"How is it that he has come back again? Who compels her to keep me?
Where is the sense of this sort of thing?"
Rosanette was still sobbing. She remained all the time stretched at the
edge of the divan, with her right cheek resting on her two hands, and
she seemed a being so dainty, so free from self-consciousness, and so
sorely troubled, that he drew closer to her and softly kissed her on the
forehead.
Thereupon she gave him assurances of her affection for him; the Prince
had just left her, they would be free. But she was for the time being
short of money. "You saw yourself that this was so, the other day, when
I was trying to turn my old linings to use." No more equipages now! And
this was not all; the upholsterer was threatening to resume possession
of the bedroom and the large drawing-room furniture. She did not know
what to do.
Frederick had a mind to answer:
"Don't annoy yourself about it. I will pay."
But the lady knew how to lie. Experience had enlightened her. He
confined himself to mere expressions of sympathy.
Rosanette's fears were not vain. It was necessary to give up the
furniture and to quit the handsome apartment in the Rue Drouot. She took
another on the Boulevard Poissonniere, on the fourth floor.
The curiosities of her old boudoir were quite sufficient to give to the
three rooms a coquettish air. There were Chinese blinds, a tent on the
terrace, and in the drawing-room a second-hand carpet still perfectly
new, with ottomans covered with pink silk. Frederick had contributed
largely to these purchases. He had felt the joy of a newly-married man
who possesses at last a house of his own, a wife of his own--and, being
much pleased with the place, he used to sleep there nearly every
evening.
One morning, as he was passing out through the anteroom, he saw, on the
third floor, on the staircase, the shako of a National Guard who was
ascending it. Where in the world was he going?
Frederick waited. The man continued his progress up the stairs, with his
head slightly bent down. He raised his eyes. It was my lord Arnoux!
The situation was clear. They both reddened simultaneously, overcome by
a feeling of embarrassment common to both.
Arnoux was the first to find a way out of the difficulty.
"She is better--isn't that so?" as if Rosanette were ill, and he had
come to learn how she was.
Frederick took advantage of this opening.
"Yes, certainly! at least, so I was told by her maid," wishing to convey
that he had not been allowed to see her.
Then they stood facing each other, both undecided as to what they would
do next, and eyeing one another intently. The question now was, which of
the two was going to remain. Arnoux once more solved the problem.
"Pshaw! I'll come back by-and-by. Where are you going? I go with you!"
And, when they were in the street, he chatted as naturally as usual.
Unquestionably he was not a man of jealous disposition, or else he was
too good-natured to get angry. Besides, his time was devoted to serving
his country. He never left off his uniform now. On the twenty-ninth of
March he had defended the offices of the _Presse_. When the Chamber was
invaded, he distinguished himself by his courage, and he was at the
banquet given to the National Guard at Amiens.
Hussonnet, who was still on duty with him, availed himself of his flask
and his cigars; but, irreverent by nature, he delighted in contradicting
him, disparaging the somewhat inaccurate style of the decrees; and
decrying the conferences at the Luxembourg, the women known as the
"Vesuviennes," the political section bearing the name of "Tyroliens";
everything, in fact, down to the Car of Agriculture, drawn by horses to
the ox-market, and escorted by ill-favoured young girls. Arnoux, on the
other hand, was the upholder of authority, and dreamed of uniting the
different parties. However, his own affairs had taken an unfavourable
turn, and he was more or less anxious about them.
He was not much troubled about Frederick's relations with the Marechale;
for this discovery made him feel justified (in his conscience) in
withdrawing the allowance which he had renewed since the Prince had left
her. He pleaded by way of excuse for this step the embarrassed condition
in which he found himself, uttered many lamentations--and Rosanette was
generous. The result was that M. Arnoux regarded himself as the lover
who appealed entirely to the heart, an idea that raised him in his own
estimation and made him feel young again. Having no doubt that Frederick
was paying the Marechale, he fancied that he was "playing a nice trick"
on the young man, even called at the house in such a stealthy fashion as
to keep the other in ignorance of the fact, and when they happened to
meet, left the coast clear for him.
Frederick was not pleased with this partnership, and his rival's
politeness seemed only an elaborate piece of sarcasm. But by taking
offence at it, he would have removed from his path every opportunity of
ever finding his way back to Madame Arnoux; and then, this was the only
means whereby he could hear about her movements. The earthenware-dealer,
in accordance with his usual practice, or perhaps with some cunning
design, recalled her readily in the course of conversation, and asked
him why he no longer came to see her.
Frederick, having exhausted every excuse he could frame, assured him
that he had called several times to see Madame Arnoux, but without
success. Arnoux was convinced that this was so, for he had often
referred in an eager tone at home to the absence of their friend, and
she had invariably replied that she was out when he called, so that
these two lies, in place of contradicting, corroborated each other.
The young man's gentle ways and the pleasure of finding a dupe in him
made Arnoux like him all the better. He carried familiarity to its
extreme limits, not through disdain, but through assurance. One day he
wrote saying that very urgent business compelled him to be away in the
country for twenty-four hours. He begged of the young man to mount guard
in his stead. Frederick dared not refuse, so he repaired to the
guard-house in the Place du Carrousel.
He had to submit to the society of the National Guards, and, with the
exception of a sugar-refiner, a witty fellow who drank to an inordinate
extent, they all appeared to him more stupid than their cartridge-boxes.
The principal subject of conversation amongst them was the substitution
of sashes for belts. Others declaimed against the national workshops.
One man said:
"Where are we going?"
The man to whom the words had been addressed opened his eyes as if he
were standing on the verge of an abyss.
"Where are we going?"
Then, one who was more daring than the rest exclaimed:
"It cannot last! It must come to an end!"
And as the same kind of talk went on till night, Frederick was bored to
death.
Great was his surprise when, at eleven o'clock, he suddenly beheld
Arnoux, who immediately explained that he had hurried back to set him at
liberty, having disposed of his own business.
The fact was that he had no business to transact. The whole thing was an
invention to enable him to spend twenty-four hours alone with Rosanette.
But the worthy Arnoux had placed too much confidence in his own powers,
so that, now in the state of lassitude which was the result, he was
seized with remorse. He had come to thank Frederick, and to invite him
to have some supper.
"A thousand thanks! I'm not hungry. All I want is to go to bed."
"A reason the more for having a snack together. How flabby you are! One
does not go home at such an hour as this. It is too late! It would be
dangerous!"
Frederick once more yielded. Arnoux was quite a favorite with his
brethren-in-arms, who had not expected to see him--and he was a
particular crony of the refiner. They were all fond of him, and he was
such a good fellow that he was sorry Hussonnet was not there. But he
wanted to shut his eyes for one minute, no longer.
"Sit down beside me!" said he to Frederick, stretching himself on the
camp-bed without taking off his belt and straps. Through fear of an
alarm, in spite of the regulation, he even kept his gun in his hand,
then stammered out some words:
"My darling! my little angel!" and ere long was fast asleep.
