AT NIMES.
It will be believed that I looked on the city with no common emotions.
I had heard enough at Villeraugues--and to that enough M. de Geol had
added by the way a thousand details--to satisfy me that here and not
in the north, here in the Gard, and the Bouches du Rhone, among the
olive groves and white dust of the south, and not among the
wheatfields and pastures of the north, the fate of the nation hung in
the balance; and that not in Paris--where men would and yet would not,
where Mirabeau and Lafayette, in fear of the mob, took one day a step
towards the King, and the next, fearful lest restored he should
punish, retraced it--could the convulsion be arrested, but here! Here,
where the warm imagination of the Provencal still saw something holy
in things once holy, and faction bound men to faith.
Hitherto the stream of revolution had met with no check. Obstacles
apparently the strongest, the King, the nobles, had crumbled and sunk
before it, almost without a struggle; it remained to be seen whether
the third and last of the governing powers, the Church, would fare
better. Clearly, if Froment were right, and faith must be met by
faith, and bigotry of one kind be opposed by bigotry of another kind,
here in the valley of the Rhone, where the Church still kept its hold,
lay the materials nearest to the enthusiast's hand. In that case--and
with this in my mind, I took my first long look at the city, and the
wide low plain that lay beyond it, bathed in the sunset light--in that
case, from this spot might fly a torch to kindle France! Hence might
start within the next few days a conflagration as wide as the land;
that taken up, and roaring ever higher and higher through all La
Vendee, and Brittany, and the Cotes du Nord, might swiftly ring round
Paris with a circle of flame.
Once get it fairly alight. But there lay the doubt; and I looked
again, and looked with eager curiosity, at this city from which so
much was expected; this far-stretching city of flat roofs and white
houses, trending gently down from the last spurs of the Cevennes to
the Rhone plain. North of it, in the outskirts rose three low hills,
the midmost crowned with a tower, the eastern-most casting a shadow
almost to the distant river; and from these, eastward and southward,
the city sloped. And these hills, and the roads near us, and the plain
already verdant, and the great workshops that here and there rose in
the faubourgs, all, as we approached, seemed to teem with life and
people; with people coming and going, alone and in groups, sauntering
beyond the walls for pleasure, or hastening on business.
Of these, I noticed all wore a badge of some kind; many the tricolour,
but more a red ribbon, a red tuft, a red cockade--emblems at sight of
which my companions' faces grew darker, and ever darker. Another thing
characteristic of the place, the tinkling of many bells, calling to
vespers--though I found the sound fall pleasantly on the evening
air--was as little to their taste. They growled together, and
increased their pace; the result of which was that insensibly I fell
to the rear. As we entered the streets, the traffic that met us, and
the keenness with which I looked about me, increased the distance
between us; presently, a long line of carts and a company of National
Guards intervening, I found myself riding alone, a hundred paces
behind them.
I was not sorry; the novelty of the shifting crowd, the changing
faces, the southern patois, the moving string of soldiers, peasants,
workmen, women, amused me. I was less sorry when by-and-by
something--something which I had dimly imagined might happen when I
reached Nimes--took real shape, there, in the crooked street; and
struck me, as it were, in the face. As I passed under a barred window
a little above the roadway, a window on which my eyes alighted for an
instant, a white hand waved a handkerchief--for an instant only, just
long enough for me to take in the action and think of Denise! Then, as
I jerked the reins, the handkerchief was gone, the window was empty,
on either side of me the crowd chattered, and jostled on its way.
I pulled up mechanically, and looked round, my heart beating. I could
see no one near me for whom the signal could be intended; and yet--it
seemed odd. I could hardly believe in such good fortune; or that I had
found Denise so soon. However, as my eyes returned doubtfully to the
window, the handkerchief flickered in it again; and this time the
signal was so unmistakably meant for me that, shamed out of my
prudence, I pushed my horse through the crowd to the door, and hastily
dismounting, threw the rein to an urchin who stood near. I was shy of
asking him who lived in the house; and with a single glance at the
dull white front, and the row of barred windows that ran below the
balcony, I resigned myself to fortune, and knocked.
