"Pierre had wandered down the whole length of the Rue de Lille before he
quite came to himself, and then he started to see how far he had come.
He had crossed two or three side streets without noticing their names.
"`I may have passed the Rue de Poitiers,' he said to himself, `where she
said the wine-shop was,' and he looked about him anxiously. A few steps
further brought him out of the quiet Rue de Lille into a wider
thoroughfare, the noise of which had already begun to reach him. Here
there was life and movement enough--of a kind. Groups stood about
talking, noisily laughing; some few passers-by, looking more serious, as
if on their way to or from their daily work, were stopped and jeered at,
and in some cases seemed to have difficulty in getting away.
"`Stay five minutes--they are coming this way--hark! you can hear them
already,' Pierre heard said in a group of blouses to one of their
fellows, who evidently wanted to get off.
"`My wife's ill,' he said, `and the noise frightens her when she hears
them pass. Let me go, good friends; I would stay, and gladly, but for
that.'
"They let him go with a muttered oath. The man's face was pale, and
belied his words. Indeed, on many faces Pierre learnt to recognise the
traces of misery and deadly fear, though these very ones sometimes
laughed and shouted the loudest. But his attention was now caught by a
strange sound coming nearer and nearer--a distant roar it had seemed at
first, but by degrees it grew into the shouting and yelling, hardly to
be called singing--though there was some tune and measure in it, and the
time was marked by the beating of small drums, the clashing and clanging
of tambourine;--of a multitude of human voices.
"`What is it?' said Pierre, half-timidly, to a boy a year or two younger
than himself, who stood near. `Is it a procession?'
"The boy looked at him curiously. But his face was thin and pale; he
did not look as if he had come in for many of the good things to be had
for the asking.
"`A procession!' he repeated, but in a low voice; `mind what you say.'
For the word is associated in France with religious observances. `It is
the Carmagnole--the dance of rejoicing. Stay, you will see for
yourself; you must be a new-comer never to have seen it before.'
"Many and many a time in his after-life, as he has often told me, did
Pierre Germain wish he had never seen that horrid sight at all. It used
to haunt him, strong and practical as he was, like a hideous nightmare.
There they came--a band of men and women, or beings that had been such,
though looking more like demons. Some were half-naked, with scarfs and
ribbons, generally of flaming red, flying from them; some in the most
absurd and grotesque costumes that could be imagined: the women with
long hair streaming, the men daubed crimson with paint or what looked
like worse, some brandishing sticks and clubs, some waving scarlet
flags--all leaping and dancing with a sort of monotonous rhythm,
sometimes closing in together, sometimes stretching out with joined
hands in enormous wheels, all yelling and shouting, with yet a tune or
refrain that went in time to their steps, and somehow seemed to make the
whole more horrible.
"`Are they mad?' said Pierre, leaning back against the wall with
unutterable loathing. The pale-faced boy was still beside him, for to
proceed on one's way till the hideous crowd had passed was impossible.
"`Hush! hush!' said the boy in a tone of real terror. `Mad? Yes,
indeed they are--mad with blood! Oh, I would not have risked coming out
had I known I would meet them again,' and he reeled as if he were going
to faint. Pierre caught him by the arm; something in the boy's air and
tone seemed at variance with his shabby clothes.
"`Can I do nothing for you?' said Pierre. `You seem so weak. Will you
take my arm?'
"But the boy seemed better again, and as the crowd began to disperse a
little he was evidently in an agony to be gone.
"`No, no,' he said, `I have not far to go. Take care of yourself,' he
added, and in an instant he had slipped away.
"Pierre stood for a moment, feeling almost as sick and faint as the poor
boy he had pitied. Then afraid of attracting notice he crossed the
street, and went down the first quiet one he came to. Here, after a
while, he passed some children playing about, whom he asked to direct
him to the Rue de Poitiers. It happened to be very near, and in another
moment he found himself again at a corner of the Rue de Lille. Here
stood a wine-shop, sure enough. It must be here that Marguerite Ribou
was to be heard of.
"But his courage, or presence of mind rather, had begun to fail him a
little. He had met with such disappointment, and was confused and
shocked by what he had seen and heard, and by the constant warnings to
`beware' of he scarcely knew what. It was evident that his countrified
air and anxious face made him remarked, and though he had no fear for
himself, he felt more than ever that all chance of finding and rescuing
Edmee or her mother hung on him alone. He was faint and hungry too--he
had had nothing for many hours but his cup of coffee and bread--and he
felt as if even the fumes of the wine, for he distinguished several
blouses drinking inside, would mount to his head, and make him feel
still more confused, and he hung about irresolutely, even while
conscious that his doing so might attract attention. Happily for him,
before any one inside had noticed him, a servant-maid with a basket on
her arm came out of the shop and passed down the street. Pierre
followed her quickly.
