Blakeney was not at his lodgings when Armand arrived there that evening,
nor did he return, whilst the young man haunted the precincts of St.
Germain l’Auxerrois and wandered along the quays hours and hours at
a stretch, until he nearly dropped under the portico of a house,
and realised that if he loitered longer he might lose consciousness
completely, and be unable on the morrow to be of service to Jeanne.
He dragged his weary footsteps back to his own lodgings on the heights
of Montmartre. He had not found Percy, he had no news of Jeanne;
it seemed as if hell itself could hold no worse tortures than this
intolerable suspense.
He threw himself down on the narrow palliasse and, tired nature
asserting herself, at last fell into a heavy, dreamless torpor, like the
sleep of a drunkard, deep but without the beneficent aid of rest.
It was broad daylight when he awoke. The pale light of a damp, wintry
morning filtered through the grimy panes of the window. Armand jumped
out of bed, aching of limb but resolute of mind. There was no doubt that
Percy had failed in discovering Jeanne’s whereabouts; but where a mere
friend had failed a lover was more likely to succeed.
The rough clothes which he had worn yesterday were the only ones he had.
They would, of course, serve his purpose better than his own, which
he had left at Blakeney’s lodgings yesterday. In half an hour he was
dressed, looking a fairly good imitation of a labourer out of work.
He went to a humble eating house of which he knew, and there, having
ordered some hot coffee with a hunk of bread, he set himself to think.
It was quite a usual thing these days for relatives and friends of
prisoners to go wandering about from prison to prison to find out where
the loved ones happened to be detained. The prisons were over full
just now; convents, monasteries, and public institutions had all been
requisitioned by the Government for the housing of the hundreds of
so-called traitors who had been arrested on the barest suspicion, or at
the mere denunciation of an evil-wisher.
There were the Abbaye and the Luxembourg, the erstwhile convents of
the Visitation and the Sacre-Coeur, the cloister of the Oratorians, the
Salpetriere, and the St. Lazare hospitals, and there was, of course,
the Temple, and, lastly, the Conciergerie, to which those prisoners were
brought whose trial would take place within the next few days, and whose
condemnation was practically assured.
Persons under arrest at some of the other prisons did sometimes come
out of them alive, but the Conciergerie was only the ante-chamber of the
guillotine.
Therefore Armand’s idea was to visit the Conciergerie first. The sooner
he could reassure himself that Jeanne was not in immediate danger the
better would he be able to endure the agony of that heart-breaking
search, that knocking at every door in the hope of finding his beloved.
If Jeanne was not in the Conciergerie, then there might be some hope
that she was only being temporarily detained, and through Armand’s
excited brain there had already flashed the thought that mayhap the
Committee of General Security would release her if he gave himself up.
These thoughts, and the making of plans, fortified him mentally and
physically; he even made a great effort to eat and drink, knowing that
his bodily strength must endure if it was going to be of service to
Jeanne.
He reached the Quai de l’Horloge soon after nine. The grim, irregular
walls of the Chatelet and the house of Justice loomed from out the
mantle of mist that lay on the river banks. Armand skirted the square
clock-tower, and passed through the monumental gateways of the house of
Justice.
He knew that his best way to the prison would be through the halls and
corridors of the Tribunal, to which the public had access whenever the
court was sitting. The sittings began at ten, and already the usual
crowd of idlers were assembling--men and women who apparently had no
other occupation save to come day after day to this theatre of horrors
and watch the different acts of the heartrending dramas that were
enacted here with a kind of awful monotony.
Armand mingled with the crowd that stood about the courtyard, and anon
moved slowly up the gigantic flight of stone steps, talking lightly on
indifferent subjects. There was quite a goodly sprinkling of workingmen
amongst this crowd, and Armand in his toil-stained clothes attracted no
attention.
Suddenly a word reached his ear--just a name flippantly spoken by
spiteful lips--and it changed the whole trend of his thoughts. Since he
had risen that morning he had thought of nothing but of Jeanne, and--in
connection with her--of Percy and his vain quest of her. Now that
name spoken by some one unknown brought his mind back to more definite
thoughts of his chief.
“Capet!” the name--intended as an insult, but actually merely
irrelevant--whereby the uncrowned little King of France was designated
by the revolutionary party.
Armand suddenly recollected that to-day was Sunday, the 19th of January.