Those who had been talking to each other became silent; and gradually
there was a deep silence in the guard-house. Frederick tormented by the
fleas, kept staring about him. The wall, painted yellow, had, half-way
up, a long shelf, on which the knapsacks formed a succession of little
humps, while underneath, the muskets, which had the colour of lead, rose
up side by side; and there could be heard a succession of snores,
produced by the National Guards, whose stomachs were outlined through
the darkness in a confused fashion. On the top of the stove stood an
empty bottle and some plates. Three straw chairs were drawn around the
table, on which a pack of cards was displayed. A drum, in the middle of
the bench, let its strap hang down.
A warm breath of air making its way through the door caused the lamp to
smoke. Arnoux slept with his two arms wide apart; and, as his gun was
placed in a slightly crooked position, with the butt-end downward, the
mouth of the barrel came up right under his arm. Frederick noticed this,
and was alarmed.
"But, no, I'm wrong, there's nothing to be afraid of! And yet, suppose
he met his death!"
And immediately pictures unrolled themselves before his mind in endless
succession.
He saw himself with her at night in a post-chaise, then on a river's
bank on a summer's evening, and under the reflection of a lamp at home
in their own house. He even fixed his attention on household expenses
and domestic arrangements, contemplating, feeling already his happiness
between his hands; and in order to realise it, all that was needed was
that the cock of the gun should rise. The end of it could be pushed
with one's toe, the gun would go off--it would be a mere
accident--nothing more!
Frederick brooded over this idea like a playwright in the agonies of
composition. Suddenly it seemed to him that it was not far from being
carried into practical operation, and that he was going to contribute to
that result--that, in fact, he was yearning for it; and then a feeling
of absolute terror took possession of him. In the midst of this mental
distress he experienced a sense of pleasure, and he allowed himself to
sink deeper and deeper into it, with a dreadful consciousness all the
time that his scruples were vanishing. In the wildness of his reverie
the rest of the world became effaced, and he could only realise that he
was still alive from the intolerable oppression on his chest.
"Let us take a drop of white wine!" said the refiner, as he awoke.
Arnoux sprang to his feet, and, as soon as the white wine was swallowed,
he wanted to relieve Frederick of his sentry duty.
Then he brought him to have breakfast in the Rue de Chartres, at
Parly's, and as he required to recuperate his energies, he ordered two
dishes of meat, a lobster, an omelet with rum, a salad, etc., and
finished this off with a brand of Sauterne of 1819 and one of '42
Romanee, not to speak of the champagne at dessert and the liqueurs.
Frederick did not in any way gainsay him. He was disturbed in mind as if
by the thought that the other might somehow trace on his countenance the
idea that had lately flitted before his imagination. With both elbows on
the table and his head bent forward, so that he annoyed Frederick by his
fixed stare, he confided some of his hobbies to the young man.
He wanted to take for farming purposes all the embankments on the
Northern line, in order to plant potatoes there, or else to organise on
the boulevards a monster cavalcade in which the celebrities of the
period would figure. He would let all the windows, which would, at the
rate of three francs for each person, produce a handsome profit. In
short, he dreamed of a great stroke of fortune by means of a monopoly.
He assumed a moral tone, nevertheless, found fault with excesses and all
sorts of misconduct, spoke about his "poor father," and every evening,
as he said, made an examination of his conscience before offering his
soul to God.
"A little curacao, eh?"
"Just as you please."
As for the Republic, things would right themselves; in fact, he looked
on himself as the happiest man on earth; and forgetting himself, he
exalted Rosanette's attractive qualities, and even compared her with his
wife. It was quite a different thing. You could not imagine a lovelier
person!
"Your health!"
Frederick touched glasses with him. He had, out of complaisance, drunk a
little too much. Besides, the strong sunlight dazzled him; and when they
went up the Rue Vivienne together again, their shoulders touched each
other in a fraternal fashion.
When he got home, Frederick slept till seven o'clock. After that he
called on the Marechale. She had gone out with somebody--with Arnoux,
perhaps! Not knowing what to do with himself, he continued his promenade
along the boulevard, but could not get past the Porte Saint-Martin,
owing to the great crowd that blocked the way.
Want had abandoned to their own resources a considerable number of
workmen, and they used to come there every evening, no doubt for the
purpose of holding a review and awaiting a signal.
In spite of the law against riotous assemblies, these clubs of despair
increased to a frightful extent, and many citizens repaired every day to
the spot through bravado, and because it was the fashion.
All of a sudden Frederick caught a glimpse, three paces away, of M.
Dambreuse along with Martinon. He turned his head away, for M. Dambreuse
having got himself nominated as a representative of the people, he
cherished a secret spite against him. But the capitalist stopped him.
"One word, my dear monsieur! I have some explanations to make to you."
"I am not asking you for any."
"Pray listen to me!"
It was not his fault in any way. Appeals had been made to him; pressure
had, to a certain extent, been placed on him. Martinon immediately
endorsed all that he had said. Some of the electors of Nogent had
presented themselves in a deputation at his house.
"Besides, I expected to be free as soon as----"
A crush of people on the footpath forced M. Dambreuse to get out of the
way. A minute after he reappeared, saying to Martinon:
"This is a genuine service, really, and you won't have any reason to
regret----"
All three stood with their backs resting against a shop in order to be
able to chat more at their ease.
From time to time there was a cry of, "Long live Napoleon! Long live
Barbes! Down with Marie!"
The countless throng kept talking in very loud tones; and all these
voices, echoing through the houses, made, so to speak, the continuous
ripple of waves in a harbour. At intervals they ceased; and then could
be heard voices singing the "Marseillaise."
Under the court-gates, men of mysterious aspect offered sword-sticks to
those who passed. Sometimes two individuals, one of whom preceded the
other, would wink, and then quickly hurry away. The footpaths were
filled with groups of staring idlers. A dense crowd swayed to and fro on
the pavement. Entire bands of police-officers, emerging from the alleys,
had scarcely made their way into the midst of the multitude when they
were swallowed up in the mass of people. Little red flags here and there
looked like flames. Coachmen, from the place where they sat high up,
gesticulated energetically, and then turned to go back. It was a case of
perpetual movement--one of the strangest sights that could be conceived.
"How all this," said Martinon, "would have amused Mademoiselle Cecile!"
"My wife, as you are aware, does not like my niece to come with us,"
returned M. Dambreuse with a smile.
One could scarcely recognise in him the same man. For the past three
months he had been crying, "Long live the Republic!" and he had even
voted in favour of the banishment of Orleans. But there should be an end
of concessions. He exhibited his rage so far as to carry a tomahawk in
his pocket.
Martinon had one, too. The magistracy not being any longer irremovable,
he had withdrawn from Parquet, so that he surpassed M. Dambreuse in his
display of violence.
The banker had a special antipathy to Lamartine (for having supported
Ledru-Rollin) and, at the same time, to Pierre Leroux, Proudhon,
Considerant, Lamennais, and all the cranks, all the Socialists.
