ON THE EVE OF BATTLE.
Madam Lebrenn was agreeably surprised at seeing her son, whom she did
not expect, thinking he was at the College. Velleda tenderly embraced
her brother, while the merchant himself pressed the hand of his wife.
The resolute carriage of Sacrovir Lebrenn suggested the thought that he
was worthy of bearing the glorious name of the hero of ancient Gaul, one
of the greatest patriots of the land recorded in history.
Marik Lebrenn's son was a strapping lad of slightly over nineteen years.
He had an open, kind and bold countenance. A sprouting beard shaded his
lip and chin. His full cheeks were rosy, and looked bright with
animation. He very much resembled his father.
Madam Lebrenn embraced her son, saying:
"I did not expect the pleasure, son, of seeing you here to-day."
"I went to the College for him," explained the merchant. "You will
presently know the reason, my dear Henory."
"Without being exactly uneasy about you," said Madam Lebrenn to her
husband, "Velleda and I were beginning to wonder what kept you away so
long. It seems that the commotion in Paris is on the increase. Do you
know they sounded the call to arms?"
"Oh! Mother," cried Sacrovir with eyes that sparkled with enthusiasm,
"Paris has the fever--it follows that all hearts must be beating more
strongly. Without knowing one another, people look for and understand at
a glance. On all the streets the words you hear are ardent, patriotic
appeals to arms. In short, it smells of gunpowder. Oh, mother! mother!"
added the young man with exaltation, "what a beautiful sight is the
awakening of a people!"
"Keep cool, enthusiast that you are!" said Madam Lebrenn.
And with her handkerchief she wiped the perspiration that stood in drops
on her son's forehead. In the meantime Monsieur Lebrenn embraced his
daughter.
"Gildas," the merchant called out to his clerk, "some chests must have
been brought in during my absence."
"Yes, monsieur, linen bales and looking glasses. They have been
deposited in the rear room."
"Very well--they can remain there. Be careful no fire comes near the
bales."
"They must be inflammable stuff like bolting-cloth, muslin or gauze,"
Gildas thought to himself, "and yet they are heavy as lead--another
puzzling thing!"
"My dear friend," Lebrenn said to his wife, "I have matters to talk over
with you. Shall we go up to your room with the children, while Jeanike
sets the table? It is getting late. You, Gildas, may put up the
shutters. We shall have but few customers this afternoon."
"Close up the shop! Oh, monsieur, I think you are very right!" cried
Gildas delightedly. "I thought so long ago."
And as he ran to execute the orders of his employer, the latter said to
him:
"Stop a moment, Gildas. Do not close the front door. I expect several
people to call for me. If they come take them to the rear room and
notify me."
"Yes, monsieur," answered Gildas with a sigh, seeing he would have
preferred to see the shop closed tight, and the door protected with its
good strong iron bars, and bolted from within.
"And now, my dear," Lebrenn proceeded to say to his wife, "we shall go
up to your room."
It was by this time almost dark. The merchant's family mounted to the
first floor, and gathered in Madam Lebrenn's bedroom. The merchant then
addressed his wife in a grave voice:
"My dear Henory, we are on the eve of great events."
"I believe it, my friend," answered Madam Lebrenn thoughtfully.
"I shall tell you in a few words how the situation has shaped itself
to-day," proceeded Lebrenn. "Then judge whether my plan is good or bad;
oppose it, if you disapprove, or encourage me if you approve."
"I listen, my friend," answered Madam Lebrenn calm, serious and
thoughtful, like one of our mothers of old at the solemn councils where
their views prevailed more than once.
Monsieur Lebrenn proceeded:
"After having carried on their agitation in France during three months
by means of reform banquets, the deputies yesterday summoned the people
to the street. Heart seemed to have failed the intrepid agitators at the
last moment. They did not dare to appear at the rendezvous which they
themselves had set. The people came in order to maintain their right of
assemblage and to run their own business. It is now rumored that the
King has appointed a cabinet out of the leaders of the dynastic center.
This concession does not satisfy us. What we want, what the people want,
is the total overthrow of the monarchy; we want the Republic, which
means sovereignty for all--political rights for all--in order to insure
education, wellbeing, work, and credit to all, provided we are brave and
honest. That is our program, wife! Is it right or wrong?"
