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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of I Will Repay, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: I Will Repay
+
+Author: Baroness Emmuska Orczy
+
+Posting Date: October 4, 2011 [EBook #5090]
+Release Date: February, 2004
+[Last updated: July 20, 2014]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I WILL REPAY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Walter Debeuf, Project Gutenberg volunteer.
+
+
+
+
+
+I Will Repay.
+
+By Baroness Orczy.
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE.
+
+
+I
+
+Paris: 1783.
+
+
+"Coward! Coward! Coward!"
+
+The words rang out, clear, strident, passionate, in a crescendo of
+agonised humiliation.
+
+The boy, quivering with rage, had sprung to his feet, and, losing his
+balance, he fell forward clutching at the table, whilst with a
+convulsive movement of the lids, he tried in vain to suppress the tears
+of shame which were blinding him.
+
+"Coward!" He tried to shout the insult so that all might hear, but his
+parched throat refused him service, his trembling hand sought the
+scattered cards upon the table, he collected them together, quickly,
+nervously, fingering them with feverish energy, then he hurled them at
+the man opposite, whilst with a final effort he still contrived to
+mutter: "Coward!"
+
+The older men tried to interpose, but the young ones only laughed, quite
+prepared for the adventure which must inevitably ensue, the only
+possible ending to a quarrel such as this.
+
+Conciliation or arbitration was out of the question. Deroulede should
+have known better than to speak disrespectfully of Adele de Montcheri,
+when the little Vicomte de Marny's infatuation for the notorious beauty
+had been the talk of Paris and Versailles these many months past.
+
+Adele was very lovely and a veritable tower of greed and egotism. The
+Marnys were rich and the little Vicomte very young, and just now the
+brightly-plumaged hawk was busy plucking the latest pigeon, newly
+arrived from its ancestral cote.
+
+The boy was still in the initial stage of his infatuation. To him Adele
+was a paragon of all the virtues, and he would have done battle on her
+behalf against the entire aristocracy of France, in a vain endeavour to
+justify his own exalted opinion of one of the most dissolute women of
+the epoch. He was a first-rate swordsman too, and his friends had
+already learned that it was best to avoid all allusions to Adele's
+beauty and weaknesses.
+
+But Deroulede was a noted blunderer. He was little versed in the manners
+and tones of that high society in which, somehow, he still seemed an
+intruder. But for his great wealth, no doubt, he never would have been
+admitted within the intimate circle of aristocratic France. His ancestry
+was somewhat doubtful and his coat-of-arms unadorned with quarterings.
+
+But little was known of his family or the origin of its wealth; it was
+only known that his father had suddenly become the late King's dearest
+friend, and commonly surmised that Deroulede gold had on more than one
+occasion filled the emptied coffers of the First Gentleman of France.
+
+Deroulede had not sought the present quarrel. He had merely blundered in
+that clumsy way of his, which was no doubt a part of the inheritance
+bequeathed to him by his bourgeois ancestry.
+
+He knew nothing of the little Vicomte's private affairs, still less of
+his relationship with Adele, but he knew enough of the world and enough
+of Paris to be acquainted with the lady's reputation. He hated at all
+times to speak of women. He was not what in those days would be termed a
+ladies' man, and was even somewhat unpopular with the sex. But in this
+instance the conversation had drifted in that direction, and when
+Adele's name was mentioned, every one became silent, save the little
+Vicomte, who waxed enthusiastic.
+
+A shrug of the shoulders on Deroulede's part had aroused the boy's ire,
+then a few casual words, and, without further warning, the insult had
+been hurled and the cards thrown in the older man's face.
+
+Deroulede did not move from his seat. He sat erect and placid, one knee
+crossed over the other, his serious, rather swarthy face perhaps a shade
+paler than usual: otherwise it seemed as if the insult had never reached
+his ears, or the cards struck his cheek.
+
+He had perceived his blunder, just twenty seconds too late. Now he was
+sorry for the boy and angered with himself, but it was too late to draw
+back. To avoid a conflict he would at this moment have sacrificed half
+his fortune, but not one particle of his dignity.
+
+He knew and respected the old Duc de Marny, a feeble old man now, almost
+a dotard whose hitherto spotless _blason_, the young Vicomte, his son,
+was doing his best to besmirch.
+
+When the boy fell forward, blind and drunk with rage, Deroulede leant
+towards him automatically, quite kindly, and helped him to his feet. He
+would have asked the lad's pardon for his own thoughtlessness, had that
+been possible: but the stilted code of so-called honour forbade so
+logical a proceeding. It would have done no good, and could but imperil
+his own reputation without averting the traditional sequel.
+
+The panelled walls of the celebrated gaming saloon had often witnessed
+scenes such as this. All those present acted by routine. The etiquette
+of duelling prescribed certain formalities, and these were strictly but
+rapidly adhered to.
+
+The young Vicomte was quickly surrounded by a close circle of friends.
+His great name, his wealth, his father's influence, had opened for him
+every door in Versailles and Paris. At this moment he might have had an
+army of seconds to support him in the coming conflict.
+
+Deroulede for a while was left alone near the card table, where the
+unsnuffed candles began smouldering in their sockets. He had risen to
+his feet, somewhat bewildered at the rapid turn of events. His dark,
+restless eyes wandered for a moment round the room, as if in quick
+search for a friend.
+
+But where the Vicomte was at home by right, Deroulede had only been
+admitted by reason of his wealth. His acquaintances and sycophants were
+many, but his friends very few.
+
+For the first time this fact was brought home to him. Every one in the
+room must have known and realised that he had not wilfully sought this
+quarrel, that throughout he had borne himself as any gentleman would,
+yet now, when the issue was so close at hand, no one came forward to
+stand by him.
+
+"For form's sake, monsieur, will you choose your seconds?"
+
+It was the young Marquis de Villefranche who spoke, a little haughtily,
+with a certain ironical condescension towards the rich parvenu, who was
+about to have the honour of crossing swords with one of the noblest
+gentlemen in France.
+
+"I pray you, Monsieur le Marquis," rejoined Deroulede coldly, "to make
+the choice for me. You see, I have few friends in Paris."
+
+The Marquis bowed, and gracefully flourished his lace handkerchief. He
+was accustomed to being appealed to in all matters pertaining to
+etiquette, to the toilet, to the latest cut in coats, and the procedure
+in duels. Good-natured, foppish, and idle, he felt quite happy and in
+his element thus to be made chief organiser of the tragic farce, about
+to be enacted on the parquet floor of the gaming saloon.
+
+He looked about the room for a while, scrutinising the faces of those
+around him. The gilded youth was crowding round De Marny; a few older
+men stood in a group at the farther end of the room: to these the
+Marquis turned, and addressing one of them, an elderly man with a
+military bearing and a shabby brown coat:
+
+"Mon Colonel," he said, with another flourishing bow; "I am deputed by
+M. Deroulede to provide him with seconds for this affair of honour, may
+I call upon you to ..."
+
+"Certainly, certainly," replied the Colonel. "I am not intimately
+acquainted with M. Deroulede, but since you stand sponsor, M. le Marquis
+..."
+
+"Oh!" rejoined the Marquis, lightly, "a mere matter of form, you know.
+M. Deroulede belongs to the entourage of Her Majesty. He is a man of
+honour. But I am not his sponsor. Marny is my friend, and if you prefer
+not to ..."
+
+"Indeed I am entirely at M. Deroulede's service," said the Colonel, who
+had thrown a quick, scrutinising glance at the isolated figure near the
+card table, "if he will accept my services ..."
+
+"He will be very glad to accept, my dear Colonel," whispered the Marquis
+with an ironical twist of his aristocratic lips. "He has no friends in
+our set, and if you and De Quettare will honour him, I think he should
+be grateful."
+
+M. de Quettare, adjutant to M. le Colonel, was ready to follow in the
+footsteps of his chief, and the two men, after the prescribed
+salutations to M. le Marquis de Villefranche, went across to speak to
+Deroulede.
+
+"If you will accept our services, monsieur," began the Colonel abruptly,
+"mine, and my adjutant's, M. de Quettare, we place ourselves entirely at
+your disposal."
+
+"I thank you, messieurs," rejoined Deroulede. "The whole thing is a
+farce, and that young man is a fool; but I have been in the wrong and
+..."
+
+"You would wish to apologise?" queried the Colonel icily.
+
+The worthy soldier had heard something of Deroulede's reputed bourgeois
+ancestry. This suggestion of an apology was no doubt in accordance with
+the customs of the middle-classes, but the Colonel literally gasped at
+the unworthiness of the proceeding. An apology? Bah! Disgusting!
+cowardly! beneath the dignity of any gentleman, however wrong he might
+be. How could two soldiers of His Majesty's army identify themselves
+with such doings?
+
+But Deroulede seemed unconscious of the enormity of his suggestion.
+
+"If I could avoid a conflict," he said, "I would tell the Vicomte that I
+had no knowledge of his admiration for the lady we were discussing and
+..."
+
+"Are you so very much afraid of getting a sword scratch, monsieur?"
+interrupted the Colonel impatiently, whilst M. de Quettare elevated a
+pair of aristocratic eyebrows in bewilderment at such an extraordinary
+display of bourgeois cowardice.
+
+"You mean, Monsieur le Colonel?"--queried Deroulede.
+
+"That you must either fight the Vicomte de Marny to-night, or clear out
+of Paris to-morrow. Your position in our set would become untenable,"
+retorted the Colonel, not unkindly, for in spite of Deroulede's
+extraordinary attitude, there was nothing in his bearing or his
+appearance that suggested cowardice or fear.
+
+"I bow to your superior knowledge of your friends, M. le Colonel,"
+responded Deroulede, as he silently drew his sword from its sheath.
+
+The centre of the saloon was quickly cleared. The seconds measured the
+length of the swords and then stood behind the antagonists, slightly in
+advance of the groups of spectators, who stood massed all round the
+room.
+
+They represented the flower of what France had of the best and noblest
+in name, in lineage, in chivalry, in that year of grace 1783. The
+storm-cloud which a few years hence was destined to break over their
+heads, sweeping them from their palaces to the prison and the
+guillotine, was only gathering very slowly in the dim horizon of
+squalid, starving Paris: for the next half-dozen years they would still
+dance and gamble, fight and flirt, surround a tottering throne, and
+hoodwink a weak monarch. The Fates' avenging sword still rested in its
+sheath; the relentless, ceaseless wheel still bore them up in their
+whirl of pleasure; the downward movement had only just begun: the cry of
+the oppressed children of France had not yet been heard above the din of
+dance music and lovers' serenades.
+
+The young Duc de Chateaudun was there, he who, nine years later, went to
+the guillotine on that cold September morning, his hair dressed in the
+latest fashion, the finest Mechlin lace around his wrists, playing a
+final game of piquet with his younger brother, as the tumbril bore them
+along through the hooting, yelling crowd of the half-naked starvelings
+of Paris.
+
+There was the Vicomte de Mirepoix, who, a few years later, standing on
+the platform of the guillotine, laid a bet with M. de Miranges that his
+own blood would flow bluer than that of any other head cut off that day
+in France. Citizen Samson heard the bet made, and when De Mirepoix's
+head fell into the basket, the headsman lifted it up for M. de Miranges
+to see. The latter laughed.
+
+"Mirepoix was always a braggart," he said lightly, as he laid his head
+upon the block.
+
+"Who'll take my bet that my blood turns out to be bluer than his?"
+
+But of all these comedies, these tragico-farces of later years, none who
+were present on that night, when the Vicomte de Marny fought Paul
+Deroulede, had as yet any presentiment.
+
+They watched the two men fighting, with the same casual interest, at
+first, which they would have bestowed on the dancing of a new movement
+in the minuet.
+
+De Marny came of a race that had wielded the sword of many centuries,
+but he was hot, excited, not a little addled with wine and rage.
+Deroulede was lucky; he would come out of the affair with a slight
+scratch.
+
+A good swordsman too, that wealthy parvenu. It was interesting to watch
+his sword-play: very quiet at first, no feint or parry, scarcely a
+riposte, only _en garde,_ always _en garde_ very carefully, steadily,
+ready for his antagonist at every turn and in every circumstance.
+
+Gradually the circle round the combatants narrowed. A few discreet
+exclamations of admiration greeted Deroulede's most successful parry. De
+Marny was getting more and more excited, the older man more and more
+sober and reserved.
+
+A thoughtless lunge placed the little Vicomte at his opponent's mercy.
+The next instant he was disarmed, and the seconds were pressing forward
+to end the conflict.
+
+Honour was satisfied: the parvenu and the scion of the ancient race had
+crossed swords over the reputation of one of the most dissolute women in
+France. Deroulede's moderation was a lesson to all the hot-headed young
+bloods who toyed with their lives, their honour, their reputation as
+lightly as they did with their lace-edged handkerchiefs and gold
+snuff-boxes.
+
+Already Deroulede had drawn back. With the gentle tact peculiar to
+kindly people, he avoided looking at his disarmed antagonist. But
+something in the older man's attitude seemed to further nettle the
+over-stimulated sensibility of the young Vicomte.
+
+"This is no child's play, monsieur," he said excitedly. "I demand full
+satisfaction."
+
+"And are you not satisfied?" queried Deroulede. "You have borne yourself
+bravely, you have fought in honour of your liege lady. I, on the other
+hand ..."
+
+"You," shouted the boy hoarsely, "you shall publicly apologise to a
+noble and virtuous woman whom you have outraged--now--at--once--on your
+knees ..."
+
+"You are mad, Vicomte," rejoined Deroulede coldly. "I am willing to ask
+your forgiveness for my blunder ..."
+
+"An apology--in public--on your knees ..."
+
+The boy had become more and more excited. He had suffered humiliation
+after humiliation. He was a mere lad, spoilt, adulated, pampered from
+his boyhood: the wine had got into his head, the intoxication of rage
+and hatred blinded his saner judgment.
+
+"Coward!" he shouted again and again.
+
+His seconds tried to interpose, but he waved them feverishly aside. He
+would listen to no one. He saw no one save the man who had insulted
+Adele, and who was heaping further insults upon her, by refusing this
+public acknowledgment of her virtues.
+
+De Marny hated Deroulede at this moment with the most deadly hatred the
+heart of man can conceive. The older man's calm, his chivalry, his
+consideration only enhanced the boy's anger and shame.
+
+The hubbub had become general. Everyone seemed carried away with this
+strange fever of enmity, which was seething in the Vicomte's veins. Most
+of the young men crowded round De Marny, doing their best to pacify him.
+The Marquis de Villefranche declared that the matter was getting quite
+outside the rules.
+
+No one took much notice of Deroulede. In the remote corners of the
+saloon a few elderly dandies were laying bets as to the ultimate issue
+of the quarrel.
+
+Deroulede, however, was beginning to lose his temper. He had no friends
+in that room, and therefore there was no sympathetic observer there, to
+note the gradual darkening of his eyes, like the gathering of a cloud
+heavy with the coming storm.
+
+"I pray you, messieurs, let us cease the argument," he said at last, in
+a loud, impatient voice. "M. le Vicomte de Marny desires a further
+lesson, and, by God! he shall have it. En garde, M. le Vicomte!"
+
+The crowd quickly drew back. The seconds once more assumed the bearing
+and imperturbable expression which their important function demanded.
+The hubbub ceased as the swords began to clash.
+
+Everyone felt that farce was turning to tragedy.
+
+And yet it was obvious from the first that Deroulede merely meant once
+more to disarm his antagonist, to give him one more lesson, a little
+more severe perhaps than the last. He was such a brilliant swordsman, and
+De Marny was so excited, that the advantage was with him from the very
+first.
+
+How it all happened, nobody afterwards could say. There is no doubt that
+the little Vicomte's sword-play had become more and more wild: that he
+uncovered himself in the most reckless way, whilst lunging wildly at his
+opponent's breast, until at last, in one of these mad, unguarded
+moments, he seemed literally to throw himself upon Deroulede's weapon.
+
+The latter tried with lightning-swift motion of the wrist to avoid the
+fatal issue, but it was too late, and without a sigh or groan, scarce a
+tremor, the Vicomte de Marny fell.
+
+The sword dropped out of his hand, and it was Deroulede himself who
+caught the boy in his arms.
+
+It had all occurred so quickly and suddenly that no one had realised it
+all, until it was over, and the lad was lying prone on the ground, his
+elegant blue satin coat stained with red, and his antagonist bending
+over him.
+
+There was nothing more to be done. Etiquette demanded that Deroulede
+should withdraw. He was not allowed to do anything for the boy whom he
+had so unwillingly sent to his death.
+
+As before, no one took much notice of him. Silence, the awesome silence
+caused by the presence of the great Master, fell upon all those around.
+Only in the far corner a shrill voice was heard to say:
+
+"I hold you at five hundred louis, Marquis. The parvenu is a good
+swordsman."
+
+The groups parted as Deroulede walked out of the room, followed by the
+Colonel and M. de Quettare, who stood by him to the last. Both were old
+and proved soldiers, both had chivalry and courage in them, with which
+to do tribute to the brave man whom they had seconded.
+
+At the door of the establishment, they met the leech who had been
+summoned some little time ago to hold himself in readiness for any
+eventuality.
+
+The great eventuality had occurred: it was beyond the leech's learning.
+In the brilliantly lighted saloon above, the only son of the Duc de
+Marny was breathing his last, whilst Deroulede, wrapping his mantle
+closely round him, strode out into the dark street, all alone.
+
+
+II
+
+The head of the house of Marny was at this time barely seventy years of
+age. But he had lived every hour, every minute of his life, from the day
+when the Grand Monarque gave him his first appointment as gentleman page
+in waiting when he was a mere lad, barely twelve years of age, to the
+moment--some ten years ago now--when Nature's relentless hand struck him
+down in the midst of his pleasures, withered him in a flash as she does
+a sturdy old oak, and nailed him--a cripple, almost a dotard--to the
+invalid chair which he would only quit for his last resting place.
+
+Juliette was then a mere slip of a girl, an old man's child, the spoilt
+darling of his last happy years. She had retained some of the melancholy
+which had characterised her mother, the gentle lady who had endured so
+much so patiently, and who had bequeathed this final tender burden--her
+baby girl--to the brilliant, handsome husband whom she had so deeply
+loved, and so often forgiven.
+
+When the Duc de Marny entered the final awesome stage of his gilded
+career, that deathlike life which he dragged on for ten years wearily to
+the grave, Juliette became his only joy, his one gleam of happiness in
+the midst of torturing memories.
+
+In her deep, tender eyes he would see mirrored the present, the future
+for her, and would forget his past, with all its gaieties, its mad,
+merry years, that meant nothing now but bitter regrets, and endless
+rosary of the might-have-beens.
+
+And then there was the boy. The little Vicomte, the future Duc de Marny,
+who would in _his_ life and with _his_ youth recreate the glory of the
+family, and make France once more ring with the echo of brave deeds and
+gallant adventures, which had made the name of Marny so glorious in camp
+and court.
+
+The Vicomte was not his father's love, but he was his father's pride,
+and from the depths of his huge, cushioned arm-chair, the old man would
+listen with delight to stories from Versailles and Paris, the young
+Queen and the fascinating Lamballe, the latest play and the newest star
+in the theatrical firmament. His feeble, tottering mind would then take
+him back, along the paths of memory, to his own youth and his own
+triumphs, and in the joy and pride in his son, he would forget himself
+for the sake of the boy.
+
+When they brought the Vicomte home that night, Juliette was the first to
+wake. She heard the noise outside the great gates, the coach slowly
+drawing up, the ring for the doorkeeper, and the sound of Matthieu's
+mutterings, who never liked to be called up in the middle of the night
+to let anyone through the gates.
+
+Somehow a presentiment of evil at once struck the young girl: the
+footsteps sounded so heavy and muffled along the flagged courtyard, and
+up the great oak staircase. It seemed as if they were carrying something
+heavy, something inert or dead.
+
+She jumped out of bed and hastily wrapped a cloak round her thin girlish
+shoulders, and slipped her feet into a pair of heelless shoes, then she
+opened her bedroom door and looked out upon the landing.
+
+Two men, whom she did not know, were walking upstairs abreast, two more
+were carrying a heavy burden, and Matthieu was behind moaning and crying
+bitterly.
+
+Juliette did not move. She stood in the doorway rigid as a statue. The
+little cortege went past her. No one saw her, for the landings in the
+Hotel de Marny are very wide, and Matthieu's lantern only threw a dim,
+flickering light upon the floor.
+
+The men stopped outside the Vicomte's room. Matthieu opened it, and then
+the five men disappeared within, with their heavy burden.
+
+A moment later old Petronelle, who had been Juliette's nurse, and was
+now her devoted slave, came to her, all bathed in tears.
+
+She had just heard the news, and she could scarcely speak, but she
+folded the young girl, her dear pet lamb, in her arms, and rocking
+herself to and fro she sobbed and eased her aching, motherly heart.
+
+But Juliette did not cry. It was all so sudden, so awful. She, at
+fourteen years of age, had never dreamed of death; and now there was her
+brother, her Philippe, in whom she had so much joy, so much pride--he
+was dead--and her father must be told ...
+
+The awfulness of this task seemed to Juliette like unto the last
+Judgment Day; a thing so terrible, so appalling, so impossible, that it
+would take a host of angels to proclaim its inevitableness.
+
+The old cripple, with one foot in the grave, whose whole feeble mind,
+whose pride, whose final flicker of hope was concentrated in his boy,
+must be told that the lad had been brought home dead.
+
+"Will you tell him, Petronelle?" she asked repeatedly, during the brief
+intervals when the violence of the old nurse's grief subsided somewhat.
+
+"No--no--darling, I cannot--I cannot--" moaned Petronelle, amidst a
+renewed shower of sobs.
+
+Juliette's entire soul--a child's soul it was--rose in revolt at thought
+of what was before her. She felt angered with God for having put such a
+thing upon her. What right had He to demand a girl of her years to
+endure so much mental agony?
+
+To lose her brother, and to witness her father's grief! She couldn't!
+she couldn't! she couldn't! God was evil and unjust!
+
+A distant tinkle of a bell made all her nerves suddenly quiver. Her
+father was awake then? He had heard the noise, and was ringing his bell
+to ask for an explanation of the disturbance.
+
+With one quick movement Juliette jerked herself free from the nurse's
+arms, and before Petronelle could prevent her, she had run out of the
+room, straight across the dark landing to a large panelled door
+opposite.
+
+The old Duc de Marny was sitting on the edge of his bed, with his long,
+thin legs dangling helplessly to the ground.
+
+Crippled as he was, he had struggled to this upright position, he was
+making frantic, miserable efforts to raise himself still further. He,
+too, had heard the dull thud of feet, the shuffling gait of men when
+carrying a heavy burden.
+
+His mind flew back half-a-century, to the days when he had witnessed
+scenes wherein he was then merely a half-interested spectator. He knew
+the cortege composed of valets and friends, with the leech walking
+beside that precious burden, which anon would be deposited on the bed
+and left to the tender care of a mourning family.
+
+Who knows what pictures were conjured up before that enfeebled vision?
+But he guessed. And when Juliette dashed into his room and stood before
+him, pale, trembling, a world of misery in her great eyes, she knew that
+he guessed and that she need not tell him. God had already done that for
+her.
+
+Pierre, the old Duc's devoted valet, dressed him as quickly as he could.
+M. le Duc insisted on having his _habit de ceremonie,_ the rich suit of
+black velvet with the priceless lace and diamond buttons, which he had
+worn when they laid le Roi Soleil to his eternal rest.
+
+He put on his orders and buckled on his sword. The gorgeous clothes,
+which had suited him so well in the prime of his manhood, hung somewhat
+loosely on his attenuated frame, but he looked a grand and imposing
+figure, with his white hair tied behind with a great black bow, and the
+fine jabot of beautiful point d'Angleterre falling in a soft cascade
+below his chin.
+
+Then holding himself as upright as he could, he sat in his invalid
+chair, and four flunkeys in full livery carried him to the deathbed of
+his son.
+
+All the house was astir by now. Torches burned in great sockets in the
+vast hall and along the massive oak stairway, and hundreds of candles
+flickered ghostlike in the vast apartments of the princely mansion.
+
+The numerous servants were arrayed on the landing, all dressed in the
+rich livery of the ducal house.
+
+The death of an heir of the Marnys is an event that history makes a note
+of.
+
+The old Duc's chair was placed close to the bed, where lay the dead body
+of the young Vicomte. He made no movement, nor did he utter a word or
+sigh. Some of those who were present at the time declared that his mind
+had completely given way, and that he neither felt nor understood the
+death of his son.
+
+The Marquis de Villefranche, who had followed his friend to the last,
+took a final leave of the sorrowing house.
+
+Juliette scarcely noticed him. Her eyes were fixed on her father. She
+would not look at her brother. A childlike fear had seized her, there,
+suddenly, between these two silent figures: the living and the dead.
+
+But just as the Marquis was leaving the room, the old man spoke for the
+first time.
+
+"Marquis," he said very quietly, "you forget--you have not yet told me
+who killed my son."
+
+"It was in a fair fight, M. de Duc," replied the young Marquis, awed in
+spite of all his frivolity, his light-heartedness, by this strange,
+almost mysterious tragedy.
+
+"Who killed my son, M. le Marquis?" repeated the old man mechanically.
+"I have the right to know," he added with sudden, weird energy.
+
+"It was M. Paul Deroulede, M. le Duc," replied the Marquis. "I repeat,
+it was in fair fight."
+
+The old Duc sighed as if in satisfaction. Then with a courteous gesture
+of farewell reminiscent of the _grand siecle_ he added:
+
+"All thanks from me and mine to you, Marquis, would seem but a mockery.
+Your devotion to my son is beyond human thanks. I'll not detain you now.
+Farewell."
+
+Escorted by two lacqueys, the Marquis passed out of the room.
+
+"Dismiss all the servants, Juliette; I have something to say," said the
+old Duc, and the young girl, silent, obedient, did as her father bade
+her.
+
+Father and sister were alone with their dead. As soon as the last hushed
+footsteps of the retreating servants died away in the distance, the Duc
+de Marny seemed to throw away the lethargy which had enveloped him until
+now. With a quick, feverish gesture he seized his daughter's wrist, and
+murmured excitedly:
+
+"His name. You heard his name, Juliette?"
+
+"Yes, father," replied the child.
+
+"Paul Deroulede! Paul Deroulede! You'll not forget it?"
+
+"Never, father!"
+
+"He killed your brother! You understand that? Killed my only son, the
+hope of my house, the last descendant of the most glorious race that has
+ever added lustre to the history of France."
+
+"In fair fight, father!" protested the child.
+
+"'Tis not fair for a man to kill a boy," retorted the old man, with
+furious energy.
+
+"Deroulede is thirty: my boy was scarce out of his teens: may the
+vengeance of God fall upon the murderer!"
+
+Juliette, awed, terrified, was gazing at her father with great,
+wondering eyes. He seemed unlike himself. His face wore a curious
+expression of ecstasy and of hatred, also of hope and exultation,
+whenever he looked steadily at her.
+
+That the final glimmer of a tottering reason was fast leaving the poor,
+aching head she was too young to realise. Madness was a word that had
+only a vague meaning for her. Though she did not understand her father
+at the present moment, though she was half afraid of him, she would have
+rejected with scorn and horror any suggestion that he was mad.
+
+Therefore when he took her hand and, drawing her nearer to the bed and
+to himself, placed it upon her dead brother's breast, she recoiled at
+the touch of the inanimate body, so unlike anything she had ever touched
+before, but she obeyed her father without any question, and listened to
+his words as to those of a sage.
+
+"Juliette, you are now fourteen, and able to understand what I am going
+to ask of you. If I were not chained to this miserable chair, if I were
+not a hopeless, abject cripple, I would not depute anyone, not even you,
+my only child, to do that, which God demands that one of us should do."
+
+He paused a moment, then continued earnestly:
+
+"Remember, Juliette, that you are of the house of Marny, that you are a
+Catholic, and that God hears you now. For you shall swear an oath before
+Him and me, an oath from which only death can relieve you. Will you
+swear, my child?"
+
+"If you wish it, father."
+
+"You have been to confession lately, Juliette?"
+
+"Yes, father; also to holy communion, yesterday," replied the child. "It
+was the Fete-Dieu, you know."
+
+"Then you are in a state of grace, my child?"
+
+"I was yesterday morning, father," replied the young girl naively, "but
+I have committed some little sins since then."
+
+"Then make your confession to God in your heart now. You must be in a
+state of grace when you speak the oath."
+
+The child closed her eyes, and as the old man watched her, he could see
+the lips framing the words of her spiritual confession.
+
+Juliette made the sign of the cross, then opened her eyes and looked at
+her father.
+
+"I am ready, father," she said; "I hope God has forgiven me the little
+sins of yesterday."
+
+"Will you swear, my child?"
+
+"What, father?"
+
+"That you will avenge your brother's death on his murderer?"
+
+"But, father ..."
+
+"Swear it, my child!"
+
+"How can I fulfil that oath, father?--I don't understand ..."
+
+"God will guide you, my child. When you are older you will understand."
+
+For a moment Juliette still hesitated. She was just on that borderland
+between childhood and womanhood when all the sensibilities, the nervous
+system, the emotions, are strung to their highest pitch.
+
+Throughout her short life she had worshipped her father with a
+whole-hearted, passionate devotion, which had completely blinded her to
+his weakening faculties and the feebleness of his mind.
+
+She was also in that initial stage of enthusiastic piety which
+overwhelms every girl of temperament, if she be brought up in the Roman
+Catholic religion, when she is first initiated into the mysteries of the
+Sacraments.
+
+Juliette had been to confession and communion. She had been confirmed by
+Monseigneur, the Archbishop. Her ardent nature had responded to the full
+to the sensuous and ecstatic expressions of the ancient faith.
+
+And somehow her father's wish, her brother's death, all seemed mingled
+in her brain with that religion, for which in her juvenile enthusiasm
+she would willingly have laid down her life.
+
+She thought of all the saints, whose lives she had been reading. Her
+young heart quivered at the thought of _their_ sacrifices, their
+martyrdoms, their sense of duty.
+
+An exaltation, morbid perhaps, superstitious and overwhelming, took
+possession of her mind; also, perhaps, far back in the innermost
+recesses of her heart, a pride in her own importance, her mission in
+life, her individuality: for she was a girl after all, a mere child,
+about to become a woman.
+
+But the old Duc was waxing impatient.
+
+"Surely you do not hesitate, Juliette, with your dead brother's body
+clamouring mutely for revenge? You, the only Marny left now!--for from
+this day I too shall be as dead."
+
+"No, father," said the young girl in an awed whisper, "I do not
+hesitate. I will swear, just as you bid me."
+
+"Repeat the words after me, my child."
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"Before the face of Almighty God, who sees and hears me ..."
+
+"Before the face of Almighty God, who sees and hears me," repeated
+Juliette firmly.
+
+"I swear that I will seek out Paul Deroulede."
+
+"I swear that I will seek out Paul Deroulede."
+
+"And in any manner which God may dictate to me encompass his death, his
+ruin or dishonour, in revenge for my brother's death."
+
+"And in any manner which God may dictate to me encompass his death, his
+ruin or dishonour, in revenge for my brother's death," said Juliette
+solemnly.
+
+"May my brother's soul remain in torment until the final Judgment Day if
+I should break my oath, but may it rest in eternal peace the day on
+which his death is fitly avenged."
+
+"May my brother's soul remain in torment until the final Judgment Day if
+I should break my oath, but may it rest in eternal peace the day on
+which his death is fitly avenged."
+
+The child fell upon her knees. The oath was spoken, the old man was
+satisfied.
+
+He called for his valet, and allowed himself quietly to be put to bed.
+
+One brief hour had transformed a child into a woman. A dangerous
+transformation when the brain is overburdened with emotions, when the
+nerves are overstrung and the heart full to breaking.
+
+For the moment, however, the childlike nature reasserted itself for the
+last time, for Juliette, sobbing, had fled out of the room, to the
+privacy of her own apartment, and thrown herself passionately into the
+arms of kind old Petronelle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Paris: 1793
+
+The outrage.
+
+
+It would have been very difficult to say why Citizen Deroulede was quite
+so popular as he was. Still more difficult would it have been to state
+the reason why he remained immune from the prosecutions, which were
+being conducted at the rate of several scores a day, now against the
+moderate Gironde, anon against the fanatic Mountain, until the whole of
+France was transformed into one gigantic prison, that daily fed the
+guillotine.
+
+But Deroulede remained unscathed. Even Merlin's law of the suspect had
+so far failed to touch him. And when, last July, the murder of Marat
+brought an entire holocaust of victims to the guillotine--from Adam Lux,
+who would have put up a statue in honour of Charlotte Corday, with the
+inscription: "Greater than Brutus", to Charlier, who would have had her
+publicly tortured and burned at the stake for her crime--Deroulede alone
+said nothing, and was allowed to remain silent.
+
+The most seething time of that seething revolution. No one knew in the
+morning if his head would still be on his own shoulders in the evening,
+or if it would be held up by Citizen Samson the headsman, for the
+sansculottes of Paris to see.
+
+Yet Deroulede was allowed to go his own way. Marat once said of him: "Il
+n'est pas dangereux." The phrase had been taken up. Within the precincts
+of the National Convention, Marat was still looked upon as the great
+protagonist of Liberty, a martyr to his own convictions carried to the
+extreme, to squalor and dirt, to the downward levelling of man to what
+is the lowest type in humanity. And his sayings were still treasured up:
+even the Girondins did not dare to attack his memory. Dead Marat was
+more powerful than his living presentment had been.
+
+And he had said that Deroulede was not dangerous. Not dangerous to
+Republicanism, to liberty, to that downward, levelling process, the
+tearing down of old traditions, and the annihilation of past
+pretensions.
+
+Deroulede had once been very rich. He had had sufficient prudence to
+give away in good time that which, undoubtedly, would have been taken
+away from him later on.
+
+But when he gave willingly, at a time when France needed it most, and
+before she had learned how to help herself to what she wanted.
+
+And somehow, in this instance, France had not forgotten: an invisible
+fortress seemed to surround Citizen Deroulede and keep his enemies at
+bay. They were few, but they existed. The National Convention trusted
+him. "He was not dangerous" to them. The people looked upon him as one
+of themselves, who gave whilst he had something to give. Who can gauge
+that most elusive of all things: _Popularity?_
+
+He lived a quiet life, and had never yielded to the omni-prevalent
+temptation of writing pamphlets, but lived alone with his mother and
+Anne Mie, the little orphaned cousin whom old Madame Deroulede had taken
+care of, ever since the child could toddle.
+
+Everyone knew his house in the Rue Ecole de Medecine, not far from the
+one wherein Marat lived and died, the only solid, stone house in the
+midst of a row of hovels, evil-smelling and squalid.
+
+The street was narrow then, as it is now, and whilst Paris was cutting
+off the heads of her children for the sake of Liberty and Fraternity,
+she had no time to bother about cleanliness and sanitation.
+
+Rue Ecole de Medecine did little credit to the school after which it was
+named, and it was a most unattractive crowd that usually thronged its
+uneven, muddy pavements.
+
+A neat gown, a clean kerchief, were quite an unusual sight down this
+way, for Anne Mie seldom went out, and old Madame Deroulede hardly ever
+left her room. A good deal of brandy was being drunk at the two drinking
+bars, one at each end of the long, narrow street, and by five o'clock in
+the afternoon it was undoubtedly best for women to remain indoors.
+
+The crowd of dishevelled elderly Amazons who stood gossiping at the
+street corner could hardly be called women now. A ragged petticoat, a
+greasy red kerchief round the head, a tattered, stained shift--to this
+pass of squalor and shame had Liberty brought the daughters of France.
+
+And they jeered at any passer-by less filthy, less degraded than
+themselves.
+
+"Ah! voyons l'aristo!" they shouted every time a man in decent clothes,
+a woman with tidy cap and apron, passed swiftly down the street.
+
+And the afternoons were very lively. There was always plenty to see:
+first and foremost, the long procession of tumbrils, winding its way
+from the prisons to the Place de la Revolution. The forty-four thousand
+sections of the Committee of Public Safety sent their quota, each in
+their turn, to the guillotine.
+
+At one time these tumbrils contained royal ladies and gentlemen,
+_ci-devant_ dukes and princesses, aristocrats from every county in
+France, but now this stock was becoming exhausted. The wretched Queen
+Marie Antoinette still lingered in the Temple with her son and daughter.
+Madame Elisabeth was still allowed to say her prayers in peace, but
+_ci-devant_ dukes and counts were getting scarce: those who had not
+perished at the hand of Citizen Samson were plying some trade in Germany
+or England.
+
+There were aristocratic joiners, innkeepers, and hairdressers. The
+proudest names in France were hidden beneath trade signs in London and
+Hamburg. A good number owed their lives to that mysterious Scarlet
+Pimpernel, that unknown Englishman who had snatched scores of victims
+from the clutches of Tinville the Prosecutor, and sent M. Chauvelin,
+baffled, back to France.
+
+Aristocrats were getting scarce, so it was now the turn of deputies of
+the National Convention, of men of letters, men of science or of art,
+men who had sent others to the guillotine a twelvemonth ago, and men who
+had been loudest in defence of anarchy and its Reign of Terror.
+
+They had revolutionised the Calendar: the Citizen-Deputies, and every
+good citizen of France, called this 19th day of August 1793 the 2nd
+Fructidor of the year I. of the New Era.
+
+At six o'clock on that afternoon a young girl suddenly turned the angle
+of the Rue Ecole de Medecine, and after looking quickly to the right and
+left she began deliberately walking along the narrow street.
+
+It was crowded just then. Groups of excited women stood jabbering before
+every doorway. It was the home-coming hour after the usual spectacle on
+the Place de la Revolution. The men had paused at the various drinking
+booths, crowding the women out. It would be the turn of these Amazons
+next, at the brandy bars; for the moment they were left to gossip, and
+to jeer at the passer-by.
+
+At first the young girl did not seem to heed them. She walked quickly
+along, looking defiantly before her, carrying her head erect, and
+stepping carefully from cobblestone to cobblestone, avoiding the mud,
+which could have dirtied her dainty shoes.
+
+The harridans passed the time of day to her, and the time of day meant
+some obscene remark unfit for women's ears. The young girl wore a simple
+grey dress, with fine lawn kerchief neatly folded across her bosom, a
+large hat with flowing ribbons sat above the fairest face that ever
+gladdened men's eyes to see.
+
+Fairer still it would have been, but for the look of determination which
+made it seem hard and old for the girl's years.
+
+She wore the tricolour scarf round her waist, else she had been more
+seriously molested ere now. But the Republican colours were her
+safeguard: whilst she walked quietly along, no one could harm her.
+
+Then suddenly a curious impulse seemed to seize her. It was just outside
+the large stone house belonging to Citizen-Deputy Deroulede. She had so
+far taken no notice of the groups of women which she had come across.
+When they obstructed the footway, she had calmly stepped out into the
+middle of the road.
+
+It was wise and prudent, for she could close her ears to obscene
+language and need pay no heed to insult.
+
+Suddenly she threw up her head defiantly.
+
+"Will you please let me pass?" she said loudly, as a dishevelled Amazon
+stood before her with arms akimbo, glancing sarcastically at the lace
+petticoat, which just peeped beneath the young girl's simple grey frock.
+
+"Let her pass? Let her pass? Ho! ho! ho!" laughed the old woman, turning
+to the nearest group of idlers, and apostrophising them with a loud
+oath. "Did _you_ know, citizeness, that this street had been specially
+made for aristos to pass along?"
+
+"I am in a hurry, will you let me pass at once?" commanded the young
+girl, tapping her foot impatiently on the ground.
+
+There was the whole width of the street on her right, plenty of room for
+her to walk along. It seemed positive madness to provoke a quarrel
+singlehanded against this noisy group of excited females, just home from
+the ghastly spectacle around the guillotine.
+
+And yet she seemed to do it wilfully, as if coming to the end of her
+patience, all her proud, aristocratic blood in revolt against this
+evil-smelling crowd which surrounded her.
+
+Half-tipsy men and noisome, naked urchins seemed to have sprung from
+everywhere.
+
+"Oho, quelle aristo!" they shouted with ironical astonishment, gazing at
+the young girl's face, fingering her gown, thrusting begrimed,
+hate-distorted faces close to her own.
+
+Instinctively she recoiled and backed towards the house immediately on
+her left. It was adorned with a porch made of stout oak beams, with a
+tiled roof; an iron lantern descended from this, and there was a stone
+parapet below, and a few steps, at right angles from the pavement, led
+up to the massive door.
+
+On these steps the young girl had taken refuge. Proud, defiant, she
+confronted the howling mob, which she had so wilfully provoked.
+
+"Of a truth, Citizeness Margot, that grey dress would become you well!"
+suggested a young man, whose red cap hung in tatters over an evil and
+dissolute-looking face.
+
+"And all that fine lace would make a splendid jabot round the aristo's
+neck when Citizen Samson holds up her head for us to see," added
+another, as with mock elegance he stooped and with two very grimy
+fingers slightly raised the young girl's grey frock, displaying the
+lace-edged petticoat beneath.
+
+A volley of oaths and loud, ironical laughter greeted this sally.
+
+"'Tis mighty fine lace to be thus hidden away," commented an elderly
+harridan. "Now, would you believe it, my fine madam, but my legs are
+bare underneath my kirtle?"
+
+"And dirty, too, I'll lay a wager," laughed another. "Soap is dear in
+Paris just now."
