IN WHICH ABATUCCI FULFILS THE MISSION THAT HE HAS RECEIVED FROM HIS
GENERAL, AND CHARLES THAT WHICH HE RECEIVED FROM GOD
Pichegru glanced around the room to make sure that they were alone, and
then, lowering his voice, he said: "Charles, my dear child, you have
made a sacred promise in the sight of heaven which you must keep. If
there is in this world a promise which should be kept inviolate above
all others, it is one that has been made to a dying man. I have told you
that I would give you the means to fulfil it, and I now keep my word.
You still have the count's foraging-cap?" Charles unbuttoned his coat
and showed the general the cap.
"Good! I shall send you to Besançon with Falou. You will go with him to
the little village of Boussières, and will give the burgomaster the
money intended for his mother; and, as I do not wish that any one should
think that this is pillage money, which they certainly would if her son
gave it to her himself, I desire that the burgomaster shall hand it to
her himself. A letter from me will moreover remain in the village,
bearing witness to our new quartermaster's courage. I give you and Falou
eight days' leave from the time you reach Besançon; you will doubtless
want to show your new uniform."
"And will you give me nothing for my father?"
"A letter when you are ready to start."
Just then Leblanc announced that dinner was ready.
On entering the dining-room the general cast an anxious glance at the
table; it was full, and more than full, Pichegru having invited Desaix
to dine with him. The latter had brought with him one of his friends who
was in Pichegru's army, and whom he had made his aide-de-camp, René
Savary, the same who had written Faraud's certificate upon his
corporal's stripes. The dinner was as lively as usual, all the officers
of the staff being present; only two or three were wounded and those
very slightly. After dinner they mounted their horses, and the general,
with his entire staff, visited the outposts.
When they returned to the town, the general dismounted and told Charles
to do the same; and, giving the two horses to the chasseur in
attendance, he told Charles to accompany him to the streets where the
shops were located.
"Charles, my boy," he said, "in addition to the official and secret
missions with which you are charged, I should like to give you a special
one. Will you accept it?"
"Gladly, general," said Charles, clinging to Pichegru's arm. "What is
it?"
"I don't know yet. I have a friend at Besançon named Rose; she lives in
the Rue Collombier, No. 7."
"Ah!" exclaimed Charles, "I know her, she is our family seamstress. She
is a kind-hearted woman about thirty, who limps a little."
"Exactly," said Pichegru, smiling. "The other day she sent me six fine
linen shirts which she had made herself. I should like to send her
something in return."
"That is a good idea, general."
"But what shall I send? I do not know what would please her."
"Take the advice that the weather itself gives you--buy her a good
umbrella. We will use it on the way home. Then I will tell her that you
have used it, and it will be all the more precious to her."
"You are right; it will be most useful to her when she goes out. Poor
Rose, she has no carriage. Let us go in here."
They were just opposite an umbrella-shop. Pichegru opened and shut ten
or twelve, finally selecting a magnificent sky-blue one. He paid
thirty-eight francs in paper money at par for it. This was the gift
which the first general of the Republic sent to his best friend. The
reader will readily understand that I should not have related this
incident if it were not historic.
When they returned at night, Pichegru busied himself with his
correspondence, telling Charles, who was to start the next day, to sleep
well.
It was on this evening that the curious occurrence which I am about to
relate took place. It was told to me by little Charles himself, after he
had grown to be a man of forty-five, and had become a learned writer,
with the great library he had wished for so many years before.
Charles, obeying Saint-Just's decree, threw himself upon his bed all
dressed. Like all who wore the uniform, he customarily had a black
cravat tied tight around his neck. It was like that which Pichegru
himself wore, and which all the staff had adopted; in the first place,
out of compliment to the general, and, secondly, in protest against
Saint-Just's voluminous neckpieces. Charles, in order to copy the
general more exactly, tied his in a little knot on the left side--a
fashion which he continued to follow until his death.
Half an hour later, Pichegru, who was working, heard Charles moan. At
first he paid no attention to it, thinking that the boy was dreaming;
but as the groans became more pronounced, and changed to a rattling in
the throat, Pichegru rose, went to the boy, whom he found lying face
down, raised his head after slipping his hand under his neck, and untied
the knot which was strangling him.
The boy awoke, and, recognizing Pichegru, who was bending over him,
asked: "Is it you, general; do you need me?"
"No," replied the general, laughing, "it is you, on the contrary, who
needed me. You were uneasy and groaned, and when I came to look at you I
had no difficulty in finding what was the matter with you. Any one who
wears a tight cravat like us must take care to loosen it a little before
going to sleep. I will explain to you some other time how neglect of
this precaution might cause apoplexy and sudden death. It is one method
of suicide."
And we shall see that it was the one which Pichegru adopted later.
On the next day Abatucci started for Paris, Faraud and his two comrades
for Châteauroux, and Charles and Falou for Besançon. A fortnight later
Faraud sent word that distribution had been made throughout the
Department of the Indre.
The general had already received a letter from Abatucci, written ten
days after his departure, telling how he had presented the five flags to
the President amid cries of "Long live the Republic!" from all the
members of the Convention and the spectators, adding that the President
had thereupon confirmed his rank.
Finally, on the fourth day after Charles's departure, before he heard
from any one else, Pichegru received the following letter on the 14th
Nivôse (3d of January):
MY DEAR GENERAL--The new calendar made me forget one thing, that,
by reaching Besançon on the 31st of December, I should be able to
wish all my family a happy New Year on the following day.
You, however, did not forget it, and my father feels grateful to
you for your kindness and thanks you heartily.
On the 1st of January (old style), after we had wished one another
a happy new year, and had embraced each other, Falou and I set out
for the village of Boussières. There, as you had directed, we
stopped the carriage at the burgomaster's house to whom your
letter was addressed; he forthwith summoned the village drummer
who announces all important news to the people. He directed him to
read your letter over three times so that no mistake should be
made, and then he sent him to beat his drum before old Mother
Falou's door, who, at the first tap, came to the threshold leaning
on her stick. Falou and I were only a few steps away.
As soon as the roll ceased the proclamation began. When she heard
her son's name the poor old woman, who had not understood very
well, began to cry, asking: "Is he dead? Is he dead?"
An oath, big enough to crack the sky, made her turn, and then,
seeing the uniform dimly, she cried: "There he is! There he is!"
And then she fell into her son's arms, and he embraced her amid
the applause of the whole village. Thereupon, as the proclamation,
which had been interrupted by this little scene, had not been
fully understood, it was begun all over again. As the drummer read
the last sentence, the burgomaster, who wished to make his little
sensation, came forward with a wreath in one hand and the purse in
the other. He put the laurel-wreath on Falou's head and the purse
in his mother's hand. I could not stay any longer, but I heard
later that the village of Boussières had a celebration that day
with illuminations, a ball, and fireworks, and that Falou went
about among his fellow citizens with his laurel-wreath on his
head, like Cæsar, until two o'clock in the morning.
As for me, general, I returned to Besançon to carry out the sad
duty which you know about, and of which I will tell you the full
particulars when I see you again.
Not until then did I find time to attend to your commission; but
after that I hastened to the Rue Collombier, No. 7, and went up to
the third floor. Rose recognized me and received me as a little
friend; but when she knew that I came from her great friend, then
I tell you, general, poor Rose could not say enough. She took me
in her arms, kissed me, and wept over me.
"What! did he really think of me?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle Rose."
"Of his own accord?"
"I assure you that it is so."
"And did he choose this beautiful umbrella himself?"
"He himself."
"And he used it when he returned to the hotel?"
"Well, we both used it, but he held it."
Without another word she looked at the handle, kissed it and wept
over it. I did not try to check her tears, but wept with her; they
were tears of joy, and it would have pained her had I said:
"Stop!" Then I told her how satisfied you were with the shirts she
had sent you and that you would wear no others. This made her all
the worse. Then how we did talk about you! She is going to write
you herself and thank you, but she bade me say all sorts of kind
things to you from her.
I must also say in regard to my father that you must have told him
some pretty stories in regard to his son, for while he was reading
he looked at me queerly, and I noticed that his eyes were wet.
Like Mademoiselle Rose, he will write to you.
I fear that I have taken more of your time than I deserve; but you
have made an important personage of me by intrusting me with three
commissions, and so I hope you will pardon this chatter from your
little friend.
CHARLES NODIER.
THE THIRTEENTH VENDÉMIAIRE
CHAPTER I
A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW
Nearly two years have elapsed since the events recorded in our first
volume. In order that our readers may clearly understand those which are
to follow we must take a rapid bird's-eye view of the two terrible
though inevitable years of 1794 and 1795.
As Vergniaud, and after him Pichegru, had prophesied, the Revolution had
devoured her own children. Let us watch the terrible harpy at her work.
On the 5th of April, 1795, the Cordeliers were executed. Danton, Camille
Desmoulins, Bazire, Chabot, Lacroix, Hérault de Sechelles, and the
poet-martyr Fabre d'Eglantine, author of the most popular of our popular
songs, "Il pleut, il pleut, bergère," died together on the same scaffold
whither Robespierre, Saint-Just, Merlin (of Douai), Couthon, Collot
d'Herbois, Fouché (of Nantes) and Vadier sent them.
Then came the Jacobins turn. Vadier, Tallien, Billaud and Fréron accused
Robespierre of having usurped the dictatorship; and Robespierre, his jaw
shattered by a pistol-ball, Saint-Just, with lofty countenance, Couthon,
both of whose legs had been crushed, Lebas--in short their friends to
the number of twenty-two--were executed on the day following the
tumultuous one which is known in history as the fatal day of the 9th
Thermidor.
On the 10th Thermidor the Revolution was still alive, because the
Revolution was immortal, and no rise or fall of parties could kill it.
The Revolution still lived, though the Republic was dead. With
Robespierre and Saint-Just the Republic was beheaded. On the evening of
their execution, the boys were shouting at the doors of the theatres,
"Carriages? Who wants a carriage? Want a carriage, bourgeois?" On the
next day and the day after that eighty-two Jacobins followed
Robespierre, Saint-Just and their friends to the Place de la Revolution.
Pichegru, who was then commander-in-chief of the Army of the North,
learned of this bloody reaction. He saw that the hour for blood had
passed and the time for filth had come, with Vadier, Tallien, Billaud
and Fréron. He sent privately to Mulheim, and Fauche-Borel, the prince's
messenger, hastened to him.
Pichegru divined correctly that the ascending period of the Revolution
was past. The reactionary or descending period had arrived; blood was
still to be shed, but it was the blood of reprisals.
On the 17th of May the hall of the Jacobins--the cradle of the
Revolution, the strength of the Republic--was finally closed by a
decree. Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, the colleague of the
executioner's knife, who was no more guilty than it, since he simply
obeyed the orders of the Revolutionary Tribunal as the knife obeyed his
own--Fouquier-Tinville was executed, together with fifteen judges of the
Revolutionary Tribunal. In order to make the reaction complete the
execution took place on the Place de Grève. M. Guillotin's ingenious
invention resumed its former place, but the gallows had
disappeared--equality in death was decreed.
On the 1st Prairial, Paris discovered that it was starving. Famine drove
the inhabitants of the faubourgs to the Convention. Haggard, in tatters,
and famished, they invaded the chamber, and the deputy Féraud was killed
in trying to defend the president, Boissy d'Anglas. Seeing the confusion
which this event brought about in the Convention, Boissy d'Anglas put on
his hat. Then they showed him Féraud's head on the end of a pike,
whereupon he took off his hat, bowed reverently, and put it on again.
But during that performance, Boissy d'Anglas, who had sympathized
largely with the Revolution, almost became converted to royalism.
On the 16th of the same month, Louis Charles of France, Duc de
Normandie, pretender to the throne under the name of Louis XVII., he of
whom the Duc d'Orléans said at a supper: "The son of the Duc de Coigny
shall never be my king!" died of scrofula at the Temple, at the age of
ten years two months and twelve days. But even in the times of the
Republic the old axiom of the French monarchy survived: "The king is
dead, long live the king!" and at once Louis de Provence proclaimed
himself, on his own private authority, king of France and Navarre, under
the title of Louis XVIII.
Then came the terrible day of Quiberon, during which, according to Pitt,
"English blood did not flow," and, according to Sheridan, "English honor
streamed from every pore."
Meantime the victories of Hoche and Pichegru had borne fruit. In
consequence of the recovery of the lines of Weissembourg, at which our
readers were present, when the tri-color flag was seen triumphantly
waving in the hands of Saint-Just as he crossed the frontier, and
floated victoriously over Bavaria, Frederick William, who had been the
first to invade French territory, recognized the French Republic and
made peace with it. Having captured no territory from each other, the
two powers had nothing to restore. But eighty thousand slept on the
plains of Alsace and Champagne, and the terrible strife had begun which
neither Jena nor Leipsic was to terminate.
