LOUISON BRISOT VISITS ROBESPIERRE.
A little man sat alone in his lodgings where he led an existence of
austere economy, such as many of the most noisy patriots only affected.
This man was sincere in his simple mode of life, and honestly rigid in
the self-denial, which had become a habit within him. The only gleam of
vanity that broke around him lay in the showy color and cut of his
clothes, which were unlike those of any other man in his class of life.
With this exception, Robespierre cared nothing for his surroundings. He
was proud of a very insignificant person, and ambitious for power, but
had not thought of gain as a means of working out his ambition. Indeed,
Robespierre, like many of his compatriots, was proud of his poverty, and
used it as a stepping-stone to the influence he craved.
“A woman wishes to see citoyen Robespierre.”
These words from a slatternly servant aroused the man from a pamphlet
which he was reading, and he started up surprised, and a little nervous,
for it was getting late in the evening, and in order to read in comfort,
he had thrown off the only coat he possessed, and unwound the voluminous
cravat from his throat, both of which articles lay across the back of
his chair.
“A woman—a lady? Who is it?”
“Don’t know.”
“Well, what is she—young or old, beautiful or ugly?”
“Beautiful, I dare say the citoyen will think.”
“Well, well, keep her waiting till I get my coat on.”
Robespierre ran to a little mirror hanging on the wall, and folded the
soft, white cravat around his neck, caressed the ruffles of plaited
linen that had begun to hang limp, and a little soiled upon his bosom,
into something like their original crispness. Then he thrust his arms
into a coat originally of bright olive-green, from which the nap had
been considerably worn by constant brushing. Scarcely had he settled his
slight figure in these garments when the door of his room opened, and
Louison Brisot made her appearance. She had evidently been walking fast,
for a warm, bright color glowed in her cheeks, and her bosom heaved and
fell with her quick breathing.
Robespierre had seen this young person before, and received her with a
feeling of disappointment. Notwithstanding the honied flatteries she had
bestowed on him that night in the street, he distrusted her. Louison was
known as the devoted friend of Mirabeau, and Robespierre regarded her
with something of the dislike which he felt toward that powerful man,
whose greatness had so overshadowed him both in the Assembly and with
the people.
“I am fortunate in finding you alone, citoyen,” said the girl, who
scarcely heeded the confusion into which she had thrown the little man,
whose character and ability had not yet found full recognition in
France. “We are not known to each other much, but shall be better
acquainted, I hope, after my errand is explained. Have I your permission
to sit?”
Robespierre came forward and placed one of the two chairs his room
contained, for the accommodation of his visitor. Then he stood up,
leaning one hand on the table, and waited in grave silence for her to
speak. She did this suddenly.
“You know Mirabeau well, but do not like him,” she affirmed rather than
questioned.
“Yes, the count has made himself well known in the Assembly.”
“Where he overshadows more able members than he ever can be, and
tyrannizes over the true patriots of France by the force of his own
brutal character.”
“Mirabeau is a powerful man,” answered Robespierre thoughtfully. “This
day he stands with his foot upon the neck of France, and the people
sustain him.”
“Because they think him a true patriot.”
“Yes, he has attained a marvelous hold on the people.”
“But if those who worship him now could be made to see him false as he
is—a traitor to their cause, a parasite of the court, a double-sided
villain—what then? Would they cling to him still?”
“Cling to him? No! The people are great; the people are just!”
“One question more. Who is there among the patriots who could take his
place?”
For the first time, a slow, dull crimson came into Robespierre’s face,
and his eyes shone with inward fire. The ambition that consumed him
flashed out with an irrepressible illumination of the face that a moment
before had seemed so parched and void of all expression.
Louison answered the look as if he had spoken.
“You are right, citizen. The man is Maximillian Robespierre. I, of all
the women of France, have known it. While others reviled him, I have
seen the elements of greatness rising and growing in this man. While
Mirabeau trifles with his power, plays with his popularity, and loses
his triumphs, this man hoards his strength and bends his energies to one
great purpose—the liberty of the people.”
Robespierre gazed on the woman in amazement. He believed himself to be
all that she described, felt the indomitable spirit, which she
understood so well, burning in his soul, and replied to her as if she
had been talking to another person.
“You are right. The man who is to lift France out of her chains must
have but one duty, one idea—to that humanity itself must bow; for her
sake life should be as nothing. The purposes of other men must bend to
his will. Count Mirabeau is not that man. His soul wanders away from its
wavering object back to his grosser self. He wastes his life in projects
that have no issue. He loves himself rather than France. The
aristocratic blood in his veins is forever leading him back to our
enemies. He coquets with a great nation as if it were a woman.”