+
+"The lace on the aristo's kerchief would pay the baker's bill of a whole
+family for a month!" shouted an excited voice.
+
+Heat and brandy further addled the brains of this group of French
+citizens; hatred gleamed out of every eye. Outrage was imminent. The
+young girl seemed to know it, but she remained defiant and
+self-possessed, gradually stepping back and back up the steps, closely
+followed by her assailants.
+
+"To the Jew with the gewgaw, then!" shouted a thin, haggard female
+viciously, as she suddenly clutched at the young girl's kerchief, and
+with a mocking, triumphant laugh tore it from her bosom.
+
+This outrage seemed to be the signal for the breaking down of the final
+barriers which ordinary decency should have raised. The language and
+vituperation became such as no chronicler could record.
+
+The girl's dainty white neck, her clear skin, the refined contour of
+shoulders and bust, seemed to have aroused the deadliest lust of hate in
+these wretched creatures, rendered bestial by famine and squalor.
+
+It seemed almost as if one would vie with the other in seeking for words
+which would most offend these small aristocratic ears.
+
+The young girl was now crouching against the doorway, her hands held up
+to her ears to shut out the awful sounds. She did not seem frightened,
+only appalled at the terrible volcano which she had provoked.
+
+Suddenly a miserable harridan struck her straight in the face, with
+hard, grimy fist, and a long shout of exultation greeted this monstrous
+deed.
+
+Then only did the girl seem to lose her self-control.
+
+"A moi," she shouted loudly, whilst hammering with both hands against
+the massive doorway. "A moi! Murder! Murder! Citoyen Deroulede, a moi!"
+
+But her terror was greeted with renewed glee by her assailants. They
+were now roused to the highest point of frenzy: the crowd of brutes
+would in the next moment have torn the helpless girl from her place of
+refuge and dragged her into the mire, an outraged prey, for the
+satisfaction of an ungovernable hate.
+
+But just as half-a-dozen pairs of talon-like hands clutched frantically
+at her skirts, the door behind her was quickly opened. She felt her arm
+seized firmly, and herself dragged swiftly within the shelter of the
+threshold.
+
+Her senses, overwrought by the terrible adventure which she had just
+gone through, were threatening to reel; she heard the massive door
+close, shutting out the yells of baffled rage, the ironical laughter,
+the obscene words, which sounded in her ears like the shrieks of Dante's
+damned.
+
+She could not see her rescuer, for the hall into which he had hastily
+dragged her was only dimly lighted. But a peremptory voice said quickly:
+
+"Up the stairs, the room straight in front of you, my mother is there.
+Go quickly."
+
+She had fallen on her knees, cowering against the heavy oak beam which
+supported the ceiling, and was straining her eyes to catch sight of the
+man, to whom at this moment she perhaps owed more than her life: but he
+was standing against the doorway, with his hand on the latch.
+
+"What are you going to do?" she murmured.
+
+"Prevent their breaking into my house in order to drag you out of it,"
+he replied quietly; "so, I pray you, do as I bid you."
+
+Mechanically she obeyed him, drew herself to her feet, and, turning
+towards the stairs, began slowly to mount the shallow steps. Her knees
+were shaking under her, her whole body was trembling with horror at the
+awesome crisis she had just traversed.
+
+She dared not look back at her rescuer. Her head was bent, and her lips
+were murmuring half-audible words as she went.
+
+Outside the hooting and yelling was becoming louder and louder. Enraged
+fists were hammering violently against the stout oak door.
+
+At the top of the stairs, moved by an irresistible impulse, she turned
+and looked into the hall.
+
+She saw his figure dimly outlined in the gloom, one hand on the latch,
+his head thrown back to watch her movements.
+
+A door stood ajar immediately in front of her. She pushed it open and
+went within.
+
+At that moment he too opened the door below. The shrieks of the howling
+mob once more resounded close to her ears. It seemed as if they had
+surrounded him. She wondered what was happening, and marvelled how he
+dared to face that awful crowd alone.
+
+The room into which she had entered was gay and cheerful-looking with
+its dainty chintz hangings and graceful, elegant pieces of furniture.
+The young girl looked up, as a kindly voice said to her, from out the
+depths of a capacious armchair:
+
+"Come in, come in, my dear, and close the door behind you! Did those
+wretches attack you? Never mind. Paul will speak to them. Come here, my
+dear, and sit down; there's no cause now for fear."
+
+Without a word the young girl came forward. She seemed now to be walking
+in a dream, the chintz hangings to be swaying ghostlike around her, the
+yells and shrieks below to come from the very bowels of the earth.
+
+The old lady continued to prattle on. She had taken the girl's hand in
+hers, and was gently forcing her down on to a low stool beside her
+armchair. She was talking about Paul, and said something about Anne Mie,
+and then about the National Convention, and those beasts and savages,
+but mostly about Paul.
+
+The noise outside had subsided. The girl felt strangely sick and tired.
+Her head seemed to be whirling round, the furniture to be dancing round
+her; the old lady's face looked at her through a swaying veil, and
+then--and then ...
+
+Tired Nature was having her way at last; she folded the quivering young
+body in her motherly arms, and wrapped the aching senses beneath her
+merciful mantle of unconsciousness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Citizen-Deputy.
+
+
+When, presently, the young girl awoke, with a delicious feeling of rest
+and well-being, she had plenty of leisure to think.
+
+So, then, this was his house! She was actually a guest, a rescued
+protege, beneath the roof of Citoyen Deroulede.
+
+He had dragged her from the clutches of the howling mob which she had
+provoked; his mother had made her welcome, a sweet-faced, young girl
+scarce out of her teens, sad-eyed and slightly deformed, had waited upon
+her and made her happy and comfortable.
+
+Juliette de Marny was in the house of the man, whom she had sworn before
+her God and before her father to pursue with hatred and revenge.
+
+Ten years had gone by since then.
+
+Lying upon the sweet-scented bed which the hospitality of the Derouledes
+had provided for her, she seemed to see passing before her the spectres
+of these past ten years--the first four, after her brother's death,
+until the old Duc de Marny's body slowly followed his soul to its grave.
+
+After that last glimmer of life beside the deathbed of his son, the old
+Duc had practically ceased to be. A mute, shrunken figure, he merely
+existed; his mind vanished, his memory gone, a wreck whom Nature
+fortunately remembered at last, and finally took away from the invalid
+chair which had been his world.
+
+Then came those few years at the Convent of the Ursulines. Juliette had
+hoped that she had a vocation; her whole soul yearned for a secluded, a
+religious, life, for great barriers of solemn vows and days spent in
+prayer and contemplation, to interpose between herself and the memory of
+that awful night when, obedient to her father's will, she had made the
+solemn oath to avenge her brother's death.
+
+She was only eighteen when she first entered the convent, directly after
+her father's death, when she felt very lonely--both morally and mentally
+lonely--and followed by the obsession of that oath.
+
+She never spoke of it to anyone except to her confessor, and he, a
+simple-minded man of great learning and a total lack of knowledge of the
+world, was completely at a loss how to advise.
+
+The Archbishop was consulted. He could grant a dispensation, and release
+her of that most solemn vow.
+
+When first this idea was suggested to her, Juliette was exultant. Her
+entire nature, which in itself was wholesome, light-hearted, the very
+reverse of morbid, rebelled against this unnatural task placed upon her
+young shoulders. It was only religion--the strange, warped religion of
+that extraordinary age--which kept her to it, which forbade her breaking
+lightly that most unnatural oath.
+
+The Archbishop was a man of many duties, many engagements. He agreed to
+give this strange "cas de conscience" his most earnest attention. He
+would make no promises. But Mademoiselle de Marny was rich: a munificent
+donation to the poor of Paris, or to some cause dear to the Holy Father
+himself, might perhaps be more acceptable to God than the fulfilment of
+a compulsory vow.
+
+Juliette, within the convent walls, was waiting patiently for the
+Archbishop's decision at the very moment, when the greatest upheaval the
+world has ever known was beginning to shake the very foundations of
+France.
+
+The Archbishop had other things now to think about than isolated cases
+of conscience. He forgot all about Juliette, probably. He was busy
+consoling a monarch for the loss of his throne, and preparing himself
+and his royal patron for the scaffold.
+
+The Convent of the Ursulines was scattered during the Terror. Everyone
+remembers the Thermidor massacres, and the thirty-four nuns, all
+daughters of ancient families of France, who went so cheerfully to the
+scaffold.
+
+Juliette was one of those who escaped condemnation. How or why, she
+herself could not have told. She was very young, and still a postulant;
+she was allowed to live in retirement with Petronelle, her old nurse,
+who had remained faithful through all these years.
+
+Then the Archbishop was prosecuted and imprisoned. Juliette made frantic
+efforts to see him, but all in vain. When he died, she looked upon her
+spiritual guide's death as a direct warning from God, that nothing could
+relieve her of her oath.
+
+She had watched the turmoils of the Revolution through the attic window
+of her tiny apartment in Paris. Waited upon by faithful Petronelle, she
+had been forced to live on the savings of that worthy old soul, as all
+her property, all the Marny estates, the _dot_ she took with her to the
+convent--everything, in fact--had been seized by the Revolutionary
+Government, self appointed to level fortunes, as well as individuals.
+
+From that attic window she had seen beautiful Paris writhing under the
+pitiless lash of the demon of terror which it had provoked; she had
+heard the rumble of the tumbrils, dragging day after day their load of
+victims to the insatiable maker of this Revolution of Fraternity--the
+Guillotine.
+
+She had seen the gay, light-hearted people of this Star-City turned to
+howling beasts of prey, its women changed to sexless vultures, with
+murderous talons implanted in everything that is noble, high or
+beautiful.
+
+She was not twenty when the feeble, vacillating monarch and his
+imperious consort were dragged back--a pair of humiliated prisoners--to
+the capital from which they had tried to flee.
+
+Two years later, she had heard the cries of an entire people exulting
+over a regicide. Then the murder of Marat, by a young girl like herself,
+the pale-faced, large-eyed Charlotte, who had committed a crime for the
+sake of a conviction. "Greater than Brutus!" some had called her.
+Greater than Joan of Arc, for it was to a mission of evil and of sin
+that she was called from the depths of her Breton village, and not to
+one of glory and triumph.
+
+"Greater than Brutus!"
+
+Juliette followed the trial of Charlotte Corday with all the passionate
+ardour of her exalted temperament.
+
+Just think what an effect it must have had upon the mind of this young
+girl, who for nine years--the best of her life--had also lived with the
+idea of a sublime mission pervading her very soul.
+
+She watched Charlotte Corday at her trial. Conquering her natural
+repulsion for such scenes, and the crowds which usually watched them,
+she had forced her way into the foremost rank of the narrow gallery
+which overlooked the Hall of the Revolutionary Tribunal.
+
+She heard the indictment, heard Tinville's speech and the calling of the
+witnesses.
+
+"All this is unnecessary. I killed Marat!"
+
+Juliette heard the fresh young voice ringing out clearly above the
+murmur of voices, the howls of execration; she saw the beautiful young
+face, clear, calm, impassive.
+
+"I killed Marat!"
+
+And there in the special space allotted to the Citizen-Deputies, sitting
+among those who represented the party of the Moderate Gironde, was Paul
+Deroulede, the man whom she had sworn to pursue with a vengeance as
+great, as complete, as that which guided Charlotte Corday's hand.
+
+She watched him during the trial, and wondered if he had any
+presentiment of the hatred which dogged him, like unto the one which had
+dogged Marat.
+
+He was very dark, almost swarthy a son of the South, with brown hair,
+free from powder, thrown back and revealing the brow of a student rather
+than that of a legislator. He watched Charlotte Corday earnestly, and
+Juliette who watched him saw the look of measureless pity, which
+softened the otherwise hard look of his close-set eyes.
+
+He made an impassioned speech for the defence: a speech which has become
+historic. It would have cost any other man his head.
+
+Juliette marvelled at his courage; to defend Charlotte Corday was
+equivalent to acquiescing in the death of Marat: Marat, the friend of
+the people; Marat, whom his funeral orators had compared to the Great,
+the Sacred Leveller of Mankind!
+
+But Deroulede's speech was not a defence, it was an appeal. The most
+eloquent man of that eloquent age, his words seemed to find that hidden
+bit of sentiment which still lurked in the hearts of these strange
+protagonists of Hate.
+
+Everyone round Juliette listened as he spoke: "It is Citoyen Deroulede!"
+whispered the bloodthirsty Amazons, who sat knitting in the gallery.
+
+But there was no further comment. A huge, magnificently-equipped
+hospital for sick children had been thrown open in Paris that very
+morning, a gift to the nation from Citoyen Deroulede. Surely he was
+privileged to talk a little, if it pleased him. His hospital would cover
+quite a good many defalcations.
+
+Even the rabid Mountain, Danton, Merlin, Santerre, shrugged their
+shoulders. "It is Deroulede, let him talk an he list. Murdered Marat
+said of him that he was not dangerous."
+
+Juliette heard it all. The knitters round her were talking loudly. Even
+Charlotte was almost forgotten whilst Deroulede talked. He had a fine
+voice, of strong calibre, which echoed powerfully through the hall.
+
+He was rather short, but broad-shouldered and well knit, with an
+expressive hand, which looked slender and delicate below the fine lace
+ruffle.
+
+Charlotte Corday was condemned. All Deroulede's eloquence could not save
+her.
+
+Juliette left the court in a state of mad exultation. She was very
+young: the scenes she had witnessed in the past two years could not help
+but excite the imagination of a young girl, left entirely to her own
+intellectual and moral resources.
+
+What scenes! Great God!
+
+And now to wait for an opportunity! Charlotte Corday, the half-educated
+little provincial should not put to shame Mademoiselle de Marny, the
+daughter of a hundred dukes, of those who had made France before she
+took to unmaking herself.
+
+But she could not formulate any definite plans. Petronelle, poor old
+soul, her only confidante, was not of the stuff that heroines are made
+of. Juliette felt impelled by duty, and duty at best is not so prompt a
+counsellor as love or hate.
+
+Her adventure outside Deroulede's house had not been premeditated.
+Impulse and coincidence had worked their will with her.
+
+She had been in the habit, daily, for the past month, of wandering down
+the Rue Ecole de Medecine, ostensibly to gaze at Marat's dwelling, as
+crowds of idlers were wont to do, but really in order to look at
+Deroulede's house. Once or twice she saw him coming or going from home.
+Once she caught sight of the inner hall, and of a young girl in a dark
+kirtle and snow-white kerchief bidding him good-bye at his door. Another
+time she caught sight of him at the corner of the street, helping that
+same young girl over the muddy pavement. He had just met her, and she
+was carrying a basket of provisions: he took it from her and carried it
+to the house.
+
+Chivalrous--eh?--and innately so, evidently, for the girl was slightly
+deformed: hardly a hunchback, but weak and unattractive-looking, with
+melancholy eyes, and a pale, pinched face.
+
+It was the thought of that little act of simple chivalry, witnessed the
+day before, which caused Juliette to provoke the scene which, but for
+Deroulede's timely interference, might have ended so fatally. But she
+reckoned on that interference: the whole thing had occurred to her
+suddenly, and she had carried it through.
+
+Had not her father said to her that when the time came, God would show
+her a means to the end?
+
+And now she was inside the house of the man who had murdered her brother
+and sent her sorrowing father, a poor, senseless maniac, tottering to
+the grave.
+
+Would God's finger point again, and show her what to do next, how best
+to accomplish what she had sworn to do?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Hospitality.
+
+
+"Is there anything more I can do for you now, mademoiselle?"
+
+The gentle, timid voice roused Juliette from the contemplation of the
+past.
+
+She smiled at Anne Mie, and held her hand out towards her.
+
+"You have all been so kind," she said, "I want to get up now and thank
+you all."
+
+"Don't move unless you feel quite well."
+
+"I am quite well now. Those horrid people frightened me so, that is why
+I fainted."
+
+"They would have half-killed you, if ..."
+
+"Will you tell me where I am?" asked Juliette.
+
+"In the house of M. Paul Deroulede--I should have said of Citizen-Deputy
+Deroulede. He rescued you from the mob, and pacified them. He has such a
+beautiful voice that he can make anyone listen to him, and ..."
+
+"And you are fond of him, mademoiselle?" added Juliette, suddenly
+feeling a mist of tears rising to her eyes.
+
+"Of course I am fond of him," rejoined the other girl simply, whilst a
+look of the most tender-hearted devotion seemed to beautify her pale
+face. "He and Madame Deroulede have brought me up; I never knew my
+parents. They have cared for me, and he has taught me all I know."
+
+"What do they call you, mademoiselle?"
+
+"My name is Anne Mie."
+
+"And mine, Juliette--Juliette Marny," she added after a slight
+hesitation. "I have no parents either. My old nurse, Petronelle, has
+brought me up, and--But tell me more about M. Deroulede--I owe him so
+much, I'd like to know him better."
+
+"Will you not let me arrange your hair?" said Anne Mie as if purposely
+evading a direct reply. "M. Deroulede is in the salon with madame. You
+can see him then."
+
+Juliette asked no more questions, but allowed Anne Mie to tidy her hair
+for her, to lend her a fresh kerchief and generally to efface all traces
+of her terrible adventure. She felt puzzled and tearful. Anne Mie's
+gentleness seemed somehow to jar on her spirits. She could not
+understand the girl's position in the Deroulede household. Was she a
+relative, or a superior servant? In these troublous times she might
+easily have been both.
+
+In any case she was a childhood's companion of the
+Citizen-Deputy--whether on an equal or a humbler footing, Juliette would
+have given much to ascertain.
+
+With the marvellous instinct peculiar to women of temperament, she had
+already divined Anne Mie's love for Deroulede. The poor young cripple's
+very soul seemed to quiver magnetically at the bare mention of his name,
+her whole face became transfigured: Juliette even thought her beautiful
+then.
+
+She looked at herself critically in the glass, and adjusted a curl,
+which looked its best when it was rebellious. She scrutinised her own
+face carefully; why? she could not tell: another of those subtle
+feminine instincts perhaps.
+
+The becoming simplicity of the prevailing mode suited her to perfection.
+The waist line, rather high but clearly defined--a precursor of the
+later more accentuated fashion--gave grace to her long slender limbs,
+and emphasised the lissomeness of her figure. The kerchief, edged with
+fine lace, and neatly folded across her bosom, softened the contour of
+her girlish bust and shoulders.
+
+And her hair was a veritable glory round her dainty, piquant face. Soft,
+fair, and curly, it emerged in a golden halo from beneath the prettiest
+little lace cap imaginable.
+
+She turned and faced Anne Mie, ready to follow her out of the room, and
+the young crippled girl sighed as she smoothed down the folds of her own
+apron, and gave a final touch to the completion of Juliette's attire.
+
+The time before the evening meal slipped by like a dream-hour for
+Juliette.
+
+She had lived so much alone, had led such an introspective life, that
+she had hardly realised and understood all that was going on around her.
+At the time when the inner vitality of France first asserted itself and
+then swept away all that hindered its mad progress, she was tied to the
+invalid chair of her half-demented father; then, after that, the
+sheltering walls of the Ursuline Convent had hidden from her mental
+vision the true meaning of the great conflict, between the Old Era and
+the New.
+
+Deroulede was neither a pedant nor yet a revolutionary: his theories
+were Utopian and he had an extraordinary overpowering sympathy for his
+fellow-men.
+
+After the first casual greetings with Juliette, he had continued a
+discussion with his mother, which the young girl's entrance had
+interrupted.
+
+He seemed to take but little notice of her, although at times his dark,
+keen eyes would seek hers, as if challenging her for a reply.
+
+He was talking of the mob of Paris, whom he evidently understood so
+well. Incidents such as the one which Juliette had provoked, had led to
+rape and theft, often to murder, before now: but outside Citizen-Deputy
+Deroulede's house everything was quiet, half-an-hour after Juliette's
+escape from that howling, brutish crowd.
+
+He had merely spoken to them, for about twenty minutes, and they had
+gone away quite quietly, without even touching one hair of his head. He
+seemed to love them: to know how to separate the little good that was in
+them, from that hard crust of evil, which misery had put around their
+hearts.
+
+Once he addressed Juliette somewhat abruptly: "Pardon me, mademoiselle,
+but for your own sake we must guard you a prisoner here awhile. No one
+would harm you under this roof, but it would not be safe for you to
+cross the neighbouring streets to-night."
+
+"But I must go, monsieur. Indeed, indeed I must!" she said earnestly. "I
+am deeply grateful to you, but I could not leave Petronelle."
+
+"Who is Petronelle?"
+
+"My dear old nurse, monsieur. She has never left me. Think how anxious
+and miserable she must be, at my prolonged absence."
+
+"Where does she live?"
+
+"At No. 15 Rue Taitbout, but ..."
+
+"Will you allow me to take her a message?--telling her that you are safe
+and under my roof, where it is obviously more prudent that you should
+remain at present."
+
+"If you think it best, monsieur," she replied.
+
+Inwardly she was trembling with excitement. God had not only brought her
+to this house, but willed that she should stay in it.
+
+"In whose name shall I take the message, mademoiselle?" he asked.
+
+"My name is Juliette Marny."
+
+She watched him keenly as she said it, but there was not the slightest
+sign in his expressive face, to show that he had recognised the name.
+
+Ten years is a long time, and every one had lived through so much during
+those years! A wave of intense wrath swept through Juliette's soul, as
+she realised that he had forgotten. The name meant nothing to him! It
+did not recall to him the fact that his hand was stained with blood.
+During ten years she had suffered, she had fought with herself, fought
+for him as it were, against the Fate which she was destined to mete out
+to him, whilst he had forgotten, or at least had ceased to think.
+
+He bowed to her and went out of the room.
+
+The wave of wrath subsided, and she was left alone with Madame
+Deroulede: presently Anne Mie came in.
+
+The three women chatted together, waiting for the return of the master
+of the house. Juliette felt well and, in spite of herself, almost happy.
+She had lived so long in the miserable, little attic alone with
+Petronelle that she enjoyed the well-being of this refined home. It was
+not so grand or gorgeous of course as her father's princely palace
+opposite the Louvre, a wreck now, since it was annexed by the Committee
+of National Defence, for the housing of soldiery. But the Derouledes'
+home was essentially a refined one. The delicate china on the tall
+chimney-piece, the few bits of Buhl and Vernis Martin about the room,
+the vision through the open doorway of the supper-table spread with a
+fine white cloth, and sparkling with silver, all spoke of fastidious
+tastes, of habits of luxury and elegance, which the spirit of Equality
+and Anarchy had not succeeded in eradicating.
+
+When Deroulede came back, he brought an atmosphere of breezy
+cheerfulness with him.
+
+The street was quiet now, and when walking past the hospital--his own
+gift to the Nation--he had been loudly cheered. One or two ironical
+voices had asked him what he had done with the aristo and her lace
+furbelows, but it remained at that and Mademoiselle Marny need have no
+fear.
+
+He had brought Petronelle along with him: his careless, lavish
+hospitality would have suggested the housing of Juliette's entire
+domestic establishment, had she possessed one.
+
+As it was, the worthy old soul's deluge of happy tears had melted his
+kindly heart. He offered her and her young mistress shelter, until the
+small cloud should have rolled by.
+
+After that he suggested a journey to England. Emigration now was the
+only real safety, and Mademoiselle Marny had unpleasantly drawn on
+herself the attention of the Paris rabble. No doubt, within the next few
+days her name would figure among the "suspect." She would be safest out
+of the country, and could not do better than place herself under the
+guidance of that English enthusiast, who had helped so many persecuted
+Frenchmen to escape from the terrors of the Revolution: the man who was
+such a thorn in the flesh of the Committee of Public Safety, and who
+went by the nickname of The Scarlet Pimpernel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The faithful house-dog.
+
+
+After supper they talked of Charlotte Corday.
+
+Juliette clung to the vision of that heroine, and liked to talk of her.
+She appeared as a justification of her own actions, which somehow seemed
+to require justification.
+
+She loved to hear Paul Deroulede talk; liked to provoke his enthusiasm
+and to see his stern, dark face light up with the inward fire of the
+enthusiast.
+
+She had openly avowed herself as the daughter of the Duc de Marny. When
+she actually named her father, and her brother killed in duel, she saw
+Deroulede looking long and searchingly at her. Evidently he wondered if
+she knew everything: but she returned his gaze fearlessly and frankly,
+and he apparently was satisfied.
+
+Madame Deroulede seemed to know nothing of the circumstances of that
+duel. Deroulede tried to draw Juliette out, to make her speak of her
+brother. She replied to his questions quite openly, but there was
+nothing in what she said, suggestive of the fact that she knew who
+killed her brother.
+
+She wanted him to know who she was. If he feared an enemy in her, there
+was yet time enough for him to close his doors against her.
+
+But less than a minute later, he had renewed his warmest offers of
+hospitality.
+
+"Until we can arrange for your journey to England," he added with a
+short sigh, as if reluctant to part from her.
+
+To Juliette his attitude seemed one of complete indifference for the
+wrong he had done to her and to her father: feeling that she was an
+avenging spirit, with flaming sword in hand, pursuing her brother's
+murderer like a relentless Nemesis, she would have preferred to see him
+cowed before her, even afraid of her, though she was only a young and
+delicate girl.
+
+She did not understand that in the simplicity of his heart, he only
+wished to make amends. The quarrel with the young Vicomte de Marny had
+been forced upon him, the fight had been honourable and fair, and on his
+side fought with every desire to spare the young man. He had merely been
+the instrument of Fate, but he felt happy that Fate once more used him
+as her tool, this time to save the sister.
+
+Whilst Deroulede and Juliette talked together Anne Mie cleared the
+supper-table, then came and sat on a low stool at madame's feet. She
+took no part in the conversation, but every now and then Juliette felt
+the girl's melancholy eyes fixed almost reproachfully upon her.
+
+When Juliette had retired with Petronelle, Deroulede took Anne Mie's
+hand in his.
+
+"You will be kind to my guest, Anne Mie, won't you? She seems very
+lonely, and has gone through a great deal."
+
+"Not more than I have," murmured the young girl involuntarily.
+
+"You are not happy, Anne Mie? I thought ..."
+
+"Is a wretched, deformed creature ever happy?" she said with sudden
+vehemence, as tears of mortification rushed to her eyes, in spite of
+herself.
+
+"I did not think that you were wretched," he replied with some sadness,
+"and neither in my eyes, nor in my mother's, are you in any way
+deformed."
+
+Her mood changed at once. She clung to him, pressing his hand between
+her own.
+
+"Forgive me! I--I don't know what's the matter with me to-night," she
+said with a nervous little laugh. "Let me see, you asked me to be kind
+to Mademoiselle Marny, did you not?"
+
+He nodded with a smile.
+
+"Of course I'll be kind to her. Isn't every one kind to one who is young
+and beautiful, and has great, appealing eyes, and soft, curly hair? Ah
+me! how easy is the path in life for some people! What do you want me to
+do, Paul? Wait on her? Be her little maid? Soothe her nerves or what?
+I'll do it all, though in her eyes I shall remain both wretched and
+deformed, a creature to pity, the harmless, necessary house-dog ..."
+
+She paused a moment: said "Good-night" to him, and turned to go, candle
+in hand, looking pathetic and fragile, with that ugly contour of
+shoulder, which Deroulede assured her he could not see.
+
+The candle flickered in the draught, illumining the thin, pinched face,
+the large melancholy eyes of the faithful house-dog.
+
+"Who can watch and bite!" she said half-audibly as she slipped out of
+the room. "For I do not trust you, my fine madam, and there was
+something about that comedy this afternoon, which somehow, I don't quite
+understand."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A day in the woods.
+
+
+But whilst men and women set to work to make the towns of France hideous
+with their shrieks and their hootings, their mock-trials and bloody
+guillotines, they could not quite prevent Nature from working her sweet
+will with the country.
+
+June, July, and August had received new names--they were now called
+Messidor, Thermidor, and Fructidor, but under these new names they
+continued to pour forth upon the earth the same old fruits, the same
+flowers, the same grass in the meadows and leaves upon the trees.
+
+Messidor brought its quota of wild roses in the hedgerows, just as
+archaic June had done. Thermidor covered the barren cornfields with its
+flaming mantle of scarlet poppies, and Fructidor, though now called
+August, still tipped the wild sorrel with dots of crimson, and laid the
+first wash of tender colour on the pale cheeks of the ripening peaches.
+
+And Juliette--young, girlish, feminine and inconsequent--had sighed for
+country and sunshine, had longed for a ramble in the woods, the music of
+the birds, the sight of the meadows sugared with marguerites.
+
+She had left the house early: accompanied by Petronelle, she had been
+rowed along the river as far as Suresnes. They had brought some bread
+and fresh butter, a little wine and fruit in a basket, and from here she
+meant to wander homewards through the woods.
+
+It was all so peaceful, so remote: even the noise of shrieking, howling
+Paris did not reach the leafy thickets of Suresnes.
+
+It almost seemed as if this little old-world village had been forgotten
+by the destroyers of France. It had never been a royal residence, the
+woods had never been preserved for royal sport: there was no vengeance
+to be wreaked upon its peaceful glades and sleepy, fragrant meadows.
+
+Juliette spent a happy day; she loved the flowers, the trees, the birds,
+and Petronelle was silent and sympathetic. As the afternoon wore on, and
+it was time to go home, Juliette turned townwards with a sigh.
+
+You all know that road through the woods, which lies to the north-west
+of Paris: so leafy, so secluded. No large, hundred-year-old trees, no
+fine oaks or antique elms, but numberless delicate stems of hazel-nut
+and young ash, covered with honeysuckle at this time of year,
+sweet-smelling and so peaceful after that awful turmoil of the town.
+
+Obedient to Madame Deroulede's suggestion, Juliette had tied a tricolour
+scarf round her waist, and a Phrygian cap of crimson cloth, with the
+inevitable rosette on one side, adorned her curly head.
+
+She had gathered a huge bouquet of poppies, marguerites and blue lupin
+--Nature's tribute to the national colours--and as she wandered through
+the sylvan glades she looked like some quaint dweller of the woods--a
+sprite, mayhap--with old mother Petronelle trotting behind her, like an
+attendant witch.
+
+Suddenly she paused, for in the near distance she had perceived the
+sound of footsteps upon the leafy turf, and the next moment Paul
+Deroulede emerged from out the thicket and came rapidly towards her.
+
+"We were so anxious about you at home!" he said, almost by way of an
+apology. "My mother became so restless ..."
+
+"That to quiet her fears you came in search of me!" she retorted with a
+gay little laugh, the laugh of a young girl, scarce a woman as yet, who
+feels that she is good to look at, good to talk to, who feels her wings
+for the first time, the wings with which to soar into that mad, merry,
+elusive and called Romance. Ay, her wings! but her power also! that
+sweet, subtle power of the woman: the yoke which men love, rail at, and
+love again, the yoke that enslaves them and gives them the joy of kings.
+
+How happy the day had been! Yet it had been incomplete!
+
+Petronelle was somewhat dull, and Juliette was too young to enjoy long
+companionship with her own thoughts. Now suddenly the day seemed to have
+become perfect. There was someone there to appreciate the charm of the
+woods, the beauty of that blue sky peeping though the tangled foliage of
+the honeysuckle-covered trees. There was some one to talk to, someone to
+admire the fresh white frock Juliette had put on that morning.
+
+"But how did you know where to find me?" she asked with a quaint touch
+of immature coquetry.
+
+"I didn't know," he replied quietly. "They told me you had gone to
+Suresness, and meant to wander homewards through the woods. It
+frightened me, for you will have to go through the north-west barrier,
+and ..."
+
+"Well?"
+
+He smiled, and looked earnestly for a moment at the dainty apparition
+before him.
+
+"Well, you know!" he said gaily, "that tricolour scarf and the red cap
+are not quite sufficient as a disguise: you look anything but a staunch
+friend of the people. I guessed that your muslin frock would be clean,
+and that there would still be some tell-tale lace upon it."
+
+She laughed again, and with delicate fingers lifted her pretty muslin
+frock, displaying a white frou-frou of flounces beneath the hem.
+
+"How careless and childish!" he said, almost roughly.
+
+"Would you have me coarse and grimy to be a fitting match for your
+partisans?" she retorted.
+
+His tone of mentor nettled her, his attitude seemed to her priggish and
+dictatorial, and as the sun disappearing behind a sudden cloud, so her
+childish merriment quickly gave place to a feeling of unexplainable
+disappointment.
+
+"I humbly beg your pardon," he said quietly, "And must crave your kind
+indulgence for my mood: but I have been so anxious ..."
+
+"Why should you be anxious about me?"
+
+She had meant to say this indifferently, as if caring little what the
+reply might be: but in her effort to seem indifferent her voice became
+haughty, a reminiscence of the days when she still was the daughter of
+the Duc de Marny, the richest and most high-born heiress in France.
+
+"Was that presumptuous?" he asked, with a slight touch of irony, in
+response to her own hauteur.
+
+"It was merely unnecessary," she replied. "I have already laid too many
+burdens on your shoulders, without wishing to add that of anxiety."
+
+"You have laid no burden on me," he said quietly, "save one of
+gratitude."
+
+"Gratitude? What have I done?"
+
+"You committed a foolish, thoughtless act outside my door, and gave me
+the chance of easing my conscience of a heavy load."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"I had never hoped that the Fates would be so kind as to allow me to
+render a member of your family a slight service."
+
+"I understand that you saved my life the other day, Monsieur Deroulede.
+I know that I am still in peril and that I owe my safety to you ..."
+
+"Do you also know that your brother owed his death to me?"
+
+She closed her lips firmly, unable to reply, wrathful with him, for
+having suddenly and without any warning, placed a clumsy hand upon that
+hidden sore.
+
+"I always meant to tell you," he continued somewhat hurriedly; "for it
+almost seemed to me that I have been cheating you, these last few days.
+I don't suppose that you can quite realise what it means to me to tell
+you this just now; but I owe it to you, I think. In later years you
+might find out, and then regret the days you spent under my roof. I
+called you childish a moment ago, you must forgive me; I know that you
+are a woman, and hope therefore that you will understand me. I killed
+your brother in fair fight. He provoked me as no man was ever provoked
+before ..."
+
+"Is it necessary, M. Deroulede, that you should tell me all this?" she
+interrupted him with some impatience.
+
+"I thought you ought to know."
+
+"You must know, on the other hand, that I have no means of hearing the
+history of the quarrel from my brother's point of view now."
+
+The moment the words were out of her lips she had realised how cruelly
+she had spoken. He did not reply; he was too chivalrous, too gentle, to
+reproach her. Perhaps he understood for the first time how bitterly she
+had felt her brother's death, and how deeply she must be suffering, now
+that she knew herself to be face to face with his murderer.
+
+She stole a quick glance at him, through her tears. She was deeply
+penitent for what she had said. It almost seemed to her as if a dual
+nature was at war within her.
+
+The mention of her brother's name, the recollection of that awful night
+beside his dead body, of those four years whilst she watched her
+father's moribund reason slowly wandering towards the grave, seemed to
+rouse in her a spirit of rebellion, and of evil, which she felt was not
+entirely of herself.
+
+The woods had become quite silent. It was late afternoon, and they had
+gradually wandered farther and farther away from pretty sylvan
+Suresness, towards great, anarchic, deathdealing Paris. In this part of
+the woods the birds had left their homes; the trees, shorn of their
+lower branches looked like gaunt spectres, raising melancholy heads
+towards the relentless, silent sky.
+
+In the distance, from behind the barriers, a couple of miles away, the
+boom of a gun was heard.
+
+"They are closing the barriers," he said quietly after a long pause. "I
+am glad I was fortunate enough to meet you."
+
+"It was kind of you to seek for me," she said meekly. "I didn't mean
+what I said just now ..."
+
+"I pray you, say no more about it. I can so well understand. I only wish
+..."
+
+"It would be best I should leave your house," she said gently; "I have
+so ill repaid your hospitality. Petronelle and I can easily go back to
+our lodgings."
+
+"You would break my mother's heart if you left her now," he said, almost
+roughly. "She has become very fond of you, and knows, just as well as I
+do, the dangers that would beset you outside my house. My coarse and
+grimy partisans," he added, with a bitter touch of sarcasm, "have that
+advantage, that they are loyal to me, and would not harm you while under
+my roof."
+
+"But you ..." she murmured.
+
+She felt somehow that she had wounded him very deeply, and was half
+angry with herself for her seeming ingratitude, and yet childishly glad
+to have suppressed in him that attitude of mentorship, which he was
+beginning to assume over her.
+
+"You need not fear that my presence will offend you much longer,
+mademoiselle," he said coldly. "I can quite understand how hateful it
+must be to you, though I would have wished that you could believe at
+least in my sincerity."
+
+"Are you going away then?"
+
+"Not out of Paris altogether. I have accepted the post of Governor of
+the Conciergerie."
+
+"Ah!--where the poor Queen ..."
+
+She checked herself suddenly. Those words would have been called
+treasonable to the people of France.
+
+Instinctively and furtively, as everyone did in these days, she cast a
+rapid glance behind her.
+
+"You need not be afraid," he said; "there is no one here but
+Petronelle."
+
+"And you."
+
+"Oh! I echo your words. Poor Marie Antoinette!"
+
+"You pity her?"
+
+"How can I help it?"
+
+"But your are that horrible National Convention, who will try her,
+condemn her, execute her as they did the King."
+
+"I am of the National Convention. But I will not condemn her, nor be a
+party to another crime. I go as Governor of the Conciergerie, to help
+her, if I can."
+
+"But your popularity--your life--if you befriend her?"
+
+"As you say, mademoiselle, my life, if I befriend her," he said simply.
+
+She looked at him with renewed curiosity in her gaze.
+
+How strange were men in these days! Paul Deroulede, the republican, the
+recognised idol of the lawless people of France, was about to risk his
+life for the woman he had helped to dethrone.
+
+Pity with him did not end with the rabble of Paris; it had reached
+Charlotte Corday, though it failed to save her, and now it extended to
+the poor dispossessed Queen. Somehow, in his face this time, she saw
+either success or death.
+
+"When do you leave?" she asked.
+
+"To-morrow night."
+
+She said nothing more. Strangely enough, a tinge of melancholy had
+settled over her spirits. No doubt the proximity of the town was the
+cause of this. She could already hear the familiar noise of muffled
+drums, the loud, excited shrieking of the mob, who stood round the gates
+of Paris, at this time of the evening, waiting to witness some important
+capture, perhaps that of a hated aristocrat striving to escape from the
+people's revenge.
+
+They had reached the edge of the wood, and gradually, as she walked, the
+flowers she had gathered fell unheeded out of her listless hands one by
+one.
+
+First the blue lupins: their bud-laden heads were heavy and they dropped
+to the ground, followed by the white marguerites, that lay thick behind
+her now on the grass like a shroud. The red poppies were the lightest,
+their thin gummy stalks clung to her hands longer than the rest. At last
+she let them fall too, singly, like great drops of blood, that glistened
+as her long white gown swept them aside.
+
+Deroulede was absorbed in his thoughts, and seemed not to heed her. At
+the barrier, however, he roused himself and took out the passes which
+alone enabled Juliette and Petronelle to re-enter the town unchallenged.
+He himself as Citizen-Deputy could come and go as he wished.
+
+Juliette shuddered as the great gates closed behind her with a heavy
+clank. It seemed to shut out even the memory of this happy day, which
+for a brief space had been quite perfect.
+
+She did not know Paris very well, and wondered where lay that gloomy
+Conciergerie, where a dethroned queen was living her last days, in an
+agonised memory of the past. But as they crossed the bridge she
+recognised all round her the massive towers of the great city: Notre
+Dame, the grateful spire of La Sainte Chapelle, the sombre outline of
+St. Gervais, and behind her the Louvre with its great history and
+irreclaimable grandeur. How small her own tragedy seemed in the midst of
+this great sanguinary drama, the last act of which had not yet even
+begun. Her own revenge, her oath, her tribulations, what were they in
+comparison with that great flaming Nemesis which had swept away a
+throne, that vow of retaliation carried out by thousands against other
+thousands, that long story of degradation, of regicide, of fratricide,
+the awesome chapters of which were still being unfolded one by one?
+
+She felt small and petty: ashamed of the pleasure she had felt in the
+woods, ashamed of her high spirits and light-heartedness, ashamed of
+that feeling of sudden pity and admiration for the man who had done her
+and her family so deep an injury, which she was too feeble, too
+vacillating to avenge.
+
+The majestic outline of the Louvre seemed to frown sarcastically on her
+weakness, the silent river to mock her and her wavering purpose. The man
+beside her had wronged her and hers far more deeply than the Bourbons
+had wronged their people. The people of France were taking their
+revenge, and God had at the close of this last happy day of her life
+pointed once more to the means for her great end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The Scarlet Pimpernel.
+
+
+It was some few hours later. The ladies sat in the drawing-room, silent
+and anxious.
+
+Soon after supper a visitor had called, and had been closeted with Paul
+Deroulede in the latter's study for the past two hours.
+
+A tall, somewhat lazy-looking figure, he was sitting at a table face to
+face with the Citizen-Deputy. On a chair beside him lay a heavy caped
+coat, covered with the dust and the splashings of a long journey, but he
+himself was attired in clothes that suggested the most fastidious taste,
+and the most perfect of tailors; he wore with apparent ease the
+eccentric fashion of the time, the short-waisted coat of many lapels,
+the double waistcoat and billows of delicate lace. Unlike Deroulede he
+was of great height, with fair hair and a somewhat lazy expression in
+his good-natured blue eyes, and as he spoke, there was just a soupcon of
+foreign accent in the pronunciation of the French vowels, a certain
+drawl of o's and a's, that would have betrayed the Britisher to an
+observant ear.
