diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69579-0.txt | 9089 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69579-h/69579-h.htm | 13634 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69579-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 249012 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/69579-0.txt | 9464 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/69579-0.zip | bin | 172263 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/69579-h.zip | bin | 426690 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/69579-h/69579-h.htm | 14090 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/69579-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 249012 -> 0 bytes |
11 files changed, 17 insertions, 46277 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..22425b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #69579 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69579) diff --git a/old/69579-0.txt b/old/69579-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1ed20f4..0000000 --- a/old/69579-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9089 +0,0 @@ -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69579 *** - - Adventures - of the - Comte de la Muette - during the - Reign of Terror - - BY - BERNARD CAPES - AUTHOR OF - ‘THE MILL OF SILENCE,’ ‘THE LAKE OF WINE,’ ETC. - - - WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS - EDINBURGH AND LONDON - MDCCCXCVIII - - _All Rights reserved_ - - - - - [DEDICATION.] - - TO - R. C., - BEST COUNSELLOR AND HELPMATE. - - - - - CONTENTS. - - I. THE WAXWORKS - II. CITOYENNE CARINNE - III. THE FOOTPAD - IV. THE CHÂTEAU DES PIERRETTES - V. LA GRAND’ BÊTE - VI. THE HERD OF SWINE - VII. THE CHEVALIER DU GUET - VIII. QUATREMAINS-QUATREPATTES - IX. THE WILD DOGS - X. THE AFFAIR OF THE CANDLES - XI. PYRAMUS AND THISBE - XII. THE MOUSE-TRAP - XIII. THE RED CART - XIV. THE QUARRIES OF MONT-ROUGE - XV. THE SALAD COURSE - NOTES - - - - - ADVENTURES - OF THE - COMTE DE LA MUETTE. - -CHAPTER I. -THE WAXWORKS. - -One morning I awoke in La Bourbe and looked across at Deputy -Bertrand as he lay sprawled over his truckle-bed, his black hair like -a girl’s scattered on the pillow, his eyelids glued to his flushed -cheeks, his face, all blossoming with dissipation, set into the -expression of one who is sure of nothing but of his own present -surrender to nothingness. Beside him were his clothes, flung upon a -chair, the tri-colour sash, emblematic stole of his confused ritual, -embracing all; and on a nail in the wall over his head was his -preposterous hat, the little _carte de civisme_ stuck in its band. - -Casimir Bertrand (one time Casimir Bertrand de Pompignan) I had known -and been friendly with at Le Plessis. Later he had imbibed theories; -had become successively a Lameth, a Feuillant, a Jacobin--a -constitutionalist, a moderate, an extremist; had spouted in the -Faubourgs and overflowed in sectional Committee rooms; had finally -been elected to represent a corner of the States-General. I had known -him for a pious prig, a coxcomb, a reckless bon-vivant. He was always -sincere and never consistent; and now at last, in the crisis of his -engaging sans-cullotism, he had persuaded me, a proscribed royalist, -to take an advantage of his friendship by lodging with him. Then it -was that the driving-force behind his character was revealed to me. It -was militant hedonism. Like Mirabeau, he was a strange compound of -energy and voluptuousness. He turned altogether on the nerves of -excitement. He was like a clock lacking its pendulum, and he would -crowd a dozen rounds of the dial into the space of a single hour. Such -souls, racing ahead of their judgment, illustrate well the fable of -the Hare and the Tortoise; and necessarily they run themselves down -prematurely. Casimir was an epicure, with a palate that could joyfully -accommodate itself to black bread and garlic; a sensualist, with the -power to fly at a word from a hot-bed of pleasure to a dusty desert of -debate. Undoubtedly in him (did I make him the mirror to my -conscience), and in a certain Crépin, with whom I came subsequently -to lodge, and who was of the type only a step lower in the art of -self-indulgence, I had an opportunity to see reflected a very serious -canker in the national constitution. - -Now he opened his eyes as I gazed on him, and shut them again -immediately. It was not his habit to be a slug-a-bed, and I recognised -that his sleep was feigned. The days of his political influence were -each pregnant of astonishing possibilities to him, and he was too -finished an epicure to indulge himself with more than the recuperative -measure of slumber--frothed, perhaps, with a bead of æsthetic -enjoyment in the long minute of waking. - -“Casimir!” I called softly; but he pretended not to hear me. - -“What, my friend! the sun is shining, and the eggs of the old serpent -of pleasure will be hatching in every kennel.” - -He opened his eyes at that, fixed and unwinking; but he made no -attempt to rise. - -“Let them crack the shells and wriggle out,” he said. “I have a fancy -they will be a poisonous brood, and that La Bourbe is pleasantly -remote from their centres of incubation.” - -“Timorous! I would not lose a thrill in this orgy of liberty.” - -“But if you lost----?” he checked himself, pursed his lips, and nodded -his head on the pillow. - -“Jean-Louis, I saw the Sieur Julien carried to the scaffold last -night. He went foaming and raving of a plot in the prisons to release -the aristocrats in their thousands upon us. There is an adder to -reproduce itself throughout the city! Truly, as you say, the kennels -will swarm with it.” - -“And many will be bitten? My friend, my friend, there is some dark -knowledge in that astute head of yours. And shall I cower at home when -my kind are in peril?” - -“My faith! we all cower in bed.” - -“But I am going out.” - -“Be advised!” (He struggled quickly up on his elbow. His face bore a -clammy look in the sunlight.) “Be advised and lie close in your -form--like a hare, Jean-Louis--like a hare that hears the distant -beaters crying on the dogs. Twitch no whisker and prick not an ear. -Take solace of your covert and lie close and scratch yourself, and -thank God you have a nail for every flea-bite.” - -“What ails thee of this day then, morose?” - -“What ails this Paris? Why, the Prussians are in Verdun, and the -aristocrats must be forestalled.” - -“But how, Deputy.” - -“I do not know. I fear, that is all.” - -“Well, there lies your sash--the talisman to such puerile emotions.” - -“Return to bed, Jean-Louis. It is unwise to venture abroad in a -thunderstorm.” - -“It is unwiser to shelter beneath a tree.” - -“But not a roof-tree. Oh, thou fool! didst thou not close thine eyes -last night on a city fermenting like a pan of dough?” - - “‘Et cette alarme universelle - Est l’ouvrage d’un moucheron.’” - -“But go your way!” he cried, and scrambled out of bed. - -He walked to the little washstand with an embarrassed air, and set to -preparing our morning cup of chocolate from the mill that stood -thereon. - -“After all,” he said, when the fragrant froth sputtered about his -nostrils, “the proper period to any exquisite sensation is death. I -dread no termination but that put to an hour of abstinence. To die -with the wine in one’s throat and the dagger in one’s back--what could -kings wish for better?” - -He handed me my cup, and sipped enjoyingly at his own. - -“I am representative of a constituency,” he said, “yet a better judge -of wine than of men. The palate and the heart are associated in a -common bond. That I would decree the basis of the new religion. ‘Tears -of Christ’!--it is a vintage I would make Tallien and Manuel and -Billaud de Varennes drunk on every day.” - -He laughed in an agitated manner, and glanced at me over the rim of -his cup. - -“Go your way, Jean-Louis,” he repeated; “and pardon me if I call it -the right mule one. But you will walk it, for I know you. And eat your -fill of the sweet thistle-flowers before the thorns shall stab your -gullet and take all relish from the feast.” - -“Casimir!” I cried in some black wonder--“this is all the language of -a villain or an hysteric----!” - -I paused, stared at his twitching face, took up my hat quietly, and -left the room. - - * * * * * * * - -A little frost on a foot, or a little blood. What is the significance -of either. Once the _bimbelotiers_ of the Palais Royal used to -manufacture cards of Noël, very pretty and sparkling with rime. That -was before the apotheosis of the “Third [or butterfly] State”; and -many a time, during the winter of ’84, I have seen poor vagrants of -the chosen brood, unwitting yet of the scarlet wings developing -underneath their rugged hides, ponder over the fanciful emblems in the -shop windows, and then look down with wonder at their own cracked and -bleeding toes. To whom, then, could the frost appeal in this dainty -guise? Not surely to those who must walk with bare feet? It is all the -point of view, said the philosophers. But, they added, blood is warm, -and it is well to wear socks of it if you can get no other. Put these -on and look again, and you will see differently. - -Not just yet, perhaps; and in the meantime the king empties his -private purse to buy wood for the freezing people. This will warm them -into loyalty while it lasts; and they crawl out of their icy burrows, -or gather up their broken limbs on the snow beds--whereinto they have -been ground by the sleds and chariots of the wealthy that rush without -warning down the muffled streets--to build monuments of snow to the -glory of their rulers. Then by-and-by these great obelisks melt, and -add their quota to the thaw that is overwhelming what the frost has -spared. - -The red socks! Now, on this wild Sunday of September, when the -monuments that bore the names of the good king and queen are collapsed -and run away some eight years, the tocsin is pealing with a clamour of -triumph from the steeples; for at last the solution of the riddle has -been vouchsafed to the “Third State,” and it knows that to acquire the -right point of view it must wear socks, not of its own blood but of -that of the aristocrats, to whom the emblems of Noël were made to -appeal. - - * * * * * * * - -All day I felt the pulse of the people, quickening, quickening--an -added five beats to every hour--with wonder, rage, and, at last, -terror maniacal. Paris was threatened; hard-wrung freedom was -tottering to its fall. - -This Paris was a vessel of wrath on treacherous waters--manned by -revolted slaves; the crew under hatches; encompassed by enemies on -every side. What remained but to clear the decks for action,--every -hero to his post at the vast bulwarks; every son-of-a-sea-cook to -remain and poniard the prisoners lest they club their manacles and -take their captors in the rear! - -At two o’clock the tocsin pealed--the signal to prepare for the fray. -From its first blaring stroke I ceased, it seemed, to be myself. I -waived my individuality, and became as much a conscript of the rising -tide of passion as a high-perched stone that the wave at last reaches -and drags down with the shingle becomes a condition of the general -uproar. I made, indeed, no subscription to this fanatical heat of -emotion; I was simply involved in it--to go with it, and perish of it, -perhaps, but never to succumb to its disordered sophistries or yield -my free soul to its influence. Possibly I had a wild idea, in the -midst of sinister forebodings, that a few such as I, scattered here -and there, might leaven the ugly mass. But I do not know. Hemmed in by -wrath and terror, thought casts its buoys and sinks into very -fathomless depths. - -From the Place de Grève, along Pelletier Quay; across the Ponts au -Change and St Michel; westwards by the Rue St André des Arcs, where a -little diversion was caused by a street-singer at whom the crowd took -offence, in that he, being an insignificant buffoon, did pelt it with -its classic pretentiousness, wagging his coat-tails in contempt -thereof (“À bas, Pitou!” they shrieked; “we will dock thee of thy -sting and put thee to buzz in a stone bottle!”--and they had him -unfrocked in a twinkling and hoisted for punishment); round, with a -curve to the south, into the Rue de Bussi; thence, again westwards, -along the street of St Marguerite; finally, weathering the sinister -cape of the Abbaye St Germain, northwards into the Rue St Benoit and -up to the yard entrance of the very prison itself,--such was the long -course by which I was borne, in the midst of clamour, hate, and -revilings, some dreadful early scenes in the panorama of the -Revolution unfolded before my eyes--scenes crudely limned by crude -street artists, splashed and boltered with crimson, horrible for the -ghastly applause they evoked. - -I saw and I was helpless--the block about the carriages of the -nonjurants--the desperate stroke at the _sans-culotte_ that cut the -knot of indecision--the crashing panels, the flying and flung priests. -One damnable with a sabre split a bald head, that came wavering in my -direction, like a melon, and the brains flew like its seeds. I shut my -eyes and thought, Mercy is in right ratio with the hardness of the -blow. Strike deep, poor guttersnipes, if you must strike at all! - -Then began the “severe justice of the people.” - - * * * * * * * - -What was I, poor philosophic _misérable_, but a germ of those germs -in that great artery of blood that the revolted system was -endeavouring to expel. I saw numbers of my kind thrown forth and -mangled in the midst of horrors unspeakable; I was borne helpless to -the heart, and was rejected to fly shuddering to remote veins of the -prison’s circulation, only to return by an irresistible attraction to -the central terror. More than once my mad expostulations brought me -into perilous notice. - -“You have hard wrongs to avenge!” I shrieked; “but at least the form -of pleading has been granted you!” - -“And these!” cried the killers. “Blood of God! is not Bastille -Maillard within there checking the tally of the accursed? Aristocrat -art thou!” - -They bounded from me to a fresh victim thrust that moment from the -door. She came dazed into the flare of the torches--a white face with -umber hair tumbled all about it. Two gloating hounds took her under -the arm-pits; a third---- - -_Ciel! pour tant de rigueur, de quoi suis-je coupable?_ - - * * * * * * * - -I do not know whither my wanderings tended, or what space of time was -covered by them. Sooner or later I was always back at the Abbaye, -glutting my soul with assurance of its own wreck, helpless, despite my -loathing of it, to resist the attraction. What horror absorbs the moth -as it circles round the flame, I thought in those recurrent moments I -could understand. - -Once, when I returned, an unwonted silence reigned about the place. A -few vampire figures, restless, phantasmal, flitted hither and thither -in the neighbourhood of the reeking shambles. But the slaughterers and -the red ladies of St Michel were retired, during an interval in the -examination, for refreshment. I heard the shrill buzz of their voices -all down the Rue St Benoit and from the wine and lemonade shops -opposite the very gates by which I stood. - -I looked into the fearful yard. My God! the dead, it seemed, were -phosphorescent with the rottenness of an ancient system! Here, there, -on all sides they broke the darkness with blots of light like hideous -glow-worms--their hundred white faces the reflectors of as many lamps. - -“But it is a brave illumination!” gurgled a voice at my ear. - -I glanced aside in loathing. A little old woman, whose lungs barked at -every breath, stood near me. She laughed as if she would shake herself -into touchwood. - -“A brave illumination!” she wheezed--“the inspiration of the girl La -Lune. She was dedicated to the Holy Mother; and her skirt! Oh, _mon -Dieu_! but it was of the azure of heaven, and now it is purple as a -strangled face; and it slaps on her ankles. But by-and-by she must -seek purification, for she is dedicated to the holy Virgin.” - -“She placed these lamps?” - -“She led her sisters to the committee that sits there.” (She pointed a -gnarled finger. To one side of the dreadful quadrangle a dull glow -came melancholy through some tall windows.) “She complained that -ladies who would fain enjoy the show were prevented by the darkness. -Then to each dead aristocrat they put a lamp. That was a fine -courtesy. It is not often one sees such goods brought to market.” - -A wild cloud of shapes came rushing upon us with brandished weapons -and a demon skirl of voices. I thought at first that I must be the -object of their fury; but they passed us by, cursing and -gesticulating, and drove something amongst them up the yard, and -stopped and made a ring about it on the bloody stones. What was it? I -had a glimpse of two petrified faces as the little mob swept by, and a -queer constriction seized my heart. Then, all in a moment, I was -following, crying in my soul that here was something tangible for my -abased humanity to lay hold of--some excuse to indulge a passion of -self-sacrifice--some claim to a lump of ice at my feet and a lamp at -my head. The dead were so calm, the living so besotted. A miserly -theft, I thought, to take another’s blood when one’s own gluts one’s -arteries to suffocation. - -I looked over the shoulders of the outermost of the group. What -horrible cantrip of Fortune had consigned this old barren weed of a -man, this white exotic of a girl, to a merciless handling by these -demons? The two were in walking dress, and not in the _déshabille_ of -prisoners. There was a lull in the systematic progress of the -butchery. Here, it would seem, was an _entr’acte_ designed only to -relieve the tedium of waiting. - -A half-dozen harpies held the girl. There was a stain of red on her -ripe young lip, for I think one of the beasts had struck her; but her -face was stubborn with pride. In front of all the old wizened man, who -had been released, ran to and fro in an agony of obsequious terror. - -“Yes, yes,” he quavered, “’tis a luminous sight--an admirable show! -They lie like the fallen sticks of rockets, glimmering a dying spark. -Is it not so, Carinne? Little cabbage, is it not so?” - -He implored her with his feverish eyes. - -“They are martyrs!” cried the girl; “and you are a coward!” - -“No, no!” he wailed, and wrung his hands; and “My God! she will murder -me!” he shrieked. - -Suddenly he saw, darted through the ring of ruffians, and caught the -breast of my coat with both his hands. - -“Monsieur! you have nobility in your face! Tell these good souls that -I am a furious patriot and a good citizen. Monsieur, Monsieur! We walk -abroad--we are involved, unwitting, in the _mêlée_. The girl -denounces all for pigs and murderers, and, naturally, those who hear -take umbrage and force us hither.” - -His dry lips vibrated; he danced up and down like a gnat on a -window-pane. All the time the women were volubly chattering and the -men cursing and pulling. They desired, it seemed, a prologue to the -second act of the tragedy; and that was bad art. But then they were as -drunk as one could wish. - -“Thou art nice and dainty, _citoyenne_!” they shrieked. “See -here--thou shalt be _vivandière_ to the brave army of avengers! Tap -her an aristocrat heart and fill her a canteen that all may drink!” - -The beastly proposal was not too gross for the occasion. A man lurched -forward with a jeering oath, and I--I sprang to the front too, and -took the hound by his gulping throat. There came a great noise about -me; I did not relax my hold, and some one rushed into our midst. - -“What do you here!” he cried, harshly (Casimir’s voice). “Death of -God! have you orders to insult and threaten peaceable citizens who -walk abroad to see the illuminations?” - -With a fierce sweep of his arms he cleared all away in front of him. -The act--the gesture, brought him to my side. - -“Go--escape!” he whispered, frantically. “This, here, I will attend -to.” - -“You knew, then?” I gasped out; and he fell back from me. - -But I released my hold and stood panting. I was at the moment no whit -in love with life, but I dreaded by the least stubbornness to -precipitate the catastrophe that threatened that half-fainting girl. -Her Casimir gave his arm to in a peremptory manner. She clung to him, -and he led her stumbling across the yard, the little whimpering -pinch-fist scuttling in their wake. The mob spat curses after them, -but--this _intermezzo_ being no part of its programme--it respected -the Deputy’s insignia of office so far as to allow him his perquisite. - -Then, with a howl of fury, it turned upon me-- - -“Accursed! thou dost well to dispute the people’s will!” - -“See his fine monseigneur hands, washed white in a bath of milk, while -the peasants drank rotten water!” - -“He will think to cow us with a look. He cannot disabuse himself of -the tradition. Down with the dog of an aristocrat!” - -“But if he is Brunswick’s courier--Brunswick that would dine in Paris -on the boiling hearts of patriots!” - -I was backing slowly towards the gate as they followed reviling me. -What would you? I could not help others; I would take my own destinies -in hand. Here, in deadly personal peril, I felt my feet on the good -earth once more, and found restoration of my reason in a violence of -action. There was no assistance possible. Paris this night was a -menagerie, in which all beasts of prey and of burden were released -from restraint to resolve for themselves the question of survival. - -In a moment I turned and fled, and half-a-dozen came screaming after -me. I gained the gate in advance, and sped down the Rue St Benoit. One -man, lurching from a wineshop, cut at me aimlessly with a notched and -bloody sabre; but I evaded him with ease, and he fell into the midst -of the pursuers, retarding them a little. I reached the south-west -angle of the prison, where the _Place_ split up, like the blown corner -of a flag, into many little crooked ribbons of streets, and amongst -these I dived, racing haphazard, while the red-socks thudded in my -wake and my heart in my ribs. Suddenly, turning a corner, I saw the -narrow mouth of an alley gape to my left. Into it I went, like a -touched worm into its hole, and, swallowed by the blackness, stood -still. The feet pounded by; but, sooner or later, I knew the dogs must -nose back to pick up the lost scent. Then they would have me nicely in -a little _cul de sac_, like a badger in a tub. - -I leaned my shoulder--to the wall, as I thought; but the wall gave to -my pressure, and I stumbled and went through it with a sliding run, -while something flapped to, grievously scoring my shins in its -passing. I was on my feet in an instant, however, and then I saw that -I had broken, by way of a swing-door, into a little dusty lobby, to -one side of which was a wicket and pay-place, and thence a flight of -wooden stairs ran aloft to some chamber from which flowed down a -feeble radiance of light. - -I pushed through the wicket (not a soul was in the place, it seemed) -and went softly and rapidly up the stairs. At the top I came upon a -sight that at first astounded, then inspired me. - -I was in one of those _salles de spectacle_ that were at that time as -numerous in Paris as were political clubs--a wide, low room, with an -open platform at its further end for musicians, and, round three of -its walls, a roped-in enclosure for figures in waxwork. It was these -bowelless dolls that caused me my start, and in which I immediately -saw my one little chance of salvation. - -I went down the row gingerly, on tiptoe. A horn lantern, slung over -the stair-head, was the only light vouchsafed this thronged assembly -of dummies. Its rays danced weakly in corners, and lent some of the -waxen faces a spurious life. A ticket was before each -effigy--generally, as I hurriedly gathered, a quite indispensable -adjunct. I had my desperate plan; but perhaps I was too particular to -select my complete double. Here, a button or the cut of a collar were -the pregnant conditions of history. The clothes made the man, and -Mirabeau had written ‘Le Tartufe’ on the strength of a flowing wig. I -saw Necker personating our unhappy monarch in that fatal Phrygian cap -that was like the glowing peak of a volcano; stuttering Desmoulins -waving a painted twig, his lips inappropriately inseparable; the -English Pitt, with a nose blown to a point; Voltaire; Rousseau; -Beaumarchais--many of the notabilities and notorieties of our own -times--and before the last I stopped suddenly. - -I would not for the world insult the author of ‘Figaro’; but it was my -distinction to be without any; and in a waxwork the ticket makes the -man. - -Pierre Augustin was represented pointing a Republican moral--in dress -a _pseudo petit-maître_--at his feet a broken watch. One recalls the -incident--at Versailles--when a grand seigneur requests the -ex-horologist to correct his timepiece for him. “Monsieur, my hand -shakes.” “_Laissez donc, monsieur!_ you belittle your professional -skill.” Beaumarchais flings the watch on the floor. “_Voilà, -monsieur!_ it is as I said!” - -Now I saw my hope in this figure and (it was all a matter of moments -with me) whipped it up in my arms and ran with it to the end of the -platform. A flounce of baize hung therefrom to the floor, and into the -hollow revealed by the lifting of this I shot the invertebrate dummy, -and then scuttled back to the ropes to take its place. - -There were sounds as I did so--a noise below that petrified me in the -position I assumed. My heart seemed to burr like the winding-wheel of -a mechanical doll. I pray M. Beaumarchais to forgive me that travesty -of a dignified reproof. - -A step--that of a single individual--came bounding up the stair. My -face was turned in its direction. I tried to look and yet keep my eyes -fixed. The dull flapping light seconded my dissemblance; but the -occasion braced me like a tonic, and I was determined to strike, if -need were, with all the force of the pugnacious wit I represented. - -Suddenly I saw a white, fearful countenance come over the -stair-head--shoulders, legs, a complete form. It was that of an ugly -stunted man of fifty, whose knees shook, whose cheeks quivered like a -blanc-mange. He ran hither and thither, sobbing and muttering to -himself. - -“Quick, quick! who?--Mirabeau? A brave thought, a magnificent thought! -My God!--will they fathom it? I have his brow--his scornful air of -insistence. My God, my God!--that I should sink to be one of my own -puppets!” - -Astounded, I realised the truth. This poltroon--the very proprietor of -the show--was in my own actual case, and had hit upon a like way out -of his predicament. I saw him seize and trundle the ridiculous -presentment of M. Mirabeau to the room end, and then fling it -hurriedly down and kick it--the insolent jackass!--under the curtain. -I saw him run back and pose himself--with a fatuous vanity even in his -terror--as that massive autocrat of the Assembly; and then, with a -clap and a roar, I heard at last the hounds of pursuit break covert -below and come yelling up the stairs. - -I do not think I shook; yet it seemed impossible that they could pass -me by. There were one or two amongst them I thought I recognised as -Carinne’s captors; but they were all hideous, frantic shapes, -elf-locked, malodorous, bestial and drunk with blood. They uttered -discordant cries as they came scrambling into the room; and by a -flickering at the nape of his neck I could see that my fellow-sufferer -was unable to control the throaty rising of his agitation. Suddenly a -horrible silence befell. One of the intruders, a powerful young -ruffian of a malignant jesting humour, put his comrades back and -silenced them with an arm. His bloodshot eyes were fascinating poor -Mirabeau; slowly he raised a finger and pointed it at the creature. -The bubbles seemed to fly up the latter’s neck as if his heart were -turned into water. It was a terrible moment--then, all at once, the -whole room echoed with demon laughter. - -“Mother of Christ! what cunning!” - -“But, my God! he is a fine libel on the king of patriots!” - -“See! the works have not run down. He twitches yet from his last -performance!” - -“He makes himself a show to the people. He shall be given a lamp in -the yard of the Abbaye.” - -The figure fell upon its knees with a choking shriek. - -“Messieurs! I acted upon my first instinct of preservation! I had no -thought, I swear it, to insult the great or to question the majesty of -the people. Messieurs, I detest aristocrats and applaud your method of -dealing with them. _Merci! merci!_ I am a poor exhibitor of waxworks; -an excellent patriot and a servant of the public.” - -“But that is true!” cried a voice from the stairs. “This is little -Tic-tac, that helped to decorate the Capet’s chariot on the day of the -Hôtel de Ville.” - -The mob grunted over this advocate. - -“But he helped a prisoner to escape.” - -(Was there another, then, in the same plight as myself?) - -“Messieurs! he asked the way of me, as any stranger might!” - -“_Malepeste!_ if thou tell’st us so! But thou hast dared to personate -a God!” - -“Messieurs, he lent his countenance to me, as ever to the -unfortunate.” - -The answer raised a roar of approbation. - -“_Comme il est fin!_ take thy goose-skin! and yet we must tax thee -somehow.” - -“Let us destroy this show that he has profaned!” - -My heart seemed to shrink into itself. I suffered--I suffered; but -fortunately for a few moments only. - -With the words on his lips, the fellow that had spoken slashed with -his sabre, over the kneeling showman’s head, amongst the staring -effigies. The whistle of his weapon made me blink. What did it -matter?--the end must come now. - -It was not as I foresaw. The waxen head spun into the air--the figure -toppled against that standing next to it--that against its -neighbour--its neighbour against me. I saw what was my cue, and went -down in my turn, stiffly, with a dusty flop, twisting to my side as I -fell, and hoping that he whom I was bowling over in due order was rich -in padding. Nevertheless I was horribly bruised. - -There was a howl of laughter. - -“_Mor’ Dieu!_ but five at a blow!” cried the executioner. “This is -better than the one to fifty yonder!” and he came running to read the -names of those he had overturned. - -“Necker! it is right that he should be pictured fallen. -Pitt--Beaumarchais! ha, ha, little toad! where are those patriot -muskets? in your breeches-pocket? but I will cut them out!” - -Now I gave up all for lost. He stepped back to get his distance--there -came a crash by the stairway, and the room was plunged in darkness. -One of the mob had swung up his weapon over a figure, and had knocked -out the lantern with a back-handed blow. - -It is the little incidents of life that are prolific as insects. The -situation resolved itself into clamour and laughter and a boisterous -groping of the company down the black stairway. In a minute the place -was silent and deserted. - -I lay still, as yet awaiting developments. I could not forget that M. -Tic-tac, as a pronounced patriot, might not honour my confidence. For -my escape, it must have been as I supposed. Another victim, eluding -the murderers, had drawn them off my scent, and the showman had -effected yet a second cross-current. He was indeed fortunate to have -kept a whole skin. - -Presently I heard him softly stirring and moaning to himself. - -“_Misérable!_ to have dishonoured my _rôle_! Would _he_ have -succumbed thus to an accident? But I am like him--yes, I am like him, -for all they may say.” - -Their mockery was the wormwood in his cup. He dragged himself to his -feet by-and-by, and felt his way across the room to recover his abused -idol. Then I would delay no longer. I rose, stepped rapidly to the -stair-head, and descended to the street. He heard me--as I knew by the -terrified cessation of his breathing,--and thought me, perhaps, a -laggard member of his late company. Anyhow he neither moved nor spoke. - -The killers were at their work again. The agonised yells of the -victims followed and maddened me. But I was secure from further -pursuit, save by the dogs of conscious helplessness. - -And one of these kept barking at my heel: “Carinne, that you were -impotent to defend! What has become of the child?” - - - - - CHAPTER II. - CITOYENNE CARINNE. - -It was my unhappiness in the black spring-time of the “Terror” to -see my old light acquaintance, the Abbé Michau, jogging on his way to -the Place de la Bastille. I pitied him greatly. He had pursued -Pleasure so fruitlessly all his days; and into this fatal quagmire had -the elusive flame at length conducted him. He sat on the rail of the -tumbril--a depressed, puzzled look on his face--between innocence and -depravity. Both were going the same road as himself--the harmless -white girl and the besotted priest, who shrunk in terror from giving -her the absolution she asked;--and poor Charles divided them. - -He was not ever of Fortune’s favourites. He would make too fine an art -of Epicurism, and he sinned so by rule as to be almost virtuous. I -remember him with a half-dozen little axioms of his own concocting, -that were after all only morality misapplied: “To know how to forget -oneself is to be graduate in the school of pleasure.” -“Self-consciousness is always a wasp in the peach.” “The art of -enjoyment is the art of selection.” On such as these he founded his -creed of conduct; and that procured him nothing but a barren series of -disappointments. He was never successful but in extricating himself -from mishaps. The _ravissantes_ he sighed after played with and -insulted him--though they could never debase his spirit. The dishes he -designed lacked the last little secret of perfection. He abhorred -untidiness, yet it was a condition of his existence; and he could not -carry off any situation without looking like a thief. One further turn -of the wheel, and he would have been a saint in a monastery. - -I can recall him with some tenderness, and his confident maxims with -amusement. That “art of selection” of his I found never so applicable -as to the choice of one’s Revolutionary landlord. It was Michau’s -_logeur_, I understand, who caused the poor Abbé to be arrested and -brought before the tribunal miscalled of Liberty, where the advocacy -of the chivalrous Chauveau de la Garde was sufficient only to procure -him the last grace of an unproductive appeal. It was the atrocity with -whom latterly I lodged who brought me to _my_ final pass. - -In truth, as the letters of apartments were largely recruited from the -_valetaille_ of _émigrés_, the need of caution in choosing amongst -them was very real. M. le Marquis could not take flight in a panic -without scattering some of his fine feathers--fortunately, indeed, for -him sometimes, for they were as sops thrown to the pursuing wolves -while he sped on. Then, down would grovel public accusers, police, and -committee-men to snap at the fragments; and amongst them Bon-Jean, -Monsieur’s _valet de pied_, would secure his share, perhaps, and set -up house with it in one of the meaner faubourgs, and trade profitably -therein upon the fears of his lodgers. - -Simon Mignard was the last who had the honour to entertain me; and to -that horrible little grotesque did I owe my subsequent lodgment in La -Petite Force. It was a bad choice, and, with my experience, an -unpardonable; but I was taken with a certain humour in the creature -that put me off my judgment. - -For generally, indeed, this faculty of humour I found to be -antipathetic to revolution. It was to be looked upon as a mark of -social degeneration. The brute “thrown back” to his primordial state -is an animal that takes himself with the most laughterless gravity. He -resumes himself corrupt, so to speak, as one resumes the endurance of -office full of the rebellious grievance of a holiday. He returns to -the primary indulgence of instinct with a debased appetite, and that -sense of humour does not accompany him. This is why his prejudices -have the force of convictions. - -“Citizen Simon,” I said one day, “I would put it to you--if -revolutionists would reconstitute society by purging the world of the -abnormal, should they not offer themselves the first holocausts to -their theories?” - -“Hey?” he cried, peering over his glasses. His eye-slits were like -half-healed wounds; his face was all covered with a grey down, as if -he were some old vessel of wrath the Revolution had produced from its -mustiest blood-bin in the cellars where its passions were formerly -wont to ferment. - -“Hey?” he cried. “But explain, Citizen Thibaut.” - -“Why, obviously a primal simplicity cannot be taught by those who, by -their own showing, are an essential condition of degeneration.” - -“You think so, my friend? But is it not he who has hunted with the -wolves can best advise the lamb whither not to stray? Set a thief to -catch a thief, but not innocence to lead innocence.” - -“We are all so disinterested, eh? We must kill to purify--so long as -_we_ remain the executioners.” - -“The physicians! the physicians! Some day we shall provide the tonic.” - -“At this rate the physicians will have to drink it themselves.” - -“Meaning the patients will fail us? Rest content. They will last our -time. The ills in the constitution of France are many. For the -resurrection--_sang Dieu_!” he cried, with a wry face, “but that is no -part of _our_ programme!” - -Indeed, it was not of his. He was actuated by no passion but the -blood-sucker’s. One day he showed me a clumsy model guillotine, a foot -high, of his own contriving. The axe was a fragment of table-knife -sunk in a finger of lead, and with it he would operate upon a gruesome -little doll he had with an adjustable neck. Snip! the blade fell and -the head, and a spout of crimson gushed forth and stained the floor. - -“That is a waste of good wine,” said I. - -His face puckered like a toad’s eyelids. - -“Is it not?” he chuckled, “of the brand drunk by the patriot Citoyenne -Sombreuil.” - -“Blood!” - -“_Voyez!_” he cried, with a little shriek of laughter. “It is hollow. -Often I fill it from the tap in the Place de la Bastille. My faith, -what a fountain! I love it like Dantzic brandy.” - -Then it was I found his humour a little excessive to my taste; and I -severed my connection with him. He might lie; obviously he did, in -fact, about the blood; but one’s sympathies could not embrace so -stupid a falsehood. Promptly he denounced me to his section. I had -given him the courteous “you,” said he, and amongst my effects was a -box of the interdicted hair-powder. - -But it is of my earlier landlord, Jacques Crépin, who for a time -influenced my fortunes quite admirably, that I desire here to speak. - -Upon this rascal I happened on the evening of Lepelletier St Fargeau’s -murder in Février’s Coffee-house. It was the interminable week of the -votings on the king’s sentence. During the course of it I had many -times visited the Hall of Convention, had stayed a while to watch the -slow chain of Deputies hitching over the Tribune, with their dreary -chant, “La Mort,” that was like the response to an endless litany of -fatality intoned by the ushers; had heard the future Dictator, -spectacled, marmoset-faced, irrepressible in oratory, drone his sour -dithyrambics where a word would have sufficed; had fallen half asleep -over the phantom scene, and had imagined myself at the Comédie -Française during a performance of “Les Victimes Cloîtrées”--a -dreamy fancy to which the incessant sound of feet on boards, high up -in the “Mountain” quarter, the reverberating clap of doors, the wide -patter of voices and tinkle of laughter from bedizened _chères -amies_, pricking down the _ayes_ and _noes_ upon scented cards, the -shriller brabble of Mère Duchesse aloft with her priestesses of the -Salpêtrière, and the intermittent melodramatic drawl of the actors -moving across the stage, gave colour and coherence. - -By then, I think, I was come to be graduate in Michau’s school of -Pleasure. It was impressed upon me that to think of myself was a -little to foretaste my probable martyrdom. It was philosophy more -congenial to read in the serene patriot Thibaut a disinterested sheep -fattening on the grass about the _abattoir_. My title was a -plague-spot to cover; little but the dust of my patrimony remained; I -had long disabused my mind of the dogma that manliness is necessarily -a triumphant force in the world. - -Yet, a month before, I had been conscious of a little run of pity, -that was like a sloughing of the old wound of nobility. It was to see -the figure of him I had called Sire heavily seated in that same _Salle -de Manège_, his attire, appropriately, a drab surtout--the colour of -new-turned mould--his powdered hair blotted with a tonsure where he -had leaned his weary head back for rest, that lost look on his -ineffectual face--“Messieurs! this strange indignity! But doubtless -the saints will explain to me of what I am accused.” - -Bah! have I not learned the “Rights of Man,” and seen them -illustrated, too, on those days of the “severe justice of the people.” -The worse the decomposition below, the thicker will be the scum that -rises to the top. But there the wholesome air shall deodorise it -by-and-by, and the waters of life be sweet to the taste again--for a -time. And in the meanwhile I browse by the _abattoir_. - - - -On that Saturday evening, the last of the voting, I dined with -distinction at Février’s in the Palais Royal. I could still afford, -morally and materially, this little practice of self-indulgence; for -they had not yet begun to make bread of dried pease, and many of the -ardent Deputies themselves were admirable connoisseurs in meat and -wine. - -While I was sitting--the whole place being in a ferment of scurry and -babble--a couple, who awakened my curious interest, entered and took a -vacant table next to mine. A withered old man it was and a young girl, -who sauntered with ample grace in his wake. - -The first came down the room, prying hither and thither, bowelless and -bent like a note of interrogation. He was buttoned up to the throat in -a lank dark-green surtout, and his plain hat was tilted back from his -forehead, so as to show his eyebrows, each lifted and lost in the -creases of a dozen arched wrinkles, and the papery lids beneath them -bulging and half closed. His face was all run into grey sharpness, but -a conciliatory smile was a habit of his lips. He carried his hands -behind his back as if they were manacled there. - -The girl who followed was in features and complexion cold and -beautiful. Her eyes were stone-grey under well-marked brows; her -forehead rounded from her nose like a kitten’s; the curls that escaped -from beneath her furred hood were of a rich walnut brown. She had that -colourless serenity in her face that is like snow over perfumed -flowers. Gazing on such, one longs to set one’s heart to the chill and -melt it and see the blossoms break. - -Now I had at once recognised in this couple the sustainers of the -principal _rôles_ in a certain September tragedy _entr’acte_. In -these times of feverish movement the manner in which Casimir had -secured their escape was indeed an old story with me; yet, seeing them -again under these vastly improved circumstances, and remembering in -what way I had sought to assist them, my heart was moved beyond its -present custom to a feeling of sympathetic comradeship with one, at -least, of the two. - -The old man chose his table. - -“Sit down, wench,” said he. “My faith! we must dine, though crowns -fall.” - -She took her seat with a little peevish sigh. - -“Though the stars fell in the street like hail, you would dine,” she -said. - -He cocked his head sideways. - -“They have fallen, my Carinne. The ruin of them litters the Temple.” - -She said doggedly, “_Vive le roi!_” under her breath. - -“My God!” he whispered, and called the waiter. - -He eyed her askance and nervously as the man came. Some distraught -admiration seemed to mingle with his apprehension of her. She sat -languid and indifferent, and even closed her eyes, with a little -disdainful smile, as he leaned down to her and ran his finger eagerly -over the various items of the bill of fare. - -“Ostend oysters, carp fried in milk, sweetbread patty--that is good. -Ragout of the kidneys and combs of cocks--that is very good--Carinne, -see! the ragout! Holy saints, but my pocket! Slice of calf’s head, -turtle fashion--girl, are you listening? Be reckless. Take of all if -you will. I bid thee--thy little uncle, _ma mie_. Slice of--Carinne, -this is better than the cabbages and fried eggs of _Pierrettes_. I -will not care--I will not. Though I have to cut down trees to meet it, -the palate shall have its holiday. Slice of--_mon Dieu_, Carinne! I -ate of it once before in this very house. It melts like the manna of -the Israelites. It does not surfeit, but it forms an easy bed for the -repose of ecstasies more acute.” - -The girl broke in with a little high-flung laugh. - -“Not trees, but a forest,” she said. “There--choose for me. I am -indifferent.” - -“Indifferent! indifferent?--Oh, undeserving of the fine gifts of the -gods!” - -He turned to the waiter, his eyes still devouring the _carte_, his -lips silently busy with its contents. Presently he gave his order, sat -down, and remained fixedly gnawing a finger, his face set half in -enjoying contemplation, half in a baffled aggravation of selection. - -In only one other direction did the couple appear to arouse curiosity. -The great nerve of the town was all charged with a leaping -electricity, and citizens, staid enough ordinarily, ate now and drank -under an excitement they could barely control. - -But, over against me, at a little distance, were two men seated at a -table; and of these one seemed to take a like interest with mine in my -neighbours. - -This individual, unmoved, apparently, by the general ferment, had -finished his dinner and sat sipping his Médoc luxuriously. He was a -pimple-faced man, well-nourished and sensual-looking, but with an air -of tolerant geniality about him. Ugly as Danton, he had yet a single -redeeming ornament in the shape of a quantity of rich auburn hair that -fell from his head in natural curls. Though his condition was plain to -me, and I saw that the restaurateur treated him with obsequious -deference, he appeared more self-complacent than self-sufficient, and -as if he were rather accustomed to indulge than abuse his position. -For I recognised in him the president of some sectional committee, and -that by the little plaque, printed small with the Rights of Man, that -hung as a pendant from his tricolour neck-ribbon. - -Of the other at the table I took but little notice, save to remark -that he devoured his meal with the air of a man to whom good digestion -is no essential condition of politics. - -Now, of a sudden, Jacques Crépin of the pendant lowered his legs, -took up his bottle and glass, and, to my extreme surprise, crossed the -room to my table and sat down by me. - -He did not speak at first, being engaged in watching our neighbours, -before whom were placed at the moment the dishes of the uncle’s -selection. - -Mademoiselle Carinne gave a little _Ouf!_ over hers. - -“But what is this?” she said. - -“It is a pig’s foot _à la_ St Menehould. Such a dish, _babouine_!” - -The old rascal had taken advantage of her insensibility to procure her -one of the cheapest entries on the list. - -She pushed it from her with an exclamation of disgust. - -“Fie, then!” she cried. “The very hoof of a filthy swine! Wouldst thou -have me make my hunger a footstool to a pig? Take it away. I will not -touch it!” - -He protested, voluble and shamefaced. She would not listen. Out of -mere wilfulness she now selected the most expensive item of the -_menu_--a partridge stewed in wine. He seemed like to cry; but she -persisted and gained her point. - -“We shall be ruined!” he cried, inconsistently enough. “For a month -after our return we shall have to live on bread and boiled nettles.” - -“In December, _mon oncle_? Then I am imperious for white wine of Mont -Raché.” - -The old fellow almost shrieked. - -“Carinne! Eight francs the bottle! Consider, my niece. I shall die in -Sainte Pélagie!” - -The new-comer turned to me with a grin. - -“Didst ever hear the like?” said he. - -I nodded gravely. I was not then all inured to impertinence. - -“He lacks the art of selection,” I said coldly, thinking of Michau. - -He showed himself good-humouredly conscious of my manner. He leaned -towards me and murmured carelessly-- - -“There, of a truth, speaks Monseigneur le Comte de la Muette.” - -I reached for my glass and sipped from it; but I have no doubt my hand -shook. - -“The citizen does not recognise me?” - -“No, by my faith.” - -“I am Jacques Crépin; and formerly I served where I now dine.” - -I glanced at him. Some faint remembrance of the fellow woke in me. - -“M. le Comte,” he went on, in the same low voice, “once rewarded me -with a handsome vail for some trifling service. It was the lucky -louis-d’or of my fortunes. Here was a little of the means; the -Revolution was my opportunity. Now the masters serve the waiters. I -devour with my teeth what I once devoured with my eyes. You see me -president of a section; but, _pardieu_! I have no quarrel with -aristocrats of a fastidious palate. It was the contemplation of such -educated me to a right humour in gastronomy. I am indebted to monsieur -for many a delicate hint in selection.” - -Again I thought of the poor Michau. - -“I am honoured,” I said. “And so, M. Crépin, this is the goal of your -high republicanism?” - -“My faith!” he said, with a generous chuckle, “I acknowledge it. I -have existed forty years that I may live one--perhaps no more. To -drink and to eat and to love _en prince_--I have the capacity for it -and the will. I have nursed my constitution on broken scraps. This -_fesse-Mathieu_ here offends me. Had I a fortune, I would fling it -away on a single desired dish if necessary. We have waived the right -to think of the morrow. But, how is monsieur known?” - -“They call me Citizen Thibaut.” - -“Citizen Thibaut, I drink to our better acquaintance. This Médoc--I -have not grudged it you in former years. Your refined appreciation of -it has many a time glorified to me my supper of stale fragments. But -for you, maybe, I had not learned the secret of its fragrance. To my -past master in epicurism I gulp a grateful toast.” - -He was as good as his word. - -“Citizen Crépin,” I said, “where do you live?” - -“Rue de Jouy, St Antoine,” he answered. - -“I seek a convenient landlord. Will you accommodate me?” - -“With all my heart.” - -I heard the _vieillard_ at the next table gobble and choke. I turned -my head to look, sprang to my feet, and my glass crashed on the -boards. - -In that instant the room had leaped into uproar--for something -immediate, swift, and terrible had happened. It was this: - -The fast-eating man at the table opposite, having finished his dinner, -was risen to pay his bill. He stood with impatient hand outstretched -as Février fumbled in his pocket for the change; and at the moment a -fellow, thick-set, stubble-bearded, dressed in a blouse and faded -cloak, strode up the room and paused by him. - -“Are you Deputy Lepelletier?” said he. - -The diner turned and nodded. - -“You have voted in this affair of the king?” - -“_Mais oui_,” said the other--“for death.” - -“_Scélérat--prends ca!_” and with the word he whipped a long blade -from under his cloak and passed it into the body of the deputy. I saw -the flash and heard the piteous bleat, as also, I swear, the sound of -the flesh sucking to the steel. - -Février snatched at the murderer, and was spun to the floor like a -skittle. I saw startled figures rise, chairs and tables totter, and -the one bounding amongst them. He got clear away. - -Then, as the mob closed about the fallen, moaning shape, I turned with -an instinct of horror to view of my neighbours. - -The old gourmet had flung himself back in his chair, his face twisted -from the sight; but mademoiselle still picked daintily at her -partridge. - - - - - CHAPTER III. - THE FOOTPAD. - -Early in June of the year ’93 I left Paris in company with M. -Crépin. At that time in the flower of his, somewhat mediocre, -fortunes, he had been intrusted with a mission which was entirely -after his own heart. He was to represent the Executive, in fact, in a -“sequestrating” tour through Limosin and Guienne,--or rather through -the new-found departments that had deposed those ancient -territories,--and his interest had procured me a post as his clerk or -assistant. What duties this embraced perhaps the Government would have -found it as difficult to specify as their sub-agent; but, after all, -Jacques Bonhomme emancipated was excessively conservative in the -matter of his retention of the system of complimentary sinecures. For -myself, I looked upon my appointment as the simple means to postpone -an inevitable denunciation. - -Crépin and I had by then ceased to fraternise. I could never quite -learn to adapt my sympathies to a certain _mauvais ton_ that underlay -in him all the sensitiveness of the voluptuary. Also, perhaps, I was -beginning a little to resent the humourless methods of a destiny that -had not the wit, it seemed, to rebuke my innate luxuriousness but by -affecting a concern to accommodate me with house-fellows of my own -kidney. We parted on the best of terms; and he none the less attended -to my interests and, as far as possible, to my safety. To the end, I -think, he retained an admiration for the superior quality of my -epigastrium; and when his opportunity came to do me a service, he -never failed to remind me of his indebtedness to my fastidious -_gourmandise_. - -We left the city, travelling _en roi_, on a fine blowing afternoon. We -had our roomy carriage, with four well-blooded horses, and a postilion -to each pair. An escort of four patriots, moreover, mounted, armed, -and generally drunk, accompanied us to enforce the letter of the law. -We went out by the suburb of Passy, starting from the -Pavillon-Liberté, close by the Thuilleries,--where Crépin received -his papers of administration--and whipping along the river-bank by way -of the Port aux Pierres. Close by the gates the carriage gave a -thudding jolt, and drew up suddenly to an accompaniment of noise like -the screaming of a swollen axle. - -I started up in my corner. - -“What is it?” I exclaimed; but three men, risen at that moment from a -bench under some chestnut-trees, engaged my surprised attention. They -made at the postilions, it seemed, and the face of him that was -foremost twitched with a rage of nervous resentment. Their hats had -been laid beside them in the shade, and I noticed that as this -individual sprang to his feet, the powder leapt from his head as if a -musket-ball had struck it. For he was very sprucely groomed, every -hair currycombed to run parallel with its fellows; and there was a -fastidious neatness about his appearance that was like the peevish -delicacy of an invalid. - -Such, indeed, he was, from more than one point of view; for he was no -other than M. Robespierre himself, dressed in the fine blue coat he -was studying to make historical, and exhibiting the weak extremes of -his nature in presence of a run-over dog. - -“But this is infamous!” I heard him shrill, in a strained wavering -voice. “Thus to shock our humanity and our nerves!” - -He ran to the carriage window in uncontrollable excitement. He bustled -with his shaking speech so that it was hardly audible. - -“What mischief produces itself that you tear through the streets like -brigands? Messieurs--messieurs! but I say you have no right--citizens, -do you hear?” - -Crépin, dismayed, muttered something about authority. The other -snapped at the word and worried it. - -“Authority! there is none in this city to be careless of innocent -lives. Authority! who excuses himself to me--to the Republic--by -assuming a licence to murder under its ægis,--yes, murder, I say? You -would adopt the prerogatives of aristocrats--you are an -aristocrat--Tachereau! St Just!” - -He was beside himself. His lean hands picked at the window-frame. All -the time the poor cur in the road was screeching, and the sound seemed -to jar him out of his self-control. One of his companions stepped up -to him, put a hand upon his arm, and drew him away. Quite a little mob -had gathered about us. - -“_Reculez les chevaux!_” said this person to the postilions. “Complete -what you have begun.” - -The horses backed the carriage once, and drew forward again, stilling -the cries. Personally I should have preferred alighting during the -operation. Robespierre ran to the trees and put his palms to his ears, -doubling himself up as if he had the toothache. The other came to the -window once more. - -This was the “Apocalyptic!” of the Assembly, its most admirable type -of fanaticism. Dark and immovable as a Nubian archer in a wall -painting, he might have been represented for ever holding the taut -string and the arrow that should whistle to its mark. He was young, a -mere boy--melancholy, olive-skinned, beautiful in his way. Cold, -incorruptible, merciless, nevertheless, he--this St Just--was yet that -one of the ultra-revolutionists I could find it in me to regard -admiringly. Of all, he alone acted up to the last letter of his creed -of purification. Of all, he alone was willing to do a long life’s -reaping without wage, without even that posthumous consideration of a -niche in the “Pantheon of history.” Like the figure of Time on a -clock, he was part and parcel of the scythe with which he wrought. He -must move when the hour came--cutting right and left--and with the -last stroke of inspiration he must stop until the wheels of being -should bring him to the front once more. Truly, he was not great, but, -quite possibly, necessary; and as such, one could not but exclaim over -his faultless mechanism. He sacrificed his life to his cause, long -before it was demanded of him, and in the end flung himself to the axe -as to a kindred spirit with which his structural and destructive -genius was quite in sympathy. One must acknowledge that he made a -consistent practice of that which is the true art of reform--to know -whom to exclude from one’s system. Only, he was a little too drastic -in his exclusion; and that came from a lack of _ton_. For your fanatic -sees a reactionary in every one whose mouth opens for what reason -soever but to applaud his methods; and the sneers which his -sensitiveness regards as levelled at himself, he puts to the account -of treason against his policy. - -“Citizen Crépin,” he said (for he had already identified my -companion), “for the future, if you must ride rough-shod, I would -recommend you to make the meanest your first consideration.” - -“But, citizen, it was no fault of mine.” - -“You have a voice to control, I presume?”--he stepped back and waved -his hand. “_Allez vous promener!_”--and the carriage jerked forward. - -I shot a glance at the other as we passed. He was retired from the -scene, and he seemed endeavouring to control the agitation into which -he had been betrayed; but he looked evilly from under his jumping -eyelids at us as we went by. - -We travelled cautiously until we were gone a long gunshot from the -city walls, and then Crépin put his head out of the window and cursed -on the postilions furiously. - -“_Savant sacré!_” he cried, sinking back on the seat; “we are whipt -and rebuked like schoolboys. Is a Republic a seminary for street curs? -They should hoist Reason in a balloon if she is to travel. That St -Just--he will make it indictable to crack a flea on one’s thumb-nail.” - -“What were they doing in that quarter of the town?” - -“How should I know, Citizen Thibaut? Spinning webs under the trees, -maybe, to catch unwary flies. They and others spend much of each day -in the suburbs. It is the custom of attorneys, as it is of -story-writers, to hatch their plots in green nooks. They brood for a -week that they may speak for an hour. Robespierre comes to Passy and -Auteuil for inspiration. Couthon goes every day to Neuilly for -bagatelle. My faith, but how these advocates make morality -unattractive! A dozen lawyers amongst the elect would produce a second -revolt of the angels. That is why the devil is loath to recall them.” - -“To recall them?” - -“They are his ambassadors, monsieur, and it is his trouble that they -are for ever being handed their passports to quit such soil as he -would be represented on. Then they return to him for fresh -instructions; but they will not understand that human passions are not -to be controlled by rule of thumb.” - -“Or sounded by depth of plumb, Crépin; and, upon my word, you are a -fine bailiff to your masters.” - - - -Now, I have no wish to detail the processes of our monotonous journey -into the south-westerly departments, whereto--that is to say, to the -borders of Dordogne--it took us eight days to travel. We had our -excitements, our vexations, our adventures even; but these were by the -way, and without bearing on what I have set myself to relate. - -One evening as we were lazily rolling along an empty country road, -making for the little walled town of Coutras, where the fourth Henry -was known to his credit once upon a time, a trace snapped, leading to -more damage and a little confusion amongst the horses. I alighted in a -hurry--Crépin, whose veins were congested with Bordeaux, slumbering -profoundly on in his corner--and finding that the accident must cause -us some small delay, strolled back along the road we had come by, for -it looked beautiful in perspective. Our escort, I may say, affecting -ignorance of our mishap, had rattled on into the dusk. - -It was a night for love, or fairies, or any of those little gracious -interchanges of soul that France had nothing the art to conceive in -those years. The wind, that had toyed all day with flowers, was sweet -with a languorous and desirable playfulness; a ripening girl moon sat -low on a causeway of mist, embroidering a banner of cloud that blew -from her hands; the floating hills were hung with blots of woodland, -and to peer into the trance of sky was to catch a star here and there -like a note of music. - -I turned an elbow of the road and strolled to a little bridge spanning -a brook that I had noticed some minutes earlier in passing. Leaning -over the parapet, I saw the water swell to a miniature pond as it -approached the arch--a shallow ferry designed to cool the fetlocks of -weary horses. The whole was a mirror of placidity. It flowed like a -white oil, reflecting in intenser accent the fading vault above, so -that one seemed to be looking down upon a subterranean dawn--and, “It -is there and thus,” I murmured, “the little people begin their day.” - -There were rushes fringing the brook-edge, as I knew only by their -sharp reversed pictures in the blanched water-glass, and a leaning -stake in mid-stream repeated itself blackly that the hairy goblins -below might have something to scratch themselves on; and then this -fancy did so possess me that, when a bat dipt to the surface and rose -again, its reality and not its shadow seemed to flee into the depths. -At last a nightingale sang from a little copse hard by, completing my -bewitchment--and so my thraldom to dreams was nearly made everlasting. -For, it appeared, a man had come softly out of the woods behind me, -while I hung over the parapet, and was stealing towards me on tiptoe -with clubbed bludgeon. - -It was a stag-beetle that saved my life--whereout of might be snatched -many little rags of reflections; for it shot whizzing and booming past -my ear and startled me to a sudden sideway jump. The fellow was almost -on my back at the moment, and could not check his impetus. He came -crack against the low wall, his club span out of his fist, and he -himself clutched, failed, and went over with a mighty splash into the -water underneath. - -The ludicrous _dénoûment_ gave me time to collect my faculties. I -was at no loss for an immediate solution of the incident. The -highways, in these glorious days of fraternity, were infested with -footpads, and no farther than five miles out of Paris we had had -trouble with them. Doubtless this rascal, the carriage being out of -sight, had taken me for a solitary pedestrian. - -I looked over the parapet, feeling myself master of the situation, -though I had no weapon upon me. My assailant was gathering his long -limbs together in the shallow pool. The water dragged the hair over -his eyes and ran in a stream from his bristling chin. Suddenly he saw, -drew a pistol, and clicked it at me. It was a futile and desperate -action, and calculated only to confirm my estimate of his character. - -“_Ventrebleu_ and the devil!” he shouted. “Make way for me, sir.” - -I waved my hand, right and left of the ferry. Should he emerge either -way, I could easily forestall him. - -“You have your choice of roads,” I said, politely. - -He recognised his difficulty, and turned as if to wade up stream and -escape by the fields. His fourth step brought him into deep water, out -of which he floundered snorting. - -“Try under the bridge,” I said. “It is the right passage for rats.” - -He cursed me volubly. - -“Well, we are one to one,” said he in sudden decision, and came -splashing out on the Coutras side. - -The moment he climbed up the bank I closed with him. He was fairly -handicapped by his liquid load, and out of breath and of conceit with -his luck besides. He aimed a blow at me with his pistol-butt, but I -easily avoided it and let him topple his length again--assisting him -in fact--but this time in the dust. Then I sat on him, and threatened -his head with a great stone. - -“_Pouf!_” said he, panting. “I protest I am no adept at this -business.” - -“Is it your only one?” said I. - -“At this date, yes.” - -“So--you have been an honest man? And what more can a patriot boast -of?” - -I whistled and called to my companions. My prisoner looked amazed. - -“You are not alone!” he exclaimed. - -“By no means. My escort is round the curve of the road there.” - -He seemed to collapse under me. - -“_Merci, monsieur!_” he muttered, “_merci!_” - -“What, in these days!” - -He dared his chance of the stone, and began to struggle violently. I -doubt if I could have held him long if Crépin and one of the -postilions had not come running up to my shout. A few words were -enough to explain the situation, and we conducted the fellow to the -carriage and strapped him upon one of the horses in a way compromising -to his dignity. And so he became of our party when we moved on once -more. - - * * * * * * * - -Coutras clacks with mills and is musical with weirs. The spirit of the -warlike king yet informs its old umber walls and toppling houses. I -found it a place so fragrant with antique and with natural beauties, -that my heart wept over the present human degeneracy that vulgarised -it. It lies amongst the last distant swells, as it were, of the great -billows of the Auvergne mountains, before those swells have rolled -themselves to waste in the sombre flats of the Landes. It is the -hill-slope garden on the fringe of the moor; the resting-place of the -sea and the high-rock winds; the hostelry where these meet and embrace -and people the vineyards with baby breezes. It has grown old listening -under its great chestnuts to the sweet thunder of the Isle and the -Dronne. Its peasants, pagan in their instinct for beauty, train their -vines up the elm and walnut trees, that in autumn they may dance under -a dropping rain of grapes. At the same time, I am bound to confess -that their wine suffers for the sake of this picturesqueness. - -Now, as we entered it by moonlight, it was a panic town, restless, -scurrying, lurid. The new spirit ran vile and naked in its venerable -streets; the air was poisonous with the breath of _ça ira_. For, -since we left Paris, this had happened. The Girondists were fallen and -hunted men, and Tallien and Ysabeau were at La Réole, preparing for a -descent on Bordeaux. We learned it all at the gate, and also that the -spies and agents of these scoundrels were everywhere abroad, nosing -after the escaped deputies, bullying, torturing, and denouncing. - -“It would appear we are forestalled,” said Crépin, drily. “M. -Thibaut, have you a mind to rake over dead ashes? Well, I have heard -of the white wine of Bergerac. At least I will taste that before I go -to bed.” - -We drove up to the Golden Lion, whither our scamps had preceded us. -Patriots hooted our prisoner as we clattered through the streets, or -whipped at him with their ramrods. The decent citizens fled before us, -and white-faced girls peeped from behind the white curtains of their -little bed-chambers, crushing the dimity against their swelling -bosoms. Oh! we were great people, I can assure you. - -At the hostelry--a high, mud-coloured building, with window-places -fringed with stone, and its hill of a roof fretted thick as a -dove-cote with dormer casements--they brought to our carriage a poor -weeping maid. - -“_La demoiselle des pleurs_,” said Bonnet-rouge, with a grin. - -“Eh?” said Crépin. - -“The _aubergiste_, citizen.” - -Crépin looked at the poor creature with disfavour. Certainly she was -very plain, though quite young, and her homely face was blowzed with -tears. - -“Why do you cry then, little fool?” - -“Monsieur, they have taken my father to La Réole.” - -“He will return, if innocent.” - -“Alas! no, monsieur.” - -“What! you would discredit the impartiality of the Republic?” - -He stepped from the carriage, and took her by the shoulder. - -“He will return, if innocent, I say; and would the law had enlarged -him before we arrived! You are in charge here, _citoyenne_?” - -“But yes, monsieur.” - -“A thousand devils!--and disorganised, I’ll swear; no fire in the -kitchen, no food in the larder.” - -“Monsieur is in error. I go at once to serve the first monsieur of our -best.” - -“The first--_sacré!_ is that also forestalled? But who is this -first?” - -“The same as monsieur.” - -“And dost thou know who _I_ am?” - -“Alas, monsieur! You come and go, and you are all great and imperious. -But I would not with a word offend monsieur.” - -“Listen, girl.” (A crowd stood about. He spoke for the benefit of -all.) “I am a high officer of the Republic, _en mission_ to rout out -the disaffected and to enforce the law. Go, and say to this citizen -that, with his permission, I will join him.” - -Our rogues were unstrapping the footpad from the horse as he spoke. As -they tumbled him, half silly with his jolting and with the blows he -had received, upon his feet, the _aubergiste_ gave a faint cry. -Crépin caught her as she retreated, and twisted her about once more. - -“You know this _Chevalier de la Coupe_?” - -“Monsieur, I--how can I say? So many drink wine with us.” - -He looked at her sternly a moment, then pushed her from him. - -“For supper, the best in the house!” he called after her, and turned -to arrange for the disposition of his men and their prisoner. - -By-and-by the _aubergiste_ came to conduct us to table. As we went -thither, Crépin stopped, took the girl by the chin, and looked into -her wet inflamed eyes. If the prospect of good fare exhilarated him, I -will say, also, for his credit, that I believe he had a kindly nature. - -“For the future,” he said, “be discreet and make a study to command -your nerves. In these days one must look on life through the little -window of the _lunette_.” - -We found our forestaller (who, by the way, had returned no answer to -Crépin’s polite message) established in the eating-room when we -entered it. He was a coarse, blotched ruffian, thick and overbearing, -and he stared at us insolently as he lay sprawled over a couple of -chairs. - -“So, thou wouldst share my supper?” he cried, in a rumbling, vibrant -voice. “Lie down under the table, citizen, and thou shalt have a big -plate of scraps when once my belly is satisfied.” - -Crépin paused near the threshold. I tingled with secret laughter to -watch the bludgeoning of these two parvenus. But my respected chief -had the advantage of an acquired courtesy. - -“You honour me beyond my expectations,” he said. “But, if I were to -break the dish over the citizen’s face, the scraps would fall the -sooner.” - -The other scrambled to his feet with a furious grimace. - -“_Canaille!_” he shouted (it was curious that I never heard an upstart -but would apply this term in a quarrel to those of his own -kidney)--“Scum! pigwash! Do you know my name, my office, my -reputation? God’s-blood! I’ve a mind to have you roasted in a fat -hog’s skin and served for the first course!” - -Crépin walked up to the bully very coolly. _M. le Représentant_ had -plenty of courage in the ordinary affairs of life. - -“Do I know who you are?” he said. “Why, I take you for one of those -curs that are whipt on to do the dirty work of the people’s ministers. -And do you know who I am, citizen spy? I hold my commission direct -from the Committee of Safety, with full authority of sequestration and -requisition, and no tittle of responsibility to your masters at La -Réole. If you interfere with the processes of my office, I shall have -something additional to say in my report to the chiefs of my -department, whom your highness may recognise by the names of -Billaud-Varennes and Collot-d’Herbois. If you insult me personally, I -shall thrash you with a dog-whip.” - -The creature was but a huge wind-bag. I never saw one collapse so -suddenly. Crépin, it is true, had some fearful names to conjure by. - -“_M. le Représentant_,” said the former, in a fallen, flabby voice, -“I have no desire to oppose or embarrass you. We need not clash if I -am circumspect. For the rest, accept my apologies for the heat I was -betrayed into through inadvertence. We have to be so careful with -strangers.” - -He bowed clumsily. His neck was choked with a great cravat; a huge -sabre clanked on the floor beside him as he moved. He was a very ugly -piece of goods, and he bore his humiliation with secret fury, I could -perceive--the more so as the _aubergiste_ brought in the first of the -dishes during the height of the dispute. - -Crépin permitted himself to be something mollified by the sight of -supper. He complimented the girl on her promptitude. The poor creature -may have been no heroine, but she was a seductive cook. We had -_potage_, most excellent, an _entrée_ of chestnut-meal _ramequins_, -roasted kid stuffed with _truffes de Périgord_ and served with sweet -wine-sauce. Also a magnificent brand of Bergerac was in evidence. - -Under the influence of these generous things our table-fellow’s -insolence a little revived; but now he would rally me as the safer -butt. - -“The citizen is dainty with his food.” (The fellow himself had lapped -and sucked like a pig.) - -“I owe it to the cook,” said I, serenely. - -“A debt of love. Thou shalt pay it her presently when the lights are -out.” - -“You are an ill-conditioned hog,” said I. - -He sprang, toppling, to his feet. - -“Mother of God!” he stuttered, hoarsely; “this goes too far, this----” - -He caught Crépin’s eye and subsided again, muttering. We were all -pretty warm with liquor; but my superior officer was grown benignant -under its influence. - -“For shame, citizens!” he said, blandly, “to put a coarse accent to -this heavenly bouquet.” - -He had bettered me in the philosophy of the palate. I confess it at -once. - -The other (his name, we came to know, was Lacombe--a name of infamous -notoriety in the Bordeaux business) leaned over to me presently--when -Crépin was gone from the room a moment to give a direction--with hell -glinting out of his eyes. - -“_M. le Représentant’s_ fellow,” said he; “I bow to authority, but I -kick authority’s dog in the ribs if the cur molests me.” - -“I don’t doubt it. It is probably the measure of your courage.” - -He nodded pregnantly. - -“The resurrection of France shall be in discretion. That is the real -courage to those whose overbearing impulse is to strike. We are -discreet, and we watch, and we evolve by degrees the whole alphabet of -espionage. Let us call A the language of the hands. These the frost of -poverty will stunt, the rack of labour will warp and disjoint. There -is your sign of a citizen of the people. Monsieur has very pretty -fingers and pink nails.” - -“By the same token a corded fist should prove one to be a hangman. -Monsieur has a knot for every knuckle.” - -He nodded again. His calmness was more deadly than his wrath. - -“You spit your insults over the shoulder of your master. You think -yourself secure in your office. But there is an order of repartee -unknown to patriots, for it was hatched in the hotbeds of Versailles.” - -He fell back in his chair--still eyeing me--with a grunt; then -suddenly leaned forward again. - -“The alphabet,” he said, “of which B shall be designated the -penetration of disguises. Coach-drivers, colporteurs, pedlars--oh, one -may happen upon the cloven hoof amongst them all.” - -I laughed, with a fine affectation of contempt. This mummy at the -feast---- - -There was a sound in the room. I turned my head. The little -_aubergiste_ stood at the door, weeping and wringing her hands. - -“Monsieur!” she cried, “do not let it be done!” - -I rose and went to the child. - -“Tell me,” I said, “what is it?” - -“Monsieur, the poor man that you captured! they are torturing him in -the yard.” - -I pointed with my hand to a window. Without, all during our meal, had -been a confused clatter of voices and the lurid smoke of torches -rising about the glass. - -“Yes,” she sobbed, quite overcome. “It is not right, monsieur. It will -bring a curse upon the place.” - -I ran from the room, my blood on fire. Whatever his offence to me, I -had sooner let the rascal go than that he should fall into the hands -of drunken patriots. - -The yard was a paved space scooped from the rear of the house. A well -with a windlass pierced it about the middle, and round the low wall of -this were seated a dozen red-bonnets, our own four prominent, shouting -and quarrelling and voluble as parrots. Broken bottles strewed the -ground, and here and there a torch was stuck into the chinks of the -stones, informing all with a jumping glare of red. - -I pushed past two or three frightened onlookers, and rushed out into -the open. - -“Where is he?” I cried in a heat. “What the devil! am I not to pass -judgment on my own!” - -A moment’s silence fell. The faces of all were turned up to me, -scowling and furious. In the pause a pitiful voice came booming and -wailing up from the very bowels of the well itself. - -“_Merci!_ messieurs, _merci!_ and I will conduct you to the treasure!” - -I wore a sword, and I drew it and sprang to the well-mouth. - -“God in heaven!” I cried, “what are you doing with him down there?” - -Several had risen by this, and were set at me, snarling like dogs. - -“The man is forfeit to the law!” they yelped. - -“That is for the law to decide.” - -“The people are the law. We sit here to condemn him while he cools his -heels.” - -“Send monsieur to fetch his friend up!” cried Lacombe’s voice over -their heads. “He will be dainty to wash his white fingers after a -meal!” - -There were cries of “Aristocrat!” Possibly they would have put the -brute’s suggestion into effect--for a tipsy patriot has no bowels--had -not Crépin at that moment run into the yard. I informed him of the -situation in a word, as he joined me by the well-side. - -“Haul up the man!” he said, coolly and peremptorily. His office -procured him some respect and more fear. Our fellows had no stomach -but to obey, and they came to the windlass, muttering, and wound their -victim up to the surface. He was a pitiable sight when he reached it. -They had trussed him to the rope with a savagery to which his swollen -joints bore witness, and, with a refinement of cruelty, had cut the -bucket from under his feet, that the full weight of his body should -hang without support. In this condition they had then lowered him up -to his neck in the black water. - -He fell, when released, a sodden moaning heap on the stones. - -“And what was to be the end?” asked Crépin. - -“Citizen _Représentant_, we could not decide; yet a show of hands was -in favour of singeing over a slow fire. Grace of God! but it would -seem the accused has forestalled the jury.” - -He had not, however. - -“Give him brandy,” said Crépin; “and bring him to the shed yonder, -when recovered, for the _procès verbal_.” - -He took my arm, and we went off together to the place designated,--an -outbuilding half full of fagots. On the way he beckoned the crying -_aubergiste_, who had followed him into the yard, to attend us. - -“For the present the man is saved,” he said to her when we were alone. -“Now, what is your interest in the rascal?” - -“Monsieur, he was an honest man once.” - -“Of the neighbourhood?” - -She looked up at him with her little imploring red eyes. - -“Come,” he said; “I owe you the debt of a grateful digestion.” - -“Of the château,” she said faintly. - -“What château?” - -“Des Pierrettes, monsieur.” - -Crépin, as I, I could see, was beating his brains for some memory -connected with the name. - -“In Février’s _café_!” I said suddenly. Should it prove the same, -for the third time destiny seemed bringing me into touch with a lady -of this history. - -“Ah!” he said. “But it is not on my list. In what direction does it -lie, girl?” - -“Monsieur, two leagues away, off the Libourne road by the lane of the -Marron Cornu.” - -“And who inhabits it?” - -The poor girl looked infinitely distressed. - -“It is M. de Lâge and his niece. You will not make me the instrument -to harm them, monsieur. They are patriots, I will swear. Monsieur, -monsieur!” - -“Silence, girl! What are you to question the methods of the Republic? -It is a good recommendation at least that they commission a footpad to -patrol the neighbourhood.” - -“It is none of their doing. Oh, monsieur, will you not believe me? He -was an honest servant of theirs till this religion of Reason drove him -to the crooked path. And he has been dismissed this twelvemonth.” - -“Harkee, wench! If I read you right, you are well quit of a -scoundrel.” - -She fell to sobbing and clucking over that again; and in the midst of -her outburst the half-revived felon was hustled into the shed. - -The poor broken and collapsed creature fell at Crépin’s feet and -moaned for mercy. - -“Give me a day of life,” he snuffled abjectly, “and I will lead you to -the treasure.” - -One of the guard pecked at his ribs with his boot. - -“_Pomme de chou!_” he grunted, “have you no other song to sing but -that?” - -But Crépin was looking extremely grave and virtuous. - -“The prisoner is in no state to be examined,” he said. “Place him -under lock and key, with food and drink; and I will put him to the -question later.” - - - - - CHAPTER IV. - THE CHÂTEAU DES PIERRETTES. - -“_Nous y voici!_” - -The carriage pulled back with a jerk, so that the prisoner Michel, who -sat opposite us, was almost thrown into our laps. One of our grimy -escort appeared at the window. - -“Dog of a thief!” he growled. “Is this the turning?” - -The other _sacréd_ below his breath and nodded sullenly. A vast -chestnut (the thick of its butt must have been thirty feet in -circumference) stood at the entrance to a narrow lane. Turning, with a -worrying of wheels, down the latter, we continued our journey. - -Southwards from Coutras we had broken into a _plat_ of country very -wild and sterile; but now we were amongst trees again--oak, chestnut, -and walnut--that thronged the damp hollows and flung themselves over -the low hills in irresistible battalions. - -Suddenly Michel bent forward and touched my companion’s knee -menacingly. The rascal was near restored to himself, and his lowering -eyes were full of gloom. - -“The treasure, monsieur,” he said; “is that the condition of my -liberty?” - -“I have said--discover it to me and thou shalt go free.” - -“But I, monsieur, I also must make a condition.” - -Crépin stared. The man bent still more earnestly forward. - -“Mademoiselle Carinne----” - -“The niece of De Lâge----?” - -“She must be considered--respected. I will not have her insulted with -a look.” - -“What now, Michel?” - -“Oh, monsieur! you may do as you will with the old, hard man; but -her--her----” - -“And is it for the lady’s sake thou hast forborne hitherto to -appropriate this treasure, the hiding-place of which thou wilt buy thy -life by revealing?” - -“It is so. I have driven a desperate trade, starving often with this -knowledge in my breast.” - -“But why?” - -“How can I tell? I have known her from a child. Once she struck me -that I killed a cheeping wolf-cub she had brought from the snow; and -then she was sorry and kissed the little stupid bruise; and I swore my -arm should rot before it lost the will to protect her.” - -“I will do my best.” - -“But that is not enough. My God! if I were to sacrifice mademoiselle’s -_dot_ without purpose.” - -“The purpose is thy life.” - -“That were nothing were she dishonoured.” - -I put in a serene word-- - -“Yet it seems you would condemn her to poverty to save your skin?” - -“That is different. I should have life; and life means many -things--the power, possibly, to influence her fortunes; at least the -wash of wine again in one’s dusty throat.” - -“Michel,” I said, “I must applaud you for a capital rogue.” - -He stared at me sombrely, muttered, “_Je suis ce que je suis_,” and -sank back in his corner. - -We were running between dark hedges at the time. Suddenly we came -among farm-buildings, a thronging dilapidated group. The byres -mouldered on their props; the flat stones of the roofs had flaked -generations of rubbish upon the weedy ground beneath. - -Crépin rubbed his hands. - -“It is well,” he said. “This without doubt is a skinflint.” - -We turned a corner and passed the entrance to a ruined drive. Here the -tall iron gates, swinging upon massive posts of rubble-stone, had been -recently, it seemed, torn from their moorings of grass and knotted -bindweed, for the ground was scarred and the lower bars of metal hung -with rags of drooping green. Crépin’s features underwent another -change at the sight. - -“But what is this?” he muttered. “Something unaccustomed--some -scare--some panic?” - -He looked with sudden fury at the prisoner. - -“If he has got wind of our coming--has escaped with----” - -He broke off, showing his teeth and grinding his hands together. At -the moment we came in view of the château. - -It was an old grey house--built of the same material as the -gate-pillars--with a high-pitched roof and little corner _tourelles_. -Once, presumably, a possession of importance, decay and neglect had -now beggared it beyond description. Yet within and without were -evidences of that vulgar miserly spirit that seeks by inadequate -tinkering to deceive with half-measures. The tangled grass of the lawn -was cut only where its untidiness would have been most in evidence, -and its litter left where it fell. Triton blew his conch from a fine -fountain basin near the middle of the plot; but the shell, threatening -to break away, had been fastened to the sea-god’s lips with a ligament -of twine that was knotted round the head. A crippled bench was propped -with a stone; a shattered ball-capital at the entrance-door held -together with a loop of wire. What restoration that was visible was -all in this vein of ludicrous economy. - -But not a sign of life was about--no footstep in the grounds, no face -at any window. To all appearance the place was desolate. - -We drew up at the broken stone porch. The door was already flung wide, -and we entered, with all the usual insolent clatter of “fraternity,” -an echoing hall. Here, as elsewhere, were dust and decay--inconsequent -patching and the same tawdry affectation of repair. - -A shallow flight of stairs, broad and oaken, led straight up to a -little low gallery that bisected the hall like a transom. Up these -steps we scuttled, the escort driving the prisoner amongst them, and -came to a corridor from which a number of closed doors shut off the -living rooms of the house. - -Suddenly Crépin put up his hand and motioned us to silence. From one -of the invisible chambers, some distance down the corridor, rose and -fell, like wind in a key-hole, a little blasphemous complaining voice. - -“In the sober moonlight of my days!” we made it out to cry--“after -scaling the rough peaks of self-denial, thus to be tilted over into -the depths again by a lying Providence!” - -There followed some shrill storming of nouns and epithets; then a -pause, out of which the voice snapped once more-- - -“I hear you, you scum of ditches--you stinking offal of the -Faubourgs--you publicans ennobled of a short-sighted Saviour!--Come -back and finish your work, and I will spit poison on you that you -shall follow me to the hell--to the hell, I say----” - -The furious dragging of a chair mangled the sentence; then came a -jarring thump and a further shrieking of oaths. With one impulse we -made for the door, threw it open, and burst into the room. In the -midst of a lofty chamber lay a little man struggling on the floor, a -pretty heavy _prie-dieu_, to which he had been bound with his arms -behind his back, jerking and bobbing above him with his every kick. - -“_Mais c’est une tortue!_” cried one of the crew, with a howl of -laughter. - -The tortoise twisted up its face, disfigured with passion. It was the -face, without doubt, of the little _fesse-Mathieu_ of Février’s -restaurant. - -The room in which he lay was of good proportions, but furnished -meagrely, and informed with the same spirit of graceless economy as -was apparent without. For the dark ancient panels of its walls had -been smeared with some light-grey wash, and an attempt made to -decorate them with plaster wreaths and festoons in the Louis Quinze -style. The work, however, had been left unfinished, and, so far as it -went, was crude and amateurish to a degree. Obviously, here was an -example of that species of niggard that will try to cheat a dozen -trades by wringing the gist of all out of one poor factotum. - -But Crépin stood with corrugated forehead; for there were other signs -in the room than those of parsimony--signs in plenty, in fact, that he -had been forestalled in his quest. Chairs and tables were overturned, -a bureau was smashed almost to pieces, great rents appeared in the -panelling of the walls, where search had been instituted, one would -judge, for secret depositories. - -A savage oath exploded from _M. le Représentant’s_ lips. - -“That spy--that swaggerer--that Lacombe!” he muttered, looking at me. -“He was vanished this morning--he and his ragged tail--when we rose. -He got scent, without doubt, and has played outrider to my mission of -search. If it is so; if he has found and removed--my God! but for all -his Tallien and the Committee of Bordeaux he shall dance--he shall -dance!” - -He turned furiously to his men. - -“Put the rascal upright,” he bellowed. - -A couple of them lifted and spun the chair to its legs, so that the -old man’s skull jerked against the head-rail with a clack like that of -a mill-hopper. He did not seem to notice the blow. His eyes, ever -since they had alighted on this new influx of brigands, had been set -like a fish’s--wondering and unwinking. Now they slowly travelled, -taking in Crépin, Citizen Thibaut, the escort, until they -stopped--actually, it appeared, with a click--at Michel. His mouth -puckered, and, like a ring blown by a smoker, a wavering “O!” issued -from it. - -“Your _ci-devant_ servant?” said Crépin, grimly. - -The old man nodded his head. - -“Michel. But, yes--it is Michel.” - -“Thou owest him compensation for that long tyranny of service.” - -“I owe him nothing.” - -“And me, citizen? Dost thou remember the Abbaye St Germain and the -killings of September?” - -I struck in with the question. I was willing, I think, for the girl’s -sake, to identify myself with a past incident. - -He looked at me bitterly, but with no recognition in his eyes. - -“I deplore the cursed fortune,” he cried in grief, “that preserved me -but for this!” - -“How now, old fool!” said Crépin, with impatience. “Thou shalt go -free when Michel has revealed to me thy secret place of hoarding.” - -M. de Lâge gave the crying snarl of a wolf. - -“Let him go--the ingrate and the traitor! What, Michel! dost thou -mangle the hand that gave thee soft litter for thy couch and honest -bread for thy belly? Look, Michel!--the white garlands on the walls -there! Dost thou remember how thou wrought’st them to pleasure thy -mistress--to win her from the depression she suffered in the sombre -oak and its long history of gloom? There they cling unfinished,--thy -solemn rebuke, Michel. Thy attachment to her was the one reality, thou -wouldst say, in a world of shadows, and yet the blatant fanfare of -those shadows was all that was needed to win thee from the reality. -And what is the price of thy kiss, Judas?” - -The man hung his head. - -“Not your life, monsieur,” he muttered. - -“Nay; but only that which makes my life endurable. And the -forfeit--what is that?” - -“_My_ life, monsieur.” - -De Lâge drew in his breath with a cruel sound. - -“_Hélas!_” he cried. “You will have to pay the penalty! the faithful -servant will have to pay the penalty!” - -Crépin uttered an exclamation and strode forward. - -“You have been stripped?” said he. - -“Of all, monsieur, of all. There have been others here before you this -morning--fine _sans-culotte_ preachers of equality and the gospel of -distribution, whose practice, nevertheless, is to enrich the poor at -the expense of the wealthy. They were brave fellows by their own -showing; yet they must truss me here before they dared brandish the -fruits of their robbery before my eyes!” - -Suddenly he was straining and screaming in his bonds, his face like a -map of some inhuman territory of the passions, branched with veins for -rivers of blood. - -“Free me that I may kill some one!” he shrieked. “I am mad to groove -my fingers in flesh! The time for concessions is past. I was as wax in -their hands till they unearthed my plate, my coins, my riches. Now, -now----” - -He was indeed beyond himself, a better man--or devil--in his despair -than the money-conscious craven who had palpitated over that little -“_Vive le roi!_” once upon a time. - -Crépin regarded the struggling creature with harsh contempt. This -plebeian soul also was translated, but not to his moral promotion. It -was evident he had enlarged the scope of his anticipations greatly in -view of his prisoner’s promise; and his disappointment brought the -spotted side of him uppermost. - -“Take the dog,” he cried in a hoarse voice (signifying Michel by a -gesture), “and whip him to the lair! At least we will look to see if -the wolves have left a bone or two for our picking.” - -“_M. le Représentant_,” I ventured to say, “be just to consider that -the prisoner is by all rights my prisoner. Anyhow he has stuck to his -side of the bargain. Let me hold you in fairness responsible for his -safe-conduct.” - -He turned upon me like a teased bullock. - -“In fairness!” he cried--“in fairness! But you presume, citizen, on -your position.” - -He looked as if he could have struck me; all the beast in the man was -prominent. Then he gave the order to march, and I found myself left -alone with the little grotesque in the chair. - -I was hot and indignant; but the passion of the other seemed to have -exploded itself into a rain of emotion. His dry cheeks quivered; the -tears ran down them like moisture on an old wall. - -“Monsieur,” I said, softly, “I know not whether to applaud or upbraid -you. And where is Mademoiselle Carinne?” - -He seemed quite broken in a moment--neither to resent nor to be -surprised at my mention of the girl’s name. - -“She is fled,” he whimpered--“the little graceless cabbage is fled.” - -“To safety, I hope?” - -“To the devil, for all I care.” - -“Monsieur, I hold your wretchedness an excuse, even if you have been -careless of----” - -He caught me up, staring at me woefully. - -“Careless? but, my God! I have pampered and maintained her ever since -her brown head was a crutch to my fingers; and this is how she repays -me.” - -“What has she done?” - -“She has condemned me to beggary for a prudish sentiment--me, in my -old forlorn age. From the first I saw that the test might come--that -she might be called upon to employ the privileges of her sex on my -behalf. Free-thought, free-love! Bah! What are they but a -self-adaptation to the ever-changing conditions of life. The spirit -need not subscribe to such mere necessities of being; and a little -gratitude at least was due to me. She has none, and for that may God -strike her dead!” - -“What has she done?” - -“Done!” (His voice rose to a shriek again.) “But, what has she -not?--That scoundrel Lacombe would have exchanged me my riches--my -pitiful show of tankards that he had unearthed--for her favour. She -would not; she refused to go with him; she reviled and cursed me--me -that had been her bulwark against poverty.” - -“You would have sold her honour for your brazen pots?” - -“Gold and silver, monsieur; and it was only a question of temporary -accommodation. In a few months she might have returned, and all would -have been well again. But honour--bah! it will survive a chin-chuck -better than loss of wealth. But she would not. She escaped from us by -a lying ruse, and they sought her far and near without avail. At the -last they robbed and maltreated me, and for that may hell seize them -and fester in their bones!” - -“And in thine, thou pestilence!” - -My fury and my contempt joined with a clap, like detonating acids. - -“Lie there and rot!” I shouted, and so flung out of the room. - -My heart blazed. That white girl--that Carinne. I could recall her -face, could picture her in her loneliness arraigned before Lacombe and -his _sans-culottes_ and his reptile prisoner--defying them all. With -some vague instinct of search directing my fury, I hurried through -room after room of the empty house. Each was like its neighbour, -vulgarised, scantily furnished, disfigured by the search that had been -conducted therein. Once I broke into the girl’s own bed-chamber (it -was hers, I will swear, by token of little feminine fancies consistent -with the character I had gifted her withal), and cursed the beasts who -had evidently made it the rallying-point of their brutal jesting. But -this, obviously, must be the last place in which to seek her, and I -quickly left it. - -Not a soul did I happen upon. Of whomsoever the household had -consisted, no single individual but the old villain in the chair was -remained to brazen out the situation. - -At last I made my way into the grounds once more, issuing from the -rear of the building into a patch of dense woodland that flowed up to -within fifty yards of the walls. I heard voices, and, plunging down a -moist track amongst the trees, came immediately in view of my party -returning to the house. Then I saw there were two women conducted in -its midst, and my throat jumped, and I ran forward. - -At least my sudden apprehension was comforted. These crying wenches -were of the working class--comely domestics by their appearance. - -Crépin stayed them all when he came up to me. The ugly look had not -left his face--was intensified on it, in fact. He stared at me, -haughty and lowering at once, and was altogether a very offensive -creature. - -“Has Citizen Thibaut any further exception to take to my methods of -procedure?” he said, ironically. - -I looked at him, but did not reply. - -“Because,” he went on, “perhaps his permission should be asked that -these pretty citizenesses accompany me in my carriage?” - -“_Mais non, monsieur--par pitié, mais non!_” cried one of the wenches -in a sobbing voice. - -He bent down to her--a sicklily self-revealed animal. - -“Hush, _ma petite_!” he said. “We of the Republic do not ask--we take. -Thou shalt have a brighter gown than ever De Lâge furnished for thy -shapely limbs.” - -She stopped crying, and seemed to listen at that. He came erect again, -with a smile on his face and his lips licking together, and regarded -me defiantly. - -“The Citizen Representative can please himself,” I said, coldly, and -pushed past them all and walked on. Crépin turned to look after me, -gave a peculiar cynical laugh, and cried “_En avant!_” to his party. - -I was to read the significance of his attitude in a moment--to read it -in the dead form of Michel hanging from a tree. - -I rushed back along the path, and caught the others as they issued -from the wood. Crépin heard me coming, bade his men on to the house, -and returned a pace or two to meet me. His mood asserted, he was -something inclined, I suppose, to a resumption of the better terms -between us. At any rate, his expression now was a mixture of -embarrassment and a little apprehension. But I spoke to him very -staidly and quietly-- - -“M. Crépin, it dawns upon me that I am slow to learn the methods of -the new morality, and that I shall never justify your choice of a -secretary.” - -“You are going to leave me.” - -“There will be the more room in the coach for monsieur’s harem.” - -I made him a low bow and went off amongst the trees. He called after -me--there was some real regret in his voice--“But you will come to -harm! be wise!--monsieur!” - -I paid no heed; and the thickets received and buried me. - - - - - CHAPTER V. - _LA GRAND’ BÊTE._ - -My rupture with Crépin was the preface to a period of my life, the -details of which I could never but doubtfully piece together in my -mind. During this period I lived, but how I supported existence is a -problem that it is beyond my power to solve. I have an indistinct -memory of wandering amongst trees--always amongst trees; in light and -darkness; in drought and in dew; of scaring and being scared by -snakes, that rustled from me over patches of dead leaves; of -swallowing, in desperate phases of hunger, berries and forest fruits, -of whose properties I was as ignorant as of their names. - -And, throughout, the strange thought dwelt with me, warm and -insistent, that I was the champion elect of that white Carinne with -whom I had never so much as exchanged a word. To me she was the Una of -these fathomless green depths--the virgin who had carried her -maidenhood and her pride to the Republic of the woods, where security -and an equal condition were the right of all. - -This fanciful image possessed a singular fascination for me. It -glimmered behind trees; it peered through the thick interlace of -branches; I heard the paddle of its feet in mossy rills, or the low -song of its voice rising from some shadow prostrate in beds of fern. -No doubt fatigue and hunger and that sense of a long responsibility -repudiated came to work a melodious madness in my brain. For days, -loitering aimlessly under its spell, I was happy--happier, I believe, -than I had ever been hitherto. I had become a thing apart from -mankind--a faun--a reversion to the near soulless type, but with the -germ of spirit budding in me. - -It was a desire to avoid a certain horror dangling over a track that -had at first driven me into the thickets, and so lost me my way. The -memory of a blot of shadow, on the sunny grass underneath that same -horror, that swayed sluggishly, like the disc of a pendulum, as the -body swayed above, got into my waking thoughts and haunted them. I -wished to put a world-wide interval between myself and the -blot--though I had seen monstrosities enough of late, God knows. But, -in the silent woods, under that enchanted fancy of my relapse to -primitive conditions, a loathing of the dead man, such as Cain might -have felt, sickened all my veins. I was done with violence--astonished -that its employment could ever have entered into the systems of such a -defenceless race as man. - -But also I knew that to me, moving no longer under the ægis of -authority, the towns and the resorts of men were become quagmires for -my uncertain feet. I was three hundred miles from Paris; all my -neighbourhood was dominated by Revolutionary Committees; my chance of -escape, did once that black cuttle-fish of the “Terror” touch me with -a tentacle, a finger-snap would express. My hitherto immunity was due, -indeed, to the offices of certain friends, and a little, perhaps, to -my constitutional tendency to allow circumstances to shape my -personality as they listed. Resigned to the remotest possibilities, my -absence of affectation was in a sense my safeguard. - -Here, however, far from the centre of operations, that which, under -certain conditions, had proved my protection, would avail me nothing. -A sober nonchalance, an easy manner, would be the very thyrsus to whip -these coarse provincial hinds to madness. And, finding in my new -emancipation--or intellectual decadence--an ecstasy I had not known -before, I was very tender of my life, and had no longer that old power -of indifference in me to the processes of fatality. - -How long this state of exaltation lasted I do not know; but I know it -came to me all in a moment that I must eat or die. It was the -reflection of my own face, I think, in a little pool of water, that -wrought in me this first dull recrudescence of reason. The wild -countenance of a maniac stared up at me. Its hollow jaws bristled like -the withered husks of a chestnut; its lips were black with the juice -of berries; an animal _abandon_ slept in the pupils of its eyes. Ah! -it was better that reason should triumph over circumstance than that -the soul should subscribe tamely to its own disinheritance. - -All in an instant I had set off running through the wood. That -privilege of man, to dare and to fail, I would not abrogate for all -the green retreats of nature. - -For hours, it seemed to me, I hurried onwards. My heart sobbed in my -chest; my breath was like a knotted cord under my shirt. At last, -quite suddenly, blue sky came at me through the trunks, and I broke -from the dense covert into a field of maize, and found myself looking -down a half mile of sloping arable land upon a large town of ancient -houses, whereof at the gate opposite me the tricolour mounted guard on -the height of a sombre tower. - -Now, in view of this, my purpose somewhat wavering, I sat me down in -the thick of the corn and set to wondering how I could act for the -best. I had assignats in my pocket, and a little money, yet there -could be no dealings for me in the open market. Thinking of my -appearance, I knew that by my own act I had yielded myself to the -condition of a hunted creature. - -All the afternoon I crouched in patches of the higher stalks, peeping -down upon the town that, spreading up a gentle slope in the nearer -distance, lay mapped before my eyes. Sometimes desperate in my hunger, -I would snatch a head of the standing grain; but to chew and swallow -more than would just blunt the edge of my suffering would be, I knew, -to invite a worser torture. The sun beat on my head; my throat was -caked with drought. At last I could endure it no longer, but retreated -once more into the wood and waited for the shadows to lengthen. - -It was early evening when I ventured into the field again and looked -down. The falling sunlight smote the town with fire from the west, so -that its walls and turrets seemed to melt in the glare and run into -long pools of shadow. But here and there wan ribbons of streets, or -patches of open places, broke up the sombreness--in vivid contrast -with it--and seemed to swarm, alone of all the dappled area, with -crawling shapes. - -Of these blotches of whiteness, one flashed and scintillated at a -certain point, from some cause I could not at first fathom. Now white, -now red, it stretched across the fields a rayed beam that dazzled my -wood-haunted eyes with the witchery of its brightness. - -But presently I saw the open patch whence it issued grow dark with a -press of figures. It was as if a cloth had been pulled over a dead -face; and all in a moment the strange flash fell and rose again--like -a hawk that has caught a life in its talons,--and a second time -swooped and mounted, clustered with red rays,--and a third time and a -fourth; but by then I had interpreted the writing on the wall, and it -was the “_Mene, mene_,” written on the bright blade of the guillotine -by the finger of the setting sun. - -A very strange and quiet pity flowed in my veins as I looked. Here was -I resting amidst the tranquillity of a golden harvest, watching that -other harvest being gathered in. Could it be possible that any point -of my picture expressed other than the glowing serenity that was -necessary to the composition? I felt as if, in the intervals of the -flashing, each next victim must be stepping forward with a happy -consciousness of the part he was to play in the design. Then suddenly -I threw myself on my face, and crushed my palms against my mouth that -I might not shriek curses on the inexorable beauty of the heavens -above me. - -I did not look again, or rise from my covert till dark was drooping -over the hillside. But, with the first full radiance of moonrise, I -got to my feet, feeling dazed and light-headed, and went straight off -in an easterly direction. My plan was to circumambulate, at a safe -distance, the walls (that could enclose no possibility of help to me -in my distress), and seek relief of my hunger in some hamlet (less -emancipated) on their farther side. If the town was Libourne, as I -believed it to be, then I knew the village of St Émilion to lie but a -single league to the south-east of it. - -Walking as in a dream, I came out suddenly into the highroad, and saw -the moon-drenched whiteness of it flow down to the very closed gates -far below me. Its track was a desolate tide on which no life was -moving; for nowadays the rural population was mostly drifted or driven -into the seething market-places of the Revolution. Now my imagination -pictured this cold and silent highway a softly tumultuous stream--a -welded torrent of phantoms, mingling and pushing and hurrying, in the -midst of noiseless laughter, to beat on the town gates and cry out -murmuringly that a “suspect” was fording a channel of its upper -reaches. - -This fright, this fancy (one would hardly credit it) brought the sweat -out under my clothes. But it was to be succeeded by a worse. For, as I -looked, the boiling wash of moonlight was a road again, and there came -up it footsteps rhythmically clanking and unearthly--and others and -yet others, till the whole night was quick with their approach. And, -as the footfalls neared me, they ceased abruptly, and there followed -the sound of an axe ringing down in wooden grooves; and then I knew -that the victims of the evening, ghastly and impalpable, were come to -gaze upon the man who had indulged his soul, even for a moment, with -the enchantment of a prospect whose accent was their agony. - -Now, assuredly, my reason was in a parlous state--when, with a whoop -that broke the spell, an owl swept above me and fled eastwards down -the sky; and I answered to its call, and crossed the road and plunged -into fields again, and ran and stumbled and went blindly on once more -until I had to pause for breath. - -At last I heard the rumbling wash of water, and paused a stone’s-throw -from a river-bank; and here a weight of terror seemed to fall from me -to mark how wan and sad the real stream looked, and how human in -comparison with that other demon current of my imagining. From its -bosom a cluster of yards and masts stood up against the sky; and by -that I knew that I was come upon the Dordogne where it opened out into -a port for the once busy town of Libourne, and that if ever caution -was necessary to me it was necessary now. - -I looked to my right. A furlong off the rampart of the walls swept -black and menacing; and over them, close at hand now, the silent yoke -of the guillotine rose into the moonlight. It must have been perched -upon some high ground within; and there it stood motionless, its jaws -locked in slumber. Could it be the same monster I had watched -flashing, scarlet and furious, from the hillside? Now, the ravening of -its gluttony was satisfied; Jacques Bourreau had wiped its slobbered -lips clean with a napkin. Sullenly satiate, propped against the sky, -straddling its gaunt legs over the empty trough at its feet, it slept -with lidless eyes that seemed to gloat upon me in a hideous trance. - -Bah! Now all this is not Jean-Louis Sebastien de Crancé, nor even -Citizen Thibaut. It is, in truth, the half-conscious delirium of a -brain swimming a little with hunger and thirst and fatigue; and I must -cut myself adrift from the hysterical retrospection. - -I hurried towards the river, running obliquely to the south-east. If I -could once win to clean water, I was prepared, in my desperation, to -attempt to swim to the opposite bank. Stumbling, and sometimes -wallowing, I made my way up a sludgy shore and suddenly came to a -little creek or cove where a boat lay moored to a post. Close by, a -wooden shanty, set in a small common garden with benches, like the -Guinguettes of Paris, rattled to its very walls with boisterous -disputation, while the shadows of men tossing wine-cups danced on its -one window-blind. I unhitched the painter of the boat, pushed the prow -from the bank, and, as the little craft swung out into the channel, -scrambled softly on board and felt for the sculls in a panic. When I -had once grasped and tilted these into the rowlocks, I breathed a -great sigh of relief and pulled hurriedly round the stern of a -swinging vessel into the cool-running waters of the Dordogne. - -It was not until I had made more than half the passage to the farther -side that I would venture to pause a moment to assuage my cruel -thirst. Then, resting on my oars, I dipped in my hat and drank again -and again, until my whole system seemed to flow with moisture like a -rush. At last, clapping my sopped hat on my head, I was preparing to -resume my work, when I uttered a low exclamation of astonishment, and -sat transfixed. For something moved in the stern-sheets of the boat; -and immediately, putting aside a cloak under which it appeared he had -lain asleep, a child sat up on the bottom boards. - -Now, my heart seemed to tilt like a top-heavy thing. Must this hateful -necessity be mine, then--to silence, for my own safety, this baby of -six or seven, this little comical _poupon_ with the round cropt head -and ridiculous small shirt? - -He stared at me, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and suddenly began to -whimper. - -“_Heu! heu!_” he cried in the cheeping voice of a duckling, “_la -Grand’ Bête!_” - -He took me for the mythical monster of the peasants, whose power of -assumption of any form is in ratio with the corrective ingenuity of -nurses and mothers. - -“Yes,” I said, my brain leaping to an idea; “I am _la Grand’ Bête_, -and if you make a noise I shall devour you.” - -His eyes were like full brown agates; his chin puckered to his lower -lip; but he crushed his little fists against his chest to stay the -coming outcry. My face relaxed as I looked at him. - -“_La Grand’ Bête_ is kind to the little ones that obey him. Can you -use these sculls?” - -“_Mais, oui_,” he whispered, with a soft sob; “I am the pretty little -waterman.” - -“Very well. Now, little waterman, I shall land at the bank over there, -and then you can take the sculls and pull the boat across to the cove -again. But you must be very silent and secret about having gone with -_la Grand’ Bête_ over the river, or he will come to your bedside in -the night and devour you.” - -I had been rowing gently as I talked, and now the nose of the skiff -grounded easily under a low bank. I shipped the sculls, reached -forward and took the rogue in my arms. - -“Oh! but _la Grand’ Bête_ loves the good children. Be a discreet -little waterman, and thou shalt find a gold louis under thy pillow -this very day month.” - -I kissed him, and, turning, caught at the knots of grass and hauled -myself up the bank. It was a clumsy disembarkation for a god, perhaps, -but my late comrade did not appear to be shaken in his faith. I -stopped and looked back at him when I had run a few yards from the -river. He was paddling vigorously away, with a professional air, and -the moonlight was shattered on his scull-blades into a rain of -diamonds. Suddenly a patrol-boat was pulled up the river across his -bows, and I half turned to fly, my heart in my mouth. - -“Hullo, hullo, Jacksprat!” cried a rough voice. “What dost thou here -at this hour?” - -“They were noisy in the _auberge_,” answered the childish treble, “and -I could not sleep.” - -I went on my way with a smile. To have used the boat and cast it -adrift would not have prospered me so well as did this accident. Yet I -felt a shame of meanness to hear the little thing, taking its lying -cue from me, lie to the men, and I wished I had not clinched my -purchase of his silence with that promise of a louis-d’or. - -Pushing boldly across a wide moon-dappled margin of grass, so thronged -with trees as to afford one good cover, I came out suddenly into a -field-track running southwards, and along this I sped at a fast pace. -But presently, seeing figures mounting towards me from the dip of a -flying slope, I dived into a belt of corn that ran on my left between -the track and the skirt of a dense wood, and lay close among the -stalks waiting for the travellers to pass. This, however, to my -chagrin, they did not; but, when they were come right over against me, -they stopped, very disputative and voluble in a breathless manner, and -lashed one another with knotty thongs of patriotism. - -“But who wants virtue or moderation in a Commonwealth?” - -“Dost not thou?” - -“I?--I want heads--a head for every cobblestone in the Rue St Jacques. -I would walk on the brains of self-seekers. This Roland----” - -“He wore strings in his shoes to rebuke the vanity of the Veto----” - -“And to indulge his own. Head of a cabbage! thou wouldst weep over the -orator though he condemned thy belly to starvation. What! shall I -satisfy my hunger with a thesis on the beauty of self-denial, because, -like a drum, it has a full sound!” - -“Be sure I do not defend him; but has he not practised what he -taught?” - -“Of a certainty, and is double-damned thereby. For know that these -austere moralists have found their opportunity to indulge a hobby--not -to avenge a people. What do _we_ want with abstinence who have -practised it all our lives? What do we want with interminable phrases -on the sublimity of duty?” - -“But, thou wilt not understand that political economy----” - -“Bah! I know it for the economy of words--that delicious _terminer les -débats_ of the jury that rolls another lying mouth into the basket -and makes a body the less to feed. But I tell thee, with every fall of -the axe I feel myself shifting a place nearer the rich joints at the -top of the feast.” - -“Liberty----” - -“That I desire is the free indulgence of my appetites. Now would not -Roland and Vergniaud and their crew shave me nicely for that -sentiment? Therefore I love to hunt them down.” - -_A vieux chat jeune souris._ How indeed could these old grimalkins, -grown toothless under tyranny, digest this tough problem of virtue for -its own sake? Their food must be minced for them. - -I never saw their faces; but I guessed them, by a certain croaking in -their speech, to be worn with years and suffering. Presently, to my -disgust, they had out their pipes and a flask of cognac and sat -themselves down against the edge of the corn for a mild carouse. I -waited on and on, listening to their snuffling talk, till I grew sick -with the monotony of it and the cramp of my position. They were, I -gathered, informers employed by Tallien in his search for those -escaped Deputies who were believed to be in hiding in the -neighbourhood. - -At last I could stand it no longer. Move I must, for all the risk it -entailed. I set to work, very cautiously, a foot at a time, wriggling -on my belly through the corn. They took no notice, each being voluble -to assert his opinions against the other. Presently, making towards -the wood, I found the field to dip downwards to its skirt, so that I -was enabled to raise myself to a crouching position and increase my -pace. The relief was immense; I was running as the tree-trunks came -near and opened out to me. - -Now, I was so weary that I thought I must sleep awhile before I -proceeded. I was pushing through the last few yards of the stalks when -a guttural snarl arrested me. Immediately, right in my path, a head -was protruded from the corn, and a bristled snout, slavering in the -moonlight, was lifted at me. I stood a moment transfixed--a long -moment, it appeared to me. The ridiculous fancy occurred to me that -the yellow eyes glaring into mine would go on dilating till presently -I should find myself embedded in their midst, like a prawn in aspic. -Then, with a feeling of indescribable politeness in my heart, I turned -aside to make a _détour_ into the wood, stepping on tiptoe as if I -were leaving a sick-room. Once amongst the trees, I penetrated the -darkness rapidly to the depth of a hundred yards, not venturing to -look behind me, and, indeed, only before in search of some reasonable -branch or fork where I might rest in safety. Wolves! I had not taken -these into my calculations in the glowing solstice of summer, and it -gave me something a shock to think what I had possibly escaped during -my unguarded nights in the forest. - -At length I found the place I sought--a little natural chair of -branches high enough to be out of the reach of wild beasts, yet the -ascent thereto easy. I climbed to it, notched myself in securely, and, -my hunger somewhat comforted by the water I had drunk, fell almost -immediately into a delicious stupor. - -I awoke quite suddenly, yet with a smooth swift leap to consciousness. -The angle of moonlight was now shifted to an oblique one, so that no -rays entered direct; and the space beneath me was sunk into profound -darkness. For some moments I lay in a happy trance, dully appreciative -of the indistinct shapes that encompassed me, of the smell of living -green bark near my face, of the stars embroidered into a woof of twigs -overhead. But presently, gazing down, a queer little phenomenon of -light fixed my attention, indifferently at first, then with an -increase of wonder. This spot of pink radiance waxed and waned and -waxed and waned, with a steady recurrence, on the butt of a great -tree, twenty yards away. At first it was of a strong rosy tint, but -little by little it faded till it was a mere phosphorescent blot; and -then, while I was flogging my brains to think what it could be, of a -sudden it seemed to fly down to the noise of a little grunting -explosion, and break into a shower of scarlet sparks. - -At that I was betrayed into a squiggle of laughter; for my phenomenon -had in the flash resolved itself into nothing more mysterious than the -glow from the pipe of a man seated silently smoking, with his head -thrown back against the tree-foot. - -“Hullo!” he exclaimed in a surprised voice, but with nothing of fear -in it; and I congratulated myself at least that the voice struck a -different note to that of either of M. Tallien’s informers. -Nevertheless, I had been a fool, and I judged it the wise policy to -slide from my perch and join my unseen companion. He made me out, I am -sure, long before I did him; yet he never moved or showed sign of -apprehension. - -“Good evening, Jacques,” said I. - -“Good morrow, rather, Jacques squirrel,” he answered. - -“Is it so?” - -“It is so.” - -“You prefer the burrow, it seems, and I the branch.” - -“No doubt we are not birds of a feather.” - -“Why, truly, I seek Deputies,” I said, in a sudden inspiration. - -“And I my fortune,” he answered, serenely. - -“We travel by the same road, then. Have you a fragment of bread on -you, comrade?” - -“If I had a loaf thou shouldst go wanting a crumb of it.” - -“And why, citizen?” - -“I do not love spies.” - -I fetched a grimace over my miscarried ruse. - -“Then wilt thou never make thy fortune in France,” I said. - -He gave a harsh laugh. - -“_You_ will prevent me for that word, citizen.” - -I curled myself up under the tree. - -“I will wait for the dawn and read thee thy fortune,” I said, “and -charge thee nothing for it but a kick to help thee on thy way.” - -He laughed again at that. - -“Thou provest thyself an ass,” said he, and refilled and lit his pipe -and smoked on silently. - -I lay awake near him, because, churl as he appeared, I felt the -advantage of any human companionship in these beast-haunted thickets. - -At last the light of dawn penetrated a little to where we rested, and -when it was broad enough to distinguish objects by, I rolled upon my -elbow and scrutinised my companion closely. - -“Good morrow, then, burner of charcoal.” - -He turned to me, a leering smile suspended on his lips. - -“_Comment?_” said he. - -“But I am a palmist, my friend, as you observe.” - -He looked at his stunted and blackened fists. - -“Ah! _si fait vraiment_. That is to tell my past condition of poverty, -not my fortune.” - -“The rest shall come. Observe my fitness for my post. You are from the -forests of Nontron.” - -He started and stared. - -“Truly I have no love for spies,” he muttered, dismayed. - -It was my turn to laugh. I had hazarded a bold guess. That he was from -the woods rather than from the Landes his gift of seeing through the -darkness convinced me. Then, if from the woods, why not from that part -of the province where they stretched thickest and most meet for his -trade? - -“Now,” said I, “for what follows. It comes to your ears that Guienne -is hatching a fine breed of maggots from the carcasses of dead -aristocrats; that there is a feast of rich fragments toward. You will -have your share; you will eat of these aristocrats that have so long -fed on you. That is a very natural resolve. But in a Republic of -maggots, as in all other communities, there is always a proportion of -the brood that will fatten unduly at the expense of its fellows. These -despots by constitution appropriate the most succulent parts; they wax -thick and strong, and, finally, they alone of the swarm hatch out into -flies, while the rest perish undeveloped.” - -“It is a cursed parable,” he said, sullenly. “I do not comprehend -you.” - -“I speak of the people, my friend--of whom you are not one that will -fatten.” - -“And why, and why?” - -“You have scruples. You decry at the outset the methods of this select -clique of the Republic that has the instinct to prosper. If I -congratulate you on the possession of a conscience, I must deplore in -anticipation the sacrifice of yet another martyr to that truism which -history repeats as often as men forget it.” - -“What truism, sayst thou?” - -“That swinish Fortune will love the lusty bully that drains her, -though the bulk of the litter starve.” - -He spat savagely on the ground. - -“I do not comprehend,” he muttered again. - -“Well,” I said, “at least let us hope there is an especial Paradise -reserved for the undeveloped maggots.” - -He rose and stood brooding a moment; then looked away from me and -cried morosely, “Get up!” - -To my astonishment, from a sort of cradle of roots to the farther side -of the tree a young girl scrambled to her feet at his call, and stood -yawning and eyeing me loweringly. - -“Your daughter?” said I. - -“Yes,” he answered, “she is my daughter. What then?” - -I jumped up in some suppressed excitement. - -“I recall my words,” I said. “You have a chance, after all, down there -in Bordeaux. And now I see that it is a thief that fears a spy.” - -I pointed at the wench. She was dressed, ridiculously, -inappropriately, in a silk gown of a past fashion, but rich in -quality, and decorated with a collar of point-lace. Out of this her -dirty countenance, thatched with a villainous mop of hair, stuck -grotesquely; and the skirt of the dress had been roughly caught up to -disencumber her bare feet. - -The man stamped on the ground. - -“I do not fear you!” he cried furiously, “and I am no thief!” - -I laughed derisively. - -“But it is true!” he shouted. “A young lady we met in the woods of -Coutras would exchange it for Nannette’s _jupon_; and why the devil -should we deny her?” - -My heart gave a sudden swerve. - -“What was she like, this lady?” I said. - -The fellow glanced sulkily askance at me. - -“Does not the spy know?” he said. - -“Perhaps he does. Say this demoiselle was slender and of a reasonable -height; that she had brown hair, and grey eyes under dark brows; that -her face was of a cold, transparent whiteness; that she spoke with a -certain soft huskiness in her voice.” - -He cried under his breath, with a note of fright, “The devil is in -this man!” - -I laughed and took off my hat and made the two a bow. - -“To your quick advancement in Bordeaux!” I said. - -He stared a moment, seemed to hesitate; then, roughly summoning the -girl to follow him, strode off through the wood. The moment they were -out of sight I sat down again to ponder. - -Was it true, then, that these peasants had met Carinne--that they had -helped her to a disguise--for what purpose? She must have been in the -woods whilst I was there--accursed destiny that kept us apart! At -least I must return to them at once and seek her. - -I broke into a queer embarrassed fit of laughter. - -What self-ordained mission was this? What was my interest in the girl, -or how would she not resent, perhaps, the insolence of my -interference? She had no claim upon my protection or I upon her -favour. - -Very well and very well--but I was going to seek her, nevertheless. -Such queer little threads of irresponsible adventure pulled me in -these days. - -But, at first for my hunger. It was a great voice in an empty house. -It would not be refused or put off with a feast of sentiment. Eat I -must, if it was only of a hunk of sour pease-bread. - -Suddenly I thought of that bestial apparition at the wood-skirt. There -had been a liquid “yong” in its snarl, as if it could not forbear the -action of gluttonous jaws even while they were setting at an intruder. -Perhaps the remains of a goat----! - -I started running towards the point at which, I believed, I had -entered amongst the trees. Very shortly I emerged into the open, and -saw the cornfield shimmering violet before me in the dawn. I beat up -and down amongst the standing grain, and all in a moment came upon -that I sought. A goat it might have been (or a scapegoat bearing the -sins of the people) for anything human in its appearance. Yet it was -the body of a man--of a great man, too, in his day, I believe--that -lay before me in the midst of a trampled crib of stalks, but -featureless, half-devoured--a seething abomination. - -Now, in the placid aftermath of my fortunes, I can very easily shudder -over that thought of the straits to which hunger will drive one. Then, -I only know that through all the abhorrence with which I regarded the -hideous remains, the sight of an untouched satchel flung upon the -ground beside them thrilled me with hope. I stooped, had it in my -hands, unbuckled it with shaking fingers. It was full to choking of -bread and raisins and a little flask of cognac. Probably the poor -wretch had not thought it worth his while to satisfy the needs of an -existence he was about to put an end to. For the horn handle of a -knife, the blade of which was hidden in the decaying heart of the -creature, stood out slackly from a hoop of ribs. - -I withdrew into the wood, and without a scruple attacked the -provisions. It was a dry and withered feast; yet I had been -fastidiously critical of many a _service aux repas_ at Versailles that -gave me not a tithe of the pleasure I now enjoyed. And at the last I -drank to the white Andromeda whose Perseus I then and there proclaimed -myself to be. - - - - - CHAPTER VI. - THE HERD OF SWINE. - -I was back in the woods of Pierrettes, my precious satchel, still -but two-thirds emptied, slung about my shoulders, my clothes wrinkled -dry from their sopping in the waters of the Dordogne. All that day of -my finding of the food had I lain concealed in the woods; but, with -the fall of dusk, I made my way, by a long _détour_, to the -river-bank, and crossed the stream swimming and in safety. And now was -I again _la Grand’ Bête_, seeking to trace in the scent of trodden -violets the path by which my phantom Carinne had vanished. - -That night I passed, warned by experience, in the branches of a tree. -With dawn of the following day I was on foot again, striking -northwards by the sun, and stretching over the encumbered miles with -all the speed I could accomplish. I had a thought in my breast, and -good fortune enabled me to put it to the proof. For, somewhere about -four o’clock as I judged, I emerged into a woodland track that I felt -convinced was the one made detestable by a dangling body; and sure -enough I came of a sudden to the fatal tree, and was aware of a cut -slack of rope hanging from a branch thereof, though the corpse itself -was removed. - -Now, it behoved me to proceed with caution, which I did; yet none so -successfully but that I came plump out of the mouth of the green -passage upon M. de Lâge himself, and saw and was seen by him in a -single moment. Therefore I had nothing for it but to brazen out the -situation. - -He showed no disturbance at my approach, nor, indeed, did he take any -notice of me; but he crept hither and thither, with lack-lustre eyes, -gathering nettles. I went up to him, suppressing my repugnance of the -miserable creature. - -“Is mademoiselle returned?” I said outright. - -He stopped in his picking, and leered up at me vaguely. He seemed -utterly broken and forlorn. - -“She will not return,” he said; and resumed his task. I stood some -moments watching him. Suddenly he clasped his hands plaintively -together and looked me again in the face. - -“Why did she go at all?” he said. “Can monsieur tell me, for I -forget?” - -He put his fingers aimlessly, like an infant, to his head. - -“I had a pride in her. She was beautiful and self-willed. _Mon Dieu!_ -but she would make me laugh or tremble, the rogue. Well, she is gone.” - -Could it be that his every memory of his villainy was lost with his -cherished tankards? - -“What a love was mine,” he murmured. “I would have denied her -nothing--in reason; and she has deserted me.” - -“Monsieur,” I said, “do you remember me?” - -“You, you!” he cried angrily--“what do I know or care about this Orson -that springs upon me from the green? You need to be shaved and washed, -monsieur.” - -“Undoubtedly; if monsieur would provide me with the means?” - -He gave me a quick inquisitive look. - -“You have a queer accent for a patriot. Well, well--it is no concern -of mine.” - -Again he resumed his task, again to pause in it. - -“Do you seek a service? I hear it is the case with many.” - -“I seek food and a lodging for the night.” - -“Eh! but can you pay for them?” - -“In reason--certainly, in reason.” - -“So, then?--should Georgette bring a generous basketful--bah!” he -cried suddenly, stamping irritably on the ground--“I offer you my poor -hospitality, monsieur, and” (the leer came into his eyes -again)--“should monsieur feel any scruple, a vail left on the -mantelpiece for the servants will doubtless satisfy it.” - -But he had no servant left to him, it would seem. When, by-and-by, he -ushered me, with apish ceremony, into his house, I found the place -desolate and forlorn as we had left it. - -“I have reduced my following,” he said, “since my niece withdrew -herself from my protection. What does a single bachelor want with an -army of locusts to devour him?” - -He showed me into a little bare room on the second floor, with nothing -worthy of remark in it but an ill-furnished bedstead, and a baneful -picture on the wall that I learnt was a portrait of Carinne by -herself. - -“It is a little of a travesty,” said De Lâge. “She looked in a -mirror, and painted as she saw herself therein--crooked, like a stick -dipt under water. But she was clever, for all she insisted that this -was a faithful likeness.” - -I believe there were tears on his face as he left me. What a riddle -was the creature! There is a blind spot in every eye, it is said--and -the eyes are the windows of the soul. - -He had supplied me with soap and water and a razor, and these I found -almost as grateful to my wants as the satchel had been. When I was -something restored to cleanliness I descended to the corridor below, -and, attracted by a sound of movement, entered one of the rooms that -opened therefrom. - -Within, a young woman was engaged in laying one end of a carved-oak -table with a white napkin. She looked round as I advanced, stared, -gave a twitter of terror, and, retreating to the wall, put an arm up, -with the elbow pointed at me, as if I were something horrible in her -sight. - -I had a sharp intuition; for this, I saw, was the little _aubergiste_ -of the ‘Golden Lion.’ - -“You think me responsible for the poor rogue’s hanging?” I said. - -She whispered “Yes,” with a pitiful attempt to summon her indignation -to this ordeal of fear. I went up to her and spoke gently, while she -shrunk from me. - -“Georgette, my child, it is not so. You must take that on my honour, -for I am a gentleman, Georgette, in disguise.” - -“In disguise?” she whispered, with trembling lips; but her eyes -wondered. - -“Truly, little girl; I am a wanderer now, and proscribed because I -would not lend myself to thy Michel’s punishment.” - -“Oh!” she sobbed, “but it was cruel. And the Republic destroys its own -children, m’sieu’.” - -“Thy father----?” - -“Ah! he, at least, is back, if still under surveillance; otherwise I -should not be enabled to come daily to minister to the needs of this -poor lonely old man.” - -“Now thou art a good soul, thou little _aubergiste_. And thy -ministrations are meat to him, I perceive.” - -“Hush, m’sieu’! but if he were to hear? He asks no questions, he -accepts all like a child. He would die of shame were he to learn that -he owes his dinner to the gratitude of m’sieu’ his father’s -dependant.” - -“Is he so sensitive? Thou great little Georgette! And -mademoiselle--she does not return?” - -She shook her head. - -“Tell me where she is, child; for I believe you know.” - -“Oh!” she murmured, obviously in great distress, “m’sieu’ must not ask -me.” - -I took her hands and drew her towards me. - -“Look in my eyes and tell me what you see there.” - -She glanced up scared and entreating. - -“But, is it cruelty, false faith, the currish soul of the liar and -informer?” - -“No, no, m’sieu’.” - -“Then is it not, rather, the honour of a gentleman, the chivalry that -would help and protect a defenceless woman cast adrift in this fearful -land of blood and licence?” - -I gave her my title. - -“Now,” I said, “you can cast me to the axe with a word. And where is -Mademoiselle Carinne, Georgette?” - -She still hesitated. I could see the little womanly soul of her -tossing on a lake of tears. - -“At least,” I said, “she will not return hither?” - -“She will never return--oh, monseigneur! she will never return; and it -is not for me to say why.” - -I released her hands. - -“Well,” I said, “I would have helped her and have cared for her, -Georgette; but you will not let me.” - -She broke forth at once at that, her arms held out and her eyes -swimming. - -“I will tell you, monseigneur--all that I know; and God forgive me if -I do wrong!” - -“And me, Georgette, and wither me with His vengeance.” - -“I will tell you, monseigneur. That night--that night after the -terror, she spent in the woods, and all the next day she hid there, -moving towards Coutras. I would go often to the Château to take to M. -de Lâge the money for our weekly bill of faggots, and--and for other -reasons; and now she watched for me and waylaid me and told me all. -Oh, m’sieu’! she was incensed--and it was not for me to judge; but M. -de Lâge is a wise man, and perhaps there is a wisdom that makes too -little account of the scruples of our sex.” - -“She would not return to him? Well!” - -“She would beg or starve sooner, she said; and she would begin by -asking a little food of me. Oh, m’sieu’, but the sad proud demoiselle! -My heart wept to hear her so humble to the peasant girl to whom she -had been good and gracious always in the old days of peace.” - -“That is well. And where is she?” - -“I cannot tell you, m’sieu’. Ah, pardon! She but waited for the night, -when I could bring her food--all that would keep and that she could -carry--and then she started on foot for the mountains of Gatine.” - -“Now, _mon Dieu_! they must be twenty leagues away.” - -“Twenty-five, m’sieu’, by La Roche Chalais and Mareuil. But she would -avoid the towns, and journey by way of the woods and the harsh -desolate country. Mother of God! but it makes me weep to think of her -white face and her tender feet in those frightful solitudes.” - -“It is madness!” - -“But indeed, m’sieu’. And, though the towns gather all to them and the -country is depopulated, there may be savages still left here and -there--swineherds, charcoal-burners, to whom that libertine -Lacombe----” - -“Silence, girl! And you would have denied her a protector!” - -“She bound me to silence, m’sieu’, lest her uncle should send in -pursuit.” - -“It is madness--it is madness. And what does she go to seek in the -mountains?” - -“Ah! m’sieu’, I know not--unless it is some haven of rest where the -footstep of man is never heard.” - -“Now, Georgette; will you meet me to-night where you met her, and -bring me food--for which I will pay you--and point me out the way that -Mademoiselle Carinne took at parting? I have a mind to journey to the -mountains, also, and to go by the harsh country and to start in the -dark. Will you, Georgette?” - -“Pray the good God,” she said, “that it is not all a _jeu de -l’oie_”--and at that moment we heard De Lâge feebly mounting the -stairway. - -He entered the room and accosted me with a sort of sly courtesy that -greatly confounded me. Associations connected with my reappearance, -perhaps, had kindled the slow fuse of his memory; but the flame would -burn fitfully and in a wrong direction; and, indeed, I think the shock -of his loss (of the tankards) had quite unhinged his mind. - -“Shall we fall to?” he said. “This is not Paris; yet our good country -Grisels can canvass the favour of a hungry man.” - -He gave a ridiculous little laugh. - -“And what have we here, girl?” he said. - -“M’sieu’, it is a pasty of young partridges.” - -His palate was not dulled with his wits. It foretasted the delicacy -and his eyes moistened. He lingered regretfully over the wedge he cut -for me. - -“Be generous, monsieur,” he cried, with an enjoying chuckle, “and own -that you have been served none better at Véry’s. Oh, but I know my -Paris! I was there so late as September of last year, and again, on -business connected with my estate, during the month of the king’s -trial.” - -He blenched over some sudden half-memory; but the sight of Georgette -carrying my platter to me restored him to the business of the table. - -“I know my Paris!” he cried again. “I have taken kidneys with -champagne at La Rapée’s; sheep’s feet at la Buvette du Palais; -oysters at Rocher de Cançale. Ho-ho! but does monsieur know the -Rocher?” - -“_Venite ad me omnes qui stomacho laboratis, et ego restaurabo vos!_” -I said, quoting a well-known inscription over an eating-house. - -He gave a sharp little squeak. - -“Eh! but monsieur has the right etymology of the _restaurateur_; he is -a man of taste and of delicacy. This poor burgundy” (he clawed up his -glass)--“it might have been Clos Vougeot de Tourton if monsieur had -not been so stringent in his sequestration.” - -He favoured me with a leer--very arch and very anxious. I could only -stare. Evidently he took me, in his wandering mind, for some other -than that I was. I was to be enlightened in a moment. - -It was when Georgette had left the room and we were alone. The falling -sunlight came through a curtain of vine-leaves about the window, and -reddened his old mad face. He bent forward, looking at me eagerly. - -“Hush, monsieur! The plate--the tankards--the christening-cups! You -will let me have them back? My God! there was a cross, in niello, of -the twelfth century. It will bring you nothing in the markets of the -Vandals. Monsieur, monsieur! I accept your terms--hot terms, brave -terms for a bold wooer. But you must not seek to carry her with a high -hand. She knows herself, and her pride and her beauty. Hush! I can -tell you where she lies hidden. She crouches under a rosebush in the -garden, and as the petals fall, they have covered and concealed her.” - -Now I understood. He was again, in his lost soul, staking Carinne -against his forfeited pots. He took me for Lacombe. - -I jumped to my feet. - - * * * * * * * - -And now began my second period of wandering; but under conditions -infinitely more trying than the first. Keeping to the dense woods by -day, and traversing the highways only by night, I had hitherto escaped -that which was to prove the cruellest usurer of my vigour--the -merciless blazing sun. Here, as I travelled by desolate broomy wastes; -by arid hills, from which any knob of rock projecting was hot as the -handle of an oven; by choking woods and endless winding valleys,--I -would sometimes ask myself in amazement what could be the nature of -the infatuation that for its own sake would elect to endure these -sufferings. I had not spoken to the girl. I was not authorised to -champion her cause. Strangest of all, the lack of womanly -sensitiveness she had displayed under the very ordeal of St Fargeau’s -dying groans had not prepossessed me in her favour. Yet, slowly was I -making, and would continue to make, my way to these mountains of -Limosin, in the dreamy hope of happening upon a self-willed and rather -heartless young woman, who--if we _were_ to come together--would -probably resent my intrusion as an affront. Truly an eccentric quest. - -Well--I was unaccountable to myself, and of no account to others. -Maybe that last is the explanation. My world of conventions was dead, -and I lived--as I have already said--a posthumous life. Through it, no -doubt, I was drawn by shadows--attracted by the unexplainable--blown -by any wind of irresponsibility. This anarchy at least opened out -strange vistas of romance to the imaginative soul. It is odd to live -apart from, and independent of, the voice of duty. That state shall -seldom occur; but, when it does, to experience it is to something feel -the marvel of dematerialisation. - -Depleted of human life; savage in its loneliness; blistered and flaked -by the sun, the country through which I travelled was yet beautiful to -a degree. Of food--by means of eking out my little supply with -chestnuts and wild berries--I had a poor sufficiency; but thirst -tortured me often and greatly. I moved slowly, threshing the land, as -it were, for traces of an ignis-fatuus that still fled before me in -fancy. And I had my frights and perils--one adventure, also; but that -I shall not in this connection relate. - -Once, high up on the ridge of a valley, I saw a poor wretch, his arms -bound behind him, hurrying forward under escort of a guard. It was -evening, soft and tranquil. A cluster of mountain-peaks swam in the -long distance; the horizon was barred with a grate of glowing clouds. -Therethrough, it seemed, the consumed sun had fallen into white ashes -of mist; but the cooling furnace of the sky, to the walls of which a -single star clung like an unextinguished spark, was yet rosy with -heat; and against the rose the hillside and the figures that crowned -it were silhouetted in a sharp deep purple. How beautiful and how -voiceless! The figure fell, and his scream came down to me like a -bat’s cheep as the soldiers prodded him to rise with their bayonets. -Then I cursed the Goths that had spoiled me my picture. - -Another time, lying concealed in a little hanging copse above a gorge, -I heard bleating below me and the rainy patter of feet, and peered -forth to see a flock of goats being driven down the valley. They were -shepherded by three or four ‘requisition’ men, as they were -called--patriot louts whose business it was to beat up the desolated -country for those herds of sheep or swine that had run wild for lack -of owners. Their unexpected appearance was a little lesson in caution -to me, for I had enjoyed so long an immunity from interference as to -have grown careless of showing myself in the most exposed districts. - -On two occasions only was I troubled by wolves. The first was on a -morning of lassitude and fatigue, when water had failed me for many -hours. I was resting, on a heath-covered slope, within a rocky cave or -lair in the hillside. For long the sky wraiths had been loading cloud -upon cloud, till the gathered steam of the earth, finding no outlet, -seemed to scald one’s body. Then, in a moment, such a storm crashed -down as I had never before experienced. Each slam of thunder amongst -the rocks was like a port of hell flung open; the lightning, slashing -through the hail, seemed to melt and run in a marrowy-white flood that -palpitated as it settled down on the heather. But the hail! the fury -of this artillery of ice--its noise, and the frenzy of the Carmagnole -it danced! I was fortunate to be under a solid roof; and when at last -the north wind, bristling with blades, charged down the valley like -the Duke of Saxony’s Horse at Fontenoy, I thought the earth must have -slipped its course and swerved into everlasting winter. - -Suddenly the mouth of the _ressui_ was blotted by a couple of shaggy -forms. They came pelting up--their tails hooked like carriage-brakes -to their bellies, their eyes blazing fear--and, seeing me within, -jerked to a rigid halt, while the stones drummed on their hides. The -next moment, cowed out of all considerations of caste, they had slunk -by me and were huddled, my very sinister familiars, at the extreme end -of the cave. - -Oh, but this was the devil of an embarrassment! I had sat out sermons -that stabbed me below the belt at every second lunge; I had had -accepted offers of gallantry that I had never made; I had ridiculed -the work of an anonymous author to his face. Here, however, was a -situation that it seemed beyond my power of _finesse_ to acquit myself -of with _aplomb_. In point of fact, the moment the storm slackened, I -slipped out--conscious of the strange fancy that bristles were growing -on my thighs--and, descending hurriedly to the valley, climbed a tree. -It was only then (so base is human nature) that I waived the pretence -that the wolf is a noble animal. - -But my second experience was a more finished one. Then I tasted the -full flavour of fright, and almost returned the compliment of a feast -to my company. I was padding, towards evening, over a woodland lawn, -when from a hollow at the foot of a great chestnut-tree a rumbling -snarl issuing vibrated on the strings of my sensibilities, and I saw -three or four very ugly snouts project themselves from the blackness. -I went steadily by and steadily continued my way, which without doubt -was the discerning policy to pursue. But impulse will push behind as -well as fly before reason, and presently that which affects the nerves -of motion did so frantically hustle me at the rear as to set me off -running at the top of my speed. Then the folly of my behaviour was -made manifest to me, for, glancing over my shoulder as I sped, I saw -that no fewer than five fierce brutes were come out of their lair at -the sound, and were beginning to slink in my wake. - -I gave a yell that would have fetched Charon from the other side of -the Styx; my feet seemed to dance on air; I threatened to outstrip my -own breath. Still the patter behind me swelled into a race, and I -found myself ghastlily petting a thought as to the length of a wolfs -eye-tooth and the first feel of it clamped into one’s flesh. Now, of a -sudden, the wood opened out, and I saw before me the butt of a decayed -tree, and, on its farther side, a little reedy pond shining livid -under a rampart of green that hedged off the sunset. At the water I -drove, in a lost hope that the pursuit would check itself at its -margin, and, in my blind onset, dashed against a branch of the dead -tree and fell half stunned into the pool beyond. Still an inspiring -consciousness of my peril enabled me to scramble farther, splashing -and choking, until I was perhaps twenty yards from the shore; and -then, in shallow water, I sat down, my head just above the surface, -and caught at my sliding faculties and laughed. Immediately I was -myself again, and the secure and wondering spectator of a very -Walpurgis dance that was enacting for my benefit on the bank. - -The five wolves appeared, indeed, to be skipping in pure amazement, -like the mountains of Judæa; but they howled in tribulation, like the -gate of Palestina. They leapt and ran hither and thither; they bit at -the air, at their flanks, at their feet; they raked their heads with -their paws and rolled on the ground in knots. At last I read the -riddle in a tiny moted cloud that whirled above them. In dashing -against the rotten branch I had, it seemed, upset a hornets’ nest -built in the old tooth of the tree, and the garrison had sallied forth -to cover my retreat. - -Oh, but the braves! I raised a little pæan to them on the spot, but I -took care not to shout it. Suddenly the beasts turned tail and went -yelling back into the wood. I did not rise at once. I left the victors -time to congratulate themselves and to settle down. And at last I was -too diffident to pester them with my gratitude, and I waded sheer -across the pool (that was nowhere more than three feet deep) and -landed on its farther side. - - * * * * * * * - -One day I happened upon Carinne! - -That is the high note of this droning chant of retrospection. - -I was walking aimlessly, the hot thirst upon me once more, when I came -out from amongst trees into a sort of forest amphitheatre of -considerable extent, whose base, like the kick in a bottle, was a -round hill, pretty high, and scattered sparsely with chestnut-trees. I -climbed the slopes toilfully, and getting a view of things from near -the summit, saw that to the north the circumference of green was -broken by the gates of a hazy valley. It was as beautiful a place as I -had ever chanced on; but its most gladdening corner to me was that -whence a little brook looped out of the forest skirt, like a timid -child coaxed from its mother’s apron, and pattering a few yards, fled -back again to shelter. - -Now I would take it all in before I descended, postponing the cool -ecstasy like an epicure. I mounted to the top, and, peering between -the chestnut trunks down the farther slopes, uttered an exclamation of -surprise. A herd of swine was peacefully feeding against the fringe of -the wood, and, even as I looked, one of them, a mottled porkling, -crashed through a little rug of branches spread upon the ground and -vanished into Tartarus. Immediately his dismal screeches rebuked the -skies, and, at the sound, a girl came running out of the wood, and, -kneeling above the fatal breach, clasped her hands over her eyes and -turned away her face--a very Niobe of pigs. Seeing her thus, I -descended to her assistance; but, lost in her grief, it seemed, she -did not hear me until I was close upon her. Then suddenly she glanced -up startled,--and her eyes were the cold eyes of Carinne. - - - - - CHAPTER VII. - THE CHEVALIER DU GUET. - -The eyes of Mademoiselle de Lâge were a merciless grey; her face -was gold-white, like a dying maple-leaf. She wore no cap on her -tumbled hair, and a coarse bistre-coloured _jupon_ was her prominent -article of attire. I knew her at once, nevertheless, though her cheeks -were a little fallen and her under-lids dashed with violet. She stared -at me as she knelt; but she made no sign that she was afraid. - -“Mademoiselle is in tribulation?” - -“You need not speak a swineherd so fair,” she said. - -“But I honour pork with all my heart.” - -She rose to her feet. She seemed to hesitate. But she never took her -eyes off me. - -“Whence do you come?” she said, in her soft, deliberate voice. - -“From the woods--from the wastes--from anywhere. I am proscribed and -in hiding. I am hungry, also,--and mademoiselle will give me to eat?” - -“Why do you call me ‘mademoiselle’? Do you not see I am a swineherd?” - -The little pig still screeched fitfully underground. - -“Oh!” she cried, in sudden anguish. “Kill it, monsieur, if you know -the way, and let us dine!” - -I was pleased with that “us.” - -“I have no technical knowledge,” I said. “But, let us see. It is -injured?” - -“_Mon Dieu!_ I hope not. I had so longed to taste meat once more, and -I had heard of pitfalls. There was a hole in the ground. I covered it -over with branches, that one of these might step thereon and tumble in -and be killed. But when I heard his cries I was sorry.” - -“That was a bold thought for a swineherd. And how would you tell your -tale, with one devoured? or get the little pig out of the pit? or skin -and dismember and cook it when hauled to the surface?” - -“All that I had not considered.” - -“But you desired to eat pork? And what would you say now to a pig’s -foot _à la_ St Menehould?” - -The jest bubbled out of me; I could not withhold it. Her mind was as -quick as her speech was measured. - -“Ah!” she cried, “but I remember. And you were in Février’s, -monsieur?” - -“At the table next to yours.” - -“That is strange, is it not!” - -She gave a little scornful shift to her shoulders. - -“It is all nothing in these mad days. The question is, monsieur, if -you can put the little beast out of his pain?” - -I looked into the pit. Two beady eyes, withdrawn into a fat neck, -peered up at me. - -“The hole is not six feet deep, mademoiselle. His pain is all upon his -nerves.” - -She gave a whimper of relief. Then her face fell cold again. - -“It follows that we must forego our dinner. Will monsieur release the -victim of my gluttony?” - -I jumped into the hole--hoisted out the small squeaker--returned to -the surface. - -“_Bon jour_, monsieur!” said Carinne. - -“You will dismiss me hungry, mademoiselle?” - -“What claim have you upon me?” - -“The claim of fraternity, citoyenne.” - -She uttered a little laugh of high disdain. - -“Well, rob me,” she said, “and prove yourself a true Republican.” - -“I would steal nothing from you but your favour.” - -“It is all bestowed on these animals. Take him you have rescued and -make yourself my debtor and go.” - -“Mademoiselle, is this to be, when I have spent days--nay, I know not -how many--of hunger and thirst and weariness in the desperate pursuit -of one to whom I had vowed to offer those services of protection she -lacked elsewhere?” - -Her pale eyes wondered at me. - -“Do you speak of the swineherd, monsieur?” she said. - -“I speak of Mademoiselle de Lâge.” - -“She is very secure and in good company. And whence comes your -knowledge of, or interest in, her?” - -“Shall I tell you the story?” - -“Nay,” she said, with a sudden swerve to indifference; “but how does -it concern me?” - -“Your uncle, mademoiselle!” - -“I have none that I own.” - -I was silent. She looked away from me, tapping a foot on the ground. -It was all a fight between her bitterness and her pride. With a woman -the first conquers. - -“Tell me,” she said in a moment, turning upon me, “do you come from -him?” - -“I come from him.” - -“Commissioned to beg me to return?” - -“No, mademoiselle. Nor would I insult you with such a message.” - -“I can dispense with your interest in me, sir.” - -Again she averted her face. Decidedly she required some knowing. -By-and-by she spoke again, without looking round and more gently-- - -“How does M. de Lâge bear the loss of--the loss of his treasures?” - -“He is, I fear, demented by it.” - -She gave a bad little laugh. - -“One who would sell his honour should at least keep his wits. Well, -monsieur, I have nothing with which to reward your service of runner, -so----” - -“A meal and a drink of water will repay me, mademoiselle.” - -“You can help yourself. Do you think I keep a larder in the forest?” - -“But you eat?” - -“My table is spread under the chestnut-trees and over the bushes. I -leave its selection to my friends yonder. Sometimes they will present -me with a truffle for feast-days.” - -I regarded the proud child with some quaintness of pity. This -repelling manner was doubtless a mask over much unhappiness. - -“I have still something left in my satchel,” I said. “Will -mademoiselle honour me by sharing it?” - -The light jumped in her eyes. - -“I do not know,” she said. “What is its nature?” - -“Only some raisins and a little hard bread.” - -“But bread, monsieur! That I have not tasted for long. We will go to -the brook-side and sit down.” - -“And the herd?” - -“They will not wander. When they come to a fruitful ground they stay -there till it is stripped.” - -She led the way round the hill to the little gushing stream and seated -herself on a green stone. I would not even slake my thirst until I had -spread my store on her lap. Then I lay down at her feet, like a dog, -and waited for the fragments she could spare. She ate with relish, and -took little notice of me. But presently she paused, in astonishment at -herself. - -“I am eating up your dinner!” she cried. - -“It gives me more pleasure to watch than to share with you.” - -“Oh, fie!” she exclaimed. “But am I not a true swineherd?” - -She handed me the satchel. - -“It is all yours, mademoiselle.” - -“Eat!” she said peremptorily. “I will not touch another mouthful.” - -She leaned an elbow on her knee and her chin upon her knuckles while I -devoured what remained. Her eyes dreamed into the thronging -tree-trunks. I thought the real softness of her soul was beginning to -quicken like a February narcissus. - -“But how I long for meat!” she said, suddenly. - -I laughed. - -“If mademoiselle will retain me in her service, I will make shift to -provide her with a dish of pork.” - -She turned and looked at me. - -“Is it true you have sought me out? I have no knowledge of your face.” - -“It will not, like mademoiselle’s, impress itself on the imagination. -I have seen you, by chance, twice before, mademoiselle, and therefore -it follows, in the logic of gallantry, that I am here.” - -She drew herself up at that word I was foolish enough to utter. - -“I perceive, monsieur, that you hold the licence of your tongue a -recommendation to my service. Is this another message with the -delivery of which you would not insult me?” - -“Nay, mademoiselle, I spoke the common fashion of more trivial times -than these; and I ask your pardon. It is to save you from the -possibility of insult that I have wandered and starved these many -days.” - -She looked at me very gravely. - -“I foresee no danger in these solitudes. I am sorry, monsieur; but I -cannot accept your service.” - -She rose to her feet and I to mine. - -“Mademoiselle,” I cried, “be wise to reconsider the question! A -delicate and high-born lady, solitary and defenceless amongst these -barbarous hills! But I myself, on my journey hither, have encountered -more than one perilous rogue!” - -She shook her head. - -“I take it as I find it. Besides, I have always a covert into which I -can slip on menace of a storm.” - -“But this is madness!” - -“By monsieur’s account that is the present condition of our family,” -she said, frigidly. - -“See, mademoiselle--I ask nothing but that I may remain near you, to -help and protect, your guard and your servant in one.” - -She made as if to go. - -“You fatigue me, monsieur. It is not the part of a gentleman to impose -his company where it is not desired. You will not remain by my -consent.” - -“Then I shall remain nevertheless!” I cried, a little angrily. “I must -not allow mademoiselle to constitute herself the victim to a false -sentiment.” - -She left me without another word, going off to her pigs; and I flung -myself down again in a pet by the brookside. - - * * * * * * * - -All that afternoon and evening I wandered about in the neighbourhood -of the little hill. I was hot and angry--after a humorous -fashion--with myself rather than with Carinne. If I had chosen to -invest my self-imposed knight-errantry with a purely fictitious order -of merit, I could hardly blame the girl for declining to recognise its -title to respect. At the same time, while I assured myself I detested -her, I could not refrain from constantly speculating as to the nature -of her present reflections. Was she still haughtily indignant at my -insistence, or inclined to secret heart-searchings in the matter of -her rather cavalier rejection of my services? Like a child, I wished -her, I think, to be a little sorry, a little unaccountably sad over -the memory of the stranger who had come and gone like a sunbeam shot -through the melancholy of her days. I wished her to have reason to -regret her unceremonious treatment of me. I did _not_ wish her to -overlook my visit altogether--and this, it would appear, was just what -she was doing. - -For, when I once, somewhere about the fall of dusk, climbed softly to -the top of the hillock to get view of her, perchance, from ambush, I -was positively incensed to hear her voice coming up to me in a little -placid song or chant that was in itself an earnest of her indifference -and serenity. She sat against a tree at the foot of the slope, and all -about her, uncouthly dumped on the fallen mast, were a score of drowsy -pigs. She sang to them like Circe, while they twitched lazy ears or -snapped their little springs of tails; and the sunset poured from the -furnace-mouth of the valley and made her pale face glorious. - -Now she did her beauty more justice by voice than by brush, though in -each art she was supremely artless; but there was a note of nature in -the first that was like the winter song of a robin. And presently she -trilled a little childish _chansonnette_ of the peasants that touched -me because I had some memory of it:-- - - The little bonne, Marie, - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - Spoke to her doll so wee: - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - “Hush, little son, sweet thing! - But wouldst thou be a king?” - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - - “Thy sceptre grows in the mere,” - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - “Thy crown in the blossoming brere.” - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - “For orb a grape shall stand - Clutched in thy tiny hand.” - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - - A rose she pinned at his side, - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - And one to each foot she tied; - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - His cot she lined with rue, - And she named him her _Jésus_. - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - -I lay amongst the branches that night, with the memory of the low, -sweet voice and the strange picture in my brain. And, as I tossed, -literally, on my timber couch, a weirder fancy would come to me of the -elfish swineherd sleeping within her charmed circle of hogs--fearless -and secure--mingling her soft expression of rest with their truculent -breathings. - -I was up (or rather down) early; washed in the brook; breakfasted -fastidiously off beech-nuts. Then, quite undecided as to my course of -action, I loitered awhile amongst the trees, and finally came round by -the hill once more, and dwelt upon a thought to climb it and -investigate. But, as I stood in uncertainty, a shrill cry came to my -ears. It rang startlingly in that voiceless pit of green, and I -hurried at my topmost speed round the base of the mound, and came -suddenly upon a sight that met me like a blow. - -Two savages, each with an arm of the girl brutally seized, were -shouldering the poor swineherd towards the trees. She cried and -struggled, disputing every step; the pigs streamed curiously in the -wake of the group. There was an obvious ugly inference to be drawn -from the sight, and I made no compromise with my discretion. I just -rushed through the herd and charged straight at one of the ruffians. - -He was aware of me--they both were--before I reached him. They twisted -their heads about, and the one I made for dropped his hold of Carinne -and jumped to meet my onset, while the other hooted “_O-he! bran de -lui!_” and tightened his grip of the girl. I saw only that my -assailant was a powerful coarse _bonnet-rouge_, little-eyed, hairy as -Attila. The next instant I had dived, caught one of his ankles, and -given his furious impetus an upward direction. He went over me in a -parabola, like a ball sprung from a trap, and I heard his ribs thud on -the ground. But I had no time to give him my further attention, for, -seeing his comrade’s discomfiture, the second rascal came at me. - -And now I was like to pay dearly for my temerity, for, though I was -lithe and active enough, I had not that of substance on my bones to -withstand the pounding of a couple of enraged and sanguinary giants. -The poor Carinne had sunk, for the moment unnerved, upon the ground. I -prayed God she had a knife to use on herself for a last resource. No -doubt the ruffian I had thrown would take me in the rear in a moment. -The other was bearing down upon me like a bullock. Suddenly, when come -almost within my reach, he jerked himself to so quick a halt that his -heels cut grooves in the mast. I saw his eyes dilate and glare beyond -me, and on the instant a single vibrant scream, like the shrill neigh -of a horse, rose from the ground at my back. It was the cue for an -immediate quarrelling clamour, fierce and gluttonous, such as one -hears when a bucket of wash is emptied into a sty; and if it was -lifted again, bodiless and inhuman, it might not reach through the -uproar. - -I had turned to look--and away again in infinite horror. Upon the -half-stunned wretch, as he lay prostrate on his back, an old ravening -boar of the herd had flung itself in fury, and with one bestial clinch -of its teeth and jerk of its powerful neck had torn out the very apple -of the man’s throat. And there atop of his victim the huge brute -sprawled, tossing its head and squeaking furiously; while the rest of -the herd, smitten with the beast-lust, ran hither and thither, -approaching, snuffing, retreating, and, through all, never ceasing in -their guttural outcry. - -Now in a moment came a pause in the tumult, and I read in my -opponent’s eyes, as distinctly as though they were mirrors, that the -triumphant brute behind me was showing itself alert with consciousness -of the living prey that yet offered itself in reversion. I saw in the -man’s face amazement resolve itself into sick terror; he slipped back -into its sheath the _couteau-poignard_ he had half drawn. -“_Adieu-va!_” I shouted at him, advancing--and on the word he wheeled -about and pounded off amongst the trees as if the devil were at his -heels. - -When I ran to Mademoiselle de Lâge, she was regaining in a dazed -manner her feet and her faculties. - -“I must lift you--I must help you!” I cried. “Ah! do not look, but -come away! My God, what peril, when the beast in man is made manifest -to the beast in the beast!” - -I put my right arm about her under hers. To touch the very stringy -texture of the _jupon_ with my hand was to find my heart queerly -lodged in my finger-tips. She came quietly with me a few paces; then -suddenly she wrenched herself free, and, turning her back upon me, -fumbled in her bosom. - -“Monsieur,” she said on a little faint key, from the covert of her -hair (_Bon Dieu!_ that admirable low huskiness in her voice that made -of her every utterance a caress!),--“monsieur, he was the old brave of -my little troop. I called him my _Chevalier du Guet_. It was -inhuman--yes, it was inhuman; but he struck for his lady and rescued -her. Wilt thou not be my ambassador to decorate him for a last token -of gratitude?” - -Heaven! the magnificence of her fancy! She had taken from her -shoulders her scapular, together with a little heart of chalcedonyx -that hung therefrom. This latter she detached and handed to me. - -“Loop it to his ear, if thou darest,” said she. - -I went quite gravely to do her bidding. What a _farceur_ of -circumstance was I become! But my breast overflowed with deference as -I approached the great pig. He had rolled from his victim and stood a -little apart, evilly humouring with his chaps a certain recollection. -He eyed me with wickedness as I advanced, and his obsequious -following, something subsided from their hysteria, seemed awaiting -their cue. I would not allow myself a second’s indecision. I walked -straight up to him--“Monsieur,” I said, “_avec l’égard le plus -profond_”--and flung the string over his ear. - -Alas! the ingrate! As I retreated he threw down his head, dislodged -the trinket, smelt at and swallowed it. - -The eyes in Carinne’s yet shocked face looked a pale inquiry when I -returned to her. - -“Mademoiselle,” I said, “the honour would appear entirely to his -taste.” - -She nodded seriously. - -“It is well,” she whispered; “and I hope none will rob him.” - -“He shall be turned inside out first,” I said stoutly; and at that she -nodded again, and bade me to a hurried retreat. - -We may have walked a mile, or even two, in a solemn silence, before my -comrade was fain to stop, in the heart of a woodland glen, and throw -herself exhausted on a bank. Then she looked up at me, her fatigued -eyes struggling yet with defiance. - -“Why do you not upbraid me?” she said. “Why do you not say ‘I told you -so’?” - -“Because it does not occur to me.” - -“Ah! you would make a fine virtue of forbearance; you would be the -patient ass to my vanity, would you not, monsieur?” - -“I would let mademoiselle ride me rough-shod till I fell dead.” - -“And so leave me the living monument to your nobility. But it is not -generous, monsieur, thus to rebuke me with silence.” - -“I did not intend to----” - -“And, after all, it was the hog that struck most effectively.” - -“And that is conceded, mademoiselle; and the hog is generously -decorated.” - -She mused up at me rebelliously. - -“I do not even know your name.” - -“It is Citizen Thibaut.” - -“Citizen----” (she made a wry mouth of it). “Then, if I can find the -wherewithal to reward your gallantry, citizen, will you leave me to -myself?” - -“Mademoiselle, if only I could believe none other would impose himself -on that sweet duet!” - -She shrugged her shoulders fretfully. - -“Monsieur, monsieur, you assume a father’s privilege. Has my -misfortune placed me beyond the pale of courtesy? or has a swineherd -no title to the considerations of decency?” - -“Nay, mademoiselle; it is that your beauty and your proud innocence -make so many appeals to both.” - -My obstinacy seemed a goad to her anger. - -“You exaggerate the importance of your service,” she cried. “Either of -those great strong men could have crushed you like an old nut----” - -She seemed to struggle a moment with herself--without avail. - -“For you are very little,” she added. - -I felt myself turn pale. I made her a most profound bow. - -“I will leave mademoiselle,” I said gravely, “to the only company she -can do justice to.” - -“My own?” she asked. I did not answer, and I turned from her quivering -all through. I had gone but a few paces when her voice came after me. - -“Monsieur, I am dying of hunger!” - -_Mon Dieu!_ What a speech to grapple at the soul! I hurried hither and -thither, plucking her a meal from the earth, from the bushes. My heart -bled with a double wound. - -Presently I stood before her, stern and silent. Her face, hidden in -her hands, was averted from me. Suddenly she looked up. - -“The little pod holds the fattest pea,” she said, and burst into -tears. - -_Petite pluie abat grand vent._ - -She was very sweet and humble to me by-and-by. She made me the _amende -honorable_ by calling my heart too great for my body. And at last said -she-- - -“I take you for my knight, monsieur--to honour and protect, to bear -with and respect me----” and I kissed her brown hand in allegiance. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII. - QUATREMAINS-QUATREPATTES. - -“Mademoiselle, what do you weave?” - -She sat at the entrance to her sleeping-place--a hole under the -radiated roots of an ancient oak-tree. We had happened upon the -shelter in our league-long flight. It was one of those burrows--those -_logettes_ into which past generations of the hunted and proscribed -had sunk like moles. Many of our forests are honeycombed with them. -Over the opening to this, once concealed by a cunning mat of weeds and -branches, the roots had contrived a more enduring cover. Within, to -walls and floor, yet clung the remnants of brushwood with which long -ago the den had been lined. - -Carinne was deftly busy over a queer contrivance--a sort of fencing -mask that she plaited from thin tendrils of a binding-weed. - -“Monsieur on his high perch at night will suffer from the mosquitoes?” - -“Has mademoiselle reason to think so?” - -“As I think I can tell when a little ape carries a nut in his pouch.” - -“Alas! but how cynical of romance are the tiny blood-suckers! They fly -on a chromatic scale, mademoiselle. Often I try to comfort myself with -the fancy that I am listening to the very distant humming of church -bells; and then comes a tiny prick, and something seems to rise from -my heart to my face, and to blossom thereon. No doubt it is the -flowers of fancy budding. And is the weed-bonnet for me?” - -“I shall not want it in my burrow.” - -This gave me exquisite gratification, which survived the many -inconveniences to which I was put by the bonnet falling off at night, -and my having to descend to recover it. But it soon appeared that the -least whim of this fascinating child was to be my law. - -And yet what a dear lawless existence! I do not know what termination -to it we foresaw. Sooner or later the cold must drive me from my -nightly cradle; sooner or later the good fruits of the earth must -wither. In the meantime we were _grillon_ and _cigale_,--we stored -not, neither did we labour; but we chatted, and we wandered, and we -drew the marrow of every tender berry, and gnawed the rind of every -tough, without making faces. - -And we quarrelled--_mon Dieu!_ but how we quarrelled! Scarce a day -passed without dispute, and this in the end it was that resolved the -situation for us. For truly my comrade was as full of moods and -whimsies as the wind--one moment a curious sweet woman; the next, and -on the prick of confidence, a pillar of salt. Yet, even as such, she -herself was ever the savour to the insults she made me swallow. - -By then I was a little awakening, I think, to a consciousness that was -half fright, half ecstasy. Let me not misrepresent my meaning. I held -the honour of Mademoiselle de Lâge in high reverence; yet (and -_therefore_, also, _bien entendu_) I could not but acknowledge to -myself that in the depth of my heart was sprouting a desire for a more -particular understanding between us. This very self-confession at last -was like a terrifying surrender of independence--of -irresponsibility--of all that sweet store of philosophy I had made it -my practice to hive against the winter of old age. I saw my -tranquillity yielded to a disturbing sense of duty. I felt my feet and -my body stung by a thousand thorns as I turned into the narrow road of -self-abnegation. No more for me should gleam the rosy garland and the -wine-cup exhaling joy; but rather the olive from the branch should -stimulate my palate to caudle, and the priest sanctify my salt of life -out of all flavour. - -_Aïe, Aïe!_ and what then? Why, I was forgetting that as a lady puts -the deduction before the argument, and cultivates her intuitive -perceptions by reading the _dénoûment_ of a romance after the first -chapter, so she will have decided upon the direction of that last gift -of herself while pinning her favours upon the coats of a dozen -successive hopefuls. I might humour or tease my fancy over the -presumptive flavour of that draught of matrimony, while all the time -Mademoiselle de Lâge of Pierrettes held my person and my citizenship -in frank contempt. Decidedly I was eating my chicken in the egg. - -Still, the very fearless susceptibility of the child, her beauty and -her wilfulness, were so many flames to feed that fire of passion that -the strange nature of our comradeship had first kindled in my breast. -And so always before my mind’s eye I kept, or tried to keep, the -picture of the Chevalier Bayard and the Spanish ladies of Brescia. - - * * * * * * * - -One day, in our wanderings, we came out suddenly upon a track of -highroad that, sweeping from us round a foreshore of desolate hills, -seemed, like a coast-current, to set some gaunt pines at a little -distance swaying as if they were the masts of ships. By then, as I -gather, we must have travelled as far north as Chalus, and were come -into regions that, by reason of their elevation, were somewhat colder -and moister than the sunny slopes we had quitted. Perhaps it was this -change of atmosphere that chilled our odd but never too ardent -relations one with the other; perhaps it was that Carinne, as I, was -at length taking alarm over the ambiguity of our position. In any case -we fell out and apart, and so followed some harsh experiences to the -pair of us. - -Now we backed from the public way in fright, and, concealing ourselves -once more amongst the trees, sat down, and were for a long space -silent. The interval was a pregnant one to me, inasmuch as I was -labouring with a resolve that had been forming for days in my breast. -And at last I spoke-- - -“Carinne, we have been much at cross-purposes of late.” - -“Have we, M. Thibaut? But perhaps it is in the order of things.” - -“And that is to say that the plebeian Thibaut and the patrician De -Lâge cannot meet on a common plane?” - -“You must not put words in my mouth.” - -“Ah, if I might!” - -“What then? It will soothe my _ennui_ to hear.” - -“Not for the moment. Tell me, mademoiselle, would you renew this -comradeship were we to escape, and meet in the after-time under better -conditions of security?” - -“Oh, monsieur! and would you have me wander hand in hand with you -through the gardens of the Thuilleries? or invite you to sleep upon -the tester of my bed? or open my mouth like a young bird at the -fruit-stalls, that you might pop in raspberries?” - -“Unkind! I would have you meet me by chance; I would see your eyes -open to a light of pleasure; I would have you come gladly to me and -take my fingers in yours and say: ‘This is he that was my good friend -when I needed one.’” - -“I will remember. And then all will clap their hands and cry ‘Bravo!’ -will they not? and I shall feel a little excitement. ‘_Qu’y a-t-il_, -Jacko!’ I shall say. ‘Show the company some of the pretty tricks you -played in the woods.’” - -I was silent. - -“And are those the words you would put in my mouth, monsieur?” said -Carinne. - -“I referred to the present,” I answered coldly; “and, as you take it -so, I will speak in your person as I would have you speak. -‘Jean-Louis,’ you say, ‘I am, like all sweet women, an agglomerate of -truths and inconsistencies; yet I am not, in the midst of my -wilfulness, insensible to the suffering my caprice of misunderstanding -puts you to; and, in face of the equivocal character of our -intercourse, I will forego the blindness that is a privilege of my -sex. Speak boldly, then, what lies in your heart.’” - -As I spoke in some trepidation, Carinne’s face grew enigmatical with -hardness and a little pallor, and she looked steadily away from me. - -“I thank you,” she said softly, “for that word ‘equivocal.’ But please -to remember, monsieur, that this ‘_intercourse_’ is none of my -seeking.” - -“You choose to misapprehend me.” - -“Oh! it is not possible,” she cried, turning sharply upon me. “You -take advantage of my condescension and of the wicked licence of the -times. Have you sought, by this elaborate process, to entrap me into a -confession of dependence upon you? Why” (she measured me scornfully -with her eyes), “I think I look over and beyond you, monsieur.” - -“Now,” I said, stung beyond endurance by her words, “I pronounce you, -mademoiselle, the most soulless, as you are the most beautiful, woman -I have ever encountered. I thought I loved you with that reverence -that would subscribe to the very conditions that Laban imposed upon -Jacob. I see I was mistaken, and that I would have bartered my gold -for a baser metal. And now, also, I see, mademoiselle, that the -callousness you displayed in presence of the murdered Lepelletier, -which I had fain fancied was a paralysis of nerve, was due in effect -to nothing less vulgar than an unfeeling heart!” - -She stared at me in amazement, it seemed. I was for the moment carried -quite beyond myself. - -“I will leave you,” I cried, “to your better reflections--or, at -least, to your better judgment. This Thibaut will walk off the high -fever of his presumption, and return presently, your faithful and -obedient servant.” - -I turned, fuming, upon my heel, and strode off amongst the trees. I -had not gone a dozen paces when her voice stayed me. I twisted myself -about. - -“Do not lift your head so high, monsieur,” she said, “or you will run -it against a mushroom and hurt yourself.” - - * * * * * * * - -Insolent--cruel--fascinating! For what had I indulged this mood of -quixotry--for what permitted this intolerable child to gall my sides -with her disdain? Would it have been thus had I condescended to drive -her coquetry to bay with that toothless dog of my rank? Ah! I believe -so; and that only made the sting of her contempt the more poisonous. -It was my person that could not suffice; and truly there is no bribe -to a woman’s favour like an extra inch of weediness. She is the -escapement of the heart; but the reason she will never move till she -acquire a sense of proportion. She was designed but to put man out of -conceit with himself, and I think she was not formed of his rib but of -his spleen. Therefore the tap-root of her nature is grievance, from -which her every leaf and flower and knot and canker takes its -sustenance of misconstruction. She may bloom very fair and sweet; but -then so does the dulcamara, and to taste either is dangerous. - -Thinking these thoughts, I postponed my return to the little glade -where I had left Carinne. She should believe me gone for good and all, -I vowed, and so should she suffer the first pangs of desertion. Then, -though she wished to make me feel small, no giant should figure so -great in her eyes as the moderate Thibaut. - -At last, in the early glow of evening, the unquenchable yearning in my -heart would brook no longer delay. Half-shamefaced, half-stubborn, I -retraced my steps to the glen that held my all of aggravation and of -desire. - -She was not there. She never came to it more. For long I would not -realise the truth. I waited, and hoped, and often circumambulated the -spot where she had rested, hurrying over a greater or less -circumference according to my distance from the centre. I called--I -entreated--perhaps in the darkness of night I wept. It was all of no -avail. She had vanished without leaving a trace, wilfully and -resentfully, and had thus decided to reward my long service of -devotion. - -When--after lingering about the spot for two nights and two days, -drugging a dying hope with the philtre of its own brewing--I at length -knew myself convicted of despair, a great bitterness awoke in my -breast that I should have thus permitted myself to be used and fooled -and rejected. - -“She is not worthy of this vast of concern!” I cried. “I will forget -her, and resume myself, and be again the irresponsible maggot -contributing to the decay of a worm-eaten system. To taste -disenchantment! After all, that is not to drink the sea!” - -But it was to eat of its fruit of ashes; and I was to carry a burden -with me that I might not forego. This in my subsequent wanderings made -my steps drag heavily, as if always I bore in the breast of my coat -the leaden image of an angel. But, nevertheless, I could muster a -pride to my aid in moments of a very desperate lassitude of the soul. - - * * * * * * * - -With the opening of October I was still a solitary “rogue,” ostracised -from my herded kind. I had wandered so far north as that I saw Paris -(the ultimate goal, I felt, of my weary feet) to swim distinguishable -in the misty ken of my mind. Therefrom always seemed to emanate a -deadly but dulcet atmosphere, the attraction of which must sooner or -later overpower me. Sometimes in the night I could have thought I -heard the city’s swarming voices jangling to me down the steeper roads -of wind; sometimes the keystone of the Conciergerie would figure to me -as the lodestone to all shattered barques tossing helplessly on a -shoreless waste. For I was sick to the heart of loneliness; sick of -the brute evasion of my race; sick of my perilous immunity from all -the burning processes of that frantic drama of my times. And so I -trudged ever with my face set to the north, and the hum of the -witches’ cauldron, whose broth was compound of all heroism and all -savagery, singing phantomly in my ears. - -And to this direction yet another consideration induced me. With the -approach of chillier weather the wild wood-life of the wilder -provinces asserted itself, and assumed a more menacing aspect. The -abolition of the game laws had brought about, indeed, an amazing -increase in the number of wolves and foxes; and what with these on one -side and sans-culottism on the other, I had often latterly felt myself -walking between the devil and the deep sea. Then, once upon a time, I -was joined by an odd roguish way-fellow, the obliquity of whose moral -vision I overlooked for the sake of his company; and through him was -my burden of self-dependence a little lightened. - -I had sunk asleep one afternoon in a copse neighbouring on the royal -village of Cléry. Autumn is all a siesta in that mild and beautiful -district. Waking, I felt the sunlight on my eyes like a damp warm -sponge; and so with my lids gratefully closed I fell a-musing. - -“To think,” I murmured, “that the twang of a beetle’s bowstring at my -ear on the old bridge outside Coutras should have been the key-note to -all this devil’s dance of mine!” - -I thought I heard a faint rustle somewhere at hand--a squirrel or -coney. I paid no attention to it, but indulged my mood of -introspection. By-and-by a step came towards me, advancing boldly -amongst the trees from a distance. It approached, reached, stopped -over against me. I opened my eyes as I lay, my arms under my head, and -placidly surveyed the new-comer. He stood looking down upon me, his -fingers heaped upon the black crutch of his _bâton_, and when he saw -me awake he nodded his head in a lively manner. - -“The occasion is opportune,” he said, in a quick, biting voice. - -His lower jaw projected, showing a straight row of little even -teeth--like palings to keep his speech within bounds. The brightness -of his half-seen eyes belied the indolence of their lids. He wore a -jacket of sheepskin, wool outwards; and a leathern bag, stuffed with -printed broadsides, hung from his shoulder by a length of scarlet -tape. On his head was a three-cornered hat, fantastically caught up -with ribbons, and his legs and feet were encased respectively in fine -black hose and the neat pumps with buckles known as _pantoufles de -Palais_. - -“_Comment?