He had lost count of days and of dates lately, but the name, “Capet,”
had brought everything back: the child in the Temple; the conference in
Blakeney’s lodgings; the plans for the rescue of the boy. That was to
take place to-day--Sunday, the 19th. The Simons would be moving from the
Temple, at what hour Blakeney did not know, but it would be today, and
he would be watching his opportunity.
Now Armand understood everything; a great wave of bitterness swept over
his soul. Percy had forgotten Jeanne! He was busy thinking of the child
in the Temple, and whilst Armand had been eating out his heart with
anxiety, the Scarlet Pimpernel, true only to his mission, and impatient
of all sentiment that interfered with his schemes, had left Jeanne to
pay with her life for the safety of the uncrowned King.
But the bitterness did not last long; on the contrary, a kind of wild
exultation took its place. If Percy had forgotten, then Armand could
stand by Jeanne alone. It was better so! He would save the loved one; it
was his duty and his right to work for her sake. Never for a moment did
he doubt that he could save her, that his life would be readily accepted
in exchange for hers.
The crowd around him was moving up the monumental steps, and Armand went
with the crowd. It lacked but a few minutes to ten now; soon the court
would begin to sit. In the olden days, when he was studying for the law,
Armand had often wandered about at will along the corridors of the house
of Justice. He knew exactly where the different prisons were situated
about the buildings, and how to reach the courtyards where the prisoners
took their daily exercise.
To watch those aristos who were awaiting trial and death taking their
recreation in these courtyards had become one of the sights of
Paris. Country cousins on a visit to the city were brought hither
for entertainment. Tall iron gates stood between the public and the
prisoners, and a row of sentinels guarded these gates; but if one was
enterprising and eager to see, one could glue one’s nose against the
ironwork and watch the ci-devant aristocrats in threadbare
clothes trying to cheat their horror of death by acting a farce of
light-heartedness which their wan faces and tear-dimmed eyes effectually
belied.
All this Armand knew, and on this he counted. For a little while he
joined the crowd in the Salle des Pas Perdus, and wandered idly up and
down the majestic colonnaded hall. He even at one time formed part of
the throng that watched one of those quick tragedies that were enacted
within the great chamber of the court. A number of prisoners brought
in, in a batch; hurried interrogations, interrupted answers, a
quick indictment, monstrous in its flaring injustice, spoken by
Foucquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, and listened to in all
seriousness by men who dared to call themselves judges of their fellows.
The accused had walked down the Champs Elysees without wearing a
tricolour cockade; the other had invested some savings in an English
industrial enterprise; yet another had sold public funds, causing them
to depreciate rather suddenly in the market!
Sometimes from one of these unfortunates led thus wantonly to butchery
there would come an excited protest, or from a woman screams of agonised
entreaty. But these were quickly silenced by rough blows from the
butt-ends of muskets, and condemnations--wholesale sentences of
death--were quickly passed amidst the cheers of the spectators and the
howls of derision from infamous jury and judge.
Oh! the mockery of it all--the awful, the hideous ignominy, the blot
of shame that would forever sully the historic name of France. Armand,
sickened with horror, could not bear more than a few minutes of this
monstrous spectacle. The same fate might even now be awaiting Jeanne.
Among the next batch of victims to this sacrilegious butchery he might
suddenly spy his beloved with her pale face and cheeks stained with her
tears.
He fled from the great chamber, keeping just a sufficiency of presence
of mind to join a knot of idlers who were drifting leisurely towards the
corridors. He followed in their wake and soon found himself in the long
Galerie des Prisonniers, along the flagstones of which two days ago de
Batz had followed his guide towards the lodgings of Heron.
On his left now were the arcades shut off from the courtyard beyond by
heavy iron gates. Through the ironwork Armand caught sight of a number
of women walking or sitting in the courtyard. He heard a man next to him
explaining to his friend that these were the female prisoners who would
be brought to trial that day, and he felt that his heart must burst at
the thought that mayhap Jeanne would be among them.
He elbowed his way cautiously to the front rank. Soon he found himself
beside a sentinel who, with a good-humoured jest, made way for him that
he might watch the aristos. Armand leaned against the grating, and his
every sense was concentrated in that of sight.
At first he could scarcely distinguish one woman from another amongst
the crowd that thronged the courtyard, and the close ironwork hindered
his view considerably. The women looked almost like phantoms in the grey
misty air, gliding slowly along with noiseless tread on the flag-stones.