"For, in fact, what is it they want? The duty on meat and arrest for
debt have been abolished. Now the project of a bank for mortgages is
under consideration; the other day it was a national bank; and here are
five millions in the Budget for the working-men! But luckily, it is
over, thanks to Monsieur de Falloux! Good-bye to them! let them go!"
In fact, not knowing how to maintain the three hundred thousand men in
the national workshops, the Minister of Public Works had that very day
signed an order inviting all citizens between the ages of eighteen and
twenty to take service as soldiers, or else to start for the provinces
to cultivate the ground there.
They were indignant at the alternative thus put before them, convinced
that the object was to destroy the Republic. They were aggrieved by the
thought of having to live at a distance from the capital, as if it were
a kind of exile. They saw themselves dying of fevers in desolate parts
of the country. To many of them, moreover, who had been accustomed to
work of a refined description, agriculture seemed a degradation; it was,
in short, a mockery, a decisive breach of all the promises which had
been made to them. If they offered any resistance, force would be
employed against them. They had no doubt of it, and made preparations to
anticipate it.
About nine o'clock the riotous assemblies which had formed at the
Bastille and at the Chatelet ebbed back towards the boulevard. From the
Porte Saint-Denis to the Porte Saint-Martin nothing could be seen save
an enormous swarm of people, a single mass of a dark blue shade, nearly
black. The men of whom one caught a glimpse all had glowing eyes, pale
complexions, faces emaciated with hunger and excited with a sense of
wrong.
Meanwhile, some clouds had gathered. The tempestuous sky roused the
electricity that was in the people, and they kept whirling about of
their own accord with the great swaying movements of a swelling sea, and
one felt that there was an incalculable force in the depths of this
excited throng, and as it were, the energy of an element. Then they all
began exclaiming: "Lamps! lamps!" Many windows had no illumination, and
stones were flung at the panes. M. Dambreuse deemed it prudent to
withdraw from the scene. The two young men accompanied him home. He
predicted great disasters. The people might once more invade the
Chamber, and on this point he told them how he should have been killed
on the fifteenth of May had it not been for the devotion of a National
Guard.
"But I had forgotten! he is a friend of yours--your friend the
earthenware manufacturer--Jacques Arnoux!" The rioters had been actually
throttling him, when that brave citizen caught him in his arms and put
him safely out of their reach.
So it was that, since then, there had been a kind of intimacy between
them.
"It would be necessary, one of these days, to dine together, and, since
you often see him, give him the assurance that I like him very much. He
is an excellent man, and has, in my opinion, been slandered; and he has
his wits about him in the morning. My compliments once more! A very good
evening!"
Frederick, after he had quitted M. Dambreuse, went back to the
Marechale, and, in a very gloomy fashion, said that she should choose
between him and Arnoux. She replied that she did not understand "dumps
of this sort," that she did not care about Arnoux, and had no desire to
cling to him. Frederick was thirsting to fly from Paris. She did not
offer any opposition to this whim; and next morning they set out for
Fontainebleau.
The hotel at which they stayed could be distinguished from others by a
fountain that rippled in the middle of the courtyard attached to it. The
doors of the various apartments opened out on a corridor, as in
monasteries. The room assigned to them was large, well-furnished, hung
with print, and noiseless, owing to the scarcity of tourists. Alongside
the houses, people who had nothing to do kept passing up and down; then,
under their windows, when the day was declining, children in the street
would engage in a game of base; and this tranquillity, following so soon
the tumult they had witnessed in Paris, filled them with astonishment
and exercised over them a soothing influence.
Every morning at an early hour, they went to pay a visit to the chateau.
As they passed in through the gate, they had a view of its entire front,
with the five pavilions covered with sharp-pointed roofs, and its
staircase of horseshoe-shape opening out to the end of the courtyard,
which is hemmed in, to right and left, by two main portions of the
building further down. On the paved ground lichens blended their colours
here and there with the tawny hue of bricks, and the entire appearance
of the palace, rust-coloured like old armour, had about it something of
the impassiveness of royalty--a sort of warlike, melancholy grandeur.
At last, a man-servant made his appearance with a bunch of keys in his
hand. He first showed them the apartments of the queens, the Pope's
oratory, the gallery of Francis I., the mahogany table on which the
Emperor signed his abdication, and in one of the rooms cut in two the
old Galerie des Cerfs, the place where Christine got Monaldeschi
assassinated. Rosanette listened to this narrative attentively, then,
turning towards Frederick:
"No doubt it was through jealousy? Mind yourself!" After this they
passed through the Council Chamber, the Guards' Room, the Throne Room,
and the drawing-room of Louis XIII. The uncurtained windows sent forth a
white light. The handles of the window-fastenings and the copper feet of
the pier-tables were slightly tarnished with dust. The armchairs were
everywhere hidden under coarse linen covers. Above the doors could be
seen reliquaries of Louis XIV., and here and there hangings representing
the gods of Olympus, Psyche, or the battles of Alexander.
As she was passing in front of the mirrors, Rosanette stopped for a
moment to smooth her head-bands.
After passing through the donjon-court and the Saint-Saturnin Chapel,
they reached the Festal Hall.
They were dazzled by the magnificence of the ceiling, which was divided
into octagonal apartments set off with gold and silver, more finely
chiselled than a jewel, and by the vast number of paintings covering the
walls, from the immense chimney-piece, where the arms of France were
surrounded by crescents and quivers, down to the musicians' gallery,
which had been erected at the other end along the entire width of the
hall. The ten arched windows were wide open; the sun threw its lustre on
the pictures, so that they glowed beneath its rays; the blue sky
continued in an endless curve the ultramarine of the arches; and from
the depths of the woods, where the lofty summits of the trees filled up
the horizon, there seemed to come an echo of flourishes blown by ivory
trumpets, and mythological ballets, gathering together under the foliage
princesses and nobles disguised as nymphs or fauns--an epoch of
ingenuous science, of violent passions, and sumptuous art, when the
ideal was to sweep away the world in a vision of the Hesperides, and
when the mistresses of kings mingled their glory with the stars. There
was a portrait of one of the most beautiful of these celebrated women in
the form of Diana the huntress, and even the Infernal Diana, no doubt in
order to indicate the power which she possessed even beyond the limits
of the tomb. All these symbols confirmed her glory, and there remained
about the spot something of her, an indistinct voice, a radiation that
stretched out indefinitely. A feeling of mysterious retrospective
voluptuousness took possession of Frederick.
In order to divert these passionate longings into another channel, he
began to gaze tenderly on Rosanette, and asked her would she not like to
have been this woman?
"What woman?"
"Diane de Poitiers!"
He repeated:
"Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of Henry II."
She gave utterance to a little "Ah!" that was all.
Her silence clearly demonstrated that she knew nothing about the matter,
and had failed to comprehend his meaning, so that out of complaisance he
said to her:
"Perhaps you are getting tired of this?"
"No, no--quite the reverse." And lifting up her chin, and casting around
her a glance of the vaguest description, Rosanette let these words
escape her lips:
"It recalls some memories to me!"
Meanwhile, it was easy to trace on her countenance a strained
expression, a certain sense of awe; and, as this air of gravity made her
look all the prettier, Frederick overlooked it.