_” said I, without moving. - -“The citizen has slept?” - -“Most tranquilly.” - -“The citizen has dreamt?” - -“Without doubt. And he is awake.” - -He made a comprehensive gesture with his stick and his hands. - -“But I interpret dreams,” said he--“and at one price. I will unravel -you the visions of a politician or expound himself to Jack Hodge for -the common charge of fifty centimes.” - -He bent his head towards me with an affectation of scrutiny. - -“I perceive the citizen does not credit me,” he said. - -“And so his eyes rebuke his scepticism, interpreter of dreams,” said -I; “for thou hast rightly construed their meaning.” - -“Ah!” he murmured, raising himself and drawing in his breath. “But I -find it simple to convince the most incredulous.” - -“You do?” - -“Yes,” he cried, clapping his chest; “for know that thou speak’st with -Quatremains-Quatrepattes himself!” - -He dwelt on the pause that followed; collapsed from it; regarded me, -it seemed, in astonishment. - -“Thou hast not heard of me?” - -“Again the interpreter of dreams justifies himself.” - -He looked away from me, in a high manner of abstraction. - -“And this is for the sunshine of fame to throw one’s shadow over half -the world!” said he. - -“Maybe thy fame is at its meridian, citizen, and thy shadow -consequently a little fat blot at thy feet?” - -He turned to me again. - -“Oh yes,” he cried sarcastically. “I am Quatremains-Quatrepattes, and -some outside the beaten track know my name, perhaps. But possibly the -citizen has never heard even of Jean Cazotte?” - -“On the contrary; I have seen and spoken with him.” - -“_Par exemple!_ The man was a charlatan. He could foretell everything -but his own guillotining last year. And yet thou art ignorant--well, -well!” - -He threw up his hands in deprecation; then came and sat down on the -grass beside me. - -“_Cela m’est égal_, M. Quatremains-Quatrepattes,” said I. - -“Ah!” he said; “but I will convince thee at once. Describe to me thy -dream.” - -“I dreamt I wrestled with an angel and was overthrown.” - -“Thy mistress has quarrelled with and rejected thee.” - -“An obvious deduction. Yet I will assure you she is no angel.” - -“Canst thou say so? But we are all of the seed of Lucifer. Proceed.” - -“I dreamt how a great march grew out of a single accident of sound.” - -Here I was watchful of him, and I saw some relish twitch his lips. He -assumed an air of tense introspection, groping with his soul, like a -fakir, amongst the reflex images thrown upon the backs of his -eyeballs. - -“I hear a note,” he said presently, as if speaking to himself--“one -vibrant accent like the clipt song of a bullet. Is it struck from an -instrument or from any resounding vessel? It comes down the wind--it -clangs--it passes. Nay--it signifies only that some winged insect has -fled by the ear of a solitary traveller resting on an ancient bridge; -yet from that little bugle-sound shall the traveller learn to date the -processes of a long and fruitless journey.” - -I broke into a great laugh. - -“Most excellent!” I cried. “Thou hast an ingenuity of adaptation that -should make thy fortune--even at the very low rate of fifty centimes -the job.” - -His eyebrows lifted at me. - -“Why, M. Quatremains-Quatrepattes--M. Jacquemart,” said I,--“I knew -thee listening to me just now; and I heard thee steal away and come -again. It is easy to construe with the key in one’s hand.” - -He was no whit abashed. - -“_Cela m’est égal_,” he said serenely, echoing my words. “But I can -foretell one’s future, nevertheless, very exactly.” - -“Why, so can I, if I am not to be called upon to verify my -statements.” - -He looked suddenly in my face. - -“Thou art a disguised aristocrat.” - -“Better and better. But are we not all such to ourselves? The soul is -excessively exclusive.” - -“You will not consider I have earned my fee?” said he. - -“Fifty times over, my friend. Will you take it in a promissory note?” - -“Ah!” he cried pleasantly. “I perceive I have sown in barren soil.” - -“Again you justify yourself. Yet should I be a very thicket were all -the berries I have swallowed of late to germinate in me.” - -“Is that so?” said he. “But I have been a scapegoat myself----” and -thereat this extraordinary person pressed upon me some food he had -with him with an ample and courtly grace. - -“This shall yield a better crop than my prophesying,” he said, -watching me as I munched. - -“Of a surety,” I answered; “the full harvest of my gratitude.” - -He pondered at me. - -“I wish I could convince thee,” he said. - -“Wherefore? Is not the evil sufficient for the day in this distracted -land? Why should one want to probe the future?” - -“Because forewarned is forearmed.” - -“Oh, little Quatremains-Quatrepattes! Dost thou not perceive the -paradox? How can destiny be altered by foreknowledge? If you interpret -that I am to be guillotined, and I profit by the statement to evade -such a catastrophe, how is not your prophecy stultified?” - -“Why, I have no creed of predestination. The lords of life and death -are not inexorable. Sometimes, like M. St Meard, one may buy his -reprieve of them with a jest. Above all, they hate the sour fatalist -whose subscription to his own faith is a gloomy affectation.” - -“Well; I think I love thee a little.” - -He looked at me with a smile. - -“Come with me, then. I long to give thee proof. Dost thou need a -safeguard? Thou shalt run under my wing--_ça et là_--to Paris if -thou wilt. I am popular with all. If necessity drives, thou shalt -figure as my Jack-pudding. What! thou mayst even play up to the part. -Thou hast slept in the mire; but ‘many a ragged colt makes a good -horse.’” - -I laughed. - -“Why not?” I said. “For I have played the tragic to empty houses till -I am tired.” - - * * * * * * * - -Quatremains-Quatrepattes and his merry-andrew gambolled through a -score of villages on their road to Paris. I found the rascal hugely -popular, as he had boasted he was, and a most excellent convoy to my -humble craft, so perilously sailing under false colours. He was -subtle, shrewd, seasonable,--of the species whose opportunity is -accident; and perhaps no greater tribute could be paid to his deftness -than this--that he never once exposed himself to detection by me in a -question of moral fraud. “_Ton génie a la main crochue_,” I would say -to him, chuckling; but he would only respond with a rebuking silence. - -Early he handed over the bag of broadsides--the revolutionary songs -and ballads (some, it must be confessed, abominably coarse)--to my -care, that so he himself might assume a lofty indifference to the -meaner processes of his business. This delighted me. It was like a new -rattling game to me to hawk my commodities amongst the crowd; to jest -and laugh with my fellows once more under cover of the droll I -represented. Shortly, I think, I became as popular as Quatremains -himself; and over this, though he loved me as a valuable auxiliary, he -began to look a little sober by-and-by, as if he dreaded I should joke -the weightier part of his commerce out of all respect. - -_His_ popularity was chiefly with the village wenches. They would -gather about him at the fountains, and pay their sous open-eyed to be -expounded; or singly they would withdraw him into nooks or private -places if the case was serious. - -“Citizen seër,” says Margot, “I dreamed I fell and was wounded.” - -“That is good, little minette. Thou wilt pay me five sous for a fond -lover.” - -“Citizen seër, I dreamed I was eating of a great egg.” - -“And thou shalt shortly beget a male child that shall bring thee -honour.” - -“How now, old Jackalent!” - -There rises a shrill cackle of laughter. - -“_Fi donc_, Margot! _On te le rendra de bonne heure!_” - -To submit the commerce of love to the test of a little dream-manual he -carried about with him, that was Quatremains’ system. This key (it was -in manuscript) interpreted on a couple of hundred, or more, words, -from _Abel_ to _Wounds_; but affairs of the heart predominated through -the whole alphabet of nonsense. He would coach himself continually -from it in secret; but indeed a small wit and a trifle of invention -were all that was needed. Now and again I would rally him on this -petty taxing of credulity. - -“How now!” he would answer. “Art thou not yet convinced?” - -“By what, thou most surprising Quatremains-Quatrepattes?” - -“For example, did I not foretell that Mère Grignon, whose husband was -guillotined, would be brought to bed of a child with the mark of the -_lunette_ on its throat; and were not my words verified the same -night?” - -“But who knows that some one may not have bribed the nurse to score -the neck of the new-born with whipcord?” - -“_Tête-bleu!_ Should I hold good my reputation and pay this nurse, -think’st thou, out of five sous?” - -But the rascal had other strings to his bow, all twanging to the same -tune _de folles amours_--charms, fortune-telling, palmistry: so many -lines under the thumb, so many children; a shorter first joint to the -little than to its neighbour finger, the wife to rule the roast; a -mole on the nose, success in intrigues; a mole on the breast, -sincerity of affection. Then, too, he would tell nativities, cast -horoscopes, quarter the planets for you like an orange or like the -fruit of his imagination. There is a late picture of him often before -me as he sat in the market-place of Essonnes, a little village that -lies almost within view of the towers of Paris. A half-dozen blooming -daughters of the Revolution stood about him, their hands under their -aprons for warmth,--for it was pretty late in November, and in fact -the eve of St Catherine’s feast. - -“Now,” said Quatremains, “there are seven of ye, and that is the sure -number,--for there must not be more than seven nor fewer than three; -and be certain ye are quick to my directions.” (He jingled softly in -his fists the copper harvest of his gathering.) “Are all of ye -virgins?” he cried. “If the charm fails, she who is not will be -accountable to the others.” (He scanned their hot faces like a very -Torquemada of the true faith.) “To-morrow, then,” he said, “let each -wear inside her bosom all day a sprig of myrtle. At night, assemble -together privately in a room, and, as the clock strikes eleven, take -ye each your twig and fold it in tissue-paper, having first kindled -charcoal in a chafing-dish. Thereonto throw nine hairs from the head, -and a little moon-paring of every toe- and finger-nail, as also some -frankincense, with the fragrant vapour arising from which ye shall -fumigate each her packet. Now, go to your beds, and with the stroke of -midnight compose yourselves to slumber, the envelope under the head, -and, so ye have not failed to keep silence from first to last, each -shall assuredly be made conversant in dream with her future husband.” - -Oh, wonderful nature of woman, thus, in a starving France, to throw -sous into a pool for the sport of vanity! - - * * * * * * * - -Quatremains smuggled me into Paris, and there, for we had no further -use of one another, our connection ceased. Thenceforwards I must live -on my wits--other than those he had taxed--and on the little pieces of -money that remained to me for feast-days. The struggle was a short -one. I had not been a fortnight in the city when the blow that I had -so long foreseen fell upon me. One day I was arrested and carried to -La Force. That, perhaps, was as well; for my personal estate was -dwindled to a few livres, and I knew no rag-picker that would be -likely to extend to me his patronage and protection. - -Yet before this came about, I had one other strange little experience -that shall be related. - - - - - CHAPTER IX. - THE WILD DOGS. - -It was on a night of middle Vendémiaire in the year two (to affect -the whimsical jargon of the _sans-culottes_) that I issued from my -burrow with an intrepidity that was nothing more nor less than a -congestion of the sensibilities. Fear at that time having fed upon -itself till all was devoured, was converted in very many to a humorous -stoicism that only lacked to be great because it could not boast a -splendid isolation. “Suspect of being suspect”--Citizen Chaumette’s -last slash at the hamstrings of hope--had converted all men of humane -character to that religion of self-containment that can alone -spiritually exalt above the caprices of the emotions. Thousands, in a -moment, through extreme of fear became fearless; hence no man of them -could claim a signal inspiration of courage, but only that -subscription to the terms of it which unnatural conditions had -rendered necessary to all believers in the ultimate ethical triumph of -the human race. - -I do not mean to say that I was tired of life, but simply that it came -to me at once that I must not hold that test of moral independence at -the mercy of any temporal tyranny whatsoever. Indeed I was still so -far in love with existence physically, as to neglect no precaution -that was calculated to contribute to the present prolonging of it. I -wore my frieze night-cap, carmagnole, sabots, and black shag spencer -with all the assumption I could muster of being to the shoddy born. I -had long learned the art of slurring a sigh into a cough or -expectoration. I could curse the stolid spectres of the tumbrils so as -to deceive all but the recording angel, and, possibly, Citizen -Robespierre. - -Nevertheless, with me, as with others, precaution seemed but a -condition of the recklessness whose calculations never extended beyond -the immediate day or hour. We lived posthumous lives, so to speak, and -would hardly have resented it, should an arbitrary period have been -put to our revisiting of the “glimpses of the moon.” - -On this night, then, of early September (as I will prefer calling it) -I issued from my burrow, calm under the intolerable tyranny of -circumstance. Desiring to reconstruct myself on the principle of an -older independence, I was mentally discussing the illogic of a system -of purgation that was seeking to solve the problem of existence by -emptying the world, when I became aware that my preoccupied ramblings -had brought me into the very presence of that sombre engine that was -the concrete expression of so much and such detestable false -reasoning. In effect, and to speak without circumbendibus, I found -myself to have wandered into the Faubourg St Antoine--into the place -of execution, and to have checked my steps only at the very foot of -the guillotine. - -It was close upon midnight, and, overhead, very wild and broken -weather. But the deeps of atmosphere, with the city for their ocean -bed, as it were, lay profoundly undisturbed by the surface turmoil -above; and in the tranquil _Place_, for all the upper flurry, one -could hear oneself breathe and think. - -I could have done this with the more composure, had not another sound, -the import of which I was a little late in recognising, crept into my -hearing with a full accompaniment of dismay. This sound was like -licking or lapping, very bestial and unclean, and when I came to -interpret it, it woke in me a horrible nausea. For all at once I knew -that, hidden in that dreadful conduit that strong citizens of late had -dug from the Place St Antoine to the river, to carry away the ponded -blood of the executed, the wild dogs of Paris were slaking their -wolfish thirst. I could hear their filthy gutturising and the scrape -of their lazy tongues on the soil, and my heart went cold, for -latterly, and since they had taken to hunting in packs, these ravenous -brutes had assailed and devoured more than one belated citizen whom -they had scented traversing the Champs Elysées, or other lonely -space; and I was aware a plan for their extermination was even now -under discussion by the Committee of Public Safety. - -Now, to fling scorn to the axe in that city of terror was to boast -only that one had adjusted oneself to a necessity that did not imply -an affectation of indifference to the fangs of wild beasts--for such, -indeed, they were. So, a suicide, who goes to cast himself headlong -into the river, may run in a panic from a falling beam, and be -consistent, too; for his compact is with death--not mutilation. - -Be that as it may, I know that for the moment terror so snapped at my -heel that, under the very teeth of it, I leaped up the scaffold -steps--with the wild idea of swarming to the beam above the knife and -thence defying my pursuers, should they nose and bay me seated there -at refuge--and stood with a white desperate face, scarcely daring to -pant out the constriction of my lungs. - -There followed no sound of concentrated movement; but only that -stealthy licking went on, with the occasional plash of brute feet in a -bloody mire; and gradually my turbulent pulses slowed, and I thought -myself a fool for my pains in advertising my presence on a platform of -such deadly prominence. - -Still, not a soul seemed to be abroad. As I trod the fateful quarter -ten minutes earlier, the last squalid roysterers had staggered from -the wine-shops--the last gleams of light been shut upon the emptied -streets. I was alone with the dogs and the guillotine. - -Tiptoeing very gently, very softly, I was preparing to descend the -steps once more, when I drew back with a muttered exclamation, and -stood staring down upon an apparition that, speeding at that moment -into the _Place_, paused within ten paces of the scaffold on which I -stood. - -Above the scudding clouds was a moon that pulsed a weak intermittent -radiance through the worn places of the drift. Its light was always -more suggested than revealed; but it was sufficient to denote that the -apparition was that of a very pale young woman--a simple child she -looked, whose eyes, nevertheless, wore that common expression of the -dramatic intensity of her times. - -She stood an instant, tense as Corday, her fingers bent to her lips; -her background a frouzy wall with the legend _Propriété Nationale_ -scrawled on it in white chalk. Significant to the inference, the cap -of scarlet wool was drawn down upon her young _blondes_ curls--the -gold of the coveted perukes. - -Suddenly she made a little movement, and in the same instant gave out -a whistle clear and soft. - -Yes, it was she from whom it proceeded; and I shuddered. There below -me in the ditch were the dogs; here before me was this fearless child. - -For myself, even in the presence of this angel, I dared scarcely stir. -It was unnatural; it was preposterous--came a scramble and a rush; and -there, issued from the filthy sewer, was a huge boar-hound, that -fawned on the little citoyenne, and yelped (under her breath) like a -thing of human understanding. - -She cried softly, “Down, Radegonde!” and patted the monster’s head -with a pretty manner of endearment. - -“Ah!” she murmured, “hast thou broken thy faith with thy hunger? -Traitor!--but I will ask no questions. Here are thy comfits. My sweet, -remember thy pedigree and thy mistress.” - -She thrust a handful of sugar-plums into the great jaws. I could hear -the hound crunching them in her teeth. - -What was I to do?--what warning to give? This child--this frail -wind-flower of the night--the guillotine would have devoured her at a -snap, and laughed over the tit-bit! But I, and the nameless gluttons -of the ditch! - -They were there--part at least of one of those packs (recruited by -gradual degrees from the desolated homes of the proscribed--of -_émigrés_) that now were swollen to such formidable proportions as -to have become a menace and a nightly terror. The dogs were there, and -should they scent this tender quarry, what power was in a single -faithful hound to defend her against a half hundred, perhaps, of her -fellows. - -Sweating with apprehension, I stole down the steps. She was even then -preparing to retreat hurriedly as she had come. Her lips were pressed -to the beast’s wrinkled head. The sound of her footstep might have -precipitated the catastrophe I dreaded. - -“Citoyenne! citoyenne!” I whispered in an anguished voice. - -She looked up, scared and white in a moment. The dog gave a rolling -growl. - -“Radegonde!” she murmured, in a faint warning tone. - -The brute stood alert, her hair bristling. - -“Bid her away!” I entreated. “You are in danger.” - -She neither answered nor moved. - -“See, I am in earnest!” I cried, loud as I durst. “The wild dogs are -below there.” - -“Radegonde!” she murmured again. - -“Ah, mademoiselle! What are two rows of teeth against a hundred. Send -her away, I implore you, and accept my escort out of this danger.” - -“My faith!” she said at last, in a queer little moving voice, “it may -be as the citizen says; but I think dogs are safer than men.” - -I urged my prayer. The beauty and courage of the child filled my heart -with a sort of rapturous despair. - -“God witness I am speaking for your safety alone! Will this prevail -with you? I am the Comte de la Muette. I exchange you that confidence -for a little that you may place in me. I lay my life in your hands, -and I beg the charge of yours in return.” - -I could hear her breathing deep where she stood. Suddenly she bent and -spoke to her companion. - -“To the secret place, Radegonde--and to-morrow again for thy -_confiture_, thou bad glutton. Kiss thy Nanette, my baby; and, oh, -Radegonde! not what falls from the table of Sainte Guillotine!” - -She stood erect, and held up a solemn finger. The hound slunk away, -like a human thing ashamed; showed her teeth at me as she passed, and -disappeared in the shadows of the scaffold. - -I took a hurried step forward. Near at hand the pure loveliness of -this citoyenne was, against its surroundings, like a flower floating -on blood. - -She smiled, and looked me earnestly in the face. We were but phantoms -to one another in that moony twilight; but in those fearful times men -had learned to adapt their eyesight to the second plague of darkness. - -“Is it true?” she said, softly. “Monsieur le Comte, it must be long -since you have received a curtsey.” - -She dropped me one there, bending to her own prettiness like a rose; -and then she gave a little low laugh. Truly that city of Paris saw -some strange meetings in the year of terror. - -“I, too,” she said, “was born of the _noblesse_. That is a secret, -monsieur, to set against yours.” - -I could but answer, with some concern-- - -“Mademoiselle, these confessions, if meet for the holy saint yonder, -are little for the ears of the devil’s advocates. I entreat let us be -walking, or those in the ditch may anticipate upon us his -benediction.” - -“_Ma foi!_” she said, “it is true. Come, then!” - -We went off together, stealing from the square like thieves. -Presently, when I could breathe with a half relief, “You will not go -to-morrow?” I said. - -“To feed Radegonde! Ah, monsieur! I would not for the whole world lose -the little sweet-tooth her goodies. Each of us has only the other to -love in all this cruel city.” - -“So, my child! And they have taken the rest?” - -“Monsieur, my father was the rest. He went on the seventeenth -Fructidor; and since, my veins do not run blood, I think, but only -ice-water, that melts from my heart and returns to freeze again.” - -I sighed. - -“Nay,” she said, “for I can laugh, as you see.” - -“And the dog, my poor child?” - -“She ran under the tumbril, and bit at the heels of the horses. She -would not leave him, monsieur; and still--and still she haunts the -place. I go to her,--when all the city is silent I go to her, if I can -escape, and take her the sweetmeats that she loves. What of that? It -is only a little while and my turn must come, and then Radegonde will -be alone. My hair, monsieur will observe, is the right colour for the -perukes.” - -She stayed me with a touch. - -“I am arrived. A thousand thanks for your escort, Monsieur le Comte.” - -We were by a low casement with a ledge before it--an easy climb from -the street. She pushed the lattice open, showing me it was unbolted -from within. - -“She thinks me fast and asleep,” she said. “Some day soon, perhaps, -but not yet.” - -I did not ask her who _she_ was. I seemed all mazed in a silent dream -of pity. - -“It is quite simple,” she said, “when no cavalier is by to look. Will -the citizen turn his head?” - -She was up in an instant, and stepping softly into the room beyond, -leaned out towards me. On the moment an evil thing grew out of the -shadow of a buttress close by, and a wicked insolent face looked into -mine with a grin. - -“A sweet good-night to Monsieur le Comte,” it said, and vanished. - -Shocked and astounded, I stood rooted to the spot. But there came a -sudden low voice in my ear: - -“Quick, quick! have you no knife? You must follow!” - -I had taken but a single uncertain step, when, from a little way down -the street we had traversed, there cut into the night a sharp -attenuated howl; and, in a moment, on the passing of it, a chorus of -hideous notes swept upon me standing there in indecision. - -“My God!” I cried--“the dogs!” - -She made a sound like a plover. I scrambled to the ledge and dropped -into the room beyond. There in the dark she clutched and clung to me. -For though the cry had been bestial, there had seemed to answer to it -something mortal--an echo--a human scream of very dreadful -fear,--there came a rush of feet like a wind, and, with ashy faces, we -looked forth. - -They had him--that evil thing. An instant we saw his sick white face -thrown up like a stone in the midst of a writhing sea; and the jangle -was hellish. Then I closed the lattice, and pressed her face to my -breast. - -He had run from us to his doom, which meeting, he had fled back in his -terror to make us the ghastly sport he had designed should be his. - -How long we stood thus I know not. The noise outside was unnameable, -and I closed her ears with her hair, with my hands--nay, I say it with -a passionate shame, with my lips. She sobbed a little and moaned; but -she clung to me, and I could feel the beating of her heart. We had -heard windows thrown open down the street--one or two on the floors -above us. I had no heed or care for any danger. I was wrapt in a -fearful ecstasy. - -By-and-by she lifted her face. Then the noise had ceased for some -time, and a profound silence reigned about us. - -“Ah!” she said, in a faint reeling voice. “Radegonde was there; I saw -her!” - -“Mademoiselle--the noble creature--she hath won us a respite.” - -Her breath caught in the darkness. - -“Yes,” she said. “There is a peruke that must wait.” - -Suddenly she backed from me, and put the hair from her eyes. - -“If you dare, monsieur, it necessitates that we make our adieux.” - -“Au revoir, citoyenne. It must be that, indeed.” - -She held out her hand, that was like a rose petal. I put my lips to it -and lingered. - -“Monsieur, monsieur!” she entreated. - -The next moment I was in the street. - - * * * * * * * - -Who was my little citoyenne? Ah! I shall never know. The terror -gripped us, and these things passed. Incidents that would make the -passion of sober times, the spirit of revolution dismisses with a -shrug. To die in those days was such a vulgar complaint. - -But I saw her once more, and then when my heart nestled to her image -and my veins throbbed to her remembered touch. - -I was strolling, on the morning following my strange experience, in -the neighbourhood of the Champs Elysées, when I was aware of a great -press of people all making in the direction of that open ground. - -“What arrives, then, citizen?” I cried to one who paused for breath -near me. - -He gasped, the little morose. To ask any question that showed one -ignorant of the latest caprice of the Executive was almost to be -“suspect.” - -“Has not the citizen heard? The Committee of Safety has decreed the -destruction of the dogs.” - -“The dogs?” - -“Sacred Blood!” he cried. “Is it not time, when they take, as it is -said they did last night, a good friend of the Republic to supper?” - -He ran on, and I followed. All about the Champs Elysées was a -tumultuous crowd, and posted within were two battalions of the -National Guard, their blue uniforms resplendent, their flint-locks -shining in their hands. They, the soldiers, surrounded the area, save -towards the Rue Royale, where a gap occurred; and on this gap all eyes -were fixed. - -Scarcely was I come on the scene when on every side a laughing hubbub -arose. The dogs were being driven in, at first by twos and threes, but -presently in great numbers at a time. For hours, I was told, had half -the _gamins_ of Paris been beating the coverts and hallooing their -quarry to the toils. - -At length, when many hundreds were accumulated in the free space, the -soldiers closed in and drove the skulking brutes through the gap -towards the Place Royale. And there they made a battue of it, shooting -them down by the score. - -With difficulty I made my way round to the _Place_, the better to view -the sport. The poor trapped _fripons_ ran hither and thither, crying, -yelping--some fawning on their executioners, some begging to the -bullets, as if these were crusts thrown to them. And my heart woke to -pity; for was I not witnessing the destruction of my good friends? - -The noise--the volleying, the howling, the shrieking of the -_canaille_--was indescribable. - -Suddenly my pulses gave a leap. I knew her--Radegonde. She was driven -into the fire and stood at bay, bristling. - -“Nanette!” cried a quick acid voice; “Nanette--imbecile--my God!” - -It all passed in an instant. There, starting from the crowd, was the -figure of a tall sour-featured woman, the tiny tricolour bow in her -scarlet cap; there was the thin excited musketeer, his piece to his -shoulder; there was my citoyenne flung upon the ground, her arms about -the neck of the hound. - - * * * * * * * - -Whether his aim was true or false, who can tell? He shot her through -her dog, and his sergeant brained him. And in due course his sergeant -was invited for his reward to look through the little window. - -These were a straw or two in the torrent of the revolution. - - * * * * * * * - -It was Citizen Gaspardin who accepted the contract to remove the -carcasses (some three thousand of them) that encumbered the Place -Royale as a result of this drastic measure. However, his eye being -bigger than his stomach, as the saying is, he found himself short of -means adequate to his task and so applied for the royal equipages to -help him out of his difficulty. And these the Assembly, entering into -the joke, was moved to lend him; and the dead dogs, hearsed in gilt -and gingerbread as full as they could pack, made a rare procession of -it through Paris, thereby pointing half-a-dozen morals that it is not -worth while at this date to insist on. - -I saw the show pass amidst laughter and clapping of hands; and I saw -Radegonde, as I thought, her head lolling from the roof of the -stateliest coach of all. But her place should have been on the seat of -honour. - -And the citoyenne, the dark window, the ripping sound in the street, -and that bosom bursting to mine in agony? Episodes, my friend--mere -travelling sparks in dead ashes, that glowed an instant and vanished. -The times bristled with such. Love and hate, and all the kaleidoscope -of passion--pouf! a sigh shook the tube, and form and colour were -changed. - -But--but--but--ah! I was glad thenceforth not to shudder for my heart -when a _blonde perruque_ went by me. - - - - - CHAPTER X. - THE AFFAIR OF THE CANDLES. - -Gardel--one of the most eminent and amusing rascals of my -experience--is inextricably associated with my memories of the prison -of the Little Force. He had been runner to the Marquis de Kercy; and -that his vanity would by no means deny, though it should procure his -conviction ten times over. He was vivacious, and at all expedients as -ingenious as he was practical; and, while he was with us, the -common-room of La Force was a theatre of varieties. - -By a curious irony of circumstance, it fell to Madame, his former -châtelaine, to second his extravagances. For he was her -fellow-prisoner; and, out of all that motley, kaleidoscopic -assemblage, an only representative of the traditions of her past. She -indulged him, indeed, as if she would say, “In him, _mes amis_, you -see exemplified the gaieties that I was born to patronise and -applaud.” - -She was a small, faded woman, of thirty-five or so--one of those -colourless aristocrats who, lying under no particular ban, were -reserved to complete the tale of any _fournée_ that lacked the -necessary number of loaves. It is humiliating to be guillotined -because fifty-nine are not sixty. But that, in the end, was her fate. - -I recall her the first evening of my incarceration, when I was -permitted to descend, rather late, to the _salle de récréation_ of -the proscribed. She was seated, with other ladies, at the long table. -The music of their voices rippled under the vaulted ceiling. They -worked, these dear creatures--the decree depriving prisoners of all -implements and equipments not yet being formulated. Madame la Marquise -stitched proverbs into a sampler in red silk. She looked, perhaps, a -morsel slatternly for a _grande dame_, and her fine lace was torn. But -the sampler must not be neglected, for all that. Since the days she -had played at “Proverbs” (how often?) in the old paternal château, -her little philosophy of life had been all maxims misapplied. Her -sampler was as eloquent to her as was their knitting to the ladies in -the _Place du Trône_. Endowed with so noble a fund of sentiments, how -could they accuse her of inhumanity? I think she had a design to plead -“sampler” before Fouquier Tinville by-and-by. - -I had an opportunity presently to examine her work. “_A laver la tête -d’un Maure on perd sa lessive._” She had just finished it--in Roman -characters, too, as a concession to the Directory. It was a -problem-axiom the Executive had resolved unanswerably--as I was bound -to tell her. - -“_Comment?_” she asked, with a little sideling perk of her head, like -a robin. - -“Can madame doubt? It requests the black thing to sneeze once into the -basket; and, behold! the difficulty is surmounted.” - -“_Fi donc!_” she cried, and stole me a curious glance. Was I delirious -with the Revolution fever? - -“Of what do they accuse you, my friend?” she said kindly, by-and-by. - -“A grave offence, surely. There is little hope for me. I gave a -citizen ‘you’ instead of ‘thou.’” - -“So? But how men are thoughtless! Alas!” (She treated me to a little -proverb again.) “‘The sleeping cat needs not to be aroused.’” - -This was late in the evening, a little before the “lock up” hour was -arrived. - -Earlier, as I had entered, she lifted her eyebrows to Gardel, who -stood, her _chevalier d’honneur_, behind her chair. The man advanced -at once, with infinite courtesy, and bade me welcome, entirely in the -grand manner, to the society of La Force. - -“I have the honour to represent madame. This kiss I impress upon -monsieur’s hand is to be returned.” - -The ladies laughed. I advanced gravely and saluted the Marquise. - -“I restore it, like a medal blessed of the holy father, sanctified a -hundredfold,” I said. - -There was a mignonne seated near who was critical of my gallantry. - -“But monsieur is enamoured of his own lips,” she said in a little -voice. - -“Cruel!” I cried. “What should I mean but that I breathed into it all -that I have of reverence for beauty? If the citoyenne----” - -There was a general cry--“A fine! a fine!” - -The hateful word was interdicted under a penalty. - -“I pay it!” I said, and stooped and kissed the fair cheek. - -Its owner flushed and looked a little vexed, for all the general -merriment. - -“Monsieur cheapens his own commodities,” she said. - -“Ah, mademoiselle! I know the best investments for my heart. I am a -very merchant of love. If you keep my embrace, I am well advertised. -If you return it, I am well enriched.” - -The idea was enough. Gardel invented a new game from it on the spot. -In a moment half the company was rustling and chattering and romping -about the room. - -M. Damézague’s “_Que ferons-nous demain matin?_”--that should have -been this vivacious Gardel’s epitaph. He could not be monotonous; he -could not be unoriginal; he could not rest anywhere--not even in his -grave. It was curious to see how he deluded la Marquise into the -belief that she was his superior. - -Indeed, these prisons afforded strange illustration of what I may call -the process of natural adjustments. Accidents of origin deprived of -all significance, one could select without any difficulty the souls to -whom a free Constitution would have ensured intellectual prominence. I -take Gardel as an instance. Confined within arbitrary limits under the -old _régime_, his personality here discovered itself masterful. His -resourcefulness, his intelligence, overcrowed us all, irresistibly -leaping to their right sphere of action. He had a little learning -even; but that was no condition of his emancipation. Also, he was not -wanting in that sort of courage with which one had not condescended -hitherto to accredit lackeys. No doubt in those days one was rebuked -by many discoveries. - -Yet another possession of his endeared him to all _misérables_ in -this casual ward of the guillotine. He had a mellow baritone voice, -and a _répertoire_ of playful and tender little folk-songs. Clélie -(it was she I had kissed; I never knew her by any other name) would -accompany him on the harp, till her head drooped and the _poudre -maréchale_ from her hair would glitter red on the strings--not to -speak of other gentle dew that was less artificial. - -Then she would look up, with a pitiful mouth of deprecation. “_La -paix, pour Dieu, la paix!_” she would murmur. “My very harp weeps to -hear thee.” - -The pathos of his songs was not in their application. Perhaps he was -quit of worse grievances than those the Revolution presented to him. -Perhaps he was happier proscribed than enslaved. At any rate, he never -fitted music to modern circumstance. His subjects were sweet, -archaic--the mythology of the woods and pastures. It was in their -allusions to a withered spring-time that the sadness lay. For, believe -me, we were all Punchinellos, grimacing lest the terror of tears -should overwhelm us. - -There was a _chansonnette_ of his, the opening words of which ran -somewhat as follows:-- - - “Oh, beautiful apple-tree! - Heavy with flowers - As my heart with love! - As a little wind serveth - To scatter thy blossom, - So a young lover only - Is needed to ravish - The heart from my bosom.” - -This might be typical of all. We convinced ourselves that we caught in -them echoes of a once familiar innocence, and we wept over our lost -Eden. Truly the indulging of introspection is the opportunity of the -imagination. - -To many brave souls Gardel’s peasant ballads were the requiem-- - - “Passez, la Dormette, - Passez par chez nous!”-- - -and so comes the rascal Cabochon, our jailer, with his lowering -_huissiers_, and the ‘Evening Gazette’ in his hand. - -“So-and-so, and So-and-so, and So-and-so, to the Conciergerie.” - -Then, if the runner had been singing, would succeed some little -emotions of parting--moist wistful eyes, and the echo of sobs going -down the corridor. - -Yet, more often, Cabochon would interrupt a romp, to which the -condemned would supplement a jocund exit. - -“_Adieu, messieurs! adieu! adieu!_ We cannot keep our countenances -longer. We kneel to Sanson, who shall shrive us--Sanson, the Abbé, -the exquisite, in whose presence we all lose our heads!” - -And so the wild hair and feverish eyes vanish. - -But it is of Gardel and the Marquise I speak. While many went and many -took their places, these two survived for a time. To the new, as to -the old, the rogue was unflagging in his attentions. His every respite -inspired him with fresh audacity; from each condemned he seemed to -take a certain toll of animation. - -Presently Madame and her emancipated servant, with Clélie and I, -would make a nightly habit of it to join forces in a bout of -“Quadrille.” We appropriated an upper corner of the long table, and -(for the oil lamps on the walls were dismally inadequate) we had our -four wax candles all regular--but in burgundy bottles for sconces. A -fifth bottle, with no candle, but charged with the ruddier light that -illuminates the heart, was a usual accompaniment. - -We chattered famously, and on many subjects. Hope a little rallied, -maybe, as each night brought Cabochon with a list innocent of our -names. - -Also we had our eccentricities, that grew dignified by custom. If, in -the game, “_Roi rendu_” was called, we paid, not with a fish, but with -a hair plucked from the head. It made Clélie cry; but not all from -loyalty. So, if the King of Hearts triumphed, its owner drank “_rubis -sur l’ongle_,” emptying his glass and tapping the edge of it three -times on his left thumb-nail. - -Now, I am to tell you of the black evening that at the last broke up -our coterie--of the frantic _abandon_ of the scene, and the tragedy of -farce with which it closed. - -On that afternoon Gardel sparkled beyond his wont. He made the air -electric with animation. The company was vociferous for a romp, but at -present we four sat idly talkative over the disused cards. - -“M. Gardel, you remind me of a gnat-maggot.” - -“How, sir?” says Gardel. - -“It is without offence. Once, as a boy, I kept a tub of gold-fish. In -this the eggs of the little insect would be found to germinate. I used -to watch the tiny water-dragons come to the surface to take the air -through their tails--my faith! but that was comically like the France -of to-day. Now touch the water with a finger, and _pouf!_ there they -were all scurried to the bottom in a panic, not to rise again till -assured of safety.” - -“That is not my way,” says Gardel. - -“Wait, my friend. By-and-by, nearing their transformation, these mites -plump out and lose their gravity. Then, if one frights them, they try -to wriggle down; their buoyancy resists. They may sink five--six -inches. It is no good. Up they come again, like bubbles in champagne, -to burst on the surface presently and fly away.” - -“And shall I fly, monsieur?” - -“To the stars, my brave Gardel. But is it not so? One cannot drive you -down for long.” - -“To-night, M. Thibaut” (such was my name in the prison -register)--“to-night, I confess, I am like a ‘Montgolfier.’ I rise, I -expand. I am full of thoughts too great for utterance. My -transformation must be near.” - -The Marquise gave a little cry-- - -“_Je ne puis pas me passer de vous, François!_” - -The servant--the master--looked kindlily into the faded eyes. - -“I will come back and be with you in spirit,” he said. - -“No, no!” she cried, volubly. “It is old-wives’ tales--the vapourings -of poets and mystics. Of all these murdered thousands, which haunts -the murderers?” - -I gazed in astonishment. This passive _douillette_, with the torn -lace! I had never known her assert herself yet but through the mouth -of her henchman. - -“Oh yes!” she went on shrilly, nodding her head. “Death, death, death! -But, if the dead return, this Paris should be a city of ghosts.” - -“Perhaps it is,” said Gardel. - -“Fie, then!” she cried. “You forget your place; you presume upon my -condescension. It is insolent so to put me to school. ‘_Ma demeure -sera bientôt le néant._’ It was Danton--yes, Danton--who said that. -He was a devil, but he could speak truth.” - -Suddenly she checked herself and gave a little artificial titter. She -was not transfigured, but debased. A jealous scepticism was revealed -in every line of her features. - -“And what is death to M. Gardel?” she said ironically. - -“It is an interruption, madame.” - -She burst forth again excitedly-- - -“But Danton saw further than thee, thou fool, who, like a crab, -lookest not whither thou art going, and wilt run upon a blind wall -while thine eyes devour the landscape sidelong. I will not have it. I -do not desire any continuance. My faith is the faith of eyes and ears -and lips. Man’s necessities die with him; and, living, mine are for -thy strong arm, François, and for thy fruitful service. My God! what -we pass through! And then for a hereafter of horrible retrospection! -No, no. It is infamous to suggest, foolish to insist on it.” - -“But, for all that, I do,” said Gardel, steadily. - -He took her outburst quite coolly--answered her with gaiety even. - -I cried “_Malepeste!_” under my breath. And, indeed, my amazement was -justified. For who would have dreamed that this little colourless -draggle-tail had one sentiment in her that amounted to a conviction? -Madame Placide an atheist! And what was there of dark and secret in -her past history that drove her to this desire of extinction? - -At Gardel’s answer she fell back in her chair with defiant eyes and -again that little artificial laugh. In the noisy talk of the room we -four sat and spoke apart. - -“_Malappris!_” she said. “You shall justify yourself of that boldness. -Come back to me, if you go first, and I will believe.” - -“Agreed!” he cried. “And for the sign, madame?” - -She thought; and answered, with the grateful womanliness that redeemed -her,-- - -“Do me a little service--something, anything--and I shall know it is -you.” - -The candles were burned half-way down in their bottles. He rose and -one by one blew them out. - -“_Voilà!_” he cried gaily. “To save your pocket!” - -So the little scene ended. - -“M. Gardel,” I said to him presently, “you come (you will pardon me) -of the makers of the Revolution. I am curious to learn your experience -of the premonitory symptoms of that disease to which at last you have -fallen a victim.” - -“Monsieur! ‘A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.’ It is an -early remembrance with me how my father cursed me that I passed my -eighth year, and so was liable to the salt-tax. My faith! I do not -blame him. Things were hard enough. But it was unreasonable to beat me -because I could not stop the march of Time. Yet we had not then -learned to worship Reason.” - -“The Moloch that devours her children!” - -“So it appears. But there were signs and omens for long years before. -I am of the territory of Berri, monsieur; and there all we learned to -read was between the lines. I will tell you that I heard--for I was in -service at the time” (he bowed with infinite complaisance to his -Marquise)--“how, all during the chill, dark spring that preceded the -September Massacres, _Les laveuses de la nuit_ were busy at their -washing.” - -“And who are they, my friend?” - -“Strange, inhuman women, monsieur, who wash in the moonlight by lonely -tarns. And while they wash they wail.” - -“Wash? But what?” - -“Some say the winding-sheets of those who are to die during the year.” - -La Marquise broke into shrill laughter. - -“Poor, poor imbecile!” she cried. “Thy credulity would make but one -gulp of a gravestone. You must know these things are not, my friend. -I tell thee so--I, thy mistress. Miserable! have you nothing in your -life that not mountains of eternity could crush out the memory of?” - -Again she checked herself. - -“It is the one virtue of the Revolution to have decreed annihilation.” - -A deputation approached us. She jumped to her feet, her pale eyes -flickering. - -“But, yes!” she cried, “a game, a game! I acquit myself of these -follies. It is present life I desire. Messieurs, what is it to be? To -the front, François!” - -The man responded at a leap. The veins of all received the infection -of his wild humour. In a moment, chattering and pushing and giggling, -we were to take our places for “_Shadow Buff_.” - -We had no sheet. The dirty drab of the wall must suffice. A stool was -placed for the guesser--not yet appointed; and la Marquise’s four -candles, relighted, were placed on the table over against it, in a -receding row like a procession of acolytes. Between the candles and -the back of the guesser the company were to pass one by one, for -identification by means of the shadows cast on the wall. - -“Who shall take the stool?” - -The clamour echoed up to the vaulted stonework of the roof--and died. -Cabochon’s evil face was visible at the grille. - -He saw what we were at; the dull brute was sopped with drink and -bestially amiable. His key grated in the door and he stood before us, -his bodyguard supporting him, the fatal list in his hand. - -“Ah!” he said, “but ‘_Shadow Buff_’ again? It is well timed. Yet I -could name some citizen shadows without sitting on the stool.” - -His voice guttered like a candle. It seemed to run into greasy drops. - -A wild inspiration seized me. - -“_Voilà, citoyen!_” I cried. “You shall join us. You shall take your -victims from the wall!” - -In a moment I had snatched the dirty rag of paper out of his hand, and -had retreated with it a few paces. I had an instant to glance down the -list before he slouched at me in sodden anger. My heart gave a queer -little somersault and came upright again. - -“_Sang Dieu!_” he growled, thickly. “You do well to jest. Give me the -paper, or I’ll brain you with my keys!” - -I dropped laughing upon the stool, and held the list between and under -my knees. With an oath he fell upon me. The company applauded it all -with a frenzy of mad mirth and frolic. - -The struggle was brief. He rose directly, puffing and cursing, the -paper in his hand. - -I affected a crestfallen good-humour. - -“You might have let us have our game out,” I protested. - -With his recovered authority in his hand, the rascal condescended to -some facetious tolerance. - -“So!” he said; “you play a good part. They should have you for King -George in ‘Le Dernier Jugement des Rois.’ But rest content. You shall -appear on a notable stage yet, and before an audience more -appreciative than that of the Théâtre de la République.” - -“And I shall know how to bow my thanks, citizen.” - -“Ah!” he crowed. “I love thee! Thou shalt have thy game and sit here; -and I will pick from the flock as thou numberest its tale.” - -It fell in with the reckless, dreadful humour of the times. I would -have withdrawn from the cruel jest, but it was the company of _les -misérables_ that prevented me. - -Who should go first? There was a little hesitation and reluctance. - -“Come, hurry!” cried Cabochon, “or I must do my own guessing!” - -Suddenly a shadow glided past upon the wall. - -“No, no!” I muttered. - -“Name it, name it!” chuckled the jailer. The grinning _sans-culottes_ -at the door echoed his demand vociferously. - -“Gardel!” I murmured faintly. The leading spirit had, -characteristically, been the first to enter the breach. - -“Good,” croaked Cabochon, referring to his list. “Citizen shadow, you -are marked for judgment.” - -I rose hurriedly from the stool. - -“I will no more of it!” I cried. - -“What!--already? My faith! a nerveless judge.” - -Instantly a figure pressed forward and took my place. - -“Pass, pass, good people!” it cried, “and _I_ will call the tale!” - -She sat there--the Marquise--her lips set in an acrid smile. Neither -look nor word did she address to her forfeited servant. - -Another shadow passed. - -“Darviane!” she cried shrilly. - -“_Encore bien_,” roared Cabochon amidst shrieks of laughter. My God, -what laughter! - -Milet, De Mérode, Fontenay--she named them all. They took their -places by the door, skipping--half-hysterical. - -D’Aubiers, Monville--I cannot recall a moiety of them. It was a -destructive list. Clélie also was in it--poor Clélie, the frail, I -fear, but with the big heart. I fancied I noticed a harder ring in -Madame’s voice as she identified her. - -I stood stupidly in the background. Presently I heard Cabochon-- - -“Enough! enough! The virtuous citizens would forestall the Executive.” - -He numbered up his list rapidly, counted his prisoners. They tallied. - -“To be repeated to-morrow,” he said. “It is good sport. But the -guessers, it seems, remain.” - -He treated us to a grin and a clumsy bow, gave the order to form, and -carried off his new batch to the baking. - -As the door clanged upon them I gave a deep gasp. I could not believe -in the reality of my respite. - -For the thinned company the reaction had set in immediately: women -were flung prostrate, on the table, over the benches, wailing out -their desperate loss and misery. - -Madame made her way to me. The strange smile had not left her mouth. - -“You were on the list. I saw it in your face.” - -“I was at the bottom--the very last.” - -“But how----?” - -“As Cabochon struggled with me, I turned my name down and tore it -off.” - -“But the number?” - -“It tallied. It was enough for him.” - -“They must find it out--to-morrow, when the prisoners are arraigned.” - -“Probably. And in the meantime we will drink to our poor Gardel’s -acquittal.” - -“No,” she said, shrinking back, with an extraordinary look. “If I wish -him well, I wish him eternal forgetfulness.” - - - -It was the evening of the day succeeding. Shorn of our partners in -“Quadrille,” Madame and I had been playing “Piquet.” - -We were only two, but the four lights flickered in their bottles. - -La Marquise de Kercy had been musing. Suddenly she looked up. Her eyes -were full of an inhuman mockery. - -“The candles!” she said, with a little laugh. “We are no longer using -them. To save my pocket, François!” - -_Pouf!_ a candle went out--another, another, another; between each the -fraction of time occupied by something unseen moving round -systematically. - -I started to my feet with a suppressed cry. - -One or two sitting near us complained of this churlish economy of wax. -They imagined I was the culprit. - -“Madame!” I muttered. “Look! she is indisposed!” - -Her face was white and dreadful, like a skull. Hearing my voice she -sat up. - -“So! He has been guillotined!” she said. - -She articulated with difficulty, swallowing and panting without stop. - -“M. Thibaut, it is true, then, they say! But it was he made me kill -the child. He has more need to forget than I. Is it not appalling? If -I tell them now how I have learnt to fear, they will surely spare me. -I cannot subscribe to their doctrines--that Club of the Cordeliers. If -I tell them so--Danton being gone----” - -Her voice tailed off into a hurry of pitiful sobs and cries. I -welcomed the entrance of Cabochon with his list. - -Her name was first on it. - -As we stood arisen, dreading some hideous scene, she fell silent quite -suddenly, got to her feet, and walked to the door with a face of -stone. - -“Death is an interruption.” - -“_Ma demeure sera bientôt le néant._” - -Which could one hope for her, pondering only that delirious outcry -from her lips? - -Possibly, indeed, she had been mad from first to last. - -I had time to collect my thoughts, for--from whatever cause--Citizen -Tinville had, it appeared, overlooked me. - - - - - CHAPTER XI. - PYRAMUS AND THISBE. - -I was taking exercise one forenoon in the yard of the prison. It was -the last black “Prairial” of the “Terror”--the month, like the girl La -Lune, once dedicate to Mary--and its blue eyes curiously scrutinised, -as Cleopatra’s of old, the processes amongst us slaves of that poison -that is called despair. - -As for myself, I yet a little consorted with Hope--the fond clinging -mistress I had dreaded to find banished with the rest of the dear -creatures whose company had long now been denied us;--for five months -had passed since my incarceration, and I was still, it seemed, -forgotten. - -I trod the flags--fifty paces hither and thither. Going one way, I had -always before my eyes the frowzy stone rampart and barred windows of -the prison. Going the other, an execrable statue of M. -Rousseau--surmounting an altar to Liberty, the very cement of which -was marbled with the blood of the massacres--closed my perspective. To -my either hand was a lofty wall--the first giving upon the jailers’ -quarters; the second dividing the men’s yard from that in which the -women were permitted to walk; and a foul open sewer, tunnelled through -the latter about its middle, traversed the entire area, and offered -the only means by which the sexes could now communicate with each -other. - -“M. Thibaut,” said a voice at my ear; and a gentleman, detaching -himself from the aimless and loitering crowd of prisoners, adapted his -pace to mine and went with me to and fro. - -I knew this oddity--M. the Admiral de St Prest--though he had no -recognition of me. That, however, was small wonder. By this time I was -worse than a _sans-culotte_, by so much as that my bareness was -suggested rather than revealed. My face was sunk away from my eyes, -like soft limestone from a couple of ammonites; my ribs were loose -hoops on a decayed cask; laughter rattled in my stomach like a pea in -a whistle. Besides, I had come, I think, to be a little jealous of my -title to neglect, for I had made that my grievance against Fate. - -Nevertheless, M. de St Prest and I had been slightly acquainted once -upon a time, and it had grieved me to see this red month marked by the -advent in La Force of the dubious old fop. - -He had been a macaroni of Louis XV.’s Court, and the ancient _rôle_ -he had never learnt to forego. The poor puppies of circumstance--the -fops of a more recent date, to whom the particular cut of a lapel -would figure as the standard of reason--bayed him in the prison as -they would have bayed him in the streets. To them, with their high -top-boots _à l’Anglaise_, poor St Prest’s spotted breeches and -knee-ribbons were a source of profound amusement. To them, affecting -the huskiness of speech of certain rude islanders (my very good -friends), his mincing falsetto was a perpetual incitement to laughter. -Swaggering with their cudgels that they called “constitutions,” they -would strike from under him the elaborate tasselled staff on which he -leaned; tossing their matted manes, they would profess to find -something exquisitely exhilarating in the complicated _toupet_ that -embraced and belittled his lean physiognomy. I held them all poor -apes; yet, I confess, it was a ridiculous and pathetic sight, this -posturing of an old wrecked man in the tatters of a bygone generation; -and it gave me shame to see him lift his plate of a hat to me with a -little stick, as the fashion was in his younger days. - -“M. Thibaut,” he said, falling into step with me, “these young bloods” -(he signified with his cane a group that had been baiting him)--“they -worry me, monsieur. _Mort de ma vie!_ what manners! what a presence! -It shall need a butcher’s steel to bring their wits to an edge.” - -“Oh, monsieur,” said I--“have you not the self-confidence to despise -personalities? The fool hath but a narrow world of conventions, and -everything outside it is to him abnormal. His head is a drumstick to -produce hollow sounds within a blank little area. For my part, I never -hear one holding the great up to ridicule without thinking, There is -wasted a good stone-cutter of epitaphs.” - -“_Eh bien_, monsieur! but I have been accustomed to leave the study of -philosophy to my lackeys.” - -He spoke in a lofty manner, waving his hand at me; and he took snuff -from a battered wooden box, and flipped his fingers to his thumb -afterwards as if he were scattering largesse of fragrance. - -“So, you have a royal contempt of personalities?” he said, with a -little amused tolerance. - -“Why,” said I--“I am not to be put out of conceit with myself because -an ass brays at me.” - -“Or out of countenance, monsieur?” - -“Oh, M. de St Prest! That would be to lose my head on small -provocation. Besides, one must admit the point of view. M. Malseigne -there surveys the world over the edge of a great stock; you, monsieur, -regard it with your chin propped upon a fine fichu. No doubt Sanson -thinks a wooden cravat _comme il faut_; and I--_fichtre!_ I cry in my -character of patriot, ‘There is nothing like the collar of a -carmagnole to keep one’s neck in place!’ Truly, M. l’Amiral, I for one -am not touchy about my appearance.” - -His old eyes blinked out a diluted irony. - -“And that is very natural,” he said; “but then, _mort de ma vie!_ you -are a philosopher--like him there.” - -He pointed to the statue of Rousseau. The libellous block wrought in -him, it seemed, a mood of piping retrospection. - -“I saw the rascal once,” he said--“a mean, common little man, in a -round wig. He was without air or presence. It was at the theatre. The -piece was one of M. de Sauvigny’s, and he sat in the author’s box, a -_loge grillée_. That was a concession to his diffidence; but his -diffidence had been too much consulted, it seemed. He would have the -grate opened, and then the house recognised and applauded him, and -finally forgot him for the _Persiffleur_. He was very angry at that, -I believe. We heard it lost the author his friendship. He accused him -of having made a show of him, and--_Mort de ma vie!_ that is to be a -philosopher.” - -He ogled and bowed to a stout kindly-looking woman who, coming from -the jailers’ quarters, passed us at the moment. It was Madame Beau, -the keeper of La Force--the only one there in authority whose sense of -humanity had not gone by the board. A ruffianly warder, leading a -great wolf-hound, preceded her. She nodded to us brightly and -stopped-- - -“Ah, M. Thibaut! but soon we shall call you the father of La Force.” - -“As you are its mother, madame.” - -“Poor children. But, after all, if one considers it as a club----” - -“True; where one may feast like Belshazzar. Yet, I find, one may have -a surfeit of putrid herrings, even though one is to die on the -morrow.” - -Madame shrugged her shoulders. - -“Ah, bah! the stuff is supplied by contract. I am not to blame, my -little fellows. Yet some of you manage better.” (She pointed to the -retreating hound.) “_Voilà le délinquent!_ He was caught -red-handed--discussing the bribe of a sheep’s trotter; and his -sentence is five hours in a cell.” - -She nodded again and jingled her keys. - -“But, yes,” she said, “consider it as a club----” and off she went -across the yard. - -“A club? Oh, _mon Dieu_!” murmured St Prest. - -“Well,” said I, “I am inclined to fall in with the idea. What livelier -places of sojourn are there, in these days of gravity and decorum, -than the prisons?” - -He pursed his lips and wagged his old head like a mandarin. - -“At least,” he said, leeringly, “she is a fine figure of a woman. She -dates, like myself, from the era of the _Bien-aimé_, when women knew -how to walk and to hold themselves; and to reveal themselves, too. -_Oh, je m’entends bien!_ I have been entertained in the _Parc aux -cerfs_, M. Thibaut.” - -I could certainly believe it. This effete old carpet-admiral? Had he -ever smelt salt water? I could understand, perhaps, that he had -crossed in the packet to the land of fogs. But now he was to exhibit -himself to me in a more honourable aspect--to confess the man under -the powder and the rubbish. - -We stood close by where the wall was pierced by the running sewer. The -whole yard was alive with laughter and babble; and now and again one -would leave a friend or party of triflers and, kneeling down over the -infected sink, would call some name through the opening. Then, -summoned to the other side, Lucille, poor _ange déchu_, would -exchange a few earnest pitiful words with husband or brother or lover, -and her tears, perhaps, would fall into the gushing drain and sanctify -its abomination to him. Was not that for love to justify itself in the -eyes of the most unnatural misogynist? - -Now there came up to the trap a pale little fellow--the merest child. -It was little Foucaud, the son of Madame Kolly. This poor lad must be -held a man (God save him!) when misfortune overtook his family; but -the scoundrels had the grace to consign his younger brother to the -company of his mother on the woman’s side. And here, through this sink -opening, the two babes would converse in their sad little trebles two -or three times a-day. - -“How now, my man?” said St Prest; for the boy stood wistfully watching -us, his hands picking together and his throat swelling. Then all at -once he was weeping. - -The old fop gently patted the heaving shoulders. - -“Oh, monsieur,” said the youngster, in a hoarse little voice, “the -cold of the stones is in my throat and on my chest.” - -“What then, child! That is not to be guillotined.” - -“But I cannot cry out so that he shall hear me; and if we do not talk -I know nothing.” - -In a paroxysm of agitation he threw himself down by the sewer. - -“Lolo, Lolo!” he tried to call; but his voice would not obey his will. - -And then M. de St Prest did a thing, the self-sacrificing quality of -which shall be known in full, perhaps, only to the angels. He took the -lad under the arms and, lifting him away, himself knelt down in all -his nicety by the sink and put his mouth to the opening. - -“The little Foucaud,” he piped, “desires to see his brother!” - -Presently he looked up. - -“He is here, child.” - -“Oh, monsieur! will you explain that I cannot speak, and ask him how -is _maman_?” - -The message was given. I heard the poor little voice answer through -the wall: “_Maman_ sends her love to you. She has not wept so much the -last night, and she has been sleeping a little. It is Lolo, who loves -you well, that tells you this.” - -I assisted St Prest to rise. - -“I will ask the honour,” I said, “of dusting M. l’Amiral’s coat for -him.” - - * * * * * * * - -That same afternoon, as I was again, during the hour of exercise, -standing near the sewer, of a sudden I heard a most heartrending voice -calling from the other side of the wall. - -“Messieurs! messieurs!” it cried. “Will no one send to me my darling?” - -I dropped upon my knees (I give all honour to M. de St Prest), and, -with a shudder of nausea, lowered my face to the opening. - -“Who speaks?” I said. “I am at madame’s service.” - -The voice caught in a sob. - -“_Je vous rends grâce_--whoever you are, I thank you from my heart. -It is my little Foucaud, my dearest, that must come to his _maman_, -and quickly.” - -I answered that I would summon him, and I rose to my feet. I had no -difficulty in finding the boy. He came, white-faced and wondering, and -knelt down. - -“_Maman, maman_--canst thou hear me? My throat is a little hoarse, -_maman_.” - -“Oh, my baby, my little son! Thou wilt be sweet and tender with Lolo -in the happy days that are coming. And thou wilt never forget -_maman_--say it, say it, lest her heart should break.” - -God of mercy! Who was I to stand and listen to these pitiful -confidences! I drew aside, watchful only of the boy lest his grief and -terror should drive him mad. In a moment a white hand, laden with a -dark thick coil of hair, was thrust through the opening. It was all -the unhappy woman could leave her darling to remember her by. No -glimpse of her face--no touch of her lips on his. From the dark into -the dark she must go, and his very memory of her should be associated -with the most dreadful period of his life. When they came for her in -another instant, I heard the agony of her soul find vent in a single -cry: “My lambs, alone amongst the wolves!” - -Kind Madame Beau was there beside me. - -“Lift him up,” she whispered. “He will be motherless in an hour.” - -As I stooped to take the sobbing and hysterical child in my arms, I -heard a voice speak low on the other side of the wall-- - -“It is only an interruption, madame.” - -Gardel’s words--but the speaker! - -I stumbled with my burden--recovered myself, and consigned the boy to -the good soul that awaited him. Then hurriedly I leaned down again, -and hurriedly cried, “Carinne! Carinne!” - - * * * * * * * - -There was no answer. Probably the speaker had retreated when the -wretched Madame Kolly was withdrawn from the wall. I called again. I -dwelt over the noxious gutter in excitement and anguish until I was -convinced it was useless to remain. Was it this, then? that out of all -the voices of France one voice could set my heart vibrating like a -glass vessel that responds only to the striking of its single -sympathetic note? I had thought to depose this idol of an hour from -its shrine; I had cried shame upon myself for ever submitting my -independence to the tyranny of a woman, and here a half-dozen words -from her addressed to a stranger had reinfected me with the fever of -desire. - -I got out a scrap of paper and wrote thereon, “_Jacob to Rachel. -Jean-Louis is still in the service of Mademoiselle de Lâge._” - -I found a fragment of stick, notched the paper into the end of it, and -gingerly passed my billet through the hole in the wall. On the instant -a great voice uttered a malediction behind me, and I was jerked -roughly down upon the flags. My end of the stick dropped into the -gutter and wedged itself in slime. I looked up. Above me were Cabochon -and a yellow-faced rascal. This last wore a sword by his side and on -his head a high-crowned hat stuffed with plumes. I had seen him -before--Maillard, l’Abbaye Maillard, a hound with a keen enough scent -for blood to make himself a lusty living. He and his colleague Héron -would often come to La Force to count their victims before following -them to the scaffold. - -“Plots--plots!” he muttered, shaking his head tolerantly, as if he -were rebuking a child. “See to it, Citizen Cabochon.” - -The jailer fetched back the stick. The paper, however, was gone from -the end of it. - -“It will be in the sewer,” said Maillard, quietly. - -Cabochon had no scruples. He groped with his fingers. - -“It is not here,” he said after a time, eyeing me and very malignant. - -“Well,” said the other, “who is this fellow?” - -“_Mordi_, Citizen President; he is a forgotten jackass that eats his -head off in the revolutionary stable.” - -“_Vraiment?_ Then, it follows, his head must fall into the -revolutionary manger.” - -He nodded pleasantly twice or thrice; then turned and, beckoning -Cabochon to walk by him, strode away. - -I sat in particular cogitation against the wall. For the present, it -seemed, I enjoyed a distinction that was not attractive to my -fellow-prisoners; and I was left religiously to myself. - -“Now,” said I aloud, “I have grown such a beard that at last the -national barber must take me in hand.” - -“M. Jean-Louis,” said a voice the other side of the trap, “will you -keep me kneeling here for ever?” - -I started and flung myself face downwards with a cry of joy. My heart -swelled in a moment so that it drove the tears up to my eyes. - -“Carinne!” I cried, choking and half-sobbing; “is it thou indeed?” - -“Creep through the little hole,” she said, “and thou shalt see.” - -I laughed and I cried in a single breath. - -“Say what thou wilt, _ma fillette_. Yes, I will call thee as I choose. -Didst thou hear but now? I think it is a dying man that speaks to -thee. Carinne, say after all you keep a place in your heart for the -little odd Thibaut.” - -“Insidious! thou wouldst seek to devour the whole, like a little worm -in a gall.” - -“To hear your voice again! We are always shadows to one another now. -As a shadow I swear that I love you dearly. Oh, _ma mie, ma mie_, I -love you so dearly. And why were you cruel to leave me for that small -gust of temper I soon repented of? Carinne! My God! she is gone away!” - -“I am here, little Thibaut.” - -“There is a sound in your voice. Oh, this savage unyielding wall! I -will kiss it a foot above the trap. Will you do the same on the other -side?” - -“Monsieur forgets himself, I think.” - -“He is light-headed with joy. But he never forgets Mademoiselle de -Lâge--not though she punished him grievously for an indifferent -offence in the forests of Chalus.” - -“Jean-Louis, listen well to this: I was abducted.” - -“My God! by whom?” - -“By a vile citizen Representative journeying to Paris.” - -“By a----” - -“I had emerged from the trees after you left me, and was sitting very -passionate by the road, when he passed with his escort and discovered -me.” - -I kneeled voiceless as if I were stunned. - -“What would you!” said Carinne. “There was no Thibaut at hand to throw -him to the pigs. He forced me to go with him, and----” - -I vented a groan that quite rumbled in the gutter; and at that her -voice came through the hole a little changed-- - -“Monsieur has a delicate faith in what he professes to love.” - -I beat my hands on the wall. I cried upon Heaven in my agony to let me -reach through this inexorable veil of stone. - -“You talked once of the wicked licence of the times. How could I know, -oh, _ma mie_! And now all my heart is melting with love and rapture.” - -“But I had a knife, Jean-Louis. Well, but he was courteous to me; and -at that I told him who I was--no jill-flirt, but an unhappy waif of -fortune. Now, _mon Dieu_!--it turned out that this was the very man -that had come _en mission_ to Pierrettes.” - -“Lacombe?” - -“No--a creature of the name of Crépin----” - -I uttered a cry. - -“Crépin! It was he that carried thee away?” - -“Truly; and who has, for my obduracy, consigned me to prison. Ever -since, little Thibaut, ever since--now at Les Carmes; now in the Rue -de Sèvres; at last, no later than yesterday, to this ‘extraordinary -question’ of La Force.” - -“Now thou art a sweet-souled Carinne! Send me something of thine -through the evil passage that I may mumble it with my lips. Carinne, -listen,”--and I told her the story of my connection with the villain. - -“I would wring his neck if they would spare mine,” I said. “But, alas! -I fear I am doomed, Carinne.” - -She had from me all the details in brief of my captivity. _Mon Dieu!_ -but it was ecstasy this dessert to my long feast of neglect. At the -end she was silent a space; then she said very low-- - -“He communicates with me; but I never answer. Now I will do so, and -perhaps thou shalt not die.” - -“Carinne.” - -“Hush, thou small citizen! The time is up; we must talk no longer.” - -I breathed all my heart out in a sigh of farewell. I thought she had -already gone, when suddenly she spoke again-- - -“Jean-Louis, Jean-Louis, do you hear?” - -“Yes.” - -“I would have thee just the height for thine eyes to look into mine.” - -“Carinne? And what should they read there?” - -Again there was a pause, again I thought she had gone; and then once -more her voice came to me-- - -“Little Thibaut, I _did_ kiss the wall a foot above the trap.” - - * * * * * * * - -“Madame Beau,” said I, “when you shall be nearing old age--that is to -say, when your present years double themselves--it is very certain -that your lines will fall in pleasant places.” - -“And where will they be?” said she. - -“Where, but round your fine eyes and the dimples of your mouth!” - -She cried, “_Oh, qu’il est malin!_” and tapped my shoulder archly with -a great key she held in her hand. - -“And what is the favour you design to ask of me?” she said. - -“Firstly your permission to me to dedicate some verses to you,” said -I. “After that, that you will procure me the immediate delivery of -this little tube of paper.” - -“To whom is it addressed?” - -“To one Crépin, who lives in the Rue de Jouy, St Antoine.” - -“_Croyez m’en!_” she cried. “Do you not see I have dropped my key?” - -Then, as I stooped to pick up the instrument which she had let fall on -the pavement, “Slip the little paper into the barrel!” she muttered. - -I did so; and these were the words I had written on it:-- - - “_I am imprisoned in La Force for any reason or none. It concerns me - only in that I am thereby debarred from vindicating upon your body the - honour of Mademoiselle de Lâge. If it gives you any shame to hear - that towards this victim of your base persecution, I, your one-time - comrade, entertain and have long entertained sentiments of the most - profound regard, prevail with yourself, I beseech you, to procure the - enlargement of a lady whose only crimes--as things are judged - nowadays--are her innocence and her beauty._ - - “_Jean-Louis Thibaut_.” - - * * * * * * * - -Of all the degradations to which we in the prison were subjected, none -equalled that that was a common condition of our nightly herding. -Then--so early as eight o’clock during the darker months--would appear -the foul Cabochon--with his satellites and three or four brace of -hounds--to drive us like cattle to our sleeping-pens. Bayed into the -corridors, from which our cells opened, we must answer to our names -bawled out by a crapulous turnkey, who held in his jerking hands, and -consulted with his clouded eyes, a list that at his soberest he could -only half decipher. He calls a name--probably of one that has already -paid the penalty. There is no answer. The ruffian bullies and curses, -while the survivors explain the matter to him. He sulkily acquiesces; -shouts the tally once more, regardless of the hiatus--of course only -to repeat the error. Amidst a storm of menaces we are all ordered out -of our rooms, and this again and yet again, perhaps, until the beast -satisfies himself or is satisfied that none is skulking, and that -nothing is in error but his own drunken vision. Then at last the dogs -are withdrawn, the innumerable doors clanged to and barred, and we are -left, sealed within a fetid atmosphere, to salve our wounded dignity -as we can with the balm of spiritual self-possession. - -But now, on this particular evening, conscious of something in my -breast that overcrowed the passionless voice of philosophy, I felt -myself uplifted and translated--an essence impressionable to no -influence that was meaner than divine. - -“And who knows,” I said to myself, as we were summoned from the yard, -“but that Quatremains-Quatrepattes might have pronounced Carinne to be -the bright star in my horoscope?” - -“Not so fast, citizen,” growled Cabochon, who stood, list in hand, at -the door. - -“Rest content,” said I; “I am never in a hurry.” - -“_Par exemple!_ you grow a little rusty, perhaps, for a notable actor. -It is well, then, that you have an engagement at last.” - -“To perform? And where, M. Cabochon?” - -“In the Palais de Justice. That is a theatre with a fine box, citizen; -and the verdict of those that sit in it is generally favourable--to -the public.” - - - - - CHAPTER XII. - THE MOUSE-TRAP. - -Was I so very small? I had the honour of a tumbril all to myself on -my journey to the Conciergerie, and I swear that I could have thought -I filled it. But Mademoiselle de Lâge was the pretty white heifer -that had caused me to puff out my sides in emulation of her large -nobility--me, yes, of whom she would have said, as the bull of the -frog, “_Il n’était pas gros en tout comme un œuf_.” Now I was -travelling probably to my grave; yet the exaltation of that interview -still dwelt with me, and I thought often of some words that had once -been uttered by a certain Casimir Bertrand: “To die with the wine in -one’s throat and the dagger in one’s back! What could kings wish for -better?” - -We came down upon the sullen prison by way of the Pont au Change and -the Quay d’Horloge, and drew up at a door on the river-side. I saw a -couple of turrets, with nightcap roofs, stretch themselves, as if -yawning, above me. I saw in a wide angle of the gloomy block of -buildings, where the bridge discharged itself upon the quay, a vast -heap of newly thrown-up soil where some excavations were being -conducted; and from the mound a sort of crane or scaffold, sinisterly -suggestive of a guillotine surmounting a trench dug for its dead, -stood out against a falling crimson sky. The river hummed in its -course; above a green spot on the embankment wall a cloud of dancing -midges seemed to boil upwards like steam from a caldron. Everything -suggested to me the _mise en scène_ of a rehearsing tragedy, and then -promptly I was haled, like an inanimate “property,” into the -under-stage of that dark “theatre of varieties.” - -Messieurs the jailers, it appeared, were at their supper, and would -not for the moment be bothered with me. A gush of light and a violent -voice issued from a door to one side of a stony vestibule: “Run the -rascal into La Souricière, and be damned to him!” - -Thereat I was hurried, by the “blue” that was responsible for my -transfer, and an understrapper with the keys, by way of a gloomy -course--up and down--through doorways clinched with monstrous -bolts--under vaulted stone roofs where spiders, blinded by the lamp -glare, shrank back into crevices, and where all the mildew of -desolation sprouted in a poisonous fungus--along passages deeply -quarried, it seemed, into the very foundations of despair; and at last -they stopped, thrust me forward, and a door clapped to behind me with -a slam of thunder. - -I stood a moment where I was and caught at my bewildered faculties. It -took me, indeed, but a moment to possess myself of them. In those days -one had acquired a habit of wearing one’s wits unsheathed in one’s -belt. Then I fell to admiring the quite unwonted brilliancy of the -illumination that pervaded the cell. It was a particularly small -chamber--perhaps ten feet by eight or so--and consequently the single -lighted candle, held in a cleft stick the butt of which was thrust -into a chink in the stones, irradiated it to its uttermost corner. The -furniture was artless in its simplicity--a tub, a broken pitcher of -water, and two heaps of foul straw. But so abominable a stench filled -the place that no doubt there was room for little else. - -Now, from one of the straw beds, the figure of a man--my sole comrade -to be, it would appear--rose up as I stirred, and stood with its back -and the palms of its hands pressed against the wall. Remaining thus -motionless, the shadows blue in its gaunt cheeks, and little husks of -wheat caught in its dusty hair, it fixed me with eyes like staring -pebbles. - -“_Défense d’entrer!_” it snapped out suddenly, and shut its mouth -like a gin. - -“Oh, monsieur!” said I, “no going out, rather, for the mouse in the -trap.” - -He lifted one of his arms at right angles to his body, and let it drop -again to his side. - -“Behold!” he cried, “the peril! Hadst thou been closer thy head had -fallen!” - -“But thine,” said I. “Hast thou not already lost it?” - -“Oh, early in the struggle, monsieur! Oh, very early! And then my soul -passed into the inanimate instrument of death and made it animate.” - -“What! thou art the guillotine itself?” - -“Look at me, then! Is it not obvious that I am that infernal engine, -nor less that I am informed with the _ego_ that once was my victim and -is now my familiar--being myself, in effect?” - -“_Pardieu!_ this is worse than the game of ‘Proverbs.’ It rests with -thy _ego_, then, to put a period to this orgy of blood.” - -He gave forth a loud wailing cry. - -“I am a demon, prejudged and predestined, and the saint of the Place -du Trône is possessed with me.” - -“A saint, possessed!” - -He wrung his hands insanely. - -“Oh!” he cried--“but is it not a fate to which damnation were -Paradise! For me, the gentle Aubriot, who in my material form had -shrunk from killing a fly--for me to thus deluge an unhappy land with -the blood of martyrs! But I have threshed my conscience with a knotted -discipline, and I know--yes, monsieur, I know--what gained me my -punishment. A cripple once begged of me a poor two sous. I hesitated, -in that I had but the one coin on me, and my nostrils yearned for -snuff. I hesitated, and the devil tripped up my feet. I gave the man -the piece and asked him a sou in change. For so petty a trifle did I -barter my salvation. But heaven was not to be deceived, and its -vengeance followed me like a snake through the grass. Ah!” (he jumped -erect) “but the blade fell within an ace of thy shoulder!” - -This was disquieting enough, in all truth. Yet I took comfort from the -thought that the madman could avail himself of no more murderous -weapon than his hands. - -“Now, M. Guillotin,” said I, “observe that it is characteristic of you -to lie quiescent when you are put away for the night.” - -“_Nenni, nenni, nenni!_” he answered. “That may have been before the -hideous apotheosis of the instrument. Now, possessed as I am, I slash -and cut at whoever comes in my way.” - -_Mon Dieu!_ but this was a wearisome lunatic! and I longed very -ardently to be left peacefully to my own reflections. I came forward -with a show of extreme fortitude. - -“This demon of yourself,” I said--“you wish it to be exorcised, that -the soil of France may grow green again?” - -A fine self-sacrificial rapture illumined his wild face. - -“Let me be hurled into the bottomless pit,” he cried, “that so the -Millennium may rise in the east like an August sun!” - -“Now,” said I, “I will commune with my soul during the night, that -perchance it may be revealed to me how the guillotine may guillotine -itself.” - -To my surprise the ridiculous bait took, and the poor wretch sunk down -upon his straw and uttered no further word. Crossing the cell to come -to my own heap, my foot struck against an iron ring that projected -from a flag. For an instant a mad hope flamed up in me, only to as -immediately die down. Was it probable that the “Mouse-trap”--into -which, I knew, it was the custom to put newly arrived prisoners before -their overhauling by the turnkeys and “scenting” by the dogs of the -guard--would be furnished with a door of exit as of entrance? -Nevertheless, I stooped and tugged at the ring to see what should be -revealed in the lifting of the stone. It, the latter, seemed a -ponderous slab. I raised one end of it a foot or so with difficulty, -and, propping it with the pitcher, looked to see what was underneath. -A shallow trough or excavation--that was all; probably a mere pit into -which to sweep the scourings of the cell. Leaving it open, I flung -myself down upon the mat of straw, and gave myself up to a melancholy -ecstasy of reflection. - -The maniac crouched in his corner. So long as the light lasted I was -conscious of his eyes fixed in a steady bright stare upon the lifted -stone. There seemed something in its position that fascinated him. -Then, with a dropping splutter, the candle sank upon itself and was -extinguished suddenly; and straightway we were embedded in a block of -gloom. - -Very soon I was asleep. Ease and sensation, drink and food--how -strangely in those days one’s soul had learned to withdraw itself from -its instinctive attachments; to hover apart, as it were, from that -clumsy expression of its desires that is the body with its appetites; -and to accept at last, as radically irreclaimable, that same body so -grievously misinformed with animism. Now I could surrender to -forgetfulness, and that with little effort, all the load of emotion -and anxiety with which a savage destiny sought to overwhelm me. Nor -did this argue a brutish insensibility on my part; but only a lifting -of idealism to spheres that offered a more tranquil and serener field -for meditation. - -Once during the night a single drawn sound, like the pipe of wind in a -keyhole, roused me to a half-recovery of my faculties. I had been -dreaming of Carinne and of the little pig that fell into the pit, and, -associating the phantom cry with the voluble ghosts of my brain, I -smiled and fled again to the heights. - -The noise of heavily grating bolts woke me at length to the iron -realities of a day that might be my last on earth. I felt on my face -the wind of the dungeon door as it was driven back. - -“Follow me, Aubriot!” grunted an indifferent voice in the opening. - -Lacking a response of any sort, the speaker, who had not even put -himself to the trouble of entering the cell, cried out gutturally and -ironically-- - -“_Holà hé, holà hé_, Citizen Aubriot Guillotin! thou art called to -operate on thyself! _Mordi, mordi, mordi!_ dost thou hear? thou art -invited to commit suicide that France may regenerate itself of thee!” - -I raised my head. A burly form, topped by a great hairy face, blocked -the doorway. I made it out by the little light that filtered through a -high-up grating above me. - -“_Mille démons!_” shouted the turnkey suddenly, “what is this?” - -He came pounding into the cell, paused, and lifted his hands like a -benedictory priest. “_Mille démons!_” he whispered again, with his -jaw dropped. - -I had jumped to my feet. - -“_Pardieu!_ Mr Jailer!” said I; “the guillotine, it appears, has -anticipated upon itself that law of which it is the final expression. -The rest of us you will of necessity acquit.” - -I looked down, half-dazed; but I recalled the odd sound that had -awakened me in the night. Here, then, was the explanation of it--in -this swollen and collapsed form, whose head, it seemed, was plunged -beneath the floor, as if it had dived for Tartarus and had stuck at -the shoulders. - -“He has guillotined himself with a vengeance!” I exclaimed. - -“But how?” said the turnkey, stupidly. - -“But thus, it is obvious: by propping the slab-end on the pitcher; by -lying down with his neck over the brink of the trough; by upsetting -the vessel with a sweep of his arm as he lay. _Mon Dieu!_ see how he -sprouts from the chink like a horrible dead polypus! This is no -mouse-trap, but a gin to catch human vermin!” - -“It was not to be foreseen,” muttered the man, a little scared. “Who -would have fancied a madman to be in earnest!” - -“And that remark,” said I, “comes oddly from the lips of a patriot.” - -He questioned me with his eyes in a surly manner. - -“Bah!” I cried; “are not Robespierre, Couthon, St Just in earnest? are -not you in earnest? and do you not all put your heads into traps? But -I beg you to take me out of La Souricière.” - -He had recovered his composure while I spoke. - -“Come, then,” he said; “thou art wanted down below. And as to that -rascal--_Mordi_!” he chuckled, “he has run into a _cul-de-sac_ on his -way to hell; but at any rate he has saved the axe an extra notch to -its edge.” - -On the threshold of the room he stopped me and looked into my face. - -“How much for a _billet_?” said he. - -“You have one for me?” - -“That depends.” - -“But doubtless you have been paid to deliver it?” - -“And doubtless thou wilt pay to receive it.” - -“Oh, _mon Dieu_!” said I; “but these vails! And patriots, I see, are -not so far removed from the lackeys they despise.” - -“_Pardi!_” said the bulky man. “Listen to the fox preaching to the -hens! But I will lay odds that in another twelve hours thou wilt be -stripped of something besides thy purse. What matter, then! thou wilt -have thy crown of glory to carry to the Lombard-house.” - -I gave him what was left to me. - -“Now,” said I; and he put a scrap of paper into my hand. - -I unfolded it in the dim light and read these words, hurriedly -scrawled thereon in a hand unknown to me: “_Play, if nothing else -avails, the hidden treasures of Pierrettes_.” - -“Follow me, Thibaut,” said the jailer. - - * * * * * * * - -As might feel a martyr, who, with a toy knife in his hand, is driven -to face the lions, so felt I on my way to the Tribunal with that -fragment of paper thrust into my breast. At one moment I could have -cried out on the travesty of kindness that could thus seek to prolong -my agony by providing me with an inadequate weapon; at another I was -reminded how one might balance oneself in a difficult place with a -prop no stronger than one’s own little finger. Yet this thin shaft of -light cutting into desperate gloom had disquieted me strangely. -Foreseeing, and prepared stoically to meet, the inevitable, I had -even--before the _billet_ was placed in my hands--felt a certain -curiosity to witness--though as an accused--the methods of procedure -of a Court that was as yet only known to me through the infamy of its -reputation. Now, however, caught back to earth with a rope of straw, -I trembled over the very thought of the ordeal to which I was invited. - -Coming, at the end of melancholy vaulted passages, to a flight of -stone steps leading up to a door, I was suddenly conscious of a -droning murmur like that of hived bees. The jailer, in the act of -running the key into the lock, beckoned me to mount to him, and, thus -possessed of me, caught me under the arm-pit. - -“Play thy card, then, like a gambler!” said he. - -“What!” I exclaimed in astonishment. - -“Ah bah!” he growled; “didst thou think delicacy kept me from reading -the message? But, fear not. Thou art too little a gudgeon for my -playing”--and he swung open the door. Immediately the hiss and patter -of voices swept upon me like rain. That, and the broad glare of -daylight after so much darkness, confused me for a moment. The next I -woke to the consciousness that at last my foot was on the precipice -path--the gangway for the passage of the pre-damned into the Salle de -la Liberté--the _arête_ of the “Montagne,” it might be called, -seeing how it served that extreme faction for a ridge most perilous to -its enemies to walk on. - -This gangway skirted a wooden barricade that cut the hall at about a -third of its length. To my left, as I advanced, I caught glimpse over -the partition of the dismal black plumes on the hats of the judges, as -they bobbed in juxtaposition of evil under a canopy of green cloth. To -my right, loosely filling the body of the hall, was the public; and -here my extreme insignificance as a prisoner was negatively impressed -upon me by the indifference of those whom I almost brushed in passing, -for scarce a _poissarde_ of them all deigned to notice the little -gudgeon as he wriggled on the national hook. Then in a moment my -conductor twisted me through an opening cut in the barricade, and I -was delivered over to the Tribunal. - -A certain drumming in my ears, a certain mist before my eyes, resolved -themselves into a very set manner of attention. The stark, whitewashed -walls seemed spotted with a plague of yellow faces--to my left a -throng of mean blotches, the obsequious counsel for the defence; to my -front the President and judges, in number three, like skulls decked -with hearse-plumes; to my right the jury, a very Pandora-box of -goblins, the lid left off, the evil countenances swarming over the -edge. All seemed to my excited imagination to be faces and nothing -else--drab, dirty, and malignant--ugly motes set against the staring -white of the walls, dancing fantastically in the white day-beams that -poured down from the high windows. Yet that I sought for most I could -not at first distinguish,--not until the owner of it stood erect by a -little table--placed to one side and a little forward of the judicial -dais--over which he had been leaning. Then I recognised him -instantly--Tinville, the Devil’s Advocate, the blood-boltered -vampire--and from that moment he was the court to me, judge, jury, and -counsel, and his dark face swam only in my vision like a gout of bile. - -Now, I tell you, that so dramatic was this Assembly by reason of the -deadliness of purpose that characterised it, that one, though a -prisoner, almost resented the flippant coxcombry of the three -sightless busts standing on brackets above the bench. For -these--Brutus, Marat, St Fargeau (his gods quit the indignant Roman of -responsibility for entertaining such company)--being jauntily -decorated with a red bonnet apiece and a grimy cockade of the -tricolour, jarred hopelessly in the context, and made of the bloodiest -tragedy a mere clownish extravaganza. And, behold! of this -extravaganza Fouquier-Tinville, when he gave reins to his humour, -discovered himself to be the very Sannio--the rude powerful buffoon, -with a wit only for indecency. - -Yet he did not at a first glance figure altogether unprepossessing. -Livid-skinned though he was, with a low forehead, which his hair, -brushed back and stiffly hooked at its ends, seemed to claw about the -middle like a black talon, there was yet little in his countenance -that bespoke an active malignancy. His large eyes had that look of -good-humoured weariness in them that, superficially, one is apt to -associate with unvindictive long-sufferingness. His brows, black also -and thick, were set in the habitual lift of suspense and inquiry. His -whole expression was that of an anxious dwelling upon the prisoner’s -words, lest the prisoner should incriminate himself; and it was only -when one marked the tigerish steadiness of his gaze and the _sooty_ -projection of his under-lip over a strongly cleft chin that one -realised how the humour of the man lay all upon the evil side. For the -rest--as each detail of his personality was hammered into me by my -pulses--his black clothes had accommodated themselves to his every -ungainly habit of movement, his limp shirt was caught up about his -neck with a cravat like a rag of dowlas, and over his shoulders hung a -broad national ribbon ending in a silver medallion, with the one word -_Loi_ imprinted on it like a Judas kiss. - -Thus the man, as he stood scrutinising me after an abstracted fashion, -his left arm bent, the hand of it knuckled upon the table, the -Lachesis thumb of it--flattened from long kneading of the yarn of -life--striding over a form of indictment. - -The atmosphere of the court was frowzy as that of a wine-shop in the -early hours of morning. It repelled the freshness of the latter and -communicated its influence to public and tribunal alike. Over all hung -a slackness and a peevish unconcern as to business. Bench and bar -yawned, and exchanged spiritless commonplaces of speech. True enough, -a gudgeon was an indifferent fish with which to start the traffic of -the day. - -At length the Public Accuser slightly turned and nodded his head. - -“_Maître Greffier_,” said he, in quite a noiseless little voice, -“acquaint us of the charge, I desire thee, against this _patte-pelu_.” - -_Nom de Dieu!_ here was a fine _coup d’archet_ to the overture. My -heart drummed very effectively in response. - -A little black-martin of a fellow, with long coat-tails and glasses to -his eyes, stood up by the notaries’ table and handled a slip of paper. -Everywhere the murmur of Tinville’s voice had brought the court to -attention. I listened to the _greffier_ with all my ears. - -“Act of Accusation,” he read out brassily, “against Jean-Louis -Sebastien de Crancé, _ci-devant_ Comte de la Muette, and since -calling himself the Citizen Jean-Louis Thibaut.” - -Very well, and very well--I was discovered, then; through whose -agency, if not through Jacques Crépin’s, I had no care to learn. The -wonder to me was that, known and served as I had been, I should have -enjoyed so long an immunity from proscription as an aristocrat. But I -accused Crépin--and wrongfully, I believe--in my heart. - -“Hath rendered himself answerable to the law of the 17th Brumaire,” -went on the _greffier_, mechanically, “in that he, an _émigré_, hath -ventured himself in the streets of Paris in disguise, and----” - -The Public Accuser waved him impatiently to a stop. There fell a dumb -silence. - -“One pellet out of a charge is enough to kill a rat,” said he, -quietly: then in an instant his voice changed to harsh and terrible, -and he bellowed at me-- - -“What answer to that, Monsieur _r-r-r-rat_, Monsieur _ratatouille_?” - -The change of manner was so astounding that I jumped as at the shock -of a battery. Then a hot flush came to my face, and with it a dreadful -impulse to strike this insolent on the mouth. I folded my arms, and -gave him back glare for glare. - -“Simply, monsieur,” I said, “that it is not within reason to accuse me -of returning to what I have never quitted.” - -“Paris?” - -“The soil of France.” - -“That shall not avail thee!” he thundered. “What right hast thou to -the soil that thou and thine have manured with the sacred blood of the -people?” - -“Oh, monsieur!” I began--“but if you will convert my very -refutation----” - -He over-roared me as I spoke. He was breathing himself, at my expense, -for the more serious business of the day. Positively I was being used -as a mere punching-bag on which this “bruiser” (_comme on dit à -l’Anglaise_) might exercise his muscles. - -“Silence!” he shouted; “I know of what I speak! thou walk’st on a bog, -where to extricate the right foot is to engulf the left. Emigrant art -thou--titular at least by force of thy accursed rank; and, if that is -not enough, thou hast plotted in prison with others that are known.” - -I smiled, awaiting details of the absurd accusation. I had formed, it -was evident, no proper conception of this court of summary -jurisdiction. The President leaned over his desk at the moment and -spoke with Tinville, proffering the latter his snuff-box. They -exchanged some words, a pantomime of gesticulation to me. As they -nodded apart, however, I caught a single wafted sentence: “We will -whip her like the Méricourt if she is obstinate.” - -To what vile and secret little history was this the key! To me it only -signified that, while I had fancied them discussing a point of my -case, the two were passing confidences on a totally alien matter. At -last I felt very small; and that would have pleased Carinne. - -“But, at any rate,” I thought, “the charge against me must now assume -some definite form.” - -He, that dark _bouche de fer_ of the Terror, stared at me gloomily, as -if he had expected to find me already removed. Then suddenly he flung -down upon the table the paper he had in his hand, and cried -automatically, as if in a certain absence of mind, “I demand this man -of the law to which he is forfeit.” - -God in heaven! And so my trial was ended. They had not even allotted -me one from the litter of mongrel counsel that, sitting there like -begging curs, dared never, when retained, score a point in favour of a -client lest the hags and the brats should hale them off to the -lamp-irons. This certainly was Justice paralysed down one whole side. - -I heard a single little cry lift itself from the hall behind me and -the clucking of the _tricoteuses_. I felt it was all hopeless, but I -clutched at the last desperate chance as the President turned to -address (in three words) the jury. - -“_M. l’Accusateur Public_,” I said, hurriedly, “I am constrained to -tell you that I have in my possession that which may induce you to -consider the advisability of a remand.” - -The fellow stared dumfoundered at me, as if I had thrown my cap in his -face. The President hung on his charge. - -“Oh!” said the former, with an ironical nicety of tone--“and what is -the nature of this magnificent evidence?” - -I had out my scrap of paper, folded like a _billet-doux_. - -“If the citizen will condescend to cast his eye on this?” I said. - -He considered a minute. Curiosity ever fights in the bully with -arrogance. At length he made a sign to a _gendarme_ to bring him that -on which, it seemed, my life depended. - -Every moment while he dwelt on the words was like the oozing of a drop -of blood to me. I had in a flash judged it best to make him sole -confidant with me in the contents of the paper, that so his private -cupidity might be excited, and he not be driven by necessity to play -the _rôle_ of the incorruptible. The instant he looked up my whole -heart expanded. - -“The prisoner,” he said, “acquits his conscience of a matter affecting -the State. I must call upon you, _M. le Président_, to grant for the -present a remand.” - -Oh, _mon Dieu_! but the shamelessness of this avarice! I believe the -scoundrel would have blushed to be discovered in nothing but an act of -mercy. - -“The prisoner is remanded to close confinement in the Convent of St -Pélagie,” were the words that dismissed me from the court; and I -swear Fouquier-Tinville’s large eyes followed me quite lovingly as I -was marched away. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII. - THE RED CART. - -At so early an hour was my trial (in the personal and suffering -sense) brought to a conclusion, that mid-day was not yet struck when -my guards delivered me over to the authorities at St Pélagie--a -one-time _communauté de filles_ in the faubourg of St Victor, and -since appropriated ostensibly to the incarceration of debtors. My -arrival, by grace of Fortune, was most happily timed; and, indeed, the -persistency with which throughout the long period of my difficulties -this capricious _coureuse_ amongst goddesses converted for my benefit -accident into opportuneness offered some excuse to me for remaining in -conceit with myself. - -Now I was taken in charge by a single turnkey--the others being -occupied with their dinner--and conducted by him to the jailer’s room -to undergo that _rapiotage_, or stripping for concealed properties, -the general abuse of which--especially where women were in -question--was a scandal even in those days of shameless brutality. - -As he pushed me into the little ill-lighted chamber and closed the -door hurriedly upon us, I noticed that the man’s hands shook, and that -his face was clammy with a leaden perspiration. He made no offer to -overhaul me; but, instead, he clutched me by the elbow and looked in a -half-scared, half-triumphant manner into my face. - -“Pay attention,” he said, in a quick, forced whisper. “Thy arrival -accommodates itself to circumstance--most admirably, citizen, it -accommodates itself. I, that was to expect, am here alone to receive -thee. It is far better so than that I should be driven to visit thee -in thy cell.” - -“I foresee a call upon my gratitude,” I said, steadily regarding him. -“That is at your service, citizen jailer, when you shall condescend to -enlighten me as to its direction.” - -“I want none of it,” he replied. “It is my own to another that -procures thee this favour.” - -“What other, and what favour?” - -“As to the first--_en bon Français_, I will not tell thee. For the -second--behold it!” - -With the words, he whipt out from under his blouse a thin, strong -file, a little vessel of oil, and a dab of some blue-coloured mastic -in paper--and these he pressed upon me. - -“Hide them about thy person--hide them!” he muttered, in a fearful -voice; “and take all that I shall say in a breath!” - -He glanced over his shoulder at the closed door. He was a blotched and -flaccid creature, with the staring dry hair of the tippler, but with -very human eyes. His fingers closed upon my arm as if for support to -their trembling. - -“Cell thirteen--on the first floor,” he said; “that is whither I shall -convey thee. Ask no questions. Hast thou them all tight?--_Allez-vous -en, mon ami!_ A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.” - -“But----” - -“Ah! thou must needs be talking! Cement with the putty, then, and rub -the filings over the marks.” - -“I was not born yesterday. It is not _that_ I would know.” - -“S-st! At nine by the convent clock, be ready to drop silently into -the cart that shall pass beneath thy window. Never mind what thou -hit’st on. A falling man does not despise a dunghill.” - -I hesitated, seeking to read this patriot’s soul. Was this all a snare -to clinch my damnation? Pooh! if I had ever fancied Tinville hunted -for the shadow of a pretext, this morning’s experience should have -disabused me of the fallacy. - -“Who commissions thee?” I said. - -“One to whom I owe a measure of gratitude.” - -“But not I?” - -“From this time--yes.” - -He pushed at me to go before him. - -“At least,” I said, “acquaint me if it is the same that sent the -letter.” - -“I know nothing of any letter. _San’ Dieu!_ I begin to regret my -complaisance. This fellow will strangle us all with his long tongue.” - -“But, for thyself, my friend?” - -“Oh, _nom de Dieu_! I have no fear, if thou wilt be discreet--and -grateful.” - -“And this tool--and the _rapiotage_!” - -“Listen then! The thief that follows a thief finds little by the road. -We are under no obligation to search a prisoner remanded from another -prison.” - -Impulsively I wrung the hand of the dear sententious; I looked into -his eyes. - -“The Goddess of Reason disown thee!” I said. “Thou shalt never be -acolyte to a harlot!--And I--if all goes well, I will remember. And -what is thy name, good fellow?” - -“_M. un tel_,” said he, and added, “Bah! shall not thy ignorance of it -be in a measure our safeguard?” - -“True,” said I. “And take me away, then. I cannot get to work too -soon.” - -He opened the door, peeped out, and beckoned me. - -“All is well,” he whispered. “The coast is clear.”[1] - -As he drove me with harsh gestures across a yard, a turnkey, standing -at a door and twirling a toothpick in his mouth, hailed him -strenuously. - -“What perquisites, then, comrade?” - -“Bah!” cried my fellow; “I have not looked. He is a bone of Cabochon’s -picking.” - - * * * * * * * - -With what a conflict of emotions I set to work--tentatively at first; -then, seeing how noiselessly the file ran in its oiled groove, with a -concentration of vigour--upon the bars of my window, it is not -difficult to imagine. So hard I wrought that for hours I scarce gave -heed to my growling hunger or attention to my surroundings. As to the -latter, indeed, I was by this time sensibly inured to the conditions -of confinement, and found little in my cell when I came to examine it -to distinguish it from others I had inhabited. A bench, a pitcher, a -flattened mess of straw; here and there about the stone flags marks as -if some frantic beast had sought to undermine himself a passage to -freedom; here and there, engraved with a nail or the tooth of a comb -on the plaster coating of the walls, ciphers, initials, passionate -appeals to heaven or blasphemous indecencies unnameable; in one spot -a forlorn cry: “_Liberté, quand cesseras-tu d’être un vain mot!_” in -another, in feminine characters, the poor little utterance: “_On nous -dit que nous sortirons demain_,” made so pathetic by the later -supplement underscored, “_Vain espoir!_”--with all these, or their -like, was I grievously familiar--resigned, not hardened to them, I am -sure. - -The window at which I stood looked across a little-frequented -passage--the Puit d’Ermite--upon a blank wall; and was terminated with -a pretty broad sill of stone that screened my operations from casual -wayfarers in the street below. Once, peering forth as I could, with my -face pressed to the bars, I found myself to be situated so indifferent -high as that, free of the grate, I might drop to the pavement without -incurring risk of severer damage than a fractured leg or ankle, -perhaps. Obviously, every point had been considered in this trifling -matter of my escape. By whom? By him that had put me that pawn up my -sleeve in the Palais de Justice? Well, the pawn had checked the king, -it appeared; and now it must content me to continue the game with a -handkerchief over my eyes, like the great M. Philidor. - -By two o’clock, having cut through a couple of the bars close by their -junction with the sill, so that a vigorous pull at both would open a -passage for me large enough to squeeze through, I was absorbed in the -careful process of cementing and concealing the evidences of my work -when I heard a sound behind me and twisted myself about with a choke -of terror. But it was my friendly jailer, come with a trencher of -broken scraps for the famished animal in the cage. - -“_Corps de Christ!_” he muttered, his face white and scared--“but here -is an admirable precaution! What if I had been Fouquier-Tinville -himself, then?” - -“You made no noise.” - -“_Par exemple!_ I can shoot a hundredweight of bolts, it seems, so as -not to wake a weasel. I made no noise to deaf ears. But, for thyself, -monsieur--He that would steal corn must be careful his sack has no -holes in it. And now I’ll wager thou’st dusted thy glittering filings -out into the sunbeams, and a sentry, with pistols and a long musket, -pacing the cobbles down there!” - -“_Soyez tranquille!_ I have all here in my pocket.” - -He put down the platter, shrugged his shoulders, and came on tiptoe to -the window. - -“Well, it is excellent,” he whispered grudgingly--“if only thy caution -matched thy skill.” - -Then he came close up to me. - -“I have news,” he muttered. “All is in preparation. It needs only that -thou play’st thy part silently and surely. A moment’s decision and the -game is thine.” - -“But, the sentry, say’st thou?” - -“He will be withdrawn. What, is it not the eve of the _Décadi_?[2] -To-night, the wine-shops; to-morrow, full suburbs and an empty Paris, -but for thee the Public Accuser with his questions.” - -“And why should he not visit me to-day?” - -“Rest assured. He hath a double baking to occupy him.” - -A noise sounded in the corridor. The man put his finger to his lips, -pointed significantly at the remainder litter about the sill, stole to -the door, jangled his keys viciously and bellowed at me: “Thou shalt -have that or nothing! _Saint Sacrement_, but the dainty bellies of -these upstarts!”--and off he went, slamming the door after him, and -grumbling till he was out of hearing. - -“Excellent nameless one!” I cried to myself; and so, having most -scrupulously removed every trace of my work, I fell, while attacking -with appetite the meal left for me, into a sort of luminous meditation -upon the alluring prospect half opened out to my vision. - -“And whence, in the name of God,” I marvelled, “issues this unknown -influence that thus exerts itself on my behalf; and by what process of -gratitude can my jailer, in these days of a general repudiation of -obligations, have attached himself to a cause that, on the face of it, -seems a purely quixotic one?” - -Then, “Oh, merciful Heaven!” I thought, “can it be possible that set -in the far haze of a narrow vista of hope, an image--to whose wistful -absorption into the Paradise of dreams I have sought to discipline -myself--yet yearns to and beckons me from the standpoint of its own -material sweetness? I see the smile on its mouth, the lift of its -arms; I hear the little cry of welcome wafted to me. My God, the cry!” - -All in an instant some shock of association seemed to stun my brain. -The cry--the single cry that had issued upon my condemnation in the -hall of Justice! Had it not been the very echo of that I had once -heard uttered by a poor swineherd fallen into the hands of savages? - -I got to my feet in agitation. Now, suddenly it was borne to me that -from the moment of issue of that little incisive wail a formless -wonder had been germinating in my soul. Carinne present at my -trial!--no, no, it was impossible--unless---- - -“Citizen, the patriots in this corridor send thee greeting.” - -I started as if a bullet had flown past my ear. The voice seemed to -come from the next cell. I swept the cobwebs from my forehead. - -“A thousand thanks!” I cried. - -“They have dreamt that the ass cursed the thorough-bred for the -niceness of his palate,” went on the voice, “and most heartily they -commiserate thee.” - -There followed a faint receding sound like laughter and the clapping -of hands. I had no idea what to say; but the voice relieved me of the -embarrassment. - -“May I ask the citizen’s name?” - -“I am the Comte de la Muette.” - -“_Allons donc!_”--and the information, it seemed, was passed from cell -to cell. - -“Monsieur,” then came the voice, “we of the Community of the Eremites -of St Pélagie offer thee our most sympathetic welcome, and invite -thee to enrol thyself a member of our Society. Permit me, the -President, by name Marino, to have the honour of proposing thee for -election.” - -“By all means. And what excludes, Monsieur le Président?” - -“_D’une haleine_ (I mention it to monsieur as a matter of form), to -have been a false witness or a forger of assignats.” - -“Then am I eligible.” - -“Surely, monsieur. How could one conceive it otherwise! And it remains -only to ask--again as a matter of form--thy profession, thy abode, and -the cause of thy arrest.” - -“Very well. My profession is one of attachment to a beautiful lady; I -live, I dare to believe, in her heart; and, for my arrest, it was -because, in these days of equality, I sought to remain master of -myself.” - -My answer was passed down the line. It elicited, I have the -gratification to confess, a full measure of applause. - -“I have the honour to inform M. le Comte,” said the President, “that -he is duly elected to the privileges of the Society. I send him a -fraternal embrace.” - -My inclination jumped with the humour of the thing. It was thus that -these unfortunates, condemned to solitary confinement, had conceived a -method of relieving the deadly tedium of their lot. Thus they passed -to one another straws of information gleaned from turnkeys or from -prisoners newly arrived. And in order to the confusion of any guard -that might overhear them, they studied, in their inter-communications, -to speak figuratively, to convey a fact through a fable, or, at the -least, to refer their statements to dreams that they had dreamt. At -the same time they formed a Society rigidly exclusive. Admitted -rascals, imprisoned in the corridor, they would by no means condescend -to notice. I had an example of this once during the afternoon, when -the whole place echoed with phantom merriment over a jest uttered by a -member. - -“M. le Comte!” cried a voice from the opposite row: “I could tell thee -a better tale than that.” - -Before the speaker could follow up his words, the President hammered -at my wall. - -“I beseech thee do not answer the fellow,” he said. “It is a rogue -that was suborned in the most pitiful case of the St Amaranthe.” - -“Monsieur, monsieur!” exclaimed the accused; “it is a slander and a -lie. And how wouldst thou pick thy words with thy shoulder bubbling -and hissing under the branding-iron?” - -“As I would pick nettles,” I said. - -“I beseech thee!” cried again my neighbour the President, in a warning -voice, “this man can boast no claim to thy attention.” - -The poor rascal cried out: “It is inhuman! I perish for a word of -sympathy!” - -I would have given it him; but his protests were laughed into silence. -He yelled in furious retort. His rage was over-crowed, and drifted -into sullenness. - -“I dreamt I belaboured a drum,” said the President, “and it burst -under my hands.” - - * * * * * * * - -Truly I did not regret the distraction this whimsical Society afforded -me. Left to myself, the fever of my mind would have corroded my very -reason, I think. To have been condemned to face those hours of tension -indescribable, with no company but that of my own thoughts, would have -proved such an ordeal as, I felt, would have gone far to render me -nerveless at the critical moment. So, responding to the dig of -circumstance in my ribs, I abandoned myself to frolic, and almost, in -the end, lapsed into the other extreme of hysteria. - -But, about five o’clock, closing in from the far end of the corridor, -a swift ominous silence succeeded the jangle; and I was immediately -aware of heavy footsteps treading the cemented floor of the passage, -and, following upon these, the harsh snap of locks and the rumbling of -a deep voice-- - -“Follow me, De la Chatière.” - -The words were the signal for a shrilling chorus of sounds--whoops, -cat-calls, verberant renderings of a whole farmyard of demoniac -animals. - -“_Miau, miau_, Émile! Thou art caught in thine own springe!” - -“They will ask thee one of thy nine lives, Émile!” - -“Ah--bah! if he pleads as he reasons, upside-down, they will only cut -off his feet.” - -“Plead thy poor sick virtue, Émile!” - -“No, no! that were one _coup de tête_ that shall procure him -another.” - -“What need to lie when the truth will serve! Plead thy lost virtue, -Émile, and the jury will love thee.” - -“_Taisez-vous, donc!_” roared a jailer. He was answered by a shriek of -laughter. In the midst of the noise I heard the door of my -neighbouring cell flung open and Marino summoned forth. As the party -retreated: “M. le Président, M. le Président!” shouted a voice--“Art -thou going without a word? But do not, I beseech thee, in the pride of -thy promotion neglect to nominate thy successor!” - -“Lamarelle, then,” answered the poor fellow, in a voice that he tried -vainly to control. - -He was led away. The babble boiled over and simmered down. In a very -few moments a tense quiet had succeeded the uproar. This--due partly -to the reaction from excitement, partly to the fact that jailers were -loitering at hand--wrought in me presently a mood of overbearing -depression. I durst give no rein to my hopes or to my apprehensions, -lest, getting the bit between their teeth, they should fairly run away -with my reason. The prospect of another four hours of this mindless -inaction--hours of which every second seemed to be marked off by the -tick of a nerve--was a deplorable one, indeed. - -I tramped ceaselessly to and fro in my cage, humming to myself and -assuming the habit of a philosophy that fitted me about as well as -Danton’s breeches would have done. I grimaced to my own reflections -like a coquette to her mirror. I suffered from my affectation of -self-containment as severely as though I were a tight-laced _femme à -la mode_ weeping to hear a tale of pity. The convent clock, moving -somewhere with a thunderous click as if it were the very _doyen_ of -death-watches, chimed the dusk upon me in reluctant quarters. Ghostly -emanations seemed to rise from the stones of my cell, sorrowful shapes -of the lost and the hopeless to lean sobbing in its corners. Sometimes -I could have fancied I heard a thin scratching on the walls about me, -as if the returned spectres of despair were blindly tracing with a -finger the characters they had themselves engraved thereon; sometimes, -as I wheeled to view of the dull square of the window, a formless -shadow, set against it, would appear to drop hurriedly and fold upon -itself like a bat. By the time, at last, that, despite my resolves, I -was worked up to a state of agitation quite pitiful, some little -relief of distraction was afforded me by the entrance into my cell of -a stranger turnkey, with some coarse food on a plate in his one hand, -and, in the other, a great can of water, from which he replenished my -pitcher. During the half minute he was with me a shag beast of a dog -kept guard at the door. - -“Fall to, then,” growled the man; “if thou hast the stomach for -anything less dainty than fat pullets and butter.” - -In effect, I had none for anything; yet I thought it the sensible -policy to take up the plate, when the fellow was withdrawn, and munch -away the drawling minutes lest I should spend them in eating out my -heart. - -Other than this rascal no soul came near me. I had had, it seemed, my -full warning--my complete instructions. Yet, lacking reassurance -during this long trial of suspense, I came to feel as if all affecting -my escape must be a chimera--a fancy bred of the delirium that -precedes death. - -Well, as my friendly _huissier_ might have said, Time flies, however -strong the head-wind; and at length the quarters clanged themselves -into that one of them that was the prelude to my most momentous -adventure. And immediately thereon (God absolve me for the -inconsistency!) a frantic revulsion of feeling set in, so that I would -have given all but my chance of escape to postpone the act of it -indefinite hours. Now I heard the throb of the seconds with a terror -that was like an acute accent to my agony of suspense. It grew--it -waxed monstrous and intolerable. I must lose myself in some physical -exertion if I would preserve my reason. - -Suddenly a nightmare thought faced me. What if, when the time came, -the cut bars should remain stubborn to my efforts to bend them! What -if I had neglected to completely sever either or both, and that, while -I madly wrought to remedy my error, the moment should pass and with it -the means to my deliverance! - -Sweating, panting, in a new reaction to the frenzy for liberty, I -sprang to the window, gripped the bars, and, with all my force, -dragged them towards me. They parted at the cuts and yielded readily. -A sideway push to each, and there would freedom gape at me. - -In the very instant of settling my shoulder to the charge, I was aware -of a sound at my cell door--the cautious groping of wards in a lock. -With a suppressed gasp I came round, with my back to the tell-tale -grating, and stood like a discovered murderer. - -A lance of dull light split the blackness perpendicularly. - -“Open again when I tap,” said a little voice--that cracked like -thunder in my brain, nevertheless,--and the light closed upon itself. - -God of all irony!--the little voice--the little dulcet undertone that -had cried _patte-pelu_ upon me in the hall of Justice! So the turnkey -had miscalculated or had been misinformed, and M. l’Accusateur Public -would not postpone the verbal satisfaction of his cupidity to the -_Décadi_. _Le limier rencontrait_; I was bayed into a corner, and my -wit must measure itself against a double row of teeth. - -For an instant a mad resentment against Fate for the infernal -wantonness of its cruelty blazed up in my breast, so that I could -scarce restrain myself from bounding upon my enemy with yells of fury. -Then reason--set, contained and determined--was restored to me, and I -stood taut as a bowstring and as vicious. - -A moment or two passed in silence. I could make out a dusky undefined -heap by the door. “In the dark all cats are grey.” - -At length: “Who is there?” I said quietly. - -The figure advanced a pace or two. - -“Speak small, my friend,” it said, “as if thou wert the very voice of -conscience.” - -This time there was no doubt. I ground my teeth as I answered: “Of -_thy_ conscience, monsieur? Then should I thunder in thy ears like a -bursting shell.” - -“What is this!” said he, taking a backward step. - -On my honour I could not have told him. I felt only to myself that if -this man baulked me of my liberty I should kill him with my hands. But -doubtless indignation was my bad counsellor. - -“How!” he muttered, with a menacing devil in his voice. “Does the fool -know me?” - -I broke into wicked laughter. - -“Hear the unconscious humorist!” I cried--and the cry seemed to reel -in my throat; for on the instant, dull and fateful, clanged the first -note of the hour. - -Now God knows what had urged me to this insanity of defiance, when it -was obvious that my best hope lay in throwing a sop of lies to my -Cerberus. God knows, I say; and to Him I leave the explanation. Yet, -having fallen upon this course, I can assert that not once during the -day had I felt in such good savour with myself. - -He came forward again with a raging malediction. - -“Thy pledge!” he hissed; “the paper--the treasure! God’s name! dost -thou know who it is thou triflest with?” - -I heard the rumble of wheels over the stones down below. My very soul -seemed to rock as if it were launched on waves of air. The wheels -stopped. - -“Listen,” I said, in a last desperation. “It was a ruse, a lie to gain -time. I know of no treasure, nor, if I did, would I acquaint thee of -its hiding-place.” - -A terrible silence succeeded. I stood with clinched hands. Had I heard -the cart move away again I should have thrown myself upon this demon -and sought to strangle him. Then, “Oh, my God! oh, my God!” he said -twice, in a dreadful strained voice, and that was all. - -Suddenly he made a swift movement towards me. I stood rigid, still -with my back to the damning grate; but, come within a foot of me, he -as suddenly wheeled and went to the door. - -“Open, Gamache,” he whispered, like a man winded, and tapped on the -oak: “open--I have something to say to thee.” - -In another moment I was alone. I turned, and, in a frenzy of haste, -drove the bars right and left with all my force. Like a veritable ape -of destiny I leapt to the sill and looked down. A white face stared up -at me. The owner of it was already in the act of gathering his reins -together. I heard a soft tremulous _ouf!_ issue from his lips, and on -the breath of it I dropped and alighted with a thud upon something -that squelched beneath my weight. As I got to my knees, he on the -driving-board was already whipping his horses to a canter. - -“Quick, quick!” he said. “Come up and sit here beside me.” - -I managed to do so, though the cargo we carried gave perilous -foothold. - -Then at once I turned and regarded my preserver. - -“Saints in heaven!” I whispered, “Crépin!” - - * * * * * * * - -He was a very _sans-culotte_, and his face and eyebrows were darkened. -But I knew him. - -“Well,” he said; “I am no rogue of a Talma to act a part. But what, in -God’s name, delayed thee?” - -“Fouquier-Tinville.” - -His jaw dropped at me. - -“_Si fait vraiment_,” I said, and gave him the facts. - -He shivered as I spoke. The instant I was done, “Get under the -canvas!” said he, in a terrible voice. “There will be hue-and-cry, and -if I am followed, we are both lost. Get under the canvas, and endure -what thou canst not cure!” - - * * * * * * * - -My God! the frightfulness of that journey! of the company I lay with! -We drove, as I gathered, by the less-frequented streets, and reached -the barrier of St Jacques by way of the Rue de Biron. Here, for the -first time, we were stopped. - -“_Halte là!_” bawled a tipsy voice. “What goods to declare, friend?” - -“Content thyself,” I heard Crépin answer. “They bear the Government -mark.” - -“How, then, carrier?” - -“Peep under the cart-tail, and thou shalt see.” - -The gendarme lifted a corner of the canvas with his sword-point. A -wedge of light entered, and amazed my panic-stricken eyes. - -“_Il est bon là!_” chuckled the fellow, and withdrew his sword. He -had noticed nothing of me; but, as we whipped to a start, he made a -playful cut at the canvas with his weapon. The blade touched my thigh, -inflicting a slight flesh-wound, and I could not forbear a spasmodic -jerk of pain. At this he cried out, “_Holà hé!_ here is a dead frog -that kicks!” and came scuttling after us. Now I gave myself up for -lost; but at the moment a frolicsome comrade hooked the runner’s ankle -with a stick, and brought the man heavily to the ground. There -followed a shout; a curse of fury, and--Fortune, it appeared, had -again intervened on my behalf. - -Silence succeeded, for all but the long monotonous jolting and -pitching over savage ground. At length Crépin pulled up his horses, -and, leaning back from his seat, tossed open a flap of the canvas. - -“Come, then,” he said in a queer voice. “We have won clear by the -grace of Heaven.” - -I wallowed, faint and nauseated, from my horrible refuge. Sick, and in -pain of mind and body, I crept to a seat beside my companion. We were -on a dark and desolate waste. A little moon lay low in the sky. Behind -us the _enceinte_ of the city twinkled with goblin lights. - -“And these?” I said, weakly, signifying our dreadful load. “Whither -dost thou carry them, Crépin?” - -“Whither I carry thee, Monsieur le Comte--to the quarries under the -Plain of Mont-Rouge.” - -“To unconsecrated ground?” - -“What would you? The yards are glutted. The Madeleine bulges like a -pie-crust. At last by force of necessity we consecrate this, the -natural cemetery of the city, dug by itself, to the city’s patron -saint, La Guillotine.” - - * * * * * * * - -“Tell me, my preserver and, as God shall quit thee, also my -friend--you received my letter?” - -“Else, why art thou here?” - -“But, thou hast done me an incalculable wrong!” - -“And an incalculable benefit. Oh, monsieur, do I not atone?” - -“To me, yes.” - -“Let that pass, then. But, even there, I would not have thee underrate -my service. Have I not, to save thee, annihilated time; called in a -debt of gratitude that I kept in reversion for my own needs; suborned -the very hangman’s carter that I might help thee in thy extremity?” - -“And all this is due to thee?” - -“Assuredly--and for what reason? Because, in total ignorance of thy -claim to it, I took a fancy to a sweet face. Now I think you will -acknowledge, M. le Comte, that the Revolution, for all its excesses, -is capable of producing a gentleman of honour who knows how to make -reparation.” - -“Truly, this is no small thing that you have done.” - -“Truly I think thou might’st apply superlatives to it, without -extravagance. To outwit and baulk the Public Accuser--the cat-fish of -the Committee of Safety--_Dame!_ is there a hole in all Paris too -small to admit his tentacles? But I tell thee, monsieur, I am already -in the prison of my own holy namesake.” - -“I would kiss thy hands, but----” - -“What now?” - -“My letter referred to other than myself.” - -He turned and, I thought, looked at me oddly. - -“In these days, what safer refuge for a woman than prison,” he said, -“provided she hath a friend at Court? Understand, monsieur, I have -found Mademoiselle de Lâge respectable lodgings, that is all.” - -“Where you hold her as Lovelace held the estimable Clarisse. Crépin, -I cannot accept my life on these terms.” - -The words jerked on my lips as the waggon was brought to a stand with -a suddenness that made the harness rattle. A tall figure, that seemed -to have sprung out of the earth, stood at the horses’ heads. - -“Gusman,” said my companion quietly; “this is Citizen Thibaut, whom -you are to conduct to the secret lodging. Hurry, then, Thibaut.” - -I got with some difficulty to the ground. - -“And you?” said I. - -“I go yet a mile to deliver my goods. We will discuss this matter -further, _bien entendu_, on my return.” - -He flogged his cattle to an immediate canter, leaving me in all -bewilderment alone with the stranger. On every side about us, it -seemed, stretched a melancholy waste--a natural graveyard sown with -uncouth slabs of stone. The wind swayed the grasses, as if they were -foam on black water; the tide of night murmured in innumerable gulfs -of darkness. - -“Come, then!” muttered the figure, and seized my hand. - -We walked twenty cautious paces. I felt the clutch of brambles at my -clothes. Suddenly he put his arm about me, and, as we moved, forcibly -bent down my head and shoulders. At once I was conscious of a confined -atmosphere--damp, earthy, indescribable. It thickened--grew closer and -infinitely closer as we advanced. - -Now I could walk upright; but my left shoulder rasped ever against -solid rock. The blackness of utter negation was terrible; the cabined -air an oppression that one almost felt it possible to lift from one’s -head like an iron morion. For miles, I could have fancied, we thridded -this infernal tunnel before the least little blur of light spread -itself like salve on my aching vision. - -Then suddenly, like a midnight glowworm, the blur revealed itself, a -fair luminous anther of fire in a nest of rays--and was a taper -burning on the wall of a narrow chamber or excavation set in the heart -of the bed-stone. - -“_Voilà ton ressui!_” exclaimed my sardonic guide; and, without -another word, he turned and left me. - -I stood a moment confounded; then, with a shrug of my shoulders, -walked into the little cellar and paused again in astonishment. From a -stone ledge, on which it had been lying, it seemed, prostrate, a -figure lifted itself and, standing with its back to me, swept the long -hair from its eyes. - -I stared, I choked, I held out my arms as if in supplication. - -“_Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!_” I cried--“if it is not Carinne, let me die!” - - - - - CHAPTER XIV. - THE QUARRIES OF MONT-ROUGE. - -She turned, the dear figure. I heard her breath catch as she leaned -forward and gazed at me. Her hair was all tumbled abroad; her sweet -scared eyes looked out of a thicket of it like little frightened birds -from a copse. She took a hurried step or two in my direction, then -cried, “_C’est un coup du ciel!_” and threw up her hands and pressed -them to her face. - -I dropped my yearning arms. A needle of ice pierced my heart. - -“A judgment of heaven?” I cried, sorrowfully. - -The sound of my voice seemed like the very stroke of a thyrsus on her -shoulders. She broke into an agitated walk--pacing to and fro in front -of me--wringing her hands and clasping them thus to her temples. Her -shadow fled before or after her like a coaxing child. - -Suddenly, to my amazement, she darted upon me, and seized and shook me -in a little fury of passion. - -“_Prends cela, prends cela, prends cela!_” she cried; and then as -suddenly she released me, and ran back to her ledge, and flung herself -face-downwards thereon, sobbing as if her heart would break. - -Shocked and astounded beyond measure, I followed and stood over her. - -“Mademoiselle de Lâge,” I said, miserably--“of what am I guilty?” - -“Of everything--of nothing! Perhaps it is I that am to blame!” she -cried in a muffled voice. - -“What have I done?” - -She sat up, weeping, and pressed the pain from her forehead. - -“Oh, monsieur! it is not a little thing to pass twelve hours in the -most terrible loneliness--in the most terrible anxiety!” - -“I do not understand.” - -“You do not, indeed--the feelings of others--the wisdom of -discretion.” - -“Mademoiselle!” I exclaimed, in all patience. - -She sat, with her palms resting upon the ledge. She looked up at me -defiantly, though she yet fought with her sobs. - -“It was doubtless a fine thing in your eyes this morning,” she said, -“to throw scorn to that wretch who could have destroyed you with a -word.” - -I felt my breath come quickly. - -“That wretch!” I whispered--“this morning?” - -“It was what I said, monsieur,--the _loup-garou_ of the Salle de la -Liberté. But where one attaches any responsibility to life, one -should learn to distinguish between bravado and courage.” - -I think I must have turned very pale, for a sudden concern came into -her face. - -“Mademoiselle,” I said, “will persist in giving me the best reason for -holding life cheaply--that I cannot, it seems, find favour with her.” - -“Was it, then, monsieur, that you yourself were your only -consideration?” - -“Oh! give me at least the indulgence,” I cried, “to retort upon an -insolent that insults me.” - -“_Grand Dieu!_” she said, mockingly; “but what a perverted heroism! -And must a man’s duty be always first towards his dignity, and -afterwards, a long way----” - -She broke off, panting, and tapping her foot on the ground. I looked -at her, all mazed and dumfoundered. - -“And afterwards?” I repeated. She would not continue. A little silence -succeeded. - -“Mademoiselle,” I said at length sadly--“let me speak out what is in -my heart, and have done with it. That little cry of pity and of -protest that I heard uttered this morning when sentence was demanded -upon me in the Palais de Justice, and that I must needs now associate -with this new dear knowledge of your freedom--if I have put upon it an -unwarrantable construction, something beyond the mere expression of a -woman’s sympathy with the unfortunate--you will, I am sure, extend -that sympathy to my blindness, the realisation of which must in itself -prove my heavy punishment. If, also, I have dared to translate the -anxiety you have by your own showing suffered, here in this savage -burrow, into a sentiment more profound than that of simple concern for -an old-time comrade, you will spare my presumption, will you not, the -bitterness of a rebuke? It shall not be needed, believe me. My very -love----” - -She interrupted me, rising to her feet white and peremptory. - -“Not for me, monsieur--not for me! And, for _my_ associations--they -shall never be of that word with deceit!” - -“Deceit!” - -“But is it not so? Have you not approached my confidence in a false -guise, under a false name? Oh!” (she stamped her foot again) “cannot -you see how my condescension to the Citizen Thibaut is stultified by -this new knowledge of his rank? how to favour now what I had hitherto -held at arm’s-length would be to place myself in the worst regard of -snobbishness!” - -“No, mademoiselle--I confess that I cannot;--but then I journeyed -hither in the National hearse.” - -“I do not understand.” - -“Why, only that there one finds a ragpicker’s head clapt upon a -monseigneur’s neck in the fraternity that is decreed to level all -distinctions. What is the advantage of a name, then, when one is -denied a tombstone?” - -“Ah!” she cried, “you seek to disarm me with levity. I recognise your -habit of tolerant contempt for the mental equipment of my sex. It does -not become you, monsieur;--but what does it matter! I know already -your opinion of me, and how compound it is of disdain and disgust. I -am soulless and cruel and capricious--perhaps ill-favoured also; but -there, I think, you pronounce me inoffensive or something less. But I -would have you say, monsieur--what was Lepelletier to me? I should -have sickened, rather, to break bread with my uncle--whom heaven -induce to the shame of repentance! And I was ill that night, so that -even you might have softened in your judgment of me.” - -I stood amazed at the vehemence of her speech, at the rapidity of -inconsequence with which she pelted me with any chance missile that -came to her hand. It was evident the poor child was overwrought to a -degree; and I was fixed helpless between my passionate desire to -reassure and comfort her and my sense of her repudiation of my right -to do so. Now, it happened that, where words would have availed -little, a mute appeal--the manner of which it was beyond my power to -control--was to serve the best purposes of reconciliation. For -suddenly, as I dwelt bewildered upon the wet flashing of Carinne’s -eyes, emotion and fatigue, coupled with the sick pain of my wound, so -wrought upon me that the vault went reeling and I with it. I heard her -cry out; felt her clutch me,--and then there was sense for little but -exhaustion in my drugged brain. - - * * * * * * * - -“I am on the floor, Carinne?” - -“On the floor, _mon ami_.” - -“I am not so little a weight, you see. You tried to support me to the -bench and failed--for I know.” - -“But you were a dead-weight.” - -“Not dead yet, _chattemite_. Only I think I am dying.” - -“No, no, little Thibaut! _À Dieu ne plaise!_ You will not be so -wicked. And what makes you think so?” - -“I am so near heaven.” - -“Do you mean me? But I burn.” - -“Kiss me, then, and give me of your fire.” - -“But, if you were to recover?” - -“I would return it.” - -“It is infamous. You presume upon my tenderness, that is all for your -cruel wound. Yet I do not think you are much hurt.” - -“Not now, with your hand upon my heart. Tell me, Carinne--it was -Jacques Crépin that brought you here?” - -“That had me conveyed hither by his deputy, Gusman. It was this -morning, after your trial. He had had me released from prison--_le -pécheur pénitent_. God had moved him to remorse, it seemed, and some -unknown--perhaps one that had overheard us in La Force--to knowledge -of our friendship,--yours and mine. He procured me my passport; -accompanied me beyond the barrier d’Enfer; committed me to the keeping -of this deadman of the quarries. He swore he would play his life -against yours--would win you to me here or perish in the attempt. -Judge then, you, of my waiting torture--my anguish of expectation in -this solitude!” - -“Would win me to you! And you desired this thing? _Oh, ma mie, ma -mie!_ how, then, could you welcome me as you did?” - -“I do not know.” - -“And deny and abuse me and give me such pain?” - -“I do not know.” - -“For you love me very dearly... Carinne, I am dying!” - -“I do not believe you. That trick shall not serve a second time.” - - * * * * * * * - -“And what are we to do now, Carinne?” - -“Thou must be asking thyself that question,” said a -voice--Crépin’s--that clanged suddenly in the vaulted labyrinth. The -man himself stood looking down upon us. Beside him the gaunt figure of -my guide held aloft a flambeau that talked with a resinous sputter. -Its flare reddened the auburn curls of the Sectional President, and -informed his dissolute face with a radiance that was like an inner -consciousness of nobility. - -“My task ends here,” he said, quietly. “And shall we cry quits, M. le -Comte?” - -I lay on the floor, my head in Carinne’s lap. - -“Citizen Crépin,” I said, “thou hast acquitted thyself like a -gentleman and a man of courage. I would not wish, for thy sake, that -the risk had been less; I would not, for ours, know that it hath -involved thee in the toils.” - -“We are all in the toils nowadays,” said he; “and happy the lion that -can find a mouse for his friend. To the extent of my power I have -done; yet, I warn thee, thou art not out of the wood. If the weasel -wakes to the manner of his outwitting, not a river of blood shall -divert him from the scent till he has run thee down--thee, and me -also. Oh! I desire thee, do not misapprehend the importance of my -service.” - -Carinne looked up. She made an involuntary gesture with her hands. -This dear child, in her sweet surrender, became the archetype of -womanhood. - -“Monsieur,” she said, softly, “you have stood aside so honourably, you -have made us so greatly your debtors, that you will not now stultify -your own self-sacrifice by imposing upon us a heritage of remorse? If -you are in such danger, why not remain here with us?” - -He did not answer for some moments; but he shook his head very -slightly as he gazed down on us. - -“As to life,” he said presently, “my compact is with the senses. There -is a higher ideal to reach to, no doubt; but _Mordi_! I confess, for -myself I cannot feel the epicure and play the ascetic. To continue in -love with virtue, one must take it only, like opium, in occasional -doses. An habitual indulgence in it degrades the picturesqueness of -its own early evoking. Perhaps it should be ethically grateful to me -to remain here to contemplate the fruit of my generosity ripening for -another’s picking. Perhaps the guillotine is awaiting me in Paris. -Well, mademoiselle, of the two evils I prefer the latter. Here, to -feed on my own self-righteousness would be to starve at the end of a -day; there, the glory of doing, of directing, of enjoying, will soon -woo me from memory of a sentiment that was no more part of my real -self than the mistletoe is part of the harsh trunk it beautifies. For -death, I do not fear it, if it will come to me passionately, like a -mistress.” - -“Monsieur!” - -“Ah, mademoiselle! believe me that I can offer no higher testimony to -your worth than the assurance that I have for six months lost myself -in you!” - -I looked at this ex-waiter in marvel. His dishes could never have -shown a finer polish than his manners. Moreover, in what intervals of -supplying food to others had he sat himself down to his own feast of -reason? One was accustomed in those days to hear coal-heavers -discussing Diderot, but not in the language of Diderot. I gazed on his -face and thought I saw in it a neutral ground, whereon a beast and an -angel hobnobbed in the intervals of combat. - -Beside him the torch-bearer--silent, melancholy, astringent--held his -brand aloft motionless, as if his arm were a sconce of iron. - -“You are hurt, monsieur?” said Crépin, suddenly referring to me. - -“It is nothing--a bite, a scratch; an excuse for a pillow.” - -“Ah!” (he fetched a flask from his pocket and uncorked it)--“this is -ethereal cream of mint--a liqueur I affect, in that it reminds me of -lambs, and innocence--and shepherdesses. Let us pledge one another, -like good friends, at parting! And it will confirm thy cure, monsieur, -so happily begun.” - -“Mademoiselle?” he said pleadingly, and offered it to Carinne. - -She touched it with her lips--I, more effectively, with mine. Crépin -cried “_Trinquons!_” and, taking a lusty pull, handed the flask to -Gusman, who drained it. - -“Now,” said he, “we are united by a bond the sweetest in the -world--the sympathy of the palate. We have made of ourselves a little -rosary of wine beads.” - -He put his hand lightly on Gusman’s shoulder. - -“This austerity,” he said--“this Bailly of the Municipality of the -dead--I have purchased ye his favour with the one bribe to which he is -susceptible. Kings might offer him their crowns; easy maids their -honour. They should no more draw him from his reserve than Alexander -drew Diogenes from his tub. But there is a _séductrice_ to his -integrity, and the name of it is right Hollands. My faith! I would not -swear _my_ fidelity to such a frowzy mistress; but taste is a matter -of temperament. Is it not so, Jacques?” - -“While the keg lasts, I will hold the safety of thy friends in pawn to -thee.” - -So replied the spectral figure--a voice, a phantom--the very enigma of -this charnel city of echoes. - -The liqueur had revived and comforted me amazingly. I raised myself on -my elbow. - -“Ah!” I cried, “if good intentions could find favour with thee, I -would make thy keg a kilderkin, Citizen Gusman!” - -The figure stood mute, like a man of bronze. Crépin laughed -recklessly. - -“He is the fast warden of these old catacombs,” he said--“the undying -worm and sole master of their intricacies. Himself hath tunnelled them -under the ground, I believe, like the tan-yard grub that bores into -poplar-trees. Silence and secrecy are his familiars; but, I tell thee, -monsieur, he will absorb Hollands till he drips with it as the roofs -of his own quarries drip with water. The keg once drained, and--if -thou renew’st it not--he will sell thee for a single measure of -schnapps. Is it not so, Jacques?” - -“It is so,” said the figure, in a deep, indifferent voice. - -Crépin laughed again, then suddenly turned grave, and leaned down -towards me. - -“Harkee, M. le Comte!” he said, “is thy pocket well lined?” - -“With good intentions, M. le Président.” - -He nodded and, fetching a little bag of skin out of his breast, forced -it into my hand. - -“It is all I can spare,” he said; “and with that I must acquit my -conscience of the matter.” - -“If ever I live to repay thee, good fellow----” - -“Ah, bah, monsieur! I owe thee for the Médoc. And now--escape if thou -seest the way open. This strange creature will be thy bond-slave while -the keg runs. Afterwards--_eh bien! C’est à toi la balle_. For food, -thou must do as others here--take toll of the country carts as they -journey to the barriers. They will not provide thee with sweetbreads -in wine; but--well, monsieur, there are fifty ways, after all, of -cooking a cabbage.” - -I rose, with difficulty, to my feet. Carinne, still seated on the -floor, held her hand in mine. Something like a gentle quinsy in my -throat embarrassed my speech. - -“Good citizen----” I muttered. - -Crépin made a gesture with his hand and backed in a hurry. - -“I desire no expression of gratitude,” he said loudly. - -“Good citizen,” I repeated, “thou wouldst not rebuke our selfishness -by denying us, thy most faithful debtors, the privilege claimed by -even a minor actor in this escapade?” - -“Of whom dost thou speak?” - -“Of a turnkey at St Pélagie’s.” - -“_Mordi!_ I drenched him once for the colic--that is all. The fool -fancied he had swallowed an eft that was devouring his entrails.” - -He cried “_Portez vous bien!_” and a quick emotion, as of physical -pain, flickered over his face like a breath of air over hot coals. -Carinne was on her feet in a moment, had gone swiftly to him, and had -taken his hand. - -“Monsieur,” she said, in a wet voice, “it is true that honour, like -sweet vines, may shoot from beds of corruption. God forbid that I pass -judgment on that which influences the ways of men; but only--but only, -monsieur, I hope you may live very long, and may take comfort from the -thought of the insignificance of the subject of your so great -sacrifice.” - -She drooped her dear head. The other looked at her with an intense -gaze. - -“But, nevertheless,” he said, quietly, “it was the letter of M. le -Comte, of my honoured father Epicurus, that moved me to the sacrifice. -That is great, as you say. I never realised how great till this -moment. Yet--ah, mademoiselle! I would not sanctify it out of the -category of human passions by pretending that I was induced to it by -any sentiment of self-renunciation. Thyself should not have persuaded -me to spare thee--nor anything less, may be, than an appeal from my -preceptor in the metaphysics of the senses. I take no shame to say so. -I am not a traitor to my creed; and it would offend me to be called a -puritan.” - -He put the girl’s hand gently away from him. - -“Still,” he said, “I may not deem myself worthy to touch this flower -with my lips.” - -And at that he turned and went from us, summoning Gusman to accompany -him, and crying as he vanished, “Good luck and forgetfulness to all!” - -So disappeared from our lives this singular man, who persisted to the -very last in lashing me with the thong of my own twisting. We never -saw him again; once only we heard of him. - -As the flash of the retreating torch glimmered into attenuation, -Carinne returned to me and sat down at my side. - -“Little Thibaut,” she said softly, “he designed me so great a wrong -that I know not where to place him in my memory.” - -“With the abortive children of thy fancy, Carinne; amongst the -thoughts that are ignorant of the good in themselves.” - -She sighed. - -“And so it was thou wast his informer as to our friendship? And why -didst thou write, Jean-Louis?” - -“To urge him, by our one time intimacy, to cease his persecution of a -beautiful and most innocent lady.” - -“I did not know, I did not know!” she cried; and suddenly her arms -were round my neck, and I lay in a nest of love. - -“Oh! I am glad to be pretty, for the sake of the little Thibaut, that -saved me from barbarous men, and from myself, and, alas! from my -uncle! Little Thibaut, did I hurt when I beat thee? Beat me, then, -till I cry with the pain.” - -She sobbed and laughed and held my face against her bosom. In the -midst, the candle on the wall dropped like a meteor, and instantly we -were immured in a very crypt of darkness. - -She cried in a terrified voice: “Oh, _mon Dieu_! hold me, or I sink!” -and committed herself shuddering to my embrace. - -The blackness was blind, horrible, beyond reason. We could only shut -our eyes and whisper to one another, expecting and hoping for Gusman’s -return. But he came no more that night, and by-and-by Carinne slept in -my arms. - - * * * * * * * - -The glare of torch-light on my face brought me to my senses. That -sombre deadman, as Carinne called him, stood above us--visionless, -without movement, it seemed--a lurid genii presented in a swirling -drift of smoke. He might never have moved from the spot since we had -last seen him there. - -“Why dost thou wake us, good friend?” said I. “Hast thou a midnight -service for the dead here?” - -“It is high morning,” said he, in a voice like a funeral bell. - -“Morning!” - -I sat up in amazement. Truly I had not thought of it. We had slept the -clock round; but there was no day in this hideous and melancholy -underworld. - -I looked down at my companion. She had slipped from my hold of her, -and lay across my knees. Her hair curled low on her forehead; her -eyelids were misted with a faint blue shadow, like the sheaths of -hyacinth buds before they open; her lips were a little parted, as Love -had left them. _Mon Dieu!_ there is no sight so tender and so pathetic -as that of a fair child asleep; and what was Carinne but a child! - -In an access of emotion I bent and softly touched the lips with mine. -This infant so brave and so forlorn, whose head should have been -pillowed on flowers, whose attendants should have been the lady -fairies! - -“She is very pretty,” said the deadman. - -“Ha, ha!” I cried. “Hast thou found it out? There shall spring a -blossom for thee yet, old Gusman, in this lifeless city of thine!” - -He twirled his torch for the first time, so that it spouted fire like -a hand-grenade. - -“Blossoms!” he barked. “But thou shalt know I have my garden walks -down here--bowers of mildew, parterres of fine rank funguses, royal -worms even, that have battened for centuries on the seed of men.” - -He crooked his knees, so that he might stare into my face. - -“Not altogether a city of the dead,” said he. - -“Is it peopled with ghosts, then?” - -“Very thickly, without doubt. Thou shalt see them swarm like maggots -in its streets.” - -I shrugged my shoulders. The creature stood erect once more, and made -a comprehensive gesture. - -“This?” he said,--“you must not judge by this. It is the Holy of -Holies, to which none has access but the High Priest of the -Catacombs--and such as he favours.” - -“And what, in a rude age, keeps it sacred?” - -He swept his torch right and left. - -“Look, then!” said he. - -We lay in a vaulted chamber hewn out of the rock. On all sides I -fancied I caught dim vision of the mouths of innumerable low tunnels -that exhaled a mist of profound night. - -“Knowledge!” exclaimed the fearful man; “the age-long lore of one that -hath learnt his every footstep in this maze of oubliettes. There are -beaten tracks here and there. Here and there a fool has been known to -leave them. It may be days or weeks before I happen across his -body--the eyes slipping forward of their lids, his mouth puckered out -of shape from sucking and gnawing at the knuckles of his hands.” - -“It is terrible! And none comes hither but thou?” - -“I, and the beasts of blood that must not be denied. When they hunt, I -lead; therefore it is well to win my favour.” - -Carinne hurriedly raised herself. She threw her arms about me. - -“Oh, my husband!” she cried, “take me where I may see the sweet -daylight, if only for a moment!” - -I had thought the poor child slept. - -“Hush!” I murmured. “Citizen Gusman is going to show us his township!” - - * * * * * * * - -By interminable corridors, so intricate that one would have thought -their excavators must have lain down to die, each at the limit of his -boring, from sheer despair of ever finding their way to the open -again, we followed the flare of the torch, our eyes smarting in its -smoke, our arms most fervently linked, Carinne’s to mine, in -inseparable devotion. Now and again I would hear my poor little friend -whisper, “Light, light!” as if her very heart were starving; and then -I would draw her face to mine and cry confidently, “It is coming, _ma -mie_!” Still on we went over the uneven ground, thridding an endless -labyrinth of death, oppressed, weighed upon, hustled by inhuman walls, -breathing and exhaling the thin black fluid that is the atmosphere of -the disembodied. - -Sometimes, as if it crouched beneath a stroke, the flame of the torch -would dip and shrink under a current of gas, then leap jocund again -when the peril was swept by; sometimes the tinkle of falling water -would gladden our ears as with a memory of ancient happiness; and, -passing on, in a moment we should be bedewed with spray, and catch a -glimpse, in the glare, of a very dropping well of fire. At length, at -the turning of a corridor, Gusman called us to a halt. - -He hollowed his left hand to his mouth. - -“_Holà--làee--eh--h--h!_” he yelled, like a very _lutin_. - -“_Là--là--là--là--làee--eh--làee--eh--làee--eh!_” was hooted -and jangled back in a tumbling torrent of sound, that seemed to issue -from the throat of a passage facing us and to shake the very roofs -with merriment. Involuntarily we shrunk against the wall, as if to -allow space to the impetuous rush we foresaw. _Mon Dieu_, the strange -illusion! Only the swarming imps of echoes, summoned to the Master -call, came hurrying forth, leaping and falling over one another, -fighting and struggling, clanging with reverberant laughter, -distributing themselves, disappearing down this or that corridor, -shouting over their shoulders as they fled--faint, fainter--till -silence settled down once more like water in the wake of a vessel. - -Gusman slewed his head about--cockt as it had been to the outcry--to -view of us. - -“They are lively to-day,” he said, with an unearthly distortion of his -features. - -“The echoes?” - -“_C’est cela, citoyen._ So men entitle them. No doubt it is human to -think to put terror out of countenance by miscalling it.” - -“How, then?” - -He beckoned us to follow; plunged into the very funnel mouth that had -vomited the eerie babble; led us swiftly by a winding passage, and -stopped. - -“Behold!” said he, flashing his torch to and fro over the surface of a -roughly piled and cemented wall that seemed to close the entrance to a -vast recess. - -“Behold!” said he, sweeping the flame to the ground at the wall-foot. - -We saw a skull or two; a few scattered bones. An indescribable brassy -odour assailed our nostrils. The stones shone with an oily exudation. - -“What company lies here, citizen?” - -“A brave one, by my faith--a whole cemetery _en bloc_. _Comment -diable!_ shall they have fitted themselves each with his own by the -day of Judgment! They pretend to sleep, piecemeal as they were bundled -in; but utter so little as a whisper down there, and they will begin -to stir and to talk. Then if thou shout’st, as I did--my God, what a -clamour in reply! But one would have thought they had protested enough -already.” - -“In what manner?” - -“Ask the killers of September, thou. They are held honest men, I -believe.” - -“It is enough,” said I. “Lead on, Citizen Gusman, and find us a glint -of light, in the name of God!” - -I glanced, with a shudder, at Carinne. Thank heaven! she had not, it -appeared, understood. So here, in one dreadful lime-cemented heap, -were massed the victims of those unspeakable days! I remembered the -Abbaye and the blood-mark on the lip of Mademoiselle de Lâge; and I -held the girl to my side, as we walked, with a pressure that was -convulsive. - -Again the torch danced before us, and again we followed; and yet again -the deadman called us to a stop, and whirled his half-devoured brand. - -“Observe well,” said he; “for it is in this quarter ye must sojourn, -and here seek refuge when warning comes.” - -This time a very hill of skulls and ribs and shanks--a lifeless -crater--a Monte Testaccio of broken vessels that had once contained -the wine of life. The heap filled a wide recess and rose twenty feet -to the roof. - -“The contribution of ‘Les Innocens,’” said Gusman, as if he were some -spectral minister of affairs announcing in the Convention of the dead -a Sectional subscription. - -He pointed to a little closet of stone, like a friar’s cell, that -pierced the wall to one side of the heap. - -“Behold your hermitage!” said he. - -Carinne, clinging to me, cried, “No, no!” in a weeping voice. - -“_Eh bien!_” said the creature, indifferently; “you can take or leave, -as you will.” - -“We will take, citizen.” - -“Look, then!” (he gripped my arm and haled me to the mound) “and note -what I do.” - -There was a point--roughly undistinguishable from the rest--where a -welded mass of calcareous bone and rubbish lay upon the litter. This -was, in effect, a door in one piece, with an infant’s skull for handle -and concealed hinges of gut to one side to prevent its slipping out of -place. Removed, it revealed a black mouth opening into an inner -vacancy. - -“Underneath lies a great box or kennel of wood,” said Gusman, “with a -manhole cut in its side; and round and over the box the stuff is -piled. At the very word of warning, creep in and close the entrance. -It is like enough ye will need it.” - -“And here we are to stay?” - -“That is according to your inclination.” - -“But _Mor’ Dieu_, my friend! if thou wert to forget or overlook us -entombed in this oubliette?” - -“_Soyez content._ I might forget thou wert lacking food, but never -that the citizen President gave thee a purse.” - -“But----” - -“Tst, tst! Wouldst thou explore farther my city of shadows? Here the -wild quarries merge into the catacombs. Hence, a little space, thou -wilt find company and to spare;--light, also, if Mademoiselle wills.” - -The poor child uttered a heart-moving sigh. - -“Come, then,” said Gusman, with a shrug of his shoulders. - -He preceded us the length of a single corridor, low and narrow--a mere -human mole-run. All throughout it the rock seemed to grip us, the air -to draw like wire into our lungs. And then, suddenly, we were come to -a parapet of stone that cut our path like a whitewashed hoarding. For -through a fissure in the plain above it a wedge of light entered--a -very wise virgin with her lamp shining like snow;--and under the beam -we stopped, and gazed upwards, and could not gaze enough. - -But, for Carinne--she was translated! She laughed; she murmured; she -made as if she caught the sweet wash like water in her hands and -bathed her face with it. - -“And now I am ready,” said she. - -Then we scaled the wall, jumping to a lower terrace of rock: and -thereafter ran the corridor again, descending, but now of ample enough -width and showing a design of masonry at intervals, and sometimes -great stone supports to the roof where houses lay above. And in a -moment our path swept into a monstrous field of bones--confused, -myriad, piled up like slag about a pit-mouth; and we thridded our way -therethrough along a dusty gully, and emerged at once into a high -vaulted cavern and the view of living things. - -Living things!--_Grand Dieu!_ the bats of the living Terror. They -peered from holes and alcoves; they mowed and chattered; they shook -their sooty locks at us and hailed Gusman in the jargon of the -underworld. Thieves and rogues and cowards--here they swarmed in the -warrens of despair, the very sacristans of devil-worship, the unclean -acolytes of the desecrated rock-chapels, whose books of the Gospel -were long since torn for fuel. - -Out of one pestilent cavern, wherein I caught glimpse of an altar -faced with an arabesque of cemented bones, something like a dusky ape, -that clung with both hands to a staff for support, came mouthing and -gesticulating at us. - -“Bread, bread!” it mumbled, working its black jaws; and it made an -aimless pick at Carinne’s skirt. - -“There is for thee, then!” thundered Gusman; and he flapped his torch -into the thing’s face. The animal vented a hideous cry and shuffled -back into its hole, shedding sparks on its way as if it smouldered -like an old rag. - -“Oh, _mon ami_!” whispered Carinne, in a febrile voice--“better the -den by the skulls than this!” - -The deadman gave an acrid grin. - -“_À la bonne heure_,” said he. “Doubtless hunger pinches. Come back, -then; and I will open my wallet and thou shalt thy purse.” - - * * * * * * * - -Early in the afternoon--so far as in that rayless desolation one could -judge it to be--there broke upon our eyes the flutter of an advancing -light, upon our ears the quick secret patter of hurrying steps. These -ran up to the very opening of our lair and stopped. - -“_Hide!_” said the deadman’s voice, “I hear them call me to the -search! Hide!” and, without another word, he retreated as he had come. - -Carinne uttered a little shuddering “Oh!” She took my head between her -hands and kissed my lips, the admirable child. Then we emerged from -our den (the ghostliest glimmer reached us from some distant corner, -where, no doubt, Gusman had left a light burning), and stole swiftly -to the mound-foot. I felt about for the infant’s skull (the position -of which I had intensely remarked), and in a moment found it and laid -bare the aperture. - -“Dive, little rabbit,” said I. - -“I am within, Jean-Louis.” - -I followed, feet first, and with my toes just touching bottom, reached -out and pulled the trap upon us. Then, with a feeling as if I were -wrenching off a blouse over my shoulders, I let myself back into the -hole--upon a carpet of muffling dust--and _ma bonne amie_ caught at -me, and we stood to hear our own hearts beating. Like the thick throb -of a clock in an under-room--thus, I swear, our pulses sounded to us -in that black and horrible stillness. The box had, it appeared, been -very compactly built in at the first--and before the superincumbent -litter of rubbish had been discharged over and around it--with the -strongest bones, for that these were calculated to endure, without -shifting, the onset of one hurriedly concealing himself; yet this -necessary precaution went near to stultifying itself by so helping to -exclude the air as to make breathing a labour to one confined within. -Fortunately, however, no long strain upon our endurance was demanded -of us. - -Now the hunters came upon us so silently, that there, in our ghastly -prison, a spray of light, scattered through the chinks of the trap, -was our first intimation of their presence. Then, as we maddened to -see the glint withdrawn, a low voice came to our ears. - -“Stop, then! What is this?” - -“The dust of the Innocents, citizen.” (Gusman’s voice.) - -“It is with the dust of the depraved in breeding fat maggots, is it -not?” - -“Ay, so long as they can find flesh food.” - -“But what if such food were concealed herein? That little _babouin_ of -St Pélagie--_peste!_ a big thigh-bone would afford him cover.” - -I felt my hand carried to Carinne’s lips in the darkness. - -Gusman kicked at the mound with his sabot. - -“Close litter,” said he. “A man would suffocate that burrowed into -it.” - -“Is that so? Rake me over that big lump yonder--_voilà!_--with the -little skull sticking from it.” - -I felt my heart turn like a mountebank--felt Carinne stoop suddenly -and rise with something huddled in her hands. The astonishing child -had, unknown to me, preconceived a plan and was prepared with it on -the very flash of emergency. She leant past me, swift and perfectly -silent, and immediately the little spars of light about the trap went -out, it seemed. If in moving she made the smallest sound, it was -opportunely covered by the ragged cough that issued at the moment from -Gusman’s throat. - -“_Dépêche-toi!_” said the authoritative voice. “That projecting -patch, citizen--turn it for me!” - -“There is nothing here.” - -“But, there, I say! No, no! _Mille tonnerres_,--I will come myself, -then!” - -I heard Gusman’s breath vibrant outside the trap; heard him hastily -raise the covering an inch or two, with an affectation of labouring -perplexity. I set my teeth; I “saw red,” like flecks of blood; I -waited for the grunt of triumph that should announce the discovery of -the hole. - -“It is as I told thee,” said the deadman; “there is nothing.” - -I caught a note of strangeness in his voice, a suppressed marvel that -communicated itself to me. The sweat broke out on my forehead. - -“H’mph!” muttered the inquisitor; and I heard him step back. - -Suddenly he cried, “_En avant, plus avant!_ To thy remotest -boundaries, citizen warden! We will run the little rascal to earth -yet!” - -The light faded from our ken; the footsteps retreated. I passed a -shaking hand over my eyes--I could not believe in the reality of our -escape. - -At length, unable any longer to endure the silence, I caught at -Carinne in the blackness. - -“Little angel,” I said; “in God’s name, what didst thou do?” - -She bowed her sweet face to my neck. - -“Only this, Jean-Louis. I had noticed that my poor ragged skirt was -much of the colour of this heap; and so I slipped it off and stuffed -it into the hole.” - - * * * * * * * - -We dwelt an hour in our horrible retreat, from time to time cautiously -lifting the trap a finger’s-breadth for air. At the end, Gusman -reappeared with his torch and summoned us to our release. He looked at -Carinne, as St Hildephonsus might have gazed on the Blessed Virgin. - -“It was magnificent,” he said. “I saw at once. Thou hast saved me no -less than thyself. That I will remember, _citoyenne_, when the -opportunity serves.” - - * * * * * * * - -On the third day our deadman came to us with a copy of the ‘Moniteur’ -in his hand. He pointed silently to a name in the list of the latest -executed. Carinne turned to me with pitiful eyes. - -“_Ah, le pauvre Crépin!_” I cried, in great emotion. “What can one -hope but that death came to him passionately, as he desired!” - - * * * * * * * - -“Citizen Gusman, we are resolved. We must go forth, if it is only to -perish. We can endure this damning gloom no longer.” - -He looked down on us as we sat, this genii of the torch. His face was -always framed to our vision in a lurid wreath; was the sport of any -draught that swayed the leaping fire. Submitted to daylight, his -features might have resolved themselves into expressionlessness and -immobility. To us they were ever shifting, fantastic, possessed with -the very devils of the underworld. - -“Well,” he said at length--“I owe the citizeness a debt of gratitude; -but--_sang Dieu!_ after all I might repudiate it when the keg -threatened to suck dry. I am myself only when I am not myself. That -would be a paradox in the world above there, eh? At least the moment -is opportune. They hunt counter for thee, Thibaut. For the wench--she -is not in their minds, nor associated in any manner with thee. That -lends itself to an artifice. The idea tickles me. _Sang Dieu!_ Yes, I -will supply thee with a passport to Calais. Wait!” - -He went from us. We knew better than to interrupt or question him; but -we held together during his absence and whispered our hopes. In less -than half an hour he returned to us, some papers grasped in his hand. - -“Observe,” said he. “It is not often, after a harvest of death, that -the _glaneurs_ of the Municipality overlook a stalk; yet now and again -one will come to me. Citizen Tithon Riouffe, it appears, meditated a -descent upon _la maudite Angleterre_. He had his papers, signed and -countersigned, for himself, and for his wife Sabine, moreover. It is -lucky for you that he proved a rascal, for they shaved him -nevertheless. What Barrère had granted, St Just rendered nugatory. -But, if they took his head, they left him his passports, and those I -found in his secret pocket.” - -He broke off, with a quick exclamation, and peered down at me, holding -the torch to my face. - -“Mother of God!” he cried--“I will swear there is something a likeness -here! I have a mind to fetch the head and set it to thine, cheek by -jowl! _Hé bien, comment, la petite babiole_--that disturbs her! Well, -well--take and use the papers, then, and, with discretion, ye shall -win free!” - -Carinne caught at the rough hand of our preserver and kissed it. - -“Monsieur, thou art a deadman angel!” she cried; and broke into a -little fit of weeping. - -His lids fell. I saw his throat working. He examined his hand as if he -thought something had stung it. - -“Yes, she is very pretty,” he muttered. “I think I would give my life -for her.” - -Then he added, vaguely: “_Chou pour chou_--I will take it out in -Hollands.” - - - - - CHAPTER XV. - THE SALAD COURSE. - -Citoyen Tithon Riouffe _et femme_ had yet to experience the most -extraordinary instance of that favouritism, by an after-display of -which, towards those whom she has smitten without subduing, Fortune -proclaims herself the least supernatural of goddesses. Truly, they had -never thrown into the lottery of events with a faint heart; and now a -first prize was to be the reward of their untiring persistency. - -Possibly, indeed, the papers of recommendation might have sufficed of -themselves; yet that they would have carried us (having regard to our -moulting condition, poor cage-worn sparrows! and the necessary -slowness of our advance) in safety to the coast, I most strenuously -doubt. - -Dear God! the soughing of the May wind, the whisper of the grasses, -the liquid flutter of the stars, that were like lights reflected in a -lake! The hour of ten saw us lifted to the plain in body--to the -heavens in spirit. For freedom, we were flying from the land of -liberty; for life, from the advocates of the Rights of Man. We sobbed -and we embraced. - -“Some day,” we cried to Gusman, “we will come back and roll thee under -a hogshead of schnapps!”--and then we set our faces to the north, and -our teeth to a long task of endurance--one no less, indeed, than a -sixty-league tramp up the half of the Isle de France and the whole of -Picardie. Well, at least, as in the old days, we should walk together, -with only the little rogue that laughs at locksmiths riding sedan -between us. - -It was our design to skirt, at a reasonable distance, the east walls -of the city, and to strike at Pantin, going by way of Gentilly and -Bercy--the road to Meaux. Thence we would make, by a north-westerly -course, the Amiens highway; and so, with full hearts and purses -tight-belted for their hunger, for the pathetically distant sea. - -And all this we did, though not as we had foreseen. We toiled onwards -in the dark throughout that first sweet night of liberty. For seven -hours we tramped without resting; and then, ten miles north of the -walls, we lay down under the lee of a skilling, and, rolled in one -another’s arms, slept for four hours like moles. - - * * * * * * * - -I woke to the prick of rain upon my face. Before my half-conscious -eyes a hectic spot faded and went wan in a grey miasma like death. It -was the sun--the cheek of the virgin day, grown chill in a premature -decline. - -I sat up. From the south-west, like the breath of the fatal city -pursuing us, a melancholy draft of cloud flowed and spread itself, -making for the northern horizon. It wreathed in driving swirls and -ripples, as if it were the very surface of a stream that ran above us; -and, indeed almost before we were moved to a full wakefulness, we were -as sopt as though we lay under water. - -A swampy day it was to be. The drops soon fell so thickly that heaven -seemed shut from us by a skylight of blurred glass. The interval from -cloud to earth was like a glaze upon the superficies of a fire-baked -sphere. The starved clammy fields shone livid; the highway ran, -literally; the poplars that skirted it were mere leafy piles in a -lagoon. Then the wind rose, shouldering us forward and bombarding us -from the rear in recurrent volleys, till I, at least, felt like a -fugitive saurian escaping from the Deluge with my wet tail between my -legs. - -I looked at my comrade, the delicate gallant lady. Her hair was -whipped about her face, her skirt about her ankles. The red cap on her -head, with which Gusman had provided her, hung over like the comb of a -vanquished cockerel. She was not vanquished, however. Her white teeth -clicked a little with the cold; but when she became conscious of my -gaze, she returned it with an ardour of the sweetest drollery. - -“_Enfin, mon p’tit Thibaut_,” she said; “I prefer Liberty in her -chilly moods, though she make a _noyade_ of us.” - -“It is almost come to that. With a brave effort, it seems, we might -rise to the clouds by our own buoyancy. Take a long breath, Carinne. -Canst thou swim?” - -She laughed and stopped a moment, and took me by the hands. - -“I should be able to,” she said; “I feel so like a fish, or a lizard, -whose skin is a little loose on his body. Am I not a dreadful sight, -Jean-Louis?” - -“Thou art never anything but beautiful in my eyes.” - -“Fie, then, fie then! cannot I see myself in them! Very small and very -ugly, Jean-Louis--an imp of black waters.” - -“And I see babies in thine, Carinne. That is what the peasants call -them. And I never loved my own image so well as now. It has a little -blue sky to itself to spite the reality. It is a fairy peeping from a -flower. _Ma mie_, and art thou so very cold and hungry?” - -“Truly, my teeth go on munching the air for lack of anything better.” - -“It is pitiful. We must brave the next town or village to procure -food. There are no berries here, Carinne; no little conies to catch in -a springe of withe and spit for roasting on an old sabre; and if there -were, we must not stop to catch them.” - -“It is true we must eat, then. The plunge has to be made--for liberty -or death. _Formez vos bataillons!_ Advance, M. le Comte, with thy -heart jumping to the hilt of thy sword!” - -She cried out merrily. She was my own, my property, the soul of my -confidence; yet I could have cheered her in the face of a multitude as -(God forgive the comparison!) the mob cheered the _guenipe_ Théroigne -when she entered the Bastille. - -So, once more we drove and were driven forward; and presently, six -miles north of St Denis, down we came, with stout courage, I hope, -upon the village of Écouen, and into immediate touch with that -fortune that counselled us so amiably in the crisis of our affairs. - -Yet at the outset this _capricieuse_ essayed to terrify us out of all -assurance of self-confidence, and was the coquette to give us a bad -quarter of an hour before she smiled on our suit. For at the very -barrier occurred a _contretemps_ that, but for its happy adaptation by -us to circumstance, threatened to put a short end to our fugitive -romance. - -We assumed a breezy deportment, under the raking scrutiny of five or -six patriot savages--mere arrogant _péagers_, down whose dirty faces -the rain trickled sluggishly like oil. Foul straw was stuft into their -clogs; over their shoulders, nipped with a skewer at the neck, were -flung frowzy squares of sacking, in the hanging corners of which they -held the flint-locks of their pieces for dryness’ sake. By the door of -the village taxing-house, that stood hard by the barrier, a -ferret-faced postilion--the only man of them all in boots--lounged, -replaiting the lash of his whip and drawing the string through his -mouth. - -“Graceless weather, citizens!” said I. - -A squinting _bonnet-rouge_ damned me for _un âne ennuyant_. - -“Keep thy breath,” said he, “for what is less obvious;” and he surlily -demanded the production of our papers. - -“A good patriot,” growled another, “walks with his face to Paris.” - -“So many of them have their heads turned, it is true,” whispered -Carinne. - -The squinting man wedged his eyes upon her. - -“What is that?” he said sharply--“some _mot de ralliement_? Be -careful, my friends! I have the gift to look straight into the hearts -of traitors!” - -It was patent, however, that he deceived himself. He snatched the -papers rudely from me, and conned them all at cross-purposes. - -“_Sacré corps!_” he snapped--“what is thy accursed name?” - -“It is plain to read, citizen.” - -“For a mincing aristocrat, yes. But, for us--we read only between the -lines.” - -“Read on them, then, the names of Citizen Tithon Riouffe and wife.” - -The indolent postilion spat the string from his lips, looked up -suddenly, and came swiftly to the barrier. - -“How?” said he, “what name?” - -I repeated the words, with a little quaver in my voice. The man cockt -his head evilly, his eyes gone into slits. - -“Oh, _le bon Dieu_!” he cried, in acrid tones, “but the assurance of -this ragged juggler!” - -Carinne caught nervously at my hand. - -“I do not understand the citizen,” said I, in my truculent voice. - -“But I think, yes.” - -“That that is not the name on the passport?” - -“I know nothing of the passport. I know that thou art not Riouffe, and -it is enough.” - -Squint-eyes croaked joyously. - -“Come!” he said; “here is a sop to the weather.” - -As for me, I could have whipped Gusman for his talk of a fortuitous -resemblance. - -“I am Riouffe,” said I, stubbornly, “whatever thou mayst think.” - -“Well, it is said,” cried the postilion. He chirped shrilly like a -ferret. “And, if thou art Riouffe, thou art a damned aristocrat; and -how art thou the better for that?” - -“Bah!” I exclaimed. “What dost thou know of me, pig of a stable-boy?” - -“Of thee, nothing. Of Riouffe, enough to say that thou art not he.” - -“Explain, citizen!” growled a curt-spoken patriot, spitting on the -ground for full-stop. - -“_Mes amis_,” cried the deplorable rogue. “Myself, I conveyed the -Citizen Tithon Riouffe to Paris in company with the Englishman. The -Englishman, within the fifteen days, returns alone. He breaks his -journey here, as you know, to breakfast at the ‘Anchor.’ But, for -Riouffe--I heard he was arrested.” - -Grace of God! here was a concatenation of mishaps--as luckless a -_rencontre_ as Fate ever conceived of cruelty. My heart turned grey. -The beastly triumphant faces of the guard swam in my vision like -spectres of delirium. Nevertheless, I think, I preserved my reason -sufficiently to assume a _sang froid_ that was rather of the nature of -a fever. - -“The question is,” said I, coolly, “not as to whether this lout is a -fool or a liar, but as to whether or no my papers are in order. You -will please to observe by whom they are franked.” (I remembered, in a -flash, the deadman’s statement.) “The name of the Citizen Deputy, who -assured me a safe conduct _to_ Paris, being on this return passport, -should be a sufficient guarantee that his good offices did not end -with my arrival. I may have been arrested and I may have been -released. It is not well, my friends, to pit the word of a horse-boy -against that of a member of the Committee of Public Safety.” - -My high manner of assurance had its effect. The faces lowered into -some expression of chagrin and perplexity. And then what must I do but -spoil the effect of all by a childishly exuberant anti-climax. - -“I will grant,” said I, “that a change in the habit of one’s dress may -confuse a keener headpiece than a jockey’s. What then! I arrive from -England; I return from Paris--there is the explanation. Moreover, in -these days of equality one must economise for the common good, and, -rather than miss my return seat in the Englishman’s carriage and have -to charter another, I follow in his track, when I find he is already -started, in the hope to overtake him. And now you would delay us here -while he stretches longer leagues between us!” - -Carinne gave a little soft whimper. The postilion capered where he -stood. - -“_Mes amis!_” he cried, “he speaks well! It needs only to confront him -with the Englishman to prove him an impostor.” - -_Misérable!_ What folly had I expressed! It had not been sufficiently -flogged into my dull brain that the islander was here, now, in the -village! I had obtusely fancied myself safe in claiming knowledge of -him, while my secure policy was to have blustered out the situation as -another and independent Riouffe. That course I had now made -impossible. I could have driven my teeth through my tongue with -vexation. Carinne touched my hand pitifully. It almost made my heart -overflow. “Thus,” I said by-and-by to her, “the condemned forgives his -executioner,” and--“Ah, little Thibaut,” she whispered, “but you do -not know how big you looked.” - - * * * * * * * - -For the moment they could not find the Englishman. He had finished his -breakfast and wandered afield. That was a brief respite; but nothing, -it seemed, to avail in the end. - -In the meantime they marched us into the taxing-house, where at a -table sat a commissary of a strange figure. I had blundered -desperately; yet here, I flatter myself, I turned my faculty for -construing character to the account of retrieving my own. - -In Citizen Tristan I read--and quite rightly, as events showed--a -decent burgher aggrandised, not against his will, but against the -entire lack of one. His face was shaped, and something coloured, like -a great autumn pear. It was narrow at the forehead, with restless, -ineffective eyes, and it dropped to a monstrous chin--a -self-protective evolution in the era Sainte Guillotine. Obviously he -had studied to save his neck by surrounding it with a rampart of fat. -For the rest he was very squat and ungainly; and he kept shifting the -papers on his desk rather than look at us. - -“Here is a man,” thought I, “who has been promoted because in all his -life he has never learned to call anything his own.” - -Our guard presented us arrogantly; the wizened post-boy laid his -charge volubly. - -“Call your witness,” said I in a pet. “The case lies in a nutshell.” - -My words made an impression, no doubt, though they were uttered in -mere hopeless bravado. - -“But, it seems he cannot be found,” protested the commissary, -plaintively. - -“Then,” I urged, “it is bad law to detain us.” - -“You are detained on suspicion.” - -“Of not being ourselves? Oh, monsieur----!” - -He took me up peevishly. - -“Eh, eh! _voilà ce que c’est!_ Monsieur to me? Art thou not an -aristocrat, then?” - -I answered pregnantly, “The question in itself is a reflection upon -him that signed this passport.” - -He looked about him like a trapped creature, dumbly entreating the -Fates for succour. It was my plain policy to harp upon the strings of -his nerves. - -“Well,” said I, “a citizen commissary, I perceive, must have the -courage of his opinions; and I can only hope thine will acquit thee -when the reckoning is called.” - -He shifted in his chair; he spluttered little deprecatory -interjections under his breath; he shot small furtive glances at his -truculent following. Finally he bade all but us two out of the room, -and the guard to their post at the barrier. The moment they were -withdrawn grumbling, he opened upon me with a poor assumption of -bluster-- - -“Thou art very big with words; but here I am clearly within my -rights.” - -“Are not my papers in order, then?” - -“It would at least appear so.” - -His lids rose and fell. Patently his self-possession was an insecure -tenure. - -“Citizen,” I said, shaking my finger at him. “Since when hast thou -learned to set thy will in opposition to that of Barrère?” - -“_Oh, nom de Dieu!