"`Pardon,' said he, lifting his cap--a vague idea had struck him that
this perhaps might be the Marguerite he was in search of, but one glance
at the girl's round rosy face told him he was wrong; `is there anywhere
near here I can get anything to eat at?'
"`Follow me,' said the girl, who seemed a matter-of-fact person, `there
is an eating-house round the corner.'
"`Do you live there?' said Pierre, glancing back to the wine-shop.
"`To be sure. I am the servant.'
"`Do you know any one called Marguerite, who comes there sometimes?'
"The girl shook her head.
"`She comes no more,' she said. `She and the mistress, the Citizeness
Victorine, had words one day, and since then she comes no more.'
"`Do you know where she is now?'
"Again the stolid young person shook her head.
"`It is somewhere over by the church of Notre Dame--a good way from
here. But I cannot tell you where,' said the girl. `It is possible
that the Citizeness Victorine may know, and would tell you if she were
in a good temper.'
"But Pierre, feeling sure that the Victorine she spoke of was none other
than his old enemy of the same name, was unutterably thankful to have
avoided coming across her, so in his turn he shook his head.
"`It would not be worth while to derange the Citizeness, a mere
inquiry,' he said vaguely, and then having arrived within sight of the
modest restaurant, he thanked the girl, and entering, asked for the food
he was much in need of.
"His spirits rose a little when he was no longer faint and hungry. He
determined to go in the direction the girl had mentioned, with a vague
hope of somehow or other coming upon some trace, for in his inexperience
he did not realise the difficulty and improbability of doing so. He
spent the whole of the day in wandering about, seeing and hearing many
strange and startling things, doing his utmost to hide his impressions,
for fear of attracting notice. But when night fell, and he could wander
about no more he took refuge in a little room he had managed to find in
the house of a poor washerwoman, who let it to him cheaply, on the
condition of his paying a week in advance, and then poor Pierre,
completely disheartened, beginning to doubt if after all he had done
right in coming off as he had done, threw himself upon the little bed
and burst into tears.
"The history of that day was very much the history of many that
followed. At the wine-shop of the Rue de Poitiers, they would not or
could not direct him to Marguerite Ribou, and Pierre wandered about,
glancing in every face he passed in the hopes of seeing some one who
might help him in his quest, though rarely, very rarely, venturing to
make any inquiry. He forced himself to frequent places that were
abhorrent to him; many an hour he hung about the streets through which
would, as he came to know, pass the fearful `tumbrils,' as they were
called--the heavy waggons crowded every day with the victims for the
guillotine. Never in after-life did he forget the faces he saw--on this
ghastly journey to death; some strong in despair, some fainting and
unconscious as if already dead, a few, but very few, shrieking wildly
for mercy to their brutal keepers--others, many even, with looks of
sweet resignation and noble courage, to whom the guillotine was indeed
but the gate of Heaven. Put among them all, never did he perceive the
pale, beautiful features of the Countess of Valmont, nor, though
youthful boys and girls, little children even, were often among the
condemned, did he ever catch sight of Edmee's fair head and blue eyes,
which he felt sure he would have known among a thousand. Some few times
he forced himself to make one of the crowd in the dreadful Place de la
Republique, where the guillotine stood: but he grew too sick with horror
to repeat often his search there, feeling, too, how awful would have
been his success! He learnt to know all the principal prisons, and the
doors at which came out both the condemned and the appallingly small
number of the released. But in vain--always, always in vain, till his
hope began to die out, and his sad and wistful eyes told their own tale,
had any one cared to read it. His money, too, was running low; he saw
no possibility of gaining any; he felt that his days in Paris were
numbered, and that he must return to Valmont having failed. But for his
poor father and mother, he felt that he would rather die than do so.
"At last came the first ray of hope. One evening, in a sort of old
curiosity shop, not far from the neighbourhood where he had been told to
look for Marguerite Ribou, he fancied he caught sight, as he passed, of
a picture resembling the well-remembered portrait of the baby Edmee. It
was some little way back in the shop, and the owner was just closing for
the night, so he could see no more. But with the first of the morning
he was back again, waiting till the window was opened, and the contents
exposed to view. It was a quiet street, and there were few people
about. What were his feelings when, able at last to press his face
against the glass and peer into the shop, he saw that his glance the
night before had not deceived him! It was indeed the well-known
portrait of his little lady. This time Pierre threw caution to the
winds: he entered the shop boldly, and walking up to the picture, asked
the old man behind the counter, just preparing to enjoy his early
breakfast of a bowl of soup, if he could tell him from whence it had
come. The shopman's first glance of suspicion--everybody in Paris
looked at everybody else with suspicion, it seemed to simple Pierre--
fell before the boy's earnest and straightforward manner.
