NOBLESSE OBLIGE.
Yet he was not the first to speak. One of the men behind him took a
step forward, and cried, "That is the man! See, he still has the
gun-barrel."
"Seize him, then," M. de St. Alais replied. "And take him from here!
Monsieur," he continued, addressing me grimly, and with a grim eye,
"whoever you are, when you undertook to be a spy you counted the cost,
I suppose? Take him away, my men!"
Two of the fellows strode forward, and in a moment seized my arms; and
in the surprise of M. de St. Alais' appearance and the astonishment
his words caused me, I made no resistance. But in such emergencies the
mind works quickly, and in a trice I recovered myself. "This is
nonsense, M. de St. Alais!" I said. "You know well that I am no spy.
You know why I am here. And for the matter of that----"
"I know nothing!" he answered.
"But----"
"I know nothing, I say!" he repeated, with a mocking gesture. "Except,
Monsieur, that we find you here in a monk's dress, when you are
clearly no monk. You had better have tried to swim the Rhone at flood,
than entered this house to-night--I tell you that! Now away with him!
His case will be dealt with below."
But this was too much. I wrested my hands from the men who held me,
and sprang back. "You lie!" I cried. "You know who I am, and why I am
here!"
"I do not know you," he answered stubbornly. "Nor do I know why you
are here. I once knew a man like you; that is true. But he was a
gentleman, and would have died before he would have saved himself by a
lie--by a trumped-up tale. Take him away. He has frightened
Mademoiselle to death. I suppose he found the door open, and slipped
in, and thought himself safe."
At last I understood what he meant, and that in his passion he would
sacrifice one rather than bring in his sister's name. Nay, I saw more;
that he viewed with a cruel exultation the dilemma in which he had
placed me; and my brow grew damp, as I looked round wildly, trying to
solve the question. I had the sounds of street fighting still in my
ears; I knew that men staking all in such a strife owned few scruples
and scant mercy. I could see that this man in particular was maddened
by the losses and humiliations which he had suffered; and I stood in
the way of his schemes. The risk existed, therefore, and was no mere
threat; it seemed foolish quixotism to run it.
And yet--and yet I hesitated. I even let the men urge me half-way
to the door; and then--heaven knows what I should have done or whether
I could have seen my way plainly--the knot was cut for me. With
a scream, Denise, who since her brother's entrance had leaned,
half-fainting, against the wall, sprang forward, and seized him by the
arm.
"No, no!" she cried in a choked voice. "No! You will not, you will not
do this! Have pity, have mercy! I----"
"Mademoiselle!" he said, cutting her short quietly, but with a gleam
of rage in his eyes. "You are overwrought, and forget yourself. The
scene has been too much for you. Here!" he continued sharply to the
maid, "take care of your mistress. The man is a spy, and not worthy of
her pity."
But Denise clung to him. "He is no spy!" she cried, in a voice that
went to my heart. "He is no spy, and you know it!"
"Hush, girl! Be silent!" he answered furiously.
But he had not counted on a change in her, beside which the change in
him was petty. "I will not!" she answered, "I will not!" and to my
astonishment, releasing the arm to which she had hitherto clung, and
shaking back from her face the hair which her violent movements had
loosened, she stood out and defied him. "I will not!" she cried. "He
is no spy, and you know it, Monsieur! He is my lover," she continued,
with a superb gesture, "and he came to see me. Do you understand? He
was contracted to me, and he came to see me!"
"Girl, are you mad?" he snarled in the breathless hush of the room,
the hush that followed as all looked at her.
"I am not mad," she answered, her eyes burning in her white face.
"Then if you feel no shame do you feel no fear?" he retorted in a
terrible voice.
"No!" she cried. "For I love! And I love him."
I will not say what I felt when I heard that, myself helpless. For one
thing, I was in so great a rage I scarcely knew what I felt; and for
another, the words were barely spoken before M. le Marquis seized the
girl roughly by the waist, and dragged her, screaming and resisting,
to the other end of the room.