_” he whimpered, in great distress; and rose and -trundled up and down the room. “I oppose nobody. I am a most unhappy -being, condemned by vile circumstance to give the perpetual lie to my -conscience.” - -“It is an ignoble _rôle_,” said I, “and quite futile of itself.” - -He paused suddenly opposite me. His fat lips were shaking; his eyes -blinked a nerveless anxiety. - -“I contradict nobody,” he cried; and added afflictedly, “I suppose, if -you are Riouffe, you are Riouffe, I suppose.” - -“It all lies in that,” said I. - -“Then,” he cried feebly--“what the devil do you want of me?” - -I could have laughed in his poor gross face. - -“What, indeed,” said I. “My account with you will come later. You will -be prepared then, no doubt, to justify this detention. For me, there -remains Barrère.” - -“No, no!” he cried; “I desire only to steer wide of quicksands. You -may guess, monsieur, how I am governed. This _fripon_ takes my fellows -by the ears. He gives you the lie, and you return it in his teeth. -What am I to say or think or do?” - -“Is it for me to advise a commissary?” - -He rumpled his limp hair desperately as he walked. - -“You will not help me! You drive me to distraction!” - -He stopped again. - -“Are you Riouffe?” he cried. - -“You have my passport, monsieur.” - -“Yes, yes, I know!” he exclaimed in a frenzy; “but--Mother of God, -monsieur! do you not comprehend the post-boy to swear you are not the -Englishman’s Riouffe?” - -“Confront me, then, with the Englishman.” - -“He cannot be found.” - -I shrugged my shoulders. - -“I can only recall monsieur’s attention,” said I, “to the fact that -certain citizens, travelling under safe-conduct of a member of the -Committee of Safety, and with their papers in indisputable order, are -suffering a detention sufficiently unwarrantable to produce the -gravest results.” - -The commissary snatched up his hat and ran to the door. - -“Go thy ways!” he cried. “Myself, I will conduct you through the -village. For the rest, when the Englishman is found, and if he denies -thee----” - -He did not finish the sentence. In a moment we were all in the rainy -street. My accuser was vanished from the neighbourhood of the barrier. -A single patriot only was in evidence. This man made a feint of -bringing his musket to the charge. - -“_Qui va là?_” he grunted. “_Est-ce qu’il se sauve, ce cochon!_” - -Fear lent the commissary anger. - -“To thy post!” he shouted. “Am I to be made answerable to every dog -that barks!” - -Red-bonnet fell back muttering. We hurried forward, splashing over the -streaming cobbles. The street, by luck of weather, was entirely -deserted. Only a horseless _limonière_, standing at the porch of the -village inn, gave earnest of some prospective interest. - -Suddenly I felt Carinne’s little clutch on my arm. - -“The Englishman!” she whispered, in a gasp. - -My teeth clicked rigid. I saw, ahead of us, a tall careless figure -lounge into the open and stop over against the door of the carriage. -At the same moment inspiration came to the commissary. His gaze was -introspective. He had not yet noticed the direction of ours. He -slapped his hand to his thigh as he hurried forward. - -“_Mon Dieu!_” cried he, “it is simple. Why did I not think of it -sooner? Prove, then, thy knowledge of this Englishman by giving me his -name!” - -With the very words I set off running. A startled cry, to which I paid -no heed, pursued me. - -“I hold a hostage! I hold a hostage!” screamed the commissary; and -immediately, as I understood, nipped Carinne by the elbow. - -But by then I was come up with the stranger. He turned and received me -straddle-legged, his eyes full of a passionless alertness. I lost not -an instant. - -“Monsieur,” I panted, “we are fugitive aristocrats. In the name of -God, help us!” - -I could have adored him for his reception of this astounding appeal. -He never moved a muscle. - -“_Tout droit!_” said he; “but give us the tip!” - -“Riouffe is dead” (his eyelids twitched at that)--“I have his -passports. I am Riouffe--and this is madame, my wife.” - -Simultaneously, in the instant of my speaking, the frantic commissary -brought up Carinne, and, to a metallic clang of hoofs, our fateful -post-boy issued from the inn-yard in charge of his cattle. For a -moment the situation was absolutely complete and dramatic,--the -agonised suitor proposing; the humorous and heroic _nonchalant_ -disposing; the petrified jockey, right; the hostage _chevalière_ in -the grasp of the heavy villain, left. Then all converged to the -central interest, and destroyed the admirable effectiveness of the -tableau. - -“Goddam milor’ the Englishman!” shrieked the commissary; “he does not -know thy name!” - -The stranger put out a hand as he stood, and clapped me on the -shoulder so that I winced. - -“Riouffe!” he cried, in a very bantering voice--“not know his friend -Jack Comely!” (“_ne savoir pas son ami Jack Comely--pooh!_”) - -“That he will swear to, my Jack,” said I. - -The commissary released Carinne, and fell back gasping. - -“_Pardon! les bras m’en tombent!_” he muttered, in dismayed tones, and -went as white and mottled as a leg of raw mutton. - -But the stranger advanced to Carinne, with a blush and a gallant bow. - -“Madame,” said he, “I cannot sufficiently curse my impatience for -having cut you out of a stage. It was an error. _Entrez, s’il vous -plait._” - -He spoke execrable French, the angel! It was enough that we all -understood him. We climbed into the _limonière_; the stranger -followed, and the door was slammed to. The landlord, with a hussy or -so, gaped at the inn-door. The post-boy, making himself -infinitesimally small to the commissary, limbered up his cattle--three -horses abreast. One of these he mounted, as if it were a nightmare. In -a moment he was towelling his beasts to a gallop, to escape, one would -think, the very embarrassment he carried with him. From time to time -he turned in his saddle, and presented a scared face to our view. - -“Well?” said the stranger, looking at us with a smile. - -He was a fair-faced young man, bold-mouthed, and ripe with -self-assurance. His dress was of the English fashion--straight-crowned -beaver hat, with the band buckled in front, green tabinet kerchief, -claret-coloured coat tight-buttoned,--altogether a figure very spruce -and clean, like a _piqueur d’écurie_. - -I regarded him in solemn amazement. The whole rapid incident had been -of a nature to make me doubt whether I was awake or dreaming. - -“_Ma mie_,” said Carinne, reproachfully; “Milord awaits your -explanation.” - -I rose a little and bowed. - -“Monsieur,” said I, stupidly, “we are Jorinde and Joringel.” - - * * * * * * * - -Sir Comely, a fine scapegrace, had journeyed to Paris out of curiosity -to witness a guillotining. With him, in the packet, crossed Monsieur -Tithon Riouffe, an _émigré_ returning, under safe-conduct of the -ineffective Barrère, to snatch his wife from the whirlpool. The two -gentlemen met, hobnobbed, and shared a four-wheeled carriage as far as -the tragic city, whence (as agreed between them) on a certain day of -the fifteen during which the vehicle remained at the _Remise_ at their -disposition, they--accompanied, it was to be hoped, by madame--were to -return in it to Calais. The day arrived; M. Riouffe failed to keep his -appointment. The other awaited him, so long as a certain urgency of -affairs permitted. At length--his own safety being a little -menaced--he was driven to start on the return journey alone. - -All this we learned of him, and he of us the broad outline of our -story. A full confidence was the only policy possible to our dilemma. -He honoured it _en prince_. - -He was quite admirably concerned to hear of the fate of his -fellow-traveller--_le malheureux chevreuil_! he called him. The -extraordinary concatenation of chances that had substituted us for -that other two did not, however, appear to strike him particularly. -But he “strapped his vitalities!” (that is, as we understood it, -“lashed himself into merriment”), in the insular manner, very often -and very loudly, over this chance presented to him of hoodwinking the -authorities. - -“It’s rich, it’s royal, it’s rare!” he cried, “thus to double under -the nose of the old cull of a bigwig, and to be sport in the next -county while he’s hunting for a gate through the quickset. I pledge -you my honour, monsieur, to see the two of you through with this; but, -egad! you must draw upon my portymanteau at the next post if you are -to win clear!” - -_Grâces au Ciel_ for the merry brave! It was like endeavouring to -read inscriptions in the Catacombs to interpret his speech; but one -phrase he had trippingly, and that in itself was a complete index to -his character-- - -“_Je ne me mouche pas du pied_”--I know better than to blow my nose -with my feet. - -And now, if for nothing else, I loved him for his boyish, shy, but -most considerate attitude towards Carinne. - - * * * * * * * - -And thus was our escape accomplished. Winged with our passports, and -cheered to the finish by the assurance of this gay and breezy -islander, we came to the coast on a memorable afternoon, and bade -adieu for ever to the family despotism of Fraternity. - - * * * * * * * - -“Tell me, _ma belle épousée_--for five days (the guests, the -property, the _protégés_--what thou wilt--of this Sir Comely, this -excellent Philippe le Bel) we have shut our eyes, here in this -immeasurable London, to our necessitous condition and the prospect -that faces us. Carinne, _mon enfant_, it is right now to discuss the -means by which we are to live.” - -“I have thought of it, little Thibaut. I will paint portraits.” - -I started. - -“Oh!” I cried, “I am very hungry! Let us signalise this last -consumption of the poor Crépin’s purse by a feast of elegance. Be -assured his ghost will call the grace.” - -We entered an inn, opportunely near the spot whither we had wandered. -It was in an important part of the town, close by the lion-surmounted -palace of some monseigneur; and coaches and berlines discharged -themselves in frequent succession in its yard. We walked into the -_salle à manger_, sat down, and endeavoured to make our wishes known -to the waiter. The room was fairly empty, but a party of half-a-dozen -young “bloods”--_hommes de bonne compagnie_--sitting at a neighbouring -table, seemed moved with a certain curiosity about us, and by-and-by -one of these rose, crossed over, and, addressing me in very good -French, asked if he could be of service in interpreting my -desires--“For,” says he, with a smile, “I perceive that monsieur is -from over the Channel.” - -“Alas, monsieur!” I answered. “We are, indeed, of that foundered -vessel, _La Ville de Paris_, the worthless wreckage of which every -tide washes up on your coasts.” - -Some compliments passed, and he withdrew to join his companions. A -little whispering was exchanged amongst them, and then suddenly our -dandy arose and approached us once more, with infinite complaisance. - -“Monsieur,” he said, “I cannot, I find, convince my friends of the -extent to which your nation excels in the art of making salads. Would -you do us the favour to mix one for us?” - -I hesitated. - -“It is one of thy accomplishments,” said Madame la Comtesse, at a -hazard. - -It was, indeed, though she could not have known it; or that -Brillat-Savarin himself had once acknowledged me to be his master in -the art. - -“I shall be charmed,” I said. - -I called for oil, wine, vinegar, sweet fruits, the sauces of soy and -ketchup, caviare, truffles, anchovies, meat-gravy, and the yolks of -eggs. I had a proportion and a place for each; and while I broke the -lettuces, my company sat watching, and engaged me in some pretty -intimate conversation, asking many questions about Paris, my former -and present conditions, and even my place of abode. - -I answered good-humouredly on account of my dear Philippe, who was of -the very complexion and moral of these frank rascals; and presently -they pronounced my salad such a dish as Vitellius had never conceived; -and, from their table, they drank to its author and to the beautiful -eyes of Madame la Comtesse. - -It was all comical enough; but, by-and-by when, having finished our -meal, we found ourselves in the street again, Carinne thrust a folded -slip of paper into my hand. - -“What is this, _mignonne_?” - -“Look, then,” said she. “It was conveyed by the _élégant_ under thy -plate.” - -I opened and examined it. It was a note for five pounds. - -“_Au diable!_” I murmured, flushing scarlet. - -Carinne placed her hand on my arm. She looked up in my face very -earnest and pitiful. - -“Jourdain,” she said, “makes his living by turning his knowledge of -weaving to account; De Courcy begs his by ‘_parfilage_.’ Which is the -better method, _mon ami_? Is it not well to face the inevitable -courageously by taking thy accomplishments to market?” - -“I will become a salad-dresser,” said I. - - * * * * * * * - -On the following day arrived a very courteous note from my -_petit-maître_ of the dining-room, entreating me, as a special -favour, to come that evening to a certain noble house and make the -salad for a large dinner-party that was to be given therein. I went, -was happy in confirming the great opinion formed of my powers, and was -delicately made the recipient of a handsome present in acknowledgment -of my services. From that moment my good little fortunes rolled up -like a snow-ball. Within a period of eighteen months I had -accumulated, by the mere “art of selection,” a sum of near a hundred -thousand francs--truly a notable little egg’s-nest. - - * * * * * * * - -One morning, not so very long ago, Madame de Crancé came to me with -her eyes shining. - -“Little Thibaut,” said she, “thou hast a great heart. Yet--though -doubtless thou wert right to insist that the husband should be the -bread-winner--it has grieved me to stand by and watch my own -particular gift rusting from disuse. Well, sir, for thy rebuke I have -at last a surprise for thee. Behold!” and with that she fetched a -canvas from behind her back, where she had been secreting it, and -presented it to my view. - -“Is it not like?” she said, her throat swelling with joy and pride. - -I made my eyes two O’s,--I “hedged,” as the sportsmen say. - -“It is, indeed, _ma mie_. It is like nothing in the world except, of -course----” - -I stopped, sweating with apprehension. She relieved me at once. - -“Ah!” she cried, “is it not baby himself--the dear, sweet rogue! I -threw all my soul into it for thy sake.” - -“Carinne!” I exclaimed, passionately grateful; “I knew I could not be -mistaken.” - - [The End] - - - - - NOTES. - - [1] - “Nothing would appear to more graphically illustrate the moral - influence of the ‘Terror’ than that common submission to a force that - was rather implied than expressed. Now it seems a matter for marvel - how a great many thousands of capable men, having nothing to hope from - the intolerable tyranny that was massing them in a number of professed - slaughter-houses, should not only have attempted no organised - retaliation, but should, by unstiffening their necks (in a very heroic - fashion, be it said) to be the footstools to a few monstrous bullies, - have tacitly allowed the righteousness of a system that was destroying - them to go by implication. Escapes from durance were, comparatively - speaking, rare; resistance to authority scarcely ever carried beyond - the personal and peevish limit. Yet it is a fact that many of the - innumerable prisons--of which, from my own observation, I may instance - St Pélagie--were quite inadequately guarded, and generally, indeed, - open to any visitor who was prepared to ‘tip’ for the privilege of - entry.”--Extracted from an unpublished chapter of the Count’s - Reminiscences. - - [2] - #Décadi# the Revolutionary Sabbath.--Ed. - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES. - -The cover from the Dodd, Mead and Co. edition (New York, 1898) was -used for this ebook. This edition was also consulted for the changes -listed below. - -Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ caldron/cauldron, say’st/sayst, -wineshop/wine-shop, etc.) have been preserved. - -[Text edition only] _#_ is used to indicate bolded text. - -Alterations to the text: - -Convert footnotes to endnotes, and add a corresponding entry to the -TOC. - -Silently correct a few punctuation errors. - -[CHAPTER II] - -Change “with her priestesses of the _Salpétrière_” to _Salpêtrière_. - -[CHAPTER XIV] - -“cockt as it had been to the _out-cry_” to _outcry_. - -[End of text] - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69579 *** diff --git a/old/69579-h/69579-h.htm b/old/69579-h/69579-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 21e5940..0000000 --- a/old/69579-h/69579-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,13634 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html> -<html lang="en"> -<head> - <meta charset="UTF-8"> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Adventures of the Comte de la Muette, by Bernard Capes - </title> - <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> - <style> - -/* Headers and Divisions */ - h1, h2, h3 {margin:2em 0em 1em 0em; page-break-before:always; text-align:center;} - -/* General */ - - body {margin:0% 5% 0% 5%;} - - .nobreak {page-break-before:avoid;} - - p {margin:0em 0em 0em 0em; text-align:justify; text-indent:1em;} - .center {margin:0em 0em 0em 0em; text-align:center; text-indent:0em;} - .noindent {text-indent:0em;} - .spacer {margin:0.5em 0em 0.5em 0em; text-align:center; text-indent:0em;} - .toc_1 {font-variant:small-caps; margin:0em 0em 0em 2em; text-indent:-2em;} - .right {text-align:right;} - .sign2 {margin:0em 2em 0em 0em; text-align:right; text-indent:0em;} - - span.chap_sub {font-size:70%;} - span.sc {font-variant:small-caps;} - .font80 {font-size:80%;} - - /* center a poem/song */ - div.quote_o {font-size:95%; margin:0.5em 2em 0.5em 2em; text-align:center;} - div.quote_i {display:inline-block; text-align:left;} - -/* special formatting */ - /* poem/song verses */ - .i0 {margin:0em 0em 0em 2em; text-indent:-2em;} - .i1 {margin:0em 0em 0em 3em; text-indent:-2em;} - .i2 {margin:0em 0em 0em 4em; text-indent:-2em;} - .i3 {margin:0em 0em 0em 5em; text-indent:-2em;} - .i4 {margin:0em 0em 0em 6em; text-indent:-2em;} - .i5 {margin:0em 0em 0em 7em; text-indent:-2em;} - - .letter {margin:1em 0em 1em 2em;} - .song {margin:1em 0em 1em 4em;} - - .mt1 {margin-top:1em;} - .mt2 {margin-top:2em;} - .mt3 {margin-top:3em;} - .mt4 {margin-top:4em;} - .mb1 {margin-bottom:1em;} - -</style> -</head> -<body> -<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69579 ***</div> - - -<h1> -Adventures<br> -<span class="font80">of the</span><br> -Comte de la Muette<br> -<span class="font80">during the</span><br> -Reign of Terror -</h1> - -<p class="center"><span class="font80">BY</span><br> -BERNARD CAPES<br> -<span class="font80">AUTHOR OF<br> -‘THE MILL OF SILENCE,’ ‘THE LAKE OF WINE,’ ETC.</span></p> - -<p class="center mt3">WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS<br> -EDINBURGH AND LONDON<br> -MDCCCXCVIII</p> - -<p class="center mt1"><i>All Rights reserved</i></p> - - -<h2> -[DEDICATION.] -</h2> - -<p class="center"> -<span class="font80">TO</span><br> -R. C.,<br> -<span class="font80">BEST COUNSELLOR AND HELPMATE.</span> -</p> - - -<h2> -CONTENTS. -</h2> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch01">I. THE WAXWORKS</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch02">II. CITOYENNE CARINNE</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch03">III. THE FOOTPAD</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch04">IV. THE CHÂTEAU DES PIERRETTES</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch05">V. <i>LA GRAND’ BÊTE</i></a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch06">VI. THE HERD OF SWINE</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch07">VII. THE CHEVALIER DU GUET</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch08">VIII. QUATREMAINS-QUATREPATTES</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch09">IX. THE WILD DOGS</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch10">X. THE AFFAIR OF THE CANDLES</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch11">XI. PYRAMUS AND THISBE</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch12">XII. THE MOUSE-TRAP</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch13">XIII. THE RED CART</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch14">XIV. THE QUARRIES OF MONT-ROUGE</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch15">XV. THE SALAD COURSE</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#notes">NOTES</a> -</p> - - -<h2> -ADVENTURES<br> -<span class="font80">OF THE</span><br> -COMTE DE LA MUETTE. -</h2> - -<h3 class="nobreak" id="ch01"> -CHAPTER I.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE WAXWORKS.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">One</span> morning I awoke in La Bourbe and looked across at Deputy -Bertrand as he lay sprawled over his truckle-bed, his black hair like -a girl’s scattered on the pillow, his eyelids glued to his flushed -cheeks, his face, all blossoming with dissipation, set into the -expression of one who is sure of nothing but of his own present -surrender to nothingness. Beside him were his clothes, flung upon a -chair, the tri-colour sash, emblematic stole of his confused ritual, -embracing all; and on a nail in the wall over his head was his -preposterous hat, the little <i>carte de civisme</i> stuck in its band. -</p> - -<p> -Casimir Bertrand (one time Casimir Bertrand de Pompignan) I had known -and been friendly with at Le Plessis. Later he had imbibed theories; -had become successively a Lameth, a Feuillant, a Jacobin—a -constitutionalist, a moderate, an extremist; had spouted in the -Faubourgs and overflowed in sectional Committee rooms; had finally -been elected to represent a corner of the States-General. I had known -him for a pious prig, a coxcomb, a reckless bon-vivant. He was always -sincere and never consistent; and now at last, in the crisis of his -engaging sans-cullotism, he had persuaded me, a proscribed royalist, -to take an advantage of his friendship by lodging with him. Then it -was that the driving-force behind his character was revealed to me. It -was militant hedonism. Like Mirabeau, he was a strange compound of -energy and voluptuousness. He turned altogether on the nerves of -excitement. He was like a clock lacking its pendulum, and he would -crowd a dozen rounds of the dial into the space of a single hour. Such -souls, racing ahead of their judgment, illustrate well the fable of -the Hare and the Tortoise; and necessarily they run themselves down -prematurely. Casimir was an epicure, with a palate that could joyfully -accommodate itself to black bread and garlic; a sensualist, with the -power to fly at a word from a hot-bed of pleasure to a dusty desert of -debate. Undoubtedly in him (did I make him the mirror to my -conscience), and in a certain Crépin, with whom I came subsequently -to lodge, and who was of the type only a step lower in the art of -self-indulgence, I had an opportunity to see reflected a very serious -canker in the national constitution. -</p> - -<p> -Now he opened his eyes as I gazed on him, and shut them again -immediately. It was not his habit to be a slug-a-bed, and I recognised -that his sleep was feigned. The days of his political influence were -each pregnant of astonishing possibilities to him, and he was too -finished an epicure to indulge himself with more than the recuperative -measure of slumber—frothed, perhaps, with a bead of æsthetic -enjoyment in the long minute of waking. -</p> - -<p> -“Casimir!” I called softly; but he pretended not to hear me. -</p> - -<p> -“What, my friend! the sun is shining, and the eggs of the old serpent -of pleasure will be hatching in every kennel.” -</p> - -<p> -He opened his eyes at that, fixed and unwinking; but he made no -attempt to rise. -</p> - -<p> -“Let them crack the shells and wriggle out,” he said. “I have a fancy -they will be a poisonous brood, and that La Bourbe is pleasantly -remote from their centres of incubation.” -</p> - -<p> -“Timorous! I would not lose a thrill in this orgy of liberty.” -</p> - -<p> -“But if you lost——?” he checked himself, pursed his lips, and nodded -his head on the pillow. -</p> - -<p> -“Jean-Louis, I saw the Sieur Julien carried to the scaffold last -night. He went foaming and raving of a plot in the prisons to release -the aristocrats in their thousands upon us. There is an adder to -reproduce itself throughout the city! Truly, as you say, the kennels -will swarm with it.” -</p> - -<p> -“And many will be bitten? My friend, my friend, there is some dark -knowledge in that astute head of yours. And shall I cower at home when -my kind are in peril?” -</p> - -<p> -“My faith! we all cower in bed.” -</p> - -<p> -“But I am going out.” -</p> - -<p> -“Be advised!” (He struggled quickly up on his elbow. His face bore a -clammy look in the sunlight.) “Be advised and lie close in your -form—like a hare, Jean-Louis—like a hare that hears the distant -beaters crying on the dogs. Twitch no whisker and prick not an ear. -Take solace of your covert and lie close and scratch yourself, and -thank God you have a nail for every flea-bite.” -</p> - -<p> -“What ails thee of this day then, morose?” -</p> - -<p> -“What ails this Paris? Why, the Prussians are in Verdun, and the -aristocrats must be forestalled.” -</p> - -<p> -“But how, Deputy.” -</p> - -<p> -“I do not know. I fear, that is all.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, there lies your sash—the talisman to such puerile emotions.” -</p> - -<p> -“Return to bed, Jean-Louis. It is unwise to venture abroad in a -thunderstorm.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is unwiser to shelter beneath a tree.” -</p> - -<p> -“But not a roof-tree. Oh, thou fool! didst thou not close thine eyes -last night on a city fermenting like a pan of dough?” -</p> - -<div class="quote_o"><div class="quote_i"> -<p class="i0">“‘Et cette alarme universelle</p> -<p class="i0">Est l’ouvrage d’un moucheron.’”</p> -</div></div> - -<p> -“But go your way!” he cried, and scrambled out of bed. -</p> - -<p> -He walked to the little washstand with an embarrassed air, and set to -preparing our morning cup of chocolate from the mill that stood -thereon. -</p> - -<p> -“After all,” he said, when the fragrant froth sputtered about his -nostrils, “the proper period to any exquisite sensation is death. I -dread no termination but that put to an hour of abstinence. To die -with the wine in one’s throat and the dagger in one’s back—what could -kings wish for better?” -</p> - -<p> -He handed me my cup, and sipped enjoyingly at his own. -</p> - -<p> -“I am representative of a constituency,” he said, “yet a better judge -of wine than of men. The palate and the heart are associated in a -common bond. That I would decree the basis of the new religion. ‘Tears -of Christ’!—it is a vintage I would make Tallien and Manuel and -Billaud de Varennes drunk on every day.” -</p> - -<p> -He laughed in an agitated manner, and glanced at me over the rim of -his cup. -</p> - -<p> -“Go your way, Jean-Louis,” he repeated; “and pardon me if I call it -the right mule one. But you will walk it, for I know you. And eat your -fill of the sweet thistle-flowers before the thorns shall stab your -gullet and take all relish from the feast.” -</p> - -<p> -“Casimir!” I cried in some black wonder—“this is all the language of -a villain or an hysteric——!” -</p> - -<p> -I paused, stared at his twitching face, took up my hat quietly, and -left the room. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -A little frost on a foot, or a little blood. What is the significance -of either. Once the <i>bimbelotiers</i> of the Palais Royal used to -manufacture cards of Noël, very pretty and sparkling with rime. That -was before the apotheosis of the “Third [or butterfly] State”; and -many a time, during the winter of ’84, I have seen poor vagrants of -the chosen brood, unwitting yet of the scarlet wings developing -underneath their rugged hides, ponder over the fanciful emblems in the -shop windows, and then look down with wonder at their own cracked and -bleeding toes. To whom, then, could the frost appeal in this dainty -guise? Not surely to those who must walk with bare feet? It is all the -point of view, said the philosophers. But, they added, blood is warm, -and it is well to wear socks of it if you can get no other. Put these -on and look again, and you will see differently. -</p> - -<p> -Not just yet, perhaps; and in the meantime the king empties his -private purse to buy wood for the freezing people. This will warm them -into loyalty while it lasts; and they crawl out of their icy burrows, -or gather up their broken limbs on the snow beds—whereinto they have -been ground by the sleds and chariots of the wealthy that rush without -warning down the muffled streets—to build monuments of snow to the -glory of their rulers. Then by-and-by these great obelisks melt, and -add their quota to the thaw that is overwhelming what the frost has -spared. -</p> - -<p> -The red socks! Now, on this wild Sunday of September, when the -monuments that bore the names of the good king and queen are collapsed -and run away some eight years, the tocsin is pealing with a clamour of -triumph from the steeples; for at last the solution of the riddle has -been vouchsafed to the “Third State,” and it knows that to acquire the -right point of view it must wear socks, not of its own blood but of -that of the aristocrats, to whom the emblems of Noël were made to -appeal. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -All day I felt the pulse of the people, quickening, quickening—an -added five beats to every hour—with wonder, rage, and, at last, -terror maniacal. Paris was threatened; hard-wrung freedom was -tottering to its fall. -</p> - -<p> -This Paris was a vessel of wrath on treacherous waters—manned by -revolted slaves; the crew under hatches; encompassed by enemies on -every side. What remained but to clear the decks for action,—every -hero to his post at the vast bulwarks; every son-of-a-sea-cook to -remain and poniard the prisoners lest they club their manacles and -take their captors in the rear! -</p> - -<p> -At two o’clock the tocsin pealed—the signal to prepare for the fray. -From its first blaring stroke I ceased, it seemed, to be myself. I -waived my individuality, and became as much a conscript of the rising -tide of passion as a high-perched stone that the wave at last reaches -and drags down with the shingle becomes a condition of the general -uproar. I made, indeed, no subscription to this fanatical heat of -emotion; I was simply involved in it—to go with it, and perish of it, -perhaps, but never to succumb to its disordered sophistries or yield -my free soul to its influence. Possibly I had a wild idea, in the -midst of sinister forebodings, that a few such as I, scattered here -and there, might leaven the ugly mass. But I do not know. Hemmed in by -wrath and terror, thought casts its buoys and sinks into very -fathomless depths. -</p> - -<p> -From the Place de Grève, along Pelletier Quay; across the Ponts au -Change and St Michel; westwards by the Rue St André des Arcs, where a -little diversion was caused by a street-singer at whom the crowd took -offence, in that he, being an insignificant buffoon, did pelt it with -its classic pretentiousness, wagging his coat-tails in contempt -thereof (“À bas, Pitou!” they shrieked; “we will dock thee of thy -sting and put thee to buzz in a stone bottle!”—and they had him -unfrocked in a twinkling and hoisted for punishment); round, with a -curve to the south, into the Rue de Bussi; thence, again westwards, -along the street of St Marguerite; finally, weathering the sinister -cape of the Abbaye St Germain, northwards into the Rue St Benoit and -up to the yard entrance of the very prison itself,—such was the long -course by which I was borne, in the midst of clamour, hate, and -revilings, some dreadful early scenes in the panorama of the -Revolution unfolded before my eyes—scenes crudely limned by crude -street artists, splashed and boltered with crimson, horrible for the -ghastly applause they evoked. -</p> - -<p> -I saw and I was helpless—the block about the carriages of the -nonjurants—the desperate stroke at the <i>sans-culotte</i> that cut the -knot of indecision—the crashing panels, the flying and flung priests. -One damnable with a sabre split a bald head, that came wavering in my -direction, like a melon, and the brains flew like its seeds. I shut my -eyes and thought, Mercy is in right ratio with the hardness of the -blow. Strike deep, poor guttersnipes, if you must strike at all! -</p> - -<p> -Then began the “severe justice of the people.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -What was I, poor philosophic <i>misérable</i>, but a germ of those germs -in that great artery of blood that the revolted system was -endeavouring to expel. I saw numbers of my kind thrown forth and -mangled in the midst of horrors unspeakable; I was borne helpless to -the heart, and was rejected to fly shuddering to remote veins of the -prison’s circulation, only to return by an irresistible attraction to -the central terror. More than once my mad expostulations brought me -into perilous notice. -</p> - -<p> -“You have hard wrongs to avenge!” I shrieked; “but at least the form -of pleading has been granted you!” -</p> - -<p> -“And these!” cried the killers. “Blood of God! is not Bastille -Maillard within there checking the tally of the accursed? Aristocrat -art thou!” -</p> - -<p> -They bounded from me to a fresh victim thrust that moment from the -door. She came dazed into the flare of the torches—a white face with -umber hair tumbled all about it. Two gloating hounds took her under -the arm-pits; a third—— -</p> - -<p> -<i>Ciel! pour tant de rigueur, de quoi suis-je coupable?</i> -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -I do not know whither my wanderings tended, or what space of time was -covered by them. Sooner or later I was always back at the Abbaye, -glutting my soul with assurance of its own wreck, helpless, despite my -loathing of it, to resist the attraction. What horror absorbs the moth -as it circles round the flame, I thought in those recurrent moments I -could understand. -</p> - -<p> -Once, when I returned, an unwonted silence reigned about the place. A -few vampire figures, restless, phantasmal, flitted hither and thither -in the neighbourhood of the reeking shambles. But the slaughterers and -the red ladies of St Michel were retired, during an interval in the -examination, for refreshment. I heard the shrill buzz of their voices -all down the Rue St Benoit and from the wine and lemonade shops -opposite the very gates by which I stood. -</p> - -<p> -I looked into the fearful yard. My God! the dead, it seemed, were -phosphorescent with the rottenness of an ancient system! Here, there, -on all sides they broke the darkness with blots of light like hideous -glow-worms—their hundred white faces the reflectors of as many lamps. -</p> - -<p> -“But it is a brave illumination!” gurgled a voice at my ear. -</p> - -<p> -I glanced aside in loathing. A little old woman, whose lungs barked at -every breath, stood near me. She laughed as if she would shake herself -into touchwood. -</p> - -<p> -“A brave illumination!” she wheezed—“the inspiration of the girl La -Lune. She was dedicated to the Holy Mother; and her skirt! Oh, <i>mon -Dieu</i>! but it was of the azure of heaven, and now it is purple as a -strangled face; and it slaps on her ankles. But by-and-by she must -seek purification, for she is dedicated to the holy Virgin.” -</p> - -<p> -“She placed these lamps?” -</p> - -<p> -“She led her sisters to the committee that sits there.” (She pointed a -gnarled finger. To one side of the dreadful quadrangle a dull glow -came melancholy through some tall windows.) “She complained that -ladies who would fain enjoy the show were prevented by the darkness. -Then to each dead aristocrat they put a lamp. That was a fine -courtesy. It is not often one sees such goods brought to market.” -</p> - -<p> -A wild cloud of shapes came rushing upon us with brandished weapons -and a demon skirl of voices. I thought at first that I must be the -object of their fury; but they passed us by, cursing and -gesticulating, and drove something amongst them up the yard, and -stopped and made a ring about it on the bloody stones. What was it? I -had a glimpse of two petrified faces as the little mob swept by, and a -queer constriction seized my heart. Then, all in a moment, I was -following, crying in my soul that here was something tangible for my -abased humanity to lay hold of—some excuse to indulge a passion of -self-sacrifice—some claim to a lump of ice at my feet and a lamp at -my head. The dead were so calm, the living so besotted. A miserly -theft, I thought, to take another’s blood when one’s own gluts one’s -arteries to suffocation. -</p> - -<p> -I looked over the shoulders of the outermost of the group. What -horrible cantrip of Fortune had consigned this old barren weed of a -man, this white exotic of a girl, to a merciless handling by these -demons? The two were in walking dress, and not in the <i>déshabille</i> of -prisoners. There was a lull in the systematic progress of the -butchery. Here, it would seem, was an <i>entr’acte</i> designed only to -relieve the tedium of waiting. -</p> - -<p> -A half-dozen harpies held the girl. There was a stain of red on her -ripe young lip, for I think one of the beasts had struck her; but her -face was stubborn with pride. In front of all the old wizened man, who -had been released, ran to and fro in an agony of obsequious terror. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, yes,” he quavered, “’tis a luminous sight—an admirable show! -They lie like the fallen sticks of rockets, glimmering a dying spark. -Is it not so, Carinne? Little cabbage, is it not so?” -</p> - -<p> -He implored her with his feverish eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“They are martyrs!” cried the girl; “and you are a coward!” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no!” he wailed, and wrung his hands; and “My God! she will murder -me!” he shrieked. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly he saw, darted through the ring of ruffians, and caught the -breast of my coat with both his hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur! you have nobility in your face! Tell these good souls that -I am a furious patriot and a good citizen. Monsieur, Monsieur! We walk -abroad—we are involved, unwitting, in the <i>mêlée</i>. The girl -denounces all for pigs and murderers, and, naturally, those who hear -take umbrage and force us hither.” -</p> - -<p> -His dry lips vibrated; he danced up and down like a gnat on a -window-pane. All the time the women were volubly chattering and the -men cursing and pulling. They desired, it seemed, a prologue to the -second act of the tragedy; and that was bad art. But then they were as -drunk as one could wish. -</p> - -<p> -“Thou art nice and dainty, <i>citoyenne</i>!” they shrieked. “See -here—thou shalt be <i>vivandière</i> to the brave army of avengers! Tap -her an aristocrat heart and fill her a canteen that all may drink!” -</p> - -<p> -The beastly proposal was not too gross for the occasion. A man lurched -forward with a jeering oath, and I—I sprang to the front too, and -took the hound by his gulping throat. There came a great noise about -me; I did not relax my hold, and some one rushed into our midst. -</p> - -<p> -“What do you here!” he cried, harshly (Casimir’s voice). “Death of -God! have you orders to insult and threaten peaceable citizens who -walk abroad to see the illuminations?” -</p> - -<p> -With a fierce sweep of his arms he cleared all away in front of him. -The act—the gesture, brought him to my side. -</p> - -<p> -“Go—escape!” he whispered, frantically. “This, here, I will attend -to.” -</p> - -<p> -“You knew, then?” I gasped out; and he fell back from me. -</p> - -<p> -But I released my hold and stood panting. I was at the moment no whit -in love with life, but I dreaded by the least stubbornness to -precipitate the catastrophe that threatened that half-fainting girl. -Her Casimir gave his arm to in a peremptory manner. She clung to him, -and he led her stumbling across the yard, the little whimpering -pinch-fist scuttling in their wake. The mob spat curses after them, -but—this <i>intermezzo</i> being no part of its programme—it respected -the Deputy’s insignia of office so far as to allow him his perquisite. -</p> - -<p> -Then, with a howl of fury, it turned upon me— -</p> - -<p> -“Accursed! thou dost well to dispute the people’s will!” -</p> - -<p> -“See his fine monseigneur hands, washed white in a bath of milk, while -the peasants drank rotten water!” -</p> - -<p> -“He will think to cow us with a look. He cannot disabuse himself of -the tradition. Down with the dog of an aristocrat!” -</p> - -<p> -“But if he is Brunswick’s courier—Brunswick that would dine in Paris -on the boiling hearts of patriots!” -</p> - -<p> -I was backing slowly towards the gate as they followed reviling me. -What would you? I could not help others; I would take my own destinies -in hand. Here, in deadly personal peril, I felt my feet on the good -earth once more, and found restoration of my reason in a violence of -action. There was no assistance possible. Paris this night was a -menagerie, in which all beasts of prey and of burden were released -from restraint to resolve for themselves the question of survival. -</p> - -<p> -In a moment I turned and fled, and half-a-dozen came screaming after -me. I gained the gate in advance, and sped down the Rue St Benoit. One -man, lurching from a wineshop, cut at me aimlessly with a notched and -bloody sabre; but I evaded him with ease, and he fell into the midst -of the pursuers, retarding them a little. I reached the south-west -angle of the prison, where the <i>Place</i> split up, like the blown corner -of a flag, into many little crooked ribbons of streets, and amongst -these I dived, racing haphazard, while the red-socks thudded in my -wake and my heart in my ribs. Suddenly, turning a corner, I saw the -narrow mouth of an alley gape to my left. Into it I went, like a -touched worm into its hole, and, swallowed by the blackness, stood -still. The feet pounded by; but, sooner or later, I knew the dogs must -nose back to pick up the lost scent. Then they would have me nicely in -a little <i>cul de sac</i>, like a badger in a tub. -</p> - -<p> -I leaned my shoulder—to the wall, as I thought; but the wall gave to -my pressure, and I stumbled and went through it with a sliding run, -while something flapped to, grievously scoring my shins in its -passing. I was on my feet in an instant, however, and then I saw that -I had broken, by way of a swing-door, into a little dusty lobby, to -one side of which was a wicket and pay-place, and thence a flight of -wooden stairs ran aloft to some chamber from which flowed down a -feeble radiance of light. -</p> - -<p> -I pushed through the wicket (not a soul was in the place, it seemed) -and went softly and rapidly up the stairs. At the top I came upon a -sight that at first astounded, then inspired me. -</p> - -<p> -I was in one of those <i>salles de spectacle</i> that were at that time as -numerous in Paris as were political clubs—a wide, low room, with an -open platform at its further end for musicians, and, round three of -its walls, a roped-in enclosure for figures in waxwork. It was these -bowelless dolls that caused me my start, and in which I immediately -saw my one little chance of salvation. -</p> - -<p> -I went down the row gingerly, on tiptoe. A horn lantern, slung over -the stair-head, was the only light vouchsafed this thronged assembly -of dummies. Its rays danced weakly in corners, and lent some of the -waxen faces a spurious life. A ticket was before each -effigy—generally, as I hurriedly gathered, a quite indispensable -adjunct. I had my desperate plan; but perhaps I was too particular to -select my complete double. Here, a button or the cut of a collar were -the pregnant conditions of history. The clothes made the man, and -Mirabeau had written ‘Le Tartufe’ on the strength of a flowing wig. I -saw Necker personating our unhappy monarch in that fatal Phrygian cap -that was like the glowing peak of a volcano; stuttering Desmoulins -waving a painted twig, his lips inappropriately inseparable; the -English Pitt, with a nose blown to a point; Voltaire; Rousseau; -Beaumarchais—many of the notabilities and notorieties of our own -times—and before the last I stopped suddenly. -</p> - -<p> -I would not for the world insult the author of ‘Figaro’; but it was my -distinction to be without any; and in a waxwork the ticket makes the -man. -</p> - -<p> -Pierre Augustin was represented pointing a Republican moral—in dress -a <i>pseudo petit-maître</i>—at his feet a broken watch. One recalls the -incident—at Versailles—when a grand seigneur requests the -ex-horologist to correct his timepiece for him. “Monsieur, my hand -shakes.” “<i>Laissez donc, monsieur!</i> you belittle your professional -skill.” Beaumarchais flings the watch on the floor. “<i>Voilà, -monsieur!</i> it is as I said!” -</p> - -<p> -Now I saw my hope in this figure and (it was all a matter of moments -with me) whipped it up in my arms and ran with it to the end of the -platform. A flounce of baize hung therefrom to the floor, and into the -hollow revealed by the lifting of this I shot the invertebrate dummy, -and then scuttled back to the ropes to take its place. -</p> - -<p> -There were sounds as I did so—a noise below that petrified me in the -position I assumed. My heart seemed to burr like the winding-wheel of -a mechanical doll. I pray M. Beaumarchais to forgive me that travesty -of a dignified reproof. -</p> - -<p> -A step—that of a single individual—came bounding up the stair. My -face was turned in its direction. I tried to look and yet keep my eyes -fixed. The dull flapping light seconded my dissemblance; but the -occasion braced me like a tonic, and I was determined to strike, if -need were, with all the force of the pugnacious wit I represented. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly I saw a white, fearful countenance come over the -stair-head—shoulders, legs, a complete form. It was that of an ugly -stunted man of fifty, whose knees shook, whose cheeks quivered like a -blanc-mange. He ran hither and thither, sobbing and muttering to -himself. -</p> - -<p> -“Quick, quick! who?—Mirabeau? A brave thought, a magnificent thought! -My God!—will they fathom it? I have his brow—his scornful air of -insistence. My God, my God!—that I should sink to be one of my own -puppets!” -</p> - -<p> -Astounded, I realised the truth. This poltroon—the very proprietor of -the show—was in my own actual case, and had hit upon a like way out -of his predicament. I saw him seize and trundle the ridiculous -presentment of M. Mirabeau to the room end, and then fling it -hurriedly down and kick it—the insolent jackass!—under the curtain. -I saw him run back and pose himself—with a fatuous vanity even in his -terror—as that massive autocrat of the Assembly; and then, with a -clap and a roar, I heard at last the hounds of pursuit break covert -below and come yelling up the stairs. -</p> - -<p> -I do not think I shook; yet it seemed impossible that they could pass -me by. There were one or two amongst them I thought I recognised as -Carinne’s captors; but they were all hideous, frantic shapes, -elf-locked, malodorous, bestial and drunk with blood. They uttered -discordant cries as they came scrambling into the room; and by a -flickering at the nape of his neck I could see that my fellow-sufferer -was unable to control the throaty rising of his agitation. Suddenly a -horrible silence befell. One of the intruders, a powerful young -ruffian of a malignant jesting humour, put his comrades back and -silenced them with an arm. His bloodshot eyes were fascinating poor -Mirabeau; slowly he raised a finger and pointed it at the creature. -The bubbles seemed to fly up the latter’s neck as if his heart were -turned into water. It was a terrible moment—then, all at once, the -whole room echoed with demon laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“Mother of Christ! what cunning!” -</p> - -<p> -“But, my God! he is a fine libel on the king of patriots!” -</p> - -<p> -“See! the works have not run down. He twitches yet from his last -performance!” -</p> - -<p> -“He makes himself a show to the people. He shall be given a lamp in -the yard of the Abbaye.” -</p> - -<p> -The figure fell upon its knees with a choking shriek. -</p> - -<p> -“Messieurs! I acted upon my first instinct of preservation! I had no -thought, I swear it, to insult the great or to question the majesty of -the people. Messieurs, I detest aristocrats and applaud your method of -dealing with them. <i>Merci! merci!</i> I am a poor exhibitor of waxworks; -an excellent patriot and a servant of the public.” -</p> - -<p> -“But that is true!” cried a voice from the stairs. “This is little -Tic-tac, that helped to decorate the Capet’s chariot on the day of the -Hôtel de Ville.” -</p> - -<p> -The mob grunted over this advocate. -</p> - -<p> -“But he helped a prisoner to escape.” -</p> - -<p> -(Was there another, then, in the same plight as myself?) -</p> - -<p> -“Messieurs! he asked the way of me, as any stranger might!” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Malepeste!</i> if thou tell’st us so! But thou hast dared to personate -a God!” -</p> - -<p> -“Messieurs, he lent his countenance to me, as ever to the -unfortunate.” -</p> - -<p> -The answer raised a roar of approbation. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Comme il est fin!</i> take thy goose-skin! and yet we must tax thee -somehow.” -</p> - -<p> -“Let us destroy this show that he has profaned!” -</p> - -<p> -My heart seemed to shrink into itself. I suffered—I suffered; but -fortunately for a few moments only. -</p> - -<p> -With the words on his lips, the fellow that had spoken slashed with -his sabre, over the kneeling showman’s head, amongst the staring -effigies. The whistle of his weapon made me blink. What did it -matter?—the end must come now. -</p> - -<p> -It was not as I foresaw. The waxen head spun into the air—the figure -toppled against that standing next to it—that against its -neighbour—its neighbour against me. I saw what was my cue, and went -down in my turn, stiffly, with a dusty flop, twisting to my side as I -fell, and hoping that he whom I was bowling over in due order was rich -in padding. Nevertheless I was horribly bruised. -</p> - -<p> -There was a howl of laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mor’ Dieu!</i> but five at a blow!” cried the executioner. “This is -better than the one to fifty yonder!” and he came running to read the -names of those he had overturned. -</p> - -<p> -“Necker! it is right that he should be pictured fallen. -Pitt—Beaumarchais! ha, ha, little toad! where are those patriot -muskets? in your breeches-pocket? but I will cut them out!” -</p> - -<p> -Now I gave up all for lost. He stepped back to get his distance—there -came a crash by the stairway, and the room was plunged in darkness. -One of the mob had swung up his weapon over a figure, and had knocked -out the lantern with a back-handed blow. -</p> - -<p> -It is the little incidents of life that are prolific as insects. The -situation resolved itself into clamour and laughter and a boisterous -groping of the company down the black stairway. In a minute the place -was silent and deserted. -</p> - -<p> -I lay still, as yet awaiting developments. I could not forget that M. -Tic-tac, as a pronounced patriot, might not honour my confidence. For -my escape, it must have been as I supposed. Another victim, eluding -the murderers, had drawn them off my scent, and the showman had -effected yet a second cross-current. He was indeed fortunate to have -kept a whole skin. -</p> - -<p> -Presently I heard him softly stirring and moaning to himself. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Misérable!</i> to have dishonoured my <i>rôle</i>! Would <i>he</i> have -succumbed thus to an accident? But I am like him—yes, I am like him, -for all they may say.” -</p> - -<p> -Their mockery was the wormwood in his cup. He dragged himself to his -feet by-and-by, and felt his way across the room to recover his abused -idol. Then I would delay no longer. I rose, stepped rapidly to the -stair-head, and descended to the street. He heard me—as I knew by the -terrified cessation of his breathing,—and thought me, perhaps, a -laggard member of his late company. Anyhow he neither moved nor spoke. -</p> - -<p> -The killers were at their work again. The agonised yells of the -victims followed and maddened me. But I was secure from further -pursuit, save by the dogs of conscious helplessness. -</p> - -<p> -And one of these kept barking at my heel: “Carinne, that you were -impotent to defend! What has become of the child?” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch02"> -CHAPTER II.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">CITOYENNE CARINNE.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">It</span> was my unhappiness in the black spring-time of the “Terror” to -see my old light acquaintance, the Abbé Michau, jogging on his way to -the Place de la Bastille. I pitied him greatly. He had pursued -Pleasure so fruitlessly all his days; and into this fatal quagmire had -the elusive flame at length conducted him. He sat on the rail of the -tumbril—a depressed, puzzled look on his face—between innocence and -depravity. Both were going the same road as himself—the harmless -white girl and the besotted priest, who shrunk in terror from giving -her the absolution she asked;—and poor Charles divided them. -</p> - -<p> -He was not ever of Fortune’s favourites. He would make too fine an art -of Epicurism, and he sinned so by rule as to be almost virtuous. I -remember him with a half-dozen little axioms of his own concocting, -that were after all only morality misapplied: “To know how to forget -oneself is to be graduate in the school of pleasure.” -“Self-consciousness is always a wasp in the peach.” “The art of -enjoyment is the art of selection.” On such as these he founded his -creed of conduct; and that procured him nothing but a barren series of -disappointments. He was never successful but in extricating himself -from mishaps. The <i>ravissantes</i> he sighed after played with and -insulted him—though they could never debase his spirit. The dishes he -designed lacked the last little secret of perfection. He abhorred -untidiness, yet it was a condition of his existence; and he could not -carry off any situation without looking like a thief. One further turn -of the wheel, and he would have been a saint in a monastery. -</p> - -<p> -I can recall him with some tenderness, and his confident maxims with -amusement. That “art of selection” of his I found never so applicable -as to the choice of one’s Revolutionary landlord. It was Michau’s -<i>logeur</i>, I understand, who caused the poor Abbé to be arrested and -brought before the tribunal miscalled of Liberty, where the advocacy -of the chivalrous Chauveau de la Garde was sufficient only to procure -him the last grace of an unproductive appeal. It was the atrocity with -whom latterly I lodged who brought me to <i>my</i> final pass. -</p> - -<p> -In truth, as the letters of apartments were largely recruited from the -<i>valetaille</i> of <i>émigrés</i>, the need of caution in choosing amongst -them was very real. M. le Marquis could not take flight in a panic -without scattering some of his fine feathers—fortunately, indeed, for -him sometimes, for they were as sops thrown to the pursuing wolves -while he sped on. Then, down would grovel public accusers, police, and -committee-men to snap at the fragments; and amongst them Bon-Jean, -Monsieur’s <i>valet de pied</i>, would secure his share, perhaps, and set -up house with it in one of the meaner faubourgs, and trade profitably -therein upon the fears of his lodgers. -</p> - -<p> -Simon Mignard was the last who had the honour to entertain me; and to -that horrible little grotesque did I owe my subsequent lodgment in La -Petite Force. It was a bad choice, and, with my experience, an -unpardonable; but I was taken with a certain humour in the creature -that put me off my judgment. -</p> - -<p> -For generally, indeed, this faculty of humour I found to be -antipathetic to revolution. It was to be looked upon as a mark of -social degeneration. The brute “thrown back” to his primordial state -is an animal that takes himself with the most laughterless gravity. He -resumes himself corrupt, so to speak, as one resumes the endurance of -office full of the rebellious grievance of a holiday. He returns to -the primary indulgence of instinct with a debased appetite, and that -sense of humour does not accompany him. This is why his prejudices -have the force of convictions. -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen Simon,” I said one day, “I would put it to you—if -revolutionists would reconstitute society by purging the world of the -abnormal, should they not offer themselves the first holocausts to -their theories?” -</p> - -<p> -“Hey?” he cried, peering over his glasses. His eye-slits were like -half-healed wounds; his face was all covered with a grey down, as if -he were some old vessel of wrath the Revolution had produced from its -mustiest blood-bin in the cellars where its passions were formerly -wont to ferment. -</p> - -<p> -“Hey?” he cried. “But explain, Citizen Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, obviously a primal simplicity cannot be taught by those who, by -their own showing, are an essential condition of degeneration.” -</p> - -<p> -“You think so, my friend? But is it not he who has hunted with the -wolves can best advise the lamb whither not to stray? Set a thief to -catch a thief, but not innocence to lead innocence.” -</p> - -<p> -“We are all so disinterested, eh? We must kill to purify—so long as -<i>we</i> remain the executioners.” -</p> - -<p> -“The physicians! the physicians! Some day we shall provide the tonic.” -</p> - -<p> -“At this rate the physicians will have to drink it themselves.” -</p> - -<p> -“Meaning the patients will fail us? Rest content. They will last our -time. The ills in the constitution of France are many. For the -resurrection—<i>sang Dieu</i>!” he cried, with a wry face, “but that is no -part of <i>our</i> programme!” -</p> - -<p> -Indeed, it was not of his. He was actuated by no passion but the -blood-sucker’s. One day he showed me a clumsy model guillotine, a foot -high, of his own contriving. The axe was a fragment of table-knife -sunk in a finger of lead, and with it he would operate upon a gruesome -little doll he had with an adjustable neck. Snip! the blade fell and -the head, and a spout of crimson gushed forth and stained the floor. -</p> - -<p> -“That is a waste of good wine,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -His face puckered like a toad’s eyelids. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it not?” he chuckled, “of the brand drunk by the patriot Citoyenne -Sombreuil.” -</p> - -<p> -“Blood!” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Voyez!</i>” he cried, with a little shriek of laughter. “It is hollow. -Often I fill it from the tap in the Place de la Bastille. My faith, -what a fountain! I love it like Dantzic brandy.” -</p> - -<p> -Then it was I found his humour a little excessive to my taste; and I -severed my connection with him. He might lie; obviously he did, in -fact, about the blood; but one’s sympathies could not embrace so -stupid a falsehood. Promptly he denounced me to his section. I had -given him the courteous “you,” said he, and amongst my effects was a -box of the interdicted hair-powder. -</p> - -<p> -But it is of my earlier landlord, Jacques Crépin, who for a time -influenced my fortunes quite admirably, that I desire here to speak. -</p> - -<p> -Upon this rascal I happened on the evening of Lepelletier St Fargeau’s -murder in Février’s Coffee-house. It was the interminable week of the -votings on the king’s sentence. During the course of it I had many -times visited the Hall of Convention, had stayed a while to watch the -slow chain of Deputies hitching over the Tribune, with their dreary -chant, “La Mort,” that was like the response to an endless litany of -fatality intoned by the ushers; had heard the future Dictator, -spectacled, marmoset-faced, irrepressible in oratory, drone his sour -dithyrambics where a word would have sufficed; had fallen half asleep -over the phantom scene, and had imagined myself at the Comédie -Française during a performance of “Les Victimes Cloîtrées”—a -dreamy fancy to which the incessant sound of feet on boards, high up -in the “Mountain” quarter, the reverberating clap of doors, the wide -patter of voices and tinkle of laughter from bedizened <i>chères -amies</i>, pricking down the <i>ayes</i> and <i>noes</i> upon scented cards, the -shriller brabble of Mère Duchesse aloft with her priestesses of the -Salpêtrière, and the intermittent melodramatic drawl of the actors -moving across the stage, gave colour and coherence. -</p> - -<p> -By then, I think, I was come to be graduate in Michau’s school of -Pleasure. It was impressed upon me that to think of myself was a -little to foretaste my probable martyrdom. It was philosophy more -congenial to read in the serene patriot Thibaut a disinterested sheep -fattening on the grass about the <i>abattoir</i>. My title was a -plague-spot to cover; little but the dust of my patrimony remained; I -had long disabused my mind of the dogma that manliness is necessarily -a triumphant force in the world. -</p> - -<p> -Yet, a month before, I had been conscious of a little run of pity, -that was like a sloughing of the old wound of nobility. It was to see -the figure of him I had called Sire heavily seated in that same <i>Salle -de Manège</i>, his attire, appropriately, a drab surtout—the colour of -new-turned mould—his powdered hair blotted with a tonsure where he -had leaned his weary head back for rest, that lost look on his -ineffectual face—“Messieurs! this strange indignity! But doubtless -the saints will explain to me of what I am accused.” -</p> - -<p> -Bah! have I not learned the “Rights of Man,” and seen them -illustrated, too, on those days of the “severe justice of the people.” -The worse the decomposition below, the thicker will be the scum that -rises to the top. But there the wholesome air shall deodorise it -by-and-by, and the waters of life be sweet to the taste again—for a -time. And in the meanwhile I browse by the <i>abattoir</i>. -</p> - - -<p class="mt1"> -On that Saturday evening, the last of the voting, I dined with -distinction at Février’s in the Palais Royal. I could still afford, -morally and materially, this little practice of self-indulgence; for -they had not yet begun to make bread of dried pease, and many of the -ardent Deputies themselves were admirable connoisseurs in meat and -wine. -</p> - -<p> -While I was sitting—the whole place being in a ferment of scurry and -babble—a couple, who awakened my curious interest, entered and took a -vacant table next to mine. A withered old man it was and a young girl, -who sauntered with ample grace in his wake. -</p> - -<p> -The first came down the room, prying hither and thither, bowelless and -bent like a note of interrogation. He was buttoned up to the throat in -a lank dark-green surtout, and his plain hat was tilted back from his -forehead, so as to show his eyebrows, each lifted and lost in the -creases of a dozen arched wrinkles, and the papery lids beneath them -bulging and half closed. His face was all run into grey sharpness, but -a conciliatory smile was a habit of his lips. He carried his hands -behind his back as if they were manacled there. -</p> - -<p> -The girl who followed was in features and complexion cold and -beautiful. Her eyes were stone-grey under well-marked brows; her -forehead rounded from her nose like a kitten’s; the curls that escaped -from beneath her furred hood were of a rich walnut brown. She had that -colourless serenity in her face that is like snow over perfumed -flowers. Gazing on such, one longs to set one’s heart to the chill and -melt it and see the blossoms break. -</p> - -<p> -Now I had at once recognised in this couple the sustainers of the -principal <i>rôles</i> in a certain September tragedy <i>entr’acte</i>. In -these times of feverish movement the manner in which Casimir had -secured their escape was indeed an old story with me; yet, seeing them -again under these vastly improved circumstances, and remembering in -what way I had sought to assist them, my heart was moved beyond its -present custom to a feeling of sympathetic comradeship with one, at -least, of the two. -</p> - -<p> -The old man chose his table. -</p> - -<p> -“Sit down, wench,” said he. “My faith! we must dine, though crowns -fall.” -</p> - -<p> -She took her seat with a little peevish sigh. -</p> - -<p> -“Though the stars fell in the street like hail, you would dine,” she -said. -</p> - -<p> -He cocked his head sideways. -</p> - -<p> -“They have fallen, my Carinne. The ruin of them litters the Temple.” -</p> - -<p> -She said doggedly, “<i>Vive le roi!</i>” under her breath. -</p> - -<p> -“My God!” he whispered, and called the waiter. -</p> - -<p> -He eyed her askance and nervously as the man came. Some distraught -admiration seemed to mingle with his apprehension of her. She sat -languid and indifferent, and even closed her eyes, with a little -disdainful smile, as he leaned down to her and ran his finger eagerly -over the various items of the bill of fare. -</p> - -<p> -“Ostend oysters, carp fried in milk, sweetbread patty—that is good. -Ragout of the kidneys and combs of cocks—that is very good—Carinne, -see! the ragout! Holy saints, but my pocket! Slice of calf’s head, -turtle fashion—girl, are you listening? Be reckless. Take of all if -you will. I bid thee—thy little uncle, <i>ma mie</i>. Slice of—Carinne, -this is better than the cabbages and fried eggs of <i>Pierrettes</i>. I -will not care—I will not. Though I have to cut down trees to meet it, -the palate shall have its holiday. Slice of—<i>mon Dieu</i>, Carinne! I -ate of it once before in this very house. It melts like the manna of -the Israelites. It does not surfeit, but it forms an easy bed for the -repose of ecstasies more acute.” -</p> - -<p> -The girl broke in with a little high-flung laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“Not trees, but a forest,” she said. “There—choose for me. I am -indifferent.” -</p> - -<p> -“Indifferent! indifferent?—Oh, undeserving of the fine gifts of the -gods!” -</p> - -<p> -He turned to the waiter, his eyes still devouring the <i>carte</i>, his -lips silently busy with its contents. Presently he gave his order, sat -down, and remained fixedly gnawing a finger, his face set half in -enjoying contemplation, half in a baffled aggravation of selection. -</p> - -<p> -In only one other direction did the couple appear to arouse curiosity. -The great nerve of the town was all charged with a leaping -electricity, and citizens, staid enough ordinarily, ate now and drank -under an excitement they could barely control. -</p> - -<p> -But, over against me, at a little distance, were two men seated at a -table; and of these one seemed to take a like interest with mine in my -neighbours. -</p> - -<p> -This individual, unmoved, apparently, by the general ferment, had -finished his dinner and sat sipping his Médoc luxuriously. He was a -pimple-faced man, well-nourished and sensual-looking, but with an air -of tolerant geniality about him. Ugly as Danton, he had yet a single -redeeming ornament in the shape of a quantity of rich auburn hair that -fell from his head in natural curls. Though his condition was plain to -me, and I saw that the restaurateur treated him with obsequious -deference, he appeared more self-complacent than self-sufficient, and -as if he were rather accustomed to indulge than abuse his position. -For I recognised in him the president of some sectional committee, and -that by the little plaque, printed small with the Rights of Man, that -hung as a pendant from his tricolour neck-ribbon. -</p> - -<p> -Of the other at the table I took but little notice, save to remark -that he devoured his meal with the air of a man to whom good digestion -is no essential condition of politics. -</p> - -<p> -Now, of a sudden, Jacques Crépin of the pendant lowered his legs, -took up his bottle and glass, and, to my extreme surprise, crossed the -room to my table and sat down by me. -</p> - -<p> -He did not speak at first, being engaged in watching our neighbours, -before whom were placed at the moment the dishes of the uncle’s -selection. -</p> - -<p> -Mademoiselle Carinne gave a little <i>Ouf!</i> over hers. -</p> - -<p> -“But what is this?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“It is a pig’s foot <i>à la</i> St Menehould. Such a dish, <i>babouine</i>!” -</p> - -<p> -The old rascal had taken advantage of her insensibility to procure her -one of the cheapest entries on the list. -</p> - -<p> -She pushed it from her with an exclamation of disgust. -</p> - -<p> -“Fie, then!” she cried. “The very hoof of a filthy swine! Wouldst thou -have me make my hunger a footstool to a pig? Take it away. I will not -touch it!” -</p> - -<p> -He protested, voluble and shamefaced. She would not listen. Out of -mere wilfulness she now selected the most expensive item of the -<i>menu</i>—a partridge stewed in wine. He seemed like to cry; but she -persisted and gained her point. -</p> - -<p> -“We shall be ruined!” he cried, inconsistently enough. “For a month -after our return we shall have to live on bread and boiled nettles.” -</p> - -<p> -“In December, <i>mon oncle</i>? Then I am imperious for white wine of Mont -Raché.” -</p> - -<p> -The old fellow almost shrieked. -</p> - -<p> -“Carinne! Eight francs the bottle! Consider, my niece. I shall die in -Sainte Pélagie!” -</p> - -<p> -The new-comer turned to me with a grin. -</p> - -<p> -“Didst ever hear the like?” said he. -</p> - -<p> -I nodded gravely. I was not then all inured to impertinence. -</p> - -<p> -“He lacks the art of selection,” I said coldly, thinking of Michau. -</p> - -<p> -He showed himself good-humouredly conscious of my manner. He leaned -towards me and murmured carelessly— -</p> - -<p> -“There, of a truth, speaks Monseigneur le Comte de la Muette.” -</p> - -<p> -I reached for my glass and sipped from it; but I have no doubt my hand -shook. -</p> - -<p> -“The citizen does not recognise me?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, by my faith.” -</p> - -<p> -“I am Jacques Crépin; and formerly I served where I now dine.” -</p> - -<p> -I glanced at him. Some faint remembrance of the fellow woke in me. -</p> - -<p> -“M. le Comte,” he went on, in the same low voice, “once rewarded me -with a handsome vail for some trifling service. It was the lucky -louis-d’or of my fortunes. Here was a little of the means; the -Revolution was my opportunity. Now the masters serve the waiters. I -devour with my teeth what I once devoured with my eyes. You see me -president of a section; but, <i>pardieu</i>! I have no quarrel with -aristocrats of a fastidious palate. It was the contemplation of such -educated me to a right humour in gastronomy. I am indebted to monsieur -for many a delicate hint in selection.” -</p> - -<p> -Again I thought of the poor Michau. -</p> - -<p> -“I am honoured,” I said. “And so, M. Crépin, this is the goal of your -high republicanism?” -</p> - -<p> -“My faith!” he said, with a generous chuckle, “I acknowledge it. I -have existed forty years that I may live one—perhaps no more. To -drink and to eat and to love <i>en prince</i>—I have the capacity for it -and the will. I have nursed my constitution on broken scraps. This -<i>fesse-Mathieu</i> here offends me. Had I a fortune, I would fling it -away on a single desired dish if necessary. We have waived the right -to think of the morrow. But, how is monsieur known?” -</p> - -<p> -“They call me Citizen Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen Thibaut, I drink to our better acquaintance. This Médoc—I -have not grudged it you in former years. Your refined appreciation of -it has many a time glorified to me my supper of stale fragments. But -for you, maybe, I had not learned the secret of its fragrance. To my -past master in epicurism I gulp a grateful toast.” -</p> - -<p> -He was as good as his word. -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen Crépin,” I said, “where do you live?” -</p> - -<p> -“Rue de Jouy, St Antoine,” he answered. -</p> - -<p> -“I seek a convenient landlord. Will you accommodate me?” -</p> - -<p> -“With all my heart.” -</p> - -<p> -I heard the <i>vieillard</i> at the next table gobble and choke. I turned -my head to look, sprang to my feet, and my glass crashed on the -boards. -</p> - -<p> -In that instant the room had leaped into uproar—for something -immediate, swift, and terrible had happened. It was this: -</p> - -<p> -The fast-eating man at the table opposite, having finished his dinner, -was risen to pay his bill. He stood with impatient hand outstretched -as Février fumbled in his pocket for the change; and at the moment a -fellow, thick-set, stubble-bearded, dressed in a blouse and faded -cloak, strode up the room and paused by him. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you Deputy Lepelletier?” said he. -</p> - -<p> -The diner turned and nodded. -</p> - -<p> -“You have voted in this affair of the king?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mais oui</i>,” said the other—“for death.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Scélérat—prends ca!</i>” and with the word he whipped a long blade -from under his cloak and passed it into the body of the deputy. I saw -the flash and heard the piteous bleat, as also, I swear, the sound of -the flesh sucking to the steel. -</p> - -<p> -Février snatched at the murderer, and was spun to the floor like a -skittle. I saw startled figures rise, chairs and tables totter, and -the one bounding amongst them. He got clear away. -</p> - -<p> -Then, as the mob closed about the fallen, moaning shape, I turned with -an instinct of horror to view of my neighbours. -</p> - -<p> -The old gourmet had flung himself back in his chair, his face twisted -from the sight; but mademoiselle still picked daintily at her -partridge. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch03"> -CHAPTER III.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE FOOTPAD.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">Early</span> in June of the year ’93 I left Paris in company with M. -Crépin. At that time in the flower of his, somewhat mediocre, -fortunes, he had been intrusted with a mission which was entirely -after his own heart. He was to represent the Executive, in fact, in a -“sequestrating” tour through Limosin and Guienne,—or rather through -the new-found departments that had deposed those ancient -territories,—and his interest had procured me a post as his clerk or -assistant. What duties this embraced perhaps the Government would have -found it as difficult to specify as their sub-agent; but, after all, -Jacques Bonhomme emancipated was excessively conservative in the -matter of his retention of the system of complimentary sinecures. For -myself, I looked upon my appointment as the simple means to postpone -an inevitable denunciation. -</p> - -<p> -Crépin and I had by then ceased to fraternise. I could never quite -learn to adapt my sympathies to a certain <i>mauvais ton</i> that underlay -in him all the sensitiveness of the voluptuary. Also, perhaps, I was -beginning a little to resent the humourless methods of a destiny that -had not the wit, it seemed, to rebuke my innate luxuriousness but by -affecting a concern to accommodate me with house-fellows of my own -kidney. We parted on the best of terms; and he none the less attended -to my interests and, as far as possible, to my safety. To the end, I -think, he retained an admiration for the superior quality of my -epigastrium; and when his opportunity came to do me a service, he -never failed to remind me of his indebtedness to my fastidious -<i>gourmandise</i>. -</p> - -<p> -We left the city, travelling <i>en roi</i>, on a fine blowing afternoon. We -had our roomy carriage, with four well-blooded horses, and a postilion -to each pair. An escort of four patriots, moreover, mounted, armed, -and generally drunk, accompanied us to enforce the letter of the law. -We went out by the suburb of Passy, starting from the -Pavillon-Liberté, close by the Thuilleries,—where Crépin received -his papers of administration—and whipping along the river-bank by way -of the Port aux Pierres. Close by the gates the carriage gave a -thudding jolt, and drew up suddenly to an accompaniment of noise like -the screaming of a swollen axle. -</p> - -<p> -I started up in my corner. -</p> - -<p> -“What is it?” I exclaimed; but three men, risen at that moment from a -bench under some chestnut-trees, engaged my surprised attention. They -made at the postilions, it seemed, and the face of him that was -foremost twitched with a rage of nervous resentment. Their hats had -been laid beside them in the shade, and I noticed that as this -individual sprang to his feet, the powder leapt from his head as if a -musket-ball had struck it. For he was very sprucely groomed, every -hair currycombed to run parallel with its fellows; and there was a -fastidious neatness about his appearance that was like the peevish -delicacy of an invalid. -</p> - -<p> -Such, indeed, he was, from more than one point of view; for he was no -other than M. Robespierre himself, dressed in the fine blue coat he -was studying to make historical, and exhibiting the weak extremes of -his nature in presence of a run-over dog. -</p> - -<p> -“But this is infamous!” I heard him shrill, in a strained wavering -voice. “Thus to shock our humanity and our nerves!” -</p> - -<p> -He ran to the carriage window in uncontrollable excitement. He bustled -with his shaking speech so that it was hardly audible. -</p> - -<p> -“What mischief produces itself that you tear through the streets like -brigands? Messieurs—messieurs! but I say you have no right—citizens, -do you hear?” -</p> - -<p> -Crépin, dismayed, muttered something about authority. The other -snapped at the word and worried it. -</p> - -<p> -“Authority! there is none in this city to be careless of innocent -lives. Authority! who excuses himself to me—to the Republic—by -assuming a licence to murder under its ægis,—yes, murder, I say? You -would adopt the prerogatives of aristocrats—you are an -aristocrat—Tachereau! St Just!” -</p> - -<p> -He was beside himself. His lean hands picked at the window-frame. All -the time the poor cur in the road was screeching, and the sound seemed -to jar him out of his self-control. One of his companions stepped up -to him, put a hand upon his arm, and drew him away. Quite a little mob -had gathered about us. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Reculez les chevaux!</i>” said this person to the postilions. “Complete -what you have begun.” -</p> - -<p> -The horses backed the carriage once, and drew forward again, stilling -the cries. Personally I should have preferred alighting during the -operation. Robespierre ran to the trees and put his palms to his ears, -doubling himself up as if he had the toothache. The other came to the -window once more. -</p> - -<p> -This was the “Apocalyptic!” of the Assembly, its most admirable type -of fanaticism. Dark and immovable as a Nubian archer in a wall -painting, he might have been represented for ever holding the taut -string and the arrow that should whistle to its mark. He was young, a -mere boy—melancholy, olive-skinned, beautiful in his way. Cold, -incorruptible, merciless, nevertheless, he—this St Just—was yet that -one of the ultra-revolutionists I could find it in me to regard -admiringly. Of all, he alone acted up to the last letter of his creed -of purification. Of all, he alone was willing to do a long life’s -reaping without wage, without even that posthumous consideration of a -niche in the “Pantheon of history.” Like the figure of Time on a -clock, he was part and parcel of the scythe with which he wrought. He -must move when the hour came—cutting right and left—and with the -last stroke of inspiration he must stop until the wheels of being -should bring him to the front once more. Truly, he was not great, but, -quite possibly, necessary; and as such, one could not but exclaim over -his faultless mechanism. He sacrificed his life to his cause, long -before it was demanded of him, and in the end flung himself to the axe -as to a kindred spirit with which his structural and destructive -genius was quite in sympathy. One must acknowledge that he made a -consistent practice of that which is the true art of reform—to know -whom to exclude from one’s system. Only, he was a little too drastic -in his exclusion; and that came from a lack of <i>ton</i>. For your fanatic -sees a reactionary in every one whose mouth opens for what reason -soever but to applaud his methods; and the sneers which his -sensitiveness regards as levelled at himself, he puts to the account -of treason against his policy. -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen Crépin,” he said (for he had already identified my -companion), “for the future, if you must ride rough-shod, I would -recommend you to make the meanest your first consideration.” -</p> - -<p> -“But, citizen, it was no fault of mine.” -</p> - -<p> -“You have a voice to control, I presume?”—he stepped back and waved -his hand. “<i>Allez vous promener!</i>”—and the carriage jerked forward. -</p> - -<p> -I shot a glance at the other as we passed. He was retired from the -scene, and he seemed endeavouring to control the agitation into which -he had been betrayed; but he looked evilly from under his jumping -eyelids at us as we went by. -</p> - -<p> -We travelled cautiously until we were gone a long gunshot from the -city walls, and then Crépin put his head out of the window and cursed -on the postilions furiously. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Savant sacré!</i>” he cried, sinking back on the seat; “we are whipt -and rebuked like schoolboys. Is a Republic a seminary for street curs? -They should hoist Reason in a balloon if she is to travel. That St -Just—he will make it indictable to crack a flea on one’s thumb-nail.” -</p> - -<p> -“What were they doing in that quarter of the town?” -</p> - -<p> -“How should I know, Citizen Thibaut? Spinning webs under the trees, -maybe, to catch unwary flies. They and others spend much of each day -in the suburbs. It is the custom of attorneys, as it is of -story-writers, to hatch their plots in green nooks. They brood for a -week that they may speak for an hour. Robespierre comes to Passy and -Auteuil for inspiration. Couthon goes every day to Neuilly for -bagatelle. My faith, but how these advocates make morality -unattractive! A dozen lawyers amongst the elect would produce a second -revolt of the angels. That is why the devil is loath to recall them.” -</p> - -<p> -“To recall them?” -</p> - -<p> -“They are his ambassadors, monsieur, and it is his trouble that they -are for ever being handed their passports to quit such soil as he -would be represented on. Then they return to him for fresh -instructions; but they will not understand that human passions are not -to be controlled by rule of thumb.” -</p> - -<p> -“Or sounded by depth of plumb, Crépin; and, upon my word, you are a -fine bailiff to your masters.” -</p> - - -<p class="mt1"> -Now, I have no wish to detail the processes of our monotonous journey -into the south-westerly departments, whereto—that is to say, to the -borders of Dordogne—it took us eight days to travel. We had our -excitements, our vexations, our adventures even; but these were by the -way, and without bearing on what I have set myself to relate. -</p> - -<p> -One evening as we were lazily rolling along an empty country road, -making for the little walled town of Coutras, where the fourth Henry -was known to his credit once upon a time, a trace snapped, leading to -more damage and a little confusion amongst the horses. I alighted in a -hurry—Crépin, whose veins were congested with Bordeaux, slumbering -profoundly on in his corner—and finding that the accident must cause -us some small delay, strolled back along the road we had come by, for -it looked beautiful in perspective. Our escort, I may say, affecting -ignorance of our mishap, had rattled on into the dusk. -</p> - -<p> -It was a night for love, or fairies, or any of those little gracious -interchanges of soul that France had nothing the art to conceive in -those years. The wind, that had toyed all day with flowers, was sweet -with a languorous and desirable playfulness; a ripening girl moon sat -low on a causeway of mist, embroidering a banner of cloud that blew -from her hands; the floating hills were hung with blots of woodland, -and to peer into the trance of sky was to catch a star here and there -like a note of music. -</p> - -<p> -I turned an elbow of the road and strolled to a little bridge spanning -a brook that I had noticed some minutes earlier in passing. Leaning -over the parapet, I saw the water swell to a miniature pond as it -approached the arch—a shallow ferry designed to cool the fetlocks of -weary horses. The whole was a mirror of placidity. It flowed like a -white oil, reflecting in intenser accent the fading vault above, so -that one seemed to be looking down upon a subterranean dawn—and, “It -is there and thus,” I murmured, “the little people begin their day.” -</p> - -<p> -There were rushes fringing the brook-edge, as I knew only by their -sharp reversed pictures in the blanched water-glass, and a leaning -stake in mid-stream repeated itself blackly that the hairy goblins -below might have something to scratch themselves on; and then this -fancy did so possess me that, when a bat dipt to the surface and rose -again, its reality and not its shadow seemed to flee into the depths. -At last a nightingale sang from a little copse hard by, completing my -bewitchment—and so my thraldom to dreams was nearly made everlasting. -For, it appeared, a man had come softly out of the woods behind me, -while I hung over the parapet, and was stealing towards me on tiptoe -with clubbed bludgeon. -</p> - -<p> -It was a stag-beetle that saved my life—whereout of might be snatched -many little rags of reflections; for it shot whizzing and booming past -my ear and startled me to a sudden sideway jump. The fellow was almost -on my back at the moment, and could not check his impetus. He came -crack against the low wall, his club span out of his fist, and he -himself clutched, failed, and went over with a mighty splash into the -water underneath. -</p> - -<p> -The ludicrous <i>dénoûment</i> gave me time to collect my faculties. I -was at no loss for an immediate solution of the incident. The -highways, in these glorious days of fraternity, were infested with -footpads, and no farther than five miles out of Paris we had had -trouble with them. Doubtless this rascal, the carriage being out of -sight, had taken me for a solitary pedestrian. -</p> - -<p> -I looked over the parapet, feeling myself master of the situation, -though I had no weapon upon me. My assailant was gathering his long -limbs together in the shallow pool. The water dragged the hair over -his eyes and ran in a stream from his bristling chin. Suddenly he saw, -drew a pistol, and clicked it at me. It was a futile and desperate -action, and calculated only to confirm my estimate of his character. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Ventrebleu</i> and the devil!” he shouted. “Make way for me, sir.” -</p> - -<p> -I waved my hand, right and left of the ferry. Should he emerge either -way, I could easily forestall him. -</p> - -<p> -“You have your choice of roads,” I said, politely. -</p> - -<p> -He recognised his difficulty, and turned as if to wade up stream and -escape by the fields. His fourth step brought him into deep water, out -of which he floundered snorting. -</p> - -<p> -“Try under the bridge,” I said. “It is the right passage for rats.” -</p> - -<p> -He cursed me volubly. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, we are one to one,” said he in sudden decision, and came -splashing out on the Coutras side. -</p> - -<p> -The moment he climbed up the bank I closed with him. He was fairly -handicapped by his liquid load, and out of breath and of conceit with -his luck besides. He aimed a blow at me with his pistol-butt, but I -easily avoided it and let him topple his length again—assisting him -in fact—but this time in the dust. Then I sat on him, and threatened -his head with a great stone. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Pouf!</i>” said he, panting. “I protest I am no adept at this -business.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is it your only one?” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“At this date, yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“So—you have been an honest man? And what more can a patriot boast -of?” -</p> - -<p> -I whistled and called to my companions. My prisoner looked amazed. -</p> - -<p> -“You are not alone!” he exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“By no means. My escort is round the curve of the road there.” -</p> - -<p> -He seemed to collapse under me. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Merci, monsieur!</i>” he muttered, “<i>merci!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“What, in these days!” -</p> - -<p> -He dared his chance of the stone, and began to struggle violently. I -doubt if I could have held him long if Crépin and one of the -postilions had not come running up to my shout. A few words were -enough to explain the situation, and we conducted the fellow to the -carriage and strapped him upon one of the horses in a way compromising -to his dignity. And so he became of our party when we moved on once -more. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Coutras clacks with mills and is musical with weirs. The spirit of the -warlike king yet informs its old umber walls and toppling houses. I -found it a place so fragrant with antique and with natural beauties, -that my heart wept over the present human degeneracy that vulgarised -it. It lies amongst the last distant swells, as it were, of the great -billows of the Auvergne mountains, before those swells have rolled -themselves to waste in the sombre flats of the Landes. It is the -hill-slope garden on the fringe of the moor; the resting-place of the -sea and the high-rock winds; the hostelry where these meet and embrace -and people the vineyards with baby breezes. It has grown old listening -under its great chestnuts to the sweet thunder of the Isle and the -Dronne. Its peasants, pagan in their instinct for beauty, train their -vines up the elm and walnut trees, that in autumn they may dance under -a dropping rain of grapes. At the same time, I am bound to confess -that their wine suffers for the sake of this picturesqueness. -</p> - -<p> -Now, as we entered it by moonlight, it was a panic town, restless, -scurrying, lurid. The new spirit ran vile and naked in its venerable -streets; the air was poisonous with the breath of <i>ça ira</i>. For, -since we left Paris, this had happened. The Girondists were fallen and -hunted men, and Tallien and Ysabeau were at La Réole, preparing for a -descent on Bordeaux. We learned it all at the gate, and also that the -spies and agents of these scoundrels were everywhere abroad, nosing -after the escaped deputies, bullying, torturing, and denouncing. -</p> - -<p> -“It would appear we are forestalled,” said Crépin, drily. “M. -Thibaut, have you a mind to rake over dead ashes? Well, I have heard -of the white wine of Bergerac. At least I will taste that before I go -to bed.” -</p> - -<p> -We drove up to the Golden Lion, whither our scamps had preceded us. -Patriots hooted our prisoner as we clattered through the streets, or -whipped at him with their ramrods. The decent citizens fled before us, -and white-faced girls peeped from behind the white curtains of their -little bed-chambers, crushing the dimity against their swelling -bosoms. Oh! we were great people, I can assure you. -</p> - -<p> -At the hostelry—a high, mud-coloured building, with window-places -fringed with stone, and its hill of a roof fretted thick as a -dove-cote with dormer casements—they brought to our carriage a poor -weeping maid. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>La demoiselle des pleurs</i>,” said Bonnet-rouge, with a grin. -</p> - -<p> -“Eh?” said Crépin. -</p> - -<p> -“The <i>aubergiste</i>, citizen.” -</p> - -<p> -Crépin looked at the poor creature with disfavour. Certainly she was -very plain, though quite young, and her homely face was blowzed with -tears. -</p> - -<p> -“Why do you cry then, little fool?” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, they have taken my father to La Réole.” -</p> - -<p> -“He will return, if innocent.” -</p> - -<p> -“Alas! no, monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -“What! you would discredit the impartiality of the Republic?” -</p> - -<p> -He stepped from the carriage, and took her by the shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -“He will return, if innocent, I say; and would the law had enlarged -him before we arrived! You are in charge here, <i>citoyenne</i>?” -</p> - -<p> -“But yes, monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -“A thousand devils!—and disorganised, I’ll swear; no fire in the -kitchen, no food in the larder.” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur is in error. I go at once to serve the first monsieur of our -best.” -</p> - -<p> -“The first—<i>sacré!</i> is that also forestalled? But who is this -first?” -</p> - -<p> -“The same as monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -“And dost thou know who <i>I</i> am?” -</p> - -<p> -“Alas, monsieur! You come and go, and you are all great and imperious. -But I would not with a word offend monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -“Listen, girl.” (A crowd stood about. He spoke for the benefit of -all.) “I am a high officer of the Republic, <i>en mission</i> to rout out -the disaffected and to enforce the law. Go, and say to this citizen -that, with his permission, I will join him.” -</p> - -<p> -Our rogues were unstrapping the footpad from the horse as he spoke. As -they tumbled him, half silly with his jolting and with the blows he -had received, upon his feet, the <i>aubergiste</i> gave a faint cry. -Crépin caught her as she retreated, and twisted her about once more. -</p> - -<p> -“You know this <i>Chevalier de la Coupe</i>?” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, I—how can I say? So many drink wine with us.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at her sternly a moment, then pushed her from him. -</p> - -<p> -“For supper, the best in the house!” he called after her, and turned -to arrange for the disposition of his men and their prisoner. -</p> - -<p> -By-and-by the <i>aubergiste</i> came to conduct us to table. As we went -thither, Crépin stopped, took the girl by the chin, and looked into -her wet inflamed eyes. If the prospect of good fare exhilarated him, I -will say, also, for his credit, that I believe he had a kindly nature. -</p> - -<p> -“For the future,” he said, “be discreet and make a study to command -your nerves. In these days one must look on life through the little -window of the <i>lunette</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -We found our forestaller (who, by the way, had returned no answer to -Crépin’s polite message) established in the eating-room when we -entered it. He was a coarse, blotched ruffian, thick and overbearing, -and he stared at us insolently as he lay sprawled over a couple of -chairs. -</p> - -<p> -“So, thou wouldst share my supper?” he cried, in a rumbling, vibrant -voice. “Lie down under the table, citizen, and thou shalt have a big -plate of scraps when once my belly is satisfied.” -</p> - -<p> -Crépin paused near the threshold. I tingled with secret laughter to -watch the bludgeoning of these two parvenus. But my respected chief -had the advantage of an acquired courtesy. -</p> - -<p> -“You honour me beyond my expectations,” he said. “But, if I were to -break the dish over the citizen’s face, the scraps would fall the -sooner.” -</p> - -<p> -The other scrambled to his feet with a furious grimace. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Canaille!</i>” he shouted (it was curious that I never heard an upstart -but would apply this term in a quarrel to those of his own -kidney)—“Scum! pigwash! Do you know my name, my office, my -reputation? God’s-blood! I’ve a mind to have you roasted in a fat -hog’s skin and served for the first course!” -</p> - -<p> -Crépin walked up to the bully very coolly. <i>M. le Représentant</i> had -plenty of courage in the ordinary affairs of life. -</p> - -<p> -“Do I know who you are?” he said. “Why, I take you for one of those -curs that are whipt on to do the dirty work of the people’s ministers. -And do you know who I am, citizen spy? I hold my commission direct -from the Committee of Safety, with full authority of sequestration and -requisition, and no tittle of responsibility to your masters at La -Réole. If you interfere with the processes of my office, I shall have -something additional to say in my report to the chiefs of my -department, whom your highness may recognise by the names of -Billaud-Varennes and Collot-d’Herbois. If you insult me personally, I -shall thrash you with a dog-whip.” -</p> - -<p> -The creature was but a huge wind-bag. I never saw one collapse so -suddenly. Crépin, it is true, had some fearful names to conjure by. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>M. le Représentant</i>,” said the former, in a fallen, flabby voice, -“I have no desire to oppose or embarrass you. We need not clash if I -am circumspect. For the rest, accept my apologies for the heat I was -betrayed into through inadvertence. We have to be so careful with -strangers.” -</p> - -<p> -He bowed clumsily. His neck was choked with a great cravat; a huge -sabre clanked on the floor beside him as he moved. He was a very ugly -piece of goods, and he bore his humiliation with secret fury, I could -perceive—the more so as the <i>aubergiste</i> brought in the first of the -dishes during the height of the dispute. -</p> - -<p> -Crépin permitted himself to be something mollified by the sight of -supper. He complimented the girl on her promptitude. The poor creature -may have been no heroine, but she was a seductive cook. We had -<i>potage</i>, most excellent, an <i>entrée</i> of chestnut-meal <i>ramequins</i>, -roasted kid stuffed with <i>truffes de Périgord</i> and served with sweet -wine-sauce. Also a magnificent brand of Bergerac was in evidence. -</p> - -<p> -Under the influence of these generous things our table-fellow’s -insolence a little revived; but now he would rally me as the safer -butt. -</p> - -<p> -“The citizen is dainty with his food.” (The fellow himself had lapped -and sucked like a pig.) -</p> - -<p> -“I owe it to the cook,” said I, serenely. -</p> - -<p> -“A debt of love. Thou shalt pay it her presently when the lights are -out.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are an ill-conditioned hog,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -He sprang, toppling, to his feet. -</p> - -<p> -“Mother of God!” he stuttered, hoarsely; “this goes too far, this——” -</p> - -<p> -He caught Crépin’s eye and subsided again, muttering. We were all -pretty warm with liquor; but my superior officer was grown benignant -under its influence. -</p> - -<p> -“For shame, citizens!” he said, blandly, “to put a coarse accent to -this heavenly bouquet.” -</p> - -<p> -He had bettered me in the philosophy of the palate. I confess it at -once. -</p> - -<p> -The other (his name, we came to know, was Lacombe—a name of infamous -notoriety in the Bordeaux business) leaned over to me presently—when -Crépin was gone from the room a moment to give a direction—with hell -glinting out of his eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>M. le Représentant’s</i> fellow,” said he; “I bow to authority, but I -kick authority’s dog in the ribs if the cur molests me.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t doubt it. It is probably the measure of your courage.” -</p> - -<p> -He nodded pregnantly. -</p> - -<p> -“The resurrection of France shall be in discretion. That is the real -courage to those whose overbearing impulse is to strike. We are -discreet, and we watch, and we evolve by degrees the whole alphabet of -espionage. Let us call A the language of the hands. These the frost of -poverty will stunt, the rack of labour will warp and disjoint. There -is your sign of a citizen of the people. Monsieur has very pretty -fingers and pink nails.” -</p> - -<p> -“By the same token a corded fist should prove one to be a hangman. -Monsieur has a knot for every knuckle.” -</p> - -<p> -He nodded again. His calmness was more deadly than his wrath. -</p> - -<p> -“You spit your insults over the shoulder of your master. You think -yourself secure in your office. But there is an order of repartee -unknown to patriots, for it was hatched in the hotbeds of Versailles.” -</p> - -<p> -He fell back in his chair—still eyeing me—with a grunt; then -suddenly leaned forward again. -</p> - -<p> -“The alphabet,” he said, “of which B shall be designated the -penetration of disguises. Coach-drivers, colporteurs, pedlars—oh, one -may happen upon the cloven hoof amongst them all.” -</p> - -<p> -I laughed, with a fine affectation of contempt. This mummy at the -feast—— -</p> - -<p> -There was a sound in the room. I turned my head. The little -<i>aubergiste</i> stood at the door, weeping and wringing her hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur!” she cried, “do not let it be done!” -</p> - -<p> -I rose and went to the child. -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me,” I said, “what is it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, the poor man that you captured! they are torturing him in -the yard.” -</p> - -<p> -I pointed with my hand to a window. Without, all during our meal, had -been a confused clatter of voices and the lurid smoke of torches -rising about the glass. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she sobbed, quite overcome. “It is not right, monsieur. It will -bring a curse upon the place.” -</p> - -<p> -I ran from the room, my blood on fire. Whatever his offence to me, I -had sooner let the rascal go than that he should fall into the hands -of drunken patriots. -</p> - -<p> -The yard was a paved space scooped from the rear of the house. A well -with a windlass pierced it about the middle, and round the low wall of -this were seated a dozen red-bonnets, our own four prominent, shouting -and quarrelling and voluble as parrots. Broken bottles strewed the -ground, and here and there a torch was stuck into the chinks of the -stones, informing all with a jumping glare of red. -</p> - -<p> -I pushed past two or three frightened onlookers, and rushed out into -the open. -</p> - -<p> -“Where is he?” I cried in a heat. “What the devil! am I not to pass -judgment on my own!” -</p> - -<p> -A moment’s silence fell. The faces of all were turned up to me, -scowling and furious. In the pause a pitiful voice came booming and -wailing up from the very bowels of the well itself. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Merci!</i> messieurs, <i>merci!</i> and I will conduct you to the treasure!” -</p> - -<p> -I wore a sword, and I drew it and sprang to the well-mouth. -</p> - -<p> -“God in heaven!” I cried, “what are you doing with him down there?” -</p> - -<p> -Several had risen by this, and were set at me, snarling like dogs. -</p> - -<p> -“The man is forfeit to the law!” they yelped. -</p> - -<p> -“That is for the law to decide.” -</p> - -<p> -“The people are the law. We sit here to condemn him while he cools his -heels.” -</p> - -<p> -“Send monsieur to fetch his friend up!” cried Lacombe’s voice over -their heads. “He will be dainty to wash his white fingers after a -meal!” -</p> - -<p> -There were cries of “Aristocrat!” Possibly they would have put the -brute’s suggestion into effect—for a tipsy patriot has no bowels—had -not Crépin at that moment run into the yard. I informed him of the -situation in a word, as he joined me by the well-side. -</p> - -<p> -“Haul up the man!” he said, coolly and peremptorily. His office -procured him some respect and more fear. Our fellows had no stomach -but to obey, and they came to the windlass, muttering, and wound their -victim up to the surface. He was a pitiable sight when he reached it. -They had trussed him to the rope with a savagery to which his swollen -joints bore witness, and, with a refinement of cruelty, had cut the -bucket from under his feet, that the full weight of his body should -hang without support. In this condition they had then lowered him up -to his neck in the black water. -</p> - -<p> -He fell, when released, a sodden moaning heap on the stones. -</p> - -<p> -“And what was to be the end?” asked Crépin. -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen <i>Représentant</i>, we could not decide; yet a show of hands was -in favour of singeing over a slow fire. Grace of God! but it would -seem the accused has forestalled the jury.” -</p> - -<p> -He had not, however. -</p> - -<p> -“Give him brandy,” said Crépin; “and bring him to the shed yonder, -when recovered, for the <i>procès verbal</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -He took my arm, and we went off together to the place designated,—an -outbuilding half full of fagots. On the way he beckoned the crying -<i>aubergiste</i>, who had followed him into the yard, to attend us. -</p> - -<p> -“For the present the man is saved,” he said to her when we were alone. -“Now, what is your interest in the rascal?” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, he was an honest man once.” -</p> - -<p> -“Of the neighbourhood?” -</p> - -<p> -She looked up at him with her little imploring red eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Come,” he said; “I owe you the debt of a grateful digestion.” -</p> - -<p> -“Of the château,” she said faintly. -</p> - -<p> -“What château?” -</p> - -<p> -“Des Pierrettes, monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -Crépin, as I, I could see, was beating his brains for some memory -connected with the name. -</p> - -<p> -“In Février’s <i>café</i>!” I said suddenly. Should it prove the same, -for the third time destiny seemed bringing me into touch with a lady -of this history. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he said. “But it is not on my list. In what direction does it -lie, girl?” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, two leagues away, off the Libourne road by the lane of the -Marron Cornu.” -</p> - -<p> -“And who inhabits it?” -</p> - -<p> -The poor girl looked infinitely distressed. -</p> - -<p> -“It is M. de Lâge and his niece. You will not make me the instrument -to harm them, monsieur. They are patriots, I will swear. Monsieur, -monsieur!” -</p> - -<p> -“Silence, girl! What are you to question the methods of the Republic? -It is a good recommendation at least that they commission a footpad to -patrol the neighbourhood.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is none of their doing. Oh, monsieur, will you not believe me? He -was an honest servant of theirs till this religion of Reason drove him -to the crooked path. And he has been dismissed this twelvemonth.” -</p> - -<p> -“Harkee, wench! If I read you right, you are well quit of a -scoundrel.” -</p> - -<p> -She fell to sobbing and clucking over that again; and in the midst of -her outburst the half-revived felon was hustled into the shed. -</p> - -<p> -The poor broken and collapsed creature fell at Crépin’s feet and -moaned for mercy. -</p> - -<p> -“Give me a day of life,” he snuffled abjectly, “and I will lead you to -the treasure.” -</p> - -<p> -One of the guard pecked at his ribs with his boot. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Pomme de chou!</i>” he grunted, “have you no other song to sing but -that?” -</p> - -<p> -But Crépin was looking extremely grave and virtuous. -</p> - -<p> -“The prisoner is in no state to be examined,” he said. “Place him -under lock and key, with food and drink; and I will put him to the -question later.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch04"> -CHAPTER IV.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE CHÂTEAU DES PIERRETTES.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -“<i>Nous y voici!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -The carriage pulled back with a jerk, so that the prisoner Michel, who -sat opposite us, was almost thrown into our laps. One of our grimy -escort appeared at the window. -</p> - -<p> -“Dog of a thief!” he growled. “Is this the turning?” -</p> - -<p> -The other <i>sacréd</i> below his breath and nodded sullenly. A vast -chestnut (the thick of its butt must have been thirty feet in -circumference) stood at the entrance to a narrow lane. Turning, with a -worrying of wheels, down the latter, we continued our journey. -</p> - -<p> -Southwards from Coutras we had broken into a <i>plat</i> of country very -wild and sterile; but now we were amongst trees again—oak, chestnut, -and walnut—that thronged the damp hollows and flung themselves over -the low hills in irresistible battalions. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly Michel bent forward and touched my companion’s knee -menacingly. The rascal was near restored to himself, and his lowering -eyes were full of gloom. -</p> - -<p> -“The treasure, monsieur,” he said; “is that the condition of my -liberty?” -</p> - -<p> -“I have said—discover it to me and thou shalt go free.” -</p> - -<p> -“But I, monsieur, I also must make a condition.” -</p> - -<p> -Crépin stared. The man bent still more earnestly forward. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle Carinne——” -</p> - -<p> -“The niece of De Lâge——?” -</p> - -<p> -“She must be considered—respected. I will not have her insulted with -a look.” -</p> - -<p> -“What now, Michel?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur! you may do as you will with the old, hard man; but -her—her——” -</p> - -<p> -“And is it for the lady’s sake thou hast forborne hitherto to -appropriate this treasure, the hiding-place of which thou wilt buy thy -life by revealing?” -</p> - -<p> -“It is so. I have driven a desperate trade, starving often with this -knowledge in my breast.” -</p> - -<p> -“But why?” -</p> - -<p> -“How can I tell? I have known her from a child. Once she struck me -that I killed a cheeping wolf-cub she had brought from the snow; and -then she was sorry and kissed the little stupid bruise; and I swore my -arm should rot before it lost the will to protect her.” -</p> - -<p> -“I will do my best.” -</p> - -<p> -“But that is not enough. My God! if I were to sacrifice mademoiselle’s -<i>dot</i> without purpose.” -</p> - -<p> -“The purpose is thy life.” -</p> - -<p> -“That were nothing were she dishonoured.” -</p> - -<p> -I put in a serene word— -</p> - -<p> -“Yet it seems you would condemn her to poverty to save your skin?” -</p> - -<p> -“That is different. I should have life; and life means many -things—the power, possibly, to influence her fortunes; at least the -wash of wine again in one’s dusty throat.” -</p> - -<p> -“Michel,” I said, “I must applaud you for a capital rogue.” -</p> - -<p> -He stared at me sombrely, muttered, “<i>Je suis ce que je suis</i>,” and -sank back in his corner. -</p> - -<p> -We were running between dark hedges at the time. Suddenly we came -among farm-buildings, a thronging dilapidated group. The byres -mouldered on their props; the flat stones of the roofs had flaked -generations of rubbish upon the weedy ground beneath. -</p> - -<p> -Crépin rubbed his hands. -</p> - -<p> -“It is well,” he said. “This without doubt is a skinflint.” -</p> - -<p> -We turned a corner and passed the entrance to a ruined drive. Here the -tall iron gates, swinging upon massive posts of rubble-stone, had been -recently, it seemed, torn from their moorings of grass and knotted -bindweed, for the ground was scarred and the lower bars of metal hung -with rags of drooping green. Crépin’s features underwent another -change at the sight. -</p> - -<p> -“But what is this?” he muttered. “Something unaccustomed—some -scare—some panic?” -</p> - -<p> -He looked with sudden fury at the prisoner. -</p> - -<p> -“If he has got wind of our coming—has escaped with——” -</p> - -<p> -He broke off, showing his teeth and grinding his hands together. At -the moment we came in view of the château. -</p> - -<p> -It was an old grey house—built of the same material as the -gate-pillars—with a high-pitched roof and little corner <i>tourelles</i>. -Once, presumably, a possession of importance, decay and neglect had -now beggared it beyond description. Yet within and without were -evidences of that vulgar miserly spirit that seeks by inadequate -tinkering to deceive with half-measures. The tangled grass of the lawn -was cut only where its untidiness would have been most in evidence, -and its litter left where it fell. Triton blew his conch from a fine -fountain basin near the middle of the plot; but the shell, threatening -to break away, had been fastened to the sea-god’s lips with a ligament -of twine that was knotted round the head. A crippled bench was propped -with a stone; a shattered ball-capital at the entrance-door held -together with a loop of wire. What restoration that was visible was -all in this vein of ludicrous economy. -</p> - -<p> -But not a sign of life was about—no footstep in the grounds, no face -at any window. To all appearance the place was desolate. -</p> - -<p> -We drew up at the broken stone porch. The door was already flung wide, -and we entered, with all the usual insolent clatter of “fraternity,” -an echoing hall. Here, as elsewhere, were dust and decay—inconsequent -patching and the same tawdry affectation of repair. -</p> - -<p> -A shallow flight of stairs, broad and oaken, led straight up to a -little low gallery that bisected the hall like a transom. Up these -steps we scuttled, the escort driving the prisoner amongst them, and -came to a corridor from which a number of closed doors shut off the -living rooms of the house. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly Crépin put up his hand and motioned us to silence. From one -of the invisible chambers, some distance down the corridor, rose and -fell, like wind in a key-hole, a little blasphemous complaining voice. -</p> - -<p> -“In the sober moonlight of my days!” we made it out to cry—“after -scaling the rough peaks of self-denial, thus to be tilted over into -the depths again by a lying Providence!” -</p> - -<p> -There followed some shrill storming of nouns and epithets; then a -pause, out of which the voice snapped once more— -</p> - -<p> -“I hear you, you scum of ditches—you stinking offal of the -Faubourgs—you publicans ennobled of a short-sighted Saviour!—Come -back and finish your work, and I will spit poison on you that you -shall follow me to the hell—to the hell, I say——” -</p> - -<p> -The furious dragging of a chair mangled the sentence; then came a -jarring thump and a further shrieking of oaths. With one impulse we -made for the door, threw it open, and burst into the room. In the -midst of a lofty chamber lay a little man struggling on the floor, a -pretty heavy <i>prie-dieu</i>, to which he had been bound with his arms -behind his back, jerking and bobbing above him with his every kick. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mais c’est une tortue!</i>” cried one of the crew, with a howl of -laughter. -</p> - -<p> -The tortoise twisted up its face, disfigured with passion. It was the -face, without doubt, of the little <i>fesse-Mathieu</i> of Février’s -restaurant. -</p> - -<p> -The room in which he lay was of good proportions, but furnished -meagrely, and informed with the same spirit of graceless economy as -was apparent without. For the dark ancient panels of its walls had -been smeared with some light-grey wash, and an attempt made to -decorate them with plaster wreaths and festoons in the Louis Quinze -style. The work, however, had been left unfinished, and, so far as it -went, was crude and amateurish to a degree. Obviously, here was an -example of that species of niggard that will try to cheat a dozen -trades by wringing the gist of all out of one poor factotum. -</p> - -<p> -But Crépin stood with corrugated forehead; for there were other signs -in the room than those of parsimony—signs in plenty, in fact, that he -had been forestalled in his quest. Chairs and tables were overturned, -a bureau was smashed almost to pieces, great rents appeared in the -panelling of the walls, where search had been instituted, one would -judge, for secret depositories. -</p> - -<p> -A savage oath exploded from <i>M. le Représentant’s</i> lips. -</p> - -<p> -“That spy—that swaggerer—that Lacombe!” he muttered, looking at me. -“He was vanished this morning—he and his ragged tail—when we rose. -He got scent, without doubt, and has played outrider to my mission of -search. If it is so; if he has found and removed—my God! but for all -his Tallien and the Committee of Bordeaux he shall dance—he shall -dance!” -</p> - -<p> -He turned furiously to his men. -</p> - -<p> -“Put the rascal upright,” he bellowed. -</p> - -<p> -A couple of them lifted and spun the chair to its legs, so that the -old man’s skull jerked against the head-rail with a clack like that of -a mill-hopper. He did not seem to notice the blow. His eyes, ever -since they had alighted on this new influx of brigands, had been set -like a fish’s—wondering and unwinking. Now they slowly travelled, -taking in Crépin, Citizen Thibaut, the escort, until they -stopped—actually, it appeared, with a click—at Michel. His mouth -puckered, and, like a ring blown by a smoker, a wavering “O!” issued -from it. -</p> - -<p> -“Your <i>ci-devant</i> servant?” said Crépin, grimly. -</p> - -<p> -The old man nodded his head. -</p> - -<p> -“Michel. But, yes—it is Michel.” -</p> - -<p> -“Thou owest him compensation for that long tyranny of service.” -</p> - -<p> -“I owe him nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -“And me, citizen? Dost thou remember the Abbaye St Germain and the -killings of September?” -</p> - -<p> -I struck in with the question. I was willing, I think, for the girl’s -sake, to identify myself with a past incident. -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me bitterly, but with no recognition in his eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“I deplore the cursed fortune,” he cried in grief, “that preserved me -but for this!” -</p> - -<p> -“How now, old fool!” said Crépin, with impatience. “Thou shalt go -free when Michel has revealed to me thy secret place of hoarding.” -</p> - -<p> -M. de Lâge gave the crying snarl of a wolf. -</p> - -<p> -“Let him go—the ingrate and the traitor! What, Michel! dost thou -mangle the hand that gave thee soft litter for thy couch and honest -bread for thy belly? Look, Michel!—the white garlands on the walls -there! Dost thou remember how thou wrought’st them to pleasure thy -mistress—to win her from the depression she suffered in the sombre -oak and its long history of gloom? There they cling unfinished,—thy -solemn rebuke, Michel. Thy attachment to her was the one reality, thou -wouldst say, in a world of shadows, and yet the blatant fanfare of -those shadows was all that was needed to win thee from the reality. -And what is the price of thy kiss, Judas?” -</p> - -<p> -The man hung his head. -</p> - -<p> -“Not your life, monsieur,” he muttered. -</p> - -<p> -“Nay; but only that which makes my life endurable. And the -forfeit—what is that?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>My</i> life, monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -De Lâge drew in his breath with a cruel sound. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Hélas!</i>” he cried. “You will have to pay the penalty! the faithful -servant will have to pay the penalty!” -</p> - -<p> -Crépin uttered an exclamation and strode forward. -</p> - -<p> -“You have been stripped?” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“Of all, monsieur, of all. There have been others here before you this -morning—fine <i>sans-culotte</i> preachers of equality and the gospel of -distribution, whose practice, nevertheless, is to enrich the poor at -the expense of the wealthy. They were brave fellows by their own -showing; yet they must truss me here before they dared brandish the -fruits of their robbery before my eyes!” -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly he was straining and screaming in his bonds, his face like a -map of some inhuman territory of the passions, branched with veins for -rivers of blood. -</p> - -<p> -“Free me that I may kill some one!” he shrieked. “I am mad to groove -my fingers in flesh! The time for concessions is past. I was as wax in -their hands till they unearthed my plate, my coins, my riches. Now, -now——” -</p> - -<p> -He was indeed beyond himself, a better man—or devil—in his despair -than the money-conscious craven who had palpitated over that little -“<i>Vive le roi!</i>” once upon a time. -</p> - -<p> -Crépin regarded the struggling creature with harsh contempt. This -plebeian soul also was translated, but not to his moral promotion. It -was evident he had enlarged the scope of his anticipations greatly in -view of his prisoner’s promise; and his disappointment brought the -spotted side of him uppermost. -</p> - -<p> -“Take the dog,” he cried in a hoarse voice (signifying Michel by a -gesture), “and whip him to the lair! At least we will look to see if -the wolves have left a bone or two for our picking.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>M. le Représentant</i>,” I ventured to say, “be just to consider that -the prisoner is by all rights my prisoner. Anyhow he has stuck to his -side of the bargain. Let me hold you in fairness responsible for his -safe-conduct.” -</p> - -<p> -He turned upon me like a teased bullock. -</p> - -<p> -“In fairness!” he cried—“in fairness! But you presume, citizen, on -your position.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked as if he could have struck me; all the beast in the man was -prominent. Then he gave the order to march, and I found myself left -alone with the little grotesque in the chair. -</p> - -<p> -I was hot and indignant; but the passion of the other seemed to have -exploded itself into a rain of emotion. His dry cheeks quivered; the -tears ran down them like moisture on an old wall. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” I said, softly, “I know not whether to applaud or upbraid -you. And where is Mademoiselle Carinne?” -</p> - -<p> -He seemed quite broken in a moment—neither to resent nor to be -surprised at my mention of the girl’s name. -</p> - -<p> -“She is fled,” he whimpered—“the little graceless cabbage is fled.” -</p> - -<p> -“To safety, I hope?” -</p> - -<p> -“To the devil, for all I care.” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, I hold your wretchedness an excuse, even if you have been -careless of——” -</p> - -<p> -He caught me up, staring at me woefully. -</p> - -<p> -“Careless? but, my God! I have pampered and maintained her ever since -her brown head was a crutch to my fingers; and this is how she repays -me.” -</p> - -<p> -“What has she done?” -</p> - -<p> -“She has condemned me to beggary for a prudish sentiment—me, in my -old forlorn age. From the first I saw that the test might come—that -she might be called upon to employ the privileges of her sex on my -behalf. Free-thought, free-love! Bah! What are they but a -self-adaptation to the ever-changing conditions of life. The spirit -need not subscribe to such mere necessities of being; and a little -gratitude at least was due to me. She has none, and for that may God -strike her dead!” -</p> - -<p> -“What has she done?” -</p> - -<p> -“Done!” (His voice rose to a shriek again.) “But, what has she -not?—That scoundrel Lacombe would have exchanged me my riches—my -pitiful show of tankards that he had unearthed—for her favour. She -would not; she refused to go with him; she reviled and cursed me—me -that had been her bulwark against poverty.” -</p> - -<p> -“You would have sold her honour for your brazen pots?” -</p> - -<p> -“Gold and silver, monsieur; and it was only a question of temporary -accommodation. In a few months she might have returned, and all would -have been well again. But honour—bah! it will survive a chin-chuck -better than loss of wealth. But she would not. She escaped from us by -a lying ruse, and they sought her far and near without avail. At the -last they robbed and maltreated me, and for that may hell seize them -and fester in their bones!” -</p> - -<p> -“And in thine, thou pestilence!” -</p> - -<p> -My fury and my contempt joined with a clap, like detonating acids. -</p> - -<p> -“Lie there and rot!” I shouted, and so flung out of the room. -</p> - -<p> -My heart blazed. That white girl—that Carinne. I could recall her -face, could picture her in her loneliness arraigned before Lacombe and -his <i>sans-culottes</i> and his reptile prisoner—defying them all. With -some vague instinct of search directing my fury, I hurried through -room after room of the empty house. Each was like its neighbour, -vulgarised, scantily furnished, disfigured by the search that had been -conducted therein. Once I broke into the girl’s own bed-chamber (it -was hers, I will swear, by token of little feminine fancies consistent -with the character I had gifted her withal), and cursed the beasts who -had evidently made it the rallying-point of their brutal jesting. But -this, obviously, must be the last place in which to seek her, and I -quickly left it. -</p> - -<p> -Not a soul did I happen upon. Of whomsoever the household had -consisted, no single individual but the old villain in the chair was -remained to brazen out the situation. -</p> - -<p> -At last I made my way into the grounds once more, issuing from the -rear of the building into a patch of dense woodland that flowed up to -within fifty yards of the walls. I heard voices, and, plunging down a -moist track amongst the trees, came immediately in view of my party -returning to the house. Then I saw there were two women conducted in -its midst, and my throat jumped, and I ran forward. -</p> - -<p> -At least my sudden apprehension was comforted. These crying wenches -were of the working class—comely domestics by their appearance. -</p> - -<p> -Crépin stayed them all when he came up to me. The ugly look had not -left his face—was intensified on it, in fact. He stared at me, -haughty and lowering at once, and was altogether a very offensive -creature. -</p> - -<p> -“Has Citizen Thibaut any further exception to take to my methods of -procedure?” he said, ironically. -</p> - -<p> -I looked at him, but did not reply. -</p> - -<p> -“Because,” he went on, “perhaps his permission should be asked that -these pretty citizenesses accompany me in my carriage?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mais non, monsieur—par pitié, mais non!</i>” cried one of the wenches -in a sobbing voice. -</p> - -<p> -He bent down to her—a sicklily self-revealed animal. -</p> - -<p> -“Hush, <i>ma petite</i>!” he said. “We of the Republic do not ask—we take. -Thou shalt have a brighter gown than ever De Lâge furnished for thy -shapely limbs.” -</p> - -<p> -She stopped crying, and seemed to listen at that. He came erect again, -with a smile on his face and his lips licking together, and regarded -me defiantly. -</p> - -<p> -“The Citizen Representative can please himself,” I said, coldly, and -pushed past them all and walked on. Crépin turned to look after me, -gave a peculiar cynical laugh, and cried “<i>En avant!</i>” to his party. -</p> - -<p> -I was to read the significance of his attitude in a moment—to read it -in the dead form of Michel hanging from a tree. -</p> - -<p> -I rushed back along the path, and caught the others as they issued -from the wood. Crépin heard me coming, bade his men on to the house, -and returned a pace or two to meet me. His mood asserted, he was -something inclined, I suppose, to a resumption of the better terms -between us. At any rate, his expression now was a mixture of -embarrassment and a little apprehension. But I spoke to him very -staidly and quietly— -</p> - -<p> -“M. Crépin, it dawns upon me that I am slow to learn the methods of -the new morality, and that I shall never justify your choice of a -secretary.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are going to leave me.” -</p> - -<p> -“There will be the more room in the coach for monsieur’s harem.” -</p> - -<p> -I made him a low bow and went off amongst the trees. He called after -me—there was some real regret in his voice—“But you will come to -harm! be wise!—monsieur!” -</p> - -<p> -I paid no heed; and the thickets received and buried me. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch05"> -CHAPTER V.<br> -<span class="chap_sub"><i>LA GRAND’ BÊTE.</i></span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">My</span> rupture with Crépin was the preface to a period of my life, the -details of which I could never but doubtfully piece together in my -mind. During this period I lived, but how I supported existence is a -problem that it is beyond my power to solve. I have an indistinct -memory of wandering amongst trees—always amongst trees; in light and -darkness; in drought and in dew; of scaring and being scared by -snakes, that rustled from me over patches of dead leaves; of -swallowing, in desperate phases of hunger, berries and forest fruits, -of whose properties I was as ignorant as of their names. -</p> - -<p> -And, throughout, the strange thought dwelt with me, warm and -insistent, that I was the champion elect of that white Carinne with -whom I had never so much as exchanged a word. To me she was the Una of -these fathomless green depths—the virgin who had carried her -maidenhood and her pride to the Republic of the woods, where security -and an equal condition were the right of all. -</p> - -<p> -This fanciful image possessed a singular fascination for me. It -glimmered behind trees; it peered through the thick interlace of -branches; I heard the paddle of its feet in mossy rills, or the low -song of its voice rising from some shadow prostrate in beds of fern. -No doubt fatigue and hunger and that sense of a long responsibility -repudiated came to work a melodious madness in my brain. For days, -loitering aimlessly under its spell, I was happy—happier, I believe, -than I had ever been hitherto. I had become a thing apart from -mankind—a faun—a reversion to the near soulless type, but with the -germ of spirit budding in me. -</p> - -<p> -It was a desire to avoid a certain horror dangling over a track that -had at first driven me into the thickets, and so lost me my way. The -memory of a blot of shadow, on the sunny grass underneath that same -horror, that swayed sluggishly, like the disc of a pendulum, as the -body swayed above, got into my waking thoughts and haunted them. I -wished to put a world-wide interval between myself and the -blot—though I had seen monstrosities enough of late, God knows. But, -in the silent woods, under that enchanted fancy of my relapse to -primitive conditions, a loathing of the dead man, such as Cain might -have felt, sickened all my veins. I was done with violence—astonished -that its employment could ever have entered into the systems of such a -defenceless race as man. -</p> - -<p> -But also I knew that to me, moving no longer under the ægis of -authority, the towns and the resorts of men were become quagmires for -my uncertain feet. I was three hundred miles from Paris; all my -neighbourhood was dominated by Revolutionary Committees; my chance of -escape, did once that black cuttle-fish of the “Terror” touch me with -a tentacle, a finger-snap would express. My hitherto immunity was due, -indeed, to the offices of certain friends, and a little, perhaps, to -my constitutional tendency to allow circumstances to shape my -personality as they listed. Resigned to the remotest possibilities, my -absence of affectation was in a sense my safeguard. -</p> - -<p> -Here, however, far from the centre of operations, that which, under -certain conditions, had proved my protection, would avail me nothing. -A sober nonchalance, an easy manner, would be the very thyrsus to whip -these coarse provincial hinds to madness. And, finding in my new -emancipation—or intellectual decadence—an ecstasy I had not known -before, I was very tender of my life, and had no longer that old power -of indifference in me to the processes of fatality. -</p> - -<p> -How long this state of exaltation lasted I do not know; but I know it -came to me all in a moment that I must eat or die. It was the -reflection of my own face, I think, in a little pool of water, that -wrought in me this first dull recrudescence of reason. The wild -countenance of a maniac stared up at me. Its hollow jaws bristled like -the withered husks of a chestnut; its lips were black with the juice -of berries; an animal <i>abandon</i> slept in the pupils of its eyes. Ah! -it was better that reason should triumph over circumstance than that -the soul should subscribe tamely to its own disinheritance. -</p> - -<p> -All in an instant I had set off running through the wood. That -privilege of man, to dare and to fail, I would not abrogate for all -the green retreats of nature. -</p> - -<p> -For hours, it seemed to me, I hurried onwards. My heart sobbed in my -chest; my breath was like a knotted cord under my shirt. At last, -quite suddenly, blue sky came at me through the trunks, and I broke -from the dense covert into a field of maize, and found myself looking -down a half mile of sloping arable land upon a large town of ancient -houses, whereof at the gate opposite me the tricolour mounted guard on -the height of a sombre tower. -</p> - -<p> -Now, in view of this, my purpose somewhat wavering, I sat me down in -the thick of the corn and set to wondering how I could act for the -best. I had assignats in my pocket, and a little money, yet there -could be no dealings for me in the open market. Thinking of my -appearance, I knew that by my own act I had yielded myself to the -condition of a hunted creature. -</p> - -<p> -All the afternoon I crouched in patches of the higher stalks, peeping -down upon the town that, spreading up a gentle slope in the nearer -distance, lay mapped before my eyes. Sometimes desperate in my hunger, -I would snatch a head of the standing grain; but to chew and swallow -more than would just blunt the edge of my suffering would be, I knew, -to invite a worser torture. The sun beat on my head; my throat was -caked with drought. At last I could endure it no longer, but retreated -once more into the wood and waited for the shadows to lengthen. -</p> - -<p> -It was early evening when I ventured into the field again and looked -down. The falling sunlight smote the town with fire from the west, so -that its walls and turrets seemed to melt in the glare and run into -long pools of shadow. But here and there wan ribbons of streets, or -patches of open places, broke up the sombreness—in vivid contrast -with it—and seemed to swarm, alone of all the dappled area, with -crawling shapes. -</p> - -<p> -Of these blotches of whiteness, one flashed and scintillated at a -certain point, from some cause I could not at first fathom. Now white, -now red, it stretched across the fields a rayed beam that dazzled my -wood-haunted eyes with the witchery of its brightness. -</p> - -<p> -But presently I saw the open patch whence it issued grow dark with a -press of figures. It was as if a cloth had been pulled over a dead -face; and all in a moment the strange flash fell and rose again—like -a hawk that has caught a life in its talons,—and a second time -swooped and mounted, clustered with red rays,—and a third time and a -fourth; but by then I had interpreted the writing on the wall, and it -was the “<i>Mene, mene</i>,” written on the bright blade of the guillotine -by the finger of the setting sun. -</p> - -<p> -A very strange and quiet pity flowed in my veins as I looked. Here was -I resting amidst the tranquillity of a golden harvest, watching that -other harvest being gathered in. Could it be possible that any point -of my picture expressed other than the glowing serenity that was -necessary to the composition? I felt as if, in the intervals of the -flashing, each next victim must be stepping forward with a happy -consciousness of the part he was to play in the design. Then suddenly -I threw myself on my face, and crushed my palms against my mouth that -I might not shriek curses on the inexorable beauty of the heavens -above me. -</p> - -<p> -I did not look again, or rise from my covert till dark was drooping -over the hillside. But, with the first full radiance of moonrise, I -got to my feet, feeling dazed and light-headed, and went straight off -in an easterly direction. My plan was to circumambulate, at a safe -distance, the walls (that could enclose no possibility of help to me -in my distress), and seek relief of my hunger in some hamlet (less -emancipated) on their farther side. If the town was Libourne, as I -believed it to be, then I knew the village of St Émilion to lie but a -single league to the south-east of it. -</p> - -<p> -Walking as in a dream, I came out suddenly into the highroad, and saw -the moon-drenched whiteness of it flow down to the very closed gates -far below me. Its track was a desolate tide on which no life was -moving; for nowadays the rural population was mostly drifted or driven -into the seething market-places of the Revolution. Now my imagination -pictured this cold and silent highway a softly tumultuous stream—a -welded torrent of phantoms, mingling and pushing and hurrying, in the -midst of noiseless laughter, to beat on the town gates and cry out -murmuringly that a “suspect” was fording a channel of its upper -reaches. -</p> - -<p> -This fright, this fancy (one would hardly credit it) brought the sweat -out under my clothes. But it was to be succeeded by a worse. For, as I -looked, the boiling wash of moonlight was a road again, and there came -up it footsteps rhythmically clanking and unearthly—and others and -yet others, till the whole night was quick with their approach. And, -as the footfalls neared me, they ceased abruptly, and there followed -the sound of an axe ringing down in wooden grooves; and then I knew -that the victims of the evening, ghastly and impalpable, were come to -gaze upon the man who had indulged his soul, even for a moment, with -the enchantment of a prospect whose accent was their agony. -</p> - -<p> -Now, assuredly, my reason was in a parlous state—when, with a whoop -that broke the spell, an owl swept above me and fled eastwards down -the sky; and I answered to its call, and crossed the road and plunged -into fields again, and ran and stumbled and went blindly on once more -until I had to pause for breath. -</p> - -<p> -At last I heard the rumbling wash of water, and paused a stone’s-throw -from a river-bank; and here a weight of terror seemed to fall from me -to mark how wan and sad the real stream looked, and how human in -comparison with that other demon current of my imagining. From its -bosom a cluster of yards and masts stood up against the sky; and by -that I knew that I was come upon the Dordogne where it opened out into -a port for the once busy town of Libourne, and that if ever caution -was necessary to me it was necessary now. -</p> - -<p> -I looked to my right. A furlong off the rampart of the walls swept -black and menacing; and over them, close at hand now, the silent yoke -of the guillotine rose into the moonlight. It must have been perched -upon some high ground within; and there it stood motionless, its jaws -locked in slumber. Could it be the same monster I had watched -flashing, scarlet and furious, from the hillside? Now, the ravening of -its gluttony was satisfied; Jacques Bourreau had wiped its slobbered -lips clean with a napkin. Sullenly satiate, propped against the sky, -straddling its gaunt legs over the empty trough at its feet, it slept -with lidless eyes that seemed to gloat upon me in a hideous trance. -</p> - -<p> -Bah! Now all this is not Jean-Louis Sebastien de Crancé, nor even -Citizen Thibaut. It is, in truth, the half-conscious delirium of a -brain swimming a little with hunger and thirst and fatigue; and I must -cut myself adrift from the hysterical retrospection. -</p> - -<p> -I hurried towards the river, running obliquely to the south-east. If I -could once win to clean water, I was prepared, in my desperation, to -attempt to swim to the opposite bank. Stumbling, and sometimes -wallowing, I made my way up a sludgy shore and suddenly came to a -little creek or cove where a boat lay moored to a post. Close by, a -wooden shanty, set in a small common garden with benches, like the -Guinguettes of Paris, rattled to its very walls with boisterous -disputation, while the shadows of men tossing wine-cups danced on its -one window-blind. I unhitched the painter of the boat, pushed the prow -from the bank, and, as the little craft swung out into the channel, -scrambled softly on board and felt for the sculls in a panic. When I -had once grasped and tilted these into the rowlocks, I breathed a -great sigh of relief and pulled hurriedly round the stern of a -swinging vessel into the cool-running waters of the Dordogne. -</p> - -<p> -It was not until I had made more than half the passage to the farther -side that I would venture to pause a moment to assuage my cruel -thirst. Then, resting on my oars, I dipped in my hat and drank again -and again, until my whole system seemed to flow with moisture like a -rush. At last, clapping my sopped hat on my head, I was preparing to -resume my work, when I uttered a low exclamation of astonishment, and -sat transfixed. For something moved in the stern-sheets of the boat; -and immediately, putting aside a cloak under which it appeared he had -lain asleep, a child sat up on the bottom boards. -</p> - -<p> -Now, my heart seemed to tilt like a top-heavy thing. Must this hateful -necessity be mine, then—to silence, for my own safety, this baby of -six or seven, this little comical <i>poupon</i> with the round cropt head -and ridiculous small shirt? -</p> - -<p> -He stared at me, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and suddenly began to -whimper. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Heu! heu!</i>” he cried in the cheeping voice of a duckling, “<i>la -Grand’ Bête!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -He took me for the mythical monster of the peasants, whose power of -assumption of any form is in ratio with the corrective ingenuity of -nurses and mothers. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” I said, my brain leaping to an idea; “I am <i>la Grand’ Bête</i>, -and if you make a noise I shall devour you.” -</p> - -<p> -His eyes were like full brown agates; his chin puckered to his lower -lip; but he crushed his little fists against his chest to stay the -coming outcry. My face relaxed as I looked at him. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>La Grand’ Bête</i> is kind to the little ones that obey him. Can you -use these sculls?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mais, oui</i>,” he whispered, with a soft sob; “I am the pretty little -waterman.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well. Now, little waterman, I shall land at the bank over there, -and then you can take the sculls and pull the boat across to the cove -again. But you must be very silent and secret about having gone with -<i>la Grand’ Bête</i> over the river, or he will come to your bedside in -the night and devour you.” -</p> - -<p> -I had been rowing gently as I talked, and now the nose of the skiff -grounded easily under a low bank. I shipped the sculls, reached -forward and took the rogue in my arms. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! but <i>la Grand’ Bête</i> loves the good children. Be a discreet -little waterman, and thou shalt find a gold louis under thy pillow -this very day month.” -</p> - -<p> -I kissed him, and, turning, caught at the knots of grass and hauled -myself up the bank. It was a clumsy disembarkation for a god, perhaps, -but my late comrade did not appear to be shaken in his faith. I -stopped and looked back at him when I had run a few yards from the -river. He was paddling vigorously away, with a professional air, and -the moonlight was shattered on his scull-blades into a rain of -diamonds. Suddenly a patrol-boat was pulled up the river across his -bows, and I half turned to fly, my heart in my mouth. -</p> - -<p> -“Hullo, hullo, Jacksprat!” cried a rough voice. “What dost thou here -at this hour?” -</p> - -<p> -“They were noisy in the <i>auberge</i>,” answered the childish treble, “and -I could not sleep.” -</p> - -<p> -I went on my way with a smile. To have used the boat and cast it -adrift would not have prospered me so well as did this accident. Yet I -felt a shame of meanness to hear the little thing, taking its lying -cue from me, lie to the men, and I wished I had not clinched my -purchase of his silence with that promise of a louis-d’or. -</p> - -<p> -Pushing boldly across a wide moon-dappled margin of grass, so thronged -with trees as to afford one good cover, I came out suddenly into a -field-track running southwards, and along this I sped at a fast pace. -But presently, seeing figures mounting towards me from the dip of a -flying slope, I dived into a belt of corn that ran on my left between -the track and the skirt of a dense wood, and lay close among the -stalks waiting for the travellers to pass. This, however, to my -chagrin, they did not; but, when they were come right over against me, -they stopped, very disputative and voluble in a breathless manner, and -lashed one another with knotty thongs of patriotism. -</p> - -<p> -“But who wants virtue or moderation in a Commonwealth?” -</p> - -<p> -“Dost not thou?” -</p> - -<p> -“I?—I want heads—a head for every cobblestone in the Rue St Jacques. -I would walk on the brains of self-seekers. This Roland——” -</p> - -<p> -“He wore strings in his shoes to rebuke the vanity of the Veto——” -</p> - -<p> -“And to indulge his own. Head of a cabbage! thou wouldst weep over the -orator though he condemned thy belly to starvation. What! shall I -satisfy my hunger with a thesis on the beauty of self-denial, because, -like a drum, it has a full sound!” -</p> - -<p> -“Be sure I do not defend him; but has he not practised what he -taught?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of a certainty, and is double-damned thereby. For know that these -austere moralists have found their opportunity to indulge a hobby—not -to avenge a people. What do <i>we</i> want with abstinence who have -practised it all our lives? What do we want with interminable phrases -on the sublimity of duty?” -</p> - -<p> -“But, thou wilt not understand that political economy——” -</p> - -<p> -“Bah! I know it for the economy of words—that delicious <i>terminer les -débats</i> of the jury that rolls another lying mouth into the basket -and makes a body the less to feed. But I tell thee, with every fall of -the axe I feel myself shifting a place nearer the rich joints at the -top of the feast.” -</p> - -<p> -“Liberty——” -</p> - -<p> -“That I desire is the free indulgence of my appetites. Now would not -Roland and Vergniaud and their crew shave me nicely for that -sentiment? Therefore I love to hunt them down.” -</p> - -<p> -<i>A vieux chat jeune souris.</i> How indeed could these old grimalkins, -grown toothless under tyranny, digest this tough problem of virtue for -its own sake? Their food must be minced for them. -</p> - -<p> -I never saw their faces; but I guessed them, by a certain croaking in -their speech, to be worn with years and suffering. Presently, to my -disgust, they had out their pipes and a flask of cognac and sat -themselves down against the edge of the corn for a mild carouse. I -waited on and on, listening to their snuffling talk, till I grew sick -with the monotony of it and the cramp of my position. They were, I -gathered, informers employed by Tallien in his search for those -escaped Deputies who were believed to be in hiding in the -neighbourhood. -</p> - -<p> -At last I could stand it no longer. Move I must, for all the risk it -entailed. I set to work, very cautiously, a foot at a time, wriggling -on my belly through the corn. They took no notice, each being voluble -to assert his opinions against the other. Presently, making towards -the wood, I found the field to dip downwards to its skirt, so that I -was enabled to raise myself to a crouching position and increase my -pace. The relief was immense; I was running as the tree-trunks came -near and opened out to me. -</p> - -<p> -Now, I was so weary that I thought I must sleep awhile before I -proceeded. I was pushing through the last few yards of the stalks when -a guttural snarl arrested me. Immediately, right in my path, a head -was protruded from the corn, and a bristled snout, slavering in the -moonlight, was lifted at me. I stood a moment transfixed—a long -moment, it appeared to me. The ridiculous fancy occurred to me that -the yellow eyes glaring into mine would go on dilating till presently -I should find myself embedded in their midst, like a prawn in aspic. -Then, with a feeling of indescribable politeness in my heart, I turned -aside to make a <i>détour</i> into the wood, stepping on tiptoe as if I -were leaving a sick-room. Once amongst the trees, I penetrated the -darkness rapidly to the depth of a hundred yards, not venturing to -look behind me, and, indeed, only before in search of some reasonable -branch or fork where I might rest in safety. Wolves! I had not taken -these into my calculations in the glowing solstice of summer, and it -gave me something a shock to think what I had possibly escaped during -my unguarded nights in the forest. -</p> - -<p> -At length I found the place I sought—a little natural chair of -branches high enough to be out of the reach of wild beasts, yet the -ascent thereto easy. I climbed to it, notched myself in securely, and, -my hunger somewhat comforted by the water I had drunk, fell almost -immediately into a delicious stupor. -</p> - -<p> -I awoke quite suddenly, yet with a smooth swift leap to consciousness. -The angle of moonlight was now shifted to an oblique one, so that no -rays entered direct; and the space beneath me was sunk into profound -darkness. For some moments I lay in a happy trance, dully appreciative -of the indistinct shapes that encompassed me, of the smell of living -green bark near my face, of the stars embroidered into a woof of twigs -overhead. But presently, gazing down, a queer little phenomenon of -light fixed my attention, indifferently at first, then with an -increase of wonder. This spot of pink radiance waxed and waned and -waxed and waned, with a steady recurrence, on the butt of a great -tree, twenty yards away. At first it was of a strong rosy tint, but -little by little it faded till it was a mere phosphorescent blot; and -then, while I was flogging my brains to think what it could be, of a -sudden it seemed to fly down to the noise of a little grunting -explosion, and break into a shower of scarlet sparks. -</p> - -<p> -At that I was betrayed into a squiggle of laughter; for my phenomenon -had in the flash resolved itself into nothing more mysterious than the -glow from the pipe of a man seated silently smoking, with his head -thrown back against the tree-foot. -</p> - -<p> -“Hullo!” he exclaimed in a surprised voice, but with nothing of fear -in it; and I congratulated myself at least that the voice struck a -different note to that of either of M. Tallien’s informers. -Nevertheless, I had been a fool, and I judged it the wise policy to -slide from my perch and join my unseen companion. He made me out, I am -sure, long before I did him; yet he never moved or showed sign of -apprehension. -</p> - -<p> -“Good evening, Jacques,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Good morrow, rather, Jacques squirrel,” he answered. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it so?” -</p> - -<p> -“It is so.” -</p> - -<p> -“You prefer the burrow, it seems, and I the branch.” -</p> - -<p> -“No doubt we are not birds of a feather.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, truly, I seek Deputies,” I said, in a sudden inspiration. -</p> - -<p> -“And I my fortune,” he answered, serenely. -</p> - -<p> -“We travel by the same road, then. Have you a fragment of bread on -you, comrade?” -</p> - -<p> -“If I had a loaf thou shouldst go wanting a crumb of it.” -</p> - -<p> -“And why, citizen?” -</p> - -<p> -“I do not love spies.” -</p> - -<p> -I fetched a grimace over my miscarried ruse. -</p> - -<p> -“Then wilt thou never make thy fortune in France,” I said. -</p> - -<p> -He gave a harsh laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>You</i> will prevent me for that word, citizen.” -</p> - -<p> -I curled myself up under the tree. -</p> - -<p> -“I will wait for the dawn and read thee thy fortune,” I said, “and -charge thee nothing for it but a kick to help thee on thy way.” -</p> - -<p> -He laughed again at that. -</p> - -<p> -“Thou provest thyself an ass,” said he, and refilled and lit his pipe -and smoked on silently. -</p> - -<p> -I lay awake near him, because, churl as he appeared, I felt the -advantage of any human companionship in these beast-haunted thickets. -</p> - -<p> -At last the light of dawn penetrated a little to where we rested, and -when it was broad enough to distinguish objects by, I rolled upon my -elbow and scrutinised my companion closely. -</p> - -<p> -“Good morrow, then, burner of charcoal.” -</p> - -<p> -He turned to me, a leering smile suspended on his lips. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Comment?</i>” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“But I am a palmist, my friend, as you observe.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at his stunted and blackened fists. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah! <i>si fait vraiment</i>. That is to tell my past condition of poverty, -not my fortune.” -</p> - -<p> -“The rest shall come. Observe my fitness for my post. You are from the -forests of Nontron.” -</p> - -<p> -He started and stared. -</p> - -<p> -“Truly I have no love for spies,” he muttered, dismayed. -</p> - -<p> -It was my turn to laugh. I had hazarded a bold guess. That he was from -the woods rather than from the Landes his gift of seeing through the -darkness convinced me. Then, if from the woods, why not from that part -of the province where they stretched thickest and most meet for his -trade? -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” said I, “for what follows. It comes to your ears that Guienne -is hatching a fine breed of maggots from the carcasses of dead -aristocrats; that there is a feast of rich fragments toward. You will -have your share; you will eat of these aristocrats that have so long -fed on you. That is a very natural resolve. But in a Republic of -maggots, as in all other communities, there is always a proportion of -the brood that will fatten unduly at the expense of its fellows. These -despots by constitution appropriate the most succulent parts; they wax -thick and strong, and, finally, they alone of the swarm hatch out into -flies, while the rest perish undeveloped.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is a cursed parable,” he said, sullenly. “I do not comprehend -you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I speak of the people, my friend—of whom you are not one that will -fatten.” -</p> - -<p> -“And why, and why?” -</p> - -<p> -“You have scruples. You decry at the outset the methods of this select -clique of the Republic that has the instinct to prosper. If I -congratulate you on the possession of a conscience, I must deplore in -anticipation the sacrifice of yet another martyr to that truism which -history repeats as often as men forget it.” -</p> - -<p> -“What truism, sayst thou?” -</p> - -<p> -“That swinish Fortune will love the lusty bully that drains her, -though the bulk of the litter starve.” -</p> - -<p> -He spat savagely on the ground. -</p> - -<p> -“I do not comprehend,” he muttered again. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” I said, “at least let us hope there is an especial Paradise -reserved for the undeveloped maggots.” -</p> - -<p> -He rose and stood brooding a moment; then looked away from me and -cried morosely, “Get up!” -</p> - -<p> -To my astonishment, from a sort of cradle of roots to the farther side -of the tree a young girl scrambled to her feet at his call, and stood -yawning and eyeing me loweringly. -</p> - -<p> -“Your daughter?” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” he answered, “she is my daughter. What then?” -</p> - -<p> -I jumped up in some suppressed excitement. -</p> - -<p> -“I recall my words,” I said. “You have a chance, after all, down there -in Bordeaux. And now I see that it is a thief that fears a spy.” -</p> - -<p> -I pointed at the wench. She was dressed, ridiculously, -inappropriately, in a silk gown of a past fashion, but rich in -quality, and decorated with a collar of point-lace. Out of this her -dirty countenance, thatched with a villainous mop of hair, stuck -grotesquely; and the skirt of the dress had been roughly caught up to -disencumber her bare feet. -</p> - -<p> -The man stamped on the ground. -</p> - -<p> -“I do not fear you!” he cried furiously, “and I am no thief!” -</p> - -<p> -I laughed derisively. -</p> - -<p> -“But it is true!” he shouted. “A young lady we met in the woods of -Coutras would exchange it for Nannette’s <i>jupon</i>; and why the devil -should we deny her?” -</p> - -<p> -My heart gave a sudden swerve. -</p> - -<p> -“What was she like, this lady?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -The fellow glanced sulkily askance at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Does not the spy know?” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps he does. Say this demoiselle was slender and of a reasonable -height; that she had brown hair, and grey eyes under dark brows; that -her face was of a cold, transparent whiteness; that she spoke with a -certain soft huskiness in her voice.” -</p> - -<p> -He cried under his breath, with a note of fright, “The devil is in -this man!” -</p> - -<p> -I laughed and took off my hat and made the two a bow. -</p> - -<p> -“To your quick advancement in Bordeaux!” I said. -</p> - -<p> -He stared a moment, seemed to hesitate; then, roughly summoning the -girl to follow him, strode off through the wood. The moment they were -out of sight I sat down again to ponder. -</p> - -<p> -Was it true, then, that these peasants had met Carinne—that they had -helped her to a disguise—for what purpose? She must have been in the -woods whilst I was there—accursed destiny that kept us apart! At -least I must return to them at once and seek her. -</p> - -<p> -I broke into a queer embarrassed fit of laughter. -</p> - -<p> -What self-ordained mission was this? What was my interest in the girl, -or how would she not resent, perhaps, the insolence of my -interference? She had no claim upon my protection or I upon her -favour. -</p> - -<p> -Very well and very well—but I was going to seek her, nevertheless. -Such queer little threads of irresponsible adventure pulled me in -these days. -</p> - -<p> -But, at first for my hunger. It was a great voice in an empty house. -It would not be refused or put off with a feast of sentiment. Eat I -must, if it was only of a hunk of sour pease-bread. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly I thought of that bestial apparition at the wood-skirt. There -had been a liquid “yong” in its snarl, as if it could not forbear the -action of gluttonous jaws even while they were setting at an intruder. -Perhaps the remains of a goat——! -</p> - -<p> -I started running towards the point at which, I believed, I had -entered amongst the trees. Very shortly I emerged into the open, and -saw the cornfield shimmering violet before me in the dawn. I beat up -and down amongst the standing grain, and all in a moment came upon -that I sought. A goat it might have been (or a scapegoat bearing the -sins of the people) for anything human in its appearance. Yet it was -the body of a man—of a great man, too, in his day, I believe—that -lay before me in the midst of a trampled crib of stalks, but -featureless, half-devoured—a seething abomination. -</p> - -<p> -Now, in the placid aftermath of my fortunes, I can very easily shudder -over that thought of the straits to which hunger will drive one. Then, -I only know that through all the abhorrence with which I regarded the -hideous remains, the sight of an untouched satchel flung upon the -ground beside them thrilled me with hope. I stooped, had it in my -hands, unbuckled it with shaking fingers. It was full to choking of -bread and raisins and a little flask of cognac. Probably the poor -wretch had not thought it worth his while to satisfy the needs of an -existence he was about to put an end to. For the horn handle of a -knife, the blade of which was hidden in the decaying heart of the -creature, stood out slackly from a hoop of ribs. -</p> - -<p> -I withdrew into the wood, and without a scruple attacked the -provisions. It was a dry and withered feast; yet I had been -fastidiously critical of many a <i>service aux repas</i> at Versailles that -gave me not a tithe of the pleasure I now enjoyed. And at the last I -drank to the white Andromeda whose Perseus I then and there proclaimed -myself to be. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch06"> -CHAPTER VI.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE HERD OF SWINE.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">I was</span> back in the woods of Pierrettes, my precious satchel, still -but two-thirds emptied, slung about my shoulders, my clothes wrinkled -dry from their sopping in the waters of the Dordogne. All that day of -my finding of the food had I lain concealed in the woods; but, with -the fall of dusk, I made my way, by a long <i>détour</i>, to the -river-bank, and crossed the stream swimming and in safety. And now was -I again <i>la Grand’ Bête</i>, seeking to trace in the scent of trodden -violets the path by which my phantom Carinne had vanished. -</p> - -<p> -That night I passed, warned by experience, in the branches of a tree. -With dawn of the following day I was on foot again, striking -northwards by the sun, and stretching over the encumbered miles with -all the speed I could accomplish. I had a thought in my breast, and -good fortune enabled me to put it to the proof. For, somewhere about -four o’clock as I judged, I emerged into a woodland track that I felt -convinced was the one made detestable by a dangling body; and sure -enough I came of a sudden to the fatal tree, and was aware of a cut -slack of rope hanging from a branch thereof, though the corpse itself -was removed. -</p> - -<p> -Now, it behoved me to proceed with caution, which I did; yet none so -successfully but that I came plump out of the mouth of the green -passage upon M. de Lâge himself, and saw and was seen by him in a -single moment. Therefore I had nothing for it but to brazen out the -situation. -</p> - -<p> -He showed no disturbance at my approach, nor, indeed, did he take any -notice of me; but he crept hither and thither, with lack-lustre eyes, -gathering nettles. I went up to him, suppressing my repugnance of the -miserable creature. -</p> - -<p> -“Is mademoiselle returned?” I said outright. -</p> - -<p> -He stopped in his picking, and leered up at me vaguely. He seemed -utterly broken and forlorn. -</p> - -<p> -“She will not return,” he said; and resumed his task. I stood some -moments watching him. Suddenly he clasped his hands plaintively -together and looked me again in the face. -</p> - -<p> -“Why did she go at all?” he said. “Can monsieur tell me, for I -forget?” -</p> - -<p> -He put his fingers aimlessly, like an infant, to his head. -</p> - -<p> -“I had a pride in her. She was beautiful and self-willed. <i>Mon Dieu!</i> -but she would make me laugh or tremble, the rogue. Well, she is gone.” -</p> - -<p> -Could it be that his every memory of his villainy was lost with his -cherished tankards? -</p> - -<p> -“What a love was mine,” he murmured. “I would have denied her -nothing—in reason; and she has deserted me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” I said, “do you remember me?” -</p> - -<p> -“You, you!” he cried angrily—“what do I know or care about this Orson -that springs upon me from the green? You need to be shaved and washed, -monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -“Undoubtedly; if monsieur would provide me with the means?” -</p> - -<p> -He gave me a quick inquisitive look. -</p> - -<p> -“You have a queer accent for a patriot. Well, well—it is no concern -of mine.” -</p> - -<p> -Again he resumed his task, again to pause in it. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you seek a service? I hear it is the case with many.” -</p> - -<p> -“I seek food and a lodging for the night.” -</p> - -<p> -“Eh! but can you pay for them?” -</p> - -<p> -“In reason—certainly, in reason.” -</p> - -<p> -“So, then?—should Georgette bring a generous basketful—bah!” he -cried suddenly, stamping irritably on the ground—“I offer you my poor -hospitality, monsieur, and” (the leer came into his eyes -again)—“should monsieur feel any scruple, a vail left on the -mantelpiece for the servants will doubtless satisfy it.” -</p> - -<p> -But he had no servant left to him, it would seem. When, by-and-by, he -ushered me, with apish ceremony, into his house, I found the place -desolate and forlorn as we had left it. -</p> - -<p> -“I have reduced my following,” he said, “since my niece withdrew -herself from my protection. What does a single bachelor want with an -army of locusts to devour him?” -</p> - -<p> -He showed me into a little bare room on the second floor, with nothing -worthy of remark in it but an ill-furnished bedstead, and a baneful -picture on the wall that I learnt was a portrait of Carinne by -herself. -</p> - -<p> -“It is a little of a travesty,” said De Lâge. “She looked in a -mirror, and painted as she saw herself therein—crooked, like a stick -dipt under water. But she was clever, for all she insisted that this -was a faithful likeness.” -</p> - -<p> -I believe there were tears on his face as he left me. What a riddle -was the creature! There is a blind spot in every eye, it is said—and -the eyes are the windows of the soul. -</p> - -<p> -He had supplied me with soap and water and a razor, and these I found -almost as grateful to my wants as the satchel had been. When I was -something restored to cleanliness I descended to the corridor below, -and, attracted by a sound of movement, entered one of the rooms that -opened therefrom. -</p> - -<p> -Within, a young woman was engaged in laying one end of a carved-oak -table with a white napkin. She looked round as I advanced, stared, -gave a twitter of terror, and, retreating to the wall, put an arm up, -with the elbow pointed at me, as if I were something horrible in her -sight. -</p> - -<p> -I had a sharp intuition; for this, I saw, was the little <i>aubergiste</i> -of the ‘Golden Lion.’ -</p> - -<p> -“You think me responsible for the poor rogue’s hanging?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -She whispered “Yes,” with a pitiful attempt to summon her indignation -to this ordeal of fear. I went up to her and spoke gently, while she -shrunk from me. -</p> - -<p> -“Georgette, my child, it is not so. You must take that on my honour, -for I am a gentleman, Georgette, in disguise.” -</p> - -<p> -“In disguise?” she whispered, with trembling lips; but her eyes -wondered. -</p> - -<p> -“Truly, little girl; I am a wanderer now, and proscribed because I -would not lend myself to thy Michel’s punishment.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” she sobbed, “but it was cruel. And the Republic destroys its own -children, m’sieu’.” -</p> - -<p> -“Thy father——?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah! he, at least, is back, if still under surveillance; otherwise I -should not be enabled to come daily to minister to the needs of this -poor lonely old man.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now thou art a good soul, thou little <i>aubergiste</i>. And thy -ministrations are meat to him, I perceive.” -</p> - -<p> -“Hush, m’sieu’! but if he were to hear? He asks no questions, he -accepts all like a child. He would die of shame were he to learn that -he owes his dinner to the gratitude of m’sieu’ his father’s -dependant.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is he so sensitive? Thou great little Georgette! And -mademoiselle—she does not return?” -</p> - -<p> -She shook her head. -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me where she is, child; for I believe you know.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” she murmured, obviously in great distress, “m’sieu’ must not ask -me.” -</p> - -<p> -I took her hands and drew her towards me. -</p> - -<p> -“Look in my eyes and tell me what you see there.” -</p> - -<p> -She glanced up scared and entreating. -</p> - -<p> -“But, is it cruelty, false faith, the currish soul of the liar and -informer?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no, m’sieu’.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then is it not, rather, the honour of a gentleman, the chivalry that -would help and protect a defenceless woman cast adrift in this fearful -land of blood and licence?” -</p> - -<p> -I gave her my title. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” I said, “you can cast me to the axe with a word. And where is -Mademoiselle Carinne, Georgette?” -</p> - -<p> -She still hesitated. I could see the little womanly soul of her -tossing on a lake of tears. -</p> - -<p> -“At least,” I said, “she will not return hither?” -</p> - -<p> -“She will never return—oh, monseigneur! she will never return; and it -is not for me to say why.” -</p> - -<p> -I released her hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” I said, “I would have helped her and have cared for her, -Georgette; but you will not let me.” -</p> - -<p> -She broke forth at once at that, her arms held out and her eyes -swimming. -</p> - -<p> -“I will tell you, monseigneur—all that I know; and God forgive me if -I do wrong!” -</p> - -<p> -“And me, Georgette, and wither me with His vengeance.” -</p> - -<p> -“I will tell you, monseigneur. That night—that night after the -terror, she spent in the woods, and all the next day she hid there, -moving towards Coutras. I would go often to the Château to take to M. -de Lâge the money for our weekly bill of faggots, and—and for other -reasons; and now she watched for me and waylaid me and told me all. -Oh, m’sieu’! she was incensed—and it was not for me to judge; but M. -de Lâge is a wise man, and perhaps there is a wisdom that makes too -little account of the scruples of our sex.” -</p> - -<p> -“She would not return to him? Well!” -</p> - -<p> -“She would beg or starve sooner, she said; and she would begin by -asking a little food of me. Oh, m’sieu’, but the sad proud demoiselle! -My heart wept to hear her so humble to the peasant girl to whom she -had been good and gracious always in the old days of peace.” -</p> - -<p> -“That is well. And where is she?” -</p> - -<p> -“I cannot tell you, m’sieu’. Ah, pardon! She but waited for the night, -when I could bring her food—all that would keep and that she could -carry—and then she started on foot for the mountains of Gatine.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now, <i>mon Dieu</i>! they must be twenty leagues away.” -</p> - -<p> -“Twenty-five, m’sieu’, by La Roche Chalais and Mareuil. But she would -avoid the towns, and journey by way of the woods and the harsh -desolate country. Mother of God! but it makes me weep to think of her -white face and her tender feet in those frightful solitudes.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is madness!” -</p> - -<p> -“But indeed, m’sieu’. And, though the towns gather all to them and the -country is depopulated, there may be savages still left here and -there—swineherds, charcoal-burners, to whom that libertine -Lacombe——” -</p> - -<p> -“Silence, girl! And you would have denied her a protector!” -</p> - -<p> -“She bound me to silence, m’sieu’, lest her uncle should send in -pursuit.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is madness—it is madness. And what does she go to seek in the -mountains?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah! m’sieu’, I know not—unless it is some haven of rest where the -footstep of man is never heard.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now, Georgette; will you meet me to-night where you met her, and -bring me food—for which I will pay you—and point me out the way that -Mademoiselle Carinne took at parting? I have a mind to journey to the -mountains, also, and to go by the harsh country and to start in the -dark. Will you, Georgette?” -</p> - -<p> -“Pray the good God,” she said, “that it is not all a <i>jeu de -l’oie</i>”—and at that moment we heard De Lâge feebly mounting the -stairway. -</p> - -<p> -He entered the room and accosted me with a sort of sly courtesy that -greatly confounded me. Associations connected with my reappearance, -perhaps, had kindled the slow fuse of his memory; but the flame would -burn fitfully and in a wrong direction; and, indeed, I think the shock -of his loss (of the tankards) had quite unhinged his mind. -</p> - -<p> -“Shall we fall to?” he said. “This is not Paris; yet our good country -Grisels can canvass the favour of a hungry man.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave a ridiculous little laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“And what have we here, girl?” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“M’sieu’, it is a pasty of young partridges.” -</p> - -<p> -His palate was not dulled with his wits. It foretasted the delicacy -and his eyes moistened. He lingered regretfully over the wedge he cut -for me. -</p> - -<p> -“Be generous, monsieur,” he cried, with an enjoying chuckle, “and own -that you have been served none better at Véry’s. Oh, but I know my -Paris! I was there so late as September of last year, and again, on -business connected with my estate, during the month of the king’s -trial.” -</p> - -<p> -He blenched over some sudden half-memory; but the sight of Georgette -carrying my platter to me restored him to the business of the table. -</p> - -<p> -“I know my Paris!” he cried again. “I have taken kidneys with -champagne at La Rapée’s; sheep’s feet at la Buvette du Palais; -oysters at Rocher de Cançale. Ho-ho! but does monsieur know the -Rocher?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Venite ad me omnes qui stomacho laboratis, et ego restaurabo vos!</i>” -I said, quoting a well-known inscription over an eating-house. -</p> - -<p> -He gave a sharp little squeak. -</p> - -<p> -“Eh! but monsieur has the right etymology of the <i>restaurateur</i>; he is -a man of taste and of delicacy. This poor burgundy” (he clawed up his -glass)—“it might have been Clos Vougeot de Tourton if monsieur had -not been so stringent in his sequestration.” -</p> - -<p> -He favoured me with a leer—very arch and very anxious. I could only -stare. Evidently he took me, in his wandering mind, for some other -than that I was. I was to be enlightened in a moment. -</p> - -<p> -It was when Georgette had left the room and we were alone. The falling -sunlight came through a curtain of vine-leaves about the window, and -reddened his old mad face. He bent forward, looking at me eagerly. -</p> - -<p> -“Hush, monsieur! The plate—the tankards—the christening-cups! You -will let me have them back? My God! there was a cross, in niello, of -the twelfth century. It will bring you nothing in the markets of the -Vandals. Monsieur, monsieur! I accept your terms—hot terms, brave -terms for a bold wooer. But you must not seek to carry her with a high -hand. She knows herself, and her pride and her beauty. Hush! I can -tell you where she lies hidden. She crouches under a rosebush in the -garden, and as the petals fall, they have covered and concealed her.” -</p> - -<p> -Now I understood. He was again, in his lost soul, staking Carinne -against his forfeited pots. He took me for Lacombe. -</p> - -<p> -I jumped to my feet. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -And now began my second period of wandering; but under conditions -infinitely more trying than the first. Keeping to the dense woods by -day, and traversing the highways only by night, I had hitherto escaped -that which was to prove the cruellest usurer of my vigour—the -merciless blazing sun. Here, as I travelled by desolate broomy wastes; -by arid hills, from which any knob of rock projecting was hot as the -handle of an oven; by choking woods and endless winding valleys,—I -would sometimes ask myself in amazement what could be the nature of -the infatuation that for its own sake would elect to endure these -sufferings. I had not spoken to the girl. I was not authorised to -champion her cause. Strangest of all, the lack of womanly -sensitiveness she had displayed under the very ordeal of St Fargeau’s -dying groans had not prepossessed me in her favour. Yet, slowly was I -making, and would continue to make, my way to these mountains of -Limosin, in the dreamy hope of happening upon a self-willed and rather -heartless young woman, who—if we <i>were</i> to come together—would -probably resent my intrusion as an affront. Truly an eccentric quest. -</p> - -<p> -Well—I was unaccountable to myself, and of no account to others. -Maybe that last is the explanation. My world of conventions was dead, -and I lived—as I have already said—a posthumous life. Through it, no -doubt, I was drawn by shadows—attracted by the unexplainable—blown -by any wind of irresponsibility. This anarchy at least opened out -strange vistas of romance to the imaginative soul. It is odd to live -apart from, and independent of, the voice of duty. That state shall -seldom occur; but, when it does, to experience it is to something feel -the marvel of dematerialisation. -</p> - -<p> -Depleted of human life; savage in its loneliness; blistered and flaked -by the sun, the country through which I travelled was yet beautiful to -a degree. Of food—by means of eking out my little supply with -chestnuts and wild berries—I had a poor sufficiency; but thirst -tortured me often and greatly. I moved slowly, threshing the land, as -it were, for traces of an ignis-fatuus that still fled before me in -fancy. And I had my frights and perils—one adventure, also; but that -I shall not in this connection relate. -</p> - -<p> -Once, high up on the ridge of a valley, I saw a poor wretch, his arms -bound behind him, hurrying forward under escort of a guard. It was -evening, soft and tranquil. A cluster of mountain-peaks swam in the -long distance; the horizon was barred with a grate of glowing clouds. -Therethrough, it seemed, the consumed sun had fallen into white ashes -of mist; but the cooling furnace of the sky, to the walls of which a -single star clung like an unextinguished spark, was yet rosy with -heat; and against the rose the hillside and the figures that crowned -it were silhouetted in a sharp deep purple. How beautiful and how -voiceless! The figure fell, and his scream came down to me like a -bat’s cheep as the soldiers prodded him to rise with their bayonets. -Then I cursed the Goths that had spoiled me my picture. -</p> - -<p> -Another time, lying concealed in a little hanging copse above a gorge, -I heard bleating below me and the rainy patter of feet, and peered -forth to see a flock of goats being driven down the valley. They were -shepherded by three or four ‘requisition’ men, as they were -called—patriot louts whose business it was to beat up the desolated -country for those herds of sheep or swine that had run wild for lack -of owners. Their unexpected appearance was a little lesson in caution -to me, for I had enjoyed so long an immunity from interference as to -have grown careless of showing myself in the most exposed districts. -</p> - -<p> -On two occasions only was I troubled by wolves. The first was on a -morning of lassitude and fatigue, when water had failed me for many -hours. I was resting, on a heath-covered slope, within a rocky cave or -lair in the hillside. For long the sky wraiths had been loading cloud -upon cloud, till the gathered steam of the earth, finding no outlet, -seemed to scald one’s body. Then, in a moment, such a storm crashed -down as I had never before experienced. Each slam of thunder amongst -the rocks was like a port of hell flung open; the lightning, slashing -through the hail, seemed to melt and run in a marrowy-white flood that -palpitated as it settled down on the heather. But the hail! the fury -of this artillery of ice—its noise, and the frenzy of the Carmagnole -it danced! I was fortunate to be under a solid roof; and when at last -the north wind, bristling with blades, charged down the valley like -the Duke of Saxony’s Horse at Fontenoy, I thought the earth must have -slipped its course and swerved into everlasting winter. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly the mouth of the <i>ressui</i> was blotted by a couple of shaggy -forms. They came pelting up—their tails hooked like carriage-brakes -to their bellies, their eyes blazing fear—and, seeing me within, -jerked to a rigid halt, while the stones drummed on their hides. The -next moment, cowed out of all considerations of caste, they had slunk -by me and were huddled, my very sinister familiars, at the extreme end -of the cave. -</p> - -<p> -Oh, but this was the devil of an embarrassment! I had sat out sermons -that stabbed me below the belt at every second lunge; I had had -accepted offers of gallantry that I had never made; I had ridiculed -the work of an anonymous author to his face. Here, however, was a -situation that it seemed beyond my power of <i>finesse</i> to acquit myself -of with <i>aplomb</i>. In point of fact, the moment the storm slackened, I -slipped out—conscious of the strange fancy that bristles were growing -on my thighs—and, descending hurriedly to the valley, climbed a tree. -It was only then (so base is human nature) that I waived the pretence -that the wolf is a noble animal. -</p> - -<p> -But my second experience was a more finished one. Then I tasted the -full flavour of fright, and almost returned the compliment of a feast -to my company. I was padding, towards evening, over a woodland lawn, -when from a hollow at the foot of a great chestnut-tree a rumbling -snarl issuing vibrated on the strings of my sensibilities, and I saw -three or four very ugly snouts project themselves from the blackness. -I went steadily by and steadily continued my way, which without doubt -was the discerning policy to pursue. But impulse will push behind as -well as fly before reason, and presently that which affects the nerves -of motion did so frantically hustle me at the rear as to set me off -running at the top of my speed. Then the folly of my behaviour was -made manifest to me, for, glancing over my shoulder as I sped, I saw -that no fewer than five fierce brutes were come out of their lair at -the sound, and were beginning to slink in my wake. -</p> - -<p> -I gave a yell that would have fetched Charon from the other side of -the Styx; my feet seemed to dance on air; I threatened to outstrip my -own breath. Still the patter behind me swelled into a race, and I -found myself ghastlily petting a thought as to the length of a wolfs -eye-tooth and the first feel of it clamped into one’s flesh. Now, of a -sudden, the wood opened out, and I saw before me the butt of a decayed -tree, and, on its farther side, a little reedy pond shining livid -under a rampart of green that hedged off the sunset. At the water I -drove, in a lost hope that the pursuit would check itself at its -margin, and, in my blind onset, dashed against a branch of the dead -tree and fell half stunned into the pool beyond. Still an inspiring -consciousness of my peril enabled me to scramble farther, splashing -and choking, until I was perhaps twenty yards from the shore; and -then, in shallow water, I sat down, my head just above the surface, -and caught at my sliding faculties and laughed. Immediately I was -myself again, and the secure and wondering spectator of a very -Walpurgis dance that was enacting for my benefit on the bank. -</p> - -<p> -The five wolves appeared, indeed, to be skipping in pure amazement, -like the mountains of Judæa; but they howled in tribulation, like the -gate of Palestina. They leapt and ran hither and thither; they bit at -the air, at their flanks, at their feet; they raked their heads with -their paws and rolled on the ground in knots. At last I read the -riddle in a tiny moted cloud that whirled above them. In dashing -against the rotten branch I had, it seemed, upset a hornets’ nest -built in the old tooth of the tree, and the garrison had sallied forth -to cover my retreat. -</p> - -<p> -Oh, but the braves! I raised a little pæan to them on the spot, but I -took care not to shout it. Suddenly the beasts turned tail and went -yelling back into the wood. I did not rise at once. I left the victors -time to congratulate themselves and to settle down. And at last I was -too diffident to pester them with my gratitude, and I waded sheer -across the pool (that was nowhere more than three feet deep) and -landed on its farther side. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -One day I happened upon Carinne! -</p> - -<p> -That is the high note of this droning chant of retrospection. -</p> - -<p> -I was walking aimlessly, the hot thirst upon me once more, when I came -out from amongst trees into a sort of forest amphitheatre of -considerable extent, whose base, like the kick in a bottle, was a -round hill, pretty high, and scattered sparsely with chestnut-trees. I -climbed the slopes toilfully, and getting a view of things from near -the summit, saw that to the north the circumference of green was -broken by the gates of a hazy valley. It was as beautiful a place as I -had ever chanced on; but its most gladdening corner to me was that -whence a little brook looped out of the forest skirt, like a timid -child coaxed from its mother’s apron, and pattering a few yards, fled -back again to shelter. -</p> - -<p> -Now I would take it all in before I descended, postponing the cool -ecstasy like an epicure. I mounted to the top, and, peering between -the chestnut trunks down the farther slopes, uttered an exclamation of -surprise. A herd of swine was peacefully feeding against the fringe of -the wood, and, even as I looked, one of them, a mottled porkling, -crashed through a little rug of branches spread upon the ground and -vanished into Tartarus. Immediately his dismal screeches rebuked the -skies, and, at the sound, a girl came running out of the wood, and, -kneeling above the fatal breach, clasped her hands over her eyes and -turned away her face—a very Niobe of pigs. Seeing her thus, I -descended to her assistance; but, lost in her grief, it seemed, she -did not hear me until I was close upon her. Then suddenly she glanced -up startled,—and her eyes were the cold eyes of Carinne. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch07"> -CHAPTER VII.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE CHEVALIER DU GUET.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">The</span> eyes of Mademoiselle de Lâge were a merciless grey; her face -was gold-white, like a dying maple-leaf. She wore no cap on her -tumbled hair, and a coarse bistre-coloured <i>jupon</i> was her prominent -article of attire. I knew her at once, nevertheless, though her cheeks -were a little fallen and her under-lids dashed with violet. She stared -at me as she knelt; but she made no sign that she was afraid. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle is in tribulation?” -</p> - -<p> -“You need not speak a swineherd so fair,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“But I honour pork with all my heart.” -</p> - -<p> -She rose to her feet. She seemed to hesitate. But she never took her -eyes off me. -</p> - -<p> -“Whence do you come?” she said, in her soft, deliberate voice. -</p> - -<p> -“From the woods—from the wastes—from anywhere. I am proscribed and -in hiding. I am hungry, also,—and mademoiselle will give me to eat?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why do you call me ‘mademoiselle’? Do you not see I am a swineherd?” -</p> - -<p> -The little pig still screeched fitfully underground. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” she cried, in sudden anguish. “Kill it, monsieur, if you know -the way, and let us dine!” -</p> - -<p> -I was pleased with that “us.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have no technical knowledge,” I said. “But, let us see. It is -injured?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mon Dieu!</i> I hope not. I had so longed to taste meat once more, and -I had heard of pitfalls. There was a hole in the ground. I covered it -over with branches, that one of these might step thereon and tumble in -and be killed. But when I heard his cries I was sorry.” -</p> - -<p> -“That was a bold thought for a swineherd. And how would you tell your -tale, with one devoured? or get the little pig out of the pit? or skin -and dismember and cook it when hauled to the surface?” -</p> - -<p> -“All that I had not considered.” -</p> - -<p> -“But you desired to eat pork? And what would you say now to a pig’s -foot <i>à la</i> St Menehould?” -</p> - -<p> -The jest bubbled out of me; I could not withhold it. Her mind was as -quick as her speech was measured. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” she cried, “but I remember. And you were in Février’s, -monsieur?” -</p> - -<p> -“At the table next to yours.” -</p> - -<p> -“That is strange, is it not!” -</p> - -<p> -She gave a little scornful shift to her shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“It is all nothing in these mad days. The question is, monsieur, if -you can put the little beast out of his pain?” -</p> - -<p> -I looked into the pit. Two beady eyes, withdrawn into a fat neck, -peered up at me. -</p> - -<p> -“The hole is not six feet deep, mademoiselle. His pain is all upon his -nerves.” -</p> - -<p> -She gave a whimper of relief. Then her face fell cold again. -</p> - -<p> -“It follows that we must forego our dinner. Will monsieur release the -victim of my gluttony?” -</p> - -<p> -I jumped into the hole—hoisted out the small squeaker—returned to -the surface. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Bon jour</i>, monsieur!” said Carinne. -</p> - -<p> -“You will dismiss me hungry, mademoiselle?” -</p> - -<p> -“What claim have you upon me?” -</p> - -<p> -“The claim of fraternity, citoyenne.” -</p> - -<p> -She uttered a little laugh of high disdain. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, rob me,” she said, “and prove yourself a true Republican.” -</p> - -<p> -“I would steal nothing from you but your favour.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is all bestowed on these animals. Take him you have rescued and -make yourself my debtor and go.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle, is this to be, when I have spent days—nay, I know not -how many—of hunger and thirst and weariness in the desperate pursuit -of one to whom I had vowed to offer those services of protection she -lacked elsewhere?” -</p> - -<p> -Her pale eyes wondered at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you speak of the swineherd, monsieur?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“I speak of Mademoiselle de Lâge.” -</p> - -<p> -“She is very secure and in good company. And whence comes your -knowledge of, or interest in, her?” -</p> - -<p> -“Shall I tell you the story?” -</p> - -<p> -“Nay,” she said, with a sudden swerve to indifference; “but how does -it concern me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Your uncle, mademoiselle!” -</p> - -<p> -“I have none that I own.” -</p> - -<p> -I was silent. She looked away from me, tapping a foot on the ground. -It was all a fight between her bitterness and her pride. With a woman -the first conquers. -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me,” she said in a moment, turning upon me, “do you come from -him?” -</p> - -<p> -“I come from him.” -</p> - -<p> -“Commissioned to beg me to return?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, mademoiselle. Nor would I insult you with such a message.” -</p> - -<p> -“I can dispense with your interest in me, sir.” -</p> - -<p> -Again she averted her face. Decidedly she required some knowing. -By-and-by she spoke again, without looking round and more gently— -</p> - -<p> -“How does M. de Lâge bear the loss of—the loss of his treasures?” -</p> - -<p> -“He is, I fear, demented by it.” -</p> - -<p> -She gave a bad little laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“One who would sell his honour should at least keep his wits. Well, -monsieur, I have nothing with which to reward your service of runner, -so——” -</p> - -<p> -“A meal and a drink of water will repay me, mademoiselle.” -</p> - -<p> -“You can help yourself. Do you think I keep a larder in the forest?” -</p> - -<p> -“But you eat?” -</p> - -<p> -“My table is spread under the chestnut-trees and over the bushes. I -leave its selection to my friends yonder. Sometimes they will present -me with a truffle for feast-days.” -</p> - -<p> -I regarded the proud child with some quaintness of pity. This -repelling manner was doubtless a mask over much unhappiness. -</p> - -<p> -“I have still something left in my satchel,” I said. “Will -mademoiselle honour me by sharing it?” -</p> - -<p> -The light jumped in her eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“I do not know,” she said. “What is its nature?” -</p> - -<p> -“Only some raisins and a little hard bread.” -</p> - -<p> -“But bread, monsieur! That I have not tasted for long. We will go to -the brook-side and sit down.” -</p> - -<p> -“And the herd?” -</p> - -<p> -“They will not wander. When they come to a fruitful ground they stay -there till it is stripped.” -</p> - -<p> -She led the way round the hill to the little gushing stream and seated -herself on a green stone. I would not even slake my thirst until I had -spread my store on her lap. Then I lay down at her feet, like a dog, -and waited for the fragments she could spare. She ate with relish, and -took little notice of me. But presently she paused, in astonishment at -herself. -</p> - -<p> -“I am eating up your dinner!” she cried. -</p> - -<p> -“It gives me more pleasure to watch than to share with you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, fie!” she exclaimed. “But am I not a true swineherd?” -</p> - -<p> -She handed me the satchel. -</p> - -<p> -“It is all yours, mademoiselle.” -</p> - -<p> -“Eat!” she said peremptorily. “I will not touch another mouthful.” -</p> - -<p> -She leaned an elbow on her knee and her chin upon her knuckles while I -devoured what remained. Her eyes dreamed into the thronging -tree-trunks. I thought the real softness of her soul was beginning to -quicken like a February narcissus. -</p> - -<p> -“But how I long for meat!” she said, suddenly. -</p> - -<p> -I laughed. -</p> - -<p> -“If mademoiselle will retain me in her service, I will make shift to -provide her with a dish of pork.” -</p> - -<p> -She turned and looked at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it true you have sought me out? I have no knowledge of your face.” -</p> - -<p> -“It will not, like mademoiselle’s, impress itself on the imagination. -I have seen you, by chance, twice before, mademoiselle, and therefore -it follows, in the logic of gallantry, that I am here.” -</p> - -<p> -She drew herself up at that word I was foolish enough to utter. -</p> - -<p> -“I perceive, monsieur, that you hold the licence of your tongue a -recommendation to my service. Is this another message with the -delivery of which you would not insult me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Nay, mademoiselle, I spoke the common fashion of more trivial times -than these; and I ask your pardon. It is to save you from the -possibility of insult that I have wandered and starved these many -days.” -</p> - -<p> -She looked at me very gravely. -</p> - -<p> -“I foresee no danger in these solitudes. I am sorry, monsieur; but I -cannot accept your service.” -</p> - -<p> -She rose to her feet and I to mine. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle,” I cried, “be wise to reconsider the question! A -delicate and high-born lady, solitary and defenceless amongst these -barbarous hills! But I myself, on my journey hither, have encountered -more than one perilous rogue!” -</p> - -<p> -She shook her head. -</p> - -<p> -“I take it as I find it. Besides, I have always a covert into which I -can slip on menace of a storm.” -</p> - -<p> -“But this is madness!” -</p> - -<p> -“By monsieur’s account that is the present condition of our family,” -she said, frigidly. -</p> - -<p> -“See, mademoiselle—I ask nothing but that I may remain near you, to -help and protect, your guard and your servant in one.” -</p> - -<p> -She made as if to go. -</p> - -<p> -“You fatigue me, monsieur. It is not the part of a gentleman to impose -his company where it is not desired. You will not remain by my -consent.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then I shall remain nevertheless!” I cried, a little angrily. “I must -not allow mademoiselle to constitute herself the victim to a false -sentiment.” -</p> - -<p> -She left me without another word, going off to her pigs; and I flung -myself down again in a pet by the brookside. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -All that afternoon and evening I wandered about in the neighbourhood -of the little hill. I was hot and angry—after a humorous -fashion—with myself rather than with Carinne. If I had chosen to -invest my self-imposed knight-errantry with a purely fictitious order -of merit, I could hardly blame the girl for declining to recognise its -title to respect. At the same time, while I assured myself I detested -her, I could not refrain from constantly speculating as to the nature -of her present reflections. Was she still haughtily indignant at my -insistence, or inclined to secret heart-searchings in the matter of -her rather cavalier rejection of my services? Like a child, I wished -her, I think, to be a little sorry, a little unaccountably sad over -the memory of the stranger who had come and gone like a sunbeam shot -through the melancholy of her days. I wished her to have reason to -regret her unceremonious treatment of me. I did <i>not</i> wish her to -overlook my visit altogether—and this, it would appear, was just what -she was doing. -</p> - -<p> -For, when I once, somewhere about the fall of dusk, climbed softly to -the top of the hillock to get view of her, perchance, from ambush, I -was positively incensed to hear her voice coming up to me in a little -placid song or chant that was in itself an earnest of her indifference -and serenity. She sat against a tree at the foot of the slope, and all -about her, uncouthly dumped on the fallen mast, were a score of drowsy -pigs. She sang to them like Circe, while they twitched lazy ears or -snapped their little springs of tails; and the sunset poured from the -furnace-mouth of the valley and made her pale face glorious. -</p> - -<p> -Now she did her beauty more justice by voice than by brush, though in -each art she was supremely artless; but there was a note of nature in -the first that was like the winter song of a robin. And presently she -trilled a little childish <i>chansonnette</i> of the peasants that touched -me because I had some memory of it:— -</p> - -<div class="quote_o"><div class="quote_i"> -<p class="i0">The little bonne, Marie,</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> -<p class="i0">Spoke to her doll so wee:</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> -<p class="i0">“Hush, little son, sweet thing!</p> -<p class="i0">But wouldst thou be a king?”</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> - -<p class="i0 mt1">“Thy sceptre grows in the mere,”</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> -<p class="i0">“Thy crown in the blossoming brere.”</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> -<p class="i0">“For orb a grape shall stand</p> -<p class="i0">Clutched in thy tiny hand.”</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> - -<p class="i0 mt1">A rose she pinned at his side,</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> -<p class="i0">And one to each foot she tied;</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> -<p class="i0">His cot she lined with rue,</p> -<p class="i0">And she named him her <i>Jésus</i>.</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> -</div></div> - -<p> -I lay amongst the branches that night, with the memory of the low, -sweet voice and the strange picture in my brain. And, as I tossed, -literally, on my timber couch, a weirder fancy would come to me of the -elfish swineherd sleeping within her charmed circle of hogs—fearless -and secure—mingling her soft expression of rest with their truculent -breathings. -</p> - -<p> -I was up (or rather down) early; washed in the brook; breakfasted -fastidiously off beech-nuts. Then, quite undecided as to my course of -action, I loitered awhile amongst the trees, and finally came round by -the hill once more, and dwelt upon a thought to climb it and -investigate. But, as I stood in uncertainty, a shrill cry came to my -ears. It rang startlingly in that voiceless pit of green, and I -hurried at my topmost speed round the base of the mound, and came -suddenly upon a sight that met me like a blow. -</p> - -<p> -Two savages, each with an arm of the girl brutally seized, were -shouldering the poor swineherd towards the trees. She cried and -struggled, disputing every step; the pigs streamed curiously in the -wake of the group. There was an obvious ugly inference to be drawn -from the sight, and I made no compromise with my discretion. I just -rushed through the herd and charged straight at one of the ruffians. -</p> - -<p> -He was aware of me—they both were—before I reached him. They twisted -their heads about, and the one I made for dropped his hold of Carinne -and jumped to meet my onset, while the other hooted “<i>O-he! bran de -lui!</i>” and tightened his grip of the girl. I saw only that my -assailant was a powerful coarse <i>bonnet-rouge</i>, little-eyed, hairy as -Attila. The next instant I had dived, caught one of his ankles, and -given his furious impetus an upward direction. He went over me in a -parabola, like a ball sprung from a trap, and I heard his ribs thud on -the ground. But I had no time to give him my further attention, for, -seeing his comrade’s discomfiture, the second rascal came at me. -</p> - -<p> -And now I was like to pay dearly for my temerity, for, though I was -lithe and active enough, I had not that of substance on my bones to -withstand the pounding of a couple of enraged and sanguinary giants. -The poor Carinne had sunk, for the moment unnerved, upon the ground. I -prayed God she had a knife to use on herself for a last resource. No -doubt the ruffian I had thrown would take me in the rear in a moment. -The other was bearing down upon me like a bullock. Suddenly, when come -almost within my reach, he jerked himself to so quick a halt that his -heels cut grooves in the mast. I saw his eyes dilate and glare beyond -me, and on the instant a single vibrant scream, like the shrill neigh -of a horse, rose from the ground at my back. It was the cue for an -immediate quarrelling clamour, fierce and gluttonous, such as one -hears when a bucket of wash is emptied into a sty; and if it was -lifted again, bodiless and inhuman, it might not reach through the -uproar. -</p> - -<p> -I had turned to look—and away again in infinite horror. Upon the -half-stunned wretch, as he lay prostrate on his back, an old ravening -boar of the herd had flung itself in fury, and with one bestial clinch -of its teeth and jerk of its powerful neck had torn out the very apple -of the man’s throat. And there atop of his victim the huge brute -sprawled, tossing its head and squeaking furiously; while the rest of -the herd, smitten with the beast-lust, ran hither and thither, -approaching, snuffing, retreating, and, through all, never ceasing in -their guttural outcry. -</p> - -<p> -Now in a moment came a pause in the tumult, and I read in my -opponent’s eyes, as distinctly as though they were mirrors, that the -triumphant brute behind me was showing itself alert with consciousness -of the living prey that yet offered itself in reversion. I saw in the -man’s face amazement resolve itself into sick terror; he slipped back -into its sheath the <i>couteau-poignard</i> he had half drawn. -“<i>Adieu-va!</i>” I shouted at him, advancing—and on the word he wheeled -about and pounded off amongst the trees as if the devil were at his -heels. -</p> - -<p> -When I ran to Mademoiselle de Lâge, she was regaining in a dazed -manner her feet and her faculties. -</p> - -<p> -“I must lift you—I must help you!” I cried. “Ah! do not look, but -come away! My God, what peril, when the beast in man is made manifest -to the beast in the beast!” -</p> - -<p> -I put my right arm about her under hers. To touch the very stringy -texture of the <i>jupon</i> with my hand was to find my heart queerly -lodged in my finger-tips. She came quietly with me a few paces; then -suddenly she wrenched herself free, and, turning her back upon me, -fumbled in her bosom. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” she said on a little faint key, from the covert of her -hair (<i>Bon Dieu!</i> that admirable low huskiness in her voice that made -of her every utterance a caress!),—“monsieur, he was the old brave of -my little troop. I called him my <i>Chevalier du Guet</i>. It was -inhuman—yes, it was inhuman; but he struck for his lady and rescued -her. Wilt thou not be my ambassador to decorate him for a last token -of gratitude?” -</p> - -<p> -Heaven! the magnificence of her fancy! She had taken from her -shoulders her scapular, together with a little heart of chalcedonyx -that hung therefrom. This latter she detached and handed to me. -</p> - -<p> -“Loop it to his ear, if thou darest,” said she. -</p> - -<p> -I went quite gravely to do her bidding. What a <i>farceur</i> of -circumstance was I become! But my breast overflowed with deference as -I approached the great pig. He had rolled from his victim and stood a -little apart, evilly humouring with his chaps a certain recollection. -He eyed me with wickedness as I advanced, and his obsequious -following, something subsided from their hysteria, seemed awaiting -their cue. I would not allow myself a second’s indecision. I walked -straight up to him—“Monsieur,” I said, “<i>avec l’égard le plus -profond</i>”—and flung the string over his ear. -</p> - -<p> -Alas! the ingrate! As I retreated he threw down his head, dislodged -the trinket, smelt at and swallowed it. -</p> - -<p> -The eyes in Carinne’s yet shocked face looked a pale inquiry when I -returned to her. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle,” I said, “the honour would appear entirely to his -taste.” -</p> - -<p> -She nodded seriously. -</p> - -<p> -“It is well,” she whispered; “and I hope none will rob him.” -</p> - -<p> -“He shall be turned inside out first,” I said stoutly; and at that she -nodded again, and bade me to a hurried retreat. -</p> - -<p> -We may have walked a mile, or even two, in a solemn silence, before my -comrade was fain to stop, in the heart of a woodland glen, and throw -herself exhausted on a bank. Then she looked up at me, her fatigued -eyes struggling yet with defiance. -</p> - -<p> -“Why do you not upbraid me?” she said. “Why do you not say ‘I told you -so’?” -</p> - -<p> -“Because it does not occur to me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah! you would make a fine virtue of forbearance; you would be the -patient ass to my vanity, would you not, monsieur?” -</p> - -<p> -“I would let mademoiselle ride me rough-shod till I fell dead.” -</p> - -<p> -“And so leave me the living monument to your nobility. But it is not -generous, monsieur, thus to rebuke me with silence.” -</p> - -<p> -“I did not intend to——” -</p> - -<p> -“And, after all, it was the hog that struck most effectively.” -</p> - -<p> -“And that is conceded, mademoiselle; and the hog is generously -decorated.” -</p> - -<p> -She mused up at me rebelliously. -</p> - -<p> -“I do not even know your name.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is Citizen Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen——” (she made a wry mouth of it). “Then, if I can find the -wherewithal to reward your gallantry, citizen, will you leave me to -myself?” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle, if only I could believe none other would impose himself -on that sweet duet!” -</p> - -<p> -She shrugged her shoulders fretfully. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, monsieur, you assume a father’s privilege. Has my -misfortune placed me beyond the pale of courtesy? or has a swineherd -no title to the considerations of decency?” -</p> - -<p> -“Nay, mademoiselle; it is that your beauty and your proud innocence -make so many appeals to both.” -</p> - -<p> -My obstinacy seemed a goad to her anger. -</p> - -<p> -“You exaggerate the importance of your service,” she cried. “Either of -those great strong men could have crushed you like an old nut——” -</p> - -<p> -She seemed to struggle a moment with herself—without avail. -</p> - -<p> -“For you are very little,” she added. -</p> - -<p> -I felt myself turn pale. I made her a most profound bow. -</p> - -<p> -“I will leave mademoiselle,” I said gravely, “to the only company she -can do justice to.” -</p> - -<p> -“My own?” she asked. I did not answer, and I turned from her quivering -all through. I had gone but a few paces when her voice came after me. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, I am dying of hunger!” -</p> - -<p> -<i>Mon Dieu!</i> What a speech to grapple at the soul! I hurried hither and -thither, plucking her a meal from the earth, from the bushes. My heart -bled with a double wound. -</p> - -<p> -Presently I stood before her, stern and silent. Her face, hidden in -her hands, was averted from me. Suddenly she looked up. -</p> - -<p> -“The little pod holds the fattest pea,” she said, and burst into -tears. -</p> - -<p> -<i>Petite pluie abat grand vent.</i> -</p> - -<p> -She was very sweet and humble to me by-and-by. She made me the <i>amende -honorable</i> by calling my heart too great for my body. And at last said -she— -</p> - -<p> -“I take you for my knight, monsieur—to honour and protect, to bear -with and respect me——” and I kissed her brown hand in allegiance. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch08"> -CHAPTER VIII.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">QUATREMAINS-QUATREPATTES.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -“<span class="sc">Mademoiselle</span>, what do you weave?” -</p> - -<p> -She sat at the entrance to her sleeping-place—a hole under the -radiated roots of an ancient oak-tree. We had happened upon the -shelter in our league-long flight. It was one of those burrows—those -<i>logettes</i> into which past generations of the hunted and proscribed -had sunk like moles. Many of our forests are honeycombed with them. -Over the opening to this, once concealed by a cunning mat of weeds and -branches, the roots had contrived a more enduring cover. Within, to -walls and floor, yet clung the remnants of brushwood with which long -ago the den had been lined. -</p> - -<p> -Carinne was deftly busy over a queer contrivance—a sort of fencing -mask that she plaited from thin tendrils of a binding-weed. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur on his high perch at night will suffer from the mosquitoes?” -</p> - -<p> -“Has mademoiselle reason to think so?” -</p> - -<p> -“As I think I can tell when a little ape carries a nut in his pouch.” -</p> - -<p> -“Alas! but how cynical of romance are the tiny blood-suckers! They fly -on a chromatic scale, mademoiselle. Often I try to comfort myself with -the fancy that I am listening to the very distant humming of church -bells; and then comes a tiny prick, and something seems to rise from -my heart to my face, and to blossom thereon. No doubt it is the -flowers of fancy budding. And is the weed-bonnet for me?” -</p> - -<p> -“I shall not want it in my burrow.” -</p> - -<p> -This gave me exquisite gratification, which survived the many -inconveniences to which I was put by the bonnet falling off at night, -and my having to descend to recover it. But it soon appeared that the -least whim of this fascinating child was to be my law. -</p> - -<p> -And yet what a dear lawless existence! I do not know what termination -to it we foresaw. Sooner or later the cold must drive me from my -nightly cradle; sooner or later the good fruits of the earth must -wither. In the meantime we were <i>grillon</i> and <i>cigale</i>,—we stored -not, neither did we labour; but we chatted, and we wandered, and we -drew the marrow of every tender berry, and gnawed the rind of every -tough, without making faces. -</p> - -<p> -And we quarrelled—<i>mon Dieu!</i> but how we quarrelled! Scarce a day -passed without dispute, and this in the end it was that resolved the -situation for us. For truly my comrade was as full of moods and -whimsies as the wind—one moment a curious sweet woman; the next, and -on the prick of confidence, a pillar of salt. Yet, even as such, she -herself was ever the savour to the insults she made me swallow. -</p> - -<p> -By then I was a little awakening, I think, to a consciousness that was -half fright, half ecstasy. Let me not misrepresent my meaning. I held -the honour of Mademoiselle de Lâge in high reverence; yet (and -<i>therefore</i>, also, <i>bien entendu</i>) I could not but acknowledge to -myself that in the depth of my heart was sprouting a desire for a more -particular understanding between us. This very self-confession at last -was like a terrifying surrender of independence—of -irresponsibility—of all that sweet store of philosophy I had made it -my practice to hive against the winter of old age. I saw my -tranquillity yielded to a disturbing sense of duty. I felt my feet and -my body stung by a thousand thorns as I turned into the narrow road of -self-abnegation. No more for me should gleam the rosy garland and the -wine-cup exhaling joy; but rather the olive from the branch should -stimulate my palate to caudle, and the priest sanctify my salt of life -out of all flavour. -</p> - -<p> -<i>Aïe, Aïe!</i> and what then? Why, I was forgetting that as a lady puts -the deduction before the argument, and cultivates her intuitive -perceptions by reading the <i>dénoûment</i> of a romance after the first -chapter, so she will have decided upon the direction of that last gift -of herself while pinning her favours upon the coats of a dozen -successive hopefuls. I might humour or tease my fancy over the -presumptive flavour of that draught of matrimony, while all the time -Mademoiselle de Lâge of Pierrettes held my person and my citizenship -in frank contempt. Decidedly I was eating my chicken in the egg. -</p> - -<p> -Still, the very fearless susceptibility of the child, her beauty and -her wilfulness, were so many flames to feed that fire of passion that -the strange nature of our comradeship had first kindled in my breast. -And so always before my mind’s eye I kept, or tried to keep, the -picture of the Chevalier Bayard and the Spanish ladies of Brescia. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -One day, in our wanderings, we came out suddenly upon a track of -highroad that, sweeping from us round a foreshore of desolate hills, -seemed, like a coast-current, to set some gaunt pines at a little -distance swaying as if they were the masts of ships. By then, as I -gather, we must have travelled as far north as Chalus, and were come -into regions that, by reason of their elevation, were somewhat colder -and moister than the sunny slopes we had quitted. Perhaps it was this -change of atmosphere that chilled our odd but never too ardent -relations one with the other; perhaps it was that Carinne, as I, was -at length taking alarm over the ambiguity of our position. In any case -we fell out and apart, and so followed some harsh experiences to the -pair of us. -</p> - -<p> -Now we backed from the public way in fright, and, concealing ourselves -once more amongst the trees, sat down, and were for a long space -silent. The interval was a pregnant one to me, inasmuch as I was -labouring with a resolve that had been forming for days in my breast. -And at last I spoke— -</p> - -<p> -“Carinne, we have been much at cross-purposes of late.” -</p> - -<p> -“Have we, M. Thibaut? But perhaps it is in the order of things.” -</p> - -<p> -“And that is to say that the plebeian Thibaut and the patrician De -Lâge cannot meet on a common plane?” -</p> - -<p> -“You must not put words in my mouth.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, if I might!” -</p> - -<p> -“What then? It will soothe my <i>ennui</i> to hear.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not for the moment. Tell me, mademoiselle, would you renew this -comradeship were we to escape, and meet in the after-time under better -conditions of security?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur! and would you have me wander hand in hand with you -through the gardens of the Thuilleries? or invite you to sleep upon -the tester of my bed? or open my mouth like a young bird at the -fruit-stalls, that you might pop in raspberries?” -</p> - -<p> -“Unkind! I would have you meet me by chance; I would see your eyes -open to a light of pleasure; I would have you come gladly to me and -take my fingers in yours and say: ‘This is he that was my good friend -when I needed one.’” -</p> - -<p> -“I will remember. And then all will clap their hands and cry ‘Bravo!’ -will they not? and I shall feel a little excitement. ‘<i>Qu’y a-t-il</i>, -Jacko!’ I shall say. ‘Show the company some of the pretty tricks you -played in the woods.’” -</p> - -<p> -I was silent. -</p> - -<p> -“And are those the words you would put in my mouth, monsieur?” said -Carinne. -</p> - -<p> -“I referred to the present,” I answered coldly; “and, as you take it -so, I will speak in your person as I would have you speak. -‘Jean-Louis,’ you say, ‘I am, like all sweet women, an agglomerate of -truths and inconsistencies; yet I am not, in the midst of my -wilfulness, insensible to the suffering my caprice of misunderstanding -puts you to; and, in face of the equivocal character of our -intercourse, I will forego the blindness that is a privilege of my -sex. Speak boldly, then, what lies in your heart.’” -</p> - -<p> -As I spoke in some trepidation, Carinne’s face grew enigmatical with -hardness and a little pallor, and she looked steadily away from me. -</p> - -<p> -“I thank you,” she said softly, “for that word ‘equivocal.’ But please -to remember, monsieur, that this ‘<i>intercourse</i>’ is none of my -seeking.” -</p> - -<p> -“You choose to misapprehend me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! it is not possible,” she cried, turning sharply upon me. “You -take advantage of my condescension and of the wicked licence of the -times. Have you sought, by this elaborate process, to entrap me into a -confession of dependence upon you? Why” (she measured me scornfully -with her eyes), “I think I look over and beyond you, monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” I said, stung beyond endurance by her words, “I pronounce you, -mademoiselle, the most soulless, as you are the most beautiful, woman -I have ever encountered. I thought I loved you with that reverence -that would subscribe to the very conditions that Laban imposed upon -Jacob. I see I was mistaken, and that I would have bartered my gold -for a baser metal. And now, also, I see, mademoiselle, that the -callousness you displayed in presence of the murdered Lepelletier, -which I had fain fancied was a paralysis of nerve, was due in effect -to nothing less vulgar than an unfeeling heart!” -</p> - -<p> -She stared at me in amazement, it seemed. I was for the moment carried -quite beyond myself. -</p> - -<p> -“I will leave you,” I cried, “to your better reflections—or, at -least, to your better judgment. This Thibaut will walk off the high -fever of his presumption, and return presently, your faithful and -obedient servant.” -</p> - -<p> -I turned, fuming, upon my heel, and strode off amongst the trees. I -had not gone a dozen paces when her voice stayed me. I twisted myself -about. -</p> - -<p> -“Do not lift your head so high, monsieur,” she said, “or you will run -it against a mushroom and hurt yourself.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Insolent—cruel—fascinating! For what had I indulged this mood of -quixotry—for what permitted this intolerable child to gall my sides -with her disdain? Would it have been thus had I condescended to drive -her coquetry to bay with that toothless dog of my rank? Ah! I believe -so; and that only made the sting of her contempt the more poisonous. -It was my person that could not suffice; and truly there is no bribe -to a woman’s favour like an extra inch of weediness. She is the -escapement of the heart; but the reason she will never move till she -acquire a sense of proportion. She was designed but to put man out of -conceit with himself, and I think she was not formed of his rib but of -his spleen. Therefore the tap-root of her nature is grievance, from -which her every leaf and flower and knot and canker takes its -sustenance of misconstruction. She may bloom very fair and sweet; but -then so does the dulcamara, and to taste either is dangerous. -</p> - -<p> -Thinking these thoughts, I postponed my return to the little glade -where I had left Carinne. She should believe me gone for good and all, -I vowed, and so should she suffer the first pangs of desertion. Then, -though she wished to make me feel small, no giant should figure so -great in her eyes as the moderate Thibaut. -</p> - -<p> -At last, in the early glow of evening, the unquenchable yearning in my -heart would brook no longer delay. Half-shamefaced, half-stubborn, I -retraced my steps to the glen that held my all of aggravation and of -desire. -</p> - -<p> -She was not there. She never came to it more. For long I would not -realise the truth. I waited, and hoped, and often circumambulated the -spot where she had rested, hurrying over a greater or less -circumference according to my distance from the centre. I called—I -entreated—perhaps in the darkness of night I wept. It was all of no -avail. She had vanished without leaving a trace, wilfully and -resentfully, and had thus decided to reward my long service of -devotion. -</p> - -<p> -When—after lingering about the spot for two nights and two days, -drugging a dying hope with the philtre of its own brewing—I at length -knew myself convicted of despair, a great bitterness awoke in my -breast that I should have thus permitted myself to be used and fooled -and rejected. -</p> - -<p> -“She is not worthy of this vast of concern!” I cried. “I will forget -her, and resume myself, and be again the irresponsible maggot -contributing to the decay of a worm-eaten system. To taste -disenchantment! After all, that is not to drink the sea!” -</p> - -<p> -But it was to eat of its fruit of ashes; and I was to carry a burden -with me that I might not forego. This in my subsequent wanderings made -my steps drag heavily, as if always I bore in the breast of my coat -the leaden image of an angel. But, nevertheless, I could muster a -pride to my aid in moments of a very desperate lassitude of the soul. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -With the opening of October I was still a solitary “rogue,” ostracised -from my herded kind. I had wandered so far north as that I saw Paris -(the ultimate goal, I felt, of my weary feet) to swim distinguishable -in the misty ken of my mind. Therefrom always seemed to emanate a -deadly but dulcet atmosphere, the attraction of which must sooner or -later overpower me. Sometimes in the night I could have thought I -heard the city’s swarming voices jangling to me down the steeper roads -of wind; sometimes the keystone of the Conciergerie would figure to me -as the lodestone to all shattered barques tossing helplessly on a -shoreless waste. For I was sick to the heart of loneliness; sick of -the brute evasion of my race; sick of my perilous immunity from all -the burning processes of that frantic drama of my times. And so I -trudged ever with my face set to the north, and the hum of the -witches’ cauldron, whose broth was compound of all heroism and all -savagery, singing phantomly in my ears. -</p> - -<p> -And to this direction yet another consideration induced me. With the -approach of chillier weather the wild wood-life of the wilder -provinces asserted itself, and assumed a more menacing aspect. The -abolition of the game laws had brought about, indeed, an amazing -increase in the number of wolves and foxes; and what with these on one -side and sans-culottism on the other, I had often latterly felt myself -walking between the devil and the deep sea. Then, once upon a time, I -was joined by an odd roguish way-fellow, the obliquity of whose moral -vision I overlooked for the sake of his company; and through him was -my burden of self-dependence a little lightened. -</p> - -<p> -I had sunk asleep one afternoon in a copse neighbouring on the royal -village of Cléry. Autumn is all a siesta in that mild and beautiful -district. Waking, I felt the sunlight on my eyes like a damp warm -sponge; and so with my lids gratefully closed I fell a-musing. -</p> - -<p> -“To think,” I murmured, “that the twang of a beetle’s bowstring at my -ear on the old bridge outside Coutras should have been the key-note to -all this devil’s dance of mine!” -</p> - -<p> -I thought I heard a faint rustle somewhere at hand—a squirrel or -coney. I paid no attention to it, but indulged my mood of -introspection. By-and-by a step came towards me, advancing boldly -amongst the trees from a distance. It approached, reached, stopped -over against me. I opened my eyes as I lay, my arms under my head, and -placidly surveyed the new-comer. He stood looking down upon me, his -fingers heaped upon the black crutch of his <i>bâton</i>, and when he saw -me awake he nodded his head in a lively manner. -</p> - -<p> -“The occasion is opportune,” he said, in a quick, biting voice. -</p> - -<p> -His lower jaw projected, showing a straight row of little even -teeth—like palings to keep his speech within bounds. The brightness -of his half-seen eyes belied the indolence of their lids. He wore a -jacket of sheepskin, wool outwards; and a leathern bag, stuffed with -printed broadsides, hung from his shoulder by a length of scarlet -tape. On his head was a three-cornered hat, fantastically caught up -with ribbons, and his legs and feet were encased respectively in fine -black hose and the neat pumps with buckles known as <i>pantoufles de -Palais</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Comment?</i>” said I, without moving. -</p> - -<p> -“The citizen has slept?” -</p> - -<p> -“Most tranquilly.” -</p> - -<p> -“The citizen has dreamt?” -</p> - -<p> -“Without doubt. And he is awake.” -</p> - -<p> -He made a comprehensive gesture with his stick and his hands. -</p> - -<p> -“But I interpret dreams,” said he—“and at one price. I will unravel -you the visions of a politician or expound himself to Jack Hodge for -the common charge of fifty centimes.” -</p> - -<p> -He bent his head towards me with an affectation of scrutiny. -</p> - -<p> -“I perceive the citizen does not credit me,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“And so his eyes rebuke his scepticism, interpreter of dreams,” said -I; “for thou hast rightly construed their meaning.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he murmured, raising himself and drawing in his breath. “But I -find it simple to convince the most incredulous.” -</p> - -<p> -“You do?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” he cried, clapping his chest; “for know that thou speak’st with -Quatremains-Quatrepattes himself!” -</p> - -<p> -He dwelt on the pause that followed; collapsed from it; regarded me, -it seemed, in astonishment. -</p> - -<p> -“Thou hast not heard of me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Again the interpreter of dreams justifies himself.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked away from me, in a high manner of abstraction. -</p> - -<p> -“And this is for the sunshine of fame to throw one’s shadow over half -the world!” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“Maybe thy fame is at its meridian, citizen, and thy shadow -consequently a little fat blot at thy feet?” -</p> - -<p> -He turned to me again. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh yes,” he cried sarcastically. “I am Quatremains-Quatrepattes, and -some outside the beaten track know my name, perhaps. But possibly the -citizen has never heard even of Jean Cazotte?” -</p> - -<p> -“On the contrary; I have seen and spoken with him.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Par exemple!</i> The man was a charlatan. He could foretell everything -but his own guillotining last year. And yet thou art ignorant—well, -well!” -</p> - -<p> -He threw up his hands in deprecation; then came and sat down on the -grass beside me. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Cela m’est égal</i>, M. Quatremains-Quatrepattes,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he said; “but I will convince thee at once. Describe to me thy -dream.” -</p> - -<p> -“I dreamt I wrestled with an angel and was overthrown.” -</p> - -<p> -“Thy mistress has quarrelled with and rejected thee.” -</p> - -<p> -“An obvious deduction. Yet I will assure you she is no angel.” -</p> - -<p> -“Canst thou say so? But we are all of the seed of Lucifer. Proceed.” -</p> - -<p> -“I dreamt how a great march grew out of a single accident of sound.” -</p> - -<p> -Here I was watchful of him, and I saw some relish twitch his lips. He -assumed an air of tense introspection, groping with his soul, like a -fakir, amongst the reflex images thrown upon the backs of his -eyeballs. -</p> - -<p> -“I hear a note,” he said presently, as if speaking to himself—“one -vibrant accent like the clipt song of a bullet. Is it struck from an -instrument or from any resounding vessel? It comes down the wind—it -clangs—it passes. Nay—it signifies only that some winged insect has -fled by the ear of a solitary traveller resting on an ancient bridge; -yet from that little bugle-sound shall the traveller learn to date the -processes of a long and fruitless journey.” -</p> - -<p> -I broke into a great laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“Most excellent!” I cried. “Thou hast an ingenuity of adaptation that -should make thy fortune—even at the very low rate of fifty centimes -the job.” -</p> - -<p> -His eyebrows lifted at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Why, M. Quatremains-Quatrepattes—M. Jacquemart,” said I,—“I knew -thee listening to me just now; and I heard thee steal away and come -again. It is easy to construe with the key in one’s hand.” -</p> - -<p> -He was no whit abashed. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Cela m’est égal</i>,” he said serenely, echoing my words. “But I can -foretell one’s future, nevertheless, very exactly.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, so can I, if I am not to be called upon to verify my -statements.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked suddenly in my face. -</p> - -<p> -“Thou art a disguised aristocrat.” -</p> - -<p> -“Better and better. But are we not all such to ourselves? The soul is -excessively exclusive.” -</p> - -<p> -“You will not consider I have earned my fee?” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“Fifty times over, my friend. Will you take it in a promissory note?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he cried pleasantly. “I perceive I have sown in barren soil.” -</p> - -<p> -“Again you justify yourself. Yet should I be a very thicket were all -the berries I have swallowed of late to germinate in me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is that so?” said he. “But I have been a scapegoat myself——” and -thereat this extraordinary person pressed upon me some food he had -with him with an ample and courtly grace. -</p> - -<p> -“This shall yield a better crop than my prophesying,” he said, -watching me as I munched. -</p> - -<p> -“Of a surety,” I answered; “the full harvest of my gratitude.” -</p> - -<p> -He pondered at me. -</p> - -<p> -“I wish I could convince thee,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“Wherefore? Is not the evil sufficient for the day in this distracted -land? Why should one want to probe the future?” -</p> - -<p> -“Because forewarned is forearmed.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, little Quatremains-Quatrepattes! Dost thou not perceive the -paradox? How can destiny be altered by foreknowledge? If you interpret -that I am to be guillotined, and I profit by the statement to evade -such a catastrophe, how is not your prophecy stultified?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, I have no creed of predestination. The lords of life and death -are not inexorable. Sometimes, like M. St Meard, one may buy his -reprieve of them with a jest. Above all, they hate the sour fatalist -whose subscription to his own faith is a gloomy affectation.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well; I think I love thee a little.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me with a smile. -</p> - -<p> -“Come with me, then. I long to give thee proof. Dost thou need a -safeguard? Thou shalt run under my wing—<i>ça et là</i>—to Paris if -thou wilt. I am popular with all. If necessity drives, thou shalt -figure as my Jack-pudding. What! thou mayst even play up to the part. -Thou hast slept in the mire; but ‘many a ragged colt makes a good -horse.’” -</p> - -<p> -I laughed. -</p> - -<p> -“Why not?” I said. “For I have played the tragic to empty houses till -I am tired.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Quatremains-Quatrepattes and his merry-andrew gambolled through a -score of villages on their road to Paris. I found the rascal hugely -popular, as he had boasted he was, and a most excellent convoy to my -humble craft, so perilously sailing under false colours. He was -subtle, shrewd, seasonable,—of the species whose opportunity is -accident; and perhaps no greater tribute could be paid to his deftness -than this—that he never once exposed himself to detection by me in a -question of moral fraud. “<i>Ton génie a la main crochue</i>,” I would say -to him, chuckling; but he would only respond with a rebuking silence. -</p> - -<p> -Early he handed over the bag of broadsides—the revolutionary songs -and ballads (some, it must be confessed, abominably coarse)—to my -care, that so he himself might assume a lofty indifference to the -meaner processes of his business. This delighted me. It was like a new -rattling game to me to hawk my commodities amongst the crowd; to jest -and laugh with my fellows once more under cover of the droll I -represented. Shortly, I think, I became as popular as Quatremains -himself; and over this, though he loved me as a valuable auxiliary, he -began to look a little sober by-and-by, as if he dreaded I should joke -the weightier part of his commerce out of all respect. -</p> - -<p> -<i>His</i> popularity was chiefly with the village wenches. They would -gather about him at the fountains, and pay their sous open-eyed to be -expounded; or singly they would withdraw him into nooks or private -places if the case was serious. -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen seër,” says Margot, “I dreamed I fell and was wounded.” -</p> - -<p> -“That is good, little minette. Thou wilt pay me five sous for a fond -lover.” -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen seër, I dreamed I was eating of a great egg.” -</p> - -<p> -“And thou shalt shortly beget a male child that shall bring thee -honour.” -</p> - -<p> -“How now, old Jackalent!” -</p> - -<p> -There rises a shrill cackle of laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Fi donc</i>, Margot! <i>On te le rendra de bonne heure!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -To submit the commerce of love to the test of a little dream-manual he -carried about with him, that was Quatremains’ system. This key (it was -in manuscript) interpreted on a couple of hundred, or more, words, -from <i>Abel</i> to <i>Wounds</i>; but affairs of the heart predominated through -the whole alphabet of nonsense. He would coach himself continually -from it in secret; but indeed a small wit and a trifle of invention -were all that was needed. Now and again I would rally him on this -petty taxing of credulity. -</p> - -<p> -“How now!” he would answer. “Art thou not yet convinced?” -</p> - -<p> -“By what, thou most surprising Quatremains-Quatrepattes?” -</p> - -<p> -“For example, did I not foretell that Mère Grignon, whose husband was -guillotined, would be brought to bed of a child with the mark of the -<i>lunette</i> on its throat; and were not my words verified the same -night?” -</p> - -<p> -“But who knows that some one may not have bribed the nurse to score -the neck of the new-born with whipcord?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Tête-bleu!</i> Should I hold good my reputation and pay this nurse, -think’st thou, out of five sous?” -</p> - -<p> -But the rascal had other strings to his bow, all twanging to the same -tune <i>de folles amours</i>—charms, fortune-telling, palmistry: so many -lines under the thumb, so many children; a shorter first joint to the -little than to its neighbour finger, the wife to rule the roast; a -mole on the nose, success in intrigues; a mole on the breast, -sincerity of affection. Then, too, he would tell nativities, cast -horoscopes, quarter the planets for you like an orange or like the -fruit of his imagination. There is a late picture of him often before -me as he sat in the market-place of Essonnes, a little village that -lies almost within view of the towers of Paris. A half-dozen blooming -daughters of the Revolution stood about him, their hands under their -aprons for warmth,—for it was pretty late in November, and in fact -the eve of St Catherine’s feast. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” said Quatremains, “there are seven of ye, and that is the sure -number,—for there must not be more than seven nor fewer than three; -and be certain ye are quick to my directions.” (He jingled softly in -his fists the copper harvest of his gathering.) “Are all of ye -virgins?” he cried. “If the charm fails, she who is not will be -accountable to the others.” (He scanned their hot faces like a very -Torquemada of the true faith.) “To-morrow, then,” he said, “let each -wear inside her bosom all day a sprig of myrtle. At night, assemble -together privately in a room, and, as the clock strikes eleven, take -ye each your twig and fold it in tissue-paper, having first kindled -charcoal in a chafing-dish. Thereonto throw nine hairs from the head, -and a little moon-paring of every toe- and finger-nail, as also some -frankincense, with the fragrant vapour arising from which ye shall -fumigate each her packet. Now, go to your beds, and with the stroke of -midnight compose yourselves to slumber, the envelope under the head, -and, so ye have not failed to keep silence from first to last, each -shall assuredly be made conversant in dream with her future husband.” -</p> - -<p> -Oh, wonderful nature of woman, thus, in a starving France, to throw -sous into a pool for the sport of vanity! -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Quatremains smuggled me into Paris, and there, for we had no further -use of one another, our connection ceased. Thenceforwards I must live -on my wits—other than those he had taxed—and on the little pieces of -money that remained to me for feast-days. The struggle was a short -one. I had not been a fortnight in the city when the blow that I had -so long foreseen fell upon me. One day I was arrested and carried to -La Force. That, perhaps, was as well; for my personal estate was -dwindled to a few livres, and I knew no rag-picker that would be -likely to extend to me his patronage and protection. -</p> - -<p> -Yet before this came about, I had one other strange little experience -that shall be related. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch09"> -CHAPTER IX.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE WILD DOGS.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">It</span> was on a night of middle Vendémiaire in the year two (to affect -the whimsical jargon of the <i>sans-culottes</i>) that I issued from my -burrow with an intrepidity that was nothing more nor less than a -congestion of the sensibilities. Fear at that time having fed upon -itself till all was devoured, was converted in very many to a humorous -stoicism that only lacked to be great because it could not boast a -splendid isolation. “Suspect of being suspect”—Citizen Chaumette’s -last slash at the hamstrings of hope—had converted all men of humane -character to that religion of self-containment that can alone -spiritually exalt above the caprices of the emotions. Thousands, in a -moment, through extreme of fear became fearless; hence no man of them -could claim a signal inspiration of courage, but only that -subscription to the terms of it which unnatural conditions had -rendered necessary to all believers in the ultimate ethical triumph of -the human race. -</p> - -<p> -I do not mean to say that I was tired of life, but simply that it came -to me at once that I must not hold that test of moral independence at -the mercy of any temporal tyranny whatsoever. Indeed I was still so -far in love with existence physically, as to neglect no precaution -that was calculated to contribute to the present prolonging of it. I -wore my frieze night-cap, carmagnole, sabots, and black shag spencer -with all the assumption I could muster of being to the shoddy born. I -had long learned the art of slurring a sigh into a cough or -expectoration. I could curse the stolid spectres of the tumbrils so as -to deceive all but the recording angel, and, possibly, Citizen -Robespierre. -</p> - -<p> -Nevertheless, with me, as with others, precaution seemed but a -condition of the recklessness whose calculations never extended beyond -the immediate day or hour. We lived posthumous lives, so to speak, and -would hardly have resented it, should an arbitrary period have been -put to our revisiting of the “glimpses of the moon.” -</p> - -<p> -On this night, then, of early September (as I will prefer calling it) -I issued from my burrow, calm under the intolerable tyranny of -circumstance. Desiring to reconstruct myself on the principle of an -older independence, I was mentally discussing the illogic of a system -of purgation that was seeking to solve the problem of existence by -emptying the world, when I became aware that my preoccupied ramblings -had brought me into the very presence of that sombre engine that was -the concrete expression of so much and such detestable false -reasoning. In effect, and to speak without circumbendibus, I found -myself to have wandered into the Faubourg St Antoine—into the place -of execution, and to have checked my steps only at the very foot of -the guillotine. -</p> - -<p> -It was close upon midnight, and, overhead, very wild and broken -weather. But the deeps of atmosphere, with the city for their ocean -bed, as it were, lay profoundly undisturbed by the surface turmoil -above; and in the tranquil <i>Place</i>, for all the upper flurry, one -could hear oneself breathe and think. -</p> - -<p> -I could have done this with the more composure, had not another sound, -the import of which I was a little late in recognising, crept into my -hearing with a full accompaniment of dismay. This sound was like -licking or lapping, very bestial and unclean, and when I came to -interpret it, it woke in me a horrible nausea. For all at once I knew -that, hidden in that dreadful conduit that strong citizens of late had -dug from the Place St Antoine to the river, to carry away the ponded -blood of the executed, the wild dogs of Paris were slaking their -wolfish thirst. I could hear their filthy gutturising and the scrape -of their lazy tongues on the soil, and my heart went cold, for -latterly, and since they had taken to hunting in packs, these ravenous -brutes had assailed and devoured more than one belated citizen whom -they had scented traversing the Champs Elysées, or other lonely -space; and I was aware a plan for their extermination was even now -under discussion by the Committee of Public Safety. -</p> - -<p> -Now, to fling scorn to the axe in that city of terror was to boast -only that one had adjusted oneself to a necessity that did not imply -an affectation of indifference to the fangs of wild beasts—for such, -indeed, they were. So, a suicide, who goes to cast himself headlong -into the river, may run in a panic from a falling beam, and be -consistent, too; for his compact is with death—not mutilation. -</p> - -<p> -Be that as it may, I know that for the moment terror so snapped at my -heel that, under the very teeth of it, I leaped up the scaffold -steps—with the wild idea of swarming to the beam above the knife and -thence defying my pursuers, should they nose and bay me seated there -at refuge—and stood with a white desperate face, scarcely daring to -pant out the constriction of my lungs. -</p> - -<p> -There followed no sound of concentrated movement; but only that -stealthy licking went on, with the occasional plash of brute feet in a -bloody mire; and gradually my turbulent pulses slowed, and I thought -myself a fool for my pains in advertising my presence on a platform of -such deadly prominence. -</p> - -<p> -Still, not a soul seemed to be abroad. As I trod the fateful quarter -ten minutes earlier, the last squalid roysterers had staggered from -the wine-shops—the last gleams of light been shut upon the emptied -streets. I was alone with the dogs and the guillotine. -</p> - -<p> -Tiptoeing very gently, very softly, I was preparing to descend the -steps once more, when I drew back with a muttered exclamation, and -stood staring down upon an apparition that, speeding at that moment -into the <i>Place</i>, paused within ten paces of the scaffold on which I -stood. -</p> - -<p> -Above the scudding clouds was a moon that pulsed a weak intermittent -radiance through the worn places of the drift. Its light was always -more suggested than revealed; but it was sufficient to denote that the -apparition was that of a very pale young woman—a simple child she -looked, whose eyes, nevertheless, wore that common expression of the -dramatic intensity of her times. -</p> - -<p> -She stood an instant, tense as Corday, her fingers bent to her lips; -her background a frouzy wall with the legend <i>Propriété Nationale</i> -scrawled on it in white chalk. Significant to the inference, the cap -of scarlet wool was drawn down upon her young <i>blondes</i> curls—the -gold of the coveted perukes. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly she made a little movement, and in the same instant gave out -a whistle clear and soft. -</p> - -<p> -Yes, it was she from whom it proceeded; and I shuddered. There below -me in the ditch were the dogs; here before me was this fearless child. -</p> - -<p> -For myself, even in the presence of this angel, I dared scarcely stir. -It was unnatural; it was preposterous—came a scramble and a rush; and -there, issued from the filthy sewer, was a huge boar-hound, that -fawned on the little citoyenne, and yelped (under her breath) like a -thing of human understanding. -</p> - -<p> -She cried softly, “Down, Radegonde!” and patted the monster’s head -with a pretty manner of endearment. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” she murmured, “hast thou broken thy faith with thy hunger? -Traitor!—but I will ask no questions. Here are thy comfits. My sweet, -remember thy pedigree and thy mistress.” -</p> - -<p> -She thrust a handful of sugar-plums into the great jaws. I could hear -the hound crunching them in her teeth. -</p> - -<p> -What was I to do?—what warning to give? This child—this frail -wind-flower of the night—the guillotine would have devoured her at a -snap, and laughed over the tit-bit! But I, and the nameless gluttons -of the ditch! -</p> - -<p> -They were there—part at least of one of those packs (recruited by -gradual degrees from the desolated homes of the proscribed—of -<i>émigrés</i>) that now were swollen to such formidable proportions as -to have become a menace and a nightly terror. The dogs were there, and -should they scent this tender quarry, what power was in a single -faithful hound to defend her against a half hundred, perhaps, of her -fellows. -</p> - -<p> -Sweating with apprehension, I stole down the steps. She was even then -preparing to retreat hurriedly as she had come. Her lips were pressed -to the beast’s wrinkled head. The sound of her footstep might have -precipitated the catastrophe I dreaded. -</p> - -<p> -“Citoyenne! citoyenne!” I whispered in an anguished voice. -</p> - -<p> -She looked up, scared and white in a moment. The dog gave a rolling -growl. -</p> - -<p> -“Radegonde!” she murmured, in a faint warning tone. -</p> - -<p> -The brute stood alert, her hair bristling. -</p> - -<p> -“Bid her away!” I entreated. “You are in danger.” -</p> - -<p> -She neither answered nor moved. -</p> - -<p> -“See, I am in earnest!” I cried, loud as I durst. “The wild dogs are -below there.” -</p> - -<p> -“Radegonde!” she murmured again. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, mademoiselle! What are two rows of teeth against a hundred. Send -her away, I implore you, and accept my escort out of this danger.” -</p> - -<p> -“My faith!” she said at last, in a queer little moving voice, “it may -be as the citizen says; but I think dogs are safer than men.” -</p> - -<p> -I urged my prayer. The beauty and courage of the child filled my heart -with a sort of rapturous despair. -</p> - -<p> -“God witness I am speaking for your safety alone! Will this prevail -with you? I am the Comte de la Muette. I exchange you that confidence -for a little that you may place in me. I lay my life in your hands, -and I beg the charge of yours in return.” -</p> - -<p> -I could hear her breathing deep where she stood. Suddenly she bent and -spoke to her companion. -</p> - -<p> -“To the secret place, Radegonde—and to-morrow again for thy -<i>confiture</i>, thou bad glutton. Kiss thy Nanette, my baby; and, oh, -Radegonde! not what falls from the table of Sainte Guillotine!” -</p> - -<p> -She stood erect, and held up a solemn finger. The hound slunk away, -like a human thing ashamed; showed her teeth at me as she passed, and -disappeared in the shadows of the scaffold. -</p> - -<p> -I took a hurried step forward. Near at hand the pure loveliness of -this citoyenne was, against its surroundings, like a flower floating -on blood. -</p> - -<p> -She smiled, and looked me earnestly in the face. We were but phantoms -to one another in that moony twilight; but in those fearful times men -had learned to adapt their eyesight to the second plague of darkness. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it true?” she said, softly. “Monsieur le Comte, it must be long -since you have received a curtsey.” -</p> - -<p> -She dropped me one there, bending to her own prettiness like a rose; -and then she gave a little low laugh. Truly that city of Paris saw -some strange meetings in the year of terror. -</p> - -<p> -“I, too,” she said, “was born of the <i>noblesse</i>. That is a secret, -monsieur, to set against yours.” -</p> - -<p> -I could but answer, with some concern— -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle, these confessions, if meet for the holy saint yonder, -are little for the ears of the devil’s advocates. I entreat let us be -walking, or those in the ditch may anticipate upon us his -benediction.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Ma foi!</i>” she said, “it is true. Come, then!” -</p> - -<p> -We went off together, stealing from the square like thieves. -Presently, when I could breathe with a half relief, “You will not go -to-morrow?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“To feed Radegonde! Ah, monsieur! I would not for the whole world lose -the little sweet-tooth her goodies. Each of us has only the other to -love in all this cruel city.” -</p> - -<p> -“So, my child! And they have taken the rest?” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, my father was the rest. He went on the seventeenth -Fructidor; and since, my veins do not run blood, I think, but only -ice-water, that melts from my heart and returns to freeze again.” -</p> - -<p> -I sighed. -</p> - -<p> -“Nay,” she said, “for I can laugh, as you see.” -</p> - -<p> -“And the dog, my poor child?” -</p> - -<p> -“She ran under the tumbril, and bit at the heels of the horses. She -would not leave him, monsieur; and still—and still she haunts the -place. I go to her,—when all the city is silent I go to her, if I can -escape, and take her the sweetmeats that she loves. What of that? It -is only a little while and my turn must come, and then Radegonde will -be alone. My hair, monsieur will observe, is the right colour for the -perukes.” -</p> - -<p> -She stayed me with a touch. -</p> - -<p> -“I am arrived. A thousand thanks for your escort, Monsieur le Comte.” -</p> - -<p> -We were by a low casement with a ledge before it—an easy climb from -the street. She pushed the lattice open, showing me it was unbolted -from within. -</p> - -<p> -“She thinks me fast and asleep,” she said. “Some day soon, perhaps, -but not yet.” -</p> - -<p> -I did not ask her who <i>she</i> was. I seemed all mazed in a silent dream -of pity. -</p> - -<p> -“It is quite simple,” she said, “when no cavalier is by to look. Will -the citizen turn his head?” -</p> - -<p> -She was up in an instant, and stepping softly into the room beyond, -leaned out towards me. On the moment an evil thing grew out of the -shadow of a buttress close by, and a wicked insolent face looked into -mine with a grin. -</p> - -<p> -“A sweet good-night to Monsieur le Comte,” it said, and vanished. -</p> - -<p> -Shocked and astounded, I stood rooted to the spot. But there came a -sudden low voice in my ear: -</p> - -<p> -“Quick, quick! have you no knife? You must follow!” -</p> - -<p> -I had taken but a single uncertain step, when, from a little way down -the street we had traversed, there cut into the night a sharp -attenuated howl; and, in a moment, on the passing of it, a chorus of -hideous notes swept upon me standing there in indecision. -</p> - -<p> -“My God!” I cried—“the dogs!” -</p> - -<p> -She made a sound like a plover. I scrambled to the ledge and dropped -into the room beyond. There in the dark she clutched and clung to me. -For though the cry had been bestial, there had seemed to answer to it -something mortal—an echo—a human scream of very dreadful -fear,—there came a rush of feet like a wind, and, with ashy faces, we -looked forth. -</p> - -<p> -They had him—that evil thing. An instant we saw his sick white face -thrown up like a stone in the midst of a writhing sea; and the jangle -was hellish. Then I closed the lattice, and pressed her face to my -breast. -</p> - -<p> -He had run from us to his doom, which meeting, he had fled back in his -terror to make us the ghastly sport he had designed should be his. -</p> - -<p> -How long we stood thus I know not. The noise outside was unnameable, -and I closed her ears with her hair, with my hands—nay, I say it with -a passionate shame, with my lips. She sobbed a little and moaned; but -she clung to me, and I could feel the beating of her heart. We had -heard windows thrown open down the street—one or two on the floors -above us. I had no heed or care for any danger. I was wrapt in a -fearful ecstasy. -</p> - -<p> -By-and-by she lifted her face. Then the noise had ceased for some -time, and a profound silence reigned about us. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” she said, in a faint reeling voice. “Radegonde was there; I saw -her!” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle—the noble creature—she hath won us a respite.” -</p> - -<p> -Her breath caught in the darkness. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she said. “There is a peruke that must wait.” -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly she backed from me, and put the hair from her eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“If you dare, monsieur, it necessitates that we make our adieux.” -</p> - -<p> -“Au revoir, citoyenne. It must be that, indeed.” -</p> - -<p> -She held out her hand, that was like a rose petal. I put my lips to it -and lingered. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, monsieur!” she entreated. -</p> - -<p> -The next moment I was in the street. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Who was my little citoyenne? Ah! I shall never know. The terror -gripped us, and these things passed. Incidents that would make the -passion of sober times, the spirit of revolution dismisses with a -shrug. To die in those days was such a vulgar complaint. -</p> - -<p> -But I saw her once more, and then when my heart nestled to her image -and my veins throbbed to her remembered touch. -</p> - -<p> -I was strolling, on the morning following my strange experience, in -the neighbourhood of the Champs Elysées, when I was aware of a great -press of people all making in the direction of that open ground. -</p> - -<p> -“What arrives, then, citizen?” I cried to one who paused for breath -near me. -</p> - -<p> -He gasped, the little morose. To ask any question that showed one -ignorant of the latest caprice of the Executive was almost to be -“suspect.” -</p> - -<p> -“Has not the citizen heard? The Committee of Safety has decreed the -destruction of the dogs.” -</p> - -<p> -“The dogs?” -</p> - -<p> -“Sacred Blood!” he cried. “Is it not time, when they take, as it is -said they did last night, a good friend of the Republic to supper?” -</p> - -<p> -He ran on, and I followed. All about the Champs Elysées was a -tumultuous crowd, and posted within were two battalions of the -National Guard, their blue uniforms resplendent, their flint-locks -shining in their hands. They, the soldiers, surrounded the area, save -towards the Rue Royale, where a gap occurred; and on this gap all eyes -were fixed. -</p> - -<p> -Scarcely was I come on the scene when on every side a laughing hubbub -arose. The dogs were being driven in, at first by twos and threes, but -presently in great numbers at a time. For hours, I was told, had half -the <i>gamins</i> of Paris been beating the coverts and hallooing their -quarry to the toils. -</p> - -<p> -At length, when many hundreds were accumulated in the free space, the -soldiers closed in and drove the skulking brutes through the gap -towards the Place Royale. And there they made a battue of it, shooting -them down by the score. -</p> - -<p> -With difficulty I made my way round to the <i>Place</i>, the better to view -the sport. The poor trapped <i>fripons</i> ran hither and thither, crying, -yelping—some fawning on their executioners, some begging to the -bullets, as if these were crusts thrown to them. And my heart woke to -pity; for was I not witnessing the destruction of my good friends? -</p> - -<p> -The noise—the volleying, the howling, the shrieking of the -<i>canaille</i>—was indescribable. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly my pulses gave a leap. I knew her—Radegonde. She was driven -into the fire and stood at bay, bristling. -</p> - -<p> -“Nanette!” cried a quick acid voice; “Nanette—imbecile—my God!” -</p> - -<p> -It all passed in an instant. There, starting from the crowd, was the -figure of a tall sour-featured woman, the tiny tricolour bow in her -scarlet cap; there was the thin excited musketeer, his piece to his -shoulder; there was my citoyenne flung upon the ground, her arms about -the neck of the hound. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Whether his aim was true or false, who can tell? He shot her through -her dog, and his sergeant brained him. And in due course his sergeant -was invited for his reward to look through the little window. -</p> - -<p> -These were a straw or two in the torrent of the revolution. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -It was Citizen Gaspardin who accepted the contract to remove the -carcasses (some three thousand of them) that encumbered the Place -Royale as a result of this drastic measure. However, his eye being -bigger than his stomach, as the saying is, he found himself short of -means adequate to his task and so applied for the royal equipages to -help him out of his difficulty. And these the Assembly, entering into -the joke, was moved to lend him; and the dead dogs, hearsed in gilt -and gingerbread as full as they could pack, made a rare procession of -it through Paris, thereby pointing half-a-dozen morals that it is not -worth while at this date to insist on. -</p> - -<p> -I saw the show pass amidst laughter and clapping of hands; and I saw -Radegonde, as I thought, her head lolling from the roof of the -stateliest coach of all. But her place should have been on the seat of -honour. -</p> - -<p> -And the citoyenne, the dark window, the ripping sound in the street, -and that bosom bursting to mine in agony? Episodes, my friend—mere -travelling sparks in dead ashes, that glowed an instant and vanished. -The times bristled with such. Love and hate, and all the kaleidoscope -of passion—pouf! a sigh shook the tube, and form and colour were -changed. -</p> - -<p> -But—but—but—ah! I was glad thenceforth not to shudder for my heart -when a <i>blonde perruque</i> went by me. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch10"> -CHAPTER X.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE AFFAIR OF THE CANDLES.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">Gardel</span>—one of the most eminent and amusing rascals of my -experience—is inextricably associated with my memories of the prison -of the Little Force. He had been runner to the Marquis de Kercy; and -that his vanity would by no means deny, though it should procure his -conviction ten times over. He was vivacious, and at all expedients as -ingenious as he was practical; and, while he was with us, the -common-room of La Force was a theatre of varieties. -</p> - -<p> -By a curious irony of circumstance, it fell to Madame, his former -châtelaine, to second his extravagances. For he was her -fellow-prisoner; and, out of all that motley, kaleidoscopic -assemblage, an only representative of the traditions of her past. She -indulged him, indeed, as if she would say, “In him, <i>mes amis</i>, you -see exemplified the gaieties that I was born to patronise and -applaud.” -</p> - -<p> -She was a small, faded woman, of thirty-five or so—one of those -colourless aristocrats who, lying under no particular ban, were -reserved to complete the tale of any <i>fournée</i> that lacked the -necessary number of loaves. It is humiliating to be guillotined -because fifty-nine are not sixty. But that, in the end, was her fate. -</p> - -<p> -I recall her the first evening of my incarceration, when I was -permitted to descend, rather late, to the <i>salle de récréation</i> of -the proscribed. She was seated, with other ladies, at the long table. -The music of their voices rippled under the vaulted ceiling. They -worked, these dear creatures—the decree depriving prisoners of all -implements and equipments not yet being formulated. Madame la Marquise -stitched proverbs into a sampler in red silk. She looked, perhaps, a -morsel slatternly for a <i>grande dame</i>, and her fine lace was torn. But -the sampler must not be neglected, for all that. Since the days she -had played at “Proverbs” (how often?) in the old paternal château, -her little philosophy of life had been all maxims misapplied. Her -sampler was as eloquent to her as was their knitting to the ladies in -the <i>Place du Trône</i>. Endowed with so noble a fund of sentiments, how -could they accuse her of inhumanity? I think she had a design to plead -“sampler” before Fouquier Tinville by-and-by. -</p> - -<p> -I had an opportunity presently to examine her work. “<i>A laver la tête -d’un Maure on perd sa lessive.</i>” She had just finished it—in Roman -characters, too, as a concession to the Directory. It was a -problem-axiom the Executive had resolved unanswerably—as I was bound -to tell her. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Comment?</i>” she asked, with a little sideling perk of her head, like -a robin. -</p> - -<p> -“Can madame doubt? It requests the black thing to sneeze once into the -basket; and, behold! the difficulty is surmounted.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Fi donc!</i>” she cried, and stole me a curious glance. Was I delirious -with the Revolution fever? -</p> - -<p> -“Of what do they accuse you, my friend?” she said kindly, by-and-by. -</p> - -<p> -“A grave offence, surely. There is little hope for me. I gave a -citizen ‘you’ instead of ‘thou.’” -</p> - -<p> -“So? But how men are thoughtless! Alas!” (She treated me to a little -proverb again.) “‘The sleeping cat needs not to be aroused.’” -</p> - -<p> -This was late in the evening, a little before the “lock up” hour was -arrived. -</p> - -<p> -Earlier, as I had entered, she lifted her eyebrows to Gardel, who -stood, her <i>chevalier d’honneur</i>, behind her chair. The man advanced -at once, with infinite courtesy, and bade me welcome, entirely in the -grand manner, to the society of La Force. -</p> - -<p> -“I have the honour to represent madame. This kiss I impress upon -monsieur’s hand is to be returned.” -</p> - -<p> -The ladies laughed. I advanced gravely and saluted the Marquise. -</p> - -<p> -“I restore it, like a medal blessed of the holy father, sanctified a -hundredfold,” I said. -</p> - -<p> -There was a mignonne seated near who was critical of my gallantry. -</p> - -<p> -“But monsieur is enamoured of his own lips,” she said in a little -voice. -</p> - -<p> -“Cruel!” I cried. “What should I mean but that I breathed into it all -that I have of reverence for beauty? If the citoyenne——” -</p> - -<p> -There was a general cry—“A fine! a fine!” -</p> - -<p> -The hateful word was interdicted under a penalty. -</p> - -<p> -“I pay it!” I said, and stooped and kissed the fair cheek. -</p> - -<p> -Its owner flushed and looked a little vexed, for all the general -merriment. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur cheapens his own commodities,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, mademoiselle! I know the best investments for my heart. I am a -very merchant of love. If you keep my embrace, I am well advertised. -If you return it, I am well enriched.” -</p> - -<p> -The idea was enough. Gardel invented a new game from it on the spot. -In a moment half the company was rustling and chattering and romping -about the room. -</p> - -<p> -M. Damézague’s “<i>Que ferons-nous demain matin?</i>”—that should have -been this vivacious Gardel’s epitaph. He could not be monotonous; he -could not be unoriginal; he could not rest anywhere—not even in his -grave. It was curious to see how he deluded la Marquise into the -belief that she was his superior. -</p> - -<p> -Indeed, these prisons afforded strange illustration of what I may call -the process of natural adjustments. Accidents of origin deprived of -all significance, one could select without any difficulty the souls to -whom a free Constitution would have ensured intellectual prominence. I -take Gardel as an instance. Confined within arbitrary limits under the -old <i>régime</i>, his personality here discovered itself masterful. His -resourcefulness, his intelligence, overcrowed us all, irresistibly -leaping to their right sphere of action. He had a little learning -even; but that was no condition of his emancipation. Also, he was not -wanting in that sort of courage with which one had not condescended -hitherto to accredit lackeys. No doubt in those days one was rebuked -by many discoveries. -</p> - -<p> -Yet another possession of his endeared him to all <i>misérables</i> in -this casual ward of the guillotine. He had a mellow baritone voice, -and a <i>répertoire</i> of playful and tender little folk-songs. Clélie -(it was she I had kissed; I never knew her by any other name) would -accompany him on the harp, till her head drooped and the <i>poudre -maréchale</i> from her hair would glitter red on the strings—not to -speak of other gentle dew that was less artificial. -</p> - -<p> -Then she would look up, with a pitiful mouth of deprecation. “<i>La -paix, pour Dieu, la paix!</i>” she would murmur. “My very harp weeps to -hear thee.” -</p> - -<p> -The pathos of his songs was not in their application. Perhaps he was -quit of worse grievances than those the Revolution presented to him. -Perhaps he was happier proscribed than enslaved. At any rate, he never -fitted music to modern circumstance. His subjects were sweet, -archaic—the mythology of the woods and pastures. It was in their -allusions to a withered spring-time that the sadness lay. For, believe -me, we were all Punchinellos, grimacing lest the terror of tears -should overwhelm us. -</p> - -<p> -There was a <i>chansonnette</i> of his, the opening words of which ran -somewhat as follows:— -</p> - -<div class="quote_o"><div class="quote_i"> -<p class="i0">“Oh, beautiful apple-tree!</p> -<p class="i1">Heavy with flowers</p> -<p class="i1">As my heart with love!</p> -<p class="i0">As a little wind serveth</p> -<p class="i1">To scatter thy blossom,</p> -<p class="i0">So a young lover only</p> -<p class="i1">Is needed to ravish</p> -<p class="i1">The heart from my bosom.”</p> -</div></div> - -<p> -This might be typical of all. We convinced ourselves that we caught in -them echoes of a once familiar innocence, and we wept over our lost -Eden. Truly the indulging of introspection is the opportunity of the -imagination. -</p> - -<p> -To many brave souls Gardel’s peasant ballads were the requiem— -</p> - -<div class="quote_o"><div class="quote_i"> -<p class="i0">“Passez, la Dormette,</p> -<p class="i0">Passez par chez nous!”—</p> -</div></div> - -<p class="noindent"> -and so comes the rascal Cabochon, our jailer, with his lowering -<i>huissiers</i>, and the ‘Evening Gazette’ in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“So-and-so, and So-and-so, and So-and-so, to the Conciergerie.” -</p> - -<p> -Then, if the runner had been singing, would succeed some little -emotions of parting—moist wistful eyes, and the echo of sobs going -down the corridor. -</p> - -<p> -Yet, more often, Cabochon would interrupt a romp, to which the -condemned would supplement a jocund exit. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Adieu, messieurs! adieu! adieu!</i> We cannot keep our countenances -longer. We kneel to Sanson, who shall shrive us—Sanson, the Abbé, -the exquisite, in whose presence we all lose our heads!” -</p> - -<p> -And so the wild hair and feverish eyes vanish. -</p> - -<p> -But it is of Gardel and the Marquise I speak. While many went and many -took their places, these two survived for a time. To the new, as to -the old, the rogue was unflagging in his attentions. His every respite -inspired him with fresh audacity; from each condemned he seemed to -take a certain toll of animation. -</p> - -<p> -Presently Madame and her emancipated servant, with Clélie and I, -would make a nightly habit of it to join forces in a bout of -“Quadrille.” We appropriated an upper corner of the long table, and -(for the oil lamps on the walls were dismally inadequate) we had our -four wax candles all regular—but in burgundy bottles for sconces. A -fifth bottle, with no candle, but charged with the ruddier light that -illuminates the heart, was a usual accompaniment. -</p> - -<p> -We chattered famously, and on many subjects. Hope a little rallied, -maybe, as each night brought Cabochon with a list innocent of our -names. -</p> - -<p> -Also we had our eccentricities, that grew dignified by custom. If, in -the game, “<i>Roi rendu</i>” was called, we paid, not with a fish, but with -a hair plucked from the head. It made Clélie cry; but not all from -loyalty. So, if the King of Hearts triumphed, its owner drank “<i>rubis -sur l’ongle</i>,” emptying his glass and tapping the edge of it three -times on his left thumb-nail. -</p> - -<p> -Now, I am to tell you of the black evening that at the last broke up -our coterie—of the frantic <i>abandon</i> of the scene, and the tragedy of -farce with which it closed. -</p> - -<p> -On that afternoon Gardel sparkled beyond his wont. He made the air -electric with animation. The company was vociferous for a romp, but at -present we four sat idly talkative over the disused cards. -</p> - -<p> -“M. Gardel, you remind me of a gnat-maggot.” -</p> - -<p> -“How, sir?” says Gardel. -</p> - -<p> -“It is without offence. Once, as a boy, I kept a tub of gold-fish. In -this the eggs of the little insect would be found to germinate. I used -to watch the tiny water-dragons come to the surface to take the air -through their tails—my faith! but that was comically like the France -of to-day. Now touch the water with a finger, and <i>pouf!</i> there they -were all scurried to the bottom in a panic, not to rise again till -assured of safety.” -</p> - -<p> -“That is not my way,” says Gardel. -</p> - -<p> -“Wait, my friend. By-and-by, nearing their transformation, these mites -plump out and lose their gravity. Then, if one frights them, they try -to wriggle down; their buoyancy resists. They may sink five—six -inches. It is no good. Up they come again, like bubbles in champagne, -to burst on the surface presently and fly away.” -</p> - -<p> -“And shall I fly, monsieur?” -</p> - -<p> -“To the stars, my brave Gardel. But is it not so? One cannot drive you -down for long.” -</p> - -<p> -“To-night, M. Thibaut” (such was my name in the prison -register)—“to-night, I confess, I am like a ‘Montgolfier.’ I rise, I -expand. I am full of thoughts too great for utterance. My -transformation must be near.” -</p> - -<p> -The Marquise gave a little cry— -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Je ne puis pas me passer de vous, François!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -The servant—the master—looked kindlily into the faded eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“I will come back and be with you in spirit,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“No, no!” she cried, volubly. “It is old-wives’ tales—the vapourings -of poets and mystics. Of all these murdered thousands, which haunts -the murderers?” -</p> - -<p> -I gazed in astonishment. This passive <i>douillette</i>, with the torn -lace! I had never known her assert herself yet but through the mouth -of her henchman. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh yes!” she went on shrilly, nodding her head. “Death, death, death! -But, if the dead return, this Paris should be a city of ghosts.” -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps it is,” said Gardel. -</p> - -<p> -“Fie, then!” she cried. “You forget your place; you presume upon my -condescension. It is insolent so to put me to school. ‘<i>Ma demeure -sera bientôt le néant.</i>’ It was Danton—yes, Danton—who said that. -He was a devil, but he could speak truth.” -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly she checked herself and gave a little artificial titter. She -was not transfigured, but debased. A jealous scepticism was revealed -in every line of her features. -</p> - -<p> -“And what is death to M. Gardel?” she said ironically. -</p> - -<p> -“It is an interruption, madame.” -</p> - -<p> -She burst forth again excitedly— -</p> - -<p> -“But Danton saw further than thee, thou fool, who, like a crab, -lookest not whither thou art going, and wilt run upon a blind wall -while thine eyes devour the landscape sidelong. I will not have it. I -do not desire any continuance. My faith is the faith of eyes and ears -and lips. Man’s necessities die with him; and, living, mine are for -thy strong arm, François, and for thy fruitful service. My God! what -we pass through! And then for a hereafter of horrible retrospection! -No, no. It is infamous to suggest, foolish to insist on it.” -</p> - -<p> -“But, for all that, I do,” said Gardel, steadily. -</p> - -<p> -He took her outburst quite coolly—answered her with gaiety even. -</p> - -<p> -I cried “<i>Malepeste!</i>” under my breath. And, indeed, my amazement was -justified. For who would have dreamed that this little colourless -draggle-tail had one sentiment in her that amounted to a conviction? -Madame Placide an atheist! And what was there of dark and secret in -her past history that drove her to this desire of extinction? -</p> - -<p> -At Gardel’s answer she fell back in her chair with defiant eyes and -again that little artificial laugh. In the noisy talk of the room we -four sat and spoke apart. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Malappris!</i>” she said. “You shall justify yourself of that boldness. -Come back to me, if you go first, and I will believe.” -</p> - -<p> -“Agreed!” he cried. “And for the sign, madame?” -</p> - -<p> -She thought; and answered, with the grateful womanliness that redeemed -her,— -</p> - -<p> -“Do me a little service—something, anything—and I shall know it is -you.” -</p> - -<p> -The candles were burned half-way down in their bottles. He rose and -one by one blew them out. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Voilà!</i>” he cried gaily. “To save your pocket!” -</p> - -<p> -So the little scene ended. -</p> - -<p> -“M. Gardel,” I said to him presently, “you come (you will pardon me) -of the makers of the Revolution. I am curious to learn your experience -of the premonitory symptoms of that disease to which at last you have -fallen a victim.” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur! ‘A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.’ It is an -early remembrance with me how my father cursed me that I passed my -eighth year, and so was liable to the salt-tax. My faith! I do not -blame him. Things were hard enough. But it was unreasonable to beat me -because I could not stop the march of Time. Yet we had not then -learned to worship Reason.” -</p> - -<p> -“The Moloch that devours her children!” -</p> - -<p> -“So it appears. But there were signs and omens for long years before. -I am of the territory of Berri, monsieur; and there all we learned to -read was between the lines. I will tell you that I heard—for I was in -service at the time” (he bowed with infinite complaisance to his -Marquise)—“how, all during the chill, dark spring that preceded the -September Massacres, <i>Les laveuses de la nuit</i> were busy at their -washing.” -</p> - -<p> -“And who are they, my friend?” -</p> - -<p> -“Strange, inhuman women, monsieur, who wash in the moonlight by lonely -tarns. And while they wash they wail.” -</p> - -<p> -“Wash? But what?” -</p> - -<p> -“Some say the winding-sheets of those who are to die during the year.” -</p> - -<p> -La Marquise broke into shrill laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“Poor, poor imbecile!” she cried. “Thy credulity would make but one -gulp of a gravestone. You must know these things are not, my friend. -I tell thee so—I, thy mistress. Miserable! have you nothing in your -life that not mountains of eternity could crush out the memory of?” -</p> - -<p> -Again she checked herself. -</p> - -<p> -“It is the one virtue of the Revolution to have decreed annihilation.” -</p> - -<p> -A deputation approached us. She jumped to her feet, her pale eyes -flickering. -</p> - -<p> -“But, yes!” she cried, “a game, a game! I acquit myself of these -follies. It is present life I desire. Messieurs, what is it to be? To -the front, François!” -</p> - -<p> -The man responded at a leap. The veins of all received the infection -of his wild humour. In a moment, chattering and pushing and giggling, -we were to take our places for “<i>Shadow Buff</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -We had no sheet. The dirty drab of the wall must suffice. A stool was -placed for the guesser—not yet appointed; and la Marquise’s four -candles, relighted, were placed on the table over against it, in a -receding row like a procession of acolytes. Between the candles and -the back of the guesser the company were to pass one by one, for -identification by means of the shadows cast on the wall. -</p> - -<p> -“Who shall take the stool?” -</p> - -<p> -The clamour echoed up to the vaulted stonework of the roof—and died. -Cabochon’s evil face was visible at the grille. -</p> - -<p> -He saw what we were at; the dull brute was sopped with drink and -bestially amiable. His key grated in the door and he stood before us, -his bodyguard supporting him, the fatal list in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he said, “but ‘<i>Shadow Buff</i>’ again? It is well timed. Yet I -could name some citizen shadows without sitting on the stool.” -</p> - -<p> -His voice guttered like a candle. It seemed to run into greasy drops. -</p> - -<p> -A wild inspiration seized me. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Voilà, citoyen!</i>” I cried. “You shall join us. You shall take your -victims from the wall!” -</p> - -<p> -In a moment I had snatched the dirty rag of paper out of his hand, and -had retreated with it a few paces. I had an instant to glance down the -list before he slouched at me in sodden anger. My heart gave a queer -little somersault and came upright again. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Sang Dieu!</i>” he growled, thickly. “You do well to jest. Give me the -paper, or I’ll brain you with my keys!” -</p> - -<p> -I dropped laughing upon the stool, and held the list between and under -my knees. With an oath he fell upon me. The company applauded it all -with a frenzy of mad mirth and frolic. -</p> - -<p> -The struggle was brief. He rose directly, puffing and cursing, the -paper in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -I affected a crestfallen good-humour. -</p> - -<p> -“You might have let us have our game out,” I protested. -</p> - -<p> -With his recovered authority in his hand, the rascal condescended to -some facetious tolerance. -</p> - -<p> -“So!” he said; “you play a good part. They should have you for King -George in ‘Le Dernier Jugement des Rois.’ But rest content. You shall -appear on a notable stage yet, and before an audience more -appreciative than that of the Théâtre de la République.” -</p> - -<p> -“And I shall know how to bow my thanks, citizen.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he crowed. “I love thee! Thou shalt have thy game and sit here; -and I will pick from the flock as thou numberest its tale.” -</p> - -<p> -It fell in with the reckless, dreadful humour of the times. I would -have withdrawn from the cruel jest, but it was the company of <i>les -misérables</i> that prevented me. -</p> - -<p> -Who should go first? There was a little hesitation and reluctance. -</p> - -<p> -“Come, hurry!” cried Cabochon, “or I must do my own guessing!” -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly a shadow glided past upon the wall. -</p> - -<p> -“No, no!” I muttered. -</p> - -<p> -“Name it, name it!” chuckled the jailer. The grinning <i>sans-culottes</i> -at the door echoed his demand vociferously. -</p> - -<p> -“Gardel!” I murmured faintly. The leading spirit had, -characteristically, been the first to enter the breach. -</p> - -<p> -“Good,” croaked Cabochon, referring to his list. “Citizen shadow, you -are marked for judgment.” -</p> - -<p> -I rose hurriedly from the stool. -</p> - -<p> -“I will no more of it!” I cried. -</p> - -<p> -“What!—already? My faith! a nerveless judge.” -</p> - -<p> -Instantly a figure pressed forward and took my place. -</p> - -<p> -“Pass, pass, good people!” it cried, “and <i>I</i> will call the tale!” -</p> - -<p> -She sat there—the Marquise—her lips set in an acrid smile. Neither -look nor word did she address to her forfeited servant. -</p> - -<p> -Another shadow passed. -</p> - -<p> -“Darviane!” she cried shrilly. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Encore bien</i>,” roared Cabochon amidst shrieks of laughter. My God, -what laughter! -</p> - -<p> -Milet, De Mérode, Fontenay—she named them all. They took their -places by the door, skipping—half-hysterical. -</p> - -<p> -D’Aubiers, Monville—I cannot recall a moiety of them. It was a -destructive list. Clélie also was in it—poor Clélie, the frail, I -fear, but with the big heart. I fancied I noticed a harder ring in -Madame’s voice as she identified her. -</p> - -<p> -I stood stupidly in the background. Presently I heard Cabochon— -</p> - -<p> -“Enough! enough! The virtuous citizens would forestall the Executive.” -</p> - -<p> -He numbered up his list rapidly, counted his prisoners. They tallied. -</p> - -<p> -“To be repeated to-morrow,” he said. “It is good sport. But the -guessers, it seems, remain.” -</p> - -<p> -He treated us to a grin and a clumsy bow, gave the order to form, and -carried off his new batch to the baking. -</p> - -<p> -As the door clanged upon them I gave a deep gasp. I could not believe -in the reality of my respite. -</p> - -<p> -For the thinned company the reaction had set in immediately: women -were flung prostrate, on the table, over the benches, wailing out -their desperate loss and misery. -</p> - -<p> -Madame made her way to me. The strange smile had not left her mouth. -</p> - -<p> -“You were on the list. I saw it in your face.” -</p> - -<p> -“I was at the bottom—the very last.” -</p> - -<p> -“But how——?” -</p> - -<p> -“As Cabochon struggled with me, I turned my name down and tore it -off.” -</p> - -<p> -“But the number?” -</p> - -<p> -“It tallied. It was enough for him.” -</p> - -<p> -“They must find it out—to-morrow, when the prisoners are arraigned.” -</p> - -<p> -“Probably. And in the meantime we will drink to our poor Gardel’s -acquittal.” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” she said, shrinking back, with an extraordinary look. “If I wish -him well, I wish him eternal forgetfulness.” -</p> - -<p> -<br> -</p> - -<p> -It was the evening of the day succeeding. Shorn of our partners in -“Quadrille,” Madame and I had been playing “Piquet.” -</p> - -<p> -We were only two, but the four lights flickered in their bottles. -</p> - -<p> -La Marquise de Kercy had been musing. Suddenly she looked up. Her eyes -were full of an inhuman mockery. -</p> - -<p> -“The candles!” she said, with a little laugh. “We are no longer using -them. To save my pocket, François!” -</p> - -<p> -<i>Pouf!</i> a candle went out—another, another, another; between each the -fraction of time occupied by something unseen moving round -systematically. -</p> - -<p> -I started to my feet with a suppressed cry. -</p> - -<p> -One or two sitting near us complained of this churlish economy of wax. -They imagined I was the culprit. -</p> - -<p> -“Madame!” I muttered. “Look! she is indisposed!” -</p> - -<p> -Her face was white and dreadful, like a skull. Hearing my voice she -sat up. -</p> - -<p> -“So! He has been guillotined!” she said. -</p> - -<p> -She articulated with difficulty, swallowing and panting without stop. -</p> - -<p> -“M. Thibaut, it is true, then, they say! But it was he made me kill -the child. He has more need to forget than I. Is it not appalling? If -I tell them now how I have learnt to fear, they will surely spare me. -I cannot subscribe to their doctrines—that Club of the Cordeliers. If -I tell them so—Danton being gone——” -</p> - -<p> -Her voice tailed off into a hurry of pitiful sobs and cries. I -welcomed the entrance of Cabochon with his list. -</p> - -<p> -Her name was first on it. -</p> - -<p> -As we stood arisen, dreading some hideous scene, she fell silent quite -suddenly, got to her feet, and walked to the door with a face of -stone. -</p> - -<p> -“Death is an interruption.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Ma demeure sera bientôt le néant.</i>” -</p> - -<p> -Which could one hope for her, pondering only that delirious outcry -from her lips? -</p> - -<p> -Possibly, indeed, she had been mad from first to last. -</p> - -<p> -I had time to collect my thoughts, for—from whatever cause—Citizen -Tinville had, it appeared, overlooked me. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch11"> -CHAPTER XI.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">PYRAMUS AND THISBE.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">I was</span> taking exercise one forenoon in the yard of the prison. It was -the last black “Prairial” of the “Terror”—the month, like the girl La -Lune, once dedicate to Mary—and its blue eyes curiously scrutinised, -as Cleopatra’s of old, the processes amongst us slaves of that poison -that is called despair. -</p> - -<p> -As for myself, I yet a little consorted with Hope—the fond clinging -mistress I had dreaded to find banished with the rest of the dear -creatures whose company had long now been denied us;—for five months -had passed since my incarceration, and I was still, it seemed, -forgotten. -</p> - -<p> -I trod the flags—fifty paces hither and thither. Going one way, I had -always before my eyes the frowzy stone rampart and barred windows of -the prison. Going the other, an execrable statue of M. -Rousseau—surmounting an altar to Liberty, the very cement of which -was marbled with the blood of the massacres—closed my perspective. To -my either hand was a lofty wall—the first giving upon the jailers’ -quarters; the second dividing the men’s yard from that in which the -women were permitted to walk; and a foul open sewer, tunnelled through -the latter about its middle, traversed the entire area, and offered -the only means by which the sexes could now communicate with each -other. -</p> - -<p> -“M. Thibaut,” said a voice at my ear; and a gentleman, detaching -himself from the aimless and loitering crowd of prisoners, adapted his -pace to mine and went with me to and fro. -</p> - -<p> -I knew this oddity—M. the Admiral de St Prest—though he had no -recognition of me. That, however, was small wonder. By this time I was -worse than a <i>sans-culotte</i>, by so much as that my bareness was -suggested rather than revealed. My face was sunk away from my eyes, -like soft limestone from a couple of ammonites; my ribs were loose -hoops on a decayed cask; laughter rattled in my stomach like a pea in -a whistle. Besides, I had come, I think, to be a little jealous of my -title to neglect, for I had made that my grievance against Fate. -</p> - -<p> -Nevertheless, M. de St Prest and I had been slightly acquainted once -upon a time, and it had grieved me to see this red month marked by the -advent in La Force of the dubious old fop. -</p> - -<p> -He had been a macaroni of Louis XV.’s Court, and the ancient <i>rôle</i> -he had never learnt to forego. The poor puppies of circumstance—the -fops of a more recent date, to whom the particular cut of a lapel -would figure as the standard of reason—bayed him in the prison as -they would have bayed him in the streets. To them, with their high -top-boots <i>à l’Anglaise</i>, poor St Prest’s spotted breeches and -knee-ribbons were a source of profound amusement. To them, affecting -the huskiness of speech of certain rude islanders (my very good -friends), his mincing falsetto was a perpetual incitement to laughter. -Swaggering with their cudgels that they called “constitutions,” they -would strike from under him the elaborate tasselled staff on which he -leaned; tossing their matted manes, they would profess to find -something exquisitely exhilarating in the complicated <i>toupet</i> that -embraced and belittled his lean physiognomy. I held them all poor -apes; yet, I confess, it was a ridiculous and pathetic sight, this -posturing of an old wrecked man in the tatters of a bygone generation; -and it gave me shame to see him lift his plate of a hat to me with a -little stick, as the fashion was in his younger days. -</p> - -<p> -“M. Thibaut,” he said, falling into step with me, “these young bloods” -(he signified with his cane a group that had been baiting him)—“they -worry me, monsieur. <i>Mort de ma vie!</i> what manners! what a presence! -It shall need a butcher’s steel to bring their wits to an edge.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur,” said I—“have you not the self-confidence to despise -personalities? The fool hath but a narrow world of conventions, and -everything outside it is to him abnormal. His head is a drumstick to -produce hollow sounds within a blank little area. For my part, I never -hear one holding the great up to ridicule without thinking, There is -wasted a good stone-cutter of epitaphs.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Eh bien</i>, monsieur! but I have been accustomed to leave the study of -philosophy to my lackeys.” -</p> - -<p> -He spoke in a lofty manner, waving his hand at me; and he took snuff -from a battered wooden box, and flipped his fingers to his thumb -afterwards as if he were scattering largesse of fragrance. -</p> - -<p> -“So, you have a royal contempt of personalities?” he said, with a -little amused tolerance. -</p> - -<p> -“Why,” said I—“I am not to be put out of conceit with myself because -an ass brays at me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Or out of countenance, monsieur?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, M. de St Prest! That would be to lose my head on small -provocation. Besides, one must admit the point of view. M. Malseigne -there surveys the world over the edge of a great stock; you, monsieur, -regard it with your chin propped upon a fine fichu. No doubt Sanson -thinks a wooden cravat <i>comme il faut</i>; and I—<i>fichtre!</i> I cry in my -character of patriot, ‘There is nothing like the collar of a -carmagnole to keep one’s neck in place!’ Truly, M. l’Amiral, I for one -am not touchy about my appearance.” -</p> - -<p> -His old eyes blinked out a diluted irony. -</p> - -<p> -“And that is very natural,” he said; “but then, <i>mort de ma vie!</i> you -are a philosopher—like him there.” -</p> - -<p> -He pointed to the statue of Rousseau. The libellous block wrought in -him, it seemed, a mood of piping retrospection. -</p> - -<p> -“I saw the rascal once,” he said—“a mean, common little man, in a -round wig. He was without air or presence. It was at the theatre. The -piece was one of M. de Sauvigny’s, and he sat in the author’s box, a -<i>loge grillée</i>. That was a concession to his diffidence; but his -diffidence had been too much consulted, it seemed. He would have the -grate opened, and then the house recognised and applauded him, and -finally forgot him for the <i>Persiffleur</i>. He was very angry at that, -I believe. We heard it lost the author his friendship. He accused him -of having made a show of him, and—<i>Mort de ma vie!</i> that is to be a -philosopher.” -</p> - -<p> -He ogled and bowed to a stout kindly-looking woman who, coming from -the jailers’ quarters, passed us at the moment. It was Madame Beau, -the keeper of La Force—the only one there in authority whose sense of -humanity had not gone by the board. A ruffianly warder, leading a -great wolf-hound, preceded her. She nodded to us brightly and -stopped— -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, M. Thibaut! but soon we shall call you the father of La Force.” -</p> - -<p> -“As you are its mother, madame.” -</p> - -<p> -“Poor children. But, after all, if one considers it as a club——” -</p> - -<p> -“True; where one may feast like Belshazzar. Yet, I find, one may have -a surfeit of putrid herrings, even though one is to die on the -morrow.” -</p> - -<p> -Madame shrugged her shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, bah! the stuff is supplied by contract. I am not to blame, my -little fellows. Yet some of you manage better.” (She pointed to the -retreating hound.) “<i>Voilà le délinquent!</i> He was caught -red-handed—discussing the bribe of a sheep’s trotter; and his -sentence is five hours in a cell.” -</p> - -<p> -She nodded again and jingled her keys. -</p> - -<p> -“But, yes,” she said, “consider it as a club——” and off she went -across the yard. -</p> - -<p> -“A club? Oh, <i>mon Dieu</i>!” murmured St Prest. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said I, “I am inclined to fall in with the idea. What livelier -places of sojourn are there, in these days of gravity and decorum, -than the prisons?” -</p> - -<p> -He pursed his lips and wagged his old head like a mandarin. -</p> - -<p> -“At least,” he said, leeringly, “she is a fine figure of a woman. She -dates, like myself, from the era of the <i>Bien-aimé</i>, when women knew -how to walk and to hold themselves; and to reveal themselves, too. -<i>Oh, je m’entends bien!</i> I have been entertained in the <i>Parc aux -cerfs</i>, M. Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -I could certainly believe it. This effete old carpet-admiral? Had he -ever smelt salt water? I could understand, perhaps, that he had -crossed in the packet to the land of fogs. But now he was to exhibit -himself to me in a more honourable aspect—to confess the man under -the powder and the rubbish. -</p> - -<p> -We stood close by where the wall was pierced by the running sewer. The -whole yard was alive with laughter and babble; and now and again one -would leave a friend or party of triflers and, kneeling down over the -infected sink, would call some name through the opening. Then, -summoned to the other side, Lucille, poor <i>ange déchu</i>, would -exchange a few earnest pitiful words with husband or brother or lover, -and her tears, perhaps, would fall into the gushing drain and sanctify -its abomination to him. Was not that for love to justify itself in the -eyes of the most unnatural misogynist? -</p> - -<p> -Now there came up to the trap a pale little fellow—the merest child. -It was little Foucaud, the son of Madame Kolly. This poor lad must be -held a man (God save him!) when misfortune overtook his family; but -the scoundrels had the grace to consign his younger brother to the -company of his mother on the woman’s side. And here, through this sink -opening, the two babes would converse in their sad little trebles two -or three times a-day. -</p> - -<p> -“How now, my man?” said St Prest; for the boy stood wistfully watching -us, his hands picking together and his throat swelling. Then all at -once he was weeping. -</p> - -<p> -The old fop gently patted the heaving shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur,” said the youngster, in a hoarse little voice, “the -cold of the stones is in my throat and on my chest.” -</p> - -<p> -“What then, child! That is not to be guillotined.” -</p> - -<p> -“But I cannot cry out so that he shall hear me; and if we do not talk -I know nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -In a paroxysm of agitation he threw himself down by the sewer. -</p> - -<p> -“Lolo, Lolo!” he tried to call; but his voice would not obey his will. -</p> - -<p> -And then M. de St Prest did a thing, the self-sacrificing quality of -which shall be known in full, perhaps, only to the angels. He took the -lad under the arms and, lifting him away, himself knelt down in all -his nicety by the sink and put his mouth to the opening. -</p> - -<p> -“The little Foucaud,” he piped, “desires to see his brother!” -</p> - -<p> -Presently he looked up. -</p> - -<p> -“He is here, child.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur! will you explain that I cannot speak, and ask him how -is <i>maman</i>?” -</p> - -<p> -The message was given. I heard the poor little voice answer through -the wall: “<i>Maman</i> sends her love to you. She has not wept so much the -last night, and she has been sleeping a little. It is Lolo, who loves -you well, that tells you this.” -</p> - -<p> -I assisted St Prest to rise. -</p> - -<p> -“I will ask the honour,” I said, “of dusting M. l’Amiral’s coat for -him.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -That same afternoon, as I was again, during the hour of exercise, -standing near the sewer, of a sudden I heard a most heartrending voice -calling from the other side of the wall. -</p> - -<p> -“Messieurs! messieurs!” it cried. “Will no one send to me my darling?” -</p> - -<p> -I dropped upon my knees (I give all honour to M. de St Prest), and, -with a shudder of nausea, lowered my face to the opening. -</p> - -<p> -“Who speaks?” I said. “I am at madame’s service.” -</p> - -<p> -The voice caught in a sob. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Je vous rends grâce</i>—whoever you are, I thank you from my heart. -It is my little Foucaud, my dearest, that must come to his <i>maman</i>, -and quickly.” -</p> - -<p> -I answered that I would summon him, and I rose to my feet. I had no -difficulty in finding the boy. He came, white-faced and wondering, and -knelt down. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Maman, maman</i>—canst thou hear me? My throat is a little hoarse, -<i>maman</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, my baby, my little son! Thou wilt be sweet and tender with Lolo -in the happy days that are coming. And thou wilt never forget -<i>maman</i>—say it, say it, lest her heart should break.” -</p> - -<p> -God of mercy! Who was I to stand and listen to these pitiful -confidences! I drew aside, watchful only of the boy lest his grief and -terror should drive him mad. In a moment a white hand, laden with a -dark thick coil of hair, was thrust through the opening. It was all -the unhappy woman could leave her darling to remember her by. No -glimpse of her face—no touch of her lips on his. From the dark into -the dark she must go, and his very memory of her should be associated -with the most dreadful period of his life. When they came for her in -another instant, I heard the agony of her soul find vent in a single -cry: “My lambs, alone amongst the wolves!” -</p> - -<p> -Kind Madame Beau was there beside me. -</p> - -<p> -“Lift him up,” she whispered. “He will be motherless in an hour.” -</p> - -<p> -As I stooped to take the sobbing and hysterical child in my arms, I -heard a voice speak low on the other side of the wall— -</p> - -<p> -“It is only an interruption, madame.” -</p> - -<p> -Gardel’s words—but the speaker! -</p> - -<p> -I stumbled with my burden—recovered myself, and consigned the boy to -the good soul that awaited him. Then hurriedly I leaned down again, -and hurriedly cried, “Carinne! Carinne!” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -There was no answer. Probably the speaker had retreated when the -wretched Madame Kolly was withdrawn from the wall. I called again. I -dwelt over the noxious gutter in excitement and anguish until I was -convinced it was useless to remain. Was it this, then? that out of all -the voices of France one voice could set my heart vibrating like a -glass vessel that responds only to the striking of its single -sympathetic note? I had thought to depose this idol of an hour from -its shrine; I had cried shame upon myself for ever submitting my -independence to the tyranny of a woman, and here a half-dozen words -from her addressed to a stranger had reinfected me with the fever of -desire. -</p> - -<p> -I got out a scrap of paper and wrote thereon, “<i>Jacob to Rachel. -Jean-Louis is still in the service of Mademoiselle de Lâge.</i>” -</p> - -<p> -I found a fragment of stick, notched the paper into the end of it, and -gingerly passed my billet through the hole in the wall. On the instant -a great voice uttered a malediction behind me, and I was jerked -roughly down upon the flags. My end of the stick dropped into the -gutter and wedged itself in slime. I looked up. Above me were Cabochon -and a yellow-faced rascal. This last wore a sword by his side and on -his head a high-crowned hat stuffed with plumes. I had seen him -before—Maillard, l’Abbaye Maillard, a hound with a keen enough scent -for blood to make himself a lusty living. He and his colleague Héron -would often come to La Force to count their victims before following -them to the scaffold. -</p> - -<p> -“Plots—plots!” he muttered, shaking his head tolerantly, as if he -were rebuking a child. “See to it, Citizen Cabochon.” -</p> - -<p> -The jailer fetched back the stick. The paper, however, was gone from -the end of it. -</p> - -<p> -“It will be in the sewer,” said Maillard, quietly. -</p> - -<p> -Cabochon had no scruples. He groped with his fingers. -</p> - -<p> -“It is not here,” he said after a time, eyeing me and very malignant. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said the other, “who is this fellow?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mordi</i>, Citizen President; he is a forgotten jackass that eats his -head off in the revolutionary stable.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Vraiment?</i> Then, it follows, his head must fall into the -revolutionary manger.” -</p> - -<p> -He nodded pleasantly twice or thrice; then turned and, beckoning -Cabochon to walk by him, strode away. -</p> - -<p> -I sat in particular cogitation against the wall. For the present, it -seemed, I enjoyed a distinction that was not attractive to my -fellow-prisoners; and I was left religiously to myself. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” said I aloud, “I have grown such a beard that at last the -national barber must take me in hand.” -</p> - -<p> -“M. Jean-Louis,” said a voice the other side of the trap, “will you -keep me kneeling here for ever?” -</p> - -<p> -I started and flung myself face downwards with a cry of joy. My heart -swelled in a moment so that it drove the tears up to my eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Carinne!” I cried, choking and half-sobbing; “is it thou indeed?” -</p> - -<p> -“Creep through the little hole,” she said, “and thou shalt see.” -</p> - -<p> -I laughed and I cried in a single breath. -</p> - -<p> -“Say what thou wilt, <i>ma fillette</i>. Yes, I will call thee as I choose. -Didst thou hear but now? I think it is a dying man that speaks to -thee. Carinne, say after all you keep a place in your heart for the -little odd Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -“Insidious! thou wouldst seek to devour the whole, like a little worm -in a gall.” -</p> - -<p> -“To hear your voice again! We are always shadows to one another now. -As a shadow I swear that I love you dearly. Oh, <i>ma mie, ma mie</i>, I -love you so dearly. And why were you cruel to leave me for that small -gust of temper I soon repented of? Carinne! My God! she is gone away!” -</p> - -<p> -“I am here, little Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -“There is a sound in your voice. Oh, this savage unyielding wall! I -will kiss it a foot above the trap. Will you do the same on the other -side?” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur forgets himself, I think.” -</p> - -<p> -“He is light-headed with joy. But he never forgets Mademoiselle de -Lâge—not though she punished him grievously for an indifferent -offence in the forests of Chalus.” -</p> - -<p> -“Jean-Louis, listen well to this: I was abducted.” -</p> - -<p> -“My God! by whom?” -</p> - -<p> -“By a vile citizen Representative journeying to Paris.” -</p> - -<p> -“By a——” -</p> - -<p> -“I had emerged from the trees after you left me, and was sitting very -passionate by the road, when he passed with his escort and discovered -me.” -</p> - -<p> -I kneeled voiceless as if I were stunned. -</p> - -<p> -“What would you!” said Carinne. “There was no Thibaut at hand to throw -him to the pigs. He forced me to go with him, and——” -</p> - -<p> -I vented a groan that quite rumbled in the gutter; and at that her -voice came through the hole a little changed— -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur has a delicate faith in what he professes to love.” -</p> - -<p> -I beat my hands on the wall. I cried upon Heaven in my agony to let me -reach through this inexorable veil of stone. -</p> - -<p> -“You talked once of the wicked licence of the times. How could I know, -oh, <i>ma mie</i>! And now all my heart is melting with love and rapture.” -</p> - -<p> -“But I had a knife, Jean-Louis. Well, but he was courteous to me; and -at that I told him who I was—no jill-flirt, but an unhappy waif of -fortune. Now, <i>mon Dieu</i>!—it turned out that this was the very man -that had come <i>en mission</i> to Pierrettes.” -</p> - -<p> -“Lacombe?” -</p> - -<p> -“No—a creature of the name of Crépin——” -</p> - -<p> -I uttered a cry. -</p> - -<p> -“Crépin! It was he that carried thee away?” -</p> - -<p> -“Truly; and who has, for my obduracy, consigned me to prison. Ever -since, little Thibaut, ever since—now at Les Carmes; now in the Rue -de Sèvres; at last, no later than yesterday, to this ‘extraordinary -question’ of La Force.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now thou art a sweet-souled Carinne! Send me something of thine -through the evil passage that I may mumble it with my lips. Carinne, -listen,”—and I told her the story of my connection with the villain. -</p> - -<p> -“I would wring his neck if they would spare mine,” I said. “But, alas! -I fear I am doomed, Carinne.” -</p> - -<p> -She had from me all the details in brief of my captivity. <i>Mon Dieu!</i> -but it was ecstasy this dessert to my long feast of neglect. At the -end she was silent a space; then she said very low— -</p> - -<p> -“He communicates with me; but I never answer. Now I will do so, and -perhaps thou shalt not die.” -</p> - -<p> -“Carinne.” -</p> - -<p> -“Hush, thou small citizen! The time is up; we must talk no longer.” -</p> - -<p> -I breathed all my heart out in a sigh of farewell. I thought she had -already gone, when suddenly she spoke again— -</p> - -<p> -“Jean-Louis, Jean-Louis, do you hear?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“I would have thee just the height for thine eyes to look into mine.” -</p> - -<p> -“Carinne? And what should they read there?” -</p> - -<p> -Again there was a pause, again I thought she had gone; and then once -more her voice came to me— -</p> - -<p> -“Little Thibaut, I <i>did</i> kiss the wall a foot above the trap.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -“Madame Beau,” said I, “when you shall be nearing old age—that is to -say, when your present years double themselves—it is very certain -that your lines will fall in pleasant places.” -</p> - -<p> -“And where will they be?” said she. -</p> - -<p> -“Where, but round your fine eyes and the dimples of your mouth!” -</p> - -<p> -She cried, “<i>Oh, qu’il est malin!</i>” and tapped my shoulder archly with -a great key she held in her hand. -</p> - -<p> -“And what is the favour you design to ask of me?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Firstly your permission to me to dedicate some verses to you,” said -I. “After that, that you will procure me the immediate delivery of -this little tube of paper.” -</p> - -<p> -“To whom is it addressed?” -</p> - -<p> -“To one Crépin, who lives in the Rue de Jouy, St Antoine.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Croyez m’en!</i>” she cried. “Do you not see I have dropped my key?” -</p> - -<p> -Then, as I stooped to pick up the instrument which she had let fall on -the pavement, “Slip the little paper into the barrel!” she muttered. -</p> - -<p> -I did so; and these were the words I had written on it:— -</p> - -<div class="letter"> - -<p> -“<i>I am imprisoned in La Force for any reason or none. It concerns me -only in that I am thereby debarred from vindicating upon your body the -honour of Mademoiselle de Lâge. If it gives you any shame to hear -that towards this victim of your base persecution, I, your one-time -comrade, entertain and have long entertained sentiments of the most -profound regard, prevail with yourself, I beseech you, to procure the -enlargement of a lady whose only crimes—as things are judged -nowadays—are her innocence and her beauty.</i> -</p> - -<p class="sign2"> -“<i><span class="sc">Jean-Louis Thibaut</span></i>.” -</p> - -</div> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Of all the degradations to which we in the prison were subjected, none -equalled that that was a common condition of our nightly herding. -Then—so early as eight o’clock during the darker months—would appear -the foul Cabochon—with his satellites and three or four brace of -hounds—to drive us like cattle to our sleeping-pens. Bayed into the -corridors, from which our cells opened, we must answer to our names -bawled out by a crapulous turnkey, who held in his jerking hands, and -consulted with his clouded eyes, a list that at his soberest he could -only half decipher. He calls a name—probably of one that has already -paid the penalty. There is no answer. The ruffian bullies and curses, -while the survivors explain the matter to him. He sulkily acquiesces; -shouts the tally once more, regardless of the hiatus—of course only -to repeat the error. Amidst a storm of menaces we are all ordered out -of our rooms, and this again and yet again, perhaps, until the beast -satisfies himself or is satisfied that none is skulking, and that -nothing is in error but his own drunken vision. Then at last the dogs -are withdrawn, the innumerable doors clanged to and barred, and we are -left, sealed within a fetid atmosphere, to salve our wounded dignity -as we can with the balm of spiritual self-possession. -</p> - -<p> -But now, on this particular evening, conscious of something in my -breast that overcrowed the passionless voice of philosophy, I felt -myself uplifted and translated—an essence impressionable to no -influence that was meaner than divine. -</p> - -<p> -“And who knows,” I said to myself, as we were summoned from the yard, -“but that Quatremains-Quatrepattes might have pronounced Carinne to be -the bright star in my horoscope?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not so fast, citizen,” growled Cabochon, who stood, list in hand, at -the door. -</p> - -<p> -“Rest content,” said I; “I am never in a hurry.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Par exemple!</i> you grow a little rusty, perhaps, for a notable actor. -It is well, then, that you have an engagement at last.” -</p> - -<p> -“To perform? And where, M. Cabochon?” -</p> - -<p> -“In the Palais de Justice. That is a theatre with a fine box, citizen; -and the verdict of those that sit in it is generally favourable—to -the public.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch12"> -CHAPTER XII.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE MOUSE-TRAP.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">Was</span> I so very small? I had the honour of a tumbril all to myself on -my journey to the Conciergerie, and I swear that I could have thought -I filled it. But Mademoiselle de Lâge was the pretty white heifer -that had caused me to puff out my sides in emulation of her large -nobility—me, yes, of whom she would have said, as the bull of the -frog, “<i>Il n’était pas gros en tout comme un œuf</i>.” Now I was -travelling probably to my grave; yet the exaltation of that interview -still dwelt with me, and I thought often of some words that had once -been uttered by a certain Casimir Bertrand: “To die with the wine in -one’s throat and the dagger in one’s back! What could kings wish for -better?” -</p> - -<p> -We came down upon the sullen prison by way of the Pont au Change and -the Quay d’Horloge, and drew up at a door on the river-side. I saw a -couple of turrets, with nightcap roofs, stretch themselves, as if -yawning, above me. I saw in a wide angle of the gloomy block of -buildings, where the bridge discharged itself upon the quay, a vast -heap of newly thrown-up soil where some excavations were being -conducted; and from the mound a sort of crane or scaffold, sinisterly -suggestive of a guillotine surmounting a trench dug for its dead, -stood out against a falling crimson sky. The river hummed in its -course; above a green spot on the embankment wall a cloud of dancing -midges seemed to boil upwards like steam from a caldron. Everything -suggested to me the <i>mise en scène</i> of a rehearsing tragedy, and then -promptly I was haled, like an inanimate “property,” into the -under-stage of that dark “theatre of varieties.” -</p> - -<p> -Messieurs the jailers, it appeared, were at their supper, and would -not for the moment be bothered with me. A gush of light and a violent -voice issued from a door to one side of a stony vestibule: “Run the -rascal into La Souricière, and be damned to him!” -</p> - -<p> -Thereat I was hurried, by the “blue” that was responsible for my -transfer, and an understrapper with the keys, by way of a gloomy -course—up and down—through doorways clinched with monstrous -bolts—under vaulted stone roofs where spiders, blinded by the lamp -glare, shrank back into crevices, and where all the mildew of -desolation sprouted in a poisonous fungus—along passages deeply -quarried, it seemed, into the very foundations of despair; and at last -they stopped, thrust me forward, and a door clapped to behind me with -a slam of thunder. -</p> - -<p> -I stood a moment where I was and caught at my bewildered faculties. It -took me, indeed, but a moment to possess myself of them. In those days -one had acquired a habit of wearing one’s wits unsheathed in one’s -belt. Then I fell to admiring the quite unwonted brilliancy of the -illumination that pervaded the cell. It was a particularly small -chamber—perhaps ten feet by eight or so—and consequently the single -lighted candle, held in a cleft stick the butt of which was thrust -into a chink in the stones, irradiated it to its uttermost corner. The -furniture was artless in its simplicity—a tub, a broken pitcher of -water, and two heaps of foul straw. But so abominable a stench filled -the place that no doubt there was room for little else. -</p> - -<p> -Now, from one of the straw beds, the figure of a man—my sole comrade -to be, it would appear—rose up as I stirred, and stood with its back -and the palms of its hands pressed against the wall. Remaining thus -motionless, the shadows blue in its gaunt cheeks, and little husks of -wheat caught in its dusty hair, it fixed me with eyes like staring -pebbles. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Défense d’entrer!</i>” it snapped out suddenly, and shut its mouth -like a gin. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur!” said I, “no going out, rather, for the mouse in the -trap.” -</p> - -<p> -He lifted one of his arms at right angles to his body, and let it drop -again to his side. -</p> - -<p> -“Behold!” he cried, “the peril! Hadst thou been closer thy head had -fallen!” -</p> - -<p> -“But thine,” said I. “Hast thou not already lost it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, early in the struggle, monsieur! Oh, very early! And then my soul -passed into the inanimate instrument of death and made it animate.” -</p> - -<p> -“What! thou art the guillotine itself?” -</p> - -<p> -“Look at me, then! Is it not obvious that I am that infernal engine, -nor less that I am informed with the <i>ego</i> that once was my victim and -is now my familiar—being myself, in effect?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Pardieu!</i> this is worse than the game of ‘Proverbs.’ It rests with -thy <i>ego</i>, then, to put a period to this orgy of blood.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave forth a loud wailing cry. -</p> - -<p> -“I am a demon, prejudged and predestined, and the saint of the Place -du Trône is possessed with me.” -</p> - -<p> -“A saint, possessed!” -</p> - -<p> -He wrung his hands insanely. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” he cried—“but is it not a fate to which damnation were -Paradise! For me, the gentle Aubriot, who in my material form had -shrunk from killing a fly—for me to thus deluge an unhappy land with -the blood of martyrs! But I have threshed my conscience with a knotted -discipline, and I know—yes, monsieur, I know—what gained me my -punishment. A cripple once begged of me a poor two sous. I hesitated, -in that I had but the one coin on me, and my nostrils yearned for -snuff. I hesitated, and the devil tripped up my feet. I gave the man -the piece and asked him a sou in change. For so petty a trifle did I -barter my salvation. But heaven was not to be deceived, and its -vengeance followed me like a snake through the grass. Ah!” (he jumped -erect) “but the blade fell within an ace of thy shoulder!” -</p> - -<p> -This was disquieting enough, in all truth. Yet I took comfort from the -thought that the madman could avail himself of no more murderous -weapon than his hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, M. Guillotin,” said I, “observe that it is characteristic of you -to lie quiescent when you are put away for the night.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Nenni, nenni, nenni!</i>” he answered. “That may have been before the -hideous apotheosis of the instrument. Now, possessed as I am, I slash -and cut at whoever comes in my way.” -</p> - -<p> -<i>Mon Dieu!</i> but this was a wearisome lunatic! and I longed very -ardently to be left peacefully to my own reflections. I came forward -with a show of extreme fortitude. -</p> - -<p> -“This demon of yourself,” I said—“you wish it to be exorcised, that -the soil of France may grow green again?” -</p> - -<p> -A fine self-sacrificial rapture illumined his wild face. -</p> - -<p> -“Let me be hurled into the bottomless pit,” he cried, “that so the -Millennium may rise in the east like an August sun!” -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” said I, “I will commune with my soul during the night, that -perchance it may be revealed to me how the guillotine may guillotine -itself.” -</p> - -<p> -To my surprise the ridiculous bait took, and the poor wretch sunk down -upon his straw and uttered no further word. Crossing the cell to come -to my own heap, my foot struck against an iron ring that projected -from a flag. For an instant a mad hope flamed up in me, only to as -immediately die down. Was it probable that the “Mouse-trap”—into -which, I knew, it was the custom to put newly arrived prisoners before -their overhauling by the turnkeys and “scenting” by the dogs of the -guard—would be furnished with a door of exit as of entrance? -Nevertheless, I stooped and tugged at the ring to see what should be -revealed in the lifting of the stone. It, the latter, seemed a -ponderous slab. I raised one end of it a foot or so with difficulty, -and, propping it with the pitcher, looked to see what was underneath. -A shallow trough or excavation—that was all; probably a mere pit into -which to sweep the scourings of the cell. Leaving it open, I flung -myself down upon the mat of straw, and gave myself up to a melancholy -ecstasy of reflection. -</p> - -<p> -The maniac crouched in his corner. So long as the light lasted I was -conscious of his eyes fixed in a steady bright stare upon the lifted -stone. There seemed something in its position that fascinated him. -Then, with a dropping splutter, the candle sank upon itself and was -extinguished suddenly; and straightway we were embedded in a block of -gloom. -</p> - -<p> -Very soon I was asleep. Ease and sensation, drink and food—how -strangely in those days one’s soul had learned to withdraw itself from -its instinctive attachments; to hover apart, as it were, from that -clumsy expression of its desires that is the body with its appetites; -and to accept at last, as radically irreclaimable, that same body so -grievously misinformed with animism. Now I could surrender to -forgetfulness, and that with little effort, all the load of emotion -and anxiety with which a savage destiny sought to overwhelm me. Nor -did this argue a brutish insensibility on my part; but only a lifting -of idealism to spheres that offered a more tranquil and serener field -for meditation. -</p> - -<p> -Once during the night a single drawn sound, like the pipe of wind in a -keyhole, roused me to a half-recovery of my faculties. I had been -dreaming of Carinne and of the little pig that fell into the pit, and, -associating the phantom cry with the voluble ghosts of my brain, I -smiled and fled again to the heights. -</p> - -<p> -The noise of heavily grating bolts woke me at length to the iron -realities of a day that might be my last on earth. I felt on my face -the wind of the dungeon door as it was driven back. -</p> - -<p> -“Follow me, Aubriot!” grunted an indifferent voice in the opening. -</p> - -<p> -Lacking a response of any sort, the speaker, who had not even put -himself to the trouble of entering the cell, cried out gutturally and -ironically— -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Holà hé, holà hé</i>, Citizen Aubriot Guillotin! thou art called to -operate on thyself! <i>Mordi, mordi, mordi!</i> dost thou hear? thou art -invited to commit suicide that France may regenerate itself of thee!” -</p> - -<p> -I raised my head. A burly form, topped by a great hairy face, blocked -the doorway. I made it out by the little light that filtered through a -high-up grating above me. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mille démons!</i>” shouted the turnkey suddenly, “what is this?” -</p> - -<p> -He came pounding into the cell, paused, and lifted his hands like a -benedictory priest. “<i>Mille démons!</i>” he whispered again, with his -jaw dropped. -</p> - -<p> -I had jumped to my feet. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Pardieu!</i> Mr Jailer!” said I; “the guillotine, it appears, has -anticipated upon itself that law of which it is the final expression. -The rest of us you will of necessity acquit.” -</p> - -<p> -I looked down, half-dazed; but I recalled the odd sound that had -awakened me in the night. Here, then, was the explanation of it—in -this swollen and collapsed form, whose head, it seemed, was plunged -beneath the floor, as if it had dived for Tartarus and had stuck at -the shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“He has guillotined himself with a vengeance!” I exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“But how?” said the turnkey, stupidly. -</p> - -<p> -“But thus, it is obvious: by propping the slab-end on the pitcher; by -lying down with his neck over the brink of the trough; by upsetting -the vessel with a sweep of his arm as he lay. <i>Mon Dieu!</i> see how he -sprouts from the chink like a horrible dead polypus! This is no -mouse-trap, but a gin to catch human vermin!” -</p> - -<p> -“It was not to be foreseen,” muttered the man, a little scared. “Who -would have fancied a madman to be in earnest!” -</p> - -<p> -“And that remark,” said I, “comes oddly from the lips of a patriot.” -</p> - -<p> -He questioned me with his eyes in a surly manner. -</p> - -<p> -“Bah!” I cried; “are not Robespierre, Couthon, St Just in earnest? are -not you in earnest? and do you not all put your heads into traps? But -I beg you to take me out of La Souricière.” -</p> - -<p> -He had recovered his composure while I spoke. -</p> - -<p> -“Come, then,” he said; “thou art wanted down below. And as to that -rascal—<i>Mordi</i>!” he chuckled, “he has run into a <i>cul-de-sac</i> on his -way to hell; but at any rate he has saved the axe an extra notch to -its edge.” -</p> - -<p> -On the threshold of the room he stopped me and looked into my face. -</p> - -<p> -“How much for a <i>billet</i>?” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“You have one for me?” -</p> - -<p> -“That depends.” -</p> - -<p> -“But doubtless you have been paid to deliver it?” -</p> - -<p> -“And doubtless thou wilt pay to receive it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, <i>mon Dieu</i>!” said I; “but these vails! And patriots, I see, are -not so far removed from the lackeys they despise.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Pardi!</i>” said the bulky man. “Listen to the fox preaching to the -hens! But I will lay odds that in another twelve hours thou wilt be -stripped of something besides thy purse. What matter, then! thou wilt -have thy crown of glory to carry to the Lombard-house.” -</p> - -<p> -I gave him what was left to me. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” said I; and he put a scrap of paper into my hand. -</p> - -<p> -I unfolded it in the dim light and read these words, hurriedly -scrawled thereon in a hand unknown to me: “<i>Play, if nothing else -avails, the hidden treasures of Pierrettes</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“Follow me, Thibaut,” said the jailer. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -As might feel a martyr, who, with a toy knife in his hand, is driven -to face the lions, so felt I on my way to the Tribunal with that -fragment of paper thrust into my breast. At one moment I could have -cried out on the travesty of kindness that could thus seek to prolong -my agony by providing me with an inadequate weapon; at another I was -reminded how one might balance oneself in a difficult place with a -prop no stronger than one’s own little finger. Yet this thin shaft of -light cutting into desperate gloom had disquieted me strangely. -Foreseeing, and prepared stoically to meet, the inevitable, I had -even—before the <i>billet</i> was placed in my hands—felt a certain -curiosity to witness—though as an accused—the methods of procedure -of a Court that was as yet only known to me through the infamy of its -reputation. Now, however, caught back to earth with a rope of straw, -I trembled over the very thought of the ordeal to which I was invited. -</p> - -<p> -Coming, at the end of melancholy vaulted passages, to a flight of -stone steps leading up to a door, I was suddenly conscious of a -droning murmur like that of hived bees. The jailer, in the act of -running the key into the lock, beckoned me to mount to him, and, thus -possessed of me, caught me under the arm-pit. -</p> - -<p> -“Play thy card, then, like a gambler!” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“What!” I exclaimed in astonishment. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah bah!” he growled; “didst thou think delicacy kept me from reading -the message? But, fear not. Thou art too little a gudgeon for my -playing”—and he swung open the door. Immediately the hiss and patter -of voices swept upon me like rain. That, and the broad glare of -daylight after so much darkness, confused me for a moment. The next I -woke to the consciousness that at last my foot was on the precipice -path—the gangway for the passage of the pre-damned into the Salle de -la Liberté—the <i>arête</i> of the “Montagne,” it might be called, -seeing how it served that extreme faction for a ridge most perilous to -its enemies to walk on. -</p> - -<p> -This gangway skirted a wooden barricade that cut the hall at about a -third of its length. To my left, as I advanced, I caught glimpse over -the partition of the dismal black plumes on the hats of the judges, as -they bobbed in juxtaposition of evil under a canopy of green cloth. To -my right, loosely filling the body of the hall, was the public; and -here my extreme insignificance as a prisoner was negatively impressed -upon me by the indifference of those whom I almost brushed in passing, -for scarce a <i>poissarde</i> of them all deigned to notice the little -gudgeon as he wriggled on the national hook. Then in a moment my -conductor twisted me through an opening cut in the barricade, and I -was delivered over to the Tribunal. -</p> - -<p> -A certain drumming in my ears, a certain mist before my eyes, resolved -themselves into a very set manner of attention. The stark, whitewashed -walls seemed spotted with a plague of yellow faces—to my left a -throng of mean blotches, the obsequious counsel for the defence; to my -front the President and judges, in number three, like skulls decked -with hearse-plumes; to my right the jury, a very Pandora-box of -goblins, the lid left off, the evil countenances swarming over the -edge. All seemed to my excited imagination to be faces and nothing -else—drab, dirty, and malignant—ugly motes set against the staring -white of the walls, dancing fantastically in the white day-beams that -poured down from the high windows. Yet that I sought for most I could -not at first distinguish,—not until the owner of it stood erect by a -little table—placed to one side and a little forward of the judicial -dais—over which he had been leaning. Then I recognised him -instantly—Tinville, the Devil’s Advocate, the blood-boltered -vampire—and from that moment he was the court to me, judge, jury, and -counsel, and his dark face swam only in my vision like a gout of bile. -</p> - -<p> -Now, I tell you, that so dramatic was this Assembly by reason of the -deadliness of purpose that characterised it, that one, though a -prisoner, almost resented the flippant coxcombry of the three -sightless busts standing on brackets above the bench. For -these—Brutus, Marat, St Fargeau (his gods quit the indignant Roman of -responsibility for entertaining such company)—being jauntily -decorated with a red bonnet apiece and a grimy cockade of the -tricolour, jarred hopelessly in the context, and made of the bloodiest -tragedy a mere clownish extravaganza. And, behold! of this -extravaganza Fouquier-Tinville, when he gave reins to his humour, -discovered himself to be the very Sannio—the rude powerful buffoon, -with a wit only for indecency. -</p> - -<p> -Yet he did not at a first glance figure altogether unprepossessing. -Livid-skinned though he was, with a low forehead, which his hair, -brushed back and stiffly hooked at its ends, seemed to claw about the -middle like a black talon, there was yet little in his countenance -that bespoke an active malignancy. His large eyes had that look of -good-humoured weariness in them that, superficially, one is apt to -associate with unvindictive long-sufferingness. His brows, black also -and thick, were set in the habitual lift of suspense and inquiry. His -whole expression was that of an anxious dwelling upon the prisoner’s -words, lest the prisoner should incriminate himself; and it was only -when one marked the tigerish steadiness of his gaze and the <i>sooty</i> -projection of his under-lip over a strongly cleft chin that one -realised how the humour of the man lay all upon the evil side. For the -rest—as each detail of his personality was hammered into me by my -pulses—his black clothes had accommodated themselves to his every -ungainly habit of movement, his limp shirt was caught up about his -neck with a cravat like a rag of dowlas, and over his shoulders hung a -broad national ribbon ending in a silver medallion, with the one word -<i>Loi</i> imprinted on it like a Judas kiss. -</p> - -<p> -Thus the man, as he stood scrutinising me after an abstracted fashion, -his left arm bent, the hand of it knuckled upon the table, the -Lachesis thumb of it—flattened from long kneading of the yarn of -life—striding over a form of indictment. -</p> - -<p> -The atmosphere of the court was frowzy as that of a wine-shop in the -early hours of morning. It repelled the freshness of the latter and -communicated its influence to public and tribunal alike. Over all hung -a slackness and a peevish unconcern as to business. Bench and bar -yawned, and exchanged spiritless commonplaces of speech. True enough, -a gudgeon was an indifferent fish with which to start the traffic of -the day. -</p> - -<p> -At length the Public Accuser slightly turned and nodded his head. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Maître Greffier</i>,” said he, in quite a noiseless little voice, -“acquaint us of the charge, I desire thee, against this <i>patte-pelu</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -<i>Nom de Dieu!</i> here was a fine <i>coup d’archet</i> to the overture. My -heart drummed very effectively in response. -</p> - -<p> -A little black-martin of a fellow, with long coat-tails and glasses to -his eyes, stood up by the notaries’ table and handled a slip of paper. -Everywhere the murmur of Tinville’s voice had brought the court to -attention. I listened to the <i>greffier</i> with all my ears. -</p> - -<p> -“Act of Accusation,” he read out brassily, “against Jean-Louis -Sebastien de Crancé, <i>ci-devant</i> Comte de la Muette, and since -calling himself the Citizen Jean-Louis Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -Very well, and very well—I was discovered, then; through whose -agency, if not through Jacques Crépin’s, I had no care to learn. The -wonder to me was that, known and served as I had been, I should have -enjoyed so long an immunity from proscription as an aristocrat. But I -accused Crépin—and wrongfully, I believe—in my heart. -</p> - -<p> -“Hath rendered himself answerable to the law of the 17th Brumaire,” -went on the <i>greffier</i>, mechanically, “in that he, an <i>émigré</i>, hath -ventured himself in the streets of Paris in disguise, and——” -</p> - -<p> -The Public Accuser waved him impatiently to a stop. There fell a dumb -silence. -</p> - -<p> -“One pellet out of a charge is enough to kill a rat,” said he, -quietly: then in an instant his voice changed to harsh and terrible, -and he bellowed at me— -</p> - -<p> -“What answer to that, Monsieur <i>r-r-r-rat</i>, Monsieur <i>ratatouille</i>?” -</p> - -<p> -The change of manner was so astounding that I jumped as at the shock -of a battery. Then a hot flush came to my face, and with it a dreadful -impulse to strike this insolent on the mouth. I folded my arms, and -gave him back glare for glare. -</p> - -<p> -“Simply, monsieur,” I said, “that it is not within reason to accuse me -of returning to what I have never quitted.” -</p> - -<p> -“Paris?” -</p> - -<p> -“The soil of France.” -</p> - -<p> -“That shall not avail thee!” he thundered. “What right hast thou to -the soil that thou and thine have manured with the sacred blood of the -people?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur!” I began—“but if you will convert my very -refutation——” -</p> - -<p> -He over-roared me as I spoke. He was breathing himself, at my expense, -for the more serious business of the day. Positively I was being used -as a mere punching-bag on which this “bruiser” (<i>comme on dit à -l’Anglaise</i>) might exercise his muscles. -</p> - -<p> -“Silence!” he shouted; “I know of what I speak! thou walk’st on a bog, -where to extricate the right foot is to engulf the left. Emigrant art -thou—titular at least by force of thy accursed rank; and, if that is -not enough, thou hast plotted in prison with others that are known.” -</p> - -<p> -I smiled, awaiting details of the absurd accusation. I had formed, it -was evident, no proper conception of this court of summary -jurisdiction. The President leaned over his desk at the moment and -spoke with Tinville, proffering the latter his snuff-box. They -exchanged some words, a pantomime of gesticulation to me. As they -nodded apart, however, I caught a single wafted sentence: “We will -whip her like the Méricourt if she is obstinate.” -</p> - -<p> -To what vile and secret little history was this the key! To me it only -signified that, while I had fancied them discussing a point of my -case, the two were passing confidences on a totally alien matter. At -last I felt very small; and that would have pleased Carinne. -</p> - -<p> -“But, at any rate,” I thought, “the charge against me must now assume -some definite form.” -</p> - -<p> -He, that dark <i>bouche de fer</i> of the Terror, stared at me gloomily, as -if he had expected to find me already removed. Then suddenly he flung -down upon the table the paper he had in his hand, and cried -automatically, as if in a certain absence of mind, “I demand this man -of the law to which he is forfeit.” -</p> - -<p> -God in heaven! And so my trial was ended. They had not even allotted -me one from the litter of mongrel counsel that, sitting there like -begging curs, dared never, when retained, score a point in favour of a -client lest the hags and the brats should hale them off to the -lamp-irons. This certainly was Justice paralysed down one whole side. -</p> - -<p> -I heard a single little cry lift itself from the hall behind me and -the clucking of the <i>tricoteuses</i>. I felt it was all hopeless, but I -clutched at the last desperate chance as the President turned to -address (in three words) the jury. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>M. l’Accusateur Public</i>,” I said, hurriedly, “I am constrained to -tell you that I have in my possession that which may induce you to -consider the advisability of a remand.” -</p> - -<p> -The fellow stared dumfoundered at me, as if I had thrown my cap in his -face. The President hung on his charge. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” said the former, with an ironical nicety of tone—“and what is -the nature of this magnificent evidence?” -</p> - -<p> -I had out my scrap of paper, folded like a <i>billet-doux</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“If the citizen will condescend to cast his eye on this?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -He considered a minute. Curiosity ever fights in the bully with -arrogance. At length he made a sign to a <i>gendarme</i> to bring him that -on which, it seemed, my life depended. -</p> - -<p> -Every moment while he dwelt on the words was like the oozing of a drop -of blood to me. I had in a flash judged it best to make him sole -confidant with me in the contents of the paper, that so his private -cupidity might be excited, and he not be driven by necessity to play -the <i>rôle</i> of the incorruptible. The instant he looked up my whole -heart expanded. -</p> - -<p> -“The prisoner,” he said, “acquits his conscience of a matter affecting -the State. I must call upon you, <i>M. le Président</i>, to grant for the -present a remand.” -</p> - -<p> -Oh, <i>mon Dieu</i>! but the shamelessness of this avarice! I believe the -scoundrel would have blushed to be discovered in nothing but an act of -mercy. -</p> - -<p> -“The prisoner is remanded to close confinement in the Convent of St -Pélagie,” were the words that dismissed me from the court; and I -swear Fouquier-Tinville’s large eyes followed me quite lovingly as I -was marched away. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch13"> -CHAPTER XIII.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE RED CART.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">At</span> so early an hour was my trial (in the personal and suffering -sense) brought to a conclusion, that mid-day was not yet struck when -my guards delivered me over to the authorities at St Pélagie—a -one-time <i>communauté de filles</i> in the faubourg of St Victor, and -since appropriated ostensibly to the incarceration of debtors. My -arrival, by grace of Fortune, was most happily timed; and, indeed, the -persistency with which throughout the long period of my difficulties -this capricious <i>coureuse</i> amongst goddesses converted for my benefit -accident into opportuneness offered some excuse to me for remaining in -conceit with myself. -</p> - -<p> -Now I was taken in charge by a single turnkey—the others being -occupied with their dinner—and conducted by him to the jailer’s room -to undergo that <i>rapiotage</i>, or stripping for concealed properties, -the general abuse of which—especially where women were in -question—was a scandal even in those days of shameless brutality. -</p> - -<p> -As he pushed me into the little ill-lighted chamber and closed the -door hurriedly upon us, I noticed that the man’s hands shook, and that -his face was clammy with a leaden perspiration. He made no offer to -overhaul me; but, instead, he clutched me by the elbow and looked in a -half-scared, half-triumphant manner into my face. -</p> - -<p> -“Pay attention,” he said, in a quick, forced whisper. “Thy arrival -accommodates itself to circumstance—most admirably, citizen, it -accommodates itself. I, that was to expect, am here alone to receive -thee. It is far better so than that I should be driven to visit thee -in thy cell.” -</p> - -<p> -“I foresee a call upon my gratitude,” I said, steadily regarding him. -“That is at your service, citizen jailer, when you shall condescend to -enlighten me as to its direction.” -</p> - -<p> -“I want none of it,” he replied. “It is my own to another that -procures thee this favour.” -</p> - -<p> -“What other, and what favour?” -</p> - -<p> -“As to the first—<i>en bon Français</i>, I will not tell thee. For the -second—behold it!” -</p> - -<p> -With the words, he whipt out from under his blouse a thin, strong -file, a little vessel of oil, and a dab of some blue-coloured mastic -in paper—and these he pressed upon me. -</p> - -<p> -“Hide them about thy person—hide them!” he muttered, in a fearful -voice; “and take all that I shall say in a breath!” -</p> - -<p> -He glanced over his shoulder at the closed door. He was a blotched and -flaccid creature, with the staring dry hair of the tippler, but with -very human eyes. His fingers closed upon my arm as if for support to -their trembling. -</p> - -<p> -“Cell thirteen—on the first floor,” he said; “that is whither I shall -convey thee. Ask no questions. Hast thou them all tight?—<i>Allez-vous -en, mon ami!</i> A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.” -</p> - -<p> -“But——” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah! thou must needs be talking! Cement with the putty, then, and rub -the filings over the marks.” -</p> - -<p> -“I was not born yesterday. It is not <i>that</i> I would know.” -</p> - -<p> -“S-st! At nine by the convent clock, be ready to drop silently into -the cart that shall pass beneath thy window. Never mind what thou -hit’st on. A falling man does not despise a dunghill.” -</p> - -<p> -I hesitated, seeking to read this patriot’s soul. Was this all a snare -to clinch my damnation? Pooh! if I had ever fancied Tinville hunted -for the shadow of a pretext, this morning’s experience should have -disabused me of the fallacy. -</p> - -<p> -“Who commissions thee?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“One to whom I owe a measure of gratitude.” -</p> - -<p> -“But not I?” -</p> - -<p> -“From this time—yes.” -</p> - -<p> -He pushed at me to go before him. -</p> - -<p> -“At least,” I said, “acquaint me if it is the same that sent the -letter.” -</p> - -<p> -“I know nothing of any letter. <i>San’ Dieu!</i> I begin to regret my -complaisance. This fellow will strangle us all with his long tongue.” -</p> - -<p> -“But, for thyself, my friend?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, <i>nom de Dieu</i>! I have no fear, if thou wilt be discreet—and -grateful.” -</p> - -<p> -“And this tool—and the <i>rapiotage</i>!” -</p> - -<p> -“Listen then! The thief that follows a thief finds little by the road. -We are under no obligation to search a prisoner remanded from another -prison.” -</p> - -<p> -Impulsively I wrung the hand of the dear sententious; I looked into -his eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“The Goddess of Reason disown thee!” I said. “Thou shalt never be -acolyte to a harlot!—And I—if all goes well, I will remember. And -what is thy name, good fellow?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>M. un tel</i>,” said he, and added, “Bah! shall not thy ignorance of it -be in a measure our safeguard?” -</p> - -<p> -“True,” said I. “And take me away, then. I cannot get to work too -soon.” -</p> - -<p> -He opened the door, peeped out, and beckoned me. -</p> - -<p> -“All is well,” he whispered. “The coast is clear.”<a href="#n1b" id="n1a">[1]</a> -</p> - -<p> -As he drove me with harsh gestures across a yard, a turnkey, standing -at a door and twirling a toothpick in his mouth, hailed him -strenuously. -</p> - -<p> -“What perquisites, then, comrade?” -</p> - -<p> -“Bah!” cried my fellow; “I have not looked. He is a bone of Cabochon’s -picking.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -With what a conflict of emotions I set to work—tentatively at first; -then, seeing how noiselessly the file ran in its oiled groove, with a -concentration of vigour—upon the bars of my window, it is not -difficult to imagine. So hard I wrought that for hours I scarce gave -heed to my growling hunger or attention to my surroundings. As to the -latter, indeed, I was by this time sensibly inured to the conditions -of confinement, and found little in my cell when I came to examine it -to distinguish it from others I had inhabited. A bench, a pitcher, a -flattened mess of straw; here and there about the stone flags marks as -if some frantic beast had sought to undermine himself a passage to -freedom; here and there, engraved with a nail or the tooth of a comb -on the plaster coating of the walls, ciphers, initials, passionate -appeals to heaven or blasphemous indecencies unnameable; in one spot -a forlorn cry: “<i>Liberté, quand cesseras-tu d’être un vain mot!</i>” in -another, in feminine characters, the poor little utterance: “<i>On nous -dit que nous sortirons demain</i>,” made so pathetic by the later -supplement underscored, “<i>Vain espoir!</i>”—with all these, or their -like, was I grievously familiar—resigned, not hardened to them, I am -sure. -</p> - -<p> -The window at which I stood looked across a little-frequented -passage—the Puit d’Ermite—upon a blank wall; and was terminated with -a pretty broad sill of stone that screened my operations from casual -wayfarers in the street below. Once, peering forth as I could, with my -face pressed to the bars, I found myself to be situated so indifferent -high as that, free of the grate, I might drop to the pavement without -incurring risk of severer damage than a fractured leg or ankle, -perhaps. Obviously, every point had been considered in this trifling -matter of my escape. By whom? By him that had put me that pawn up my -sleeve in the Palais de Justice? Well, the pawn had checked the king, -it appeared; and now it must content me to continue the game with a -handkerchief over my eyes, like the great M. Philidor. -</p> - -<p> -By two o’clock, having cut through a couple of the bars close by their -junction with the sill, so that a vigorous pull at both would open a -passage for me large enough to squeeze through, I was absorbed in the -careful process of cementing and concealing the evidences of my work -when I heard a sound behind me and twisted myself about with a choke -of terror. But it was my friendly jailer, come with a trencher of -broken scraps for the famished animal in the cage. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Corps de Christ!</i>” he muttered, his face white and scared—“but here -is an admirable precaution! What if I had been Fouquier-Tinville -himself, then?” -</p> - -<p> -“You made no noise.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Par exemple!</i> I can shoot a hundredweight of bolts, it seems, so as -not to wake a weasel. I made no noise to deaf ears. But, for thyself, -monsieur—He that would steal corn must be careful his sack has no -holes in it. And now I’ll wager thou’st dusted thy glittering filings -out into the sunbeams, and a sentry, with pistols and a long musket, -pacing the cobbles down there!” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Soyez tranquille!</i> I have all here in my pocket.” -</p> - -<p> -He put down the platter, shrugged his shoulders, and came on tiptoe to -the window. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, it is excellent,” he whispered grudgingly—“if only thy caution -matched thy skill.” -</p> - -<p> -Then he came close up to me. -</p> - -<p> -“I have news,” he muttered. “All is in preparation. It needs only that -thou play’st thy part silently and surely. A moment’s decision and the -game is thine.” -</p> - -<p> -“But, the sentry, say’st thou?” -</p> - -<p> -“He will be withdrawn. What, is it not the eve of the <i>Décadi</i>?<a href="#n2b" id="n2a">[2]</a> -To-night, the wine-shops; to-morrow, full suburbs and an empty Paris, -but for thee the Public Accuser with his questions.” -</p> - -<p> -“And why should he not visit me to-day?” -</p> - -<p> -“Rest assured. He hath a double baking to occupy him.” -</p> - -<p> -A noise sounded in the corridor. The man put his finger to his lips, -pointed significantly at the remainder litter about the sill, stole to -the door, jangled his keys viciously and bellowed at me: “Thou shalt -have that or nothing! <i>Saint Sacrement</i>, but the dainty bellies of -these upstarts!”—and off he went, slamming the door after him, and -grumbling till he was out of hearing. -</p> - -<p> -“Excellent nameless one!” I cried to myself; and so, having most -scrupulously removed every trace of my work, I fell, while attacking -with appetite the meal left for me, into a sort of luminous meditation -upon the alluring prospect half opened out to my vision. -</p> - -<p> -“And whence, in the name of God,” I marvelled, “issues this unknown -influence that thus exerts itself on my behalf; and by what process of -gratitude can my jailer, in these days of a general repudiation of -obligations, have attached himself to a cause that, on the face of it, -seems a purely quixotic one?” -</p> - -<p> -Then, “Oh, merciful Heaven!” I thought, “can it be possible that set -in the far haze of a narrow vista of hope, an image—to whose wistful -absorption into the Paradise of dreams I have sought to discipline -myself—yet yearns to and beckons me from the standpoint of its own -material sweetness? I see the smile on its mouth, the lift of its -arms; I hear the little cry of welcome wafted to me. My God, the cry!” -</p> - -<p> -All in an instant some shock of association seemed to stun my brain. -The cry—the single cry that had issued upon my condemnation in the -hall of Justice! Had it not been the very echo of that I had once -heard uttered by a poor swineherd fallen into the hands of savages? -</p> - -<p> -I got to my feet in agitation. Now, suddenly it was borne to me that -from the moment of issue of that little incisive wail a formless -wonder had been germinating in my soul. Carinne present at my -trial!—no, no, it was impossible—unless—— -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen, the patriots in this corridor send thee greeting.” -</p> - -<p> -I started as if a bullet had flown past my ear. The voice seemed to -come from the next cell. I swept the cobwebs from my forehead. -</p> - -<p> -“A thousand thanks!” I cried. -</p> - -<p> -“They have dreamt that the ass cursed the thorough-bred for the -niceness of his palate,” went on the voice, “and most heartily they -commiserate thee.” -</p> - -<p> -There followed a faint receding sound like laughter and the clapping -of hands. I had no idea what to say; but the voice relieved me of the -embarrassment. -</p> - -<p> -“May I ask the citizen’s name?” -</p> - -<p> -“I am the Comte de la Muette.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Allons donc!</i>”—and the information, it seemed, was passed from cell -to cell. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” then came the voice, “we of the Community of the Eremites -of St Pélagie offer thee our most sympathetic welcome, and invite -thee to enrol thyself a member of our Society. Permit me, the -President, by name Marino, to have the honour of proposing thee for -election.” -</p> - -<p> -“By all means. And what excludes, Monsieur le Président?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>D’une haleine</i> (I mention it to monsieur as a matter of form), to -have been a false witness or a forger of assignats.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then am I eligible.” -</p> - -<p> -“Surely, monsieur. How could one conceive it otherwise! And it remains -only to ask—again as a matter of form—thy profession, thy abode, and -the cause of thy arrest.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well. My profession is one of attachment to a beautiful lady; I -live, I dare to believe, in her heart; and, for my arrest, it was -because, in these days of equality, I sought to remain master of -myself.” -</p> - -<p> -My answer was passed down the line. It elicited, I have the -gratification to confess, a full measure of applause. -</p> - -<p> -“I have the honour to inform M. le Comte,” said the President, “that -he is duly elected to the privileges of the Society. I send him a -fraternal embrace.” -</p> - -<p> -My inclination jumped with the humour of the thing. It was thus that -these unfortunates, condemned to solitary confinement, had conceived a -method of relieving the deadly tedium of their lot. Thus they passed -to one another straws of information gleaned from turnkeys or from -prisoners newly arrived. And in order to the confusion of any guard -that might overhear them, they studied, in their inter-communications, -to speak figuratively, to convey a fact through a fable, or, at the -least, to refer their statements to dreams that they had dreamt. At -the same time they formed a Society rigidly exclusive. Admitted -rascals, imprisoned in the corridor, they would by no means condescend -to notice. I had an example of this once during the afternoon, when -the whole place echoed with phantom merriment over a jest uttered by a -member. -</p> - -<p> -“M. le Comte!” cried a voice from the opposite row: “I could tell thee -a better tale than that.” -</p> - -<p> -Before the speaker could follow up his words, the President hammered -at my wall. -</p> - -<p> -“I beseech thee do not answer the fellow,” he said. “It is a rogue -that was suborned in the most pitiful case of the St Amaranthe.” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, monsieur!” exclaimed the accused; “it is a slander and a -lie. And how wouldst thou pick thy words with thy shoulder bubbling -and hissing under the branding-iron?” -</p> - -<p> -“As I would pick nettles,” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“I beseech thee!” cried again my neighbour the President, in a warning -voice, “this man can boast no claim to thy attention.” -</p> - -<p> -The poor rascal cried out: “It is inhuman! I perish for a word of -sympathy!” -</p> - -<p> -I would have given it him; but his protests were laughed into silence. -He yelled in furious retort. His rage was over-crowed, and drifted -into sullenness. -</p> - -<p> -“I dreamt I belaboured a drum,” said the President, “and it burst -under my hands.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Truly I did not regret the distraction this whimsical Society afforded -me. Left to myself, the fever of my mind would have corroded my very -reason, I think. To have been condemned to face those hours of tension -indescribable, with no company but that of my own thoughts, would have -proved such an ordeal as, I felt, would have gone far to render me -nerveless at the critical moment. So, responding to the dig of -circumstance in my ribs, I abandoned myself to frolic, and almost, in -the end, lapsed into the other extreme of hysteria. -</p> - -<p> -But, about five o’clock, closing in from the far end of the corridor, -a swift ominous silence succeeded the jangle; and I was immediately -aware of heavy footsteps treading the cemented floor of the passage, -and, following upon these, the harsh snap of locks and the rumbling of -a deep voice— -</p> - -<p> -“Follow me, De la Chatière.” -</p> - -<p> -The words were the signal for a shrilling chorus of sounds—whoops, -cat-calls, verberant renderings of a whole farmyard of demoniac -animals. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Miau, miau</i>, Émile! Thou art caught in thine own springe!” -</p> - -<p> -“They will ask thee one of thy nine lives, Émile!” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah—bah! if he pleads as he reasons, upside-down, they will only cut -off his feet.” -</p> - -<p> -“Plead thy poor sick virtue, Émile!” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no! that were one <i>coup de tête</i> that shall procure him -another.” -</p> - -<p> -“What need to lie when the truth will serve! Plead thy lost virtue, -Émile, and the jury will love thee.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Taisez-vous, donc!</i>” roared a jailer. He was answered by a shriek of -laughter. In the midst of the noise I heard the door of my -neighbouring cell flung open and Marino summoned forth. As the party -retreated: “M. le Président, M. le Président!” shouted a voice—“Art -thou going without a word? But do not, I beseech thee, in the pride of -thy promotion neglect to nominate thy successor!” -</p> - -<p> -“Lamarelle, then,” answered the poor fellow, in a voice that he tried -vainly to control. -</p> - -<p> -He was led away. The babble boiled over and simmered down. In a very -few moments a tense quiet had succeeded the uproar. This—due partly -to the reaction from excitement, partly to the fact that jailers were -loitering at hand—wrought in me presently a mood of overbearing -depression. I durst give no rein to my hopes or to my apprehensions, -lest, getting the bit between their teeth, they should fairly run away -with my reason. The prospect of another four hours of this mindless -inaction—hours of which every second seemed to be marked off by the -tick of a nerve—was a deplorable one, indeed. -</p> - -<p> -I tramped ceaselessly to and fro in my cage, humming to myself and -assuming the habit of a philosophy that fitted me about as well as -Danton’s breeches would have done. I grimaced to my own reflections -like a coquette to her mirror. I suffered from my affectation of -self-containment as severely as though I were a tight-laced <i>femme à -la mode</i> weeping to hear a tale of pity. The convent clock, moving -somewhere with a thunderous click as if it were the very <i>doyen</i> of -death-watches, chimed the dusk upon me in reluctant quarters. Ghostly -emanations seemed to rise from the stones of my cell, sorrowful shapes -of the lost and the hopeless to lean sobbing in its corners. Sometimes -I could have fancied I heard a thin scratching on the walls about me, -as if the returned spectres of despair were blindly tracing with a -finger the characters they had themselves engraved thereon; sometimes, -as I wheeled to view of the dull square of the window, a formless -shadow, set against it, would appear to drop hurriedly and fold upon -itself like a bat. By the time, at last, that, despite my resolves, I -was worked up to a state of agitation quite pitiful, some little -relief of distraction was afforded me by the entrance into my cell of -a stranger turnkey, with some coarse food on a plate in his one hand, -and, in the other, a great can of water, from which he replenished my -pitcher. During the half minute he was with me a shag beast of a dog -kept guard at the door. -</p> - -<p> -“Fall to, then,” growled the man; “if thou hast the stomach for -anything less dainty than fat pullets and butter.” -</p> - -<p> -In effect, I had none for anything; yet I thought it the sensible -policy to take up the plate, when the fellow was withdrawn, and munch -away the drawling minutes lest I should spend them in eating out my -heart. -</p> - -<p> -Other than this rascal no soul came near me. I had had, it seemed, my -full warning—my complete instructions. Yet, lacking reassurance -during this long trial of suspense, I came to feel as if all affecting -my escape must be a chimera—a fancy bred of the delirium that -precedes death. -</p> - -<p> -Well, as my friendly <i>huissier</i> might have said, Time flies, however -strong the head-wind; and at length the quarters clanged themselves -into that one of them that was the prelude to my most momentous -adventure. And immediately thereon (God absolve me for the -inconsistency!) a frantic revulsion of feeling set in, so that I would -have given all but my chance of escape to postpone the act of it -indefinite hours. Now I heard the throb of the seconds with a terror -that was like an acute accent to my agony of suspense. It grew—it -waxed monstrous and intolerable. I must lose myself in some physical -exertion if I would preserve my reason. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly a nightmare thought faced me. What if, when the time came, -the cut bars should remain stubborn to my efforts to bend them! What -if I had neglected to completely sever either or both, and that, while -I madly wrought to remedy my error, the moment should pass and with it -the means to my deliverance! -</p> - -<p> -Sweating, panting, in a new reaction to the frenzy for liberty, I -sprang to the window, gripped the bars, and, with all my force, -dragged them towards me. They parted at the cuts and yielded readily. -A sideway push to each, and there would freedom gape at me. -</p> - -<p> -In the very instant of settling my shoulder to the charge, I was aware -of a sound at my cell door—the cautious groping of wards in a lock. -With a suppressed gasp I came round, with my back to the tell-tale -grating, and stood like a discovered murderer. -</p> - -<p> -A lance of dull light split the blackness perpendicularly. -</p> - -<p> -“Open again when I tap,” said a little voice—that cracked like -thunder in my brain, nevertheless,—and the light closed upon itself. -</p> - -<p> -God of all irony!—the little voice—the little dulcet undertone that -had cried <i>patte-pelu</i> upon me in the hall of Justice! So the turnkey -had miscalculated or had been misinformed, and M. l’Accusateur Public -would not postpone the verbal satisfaction of his cupidity to the -<i>Décadi</i>. <i>Le limier rencontrait</i>; I was bayed into a corner, and my -wit must measure itself against a double row of teeth. -</p> - -<p> -For an instant a mad resentment against Fate for the infernal -wantonness of its cruelty blazed up in my breast, so that I could -scarce restrain myself from bounding upon my enemy with yells of fury. -Then reason—set, contained and determined—was restored to me, and I -stood taut as a bowstring and as vicious. -</p> - -<p> -A moment or two passed in silence. I could make out a dusky undefined -heap by the door. “In the dark all cats are grey.” -</p> - -<p> -At length: “Who is there?” I said quietly. -</p> - -<p> -The figure advanced a pace or two. -</p> - -<p> -“Speak small, my friend,” it said, “as if thou wert the very voice of -conscience.” -</p> - -<p> -This time there was no doubt. I ground my teeth as I answered: “Of -<i>thy</i> conscience, monsieur? Then should I thunder in thy ears like a -bursting shell.” -</p> - -<p> -“What is this!” said he, taking a backward step. -</p> - -<p> -On my honour I could not have told him. I felt only to myself that if -this man baulked me of my liberty I should kill him with my hands. But -doubtless indignation was my bad counsellor. -</p> - -<p> -“How!” he muttered, with a menacing devil in his voice. “Does the fool -know me?” -</p> - -<p> -I broke into wicked laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“Hear the unconscious humorist!” I cried—and the cry seemed to reel -in my throat; for on the instant, dull and fateful, clanged the first -note of the hour. -</p> - -<p> -Now God knows what had urged me to this insanity of defiance, when it -was obvious that my best hope lay in throwing a sop of lies to my -Cerberus. God knows, I say; and to Him I leave the explanation. Yet, -having fallen upon this course, I can assert that not once during the -day had I felt in such good savour with myself. -</p> - -<p> -He came forward again with a raging malediction. -</p> - -<p> -“Thy pledge!” he hissed; “the paper—the treasure! God’s name! dost -thou know who it is thou triflest with?” -</p> - -<p> -I heard the rumble of wheels over the stones down below. My very soul -seemed to rock as if it were launched on waves of air. The wheels -stopped. -</p> - -<p> -“Listen,” I said, in a last desperation. “It was a ruse, a lie to gain -time. I know of no treasure, nor, if I did, would I acquaint thee of -its hiding-place.” -</p> - -<p> -A terrible silence succeeded. I stood with clinched hands. Had I heard -the cart move away again I should have thrown myself upon this demon -and sought to strangle him. Then, “Oh, my God! oh, my God!” he said -twice, in a dreadful strained voice, and that was all. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly he made a swift movement towards me. I stood rigid, still -with my back to the damning grate; but, come within a foot of me, he -as suddenly wheeled and went to the door. -</p> - -<p> -“Open, Gamache,” he whispered, like a man winded, and tapped on the -oak: “open—I have something to say to thee.” -</p> - -<p> -In another moment I was alone. I turned, and, in a frenzy of haste, -drove the bars right and left with all my force. Like a veritable ape -of destiny I leapt to the sill and looked down. A white face stared up -at me. The owner of it was already in the act of gathering his reins -together. I heard a soft tremulous <i>ouf!</i> issue from his lips, and on -the breath of it I dropped and alighted with a thud upon something -that squelched beneath my weight. As I got to my knees, he on the -driving-board was already whipping his horses to a canter. -</p> - -<p> -“Quick, quick!” he said. “Come up and sit here beside me.” -</p> - -<p> -I managed to do so, though the cargo we carried gave perilous -foothold. -</p> - -<p> -Then at once I turned and regarded my preserver. -</p> - -<p> -“Saints in heaven!” I whispered, “Crépin!” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -He was a very <i>sans-culotte</i>, and his face and eyebrows were darkened. -But I knew him. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he said; “I am no rogue of a Talma to act a part. But what, in -God’s name, delayed thee?” -</p> - -<p> -“Fouquier-Tinville.” -</p> - -<p> -His jaw dropped at me. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Si fait vraiment</i>,” I said, and gave him the facts. -</p> - -<p> -He shivered as I spoke. The instant I was done, “Get under the -canvas!” said he, in a terrible voice. “There will be hue-and-cry, and -if I am followed, we are both lost. Get under the canvas, and endure -what thou canst not cure!” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -My God! the frightfulness of that journey! of the company I lay with! -We drove, as I gathered, by the less-frequented streets, and reached -the barrier of St Jacques by way of the Rue de Biron. Here, for the -first time, we were stopped. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Halte là!</i>” bawled a tipsy voice. “What goods to declare, friend?” -</p> - -<p> -“Content thyself,” I heard Crépin answer. “They bear the Government -mark.” -</p> - -<p> -“How, then, carrier?” -</p> - -<p> -“Peep under the cart-tail, and thou shalt see.” -</p> - -<p> -The gendarme lifted a corner of the canvas with his sword-point. A -wedge of light entered, and amazed my panic-stricken eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Il est bon là!</i>” chuckled the fellow, and withdrew his sword. He -had noticed nothing of me; but, as we whipped to a start, he made a -playful cut at the canvas with his weapon. The blade touched my thigh, -inflicting a slight flesh-wound, and I could not forbear a spasmodic -jerk of pain. At this he cried out, “<i>Holà hé!</i> here is a dead frog -that kicks!” and came scuttling after us. Now I gave myself up for -lost; but at the moment a frolicsome comrade hooked the runner’s ankle -with a stick, and brought the man heavily to the ground. There -followed a shout; a curse of fury, and—Fortune, it appeared, had -again intervened on my behalf. -</p> - -<p> -Silence succeeded, for all but the long monotonous jolting and -pitching over savage ground. At length Crépin pulled up his horses, -and, leaning back from his seat, tossed open a flap of the canvas. -</p> - -<p> -“Come, then,” he said in a queer voice. “We have won clear by the -grace of Heaven.” -</p> - -<p> -I wallowed, faint and nauseated, from my horrible refuge. Sick, and in -pain of mind and body, I crept to a seat beside my companion. We were -on a dark and desolate waste. A little moon lay low in the sky. Behind -us the <i>enceinte</i> of the city twinkled with goblin lights. -</p> - -<p> -“And these?” I said, weakly, signifying our dreadful load. “Whither -dost thou carry them, Crépin?” -</p> - -<p> -“Whither I carry thee, Monsieur le Comte—to the quarries under the -Plain of Mont-Rouge.” -</p> - -<p> -“To unconsecrated ground?” -</p> - -<p> -“What would you? The yards are glutted. The Madeleine bulges like a -pie-crust. At last by force of necessity we consecrate this, the -natural cemetery of the city, dug by itself, to the city’s patron -saint, La Guillotine.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me, my preserver and, as God shall quit thee, also my -friend—you received my letter?” -</p> - -<p> -“Else, why art thou here?” -</p> - -<p> -“But, thou hast done me an incalculable wrong!” -</p> - -<p> -“And an incalculable benefit. Oh, monsieur, do I not atone?” -</p> - -<p> -“To me, yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“Let that pass, then. But, even there, I would not have thee underrate -my service. Have I not, to save thee, annihilated time; called in a -debt of gratitude that I kept in reversion for my own needs; suborned -the very hangman’s carter that I might help thee in thy extremity?” -</p> - -<p> -“And all this is due to thee?” -</p> - -<p> -“Assuredly—and for what reason? Because, in total ignorance of thy -claim to it, I took a fancy to a sweet face. Now I think you will -acknowledge, M. le Comte, that the Revolution, for all its excesses, -is capable of producing a gentleman of honour who knows how to make -reparation.” -</p> - -<p> -“Truly, this is no small thing that you have done.” -</p> - -<p> -“Truly I think thou might’st apply superlatives to it, without -extravagance. To outwit and baulk the Public Accuser—the cat-fish of -the Committee of Safety—<i>Dame!</i> is there a hole in all Paris too -small to admit his tentacles? But I tell thee, monsieur, I am already -in the prison of my own holy namesake.” -</p> - -<p> -“I would kiss thy hands, but——” -</p> - -<p> -“What now?” -</p> - -<p> -“My letter referred to other than myself.” -</p> - -<p> -He turned and, I thought, looked at me oddly. -</p> - -<p> -“In these days, what safer refuge for a woman than prison,” he said, -“provided she hath a friend at Court? Understand, monsieur, I have -found Mademoiselle de Lâge respectable lodgings, that is all.” -</p> - -<p> -“Where you hold her as Lovelace held the estimable Clarisse. Crépin, -I cannot accept my life on these terms.” -</p> - -<p> -The words jerked on my lips as the waggon was brought to a stand with -a suddenness that made the harness rattle. A tall figure, that seemed -to have sprung out of the earth, stood at the horses’ heads. -</p> - -<p> -“Gusman,” said my companion quietly; “this is Citizen Thibaut, whom -you are to conduct to the secret lodging. Hurry, then, Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -I got with some difficulty to the ground. -</p> - -<p> -“And you?” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“I go yet a mile to deliver my goods. We will discuss this matter -further, <i>bien entendu</i>, on my return.” -</p> - -<p> -He flogged his cattle to an immediate canter, leaving me in all -bewilderment alone with the stranger. On every side about us, it -seemed, stretched a melancholy waste—a natural graveyard sown with -uncouth slabs of stone. The wind swayed the grasses, as if they were -foam on black water; the tide of night murmured in innumerable gulfs -of darkness. -</p> - -<p> -“Come, then!” muttered the figure, and seized my hand. -</p> - -<p> -We walked twenty cautious paces. I felt the clutch of brambles at my -clothes. Suddenly he put his arm about me, and, as we moved, forcibly -bent down my head and shoulders. At once I was conscious of a confined -atmosphere—damp, earthy, indescribable. It thickened—grew closer and -infinitely closer as we advanced. -</p> - -<p> -Now I could walk upright; but my left shoulder rasped ever against -solid rock. The blackness of utter negation was terrible; the cabined -air an oppression that one almost felt it possible to lift from one’s -head like an iron morion. For miles, I could have fancied, we thridded -this infernal tunnel before the least little blur of light spread -itself like salve on my aching vision. -</p> - -<p> -Then suddenly, like a midnight glowworm, the blur revealed itself, a -fair luminous anther of fire in a nest of rays—and was a taper -burning on the wall of a narrow chamber or excavation set in the heart -of the bed-stone. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Voilà ton ressui!</i>” exclaimed my sardonic guide; and, without -another word, he turned and left me. -</p> - -<p> -I stood a moment confounded; then, with a shrug of my shoulders, -walked into the little cellar and paused again in astonishment. From a -stone ledge, on which it had been lying, it seemed, prostrate, a -figure lifted itself and, standing with its back to me, swept the long -hair from its eyes. -</p> - -<p> -I stared, I choked, I held out my arms as if in supplication. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!</i>” I cried—“if it is not Carinne, let me die!” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch14"> -CHAPTER XIV.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE QUARRIES OF MONT-ROUGE.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">She</span> turned, the dear figure. I heard her breath catch as she leaned -forward and gazed at me. Her hair was all tumbled abroad; her sweet -scared eyes looked out of a thicket of it like little frightened birds -from a copse. She took a hurried step or two in my direction, then -cried, “<i>C’est un coup du ciel!</i>” and threw up her hands and pressed -them to her face. -</p> - -<p> -I dropped my yearning arms. A needle of ice pierced my heart. -</p> - -<p> -“A judgment of heaven?” I cried, sorrowfully. -</p> - -<p> -The sound of my voice seemed like the very stroke of a thyrsus on her -shoulders. She broke into an agitated walk—pacing to and fro in front -of me—wringing her hands and clasping them thus to her temples. Her -shadow fled before or after her like a coaxing child. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly, to my amazement, she darted upon me, and seized and shook me -in a little fury of passion. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Prends cela, prends cela, prends cela!</i>” she cried; and then as -suddenly she released me, and ran back to her ledge, and flung herself -face-downwards thereon, sobbing as if her heart would break. -</p> - -<p> -Shocked and astounded beyond measure, I followed and stood over her. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle de Lâge,” I said, miserably—“of what am I guilty?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of everything—of nothing! Perhaps it is I that am to blame!” she -cried in a muffled voice. -</p> - -<p> -“What have I done?” -</p> - -<p> -She sat up, weeping, and pressed the pain from her forehead. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur! it is not a little thing to pass twelve hours in the -most terrible loneliness—in the most terrible anxiety!” -</p> - -<p> -“I do not understand.” -</p> - -<p> -“You do not, indeed—the feelings of others—the wisdom of -discretion.