+
+The two men had been talking earnestly for some time, the tall
+Englishman was watching his friend keenly, whilst an amused, pleasant
+smile lingered round the corners of his firm mouth and jaw. Deroulede,
+restless and enthusiastic, was pacing to and fro.
+
+"But I don't understand now, how you managed to reach Paris, my dear
+Blakeney!" said Deroulede at last, placing an anxious hand on his
+friend's shoulder. "The government has not forgotten The Scarlet
+Pimpernel."
+
+"La! I took care of that!" responded Blakeney with his short, pleasant
+laugh. "I sent Tinville my autograph this morning."
+
+"You are mad, Blakeney!"
+
+"Not altogether, my friend. My faith! 'twas on only foolhardiness caused
+me to grant that devilish prosecutor another sight of my scarlet device.
+I knew what you maniacs would be after, so I came across in the
+_Daydream,_just to see if I couldn't get my share of the fun."
+
+"Fun, you call it?" queried the other bitterly.
+
+"Nay! what would you have me call it? A mad, insane, senseless tragedy,
+with but one issue?--the guillotine for you all."
+
+"Then why did you come?"
+
+"To--What shall I say, my friend?" rejoined Sir Percy Blakeney, with
+that inimitable drawl of his. "To give your demmed government something
+else to think about, whilst you are all busy running your heads into a
+noose."
+
+"What makes you think we are doing that?"
+
+"Three things, my friend--may I offer you a pinch of snuff--No?--Ah
+well!..." And with the graceful gesture of an accomplished dandy, Sir
+Percy flicked off a grain of dust from his immaculate Mechlin ruffles.
+
+"Three things," he continued quietly; "an imprisoned Queen, about to be
+tried for her life, the temperament of a Frenchman--some of them--and
+the idiocy of mankind generally. These three things make me think that a
+certain section of hot-headed Republicans with yourself, my dear
+Deroulede, _en tete,_ are about to attempt the most stupid, senseless,
+purposeless thing that was ever concocted by the excitable brain of a
+demmed Frenchman."
+
+Deroulede smiled.
+
+"Does it not seem amusing to you, Blakeney, that you should sit there
+and condemn anyone for planning mad, insane, senseless things."
+
+"La! I'll not sit, I'll stand!" rejoined Blakeney with a laugh, as he
+drew himself up to his full height, and stretched his long, lazy limbs.
+"And now let me tell you, friend, that my League of The Scarlet
+Pimpernel never attempted the impossible, and to try and drag the Queen
+out of the clutches of these murderous rascals now, is attempting the
+unattainable."
+
+"And yet we mean to try."
+
+"I know it. I guessed it, that is why I came: that is also why I sent a
+pleasant little note to the Committee of Public Safety, signed with the
+device they know so well: The Scarlet Pimpernel."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well! the result is obvious. Robespierre, Danton, Tinville, Merlin, and
+the whole of the demmed murderous crowd, will be busy looking after
+me--a needle in a haystack. They'll put the abortive attempt down to me,
+and you may--_ma foi!_ I only suggest that you _may_ escape safely out
+of France--in the _Daydream,_ and with the help of your humble servant."
+
+"But in the meanwhile they'll discover you, and they'll not let you
+escape a second time."
+
+"My friend! if a terrier were to lose his temper, he never would run a
+rat to earth. Now your Revolutionary Government has lost its temper with
+me, ever since I slipped through Chauvelin's fingers; they are blind
+with their own fury, whilst I am perfectly happy and cool as a cucumber.
+My life has become valuable to me, my friend. There is someone over the
+water now who weeps when I don't return--No! no! never fear--they'll not
+get The Scarlet Pimpernel this journey ..."
+
+He laughed, a gay, pleasant laugh, and his strong, firm face seemed to
+soften at thought of the beautiful wife, over in England, who was
+waiting anxiously for his safe return.
+
+"And yet you'll not help us to rescue the Queen?" rejoined Deroulede,
+with some bitterness.
+
+"By every means in my power," replied Blakeney, "save the insane. But I
+will help to get you all out of the demmed hole, when you have failed."
+
+"We'll not fail," asserted the other hotly.
+
+Sir Percy Blakeney went close up to his friend and placed his long,
+slender hand, with a touch of almost womanly tenderness upon the
+latter's shoulder.
+
+"Will you tell me your plans?"
+
+In a moment Deroulede was all fire and enthusiasm.
+
+"There are not many of us in it," he began, "although half France will
+be in sympathy with us. We have plenty of money, of course, and also the
+necessary disguise for the royal lady."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I, in the meanwhile, have asked for and obtained the post of Governor
+of the Conciergerie; I go into my new quarters to-morrow. In the
+meanwhile, I am making arrangements for my mother and--and those
+dependent upon me to quit France immediately."
+
+Blakeney had perceived the slight hesitation when Deroulede mentioned
+those dependent upon him. He looked scrutinisingly at his friend, who
+continued quickly:
+
+"I am still very popular among the people. My family can go about
+unmolested. I must get them out of France, however, in case--in case
+..."
+
+"Of course," rejoined the other simply.
+
+"As soon as I am assured that they are safe, my friends and I can
+prosecute our plans. You see the trial of the Queen has not yet been
+decided on, but I know that it is in the air. We hope to get her away,
+disguised in one of the uniforms of the National Guard. As you know, it
+will be my duty to make the final round every evening in the prison, and
+to see that everything is safe for the night. Two fellows watch all
+night, in the room next to that occupied by the Queen. Usually they
+drink and play cards all night long. I want an opportunity to drug their
+brandy, and thus to render them more loutish and idiotic than usual;
+then for a blow on the head that will make them senseless. It should be
+easy, for I have a strong fist, and after that ..."
+
+"Well? After that, friend?" rejoined Sir Percy earnestly, "after that?
+Shall I fill in the details of the picture?--the guard twenty-five
+strong outside the Conciergerie, how will you pass them?"
+
+"I as the Governor, followed by one of my guards ..."
+
+"To go whither?"
+
+"I have the right to come and go as I please."
+
+"I' faith! so you have, but 'one of your guards'--eh? Wrapped to the
+eyes in a long mantle to hide the female figure beneath. I have been in
+Paris but a few hours, and yet already I have realised that there is not
+one demmed citizen within its walls, who does not at this moment suspect
+some other demmed citizen of conniving at the Queen's escape. Even the
+sparrows on the house-tops are objects of suspicion. No figure wrapped
+in a mantle will from this day forth leave Paris unchallenged."
+
+"But you yourself, friend?" suggested Deroulede. "You think you can quit
+Paris unrecognised--then why not the Queen?"
+
+"Because she is a woman, and has been a queen. She has nerves, poor
+soul, and weaknesses of body and of mind now. Alas for her! Alas for
+France! who wreaks such idle vengeance on so poor an enemy? Can you take
+hold of Marie Antoinette by the shoulders, shove her into the bottom of
+a cart and pile sacks of potatoes on the top of her? I did that to the
+Comtesse de Tournai and her daughter, as stiff-necked a pair of French
+aristocrats as ever deserved the guillotine for their insane prejudices.
+But can you do it to Marie Antoinette? She'd rebuke you publicly, and
+betray herself and you in a flash, sooner than submit to a loss of
+dignity."
+
+"But would you leave her to her fate?"
+
+"Ah! there's the trouble, friend. Do you think you need appeal to the
+sense of chivalry of my league? We are still twenty strong, and heart
+and soul in sympathy with your mad schemes. The poor, poor Queen! But
+you are bound to fail, and then who will help you all, if we too are put
+out of the way?"
+
+"We should succeed if you helped us. At one time you used proudly to
+say: 'The League of The Scarlet Pimpernel has never failed.'"
+
+"Because it attempted nothing which it could not accomplish. But, la!
+since you put me on my mettle--Demm it all! I'll have to think about
+it!"
+
+And he laughed that funny, somewhat inane laugh of his, which had
+deceived the clever men of two countries as to his real personality.
+
+Deroulede went up to the heavy oak desk which occupied a conspicuous
+place in the centre of one of the walls. He unlocked it and drew forth a
+bundle of papers.
+
+"Will you look through these?" he asked, handing them to Sir Percy
+Blakeney.
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Different schemes I have drawn up, in case my original plan should not
+succeed."
+
+"Burn them, my friend," said Blakeney laconically. "Have you not yet
+learned the lesson of never putting your hand to paper?"
+
+"I can't burn these. You see, I shall not be able to have long
+conversations with Marie Antoinette. I must give her my suggestions in
+writing, that she may study them and not fail me, through lack of
+knowledge of her part."
+
+"Better that than papers in these times, my friend: these papers, if
+found, would send you, untried, to the guillotine."
+
+"I am careful, and, at present, quite beyond suspicion. Moreover, among
+the papers is a complete collection of passports, suitable for any
+character the Queen and her attendant may be forced to assume. It has
+taken me some months to collect them, so as not to arouse suspicion; I
+gradually got them together, on one pretence or another: now I am ready
+for any eventuality ..."
+
+He suddenly paused. A look in his friend's face had given him a swift
+warning.
+
+He turned, and there in the doorway, holding back the heavy portiere,
+stood Juliette, graceful, smiling, a little pale, this no doubt owing to
+the flickering light of the unsnuffed candles.
+
+So young and girlish did she look in her soft, white muslin frock that
+at sight of her the tension in Deroulede's face seemed to relax.
+Instinctively he had thrown the papers back into the desk, but his look
+had softened, from the fire of obstinate energy to that of inexpressible
+tenderness.
+
+Blakeney was quietly watching the young girl as she stood in the
+doorway, a little bashful and undecided.
+
+"Madame Deroulede sent me," she said hesitatingly, "she says the hour is
+getting late and she is very anxious. M. Deroulede, would you come and
+reassure her?"
+
+"In a moment, mademoiselle," he replied lightly, "my friend and I have
+just finished our talk. May I have the honour to present him?--Sir Percy
+Blakeney, a traveller from England. Blakeney, this is Mademoiselle
+Juliette de Marny, my mother's guest."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A warning.
+
+
+Sir Percy bowed very low, with all the graceful flourish and elaborate
+gesture the eccentric customs of the time demanded.
+
+He had not said a word, since the first exclamation of warning, with
+which he had drawn his friend's attention to the young girl in the
+doorway.
+
+Noiselessly, as she had come, Juliette glided out of the room again,
+leaving behind her an atmosphere of wild flowers, of the bouquet she had
+gathered, then scattered in the woods.
+
+There was silence in the room for awhile. Deroulede was locking up his
+desk and slipping the keys into his pocket.
+
+"Shall we join my mother for a moment, Blakeney?" he said, moving
+towards the door.
+
+"I shall be proud to pay my respects," replied Sir Percy; "but before we
+close the subject, I think I'll change my mind about those papers. If I
+am to be of service to you I think I had best look through them, and
+give you my opinion of your schemes."
+
+Deroulede looked at him keenly for a moment.
+
+"Certainly," he said at last, going up to his desk. "I'll stay with you
+whilst you read them through."
+
+"La! not to-night, my friend," said Sir Percy lightly; "the hour is
+late, and madame is waiting for us. They'll be quite safe with me, and
+you'll entrust them to my care."
+
+Deroulede seemed to hesitate. Blakeney had spoken in his usual airy
+manner, and was even now busy readjusting the set of his
+perfectly-tailored coat.
+
+"Perhaps you cannot quite trust me?" laughed Sir Percy gaily. "I seemed
+too lukewarm just now."
+
+"No; it's not that, Blakeney!" said Deroulede quietly at last. "There is
+no mistrust in me, all the mistrust is on your side."
+
+"Faith!--" began Sir Percy.
+
+"Nay! do not explain. I understand and appreciate your friendship, but I
+should like to convince you how unjust is your mistrust of one of God's
+purest angels, that ever walked the earth."
+
+"Oho! that's it, is it, friend Deroulede? Methought you had foresworn
+the sex altogether, and now you are in love."
+
+"Madly, blindly, stupidly in love, my friend," said Deroulede with a
+sigh. "Hopelessly, I fear me!"
+
+"Why hopelessly?"
+
+"She is the daughter of the late Duc de Marny, one of the oldest names
+in France; a Royalist to the backbone ..."
+
+"Hence your overwhelming sympathy for the Queen!"
+
+"Nay! you wrong me there, friend. I'd have tried to save the Queen, even
+if I had never learned to love Juliette. But you see now how unjust were
+your suspicions."
+
+"Had I any?"
+
+"Don't deny it. You were loud in urging me to burn those papers a moment
+ago. You called them useless and dangerous and now ..."
+
+"I still think them useless and dangerous, and by reading them would
+wish to confirm my opinion and give weight to my arguments."
+
+"If I were to part from them now I would seem to be mistrusting her."
+
+"You are a mad idealist, my dear Deroulede!"
+
+"How can I help it? I have lived under the same roof with her for three
+weeks now. I have begun to understand what a saint is like."
+
+"And 'twill be when you understand that your idol has feet of clay that
+you'll learn the real lesson of love," said Blakeney earnestly.
+
+"Is it love to worship a saint in heaven, whom you dare not touch, who
+hovers above you like a cloud, which floats away from you even as you
+gaze? To love is to feel one being in the world at one with us, our
+equal in sin as well as in virtue. To love, for us men, is to clasp one
+woman with our arms, feeling that she lives and breathes just as we do,
+suffers as we do, thinks with us, loves with us, and, above all, sins
+with us. Your mock saint who stands in a niche is not a woman if she
+have not suffered, still less a woman if she have not sinned. Fall at
+the feet of your idol an you wish, but drag her down to your level after
+that--the only level she should ever reach, that of your heart."
+
+Who shall render faithfully a true account of the magnetism which poured
+forth from this remarkable man as he spoke: this well-dressed, foppish
+apostle of the greatest love that man has ever known. And as he spoke
+the whole story of his own great, true love for the woman who once had
+so deeply wronged him seemed to stand clearly written in the strong,
+lazy, good-humoured, kindly face glowing with tenderness for her.
+
+Deroulede felt this magnetism, and therefore did not resent the implied
+suggestion, anent the saint whom he was still content to worship.
+
+A dreamer and an idealist, his mind held spellbound by the great social
+problems which were causing the upheaval of a whole country, he had not
+yet had the time to learn the sweet lesson which Nature teaches to her
+elect--the lesson of a great, a true, human and passionate love. To him,
+at present, Juliette represented the perfect embodiment of his most
+idealistic dreams. She stood in his mind so far above him that if she
+proved unattainable, he would scarce have suffered. It was such a
+foregone conclusion.
+
+Blakeney's words were the first to stir in his heart a desire for
+something beyond that quasi-mediaeval worship, something weaker and yet
+infinitely stronger, something more earthy and yet almost divine.
+
+"And now, shall we join the ladies?" said Blakeney after a long pause,
+during which the mental workings of his alert brain were almost visible,
+in the earnest look which he cast at his friend. "You shall keep the
+papers in your desk, give them into the keeping of your saint, trust her
+all in all rather than not at all, and if the time should come that your
+heaven-enthroned ideal fall somewhat heavily to earth, then give me the
+privilege of being a witness to your happiness."
+
+"You are still mistrustful, Blakeney," said Deroulede lightly. "If you
+say much more I'll give these papers into Mademoiselle Marny's keeping
+until to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Anne Mie.
+
+
+That night, when Blakeney, wrapped in his cloak, was walking down the
+Rue Ecole de Medecine towards his own lodgings, he suddenly felt a timid
+hand upon his sleeve.
+
+Anne Mie stood beside him, her pale, melancholy face peeping up at the
+tall Englishman, through the folds of a dark hood closely tied under her
+chin.
+
+"Monsieur," she said timidly, "do not think me very presumptuous. I--I
+would wish to have five minutes' talk with you--may I?"
+
+He looked down with great kindness at the quaint, wizened little figure,
+and the strong face softened at the sight of the poor, deformed
+shoulder, the hard, pinched look of the young mouth, the general look of
+pathetic helplessness which appeals so strongly to the chivalrous.
+
+"Indeed, mademoiselle," he said gently, "you make me very proud; and I
+can serve you in any way, I pray you command me. But," he added, seeing
+Anne Mie's somewhat scared look, "this street is scarce fit for private
+conversation. Shall we try and find a better spot?"
+
+Paris had not yet gone to bed. In these times it was really safest to be
+out in the open streets. There, everybody was more busy, more on the
+move, on the lookout for suspected houses, leaving the wanderer alone.
+
+Blakeney led Anne Mie towards the Luxembourg Gardens, the great
+devastated pleasure-ground of the ci-devant tyrants of the people. The
+beautiful Anne of Austria, and the Medici before her, Louis XIII, and
+his gallant musketeers--all have given place to the great cannon-forging
+industry of this besieged Republic. France, attacked on every side, is
+forcing her sons to defend her: persecuted, martyrised, done to death by
+her, she is still their Mother: La Patrie, who needs their arms against
+the foreign foe. England is threatening the north, Prussia and Austria
+the east. Admiral Hood's flag is flying on Toulon Arsenal.
+
+The siege of the Republic!
+
+And the Republic is fighting for dear life. The Tuileries and Luxembourg
+Gardens are transformed into a township of gigantic smithies; and Anne
+Mie, with scared eyes, and clinging to Blakeney's arm, cast furtive,
+terrified glances at the huge furnaces and the begrimed, darkly scowling
+faces of the workers within.
+
+"The people of France in arms against tyranny!" Great placards, bearing
+these inspiriting words, are affixed to gallows-shaped posts, and
+flutter in the evening breeze, rendered scorching by the heat of the
+furnaces all around.
+
+Farther on, a group of older men, squatting on the ground, are busy
+making tents, and some women--the same Megaeras who daily shriek round
+the guillotine--are plying their needles and scissors for the purpose of
+making clothes for the soldiers.
+
+The soldiers are the entire able-bodied male population of France.
+
+"The people of France in arms against tyranny!"
+
+That is their sign, their trade-mark; one of these placards, fitfully
+illumined by a torch of resin, towers above a group of children busy
+tearing up scraps of old linen--their mothers', their sisters' linen
+--in order to make lint for the wounded.
+
+Loud curses and suppressed mutterings fill the smoke-laden air.
+
+The people of France, in arms against tyranny, is bending its broad back
+before the most cruel, the most absolute and brutish slave-driving ever
+exercised over mankind.
+
+Not even mediaeval Christianity has ever dared such wholesale
+enforcements of its doctrines, as this constitution of Liberty and
+Fraternity.
+
+Merlin's "Law of the Suspect" has just been formulated. From now onward
+each and every citizen of France must watch his words, his looks, his
+gestures, lest they be suspect. Of what--of treason to the Republic, to
+the people? Nay, worse! lest they be suspect of being suspect to the
+great era of Liberty.
+
+Therefore in the smithies and among the groups of tent-makers a moment's
+negligence, a careless attention to the work, might lead to a brief
+trial on the morrow and the inevitable guillotine. Negligence is treason
+to the higher interests of the Republic.
+
+Blakeney dragged Anne Mie away from the sight. These roaring furnaces
+frightened her; he took her down the Place St Michel, towards the river.
+It was quieter here.
+
+"What dreadful people they have become," she said, shuddering; "even I
+can remember how different they used to be."
+
+The houses on the banks of the river were mostly converted into
+hospitals, preparatory for the great siege. Some hundred metres lower
+down, the new children's hospital, endowed by Citizen-Deputy Deroulede,
+loomed, white, clean, and comfortable-looking, amidst its more squalid
+fellows.
+
+"I think it would be best not to sit down," suggested Blakeney, "and
+wiser for you to throw your hood away from your face."
+
+He seemed to have no fears for himself; many had said that he bore a
+charmed life; and yet ever since Admiral Hood had planted his flag on
+Toulon Arsenal, the English were more feared than ever, and The Scarlet
+Pimpernel more hated than most.
+
+"You wished to speak to me about Paul Deroulede," he said kindly, seeing
+that the young girl was making desperate efforts to say what lay on her
+mind. "He is my friend, you know."
+
+"Yes; that is why I wished to ask you a question," she replied.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Who is Juliette de Marny, and why did she seek an entrance into Paul's
+house?"
+
+"Did she seek it, then?"
+
+"Yes; I saw the scene from the balcony. At the time it did not strike me
+as a farce. I merely thought that she had been stupid and foolhardy. But
+since then I have reflected. She provoked the mob of the street,
+wilfully, just at the very moment when she reached M. Deroulede's door.
+She meant to appeal to his chivalry, and called for help, well knowing
+that he would respond."
+
+She spoke rapidly and excitedly now, throwing off all shyness and
+reserve. Blakeney was forced to check her vehemence, which might have
+been thought "suspicious" by some idle citizen unpleasantly inclined.
+
+"Well? And now?" he asked, for the young girl had paused, as if ashamed
+of her excitement.
+
+"And now she stays in the house, on and on, day after day," continued
+Anne Mie, speaking more quietly, though with no less intensity. "Why
+does she not go? She is not safe in France. She belongs to the most
+hated of all the classes--the idle, rich aristocrats of the old regime.
+Paul has several times suggested plans for her emigration to England.
+Madame Deroulede, who is an angel, loves her, and would not like to part
+from her, but it would be obviously wiser for her to go, and yet she
+stays. Why?"
+
+"Presumably because ..."
+
+"Because she is in love with Paul?" interrupted Anne Mie vehemently.
+"No, no; she does not love him--at least--Oh! sometimes I don't know.
+Her eyes light up when he comes, and she is listless when he goes. She
+always spends a longer time over her toilet, when we expect him home to
+dinner," she added, with a touch of naive femininity. "But--if it be
+love, then that love is strange and unwomanly; it is a love that will
+not be for his good ..."
+
+"Why should you think that?"
+
+"I don't know," said the girl simply. "Isn't it an instinct?"
+
+"Not a very unerring one in this case, I fear."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because your own love for Paul Deroulede has blinded you--- Ah! you
+must pardon me, mademoiselle; you sought this conversation and not I,
+and I fear me I have wounded you. Yet I would wish you to know how deep
+is my sympathy with you, and how great my desire to render you a service
+if I could."
+
+"I was about to ask a service of you, monsieur."
+
+"Then command me, I beg of you."
+
+"You are Paul's friend--persuade him that that woman in his house is a
+standing danger to his life and liberty."
+
+"He would not listen to me."
+
+"Oh! a man always listens to another."
+
+"Except on one subject--the woman he loves."
+
+He had said the last words very gently but very firmly. He was deeply,
+tenderly sorry for the poor, deformed, fragile girl, doomed to be a
+witness of that most heartrending of human tragedies, the passing away
+of her own scarce-hoped-for happiness. But he felt that at this moment
+the kindest act would be one of complete truth. He knew that Paul
+Deroulede's heart was completely given to Juliette de Marny; he too,
+like Anne Mie, instinctively mistrusted the beautiful girl and her
+strange, silent ways, but, unlike the poor hunchback, he knew that no
+sin which Juliette might commit would henceforth tear her from out the
+heart of his friend; that if, indeed, she turned out to be false, or
+even treacherous, she would, nevertheless, still hold a place in
+Deroulede's very soul, which no one else would ever fill.
+
+"You think he loves her?" asked Anne Mie at last.
+
+"I am sure of it."
+
+"And she?"
+
+"Ah! I do not know. I would trust your instinct--a woman's--sooner than
+my own."
+
+"She is false, I tell you, and is hatching treason against Paul."
+
+"Then all we can do is to wait."
+
+"Wait?"
+
+"And watch carefully, earnestly, all the time. There! shall I pledge you
+my word that Deroulede shall come to no harm?"
+
+"Pledge me your word that you'll part him from that woman."
+
+"Nay; that is beyond my power. A man like Paul Deroulede only loves once
+in life, but when he does, it is for always."
+
+Once more she was silent, pressing her lips closely together, as if
+afraid of what she might say.
+
+He saw that she was bitterly disappointed, and sought for a means of
+tempering the cruelty of the blow.
+
+"It will be your task to watch over Paul," he said; "with your
+friendship to guard and protect him, we need have no fear for his
+safety, I think."
+
+"I will watch," she replied quietly.
+
+Gradually he had led her steps back towards the Rue Ecole de Medecine.
+
+A great melancholy had fallen over his bold, adventurous spirit. How
+full of tragedies was this great city, in the last throes of its insane
+and cruel struggle for an unattainable goal. And yet, despite its
+guillotine and mock trials, its tyrannical laws and overfilled prisons,
+its very sorrows paled before the dead, dull misery of this deformed
+girl's heart.
+
+A wild exaltation, a fever of enthusiasm lent glamour to the scenes
+which were daily enacted on the Place de la Revolution, turning the
+final acts of the tragedies into glaring, lurid melodrama, almost unreal
+in its poignant appeal to the sensibilities.
+
+But here there was only this dead, dull misery, an aching heart, a poor,
+fragile creature in the throes of an agonised struggle for a
+fast-disappearing happiness.
+
+Anne Mie hardly knew now what she had hoped, when she sought this
+interview with Sir Percy Blakeney. Drowning in a sea of hopelessness,
+she had clutched at what might prove a chance of safety. Her reason told
+her that Paul's friend was right. Deroulede was a man who would love but
+once in his life. He had never loved--for he had too much pitied--poor,
+pathetic little Anne Mie.
+
+Nay; why should we say that love and pity are akin?
+
+Love, the great, the strong, the conquering god--Love that subdues a
+world, and rides roughshod over principle, virtue, tradition, over home,
+kindred, and religion--what cares he for the easy conquest of the
+pathetic being, who appeals to his sympathy?
+
+Love means equality--the same height of heroism or of sin. When Love
+stoops to pity, he has ceased to soar in the boundless space, that
+rarefied atmosphere wherein man feels himself made at last truly in the
+image of God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Jealousy.
+
+
+At the door of her home Blakeney parted from Anne Mie, with all the
+courtesy with which he would have bade adieu to the greatest lady in his
+own land.
+
+Anne Mie let herself into the house with her own latch-key. She closed
+the heavy door noiselessly, then glided upstairs like a quaint little
+ghost.
+
+But on the landing above she met Paul Deroulede.
+
+He had just come out of his room, and was still fully dressed.
+
+"Anne Mie!" he said, with such an obvious cry of pleasure, that the
+young girl, with beating heart, paused a moment on the top of the
+stairs, as if hoping to hear that cry again, feeling that indeed he was
+glad to see her, had been uneasy because of her long absence.
+
+"Have I made you anxious?" she asked at last.
+
+"Anxious!" he exclaimed. "Little one, I have hardly lived this last
+hour, since I realised that you had gone out so late as this, and all
+alone."
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"Mademoiselle de Marny knocked at my door an hour ago. She had gone to
+your room to see you, and, not finding you there, she searched the house
+for you, and finally, in her anxiety, came to me. We did not dare to
+tell my mother. I won't ask you where you have been, Anne Mie, but
+another time, remember, little one, that the streets of Paris are not
+safe, and that those who love you suffer deeply, when they know you to
+be in peril."
+
+"Those who love me!" murmured the girl under her breath.
+
+"Could you not have asked me to come with you?"
+
+"No; I wanted to be alone. The streets were quite safe, and--I wanted to
+speak with Sir Percy Blakeney."
+
+"With Blakeney?" he exclaimed in boundless astonishment. "Why, what in
+the world did you want to say him?"
+
+The girl, so unaccustomed to lying, had blurted out the truth, almost
+against her will.
+
+"I thought he could help me, as I was much perturbed and restless."
+
+"You went to him sooner than to me?" said Deroulede in a tone of gentle
+reproach, and still puzzled at this extraordinary action on the part of
+the girl, usually so shy and reserved.
+
+"My anxiety was about you, and you would have mocked me for it."
+
+"Indeed, I should never mock you, Anne Mie. But why should you be
+anxious about me?"
+
+"Because I see you wandering blindly on the brink of a great danger, and
+because I see you confiding in those, whom you had best mistrust."
+
+He frowned a little, and bit his lip to check the rough word that was on
+the tip of his tongue.
+
+"Is Sir Percy Blakeney one of those whom I had best mistrust?" he said
+lightly.
+
+"No," she answered curtly.
+
+"Then, dear, there is no cause for unrest. He is the only one of my
+friends whom you have not known intimately. All those who are round me
+now, you know that you can trust and that you can love," he added
+earnestly and significantly.
+
+He took her hand; it was trembling with obvious suppressed agitation.
+She knew that he had guessed what was passing in her mind, and now was
+deeply ashamed of what she had done. She had been tortured with jealousy
+for the past three weeks, but at least she had suffered quite alone: on
+one had been allowed to touch that wound, which more often than not,
+excites derision rather than pity. Now, by her own actions, two men knew
+her secret. Both were kind and sympathetic; but Deroulede resented her
+imputations, and Blakeney had been unable to help her.
+
+A wave of morbid introspection swept over her soul. She realised in a
+moment how petty and base had been her thoughts and how purposeless her
+actions. She would have given her life at this moment to eradicate from
+Deroulede's mind the knowledge of her own jealousy; she hoped that at
+least he had not guessed her love.
+
+She tried to read his thoughts, but in the dark passage, only dimly
+lighted by the candles in Deroulede's room beyond, she could not see the
+expression of his face, but the hand which held hers was warm and
+tender. She felt herself pitied, and blushed at the thought. With a
+hasty good-night she fled down the passage, and locked herself in her
+room, alone with her own thoughts at last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Denunciation.
+
+
+But what of Juliette?
+
+What of this wild, passionate, romantic creature tortured by a Titanic
+conflict? She, but a girl, scarcely yet a woman, torn by the greatest
+antagonistic powers that ever fought for a human soul. On the one side
+duty, tradition, her dead brother, her father--above all, her religion
+and the oath she had sworn before God; on the other justice and honour,
+a case of right and wrong, honesty and pity.
+
+How she fought with these powers now!
+
+She fought with them, struggled with them on her knees. She tried to
+crush memory, tried to forget that awful midnight scene ten years ago,
+her brother's dead body, her father's avenging hand holding her own, as
+he begged her to do that, which he was too feeble, too old to
+accomplish.
+
+His words rang in her ears from across that long vista of the past.
+
+"Before the face of Almighty God, who sees and hears me, I swear ..."
+
+And she had repeated those words loudly and of her own free will, with
+her hand resting on her brother's breast, and God Himself looking down
+upon her, for she had called upon Him to listen.
+
+"I swear that I will seek out Paul Deroulede, and in any manner which
+God may dictate to me encompass his death, his ruin, or dishonour in
+revenge for my brother's death. May my brother's soul remain in torment
+until the final Judgment Day if I should break my oath, but may it rest
+in eternal peace, the day on which his death is fitly avenged."
+
+Almost it seemed to her as if father and brother were standing by her
+side, as she knelt and prayed.--Oh! how she prayed!
+
+In many ways she was only a child. All her years had been passed in
+confinement, either beside her dying father or, later, between the four
+walls of the Ursuline Convent. And during those years her soul had been
+fed on a contemplative, ecstatic religion, a kind of sanctified
+superstition, which she would have deemed sacrilege to combat.
+
+Her first step into womanhood was taken with that oath upon her lips;
+since then, with a stoical sense of duty, she had lashed herself into a
+daily, hourly remembrance of the great mission imposed upon her.
+
+To have neglected it would have been, to her, equal to denying God.
+
+She had but vague ideas of the doctrinal side of religion. Purgatory was
+to her merely a word, but a word representing a real spiritual
+state--one of expectancy, of restlessness, of sorrow. And vaguely, yet
+determinedly, she believed that her brother's soul suffered, because she
+had been too weak to fulfil her oath.
+
+The Church had not come to her rescue. The ministers of her religion
+were scattered to the four corners of besieged, agonising France. She
+had no one to help her, no one to comfort her. That very peaceful,
+contemplative life she had led in the convent, only served to enhance
+her feeling of the solemnity of her mission.
+
+It was true, it was inevitable, because it was so hard.
+
+To the few who, throughout those troublous times, had kept a feeling of
+veneration for their religion, this religion had become one of
+abnegation and martyrdom.
+
+A spirit of uncompromising Jansenism seemed to call forth sacrifices and
+renunciation, whereas the happy-go-lucky Catholicism of the past century
+had only suggested an easy, flowered path, to a comfortable,
+well-upholstered heaven.
+
+The harder the task seemed which was set before her, the more real it
+became to Juliette. God, she firmly believed, had at last, after ten
+years, shown her the way to wreak vengeance upon her brother's murderer.
+He had brought her to this house, caused her to see and hear part of the
+conversation between Blakeney and Deroulede, and this at the moment of
+all others, when even the semblance of a conspiracy against the Republic
+would bring the one inevitable result in its train: disgrace first, the
+hasty mock trial, the hall of justice, and the guillotine.
+
+She tried not to hate Deroulede. She wished to judge him coldly and
+impartially, or rather to indict him before the throne of God, and to
+punish him for the crime he had committed ten years ago. Her personal
+feelings must remain out of the question.
+
+Had Charlotte Corday considered her own sensibilities, when with her own
+hand she put an end to Marat?
+
+Juliette remained on her knees for hours. She heard Anne Mie come home,
+and Deroulede's voice of welcome on the landing. This was perhaps the
+most bitter moment of this awful soul conflict, for it brought to her
+mind the remembrance of those others who would suffer too, and who were
+innocent--Madame Deroulede and poor, crippled Anne Mie. They had done no
+wrong, and yet how heavily would they be punished!
+
+And then the saner judgment, the human, material code of ethics gained
+for a while the upper hand. Juliette would rise from her knees, dry her
+eyes, prepare quietly to go to bed, and to forget all about the awful,
+relentless Fate which dragged her to the fulfilment of its will, and
+then sink back, broken-hearted, murmuring impassioned prayers for
+forgiveness to her father, her brother, her God.
+
+The soul was young and ardent, and it fought for abnegation, martyrdom,
+and stern duty; the body was childlike, and it fought for peace,
+contentment, and quiet reason.
+
+The rational body was conquered by the passionate, powerful soul.
+
+Blame not the child, for in herself she was innocent. She was but
+another of the many victims of this cruel, mad, hysterical time, that
+spirit of relentless tyranny, forcing its doctrines upon the weak.
+
+With the first break of dawn Juliette at last finally rose from her
+knees, bathed her burning eyes and head, tidied her hair and dress, then
+she sat down at the table, and began to write.
+
+She was a transformed being now, no longer a child, essentially a
+woman--a Joan of Arc with a mission, a Charlotte Corday going to
+martyrdom, a human, suffering, erring soul, committing a great crime for
+the sake of an idea.
+
+She wrote out carefully and with a steady hand the denunciation of
+Citizen-Deputy Deroulede which has become an historical document, and is
+preserved in the chronicles of France.
+
+You have all seen it at the Musee Carnavalet in its glass case, its
+yellow paper and faded ink revealing nothing of the soul conflict of
+which it was the culminating victory. The cramped, somewhat
+schoolgirlish writing is the mute, pathetic witness of one of the
+saddest tragedies, that era of sorrow and crime has ever known:
+
+/*
+_To the Representatives of the People now sitting in Assembly at
+ the National Convention_
+
+You trust and believe in the Representative of the people:
+Citizen-Deputy Paul Deroulede. He is false, and a traitor to the
+Republic. He is planning, and hopes to effect, the release of
+ci-devant Marie Antoinette, widow of the traitor Louis Capet. Haste!
+ye representatives of the people! proofs of his assertion, papers
+and plans, are still in the house of the Citizen-Deputy Deroulede.
+This statement is made by one who knows.
+
+_I. The 23rd Fructidor._
+*/
+
+When her letter was written she read it through carefully, made the one
+or two little corrections, which are still visible in the document, then
+folded her missive, hid it within the folds of her kerchief, and,
+wrapping a dark cloak and hood round her, she slipped noiselessly out of
+her room.
+
+The house was all quiet and still. She shuddered a little as the cool
+morning air fanned her hot cheeks: it seemed like the breath of ghosts.
+
+She ran quickly down the stairs, and as rapidly as she could, pushed
+back the heavy bolts of the front door, and slipped out into the street.
+
+Already the city was beginning to stir. There was no time for sleep,
+when so much had to be done for the safety of the threatened Republic.
+As Juliette turned her steps towards the river, she met the crowd of
+workmen, whom France was employing for her defence.
+
+Behind her, in the Luxembourg Gardens, and all along the opposite bank
+of the river, the furnaces were already ablaze, and the smiths at work
+forging the guns.
+
+At every step now Juliette came across the great placards, pinned to the
+tall gallows-shaped posts, which proclaim to every passing citizen, that
+the people of France are up and in arms.
+
+Right across the Place de l'Institut a procession of market carts, laden
+with vegetables and a little fruit, wends its way slowly towards the
+centre of the town. They each carry tiny tricolour flags, with a Pike
+and Cap of Liberty surmounting the flagstaff.
+
+They are good patriots the market-gardeners, who come in daily to feed
+the starving mob of Paris, with the few handfuls of watery potatoes, and
+miserable, vermin-eaten cabbages, which that fraternal Revolution still
+allows them to grow without hindrance.
+
+Everyone seems busy with their work this early in the morning: the
+business of killing does not begin until later in the day.
+
+For the moment Juliette can get along quite unmolested: the women and
+children mostly hurrying on towards the vast encampments in the
+Tuileries, where lint, and bandages, and coats for the soldiers are
+manufactured all the day.
+
+The walls of all the houses bear the great patriotic device: "_Liberte,
+Egalite, Fraternite, sinon La Mort_"; others are more political in their
+proclamation: "_La Republique une et indivisible_."
+
+But on the walls of the Louvre, of the great palace of whilom kings,
+where the Roi Soleil held his Court, and flirted with the prettiest
+women in France, there the new and great Republic has affixed its final
+mandate.
+
+A great poster glued to the wall bears the words: "_La Loi concernan les
+Suspects_." Below the poster is a huge wooden box with a slit at the
+top.
+
+This is the latest invention for securing the safety of this one and
+indivisible Republic.
+
+Henceforth everyone becomes a traitor at one word of denunciation from
+an idler or an enemy, and, as in the most tyrannical days of the Spanish
+Inquisition one-half of the nation was set to spy upon the other, that
+wooden box, with its slit, is put there ready to receive denunciations
+from one hand against another.
+
+Had Juliette paused but for the fraction of a second, had she stopped to
+read the placard setting forth this odious law, had she only reflected,
+then she would even now have turned back, and fled from that gruesome
+box of infamies, as she would from a dangerous and noisome reptile or
+from the pestilence.
+
+But her long vigil, her prayers, her ecstatic visions of heroic martyrs
+had now completely numbed her faculties. Her vitality, her sensibilities
+were gone: she had become an automaton gliding to her doom, without a
+thought or a tremor.
+
+She drew the letter from her bosom, and with a steady hand dropped it
+into the box. The irreclaimable had now occurred. Nothing she could
+henceforth say or do, no prayers or agonised vigils, no miracles even,
+could undo her action or save Paul Deroulede from trial and guillotine.
+
+One or two groups of people hurrying to their work had seen her drop the
+letter into the box. A couple of small children paused, finger in mouth,
+gazing at her with inane curiosity; one woman uttered a coarse jest, all
+of them shrugged their shoulders, and passed on, on their way. Those who
+habitually crossed this spot were used to such sights.
+
+That wooden box, with its mouthlike slit was like an insatiable monster
+that was constantly fed, yet was still gaping for more.
+
+Having done the deed Juliette turned, and as rapidly as she had come, so
+she went back to her temporary home.
+
+A home no more now; she must leave it at once, to-day if possible. This
+much she knew, that she no longer could touch the bread of the man she
+had betrayed. She would not appear at breakfast, she could plead a
+headache, and in the afternoon Petronelle should pack her things.
+
+She turned into a little shop close by, and asked for a glass of milk
+and a bit of bread. The woman who served her eyed her with some
+curiosity, for Juliette just now looked almost out of her mind.
+
+She had not yet begun to think, and she had ceased to suffer.
+
+Both would come presently, and with them the memory of this last
+irretrievable hour and a just estimate of what she had done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+"Vengeance is mine."
+
+
+The pretence of a headache enabled Juliette to keep in her room the
+greater part of the day. She would have liked to shut herself out from
+the entire world during those hours which she spent face to face with
+her own thoughts and her own sufferings.
+
+The sight of Anne Mie's pathetic little face as she brought her food and
+delicacies and various little comforts, was positive torture to the
+poor, harrowed soul.
+
+At every sound in the great, silent house she started up, quivering with
+apprehension and horror. Had the sword of Damocles, which she herself
+had suspended, already fallen over the heads of those who had shown her
+nothing but kindness?
+
+She could not think of Madame Deroulede or of Anne Mie without the most
+agonising, the most torturing shame.
+
+And what of him--the man she had so remorselessly, so ruthlessly
+betrayed to a tribunal which would know no mercy?
+
+Juliette dared not think of him.
+
+She had never tried to analyse her feelings with regard to him. At the
+time of Charlotte Corday's trial, when his sonorous voice rang out in
+its pathetic appeal for the misguided woman, Juliette had given him
+ungrudging admiration. She remembered now how strongly his magnetic
+personality had roused in her a feeling of enthusiasm for the poor girl,
+who had come from the depths of her quiet provincial home, in order to
+accomplish the horrible deed which would immortalise her name through
+all the ages to come, and cause her countrymen to proclaim her "greater
+than Brutus."