This was the signal for a scene indescribable. I sprang forward to
protect her; in an instant the three men flung themselves upon me, and
bore me by sheer weight towards the door. St. Alais, foaming with
rage, shouted to them to remove me, while I called him coward, and
cursed him and strove desperately to get at him. For a moment I made
head against them all, though they were three to one; the maid's
screaming added to the uproar. Then the odds prevailed; and in a
minute they had me out, and had closed the door on her and her cries.
I was panting, breathless, furious. But the moment it was done and the
door shut, a kind of calm fell upon us. The men relaxed their hold on
me, and stood looking at me quietly; while I leaned against the wall,
and glowered at them. Then, "There, Monsieur, have no more of that!"
one of them said civilly enough. "Go peaceably, and we will be easy
with you; otherwise----"
"He is a cowardly hound!" I cried with a sob.
"Softly, Monsieur, softly."
There were five of them, for two had remained at the door. The passage
was dark, but they had a lantern, and we waited in silence two or
three minutes. Then the door opened a few inches, and the man who
seemed to be the leader went to it, and having received his orders,
returned.
"Forward!" he said. "In No. 6. And do you, Petitot, fetch the key."
The man named went off quickly, and we followed more slowly along the
corridor; the steady tramp of my guards, as they marched beside me,
awaking sullen echoes that rolled away before us. The yellow light of
the lantern showed a white-washed wall on either side, broken on the
right hand by a dull line of doors, as of cells. We halted presently
before one of these, and I thought that I was to be confined there;
and my courage rose, for I should still be near Denise. But the door,
when opened, disclosed only a little staircase which we descended in
single file, and so reached a bare corridor similar to that above.
Half-way along this we stopped again, beside an open window, through
which the night wind came in so strongly as to stir the hair, and
force the man who carried the lantern to shield the light under
his skirts. And not the night wind only; with it entered all the
noises of the night and the disturbed city; hoarse cries and cheers,
and the shrill monotonous jangle of bells, and now and then a
pistol-shot--noises that told only too eloquently what was passing
under the black veil that hid the chaos of streets and houses below
us. Nay, in one place the veil was rent, and through the gap a ruddy
column poured up from the roofs, dispersing sparks--the hot glare of
some great fire, that blazing in the heart of the city, seemed to make
the sky sharer in the deeds and horrors that lay beneath it.
The men with me pressed to the window, and peered through it, and
strained eyes and ears; and little wonder. Little wonder, too, that
the man who was responsible for all, and had staked all, walked the
roof above with tireless steps. For the struggle below was the one
great struggle of the world, the struggle that never ceases between
the old and the new: and it was being fought as it had been fought in
Nimes for centuries, savagely, ruthlessly, over kennels running with
blood. Nor could the issue be told; only, that as it was here, it was
likely to be through half of France. We who stood at that window,
looked into the darkness with actual eyes; but across the border at
Turin, and nearer at Sommieres and Montpellier, thousands of Frenchmen
bearing the greatest names of France, watched also--watched with faces
turned to Nimes, and hearts as anxious as ours.
I gathered from the talk of those round me, that M. Froment had seized
the Arenes, and garrisoned it, and that the flames we saw were those
of one of the Protestant churches; that as yet the patriots, taken by
surprise, made little resistance, and that if the Reds could hold for
twenty-four hours longer what they had seized, the arrival of the
troops from Montpellier would then secure all, and at the same time
stamp the movement with the approval of the highest parties.
"But it was a near thing," one of the men muttered. "If we had
not been at their throats to-night, they would have been at ours
to-morrow!"
"And now, not half the companies have turned out."
"But the villages will come in in the morning," a third cried eagerly.
"They are to toll all the bells from here to the Rhone."
"Ay, but what if the Cevennols come in first? What then, man?"
No one had an answer to this, and all stood watching eagerly, until
the sound of footsteps approaching along the passage caused the men to
draw in their heads. "Here is the key," said the leader. "Now,
Monsieur!"