The carps' pond amused her more. For a quarter of an hour she kept
flinging pieces of bread into the water in order to see the fishes
skipping about.
Frederick had seated himself by her side under the linden-trees. He saw
in imagination all the personages who had haunted these walls--Charles
V., the Valois Kings, Henry IV., Peter the Great, Jean Jacques Rousseau,
and "the fair mourners of the stage-boxes," Voltaire, Napoleon, Pius
VII., and Louis Philippe; and he felt himself environed, elbowed, by
these tumultuous dead people. He was stunned by such a confusion of
historic figures, even though he found a certain fascination in
contemplating them, nevertheless.
At length they descended into the flower-garden.
It is a vast rectangle, which presents to the spectator, at the first
glance, its wide yellow walks, its square grass-plots, its ribbons of
box-wood, its yew-trees shaped like pyramids, its low-lying green
swards, and its narrow borders, in which thinly-sown flowers make spots
on the grey soil. At the end of the garden may be seen a park through
whose entire length a canal makes its way.
Royal residences have attached to them a peculiar kind of melancholy,
due, no doubt, to their dimensions being much too large for the limited
number of guests entertained within them, to the silence which one feels
astonished to find in them after so many flourishes of trumpets, to the
immobility of their luxurious furniture, which attests by the aspect of
age and decay it gradually assumes the transitory character of
dynasties, the eternal wretchedness of all things; and this exhalation
of the centuries, enervating and funereal, like the perfume of a mummy,
makes itself felt even in untutored brains. Rosanette yawned
immoderately. They went back to the hotel.
After their breakfast an open carriage came round for them. They started
from Fontainebleau at a point where several roads diverged, then went up
at a walking pace a gravelly road leading towards a little pine-wood.
The trees became larger, and, from time to time, the driver would say,
"This is the Freres Siamois, the Pharamond, the Bouquet de Roi," not
forgetting a single one of these notable sites, sometimes even drawing
up to enable them to admire the scene.
They entered the forest of Franchard. The carriage glided over the grass
like a sledge; pigeons which they could not see began cooing. Suddenly,
the waiter of a cafe made his appearance, and they alighted before the
railing of a garden in which a number of round tables were placed. Then,
passing on the left by the walls of a ruined abbey, they made their way
over big boulders of stone, and soon reached the lower part of the
gorge.
It is covered on one side with sandstones and juniper-trees tangled
together, while on the other side the ground, almost quite bare, slopes
towards the hollow of the valley, where a foot-track makes a pale line
through the brown heather; and far above could be traced a flat
cone-shaped summit with a telegraph-tower behind it.
Half-an-hour later they stepped out of the vehicle once more, in order
to climb the heights of Aspremont.
The roads form zigzags between the thick-set pine-trees under rocks with
angular faces. All this corner of the forest has a sort of choked-up
look--a rather wild and solitary aspect. One thinks of hermits in
connection with it--companions of huge stags with fiery crosses between
their horns, who were wont to welcome with paternal smiles the good
kings of France when they knelt before their grottoes. The warm air was
filled with a resinous odour, and roots of trees crossed one another
like veins close to the soil. Rosanette slipped over them, grew
dejected, and felt inclined to shed tears.
But, at the very top, she became joyous once more on finding, under a
roof made of branches, a sort of tavern where carved wood was sold. She
drank a bottle of lemonade, and bought a holly-stick; and, without one
glance towards the landscape which disclosed itself from the plateau,
she entered the Brigands' Cave, with a waiter carrying a torch in front
of her. Their carriage was awaiting them in the Bas Breau.
A painter in a blue blouse was working at the foot of an oak-tree with
his box of colours on his knees. He raised his head and watched them as
they passed.
In the middle of the hill of Chailly, the sudden breaking of a cloud
caused them to turn up the hoods of their cloaks. Almost immediately the
rain stopped, and the paving-stones of the street glistened under the
sun when they were re-entering the town.
Some travellers, who had recently arrived, informed them that a terrible
battle had stained Paris with blood. Rosanette and her lover were not
surprised. Then everybody left; the hotel became quiet, the gas was put
out, and they were lulled to sleep by the murmur of the fountain in the
courtyard.
On the following day they went to see the Wolf's Gorge, the Fairies'
Pool, the Long Rock, and the _Marlotte_.[G] Two days later, they began
again at random, just as their coachman thought fit to drive them,
without asking where they were, and often even neglecting the famous
sites.
They felt so comfortable in their old landau, low as a sofa, and covered
with a rug made of a striped material which was quite faded. The moats,
filled with brushwood, stretched out under their eyes with a gentle,
continuous movement. White rays passed like arrows through the tall
ferns. Sometimes a road that was no longer used presented itself before
them, in a straight line, and here and there might be seen a feeble
growth of weeds. In the centre between four cross-roads, a crucifix
extended its four arms. In other places, stakes were bending down like
dead trees, and little curved paths, which were lost under the leaves,
made them feel a longing to pursue them. At the same moment the horse
turned round; they entered there; they plunged into the mire. Further
down moss had sprouted out at the sides of the deep ruts.
[G] The "Overall." The word _Marlotte_ means a loose wrapper worn by
ladies in the sixteenth century.--TRANSLATOR.
They believed that they were far away from all other people, quite
alone. But suddenly a game-keeper with his gun, or a band of women in
rags with big bundles of fagots on their backs, would hurry past them.
When the carriage stopped, there was a universal silence. The only
sounds that reached them were the blowing of the horse in the shafts
with the faint cry of a bird more than once repeated.
The light at certain points illuminating the outskirts of the wood, left
the interior in deep shadow, or else, attenuated in the foreground by a
sort of twilight, it exhibited in the background violet vapours, a white
radiance. The midday sun, falling directly on wide tracts of greenery,
made splashes of light over them, hung gleaming drops of silver from the
ends of the branches, streaked the grass with long lines of emeralds,
and flung gold spots on the beds of dead leaves. When they let their
heads fall back, they could distinguish the sky through the tops of the
trees. Some of them, which were enormously high, looked like patriarchs
or emperors, or, touching one another at their extremities formed with
their long shafts, as it were, triumphal arches; others, sprouting forth
obliquely from below, seemed like falling columns. This heap of big
vertical lines gaped open. Then, enormous green billows unrolled
themselves in unequal embossments as far as the surface of the valleys,
towards which advanced the brows of other hills looking down on white
plains, which ended by losing themselves in an undefined pale tinge.
Standing side by side, on some rising ground, they felt, as they drank
in the air, the pride of a life more free penetrating into the depths of
their souls, with a superabundance of energy, a joy which they could not
explain.
The variety of trees furnished a spectacle of the most diversified
character. The beeches with their smooth white bark twisted their tops
together. Ash trees softly curved their bluish branches. In the tufts of
the hornbeams rose up holly stiff as bronze. Then came a row of thin
birches, bent into elegiac attitudes; and the pine-trees, symmetrical as
organ pipes, seemed to be singing a song as they swayed to and fro.