+
+Deroulede was pleading for the life of that woman, and it was his very
+appeal which had aroused Juliette's dormant energy, for the cause which
+her dead father had enjoined her not to forget. It was Deroulede again
+whom she had seen but a few weeks ago, standing alone before the mob who
+would have torn her to pieces, haranguing them on her behalf, speaking
+to them with that quiet, strong voice of his, ruling them with the rule
+of love and pity, and turning their wrath to gentleness.
+
+Did she hate him, then?
+
+Surely, surely she hated him for having thrust himself into her life,
+for having caused her brother's death and covered her father's declining
+years with sorrow. And, above all, she hated him--indeed, indeed it was
+hate!--for being the cause of this most hideous action of her life: an
+action to which she had been driven against her will, one of basest
+ingratitude and treachery, foreign to every sentiment within her heart,
+cowardly, abject, the unconscious outcome of this strange magnetism
+which emanated from him and had cast a spell over her, transforming her
+individuality and will power, and making of her an unconscious and
+automatic instrument of Fate.
+
+She would not speak of God's finger again: it was Fate--pagan, devilish
+Fate!--the weird, shrivelled women who sit and spin their interminable
+thread. They had decreed; and Juliette, unable to fight, blind and
+broken by the conflict, had succumbed to the Megaeras and their
+relentless wheel.
+
+At length silence and loneliness became unendurable. She called
+Petronelle, and ordered her to pack her boxes.
+
+"We leave for England to-day", she said curtly.
+
+"For England?" gasped the worthy old soul, who was feeling very happy
+and comfortable in this hospitable house, and was loth to leave it. "So
+soon?"
+
+"Why, yes; we had talked of it for some time. We cannot remain here
+always. My cousins De Crecy are there, and my aunt De Coudremont. We
+shall be among friends, Petronelle, if we ever get there."
+
+"If we ever get there!" sighed poor Petronelle; "we have but very little
+money, _ma cherie,_ and no passports. Have you thought of asking M.
+Deroulede for them?"
+
+"No, no," rejoined Juliette hastily; "I'll see to the passports somehow,
+Petronelle. Sir Percy Blakeney is English; he'll tell me what to do."
+
+"Do you know where he lives, my jewel?"
+
+"Yes; I heard him tell Madame Deroulede last night that he was lodging
+with a provincial named Brogard at the Sign of the Cruche Cassee. I'll
+go seek him, Petronelle; I am sure he will help me. The English are so
+resourceful and practical. He'll get us our passports, I know, and
+advise us as to the best way to proceed. Do you stay here and get all
+our things ready. I'll not be long."
+
+She took up a cloak and hood, and, throwing them over her arm, she
+slipped out of the room.
+
+Deroulede had left the house earlier in the day. She hoped that he had
+not yet returned, and ran down the stairs quickly, so that she might go
+out unperceived.
+
+The house was quite peaceful and still. It seemed strange to Juliette
+that there did not hang over it some sort of pall-like presentiment of
+coming evil.
+
+From the kitchen, at some little distance from the hall, Anne Mie's
+voice was heard singing an old ditty:
+
+/*[4]
+    "De ta tige detachee
+     Pauvre feuille dessechee
+     Ou vas-tu?"
+*/
+
+Juliette paused a moment. An awful ache had seized her heart; her eyes
+unconsciously filled with tears, as they roamed round the walls of this
+house which had sheltered her so hospitably, these three weeks past.
+
+And now whither was she going? Like the poor, dead leaf of the song, she
+was wastrel, torn from the parent bough, homeless, friendless, having
+turned against the one hand which, in this great time of peril, had been
+extended to her in kindness and in love.
+
+Conscience was beginning to rise up against her, and that hydra-headed
+tyrant Remorse. She closed her eyes to shut out the hideous vision of
+her crime; she tried to forget this home which her treachery had
+desecrated.
+
+/*[4]
+    "Je vais ou va toute chose
+     Ou va la feuille de rose
+     Et la feuille de laurier,"
+*/
+
+sang Anne Mie plaintively.
+
+A great sob broke from Juliette's aching heart. The misery of it all was
+more than she could bear. Ah, pity her if you can! She had fought and
+striven, and been conquered. A girl's soul is so young, so
+impressionable; and she had grown up with that one, awful, all-pervading
+idea of duty to accomplish, a most solemn oath to fulfil, one sworn to
+her dying father, and on the dead body of her brother. She had begged
+for guidance, prayed for release, and the voice from above had remained
+silent. Weak, miserable, cringing, the human soul, when torn with
+earthly passion, must look at its own strength for the fight.
+
+And now the end had come. That swift, scarce tangible dream of peace,
+which had flitted through her mind during the past few weeks, had
+vanished with the dawn, and she was left desolate, alone with her great
+sin and its lifelong expiation.
+
+Scarce knowing what she did, she fell on her knees, there on that
+threshold, which she was about to leave for ever. Fate had placed on her
+young shoulders a burden too heavy for her to bear.
+
+"Juliette!"
+
+At first she did not move. It was his voice coming from the study behind
+her. Its magic thrilled her, as it had done that day in the Hall of
+Justice. Strong, passionate, tender, it seemed now to raise every echo
+of response in her heart. She thought it was a dream, and remained there
+on her knees lest it should be dispelled.
+
+Then she heard his footsteps on the flagstones of the hall. Anne Mie's
+plaintive singing had died away in the distance. She started, and jumped
+to her feet, hastily drying her eyes. The momentary dream was dispelled,
+and she was ashamed of her weakness.
+
+He, the cause of all her sorrows, of her sin, and of her degradation,
+had no right to see her suffer.
+
+She would have fled out of the house now, but it was too late. He had
+come out of his study, and, seeing her there on her knees weeping, he
+came quickly forward, trying, with all the innate chivalry of his
+upright nature, not to let her see that he had been a witness to her
+tears.
+
+"You are going out, mademoiselle?" he said courteously, as, wrapping her
+cloak around her, she was turning towards the door.
+
+"Yes, yes," she replied hastily; "a small errand, I ..."
+
+"Is it anything I can do for you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"If ..." he added, with visible embarrassment, "if your errand would
+brook a delay, might I crave the honour of your presence in my study for
+a few moments?"
+
+"My errand brooks of no delay, Citizen Deroulede," she said as
+composedly as she could, "and perhaps on my return I might ..."
+
+"I am leaving almost directly, mademoiselle, and I would wish to bid you
+good-bye."
+
+He stood aside to allow her to pass, either out, through the street door
+or across the hall to his study.
+
+There had been no reproach in his voice towards the guest, who was thus
+leaving him without a word of farewell. Perhaps if there had been any,
+Juliette would have rebelled. As it was, an unconquerable magnetism
+seemed to draw her towards him, and, making an almost imperceptible sign
+of acquiescence, she glided past him into his room.
+
+The study was dark and cool; for the room faced the west, and the
+shutters had been closed, in order to keep out the hot August sun. At
+first Juliette could see nothing, but she felt his presence near her, as
+he followed her into the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.
+
+"It is kind of you, mademoiselle," he said gently, "to accede to my
+request, which was perhaps presumptuous. But, you see, I am leaving this
+house to-day, and I had a selfish longing to hear your voice bidding me
+farewell."
+
+Juliette's large, burning eyes were gradually piercing the semi-gloom
+around her. She could see him distinctly now, standing close beside her,
+in an attitude of the deepest, almost reverential respect.
+
+The study was as usual neat and tidy, denoting the orderly habits of a
+man of action and energy. On the ground there was a valise, ready
+strapped as if for a journey, and on the top of it a bulky letter-case
+of stout pigskin, secured with a small steel lock. Juliette's eyes
+fastened upon this case with a look of fascination and of horror.
+Obviously it contained Deroulede's papers, the plans for Marie
+Antoinette's escape, the passports of which he had spoken the day before
+to his friend, Sir Percy Blakeney--the proofs, in fact, which she had
+offered to the representatives of the people, in support of her
+denunciation of the Citizen-Deputy.
+
+After his request he had said nothing more. He was waiting for her to
+speak; but her voice felt parched; it seemed to her as if hands of steel
+were gripping her throat, smothering the words she would have longed to
+speak.
+
+"Will you not wish me godspeed, mademoiselle?" he repeated gently.
+
+"Godspeed?" Oh! the awful irony of it all! Should God speed him to a
+mock trial and to the guillotine? He was going thither, though he did
+not know it, and was even now trying to take the hand which had
+deliberately sent him there.
+
+At last she made an effort to speak, and in a toneless, even voice she
+contrived to murmur:
+
+"You are not going for long, Citizen-Deputy?"
+
+"In these times, mademoiselle," he replied, "any farewell might be for
+ever. But I am actually going for a month to the Conciergerie, to take
+charge of the unfortunate prisoner there."
+
+"For a month!" she repeated mechanically.
+
+"Oh yes!" he said, with a smile. "You see, our present Government is
+afraid that poor Marie Antoinette will exercise her fascinations over
+any lieutenant-governor of her prison, if he remain near her long
+enough, so a new one is appointed every month. I shall be in charge
+during this coming Vendemiaire. I shall hope to return before the
+equinox, but--who can tell?"
+
+"In any case then, Citoyen Deroulede, the farewell I bid you to-night
+will be a very long one."
+
+"A month will seem a century to me," he said earnestly, "since I must
+spend it without seeing you, but ..."
+
+He looked long and searchingly at her. He did not understand her in her
+present mood, so scared and wild did she seem, so unlike that girlish,
+light-hearted self, which had made the dull old house so bright these
+past few weeks.
+
+"But I should not dare to hope," he murmured, "that a similar reason
+would cause you to call that month a long one."
+
+She turned perhaps a trifle paler than she had been hitherto, and her
+eyes roamed round the room like those of a trapped hare seeking to
+escape.
+
+"You misunderstand me, Citoyen Deroulede," she said at last hurriedly.
+"You have all been kind--very kind--but Petronelle and I can no longer
+trespass on your hospitality. We have friends in England, and many
+enemies here ..."
+
+"I know," he interrupted quietly; "it would be the most arrant
+selfishness on my part to suggest, that you should stay here an hour
+longer than necessary. I fear that after to-day my roof may no longer
+prove a sheltering one for you. But will you allow me to arrange for
+your safety, as I am arranging for that of my mother and Anne Mie? My
+English friend Sir Percy Blakeney, has a yacht in readiness off the
+Normandy coast. I have already seen to your passports and to all the
+arrangements of your journey as far as there, and Sir Percy, or one of
+his friends, will see you safely on board the English yacht. He has
+given me his promise that he will do this, and I trust him as I would
+myself. For the journey through France, my name is a sufficient
+guarantee that you will be unmolested; and if you will allow it, my
+mother and Anne Mie will travel in your company. Then ..."
+
+"I pray you stop, Citizen Deroulede," she suddenly interrupted
+excitedly. "You must forgive me, but I cannot allow thus to make any
+arrangements for me. Petronelle and I must do as best we can. All your
+time and trouble should be spent for the benefit of those who have a
+claim upon you, whilst I ..."
+
+"You speak unkindly, mademoiselle; there is no question of claim."
+
+"And you have no right to think ..." she continued, with a growing,
+nervous excitement, drawing her hand hurriedly away, for he had tried to
+seize it.
+
+"Ah! pardon me," he interrupted earnestly, "there you are wrong. I have
+the right to think of you and for you--the inalienable right conferred
+upon me by my great love for you."
+
+"Citizen-Deputy!"
+
+"Nay, Juliette; I know my folly, and I know my presumption. I know the
+pride of your caste and of your party, and how much you despise the
+partisan of the squalid mob of France. Have I said that I aspired to
+gain your love? I wonder if I have ever dreamed it? I only know,
+Juliette, that you are to me something akin to the angels, something
+white and ethereal, intangible, and perhaps ununderstandable. Yet,
+knowing my folly, I glory in it, my dear, and I would not let you go out
+of my life without telling you of that, which has made every hour of the
+past few weeks a paradise for me--my love for you, Juliette."
+
+He spoke in that low, impressive voice of his, and with those soft,
+appealing tones with which she had once heard him pleading for poor
+Charlotte Corday. Yet now he was not pleading for himself, not for his
+selfish wish or for his own happiness, only pleading for his love, that
+she should know of it, and, knowing it, have pity in her heart for him,
+and let him serve her to the end.
+
+He did not say anything more for a while; he had taken her hand, which
+she no longer withdrew from him, for there was sweet pleasure in feeling
+his strong fingers close tremblingly over hers. He pressed his lips upon
+her hand, upon the soft palm and delicate wrist, his burning kisses
+bearing witness to the tumultuous passion, which his reverence for her
+was holding in check.
+
+She tried to tear herself away from him, but he would not let her go:
+
+"Do not go away just yet, Juliette," he pleaded. "Think! I may never see
+you again; but when you are far from me--in England, perhaps--amongst
+your own kith and kin, will you try sometimes to think kindly of one who
+so wildly, so madly worships you?"
+
+She would have stilled, an she could, the beating of her heart, which
+went out to him at last with all the passionate intensity of her great,
+pent-up love. Every word he spoke had its echo within her very soul, and
+she tried not to hear his tender appeal, not to see his dark head
+bending in worship before her. She tried to forget his presence, not to
+know that he was there--he, the man whom she had betrayed to serve her
+own miserable vengeance, whom in her mad, exalted rage she had thought
+that she hated, but whom she now knew that she loved better than her
+life, better than her soul, her traditions, or her oath.
+
+Now, at this moment, she made every effort to conjure up the vision of
+her brother brought home dead upon a stretcher, of her father's
+declining years, rendered hideous by the mind unhinged through the great
+sorrow.
+
+She tried to think of the avenging finger of God pointing the way to the
+fulfilment of her oath, and called to Him to stand by her in this
+terrible agony of her soul.
+
+And God spoke to her at last; through the eternal vistas of boundless
+universe, from that heaven which had known no pity, His voice came to
+her now, clear, awesome, and implacable:
+
+"Vengeance is mine! I will repay!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The sword of Damocles.
+
+
+"In the name of the Republic!"
+
+Absorbed in his thoughts, his dreams, his present happiness, Deroulede
+had heard nothing of what was going on in the house, during the past few
+seconds.
+
+At first, to Anne Mie, who was still singing her melancholy ditty over
+her work in the kitchen, there had seemed nothing unusual in the
+peremptory ring at the front-door bell. She pulled down her sleeves over
+her thin arms, smoothed down her cooking apron, then only did she run to
+see who the visitor might be.
+
+As soon as she had opened the door, however, she understood.
+
+Five men were standing before her, four of whom wore the uniform of the
+National Guard, and the fifth, the tricolour scarf fringed with gold,
+which denoted service under the Convention.
+
+This man seemed to be in command of the others, and he immediately
+stepped into the hall, followed by his four companions, who at a sign
+from him, effectively cut off Anne Mie from what had been her imminent
+purpose--namely, to run to the study and warn Deroulede of his danger.
+
+That it was danger of the most certain, the most deadly kind she never
+doubted for one moment. Even had her instinct not warned her, she would
+have guessed. One glance at the five men had sufficed to tell her: their
+attitude, their curt word of command, their air of authority as they
+crossed the hall--everything revealed the purpose of their visit: a
+domiciliary search in the house of Citizen-Deputy Deroulede.
+
+Merlin's Law of the Suspect was in full operation. Someone had denounced
+the Citizen-Deputy to the Committee of Public Safety; and in this year
+of grace, 1793, and I. of the Revolution, men and women were daily sent
+to the guillotine on suspicion.
+
+Anne Mie would have screamed, had she dared, but instinct such as hers
+was far too keen, to betray her into so injudicious an act. She felt
+that, were Paul Deroulede's eyes upon her at this moment, he would wish
+her to remain calm and outwardly serene.
+
+The foremost man--he with the tricolour scarf--had already crossed the
+hall, and was standing outside the study door. It was his word of
+command which first roused Deroulede from his dream:
+
+"In the name of the Republic!"
+
+Deroulede did not immediately drop the small hand, which a moment ago he
+had been covering with kisses. He held it to his lips once more, very
+gently, lingering over this last fond caress, as if over an eternal
+farewell, then he straightened out his broad, well-knit figure, and
+turned to the door.
+
+He was very pale, but there was neither fear nor even surprise expressed
+in his earnest, deep-set eyes. They still seemed to be looking afar,
+gazing upon a heaven-born vision, which the touch of her hand and the
+avowal of his love had conjured up before him.
+
+"In the name of the Republic!"
+
+Once more, for the third time--according to custom--the words rang out,
+clear, distinct, peremptory.
+
+In that one fraction of a second, whilst those six words were spoken,
+Deroulede's eyes wandered swiftly towards the heavy letter-case, which
+now held his condemnation, and a wild, mad thought--the mere animal
+desire to escape from danger--surged up in his brain.
+
+The plans for the escape of Marie Antoinette, the various passports,
+worded in accordance with the possible disguises the unfortunate Queen
+might assume--all these papers were more than sufficient proof of what
+would be termed his treason against the Republic.
+
+He could already hear the indictment against him, could see the filthy
+mob of Paris dancing a wild saraband round the tumbril, which bore him
+towards the guillotine; he could hear their yells of execration, could
+feel the insults hurled against him, by those who had most admired, most
+envied him. And from all this he would have escaped if he could, if it
+had not been too late.
+
+It was but a second, or less, whilst the words were spoken outside his
+door, and whilst all other thoughts in him were absorbed in this one mad
+desire for escape. He even made a movement, as if to snatch up the
+letter-case and to hide it about his person. But it was heavy and bulky;
+it would be sure to attract attention, and might bring upon him the
+additional indignity of being forced to submit to a personal search.
+
+He caught Juliette's eyes fixed upon him with an intensity of gaze
+which, in that same one mad moment, revealed to him the depths of her
+love. Then the second's weakness was gone; he was once more quiet, firm,
+the man of action, accustomed to meet danger boldly, to rule and to
+subdue the most turgid mob.
+
+With a quiet shrug of the shoulders, he dismissed all thought of the
+compromising lettercase, and went to the door.
+
+Already, as no reply had come to the third word of command, it had been
+thrown open from outside, and Deroulede found himself face to face with
+the five men.
+
+"Citizen Merlin!" he said quietly, as he recognised the foremost among
+them.
+
+"Himself, Citizen-Deputy," rejoined the latter, with a sneer, "at your
+service."
+
+Anne Mie, in a remote corner of the hall, had heard the name, and felt
+her very soul sicken at its sound.
+
+Merlin! Author of that infamous Law of the Suspect which had set man
+against man, a father against his son, brother against brother, and
+friend against friend, had made of every human creature a bloodhound on
+the track of his fellowmen, dogging in order not to be dogged,
+denouncing, spying, hounding, in order not to be denounced.
+
+And he, Merlin, gloried in this, the most fiendishly evil law ever
+perpetrated for the degradation of the human race.
+
+There is that sketch of him in the Musee Carnavalet, drawn just before
+he, in his turn, went to expiate his crimes on that very guillotine,
+which he had sharpened and wielded so powerfully against his fellows.
+The artist has well caught the slouchy, slovenly look of his loosely
+knit figure, his long limbs and narrow head, with the snakelike eyes and
+slightly receding chin. Like Marat, his model and prototype, Merlin
+affected dirty, ragged clothes. The real Sanscullottism, the downward
+levelling of his fellowmen to the lowest rung of the social ladder,
+pervaded every action of this noted product of the great Revolution.
+
+Even Deroulede, whose entire soul was filled with a great,
+all-understanding pity for the weaknesses of mankind, recoiled at sight
+of this incarnation of the spirit of squalor and degradation, of all
+that was left of the noble Utopian theories of the makers of the
+Revolution.
+
+Merlin grinned when he saw Deroulede standing there, calm, impassive,
+well dressed, as if prepared to receive an honoured guest, rather than a
+summons to submit to the greatest indignity a proud man has ever been
+called upon to suffer.
+
+Merlin had always hated the popular Citizen-Deputy. Friend and
+boon-companion of Marat and his gang, he had for over two years now
+exerted all the influence he possessed in order to bring Deroulede under
+a cloud of suspicion.
+
+But Deroulede had the ear of the populace. No one understood as he did
+the tone of a Paris mob; and the National Convention, ever terrified of
+the volcano it had kindled, felt that a popular member of its assembly
+was more useful alive than dead.
+
+But now at last Merlin was having his way. An anonymous denunciation
+against Deroulede had reached the Public Prosecutor that day. Tinville
+and Merlin were the fastest of friends, so the latter easily obtained
+the privilege of being the first to proclaim to his hated enemy, the
+news of his downfall.
+
+He stood facing Deroulede for a moment, enjoying the present situation
+to its full. The light from the vast hall struck full upon the powerful
+figure of the Citizen-Deputy and upon his firm, dark face and magnetic,
+restless eyes. Behind him the study, with its closely-drawn shutters,
+appeared wrapped in gloom.
+
+Merlin turned to his men, and, still delighted with his position of a
+cat playing with a mouse, he pointed to Deroulede, with a smile and a
+shrug of the shoulders.
+
+"_Voyez-moi donc ca,_" he said, with a coarse jest, and expectorating
+contemptuously upon the floor, "the aristocrat seems not to understand
+that we are here in the name of the Republic. There is a very good
+proverb, Citizen-Deputy," he added, once more addressing Deroulede,
+"which you seem to have forgotten, and that is that the pitcher which
+goes too often to the well breaks at last. You have conspired against
+the liberties of the people for the past ten years. Retribution has come
+to you at last; the people of France have come to their senses. The
+National Convention wants to know what treason you are hatching between
+these four walls, and it has deputed me to find out all there is to
+know."
+
+"At your service, Citizen-Deputy!" said Deroulede, quietly stepping
+aside, in order to make way for Merlin and his men.
+
+Resistance was useless, and, like all strong, determined natures, he
+knew when it was best to give in.
+
+During this while, Juliette had neither moved nor uttered a sound.
+Little more than a minute had elapsed since the moment when the first
+peremptory order, to open in the name of the Republic, had sounded like
+the tocsin through the stillness of the house. Deroulede's kisses were
+still hot upon her hand, his words of love were still ringing in her
+ears.
+
+And now this awful, deadly peril, which she with her own hand had
+brought on the man she loved!
+
+If in one moment's anguish the soul be allowed to expiate a lifelong
+sin, then indeed did Juliette atone during this one terrible second.
+
+Her conscience, her heart, her entire being rose in revolt against her
+crime. Her oath, her life, her final denunciation appeared before her in
+all their hideousness.
+
+And now it was too late.
+
+Deroulede stood facing Merlin, his most implacable enemy. The latter was
+giving orders to his men, preparatory to searching the house, and there,
+just on the top of the valise, lay the letter-case, obviously containing
+those papers, to which the day before she had overheard Deroulede making
+allusion, whilst he spoke to his friend, Sir Percy Blakeney.
+
+An unexplainable instinct seemed to tell her that the papers were in
+that case. Her eyes were riveted on it, as if fascinated. An awful
+terror held her enthralled for one second more, whilst her thoughts, her
+longings, her desires were all centred on the safety of that one thing.
+
+The next instant she had seized it and thrown it upon the sofa. Then
+seating herself beside it, with the gesture of a queen and the grace of
+a Parisienne, she had spread the ample folds of her skirts over the
+compromising case, hiding it entirely from view.
+
+Merlin in the hall was ordering two men to stand one on each side of
+Deroulede, and two more to follow him into the room. Now he entered it
+himself, his narrow eyes trying to pierce the semi-obscurity, which was
+rendered more palpable by the brilliant light in the hall.
+
+He had not seen Juliette's gesture, but he had heard the _frou-frou_ of
+her skirts, as she seated herself upon the sofa.
+
+"You are not alone Citizen-Deputy, I see," he said, with a sneer, as his
+snakelike eyes lighted upon the young girl.
+
+"My guest, Citizen Merlin," replied Deroulede as calmly as he
+could--"Citizen Juliette Marny. I know that it is useless, under these
+circumstances, to ask for consideration for a woman, but I pray you to
+remember, as far as is possible, that although we are all Republicans,
+we are also Frenchmen, and all still equal in our sentiment of chivalry
+towards our mothers, our sisters, or our guests."
+
+Merlin chuckled, and gazed for a moment ironically at Juliette. He had
+held, between his talon-like fingers, that very morning, a thin scrap of
+paper, on which a schoolgirlish hand had scrawled the denunciation
+against Citizen-Deputy Deroulede.
+
+Coarse in nature, and still coarser in thoughts, this representative of
+the people had very quickly arrived at a conclusion in his mind, with
+regard to this so-called guest in the Deroulede household.
+
+"A discarded mistress," he muttered to himself. "Just had another scene,
+I suppose. He's got tired of her, and she's given him away out of
+spite."
+
+Satisfied with this explanation of the situation, he was quite inclined
+to be amiable to Juliette. Moreover, he had caught sight of the valise,
+and almost thought that the young girl's eyes had directed his attention
+towards it.
+
+"Open those shutters!" he commanded, "this place is like a vault."
+
+One of the men obeyed immediately, and as the brilliant August sun came
+streaming into the room, Merlin once more turned to Deroulede.
+
+"Information has been laid against you, Citizen-Deputy," he said, "by an
+anonymous writer, who states that you have just now in your possession
+correspondence or other papers intended for the Widow Capet: and the
+Committee of Public Safety has entrusted me and these citizens to seize
+such correspondence, and make you answerable for its presence in your
+house."
+
+Deroulede hesitated for one brief fraction of a second. As soon as the
+shutters had been opened, and the room flooded in daylight, he had at
+once perceived that his letter-case had disappeared, and guessed, from
+Juliette's attitude upon the sofa, that she had concealed it about her
+person. It was this which caused him to hesitate.
+
+His heart was filled with boundless gratitude to her for her noble
+effort to save him, but he would have given his life at this moment, to
+undo what she had done.
+
+The Terrorists were no respecters of persons or of sex. A domicillary
+search order, in those days, conferred full powers on those in
+authority, and Juliette might at any moment now be peremptorily ordered
+to rise. Through her action she had made herself one with the
+Citizen-Deputy; if the case were found under the folds of her skirts,
+she would be accused of connivance, or at any rate of the equally grave
+charge of shielding a traitor.
+
+The manly pride in him rebelled at the thought of owing his immediate
+safety to a woman, yet he could not now discard her help, without
+compromising her irretrievably.
+
+He dared not even to look again towards her, for he felt that at this
+moment her life as well as his own lay in the quiver of an eyelid; and
+Merlin's keen, narrow eyes were fixed upon him in eager search for a
+tremor, a flash, which might betray fear or prove an admission of guilt.
+
+Juliette sat there, calm, impassive, disdainful, and she seemed to
+Deroulede more angelic, more unattainable even than before. He could
+have worshipped her for her heroism, her resourcefulness, her quiet
+aloofness from all these coarse creatures who filled the room with the
+odour of their dirty clothes, with their rough jests, and their noisome
+suggestions.
+
+"Well, Citizen-Deputy," sneered Merlin after a while, "you do not reply,
+I notice."
+
+"The insinuation is unworthy of a reply, citizen," replied Deroulede
+quietly; "my services to the Republic are well known. I should have
+thought that the Committee of Public Safety would disdain an anonymous
+denunciation against a faithful servant of the people of France."
+
+"The Committee of Public Safety knows its own business best,
+Citizen-Deputy," rejoined Merlin roughly. "If the accusation prove a
+calumny, so much the better for you. I presume," he added with a sneer,
+"that you do not propose to offer any resistance whilst these citizens
+and I search your house."
+
+Without another word Deroulede handed a bunch of keys to the man by his
+side. Every kind of opposition, argument even, would be worse than
+useless.
+
+Merlin had ordered the valise and desk to be searched, and two men were
+busy turning out the contents of both on to the floor. But the desk now
+only contained a few private household accounts, and notes for the
+various speeches which Deroulede had at various times delivered in the
+assemblies of the National Convention. Among these, a few pencil
+jottings for his great defence of Charlotte Corday were eagerly seized
+upon by Merlin, and his grimy, clawlike hands fastened upon this scrap
+of paper, as upon a welcome prey.
+
+But there was nothing else of any importance. Deroulede was a man of
+thought and of action, with all the enthusiasm of real conviction, but
+none of the carelessness of a fanatic. The papers which were contained
+in the letter-case, and which he was taking with him to the
+Conciergerie, he considered were necessary to the success of his plans,
+otherwise he never would have kept them, and they were the only proofs
+that could be brought up against him.
+
+The valise itself was only packed with the few necessaries for a month's
+sojourn at the Conciergerie; and the men, under Merlin's guidance, were
+vainly trying to find something, anything that might be construed into
+treasonable correspondence with the unfortunate prisoner there.
+
+Merlin, whilst his men were busy with the search, was sprawling in one
+of the big leather-covered chairs, on the arms of which his dirty
+finger-nails were beating an impatient devil's tattoo. He was at no
+pains to conceal the intense disappointment which he would experience,
+were his errand to prove fruitless.
+
+His narrow eyes every now and then wandered towards Juliette, as if
+asking for her help and guidance. She, understanding his frame of mind,
+responded to the look. Shutting her mentality off from the coarse
+suggestion of his attitude towards her, she played her part with
+cunning, and without flinching. With a glance here and there, she
+directed the men in their search. Deroulede himself could scarcely
+refrain from looking at her; he was puzzled, and vaguely marvelled at
+the perfection, with which she carried through her role to the end.
+
+Merlin found himself baffled.
+
+He knew quite well that Citizen-Deputy Deroulede was not a man to be
+lightly dealt with. No mere suspicion or anonymous denunciation would be
+sufficient in his case, to bring him before the tribunal of the
+Revolution. Unless there were proofs--positive, irrefutable, damnable
+proofs--of Paul Deroulede's treachery, the Public Prosecutor would never
+dare to frame an indictment against him. The mob of Paris would rise to
+defend its idol; the hideous hags, who plied their knitting at the foot
+of the scaffold, would tear the guillotine down, before they would allow
+Deroulede to mount it.
+
+This was Deroulede's stronghold: the people of Paris, whom he had loved
+through all their infamies, and whom he had succoured and helped in
+their private need; and above all the women of Paris, whose children he
+had caused to be tended in the hospitals which he had built for
+them--this they had not yet forgotten, and Merlin knew it. One day they
+would forget--soon, perhaps--then they would turn on their former idol,
+and, howling, send him to his death, amidst cries of rancour and
+execration. When that day came there would be no need to worry about
+treason or about proofs. When the populace had forgotten all that he had
+done, then Deroulede would fall.
+
+But that time was not yet.
+
+The men had finished ransacking the room; every scrap of paper, every
+portable article had been eagerly seized upon.
+
+Merlin, half blind with fury, had jumped to his feet.
+
+"Search him!" he ordered peremptorily.
+
+Deroulede set his teeth, and made no protest, calling up every fibre of
+moral strength within him, to aid him in submitting to this indignity.
+At a coarse jest from Merlin, he buried his nails into the palms of his
+hand, not to strike the foulmouthed creature in the face. But he
+submitted, and stood impassive by, whilst the pockets of his coat were
+turned inside out by the rough hands of the soldiers.
+
+All the while Juliette had remained silent, watching Merlin as any hawk
+would its prey. But the Terrorist, through the very coarseness of his
+nature, was in this case completely fooled.
+
+He knew that it was Juliette who had denounced Deroulede, and had
+satisfied himself as to her motive. Because he was low and brutish and
+degraded, he never once suspected the truth, never saw in that beautiful
+young woman, anything of the double nature within her, of that curious,
+self-torturing, at times morbid sense of religion and of duty, at war
+with her own upright, innately healthy disposition.
+
+The low-born, self-degraded Terrorist had put his own construction on
+Juliette's action, and with this he was satisfied, since it answered to
+his own estimate of the human race, the race which he was doing his best
+to bring down to the level of the beast.
+
+Therefore Merlin did not interfere with Juliette, but contented himself
+with insinuating, by jest and action, what her share in this day's work
+had been. To these hints Deroulede, of course, paid no heed. For him
+Juliette was as far above political intrigue as the angels. He would as
+soon have suspected one of the saints enshrined in Notre Dame as this
+beautiful, almost ethereal creature, who had been sent by Heaven to
+gladden his heart and to elevate his very thought.
+
+But Juliette understood Merlin's attitude, and guessed that her written
+denunciation had come into his hands. Her every thought, every living
+sensation within her, was centred in this one thing: to save the man she
+loved from the consequences of her own crime against him. And for this,
+even the shadow of suspicion must be removed from him. Merlin's
+iniquitous law should not touch him again.
+
+When Deroulede at last had been released, after the outrage to which he
+had been personally subjected, Merlin was literally, and figuratively
+too, looking about him for an issue to his present dubious position.
+
+Judging others by his own standard of conduct, he feared now that the
+popular Citizen-Deputy would incite the mob against him, in revenge for
+the indignities which he had had to suffer. And with it all the
+Terrorist was convinced that Deroulede was guilty, that proofs of his
+treason did exist, if only he knew where to lay hands on them.
+
+He turned to Juliette with an unexpressed query in his adder-like eyes.
+She shrugged her shoulders, and made a gesture as if pointing towards
+the door.
+
+"There are other rooms in the house besides this," her gesture seemed to
+say; "try them. The proofs are there, 'tis for you to find them."
+
+Merlin had been standing between her and Deroulede, so that the latter
+saw neither query nor reply.
+
+"You are cunning, Citizen-Deputy," said Merlin now, turning towards him,
+"and no doubt you have been at pains to put your treasonable
+correspondence out of the way. You must understand that the Committee of
+Public Safety will not be satisfied with a mere examination of your
+study," he added, assuming an air of ironical benevolence, "and I
+presume you will have no objection, if I and these citizen soldiers pay
+a visit to other portions of your house."
+
+"As you please," responded Deroulede drily.
+
+"You will accompany us, Citizen-Deputy," commanded the other curtly.
+
+The four men of the National Guard formed themselves into line outside
+the study door; with a peremptory nod, Merlin ordered Deroulede to pass
+between them, then he too prepared to follow. At the door he turned, and
+once more faced Juliette.
+
+"As for you, citizeness," he said, with a sudden access of viciousness
+against her, "if you have brought us here on a fool's errand, it will go
+ill with you, remember. Do not leave the house until our return. I may
+have some questions to put to you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Tangled meshes.
+
+
+Juliette waited a moment or two, until the footsteps of the six men died
+away up the massive oak stairs.
+
+For the first time, since the sword of Damocles had fallen, she was
+alone with her thoughts.
+
+She had but a few moments at her command in which to devise an issue out
+of these tangled meshes, which she had woven round the man she loved.
+
+Merlin and his men would return anon. The comedy could not be kept up
+through another visit from them, and while the compromising letter-case
+remained in Deroulede's private study he was in imminent danger at the
+hands of his enemy.
+
+She thought for a moment of concealing the case about her person, but a
+second's reflection showed her the futility of such a move. She had not
+seen the papers themselves; any one of them might be an absolute proof
+of Deroulede's guilt; the correspondence might be in his handwriting.
+
+If Merlin, furious, baffled, vicious, were to order her to be searched!
+The horror of the indignity made her shudder, but she would have
+submitted to that, if thereby she could have saved Deroulede. But of
+this she could not be sure until after she had looked through the
+papers, and this she had not the time to do.
+
+Her first and greatest idea was to get out of this room, his private
+study, with the compromising papers. Not a trace of them must be found
+here, if he were to remain beyond suspicion.
+
+She rose from the sofa, and peeped through the door. The hall was now
+deserted; from the left wing of the house, on the floor above, the heavy
+footsteps of the soldiers and Merlin's occasional brutish laugh could be
+distinctly heard.
+
+Juliette listened for a moment, trying to understand what was happening.
+Yes; they had all gone to Deroulede's bedroom, which was on the extreme
+left, at the end of the first-floor landing. There might be just time to
+accomplish what she had now resolved to do.
+
+As best she could, she hid the bulky leather case in the folds of her
+skirt. It was literally neck or nothing now. If she were caught on the
+stairs by one of the men nothing could save her or--possibly--Deroulede.
+
+At any rate, by remaining where she was, by leaving the events to shape
+themselves, discovery was absolutely certain. She chose to take the
+risk.
+
+She slipped noiselessly out of the room and up the great oak stairs.
+Merlin and his men, busy with their search in Deroulede's bedroom, took
+no heed of what was going on behind them; Juliette arrived on the
+landing, and turned sharply to her right, running noiselessly along the
+thick Aubusson carpet, and thence quickly to her own room.
+
+All this had taken less than a minute to accomplish. The very next
+moment she heard Merlin's voice ordering one of his men to stand at
+attention on the landing, but by that time she was safe inside her room.
+She closed the door noiselessly.
+
+Petronelle, who had been busy all the afternoon packing up her young
+mistress' things, had fallen asleep in an arm-chair. Unconscious of the
+terrible events which were rapidly succeeding each other in the house,
+the worthy old soul was snoring peaceably, with her hands complacently
+folded on her ample bosom.
+
+Juliette, for the moment, took no notice of her. As quickly and as
+dexterously as she could, she was tearing open the heavy leather case
+with a sharp pair of scissors, and very soon its contents were scattered
+before her on the table.
+
+One glance at them was sufficient to convince her that most of the
+papers would undoubtedly, if found, send Deroulede to the guillotine.
+Most of the correspondence was in the Citizen-Deputy's handwriting. She
+had, of course, no time to examine it more closely, but instinct
+naturally told her that it was of a highly compromising character.
+
+She gathered the papers up into a heap, tearing some of them up into
+strips; then she spread them out upon the ash-pan in front of the large
+earthenware stove, which stood in a corner of the room.
+
+Unfortunately, this was a hot day in August. Her task would have been
+far easier if she had wished to destroy a bundle of papers in the depth
+of winter, when there was a good fire burning in the stove.
+
+But her purpose was firm and her incentive, the greatest that has ever
+spurred mankind to heroism.
+
+Regardless of any consequences to herself, she had but the one object in
+view, to save Deroulede at all costs.
+
+On the wall facing her bed, and immediately above a velvet-covered
+prie-dieu, there was a small figure of the Virgin and Child--one of
+those quaintly pretty devices for holding holy water, which the reverent
+superstition of the past century rendered a necessary adjunct of every
+girl's room.
+
+In front of the figure a small lamp was kept perpetually burning. This
+Juliette now took between her fingers, carefully, lest the tiny flame
+should die out. First she poured the oil over the fragments of paper in
+the ash-pan, then with the wick she set fire to the whole compromising
+correspondence.
+
+The oil helped the paper to burn quickly; the smell, or perhaps the
+presence of Juliette in the room caused worthy old Petronelle to wake.
+
+"It's nothing, Petronelle," said Juliette quietly; "only a few old
+letters I am burning. But I want to be alone for a few moments--will you
+go down to the kitchen until I call you?"
+
+Accustomed to do as her young mistress commanded, Petronelle rose
+without a word.
+
+"I have finished putting away your few things, my jewel. There, there!
+why didn't you tell me to burn your papers for you? You have soiled your
+dear hands, and ..."
+
+"Sh! Sh! Petronelle!" said Juliette impatiently, and gently pushing the
+garrulous old woman towards the door. "Run to the kitchen now quickly,
+and don't come out of it until I call you. And, Petronelle," she added,
+"you will see soldiers about the house perhaps."
+
+"Soldiers! The good God have mercy!"
+
+"Don't be frightened, Petronelle. But they may ask you questions."
+
+"Questions?"
+
+"Yes; about me."
+
+"My treasure, my jewel," exclaimed Petronelle in alarm, "have those
+devils ...?"
+
+"No, no; nothing has happened as yet, but, you know, in these times
+there is always danger."
+
+"Good God! Holy Mary! Mother of God!"
+
+"Nothing 'll happen if you try to keep quite calm and do exactly as I
+tell you. Go to the kitchen, and wait there until I call you. If the
+soldiers come in and question you, if they try to frighten you, remember
+that we have nothing to fear from men, and that our lives are in God's
+keeping."
+
+All the while that Juliette spoke, she was watching the heap of paper
+being gradually reduced to ashes. She tried to fan the flames as best
+she could, but some of the correspondence was on tough paper, and was
+slow in being consumed. Petronelle, tearful but obedient, prepared to
+leave the room. She was overawed by her mistress' air of aloofness, the
+pale face rendered ethereally beautiful by the sufferings she had gone
+through. The eyes glowed large and magnetic, as if in presence of
+spiritual visions beyond mortal ken; the golden hair looked like a
+saintly halo above the white, immaculate young brow.
+
+Petronelle made the sign of the cross, as if she were in the presence of
+a saint.
+
+As she opened the door there was a sudden draught, and the last
+flickering flame died out in the ash-pan. Juliette, seeing that
+Petronelle had gone, hastily turned over the few half burnt fragments of
+paper that were left. In none of them had the writing remained legible.
+All that was compromising to Deroulede was effectually reduced to dust.
+The small wick in the lamp at the foot of the Virgin and Child had
+burned itself out for want of oil; there was no means for Juliette to
+strike another light and to destroy what remained. The leather case was,
+of course, still there, with its sides ripped open, an indestructible
+thing.
+
+There was nothing to be done about that. Juliette after a second's
+hesitation threw it among her dresses in the valise.
+
+Then she too went out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A happy moment.
+
+
+The search in the Citizen-Deputy's bedroom had proved as fruitless as
+that in his study. Merlin was beginning to have vague doubts as to
+whether he had been effectively fooled.