But it was not the key that disturbed us, nor Petitot, who had been
sent for it, but a very tall man, cloaked, and wearing his hat, who
came hastily along the corridor with three or four behind him. As he
approached he called out, "Is Buzeaud here?"
The man who had spoken before stood out respectfully. "Yes, Monsieur."
"Take half a dozen men, the stoutest you have downstairs," the new
comer answered--it was Froment himself--"and get as many more from the
Vierge, and barricade the street leading beside the barracks to the
Arsenal. You will find plenty of helpers. And occupy some of the
houses so as to command the street. And--But what is this?" he
continued, breaking off sharply, as his eyes, passing over the group,
stopped at me. "How does this gentleman come here? And in this dress?"
"M. le Marquis arrested him--upstairs."
"M. le Marquis?"
"Yes, Monsieur, and ordered him to be confined in No. 6 for the
present."
"Ah!"
"As a spy."
M. Froment whistled softly, and for a moment we looked at one another.
The wavering light of the lanterns, and perhaps the tension of the
man's feelings, deepened the harsh lines of his massive features, and
darkened the shadows about his eyes and mouth; but presently he drew a
deep breath, and smiled, as if something whimsical in the situation
struck him. "So we meet again, M. le Vicomte," he said with that. "I
remember now that I have something of yours. You have come for it, I
suppose?"
"Yes, Monsieur, I have come for it," I said defiantly, giving him back
look for look; and I saw that he understood.
"And M. le Marquis found you upstairs?"
"Yes."
"Ah!" For a moment he seemed to reflect. Then, turning to the
men. "Well, you can go, Buzeaud. I will be answerable for this
gentleman--who had better remove that masquerade. And do you," he
continued, addressing the two or three who had come with him, "wait
for me above. Tell M. Flandrin--it is my last word--that whatever
happens the Mayor must not raise the flag for the troops. He may tell
him what he pleases from me--that I will hang him from the highest
window of the tower, if he likes--but it must not be done. You
understand?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"Then go. I will be with you presently."
They went, leaving a lantern on the floor; and in a moment Froment and
I were alone. I stood expectant, but he did not look at me. Instead,
he turned to the open window, and leaning on the sill, gazed into the
night, and so remained for some time silent; whether the orders he had
just given had really diverted his thoughts into another channel, or
he had not made up his mind how to treat me, I cannot determine. More
than once I heard him sigh, however; and at last he said abruptly,
"Only three companies have risen?"
I do not know what moved me, but I answered in the same spirit. "Out
of how many?" I said coolly.
"Thirteen," he answered. "We are out-numbered. But we moved first, we
have the upper hand, and we must keep it. And if the villagers come in
to-morrow----"
"And the Cevennols do not."
"Yes; and if the officers can hold the Guienne regiment within
barracks, and the Mayor does not hoist the flag, calling them out, and
the Calvinists do not surprise the Arsenal--I think we may be able to
do so."
"But the chances are?"
"Against us. The more need, Monsieur"--for the first time he turned
and looked at me with a sort of dark pride glowing in his face--"of a
man! For--do you know what we are fighting for down there? France!
France!" he continued bitterly, and letting his emotion appear, "and I
have a few hundred cutthroats and rascals and shavelings to do the
work, while all the time your fine gentlemen lie safe and warm across
the frontier, waiting to see what will happen! And I run risks, and
they hold the stakes! I kill the bear, and they take the skin. They
are safe, and if I fail I hang like Favras! Faugh! It is enough to
make a man turn patriot and cry '_Vive la Nation!_'"
He did not wait for my answer, but impatiently snatching up the
lantern, he made a sign to me to follow him, and led the way down the
passage. He had said not a word of my presence in the house, of my
position, of Mademoiselle St. Alais, or how he meant to deal with me;
and at the door, not knowing what was in his mind, I touched his
shoulder and stopped him.