Meantime the army of the Eastern Pyrenees had invaded Biscay, Vittoria,
and Bilbao. Already master of that part of the frontier to which access
was most difficult, the French, whom their last victories had brought to
the neighborhood, of Pampeluna, were in a position to capture the
capital of Navarre, and open an easy road to the two kingdoms of Castile
and that of Aragon. Whereupon the king of Spain made proposals of peace.
This was the second crowned head which had recognized the existence of
the French Republic; and in recognizing it, the king tacitly condoned
what he no doubt regarded as the murder of Louis XVI. and
Marie-Antoinette.
The peace was signed. Before the necessities of war, family ties ceased
to be considered. France abandoned her conquests beyond the Pyrenees,
and Spain ceded to France her possessions on the island of
Saint-Domingo. But, as we have just said, it is not from the standpoint
of material accessions that the question of peace with Spain must be
considered. No! the question was a moral one.
This the reader will already have understood. This defection of Charles
IV. from the royal cause was an immense step, and one that was far more
important than that taken by Frederick William. Frederick William was
not bound in any way to the Bourbons of France, while, in signing the
peace with the Republic, the Spanish king ratified all the decrees of
the Convention.
Meantime the Army of the North, which was engaged with the Austrians,
took Ypres and Charleroi, won the battle of Fleurus, recaptured
Landrecies, occupied Namur and Treves, reconquered Valenciennes, and
took Crève-Cœur, Ulrich, Gorcomm, Amsterdam, Dordrecht, Rotterdam, and
The Hague. At last an unheard-of thing happened--something which had
never been seen before, and which until then had been absent from the
picturesque annals of French warfare; the Dutch men-of-war, frozen in
the ice, were captured by a regiment of hussars. This strange feat of
arms, which seemed to be a caprice of Providence in behalf of the
French, led to the capitulation of Zealand.
CHAPTER II
A GLIMPSE OF PARIS--THE INCROYABLES
All these great victories naturally had their echo in Paris--Paris, that
short-sighted city which has ever had a limited horizon, save when some
great national excitement has driven her beyond her material interests.
Paris, weary of bloodshed, eagerly sought after pleasure, and was only
too glad to turn her eyes toward the theatre of war, so glorious was the
drama which was there being enacted.
Most of the players of the Comédie-Française and the Théâtre Feydeau,
who had been imprisoned as royalists, had been liberated after the 9th
Thermidor. Larive, Saint-Prix, Molé, Dazincourt, Saint-Phare, and
Elleviou had been received with frantic applause at the
Comédie-Française and at the Feydeau. Everybody rushed to the theatres,
where the "Marseillaise" was beginning to give place to the "Reveil du
Peuple." And at last the _jeunesse dorée_ (gilded youth) of Fréron began
to appear.
Every day we utter those words "Fréron" and "jeunesse dorée" without
having a clear idea of what they mean. Let us see.
There have been two Frérons in France; one was an honorable man, an
upright and severe critic, who may perhaps have been mistaken, but who
erred in good faith. This was Fréron, senior--Elie-Catherine Fréron. The
other knew neither law nor faith, his only religion was hate, his sole
motive was vengeance, and his one god was self-interest. This was
Fréron, junior--Louis-Stanislas Fréron.
The father saw the whole of the eighteenth century pass before him. He
was opposed to every innovation in art, and, in the name of Racine and
Boileau, he attacked all such in literature. He was opposed to all
political innovations, and attacked them in the name of religion and
royalty. He recoiled before none of the giants of modern
philosophism.[4]
[4] We do not believe that _philosophism_ is good French from the
standpoint of the academician, but it expresses our meaning better
than _philosophy_ does.
He attacked Diderot, who had come from his little town of Langres in
sabots and jacket, half priest, half philosopher. He attacked
Jean-Jacques, who had come from Geneva, penniless and without a jacket.
He attacked D'Alembert, a foundling discovered on the steps of a church,
who was for a long time called Jean Lerond, from the name of the place
where he was found. He attacked those great lords called Buffon and
Montesquieu. Finally, surviving even the anger of Voltaire, who had
tried to injure him with his satire, "The Poor Devil," to kill him with
his epigrams, and to annihilate him with his comedy of "The
Scotchwoman," he stood up and cried out to Voltaire in the midst of his
triumph, "Remember that thou art mortal!"
He died before his two great antagonists, Voltaire and Rousseau. In 1776
he succumbed to an attack of gout, occasioned by the suppression of his
journal, "The Literary Year." This had been his weapon, and when it was
broken he no longer cared to live.
The son, who had for godfather King Stanislas, and, who had been a
schoolfellow of Robespierre, drank to the dregs the draught which public
opinion had poured into the paternal cup.
The injuries accumulated during thirty years upon the father's head fell
like an avalanche of shame upon the son; and as his heart held neither
faith nor fidelity, he could not bear up under them. Belief in a duty
nobly fulfilled had made the father invincible. The son, having no
counterpoise to the scorn which overwhelmed him, became ferocious;
wrongfully held in contempt, since he was not responsible for his
father's acts, he resolved to make himself hated on his own account. The
laurels which Marat culled in editing "L'Ami du Peuple" destroyed
Fréron's rest. He founded "The Orator of the People."
Naturally timid, Fréron could not restrain his cruelty, being too weak
and fearful. When sent to Marseilles he became the terror of the city.
While Carlier drowned his prisoners at Nantes, and Collot d'Herbois shot
his at Lyons with musketry, at Marseilles Fréron did better--he used
grape-shot.
One day, after a discharge of artillery, suspecting that some had fallen
unharmed with those who were struck, and were counterfeiting death, he
called out, in order to save the time necessary to search for them: "Let
those who are not harmed stand up, and they will be pardoned."
The unfortunates who were not hurt trusted in his word, and stood up.
"Fire!" said Fréron.
And the gunners began again, doing their work with more accuracy, for
this time no one stood up.
When he returned to Paris, Paris had made a step on the road to mercy.
The friend of Robespierre became his enemy. The Jacobin took a step
backward and became a Cordelier. He scented the 9th Thermidor. He made
himself a Thermidorian with Barras and Tallien, he denounced
Fouquier-Tinville, and, like Cadmus, he sowed the teeth of the dragon
which was called the Revolution, and they sprang up at once amid the
blood of the old régime and the filth of the new, in the shape of that
_jeunesse dorée_ which took his name, and whose chief he was.
The _jeunesse dorée_, as distinguished from the _sans-culottes_, who
wore short hair, round jackets, trousers, and the red cap, either wore
long tresses of hair, revived from the time of Louis XIII., and called
"cadenettes" (from the name of its inventor, Cadenet, a younger son of
Luynes), or hair falling over their shoulders, in what was styled
"dog's-ears." They also revived the use of powder, and wore it
plentifully upon their hair, which was turned back with a comb. Their
morning costume consisted of a very short frock-coat and small-clothes
of black or green velvet. When in full-dress they wore, instead of this
frock-coat, a coat of light color cut square, buttoned over the stomach,
with tails coming down to the calves of their legs. Their muslin cravat
was high and had enormous ends. The waistcoat was of piqué or white
dimity, with broad facings and trimmings; two watch-chains hung over
small-clothes of gray or apple-green satin, which came down half-way
over the calves of the legs, where they buttoned with three buttons, and
were finished off with a knot of ribbon. Silk stockings, striped either
red, yellow, or blue, and pumps, which were the more elegant in
proportion to their lightness, an opera-hat under the arm, and an
enormous cane in the hand, completed the costume of an _Incroyable_.
Now why did those scoffers, who seize upon everything, call the
individuals who compose the gilded youth of Paris the _incroyables_? We
are about to tell you.
Change of dress did not suffice to distinguish a man from the
revolutionists, he must also change his pronunciation. A honeyed dialect
was substituted for the rude speech of 1793 and the democratic thou;
consequently, instead of rolling their _r_'s as the pupils of the
conservatory do to-day, they suppressed them altogether, and the letter
became very near being entirely lost, like the Greek dative. Its bones
were taken out of the language, together with its strength, and instead,
as formerly, of giving one another their _Parrole d'honneur_, with a
strong emphasis on the consonant, they contented themselves with giving
their _Paole d'honneu_.
According to circumstances, they had a _gande paole d'honneu_, or a
_petite paole d'honneu_; but whichever of these two was used to support
something either difficult or impossible to believe, the listener, too
polite to contradict the person with whom he was conversing, contented
himself with saying: "It is incoyable" (incredible), suppressing the _r_
in _incroyable_.
Whereupon the other would say: "I give you my solemn grande (or, as they
said, _gande_) word of honor."
And then, of course, no doubt remained.
Hence the designation _Incroyable_ changed to _Incoyable_, given to the
_jeunesse dorée_.
CHAPTER III
THE MERVEILLEUSES
The _incoyable_, that hybrid of the Revolution, had his feminine
counterpart, like him born of the same epoch. She was called the
meiveilleuse.
She borrowed her raiment, not from a new fashion like the _incoyable_,
but from antiquity, from the Greek and Corinthian draperies of the
Phrynes and the Aspasias. Tunic, peplum, and mantle, all were cut after
the fashion of antiquity. The less a woman had on to conceal her
nakedness the more elegant she was. The true meiveilleuse, or
merveilleuses--for that of course was the real word--had bare arms and
legs, the tunic, modelled after that of Diana, was often separated at
the side, with nothing more than a cameo to catch the two parts together
above the knee.
But this was not enough. The ladies took advantage of the warm weather
to appear at balls and at the promenade with filmy garments more
diaphanous than the clouds which enveloped Venus, when she led her son
to Dido. Æneas did not recognize his mother until she emerged from the
clouds. _Incessut patuit dea_, says Virgil, "by her step was the goddess
known." These ladies, however, did not need to emerge from their clouds
in order to be seen, for they were perfectly visible through them, and
those who took them for goddesses must have done so only out of
courtesy. This airy tissue of which Juvenal speaks became all the rage.
Besides private parties they met at public balls. People gathered either
at the Lycée-Bal or the Hôtel Thélusson to mingle their tears and their
plans of vengeance with their dancing. These assemblies were called the
"Balls of the Victims," and, indeed, no one was admitted to them unless
he or she had had relatives either drowned by Carlier, guillotined by
Robespierre, shot by Collot d'Herbois, or blown to pieces by Fréron.
Horace Vernet, who designed costumes for a living, has left a charming
portfolio of the costumes of that period drawn from life with that
delightful wit with which Heaven had endowed him. Nothing could be more
amusing than this grotesque collection, and it is difficult to imagine
how an _incoyable_ and a _meiveilleuse_ could meet without laughing in
each other's faces.
But some of the costumes adopted by the fops at these balls of the
victims were terrible in character. Old General Piré has told me twenty
times that he has met _incoyables_ at these balls wearing waistcoats and
trousers made of human skins. Those who mourned only some distant
relative, like an aunt or an uncle, contented themselves with dipping
their little finger in some blood-red liquid; when this was the case
they cut off the corresponding finger of their glove, and carried their
little pot of blood to the ball to renew the color, as ladies did their
rouge-pots.
While dancing, they conspired against the Republic. This was easy,
because the Convention, which had its national police, had no Parisian
police. It is a singular fact that public murder seemed to have
destroyed private murder; and never were fewer crimes committed in
France than during the years of '93, '94 and '95. Passions had other
outlets.
The moment was approaching, however, when the Convention, that terrible
Convention, which had abolished royalty on the 21st of September, when
it entered upon its functions to the sound of the guns of Valmy, and had
proclaimed the Republic--the moment was approaching when the Convention
was to abdicate its power. It had been a cruel mother. It had devoured
the Girondins, the Cordeliers, the Jacobins, that is to say, the most
eloquent, the most energetic, and the most intelligent of her children.
But it had been a devoted daughter. It had successfully battled with
foes without and within. It had raised fourteen armies. To be sure, they
had been badly clothed, poorly shod, badly cared for, and still more
poorly paid. But what did that matter? These fourteen armies not only
drove the enemy on all sides from the frontier, but they took the Duchy
of Nice and Savoy, marched against Spain and laid hands on Holland.
It created the National Institute, the Polytechnic School, the Normal
School, the Conservatories of Art and Science, and established a
national budget. It promulgated eight thousand three hundred and seventy
decrees, most of them revolutionary. It gave a tremendous strength of
character to men and things. Grandeur was gigantic, courage was
temerity, and stoicism, impassibility. Never was colder disdain
expressed for the executioner; never was blood shed with less remorse.
Do you know how many parties there were in France during the years of
'93 to '95? Thirty-three. Would you like to know their names?
Ministerial, Partisans of Civil Life, Knights of the Dagger, Men of the
10th of August, Men of September, Girondins, Brissotins, Federalists,
Men of the State, Men of the 31st of May, Moderates, Suspects, Men of
the Plain, Toads of the Marsh, Men of the Mountain.
All these in 1793 alone. We now pass to 1794.