On the instant the door flew open, and a servant appeared. I had not
considered what I would say, and for a moment I stared at him
foolishly. Then, at a venture, on the spur of the moment, I asked if
Madame received.
He answered very civilly that she did, and held the door open for me
to enter.
I did so, confused and wondering; none the less when, having crossed a
spacious hall, paved with black and white marble, and followed him up
a staircase, I found everything I saw round me, from the man's quiet
livery to the mouldings of the ceiling, wearing the stamp of elegance
and refinement. Pedestals, supporting marble busts, stood in the
angles of the staircase; there were orange trees in jars in the hall,
and antique fragments adorned the walls. However, I saw these only in
passing; in a moment I reached the head of the stairs, and the man
opening a door, stood aside.
I entered the room, my eyes shining; in a dream, an impossible dream,
that held possession of me for one moment, that Denise--not
Mademoiselle de St. Alais, but Denise, the girl who loved me and with
whom I had never been alone, might be there to receive me. Instead, a
stranger rose slowly from a seat in one of the window bays, and, after
a moment's hesitation, came forward to meet me; a strange lady, tall,
grave, and very handsome, whose dark eyes scanned me seriously, while
the blood rose a little to her pure olive cheek.
Seeing that she was a stranger, I began to stammer an apology for my
intrusion. She curtsied. "Monsieur need not excuse himself," she said,
smiling. "He was expected, and a meal is ready. If you will allow
Gervais," she continued, "he will take you to a room, where you can
remove the dust of the road."
"But, Madame," I stammered, still hesitating. "I am afraid that I am
trespassing."
She shook her head, smiling. "Be so good," she said; and waved her
hand towards the door.
"But my horse," I answered, standing bewildered. "I have left it in
the street."
"It will be cared for," she said. "Will you be so kind?" And she
pointed with a little imperious gesture to the door.
I went then in utter amazement. The man who had led me upstairs was
outside. He preceded me along a wide airy passage to a bedroom, in
which I found all that I needed to refresh my toilet. He took my coat
and hat, and attended me with the skill of one trained to such
offices; and in a state of desperate bewilderment, I suffered it. But
when, recovering a little from my confusion, I opened my mouth to ask
a question, he begged me to excuse him; Madame would explain.
"Madame----?" I said; and looked at him interrogatively, and waited
for him to fill the blank.
"Yes, Monsieur, Madame will explain," he answered glibly, and without
a smile; and then, seeing that I was ready, he led me back, not to the
room I had left, but to another.
I went in, like a man in a dream; not doubting, however, that now I
should have an answer to the riddle. But I found none. The room was
spacious, and parquet-floored, with three high narrow windows, of
which one, partly open, let in the murmur of the street. A small wood
fire burned on a wide hearth between carved marble pillars; and in one
corner of the room stood a harpsichord, harp, and music-stand. Nearer
the fire a small round table, daintily laid for supper, and lighted by
candles, placed in old silver sconces, presented a charming picture;
and by it stood the lady I had seen.
"Are you cold?" she said, coming forward frankly, as I advanced.
"No, Madame."
"Then we will sit down at once," she answered. And she pointed to the
table.
I took the seat she indicated, and saw with astonishment that covers
were laid for two only. She caught the look, and blushed faintly, and
her lip trembled as if with the effort to suppress a smile. But she
said nothing, and any thought to her disadvantage which might have
entered my mind was anticipated, not only by the sedate courtesy of
her manner, but by the appearance of the room, the show of wealth and
ease that surrounded her, and the very respectability of the butler
who waited on us.
"Have you ridden far to-day?" she said, crumbling a roll with her
fingers as if she were not quite free from nervousness; and looking
now at the table and now again at me in a way almost appealing.
"From Sauve, Madame," I answered.
"Ah! And you propose to go?"
"No farther."
"I am glad to hear it," she said, with a charming smile. "You are a
stranger in Nimes?"
"I was. I do not feel so now."
"Thank you," she answered, her eyes meeting mine without reserve.
"That you may feel more at home, I am going presently to tell you my
name. Yours I do not ask."
"You do not know it?" I cried.
"No," she said, laughing; and I saw, as she laughed, that she was
younger than I had thought; that she was little more than a girl. "Of
course, you can tell it me if you please," she added lightly.