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle!” I exclaimed, in all patience. -</p> - -<p> -She sat, with her palms resting upon the ledge. She looked up at me -defiantly, though she yet fought with her sobs. -</p> - -<p> -“It was doubtless a fine thing in your eyes this morning,” she said, -“to throw scorn to that wretch who could have destroyed you with a -word.” -</p> - -<p> -I felt my breath come quickly. -</p> - -<p> -“That wretch!” I whispered—“this morning?” -</p> - -<p> -“It was what I said, monsieur,—the <i>loup-garou</i> of the Salle de la -Liberté. But where one attaches any responsibility to life, one -should learn to distinguish between bravado and courage.” -</p> - -<p> -I think I must have turned very pale, for a sudden concern came into -her face. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle,” I said, “will persist in giving me the best reason for -holding life cheaply—that I cannot, it seems, find favour with her.” -</p> - -<p> -“Was it, then, monsieur, that you yourself were your only -consideration?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! give me at least the indulgence,” I cried, “to retort upon an -insolent that insults me.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Grand Dieu!</i>” she said, mockingly; “but what a perverted heroism! -And must a man’s duty be always first towards his dignity, and -afterwards, a long way——” -</p> - -<p> -She broke off, panting, and tapping her foot on the ground. I looked -at her, all mazed and dumfoundered. -</p> - -<p> -“And afterwards?” I repeated. She would not continue. A little silence -succeeded. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle,” I said at length sadly—“let me speak out what is in -my heart, and have done with it. That little cry of pity and of -protest that I heard uttered this morning when sentence was demanded -upon me in the Palais de Justice, and that I must needs now associate -with this new dear knowledge of your freedom—if I have put upon it an -unwarrantable construction, something beyond the mere expression of a -woman’s sympathy with the unfortunate—you will, I am sure, extend -that sympathy to my blindness, the realisation of which must in itself -prove my heavy punishment. If, also, I have dared to translate the -anxiety you have by your own showing suffered, here in this savage -burrow, into a sentiment more profound than that of simple concern for -an old-time comrade, you will spare my presumption, will you not, the -bitterness of a rebuke? It shall not be needed, believe me. My very -love——” -</p> - -<p> -She interrupted me, rising to her feet white and peremptory. -</p> - -<p> -“Not for me, monsieur—not for me! And, for <i>my</i> associations—they -shall never be of that word with deceit!” -</p> - -<p> -“Deceit!” -</p> - -<p> -“But is it not so? Have you not approached my confidence in a false -guise, under a false name? Oh!” (she stamped her foot again) “cannot -you see how my condescension to the Citizen Thibaut is stultified by -this new knowledge of his rank? how to favour now what I had hitherto -held at arm’s-length would be to place myself in the worst regard of -snobbishness!” -</p> - -<p> -“No, mademoiselle—I confess that I cannot;—but then I journeyed -hither in the National hearse.” -</p> - -<p> -“I do not understand.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, only that there one finds a ragpicker’s head clapt upon a -monseigneur’s neck in the fraternity that is decreed to level all -distinctions. What is the advantage of a name, then, when one is -denied a tombstone?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” she cried, “you seek to disarm me with levity. I recognise your -habit of tolerant contempt for the mental equipment of my sex. It does -not become you, monsieur;—but what does it matter! I know already -your opinion of me, and how compound it is of disdain and disgust. I -am soulless and cruel and capricious—perhaps ill-favoured also; but -there, I think, you pronounce me inoffensive or something less. But I -would have you say, monsieur—what was Lepelletier to me? I should -have sickened, rather, to break bread with my uncle—whom heaven -induce to the shame of repentance! And I was ill that night, so that -even you might have softened in your judgment of me.” -</p> - -<p> -I stood amazed at the vehemence of her speech, at the rapidity of -inconsequence with which she pelted me with any chance missile that -came to her hand. It was evident the poor child was overwrought to a -degree; and I was fixed helpless between my passionate desire to -reassure and comfort her and my sense of her repudiation of my right -to do so. Now, it happened that, where words would have availed -little, a mute appeal—the manner of which it was beyond my power to -control—was to serve the best purposes of reconciliation. For -suddenly, as I dwelt bewildered upon the wet flashing of Carinne’s -eyes, emotion and fatigue, coupled with the sick pain of my wound, so -wrought upon me that the vault went reeling and I with it. I heard her -cry out; felt her clutch me,—and then there was sense for little but -exhaustion in my drugged brain. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -“I am on the floor, Carinne?” -</p> - -<p> -“On the floor, <i>mon ami</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“I am not so little a weight, you see. You tried to support me to the -bench and failed—for I know.” -</p> - -<p> -“But you were a dead-weight.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not dead yet, <i>chattemite</i>. Only I think I am dying.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no, little Thibaut! <i>À Dieu ne plaise!</i> You will not be so -wicked. And what makes you think so?” -</p> - -<p> -“I am so near heaven.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean me? But I burn.” -</p> - -<p> -“Kiss me, then, and give me of your fire.” -</p> - -<p> -“But, if you were to recover?” -</p> - -<p> -“I would return it.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is infamous. You presume upon my tenderness, that is all for your -cruel wound. Yet I do not think you are much hurt.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not now, with your hand upon my heart. Tell me, Carinne—it was -Jacques Crépin that brought you here?” -</p> - -<p> -“That had me conveyed hither by his deputy, Gusman. It was this -morning, after your trial. He had had me released from prison—<i>le -pécheur pénitent</i>. God had moved him to remorse, it seemed, and some -unknown—perhaps one that had overheard us in La Force—to knowledge -of our friendship,—yours and mine. He procured me my passport; -accompanied me beyond the barrier d’Enfer; committed me to the keeping -of this deadman of the quarries. He swore he would play his life -against yours—would win you to me here or perish in the attempt. -Judge then, you, of my waiting torture—my anguish of expectation in -this solitude!” -</p> - -<p> -“Would win me to you! And you desired this thing? <i>Oh, ma mie, ma -mie!</i> how, then, could you welcome me as you did?” -</p> - -<p> -“I do not know.” -</p> - -<p> -“And deny and abuse me and give me such pain?” -</p> - -<p> -“I do not know.” -</p> - -<p> -“For you love me very dearly... Carinne, I am dying!” -</p> - -<p> -“I do not believe you. That trick shall not serve a second time.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -“And what are we to do now, Carinne?” -</p> - -<p> -“Thou must be asking thyself that question,” said a -voice—Crépin’s—that clanged suddenly in the vaulted labyrinth. The -man himself stood looking down upon us. Beside him the gaunt figure of -my guide held aloft a flambeau that talked with a resinous sputter. -Its flare reddened the auburn curls of the Sectional President, and -informed his dissolute face with a radiance that was like an inner -consciousness of nobility. -</p> - -<p> -“My task ends here,” he said, quietly. “And shall we cry quits, M. le -Comte?” -</p> - -<p> -I lay on the floor, my head in Carinne’s lap. -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen Crépin,” I said, “thou hast acquitted thyself like a -gentleman and a man of courage. I would not wish, for thy sake, that -the risk had been less; I would not, for ours, know that it hath -involved thee in the toils.” -</p> - -<p> -“We are all in the toils nowadays,” said he; “and happy the lion that -can find a mouse for his friend. To the extent of my power I have -done; yet, I warn thee, thou art not out of the wood. If the weasel -wakes to the manner of his outwitting, not a river of blood shall -divert him from the scent till he has run thee down—thee, and me -also. Oh! I desire thee, do not misapprehend the importance of my -service.” -</p> - -<p> -Carinne looked up. She made an involuntary gesture with her hands. -This dear child, in her sweet surrender, became the archetype of -womanhood. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” she said, softly, “you have stood aside so honourably, you -have made us so greatly your debtors, that you will not now stultify -your own self-sacrifice by imposing upon us a heritage of remorse? If -you are in such danger, why not remain here with us?” -</p> - -<p> -He did not answer for some moments; but he shook his head very -slightly as he gazed down on us. -</p> - -<p> -“As to life,” he said presently, “my compact is with the senses. There -is a higher ideal to reach to, no doubt; but <i>Mordi</i>! I confess, for -myself I cannot feel the epicure and play the ascetic. To continue in -love with virtue, one must take it only, like opium, in occasional -doses. An habitual indulgence in it degrades the picturesqueness of -its own early evoking. Perhaps it should be ethically grateful to me -to remain here to contemplate the fruit of my generosity ripening for -another’s picking. Perhaps the guillotine is awaiting me in Paris. -Well, mademoiselle, of the two evils I prefer the latter. Here, to -feed on my own self-righteousness would be to starve at the end of a -day; there, the glory of doing, of directing, of enjoying, will soon -woo me from memory of a sentiment that was no more part of my real -self than the mistletoe is part of the harsh trunk it beautifies. For -death, I do not fear it, if it will come to me passionately, like a -mistress.” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur!” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, mademoiselle! believe me that I can offer no higher testimony to -your worth than the assurance that I have for six months lost myself -in you!” -</p> - -<p> -I looked at this ex-waiter in marvel. His dishes could never have -shown a finer polish than his manners. Moreover, in what intervals of -supplying food to others had he sat himself down to his own feast of -reason? One was accustomed in those days to hear coal-heavers -discussing Diderot, but not in the language of Diderot. I gazed on his -face and thought I saw in it a neutral ground, whereon a beast and an -angel hobnobbed in the intervals of combat. -</p> - -<p> -Beside him the torch-bearer—silent, melancholy, astringent—held his -brand aloft motionless, as if his arm were a sconce of iron. -</p> - -<p> -“You are hurt, monsieur?” said Crépin, suddenly referring to me. -</p> - -<p> -“It is nothing—a bite, a scratch; an excuse for a pillow.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” (he fetched a flask from his pocket and uncorked it)—“this is -ethereal cream of mint—a liqueur I affect, in that it reminds me of -lambs, and innocence—and shepherdesses. Let us pledge one another, -like good friends, at parting! And it will confirm thy cure, monsieur, -so happily begun.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle?” he said pleadingly, and offered it to Carinne. -</p> - -<p> -She touched it with her lips—I, more effectively, with mine. Crépin -cried “<i>Trinquons!</i>” and, taking a lusty pull, handed the flask to -Gusman, who drained it. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” said he, “we are united by a bond the sweetest in the -world—the sympathy of the palate. We have made of ourselves a little -rosary of wine beads.” -</p> - -<p> -He put his hand lightly on Gusman’s shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -“This austerity,” he said—“this Bailly of the Municipality of the -dead—I have purchased ye his favour with the one bribe to which he is -susceptible. Kings might offer him their crowns; easy maids their -honour. They should no more draw him from his reserve than Alexander -drew Diogenes from his tub. But there is a <i>séductrice</i> to his -integrity, and the name of it is right Hollands. My faith! I would not -swear <i>my</i> fidelity to such a frowzy mistress; but taste is a matter -of temperament. Is it not so, Jacques?” -</p> - -<p> -“While the keg lasts, I will hold the safety of thy friends in pawn to -thee.” -</p> - -<p> -So replied the spectral figure—a voice, a phantom—the very enigma of -this charnel city of echoes. -</p> - -<p> -The liqueur had revived and comforted me amazingly. I raised myself on -my elbow. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” I cried, “if good intentions could find favour with thee, I -would make thy keg a kilderkin, Citizen Gusman!” -</p> - -<p> -The figure stood mute, like a man of bronze. Crépin laughed -recklessly. -</p> - -<p> -“He is the fast warden of these old catacombs,” he said—“the undying -worm and sole master of their intricacies. Himself hath tunnelled them -under the ground, I believe, like the tan-yard grub that bores into -poplar-trees. Silence and secrecy are his familiars; but, I tell thee, -monsieur, he will absorb Hollands till he drips with it as the roofs -of his own quarries drip with water. The keg once drained, and—if -thou renew’st it not—he will sell thee for a single measure of -schnapps. Is it not so, Jacques?” -</p> - -<p> -“It is so,” said the figure, in a deep, indifferent voice. -</p> - -<p> -Crépin laughed again, then suddenly turned grave, and leaned down -towards me. -</p> - -<p> -“Harkee, M. le Comte!” he said, “is thy pocket well lined?” -</p> - -<p> -“With good intentions, M. le Président.” -</p> - -<p> -He nodded and, fetching a little bag of skin out of his breast, forced -it into my hand. -</p> - -<p> -“It is all I can spare,” he said; “and with that I must acquit my -conscience of the matter.” -</p> - -<p> -“If ever I live to repay thee, good fellow——” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, bah, monsieur! I owe thee for the Médoc. And now—escape if thou -seest the way open. This strange creature will be thy bond-slave while -the keg runs. Afterwards—<i>eh bien! C’est à toi la balle</i>. For food, -thou must do as others here—take toll of the country carts as they -journey to the barriers. They will not provide thee with sweetbreads -in wine; but—well, monsieur, there are fifty ways, after all, of -cooking a cabbage.” -</p> - -<p> -I rose, with difficulty, to my feet. Carinne, still seated on the -floor, held her hand in mine. Something like a gentle quinsy in my -throat embarrassed my speech. -</p> - -<p> -“Good citizen——” I muttered. -</p> - -<p> -Crépin made a gesture with his hand and backed in a hurry. -</p> - -<p> -“I desire no expression of gratitude,” he said loudly. -</p> - -<p> -“Good citizen,” I repeated, “thou wouldst not rebuke our selfishness -by denying us, thy most faithful debtors, the privilege claimed by -even a minor actor in this escapade?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of whom dost thou speak?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of a turnkey at St Pélagie’s.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mordi!</i> I drenched him once for the colic—that is all. The fool -fancied he had swallowed an eft that was devouring his entrails.” -</p> - -<p> -He cried “<i>Portez vous bien!</i>” and a quick emotion, as of physical -pain, flickered over his face like a breath of air over hot coals. -Carinne was on her feet in a moment, had gone swiftly to him, and had -taken his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” she said, in a wet voice, “it is true that honour, like -sweet vines, may shoot from beds of corruption. God forbid that I pass -judgment on that which influences the ways of men; but only—but only, -monsieur, I hope you may live very long, and may take comfort from the -thought of the insignificance of the subject of your so great -sacrifice.” -</p> - -<p> -She drooped her dear head. The other looked at her with an intense -gaze. -</p> - -<p> -“But, nevertheless,” he said, quietly, “it was the letter of M. le -Comte, of my honoured father Epicurus, that moved me to the sacrifice. -That is great, as you say. I never realised how great till this -moment. Yet—ah, mademoiselle! I would not sanctify it out of the -category of human passions by pretending that I was induced to it by -any sentiment of self-renunciation. Thyself should not have persuaded -me to spare thee—nor anything less, may be, than an appeal from my -preceptor in the metaphysics of the senses. I take no shame to say so. -I am not a traitor to my creed; and it would offend me to be called a -puritan.” -</p> - -<p> -He put the girl’s hand gently away from him. -</p> - -<p> -“Still,” he said, “I may not deem myself worthy to touch this flower -with my lips.” -</p> - -<p> -And at that he turned and went from us, summoning Gusman to accompany -him, and crying as he vanished, “Good luck and forgetfulness to all!” -</p> - -<p> -So disappeared from our lives this singular man, who persisted to the -very last in lashing me with the thong of my own twisting. We never -saw him again; once only we heard of him. -</p> - -<p> -As the flash of the retreating torch glimmered into attenuation, -Carinne returned to me and sat down at my side. -</p> - -<p> -“Little Thibaut,” she said softly, “he designed me so great a wrong -that I know not where to place him in my memory.” -</p> - -<p> -“With the abortive children of thy fancy, Carinne; amongst the -thoughts that are ignorant of the good in themselves.” -</p> - -<p> -She sighed. -</p> - -<p> -“And so it was thou wast his informer as to our friendship? And why -didst thou write, Jean-Louis?” -</p> - -<p> -“To urge him, by our one time intimacy, to cease his persecution of a -beautiful and most innocent lady.” -</p> - -<p> -“I did not know, I did not know!” she cried; and suddenly her arms -were round my neck, and I lay in a nest of love. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! I am glad to be pretty, for the sake of the little Thibaut, that -saved me from barbarous men, and from myself, and, alas! from my -uncle! Little Thibaut, did I hurt when I beat thee? Beat me, then, -till I cry with the pain.” -</p> - -<p> -She sobbed and laughed and held my face against her bosom. In the -midst, the candle on the wall dropped like a meteor, and instantly we -were immured in a very crypt of darkness. -</p> - -<p> -She cried in a terrified voice: “Oh, <i>mon Dieu</i>! hold me, or I sink!” -and committed herself shuddering to my embrace. -</p> - -<p> -The blackness was blind, horrible, beyond reason. We could only shut -our eyes and whisper to one another, expecting and hoping for Gusman’s -return. But he came no more that night, and by-and-by Carinne slept in -my arms. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -The glare of torch-light on my face brought me to my senses. That -sombre deadman, as Carinne called him, stood above us—visionless, -without movement, it seemed—a lurid genii presented in a swirling -drift of smoke. He might never have moved from the spot since we had -last seen him there. -</p> - -<p> -“Why dost thou wake us, good friend?” said I. “Hast thou a midnight -service for the dead here?” -</p> - -<p> -“It is high morning,” said he, in a voice like a funeral bell. -</p> - -<p> -“Morning!” -</p> - -<p> -I sat up in amazement. Truly I had not thought of it. We had slept the -clock round; but there was no day in this hideous and melancholy -underworld. -</p> - -<p> -I looked down at my companion. She had slipped from my hold of her, -and lay across my knees. Her hair curled low on her forehead; her -eyelids were misted with a faint blue shadow, like the sheaths of -hyacinth buds before they open; her lips were a little parted, as Love -had left them. <i>Mon Dieu!</i> there is no sight so tender and so pathetic -as that of a fair child asleep; and what was Carinne but a child! -</p> - -<p> -In an access of emotion I bent and softly touched the lips with mine. -This infant so brave and so forlorn, whose head should have been -pillowed on flowers, whose attendants should have been the lady -fairies! -</p> - -<p> -“She is very pretty,” said the deadman. -</p> - -<p> -“Ha, ha!” I cried. “Hast thou found it out? There shall spring a -blossom for thee yet, old Gusman, in this lifeless city of thine!” -</p> - -<p> -He twirled his torch for the first time, so that it spouted fire like -a hand-grenade. -</p> - -<p> -“Blossoms!” he barked. “But thou shalt know I have my garden walks -down here—bowers of mildew, parterres of fine rank funguses, royal -worms even, that have battened for centuries on the seed of men.” -</p> - -<p> -He crooked his knees, so that he might stare into my face. -</p> - -<p> -“Not altogether a city of the dead,” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it peopled with ghosts, then?” -</p> - -<p> -“Very thickly, without doubt. Thou shalt see them swarm like maggots -in its streets.” -</p> - -<p> -I shrugged my shoulders. The creature stood erect once more, and made -a comprehensive gesture. -</p> - -<p> -“This?” he said,—“you must not judge by this. It is the Holy of -Holies, to which none has access but the High Priest of the -Catacombs—and such as he favours.” -</p> - -<p> -“And what, in a rude age, keeps it sacred?” -</p> - -<p> -He swept his torch right and left. -</p> - -<p> -“Look, then!” said he. -</p> - -<p> -We lay in a vaulted chamber hewn out of the rock. On all sides I -fancied I caught dim vision of the mouths of innumerable low tunnels -that exhaled a mist of profound night. -</p> - -<p> -“Knowledge!” exclaimed the fearful man; “the age-long lore of one that -hath learnt his every footstep in this maze of oubliettes. There are -beaten tracks here and there. Here and there a fool has been known to -leave them. It may be days or weeks before I happen across his -body—the eyes slipping forward of their lids, his mouth puckered out -of shape from sucking and gnawing at the knuckles of his hands.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is terrible! And none comes hither but thou?” -</p> - -<p> -“I, and the beasts of blood that must not be denied. When they hunt, I -lead; therefore it is well to win my favour.” -</p> - -<p> -Carinne hurriedly raised herself. She threw her arms about me. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, my husband!” she cried, “take me where I may see the sweet -daylight, if only for a moment!” -</p> - -<p> -I had thought the poor child slept. -</p> - -<p> -“Hush!” I murmured. “Citizen Gusman is going to show us his township!” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -By interminable corridors, so intricate that one would have thought -their excavators must have lain down to die, each at the limit of his -boring, from sheer despair of ever finding their way to the open -again, we followed the flare of the torch, our eyes smarting in its -smoke, our arms most fervently linked, Carinne’s to mine, in -inseparable devotion. Now and again I would hear my poor little friend -whisper, “Light, light!” as if her very heart were starving; and then -I would draw her face to mine and cry confidently, “It is coming, <i>ma -mie</i>!” Still on we went over the uneven ground, thridding an endless -labyrinth of death, oppressed, weighed upon, hustled by inhuman walls, -breathing and exhaling the thin black fluid that is the atmosphere of -the disembodied. -</p> - -<p> -Sometimes, as if it crouched beneath a stroke, the flame of the torch -would dip and shrink under a current of gas, then leap jocund again -when the peril was swept by; sometimes the tinkle of falling water -would gladden our ears as with a memory of ancient happiness; and, -passing on, in a moment we should be bedewed with spray, and catch a -glimpse, in the glare, of a very dropping well of fire. At length, at -the turning of a corridor, Gusman called us to a halt. -</p> - -<p> -He hollowed his left hand to his mouth. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Holà—làee—eh—h—h!</i>” he yelled, like a very <i>lutin</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Là—là—là—là—làee—eh—làee—eh—làee—eh!</i>” was hooted -and jangled back in a tumbling torrent of sound, that seemed to issue -from the throat of a passage facing us and to shake the very roofs -with merriment. Involuntarily we shrunk against the wall, as if to -allow space to the impetuous rush we foresaw. <i>Mon Dieu</i>, the strange -illusion! Only the swarming imps of echoes, summoned to the Master -call, came hurrying forth, leaping and falling over one another, -fighting and struggling, clanging with reverberant laughter, -distributing themselves, disappearing down this or that corridor, -shouting over their shoulders as they fled—faint, fainter—till -silence settled down once more like water in the wake of a vessel. -</p> - -<p> -Gusman slewed his head about—cockt as it had been to the outcry—to -view of us. -</p> - -<p> -“They are lively to-day,” he said, with an unearthly distortion of his -features. -</p> - -<p> -“The echoes?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>C’est cela, citoyen.</i> So men entitle them. No doubt it is human to -think to put terror out of countenance by miscalling it.” -</p> - -<p> -“How, then?” -</p> - -<p> -He beckoned us to follow; plunged into the very funnel mouth that had -vomited the eerie babble; led us swiftly by a winding passage, and -stopped. -</p> - -<p> -“Behold!” said he, flashing his torch to and fro over the surface of a -roughly piled and cemented wall that seemed to close the entrance to a -vast recess. -</p> - -<p> -“Behold!” said he, sweeping the flame to the ground at the wall-foot. -</p> - -<p> -We saw a skull or two; a few scattered bones. An indescribable brassy -odour assailed our nostrils. The stones shone with an oily exudation. -</p> - -<p> -“What company lies here, citizen?” -</p> - -<p> -“A brave one, by my faith—a whole cemetery <i>en bloc</i>. <i>Comment -diable!</i> shall they have fitted themselves each with his own by the -day of Judgment! They pretend to sleep, piecemeal as they were bundled -in; but utter so little as a whisper down there, and they will begin -to stir and to talk. Then if thou shout’st, as I did—my God, what a -clamour in reply! But one would have thought they had protested enough -already.” -</p> - -<p> -“In what manner?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ask the killers of September, thou. They are held honest men, I -believe.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is enough,” said I. “Lead on, Citizen Gusman, and find us a glint -of light, in the name of God!” -</p> - -<p> -I glanced, with a shudder, at Carinne. Thank heaven! she had not, it -appeared, understood. So here, in one dreadful lime-cemented heap, -were massed the victims of those unspeakable days! I remembered the -Abbaye and the blood-mark on the lip of Mademoiselle de Lâge; and I -held the girl to my side, as we walked, with a pressure that was -convulsive. -</p> - -<p> -Again the torch danced before us, and again we followed; and yet again -the deadman called us to a stop, and whirled his half-devoured brand. -</p> - -<p> -“Observe well,” said he; “for it is in this quarter ye must sojourn, -and here seek refuge when warning comes.” -</p> - -<p> -This time a very hill of skulls and ribs and shanks—a lifeless -crater—a Monte Testaccio of broken vessels that had once contained -the wine of life. The heap filled a wide recess and rose twenty feet -to the roof. -</p> - -<p> -“The contribution of ‘Les Innocens,’” said Gusman, as if he were some -spectral minister of affairs announcing in the Convention of the dead -a Sectional subscription. -</p> - -<p> -He pointed to a little closet of stone, like a friar’s cell, that -pierced the wall to one side of the heap. -</p> - -<p> -“Behold your hermitage!” said he. -</p> - -<p> -Carinne, clinging to me, cried, “No, no!” in a weeping voice. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Eh bien!</i>” said the creature, indifferently; “you can take or leave, -as you will.” -</p> - -<p> -“We will take, citizen.” -</p> - -<p> -“Look, then!” (he gripped my arm and haled me to the mound) “and note -what I do.” -</p> - -<p> -There was a point—roughly undistinguishable from the rest—where a -welded mass of calcareous bone and rubbish lay upon the litter. This -was, in effect, a door in one piece, with an infant’s skull for handle -and concealed hinges of gut to one side to prevent its slipping out of -place. Removed, it revealed a black mouth opening into an inner -vacancy. -</p> - -<p> -“Underneath lies a great box or kennel of wood,” said Gusman, “with a -manhole cut in its side; and round and over the box the stuff is -piled. At the very word of warning, creep in and close the entrance. -It is like enough ye will need it.” -</p> - -<p> -“And here we are to stay?” -</p> - -<p> -“That is according to your inclination.” -</p> - -<p> -“But <i>Mor’ Dieu</i>, my friend! if thou wert to forget or overlook us -entombed in this oubliette?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Soyez content.</i> I might forget thou wert lacking food, but never -that the citizen President gave thee a purse.” -</p> - -<p> -“But——” -</p> - -<p> -“Tst, tst! Wouldst thou explore farther my city of shadows? Here the -wild quarries merge into the catacombs. Hence, a little space, thou -wilt find company and to spare;—light, also, if Mademoiselle wills.” -</p> - -<p> -The poor child uttered a heart-moving sigh. -</p> - -<p> -“Come, then,” said Gusman, with a shrug of his shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -He preceded us the length of a single corridor, low and narrow—a mere -human mole-run. All throughout it the rock seemed to grip us, the air -to draw like wire into our lungs. And then, suddenly, we were come to -a parapet of stone that cut our path like a whitewashed hoarding. For -through a fissure in the plain above it a wedge of light entered—a -very wise virgin with her lamp shining like snow;—and under the beam -we stopped, and gazed upwards, and could not gaze enough. -</p> - -<p> -But, for Carinne—she was translated! She laughed; she murmured; she -made as if she caught the sweet wash like water in her hands and -bathed her face with it. -</p> - -<p> -“And now I am ready,” said she. -</p> - -<p> -Then we scaled the wall, jumping to a lower terrace of rock: and -thereafter ran the corridor again, descending, but now of ample enough -width and showing a design of masonry at intervals, and sometimes -great stone supports to the roof where houses lay above. And in a -moment our path swept into a monstrous field of bones—confused, -myriad, piled up like slag about a pit-mouth; and we thridded our way -therethrough along a dusty gully, and emerged at once into a high -vaulted cavern and the view of living things. -</p> - -<p> -Living things!—<i>Grand Dieu!</i> the bats of the living Terror. They -peered from holes and alcoves; they mowed and chattered; they shook -their sooty locks at us and hailed Gusman in the jargon of the -underworld. Thieves and rogues and cowards—here they swarmed in the -warrens of despair, the very sacristans of devil-worship, the unclean -acolytes of the desecrated rock-chapels, whose books of the Gospel -were long since torn for fuel. -</p> - -<p> -Out of one pestilent cavern, wherein I caught glimpse of an altar -faced with an arabesque of cemented bones, something like a dusky ape, -that clung with both hands to a staff for support, came mouthing and -gesticulating at us. -</p> - -<p> -“Bread, bread!” it mumbled, working its black jaws; and it made an -aimless pick at Carinne’s skirt. -</p> - -<p> -“There is for thee, then!” thundered Gusman; and he flapped his torch -into the thing’s face. The animal vented a hideous cry and shuffled -back into its hole, shedding sparks on its way as if it smouldered -like an old rag. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, <i>mon ami</i>!” whispered Carinne, in a febrile voice—“better the -den by the skulls than this!” -</p> - -<p> -The deadman gave an acrid grin. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>À la bonne heure</i>,” said he. “Doubtless hunger pinches. Come back, -then; and I will open my wallet and thou shalt thy purse.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Early in the afternoon—so far as in that rayless desolation one could -judge it to be—there broke upon our eyes the flutter of an advancing -light, upon our ears the quick secret patter of hurrying steps. These -ran up to the very opening of our lair and stopped. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Hide!</i>” said the deadman’s voice, “I hear them call me to the -search! Hide!” and, without another word, he retreated as he had come. -</p> - -<p> -Carinne uttered a little shuddering “Oh!” She took my head between her -hands and kissed my lips, the admirable child. Then we emerged from -our den (the ghostliest glimmer reached us from some distant corner, -where, no doubt, Gusman had left a light burning), and stole swiftly -to the mound-foot. I felt about for the infant’s skull (the position -of which I had intensely remarked), and in a moment found it and laid -bare the aperture. -</p> - -<p> -“Dive, little rabbit,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“I am within, Jean-Louis.” -</p> - -<p> -I followed, feet first, and with my toes just touching bottom, reached -out and pulled the trap upon us. Then, with a feeling as if I were -wrenching off a blouse over my shoulders, I let myself back into the -hole—upon a carpet of muffling dust—and <i>ma bonne amie</i> caught at -me, and we stood to hear our own hearts beating. Like the thick throb -of a clock in an under-room—thus, I swear, our pulses sounded to us -in that black and horrible stillness. The box had, it appeared, been -very compactly built in at the first—and before the superincumbent -litter of rubbish had been discharged over and around it—with the -strongest bones, for that these were calculated to endure, without -shifting, the onset of one hurriedly concealing himself; yet this -necessary precaution went near to stultifying itself by so helping to -exclude the air as to make breathing a labour to one confined within. -Fortunately, however, no long strain upon our endurance was demanded -of us. -</p> - -<p> -Now the hunters came upon us so silently, that there, in our ghastly -prison, a spray of light, scattered through the chinks of the trap, -was our first intimation of their presence. Then, as we maddened to -see the glint withdrawn, a low voice came to our ears. -</p> - -<p> -“Stop, then! What is this?” -</p> - -<p> -“The dust of the Innocents, citizen.” (Gusman’s voice.) -</p> - -<p> -“It is with the dust of the depraved in breeding fat maggots, is it -not?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ay, so long as they can find flesh food.” -</p> - -<p> -“But what if such food were concealed herein? That little <i>babouin</i> of -St Pélagie—<i>peste!</i> a big thigh-bone would afford him cover.” -</p> - -<p> -I felt my hand carried to Carinne’s lips in the darkness. -</p> - -<p> -Gusman kicked at the mound with his sabot. -</p> - -<p> -“Close litter,” said he. “A man would suffocate that burrowed into -it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is that so? Rake me over that big lump yonder—<i>voilà!</i>—with the -little skull sticking from it.” -</p> - -<p> -I felt my heart turn like a mountebank—felt Carinne stoop suddenly -and rise with something huddled in her hands. The astonishing child -had, unknown to me, preconceived a plan and was prepared with it on -the very flash of emergency. She leant past me, swift and perfectly -silent, and immediately the little spars of light about the trap went -out, it seemed. If in moving she made the smallest sound, it was -opportunely covered by the ragged cough that issued at the moment from -Gusman’s throat. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Dépêche-toi!</i>” said the authoritative voice. “That projecting -patch, citizen—turn it for me!” -</p> - -<p> -“There is nothing here.” -</p> - -<p> -“But, there, I say! No, no! <i>Mille tonnerres</i>,—I will come myself, -then!” -</p> - -<p> -I heard Gusman’s breath vibrant outside the trap; heard him hastily -raise the covering an inch or two, with an affectation of labouring -perplexity. I set my teeth; I “saw red,” like flecks of blood; I -waited for the grunt of triumph that should announce the discovery of -the hole. -</p> - -<p> -“It is as I told thee,” said the deadman; “there is nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -I caught a note of strangeness in his voice, a suppressed marvel that -communicated itself to me. The sweat broke out on my forehead. -</p> - -<p> -“H’mph!” muttered the inquisitor; and I heard him step back. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly he cried, “<i>En avant, plus avant!</i> To thy remotest -boundaries, citizen warden! We will run the little rascal to earth -yet!” -</p> - -<p> -The light faded from our ken; the footsteps retreated. I passed a -shaking hand over my eyes—I could not believe in the reality of our -escape. -</p> - -<p> -At length, unable any longer to endure the silence, I caught at -Carinne in the blackness. -</p> - -<p> -“Little angel,” I said; “in God’s name, what didst thou do?” -</p> - -<p> -She bowed her sweet face to my neck. -</p> - -<p> -“Only this, Jean-Louis. I had noticed that my poor ragged skirt was -much of the colour of this heap; and so I slipped it off and stuffed -it into the hole.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -We dwelt an hour in our horrible retreat, from time to time cautiously -lifting the trap a finger’s-breadth for air. At the end, Gusman -reappeared with his torch and summoned us to our release. He looked at -Carinne, as St Hildephonsus might have gazed on the Blessed Virgin. -</p> - -<p> -“It was magnificent,” he said. “I saw at once. Thou hast saved me no -less than thyself. That I will remember, <i>citoyenne</i>, when the -opportunity serves.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -On the third day our deadman came to us with a copy of the ‘Moniteur’ -in his hand. He pointed silently to a name in the list of the latest -executed. Carinne turned to me with pitiful eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Ah, le pauvre Crépin!</i>” I cried, in great emotion. “What can one -hope but that death came to him passionately, as he desired!” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen Gusman, we are resolved. We must go forth, if it is only to -perish. We can endure this damning gloom no longer.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked down on us as we sat, this genii of the torch. His face was -always framed to our vision in a lurid wreath; was the sport of any -draught that swayed the leaping fire. Submitted to daylight, his -features might have resolved themselves into expressionlessness and -immobility. To us they were ever shifting, fantastic, possessed with -the very devils of the underworld. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he said at length—“I owe the citizeness a debt of gratitude; -but—<i>sang Dieu!</i> after all I might repudiate it when the keg -threatened to suck dry. I am myself only when I am not myself. That -would be a paradox in the world above there, eh? At least the moment -is opportune. They hunt counter for thee, Thibaut. For the wench—she -is not in their minds, nor associated in any manner with thee. That -lends itself to an artifice. The idea tickles me. <i>Sang Dieu!</i> Yes, I -will supply thee with a passport to Calais. Wait!” -</p> - -<p> -He went from us. We knew better than to interrupt or question him; but -we held together during his absence and whispered our hopes. In less -than half an hour he returned to us, some papers grasped in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Observe,” said he. “It is not often, after a harvest of death, that -the <i>glaneurs</i> of the Municipality overlook a stalk; yet now and again -one will come to me. Citizen Tithon Riouffe, it appears, meditated a -descent upon <i>la maudite Angleterre</i>. He had his papers, signed and -countersigned, for himself, and for his wife Sabine, moreover. It is -lucky for you that he proved a rascal, for they shaved him -nevertheless. What Barrère had granted, St Just rendered nugatory. -But, if they took his head, they left him his passports, and those I -found in his secret pocket.” -</p> - -<p> -He broke off, with a quick exclamation, and peered down at me, holding -the torch to my face. -</p> - -<p> -“Mother of God!” he cried—“I will swear there is something a likeness -here! I have a mind to fetch the head and set it to thine, cheek by -jowl! <i>Hé bien, comment, la petite babiole</i>—that disturbs her! Well, -well—take and use the papers, then, and, with discretion, ye shall -win free!” -</p> - -<p> -Carinne caught at the rough hand of our preserver and kissed it. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, thou art a deadman angel!” she cried; and broke into a -little fit of weeping. -</p> - -<p> -His lids fell. I saw his throat working. He examined his hand as if he -thought something had stung it. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, she is very pretty,” he muttered. “I think I would give my life -for her.” -</p> - -<p> -Then he added, vaguely: “<i>Chou pour chou</i>—I will take it out in -Hollands.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch15"> -CHAPTER XV.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE SALAD COURSE.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">Citoyen Tithon Riouffe</span> <i>et femme</i> had yet to experience the most -extraordinary instance of that favouritism, by an after-display of -which, towards those whom she has smitten without subduing, Fortune -proclaims herself the least supernatural of goddesses. Truly, they had -never thrown into the lottery of events with a faint heart; and now a -first prize was to be the reward of their untiring persistency. -</p> - -<p> -Possibly, indeed, the papers of recommendation might have sufficed of -themselves; yet that they would have carried us (having regard to our -moulting condition, poor cage-worn sparrows! and the necessary -slowness of our advance) in safety to the coast, I most strenuously -doubt. -</p> - -<p> -Dear God! the soughing of the May wind, the whisper of the grasses, -the liquid flutter of the stars, that were like lights reflected in a -lake! The hour of ten saw us lifted to the plain in body—to the -heavens in spirit. For freedom, we were flying from the land of -liberty; for life, from the advocates of the Rights of Man. We sobbed -and we embraced. -</p> - -<p> -“Some day,” we cried to Gusman, “we will come back and roll thee under -a hogshead of schnapps!”—and then we set our faces to the north, and -our teeth to a long task of endurance—one no less, indeed, than a -sixty-league tramp up the half of the Isle de France and the whole of -Picardie. Well, at least, as in the old days, we should walk together, -with only the little rogue that laughs at locksmiths riding sedan -between us. -</p> - -<p> -It was our design to skirt, at a reasonable distance, the east walls -of the city, and to strike at Pantin, going by way of Gentilly and -Bercy—the road to Meaux. Thence we would make, by a north-westerly -course, the Amiens highway; and so, with full hearts and purses -tight-belted for their hunger, for the pathetically distant sea. -</p> - -<p> -And all this we did, though not as we had foreseen. We toiled onwards -in the dark throughout that first sweet night of liberty. For seven -hours we tramped without resting; and then, ten miles north of the -walls, we lay down under the lee of a skilling, and, rolled in one -another’s arms, slept for four hours like moles. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -I woke to the prick of rain upon my face. Before my half-conscious -eyes a hectic spot faded and went wan in a grey miasma like death. It -was the sun—the cheek of the virgin day, grown chill in a premature -decline. -</p> - -<p> -I sat up. From the south-west, like the breath of the fatal city -pursuing us, a melancholy draft of cloud flowed and spread itself, -making for the northern horizon. It wreathed in driving swirls and -ripples, as if it were the very surface of a stream that ran above us; -and, indeed almost before we were moved to a full wakefulness, we were -as sopt as though we lay under water. -</p> - -<p> -A swampy day it was to be. The drops soon fell so thickly that heaven -seemed shut from us by a skylight of blurred glass. The interval from -cloud to earth was like a glaze upon the superficies of a fire-baked -sphere. The starved clammy fields shone livid; the highway ran, -literally; the poplars that skirted it were mere leafy piles in a -lagoon. Then the wind rose, shouldering us forward and bombarding us -from the rear in recurrent volleys, till I, at least, felt like a -fugitive saurian escaping from the Deluge with my wet tail between my -legs. -</p> - -<p> -I looked at my comrade, the delicate gallant lady. Her hair was -whipped about her face, her skirt about her ankles. The red cap on her -head, with which Gusman had provided her, hung over like the comb of a -vanquished cockerel. She was not vanquished, however. Her white teeth -clicked a little with the cold; but when she became conscious of my -gaze, she returned it with an ardour of the sweetest drollery. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Enfin, mon p’tit Thibaut</i>,” she said; “I prefer Liberty in her -chilly moods, though she make a <i>noyade</i> of us.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is almost come to that. With a brave effort, it seems, we might -rise to the clouds by our own buoyancy. Take a long breath, Carinne. -Canst thou swim?” -</p> - -<p> -She laughed and stopped a moment, and took me by the hands. -</p> - -<p> -“I should be able to,” she said; “I feel so like a fish, or a lizard, -whose skin is a little loose on his body. Am I not a dreadful sight, -Jean-Louis?” -</p> - -<p> -“Thou art never anything but beautiful in my eyes.” -</p> - -<p> -“Fie, then, fie then! cannot I see myself in them! Very small and very -ugly, Jean-Louis—an imp of black waters.” -</p> - -<p> -“And I see babies in thine, Carinne. That is what the peasants call -them. And I never loved my own image so well as now. It has a little -blue sky to itself to spite the reality. It is a fairy peeping from a -flower. <i>Ma mie</i>, and art thou so very cold and hungry?” -</p> - -<p> -“Truly, my teeth go on munching the air for lack of anything better.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is pitiful. We must brave the next town or village to procure -food. There are no berries here, Carinne; no little conies to catch in -a springe of withe and spit for roasting on an old sabre; and if there -were, we must not stop to catch them.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is true we must eat, then. The plunge has to be made—for liberty -or death. <i>Formez vos bataillons!</i> Advance, M. le Comte, with thy -heart jumping to the hilt of thy sword!” -</p> - -<p> -She cried out merrily. She was my own, my property, the soul of my -confidence; yet I could have cheered her in the face of a multitude as -(God forgive the comparison!) the mob cheered the <i>guenipe</i> Théroigne -when she entered the Bastille. -</p> - -<p> -So, once more we drove and were driven forward; and presently, six -miles north of St Denis, down we came, with stout courage, I hope, -upon the village of Écouen, and into immediate touch with that -fortune that counselled us so amiably in the crisis of our affairs. -</p> - -<p> -Yet at the outset this <i>capricieuse</i> essayed to terrify us out of all -assurance of self-confidence, and was the coquette to give us a bad -quarter of an hour before she smiled on our suit. For at the very -barrier occurred a <i>contretemps</i> that, but for its happy adaptation by -us to circumstance, threatened to put a short end to our fugitive -romance. -</p> - -<p> -We assumed a breezy deportment, under the raking scrutiny of five or -six patriot savages—mere arrogant <i>péagers</i>, down whose dirty faces -the rain trickled sluggishly like oil. Foul straw was stuft into their -clogs; over their shoulders, nipped with a skewer at the neck, were -flung frowzy squares of sacking, in the hanging corners of which they -held the flint-locks of their pieces for dryness’ sake. By the door of -the village taxing-house, that stood hard by the barrier, a -ferret-faced postilion—the only man of them all in boots—lounged, -replaiting the lash of his whip and drawing the string through his -mouth. -</p> - -<p> -“Graceless weather, citizens!” said I. -</p> - -<p> -A squinting <i>bonnet-rouge</i> damned me for <i>un âne ennuyant</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“Keep thy breath,” said he, “for what is less obvious;” and he surlily -demanded the production of our papers. -</p> - -<p> -“A good patriot,” growled another, “walks with his face to Paris.” -</p> - -<p> -“So many of them have their heads turned, it is true,” whispered -Carinne. -</p> - -<p> -The squinting man wedged his eyes upon her. -</p> - -<p> -“What is that?” he said sharply—“some <i>mot de ralliement</i>? Be -careful, my friends! I have the gift to look straight into the hearts -of traitors!” -</p> - -<p> -It was patent, however, that he deceived himself. He snatched the -papers rudely from me, and conned them all at cross-purposes. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Sacré corps!</i>” he snapped—“what is thy accursed name?” -</p> - -<p> -“It is plain to read, citizen.” -</p> - -<p> -“For a mincing aristocrat, yes. But, for us—we read only between the -lines.” -</p> - -<p> -“Read on them, then, the names of Citizen Tithon Riouffe and wife.” -</p> - -<p> -The indolent postilion spat the string from his lips, looked up -suddenly, and came swiftly to the barrier. -</p> - -<p> -“How?” said he, “what name?” -</p> - -<p> -I repeated the words, with a little quaver in my voice. The man cockt -his head evilly, his eyes gone into slits. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, <i>le bon Dieu</i>!” he cried, in acrid tones, “but the assurance of -this ragged juggler!” -</p> - -<p> -Carinne caught nervously at my hand. -</p> - -<p> -“I do not understand the citizen,” said I, in my truculent voice. -</p> - -<p> -“But I think, yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“That that is not the name on the passport?” -</p> - -<p> -“I know nothing of the passport. I know that thou art not Riouffe, and -it is enough.” -</p> - -<p> -Squint-eyes croaked joyously. -</p> - -<p> -“Come!” he said; “here is a sop to the weather.” -</p> - -<p> -As for me, I could have whipped Gusman for his talk of a fortuitous -resemblance. -</p> - -<p> -“I am Riouffe,” said I, stubbornly, “whatever thou mayst think.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, it is said,” cried the postilion. He chirped shrilly like a -ferret. “And, if thou art Riouffe, thou art a damned aristocrat; and -how art thou the better for that?” -</p> - -<p> -“Bah!” I exclaimed. “What dost thou know of me, pig of a stable-boy?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of thee, nothing. Of Riouffe, enough to say that thou art not he.” -</p> - -<p> -“Explain, citizen!” growled a curt-spoken patriot, spitting on the -ground for full-stop. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mes amis</i>,” cried the deplorable rogue. “Myself, I conveyed the -Citizen Tithon Riouffe to Paris in company with the Englishman. The -Englishman, within the fifteen days, returns alone. He breaks his -journey here, as you know, to breakfast at the ‘Anchor.’ But, for -Riouffe—I heard he was arrested.” -</p> - -<p> -Grace of God! here was a concatenation of mishaps—as luckless a -<i>rencontre</i> as Fate ever conceived of cruelty. My heart turned grey. -The beastly triumphant faces of the guard swam in my vision like -spectres of delirium. Nevertheless, I think, I preserved my reason -sufficiently to assume a <i>sang froid</i> that was rather of the nature of -a fever. -</p> - -<p> -“The question is,” said I, coolly, “not as to whether this lout is a -fool or a liar, but as to whether or no my papers are in order. You -will please to observe by whom they are franked.” (I remembered, in a -flash, the deadman’s statement.) “The name of the Citizen Deputy, who -assured me a safe conduct <i>to</i> Paris, being on this return passport, -should be a sufficient guarantee that his good offices did not end -with my arrival. I may have been arrested and I may have been -released. It is not well, my friends, to pit the word of a horse-boy -against that of a member of the Committee of Public Safety.” -</p> - -<p> -My high manner of assurance had its effect. The faces lowered into -some expression of chagrin and perplexity. And then what must I do but -spoil the effect of all by a childishly exuberant anti-climax. -</p> - -<p> -“I will grant,” said I, “that a change in the habit of one’s dress may -confuse a keener headpiece than a jockey’s. What then! I arrive from -England; I return from Paris—there is the explanation. Moreover, in -these days of equality one must economise for the common good, and, -rather than miss my return seat in the Englishman’s carriage and have -to charter another, I follow in his track, when I find he is already -started, in the hope to overtake him. And now you would delay us here -while he stretches longer leagues between us!” -</p> - -<p> -Carinne gave a little soft whimper. The postilion capered where he -stood. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mes amis!</i>” he cried, “he speaks well! It needs only to confront him -with the Englishman to prove him an impostor.” -</p> - -<p> -<i>Misérable!</i> What folly had I expressed! It had not been sufficiently -flogged into my dull brain that the islander was here, now, in the -village! I had obtusely fancied myself safe in claiming knowledge of -him, while my secure policy was to have blustered out the situation as -another and independent Riouffe. That course I had now made -impossible. I could have driven my teeth through my tongue with -vexation. Carinne touched my hand pitifully. It almost made my heart -overflow. “Thus,” I said by-and-by to her, “the condemned forgives his -executioner,” and—“Ah, little Thibaut,” she whispered, “but you do -not know how big you looked.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -For the moment they could not find the Englishman. He had finished his -breakfast and wandered afield. That was a brief respite; but nothing, -it seemed, to avail in the end. -</p> - -<p> -In the meantime they marched us into the taxing-house, where at a -table sat a commissary of a strange figure. I had blundered -desperately; yet here, I flatter myself, I turned my faculty for -construing character to the account of retrieving my own. -</p> - -<p> -In Citizen Tristan I read—and quite rightly, as events showed—a -decent burgher aggrandised, not against his will, but against the -entire lack of one. His face was shaped, and something coloured, like -a great autumn pear. It was narrow at the forehead, with restless, -ineffective eyes, and it dropped to a monstrous chin—a -self-protective evolution in the era Sainte Guillotine. Obviously he -had studied to save his neck by surrounding it with a rampart of fat. -For the rest he was very squat and ungainly; and he kept shifting the -papers on his desk rather than look at us. -</p> - -<p> -“Here is a man,” thought I, “who has been promoted because in all his -life he has never learned to call anything his own.” -</p> - -<p> -Our guard presented us arrogantly; the wizened post-boy laid his -charge volubly. -</p> - -<p> -“Call your witness,” said I in a pet. “The case lies in a nutshell.” -</p> - -<p> -My words made an impression, no doubt, though they were uttered in -mere hopeless bravado. -</p> - -<p> -“But, it seems he cannot be found,” protested the commissary, -plaintively. -</p> - -<p> -“Then,” I urged, “it is bad law to detain us.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are detained on suspicion.” -</p> - -<p> -“Of not being ourselves? Oh, monsieur——!” -</p> - -<p> -He took me up peevishly. -</p> - -<p> -“Eh, eh! <i>voilà ce que c’est!</i> Monsieur to me? Art thou not an -aristocrat, then?” -</p> - -<p> -I answered pregnantly, “The question in itself is a reflection upon -him that signed this passport.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked about him like a trapped creature, dumbly entreating the -Fates for succour. It was my plain policy to harp upon the strings of -his nerves. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said I, “a citizen commissary, I perceive, must have the -courage of his opinions; and I can only hope thine will acquit thee -when the reckoning is called.” -</p> - -<p> -He shifted in his chair; he spluttered little deprecatory -interjections under his breath; he shot small furtive glances at his -truculent following. Finally he bade all but us two out of the room, -and the guard to their post at the barrier. The moment they were -withdrawn grumbling, he opened upon me with a poor assumption of -bluster— -</p> - -<p> -“Thou art very big with words; but here I am clearly within my -rights.” -</p> - -<p> -“Are not my papers in order, then?” -</p> - -<p> -“It would at least appear so.” -</p> - -<p> -His lids rose and fell. Patently his self-possession was an insecure -tenure. -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen,” I said, shaking my finger at him. “Since when hast thou -learned to set thy will in opposition to that of Barrère?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Oh, nom de Dieu!</i>” he whimpered, in great distress; and rose and -trundled up and down the room. “I oppose nobody. I am a most unhappy -being, condemned by vile circumstance to give the perpetual lie to my -conscience.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is an ignoble <i>rôle</i>,” said I, “and quite futile of itself.” -</p> - -<p> -He paused suddenly opposite me. His fat lips were shaking; his eyes -blinked a nerveless anxiety. -</p> - -<p> -“I contradict nobody,” he cried; and added afflictedly, “I suppose, if -you are Riouffe, you are Riouffe, I suppose.” -</p> - -<p> -“It all lies in that,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Then,” he cried feebly—“what the devil do you want of me?” -</p> - -<p> -I could have laughed in his poor gross face. -</p> - -<p> -“What, indeed,” said I. “My account with you will come later. You will -be prepared then, no doubt, to justify this detention. For me, there -remains Barrère.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no!” he cried; “I desire only to steer wide of quicksands. You -may guess, monsieur, how I am governed. This <i>fripon</i> takes my fellows -by the ears. He gives you the lie, and you return it in his teeth. -What am I to say or think or do?” -</p> - -<p> -“Is it for me to advise a commissary?” -</p> - -<p> -He rumpled his limp hair desperately as he walked. -</p> - -<p> -“You will not help me! You drive me to distraction!” -</p> - -<p> -He stopped again. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you Riouffe?” he cried. -</p> - -<p> -“You have my passport, monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, yes, I know!” he exclaimed in a frenzy; “but—Mother of God, -monsieur! do you not comprehend the post-boy to swear you are not the -Englishman’s Riouffe?” -</p> - -<p> -“Confront me, then, with the Englishman.” -</p> - -<p> -“He cannot be found.” -</p> - -<p> -I shrugged my shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“I can only recall monsieur’s attention,” said I, “to the fact that -certain citizens, travelling under safe-conduct of a member of the -Committee of Safety, and with their papers in indisputable order, are -suffering a detention sufficiently unwarrantable to produce the -gravest results.” -</p> - -<p> -The commissary snatched up his hat and ran to the door. -</p> - -<p> -“Go thy ways!” he cried. “Myself, I will conduct you through the -village. For the rest, when the Englishman is found, and if he denies -thee——” -</p> - -<p> -He did not finish the sentence. In a moment we were all in the rainy -street. My accuser was vanished from the neighbourhood of the barrier. -A single patriot only was in evidence. This man made a feint of -bringing his musket to the charge. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Qui va là?</i>” he grunted. “<i>Est-ce qu’il se sauve, ce cochon!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -Fear lent the commissary anger. -</p> - -<p> -“To thy post!” he shouted. “Am I to be made answerable to every dog -that barks!” -</p> - -<p> -Red-bonnet fell back muttering. We hurried forward, splashing over the -streaming cobbles. The street, by luck of weather, was entirely -deserted. Only a horseless <i>limonière</i>, standing at the porch of the -village inn, gave earnest of some prospective interest. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly I felt Carinne’s little clutch on my arm. -</p> - -<p> -“The Englishman!” she whispered, in a gasp. -</p> - -<p> -My teeth clicked rigid. I saw, ahead of us, a tall careless figure -lounge into the open and stop over against the door of the carriage. -At the same moment inspiration came to the commissary. His gaze was -introspective. He had not yet noticed the direction of ours. He -slapped his hand to his thigh as he hurried forward. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mon Dieu!</i>” cried he, “it is simple. Why did I not think of it -sooner? Prove, then, thy knowledge of this Englishman by giving me his -name!” -</p> - -<p> -With the very words I set off running. A startled cry, to which I paid -no heed, pursued me. -</p> - -<p> -“I hold a hostage! I hold a hostage!” screamed the commissary; and -immediately, as I understood, nipped Carinne by the elbow. -</p> - -<p> -But by then I was come up with the stranger. He turned and received me -straddle-legged, his eyes full of a passionless alertness. I lost not -an instant. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” I panted, “we are fugitive aristocrats. In the name of -God, help us!” -</p> - -<p> -I could have adored him for his reception of this astounding appeal. -He never moved a muscle. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Tout droit!</i>” said he; “but give us the tip!” -</p> - -<p> -“Riouffe is dead” (his eyelids twitched at that)—“I have his -passports. I am Riouffe—and this is madame, my wife.” -</p> - -<p> -Simultaneously, in the instant of my speaking, the frantic commissary -brought up Carinne, and, to a metallic clang of hoofs, our fateful -post-boy issued from the inn-yard in charge of his cattle. For a -moment the situation was absolutely complete and dramatic,—the -agonised suitor proposing; the humorous and heroic <i>nonchalant</i> -disposing; the petrified jockey, right; the hostage <i>chevalière</i> in -the grasp of the heavy villain, left. Then all converged to the -central interest, and destroyed the admirable effectiveness of the -tableau. -</p> - -<p> -“Goddam milor’ the Englishman!” shrieked the commissary; “he does not -know thy name!” -</p> - -<p> -The stranger put out a hand as he stood, and clapped me on the -shoulder so that I winced. -</p> - -<p> -“Riouffe!” he cried, in a very bantering voice—“not know his friend -Jack Comely!” (“<i>ne savoir pas son ami Jack Comely—pooh!</i>”) -</p> - -<p> -“That he will swear to, my Jack,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -The commissary released Carinne, and fell back gasping. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Pardon! les bras m’en tombent!</i>” he muttered, in dismayed tones, and -went as white and mottled as a leg of raw mutton. -</p> - -<p> -But the stranger advanced to Carinne, with a blush and a gallant bow. -</p> - -<p> -“Madame,” said he, “I cannot sufficiently curse my impatience for -having cut you out of a stage. It was an error. <i>Entrez, s’il vous -plait.</i>” -</p> - -<p> -He spoke execrable French, the angel! It was enough that we all -understood him. We climbed into the <i>limonière</i>; the stranger -followed, and the door was slammed to. The landlord, with a hussy or -so, gaped at the inn-door. The post-boy, making himself -infinitesimally small to the commissary, limbered up his cattle—three -horses abreast. One of these he mounted, as if it were a nightmare. In -a moment he was towelling his beasts to a gallop, to escape, one would -think, the very embarrassment he carried with him. From time to time -he turned in his saddle, and presented a scared face to our view. -</p> - -<p> -“Well?” said the stranger, looking at us with a smile. -</p> - -<p> -He was a fair-faced young man, bold-mouthed, and ripe with -self-assurance. His dress was of the English fashion—straight-crowned -beaver hat, with the band buckled in front, green tabinet kerchief, -claret-coloured coat tight-buttoned,—altogether a figure very spruce -and clean, like a <i>piqueur d’écurie</i>. -</p> - -<p> -I regarded him in solemn amazement. The whole rapid incident had been -of a nature to make me doubt whether I was awake or dreaming. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Ma mie</i>,” said Carinne, reproachfully; “Milord awaits your -explanation.” -</p> - -<p> -I rose a little and bowed. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” said I, stupidly, “we are Jorinde and Joringel.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Sir Comely, a fine scapegrace, had journeyed to Paris out of curiosity -to witness a guillotining. With him, in the packet, crossed Monsieur -Tithon Riouffe, an <i>émigré</i> returning, under safe-conduct of the -ineffective Barrère, to snatch his wife from the whirlpool. The two -gentlemen met, hobnobbed, and shared a four-wheeled carriage as far as -the tragic city, whence (as agreed between them) on a certain day of -the fifteen during which the vehicle remained at the <i>Remise</i> at their -disposition, they—accompanied, it was to be hoped, by madame—were to -return in it to Calais. The day arrived; M. Riouffe failed to keep his -appointment. The other awaited him, so long as a certain urgency of -affairs permitted. At length—his own safety being a little -menaced—he was driven to start on the return journey alone. -</p> - -<p> -All this we learned of him, and he of us the broad outline of our -story. A full confidence was the only policy possible to our dilemma. -He honoured it <i>en prince</i>. -</p> - -<p> -He was quite admirably concerned to hear of the fate of his -fellow-traveller—<i>le malheureux chevreuil</i>! he called him. The -extraordinary concatenation of chances that had substituted us for -that other two did not, however, appear to strike him particularly. -But he “strapped his vitalities!” (that is, as we understood it, -“lashed himself into merriment”), in the insular manner, very often -and very loudly, over this chance presented to him of hoodwinking the -authorities. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s rich, it’s royal, it’s rare!” he cried, “thus to double under -the nose of the old cull of a bigwig, and to be sport in the next -county while he’s hunting for a gate through the quickset. I pledge -you my honour, monsieur, to see the two of you through with this; but, -egad! you must draw upon my portymanteau at the next post if you are -to win clear!” -</p> - -<p> -<i>Grâces au Ciel</i> for the merry brave! It was like endeavouring to -read inscriptions in the Catacombs to interpret his speech; but one -phrase he had trippingly, and that in itself was a complete index to -his character— -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Je ne me mouche pas du pied</i>”—I know better than to blow my nose -with my feet. -</p> - -<p> -And now, if for nothing else, I loved him for his boyish, shy, but -most considerate attitude towards Carinne. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -And thus was our escape accomplished. Winged with our passports, and -cheered to the finish by the assurance of this gay and breezy -islander, we came to the coast on a memorable afternoon, and bade -adieu for ever to the family despotism of Fraternity. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me, <i>ma belle épousée</i>—for five days (the guests, the -property, the <i>protégés</i>—what thou wilt—of this Sir Comely, this -excellent Philippe le Bel) we have shut our eyes, here in this -immeasurable London, to our necessitous condition and the prospect -that faces us. Carinne, <i>mon enfant</i>, it is right now to discuss the -means by which we are to live.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have thought of it, little Thibaut. I will paint portraits.” -</p> - -<p> -I started. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” I cried, “I am very hungry! Let us signalise this last -consumption of the poor Crépin’s purse by a feast of elegance. Be -assured his ghost will call the grace.” -</p> - -<p> -We entered an inn, opportunely near the spot whither we had wandered. -It was in an important part of the town, close by the lion-surmounted -palace of some monseigneur; and coaches and berlines discharged -themselves in frequent succession in its yard. We walked into the -<i>salle à manger</i>, sat down, and endeavoured to make our wishes known -to the waiter. The room was fairly empty, but a party of half-a-dozen -young “bloods”—<i>hommes de bonne compagnie</i>—sitting at a neighbouring -table, seemed moved with a certain curiosity about us, and by-and-by -one of these rose, crossed over, and, addressing me in very good -French, asked if he could be of service in interpreting my -desires—“For,” says he, with a smile, “I perceive that monsieur is -from over the Channel.” -</p> - -<p> -“Alas, monsieur!” I answered. “We are, indeed, of that foundered -vessel, <i>La Ville de Paris</i>, the worthless wreckage of which every -tide washes up on your coasts.” -</p> - -<p> -Some compliments passed, and he withdrew to join his companions. A -little whispering was exchanged amongst them, and then suddenly our -dandy arose and approached us once more, with infinite complaisance. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” he said, “I cannot, I find, convince my friends of the -extent to which your nation excels in the art of making salads. Would -you do us the favour to mix one for us?” -</p> - -<p> -I hesitated. -</p> - -<p> -“It is one of thy accomplishments,” said Madame la Comtesse, at a -hazard. -</p> - -<p> -It was, indeed, though she could not have known it; or that -Brillat-Savarin himself had once acknowledged me to be his master in -the art. -</p> - -<p> -“I shall be charmed,” I said. -</p> - -<p> -I called for oil, wine, vinegar, sweet fruits, the sauces of soy and -ketchup, caviare, truffles, anchovies, meat-gravy, and the yolks of -eggs. I had a proportion and a place for each; and while I broke the -lettuces, my company sat watching, and engaged me in some pretty -intimate conversation, asking many questions about Paris, my former -and present conditions, and even my place of abode. -</p> - -<p> -I answered good-humouredly on account of my dear Philippe, who was of -the very complexion and moral of these frank rascals; and presently -they pronounced my salad such a dish as Vitellius had never conceived; -and, from their table, they drank to its author and to the beautiful -eyes of Madame la Comtesse. -</p> - -<p> -It was all comical enough; but, by-and-by when, having finished our -meal, we found ourselves in the street again, Carinne thrust a folded -slip of paper into my hand. -</p> - -<p> -“What is this, <i>mignonne</i>?” -</p> - -<p> -“Look, then,” said she. “It was conveyed by the <i>élégant</i> under thy -plate.” -</p> - -<p> -I opened and examined it. It was a note for five pounds. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Au diable!</i>” I murmured, flushing scarlet. -</p> - -<p> -Carinne placed her hand on my arm. She looked up in my face very -earnest and pitiful. -</p> - -<p> -“Jourdain,” she said, “makes his living by turning his knowledge of -weaving to account; De Courcy begs his by ‘<i>parfilage</i>.’ Which is the -better method, <i>mon ami</i>? Is it not well to face the inevitable -courageously by taking thy accomplishments to market?” -</p> - -<p> -“I will become a salad-dresser,” said I. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -On the following day arrived a very courteous note from my -<i>petit-maître</i> of the dining-room, entreating me, as a special -favour, to come that evening to a certain noble house and make the -salad for a large dinner-party that was to be given therein. I went, -was happy in confirming the great opinion formed of my powers, and was -delicately made the recipient of a handsome present in acknowledgment -of my services. From that moment my good little fortunes rolled up -like a snow-ball. Within a period of eighteen months I had -accumulated, by the mere “art of selection,” a sum of near a hundred -thousand francs—truly a notable little egg’s-nest. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -One morning, not so very long ago, Madame de Crancé came to me with -her eyes shining. -</p> - -<p> -“Little Thibaut,” said she, “thou hast a great heart. Yet—though -doubtless thou wert right to insist that the husband should be the -bread-winner—it has grieved me to stand by and watch my own -particular gift rusting from disuse. Well, sir, for thy rebuke I have -at last a surprise for thee. Behold!” and with that she fetched a -canvas from behind her back, where she had been secreting it, and -presented it to my view. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it not like?” she said, her throat swelling with joy and pride. -</p> - -<p> -I made my eyes two O’s,—I “hedged,” as the sportsmen say. -</p> - -<p> -“It is, indeed, <i>ma mie</i>. It is like nothing in the world except, of -course——” -</p> - -<p> -I stopped, sweating with apprehension. She relieved me at once. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” she cried, “is it not baby himself—the dear, sweet rogue! I -threw all my soul into it for thy sake.” -</p> - -<p> -“Carinne!” I exclaimed, passionately grateful; “I knew I could not be -mistaken.” -</p> - -<p class="center mt1"> -[The End] -</p> - - -<h2 id="notes"> -NOTES. -</h2> - -<p> -<a href="#n1a" id="n1b">[1]</a> -“Nothing would appear to more graphically illustrate the moral -influence of the ‘Terror’ than that common submission to a force that -was rather implied than expressed. Now it seems a matter for marvel -how a great many thousands of capable men, having nothing to hope from -the intolerable tyranny that was massing them in a number of professed -slaughter-houses, should not only have attempted no organised -retaliation, but should, by unstiffening their necks (in a very heroic -fashion, be it said) to be the footstools to a few monstrous bullies, -have tacitly allowed the righteousness of a system that was destroying -them to go by implication. Escapes from durance were, comparatively -speaking, rare; resistance to authority scarcely ever carried beyond -the personal and peevish limit. Yet it is a fact that many of the -innumerable prisons—of which, from my own observation, I may instance -St Pélagie—were quite inadequately guarded, and generally, indeed, -open to any visitor who was prepared to ‘tip’ for the privilege of -entry.”—Extracted from an unpublished chapter of the Count’s -Reminiscences. -</p> - -<p> -<a href="#n2a" id="n2b">[2]</a> -<b>Décadi</b> the Revolutionary Sabbath.—<span class="sc">Ed</span>. -</p> - - -<h2> -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES. -</h2> - -<p> -The cover from the Dodd, Mead and Co. edition (New York, 1898) was -used for this ebook. This edition was also consulted for the changes -listed below. -</p> - -<p> -Minor spelling inconsistencies (<i>e.g.</i> caldron/cauldron, say’st/sayst, -wineshop/wine-shop, etc.) have been preserved. -</p> - -<p> -[Text edition only] <i>#</i> is used to indicate bolded text. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -<b>Alterations to the text</b>: -</p> - -<p> -Convert footnotes to endnotes, and add a corresponding entry to the -TOC. -</p> - -<p> -Silently correct a few punctuation errors. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[CHAPTER II] -</p> - -<p> -Change “with her priestesses of the <i>Salpétrière</i>” to <i>Salpêtrière</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[CHAPTER XIV] -</p> - -<p> -“cockt as it had been to the <i>out-cry</i>” to <i>outcry</i>. -</p> - -<p class="center mt1"> -[End of text] -</p> - -<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69579 ***</div> -</body> -</html> diff --git a/old/69579-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/69579-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 3f5c736..0000000 --- a/old/69579-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old/69579-0.txt b/old/old/69579-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6288772..0000000 --- a/old/old/69579-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9464 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Adventures of the Comte de la Muette -during the Reign of Terror, by Bernard Capes - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Adventures of the Comte de la Muette during the Reign of Terror - -Author: Bernard Capes - -Release Date: December 19, 2022 [eBook #69579] - -Language: English - -Produced by: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES OF THE COMTE DE LA -MUETTE DURING THE REIGN OF TERROR *** - - - - - - Adventures - of the - Comte de la Muette - during the - Reign of Terror - - BY - BERNARD CAPES - AUTHOR OF - ‘THE MILL OF SILENCE,’ ‘THE LAKE OF WINE,’ ETC. - - - WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS - EDINBURGH AND LONDON - MDCCCXCVIII - - _All Rights reserved_ - - - - - [DEDICATION.] - - TO - R. C., - BEST COUNSELLOR AND HELPMATE. - - - - - CONTENTS. - - I. THE WAXWORKS - II. CITOYENNE CARINNE - III. THE FOOTPAD - IV. THE CHÂTEAU DES PIERRETTES - V. LA GRAND’ BÊTE - VI. THE HERD OF SWINE - VII. THE CHEVALIER DU GUET - VIII. QUATREMAINS-QUATREPATTES - IX. THE WILD DOGS - X. THE AFFAIR OF THE CANDLES - XI. PYRAMUS AND THISBE - XII. THE MOUSE-TRAP - XIII. THE RED CART - XIV. THE QUARRIES OF MONT-ROUGE - XV. THE SALAD COURSE - NOTES - - - - - ADVENTURES - OF THE - COMTE DE LA MUETTE. - -CHAPTER I. -THE WAXWORKS. - -One morning I awoke in La Bourbe and looked across at Deputy -Bertrand as he lay sprawled over his truckle-bed, his black hair like -a girl’s scattered on the pillow, his eyelids glued to his flushed -cheeks, his face, all blossoming with dissipation, set into the -expression of one who is sure of nothing but of his own present -surrender to nothingness. Beside him were his clothes, flung upon a -chair, the tri-colour sash, emblematic stole of his confused ritual, -embracing all; and on a nail in the wall over his head was his -preposterous hat, the little _carte de civisme_ stuck in its band. - -Casimir Bertrand (one time Casimir Bertrand de Pompignan) I had known -and been friendly with at Le Plessis. Later he had imbibed theories; -had become successively a Lameth, a Feuillant, a Jacobin--a -constitutionalist, a moderate, an extremist; had spouted in the -Faubourgs and overflowed in sectional Committee rooms; had finally -been elected to represent a corner of the States-General. I had known -him for a pious prig, a coxcomb, a reckless bon-vivant. He was always -sincere and never consistent; and now at last, in the crisis of his -engaging sans-cullotism, he had persuaded me, a proscribed royalist, -to take an advantage of his friendship by lodging with him. Then it -was that the driving-force behind his character was revealed to me. It -was militant hedonism. Like Mirabeau, he was a strange compound of -energy and voluptuousness. He turned altogether on the nerves of -excitement. He was like a clock lacking its pendulum, and he would -crowd a dozen rounds of the dial into the space of a single hour. Such -souls, racing ahead of their judgment, illustrate well the fable of -the Hare and the Tortoise; and necessarily they run themselves down -prematurely. Casimir was an epicure, with a palate that could joyfully -accommodate itself to black bread and garlic; a sensualist, with the -power to fly at a word from a hot-bed of pleasure to a dusty desert of -debate. Undoubtedly in him (did I make him the mirror to my -conscience), and in a certain Crépin, with whom I came subsequently -to lodge, and who was of the type only a step lower in the art of -self-indulgence, I had an opportunity to see reflected a very serious -canker in the national constitution. - -Now he opened his eyes as I gazed on him, and shut them again -immediately. It was not his habit to be a slug-a-bed, and I recognised -that his sleep was feigned. The days of his political influence were -each pregnant of astonishing possibilities to him, and he was too -finished an epicure to indulge himself with more than the recuperative -measure of slumber--frothed, perhaps, with a bead of æsthetic -enjoyment in the long minute of waking. - -“Casimir!” I called softly; but he pretended not to hear me. - -“What, my friend! the sun is shining, and the eggs of the old serpent -of pleasure will be hatching in every kennel.” - -He opened his eyes at that, fixed and unwinking; but he made no -attempt to rise. - -“Let them crack the shells and wriggle out,” he said. “I have a fancy -they will be a poisonous brood, and that La Bourbe is pleasantly -remote from their centres of incubation.” - -“Timorous! I would not lose a thrill in this orgy of liberty.” - -“But if you lost----?” he checked himself, pursed his lips, and nodded -his head on the pillow. - -“Jean-Louis, I saw the Sieur Julien carried to the scaffold last -night. He went foaming and raving of a plot in the prisons to release -the aristocrats in their thousands upon us. There is an adder to -reproduce itself throughout the city! Truly, as you say, the kennels -will swarm with it.” - -“And many will be bitten? My friend, my friend, there is some dark -knowledge in that astute head of yours. And shall I cower at home when -my kind are in peril?” - -“My faith! we all cower in bed.” - -“But I am going out.” - -“Be advised!” (He struggled quickly up on his elbow. His face bore a -clammy look in the sunlight.) “Be advised and lie close in your -form--like a hare, Jean-Louis--like a hare that hears the distant -beaters crying on the dogs. Twitch no whisker and prick not an ear. -Take solace of your covert and lie close and scratch yourself, and -thank God you have a nail for every flea-bite.” - -“What ails thee of this day then, morose?” - -“What ails this Paris? Why, the Prussians are in Verdun, and the -aristocrats must be forestalled.” - -“But how, Deputy.” - -“I do not know. I fear, that is all.” - -“Well, there lies your sash--the talisman to such puerile emotions.” - -“Return to bed, Jean-Louis. It is unwise to venture abroad in a -thunderstorm.” - -“It is unwiser to shelter beneath a tree.” - -“But not a roof-tree. Oh, thou fool! didst thou not close thine eyes -last night on a city fermenting like a pan of dough?” - - “‘Et cette alarme universelle - Est l’ouvrage d’un moucheron.’” - -“But go your way!” he cried, and scrambled out of bed. - -He walked to the little washstand with an embarrassed air, and set to -preparing our morning cup of chocolate from the mill that stood -thereon. - -“After all,” he said, when the fragrant froth sputtered about his -nostrils, “the proper period to any exquisite sensation is death. I -dread no termination but that put to an hour of abstinence. To die -with the wine in one’s throat and the dagger in one’s back--what could -kings wish for better?” - -He handed me my cup, and sipped enjoyingly at his own. - -“I am representative of a constituency,” he said, “yet a better judge -of wine than of men. The palate and the heart are associated in a -common bond. That I would decree the basis of the new religion. ‘Tears -of Christ’!--it is a vintage I would make Tallien and Manuel and -Billaud de Varennes drunk on every day.” - -He laughed in an agitated manner, and glanced at me over the rim of -his cup. - -“Go your way, Jean-Louis,” he repeated; “and pardon me if I call it -the right mule one. But you will walk it, for I know you. And eat your -fill of the sweet thistle-flowers before the thorns shall stab your -gullet and take all relish from the feast.” - -“Casimir!” I cried in some black wonder--“this is all the language of -a villain or an hysteric----!” - -I paused, stared at his twitching face, took up my hat quietly, and -left the room. - - * * * * * * * - -A little frost on a foot, or a little blood. What is the significance -of either. Once the _bimbelotiers_ of the Palais Royal used to -manufacture cards of Noël, very pretty and sparkling with rime. That -was before the apotheosis of the “Third [or butterfly] State”; and -many a time, during the winter of ’84, I have seen poor vagrants of -the chosen brood, unwitting yet of the scarlet wings developing -underneath their rugged hides, ponder over the fanciful emblems in the -shop windows, and then look down with wonder at their own cracked and -bleeding toes. To whom, then, could the frost appeal in this dainty -guise? Not surely to those who must walk with bare feet? It is all the -point of view, said the philosophers. But, they added, blood is warm, -and it is well to wear socks of it if you can get no other. Put these -on and look again, and you will see differently. - -Not just yet, perhaps; and in the meantime the king empties his -private purse to buy wood for the freezing people. This will warm them -into loyalty while it lasts; and they crawl out of their icy burrows, -or gather up their broken limbs on the snow beds--whereinto they have -been ground by the sleds and chariots of the wealthy that rush without -warning down the muffled streets--to build monuments of snow to the -glory of their rulers. Then by-and-by these great obelisks melt, and -add their quota to the thaw that is overwhelming what the frost has -spared. - -The red socks! Now, on this wild Sunday of September, when the -monuments that bore the names of the good king and queen are collapsed -and run away some eight years, the tocsin is pealing with a clamour of -triumph from the steeples; for at last the solution of the riddle has -been vouchsafed to the “Third State,” and it knows that to acquire the -right point of view it must wear socks, not of its own blood but of -that of the aristocrats, to whom the emblems of Noël were made to -appeal. - - * * * * * * * - -All day I felt the pulse of the people, quickening, quickening--an -added five beats to every hour--with wonder, rage, and, at last, -terror maniacal. Paris was threatened; hard-wrung freedom was -tottering to its fall. - -This Paris was a vessel of wrath on treacherous waters--manned by -revolted slaves; the crew under hatches; encompassed by enemies on -every side. What remained but to clear the decks for action,--every -hero to his post at the vast bulwarks; every son-of-a-sea-cook to -remain and poniard the prisoners lest they club their manacles and -take their captors in the rear! - -At two o’clock the tocsin pealed--the signal to prepare for the fray. -From its first blaring stroke I ceased, it seemed, to be myself. I -waived my individuality, and became as much a conscript of the rising -tide of passion as a high-perched stone that the wave at last reaches -and drags down with the shingle becomes a condition of the general -uproar. I made, indeed, no subscription to this fanatical heat of -emotion; I was simply involved in it--to go with it, and perish of it, -perhaps, but never to succumb to its disordered sophistries or yield -my free soul to its influence. Possibly I had a wild idea, in the -midst of sinister forebodings, that a few such as I, scattered here -and there, might leaven the ugly mass. But I do not know. Hemmed in by -wrath and terror, thought casts its buoys and sinks into very -fathomless depths. - -From the Place de Grève, along Pelletier Quay; across the Ponts au -Change and St Michel; westwards by the Rue St André des Arcs, where a -little diversion was caused by a street-singer at whom the crowd took -offence, in that he, being an insignificant buffoon, did pelt it with -its classic pretentiousness, wagging his coat-tails in contempt -thereof (“À bas, Pitou!” they shrieked; “we will dock thee of thy -sting and put thee to buzz in a stone bottle!”--and they had him -unfrocked in a twinkling and hoisted for punishment); round, with a -curve to the south, into the Rue de Bussi; thence, again westwards, -along the street of St Marguerite; finally, weathering the sinister -cape of the Abbaye St Germain, northwards into the Rue St Benoit and -up to the yard entrance of the very prison itself,--such was the long -course by which I was borne, in the midst of clamour, hate, and -revilings, some dreadful early scenes in the panorama of the -Revolution unfolded before my eyes--scenes crudely limned by crude -street artists, splashed and boltered with crimson, horrible for the -ghastly applause they evoked. - -I saw and I was helpless--the block about the carriages of the -nonjurants--the desperate stroke at the _sans-culotte_ that cut the -knot of indecision--the crashing panels, the flying and flung priests. -One damnable with a sabre split a bald head, that came wavering in my -direction, like a melon, and the brains flew like its seeds. I shut my -eyes and thought, Mercy is in right ratio with the hardness of the -blow. Strike deep, poor guttersnipes, if you must strike at all! - -Then began the “severe justice of the people.” - - * * * * * * * - -What was I, poor philosophic _misérable_, but a germ of those germs -in that great artery of blood that the revolted system was -endeavouring to expel. I saw numbers of my kind thrown forth and -mangled in the midst of horrors unspeakable; I was borne helpless to -the heart, and was rejected to fly shuddering to remote veins of the -prison’s circulation, only to return by an irresistible attraction to -the central terror. More than once my mad expostulations brought me -into perilous notice. - -“You have hard wrongs to avenge!” I shrieked; “but at least the form -of pleading has been granted you!” - -“And these!” cried the killers. “Blood of God! is not Bastille -Maillard within there checking the tally of the accursed? Aristocrat -art thou!” - -They bounded from me to a fresh victim thrust that moment from the -door. She came dazed into the flare of the torches--a white face with -umber hair tumbled all about it. Two gloating hounds took her under -the arm-pits; a third---- - -_Ciel! pour tant de rigueur, de quoi suis-je coupable?_ - - * * * * * * * - -I do not know whither my wanderings tended, or what space of time was -covered by them. Sooner or later I was always back at the Abbaye, -glutting my soul with assurance of its own wreck, helpless, despite my -loathing of it, to resist the attraction. What horror absorbs the moth -as it circles round the flame, I thought in those recurrent moments I -could understand. - -Once, when I returned, an unwonted silence reigned about the place. A -few vampire figures, restless, phantasmal, flitted hither and thither -in the neighbourhood of the reeking shambles. But the slaughterers and -the red ladies of St Michel were retired, during an interval in the -examination, for refreshment. I heard the shrill buzz of their voices -all down the Rue St Benoit and from the wine and lemonade shops -opposite the very gates by which I stood. - -I looked into the fearful yard. My God! the dead, it seemed, were -phosphorescent with the rottenness of an ancient system! Here, there, -on all sides they broke the darkness with blots of light like hideous -glow-worms--their hundred white faces the reflectors of as many lamps. - -“But it is a brave illumination!” gurgled a voice at my ear. - -I glanced aside in loathing. A little old woman, whose lungs barked at -every breath, stood near me. She laughed as if she would shake herself -into touchwood. - -“A brave illumination!” she wheezed--“the inspiration of the girl La -Lune. She was dedicated to the Holy Mother; and her skirt! Oh, _mon -Dieu_! but it was of the azure of heaven, and now it is purple as a -strangled face; and it slaps on her ankles. But by-and-by she must -seek purification, for she is dedicated to the holy Virgin.” - -“She placed these lamps?” - -“She led her sisters to the committee that sits there.” (She pointed a -gnarled finger. To one side of the dreadful quadrangle a dull glow -came melancholy through some tall windows.) “She complained that -ladies who would fain enjoy the show were prevented by the darkness. -Then to each dead aristocrat they put a lamp. That was a fine -courtesy. It is not often one sees such goods brought to market.” - -A wild cloud of shapes came rushing upon us with brandished weapons -and a demon skirl of voices. I thought at first that I must be the -object of their fury; but they passed us by, cursing and -gesticulating, and drove something amongst them up the yard, and -stopped and made a ring about it on the bloody stones. What was it? I -had a glimpse of two petrified faces as the little mob swept by, and a -queer constriction seized my heart. Then, all in a moment, I was -following, crying in my soul that here was something tangible for my -abased humanity to lay hold of--some excuse to indulge a passion of -self-sacrifice--some claim to a lump of ice at my feet and a lamp at -my head. The dead were so calm, the living so besotted. A miserly -theft, I thought, to take another’s blood when one’s own gluts one’s -arteries to suffocation. - -I looked over the shoulders of the outermost of the group. What -horrible cantrip of Fortune had consigned this old barren weed of a -man, this white exotic of a girl, to a merciless handling by these -demons? The two were in walking dress, and not in the _déshabille_ of -prisoners. There was a lull in the systematic progress of the -butchery. Here, it would seem, was an _entr’acte_ designed only to -relieve the tedium of waiting. - -A half-dozen harpies held the girl. There was a stain of red on her -ripe young lip, for I think one of the beasts had struck her; but her -face was stubborn with pride. In front of all the old wizened man, who -had been released, ran to and fro in an agony of obsequious terror. - -“Yes, yes,” he quavered, “’tis a luminous sight--an admirable show! -They lie like the fallen sticks of rockets, glimmering a dying spark. -Is it not so, Carinne? Little cabbage, is it not so?” - -He implored her with his feverish eyes. - -“They are martyrs!” cried the girl; “and you are a coward!” - -“No, no!” he wailed, and wrung his hands; and “My God! she will murder -me!” he shrieked. - -Suddenly he saw, darted through the ring of ruffians, and caught the -breast of my coat with both his hands. - -“Monsieur! you have nobility in your face! Tell these good souls that -I am a furious patriot and a good citizen. Monsieur, Monsieur! We walk -abroad--we are involved, unwitting, in the _mêlée_. The girl -denounces all for pigs and murderers, and, naturally, those who hear -take umbrage and force us hither.” - -His dry lips vibrated; he danced up and down like a gnat on a -window-pane. All the time the women were volubly chattering and the -men cursing and pulling. They desired, it seemed, a prologue to the -second act of the tragedy; and that was bad art. But then they were as -drunk as one could wish. - -“Thou art nice and dainty, _citoyenne_!” they shrieked. “See -here--thou shalt be _vivandière_ to the brave army of avengers! Tap -her an aristocrat heart and fill her a canteen that all may drink!” - -The beastly proposal was not too gross for the occasion. A man lurched -forward with a jeering oath, and I--I sprang to the front too, and -took the hound by his gulping throat. There came a great noise about -me; I did not relax my hold, and some one rushed into our midst. - -“What do you here!” he cried, harshly (Casimir’s voice). “Death of -God! have you orders to insult and threaten peaceable citizens who -walk abroad to see the illuminations?” - -With a fierce sweep of his arms he cleared all away in front of him. -The act--the gesture, brought him to my side. - -“Go--escape!” he whispered, frantically. “This, here, I will attend -to.” - -“You knew, then?” I gasped out; and he fell back from me. - -But I released my hold and stood panting. I was at the moment no whit -in love with life, but I dreaded by the least stubbornness to -precipitate the catastrophe that threatened that half-fainting girl. -Her Casimir gave his arm to in a peremptory manner. She clung to him, -and he led her stumbling across the yard, the little whimpering -pinch-fist scuttling in their wake. The mob spat curses after them, -but--this _intermezzo_ being no part of its programme--it respected -the Deputy’s insignia of office so far as to allow him his perquisite. - -Then, with a howl of fury, it turned upon me-- - -“Accursed! thou dost well to dispute the people’s will!” - -“See his fine monseigneur hands, washed white in a bath of milk, while -the peasants drank rotten water!” - -“He will think to cow us with a look. He cannot disabuse himself of -the tradition. Down with the dog of an aristocrat!” - -“But if he is Brunswick’s courier--Brunswick that would dine in Paris -on the boiling hearts of patriots!” - -I was backing slowly towards the gate as they followed reviling me. -What would you? I could not help others; I would take my own destinies -in hand. Here, in deadly personal peril, I felt my feet on the good -earth once more, and found restoration of my reason in a violence of -action. There was no assistance possible. Paris this night was a -menagerie, in which all beasts of prey and of burden were released -from restraint to resolve for themselves the question of survival. - -In a moment I turned and fled, and half-a-dozen came screaming after -me. I gained the gate in advance, and sped down the Rue St Benoit. One -man, lurching from a wineshop, cut at me aimlessly with a notched and -bloody sabre; but I evaded him with ease, and he fell into the midst -of the pursuers, retarding them a little. I reached the south-west -angle of the prison, where the _Place_ split up, like the blown corner -of a flag, into many little crooked ribbons of streets, and amongst -these I dived, racing haphazard, while the red-socks thudded in my -wake and my heart in my ribs. Suddenly, turning a corner, I saw the -narrow mouth of an alley gape to my left. Into it I went, like a -touched worm into its hole, and, swallowed by the blackness, stood -still. The feet pounded by; but, sooner or later, I knew the dogs must -nose back to pick up the lost scent. Then they would have me nicely in -a little _cul de sac_, like a badger in a tub. - -I leaned my shoulder--to the wall, as I thought; but the wall gave to -my pressure, and I stumbled and went through it with a sliding run, -while something flapped to, grievously scoring my shins in its -passing. I was on my feet in an instant, however, and then I saw that -I had broken, by way of a swing-door, into a little dusty lobby, to -one side of which was a wicket and pay-place, and thence a flight of -wooden stairs ran aloft to some chamber from which flowed down a -feeble radiance of light. - -I pushed through the wicket (not a soul was in the place, it seemed) -and went softly and rapidly up the stairs. At the top I came upon a -sight that at first astounded, then inspired me. - -I was in one of those _salles de spectacle_ that were at that time as -numerous in Paris as were political clubs--a wide, low room, with an -open platform at its further end for musicians, and, round three of -its walls, a roped-in enclosure for figures in waxwork. It was these -bowelless dolls that caused me my start, and in which I immediately -saw my one little chance of salvation. - -I went down the row gingerly, on tiptoe. A horn lantern, slung over -the stair-head, was the only light vouchsafed this thronged assembly -of dummies. Its rays danced weakly in corners, and lent some of the -waxen faces a spurious life. A ticket was before each -effigy--generally, as I hurriedly gathered, a quite indispensable -adjunct. I had my desperate plan; but perhaps I was too particular to -select my complete double. Here, a button or the cut of a collar were -the pregnant conditions of history. The clothes made the man, and -Mirabeau had written ‘Le Tartufe’ on the strength of a flowing wig. I -saw Necker personating our unhappy monarch in that fatal Phrygian cap -that was like the glowing peak of a volcano; stuttering Desmoulins -waving a painted twig, his lips inappropriately inseparable; the -English Pitt, with a nose blown to a point; Voltaire; Rousseau; -Beaumarchais--many of the notabilities and notorieties of our own -times--and before the last I stopped suddenly. - -I would not for the world insult the author of ‘Figaro’; but it was my -distinction to be without any; and in a waxwork the ticket makes the -man. - -Pierre Augustin was represented pointing a Republican moral--in dress -a _pseudo petit-maître_--at his feet a broken watch. One recalls the -incident--at Versailles--when a grand seigneur requests the -ex-horologist to correct his timepiece for him. “Monsieur, my hand -shakes.” “_Laissez donc, monsieur!_ you belittle your professional -skill.” Beaumarchais flings the watch on the floor. “_Voilà, -monsieur!_ it is as I said!” - -Now I saw my hope in this figure and (it was all a matter of moments -with me) whipped it up in my arms and ran with it to the end of the -platform. A flounce of baize hung therefrom to the floor, and into the -hollow revealed by the lifting of this I shot the invertebrate dummy, -and then scuttled back to the ropes to take its place. - -There were sounds as I did so--a noise below that petrified me in the -position I assumed. My heart seemed to burr like the winding-wheel of -a mechanical doll. I pray M. Beaumarchais to forgive me that travesty -of a dignified reproof. - -A step--that of a single individual--came bounding up the stair. My -face was turned in its direction. I tried to look and yet keep my eyes -fixed. The dull flapping light seconded my dissemblance; but the -occasion braced me like a tonic, and I was determined to strike, if -need were, with all the force of the pugnacious wit I represented. - -Suddenly I saw a white, fearful countenance come over the -stair-head--shoulders, legs, a complete form. It was that of an ugly -stunted man of fifty, whose knees shook, whose cheeks quivered like a -blanc-mange. He ran hither and thither, sobbing and muttering to -himself. - -“Quick, quick! who?--Mirabeau? A brave thought, a magnificent thought! -My God!--will they fathom it? I have his brow--his scornful air of -insistence. My God, my God!--that I should sink to be one of my own -puppets!” - -Astounded, I realised the truth. This poltroon--the very proprietor of -the show--was in my own actual case, and had hit upon a like way out -of his predicament. I saw him seize and trundle the ridiculous -presentment of M. Mirabeau to the room end, and then fling it -hurriedly down and kick it--the insolent jackass!--under the curtain. -I saw him run back and pose himself--with a fatuous vanity even in his -terror--as that massive autocrat of the Assembly; and then, with a -clap and a roar, I heard at last the hounds of pursuit break covert -below and come yelling up the stairs. - -I do not think I shook; yet it seemed impossible that they could pass -me by. There were one or two amongst them I thought I recognised as -Carinne’s captors; but they were all hideous, frantic shapes, -elf-locked, malodorous, bestial and drunk with blood. They uttered -discordant cries as they came scrambling into the room; and by a -flickering at the nape of his neck I could see that my fellow-sufferer -was unable to control the throaty rising of his agitation. Suddenly a -horrible silence befell. One of the intruders, a powerful young -ruffian of a malignant jesting humour, put his comrades back and -silenced them with an arm. His bloodshot eyes were fascinating poor -Mirabeau; slowly he raised a finger and pointed it at the creature. -The bubbles seemed to fly up the latter’s neck as if his heart were -turned into water. It was a terrible moment--then, all at once, the -whole room echoed with demon laughter. - -“Mother of Christ! what cunning!” - -“But, my God! he is a fine libel on the king of patriots!” - -“See! the works have not run down. He twitches yet from his last -performance!” - -“He makes himself a show to the people. He shall be given a lamp in -the yard of the Abbaye.” - -The figure fell upon its knees with a choking shriek. - -“Messieurs! I acted upon my first instinct of preservation! I had no -thought, I swear it, to insult the great or to question the majesty of -the people. Messieurs, I detest aristocrats and applaud your method of -dealing with them. _Merci! merci!_ I am a poor exhibitor of waxworks; -an excellent patriot and a servant of the public.” - -“But that is true!” cried a voice from the stairs. “This is little -Tic-tac, that helped to decorate the Capet’s chariot on the day of the -Hôtel de Ville.” - -The mob grunted over this advocate. - -“But he helped a prisoner to escape.” - -(Was there another, then, in the same plight as myself?) - -“Messieurs! he asked the way of me, as any stranger might!” - -“_Malepeste!_ if thou tell’st us so! But thou hast dared to personate -a God!” - -“Messieurs, he lent his countenance to me, as ever to the -unfortunate.” - -The answer raised a roar of approbation. - -“_Comme il est fin!_ take thy goose-skin! and yet we must tax thee -somehow.” - -“Let us destroy this show that he has profaned!” - -My heart seemed to shrink into itself. I suffered--I suffered; but -fortunately for a few moments only. - -With the words on his lips, the fellow that had spoken slashed with -his sabre, over the kneeling showman’s head, amongst the staring -effigies. The whistle of his weapon made me blink. What did it -matter?--the end must come now. - -It was not as I foresaw. The waxen head spun into the air--the figure -toppled against that standing next to it--that against its -neighbour--its neighbour against me. I saw what was my cue, and went -down in my turn, stiffly, with a dusty flop, twisting to my side as I -fell, and hoping that he whom I was bowling over in due order was rich -in padding. Nevertheless I was horribly bruised. - -There was a howl of laughter. - -“_Mor’ Dieu!_ but five at a blow!” cried the executioner. “This is -better than the one to fifty yonder!” and he came running to read the -names of those he had overturned. - -“Necker! it is right that he should be pictured fallen. -Pitt--Beaumarchais! ha, ha, little toad! where are those patriot -muskets? in your breeches-pocket? but I will cut them out!” - -Now I gave up all for lost. He stepped back to get his distance--there -came a crash by the stairway, and the room was plunged in darkness. -One of the mob had swung up his weapon over a figure, and had knocked -out the lantern with a back-handed blow. - -It is the little incidents of life that are prolific as insects. The -situation resolved itself into clamour and laughter and a boisterous -groping of the company down the black stairway. In a minute the place -was silent and deserted. - -I lay still, as yet awaiting developments. I could not forget that M. -Tic-tac, as a pronounced patriot, might not honour my confidence. For -my escape, it must have been as I supposed. Another victim, eluding -the murderers, had drawn them off my scent, and the showman had -effected yet a second cross-current. He was indeed fortunate to have -kept a whole skin. - -Presently I heard him softly stirring and moaning to himself. - -“_Misérable!_ to have dishonoured my _rôle_! Would _he_ have -succumbed thus to an accident? But I am like him--yes, I am like him, -for all they may say.” - -Their mockery was the wormwood in his cup. He dragged himself to his -feet by-and-by, and felt his way across the room to recover his abused -idol. Then I would delay no longer. I rose, stepped rapidly to the -stair-head, and descended to the street. He heard me--as I knew by the -terrified cessation of his breathing,--and thought me, perhaps, a -laggard member of his late company. Anyhow he neither moved nor spoke. - -The killers were at their work again. The agonised yells of the -victims followed and maddened me. But I was secure from further -pursuit, save by the dogs of conscious helplessness. - -And one of these kept barking at my heel: “Carinne, that you were -impotent to defend! What has become of the child?” - - - - - CHAPTER II. - CITOYENNE CARINNE. - -It was my unhappiness in the black spring-time of the “Terror” to -see my old light acquaintance, the Abbé Michau, jogging on his way to -the Place de la Bastille. I pitied him greatly. He had pursued -Pleasure so fruitlessly all his days; and into this fatal quagmire had -the elusive flame at length conducted him. He sat on the rail of the -tumbril--a depressed, puzzled look on his face--between innocence and -depravity. Both were going the same road as himself--the harmless -white girl and the besotted priest, who shrunk in terror from giving -her the absolution she asked;--and poor Charles divided them. - -He was not ever of Fortune’s favourites. He would make too fine an art -of Epicurism, and he sinned so by rule as to be almost virtuous. I -remember him with a half-dozen little axioms of his own concocting, -that were after all only morality misapplied: “To know how to forget -oneself is to be graduate in the school of pleasure.” -“Self-consciousness is always a wasp in the peach.” “The art of -enjoyment is the art of selection.” On such as these he founded his -creed of conduct; and that procured him nothing but a barren series of -disappointments. He was never successful but in extricating himself -from mishaps. The _ravissantes_ he sighed after played with and -insulted him--though they could never debase his spirit. The dishes he -designed lacked the last little secret of perfection. He abhorred -untidiness, yet it was a condition of his existence; and he could not -carry off any situation without looking like a thief. One further turn -of the wheel, and he would have been a saint in a monastery. - -I can recall him with some tenderness, and his confident maxims with -amusement. That “art of selection” of his I found never so applicable -as to the choice of one’s Revolutionary landlord. It was Michau’s -_logeur_, I understand, who caused the poor Abbé to be arrested and -brought before the tribunal miscalled of Liberty, where the advocacy -of the chivalrous Chauveau de la Garde was sufficient only to procure -him the last grace of an unproductive appeal. It was the atrocity with -whom latterly I lodged who brought me to _my_ final pass. - -In truth, as the letters of apartments were largely recruited from the -_valetaille_ of _émigrés_, the need of caution in choosing amongst -them was very real. M. le Marquis could not take flight in a panic -without scattering some of his fine feathers--fortunately, indeed, for -him sometimes, for they were as sops thrown to the pursuing wolves -while he sped on. Then, down would grovel public accusers, police, and -committee-men to snap at the fragments; and amongst them Bon-Jean, -Monsieur’s _valet de pied_, would secure his share, perhaps, and set -up house with it in one of the meaner faubourgs, and trade profitably -therein upon the fears of his lodgers. - -Simon Mignard was the last who had the honour to entertain me; and to -that horrible little grotesque did I owe my subsequent lodgment in La -Petite Force. It was a bad choice, and, with my experience, an -unpardonable; but I was taken with a certain humour in the creature -that put me off my judgment. - -For generally, indeed, this faculty of humour I found to be -antipathetic to revolution. It was to be looked upon as a mark of -social degeneration. The brute “thrown back” to his primordial state -is an animal that takes himself with the most laughterless gravity. He -resumes himself corrupt, so to speak, as one resumes the endurance of -office full of the rebellious grievance of a holiday. He returns to -the primary indulgence of instinct with a debased appetite, and that -sense of humour does not accompany him. This is why his prejudices -have the force of convictions. - -“Citizen Simon,” I said one day, “I would put it to you--if -revolutionists would reconstitute society by purging the world of the -abnormal, should they not offer themselves the first holocausts to -their theories?” - -“Hey?” he cried, peering over his glasses. His eye-slits were like -half-healed wounds; his face was all covered with a grey down, as if -he were some old vessel of wrath the Revolution had produced from its -mustiest blood-bin in the cellars where its passions were formerly -wont to ferment. - -“Hey?” he cried. “But explain, Citizen Thibaut.” - -“Why, obviously a primal simplicity cannot be taught by those who, by -their own showing, are an essential condition of degeneration.” - -“You think so, my friend? But is it not he who has hunted with the -wolves can best advise the lamb whither not to stray? Set a thief to -catch a thief, but not innocence to lead innocence.” - -“We are all so disinterested, eh? We must kill to purify--so long as -_we_ remain the executioners.” - -“The physicians! the physicians! Some day we shall provide the tonic.” - -“At this rate the physicians will have to drink it themselves.” - -“Meaning the patients will fail us? Rest content. They will last our -time. The ills in the constitution of France are many. For the -resurrection--_sang Dieu_!” he cried, with a wry face, “but that is no -part of _our_ programme!” - -Indeed, it was not of his. He was actuated by no passion but the -blood-sucker’s. One day he showed me a clumsy model guillotine, a foot -high, of his own contriving. The axe was a fragment of table-knife -sunk in a finger of lead, and with it he would operate upon a gruesome -little doll he had with an adjustable neck. Snip! the blade fell and -the head, and a spout of crimson gushed forth and stained the floor. - -“That is a waste of good wine,” said I. - -His face puckered like a toad’s eyelids. - -“Is it not?” he chuckled, “of the brand drunk by the patriot Citoyenne -Sombreuil.” - -“Blood!” - -“_Voyez!_” he cried, with a little shriek of laughter. “It is hollow. -Often I fill it from the tap in the Place de la Bastille. My faith, -what a fountain! I love it like Dantzic brandy.” - -Then it was I found his humour a little excessive to my taste; and I -severed my connection with him. He might lie; obviously he did, in -fact, about the blood; but one’s sympathies could not embrace so -stupid a falsehood. Promptly he denounced me to his section. I had -given him the courteous “you,” said he, and amongst my effects was a -box of the interdicted hair-powder. - -But it is of my earlier landlord, Jacques Crépin, who for a time -influenced my fortunes quite admirably, that I desire here to speak. - -Upon this rascal I happened on the evening of Lepelletier St Fargeau’s -murder in Février’s Coffee-house. It was the interminable week of the -votings on the king’s sentence. During the course of it I had many -times visited the Hall of Convention, had stayed a while to watch the -slow chain of Deputies hitching over the Tribune, with their dreary -chant, “La Mort,” that was like the response to an endless litany of -fatality intoned by the ushers; had heard the future Dictator, -spectacled, marmoset-faced, irrepressible in oratory, drone his sour -dithyrambics where a word would have sufficed; had fallen half asleep -over the phantom scene, and had imagined myself at the Comédie -Française during a performance of “Les Victimes Cloîtrées”--a -dreamy fancy to which the incessant sound of feet on boards, high up -in the “Mountain” quarter, the reverberating clap of doors, the wide -patter of voices and tinkle of laughter from bedizened _chères -amies_, pricking down the _ayes_ and _noes_ upon scented cards, the -shriller brabble of Mère Duchesse aloft with her priestesses of the -Salpêtrière, and the intermittent melodramatic drawl of the actors -moving across the stage, gave colour and coherence. - -By then, I think, I was come to be graduate in Michau’s school of -Pleasure. It was impressed upon me that to think of myself was a -little to foretaste my probable martyrdom. It was philosophy more -congenial to read in the serene patriot Thibaut a disinterested sheep -fattening on the grass about the _abattoir_. My title was a -plague-spot to cover; little but the dust of my patrimony remained; I -had long disabused my mind of the dogma that manliness is necessarily -a triumphant force in the world. - -Yet, a month before, I had been conscious of a little run of pity, -that was like a sloughing of the old wound of nobility. It was to see -the figure of him I had called Sire heavily seated in that same _Salle -de Manège_, his attire, appropriately, a drab surtout--the colour of -new-turned mould--his powdered hair blotted with a tonsure where he -had leaned his weary head back for rest, that lost look on his -ineffectual face--“Messieurs! this strange indignity! But doubtless -the saints will explain to me of what I am accused.” - -Bah! have I not learned the “Rights of Man,” and seen them -illustrated, too, on those days of the “severe justice of the people.” -The worse the decomposition below, the thicker will be the scum that -rises to the top. But there the wholesome air shall deodorise it -by-and-by, and the waters of life be sweet to the taste again--for a -time. And in the meanwhile I browse by the _abattoir_. - - - -On that Saturday evening, the last of the voting, I dined with -distinction at Février’s in the Palais Royal. I could still afford, -morally and materially, this little practice of self-indulgence; for -they had not yet begun to make bread of dried pease, and many of the -ardent Deputies themselves were admirable connoisseurs in meat and -wine. - -While I was sitting--the whole place being in a ferment of scurry and -babble--a couple, who awakened my curious interest, entered and took a -vacant table next to mine. A withered old man it was and a young girl, -who sauntered with ample grace in his wake. - -The first came down the room, prying hither and thither, bowelless and -bent like a note of interrogation. He was buttoned up to the throat in -a lank dark-green surtout, and his plain hat was tilted back from his -forehead, so as to show his eyebrows, each lifted and lost in the -creases of a dozen arched wrinkles, and the papery lids beneath them -bulging and half closed. His face was all run into grey sharpness, but -a conciliatory smile was a habit of his lips. He carried his hands -behind his back as if they were manacled there. - -The girl who followed was in features and complexion cold and -beautiful. Her eyes were stone-grey under well-marked brows; her -forehead rounded from her nose like a kitten’s; the curls that escaped -from beneath her furred hood were of a rich walnut brown. She had that -colourless serenity in her face that is like snow over perfumed -flowers. Gazing on such, one longs to set one’s heart to the chill and -melt it and see the blossoms break. - -Now I had at once recognised in this couple the sustainers of the -principal _rôles_ in a certain September tragedy _entr’acte_. In -these times of feverish movement the manner in which Casimir had -secured their escape was indeed an old story with me; yet, seeing them -again under these vastly improved circumstances, and remembering in -what way I had sought to assist them, my heart was moved beyond its -present custom to a feeling of sympathetic comradeship with one, at -least, of the two. - -The old man chose his table. - -“Sit down, wench,” said he. “My faith! we must dine, though crowns -fall.” - -She took her seat with a little peevish sigh. - -“Though the stars fell in the street like hail, you would dine,” she -said. - -He cocked his head sideways. - -“They have fallen, my Carinne. The ruin of them litters the Temple.” - -She said doggedly, “_Vive le roi!_” under her breath. - -“My God!” he whispered, and called the waiter. - -He eyed her askance and nervously as the man came. Some distraught -admiration seemed to mingle with his apprehension of her. She sat -languid and indifferent, and even closed her eyes, with a little -disdainful smile, as he leaned down to her and ran his finger eagerly -over the various items of the bill of fare. - -“Ostend oysters, carp fried in milk, sweetbread patty--that is good. -Ragout of the kidneys and combs of cocks--that is very good--Carinne, -see! the ragout! Holy saints, but my pocket! Slice of calf’s head, -turtle fashion--girl, are you listening? Be reckless. Take of all if -you will. I bid thee--thy little uncle, _ma mie_. Slice of--Carinne, -this is better than the cabbages and fried eggs of _Pierrettes_. I -will not care--I will not. Though I have to cut down trees to meet it, -the palate shall have its holiday. Slice of--_mon Dieu_, Carinne! I -ate of it once before in this very house. It melts like the manna of -the Israelites. It does not surfeit, but it forms an easy bed for the -repose of ecstasies more acute.” - -The girl broke in with a little high-flung laugh. - -“Not trees, but a forest,” she said. “There--choose for me. I am -indifferent.” - -“Indifferent! indifferent?--Oh, undeserving of the fine gifts of the -gods!” - -He turned to the waiter, his eyes still devouring the _carte_, his -lips silently busy with its contents. Presently he gave his order, sat -down, and remained fixedly gnawing a finger, his face set half in -enjoying contemplation, half in a baffled aggravation of selection. - -In only one other direction did the couple appear to arouse curiosity. -The great nerve of the town was all charged with a leaping -electricity, and citizens, staid enough ordinarily, ate now and drank -under an excitement they could barely control. - -But, over against me, at a little distance, were two men seated at a -table; and of these one seemed to take a like interest with mine in my -neighbours. - -This individual, unmoved, apparently, by the general ferment, had -finished his dinner and sat sipping his Médoc luxuriously. He was a -pimple-faced man, well-nourished and sensual-looking, but with an air -of tolerant geniality about him. Ugly as Danton, he had yet a single -redeeming ornament in the shape of a quantity of rich auburn hair that -fell from his head in natural curls. Though his condition was plain to -me, and I saw that the restaurateur treated him with obsequious -deference, he appeared more self-complacent than self-sufficient, and -as if he were rather accustomed to indulge than abuse his position. -For I recognised in him the president of some sectional committee, and -that by the little plaque, printed small with the Rights of Man, that -hung as a pendant from his tricolour neck-ribbon. - -Of the other at the table I took but little notice, save to remark -that he devoured his meal with the air of a man to whom good digestion -is no essential condition of politics. - -Now, of a sudden, Jacques Crépin of the pendant lowered his legs, -took up his bottle and glass, and, to my extreme surprise, crossed the -room to my table and sat down by me. - -He did not speak at first, being engaged in watching our neighbours, -before whom were placed at the moment the dishes of the uncle’s -selection. - -Mademoiselle Carinne gave a little _Ouf!_ over hers. - -“But what is this?” she said. - -“It is a pig’s foot _à la_ St Menehould. Such a dish, _babouine_!” - -The old rascal had taken advantage of her insensibility to procure her -one of the cheapest entries on the list. - -She pushed it from her with an exclamation of disgust. - -“Fie, then!” she cried. “The very hoof of a filthy swine! Wouldst thou -have me make my hunger a footstool to a pig? Take it away. I will not -touch it!” - -He protested, voluble and shamefaced. She would not listen. Out of -mere wilfulness she now selected the most expensive item of the -_menu_--a partridge stewed in wine. He seemed like to cry; but she -persisted and gained her point. - -“We shall be ruined!” he cried, inconsistently enough. “For a month -after our return we shall have to live on bread and boiled nettles.” - -“In December, _mon oncle_? Then I am imperious for white wine of Mont -Raché.” - -The old fellow almost shrieked. - -“Carinne! Eight francs the bottle! Consider, my niece. I shall die in -Sainte Pélagie!” - -The new-comer turned to me with a grin. - -“Didst ever hear the like?” said he. - -I nodded gravely. I was not then all inured to impertinence. - -“He lacks the art of selection,” I said coldly, thinking of Michau. - -He showed himself good-humouredly conscious of my manner. He leaned -towards me and murmured carelessly-- - -“There, of a truth, speaks Monseigneur le Comte de la Muette.” - -I reached for my glass and sipped from it; but I have no doubt my hand -shook. - -“The citizen does not recognise me?” - -“No, by my faith.” - -“I am Jacques Crépin; and formerly I served where I now dine.” - -I glanced at him. Some faint remembrance of the fellow woke in me. - -“M. le Comte,” he went on, in the same low voice, “once rewarded me -with a handsome vail for some trifling service. It was the lucky -louis-d’or of my fortunes. Here was a little of the means; the -Revolution was my opportunity. Now the masters serve the waiters. I -devour with my teeth what I once devoured with my eyes. You see me -president of a section; but, _pardieu_! I have no quarrel with -aristocrats of a fastidious palate. It was the contemplation of such -educated me to a right humour in gastronomy. I am indebted to monsieur -for many a delicate hint in selection.” - -Again I thought of the poor Michau. - -“I am honoured,” I said. “And so, M. Crépin, this is the goal of your -high republicanism?” - -“My faith!” he said, with a generous chuckle, “I acknowledge it. I -have existed forty years that I may live one--perhaps no more. To -drink and to eat and to love _en prince_--I have the capacity for it -and the will. I have nursed my constitution on broken scraps. This -_fesse-Mathieu_ here offends me. Had I a fortune, I would fling it -away on a single desired dish if necessary. We have waived the right -to think of the morrow. But, how is monsieur known?” - -“They call me Citizen Thibaut.” - -“Citizen Thibaut, I drink to our better acquaintance. This Médoc--I -have not grudged it you in former years. Your refined appreciation of -it has many a time glorified to me my supper of stale fragments. But -for you, maybe, I had not learned the secret of its fragrance. To my -past master in epicurism I gulp a grateful toast.” - -He was as good as his word. - -“Citizen Crépin,” I said, “where do you live?” - -“Rue de Jouy, St Antoine,” he answered. - -“I seek a convenient landlord. Will you accommodate me?” - -“With all my heart.” - -I heard the _vieillard_ at the next table gobble and choke. I turned -my head to look, sprang to my feet, and my glass crashed on the -boards. - -In that instant the room had leaped into uproar--for something -immediate, swift, and terrible had happened. It was this: - -The fast-eating man at the table opposite, having finished his dinner, -was risen to pay his bill. He stood with impatient hand outstretched -as Février fumbled in his pocket for the change; and at the moment a -fellow, thick-set, stubble-bearded, dressed in a blouse and faded -cloak, strode up the room and paused by him. - -“Are you Deputy Lepelletier?” said he. - -The diner turned and nodded. - -“You have voted in this affair of the king?” - -“_Mais oui_,” said the other--“for death.” - -“_Scélérat--prends ca!_” and with the word he whipped a long blade -from under his cloak and passed it into the body of the deputy. I saw -the flash and heard the piteous bleat, as also, I swear, the sound of -the flesh sucking to the steel. - -Février snatched at the murderer, and was spun to the floor like a -skittle. I saw startled figures rise, chairs and tables totter, and -the one bounding amongst them. He got clear away. - -Then, as the mob closed about the fallen, moaning shape, I turned with -an instinct of horror to view of my neighbours. - -The old gourmet had flung himself back in his chair, his face twisted -from the sight; but mademoiselle still picked daintily at her -partridge. - - - - - CHAPTER III. - THE FOOTPAD. - -Early in June of the year ’93 I left Paris in company with M. -Crépin. At that time in the flower of his, somewhat mediocre, -fortunes, he had been intrusted with a mission which was entirely -after his own heart. He was to represent the Executive, in fact, in a -“sequestrating” tour through Limosin and Guienne,--or rather through -the new-found departments that had deposed those ancient -territories,--and his interest had procured me a post as his clerk or -assistant. What duties this embraced perhaps the Government would have -found it as difficult to specify as their sub-agent; but, after all, -Jacques Bonhomme emancipated was excessively conservative in the -matter of his retention of the system of complimentary sinecures. For -myself, I looked upon my appointment as the simple means to postpone -an inevitable denunciation. - -Crépin and I had by then ceased to fraternise. I could never quite -learn to adapt my sympathies to a certain _mauvais ton_ that underlay -in him all the sensitiveness of the voluptuary. Also, perhaps, I was -beginning a little to resent the humourless methods of a destiny that -had not the wit, it seemed, to rebuke my innate luxuriousness but by -affecting a concern to accommodate me with house-fellows of my own -kidney. We parted on the best of terms; and he none the less attended -to my interests and, as far as possible, to my safety. To the end, I -think, he retained an admiration for the superior quality of my -epigastrium; and when his opportunity came to do me a service, he -never failed to remind me of his indebtedness to my fastidious -_gourmandise_. - -We left the city, travelling _en roi_, on a fine blowing afternoon. We -had our roomy carriage, with four well-blooded horses, and a postilion -to each pair. An escort of four patriots, moreover, mounted, armed, -and generally drunk, accompanied us to enforce the letter of the law. -We went out by the suburb of Passy, starting from the -Pavillon-Liberté, close by the Thuilleries,--where Crépin received -his papers of administration--and whipping along the river-bank by way -of the Port aux Pierres. Close by the gates the carriage gave a -thudding jolt, and drew up suddenly to an accompaniment of noise like -the screaming of a swollen axle. - -I started up in my corner. - -“What is it?” I exclaimed; but three men, risen at that moment from a -bench under some chestnut-trees, engaged my surprised attention. They -made at the postilions, it seemed, and the face of him that was -foremost twitched with a rage of nervous resentment. Their hats had -been laid beside them in the shade, and I noticed that as this -individual sprang to his feet, the powder leapt from his head as if a -musket-ball had struck it. For he was very sprucely groomed, every -hair currycombed to run parallel with its fellows; and there was a -fastidious neatness about his appearance that was like the peevish -delicacy of an invalid. - -Such, indeed, he was, from more than one point of view; for he was no -other than M. Robespierre himself, dressed in the fine blue coat he -was studying to make historical, and exhibiting the weak extremes of -his nature in presence of a run-over dog. - -“But this is infamous!” I heard him shrill, in a strained wavering -voice. “Thus to shock our humanity and our nerves!” - -He ran to the carriage window in uncontrollable excitement. He bustled -with his shaking speech so that it was hardly audible. - -“What mischief produces itself that you tear through the streets like -brigands? Messieurs--messieurs! but I say you have no right--citizens, -do you hear?” - -Crépin, dismayed, muttered something about authority. The other -snapped at the word and worried it. - -“Authority! there is none in this city to be careless of innocent -lives. Authority! who excuses himself to me--to the Republic--by -assuming a licence to murder under its ægis,--yes, murder, I say? You -would adopt the prerogatives of aristocrats--you are an -aristocrat--Tachereau! St Just!” - -He was beside himself. His lean hands picked at the window-frame. All -the time the poor cur in the road was screeching, and the sound seemed -to jar him out of his self-control. One of his companions stepped up -to him, put a hand upon his arm, and drew him away. Quite a little mob -had gathered about us. - -“_Reculez les chevaux!_” said this person to the postilions. “Complete -what you have begun.” - -The horses backed the carriage once, and drew forward again, stilling -the cries. Personally I should have preferred alighting during the -operation. Robespierre ran to the trees and put his palms to his ears, -doubling himself up as if he had the toothache. The other came to the -window once more. - -This was the “Apocalyptic!” of the Assembly, its most admirable type -of fanaticism. Dark and immovable as a Nubian archer in a wall -painting, he might have been represented for ever holding the taut -string and the arrow that should whistle to its mark. He was young, a -mere boy--melancholy, olive-skinned, beautiful in his way. Cold, -incorruptible, merciless, nevertheless, he--this St Just--was yet that -one of the ultra-revolutionists I could find it in me to regard -admiringly. Of all, he alone acted up to the last letter of his creed -of purification. Of all, he alone was willing to do a long life’s -reaping without wage, without even that posthumous consideration of a -niche in the “Pantheon of history.” Like the figure of Time on a -clock, he was part and parcel of the scythe with which he wrought. He -must move when the hour came--cutting right and left--and with the -last stroke of inspiration he must stop until the wheels of being -should bring him to the front once more. Truly, he was not great, but, -quite possibly, necessary; and as such, one could not but exclaim over -his faultless mechanism. He sacrificed his life to his cause, long -before it was demanded of him, and in the end flung himself to the axe -as to a kindred spirit with which his structural and destructive -genius was quite in sympathy. One must acknowledge that he made a -consistent practice of that which is the true art of reform--to know -whom to exclude from one’s system. Only, he was a little too drastic -in his exclusion; and that came from a lack of _ton_. For your fanatic -sees a reactionary in every one whose mouth opens for what reason -soever but to applaud his methods; and the sneers which his -sensitiveness regards as levelled at himself, he puts to the account -of treason against his policy. - -“Citizen Crépin,” he said (for he had already identified my -companion), “for the future, if you must ride rough-shod, I would -recommend you to make the meanest your first consideration.” - -“But, citizen, it was no fault of mine.” - -“You have a voice to control, I presume?”--he stepped back and waved -his hand. “_Allez vous promener!_”--and the carriage jerked forward. - -I shot a glance at the other as we passed. He was retired from the -scene, and he seemed endeavouring to control the agitation into which -he had been betrayed; but he looked evilly from under his jumping -eyelids at us as we went by. - -We travelled cautiously until we were gone a long gunshot from the -city walls, and then Crépin put his head out of the window and cursed -on the postilions furiously. - -“_Savant sacré!_” he cried, sinking back on the seat; “we are whipt -and rebuked like schoolboys. Is a Republic a seminary for street curs? -They should hoist Reason in a balloon if she is to travel. That St -Just--he will make it indictable to crack a flea on one’s thumb-nail.” - -“What were they doing in that quarter of the town?” - -“How should I know, Citizen Thibaut? Spinning webs under the trees, -maybe, to catch unwary flies. They and others spend much of each day -in the suburbs. It is the custom of attorneys, as it is of -story-writers, to hatch their plots in green nooks. They brood for a -week that they may speak for an hour. Robespierre comes to Passy and -Auteuil for inspiration. Couthon goes every day to Neuilly for -bagatelle. My faith, but how these advocates make morality -unattractive! A dozen lawyers amongst the elect would produce a second -revolt of the angels. That is why the devil is loath to recall them.” - -“To recall them?” - -“They are his ambassadors, monsieur, and it is his trouble that they -are for ever being handed their passports to quit such soil as he -would be represented on. Then they return to him for fresh -instructions; but they will not understand that human passions are not -to be controlled by rule of thumb.” - -“Or sounded by depth of plumb, Crépin; and, upon my word, you are a -fine bailiff to your masters.” - - - -Now, I have no wish to detail the processes of our monotonous journey -into the south-westerly departments, whereto--that is to say, to the -borders of Dordogne--it took us eight days to travel. We had our -excitements, our vexations, our adventures even; but these were by the -way, and without bearing on what I have set myself to relate. - -One evening as we were lazily rolling along an empty country road, -making for the little walled town of Coutras, where the fourth Henry -was known to his credit once upon a time, a trace snapped, leading to -more damage and a little confusion amongst the horses. I alighted in a -hurry--Crépin, whose veins were congested with Bordeaux, slumbering -profoundly on in his corner--and finding that the accident must cause -us some small delay, strolled back along the road we had come by, for -it looked beautiful in perspective. Our escort, I may say, affecting -ignorance of our mishap, had rattled on into the dusk. - -It was a night for love, or fairies, or any of those little gracious -interchanges of soul that France had nothing the art to conceive in -those years. The wind, that had toyed all day with flowers, was sweet -with a languorous and desirable playfulness; a ripening girl moon sat -low on a causeway of mist, embroidering a banner of cloud that blew -from her hands; the floating hills were hung with blots of woodland, -and to peer into the trance of sky was to catch a star here and there -like a note of music. - -I turned an elbow of the road and strolled to a little bridge spanning -a brook that I had noticed some minutes earlier in passing. Leaning -over the parapet, I saw the water swell to a miniature pond as it -approached the arch--a shallow ferry designed to cool the fetlocks of -weary horses. The whole was a mirror of placidity. It flowed like a -white oil, reflecting in intenser accent the fading vault above, so -that one seemed to be looking down upon a subterranean dawn--and, “It -is there and thus,” I murmured, “the little people begin their day.” - -There were rushes fringing the brook-edge, as I knew only by their -sharp reversed pictures in the blanched water-glass, and a leaning -stake in mid-stream repeated itself blackly that the hairy goblins -below might have something to scratch themselves on; and then this -fancy did so possess me that, when a bat dipt to the surface and rose -again, its reality and not its shadow seemed to flee into the depths. -At last a nightingale sang from a little copse hard by, completing my -bewitchment--and so my thraldom to dreams was nearly made everlasting. -For, it appeared, a man had come softly out of the woods behind me, -while I hung over the parapet, and was stealing towards me on tiptoe -with clubbed bludgeon. - -It was a stag-beetle that saved my life--whereout of might be snatched -many little rags of reflections; for it shot whizzing and booming past -my ear and startled me to a sudden sideway jump. The fellow was almost -on my back at the moment, and could not check his impetus. He came -crack against the low wall, his club span out of his fist, and he -himself clutched, failed, and went over with a mighty splash into the -water underneath. - -The ludicrous _dénoûment_ gave me time to collect my faculties. I -was at no loss for an immediate solution of the incident. The -highways, in these glorious days of fraternity, were infested with -footpads, and no farther than five miles out of Paris we had had -trouble with them. Doubtless this rascal, the carriage being out of -sight, had taken me for a solitary pedestrian. - -I looked over the parapet, feeling myself master of the situation, -though I had no weapon upon me. My assailant was gathering his long -limbs together in the shallow pool. The water dragged the hair over -his eyes and ran in a stream from his bristling chin. Suddenly he saw, -drew a pistol, and clicked it at me. It was a futile and desperate -action, and calculated only to confirm my estimate of his character. - -“_Ventrebleu_ and the devil!” he shouted. “Make way for me, sir.” - -I waved my hand, right and left of the ferry. Should he emerge either -way, I could easily forestall him. - -“You have your choice of roads,” I said, politely. - -He recognised his difficulty, and turned as if to wade up stream and -escape by the fields. His fourth step brought him into deep water, out -of which he floundered snorting. - -“Try under the bridge,” I said. “It is the right passage for rats.” - -He cursed me volubly. - -“Well, we are one to one,” said he in sudden decision, and came -splashing out on the Coutras side. - -The moment he climbed up the bank I closed with him. He was fairly -handicapped by his liquid load, and out of breath and of conceit with -his luck besides. He aimed a blow at me with his pistol-butt, but I -easily avoided it and let him topple his length again--assisting him -in fact--but this time in the dust. Then I sat on him, and threatened -his head with a great stone. - -“_Pouf!_” said he, panting. “I protest I am no adept at this -business.” - -“Is it your only one?” said I. - -“At this date, yes.” - -“So--you have been an honest man? And what more can a patriot boast -of?” - -I whistled and called to my companions. My prisoner looked amazed. - -“You are not alone!” he exclaimed. - -“By no means. My escort is round the curve of the road there.” - -He seemed to collapse under me. - -“_Merci, monsieur!_” he muttered, “_merci!_” - -“What, in these days!” - -He dared his chance of the stone, and began to struggle violently. I -doubt if I could have held him long if Crépin and one of the -postilions had not come running up to my shout. A few words were -enough to explain the situation, and we conducted the fellow to the -carriage and strapped him upon one of the horses in a way compromising -to his dignity. And so he became of our party when we moved on once -more. - - * * * * * * * - -Coutras clacks with mills and is musical with weirs. The spirit of the -warlike king yet informs its old umber walls and toppling houses. I -found it a place so fragrant with antique and with natural beauties, -that my heart wept over the present human degeneracy that vulgarised -it. It lies amongst the last distant swells, as it were, of the great -billows of the Auvergne mountains, before those swells have rolled -themselves to waste in the sombre flats of the Landes. It is the -hill-slope garden on the fringe of the moor; the resting-place of the -sea and the high-rock winds; the hostelry where these meet and embrace -and people the vineyards with baby breezes. It has grown old listening -under its great chestnuts to the sweet thunder of the Isle and the -Dronne. Its peasants, pagan in their instinct for beauty, train their -vines up the elm and walnut trees, that in autumn they may dance under -a dropping rain of grapes. At the same time, I am bound to confess -that their wine suffers for the sake of this picturesqueness. - -Now, as we entered it by moonlight, it was a panic town, restless, -scurrying, lurid. The new spirit ran vile and naked in its venerable -streets; the air was poisonous with the breath of _ça ira_. For, -since we left Paris, this had happened. The Girondists were fallen and -hunted men, and Tallien and Ysabeau were at La Réole, preparing for a -descent on Bordeaux. We learned it all at the gate, and also that the -spies and agents of these scoundrels were everywhere abroad, nosing -after the escaped deputies, bullying, torturing, and denouncing. - -“It would appear we are forestalled,” said Crépin, drily. “M. -Thibaut, have you a mind to rake over dead ashes? Well, I have heard -of the white wine of Bergerac. At least I will taste that before I go -to bed.” - -We drove up to the Golden Lion, whither our scamps had preceded us. -Patriots hooted our prisoner as we clattered through the streets, or -whipped at him with their ramrods. The decent citizens fled before us, -and white-faced girls peeped from behind the white curtains of their -little bed-chambers, crushing the dimity against their swelling -bosoms. Oh! we were great people, I can assure you. - -At the hostelry--a high, mud-coloured building, with window-places -fringed with stone, and its hill of a roof fretted thick as a -dove-cote with dormer casements--they brought to our carriage a poor -weeping maid. - -“_La demoiselle des pleurs_,” said Bonnet-rouge, with a grin. - -“Eh?” said Crépin. - -“The _aubergiste_, citizen.” - -Crépin looked at the poor creature with disfavour. Certainly she was -very plain, though quite young, and her homely face was blowzed with -tears. - -“Why do you cry then, little fool?” - -“Monsieur, they have taken my father to La Réole.” - -“He will return, if innocent.” - -“Alas! no, monsieur.” - -“What! you would discredit the impartiality of the Republic?” - -He stepped from the carriage, and took her by the shoulder. - -“He will return, if innocent, I say; and would the law had enlarged -him before we arrived! You are in charge here, _citoyenne_?” - -“But yes, monsieur.” - -“A thousand devils!--and disorganised, I’ll swear; no fire in the -kitchen, no food in the larder.” - -“Monsieur is in error. I go at once to serve the first monsieur of our -best.” - -“The first--_sacré!_ is that also forestalled? But who is this -first?” - -“The same as monsieur.” - -“And dost thou know who _I_ am?” - -“Alas, monsieur! You come and go, and you are all great and imperious. -But I would not with a word offend monsieur.” - -“Listen, girl.” (A crowd stood about. He spoke for the benefit of -all.) “I am a high officer of the Republic, _en mission_ to rout out -the disaffected and to enforce the law. Go, and say to this citizen -that, with his permission, I will join him.” - -Our rogues were unstrapping the footpad from the horse as he spoke. As -they tumbled him, half silly with his jolting and with the blows he -had received, upon his feet, the _aubergiste_ gave a faint cry. -Crépin caught her as she retreated, and twisted her about once more. - -“You know this _Chevalier de la Coupe_?” - -“Monsieur, I--how can I say? So many drink wine with us.” - -He looked at her sternly a moment, then pushed her from him. - -“For supper, the best in the house!” he called after her, and turned -to arrange for the disposition of his men and their prisoner. - -By-and-by the _aubergiste_ came to conduct us to table. As we went -thither, Crépin stopped, took the girl by the chin, and looked into -her wet inflamed eyes. If the prospect of good fare exhilarated him, I -will say, also, for his credit, that I believe he had a kindly nature. - -“For the future,” he said, “be discreet and make a study to command -your nerves. In these days one must look on life through the little -window of the _lunette_.” - -We found our forestaller (who, by the way, had returned no answer to -Crépin’s polite message) established in the eating-room when we -entered it. He was a coarse, blotched ruffian, thick and overbearing, -and he stared at us insolently as he lay sprawled over a couple of -chairs. - -“So, thou wouldst share my supper?” he cried, in a rumbling, vibrant -voice. “Lie down under the table, citizen, and thou shalt have a big -plate of scraps when once my belly is satisfied.” - -Crépin paused near the threshold. I tingled with secret laughter to -watch the bludgeoning of these two parvenus. But my respected chief -had the advantage of an acquired courtesy. - -“You honour me beyond my expectations,” he said. “But, if I were to -break the dish over the citizen’s face, the scraps would fall the -sooner.” - -The other scrambled to his feet with a furious grimace. - -“_Canaille!_” he shouted (it was curious that I never heard an upstart -but would apply this term in a quarrel to those of his own -kidney)--“Scum! pigwash! Do you know my name, my office, my -reputation? God’s-blood! I’ve a mind to have you roasted in a fat -hog’s skin and served for the first course!” - -Crépin walked up to the bully very coolly. _M. le Représentant_ had -plenty of courage in the ordinary affairs of life. - -“Do I know who you are?” he said. “Why, I take you for one of those -curs that are whipt on to do the dirty work of the people’s ministers. -And do you know who I am, citizen spy? I hold my commission direct -from the Committee of Safety, with full authority of sequestration and -requisition, and no tittle of responsibility to your masters at La -Réole. If you interfere with the processes of my office, I shall have -something additional to say in my report to the chiefs of my -department, whom your highness may recognise by the names of -Billaud-Varennes and Collot-d’Herbois. If you insult me personally, I -shall thrash you with a dog-whip.” - -The creature was but a huge wind-bag. I never saw one collapse so -suddenly. Crépin, it is true, had some fearful names to conjure by. - -“_M. le Représentant_,” said the former, in a fallen, flabby voice, -“I have no desire to oppose or embarrass you. We need not clash if I -am circumspect. For the rest, accept my apologies for the heat I was -betrayed into through inadvertence. We have to be so careful with -strangers.” - -He bowed clumsily. His neck was choked with a great cravat; a huge -sabre clanked on the floor beside him as he moved. He was a very ugly -piece of goods, and he bore his humiliation with secret fury, I could -perceive--the more so as the _aubergiste_ brought in the first of the -dishes during the height of the dispute. - -Crépin permitted himself to be something mollified by the sight of -supper. He complimented the girl on her promptitude. The poor creature -may have been no heroine, but she was a seductive cook. We had -_potage_, most excellent, an _entrée_ of chestnut-meal _ramequins_, -roasted kid stuffed with _truffes de Périgord_ and served with sweet -wine-sauce. Also a magnificent brand of Bergerac was in evidence. - -Under the influence of these generous things our table-fellow’s -insolence a little revived; but now he would rally me as the safer -butt. - -“The citizen is dainty with his food.” (The fellow himself had lapped -and sucked like a pig.) - -“I owe it to the cook,” said I, serenely. - -“A debt of love. Thou shalt pay it her presently when the lights are -out.” - -“You are an ill-conditioned hog,” said I. - -He sprang, toppling, to his feet. - -“Mother of God!” he stuttered, hoarsely; “this goes too far, this----” - -He caught Crépin’s eye and subsided again, muttering. We were all -pretty warm with liquor; but my superior officer was grown benignant -under its influence. - -“For shame, citizens!” he said, blandly, “to put a coarse accent to -this heavenly bouquet.” - -He had bettered me in the philosophy of the palate. I confess it at -once. - -The other (his name, we came to know, was Lacombe--a name of infamous -notoriety in the Bordeaux business) leaned over to me presently--when -Crépin was gone from the room a moment to give a direction--with hell -glinting out of his eyes. - -“_M. le Représentant’s_ fellow,” said he; “I bow to authority, but I -kick authority’s dog in the ribs if the cur molests me.” - -“I don’t doubt it. It is probably the measure of your courage.” - -He nodded pregnantly. - -“The resurrection of France shall be in discretion. That is the real -courage to those whose overbearing impulse is to strike. We are -discreet, and we watch, and we evolve by degrees the whole alphabet of -espionage. Let us call A the language of the hands. These the frost of -poverty will stunt, the rack of labour will warp and disjoint. There -is your sign of a citizen of the people. Monsieur has very pretty -fingers and pink nails.” - -“By the same token a corded fist should prove one to be a hangman. -Monsieur has a knot for every knuckle.” - -He nodded again. His calmness was more deadly than his wrath. - -“You spit your insults over the shoulder of your master. You think -yourself secure in your office. But there is an order of repartee -unknown to patriots, for it was hatched in the hotbeds of Versailles.” - -He fell back in his chair--still eyeing me--with a grunt; then -suddenly leaned forward again. - -“The alphabet,” he said, “of which B shall be designated the -penetration of disguises. Coach-drivers, colporteurs, pedlars--oh, one -may happen upon the cloven hoof amongst them all.” - -I laughed, with a fine affectation of contempt. This mummy at the -feast---- - -There was a sound in the room. I turned my head. The little -_aubergiste_ stood at the door, weeping and wringing her hands. - -“Monsieur!” she cried, “do not let it be done!” - -I rose and went to the child. - -“Tell me,” I said, “what is it?” - -“Monsieur, the poor man that you captured! they are torturing him in -the yard.” - -I pointed with my hand to a window. Without, all during our meal, had -been a confused clatter of voices and the lurid smoke of torches -rising about the glass. - -“Yes,” she sobbed, quite overcome. “It is not right, monsieur. It will -bring a curse upon the place.” - -I ran from the room, my blood on fire. Whatever his offence to me, I -had sooner let the rascal go than that he should fall into the hands -of drunken patriots. - -The yard was a paved space scooped from the rear of the house. A well -with a windlass pierced it about the middle, and round the low wall of -this were seated a dozen red-bonnets, our own four prominent, shouting -and quarrelling and voluble as parrots. Broken bottles strewed the -ground, and here and there a torch was stuck into the chinks of the -stones, informing all with a jumping glare of red. - -I pushed past two or three frightened onlookers, and rushed out into -the open. - -“Where is he?” I cried in a heat. “What the devil! am I not to pass -judgment on my own!” - -A moment’s silence fell. The faces of all were turned up to me, -scowling and furious. In the pause a pitiful voice came booming and -wailing up from the very bowels of the well itself. - -“_Merci!_ messieurs, _merci!_ and I will conduct you to the treasure!” - -I wore a sword, and I drew it and sprang to the well-mouth. - -“God in heaven!” I cried, “what are you doing with him down there?” - -Several had risen by this, and were set at me, snarling like dogs. - -“The man is forfeit to the law!” they yelped. - -“That is for the law to decide.” - -“The people are the law. We sit here to condemn him while he cools his -heels.” - -“Send monsieur to fetch his friend up!” cried Lacombe’s voice over -their heads. “He will be dainty to wash his white fingers after a -meal!” - -There were cries of “Aristocrat!” Possibly they would have put the -brute’s suggestion into effect--for a tipsy patriot has no bowels--had -not Crépin at that moment run into the yard. I informed him of the -situation in a word, as he joined me by the well-side. - -“Haul up the man!” he said, coolly and peremptorily. His office -procured him some respect and more fear. Our fellows had no stomach -but to obey, and they came to the windlass, muttering, and wound their -victim up to the surface. He was a pitiable sight when he reached it. -They had trussed him to the rope with a savagery to which his swollen -joints bore witness, and, with a refinement of cruelty, had cut the -bucket from under his feet, that the full weight of his body should -hang without support. In this condition they had then lowered him up -to his neck in the black water. - -He fell, when released, a sodden moaning heap on the stones. - -“And what was to be the end?” asked Crépin. - -“Citizen _Représentant_, we could not decide; yet a show of hands was -in favour of singeing over a slow fire. Grace of God! but it would -seem the accused has forestalled the jury.” - -He had not, however. - -“Give him brandy,” said Crépin; “and bring him to the shed yonder, -when recovered, for the _procès verbal_.” - -He took my arm, and we went off together to the place designated,--an -outbuilding half full of fagots. On the way he beckoned the crying -_aubergiste_, who had followed him into the yard, to attend us. - -“For the present the man is saved,” he said to her when we were alone. -“Now, what is your interest in the rascal?” - -“Monsieur, he was an honest man once.” - -“Of the neighbourhood?” - -She looked up at him with her little imploring red eyes. - -“Come,” he said; “I owe you the debt of a grateful digestion.” - -“Of the château,” she said faintly. - -“What château?” - -“Des Pierrettes, monsieur.” - -Crépin, as I, I could see, was beating his brains for some memory -connected with the name. - -“In Février’s _café_!” I said suddenly. Should it prove the same, -for the third time destiny seemed bringing me into touch with a lady -of this history. - -“Ah!” he said. “But it is not on my list. In what direction does it -lie, girl?” - -“Monsieur, two leagues away, off the Libourne road by the lane of the -Marron Cornu.” - -“And who inhabits it?” - -The poor girl looked infinitely distressed. - -“It is M. de Lâge and his niece. You will not make me the instrument -to harm them, monsieur. They are patriots, I will swear. Monsieur, -monsieur!” - -“Silence, girl! What are you to question the methods of the Republic? -It is a good recommendation at least that they commission a footpad to -patrol the neighbourhood.” - -“It is none of their doing. Oh, monsieur, will you not believe me? He -was an honest servant of theirs till this religion of Reason drove him -to the crooked path. And he has been dismissed this twelvemonth.” - -“Harkee, wench! If I read you right, you are well quit of a -scoundrel.” - -She fell to sobbing and clucking over that again; and in the midst of -her outburst the half-revived felon was hustled into the shed. - -The poor broken and collapsed creature fell at Crépin’s feet and -moaned for mercy. - -“Give me a day of life,” he snuffled abjectly, “and I will lead you to -the treasure.” - -One of the guard pecked at his ribs with his boot. - -“_Pomme de chou!_” he grunted, “have you no other song to sing but -that?” - -But Crépin was looking extremely grave and virtuous. - -“The prisoner is in no state to be examined,” he said. “Place him -under lock and key, with food and drink; and I will put him to the -question later.” - - - - - CHAPTER IV. - THE CHÂTEAU DES PIERRETTES. - -“_Nous y voici!_” - -The carriage pulled back with a jerk, so that the prisoner Michel, who -sat opposite us, was almost thrown into our laps. One of our grimy -escort appeared at the window. - -“Dog of a thief!” he growled. “Is this the turning?” - -The other _sacréd_ below his breath and nodded sullenly. A vast -chestnut (the thick of its butt must have been thirty feet in -circumference) stood at the entrance to a narrow lane. Turning, with a -worrying of wheels, down the latter, we continued our journey. - -Southwards from Coutras we had broken into a _plat_ of country very -wild and sterile; but now we were amongst trees again--oak, chestnut, -and walnut--that thronged the damp hollows and flung themselves over -the low hills in irresistible battalions. - -Suddenly Michel bent forward and touched my companion’s knee -menacingly. The rascal was near restored to himself, and his lowering -eyes were full of gloom. - -“The treasure, monsieur,” he said; “is that the condition of my -liberty?” - -“I have said--discover it to me and thou shalt go free.” - -“But I, monsieur, I also must make a condition.” - -Crépin stared. The man bent still more earnestly forward. - -“Mademoiselle Carinne----” - -“The niece of De Lâge----?” - -“She must be considered--respected. I will not have her insulted with -a look.” - -“What now, Michel?” - -“Oh, monsieur! you may do as you will with the old, hard man; but -her--her----” - -“And is it for the lady’s sake thou hast forborne hitherto to -appropriate this treasure, the hiding-place of which thou wilt buy thy -life by revealing?” - -“It is so. I have driven a desperate trade, starving often with this -knowledge in my breast.” - -“But why?” - -“How can I tell? I have known her from a child. Once she struck me -that I killed a cheeping wolf-cub she had brought from the snow; and -then she was sorry and kissed the little stupid bruise; and I swore my -arm should rot before it lost the will to protect her.” - -“I will do my best.” - -“But that is not enough. My God! if I were to sacrifice mademoiselle’s -_dot_ without purpose.” - -“The purpose is thy life.” - -“That were nothing were she dishonoured.” - -I put in a serene word-- - -“Yet it seems you would condemn her to poverty to save your skin?” - -“That is different. I should have life; and life means many -things--the power, possibly, to influence her fortunes; at least the -wash of wine again in one’s dusty throat.” - -“Michel,” I said, “I must applaud you for a capital rogue.” - -He stared at me sombrely, muttered, “_Je suis ce que je suis_,” and -sank back in his corner. - -We were running between dark hedges at the time. Suddenly we came -among farm-buildings, a thronging dilapidated group. The byres -mouldered on their props; the flat stones of the roofs had flaked -generations of rubbish upon the weedy ground beneath. - -Crépin rubbed his hands. - -“It is well,” he said. “This without doubt is a skinflint.” - -We turned a corner and passed the entrance to a ruined drive. Here the -tall iron gates, swinging upon massive posts of rubble-stone, had been -recently, it seemed, torn from their moorings of grass and knotted -bindweed, for the ground was scarred and the lower bars of metal hung -with rags of drooping green. Crépin’s features underwent another -change at the sight. - -“But what is this?” he muttered. “Something unaccustomed--some -scare--some panic?” - -He looked with sudden fury at the prisoner. - -“If he has got wind of our coming--has escaped with----” - -He broke off, showing his teeth and grinding his hands together. At -the moment we came in view of the château. - -It was an old grey house--built of the same material as the -gate-pillars--with a high-pitched roof and little corner _tourelles_. -Once, presumably, a possession of importance, decay and neglect had -now beggared it beyond description. Yet within and without were -evidences of that vulgar miserly spirit that seeks by inadequate -tinkering to deceive with half-measures. The tangled grass of the lawn -was cut only where its untidiness would have been most in evidence, -and its litter left where it fell. Triton blew his conch from a fine -fountain basin near the middle of the plot; but the shell, threatening -to break away, had been fastened to the sea-god’s lips with a ligament -of twine that was knotted round the head. A crippled bench was propped -with a stone; a shattered ball-capital at the entrance-door held -together with a loop of wire. What restoration that was visible was -all in this vein of ludicrous economy. - -But not a sign of life was about--no footstep in the grounds, no face -at any window. To all appearance the place was desolate. - -We drew up at the broken stone porch. The door was already flung wide, -and we entered, with all the usual insolent clatter of “fraternity,” -an echoing hall. Here, as elsewhere, were dust and decay--inconsequent -patching and the same tawdry affectation of repair. - -A shallow flight of stairs, broad and oaken, led straight up to a -little low gallery that bisected the hall like a transom. Up these -steps we scuttled, the escort driving the prisoner amongst them, and -came to a corridor from which a number of closed doors shut off the -living rooms of the house. - -Suddenly Crépin put up his hand and motioned us to silence. From one -of the invisible chambers, some distance down the corridor, rose and -fell, like wind in a key-hole, a little blasphemous complaining voice. - -“In the sober moonlight of my days!” we made it out to cry--“after -scaling the rough peaks of self-denial, thus to be tilted over into -the depths again by a lying Providence!” - -There followed some shrill storming of nouns and epithets; then a -pause, out of which the voice snapped once more-- - -“I hear you, you scum of ditches--you stinking offal of the -Faubourgs--you publicans ennobled of a short-sighted Saviour!--Come -back and finish your work, and I will spit poison on you that you -shall follow me to the hell--to the hell, I say----” - -The furious dragging of a chair mangled the sentence; then came a -jarring thump and a further shrieking of oaths. With one impulse we -made for the door, threw it open, and burst into the room. In the -midst of a lofty chamber lay a little man struggling on the floor, a -pretty heavy _prie-dieu_, to which he had been bound with his arms -behind his back, jerking and bobbing above him with his every kick. - -“_Mais c’est une tortue!_” cried one of the crew, with a howl of -laughter. - -The tortoise twisted up its face, disfigured with passion. It was the -face, without doubt, of the little _fesse-Mathieu_ of Février’s -restaurant. - -The room in which he lay was of good proportions, but furnished -meagrely, and informed with the same spirit of graceless economy as -was apparent without. For the dark ancient panels of its walls had -been smeared with some light-grey wash, and an attempt made to -decorate them with plaster wreaths and festoons in the Louis Quinze -style. The work, however, had been left unfinished, and, so far as it -went, was crude and amateurish to a degree. Obviously, here was an -example of that species of niggard that will try to cheat a dozen -trades by wringing the gist of all out of one poor factotum. - -But Crépin stood with corrugated forehead; for there were other signs -in the room than those of parsimony--signs in plenty, in fact, that he -had been forestalled in his quest. Chairs and tables were overturned, -a bureau was smashed almost to pieces, great rents appeared in the -panelling of the walls, where search had been instituted, one would -judge, for secret depositories. - -A savage oath exploded from _M. le Représentant’s_ lips. - -“That spy--that swaggerer--that Lacombe!” he muttered, looking at me. -“He was vanished this morning--he and his ragged tail--when we rose. -He got scent, without doubt, and has played outrider to my mission of -search. If it is so; if he has found and removed--my God! but for all -his Tallien and the Committee of Bordeaux he shall dance--he shall -dance!” - -He turned furiously to his men. - -“Put the rascal upright,” he bellowed. - -A couple of them lifted and spun the chair to its legs, so that the -old man’s skull jerked against the head-rail with a clack like that of -a mill-hopper. He did not seem to notice the blow. His eyes, ever -since they had alighted on this new influx of brigands, had been set -like a fish’s--wondering and unwinking. Now they slowly travelled, -taking in Crépin, Citizen Thibaut, the escort, until they -stopped--actually, it appeared, with a click--at Michel. His mouth -puckered, and, like a ring blown by a smoker, a wavering “O!” issued -from it. - -“Your _ci-devant_ servant?” said Crépin, grimly. - -The old man nodded his head. - -“Michel. But, yes--it is Michel.” - -“Thou owest him compensation for that long tyranny of service.” - -“I owe him nothing.” - -“And me, citizen? Dost thou remember the Abbaye St Germain and the -killings of September?” - -I struck in with the question. I was willing, I think, for the girl’s -sake, to identify myself with a past incident. - -He looked at me bitterly, but with no recognition in his eyes. - -“I deplore the cursed fortune,” he cried in grief, “that preserved me -but for this!” - -“How now, old fool!” said Crépin, with impatience. “Thou shalt go -free when Michel has revealed to me thy secret place of hoarding.” - -M. de Lâge gave the crying snarl of a wolf. - -“Let him go--the ingrate and the traitor! What, Michel! dost thou -mangle the hand that gave thee soft litter for thy couch and honest -bread for thy belly? Look, Michel!--the white garlands on the walls -there! Dost thou remember how thou wrought’st them to pleasure thy -mistress--to win her from the depression she suffered in the sombre -oak and its long history of gloom? There they cling unfinished,--thy -solemn rebuke, Michel. Thy attachment to her was the one reality, thou -wouldst say, in a world of shadows, and yet the blatant fanfare of -those shadows was all that was needed to win thee from the reality. -And what is the price of thy kiss, Judas?” - -The man hung his head. - -“Not your life, monsieur,” he muttered. - -“Nay; but only that which makes my life endurable. And the -forfeit--what is that?” - -“_My_ life, monsieur.” - -De Lâge drew in his breath with a cruel sound. - -“_Hélas!_” he cried. “You will have to pay the penalty! the faithful -servant will have to pay the penalty!” - -Crépin uttered an exclamation and strode forward. - -“You have been stripped?” said he. - -“Of all, monsieur, of all. There have been others here before you this -morning--fine _sans-culotte_ preachers of equality and the gospel of -distribution, whose practice, nevertheless, is to enrich the poor at -the expense of the wealthy. They were brave fellows by their own -showing; yet they must truss me here before they dared brandish the -fruits of their robbery before my eyes!” - -Suddenly he was straining and screaming in his bonds, his face like a -map of some inhuman territory of the passions, branched with veins for -rivers of blood. - -“Free me that I may kill some one!” he shrieked. “I am mad to groove -my fingers in flesh! The time for concessions is past. I was as wax in -their hands till they unearthed my plate, my coins, my riches. Now, -now----” - -He was indeed beyond himself, a better man--or devil--in his despair -than the money-conscious craven who had palpitated over that little -“_Vive le roi!_” once upon a time. - -Crépin regarded the struggling creature with harsh contempt. This -plebeian soul also was translated, but not to his moral promotion. It -was evident he had enlarged the scope of his anticipations greatly in -view of his prisoner’s promise; and his disappointment brought the -spotted side of him uppermost. - -“Take the dog,” he cried in a hoarse voice (signifying Michel by a -gesture), “and whip him to the lair! At least we will look to see if -the wolves have left a bone or two for our picking.” - -“_M. le Représentant_,” I ventured to say, “be just to consider that -the prisoner is by all rights my prisoner. Anyhow he has stuck to his -side of the bargain. Let me hold you in fairness responsible for his -safe-conduct.” - -He turned upon me like a teased bullock. - -“In fairness!” he cried--“in fairness! But you presume, citizen, on -your position.” - -He looked as if he could have struck me; all the beast in the man was -prominent. Then he gave the order to march, and I found myself left -alone with the little grotesque in the chair. - -I was hot and indignant; but the passion of the other seemed to have -exploded itself into a rain of emotion. His dry cheeks quivered; the -tears ran down them like moisture on an old wall. - -“Monsieur,” I said, softly, “I know not whether to applaud or upbraid -you. And where is Mademoiselle Carinne?” - -He seemed quite broken in a moment--neither to resent nor to be -surprised at my mention of the girl’s name. - -“She is fled,” he whimpered--“the little graceless cabbage is fled.” - -“To safety, I hope?” - -“To the devil, for all I care.” - -“Monsieur, I hold your wretchedness an excuse, even if you have been -careless of----” - -He caught me up, staring at me woefully. - -“Careless? but, my God! I have pampered and maintained her ever since -her brown head was a crutch to my fingers; and this is how she repays -me.” - -“What has she done?” - -“She has condemned me to beggary for a prudish sentiment--me, in my -old forlorn age. From the first I saw that the test might come--that -she might be called upon to employ the privileges of her sex on my -behalf. Free-thought, free-love! Bah! What are they but a -self-adaptation to the ever-changing conditions of life. The spirit -need not subscribe to such mere necessities of being; and a little -gratitude at least was due to me. She has none, and for that may God -strike her dead!” - -“What has she done?” - -“Done!” (His voice rose to a shriek again.) “But, what has she -not?--That scoundrel Lacombe would have exchanged me my riches--my -pitiful show of tankards that he had unearthed--for her favour. She -would not; she refused to go with him; she reviled and cursed me--me -that had been her bulwark against poverty.” - -“You would have sold her honour for your brazen pots?” - -“Gold and silver, monsieur; and it was only a question of temporary -accommodation. In a few months she might have returned, and all would -have been well again. But honour--bah! it will survive a chin-chuck -better than loss of wealth. But she would not. She escaped from us by -a lying ruse, and they sought her far and near without avail. At the -last they robbed and maltreated me, and for that may hell seize them -and fester in their bones!” - -“And in thine, thou pestilence!” - -My fury and my contempt joined with a clap, like detonating acids. - -“Lie there and rot!” I shouted, and so flung out of the room. - -My heart blazed. That white girl--that Carinne. I could recall her -face, could picture her in her loneliness arraigned before Lacombe and -his _sans-culottes_ and his reptile prisoner--defying them all. With -some vague instinct of search directing my fury, I hurried through -room after room of the empty house. Each was like its neighbour, -vulgarised, scantily furnished, disfigured by the search that had been -conducted therein. Once I broke into the girl’s own bed-chamber (it -was hers, I will swear, by token of little feminine fancies consistent -with the character I had gifted her withal), and cursed the beasts who -had evidently made it the rallying-point of their brutal jesting. But -this, obviously, must be the last place in which to seek her, and I -quickly left it. - -Not a soul did I happen upon. Of whomsoever the household had -consisted, no single individual but the old villain in the chair was -remained to brazen out the situation. - -At last I made my way into the grounds once more, issuing from the -rear of the building into a patch of dense woodland that flowed up to -within fifty yards of the walls. I heard voices, and, plunging down a -moist track amongst the trees, came immediately in view of my party -returning to the house. Then I saw there were two women conducted in -its midst, and my throat jumped, and I ran forward. - -At least my sudden apprehension was comforted. These crying wenches -were of the working class--comely domestics by their appearance. - -Crépin stayed them all when he came up to me. The ugly look had not -left his face--was intensified on it, in fact. He stared at me, -haughty and lowering at once, and was altogether a very offensive -creature. - -“Has Citizen Thibaut any further exception to take to my methods of -procedure?” he said, ironically. - -I looked at him, but did not reply. - -“Because,” he went on, “perhaps his permission should be asked that -these pretty citizenesses accompany me in my carriage?” - -“_Mais non, monsieur--par pitié, mais non!_” cried one of the wenches -in a sobbing voice. - -He bent down to her--a sicklily self-revealed animal. - -“Hush, _ma petite_!” he said. “We of the Republic do not ask--we take. -Thou shalt have a brighter gown than ever De Lâge furnished for thy -shapely limbs.” - -She stopped crying, and seemed to listen at that. He came erect again, -with a smile on his face and his lips licking together, and regarded -me defiantly. - -“The Citizen Representative can please himself,” I said, coldly, and -pushed past them all and walked on. Crépin turned to look after me, -gave a peculiar cynical laugh, and cried “_En avant!_” to his party. - -I was to read the significance of his attitude in a moment--to read it -in the dead form of Michel hanging from a tree. - -I rushed back along the path, and caught the others as they issued -from the wood. Crépin heard me coming, bade his men on to the house, -and returned a pace or two to meet me. His mood asserted, he was -something inclined, I suppose, to a resumption of the better terms -between us. At any rate, his expression now was a mixture of -embarrassment and a little apprehension. But I spoke to him very -staidly and quietly-- - -“M. Crépin, it dawns upon me that I am slow to learn the methods of -the new morality, and that I shall never justify your choice of a -secretary.” - -“You are going to leave me.” - -“There will be the more room in the coach for monsieur’s harem.” - -I made him a low bow and went off amongst the trees. He called after -me--there was some real regret in his voice--“But you will come to -harm! be wise!--monsieur!” - -I paid no heed; and the thickets received and buried me. - - - - - CHAPTER V. - _LA GRAND’ BÊTE._ - -My rupture with Crépin was the preface to a period of my life, the -details of which I could never but doubtfully piece together in my -mind. During this period I lived, but how I supported existence is a -problem that it is beyond my power to solve. I have an indistinct -memory of wandering amongst trees--always amongst trees; in light and -darkness; in drought and in dew; of scaring and being scared by -snakes, that rustled from me over patches of dead leaves; of -swallowing, in desperate phases of hunger, berries and forest fruits, -of whose properties I was as ignorant as of their names. - -And, throughout, the strange thought dwelt with me, warm and -insistent, that I was the champion elect of that white Carinne with -whom I had never so much as exchanged a word. To me she was the Una of -these fathomless green depths--the virgin who had carried her -maidenhood and her pride to the Republic of the woods, where security -and an equal condition were the right of all. - -This fanciful image possessed a singular fascination for me. It -glimmered behind trees; it peered through the thick interlace of -branches; I heard the paddle of its feet in mossy rills, or the low -song of its voice rising from some shadow prostrate in beds of fern. -No doubt fatigue and hunger and that sense of a long responsibility -repudiated came to work a melodious madness in my brain. For days, -loitering aimlessly under its spell, I was happy--happier, I believe, -than I had ever been hitherto. I had become a thing apart from -mankind--a faun--a reversion to the near soulless type, but with the -germ of spirit budding in me. - -It was a desire to avoid a certain horror dangling over a track that -had at first driven me into the thickets, and so lost me my way. The -memory of a blot of shadow, on the sunny grass underneath that same -horror, that swayed sluggishly, like the disc of a pendulum, as the -body swayed above, got into my waking thoughts and haunted them. I -wished to put a world-wide interval between myself and the -blot--though I had seen monstrosities enough of late, God knows. But, -in the silent woods, under that enchanted fancy of my relapse to -primitive conditions, a loathing of the dead man, such as Cain might -have felt, sickened all my veins. I was done with violence--astonished -that its employment could ever have entered into the systems of such a -defenceless race as man. - -But also I knew that to me, moving no longer under the ægis of -authority, the towns and the resorts of men were become quagmires for -my uncertain feet. I was three hundred miles from Paris; all my -neighbourhood was dominated by Revolutionary Committees; my chance of -escape, did once that black cuttle-fish of the “Terror” touch me with -a tentacle, a finger-snap would express. My hitherto immunity was due, -indeed, to the offices of certain friends, and a little, perhaps, to -my constitutional tendency to allow circumstances to shape my -personality as they listed. Resigned to the remotest possibilities, my -absence of affectation was in a sense my safeguard. - -Here, however, far from the centre of operations, that which, under -certain conditions, had proved my protection, would avail me nothing. -A sober nonchalance, an easy manner, would be the very thyrsus to whip -these coarse provincial hinds to madness. And, finding in my new -emancipation--or intellectual decadence--an ecstasy I had not known -before, I was very tender of my life, and had no longer that old power -of indifference in me to the processes of fatality. - -How long this state of exaltation lasted I do not know; but I know it -came to me all in a moment that I must eat or die. It was the -reflection of my own face, I think, in a little pool of water, that -wrought in me this first dull recrudescence of reason. The wild -countenance of a maniac stared up at me. Its hollow jaws bristled like -the withered husks of a chestnut; its lips were black with the juice -of berries; an animal _abandon_ slept in the pupils of its eyes. Ah! -it was better that reason should triumph over circumstance than that -the soul should subscribe tamely to its own disinheritance. - -All in an instant I had set off running through the wood. That -privilege of man, to dare and to fail, I would not abrogate for all -the green retreats of nature. - -For hours, it seemed to me, I hurried onwards. My heart sobbed in my -chest; my breath was like a knotted cord under my shirt. At last, -quite suddenly, blue sky came at me through the trunks, and I broke -from the dense covert into a field of maize, and found myself looking -down a half mile of sloping arable land upon a large town of ancient -houses, whereof at the gate opposite me the tricolour mounted guard on -the height of a sombre tower. - -Now, in view of this, my purpose somewhat wavering, I sat me down in -the thick of the corn and set to wondering how I could act for the -best. I had assignats in my pocket, and a little money, yet there -could be no dealings for me in the open market. Thinking of my -appearance, I knew that by my own act I had yielded myself to the -condition of a hunted creature. - -All the afternoon I crouched in patches of the higher stalks, peeping -down upon the town that, spreading up a gentle slope in the nearer -distance, lay mapped before my eyes. Sometimes desperate in my hunger, -I would snatch a head of the standing grain; but to chew and swallow -more than would just blunt the edge of my suffering would be, I knew, -to invite a worser torture. The sun beat on my head; my throat was -caked with drought. At last I could endure it no longer, but retreated -once more into the wood and waited for the shadows to lengthen. - -It was early evening when I ventured into the field again and looked -down. The falling sunlight smote the town with fire from the west, so -that its walls and turrets seemed to melt in the glare and run into -long pools of shadow. But here and there wan ribbons of streets, or -patches of open places, broke up the sombreness--in vivid contrast -with it--and seemed to swarm, alone of all the dappled area, with -crawling shapes. - -Of these blotches of whiteness, one flashed and scintillated at a -certain point, from some cause I could not at first fathom. Now white, -now red, it stretched across the fields a rayed beam that dazzled my -wood-haunted eyes with the witchery of its brightness. - -But presently I saw the open patch whence it issued grow dark with a -press of figures. It was as if a cloth had been pulled over a dead -face; and all in a moment the strange flash fell and rose again--like -a hawk that has caught a life in its talons,--and a second time -swooped and mounted, clustered with red rays,--and a third time and a -fourth; but by then I had interpreted the writing on the wall, and it -was the “_Mene, mene_,” written on the bright blade of the guillotine -by the finger of the setting sun. - -A very strange and quiet pity flowed in my veins as I looked. Here was -I resting amidst the tranquillity of a golden harvest, watching that -other harvest being gathered in. Could it be possible that any point -of my picture expressed other than the glowing serenity that was -necessary to the composition? I felt as if, in the intervals of the -flashing, each next victim must be stepping forward with a happy -consciousness of the part he was to play in the design. Then suddenly -I threw myself on my face, and crushed my palms against my mouth that -I might not shriek curses on the inexorable beauty of the heavens -above me. - -I did not look again, or rise from my covert till dark was drooping -over the hillside. But, with the first full radiance of moonrise, I -got to my feet, feeling dazed and light-headed, and went straight off -in an easterly direction. My plan was to circumambulate, at a safe -distance, the walls (that could enclose no possibility of help to me -in my distress), and seek relief of my hunger in some hamlet (less -emancipated) on their farther side. If the town was Libourne, as I -believed it to be, then I knew the village of St Émilion to lie but a -single league to the south-east of it. - -Walking as in a dream, I came out suddenly into the highroad, and saw -the moon-drenched whiteness of it flow down to the very closed gates -far below me. Its track was a desolate tide on which no life was -moving; for nowadays the rural population was mostly drifted or driven -into the seething market-places of the Revolution. Now my imagination -pictured this cold and silent highway a softly tumultuous stream--a -welded torrent of phantoms, mingling and pushing and hurrying, in the -midst of noiseless laughter, to beat on the town gates and cry out -murmuringly that a “suspect” was fording a channel of its upper -reaches. - -This fright, this fancy (one would hardly credit it) brought the sweat -out under my clothes. But it was to be succeeded by a worse. For, as I -looked, the boiling wash of moonlight was a road again, and there came -up it footsteps rhythmically clanking and unearthly--and others and -yet others, till the whole night was quick with their approach. And, -as the footfalls neared me, they ceased abruptly, and there followed -the sound of an axe ringing down in wooden grooves; and then I knew -that the victims of the evening, ghastly and impalpable, were come to -gaze upon the man who had indulged his soul, even for a moment, with -the enchantment of a prospect whose accent was their agony. - -Now, assuredly, my reason was in a parlous state--when, with a whoop -that broke the spell, an owl swept above me and fled eastwards down -the sky; and I answered to its call, and crossed the road and plunged -into fields again, and ran and stumbled and went blindly on once more -until I had to pause for breath. - -At last I heard the rumbling wash of water, and paused a stone’s-throw -from a river-bank; and here a weight of terror seemed to fall from me -to mark how wan and sad the real stream looked, and how human in -comparison with that other demon current of my imagining. From its -bosom a cluster of yards and masts stood up against the sky; and by -that I knew that I was come upon the Dordogne where it opened out into -a port for the once busy town of Libourne, and that if ever caution -was necessary to me it was necessary now. - -I looked to my right. A furlong off the rampart of the walls swept -black and menacing; and over them, close at hand now, the silent yoke -of the guillotine rose into the moonlight. It must have been perched -upon some high ground within; and there it stood motionless, its jaws -locked in slumber. Could it be the same monster I had watched -flashing, scarlet and furious, from the hillside? Now, the ravening of -its gluttony was satisfied; Jacques Bourreau had wiped its slobbered -lips clean with a napkin. Sullenly satiate, propped against the sky, -straddling its gaunt legs over the empty trough at its feet, it slept -with lidless eyes that seemed to gloat upon me in a hideous trance. - -Bah! Now all this is not Jean-Louis Sebastien de Crancé, nor even -Citizen Thibaut. It is, in truth, the half-conscious delirium of a -brain swimming a little with hunger and thirst and fatigue; and I must -cut myself adrift from the hysterical retrospection. - -I hurried towards the river, running obliquely to the south-east. If I -could once win to clean water, I was prepared, in my desperation, to -attempt to swim to the opposite bank. Stumbling, and sometimes -wallowing, I made my way up a sludgy shore and suddenly came to a -little creek or cove where a boat lay moored to a post. Close by, a -wooden shanty, set in a small common garden with benches, like the -Guinguettes of Paris, rattled to its very walls with boisterous -disputation, while the shadows of men tossing wine-cups danced on its -one window-blind. I unhitched the painter of the boat, pushed the prow -from the bank, and, as the little craft swung out into the channel, -scrambled softly on board and felt for the sculls in a panic. When I -had once grasped and tilted these into the rowlocks, I breathed a -great sigh of relief and pulled hurriedly round the stern of a -swinging vessel into the cool-running waters of the Dordogne. - -It was not until I had made more than half the passage to the farther -side that I would venture to pause a moment to assuage my cruel -thirst. Then, resting on my oars, I dipped in my hat and drank again -and again, until my whole system seemed to flow with moisture like a -rush. At last, clapping my sopped hat on my head, I was preparing to -resume my work, when I uttered a low exclamation of astonishment, and -sat transfixed. For something moved in the stern-sheets of the boat; -and immediately, putting aside a cloak under which it appeared he had -lain asleep, a child sat up on the bottom boards. - -Now, my heart seemed to tilt like a top-heavy thing. Must this hateful -necessity be mine, then--to silence, for my own safety, this baby of -six or seven, this little comical _poupon_ with the round cropt head -and ridiculous small shirt? - -He stared at me, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and suddenly began to -whimper. - -“_Heu! heu!