There were gigantic oaks with knotted forms, which had been violently
shaken, stretched themselves out from the soil and pressed close against
each other, and with firm trunks resembling torsos, launched forth to
heaven despairing appeals with their bare arms and furious threats, like
a group of Titans struck motionless in the midst of their rage. An
atmosphere of gloom, a feverish languor, brooded over the pools, whose
sheets of water were cut into flakes by the overshadowing thorn-trees.
The lichens on their banks, where the wolves come to drink, are of the
colour of sulphur, burnt, as it were, by the footprints of witches, and
the incessant croaking of the frogs responds to the cawing of the crows
as they wheel through the air. After this they passed through the
monotonous glades, planted here and there with a staddle. The sound of
iron falling with a succession of rapid blows could be heard. On the
side of the hill a group of quarrymen were breaking the rocks. These
rocks became more and more numerous and finally filled up the entire
landscape, cube-shaped like houses, flat like flagstones, propping up,
overhanging, and became intermingled with each other, as if they were
the ruins, unrecognisable and monstrous, of some vanished city. But the
wild chaos they exhibited made one rather dream of volcanoes, of
deluges, of great unknown cataclysms. Frederick said they had been there
since the beginning of the world, and would remain so till the end.
Rosanette turned aside her head, declaring that this would drive her out
of her mind, and went off to collect sweet heather. The little violet
blossoms, heaped up near one another, formed unequal plates, and the
soil, which was giving way underneath, placed soft dark fringes on the
sand spangled with mica.
One day they reached a point half-way up a hill, where the soil was full
of sand. Its surface, untrodden till now, was streaked so as to resemble
symmetrical waves. Here and there, like promontories on the dry bed of
an ocean, rose up rocks with the vague outlines of animals, tortoises
thrusting forward their heads, crawling seals, hippopotami, and bears.
Not a soul around them. Not a single sound. The shingle glowed under the
dazzling rays of the sun, and all at once in this vibration of light the
specimens of the brute creation that met their gaze began to move about.
They returned home quickly, flying from the dizziness that had seized
hold of them, almost dismayed.
The gravity of the forest exercised an influence over them, and hours
passed in silence, during which, allowing themselves to yield to the
lulling effects of springs, they remained as it were sunk in the torpor
of a calm intoxication. With his arm around her waist, he listened to
her talking while the birds were warbling, noticed with the same glance
the black grapes on her bonnet and the juniper-berries, the draperies of
her veil, and the spiral forms assumed by the clouds, and when he bent
towards her the freshness of her skin mingled with the strong perfume of
the woods. They found amusement in everything. They showed one another,
as a curiosity, gossamer threads of the Virgin hanging from bushes,
holes full of water in the middle of stones, a squirrel on the branches,
the way in which two butterflies kept flying after them; or else, at
twenty paces from them, under the trees, a hind strode on peacefully,
with an air of nobility and gentleness, its doe walking by its side.
Rosanette would have liked to run after it to embrace it.
She got very much alarmed once, when a man suddenly presenting himself,
showed her three vipers in a box. She wildly flung herself on
Frederick's breast. He felt happy at the thought that she was weak and
that he was strong enough to defend her.
That evening they dined at an inn on the banks of the Seine. The table
was near the window, Rosanette sitting opposite him, and he contemplated
her little well-shaped white nose, her turned-up lips, her bright eyes,
the swelling bands of her nut-brown hair, and her pretty oval face. Her
dress of raw silk clung to her somewhat drooping shoulders, and her two
hands, emerging from their sleeves, joined close together as if they
were one--carved, poured out wine, moved over the table-cloth. The
waiters placed before them a chicken with its four limbs stretched out,
a stew of eels in a dish of pipe-clay, wine that had got spoiled, bread
that was too hard, and knives with notches in them. All these things
made the repast more enjoyable and strengthened the illusion. They
fancied that they were in the middle of a journey in Italy on their
honeymoon. Before starting again they went for a walk along the bank of
the river.
The soft blue sky, rounded like a dome, leaned at the horizon on the
indentations of the woods. On the opposite side, at the end of the
meadow, there was a village steeple; and further away, to the left, the
roof of a house made a red spot on the river, which wound its way
without any apparent motion. Some rushes bent over it, however, and the
water lightly shook some poles fixed at its edge in order to hold nets.
An osier bow-net and two or three old fishing-boats might be seen there.
Near the inn a girl in a straw hat was drawing buckets out of a well.
Every time they came up again, Frederick heard the grating sound of the
chain with a feeling of inexpressible delight.
He had no doubt that he would be happy till the end of his days, so
natural did his felicity appear to him, so much a part of his life, and
so intimately associated with this woman's being. He was irresistibly
impelled to address her with words of endearment. She answered with
pretty little speeches, light taps on the shoulder, displays of
tenderness that charmed him by their unexpectedness. He discovered in
her quite a new sort of beauty, in fact, which was perhaps only the
reflection of surrounding things, unless it happened to bud forth from
their hidden potentialities.
When they were lying down in the middle of the field, he would stretch
himself out with his head on her lap, under the shelter of her parasol;
or else with their faces turned towards the green sward, in the centre
of which they rested, they kept gazing towards one another so that their
pupils seemed to intermingle, thirsting for one another and ever
satiating their thirst, and then with half-closed eyelids they lay side
by side without uttering a single word.
Now and then the distant rolling of a drum reached their ears. It was
the signal-drum which was being beaten in the different villages calling
on people to go and defend Paris.
"Oh! look here! 'tis the rising!" said Frederick, with a disdainful
pity, all this excitement now presenting to his mind a pitiful aspect by
the side of their love and of eternal nature.
And they talked about whatever happened to come into their heads, things
that were perfectly familiar to them, persons in whom they took no
interest, a thousand trifles. She chatted with him about her chambermaid
and her hairdresser. One day she was so self-forgetful that she told him
her age--twenty-nine years. She was becoming quite an old woman.
Several times, without intending it, she gave him some particulars with
reference to her own life. She had been a "shop girl," had taken a trip
to England, and had begun studying for the stage; all this she told
without any explanation of how these changes had come about; and he
found it impossible to reconstruct her entire history.
She related to him more about herself one day when they were seated side
by side under a plane-tree at the back of a meadow. At the road-side,
further down, a little barefooted girl, standing amid a heap of dust,
was making a cow go to pasture. As soon as she caught sight of them she
came up to beg, and while with one hand she held up her tattered
petticoat, she kept scratching with the other her black hair, which,
like a wig of Louis XIV.'s time, curled round her dark face, lighted by
a magnificent pair of eyes.
"She will be very pretty by-and-by," said Frederick.
"How lucky she is, if she has no mother!" remarked Rosanette.
"Eh? How is that?"
"Certainly. I, if it were not for mine----"
She sighed, and began to speak about her childhood. Her parents were
weavers in the Croix-Rousse. She acted as an apprentice to her father.