"Then, Madame, I do please," I answered gallantly. "I am the Vicomte
de Saux, of Saux by Cahors, and am very much at your service."
She held her hand suspended, and stared at me a moment in undisguised
astonishment. I even thought that I read something like terror in her
eyes. Then she said: "Of Saux by Cahors?"
"Yes, Madame. And I am driven to fear," I continued, seeing the effect
my words produced, "that I am here in the place of some one else."
"Oh, no!" she said. Then, her feelings seeming to find sudden vent,
she laughed and clapped her hands. "No, Monsieur," she cried gaily,
"there is no error, I assure you. On the contrary, now I know who you
are, I will give you a toast. Alphonse! Fill M. le Vicomte's glass,
and then leave us! So! Now, M. le Vicomte," she continued, "you must
drink with me, _a l'Anglaise_, to----"
She paused and looked at me slily. "I am all attention, Madame," I
said, bowing.
"To _la belle_ Denise!" she said.
It was my turn to start and stare now; in confusion as well as
surprise. But she only laughed the more, and, clapping her hands with
childish abandon, bade me, "Drink, Monsieur, drink!"
I did so bravely, though I coloured under her eyes.
"That is well," she said, as I set down the glass. "Now, Monsieur, I
shall be able--in the proper quarter--to report you no recreant."
"But, Madame," I said, "how do you know the proper quarter?"
"How do I know?" she answered naively. "Ah, that is the question."
But she did not answer it; though I remarked that from this moment she
took a different tone with me. She dropped much of the reserve which
she had hitherto maintained, and began to pour upon me a fire of wit
and badinage, merriment and _plaisanterie_, against which I defended
myself as well as I could, where all the advantage of knowledge lay
with her. Such a duel with so fair an antagonist had its charms, the
more as Denise and my relations to her formed the main objects of her
raillery: yet I was not sorry when a clock, striking eight, produced a
sudden silence and a change in her, as great as that which had
preceded it. Her face grew almost sombre, she sighed, and sat looking
gravely before her. I ventured to ask if anything ailed her.
"Only this, Monsieur," she answered. "That I must now put you to the
test; and you may fail me."
"You wish me to do something?"
"I wish you to give me your escort," she answered, "to a place and
back again."
"I am ready," I cried, rising gaily. "If I were not I should be a
recreant indeed. But I think, Madame, that you were going to tell me
your name."
"I am Madame Catinot," she answered. And then--I do not know what she
read in my face, "I am a widow," she added, blushing deeply. "For the
rest you are no wiser."
"But always at your service, Madame."
"So be it," she answered quietly. "I will meet you, M. le Vicomte, in
the hall, if you will presently descend thither."
I held the door for her to go out, and she went; and wondering, and
inexpressibly puzzled by the strangeness of the adventure, I paced up
and down the room a minute, and then followed her. A hanging lamp
which lit the hall showed her to me standing at the foot of the
stairs; her hair hidden by a black lace mantilla, her dress under a
cloak of the same dark colour. The man who had admitted me gave me in
silence my cloak and hat; and without a word Madame led the way along
a passage.
Over a door at the end of the passage was a second light. It fell on
my hat--as I was about to put it on--and I started and stood. Instead
of the tricolour I had been wearing in the hat, I saw a small red
cockade!
Madame heard me stop, and turning, discovered what was the matter. She
laid her hand on my arm; and the hand trembled. "For an hour,
Monsieur, only for an hour," she breathed in my ear. "Give me your
arm."
Somewhat agitated--I began to scent danger and complications--I put on
the hat and gave her my arm, and in a moment we stood in the open air
in a dark, narrow passage between high walls. She turned at once to
the left, and we walked in silence a hundred, or a hundred and fifty,
paces, which brought us to a low-browed doorway on the same side,
through which a light poured out. Madame guiding me by a slight
pressure, we passed through this, and a narrow vestibule beyond it;
and in a moment I found myself, to my astonishment, in a church, half
full of silent worshippers.
Madame enjoined silence by laying her finger on her lip, and led the
way along one of the dim aisles, until we came to a vacant chair
beside a pillar. She signed to me to stand by the pillar, and herself
knelt down.