"Right!" answered Madam Lebrenn in a tone of firm conviction. "It is
right!"
"I told you what we want," proceeded Lebrenn. "I shall now mention what
we want no longer--we no longer want that two hundred thousand
privileged electors be the sole arbiters of the fate of thirty-eight
million proletarians or small holders, similar to what happened when a
trifling minority of conquerors, Roman or Frankish, despoiled, enslaved
and exploited our fathers for twenty centuries. No, we want an electoral
or industrial feudality no more than we will tolerate the feudality of
conquerors! Wife, is that right, or is it wrong?"
"It is right! Serfdom and even slavery have in reality perpetuated
themselves down to our own days," answered Madam Lebrenn with
indignation. "It is right! I am a woman, and I have seen women, the
slaves of an insufficient wage, die by degrees, exhausted by excessive
toil and want. It is right! I am a mother, I have seen young girls, the
virtual slaves of certain manufacturers, forced to choose between
dishonor and enforced idleness, which means hunger. It is right! I am a
wife, and I have seen fathers of families, honest, industrious and
intelligent traders, the slaves and victims of the whim or the usurious
cupidity of their seigneurs the large capitalists, suffer bankruptcy,
and be plunged into ruin and despair. Finally, your resolution is good
and just, my friend," added Madam Lebrenn, extending her hand to her
husband, "because, if you have hitherto been fortunate enough to escape
many a snare, it is your duty to go to the assistance of those of our
brothers who are afflicted with misfortunes that we remain exempt from."
"Brave and generous woman! You redouble my strength and courage," said
the merchant, pressing Madam Lebrenn's hand in ecstacy. "I expected no
less from you. But just as are the rights that we demand for our
brothers, they will have to be conquered by force, arms in hand."
"I believe it, my friend."
"Accordingly," proceeded the merchant, "to-night, the
barricades--to-morrow, battle. That is the reason why I fetched my son
from his College. Do you approve? Shall he remain with us?"
"Yes," answered Madam Lebrenn. "Your son's place is at your side."
"Oh, thank you, mother!" cried the young man, joyously embracing his
mother, who clasped him to her breast.
"Look at him, father," said Velleda to the merchant with a smile and
nodding toward Sacrovir, "he looks as happy as if he were graduated."
"But tell me, my friend," asked Madam Lebrenn, addressing the merchant,
"will the barricade, on which you and my son are to fight, be near our
place? on this street?"
"It will be at our very door," answered Lebrenn. "Agreed?"
"All the better!" exclaimed Madam Lebrenn. "We shall be there--near
you."
"Mother," interjected Velleda, "should we not prepare lint to-night, and
bandages? There will be many wounded."
"I was thinking of that, my child. Our shop will serve as
field-hospital."
"Oh, mother! Sister!" cried the young man. "We are to fight--and under
your very eyes--for liberty! How that will inspire us! Alas," he added
after a moment's reflection, "why should this be, this fratricidal
duel?"
"It is a sad fact, my boy," answered Lebrenn with a sigh. "Oh, may the
blood shed in such a strife fall upon the heads of those who compel the
people to take up arms for their rights--as we shall have to do
to-morrow--as our fathers have done in almost every century of our
history!"
"Thank God, at least in our days the struggle takes place without
hatred," replied the young man. "The soldier fights in the name of
discipline--the people in the name of their rights. It is a deadly duel,
but a loyal one, after which the surviving adversaries shake hands."
"But seeing these are survivers only, and I or my son may be laid low on
the barricade," replied Monsieur Lebrenn with a benign smile, "there is
one thing more I wish to impress upon you, my children. As you will see,
where others turn pale with fright we will smile with serenity. Why?
Because death does not exist for us; because, brought up in the belief
of our fathers, instead of seeing in what is called the close of life
only a dismal and fear-inspiring ending that plunges us into eternal
darkness we see in death only the severance of the soul from the body,
which emancipates the former, leaving it free to rejoin, or to wait for
the sooner or later arrival of, those whom we love, and reunite with
them on the other side of the veil, which, during our terrestrial life,
hides from us the marvelous, the dazzling mysteries of our future lives,
infinite lives as various as the divine power from which they emanate.
To us, death is but a new birth."