Presently, however, his eyes, which mayhap were somewhat dim with tears,
became more accustomed to the hazy grey light and the moving figures
that looked so like shadows. He could distinguish isolated groups now,
women and girls sitting together under the colonnaded arcades, some
reading, others busy, with trembling fingers, patching and darning a
poor, torn gown. Then there were others who were actually chatting and
laughing together, and--oh, the pity of it! the pity and the shame!--a
few children, shrieking with delight, were playing hide and seek in and
out amongst the columns.
And, between them all, in and out like the children at play, unseen, yet
familiar to all, the spectre of Death, scythe and hour-glass in hand,
wandered, majestic and sure.
Armand’s very soul was in his eyes. So far he had not yet caught sight
of his beloved, and slowly--very slowly--a ray of hope was filtering
through the darkness of his despair.
The sentinel, who had stood aside for him, chaffed him for his
intentness.
“Have you a sweetheart among these aristos, citizen?” he asked. “You
seem to be devouring them with your eyes.”
Armand, with his rough clothes soiled with coal-dust, his face grimy and
streaked with sweat, certainly looked to have but little in common
with the ci-devant aristos who formed the hulk of the groups in the
courtyard. He looked up; the soldier was regarding him with obvious
amusement, and at sight of Armand’s wild, anxious eyes he gave vent to a
coarse jest.
“Have I made a shrewd guess, citizen?” he said. “Is she among that lot?”
“I do not know where she is,” said Armand almost involuntarily.
“Then why don’t you find out?” queried the soldier.
The man was not speaking altogether unkindly. Armand, devoured with the
maddening desire to know, threw the last fragment of prudence to the
wind. He assumed a more careless air, trying to look as like a country
bumpkin in love as he could.
“I would like to find out,” he said, “but I don’t know where to inquire.
My sweetheart has certainly left her home,” he added lightly; “some say
that she has been false to me, but I think that, mayhap, she has been
arrested.”
“Well, then, you gaby,” said the soldier good-humouredly, “go straight
to La Tournelle; you know where it is?”
Armand knew well enough, but thought it more prudent to keep up the air
of the ignorant lout.
“Straight down that first corridor on your right,” explained the other,
pointing in the direction which he had indicated, “you will find the
guichet of La Tournelle exactly opposite to you. Ask the concierge for
the register of female prisoners--every freeborn citizen of the Republic
has the right to inspect prison registers. It is a new decree framed for
safeguarding the liberty of the people. But if you do not press half a
livre in the hand of the concierge,” he added, speaking confidentially,
“you will find that the register will not be quite ready for your
inspection.”
“Half a livre!” exclaimed Armand, striving to play his part to the end.
“How can a poor devil of a labourer have half a livre to give away?”
“Well! a few sous will do in that case; a few sous are always welcome
these hard times.”
Armand took the hint, and as the crowd had drifted away momentarily to
a further portion of the corridor, he contrived to press a few copper
coins into the hand of the obliging soldier.
Of course, he knew his way to La Tournelle, and he would have covered
the distance that separated him from the guichet there with steps flying
like the wind, but, commending himself for his own prudence, he walked
as slowly as he could along the interminable corridor, past the several
minor courts of justice, and skirting the courtyard where the male
prisoners took their exercise.
At last, having struck sharply to his left and ascended a short flight
of stairs, he found himself in front of the guichet--a narrow wooden
box, wherein the clerk in charge of the prison registers sat nominally
at the disposal of the citizens of this free republic.
But to Armand’s almost overwhelming chagrin he found the place entirely
deserted. The guichet was closed down; there was not a soul in sight.
The disappointment was doubly keen, coming as it did in the wake of
hope that had refused to be gainsaid. Armand himself did not realise
how sanguine he had been until he discovered that he must wait and wait
again--wait for hours, all day mayhap, before he could get definite news
of Jeanne.
He wandered aimlessly in the vicinity of that silent, deserted, cruel
spot, where a closed trapdoor seemed to shut off all his hopes of a
speedy sight of Jeanne. He inquired of the first sentinels whom he came
across at what hour the clerk of the registers would be back at
his post; the soldiers shrugged their shoulders and could give no
information. Then began Armand’s aimless wanderings round La Tournelle,
his fruitless inquiries, his wild, excited search for the hide-bound
official who was keeping from him the knowledge of Jeanne.
He went back to his sentinel well-wisher by the women’s courtyard, but
found neither consolation nor encouragement there.
“It is not the hour--quoi?” the soldier remarked with laconic
philosophy.