Alarmists, Men of Pity, Sleepers, Emissaries of Pitt and Coburg,
Muscadins, Hebertists, Sans-Culottes, Counter-Revolutionists,
Inhabitants of the Ridge, Terrorists, Maratists, Cut-throats, Drinkers
of Blood, Patriots of 1789, Companions of Jehu, Chouans.
Let us add the _jeunesse dorée_ of Fréron, and we come to the 22d of
August--the day when the new constitution, that of the year III., after
having been debated article by article, was adopted by the Convention.
The gold louis was then worth twelve hundred francs in assignats.
It was during this latter period that André-Chénier, the brother of
Marie-Joseph Chénier, was beheaded. His execution took place on the
25th of July, 1794, at eight o'clock in the morning; that is to say, on
the 7th Thermidor, two days before the death of Robespierre. His
companions in the cart were MM. de Montalembert, De Créquy, De
Montmorency, De Loiserolles--that sublime old man who took his son's
place and cheerfully died in his stead--and finally Roucher, the author
of "The Months," who did not know that he was to die with André Chénier
until he saw him in the cart, when he uttered an exclamation of joy,
and, seating himself near him, recited those beautiful lines of Racine:
Now fortune doth assume a newer trend,
Since thee again I find, thou faithful friend;
Her wrath already hath unbent,
And thus our lot in common blent.
A friend, who dared to risk his life by following the cart in order to
prolong the final farewell, heard the two poets speaking of poetry, love
and the future. On the way André Chénier recited his last verses to his
friend, which he was in the act of writing when he was summoned by the
executioner. He had them with him written in pencil; and after having
read them to Roucher, he gave them to the third friend, who did not
leave him until they had reached the scaffold. They were thus preserved;
and Latouche, to whom we owe the only edition we have of André Chénier's
poems, was enabled to include them in the volume we all know by heart:
As a last soft breeze, a tender ray,
Gleams at the close of a lovely day,
So doth my lyre at the scaffold sound its lay;
Perhaps e'en now the forfeit I must pay!
And e'er the hour its appointed round
With fleeting resonance hath wound,
Tipping the sixty steps of its allotted time,
Unending sleep will close these eyes of mine.
And e'er this verse I now begin shall fade,
The messenger of Death, ill-omened harbinger of shade,
With its black escort of ill-fame
Along its darkling corridors will speed my name.
As he mounted the scaffold, André put his hand to his forehead and said
with a sigh: "And yet I did have something there!"
"You are mistaken," cried the friend who was not to die; and pointing to
his heart he added, "it is there."
André Chénier, for whose sake we have wandered from our subject, and
whose memory has drawn these few words from us, was the first to plant
the standard of a new poetry. No one before him had written verses like
his. Nay, more; no one will ever write like verses after him.
CHAPTER IV
THE SECTIONS
The day the Convention proclaimed the Constitution of the Year III.,
every one exclaimed: "The Convention has signed its death-warrant."
In fact it was expected that, as in the case of the Constituent
Assembly, it would, by a self-sacrifice little understood, forbid to its
retiring members election to the Assembly which was to succeed them. It
did nothing of the kind. The Convention understood very well that the
last vital spark of Republicanism was hidden within its own body. With a
people so volatile as the French, who in a moment of enthusiasm had
overturned a monarchy which had endured eight centuries, the children of
the Republic could not in three years have become so rooted in their
habits and customs as safely to be left to follow the natural course of
events. The Republic could be adequately guarded only by those who had
created it, and who were interested in perpetuating it.
But who were they?
Who, indeed, save the members of the Convention which had abolished the
feudal constitution on the 10th of July and the 4th of August, 1789;
which had overturned the throne on the 10th of August, 1792, and which,
from the 21st of January to the time of which we are writing, had fought
the whole of Europe, had compelled Prussia and Spain to sue for peace,
and had driven Austria beyond the frontiers. Therefore, on the 5th
Fructidor (August 22), the Convention decreed that the Legislative
Assembly should be composed of two bodies--the Council of the Five
Hundred and the Council of the Ancients; that the first should comprise
five hundred members, upon whom should devolve the duty of originating
bills, and the second two hundred and fifty, whose sanction should be
necessary to make them law; that these two bodies should include
two-thirds of the present Convention, and that one-third only should
therefore be composed of new members.
It remained to be seen who should have the responsibility of the choice.
Would the Convention itself name those of its members who were to become
part of the new body, or would that duty devolve upon the electoral
colleges?
On the 13th Fructidor (August 30), after a stormy session, it was
decided that the electoral colleges should make the selection. The
determination once arrived at, these two days were designated the 5th
Fructidor and the 13th Fructidor, respectively.
Perhaps we are dwelling a little longer than is necessary upon this
purely historical portion of our work; but we are rapidly approaching
the terrible day of the 13th Vendémiaire--the first on which the
Parisians heard the sound of cannon in their streets--and we wish to
fasten the crime upon its real authors.
Paris then, as now, although in a lesser degree, since its
centralization had lasted only four or five years at the time--Paris was
then the brain of France. What Paris accepted, France sanctioned. This
was clearly demonstrated when the Girondins unsuccessfully attempted to
unite the provinces.
Now Paris was divided into forty-eight Sections. These Sections were not
royalist; on the contrary, they protested that they were attached to
the Republic. Except for two or three, whose reactionary opinions were
well-known, none would have fallen into the error of sacrificing so many
citizens, among them some truly great men, for a principle, and then
have rejected that principle before it had borne fruit. But Paris,
terrified at finding herself knee-deep in blood, stopped short
three-quarters of the way and roused herself to fight the Terrorists,
who wanted the executions to continue, while the city was desirous that
they should cease. So that, without deserting the flag of the
Revolution, she showed herself unwilling to follow that flag further
than the Girondins and the Cordeliers had carried it.
This flag would then become her own, since it sheltered the remains of
the two parties we have named. It would henceforth be that of the
moderate Republic, and would carry the device: "Death to the Jacobins!"
But the precautions of the Convention were designed to save those few
Jacobins who had escaped the 9th Thermidor, and in whose hands alone the
Convention wished to place the holy Ark of the Republic.
Without suspecting it, however, the Sections, fearful of a return of the
Reign of Terror, served the royalists better than their most devoted
friends could have done.
Never had so many strangers been seen in Paris. The hotels were crowded
from cellar to garret. The Faubourg Saint-Germaine, which had been
deserted for six months, was crowded with returned emigrés, Chouans,
refractory priests, men who had been employed on the military trains,
and divorced women.
There was a rumor that Tallien and Hoche had gone over to the royalists.
The truth was that the latter had converted Rovère and Saladin, and that
there was no occasion for them to hold out inducements to Lanjuinais,
Boissy d'Anglas, Henry de Larivière and Lesage, who had always been
royalists, even when they wore the Republican masks.
It was reported that the royalists had made Pichegru extraordinary
offers, and that, although he had refused them at first, he had at last
yielded to them, and that, for a million francs in ready money, two
hundred thousand francs from the funds, the Château of Chambord, the
duchy of Artois, and the government of Alsace, the transaction had been
arranged.
Much astonishment was occasioned by the great number of returned
emigrés, some with false passports and under assumed names, others
giving their real names, and demanding that they should be erased from
the list of the proscribed; others with false certificates of residence,
which vouched for the fact that they had never left France. Decrees,
insisting that all returned emigrés should return to their own
districts, and there await the decision of the Committee of Public
Safety, were issued in vain. They found means to evade these decrees and
to remain in Paris. It was felt, not without uneasiness, that accident
alone had not brought so many men of the same political faith to the
capital at the same time. It was generally conceded that some malign
influence was at work, and that at a given moment the earth would open
beneath the feet of one of the numerous parties which abounded in Paris.
A great many gray coats with black and green collars were seen, and
every one turned to look at them. They were the Chouan colors. Wherever
these young men, who wore the royal livery, were seen, brawls were
almost sure to ensue, which thus far had passed for private quarrels.
Dessault and Marchenna, the most famous pamphleteers of the day, covered
the walls with posters inciting the Parisians to insurrection. Old La
Harpe, the pretended pupil of Voltaire, who began by vowing him the most
servile adoration and ended by rejecting him--La Harpe, after being a
furious demagogue, during an imprisonment became a most violent
reactionary, and insulted the Convention which had honored him. A man
named Lemaistre kept a house in Paris where the royalist propagande was
openly carried on, and was in communication with several provincial
branches. He hoped by increasing their number to convert France into
one immense Vendée. There was an important branch at Nantes, which, of
course, received its orders from Paris. Now Lemaistre, as was well
known, had given a splendid dinner to the electors of Nantes, at the end
of which the host, in imitation of the guards of Versailles, had had a
dish of white cockades served. Each guest took one and fastened it in
his hat.
Not a day passed that did not bring with it news of the death of some
patriot by clubbing. The murderer was always either an _incoyable_ or a
young man in a gray coat. These attacks usually occurred in the cafés of
the Rue de la Loi, formerly the Rue Richelieu, at the restaurateur
Garchi's house, at the Théâtre Feydeau, or on the Boulevard des
Italiens. The cause of these disturbances was evidently to be found in
the opposition made by the Sections to the decrees of the 5th and the
13th Fructidor, which had declared that the council should be composed
of two-thirds of the members of the Convention. It is true, as we have
already said, that these two-thirds were to be named, not by the
Convention itself, as the Sections had at first feared, but by the
primary assemblies. Still, they had hoped for a complete change, and for
an entirely reactionary Chamber.
A president had at first been talked of; but the monarchical tendencies
of that proposed installation were so evident, that Louvet, the Girondin
who had escaped being murdered, cried out at the Convention: "Yes, so
that a Bourbon may be appointed in a day or two!" On this hint, which
showed that a presidency would inevitably lead to royalty, the council
was led to propose an executive directory composed of five members, a
majority of whom should rule, each member retiring by rotation, and
appointing responsible ministers.
These propositions were voted upon in the following manner (for never,
even in the most progressive days of the Revolution, had elections been
upon such a broad basis as now): Votes were cast at two elevated stages
which served as polling places. All citizens of the age of twenty-one
met at the primary assemblies, on the 1st Prairial, and selected the
electoral colleges. These electoral colleges met on the 20th Prairial to
appoint the two councils. The two councils, in their turn, elected the
Directory.
CHAPTER V
THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION LE PELETIER
As the election could not take place on the 1st Prairial, since that
date was already past, the 20th Fructidor was appointed.
It was hoped that the first act of the French, reunited after such
terrible occurrences, would be like that of the Federation at the Champ
de Mars--an act of fraternity, and that a hymn would be sung advocating
forgiveness of wrongs. It was on the contrary a sacrifice to vengeance!
All the pure, disinterested and energetic patriots were driven from the
Sections, which began to organize insurrection. The defeated patriots
hurried to the Convention, where they related what had happened, thereby
putting the Convention on its guard against the Sections. Furthermore
they demanded the restoration of their arms, declaring that they would
use them in defence of the Republic.
The next day, and the day following, the Convention realized the full
danger of the situation when they saw that, out of the forty-eight
Sections composing the population of Paris, forty-seven had accepted the
Constitution but had rejected the decrees. The Section of the
Quinze-Vingts alone had accepted both the Constitution and the decrees.
On the other hand, the armies, two of which were reduced to inaction by
the peace with Prussia and with Spain, voted without reserve, amid cries
of enthusiasm. The army of the Sambre-et-Meuse, the only one which was
still actively engaged, had conquered at Wattignies, raised the siege
of Mauberge, triumphed at Fleurus, given Belgium to France, crossed the
Rhine at Dusseldorf, besieged Mayence, and followed with the victories
of the Ourthe and the Roer, thus securing the Rhine to France. This army
paused upon the battlefield, where it had just won a victory, and over
the bodies of the Frenchmen who had just died for liberty, swore
fidelity to the Constitution, which, while it put an end to the Terror,
still maintained the Republic and the Revolution.
The day which brought the news of this enthusiastic vote was a great one
for the Convention and for all true patriots of France. On the 1st
Vendémiaire, of the Year IV. (23d September, 1795), the result of the
voting was announced. The Constitution was unanimously accepted. The
decrees were passed by an immense majority. In some places votes had
even been cast for a king--which showed how great was the freedom which
had obtained during the two months following the 9th Thermidor.
This news created the greatest excitement in Paris--an excitement at
once twofold and varied in character. There was joy among the patriots
who sided with the Convention, and fury among the royalist Sections.
Then it was that the Section Le Peletier, known during the Revolution as
the Section of the Daughters of Saint Thomas, the most reactionary of
all the Sections, and the one whose grenadiers had resisted the men from
Marseilles on the 10th of August, set up this decree:
"The power of every constituted body ceases before that of the assembled
people."
This decree, favorably voted upon by the Section, was converted into a
resolution, and sent to the forty-seven other Sections, who received it
with favor. It was a simple method of proclaiming the dissolution of the
Assembly.
The Convention was not intimidated. It replied by a declaration and a
decree. It declared that if its power was threatened it would retire to
one of the provincial towns and there continue to exercise its
functions. It decreed that all the territory conquered on the French
side of the Rhine, as well as Belgium, Liège, and Luxemburg, should
thereafter belong to France. Thus did it reply to the threat of its
overthrow by a proclamation of its grandeur.