+
+His manner towards Deroulede had undergone a change. He had become suave
+and unctuous, a kind of elephantine irony pervading his laborious
+attempts at conciliation. He and the Public Prosecutor would be severely
+blamed for this day's work, if the popular Deputy, relying upon the
+support of the people of Paris, chose to take his revenge.
+
+In France, in this glorious year of the Revolution, there was but one
+step between censure and indictment. And Merlin knew it. Therefore,
+although he had not given up all hope of finding proofs of Deroulede's
+treason, although by the latter's attitude he remained quite convinced
+that such proof did exist, he was already reckoning upon the cat's paw,
+the sop he would offer to that Cerberus, the Committee of Public Safety,
+in exchange for his own exculpation in the matter.
+
+This sop would be Juliette, the denunciator instead of Deroulede the
+denounced.
+
+But he was still seeking for the proofs.
+
+Somewhat changing his tactics, he had allowed Deroulede to join his
+mother in the living-room, and had betaken himself to the kitchen in
+search of Anne Mie, whom he had previously caught sight of in the hall.
+There he also found old Petronelle, whom he could scare out of her wits
+to his heart's content, but from whom he was quite unable to extract any
+useful information. Petronelle was too stupid to be dangerous, and Anne
+Mie was too much on the alert.
+
+But, with a vague idea that a cunning man might choose the most unlikely
+places for the concealment of compromising property, he was ransacking
+the kitchen from floor to ceiling.
+
+In the living-room Deroulede was doing his best to reassure his mother,
+who, in her turn, was forcing herself to be brave, and not to show by
+her tears how deeply she feared for the safety of her son. As soon as
+Deroulede had been freed from the presence of the soldiers, he had
+hastened back to his study, only to find that Juliette had gone, and
+that the letter-case had also disappeared. Not knowing what to think,
+trembling for the safety of the woman he adored, he was just debating
+whether he would seek for her in her own room, when she came towards him
+across the landing.
+
+There seemed a halo around her now. Deroulede felt that she had never
+been so beautiful and to him so unattainable. Something told him then,
+that at this moment she was as far away from him, as if she were an
+inhabitant of another, more ethereal planet.
+
+When she saw him coming towards her, she put a finger to her lips, and
+whispered:
+
+"Sh! sh! the papers are destroyed, burned."
+
+"And I owe my safety to you!"
+
+He had said it with his whole soul, an infinity of gratitude filled his
+heart, a joy and pride in that she had cared for his safety.
+
+But at his words she had grown paler than she was before. Her eyes,
+large, dilated, and dark, were fixed upon him with an intensity of gaze
+which almost startled him. He thought that she was about to faint, that
+the emotions of the past half hour had been too much for her overstrung
+nerves. He took her hand, and gently dragged her into the living-room.
+
+She sank into a chair, as if utterly weary and exhausted, and he,
+forgetting his danger, forgetting the world and all else besides, knelt
+at her feet, and held her hands in his.
+
+She sat bolt upright, her great eyes still fixed upon him. At first it
+seemed as if he could not be satiated with looking at her; he felt as if
+he had never, never really seen her. She had been a dream of beauty to
+him ever since that awful afternoon when he had held her, half fainting,
+in his arms, and had dragged her under the shelter of his roof.
+
+From that hour he had worshipped her: she had cast over him the magic
+spell of her refinement, her beauty, that aroma of youth and innocence
+which makes such a strong appeal to the man of sentiment.
+
+He had worshipped her and not tried to understand. He would have deemed
+it almost sacrilege to pry into the mysteries of her inner self, of that
+second nature in her which at times made her silent, and almost morose,
+and cast a lurid gloom over her young beauty.
+
+And though his love for her had grown in intensity, it had remained as
+heaven born as he deemed her to be--the love of a mortal for a saint,
+the ecstatic adoration of a St Francis for his Madonna.
+
+Sir Percy Blakeney had called Deroulede an idealist. He was that, in the
+strictest sense, and Juliette had embodied all that was best in his
+idealism.
+
+It was for the first time to-day, that he had held her hand just for a
+moment longer than mere conventionality allowed. The first kiss on her
+finger-tips had sent the blood rushing wildly to his heart; but he still
+worshipped her, and gazed upon her as upon a divinity.
+
+She sat bolt upright in the chair, abandoning her small, cold hands to
+his burning grasp.
+
+His very senses ached with the longing to clasp her in his arms, to draw
+her to him, and to feel her pulses beat closer against his. It was
+almost torture now to gaze upon her beauty--that small, oval face,
+almost like a child's, the large eyes which at times had seemed to be
+blue but which now appeared to be a deep, unfathomable colour, like the
+tempestuous sea.
+
+"Juliette!" he murmured at last, as his soul went out to her in a
+passionate appeal for the first kiss.
+
+A shudder seemed to go through her entire frame, her very lips turned
+white and cold, and he, not understanding, timorous, chivalrous and
+humble, thought that she was repelled by his ardour and frightened by a
+passion to which she was too pure to respond.
+
+Nothing but that one word had been spoken--just her name, an appeal from
+a strong man, overmastered at last by his boundless love--and she, poor,
+stricken soul, who had so much loved, so deeply wronged him, shuddered
+at the thought of what she might have done, had Fate not helped her to
+save him.
+
+Half ashamed of his passion, he bowed his dark head over her hands, and,
+once more forcing himself to be calm now, he kissed her finger-tips
+reverently.
+
+When he looked up again the hard lines in her face had softened, and two
+tears were slowly trickling down her pale cheeks.
+
+"Will you forgive me, madonna?" he said gently. "I am only a man and you
+are very beautiful. No--don't take your little hands away. I am quite
+calm now, and know how one should speak to angels."
+
+Reason, justice, rectitude--everything was urging Juliette to close her
+ears to the words of love, spoken by the man whom she had betrayed. But
+who shall blame her for listening to the sweetest sound the ears of a
+woman can ever hear--the sound of the voice of the loved one in his
+first declaration of love?
+
+She sat and listened, whilst he whispered to her those soft, endearing
+words, of which a strong man alone possesses the enchanting secret.
+
+She sat and listened, whilst all around her was still. Madame Deroulede,
+at the farther end of the room, was softly muttering a few prayers.
+
+They were all alone these two in the mad and beautiful world, which man
+has created for himself--the world of romance--that world more wonderful
+than any heaven, where only those may enter who have learned the sweet
+lesson of love. Deroulede roamed in it at will. He had created his own
+romance, wherein he was as a humble worshipper, spending his life in the
+service of his madonna.
+
+And she too forgot the earth, forgot the reality, her oath, her crime
+and its punishment, and began to think that it was good to live, good to
+love, and good to have at her feet the one man in all the world whom she
+could fondly worship.
+
+Who shall tell what he whispered? Enough that she listened and that she
+smiled; and he, seeing her smile, felt happy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Detected.
+
+
+The opening and shutting of the door roused them both from their dreams.
+
+Anne Mie, pale, trembling, with eyes looking wild and terrified, had
+glided into the room.
+
+Deroulede had sprung to his feet. In a moment he had thrust his own
+happiness into the background at sight of the poor child's obvious
+suffering. He went quickly towards her, and would have spoken to her,
+but she ran past him up to Madame Deroulede, as if she were beside
+herself with some unexplainable terror.
+
+"Anne Mie," he said firmly, "what is it? Have those devils dared ..."
+
+In a moment reality had come rushing back upon him with full force, and
+bitter reproaches surged up in his heart against himself, for having in
+this moment of selfish joy forgotten those who looked up to him for help
+and protection.
+
+He knew the temper of the brutes who had been set upon his track, knew
+that low-minded Merlin and his noisome ways, and blamed himself severely
+for having left Anne Mie and Petronelle alone with him even for a few
+moments.
+
+But Anne Mie quickly reassured him.
+
+"They have not molested us much," she said, speaking with a visible
+effort and enforced calmness. "Petronelle and I were together, and they
+made us open all the cupboards and uncover all the dishes. They then
+asked us many questions."
+
+"Questions? Of what kind?" asked Deroulede.
+
+"About you, Paul," replied Anne Mie, "and about maman, and also about
+--about the citizeness, your guest."
+
+Deroulede looked at her closely, vaguely wondering at the strange
+attitude of the child. She was evidently labouring under some strong
+excitement, and in her thin, brown little hand she was clutching a piece
+of paper.
+
+"Anne Mie! Child," he said very gently, "you seem quite upset--as if
+something terrible had happened. What is that paper you are holding, my
+dear?"
+
+Anne Mie gazed down upon it. She was obviously making frantic efforts to
+maintain her self-possession.
+
+Juliette at first sight of Anne Mie seemed literally to have been turned
+to stone. She sat upright, rigid as a statue, her eyes fixed upon the
+poor, crippled girl as if upon an inexorable judge, about to pronounce
+sentence upon her of life or death.
+
+Instinct, that keen sense of coming danger which Nature sometimes gives
+to her elect, had told her that, within the next few seconds, her doom
+would be sealed; that Fate would descend upon her, holding the sword of
+Nemesis; and it was Anne Mie's tiny, half-shrivelled hand which had
+placed that sword into the grasp of Fate.
+
+"What is that paper? Will you let me see it, Anne Mie?" repeated
+Deroulede.
+
+"Citizen Merlin gave it to me just now," began Anne Mie more quietly;
+"he seems very wroth at finding nothing compromising against you, Paul.
+They were a long time in the kitchen, and now they have gone to search
+my room and Petronelle's; but Merlin--oh! that awful man!--he seemed
+like a beast infuriated with his disappointment."
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"I don't know what he hoped to get out of me, for I told him that you
+never spoke to your mother or to me about your political business, and
+that I was not in the habit of listening at the keyholes."
+
+"Yes. And ..."
+
+"Then he began to speak of--of our guest--but, of course, there again I
+could tell him nothing. He seemed to be puzzled as to who had denounced
+you. He spoke about an anonymous denunciation, which reached the Public
+Prosecutor early this morning. It was written on a scrap of paper, and
+thrown into the public box, it seems, and ..."
+
+"It is indeed very strange," said Deroulede, musing over this
+extraordinary occurrence, and still more over Anne Mie's strange
+excitement in the telling of it. "I never knew I had a hidden enemy. I
+wonder if I shall ever find out ..."
+
+"That is just what I said to Citizen Merlin," rejoined Anne Mie.
+
+"What?"
+
+"That I wondered if you, or--or any of us who love you, will ever find
+out who your hidden enemy might be."
+
+"It was a mistake to talk so fully with such a brute, little one."
+
+"I didn't say much, and I thought it wisest to humour him, as he seemed
+to wish to talk on that subject."
+
+"Well? And what did he say?"
+
+"He laughed, and asked me if I would very much like to know."
+
+"I hope you said No, Anne Mie?"
+
+"Indeed, indeed, I said Yes," she retorted with sudden energy, her eyes
+fixed now upon Juliette, who still sat rigid and silent, watching every
+movement of Anne Mie from the moment in which she began to tell her
+story.
+
+"Would I not wish to know who is your enemy, Paul--the creature who was
+base and treacherous enough to attempt to deliver you into the hands of
+those merciless villains? What wrong had you done to anyone?"
+
+"Sh! Hush, Anne Mie! you are too excited," he said, smiling now, in
+spite of himself, at the young girl's vehemence over what he thought was
+but a trifle--the discovery of his own enemy.
+
+"I am sorry, Paul. How can I help being excited," rejoined Anne Mie with
+quaint, pathetic gentleness, "when I speak of such base treachery, as
+that which Merlin has suggested?"
+
+"Well? And what did he suggest?"
+
+"He did more than suggest," whispered Anne Mie almost inaudibly; "he
+gave me this paper--the anonymous denunciation which reached the Public
+Prosecutor this morning--he thought one of us might recognise the
+handwriting."
+
+Then she paused, some five steps away from Deroulede, holding out
+towards him the crumpled paper, which up to now she had clutched
+determinedly in her hand. Deroulede was about to take it from her, and
+just before he had turned to do so, his eyes lighted on Juliette.
+
+She said nothing, she had merely risen instinctively, and had reached
+Anne Mie's side in less than the fraction of a second.
+
+It was all a flash, and there was dead silence in the room, but in that
+one-hundredth part of a second, Deroulede had read guilt in the face of
+Juliette.
+
+It was nothing but instinct, a sudden, awful, unexplainable revelation.
+Her soul seemed suddenly to stand before him in all its misery and in
+all its sin.
+
+It was if the fire from heaven had descended in one terrific crash,
+burying beneath its devastating flames his ideals, his happiness, and
+his divinity. She was no longer there. His madonna had ceased to be.
+
+There stood before him a beautiful woman, on whom he had lavished all
+the pent-up treasures of his love, whom he had succoured, sheltered, and
+protected, and who had repaid him thus.
+
+She had forced an entry into his house; she had spied upon him, dogged
+him, lied to him. The moment was too sudden, too awful for him to make
+even a wild guess at her motives. His entire life, his whole past, the
+present, and the future, were all blotted out in this awful dispersal of
+his most cherished dream. He had forgotten everything else save her
+appalling treachery; how could he even remember that once, long ago, in
+fair fight, he had killed her brother?
+
+She did not even try now to hide her guilt.
+
+A look of appeal, touching in its trustfulness, went out to him, begging
+him to spare her further shame. Perhaps she felt that love, such as his,
+could not be killed in a flash.
+
+His entire nature was full of pity, and to that pity she made a final
+appeal, lest she should be humiliated before Madame Deroulede and Anne
+Mie.
+
+And he, still under the spell of those magic moments when he had knelt
+at her feet, understood her prayer, and closing his eyes just for one
+brief moment in order to shut out for ever that radiant vision of a pure
+angel whom he had worshipped, turned quietly to Anne Mie.
+
+"Give me that paper, Anne Mie," he said coldly. "I may perhaps recognise
+the handwriting of my most bitter enemy."
+
+"'Tis unnecessary now," replied Anne Mie slowly, still gazing at the
+face of Juliette, in which she too had read what she wished to read.
+
+The paper dropped out of her hand.
+
+Deroulede stooped to pick it up. He unfolded it, smoothed it out, and
+then saw that it was blank.
+
+"There is nothing written on this paper," he said mechanically.
+
+"No," rejoined Anne Mie; "no other words save the story of her
+treachery."
+
+"What you have done is evil and wicked, Anne Mie."
+
+"Perhaps so; but I had guessed the truth, and I wished to know. God
+showed me this way, how to do it, and how to let you know as well."
+
+"The less you speak of God just now, Anne Mie, the better, I think. Will
+you attend to maman? she seems faint and ill."
+
+Madame Deroulede, silent and placid in her arm-chair, had watched the
+tragic scene before her, almost like a disinterested spectator. All her
+ideas and all her thoughts had been paralysed, since the moment when the
+first summons at the front door had warned her of the imminence of the
+peril to her son.
+
+The final discovery of Juliette's treachery had left her impassive.
+Since her son was in danger, she cared little as to whence that danger
+had come.
+
+Obedient to Deroulede's wish, Anne Mie was attending to the old lady's
+comforts. The poor, crippled girl was already feeling the terrible
+reaction of her deed.
+
+In her childish mind she had planned this way, in which to bring the
+traitor to shame. Anne Mie knew nothing, cared nothing, about the
+motives which had actuated Juliette; all she knew was that a terrible
+Judas-like deed had been perpetrated against the man, on whom she
+herself had lavished her pathetic, hopeless love.
+
+All the pent-up jealousy which had tortured her for the past three weeks
+rose up, and goaded her into unmasking her rival.
+
+Never for a moment did she doubt Juliette's guilt. The god of love may
+be blind, tradition has so decreed it, but the demon of jealousy has a
+hundred eyes, more keen than those of the lynx.
+
+Anne Mie, pushed aside by Merlin's men when they forced their way into
+Deroulede's study, had, nevertheless, followed them to the door. When
+the curtains were drawn aside and the room filled with light, she had
+seen Juliette enthroned, apparently calm and placid, upon the sofa.
+
+It was instinct, the instinct born of her own rejected passion, which
+caused her to read in the beautiful girl's face all that lay hidden
+behind the pale, impassive mask. That same second sight made her
+understand Merlin's hints and allusions. She caught every inflection of
+his voice, heard everything, saw everything.
+
+And in the midst of her anxiety and her terrors for the man she loved,
+there was the wild, primitive, intensely human joy at the thought of
+bringing that enthroned idol, who had stolen his love, down to earth at
+last.
+
+Anne Mie was not clever; she was simple and childish, with no complexity
+of passions or devious ways of intellect. It was her elemental jealousy
+which suggested the cunning plan for the unmasking of Juliette. She
+would make the girl cringe and fear, threaten her with discovery, and
+through her very terror shame her before Paul Deroulede.
+
+And now it was all done; it had all occurred as she had planned it. Paul
+knew that his love had been wasted upon a liar and a traitor, and
+Juliette stood pale, humiliated, a veritable wreck of shamed humanity.
+
+Anne Mie had triumphed, and was profoundly, abjectly wretched in her
+triumph. Great sobs seemed to tear at her very heart-strings. She had
+pulled down Paul's idol from her pedestal, but the one look she had cast
+at his face had shown her that she had also wrecked his life.
+
+He seemed almost old now. The earnest, restless gaze had gone from his
+eyes; he was staring mutely before him, twisting between nerveless
+fingers that blank scrap of paper, which had been the means of
+annihilating his dream.
+
+All energy of attitude, all strength of bearing, which were his chief
+characteristics, seemed to have gone. There was a look of complete
+blankness, of hopelessness in his listless gesture.
+
+"How he loved her!" sighed Anne Mie, as she tenderly wrapped the shawl
+round Madame Deroulede's shoulders.
+
+Juliette had said nothing; it seemed as if her very life had gone out of
+her. She was a mere statue now, her mind numb, her heart dead, her very
+existence a fragile piece of mechanism. But she was looking at
+Deroulede. That one sense in her had remained alive: her sight.
+
+She looked and looked: and saw every passing sign of mental agony on his
+face: the look of recognition of her guilt, the bewilderment at the
+appalling crash, and now that hideous deathlike emptiness of his soul
+and mind.
+
+Never once did she detect horror or loathing. He had tried to save her
+from being further humiliated before his mother, but there was no hatred
+or contempt in his eyes, when he realised that she had been unmasked by
+a trick.
+
+She looked and looked, for there was no hope in her, not even despair.
+There was nothing in her mind, nothing in her soul, but a great
+pall-like blank.
+
+Then gradually, as the minutes sped on, she saw the strong soul within
+him make a sudden fight against the darkness of his despair: the
+movement of the fingers became less listless; the powerful, energetic
+figure straightened itself out; remembrance of other matters, other
+interests than his own began to lift the overwhelming burden of his
+grief.
+
+He remembered the letter-case containing the compromising papers. A
+vague wonder arose in him as to Juliette's motives in warding off,
+through her concealment of it, the inevitable moment of its discovery by
+Merlin.
+
+The thought that her entire being had undergone a change, and that she
+now wished to save him, never once entered his mind; if it had, he would
+have dismissed it as the outcome of maudlin sentimentality, the conceit
+of the fop, who believes his personality to be irresistible.
+
+His own self-torturing humility pointed but to the one conclusion: that
+she had fooled him all along; fooled him when she sought his protection;
+fooled him when she taught him to love her; fooled him, above all, at
+the moment when, subjugated by the intensity of his passion, he had for
+one brief second ceased to worship in order to love.
+
+When the bitter remembrance of that moment of sweetest folly rushed back
+to his aching brain, then at last did he look up at her with one final,
+agonised look of reproach, so great, so tender, and yet so final, that
+Anne Mie, who saw it, felt as if her own heart would break with the pity
+of it all.
+
+But Juliette had caught the look too. The tension of her nerves seemed
+suddenly to relax. Memory rushed back upon her with tumultuous
+intensity. Very gradually her knees gave beneath her, and at last she
+knelt down on the floor before him, her golden head bent under the
+burden of her guilt and her shame.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Under arrest.
+
+
+Deroulede did not attempt to go to her.
+
+Only presently, when the heavy footsteps of Merlin and his men were once
+more heard upon the landing, she quietly rose to her feet.
+
+She had accomplished her act of humiliation and repentance, there before
+them all. She looked for the last time upon those whom she had so deeply
+wronged, and in her heart spoke an eternal farewell to that great, and
+mighty, and holy love which she had called forth and then had so
+hopelessly crushed.
+
+Now she was ready for the atonement.
+
+Merlin had already swaggered into the room. The long and arduous search
+throughout the house had not improved either his temper or his personal
+appearance. He was more covered with grime than he had been before, and
+his narrow forehead had almost disappeared beneath the tangled mass of
+his ill-kempt hair, which he had perpetually tugged forward and roughed
+up in his angry impatience.
+
+One look at his face had already told Juliette what she wished to know.
+He had searched her room, and found the fragments of burnt paper, which
+she had purposely left in the ash-pan.
+
+How he would act now was the one thing of importance left for Juliette
+to ponder over. That she would not escape arrest and condemnation was at
+once made clear to her. Merlin's look of sneering contempt, when he
+glanced towards her, had told her that.
+
+Deroulede himself had been conscious of a feeling of intense relief when
+the men re-entered the room. The tension had become unendurable. When he
+saw his dethroned madonna kneel in humiliation at his feet, an
+overwhelming pain had wrenched his very heart-strings.
+
+And yet he could not go to her. The passionate, human nature within him
+felt a certain proud exultation at seeing her there.
+
+She was not above him now, she was no longer akin to the angels.
+
+He had given no further thought to his own immediate danger. Vaguely he
+guessed that Merlin would find the leather case. Where it was he could
+not tell; perhaps Juliette herself had handed it to the soldiers. She
+had only hidden it for a few moments, out of impulse perhaps, fearing
+lest, at the first instant of its discovery, Merlin might betray her.
+
+He remembered now those hints and insinuations which had gone out from
+the Terrorist to Juliette whilst the search was being conducted in the
+study. At the time he had merely looked upon these as a base attempt at
+insult, and had tortured himself almost beyond bearing, in the endeavour
+to refrain from punishing that evilmouthed creature, who dared to bandy
+words with his madonna.
+
+But now he understood, and felt his very soul writhing with shame at the
+remembrance of it all.
+
+Oh yes; the return of Merlin and his men, the presence of these grimy,
+degraded brutes, was welcome now. He would have wished to crowd in the
+entire world, the universe and its population, between him and his
+fallen idol.
+
+Merlin's manner towards him had lost nothing of its ironical
+benevolence. There was even a touch of obsequiousness apparent in the
+ugly face, as the representative of the people approached the popular
+Citizen-Deputy.
+
+"Citizen-Deputy," began Merlin, "I have to bring you the welcome news,
+that we have found nothing in your house that in any way can cast
+suspicion upon your loyalty to the Republic. My orders, however, were to
+bring you before the Committee of Public Safety, whether I had found
+proofs of your guilt or not. I have found none."
+
+He was watching Deroulede keenly, hoping even at this eleventh hour to
+detect a look or a sign, which would furnish him with the proofs for
+which he was seeking. The slightest suggestion of relief on Deroulede's
+part, a sigh of satisfaction, would have been sufficient at this moment,
+to convince him and the Committee of Public Safety that the
+Citizen-Deputy was guilty after all.
+
+But Deroulede never moved. He was sufficiently master of himself not to
+express either surprise or satisfaction. Yet he felt both--satisfaction
+not for his own safety, but because of his mother and Anne Mie, whom he
+would immediately send out of the country, out of all danger; and also
+because of her, of Juliette Marny, his guest, who, whatever she may have
+done against him, had still a claim on his protection. His feeling of
+surprise was less keen, and quite transient. Merlin had not found the
+letter-case. Juliette, stricken with tardy remorse perhaps, had
+succeeded in concealing it. The matter had practically ceased to
+interest him. It was equally galling to owe his betrayal or his ultimate
+safety to her.
+
+He kissed his mother tenderly, bidding her good-bye, and pressed Anne
+Mie's timid little hand warmly between his own. He did what he could to
+reassure them, but, for their own sakes, he dared say nothing before
+Merlin, as to his plans for their safety.
+
+After that he was ready to follow the soldiers.
+
+As he passed close to Juliette he bowed, and almost inaudibly whispered:
+
+"Adieu!"
+
+She heard the whisper, but did not respond. Her look alone gave him the
+reply to his eternal farewell.
+
+His footsteps and those of his escort were heard echoing down the
+staircase, then the hall door to open and shut. Through the open window
+came the sound of hoarse cheering as the popular Citizen-Deputy appeared
+in the street.
+
+Merlin, with two men beside him, remained under the portico; he told off
+the other two to escort Deroulede as far as the Hall of Justice, where
+sat the members of the Committee of Public Safety. The Terrorist had a
+vague fear that the Citizen-Deputy would speak to the mob.
+
+An unruly crowd of women had evidently been awaiting his appearance. The
+news had quickly spread along the streets that Merlin, Merlin himself,
+the ardent, bloodthirsty Jacobin, had made a descent upon Paul
+Deroulede's house, escorted by four soldiers. Such an indignity, put
+upon the man they most trusted in the entire assembly of the Convention,
+had greatly incensed the crowd. The women jeered at the soldiers as soon
+as they appeared, and Merlin dared not actually forbid Deroulede to
+speak.
+
+_"A la lanterne, vieux cretin!"_ shouted one of the women, thrusting her
+fist under Merlin's nose.
+
+"Give the word, Citizen-Deputy," rejoined another, "and we'll break his
+ugly face. _Nous lui casserons la gueule!_"
+
+"_A la lanterne! A la lanterne!"_
+
+One word from Deroulede now would have caused an open riot, and in those
+days self defence against the mob was construed into enmity against the
+people.
+
+Merlin's work, too, was not yet accomplished. He had had no intention of
+escorting Deroulede himself; he had still important business to transact
+inside the house which he had just quitted, and had merely wished to get
+the Citizen-Deputy well out of the way, before he went upstairs again.
+
+Moreover, he had expected something of a riot in the streets. The temper
+of the people of Paris was at fever heat just now. The hatred of the
+populace against a certain class, and against certain individuals, was
+only equalled by their enthusiasm in favour of others.
+
+They had worshipped Marat for his squalor and his vices; they worshipped
+Danton for his energy and Robespierre for his calm; they worshipped
+Deroulede for his voice, his gentleness and his pity, for his care of
+their children and the eloquence of his speech.
+
+It was that eloquence which Merlin feared now; but he little knew the
+type of man he had to deal with.
+
+Deroulede's influence over the most unruly, the most vicious populace
+the history of the world has ever known, was not obtained through
+fanning its passions. That popularity, though brilliant, is always
+ephemeral. The passions of a mob will invariably turn against those who
+have helped to rouse them. Marat did not live to see the waning of his
+star; Danton was dragged to the guillotine by those whom he had taught
+to look upon that instrument of death as the only possible and
+unanswerable political argument; Robespierre succumbed to the orgies of
+bloodshed he himself had brought about. But Deroulede remained master of
+the people of Paris for as long as he chose to exert that mastery. When
+they listened to him they felt better, nobler, less hopelessly degraded.
+
+He kept up in their poor, misguided hearts that last flickering sense of
+manhood which their bloodthirsty tyrants, under the guise of Fraternity
+and Equality, were doing their best to smother.
+
+Even now, when he might have turned the temper of the small crowd
+outside his door to his own advantage, he preferred to say nothing; he
+even pacified them with a gesture.
+
+He well knew that those whom he incited against Merlin now would, once
+their blood was up, probably turn against him in less than half-an-hour.
+
+Merlin, who all along had meant to return to the house, took his
+opportunity now. He allowed Deroulede and the two men to go on ahead,
+and beat a hasty retreat back into the house, followed by the jeers of
+the women.
+
+_"A la lanterne, vieux cretin!"_ they shouted as soon as the hall door
+was once more closed in their faces. A few of them began hammering
+against the door with their fists; then they realised that their special
+favourite, Citizen-Deputy Deroulede, was marching along between two
+soldiers, as if he were a prisoner. The word went round that he was
+under arrest, and was being taken to the Hall of Justice--a prisoner.
+
+This was not to be. The mob of Paris had been taught that it was the
+master in the city, and it had learned its lesson well. For the moment
+it had chosen to take Paul Deroulede under its special protection, and
+as a guard of honour to him--the women in ragged kirtles, the men with
+bare legs and stripped to the waist, the children all yelling, hooting,
+and shrieking--followed him, to see that none dared harm him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Atonement.
+
+
+Merlin waited a while in the hall, until he heard the noise of the
+shrieking crowd gradually die away in the distance, then with a grunt of
+satisfaction he one more mounted the stairs.
+
+All these events outside had occurred during a very few minutes, and
+Madame Deroulede and Anne Mie had been too anxious as to what was
+happening in the streets, to take any notice of Juliette.
+
+They had not dared to step out on to the balcony to see what was going
+on, and, therefore, did not understand what the reopening and shutting
+of the front door had meant.
+
+The next instant, however, Merlin's heavy, slouching footsteps on the
+stairs had caused Anne Mie to look round in alarm.
+
+"It is only the soldiers come back for me," said Juliette quietly.
+
+"For you?"
+
+"Yes; they are coming to take me away. I suppose they did not wish to do
+it in the presence of Mr. Deroulede, for fear ..."
+
+She had no time to say more. Anne Mie was still looking at her in awed
+and mute surprise, when Merlin entered the room.
+
+In his hand he held a leather case, all torn, and split at one end, and
+a few tiny scraps of half-charred paper. He walked straight up to
+Juliette, and roughly thrust the case and papers into her face.
+
+"These are yours?" he said roughly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I suppose you know where they were found?"
+
+She nodded quietly in reply.
+
+"What were these papers which you burnt?"
+
+"Love letters."
+
+"You lie!"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"As you please," she said curtly.
+
+"What were these papers?" he repeated, with a loud obscene oath which,
+however, had not the power to disturb the young girl's serenity.
+
+"I have told you," she said: "love letters, which I wished to burn."
+
+"Who was your lover?" he asked.
+
+Then as she did not reply he indicated the street, where cries of
+"Deroulede! Vive Deroulede!" still echoed from afar.
+
+"Were the letters from him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You had more than one lover, then?"
+
+He laughed, and a hideous leer seemed further to distort his ugly
+countenance.
+
+He thrust his face quite close to hers, and she closed her eyes, sick
+with the horror of this contact with the degraded wretch. Even Anne Mie
+had uttered a cry of sympathy at sight of this evil-smelling, squalid
+creature torturing, with his close proximity, the beautiful, refined
+girl before him.
+
+With a rough gesture he put his clawlike hand under her delicate chin,
+forcing her to turn round and to look at him. She shuddered at the
+loathsome touch, but her quietude never forsook her for a moment.
+
+It was into the power of wretches such as this man, that she had
+wilfully delivered the man she loved. This brutish creature's
+familiarity put the finishing touch to her own degradation, but it gave
+her the courage to carry through her purpose to the end.
+
+"You had more than one lover, then?" said Merlin, with a laugh which
+would have pleased the devil himself. "And you wished to send one of
+them to the guillotine in order to make way for the other? Was that it?"
+
+"Was that it?" he repeated, suddenly seizing one of her wrists, and
+giving it as savage twist, so that she almost screamed with the pain.
+
+"Yes," she replied firmly.
+
+"Do you know that you brought me here on a fool's errand?" he asked
+viciously; "that the Citizen-Deputy Deroulede cannot be sent to the
+guillotine on mere suspicion, eh? Did you know that, when you wrote out
+that denunciation?"
+
+"No; I did not know."
+
+"You thought we could arrest him on mere suspicion?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You knew he was Innocent?"
+
+"I knew it."
+
+"Why did you burn your love letters?"
+
+"I was afraid that they would be found, and would be brought under the
+notice of the Citizen-Deputy."
+
+"A splendid combination, _ma foi!_" said Merlin, with an oath, as he
+turned to the two other women, who sat pale and shrinking in a corner of
+the room, not understanding what was going on, not knowing what to think
+or what to believe. They had known nothing of Deroulede's plans for the
+escape of Marie Antoinette, they didn't know what the letter-case had
+contained, and yet they both vaguely felt that the beautiful girl, who
+stood up so calmly before the loathsome Terrorist, was not a wanton, as
+she tried to make out, but only misguided, mad perhaps--perhaps a
+martyr.
+
+"Did you know anything of this?" queried Merlin roughly from trembling
+Anne Mie.
+
+"Nothing," she replied.
+
+"No one knew anything of my private affairs or of my private
+correspondence," said Juliette coldly; "as you say, it was a splendid
+combination. I had hoped that it would succeed. But I understand now
+that Citizen-Deputy Deroulede is a personage of too much importance to
+be brought to trial on mere suspicion, and my denunciation of him was
+not based on facts."
+
+"And do you know, my fine aristocrat," sneered Merlin viciously, "that
+it is not wise either to fool the Committee of Public Safety, or to
+denounce without cause one of the representatives of the people?"
+
+"I know," she rejoined quietly, "that you, Citizen Merlin, are
+determined that someone shall pay for this day's blunder. You dare not
+now attack the Citizen-Deputy, and so you must be content with me."
+
+"Enough of this talk now; I have no time to bandy words with aristos,"
+he said roughly.
+
+"Come now, follow the men quietly. Resistance would only aggravate your
+case."
+
+"I am quite prepared to follow you. May I speak two words to my friends
+before I go?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I may never be able to speak to them again."
+
+"I have said No, and I mean No. Now then, forward. March! I have wasted
+too much time already."
+
+Juliette was too proud to insist any further. She had hoped, by one
+word, to soften Madame Deroulede's and Anne Mie's heart towards her. She
+did not know whether they believed that miserable lie which she had been
+telling to Merlin; she only guessed that for the moment they still
+thought her the betrayer of Paul Deroulede.
+
+But that one word was not to be spoken. She would have to go forth to
+her certain trial, to her probable death, under the awful cloud, which
+she herself had brought over her own life.
+
+She turned quietly, and walked towards the door, where the two men
+already stood at attention.
+
+Then it was that some heaven-born instinct seemed suddenly to guide Anne
+Mie. The crippled girl was face to face with a psychological problem,
+which in itself was far beyond her comprehension, but vaguely she felt
+that it was a problem. Something in Juliette's face had already caused
+her to bitterly repent her action towards her, and now, as this
+beautiful, refined woman was about to pass from under the shelter of
+this roof, to the cruel publicity and terrible torture of that awful
+revolutionary tribunal, Anne Mie's whole heart went out to her in
+boundless sympathy.
+
+Before Merlin or the men could prevent her, she had run up to Juliette,
+taken her hand, which hung listless and cold, and kissed it tenderly.
+
+Juliette seemed to wake as if from a dream. She looked down at Anne Mie
+with a glance of hope, almost of joy, and whispered:
+
+"It was an oath--I swore it to my father and my dead brother. Tell him."
+
+Anne Mie could only nod; she could not speak, for her tears were choking
+her.
+
+"But I'll atone--with my life. Tell him," whispered Juliette.
+
+"Now then," shouted Merlin, "out of the way, hunchback, unless you want
+to come along too."
+
+"Forgive me," said Anne Mie through her tears.
+
+Then the men pushed her roughly aside. But at the door Juliette turned
+to her once more, and said:
+
+"Petronelle--take care of her ..."
+
+And with a firm step she followed the soldiers out of the room.
+
+Presently the front door was heard to open, then to shut with a loud
+bang, and the house in the Rue Ecole de Medecine was left in silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+In the Luxembourg prison.
+
+
+Juliette was alone at last--that is to say, comparatively alone, for
+there were too many aristocrats, too many criminals and traitors, in the
+prisons of Paris now, to allow of any seclusion of those who were about
+to be tried, condemned, and guillotined.
+
+The young girl had been marched through the crowded streets of Paris,
+followed by a jeering mob, who readily recognised in the gentle,
+high-bred girl the obvious prey, which the Committee of Public Safety
+was wont, from time to time to throw to the hungry hydra-headed dog of
+the Revolution.
+
+Lately the squalid spectators of the noisome spectacle on the Place de
+la Guillotine had had few of these very welcome sights: an aristocrat
+--a real, elegant, refined woman, with white hands and proud, pale
+face--mounting the steps of the same scaffold on which perished the
+vilest criminals and most degraded brutes.
+
+Madame Guillotine was, above all, catholic in her tastes, her gaunt
+arms, painted blood red, were open alike to the murderer and the thief,
+the aristocrats of ancient lineage, and the proletariat from the gutter.
+
+But lately the executions had been almost exclusively of a political
+character. The Girondins were fighting their last upon the bloody arena
+of the Revolution. One by one they fell still fighting, still preaching
+moderation, still foretelling disaster and appealing to that people,
+whom they had roused from one slavery, in order to throw it headlong
+under a tyrannical yoke more brutish, more absolute than before.
+
+There were twelve prisons in Paris then, and forty thousand in France,
+and they were all full. An entire army went round the country recruiting
+prisoners. There was no room for separate cells, no room for privacy, no
+cause or desire for the most elementary sense of delicacy.
+
+Women, men, children--all were herded together, for one day, perhaps
+two, and a night or so, and then death would obliterate the petty
+annoyances, the womanly blushes caused by this sordid propinquity.
+
+Death levelled all, erased everything.
+
+When Marie Antoinette mounted the guillotine she had forgotten that for
+six weeks she practically lived day and night in the immediate
+companionship of a set of degraded soldiery.
+
+Juliette, as she marched through the streets between two men of the
+National Guard, and followed by Merlin, was hooted and jeered at,
+insulted, pelted with mud. One woman tried to push past the soldiers,
+and to strike her in the face--a woman! not thirty!--and who was
+dragging a pale, squalid little boy by the hand.
+
+"_Crache donc sur l'aristo, voyons!_" the woman said to this poor,
+miserable little scrap of humanity as the soldiers pushed her roughly
+aside. "Spit on the aristocrat!" And the child tortured its own small,
+parched mouth so that, in obedience to its mother, it might defile and
+bespatter a beautiful, innocent girl.
+
+The soldiers laughed, and improved the occasion with another insulting
+jest. Even Merlin forgot his vexation, delighted at the incident.
+
+But Juliette had seen nothing of it all.
+
+She was walking as in a dream. The mob did not exist for her; she heard
+neither insult nor vituperation. She did not see the evil, dirty faces
+pushed now and then quite close to her; she did not feel the rough hands
+of the soldiers jostling her through the crowd: she had gone back to her
+own world of romance, where she dwelt alone now with the man she loved.
+Instead of the squalid houses of Paris, with their eternal device of
+Fraternity and Equality, there were beautiful trees and shrubs of laurel
+and of roses around her, making the air fragrant with their soft,
+intoxicating perfumes; sweet voices from the land of dreams filled the
+atmosphere with their tender murmur, whilst overhead a cloudless sky
+illumined this earthly paradise.
+
+She was happy--supremely, completely happy. She had saved him from the
+consequences of her own iniquitous crime, and she was about to give her
+life for him, so that his safety might be more completely assured.
+
+Her love for him he would never know; now he knew only her crime, but
+presently, when she would be convicted and condemned, confronted with a
+few scraps of burned paper and a torn letter-case, then he would know
+that she had stood her trial, self-accused, and meant to die for him.
+
+Therefore the past few moments were now wholly hers. She had the rights
+to dwell on those few happy seconds when she listened to the avowal of
+his love. It was ethereal, and perhaps not altogether human, but it was
+hers. She had been his divinity, his madonna; he had loved in her that,
+which was her truer, her better self.
+
+What was base in her was not truly her. That awful oath, sworn so
+solemnly, had been her relentless tyrant; and her religion--a religion
+of superstition and of false ideals--had blinded her, and dragged her
+into crime.
+
+She had arrogated to herself that which was God's alone--"Vengeance!"
+which is not for man.
+
+That through it all she should have known love, and learned its tender
+secrets, was more than she deserved. That she should have felt his
+burning kisses on her hand was heavenly compensation for all she would
+have to suffer.
+
+And so she allowed them to drag her through the sansculotte mob of
+Paris, who would have torn her to pieces then and there, so as not to
+delay the pleasure of seeing her die.
+
+They took her to the Luxembourg, once the palace of the Medici, the home
+of proud "Monsieur" in the days of the Great Monarch, now a loathsome,
+overfilled prison.
+
+It was then six o'clock in the afternoon, drawing towards the close of
+this memorable day. She was handed over to the governor of the prison, a
+short, thick-set man in black trousers and black-shag woollen shirt, and
+wearing a dirty red cap, with tricolour rosette on the side of his
+unkempt head.
+
+He eyed her up and down as she passed under the narrow doorway, then
+murmured one swift query to Merlin:
+
+"Dangerous?"
+
+"Yes," replied Merlin laconically.
+
+"You understand," added the governor; "we are so crowded. We ought to
+know if individual attention is required."
+
+"Certainly," said Merlin, "you will be personally responsible for this
+prisoner to the Committee of Public Safety."
+
+"Any visitors allowed?"
+
+"Certainly not, without the special permission of the Public
+Prosecutor."
+
+Juliette heard this brief exchange of words over her future fate.
+
+No visitor would be allowed to see her. Well, perhaps that would be
+best. She would have been afraid to meet Deroulede again, afraid to read
+in his eyes that story of his dead love, which alone might have
+destroyed her present happiness.
+
+And she wished to see no one. She had a memory to dwell on--a short,
+heavenly memory. It consisted of a few words, a kiss--the last one--on
+her hand, and that passionate murmur which had escaped from his lips
+when he knelt at her feet:
+
+"Juliette!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Complexities.
+
+
+Citizen-Deputy Deroulede had been privately interviewed by the Committee
+of Public Safety, and temporarily allowed to go free.