"Pardon me," I said, with as much dignity as I could assume, "but I
should like to know what you are going to do with me, Monsieur. I need
not tell you that I did not enter this house as a spy----"
"You need tell me nothing," he answered, cutting me short with
rudeness. "And for what I am going to do with you, it can be told in
half a dozen words. I am going to keep you by me, that if the worst
comes of this--in which event I am not likely to see the week out--you
may protect Mademoiselle de St. Alais and convey her to a place of
safety. To that end your commission shall be restored to you; I have
it safe. If, on the other hand, we hold our own, and light the fire
that shall burn up these cold-blooded _pedants la bas_, then, M. le
Vicomte--I shall have a word to say to you. And we will talk of the
matter as gentlemen."
For a moment I stood dumb with astonishment. We were at the door of
the little staircase--by which I had descended--when he said this; and
as he spoke the last word, he turned, as expecting no answer, and
opened it, and set his foot on the lowest stair, casting the light of
the lantern before him. I plucked him by the sleeve, and he turned,
and faced me.
"M. Froment!" I muttered. And then for the life of me I could say no
more.
"There is no need for words," he said grandly.
"Are you sure--that you know all!" I muttered.
"I am sure that she loves you, and that she does not love me," he
answered with a curling lip and a ring of scorn in his voice. "And
besides that, I am sure of one thing only."
"Yes?"
"That within forty-eight hours blood will flow in every street of
Nimes, and Froment, the bourgeois, will be Froment le Baron--or
nothing! In the former case, we will talk. In the latter," and he
shrugged his shoulders with a gesture a little theatrical, "it will
not matter."
With the word he turned to the stairs, and I followed him up them and
across the upper corridor, and by the outer staircase, where I had
evaded my guide, and so to the roof, and from it by a short wooden
ladder to the leads of a tower; whence we overlooked, lying below us,
all the dim black chaos of Nimes, here rising in giant forms, rather
felt than seen, there a medley of hot lights and deep shadows, thrown
into relief by the glare of the burning church. In three places I
picked out a cresset shining, high up in the sky, as it were; one on
the rim of the Arenes, another on the roof of a distant church, a
third on a tower beyond the town. But for the most part the town was
now at rest. The riot had died down, the bells were silent, the wind
blew salt from the sea and cooled our faces.
There were a dozen cloaked figures on the leads, some gazing down in
silence, others walking to and fro, talking together; but in the
darkness it was impossible to recognise any one. Froment, after
receiving one or two reports, withdrew to the outer side of the tower
overlooking the country, and walked there alone, his head bowed, and
his hands behind him, a desire to preserve his dignity having more to
do with this, or I was mistaken, than any longing for solitude. Still,
the others respected his wishes, and following their example I seated
myself in an embrasure of the battlements, whence the fire, now
growing pale, could be seen.
What were the others' thoughts I cannot say. A muttered word apprised
me that Louis St. Alais was in command at the Arenes; and that M. le
Marquis waited only until success was assured to start for Sommieres,
whence the commandant had promised a regiment of horse should Froment
be able to hold his own without them. The arrangement seemed to me to
be of the strangest; but the Emigres, fearful of compromising the
King, and warned by the fate of Favras--who, deserted by his party,
had suffered for a similar conspiracy a few months before--were
nothing if not timid. And if those round me felt any indignation, they
did not express it.
The majority, however, were silent, or spoke only when some movement
in the town, some outcry or alarm, drew from them a few eager words;
and for myself, my thoughts were neither of the struggle below--where
both parties lay watching each other and waiting for the day--nor of
the morrow, nor even of Denise, but of Froment himself. If the aim of
the man had been to impress me, he had succeeded. Seated there in the
darkness, I felt his influence strong upon me; I felt the crisis as
and because he felt it. I thrilled with the excitement of the
gambler's last stake, because he had thrown the dice. I stood on the
giddy point on which he stood, and looked into the dark future, and
trembled for and with him. My eyes turned from others, and
involuntarily sought his tall figure where he walked alone; with as
little will on my part I paid him the homage due to the man who stands
unmoved on the brink, master of his soul, though death yawns for him.