The Section, treating with the Convention as power with power, then sent
its president, at the head of six members, to notify it of what it
termed a Measure of Protection; namely, of a decree issued by the
Section declaring that, before the will of the assembled people, the
powers of all the constituent bodies should cease.
The president was a young man of twenty-four or five, and although he
was dressed quietly, a supreme elegance, due more to his bearing than to
his garments, was manifest in his whole person. He was attired
fashionably, without exaggeration, in a frock-coat of dark red velvet
with jet buttons, and buttonholes worked in black silk. A cravat of
white foulard with floating ends swathed his neck; a waistcoat of white
piqué with bright blue flowers, trousers of pearl-gray tricot, white
silk stockings, pumps, and a low, broad-brimmed hat with a pointed
crown, completed his attire. He had the clear, fair complexion of a man
of the North or East, eyes both piercing and earnest, and fine white
teeth, with full red lips. A tri-color sash, folded in such a way that
very little of it was visible save the white, girdled his waist, which
was admirably shaped; a sword hung from this sash, and he carried two
pistols stuck in it.
He advanced alone to the bar of the Convention, and in that tone of
lofty insolence which had not yet descended to the bourgeoisie, or to
which that class had not attained, he said in a loud voice, addressing
the president, Boissy d'Anglas:
"Citizen-Representative, in the name of the Mother Section, of which I
have the honor to be president, and in the name of the forty-seven other
Sections--the Section of the Quinze-Vingts alone excepted--I come to
announce to you that you are deprived of your powers and that your reign
is over. We approve of the Constitution, but we reject the decrees; you
have no right to nominate yourselves. It is for you to deserve our
choice, and not to command it."
"The Convention recognizes no power, either that of the Mother Section
or of any other," said Boissy d'Anglas; "and it will treat as rebels all
who refuse to obey its decrees."
"And we," said the young man, "will treat as oppressor any power which
shall try to impose an illegal act upon us."
"Take care, citizen," said Boissy d'Anglas, in his calm voice, which
carried hidden menace in it. "No one has a right to raise his voice
above that of the president of this assembly."
"Except me," said the young man--"except me, for I am above him."
"And who are you?"
"I am the sovereign people."
"And who then are we whom the people have elected?"
"From the moment that the people reassembled and deprived you of the
power with which they had vested you, you ceased to be of importance.
Appointed three years ago, you are weakened, wearied, worn out with the
struggle of those three years. You represent the needs of an epoch which
is past, and which has disappeared. Could any one, three years ago, have
foreseen the events which have taken place? Nominated only three days
ago, I represent the will of yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow! You were
elected by the people. Admitted! But by the people of '92, whose work it
was to tear down royalty, to establish the rights of man, and to drive
the foreigner from the frontier, to erect scaffolds, to bring down heads
which were too high, and to divide property. But your work is done;
whether well or ill it matters not; it is done, and the 9th Thermidor
gives you your dismissal. To-day, Men of the Storm, you wish to
perpetuate your powers, when the needs which created you have
disappeared; when royalty is dead, the enemy driven out, and even
property is divided, scaffolds are useless. You desire for your own
selfish purposes, your own personal ambition, to perpetuate your powers,
to control our choice, and to force yourselves upon the people. The
people do not want you. A pure epoch requires pure hands. The Chamber
must be purged of the Terrorists, whose names are inscribed in history
as the men of September and the men of the guillotine. It must be--it is
the logical sequence of the situation, the expression of the conscience
of the people, the will of forty-seven Sections; that is to say, of the
population of Paris!"
This speech was listened to in astonished silence, but it had scarcely
ended in a voluntary pause on the part of the orator, when a terrible
uproar burst forth in the Chamber and the tribunes. The young president
of the Section Le Peletier had just voiced aloud what every royalist
committee, the emigrés, and the Chouans had been whispering at all the
street corners for the past fortnight. The question between the
monarchists and the Republicans was clearly defined for the first time.
The president of the Convention rang his bell violently to restore
order; then, seeing that no attention was paid to it, he put on his hat.
Meanwhile the president of the Section Le Peletier, with one hand on his
pistols, was calmly waiting until the clamor should have sufficiently
subsided for the president of the Convention to reply to him.
It was long before silence could be restored, but order came at last.
Boissy d'Anglas made a sign that he wished to speak. He was the very man
to reply to such a speaker. The overbearing arrogance of the one was met
by the disdainful pride of the other. The monarchical aristocrat had
spoken, and the liberal aristocrat was about to reply to him. Although
there was a frown upon the president's brow, and his eyes were dark and
menacing, his voice was calm.
"You have listened to the orator who has just spoken," he said. "May you
judge of the strength of the Convention by its patience. If any man had
dared a few months ago to use here the language which the president of
the Section Le Peletier has employed, his rebellious utterances would
not have been heard to an end. The orator's arrest would have been
immediately decreed, and his head would have fallen upon the scaffold
the following day. And why? Because in days of carnage we are in doubt
about everything, and we therefore destroy everything that may threaten
our rights, that we may doubt no more. In the days of peace we pursue a
different course, because we are no longer doubtful about our rights,
and because, though attacked by the Sections, we have behind us the
whole of France and our invincible armies. We have listened to you
without impatience, and we can therefore reply to you without anger. Go
back to those who sent you; tell them that we give them three days in
which to return to their allegiance, and that if they do not voluntarily
obey the decrees within three days we shall compel them to do so."
"And you," replied the young man, "if within three days you have not
resigned your commission, if you have not withdrawn the decrees, and
have not proclaimed the freedom of the elections, we declare to you that
Paris will march against the Convention, and that it will feel the anger
of the people."
"Very good," said Boissy d'Anglas; "it is now the 10th Vendémiaire--"
The young man did not allow him to finish.
"On the 13th Vendémiaire," said he; "I give you my word that that will
be another bloody date to add to your history!"
And rejoining his companions, he went out with them, threatening the
entire assembly with a gesture. No one knew his name, for he had been
appointed president of the Section Le Peletier through Lemaistre's
instrumentality only three days before.
But every one said: "He is neither a man of the people nor a bourgeois;
he must be an aristocrat."
CHAPTER VI
THREE LEADERS
That same evening the Section Le Peletier convened in its committee
rooms, and secured the co-operation of the Sections Butte-des-Moulins,
Contrat-Social, Luxembourg, Théâtre-Française, Rue Poissonière, Brutus,
and Temple. Then it filled the streets of Paris with bands of
_muscadins_ (the word is synonymous with _incroyables_, only with a
wider meaning), who went about shouting, "Down with the Two-thirds Men!"
The Convention, on the other hand, mustered all the troops it could
command at the camp of Sablons, about six thousand men, under General
Menou, who in 1792 had commanded the second camp formed near Paris, and
had been sent to the Vendée, where he had been defeated. These
antecedents had secured him, on the 2d Prairial, the appointment of
general of the interior, and had saved the Convention.
Some young men, shouting "Down with the Two-thirds Men!" had met a squad
of Menou's soldiers, and refusing to disperse when ordered to do so,
they had fired upon the soldiers, who had replied to their pistol-shots
with gun-shots, and blood had been shed.
In the meantime--that is to say, on the evening of the 10th
Vendémiaire--the young president of the Section Le Peletier, which was
then in session at the convent of the Daughters of Saint Thomas (which
was situated on the spot where the Bourse now stands), gave up the chair
to the vice-president, and, jumping into a carriage, was driven rapidly
to a large house in the Rue Nôtre-Dame-des-Victoires, belonging to the
Jesuits. All the windows of this house were closed, and not a ray of
light escaped them.
The young man stopped the carriage at the gate and paid the driver;
then, when the carriage had turned the corner of the Rue du
Puit-qui-parle, and the sound of the wheels had died away, he went a few
steps further, and, making sure that the street was empty, knocked at
the gate in a peculiar manner. The gate was opened so quickly that it
was evident that some one was stationed behind it to attend to visitors.
"Moses," said the affiliated member who opened the gate.
"Manou," replied the new-comer.
The gate closed in answer to this response of the Hindoo to the Hebrew
lawgiver, and the way being pointed out to the young president of the
Section Le Peletier, he proceeded round the corner of the house. The
windows overlooking the garden were closed as carefully as those which
overlooked the street. The front door was open, however, though a guard
stood before it. This time it was the new-comer who said: "Moses!"
And the other replied, "Manou!"
Thereupon the doorkeeper drew back to allow the young president to pass;
and he, encountering no further obstacle, went straight to a third door,
which admitted him to a room where he found the persons whom he was
seeking. They were the presidents of the Sections Butte-des-Moulins,
Contrat-Social, Luxembourg, Rue Poissonière, Brutus and Temple, who had
come to announce that they were ready to follow the Mother Section, and
to join in the rebellion.
The new-comer had hardly opened the door when he was greeted by a man
about forty-five years of age, wearing a general's uniform. This was
citizen Auguste Danican, who had just been appointed general-in-chief of
the Sections. He had served in the Vendée against the Vendéans, but,
suspected of connivance with Georges Cadoudal, he had been recalled, had
escaped the guillotine by a miracle only, thanks to the 9th Thermidor,
and had subsequently taken his place in the ranks of the
counter-revolution.
The royalist Sections were at first strongly inclined to nominate the
young president of the Section Le Peletier, who was highly recommended
by the royalist agency, through Lemaistre, and who had come from
Besançon only three days earlier. But the latter, learning that
overtures had already been made to Danican, and that, if he were
deprived of the command, the Sections would probably feel his enmity,
declared that he would be satisfied with second or even third place,
always providing that he should have an equal opportunity to take as
active a part as possible in the inevitable battle.
Danican left a man of low stature with a twisted mouth and sinister
expression to speak to the visitor. This was Fréron. Fréron, repudiated
by the Mountain, who abandoned him to the sharp stings of Moïse Bayle;
Fréron, once a bigoted Republican, but who had in turn been repudiated
with disgust by the Grirondins, who abandoned him to the withering
curses of Isnard; Fréron, who, stripped of his false patriotism, though
covered with the leprosy of crime, and feeling the need of sheltering
himself behind the banner of some party, had joined the royalist faction
which, like all parties who are on the losing side, was not too
particular as to whom it admitted within its ranks.
We Frenchmen have passed through many revolutions, but not one of us can
explain certain antipathies, which, in times of trouble, seem to attach
to some political personages, and it appears equally difficult to
attempt to explain certain illogical alliances. Fréron was nothing, and
had in no way distinguished himself. He had neither mind, character, nor
political distinction. As a journalist he was a mere hack, selling to
the first comer what was left of his father's reputation and honor. Sent
to the provinces as a representative of the people, he returned from
Marseilles and Toulon, covered with royalist blood.
Explain it who can.
Fréron now found himself at the head of a powerful party in which youth,
energy, and vengeance were conspicuous, a party which burned with the
passions of the times--passions which, since the law was in abeyance,
led to everything except public confidence.
Fréron had just been relating with much emphasis the exploits of the
young men who had come to open rupture with Menou's soldiers.
The young president, on the contrary, reported with the utmost
simplicity the occurrences at the Convention, adding that retreat had
now become an impossibility. War had been declared between the
representatives and the members of the Sections; victory would
unquestionably remain with those who marched first to the attack.
But however pressing the matter, Danican declared that nothing could be
done until Lemaistre had returned to the session with the person who was
with him. He had scarcely finished speaking, however, when the chief of
the royalist agencies re-entered the room, followed by a man about
twenty-five, with a frank open face, curly blond hair which almost hid
his forehead, prominent blue eyes, a short neck, broad chest, and limbs
that would have become a Hercules. He wore the costume of the rich
peasant of the Morbihan, save that he had added to it a gold braid about
an inch wide, that bordered the collar and buttonholes of his coat, as
well as the brim of his hat.
As the young leader advanced to meet him, the Chouan held out his hand.
It was evident that the two conspirators knew they were to meet, and
though unacquainted with each other, their recognition had been mutual.
CHAPTER VII
GENERAL ROUNDHEAD AND THE CHIEF OF THE COMPANIONS OF JEHU
Lemaistre introduced them. "General Roundhead," said he, designating the
Chouan; "Citizen Morgan, leader of the Companions of Jehu," bowing to
the president of the Section Le Peletier.
The two young men shook hands.
"Although Fate determined that our birthplaces should be at the two
extremities of France," said Morgan, "one conviction unites us. Although
we are of the same age, you, general, have already won renown, while I
am unknown, or known only through the misfortunes of my house. It is to
those misfortunes and my desire to avenge them that I owe the
recommendation of the committee of the Jura, and the position which the
Section Le Peletier has given me in making me its president on Monsieur
Lemaistre's introduction."