In vain did the poor man wear himself out with hard work; his wife was
continually abusing him, and sold everything for drink. Rosanette could
see, as if it were yesterday, the room they occupied with the looms
ranged lengthwise against the windows, the pot boiling on the stove, the
bed painted like mahogany, a cupboard facing it, and the obscure loft
where she used to sleep up to the time when she was fifteen years old.
At length a gentleman made his appearance on the scene--a fat man with a
face of the colour of boxwood, the manners of a devotee, and a suit of
black clothes. Her mother and this man had a conversation together, with
the result that three days afterwards--Rosanette stopped, and with a
look in which there was as much bitterness as shamelessness:
"It was done!"
Then, in response to a gesture of Frederick.
"As he was married (he would have been afraid of compromising himself in
his own house), I was brought to a private room in a restaurant, and
told that I would be happy, that I would get a handsome present.
"At the door, the first thing that struck me was a candelabrum of
vermilion on a table, on which there were two covers. A mirror on the
ceiling showed their reflections, and the blue silk hangings on the
walls made the entire apartment resemble an alcove; I was seized with
astonishment. You understand--a poor creature who had never seen
anything before. In spite of my dazed condition of mind, I got
frightened. I wanted to go away. However, I remained.
"The only seat in the room was a sofa close beside the table. It was so
soft that it gave way under me. The mouth of the hot-air stove in the
middle of the carpet sent out towards me a warm breath, and there I sat
without taking anything. The waiter, who was standing near me, urged me
to eat. He poured out for me immediately a large glass of wine. My head
began to swim, I wanted to open the window. He said to me:
"'No, Mademoiselle! that is forbidden.'"
"And he left me.
"The table was covered with a heap of things that I had no knowledge of.
Nothing there seemed to me good. Then I fell back on a pot of jam, and
patiently waited. I did not know what prevented him from coming. It was
very late--midnight at last--I couldn't bear the fatigue any longer.
While pushing aside one of the pillows, in order to hear better, I found
under my hand a kind of album--a book of engravings, they were vulgar
pictures. I was sleeping on top of it when he entered the room."
She hung down her head and remained pensive.
The leaves rustled around them. Amid the tangled grass a great foxglove
was swaying to and fro. The sunlight flowed like a wave over the green
expanse, and the silence was interrupted at intervals by the browsing of
the cow, which they could no longer see.
Rosanette kept her eyes fixed on a particular spot, three paces away
from her, her nostrils heaving, and her mind absorbed in thought.
Frederick caught hold of her hand.
"How you suffered, poor darling!"
"Yes," said she, "more than you imagine! So much so that I wanted to
make an end of it--they had to fish me up!"
"What?"
"Ah! think no more about it! I love you, I am happy! kiss me!"
And she picked off, one by one, the sprigs of the thistles which clung
to the hem of her gown.
Frederick was thinking more than all on what she had not told him. What
were the means by which she had gradually emerged from wretchedness? To
what lover did she owe her education? What had occurred in her life down
to the day when he first came to her house? Her latest avowal was a bar
to these questions. All he asked her was how she had made Arnoux's
acquaintance.
"Through the Vatnaz."
"Wasn't it you that I once saw with both of them at the Palais-Royal?"
He referred to the exact date. Rosanette made a movement which showed a
sense of deep pain.
"Yes, it is true! I was not gay at that time!"
But Arnoux had proved himself a very good fellow. Frederick had no doubt
of it. However, their friend was a queer character, full of faults. He
took care to recall them. She quite agreed with him on this point.
"Never mind! One likes him, all the same, this camel!"
"Still--even now?" said Frederick.
She began to redden, half smiling, half angry.
"Oh, no! that's an old story. I don't keep anything hidden from you.
Even though it might be so, with him it is different. Besides, I don't
think you are nice towards your victim!"
"My victim!"
Rosanette caught hold of his chin.
"No doubt!"
And in the lisping fashion in which nurses talk to babies:
"Have always been so good! Never went a-by-by with his wife?"
"I! never at any time!"
Rosanette smiled. He felt hurt by this smile of hers, which seemed to
him a proof of indifference.
But she went on gently, and with one of those looks which seem to appeal
for a denial of the truth:
"Are you perfectly certain?"
"Not a doubt of it!"
Frederick solemnly declared on his word of honour that he had never
bestowed a thought on Madame Arnoux, as he was too much in love with
another woman.
"Why, with you, my beautiful one!"
"Ah! don't laugh at me! You only annoy me!"
He thought it a prudent course to invent a story--to pretend that he was
swayed by a passion. He manufactured some circumstantial details. This
woman, however, had rendered him very unhappy.
"Decidedly, you have not been lucky," said Rosanette.
"Oh! oh! I may have been!" wishing to convey in this way that he had
been often fortunate in his love-affairs, so that she might have a
better opinion of him, just as Rosanette did not avow how many lovers
she had had, in order that he might have more respect for her--for there
will always be found in the midst of the most intimate confidences
restrictions, false shame, delicacy, and pity. You divine either in the
other or in yourself precipices or miry paths which prevent you from
penetrating any farther; moreover, you feel that you will not be
understood. It is hard to express accurately the thing you mean,
whatever it may be; and this is the reason why perfect unions are rare.
The poor Marechale had never known one better than this. Often, when she
gazed at Frederick, tears came into her eyes; then she would raise them
or cast a glance towards the horizon, as if she saw there some bright
dawn, perspectives of boundless felicity. At last, she confessed one day
to him that she wished to have a mass said, "so that it might bring a
blessing on our love."
How was it, then, that she had resisted him so long? She could not tell
herself. He repeated his question a great many times; and she replied,
as she clasped him in her arms:
"It was because I was afraid, my darling, of loving you too well!"
On Sunday morning, Frederick read, amongst the list of the wounded given
in a newspaper, the name of Dussardier. He uttered a cry, and showing
the paper to Rosanette, declared that he was going to start at once for
Paris.
"For what purpose?"
"In order to see him, to nurse him!"
"You are not going, I'm sure, to leave me by myself?"
"Come with me!"
"Ha! to poke my nose in a squabble of that sort? Oh, no, thanks!"
"However, I cannot----"
"Ta! ta! ta! as if they had need of nurses in the hospitals! And then,
what concern is he of yours any longer? Everyone for himself!"
He was roused to indignation by this egoism on her part, and he
reproached himself for not being in the capital with the others. Such
indifference to the misfortunes of the nation had in it something
shabby, and only worthy of a small shopkeeper. And now, all of a sudden,
his intrigue with Rosanette weighed on his mind as if it were a crime.
For an hour they were quite cool towards each other.
Then she appealed to him to wait, and not expose himself to danger.
"Suppose you happen to be killed?"
"Well, I should only have done my duty!"
Rosanette gave a jump. His first duty was to love her; but, no doubt, he
did not care about her any longer. There was no common sense in what he
was going to do. Good heavens! what an idea!
Frederick rang for his bill. But to get back to Pans was not an easy
matter. The Leloir stagecoach had just left; the Lecomte berlins would
not be starting; the diligence from Bourbonnais would not be passing
till a late hour that night, and perhaps it might be full, one could
never tell. When he had lost a great deal of time in making enquiries
about the various modes of conveyance, the idea occurred to him to
travel post. The master of the post-house refused to supply him with
horses, as Frederick had no passport. Finally, he hired an open
carriage--the same one in which they had driven about the country--and
at about five o'clock they arrived in front of the Hotel du Commerce at
Melun.