+
+The brief proceedings had been quite private, the people of Paris were
+not to know as yet that their favourite was under a cloud. When he had
+answered all the questions put to him, and Merlin--just returned from
+his errand at the Luxembourg Prison--had given his version of the
+domiciliary visitation in the Citizen-Deputy's house, the latter was
+briefly told that for the moment the Republic had no grievance against
+him.
+
+But he knew quite well what that meant. He would be henceforth under
+suspicion, watched incessantly, as a mouse is by the cat, and pounced
+upon, the moment time would be considered propitious for his final
+downfall.
+
+The inevitable waning of his popularity would be noted by keen, jealous
+eyes; and Deroulede, with his sure knowledge of mankind and of
+character, knew well enough that his popularity was bound to wane sooner
+or later, as all such ephemeral things do.
+
+In the meanwhile, during the short respite which his enemies would leave
+him, his one thought and duty would be to get his mother and Anne Mie
+safely out of the country.
+
+And also ...
+
+He thought of _her,_ and wondered what had happened. As he walked
+swiftly across the narrow footbridge, and reached the other side of the
+river, the events of the past few hours rushed upon his memory with
+terrible, overwhelming force.
+
+A bitter ache filled his heart at the remembrance of her treachery. The
+baseness of it all was so appalling. He tried to think if he had ever
+wronged her; wondered if perhaps she loved someone else, and wished
+_him_ out of her way.
+
+But, then, he had been so humble, so unassuming in his love. He had
+arrogated nothing unto himself, asked for nothing, demanded nothing in
+virtue of his protecting powers over her.
+
+He was torturing himself with this awful wonderment of why she had
+treated him thus.
+
+Out of revenge for her brother's death--that was the only explanation he
+could find, the only palliation for her crime.
+
+He knew nothing of her oath to her father, and, of course, had never
+heard of the sad history of this young, sensitive girl placed in one
+terrible moment between her dead brother and her demented father. He
+only thought of common, sordid revenge for a sin he had been practically
+forced to commit.
+
+And how he had loved her! Yes, _loved_--for that was in the past now.
+
+She had ceased to be a saint or a madonna; she had fallen from her
+pedestal so low that he could not find the way to descend and grope
+after the fragments of his ideal.
+
+At his own door he was met by Anne Mie in tears.
+
+"She has gone," murmured the young girl. "I feel as if I had murdered
+her."
+
+"Gone? Who? Where?" queried Deroulede rapidly, an icy feeling of terror
+gripping him by the heart-strings.
+
+"Juliette has gone," replied Anne Mie; "those awful brutes took her
+away."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Directly after you left. That man Merlin found some ashes and scraps of
+paper in her room ..."
+
+"Ashes?"
+
+"Yes; and a torn letter-case."
+
+"Great God!"
+
+"She said that they were love letters, which she had been burning for
+fear you should see them."
+
+"She said so? Anne Mie, Anne Mie, are you quite sure?"
+
+It was all so horrible, and he did not quite understand it all; his
+brain, which was usually so keen and so active, refused him service at
+this terrible juncture.
+
+"Yes; I am quite sure," continued Anne Mie, in the midst of her tears.
+"And oh! that awful Merlin said some dastardly things. But she persisted
+in her story, that she had--another lover. Oh, Paul, I am sure it is not
+true. I hated her because--because--you loved her so, and I mistrusted
+her, but I cannot believe that she was quite as base as that."
+
+"No, no, child," he said in a toneless, miserable voice; "she was not so
+base as that. Tell me more of what she said."
+
+"She said very little else. But Merlin asked her whether she had
+denounced you so as to get you out of the way. He hinted that--that ..."
+
+"That I was her lover too?"
+
+"Yes," murmured Anne Mie.
+
+She hardly liked to look at him; the strong face had become hard and set
+in its misery.
+
+"And she allowed them to say all this?" he asked at last.
+
+"Yes. And she followed them without a murmur, as Merlin said she would
+have to answer before the Committee of Public Safety, for having fooled
+the representatives of the people."
+
+"She'll answer for it with her life," murmured Deroulede. "And with
+mine!" he added half audibly.
+
+Anne Mie did not hear him; her pathetic little soul was filled with a
+great, an overwhelming pity of Juliette and for Paul.
+
+"Before they took her away," she said, placing her thin,
+delicate-looking hands on his arm. "I ran to her, and bade her farewell.
+The soldiers pushed me roughly aside; but I contrived to kiss her--and
+then she whispered a few words to me."
+
+"Yes? What were they?"
+
+"'It was an oath,' she said. 'I swore it to my father and to my dead
+brother. Tell him,'" repeated Anne Mie slowly.
+
+An oath!
+
+Now he understood, and oh! how he pitied her. How terribly she must have
+suffered in her poor, harassed soul when her noble, upright nature
+fought against this hideous treachery.
+
+That she was true and brave in herself, of that Deroulede had no doubt.
+And now this awful sin upon her conscience, which must be causing her
+endless misery.
+
+And, alas! the atonement would never free her from the load of
+self-condemnation. She had elected to pay with her life for her treason
+against him and his family. She would be arraigned before a tribunal
+which would inevitably condemn her. Oh! the pity of it all!
+
+One moment's passionate emotion, a lifelong superstition and mistaken
+sense of duty, and now this endless misery, this terrible atonement of a
+wrong that could never be undone.
+
+And she had never loved him!
+
+That was the true, the only sting which he knew now; it rankled more
+than her sin, more than her falsehood, more than the shattering of his
+ideal.
+
+With a passionate desire for his safety, she had sacrificed herself in
+order to atone for the material evil which she had done.
+
+But there was the wreck of his hopes and of his dreams!
+
+Never until now, when he had irretrievably lost her, did Deroulede
+realise how great had been his hopes; how he had watched day after day
+for a look in her eyes, a word from her lips, to show him that she too
+--his unattainable saint--would one day come to earth, and respond to
+his love.
+
+And now and then, when her beautiful face lighted up at sight of him,
+when she smiled a greeting to him on his return from his work, when she
+looked with pride and admiration on him from the public bench in the
+assemblies of the Convention--then he had begun to hope, to think, to
+dream.
+
+And it was all a sham! A mask to hide the terrible conflict that was
+raging within her soul, nothing more.
+
+She did not love him, of that he felt convinced. Man like, he did not
+understand to the full that great and wonderful enigma, which has
+puzzled the world since primeval times: a woman's heart.
+
+The eternal contradictions which go to make up the complex nature of an
+emotional woman were quite incomprehensible to him. Juliette had
+betrayed him to serve her own sense of what was just and right, her
+revenge and her oath. Therefore she did not love him.
+
+It was logic, sound common-sense, and, aided by his own diffidence where
+women were concerned, it seemed to him irrefutable.
+
+To a man like Paul Deroulede, a man of thought, of purpose, and of
+action, the idea of being false to the thing loved, of hate and love
+being interchangeable, was absolutely foreign and unbelievable. He had
+never hated the thing he loved or loved the thing he hated. A man's
+feelings in these respects are so much less complex, so much less
+contradictory.
+
+Would a man betray his friend? No--never. He might betray his enemy, the
+creature he abhorred, whose downfall would cause him joy. But his
+friend? The very idea was repugnant, impossible to an upright nature.
+
+Juliette's ultimate access of generosity in trying to save him, when she
+was at last brought face to face with the terrible wrong she had
+committed, _that_ he put down to one of those noble impulses of which he
+knew her soul to be fully capable, and even then his own diffidence
+suggested that she did it more for the sake of his mother or for Anne
+Mie rather than for him.
+
+Therefore what mattered life to him now? She was lost to him for ever,
+whether he succeeded in snatching her from the guillotine or not. He had
+but little hope to save her, but he would not owe his life to her.
+
+Anne Mie, seeing him wrapped in his own thoughts, had quietly withdrawn.
+Her own good sense told her already that Paul Deroulede's first step
+would be to try and get his mother out of danger, and out of the
+country, while there was yet time.
+
+So, without waiting for instructions, she began that same evening to
+pack up her belongings and those of Madame Deroulede.
+
+There was no longer any hatred in her heart against Juliette. Where Paul
+Deroulede had failed to understand, there Anne Mie had already made a
+guess. She firmly believed that nothing now could save Juliette from
+death, and a great feeling of tenderness had crept into her heart, for
+the woman whom she had looked upon as an enemy and a rival.
+
+She too had learnt in those brief days the great lesson that revenge
+belongs to God alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The Cheval Borgne.
+
+
+It was close upon midnight.
+
+The place had become suffocatingly hot; the fumes of rank tobacco, of
+rancid butter, and of raw spirits hung like a vapour in mid-air.
+
+The principal room in the "Auberge du Cheval Borgne" had been used for
+the past five years now as the chief meeting-place of the
+ultra-sansculotte party of the Republic.
+
+The house itself was squalid and dirty, up one of those mean streets
+which, by their narrow way and shelving buildings, shut out sun, air,
+and light from their miserable inhabitants.
+
+The Cheval Borgne was one of the most wretched-looking dwellings in this
+street of evil repute. The plaster was cracked, the walls themselves
+seemed bulging outward, preparatory to a final collapse. The ceilings
+were low, and supported by beams black with age and dirt.
+
+At one time it had been celebrated for its vast cellarage, which had
+contained some rare old wines. And in the days of the Grand Monarch
+young bucks were wont to quit the gay salons of the ladies, in order to
+repair to the Cheval Borgne for a night's carouse.
+
+In those days the vast cellarage was witness of many a dark encounter,
+of many a mysterious death; could the slimy walls have told their own
+tale, it would have been one which would have put to shame the wildest
+chronicles of M. Vidoq.
+
+Now it was no longer so.
+
+Things were done in broad daylight on the Place de la Revolution: there
+was no need for dark, mysterious cellars, in which to accomplish deeds
+of murder and of revenge.
+
+Rats and vermin of all sorts worked their way now in the underground
+portion of the building. They ate up each other, and held their orgies
+in the cellars, whilst men did the same sort of thing in the rooms
+above.
+
+It was a club of Equality and Fraternity. Any passer-by was at liberty
+to enter and take part in the debates, his only qualification for this
+temporary membership being an inordinate love for Madame la Guillotine.
+
+It was from the sordid rooms of the Cheval Borgne that most of the
+denunciations had gone forth which led but to the one inevitable
+ending--death.
+
+They sat in conclave here, some twoscore or so at first, the rabid
+patriots of this poor, downtrodden France. They talked of Liberty
+mostly, with many oaths and curses against the tyrants, and then started
+a tyranny, an autocracy, ten thousand times more awful than any wielded
+by the dissolute Bourbons.
+
+And this was the temple of Liberty, this dark, damp, evil-smelling
+brothel, with is narrow, cracked window-panes, which let in but an
+infinitesimal fraction of air, and that of the foulest, most unwholesome
+kind.
+
+The floor was of planks roughly put together; now they were worm-eaten,
+bare, save for a thick carpet of greasy dust, which deadened the sound
+of booted feet. The place only boasted of a couple of chairs, both of
+which had to be propped against the wall lest they should break, and
+bring the sitter down upon the floor; otherwise a number of empty wine
+barrels did duty for seats, and rough deal boards on broken trestles for
+tables.
+
+There had once been a paper on the walls, now it hung down in strips,
+showing the cracked plaster beneath. The whole place had a tone of
+yellowish-grey grime all over it, save where, in the centre of the room,
+on a rough double post, shaped like the guillotine, a scarlet cap of
+Liberty gave a note of lurid colour to the dismal surroundings.
+
+On the walls here and there the eternal device, so sublime in
+conception, so sordid in execution, recalled the aims of the so-called
+club: "Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite, sinon la Mort."
+
+Below the device, in one or two corners of the room, the wall was
+further adorned with rough charcoal sketches, mostly of an obscene
+character, the work of one of the members of the club, who had chosen
+this means of degrading his art.
+
+To-night the assembly had been reduced to less than a score.
+
+Even according to the dictates of these apostles of Fraternity: _"la
+guillotine va toujours"_--the guillotine goes on always. She had become
+the most potent factor in the machinery of government, of this great
+Revolution, and she had been daily, almost hourly fed through the
+activity of this nameless club, which held its weird and awesome
+sittings in the dank coffee-room of the Cheval Borgne.
+
+The number of the active members had been reduced. Like the rats in the
+cellars below, they had done away with one another, swallowed one
+another up, torn each other to pieces in this wild rage for a Utopian
+fraternity.
+
+Marat, founder of the organisation, had been murdered by a girl's hand;
+but Charon, Manuel, Osselin had gone the usual way, denounced by their
+colleagues, Rabaut, Custine, Bison, who in their turn were sent to the
+guillotine by those more powerful, perhaps more eloquent, than
+themselves.
+
+It was merely a case of who could shout the loudest at an assembly of
+the National Convention.
+
+_"La guillotine va toujours!"_
+
+After the death of Marat, Merlin became the most prominent member of the
+club--he and Foucquier-Tinville, his bosom friend, Public Prosecutor,
+and the most bloodthirsty homicide of this homicidal age.
+
+Bosom friend both, yet they worked against one another, undermining each
+other's popularity, whispering persistently, one against the other: "He
+is a traitor!" It had become just a neck-to-neck race between them
+towards the inevitable goal--the guillotine.
+
+Foucquier-Tinville is in the ascendant for the moment. Merlin had been
+given a task which he had failed to accomplish. For days now, weeks
+even, the debates of this noble assembly had been chiefly concerned with
+the downfall of Citizen-Deputy Deroulede. His popularity, his calm
+security in the midst of this reign of terror and anarchy, had been a
+terrible thorn in the flesh of these rabid Jacobins.
+
+And now the climax had been reached. An anonymous denunciation had
+roused the hopes of these sanguinary patriots. It all sounded perfectly
+plausible. To try and save that traitor, Marie Antoinette, the widow of
+Louis Capet, was just the sort of scheme that would originate in the
+brain of Paul Deroulede.
+
+He had always been at heart an aristocrat, and the feeling of chivalry
+for a persecuted woman was only the outward signs of his secret
+adherence to the hated class.
+
+Merlin had been sent to search the Deputy's house for proofs of the
+latter's guilt.
+
+And Merlin had come back empty-handed.
+
+The arrest of a female aristo--the probable mistress of Deroulede, who
+obviously had denounced him--was but small compensation for the failure
+of the more important capture.
+
+As soon as Merlin joined his friends in the low, ill-lit, evil-smelling
+room he realised at once that there was a feeling of hostility against
+him.
+
+Tinville, enthroned on one of the few chairs of which the Cheval Borgne
+could boast, was surrounded by a group of surly adherents.
+
+On the rough trestles a number of glasses, half filled with raw
+potato-spirit, gave the keynote to the temper of the assembly.
+
+All those present were dressed in the black-shag spencer, the seedy
+black breeches, and down-at-heel boots, which had become recognised as
+the distinctive uniform of the sansculotte party. The inevitable
+Phrygian cap, with its tricolour cockade, appeared on the heads of all
+those present, in various stages of dirt and decay.
+
+Tinville had chosen to assume a sarcastic tone with regard to his whilom
+bosom friend, Merlin. Leaning both elbows on the table, he was picking
+his teeth with a steel fork, and in the intervals of his interesting
+operation, gave forth his views on the broad principles of patriotism.
+
+Those who sat round him felt that his star was in the ascendant and
+assumed the position of satellites. Merlin as he entered had grunted a
+sullen "Good-eve," and sat himself down in a remote corner of the room.
+
+His greeting had been responded to with a few jeers and a good many
+dark, threatening looks. Tinville himself had bowed to him with mock
+sarcasm and an unpleasant leer.
+
+One of the patriots, a huge fellow, almost a giant, with heavy, coarse
+fists and broad shoulders that obviously suggested coal-heaving, had,
+after a few satirical observations, dragged one of the empty wine
+barrels to Merlin's table, and sat down opposite him.
+
+"Take care, Citizen Lenoir," said Tinville, with an evil laugh,
+"Citizen-Deputy Merlin will arrest you instead of Deputy Deroulede, whom
+he has allowed to slip through his fingers."
+
+"Nay; I've no fear," replied Lenoir, with an oath. "Citizen Merlin is
+too much of an aristo to hurt anyone; his hands are too clean; he does
+not care to do the dirty work of the Republic. Isn't that so, Monsieur
+Merlin?" added the giant, with a mock bow, and emphasising the
+appellation which had fallen into complete disuse in these days of
+equality.
+
+"My patriotism is too well known," said Merlin roughly, "to fear any
+attacks from jealous enemies; and as for my search in the
+Citizen-Deputy's house this afternoon, I was told to find proofs against
+him, and I found none."
+
+Lenoir expectorated on the floor, crossed his dark hairy arms over the
+table, and said quietly:
+
+"Real patriotism, as the true Jacobin understands it, makes the proofs
+it wants and leaves nothing to chance."
+
+A chorus of hoarse murmurs of "Vive la Liberte!" greeted this harangue
+of the burly coal-heaver.
+
+Feeling that he had gained the ear and approval of the gallery, Lenoir
+seemed, as it were, to spread himself out, to arrogate to himself the
+leadership of this band of malcontents, who, disappointed in their lust
+of Deroulede's downfall, were ready to exult over that of Merlin.
+
+"You were a fool, Citizen Merlin," said Lenoir with slow significance,
+"not to see that the woman was playing her own game."
+
+Merlin had become livid under the grime on his face. With this ill-kempt
+sansculotte giant in front of him, he almost felt as if he were already
+arraigned before that awful, merciless tribunal, to which he had dragged
+so many innocent victims.
+
+Already he felt, as he sat ensconced behind a table in the far corner of
+the room, that he was a prisoner at the bar, answering for his failure
+with his life.
+
+His own laws, his own theories now stood in bloody array against him.
+Was it not he who had framed the indictments against General Custine for
+having failed to subdue the cities of the south? against General
+Westerman and Brunet and Beauharnais for having failed and failed and
+failed?
+
+And now it was his turn.
+
+These bloodthirsty jackals had been cheated of their prey; they would
+tear him to pieces in compensation of their loss.
+
+"How could I tell?" he murmured roughly, "the woman had denounced him."
+
+A chorus of angry derision greeted this feeble attempt at defence.
+
+"By your own law, Citizen-Deputy Merlin," commented Tinville
+sarcastically, "it is a crime against the Republic to be suspected of
+treason. It is evident, however, that it is quite one thing to frame a
+law and quite another to obey it."
+
+"What could I have done?"
+
+"Hark at the innocent!" rejoined Lenoir, with a sneer. "What could he
+have done? Patriots, friends, brothers, I ask you, what could he have
+done?"
+
+The giant had pushed the wine cask aside, it rolled away from under him,
+and in the fulness of his contempt for Merlin and his impotence, he
+stood up before them all, strong in his indictment against treasonable
+incapacity.
+
+"I ask you," he repeated, with a loud oath, "what any patriot would do,
+what you or I would have done, in the house of a man whom we all _know_
+is a traitor to the Republic? Brothers, friends, Citizen-Deputy Merlin
+found a heap of burn paper in a grate, he found a letter-case which had
+obviously contained important documents, and he asks us what he could
+do!"
+
+"Deroulede is too important a man to be tried without proofs. The whole
+mob of Paris would have turned on us for having arraigned him, for
+having dared lay hands upon his sacred person."
+
+"Without proofs? Who said there were no proofs?" queried Lenoir.
+
+"I found the burnt papers and torn letter-case in the woman's room. She
+owned that they were love letters, and that she had denounced Deroulede
+in order to be rid of him."
+
+"Then let me tell you, Citizen-Deputy Merlin, that a true patriot would
+have found those papers in Deroulede's, and not the woman's room; that
+in the hands of a faithful servant of the Republic those documents would
+not all have been destroyed, for he would have 'found' one letter
+addressed to the Widow Capet, which would have proved conclusively that
+Citizen-Deputy Deroulede was a traitor. That is what a true patriot
+would have done--what I would have done. _Pardi!_ since Deroulede is so
+important a personage, since we must all put on kid gloves when we lay
+hands upon him, then let us fight him with other weapons. Are we
+aristocrats that we should hesitate to play the part of jackal to this
+cunning fox? Citizen-Deputy Merlin, are you the son of some ci-devant
+duke or prince that you dared not _forge_ a document which would bring a
+traitor to his doom? Nay; let me tell you, friends, that the Republic
+has no use for curs, and calls him a traitor who allows one of her
+enemies to remain inviolate through his cowardice, his terror of that
+intangible and fleeting shadow--the wrath of a Paris mob."
+
+Thunderous applause greeted this peroration, which had been delivered
+with an accompaniment of violent gestures and a wealth of obscene
+epithets, quite beyond the power of the mere chronicler to render.
+Lenoir had a harsh, strident voice, very high pitched, and he spoke with
+a broad, provincial accent, somewhat difficult to locate, but quite
+unlike the hoarse, guttural tones of the low-class Parisian. His
+enthusiasm made him seem impressive. He looked, in his ragged,
+dust-stained clothes, the very personification of the squalid herd which
+had driven culture, art, refinement to the scaffold in order to make way
+for sordid vice, and satisfied lusts of hate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+A Jacobin orator.
+
+
+Tinville alone had remained silent during Lenoir's impassioned speech.
+It seemed to be his turn now to become surly. He sat picking his teeth,
+and staring moodily at the enthusiastic orator, who had so obviously
+diverted popular feeling in his own direction. And Tinville brooked
+popularity only for himself.
+
+"It is easy to talk now, Citizen--er--Lenoir. Is that your name? Well,
+you are a comparative stranger here, Citizen Lenoir, and have not yet
+proved to the Republic that you can do ought else but talk."
+
+"If somebody did not talk, Citizen Tinville--is that your name?"
+rejoined Lenoir, with a sneer--"if somebody didn't talk, nothing would
+get done. You all sit here, and condemn the Citizen-Deputy Merlin for
+being a fool, and I must say I am with you there, but ..."
+
+"_Pardi!_ tell us your 'but' citizen," said Tinville, for the
+coal-heaver had paused, as if trying to collect his thoughts. He had
+dragged a wine barrel to collect his thoughts. He had dragged a wine
+barrel close to the trestle table, and now sat astride upon it, facing
+Tinville and the group of Jacobins. The flickering tallow candle behind
+him threw into bold silhouette his square, massive head, crowned with
+its Phrygian cap, and the great breadth of his shoulders, with the
+shabby knitted spencer and low, turned-down collar.
+
+He had long, thin hands, which were covered with successive coats of
+coal dust, and with these he constantly made weird gestures, as if in
+the act of gripping some live thing by the throat.
+
+"We all know that the Deputy Deroulede is a traitor, eh?" he said,
+addressing the company in general.
+
+"We do," came with uniform assent from all those present.
+
+"Then let us put it to the vote. The Ayes mean death, the Noes freedom."
+
+"Ay, ay!" came from every hoarse, parched throat; and twelve gaunt hand
+were lifted up demanding death for Citizen-Deputy Deroulede.
+
+"The Ayes have it," said Lenoir quietly, "Now all we need do is to
+decide how best to carry out our purpose."
+
+Merlin, very agreeably surprised to see public attention thus diverted
+from his own misdeeds, had gradually lost his surly attitude. He too
+dragged one of the wine barrels, which did duty for chairs, close to the
+trestle table, and thus the members of the nameless Jacobin club made a
+compact group, picturesque in its weird horror, its uncompromising,
+flaunting ugliness.
+
+"I suppose," said Tinville, who was loth to give up his position as
+leader of these extremists--"I suppose, Citizen Lenoir, that you are in
+position to furnish me with proofs of the Citizen-Deputy's guilt?"
+
+"If I furnish you with such proofs, Citizen Tinville," retorted the
+other, "will you, as Public Prosecutor, carry the indictment through?"
+
+"It is my duty to publicly accuse those who are traitors to the
+Republic."
+
+"And you, Citizen Merlin," queried Lenoir, "will you help the Republic
+to the best of your ability to be rid of a traitor?"
+
+"My services to the cause of our great Revolution are too well known-"
+began Merlin.
+
+But Lenoir interrupted him with impatience.
+
+"_Pardi!_but we'll have no rhetoric now, Citizen Merlin. We all know
+that you have blundered, and that the Republic cares little for those of
+her sons who have failed, but whilst you are still Minister of Justice
+the people of France have need of you--for bringing _other_ traitors to
+the guillotine."
+
+He spoke this last phrase slowly and significantly, lingering on the
+word "other," as if he wished its whole awesome meaning to penetrate
+well into Merlin's brain.
+
+"What is your advice then, Citizen Lenoir?"
+
+Apparently, by unanimous consent, the coalheaver, from some obscure
+province of France, had been tacitly acknowledged the leader of the
+band. Merlin, still in terror for himself, looked to him for advice;
+even Tinville was ready to be guided by him. All were at one in their
+desire to rid themselves of Deroulede, who by his clean living, his
+aloofness from their own hideous orgies and deadly hates, seemed a
+living reproach to them all; and they all felt that in Lenoir there must
+exist some secret dislike of the popular Citizen-Deputy, which would
+give him a clear insight of how best to bring about his downfall.
+
+"What is your advice?" had been Merlin's query, and everyone there
+listened eagerly for what was to come.
+
+"We are all agreed," commenced Lenoir quietly, "that just at this moment
+it would be unwise to arraign the Citizen-Deputy without material proof.
+The mob of Paris worship him, and would turn against those who had tried
+to dethrone their idol. Now, Citizen Merlin failed to furnish us with
+proofs of Deroulede's guilt. For the moment he is a free man, and I
+imagine a wise one; within two days he will have quitted this country,
+well knowing that, if he stayed long enough to see his popularity wane,
+he would also outstay his welcome on earth altogether."
+
+"Ay! Ay!" said some of the men approvingly, whilst others laughed
+hoarsely at the weird jest.
+
+"I propose, therefore," continued Lenoir after a slight pause, "that it
+shall be Citizen-Deputy Deroulede himself who shall furnish to the
+people of France proofs of his own treason against the Republic."
+
+"But how? But how?" rapid, loud and excited queries greeted this
+extraordinary suggestion from the provincial giant.
+
+"By the simplest means imaginable," retorted Lenoir with imperturbable
+calm. "Isn't there a good proverb which our grandmothers used to quote,
+that if you only give a man a sufficient length of rope, he is sure to
+hang himself? We'll give our aristocratic Citizen-Deputy plenty of rope,
+I'll warrant, if only our present Minister of Justice," he added,
+indicating Merlin, "will help us in the little comedy which I propose
+that we should play."
+
+"Yes! Yes! Go on!" said Merlin excitedly.
+
+"The woman who denounced Deroulede--that is our trump card," continued
+Lenoir, now waxing enthusiastic with his own scheme and his own
+eloquence. "She denounced him. Ergo, he had been her lover, whom she
+wished to be rid of--why? Not, as Citizen Merlin supposed, because he
+had discarded her. No, no; she had another lover--she has admitted that.
+She wished to be rid of Deroulede to make way for the other, because he
+was too persistent--ergo, because he loved her."
+
+"Well, and what does that prove?" queried Tinville with dry sarcasm.
+
+"It proves that Deroulede, being in love with the woman, would do much
+to save her from the guillotine."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"_Pardi!_ let him try, say I," rejoined Lenoir placidly. "Give him the
+rope with which to hang himself."
+
+"What does he mean?" asked one or two of the men, whose dull brains had
+not quite as yet grasped the full meaning of this monstrous scheme.
+
+"You don't understand what I mean, citizens; you think I am mad, or
+drunk, or a traitor like Deroulede? _Eh bien!_ give me your attention
+five minutes longer, and you shall see. Let me suppose that we have
+reached the moment when the woman--what is her name? Oh! ah! yes!
+Juliette Marny--stands in the Hall of Justice on her trial before the
+Committee of Public Safety. Citizen Foucquier-Tinville, one of our
+greatest patriots, reads the indictment against her: the papers
+surreptitiously burnt, the torn, mysterious letter-case found in her
+room. If these are presumed, in the indictment, to be treasonable
+correspondence with the enemies of the Republic, condemnation follows at
+once, then the guillotine. There is no defence, no respite. The Minister
+of Justice, according to Article IX of the Law framed by himself, allows
+no advocate to those directly accused of treason. But," continued the
+giant, with slow and calm impressiveness, "in the case of ordinary,
+civil indictments, offences against public morality or matters
+pertaining to the penal code, the Minister of Justice allows the accused
+to be publicly defended. Place Juliette Marny in the dock on a
+treasonable charge, she will be hustled out of the court in a few
+minutes, amongst a batch of other traitors, dragged back to her own
+prison, and executed in the early dawn, before Deroulede has had time to
+frame a plan for her safety or defence. If, then, he tries to move
+heaven and earth to rescue the woman he loves, the mob of Paris
+may,--who knows?--take his part warmly. They are mad where Deroulede is
+concerned; and we all know that two devoted lovers have ere now found
+favour with the people of France--a curious remnant of sentimentalism, I
+suppose--and the popular Citizen-Deputy knows better than anyone else on
+earth, how to play upon the sentimental feelings of the populace. Now,
+in the case of a penal offence, mark where the difference would be! The
+woman Juliette Marny, arraigned for wantonness, for an offence against
+public morals; the burnt correspondence, admitted to be the letters of a
+lover--her hatred for Deroulede suggesting the false denunciation. Then
+the Minister of Justice allows an advocate to defend her. She has none
+in court; but think you Deroulede would not step forward, and bring all
+the fervour of his eloquence to bear in favour of his mistress? Can you
+hear his impassioned speech on her behalf?--I can--the rope, I tell you,
+citizens, with which he'll hang himself. Will he admit in open court
+that the burnt correspondence was another lover's letters? No!--a
+thousand times no!--and, in the face of his emphatic denial of the
+existence of another lover for Juliette, it will be for our clever
+Public Prosecutor to bring him down to an admission that the
+correspondence was his, that it was treasonable, that she burnt them to
+save him."
+
+He paused, exhausted at last, mopping his forehead, then drinking large
+gulps of brandy to ease his parched throat.
+
+A veritable chorus of enthusiasm greeted the end of his long peroration.
+The Machiavelian scheme, almost devilish in its cunning, in its subtle
+knowledge of human nature and of the heart-strings of a noble
+organisation like Deroulede's, commended itself to these patriots, who
+were thirsting for the downfall of a superior enemy.
+
+Even Tinville lost his attitude of dry sarcasm; his thin cheeks were
+glowing with the lust of the fight.
+
+Already for the past few months, the trials before the Committee of
+Public Safety had been dull, monotonous, uninteresting. Charlotte Corday
+had been a happy diversion, but otherwise it had been the case of
+various deputies, who had held views that had become too moderate, or of
+the generals who had failed to subdue the towns or provinces of the
+south.
+
+But now this trial on the morrow--the excitement of it all, the trap
+laid for Deroulede, the pleasure of seeing him take the first step
+towards his own downfall. Everyone there was eager and enthusiastic for
+the fray. Lenoir, having spoken at such length, had now become silent,
+but everyone else talked, and drank brandy, and hugged his own hate and
+likely triumph.
+
+For several hours, far into the night, the sitting was continued. Each
+one of the score of members had some comment to make on Lenoir's speech,
+some suggestion to offer.
+
+Lenoir himself was the first to break up this weird gathering of human
+jackals, already exulting over their prey. He bad his companions a quiet
+good-night, then passed out into the dark street.
+
+After he had gone there were a few seconds of complete silence in the
+dark and sordid room, where men's ugliest passions were holding absolute
+sway. The giant's heavy footsteps echoed along the ill-paved street, and
+gradually died away in the distance.
+
+Then at last Foucquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor, spoke:
+
+"And who is that man?" he asked, addressing the assembly of patriots.
+
+Most of them did not know.
+
+"A provincial from the north," said one of the men at last; "he has been
+here several times before now, and last year he was a fairly constant
+attendant. I believe he is a butcher by trade, and I fancy he comes from
+Calais. He was originally brought here by Citizen Brogard, who is good
+patriot enough."
+
+One by one the members of this bond of Fraternity began to file out of
+the Cheval Borgne. They nodded curt good-nights to each other, and then
+went to their respective abodes, which surely could not be dignified
+with the name of home.
+
+Tinville remained one of the last; he and Merlin seemed suddenly to have
+buried the hatchet, which a few hours ago had threatened to destroy one
+or the other of these whilom bosom friends.
+
+Two or three of the most ardent of these ardent extremists had gathered
+round the Public Prosecutor, and Merlin, the framer of the Law of the
+Suspect.
+
+"What say you, citizens?" said Tinville at last quietly. "That man
+Lenoir, meseems, is too eloquent--eh?"
+
+"Dangerous," pronounced Merlin, whilst the others nodded approval.
+
+"But his scheme is good," suggested one of the men.
+
+"And we'll avail ourselves of it," assented Tinville, "but afterwards
+..."
+
+He paused, and once more everyone nodded approval.
+
+"Yes; he is dangerous. We'll leave him in peace to-morrow, but
+afterwards ..."
+
+With a gentle hand Tinville caressed the tall double post, which stood
+in the centre of the room, and which was shaped like the guillotine. An
+evil look was on his face: the grin of a death-dealing monster, savage
+and envious. The others laughed in grim content. Merlin grunted a surly
+approval. He had no cause to love the provincial coal-heaver who had
+raised a raucous voice to threaten him.
+
+Then, nodding to one another, the last of the patriots, satisfied with
+this night's work, passed out into the night.
+
+The watchman was making his rounds, carrying his lantern, and shouting
+his customary cry:
+
+"Inhabitants of Paris, sleep quietly. Everything is in order, everything
+is at peace."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+The close of day.
+
+
+Deroulede had spent the whole of this same night in a wild, impassioned
+search for Juliette.
+
+Earlier in the day, soon after Anne Mie's revelations, he had sought out
+his English friend, Sir Percy Blakeney, and talked over with him the
+final arrangements for the removal of Madame Deroulede and Anne Mie from
+Paris.
+
+Though he was a born idealist and a Utopian, Paul Deroulede had never
+for a moment had any illusions with regard to his own popularity. He
+knew that at any time, and for any trivial cause, the love which the mob
+bore him would readily turn to hate. He had seen Mirabeau's popularity
+wane, La Fayette's, Desmoulin's--was it likely that _he_ alone would
+survive the inevitable death of so ephemeral a thing?
+
+Therefore, whilst he was in power, whilst he was loved and trusted, he
+had, figuratively and actually, put his house in order. He had made full
+preparations for his own inevitable downfall, for that probable flight
+from Paris of those who were dependent upon him.
+
+He had, as far back as a year ago, provided himself with the necessary
+passports, and bespoken with his English friend certain measures for the
+safety of his mother and his crippled little relative. Now it was merely
+a question of putting these measures into execution.
+
+Within two hours of Juliette Marny's arrest, Madame Deroulede and Anne
+Mie had quitted the house in the Rue Ecole de Medecine. They had but
+little luggage with them, and were ostensibly going into the country to
+visit a sick cousin.
+
+The mother of the popular Citizen-Deputy was free to travel unmolested.
+The necessary passports which the safety of the Republic demanded were
+all in perfect order, and Madame Deroulede and Anne Mie passed through
+the north gate of Paris an hour before sunset, on that 24th day of
+Fructidor.
+
+Their large travelling chaise took them some distance on the North Road,
+where they were to meet Lord Hastings and Lord Anthony Dewhurst, two of
+The Scarlet Pimpernel's most trusted lieutenants, who were to escort
+them as far as the coast, and thence see them safely aboard the English
+yacht.
+
+On that score, therefore, Deroulede had no anxiety. His chief duty was
+to his mother and to Anne Mie, and that was now fully discharged.
+
+Then there was old Petronelle.
+
+Ever since the arrest of her young mistress the poor old soul had been
+in a state of mind bordering on frenzy, and no amount of eloquence on
+Deroulede's part would persuade her to quit Paris without Juliette.
+
+"If my pet lamb is to die," she said amidst heart-broken sobs, "then I
+have no cause to live. Let those devils take me along too, if they want
+a useless, old woman like me. But if my darling is allowed to go free,
+then what would become of her in this awful city without me? She and I
+have never been separated; she wouldn't know where to turn for a home.
+And who would cook for her and iron out her kerchiefs, I'd like to
+know?"
+
+Reason and common sense were, of course, powerless in face of this
+sublime and heroic childishness. No one had the heart to tell the old
+woman that the murderous dog of the Revolution seldom loosened its
+fangs, once they had closed upon a victim.
+
+All Deroulede could do was to convey Petronelle to the old abode, which
+Juliette had quitted in order to come to him, and which had never been
+formally given up. The worthy soul, calmed and refreshed, deluded
+herself into the idea that she was waiting for the return of her young
+mistress, and became quite cheerful at sight of the familiar room.
+
+Deroulede had provided her with money and necessaries. He had but few
+remaining hopes in his heart, but among them was the firmly implanted
+one that Petronelle was too insignificant to draw upon herself the
+terrible attention of the Committee of Public Safety.
+
+By the nightfall he had seen the good woman safely installed. Then only
+did he feel free.
+
+At last he could devote himself to what seemed to him the one, the only,
+aim of his life--to find Juliette.
+
+A dozen prisons in this vast Paris!
+
+Over five thousand prisoners on that night, awaiting trial, condemnation
+and death.
+
+Deroulede at first, strong in his own power, his personality, had
+thought that the task would be comparatively easy.
+
+At the Palais de Justice they would tell him nothing: the list of new
+arrests had not yet been handled in by the commandant of Paris, Citizen
+Santerre, who classified and docketed the miserable herd of aspirants
+for the next day's guillotine.
+
+The lists, moreover, would not be completed until the next day, when the
+trials of the new prisoners would already be imminent.
+
+The work of the Committee of Public Safety was done without much delay.
+
+Then began Deroulede's weary quest through those twelve prisons of
+Paris. From the Temple to the Conciergerie, from Palais Conde to the
+Luxembourg, he spent hours in the fruitless search.
+
+Everywhere the same shrug of the shoulders, the same indifferent reply
+to his eager query:
+
+"Juliette Marny? _Inconnue._"
+
+Unknown! She had not yet been docketed, not yet classified; she was
+still one of that immense flock of cattle, sent in ever-increasing
+numbers to the slaughter-house.
+
+Presently, to-morrow, after a trial which might last ten minutes, after
+a hasty condemnation and quick return to prison, she would be listed as
+one of the traitors, whom this great and beneficent Republic sent daily
+to the guillotine.
+
+Vainly did Deroulede try to persuade, to entreat, to bribe. The sullen
+guardians of these twelve charnel-houses knew nothing of individual
+prisoners.
+
+But the Citizen-Deputy was allowed to look for himself. He was conducted
+to the great vaulted rooms of the Temple, to the vast ballrooms of the
+Palais Conde, where herded the condemned and those still awaiting trial;
+he was allowed to witness there the grim farcical tragedies, with which
+the captives beguiled the few hours which separated them from death.
+
+Mock trials were acted there; Tinville was mimicked; then the Place de
+la Revolution; Samson the headsman, with a couple of inverted chairs to
+represent the guillotine.
+
+Daughters of dukes and princes, descendants of ancient lineage, acted in
+these weird and ghastly comedies. The ladies, with hair bound high over
+their heads, would kneel before the inverted chairs, and place the
+snowwhite necks beneath this imaginary guillotine. Speeches were
+delivered to a mock populace, whilst a mock Santerre ordered a mock roll
+of drums to drown the last flow of eloquence of the supposed victim.
+
+Oh! the horror of it all--the pity, pathos, and misery of this ghastly
+parody, in the very face of the sublimity of death!
+
+Deroulede shuddered when first he beheld the scene, shuddered at the
+very thought of finding Juliette amongst these careless, laughing,
+thoughtless mimes.
+
+His own, his beautiful Juliette, with her proud face and majestic,
+queen-like gestures; it was a relief not to see her there.
+
+"Juliette Marny? _Inconnue,_" was the final word he heard about her.
+
+No one told him that by Deputy Merlin's strictest orders she had been
+labelled "dangerous," and placed in a remote wing of the Luxembourg
+Palace, together with a few, who, like herself, were allowed to see no
+one, communicate with no one.
+
+Then when the _couvre-feu_ had sounded, when all public places were
+closed, when the night watchman had begun his rounds, Deroulede knew
+that his quest for that night must remain fruitless.
+
+But he could not rest. In and out the tortuous streets of Paris he
+roamed during the better part of that night. He was now only awaiting
+the dawn to publicly demand the right to stand beside Juliette.
+
+A hopeless misery was in his heart, a longing for a cessation of life;
+only one thing kept his brain active, his mind clear: the hope of saving
+Juliette.
+
+The dawn was breaking in the far east when, wandering along the banks of
+the river, he suddenly felt a touch on his arm.
+
+"Come to my hovel," said a pleasant, lazy voice close to his ear, whilst
+a kindly hand seemed to drag him away from the contemplation of the
+dark, silent river. "And a demmed, beastly place it is too, but at least
+we can talk quietly there."
+
+Deroulede, roused from his meditation, looked up, to see his friend, Sir
+Percy Blakeney, standing close beside him. Tall, debonnair,
+well-dressed, he seemed by his very presence to dissipate the morbid
+atmosphere which was beginning to weigh upon Deroulede's active mind.
+
+Deroulede followed him readily enough through, the intricate mazes of
+old Paris, and down the Rue des Arts, until Sir Percy stopped outside a
+small hostelry, the door of which stood wide open.