_” he cried in the cheeping voice of a duckling, “_la -Grand’ Bête!_” - -He took me for the mythical monster of the peasants, whose power of -assumption of any form is in ratio with the corrective ingenuity of -nurses and mothers. - -“Yes,” I said, my brain leaping to an idea; “I am _la Grand’ Bête_, -and if you make a noise I shall devour you.” - -His eyes were like full brown agates; his chin puckered to his lower -lip; but he crushed his little fists against his chest to stay the -coming outcry. My face relaxed as I looked at him. - -“_La Grand’ Bête_ is kind to the little ones that obey him. Can you -use these sculls?” - -“_Mais, oui_,” he whispered, with a soft sob; “I am the pretty little -waterman.” - -“Very well. Now, little waterman, I shall land at the bank over there, -and then you can take the sculls and pull the boat across to the cove -again. But you must be very silent and secret about having gone with -_la Grand’ Bête_ over the river, or he will come to your bedside in -the night and devour you.” - -I had been rowing gently as I talked, and now the nose of the skiff -grounded easily under a low bank. I shipped the sculls, reached -forward and took the rogue in my arms. - -“Oh! but _la Grand’ Bête_ loves the good children. Be a discreet -little waterman, and thou shalt find a gold louis under thy pillow -this very day month.” - -I kissed him, and, turning, caught at the knots of grass and hauled -myself up the bank. It was a clumsy disembarkation for a god, perhaps, -but my late comrade did not appear to be shaken in his faith. I -stopped and looked back at him when I had run a few yards from the -river. He was paddling vigorously away, with a professional air, and -the moonlight was shattered on his scull-blades into a rain of -diamonds. Suddenly a patrol-boat was pulled up the river across his -bows, and I half turned to fly, my heart in my mouth. - -“Hullo, hullo, Jacksprat!” cried a rough voice. “What dost thou here -at this hour?” - -“They were noisy in the _auberge_,” answered the childish treble, “and -I could not sleep.” - -I went on my way with a smile. To have used the boat and cast it -adrift would not have prospered me so well as did this accident. Yet I -felt a shame of meanness to hear the little thing, taking its lying -cue from me, lie to the men, and I wished I had not clinched my -purchase of his silence with that promise of a louis-d’or. - -Pushing boldly across a wide moon-dappled margin of grass, so thronged -with trees as to afford one good cover, I came out suddenly into a -field-track running southwards, and along this I sped at a fast pace. -But presently, seeing figures mounting towards me from the dip of a -flying slope, I dived into a belt of corn that ran on my left between -the track and the skirt of a dense wood, and lay close among the -stalks waiting for the travellers to pass. This, however, to my -chagrin, they did not; but, when they were come right over against me, -they stopped, very disputative and voluble in a breathless manner, and -lashed one another with knotty thongs of patriotism. - -“But who wants virtue or moderation in a Commonwealth?” - -“Dost not thou?” - -“I?--I want heads--a head for every cobblestone in the Rue St Jacques. -I would walk on the brains of self-seekers. This Roland----” - -“He wore strings in his shoes to rebuke the vanity of the Veto----” - -“And to indulge his own. Head of a cabbage! thou wouldst weep over the -orator though he condemned thy belly to starvation. What! shall I -satisfy my hunger with a thesis on the beauty of self-denial, because, -like a drum, it has a full sound!” - -“Be sure I do not defend him; but has he not practised what he -taught?” - -“Of a certainty, and is double-damned thereby. For know that these -austere moralists have found their opportunity to indulge a hobby--not -to avenge a people. What do _we_ want with abstinence who have -practised it all our lives? What do we want with interminable phrases -on the sublimity of duty?” - -“But, thou wilt not understand that political economy----” - -“Bah! I know it for the economy of words--that delicious _terminer les -débats_ of the jury that rolls another lying mouth into the basket -and makes a body the less to feed. But I tell thee, with every fall of -the axe I feel myself shifting a place nearer the rich joints at the -top of the feast.” - -“Liberty----” - -“That I desire is the free indulgence of my appetites. Now would not -Roland and Vergniaud and their crew shave me nicely for that -sentiment? Therefore I love to hunt them down.” - -_A vieux chat jeune souris._ How indeed could these old grimalkins, -grown toothless under tyranny, digest this tough problem of virtue for -its own sake? Their food must be minced for them. - -I never saw their faces; but I guessed them, by a certain croaking in -their speech, to be worn with years and suffering. Presently, to my -disgust, they had out their pipes and a flask of cognac and sat -themselves down against the edge of the corn for a mild carouse. I -waited on and on, listening to their snuffling talk, till I grew sick -with the monotony of it and the cramp of my position. They were, I -gathered, informers employed by Tallien in his search for those -escaped Deputies who were believed to be in hiding in the -neighbourhood. - -At last I could stand it no longer. Move I must, for all the risk it -entailed. I set to work, very cautiously, a foot at a time, wriggling -on my belly through the corn. They took no notice, each being voluble -to assert his opinions against the other. Presently, making towards -the wood, I found the field to dip downwards to its skirt, so that I -was enabled to raise myself to a crouching position and increase my -pace. The relief was immense; I was running as the tree-trunks came -near and opened out to me. - -Now, I was so weary that I thought I must sleep awhile before I -proceeded. I was pushing through the last few yards of the stalks when -a guttural snarl arrested me. Immediately, right in my path, a head -was protruded from the corn, and a bristled snout, slavering in the -moonlight, was lifted at me. I stood a moment transfixed--a long -moment, it appeared to me. The ridiculous fancy occurred to me that -the yellow eyes glaring into mine would go on dilating till presently -I should find myself embedded in their midst, like a prawn in aspic. -Then, with a feeling of indescribable politeness in my heart, I turned -aside to make a _détour_ into the wood, stepping on tiptoe as if I -were leaving a sick-room. Once amongst the trees, I penetrated the -darkness rapidly to the depth of a hundred yards, not venturing to -look behind me, and, indeed, only before in search of some reasonable -branch or fork where I might rest in safety. Wolves! I had not taken -these into my calculations in the glowing solstice of summer, and it -gave me something a shock to think what I had possibly escaped during -my unguarded nights in the forest. - -At length I found the place I sought--a little natural chair of -branches high enough to be out of the reach of wild beasts, yet the -ascent thereto easy. I climbed to it, notched myself in securely, and, -my hunger somewhat comforted by the water I had drunk, fell almost -immediately into a delicious stupor. - -I awoke quite suddenly, yet with a smooth swift leap to consciousness. -The angle of moonlight was now shifted to an oblique one, so that no -rays entered direct; and the space beneath me was sunk into profound -darkness. For some moments I lay in a happy trance, dully appreciative -of the indistinct shapes that encompassed me, of the smell of living -green bark near my face, of the stars embroidered into a woof of twigs -overhead. But presently, gazing down, a queer little phenomenon of -light fixed my attention, indifferently at first, then with an -increase of wonder. This spot of pink radiance waxed and waned and -waxed and waned, with a steady recurrence, on the butt of a great -tree, twenty yards away. At first it was of a strong rosy tint, but -little by little it faded till it was a mere phosphorescent blot; and -then, while I was flogging my brains to think what it could be, of a -sudden it seemed to fly down to the noise of a little grunting -explosion, and break into a shower of scarlet sparks. - -At that I was betrayed into a squiggle of laughter; for my phenomenon -had in the flash resolved itself into nothing more mysterious than the -glow from the pipe of a man seated silently smoking, with his head -thrown back against the tree-foot. - -“Hullo!” he exclaimed in a surprised voice, but with nothing of fear -in it; and I congratulated myself at least that the voice struck a -different note to that of either of M. Tallien’s informers. -Nevertheless, I had been a fool, and I judged it the wise policy to -slide from my perch and join my unseen companion. He made me out, I am -sure, long before I did him; yet he never moved or showed sign of -apprehension. - -“Good evening, Jacques,” said I. - -“Good morrow, rather, Jacques squirrel,” he answered. - -“Is it so?” - -“It is so.” - -“You prefer the burrow, it seems, and I the branch.” - -“No doubt we are not birds of a feather.” - -“Why, truly, I seek Deputies,” I said, in a sudden inspiration. - -“And I my fortune,” he answered, serenely. - -“We travel by the same road, then. Have you a fragment of bread on -you, comrade?” - -“If I had a loaf thou shouldst go wanting a crumb of it.” - -“And why, citizen?” - -“I do not love spies.” - -I fetched a grimace over my miscarried ruse. - -“Then wilt thou never make thy fortune in France,” I said. - -He gave a harsh laugh. - -“_You_ will prevent me for that word, citizen.” - -I curled myself up under the tree. - -“I will wait for the dawn and read thee thy fortune,” I said, “and -charge thee nothing for it but a kick to help thee on thy way.” - -He laughed again at that. - -“Thou provest thyself an ass,” said he, and refilled and lit his pipe -and smoked on silently. - -I lay awake near him, because, churl as he appeared, I felt the -advantage of any human companionship in these beast-haunted thickets. - -At last the light of dawn penetrated a little to where we rested, and -when it was broad enough to distinguish objects by, I rolled upon my -elbow and scrutinised my companion closely. - -“Good morrow, then, burner of charcoal.” - -He turned to me, a leering smile suspended on his lips. - -“_Comment?_” said he. - -“But I am a palmist, my friend, as you observe.” - -He looked at his stunted and blackened fists. - -“Ah! _si fait vraiment_. That is to tell my past condition of poverty, -not my fortune.” - -“The rest shall come. Observe my fitness for my post. You are from the -forests of Nontron.” - -He started and stared. - -“Truly I have no love for spies,” he muttered, dismayed. - -It was my turn to laugh. I had hazarded a bold guess. That he was from -the woods rather than from the Landes his gift of seeing through the -darkness convinced me. Then, if from the woods, why not from that part -of the province where they stretched thickest and most meet for his -trade? - -“Now,” said I, “for what follows. It comes to your ears that Guienne -is hatching a fine breed of maggots from the carcasses of dead -aristocrats; that there is a feast of rich fragments toward. You will -have your share; you will eat of these aristocrats that have so long -fed on you. That is a very natural resolve. But in a Republic of -maggots, as in all other communities, there is always a proportion of -the brood that will fatten unduly at the expense of its fellows. These -despots by constitution appropriate the most succulent parts; they wax -thick and strong, and, finally, they alone of the swarm hatch out into -flies, while the rest perish undeveloped.” - -“It is a cursed parable,” he said, sullenly. “I do not comprehend -you.” - -“I speak of the people, my friend--of whom you are not one that will -fatten.” - -“And why, and why?” - -“You have scruples. You decry at the outset the methods of this select -clique of the Republic that has the instinct to prosper. If I -congratulate you on the possession of a conscience, I must deplore in -anticipation the sacrifice of yet another martyr to that truism which -history repeats as often as men forget it.” - -“What truism, sayst thou?” - -“That swinish Fortune will love the lusty bully that drains her, -though the bulk of the litter starve.” - -He spat savagely on the ground. - -“I do not comprehend,” he muttered again. - -“Well,” I said, “at least let us hope there is an especial Paradise -reserved for the undeveloped maggots.” - -He rose and stood brooding a moment; then looked away from me and -cried morosely, “Get up!” - -To my astonishment, from a sort of cradle of roots to the farther side -of the tree a young girl scrambled to her feet at his call, and stood -yawning and eyeing me loweringly. - -“Your daughter?” said I. - -“Yes,” he answered, “she is my daughter. What then?” - -I jumped up in some suppressed excitement. - -“I recall my words,” I said. “You have a chance, after all, down there -in Bordeaux. And now I see that it is a thief that fears a spy.” - -I pointed at the wench. She was dressed, ridiculously, -inappropriately, in a silk gown of a past fashion, but rich in -quality, and decorated with a collar of point-lace. Out of this her -dirty countenance, thatched with a villainous mop of hair, stuck -grotesquely; and the skirt of the dress had been roughly caught up to -disencumber her bare feet. - -The man stamped on the ground. - -“I do not fear you!” he cried furiously, “and I am no thief!” - -I laughed derisively. - -“But it is true!” he shouted. “A young lady we met in the woods of -Coutras would exchange it for Nannette’s _jupon_; and why the devil -should we deny her?” - -My heart gave a sudden swerve. - -“What was she like, this lady?” I said. - -The fellow glanced sulkily askance at me. - -“Does not the spy know?” he said. - -“Perhaps he does. Say this demoiselle was slender and of a reasonable -height; that she had brown hair, and grey eyes under dark brows; that -her face was of a cold, transparent whiteness; that she spoke with a -certain soft huskiness in her voice.” - -He cried under his breath, with a note of fright, “The devil is in -this man!” - -I laughed and took off my hat and made the two a bow. - -“To your quick advancement in Bordeaux!” I said. - -He stared a moment, seemed to hesitate; then, roughly summoning the -girl to follow him, strode off through the wood. The moment they were -out of sight I sat down again to ponder. - -Was it true, then, that these peasants had met Carinne--that they had -helped her to a disguise--for what purpose? She must have been in the -woods whilst I was there--accursed destiny that kept us apart! At -least I must return to them at once and seek her. - -I broke into a queer embarrassed fit of laughter. - -What self-ordained mission was this? What was my interest in the girl, -or how would she not resent, perhaps, the insolence of my -interference? She had no claim upon my protection or I upon her -favour. - -Very well and very well--but I was going to seek her, nevertheless. -Such queer little threads of irresponsible adventure pulled me in -these days. - -But, at first for my hunger. It was a great voice in an empty house. -It would not be refused or put off with a feast of sentiment. Eat I -must, if it was only of a hunk of sour pease-bread. - -Suddenly I thought of that bestial apparition at the wood-skirt. There -had been a liquid “yong” in its snarl, as if it could not forbear the -action of gluttonous jaws even while they were setting at an intruder. -Perhaps the remains of a goat----! - -I started running towards the point at which, I believed, I had -entered amongst the trees. Very shortly I emerged into the open, and -saw the cornfield shimmering violet before me in the dawn. I beat up -and down amongst the standing grain, and all in a moment came upon -that I sought. A goat it might have been (or a scapegoat bearing the -sins of the people) for anything human in its appearance. Yet it was -the body of a man--of a great man, too, in his day, I believe--that -lay before me in the midst of a trampled crib of stalks, but -featureless, half-devoured--a seething abomination. - -Now, in the placid aftermath of my fortunes, I can very easily shudder -over that thought of the straits to which hunger will drive one. Then, -I only know that through all the abhorrence with which I regarded the -hideous remains, the sight of an untouched satchel flung upon the -ground beside them thrilled me with hope. I stooped, had it in my -hands, unbuckled it with shaking fingers. It was full to choking of -bread and raisins and a little flask of cognac. Probably the poor -wretch had not thought it worth his while to satisfy the needs of an -existence he was about to put an end to. For the horn handle of a -knife, the blade of which was hidden in the decaying heart of the -creature, stood out slackly from a hoop of ribs. - -I withdrew into the wood, and without a scruple attacked the -provisions. It was a dry and withered feast; yet I had been -fastidiously critical of many a _service aux repas_ at Versailles that -gave me not a tithe of the pleasure I now enjoyed. And at the last I -drank to the white Andromeda whose Perseus I then and there proclaimed -myself to be. - - - - - CHAPTER VI. - THE HERD OF SWINE. - -I was back in the woods of Pierrettes, my precious satchel, still -but two-thirds emptied, slung about my shoulders, my clothes wrinkled -dry from their sopping in the waters of the Dordogne. All that day of -my finding of the food had I lain concealed in the woods; but, with -the fall of dusk, I made my way, by a long _détour_, to the -river-bank, and crossed the stream swimming and in safety. And now was -I again _la Grand’ Bête_, seeking to trace in the scent of trodden -violets the path by which my phantom Carinne had vanished. - -That night I passed, warned by experience, in the branches of a tree. -With dawn of the following day I was on foot again, striking -northwards by the sun, and stretching over the encumbered miles with -all the speed I could accomplish. I had a thought in my breast, and -good fortune enabled me to put it to the proof. For, somewhere about -four o’clock as I judged, I emerged into a woodland track that I felt -convinced was the one made detestable by a dangling body; and sure -enough I came of a sudden to the fatal tree, and was aware of a cut -slack of rope hanging from a branch thereof, though the corpse itself -was removed. - -Now, it behoved me to proceed with caution, which I did; yet none so -successfully but that I came plump out of the mouth of the green -passage upon M. de Lâge himself, and saw and was seen by him in a -single moment. Therefore I had nothing for it but to brazen out the -situation. - -He showed no disturbance at my approach, nor, indeed, did he take any -notice of me; but he crept hither and thither, with lack-lustre eyes, -gathering nettles. I went up to him, suppressing my repugnance of the -miserable creature. - -“Is mademoiselle returned?” I said outright. - -He stopped in his picking, and leered up at me vaguely. He seemed -utterly broken and forlorn. - -“She will not return,” he said; and resumed his task. I stood some -moments watching him. Suddenly he clasped his hands plaintively -together and looked me again in the face. - -“Why did she go at all?” he said. “Can monsieur tell me, for I -forget?” - -He put his fingers aimlessly, like an infant, to his head. - -“I had a pride in her. She was beautiful and self-willed. _Mon Dieu!_ -but she would make me laugh or tremble, the rogue. Well, she is gone.” - -Could it be that his every memory of his villainy was lost with his -cherished tankards? - -“What a love was mine,” he murmured. “I would have denied her -nothing--in reason; and she has deserted me.” - -“Monsieur,” I said, “do you remember me?” - -“You, you!” he cried angrily--“what do I know or care about this Orson -that springs upon me from the green? You need to be shaved and washed, -monsieur.” - -“Undoubtedly; if monsieur would provide me with the means?” - -He gave me a quick inquisitive look. - -“You have a queer accent for a patriot. Well, well--it is no concern -of mine.” - -Again he resumed his task, again to pause in it. - -“Do you seek a service? I hear it is the case with many.” - -“I seek food and a lodging for the night.” - -“Eh! but can you pay for them?” - -“In reason--certainly, in reason.” - -“So, then?--should Georgette bring a generous basketful--bah!” he -cried suddenly, stamping irritably on the ground--“I offer you my poor -hospitality, monsieur, and” (the leer came into his eyes -again)--“should monsieur feel any scruple, a vail left on the -mantelpiece for the servants will doubtless satisfy it.” - -But he had no servant left to him, it would seem. When, by-and-by, he -ushered me, with apish ceremony, into his house, I found the place -desolate and forlorn as we had left it. - -“I have reduced my following,” he said, “since my niece withdrew -herself from my protection. What does a single bachelor want with an -army of locusts to devour him?” - -He showed me into a little bare room on the second floor, with nothing -worthy of remark in it but an ill-furnished bedstead, and a baneful -picture on the wall that I learnt was a portrait of Carinne by -herself. - -“It is a little of a travesty,” said De Lâge. “She looked in a -mirror, and painted as she saw herself therein--crooked, like a stick -dipt under water. But she was clever, for all she insisted that this -was a faithful likeness.” - -I believe there were tears on his face as he left me. What a riddle -was the creature! There is a blind spot in every eye, it is said--and -the eyes are the windows of the soul. - -He had supplied me with soap and water and a razor, and these I found -almost as grateful to my wants as the satchel had been. When I was -something restored to cleanliness I descended to the corridor below, -and, attracted by a sound of movement, entered one of the rooms that -opened therefrom. - -Within, a young woman was engaged in laying one end of a carved-oak -table with a white napkin. She looked round as I advanced, stared, -gave a twitter of terror, and, retreating to the wall, put an arm up, -with the elbow pointed at me, as if I were something horrible in her -sight. - -I had a sharp intuition; for this, I saw, was the little _aubergiste_ -of the ‘Golden Lion.’ - -“You think me responsible for the poor rogue’s hanging?” I said. - -She whispered “Yes,” with a pitiful attempt to summon her indignation -to this ordeal of fear. I went up to her and spoke gently, while she -shrunk from me. - -“Georgette, my child, it is not so. You must take that on my honour, -for I am a gentleman, Georgette, in disguise.” - -“In disguise?” she whispered, with trembling lips; but her eyes -wondered. - -“Truly, little girl; I am a wanderer now, and proscribed because I -would not lend myself to thy Michel’s punishment.” - -“Oh!” she sobbed, “but it was cruel. And the Republic destroys its own -children, m’sieu’.” - -“Thy father----?” - -“Ah! he, at least, is back, if still under surveillance; otherwise I -should not be enabled to come daily to minister to the needs of this -poor lonely old man.” - -“Now thou art a good soul, thou little _aubergiste_. And thy -ministrations are meat to him, I perceive.” - -“Hush, m’sieu’! but if he were to hear? He asks no questions, he -accepts all like a child. He would die of shame were he to learn that -he owes his dinner to the gratitude of m’sieu’ his father’s -dependant.” - -“Is he so sensitive? Thou great little Georgette! And -mademoiselle--she does not return?” - -She shook her head. - -“Tell me where she is, child; for I believe you know.” - -“Oh!” she murmured, obviously in great distress, “m’sieu’ must not ask -me.” - -I took her hands and drew her towards me. - -“Look in my eyes and tell me what you see there.” - -She glanced up scared and entreating. - -“But, is it cruelty, false faith, the currish soul of the liar and -informer?” - -“No, no, m’sieu’.” - -“Then is it not, rather, the honour of a gentleman, the chivalry that -would help and protect a defenceless woman cast adrift in this fearful -land of blood and licence?” - -I gave her my title. - -“Now,” I said, “you can cast me to the axe with a word. And where is -Mademoiselle Carinne, Georgette?” - -She still hesitated. I could see the little womanly soul of her -tossing on a lake of tears. - -“At least,” I said, “she will not return hither?” - -“She will never return--oh, monseigneur! she will never return; and it -is not for me to say why.” - -I released her hands. - -“Well,” I said, “I would have helped her and have cared for her, -Georgette; but you will not let me.” - -She broke forth at once at that, her arms held out and her eyes -swimming. - -“I will tell you, monseigneur--all that I know; and God forgive me if -I do wrong!” - -“And me, Georgette, and wither me with His vengeance.” - -“I will tell you, monseigneur. That night--that night after the -terror, she spent in the woods, and all the next day she hid there, -moving towards Coutras. I would go often to the Château to take to M. -de Lâge the money for our weekly bill of faggots, and--and for other -reasons; and now she watched for me and waylaid me and told me all. -Oh, m’sieu’! she was incensed--and it was not for me to judge; but M. -de Lâge is a wise man, and perhaps there is a wisdom that makes too -little account of the scruples of our sex.” - -“She would not return to him? Well!” - -“She would beg or starve sooner, she said; and she would begin by -asking a little food of me. Oh, m’sieu’, but the sad proud demoiselle! -My heart wept to hear her so humble to the peasant girl to whom she -had been good and gracious always in the old days of peace.” - -“That is well. And where is she?” - -“I cannot tell you, m’sieu’. Ah, pardon! She but waited for the night, -when I could bring her food--all that would keep and that she could -carry--and then she started on foot for the mountains of Gatine.” - -“Now, _mon Dieu_! they must be twenty leagues away.” - -“Twenty-five, m’sieu’, by La Roche Chalais and Mareuil. But she would -avoid the towns, and journey by way of the woods and the harsh -desolate country. Mother of God! but it makes me weep to think of her -white face and her tender feet in those frightful solitudes.” - -“It is madness!” - -“But indeed, m’sieu’. And, though the towns gather all to them and the -country is depopulated, there may be savages still left here and -there--swineherds, charcoal-burners, to whom that libertine -Lacombe----” - -“Silence, girl! And you would have denied her a protector!” - -“She bound me to silence, m’sieu’, lest her uncle should send in -pursuit.” - -“It is madness--it is madness. And what does she go to seek in the -mountains?” - -“Ah! m’sieu’, I know not--unless it is some haven of rest where the -footstep of man is never heard.” - -“Now, Georgette; will you meet me to-night where you met her, and -bring me food--for which I will pay you--and point me out the way that -Mademoiselle Carinne took at parting? I have a mind to journey to the -mountains, also, and to go by the harsh country and to start in the -dark. Will you, Georgette?” - -“Pray the good God,” she said, “that it is not all a _jeu de -l’oie_”--and at that moment we heard De Lâge feebly mounting the -stairway. - -He entered the room and accosted me with a sort of sly courtesy that -greatly confounded me. Associations connected with my reappearance, -perhaps, had kindled the slow fuse of his memory; but the flame would -burn fitfully and in a wrong direction; and, indeed, I think the shock -of his loss (of the tankards) had quite unhinged his mind. - -“Shall we fall to?” he said. “This is not Paris; yet our good country -Grisels can canvass the favour of a hungry man.” - -He gave a ridiculous little laugh. - -“And what have we here, girl?” he said. - -“M’sieu’, it is a pasty of young partridges.” - -His palate was not dulled with his wits. It foretasted the delicacy -and his eyes moistened. He lingered regretfully over the wedge he cut -for me. - -“Be generous, monsieur,” he cried, with an enjoying chuckle, “and own -that you have been served none better at Véry’s. Oh, but I know my -Paris! I was there so late as September of last year, and again, on -business connected with my estate, during the month of the king’s -trial.” - -He blenched over some sudden half-memory; but the sight of Georgette -carrying my platter to me restored him to the business of the table. - -“I know my Paris!” he cried again. “I have taken kidneys with -champagne at La Rapée’s; sheep’s feet at la Buvette du Palais; -oysters at Rocher de Cançale. Ho-ho! but does monsieur know the -Rocher?” - -“_Venite ad me omnes qui stomacho laboratis, et ego restaurabo vos!_” -I said, quoting a well-known inscription over an eating-house. - -He gave a sharp little squeak. - -“Eh! but monsieur has the right etymology of the _restaurateur_; he is -a man of taste and of delicacy. This poor burgundy” (he clawed up his -glass)--“it might have been Clos Vougeot de Tourton if monsieur had -not been so stringent in his sequestration.” - -He favoured me with a leer--very arch and very anxious. I could only -stare. Evidently he took me, in his wandering mind, for some other -than that I was. I was to be enlightened in a moment. - -It was when Georgette had left the room and we were alone. The falling -sunlight came through a curtain of vine-leaves about the window, and -reddened his old mad face. He bent forward, looking at me eagerly. - -“Hush, monsieur! The plate--the tankards--the christening-cups! You -will let me have them back? My God! there was a cross, in niello, of -the twelfth century. It will bring you nothing in the markets of the -Vandals. Monsieur, monsieur! I accept your terms--hot terms, brave -terms for a bold wooer. But you must not seek to carry her with a high -hand. She knows herself, and her pride and her beauty. Hush! I can -tell you where she lies hidden. She crouches under a rosebush in the -garden, and as the petals fall, they have covered and concealed her.” - -Now I understood. He was again, in his lost soul, staking Carinne -against his forfeited pots. He took me for Lacombe. - -I jumped to my feet. - - * * * * * * * - -And now began my second period of wandering; but under conditions -infinitely more trying than the first. Keeping to the dense woods by -day, and traversing the highways only by night, I had hitherto escaped -that which was to prove the cruellest usurer of my vigour--the -merciless blazing sun. Here, as I travelled by desolate broomy wastes; -by arid hills, from which any knob of rock projecting was hot as the -handle of an oven; by choking woods and endless winding valleys,--I -would sometimes ask myself in amazement what could be the nature of -the infatuation that for its own sake would elect to endure these -sufferings. I had not spoken to the girl. I was not authorised to -champion her cause. Strangest of all, the lack of womanly -sensitiveness she had displayed under the very ordeal of St Fargeau’s -dying groans had not prepossessed me in her favour. Yet, slowly was I -making, and would continue to make, my way to these mountains of -Limosin, in the dreamy hope of happening upon a self-willed and rather -heartless young woman, who--if we _were_ to come together--would -probably resent my intrusion as an affront. Truly an eccentric quest. - -Well--I was unaccountable to myself, and of no account to others. -Maybe that last is the explanation. My world of conventions was dead, -and I lived--as I have already said--a posthumous life. Through it, no -doubt, I was drawn by shadows--attracted by the unexplainable--blown -by any wind of irresponsibility. This anarchy at least opened out -strange vistas of romance to the imaginative soul. It is odd to live -apart from, and independent of, the voice of duty. That state shall -seldom occur; but, when it does, to experience it is to something feel -the marvel of dematerialisation. - -Depleted of human life; savage in its loneliness; blistered and flaked -by the sun, the country through which I travelled was yet beautiful to -a degree. Of food--by means of eking out my little supply with -chestnuts and wild berries--I had a poor sufficiency; but thirst -tortured me often and greatly. I moved slowly, threshing the land, as -it were, for traces of an ignis-fatuus that still fled before me in -fancy. And I had my frights and perils--one adventure, also; but that -I shall not in this connection relate. - -Once, high up on the ridge of a valley, I saw a poor wretch, his arms -bound behind him, hurrying forward under escort of a guard. It was -evening, soft and tranquil. A cluster of mountain-peaks swam in the -long distance; the horizon was barred with a grate of glowing clouds. -Therethrough, it seemed, the consumed sun had fallen into white ashes -of mist; but the cooling furnace of the sky, to the walls of which a -single star clung like an unextinguished spark, was yet rosy with -heat; and against the rose the hillside and the figures that crowned -it were silhouetted in a sharp deep purple. How beautiful and how -voiceless! The figure fell, and his scream came down to me like a -bat’s cheep as the soldiers prodded him to rise with their bayonets. -Then I cursed the Goths that had spoiled me my picture. - -Another time, lying concealed in a little hanging copse above a gorge, -I heard bleating below me and the rainy patter of feet, and peered -forth to see a flock of goats being driven down the valley. They were -shepherded by three or four ‘requisition’ men, as they were -called--patriot louts whose business it was to beat up the desolated -country for those herds of sheep or swine that had run wild for lack -of owners. Their unexpected appearance was a little lesson in caution -to me, for I had enjoyed so long an immunity from interference as to -have grown careless of showing myself in the most exposed districts. - -On two occasions only was I troubled by wolves. The first was on a -morning of lassitude and fatigue, when water had failed me for many -hours. I was resting, on a heath-covered slope, within a rocky cave or -lair in the hillside. For long the sky wraiths had been loading cloud -upon cloud, till the gathered steam of the earth, finding no outlet, -seemed to scald one’s body. Then, in a moment, such a storm crashed -down as I had never before experienced. Each slam of thunder amongst -the rocks was like a port of hell flung open; the lightning, slashing -through the hail, seemed to melt and run in a marrowy-white flood that -palpitated as it settled down on the heather. But the hail! the fury -of this artillery of ice--its noise, and the frenzy of the Carmagnole -it danced! I was fortunate to be under a solid roof; and when at last -the north wind, bristling with blades, charged down the valley like -the Duke of Saxony’s Horse at Fontenoy, I thought the earth must have -slipped its course and swerved into everlasting winter. - -Suddenly the mouth of the _ressui_ was blotted by a couple of shaggy -forms. They came pelting up--their tails hooked like carriage-brakes -to their bellies, their eyes blazing fear--and, seeing me within, -jerked to a rigid halt, while the stones drummed on their hides. The -next moment, cowed out of all considerations of caste, they had slunk -by me and were huddled, my very sinister familiars, at the extreme end -of the cave. - -Oh, but this was the devil of an embarrassment! I had sat out sermons -that stabbed me below the belt at every second lunge; I had had -accepted offers of gallantry that I had never made; I had ridiculed -the work of an anonymous author to his face. Here, however, was a -situation that it seemed beyond my power of _finesse_ to acquit myself -of with _aplomb_. In point of fact, the moment the storm slackened, I -slipped out--conscious of the strange fancy that bristles were growing -on my thighs--and, descending hurriedly to the valley, climbed a tree. -It was only then (so base is human nature) that I waived the pretence -that the wolf is a noble animal. - -But my second experience was a more finished one. Then I tasted the -full flavour of fright, and almost returned the compliment of a feast -to my company. I was padding, towards evening, over a woodland lawn, -when from a hollow at the foot of a great chestnut-tree a rumbling -snarl issuing vibrated on the strings of my sensibilities, and I saw -three or four very ugly snouts project themselves from the blackness. -I went steadily by and steadily continued my way, which without doubt -was the discerning policy to pursue. But impulse will push behind as -well as fly before reason, and presently that which affects the nerves -of motion did so frantically hustle me at the rear as to set me off -running at the top of my speed. Then the folly of my behaviour was -made manifest to me, for, glancing over my shoulder as I sped, I saw -that no fewer than five fierce brutes were come out of their lair at -the sound, and were beginning to slink in my wake. - -I gave a yell that would have fetched Charon from the other side of -the Styx; my feet seemed to dance on air; I threatened to outstrip my -own breath. Still the patter behind me swelled into a race, and I -found myself ghastlily petting a thought as to the length of a wolfs -eye-tooth and the first feel of it clamped into one’s flesh. Now, of a -sudden, the wood opened out, and I saw before me the butt of a decayed -tree, and, on its farther side, a little reedy pond shining livid -under a rampart of green that hedged off the sunset. At the water I -drove, in a lost hope that the pursuit would check itself at its -margin, and, in my blind onset, dashed against a branch of the dead -tree and fell half stunned into the pool beyond. Still an inspiring -consciousness of my peril enabled me to scramble farther, splashing -and choking, until I was perhaps twenty yards from the shore; and -then, in shallow water, I sat down, my head just above the surface, -and caught at my sliding faculties and laughed. Immediately I was -myself again, and the secure and wondering spectator of a very -Walpurgis dance that was enacting for my benefit on the bank. - -The five wolves appeared, indeed, to be skipping in pure amazement, -like the mountains of Judæa; but they howled in tribulation, like the -gate of Palestina. They leapt and ran hither and thither; they bit at -the air, at their flanks, at their feet; they raked their heads with -their paws and rolled on the ground in knots. At last I read the -riddle in a tiny moted cloud that whirled above them. In dashing -against the rotten branch I had, it seemed, upset a hornets’ nest -built in the old tooth of the tree, and the garrison had sallied forth -to cover my retreat. - -Oh, but the braves! I raised a little pæan to them on the spot, but I -took care not to shout it. Suddenly the beasts turned tail and went -yelling back into the wood. I did not rise at once. I left the victors -time to congratulate themselves and to settle down. And at last I was -too diffident to pester them with my gratitude, and I waded sheer -across the pool (that was nowhere more than three feet deep) and -landed on its farther side. - - * * * * * * * - -One day I happened upon Carinne! - -That is the high note of this droning chant of retrospection. - -I was walking aimlessly, the hot thirst upon me once more, when I came -out from amongst trees into a sort of forest amphitheatre of -considerable extent, whose base, like the kick in a bottle, was a -round hill, pretty high, and scattered sparsely with chestnut-trees. I -climbed the slopes toilfully, and getting a view of things from near -the summit, saw that to the north the circumference of green was -broken by the gates of a hazy valley. It was as beautiful a place as I -had ever chanced on; but its most gladdening corner to me was that -whence a little brook looped out of the forest skirt, like a timid -child coaxed from its mother’s apron, and pattering a few yards, fled -back again to shelter. - -Now I would take it all in before I descended, postponing the cool -ecstasy like an epicure. I mounted to the top, and, peering between -the chestnut trunks down the farther slopes, uttered an exclamation of -surprise. A herd of swine was peacefully feeding against the fringe of -the wood, and, even as I looked, one of them, a mottled porkling, -crashed through a little rug of branches spread upon the ground and -vanished into Tartarus. Immediately his dismal screeches rebuked the -skies, and, at the sound, a girl came running out of the wood, and, -kneeling above the fatal breach, clasped her hands over her eyes and -turned away her face--a very Niobe of pigs. Seeing her thus, I -descended to her assistance; but, lost in her grief, it seemed, she -did not hear me until I was close upon her. Then suddenly she glanced -up startled,--and her eyes were the cold eyes of Carinne. - - - - - CHAPTER VII. - THE CHEVALIER DU GUET. - -The eyes of Mademoiselle de Lâge were a merciless grey; her face -was gold-white, like a dying maple-leaf. She wore no cap on her -tumbled hair, and a coarse bistre-coloured _jupon_ was her prominent -article of attire. I knew her at once, nevertheless, though her cheeks -were a little fallen and her under-lids dashed with violet. She stared -at me as she knelt; but she made no sign that she was afraid. - -“Mademoiselle is in tribulation?” - -“You need not speak a swineherd so fair,” she said. - -“But I honour pork with all my heart.” - -She rose to her feet. She seemed to hesitate. But she never took her -eyes off me. - -“Whence do you come?” she said, in her soft, deliberate voice. - -“From the woods--from the wastes--from anywhere. I am proscribed and -in hiding. I am hungry, also,--and mademoiselle will give me to eat?” - -“Why do you call me ‘mademoiselle’? Do you not see I am a swineherd?” - -The little pig still screeched fitfully underground. - -“Oh!” she cried, in sudden anguish. “Kill it, monsieur, if you know -the way, and let us dine!” - -I was pleased with that “us.” - -“I have no technical knowledge,” I said. “But, let us see. It is -injured?” - -“_Mon Dieu!_ I hope not. I had so longed to taste meat once more, and -I had heard of pitfalls. There was a hole in the ground. I covered it -over with branches, that one of these might step thereon and tumble in -and be killed. But when I heard his cries I was sorry.” - -“That was a bold thought for a swineherd. And how would you tell your -tale, with one devoured? or get the little pig out of the pit? or skin -and dismember and cook it when hauled to the surface?” - -“All that I had not considered.” - -“But you desired to eat pork? And what would you say now to a pig’s -foot _à la_ St Menehould?” - -The jest bubbled out of me; I could not withhold it. Her mind was as -quick as her speech was measured. - -“Ah!” she cried, “but I remember. And you were in Février’s, -monsieur?” - -“At the table next to yours.” - -“That is strange, is it not!” - -She gave a little scornful shift to her shoulders. - -“It is all nothing in these mad days. The question is, monsieur, if -you can put the little beast out of his pain?” - -I looked into the pit. Two beady eyes, withdrawn into a fat neck, -peered up at me. - -“The hole is not six feet deep, mademoiselle. His pain is all upon his -nerves.” - -She gave a whimper of relief. Then her face fell cold again. - -“It follows that we must forego our dinner. Will monsieur release the -victim of my gluttony?” - -I jumped into the hole--hoisted out the small squeaker--returned to -the surface. - -“_Bon jour_, monsieur!” said Carinne. - -“You will dismiss me hungry, mademoiselle?” - -“What claim have you upon me?” - -“The claim of fraternity, citoyenne.” - -She uttered a little laugh of high disdain. - -“Well, rob me,” she said, “and prove yourself a true Republican.” - -“I would steal nothing from you but your favour.” - -“It is all bestowed on these animals. Take him you have rescued and -make yourself my debtor and go.” - -“Mademoiselle, is this to be, when I have spent days--nay, I know not -how many--of hunger and thirst and weariness in the desperate pursuit -of one to whom I had vowed to offer those services of protection she -lacked elsewhere?” - -Her pale eyes wondered at me. - -“Do you speak of the swineherd, monsieur?” she said. - -“I speak of Mademoiselle de Lâge.” - -“She is very secure and in good company. And whence comes your -knowledge of, or interest in, her?” - -“Shall I tell you the story?” - -“Nay,” she said, with a sudden swerve to indifference; “but how does -it concern me?” - -“Your uncle, mademoiselle!” - -“I have none that I own.” - -I was silent. She looked away from me, tapping a foot on the ground. -It was all a fight between her bitterness and her pride. With a woman -the first conquers. - -“Tell me,” she said in a moment, turning upon me, “do you come from -him?” - -“I come from him.” - -“Commissioned to beg me to return?” - -“No, mademoiselle. Nor would I insult you with such a message.” - -“I can dispense with your interest in me, sir.” - -Again she averted her face. Decidedly she required some knowing. -By-and-by she spoke again, without looking round and more gently-- - -“How does M. de Lâge bear the loss of--the loss of his treasures?” - -“He is, I fear, demented by it.” - -She gave a bad little laugh. - -“One who would sell his honour should at least keep his wits. Well, -monsieur, I have nothing with which to reward your service of runner, -so----” - -“A meal and a drink of water will repay me, mademoiselle.” - -“You can help yourself. Do you think I keep a larder in the forest?” - -“But you eat?” - -“My table is spread under the chestnut-trees and over the bushes. I -leave its selection to my friends yonder. Sometimes they will present -me with a truffle for feast-days.” - -I regarded the proud child with some quaintness of pity. This -repelling manner was doubtless a mask over much unhappiness. - -“I have still something left in my satchel,” I said. “Will -mademoiselle honour me by sharing it?” - -The light jumped in her eyes. - -“I do not know,” she said. “What is its nature?” - -“Only some raisins and a little hard bread.” - -“But bread, monsieur! That I have not tasted for long. We will go to -the brook-side and sit down.” - -“And the herd?” - -“They will not wander. When they come to a fruitful ground they stay -there till it is stripped.” - -She led the way round the hill to the little gushing stream and seated -herself on a green stone. I would not even slake my thirst until I had -spread my store on her lap. Then I lay down at her feet, like a dog, -and waited for the fragments she could spare. She ate with relish, and -took little notice of me. But presently she paused, in astonishment at -herself. - -“I am eating up your dinner!” she cried. - -“It gives me more pleasure to watch than to share with you.” - -“Oh, fie!” she exclaimed. “But am I not a true swineherd?” - -She handed me the satchel. - -“It is all yours, mademoiselle.” - -“Eat!” she said peremptorily. “I will not touch another mouthful.” - -She leaned an elbow on her knee and her chin upon her knuckles while I -devoured what remained. Her eyes dreamed into the thronging -tree-trunks. I thought the real softness of her soul was beginning to -quicken like a February narcissus. - -“But how I long for meat!” she said, suddenly. - -I laughed. - -“If mademoiselle will retain me in her service, I will make shift to -provide her with a dish of pork.” - -She turned and looked at me. - -“Is it true you have sought me out? I have no knowledge of your face.” - -“It will not, like mademoiselle’s, impress itself on the imagination. -I have seen you, by chance, twice before, mademoiselle, and therefore -it follows, in the logic of gallantry, that I am here.” - -She drew herself up at that word I was foolish enough to utter. - -“I perceive, monsieur, that you hold the licence of your tongue a -recommendation to my service. Is this another message with the -delivery of which you would not insult me?” - -“Nay, mademoiselle, I spoke the common fashion of more trivial times -than these; and I ask your pardon. It is to save you from the -possibility of insult that I have wandered and starved these many -days.” - -She looked at me very gravely. - -“I foresee no danger in these solitudes. I am sorry, monsieur; but I -cannot accept your service.” - -She rose to her feet and I to mine. - -“Mademoiselle,” I cried, “be wise to reconsider the question! A -delicate and high-born lady, solitary and defenceless amongst these -barbarous hills! But I myself, on my journey hither, have encountered -more than one perilous rogue!” - -She shook her head. - -“I take it as I find it. Besides, I have always a covert into which I -can slip on menace of a storm.” - -“But this is madness!” - -“By monsieur’s account that is the present condition of our family,” -she said, frigidly. - -“See, mademoiselle--I ask nothing but that I may remain near you, to -help and protect, your guard and your servant in one.” - -She made as if to go. - -“You fatigue me, monsieur. It is not the part of a gentleman to impose -his company where it is not desired. You will not remain by my -consent.” - -“Then I shall remain nevertheless!” I cried, a little angrily. “I must -not allow mademoiselle to constitute herself the victim to a false -sentiment.” - -She left me without another word, going off to her pigs; and I flung -myself down again in a pet by the brookside. - - * * * * * * * - -All that afternoon and evening I wandered about in the neighbourhood -of the little hill. I was hot and angry--after a humorous -fashion--with myself rather than with Carinne. If I had chosen to -invest my self-imposed knight-errantry with a purely fictitious order -of merit, I could hardly blame the girl for declining to recognise its -title to respect. At the same time, while I assured myself I detested -her, I could not refrain from constantly speculating as to the nature -of her present reflections. Was she still haughtily indignant at my -insistence, or inclined to secret heart-searchings in the matter of -her rather cavalier rejection of my services? Like a child, I wished -her, I think, to be a little sorry, a little unaccountably sad over -the memory of the stranger who had come and gone like a sunbeam shot -through the melancholy of her days. I wished her to have reason to -regret her unceremonious treatment of me. I did _not_ wish her to -overlook my visit altogether--and this, it would appear, was just what -she was doing. - -For, when I once, somewhere about the fall of dusk, climbed softly to -the top of the hillock to get view of her, perchance, from ambush, I -was positively incensed to hear her voice coming up to me in a little -placid song or chant that was in itself an earnest of her indifference -and serenity. She sat against a tree at the foot of the slope, and all -about her, uncouthly dumped on the fallen mast, were a score of drowsy -pigs. She sang to them like Circe, while they twitched lazy ears or -snapped their little springs of tails; and the sunset poured from the -furnace-mouth of the valley and made her pale face glorious. - -Now she did her beauty more justice by voice than by brush, though in -each art she was supremely artless; but there was a note of nature in -the first that was like the winter song of a robin. And presently she -trilled a little childish _chansonnette_ of the peasants that touched -me because I had some memory of it:-- - - The little bonne, Marie, - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - Spoke to her doll so wee: - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - “Hush, little son, sweet thing! - But wouldst thou be a king?” - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - - “Thy sceptre grows in the mere,” - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - “Thy crown in the blossoming brere.” - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - “For orb a grape shall stand - Clutched in thy tiny hand.” - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - - A rose she pinned at his side, - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - And one to each foot she tied; - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - His cot she lined with rue, - And she named him her _Jésus_. - (_À moi, mon poupon!_) - -I lay amongst the branches that night, with the memory of the low, -sweet voice and the strange picture in my brain. And, as I tossed, -literally, on my timber couch, a weirder fancy would come to me of the -elfish swineherd sleeping within her charmed circle of hogs--fearless -and secure--mingling her soft expression of rest with their truculent -breathings. - -I was up (or rather down) early; washed in the brook; breakfasted -fastidiously off beech-nuts. Then, quite undecided as to my course of -action, I loitered awhile amongst the trees, and finally came round by -the hill once more, and dwelt upon a thought to climb it and -investigate. But, as I stood in uncertainty, a shrill cry came to my -ears. It rang startlingly in that voiceless pit of green, and I -hurried at my topmost speed round the base of the mound, and came -suddenly upon a sight that met me like a blow. - -Two savages, each with an arm of the girl brutally seized, were -shouldering the poor swineherd towards the trees. She cried and -struggled, disputing every step; the pigs streamed curiously in the -wake of the group. There was an obvious ugly inference to be drawn -from the sight, and I made no compromise with my discretion. I just -rushed through the herd and charged straight at one of the ruffians. - -He was aware of me--they both were--before I reached him. They twisted -their heads about, and the one I made for dropped his hold of Carinne -and jumped to meet my onset, while the other hooted “_O-he! bran de -lui!_” and tightened his grip of the girl. I saw only that my -assailant was a powerful coarse _bonnet-rouge_, little-eyed, hairy as -Attila. The next instant I had dived, caught one of his ankles, and -given his furious impetus an upward direction. He went over me in a -parabola, like a ball sprung from a trap, and I heard his ribs thud on -the ground. But I had no time to give him my further attention, for, -seeing his comrade’s discomfiture, the second rascal came at me. - -And now I was like to pay dearly for my temerity, for, though I was -lithe and active enough, I had not that of substance on my bones to -withstand the pounding of a couple of enraged and sanguinary giants. -The poor Carinne had sunk, for the moment unnerved, upon the ground. I -prayed God she had a knife to use on herself for a last resource. No -doubt the ruffian I had thrown would take me in the rear in a moment. -The other was bearing down upon me like a bullock. Suddenly, when come -almost within my reach, he jerked himself to so quick a halt that his -heels cut grooves in the mast. I saw his eyes dilate and glare beyond -me, and on the instant a single vibrant scream, like the shrill neigh -of a horse, rose from the ground at my back. It was the cue for an -immediate quarrelling clamour, fierce and gluttonous, such as one -hears when a bucket of wash is emptied into a sty; and if it was -lifted again, bodiless and inhuman, it might not reach through the -uproar. - -I had turned to look--and away again in infinite horror. Upon the -half-stunned wretch, as he lay prostrate on his back, an old ravening -boar of the herd had flung itself in fury, and with one bestial clinch -of its teeth and jerk of its powerful neck had torn out the very apple -of the man’s throat. And there atop of his victim the huge brute -sprawled, tossing its head and squeaking furiously; while the rest of -the herd, smitten with the beast-lust, ran hither and thither, -approaching, snuffing, retreating, and, through all, never ceasing in -their guttural outcry. - -Now in a moment came a pause in the tumult, and I read in my -opponent’s eyes, as distinctly as though they were mirrors, that the -triumphant brute behind me was showing itself alert with consciousness -of the living prey that yet offered itself in reversion. I saw in the -man’s face amazement resolve itself into sick terror; he slipped back -into its sheath the _couteau-poignard_ he had half drawn. -“_Adieu-va!_” I shouted at him, advancing--and on the word he wheeled -about and pounded off amongst the trees as if the devil were at his -heels. - -When I ran to Mademoiselle de Lâge, she was regaining in a dazed -manner her feet and her faculties. - -“I must lift you--I must help you!” I cried. “Ah! do not look, but -come away! My God, what peril, when the beast in man is made manifest -to the beast in the beast!” - -I put my right arm about her under hers. To touch the very stringy -texture of the _jupon_ with my hand was to find my heart queerly -lodged in my finger-tips. She came quietly with me a few paces; then -suddenly she wrenched herself free, and, turning her back upon me, -fumbled in her bosom. - -“Monsieur,” she said on a little faint key, from the covert of her -hair (_Bon Dieu!_ that admirable low huskiness in her voice that made -of her every utterance a caress!),--“monsieur, he was the old brave of -my little troop. I called him my _Chevalier du Guet_. It was -inhuman--yes, it was inhuman; but he struck for his lady and rescued -her. Wilt thou not be my ambassador to decorate him for a last token -of gratitude?” - -Heaven! the magnificence of her fancy! She had taken from her -shoulders her scapular, together with a little heart of chalcedonyx -that hung therefrom. This latter she detached and handed to me. - -“Loop it to his ear, if thou darest,” said she. - -I went quite gravely to do her bidding. What a _farceur_ of -circumstance was I become! But my breast overflowed with deference as -I approached the great pig. He had rolled from his victim and stood a -little apart, evilly humouring with his chaps a certain recollection. -He eyed me with wickedness as I advanced, and his obsequious -following, something subsided from their hysteria, seemed awaiting -their cue. I would not allow myself a second’s indecision. I walked -straight up to him--“Monsieur,” I said, “_avec l’égard le plus -profond_”--and flung the string over his ear. - -Alas! the ingrate! As I retreated he threw down his head, dislodged -the trinket, smelt at and swallowed it. - -The eyes in Carinne’s yet shocked face looked a pale inquiry when I -returned to her. - -“Mademoiselle,” I said, “the honour would appear entirely to his -taste.” - -She nodded seriously. - -“It is well,” she whispered; “and I hope none will rob him.” - -“He shall be turned inside out first,” I said stoutly; and at that she -nodded again, and bade me to a hurried retreat. - -We may have walked a mile, or even two, in a solemn silence, before my -comrade was fain to stop, in the heart of a woodland glen, and throw -herself exhausted on a bank. Then she looked up at me, her fatigued -eyes struggling yet with defiance. - -“Why do you not upbraid me?” she said. “Why do you not say ‘I told you -so’?” - -“Because it does not occur to me.” - -“Ah! you would make a fine virtue of forbearance; you would be the -patient ass to my vanity, would you not, monsieur?” - -“I would let mademoiselle ride me rough-shod till I fell dead.” - -“And so leave me the living monument to your nobility. But it is not -generous, monsieur, thus to rebuke me with silence.” - -“I did not intend to----” - -“And, after all, it was the hog that struck most effectively.” - -“And that is conceded, mademoiselle; and the hog is generously -decorated.” - -She mused up at me rebelliously. - -“I do not even know your name.” - -“It is Citizen Thibaut.” - -“Citizen----” (she made a wry mouth of it). “Then, if I can find the -wherewithal to reward your gallantry, citizen, will you leave me to -myself?” - -“Mademoiselle, if only I could believe none other would impose himself -on that sweet duet!” - -She shrugged her shoulders fretfully. - -“Monsieur, monsieur, you assume a father’s privilege. Has my -misfortune placed me beyond the pale of courtesy? or has a swineherd -no title to the considerations of decency?” - -“Nay, mademoiselle; it is that your beauty and your proud innocence -make so many appeals to both.” - -My obstinacy seemed a goad to her anger. - -“You exaggerate the importance of your service,” she cried. “Either of -those great strong men could have crushed you like an old nut----” - -She seemed to struggle a moment with herself--without avail. - -“For you are very little,” she added. - -I felt myself turn pale. I made her a most profound bow. - -“I will leave mademoiselle,” I said gravely, “to the only company she -can do justice to.” - -“My own?” she asked. I did not answer, and I turned from her quivering -all through. I had gone but a few paces when her voice came after me. - -“Monsieur, I am dying of hunger!” - -_Mon Dieu!_ What a speech to grapple at the soul! I hurried hither and -thither, plucking her a meal from the earth, from the bushes. My heart -bled with a double wound. - -Presently I stood before her, stern and silent. Her face, hidden in -her hands, was averted from me. Suddenly she looked up. - -“The little pod holds the fattest pea,” she said, and burst into -tears. - -_Petite pluie abat grand vent._ - -She was very sweet and humble to me by-and-by. She made me the _amende -honorable_ by calling my heart too great for my body. And at last said -she-- - -“I take you for my knight, monsieur--to honour and protect, to bear -with and respect me----” and I kissed her brown hand in allegiance. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII. - QUATREMAINS-QUATREPATTES. - -“Mademoiselle, what do you weave?” - -She sat at the entrance to her sleeping-place--a hole under the -radiated roots of an ancient oak-tree. We had happened upon the -shelter in our league-long flight. It was one of those burrows--those -_logettes_ into which past generations of the hunted and proscribed -had sunk like moles. Many of our forests are honeycombed with them. -Over the opening to this, once concealed by a cunning mat of weeds and -branches, the roots had contrived a more enduring cover. Within, to -walls and floor, yet clung the remnants of brushwood with which long -ago the den had been lined. - -Carinne was deftly busy over a queer contrivance--a sort of fencing -mask that she plaited from thin tendrils of a binding-weed. - -“Monsieur on his high perch at night will suffer from the mosquitoes?” - -“Has mademoiselle reason to think so?” - -“As I think I can tell when a little ape carries a nut in his pouch.” - -“Alas! but how cynical of romance are the tiny blood-suckers! They fly -on a chromatic scale, mademoiselle. Often I try to comfort myself with -the fancy that I am listening to the very distant humming of church -bells; and then comes a tiny prick, and something seems to rise from -my heart to my face, and to blossom thereon. No doubt it is the -flowers of fancy budding. And is the weed-bonnet for me?” - -“I shall not want it in my burrow.” - -This gave me exquisite gratification, which survived the many -inconveniences to which I was put by the bonnet falling off at night, -and my having to descend to recover it. But it soon appeared that the -least whim of this fascinating child was to be my law. - -And yet what a dear lawless existence! I do not know what termination -to it we foresaw. Sooner or later the cold must drive me from my -nightly cradle; sooner or later the good fruits of the earth must -wither. In the meantime we were _grillon_ and _cigale_,--we stored -not, neither did we labour; but we chatted, and we wandered, and we -drew the marrow of every tender berry, and gnawed the rind of every -tough, without making faces. - -And we quarrelled--_mon Dieu!_ but how we quarrelled! Scarce a day -passed without dispute, and this in the end it was that resolved the -situation for us. For truly my comrade was as full of moods and -whimsies as the wind--one moment a curious sweet woman; the next, and -on the prick of confidence, a pillar of salt. Yet, even as such, she -herself was ever the savour to the insults she made me swallow. - -By then I was a little awakening, I think, to a consciousness that was -half fright, half ecstasy. Let me not misrepresent my meaning. I held -the honour of Mademoiselle de Lâge in high reverence; yet (and -_therefore_, also, _bien entendu_) I could not but acknowledge to -myself that in the depth of my heart was sprouting a desire for a more -particular understanding between us. This very self-confession at last -was like a terrifying surrender of independence--of -irresponsibility--of all that sweet store of philosophy I had made it -my practice to hive against the winter of old age. I saw my -tranquillity yielded to a disturbing sense of duty. I felt my feet and -my body stung by a thousand thorns as I turned into the narrow road of -self-abnegation. No more for me should gleam the rosy garland and the -wine-cup exhaling joy; but rather the olive from the branch should -stimulate my palate to caudle, and the priest sanctify my salt of life -out of all flavour. - -_Aïe, Aïe!_ and what then? Why, I was forgetting that as a lady puts -the deduction before the argument, and cultivates her intuitive -perceptions by reading the _dénoûment_ of a romance after the first -chapter, so she will have decided upon the direction of that last gift -of herself while pinning her favours upon the coats of a dozen -successive hopefuls. I might humour or tease my fancy over the -presumptive flavour of that draught of matrimony, while all the time -Mademoiselle de Lâge of Pierrettes held my person and my citizenship -in frank contempt. Decidedly I was eating my chicken in the egg. - -Still, the very fearless susceptibility of the child, her beauty and -her wilfulness, were so many flames to feed that fire of passion that -the strange nature of our comradeship had first kindled in my breast. -And so always before my mind’s eye I kept, or tried to keep, the -picture of the Chevalier Bayard and the Spanish ladies of Brescia. - - * * * * * * * - -One day, in our wanderings, we came out suddenly upon a track of -highroad that, sweeping from us round a foreshore of desolate hills, -seemed, like a coast-current, to set some gaunt pines at a little -distance swaying as if they were the masts of ships. By then, as I -gather, we must have travelled as far north as Chalus, and were come -into regions that, by reason of their elevation, were somewhat colder -and moister than the sunny slopes we had quitted. Perhaps it was this -change of atmosphere that chilled our odd but never too ardent -relations one with the other; perhaps it was that Carinne, as I, was -at length taking alarm over the ambiguity of our position. In any case -we fell out and apart, and so followed some harsh experiences to the -pair of us. - -Now we backed from the public way in fright, and, concealing ourselves -once more amongst the trees, sat down, and were for a long space -silent. The interval was a pregnant one to me, inasmuch as I was -labouring with a resolve that had been forming for days in my breast. -And at last I spoke-- - -“Carinne, we have been much at cross-purposes of late.” - -“Have we, M. Thibaut? But perhaps it is in the order of things.” - -“And that is to say that the plebeian Thibaut and the patrician De -Lâge cannot meet on a common plane?” - -“You must not put words in my mouth.” - -“Ah, if I might!” - -“What then? It will soothe my _ennui_ to hear.” - -“Not for the moment. Tell me, mademoiselle, would you renew this -comradeship were we to escape, and meet in the after-time under better -conditions of security?” - -“Oh, monsieur! and would you have me wander hand in hand with you -through the gardens of the Thuilleries? or invite you to sleep upon -the tester of my bed? or open my mouth like a young bird at the -fruit-stalls, that you might pop in raspberries?” - -“Unkind! I would have you meet me by chance; I would see your eyes -open to a light of pleasure; I would have you come gladly to me and -take my fingers in yours and say: ‘This is he that was my good friend -when I needed one.’” - -“I will remember. And then all will clap their hands and cry ‘Bravo!’ -will they not? and I shall feel a little excitement. ‘_Qu’y a-t-il_, -Jacko!’ I shall say. ‘Show the company some of the pretty tricks you -played in the woods.’” - -I was silent. - -“And are those the words you would put in my mouth, monsieur?” said -Carinne. - -“I referred to the present,” I answered coldly; “and, as you take it -so, I will speak in your person as I would have you speak. -‘Jean-Louis,’ you say, ‘I am, like all sweet women, an agglomerate of -truths and inconsistencies; yet I am not, in the midst of my -wilfulness, insensible to the suffering my caprice of misunderstanding -puts you to; and, in face of the equivocal character of our -intercourse, I will forego the blindness that is a privilege of my -sex. Speak boldly, then, what lies in your heart.’” - -As I spoke in some trepidation, Carinne’s face grew enigmatical with -hardness and a little pallor, and she looked steadily away from me. - -“I thank you,” she said softly, “for that word ‘equivocal.’ But please -to remember, monsieur, that this ‘_intercourse_’ is none of my -seeking.” - -“You choose to misapprehend me.” - -“Oh! it is not possible,” she cried, turning sharply upon me. “You -take advantage of my condescension and of the wicked licence of the -times. Have you sought, by this elaborate process, to entrap me into a -confession of dependence upon you? Why” (she measured me scornfully -with her eyes), “I think I look over and beyond you, monsieur.” - -“Now,” I said, stung beyond endurance by her words, “I pronounce you, -mademoiselle, the most soulless, as you are the most beautiful, woman -I have ever encountered. I thought I loved you with that reverence -that would subscribe to the very conditions that Laban imposed upon -Jacob. I see I was mistaken, and that I would have bartered my gold -for a baser metal. And now, also, I see, mademoiselle, that the -callousness you displayed in presence of the murdered Lepelletier, -which I had fain fancied was a paralysis of nerve, was due in effect -to nothing less vulgar than an unfeeling heart!” - -She stared at me in amazement, it seemed. I was for the moment carried -quite beyond myself. - -“I will leave you,” I cried, “to your better reflections--or, at -least, to your better judgment. This Thibaut will walk off the high -fever of his presumption, and return presently, your faithful and -obedient servant.” - -I turned, fuming, upon my heel, and strode off amongst the trees. I -had not gone a dozen paces when her voice stayed me. I twisted myself -about. - -“Do not lift your head so high, monsieur,” she said, “or you will run -it against a mushroom and hurt yourself.” - - * * * * * * * - -Insolent--cruel--fascinating! For what had I indulged this mood of -quixotry--for what permitted this intolerable child to gall my sides -with her disdain? Would it have been thus had I condescended to drive -her coquetry to bay with that toothless dog of my rank? Ah! I believe -so; and that only made the sting of her contempt the more poisonous. -It was my person that could not suffice; and truly there is no bribe -to a woman’s favour like an extra inch of weediness. She is the -escapement of the heart; but the reason she will never move till she -acquire a sense of proportion. She was designed but to put man out of -conceit with himself, and I think she was not formed of his rib but of -his spleen. Therefore the tap-root of her nature is grievance, from -which her every leaf and flower and knot and canker takes its -sustenance of misconstruction. She may bloom very fair and sweet; but -then so does the dulcamara, and to taste either is dangerous. - -Thinking these thoughts, I postponed my return to the little glade -where I had left Carinne. She should believe me gone for good and all, -I vowed, and so should she suffer the first pangs of desertion. Then, -though she wished to make me feel small, no giant should figure so -great in her eyes as the moderate Thibaut. - -At last, in the early glow of evening, the unquenchable yearning in my -heart would brook no longer delay. Half-shamefaced, half-stubborn, I -retraced my steps to the glen that held my all of aggravation and of -desire. - -She was not there. She never came to it more. For long I would not -realise the truth. I waited, and hoped, and often circumambulated the -spot where she had rested, hurrying over a greater or less -circumference according to my distance from the centre. I called--I -entreated--perhaps in the darkness of night I wept. It was all of no -avail. She had vanished without leaving a trace, wilfully and -resentfully, and had thus decided to reward my long service of -devotion. - -When--after lingering about the spot for two nights and two days, -drugging a dying hope with the philtre of its own brewing--I at length -knew myself convicted of despair, a great bitterness awoke in my -breast that I should have thus permitted myself to be used and fooled -and rejected. - -“She is not worthy of this vast of concern!” I cried. “I will forget -her, and resume myself, and be again the irresponsible maggot -contributing to the decay of a worm-eaten system. To taste -disenchantment! After all, that is not to drink the sea!” - -But it was to eat of its fruit of ashes; and I was to carry a burden -with me that I might not forego. This in my subsequent wanderings made -my steps drag heavily, as if always I bore in the breast of my coat -the leaden image of an angel. But, nevertheless, I could muster a -pride to my aid in moments of a very desperate lassitude of the soul. - - * * * * * * * - -With the opening of October I was still a solitary “rogue,” ostracised -from my herded kind. I had wandered so far north as that I saw Paris -(the ultimate goal, I felt, of my weary feet) to swim distinguishable -in the misty ken of my mind. Therefrom always seemed to emanate a -deadly but dulcet atmosphere, the attraction of which must sooner or -later overpower me. Sometimes in the night I could have thought I -heard the city’s swarming voices jangling to me down the steeper roads -of wind; sometimes the keystone of the Conciergerie would figure to me -as the lodestone to all shattered barques tossing helplessly on a -shoreless waste. For I was sick to the heart of loneliness; sick of -the brute evasion of my race; sick of my perilous immunity from all -the burning processes of that frantic drama of my times. And so I -trudged ever with my face set to the north, and the hum of the -witches’ cauldron, whose broth was compound of all heroism and all -savagery, singing phantomly in my ears. - -And to this direction yet another consideration induced me. With the -approach of chillier weather the wild wood-life of the wilder -provinces asserted itself, and assumed a more menacing aspect. The -abolition of the game laws had brought about, indeed, an amazing -increase in the number of wolves and foxes; and what with these on one -side and sans-culottism on the other, I had often latterly felt myself -walking between the devil and the deep sea. Then, once upon a time, I -was joined by an odd roguish way-fellow, the obliquity of whose moral -vision I overlooked for the sake of his company; and through him was -my burden of self-dependence a little lightened. - -I had sunk asleep one afternoon in a copse neighbouring on the royal -village of Cléry. Autumn is all a siesta in that mild and beautiful -district. Waking, I felt the sunlight on my eyes like a damp warm -sponge; and so with my lids gratefully closed I fell a-musing. - -“To think,” I murmured, “that the twang of a beetle’s bowstring at my -ear on the old bridge outside Coutras should have been the key-note to -all this devil’s dance of mine!” - -I thought I heard a faint rustle somewhere at hand--a squirrel or -coney. I paid no attention to it, but indulged my mood of -introspection. By-and-by a step came towards me, advancing boldly -amongst the trees from a distance. It approached, reached, stopped -over against me. I opened my eyes as I lay, my arms under my head, and -placidly surveyed the new-comer. He stood looking down upon me, his -fingers heaped upon the black crutch of his _bâton_, and when he saw -me awake he nodded his head in a lively manner. - -“The occasion is opportune,” he said, in a quick, biting voice. - -His lower jaw projected, showing a straight row of little even -teeth--like palings to keep his speech within bounds. The brightness -of his half-seen eyes belied the indolence of their lids. He wore a -jacket of sheepskin, wool outwards; and a leathern bag, stuffed with -printed broadsides, hung from his shoulder by a length of scarlet -tape. On his head was a three-cornered hat, fantastically caught up -with ribbons, and his legs and feet were encased respectively in fine -black hose and the neat pumps with buckles known as _pantoufles de -Palais_. - -“_Comment?_” said I, without moving. - -“The citizen has slept?” - -“Most tranquilly.” - -“The citizen has dreamt?” - -“Without doubt. And he is awake.” - -He made a comprehensive gesture with his stick and his hands. - -“But I interpret dreams,” said he--“and at one price. I will unravel -you the visions of a politician or expound himself to Jack Hodge for -the common charge of fifty centimes.” - -He bent his head towards me with an affectation of scrutiny. - -“I perceive the citizen does not credit me,” he said. - -“And so his eyes rebuke his scepticism, interpreter of dreams,” said -I; “for thou hast rightly construed their meaning.” - -“Ah!” he murmured, raising himself and drawing in his breath. “But I -find it simple to convince the most incredulous.” - -“You do?” - -“Yes,” he cried, clapping his chest; “for know that thou speak’st with -Quatremains-Quatrepattes himself!” - -He dwelt on the pause that followed; collapsed from it; regarded me, -it seemed, in astonishment. - -“Thou hast not heard of me?” - -“Again the interpreter of dreams justifies himself.” - -He looked away from me, in a high manner of abstraction. - -“And this is for the sunshine of fame to throw one’s shadow over half -the world!” said he. - -“Maybe thy fame is at its meridian, citizen, and thy shadow -consequently a little fat blot at thy feet?” - -He turned to me again. - -“Oh yes,” he cried sarcastically. “I am Quatremains-Quatrepattes, and -some outside the beaten track know my name, perhaps. But possibly the -citizen has never heard even of Jean Cazotte?” - -“On the contrary; I have seen and spoken with him.” - -“_Par exemple!_ The man was a charlatan. He could foretell everything -but his own guillotining last year. And yet thou art ignorant--well, -well!” - -He threw up his hands in deprecation; then came and sat down on the -grass beside me. - -“_Cela m’est égal_, M. Quatremains-Quatrepattes,” said I. - -“Ah!” he said; “but I will convince thee at once. Describe to me thy -dream.” - -“I dreamt I wrestled with an angel and was overthrown.” - -“Thy mistress has quarrelled with and rejected thee.” - -“An obvious deduction. Yet I will assure you she is no angel.” - -“Canst thou say so? But we are all of the seed of Lucifer. Proceed.” - -“I dreamt how a great march grew out of a single accident of sound.” - -Here I was watchful of him, and I saw some relish twitch his lips. He -assumed an air of tense introspection, groping with his soul, like a -fakir, amongst the reflex images thrown upon the backs of his -eyeballs. - -“I hear a note,” he said presently, as if speaking to himself--“one -vibrant accent like the clipt song of a bullet. Is it struck from an -instrument or from any resounding vessel? It comes down the wind--it -clangs--it passes. Nay--it signifies only that some winged insect has -fled by the ear of a solitary traveller resting on an ancient bridge; -yet from that little bugle-sound shall the traveller learn to date the -processes of a long and fruitless journey.” - -I broke into a great laugh. - -“Most excellent!” I cried. “Thou hast an ingenuity of adaptation that -should make thy fortune--even at the very low rate of fifty centimes -the job.” - -His eyebrows lifted at me. - -“Why, M. Quatremains-Quatrepattes--M. Jacquemart,” said I,--“I knew -thee listening to me just now; and I heard thee steal away and come -again. It is easy to construe with the key in one’s hand.” - -He was no whit abashed. - -“_Cela m’est égal_,” he said serenely, echoing my words. “But I can -foretell one’s future, nevertheless, very exactly.” - -“Why, so can I, if I am not to be called upon to verify my -statements.” - -He looked suddenly in my face. - -“Thou art a disguised aristocrat.” - -“Better and better. But are we not all such to ourselves? The soul is -excessively exclusive.” - -“You will not consider I have earned my fee?” said he. - -“Fifty times over, my friend. Will you take it in a promissory note?” - -“Ah!” he cried pleasantly. “I perceive I have sown in barren soil.” - -“Again you justify yourself. Yet should I be a very thicket were all -the berries I have swallowed of late to germinate in me.” - -“Is that so?” said he. “But I have been a scapegoat myself----” and -thereat this extraordinary person pressed upon me some food he had -with him with an ample and courtly grace. - -“This shall yield a better crop than my prophesying,” he said, -watching me as I munched. - -“Of a surety,” I answered; “the full harvest of my gratitude.” - -He pondered at me. - -“I wish I could convince thee,” he said. - -“Wherefore? Is not the evil sufficient for the day in this distracted -land? Why should one want to probe the future?” - -“Because forewarned is forearmed.” - -“Oh, little Quatremains-Quatrepattes! Dost thou not perceive the -paradox? How can destiny be altered by foreknowledge? If you interpret -that I am to be guillotined, and I profit by the statement to evade -such a catastrophe, how is not your prophecy stultified?” - -“Why, I have no creed of predestination. The lords of life and death -are not inexorable. Sometimes, like M. St Meard, one may buy his -reprieve of them with a jest. Above all, they hate the sour fatalist -whose subscription to his own faith is a gloomy affectation.” - -“Well; I think I love thee a little.” - -He looked at me with a smile. - -“Come with me, then. I long to give thee proof. Dost thou need a -safeguard? Thou shalt run under my wing--_ça et là_--to Paris if -thou wilt. I am popular with all. If necessity drives, thou shalt -figure as my Jack-pudding. What! thou mayst even play up to the part. -Thou hast slept in the mire; but ‘many a ragged colt makes a good -horse.’” - -I laughed. - -“Why not?” I said. “For I have played the tragic to empty houses till -I am tired.” - - * * * * * * * - -Quatremains-Quatrepattes and his merry-andrew gambolled through a -score of villages on their road to Paris. I found the rascal hugely -popular, as he had boasted he was, and a most excellent convoy to my -humble craft, so perilously sailing under false colours. He was -subtle, shrewd, seasonable,--of the species whose opportunity is -accident; and perhaps no greater tribute could be paid to his deftness -than this--that he never once exposed himself to detection by me in a -question of moral fraud. “_Ton génie a la main crochue_,” I would say -to him, chuckling; but he would only respond with a rebuking silence. - -Early he handed over the bag of broadsides--the revolutionary songs -and ballads (some, it must be confessed, abominably coarse)--to my -care, that so he himself might assume a lofty indifference to the -meaner processes of his business. This delighted me. It was like a new -rattling game to me to hawk my commodities amongst the crowd; to jest -and laugh with my fellows once more under cover of the droll I -represented. Shortly, I think, I became as popular as Quatremains -himself; and over this, though he loved me as a valuable auxiliary, he -began to look a little sober by-and-by, as if he dreaded I should joke -the weightier part of his commerce out of all respect. - -_His_ popularity was chiefly with the village wenches. They would -gather about him at the fountains, and pay their sous open-eyed to be -expounded; or singly they would withdraw him into nooks or private -places if the case was serious. - -“Citizen seër,” says Margot, “I dreamed I fell and was wounded.” - -“That is good, little minette. Thou wilt pay me five sous for a fond -lover.” - -“Citizen seër, I dreamed I was eating of a great egg.” - -“And thou shalt shortly beget a male child that shall bring thee -honour.” - -“How now, old Jackalent!” - -There rises a shrill cackle of laughter. - -“_Fi donc_, Margot! _On te le rendra de bonne heure!_” - -To submit the commerce of love to the test of a little dream-manual he -carried about with him, that was Quatremains’ system. This key (it was -in manuscript) interpreted on a couple of hundred, or more, words, -from _Abel_ to _Wounds_; but affairs of the heart predominated through -the whole alphabet of nonsense. He would coach himself continually -from it in secret; but indeed a small wit and a trifle of invention -were all that was needed. Now and again I would rally him on this -petty taxing of credulity. - -“How now!” he would answer. “Art thou not yet convinced?” - -“By what, thou most surprising Quatremains-Quatrepattes?” - -“For example, did I not foretell that Mère Grignon, whose husband was -guillotined, would be brought to bed of a child with the mark of the -_lunette_ on its throat; and were not my words verified the same -night?” - -“But who knows that some one may not have bribed the nurse to score -the neck of the new-born with whipcord?” - -“_Tête-bleu!_ Should I hold good my reputation and pay this nurse, -think’st thou, out of five sous?” - -But the rascal had other strings to his bow, all twanging to the same -tune _de folles amours_--charms, fortune-telling, palmistry: so many -lines under the thumb, so many children; a shorter first joint to the -little than to its neighbour finger, the wife to rule the roast; a -mole on the nose, success in intrigues; a mole on the breast, -sincerity of affection. Then, too, he would tell nativities, cast -horoscopes, quarter the planets for you like an orange or like the -fruit of his imagination. There is a late picture of him often before -me as he sat in the market-place of Essonnes, a little village that -lies almost within view of the towers of Paris. A half-dozen blooming -daughters of the Revolution stood about him, their hands under their -aprons for warmth,--for it was pretty late in November, and in fact -the eve of St Catherine’s feast. - -“Now,” said Quatremains, “there are seven of ye, and that is the sure -number,--for there must not be more than seven nor fewer than three; -and be certain ye are quick to my directions.” (He jingled softly in -his fists the copper harvest of his gathering.) “Are all of ye -virgins?” he cried. “If the charm fails, she who is not will be -accountable to the others.” (He scanned their hot faces like a very -Torquemada of the true faith.) “To-morrow, then,” he said, “let each -wear inside her bosom all day a sprig of myrtle. At night, assemble -together privately in a room, and, as the clock strikes eleven, take -ye each your twig and fold it in tissue-paper, having first kindled -charcoal in a chafing-dish. Thereonto throw nine hairs from the head, -and a little moon-paring of every toe- and finger-nail, as also some -frankincense, with the fragrant vapour arising from which ye shall -fumigate each her packet. Now, go to your beds, and with the stroke of -midnight compose yourselves to slumber, the envelope under the head, -and, so ye have not failed to keep silence from first to last, each -shall assuredly be made conversant in dream with her future husband.” - -Oh, wonderful nature of woman, thus, in a starving France, to throw -sous into a pool for the sport of vanity! - - * * * * * * * - -Quatremains smuggled me into Paris, and there, for we had no further -use of one another, our connection ceased. Thenceforwards I must live -on my wits--other than those he had taxed--and on the little pieces of -money that remained to me for feast-days. The struggle was a short -one. I had not been a fortnight in the city when the blow that I had -so long foreseen fell upon me. One day I was arrested and carried to -La Force. That, perhaps, was as well; for my personal estate was -dwindled to a few livres, and I knew no rag-picker that would be -likely to extend to me his patronage and protection. - -Yet before this came about, I had one other strange little experience -that shall be related. - - - - - CHAPTER IX. - THE WILD DOGS. - -It was on a night of middle Vendémiaire in the year two (to affect -the whimsical jargon of the _sans-culottes_) that I issued from my -burrow with an intrepidity that was nothing more nor less than a -congestion of the sensibilities. Fear at that time having fed upon -itself till all was devoured, was converted in very many to a humorous -stoicism that only lacked to be great because it could not boast a -splendid isolation. “Suspect of being suspect”--Citizen Chaumette’s -last slash at the hamstrings of hope--had converted all men of humane -character to that religion of self-containment that can alone -spiritually exalt above the caprices of the emotions. Thousands, in a -moment, through extreme of fear became fearless; hence no man of them -could claim a signal inspiration of courage, but only that -subscription to the terms of it which unnatural conditions had -rendered necessary to all believers in the ultimate ethical triumph of -the human race. - -I do not mean to say that I was tired of life, but simply that it came -to me at once that I must not hold that test of moral independence at -the mercy of any temporal tyranny whatsoever. Indeed I was still so -far in love with existence physically, as to neglect no precaution -that was calculated to contribute to the present prolonging of it. I -wore my frieze night-cap, carmagnole, sabots, and black shag spencer -with all the assumption I could muster of being to the shoddy born. I -had long learned the art of slurring a sigh into a cough or -expectoration. I could curse the stolid spectres of the tumbrils so as -to deceive all but the recording angel, and, possibly, Citizen -Robespierre. - -Nevertheless, with me, as with others, precaution seemed but a -condition of the recklessness whose calculations never extended beyond -the immediate day or hour. We lived posthumous lives, so to speak, and -would hardly have resented it, should an arbitrary period have been -put to our revisiting of the “glimpses of the moon.” - -On this night, then, of early September (as I will prefer calling it) -I issued from my burrow, calm under the intolerable tyranny of -circumstance. Desiring to reconstruct myself on the principle of an -older independence, I was mentally discussing the illogic of a system -of purgation that was seeking to solve the problem of existence by -emptying the world, when I became aware that my preoccupied ramblings -had brought me into the very presence of that sombre engine that was -the concrete expression of so much and such detestable false -reasoning. In effect, and to speak without circumbendibus, I found -myself to have wandered into the Faubourg St Antoine--into the place -of execution, and to have checked my steps only at the very foot of -the guillotine. - -It was close upon midnight, and, overhead, very wild and broken -weather. But the deeps of atmosphere, with the city for their ocean -bed, as it were, lay profoundly undisturbed by the surface turmoil -above; and in the tranquil _Place_, for all the upper flurry, one -could hear oneself breathe and think. - -I could have done this with the more composure, had not another sound, -the import of which I was a little late in recognising, crept into my -hearing with a full accompaniment of dismay. This sound was like -licking or lapping, very bestial and unclean, and when I came to -interpret it, it woke in me a horrible nausea. For all at once I knew -that, hidden in that dreadful conduit that strong citizens of late had -dug from the Place St Antoine to the river, to carry away the ponded -blood of the executed, the wild dogs of Paris were slaking their -wolfish thirst. I could hear their filthy gutturising and the scrape -of their lazy tongues on the soil, and my heart went cold, for -latterly, and since they had taken to hunting in packs, these ravenous -brutes had assailed and devoured more than one belated citizen whom -they had scented traversing the Champs Elysées, or other lonely -space; and I was aware a plan for their extermination was even now -under discussion by the Committee of Public Safety. - -Now, to fling scorn to the axe in that city of terror was to boast -only that one had adjusted oneself to a necessity that did not imply -an affectation of indifference to the fangs of wild beasts--for such, -indeed, they were. So, a suicide, who goes to cast himself headlong -into the river, may run in a panic from a falling beam, and be -consistent, too; for his compact is with death--not mutilation. - -Be that as it may, I know that for the moment terror so snapped at my -heel that, under the very teeth of it, I leaped up the scaffold -steps--with the wild idea of swarming to the beam above the knife and -thence defying my pursuers, should they nose and bay me seated there -at refuge--and stood with a white desperate face, scarcely daring to -pant out the constriction of my lungs. - -There followed no sound of concentrated movement; but only that -stealthy licking went on, with the occasional plash of brute feet in a -bloody mire; and gradually my turbulent pulses slowed, and I thought -myself a fool for my pains in advertising my presence on a platform of -such deadly prominence. - -Still, not a soul seemed to be abroad. As I trod the fateful quarter -ten minutes earlier, the last squalid roysterers had staggered from -the wine-shops--the last gleams of light been shut upon the emptied -streets. I was alone with the dogs and the guillotine. - -Tiptoeing very gently, very softly, I was preparing to descend the -steps once more, when I drew back with a muttered exclamation, and -stood staring down upon an apparition that, speeding at that moment -into the _Place_, paused within ten paces of the scaffold on which I -stood. - -Above the scudding clouds was a moon that pulsed a weak intermittent -radiance through the worn places of the drift. Its light was always -more suggested than revealed; but it was sufficient to denote that the -apparition was that of a very pale young woman--a simple child she -looked, whose eyes, nevertheless, wore that common expression of the -dramatic intensity of her times. - -She stood an instant, tense as Corday, her fingers bent to her lips; -her background a frouzy wall with the legend _Propriété Nationale_ -scrawled on it in white chalk. Significant to the inference, the cap -of scarlet wool was drawn down upon her young _blondes_ curls--the -gold of the coveted perukes. - -Suddenly she made a little movement, and in the same instant gave out -a whistle clear and soft. - -Yes, it was she from whom it proceeded; and I shuddered. There below -me in the ditch were the dogs; here before me was this fearless child. - -For myself, even in the presence of this angel, I dared scarcely stir. -It was unnatural; it was preposterous--came a scramble and a rush; and -there, issued from the filthy sewer, was a huge boar-hound, that -fawned on the little citoyenne, and yelped (under her breath) like a -thing of human understanding. - -She cried softly, “Down, Radegonde!” and patted the monster’s head -with a pretty manner of endearment. - -“Ah!” she murmured, “hast thou broken thy faith with thy hunger? -Traitor!--but I will ask no questions. Here are thy comfits. My sweet, -remember thy pedigree and thy mistress.” - -She thrust a handful of sugar-plums into the great jaws. I could hear -the hound crunching them in her teeth. - -What was I to do?--what warning to give? This child--this frail -wind-flower of the night--the guillotine would have devoured her at a -snap, and laughed over the tit-bit! But I, and the nameless gluttons -of the ditch! - -They were there--part at least of one of those packs (recruited by -gradual degrees from the desolated homes of the proscribed--of -_émigrés_) that now were swollen to such formidable proportions as -to have become a menace and a nightly terror. The dogs were there, and -should they scent this tender quarry, what power was in a single -faithful hound to defend her against a half hundred, perhaps, of her -fellows. - -Sweating with apprehension, I stole down the steps. She was even then -preparing to retreat hurriedly as she had come. Her lips were pressed -to the beast’s wrinkled head. The sound of her footstep might have -precipitated the catastrophe I dreaded. - -“Citoyenne! citoyenne!” I whispered in an anguished voice. - -She looked up, scared and white in a moment. The dog gave a rolling -growl. - -“Radegonde!” she murmured, in a faint warning tone. - -The brute stood alert, her hair bristling. - -“Bid her away!” I entreated. “You are in danger.” - -She neither answered nor moved. - -“See, I am in earnest!” I cried, loud as I durst. “The wild dogs are -below there.” - -“Radegonde!” she murmured again. - -“Ah, mademoiselle! What are two rows of teeth against a hundred. Send -her away, I implore you, and accept my escort out of this danger.” - -“My faith!” she said at last, in a queer little moving voice, “it may -be as the citizen says; but I think dogs are safer than men.” - -I urged my prayer. The beauty and courage of the child filled my heart -with a sort of rapturous despair. - -“God witness I am speaking for your safety alone! Will this prevail -with you? I am the Comte de la Muette. I exchange you that confidence -for a little that you may place in me. I lay my life in your hands, -and I beg the charge of yours in return.” - -I could hear her breathing deep where she stood. Suddenly she bent and -spoke to her companion. - -“To the secret place, Radegonde--and to-morrow again for thy -_confiture_, thou bad glutton. Kiss thy Nanette, my baby; and, oh, -Radegonde! not what falls from the table of Sainte Guillotine!” - -She stood erect, and held up a solemn finger. The hound slunk away, -like a human thing ashamed; showed her teeth at me as she passed, and -disappeared in the shadows of the scaffold. - -I took a hurried step forward. Near at hand the pure loveliness of -this citoyenne was, against its surroundings, like a flower floating -on blood. - -She smiled, and looked me earnestly in the face. We were but phantoms -to one another in that moony twilight; but in those fearful times men -had learned to adapt their eyesight to the second plague of darkness. - -“Is it true?” she said, softly. “Monsieur le Comte, it must be long -since you have received a curtsey.” - -She dropped me one there, bending to her own prettiness like a rose; -and then she gave a little low laugh. Truly that city of Paris saw -some strange meetings in the year of terror. - -“I, too,” she said, “was born of the _noblesse_. That is a secret, -monsieur, to set against yours.” - -I could but answer, with some concern-- - -“Mademoiselle, these confessions, if meet for the holy saint yonder, -are little for the ears of the devil’s advocates. I entreat let us be -walking, or those in the ditch may anticipate upon us his -benediction.” - -“_Ma foi!_” she said, “it is true. Come, then!” - -We went off together, stealing from the square like thieves. -Presently, when I could breathe with a half relief, “You will not go -to-morrow?” I said. - -“To feed Radegonde! Ah, monsieur! I would not for the whole world lose -the little sweet-tooth her goodies. Each of us has only the other to -love in all this cruel city.” - -“So, my child! And they have taken the rest?” - -“Monsieur, my father was the rest. He went on the seventeenth -Fructidor; and since, my veins do not run blood, I think, but only -ice-water, that melts from my heart and returns to freeze again.” - -I sighed. - -“Nay,” she said, “for I can laugh, as you see.” - -“And the dog, my poor child?” - -“She ran under the tumbril, and bit at the heels of the horses. She -would not leave him, monsieur; and still--and still she haunts the -place. I go to her,--when all the city is silent I go to her, if I can -escape, and take her the sweetmeats that she loves. What of that? It -is only a little while and my turn must come, and then Radegonde will -be alone. My hair, monsieur will observe, is the right colour for the -perukes.” - -She stayed me with a touch. - -“I am arrived. A thousand thanks for your escort, Monsieur le Comte.” - -We were by a low casement with a ledge before it--an easy climb from -the street. She pushed the lattice open, showing me it was unbolted -from within. - -“She thinks me fast and asleep,” she said. “Some day soon, perhaps, -but not yet.” - -I did not ask her who _she_ was. I seemed all mazed in a silent dream -of pity. - -“It is quite simple,” she said, “when no cavalier is by to look. Will -the citizen turn his head?” - -She was up in an instant, and stepping softly into the room beyond, -leaned out towards me. On the moment an evil thing grew out of the -shadow of a buttress close by, and a wicked insolent face looked into -mine with a grin. - -“A sweet good-night to Monsieur le Comte,” it said, and vanished. - -Shocked and astounded, I stood rooted to the spot. But there came a -sudden low voice in my ear: - -“Quick, quick! have you no knife? You must follow!” - -I had taken but a single uncertain step, when, from a little way down -the street we had traversed, there cut into the night a sharp -attenuated howl; and, in a moment, on the passing of it, a chorus of -hideous notes swept upon me standing there in indecision. - -“My God!” I cried--“the dogs!” - -She made a sound like a plover. I scrambled to the ledge and dropped -into the room beyond. There in the dark she clutched and clung to me. -For though the cry had been bestial, there had seemed to answer to it -something mortal--an echo--a human scream of very dreadful -fear,--there came a rush of feet like a wind, and, with ashy faces, we -looked forth. - -They had him--that evil thing. An instant we saw his sick white face -thrown up like a stone in the midst of a writhing sea; and the jangle -was hellish. Then I closed the lattice, and pressed her face to my -breast. - -He had run from us to his doom, which meeting, he had fled back in his -terror to make us the ghastly sport he had designed should be his. - -How long we stood thus I know not. The noise outside was unnameable, -and I closed her ears with her hair, with my hands--nay, I say it with -a passionate shame, with my lips. She sobbed a little and moaned; but -she clung to me, and I could feel the beating of her heart. We had -heard windows thrown open down the street--one or two on the floors -above us. I had no heed or care for any danger. I was wrapt in a -fearful ecstasy. - -By-and-by she lifted her face. Then the noise had ceased for some -time, and a profound silence reigned about us. - -“Ah!” she said, in a faint reeling voice. “Radegonde was there; I saw -her!” - -“Mademoiselle--the noble creature--she hath won us a respite.” - -Her breath caught in the darkness. - -“Yes,” she said. “There is a peruke that must wait.” - -Suddenly she backed from me, and put the hair from her eyes. - -“If you dare, monsieur, it necessitates that we make our adieux.” - -“Au revoir, citoyenne. It must be that, indeed.” - -She held out her hand, that was like a rose petal. I put my lips to it -and lingered. - -“Monsieur, monsieur!” she entreated. - -The next moment I was in the street. - - * * * * * * * - -Who was my little citoyenne? Ah! I shall never know. The terror -gripped us, and these things passed. Incidents that would make the -passion of sober times, the spirit of revolution dismisses with a -shrug. To die in those days was such a vulgar complaint. - -But I saw her once more, and then when my heart nestled to her image -and my veins throbbed to her remembered touch. - -I was strolling, on the morning following my strange experience, in -the neighbourhood of the Champs Elysées, when I was aware of a great -press of people all making in the direction of that open ground. - -“What arrives, then, citizen?” I cried to one who paused for breath -near me. - -He gasped, the little morose. To ask any question that showed one -ignorant of the latest caprice of the Executive was almost to be -“suspect.” - -“Has not the citizen heard? The Committee of Safety has decreed the -destruction of the dogs.” - -“The dogs?” - -“Sacred Blood!” he cried. “Is it not time, when they take, as it is -said they did last night, a good friend of the Republic to supper?” - -He ran on, and I followed. All about the Champs Elysées was a -tumultuous crowd, and posted within were two battalions of the -National Guard, their blue uniforms resplendent, their flint-locks -shining in their hands. They, the soldiers, surrounded the area, save -towards the Rue Royale, where a gap occurred; and on this gap all eyes -were fixed. - -Scarcely was I come on the scene when on every side a laughing hubbub -arose. The dogs were being driven in, at first by twos and threes, but -presently in great numbers at a time. For hours, I was told, had half -the _gamins_ of Paris been beating the coverts and hallooing their -quarry to the toils. - -At length, when many hundreds were accumulated in the free space, the -soldiers closed in and drove the skulking brutes through the gap -towards the Place Royale. And there they made a battue of it, shooting -them down by the score. - -With difficulty I made my way round to the _Place_, the better to view -the sport. The poor trapped _fripons_ ran hither and thither, crying, -yelping--some fawning on their executioners, some begging to the -bullets, as if these were crusts thrown to them. And my heart woke to -pity; for was I not witnessing the destruction of my good friends? - -The noise--the volleying, the howling, the shrieking of the -_canaille_--was indescribable. - -Suddenly my pulses gave a leap. I knew her--Radegonde. She was driven -into the fire and stood at bay, bristling. - -“Nanette!” cried a quick acid voice; “Nanette--imbecile--my God!” - -It all passed in an instant. There, starting from the crowd, was the -figure of a tall sour-featured woman, the tiny tricolour bow in her -scarlet cap; there was the thin excited musketeer, his piece to his -shoulder; there was my citoyenne flung upon the ground, her arms about -the neck of the hound. - - * * * * * * * - -Whether his aim was true or false, who can tell? He shot her through -her dog, and his sergeant brained him. And in due course his sergeant -was invited for his reward to look through the little window. - -These were a straw or two in the torrent of the revolution. - - * * * * * * * - -It was Citizen Gaspardin who accepted the contract to remove the -carcasses (some three thousand of them) that encumbered the Place -Royale as a result of this drastic measure. However, his eye being -bigger than his stomach, as the saying is, he found himself short of -means adequate to his task and so applied for the royal equipages to -help him out of his difficulty. And these the Assembly, entering into -the joke, was moved to lend him; and the dead dogs, hearsed in gilt -and gingerbread as full as they could pack, made a rare procession of -it through Paris, thereby pointing half-a-dozen morals that it is not -worth while at this date to insist on. - -I saw the show pass amidst laughter and clapping of hands; and I saw -Radegonde, as I thought, her head lolling from the roof of the -stateliest coach of all. But her place should have been on the seat of -honour. - -And the citoyenne, the dark window, the ripping sound in the street, -and that bosom bursting to mine in agony? Episodes, my friend--mere -travelling sparks in dead ashes, that glowed an instant and vanished. -The times bristled with such. Love and hate, and all the kaleidoscope -of passion--pouf! a sigh shook the tube, and form and colour were -changed. - -But--but--but--ah! I was glad thenceforth not to shudder for my heart -when a _blonde perruque_ went by me. - - - - - CHAPTER X. - THE AFFAIR OF THE CANDLES. - -Gardel--one of the most eminent and amusing rascals of my -experience--is inextricably associated with my memories of the prison -of the Little Force. He had been runner to the Marquis de Kercy; and -that his vanity would by no means deny, though it should procure his -conviction ten times over. He was vivacious, and at all expedients as -ingenious as he was practical; and, while he was with us, the -common-room of La Force was a theatre of varieties. - -By a curious irony of circumstance, it fell to Madame, his former -châtelaine, to second his extravagances. For he was her -fellow-prisoner; and, out of all that motley, kaleidoscopic -assemblage, an only representative of the traditions of her past. She -indulged him, indeed, as if she would say, “In him, _mes amis_, you -see exemplified the gaieties that I was born to patronise and -applaud.” - -She was a small, faded woman, of thirty-five or so--one of those -colourless aristocrats who, lying under no particular ban, were -reserved to complete the tale of any _fournée_ that lacked the -necessary number of loaves. It is humiliating to be guillotined -because fifty-nine are not sixty. But that, in the end, was her fate. - -I recall her the first evening of my incarceration, when I was -permitted to descend, rather late, to the _salle de récréation_ of -the proscribed. She was seated, with other ladies, at the long table. -The music of their voices rippled under the vaulted ceiling. They -worked, these dear creatures--the decree depriving prisoners of all -implements and equipments not yet being formulated. Madame la Marquise -stitched proverbs into a sampler in red silk. She looked, perhaps, a -morsel slatternly for a _grande dame_, and her fine lace was torn. But -the sampler must not be neglected, for all that. Since the days she -had played at “Proverbs” (how often?) in the old paternal château, -her little philosophy of life had been all maxims misapplied. Her -sampler was as eloquent to her as was their knitting to the ladies in -the _Place du Trône_. Endowed with so noble a fund of sentiments, how -could they accuse her of inhumanity? I think she had a design to plead -“sampler” before Fouquier Tinville by-and-by. - -I had an opportunity presently to examine her work. “_A laver la tête -d’un Maure on perd sa lessive._” She had just finished it--in Roman -characters, too, as a concession to the Directory. It was a -problem-axiom the Executive had resolved unanswerably--as I was bound -to tell her. - -“_Comment?_” she asked, with a little sideling perk of her head, like -a robin. - -“Can madame doubt? It requests the black thing to sneeze once into the -basket; and, behold! the difficulty is surmounted.” - -“_Fi donc!_” she cried, and stole me a curious glance. Was I delirious -with the Revolution fever? - -“Of what do they accuse you, my friend?” she said kindly, by-and-by. - -“A grave offence, surely. There is little hope for me. I gave a -citizen ‘you’ instead of ‘thou.’” - -“So? But how men are thoughtless! Alas!” (She treated me to a little -proverb again.) “‘The sleeping cat needs not to be aroused.’” - -This was late in the evening, a little before the “lock up” hour was -arrived. - -Earlier, as I had entered, she lifted her eyebrows to Gardel, who -stood, her _chevalier d’honneur_, behind her chair. The man advanced -at once, with infinite courtesy, and bade me welcome, entirely in the -grand manner, to the society of La Force. - -“I have the honour to represent madame. This kiss I impress upon -monsieur’s hand is to be returned.” - -The ladies laughed. I advanced gravely and saluted the Marquise. - -“I restore it, like a medal blessed of the holy father, sanctified a -hundredfold,” I said. - -There was a mignonne seated near who was critical of my gallantry. - -“But monsieur is enamoured of his own lips,” she said in a little -voice. - -“Cruel!” I cried. “What should I mean but that I breathed into it all -that I have of reverence for beauty? If the citoyenne----” - -There was a general cry--“A fine! a fine!” - -The hateful word was interdicted under a penalty. - -“I pay it!” I said, and stooped and kissed the fair cheek. - -Its owner flushed and looked a little vexed, for all the general -merriment. - -“Monsieur cheapens his own commodities,” she said. - -“Ah, mademoiselle! I know the best investments for my heart. I am a -very merchant of love. If you keep my embrace, I am well advertised. -If you return it, I am well enriched.” - -The idea was enough. Gardel invented a new game from it on the spot. -In a moment half the company was rustling and chattering and romping -about the room. - -M. Damézague’s “_Que ferons-nous demain matin?_”--that should have -been this vivacious Gardel’s epitaph. He could not be monotonous; he -could not be unoriginal; he could not rest anywhere--not even in his -grave. It was curious to see how he deluded la Marquise into the -belief that she was his superior. - -Indeed, these prisons afforded strange illustration of what I may call -the process of natural adjustments. Accidents of origin deprived of -all significance, one could select without any difficulty the souls to -whom a free Constitution would have ensured intellectual prominence. I -take Gardel as an instance. Confined within arbitrary limits under the -old _régime_, his personality here discovered itself masterful. His -resourcefulness, his intelligence, overcrowed us all, irresistibly -leaping to their right sphere of action. He had a little learning -even; but that was no condition of his emancipation. Also, he was not -wanting in that sort of courage with which one had not condescended -hitherto to accredit lackeys. No doubt in those days one was rebuked -by many discoveries. - -Yet another possession of his endeared him to all _misérables_ in -this casual ward of the guillotine. He had a mellow baritone voice, -and a _répertoire_ of playful and tender little folk-songs. Clélie -(it was she I had kissed; I never knew her by any other name) would -accompany him on the harp, till her head drooped and the _poudre -maréchale_ from her hair would glitter red on the strings--not to -speak of other gentle dew that was less artificial. - -Then she would look up, with a pitiful mouth of deprecation. “_La -paix, pour Dieu, la paix!_” she would murmur. “My very harp weeps to -hear thee.” - -The pathos of his songs was not in their application. Perhaps he was -quit of worse grievances than those the Revolution presented to him. -Perhaps he was happier proscribed than enslaved. At any rate, he never -fitted music to modern circumstance. His subjects were sweet, -archaic--the mythology of the woods and pastures. It was in their -allusions to a withered spring-time that the sadness lay. For, believe -me, we were all Punchinellos, grimacing lest the terror of tears -should overwhelm us. - -There was a _chansonnette_ of his, the opening words of which ran -somewhat as follows:-- - - “Oh, beautiful apple-tree! - Heavy with flowers - As my heart with love! - As a little wind serveth - To scatter thy blossom, - So a young lover only - Is needed to ravish - The heart from my bosom.” - -This might be typical of all. We convinced ourselves that we caught in -them echoes of a once familiar innocence, and we wept over our lost -Eden. Truly the indulging of introspection is the opportunity of the -imagination. - -To many brave souls Gardel’s peasant ballads were the requiem-- - - “Passez, la Dormette, - Passez par chez nous!”-- - -and so comes the rascal Cabochon, our jailer, with his lowering -_huissiers_, and the ‘Evening Gazette’ in his hand. - -“So-and-so, and So-and-so, and So-and-so, to the Conciergerie.” - -Then, if the runner had been singing, would succeed some little -emotions of parting--moist wistful eyes, and the echo of sobs going -down the corridor. - -Yet, more often, Cabochon would interrupt a romp, to which the -condemned would supplement a jocund exit. - -“_Adieu, messieurs! adieu! adieu!_ We cannot keep our countenances -longer. We kneel to Sanson, who shall shrive us--Sanson, the Abbé, -the exquisite, in whose presence we all lose our heads!” - -And so the wild hair and feverish eyes vanish. - -But it is of Gardel and the Marquise I speak. While many went and many -took their places, these two survived for a time. To the new, as to -the old, the rogue was unflagging in his attentions. His every respite -inspired him with fresh audacity; from each condemned he seemed to -take a certain toll of animation. - -Presently Madame and her emancipated servant, with Clélie and I, -would make a nightly habit of it to join forces in a bout of -“Quadrille.” We appropriated an upper corner of the long table, and -(for the oil lamps on the walls were dismally inadequate) we had our -four wax candles all regular--but in burgundy bottles for sconces. A -fifth bottle, with no candle, but charged with the ruddier light that -illuminates the heart, was a usual accompaniment. - -We chattered famously, and on many subjects. Hope a little rallied, -maybe, as each night brought Cabochon with a list innocent of our -names. - -Also we had our eccentricities, that grew dignified by custom. If, in -the game, “_Roi rendu_” was called, we paid, not with a fish, but with -a hair plucked from the head. It made Clélie cry; but not all from -loyalty. So, if the King of Hearts triumphed, its owner drank “_rubis -sur l’ongle_,” emptying his glass and tapping the edge of it three -times on his left thumb-nail. - -Now, I am to tell you of the black evening that at the last broke up -our coterie--of the frantic _abandon_ of the scene, and the tragedy of -farce with which it closed. - -On that afternoon Gardel sparkled beyond his wont. He made the air -electric with animation. The company was vociferous for a romp, but at -present we four sat idly talkative over the disused cards. - -“M. Gardel, you remind me of a gnat-maggot.” - -“How, sir?” says Gardel. - -“It is without offence. Once, as a boy, I kept a tub of gold-fish. In -this the eggs of the little insect would be found to germinate. I used -to watch the tiny water-dragons come to the surface to take the air -through their tails--my faith! but that was comically like the France -of to-day. Now touch the water with a finger, and _pouf!_ there they -were all scurried to the bottom in a panic, not to rise again till -assured of safety.” - -“That is not my way,” says Gardel. - -“Wait, my friend. By-and-by, nearing their transformation, these mites -plump out and lose their gravity. Then, if one frights them, they try -to wriggle down; their buoyancy resists. They may sink five--six -inches. It is no good. Up they come again, like bubbles in champagne, -to burst on the surface presently and fly away.” - -“And shall I fly, monsieur?” - -“To the stars, my brave Gardel. But is it not so? One cannot drive you -down for long.” - -“To-night, M. Thibaut” (such was my name in the prison -register)--“to-night, I confess, I am like a ‘Montgolfier.’ I rise, I -expand. I am full of thoughts too great for utterance. My -transformation must be near.” - -The Marquise gave a little cry-- - -“_Je ne puis pas me passer de vous, François!_” - -The servant--the master--looked kindlily into the faded eyes. - -“I will come back and be with you in spirit,” he said. - -“No, no!” she cried, volubly. “It is old-wives’ tales--the vapourings -of poets and mystics. Of all these murdered thousands, which haunts -the murderers?” - -I gazed in astonishment. This passive _douillette_, with the torn -lace! I had never known her assert herself yet but through the mouth -of her henchman. - -“Oh yes!” she went on shrilly, nodding her head. “Death, death, death! -But, if the dead return, this Paris should be a city of ghosts.” - -“Perhaps it is,” said Gardel. - -“Fie, then!” she cried. “You forget your place; you presume upon my -condescension. It is insolent so to put me to school. ‘_Ma demeure -sera bientôt le néant._’ It was Danton--yes, Danton--who said that. -He was a devil, but he could speak truth.” - -Suddenly she checked herself and gave a little artificial titter. She -was not transfigured, but debased. A jealous scepticism was revealed -in every line of her features. - -“And what is death to M. Gardel?” she said ironically. - -“It is an interruption, madame.” - -She burst forth again excitedly-- - -“But Danton saw further than thee, thou fool, who, like a crab, -lookest not whither thou art going, and wilt run upon a blind wall -while thine eyes devour the landscape sidelong. I will not have it. I -do not desire any continuance. My faith is the faith of eyes and ears -and lips. Man’s necessities die with him; and, living, mine are for -thy strong arm, François, and for thy fruitful service. My God! what -we pass through! And then for a hereafter of horrible retrospection! -No, no. It is infamous to suggest, foolish to insist on it.” - -“But, for all that, I do,” said Gardel, steadily. - -He took her outburst quite coolly--answered her with gaiety even. - -I cried “_Malepeste!_” under my breath. And, indeed, my amazement was -justified. For who would have dreamed that this little colourless -draggle-tail had one sentiment in her that amounted to a conviction? -Madame Placide an atheist! And what was there of dark and secret in -her past history that drove her to this desire of extinction? - -At Gardel’s answer she fell back in her chair with defiant eyes and -again that little artificial laugh. In the noisy talk of the room we -four sat and spoke apart. - -“_Malappris!_” she said. “You shall justify yourself of that boldness. -Come back to me, if you go first, and I will believe.” - -“Agreed!” he cried. “And for the sign, madame?” - -She thought; and answered, with the grateful womanliness that redeemed -her,-- - -“Do me a little service--something, anything--and I shall know it is -you.” - -The candles were burned half-way down in their bottles. He rose and -one by one blew them out. - -“_Voilà!_” he cried gaily. “To save your pocket!” - -So the little scene ended. - -“M. Gardel,” I said to him presently, “you come (you will pardon me) -of the makers of the Revolution. I am curious to learn your experience -of the premonitory symptoms of that disease to which at last you have -fallen a victim.” - -“Monsieur! ‘A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.’ It is an -early remembrance with me how my father cursed me that I passed my -eighth year, and so was liable to the salt-tax. My faith! I do not -blame him. Things were hard enough. But it was unreasonable to beat me -because I could not stop the march of Time. Yet we had not then -learned to worship Reason.” - -“The Moloch that devours her children!” - -“So it appears. But there were signs and omens for long years before. -I am of the territory of Berri, monsieur; and there all we learned to -read was between the lines. I will tell you that I heard--for I was in -service at the time” (he bowed with infinite complaisance to his -Marquise)--“how, all during the chill, dark spring that preceded the -September Massacres, _Les laveuses de la nuit_ were busy at their -washing.” - -“And who are they, my friend?” - -“Strange, inhuman women, monsieur, who wash in the moonlight by lonely -tarns. And while they wash they wail.” - -“Wash? But what?” - -“Some say the winding-sheets of those who are to die during the year.” - -La Marquise broke into shrill laughter. - -“Poor, poor imbecile!” she cried. “Thy credulity would make but one -gulp of a gravestone. You must know these things are not, my friend. -I tell thee so--I, thy mistress. Miserable! have you nothing in your -life that not mountains of eternity could crush out the memory of?” - -Again she checked herself. - -“It is the one virtue of the Revolution to have decreed annihilation.” - -A deputation approached us. She jumped to her feet, her pale eyes -flickering. - -“But, yes!” she cried, “a game, a game! I acquit myself of these -follies. It is present life I desire. Messieurs, what is it to be? To -the front, François!” - -The man responded at a leap. The veins of all received the infection -of his wild humour. In a moment, chattering and pushing and giggling, -we were to take our places for “_Shadow Buff_.” - -We had no sheet. The dirty drab of the wall must suffice. A stool was -placed for the guesser--not yet appointed; and la Marquise’s four -candles, relighted, were placed on the table over against it, in a -receding row like a procession of acolytes. Between the candles and -the back of the guesser the company were to pass one by one, for -identification by means of the shadows cast on the wall. - -“Who shall take the stool?” - -The clamour echoed up to the vaulted stonework of the roof--and died. -Cabochon’s evil face was visible at the grille. - -He saw what we were at; the dull brute was sopped with drink and -bestially amiable. His key grated in the door and he stood before us, -his bodyguard supporting him, the fatal list in his hand. - -“Ah!” he said, “but ‘_Shadow Buff_’ again? It is well timed. Yet I -could name some citizen shadows without sitting on the stool.” - -His voice guttered like a candle. It seemed to run into greasy drops. - -A wild inspiration seized me. - -“_Voilà, citoyen!_” I cried. “You shall join us. You shall take your -victims from the wall!” - -In a moment I had snatched the dirty rag of paper out of his hand, and -had retreated with it a few paces. I had an instant to glance down the -list before he slouched at me in sodden anger. My heart gave a queer -little somersault and came upright again. - -“_Sang Dieu!_” he growled, thickly. “You do well to jest. Give me the -paper, or I’ll brain you with my keys!” - -I dropped laughing upon the stool, and held the list between and under -my knees. With an oath he fell upon me. The company applauded it all -with a frenzy of mad mirth and frolic. - -The struggle was brief. He rose directly, puffing and cursing, the -paper in his hand. - -I affected a crestfallen good-humour. - -“You might have let us have our game out,” I protested. - -With his recovered authority in his hand, the rascal condescended to -some facetious tolerance. - -“So!” he said; “you play a good part. They should have you for King -George in ‘Le Dernier Jugement des Rois.’ But rest content. You shall -appear on a notable stage yet, and before an audience more -appreciative than that of the Théâtre de la République.” - -“And I shall know how to bow my thanks, citizen.” - -“Ah!” he crowed. “I love thee! Thou shalt have thy game and sit here; -and I will pick from the flock as thou numberest its tale.” - -It fell in with the reckless, dreadful humour of the times. I would -have withdrawn from the cruel jest, but it was the company of _les -misérables_ that prevented me. - -Who should go first? There was a little hesitation and reluctance. - -“Come, hurry!” cried Cabochon, “or I must do my own guessing!” - -Suddenly a shadow glided past upon the wall. - -“No, no!” I muttered. - -“Name it, name it!” chuckled the jailer. The grinning _sans-culottes_ -at the door echoed his demand vociferously. - -“Gardel!” I murmured faintly. The leading spirit had, -characteristically, been the first to enter the breach. - -“Good,” croaked Cabochon, referring to his list. “Citizen shadow, you -are marked for judgment.” - -I rose hurriedly from the stool. - -“I will no more of it!” I cried. - -“What!--already? My faith! a nerveless judge.” - -Instantly a figure pressed forward and took my place. - -“Pass, pass, good people!” it cried, “and _I_ will call the tale!” - -She sat there--the Marquise--her lips set in an acrid smile. Neither -look nor word did she address to her forfeited servant. - -Another shadow passed. - -“Darviane!” she cried shrilly. - -“_Encore bien_,” roared Cabochon amidst shrieks of laughter. My God, -what laughter! - -Milet, De Mérode, Fontenay--she named them all. They took their -places by the door, skipping--half-hysterical. - -D’Aubiers, Monville--I cannot recall a moiety of them. It was a -destructive list. Clélie also was in it--poor Clélie, the frail, I -fear, but with the big heart. I fancied I noticed a harder ring in -Madame’s voice as she identified her. - -I stood stupidly in the background. Presently I heard Cabochon-- - -“Enough! enough! The virtuous citizens would forestall the Executive.” - -He numbered up his list rapidly, counted his prisoners. They tallied. - -“To be repeated to-morrow,” he said. “It is good sport. But the -guessers, it seems, remain.” - -He treated us to a grin and a clumsy bow, gave the order to form, and -carried off his new batch to the baking. - -As the door clanged upon them I gave a deep gasp. I could not believe -in the reality of my respite. - -For the thinned company the reaction had set in immediately: women -were flung prostrate, on the table, over the benches, wailing out -their desperate loss and misery. - -Madame made her way to me. The strange smile had not left her mouth. - -“You were on the list. I saw it in your face.” - -“I was at the bottom--the very last.” - -“But how----?” - -“As Cabochon struggled with me, I turned my name down and tore it -off.” - -“But the number?” - -“It tallied. It was enough for him.” - -“They must find it out--to-morrow, when the prisoners are arraigned.” - -“Probably. And in the meantime we will drink to our poor Gardel’s -acquittal.” - -“No,” she said, shrinking back, with an extraordinary look. “If I wish -him well, I wish him eternal forgetfulness.” - - - -It was the evening of the day succeeding. Shorn of our partners in -“Quadrille,” Madame and I had been playing “Piquet.” - -We were only two, but the four lights flickered in their bottles. - -La Marquise de Kercy had been musing. Suddenly she looked up. Her eyes -were full of an inhuman mockery. - -“The candles!” she said, with a little laugh. “We are no longer using -them. To save my pocket, François!” - -_Pouf!_ a candle went out--another, another, another; between each the -fraction of time occupied by something unseen moving round -systematically. - -I started to my feet with a suppressed cry. - -One or two sitting near us complained of this churlish economy of wax. -They imagined I was the culprit. - -“Madame!” I muttered. “Look! she is indisposed!” - -Her face was white and dreadful, like a skull. Hearing my voice she -sat up. - -“So! He has been guillotined!” she said. - -She articulated with difficulty, swallowing and panting without stop. - -“M. Thibaut, it is true, then, they say! But it was he made me kill -the child. He has more need to forget than I. Is it not appalling? If -I tell them now how I have learnt to fear, they will surely spare me. -I cannot subscribe to their doctrines--that Club of the Cordeliers. If -I tell them so--Danton being gone----” - -Her voice tailed off into a hurry of pitiful sobs and cries. I -welcomed the entrance of Cabochon with his list. - -Her name was first on it. - -As we stood arisen, dreading some hideous scene, she fell silent quite -suddenly, got to her feet, and walked to the door with a face of -stone. - -“Death is an interruption.” - -“_Ma demeure sera bientôt le néant._” - -Which could one hope for her, pondering only that delirious outcry -from her lips? - -Possibly, indeed, she had been mad from first to last. - -I had time to collect my thoughts, for--from whatever cause--Citizen -Tinville had, it appeared, overlooked me. - - - - - CHAPTER XI. - PYRAMUS AND THISBE. - -I was taking exercise one forenoon in the yard of the prison. It was -the last black “Prairial” of the “Terror”--the month, like the girl La -Lune, once dedicate to Mary--and its blue eyes curiously scrutinised, -as Cleopatra’s of old, the processes amongst us slaves of that poison -that is called despair. - -As for myself, I yet a little consorted with Hope--the fond clinging -mistress I had dreaded to find banished with the rest of the dear -creatures whose company had long now been denied us;--for five months -had passed since my incarceration, and I was still, it seemed, -forgotten. - -I trod the flags--fifty paces hither and thither. Going one way, I had -always before my eyes the frowzy stone rampart and barred windows of -the prison. Going the other, an execrable statue of M. -Rousseau--surmounting an altar to Liberty, the very cement of which -was marbled with the blood of the massacres--closed my perspective. To -my either hand was a lofty wall--the first giving upon the jailers’ -quarters; the second dividing the men’s yard from that in which the -women were permitted to walk; and a foul open sewer, tunnelled through -the latter about its middle, traversed the entire area, and offered -the only means by which the sexes could now communicate with each -other. - -“M. Thibaut,” said a voice at my ear; and a gentleman, detaching -himself from the aimless and loitering crowd of prisoners, adapted his -pace to mine and went with me to and fro. - -I knew this oddity--M. the Admiral de St Prest--though he had no -recognition of me. That, however, was small wonder. By this time I was -worse than a _sans-culotte_, by so much as that my bareness was -suggested rather than revealed. My face was sunk away from my eyes, -like soft limestone from a couple of ammonites; my ribs were loose -hoops on a decayed cask; laughter rattled in my stomach like a pea in -a whistle. Besides, I had come, I think, to be a little jealous of my -title to neglect, for I had made that my grievance against Fate. - -Nevertheless, M. de St Prest and I had been slightly acquainted once -upon a time, and it had grieved me to see this red month marked by the -advent in La Force of the dubious old fop. - -He had been a macaroni of Louis XV.’s Court, and the ancient _rôle_ -he had never learnt to forego. The poor puppies of circumstance--the -fops of a more recent date, to whom the particular cut of a lapel -would figure as the standard of reason--bayed him in the prison as -they would have bayed him in the streets. To them, with their high -top-boots _à l’Anglaise_, poor St Prest’s spotted breeches and -knee-ribbons were a source of profound amusement. To them, affecting -the huskiness of speech of certain rude islanders (my very good -friends), his mincing falsetto was a perpetual incitement to laughter. -Swaggering with their cudgels that they called “constitutions,” they -would strike from under him the elaborate tasselled staff on which he -leaned; tossing their matted manes, they would profess to find -something exquisitely exhilarating in the complicated _toupet_ that -embraced and belittled his lean physiognomy. I held them all poor -apes; yet, I confess, it was a ridiculous and pathetic sight, this -posturing of an old wrecked man in the tatters of a bygone generation; -and it gave me shame to see him lift his plate of a hat to me with a -little stick, as the fashion was in his younger days. - -“M. Thibaut,” he said, falling into step with me, “these young bloods” -(he signified with his cane a group that had been baiting him)--“they -worry me, monsieur. _Mort de ma vie!_ what manners! what a presence! -It shall need a butcher’s steel to bring their wits to an edge.” - -“Oh, monsieur,” said I--“have you not the self-confidence to despise -personalities? The fool hath but a narrow world of conventions, and -everything outside it is to him abnormal. His head is a drumstick to -produce hollow sounds within a blank little area. For my part, I never -hear one holding the great up to ridicule without thinking, There is -wasted a good stone-cutter of epitaphs.” - -“_Eh bien_, monsieur! but I have been accustomed to leave the study of -philosophy to my lackeys.” - -He spoke in a lofty manner, waving his hand at me; and he took snuff -from a battered wooden box, and flipped his fingers to his thumb -afterwards as if he were scattering largesse of fragrance. - -“So, you have a royal contempt of personalities?” he said, with a -little amused tolerance. - -“Why,” said I--“I am not to be put out of conceit with myself because -an ass brays at me.” - -“Or out of countenance, monsieur?” - -“Oh, M. de St Prest! That would be to lose my head on small -provocation. Besides, one must admit the point of view. M. Malseigne -there surveys the world over the edge of a great stock; you, monsieur, -regard it with your chin propped upon a fine fichu. No doubt Sanson -thinks a wooden cravat _comme il faut_; and I--_fichtre!_ I cry in my -character of patriot, ‘There is nothing like the collar of a -carmagnole to keep one’s neck in place!’ Truly, M. l’Amiral, I for one -am not touchy about my appearance.” - -His old eyes blinked out a diluted irony. - -“And that is very natural,” he said; “but then, _mort de ma vie!_ you -are a philosopher--like him there.” - -He pointed to the statue of Rousseau. The libellous block wrought in -him, it seemed, a mood of piping retrospection. - -“I saw the rascal once,” he said--“a mean, common little man, in a -round wig. He was without air or presence. It was at the theatre. The -piece was one of M. de Sauvigny’s, and he sat in the author’s box, a -_loge grillée_. That was a concession to his diffidence; but his -diffidence had been too much consulted, it seemed. He would have the -grate opened, and then the house recognised and applauded him, and -finally forgot him for the _Persiffleur_. He was very angry at that, -I believe. We heard it lost the author his friendship. He accused him -of having made a show of him, and--_Mort de ma vie!_ that is to be a -philosopher.” - -He ogled and bowed to a stout kindly-looking woman who, coming from -the jailers’ quarters, passed us at the moment. It was Madame Beau, -the keeper of La Force--the only one there in authority whose sense of -humanity had not gone by the board. A ruffianly warder, leading a -great wolf-hound, preceded her. She nodded to us brightly and -stopped-- - -“Ah, M. Thibaut! but soon we shall call you the father of La Force.” - -“As you are its mother, madame.” - -“Poor children. But, after all, if one considers it as a club----” - -“True; where one may feast like Belshazzar. Yet, I find, one may have -a surfeit of putrid herrings, even though one is to die on the -morrow.” - -Madame shrugged her shoulders. - -“Ah, bah! the stuff is supplied by contract. I am not to blame, my -little fellows. Yet some of you manage better.” (She pointed to the -retreating hound.) “_Voilà le délinquent!_ He was caught -red-handed--discussing the bribe of a sheep’s trotter; and his -sentence is five hours in a cell.” - -She nodded again and jingled her keys. - -“But, yes,” she said, “consider it as a club----” and off she went -across the yard. - -“A club? Oh, _mon Dieu_!” murmured St Prest. - -“Well,” said I, “I am inclined to fall in with the idea. What livelier -places of sojourn are there, in these days of gravity and decorum, -than the prisons?” - -He pursed his lips and wagged his old head like a mandarin. - -“At least,” he said, leeringly, “she is a fine figure of a woman. She -dates, like myself, from the era of the _Bien-aimé_, when women knew -how to walk and to hold themselves; and to reveal themselves, too. -_Oh, je m’entends bien!_ I have been entertained in the _Parc aux -cerfs_, M. Thibaut.” - -I could certainly believe it. This effete old carpet-admiral? Had he -ever smelt salt water? I could understand, perhaps, that he had -crossed in the packet to the land of fogs. But now he was to exhibit -himself to me in a more honourable aspect--to confess the man under -the powder and the rubbish. - -We stood close by where the wall was pierced by the running sewer. The -whole yard was alive with laughter and babble; and now and again one -would leave a friend or party of triflers and, kneeling down over the -infected sink, would call some name through the opening. Then, -summoned to the other side, Lucille, poor _ange déchu_, would -exchange a few earnest pitiful words with husband or brother or lover, -and her tears, perhaps, would fall into the gushing drain and sanctify -its abomination to him. Was not that for love to justify itself in the -eyes of the most unnatural misogynist? - -Now there came up to the trap a pale little fellow--the merest child. -It was little Foucaud, the son of Madame Kolly. This poor lad must be -held a man (God save him!) when misfortune overtook his family; but -the scoundrels had the grace to consign his younger brother to the -company of his mother on the woman’s side. And here, through this sink -opening, the two babes would converse in their sad little trebles two -or three times a-day. - -“How now, my man?” said St Prest; for the boy stood wistfully watching -us, his hands picking together and his throat swelling. Then all at -once he was weeping. - -The old fop gently patted the heaving shoulders. - -“Oh, monsieur,” said the youngster, in a hoarse little voice, “the -cold of the stones is in my throat and on my chest.” - -“What then, child! That is not to be guillotined.” - -“But I cannot cry out so that he shall hear me; and if we do not talk -I know nothing.” - -In a paroxysm of agitation he threw himself down by the sewer. - -“Lolo, Lolo!” he tried to call; but his voice would not obey his will. - -And then M. de St Prest did a thing, the self-sacrificing quality of -which shall be known in full, perhaps, only to the angels. He took the -lad under the arms and, lifting him away, himself knelt down in all -his nicety by the sink and put his mouth to the opening. - -“The little Foucaud,” he piped, “desires to see his brother!” - -Presently he looked up. - -“He is here, child.” - -“Oh, monsieur! will you explain that I cannot speak, and ask him how -is _maman_?” - -The message was given. I heard the poor little voice answer through -the wall: “_Maman_ sends her love to you. She has not wept so much the -last night, and she has been sleeping a little. It is Lolo, who loves -you well, that tells you this.” - -I assisted St Prest to rise. - -“I will ask the honour,” I said, “of dusting M. l’Amiral’s coat for -him.” - - * * * * * * * - -That same afternoon, as I was again, during the hour of exercise, -standing near the sewer, of a sudden I heard a most heartrending voice -calling from the other side of the wall. - -“Messieurs! messieurs!” it cried. “Will no one send to me my darling?” - -I dropped upon my knees (I give all honour to M. de St Prest), and, -with a shudder of nausea, lowered my face to the opening. - -“Who speaks?” I said. “I am at madame’s service.” - -The voice caught in a sob. - -“_Je vous rends grâce_--whoever you are, I thank you from my heart. -It is my little Foucaud, my dearest, that must come to his _maman_, -and quickly.” - -I answered that I would summon him, and I rose to my feet. I had no -difficulty in finding the boy. He came, white-faced and wondering, and -knelt down. - -“_Maman, maman_--canst thou hear me? My throat is a little hoarse, -_maman_.” - -“Oh, my baby, my little son! Thou wilt be sweet and tender with Lolo -in the happy days that are coming. And thou wilt never forget -_maman_--say it, say it, lest her heart should break.” - -God of mercy! Who was I to stand and listen to these pitiful -confidences! I drew aside, watchful only of the boy lest his grief and -terror should drive him mad. In a moment a white hand, laden with a -dark thick coil of hair, was thrust through the opening. It was all -the unhappy woman could leave her darling to remember her by. No -glimpse of her face--no touch of her lips on his. From the dark into -the dark she must go, and his very memory of her should be associated -with the most dreadful period of his life. When they came for her in -another instant, I heard the agony of her soul find vent in a single -cry: “My lambs, alone amongst the wolves!” - -Kind Madame Beau was there beside me. - -“Lift him up,” she whispered. “He will be motherless in an hour.” - -As I stooped to take the sobbing and hysterical child in my arms, I -heard a voice speak low on the other side of the wall-- - -“It is only an interruption, madame.” - -Gardel’s words--but the speaker! - -I stumbled with my burden--recovered myself, and consigned the boy to -the good soul that awaited him. Then hurriedly I leaned down again, -and hurriedly cried, “Carinne! Carinne!” - - * * * * * * * - -There was no answer. Probably the speaker had retreated when the -wretched Madame Kolly was withdrawn from the wall. I called again. I -dwelt over the noxious gutter in excitement and anguish until I was -convinced it was useless to remain. Was it this, then? that out of all -the voices of France one voice could set my heart vibrating like a -glass vessel that responds only to the striking of its single -sympathetic note? I had thought to depose this idol of an hour from -its shrine; I had cried shame upon myself for ever submitting my -independence to the tyranny of a woman, and here a half-dozen words -from her addressed to a stranger had reinfected me with the fever of -desire. - -I got out a scrap of paper and wrote thereon, “_Jacob to Rachel. -Jean-Louis is still in the service of Mademoiselle de Lâge._” - -I found a fragment of stick, notched the paper into the end of it, and -gingerly passed my billet through the hole in the wall. On the instant -a great voice uttered a malediction behind me, and I was jerked -roughly down upon the flags. My end of the stick dropped into the -gutter and wedged itself in slime. I looked up. Above me were Cabochon -and a yellow-faced rascal. This last wore a sword by his side and on -his head a high-crowned hat stuffed with plumes. I had seen him -before--Maillard, l’Abbaye Maillard, a hound with a keen enough scent -for blood to make himself a lusty living. He and his colleague Héron -would often come to La Force to count their victims before following -them to the scaffold. - -“Plots--plots!” he muttered, shaking his head tolerantly, as if he -were rebuking a child. “See to it, Citizen Cabochon.” - -The jailer fetched back the stick. The paper, however, was gone from -the end of it. - -“It will be in the sewer,” said Maillard, quietly. - -Cabochon had no scruples. He groped with his fingers. - -“It is not here,” he said after a time, eyeing me and very malignant. - -“Well,” said the other, “who is this fellow?” - -“_Mordi_, Citizen President; he is a forgotten jackass that eats his -head off in the revolutionary stable.” - -“_Vraiment?_ Then, it follows, his head must fall into the -revolutionary manger.” - -He nodded pleasantly twice or thrice; then turned and, beckoning -Cabochon to walk by him, strode away. - -I sat in particular cogitation against the wall. For the present, it -seemed, I enjoyed a distinction that was not attractive to my -fellow-prisoners; and I was left religiously to myself. - -“Now,” said I aloud, “I have grown such a beard that at last the -national barber must take me in hand.” - -“M. Jean-Louis,” said a voice the other side of the trap, “will you -keep me kneeling here for ever?” - -I started and flung myself face downwards with a cry of joy. My heart -swelled in a moment so that it drove the tears up to my eyes. - -“Carinne!” I cried, choking and half-sobbing; “is it thou indeed?” - -“Creep through the little hole,” she said, “and thou shalt see.” - -I laughed and I cried in a single breath. - -“Say what thou wilt, _ma fillette_. Yes, I will call thee as I choose. -Didst thou hear but now? I think it is a dying man that speaks to -thee. Carinne, say after all you keep a place in your heart for the -little odd Thibaut.” - -“Insidious! thou wouldst seek to devour the whole, like a little worm -in a gall.” - -“To hear your voice again! We are always shadows to one another now. -As a shadow I swear that I love you dearly. Oh, _ma mie, ma mie_, I -love you so dearly. And why were you cruel to leave me for that small -gust of temper I soon repented of? Carinne! My God! she is gone away!” - -“I am here, little Thibaut.” - -“There is a sound in your voice. Oh, this savage unyielding wall! I -will kiss it a foot above the trap. Will you do the same on the other -side?” - -“Monsieur forgets himself, I think.” - -“He is light-headed with joy. But he never forgets Mademoiselle de -Lâge--not though she punished him grievously for an indifferent -offence in the forests of Chalus.” - -“Jean-Louis, listen well to this: I was abducted.” - -“My God! by whom?” - -“By a vile citizen Representative journeying to Paris.” - -“By a----” - -“I had emerged from the trees after you left me, and was sitting very -passionate by the road, when he passed with his escort and discovered -me.” - -I kneeled voiceless as if I were stunned. - -“What would you!” said Carinne. “There was no Thibaut at hand to throw -him to the pigs. He forced me to go with him, and----” - -I vented a groan that quite rumbled in the gutter; and at that her -voice came through the hole a little changed-- - -“Monsieur has a delicate faith in what he professes to love.” - -I beat my hands on the wall. I cried upon Heaven in my agony to let me -reach through this inexorable veil of stone. - -“You talked once of the wicked licence of the times. How could I know, -oh, _ma mie_! And now all my heart is melting with love and rapture.” - -“But I had a knife, Jean-Louis. Well, but he was courteous to me; and -at that I told him who I was--no jill-flirt, but an unhappy waif of -fortune. Now, _mon Dieu_!--it turned out that this was the very man -that had come _en mission_ to Pierrettes.” - -“Lacombe?” - -“No--a creature of the name of Crépin----” - -I uttered a cry. - -“Crépin! It was he that carried thee away?” - -“Truly; and who has, for my obduracy, consigned me to prison. Ever -since, little Thibaut, ever since--now at Les Carmes; now in the Rue -de Sèvres; at last, no later than yesterday, to this ‘extraordinary -question’ of La Force.” - -“Now thou art a sweet-souled Carinne! Send me something of thine -through the evil passage that I may mumble it with my lips. Carinne, -listen,”--and I told her the story of my connection with the villain. - -“I would wring his neck if they would spare mine,” I said. “But, alas! -I fear I am doomed, Carinne.” - -She had from me all the details in brief of my captivity. _Mon Dieu!_ -but it was ecstasy this dessert to my long feast of neglect. At the -end she was silent a space; then she said very low-- - -“He communicates with me; but I never answer. Now I will do so, and -perhaps thou shalt not die.” - -“Carinne.” - -“Hush, thou small citizen! The time is up; we must talk no longer.” - -I breathed all my heart out in a sigh of farewell. I thought she had -already gone, when suddenly she spoke again-- - -“Jean-Louis, Jean-Louis, do you hear?” - -“Yes.” - -“I would have thee just the height for thine eyes to look into mine.” - -“Carinne? And what should they read there?” - -Again there was a pause, again I thought she had gone; and then once -more her voice came to me-- - -“Little Thibaut, I _did_ kiss the wall a foot above the trap.” - - * * * * * * * - -“Madame Beau,” said I, “when you shall be nearing old age--that is to -say, when your present years double themselves--it is very certain -that your lines will fall in pleasant places.” - -“And where will they be?” said she. - -“Where, but round your fine eyes and the dimples of your mouth!” - -She cried, “_Oh, qu’il est malin!_” and tapped my shoulder archly with -a great key she held in her hand. - -“And what is the favour you design to ask of me?” she said. - -“Firstly your permission to me to dedicate some verses to you,” said -I. “After that, that you will procure me the immediate delivery of -this little tube of paper.” - -“To whom is it addressed?” - -“To one Crépin, who lives in the Rue de Jouy, St Antoine.” - -“_Croyez m’en!_” she cried. “Do you not see I have dropped my key?” - -Then, as I stooped to pick up the instrument which she had let fall on -the pavement, “Slip the little paper into the barrel!” she muttered. - -I did so; and these were the words I had written on it:-- - - “_I am imprisoned in La Force for any reason or none. It concerns me - only in that I am thereby debarred from vindicating upon your body the - honour of Mademoiselle de Lâge. If it gives you any shame to hear - that towards this victim of your base persecution, I, your one-time - comrade, entertain and have long entertained sentiments of the most - profound regard, prevail with yourself, I beseech you, to procure the - enlargement of a lady whose only crimes--as things are judged - nowadays--are her innocence and her beauty._ - - “_Jean-Louis Thibaut_.” - - * * * * * * * - -Of all the degradations to which we in the prison were subjected, none -equalled that that was a common condition of our nightly herding. -Then--so early as eight o’clock during the darker months--would appear -the foul Cabochon--with his satellites and three or four brace of -hounds--to drive us like cattle to our sleeping-pens. Bayed into the -corridors, from which our cells opened, we must answer to our names -bawled out by a crapulous turnkey, who held in his jerking hands, and -consulted with his clouded eyes, a list that at his soberest he could -only half decipher. He calls a name--probably of one that has already -paid the penalty. There is no answer. The ruffian bullies and curses, -while the survivors explain the matter to him. He sulkily acquiesces; -shouts the tally once more, regardless of the hiatus--of course only -to repeat the error. Amidst a storm of menaces we are all ordered out -of our rooms, and this again and yet again, perhaps, until the beast -satisfies himself or is satisfied that none is skulking, and that -nothing is in error but his own drunken vision. Then at last the dogs -are withdrawn, the innumerable doors clanged to and barred, and we are -left, sealed within a fetid atmosphere, to salve our wounded dignity -as we can with the balm of spiritual self-possession. - -But now, on this particular evening, conscious of something in my -breast that overcrowed the passionless voice of philosophy, I felt -myself uplifted and translated--an essence impressionable to no -influence that was meaner than divine. - -“And who knows,” I said to myself, as we were summoned from the yard, -“but that Quatremains-Quatrepattes might have pronounced Carinne to be -the bright star in my horoscope?” - -“Not so fast, citizen,” growled Cabochon, who stood, list in hand, at -the door. - -“Rest content,” said I; “I am never in a hurry.” - -“_Par exemple!_ you grow a little rusty, perhaps, for a notable actor. -It is well, then, that you have an engagement at last.” - -“To perform? And where, M. Cabochon?” - -“In the Palais de Justice. That is a theatre with a fine box, citizen; -and the verdict of those that sit in it is generally favourable--to -the public.” - - - - - CHAPTER XII. - THE MOUSE-TRAP. - -Was I so very small? I had the honour of a tumbril all to myself on -my journey to the Conciergerie, and I swear that I could have thought -I filled it. But Mademoiselle de Lâge was the pretty white heifer -that had caused me to puff out my sides in emulation of her large -nobility--me, yes, of whom she would have said, as the bull of the -frog, “_Il n’était pas gros en tout comme un œuf_.” Now I was -travelling probably to my grave; yet the exaltation of that interview -still dwelt with me, and I thought often of some words that had once -been uttered by a certain Casimir Bertrand: “To die with the wine in -one’s throat and the dagger in one’s back! What could kings wish for -better?” - -We came down upon the sullen prison by way of the Pont au Change and -the Quay d’Horloge, and drew up at a door on the river-side. I saw a -couple of turrets, with nightcap roofs, stretch themselves, as if -yawning, above me. I saw in a wide angle of the gloomy block of -buildings, where the bridge discharged itself upon the quay, a vast -heap of newly thrown-up soil where some excavations were being -conducted; and from the mound a sort of crane or scaffold, sinisterly -suggestive of a guillotine surmounting a trench dug for its dead, -stood out against a falling crimson sky. The river hummed in its -course; above a green spot on the embankment wall a cloud of dancing -midges seemed to boil upwards like steam from a caldron. Everything -suggested to me the _mise en scène_ of a rehearsing tragedy, and then -promptly I was haled, like an inanimate “property,” into the -under-stage of that dark “theatre of varieties.” - -Messieurs the jailers, it appeared, were at their supper, and would -not for the moment be bothered with me. A gush of light and a violent -voice issued from a door to one side of a stony vestibule: “Run the -rascal into La Souricière, and be damned to him!” - -Thereat I was hurried, by the “blue” that was responsible for my -transfer, and an understrapper with the keys, by way of a gloomy -course--up and down--through doorways clinched with monstrous -bolts--under vaulted stone roofs where spiders, blinded by the lamp -glare, shrank back into crevices, and where all the mildew of -desolation sprouted in a poisonous fungus--along passages deeply -quarried, it seemed, into the very foundations of despair; and at last -they stopped, thrust me forward, and a door clapped to behind me with -a slam of thunder. - -I stood a moment where I was and caught at my bewildered faculties. It -took me, indeed, but a moment to possess myself of them. In those days -one had acquired a habit of wearing one’s wits unsheathed in one’s -belt. Then I fell to admiring the quite unwonted brilliancy of the -illumination that pervaded the cell. It was a particularly small -chamber--perhaps ten feet by eight or so--and consequently the single -lighted candle, held in a cleft stick the butt of which was thrust -into a chink in the stones, irradiated it to its uttermost corner. The -furniture was artless in its simplicity--a tub, a broken pitcher of -water, and two heaps of foul straw. But so abominable a stench filled -the place that no doubt there was room for little else. - -Now, from one of the straw beds, the figure of a man--my sole comrade -to be, it would appear--rose up as I stirred, and stood with its back -and the palms of its hands pressed against the wall. Remaining thus -motionless, the shadows blue in its gaunt cheeks, and little husks of -wheat caught in its dusty hair, it fixed me with eyes like staring -pebbles. - -“_Défense d’entrer!_” it snapped out suddenly, and shut its mouth -like a gin. - -“Oh, monsieur!” said I, “no going out, rather, for the mouse in the -trap.” - -He lifted one of his arms at right angles to his body, and let it drop -again to his side. - -“Behold!” he cried, “the peril! Hadst thou been closer thy head had -fallen!” - -“But thine,” said I. “Hast thou not already lost it?” - -“Oh, early in the struggle, monsieur! Oh, very early! And then my soul -passed into the inanimate instrument of death and made it animate.” - -“What! thou art the guillotine itself?” - -“Look at me, then! Is it not obvious that I am that infernal engine, -nor less that I am informed with the _ego_ that once was my victim and -is now my familiar--being myself, in effect?” - -“_Pardieu!_ this is worse than the game of ‘Proverbs.’ It rests with -thy _ego_, then, to put a period to this orgy of blood.” - -He gave forth a loud wailing cry. - -“I am a demon, prejudged and predestined, and the saint of the Place -du Trône is possessed with me.” - -“A saint, possessed!” - -He wrung his hands insanely. - -“Oh!” he cried--“but is it not a fate to which damnation were -Paradise! For me, the gentle Aubriot, who in my material form had -shrunk from killing a fly--for me to thus deluge an unhappy land with -the blood of martyrs! But I have threshed my conscience with a knotted -discipline, and I know--yes, monsieur, I know--what gained me my -punishment. A cripple once begged of me a poor two sous. I hesitated, -in that I had but the one coin on me, and my nostrils yearned for -snuff. I hesitated, and the devil tripped up my feet. I gave the man -the piece and asked him a sou in change. For so petty a trifle did I -barter my salvation. But heaven was not to be deceived, and its -vengeance followed me like a snake through the grass. Ah!” (he jumped -erect) “but the blade fell within an ace of thy shoulder!” - -This was disquieting enough, in all truth. Yet I took comfort from the -thought that the madman could avail himself of no more murderous -weapon than his hands. - -“Now, M. Guillotin,” said I, “observe that it is characteristic of you -to lie quiescent when you are put away for the night.” - -“_Nenni, nenni, nenni!_” he answered. “That may have been before the -hideous apotheosis of the instrument. Now, possessed as I am, I slash -and cut at whoever comes in my way.” - -_Mon Dieu!_ but this was a wearisome lunatic! and I longed very -ardently to be left peacefully to my own reflections. I came forward -with a show of extreme fortitude. - -“This demon of yourself,” I said--“you wish it to be exorcised, that -the soil of France may grow green again?” - -A fine self-sacrificial rapture illumined his wild face. - -“Let me be hurled into the bottomless pit,” he cried, “that so the -Millennium may rise in the east like an August sun!” - -“Now,” said I, “I will commune with my soul during the night, that -perchance it may be revealed to me how the guillotine may guillotine -itself.” - -To my surprise the ridiculous bait took, and the poor wretch sunk down -upon his straw and uttered no further word. Crossing the cell to come -to my own heap, my foot struck against an iron ring that projected -from a flag. For an instant a mad hope flamed up in me, only to as -immediately die down. Was it probable that the “Mouse-trap”--into -which, I knew, it was the custom to put newly arrived prisoners before -their overhauling by the turnkeys and “scenting” by the dogs of the -guard--would be furnished with a door of exit as of entrance? -Nevertheless, I stooped and tugged at the ring to see what should be -revealed in the lifting of the stone. It, the latter, seemed a -ponderous slab. I raised one end of it a foot or so with difficulty, -and, propping it with the pitcher, looked to see what was underneath. -A shallow trough or excavation--that was all; probably a mere pit into -which to sweep the scourings of the cell. Leaving it open, I flung -myself down upon the mat of straw, and gave myself up to a melancholy -ecstasy of reflection. - -The maniac crouched in his corner. So long as the light lasted I was -conscious of his eyes fixed in a steady bright stare upon the lifted -stone. There seemed something in its position that fascinated him. -Then, with a dropping splutter, the candle sank upon itself and was -extinguished suddenly; and straightway we were embedded in a block of -gloom. - -Very soon I was asleep. Ease and sensation, drink and food--how -strangely in those days one’s soul had learned to withdraw itself from -its instinctive attachments; to hover apart, as it were, from that -clumsy expression of its desires that is the body with its appetites; -and to accept at last, as radically irreclaimable, that same body so -grievously misinformed with animism. Now I could surrender to -forgetfulness, and that with little effort, all the load of emotion -and anxiety with which a savage destiny sought to overwhelm me. Nor -did this argue a brutish insensibility on my part; but only a lifting -of idealism to spheres that offered a more tranquil and serener field -for meditation. - -Once during the night a single drawn sound, like the pipe of wind in a -keyhole, roused me to a half-recovery of my faculties. I had been -dreaming of Carinne and of the little pig that fell into the pit, and, -associating the phantom cry with the voluble ghosts of my brain, I -smiled and fled again to the heights. - -The noise of heavily grating bolts woke me at length to the iron -realities of a day that might be my last on earth. I felt on my face -the wind of the dungeon door as it was driven back. - -“Follow me, Aubriot!” grunted an indifferent voice in the opening. - -Lacking a response of any sort, the speaker, who had not even put -himself to the trouble of entering the cell, cried out gutturally and -ironically-- - -“_Holà hé, holà hé_, Citizen Aubriot Guillotin! thou art called to -operate on thyself! _Mordi, mordi, mordi!_ dost thou hear? thou art -invited to commit suicide that France may regenerate itself of thee!” - -I raised my head. A burly form, topped by a great hairy face, blocked -the doorway. I made it out by the little light that filtered through a -high-up grating above me. - -“_Mille démons!_” shouted the turnkey suddenly, “what is this?” - -He came pounding into the cell, paused, and lifted his hands like a -benedictory priest. “_Mille démons!_” he whispered again, with his -jaw dropped. - -I had jumped to my feet. - -“_Pardieu!_ Mr Jailer!” said I; “the guillotine, it appears, has -anticipated upon itself that law of which it is the final expression. -The rest of us you will of necessity acquit.” - -I looked down, half-dazed; but I recalled the odd sound that had -awakened me in the night. Here, then, was the explanation of it--in -this swollen and collapsed form, whose head, it seemed, was plunged -beneath the floor, as if it had dived for Tartarus and had stuck at -the shoulders. - -“He has guillotined himself with a vengeance!” I exclaimed. - -“But how?” said the turnkey, stupidly. - -“But thus, it is obvious: by propping the slab-end on the pitcher; by -lying down with his neck over the brink of the trough; by upsetting -the vessel with a sweep of his arm as he lay. _Mon Dieu!_ see how he -sprouts from the chink like a horrible dead polypus! This is no -mouse-trap, but a gin to catch human vermin!” - -“It was not to be foreseen,” muttered the man, a little scared. “Who -would have fancied a madman to be in earnest!” - -“And that remark,” said I, “comes oddly from the lips of a patriot.” - -He questioned me with his eyes in a surly manner. - -“Bah!” I cried; “are not Robespierre, Couthon, St Just in earnest? are -not you in earnest? and do you not all put your heads into traps? But -I beg you to take me out of La Souricière.” - -He had recovered his composure while I spoke. - -“Come, then,” he said; “thou art wanted down below. And as to that -rascal--_Mordi_!” he chuckled, “he has run into a _cul-de-sac_ on his -way to hell; but at any rate he has saved the axe an extra notch to -its edge.” - -On the threshold of the room he stopped me and looked into my face. - -“How much for a _billet_?” said he. - -“You have one for me?” - -“That depends.” - -“But doubtless you have been paid to deliver it?” - -“And doubtless thou wilt pay to receive it.” - -“Oh, _mon Dieu_!” said I; “but these vails! And patriots, I see, are -not so far removed from the lackeys they despise.” - -“_Pardi!_” said the bulky man. “Listen to the fox preaching to the -hens! But I will lay odds that in another twelve hours thou wilt be -stripped of something besides thy purse. What matter, then! thou wilt -have thy crown of glory to carry to the Lombard-house.” - -I gave him what was left to me. - -“Now,” said I; and he put a scrap of paper into my hand. - -I unfolded it in the dim light and read these words, hurriedly -scrawled thereon in a hand unknown to me: “_Play, if nothing else -avails, the hidden treasures of Pierrettes_.” - -“Follow me, Thibaut,” said the jailer. - - * * * * * * * - -As might feel a martyr, who, with a toy knife in his hand, is driven -to face the lions, so felt I on my way to the Tribunal with that -fragment of paper thrust into my breast. At one moment I could have -cried out on the travesty of kindness that could thus seek to prolong -my agony by providing me with an inadequate weapon; at another I was -reminded how one might balance oneself in a difficult place with a -prop no stronger than one’s own little finger. Yet this thin shaft of -light cutting into desperate gloom had disquieted me strangely. -Foreseeing, and prepared stoically to meet, the inevitable, I had -even--before the _billet_ was placed in my hands--felt a certain -curiosity to witness--though as an accused--the methods of procedure -of a Court that was as yet only known to me through the infamy of its -reputation. Now, however, caught back to earth with a rope of straw, -I trembled over the very thought of the ordeal to which I was invited. - -Coming, at the end of melancholy vaulted passages, to a flight of -stone steps leading up to a door, I was suddenly conscious of a -droning murmur like that of hived bees. The jailer, in the act of -running the key into the lock, beckoned me to mount to him, and, thus -possessed of me, caught me under the arm-pit. - -“Play thy card, then, like a gambler!” said he. - -“What!” I exclaimed in astonishment. - -“Ah bah!” he growled; “didst thou think delicacy kept me from reading -the message? But, fear not. Thou art too little a gudgeon for my -playing”--and he swung open the door. Immediately the hiss and patter -of voices swept upon me like rain. That, and the broad glare of -daylight after so much darkness, confused me for a moment. The next I -woke to the consciousness that at last my foot was on the precipice -path--the gangway for the passage of the pre-damned into the Salle de -la Liberté--the _arête_ of the “Montagne,” it might be called, -seeing how it served that extreme faction for a ridge most perilous to -its enemies to walk on. - -This gangway skirted a wooden barricade that cut the hall at about a -third of its length. To my left, as I advanced, I caught glimpse over -the partition of the dismal black plumes on the hats of the judges, as -they bobbed in juxtaposition of evil under a canopy of green cloth. To -my right, loosely filling the body of the hall, was the public; and -here my extreme insignificance as a prisoner was negatively impressed -upon me by the indifference of those whom I almost brushed in passing, -for scarce a _poissarde_ of them all deigned to notice the little -gudgeon as he wriggled on the national hook. Then in a moment my -conductor twisted me through an opening cut in the barricade, and I -was delivered over to the Tribunal. - -A certain drumming in my ears, a certain mist before my eyes, resolved -themselves into a very set manner of attention. The stark, whitewashed -walls seemed spotted with a plague of yellow faces--to my left a -throng of mean blotches, the obsequious counsel for the defence; to my -front the President and judges, in number three, like skulls decked -with hearse-plumes; to my right the jury, a very Pandora-box of -goblins, the lid left off, the evil countenances swarming over the -edge. All seemed to my excited imagination to be faces and nothing -else--drab, dirty, and malignant--ugly motes set against the staring -white of the walls, dancing fantastically in the white day-beams that -poured down from the high windows. Yet that I sought for most I could -not at first distinguish,--not until the owner of it stood erect by a -little table--placed to one side and a little forward of the judicial -dais--over which he had been leaning. Then I recognised him -instantly--Tinville, the Devil’s Advocate, the blood-boltered -vampire--and from that moment he was the court to me, judge, jury, and -counsel, and his dark face swam only in my vision like a gout of bile. - -Now, I tell you, that so dramatic was this Assembly by reason of the -deadliness of purpose that characterised it, that one, though a -prisoner, almost resented the flippant coxcombry of the three -sightless busts standing on brackets above the bench. For -these--Brutus, Marat, St Fargeau (his gods quit the indignant Roman of -responsibility for entertaining such company)--being jauntily -decorated with a red bonnet apiece and a grimy cockade of the -tricolour, jarred hopelessly in the context, and made of the bloodiest -tragedy a mere clownish extravaganza. And, behold! of this -extravaganza Fouquier-Tinville, when he gave reins to his humour, -discovered himself to be the very Sannio--the rude powerful buffoon, -with a wit only for indecency. - -Yet he did not at a first glance figure altogether unprepossessing. -Livid-skinned though he was, with a low forehead, which his hair, -brushed back and stiffly hooked at its ends, seemed to claw about the -middle like a black talon, there was yet little in his countenance -that bespoke an active malignancy. His large eyes had that look of -good-humoured weariness in them that, superficially, one is apt to -associate with unvindictive long-sufferingness. His brows, black also -and thick, were set in the habitual lift of suspense and inquiry. His -whole expression was that of an anxious dwelling upon the prisoner’s -words, lest the prisoner should incriminate himself; and it was only -when one marked the tigerish steadiness of his gaze and the _sooty_ -projection of his under-lip over a strongly cleft chin that one -realised how the humour of the man lay all upon the evil side. For the -rest--as each detail of his personality was hammered into me by my -pulses--his black clothes had accommodated themselves to his every -ungainly habit of movement, his limp shirt was caught up about his -neck with a cravat like a rag of dowlas, and over his shoulders hung a -broad national ribbon ending in a silver medallion, with the one word -_Loi_ imprinted on it like a Judas kiss. - -Thus the man, as he stood scrutinising me after an abstracted fashion, -his left arm bent, the hand of it knuckled upon the table, the -Lachesis thumb of it--flattened from long kneading of the yarn of -life--striding over a form of indictment. - -The atmosphere of the court was frowzy as that of a wine-shop in the -early hours of morning. It repelled the freshness of the latter and -communicated its influence to public and tribunal alike. Over all hung -a slackness and a peevish unconcern as to business. Bench and bar -yawned, and exchanged spiritless commonplaces of speech. True enough, -a gudgeon was an indifferent fish with which to start the traffic of -the day. - -At length the Public Accuser slightly turned and nodded his head. - -“_Maître Greffier_,” said he, in quite a noiseless little voice, -“acquaint us of the charge, I desire thee, against this _patte-pelu_.” - -_Nom de Dieu!_ here was a fine _coup d’archet_ to the overture. My -heart drummed very effectively in response. - -A little black-martin of a fellow, with long coat-tails and glasses to -his eyes, stood up by the notaries’ table and handled a slip of paper. -Everywhere the murmur of Tinville’s voice had brought the court to -attention. I listened to the _greffier_ with all my ears. - -“Act of Accusation,” he read out brassily, “against Jean-Louis -Sebastien de Crancé, _ci-devant_ Comte de la Muette, and since -calling himself the Citizen Jean-Louis Thibaut.” - -Very well, and very well--I was discovered, then; through whose -agency, if not through Jacques Crépin’s, I had no care to learn. The -wonder to me was that, known and served as I had been, I should have -enjoyed so long an immunity from proscription as an aristocrat. But I -accused Crépin--and wrongfully, I believe--in my heart. - -“Hath rendered himself answerable to the law of the 17th Brumaire,” -went on the _greffier_, mechanically, “in that he, an _émigré_, hath -ventured himself in the streets of Paris in disguise, and----” - -The Public Accuser waved him impatiently to a stop. There fell a dumb -silence. - -“One pellet out of a charge is enough to kill a rat,” said he, -quietly: then in an instant his voice changed to harsh and terrible, -and he bellowed at me-- - -“What answer to that, Monsieur _r-r-r-rat_, Monsieur _ratatouille_?” - -The change of manner was so astounding that I jumped as at the shock -of a battery. Then a hot flush came to my face, and with it a dreadful -impulse to strike this insolent on the mouth. I folded my arms, and -gave him back glare for glare. - -“Simply, monsieur,” I said, “that it is not within reason to accuse me -of returning to what I have never quitted.” - -“Paris?” - -“The soil of France.” - -“That shall not avail thee!” he thundered. “What right hast thou to -the soil that thou and thine have manured with the sacred blood of the -people?” - -“Oh, monsieur!” I began--“but if you will convert my very -refutation----” - -He over-roared me as I spoke. He was breathing himself, at my expense, -for the more serious business of the day. Positively I was being used -as a mere punching-bag on which this “bruiser” (_comme on dit à -l’Anglaise_) might exercise his muscles. - -“Silence!” he shouted; “I know of what I speak! thou walk’st on a bog, -where to extricate the right foot is to engulf the left. Emigrant art -thou--titular at least by force of thy accursed rank; and, if that is -not enough, thou hast plotted in prison with others that are known.” - -I smiled, awaiting details of the absurd accusation. I had formed, it -was evident, no proper conception of this court of summary -jurisdiction. The President leaned over his desk at the moment and -spoke with Tinville, proffering the latter his snuff-box. They -exchanged some words, a pantomime of gesticulation to me. As they -nodded apart, however, I caught a single wafted sentence: “We will -whip her like the Méricourt if she is obstinate.” - -To what vile and secret little history was this the key! To me it only -signified that, while I had fancied them discussing a point of my -case, the two were passing confidences on a totally alien matter. At -last I felt very small; and that would have pleased Carinne. - -“But, at any rate,” I thought, “the charge against me must now assume -some definite form.” - -He, that dark _bouche de fer_ of the Terror, stared at me gloomily, as -if he had expected to find me already removed. Then suddenly he flung -down upon the table the paper he had in his hand, and cried -automatically, as if in a certain absence of mind, “I demand this man -of the law to which he is forfeit.” - -God in heaven! And so my trial was ended. They had not even allotted -me one from the litter of mongrel counsel that, sitting there like -begging curs, dared never, when retained, score a point in favour of a -client lest the hags and the brats should hale them off to the -lamp-irons. This certainly was Justice paralysed down one whole side. - -I heard a single little cry lift itself from the hall behind me and -the clucking of the _tricoteuses_. I felt it was all hopeless, but I -clutched at the last desperate chance as the President turned to -address (in three words) the jury. - -“_M. l’Accusateur Public_,” I said, hurriedly, “I am constrained to -tell you that I have in my possession that which may induce you to -consider the advisability of a remand.” - -The fellow stared dumfoundered at me, as if I had thrown my cap in his -face. The President hung on his charge. - -“Oh!” said the former, with an ironical nicety of tone--“and what is -the nature of this magnificent evidence?” - -I had out my scrap of paper, folded like a _billet-doux_. - -“If the citizen will condescend to cast his eye on this?” I said. - -He considered a minute. Curiosity ever fights in the bully with -arrogance. At length he made a sign to a _gendarme_ to bring him that -on which, it seemed, my life depended. - -Every moment while he dwelt on the words was like the oozing of a drop -of blood to me. I had in a flash judged it best to make him sole -confidant with me in the contents of the paper, that so his private -cupidity might be excited, and he not be driven by necessity to play -the _rôle_ of the incorruptible. The instant he looked up my whole -heart expanded. - -“The prisoner,” he said, “acquits his conscience of a matter affecting -the State. I must call upon you, _M. le Président_, to grant for the -present a remand.” - -Oh, _mon Dieu_! but the shamelessness of this avarice! I believe the -scoundrel would have blushed to be discovered in nothing but an act of -mercy. - -“The prisoner is remanded to close confinement in the Convent of St -Pélagie,” were the words that dismissed me from the court; and I -swear Fouquier-Tinville’s large eyes followed me quite lovingly as I -was marched away. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII. - THE RED CART. - -At so early an hour was my trial (in the personal and suffering -sense) brought to a conclusion, that mid-day was not yet struck when -my guards delivered me over to the authorities at St Pélagie--a -one-time _communauté de filles_ in the faubourg of St Victor, and -since appropriated ostensibly to the incarceration of debtors. My -arrival, by grace of Fortune, was most happily timed; and, indeed, the -persistency with which throughout the long period of my difficulties -this capricious _coureuse_ amongst goddesses converted for my benefit -accident into opportuneness offered some excuse to me for remaining in -conceit with myself. - -Now I was taken in charge by a single turnkey--the others being -occupied with their dinner--and conducted by him to the jailer’s room -to undergo that _rapiotage_, or stripping for concealed properties, -the general abuse of which--especially where women were in -question--was a scandal even in those days of shameless brutality. - -As he pushed me into the little ill-lighted chamber and closed the -door hurriedly upon us, I noticed that the man’s hands shook, and that -his face was clammy with a leaden perspiration. He made no offer to -overhaul me; but, instead, he clutched me by the elbow and looked in a -half-scared, half-triumphant manner into my face. - -“Pay attention,” he said, in a quick, forced whisper. “Thy arrival -accommodates itself to circumstance--most admirably, citizen, it -accommodates itself. I, that was to expect, am here alone to receive -thee. It is far better so than that I should be driven to visit thee -in thy cell.” - -“I foresee a call upon my gratitude,” I said, steadily regarding him. -“That is at your service, citizen jailer, when you shall condescend to -enlighten me as to its direction.” - -“I want none of it,” he replied. “It is my own to another that -procures thee this favour.” - -“What other, and what favour?” - -“As to the first--_en bon Français_, I will not tell thee. For the -second--behold it!” - -With the words, he whipt out from under his blouse a thin, strong -file, a little vessel of oil, and a dab of some blue-coloured mastic -in paper--and these he pressed upon me. - -“Hide them about thy person--hide them!” he muttered, in a fearful -voice; “and take all that I shall say in a breath!” - -He glanced over his shoulder at the closed door. He was a blotched and -flaccid creature, with the staring dry hair of the tippler, but with -very human eyes. His fingers closed upon my arm as if for support to -their trembling. - -“Cell thirteen--on the first floor,” he said; “that is whither I shall -convey thee. Ask no questions. Hast thou them all tight?--_Allez-vous -en, mon ami!_ A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.” - -“But----” - -“Ah! thou must needs be talking! Cement with the putty, then, and rub -the filings over the marks.” - -“I was not born yesterday. It is not _that_ I would know.” - -“S-st! At nine by the convent clock, be ready to drop silently into -the cart that shall pass beneath thy window. Never mind what thou -hit’st on. A falling man does not despise a dunghill.” - -I hesitated, seeking to read this patriot’s soul. Was this all a snare -to clinch my damnation? Pooh! if I had ever fancied Tinville hunted -for the shadow of a pretext, this morning’s experience should have -disabused me of the fallacy. - -“Who commissions thee?” I said. - -“One to whom I owe a measure of gratitude.” - -“But not I?” - -“From this time--yes.” - -He pushed at me to go before him. - -“At least,” I said, “acquaint me if it is the same that sent the -letter.” - -“I know nothing of any letter. _San’ Dieu!_ I begin to regret my -complaisance. This fellow will strangle us all with his long tongue.” - -“But, for thyself, my friend?” - -“Oh, _nom de Dieu_! I have no fear, if thou wilt be discreet--and -grateful.” - -“And this tool--and the _rapiotage_!” - -“Listen then! The thief that follows a thief finds little by the road. -We are under no obligation to search a prisoner remanded from another -prison.” - -Impulsively I wrung the hand of the dear sententious; I looked into -his eyes. - -“The Goddess of Reason disown thee!” I said. “Thou shalt never be -acolyte to a harlot!--And I--if all goes well, I will remember. And -what is thy name, good fellow?” - -“_M. un tel_,” said he, and added, “Bah! shall not thy ignorance of it -be in a measure our safeguard?” - -“True,” said I. “And take me away, then. I cannot get to work too -soon.” - -He opened the door, peeped out, and beckoned me. - -“All is well,” he whispered. “The coast is clear.”[1] - -As he drove me with harsh gestures across a yard, a turnkey, standing -at a door and twirling a toothpick in his mouth, hailed him -strenuously. - -“What perquisites, then, comrade?” - -“Bah!” cried my fellow; “I have not looked. He is a bone of Cabochon’s -picking.” - - * * * * * * * - -With what a conflict of emotions I set to work--tentatively at first; -then, seeing how noiselessly the file ran in its oiled groove, with a -concentration of vigour--upon the bars of my window, it is not -difficult to imagine. So hard I wrought that for hours I scarce gave -heed to my growling hunger or attention to my surroundings. As to the -latter, indeed, I was by this time sensibly inured to the conditions -of confinement, and found little in my cell when I came to examine it -to distinguish it from others I had inhabited. A bench, a pitcher, a -flattened mess of straw; here and there about the stone flags marks as -if some frantic beast had sought to undermine himself a passage to -freedom; here and there, engraved with a nail or the tooth of a comb -on the plaster coating of the walls, ciphers, initials, passionate -appeals to heaven or blasphemous indecencies unnameable; in one spot -a forlorn cry: “_Liberté, quand cesseras-tu d’être un vain mot!_” in -another, in feminine characters, the poor little utterance: “_On nous -dit que nous sortirons demain_,” made so pathetic by the later -supplement underscored, “_Vain espoir!_”--with all these, or their -like, was I grievously familiar--resigned, not hardened to them, I am -sure. - -The window at which I stood looked across a little-frequented -passage--the Puit d’Ermite--upon a blank wall; and was terminated with -a pretty broad sill of stone that screened my operations from casual -wayfarers in the street below. Once, peering forth as I could, with my -face pressed to the bars, I found myself to be situated so indifferent -high as that, free of the grate, I might drop to the pavement without -incurring risk of severer damage than a fractured leg or ankle, -perhaps. Obviously, every point had been considered in this trifling -matter of my escape. By whom? By him that had put me that pawn up my -sleeve in the Palais de Justice? Well, the pawn had checked the king, -it appeared; and now it must content me to continue the game with a -handkerchief over my eyes, like the great M. Philidor. - -By two o’clock, having cut through a couple of the bars close by their -junction with the sill, so that a vigorous pull at both would open a -passage for me large enough to squeeze through, I was absorbed in the -careful process of cementing and concealing the evidences of my work -when I heard a sound behind me and twisted myself about with a choke -of terror. But it was my friendly jailer, come with a trencher of -broken scraps for the famished animal in the cage. - -“_Corps de Christ!_” he muttered, his face white and scared--“but here -is an admirable precaution! What if I had been Fouquier-Tinville -himself, then?” - -“You made no noise.” - -“_Par exemple!_ I can shoot a hundredweight of bolts, it seems, so as -not to wake a weasel. I made no noise to deaf ears. But, for thyself, -monsieur--He that would steal corn must be careful his sack has no -holes in it. And now I’ll wager thou’st dusted thy glittering filings -out into the sunbeams, and a sentry, with pistols and a long musket, -pacing the cobbles down there!” - -“_Soyez tranquille!_ I have all here in my pocket.” - -He put down the platter, shrugged his shoulders, and came on tiptoe to -the window. - -“Well, it is excellent,” he whispered grudgingly--“if only thy caution -matched thy skill.” - -Then he came close up to me. - -“I have news,” he muttered. “All is in preparation. It needs only that -thou play’st thy part silently and surely. A moment’s decision and the -game is thine.” - -“But, the sentry, say’st thou?” - -“He will be withdrawn. What, is it not the eve of the _Décadi_?