MIRABEAU BUYS FLOWERS.
The crowd settled back, chaffering for fish, sorting out vegetables, and
running up accounts, while the business of the day went on, and Louison
Brisot made an ignominious retreat, for the first time, from the people
she had almost ruled by her eloquence and fierce beauty; for those
market women had become almost men in their tastes, and looked upon
youth and beauty with the admiration of another sex.
A few of Dame Doudel’s nearest neighbors hovered around the fainting
girl; but Louison had disappeared from the market before Marguerite came
to herself.
The moment she opened her eyes, these warm-hearted women began to
encourage and console her. What had she to fear? Why did she faint? Was
it because of Louison Brisot? That was foolish—no one minded Louison
now. Since it was known that Mirabeau had put her aside, when a proper
person was wanted to lay their troubles before the king, she had been of
little account. The market women were wives and mothers, honest women,
who wanted to earn bread for their children in an honest way; and
Mirabeau knew best how they should be represented. If he had wanted
Louison Brisot, or Theroigne, to lead them, would he not have said so?
But he did nothing of the kind.
“Take this young girl,” he said; “you go to entreat the king, not to
insult him. Liberty is grand, it is pure; when she pleads, it should be
through innocent lips.” That was what our Mirabeau said—and he was
right. “You have spoken for us, little one, and we will let no one wrong
you, much less Louison.”
“You are kind, I feel your goodness here,” said the poor girl, pressing
a hand to her heart, which was still heavy with pain. “I only wish it
possible to deserve the trust you place in me.”
Marguerite spoke wearily, and her mournful eyes filled with tears. The
shock that face had given her brought back that awful scene at the
Bastille. The girl had a vivid imagination, and for a time the market,
with all its gleaming fish, tinted vegetables, and crimson meat-stalls,
vanished from her sight—she stood under the shadows of the Bastille, its
grim towers shook to the foundation as a vast horde of human beings
raged around them, men and women, soldiers and citizens, all crying out
for some human life. A human life—whose was it? What was that which came
crashing down from the tallest of those towers? The horror of the
reality was scarcely more dreadful than the memory that woman’s face
brought back upon her with a suddenness that struck the very life from
her heart.
“Let me go,” she said, appealing piteously to Dame Doudel; “I have stood
here too long. They are all kind; but the air stifles me.”
Marguerite took up her basket of flowers and left the market, followed
by kindly words and pleasant looks from the women through whom she
passed. With a slow, weary step she wandered away into the street, not
once offering her flowers, but walking on dreamily, unmindful where she
went, or whom she met. Indeed, she was so utterly heedless of everything
around, that a woman was following her all the time, keeping a little
way off, and she quite unconscious that the enemy she most dreaded was
on her track, bitter and vindictive as a she wolf.
“Will you sell me some flowers?”
Marguerite started, looked up, and saw the strong, ugly face of Count
Mirabeau bending over her.
“Some flowers—some flowers!” repeated the girl. “Yes—yes. If—if you want
them.”
“Of course, I want them. Let me select, but with your help, though.
Shall it be roses, or myrtle?”
“Myrtle, I think,” said the girl, too sad for a choice of the brighter
flowers.
“But roses, too, and some of those sweet-smelling things.”
“Here is a bunch in which they are all tied up. Will you take this,
monsieur count?”
“You know me again, sweet Marguerite?” said the count, taking the
flowers and fastening them among the ruffles in his bosom. “Know me well
enough to blush like your own roses; while I have seen that lovely face
too often for my peace of mind.”
“Do the flowers please you?” said Marguerite, dropping her eyes under
the bold stare Mirabeau fixed upon her.
“Please me? Of course they do. Here is a likeness of the king, if you
can forgive the head for the sake of the gold.”
“A Louis d’or,” said Marguerite, hesitating—“a Louis d’or?”
She held the coin a moment, and gave it back again, with a gentle shake
of the head.