The market-place was covered with piles of arms. The prefect had
forbidden the National Guards to proceed towards Paris. Those who did
not belong to his department wished to go on. There was a great deal of
shouting, and the inn was packed with a noisy crowd.
Rosanette, seized with terror, said she would not go a step further, and
once more begged of him to stay. The innkeeper and his wife joined in
her entreaties. A decent sort of man who happened to be dining there
interposed, and observed that the fighting would be over in a very short
time. Besides, one ought to do his duty. Thereupon the Marechale
redoubled her sobs. Frederick got exasperated. He handed her his purse,
kissed her quickly, and disappeared.
On reaching Corbeil, he learned at the station that the insurgents had
cut the rails at regular distances, and the coachman refused to drive
him any farther; he said that his horses were "overspent."
Through his influence, however, Frederick managed to procure an
indifferent cabriolet, which, for the sum of sixty francs, without
taking into account the price of a drink for the driver, was to convey
him as far as the Italian barrier. But at a hundred paces from the
barrier his coachman made him descend and turn back. Frederick was
walking along the pathway, when suddenly a sentinel thrust out his
bayonet. Four men seized him, exclaiming:
"This is one of them! Look out! Search him! Brigand! scoundrel!"
And he was so thoroughly stupefied that he let himself be dragged to the
guard-house of the barrier, at the very point where the Boulevards des
Gobelins and de l'Hopital and Rues Godefroy and Mauffetard converge.
Four barricades formed at the ends of four different ways enormous
sloping ramparts of paving-stones. Torches were glimmering here and
there. In spite of the rising clouds of dust he could distinguish
foot-soldiers of the Line and National Guards, all with their faces
blackened, their chests uncovered, and an aspect of wild excitement.
They had just captured the square, and had shot down a number of men.
Their rage had not yet cooled. Frederick said he had come from
Fontainebleau to the relief of a wounded comrade who lodged in the Rue
Bellefond. Not one of them would believe him at first. They examined his
hands; they even put their noses to his ear to make sure that he did not
smell of powder.
However, by dint of repeating the same thing, he finally satisfied a
captain, who directed two fusiliers to conduct him to the guard-house of
the Jardin des Plantes. They descended the Boulevard de l'Hopital. A
strong breeze was blowing. It restored him to animation.
After this they turned up the Rue du Marche aux Chevaux. The Jardin des
Plantes at the right formed a long black mass, whilst at the left the
entire front of the Pitie, illuminated at every window, blazed like a
conflagration, and shadows passed rapidly over the window-panes.
The two men in charge of Frederick went away. Another accompanied him to
the Polytechnic School. The Rue Saint-Victor was quite dark, without a
gas-lamp or a light at any window to relieve the gloom. Every ten
minutes could be heard the words:
"Sentinels! mind yourselves!"
And this exclamation, cast into the midst of the silence, was prolonged
like the repeated striking of a stone against the side of a chasm as it
falls through space.
Every now and then the stamp of heavy footsteps could be heard drawing
nearer. This was nothing less than a patrol consisting of about a
hundred men. From this confused mass escaped whisperings and the dull
clanking of iron; and, moving away with a rhythmic swing, it melted into
the darkness.
In the middle of the crossing, where several streets met, a dragoon sat
motionless on his horse. From time to time an express rider passed at a
rapid gallop; then the silence was renewed. Cannons, which were being
drawn along the streets, made, on the pavement, a heavy rolling sound
that seemed full of menace--a sound different from every ordinary
sound--which oppressed the heart. The sounds was profound, unlimited--a
black silence. Men in white blouses accosted the soldiers, spoke one or
two words to them, and then vanished like phantoms.
The guard-house of the Polytechnic School overflowed with people. The
threshold was blocked up with women, who had come to see their sons or
their husbands. They were sent on to the Pantheon, which had been
transformed into a dead-house; and no attention was paid to Frederick.
He pressed forward resolutely, solemnly declaring that his friend
Dussardier was waiting for him, that he was at death's door. At last
they sent a corporal to accompany him to the top of the Rue
Saint-Jacques, to the Mayor's office in the twelfth arrondissement.
The Place du Pantheon was filled with soldiers lying asleep on straw.
The day was breaking; the bivouac-fires were extinguished.
The insurrection had left terrible traces in this quarter. The soil of
the streets, from one end to the other, was covered with risings of
various sizes. On the wrecked barricades had been piled up omnibuses,
gas-pipes, and cart-wheels. In certain places there were little dark
pools, which must have been blood. The houses were riddled with
projectiles, and their framework could be seen under the plaster that
was peeled off. Window-blinds, each attached only by a single nail, hung
like rags. The staircases having fallen in, doors opened on vacancy. The
interiors of rooms could be perceived with their papers in strips. In
some instances dainty objects had remained in them quite intact.
Frederick noticed a timepiece, a parrot-stick, and some engravings.
When he entered the Mayor's office, the National Guards were chattering
without a moment's pause about the deaths of Brea and Negrier, about
the deputy Charbonnel, and about the Archbishop of Paris. He heard them
saying that the Duc d'Aumale had landed at Boulogne, that Barbes had
fled from Vincennes, that the artillery were coming up from Bourges, and
that abundant aid was arriving from the provinces. About three o'clock
some one brought good news.
Truce-bearers from the insurgents were in conference with the President
of the Assembly.
Thereupon they all made merry; and as he had a dozen francs left,
Frederick sent for a dozen bottles of wine, hoping by this means to
hasten his deliverance. Suddenly a discharge of musketry was heard. The
drinking stopped. They peered with distrustful eyes into the unknown--it
might be Henry V.
In order to get rid of responsibility, they took Frederick to the
Mayor's office in the eleventh arrondissement, which he was not
permitted to leave till nine o'clock in the morning.
He started at a running pace from the Quai Voltaire. At an open window
an old man in his shirt-sleeves was crying, with his eyes raised. The
Seine glided peacefully along. The sky was of a clear blue; and in the
trees round the Tuileries birds were singing.
Frederick was just crossing the Place du Carrousel when a litter
happened to be passing by. The soldiers at the guard-house immediately
presented arms; and the officer, putting his hand to his shako, said:
"Honour to unfortunate bravery!" This phrase seemed to have almost
become a matter of duty. He who pronounced it appeared to be, on each
occasion, filled with profound emotion. A group of people in a state of
fierce excitement followed the litter, exclaiming:
"We will avenge you! we will avenge you!"
The vehicles kept moving about on the boulevard, and women were making
lint before the doors. Meanwhile, the outbreak had been quelled, or very
nearly so. A proclamation from Cavaignac, just posted up, announced the
fact. At the top of the Rue Vivienne, a company of the Garde Mobile
appeared. Then the citizens uttered cries of enthusiasm. They raised
their hats, applauded, danced, wished to embrace them, and to invite
them to drink; and flowers, flung by ladies, fell from the balconies.