"M. le Comte," said the royalist, bowing, "I have not the honor like you
to belong to the nobility of France. I am simply a child of the stubble
and the plow. When men are called, as we are, to risk their heads on the
scaffold, it is well that they should know each other. One does not care
to die in the company of those with whom they would not associate in
life."
"Do all the children of the stubble and the plow express themselves as
well as you do, general, in your country? If so, you do not need to
regret that you have been born without the pale of that nobility to
which I by accident belong."
"I may say, count," replied the young general, "that my education has
not been precisely that of the Breton peasant. I was the eldest of ten
children, and was sent to the college at Vannes, where I received a good
education."
"And I have heard," added the man whom the Chouan called count, "that it
was early predicted that you were destined to great things."
"I do not know that I ought to boast of that prediction, although it has
already been fulfilled in part. My mother was sitting in front of our
house, holding me in her arms, when a beggar passed, and stopping,
leaned upon his stick to look at us. My mother, as was her custom, cut a
piece of bread for him and gave him a penny. The beggar shook his head.
Then touching my forehead with the tip of his bony finger, he said:
'There is a child who will bring about great changes in his family, and
who will cause much trouble to the state.' Then, looking at me sadly,
he added: 'He will die young, but he will have accomplished more than
most old men,' and he continued on his way. Last year the prophecy was
fulfilled as far as my family was concerned. I took part as you know in
the insurrection of the Vendée of '93 and '94."
"And gloriously," interrupted Morgan.
"I did my best. Last year, while I was organizing the Morbihan, the
soldiers and gendarmes surrounded our house. Father, mother, uncle and
children were all carried off to prison at Brest. It was then that the
prediction which had been made concerning me when I was a child recurred
to my mother's mind. The poor woman reproached me with tears for being
the cause of the misfortunes of the family. I tried to console her and
to strengthen her by telling her that she was suffering for God and her
king. But women do not appreciate the value of those two words. My
mother continued to weep and died in prison in giving birth to another
child. A month later my uncle died in the same prison. On his deathbed
he gave me the name of one of his friends to whom he had loaned nine
thousand francs; this friend had promised to return the sum whenever he
should ask for it. When my uncle died my only thought was to escape from
prison, obtain the money, and apply it to the cause of the insurrection.
I succeeded. My uncle's friend lived at Rennes. I went to his house,
only to learn that he had gone to Paris. I followed him here and
obtained his address. I have just seen him, and faithful and loyal
Breton that he is, he has returned me the money in gold, just as he
borrowed it. I have it here in my belt," continued the young man,
putting his hand to his hip. "Nine thousand francs in gold are worth two
hundred thousand to-day. Do you throw Paris in confusion, and in a
fortnight all the Morbihan will be in flames!"
The two young men had unconsciously drawn aside from the group and now
found themselves in a recess of the window. The president of the Section
Le Peletier looked about him, and seeing that no one was within hearing
distance, he placed his hand on the young general's arm, and said:
"You have told me of yourself and your family, general; in return I owe
you information concerning myself and mine. Morgan is an assumed name.
My real name is Edouard de Sainte-Hermine. My father, Comte Prosper de
Sainte-Hermine, was guillotined; my mother died of grief, my brother
Léon de Sainte-Hermine was shot. In the same way that my father
bequeathed his vengeance to my elder brother, so did he bequeath to me
both my father's and his own. A boy belonging to his district, who was
present at his execution, brought me his foraging-cap--the last
fraternal gift that he could send me. It meant, 'It is now your turn!' I
began my work at once. Not being able to arouse the Jura and Alsace,
which are strongly patriotic, I have with my friends, young noblemen
from the vicinity of Lyons, organized bands for the purpose of seizing
government money to send to you and your friends in the Morbihan and the
Vendée. That is why I wanted to see you. We are destined to clasp hands
across the whole of France."
"Only," said the general, laughing, "I hold out mine empty, while you
give me yours full."
"That is a slight compensation for the glory which you gain every day,
and in which we ourselves shall be wanting. But what will you? Every one
must do God's work in the state in which God has placed him. That is why
I have hastened here to do something worth doing, while the opportunity
serves. What will result from our projected action? None can guess. If
we have only Menou to oppose us, the Convention is lost, and on the day
following its dissolution, the monarchy will be proclaimed and Louis
XVIII. will ascend the throne."
"What, Louis XVIII.?" asked the Chouan.
"Yes, Louis XVII. died in prison; but from the royalist point of view he
nevertheless reigned. You know the cry of the French monarchy, 'The King
is dead; long live the King!' King Louis XVI. is dead; long live King
Louis XVII.! King Louis XVII. dies; long live King Louis XVIII.! The
regent succeeds his nephew, not his brother."
"A queer sort of reign, that of the young boy," said the Chouan,
shrugging his shoulders. "A reign during which they guillotined his
father, mother, brother and aunt; while he was kept a prisoner in the
Bastille with a cobbler for a tutor! I must admit, my dear count, that
the party to which I have given myself heart and soul is subject to
peculiar aberrations which terrify me. Thus, suppose, which God forbid!
that his majesty, Louis XVIII., should not ascend the throne for ten or
fifteen years, would he still be supposed to have reigned over France
during that time, no matter in what corner of the earth he had been
hidden?"
"Yes."
"How absurd! But pardon me; I am a peasant, and therefore am not
expected to understand everything. But royalty is my second religion,
and for that, as for my first, I have faith."
"You are a brave man, general," said Morgan, "and whether or no we meet
again I should like to have your friendship. If we do not meet again, it
will be because I am dead--either shot or guillotined. In that case,
just as my elder brother inherited vengeance from my father, and I in
turn from him, so will my younger brother inherit from me. If royalty,
thanks to the sacrifices we have made for it, is saved, we will be
heroes. If, in spite of those sacrifices, it is lost, then we shall be
martyrs. You see that in either case we have nothing to regret."
The Chouan was silent for a moment, then, looking earnestly at the young
nobleman, he said: "M. le Comte, when men like you and I meet, and are
fortunate enough to serve the same cause, they should swear each
other--I will not say eternal friendship, for perhaps the nobleman would
not condescend so far to the poor peasant--but an unalterable esteem. M.
le Comte, I beg you to accept mine."
"General," said Morgan, with tears in his eyes, "I accept the esteem
you offer me, and I offer you more than friendship, I offer fraternity."
Whereupon they threw themselves into each other's arms and embraced as
though they were old in friendship.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MAN IN THE GREEN COAT
Those present at this scene had listened and looked on from a distance
without interruption, realizing that they had before them two powerful
personalities. The principal of the royalist agency was the first to
break the silence.
"Gentlemen," said he, "it is always a gain when two leaders, even when
they are about to separate--the one to do battle in the east, the other
on the west of France, and though they may never meet again--it is
always something gained when they exchange fraternal pledges as the
knights of the Middle Ages were wont to do. You are all witnesses of the
oath which these two leaders, in a cause which is also our own, have
taken. They are men who do more than they promise. One, however, must
return to the Morbihan, to unite the movement there with our own. Let
us, therefore, take leave of the general who has completed his work in
Paris, and turn to our own which has begun well."
"Gentlemen," said the Chouan, "I would gladly offer to remain here and
fight with you to-morrow or to-day, but I confess that I know little
about street warfare. The war I am used to carrying on is in ditches,
ravines, bushes, and thick forests. Here I should be but one more
soldier--there a chieftain would be wanting; and, since Quiberon of
mournful memory, there are but two of us, Mercier and I."
"Go, my dear general," said Morgan; "you are fortunate to be able to
fight in the open with no fear lest a chimney fall upon your head. God
bring me to you, or you to me again!"
The Chouan took leave of every one, and more tenderly of his new friend,
perhaps, than of his old acquaintances. Then noiselessly and on foot, as
if he were the least of the royalist officers, he gained the Barrière
d'Orléans, while Danican, Lemaistre, and the young president of the
Section Le Peletier laid their plans for the following day. As he
departed, they all remarked: "He is a formidable fellow, that Cadoudal!"
About the same time that he whose incognito we have just betrayed was
taking leave of Morgan and his companions, and was making his way to the
Barrière d'Orléans, a group of those young men of whom we have already
spoken crossed from the Rue de la Loi to the Rue Feydeau, shouting:
"Down with the Convention! Down with the Two-thirds Men! Long live the
Sections!"
At the corner they found themselves face to face with a patrol of
patriot soldiers, on whom the last orders of the Convention enjoined the
greatest severity against all nocturnal brawlers.
The group equalled the patrol in number, and they received the three
summonses required by law with hoots and jeers; their only reply to the
third was a pistol-shot which wounded one of the soldiers.
The latter retaliated by a volley which killed one of the young men and
wounded several others. The guns being discharged, the two bands were
now on an equal footing as regards weapons. Thanks to their enormous
canes, which in hands accustomed to wield them became veritable clubs,
the men of the Sections could turn aside the bayonets as easily as they
could parry the point of a sword in a duel. They could moreover strike
blows which, when received on the chest, though they could not pierce
like a sword-thrust, were equally dangerous, and when aimed at the head
would fell a man as readily as a butcher fells an ox.
As usual, the brawl, which, owing to the number of persons engaged in
it, assumed frightful proportions, set the whole neighborhood in a
tumult. The uproar and turmoil were increased from the fact that it was
the first night of a popular representation at the Théâtre Feydeau, then
the fashionable theatre of Paris. They were playing "Toberne, or the
Swedish Fisherman," the words by Patras, the music by Bruni; and "The
Good Son," the words by Louis Henequin, and the music by Lebrun.
Consequently, the Place Feydeau was thronged with carriages and the
Passage Feydeau with playgoers on foot.
At the sound of the cries "Down with the Convention! Down with the
Two-thirds Men!" and the firing, the carriages started off like so many
arrows, some colliding with their neighbors; while the spectators on
foot, fearing to be shot, arrested, or stifled in the narrow passage,
broke through all barriers. Finally the windows opened, and men's voices
could be heard raining imprecations upon the soldiers, while the softer
tones of women encouraged the men of the Sections, who, as we have said,
were among the handsomest, best-dressed, and wealthiest young men of
Paris. The scene was lighted by the lanterns that swung from the
arcades.
Suddenly a voice cried out in a tone of great anguish: "Citizen in the
green coat, take care!"
The citizen in the green coat, who was face to face with two soldiers,
at once realized that he was threatened from behind. He leaped aside
with a haphazard blow of his cane, but to such good effect that it broke
the arm of the soldier who was attacking him with his bayonet; then he
thrust the iron-tipped stick in the face of a man who was just raising
the stock of his gun to bring it down on his head. Afterward he looked
up at the window whence the warning had come, and threw a kiss at a
graceful form that was leaning over the rail of the balcony, and turned
just in time to parry a bayonet-thrust before it had time to more than
graze his chest.
At that moment help arrived for the soldiers from the Convention. A
dozen men from the guard-house rushed up, crying: "Death to the
Muscadins!"
The young man in the green coat was at once surrounded, but whirling his
stick vigorously around his head, he managed to keep the soldiers at a
distance while he beat a retreat toward the arcades. This retreat, not
less skilful because less successful than that of Xenophon, was directed
toward a massive door with iron panels artistically wrought, which the
porter had just darkened by extinguishing the lantern hanging over it.
But before this had happened, the young man, with the swift glance of a
military leader, had glanced at the door, and discovered that it was not
latched. If he could once reach that door, he could spring through it,
close it behind him, and be in safety, unless, indeed, the doorkeeper
was sufficiently patriotic to refuse a gold louis, which at that time
was worth more than twelve hundred francs in paper money--a patriotism
which was somewhat problematic.
But as though his enemies had divined his object, the attack redoubled
in intensity as he approached the door, and, while the young man was
extraordinarily skilful and strong, the fight had already lasted a
quarter of an hour and had greatly impaired both his skill and his
strength. Still, as the door was now only some two feet distant, he made
a last effort, felled one of his adversaries with his stick, sent
another reeling with a blow from his fist that landed on the man's
chest, and reached the door, only to receive a blow from a gun-stock
(fortunately the flat side) just as he pushed it open.
The blow was a violent one. Sparks danced before the young man's eyes,
and his blood coursed wildly through his veins. But blinded as he was,
his presence of mind did not desert him. He sprang back, propped himself
against the door, which he closed with a bang behind him, and tossed a
louis, as he had intended, to the porter, who had rushed out of his
lodge on hearing the noise. Then, seeing a lighted staircase, he darted
toward it, and, clinging to the balustrade, tottered up a dozen steps.
Then it seemed to him that the walls of the house were falling and that
the stairs were swaying beneath his feet, the staircase gave way, and
he seemed to be rolling down a precipice.
Fortunately he had only fainted, but in doing so he had slipped gently
down the stairs.
CHAPTER IX
AN INCROYABLE AND A MERVEILLEUSE
A cooling sensation brought him to. His glance, at first vague and
undecided, gradually settled upon his surroundings. They were in nowise
disquieting. He was in a boudoir, which was also used as a
dressing-room, and was hung with pearl-gray satin dotted with roses. He
was lying upon a sofa covered with the same material as the hangings.
