AT THE BELLE IMAGE.
BUT the scene below soon drew M. le Comte from his abstraction; for
even in the few minutes we had spent in listening to Pasdeloup’s story,
told with a rude and simple eloquence which I have tried in vain to
reproduce, it had assumed a new and more threatening aspect. The flood
which had swept into the château was pouring out of it again, bearing
upon its crest furniture, draperies, railings, doors--everything, in a
word, which could be wrenched from the building. All of this was thrown
into a great pile in the middle of the lawn and a torch applied to it.
Then as the flames leaped upward the marauders joined hands around it
and started a wild dance.
They had appropriated all the clothing they had found in the château,
and it was not without a certain pang that I recognized one of my
own coats in which I had taken especial pride making the circuit
of the fire upon the back of a sturdy rascal, utterly incapable of
appreciating its beauties, and wholly careless of preserving them. The
effect under other circumstances would have been ludicrous enough; and
indeed I found myself smiling after a moment, so trivial did the loss
of my wardrobe appear in comparison with the dangers which threatened
us. A few hours before it had seemed a great disaster; now it scarcely
merited a second thought. For it was no longer a question of whether
I should enter Poitiers in becoming state, but whether I should live
to enter it at all. Besides, for some hours I had ceased to care as to
the effect my appearance would have on either M. de Benseval or his
daughter.
“Those roisterers seem harmless enough,” said M. le Comte after a
moment. “It was foolish to run away. If I had stayed to broach a
cask of wine for them they would have drunk my health and marched
away shouting ‘God and the King!’ with the best of us. They are
Revolutionists merely for the excitement of it, not because they bear
me ill-will.”
“Those around the fire perhaps,” assented Pasdeloup, “but not those
others;” and he indicated with his finger a small group which stood
motionless in the shadow of the tower almost directly beneath us. We
leaned over the parapet and looked down at them. The rays of the fire
glinted on knives, muskets, pistols. They were fully armed, though they
wore no uniform.
“Who are they?” asked M. le Comte.
“Goujon brought them from Paris with him, monsieur. Look again and you
will see their red caps. They are heroes of the September massacres.”
I shivered at the words.
“Goujon wished to have at hand some one upon whom he could rely,”
Pasdeloup added quietly. “He promised them that he would have
agreeable work for them, and that they should be well repaid, or they
would never have consented to leave Paris.”
“What are they doing down yonder?”
“They are watching the door to the tower.”
“Well, let them watch it. We shall not open it, and they can never
break it down.”
“I would not be too certain of that, monsieur,” said Pasdeloup,
gloomily. “They have learned many things at Paris. Goujon boasted
that even unarmed the people had taken a great prison called the
Bastille--but most probably he was lying.”
“No,” said his master in a low tone, “in that particular, at least, he
spoke the truth. But miracles do not repeat themselves.”
“They no doubt have other means at command,” responded Pasdeloup
grimly, “without calling in the aid of the good God.”
“No doubt they have,” agreed his master; “but at least we can reduce
the number of these assassins;” and he drew his pistols.
But Pasdeloup laid a warning hand upon his arm.
“Not yet, monsieur,” he said. “I may be mistaken. Perhaps there is yet
a chance. Perhaps those others will refuse to join them. Perhaps they
will grow weary after a time and depart for home, content with such
plunder as they can carry away. But if we begin the attack they will be
on fire in a moment.”
“You are right,” agreed M. le Comte, and slowly returned his pistols to
his belt. “Let us wait, then. Meanwhile Pasdeloup, do you tell us how
you came to know so well what Goujon was planning--and more especially
why, since you did know it, you did not give me warning.”
Pasdeloup hesitated a moment.
“I will tell you, monsieur,” he said at last, “and you will see that I
am not to blame--that I did what I could. You perhaps know the inn of
the Belle Image at Dange?”
“I have heard of it.”