“Yet the people love him, and follow him blindly—most of all, the women;
and of these, with blind persistence, the women of the market, who wield
a wonderful power over the starving multitude who come to them for food.
“I know. I have seen their devotion. This man does not arise in his
place without a crowd to cheer him on. His speeches are broken up with
acclamations, and carried to the world on a thousand lips, warm with his
praises. Yet, I declare to you, this man stands between these very
people and their liberty—he blocks the way more earnest men are eager to
tread. But why have I spoken thus, and to a woman known as his warmest
admirer?”
“Not so, citoyen. While Mirabeau was honest, I adored him. Now——”
“Now? What have you discovered? Why are you here? Not because I am known
as his friend? That is impossible. I look upon him as a stumbling block
in the way of all true patriots.”
“And I look upon him as a traitor!”
“Ah! I know men say that; but the proof? Where is the proof? No one has
been able to find it; and every futile charge only makes him the
stronger.”
“What if he were known to visit the queen privately?”
“To visit the queen? No, no! He is not rash enough for that.”
“But if he had?”
“That would be a strong lever in skillful hands; but the proof must be
clear, and the witnesses trustworthy.”
“What if he had taken money from the court?”
“Money! Why, that would kill him with the people.”
“Where does the money come from with which he keeps up princely state in
the Chaussée d’Anton? Has any one put that question home to him?”
“As for that, it is understood that Mirabeau is reconciled with his
father, a wealthy man in the provinces.”
Louison broke into a laugh.
“So that is the way he accounts for it; and the people are fools enough
to believe him. Credulous idiots, have they no eyes?”
“But suspicions are not proofs.”
“Is this a _proof_?” cried the girl, losing all patience with these
lawyer-like questions. “Is that Mirabeau’s handwriting? Will his
besotted worshippers stand firm against a paper like that?”
Louison cast down Mirabeau’s letter to the queen as she spoke.
Robespierre took it up and read it carefully. He was a cool, wary man,
slow of conviction, impossible to move when his opinion was once formed;
but the woman who watched him saw that hard, dull face light up with
almost ferocious satisfaction, and his gray eyes were absolutely black
with excitement as he turned them upon her.
“This letter; how came it in your possession, citoyenne?”
“I bribed Mirabeau’s messenger to give it up.”
“It is genuine! It is genuine! Louison Brisot, you have done wonderful
service to those who love France. I will lay this letter before the
Assembly.”
Louison turned white. This prompt action, which would sweep all power of
retreat from her, took away her breath. As yet she had made no terms for
herself.
“When Mirabeau is dethroned, and another sits in his place, then what of
Louison Brisot?” she said.
“She will have the gratitude of all France,” answered Robespierre,
looking up from the letter, which he was perusing a second time. “What
more can a true patriot want?”
“That which Mirabeau has, and you seek for—power!”
“Power?”
“The man who controls all others must share his power openly, or in
secret, with Louison Brisot.”
A faint, hard smile crept over Robespierre’s face; it disturbed the
woman who gazed so fixedly upon him. Had she done well to exchange the
insolent forbearance of Mirabeau for this iron man?
“At last we can lay his black heart bare before the people he has duped.
Nothing can save him. The man who arraigns him is immortal.”
Robespierre was speaking to himself. Louison listened. She saw that he
had no thought of her—that keen, selfish ambition possessed him
entirely. She drew toward him softly as he pored over the paper, reached
over his shoulder and took the letter from his hand.
He started and uttered a faint snarl, like some wild animal when its
food is torn away.
“Why have you taken it?” he said, “I was getting his treason by heart.”
“But I have scarcely read it myself. Besides, there are others who love
France.”
“No, no! Let this rest between you and me. Robespierre must strike the
blow himself.”
The sight of this man’s eagerness to crush his rival made Louison doubly
anxious to keep the power she possessed under her own control. What, if
in ruining Mirabeau, she only acted as the instrument of a harder man’s
ambition. After all, had she not been too hasty in allowing the jealous
feelings of a woman to hurry her so completely into a combination with
Mirabeau’s enemies? Had she been wise to threaten this man, to whom
defiance, in any form, was like flashes of scarlet to an enraged animal?