A woman stood behind him, supporting his head with a pillow; another on
her knees beside him was bathing his head with a perfumed sponge. This
was what had caused that soothing sensation of coolness which had
restored him to consciousness. The woman, or rather the young girl, who
was bathing his head, was pretty and well dressed; but it was the
prettiness and elegance of the waiting-maid. The young man's eyes,
therefore, did not linger long upon her, but were raised almost
immediately to the woman who stood over him, and who could be none other
than the mistress. He uttered a cry of delight, for he recognized the
same person who had warned him from the window, and he started as though
he would rise and go to her; but two white hands, pressing his
shoulders, held him down upon the couch.
"Not so fast, citizen Coster de Saint-Victor!" said the young woman; "we
must dress your wound first; and after that we will see how far your
gratitude will be allowed to carry you."
"Ah! then you know me, citizeness," exclaimed the young man, with a
smile that disclosed teeth of a dazzling whiteness and a glance that
few women could withstand. He had used the democratic "thou" in this
speech.
"In the first place," said the young lady, "I wish to remind you that it
is becoming very bad form for a man who follows the fashion as you do to
say 'thou,' especially to ladies."
"Alas!" sighed the young man, "it is especially with them that the old
fashion had its uses. Brutal as it may be when addressed to a man,
'thou' has a tender charm when a lovely woman is its recipient. I have
always contended that the English sustained an incalculable loss when
they abandoned its use. But I am too grateful, madame, not to obey you;
only allow me to repeat my question, though I change its form: Do you
know me?"
"Who does not know the handsome Coster de Saint-Victor, who would be the
king of fashion and elegance, if the title of king were not abolished."
Coster de Saint-Victor turned suddenly and looked the young lady full in
the face.
"Obtain the restoration of kings, madame," said he, "and I will hail the
beautiful Aurélie de Saint-Amour as queen."
"So you know me, too, citizen?" said the young woman, laughing.
"Who does not know our modern Aspasia? This is the first time, though,
that I have had the honor of seeing you so near at hand, madame, and--"
"And--you were saying?"
"That Paris has no need to envy Athens, nor yet Barras to envy
Pericles."
"Come, come! that blow on the head was not as dangerous after all as I
thought."
"What do you mean?"
"Because it has not impaired your wit."
"No," replied Coster de Saint-Victor, kissing her beautiful hand, "but
it may have taken away my reason."
Just then the bell rang in a peculiar fashion, and the hand which
Coster was holding trembled. Aurélie's waiting-maid rose and looked
uneasily at her mistress.
"Madame," said she, "that is the citizen-general."
"Yes," replied the latter, "I recognized his ring."
"What will he say?" asked the maid.
"Nothing."
"What do you mean?"
"I shall not open the door." The courtesan shook her head rebelliously.
"You will not admit citizen-general Barras?" asked the terrified maid.
"What?" cried Coster de Saint-Victor, "was that citizen Barras who
rang?"
"Yes," replied Mademoiselle Aurélie de Saint-Amour with a laugh, "and
you see he is quite as impatient as ordinary mortals."
"But, madame--" persisted the maid.
"I am mistress in my own house," said the capricious courtesan, "and it
pleases me to receive the citizen Coster de Saint-Victor, and it does
not please me to receive citizen Barras. I open my door to the first,
and I close it to the second, or rather I do not open it to the second."
"Pardon me, my generous hostess," cried Coster de Saint-Victor; "but I
cannot permit you to make such a sacrifice. Allow your maid to admit the
general, I beg of you, and while he is in your salon I will withdraw."
"And if I admit him only on condition that you do not withdraw?"
"Oh! then I will remain," said Coster, "and very willingly, too, I
assure you."
The bell rang for the third time.
"Go and open the door, Suzette," said Aurélie.
Suzette ran out. Aurélie bolted the door of the boudoir behind her,
extinguished the two candles which were burning on the dressing-table,
and seeking Coster de Saint-Victor in the darkness, pressed her lips to
his forehead, and went out murmuring: "Wait for me."
Then she went into the salon from the boudoir just as citizen-general
Barras appeared in the door of the dining-room. "And what is this I
hear, my beauty," said Barras, "have they been cutting throats under
your window?"
"Yes, my dear general, and my foolish Suzette did not dare to open the
door for you. I had to tell her three times, before she would obey me,
she was so fearful lest one of the combatants had come to demand
shelter. In vain I told her that it was your ring. I thought I should be
obliged to open the door for you myself. But to what do I owe the
pleasure of your visit this evening?"
"A first representation at the Feydeau this evening; and I will take you
if you will go with me."
"No, thank you; all this firing and shouting has upset my nerves. I am
not well and I prefer to remain at home."
"Very well; but as soon as the piece is over I shall come and ask you
for some supper."
"Ah! you did not let me know in time, and I have nothing to offer you."
"Do not worry about that, pretty one; I will pass Garchi's on my way to
the theatre and will leave an order for them to send a bisque, a
bechamel, a cold pheasant, some shrimps, some ice-cream and fruit--a
mere trifle, you perceive."
"My dear friend, you had much better let me go to bed. I warn you that I
shall be very cross."
"I will not prevent your going to bed. You can take supper in bed and be
cross as comfortably as possible."
"You insist?"
"No, I implore. You know, madame, that you are sole mistress here, and
that you have but to order, and that I, as the first of your servants,
will obey."
"Oh! can I refuse a man who speaks like that? Go to the theatre, my
lord, and your humble servant will await your return."
"My dear Aurélie, you are simply adorable, and I do not see why I have
not had bars put at your windows like those of Rosine."
"What would be the good! You are the Count of Almaviva."
"There is no Cherubino hidden in your boudoir?"
"I will not say 'Here is the key,' but 'It is in the door.'"
"Well, see how magnanimous I am; if he is there I am going to give him
time to escape. Au revoir, my beautiful goddess of love; expect me in an
hour."
"Very well. And when you come back you must tell me about the play. I
shall like that better than if I had seen it myself."
"Certainly, only I do not promise to sing it to you."
"When I want to hear singing, my good friend, I will send for Garat."
"And let it be said in passing, my dear Aurélie, that I think you send
for him rather too often."
"Oh! do not be uneasy about that. He is protected by Madame Krüdener.
She keeps as close to him as his shadow."
"They are putting up a pretty romance between them."
"Yes, in action."
"Are you not a little malicious?"
"Faith, no; I do not care enough. I leave that sort of thing to the
great ladies who are virtuous and ugly."
"Once more, won't you come with me to the Feydeau?"
"No."
"Then au revoir."
"Au revoir."
Aurélie accompanied the general to the door of the salon, and Suzette
followed him to the outer door of the apartment, which she closed and
trebly locked after him. When the beautiful courtesan turned round,
Coster de Saint-Victor was waiting for her on the threshold of the
boudoir. She sighed, for he was marvellously handsome.
CHAPTER X
TWO PORTRAITS
Coster de Saint-Victor had not resumed the use of powder; he wore his
hair in long, flowing curls, without comb or queue. It was jet-black
like his eyelashes, which shaded eyes of a deep sapphire blue, which,
according to the expression he chose to give them, were at times gentle
and again full of commanding power. His complexion, which was now rather
pale owing to his recent loss of blood, was of a rich creamy white; his
nose straight, clear-cut and irreproachable; his firm, red lips
disclosed magnificent teeth; and the rest of the body, which, thanks to
the fashion then in vogue, was clad to display it to the best advantage,
was modelled on the lines of Antinous.
The two young people looked at each other for a moment in silence.
"You heard?" asked Aurélie.
"Alas! yes," replied Coster.
"He will sup with me, and it is your fault."
"How so?"
"You made me open the door."
"And you are vexed because he is to sup with you?"
"Of course!"
"Really?"
"I swear it. I am not in a humor to-night to be amiable to people I do
not love."
"But to him whom you love?"
"Ah! for him I would be charming," replied Aurélie.
"And suppose," said Coster, "that I could find a way to prevent his
supping with you?"
"And?"
"Who would sup with you in his place?"
"What a question. The man who kept him away."
"And then you would not be cross?"
"Oh, no!"
"Give me a pledge."
The beautiful courtesan held up her cheek to him, and he pressed a kiss
upon it. Just then the bell rang again.
"Ah! this time I warn you that if it is he who has taken it into his
stupid head to return, I shall go away," said Coster de Saint-Victor.
Suzette appeared.
"Shall I open the door, madame?" she asked timidly.
"Certainly, open it."
Suzette opened it. A man carrying a large flat basket on his head came
in, saying: "Supper for citizen Barras."
"You hear?" asked Aurélie.
"Yes," replied the incroyable; "but, on the word of Coster de
Saint-Victor, he shall not eat it."
"Shall I set the table just the same?" asked Suzette.
"Yes," said the young man, darting from the room; "for if he does not
eat it, some one else will."
Aurélie followed him with her eyes as far as the door, then, when it had
closed behind him, she cried: "My toilet, Suzette, and make me look more
beautiful than you ever did before."
"And for which of the two does madame wish to look beautiful?"
"I do not know myself; but, in the meantime, make me as beautiful as
possible for myself."
We have already described the costume of the fashionable ladies of the
day, and Aurélie was one of them. A member of a good family of Provence,
and playing the part which we have outlined, we have thought it best to
leave her the name by which she was known at the time of which we write,
and which appears in the police records. Her story was like that of
nearly all the women of her class, for whom the Thermidorean reaction
was a triumph. A young girl without fortune, she was led astray by a
young nobleman, who induced her to leave her home, and who took her to
Paris, then emigrated, enlisted in Condé's army, and was killed. She
remained alone without other means of support than her beauty and her
youth. Picked up by one of the farmers of the public revenues, she soon
regained more luxury than she had lost. But the time came when the
office of farmer of the revenue was suppressed. The beautiful Aurélie's
protector was one of twenty-seven persons who were executed with
Lavoisier on the 8th of May, 1794. At his death he left her a large sum
of money, of which she had hitherto used only the interest; so that,
without being wealthy, the beautiful Aurélie was beyond the reach of
want.
Barras, hearing of her beauty and refinement, called upon her, and,
after a suitable probation, was accepted as her lover. He was then a
handsome man of forty, belonging to a noble family of Provence--a
nobility that has been questioned, although those who remember the old
saying, "Old as the rocks of Provence, and noble as the Barras," will
not doubt the justice of the claim.
At the age of eighteen, Barras was a subaltern in the regiment of
Languedoc, but left it to rejoin his uncle, who was governor of the "Ile
de France." He was nearly lost in a shipwreck off the coast of
Coromandel; but managing by good luck to seize the helm at the right
moment, and showing great presence of mind and sound judgment, he
reached an island inhabited by savages, where he and his companions
remained a month. They were finally rescued and taken to Pondicherry. He
returned to Paris in 1788, where a great future awaited him.
At the time when the States-General assembled, Barras, following
Mirabeau's example, showed no hesitation; he presented himself as a
candidate for the _Tiers-Etat_, and was accepted. On the 14th of July he
was noticed among the crowd that took the Bastille. As a member of the
Convention, he voted the death of the king, and was sent to Toulon,
after that city was recaptured from the English. His despatch to the
Convention is well known.
He proposed simply to demolish Toulon.
When Barras returned to the Convention, he took an active part on all
great occasions when the interests of the Revolution were at stake, and
he was particularly prominent on the 9th Thermidor. So much so, that,
when the new Convention was proposed, he was naturally elected as one of
the directors.
We have told his age, and testified as to his personal charm. He was a
man about five feet six, with a fine head of hair, which he powdered to
conceal his premature grayness. He had remarkably fine eyes, a straight
nose, and full lips which set off a sympathetic mouth. Without adopting
the exaggerated fashions of the _jeunesse dorée_, he followed them to a
degree of elegance suited to his years.
As for the beautiful Aurélie de Saint-Amour, she had just completed her
twenty-first year, entering at the same time upon her majority, and the
true period of a woman's beauty, which is in our opinion from her
twenty-first year to her thirty-fifth. Her disposition was at once
extremely refined, extremely sensual, and extremely impressionable. She
possessed the attributes of flower, fruit, and woman--perfume, savor,
and pleasure.
She was tall, which at first sight made her seem slender, but thanks to
the style of dress then in vogue, it was not difficult to see that she
was slender after the fashion of Jean Goujon's Diana. She was fair with
those deep brown tints which are to be seen in the hair of Titian's
Magdalen. When she wore her hair in the Greek style, with bands of blue
velvet, she was superb; but when, toward the end of a dinner, she
loosened her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders and framing her
cheeks in an aureole, enhancing their fresh camilla tints and peachy
down-like surface, and contrasting sharply with her black eyebrows, blue
eyes, red lips, and pearly teeth, and when a spray of brilliant diamonds
hung from each ear--then she was dazzling.
Now this luxuriant beauty had developed only within the last two years.