It apparently was not the hour when the prison registers were placed at
the disposal of the public. After much fruitless inquiry, Armand at last
was informed by a bon bourgeois, who was wandering about the house of
Justice and who seemed to know its multifarious rules, that the prison
registers all over Paris could only be consulted by the public between
the hours of six and seven in the evening.
There was nothing for it but to wait. Armand, whose temples were
throbbing, who was footsore, hungry, and wretched, could gain nothing by
continuing his aimless wanderings through the labyrinthine building.
For close upon another hour he stood with his face glued against the
ironwork which separated him from the female prisoners’ courtyard. Once
it seemed to him as if from its further end he caught the sound of that
exquisitely melodious voice which had rung forever in his ear since that
memorable evening when Jeanne’s dainty footsteps had first crossed
the path of his destiny. He strained his eyes to look in the direction
whence the voice had come, but the centre of the courtyard was planted
with a small garden of shrubs, and Armand could not see across it. At
last, driven forth like a wandering and lost soul, he turned back and
out into the streets. The air was mild and damp. The sharp thaw had
persisted through the day, and a thin, misty rain was falling and
converting the ill-paved roads into seas of mud.
But of this Armand was wholly unconscious. He walked along the quay
holding his cap in his hand, so that the mild south wind should cool his
burning forehead.
How he contrived to kill those long, weary hours he could not afterwards
have said. Once he felt very hungry, and turned almost mechanically
into an eating-house, and tried to eat and drink. But most of the day he
wandered through the streets, restlessly, unceasingly, feeling neither
chill nor fatigue. The hour before six o’clock found him on the Quai
de l’Horloge in the shadow of the great towers of the Hall of Justice,
listening for the clang of the clock that would sound the hour of his
deliverance from this agonising torture of suspense.
He found his way to La Tournelle without any hesitation. There before
him was the wooden box, with its guichet open at last, and two stands
upon its ledge, on which were placed two huge leather-bound books.
Though Armand was nearly an hour before the appointed time, he saw when
he arrived a number of people standing round the guichet. Two soldiers
were there keeping guard and forcing the patient, long-suffering
inquirers to stand in a queue, each waiting his or her turn at the
books.
It was a curious crowd that stood there, in single file, as if waiting
at the door of the cheaper part of a theatre; men in substantial cloth
clothes, and others in ragged blouse and breeches; there were a few
women, too, with black shawls on their shoulders and kerchiefs round
their wan, tear-stained faces.
They were all silent and absorbed, submissive under the rough handling
of the soldiery, humble and deferential when anon the clerk of the
registers entered his box, and prepared to place those fateful books at
the disposal of those who had lost a loved one--father, brother, mother,
or wife--and had come to search through those cruel pages.
From inside his box the clerk disputed every inquirer’s right to consult
the books; he made as many difficulties as he could, demanding the
production of certificates of safety, or permits from the section. He
was as insolent as he dared, and Armand from where he stood could see
that a continuous if somewhat thin stream of coppers flowed from the
hands of the inquirers into those of the official.
It was quite dark in the passage where the long queue continued to swell
with amazing rapidity. Only on the ledge in front of the guichet there
was a guttering tallow candle at the disposal of the inquirers.
Now it was Armand’s turn at last. By this time his heart was beating so
strongly and so rapidly that he could not have trusted himself to speak.
He fumbled in his pocket, and without unnecessary preliminaries he
produced a small piece of silver, and pushed it towards the clerk, then
he seized on the register marked “Femmes” with voracious avidity.
The clerk had with stolid indifference pocketed the half-livre; he
looked on Armand over a pair of large bone-rimmed spectacles, with the
air of an old hawk that sees a helpless bird and yet is too satiated to
eat. He was apparently vastly amused at Armand’s trembling hands, and
the clumsy, aimless way with which he fingered the book and held up the
tallow candle.
“What date?” he asked curtly in a piping voice.
“What date?” reiterated Armand vaguely.
“What day and hour was she arrested?” said the man, thrusting his
beak-like nose closer to Armand’s face. Evidently the piece of silver
had done its work well; he meant to be helpful to this country lout.
“On Friday evening,” murmured the young man.
The clerk’s hands did not in character gainsay the rest of his
appearance; they were long and thin, with nails that resembled the
talons of a hawk. Armand watched them fascinated as from above they
turned over rapidly the pages of the book; then one long, grimy finger
pointed to a row of names down a column.