+
+"Mine host has nothing to lose from footpads and thieves," explained the
+Englishman as he guided his friend through the narrow doorway, then up a
+flight of rickety stairs, to a small room on the floor above. "He leaves
+all doors open for anyone to walk in, but, la! the interior of the house
+looks so uninviting that no one is tempted to enter."
+
+"I wonder you care to stay here," remarked Deroulede, with a momentary
+smile, as he contrasted in his mind the fastidious appearance of his
+friend with the dinginess and dirt of these surroundings.
+
+Sir Percy deposited his large person in the capacious depths of a creaky
+chair, stretched his long limbs out before him, and said quietly:
+
+"I am only staying in this demmed hole until the moment when I can drag
+you out of this murderous city."
+
+Deroulede shook his head.
+
+"You'd best go back to England, then," he said, "for I'll never leave
+Paris now."
+
+"Not without Juliette Marny, shall we say?" rejoined Sir Percy placidly.
+
+"And I fear me that she has placed herself beyond our reach," said
+Deroulede sombrely.
+
+"You know that she is in the Luxembourg Prison?" queried the Englishman
+suddenly.
+
+"I guessed it, but could find no proof."
+
+"And that she will be tried to-morrow?"
+
+"They never keep a prisoner pining too long," replied Deroulede
+bitterly. "I guessed that too."
+
+"What do you mean to do?"
+
+"Defend her with the last breath in my body."
+
+"You love her still, then?" asked Blakeney, with a smile.
+
+"Still?" The look, the accent, the agony of a hopeless passion conveyed
+in that one word, told Sir Percy Blakeney all that he wished to know.
+
+"Yet she betrayed you," he said tentatively.
+
+"And to atone for that sin--an oath, mind you, friend, sworn to her
+father--she is already to give her life for me."
+
+"And you are prepared to forgive?"
+
+"To understand _is_ to forgive," rejoined Deroulede simply, "and I love
+her."
+
+"Your madonna!" said Blakeney, with a gently ironical smile.
+
+"No; the woman I love, with all her weaknesses, all her sins; the woman
+to gain whom I would give my soul, to save whom I will give my life."
+
+"And she?"
+
+"She does not love me--would she have betrayed me else?"
+
+He sat beside the table, and buried his head in his hands. Not even his
+dearest friend should see how much he had suffered, how deeply his love
+had been wounded.
+
+Sir Percy said nothing, a curious, pleasant smile lurked round the
+corners of his mobile mouth. Through his mind there flitted the vision
+of beautiful Marguerite, who had so much loved yet so deeply wronged
+him, and, looking at his friend, he thought that Deroulede too would
+soon learn all the contradictions, which wage a constant war in the
+innermost recesses of a feminine heart.
+
+He made a movement as if he would say something more, something of grave
+import, then seemed to think better of it, and shrugged his broad
+shoulders, as if to say:
+
+"Let time and chance take their course now."
+
+When Deroulede looked up again Sir Percy was sitting placidly in the
+arm-chair, with an absolutely blank expression on his face.
+
+"Now that you know how much I love her, my friend," said Deroulede as
+soon as he had mastered his emotions, "will you look after her when they
+have condemned me, and save her for my sake?"
+
+A curious, enigmatic smile suddenly illumined Sir Percy's earnest
+countenance.
+
+"Save her? Do you attribute supernatural powers to me, then, or to The
+League of The Scarlet Pimpernel?"
+
+"To you, I think," rejoined Deroulede seriously.
+
+Once more it seemed as if Sir Percy were about to reveal something of
+great importance to his friend, then once more he checked himself. The
+Scarlet Pimpernel was, above all, far-seeing and practical, a man of
+action and not of impulse. The glowing eyes of his friend, his nervous,
+febrile movements, did not suggest that he was in a fit state to be
+entrusted with plans, the success of which hung on a mere thread.
+
+Therefore Sir Percy only smiled, and said quietly:
+
+"Well, I'll do my best."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Justice.
+
+
+The day had been an unusually busy one.
+
+Five and thirty prisoners, arraigned before the bar of the Committee of
+Public Safety, had been tried in the last eight hours--an average of
+rather more than four to the hour; twelve minutes and a half in which to
+send a human creature, full of life and health, to solve the great
+enigma which lies hidden beyond the waters of the Styx.
+
+And Citizen-Deputy Foucquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor, had
+surpassed himself. He seemed indefatigable.
+
+Each of these five and thirty prisoners had been arraigned for treason
+against the Republic, for conspiracy with her enemies, and all had to
+have irrefutable proofs of their guilt brought before the Committee of
+Public Safety. Sometimes a few letters, written to friends abroad, and
+seized at the frontier; a word of condemnation of the measures of the
+extremists; and expression of horror at the massacres on the Place de la
+Revolution, where the guillotine creaked incessantly--these were
+irrefutable proofs; or else perhaps a couple of pistols, or an old
+family sword seized in the house of a peaceful citizen, would be brought
+against a prisoner, as an irrefutable proof of his warlike dispositions
+against the Republic.
+
+Oh! it was not difficult!
+
+Out of five and thirty indictments, Foucquier-Tinville had obtained
+thirty convictions.
+
+No wonder his friends declared that he had surpassed himself. It had
+indeed been a glorious day, and the glow of satisfaction as much as the
+heat, caused the Public Prosecutors to mop his high, bony cranium before
+he had adjourned for the much-needed respite for refreshment.
+
+The day's work was not yet done.
+
+The "politicals" had been disposed of, and there had been such an
+accumulation of them recently that it was difficult to keep pace with
+the arrests.
+
+And in the meanwhile the criminal record of the great city had not
+diminished. Because men butchered one another in the name of Equality,
+there were none the fewer among the Fraternity of thieves and petty
+pilferers, of ordinary cut-throats and public wantons.
+
+And these too had to be dealt with by law. The guillotine was impartial,
+and fell with equal velocity on the neck of the proud duke and the
+gutter-born _fille de joie,_ on a descendant of the Bourbons and the
+wastrel born in a brothel.
+
+The ministerial decrees favoured the proletariat. A crime against the
+Republic was indefensible, but one against the individual was dealt
+with, with all the paraphernalia of an elaborate administration of
+justice. There were citizen judges and citizen advocates, and the
+rabble, who crowded in to listen to the trials, acted as honorary jury.
+
+It was all thoroughly well done. The citizen criminals were given every
+chance.
+
+The afternoon of this hot August day, one of the last of glorious
+Fructidor, had begun to wane, and the shades of evening to slowly creep
+into the long, bare room where this travesty of justice was being
+administered.
+
+The Citizen-President sat at the extreme end of the room, on a rough
+wooden bench, with a desk in front of him littered with papers.
+
+Just above him, on the bare, whitewashed wall, the words: "_La
+Republique: une et indivisible,_" and below them the device: "_Liberte,
+Egalite, Fraternite!_"
+
+To the right and left of the Citizen-President, four clerks were busy
+making entries in that ponderous ledger, that amazing record of the
+foulest crimes the world has ever known, the "_Bulletin du Tribunal
+Revolutionnaire._"
+
+At present no one is speaking, and the grating of the clerks' quill pens
+against the paper is the only sound which disturbs the silence of the
+hall.
+
+In front of the President, on a bench lower than his, sits Citizen
+Foucquier-Tinville, rested and refreshed, ready to take up his
+occupation, for as many hours as his country demands it of him.
+
+On every desk a tallow candle, smoking and spluttering, throws a weird
+light, and more weird shadows, on the faces of clerks and President, on
+blank walls and ominous devices.
+
+In the centre of the room a platform surrounded by an iron railing is
+ready for the accused. Just in front of it, from the tall, raftered
+ceiling above, there hangs a small brass lamp, with a green _abat-jour._
+
+Each side of the long, whitewashed walls there are three rows of
+benches, beautiful old carved oak pews, snatched from Notre Dame and
+from the Churches of St Eustache and St Germain l'Auxerrois. Instead of
+the pious worshippers of mediaeval times, they now accommodate the
+lookers-on of the grim spectacle of unfortunates, in their brief halt
+before the scaffold.
+
+The front row of these benches is reserved for those citizen-deputies
+who desire to be present at the debates of the Tribunal Revolutionnaire.
+It is their privilege, almost their duty, as representatives of the
+people, to see that the sittings are properly conducted.
+
+These benches are already well filled. At one end, on the left, Citizen
+Merlin, Minister of Justice, sits; next to him Citizen-Minister Lebrun;
+also Citizen Robespierre, still in the height of his ascendancy, and
+watching the proceedings with those pale, watery eyes of his and that
+curious, disdainful smile, which have earned for him the nickname of
+"the sea-green incorruptible."
+
+Other well-known faces are there also, dimly outlined in the
+fast-gathering gloom. But everyone notes Citizen-Deputy Deroulede, the
+idol of the people, as he sits on the extreme end of a bench on the
+right, with arms tightly folded across his chest, the light from the
+hanging lamp falling straight on his dark head and proud, straight
+brows, with the large, restless, eager eyes.
+
+Anon the Citizen-President rings a hand-bell, and there is a discordant
+noise of hoarse laughter and loud curses, some pushing, jolting, and
+swearing, as the general public is admitted into the hall.
+
+Heaven save us! What a rabble! Has humanity really such a scum?
+
+Women with a single ragged kirtle and shift, through the interstices of
+which the naked, grime-covered flesh shows shamelessly: with bare legs,
+and feet thrust into heavy sabots, hair dishevelled, and evil,
+spirit-sodden faces: women without a semblance of womanhood, with
+shrivelled, barren breasts, and dry, parched lips, that have never known
+how to kiss. Women without emotion save that of hate, without desire,
+save for the satisfaction of hunger and thirst, and lust for revenge
+against their sisters less wretched, less unsexed than themselves. They
+crowd in, jostling one another, swarming into the front rows of the
+benches, where they can get a better view of the miserable victims about
+to be pilloried before them.
+
+And the men without a semblance of manhood. Bent under the heavy care of
+their own degradation, dead to pity, to love, to chivalry; dead to all
+save an inordinate longing for the sight of blood.
+
+And God help them all! for there were the children too. Children--save
+the mark!--with pallid, precocious little faces, pinched with the
+ravages of starvation, gazing with dim, filmy eyes on this world of
+rapacity and hideousness. Children who have seen death!
+
+Oh, the horror of it! Not beautiful, peaceful death, a slumber or a
+dream, a loved parent or fond sister or brother lying all in white
+amidst a wealth of flowers, but death in its most awesome aspect,
+violent, lurid, horrible.
+
+And now they stare around them with eager, greedy eyes, awaiting the
+amusement of the spectacle; gazing at the President, with his tall
+Phrygian cap; at the clerks wielding their indefatigable quill pens,
+writing, writing, writing; at the flickering lights, throwing clouds of
+sooty smoke, up to the dark ceiling above.
+
+Then suddenly the eyes of one little mite--a poor, tiny midget not yet
+in her teens--alight on Paul Deroulede's face, on the opposite side of
+the rooms.
+
+"_Tiens!_ Papa Deroulede!" she says, pointing an attenuated little
+finger across at him, and turning eagerly to those around her, her eyes
+dilating in wishful recollection of a happy afternoon spent in Papa
+Deroulede's house, with fine white bread to eat in plenty, and great
+jars of foaming milk.
+
+He rouses himself from his apathy, and his great earnest eyes lose their
+look of agonised misery, as he responds to the greeting of the little
+one.
+
+For one moment--oh! a mere fraction of a second--the squalid faces, the
+miserable, starved expressions of the crowd, soften at sight of him.
+There is a faint murmur among the women, which perhaps God's recording
+angel registered as a blessing. Who knows?
+
+Foucquier-Tinville suppresses a sneer, and the Citizen-President
+impatiently rings his hand-bell again.
+
+"Bring forth the accused!" he commands in stentorian tones.
+
+There is a movement of satisfaction among the crowd, and the angel of
+God is forced to hide his face again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The trial of Juliette.
+
+
+It is all indelibly placed on record in the "Bulletin du Tribunal
+Revolutionnaire," under date 25th Fructidor, year I. of the Revolution.
+
+Anyone who cares may read, for the Bulletin is in the Archives of the
+Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris.
+
+One by one the accused had been brought forth, escorted by two men of
+the National Guard in ragged, stained uniforms of red, white, and blue;
+they were then conducted to the small raised platform in the centre of
+the hall, and made to listen to the charge brought against them by
+Citizen Foucquier-Tinville, the Public Presecutor.
+
+They were petty charges mostly: pilfering, fraud, theft, occasionally
+arson or manslaughter. One man, however, was arraigned for murder with
+highway robbery, and a woman for the most ignoble traffic, which evil
+feminine ingenuity could invent.
+
+These two were condemned to the guillotine, the others sent to the
+galleys at Brest or Toulon--the forger along with the petty thief, the
+housebreaker with the absconding clerk.
+
+There was no room in the prison for ordinary offences against the
+criminal code; they were overfilled already with so-called traitors
+against the Republic.
+
+Three women were sent to the penitentiary at the Salpetriere, and were
+dragged out of the court shrilly protesting their innocence, and
+followed by obscene jeers from the spectators on the benches.
+
+Then there was a momentary hush.
+
+Juliette Marny had been brought in.
+
+She was quite calm, and exquisitely beautiful, dressed in a plain grey
+bodice and kirtle, with a black band round her slim waist and a soft
+white kerchief folded across her bosom. Beneath the tiny, white cap her
+golden hair appeared in dainty, curly profusion; her child-like, oval
+face was very white, but otherwise quite serene.
+
+She seemed absolutely unconscious of her surroundings, and walked with a
+firm step up to the platform, looking neither to the right nor to the
+left of her.
+
+Therefore she did not see Deroulede. A great, a wonderful radiance
+seemed to shine in her large eyes--the radiance of self-sacrifice.
+
+She was offering not only her life, but everything a woman of refinement
+holds most dear, for the safety of the man she loved.
+
+A feeling that was almost physical pain, so intense was it, overcame
+Deroulede, when at last he heard her name loudly called by the Public
+Prosecutor.
+
+All day he had waited for this awful moment, forgetting his own misery,
+his own agonised feeling of an irretrievable loss, in the horrible
+thought of what _she_ would endure, what _she_ would think, when first
+she realised the terrible indignity, which was to be put upon her.
+
+Yet for the sake of her, of her chances of safety and of ultimate
+freedom, it was undoubtedly best that it should be so.
+
+Arraigned for conspiracy against the Republic, she was liable to secret
+trial, to be brought up, condemned, and executed before he could even
+hear of her whereabouts, before he could throw himself before her judges
+and take all guilt upon himself.
+
+Those suspected of treason against the Republic forfeited, according to
+Merlin's most iniquitous Law, their rights of citizenship, in publicity
+of trial and in defence.
+
+It all might have been finished before Deroulede knew anything of it.
+
+The other way was, of course, more terrible. Brought forth amongst the
+scum of criminal Paris, on a charge, the horror of which, he could but
+dimly hope that she was too innocent to fully understand, he dared not
+even think of what she would suffer.
+
+But undoubtedly it was better so.
+
+The mud thrown at her robes of purity could never cling to her, and at
+least her trial would be public; he would be there to take all infamy,
+all disgrace, all opprobrium on himself.
+
+The strength of his appeal would turn her judges' wrath from her to him;
+and after these few moments of misery, she would be free to leave Paris,
+France, to be happy, and to forget him and the memory of him.
+
+An overwhelming, all-compelling love filled his entire soul for the
+beautiful girl, who had so wronged, yet so nobly tried to save him. A
+longing for her made his very sinews ache; she was no longer madonna,
+and her beauty thrilled him, with the passionate, almost sensuous desire
+to give his life for her.
+
+The indictment against Juliette Marny has become history now.
+
+On that day, the 25th Fructidor, at seven o'clock in the evening, it was
+read out by the Public Prosecutor, and listened to by the accused--so
+the Bulletin tells us--with complete calm and apparent indifference. She
+stood up in that same pillory where once stood poor, guilty Charlotte
+Corday, where presently would stand proud, guiltless Marie Antoinette.
+
+And Deroulede listened to the scurrilous document, with all the outward
+calm his strength of will could command. He would have liked to rise
+from his seat then and there, at once, and in mad, purely animal fury
+have, with a blow of his fist, quashed the words in Foucquier-Tinville's
+lying throat.
+
+But for her sake he was bound to listen, and, above all, to act quietly,
+deliberately, according to form and procedure, so as in no way to
+imperil her cause.
+
+Therefore he listened whilst the Public Prosecutor spoke.
+
+"Juliette Marny, you are hereby accused of having, by a false and
+malicious denunciation, slandered the person of a representative of the
+people; you caused the Revolutionary Tribunal, through this same
+mischievous act, to bring a charge against this representative of the
+people, to institute a domiciliary search in his house, and to waste
+valuable time, which otherwise belonged to the service of the Republic.
+And this you did, not from a misguided sense of duty towards your
+country, but in wanton and impure spirit, to be rid of the surveillance
+of one who had your welfare at heart, and who tried to prevent your
+leading the immoral life which had become a public scandal, and which
+has now brought you before this court of justice, to answer to a charge
+of wantonness, impurity, defamation of character, and corruption of
+public morals. In proof of which I now place before the court your own
+admission, that more than one citizen of the Republic has been led by
+you into immoral relationship with yourself; and further, your own
+admission, that your accusation against Citizen-Deputy Deroulede was
+false and mischievous; and further, and finally, your immoral and
+obscene correspondence with some persons unknown, which you vainly tried
+to destroy. In consideration of which, and in the name of the people of
+France, whose spokesman I am, I demand that you be taken hence from this
+Hall of Justice to the Place de la Revolution, in full view of the
+citizens of Paris an its environs, and clad in a soiled white garment,
+emblem of the smirch upon your soul, that there you be publicly whipped
+by the hands of Citizen Samson, the public executioner; after which,
+that you be taken to the prison of the Salpetriere, there to be further
+detained at the discretion of the Committee of Public Safety. And now,
+Juliette Marny, you have heard the indictment preferred against you,
+have you anything to say, why the sentence which I have demanded shall
+not be passed upon you?"
+
+Jeers, shouts, laughter, and curses greeted this speech of the Public
+Prosecutor.
+
+All that was most vile and most bestial in this miserable, misguided
+people struggling for Utopia and Liberty, seemed to come to the surface,
+whilst listening to the reading of this most infamous document.
+
+The delight of seeing this beautiful, ethereal woman, almost unearthly
+in her proud aloofness, smirched with the vilest mud to which the
+vituperation of man can contrive to sink, was a veritable treat to the
+degraded wretches.
+
+The women yelled hoarse approval; the children, not understanding,
+laughed in mirthless glee; the men, with loud curses, showed their
+appreciation of Foucquier-Tinville's speech.
+
+As for Deroulede, the mental agony he endured surpassed any torture
+which the devils, they say, reserve for the damned. His sinews cracked
+in his frantic efforts to control himself; he dug his finger-nails into
+his flesh, trying by physical pain to drown the sufferings of his mind.
+
+He thought that his reason was tottering, that he would go mad if he
+heard another word of this infamy. The hooting and yelling of that
+filthy mob sounded like the cries of lost souls, shrieking from hell.
+All his pity for them was gone, his love for humanity, his devotion to
+the suffering poor.
+
+A great, an immense hatred for this ghastly Revolution and the people it
+professed to free filled his whole being, together with a mad, hideous
+desire to see them suffer, starve, die a miserable, loathsome death. The
+passion of hate, that now overwhelmed his soul, was at least as ugly as
+theirs. He was, for one brief moment, now at one with them in their
+inordinate lust for revenge.
+
+Only Juliette throughout all this remained calm, silent, impassive.
+
+She had heard the indictment, heard the loathsome sentence, for her
+white cheeks had gradually become ashy pale, but never for a moment did
+she depart from her attitude of proud aloofness.
+
+She never once turned her head towards the mob who insulted her. She
+waited in complete passiveness until the yelling and shouting had
+subsided, motionless save for her finger-tips, which beat an impatient
+tattoo upon the railing in front of her.
+
+The Bulletin says that she took out her handkerchief and wiped her face
+with it. _Elle s'essuya le front qui fut perle de sueur._ The heat had
+become oppressive.
+
+The atmosphere was overcharged with the dank, penetrating odour of
+steaming, dirty clothes. The room, though vast, was close and
+suffocating, the tallow candles flickering in the humid, hot air threw
+the faces of the President and clerks into bold relief, with curious
+caricature effects of light and shade.
+
+The petrol lamp above the head of the accused had flared up, and begun
+to smoke, causing the chimney to crack with a sharp report. This
+diversion effected a momentary silence among the crowd, and the Public
+Prosecutor was able to repeat his query:
+
+"Juliette Marny, have you anything to say in reply to the charge brought
+against you, and why the sentence which I have demanded should not be
+passed against you?"
+
+The sooty smoke from the lamp came down in small, black, greasy
+particles; Juliette with her slender finger-tips flicked one of these
+quietly off her sleeve, then she replied:
+
+"No; I have nothing to say."
+
+"Have you instructed an advocate to defend you, according to your rights
+of citizenship, which the Law allows?" added the Public Prosecutor
+solemnly.
+
+Juliette would have replied at once; her mouth had already framed the No
+with which she meant to answer.
+
+But now at last had come Deroulede's hour. For this he had been silent,
+had suffered and had held his peace, whilst twice twenty-four hours had
+dragged their weary lengths along, since the arrest of the woman he
+loved.
+
+In a moment he was on his feet before them all, accustomed to speak, to
+dominate, to command.
+
+"Citiziness Juliette Marny has entrusted me with her defence," he said,
+even before the No had escaped Juliette's white lips, "and I am here to
+refute the charges brought against her, and to demand in the name of the
+people of France full acquittal and justice for her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+The defence.
+
+
+Intense excitement, which found vent in loud applause, greeted
+Deroulede's statement.
+
+"_Ca ira! ca ira! vas-y Deroulede!_" came from the crowded benches
+round; and men, women, and children, wearied with the monotony of the
+past proceedings, settled themselves down for a quarter of an hour's
+keen enjoyment.
+
+If Deroulede had anything to do with it, the trial was sure to end in
+excitement. And the people were always ready to listen to their special
+favourite.
+
+The citizen-deputies, drowsy after the long, oppressive day, seemed to
+rouse themselves to renewed interest. Lebrun, like a big, shaggy dog,
+shook himself free from creeping somnolence. Robespierre smiled between
+his thin lips, and looked across at Merlin to see how the situation
+affected him. The enmity between the Minister of Justice and Citizen
+Deroulede was well known, and everyone noted, with added zest, that the
+former wore a keen look of anticipated triumph.
+
+High up, on one of the topmost benches, sat Citizen Lenoir, the
+stage-manager of this palpitating drama. He looked down, with obvious
+satisfaction, at the scene which he himself had suggested last night to
+the members of the Jacobin Club. Merlin's sharp eyes had tried to pierce
+the gloom, which wrapped the crowd of spectators, searching vainly to
+distinguish the broad figure and massive head of the provincial giant.
+
+The light from the petrol lamp shone full on Deroulede's earnest, dark
+countenance as he looked Juliette's infamous accuser full in the face,
+but the tallow candles, flickering weirdly on the President's desk,
+threw Tinville's short, spare figure and large, unkempt head into
+curious grotesque silhouette.
+
+Juliette apparently had lost none of her calm, and there was no one
+there sufficiently interested in her personality to note the tinge of
+delicate colour which, at the first word of Deroulede, had slowly
+mounted to her pale cheeks.
+
+Tinville waited until the wave of excitement had broken upon the shoals
+of expectancy.
+
+Then he resumed:
+
+"Then, Citizen Deroulede, what have _you_ to say, why sentence should
+not be passed upon the accused?"
+
+"I have to say that the accused is innocent of every charge brought
+against her in your indictment," replied Deroulede firmly.
+
+"And how do you substantiate this statement, Citizen-Deputy?" queried
+Tinville, speaking with mock unctuousness.
+
+"Very simply, Citizen Tinville. The correspondence to which you refer
+did not belong to the accused, but to me. It consisted of certain
+communications, which I desired to hold with Marie Antoinette, now a
+prisoner in the Conciergerie, during my state there as
+lieutenant-governor. The Citizeness Juliette Marny, by denouncing me,
+was serving the Republic, for my communications with Marie Antoinette
+had reference to my own hopes of seeing her quit this country and take
+refuge in her own native land."
+
+Gradually, as Deroulede spoke, a murmur, like the distant roar of a
+monstrous breaker, rose among the crowd on the upper benches. As he
+continued quietly and firmly, so it grew in volume and in intensity,
+until his last words were drowned in one mighty, thunderous shout of
+horror and execration.
+
+Deroulede, the friend and idol of the people, the privileged darling of
+this unruly population, the father of the children, the friend of the
+women, the sympathiser in all troubles, Papa Deroulede as the little
+ones called him--he a traitor, self-accused, plotting and planning for
+an ex-tyrant, a harlot who had called herself a queen, for Marie
+Antoinette the Austrian, who had desired and worked for the overthrow of
+France! He, Deroulede, a traitor!
+
+In one moment, as he spoke, the love which in their crude hearts they
+bore him, that animal primitive love, was turned to sudden, equally
+irresponsible hate. He had deceived them, laughed at them, tried to
+bribe them by feeding their little ones!
+
+Bah! the bread of the traitor! It might have choked the children.
+
+Surprise at first had taken their breath away. Already they had
+marvelled why he should stand up to defend a wanton. And now, probably
+feeling that he was on the point of being found out, he thought it
+better to make a clean breast of his own treason, trusting in his
+popularity, in his power over the people.
+
+Bah!!!
+
+Not one extenuating circumstance did they find in their hardened hearts
+for him.
+
+He had been their idol, enshrined in their squalid, degraded minds, and
+now he had fallen, shattered beyond recall, and they hated and loathed
+him as much as they had loved him before.
+
+And this his enemies noted, and smiled with complete satisfaction.
+
+Merlin heaved a sigh of relief. Tinville nodded his shaggy head, in
+token of intense delight.
+
+What that provincial coal-heaver had foretold had indeed come to pass.
+
+The populace, that most fickle of all fickle things in this world, had
+turned all at once against its favourite. This Lenoir had predicted, and
+the transition had been even more rapid than he had anticipated.
+
+Deroulede had been given a length of rope, and, figuratively speaking,
+had already hanged himself.
+
+The reality was a mere matter of a few hours now. At dawn to-morrow the
+guillotine; and the mob of Paris, who yesterday would have torn his
+detractors limb from limb, would on the morrow be dragging him, with
+hoots and yells and howls of execration, to the scaffold.
+
+The most shadowy of all footholds, that of the whim of a populace, had
+already given way under him. His enemies knew it, and were exulting in
+their triumph. He knew it himself, and stood up, calmly defiant, ready
+for any event, if only he succeeded in snatching her beautiful head from
+the ready embrace of the guillotine.
+
+Juliette herself had remained as if entranced. The colour had again fled
+from her cheeks, leaving them paler, more ashen than before. It seemed
+as if in this moment she suffered more than human creature could bear,
+more than any torture she had undergone hitherto.
+
+He would not owe his life to her.
+
+That was the one overwhelming thought in her, which annihilated all
+others. His love for her was dead, and he would not accept the great
+sacrifice at her hands.
+
+Thus these two in the supreme moment of their life saw each other, yet
+did not understand. A word, a touch would have given them both the key
+to one another's heart, and it now seemed as if death would part them
+for ever, whilst that great enigma remained unsolved.
+
+The Public Prosecutor had been waiting until the noise had somewhat
+subsided, and his voice could be heard above the din, then he said, with
+a smile of ill-concealed satisfaction:
+
+"And is the court, then, to understand, Citizen-Deputy Deroulede, that
+it was you who tried to burn the treasonable correspondence and to
+destroy the case which contained it?"
+
+"The treasonable correspondence was mine, and it was I who destroyed
+it."
+
+"But the accused admitted before Citizen Merlin that she herself was
+trying to burn certain love letters, that would have brought to light
+her illicit relationship with another man than yourself," argued
+Tinville suavely. The rope was perhaps not quite long enough; Deroulede
+must have all that could be given him, ere this memorable sitting was
+adjourned.
+
+Deroulede, however, instead of directing his reply straight to his
+enemy, now turned towards the dense crowd of spectators, on the benches
+opposite to him.
+
+"Citizens, friends, brothers," he said warmly, "the accused is only a
+girl, young, innocent knowing nothing of peril or of sin. You all have
+mothers, sisters, daughters--have you not watched those dear to you in
+the many moods of which a feminine heart is capable; have you not seen
+them affectionate, tender, and impulsive? Would you love them so dearly
+but for the fickleness of their moods? Have you not worshipped them in
+your hearts, for those sublime impulses which put all man's plans and
+calculations to shame? Look on the accused, citizens. She loves the
+Republic, the people of France, and feared that I, an unworthy
+representative of her sons, was hatching treason against our great
+mother. That was her first wayward impulse--to stop me before I
+committed the awful crime, to punish me, or perhaps only to warn me.
+Does a young girl calculate, citizens? She acts as her heart dictates;
+her reason but awakes from slumber later on, when the act is done. Then
+comes repentance sometimes: another impulse of tenderness which we all
+revere. Would you extract vinegar from rose leaves? Just as readily
+could you find reason in a young girl's head. Is that a crime? She
+wished to thwart me in my treason; then, seeing me in peril, the sincere
+friendship she had for me gained the upper hand once more. She loved my
+mother, who might be losing a son; she loved my crippled foster-sister;
+for _their_ sakes, not for mine--a traitor's--did she yield to another,
+a heavenly impulse, that of saving me from the consequences of my own
+folly. Was _that_ a crime, citizens? When you are ailing, do not your
+mothers, sisters, wives tend you? when you are seriously ill, would they
+not give their heart's blood to save you? and when, in the dark hours of
+your lives, some deed which you would not openly avow before the world
+overweights your soul with its burden of remorse, is it not again your
+womenkind who come to you, with tender words and soothing voices, trying
+to ease your aching conscience, bringing solace, comfort, and peace? And
+so it was with the accused, citizens. She had seen my crime, and longed
+to punish it; she saw those who had befriended her in sorrow, and she
+tried to ease their pain by taking _my_ guilt upon her shoulders. She
+has suffered for the noble lie, which she had told on my behalf, as no
+woman has ever been made to suffer before. She has stood, white and
+innocent as your new-born children, in the pillory of infamy. She was
+ready to endure death, and what was ten thousand times worse than death,
+because of her own warm-hearted affection. But you, citizens of France,
+who, above all, are noble, true, and chivalrous, you will not allow the
+sweet impulses of young and tender womanhood to be punished with the ban
+of felony. To you, women of France, I appeal in the name of your
+childhood, your girlhood, your motherhood; take her to your hearts, she
+is worthy of it, worthier now for having blushed before you, worthier
+than any heroine in the great roll of honour of France."
+
+His magnetic voice went echoing along the rafters of the great, sordid
+Hall of Justice, filling it with a glory it had never known before. His
+enthusiasm thrilled his hearers, his appeal to their honour and chivalry
+roused all the finer feelings within them. Still hating him for his
+treason, his magical appeal had turned their hearts towards her.
+
+They had listened to him without interruption, and now at last, when he
+paused, it was very evident, by muttered exclamations and glances cast
+at Juliette, that popular feeling, which up to the present had
+practically ignored her, now went out towards her personality with
+overwhelming sympathy.
+
+Obviously at the present moment, if Juliette's fate had been put to the
+plebiscite, she would have been unanimously acquitted.
+
+Merlin, as Deroulede spoke, had once or twice tried to read his friend
+Foucquier-Tinville's enigmatical expression, but the Public Prosecutor,
+with his face in deep shadow, had not moved a muscle during the
+Citizen-Deputy's noble peroration. He sat at his desk, chin resting on
+hand, staring before him with an expression of indifference, almost of
+boredom.
+
+Now, when Deroulede finished speaking, and the outburst of human
+enthusiasm had somewhat subsided, he rose slowly to his feet, and said
+quietly:
+
+"So you maintain, Citizen-Deputy, that the accused is a chaste and
+innocent girl, unjustly charged with immorality?"
+
+"I do," protested Deroulede loudly.
+
+"And will you tell the court why you are so ready to publicly accuse
+yourself of treason against the Republic, knowing full well all the
+consequences of your action?"
+
+"Would any Frenchman care to save his own life at the expense of a
+woman's honour?" retorted Deroulede proudly.
+
+A murmur of approval greeted these words, and Tinville remarked
+unctuously:
+
+"Quite so, quite so. We esteem your chivalry, Citizen-Deputy. The same
+spirit, no doubt, actuates you to maintain that the accused knew nothing
+of the papers which you say you destroyed?"
+
+"She knew nothing of them. I destroyed them; I did not know that they
+had been found; on my return to my house I discovered that the
+Citizeness Juliette Marny had falsely accused herself of having
+destroyed some papers surreptitiously."
+
+"She said they were love letters."
+
+"It is false."
+
+"You declare her to be pure and chaste?"
+
+"Before the whole world."
+
+"Yet you were in the habit of frequenting the bedroom of this pure and
+chaste girl, who dwelt under your roof," said Tinville with slow and
+deliberate sarcasm.
+
+"It is false."
+
+"If it be false, Citizen Deroulede," continued the other with the same
+unctuous suavity, "then how comes it that the correspondence which you
+admit was treasonable, and therefore presumably secret--how comes it
+that it was found, still smouldering, in the chaste young woman's
+bedroom, and the torn letter-case concealed among her dresses in a
+valise?"
+
+"It is false."
+
+"The Minister of Justice, Citizen-Deputy Merlin, will answer for the
+truth of that."
+
+"It is the truth," said Juliette quietly.
+
+Her voice rang out clear, almost triumphant, in the midst of the
+breathless pause, caused by the previous swift questions and loud
+answers.
+
+Deroulede now was silent.
+
+This one simple fact he did not know. Anne Mie, in telling him the
+events in connection with the arrest of Juliette, had omitted to give
+him the one little detail, that the burnt letters were found in the
+young girl's bedroom.
+
+Up to the moment when the Public Prosecutor confronted him with it, he
+had been under the impression that she had destroyed the papers and the
+letter-case in the study, where she had remained alone after Merlin and
+his men had left the room. She could easily have burnt them there, as a
+tiny spirit lamp was always kept alight on a side table for the use of
+smokers.
+
+This little fact now altered the entire course of events. Tinville had
+but to frame an indignant ejaculation:
+
+"Citizens of France, see how you are being befooled and hoodwinked!"
+
+Then he turned once more to Deroulede.
+
+"Citizen Deroulede ..." he began.
+
+But in the tumult that ensued he could no longer hear his own voice. The
+pent-up rage of the entire mob of Paris seemed to find vent for itself
+in the howls with which the crowd now tried to drown the rest of the
+proceedings.
+
+As their brutish hearts had been suddenly melted on behalf of Juliette,
+in response to Deroulede's passionate appeal, so now they swiftly
+changed their sympathetic attitude to one of horror and execration.
+
+Two people had fooled and deceived them. One of these they had
+reverenced and trusted, as much as their degraded minds were capable of
+reverencing anything, therefore _his_ sin seemed doubly damnable.
+
+He and that pale-face aristocrat had for weeks now, months, or years
+perhaps, conspired against the Republic, against the Revolution, which
+had been made by a people thirsting for liberty. During these months and
+years _he_ had talked to them, and they had listened; he had poured
+forth treasures of eloquence, cajoled them, as he had done just now.
+
+The noise and hubbub were growing apace. If Tinville and Merlin had
+desired to infuriate the mob, they had more than succeeded. All that was
+most bestial, most savage in this awful Parisian populace rose to the
+surface now in one wild, mad desire for revenge.
+
+The crowd rushed down from the benches, over one another's heads, over
+children's fallen bodies; they rushed down because they wanted to get at
+him, their whilom favourite, and at his pale-faced mistress, and tear
+them to pieces, hit them, scratch out their eyes. They snarled like so
+many wild beasts, the women shrieked, the children cried, and the men of
+the National Guard, hurrying forward, had much ado to keep back this
+flood-tide of hate.
+
+Had any of them broken loose, from behind the barrier of bayonets
+hastily raised against them, it would have fared ill with Deroulede and
+Juliette.
+
+The President wildly rang his bell, and his voice, quivering with
+excitement, was heard once or twice above the din.
+
+"Clear the court! Clear the court!"
+
+But the people refused to be cleared out of court.
+
+"_A la lanterne les traitres! Mort a Deroulede. A la lanterne!
+l'aristo!_"
+
+And in the thickest of the crowd, the broad shoulders and massive head
+of Citizen Lenoir towered above the others.
+
+At first it seemed as if he had been urging on the mob in its fury. His
+strident voice, with its broad provincial accent, was heard distinctly
+shouting loud vituperations against the accused.
+
+Then at a given moment, when the tumult was at its height, when the
+National Guard felt their bayonets giving way before this onrushing tide
+of human jackals, Lenoir changed his tactics.
+
+"_Tiens! c'est bete!_" he shouted loudly, "we shall do far better with
+the traitors when we get them outside. What say you, citizens? Shall we
+leave the judges here to conclude the farce, and arrange for its sequel
+ourselves outside the 'Tigre Jaune'?"
+
+At first but little heed was paid to his suggestion, and he repeated it
+once or twice, adding some interesting details:
+
+"One is freer in the streets, where these apes of the National Guard
+can't get between the people of France and their just revenge. _Ma
+foi!_" he added, squaring his broad shoulders, and pushing his way
+through the crowd towards the door, "I for one am going to see where
+hangs the most suitable _lanterne._"
+
+Like a flock of sheep the crowd now followed him.
+
+"The nearest _lanterne!_" they shouted. "In the streets--in the streets!
+_A la lanterne!_ The traitors!"
+
+And with many a jeer, many a loathsome curse, and still more loathsome
+jests, some of the crowd began to file out. A few only remained to see
+the conclusion of the farce.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Sentence of death.
+
+
+The "Bulletin du Tribunal Revolutionnaire" tells us that both the
+accused had remained perfectly calm during the turmoil which raged
+within the bare walls of the Hall of Justice.
+
+Citizen-Deputy Deroulede, however, so the chroniclers aver, though
+outwardly impassive, was evidently deeply moved. He had very expressive
+eyes, clear mirrors of the fine, upright soul within, and in them there
+was a look of intense emotion as he watched the crowd, which he had so
+often dominated and controlled, now turning in hatred against him.
+
+He seemed actually to be seeing with a spiritual vision, his own
+popularity wane and die.
+
+But when the thick of the crowd had pushed and jostled itself out of the
+hall, that transient emotion seemed to disappear, and he allowed himself
+quietly to be led from the front bench, where he had sat as a privileged
+member of the National Convention, to a place immediately behind the
+dock, and between two men of the National Guard.
+
+From that moment he was a prisoner, accused of treason against the
+Republic, and obviously his mock trial would be hurried through by his
+triumphant enemies, whilst the temper of the people was at boiling point
+against him.
+
+Complete silence had succeeded to the raging tumult of the past few
+moments. Nothing now could be heard in the vast room, save
+Foucquier-Tinville's hastily whispered instructions to the clerk nearest
+to him, and the scratch of the latter's quill pen against the paper.
+
+The President was, with equal rapidity, affixing his signature to
+various papers handed up to him by the other clerks. The few remaining
+spectators, the deputies, and those among the crowd who had elected to
+see the close of the debate, were silent and expectant.
+
+Merlin was mopping his forehead as if in intense fatigue after a hard
+struggle; Robespierre was coolly taking snuff.
+
+From where Deroulede stood, he could see Juliette's graceful figure
+silhouetted against the light of the petrol lamp. His heart was torn
+between intense misery at having failed to save her and a curious,
+exultant joy at thought of dying beside her.
+
+He knew the procedure of this revolutionary tribunal well--knew that
+within the next few moments he too would be condemned, that they would
+both be hustled out of the crowd and dragged through the streets of
+Paris, and finally thrown into the same prison, to herd with those who,
+like themselves, had but a few hours to live.
+
+And then to-morrow at dawn, death for them both under the guillotine.
+Death in public, with all its attendant horrors: the packed tumbril; the
+priest, in civil clothes, appointed by this godless government,
+muttering conventional prayers and valueless exhortations.
+
+And in his heart there was nothing but love for her--love and an intense
+pity--for the punishment she was suffering was far greater than her
+crime. He hoped that in her heart remorse would not be too bitter; and
+he looked forward with joy to the next few hours, which he would pass
+near her, during which he could perhaps still console and soothe her.
+
+She was but the victim of an ideal, of Fate stronger than her own will.
+She stood, an innocent martyr to the great mistake of her life.
+
+But the minutes sped on. Foucquier-Tinville had evidently completed his
+new indictments.
+
+The one against Juliette Marny was read out first. She was now accused
+of conspiring with Paul Deroulede against the safety of the Republic, by
+having cognisance of a treasonable correspondence carried on with the
+prisoner, Marie Antoinette; by virtue of which accusation the Public
+Prosecutor asked her if she had anything to say.
+
+"No," she replied loudly and firmly. "I pray to God for the safety and
+deliverance of our Queen, Marie Antoinette, and for the overthrow of
+this Reign of Terror and Anarchy."
+
+These words, registered in the "Bulletin du Tribunal Revolutionnaire"
+were taken as final and irrefutable proofs of her guilt, and she was
+then summarily condemned to death.
+
+She was then made to step down from the dock and Deroulede to stand in
+her place.