“I was there one evening a week ago drinking a glass of wine during
an hour Laroche had taken my place at the gate. It was the first time
he had ever proposed such a thing, but that night he came to me and
told me of the wonderful new wine at the Belle Image, so good and so
cheap, since it no longer had to pay tithes, to the church and to the
aristocrats. He ended by saying that as he was idle for an hour he
would take my place at the gate while I went to the Belle Image and
tasted the wine. I confess I was surprised; he saw it and explained
that he wanted me to test for myself one of the benefits the Republic
had conferred upon the people. So I went. I saw afterward that that was
not his purpose at all.”
“I can guess what his purpose was,” said M. le Comte; “but continue
your story.”
“I was, as I have said, drinking my wine,” continued Pasdeloup, “which
was truly of a surprising excellence, when a man came and sat down
beside me. For a moment I did not know him; then I saw it was Goujon.
He greeted me with a kindness which surprised me when I remembered
that it was I who had helped to capture him; but he seemed to have
forgotten that. I saw that he was well dressed and that his hands were
white. He ordered a bottle of wine even superior to that which I was
drinking, invited me to join him, and began to tell me of the wonderful
events which were happening in Paris--events which would end by making
us all free, and rich, and happy. He said that the aristocrats and the
priests had been starving and robbing and killing us for five hundred
years, and that now it was our turn.
“‘You remember that your own mother was starved to death, Pasdeloup,’
he said.
“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I remember that.’
“‘Although enough to feed a hundred people was wasted every day at the
château.’
“‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘perhaps that is true.’
“‘You know how she would have been beaten had it been known that she
stole even a morsel of food from the pigs.’
“‘Yes,’ I said again; ‘I know that.’
“‘You may perhaps remember,’ he went on, with a frightful contortion of
the countenance, ‘the punishment I suffered for trapping a hare.’
“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I remember.’
“‘And do you think it just, good God!’ he cried, ‘that a man should
suffer like that for a fault so trivial? Yet that is what was happening
day by day all over this broad land of France! What could we do?
They took our grain for their bread, our flocks for their meat, our
daughters for their pleasure. Did we so much as protest we were hanged
on the nearest gallows as a warning to others not to lift their heads.
We might live or die, starve or rot--what did it matter! We were less
to them, as you have seen, than the swine in their pens!’ I do not
know,” added Pasdeloup, in another tone, “whether all of this was true,
but it had a certain air of truth about it.”
“Most of it was true, I fear,” said M. le Comte in a low voice, “though
I had never looked at it in quite that way.”
“There is a great difference, is there not, monsieur,” asked Pasdeloup,
“in whether one looks at a thing from above or from below?”
“Yes,” agreed his master still more quietly, “there is.”
“At any rate,” continued Pasdeloup, “Goujon grew more and more excited
with each word he uttered. ‘Why is it,’ he demanded, ‘that some people
wear lace and jewels and others only rags? Why should a noble’s pigs
be treated better than his peasants? Why should the peasants toil from
year to year in order that the priests and the aristocrats may live
in idleness with their women, and have fine wines to drink, and fine
clothes to wear, and great houses to shelter them, while we who make
the wine, and spin the cloth, and build the houses, have only swill
and rags and hovels? Why should they be warm in winter and we cold?
Why should we permit their game to destroy our crops without being
permitted to raise a hand to prevent it?’
“‘I do not know,’ I answered, ‘except that it was always so.’
“‘Well, it will be so no longer!’ he cried. ‘We are going to change all
that. We are going to reverse things. Monsieur Veto has already sneezed
in the sack; the Austrian woman and her whelp will follow him.’
“‘And what then?’ I asked.
“‘Then we shall be free. Then we shall set about the work of
establishing liberty, equality, fraternity. But first we will stuff the
nobles’ mouths with dust, just as those good fellows at Paris stuffed
old Foulon’s with hay. Come, you must join us, Pasdeloup. You also have
wrongs to avenge.’
“‘I will think of it,’ I said, and returned to my post at the gate.
“All that night I lay and thought of what Goujon had said, and I
confess, M. le Comte, that it appeared to me reasonable. So long as
I had imagined that things were as they were because the good God so
willed it, I had not questioned them. But now I began to suspect that
perhaps the good God had no hand in them at all, and that the only
thing left for us was to do what we could to help ourselves. The next
night I inquired for Laroche, but no one had seen him; so leaving the
gate open--the first time that I had ever done so--I hastened to the
Belle Image. Goujon was awaiting me; again he bought wine, and again
he laid before me the wrongs of the peasantry. At last I told him that
I would join the society which he was organizing at Dange. It was not
until I had taken the oath that I discovered what it was he intended
to do. He thought me wholly his, and indeed, from night to night, he
convinced me more and more that justice was on our side.