[2] -To-night, the wine-shops; to-morrow, full suburbs and an empty Paris, -but for thee the Public Accuser with his questions.” - -“And why should he not visit me to-day?” - -“Rest assured. He hath a double baking to occupy him.” - -A noise sounded in the corridor. The man put his finger to his lips, -pointed significantly at the remainder litter about the sill, stole to -the door, jangled his keys viciously and bellowed at me: “Thou shalt -have that or nothing! _Saint Sacrement_, but the dainty bellies of -these upstarts!”--and off he went, slamming the door after him, and -grumbling till he was out of hearing. - -“Excellent nameless one!” I cried to myself; and so, having most -scrupulously removed every trace of my work, I fell, while attacking -with appetite the meal left for me, into a sort of luminous meditation -upon the alluring prospect half opened out to my vision. - -“And whence, in the name of God,” I marvelled, “issues this unknown -influence that thus exerts itself on my behalf; and by what process of -gratitude can my jailer, in these days of a general repudiation of -obligations, have attached himself to a cause that, on the face of it, -seems a purely quixotic one?” - -Then, “Oh, merciful Heaven!” I thought, “can it be possible that set -in the far haze of a narrow vista of hope, an image--to whose wistful -absorption into the Paradise of dreams I have sought to discipline -myself--yet yearns to and beckons me from the standpoint of its own -material sweetness? I see the smile on its mouth, the lift of its -arms; I hear the little cry of welcome wafted to me. My God, the cry!” - -All in an instant some shock of association seemed to stun my brain. -The cry--the single cry that had issued upon my condemnation in the -hall of Justice! Had it not been the very echo of that I had once -heard uttered by a poor swineherd fallen into the hands of savages? - -I got to my feet in agitation. Now, suddenly it was borne to me that -from the moment of issue of that little incisive wail a formless -wonder had been germinating in my soul. Carinne present at my -trial!--no, no, it was impossible--unless---- - -“Citizen, the patriots in this corridor send thee greeting.” - -I started as if a bullet had flown past my ear. The voice seemed to -come from the next cell. I swept the cobwebs from my forehead. - -“A thousand thanks!” I cried. - -“They have dreamt that the ass cursed the thorough-bred for the -niceness of his palate,” went on the voice, “and most heartily they -commiserate thee.” - -There followed a faint receding sound like laughter and the clapping -of hands. I had no idea what to say; but the voice relieved me of the -embarrassment. - -“May I ask the citizen’s name?” - -“I am the Comte de la Muette.” - -“_Allons donc!_”--and the information, it seemed, was passed from cell -to cell. - -“Monsieur,” then came the voice, “we of the Community of the Eremites -of St Pélagie offer thee our most sympathetic welcome, and invite -thee to enrol thyself a member of our Society. Permit me, the -President, by name Marino, to have the honour of proposing thee for -election.” - -“By all means. And what excludes, Monsieur le Président?” - -“_D’une haleine_ (I mention it to monsieur as a matter of form), to -have been a false witness or a forger of assignats.” - -“Then am I eligible.” - -“Surely, monsieur. How could one conceive it otherwise! And it remains -only to ask--again as a matter of form--thy profession, thy abode, and -the cause of thy arrest.” - -“Very well. My profession is one of attachment to a beautiful lady; I -live, I dare to believe, in her heart; and, for my arrest, it was -because, in these days of equality, I sought to remain master of -myself.” - -My answer was passed down the line. It elicited, I have the -gratification to confess, a full measure of applause. - -“I have the honour to inform M. le Comte,” said the President, “that -he is duly elected to the privileges of the Society. I send him a -fraternal embrace.” - -My inclination jumped with the humour of the thing. It was thus that -these unfortunates, condemned to solitary confinement, had conceived a -method of relieving the deadly tedium of their lot. Thus they passed -to one another straws of information gleaned from turnkeys or from -prisoners newly arrived. And in order to the confusion of any guard -that might overhear them, they studied, in their inter-communications, -to speak figuratively, to convey a fact through a fable, or, at the -least, to refer their statements to dreams that they had dreamt. At -the same time they formed a Society rigidly exclusive. Admitted -rascals, imprisoned in the corridor, they would by no means condescend -to notice. I had an example of this once during the afternoon, when -the whole place echoed with phantom merriment over a jest uttered by a -member. - -“M. le Comte!” cried a voice from the opposite row: “I could tell thee -a better tale than that.” - -Before the speaker could follow up his words, the President hammered -at my wall. - -“I beseech thee do not answer the fellow,” he said. “It is a rogue -that was suborned in the most pitiful case of the St Amaranthe.” - -“Monsieur, monsieur!” exclaimed the accused; “it is a slander and a -lie. And how wouldst thou pick thy words with thy shoulder bubbling -and hissing under the branding-iron?” - -“As I would pick nettles,” I said. - -“I beseech thee!” cried again my neighbour the President, in a warning -voice, “this man can boast no claim to thy attention.” - -The poor rascal cried out: “It is inhuman! I perish for a word of -sympathy!” - -I would have given it him; but his protests were laughed into silence. -He yelled in furious retort. His rage was over-crowed, and drifted -into sullenness. - -“I dreamt I belaboured a drum,” said the President, “and it burst -under my hands.” - - * * * * * * * - -Truly I did not regret the distraction this whimsical Society afforded -me. Left to myself, the fever of my mind would have corroded my very -reason, I think. To have been condemned to face those hours of tension -indescribable, with no company but that of my own thoughts, would have -proved such an ordeal as, I felt, would have gone far to render me -nerveless at the critical moment. So, responding to the dig of -circumstance in my ribs, I abandoned myself to frolic, and almost, in -the end, lapsed into the other extreme of hysteria. - -But, about five o’clock, closing in from the far end of the corridor, -a swift ominous silence succeeded the jangle; and I was immediately -aware of heavy footsteps treading the cemented floor of the passage, -and, following upon these, the harsh snap of locks and the rumbling of -a deep voice-- - -“Follow me, De la Chatière.” - -The words were the signal for a shrilling chorus of sounds--whoops, -cat-calls, verberant renderings of a whole farmyard of demoniac -animals. - -“_Miau, miau_, Émile! Thou art caught in thine own springe!” - -“They will ask thee one of thy nine lives, Émile!” - -“Ah--bah! if he pleads as he reasons, upside-down, they will only cut -off his feet.” - -“Plead thy poor sick virtue, Émile!” - -“No, no! that were one _coup de tête_ that shall procure him -another.” - -“What need to lie when the truth will serve! Plead thy lost virtue, -Émile, and the jury will love thee.” - -“_Taisez-vous, donc!_” roared a jailer. He was answered by a shriek of -laughter. In the midst of the noise I heard the door of my -neighbouring cell flung open and Marino summoned forth. As the party -retreated: “M. le Président, M. le Président!” shouted a voice--“Art -thou going without a word? But do not, I beseech thee, in the pride of -thy promotion neglect to nominate thy successor!” - -“Lamarelle, then,” answered the poor fellow, in a voice that he tried -vainly to control. - -He was led away. The babble boiled over and simmered down. In a very -few moments a tense quiet had succeeded the uproar. This--due partly -to the reaction from excitement, partly to the fact that jailers were -loitering at hand--wrought in me presently a mood of overbearing -depression. I durst give no rein to my hopes or to my apprehensions, -lest, getting the bit between their teeth, they should fairly run away -with my reason. The prospect of another four hours of this mindless -inaction--hours of which every second seemed to be marked off by the -tick of a nerve--was a deplorable one, indeed. - -I tramped ceaselessly to and fro in my cage, humming to myself and -assuming the habit of a philosophy that fitted me about as well as -Danton’s breeches would have done. I grimaced to my own reflections -like a coquette to her mirror. I suffered from my affectation of -self-containment as severely as though I were a tight-laced _femme à -la mode_ weeping to hear a tale of pity. The convent clock, moving -somewhere with a thunderous click as if it were the very _doyen_ of -death-watches, chimed the dusk upon me in reluctant quarters. Ghostly -emanations seemed to rise from the stones of my cell, sorrowful shapes -of the lost and the hopeless to lean sobbing in its corners. Sometimes -I could have fancied I heard a thin scratching on the walls about me, -as if the returned spectres of despair were blindly tracing with a -finger the characters they had themselves engraved thereon; sometimes, -as I wheeled to view of the dull square of the window, a formless -shadow, set against it, would appear to drop hurriedly and fold upon -itself like a bat. By the time, at last, that, despite my resolves, I -was worked up to a state of agitation quite pitiful, some little -relief of distraction was afforded me by the entrance into my cell of -a stranger turnkey, with some coarse food on a plate in his one hand, -and, in the other, a great can of water, from which he replenished my -pitcher. During the half minute he was with me a shag beast of a dog -kept guard at the door. - -“Fall to, then,” growled the man; “if thou hast the stomach for -anything less dainty than fat pullets and butter.” - -In effect, I had none for anything; yet I thought it the sensible -policy to take up the plate, when the fellow was withdrawn, and munch -away the drawling minutes lest I should spend them in eating out my -heart. - -Other than this rascal no soul came near me. I had had, it seemed, my -full warning--my complete instructions. Yet, lacking reassurance -during this long trial of suspense, I came to feel as if all affecting -my escape must be a chimera--a fancy bred of the delirium that -precedes death. - -Well, as my friendly _huissier_ might have said, Time flies, however -strong the head-wind; and at length the quarters clanged themselves -into that one of them that was the prelude to my most momentous -adventure. And immediately thereon (God absolve me for the -inconsistency!) a frantic revulsion of feeling set in, so that I would -have given all but my chance of escape to postpone the act of it -indefinite hours. Now I heard the throb of the seconds with a terror -that was like an acute accent to my agony of suspense. It grew--it -waxed monstrous and intolerable. I must lose myself in some physical -exertion if I would preserve my reason. - -Suddenly a nightmare thought faced me. What if, when the time came, -the cut bars should remain stubborn to my efforts to bend them! What -if I had neglected to completely sever either or both, and that, while -I madly wrought to remedy my error, the moment should pass and with it -the means to my deliverance! - -Sweating, panting, in a new reaction to the frenzy for liberty, I -sprang to the window, gripped the bars, and, with all my force, -dragged them towards me. They parted at the cuts and yielded readily. -A sideway push to each, and there would freedom gape at me. - -In the very instant of settling my shoulder to the charge, I was aware -of a sound at my cell door--the cautious groping of wards in a lock. -With a suppressed gasp I came round, with my back to the tell-tale -grating, and stood like a discovered murderer. - -A lance of dull light split the blackness perpendicularly. - -“Open again when I tap,” said a little voice--that cracked like -thunder in my brain, nevertheless,--and the light closed upon itself. - -God of all irony!--the little voice--the little dulcet undertone that -had cried _patte-pelu_ upon me in the hall of Justice! So the turnkey -had miscalculated or had been misinformed, and M. l’Accusateur Public -would not postpone the verbal satisfaction of his cupidity to the -_Décadi_. _Le limier rencontrait_; I was bayed into a corner, and my -wit must measure itself against a double row of teeth. - -For an instant a mad resentment against Fate for the infernal -wantonness of its cruelty blazed up in my breast, so that I could -scarce restrain myself from bounding upon my enemy with yells of fury. -Then reason--set, contained and determined--was restored to me, and I -stood taut as a bowstring and as vicious. - -A moment or two passed in silence. I could make out a dusky undefined -heap by the door. “In the dark all cats are grey.” - -At length: “Who is there?” I said quietly. - -The figure advanced a pace or two. - -“Speak small, my friend,” it said, “as if thou wert the very voice of -conscience.” - -This time there was no doubt. I ground my teeth as I answered: “Of -_thy_ conscience, monsieur? Then should I thunder in thy ears like a -bursting shell.” - -“What is this!” said he, taking a backward step. - -On my honour I could not have told him. I felt only to myself that if -this man baulked me of my liberty I should kill him with my hands. But -doubtless indignation was my bad counsellor. - -“How!” he muttered, with a menacing devil in his voice. “Does the fool -know me?” - -I broke into wicked laughter. - -“Hear the unconscious humorist!” I cried--and the cry seemed to reel -in my throat; for on the instant, dull and fateful, clanged the first -note of the hour. - -Now God knows what had urged me to this insanity of defiance, when it -was obvious that my best hope lay in throwing a sop of lies to my -Cerberus. God knows, I say; and to Him I leave the explanation. Yet, -having fallen upon this course, I can assert that not once during the -day had I felt in such good savour with myself. - -He came forward again with a raging malediction. - -“Thy pledge!” he hissed; “the paper--the treasure! God’s name! dost -thou know who it is thou triflest with?” - -I heard the rumble of wheels over the stones down below. My very soul -seemed to rock as if it were launched on waves of air. The wheels -stopped. - -“Listen,” I said, in a last desperation. “It was a ruse, a lie to gain -time. I know of no treasure, nor, if I did, would I acquaint thee of -its hiding-place.” - -A terrible silence succeeded. I stood with clinched hands. Had I heard -the cart move away again I should have thrown myself upon this demon -and sought to strangle him. Then, “Oh, my God! oh, my God!” he said -twice, in a dreadful strained voice, and that was all. - -Suddenly he made a swift movement towards me. I stood rigid, still -with my back to the damning grate; but, come within a foot of me, he -as suddenly wheeled and went to the door. - -“Open, Gamache,” he whispered, like a man winded, and tapped on the -oak: “open--I have something to say to thee.” - -In another moment I was alone. I turned, and, in a frenzy of haste, -drove the bars right and left with all my force. Like a veritable ape -of destiny I leapt to the sill and looked down. A white face stared up -at me. The owner of it was already in the act of gathering his reins -together. I heard a soft tremulous _ouf!_ issue from his lips, and on -the breath of it I dropped and alighted with a thud upon something -that squelched beneath my weight. As I got to my knees, he on the -driving-board was already whipping his horses to a canter. - -“Quick, quick!” he said. “Come up and sit here beside me.” - -I managed to do so, though the cargo we carried gave perilous -foothold. - -Then at once I turned and regarded my preserver. - -“Saints in heaven!” I whispered, “Crépin!” - - * * * * * * * - -He was a very _sans-culotte_, and his face and eyebrows were darkened. -But I knew him. - -“Well,” he said; “I am no rogue of a Talma to act a part. But what, in -God’s name, delayed thee?” - -“Fouquier-Tinville.” - -His jaw dropped at me. - -“_Si fait vraiment_,” I said, and gave him the facts. - -He shivered as I spoke. The instant I was done, “Get under the -canvas!” said he, in a terrible voice. “There will be hue-and-cry, and -if I am followed, we are both lost. Get under the canvas, and endure -what thou canst not cure!” - - * * * * * * * - -My God! the frightfulness of that journey! of the company I lay with! -We drove, as I gathered, by the less-frequented streets, and reached -the barrier of St Jacques by way of the Rue de Biron. Here, for the -first time, we were stopped. - -“_Halte là!_” bawled a tipsy voice. “What goods to declare, friend?” - -“Content thyself,” I heard Crépin answer. “They bear the Government -mark.” - -“How, then, carrier?” - -“Peep under the cart-tail, and thou shalt see.” - -The gendarme lifted a corner of the canvas with his sword-point. A -wedge of light entered, and amazed my panic-stricken eyes. - -“_Il est bon là!_” chuckled the fellow, and withdrew his sword. He -had noticed nothing of me; but, as we whipped to a start, he made a -playful cut at the canvas with his weapon. The blade touched my thigh, -inflicting a slight flesh-wound, and I could not forbear a spasmodic -jerk of pain. At this he cried out, “_Holà hé!_ here is a dead frog -that kicks!” and came scuttling after us. Now I gave myself up for -lost; but at the moment a frolicsome comrade hooked the runner’s ankle -with a stick, and brought the man heavily to the ground. There -followed a shout; a curse of fury, and--Fortune, it appeared, had -again intervened on my behalf. - -Silence succeeded, for all but the long monotonous jolting and -pitching over savage ground. At length Crépin pulled up his horses, -and, leaning back from his seat, tossed open a flap of the canvas. - -“Come, then,” he said in a queer voice. “We have won clear by the -grace of Heaven.” - -I wallowed, faint and nauseated, from my horrible refuge. Sick, and in -pain of mind and body, I crept to a seat beside my companion. We were -on a dark and desolate waste. A little moon lay low in the sky. Behind -us the _enceinte_ of the city twinkled with goblin lights. - -“And these?” I said, weakly, signifying our dreadful load. “Whither -dost thou carry them, Crépin?” - -“Whither I carry thee, Monsieur le Comte--to the quarries under the -Plain of Mont-Rouge.” - -“To unconsecrated ground?” - -“What would you? The yards are glutted. The Madeleine bulges like a -pie-crust. At last by force of necessity we consecrate this, the -natural cemetery of the city, dug by itself, to the city’s patron -saint, La Guillotine.” - - * * * * * * * - -“Tell me, my preserver and, as God shall quit thee, also my -friend--you received my letter?” - -“Else, why art thou here?” - -“But, thou hast done me an incalculable wrong!” - -“And an incalculable benefit. Oh, monsieur, do I not atone?” - -“To me, yes.” - -“Let that pass, then. But, even there, I would not have thee underrate -my service. Have I not, to save thee, annihilated time; called in a -debt of gratitude that I kept in reversion for my own needs; suborned -the very hangman’s carter that I might help thee in thy extremity?” - -“And all this is due to thee?” - -“Assuredly--and for what reason? Because, in total ignorance of thy -claim to it, I took a fancy to a sweet face. Now I think you will -acknowledge, M. le Comte, that the Revolution, for all its excesses, -is capable of producing a gentleman of honour who knows how to make -reparation.” - -“Truly, this is no small thing that you have done.” - -“Truly I think thou might’st apply superlatives to it, without -extravagance. To outwit and baulk the Public Accuser--the cat-fish of -the Committee of Safety--_Dame!_ is there a hole in all Paris too -small to admit his tentacles? But I tell thee, monsieur, I am already -in the prison of my own holy namesake.” - -“I would kiss thy hands, but----” - -“What now?” - -“My letter referred to other than myself.” - -He turned and, I thought, looked at me oddly. - -“In these days, what safer refuge for a woman than prison,” he said, -“provided she hath a friend at Court? Understand, monsieur, I have -found Mademoiselle de Lâge respectable lodgings, that is all.” - -“Where you hold her as Lovelace held the estimable Clarisse. Crépin, -I cannot accept my life on these terms.” - -The words jerked on my lips as the waggon was brought to a stand with -a suddenness that made the harness rattle. A tall figure, that seemed -to have sprung out of the earth, stood at the horses’ heads. - -“Gusman,” said my companion quietly; “this is Citizen Thibaut, whom -you are to conduct to the secret lodging. Hurry, then, Thibaut.” - -I got with some difficulty to the ground. - -“And you?” said I. - -“I go yet a mile to deliver my goods. We will discuss this matter -further, _bien entendu_, on my return.” - -He flogged his cattle to an immediate canter, leaving me in all -bewilderment alone with the stranger. On every side about us, it -seemed, stretched a melancholy waste--a natural graveyard sown with -uncouth slabs of stone. The wind swayed the grasses, as if they were -foam on black water; the tide of night murmured in innumerable gulfs -of darkness. - -“Come, then!” muttered the figure, and seized my hand. - -We walked twenty cautious paces. I felt the clutch of brambles at my -clothes. Suddenly he put his arm about me, and, as we moved, forcibly -bent down my head and shoulders. At once I was conscious of a confined -atmosphere--damp, earthy, indescribable. It thickened--grew closer and -infinitely closer as we advanced. - -Now I could walk upright; but my left shoulder rasped ever against -solid rock. The blackness of utter negation was terrible; the cabined -air an oppression that one almost felt it possible to lift from one’s -head like an iron morion. For miles, I could have fancied, we thridded -this infernal tunnel before the least little blur of light spread -itself like salve on my aching vision. - -Then suddenly, like a midnight glowworm, the blur revealed itself, a -fair luminous anther of fire in a nest of rays--and was a taper -burning on the wall of a narrow chamber or excavation set in the heart -of the bed-stone. - -“_Voilà ton ressui!_” exclaimed my sardonic guide; and, without -another word, he turned and left me. - -I stood a moment confounded; then, with a shrug of my shoulders, -walked into the little cellar and paused again in astonishment. From a -stone ledge, on which it had been lying, it seemed, prostrate, a -figure lifted itself and, standing with its back to me, swept the long -hair from its eyes. - -I stared, I choked, I held out my arms as if in supplication. - -“_Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!_” I cried--“if it is not Carinne, let me die!” - - - - - CHAPTER XIV. - THE QUARRIES OF MONT-ROUGE. - -She turned, the dear figure. I heard her breath catch as she leaned -forward and gazed at me. Her hair was all tumbled abroad; her sweet -scared eyes looked out of a thicket of it like little frightened birds -from a copse. She took a hurried step or two in my direction, then -cried, “_C’est un coup du ciel!_” and threw up her hands and pressed -them to her face. - -I dropped my yearning arms. A needle of ice pierced my heart. - -“A judgment of heaven?” I cried, sorrowfully. - -The sound of my voice seemed like the very stroke of a thyrsus on her -shoulders. She broke into an agitated walk--pacing to and fro in front -of me--wringing her hands and clasping them thus to her temples. Her -shadow fled before or after her like a coaxing child. - -Suddenly, to my amazement, she darted upon me, and seized and shook me -in a little fury of passion. - -“_Prends cela, prends cela, prends cela!_” she cried; and then as -suddenly she released me, and ran back to her ledge, and flung herself -face-downwards thereon, sobbing as if her heart would break. - -Shocked and astounded beyond measure, I followed and stood over her. - -“Mademoiselle de Lâge,” I said, miserably--“of what am I guilty?” - -“Of everything--of nothing! Perhaps it is I that am to blame!” she -cried in a muffled voice. - -“What have I done?” - -She sat up, weeping, and pressed the pain from her forehead. - -“Oh, monsieur! it is not a little thing to pass twelve hours in the -most terrible loneliness--in the most terrible anxiety!” - -“I do not understand.” - -“You do not, indeed--the feelings of others--the wisdom of -discretion.” - -“Mademoiselle!” I exclaimed, in all patience. - -She sat, with her palms resting upon the ledge. She looked up at me -defiantly, though she yet fought with her sobs. - -“It was doubtless a fine thing in your eyes this morning,” she said, -“to throw scorn to that wretch who could have destroyed you with a -word.” - -I felt my breath come quickly. - -“That wretch!” I whispered--“this morning?” - -“It was what I said, monsieur,--the _loup-garou_ of the Salle de la -Liberté. But where one attaches any responsibility to life, one -should learn to distinguish between bravado and courage.” - -I think I must have turned very pale, for a sudden concern came into -her face. - -“Mademoiselle,” I said, “will persist in giving me the best reason for -holding life cheaply--that I cannot, it seems, find favour with her.” - -“Was it, then, monsieur, that you yourself were your only -consideration?” - -“Oh! give me at least the indulgence,” I cried, “to retort upon an -insolent that insults me.” - -“_Grand Dieu!_” she said, mockingly; “but what a perverted heroism! -And must a man’s duty be always first towards his dignity, and -afterwards, a long way----” - -She broke off, panting, and tapping her foot on the ground. I looked -at her, all mazed and dumfoundered. - -“And afterwards?” I repeated. She would not continue. A little silence -succeeded. - -“Mademoiselle,” I said at length sadly--“let me speak out what is in -my heart, and have done with it. That little cry of pity and of -protest that I heard uttered this morning when sentence was demanded -upon me in the Palais de Justice, and that I must needs now associate -with this new dear knowledge of your freedom--if I have put upon it an -unwarrantable construction, something beyond the mere expression of a -woman’s sympathy with the unfortunate--you will, I am sure, extend -that sympathy to my blindness, the realisation of which must in itself -prove my heavy punishment. If, also, I have dared to translate the -anxiety you have by your own showing suffered, here in this savage -burrow, into a sentiment more profound than that of simple concern for -an old-time comrade, you will spare my presumption, will you not, the -bitterness of a rebuke? It shall not be needed, believe me. My very -love----” - -She interrupted me, rising to her feet white and peremptory. - -“Not for me, monsieur--not for me! And, for _my_ associations--they -shall never be of that word with deceit!” - -“Deceit!” - -“But is it not so? Have you not approached my confidence in a false -guise, under a false name? Oh!” (she stamped her foot again) “cannot -you see how my condescension to the Citizen Thibaut is stultified by -this new knowledge of his rank? how to favour now what I had hitherto -held at arm’s-length would be to place myself in the worst regard of -snobbishness!” - -“No, mademoiselle--I confess that I cannot;--but then I journeyed -hither in the National hearse.” - -“I do not understand.” - -“Why, only that there one finds a ragpicker’s head clapt upon a -monseigneur’s neck in the fraternity that is decreed to level all -distinctions. What is the advantage of a name, then, when one is -denied a tombstone?” - -“Ah!” she cried, “you seek to disarm me with levity. I recognise your -habit of tolerant contempt for the mental equipment of my sex. It does -not become you, monsieur;--but what does it matter! I know already -your opinion of me, and how compound it is of disdain and disgust. I -am soulless and cruel and capricious--perhaps ill-favoured also; but -there, I think, you pronounce me inoffensive or something less. But I -would have you say, monsieur--what was Lepelletier to me? I should -have sickened, rather, to break bread with my uncle--whom heaven -induce to the shame of repentance! And I was ill that night, so that -even you might have softened in your judgment of me.” - -I stood amazed at the vehemence of her speech, at the rapidity of -inconsequence with which she pelted me with any chance missile that -came to her hand. It was evident the poor child was overwrought to a -degree; and I was fixed helpless between my passionate desire to -reassure and comfort her and my sense of her repudiation of my right -to do so. Now, it happened that, where words would have availed -little, a mute appeal--the manner of which it was beyond my power to -control--was to serve the best purposes of reconciliation. For -suddenly, as I dwelt bewildered upon the wet flashing of Carinne’s -eyes, emotion and fatigue, coupled with the sick pain of my wound, so -wrought upon me that the vault went reeling and I with it. I heard her -cry out; felt her clutch me,--and then there was sense for little but -exhaustion in my drugged brain. - - * * * * * * * - -“I am on the floor, Carinne?” - -“On the floor, _mon ami_.” - -“I am not so little a weight, you see. You tried to support me to the -bench and failed--for I know.” - -“But you were a dead-weight.” - -“Not dead yet, _chattemite_. Only I think I am dying.” - -“No, no, little Thibaut! _À Dieu ne plaise!_ You will not be so -wicked. And what makes you think so?” - -“I am so near heaven.” - -“Do you mean me? But I burn.” - -“Kiss me, then, and give me of your fire.” - -“But, if you were to recover?” - -“I would return it.” - -“It is infamous. You presume upon my tenderness, that is all for your -cruel wound. Yet I do not think you are much hurt.” - -“Not now, with your hand upon my heart. Tell me, Carinne--it was -Jacques Crépin that brought you here?” - -“That had me conveyed hither by his deputy, Gusman. It was this -morning, after your trial. He had had me released from prison--_le -pécheur pénitent_. God had moved him to remorse, it seemed, and some -unknown--perhaps one that had overheard us in La Force--to knowledge -of our friendship,--yours and mine. He procured me my passport; -accompanied me beyond the barrier d’Enfer; committed me to the keeping -of this deadman of the quarries. He swore he would play his life -against yours--would win you to me here or perish in the attempt. -Judge then, you, of my waiting torture--my anguish of expectation in -this solitude!” - -“Would win me to you! And you desired this thing? _Oh, ma mie, ma -mie!_ how, then, could you welcome me as you did?” - -“I do not know.” - -“And deny and abuse me and give me such pain?” - -“I do not know.” - -“For you love me very dearly... Carinne, I am dying!” - -“I do not believe you. That trick shall not serve a second time.” - - * * * * * * * - -“And what are we to do now, Carinne?” - -“Thou must be asking thyself that question,” said a -voice--Crépin’s--that clanged suddenly in the vaulted labyrinth. The -man himself stood looking down upon us. Beside him the gaunt figure of -my guide held aloft a flambeau that talked with a resinous sputter. -Its flare reddened the auburn curls of the Sectional President, and -informed his dissolute face with a radiance that was like an inner -consciousness of nobility. - -“My task ends here,” he said, quietly. “And shall we cry quits, M. le -Comte?” - -I lay on the floor, my head in Carinne’s lap. - -“Citizen Crépin,” I said, “thou hast acquitted thyself like a -gentleman and a man of courage. I would not wish, for thy sake, that -the risk had been less; I would not, for ours, know that it hath -involved thee in the toils.” - -“We are all in the toils nowadays,” said he; “and happy the lion that -can find a mouse for his friend. To the extent of my power I have -done; yet, I warn thee, thou art not out of the wood. If the weasel -wakes to the manner of his outwitting, not a river of blood shall -divert him from the scent till he has run thee down--thee, and me -also. Oh! I desire thee, do not misapprehend the importance of my -service.” - -Carinne looked up. She made an involuntary gesture with her hands. -This dear child, in her sweet surrender, became the archetype of -womanhood. - -“Monsieur,” she said, softly, “you have stood aside so honourably, you -have made us so greatly your debtors, that you will not now stultify -your own self-sacrifice by imposing upon us a heritage of remorse? If -you are in such danger, why not remain here with us?” - -He did not answer for some moments; but he shook his head very -slightly as he gazed down on us. - -“As to life,” he said presently, “my compact is with the senses. There -is a higher ideal to reach to, no doubt; but _Mordi_! I confess, for -myself I cannot feel the epicure and play the ascetic. To continue in -love with virtue, one must take it only, like opium, in occasional -doses. An habitual indulgence in it degrades the picturesqueness of -its own early evoking. Perhaps it should be ethically grateful to me -to remain here to contemplate the fruit of my generosity ripening for -another’s picking. Perhaps the guillotine is awaiting me in Paris. -Well, mademoiselle, of the two evils I prefer the latter. Here, to -feed on my own self-righteousness would be to starve at the end of a -day; there, the glory of doing, of directing, of enjoying, will soon -woo me from memory of a sentiment that was no more part of my real -self than the mistletoe is part of the harsh trunk it beautifies. For -death, I do not fear it, if it will come to me passionately, like a -mistress.” - -“Monsieur!” - -“Ah, mademoiselle! believe me that I can offer no higher testimony to -your worth than the assurance that I have for six months lost myself -in you!” - -I looked at this ex-waiter in marvel. His dishes could never have -shown a finer polish than his manners. Moreover, in what intervals of -supplying food to others had he sat himself down to his own feast of -reason? One was accustomed in those days to hear coal-heavers -discussing Diderot, but not in the language of Diderot. I gazed on his -face and thought I saw in it a neutral ground, whereon a beast and an -angel hobnobbed in the intervals of combat. - -Beside him the torch-bearer--silent, melancholy, astringent--held his -brand aloft motionless, as if his arm were a sconce of iron. - -“You are hurt, monsieur?” said Crépin, suddenly referring to me. - -“It is nothing--a bite, a scratch; an excuse for a pillow.” - -“Ah!” (he fetched a flask from his pocket and uncorked it)--“this is -ethereal cream of mint--a liqueur I affect, in that it reminds me of -lambs, and innocence--and shepherdesses. Let us pledge one another, -like good friends, at parting! And it will confirm thy cure, monsieur, -so happily begun.” - -“Mademoiselle?” he said pleadingly, and offered it to Carinne. - -She touched it with her lips--I, more effectively, with mine. Crépin -cried “_Trinquons!_” and, taking a lusty pull, handed the flask to -Gusman, who drained it. - -“Now,” said he, “we are united by a bond the sweetest in the -world--the sympathy of the palate. We have made of ourselves a little -rosary of wine beads.” - -He put his hand lightly on Gusman’s shoulder. - -“This austerity,” he said--“this Bailly of the Municipality of the -dead--I have purchased ye his favour with the one bribe to which he is -susceptible. Kings might offer him their crowns; easy maids their -honour. They should no more draw him from his reserve than Alexander -drew Diogenes from his tub. But there is a _séductrice_ to his -integrity, and the name of it is right Hollands. My faith! I would not -swear _my_ fidelity to such a frowzy mistress; but taste is a matter -of temperament. Is it not so, Jacques?” - -“While the keg lasts, I will hold the safety of thy friends in pawn to -thee.” - -So replied the spectral figure--a voice, a phantom--the very enigma of -this charnel city of echoes. - -The liqueur had revived and comforted me amazingly. I raised myself on -my elbow. - -“Ah!” I cried, “if good intentions could find favour with thee, I -would make thy keg a kilderkin, Citizen Gusman!” - -The figure stood mute, like a man of bronze. Crépin laughed -recklessly. - -“He is the fast warden of these old catacombs,” he said--“the undying -worm and sole master of their intricacies. Himself hath tunnelled them -under the ground, I believe, like the tan-yard grub that bores into -poplar-trees. Silence and secrecy are his familiars; but, I tell thee, -monsieur, he will absorb Hollands till he drips with it as the roofs -of his own quarries drip with water. The keg once drained, and--if -thou renew’st it not--he will sell thee for a single measure of -schnapps. Is it not so, Jacques?” - -“It is so,” said the figure, in a deep, indifferent voice. - -Crépin laughed again, then suddenly turned grave, and leaned down -towards me. - -“Harkee, M. le Comte!” he said, “is thy pocket well lined?” - -“With good intentions, M. le Président.” - -He nodded and, fetching a little bag of skin out of his breast, forced -it into my hand. - -“It is all I can spare,” he said; “and with that I must acquit my -conscience of the matter.” - -“If ever I live to repay thee, good fellow----” - -“Ah, bah, monsieur! I owe thee for the Médoc. And now--escape if thou -seest the way open. This strange creature will be thy bond-slave while -the keg runs. Afterwards--_eh bien! C’est à toi la balle_. For food, -thou must do as others here--take toll of the country carts as they -journey to the barriers. They will not provide thee with sweetbreads -in wine; but--well, monsieur, there are fifty ways, after all, of -cooking a cabbage.” - -I rose, with difficulty, to my feet. Carinne, still seated on the -floor, held her hand in mine. Something like a gentle quinsy in my -throat embarrassed my speech. - -“Good citizen----” I muttered. - -Crépin made a gesture with his hand and backed in a hurry. - -“I desire no expression of gratitude,” he said loudly. - -“Good citizen,” I repeated, “thou wouldst not rebuke our selfishness -by denying us, thy most faithful debtors, the privilege claimed by -even a minor actor in this escapade?” - -“Of whom dost thou speak?” - -“Of a turnkey at St Pélagie’s.” - -“_Mordi!_ I drenched him once for the colic--that is all. The fool -fancied he had swallowed an eft that was devouring his entrails.” - -He cried “_Portez vous bien!_” and a quick emotion, as of physical -pain, flickered over his face like a breath of air over hot coals. -Carinne was on her feet in a moment, had gone swiftly to him, and had -taken his hand. - -“Monsieur,” she said, in a wet voice, “it is true that honour, like -sweet vines, may shoot from beds of corruption. God forbid that I pass -judgment on that which influences the ways of men; but only--but only, -monsieur, I hope you may live very long, and may take comfort from the -thought of the insignificance of the subject of your so great -sacrifice.” - -She drooped her dear head. The other looked at her with an intense -gaze. - -“But, nevertheless,” he said, quietly, “it was the letter of M. le -Comte, of my honoured father Epicurus, that moved me to the sacrifice. -That is great, as you say. I never realised how great till this -moment. Yet--ah, mademoiselle! I would not sanctify it out of the -category of human passions by pretending that I was induced to it by -any sentiment of self-renunciation. Thyself should not have persuaded -me to spare thee--nor anything less, may be, than an appeal from my -preceptor in the metaphysics of the senses. I take no shame to say so. -I am not a traitor to my creed; and it would offend me to be called a -puritan.” - -He put the girl’s hand gently away from him. - -“Still,” he said, “I may not deem myself worthy to touch this flower -with my lips.” - -And at that he turned and went from us, summoning Gusman to accompany -him, and crying as he vanished, “Good luck and forgetfulness to all!” - -So disappeared from our lives this singular man, who persisted to the -very last in lashing me with the thong of my own twisting. We never -saw him again; once only we heard of him. - -As the flash of the retreating torch glimmered into attenuation, -Carinne returned to me and sat down at my side. - -“Little Thibaut,” she said softly, “he designed me so great a wrong -that I know not where to place him in my memory.” - -“With the abortive children of thy fancy, Carinne; amongst the -thoughts that are ignorant of the good in themselves.” - -She sighed. - -“And so it was thou wast his informer as to our friendship? And why -didst thou write, Jean-Louis?” - -“To urge him, by our one time intimacy, to cease his persecution of a -beautiful and most innocent lady.” - -“I did not know, I did not know!” she cried; and suddenly her arms -were round my neck, and I lay in a nest of love. - -“Oh! I am glad to be pretty, for the sake of the little Thibaut, that -saved me from barbarous men, and from myself, and, alas! from my -uncle! Little Thibaut, did I hurt when I beat thee? Beat me, then, -till I cry with the pain.” - -She sobbed and laughed and held my face against her bosom. In the -midst, the candle on the wall dropped like a meteor, and instantly we -were immured in a very crypt of darkness. - -She cried in a terrified voice: “Oh, _mon Dieu_! hold me, or I sink!” -and committed herself shuddering to my embrace. - -The blackness was blind, horrible, beyond reason. We could only shut -our eyes and whisper to one another, expecting and hoping for Gusman’s -return. But he came no more that night, and by-and-by Carinne slept in -my arms. - - * * * * * * * - -The glare of torch-light on my face brought me to my senses. That -sombre deadman, as Carinne called him, stood above us--visionless, -without movement, it seemed--a lurid genii presented in a swirling -drift of smoke. He might never have moved from the spot since we had -last seen him there. - -“Why dost thou wake us, good friend?” said I. “Hast thou a midnight -service for the dead here?” - -“It is high morning,” said he, in a voice like a funeral bell. - -“Morning!” - -I sat up in amazement. Truly I had not thought of it. We had slept the -clock round; but there was no day in this hideous and melancholy -underworld. - -I looked down at my companion. She had slipped from my hold of her, -and lay across my knees. Her hair curled low on her forehead; her -eyelids were misted with a faint blue shadow, like the sheaths of -hyacinth buds before they open; her lips were a little parted, as Love -had left them. _Mon Dieu!_ there is no sight so tender and so pathetic -as that of a fair child asleep; and what was Carinne but a child! - -In an access of emotion I bent and softly touched the lips with mine. -This infant so brave and so forlorn, whose head should have been -pillowed on flowers, whose attendants should have been the lady -fairies! - -“She is very pretty,” said the deadman. - -“Ha, ha!” I cried. “Hast thou found it out? There shall spring a -blossom for thee yet, old Gusman, in this lifeless city of thine!” - -He twirled his torch for the first time, so that it spouted fire like -a hand-grenade. - -“Blossoms!” he barked. “But thou shalt know I have my garden walks -down here--bowers of mildew, parterres of fine rank funguses, royal -worms even, that have battened for centuries on the seed of men.” - -He crooked his knees, so that he might stare into my face. - -“Not altogether a city of the dead,” said he. - -“Is it peopled with ghosts, then?” - -“Very thickly, without doubt. Thou shalt see them swarm like maggots -in its streets.” - -I shrugged my shoulders. The creature stood erect once more, and made -a comprehensive gesture. - -“This?” he said,--“you must not judge by this. It is the Holy of -Holies, to which none has access but the High Priest of the -Catacombs--and such as he favours.” - -“And what, in a rude age, keeps it sacred?” - -He swept his torch right and left. - -“Look, then!” said he. - -We lay in a vaulted chamber hewn out of the rock. On all sides I -fancied I caught dim vision of the mouths of innumerable low tunnels -that exhaled a mist of profound night. - -“Knowledge!” exclaimed the fearful man; “the age-long lore of one that -hath learnt his every footstep in this maze of oubliettes. There are -beaten tracks here and there. Here and there a fool has been known to -leave them. It may be days or weeks before I happen across his -body--the eyes slipping forward of their lids, his mouth puckered out -of shape from sucking and gnawing at the knuckles of his hands.” - -“It is terrible! And none comes hither but thou?” - -“I, and the beasts of blood that must not be denied. When they hunt, I -lead; therefore it is well to win my favour.” - -Carinne hurriedly raised herself. She threw her arms about me. - -“Oh, my husband!” she cried, “take me where I may see the sweet -daylight, if only for a moment!” - -I had thought the poor child slept. - -“Hush!” I murmured. “Citizen Gusman is going to show us his township!” - - * * * * * * * - -By interminable corridors, so intricate that one would have thought -their excavators must have lain down to die, each at the limit of his -boring, from sheer despair of ever finding their way to the open -again, we followed the flare of the torch, our eyes smarting in its -smoke, our arms most fervently linked, Carinne’s to mine, in -inseparable devotion. Now and again I would hear my poor little friend -whisper, “Light, light!” as if her very heart were starving; and then -I would draw her face to mine and cry confidently, “It is coming, _ma -mie_!” Still on we went over the uneven ground, thridding an endless -labyrinth of death, oppressed, weighed upon, hustled by inhuman walls, -breathing and exhaling the thin black fluid that is the atmosphere of -the disembodied. - -Sometimes, as if it crouched beneath a stroke, the flame of the torch -would dip and shrink under a current of gas, then leap jocund again -when the peril was swept by; sometimes the tinkle of falling water -would gladden our ears as with a memory of ancient happiness; and, -passing on, in a moment we should be bedewed with spray, and catch a -glimpse, in the glare, of a very dropping well of fire. At length, at -the turning of a corridor, Gusman called us to a halt. - -He hollowed his left hand to his mouth. - -“_Holà--làee--eh--h--h!_” he yelled, like a very _lutin_. - -“_Là--là--là--là--làee--eh--làee--eh--làee--eh!_” was hooted -and jangled back in a tumbling torrent of sound, that seemed to issue -from the throat of a passage facing us and to shake the very roofs -with merriment. Involuntarily we shrunk against the wall, as if to -allow space to the impetuous rush we foresaw. _Mon Dieu_, the strange -illusion! Only the swarming imps of echoes, summoned to the Master -call, came hurrying forth, leaping and falling over one another, -fighting and struggling, clanging with reverberant laughter, -distributing themselves, disappearing down this or that corridor, -shouting over their shoulders as they fled--faint, fainter--till -silence settled down once more like water in the wake of a vessel. - -Gusman slewed his head about--cockt as it had been to the outcry--to -view of us. - -“They are lively to-day,” he said, with an unearthly distortion of his -features. - -“The echoes?” - -“_C’est cela, citoyen._ So men entitle them. No doubt it is human to -think to put terror out of countenance by miscalling it.” - -“How, then?” - -He beckoned us to follow; plunged into the very funnel mouth that had -vomited the eerie babble; led us swiftly by a winding passage, and -stopped. - -“Behold!” said he, flashing his torch to and fro over the surface of a -roughly piled and cemented wall that seemed to close the entrance to a -vast recess. - -“Behold!” said he, sweeping the flame to the ground at the wall-foot. - -We saw a skull or two; a few scattered bones. An indescribable brassy -odour assailed our nostrils. The stones shone with an oily exudation. - -“What company lies here, citizen?” - -“A brave one, by my faith--a whole cemetery _en bloc_. _Comment -diable!_ shall they have fitted themselves each with his own by the -day of Judgment! They pretend to sleep, piecemeal as they were bundled -in; but utter so little as a whisper down there, and they will begin -to stir and to talk. Then if thou shout’st, as I did--my God, what a -clamour in reply! But one would have thought they had protested enough -already.” - -“In what manner?” - -“Ask the killers of September, thou. They are held honest men, I -believe.” - -“It is enough,” said I. “Lead on, Citizen Gusman, and find us a glint -of light, in the name of God!” - -I glanced, with a shudder, at Carinne. Thank heaven! she had not, it -appeared, understood. So here, in one dreadful lime-cemented heap, -were massed the victims of those unspeakable days! I remembered the -Abbaye and the blood-mark on the lip of Mademoiselle de Lâge; and I -held the girl to my side, as we walked, with a pressure that was -convulsive. - -Again the torch danced before us, and again we followed; and yet again -the deadman called us to a stop, and whirled his half-devoured brand. - -“Observe well,” said he; “for it is in this quarter ye must sojourn, -and here seek refuge when warning comes.” - -This time a very hill of skulls and ribs and shanks--a lifeless -crater--a Monte Testaccio of broken vessels that had once contained -the wine of life. The heap filled a wide recess and rose twenty feet -to the roof. - -“The contribution of ‘Les Innocens,’” said Gusman, as if he were some -spectral minister of affairs announcing in the Convention of the dead -a Sectional subscription. - -He pointed to a little closet of stone, like a friar’s cell, that -pierced the wall to one side of the heap. - -“Behold your hermitage!” said he. - -Carinne, clinging to me, cried, “No, no!” in a weeping voice. - -“_Eh bien!_” said the creature, indifferently; “you can take or leave, -as you will.” - -“We will take, citizen.” - -“Look, then!” (he gripped my arm and haled me to the mound) “and note -what I do.” - -There was a point--roughly undistinguishable from the rest--where a -welded mass of calcareous bone and rubbish lay upon the litter. This -was, in effect, a door in one piece, with an infant’s skull for handle -and concealed hinges of gut to one side to prevent its slipping out of -place. Removed, it revealed a black mouth opening into an inner -vacancy. - -“Underneath lies a great box or kennel of wood,” said Gusman, “with a -manhole cut in its side; and round and over the box the stuff is -piled. At the very word of warning, creep in and close the entrance. -It is like enough ye will need it.” - -“And here we are to stay?” - -“That is according to your inclination.” - -“But _Mor’ Dieu_, my friend! if thou wert to forget or overlook us -entombed in this oubliette?” - -“_Soyez content._ I might forget thou wert lacking food, but never -that the citizen President gave thee a purse.” - -“But----” - -“Tst, tst! Wouldst thou explore farther my city of shadows? Here the -wild quarries merge into the catacombs. Hence, a little space, thou -wilt find company and to spare;--light, also, if Mademoiselle wills.” - -The poor child uttered a heart-moving sigh. - -“Come, then,” said Gusman, with a shrug of his shoulders. - -He preceded us the length of a single corridor, low and narrow--a mere -human mole-run. All throughout it the rock seemed to grip us, the air -to draw like wire into our lungs. And then, suddenly, we were come to -a parapet of stone that cut our path like a whitewashed hoarding. For -through a fissure in the plain above it a wedge of light entered--a -very wise virgin with her lamp shining like snow;--and under the beam -we stopped, and gazed upwards, and could not gaze enough. - -But, for Carinne--she was translated! She laughed; she murmured; she -made as if she caught the sweet wash like water in her hands and -bathed her face with it. - -“And now I am ready,” said she. - -Then we scaled the wall, jumping to a lower terrace of rock: and -thereafter ran the corridor again, descending, but now of ample enough -width and showing a design of masonry at intervals, and sometimes -great stone supports to the roof where houses lay above. And in a -moment our path swept into a monstrous field of bones--confused, -myriad, piled up like slag about a pit-mouth; and we thridded our way -therethrough along a dusty gully, and emerged at once into a high -vaulted cavern and the view of living things. - -Living things!--_Grand Dieu!_ the bats of the living Terror. They -peered from holes and alcoves; they mowed and chattered; they shook -their sooty locks at us and hailed Gusman in the jargon of the -underworld. Thieves and rogues and cowards--here they swarmed in the -warrens of despair, the very sacristans of devil-worship, the unclean -acolytes of the desecrated rock-chapels, whose books of the Gospel -were long since torn for fuel. - -Out of one pestilent cavern, wherein I caught glimpse of an altar -faced with an arabesque of cemented bones, something like a dusky ape, -that clung with both hands to a staff for support, came mouthing and -gesticulating at us. - -“Bread, bread!” it mumbled, working its black jaws; and it made an -aimless pick at Carinne’s skirt. - -“There is for thee, then!” thundered Gusman; and he flapped his torch -into the thing’s face. The animal vented a hideous cry and shuffled -back into its hole, shedding sparks on its way as if it smouldered -like an old rag. - -“Oh, _mon ami_!” whispered Carinne, in a febrile voice--“better the -den by the skulls than this!” - -The deadman gave an acrid grin. - -“_À la bonne heure_,” said he. “Doubtless hunger pinches. Come back, -then; and I will open my wallet and thou shalt thy purse.” - - * * * * * * * - -Early in the afternoon--so far as in that rayless desolation one could -judge it to be--there broke upon our eyes the flutter of an advancing -light, upon our ears the quick secret patter of hurrying steps. These -ran up to the very opening of our lair and stopped. - -“_Hide!_” said the deadman’s voice, “I hear them call me to the -search! Hide!” and, without another word, he retreated as he had come. - -Carinne uttered a little shuddering “Oh!” She took my head between her -hands and kissed my lips, the admirable child. Then we emerged from -our den (the ghostliest glimmer reached us from some distant corner, -where, no doubt, Gusman had left a light burning), and stole swiftly -to the mound-foot. I felt about for the infant’s skull (the position -of which I had intensely remarked), and in a moment found it and laid -bare the aperture. - -“Dive, little rabbit,” said I. - -“I am within, Jean-Louis.” - -I followed, feet first, and with my toes just touching bottom, reached -out and pulled the trap upon us. Then, with a feeling as if I were -wrenching off a blouse over my shoulders, I let myself back into the -hole--upon a carpet of muffling dust--and _ma bonne amie_ caught at -me, and we stood to hear our own hearts beating. Like the thick throb -of a clock in an under-room--thus, I swear, our pulses sounded to us -in that black and horrible stillness. The box had, it appeared, been -very compactly built in at the first--and before the superincumbent -litter of rubbish had been discharged over and around it--with the -strongest bones, for that these were calculated to endure, without -shifting, the onset of one hurriedly concealing himself; yet this -necessary precaution went near to stultifying itself by so helping to -exclude the air as to make breathing a labour to one confined within. -Fortunately, however, no long strain upon our endurance was demanded -of us. - -Now the hunters came upon us so silently, that there, in our ghastly -prison, a spray of light, scattered through the chinks of the trap, -was our first intimation of their presence. Then, as we maddened to -see the glint withdrawn, a low voice came to our ears. - -“Stop, then! What is this?” - -“The dust of the Innocents, citizen.” (Gusman’s voice.) - -“It is with the dust of the depraved in breeding fat maggots, is it -not?” - -“Ay, so long as they can find flesh food.” - -“But what if such food were concealed herein? That little _babouin_ of -St Pélagie--_peste!_ a big thigh-bone would afford him cover.” - -I felt my hand carried to Carinne’s lips in the darkness. - -Gusman kicked at the mound with his sabot. - -“Close litter,” said he. “A man would suffocate that burrowed into -it.” - -“Is that so? Rake me over that big lump yonder--_voilà!_--with the -little skull sticking from it.” - -I felt my heart turn like a mountebank--felt Carinne stoop suddenly -and rise with something huddled in her hands. The astonishing child -had, unknown to me, preconceived a plan and was prepared with it on -the very flash of emergency. She leant past me, swift and perfectly -silent, and immediately the little spars of light about the trap went -out, it seemed. If in moving she made the smallest sound, it was -opportunely covered by the ragged cough that issued at the moment from -Gusman’s throat. - -“_Dépêche-toi!_” said the authoritative voice. “That projecting -patch, citizen--turn it for me!” - -“There is nothing here.” - -“But, there, I say! No, no! _Mille tonnerres_,--I will come myself, -then!” - -I heard Gusman’s breath vibrant outside the trap; heard him hastily -raise the covering an inch or two, with an affectation of labouring -perplexity. I set my teeth; I “saw red,” like flecks of blood; I -waited for the grunt of triumph that should announce the discovery of -the hole. - -“It is as I told thee,” said the deadman; “there is nothing.” - -I caught a note of strangeness in his voice, a suppressed marvel that -communicated itself to me. The sweat broke out on my forehead. - -“H’mph!” muttered the inquisitor; and I heard him step back. - -Suddenly he cried, “_En avant, plus avant!_ To thy remotest -boundaries, citizen warden! We will run the little rascal to earth -yet!” - -The light faded from our ken; the footsteps retreated. I passed a -shaking hand over my eyes--I could not believe in the reality of our -escape. - -At length, unable any longer to endure the silence, I caught at -Carinne in the blackness. - -“Little angel,” I said; “in God’s name, what didst thou do?” - -She bowed her sweet face to my neck. - -“Only this, Jean-Louis. I had noticed that my poor ragged skirt was -much of the colour of this heap; and so I slipped it off and stuffed -it into the hole.” - - * * * * * * * - -We dwelt an hour in our horrible retreat, from time to time cautiously -lifting the trap a finger’s-breadth for air. At the end, Gusman -reappeared with his torch and summoned us to our release. He looked at -Carinne, as St Hildephonsus might have gazed on the Blessed Virgin. - -“It was magnificent,” he said. “I saw at once. Thou hast saved me no -less than thyself. That I will remember, _citoyenne_, when the -opportunity serves.” - - * * * * * * * - -On the third day our deadman came to us with a copy of the ‘Moniteur’ -in his hand. He pointed silently to a name in the list of the latest -executed. Carinne turned to me with pitiful eyes. - -“_Ah, le pauvre Crépin!_” I cried, in great emotion. “What can one -hope but that death came to him passionately, as he desired!” - - * * * * * * * - -“Citizen Gusman, we are resolved. We must go forth, if it is only to -perish. We can endure this damning gloom no longer.” - -He looked down on us as we sat, this genii of the torch. His face was -always framed to our vision in a lurid wreath; was the sport of any -draught that swayed the leaping fire. Submitted to daylight, his -features might have resolved themselves into expressionlessness and -immobility. To us they were ever shifting, fantastic, possessed with -the very devils of the underworld. - -“Well,” he said at length--“I owe the citizeness a debt of gratitude; -but--_sang Dieu!_ after all I might repudiate it when the keg -threatened to suck dry. I am myself only when I am not myself. That -would be a paradox in the world above there, eh? At least the moment -is opportune. They hunt counter for thee, Thibaut. For the wench--she -is not in their minds, nor associated in any manner with thee. That -lends itself to an artifice. The idea tickles me. _Sang Dieu!_ Yes, I -will supply thee with a passport to Calais. Wait!” - -He went from us. We knew better than to interrupt or question him; but -we held together during his absence and whispered our hopes. In less -than half an hour he returned to us, some papers grasped in his hand. - -“Observe,” said he. “It is not often, after a harvest of death, that -the _glaneurs_ of the Municipality overlook a stalk; yet now and again -one will come to me. Citizen Tithon Riouffe, it appears, meditated a -descent upon _la maudite Angleterre_. He had his papers, signed and -countersigned, for himself, and for his wife Sabine, moreover. It is -lucky for you that he proved a rascal, for they shaved him -nevertheless. What Barrère had granted, St Just rendered nugatory. -But, if they took his head, they left him his passports, and those I -found in his secret pocket.” - -He broke off, with a quick exclamation, and peered down at me, holding -the torch to my face. - -“Mother of God!” he cried--“I will swear there is something a likeness -here! I have a mind to fetch the head and set it to thine, cheek by -jowl! _Hé bien, comment, la petite babiole_--that disturbs her! Well, -well--take and use the papers, then, and, with discretion, ye shall -win free!” - -Carinne caught at the rough hand of our preserver and kissed it. - -“Monsieur, thou art a deadman angel!” she cried; and broke into a -little fit of weeping. - -His lids fell. I saw his throat working. He examined his hand as if he -thought something had stung it. - -“Yes, she is very pretty,” he muttered. “I think I would give my life -for her.” - -Then he added, vaguely: “_Chou pour chou_--I will take it out in -Hollands.” - - - - - CHAPTER XV. - THE SALAD COURSE. - -Citoyen Tithon Riouffe _et femme_ had yet to experience the most -extraordinary instance of that favouritism, by an after-display of -which, towards those whom she has smitten without subduing, Fortune -proclaims herself the least supernatural of goddesses. Truly, they had -never thrown into the lottery of events with a faint heart; and now a -first prize was to be the reward of their untiring persistency. - -Possibly, indeed, the papers of recommendation might have sufficed of -themselves; yet that they would have carried us (having regard to our -moulting condition, poor cage-worn sparrows! and the necessary -slowness of our advance) in safety to the coast, I most strenuously -doubt. - -Dear God! the soughing of the May wind, the whisper of the grasses, -the liquid flutter of the stars, that were like lights reflected in a -lake! The hour of ten saw us lifted to the plain in body--to the -heavens in spirit. For freedom, we were flying from the land of -liberty; for life, from the advocates of the Rights of Man. We sobbed -and we embraced. - -“Some day,” we cried to Gusman, “we will come back and roll thee under -a hogshead of schnapps!”--and then we set our faces to the north, and -our teeth to a long task of endurance--one no less, indeed, than a -sixty-league tramp up the half of the Isle de France and the whole of -Picardie. Well, at least, as in the old days, we should walk together, -with only the little rogue that laughs at locksmiths riding sedan -between us. - -It was our design to skirt, at a reasonable distance, the east walls -of the city, and to strike at Pantin, going by way of Gentilly and -Bercy--the road to Meaux. Thence we would make, by a north-westerly -course, the Amiens highway; and so, with full hearts and purses -tight-belted for their hunger, for the pathetically distant sea. - -And all this we did, though not as we had foreseen. We toiled onwards -in the dark throughout that first sweet night of liberty. For seven -hours we tramped without resting; and then, ten miles north of the -walls, we lay down under the lee of a skilling, and, rolled in one -another’s arms, slept for four hours like moles. - - * * * * * * * - -I woke to the prick of rain upon my face. Before my half-conscious -eyes a hectic spot faded and went wan in a grey miasma like death. It -was the sun--the cheek of the virgin day, grown chill in a premature -decline. - -I sat up. From the south-west, like the breath of the fatal city -pursuing us, a melancholy draft of cloud flowed and spread itself, -making for the northern horizon. It wreathed in driving swirls and -ripples, as if it were the very surface of a stream that ran above us; -and, indeed almost before we were moved to a full wakefulness, we were -as sopt as though we lay under water. - -A swampy day it was to be. The drops soon fell so thickly that heaven -seemed shut from us by a skylight of blurred glass. The interval from -cloud to earth was like a glaze upon the superficies of a fire-baked -sphere. The starved clammy fields shone livid; the highway ran, -literally; the poplars that skirted it were mere leafy piles in a -lagoon. Then the wind rose, shouldering us forward and bombarding us -from the rear in recurrent volleys, till I, at least, felt like a -fugitive saurian escaping from the Deluge with my wet tail between my -legs. - -I looked at my comrade, the delicate gallant lady. Her hair was -whipped about her face, her skirt about her ankles. The red cap on her -head, with which Gusman had provided her, hung over like the comb of a -vanquished cockerel. She was not vanquished, however. Her white teeth -clicked a little with the cold; but when she became conscious of my -gaze, she returned it with an ardour of the sweetest drollery. - -“_Enfin, mon p’tit Thibaut_,” she said; “I prefer Liberty in her -chilly moods, though she make a _noyade_ of us.” - -“It is almost come to that. With a brave effort, it seems, we might -rise to the clouds by our own buoyancy. Take a long breath, Carinne. -Canst thou swim?” - -She laughed and stopped a moment, and took me by the hands. - -“I should be able to,” she said; “I feel so like a fish, or a lizard, -whose skin is a little loose on his body. Am I not a dreadful sight, -Jean-Louis?” - -“Thou art never anything but beautiful in my eyes.” - -“Fie, then, fie then! cannot I see myself in them! Very small and very -ugly, Jean-Louis--an imp of black waters.” - -“And I see babies in thine, Carinne. That is what the peasants call -them. And I never loved my own image so well as now. It has a little -blue sky to itself to spite the reality. It is a fairy peeping from a -flower. _Ma mie_, and art thou so very cold and hungry?” - -“Truly, my teeth go on munching the air for lack of anything better.” - -“It is pitiful. We must brave the next town or village to procure -food. There are no berries here, Carinne; no little conies to catch in -a springe of withe and spit for roasting on an old sabre; and if there -were, we must not stop to catch them.” - -“It is true we must eat, then. The plunge has to be made--for liberty -or death. _Formez vos bataillons!_ Advance, M. le Comte, with thy -heart jumping to the hilt of thy sword!” - -She cried out merrily. She was my own, my property, the soul of my -confidence; yet I could have cheered her in the face of a multitude as -(God forgive the comparison!) the mob cheered the _guenipe_ Théroigne -when she entered the Bastille. - -So, once more we drove and were driven forward; and presently, six -miles north of St Denis, down we came, with stout courage, I hope, -upon the village of Écouen, and into immediate touch with that -fortune that counselled us so amiably in the crisis of our affairs. - -Yet at the outset this _capricieuse_ essayed to terrify us out of all -assurance of self-confidence, and was the coquette to give us a bad -quarter of an hour before she smiled on our suit. For at the very -barrier occurred a _contretemps_ that, but for its happy adaptation by -us to circumstance, threatened to put a short end to our fugitive -romance. - -We assumed a breezy deportment, under the raking scrutiny of five or -six patriot savages--mere arrogant _péagers_, down whose dirty faces -the rain trickled sluggishly like oil. Foul straw was stuft into their -clogs; over their shoulders, nipped with a skewer at the neck, were -flung frowzy squares of sacking, in the hanging corners of which they -held the flint-locks of their pieces for dryness’ sake. By the door of -the village taxing-house, that stood hard by the barrier, a -ferret-faced postilion--the only man of them all in boots--lounged, -replaiting the lash of his whip and drawing the string through his -mouth. - -“Graceless weather, citizens!” said I. - -A squinting _bonnet-rouge_ damned me for _un âne ennuyant_. - -“Keep thy breath,” said he, “for what is less obvious;” and he surlily -demanded the production of our papers. - -“A good patriot,” growled another, “walks with his face to Paris.” - -“So many of them have their heads turned, it is true,” whispered -Carinne. - -The squinting man wedged his eyes upon her. - -“What is that?” he said sharply--“some _mot de ralliement_? Be -careful, my friends! I have the gift to look straight into the hearts -of traitors!” - -It was patent, however, that he deceived himself. He snatched the -papers rudely from me, and conned them all at cross-purposes. - -“_Sacré corps!_” he snapped--“what is thy accursed name?” - -“It is plain to read, citizen.” - -“For a mincing aristocrat, yes. But, for us--we read only between the -lines.” - -“Read on them, then, the names of Citizen Tithon Riouffe and wife.” - -The indolent postilion spat the string from his lips, looked up -suddenly, and came swiftly to the barrier. - -“How?” said he, “what name?” - -I repeated the words, with a little quaver in my voice. The man cockt -his head evilly, his eyes gone into slits. - -“Oh, _le bon Dieu_!” he cried, in acrid tones, “but the assurance of -this ragged juggler!” - -Carinne caught nervously at my hand. - -“I do not understand the citizen,” said I, in my truculent voice. - -“But I think, yes.” - -“That that is not the name on the passport?” - -“I know nothing of the passport. I know that thou art not Riouffe, and -it is enough.” - -Squint-eyes croaked joyously. - -“Come!” he said; “here is a sop to the weather.” - -As for me, I could have whipped Gusman for his talk of a fortuitous -resemblance. - -“I am Riouffe,” said I, stubbornly, “whatever thou mayst think.” - -“Well, it is said,” cried the postilion. He chirped shrilly like a -ferret. “And, if thou art Riouffe, thou art a damned aristocrat; and -how art thou the better for that?” - -“Bah!” I exclaimed. “What dost thou know of me, pig of a stable-boy?” - -“Of thee, nothing. Of Riouffe, enough to say that thou art not he.” - -“Explain, citizen!” growled a curt-spoken patriot, spitting on the -ground for full-stop. - -“_Mes amis_,” cried the deplorable rogue. “Myself, I conveyed the -Citizen Tithon Riouffe to Paris in company with the Englishman. The -Englishman, within the fifteen days, returns alone. He breaks his -journey here, as you know, to breakfast at the ‘Anchor.’ But, for -Riouffe--I heard he was arrested.” - -Grace of God! here was a concatenation of mishaps--as luckless a -_rencontre_ as Fate ever conceived of cruelty. My heart turned grey. -The beastly triumphant faces of the guard swam in my vision like -spectres of delirium. Nevertheless, I think, I preserved my reason -sufficiently to assume a _sang froid_ that was rather of the nature of -a fever. - -“The question is,” said I, coolly, “not as to whether this lout is a -fool or a liar, but as to whether or no my papers are in order. You -will please to observe by whom they are franked.” (I remembered, in a -flash, the deadman’s statement.) “The name of the Citizen Deputy, who -assured me a safe conduct _to_ Paris, being on this return passport, -should be a sufficient guarantee that his good offices did not end -with my arrival. I may have been arrested and I may have been -released. It is not well, my friends, to pit the word of a horse-boy -against that of a member of the Committee of Public Safety.” - -My high manner of assurance had its effect. The faces lowered into -some expression of chagrin and perplexity. And then what must I do but -spoil the effect of all by a childishly exuberant anti-climax. - -“I will grant,” said I, “that a change in the habit of one’s dress may -confuse a keener headpiece than a jockey’s. What then! I arrive from -England; I return from Paris--there is the explanation. Moreover, in -these days of equality one must economise for the common good, and, -rather than miss my return seat in the Englishman’s carriage and have -to charter another, I follow in his track, when I find he is already -started, in the hope to overtake him. And now you would delay us here -while he stretches longer leagues between us!” - -Carinne gave a little soft whimper. The postilion capered where he -stood. - -“_Mes amis!_” he cried, “he speaks well! It needs only to confront him -with the Englishman to prove him an impostor.” - -_Misérable!_ What folly had I expressed! It had not been sufficiently -flogged into my dull brain that the islander was here, now, in the -village! I had obtusely fancied myself safe in claiming knowledge of -him, while my secure policy was to have blustered out the situation as -another and independent Riouffe. That course I had now made -impossible. I could have driven my teeth through my tongue with -vexation. Carinne touched my hand pitifully. It almost made my heart -overflow. “Thus,” I said by-and-by to her, “the condemned forgives his -executioner,” and--“Ah, little Thibaut,” she whispered, “but you do -not know how big you looked.” - - * * * * * * * - -For the moment they could not find the Englishman. He had finished his -breakfast and wandered afield. That was a brief respite; but nothing, -it seemed, to avail in the end. - -In the meantime they marched us into the taxing-house, where at a -table sat a commissary of a strange figure. I had blundered -desperately; yet here, I flatter myself, I turned my faculty for -construing character to the account of retrieving my own. - -In Citizen Tristan I read--and quite rightly, as events showed--a -decent burgher aggrandised, not against his will, but against the -entire lack of one. His face was shaped, and something coloured, like -a great autumn pear. It was narrow at the forehead, with restless, -ineffective eyes, and it dropped to a monstrous chin--a -self-protective evolution in the era Sainte Guillotine. Obviously he -had studied to save his neck by surrounding it with a rampart of fat. -For the rest he was very squat and ungainly; and he kept shifting the -papers on his desk rather than look at us. - -“Here is a man,” thought I, “who has been promoted because in all his -life he has never learned to call anything his own.” - -Our guard presented us arrogantly; the wizened post-boy laid his -charge volubly. - -“Call your witness,” said I in a pet. “The case lies in a nutshell.” - -My words made an impression, no doubt, though they were uttered in -mere hopeless bravado. - -“But, it seems he cannot be found,” protested the commissary, -plaintively. - -“Then,” I urged, “it is bad law to detain us.” - -“You are detained on suspicion.” - -“Of not being ourselves? Oh, monsieur----!” - -He took me up peevishly. - -“Eh, eh! _voilà ce que c’est!_ Monsieur to me? Art thou not an -aristocrat, then?” - -I answered pregnantly, “The question in itself is a reflection upon -him that signed this passport.” - -He looked about him like a trapped creature, dumbly entreating the -Fates for succour. It was my plain policy to harp upon the strings of -his nerves. - -“Well,” said I, “a citizen commissary, I perceive, must have the -courage of his opinions; and I can only hope thine will acquit thee -when the reckoning is called.” - -He shifted in his chair; he spluttered little deprecatory -interjections under his breath; he shot small furtive glances at his -truculent following. Finally he bade all but us two out of the room, -and the guard to their post at the barrier. The moment they were -withdrawn grumbling, he opened upon me with a poor assumption of -bluster-- - -“Thou art very big with words; but here I am clearly within my -rights.” - -“Are not my papers in order, then?” - -“It would at least appear so.” - -His lids rose and fell. Patently his self-possession was an insecure -tenure. - -“Citizen,” I said, shaking my finger at him. “Since when hast thou -learned to set thy will in opposition to that of Barrère?” - -“_Oh, nom de Dieu!_” he whimpered, in great distress; and rose and -trundled up and down the room. “I oppose nobody. I am a most unhappy -being, condemned by vile circumstance to give the perpetual lie to my -conscience.” - -“It is an ignoble _rôle_,” said I, “and quite futile of itself.” - -He paused suddenly opposite me. His fat lips were shaking; his eyes -blinked a nerveless anxiety. - -“I contradict nobody,” he cried; and added afflictedly, “I suppose, if -you are Riouffe, you are Riouffe, I suppose.” - -“It all lies in that,” said I. - -“Then,” he cried feebly--“what the devil do you want of me?” - -I could have laughed in his poor gross face. - -“What, indeed,” said I. “My account with you will come later. You will -be prepared then, no doubt, to justify this detention. For me, there -remains Barrère.” - -“No, no!” he cried; “I desire only to steer wide of quicksands. You -may guess, monsieur, how I am governed. This _fripon_ takes my fellows -by the ears. He gives you the lie, and you return it in his teeth. -What am I to say or think or do?” - -“Is it for me to advise a commissary?” - -He rumpled his limp hair desperately as he walked. - -“You will not help me! You drive me to distraction!” - -He stopped again. - -“Are you Riouffe?” he cried. - -“You have my passport, monsieur.” - -“Yes, yes, I know!” he exclaimed in a frenzy; “but--Mother of God, -monsieur! do you not comprehend the post-boy to swear you are not the -Englishman’s Riouffe?” - -“Confront me, then, with the Englishman.” - -“He cannot be found.” - -I shrugged my shoulders. - -“I can only recall monsieur’s attention,” said I, “to the fact that -certain citizens, travelling under safe-conduct of a member of the -Committee of Safety, and with their papers in indisputable order, are -suffering a detention sufficiently unwarrantable to produce the -gravest results.” - -The commissary snatched up his hat and ran to the door. - -“Go thy ways!” he cried. “Myself, I will conduct you through the -village. For the rest, when the Englishman is found, and if he denies -thee----” - -He did not finish the sentence. In a moment we were all in the rainy -street. My accuser was vanished from the neighbourhood of the barrier. -A single patriot only was in evidence. This man made a feint of -bringing his musket to the charge. - -“_Qui va là?_” he grunted. “_Est-ce qu’il se sauve, ce cochon!_” - -Fear lent the commissary anger. - -“To thy post!” he shouted. “Am I to be made answerable to every dog -that barks!” - -Red-bonnet fell back muttering. We hurried forward, splashing over the -streaming cobbles. The street, by luck of weather, was entirely -deserted. Only a horseless _limonière_, standing at the porch of the -village inn, gave earnest of some prospective interest. - -Suddenly I felt Carinne’s little clutch on my arm. - -“The Englishman!” she whispered, in a gasp. - -My teeth clicked rigid. I saw, ahead of us, a tall careless figure -lounge into the open and stop over against the door of the carriage. -At the same moment inspiration came to the commissary. His gaze was -introspective. He had not yet noticed the direction of ours. He -slapped his hand to his thigh as he hurried forward. - -“_Mon Dieu!_” cried he, “it is simple. Why did I not think of it -sooner? Prove, then, thy knowledge of this Englishman by giving me his -name!” - -With the very words I set off running. A startled cry, to which I paid -no heed, pursued me. - -“I hold a hostage! I hold a hostage!” screamed the commissary; and -immediately, as I understood, nipped Carinne by the elbow. - -But by then I was come up with the stranger. He turned and received me -straddle-legged, his eyes full of a passionless alertness. I lost not -an instant. - -“Monsieur,” I panted, “we are fugitive aristocrats. In the name of -God, help us!” - -I could have adored him for his reception of this astounding appeal. -He never moved a muscle. - -“_Tout droit!_” said he; “but give us the tip!” - -“Riouffe is dead” (his eyelids twitched at that)--“I have his -passports. I am Riouffe--and this is madame, my wife.” - -Simultaneously, in the instant of my speaking, the frantic commissary -brought up Carinne, and, to a metallic clang of hoofs, our fateful -post-boy issued from the inn-yard in charge of his cattle. For a -moment the situation was absolutely complete and dramatic,--the -agonised suitor proposing; the humorous and heroic _nonchalant_ -disposing; the petrified jockey, right; the hostage _chevalière_ in -the grasp of the heavy villain, left. Then all converged to the -central interest, and destroyed the admirable effectiveness of the -tableau. - -“Goddam milor’ the Englishman!” shrieked the commissary; “he does not -know thy name!” - -The stranger put out a hand as he stood, and clapped me on the -shoulder so that I winced. - -“Riouffe!” he cried, in a very bantering voice--“not know his friend -Jack Comely!” (“_ne savoir pas son ami Jack Comely--pooh!_”) - -“That he will swear to, my Jack,” said I. - -The commissary released Carinne, and fell back gasping. - -“_Pardon! les bras m’en tombent!_” he muttered, in dismayed tones, and -went as white and mottled as a leg of raw mutton. - -But the stranger advanced to Carinne, with a blush and a gallant bow. - -“Madame,” said he, “I cannot sufficiently curse my impatience for -having cut you out of a stage. It was an error. _Entrez, s’il vous -plait._” - -He spoke execrable French, the angel! It was enough that we all -understood him. We climbed into the _limonière_; the stranger -followed, and the door was slammed to. The landlord, with a hussy or -so, gaped at the inn-door. The post-boy, making himself -infinitesimally small to the commissary, limbered up his cattle--three -horses abreast. One of these he mounted, as if it were a nightmare. In -a moment he was towelling his beasts to a gallop, to escape, one would -think, the very embarrassment he carried with him. From time to time -he turned in his saddle, and presented a scared face to our view. - -“Well?” said the stranger, looking at us with a smile. - -He was a fair-faced young man, bold-mouthed, and ripe with -self-assurance. His dress was of the English fashion--straight-crowned -beaver hat, with the band buckled in front, green tabinet kerchief, -claret-coloured coat tight-buttoned,--altogether a figure very spruce -and clean, like a _piqueur d’écurie_. - -I regarded him in solemn amazement. The whole rapid incident had been -of a nature to make me doubt whether I was awake or dreaming. - -“_Ma mie_,” said Carinne, reproachfully; “Milord awaits your -explanation.” - -I rose a little and bowed. - -“Monsieur,” said I, stupidly, “we are Jorinde and Joringel.” - - * * * * * * * - -Sir Comely, a fine scapegrace, had journeyed to Paris out of curiosity -to witness a guillotining. With him, in the packet, crossed Monsieur -Tithon Riouffe, an _émigré_ returning, under safe-conduct of the -ineffective Barrère, to snatch his wife from the whirlpool. The two -gentlemen met, hobnobbed, and shared a four-wheeled carriage as far as -the tragic city, whence (as agreed between them) on a certain day of -the fifteen during which the vehicle remained at the _Remise_ at their -disposition, they--accompanied, it was to be hoped, by madame--were to -return in it to Calais. The day arrived; M. Riouffe failed to keep his -appointment. The other awaited him, so long as a certain urgency of -affairs permitted. At length--his own safety being a little -menaced--he was driven to start on the return journey alone. - -All this we learned of him, and he of us the broad outline of our -story. A full confidence was the only policy possible to our dilemma. -He honoured it _en prince_. - -He was quite admirably concerned to hear of the fate of his -fellow-traveller--_le malheureux chevreuil_! he called him. The -extraordinary concatenation of chances that had substituted us for -that other two did not, however, appear to strike him particularly. -But he “strapped his vitalities!” (that is, as we understood it, -“lashed himself into merriment”), in the insular manner, very often -and very loudly, over this chance presented to him of hoodwinking the -authorities. - -“It’s rich, it’s royal, it’s rare!” he cried, “thus to double under -the nose of the old cull of a bigwig, and to be sport in the next -county while he’s hunting for a gate through the quickset. I pledge -you my honour, monsieur, to see the two of you through with this; but, -egad! you must draw upon my portymanteau at the next post if you are -to win clear!” - -_Grâces au Ciel_ for the merry brave! It was like endeavouring to -read inscriptions in the Catacombs to interpret his speech; but one -phrase he had trippingly, and that in itself was a complete index to -his character-- - -“_Je ne me mouche pas du pied_”--I know better than to blow my nose -with my feet. - -And now, if for nothing else, I loved him for his boyish, shy, but -most considerate attitude towards Carinne. - - * * * * * * * - -And thus was our escape accomplished. Winged with our passports, and -cheered to the finish by the assurance of this gay and breezy -islander, we came to the coast on a memorable afternoon, and bade -adieu for ever to the family despotism of Fraternity. - - * * * * * * * - -“Tell me, _ma belle épousée_--for five days (the guests, the -property, the _protégés_--what thou wilt--of this Sir Comely, this -excellent Philippe le Bel) we have shut our eyes, here in this -immeasurable London, to our necessitous condition and the prospect -that faces us. Carinne, _mon enfant_, it is right now to discuss the -means by which we are to live.” - -“I have thought of it, little Thibaut. I will paint portraits.” - -I started. - -“Oh!” I cried, “I am very hungry! Let us signalise this last -consumption of the poor Crépin’s purse by a feast of elegance. Be -assured his ghost will call the grace.” - -We entered an inn, opportunely near the spot whither we had wandered. -It was in an important part of the town, close by the lion-surmounted -palace of some monseigneur; and coaches and berlines discharged -themselves in frequent succession in its yard. We walked into the -_salle à manger_, sat down, and endeavoured to make our wishes known -to the waiter. The room was fairly empty, but a party of half-a-dozen -young “bloods”--_hommes de bonne compagnie_--sitting at a neighbouring -table, seemed moved with a certain curiosity about us, and by-and-by -one of these rose, crossed over, and, addressing me in very good -French, asked if he could be of service in interpreting my -desires--“For,” says he, with a smile, “I perceive that monsieur is -from over the Channel.” - -“Alas, monsieur!” I answered. “We are, indeed, of that foundered -vessel, _La Ville de Paris_, the worthless wreckage of which every -tide washes up on your coasts.” - -Some compliments passed, and he withdrew to join his companions. A -little whispering was exchanged amongst them, and then suddenly our -dandy arose and approached us once more, with infinite complaisance. - -“Monsieur,” he said, “I cannot, I find, convince my friends of the -extent to which your nation excels in the art of making salads. Would -you do us the favour to mix one for us?” - -I hesitated. - -“It is one of thy accomplishments,” said Madame la Comtesse, at a -hazard. - -It was, indeed, though she could not have known it; or that -Brillat-Savarin himself had once acknowledged me to be his master in -the art. - -“I shall be charmed,” I said. - -I called for oil, wine, vinegar, sweet fruits, the sauces of soy and -ketchup, caviare, truffles, anchovies, meat-gravy, and the yolks of -eggs. I had a proportion and a place for each; and while I broke the -lettuces, my company sat watching, and engaged me in some pretty -intimate conversation, asking many questions about Paris, my former -and present conditions, and even my place of abode. - -I answered good-humouredly on account of my dear Philippe, who was of -the very complexion and moral of these frank rascals; and presently -they pronounced my salad such a dish as Vitellius had never conceived; -and, from their table, they drank to its author and to the beautiful -eyes of Madame la Comtesse. - -It was all comical enough; but, by-and-by when, having finished our -meal, we found ourselves in the street again, Carinne thrust a folded -slip of paper into my hand. - -“What is this, _mignonne_?” - -“Look, then,” said she. “It was conveyed by the _élégant_ under thy -plate.” - -I opened and examined it. It was a note for five pounds. - -“_Au diable!_” I murmured, flushing scarlet. - -Carinne placed her hand on my arm. She looked up in my face very -earnest and pitiful. - -“Jourdain,” she said, “makes his living by turning his knowledge of -weaving to account; De Courcy begs his by ‘_parfilage_.’ Which is the -better method, _mon ami_? Is it not well to face the inevitable -courageously by taking thy accomplishments to market?” - -“I will become a salad-dresser,” said I. - - * * * * * * * - -On the following day arrived a very courteous note from my -_petit-maître_ of the dining-room, entreating me, as a special -favour, to come that evening to a certain noble house and make the -salad for a large dinner-party that was to be given therein. I went, -was happy in confirming the great opinion formed of my powers, and was -delicately made the recipient of a handsome present in acknowledgment -of my services. From that moment my good little fortunes rolled up -like a snow-ball. Within a period of eighteen months I had -accumulated, by the mere “art of selection,” a sum of near a hundred -thousand francs--truly a notable little egg’s-nest. - - * * * * * * * - -One morning, not so very long ago, Madame de Crancé came to me with -her eyes shining. - -“Little Thibaut,” said she, “thou hast a great heart. Yet--though -doubtless thou wert right to insist that the husband should be the -bread-winner--it has grieved me to stand by and watch my own -particular gift rusting from disuse. Well, sir, for thy rebuke I have -at last a surprise for thee. Behold!” and with that she fetched a -canvas from behind her back, where she had been secreting it, and -presented it to my view. - -“Is it not like?” she said, her throat swelling with joy and pride. - -I made my eyes two O’s,--I “hedged,” as the sportsmen say. - -“It is, indeed, _ma mie_. It is like nothing in the world except, of -course----” - -I stopped, sweating with apprehension. She relieved me at once. - -“Ah!” she cried, “is it not baby himself--the dear, sweet rogue! I -threw all my soul into it for thy sake.” - -“Carinne!” I exclaimed, passionately grateful; “I knew I could not be -mistaken.” - - [The End] - - - - - NOTES. - - [1] - “Nothing would appear to more graphically illustrate the moral - influence of the ‘Terror’ than that common submission to a force that - was rather implied than expressed. Now it seems a matter for marvel - how a great many thousands of capable men, having nothing to hope from - the intolerable tyranny that was massing them in a number of professed - slaughter-houses, should not only have attempted no organised - retaliation, but should, by unstiffening their necks (in a very heroic - fashion, be it said) to be the footstools to a few monstrous bullies, - have tacitly allowed the righteousness of a system that was destroying - them to go by implication. Escapes from durance were, comparatively - speaking, rare; resistance to authority scarcely ever carried beyond - the personal and peevish limit. Yet it is a fact that many of the - innumerable prisons--of which, from my own observation, I may instance - St Pélagie--were quite inadequately guarded, and generally, indeed, - open to any visitor who was prepared to ‘tip’ for the privilege of - entry.”--Extracted from an unpublished chapter of the Count’s - Reminiscences. - - [2] - #Décadi# the Revolutionary Sabbath.--Ed. - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES. - -The cover from the Dodd, Mead and Co. edition (New York, 1898) was -used for this ebook. This edition was also consulted for the changes -listed below. - -Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ caldron/cauldron, say’st/sayst, -wineshop/wine-shop, etc.) have been preserved. - -[Text edition only] _#_ is used to indicate bolded text. - -Alterations to the text: - -Convert footnotes to endnotes, and add a corresponding entry to the -TOC. - -Silently correct a few punctuation errors. - -[CHAPTER II] - -Change “with her priestesses of the _Salpétrière_” to _Salpêtrière_. - -[CHAPTER XIV] - -“cockt as it had been to the _out-cry_” to _outcry_. - -[End of text] - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES OF THE COMTE DE LA -MUETTE DURING THE REIGN OF TERROR *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may -do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected -by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark -license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country other than the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the - United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where - you are located before using this eBook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that: - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of -the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set -forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, -Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up -to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without -widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/old/69579-0.zip b/old/old/69579-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index bc96b17..0000000 --- a/old/old/69579-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old/69579-h.zip b/old/old/69579-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index d222b04..0000000 --- a/old/old/69579-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old/69579-h/69579-h.htm b/old/old/69579-h/69579-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 99b2e56..0000000 --- a/old/old/69579-h/69579-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,14090 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html> -<html lang="en"> -<head> - <meta charset="UTF-8"> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Adventures of the Comte de la Muette, by Bernard Capes - </title> - <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> - <style> - -/* Headers and Divisions */ - h1, h2, h3 {margin:2em 0em 1em 0em; page-break-before:always; text-align:center;} - -/* General */ - - body {margin:0% 5% 0% 5%;} - - .nobreak {page-break-before:avoid;} - - p {margin:0em 0em 0em 0em; text-align:justify; text-indent:1em;} - .center {margin:0em 0em 0em 0em; text-align:center; text-indent:0em;} - .noindent {text-indent:0em;} - .spacer {margin:0.5em 0em 0.5em 0em; text-align:center; text-indent:0em;} - .toc_1 {font-variant:small-caps; margin:0em 0em 0em 2em; text-indent:-2em;} - .right {text-align:right;} - .sign2 {margin:0em 2em 0em 0em; text-align:right; text-indent:0em;} - - span.chap_sub {font-size:70%;} - span.sc {font-variant:small-caps;} - .font80 {font-size:80%;} - - /* center a poem/song */ - div.quote_o {font-size:95%; margin:0.5em 2em 0.5em 2em; text-align:center;} - div.quote_i {display:inline-block; text-align:left;} - -/* special formatting */ - /* poem/song verses */ - .i0 {margin:0em 0em 0em 2em; text-indent:-2em;} - .i1 {margin:0em 0em 0em 3em; text-indent:-2em;} - .i2 {margin:0em 0em 0em 4em; text-indent:-2em;} - .i3 {margin:0em 0em 0em 5em; text-indent:-2em;} - .i4 {margin:0em 0em 0em 6em; text-indent:-2em;} - .i5 {margin:0em 0em 0em 7em; text-indent:-2em;} - - .letter {margin:1em 0em 1em 2em;} - .song {margin:1em 0em 1em 4em;} - - .mt1 {margin-top:1em;} - .mt2 {margin-top:2em;} - .mt3 {margin-top:3em;} - .mt4 {margin-top:4em;} - .mb1 {margin-bottom:1em;} - -</style> -</head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Adventures of the Comte de la Muette during the Reign of Terror, by Bernard Capes</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Adventures of the Comte de la Muette during the Reign of Terror</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Bernard Capes</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 19, 2022 [eBook #69579]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES OF THE COMTE DE LA MUETTE DURING THE REIGN OF TERROR ***</div> - - -<h1> -Adventures<br> -<span class="font80">of the</span><br> -Comte de la Muette<br> -<span class="font80">during the</span><br> -Reign of Terror -</h1> - -<p class="center"><span class="font80">BY</span><br> -BERNARD CAPES<br> -<span class="font80">AUTHOR OF<br> -‘THE MILL OF SILENCE,’ ‘THE LAKE OF WINE,’ ETC.</span></p> - -<p class="center mt3">WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS<br> -EDINBURGH AND LONDON<br> -MDCCCXCVIII</p> - -<p class="center mt1"><i>All Rights reserved</i></p> - - -<h2> -[DEDICATION.] -</h2> - -<p class="center"> -<span class="font80">TO</span><br> -R. C.,<br> -<span class="font80">BEST COUNSELLOR AND HELPMATE.</span> -</p> - - -<h2> -CONTENTS. -</h2> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch01">I. THE WAXWORKS</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch02">II. CITOYENNE CARINNE</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch03">III. THE FOOTPAD</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch04">IV. THE CHÂTEAU DES PIERRETTES</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch05">V. <i>LA GRAND’ BÊTE</i></a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch06">VI. THE HERD OF SWINE</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch07">VII. THE CHEVALIER DU GUET</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch08">VIII. QUATREMAINS-QUATREPATTES</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch09">IX. THE WILD DOGS</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch10">X. THE AFFAIR OF THE CANDLES</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch11">XI. PYRAMUS AND THISBE</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch12">XII. THE MOUSE-TRAP</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch13">XIII. THE RED CART</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch14">XIV. THE QUARRIES OF MONT-ROUGE</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch15">XV. THE SALAD COURSE</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#notes">NOTES</a> -</p> - - -<h2> -ADVENTURES<br> -<span class="font80">OF THE</span><br> -COMTE DE LA MUETTE. -</h2> - -<h3 class="nobreak" id="ch01"> -CHAPTER I.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE WAXWORKS.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">One</span> morning I awoke in La Bourbe and looked across at Deputy -Bertrand as he lay sprawled over his truckle-bed, his black hair like -a girl’s scattered on the pillow, his eyelids glued to his flushed -cheeks, his face, all blossoming with dissipation, set into the -expression of one who is sure of nothing but of his own present -surrender to nothingness. Beside him were his clothes, flung upon a -chair, the tri-colour sash, emblematic stole of his confused ritual, -embracing all; and on a nail in the wall over his head was his -preposterous hat, the little <i>carte de civisme</i> stuck in its band. -</p> - -<p> -Casimir Bertrand (one time Casimir Bertrand de Pompignan) I had known -and been friendly with at Le Plessis. Later he had imbibed theories; -had become successively a Lameth, a Feuillant, a Jacobin—a -constitutionalist, a moderate, an extremist; had spouted in the -Faubourgs and overflowed in sectional Committee rooms; had finally -been elected to represent a corner of the States-General. I had known -him for a pious prig, a coxcomb, a reckless bon-vivant. He was always -sincere and never consistent; and now at last, in the crisis of his -engaging sans-cullotism, he had persuaded me, a proscribed royalist, -to take an advantage of his friendship by lodging with him. Then it -was that the driving-force behind his character was revealed to me. It -was militant hedonism. Like Mirabeau, he was a strange compound of -energy and voluptuousness. He turned altogether on the nerves of -excitement. He was like a clock lacking its pendulum, and he would -crowd a dozen rounds of the dial into the space of a single hour. Such -souls, racing ahead of their judgment, illustrate well the fable of -the Hare and the Tortoise; and necessarily they run themselves down -prematurely. Casimir was an epicure, with a palate that could joyfully -accommodate itself to black bread and garlic; a sensualist, with the -power to fly at a word from a hot-bed of pleasure to a dusty desert of -debate. Undoubtedly in him (did I make him the mirror to my -conscience), and in a certain Crépin, with whom I came subsequently -to lodge, and who was of the type only a step lower in the art of -self-indulgence, I had an opportunity to see reflected a very serious -canker in the national constitution. -</p> - -<p> -Now he opened his eyes as I gazed on him, and shut them again -immediately. It was not his habit to be a slug-a-bed, and I recognised -that his sleep was feigned. The days of his political influence were -each pregnant of astonishing possibilities to him, and he was too -finished an epicure to indulge himself with more than the recuperative -measure of slumber—frothed, perhaps, with a bead of æsthetic -enjoyment in the long minute of waking. -</p> - -<p> -“Casimir!” I called softly; but he pretended not to hear me. -</p> - -<p> -“What, my friend! the sun is shining, and the eggs of the old serpent -of pleasure will be hatching in every kennel.” -</p> - -<p> -He opened his eyes at that, fixed and unwinking; but he made no -attempt to rise. -</p> - -<p> -“Let them crack the shells and wriggle out,” he said. “I have a fancy -they will be a poisonous brood, and that La Bourbe is pleasantly -remote from their centres of incubation.” -</p> - -<p> -“Timorous! I would not lose a thrill in this orgy of liberty.” -</p> - -<p> -“But if you lost——?” he checked himself, pursed his lips, and nodded -his head on the pillow. -</p> - -<p> -“Jean-Louis, I saw the Sieur Julien carried to the scaffold last -night. He went foaming and raving of a plot in the prisons to release -the aristocrats in their thousands upon us. There is an adder to -reproduce itself throughout the city! Truly, as you say, the kennels -will swarm with it.” -</p> - -<p> -“And many will be bitten? My friend, my friend, there is some dark -knowledge in that astute head of yours. And shall I cower at home when -my kind are in peril?” -</p> - -<p> -“My faith! we all cower in bed.” -</p> - -<p> -“But I am going out.” -</p> - -<p> -“Be advised!” (He struggled quickly up on his elbow. His face bore a -clammy look in the sunlight.) “Be advised and lie close in your -form—like a hare, Jean-Louis—like a hare that hears the distant -beaters crying on the dogs. Twitch no whisker and prick not an ear. -Take solace of your covert and lie close and scratch yourself, and -thank God you have a nail for every flea-bite.” -</p> - -<p> -“What ails thee of this day then, morose?” -</p> - -<p> -“What ails this Paris? Why, the Prussians are in Verdun, and the -aristocrats must be forestalled.” -</p> - -<p> -“But how, Deputy.” -</p> - -<p> -“I do not know. I fear, that is all.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, there lies your sash—the talisman to such puerile emotions.” -</p> - -<p> -“Return to bed, Jean-Louis. It is unwise to venture abroad in a -thunderstorm.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is unwiser to shelter beneath a tree.” -</p> - -<p> -“But not a roof-tree. Oh, thou fool! didst thou not close thine eyes -last night on a city fermenting like a pan of dough?” -</p> - -<div class="quote_o"><div class="quote_i"> -<p class="i0">“‘Et cette alarme universelle</p> -<p class="i0">Est l’ouvrage d’un moucheron.’”</p> -</div></div> - -<p> -“But go your way!” he cried, and scrambled out of bed. -</p> - -<p> -He walked to the little washstand with an embarrassed air, and set to -preparing our morning cup of chocolate from the mill that stood -thereon. -</p> - -<p> -“After all,” he said, when the fragrant froth sputtered about his -nostrils, “the proper period to any exquisite sensation is death. I -dread no termination but that put to an hour of abstinence. To die -with the wine in one’s throat and the dagger in one’s back—what could -kings wish for better?” -</p> - -<p> -He handed me my cup, and sipped enjoyingly at his own. -</p> - -<p> -“I am representative of a constituency,” he said, “yet a better judge -of wine than of men. The palate and the heart are associated in a -common bond. That I would decree the basis of the new religion. ‘Tears -of Christ’!—it is a vintage I would make Tallien and Manuel and -Billaud de Varennes drunk on every day.” -</p> - -<p> -He laughed in an agitated manner, and glanced at me over the rim of -his cup. -</p> - -<p> -“Go your way, Jean-Louis,” he repeated; “and pardon me if I call it -the right mule one. But you will walk it, for I know you. And eat your -fill of the sweet thistle-flowers before the thorns shall stab your -gullet and take all relish from the feast.” -</p> - -<p> -“Casimir!” I cried in some black wonder—“this is all the language of -a villain or an hysteric——!” -</p> - -<p> -I paused, stared at his twitching face, took up my hat quietly, and -left the room. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -A little frost on a foot, or a little blood. What is the significance -of either. Once the <i>bimbelotiers</i> of the Palais Royal used to -manufacture cards of Noël, very pretty and sparkling with rime. That -was before the apotheosis of the “Third [or butterfly] State”; and -many a time, during the winter of ’84, I have seen poor vagrants of -the chosen brood, unwitting yet of the scarlet wings developing -underneath their rugged hides, ponder over the fanciful emblems in the -shop windows, and then look down with wonder at their own cracked and -bleeding toes. To whom, then, could the frost appeal in this dainty -guise? Not surely to those who must walk with bare feet? It is all the -point of view, said the philosophers. But, they added, blood is warm, -and it is well to wear socks of it if you can get no other. Put these -on and look again, and you will see differently. -</p> - -<p> -Not just yet, perhaps; and in the meantime the king empties his -private purse to buy wood for the freezing people. This will warm them -into loyalty while it lasts; and they crawl out of their icy burrows, -or gather up their broken limbs on the snow beds—whereinto they have -been ground by the sleds and chariots of the wealthy that rush without -warning down the muffled streets—to build monuments of snow to the -glory of their rulers. Then by-and-by these great obelisks melt, and -add their quota to the thaw that is overwhelming what the frost has -spared. -</p> - -<p> -The red socks! Now, on this wild Sunday of September, when the -monuments that bore the names of the good king and queen are collapsed -and run away some eight years, the tocsin is pealing with a clamour of -triumph from the steeples; for at last the solution of the riddle has -been vouchsafed to the “Third State,” and it knows that to acquire the -right point of view it must wear socks, not of its own blood but of -that of the aristocrats, to whom the emblems of Noël were made to -appeal. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -All day I felt the pulse of the people, quickening, quickening—an -added five beats to every hour—with wonder, rage, and, at last, -terror maniacal. Paris was threatened; hard-wrung freedom was -tottering to its fall. -</p> - -<p> -This Paris was a vessel of wrath on treacherous waters—manned by -revolted slaves; the crew under hatches; encompassed by enemies on -every side. What remained but to clear the decks for action,—every -hero to his post at the vast bulwarks; every son-of-a-sea-cook to -remain and poniard the prisoners lest they club their manacles and -take their captors in the rear! -</p> - -<p> -At two o’clock the tocsin pealed—the signal to prepare for the fray. -From its first blaring stroke I ceased, it seemed, to be myself. I -waived my individuality, and became as much a conscript of the rising -tide of passion as a high-perched stone that the wave at last reaches -and drags down with the shingle becomes a condition of the general -uproar. I made, indeed, no subscription to this fanatical heat of -emotion; I was simply involved in it—to go with it, and perish of it, -perhaps, but never to succumb to its disordered sophistries or yield -my free soul to its influence. Possibly I had a wild idea, in the -midst of sinister forebodings, that a few such as I, scattered here -and there, might leaven the ugly mass. But I do not know. Hemmed in by -wrath and terror, thought casts its buoys and sinks into very -fathomless depths. -</p> - -<p> -From the Place de Grève, along Pelletier Quay; across the Ponts au -Change and St Michel; westwards by the Rue St André des Arcs, where a -little diversion was caused by a street-singer at whom the crowd took -offence, in that he, being an insignificant buffoon, did pelt it with -its classic pretentiousness, wagging his coat-tails in contempt -thereof (“À bas, Pitou!” they shrieked; “we will dock thee of thy -sting and put thee to buzz in a stone bottle!”—and they had him -unfrocked in a twinkling and hoisted for punishment); round, with a -curve to the south, into the Rue de Bussi; thence, again westwards, -along the street of St Marguerite; finally, weathering the sinister -cape of the Abbaye St Germain, northwards into the Rue St Benoit and -up to the yard entrance of the very prison itself,—such was the long -course by which I was borne, in the midst of clamour, hate, and -revilings, some dreadful early scenes in the panorama of the -Revolution unfolded before my eyes—scenes crudely limned by crude -street artists, splashed and boltered with crimson, horrible for the -ghastly applause they evoked. -</p> - -<p> -I saw and I was helpless—the block about the carriages of the -nonjurants—the desperate stroke at the <i>sans-culotte</i> that cut the -knot of indecision—the crashing panels, the flying and flung priests. -One damnable with a sabre split a bald head, that came wavering in my -direction, like a melon, and the brains flew like its seeds. I shut my -eyes and thought, Mercy is in right ratio with the hardness of the -blow. Strike deep, poor guttersnipes, if you must strike at all! -</p> - -<p> -Then began the “severe justice of the people.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -What was I, poor philosophic <i>misérable</i>, but a germ of those germs -in that great artery of blood that the revolted system was -endeavouring to expel. I saw numbers of my kind thrown forth and -mangled in the midst of horrors unspeakable; I was borne helpless to -the heart, and was rejected to fly shuddering to remote veins of the -prison’s circulation, only to return by an irresistible attraction to -the central terror. More than once my mad expostulations brought me -into perilous notice. -</p> - -<p> -“You have hard wrongs to avenge!” I shrieked; “but at least the form -of pleading has been granted you!” -</p> - -<p> -“And these!” cried the killers. “Blood of God! is not Bastille -Maillard within there checking the tally of the accursed? Aristocrat -art thou!” -</p> - -<p> -They bounded from me to a fresh victim thrust that moment from the -door. She came dazed into the flare of the torches—a white face with -umber hair tumbled all about it. Two gloating hounds took her under -the arm-pits; a third—— -</p> - -<p> -<i>Ciel! pour tant de rigueur, de quoi suis-je coupable?</i> -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -I do not know whither my wanderings tended, or what space of time was -covered by them. Sooner or later I was always back at the Abbaye, -glutting my soul with assurance of its own wreck, helpless, despite my -loathing of it, to resist the attraction. What horror absorbs the moth -as it circles round the flame, I thought in those recurrent moments I -could understand. -</p> - -<p> -Once, when I returned, an unwonted silence reigned about the place. A -few vampire figures, restless, phantasmal, flitted hither and thither -in the neighbourhood of the reeking shambles. But the slaughterers and -the red ladies of St Michel were retired, during an interval in the -examination, for refreshment. I heard the shrill buzz of their voices -all down the Rue St Benoit and from the wine and lemonade shops -opposite the very gates by which I stood. -</p> - -<p> -I looked into the fearful yard. My God! the dead, it seemed, were -phosphorescent with the rottenness of an ancient system! Here, there, -on all sides they broke the darkness with blots of light like hideous -glow-worms—their hundred white faces the reflectors of as many lamps. -</p> - -<p> -“But it is a brave illumination!” gurgled a voice at my ear. -</p> - -<p> -I glanced aside in loathing. A little old woman, whose lungs barked at -every breath, stood near me. She laughed as if she would shake herself -into touchwood. -</p> - -<p> -“A brave illumination!” she wheezed—“the inspiration of the girl La -Lune. She was dedicated to the Holy Mother; and her skirt! Oh, <i>mon -Dieu</i>! but it was of the azure of heaven, and now it is purple as a -strangled face; and it slaps on her ankles. But by-and-by she must -seek purification, for she is dedicated to the holy Virgin.” -</p> - -<p> -“She placed these lamps?” -</p> - -<p> -“She led her sisters to the committee that sits there.” (She pointed a -gnarled finger. To one side of the dreadful quadrangle a dull glow -came melancholy through some tall windows.) “She complained that -ladies who would fain enjoy the show were prevented by the darkness. -Then to each dead aristocrat they put a lamp. That was a fine -courtesy. It is not often one sees such goods brought to market.” -</p> - -<p> -A wild cloud of shapes came rushing upon us with brandished weapons -and a demon skirl of voices. I thought at first that I must be the -object of their fury; but they passed us by, cursing and -gesticulating, and drove something amongst them up the yard, and -stopped and made a ring about it on the bloody stones. What was it? I -had a glimpse of two petrified faces as the little mob swept by, and a -queer constriction seized my heart. Then, all in a moment, I was -following, crying in my soul that here was something tangible for my -abased humanity to lay hold of—some excuse to indulge a passion of -self-sacrifice—some claim to a lump of ice at my feet and a lamp at -my head. The dead were so calm, the living so besotted. A miserly -theft, I thought, to take another’s blood when one’s own gluts one’s -arteries to suffocation. -</p> - -<p> -I looked over the shoulders of the outermost of the group. What -horrible cantrip of Fortune had consigned this old barren weed of a -man, this white exotic of a girl, to a merciless handling by these -demons? The two were in walking dress, and not in the <i>déshabille</i> of -prisoners. There was a lull in the systematic progress of the -butchery. Here, it would seem, was an <i>entr’acte</i> designed only to -relieve the tedium of waiting. -</p> - -<p> -A half-dozen harpies held the girl. There was a stain of red on her -ripe young lip, for I think one of the beasts had struck her; but her -face was stubborn with pride. In front of all the old wizened man, who -had been released, ran to and fro in an agony of obsequious terror. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, yes,” he quavered, “’tis a luminous sight—an admirable show! -They lie like the fallen sticks of rockets, glimmering a dying spark. -Is it not so, Carinne? Little cabbage, is it not so?” -</p> - -<p> -He implored her with his feverish eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“They are martyrs!” cried the girl; “and you are a coward!” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no!” he wailed, and wrung his hands; and “My God! she will murder -me!” he shrieked. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly he saw, darted through the ring of ruffians, and caught the -breast of my coat with both his hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur! you have nobility in your face! Tell these good souls that -I am a furious patriot and a good citizen. Monsieur, Monsieur! We walk -abroad—we are involved, unwitting, in the <i>mêlée</i>. The girl -denounces all for pigs and murderers, and, naturally, those who hear -take umbrage and force us hither.” -</p> - -<p> -His dry lips vibrated; he danced up and down like a gnat on a -window-pane. All the time the women were volubly chattering and the -men cursing and pulling. They desired, it seemed, a prologue to the -second act of the tragedy; and that was bad art. But then they were as -drunk as one could wish. -</p> - -<p> -“Thou art nice and dainty, <i>citoyenne</i>!” they shrieked. “See -here—thou shalt be <i>vivandière</i> to the brave army of avengers! Tap -her an aristocrat heart and fill her a canteen that all may drink!” -</p> - -<p> -The beastly proposal was not too gross for the occasion. A man lurched -forward with a jeering oath, and I—I sprang to the front too, and -took the hound by his gulping throat. There came a great noise about -me; I did not relax my hold, and some one rushed into our midst. -</p> - -<p> -“What do you here!” he cried, harshly (Casimir’s voice). “Death of -God! have you orders to insult and threaten peaceable citizens who -walk abroad to see the illuminations?” -</p> - -<p> -With a fierce sweep of his arms he cleared all away in front of him. -The act—the gesture, brought him to my side. -</p> - -<p> -“Go—escape!” he whispered, frantically. “This, here, I will attend -to.” -</p> - -<p> -“You knew, then?” I gasped out; and he fell back from me. -</p> - -<p> -But I released my hold and stood panting. I was at the moment no whit -in love with life, but I dreaded by the least stubbornness to -precipitate the catastrophe that threatened that half-fainting girl. -Her Casimir gave his arm to in a peremptory manner. She clung to him, -and he led her stumbling across the yard, the little whimpering -pinch-fist scuttling in their wake. The mob spat curses after them, -but—this <i>intermezzo</i> being no part of its programme—it respected -the Deputy’s insignia of office so far as to allow him his perquisite. -</p> - -<p> -Then, with a howl of fury, it turned upon me— -</p> - -<p> -“Accursed! thou dost well to dispute the people’s will!” -</p> - -<p> -“See his fine monseigneur hands, washed white in a bath of milk, while -the peasants drank rotten water!” -</p> - -<p> -“He will think to cow us with a look. He cannot disabuse himself of -the tradition. Down with the dog of an aristocrat!” -</p> - -<p> -“But if he is Brunswick’s courier—Brunswick that would dine in Paris -on the boiling hearts of patriots!” -</p> - -<p> -I was backing slowly towards the gate as they followed reviling me. -What would you? I could not help others; I would take my own destinies -in hand. Here, in deadly personal peril, I felt my feet on the good -earth once more, and found restoration of my reason in a violence of -action. There was no assistance possible. Paris this night was a -menagerie, in which all beasts of prey and of burden were released -from restraint to resolve for themselves the question of survival. -</p> - -<p> -In a moment I turned and fled, and half-a-dozen came screaming after -me. I gained the gate in advance, and sped down the Rue St Benoit. One -man, lurching from a wineshop, cut at me aimlessly with a notched and -bloody sabre; but I evaded him with ease, and he fell into the midst -of the pursuers, retarding them a little. I reached the south-west -angle of the prison, where the <i>Place</i> split up, like the blown corner -of a flag, into many little crooked ribbons of streets, and amongst -these I dived, racing haphazard, while the red-socks thudded in my -wake and my heart in my ribs. Suddenly, turning a corner, I saw the -narrow mouth of an alley gape to my left. Into it I went, like a -touched worm into its hole, and, swallowed by the blackness, stood -still. The feet pounded by; but, sooner or later, I knew the dogs must -nose back to pick up the lost scent. Then they would have me nicely in -a little <i>cul de sac</i>, like a badger in a tub. -</p> - -<p> -I leaned my shoulder—to the wall, as I thought; but the wall gave to -my pressure, and I stumbled and went through it with a sliding run, -while something flapped to, grievously scoring my shins in its -passing. I was on my feet in an instant, however, and then I saw that -I had broken, by way of a swing-door, into a little dusty lobby, to -one side of which was a wicket and pay-place, and thence a flight of -wooden stairs ran aloft to some chamber from which flowed down a -feeble radiance of light. -</p> - -<p> -I pushed through the wicket (not a soul was in the place, it seemed) -and went softly and rapidly up the stairs. At the top I came upon a -sight that at first astounded, then inspired me. -</p> - -<p> -I was in one of those <i>salles de spectacle</i> that were at that time as -numerous in Paris as were political clubs—a wide, low room, with an -open platform at its further end for musicians, and, round three of -its walls, a roped-in enclosure for figures in waxwork. It was these -bowelless dolls that caused me my start, and in which I immediately -saw my one little chance of salvation. -</p> - -<p> -I went down the row gingerly, on tiptoe. A horn lantern, slung over -the stair-head, was the only light vouchsafed this thronged assembly -of dummies. Its rays danced weakly in corners, and lent some of the -waxen faces a spurious life. A ticket was before each -effigy—generally, as I hurriedly gathered, a quite indispensable -adjunct. I had my desperate plan; but perhaps I was too particular to -select my complete double. Here, a button or the cut of a collar were -the pregnant conditions of history. The clothes made the man, and -Mirabeau had written ‘Le Tartufe’ on the strength of a flowing wig. I -saw Necker personating our unhappy monarch in that fatal Phrygian cap -that was like the glowing peak of a volcano; stuttering Desmoulins -waving a painted twig, his lips inappropriately inseparable; the -English Pitt, with a nose blown to a point; Voltaire; Rousseau; -Beaumarchais—many of the notabilities and notorieties of our own -times—and before the last I stopped suddenly. -</p> - -<p> -I would not for the world insult the author of ‘Figaro’; but it was my -distinction to be without any; and in a waxwork the ticket makes the -man. -</p> - -<p> -Pierre Augustin was represented pointing a Republican moral—in dress -a <i>pseudo petit-maître</i>—at his feet a broken watch. One recalls the -incident—at Versailles—when a grand seigneur requests the -ex-horologist to correct his timepiece for him. “Monsieur, my hand -shakes.” “<i>Laissez donc, monsieur!</i> you belittle your professional -skill.” Beaumarchais flings the watch on the floor. “<i>Voilà, -monsieur!</i> it is as I said!” -</p> - -<p> -Now I saw my hope in this figure and (it was all a matter of moments -with me) whipped it up in my arms and ran with it to the end of the -platform. A flounce of baize hung therefrom to the floor, and into the -hollow revealed by the lifting of this I shot the invertebrate dummy, -and then scuttled back to the ropes to take its place. -</p> - -<p> -There were sounds as I did so—a noise below that petrified me in the -position I assumed. My heart seemed to burr like the winding-wheel of -a mechanical doll. I pray M. Beaumarchais to forgive me that travesty -of a dignified reproof. -</p> - -<p> -A step—that of a single individual—came bounding up the stair. My -face was turned in its direction. I tried to look and yet keep my eyes -fixed. The dull flapping light seconded my dissemblance; but the -occasion braced me like a tonic, and I was determined to strike, if -need were, with all the force of the pugnacious wit I represented. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly I saw a white, fearful countenance come over the -stair-head—shoulders, legs, a complete form. It was that of an ugly -stunted man of fifty, whose knees shook, whose cheeks quivered like a -blanc-mange. He ran hither and thither, sobbing and muttering to -himself. -</p> - -<p> -“Quick, quick! who?—Mirabeau? A brave thought, a magnificent thought! -My God!—will they fathom it? I have his brow—his scornful air of -insistence. My God, my God!—that I should sink to be one of my own -puppets!” -</p> - -<p> -Astounded, I realised the truth. This poltroon—the very proprietor of -the show—was in my own actual case, and had hit upon a like way out -of his predicament. I saw him seize and trundle the ridiculous -presentment of M. Mirabeau to the room end, and then fling it -hurriedly down and kick it—the insolent jackass!—under the curtain. -I saw him run back and pose himself—with a fatuous vanity even in his -terror—as that massive autocrat of the Assembly; and then, with a -clap and a roar, I heard at last the hounds of pursuit break covert -below and come yelling up the stairs. -</p> - -<p> -I do not think I shook; yet it seemed impossible that they could pass -me by. There were one or two amongst them I thought I recognised as -Carinne’s captors; but they were all hideous, frantic shapes, -elf-locked, malodorous, bestial and drunk with blood. They uttered -discordant cries as they came scrambling into the room; and by a -flickering at the nape of his neck I could see that my fellow-sufferer -was unable to control the throaty rising of his agitation. Suddenly a -horrible silence befell. One of the intruders, a powerful young -ruffian of a malignant jesting humour, put his comrades back and -silenced them with an arm. His bloodshot eyes were fascinating poor -Mirabeau; slowly he raised a finger and pointed it at the creature. -The bubbles seemed to fly up the latter’s neck as if his heart were -turned into water. It was a terrible moment—then, all at once, the -whole room echoed with demon laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“Mother of Christ! what cunning!” -</p> - -<p> -“But, my God! he is a fine libel on the king of patriots!” -</p> - -<p> -“See! the works have not run down. He twitches yet from his last -performance!” -</p> - -<p> -“He makes himself a show to the people. He shall be given a lamp in -the yard of the Abbaye.” -</p> - -<p> -The figure fell upon its knees with a choking shriek. -</p> - -<p> -“Messieurs! I acted upon my first instinct of preservation! I had no -thought, I swear it, to insult the great or to question the majesty of -the people. Messieurs, I detest aristocrats and applaud your method of -dealing with them. <i>Merci! merci!</i> I am a poor exhibitor of waxworks; -an excellent patriot and a servant of the public.” -</p> - -<p> -“But that is true!” cried a voice from the stairs. “This is little -Tic-tac, that helped to decorate the Capet’s chariot on the day of the -Hôtel de Ville.” -</p> - -<p> -The mob grunted over this advocate. -</p> - -<p> -“But he helped a prisoner to escape.” -</p> - -<p> -(Was there another, then, in the same plight as myself?) -</p> - -<p> -“Messieurs! he asked the way of me, as any stranger might!” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Malepeste!</i> if thou tell’st us so! But thou hast dared to personate -a God!” -</p> - -<p> -“Messieurs, he lent his countenance to me, as ever to the -unfortunate.” -</p> - -<p> -The answer raised a roar of approbation. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Comme il est fin!</i> take thy goose-skin! and yet we must tax thee -somehow.” -</p> - -<p> -“Let us destroy this show that he has profaned!” -</p> - -<p> -My heart seemed to shrink into itself. I suffered—I suffered; but -fortunately for a few moments only. -</p> - -<p> -With the words on his lips, the fellow that had spoken slashed with -his sabre, over the kneeling showman’s head, amongst the staring -effigies. The whistle of his weapon made me blink. What did it -matter?—the end must come now. -</p> - -<p> -It was not as I foresaw. The waxen head spun into the air—the figure -toppled against that standing next to it—that against its -neighbour—its neighbour against me. I saw what was my cue, and went -down in my turn, stiffly, with a dusty flop, twisting to my side as I -fell, and hoping that he whom I was bowling over in due order was rich -in padding. Nevertheless I was horribly bruised. -</p> - -<p> -There was a howl of laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mor’ Dieu!</i> but five at a blow!” cried the executioner. “This is -better than the one to fifty yonder!” and he came running to read the -names of those he had overturned. -</p> - -<p> -“Necker! it is right that he should be pictured fallen. -Pitt—Beaumarchais! ha, ha, little toad! where are those patriot -muskets? in your breeches-pocket? but I will cut them out!” -</p> - -<p> -Now I gave up all for lost. He stepped back to get his distance—there -came a crash by the stairway, and the room was plunged in darkness. -One of the mob had swung up his weapon over a figure, and had knocked -out the lantern with a back-handed blow. -</p> - -<p> -It is the little incidents of life that are prolific as insects. The -situation resolved itself into clamour and laughter and a boisterous -groping of the company down the black stairway. In a minute the place -was silent and deserted. -</p> - -<p> -I lay still, as yet awaiting developments. I could not forget that M. -Tic-tac, as a pronounced patriot, might not honour my confidence. For -my escape, it must have been as I supposed. Another victim, eluding -the murderers, had drawn them off my scent, and the showman had -effected yet a second cross-current. He was indeed fortunate to have -kept a whole skin. -</p> - -<p> -Presently I heard him softly stirring and moaning to himself. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Misérable!</i> to have dishonoured my <i>rôle</i>! Would <i>he</i> have -succumbed thus to an accident? But I am like him—yes, I am like him, -for all they may say.” -</p> - -<p> -Their mockery was the wormwood in his cup. He dragged himself to his -feet by-and-by, and felt his way across the room to recover his abused -idol. Then I would delay no longer. I rose, stepped rapidly to the -stair-head, and descended to the street. He heard me—as I knew by the -terrified cessation of his breathing,—and thought me, perhaps, a -laggard member of his late company. Anyhow he neither moved nor spoke. -</p> - -<p> -The killers were at their work again. The agonised yells of the -victims followed and maddened me. But I was secure from further -pursuit, save by the dogs of conscious helplessness. -</p> - -<p> -And one of these kept barking at my heel: “Carinne, that you were -impotent to defend! What has become of the child?” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch02"> -CHAPTER II.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">CITOYENNE CARINNE.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">It</span> was my unhappiness in the black spring-time of the “Terror” to -see my old light acquaintance, the Abbé Michau, jogging on his way to -the Place de la Bastille. I pitied him greatly. He had pursued -Pleasure so fruitlessly all his days; and into this fatal quagmire had -the elusive flame at length conducted him. He sat on the rail of the -tumbril—a depressed, puzzled look on his face—between innocence and -depravity. Both were going the same road as himself—the harmless -white girl and the besotted priest, who shrunk in terror from giving -her the absolution she asked;—and poor Charles divided them. -</p> - -<p> -He was not ever of Fortune’s favourites. He would make too fine an art -of Epicurism, and he sinned so by rule as to be almost virtuous. I -remember him with a half-dozen little axioms of his own concocting, -that were after all only morality misapplied: “To know how to forget -oneself is to be graduate in the school of pleasure.” -“Self-consciousness is always a wasp in the peach.” “The art of -enjoyment is the art of selection.” On such as these he founded his -creed of conduct; and that procured him nothing but a barren series of -disappointments. He was never successful but in extricating himself -from mishaps. The <i>ravissantes</i> he sighed after played with and -insulted him—though they could never debase his spirit. The dishes he -designed lacked the last little secret of perfection. He abhorred -untidiness, yet it was a condition of his existence; and he could not -carry off any situation without looking like a thief. One further turn -of the wheel, and he would have been a saint in a monastery. -</p> - -<p> -I can recall him with some tenderness, and his confident maxims with -amusement. That “art of selection” of his I found never so applicable -as to the choice of one’s Revolutionary landlord. It was Michau’s -<i>logeur</i>, I understand, who caused the poor Abbé to be arrested and -brought before the tribunal miscalled of Liberty, where the advocacy -of the chivalrous Chauveau de la Garde was sufficient only to procure -him the last grace of an unproductive appeal. It was the atrocity with -whom latterly I lodged who brought me to <i>my</i> final pass. -</p> - -<p> -In truth, as the letters of apartments were largely recruited from the -<i>valetaille</i> of <i>émigrés</i>, the need of caution in choosing amongst -them was very real. M. le Marquis could not take flight in a panic -without scattering some of his fine feathers—fortunately, indeed, for -him sometimes, for they were as sops thrown to the pursuing wolves -while he sped on. Then, down would grovel public accusers, police, and -committee-men to snap at the fragments; and amongst them Bon-Jean, -Monsieur’s <i>valet de pied</i>, would secure his share, perhaps, and set -up house with it in one of the meaner faubourgs, and trade profitably -therein upon the fears of his lodgers. -</p> - -<p> -Simon Mignard was the last who had the honour to entertain me; and to -that horrible little grotesque did I owe my subsequent lodgment in La -Petite Force. It was a bad choice, and, with my experience, an -unpardonable; but I was taken with a certain humour in the creature -that put me off my judgment. -</p> - -<p> -For generally, indeed, this faculty of humour I found to be -antipathetic to revolution. It was to be looked upon as a mark of -social degeneration. The brute “thrown back” to his primordial state -is an animal that takes himself with the most laughterless gravity. He -resumes himself corrupt, so to speak, as one resumes the endurance of -office full of the rebellious grievance of a holiday. He returns to -the primary indulgence of instinct with a debased appetite, and that -sense of humour does not accompany him. This is why his prejudices -have the force of convictions. -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen Simon,” I said one day, “I would put it to you—if -revolutionists would reconstitute society by purging the world of the -abnormal, should they not offer themselves the first holocausts to -their theories?” -</p> - -<p> -“Hey?” he cried, peering over his glasses. His eye-slits were like -half-healed wounds; his face was all covered with a grey down, as if -he were some old vessel of wrath the Revolution had produced from its -mustiest blood-bin in the cellars where its passions were formerly -wont to ferment. -</p> - -<p> -“Hey?” he cried. “But explain, Citizen Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, obviously a primal simplicity cannot be taught by those who, by -their own showing, are an essential condition of degeneration.” -</p> - -<p> -“You think so, my friend? But is it not he who has hunted with the -wolves can best advise the lamb whither not to stray? Set a thief to -catch a thief, but not innocence to lead innocence.” -</p> - -<p> -“We are all so disinterested, eh? We must kill to purify—so long as -<i>we</i> remain the executioners.” -</p> - -<p> -“The physicians! the physicians! Some day we shall provide the tonic.” -</p> - -<p> -“At this rate the physicians will have to drink it themselves.” -</p> - -<p> -“Meaning the patients will fail us? Rest content. They will last our -time. The ills in the constitution of France are many. For the -resurrection—<i>sang Dieu</i>!” he cried, with a wry face, “but that is no -part of <i>our</i> programme!” -</p> - -<p> -Indeed, it was not of his. He was actuated by no passion but the -blood-sucker’s. One day he showed me a clumsy model guillotine, a foot -high, of his own contriving. The axe was a fragment of table-knife -sunk in a finger of lead, and with it he would operate upon a gruesome -little doll he had with an adjustable neck. Snip! the blade fell and -the head, and a spout of crimson gushed forth and stained the floor. -</p> - -<p> -“That is a waste of good wine,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -His face puckered like a toad’s eyelids. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it not?” he chuckled, “of the brand drunk by the patriot Citoyenne -Sombreuil.” -</p> - -<p> -“Blood!” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Voyez!</i>” he cried, with a little shriek of laughter. “It is hollow. -Often I fill it from the tap in the Place de la Bastille. My faith, -what a fountain! I love it like Dantzic brandy.” -</p> - -<p> -Then it was I found his humour a little excessive to my taste; and I -severed my connection with him. He might lie; obviously he did, in -fact, about the blood; but one’s sympathies could not embrace so -stupid a falsehood. Promptly he denounced me to his section. I had -given him the courteous “you,” said he, and amongst my effects was a -box of the interdicted hair-powder. -</p> - -<p> -But it is of my earlier landlord, Jacques Crépin, who for a time -influenced my fortunes quite admirably, that I desire here to speak. -</p> - -<p> -Upon this rascal I happened on the evening of Lepelletier St Fargeau’s -murder in Février’s Coffee-house. It was the interminable week of the -votings on the king’s sentence. During the course of it I had many -times visited the Hall of Convention, had stayed a while to watch the -slow chain of Deputies hitching over the Tribune, with their dreary -chant, “La Mort,” that was like the response to an endless litany of -fatality intoned by the ushers; had heard the future Dictator, -spectacled, marmoset-faced, irrepressible in oratory, drone his sour -dithyrambics where a word would have sufficed; had fallen half asleep -over the phantom scene, and had imagined myself at the Comédie -Française during a performance of “Les Victimes Cloîtrées”—a -dreamy fancy to which the incessant sound of feet on boards, high up -in the “Mountain” quarter, the reverberating clap of doors, the wide -patter of voices and tinkle of laughter from bedizened <i>chères -amies</i>, pricking down the <i>ayes</i> and <i>noes</i> upon scented cards, the -shriller brabble of Mère Duchesse aloft with her priestesses of the -Salpêtrière, and the intermittent melodramatic drawl of the actors -moving across the stage, gave colour and coherence. -</p> - -<p> -By then, I think, I was come to be graduate in Michau’s school of -Pleasure. It was impressed upon me that to think of myself was a -little to foretaste my probable martyrdom. It was philosophy more -congenial to read in the serene patriot Thibaut a disinterested sheep -fattening on the grass about the <i>abattoir</i>. My title was a -plague-spot to cover; little but the dust of my patrimony remained; I -had long disabused my mind of the dogma that manliness is necessarily -a triumphant force in the world. -</p> - -<p> -Yet, a month before, I had been conscious of a little run of pity, -that was like a sloughing of the old wound of nobility. It was to see -the figure of him I had called Sire heavily seated in that same <i>Salle -de Manège</i>, his attire, appropriately, a drab surtout—the colour of -new-turned mould—his powdered hair blotted with a tonsure where he -had leaned his weary head back for rest, that lost look on his -ineffectual face—“Messieurs! this strange indignity! But doubtless -the saints will explain to me of what I am accused.” -</p> - -<p> -Bah! have I not learned the “Rights of Man,” and seen them -illustrated, too, on those days of the “severe justice of the people.” -The worse the decomposition below, the thicker will be the scum that -rises to the top. But there the wholesome air shall deodorise it -by-and-by, and the waters of life be sweet to the taste again—for a -time. And in the meanwhile I browse by the <i>abattoir</i>. -</p> - - -<p class="mt1"> -On that Saturday evening, the last of the voting, I dined with -distinction at Février’s in the Palais Royal. I could still afford, -morally and materially, this little practice of self-indulgence; for -they had not yet begun to make bread of dried pease, and many of the -ardent Deputies themselves were admirable connoisseurs in meat and -wine. -</p> - -<p> -While I was sitting—the whole place being in a ferment of scurry and -babble—a couple, who awakened my curious interest, entered and took a -vacant table next to mine. A withered old man it was and a young girl, -who sauntered with ample grace in his wake. -</p> - -<p> -The first came down the room, prying hither and thither, bowelless and -bent like a note of interrogation. He was buttoned up to the throat in -a lank dark-green surtout, and his plain hat was tilted back from his -forehead, so as to show his eyebrows, each lifted and lost in the -creases of a dozen arched wrinkles, and the papery lids beneath them -bulging and half closed. His face was all run into grey sharpness, but -a conciliatory smile was a habit of his lips. He carried his hands -behind his back as if they were manacled there. -</p> - -<p> -The girl who followed was in features and complexion cold and -beautiful. Her eyes were stone-grey under well-marked brows; her -forehead rounded from her nose like a kitten’s; the curls that escaped -from beneath her furred hood were of a rich walnut brown. She had that -colourless serenity in her face that is like snow over perfumed -flowers. Gazing on such, one longs to set one’s heart to the chill and -melt it and see the blossoms break. -</p> - -<p> -Now I had at once recognised in this couple the sustainers of the -principal <i>rôles</i> in a certain September tragedy <i>entr’acte</i>. In -these times of feverish movement the manner in which Casimir had -secured their escape was indeed an old story with me; yet, seeing them -again under these vastly improved circumstances, and remembering in -what way I had sought to assist them, my heart was moved beyond its -present custom to a feeling of sympathetic comradeship with one, at -least, of the two. -</p> - -<p> -The old man chose his table. -</p> - -<p> -“Sit down, wench,” said he. “My faith! we must dine, though crowns -fall.” -</p> - -<p> -She took her seat with a little peevish sigh. -</p> - -<p> -“Though the stars fell in the street like hail, you would dine,” she -said. -</p> - -<p> -He cocked his head sideways. -</p> - -<p> -“They have fallen, my Carinne. The ruin of them litters the Temple.” -</p> - -<p> -She said doggedly, “<i>Vive le roi!</i>” under her breath. -</p> - -<p> -“My God!” he whispered, and called the waiter. -</p> - -<p> -He eyed her askance and nervously as the man came. Some distraught -admiration seemed to mingle with his apprehension of her. She sat -languid and indifferent, and even closed her eyes, with a little -disdainful smile, as he leaned down to her and ran his finger eagerly -over the various items of the bill of fare. -</p> - -<p> -“Ostend oysters, carp fried in milk, sweetbread patty—that is good. -Ragout of the kidneys and combs of cocks—that is very good—Carinne, -see! the ragout! Holy saints, but my pocket! Slice of calf’s head, -turtle fashion—girl, are you listening? Be reckless. Take of all if -you will. I bid thee—thy little uncle, <i>ma mie</i>. Slice of—Carinne, -this is better than the cabbages and fried eggs of <i>Pierrettes</i>. I -will not care—I will not. Though I have to cut down trees to meet it, -the palate shall have its holiday. Slice of—<i>mon Dieu</i>, Carinne! I -ate of it once before in this very house. It melts like the manna of -the Israelites. It does not surfeit, but it forms an easy bed for the -repose of ecstasies more acute.” -</p> - -<p> -The girl broke in with a little high-flung laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“Not trees, but a forest,” she said. “There—choose for me. I am -indifferent.” -</p> - -<p> -“Indifferent! indifferent?—Oh, undeserving of the fine gifts of the -gods!” -</p> - -<p> -He turned to the waiter, his eyes still devouring the <i>carte</i>, his -lips silently busy with its contents. Presently he gave his order, sat -down, and remained fixedly gnawing a finger, his face set half in -enjoying contemplation, half in a baffled aggravation of selection. -</p> - -<p> -In only one other direction did the couple appear to arouse curiosity. -The great nerve of the town was all charged with a leaping -electricity, and citizens, staid enough ordinarily, ate now and drank -under an excitement they could barely control. -</p> - -<p> -But, over against me, at a little distance, were two men seated at a -table; and of these one seemed to take a like interest with mine in my -neighbours. -</p> - -<p> -This individual, unmoved, apparently, by the general ferment, had -finished his dinner and sat sipping his Médoc luxuriously. He was a -pimple-faced man, well-nourished and sensual-looking, but with an air -of tolerant geniality about him. Ugly as Danton, he had yet a single -redeeming ornament in the shape of a quantity of rich auburn hair that -fell from his head in natural curls. Though his condition was plain to -me, and I saw that the restaurateur treated him with obsequious -deference, he appeared more self-complacent than self-sufficient, and -as if he were rather accustomed to indulge than abuse his position. -For I recognised in him the president of some sectional committee, and -that by the little plaque, printed small with the Rights of Man, that -hung as a pendant from his tricolour neck-ribbon. -</p> - -<p> -Of the other at the table I took but little notice, save to remark -that he devoured his meal with the air of a man to whom good digestion -is no essential condition of politics. -</p> - -<p> -Now, of a sudden, Jacques Crépin of the pendant lowered his legs, -took up his bottle and glass, and, to my extreme surprise, crossed the -room to my table and sat down by me. -</p> - -<p> -He did not speak at first, being engaged in watching our neighbours, -before whom were placed at the moment the dishes of the uncle’s -selection. -</p> - -<p> -Mademoiselle Carinne gave a little <i>Ouf!</i> over hers. -</p> - -<p> -“But what is this?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“It is a pig’s foot <i>à la</i> St Menehould. Such a dish, <i>babouine</i>!” -</p> - -<p> -The old rascal had taken advantage of her insensibility to procure her -one of the cheapest entries on the list. -</p> - -<p> -She pushed it from her with an exclamation of disgust. -</p> - -<p> -“Fie, then!” she cried. “The very hoof of a filthy swine! Wouldst thou -have me make my hunger a footstool to a pig? Take it away. I will not -touch it!” -</p> - -<p> -He protested, voluble and shamefaced. She would not listen. Out of -mere wilfulness she now selected the most expensive item of the -<i>menu</i>—a partridge stewed in wine. He seemed like to cry; but she -persisted and gained her point. -</p> - -<p> -“We shall be ruined!” he cried, inconsistently enough. “For a month -after our return we shall have to live on bread and boiled nettles.” -</p> - -<p> -“In December, <i>mon oncle</i>? Then I am imperious for white wine of Mont -Raché.” -</p> - -<p> -The old fellow almost shrieked. -</p> - -<p> -“Carinne! Eight francs the bottle! Consider, my niece. I shall die in -Sainte Pélagie!” -</p> - -<p> -The new-comer turned to me with a grin. -</p> - -<p> -“Didst ever hear the like?” said he. -</p> - -<p> -I nodded gravely. I was not then all inured to impertinence. -</p> - -<p> -“He lacks the art of selection,” I said coldly, thinking of Michau. -</p> - -<p> -He showed himself good-humouredly conscious of my manner. He leaned -towards me and murmured carelessly— -</p> - -<p> -“There, of a truth, speaks Monseigneur le Comte de la Muette.” -</p> - -<p> -I reached for my glass and sipped from it; but I have no doubt my hand -shook. -</p> - -<p> -“The citizen does not recognise me?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, by my faith.” -</p> - -<p> -“I am Jacques Crépin; and formerly I served where I now dine.” -</p> - -<p> -I glanced at him. Some faint remembrance of the fellow woke in me. -</p> - -<p> -“M. le Comte,” he went on, in the same low voice, “once rewarded me -with a handsome vail for some trifling service. It was the lucky -louis-d’or of my fortunes. Here was a little of the means; the -Revolution was my opportunity. Now the masters serve the waiters. I -devour with my teeth what I once devoured with my eyes. You see me -president of a section; but, <i>pardieu</i>! I have no quarrel with -aristocrats of a fastidious palate. It was the contemplation of such -educated me to a right humour in gastronomy. I am indebted to monsieur -for many a delicate hint in selection.” -</p> - -<p> -Again I thought of the poor Michau. -</p> - -<p> -“I am honoured,” I said. “And so, M. Crépin, this is the goal of your -high republicanism?” -</p> - -<p> -“My faith!” he said, with a generous chuckle, “I acknowledge it. I -have existed forty years that I may live one—perhaps no more. To -drink and to eat and to love <i>en prince</i>—I have the capacity for it -and the will. I have nursed my constitution on broken scraps. This -<i>fesse-Mathieu</i> here offends me. Had I a fortune, I would fling it -away on a single desired dish if necessary. We have waived the right -to think of the morrow. But, how is monsieur known?” -</p> - -<p> -“They call me Citizen Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen Thibaut, I drink to our better acquaintance. This Médoc—I -have not grudged it you in former years. Your refined appreciation of -it has many a time glorified to me my supper of stale fragments. But -for you, maybe, I had not learned the secret of its fragrance. To my -past master in epicurism I gulp a grateful toast.” -</p> - -<p> -He was as good as his word. -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen Crépin,” I said, “where do you live?” -</p> - -<p> -“Rue de Jouy, St Antoine,” he answered. -</p> - -<p> -“I seek a convenient landlord. Will you accommodate me?” -</p> - -<p> -“With all my heart.” -</p> - -<p> -I heard the <i>vieillard</i> at the next table gobble and choke. I turned -my head to look, sprang to my feet, and my glass crashed on the -boards. -</p> - -<p> -In that instant the room had leaped into uproar—for something -immediate, swift, and terrible had happened. It was this: -</p> - -<p> -The fast-eating man at the table opposite, having finished his dinner, -was risen to pay his bill. He stood with impatient hand outstretched -as Février fumbled in his pocket for the change; and at the moment a -fellow, thick-set, stubble-bearded, dressed in a blouse and faded -cloak, strode up the room and paused by him. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you Deputy Lepelletier?” said he. -</p> - -<p> -The diner turned and nodded. -</p> - -<p> -“You have voted in this affair of the king?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mais oui</i>,” said the other—“for death.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Scélérat—prends ca!</i>” and with the word he whipped a long blade -from under his cloak and passed it into the body of the deputy. I saw -the flash and heard the piteous bleat, as also, I swear, the sound of -the flesh sucking to the steel. -</p> - -<p> -Février snatched at the murderer, and was spun to the floor like a -skittle. I saw startled figures rise, chairs and tables totter, and -the one bounding amongst them. He got clear away. -</p> - -<p> -Then, as the mob closed about the fallen, moaning shape, I turned with -an instinct of horror to view of my neighbours. -</p> - -<p> -The old gourmet had flung himself back in his chair, his face twisted -from the sight; but mademoiselle still picked daintily at her -partridge. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch03"> -CHAPTER III.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE FOOTPAD.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">Early</span> in June of the year ’93 I left Paris in company with M. -Crépin. At that time in the flower of his, somewhat mediocre, -fortunes, he had been intrusted with a mission which was entirely -after his own heart. He was to represent the Executive, in fact, in a -“sequestrating” tour through Limosin and Guienne,—or rather through -the new-found departments that had deposed those ancient -territories,—and his interest had procured me a post as his clerk or -assistant. What duties this embraced perhaps the Government would have -found it as difficult to specify as their sub-agent; but, after all, -Jacques Bonhomme emancipated was excessively conservative in the -matter of his retention of the system of complimentary sinecures. For -myself, I looked upon my appointment as the simple means to postpone -an inevitable denunciation. -</p> - -<p> -Crépin and I had by then ceased to fraternise. I could never quite -learn to adapt my sympathies to a certain <i>mauvais ton</i> that underlay -in him all the sensitiveness of the voluptuary. Also, perhaps, I was -beginning a little to resent the humourless methods of a destiny that -had not the wit, it seemed, to rebuke my innate luxuriousness but by -affecting a concern to accommodate me with house-fellows of my own -kidney. We parted on the best of terms; and he none the less attended -to my interests and, as far as possible, to my safety. To the end, I -think, he retained an admiration for the superior quality of my -epigastrium; and when his opportunity came to do me a service, he -never failed to remind me of his indebtedness to my fastidious -<i>gourmandise</i>. -</p> - -<p> -We left the city, travelling <i>en roi</i>, on a fine blowing afternoon. We -had our roomy carriage, with four well-blooded horses, and a postilion -to each pair. An escort of four patriots, moreover, mounted, armed, -and generally drunk, accompanied us to enforce the letter of the law. -We went out by the suburb of Passy, starting from the -Pavillon-Liberté, close by the Thuilleries,—where Crépin received -his papers of administration—and whipping along the river-bank by way -of the Port aux Pierres. Close by the gates the carriage gave a -thudding jolt, and drew up suddenly to an accompaniment of noise like -the screaming of a swollen axle. -</p> - -<p> -I started up in my corner. -</p> - -<p> -“What is it?” I exclaimed; but three men, risen at that moment from a -bench under some chestnut-trees, engaged my surprised attention. They -made at the postilions, it seemed, and the face of him that was -foremost twitched with a rage of nervous resentment. Their hats had -been laid beside them in the shade, and I noticed that as this -individual sprang to his feet, the powder leapt from his head as if a -musket-ball had struck it. For he was very sprucely groomed, every -hair currycombed to run parallel with its fellows; and there was a -fastidious neatness about his appearance that was like the peevish -delicacy of an invalid. -</p> - -<p> -Such, indeed, he was, from more than one point of view; for he was no -other than M. Robespierre himself, dressed in the fine blue coat he -was studying to make historical, and exhibiting the weak extremes of -his nature in presence of a run-over dog. -</p> - -<p> -“But this is infamous!” I heard him shrill, in a strained wavering -voice. “Thus to shock our humanity and our nerves!” -</p> - -<p> -He ran to the carriage window in uncontrollable excitement. He bustled -with his shaking speech so that it was hardly audible. -</p> - -<p> -“What mischief produces itself that you tear through the streets like -brigands? Messieurs—messieurs! but I say you have no right—citizens, -do you hear?” -</p> - -<p> -Crépin, dismayed, muttered something about authority. The other -snapped at the word and worried it. -</p> - -<p> -“Authority! there is none in this city to be careless of innocent -lives. Authority! who excuses himself to me—to the Republic—by -assuming a licence to murder under its ægis,—yes, murder, I say? You -would adopt the prerogatives of aristocrats—you are an -aristocrat—Tachereau! St Just!” -</p> - -<p> -He was beside himself. His lean hands picked at the window-frame. All -the time the poor cur in the road was screeching, and the sound seemed -to jar him out of his self-control. One of his companions stepped up -to him, put a hand upon his arm, and drew him away. Quite a little mob -had gathered about us. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Reculez les chevaux!</i>” said this person to the postilions. “Complete -what you have begun.” -</p> - -<p> -The horses backed the carriage once, and drew forward again, stilling -the cries. Personally I should have preferred alighting during the -operation. Robespierre ran to the trees and put his palms to his ears, -doubling himself up as if he had the toothache. The other came to the -window once more. -</p> - -<p> -This was the “Apocalyptic!” of the Assembly, its most admirable type -of fanaticism. Dark and immovable as a Nubian archer in a wall -painting, he might have been represented for ever holding the taut -string and the arrow that should whistle to its mark. He was young, a -mere boy—melancholy, olive-skinned, beautiful in his way. Cold, -incorruptible, merciless, nevertheless, he—this St Just—was yet that -one of the ultra-revolutionists I could find it in me to regard -admiringly. Of all, he alone acted up to the last letter of his creed -of purification. Of all, he alone was willing to do a long life’s -reaping without wage, without even that posthumous consideration of a -niche in the “Pantheon of history.” Like the figure of Time on a -clock, he was part and parcel of the scythe with which he wrought. He -must move when the hour came—cutting right and left—and with the -last stroke of inspiration he must stop until the wheels of being -should bring him to the front once more. Truly, he was not great, but, -quite possibly, necessary; and as such, one could not but exclaim over -his faultless mechanism. He sacrificed his life to his cause, long -before it was demanded of him, and in the end flung himself to the axe -as to a kindred spirit with which his structural and destructive -genius was quite in sympathy. One must acknowledge that he made a -consistent practice of that which is the true art of reform—to know -whom to exclude from one’s system. Only, he was a little too drastic -in his exclusion; and that came from a lack of <i>ton</i>. For your fanatic -sees a reactionary in every one whose mouth opens for what reason -soever but to applaud his methods; and the sneers which his -sensitiveness regards as levelled at himself, he puts to the account -of treason against his policy. -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen Crépin,” he said (for he had already identified my -companion), “for the future, if you must ride rough-shod, I would -recommend you to make the meanest your first consideration.” -</p> - -<p> -“But, citizen, it was no fault of mine.” -</p> - -<p> -“You have a voice to control, I presume?”—he stepped back and waved -his hand. “<i>Allez vous promener!</i>”—and the carriage jerked forward. -</p> - -<p> -I shot a glance at the other as we passed. He was retired from the -scene, and he seemed endeavouring to control the agitation into which -he had been betrayed; but he looked evilly from under his jumping -eyelids at us as we went by. -</p> - -<p> -We travelled cautiously until we were gone a long gunshot from the -city walls, and then Crépin put his head out of the window and cursed -on the postilions furiously. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Savant sacré!</i>” he cried, sinking back on the seat; “we are whipt -and rebuked like schoolboys. Is a Republic a seminary for street curs? -They should hoist Reason in a balloon if she is to travel. That St -Just—he will make it indictable to crack a flea on one’s thumb-nail.” -</p> - -<p> -“What were they doing in that quarter of the town?” -</p> - -<p> -“How should I know, Citizen Thibaut? Spinning webs under the trees, -maybe, to catch unwary flies. They and others spend much of each day -in the suburbs. It is the custom of attorneys, as it is of -story-writers, to hatch their plots in green nooks. They brood for a -week that they may speak for an hour. Robespierre comes to Passy and -Auteuil for inspiration. Couthon goes every day to Neuilly for -bagatelle. My faith, but how these advocates make morality -unattractive! A dozen lawyers amongst the elect would produce a second -revolt of the angels. That is why the devil is loath to recall them.” -</p> - -<p> -“To recall them?” -</p> - -<p> -“They are his ambassadors, monsieur, and it is his trouble that they -are for ever being handed their passports to quit such soil as he -would be represented on. Then they return to him for fresh -instructions; but they will not understand that human passions are not -to be controlled by rule of thumb.” -</p> - -<p> -“Or sounded by depth of plumb, Crépin; and, upon my word, you are a -fine bailiff to your masters.” -</p> - - -<p class="mt1"> -Now, I have no wish to detail the processes of our monotonous journey -into the south-westerly departments, whereto—that is to say, to the -borders of Dordogne—it took us eight days to travel. We had our -excitements, our vexations, our adventures even; but these were by the -way, and without bearing on what I have set myself to relate. -</p> - -<p> -One evening as we were lazily rolling along an empty country road, -making for the little walled town of Coutras, where the fourth Henry -was known to his credit once upon a time, a trace snapped, leading to -more damage and a little confusion amongst the horses. I alighted in a -hurry—Crépin, whose veins were congested with Bordeaux, slumbering -profoundly on in his corner—and finding that the accident must cause -us some small delay, strolled back along the road we had come by, for -it looked beautiful in perspective. Our escort, I may say, affecting -ignorance of our mishap, had rattled on into the dusk. -</p> - -<p> -It was a night for love, or fairies, or any of those little gracious -interchanges of soul that France had nothing the art to conceive in -those years. The wind, that had toyed all day with flowers, was sweet -with a languorous and desirable playfulness; a ripening girl moon sat -low on a causeway of mist, embroidering a banner of cloud that blew -from her hands; the floating hills were hung with blots of woodland, -and to peer into the trance of sky was to catch a star here and there -like a note of music. -</p> - -<p> -I turned an elbow of the road and strolled to a little bridge spanning -a brook that I had noticed some minutes earlier in passing. Leaning -over the parapet, I saw the water swell to a miniature pond as it -approached the arch—a shallow ferry designed to cool the fetlocks of -weary horses. The whole was a mirror of placidity. It flowed like a -white oil, reflecting in intenser accent the fading vault above, so -that one seemed to be looking down upon a subterranean dawn—and, “It -is there and thus,” I murmured, “the little people begin their day.” -</p> - -<p> -There were rushes fringing the brook-edge, as I knew only by their -sharp reversed pictures in the blanched water-glass, and a leaning -stake in mid-stream repeated itself blackly that the hairy goblins -below might have something to scratch themselves on; and then this -fancy did so possess me that, when a bat dipt to the surface and rose -again, its reality and not its shadow seemed to flee into the depths. -At last a nightingale sang from a little copse hard by, completing my -bewitchment—and so my thraldom to dreams was nearly made everlasting. -For, it appeared, a man had come softly out of the woods behind me, -while I hung over the parapet, and was stealing towards me on tiptoe -with clubbed bludgeon. -</p> - -<p> -It was a stag-beetle that saved my life—whereout of might be snatched -many little rags of reflections; for it shot whizzing and booming past -my ear and startled me to a sudden sideway jump. The fellow was almost -on my back at the moment, and could not check his impetus. He came -crack against the low wall, his club span out of his fist, and he -himself clutched, failed, and went over with a mighty splash into the -water underneath. -</p> - -<p> -The ludicrous <i>dénoûment</i> gave me time to collect my faculties. I -was at no loss for an immediate solution of the incident. The -highways, in these glorious days of fraternity, were infested with -footpads, and no farther than five miles out of Paris we had had -trouble with them. Doubtless this rascal, the carriage being out of -sight, had taken me for a solitary pedestrian. -</p> - -<p> -I looked over the parapet, feeling myself master of the situation, -though I had no weapon upon me. My assailant was gathering his long -limbs together in the shallow pool. The water dragged the hair over -his eyes and ran in a stream from his bristling chin. Suddenly he saw, -drew a pistol, and clicked it at me. It was a futile and desperate -action, and calculated only to confirm my estimate of his character. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Ventrebleu</i> and the devil!” he shouted. “Make way for me, sir.” -</p> - -<p> -I waved my hand, right and left of the ferry. Should he emerge either -way, I could easily forestall him. -</p> - -<p> -“You have your choice of roads,” I said, politely. -</p> - -<p> -He recognised his difficulty, and turned as if to wade up stream and -escape by the fields. His fourth step brought him into deep water, out -of which he floundered snorting. -</p> - -<p> -“Try under the bridge,” I said. “It is the right passage for rats.” -</p> - -<p> -He cursed me volubly. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, we are one to one,” said he in sudden decision, and came -splashing out on the Coutras side. -</p> - -<p> -The moment he climbed up the bank I closed with him. He was fairly -handicapped by his liquid load, and out of breath and of conceit with -his luck besides. He aimed a blow at me with his pistol-butt, but I -easily avoided it and let him topple his length again—assisting him -in fact—but this time in the dust. Then I sat on him, and threatened -his head with a great stone. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Pouf!</i>” said he, panting. “I protest I am no adept at this -business.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is it your only one?” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“At this date, yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“So—you have been an honest man? And what more can a patriot boast -of?” -</p> - -<p> -I whistled and called to my companions. My prisoner looked amazed. -</p> - -<p> -“You are not alone!” he exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“By no means. My escort is round the curve of the road there.” -</p> - -<p> -He seemed to collapse under me. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Merci, monsieur!</i>” he muttered, “<i>merci!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“What, in these days!” -</p> - -<p> -He dared his chance of the stone, and began to struggle violently. I -doubt if I could have held him long if Crépin and one of the -postilions had not come running up to my shout. A few words were -enough to explain the situation, and we conducted the fellow to the -carriage and strapped him upon one of the horses in a way compromising -to his dignity. And so he became of our party when we moved on once -more. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Coutras clacks with mills and is musical with weirs. The spirit of the -warlike king yet informs its old umber walls and toppling houses. I -found it a place so fragrant with antique and with natural beauties, -that my heart wept over the present human degeneracy that vulgarised -it. It lies amongst the last distant swells, as it were, of the great -billows of the Auvergne mountains, before those swells have rolled -themselves to waste in the sombre flats of the Landes. It is the -hill-slope garden on the fringe of the moor; the resting-place of the -sea and the high-rock winds; the hostelry where these meet and embrace -and people the vineyards with baby breezes. It has grown old listening -under its great chestnuts to the sweet thunder of the Isle and the -Dronne. Its peasants, pagan in their instinct for beauty, train their -vines up the elm and walnut trees, that in autumn they may dance under -a dropping rain of grapes. At the same time, I am bound to confess -that their wine suffers for the sake of this picturesqueness. -</p> - -<p> -Now, as we entered it by moonlight, it was a panic town, restless, -scurrying, lurid. The new spirit ran vile and naked in its venerable -streets; the air was poisonous with the breath of <i>ça ira</i>. For, -since we left Paris, this had happened. The Girondists were fallen and -hunted men, and Tallien and Ysabeau were at La Réole, preparing for a -descent on Bordeaux. We learned it all at the gate, and also that the -spies and agents of these scoundrels were everywhere abroad, nosing -after the escaped deputies, bullying, torturing, and denouncing. -</p> - -<p> -“It would appear we are forestalled,” said Crépin, drily. “M. -Thibaut, have you a mind to rake over dead ashes? Well, I have heard -of the white wine of Bergerac. At least I will taste that before I go -to bed.” -</p> - -<p> -We drove up to the Golden Lion, whither our scamps had preceded us. -Patriots hooted our prisoner as we clattered through the streets, or -whipped at him with their ramrods. The decent citizens fled before us, -and white-faced girls peeped from behind the white curtains of their -little bed-chambers, crushing the dimity against their swelling -bosoms. Oh! we were great people, I can assure you. -</p> - -<p> -At the hostelry—a high, mud-coloured building, with window-places -fringed with stone, and its hill of a roof fretted thick as a -dove-cote with dormer casements—they brought to our carriage a poor -weeping maid. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>La demoiselle des pleurs</i>,” said Bonnet-rouge, with a grin. -</p> - -<p> -“Eh?” said Crépin. -</p> - -<p> -“The <i>aubergiste</i>, citizen.” -</p> - -<p> -Crépin looked at the poor creature with disfavour. Certainly she was -very plain, though quite young, and her homely face was blowzed with -tears. -</p> - -<p> -“Why do you cry then, little fool?” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, they have taken my father to La Réole.” -</p> - -<p> -“He will return, if innocent.” -</p> - -<p> -“Alas! no, monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -“What! you would discredit the impartiality of the Republic?” -</p> - -<p> -He stepped from the carriage, and took her by the shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -“He will return, if innocent, I say; and would the law had enlarged -him before we arrived! You are in charge here, <i>citoyenne</i>?” -</p> - -<p> -“But yes, monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -“A thousand devils!—and disorganised, I’ll swear; no fire in the -kitchen, no food in the larder.” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur is in error. I go at once to serve the first monsieur of our -best.” -</p> - -<p> -“The first—<i>sacré!</i> is that also forestalled? But who is this -first?” -</p> - -<p> -“The same as monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -“And dost thou know who <i>I</i> am?” -</p> - -<p> -“Alas, monsieur! You come and go, and you are all great and imperious. -But I would not with a word offend monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -“Listen, girl.” (A crowd stood about. He spoke for the benefit of -all.) “I am a high officer of the Republic, <i>en mission</i> to rout out -the disaffected and to enforce the law. Go, and say to this citizen -that, with his permission, I will join him.” -</p> - -<p> -Our rogues were unstrapping the footpad from the horse as he spoke. As -they tumbled him, half silly with his jolting and with the blows he -had received, upon his feet, the <i>aubergiste</i> gave a faint cry. -Crépin caught her as she retreated, and twisted her about once more. -</p> - -<p> -“You know this <i>Chevalier de la Coupe</i>?” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, I—how can I say? So many drink wine with us.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at her sternly a moment, then pushed her from him. -</p> - -<p> -“For supper, the best in the house!” he called after her, and turned -to arrange for the disposition of his men and their prisoner. -</p> - -<p> -By-and-by the <i>aubergiste</i> came to conduct us to table. As we went -thither, Crépin stopped, took the girl by the chin, and looked into -her wet inflamed eyes. If the prospect of good fare exhilarated him, I -will say, also, for his credit, that I believe he had a kindly nature. -</p> - -<p> -“For the future,” he said, “be discreet and make a study to command -your nerves. In these days one must look on life through the little -window of the <i>lunette</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -We found our forestaller (who, by the way, had returned no answer to -Crépin’s polite message) established in the eating-room when we -entered it. He was a coarse, blotched ruffian, thick and overbearing, -and he stared at us insolently as he lay sprawled over a couple of -chairs. -</p> - -<p> -“So, thou wouldst share my supper?” he cried, in a rumbling, vibrant -voice. “Lie down under the table, citizen, and thou shalt have a big -plate of scraps when once my belly is satisfied.” -</p> - -<p> -Crépin paused near the threshold. I tingled with secret laughter to -watch the bludgeoning of these two parvenus. But my respected chief -had the advantage of an acquired courtesy. -</p> - -<p> -“You honour me beyond my expectations,” he said. “But, if I were to -break the dish over the citizen’s face, the scraps would fall the -sooner.” -</p> - -<p> -The other scrambled to his feet with a furious grimace. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Canaille!</i>” he shouted (it was curious that I never heard an upstart -but would apply this term in a quarrel to those of his own -kidney)—“Scum! pigwash! Do you know my name, my office, my -reputation? God’s-blood! I’ve a mind to have you roasted in a fat -hog’s skin and served for the first course!” -</p> - -<p> -Crépin walked up to the bully very coolly. <i>M. le Représentant</i> had -plenty of courage in the ordinary affairs of life. -</p> - -<p> -“Do I know who you are?” he said. “Why, I take you for one of those -curs that are whipt on to do the dirty work of the people’s ministers. -And do you know who I am, citizen spy? I hold my commission direct -from the Committee of Safety, with full authority of sequestration and -requisition, and no tittle of responsibility to your masters at La -Réole. If you interfere with the processes of my office, I shall have -something additional to say in my report to the chiefs of my -department, whom your highness may recognise by the names of -Billaud-Varennes and Collot-d’Herbois. If you insult me personally, I -shall thrash you with a dog-whip.” -</p> - -<p> -The creature was but a huge wind-bag. I never saw one collapse so -suddenly. Crépin, it is true, had some fearful names to conjure by. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>M. le Représentant</i>,” said the former, in a fallen, flabby voice, -“I have no desire to oppose or embarrass you. We need not clash if I -am circumspect. For the rest, accept my apologies for the heat I was -betrayed into through inadvertence. We have to be so careful with -strangers.” -</p> - -<p> -He bowed clumsily. His neck was choked with a great cravat; a huge -sabre clanked on the floor beside him as he moved. He was a very ugly -piece of goods, and he bore his humiliation with secret fury, I could -perceive—the more so as the <i>aubergiste</i> brought in the first of the -dishes during the height of the dispute. -</p> - -<p> -Crépin permitted himself to be something mollified by the sight of -supper. He complimented the girl on her promptitude. The poor creature -may have been no heroine, but she was a seductive cook. We had -<i>potage</i>, most excellent, an <i>entrée</i> of chestnut-meal <i>ramequins</i>, -roasted kid stuffed with <i>truffes de Périgord</i> and served with sweet -wine-sauce. Also a magnificent brand of Bergerac was in evidence. -</p> - -<p> -Under the influence of these generous things our table-fellow’s -insolence a little revived; but now he would rally me as the safer -butt. -</p> - -<p> -“The citizen is dainty with his food.” (The fellow himself had lapped -and sucked like a pig.) -</p> - -<p> -“I owe it to the cook,” said I, serenely. -</p> - -<p> -“A debt of love. Thou shalt pay it her presently when the lights are -out.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are an ill-conditioned hog,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -He sprang, toppling, to his feet. -</p> - -<p> -“Mother of God!” he stuttered, hoarsely; “this goes too far, this——” -</p> - -<p> -He caught Crépin’s eye and subsided again, muttering. We were all -pretty warm with liquor; but my superior officer was grown benignant -under its influence. -</p> - -<p> -“For shame, citizens!” he said, blandly, “to put a coarse accent to -this heavenly bouquet.” -</p> - -<p> -He had bettered me in the philosophy of the palate. I confess it at -once. -</p> - -<p> -The other (his name, we came to know, was Lacombe—a name of infamous -notoriety in the Bordeaux business) leaned over to me presently—when -Crépin was gone from the room a moment to give a direction—with hell -glinting out of his eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>M. le Représentant’s</i> fellow,” said he; “I bow to authority, but I -kick authority’s dog in the ribs if the cur molests me.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t doubt it. It is probably the measure of your courage.” -</p> - -<p> -He nodded pregnantly. -</p> - -<p> -“The resurrection of France shall be in discretion. That is the real -courage to those whose overbearing impulse is to strike. We are -discreet, and we watch, and we evolve by degrees the whole alphabet of -espionage. Let us call A the language of the hands. These the frost of -poverty will stunt, the rack of labour will warp and disjoint. There -is your sign of a citizen of the people. Monsieur has very pretty -fingers and pink nails.” -</p> - -<p> -“By the same token a corded fist should prove one to be a hangman. -Monsieur has a knot for every knuckle.” -</p> - -<p> -He nodded again. His calmness was more deadly than his wrath. -</p> - -<p> -“You spit your insults over the shoulder of your master. You think -yourself secure in your office. But there is an order of repartee -unknown to patriots, for it was hatched in the hotbeds of Versailles.” -</p> - -<p> -He fell back in his chair—still eyeing me—with a grunt; then -suddenly leaned forward again. -</p> - -<p> -“The alphabet,” he said, “of which B shall be designated the -penetration of disguises. Coach-drivers, colporteurs, pedlars—oh, one -may happen upon the cloven hoof amongst them all.” -</p> - -<p> -I laughed, with a fine affectation of contempt. This mummy at the -feast—— -</p> - -<p> -There was a sound in the room. I turned my head. The little -<i>aubergiste</i> stood at the door, weeping and wringing her hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur!” she cried, “do not let it be done!” -</p> - -<p> -I rose and went to the child. -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me,” I said, “what is it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, the poor man that you captured! they are torturing him in -the yard.” -</p> - -<p> -I pointed with my hand to a window. Without, all during our meal, had -been a confused clatter of voices and the lurid smoke of torches -rising about the glass. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she sobbed, quite overcome. “It is not right, monsieur. It will -bring a curse upon the place.” -</p> - -<p> -I ran from the room, my blood on fire. Whatever his offence to me, I -had sooner let the rascal go than that he should fall into the hands -of drunken patriots. -</p> - -<p> -The yard was a paved space scooped from the rear of the house. A well -with a windlass pierced it about the middle, and round the low wall of -this were seated a dozen red-bonnets, our own four prominent, shouting -and quarrelling and voluble as parrots. Broken bottles strewed the -ground, and here and there a torch was stuck into the chinks of the -stones, informing all with a jumping glare of red. -</p> - -<p> -I pushed past two or three frightened onlookers, and rushed out into -the open. -</p> - -<p> -“Where is he?” I cried in a heat. “What the devil! am I not to pass -judgment on my own!” -</p> - -<p> -A moment’s silence fell. The faces of all were turned up to me, -scowling and furious. In the pause a pitiful voice came booming and -wailing up from the very bowels of the well itself. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Merci!</i> messieurs, <i>merci!</i> and I will conduct you to the treasure!” -</p> - -<p> -I wore a sword, and I drew it and sprang to the well-mouth. -</p> - -<p> -“God in heaven!” I cried, “what are you doing with him down there?” -</p> - -<p> -Several had risen by this, and were set at me, snarling like dogs. -</p> - -<p> -“The man is forfeit to the law!” they yelped. -</p> - -<p> -“That is for the law to decide.” -</p> - -<p> -“The people are the law. We sit here to condemn him while he cools his -heels.” -</p> - -<p> -“Send monsieur to fetch his friend up!” cried Lacombe’s voice over -their heads. “He will be dainty to wash his white fingers after a -meal!” -</p> - -<p> -There were cries of “Aristocrat!” Possibly they would have put the -brute’s suggestion into effect—for a tipsy patriot has no bowels—had -not Crépin at that moment run into the yard. I informed him of the -situation in a word, as he joined me by the well-side. -</p> - -<p> -“Haul up the man!” he said, coolly and peremptorily. His office -procured him some respect and more fear. Our fellows had no stomach -but to obey, and they came to the windlass, muttering, and wound their -victim up to the surface. He was a pitiable sight when he reached it. -They had trussed him to the rope with a savagery to which his swollen -joints bore witness, and, with a refinement of cruelty, had cut the -bucket from under his feet, that the full weight of his body should -hang without support. In this condition they had then lowered him up -to his neck in the black water. -</p> - -<p> -He fell, when released, a sodden moaning heap on the stones. -</p> - -<p> -“And what was to be the end?” asked Crépin. -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen <i>Représentant</i>, we could not decide; yet a show of hands was -in favour of singeing over a slow fire. Grace of God! but it would -seem the accused has forestalled the jury.” -</p> - -<p> -He had not, however. -</p> - -<p> -“Give him brandy,” said Crépin; “and bring him to the shed yonder, -when recovered, for the <i>procès verbal</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -He took my arm, and we went off together to the place designated,—an -outbuilding half full of fagots. On the way he beckoned the crying -<i>aubergiste</i>, who had followed him into the yard, to attend us. -</p> - -<p> -“For the present the man is saved,” he said to her when we were alone. -“Now, what is your interest in the rascal?” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, he was an honest man once.” -</p> - -<p> -“Of the neighbourhood?” -</p> - -<p> -She looked up at him with her little imploring red eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Come,” he said; “I owe you the debt of a grateful digestion.” -</p> - -<p> -“Of the château,” she said faintly. -</p> - -<p> -“What château?” -</p> - -<p> -“Des Pierrettes, monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -Crépin, as I, I could see, was beating his brains for some memory -connected with the name. -</p> - -<p> -“In Février’s <i>café</i>!” I said suddenly. Should it prove the same, -for the third time destiny seemed bringing me into touch with a lady -of this history. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he said. “But it is not on my list. In what direction does it -lie, girl?” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, two leagues away, off the Libourne road by the lane of the -Marron Cornu.” -</p> - -<p> -“And who inhabits it?” -</p> - -<p> -The poor girl looked infinitely distressed. -</p> - -<p> -“It is M. de Lâge and his niece. You will not make me the instrument -to harm them, monsieur. They are patriots, I will swear. Monsieur, -monsieur!” -</p> - -<p> -“Silence, girl! What are you to question the methods of the Republic? -It is a good recommendation at least that they commission a footpad to -patrol the neighbourhood.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is none of their doing. Oh, monsieur, will you not believe me? He -was an honest servant of theirs till this religion of Reason drove him -to the crooked path. And he has been dismissed this twelvemonth.” -</p> - -<p> -“Harkee, wench! If I read you right, you are well quit of a -scoundrel.” -</p> - -<p> -She fell to sobbing and clucking over that again; and in the midst of -her outburst the half-revived felon was hustled into the shed. -</p> - -<p> -The poor broken and collapsed creature fell at Crépin’s feet and -moaned for mercy. -</p> - -<p> -“Give me a day of life,” he snuffled abjectly, “and I will lead you to -the treasure.” -</p> - -<p> -One of the guard pecked at his ribs with his boot. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Pomme de chou!</i>” he grunted, “have you no other song to sing but -that?” -</p> - -<p> -But Crépin was looking extremely grave and virtuous. -</p> - -<p> -“The prisoner is in no state to be examined,” he said. “Place him -under lock and key, with food and drink; and I will put him to the -question later.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch04"> -CHAPTER IV.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE CHÂTEAU DES PIERRETTES.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -“<i>Nous y voici!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -The carriage pulled back with a jerk, so that the prisoner Michel, who -sat opposite us, was almost thrown into our laps. One of our grimy -escort appeared at the window. -</p> - -<p> -“Dog of a thief!” he growled. “Is this the turning?” -</p> - -<p> -The other <i>sacréd</i> below his breath and nodded sullenly. A vast -chestnut (the thick of its butt must have been thirty feet in -circumference) stood at the entrance to a narrow lane. Turning, with a -worrying of wheels, down the latter, we continued our journey. -</p> - -<p> -Southwards from Coutras we had broken into a <i>plat</i> of country very -wild and sterile; but now we were amongst trees again—oak, chestnut, -and walnut—that thronged the damp hollows and flung themselves over -the low hills in irresistible battalions. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly Michel bent forward and touched my companion’s knee -menacingly. The rascal was near restored to himself, and his lowering -eyes were full of gloom. -</p> - -<p> -“The treasure, monsieur,” he said; “is that the condition of my -liberty?” -</p> - -<p> -“I have said—discover it to me and thou shalt go free.” -</p> - -<p> -“But I, monsieur, I also must make a condition.” -</p> - -<p> -Crépin stared. The man bent still more earnestly forward. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle Carinne——” -</p> - -<p> -“The niece of De Lâge——?” -</p> - -<p> -“She must be considered—respected. I will not have her insulted with -a look.” -</p> - -<p> -“What now, Michel?