To her first lover, the only man she had ever loved, she had given the
young girl, full of hesitations, who yields, but does not entirely
surrender herself. Then all at once she felt the sap of life mounting
and growing within her; her eyes opened, her nostrils distended; she
exhaled at every pore that love of second youth which succeeds
adolescence, which turns its gaze upon herself, and which seeks some
object upon which to lavish the pent-up wealth of treasure within. It
was then that necessity compelled her to sell rather than to give
herself; but even then she looked forward to the time when she should be
rich and free to enter upon that liberty of heart and person which is
the dignity of every woman.
Two or three times at evening parties at the Hôtel Thélusson, at the
Opéra, or at the Comédie Française, she had noticed Coster de
Saint-Victor as he paid his court to the most beautiful and
distinguished ladies of the period; and each time her heart seemed to
leap in her bosom and fly to him. She felt within herself that some day,
if she would make advances, this man would belong to her, or rather she
to him. And so thoroughly was she convinced of this, that (thanks to the
secret voice which oftentimes gives us hints of what the future will
bring forth) she was content to wait without much impatience, certain
that one day the object of her dreams would pass near enough to her, or
she to him, to join them each to each other by the irresistible law that
binds steel to magnet.
At last, on the evening when she opened her window to watch the street
brawl, she recognized in the thick of the fray the handsome figure which
had haunted her solitary nights; and, in spite of herself, she cried
out: "Citizen in the green coat, take care!"
CHAPTER XI
ASPASIA'S TOILET
Aurélie de Saint-Amour might very well have called Coster de
Saint-Victor by his name, since she had recognized him; but the handsome
young man had many rivals, and consequently many enemies, and to utter
his name might have given the signal for his death.
Coster on his side, on regaining consciousness, had recognized her; for,
celebrated as she already was for her beauty, she was becoming even
better known for her charm of manner and wit--that indispensable
complement to beauty that desires to be called queen.
Coster found her marvellously beautiful, but he could vie with Barras
neither in point of magnificence nor generosity. Charm and beauty stood
him instead of fortune, and he often succeeded with tender words where
the most powerful men failed with more material means. Coster was
acquainted with all the shameful mysteries of Parisian life, and was
incapable of sacrificing a woman's position to a moment of egotism and a
mere spark of passion.
Perhaps the beautiful Aspasia, now mistress of an independent fortune
sufficient to gratify her desires, and which she was sure of increasing
with the notoriety she had already acquired, would have preferred less
delicacy and more passion on the young man's part. But in any case she
wished to appear beautiful, so that he should love her the more if he
remained, and regret her doubly if he were obliged to go away. But
whatever her motive, Suzette obeyed her to the letter, uniting all the
mysteries of her art to the marvels of nature in making her beautiful,
to use her mistress's expression, in that same boudoir into which we
introduced our readers in the preceding chapter.
The modern Aspasia, about to assume the dress of the Aspasia of
antiquity, was lying on the same sofa on which they had placed Coster de
Saint-Victor; but its position had been changed. It now stood between a
small mantel-shelf covered with Sèvres statuettes, and a Psyche in a
round frame forming an immense wreath of roses in Dresden china.
Enveloped in a cloud of transparent muslin, Aurélie had abandoned her
head to Suzette, who was arranging a Greek coiffure; this fashion had
been revived by political reminiscences, and particularly by the
pictures of David, who was then at the height of his fame. A narrow,
blue velvet ribbon covered with diamond stars was drawn about the
forehead, and above the chignon, from which fell little curls so light
that the faintest breath sufficed to set them waving.
Thanks to the flowers of youth which bloomed in her face, and the
peach-like down of her complexion, Aurélie could afford to dispense with
the powders and cosmetics with which women in those days, as well as the
present, plastered their faces.
She would indeed have lost by them; for the skin of her breast and
throat had reflections like mother-of-pearl and silver, whose rosy
freshness would have been destroyed by even the smallest touch of
cosmetics. Her arms, molded in alabaster, slightly tinted by the rays of
dawning day, harmonized marvellously with her bust. Each detail of her
body, in fact, seemed like a defiance of the most beautiful models of
antiquity and the Renaissance; only that Nature, that wonderful
sculptress, seemed to have blended the severity of antique art with the
grace and delicacy of the modern.
This beauty was so genuine that its possessor seemed herself not quite
accustomed to it; and every time that Suzette took off an article of
clothing, uncovering some new portion of her mistress's body, Aurélie
smiled at herself complacently, but without pride.
She would sometimes remain hours lying on her couch in the warm
atmosphere of her boudoir, like the Hermaphrodite of Farnese or the
Venus of Titian. This admiration of herself, which was shared by
Suzette, who could not refrain from looking at her young mistress with
the admiring eyes of a young page, was this time shortened by the
vibrating chimes of the clock, as well as by Suzette, who now approached
with a chemise of that filmy fabric which is woven only in the East.
"Come, mistress," said Suzette, "I know you are beautiful, no one
better. But half-past nine has struck. Never mind, your hair is done,
and a very little will finish you."
Aurélie shook her shoulders, like a statue removing a veil, and murmured
these two questions, addressed to the supreme power which is called
Love: "What is he doing now? Will he succeed?"
What Coster de Saint-Victor was doing--for we will not wrong the
beautiful Aurélie by implying that she meant Barras--we are about to
inform you.
As we have already said, the Feydeau was giving the first representation
of "Toberne, or the Swedish Fisherman," preceded by a little one-act
opera called "The Good Son." Barras, when he left Mademoiselle de
Saint-Amour, had only to cross the Rue des Colonnes. He arrived when the
short piece was about half finished, and, as he was well known as one of
the members who had most energetically supported the Constitution, and
was likely to be one of the members of the future Directory, his
entrance was greeted by murmurs and cries of: "Down with the Decrees!
Down with the Two-thirds! Long live the Sections!"
The theatre was above all others the theatre of reactionary Paris.
However, those who had come to see the play overcame those who wished to
disturb it. Cries of "Down with the interrupter!" rose above the others
and quiet was restored. The short piece was finished quietly enough. But
the curtain had scarcely fallen, when a young man mounted upon an
orchestra-chair, and pointing to the bust of Marat which was opposite
that of Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau, exclaimed: "Citizens, why do we
suffer this monster with a human face, who is called Marat, to pollute
this spot, when, in the place which it usurps and defiles, we might see
the citizen of Geneva, the illustrious author of 'Emile,' 'The Social
Contract,' and 'The New Héloise'?"
Scarcely had the speaker finished this address, when, from balconies,
gallery and pit, a thousand throats took up the cry: "It is he! It is
Coster de Saint-Victor! Bravo, Coster, bravo!"
And thirty or more young men from the group which the patrol had
dispersed rose and waved their hats and brandished their canes.
Coster drew himself up still higher, and, placing one foot on the back
of the stalls, he continued: "Down with the Terrorists! Down with Marat!
Down with the bloody monster with three thousand heads! Long live the
author of 'Emile,' of 'The Social Contract,' and 'The New Héloise'!"
Suddenly a voice shouted: "Here is a bust of Jean-Jacques Rousseau!"
Two hands raised the bust above the audience. How did the bust of
Rousseau come there just when it was wanted? No one knew; but its
appearance was hailed none the less with shouts of enthusiasm.
"Down with the bust of Marat! Long live Charlotte Corday! Down with the
Terrorists! Down with the assassin! Long live Rousseau!"
CHAPTER XII
FOR WHICH VOLTAIRE AND ROUSSEAU ARE TO BLAME
This was the manifestation that Coster de Saint-Victor anticipated. He
clung to the base of the caryatides which supported the boxes, and
pushed, pulled, and assisted by twenty persons, he succeeded in reaching
the one occupied by Barras. Barras did not know what the young man
wanted, and, although he was not aware of what had passed in Aurélie's
apartments, he could not count Coster among his best friends. He
therefore pushed back his chair. Coster saw the movement.
"Excuse me, citizen Barras," he said, laughing, "my business is not with
you. But I am, like you, a deputy commissioned to dethrone this bust."
And standing upon the railing of the box he struck at the bust with his
cane. It tottered, fell to the floor, and crashed into a thousand pieces
amid the almost unanimous applause of the audience.
At the same time similar execution was done on the unoffending bust of
Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau, who was killed on the 20th of January by
the guard of Paris. The same acclamations greeted its fall and
destruction. Then two hands raised a bust above the orchestra, saying:
"Here is a bust of Voltaire!"
The words were scarcely spoken before the bust flew from hand to hand,
and, by a sort of Jacob's ladder, reached the empty niche. Rousseau's
bust followed, and the two were installed amid the cries, shouts and
acclamations of all present.
But Coster de Saint-Victor, standing upon the railing of Barras's box,
waited until silence had fallen. He might have waited for a long time
had he not made a motion that he wished to speak. The cries of "Long
live the author of 'Emile,' of 'The Social Contract,' and 'The New
Héloise'!" mingled with others of "Long live the author of 'Zaïre,'
'Mahomet,' and the 'Henriade'!" died away and were succeeded by shouts
of "Coster wants to speak! Speak, Coster! we are listening. Hush! hush!
Silence!" Coster made another sign, and, judging that he could at last
make himself heard, he shouted: "Citizens, thank citizen Barras, who is
here in the box!"
All eyes were turned upon Barras.
"The illustrious general has been good enough to remind me that the same
sacrilege which we have just repaired here exists in the chamber of the
Convention. In fact, the two commemorative tablets, representing the
death of Marat and citizen Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau, from the pencil
of the Terrorist David, are still hanging upon the walls."
A cry burst from every throat: "To the Convention, friends, to the
Convention!"
"The excellent citizen Barras will see that the doors are opened for us.
Long live citizen Barras!"
And the whole audience, who had hooted Barras earlier in the evening,
took up the cheer: "Long live Barras!"
As for Barras himself, bewildered by the part which Coster de
Saint-Victor had allotted him in the comedy, a part in which it is
needless to say he was a nonentity, he rose, and seizing his hat, cane,
and overcoat, hastened from his box and ran downstairs in search of his
carriage.
But rapidly as he had made his exit from the theatre, Coster, jumping
from balcony to balcony, disappeared behind the curtain with a last cry
of "To the Convention!" and reached Aurélie's door before Barras had
called his carriage.
Suzette hurried to the door, although she had not recognized the
general's ring; perhaps she hurried all the more for that reason, and
Coster slipped through the half-open door.
"Hide me in the boudoir, Suzette," said he. "Citizen Barras will be here
shortly to tell your mistress that he cannot sup with her. It is I who
will sup with your mistress."
Scarcely had he uttered these words when a carriage drew up before the
door of the house.
"Here! Quick, quick!" cried Suzette, opening the door of the boudoir.
Coster de Saint-Victor darted in just as a hurried step sounded upon the
stairs.
"Ah! there you are, citizen-general," said Suzette; "I guessed that it
was you, and, as you see, I was holding the door open for you. My
mistress is waiting impatiently for you."
"To the Convention! To the Convention!" shouted a band of young men who
were passing through the street and striking at the pillars with their
sticks.
"Oh! what is the matter?" asked Aurélie, appearing at the door, her
color heightened with impatience and uneasiness.
"As you see, dear friend, a riot has occurred which deprives me of the
pleasure of supping with you. I have come to tell you of it myself, so
that you may not doubt my regret."
"Ah! how unfortunate!" exclaimed Aurélie. "Such a lovely supper."
"And such a sweet companion," added Barras, trying to bring forth a
melancholy sigh. "But my duty as a statesman before all."
"To the Convention!" howled the mob.
"Au revoir, sweet friend; as you see, I have not a moment to lose if I
am to get there before them." And faithful to his duty, as he said, the
future director stopped only long enough to reward Suzette's fidelity by
thrusting a handful of assignats in her hand, and then rushed down the
stairs.
Suzette shut the door behind him, and as she was bolting and locking it,
her mistress called out: "What are you doing?"
"As you see, madame, I am fastening the door."
"And Coster, you wretched girl?"
"Look behind you, madame," said Suzette.
Aurélie looked, and as she looked she uttered a cry of joy and surprise.
Coster, who had come out from the boudoir on tiptoe, was standing behind
her, with his arm held out to her.
"Citizeness," he said, "will you do me the honor to accept my arm and
let me conduct you to the dining-room?"
"But how have you done it? What did you do? What did you devise?"
"I will tell you while we are eating citizen Barras's supper," said
Coster de Saint-Victor.
CHAPTER XIII
THE ELEVENTH VENDÉMIAIRE
One of the resolutions passed at the royalist agency in the Rue des
Postes, after Cadoudal's departure on the evening to which we have
referred, was that a meeting should be held the following evening at the
Théâtre of the Odéon.
During the evening, as we have seen, a crowd of men, led by some fifty
of the members of the _jeunesse dorée_, had repaired to the hall of the
Convention, but their chief, Coster de Saint-Victor, having disappeared
as completely as if he had vanished through some trap-door, the mob and
the _muscadins_ beat in vain against the doors of the Convention, whose
members had been forewarned by Barras of the attack which was about to
be made upon them.