“What, my little Jacobin, do you hate the king like that? My
foster-brother told me a far different story.”
“Hate the king? Oh, no! I love the king, and am no Jacobin, though I do
sell flowers, and in some sort belong to the market.”
“Love the king, and refuse to take his likeness, even when stamped on
gold, that is beyond belief.”
“It is not that; but you offer me too much. The flowers you have are
worth only a few sous. I will take that, but no more.”
“But if I insist upon it?”
“Dame Doudel would not permit me to accept gifts even from monsieur.”
“Dame Doudel! Oh! she sits in the market—I know her well. But what has
she to say in this matter? When Mirabeau sees a pretty girl, and she
pleases him with her merchandise, or her face, all the old women in
France shall not limit his generosity. Take the gold, child—take the
gold.”
Still Marguerite shook her head.
“I cannot take it, monsieur count. Dame Doudel is only a good, kind
woman, who loves me; but she would never let me receive alms and call it
selling.”
Mirabeau was looking earnestly at the girl’s changing face as she spoke.
“You were the girl I sent to the king that day, and a more lovely little
embassadress never was chosen.”
Marguerite blushed, but a bright smile flashed over her face.
“I was honored. It frightened me; but I was so grateful that you
permitted me to go.”
“There was another person grateful, I doubt not, and that person was the
queen, who dreaded something much worse, I will be sworn! I heard all
about it, and have never repented the choice we made, though there was
some fierce anger among the grand army of women at the time. You stood
in the way of more than one whose brazen ambition would have confronted
angels with satisfaction.”
“Yes, I know,” answered the girl, lifting her earnest eyes to the count,
and speaking with gentle confidence. “There was one in the market, this
morning, who reviled me before all the women, as if I had been to blame
in something.”
“Indeed! And who was it?”
“They called her Louison.”
“Louison Brisot?”
“Yes, that was the other name—a tall, handsome woman, with eyes like
fire.”
“Oh, yes! I recognize the description. So she dared to assail you. My
favor has driven the creature mad, or she would not have found the
courage to attack any one Mirabeau has exalted by his notice. This shall
not happen again, I will answer for that.”
“Oh! I am not afraid. It is only the sight of her face that can hurt
me.”
“Her face? Why it is bold enough, but one of the handsomest in Paris.”
“Oh, it is terrible!” cried the girl, shuddering. “If I could only
forget it.”
“Why, what can distress you so in Louison’s face? Surely, it has done
you no harm.”
“I saw her kill a man with her own hands, only because he was faithful
to the king.”
The poor girl trembled as she spoke; her sweet, young face grew cold and
white; and the eyes that she lifted to Mirabeau were full of the anguish
she could not speak.
“Louison Brisot has much to answer for, and she shall some day give a
strict account,” said Mirabeau, sternly; “but let her pass now—I have
something else to talk of. This man, was he your friend, and did he love
the king?”
“Better than his own life, or he would have joined the insurgents and
been saved,” answered the girl, promptly.
“And you? Remember, child, it is an unpopular, if not a dangerous thing,
to speak well of Louis, or his wife.”
“I know it—Mother Doudel has warned me; but I sometimes think it is
cowardice not to say the truth. My father suffered wrong from the old
king, but loves Louis and his queen well enough to die for them. In that
I am like my father.”
“You are a brave girl!” exclaimed Mirabeau, reaching forth his hand,
which took hers in a firm clasp. “I did not expect this. So you would
serve the king. Well, well, it may be that the chance will be given you.
If it should, what then? Would all this bright courage fail?”
“You ask this because I fainted that day at Versailles. I was so
young—so very, very young, and all that crowd of women terrified me.”
“But are you so much older now?”
“Yes; years on years. It is a long, weary time since then—every day a
year.”
“But can you be silent?”
“If silence will serve the king, I can be dumb.”
The pallor had left her face now, and it was kindled up with a generous
glow that spoke well for the courageous soul within.
