CRIMINATION AND INDIFFERENCE.
Louison Brisot, with all her secretiveness and self-control, felt her
heart burn, and her cheeks grow hot, when Mirabeau insulted her
solicitude with a rude answer. She arose and walked to a window; a
pretty goldfinch, which had been taught to fly out of his cage at will,
fluttered downward and settled upon her shoulder. She seized the tiny
thing, wrung its neck, and flung it down to her feet.
Mirabeau had settled back upon his couch, and his eyes were again
wandering among the frescoed flowers. So the woman appeased her wrath by
taking this little life before the poor thing could utter a breath of
pain; and he only knew that his favorite was dead after she was gone.
While the pretty thing was quivering on the floor, his murderer had sunk
down by Mirabeau’s couch, and took his hand in hers, where it lay
indolently, not once offering to return the grasp with which she clung
to it.
“Mirabeau!”
“Well, Louison!”
“You have ceased to love me?”
“Ceased to love you! Well, what then? To be good patriots we need not be
lovers.”
The woman turned deadly white, and her hands wrenched themselves away
from his.
“You confess it.”
There was a cry of pain in her words. All this time she had been
actuated by a forlorn hope that he would contradict her.
“No! I confess nothing! How should I, not being quite certain myself?”
“Great heavens! you dare say this to me!”
Mirabeau started up fiercely and shook back his hair like a roused lion.
“Dare! Woman, is that word intended for Mirabeau?”
The man was fully aroused now, his light gray eyes flamed, his sensuous
mouth took a haughty curve; he had risen to his elbow, and his massive
neck was laid bare almost to the bosom, where the delicately-crimped
ruffles of his shirt fell open, revealing the blue veins that swelled
over it, inflaming his face to the eyes, which suddenly became
bloodshot.
“The man who offends Louison Brisot dares everything,” answered the
woman, in a low voice.
Mirabeau laughed, for all the evil daring of his nature was getting
uppermost.
“So you threaten me?”
“Cowards threaten!”
“And brave souls act. Well, Louison, you certainly are no coward; and
yet your speech had a threat in it. Tell me why?”
“Ah, Mirabeau! It is only a little thing. During some years—that is,
ever since I was an innocent girl, who never committed a greater sin
than plucking a few clusters where the grapes first ripened into
purple—I have loved you. It was not much, only a human soul flung at the
feet of a man who has not yet trampled it under his heel. But this soul
was all I had—and you took it. For your sake I worked hard, studied,
learned all those arts by which women gain influence in the world;
gloried in my beauty, and in that keen wit which is a weapon of power in
these days, all because they might make me more dear and more useful to
you. In the scale of your glory I flung my life. Is it strange that I
ask something back; that out of the whole of an existence I lavished on
you I ask a ray of light; only that which the moon takes from the sun,
and feel defrauded when it is withheld?”
The smile broadened and grew brighter on Mirabeau’s face as the young
woman made this passionate address. He loved to be adored; and the
intellect of this woman gave piquancy to her homage; without that she
would have been nothing to him, with it she had a hold upon his
interests and his vanity stronger, by far, than any woman had ever
possessed over his affections. No man living had greater talent for
turning the genius of other people to his own account than Mirabeau. Men
and women were alike made available to his popularity. He had no desire
to quarrel with the handsome young female, whose words, taking the form
of passionate pleading, were sufficient to convince him of the power he
still possessed.
Louison saw the self-satisfied smile, and it stung her. She broke forth
with passionate vehemence.
“But love like mine must have full love in return; faith like mine must
meet answering faith. If I have been strong as a woman, I have also been
trusting as a child. Deceive me once, and you open my eyes forever;
cease to be my entire friend, and you make me your bitterest enemy. Keep
no secrets from me; if you attempt it, I will find them out, and then
they are my property. I warn you now, in right or in wrong, make me your
confidant.”