About midnight there was a general movement to descend. I had eaten
nothing for twelve hours, and I had done much; and, notwithstanding
the dubious position in which I stood, appetite bade me go with the
rest. I went, therefore; and, following the stream, found myself a
minute later on the threshold of a long room, brilliantly lit with
lamps, and displaying tables laid with covers for sixty or more. I
fancied that at the farther end of the apartment, and through an
interval in the crowd of men before me, I caught a glimpse of women,
of jewels, of flashing eyes, and a waving fan; and if anything could
have added to the bewildering abruptness of the change from the dark,
wind-swept leads above to the gay and splendid scene before me it was
this. But I had scant time for reflection. Though I did not advance
far, the press, which separated me from the upper end of the room,
melted quickly, as one after another took his seat amid a hum of
conversation; and in a moment I found myself gazing straight at
Denise, who, white and wan, with a pitiful look in her eyes, sat
beside her mother at the uppermost table, a picture of silent woe.
Madame Catinot and two or three gentlemen and as many ladies were
seated with them.
Whether my eyes drew hers to me, or she glanced that way by chance, in
a moment she looked at me, and rose to her feet with a low gasping
cry, that I felt rather than heard. It was enough to lead Madame St.
Alais' eyes to me, and she too cried out; and in a trice, while a few
between us still talked unconscious, and the servants glided about, I
found all at that farther table staring at me, and myself the focus of
the room. Just then, unluckily, M. St. Alais, rather late, came in; of
course, he too saw me. I heard an oath behind me, but I was intent on
the farther table and Mademoiselle, and it was not until he laid his
hand on my arm that I turned sharply and saw him.
"Monsieur!" he cried, with another oath--and I saw that he was almost
choking with rage--with rage and surprise. "This is too much."
I looked at him in silence. The position was so perplexing that I
could not grasp it.
"How do I find you here?" he continued with violence and in a voice
that drew every eye in the room to me. He was white with anger. He had
left me a prisoner, he found me a guest.
"I hardly know myself," I answered. "But----"
"I do," said a voice behind M. St. Alais. "If you wish to know,
Marquis, M. de Saux is here at my invitation."
The speaker was Froment, who had just entered the room. St. Alais
turned, as if he had been stabbed. "Then I am not!" he cried.
"That is as you please," Froment said steadfastly.
"It is--and I do not please!" the Marquis retorted, with a scornful
glance, and in a tone that rang through the room. "I do not please!"
As I heard him, and felt myself the centre, under the lights,
of all those eyes, I could have fancied that I was again in the St.
Alais' _salon_, listening to the futile oath of the sword; and that
three-quarters of a year had not elapsed since that beginning of all
our troubles, But in a moment Froment's voice roused me from the
dream.
"Very well," he said gravely. "But I think that you forget----"
"It is you who forget," St. Alais cried wildly. "Or you do not
understand--or know--that this gentleman----"
"I forget nothing!" Froment replied with a darkening face. "Nothing,
except that we are keeping my guests waiting. Least of all, do I
forget the aid, Monsieur, which you have hitherto rendered me. But, M.
le Marquis," he continued, with dignity, "it is mine to command
to-night, and it is for me to make dispositions. I have made them, and
I must ask you to comply with them. I know that you will not fail me
at a pinch. I know, and these gentlemen know, that in misfortune you
would be my helper; but I believe also that, all going well, as it
does, you will not throw unnecessary obstacles in my way. Come,
Monsieur; this gentleman will not refuse to sit here. And we will sit
at Madame's table. Oblige me."
M. St. Alais' face was like night, but the other was a man, and his
tone was strenuous as well as courteous; and slowly and haughtily M.
le Marquis, who, I think, had never before in his life given way,
followed him to the farther end of the room. Left alone, I sat down
where I was, eyed curiously by those round me; and myself, finding
something still more curious in this strange banquet while Nimes
watched; this midnight merriment, while the dead still lay in the
streets, and the air quivered, and all the world of night hung,
listening for that which was to come.