Couldn't you have allowed them two minutes more to complete their work?
However, what you say is very interesting, though it does not surprise
me. I have been expecting it."
"You forget that the chevalier is gifted with second sight," said the
count, with a slight sneer.
"I have been expecting it for some time," continued the chevalier,
"though what they wanted to take it for, I cannot imagine. If they
should attack the Hotel de Ville or the Louvre, or march against
Versailles, I could understand it."
Madame de Remur and the philosopher, who had awakened from his nap, had
approached to hear the news; and the Marquis de Lacheville repeated it
to them as if he had been an eye-witness of the whole affair.
"For my part," he said in conclusion, "I think this disturbance amounts
to very little; the Baron de Besneval has but to give the order to his
troops, and the valiant mob will disperse like chaff. I have seen such
fellows run before this. It is amusing to see what a steel bayonet will
do toward accelerating the pace of the canaille."
"They say that the French Guards are not loyal," remarked the chevalier.
"The French Guards be hanged!" shouted the Marquis de Lacheville hotly.
"I would not trust them further than the canaille itself; they are a
white-livered lot in spite of their gaudy uniforms. Thank heaven, we
have other troops who are good and loyal, and who will put down these
disorders in a trice."
"We shall look to you, then, marquis," said the cavalier, "to restore
peace and quiet for us at once."
"I would not soil my hands with such dirt," replied de Lacheville
haughtily, and scowling at what he thought was a disposition on the part
of the chevalier to ridicule him.
"Is there really danger?" inquired the Countess d'Arlincourt of her
husband.
"The situation is grave, but I hardly think there is great cause for
alarm," he answered. "The king has too many loyal subjects to permit
anarchy and riot to exist for any length of time."
"Let us go out upon the balcony," interrupted St. Hilaire; "the show is
about to pass under our windows." He threw open the windows and ushered
his friends out upon the balcony with a gesture as if he were bidding
them welcome to his box at the opera.
Down the street, with a roar that drowned all other sounds, came the
surging mass like a torrent that had burst its bounds. In the front
ranks, carried on the shoulders of a dozen, were two men dressed in the
uniform of the French Guards. They were greeted on all sides with
acclamations.
"See how the Guards fraternize with the mob," said de Lacheville. "Down
with the French Guards! Down with the rabble!" he cried in his
excitement, shaking his fist over the railing.
St. Hilaire gripped his arm. "I don't care how much you expose your own
life, but as I do not wish to bring insult or danger upon the ladies
under my roof, perhaps you had better refrain from expressing your
opinions for the present."
"Do you think they would dare attack this house?" demanded de
Lacheville, turning pale.
"Men who have successfully stormed a prison are not likely to hesitate
before the walls of a house, even though it does belong to a marquis,"
replied St. Hilaire. "Look at that!" he exclaimed suddenly, pointing up
the street. Then turning to d'Arlincourt, he said, "Get the ladies
inside as quickly as possible." The count had no sooner followed his
directions, than along the street, borne on long poles on a level with
the very eyes of those on the balcony, appeared two heads dripping with
blood.
"Dear me, whose are those?" exclaimed the chevalier, adjusting his
eyeglasses. "By my soul, it's poor Delaunay's head. They have treated
him most shabbily. Can you make out the other, St. Hilaire?"
"No," answered the marquis, "I was never good at recognizing faces," and
he stepped to the window to reassure the ladies in the salon.
The chevalier leaned over the railing and called out to one of the men
in the crowd:--
"My good fellow, will you have the kindness to tell me whose head they
are carrying on the second pole?"
The man, thus addressed, looked up. He was tall and broad-shouldered,
with face browned from exposure to the sun. With one arm he supported a
member of the French Guards who had been wounded.
"Flesselle's," he answered. "He has betrayed the people again and again.
He has received a terrible punishment."
The man who had given the chevalier this answer did not move on
immediately, but stood looking up at the balcony. The old nobleman,
following this look, saw that it rested on the Marquis de Lacheville.
The latter, meeting the man's eye at the same moment, recognized Robert
Tournay. He started forward as if about to speak, then noticing the
weapon in Tournay's hand and remembering the recent warning of St.
Hilaire, he checked himself. Neither spoke, but the marquis could not
repress a look of hatred, which was answered by a look of defiance by
Tournay. Then the latter turned away with his companion leaning on his
shoulder. The crowd closed up and he was soon lost to sight.
"They have killed Flesselle, the mayor of Paris," said the chevalier, as
St. Hilaire joined him a moment later. "Well," he continued, as if in
answer to St. Hilaire's shrug, "Flesselle was a fool, but I am sorry for
poor Delaunay. Come, St. Hilaire, let us go in, the crowd is thinning
out now; in a short time the streets will be passable and I must be
going. I have to thank you for a most enjoyable day, marquis."
"The pleasure has been mine," replied the Marquis de St. Hilaire,
bowing.
"Are you going to the duchess's to-night?" inquired the chevalier.
"No, I think not," answered St. Hilaire, putting his hand upon the
window-bar. "After you, my dear chevalier," indicating the way into the
salon. As he was about to step into the room the chevalier turned and
took a final look at the street. The main body of the mob had passed and
their shouts were heard receding in the distance; although underneath
the window were still a number of persons, coming and going in restless
excitement.
"I think, marquis," he said, with his curious smile, "that your friends
need soap and water badly."
"They do, chevalier," said the other, returning the smile, "and the
smell is sickening. Come to my bedroom; I will give you a new perfume."
That evening, after the departure of his guests, the Marquis de St.
Hilaire called in his man of affairs.
"Rignot," he demanded carelessly, "have I a single estate that is
unencumbered?"
"Unfortunately no, monsieur le marquis."
"Think again, Rignot. Is there not some little estate still intact? Some
small farm heretofore overlooked by us?"
"Not a cottage, monsieur le marquis."
"What bills are unpaid?"
"Some three hundred thousand livres are rather pressing."
"Is that the sum total of all my liabilities? I want a full statement
to-night."
"You owe about eight hundred thousand francs, monsieur le marquis."
"Pay them at once."
"But, monsieur le marquis, it will be impossible. Where shall I get the
funds?"
"You may sell my furniture, personal property"--
"What, everything, monsieur le marquis?"
"Yes, everything; and after paying all my debts, if there is anything
left, take out a commission for yourself and give me the balance;" and
then he turned to the window and looked out on the lights of the city of
Paris, indicating that the interview was at an end. Rignot withdrew.
"Assuredly," said the Marquis de St. Hilaire with a yawn, "this
revolution arrives in good time. I should soon have become a beggar."