From an artistic point of view, it would have been a great loss if the
two pictures, against which the crowd were so incensed, had been
destroyed. "The Death of Marat" was in particular one of David's
masterpieces.
But the Convention, seeing the dangers to which it was exposed, and
knowing that a fresh crater might burst forth in the volcano of Paris at
any moment, declared itself in permanent session. The three
representatives--Gillet, Aubry and Delmas--who, since the 4th Prairial,
had been in command of the forces, were given authority to take all
measures necessary for the safety of the Convention. This was done all
the more thoroughly when it was learned, through those who had been
present at the preparations for the following day, that there was to be
a meeting of armed citizens at the Odéon the following evening, and
their anxiety reached a culminating point.
The next day, the 3d of October (11th Vendémiaire), had been set apart
for a funeral celebration, to be held in the Hall of Sessions itself,
in memory of the Girondins. Several members proposed that the ceremony
should be postponed for another day, but Tallien arose and said that it
was unworthy of the Convention not to attend to its duties in times of
danger even as in times of peace.
In permanent session, the Convention issued a decree ordering all
illegal meetings of electors to disperse. The night passed in the midst
of uproars which beggar description in all parts of the city. Shots were
fired and people were knocked down. Whenever bands of the Sections and
the Convention met, blows invariably ensued.
The Sections, on the other hand, in virtue of the rights of sovereignty
they had assumed, issued their own decrees. Thus it was as a result of a
decree of the Section Le Peletier that the meeting at the Odéon had been
set for the 11th Vendémiaire.
Every moment brought in most disastrous news from the towns around Paris
where the royalist committee had established its agencies. Risings had
occurred at Orléans, Dreux, Verneuil, and Nonancourt. At Chartres,
Tellier, the representative, had endeavored to prevent an insurrection,
and finding that his efforts were unavailing, he blew out his brains.
The Chouans had cut down all the trees planted in honor of the 14th of
July--those glorious symbols of the people's triumph. They had hurled
the Statue of Liberty into the mud; and in the provinces, as well as in
Paris, patriots had been assaulted in the streets.
While the Convention was deliberating against the conspirators, the
latter, in their turn, were acting against the Convention. About eleven
in the morning the electors began to put in appearance at the Odéon,
although only the more adventurous had taken this risk, and had they
been counted they would scarcely have comprised a full thousand. In
their midst a crowd of young men passed to and fro, shouting, scraping
the railings and overturning the seats with their swords. But the number
of chasseurs and grenadiers sent by the Sections did not exceed four
hundred. More than ten thousand people surrounded the monument, the
place of meeting, blocking up the entrances to the hall, and filling the
neighboring streets.
If, on that day, the Convention, which was kept fully informed, had but
acted with decision, the insurrection could have been suppressed; but
once again it resorted to conciliatory measures. They issued a decree
declaring the meeting illegal, and specified in one of its articles that
all those who should at once disperse would be exempt from punishment.
As soon as the decree was issued, some officers of the police, escorted
by six dragoons, started from the Tuileries, where the Convention was in
session, to command the mob to disperse.
But the streets were crowded with spectators. They wanted to know what
the police and the dragoons intended to do; and they impeded them so
successfully, that, although they left the palace at three o'clock, it
was almost seven before they reached the Odéon, whither they were
accompanied by cries, hoots, jeers, and provocations of every sort. From
a distance they could be seen in the Place de l'Égalité opposite the
monument, on the backs of their horses; and they looked like ships
towering above the crowd and tossed upon a stormy sea.
They finally reached the square. The dragoons drew up before the steps
of the theatre; the police officers, intrusted with the proclamation,
went up under the portico, and there, lighted by torch-bearers, they
read the proclamation.
But at the first words, the doors of the theatre flew open, and the
"sovereigns," as the men of the Sections were called, came out at a run,
followed by the electoral guards. The police were hurled from the top to
the bottom of the steps, and the electoral guards charged the dragoons
with fixed bayonets. The police disappeared, swallowed up by the crowd,
followed by hooting and jeering; the dragoons dispersed, the torches
were extinguished, and from the chaos rose cries of "Long live the
Sections! Down with the Convention!"
These cries, passing from street to street, finally reached the ears of
the Convention itself. And while the victors re-entered the Sections,
and, enthusiastic as men always are after a first success, took oath
never to lay down arms until the Tuileries should be destroyed, the
patriots, even those who opposed the Convention, realizing the dangers
now threatening that liberty of which the Convention was the last
tabernacle, hastened in a body to offer their services and to demand
arms. Some came from the prisons, while others had been ejected from the
Sections. A large number of them were officers whose names had been
struck off by the chairman of the war committee. Aubry joined them. The
Convention hesitated for some time; but Louvet, that indefatigable
patriot who had survived the ruin of all the parties, and who was
desirous of reopening the Jacobin Club and of arming the faubourgs,
insisted so strenuously that he carried the day.
Then not a minute was lost. They assembled all the unemployed officers
and gave them the command of the soldiers, putting them all under the
orders of brave General Berruyer.
This occurred on the evening of the 11th, just as word arrived of the
rout of the police and the dragoons; and it was determined to clear the
Odéon by means of an armed force.
In virtue of this order, General Menou directed a column of troops and
two pieces of artillery to proceed from the camp at Sablons. But when
they reached the Odéon at eleven o'clock at night, they found the square
and the theatre empty and deserted. The whole night was spent in arming
the patriots and in receiving defiance after defiance from the Sections
Le Peletier, Butte-des-Moulins, Contrat-Social, Comédie-Française,
Luxembourg, Rue Poissonière, Brutus, and Temple.
CHAPTER XIV
THE TWELFTH VENDÉMIAIRE
On the morning of the 12th Vendémiaire, all the walls were covered with
posters enjoining the national guards to report at their several
Sections, which were threatened by the Terrorists, or, in other words,
the Convention.
At nine o'clock in the morning the Section Le Peletier declared its
sessions permanent, and proclaimed revolt by beating to arms in all the
quarters of Paris. The Convention, exasperated, did likewise. Messengers
were sent through the streets to reassure the citizens and to vouch for
those to whom arms had been given. The air was filled with those strange
thrills which betray the fevers of great cities, and which are the
symptoms of great events. It was recognized that, so far as the Sections
were concerned, the rebellion had gained such strength that it was no
longer a question of reclaiming and convincing them, but of crushing
them.
None of the days of the Revolution had yet dawned with such terrible
presages--not the 14th of July, nor the 10th of August, nor even the 2d
of September.
About eleven o'clock in the morning the Convention felt that the moment
for action had arrived. Seeing that the Section Le Peletier was the
headquarters, it was resolved to disarm it, and General Menou was
ordered to march against it with a sufficient body of troops and
artillery.
The general came from Sablons and crossed Paris. But when he reached the
city he saw something that he had not suspected; namely, that he was
opposing the nobility and the richer citizens, the class which
represented public opinion. It was not the faubourgs, as he had
supposed, which were to be swept with hot shell, it was the Place
Vendôme, the Rue Saint-Honoré, the Boulevards, and the Faubourg
Saint-Germain.
The man of the 1st Prairial hesitated on the 12th Vendémiaire. He went
on, however, but so reluctantly that the Convention was obliged to send
Representative Laporte to urge him on. All Paris was watching this great
duel. Unfortunately the Section Le Peletier had for a president the man
whom we already know from his interviews with the president of the
Convention and the Chouan general; he was as rapid in his decisions as
Menou was feeble and hesitating.
Therefore it was already eight o'clock in the evening when General
Verdières received orders from General Menou to take sixty grenadiers of
the Convention, one hundred of the battalion of the Oise, and twenty
horsemen, to form a column on the left side of the Rue des
Filles-de-Saint-Thomas, and there to await orders.
Scarcely, however, had he entered the Rue Vivienne than Morgan appeared
at the door of the Convent of the Daughters of Saint-Thomas, where the
Section Le Peletier was in session, and ordered out a hundred of the
Sectional party, commanding them to shoulder arms. Morgan's grenadiers
obeyed without hesitation. Verdières gave the same order to his troops,
but murmurs of dissent were heard.
"Friends," cried Morgan, "we shall not fire first, but when the fighting
has once begun you need expect no quarter from us. If the Convention
wants war it shall have it."
Verdières's grenadiers wished to reply, but the general called out:
"Silence in the ranks!"
He was obeyed. Then he ordered the cavalry to draw their sabres and the
infantry to ground arms. In the meantime the centre column arrived by way
of the Rue Vivienne, and the right by the Rue Nôtre-Dame-des-Victoires.
The entire assembly had been converted into an armed force; a thousand
men issued from the convent and formed in the portico. Morgan, sword in
hand, placed himself a few steps in advance of the rest.
"Citizens," he said, addressing the Sectionists under his orders, "you
are for the most part married men and fathers of families; I am,
therefore, responsible for more lives than yours; as much as I should
like to return death for death to these human tigers who have
guillotined my father and shot my brother, I command you, in the names
of your wives and children, not to fire first. But if our enemies fire a
single shot--as you see, I am ten feet in front of you--the first who
fires from their ranks perishes by my hand."
These words were uttered amid the most profound silence; for before
speaking Morgan had raised his sword to impose silence, and neither his
own men nor the patriots had lost a syllable of what he said.
Nothing could have been easier than to have replied to these words with
a triple volley, the first from the right, the second from the left, and
the third from the Rue Vivienne, in which case this would have amounted
merely to pure bravado. Exposed like a target to the bullets, Morgan
would necessarily have fallen.
The astonishment was great when, instead of the expected volley,
Laporte, after consulting with General Menou, advanced toward Morgan,
and the general ordered his men to ground arms. The order was promptly
obeyed.
But the astonishment increased, when, after exchanging a few words with
Laporte, Morgan said: "I am here only to fight, and because I thought
there was to be fighting. When it comes to compliments and concessions,
the affair passes into the vice-president's hands, and I will retire."
And returning his sword into the scabbard, he withdrew into the crowd,
where he was soon lost. The vice-president advanced in his stead. After
a conference, which lasted about ten minutes, a portion of the Sectional
troops marched off, turning a corner of the convent to regain the Rue
Montmartre, and the Republican troops retired to the Palais Royal.
But scarcely had the troops of the Convention disappeared before the
Sectional troops, led by Morgan, reappeared, crying with one accord:
"Down with the Two-thirds! Down with the Convention!"
This cry, starting at the convent of the Daughters of Saint-Thomas,
spread like wild-fire all over Paris. Two or three churches, which had
retained their bells, began to sound the tocsin. This sinister sound,
which had not been heard for more than four years, produced an effect
more terrible than the booming of cannon. It was the coming of a
religious and political reaction, wafted as if upon the wings of the
wind.
It was eleven o'clock at night when the unwelcome sound, together with
word of Menou's advance and its result, reached the hall where the
Convention was in session. All the deputies swarmed into the room,
questioning each other, and unable to believe that the positive command
to surround and disarm the Section Le Peletier had been disobeyed, and
converted into a friendly interview at the end of which both parties had
gone their ways.
But when tidings came that the party of the Section, instead of
dispersing, had retraced their steps, and, from their convent as from a
fortress, defied and insulted the Convention, Chénier sprang to the
tribune.
Imbittered by the cruel accusation, which followed him as long as he
lived, and even beyond the grave, that he had allowed his brother André
to be executed through jealousy, Marie-Joseph Chénier always advocated
the harshest and most expeditious measures.
"Citizens!" he cried, "I cannot believe what we have just been told. A
retreat before the enemy is a misfortune, but retreat before rebels is
treason. Before I descend from this tribune I want to know whether the
will of the majority of the French people is to be respected, or whether
we are to bow before the authority of the Sections--we, the will of the
nation. I demand that the government be called to account before the
Assembly for what has taken place in Paris."
Shouts of approbation followed this energetic appeal, and Chénier's
motion was unanimously agreed to.
CHAPTER XV
THE NIGHT OF THE 12TH AND THE 13TH VENDÉMIAIRE
Delaunay (d'Angers), a member of the government, mounted the tribune to
reply in its name.
"Citizens," he said, "I have just been told that the Section Le Peletier
is hemmed in on all sides."
Applause greeted these words from all sides; but a voice rang out above
them, crying: "That is not true."
"And I tell you," continued Delaunay, "that it is true."
"That is not true," repeated the same voice with still greater firmness.
"I have just come from the Section Le Peletier, and I know. Our troops
have retreated, and the Sectionists are masters of Paris."
Just then the noise of many cries, footsteps, and vociferations
resounded in the corridors. A flood of people swept into the room,
terrible and resistless as a tidal wave. The tribunes were invaded; the
wave flowed round them. A hundred voices cried in the crowd: "To arms!
To arms! To prison with General Menou! We are betrayed."
"I demand," cried Chénier, standing upon his seat, "I demand that
General Menou be arrested, that he be tried on the spot, and that, if he
be guilty, he be shot in the courtyard."