"That is the picture I have of death," cried Sacrovir. "I feel sure I
will die overmastered by curiosity. What new, wonderful, dazzling worlds
there will be to visit!"
"Brother is right," put in the young girl with no less curiosity. "It
must be beautiful to behold! novel! marvelous! And, besides, never more
to be separated from our beloved ones but temporarily in all eternity!
What a variety of infinite voyages there are to be made by us together
in our new incarnations in the stars! Oh, when I think of that, mother,
my head grows dizzy with impatience to see and know!"
"Go to, you inquisitive girl! Be not so impatient," answered Madam
Lebrenn, smiling, and in a tone of affectionate reproach. "You know,
when you were small, I always scolded you when, at your drawing lessons,
you seemed to give less thought to the model that you were copying than
to those that you were to copy later. Well, my dear child, do not allow
your curiosity, however natural it may be, to ascertain what is on the
other side of the curtain, as your father expresses it, to cause your
mind to wander too much away from that which is on this side."
"Oh, you may be easy, mother, on that score!" answered the young girl
affectionately. "On this side of the curtain are you and father and
brother--quite enough to keep my mind from wandering."
"Just see how time is wasted in philosophizing!" interjected Lebrenn.
"Jeanike will soon be calling us to supper, and still I shall not have
told you a word of what I meant to confide to you. In case _my curiosity
should be satisfied before yours_, my dear Henory," the merchant
proceeded to say to his wife, pointing to a desk, "you will find there
my last will. It is no secret to you. We have but one heart. But this,"
added Lebrenn, drawing a folded but not sealed letter from his pocket,
"concerns our dear daughter. You are to give it to her after reading it
yourself."
Velleda colored slightly, realizing that it referred to her marriage.
"As to you, my boy," proceeded the merchant, addressing his son, "take
this key," and he detached it from his watch chain. "It is the key of
the room with the closed windows which, until now, only your mother and
I have entered. On the 11th of September of next year you will be
twenty-one years of age. On that day, but not before, open the door.
Among other things you will find a manuscript in the cabinet. It will
impart to you the information of the immemorial tradition of our
family--because," added Lebrenn interrupting himself with a smile, "we
plebeians, we of the conquered race, we also have our archives,
proletarian archives, often as glorious, you may believe me, as those of
our conquerors. You will then learn, as I was saying, that, obedient to
a family tradition, at the age of twenty-one the eldest son or, in
default of a son, the eldest daughter, or our nearest of kin is to
acquaint himself with our family archives and several relics that are
gathered with them. And now, my loved ones," added Lebrenn in a moved
voice, rising and throwing his arms around his wife and children, "a
last embrace. Before to-morrow's sun goes down, we may be temporarily
separated; the possibility of a separation ever saddens one a little."
It was a touching picture. Monsieur Lebrenn held his wife and children
in a close embrace. His wife hung upon his neck, while with his right
arm he held his daughter, and with his left his son. He pressed them
all ardently to his breast, and they in turn held their father in their
loving arms.
The touching group, a symbol of the family, remained silent for a few
moments. Only the sound of exchanging kisses was heard. Their emotion
once calmed, the group separated; heads were again held up serene,
though affected: the mother and daughter grave and serious; the father
and son tranquil and resolute.
"And now," resumed the merchant, "to work, my children. You, wife, will
see to getting lint and bandages ready, with the help of your daughter
and Jeanike. Sacrovir and I, while waiting for the hour when the
barricades are to be simultaneously thrown up all over Paris, will
unpack the cartridges and arms which a large number of our brothers will
call for."
"But where are the arms, my friend?" inquired Madam Lebrenn.
"The chests," answered the merchant smiling, "the chests and bales that
came in to-day."
"Oh, I now understand!" exclaimed Madam Lebrenn. "But you will have to
take Gildas into your confidence. He is, no doubt, an honest lad. Still,
do you not fear--"
"At this hour, my dear Henory, the mask may be raised. An indiscretion
is no longer to be feared. If poor Gildas is afraid, I shall allow him
to hide himself in some nook in the garret--or in the cellar. And now,
first of all, to supper. After supper you and Velleda shall come up
again with Jeanike to get everything in readiness for the hospital. We
shall remain in the shop, Sacrovir and I, because we shall have a lot of
company to-night."