“Two nights ago he was for some reason very jubilant and drank more
than usual. It was at that time that he confided to me his passion for
madame; that he told me what it was he had been doing in that attic at
the moment you discovered him. Then he passed on to the plan he had in
mind.
“‘We have all the servants now, Pasdeloup,’ he said; ‘even the women.
Those we could not persuade we bribed; those we could not bribe we
frightened into joining us. The plans are made, everything is ready.
Your part will be to open the gates for us.’
“‘Which gates?’ I asked.
“‘The gates of the château, of course.’
“‘Of the château?’
“‘Certainly, it is of the château I am speaking. We are going to attack
it.’
“‘But M. le Comte is not there,’ I protested.
“‘No,’ said Goujon with a triumphant smile, ‘nor will he ever again be
there. I have attended to that. Laroche has lured him into our hands.
First I will bring him here in order that he may witness my revenge--my
triumph; then I will send him on to Paris to celebrate his nuptials
with Madame Guillotine.’
“Then I saw the trap into which I had thrust my foot. As he sat there
leering at me I was tempted to bury my knife in his belly; but I
managed to control myself. It might be that there were other things
which I should know.
“‘Well, then,’ I said, ‘since you already have him why attack the
château?’
“The leer on his face grew broader.
“‘You forget, Pasdeloup,’ he said, ‘that the women are there.’
“‘What then?’
“‘What then? head of a pig! You are stupid to-night! Do you suppose
I have forgotten? You do not know the sleepless nights I have spent
tossing on my bed, biting my pillow at thought of what should one
day be mine! Well, my day has come--that woman is going to be mine
now--that is the triumph which Favras is to witness. Will it not be a
pretty revenge? Could you think of anything prettier?’ and he leered at
me again and licked his lips with a tongue which seemed strangely red
and swollen. ‘You shall have the other; she shall be your reward--and
_pardieu!_ it is not to be laughed at. You do not know, Pasdeloup, what
soft, white skins these _ci-devant_ women have!’”
I felt my blood grow suddenly hot with rage and a glance at M. le
Comte’s white face told me the agony he was suffering at the thought
that his wife had been profaned by even the glances of this scoundrel.
“Go on,” he said hoarsely. “And then?”
“Perhaps something in my face betrayed me,” Pasdeloup continued. “At
any rate, Goujon suddenly looked at me, then straightened back in his
chair.
“‘I have been talking nonsense, Pasdeloup,’ he said. ‘I have taken too
much wine. I am always saying absurd things when I am drunk. You must
forget that foolishness.’
“He said it so naturally that I believed him, more especially since at
the moment his head was wobbling so that he could scarcely keep it off
the table. But when I reached the château again I found that my zeal
for the Revolution had vanished, since, even drunk, one of its leaders
could propose such horrible things. Last night I remained at my post
at the gate; but to-night an uneasiness seized me. I fancied that I
detected some sort of understanding among the other servants. At the
first moment I slipped away to Dange to learn the truth. There I found
that a detachment of the Blues had just come in by post and had been
ordered forward at once to surround the château. All of that rabble
yonder had gathered in the square and Goujon was addressing them. The
terrible things he was saying made me tremble. But I listened only for
a moment. Then I hastened back to give you warning and found that I was
already too late. That is all, M. le Comte.”
His master laid a friendly hand upon his shoulder.
“I thank thee, Pasdeloup,” he said. “Whatever the event, thou hast
done thy best. Thou hast paid thy debt a hundred fold.”
A sudden frenzied outburst of yells interrupted him. We looked down
again and saw a procession emerging from the house upon the terrace.
Before them they were rolling five or six casks of wine and spirits.
“We shall see now,” said Pasdeloup grimly, “how many of them will
shout, ‘God and the King!’”