“If she is here,” said the man curtly, “her name should be amongst
these.”
Armand’s vision was blurred. He could scarcely see. The row of names was
dancing a wild dance in front of his eyes; perspiration stood out on his
forehead, and his breath came in quick, stertorous gasps.
He never knew afterwards whether he actually saw Jeanne’s name there in
the book, or whether his fevered brain was playing his aching senses a
cruel and mocking trick. Certain it is that suddenly amongst a row of
indifferent names hers suddenly stood clearly on the page, and to him it
seemed as if the letters were writ out in blood.
582. Belhomme, Louise, aged sixty. Discharged.
And just below, the other entry:
583. Lange, Jeanne, aged twenty, actress. Square du Roule
No.5. Suspected of harbouring traitors and ci-devants.
Transferred 29th Nivose to the Temple, cell 29.
He saw nothing more, for suddenly it seemed to him as if some one held
a vivid scarlet veil in front of his eyes, whilst a hundred claw-like
hands were tearing at his heart and at his throat.
“Clear out now! it is my turn--what? Are you going to stand there all
night?”
A rough voice seemed to be speaking these words; rough hands apparently
were pushing him out of the way, and some one snatched the candle out
of his hand; but nothing was real. He stumbled over a corner of a loose
flagstone, and would have fallen, but something seemed to catch hold of
him and to lead him away for a little distance, until a breath of cold
air blew upon his face.
This brought him back to his senses.
Jeanne was a prisoner in the Temple; then his place was in the prison of
the Temple, too. It could not be very difficult to run one’s head into
the noose that caught so many necks these days. A few cries of “Vive le
roi!” or “A bas la republique!” and more than one prison door would gape
invitingly to receive another guest.
The hot blood had rushed into Armand’s head. He did not see clearly
before him, nor did he hear distinctly. There was a buzzing in his ears
as of myriads of mocking birds’ wings, and there was a veil in front
of his eyes--a veil through which he saw faces and forms flitting
ghost-like in the gloom, men and women jostling or being jostled,
soldiers, sentinels; then long, interminable corridors, more crowd and
more soldiers, winding stairs, courtyards and gates; finally the open
street, the quay, and the river beyond.
An incessant hammering went on in his temples, and that veil never
lifted from before his eyes. Now it was lurid and red, as if stained
with blood; anon it was white like a shroud but it was always there.
Through it he saw the Pont-au-Change, which he crossed, then far down
on the Quai de l’Ecole to the left the corner house behind St. Germain
l’Auxerrois, where Blakeney lodged--Blakeney, who for the sake of a
stranger had forgotten all about his comrade and Jeanne.
Through it he saw the network of streets which separated him from the
neighbourhood of the Temple, the gardens of ruined habitations, the
closely-shuttered and barred windows of ducal houses, then the mean
streets, the crowded drinking bars, the tumble-down shops with their
dilapidated awnings.
He saw with eyes that did not see, heard the tumult of daily life round
him with ears that did not hear. Jeanne was in the Temple prison,
and when its grim gates closed finally for the night, he--Armand, her
chevalier, her lover, her defender--would be within its walls as near to
cell No. 29 as bribery, entreaty, promises would help him to attain.
Ah! there at last loomed the great building, the pointed bastions cut
through the surrounding gloom as with a sable knife.
Armand reached the gate; the sentinels challenged him; he replied:
“Vive le roi!” shouting wildly like one who is drunk.
He was hatless, and his clothes were saturated with moisture. He tried
to pass, but crossed bayonets barred the way. Still he shouted:
“Vive le roi!” and “A bas la republique!”
“Allons! the fellow is drunk!” said one of the soldiers.
Armand fought like a madman; he wanted to reach that gate. He shouted,
he laughed, and he cried, until one of the soldiers in a fit of rage
struck him heavily on the head.
Armand fell backwards, stunned by the blow; his foot slipped on the wet
pavement. Was he indeed drunk, or was he dreaming? He put his hand up to
his forehead; it was wet, but whether with the rain or with blood he
did not know; but for the space of one second he tried to collect his
scattered wits.
“Citizen St. Just!” said a quiet voice at his elbow.
Then, as he looked round dazed, feeling a firm, pleasant grip on his
arm, the same quiet voice continued calmly:
“Perhaps you do not remember me, citizen St. Just. I had not the honour
of the same close friendship with you as I had with your charming
sister. My name is Chauvelin. Can I be of any service to you?”