The merchant and his family descended back into the shop and went to
supper in the rear room, where their meal was hastily despatched.
The agitation grew intenser on the street with every minute. From the
distance the muffled rumbling could be heard of large surging masses. It
sounded threateningly, like the distant blast of an approaching storm. A
few windows on the street were lighted in honor of the change of Cabinet
officers. But some friends of Monsieur Lebrenn's, who came in and went
out again several times to bring tidings of what was afoot, reported
that the royal concessions were interpreted as a sign of weakness, that
the night would be decisive, that everywhere the people were arming
themselves by entering certain appointed houses and demanding guns,
after which they would take their departure, leaving on the door an
inscription in chalk--"Arms delivered."
After supper, Madam Lebrenn, her daughter and the maid returned upstairs
to the first floor, into a room that faced the street. The merchant, his
son and Gildas remained in the rear of the shop.
Gildas was gifted by nature with a robust appetite; nevertheless, he did
not partake of supper. His uneasiness grew at every instant; with more
insistence than ever he whispered to Jeanike, or muttered to himself:
"A puzzling house! A puzzling street! Altogether a puzzling city!"
"Gildas," called Lebrenn, "fetch me a couple of hammers and chisels. My
son and I shall open these cases, while you may rip up the bales."
"The bales of linen, monsieur?"
"Yes--rip them open with your knife."
Furnished with hammers and chisels, the merchant and Sacrovir began to
pry open the chests, while Gildas, who had rolled one of the bales flat
on the floor, knelt down beside it and made ready to cut it open.
"Monsieur!" he suddenly cried, frightened by the hard blows that Lebrenn
was dealing to the chest with his hammer. "Monsieur! If it please you,
take care--look at the lettering on the chests--_glass_! You will break
the looking-glasses to pieces!"
"Do not be frightened, Gildas," answered his employer, "these looking
glasses are of solid material."
"They are plated with lead and iron, my friend Gildas," added Sacrovir,
striking still more heavily.
"More and more puzzling!" muttered Gildas to himself as he again went
down on his knees beside one of the bales in order to rip it open. In
order to furnish himself with more light at his work he took a candle,
and placed it upon the floor beside him. He was just about to remove the
heavy outer wrappage of coarse grey burlap when Monsieur Lebrenn, who
only then noticed the illumination which his shop-assistant had provided
himself with, cried out:
"Hold, Gildas! Are you crazy? Put the candle back on the table, quick.
The devil take it! You would blow us all up, my boy!"
"Blow us all up!" echoed Gildas, terror-stricken, and he bounded away
from the bale, while Sacrovir himself placed the candle on the table.
"What should blow us up?"
"The cartridges, my lad, which these bales contain. You must look out
what you are doing."
"Cartridges!" ejaculated the amazed Gildas, stepping still further back,
and more and more overcome with fear, while his employer took out two
guns from the chest which he had just opened, and his son drew from the
same receptacle several braces of pistols, muskets and carbines.
At the sight of these weapons, and knowing himself surrounded by
cartridges, the head of Gildas swam, he grew pale, and leaning against a
table again muttered to himself:
"A puzzling house, this! Its bales of linen are filled with cartridges!
Its looking glasses turn into guns and muskets and pistols!"
"My good Gildas," said Lebrenn, addressing him affectionately, "there is
no danger whatever in unpacking these arms and munitions. That is all I
want you to do. After you have done that, you may, if you prefer, either
go down into the cellar, or climb up into the garret, where you can
remain in all security until after the battle. Because, I might as well
let you know, there will be fighting going on with the break of day.
Once you are ensconced in the hiding place that you may choose, all I
warn you against is sticking your nose either out of the sky-light or
out of the air-hole when the firing has begun--not infrequently bullets
fly astray."
The linendraper's words--stray bullets, fighting, firing--completely
plunged Gildas into a vertigo that is easily imaginable. He had not
expected to find in the St. Denis quarter a stronghold of belligerency.
Other events soon crowded upon each other, all conspiring to increase
the terror of Gildas. Fresh clamors, at first distant, drew perceptibly
nearer and nearer, and finally seemed to explode with such fury that not
only Lebrenn and his son, but Gildas also, ran to the shop door in order
to ascertain what was happening on the street.