"`Yes,' he said, `if you have any particular reason for wanting to
know.'
"`I have the best of reasons,' said Pierre. `It belongs--it belonged to
the friends I owe most to in the world, and if they were not in great
trouble, it would not be here.'
"`You are right,' said the old man. `Many people to whom trouble is new
are having a sharp taste of it now. I do not take any part in these
things. I live as I have always done, and for my business it is a good
time just now. You would wonder at the objects of value I have bought
for almost nothing. It is not my fault. I cannot give more. And it
will only be afterwards that I shall reap my benefit; when things
recover themselves I daresay many will be glad to buy back at a profit
the things I have. I should be glad to do the owners a good turn if I
can, so I label the things carefully, and when I cannot get the real
name I distinguish them somehow.'
"`And thus,' said Pierre, beside himself with impatience, `you can tell
me where this came from?'
"`Yes,' said the old man, `for you seem honest and trustworthy. It came
from some people living in the first street round the corner there,' and
he pointed through the window, `the first street to the right. I do not
know their name, but they have been there some time, and are, no doubt,
as you say, in great trouble. I have several things of theirs--I mark
them all with the name of the street and the number.'
"`What is it?' asked Pierre breathlessly.
"`Nine, number nine,' said the man, and scarcely waiting to thank him,
young Germain, in a bewilderment of feeling, such as he had never known,
rushed out of the shop and in the direction pointed out.
"It was a poor place, and it was not till he had knocked at several
doors, and repeated several times the description of what he wanted--a
lady--a citizeness, he was obliged to say--with her young daughter, a
young girl with fair hair and blue eyes, that he was at last directed to
the right rooms. Up at the very top of the house they were--rooms that
would be dreary even to those who had never known any better: what must
they have been to the Countess and her child? Pierre's tremulous knock
was twice repeated before it was responded to. Then the door was
opened, hesitatingly and unwillingly, by a boy. At first Pierre's heart
sank with new disappointment; then, looking again, fresh perplexity
seized him--it was the boy, though still paler and thinner, the same boy
he had met in the crowd that first day in Paris. And as he stared at
him a new idea struck him like a revelation.
"`I am not mistaken,' he said suddenly; `they must be here. You are--
are you not?--you are Edmond de Sarinet?' though, strangely enough,
through all his search, the remembrance of his childish enemy, the
thought of him as perhaps with his aunt and cousin, had never before
occurred to him.
"The boy drew himself up haughtily; thin and miserable as he looked,
there would have been something ludicrous in his manner had it not been
so piteous.
"`And what if I am?' he was beginning, when he was suddenly pushed
aside. A girl, as tall as he, nearly, and far stronger and healthier in
appearance, though her face was pale, and her eyes swollen with much
crying, her flaxen hair tossed back over her shoulders, as if she had
not had the time or the heart to arrange it, came flying forward, and in
another instant her arms were round Pierre's neck, her fair face pressed
against his sturdy shoulders as he bent to meet her.
"`Oh, Pierrot! my own good Pierrot!' she cried, though her voice shook
with sobs, `you have come at last. I knew your voice at once. Oh,
Pierrot, pity your poor Edmee!--Mamma is dying! But come, come,' she
went on, dragging him forward before he had time to utter a word of the
sorrow and sympathy which were choking him; `she will know you still--
she will speak to you. It will make the leaving me less hard; she has
prayed so, that God has answered at last. Come, Pierre, and comfort
her.'
"And before he could take in that he had really found them, feeling as
if he were dreaming, Pierre Germain was standing in a small and
poorly-furnished room, where the evident efforts to make it as
comfortable as possible but made its bareness more touching--standing
beside a bed, on which, whiter than the pillows that supported her, lay
his dearly-loved lady, the sweet and gentle Countess of Valmont!
"`That I should have found you _thus_!' were the first words he uttered,
while the tears ran down his sunburnt cheeks. `After my long search--
why has it come too late?'
"But the Countess checked his words. With the beautiful calm of the
dying for whom death has no terrors she smiled up into his face.
"`Not too late,' she whispered; `in time--just in time, say rather, my
boy. I think God has let me live for this. I think I should have died
some days ago but for a strange hope that you would come. You will take
her home to your mother, Pierre; she will love my Edmee as her own
child. I cannot see into the future--I am too tired to think. But she
will be safe with you, safer than anywhere else. O God, I thank Thee!'