+
+He listened quietly to the long indictment which Foucquier-Tinville had
+already framed against him the evening before, in readiness for this
+contingency. The words "treason against the Republic" occurred
+conspicuously and repeatedly. The document itself is at one with the
+thousands of written charges, framed by that odious Foucquier-Tinville
+during these periods of bloodshed, and which in themselves are the most
+scathing indictments against the odious travesty of Justice, perpetrated
+with his help.
+
+Self-accused, and avowedly a traitor, Deroulede was not even asked if he
+had anything to say; sentence of death was passed on him, with the
+rapidity and callousness peculiar to these proceedings.
+
+After which Paul Deroulede and Juliette Marny were led forth, under
+strong escort, into the street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+The Fructidor Riots.
+
+
+Many accounts, more or less authentic, have been published of the events
+known to history as the "Fructidor Riots."
+
+But this is how it all happened: at any rate it is the version related
+some few days later in England to the Prince of Wales by no less a
+personage than Sir Percy Blakeney; and who indeed should know better
+than The Scarlet Pimpernel himself?
+
+Deroulede and Juliette Marny were the last of the batch of prisoners who
+were tried on that memorable day of Fructidor.
+
+There had been such a number of these, that all the covered carts in use
+for the conveyance of prisoners to and from the Hall of Justice had
+already been despatched with their weighty human load; thus it was that
+only a rough wooden cart, hoodless and rickety, was available, and into
+this Deroulede and Juliette were ordered to mount.
+
+It was now close on nine o'clock in the evening. The streets of Paris,
+sparsely illuminated here and there with solitary oil lamps swung across
+from house to house on wires, presented a miserable and squalid
+appearance. A thin, misty rain had begun to fall, transforming the
+ill-paved roads into morasses of sticky mud.
+
+The Hall of Justice was surrounded by a howling and shrieking mob, who,
+having imbibed all the stores of brandy in the neighbouring drinking
+bars, was now waiting outside in the dripping rain for the express
+purpose of venting its pent-up, spirit-sodden lust of rage against the
+man whom it had once worshipped, but whom now it hated. Men, women, and
+even children swarmed round the principal entrances of the Palais de
+Justice, along the bank of the river as far as the Pont au Change, and
+up towards the Luxembourg Palace, now transformed into the prison, to
+which the condemned would no doubt be conveyed.
+
+Along the river-bank, and immediately facing the Palais de Justice, a
+row of gallows-shaped posts, at intervals of a hundred yards or more,
+held each a smoky petrol lamp, at a height of some eight feet from the
+ground.
+
+One of these lamps had been knocked down, and from the post itself there
+now hung ominously a length of rope, with a noose at the end.
+
+Around this improvised gallows a group of women sat, or rather squatted,
+in the mud; their ragged shifts and kirtles, soaked through with the
+drizzling rain, hung dankly on their emaciated forms; their hair, in
+some cases grey, and in others dark or straw-coloured, clung matted
+round their wet faces, on which the dirt and the damp had drawn weird
+and grotesque lines.
+
+The men were restless and noisy, rushing aimlessly hither and thither,
+from the corner of the bridge, up the Rue du Palais, fearful lest their
+prey be conjured away ere their vengeance was satisfied.
+
+Oh, how they hated their former idol now! Citizen Lenoir, with his broad
+shoulders and powerful, grime-covered head, towered above the throng;
+his strident voice, with its raucous, provincial accent, could be
+distinctly heard above the din, egging on the men, shouting to the
+women, stirring up hatred against the prisoners, wherever it showed
+signs of abating in intensity.
+
+The coal-heaver, hailing from some distant province, seemed to have set
+himself the grim task of provoking the infuriated populace to some
+terrible deed of revenge against Deroulede and Juliette.
+
+The darkness of the street, the fast-falling mist which obscured the
+light from the meagre oil lamps, seemed to add a certain weirdness to
+this moving, seething multitude. No one could see his neighbour. In the
+blackness of the night the muttering or yelling figures moved about like
+some spectral creatures from hellish regions--the Akous of Brittany who
+call to those about to die; whilst the women squatting in the oozing
+mud, beneath that swinging piece of rope, looked like a group of ghostly
+witches, waiting for the hour of their Sabbath.
+
+As Deroulede emerged into the open, the light from a swinging lantern in
+the doorway fell upon his face. The foremost of the crowd recognised
+him; a howl of execration went up to the cloud-covered sky, and a
+hundred hands were thrust out in deadly menace against him.
+
+It seemed as if they whished to tear him to pieces.
+
+"_A la lanterne! A la lanterne! le traitre!_"
+
+He shivered slightly, as if with the sudden blast of cold, humid air,
+but he stepped quietly into the cart, closely followed by Juliette.
+
+The strong escort of the National Guard, with Commandant Santerre and
+his two drummers, had much ado to keep back the mob. It was not the
+policy of the revolutionary government to allow excesses of summary
+justice in the streets: the public execution of traitors on the Place de
+la Revolution, the processions in the tumbrils, were thought to be
+wholesome examples for other would-be traitors to mark and digest.
+
+Citizen Santerre, military commandant of Paris, had ordered his men to
+use their bayonets ruthlessly, and, to further overawe the populace, he
+ordered a prolonged roll of drums, lest Deroulede took it into his head
+to speak to the crowd.
+
+But Deroulede had no such intention: he seemed chiefly concerned in
+shielding Juliette from the cold; she had been made to sit in the cart
+beside him, and he had taken off his coat, and was wrapping it round her
+against the penetrating rain.
+
+The eye-witnesses of these memorable events have declared that, at a
+given moment, he looked up suddenly with a curious, eager expression in
+his eyes, and then raised himself in the cart and seemed to be trying to
+penetrate the gloom round him, as if in search of a face, or perhaps a
+voice.
+
+"_A la lanterne! A la lanterne!_" was the continual hoarse cry of the
+mob.
+
+Up to now, flanked in their rear by the outer walls of the Palais de
+Justice, the soldiers had found it a fairly easy task to keep the crowd
+at bay. But there came a time when the cart was bound to move out into
+the open, in order to convey the prisoners along, by the Rue du Palais,
+up to the Luxembourg Prison.
+
+This task, however, had become more and more difficult every moment. The
+people of Paris, who for two years had been told by its tyrants that it
+was supreme lord of the universe, was mad with rage at seeing its
+desires frustrated by a few soldiers.
+
+The drums had been greeted by terrific yells, which effectually drowned
+their roll; the first movement of the cart was hailed by a veritable
+tumult.
+
+Only the women who squatted round the gallows had not moved from their
+position of vantage; one of these Maegaeras was quietly readjusting the
+rope, which had got out of place.
+
+But all the men and some of the women were literally besieging the cart,
+and threatening the soldiers, who stood between them and the object of
+their fury.
+
+It seemed as if nothing now could save Deroulede and Juliette from an
+immediate and horrible death.
+
+"_A mort! A mort! A la lanterne les traitres!_"
+
+Santerne himself, who had shouted himself hoarse, was at a loss what to
+do. He had sent one man to the nearest cavalry barracks, but
+reinforcements would still be some little time coming; whilst in the
+meanwhile his men were getting exhausted, and the mob, more and more
+excited, threatened to break through their line at every moment.
+
+There was not another second to be lost.
+
+Santerre was for letting the mob have its way, and he would willingly
+have thrown it the prey for which it clamoured; but orders were orders,
+and in the year I. of the Revolution it was not good to disobey.
+
+At this supreme moment of perplexity he suddenly felt a respectful touch
+on his arm.
+
+Close behind him a soldier of the National Guard--not one of his own
+men--was standing at attention, and holding a small, folded paper in his
+hand.
+
+"Sent to you by the Minister of Justice," whispered the soldier
+hurriedly. "The citizen-deputies have watched the tumult from the Hall;
+they say, you must not lose an instant."
+
+Santerre withdrew from the front rank, up against the side of the cart,
+where a rough stable lantern had been fixed. He took the paper from the
+soldier's hand, and, hastily tearing it open, he read it by the dim
+light of the lantern.
+
+As he read, his thick, coarse features expressed the keenest
+satisfaction.
+
+"You have two more men with you?" he asked quickly.
+
+"Yes, citizen," replied the man, pointing towards his right; "and the
+Citizen-Minister said you would give me two more."
+
+"You'll take the prisoners quietly across to the Prison of the Temple
+--you understand that?"
+
+"Yes, citizen; Citizen Merlin has given me full instructions. You can
+have the cart drawn back a little more under the shadow of the portico,
+where the prisoners can be made to alight; they can then given into my
+charge. You in the meantime are to stay here with your men, round the
+empty cart, as long as you can. Reinforcements have been sent for, and
+must soon be here. When they arrive you are to move along with the cart,
+as if you were making for the Luxembourg Prison. This manoeuvre will
+give us time to deliver the prisoners safely at the Temple."
+
+The man spoke hurriedly and peremptorily, and Santerne was only too
+ready to obey. He felt relieved at thought of reinforcements, and glad
+to be rid of the responsibility of conducting such troublesome
+prisoners.
+
+The thick mist, which grew more and more dense, favoured the new
+manoeuvre, and the constant roll of drums drowned the hastily given
+orders.
+
+The cart was drawn back into the deepest shadow of the great portico,
+and whilst the mob were howling their loudest, and yelling out frantic
+demands for the traitors, Deroulede and Juliette were summarily ordered
+to step out of the cart. No one saw them, for the darkness here was
+intense.
+
+"Follow quietly!" whispered a raucous voice in their ears as they did
+so, "or my orders are to shoot you where you stand."
+
+But neither of them had any wish for resistance. Juliette, cold and
+numb, was clinging to Deroulede, who had placed a protecting arm round
+her.
+
+Santerne had told off two of his men to join the new escort of the
+prisoners, and presently the small party, skirting the walls of the
+Palais de Justice, began to walk rapidly away from the scene of the
+riot.
+
+Deroulede noted that some half-dozen men seemed to be surrounding him
+and Juliette, but the drizzling rain blurred every outline. The
+blackness of the night too had become absolutely dense, and in the
+distance the cries of the populace grew more and more faint.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+The unexpected.
+
+
+The small party walked on in silence. It seemed to consist of a very few
+men of the National Guard, whom Santerne had placed under the command of
+the soldier who had transmitted to him the orders of the
+Citizen-Deputies.
+
+Juliette and Deroulede both vaguely wondered whither they were being
+led; to some other prison mayhap, away from the fury of the populace.
+They were conscious of a sense of satisfaction at thought of being freed
+from that pack of raging wild beasts.
+
+Beyond that they cared nothing. Both felt already the shadow of death
+hovering over them. The supreme moment of their lives had come, and had
+found them side by side.
+
+What neither fear nor remorse, sorrow nor joy, could do, that the great
+and mighty Shadow accomplished in a trice.
+
+Juliette, looking death bravely in the face, held out her hand, and
+sought that of the man she loved.
+
+There was not one word spoken between them, not even a murmur.
+
+Deroulede, with the unerring instinct of his own unselfish passion,
+understood all that the tiny hand wished to convey to him.
+
+In a moment everything was forgotten save the joy of this touch. Death,
+or the fear of death, had ceased to exist. Life was beautiful, and in
+the soul of these two human creatures there was perfect peace, almost
+perfect happiness.
+
+With one grasp of the hand they had sought and found one another's soul.
+What mattered the yelling crowd, the noise and tumult of this sordid
+world? They had found one another, and, hand-in-hand,
+shoulder-to-shoulder, they had gone off wandering into the land of
+dreams, where dwelt neither doubt nor treachery, where there was nothing
+to forgive.
+
+He no longer said: "She does not love me--would she have betrayed me
+else?" He felt the clinging, trustful touch of her hand, and knew that,
+with all her faults, her great sin and her lasting sorrow, her woman's
+heart, Heaven's most priceless treasure, was indeed truly his.
+
+And she knew that he had forgiven--nay, that he had naught to forgive
+--for Love is sweet and tender, and judges not. Love is Love--whole,
+trustful, passionate. Love is perfect understanding and perfect peace.
+
+And so they followed their escort whithersoever it chose to lead them.
+
+Their eyes wandered aimlessly over the mist-laden landscape of this
+portion of deserted Paris. They had turned away from the river now, and
+were following the Rue des Arts. Close by on the right was the dismal
+little hostelry, "La Cruche Cassee," where Sir Percy Blakeney lived.
+Deroulede, as they neared the place, caught himself vaguely wondering
+what had become of his English friend.
+
+But it would take more than the ingenuity of the Scarlet Pimpernel to
+get two noted prisoners out of Paris to-day. Even if ...
+
+"Halt!"
+
+The word of command rang out clearly and distinctly through the
+rain-soaked atmosphere.
+
+Deroulede threw up his head and listened. Something strange and
+unaccountable in that same word of command had struck his sensitive ear.
+
+Yet the party had halted, and there was a click as of bayonets or
+muskets levelled ready to fire.
+
+All had happened in less than a few seconds. The next moment there was a
+loud cry:
+
+"_A moi,_ Deroulede! 'tis the Scarlet Pimpernel!"
+
+A vigorous blow from an unseen hand had knocked down and extinguished
+the nearest street lantern.
+
+Deroulede felt that he and Juliette were being hastily dragged under an
+adjoining doorway even as the cheery voice echoed along the narrow
+street.
+
+Half-a-dozen men were struggling below in the mud, and there was a
+plentiful supply of honest English oaths. It looked as if the men of the
+National Guard had fallen upon one another, and had it not been for
+those same English oaths perhaps Deroulede and Juliette would have been
+slower to understand.
+
+"Well done, Tony! Gadzooks, Ffoulkes, that was a smart bit of work!"
+
+The lazy, pleasant voice was unmistakable, but, God in heaven! where did
+it come from?
+
+Of one thing there could be no doubt. The two men despatched by Santerne
+were lying disabled on the ground, whilst three other soldiers were busy
+pinioning them with ropes.
+
+What did it all mean?
+
+"La, friend Deroulede! you had not thought, I trust, that I would leave
+Mademoiselle Juliette in such a demmed, uncomfortable hole?"
+
+And there, close beside Deroulede and Juliette, stood the tall figure of
+the Jacobin orator, the bloodthirsty Citizen Lenoir. The two young
+people gazed and gazed, then looked again, dumfounded, hardly daring to
+trust their vision, for through the grime-covered mask of the gigantic
+coal-heaver a pair of merry blue eyes was regarding them with
+lazy-amusement.
+
+"La! I do look a miserable object, I know," said the pseudo coal-heaver
+at last, "but 'twas the only way to get those murderous devils to do
+what I wanted. A thousand pardons, mademoiselle; 'twas I brought you to
+such a terrible pass, but la! you are amongst friends now. Will you
+deign to forgive me?"
+
+Juliette looked up. Her great, earnest eyes, now swimming in tears,
+sought those of the brave man who had so nobly stood by her and the man
+she loved.
+
+"Blakeney ..." began Deroulede.
+
+But Sir Percy quickly interrupted him:
+
+"Hush, man! we have but a few moments. Remember you are in Paris still,
+and the Lord only knows how we shall all get out of this murderous city
+to-night. I have said that you and mademoiselle are among friends. That
+is all for the moment. I had to get you together, or I should have
+failed. I could only succeed by subjecting you and mademoiselle to
+terrible indignities. Our League could plan but one rescue, and I had to
+adopt the best means at my command to have you condemned and led away
+together. Faith!" he added, with a pleasant laugh, "my friend Tinville
+will not be pleased when he realises that Citizen Lenoir has dragged the
+Citizen-Deputies by the nose."
+
+Whilst he spoke he had led Deroulede and Juliette into a dark and narrow
+room on the ground floor of the hostelry, and presently he called loudly
+for Brogard, the host of this uninviting abode.
+
+"Brogard!" shouted Sir Percy. "Where is that ass Brogard? La! man," he
+added as Citizen Brogard, obsequious and fussy, and with pockets stuffed
+with English gold, came shuffling along, "where do you hide your
+engaging countenance? Here! another length of rope for the gallant
+soldiers. Bring them in here, then give them that potion down their
+throats, as I have prescribed. Demm it! I wish we need not have brought
+them along, but that devil Santerre might have been suspicious else.
+They'll come to no harm, though, and can do us no mischief."
+
+He prattled along merrily. Innately kind and chivalrous, he wished to
+give Deroulede and Juliette time to recover from their dazed surprise.
+
+The transition from dull despair to buoyant hope had been so sudden: it
+had all happened in less than three minutes.
+
+The scuffle had been short and sudden outside. The two soldiers of
+Santerne had been taken completely unawares, and the three young
+lieutenants of the Scarlet Pimpernel had fallen on them with such vigour
+that they had hardly had time to utter a cry of "Help!"
+
+Moreover, that cry would have been useless. The night was dark and wet,
+and those citizens who felt ready for excitement were busy mobbing the
+Hall of Justice, a mile and a half away. One or two heads had appeared
+at the small windows of the squalid houses opposite, but it was too dark
+to see anything, and the scuffle had very quickly subsided.
+
+All was silent now in the Rue des Arts, and in the grimy coffee-room of
+the Cruche Cassee two soldiers of the National Guard were lying bound
+and gagged, whilst three others were gaily laughing, and wiping their
+rain-soaked hands and faces.
+
+In the midst of them all stood the tall, athletic figure of the bold
+adventurer who had planned this impudent coup.
+
+"La! we've got so far, friends, haven't we?" he said cheerily, "and now
+for the immediate future. We must all be out of Paris to-night, or the
+guillotine for the lot of us to-morrow."
+
+He spoke gaily, and with that pleasant drawl of his which was so well
+known in the fashionable assemblies of London; but there was a ring of
+earnestness in his voice, and his lieutenants looked up at him, ready to
+obey him in all things, but aware that danger was looming threateningly
+ahead.
+
+Lord Anthony Dewhurst, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, and Lord Hastings, dressed
+as soldiers of the National Guard, had played their part to perfection.
+Lord Hastings had presented the order to Santerre, and the three young
+bucks, at the word of command from their chief, had fallen upon and
+overpowered the two men whom the commandant of Paris had despatched to
+look after the prisoners.
+
+So far all was well. But how to get out of Paris? Everyone looked to the
+Scarlet Pimpernel for guidance.
+
+Sir Percy now turned to Juliette, and with the consummate grace which
+the elaborate etiquette of the times demanded, he made her a courtly
+bow.
+
+"Mademoiselle de Marny," he said, "allow me to conduct you to a room,
+which though unworthy of your presence will, nevertheless, enable you to
+rest quietly for a few minutes, whilst I give my friend Deroulede
+further advice and instructions. In the room you will find a disguise,
+which I pray you to don with all haste. La! they are filthy rags, I own,
+but your life and--and ours depend upon your help."
+
+Gallantly he kissed the tips of her fingers, and opened the door of an
+adjoining room to enable her to pass through; then he stood aside, so
+that her final look, as she went, might be for Deroulede.
+
+As soon as the door had closed upon her he once more turned to the men.
+
+"Those uniforms will not do now," he said peremptorily; "there are
+bundles of abominable clothes here, Tony. Will you all don them as
+quickly as you can? We must all look as filthy a band of _sansculottes_
+to-night as ever walked the streets of Paris."
+
+His lazy drawl had deserted him now. He was the man of action and of
+thought, the bold adventurer who held the lives of his friends in the
+hollow of his hand.
+
+The four men hastily obeyed. Lord Anthony Dewhurst--one of the most
+elegant dandies of London society--had brought forth from a dank
+cupboard a bundle of clothes, mere rags, filthy but useful.
+
+Within ten minutes the change was accomplished, and four dirty, slouchy
+figures stood confronting their chief.
+
+"That's capital!" said Sir Percy merrily.
+
+"Now for Mademoiselle de Marny."
+
+Hardly had he spoken when the door of the adjoining room was pushed
+open, and a horrible apparition stood before the men. A woman in filthy
+bodice and skirt, with face covered in grime, her yellow hair, matted
+and greasy, thrust under a dirty and crumpled cap.
+
+A shout of rapturous delight greeted this uncanny apparition.
+
+Juliette, like the true woman she was, had found all her energy and
+spirits now that she felt that she had an important part to play. She
+woke from her dream to realise that noble friends had risked their lives
+for the man she loved and for her.
+
+Of herself she did not think; she only remembered that her presence of
+mind, her physical and mental strength, would be needed to carry the
+rescue to a successful end.
+
+Therefore with the rags of a Paris _tricotteuse_ she had also donned her
+personality. She played her part valiantly, and one look at the
+perfection of her disguise was sufficient to assure the leader of this
+band of heroes that his instructions would be carried through to the
+letter.
+
+Deroulede too now looked the ragged _sansculotte_ to the life, with bare
+and muddy feet, frayed breeches, and shabby, black-shag spencer. The
+four men stood waiting together with Juliette, whilst Sir Percy gave
+them his final instructions.
+
+"We'll mix with the crowd," he said, "and do all that the crowd does. It
+is for us to see that that unruly crowd does what we want. Mademoiselle
+de Marny, a thousand congratulations. I entreat you to take hold of my
+friend Deroulede's hand, and not to let go of it, on any pretext
+whatever. La! not a difficult task, I ween," he added, with his genial
+smile; "and yours, Deroulede, is equally easy. I enjoin you to take
+charge of Mademoiselle Juliette, and on no account to leave her side
+until we are out of Paris."
+
+"Out of Paris!" echoed Deroulede, with a troubled sigh.
+
+"Aye!" rejoined Sir Percy boldly; "out of Paris! with a howling mob at
+our heels causing the authorities to take double precautions. And above
+all remember, friends, that our rallying cry is the shrill call of the
+sea-mew thrice repeated. Follow it until you are outside the gates of
+Paris. Once there, listen for it again; it will lead you to freedom and
+safety at last. Aye! Outside Paris, by the grace of God."
+
+The hearts of his hearers thrilled as they heard him. Who could help but
+follow this brave and gallant adventurer, with the magic voice and the
+noble bearing?
+
+"And now _en route_!" said Blakeney finally, "that ass Santerre will
+have dispersed the pack of yelling hyenas with his cavalry by now.
+They'll to the Temple prison to find their prey; we'll in their wake. _A
+moi,_ friends! and remember the sea-gull's cry."
+
+Deroulede drew Juliette's hand in his.
+
+"We are ready," he said; "and God bless the Scarlet Pimpernel."
+
+Then the five men, with Juliette in their midst, went out into the
+street once more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+Pere Lachaise.
+
+
+It was not difficult to guess which way the crowd had gone; yells,
+hoots, and hoarse cries could be heard from the farther side of the
+river.
+
+Citizen Santerne had been unable to keep the mob back until the arrival
+of the cavalry reinforcements. Within five minutes of the abduction of
+Deroulede and Juliette the crowd had broken through the line of
+soldiers, and had stormed the cart, only to find it empty, and the prey
+disappeared.
+
+"They are safe in the Temple by now!" shouted Santerne hoarsely, in
+savage triumph at seeing them all baffled.
+
+At first it seemed as if the wrath of the infuriated populace, fooled in
+its lust for vengeance, would vent itself against the commandant of
+Paris and his soldiers; for a moment even Santerre's ruddy cheeks had
+paled at the sudden vision of this unlooked for danger.
+
+Then just as suddenly the cry was raised.
+
+"To the Temple!"
+
+"To the Temple! To the Temple!" came in ready response.
+
+The cry was soon taken up by the entire crowd, and in less than two
+minutes the purlieus of the Hall of Justice were deserted, and the Pont
+St Michel, then the Cite and the Pont au Change, swarmed with the
+rioters. Thence along the north bank of the river, and up the Rue du
+Temple, the people still yelling, muttering, singing the "_Ca ira,_" and
+shouting: "_A la lanterne! A la lanterne!_"
+
+Sir Percy Blakeney and his little band of followers had found the Pont
+Neuf and the adjoining streets practically deserted. A few stragglers
+from the crowd, soaked through with the rain, their enthusiasm damped,
+and their throats choked with the mist, were sulkily returning to their
+homes.
+
+The desultory group of six _sansculottes_ attracted little or no
+attention, and Sir Percy boldly challenged every passer-by.
+
+"The way to the Rue du Temple, citizen?" he asked once or twice, or:
+
+"Have they hung the traitor yet? Can you tell me, citizeness?"
+
+A grunt or an oath were the usual replies, but no one took any further
+notice of the gigantic coal-heaver and his ragged friends.
+
+At the corner of one of the cross streets, between the Rue du Temple and
+the Rue des Archives, Sir Percy Blakeney suddenly turned to his
+followers:
+
+"We are close to the rabble now," he said in a whisper, and speaking in
+English; "do you all follow the nearest stragglers, and get as soon as
+possible into the thickest of the crowd. We'll meet again outside the
+prison--and remember the sea-gull's cry."
+
+He did not wait for an answer, and presently disappeared in the mist.
+
+Already a few stragglers, hangers-on of the multitude, were gradually
+coming into view, and the yells could be distinctly heard. The mob had
+evidently assembled in the great square outside the prison, and was
+loudly demanding the object of its wrath.
+
+The moment for cool-headed action was at hand. The Scarlet Pimpernel had
+planned the whole thing, but it was for his followers and for those,
+whom he was endeavouring to rescue from certain death, to help him heart
+and soul.
+
+Deroulede's grasp tightened on Juliette's little hand.
+
+"Are you frightened, my beloved?" he whispered.
+
+"Not whilst you are near me," she murmured in reply.
+
+A few more minutes' walk up the Rue des Archives and they were in the
+thick of the crowd. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, Lord Anthony Dewhurst, and Lord
+Hastings, the three Englishmen, were in front; Deroulede and Juliette
+immediately behind them.
+
+The mob itself now carried them along. A motley throng they were, soaked
+through with the rain, drunk with their own baffled rage, and with the
+brandy which they had imbibed.
+
+Everyone was shouting; the women louder than the rest; one of them was
+dragging the length of rope, which might still be useful.
+
+"_Ca ira! ca ira! A la lanterne! A la lanterne! les traitres!_"
+
+And Deroulede, holding Juliette by the hand, shouted lustily with them:
+
+"_Ca ira!_"
+
+Sir Andrew Ffoulkes turned, and laughed. It was rare sport for these
+young bucks, and they all entered into the spirit of the situation. They
+all shouted "_A la lanterne!_" egging and encouraging those around them.
+
+Deroulede and Juliette felt the intoxication of the adventure. They were
+drunk with the joy of their reunion, and seized with the wild, mad,
+passionate desire for freedom and for life ... Life and love!
+
+So they pushed and jostled on in the mud, followed the crowd, sang and
+yelled louder than any of them. Was not that very crowd the great
+bulwark of their safety?
+
+As well have sought for the proverbial needle in the haystack, as for
+two escaped prisoners in this mad, heaving throng.
+
+The large open space in front of the Temple Prison looked like one
+great, seething, black mass.
+
+The darkness was almost thick here, the ground like a morass, with
+inches of clayey mud, which stuck to everything, whilst the sparse
+lanterns, hung to the prison walls and beneath the portico, threw
+practically no light into the square.
+
+As the little band, composed of the three Englishmen, and of Deroulede,
+holding Juliette by the hand, emerged into the open space, they heard a
+strident cry, like that of a sea-mew thrice repeated, and a hoarse voice
+shouting from out the darkness:
+
+"_Ma foi!_ I'll not believe that the prisoners are in the Temple now! It
+is my belief, friends, citizens, that we have been fooled once more!"
+
+The voice, with its strange, unaccountable accent, which seemed to
+belong to no province of France, dominated the almost deafening noise;
+it penetrated through, even into the brandy-soddened minds of the
+multitude, for the suggestion was received with renewed shouts of the
+wildest wrath.
+
+Like one great, living, seething mass the crowd literally bore down upon
+the huge and frowning prison. Pushing, jostling, yelling, the women
+screaming, the men cursing, it seemed as if that awesome day--the 14th
+of July--was to have its sanguinary counterpart to-night, as if the
+Temple were destined to share the fate of the Bastille.
+
+Obedient to their leader's orders the three young Englishmen remained in
+the thick of the crowd: together with Deroulede they contrived to form a
+sturdy rampart round Juliette, effectually protecting her against rough
+buffetings.
+
+On their right, towards the direction of Menilmontant, the sea-mew's cry
+at intervals gave the strength and courage.
+
+The foremost rank of the crowd had reached the portico of the building,
+and, with howls and snatches of their gutter song, were loudly
+clamouring for the guardian of the grim prison.
+
+No one appeared; the great gates with their massive bars and hinges
+remained silent and defiant.
+
+The crowd was becoming dangerous: whispers of the victory of the
+Bastille, five years ago, engendered thoughts of pillage and of arson.
+
+Then the strident voice was heard again:
+
+"_Pardi!_ the prisoners are not in the Temple! The dolts have allowed
+them to escape, and now are afraid of the wrath of the people!"
+
+It was strange how easily the mob assimilated this new idea. Perhaps the
+dark, frowning block of massive buildings had overawed them with its
+peaceful strength, perhaps the dripping rain and oozing clay had damped
+their desire for an immediate storming of the grim citadel; perhaps it
+was merely the human characteristic of a wish for something new,
+something unexpected.
+
+Be that as it may, the cry was certainly taken up with marvellous,
+quick-change rapidity.
+
+"The prisoners have escaped! The prisoners have escaped!"
+
+Some were for proceeding with the storming of the Temple, but they were
+in the minority. All along, the crowd had been more inclined for private
+revenge than for martial deeds of valour; the Bastille had been taken by
+daylight; the effort might not have been so successful on a pitch-black
+night such as this, when one could not see one's hand before one's eyes,
+and the drizzling rain went through to the marrow.
+
+"They've got through one of the barriers by now!" suggested the same
+voice from out the darkness.
+
+"The barriers--the barriers!" came in sheeplike echo from the crowd.
+
+The little group of fugitives and their friends tightened their hold on
+one another.
+
+They had understood at last.
+
+"It is for us to see that the crowd does what we want," the Scarlet
+Pimpernel had said.
+
+He wanted it to take him and his friends out of Paris, and, by God! he
+was like to succeed.
+
+Juliette's heart within her beat almost to choking; her strong little
+hand gripped Deroulede's fingers with the wild strength of a mad
+exultation.
+
+Next to the man to whom she had given her love and her very soul she
+admired and looked up to the remarkable and noble adventurer, the
+high-born and exquisite dandy, who with grime-covered face, and strong
+limbs encased in filthy clothes, was playing the most glorious part ever
+enacted upon the stage.
+
+"To the barriers--to the barriers!"
+
+Like a herd of wild horses, driven by the whip of the herdsmen, the mob
+began to scatter in all directions. Not knowing what it wanted, not
+knowing what it would find, half forgetting the very cause and object of
+its wrath, it made one gigantic rush for the gates of the great city
+through which the prisoners were supposed to have escaped.
+
+The three Englishmen and Deroulede, with Juliette well protected in
+their midst, had not joined the general onrush as yet. The crowd in the
+open place was still very thick, the outward-branching streets were very
+narrow: through these the multitude, scampering, hurrying, scurrying,
+like a human torrent let out of a whirlpool, rushed down headlong
+towards the barriers.
+
+Up the Rue Turbigo to the Belleville gate, the Rue des Filles, and the
+Rue du Chemin Vert, towards Popincourt, they ran, knocking each other
+down, jostling the weaker ones on one side, trampling others underfoot.
+They were all rough, coarse creatures, accustomed to these wild
+bousculades, ready to pick themselves up, again after any number of
+falls; whilst the mud was slimy and soft to tumble on, and those who did
+the trampling had no shoes on their feet.
+
+They rushed out from the dark, open place, these creatures of the night,
+into streets darker still.
+
+On they ran--on! on!--now in thick, heaving masses, anon in loose,
+straggling groups--some north, some south, some east, some west.
+
+But it was from the east that came the seagull's cry.
+
+The little band ran boldly towards the east. Down the Rue de la
+Republique they followed their leader's call. The crowd was very thick
+here; the Barriere Menilmontant was close by, and beyond it there was
+the cemetery of Pere Lachaise. It was the nearest gate to the Temple
+Prison, and the mob wanted to be up and doing, not to spend too much
+time running along the muddy streets and getting wet and cold, but to
+repeat the glorious exploits of the 14th of July, and capture the
+barriers of Paris by force of will rather than force of arms.
+
+In this rushing mob the four men, with Juliette in their midst, remained
+quite unchallenged, mere units in an unruly crowd.
+
+In a quarter of an hour Menilmontant was reached.
+
+The great gates of the city were well guarded by detachments of the
+National Guard, each under command of an officer. Twenty strong at
+most--what was that against such a throng?
+
+Who had ever dreamed of Paris being stormed from within?
+
+At every gate to the north and east of the city there was now a rabble
+some four or five thousand strong, wanting it knew not what. Everyone
+had forgotten what it was that caused him or her to rush on so blindly,
+so madly, towards the nearest barrier.
+
+But everyone knew that he or she wanted to get through that barrier, to
+attack the soldiery, to knock down the captain of the Guard.
+
+And with a wild cry every city gate was stormed.
+
+Like one huge wind-tossed wave, the populace on that memorable night of
+Fructidor, broke against the cordon of soldiery, that vainly tried to
+keep it back. Men and women, drunk with brandy and exultation, shouted
+"_Quatorze Juillet!_" and amidst curses and threats demanded the opening
+of the gates.
+
+The people of France _would_ have its will.
+
+Was it not the supreme lord and ruler of the land, the arbiter of the
+Fate of this great, beautiful, and maddened country?
+
+The National Guard was powerless; the officers in command could offer
+but feeble resistance.
+
+The desultory fire, which in the darkness and the pouring rain did very
+little harm, had the effect of further infuriating the mob.
+
+The drizzle had turned to a deluge, a veritable heavy summer downpour,
+with occasional distant claps of thunder and incessant sheet-lightning,
+which ever and anon illumined with its weird, fantastic flash this
+heaving throng, these begrimed faces, crowned with red caps of Liberty,
+these witchlike female creatures with wet, straggly hair and gaunt,
+menacing arms.
+
+Within half-an-hour the people of Paris was outside its own gates.
+
+Victory was complete. The Guard did not resist; the officers had
+surrendered; the great and mighty rabble had had its way.
+
+Exultant, it swarmed around the fortifications and along the _terrains
+vauges_ which it had conquered by its will.
+
+But the downpour was continuous, and with victory came satiety--satiety
+coupled with wet skins, muddy feet, tired, wearied bodies, and throats
+parched with continual shouting.
+
+At Menilmontant, where the crowd had been thickest, the tempers highest,
+and the yells most strident, there now stretched before this tired,
+excited throng, the peaceful vastness of the cemetery of Pere Lachaise.
+
+The great alleys of sombre monuments, the weird cedars with their
+fantastic branches, like arms of a hundred ghosts, quelled and awed
+these hooting masses of degraded humanity.
+
+The silent majesty of this city of the dead seemed to frown with
+withering scorn on the passions of the sister city.
+
+Instinctively the rabble was cowed. The cemetery looked dark, dismal,
+and deserted. The flashed of lightning seemed to reveal ghostlike
+processions of the departed heroes of France, wandering silently amidst
+the tombs.
+
+And the populace turned with a shudder away from this vast place of
+eternal peace.
+
+From within the cemetery gates, there was suddenly heard the sound of a
+sea-mew calling thrice to its mate. And five dark figures, wrapped in
+cloaks, gradually detached themselves from the throng, and one by one
+slipped into the grounds of Pere Lachaise through that break in the
+wall, which is quite close to the main entrance.
+
+Once more the sea-gull's cry.
+
+Those in the crowd who heard it, shivered beneath their dripping
+clothes. They thought it was a soul in pain risen from one of the
+graves, and some of the women, forgetting the last few years of
+godlessness, hastily crossed themselves, and muttered an invocation to
+the Virgin Mary.
+
+Within the gates all was silent and at peace. The sodden earth gave
+forth no echo of the muffled footsteps, which slowly crept towards the
+massive block of stone, which covers the graves of the immortal lovers
+--Abelard and Heloise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+Conclusion.
+
+
+There is but little else to record.
+
+History has told us how, shamefaced, tired, dripping, the great,
+all-powerful people of Paris quietly slunk back to their homes, even
+before the first cock-crow in the villages beyond the gates, acclaimed
+the pale streak of dawn.
+
+But long before that, even before the church bells of the great city had
+tolled the midnight hour, Sir Percy Blakeney and his little band of
+followers had reached the little tavern which stands close to the
+farthest gate of Pere Lachaise.
+
+Without a word, like six silent ghosts, they had traversed the vast
+cemetery, and reached the quiet hostelry, where the sounds of the
+seething revolution only came, attenuated by their passage through the
+peaceful city of the dead.
+
+English gold had easily purchased silence and good will from the
+half-starved keeper of this wayside inn. A huge travelling chaise
+already stood in readiness, and four good Flanders horses had been
+pawing the ground impatiently for the past half hour. From the window of
+the chaise old Petronelle's face, wet with anxious tears, was peering
+anxiously.
+
+A cry of joy and surprise escaped Deroulede and Juliette, and both
+turned, with a feeling akin to awe, towards the wonderful man who had
+planned and carried through this bold adventure.
+
+"Nay, my friend," said Sir Percy, speaking more especially to Deroulede;
+"if you only knew how simple it all was! Gold can do so many things, and
+my only merit seems to be the possession of plenty of that commodity.
+You told me yourself how you had provided for old Petronelle. Under the
+most solemn assurance that she would meet her young mistress here, I got
+her to leave Paris. She came out most bravely this morning in one of the
+market carts. She is so obviously a woman of the people, that no one
+suspected her. As for the worthy couple who keep this wayside hostel,
+they have been well paid, and money soon procures a chaise and horses.
+My English friends and I, we have our own passports, and one for
+Mademoiselle Juliette, who must travel as an English lady, with her old
+nurse, Petronelle. There are some decent clothes in readiness for us all
+in the inn. A quarter of an hour in which to don them and we must on our
+way. You can use your own passport, of course; your arrest has been so
+very sudden that it has not yet been cancelled, and we have an eight
+hours' start of our enemies. They'll wake up to-morrow morning, begad!
+and find that you have slipped through their fingers."
+
+He spoke with easy carelessness, and that slow drawl of his, as if he
+were talking airy nothings in a London drawing-room, instead of
+recounting the most daring, most colossal piece of effrontery the
+adventurous brain of man could conceive.
+
+Deroulede could say nothing. His own noble heart was too full of
+gratitude towards his friend to express it all in a few words.
+
+And time, of course, was precious.
+
+Within the prescribed quarter of an hour the little band of heroes had
+doffed their grimy, ragged clothes, and now appeared dressed as
+respectable bourgeois of Paris _en route_ for the country. Sir Percy
+Blakeney had donned the livery of a coachman of a well-to-do house,
+whilst Lord Anthony Dewhurst wore that of an English lacquey.
+
+Five minutes later Deroulede had lifted Juliette into the travelling
+chaise, and in spite of fatigue, of anxiety, and emotion, it was
+immeasurable happiness to feel her arm encircling his shoulders in
+perfect joy and trust.
+
+Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and Lord Hastings joined them inside the chaise;
+Lord Anthony sat next to Sir Percy on the box.
+
+And whilst the crowd of Paris was still wondering why it had stormed the
+gates of the city, the escaped prisoners were borne along the muddy
+roads of France at breakneck speed northward to the coast.
+
+Sir Percy Blakeney held the reins himself. With his noble heart full of
+joy, the gallant adventurer himself drove his friends to safety.
+
+They had an eight hours' start, and The League of The Scarlet Pimpernel
+had done its work thoroughly: well provided with passports, and with
+relays awaiting them at every station of fifty miles or so, the journey,
+though wearisome was free from further adventure.
+
+At Le Havre the little party embarked on board Sir Percy Blakeney's
+yacht the _Daydream,_ where they met Madame Deroulede and Anne Mie.
+
+The two ladies, acting under the instructions of Sir Percy, had as
+originally arranged, pursued their journey northwards, to the populous
+seaport town.
+
+Anne Mie's first meeting with Juliette was intensely pathetic. The poor
+little cripple had spent the last few days in an agony of remorse,
+whilst the heavy travelling chaise bore her farther and farther away
+from Paris.
+
+She thought Juliette dead, and Paul a prey to despair, and her tender
+soul ached when she remembered that it was she who had given the final
+deadly stab to the heart of the man she loved.
+
+Hers was the nature born to abnegation: aye! and one destined to find
+bliss therein. And when one glance in Paul Deroulede's face told her
+that she was forgiven, her cup of joy at seeing him happy beside his
+beloved, was unalloyed with any bitterness.
+
+<tb>
+
+It was in the beautiful, rosy dawn of one of the last days of that
+memorable Fructidor, when Juliette and Paul Deroulede, standing on the
+deck of the _Daydream,_ saw the shores of France gradually receding from
+their view.
+
+Deroulede's arm was round his beloved, her golden hair, fanned by the
+breeze, brushed lightly against his cheek.
+
+"Madonna!" he murmured.
+
+She turned her head to him. It was the first time that they were quite
+alone, the first time that all thought of danger had become a mere
+dream.
+
+What had the future in store for them, in that beautiful, strange land
+to which the graceful yacht was swiftly bearing them?
+
+England, the land of freedom, would shelter their happiness and their
+joy; and they looked out towards the North, where lay, still hidden in
+the arms of the distant horizon, the white cliffs of Albion, whilst the
+mist even now was wrapping it its obliterating embrace the shores of the
+land where they had both suffered, where they had both learned to love.
+
+He took her in his arms.
+
+"My wife!" he whispered.
+
+The rosy light touched her golden hair; he raised her face to his, and
+soul met soul in one long, passionate kiss.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of I Will Repay, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
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