“But if Dame Doudel should not approve?”
“In this I would not ask her; that which my father approves I will abide
by. His first lesson was duty to my God; his next, duty to my
sovereign—loyalty with him is sacred as religion.”
“Strange girl,” muttered the count, who gave that forced respect for
conscience and religion, which simple truth wrings even from infidels.
“Strange, brave girl!”
Perhaps the man was contrasting his own mixed, and, to a certain extent,
ignoble motives, with her pure heroism; for his eyes sunk abashed from
the earnest purpose kindling in hers, and he began to pick the flowers
to pieces which had just been fastened in his bosom.
“Don’t!” she said, with tender pathos in her voice. “Don’t! you will
hurt them!”
“Hurt them!” repeated the count; “hurt them! Would to heaven I had never
done worse things than that. But tell me where you live, in the old
place?”
Marguerite gave Dame Doudel’s address.
“I shall not come myself, perhaps, but you will hear from me. Remember,
my name should not be mentioned. No one must be informed that we have
met. If you wish to serve the king, it must be cautiously. Some friends
of his have need of a trusty messenger, who can pass in and out of the
palace unsuspected; you would not hesitate?”
“No.”
“But neither your mother nor Dame Doudel must know.”
“I will not tell them.”
“It may prove dangerous in the end.”
“I am not afraid of any danger that comes only to myself; but that which
I do must not harm Dame Doudel or my mother.”
“Of course. It is for their safety that they should know nothing.”
“Then, if danger comes, it will only reach me.”
“Be cautious, and there is no danger.”
“It is hardly worth while to be cautious for myself, so few people would
miss me if I were to die before night; there is my father—and one
other.”
“And who is this one?”
“I had better not tell—he might not like it.”
“_He!_ Well, I must not ask. But perhaps Jacques could tell me.”
“Monsieur Jacques, no, no. He seldom comes near us now.”
Marguerite did not see the smile that passed over that mouth, or the
laughter that sparkled in the eyes that Mirabeau bent upon her. Her mind
had gone back tenderly to the prisoner of the Bastille, and she wondered
in her heart what he would do if any harm should take her away from him.
“Oh, yes!” she murmured; “there is good reason that I should be
careful.”
“The best reason in the world,” answered Mirabeau; “for, without
caution, you can do nothing for our friends at St. Cloud—with it, a
great deal.”
“Then you also are friendly to the king?”
Mirabeau looked into the girl’s face with a strange, puzzled expression
in his own. The simple truth that he read there was enough. One element
of this man’s power lay in his almost intuitive knowledge of character,
and in the prompt selfishness with which he seized upon the talent and
labors of other men, adapting them to his own genius so completely that
even to himself he seemed to make them entirely his own. The firm
resolution which lay in her heart was made known to the man. As a
gentle, truthful girl, he would not have trusted her, but he saw more
than that, and spoke out frankly.
“Yes, my girl, I _am_ friendly to the king. I am so friendly to this
great nation, too, that the one grand aim of my life shall be to bring
the people and the court into harmony.”
“Oh! if you could! If you only could!” cried the girl. “It is the work
of an angel you undertake.”
“That is why Mirabeau seeks an angel to help him,” he said, bending his
head toward the flower girl, as if she had been a duchess.
“Do not mock me, monsieur. I am only a poor girl, with so few to care
for in the world, that I can afford to take a little danger on myself.
When you want me, I shall not stand back.”
“I am sure of that, and say, good morning! knowing that I have one true
friend more.”
As Mirabeau said this, he lifted his hat with a courteous bend of the
head, and swept down the street, forgetting to pay the sous which
Marguerite had named as a fair price for her flowers. In this one act
the nature of that little, great and most wonderful man, betrayed
itself. He was ready to toss away gold for a tuft of flowers, but forgot
entirely the trifling sum which was their just value. Prodigality has
always a germ of meanness lying at the core. All this time Louison
Brisot had been watching them.