"Her words were scarcely audible--she had to stop between every two or
three. She did not seem surprised to see Pierre, nor did she ask why he
did not come before. Her spirit was already on the wing, only, as it
were, recalled, or held back, by her great mother-love. And not for
Edmee alone. After a pause, during which Pierre, kneeling beside her,
murmured, amidst his sobs, his most solemn promises to devote his life,
his strength, his everything to the girl so soon to be orphan and
alone--promises which seemed to increase the soft peace on the dying
face--she glanced round as if seeking some one.
"`Edmond, my poor Edmond!' she whispered; `him too--you will be kind to
him too, Pierre?'
"`God helping me, I will,' said Pierre.
"`Where are you, Edmond? Give me your hand,' she said.
"The poor boy came from behind the thin curtain of the bed, where he had
hidden.
"`Take me with you, auntie--little aunt, who has been my only true
mother!' he said, in an agony of tears. `No one will care for me now.
I am not strong enough to protect Edmee as I fain would, and she will
not want me. Oh, cannot you ask God to take me too--weak and useless
that I am?'
"Even in the extremity of her own grief Edmee's generous heart was
touched. She drew Edmond round to where she and Pierre were kneeling,
and threw her arm round his thin shoulders.
"`_I_ love you, my poor Edmond. I will always love you, and we will all
take care of you.'
"He yielded to her, but he said nothing. But the Countess caught what
Edmee said, and smiled again.
"`Thank God!' she said. They were her last words, and what could have
shown her more fit for Heaven? Thanking God through all--through the
dark and bitter days that had befallen, through sunshine and through
storm--thanking Him now with her latest breath for the ray of comfort
that had come at the last, though so long deferred that hope had
well-nigh fled.
"She died that afternoon. All through the long, sad hours of that
strange day the three young creatures watched beside her, not knowing,
in their inexperience, the exact moment at which the gentle spirit
fled--not till the Sister of Charity, who, in disguise, like many others
all through those awful months, still went about ministering to the sick
and dying--not till Sister Angelique tapped softly at the door, and
entering, saw in a moment the sad truth, did they understand that the
mother and friend was no longer there--only the garment she had worn.
"`I would have come sooner, but I was even more wanted elsewhere; there
was nothing to be done here. The doctor saw her yesterday,' she said to
Pierre, when it was explained to her who he was.
"`And the kind priest,' sobbed Edmee; `he will come again, dear Sister,
will he not? No one knows he is a priest,' she said to Pierre. `He has
to dress like a workman.'
"Angelique stayed a while and did what she could. There was a little, a
very little money remaining, and Pierre drew out the remains of his.
Edmee had been obliged to sell everything they had brought away in their
flight from the Rue de Lille. `My portrait was the last to go,' she
said, `but my darling did not know it. And as it brought us _you_,
Pierre, we must not regret it. Some day we may buy it back again,' and
by degrees she related to him all the details of the last few weeks.
How the Marquis and Marquise had been taken very soon after Ludovic had
left, how but for a warning from Marguerite Ribou she, her mother, and
Edmond would infallibly have perished as _they_ did.
"`They were not long in prison,' she said. `Marguerite told us the day
they were guillotined. My uncle died like a gentleman, and at the last
the Marquise seemed to find courage too. They must have repented of
much in those last days I think. See! this is what my poor uncle sent
us secretly,' and she held out a soiled scrap of paper, on which were
written the two words `Forgive me!' `Ah,' continued Edmee, who--such is
the education of sorrow--at fourteen spoke like a woman, `I cannot
murmur that _she_ is gone when I think of her gentle death, and what it
might have been. Marguerite had not wished to save Edmond,' she went on
after a pause. `She is very angry, even now, whenever she sees him. I
think her brain is a little gone. But she has been most faithful to
_us_. It was that dreadful Victorine that caused it. She kept
persuading my aunt there was no danger, and thus delayed their escaping
till she had completed her own plans. She must have robbed them
fearfully.'
"Pierre let Edmee talk. She was too excited to remain quiet. He
listened without saying much, though his mind was terribly full. How
were they to accomplish the journey to Valmont? Penniless to begin
with, and almost afraid to spend money if they had had it! How could
Edmee ever make the journey on foot, and almost worst, Edmond, of whom
Pierre had never thought? His presence, too, made the risk greater,
for, as his father's son, there must be many to hate him, and
notwithstanding his pity for the boy, Pierre foresaw trouble. Edmond
had scarcely spoken to him, and even through his misery there flashed
out sparks of his old ill-feeling.
"There came again a knock at the door.
"`It must be our kind priest,' said Edmee.
"Pierre started up joyfully, `Let me speak to him,' he said. And in his
heart he added, `Here will be some one to give me counsel.'"