At last, at ten o'clock, at the moment when the cannon was booming as an
attack was being made on the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Frederick reached
the abode of Dussardier. He found the bookkeeper in his garret, lying
asleep on his back. From the adjoining apartment a woman came forth with
silent tread--Mademoiselle Vatnaz.
She led Frederick aside and explained to him how Dussardier had got
wounded.
On Saturday, on the top of a barricade in the Rue Lafayette, a young
fellow wrapped in a tricoloured flag cried out to the National Guards:
"Are you going to shoot your brothers?" As they advanced, Dussardier
threw down his gun, pushed away the others, sprang over the barricade,
and, with a blow of an old shoe, knocked down the insurgent, from whom
he tore the flag. He had afterwards been found under a heap of rubbish
with a slug of copper in his thigh. It was found necessary to make an
incision in order to extract the projectile. Mademoiselle Vatnaz
arrived the same evening, and since then had not quitted his side.
She intelligently prepared everything that was needed for the dressings,
assisted him in taking his medicine or other liquids, attended to his
slightest wishes, left and returned again with footsteps more light than
those of a fly, and gazed at him with eyes full of tenderness.
Frederick, during the two following weeks, did not fail to come back
every morning. One day, while he was speaking about the devotion of the
Vatnaz, Dussardier shrugged his shoulders:
"Oh! no! she does this through interested motives."
"Do you think so?"
He replied: "I am sure of it!" without seeming disposed to give any
further explanation.
She had loaded him with kindnesses, carrying her attentions so far as to
bring him the newspapers in which his gallant action was extolled. He
even confessed to Frederick that he felt uneasy in his conscience.
Perhaps he ought to have put himself on the other side with the men in
blouses; for, indeed, a heap of promises had been made to them which had
not been carried out. Those who had vanquished them hated the Republic;
and, in the next place, they had treated them very harshly. No doubt
they were in the wrong--not quite, however; and the honest fellow was
tormented by the thought that he might have fought against the righteous
cause. Senecal, who was immured in the Tuileries, under the terrace at
the water's edge, had none of this mental anguish.
There were nine hundred men in the place, huddled together in the midst
of filth, without the slightest order, their faces blackened with powder
and clotted blood, shivering with ague and breaking out into cries of
rage, and those who were brought there to die were not separated from
the rest. Sometimes, on hearing the sound of a detonation, they believed
that they were all going to be shot. Then they dashed themselves against
the walls, and after that fell back again into their places, so much
stupefied by suffering that it seemed to them that they were living in a
nightmare, a mournful hallucination. The lamp, which hung from the
arched roof, looked like a stain of blood, and little green and yellow
flames fluttered about, caused by the emanations from the vault. Through
fear of epidemics, a commission was appointed. When he had advanced a
few steps, the President recoiled, frightened by the stench from the
excrements and from the corpses.
As soon as the prisoners drew near a vent-hole, the National Guards who
were on sentry, in order to prevent them from shaking the bars of the
grating, prodded them indiscriminately with their bayonets.
As a rule they showed no pity. Those who were not beaten wished to
signalise themselves. There was a regular outbreak of fear. They avenged
themselves at the same time on newspapers, clubs, mobs,
speech-making--everything that had exasperated them during the last
three months, and in spite of the victory that had been gained, equality
(as if for the punishment of its defenders and the exposure of its
enemies to ridicule) manifested itself in a triumphal fashion--an
equality of brute beasts, a dead level of sanguinary vileness; for the
fanaticism of self-interest balanced the madness of want, aristocracy
had the same fits of fury as low debauchery, and the cotton cap did not
show itself less hideous than the red cap. The public mind was agitated
just as it would be after great convulsions of nature. Sensible men were
rendered imbeciles for the rest of their lives on account of it.
Pere Roque had become very courageous, almost foolhardy. Having arrived
on the 26th at Paris with some of the inhabitants of Nogent, instead of
going back at the same time with them, he had gone to give his
assistance to the National Guard encamped at the Tuileries; and he was
quite satisfied to be placed on sentry in front of the terrace at the
water's side. There, at any rate, he had these brigands under his feet!
He was delighted to find that they were beaten and humiliated, and he
could not refrain from uttering invectives against them.
One of them, a young lad with long fair hair, put his face to the bars,
and asked for bread. M. Roque ordered him to hold his tongue. But the
young man repeated in a mournful tone:
"Bread!"
"Have I any to give you?"
Other prisoners presented themselves at the vent-hole, with their
bristling beards, their burning eyeballs, all pushing forward, and
yelling:
"Bread!"
Pere Roque was indignant at seeing his authority slighted. In order to
frighten them he took aim at them; and, borne onward into the vault by
the crush that nearly smothered him, the young man, with his head thrown
backward, once more exclaimed:
"Bread!"
"Hold on! here it is!" said Pere Roque, firing a shot from his gun.
There was a fearful howl--then, silence. At the side of the trough
something white could be seen lying.
After this, M. Roque returned to his abode, for he had a house in the
Rue Saint-Martin, which he used as a temporary residence; and the injury
done to the front of the building during the riots had in no slight
degree contributed to excite his rage. It seemed to him, when he next
saw it, that he had exaggerated the amount of damage done to it. His
recent act had a soothing effect on him, as if it indemnified him for
his loss.
It was his daughter herself who opened the door for him. She immediately
made the remark that she had felt uneasy at his excessively prolonged
absence. She was afraid that he had met with some misfortune--that he
had been wounded.
This manifestation of filial love softened Pere Roque. He was astonished
that she should have set out on a journey without Catherine.
"I sent her out on a message," was Louise's reply.
And she made enquiries about his health, about one thing or another;
then, with an air of indifference, she asked him whether he had chanced
to come across Frederick:
"No; I didn't see him!"
It was on his account alone that she had come up from the country.
Some one was walking at that moment in the lobby.
"Oh! excuse me----"
And she disappeared.
Catherine had not found Frederick. He had been several days away, and
his intimate friend, M. Deslauriers, was now living in the provinces.
Louise once more presented herself, shaking all over, without being able
to utter a word. She leaned against the furniture.
"What's the matter with you? Tell me--what's the matter with you?"
exclaimed her father.
She indicated by a wave of her hand that it was nothing, and with a
great effort of will she regained her composure.
The keeper of the restaurant at the opposite side of the street brought
them soup. But Pere Roque had passed through too exciting an ordeal to
be able to control his emotions. "He is not likely to die;" and at
dessert he had a sort of fainting fit. A doctor was at once sent for,
and he prescribed a potion. Then, when M. Roque was in bed, he asked to
be as well wrapped up as possible in order to bring on perspiration. He
gasped; he moaned.
"Thanks, my good Catherine! Kiss your poor father, my chicken! Ah! those
revolutions!"
And, when his daughter scolded him for having made himself ill by
tormenting his mind on her account, he replied:
"Yes! you are right! But I couldn't help it! I am too sensitive!"