She looked at Robespierre in that olive-green coat, with its high
rolling collar, under which his spare, angular figure seemed to shrink
away into insignificance, and a smile of derision almost curled her
saucy lips. She remarked with an inward jeer, the striped vest, in which
lines of warm buff predominated, whose broad lapels, opening wide upon
the bosom, gave place to a profusion of twisted muslin and clustering
ruffles, from which that contracted face, lean, dry, and hard, rose in
grotesque contrast.
Louison almost laughed at herself for the thought of lifting this man
into the seat of Mirabeau, whose brutal strength and dashing elegance
came back upon her mind with the sudden force of contrast. She
remembered how grandly the broad ruffles rolled back from his massive
throat; how imperial was the poise of that haughty head, with its shock
of tawny hair, and wonderful mobility of countenance. Even the supreme
insolence of his bearing had its charm for this woman, who was ready to
adore the man whose ruin she was planning, while she solemnly believed
that it was hate which led her on. She turned away from the
contemplation of Robespierre’s meagre figure, wondering at herself that
she had even so far put a creature like Mirabeau into his power.
After all, Louison Brisot was a woman, and capricious even in the wild
patriotism and burning jealousy, which led so many of the women of
France into acts that seemed to unsex them. She began to scorn herself
for the idea of casting a grand, leonine creature like Mirabeau into the
power of a man, whose appearance was so utterly insignificant.
No, Louison would not do it. Mirabeau should have another chance. It was
like chaining a lion that foxes might torture him. No,—no! That letter
once given up, and where was she? Simply an informer, to be used for
that eager little man, who could not even smile frankly.
Louison put the letter in her bosom, while Robespierre was gazing on it
with eager longing.
“But you are not going? You will not take it away?” he exclaimed,
sharply.
“It belongs to me—I shall not harm it. When all is ready you know where
to find it.”
“But, citoyenne, that paper belongs to the people.”
“And I am one of the people,” answered Louison, laughing.
“Leave it—leave it with me.”
“Yes, when I like you better than myself.”
Robespierre measured the woman with a keen, hungry glance. He was not
altogether a brave man, but crafty and cruel enough to have killed her
with his own hands, if that would have given him possession of the
paper; but Louison, a handsome, bright woman, was, in fact, powerful
enough to have defended herself against two such men as Robespierre. He
glanced at her tall, subtle person, her strong, white arms, and burning
eyes, that seemed to read the craven purpose that was creeping through
his brain and felt how useless any struggle would be against her. So he
slunk back into the chair, from which he had half-started, with a
feeling of abject defeat.
“But you will keep it safe? It will be forthcoming when the patriots of
the Assembly call for it?”
“You have seen it—and who doubts the word of Robespierre?”
“But I must have the proof—too many unfounded or unproved charges have
been made against this man. They only make him more defiant and more
powerful.”
“But the letter will be in my keeping—you can find it at any time.”
“Then you will not leave it?”
“No!”
“But promise me that you will not part with it to another.”
“Well, I promise. Good-night, citoyen.”
Robespierre followed the woman with his keen eyes, longing to spring
upon her and wrest the document from her bosom. His thin hand clutched
and opened itself on the table with an impatient desire to be at work.
At the door of Robespierre’s lodgings Louison met two men, whom she knew
and recognized. For one moment she paused. If her design was carried
out, these were the very persons whose aid she wanted; but she only
hesitated a moment, then passed on, saying,
“Good-evening, citoyen Marat. Good-evening, St. Just.”
Marat answered her with a careless jest. St. Just simply bent his head,
but neither smiled on her, or at the wit of his companion. Louison stood
a moment in the passage, and watched these two men as they mounted a
flight of stairs leading to Robespierre’s room.
“Shall I go back,” she thought, “and settle the whole thing with these
men at once? No, not yet. By to-morrow I may have the other letter, or
it may be—it may be——”
Louison hurried into the street with this half-uttered sentence on her
lip, and walked rapidly toward the Chaussée d’Anton. When she came
opposite Mirabeau’s house her face lighted up. She had said to herself,
“If I find it dark, then it shall be Robespierre; if not, Mirabeau shall
have another chance. I will not give him up to these hounds without
that.” Womanhood was strong within her that evening. She panted to
conquer this great man, but not destroy him. When she thought of that, a
feeling of terrible desolation fell upon her. She shuddered to think how
near the scaffold was to a political offence.
The porter made no objection to her entrance this time, but waved his
hand toward the library, as if she had been expected.