It would have been well for Mirabeau had he then and there taken the
woman at her word; but, like all social traitors, he had no faith in the
sex, and so only turned on his side and gazed on her flushed face in
wonder that any one would believe him weak enough to trust one woman
with the secrets of another.
“Upon my word, Louison, you are a remarkably beautiful person, and have
a power of eloquence I never dreamed of before. They tell me Theroigne
de Mericourt is to appear at the Cordeliers; we must have you at the
Jacobins. She is beautiful—so are you; she is eloquent, but in that I
have just discovered we can more than match her. I have a thing on my
mind which must be brought before the club with great caution—a woman
can do it; for we accept and excuse anything from beautiful lips—and
yours are blooming as roses, Louison.”
A faint sneer curled the lips he praised. Did he think to use her as a
blind instrument in behalf of the lady whose hand she had seen raised to
his lips with such reverence? There was bitter satisfaction in the
thought that she had this man’s secret in her keeping, and by it could
read the very changes of his mind. She had come there to upbraid him,
but the secretiveness of her nature rose uppermost, even in her jealous
wrath; it prompted her to watch him, and if he proved treacherous, to
fight her battle with his own weapons.
“The time has come,” said Mirabeau, “when the women of France must make
their influence felt in the nation. Theroigne will be received like a
goddess by the Cordeliers.”
If the demagogue thought to inspire Louison’s ambition, he only
succeeded in uniting with that passion one more dangerous still.
“It is said that this Maid of Liege has something besides the wrongs of
France to avenge,” she said, dreamily. “Among the minions who swarm
around that Austrian woman, is the man she loved—a noble, who plucked
the soul from her life, and flung it away in haughty disdain. Yes, yes!
it _is_ time that the women of France should test their power. Let
Theroigne lead with the Cordeliers; as for me, in life or death, I stand
by Mirabeau!”
“That is a brave girl; and now let me tell you a secret.”
Louison’s heart leaped in her bosom. Would he tell her all that she had
learned? If so, that interview with Marie Antoinette might have only a
political meaning. She listened breathlessly for his next words. They
came to surprise and disappoint her.
“Before the year is out, my friend, Mirabeau will be president of the
Jacobin club; then Louison Brisot shall test her powers against those of
the amazon of Liege.”
“Yes,” said Louison; “she will test her powers then.”
“The women of the markets are ardent and ignorant; they need leaders of
their own sex. These women in their hearts love the queen.”
“Ha!”
“Did you speak, Louison?”
“No, I did not speak, but listened. You think I might control these
women?”
“You have the power; they would look up to you as they never have to the
queen. She is so far above them that they cannot understand her. But
you——”
“Oh, yes! I can make them understand me. I, too, am of the people,” said
Louison, interrupting him.
“But still, education and great natural talent has lifted you nearer to
her.”
“You think so? Well, perhaps it is true.”
“You are brave.”
“Yes, I am no coward.”
“With a warm, earnest heart.”
Here Louison sunk down to the foot of the couch, and bowing her face to
her knees, began to sob. Mirabeau took her hand.
“Why do you weep, my friend?”
“Because I once had a warm, earnest heart, that is all,” cried the girl,
lifting her head, and sweeping the hair back from her face. “Women who
aspire for love or power should have no hearts.”
“You are wrong, my friend; a warm heart is necessary to true eloquence.
Without that, the magnetism which thrills crowds would be wanting. It is
because you can speak clearly and feel intensely, that I predict for you
a glorious career among the women of France. That which Mirabeau is to
the men, Louison shall be to the women of this nation.”
“And this is all you have to tell me?”
“All. If I have nothing more to confide, it is because my heart is
always open to my friends, most of all to you.”
“Traitor!”
The word was not spoken, but it hissed like a serpent in the woman’s
brain. She dashed the tears from her eyes and stood up.
“I will go now.”
Mirabeau fell indolently back among the cushions of his couch.
“Must you go?” he questioned, dreamily. “Well, well, think of what I
have said.”
“I will.”