Left at liberty to survey the scene, and form my conclusions, I looked
about me like a man in a dream. The body of the church, faintly lit,
was rendered more gloomy by the black cloaks and veils of the vast
kneeling crowd that filled the nave and grew each moment more dense.
The men for the most part stood beside pillars, or at the back of the
church; and from these parts came now and then a low stern muttering,
the only sound that broke the heavy silence. A red lamp burning before
the altar added one touch of sombre colour to the scene.
I had not stood long before I felt the silence, and the crowd, and the
empty vastnesses above us, begin to weigh me down; before my heart
began to beat quickly in expectation of I knew not what. And then at
last, when this feeling had grown almost intolerable, out of the
silence about the altar came the first melancholy notes, the wailing
refrain of the psalm, _Miserere Domine!_
It had a solemn and wondrous effect as it rose and fell, in the gloom,
in the silence, above the heads of the kneeling multitude, who one
moment were there and the next, as the lights sank, were gone, leaving
only blackness and emptiness and space--and that spasmodic wailing. As
the pleading, almost desperate notes, floated down the long aisles,
borne on the palpitating hearts of the listeners, a hand seemed to
grasp the throat, the eyes grew dim, strong men's heads bowed lower,
and strong men's hands trembled. _Miserere mei Deus! Miserere Domine!_
At last it came to an end. The psalm died down, and on the darkness
and dead silence that succeeded, a light flared up suddenly in one
place, and showed a pale, keen face and eyes that burned, as they
gazed, not at the dim crowd, but into the empty space above them,
whence grim, carved visages peered vaguely out of fretted vaults. And
the preacher began to preach.
In a low voice at first, and with little emotion, he spoke of the ways
of God with His creatures, of the immensity of the past and the
littleness of the present, of the Omnipotence before which time and
space and men were nothing; of the certainty that as God, the
Almighty, the Everlasting, the Ever-present decreed, it _was_. And
then, in fuller tones, he went on to speak of the Church, God's agent
on earth, and of the work which it had done in past ages, converting,
protecting, shielding the weak, staying the strong, baptising,
marrying, burying. God's handmaid, God's vicegerent. "Of whom alone it
comes," the preacher continued, raising his hand now, and speaking in
a voice that throbbed louder and fuller through the spaces of the
church, "that we are more than animals, that knowing who is behind the
veil we fear not temporal things, nor think of death as the worst
possible, as do the unbelieving; but having that on which we rest,
outside and beyond the world, can view unmoved the worst that the
world can do to us. We believe; therefore, we are strong. We believe
in God; therefore, we are stronger than the world. We believe in God;
therefore, we are of God, and not of the world. We are above the
world! we are about the world, and in the strength of God, who is the
God of Hosts, shall subdue the world."
He paused, holding the crowd breathless; then in a lower tone he
continued: "Yet how do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain
thing? They trample on God! They say this exists, I see it. That
exists, I hear it. The other exists, I touch it. And that is all--that
is all. But does it come of what we see and hear and feel that a man
will die for his brother? Does it come of what we see and hear
and feel that a man will die for a thought? That he will die for a
creed? That he will die for honour? That, withal, he will die for
anything--for anything, while he may live? I trow not. It comes of
God! Of God only.
"And they trample on Him. In the streets, in the senate, in high
places. And He says, 'Who is on My side?' My children, my brethren, we
have lived long in a time of ease and safety; we have been long
untried by aught but the ordinary troubles of life, untrained by the
imminent issues of life and death. Now, in these late years of the
world, it has pleased the Almighty to try us; and who is on His side?
Who is prepared to put the unseen before the seen, honour before life,
God before man, chivalry before baseness, the Church before the world?
Who is on His side? Spurned in this little corner of His creation,
bruised and bleeding and trampled under foot, yet ruler of earth and
heaven, life and death, judgment and eternity, ruler of all the
countless worlds of space, He comes! He comes! He comes, God Almighty,
which was, and is, and is to be! And who is on His side?"
As the last word fell from his lips, and the light above his head went
suddenly out, and darkness fell on the breathless hush, the listening
hundreds, an indescribable wave of emotion passed through the crowd.
Men stirred their feet with a strange, stern sound, that spreading,
passed in muttered thunder to the vaults; while women sobbed, and here
and there shrieked and prayed aloud. From the altar a priest in a
voice that shook with feeling blessed the congregation; then, even as
I awoke from a trance of attention, Madame touched my arm, and signed
to me to follow her, and gliding quickly from her place, led the way
down the aisle. Before the preacher's last words had ceased to ring in
my ears or my heart had forgotten to be moved, we were walking under
the stars with the night air cooling our faces; a moment, and we were
in the house and stood again in the lighted salon where I had first
found Madame Catinot.
Before I knew what she was going to do, she turned to me with a swift
movement, and laid both her bare hands on my arm; and I saw that the
tears were running down her face. "Who is on My side?" she cried, in a
voice that thrilled me to the soul, so that I started where I stood.
"Who is on My side? Oh, surely you! Surely you, Monsieur, whose
fathers' swords were drawn for God and the King! Who, born to guide,
are surely on the side of light! Who, noble, will never leave the task
of government to the base! O----" and there, breaking off before I
could answer, she turned from me with her hands clasped to her face.
"O God!" she cried with sobs, "give me this man for Thy service."
I stood inexpressibly troubled; moved by the sight of this woman in
tears, shaken by the conflict in my own soul, somewhat unmanned,
perhaps, by what I had seen. For a moment I could not speak; when I
did, "Madame," I said unsteadily, "if I had known that it was for
this! You have been kind to me, and I--I can make no return."
"Don't say it!" she cried, turning to me and pleading with me. "Don't
say it!" And she laid her clasped hands on my arm and looked at me,
and then in a moment smiled through her tears. "Forgive me," she said
humbly, "forgive me. I went about it wrongly. I feel--too much. I
asked too quickly. But you will? You will, Monsieur? You will be
worthy of yourself?"
I groaned. "I hold their commission," I said.
"Return it!"
"But that will not acquit me!"
"Who is on My side?" she said softly. "Who is on My side?"
I drew a deep breath. In the silence of the room, the wood-ashes on
the hearth settled down, and a clock ticked. "For God! For God and the
King!" she said, looking up at me with shining eyes, with clasped
hands.
I could have sworn in my pain. "To what purpose?" I cried almost
rudely. "If I were to say, yes, to what purpose, Madame? What could I
do that would help you? What could I do that would avail?"
"Everything! Everything! You are one man more!" she cried. "One man
more for the right. Listen, Monsieur. You do not know what is afoot,
or how we are pressed, or----"
She stopped suddenly, abruptly; and looked at me, listening; listening
with a new expression on her face. The door was not closed, and the
voice of a man, speaking in the hall below, came up the staircase;
another instant, and a quick foot crossed the hall, and sounded on the
stairs. The man was coming up.
Madame, face to face with me, dumb and listening with distended eyes,
stood a moment, as if taken by surprise. At the last moment, warning
me by a gesture to be silent, she swept to the door and went out,
closing it--not quite closing it behind her.
I judged that the man had almost reached it, for I heard him exclaim
in surprise at her sudden appearance; then he said something in a tone
which did not reach me. I lost her answer too, but his next words were
audible enough.
"You will not open the door?" he cried.
"Not of that room," she replied bravely. "You can see me in the other,
my friend."
Then silence. I could almost hear them breathing. I could picture them
looking defiance at one another. I grew hot.
"Oh, this is intolerable!" he cried at last. "This is not to be borne.
Are you to receive every stranger that comes to town? Are you to be
closeted with them, and sup with them, and sit with them, while I eat
my heart out outside? Am I--I _will_ go in!"
"You shall not!" she cried; but I thought that the indignation in her
voice rang false; that laughter underlay it. "It is enough that you
insult me," she continued proudly. "But if you dare to touch me, or if
you insult him----"
"Him!" he cried fiercely. "Him, indeed! Madame, I tell you at once, I
have borne enough. I have suffered this more than once, but----"
But I had no longer any doubt, and before he could add the next word I
was at the door--I had snatched it open, and stood before him. Madame
fell back with a cry between tears and laughter, and we stood, looking
at one another.
The man was Louis St. Alais.