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur! you may do as you will with the old, hard man; but -her—her——” -</p> - -<p> -“And is it for the lady’s sake thou hast forborne hitherto to -appropriate this treasure, the hiding-place of which thou wilt buy thy -life by revealing?” -</p> - -<p> -“It is so. I have driven a desperate trade, starving often with this -knowledge in my breast.” -</p> - -<p> -“But why?” -</p> - -<p> -“How can I tell? I have known her from a child. Once she struck me -that I killed a cheeping wolf-cub she had brought from the snow; and -then she was sorry and kissed the little stupid bruise; and I swore my -arm should rot before it lost the will to protect her.” -</p> - -<p> -“I will do my best.” -</p> - -<p> -“But that is not enough. My God! if I were to sacrifice mademoiselle’s -<i>dot</i> without purpose.” -</p> - -<p> -“The purpose is thy life.” -</p> - -<p> -“That were nothing were she dishonoured.” -</p> - -<p> -I put in a serene word— -</p> - -<p> -“Yet it seems you would condemn her to poverty to save your skin?” -</p> - -<p> -“That is different. I should have life; and life means many -things—the power, possibly, to influence her fortunes; at least the -wash of wine again in one’s dusty throat.” -</p> - -<p> -“Michel,” I said, “I must applaud you for a capital rogue.” -</p> - -<p> -He stared at me sombrely, muttered, “<i>Je suis ce que je suis</i>,” and -sank back in his corner. -</p> - -<p> -We were running between dark hedges at the time. Suddenly we came -among farm-buildings, a thronging dilapidated group. The byres -mouldered on their props; the flat stones of the roofs had flaked -generations of rubbish upon the weedy ground beneath. -</p> - -<p> -Crépin rubbed his hands. -</p> - -<p> -“It is well,” he said. “This without doubt is a skinflint.” -</p> - -<p> -We turned a corner and passed the entrance to a ruined drive. Here the -tall iron gates, swinging upon massive posts of rubble-stone, had been -recently, it seemed, torn from their moorings of grass and knotted -bindweed, for the ground was scarred and the lower bars of metal hung -with rags of drooping green. Crépin’s features underwent another -change at the sight. -</p> - -<p> -“But what is this?” he muttered. “Something unaccustomed—some -scare—some panic?” -</p> - -<p> -He looked with sudden fury at the prisoner. -</p> - -<p> -“If he has got wind of our coming—has escaped with——” -</p> - -<p> -He broke off, showing his teeth and grinding his hands together. At -the moment we came in view of the château. -</p> - -<p> -It was an old grey house—built of the same material as the -gate-pillars—with a high-pitched roof and little corner <i>tourelles</i>. -Once, presumably, a possession of importance, decay and neglect had -now beggared it beyond description. Yet within and without were -evidences of that vulgar miserly spirit that seeks by inadequate -tinkering to deceive with half-measures. The tangled grass of the lawn -was cut only where its untidiness would have been most in evidence, -and its litter left where it fell. Triton blew his conch from a fine -fountain basin near the middle of the plot; but the shell, threatening -to break away, had been fastened to the sea-god’s lips with a ligament -of twine that was knotted round the head. A crippled bench was propped -with a stone; a shattered ball-capital at the entrance-door held -together with a loop of wire. What restoration that was visible was -all in this vein of ludicrous economy. -</p> - -<p> -But not a sign of life was about—no footstep in the grounds, no face -at any window. To all appearance the place was desolate. -</p> - -<p> -We drew up at the broken stone porch. The door was already flung wide, -and we entered, with all the usual insolent clatter of “fraternity,” -an echoing hall. Here, as elsewhere, were dust and decay—inconsequent -patching and the same tawdry affectation of repair. -</p> - -<p> -A shallow flight of stairs, broad and oaken, led straight up to a -little low gallery that bisected the hall like a transom. Up these -steps we scuttled, the escort driving the prisoner amongst them, and -came to a corridor from which a number of closed doors shut off the -living rooms of the house. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly Crépin put up his hand and motioned us to silence. From one -of the invisible chambers, some distance down the corridor, rose and -fell, like wind in a key-hole, a little blasphemous complaining voice. -</p> - -<p> -“In the sober moonlight of my days!” we made it out to cry—“after -scaling the rough peaks of self-denial, thus to be tilted over into -the depths again by a lying Providence!” -</p> - -<p> -There followed some shrill storming of nouns and epithets; then a -pause, out of which the voice snapped once more— -</p> - -<p> -“I hear you, you scum of ditches—you stinking offal of the -Faubourgs—you publicans ennobled of a short-sighted Saviour!—Come -back and finish your work, and I will spit poison on you that you -shall follow me to the hell—to the hell, I say——” -</p> - -<p> -The furious dragging of a chair mangled the sentence; then came a -jarring thump and a further shrieking of oaths. With one impulse we -made for the door, threw it open, and burst into the room. In the -midst of a lofty chamber lay a little man struggling on the floor, a -pretty heavy <i>prie-dieu</i>, to which he had been bound with his arms -behind his back, jerking and bobbing above him with his every kick. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mais c’est une tortue!</i>” cried one of the crew, with a howl of -laughter. -</p> - -<p> -The tortoise twisted up its face, disfigured with passion. It was the -face, without doubt, of the little <i>fesse-Mathieu</i> of Février’s -restaurant. -</p> - -<p> -The room in which he lay was of good proportions, but furnished -meagrely, and informed with the same spirit of graceless economy as -was apparent without. For the dark ancient panels of its walls had -been smeared with some light-grey wash, and an attempt made to -decorate them with plaster wreaths and festoons in the Louis Quinze -style. The work, however, had been left unfinished, and, so far as it -went, was crude and amateurish to a degree. Obviously, here was an -example of that species of niggard that will try to cheat a dozen -trades by wringing the gist of all out of one poor factotum. -</p> - -<p> -But Crépin stood with corrugated forehead; for there were other signs -in the room than those of parsimony—signs in plenty, in fact, that he -had been forestalled in his quest. Chairs and tables were overturned, -a bureau was smashed almost to pieces, great rents appeared in the -panelling of the walls, where search had been instituted, one would -judge, for secret depositories. -</p> - -<p> -A savage oath exploded from <i>M. le Représentant’s</i> lips. -</p> - -<p> -“That spy—that swaggerer—that Lacombe!” he muttered, looking at me. -“He was vanished this morning—he and his ragged tail—when we rose. -He got scent, without doubt, and has played outrider to my mission of -search. If it is so; if he has found and removed—my God! but for all -his Tallien and the Committee of Bordeaux he shall dance—he shall -dance!” -</p> - -<p> -He turned furiously to his men. -</p> - -<p> -“Put the rascal upright,” he bellowed. -</p> - -<p> -A couple of them lifted and spun the chair to its legs, so that the -old man’s skull jerked against the head-rail with a clack like that of -a mill-hopper. He did not seem to notice the blow. His eyes, ever -since they had alighted on this new influx of brigands, had been set -like a fish’s—wondering and unwinking. Now they slowly travelled, -taking in Crépin, Citizen Thibaut, the escort, until they -stopped—actually, it appeared, with a click—at Michel. His mouth -puckered, and, like a ring blown by a smoker, a wavering “O!” issued -from it. -</p> - -<p> -“Your <i>ci-devant</i> servant?” said Crépin, grimly. -</p> - -<p> -The old man nodded his head. -</p> - -<p> -“Michel. But, yes—it is Michel.” -</p> - -<p> -“Thou owest him compensation for that long tyranny of service.” -</p> - -<p> -“I owe him nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -“And me, citizen? Dost thou remember the Abbaye St Germain and the -killings of September?” -</p> - -<p> -I struck in with the question. I was willing, I think, for the girl’s -sake, to identify myself with a past incident. -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me bitterly, but with no recognition in his eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“I deplore the cursed fortune,” he cried in grief, “that preserved me -but for this!” -</p> - -<p> -“How now, old fool!” said Crépin, with impatience. “Thou shalt go -free when Michel has revealed to me thy secret place of hoarding.” -</p> - -<p> -M. de Lâge gave the crying snarl of a wolf. -</p> - -<p> -“Let him go—the ingrate and the traitor! What, Michel! dost thou -mangle the hand that gave thee soft litter for thy couch and honest -bread for thy belly? Look, Michel!—the white garlands on the walls -there! Dost thou remember how thou wrought’st them to pleasure thy -mistress—to win her from the depression she suffered in the sombre -oak and its long history of gloom? There they cling unfinished,—thy -solemn rebuke, Michel. Thy attachment to her was the one reality, thou -wouldst say, in a world of shadows, and yet the blatant fanfare of -those shadows was all that was needed to win thee from the reality. -And what is the price of thy kiss, Judas?” -</p> - -<p> -The man hung his head. -</p> - -<p> -“Not your life, monsieur,” he muttered. -</p> - -<p> -“Nay; but only that which makes my life endurable. And the -forfeit—what is that?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>My</i> life, monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -De Lâge drew in his breath with a cruel sound. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Hélas!</i>” he cried. “You will have to pay the penalty! the faithful -servant will have to pay the penalty!” -</p> - -<p> -Crépin uttered an exclamation and strode forward. -</p> - -<p> -“You have been stripped?” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“Of all, monsieur, of all. There have been others here before you this -morning—fine <i>sans-culotte</i> preachers of equality and the gospel of -distribution, whose practice, nevertheless, is to enrich the poor at -the expense of the wealthy. They were brave fellows by their own -showing; yet they must truss me here before they dared brandish the -fruits of their robbery before my eyes!” -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly he was straining and screaming in his bonds, his face like a -map of some inhuman territory of the passions, branched with veins for -rivers of blood. -</p> - -<p> -“Free me that I may kill some one!” he shrieked. “I am mad to groove -my fingers in flesh! The time for concessions is past. I was as wax in -their hands till they unearthed my plate, my coins, my riches. Now, -now——” -</p> - -<p> -He was indeed beyond himself, a better man—or devil—in his despair -than the money-conscious craven who had palpitated over that little -“<i>Vive le roi!</i>” once upon a time. -</p> - -<p> -Crépin regarded the struggling creature with harsh contempt. This -plebeian soul also was translated, but not to his moral promotion. It -was evident he had enlarged the scope of his anticipations greatly in -view of his prisoner’s promise; and his disappointment brought the -spotted side of him uppermost. -</p> - -<p> -“Take the dog,” he cried in a hoarse voice (signifying Michel by a -gesture), “and whip him to the lair! At least we will look to see if -the wolves have left a bone or two for our picking.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>M. le Représentant</i>,” I ventured to say, “be just to consider that -the prisoner is by all rights my prisoner. Anyhow he has stuck to his -side of the bargain. Let me hold you in fairness responsible for his -safe-conduct.” -</p> - -<p> -He turned upon me like a teased bullock. -</p> - -<p> -“In fairness!” he cried—“in fairness! But you presume, citizen, on -your position.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked as if he could have struck me; all the beast in the man was -prominent. Then he gave the order to march, and I found myself left -alone with the little grotesque in the chair. -</p> - -<p> -I was hot and indignant; but the passion of the other seemed to have -exploded itself into a rain of emotion. His dry cheeks quivered; the -tears ran down them like moisture on an old wall. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” I said, softly, “I know not whether to applaud or upbraid -you. And where is Mademoiselle Carinne?” -</p> - -<p> -He seemed quite broken in a moment—neither to resent nor to be -surprised at my mention of the girl’s name. -</p> - -<p> -“She is fled,” he whimpered—“the little graceless cabbage is fled.” -</p> - -<p> -“To safety, I hope?” -</p> - -<p> -“To the devil, for all I care.” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, I hold your wretchedness an excuse, even if you have been -careless of——” -</p> - -<p> -He caught me up, staring at me woefully. -</p> - -<p> -“Careless? but, my God! I have pampered and maintained her ever since -her brown head was a crutch to my fingers; and this is how she repays -me.” -</p> - -<p> -“What has she done?” -</p> - -<p> -“She has condemned me to beggary for a prudish sentiment—me, in my -old forlorn age. From the first I saw that the test might come—that -she might be called upon to employ the privileges of her sex on my -behalf. Free-thought, free-love! Bah! What are they but a -self-adaptation to the ever-changing conditions of life. The spirit -need not subscribe to such mere necessities of being; and a little -gratitude at least was due to me. She has none, and for that may God -strike her dead!” -</p> - -<p> -“What has she done?” -</p> - -<p> -“Done!” (His voice rose to a shriek again.) “But, what has she -not?—That scoundrel Lacombe would have exchanged me my riches—my -pitiful show of tankards that he had unearthed—for her favour. She -would not; she refused to go with him; she reviled and cursed me—me -that had been her bulwark against poverty.” -</p> - -<p> -“You would have sold her honour for your brazen pots?” -</p> - -<p> -“Gold and silver, monsieur; and it was only a question of temporary -accommodation. In a few months she might have returned, and all would -have been well again. But honour—bah! it will survive a chin-chuck -better than loss of wealth. But she would not. She escaped from us by -a lying ruse, and they sought her far and near without avail. At the -last they robbed and maltreated me, and for that may hell seize them -and fester in their bones!” -</p> - -<p> -“And in thine, thou pestilence!” -</p> - -<p> -My fury and my contempt joined with a clap, like detonating acids. -</p> - -<p> -“Lie there and rot!” I shouted, and so flung out of the room. -</p> - -<p> -My heart blazed. That white girl—that Carinne. I could recall her -face, could picture her in her loneliness arraigned before Lacombe and -his <i>sans-culottes</i> and his reptile prisoner—defying them all. With -some vague instinct of search directing my fury, I hurried through -room after room of the empty house. Each was like its neighbour, -vulgarised, scantily furnished, disfigured by the search that had been -conducted therein. Once I broke into the girl’s own bed-chamber (it -was hers, I will swear, by token of little feminine fancies consistent -with the character I had gifted her withal), and cursed the beasts who -had evidently made it the rallying-point of their brutal jesting. But -this, obviously, must be the last place in which to seek her, and I -quickly left it. -</p> - -<p> -Not a soul did I happen upon. Of whomsoever the household had -consisted, no single individual but the old villain in the chair was -remained to brazen out the situation. -</p> - -<p> -At last I made my way into the grounds once more, issuing from the -rear of the building into a patch of dense woodland that flowed up to -within fifty yards of the walls. I heard voices, and, plunging down a -moist track amongst the trees, came immediately in view of my party -returning to the house. Then I saw there were two women conducted in -its midst, and my throat jumped, and I ran forward. -</p> - -<p> -At least my sudden apprehension was comforted. These crying wenches -were of the working class—comely domestics by their appearance. -</p> - -<p> -Crépin stayed them all when he came up to me. The ugly look had not -left his face—was intensified on it, in fact. He stared at me, -haughty and lowering at once, and was altogether a very offensive -creature. -</p> - -<p> -“Has Citizen Thibaut any further exception to take to my methods of -procedure?” he said, ironically. -</p> - -<p> -I looked at him, but did not reply. -</p> - -<p> -“Because,” he went on, “perhaps his permission should be asked that -these pretty citizenesses accompany me in my carriage?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mais non, monsieur—par pitié, mais non!</i>” cried one of the wenches -in a sobbing voice. -</p> - -<p> -He bent down to her—a sicklily self-revealed animal. -</p> - -<p> -“Hush, <i>ma petite</i>!” he said. “We of the Republic do not ask—we take. -Thou shalt have a brighter gown than ever De Lâge furnished for thy -shapely limbs.” -</p> - -<p> -She stopped crying, and seemed to listen at that. He came erect again, -with a smile on his face and his lips licking together, and regarded -me defiantly. -</p> - -<p> -“The Citizen Representative can please himself,” I said, coldly, and -pushed past them all and walked on. Crépin turned to look after me, -gave a peculiar cynical laugh, and cried “<i>En avant!</i>” to his party. -</p> - -<p> -I was to read the significance of his attitude in a moment—to read it -in the dead form of Michel hanging from a tree. -</p> - -<p> -I rushed back along the path, and caught the others as they issued -from the wood. Crépin heard me coming, bade his men on to the house, -and returned a pace or two to meet me. His mood asserted, he was -something inclined, I suppose, to a resumption of the better terms -between us. At any rate, his expression now was a mixture of -embarrassment and a little apprehension. But I spoke to him very -staidly and quietly— -</p> - -<p> -“M. Crépin, it dawns upon me that I am slow to learn the methods of -the new morality, and that I shall never justify your choice of a -secretary.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are going to leave me.” -</p> - -<p> -“There will be the more room in the coach for monsieur’s harem.” -</p> - -<p> -I made him a low bow and went off amongst the trees. He called after -me—there was some real regret in his voice—“But you will come to -harm! be wise!—monsieur!” -</p> - -<p> -I paid no heed; and the thickets received and buried me. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch05"> -CHAPTER V.<br> -<span class="chap_sub"><i>LA GRAND’ BÊTE.</i></span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">My</span> rupture with Crépin was the preface to a period of my life, the -details of which I could never but doubtfully piece together in my -mind. During this period I lived, but how I supported existence is a -problem that it is beyond my power to solve. I have an indistinct -memory of wandering amongst trees—always amongst trees; in light and -darkness; in drought and in dew; of scaring and being scared by -snakes, that rustled from me over patches of dead leaves; of -swallowing, in desperate phases of hunger, berries and forest fruits, -of whose properties I was as ignorant as of their names. -</p> - -<p> -And, throughout, the strange thought dwelt with me, warm and -insistent, that I was the champion elect of that white Carinne with -whom I had never so much as exchanged a word. To me she was the Una of -these fathomless green depths—the virgin who had carried her -maidenhood and her pride to the Republic of the woods, where security -and an equal condition were the right of all. -</p> - -<p> -This fanciful image possessed a singular fascination for me. It -glimmered behind trees; it peered through the thick interlace of -branches; I heard the paddle of its feet in mossy rills, or the low -song of its voice rising from some shadow prostrate in beds of fern. -No doubt fatigue and hunger and that sense of a long responsibility -repudiated came to work a melodious madness in my brain. For days, -loitering aimlessly under its spell, I was happy—happier, I believe, -than I had ever been hitherto. I had become a thing apart from -mankind—a faun—a reversion to the near soulless type, but with the -germ of spirit budding in me. -</p> - -<p> -It was a desire to avoid a certain horror dangling over a track that -had at first driven me into the thickets, and so lost me my way. The -memory of a blot of shadow, on the sunny grass underneath that same -horror, that swayed sluggishly, like the disc of a pendulum, as the -body swayed above, got into my waking thoughts and haunted them. I -wished to put a world-wide interval between myself and the -blot—though I had seen monstrosities enough of late, God knows. But, -in the silent woods, under that enchanted fancy of my relapse to -primitive conditions, a loathing of the dead man, such as Cain might -have felt, sickened all my veins. I was done with violence—astonished -that its employment could ever have entered into the systems of such a -defenceless race as man. -</p> - -<p> -But also I knew that to me, moving no longer under the ægis of -authority, the towns and the resorts of men were become quagmires for -my uncertain feet. I was three hundred miles from Paris; all my -neighbourhood was dominated by Revolutionary Committees; my chance of -escape, did once that black cuttle-fish of the “Terror” touch me with -a tentacle, a finger-snap would express. My hitherto immunity was due, -indeed, to the offices of certain friends, and a little, perhaps, to -my constitutional tendency to allow circumstances to shape my -personality as they listed. Resigned to the remotest possibilities, my -absence of affectation was in a sense my safeguard. -</p> - -<p> -Here, however, far from the centre of operations, that which, under -certain conditions, had proved my protection, would avail me nothing. -A sober nonchalance, an easy manner, would be the very thyrsus to whip -these coarse provincial hinds to madness. And, finding in my new -emancipation—or intellectual decadence—an ecstasy I had not known -before, I was very tender of my life, and had no longer that old power -of indifference in me to the processes of fatality. -</p> - -<p> -How long this state of exaltation lasted I do not know; but I know it -came to me all in a moment that I must eat or die. It was the -reflection of my own face, I think, in a little pool of water, that -wrought in me this first dull recrudescence of reason. The wild -countenance of a maniac stared up at me. Its hollow jaws bristled like -the withered husks of a chestnut; its lips were black with the juice -of berries; an animal <i>abandon</i> slept in the pupils of its eyes. Ah! -it was better that reason should triumph over circumstance than that -the soul should subscribe tamely to its own disinheritance. -</p> - -<p> -All in an instant I had set off running through the wood. That -privilege of man, to dare and to fail, I would not abrogate for all -the green retreats of nature. -</p> - -<p> -For hours, it seemed to me, I hurried onwards. My heart sobbed in my -chest; my breath was like a knotted cord under my shirt. At last, -quite suddenly, blue sky came at me through the trunks, and I broke -from the dense covert into a field of maize, and found myself looking -down a half mile of sloping arable land upon a large town of ancient -houses, whereof at the gate opposite me the tricolour mounted guard on -the height of a sombre tower. -</p> - -<p> -Now, in view of this, my purpose somewhat wavering, I sat me down in -the thick of the corn and set to wondering how I could act for the -best. I had assignats in my pocket, and a little money, yet there -could be no dealings for me in the open market. Thinking of my -appearance, I knew that by my own act I had yielded myself to the -condition of a hunted creature. -</p> - -<p> -All the afternoon I crouched in patches of the higher stalks, peeping -down upon the town that, spreading up a gentle slope in the nearer -distance, lay mapped before my eyes. Sometimes desperate in my hunger, -I would snatch a head of the standing grain; but to chew and swallow -more than would just blunt the edge of my suffering would be, I knew, -to invite a worser torture. The sun beat on my head; my throat was -caked with drought. At last I could endure it no longer, but retreated -once more into the wood and waited for the shadows to lengthen. -</p> - -<p> -It was early evening when I ventured into the field again and looked -down. The falling sunlight smote the town with fire from the west, so -that its walls and turrets seemed to melt in the glare and run into -long pools of shadow. But here and there wan ribbons of streets, or -patches of open places, broke up the sombreness—in vivid contrast -with it—and seemed to swarm, alone of all the dappled area, with -crawling shapes. -</p> - -<p> -Of these blotches of whiteness, one flashed and scintillated at a -certain point, from some cause I could not at first fathom. Now white, -now red, it stretched across the fields a rayed beam that dazzled my -wood-haunted eyes with the witchery of its brightness. -</p> - -<p> -But presently I saw the open patch whence it issued grow dark with a -press of figures. It was as if a cloth had been pulled over a dead -face; and all in a moment the strange flash fell and rose again—like -a hawk that has caught a life in its talons,—and a second time -swooped and mounted, clustered with red rays,—and a third time and a -fourth; but by then I had interpreted the writing on the wall, and it -was the “<i>Mene, mene</i>,” written on the bright blade of the guillotine -by the finger of the setting sun. -</p> - -<p> -A very strange and quiet pity flowed in my veins as I looked. Here was -I resting amidst the tranquillity of a golden harvest, watching that -other harvest being gathered in. Could it be possible that any point -of my picture expressed other than the glowing serenity that was -necessary to the composition? I felt as if, in the intervals of the -flashing, each next victim must be stepping forward with a happy -consciousness of the part he was to play in the design. Then suddenly -I threw myself on my face, and crushed my palms against my mouth that -I might not shriek curses on the inexorable beauty of the heavens -above me. -</p> - -<p> -I did not look again, or rise from my covert till dark was drooping -over the hillside. But, with the first full radiance of moonrise, I -got to my feet, feeling dazed and light-headed, and went straight off -in an easterly direction. My plan was to circumambulate, at a safe -distance, the walls (that could enclose no possibility of help to me -in my distress), and seek relief of my hunger in some hamlet (less -emancipated) on their farther side. If the town was Libourne, as I -believed it to be, then I knew the village of St Émilion to lie but a -single league to the south-east of it. -</p> - -<p> -Walking as in a dream, I came out suddenly into the highroad, and saw -the moon-drenched whiteness of it flow down to the very closed gates -far below me. Its track was a desolate tide on which no life was -moving; for nowadays the rural population was mostly drifted or driven -into the seething market-places of the Revolution. Now my imagination -pictured this cold and silent highway a softly tumultuous stream—a -welded torrent of phantoms, mingling and pushing and hurrying, in the -midst of noiseless laughter, to beat on the town gates and cry out -murmuringly that a “suspect” was fording a channel of its upper -reaches. -</p> - -<p> -This fright, this fancy (one would hardly credit it) brought the sweat -out under my clothes. But it was to be succeeded by a worse. For, as I -looked, the boiling wash of moonlight was a road again, and there came -up it footsteps rhythmically clanking and unearthly—and others and -yet others, till the whole night was quick with their approach. And, -as the footfalls neared me, they ceased abruptly, and there followed -the sound of an axe ringing down in wooden grooves; and then I knew -that the victims of the evening, ghastly and impalpable, were come to -gaze upon the man who had indulged his soul, even for a moment, with -the enchantment of a prospect whose accent was their agony. -</p> - -<p> -Now, assuredly, my reason was in a parlous state—when, with a whoop -that broke the spell, an owl swept above me and fled eastwards down -the sky; and I answered to its call, and crossed the road and plunged -into fields again, and ran and stumbled and went blindly on once more -until I had to pause for breath. -</p> - -<p> -At last I heard the rumbling wash of water, and paused a stone’s-throw -from a river-bank; and here a weight of terror seemed to fall from me -to mark how wan and sad the real stream looked, and how human in -comparison with that other demon current of my imagining. From its -bosom a cluster of yards and masts stood up against the sky; and by -that I knew that I was come upon the Dordogne where it opened out into -a port for the once busy town of Libourne, and that if ever caution -was necessary to me it was necessary now. -</p> - -<p> -I looked to my right. A furlong off the rampart of the walls swept -black and menacing; and over them, close at hand now, the silent yoke -of the guillotine rose into the moonlight. It must have been perched -upon some high ground within; and there it stood motionless, its jaws -locked in slumber. Could it be the same monster I had watched -flashing, scarlet and furious, from the hillside? Now, the ravening of -its gluttony was satisfied; Jacques Bourreau had wiped its slobbered -lips clean with a napkin. Sullenly satiate, propped against the sky, -straddling its gaunt legs over the empty trough at its feet, it slept -with lidless eyes that seemed to gloat upon me in a hideous trance. -</p> - -<p> -Bah! Now all this is not Jean-Louis Sebastien de Crancé, nor even -Citizen Thibaut. It is, in truth, the half-conscious delirium of a -brain swimming a little with hunger and thirst and fatigue; and I must -cut myself adrift from the hysterical retrospection. -</p> - -<p> -I hurried towards the river, running obliquely to the south-east. If I -could once win to clean water, I was prepared, in my desperation, to -attempt to swim to the opposite bank. Stumbling, and sometimes -wallowing, I made my way up a sludgy shore and suddenly came to a -little creek or cove where a boat lay moored to a post. Close by, a -wooden shanty, set in a small common garden with benches, like the -Guinguettes of Paris, rattled to its very walls with boisterous -disputation, while the shadows of men tossing wine-cups danced on its -one window-blind. I unhitched the painter of the boat, pushed the prow -from the bank, and, as the little craft swung out into the channel, -scrambled softly on board and felt for the sculls in a panic. When I -had once grasped and tilted these into the rowlocks, I breathed a -great sigh of relief and pulled hurriedly round the stern of a -swinging vessel into the cool-running waters of the Dordogne. -</p> - -<p> -It was not until I had made more than half the passage to the farther -side that I would venture to pause a moment to assuage my cruel -thirst. Then, resting on my oars, I dipped in my hat and drank again -and again, until my whole system seemed to flow with moisture like a -rush. At last, clapping my sopped hat on my head, I was preparing to -resume my work, when I uttered a low exclamation of astonishment, and -sat transfixed. For something moved in the stern-sheets of the boat; -and immediately, putting aside a cloak under which it appeared he had -lain asleep, a child sat up on the bottom boards. -</p> - -<p> -Now, my heart seemed to tilt like a top-heavy thing. Must this hateful -necessity be mine, then—to silence, for my own safety, this baby of -six or seven, this little comical <i>poupon</i> with the round cropt head -and ridiculous small shirt? -</p> - -<p> -He stared at me, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and suddenly began to -whimper. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Heu! heu!</i>” he cried in the cheeping voice of a duckling, “<i>la -Grand’ Bête!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -He took me for the mythical monster of the peasants, whose power of -assumption of any form is in ratio with the corrective ingenuity of -nurses and mothers. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” I said, my brain leaping to an idea; “I am <i>la Grand’ Bête</i>, -and if you make a noise I shall devour you.” -</p> - -<p> -His eyes were like full brown agates; his chin puckered to his lower -lip; but he crushed his little fists against his chest to stay the -coming outcry. My face relaxed as I looked at him. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>La Grand’ Bête</i> is kind to the little ones that obey him. Can you -use these sculls?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mais, oui</i>,” he whispered, with a soft sob; “I am the pretty little -waterman.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well. Now, little waterman, I shall land at the bank over there, -and then you can take the sculls and pull the boat across to the cove -again. But you must be very silent and secret about having gone with -<i>la Grand’ Bête</i> over the river, or he will come to your bedside in -the night and devour you.” -</p> - -<p> -I had been rowing gently as I talked, and now the nose of the skiff -grounded easily under a low bank. I shipped the sculls, reached -forward and took the rogue in my arms. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! but <i>la Grand’ Bête</i> loves the good children. Be a discreet -little waterman, and thou shalt find a gold louis under thy pillow -this very day month.” -</p> - -<p> -I kissed him, and, turning, caught at the knots of grass and hauled -myself up the bank. It was a clumsy disembarkation for a god, perhaps, -but my late comrade did not appear to be shaken in his faith. I -stopped and looked back at him when I had run a few yards from the -river. He was paddling vigorously away, with a professional air, and -the moonlight was shattered on his scull-blades into a rain of -diamonds. Suddenly a patrol-boat was pulled up the river across his -bows, and I half turned to fly, my heart in my mouth. -</p> - -<p> -“Hullo, hullo, Jacksprat!” cried a rough voice. “What dost thou here -at this hour?” -</p> - -<p> -“They were noisy in the <i>auberge</i>,” answered the childish treble, “and -I could not sleep.” -</p> - -<p> -I went on my way with a smile. To have used the boat and cast it -adrift would not have prospered me so well as did this accident. Yet I -felt a shame of meanness to hear the little thing, taking its lying -cue from me, lie to the men, and I wished I had not clinched my -purchase of his silence with that promise of a louis-d’or. -</p> - -<p> -Pushing boldly across a wide moon-dappled margin of grass, so thronged -with trees as to afford one good cover, I came out suddenly into a -field-track running southwards, and along this I sped at a fast pace. -But presently, seeing figures mounting towards me from the dip of a -flying slope, I dived into a belt of corn that ran on my left between -the track and the skirt of a dense wood, and lay close among the -stalks waiting for the travellers to pass. This, however, to my -chagrin, they did not; but, when they were come right over against me, -they stopped, very disputative and voluble in a breathless manner, and -lashed one another with knotty thongs of patriotism. -</p> - -<p> -“But who wants virtue or moderation in a Commonwealth?” -</p> - -<p> -“Dost not thou?” -</p> - -<p> -“I?—I want heads—a head for every cobblestone in the Rue St Jacques. -I would walk on the brains of self-seekers. This Roland——” -</p> - -<p> -“He wore strings in his shoes to rebuke the vanity of the Veto——” -</p> - -<p> -“And to indulge his own. Head of a cabbage! thou wouldst weep over the -orator though he condemned thy belly to starvation. What! shall I -satisfy my hunger with a thesis on the beauty of self-denial, because, -like a drum, it has a full sound!” -</p> - -<p> -“Be sure I do not defend him; but has he not practised what he -taught?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of a certainty, and is double-damned thereby. For know that these -austere moralists have found their opportunity to indulge a hobby—not -to avenge a people. What do <i>we</i> want with abstinence who have -practised it all our lives? What do we want with interminable phrases -on the sublimity of duty?” -</p> - -<p> -“But, thou wilt not understand that political economy——” -</p> - -<p> -“Bah! I know it for the economy of words—that delicious <i>terminer les -débats</i> of the jury that rolls another lying mouth into the basket -and makes a body the less to feed. But I tell thee, with every fall of -the axe I feel myself shifting a place nearer the rich joints at the -top of the feast.” -</p> - -<p> -“Liberty——” -</p> - -<p> -“That I desire is the free indulgence of my appetites. Now would not -Roland and Vergniaud and their crew shave me nicely for that -sentiment? Therefore I love to hunt them down.” -</p> - -<p> -<i>A vieux chat jeune souris.</i> How indeed could these old grimalkins, -grown toothless under tyranny, digest this tough problem of virtue for -its own sake? Their food must be minced for them. -</p> - -<p> -I never saw their faces; but I guessed them, by a certain croaking in -their speech, to be worn with years and suffering. Presently, to my -disgust, they had out their pipes and a flask of cognac and sat -themselves down against the edge of the corn for a mild carouse. I -waited on and on, listening to their snuffling talk, till I grew sick -with the monotony of it and the cramp of my position. They were, I -gathered, informers employed by Tallien in his search for those -escaped Deputies who were believed to be in hiding in the -neighbourhood. -</p> - -<p> -At last I could stand it no longer. Move I must, for all the risk it -entailed. I set to work, very cautiously, a foot at a time, wriggling -on my belly through the corn. They took no notice, each being voluble -to assert his opinions against the other. Presently, making towards -the wood, I found the field to dip downwards to its skirt, so that I -was enabled to raise myself to a crouching position and increase my -pace. The relief was immense; I was running as the tree-trunks came -near and opened out to me. -</p> - -<p> -Now, I was so weary that I thought I must sleep awhile before I -proceeded. I was pushing through the last few yards of the stalks when -a guttural snarl arrested me. Immediately, right in my path, a head -was protruded from the corn, and a bristled snout, slavering in the -moonlight, was lifted at me. I stood a moment transfixed—a long -moment, it appeared to me. The ridiculous fancy occurred to me that -the yellow eyes glaring into mine would go on dilating till presently -I should find myself embedded in their midst, like a prawn in aspic. -Then, with a feeling of indescribable politeness in my heart, I turned -aside to make a <i>détour</i> into the wood, stepping on tiptoe as if I -were leaving a sick-room. Once amongst the trees, I penetrated the -darkness rapidly to the depth of a hundred yards, not venturing to -look behind me, and, indeed, only before in search of some reasonable -branch or fork where I might rest in safety. Wolves! I had not taken -these into my calculations in the glowing solstice of summer, and it -gave me something a shock to think what I had possibly escaped during -my unguarded nights in the forest. -</p> - -<p> -At length I found the place I sought—a little natural chair of -branches high enough to be out of the reach of wild beasts, yet the -ascent thereto easy. I climbed to it, notched myself in securely, and, -my hunger somewhat comforted by the water I had drunk, fell almost -immediately into a delicious stupor. -</p> - -<p> -I awoke quite suddenly, yet with a smooth swift leap to consciousness. -The angle of moonlight was now shifted to an oblique one, so that no -rays entered direct; and the space beneath me was sunk into profound -darkness. For some moments I lay in a happy trance, dully appreciative -of the indistinct shapes that encompassed me, of the smell of living -green bark near my face, of the stars embroidered into a woof of twigs -overhead. But presently, gazing down, a queer little phenomenon of -light fixed my attention, indifferently at first, then with an -increase of wonder. This spot of pink radiance waxed and waned and -waxed and waned, with a steady recurrence, on the butt of a great -tree, twenty yards away. At first it was of a strong rosy tint, but -little by little it faded till it was a mere phosphorescent blot; and -then, while I was flogging my brains to think what it could be, of a -sudden it seemed to fly down to the noise of a little grunting -explosion, and break into a shower of scarlet sparks. -</p> - -<p> -At that I was betrayed into a squiggle of laughter; for my phenomenon -had in the flash resolved itself into nothing more mysterious than the -glow from the pipe of a man seated silently smoking, with his head -thrown back against the tree-foot. -</p> - -<p> -“Hullo!” he exclaimed in a surprised voice, but with nothing of fear -in it; and I congratulated myself at least that the voice struck a -different note to that of either of M. Tallien’s informers. -Nevertheless, I had been a fool, and I judged it the wise policy to -slide from my perch and join my unseen companion. He made me out, I am -sure, long before I did him; yet he never moved or showed sign of -apprehension. -</p> - -<p> -“Good evening, Jacques,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Good morrow, rather, Jacques squirrel,” he answered. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it so?” -</p> - -<p> -“It is so.” -</p> - -<p> -“You prefer the burrow, it seems, and I the branch.” -</p> - -<p> -“No doubt we are not birds of a feather.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, truly, I seek Deputies,” I said, in a sudden inspiration. -</p> - -<p> -“And I my fortune,” he answered, serenely. -</p> - -<p> -“We travel by the same road, then. Have you a fragment of bread on -you, comrade?” -</p> - -<p> -“If I had a loaf thou shouldst go wanting a crumb of it.” -</p> - -<p> -“And why, citizen?” -</p> - -<p> -“I do not love spies.” -</p> - -<p> -I fetched a grimace over my miscarried ruse. -</p> - -<p> -“Then wilt thou never make thy fortune in France,” I said. -</p> - -<p> -He gave a harsh laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>You</i> will prevent me for that word, citizen.” -</p> - -<p> -I curled myself up under the tree. -</p> - -<p> -“I will wait for the dawn and read thee thy fortune,” I said, “and -charge thee nothing for it but a kick to help thee on thy way.” -</p> - -<p> -He laughed again at that. -</p> - -<p> -“Thou provest thyself an ass,” said he, and refilled and lit his pipe -and smoked on silently. -</p> - -<p> -I lay awake near him, because, churl as he appeared, I felt the -advantage of any human companionship in these beast-haunted thickets. -</p> - -<p> -At last the light of dawn penetrated a little to where we rested, and -when it was broad enough to distinguish objects by, I rolled upon my -elbow and scrutinised my companion closely. -</p> - -<p> -“Good morrow, then, burner of charcoal.” -</p> - -<p> -He turned to me, a leering smile suspended on his lips. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Comment?</i>” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“But I am a palmist, my friend, as you observe.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at his stunted and blackened fists. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah! <i>si fait vraiment</i>. That is to tell my past condition of poverty, -not my fortune.” -</p> - -<p> -“The rest shall come. Observe my fitness for my post. You are from the -forests of Nontron.” -</p> - -<p> -He started and stared. -</p> - -<p> -“Truly I have no love for spies,” he muttered, dismayed. -</p> - -<p> -It was my turn to laugh. I had hazarded a bold guess. That he was from -the woods rather than from the Landes his gift of seeing through the -darkness convinced me. Then, if from the woods, why not from that part -of the province where they stretched thickest and most meet for his -trade? -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” said I, “for what follows. It comes to your ears that Guienne -is hatching a fine breed of maggots from the carcasses of dead -aristocrats; that there is a feast of rich fragments toward. You will -have your share; you will eat of these aristocrats that have so long -fed on you. That is a very natural resolve. But in a Republic of -maggots, as in all other communities, there is always a proportion of -the brood that will fatten unduly at the expense of its fellows. These -despots by constitution appropriate the most succulent parts; they wax -thick and strong, and, finally, they alone of the swarm hatch out into -flies, while the rest perish undeveloped.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is a cursed parable,” he said, sullenly. “I do not comprehend -you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I speak of the people, my friend—of whom you are not one that will -fatten.” -</p> - -<p> -“And why, and why?” -</p> - -<p> -“You have scruples. You decry at the outset the methods of this select -clique of the Republic that has the instinct to prosper. If I -congratulate you on the possession of a conscience, I must deplore in -anticipation the sacrifice of yet another martyr to that truism which -history repeats as often as men forget it.” -</p> - -<p> -“What truism, sayst thou?” -</p> - -<p> -“That swinish Fortune will love the lusty bully that drains her, -though the bulk of the litter starve.” -</p> - -<p> -He spat savagely on the ground. -</p> - -<p> -“I do not comprehend,” he muttered again. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” I said, “at least let us hope there is an especial Paradise -reserved for the undeveloped maggots.” -</p> - -<p> -He rose and stood brooding a moment; then looked away from me and -cried morosely, “Get up!” -</p> - -<p> -To my astonishment, from a sort of cradle of roots to the farther side -of the tree a young girl scrambled to her feet at his call, and stood -yawning and eyeing me loweringly. -</p> - -<p> -“Your daughter?” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” he answered, “she is my daughter. What then?” -</p> - -<p> -I jumped up in some suppressed excitement. -</p> - -<p> -“I recall my words,” I said. “You have a chance, after all, down there -in Bordeaux. And now I see that it is a thief that fears a spy.” -</p> - -<p> -I pointed at the wench. She was dressed, ridiculously, -inappropriately, in a silk gown of a past fashion, but rich in -quality, and decorated with a collar of point-lace. Out of this her -dirty countenance, thatched with a villainous mop of hair, stuck -grotesquely; and the skirt of the dress had been roughly caught up to -disencumber her bare feet. -</p> - -<p> -The man stamped on the ground. -</p> - -<p> -“I do not fear you!” he cried furiously, “and I am no thief!” -</p> - -<p> -I laughed derisively. -</p> - -<p> -“But it is true!” he shouted. “A young lady we met in the woods of -Coutras would exchange it for Nannette’s <i>jupon</i>; and why the devil -should we deny her?” -</p> - -<p> -My heart gave a sudden swerve. -</p> - -<p> -“What was she like, this lady?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -The fellow glanced sulkily askance at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Does not the spy know?” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps he does. Say this demoiselle was slender and of a reasonable -height; that she had brown hair, and grey eyes under dark brows; that -her face was of a cold, transparent whiteness; that she spoke with a -certain soft huskiness in her voice.” -</p> - -<p> -He cried under his breath, with a note of fright, “The devil is in -this man!” -</p> - -<p> -I laughed and took off my hat and made the two a bow. -</p> - -<p> -“To your quick advancement in Bordeaux!” I said. -</p> - -<p> -He stared a moment, seemed to hesitate; then, roughly summoning the -girl to follow him, strode off through the wood. The moment they were -out of sight I sat down again to ponder. -</p> - -<p> -Was it true, then, that these peasants had met Carinne—that they had -helped her to a disguise—for what purpose? She must have been in the -woods whilst I was there—accursed destiny that kept us apart! At -least I must return to them at once and seek her. -</p> - -<p> -I broke into a queer embarrassed fit of laughter. -</p> - -<p> -What self-ordained mission was this? What was my interest in the girl, -or how would she not resent, perhaps, the insolence of my -interference? She had no claim upon my protection or I upon her -favour. -</p> - -<p> -Very well and very well—but I was going to seek her, nevertheless. -Such queer little threads of irresponsible adventure pulled me in -these days. -</p> - -<p> -But, at first for my hunger. It was a great voice in an empty house. -It would not be refused or put off with a feast of sentiment. Eat I -must, if it was only of a hunk of sour pease-bread. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly I thought of that bestial apparition at the wood-skirt. There -had been a liquid “yong” in its snarl, as if it could not forbear the -action of gluttonous jaws even while they were setting at an intruder. -Perhaps the remains of a goat——! -</p> - -<p> -I started running towards the point at which, I believed, I had -entered amongst the trees. Very shortly I emerged into the open, and -saw the cornfield shimmering violet before me in the dawn. I beat up -and down amongst the standing grain, and all in a moment came upon -that I sought. A goat it might have been (or a scapegoat bearing the -sins of the people) for anything human in its appearance. Yet it was -the body of a man—of a great man, too, in his day, I believe—that -lay before me in the midst of a trampled crib of stalks, but -featureless, half-devoured—a seething abomination. -</p> - -<p> -Now, in the placid aftermath of my fortunes, I can very easily shudder -over that thought of the straits to which hunger will drive one. Then, -I only know that through all the abhorrence with which I regarded the -hideous remains, the sight of an untouched satchel flung upon the -ground beside them thrilled me with hope. I stooped, had it in my -hands, unbuckled it with shaking fingers. It was full to choking of -bread and raisins and a little flask of cognac. Probably the poor -wretch had not thought it worth his while to satisfy the needs of an -existence he was about to put an end to. For the horn handle of a -knife, the blade of which was hidden in the decaying heart of the -creature, stood out slackly from a hoop of ribs. -</p> - -<p> -I withdrew into the wood, and without a scruple attacked the -provisions. It was a dry and withered feast; yet I had been -fastidiously critical of many a <i>service aux repas</i> at Versailles that -gave me not a tithe of the pleasure I now enjoyed. And at the last I -drank to the white Andromeda whose Perseus I then and there proclaimed -myself to be. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch06"> -CHAPTER VI.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE HERD OF SWINE.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">I was</span> back in the woods of Pierrettes, my precious satchel, still -but two-thirds emptied, slung about my shoulders, my clothes wrinkled -dry from their sopping in the waters of the Dordogne. All that day of -my finding of the food had I lain concealed in the woods; but, with -the fall of dusk, I made my way, by a long <i>détour</i>, to the -river-bank, and crossed the stream swimming and in safety. And now was -I again <i>la Grand’ Bête</i>, seeking to trace in the scent of trodden -violets the path by which my phantom Carinne had vanished. -</p> - -<p> -That night I passed, warned by experience, in the branches of a tree. -With dawn of the following day I was on foot again, striking -northwards by the sun, and stretching over the encumbered miles with -all the speed I could accomplish. I had a thought in my breast, and -good fortune enabled me to put it to the proof. For, somewhere about -four o’clock as I judged, I emerged into a woodland track that I felt -convinced was the one made detestable by a dangling body; and sure -enough I came of a sudden to the fatal tree, and was aware of a cut -slack of rope hanging from a branch thereof, though the corpse itself -was removed. -</p> - -<p> -Now, it behoved me to proceed with caution, which I did; yet none so -successfully but that I came plump out of the mouth of the green -passage upon M. de Lâge himself, and saw and was seen by him in a -single moment. Therefore I had nothing for it but to brazen out the -situation. -</p> - -<p> -He showed no disturbance at my approach, nor, indeed, did he take any -notice of me; but he crept hither and thither, with lack-lustre eyes, -gathering nettles. I went up to him, suppressing my repugnance of the -miserable creature. -</p> - -<p> -“Is mademoiselle returned?” I said outright. -</p> - -<p> -He stopped in his picking, and leered up at me vaguely. He seemed -utterly broken and forlorn. -</p> - -<p> -“She will not return,” he said; and resumed his task. I stood some -moments watching him. Suddenly he clasped his hands plaintively -together and looked me again in the face. -</p> - -<p> -“Why did she go at all?” he said. “Can monsieur tell me, for I -forget?” -</p> - -<p> -He put his fingers aimlessly, like an infant, to his head. -</p> - -<p> -“I had a pride in her. She was beautiful and self-willed. <i>Mon Dieu!</i> -but she would make me laugh or tremble, the rogue. Well, she is gone.” -</p> - -<p> -Could it be that his every memory of his villainy was lost with his -cherished tankards? -</p> - -<p> -“What a love was mine,” he murmured. “I would have denied her -nothing—in reason; and she has deserted me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” I said, “do you remember me?” -</p> - -<p> -“You, you!” he cried angrily—“what do I know or care about this Orson -that springs upon me from the green? You need to be shaved and washed, -monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -“Undoubtedly; if monsieur would provide me with the means?” -</p> - -<p> -He gave me a quick inquisitive look. -</p> - -<p> -“You have a queer accent for a patriot. Well, well—it is no concern -of mine.” -</p> - -<p> -Again he resumed his task, again to pause in it. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you seek a service? I hear it is the case with many.” -</p> - -<p> -“I seek food and a lodging for the night.” -</p> - -<p> -“Eh! but can you pay for them?” -</p> - -<p> -“In reason—certainly, in reason.” -</p> - -<p> -“So, then?—should Georgette bring a generous basketful—bah!” he -cried suddenly, stamping irritably on the ground—“I offer you my poor -hospitality, monsieur, and” (the leer came into his eyes -again)—“should monsieur feel any scruple, a vail left on the -mantelpiece for the servants will doubtless satisfy it.” -</p> - -<p> -But he had no servant left to him, it would seem. When, by-and-by, he -ushered me, with apish ceremony, into his house, I found the place -desolate and forlorn as we had left it. -</p> - -<p> -“I have reduced my following,” he said, “since my niece withdrew -herself from my protection. What does a single bachelor want with an -army of locusts to devour him?” -</p> - -<p> -He showed me into a little bare room on the second floor, with nothing -worthy of remark in it but an ill-furnished bedstead, and a baneful -picture on the wall that I learnt was a portrait of Carinne by -herself. -</p> - -<p> -“It is a little of a travesty,” said De Lâge. “She looked in a -mirror, and painted as she saw herself therein—crooked, like a stick -dipt under water. But she was clever, for all she insisted that this -was a faithful likeness.” -</p> - -<p> -I believe there were tears on his face as he left me. What a riddle -was the creature! There is a blind spot in every eye, it is said—and -the eyes are the windows of the soul. -</p> - -<p> -He had supplied me with soap and water and a razor, and these I found -almost as grateful to my wants as the satchel had been. When I was -something restored to cleanliness I descended to the corridor below, -and, attracted by a sound of movement, entered one of the rooms that -opened therefrom. -</p> - -<p> -Within, a young woman was engaged in laying one end of a carved-oak -table with a white napkin. She looked round as I advanced, stared, -gave a twitter of terror, and, retreating to the wall, put an arm up, -with the elbow pointed at me, as if I were something horrible in her -sight. -</p> - -<p> -I had a sharp intuition; for this, I saw, was the little <i>aubergiste</i> -of the ‘Golden Lion.’ -</p> - -<p> -“You think me responsible for the poor rogue’s hanging?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -She whispered “Yes,” with a pitiful attempt to summon her indignation -to this ordeal of fear. I went up to her and spoke gently, while she -shrunk from me. -</p> - -<p> -“Georgette, my child, it is not so. You must take that on my honour, -for I am a gentleman, Georgette, in disguise.” -</p> - -<p> -“In disguise?” she whispered, with trembling lips; but her eyes -wondered. -</p> - -<p> -“Truly, little girl; I am a wanderer now, and proscribed because I -would not lend myself to thy Michel’s punishment.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” she sobbed, “but it was cruel. And the Republic destroys its own -children, m’sieu’.” -</p> - -<p> -“Thy father——?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah! he, at least, is back, if still under surveillance; otherwise I -should not be enabled to come daily to minister to the needs of this -poor lonely old man.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now thou art a good soul, thou little <i>aubergiste</i>. And thy -ministrations are meat to him, I perceive.” -</p> - -<p> -“Hush, m’sieu’! but if he were to hear? He asks no questions, he -accepts all like a child. He would die of shame were he to learn that -he owes his dinner to the gratitude of m’sieu’ his father’s -dependant.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is he so sensitive? Thou great little Georgette! And -mademoiselle—she does not return?” -</p> - -<p> -She shook her head. -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me where she is, child; for I believe you know.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” she murmured, obviously in great distress, “m’sieu’ must not ask -me.” -</p> - -<p> -I took her hands and drew her towards me. -</p> - -<p> -“Look in my eyes and tell me what you see there.” -</p> - -<p> -She glanced up scared and entreating. -</p> - -<p> -“But, is it cruelty, false faith, the currish soul of the liar and -informer?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no, m’sieu’.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then is it not, rather, the honour of a gentleman, the chivalry that -would help and protect a defenceless woman cast adrift in this fearful -land of blood and licence?” -</p> - -<p> -I gave her my title. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” I said, “you can cast me to the axe with a word. And where is -Mademoiselle Carinne, Georgette?” -</p> - -<p> -She still hesitated. I could see the little womanly soul of her -tossing on a lake of tears. -</p> - -<p> -“At least,” I said, “she will not return hither?” -</p> - -<p> -“She will never return—oh, monseigneur! she will never return; and it -is not for me to say why.” -</p> - -<p> -I released her hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” I said, “I would have helped her and have cared for her, -Georgette; but you will not let me.” -</p> - -<p> -She broke forth at once at that, her arms held out and her eyes -swimming. -</p> - -<p> -“I will tell you, monseigneur—all that I know; and God forgive me if -I do wrong!” -</p> - -<p> -“And me, Georgette, and wither me with His vengeance.” -</p> - -<p> -“I will tell you, monseigneur. That night—that night after the -terror, she spent in the woods, and all the next day she hid there, -moving towards Coutras. I would go often to the Château to take to M. -de Lâge the money for our weekly bill of faggots, and—and for other -reasons; and now she watched for me and waylaid me and told me all. -Oh, m’sieu’! she was incensed—and it was not for me to judge; but M. -de Lâge is a wise man, and perhaps there is a wisdom that makes too -little account of the scruples of our sex.” -</p> - -<p> -“She would not return to him? Well!” -</p> - -<p> -“She would beg or starve sooner, she said; and she would begin by -asking a little food of me. Oh, m’sieu’, but the sad proud demoiselle! -My heart wept to hear her so humble to the peasant girl to whom she -had been good and gracious always in the old days of peace.” -</p> - -<p> -“That is well. And where is she?” -</p> - -<p> -“I cannot tell you, m’sieu’. Ah, pardon! She but waited for the night, -when I could bring her food—all that would keep and that she could -carry—and then she started on foot for the mountains of Gatine.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now, <i>mon Dieu</i>! they must be twenty leagues away.” -</p> - -<p> -“Twenty-five, m’sieu’, by La Roche Chalais and Mareuil. But she would -avoid the towns, and journey by way of the woods and the harsh -desolate country. Mother of God! but it makes me weep to think of her -white face and her tender feet in those frightful solitudes.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is madness!” -</p> - -<p> -“But indeed, m’sieu’. And, though the towns gather all to them and the -country is depopulated, there may be savages still left here and -there—swineherds, charcoal-burners, to whom that libertine -Lacombe——” -</p> - -<p> -“Silence, girl! And you would have denied her a protector!” -</p> - -<p> -“She bound me to silence, m’sieu’, lest her uncle should send in -pursuit.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is madness—it is madness. And what does she go to seek in the -mountains?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah! m’sieu’, I know not—unless it is some haven of rest where the -footstep of man is never heard.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now, Georgette; will you meet me to-night where you met her, and -bring me food—for which I will pay you—and point me out the way that -Mademoiselle Carinne took at parting? I have a mind to journey to the -mountains, also, and to go by the harsh country and to start in the -dark. Will you, Georgette?” -</p> - -<p> -“Pray the good God,” she said, “that it is not all a <i>jeu de -l’oie</i>”—and at that moment we heard De Lâge feebly mounting the -stairway. -</p> - -<p> -He entered the room and accosted me with a sort of sly courtesy that -greatly confounded me. Associations connected with my reappearance, -perhaps, had kindled the slow fuse of his memory; but the flame would -burn fitfully and in a wrong direction; and, indeed, I think the shock -of his loss (of the tankards) had quite unhinged his mind. -</p> - -<p> -“Shall we fall to?” he said. “This is not Paris; yet our good country -Grisels can canvass the favour of a hungry man.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave a ridiculous little laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“And what have we here, girl?” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“M’sieu’, it is a pasty of young partridges.” -</p> - -<p> -His palate was not dulled with his wits. It foretasted the delicacy -and his eyes moistened. He lingered regretfully over the wedge he cut -for me. -</p> - -<p> -“Be generous, monsieur,” he cried, with an enjoying chuckle, “and own -that you have been served none better at Véry’s. Oh, but I know my -Paris! I was there so late as September of last year, and again, on -business connected with my estate, during the month of the king’s -trial.” -</p> - -<p> -He blenched over some sudden half-memory; but the sight of Georgette -carrying my platter to me restored him to the business of the table. -</p> - -<p> -“I know my Paris!” he cried again. “I have taken kidneys with -champagne at La Rapée’s; sheep’s feet at la Buvette du Palais; -oysters at Rocher de Cançale. Ho-ho! but does monsieur know the -Rocher?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Venite ad me omnes qui stomacho laboratis, et ego restaurabo vos!</i>” -I said, quoting a well-known inscription over an eating-house. -</p> - -<p> -He gave a sharp little squeak. -</p> - -<p> -“Eh! but monsieur has the right etymology of the <i>restaurateur</i>; he is -a man of taste and of delicacy. This poor burgundy” (he clawed up his -glass)—“it might have been Clos Vougeot de Tourton if monsieur had -not been so stringent in his sequestration.” -</p> - -<p> -He favoured me with a leer—very arch and very anxious. I could only -stare. Evidently he took me, in his wandering mind, for some other -than that I was. I was to be enlightened in a moment. -</p> - -<p> -It was when Georgette had left the room and we were alone. The falling -sunlight came through a curtain of vine-leaves about the window, and -reddened his old mad face. He bent forward, looking at me eagerly. -</p> - -<p> -“Hush, monsieur! The plate—the tankards—the christening-cups! You -will let me have them back? My God! there was a cross, in niello, of -the twelfth century. It will bring you nothing in the markets of the -Vandals. Monsieur, monsieur! I accept your terms—hot terms, brave -terms for a bold wooer. But you must not seek to carry her with a high -hand. She knows herself, and her pride and her beauty. Hush! I can -tell you where she lies hidden. She crouches under a rosebush in the -garden, and as the petals fall, they have covered and concealed her.” -</p> - -<p> -Now I understood. He was again, in his lost soul, staking Carinne -against his forfeited pots. He took me for Lacombe. -</p> - -<p> -I jumped to my feet. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -And now began my second period of wandering; but under conditions -infinitely more trying than the first. Keeping to the dense woods by -day, and traversing the highways only by night, I had hitherto escaped -that which was to prove the cruellest usurer of my vigour—the -merciless blazing sun. Here, as I travelled by desolate broomy wastes; -by arid hills, from which any knob of rock projecting was hot as the -handle of an oven; by choking woods and endless winding valleys,—I -would sometimes ask myself in amazement what could be the nature of -the infatuation that for its own sake would elect to endure these -sufferings. I had not spoken to the girl. I was not authorised to -champion her cause. Strangest of all, the lack of womanly -sensitiveness she had displayed under the very ordeal of St Fargeau’s -dying groans had not prepossessed me in her favour. Yet, slowly was I -making, and would continue to make, my way to these mountains of -Limosin, in the dreamy hope of happening upon a self-willed and rather -heartless young woman, who—if we <i>were</i> to come together—would -probably resent my intrusion as an affront. Truly an eccentric quest. -</p> - -<p> -Well—I was unaccountable to myself, and of no account to others. -Maybe that last is the explanation. My world of conventions was dead, -and I lived—as I have already said—a posthumous life. Through it, no -doubt, I was drawn by shadows—attracted by the unexplainable—blown -by any wind of irresponsibility. This anarchy at least opened out -strange vistas of romance to the imaginative soul. It is odd to live -apart from, and independent of, the voice of duty. That state shall -seldom occur; but, when it does, to experience it is to something feel -the marvel of dematerialisation. -</p> - -<p> -Depleted of human life; savage in its loneliness; blistered and flaked -by the sun, the country through which I travelled was yet beautiful to -a degree. Of food—by means of eking out my little supply with -chestnuts and wild berries—I had a poor sufficiency; but thirst -tortured me often and greatly. I moved slowly, threshing the land, as -it were, for traces of an ignis-fatuus that still fled before me in -fancy. And I had my frights and perils—one adventure, also; but that -I shall not in this connection relate. -</p> - -<p> -Once, high up on the ridge of a valley, I saw a poor wretch, his arms -bound behind him, hurrying forward under escort of a guard. It was -evening, soft and tranquil. A cluster of mountain-peaks swam in the -long distance; the horizon was barred with a grate of glowing clouds. -Therethrough, it seemed, the consumed sun had fallen into white ashes -of mist; but the cooling furnace of the sky, to the walls of which a -single star clung like an unextinguished spark, was yet rosy with -heat; and against the rose the hillside and the figures that crowned -it were silhouetted in a sharp deep purple. How beautiful and how -voiceless! The figure fell, and his scream came down to me like a -bat’s cheep as the soldiers prodded him to rise with their bayonets. -Then I cursed the Goths that had spoiled me my picture. -</p> - -<p> -Another time, lying concealed in a little hanging copse above a gorge, -I heard bleating below me and the rainy patter of feet, and peered -forth to see a flock of goats being driven down the valley. They were -shepherded by three or four ‘requisition’ men, as they were -called—patriot louts whose business it was to beat up the desolated -country for those herds of sheep or swine that had run wild for lack -of owners. Their unexpected appearance was a little lesson in caution -to me, for I had enjoyed so long an immunity from interference as to -have grown careless of showing myself in the most exposed districts. -</p> - -<p> -On two occasions only was I troubled by wolves. The first was on a -morning of lassitude and fatigue, when water had failed me for many -hours. I was resting, on a heath-covered slope, within a rocky cave or -lair in the hillside. For long the sky wraiths had been loading cloud -upon cloud, till the gathered steam of the earth, finding no outlet, -seemed to scald one’s body. Then, in a moment, such a storm crashed -down as I had never before experienced. Each slam of thunder amongst -the rocks was like a port of hell flung open; the lightning, slashing -through the hail, seemed to melt and run in a marrowy-white flood that -palpitated as it settled down on the heather. But the hail! the fury -of this artillery of ice—its noise, and the frenzy of the Carmagnole -it danced! I was fortunate to be under a solid roof; and when at last -the north wind, bristling with blades, charged down the valley like -the Duke of Saxony’s Horse at Fontenoy, I thought the earth must have -slipped its course and swerved into everlasting winter. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly the mouth of the <i>ressui</i> was blotted by a couple of shaggy -forms. They came pelting up—their tails hooked like carriage-brakes -to their bellies, their eyes blazing fear—and, seeing me within, -jerked to a rigid halt, while the stones drummed on their hides. The -next moment, cowed out of all considerations of caste, they had slunk -by me and were huddled, my very sinister familiars, at the extreme end -of the cave. -</p> - -<p> -Oh, but this was the devil of an embarrassment! I had sat out sermons -that stabbed me below the belt at every second lunge; I had had -accepted offers of gallantry that I had never made; I had ridiculed -the work of an anonymous author to his face. Here, however, was a -situation that it seemed beyond my power of <i>finesse</i> to acquit myself -of with <i>aplomb</i>. In point of fact, the moment the storm slackened, I -slipped out—conscious of the strange fancy that bristles were growing -on my thighs—and, descending hurriedly to the valley, climbed a tree. -It was only then (so base is human nature) that I waived the pretence -that the wolf is a noble animal. -</p> - -<p> -But my second experience was a more finished one. Then I tasted the -full flavour of fright, and almost returned the compliment of a feast -to my company. I was padding, towards evening, over a woodland lawn, -when from a hollow at the foot of a great chestnut-tree a rumbling -snarl issuing vibrated on the strings of my sensibilities, and I saw -three or four very ugly snouts project themselves from the blackness. -I went steadily by and steadily continued my way, which without doubt -was the discerning policy to pursue. But impulse will push behind as -well as fly before reason, and presently that which affects the nerves -of motion did so frantically hustle me at the rear as to set me off -running at the top of my speed. Then the folly of my behaviour was -made manifest to me, for, glancing over my shoulder as I sped, I saw -that no fewer than five fierce brutes were come out of their lair at -the sound, and were beginning to slink in my wake. -</p> - -<p> -I gave a yell that would have fetched Charon from the other side of -the Styx; my feet seemed to dance on air; I threatened to outstrip my -own breath. Still the patter behind me swelled into a race, and I -found myself ghastlily petting a thought as to the length of a wolfs -eye-tooth and the first feel of it clamped into one’s flesh. Now, of a -sudden, the wood opened out, and I saw before me the butt of a decayed -tree, and, on its farther side, a little reedy pond shining livid -under a rampart of green that hedged off the sunset. At the water I -drove, in a lost hope that the pursuit would check itself at its -margin, and, in my blind onset, dashed against a branch of the dead -tree and fell half stunned into the pool beyond. Still an inspiring -consciousness of my peril enabled me to scramble farther, splashing -and choking, until I was perhaps twenty yards from the shore; and -then, in shallow water, I sat down, my head just above the surface, -and caught at my sliding faculties and laughed. Immediately I was -myself again, and the secure and wondering spectator of a very -Walpurgis dance that was enacting for my benefit on the bank. -</p> - -<p> -The five wolves appeared, indeed, to be skipping in pure amazement, -like the mountains of Judæa; but they howled in tribulation, like the -gate of Palestina. They leapt and ran hither and thither; they bit at -the air, at their flanks, at their feet; they raked their heads with -their paws and rolled on the ground in knots. At last I read the -riddle in a tiny moted cloud that whirled above them. In dashing -against the rotten branch I had, it seemed, upset a hornets’ nest -built in the old tooth of the tree, and the garrison had sallied forth -to cover my retreat. -</p> - -<p> -Oh, but the braves! I raised a little pæan to them on the spot, but I -took care not to shout it. Suddenly the beasts turned tail and went -yelling back into the wood. I did not rise at once. I left the victors -time to congratulate themselves and to settle down. And at last I was -too diffident to pester them with my gratitude, and I waded sheer -across the pool (that was nowhere more than three feet deep) and -landed on its farther side. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -One day I happened upon Carinne! -</p> - -<p> -That is the high note of this droning chant of retrospection. -</p> - -<p> -I was walking aimlessly, the hot thirst upon me once more, when I came -out from amongst trees into a sort of forest amphitheatre of -considerable extent, whose base, like the kick in a bottle, was a -round hill, pretty high, and scattered sparsely with chestnut-trees. I -climbed the slopes toilfully, and getting a view of things from near -the summit, saw that to the north the circumference of green was -broken by the gates of a hazy valley. It was as beautiful a place as I -had ever chanced on; but its most gladdening corner to me was that -whence a little brook looped out of the forest skirt, like a timid -child coaxed from its mother’s apron, and pattering a few yards, fled -back again to shelter. -</p> - -<p> -Now I would take it all in before I descended, postponing the cool -ecstasy like an epicure. I mounted to the top, and, peering between -the chestnut trunks down the farther slopes, uttered an exclamation of -surprise. A herd of swine was peacefully feeding against the fringe of -the wood, and, even as I looked, one of them, a mottled porkling, -crashed through a little rug of branches spread upon the ground and -vanished into Tartarus. Immediately his dismal screeches rebuked the -skies, and, at the sound, a girl came running out of the wood, and, -kneeling above the fatal breach, clasped her hands over her eyes and -turned away her face—a very Niobe of pigs. Seeing her thus, I -descended to her assistance; but, lost in her grief, it seemed, she -did not hear me until I was close upon her. Then suddenly she glanced -up startled,—and her eyes were the cold eyes of Carinne. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch07"> -CHAPTER VII.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE CHEVALIER DU GUET.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">The</span> eyes of Mademoiselle de Lâge were a merciless grey; her face -was gold-white, like a dying maple-leaf. She wore no cap on her -tumbled hair, and a coarse bistre-coloured <i>jupon</i> was her prominent -article of attire. I knew her at once, nevertheless, though her cheeks -were a little fallen and her under-lids dashed with violet. She stared -at me as she knelt; but she made no sign that she was afraid. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle is in tribulation?” -</p> - -<p> -“You need not speak a swineherd so fair,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“But I honour pork with all my heart.” -</p> - -<p> -She rose to her feet. She seemed to hesitate. But she never took her -eyes off me. -</p> - -<p> -“Whence do you come?” she said, in her soft, deliberate voice. -</p> - -<p> -“From the woods—from the wastes—from anywhere. I am proscribed and -in hiding. I am hungry, also,—and mademoiselle will give me to eat?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why do you call me ‘mademoiselle’? Do you not see I am a swineherd?” -</p> - -<p> -The little pig still screeched fitfully underground. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” she cried, in sudden anguish. “Kill it, monsieur, if you know -the way, and let us dine!” -</p> - -<p> -I was pleased with that “us.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have no technical knowledge,” I said. “But, let us see. It is -injured?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mon Dieu!</i> I hope not. I had so longed to taste meat once more, and -I had heard of pitfalls. There was a hole in the ground. I covered it -over with branches, that one of these might step thereon and tumble in -and be killed. But when I heard his cries I was sorry.” -</p> - -<p> -“That was a bold thought for a swineherd. And how would you tell your -tale, with one devoured? or get the little pig out of the pit? or skin -and dismember and cook it when hauled to the surface?” -</p> - -<p> -“All that I had not considered.” -</p> - -<p> -“But you desired to eat pork? And what would you say now to a pig’s -foot <i>à la</i> St Menehould?” -</p> - -<p> -The jest bubbled out of me; I could not withhold it. Her mind was as -quick as her speech was measured. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” she cried, “but I remember. And you were in Février’s, -monsieur?” -</p> - -<p> -“At the table next to yours.” -</p> - -<p> -“That is strange, is it not!” -</p> - -<p> -She gave a little scornful shift to her shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“It is all nothing in these mad days. The question is, monsieur, if -you can put the little beast out of his pain?” -</p> - -<p> -I looked into the pit. Two beady eyes, withdrawn into a fat neck, -peered up at me. -</p> - -<p> -“The hole is not six feet deep, mademoiselle. His pain is all upon his -nerves.” -</p> - -<p> -She gave a whimper of relief. Then her face fell cold again. -</p> - -<p> -“It follows that we must forego our dinner. Will monsieur release the -victim of my gluttony?” -</p> - -<p> -I jumped into the hole—hoisted out the small squeaker—returned to -the surface. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Bon jour</i>, monsieur!” said Carinne. -</p> - -<p> -“You will dismiss me hungry, mademoiselle?” -</p> - -<p> -“What claim have you upon me?” -</p> - -<p> -“The claim of fraternity, citoyenne.” -</p> - -<p> -She uttered a little laugh of high disdain. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, rob me,” she said, “and prove yourself a true Republican.” -</p> - -<p> -“I would steal nothing from you but your favour.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is all bestowed on these animals. Take him you have rescued and -make yourself my debtor and go.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle, is this to be, when I have spent days—nay, I know not -how many—of hunger and thirst and weariness in the desperate pursuit -of one to whom I had vowed to offer those services of protection she -lacked elsewhere?” -</p> - -<p> -Her pale eyes wondered at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you speak of the swineherd, monsieur?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“I speak of Mademoiselle de Lâge.” -</p> - -<p> -“She is very secure and in good company. And whence comes your -knowledge of, or interest in, her?” -</p> - -<p> -“Shall I tell you the story?” -</p> - -<p> -“Nay,” she said, with a sudden swerve to indifference; “but how does -it concern me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Your uncle, mademoiselle!” -</p> - -<p> -“I have none that I own.” -</p> - -<p> -I was silent. She looked away from me, tapping a foot on the ground. -It was all a fight between her bitterness and her pride. With a woman -the first conquers. -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me,” she said in a moment, turning upon me, “do you come from -him?” -</p> - -<p> -“I come from him.” -</p> - -<p> -“Commissioned to beg me to return?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, mademoiselle. Nor would I insult you with such a message.” -</p> - -<p> -“I can dispense with your interest in me, sir.” -</p> - -<p> -Again she averted her face. Decidedly she required some knowing. -By-and-by she spoke again, without looking round and more gently— -</p> - -<p> -“How does M. de Lâge bear the loss of—the loss of his treasures?” -</p> - -<p> -“He is, I fear, demented by it.” -</p> - -<p> -She gave a bad little laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“One who would sell his honour should at least keep his wits. Well, -monsieur, I have nothing with which to reward your service of runner, -so——” -</p> - -<p> -“A meal and a drink of water will repay me, mademoiselle.” -</p> - -<p> -“You can help yourself. Do you think I keep a larder in the forest?” -</p> - -<p> -“But you eat?” -</p> - -<p> -“My table is spread under the chestnut-trees and over the bushes. I -leave its selection to my friends yonder. Sometimes they will present -me with a truffle for feast-days.” -</p> - -<p> -I regarded the proud child with some quaintness of pity. This -repelling manner was doubtless a mask over much unhappiness. -</p> - -<p> -“I have still something left in my satchel,” I said. “Will -mademoiselle honour me by sharing it?” -</p> - -<p> -The light jumped in her eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“I do not know,” she said. “What is its nature?” -</p> - -<p> -“Only some raisins and a little hard bread.” -</p> - -<p> -“But bread, monsieur! That I have not tasted for long. We will go to -the brook-side and sit down.” -</p> - -<p> -“And the herd?” -</p> - -<p> -“They will not wander. When they come to a fruitful ground they stay -there till it is stripped.” -</p> - -<p> -She led the way round the hill to the little gushing stream and seated -herself on a green stone. I would not even slake my thirst until I had -spread my store on her lap. Then I lay down at her feet, like a dog, -and waited for the fragments she could spare. She ate with relish, and -took little notice of me. But presently she paused, in astonishment at -herself. -</p> - -<p> -“I am eating up your dinner!” she cried. -</p> - -<p> -“It gives me more pleasure to watch than to share with you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, fie!” she exclaimed. “But am I not a true swineherd?” -</p> - -<p> -She handed me the satchel. -</p> - -<p> -“It is all yours, mademoiselle.” -</p> - -<p> -“Eat!” she said peremptorily. “I will not touch another mouthful.” -</p> - -<p> -She leaned an elbow on her knee and her chin upon her knuckles while I -devoured what remained. Her eyes dreamed into the thronging -tree-trunks. I thought the real softness of her soul was beginning to -quicken like a February narcissus. -</p> - -<p> -“But how I long for meat!” she said, suddenly. -</p> - -<p> -I laughed. -</p> - -<p> -“If mademoiselle will retain me in her service, I will make shift to -provide her with a dish of pork.” -</p> - -<p> -She turned and looked at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it true you have sought me out? I have no knowledge of your face.” -</p> - -<p> -“It will not, like mademoiselle’s, impress itself on the imagination. -I have seen you, by chance, twice before, mademoiselle, and therefore -it follows, in the logic of gallantry, that I am here.” -</p> - -<p> -She drew herself up at that word I was foolish enough to utter. -</p> - -<p> -“I perceive, monsieur, that you hold the licence of your tongue a -recommendation to my service. Is this another message with the -delivery of which you would not insult me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Nay, mademoiselle, I spoke the common fashion of more trivial times -than these; and I ask your pardon. It is to save you from the -possibility of insult that I have wandered and starved these many -days.” -</p> - -<p> -She looked at me very gravely. -</p> - -<p> -“I foresee no danger in these solitudes. I am sorry, monsieur; but I -cannot accept your service.” -</p> - -<p> -She rose to her feet and I to mine. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle,” I cried, “be wise to reconsider the question! A -delicate and high-born lady, solitary and defenceless amongst these -barbarous hills! But I myself, on my journey hither, have encountered -more than one perilous rogue!” -</p> - -<p> -She shook her head. -</p> - -<p> -“I take it as I find it. Besides, I have always a covert into which I -can slip on menace of a storm.” -</p> - -<p> -“But this is madness!” -</p> - -<p> -“By monsieur’s account that is the present condition of our family,” -she said, frigidly. -</p> - -<p> -“See, mademoiselle—I ask nothing but that I may remain near you, to -help and protect, your guard and your servant in one.” -</p> - -<p> -She made as if to go. -</p> - -<p> -“You fatigue me, monsieur. It is not the part of a gentleman to impose -his company where it is not desired. You will not remain by my -consent.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then I shall remain nevertheless!” I cried, a little angrily. “I must -not allow mademoiselle to constitute herself the victim to a false -sentiment.” -</p> - -<p> -She left me without another word, going off to her pigs; and I flung -myself down again in a pet by the brookside. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -All that afternoon and evening I wandered about in the neighbourhood -of the little hill. I was hot and angry—after a humorous -fashion—with myself rather than with Carinne. If I had chosen to -invest my self-imposed knight-errantry with a purely fictitious order -of merit, I could hardly blame the girl for declining to recognise its -title to respect. At the same time, while I assured myself I detested -her, I could not refrain from constantly speculating as to the nature -of her present reflections. Was she still haughtily indignant at my -insistence, or inclined to secret heart-searchings in the matter of -her rather cavalier rejection of my services? Like a child, I wished -her, I think, to be a little sorry, a little unaccountably sad over -the memory of the stranger who had come and gone like a sunbeam shot -through the melancholy of her days. I wished her to have reason to -regret her unceremonious treatment of me. I did <i>not</i> wish her to -overlook my visit altogether—and this, it would appear, was just what -she was doing. -</p> - -<p> -For, when I once, somewhere about the fall of dusk, climbed softly to -the top of the hillock to get view of her, perchance, from ambush, I -was positively incensed to hear her voice coming up to me in a little -placid song or chant that was in itself an earnest of her indifference -and serenity. She sat against a tree at the foot of the slope, and all -about her, uncouthly dumped on the fallen mast, were a score of drowsy -pigs. She sang to them like Circe, while they twitched lazy ears or -snapped their little springs of tails; and the sunset poured from the -furnace-mouth of the valley and made her pale face glorious. -</p> - -<p> -Now she did her beauty more justice by voice than by brush, though in -each art she was supremely artless; but there was a note of nature in -the first that was like the winter song of a robin. And presently she -trilled a little childish <i>chansonnette</i> of the peasants that touched -me because I had some memory of it:— -</p> - -<div class="quote_o"><div class="quote_i"> -<p class="i0">The little bonne, Marie,</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> -<p class="i0">Spoke to her doll so wee:</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> -<p class="i0">“Hush, little son, sweet thing!</p> -<p class="i0">But wouldst thou be a king?”</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> - -<p class="i0 mt1">“Thy sceptre grows in the mere,”</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> -<p class="i0">“Thy crown in the blossoming brere.”</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> -<p class="i0">“For orb a grape shall stand</p> -<p class="i0">Clutched in thy tiny hand.”</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> - -<p class="i0 mt1">A rose she pinned at his side,</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> -<p class="i0">And one to each foot she tied;</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> -<p class="i0">His cot she lined with rue,</p> -<p class="i0">And she named him her <i>Jésus</i>.</p> -<p class="i2">(<i>À moi, mon poupon!</i>)</p> -</div></div> - -<p> -I lay amongst the branches that night, with the memory of the low, -sweet voice and the strange picture in my brain. And, as I tossed, -literally, on my timber couch, a weirder fancy would come to me of the -elfish swineherd sleeping within her charmed circle of hogs—fearless -and secure—mingling her soft expression of rest with their truculent -breathings. -</p> - -<p> -I was up (or rather down) early; washed in the brook; breakfasted -fastidiously off beech-nuts. Then, quite undecided as to my course of -action, I loitered awhile amongst the trees, and finally came round by -the hill once more, and dwelt upon a thought to climb it and -investigate. But, as I stood in uncertainty, a shrill cry came to my -ears. It rang startlingly in that voiceless pit of green, and I -hurried at my topmost speed round the base of the mound, and came -suddenly upon a sight that met me like a blow. -</p> - -<p> -Two savages, each with an arm of the girl brutally seized, were -shouldering the poor swineherd towards the trees. She cried and -struggled, disputing every step; the pigs streamed curiously in the -wake of the group. There was an obvious ugly inference to be drawn -from the sight, and I made no compromise with my discretion. I just -rushed through the herd and charged straight at one of the ruffians. -</p> - -<p> -He was aware of me—they both were—before I reached him. They twisted -their heads about, and the one I made for dropped his hold of Carinne -and jumped to meet my onset, while the other hooted “<i>O-he! bran de -lui!</i>” and tightened his grip of the girl. I saw only that my -assailant was a powerful coarse <i>bonnet-rouge</i>, little-eyed, hairy as -Attila. The next instant I had dived, caught one of his ankles, and -given his furious impetus an upward direction. He went over me in a -parabola, like a ball sprung from a trap, and I heard his ribs thud on -the ground. But I had no time to give him my further attention, for, -seeing his comrade’s discomfiture, the second rascal came at me. -</p> - -<p> -And now I was like to pay dearly for my temerity, for, though I was -lithe and active enough, I had not that of substance on my bones to -withstand the pounding of a couple of enraged and sanguinary giants. -The poor Carinne had sunk, for the moment unnerved, upon the ground. I -prayed God she had a knife to use on herself for a last resource. No -doubt the ruffian I had thrown would take me in the rear in a moment. -The other was bearing down upon me like a bullock. Suddenly, when come -almost within my reach, he jerked himself to so quick a halt that his -heels cut grooves in the mast. I saw his eyes dilate and glare beyond -me, and on the instant a single vibrant scream, like the shrill neigh -of a horse, rose from the ground at my back. It was the cue for an -immediate quarrelling clamour, fierce and gluttonous, such as one -hears when a bucket of wash is emptied into a sty; and if it was -lifted again, bodiless and inhuman, it might not reach through the -uproar. -</p> - -<p> -I had turned to look—and away again in infinite horror. Upon the -half-stunned wretch, as he lay prostrate on his back, an old ravening -boar of the herd had flung itself in fury, and with one bestial clinch -of its teeth and jerk of its powerful neck had torn out the very apple -of the man’s throat. And there atop of his victim the huge brute -sprawled, tossing its head and squeaking furiously; while the rest of -the herd, smitten with the beast-lust, ran hither and thither, -approaching, snuffing, retreating, and, through all, never ceasing in -their guttural outcry. -</p> - -<p> -Now in a moment came a pause in the tumult, and I read in my -opponent’s eyes, as distinctly as though they were mirrors, that the -triumphant brute behind me was showing itself alert with consciousness -of the living prey that yet offered itself in reversion. I saw in the -man’s face amazement resolve itself into sick terror; he slipped back -into its sheath the <i>couteau-poignard</i> he had half drawn. -“<i>Adieu-va!</i>” I shouted at him, advancing—and on the word he wheeled -about and pounded off amongst the trees as if the devil were at his -heels. -</p> - -<p> -When I ran to Mademoiselle de Lâge, she was regaining in a dazed -manner her feet and her faculties. -</p> - -<p> -“I must lift you—I must help you!” I cried. “Ah! do not look, but -come away! My God, what peril, when the beast in man is made manifest -to the beast in the beast!” -</p> - -<p> -I put my right arm about her under hers. To touch the very stringy -texture of the <i>jupon</i> with my hand was to find my heart queerly -lodged in my finger-tips. She came quietly with me a few paces; then -suddenly she wrenched herself free, and, turning her back upon me, -fumbled in her bosom. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” she said on a little faint key, from the covert of her -hair (<i>Bon Dieu!</i> that admirable low huskiness in her voice that made -of her every utterance a caress!),—“monsieur, he was the old brave of -my little troop. I called him my <i>Chevalier du Guet</i>. It was -inhuman—yes, it was inhuman; but he struck for his lady and rescued -her. Wilt thou not be my ambassador to decorate him for a last token -of gratitude?” -</p> - -<p> -Heaven! the magnificence of her fancy! She had taken from her -shoulders her scapular, together with a little heart of chalcedonyx -that hung therefrom. This latter she detached and handed to me. -</p> - -<p> -“Loop it to his ear, if thou darest,” said she. -</p> - -<p> -I went quite gravely to do her bidding. What a <i>farceur</i> of -circumstance was I become! But my breast overflowed with deference as -I approached the great pig. He had rolled from his victim and stood a -little apart, evilly humouring with his chaps a certain recollection. -He eyed me with wickedness as I advanced, and his obsequious -following, something subsided from their hysteria, seemed awaiting -their cue. I would not allow myself a second’s indecision. I walked -straight up to him—“Monsieur,” I said, “<i>avec l’égard le plus -profond</i>”—and flung the string over his ear. -</p> - -<p> -Alas! the ingrate! As I retreated he threw down his head, dislodged -the trinket, smelt at and swallowed it. -</p> - -<p> -The eyes in Carinne’s yet shocked face looked a pale inquiry when I -returned to her. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle,” I said, “the honour would appear entirely to his -taste.” -</p> - -<p> -She nodded seriously. -</p> - -<p> -“It is well,” she whispered; “and I hope none will rob him.” -</p> - -<p> -“He shall be turned inside out first,” I said stoutly; and at that she -nodded again, and bade me to a hurried retreat. -</p> - -<p> -We may have walked a mile, or even two, in a solemn silence, before my -comrade was fain to stop, in the heart of a woodland glen, and throw -herself exhausted on a bank. Then she looked up at me, her fatigued -eyes struggling yet with defiance. -</p> - -<p> -“Why do you not upbraid me?” she said. “Why do you not say ‘I told you -so’?” -</p> - -<p> -“Because it does not occur to me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah! you would make a fine virtue of forbearance; you would be the -patient ass to my vanity, would you not, monsieur?” -</p> - -<p> -“I would let mademoiselle ride me rough-shod till I fell dead.” -</p> - -<p> -“And so leave me the living monument to your nobility. But it is not -generous, monsieur, thus to rebuke me with silence.” -</p> - -<p> -“I did not intend to——” -</p> - -<p> -“And, after all, it was the hog that struck most effectively.” -</p> - -<p> -“And that is conceded, mademoiselle; and the hog is generously -decorated.” -</p> - -<p> -She mused up at me rebelliously. -</p> - -<p> -“I do not even know your name.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is Citizen Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen——” (she made a wry mouth of it). “Then, if I can find the -wherewithal to reward your gallantry, citizen, will you leave me to -myself?” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle, if only I could believe none other would impose himself -on that sweet duet!” -</p> - -<p> -She shrugged her shoulders fretfully. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, monsieur, you assume a father’s privilege. Has my -misfortune placed me beyond the pale of courtesy? or has a swineherd -no title to the considerations of decency?” -</p> - -<p> -“Nay, mademoiselle; it is that your beauty and your proud innocence -make so many appeals to both.” -</p> - -<p> -My obstinacy seemed a goad to her anger. -</p> - -<p> -“You exaggerate the importance of your service,” she cried. “Either of -those great strong men could have crushed you like an old nut——” -</p> - -<p> -She seemed to struggle a moment with herself—without avail. -</p> - -<p> -“For you are very little,” she added. -</p> - -<p> -I felt myself turn pale. I made her a most profound bow. -</p> - -<p> -“I will leave mademoiselle,” I said gravely, “to the only company she -can do justice to.” -</p> - -<p> -“My own?” she asked. I did not answer, and I turned from her quivering -all through. I had gone but a few paces when her voice came after me. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, I am dying of hunger!” -</p> - -<p> -<i>Mon Dieu!</i> What a speech to grapple at the soul! I hurried hither and -thither, plucking her a meal from the earth, from the bushes. My heart -bled with a double wound. -</p> - -<p> -Presently I stood before her, stern and silent. Her face, hidden in -her hands, was averted from me. Suddenly she looked up. -</p> - -<p> -“The little pod holds the fattest pea,” she said, and burst into -tears. -</p> - -<p> -<i>Petite pluie abat grand vent.</i> -</p> - -<p> -She was very sweet and humble to me by-and-by. She made me the <i>amende -honorable</i> by calling my heart too great for my body. And at last said -she— -</p> - -<p> -“I take you for my knight, monsieur—to honour and protect, to bear -with and respect me——” and I kissed her brown hand in allegiance. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch08"> -CHAPTER VIII.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">QUATREMAINS-QUATREPATTES.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -“<span class="sc">Mademoiselle</span>, what do you weave?” -</p> - -<p> -She sat at the entrance to her sleeping-place—a hole under the -radiated roots of an ancient oak-tree. We had happened upon the -shelter in our league-long flight. It was one of those burrows—those -<i>logettes</i> into which past generations of the hunted and proscribed -had sunk like moles. Many of our forests are honeycombed with them. -Over the opening to this, once concealed by a cunning mat of weeds and -branches, the roots had contrived a more enduring cover. Within, to -walls and floor, yet clung the remnants of brushwood with which long -ago the den had been lined. -</p> - -<p> -Carinne was deftly busy over a queer contrivance—a sort of fencing -mask that she plaited from thin tendrils of a binding-weed. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur on his high perch at night will suffer from the mosquitoes?” -</p> - -<p> -“Has mademoiselle reason to think so?” -</p> - -<p> -“As I think I can tell when a little ape carries a nut in his pouch.” -</p> - -<p> -“Alas! but how cynical of romance are the tiny blood-suckers! They fly -on a chromatic scale, mademoiselle. Often I try to comfort myself with -the fancy that I am listening to the very distant humming of church -bells; and then comes a tiny prick, and something seems to rise from -my heart to my face, and to blossom thereon. No doubt it is the -flowers of fancy budding. And is the weed-bonnet for me?” -</p> - -<p> -“I shall not want it in my burrow.” -</p> - -<p> -This gave me exquisite gratification, which survived the many -inconveniences to which I was put by the bonnet falling off at night, -and my having to descend to recover it. But it soon appeared that the -least whim of this fascinating child was to be my law. -</p> - -<p> -And yet what a dear lawless existence! I do not know what termination -to it we foresaw. Sooner or later the cold must drive me from my -nightly cradle; sooner or later the good fruits of the earth must -wither. In the meantime we were <i>grillon</i> and <i>cigale</i>,—we stored -not, neither did we labour; but we chatted, and we wandered, and we -drew the marrow of every tender berry, and gnawed the rind of every -tough, without making faces. -</p> - -<p> -And we quarrelled—<i>mon Dieu!</i> but how we quarrelled! Scarce a day -passed without dispute, and this in the end it was that resolved the -situation for us. For truly my comrade was as full of moods and -whimsies as the wind—one moment a curious sweet woman; the next, and -on the prick of confidence, a pillar of salt. Yet, even as such, she -herself was ever the savour to the insults she made me swallow. -</p> - -<p> -By then I was a little awakening, I think, to a consciousness that was -half fright, half ecstasy. Let me not misrepresent my meaning. I held -the honour of Mademoiselle de Lâge in high reverence; yet (and -<i>therefore</i>, also, <i>bien entendu</i>) I could not but acknowledge to -myself that in the depth of my heart was sprouting a desire for a more -particular understanding between us. This very self-confession at last -was like a terrifying surrender of independence—of -irresponsibility—of all that sweet store of philosophy I had made it -my practice to hive against the winter of old age. I saw my -tranquillity yielded to a disturbing sense of duty. I felt my feet and -my body stung by a thousand thorns as I turned into the narrow road of -self-abnegation. No more for me should gleam the rosy garland and the -wine-cup exhaling joy; but rather the olive from the branch should -stimulate my palate to caudle, and the priest sanctify my salt of life -out of all flavour. -</p> - -<p> -<i>Aïe, Aïe!</i> and what then? Why, I was forgetting that as a lady puts -the deduction before the argument, and cultivates her intuitive -perceptions by reading the <i>dénoûment</i> of a romance after the first -chapter, so she will have decided upon the direction of that last gift -of herself while pinning her favours upon the coats of a dozen -successive hopefuls. I might humour or tease my fancy over the -presumptive flavour of that draught of matrimony, while all the time -Mademoiselle de Lâge of Pierrettes held my person and my citizenship -in frank contempt. Decidedly I was eating my chicken in the egg. -</p> - -<p> -Still, the very fearless susceptibility of the child, her beauty and -her wilfulness, were so many flames to feed that fire of passion that -the strange nature of our comradeship had first kindled in my breast. -And so always before my mind’s eye I kept, or tried to keep, the -picture of the Chevalier Bayard and the Spanish ladies of Brescia. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -One day, in our wanderings, we came out suddenly upon a track of -highroad that, sweeping from us round a foreshore of desolate hills, -seemed, like a coast-current, to set some gaunt pines at a little -distance swaying as if they were the masts of ships. By then, as I -gather, we must have travelled as far north as Chalus, and were come -into regions that, by reason of their elevation, were somewhat colder -and moister than the sunny slopes we had quitted. Perhaps it was this -change of atmosphere that chilled our odd but never too ardent -relations one with the other; perhaps it was that Carinne, as I, was -at length taking alarm over the ambiguity of our position. In any case -we fell out and apart, and so followed some harsh experiences to the -pair of us. -</p> - -<p> -Now we backed from the public way in fright, and, concealing ourselves -once more amongst the trees, sat down, and were for a long space -silent. The interval was a pregnant one to me, inasmuch as I was -labouring with a resolve that had been forming for days in my breast. -And at last I spoke— -</p> - -<p> -“Carinne, we have been much at cross-purposes of late.” -</p> - -<p> -“Have we, M. Thibaut? But perhaps it is in the order of things.” -</p> - -<p> -“And that is to say that the plebeian Thibaut and the patrician De -Lâge cannot meet on a common plane?” -</p> - -<p> -“You must not put words in my mouth.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, if I might!” -</p> - -<p> -“What then? It will soothe my <i>ennui</i> to hear.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not for the moment. Tell me, mademoiselle, would you renew this -comradeship were we to escape, and meet in the after-time under better -conditions of security?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur! and would you have me wander hand in hand with you -through the gardens of the Thuilleries? or invite you to sleep upon -the tester of my bed? or open my mouth like a young bird at the -fruit-stalls, that you might pop in raspberries?” -</p> - -<p> -“Unkind! I would have you meet me by chance; I would see your eyes -open to a light of pleasure; I would have you come gladly to me and -take my fingers in yours and say: ‘This is he that was my good friend -when I needed one.’” -</p> - -<p> -“I will remember. And then all will clap their hands and cry ‘Bravo!’ -will they not? and I shall feel a little excitement. ‘<i>Qu’y a-t-il</i>, -Jacko!’ I shall say. ‘Show the company some of the pretty tricks you -played in the woods.’” -</p> - -<p> -I was silent. -</p> - -<p> -“And are those the words you would put in my mouth, monsieur?” said -Carinne. -</p> - -<p> -“I referred to the present,” I answered coldly; “and, as you take it -so, I will speak in your person as I would have you speak. -‘Jean-Louis,’ you say, ‘I am, like all sweet women, an agglomerate of -truths and inconsistencies; yet I am not, in the midst of my -wilfulness, insensible to the suffering my caprice of misunderstanding -puts you to; and, in face of the equivocal character of our -intercourse, I will forego the blindness that is a privilege of my -sex. Speak boldly, then, what lies in your heart.’” -</p> - -<p> -As I spoke in some trepidation, Carinne’s face grew enigmatical with -hardness and a little pallor, and she looked steadily away from me. -</p> - -<p> -“I thank you,” she said softly, “for that word ‘equivocal.’ But please -to remember, monsieur, that this ‘<i>intercourse</i>’ is none of my -seeking.” -</p> - -<p> -“You choose to misapprehend me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! it is not possible,” she cried, turning sharply upon me. “You -take advantage of my condescension and of the wicked licence of the -times. Have you sought, by this elaborate process, to entrap me into a -confession of dependence upon you? Why” (she measured me scornfully -with her eyes), “I think I look over and beyond you, monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” I said, stung beyond endurance by her words, “I pronounce you, -mademoiselle, the most soulless, as you are the most beautiful, woman -I have ever encountered. I thought I loved you with that reverence -that would subscribe to the very conditions that Laban imposed upon -Jacob. I see I was mistaken, and that I would have bartered my gold -for a baser metal. And now, also, I see, mademoiselle, that the -callousness you displayed in presence of the murdered Lepelletier, -which I had fain fancied was a paralysis of nerve, was due in effect -to nothing less vulgar than an unfeeling heart!” -</p> - -<p> -She stared at me in amazement, it seemed. I was for the moment carried -quite beyond myself. -</p> - -<p> -“I will leave you,” I cried, “to your better reflections—or, at -least, to your better judgment. This Thibaut will walk off the high -fever of his presumption, and return presently, your faithful and -obedient servant.” -</p> - -<p> -I turned, fuming, upon my heel, and strode off amongst the trees. I -had not gone a dozen paces when her voice stayed me. I twisted myself -about. -</p> - -<p> -“Do not lift your head so high, monsieur,” she said, “or you will run -it against a mushroom and hurt yourself.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Insolent—cruel—fascinating! For what had I indulged this mood of -quixotry—for what permitted this intolerable child to gall my sides -with her disdain? Would it have been thus had I condescended to drive -her coquetry to bay with that toothless dog of my rank? Ah! I believe -so; and that only made the sting of her contempt the more poisonous. -It was my person that could not suffice; and truly there is no bribe -to a woman’s favour like an extra inch of weediness. She is the -escapement of the heart; but the reason she will never move till she -acquire a sense of proportion. She was designed but to put man out of -conceit with himself, and I think she was not formed of his rib but of -his spleen. Therefore the tap-root of her nature is grievance, from -which her every leaf and flower and knot and canker takes its -sustenance of misconstruction. She may bloom very fair and sweet; but -then so does the dulcamara, and to taste either is dangerous. -</p> - -<p> -Thinking these thoughts, I postponed my return to the little glade -where I had left Carinne. She should believe me gone for good and all, -I vowed, and so should she suffer the first pangs of desertion. Then, -though she wished to make me feel small, no giant should figure so -great in her eyes as the moderate Thibaut. -</p> - -<p> -At last, in the early glow of evening, the unquenchable yearning in my -heart would brook no longer delay. Half-shamefaced, half-stubborn, I -retraced my steps to the glen that held my all of aggravation and of -desire. -</p> - -<p> -She was not there. She never came to it more. For long I would not -realise the truth. I waited, and hoped, and often circumambulated the -spot where she had rested, hurrying over a greater or less -circumference according to my distance from the centre. I called—I -entreated—perhaps in the darkness of night I wept. It was all of no -avail. She had vanished without leaving a trace, wilfully and -resentfully, and had thus decided to reward my long service of -devotion. -</p> - -<p> -When—after lingering about the spot for two nights and two days, -drugging a dying hope with the philtre of its own brewing—I at length -knew myself convicted of despair, a great bitterness awoke in my -breast that I should have thus permitted myself to be used and fooled -and rejected. -</p> - -<p> -“She is not worthy of this vast of concern!” I cried. “I will forget -her, and resume myself, and be again the irresponsible maggot -contributing to the decay of a worm-eaten system. To taste -disenchantment! After all, that is not to drink the sea!” -</p> - -<p> -But it was to eat of its fruit of ashes; and I was to carry a burden -with me that I might not forego. This in my subsequent wanderings made -my steps drag heavily, as if always I bore in the breast of my coat -the leaden image of an angel. But, nevertheless, I could muster a -pride to my aid in moments of a very desperate lassitude of the soul. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -With the opening of October I was still a solitary “rogue,” ostracised -from my herded kind. I had wandered so far north as that I saw Paris -(the ultimate goal, I felt, of my weary feet) to swim distinguishable -in the misty ken of my mind. Therefrom always seemed to emanate a -deadly but dulcet atmosphere, the attraction of which must sooner or -later overpower me. Sometimes in the night I could have thought I -heard the city’s swarming voices jangling to me down the steeper roads -of wind; sometimes the keystone of the Conciergerie would figure to me -as the lodestone to all shattered barques tossing helplessly on a -shoreless waste. For I was sick to the heart of loneliness; sick of -the brute evasion of my race; sick of my perilous immunity from all -the burning processes of that frantic drama of my times. And so I -trudged ever with my face set to the north, and the hum of the -witches’ cauldron, whose broth was compound of all heroism and all -savagery, singing phantomly in my ears. -</p> - -<p> -And to this direction yet another consideration induced me. With the -approach of chillier weather the wild wood-life of the wilder -provinces asserted itself, and assumed a more menacing aspect. The -abolition of the game laws had brought about, indeed, an amazing -increase in the number of wolves and foxes; and what with these on one -side and sans-culottism on the other, I had often latterly felt myself -walking between the devil and the deep sea. Then, once upon a time, I -was joined by an odd roguish way-fellow, the obliquity of whose moral -vision I overlooked for the sake of his company; and through him was -my burden of self-dependence a little lightened. -</p> - -<p> -I had sunk asleep one afternoon in a copse neighbouring on the royal -village of Cléry. Autumn is all a siesta in that mild and beautiful -district. Waking, I felt the sunlight on my eyes like a damp warm -sponge; and so with my lids gratefully closed I fell a-musing. -</p> - -<p> -“To think,” I murmured, “that the twang of a beetle’s bowstring at my -ear on the old bridge outside Coutras should have been the key-note to -all this devil’s dance of mine!” -</p> - -<p> -I thought I heard a faint rustle somewhere at hand—a squirrel or -coney. I paid no attention to it, but indulged my mood of -introspection. By-and-by a step came towards me, advancing boldly -amongst the trees from a distance. It approached, reached, stopped -over against me. I opened my eyes as I lay, my arms under my head, and -placidly surveyed the new-comer. He stood looking down upon me, his -fingers heaped upon the black crutch of his <i>bâton</i>, and when he saw -me awake he nodded his head in a lively manner. -</p> - -<p> -“The occasion is opportune,” he said, in a quick, biting voice. -</p> - -<p> -His lower jaw projected, showing a straight row of little even -teeth—like palings to keep his speech within bounds. The brightness -of his half-seen eyes belied the indolence of their lids. He wore a -jacket of sheepskin, wool outwards; and a leathern bag, stuffed with -printed broadsides, hung from his shoulder by a length of scarlet -tape. On his head was a three-cornered hat, fantastically caught up -with ribbons, and his legs and feet were encased respectively in fine -black hose and the neat pumps with buckles known as <i>pantoufles de -Palais</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Comment?</i>” said I, without moving. -</p> - -<p> -“The citizen has slept?” -</p> - -<p> -“Most tranquilly.” -</p> - -<p> -“The citizen has dreamt?” -</p> - -<p> -“Without doubt. And he is awake.” -</p> - -<p> -He made a comprehensive gesture with his stick and his hands. -</p> - -<p> -“But I interpret dreams,” said he—“and at one price. I will unravel -you the visions of a politician or expound himself to Jack Hodge for -the common charge of fifty centimes.” -</p> - -<p> -He bent his head towards me with an affectation of scrutiny. -</p> - -<p> -“I perceive the citizen does not credit me,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“And so his eyes rebuke his scepticism, interpreter of dreams,” said -I; “for thou hast rightly construed their meaning.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he murmured, raising himself and drawing in his breath. “But I -find it simple to convince the most incredulous.” -</p> - -<p> -“You do?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” he cried, clapping his chest; “for know that thou speak’st with -Quatremains-Quatrepattes himself!” -</p> - -<p> -He dwelt on the pause that followed; collapsed from it; regarded me, -it seemed, in astonishment. -</p> - -<p> -“Thou hast not heard of me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Again the interpreter of dreams justifies himself.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked away from me, in a high manner of abstraction. -</p> - -<p> -“And this is for the sunshine of fame to throw one’s shadow over half -the world!” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“Maybe thy fame is at its meridian, citizen, and thy shadow -consequently a little fat blot at thy feet?” -</p> - -<p> -He turned to me again. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh yes,” he cried sarcastically. “I am Quatremains-Quatrepattes, and -some outside the beaten track know my name, perhaps. But possibly the -citizen has never heard even of Jean Cazotte?” -</p> - -<p> -“On the contrary; I have seen and spoken with him.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Par exemple!</i> The man was a charlatan. He could foretell everything -but his own guillotining last year. And yet thou art ignorant—well, -well!” -</p> - -<p> -He threw up his hands in deprecation; then came and sat down on the -grass beside me. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Cela m’est égal</i>, M. Quatremains-Quatrepattes,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he said; “but I will convince thee at once. Describe to me thy -dream.” -</p> - -<p> -“I dreamt I wrestled with an angel and was overthrown.” -</p> - -<p> -“Thy mistress has quarrelled with and rejected thee.” -</p> - -<p> -“An obvious deduction. Yet I will assure you she is no angel.” -</p> - -<p> -“Canst thou say so? But we are all of the seed of Lucifer. Proceed.” -</p> - -<p> -“I dreamt how a great march grew out of a single accident of sound.” -</p> - -<p> -Here I was watchful of him, and I saw some relish twitch his lips. He -assumed an air of tense introspection, groping with his soul, like a -fakir, amongst the reflex images thrown upon the backs of his -eyeballs. -</p> - -<p> -“I hear a note,” he said presently, as if speaking to himself—“one -vibrant accent like the clipt song of a bullet. Is it struck from an -instrument or from any resounding vessel? It comes down the wind—it -clangs—it passes. Nay—it signifies only that some winged insect has -fled by the ear of a solitary traveller resting on an ancient bridge; -yet from that little bugle-sound shall the traveller learn to date the -processes of a long and fruitless journey.” -</p> - -<p> -I broke into a great laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“Most excellent!” I cried. “Thou hast an ingenuity of adaptation that -should make thy fortune—even at the very low rate of fifty centimes -the job.” -</p> - -<p> -His eyebrows lifted at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Why, M. Quatremains-Quatrepattes—M. Jacquemart,” said I,—“I knew -thee listening to me just now; and I heard thee steal away and come -again. It is easy to construe with the key in one’s hand.” -</p> - -<p> -He was no whit abashed. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Cela m’est égal</i>,” he said serenely, echoing my words. “But I can -foretell one’s future, nevertheless, very exactly.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, so can I, if I am not to be called upon to verify my -statements.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked suddenly in my face. -</p> - -<p> -“Thou art a disguised aristocrat.” -</p> - -<p> -“Better and better. But are we not all such to ourselves? The soul is -excessively exclusive.” -</p> - -<p> -“You will not consider I have earned my fee?” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“Fifty times over, my friend. Will you take it in a promissory note?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he cried pleasantly. “I perceive I have sown in barren soil.” -</p> - -<p> -“Again you justify yourself. Yet should I be a very thicket were all -the berries I have swallowed of late to germinate in me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is that so?” said he. “But I have been a scapegoat myself——” and -thereat this extraordinary person pressed upon me some food he had -with him with an ample and courtly grace. -</p> - -<p> -“This shall yield a better crop than my prophesying,” he said, -watching me as I munched. -</p> - -<p> -“Of a surety,” I answered; “the full harvest of my gratitude.” -</p> - -<p> -He pondered at me. -</p> - -<p> -“I wish I could convince thee,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“Wherefore? Is not the evil sufficient for the day in this distracted -land? Why should one want to probe the future?” -</p> - -<p> -“Because forewarned is forearmed.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, little Quatremains-Quatrepattes! Dost thou not perceive the -paradox? How can destiny be altered by foreknowledge? If you interpret -that I am to be guillotined, and I profit by the statement to evade -such a catastrophe, how is not your prophecy stultified?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, I have no creed of predestination. The lords of life and death -are not inexorable. Sometimes, like M. St Meard, one may buy his -reprieve of them with a jest. Above all, they hate the sour fatalist -whose subscription to his own faith is a gloomy affectation.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well; I think I love thee a little.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me with a smile. -</p> - -<p> -“Come with me, then. I long to give thee proof. Dost thou need a -safeguard? Thou shalt run under my wing—<i>ça et là</i>—to Paris if -thou wilt. I am popular with all. If necessity drives, thou shalt -figure as my Jack-pudding. What! thou mayst even play up to the part. -Thou hast slept in the mire; but ‘many a ragged colt makes a good -horse.’” -</p> - -<p> -I laughed. -</p> - -<p> -“Why not?” I said. “For I have played the tragic to empty houses till -I am tired.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Quatremains-Quatrepattes and his merry-andrew gambolled through a -score of villages on their road to Paris. I found the rascal hugely -popular, as he had boasted he was, and a most excellent convoy to my -humble craft, so perilously sailing under false colours. He was -subtle, shrewd, seasonable,—of the species whose opportunity is -accident; and perhaps no greater tribute could be paid to his deftness -than this—that he never once exposed himself to detection by me in a -question of moral fraud. “<i>Ton génie a la main crochue</i>,” I would say -to him, chuckling; but he would only respond with a rebuking silence. -</p> - -<p> -Early he handed over the bag of broadsides—the revolutionary songs -and ballads (some, it must be confessed, abominably coarse)—to my -care, that so he himself might assume a lofty indifference to the -meaner processes of his business. This delighted me. It was like a new -rattling game to me to hawk my commodities amongst the crowd; to jest -and laugh with my fellows once more under cover of the droll I -represented. Shortly, I think, I became as popular as Quatremains -himself; and over this, though he loved me as a valuable auxiliary, he -began to look a little sober by-and-by, as if he dreaded I should joke -the weightier part of his commerce out of all respect. -</p> - -<p> -<i>His</i> popularity was chiefly with the village wenches. They would -gather about him at the fountains, and pay their sous open-eyed to be -expounded; or singly they would withdraw him into nooks or private -places if the case was serious. -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen seër,” says Margot, “I dreamed I fell and was wounded.” -</p> - -<p> -“That is good, little minette. Thou wilt pay me five sous for a fond -lover.” -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen seër, I dreamed I was eating of a great egg.” -</p> - -<p> -“And thou shalt shortly beget a male child that shall bring thee -honour.” -</p> - -<p> -“How now, old Jackalent!” -</p> - -<p> -There rises a shrill cackle of laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Fi donc</i>, Margot! <i>On te le rendra de bonne heure!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -To submit the commerce of love to the test of a little dream-manual he -carried about with him, that was Quatremains’ system. This key (it was -in manuscript) interpreted on a couple of hundred, or more, words, -from <i>Abel</i> to <i>Wounds</i>; but affairs of the heart predominated through -the whole alphabet of nonsense. He would coach himself continually -from it in secret; but indeed a small wit and a trifle of invention -were all that was needed. Now and again I would rally him on this -petty taxing of credulity. -</p> - -<p> -“How now!” he would answer. “Art thou not yet convinced?” -</p> - -<p> -“By what, thou most surprising Quatremains-Quatrepattes?” -</p> - -<p> -“For example, did I not foretell that Mère Grignon, whose husband was -guillotined, would be brought to bed of a child with the mark of the -<i>lunette</i> on its throat; and were not my words verified the same -night?” -</p> - -<p> -“But who knows that some one may not have bribed the nurse to score -the neck of the new-born with whipcord?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Tête-bleu!</i> Should I hold good my reputation and pay this nurse, -think’st thou, out of five sous?” -</p> - -<p> -But the rascal had other strings to his bow, all twanging to the same -tune <i>de folles amours</i>—charms, fortune-telling, palmistry: so many -lines under the thumb, so many children; a shorter first joint to the -little than to its neighbour finger, the wife to rule the roast; a -mole on the nose, success in intrigues; a mole on the breast, -sincerity of affection. Then, too, he would tell nativities, cast -horoscopes, quarter the planets for you like an orange or like the -fruit of his imagination. There is a late picture of him often before -me as he sat in the market-place of Essonnes, a little village that -lies almost within view of the towers of Paris. A half-dozen blooming -daughters of the Revolution stood about him, their hands under their -aprons for warmth,—for it was pretty late in November, and in fact -the eve of St Catherine’s feast. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” said Quatremains, “there are seven of ye, and that is the sure -number,—for there must not be more than seven nor fewer than three; -and be certain ye are quick to my directions.” (He jingled softly in -his fists the copper harvest of his gathering.) “Are all of ye -virgins?” he cried. “If the charm fails, she who is not will be -accountable to the others.” (He scanned their hot faces like a very -Torquemada of the true faith.) “To-morrow, then,” he said, “let each -wear inside her bosom all day a sprig of myrtle. At night, assemble -together privately in a room, and, as the clock strikes eleven, take -ye each your twig and fold it in tissue-paper, having first kindled -charcoal in a chafing-dish. Thereonto throw nine hairs from the head, -and a little moon-paring of every toe- and finger-nail, as also some -frankincense, with the fragrant vapour arising from which ye shall -fumigate each her packet. Now, go to your beds, and with the stroke of -midnight compose yourselves to slumber, the envelope under the head, -and, so ye have not failed to keep silence from first to last, each -shall assuredly be made conversant in dream with her future husband.” -</p> - -<p> -Oh, wonderful nature of woman, thus, in a starving France, to throw -sous into a pool for the sport of vanity! -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Quatremains smuggled me into Paris, and there, for we had no further -use of one another, our connection ceased. Thenceforwards I must live -on my wits—other than those he had taxed—and on the little pieces of -money that remained to me for feast-days. The struggle was a short -one. I had not been a fortnight in the city when the blow that I had -so long foreseen fell upon me. One day I was arrested and carried to -La Force. That, perhaps, was as well; for my personal estate was -dwindled to a few livres, and I knew no rag-picker that would be -likely to extend to me his patronage and protection. -</p> - -<p> -Yet before this came about, I had one other strange little experience -that shall be related. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch09"> -CHAPTER IX.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE WILD DOGS.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">It</span> was on a night of middle Vendémiaire in the year two (to affect -the whimsical jargon of the <i>sans-culottes</i>) that I issued from my -burrow with an intrepidity that was nothing more nor less than a -congestion of the sensibilities. Fear at that time having fed upon -itself till all was devoured, was converted in very many to a humorous -stoicism that only lacked to be great because it could not boast a -splendid isolation. “Suspect of being suspect”—Citizen Chaumette’s -last slash at the hamstrings of hope—had converted all men of humane -character to that religion of self-containment that can alone -spiritually exalt above the caprices of the emotions. Thousands, in a -moment, through extreme of fear became fearless; hence no man of them -could claim a signal inspiration of courage, but only that -subscription to the terms of it which unnatural conditions had -rendered necessary to all believers in the ultimate ethical triumph of -the human race. -</p> - -<p> -I do not mean to say that I was tired of life, but simply that it came -to me at once that I must not hold that test of moral independence at -the mercy of any temporal tyranny whatsoever. Indeed I was still so -far in love with existence physically, as to neglect no precaution -that was calculated to contribute to the present prolonging of it. I -wore my frieze night-cap, carmagnole, sabots, and black shag spencer -with all the assumption I could muster of being to the shoddy born. I -had long learned the art of slurring a sigh into a cough or -expectoration. I could curse the stolid spectres of the tumbrils so as -to deceive all but the recording angel, and, possibly, Citizen -Robespierre. -</p> - -<p> -Nevertheless, with me, as with others, precaution seemed but a -condition of the recklessness whose calculations never extended beyond -the immediate day or hour. We lived posthumous lives, so to speak, and -would hardly have resented it, should an arbitrary period have been -put to our revisiting of the “glimpses of the moon.” -</p> - -<p> -On this night, then, of early September (as I will prefer calling it) -I issued from my burrow, calm under the intolerable tyranny of -circumstance. Desiring to reconstruct myself on the principle of an -older independence, I was mentally discussing the illogic of a system -of purgation that was seeking to solve the problem of existence by -emptying the world, when I became aware that my preoccupied ramblings -had brought me into the very presence of that sombre engine that was -the concrete expression of so much and such detestable false -reasoning. In effect, and to speak without circumbendibus, I found -myself to have wandered into the Faubourg St Antoine—into the place -of execution, and to have checked my steps only at the very foot of -the guillotine. -</p> - -<p> -It was close upon midnight, and, overhead, very wild and broken -weather. But the deeps of atmosphere, with the city for their ocean -bed, as it were, lay profoundly undisturbed by the surface turmoil -above; and in the tranquil <i>Place</i>, for all the upper flurry, one -could hear oneself breathe and think. -</p> - -<p> -I could have done this with the more composure, had not another sound, -the import of which I was a little late in recognising, crept into my -hearing with a full accompaniment of dismay. This sound was like -licking or lapping, very bestial and unclean, and when I came to -interpret it, it woke in me a horrible nausea. For all at once I knew -that, hidden in that dreadful conduit that strong citizens of late had -dug from the Place St Antoine to the river, to carry away the ponded -blood of the executed, the wild dogs of Paris were slaking their -wolfish thirst. I could hear their filthy gutturising and the scrape -of their lazy tongues on the soil, and my heart went cold, for -latterly, and since they had taken to hunting in packs, these ravenous -brutes had assailed and devoured more than one belated citizen whom -they had scented traversing the Champs Elysées, or other lonely -space; and I was aware a plan for their extermination was even now -under discussion by the Committee of Public Safety. -</p> - -<p> -Now, to fling scorn to the axe in that city of terror was to boast -only that one had adjusted oneself to a necessity that did not imply -an affectation of indifference to the fangs of wild beasts—for such, -indeed, they were. So, a suicide, who goes to cast himself headlong -into the river, may run in a panic from a falling beam, and be -consistent, too; for his compact is with death—not mutilation. -</p> - -<p> -Be that as it may, I know that for the moment terror so snapped at my -heel that, under the very teeth of it, I leaped up the scaffold -steps—with the wild idea of swarming to the beam above the knife and -thence defying my pursuers, should they nose and bay me seated there -at refuge—and stood with a white desperate face, scarcely daring to -pant out the constriction of my lungs. -</p> - -<p> -There followed no sound of concentrated movement; but only that -stealthy licking went on, with the occasional plash of brute feet in a -bloody mire; and gradually my turbulent pulses slowed, and I thought -myself a fool for my pains in advertising my presence on a platform of -such deadly prominence. -</p> - -<p> -Still, not a soul seemed to be abroad. As I trod the fateful quarter -ten minutes earlier, the last squalid roysterers had staggered from -the wine-shops—the last gleams of light been shut upon the emptied -streets. I was alone with the dogs and the guillotine. -</p> - -<p> -Tiptoeing very gently, very softly, I was preparing to descend the -steps once more, when I drew back with a muttered exclamation, and -stood staring down upon an apparition that, speeding at that moment -into the <i>Place</i>, paused within ten paces of the scaffold on which I -stood. -</p> - -<p> -Above the scudding clouds was a moon that pulsed a weak intermittent -radiance through the worn places of the drift. Its light was always -more suggested than revealed; but it was sufficient to denote that the -apparition was that of a very pale young woman—a simple child she -looked, whose eyes, nevertheless, wore that common expression of the -dramatic intensity of her times. -</p> - -<p> -She stood an instant, tense as Corday, her fingers bent to her lips; -her background a frouzy wall with the legend <i>Propriété Nationale</i> -scrawled on it in white chalk. Significant to the inference, the cap -of scarlet wool was drawn down upon her young <i>blondes</i> curls—the -gold of the coveted perukes. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly she made a little movement, and in the same instant gave out -a whistle clear and soft. -</p> - -<p> -Yes, it was she from whom it proceeded; and I shuddered. There below -me in the ditch were the dogs; here before me was this fearless child. -</p> - -<p> -For myself, even in the presence of this angel, I dared scarcely stir. -It was unnatural; it was preposterous—came a scramble and a rush; and -there, issued from the filthy sewer, was a huge boar-hound, that -fawned on the little citoyenne, and yelped (under her breath) like a -thing of human understanding. -</p> - -<p> -She cried softly, “Down, Radegonde!” and patted the monster’s head -with a pretty manner of endearment. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” she murmured, “hast thou broken thy faith with thy hunger? -Traitor!—but I will ask no questions. Here are thy comfits. My sweet, -remember thy pedigree and thy mistress.” -</p> - -<p> -She thrust a handful of sugar-plums into the great jaws. I could hear -the hound crunching them in her teeth. -</p> - -<p> -What was I to do?—what warning to give? This child—this frail -wind-flower of the night—the guillotine would have devoured her at a -snap, and laughed over the tit-bit! But I, and the nameless gluttons -of the ditch! -</p> - -<p> -They were there—part at least of one of those packs (recruited by -gradual degrees from the desolated homes of the proscribed—of -<i>émigrés</i>) that now were swollen to such formidable proportions as -to have become a menace and a nightly terror. The dogs were there, and -should they scent this tender quarry, what power was in a single -faithful hound to defend her against a half hundred, perhaps, of her -fellows. -</p> - -<p> -Sweating with apprehension, I stole down the steps. She was even then -preparing to retreat hurriedly as she had come. Her lips were pressed -to the beast’s wrinkled head. The sound of her footstep might have -precipitated the catastrophe I dreaded. -</p> - -<p> -“Citoyenne! citoyenne!” I whispered in an anguished voice. -</p> - -<p> -She looked up, scared and white in a moment. The dog gave a rolling -growl. -</p> - -<p> -“Radegonde!” she murmured, in a faint warning tone. -</p> - -<p> -The brute stood alert, her hair bristling. -</p> - -<p> -“Bid her away!” I entreated. “You are in danger.” -</p> - -<p> -She neither answered nor moved. -</p> - -<p> -“See, I am in earnest!” I cried, loud as I durst. “The wild dogs are -below there.” -</p> - -<p> -“Radegonde!” she murmured again. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, mademoiselle! What are two rows of teeth against a hundred. Send -her away, I implore you, and accept my escort out of this danger.” -</p> - -<p> -“My faith!” she said at last, in a queer little moving voice, “it may -be as the citizen says; but I think dogs are safer than men.” -</p> - -<p> -I urged my prayer. The beauty and courage of the child filled my heart -with a sort of rapturous despair. -</p> - -<p> -“God witness I am speaking for your safety alone! Will this prevail -with you? I am the Comte de la Muette. I exchange you that confidence -for a little that you may place in me. I lay my life in your hands, -and I beg the charge of yours in return.” -</p> - -<p> -I could hear her breathing deep where she stood. Suddenly she bent and -spoke to her companion. -</p> - -<p> -“To the secret place, Radegonde—and to-morrow again for thy -<i>confiture</i>, thou bad glutton. Kiss thy Nanette, my baby; and, oh, -Radegonde! not what falls from the table of Sainte Guillotine!” -</p> - -<p> -She stood erect, and held up a solemn finger. The hound slunk away, -like a human thing ashamed; showed her teeth at me as she passed, and -disappeared in the shadows of the scaffold. -</p> - -<p> -I took a hurried step forward. Near at hand the pure loveliness of -this citoyenne was, against its surroundings, like a flower floating -on blood. -</p> - -<p> -She smiled, and looked me earnestly in the face. We were but phantoms -to one another in that moony twilight; but in those fearful times men -had learned to adapt their eyesight to the second plague of darkness. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it true?” she said, softly. “Monsieur le Comte, it must be long -since you have received a curtsey.” -</p> - -<p> -She dropped me one there, bending to her own prettiness like a rose; -and then she gave a little low laugh. Truly that city of Paris saw -some strange meetings in the year of terror. -</p> - -<p> -“I, too,” she said, “was born of the <i>noblesse</i>. That is a secret, -monsieur, to set against yours.” -</p> - -<p> -I could but answer, with some concern— -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle, these confessions, if meet for the holy saint yonder, -are little for the ears of the devil’s advocates. I entreat let us be -walking, or those in the ditch may anticipate upon us his -benediction.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Ma foi!</i>” she said, “it is true. Come, then!” -</p> - -<p> -We went off together, stealing from the square like thieves. -Presently, when I could breathe with a half relief, “You will not go -to-morrow?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“To feed Radegonde! Ah, monsieur! I would not for the whole world lose -the little sweet-tooth her goodies. Each of us has only the other to -love in all this cruel city.” -</p> - -<p> -“So, my child! And they have taken the rest?” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, my father was the rest. He went on the seventeenth -Fructidor; and since, my veins do not run blood, I think, but only -ice-water, that melts from my heart and returns to freeze again.” -</p> - -<p> -I sighed. -</p> - -<p> -“Nay,” she said, “for I can laugh, as you see.” -</p> - -<p> -“And the dog, my poor child?” -</p> - -<p> -“She ran under the tumbril, and bit at the heels of the horses. She -would not leave him, monsieur; and still—and still she haunts the -place. I go to her,—when all the city is silent I go to her, if I can -escape, and take her the sweetmeats that she loves. What of that? It -is only a little while and my turn must come, and then Radegonde will -be alone. My hair, monsieur will observe, is the right colour for the -perukes.” -</p> - -<p> -She stayed me with a touch. -</p> - -<p> -“I am arrived. A thousand thanks for your escort, Monsieur le Comte.” -</p> - -<p> -We were by a low casement with a ledge before it—an easy climb from -the street. She pushed the lattice open, showing me it was unbolted -from within. -</p> - -<p> -“She thinks me fast and asleep,” she said. “Some day soon, perhaps, -but not yet.” -</p> - -<p> -I did not ask her who <i>she</i> was. I seemed all mazed in a silent dream -of pity. -</p> - -<p> -“It is quite simple,” she said, “when no cavalier is by to look. Will -the citizen turn his head?” -</p> - -<p> -She was up in an instant, and stepping softly into the room beyond, -leaned out towards me. On the moment an evil thing grew out of the -shadow of a buttress close by, and a wicked insolent face looked into -mine with a grin. -</p> - -<p> -“A sweet good-night to Monsieur le Comte,” it said, and vanished. -</p> - -<p> -Shocked and astounded, I stood rooted to the spot. But there came a -sudden low voice in my ear: -</p> - -<p> -“Quick, quick! have you no knife? You must follow!” -</p> - -<p> -I had taken but a single uncertain step, when, from a little way down -the street we had traversed, there cut into the night a sharp -attenuated howl; and, in a moment, on the passing of it, a chorus of -hideous notes swept upon me standing there in indecision. -</p> - -<p> -“My God!” I cried—“the dogs!” -</p> - -<p> -She made a sound like a plover. I scrambled to the ledge and dropped -into the room beyond. There in the dark she clutched and clung to me. -For though the cry had been bestial, there had seemed to answer to it -something mortal—an echo—a human scream of very dreadful -fear,—there came a rush of feet like a wind, and, with ashy faces, we -looked forth. -</p> - -<p> -They had him—that evil thing. An instant we saw his sick white face -thrown up like a stone in the midst of a writhing sea; and the jangle -was hellish. Then I closed the lattice, and pressed her face to my -breast. -</p> - -<p> -He had run from us to his doom, which meeting, he had fled back in his -terror to make us the ghastly sport he had designed should be his. -</p> - -<p> -How long we stood thus I know not. The noise outside was unnameable, -and I closed her ears with her hair, with my hands—nay, I say it with -a passionate shame, with my lips. She sobbed a little and moaned; but -she clung to me, and I could feel the beating of her heart. We had -heard windows thrown open down the street—one or two on the floors -above us. I had no heed or care for any danger. I was wrapt in a -fearful ecstasy. -</p> - -<p> -By-and-by she lifted her face. Then the noise had ceased for some -time, and a profound silence reigned about us. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” she said, in a faint reeling voice. “Radegonde was there; I saw -her!” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle—the noble creature—she hath won us a respite.” -</p> - -<p> -Her breath caught in the darkness. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she said. “There is a peruke that must wait.” -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly she backed from me, and put the hair from her eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“If you dare, monsieur, it necessitates that we make our adieux.” -</p> - -<p> -“Au revoir, citoyenne. It must be that, indeed.” -</p> - -<p> -She held out her hand, that was like a rose petal. I put my lips to it -and lingered. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, monsieur!” she entreated. -</p> - -<p> -The next moment I was in the street. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Who was my little citoyenne? Ah! I shall never know. The terror -gripped us, and these things passed. Incidents that would make the -passion of sober times, the spirit of revolution dismisses with a -shrug. To die in those days was such a vulgar complaint. -</p> - -<p> -But I saw her once more, and then when my heart nestled to her image -and my veins throbbed to her remembered touch. -</p> - -<p> -I was strolling, on the morning following my strange experience, in -the neighbourhood of the Champs Elysées, when I was aware of a great -press of people all making in the direction of that open ground. -</p> - -<p> -“What arrives, then, citizen?” I cried to one who paused for breath -near me. -</p> - -<p> -He gasped, the little morose. To ask any question that showed one -ignorant of the latest caprice of the Executive was almost to be -“suspect.” -</p> - -<p> -“Has not the citizen heard? The Committee of Safety has decreed the -destruction of the dogs.” -</p> - -<p> -“The dogs?” -</p> - -<p> -“Sacred Blood!” he cried. “Is it not time, when they take, as it is -said they did last night, a good friend of the Republic to supper?” -</p> - -<p> -He ran on, and I followed. All about the Champs Elysées was a -tumultuous crowd, and posted within were two battalions of the -National Guard, their blue uniforms resplendent, their flint-locks -shining in their hands. They, the soldiers, surrounded the area, save -towards the Rue Royale, where a gap occurred; and on this gap all eyes -were fixed. -</p> - -<p> -Scarcely was I come on the scene when on every side a laughing hubbub -arose. The dogs were being driven in, at first by twos and threes, but -presently in great numbers at a time. For hours, I was told, had half -the <i>gamins</i> of Paris been beating the coverts and hallooing their -quarry to the toils. -</p> - -<p> -At length, when many hundreds were accumulated in the free space, the -soldiers closed in and drove the skulking brutes through the gap -towards the Place Royale. And there they made a battue of it, shooting -them down by the score. -</p> - -<p> -With difficulty I made my way round to the <i>Place</i>, the better to view -the sport. The poor trapped <i>fripons</i> ran hither and thither, crying, -yelping—some fawning on their executioners, some begging to the -bullets, as if these were crusts thrown to them. And my heart woke to -pity; for was I not witnessing the destruction of my good friends? -</p> - -<p> -The noise—the volleying, the howling, the shrieking of the -<i>canaille</i>—was indescribable. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly my pulses gave a leap. I knew her—Radegonde. She was driven -into the fire and stood at bay, bristling. -</p> - -<p> -“Nanette!” cried a quick acid voice; “Nanette—imbecile—my God!” -</p> - -<p> -It all passed in an instant. There, starting from the crowd, was the -figure of a tall sour-featured woman, the tiny tricolour bow in her -scarlet cap; there was the thin excited musketeer, his piece to his -shoulder; there was my citoyenne flung upon the ground, her arms about -the neck of the hound. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Whether his aim was true or false, who can tell? He shot her through -her dog, and his sergeant brained him. And in due course his sergeant -was invited for his reward to look through the little window. -</p> - -<p> -These were a straw or two in the torrent of the revolution. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -It was Citizen Gaspardin who accepted the contract to remove the -carcasses (some three thousand of them) that encumbered the Place -Royale as a result of this drastic measure. However, his eye being -bigger than his stomach, as the saying is, he found himself short of -means adequate to his task and so applied for the royal equipages to -help him out of his difficulty. And these the Assembly, entering into -the joke, was moved to lend him; and the dead dogs, hearsed in gilt -and gingerbread as full as they could pack, made a rare procession of -it through Paris, thereby pointing half-a-dozen morals that it is not -worth while at this date to insist on. -</p> - -<p> -I saw the show pass amidst laughter and clapping of hands; and I saw -Radegonde, as I thought, her head lolling from the roof of the -stateliest coach of all. But her place should have been on the seat of -honour. -</p> - -<p> -And the citoyenne, the dark window, the ripping sound in the street, -and that bosom bursting to mine in agony? Episodes, my friend—mere -travelling sparks in dead ashes, that glowed an instant and vanished. -The times bristled with such. Love and hate, and all the kaleidoscope -of passion—pouf! a sigh shook the tube, and form and colour were -changed. -</p> - -<p> -But—but—but—ah! I was glad thenceforth not to shudder for my heart -when a <i>blonde perruque</i> went by me. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch10"> -CHAPTER X.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE AFFAIR OF THE CANDLES.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">Gardel</span>—one of the most eminent and amusing rascals of my -experience—is inextricably associated with my memories of the prison -of the Little Force. He had been runner to the Marquis de Kercy; and -that his vanity would by no means deny, though it should procure his -conviction ten times over. He was vivacious, and at all expedients as -ingenious as he was practical; and, while he was with us, the -common-room of La Force was a theatre of varieties. -</p> - -<p> -By a curious irony of circumstance, it fell to Madame, his former -châtelaine, to second his extravagances. For he was her -fellow-prisoner; and, out of all that motley, kaleidoscopic -assemblage, an only representative of the traditions of her past. She -indulged him, indeed, as if she would say, “In him, <i>mes amis</i>, you -see exemplified the gaieties that I was born to patronise and -applaud.” -</p> - -<p> -She was a small, faded woman, of thirty-five or so—one of those -colourless aristocrats who, lying under no particular ban, were -reserved to complete the tale of any <i>fournée</i> that lacked the -necessary number of loaves. It is humiliating to be guillotined -because fifty-nine are not sixty. But that, in the end, was her fate. -</p> - -<p> -I recall her the first evening of my incarceration, when I was -permitted to descend, rather late, to the <i>salle de récréation</i> of -the proscribed. She was seated, with other ladies, at the long table. -The music of their voices rippled under the vaulted ceiling. They -worked, these dear creatures—the decree depriving prisoners of all -implements and equipments not yet being formulated. Madame la Marquise -stitched proverbs into a sampler in red silk. She looked, perhaps, a -morsel slatternly for a <i>grande dame</i>, and her fine lace was torn. But -the sampler must not be neglected, for all that. Since the days she -had played at “Proverbs” (how often?) in the old paternal château, -her little philosophy of life had been all maxims misapplied. Her -sampler was as eloquent to her as was their knitting to the ladies in -the <i>Place du Trône</i>. Endowed with so noble a fund of sentiments, how -could they accuse her of inhumanity? I think she had a design to plead -“sampler” before Fouquier Tinville by-and-by. -</p> - -<p> -I had an opportunity presently to examine her work. “<i>A laver la tête -d’un Maure on perd sa lessive.</i>” She had just finished it—in Roman -characters, too, as a concession to the Directory. It was a -problem-axiom the Executive had resolved unanswerably—as I was bound -to tell her. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Comment?</i>” she asked, with a little sideling perk of her head, like -a robin. -</p> - -<p> -“Can madame doubt? It requests the black thing to sneeze once into the -basket; and, behold! the difficulty is surmounted.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Fi donc!</i>” she cried, and stole me a curious glance. Was I delirious -with the Revolution fever? -</p> - -<p> -“Of what do they accuse you, my friend?” she said kindly, by-and-by. -</p> - -<p> -“A grave offence, surely. There is little hope for me. I gave a -citizen ‘you’ instead of ‘thou.’” -</p> - -<p> -“So? But how men are thoughtless! Alas!” (She treated me to a little -proverb again.) “‘The sleeping cat needs not to be aroused.’” -</p> - -<p> -This was late in the evening, a little before the “lock up” hour was -arrived. -</p> - -<p> -Earlier, as I had entered, she lifted her eyebrows to Gardel, who -stood, her <i>chevalier d’honneur</i>, behind her chair. The man advanced -at once, with infinite courtesy, and bade me welcome, entirely in the -grand manner, to the society of La Force. -</p> - -<p> -“I have the honour to represent madame. This kiss I impress upon -monsieur’s hand is to be returned.” -</p> - -<p> -The ladies laughed. I advanced gravely and saluted the Marquise. -</p> - -<p> -“I restore it, like a medal blessed of the holy father, sanctified a -hundredfold,” I said. -</p> - -<p> -There was a mignonne seated near who was critical of my gallantry. -</p> - -<p> -“But monsieur is enamoured of his own lips,” she said in a little -voice. -</p> - -<p> -“Cruel!” I cried. “What should I mean but that I breathed into it all -that I have of reverence for beauty? If the citoyenne——” -</p> - -<p> -There was a general cry—“A fine! a fine!” -</p> - -<p> -The hateful word was interdicted under a penalty. -</p> - -<p> -“I pay it!” I said, and stooped and kissed the fair cheek. -</p> - -<p> -Its owner flushed and looked a little vexed, for all the general -merriment. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur cheapens his own commodities,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, mademoiselle! I know the best investments for my heart. I am a -very merchant of love. If you keep my embrace, I am well advertised. -If you return it, I am well enriched.” -</p> - -<p> -The idea was enough. Gardel invented a new game from it on the spot. -In a moment half the company was rustling and chattering and romping -about the room. -</p> - -<p> -M. Damézague’s “<i>Que ferons-nous demain matin?</i>”—that should have -been this vivacious Gardel’s epitaph. He could not be monotonous; he -could not be unoriginal; he could not rest anywhere—not even in his -grave. It was curious to see how he deluded la Marquise into the -belief that she was his superior. -</p> - -<p> -Indeed, these prisons afforded strange illustration of what I may call -the process of natural adjustments. Accidents of origin deprived of -all significance, one could select without any difficulty the souls to -whom a free Constitution would have ensured intellectual prominence. I -take Gardel as an instance. Confined within arbitrary limits under the -old <i>régime</i>, his personality here discovered itself masterful. His -resourcefulness, his intelligence, overcrowed us all, irresistibly -leaping to their right sphere of action. He had a little learning -even; but that was no condition of his emancipation. Also, he was not -wanting in that sort of courage with which one had not condescended -hitherto to accredit lackeys. No doubt in those days one was rebuked -by many discoveries. -</p> - -<p> -Yet another possession of his endeared him to all <i>misérables</i> in -this casual ward of the guillotine. He had a mellow baritone voice, -and a <i>répertoire</i> of playful and tender little folk-songs. Clélie -(it was she I had kissed; I never knew her by any other name) would -accompany him on the harp, till her head drooped and the <i>poudre -maréchale</i> from her hair would glitter red on the strings—not to -speak of other gentle dew that was less artificial. -</p> - -<p> -Then she would look up, with a pitiful mouth of deprecation. “<i>La -paix, pour Dieu, la paix!</i>” she would murmur. “My very harp weeps to -hear thee.” -</p> - -<p> -The pathos of his songs was not in their application. Perhaps he was -quit of worse grievances than those the Revolution presented to him. -Perhaps he was happier proscribed than enslaved. At any rate, he never -fitted music to modern circumstance. His subjects were sweet, -archaic—the mythology of the woods and pastures. It was in their -allusions to a withered spring-time that the sadness lay. For, believe -me, we were all Punchinellos, grimacing lest the terror of tears -should overwhelm us. -</p> - -<p> -There was a <i>chansonnette</i> of his, the opening words of which ran -somewhat as follows:— -</p> - -<div class="quote_o"><div class="quote_i"> -<p class="i0">“Oh, beautiful apple-tree!</p> -<p class="i1">Heavy with flowers</p> -<p class="i1">As my heart with love!</p> -<p class="i0">As a little wind serveth</p> -<p class="i1">To scatter thy blossom,</p> -<p class="i0">So a young lover only</p> -<p class="i1">Is needed to ravish</p> -<p class="i1">The heart from my bosom.”</p> -</div></div> - -<p> -This might be typical of all. We convinced ourselves that we caught in -them echoes of a once familiar innocence, and we wept over our lost -Eden. Truly the indulging of introspection is the opportunity of the -imagination. -</p> - -<p> -To many brave souls Gardel’s peasant ballads were the requiem— -</p> - -<div class="quote_o"><div class="quote_i"> -<p class="i0">“Passez, la Dormette,</p> -<p class="i0">Passez par chez nous!”—</p> -</div></div> - -<p class="noindent"> -and so comes the rascal Cabochon, our jailer, with his lowering -<i>huissiers</i>, and the ‘Evening Gazette’ in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“So-and-so, and So-and-so, and So-and-so, to the Conciergerie.” -</p> - -<p> -Then, if the runner had been singing, would succeed some little -emotions of parting—moist wistful eyes, and the echo of sobs going -down the corridor. -</p> - -<p> -Yet, more often, Cabochon would interrupt a romp, to which the -condemned would supplement a jocund exit. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Adieu, messieurs! adieu! adieu!</i> We cannot keep our countenances -longer. We kneel to Sanson, who shall shrive us—Sanson, the Abbé, -the exquisite, in whose presence we all lose our heads!” -</p> - -<p> -And so the wild hair and feverish eyes vanish. -</p> - -<p> -But it is of Gardel and the Marquise I speak. While many went and many -took their places, these two survived for a time. To the new, as to -the old, the rogue was unflagging in his attentions. His every respite -inspired him with fresh audacity; from each condemned he seemed to -take a certain toll of animation. -</p> - -<p> -Presently Madame and her emancipated servant, with Clélie and I, -would make a nightly habit of it to join forces in a bout of -“Quadrille.” We appropriated an upper corner of the long table, and -(for the oil lamps on the walls were dismally inadequate) we had our -four wax candles all regular—but in burgundy bottles for sconces. A -fifth bottle, with no candle, but charged with the ruddier light that -illuminates the heart, was a usual accompaniment. -</p> - -<p> -We chattered famously, and on many subjects. Hope a little rallied, -maybe, as each night brought Cabochon with a list innocent of our -names. -</p> - -<p> -Also we had our eccentricities, that grew dignified by custom. If, in -the game, “<i>Roi rendu</i>” was called, we paid, not with a fish, but with -a hair plucked from the head. It made Clélie cry; but not all from -loyalty. So, if the King of Hearts triumphed, its owner drank “<i>rubis -sur l’ongle</i>,” emptying his glass and tapping the edge of it three -times on his left thumb-nail. -</p> - -<p> -Now, I am to tell you of the black evening that at the last broke up -our coterie—of the frantic <i>abandon</i> of the scene, and the tragedy of -farce with which it closed. -</p> - -<p> -On that afternoon Gardel sparkled beyond his wont. He made the air -electric with animation. The company was vociferous for a romp, but at -present we four sat idly talkative over the disused cards. -</p> - -<p> -“M. Gardel, you remind me of a gnat-maggot.” -</p> - -<p> -“How, sir?” says Gardel. -</p> - -<p> -“It is without offence. Once, as a boy, I kept a tub of gold-fish. In -this the eggs of the little insect would be found to germinate. I used -to watch the tiny water-dragons come to the surface to take the air -through their tails—my faith! but that was comically like the France -of to-day. Now touch the water with a finger, and <i>pouf!</i> there they -were all scurried to the bottom in a panic, not to rise again till -assured of safety.” -</p> - -<p> -“That is not my way,” says Gardel. -</p> - -<p> -“Wait, my friend. By-and-by, nearing their transformation, these mites -plump out and lose their gravity. Then, if one frights them, they try -to wriggle down; their buoyancy resists. They may sink five—six -inches. It is no good. Up they come again, like bubbles in champagne, -to burst on the surface presently and fly away.” -</p> - -<p> -“And shall I fly, monsieur?” -</p> - -<p> -“To the stars, my brave Gardel. But is it not so? One cannot drive you -down for long.” -</p> - -<p> -“To-night, M. Thibaut” (such was my name in the prison -register)—“to-night, I confess, I am like a ‘Montgolfier.’ I rise, I -expand. I am full of thoughts too great for utterance. My -transformation must be near.” -</p> - -<p> -The Marquise gave a little cry— -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Je ne puis pas me passer de vous, François!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -The servant—the master—looked kindlily into the faded eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“I will come back and be with you in spirit,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“No, no!” she cried, volubly. “It is old-wives’ tales—the vapourings -of poets and mystics. Of all these murdered thousands, which haunts -the murderers?” -</p> - -<p> -I gazed in astonishment. This passive <i>douillette</i>, with the torn -lace! I had never known her assert herself yet but through the mouth -of her henchman. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh yes!” she went on shrilly, nodding her head. “Death, death, death! -But, if the dead return, this Paris should be a city of ghosts.” -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps it is,” said Gardel. -</p> - -<p> -“Fie, then!” she cried. “You forget your place; you presume upon my -condescension. It is insolent so to put me to school. ‘<i>Ma demeure -sera bientôt le néant.</i>’ It was Danton—yes, Danton—who said that. -He was a devil, but he could speak truth.” -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly she checked herself and gave a little artificial titter. She -was not transfigured, but debased. A jealous scepticism was revealed -in every line of her features. -</p> - -<p> -“And what is death to M. Gardel?” she said ironically. -</p> - -<p> -“It is an interruption, madame.” -</p> - -<p> -She burst forth again excitedly— -</p> - -<p> -“But Danton saw further than thee, thou fool, who, like a crab, -lookest not whither thou art going, and wilt run upon a blind wall -while thine eyes devour the landscape sidelong. I will not have it. I -do not desire any continuance. My faith is the faith of eyes and ears -and lips. Man’s necessities die with him; and, living, mine are for -thy strong arm, François, and for thy fruitful service. My God! what -we pass through! And then for a hereafter of horrible retrospection! -No, no. It is infamous to suggest, foolish to insist on it.” -</p> - -<p> -“But, for all that, I do,” said Gardel, steadily. -</p> - -<p> -He took her outburst quite coolly—answered her with gaiety even. -</p> - -<p> -I cried “<i>Malepeste!</i>” under my breath. And, indeed, my amazement was -justified. For who would have dreamed that this little colourless -draggle-tail had one sentiment in her that amounted to a conviction? -Madame Placide an atheist! And what was there of dark and secret in -her past history that drove her to this desire of extinction? -</p> - -<p> -At Gardel’s answer she fell back in her chair with defiant eyes and -again that little artificial laugh. In the noisy talk of the room we -four sat and spoke apart. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Malappris!</i>” she said. “You shall justify yourself of that boldness. -Come back to me, if you go first, and I will believe.” -</p> - -<p> -“Agreed!” he cried. “And for the sign, madame?” -</p> - -<p> -She thought; and answered, with the grateful womanliness that redeemed -her,— -</p> - -<p> -“Do me a little service—something, anything—and I shall know it is -you.” -</p> - -<p> -The candles were burned half-way down in their bottles. He rose and -one by one blew them out. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Voilà!</i>” he cried gaily. “To save your pocket!” -</p> - -<p> -So the little scene ended. -</p> - -<p> -“M. Gardel,” I said to him presently, “you come (you will pardon me) -of the makers of the Revolution. I am curious to learn your experience -of the premonitory symptoms of that disease to which at last you have -fallen a victim.” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur! ‘A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.’ It is an -early remembrance with me how my father cursed me that I passed my -eighth year, and so was liable to the salt-tax. My faith! I do not -blame him. Things were hard enough. But it was unreasonable to beat me -because I could not stop the march of Time. Yet we had not then -learned to worship Reason.” -</p> - -<p> -“The Moloch that devours her children!” -</p> - -<p> -“So it appears. But there were signs and omens for long years before. -I am of the territory of Berri, monsieur; and there all we learned to -read was between the lines. I will tell you that I heard—for I was in -service at the time” (he bowed with infinite complaisance to his -Marquise)—“how, all during the chill, dark spring that preceded the -September Massacres, <i>Les laveuses de la nuit</i> were busy at their -washing.” -</p> - -<p> -“And who are they, my friend?” -</p> - -<p> -“Strange, inhuman women, monsieur, who wash in the moonlight by lonely -tarns. And while they wash they wail.” -</p> - -<p> -“Wash? But what?” -</p> - -<p> -“Some say the winding-sheets of those who are to die during the year.” -</p> - -<p> -La Marquise broke into shrill laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“Poor, poor imbecile!” she cried. “Thy credulity would make but one -gulp of a gravestone. You must know these things are not, my friend. -I tell thee so—I, thy mistress. Miserable! have you nothing in your -life that not mountains of eternity could crush out the memory of?” -</p> - -<p> -Again she checked herself. -</p> - -<p> -“It is the one virtue of the Revolution to have decreed annihilation.” -</p> - -<p> -A deputation approached us. She jumped to her feet, her pale eyes -flickering. -</p> - -<p> -“But, yes!” she cried, “a game, a game! I acquit myself of these -follies. It is present life I desire. Messieurs, what is it to be? To -the front, François!” -</p> - -<p> -The man responded at a leap. The veins of all received the infection -of his wild humour. In a moment, chattering and pushing and giggling, -we were to take our places for “<i>Shadow Buff</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -We had no sheet. The dirty drab of the wall must suffice. A stool was -placed for the guesser—not yet appointed; and la Marquise’s four -candles, relighted, were placed on the table over against it, in a -receding row like a procession of acolytes. Between the candles and -the back of the guesser the company were to pass one by one, for -identification by means of the shadows cast on the wall. -</p> - -<p> -“Who shall take the stool?” -</p> - -<p> -The clamour echoed up to the vaulted stonework of the roof—and died. -Cabochon’s evil face was visible at the grille. -</p> - -<p> -He saw what we were at; the dull brute was sopped with drink and -bestially amiable. His key grated in the door and he stood before us, -his bodyguard supporting him, the fatal list in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he said, “but ‘<i>Shadow Buff</i>’ again? It is well timed. Yet I -could name some citizen shadows without sitting on the stool.” -</p> - -<p> -His voice guttered like a candle. It seemed to run into greasy drops. -</p> - -<p> -A wild inspiration seized me. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Voilà, citoyen!</i>” I cried. “You shall join us. You shall take your -victims from the wall!” -</p> - -<p> -In a moment I had snatched the dirty rag of paper out of his hand, and -had retreated with it a few paces. I had an instant to glance down the -list before he slouched at me in sodden anger. My heart gave a queer -little somersault and came upright again. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Sang Dieu!</i>” he growled, thickly. “You do well to jest. Give me the -paper, or I’ll brain you with my keys!” -</p> - -<p> -I dropped laughing upon the stool, and held the list between and under -my knees. With an oath he fell upon me. The company applauded it all -with a frenzy of mad mirth and frolic. -</p> - -<p> -The struggle was brief. He rose directly, puffing and cursing, the -paper in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -I affected a crestfallen good-humour. -</p> - -<p> -“You might have let us have our game out,” I protested. -</p> - -<p> -With his recovered authority in his hand, the rascal condescended to -some facetious tolerance. -</p> - -<p> -“So!” he said; “you play a good part. They should have you for King -George in ‘Le Dernier Jugement des Rois.’ But rest content. You shall -appear on a notable stage yet, and before an audience more -appreciative than that of the Théâtre de la République.” -</p> - -<p> -“And I shall know how to bow my thanks, citizen.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he crowed. “I love thee! Thou shalt have thy game and sit here; -and I will pick from the flock as thou numberest its tale.” -</p> - -<p> -It fell in with the reckless, dreadful humour of the times. I would -have withdrawn from the cruel jest, but it was the company of <i>les -misérables</i> that prevented me. -</p> - -<p> -Who should go first? There was a little hesitation and reluctance. -</p> - -<p> -“Come, hurry!” cried Cabochon, “or I must do my own guessing!” -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly a shadow glided past upon the wall. -</p> - -<p> -“No, no!” I muttered. -</p> - -<p> -“Name it, name it!” chuckled the jailer. The grinning <i>sans-culottes</i> -at the door echoed his demand vociferously. -</p> - -<p> -“Gardel!” I murmured faintly. The leading spirit had, -characteristically, been the first to enter the breach. -</p> - -<p> -“Good,” croaked Cabochon, referring to his list. “Citizen shadow, you -are marked for judgment.” -</p> - -<p> -I rose hurriedly from the stool. -</p> - -<p> -“I will no more of it!” I cried. -</p> - -<p> -“What!—already? My faith! a nerveless judge.” -</p> - -<p> -Instantly a figure pressed forward and took my place. -</p> - -<p> -“Pass, pass, good people!” it cried, “and <i>I</i> will call the tale!” -</p> - -<p> -She sat there—the Marquise—her lips set in an acrid smile. Neither -look nor word did she address to her forfeited servant. -</p> - -<p> -Another shadow passed. -</p> - -<p> -“Darviane!” she cried shrilly. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Encore bien</i>,” roared Cabochon amidst shrieks of laughter. My God, -what laughter! -</p> - -<p> -Milet, De Mérode, Fontenay—she named them all. They took their -places by the door, skipping—half-hysterical. -</p> - -<p> -D’Aubiers, Monville—I cannot recall a moiety of them. It was a -destructive list. Clélie also was in it—poor Clélie, the frail, I -fear, but with the big heart. I fancied I noticed a harder ring in -Madame’s voice as she identified her. -</p> - -<p> -I stood stupidly in the background. Presently I heard Cabochon— -</p> - -<p> -“Enough! enough! The virtuous citizens would forestall the Executive.” -</p> - -<p> -He numbered up his list rapidly, counted his prisoners. They tallied. -</p> - -<p> -“To be repeated to-morrow,” he said. “It is good sport. But the -guessers, it seems, remain.” -</p> - -<p> -He treated us to a grin and a clumsy bow, gave the order to form, and -carried off his new batch to the baking. -</p> - -<p> -As the door clanged upon them I gave a deep gasp. I could not believe -in the reality of my respite. -</p> - -<p> -For the thinned company the reaction had set in immediately: women -were flung prostrate, on the table, over the benches, wailing out -their desperate loss and misery. -</p> - -<p> -Madame made her way to me. The strange smile had not left her mouth. -</p> - -<p> -“You were on the list. I saw it in your face.” -</p> - -<p> -“I was at the bottom—the very last.” -</p> - -<p> -“But how——?” -</p> - -<p> -“As Cabochon struggled with me, I turned my name down and tore it -off.” -</p> - -<p> -“But the number?” -</p> - -<p> -“It tallied. It was enough for him.” -</p> - -<p> -“They must find it out—to-morrow, when the prisoners are arraigned.” -</p> - -<p> -“Probably. And in the meantime we will drink to our poor Gardel’s -acquittal.” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” she said, shrinking back, with an extraordinary look. “If I wish -him well, I wish him eternal forgetfulness.” -</p> - -<p> -<br> -</p> - -<p> -It was the evening of the day succeeding. Shorn of our partners in -“Quadrille,” Madame and I had been playing “Piquet.” -</p> - -<p> -We were only two, but the four lights flickered in their bottles. -</p> - -<p> -La Marquise de Kercy had been musing. Suddenly she looked up. Her eyes -were full of an inhuman mockery. -</p> - -<p> -“The candles!” she said, with a little laugh. “We are no longer using -them. To save my pocket, François!” -</p> - -<p> -<i>Pouf!</i> a candle went out—another, another, another; between each the -fraction of time occupied by something unseen moving round -systematically. -</p> - -<p> -I started to my feet with a suppressed cry. -</p> - -<p> -One or two sitting near us complained of this churlish economy of wax. -They imagined I was the culprit. -</p> - -<p> -“Madame!” I muttered. “Look! she is indisposed!” -</p> - -<p> -Her face was white and dreadful, like a skull. Hearing my voice she -sat up. -</p> - -<p> -“So! He has been guillotined!” she said. -</p> - -<p> -She articulated with difficulty, swallowing and panting without stop. -</p> - -<p> -“M. Thibaut, it is true, then, they say! But it was he made me kill -the child. He has more need to forget than I. Is it not appalling? If -I tell them now how I have learnt to fear, they will surely spare me. -I cannot subscribe to their doctrines—that Club of the Cordeliers. If -I tell them so—Danton being gone——” -</p> - -<p> -Her voice tailed off into a hurry of pitiful sobs and cries. I -welcomed the entrance of Cabochon with his list. -</p> - -<p> -Her name was first on it. -</p> - -<p> -As we stood arisen, dreading some hideous scene, she fell silent quite -suddenly, got to her feet, and walked to the door with a face of -stone. -</p> - -<p> -“Death is an interruption.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Ma demeure sera bientôt le néant.</i>” -</p> - -<p> -Which could one hope for her, pondering only that delirious outcry -from her lips? -</p> - -<p> -Possibly, indeed, she had been mad from first to last. -</p> - -<p> -I had time to collect my thoughts, for—from whatever cause—Citizen -Tinville had, it appeared, overlooked me. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch11"> -CHAPTER XI.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">PYRAMUS AND THISBE.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">I was</span> taking exercise one forenoon in the yard of the prison. It was -the last black “Prairial” of the “Terror”—the month, like the girl La -Lune, once dedicate to Mary—and its blue eyes curiously scrutinised, -as Cleopatra’s of old, the processes amongst us slaves of that poison -that is called despair. -</p> - -<p> -As for myself, I yet a little consorted with Hope—the fond clinging -mistress I had dreaded to find banished with the rest of the dear -creatures whose company had long now been denied us;—for five months -had passed since my incarceration, and I was still, it seemed, -forgotten. -</p> - -<p> -I trod the flags—fifty paces hither and thither. Going one way, I had -always before my eyes the frowzy stone rampart and barred windows of -the prison. Going the other, an execrable statue of M. -Rousseau—surmounting an altar to Liberty, the very cement of which -was marbled with the blood of the massacres—closed my perspective. To -my either hand was a lofty wall—the first giving upon the jailers’ -quarters; the second dividing the men’s yard from that in which the -women were permitted to walk; and a foul open sewer, tunnelled through -the latter about its middle, traversed the entire area, and offered -the only means by which the sexes could now communicate with each -other. -</p> - -<p> -“M. Thibaut,” said a voice at my ear; and a gentleman, detaching -himself from the aimless and loitering crowd of prisoners, adapted his -pace to mine and went with me to and fro. -</p> - -<p> -I knew this oddity—M. the Admiral de St Prest—though he had no -recognition of me. That, however, was small wonder. By this time I was -worse than a <i>sans-culotte</i>, by so much as that my bareness was -suggested rather than revealed. My face was sunk away from my eyes, -like soft limestone from a couple of ammonites; my ribs were loose -hoops on a decayed cask; laughter rattled in my stomach like a pea in -a whistle. Besides, I had come, I think, to be a little jealous of my -title to neglect, for I had made that my grievance against Fate. -</p> - -<p> -Nevertheless, M. de St Prest and I had been slightly acquainted once -upon a time, and it had grieved me to see this red month marked by the -advent in La Force of the dubious old fop. -</p> - -<p> -He had been a macaroni of Louis XV.’s Court, and the ancient <i>rôle</i> -he had never learnt to forego. The poor puppies of circumstance—the -fops of a more recent date, to whom the particular cut of a lapel -would figure as the standard of reason—bayed him in the prison as -they would have bayed him in the streets. To them, with their high -top-boots <i>à l’Anglaise</i>, poor St Prest’s spotted breeches and -knee-ribbons were a source of profound amusement. To them, affecting -the huskiness of speech of certain rude islanders (my very good -friends), his mincing falsetto was a perpetual incitement to laughter. -Swaggering with their cudgels that they called “constitutions,” they -would strike from under him the elaborate tasselled staff on which he -leaned; tossing their matted manes, they would profess to find -something exquisitely exhilarating in the complicated <i>toupet</i> that -embraced and belittled his lean physiognomy. I held them all poor -apes; yet, I confess, it was a ridiculous and pathetic sight, this -posturing of an old wrecked man in the tatters of a bygone generation; -and it gave me shame to see him lift his plate of a hat to me with a -little stick, as the fashion was in his younger days. -</p> - -<p> -“M. Thibaut,” he said, falling into step with me, “these young bloods” -(he signified with his cane a group that had been baiting him)—“they -worry me, monsieur. <i>Mort de ma vie!</i> what manners! what a presence! -It shall need a butcher’s steel to bring their wits to an edge.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur,” said I—“have you not the self-confidence to despise -personalities? The fool hath but a narrow world of conventions, and -everything outside it is to him abnormal. His head is a drumstick to -produce hollow sounds within a blank little area. For my part, I never -hear one holding the great up to ridicule without thinking, There is -wasted a good stone-cutter of epitaphs.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Eh bien</i>, monsieur! but I have been accustomed to leave the study of -philosophy to my lackeys.” -</p> - -<p> -He spoke in a lofty manner, waving his hand at me; and he took snuff -from a battered wooden box, and flipped his fingers to his thumb -afterwards as if he were scattering largesse of fragrance. -</p> - -<p> -“So, you have a royal contempt of personalities?” he said, with a -little amused tolerance. -</p> - -<p> -“Why,” said I—“I am not to be put out of conceit with myself because -an ass brays at me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Or out of countenance, monsieur?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, M. de St Prest! That would be to lose my head on small -provocation. Besides, one must admit the point of view. M. Malseigne -there surveys the world over the edge of a great stock; you, monsieur, -regard it with your chin propped upon a fine fichu. No doubt Sanson -thinks a wooden cravat <i>comme il faut</i>; and I—<i>fichtre!</i> I cry in my -character of patriot, ‘There is nothing like the collar of a -carmagnole to keep one’s neck in place!’ Truly, M. l’Amiral, I for one -am not touchy about my appearance.” -</p> - -<p> -His old eyes blinked out a diluted irony. -</p> - -<p> -“And that is very natural,” he said; “but then, <i>mort de ma vie!</i> you -are a philosopher—like him there.” -</p> - -<p> -He pointed to the statue of Rousseau. The libellous block wrought in -him, it seemed, a mood of piping retrospection. -</p> - -<p> -“I saw the rascal once,” he said—“a mean, common little man, in a -round wig. He was without air or presence. It was at the theatre. The -piece was one of M. de Sauvigny’s, and he sat in the author’s box, a -<i>loge grillée</i>. That was a concession to his diffidence; but his -diffidence had been too much consulted, it seemed. He would have the -grate opened, and then the house recognised and applauded him, and -finally forgot him for the <i>Persiffleur</i>. He was very angry at that, -I believe. We heard it lost the author his friendship. He accused him -of having made a show of him, and—<i>Mort de ma vie!</i> that is to be a -philosopher.” -</p> - -<p> -He ogled and bowed to a stout kindly-looking woman who, coming from -the jailers’ quarters, passed us at the moment. It was Madame Beau, -the keeper of La Force—the only one there in authority whose sense of -humanity had not gone by the board. A ruffianly warder, leading a -great wolf-hound, preceded her. She nodded to us brightly and -stopped— -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, M. Thibaut! but soon we shall call you the father of La Force.” -</p> - -<p> -“As you are its mother, madame.” -</p> - -<p> -“Poor children. But, after all, if one considers it as a club——” -</p> - -<p> -“True; where one may feast like Belshazzar. Yet, I find, one may have -a surfeit of putrid herrings, even though one is to die on the -morrow.” -</p> - -<p> -Madame shrugged her shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, bah! the stuff is supplied by contract. I am not to blame, my -little fellows. Yet some of you manage better.” (She pointed to the -retreating hound.) “<i>Voilà le délinquent!</i> He was caught -red-handed—discussing the bribe of a sheep’s trotter; and his -sentence is five hours in a cell.” -</p> - -<p> -She nodded again and jingled her keys. -</p> - -<p> -“But, yes,” she said, “consider it as a club——” and off she went -across the yard. -</p> - -<p> -“A club? Oh, <i>mon Dieu</i>!” murmured St Prest. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said I, “I am inclined to fall in with the idea. What livelier -places of sojourn are there, in these days of gravity and decorum, -than the prisons?” -</p> - -<p> -He pursed his lips and wagged his old head like a mandarin. -</p> - -<p> -“At least,” he said, leeringly, “she is a fine figure of a woman. She -dates, like myself, from the era of the <i>Bien-aimé</i>, when women knew -how to walk and to hold themselves; and to reveal themselves, too. -<i>Oh, je m’entends bien!</i> I have been entertained in the <i>Parc aux -cerfs</i>, M. Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -I could certainly believe it. This effete old carpet-admiral? Had he -ever smelt salt water? I could understand, perhaps, that he had -crossed in the packet to the land of fogs. But now he was to exhibit -himself to me in a more honourable aspect—to confess the man under -the powder and the rubbish. -</p> - -<p> -We stood close by where the wall was pierced by the running sewer. The -whole yard was alive with laughter and babble; and now and again one -would leave a friend or party of triflers and, kneeling down over the -infected sink, would call some name through the opening. Then, -summoned to the other side, Lucille, poor <i>ange déchu</i>, would -exchange a few earnest pitiful words with husband or brother or lover, -and her tears, perhaps, would fall into the gushing drain and sanctify -its abomination to him. Was not that for love to justify itself in the -eyes of the most unnatural misogynist? -</p> - -<p> -Now there came up to the trap a pale little fellow—the merest child. -It was little Foucaud, the son of Madame Kolly. This poor lad must be -held a man (God save him!) when misfortune overtook his family; but -the scoundrels had the grace to consign his younger brother to the -company of his mother on the woman’s side. And here, through this sink -opening, the two babes would converse in their sad little trebles two -or three times a-day. -</p> - -<p> -“How now, my man?” said St Prest; for the boy stood wistfully watching -us, his hands picking together and his throat swelling. Then all at -once he was weeping. -</p> - -<p> -The old fop gently patted the heaving shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur,” said the youngster, in a hoarse little voice, “the -cold of the stones is in my throat and on my chest.” -</p> - -<p> -“What then, child! That is not to be guillotined.” -</p> - -<p> -“But I cannot cry out so that he shall hear me; and if we do not talk -I know nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -In a paroxysm of agitation he threw himself down by the sewer. -</p> - -<p> -“Lolo, Lolo!” he tried to call; but his voice would not obey his will. -</p> - -<p> -And then M. de St Prest did a thing, the self-sacrificing quality of -which shall be known in full, perhaps, only to the angels. He took the -lad under the arms and, lifting him away, himself knelt down in all -his nicety by the sink and put his mouth to the opening. -</p> - -<p> -“The little Foucaud,” he piped, “desires to see his brother!” -</p> - -<p> -Presently he looked up. -</p> - -<p> -“He is here, child.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur! will you explain that I cannot speak, and ask him how -is <i>maman</i>?” -</p> - -<p> -The message was given. I heard the poor little voice answer through -the wall: “<i>Maman</i> sends her love to you. She has not wept so much the -last night, and she has been sleeping a little. It is Lolo, who loves -you well, that tells you this.” -</p> - -<p> -I assisted St Prest to rise. -</p> - -<p> -“I will ask the honour,” I said, “of dusting M. l’Amiral’s coat for -him.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -That same afternoon, as I was again, during the hour of exercise, -standing near the sewer, of a sudden I heard a most heartrending voice -calling from the other side of the wall. -</p> - -<p> -“Messieurs! messieurs!” it cried. “Will no one send to me my darling?” -</p> - -<p> -I dropped upon my knees (I give all honour to M. de St Prest), and, -with a shudder of nausea, lowered my face to the opening. -</p> - -<p> -“Who speaks?” I said. “I am at madame’s service.” -</p> - -<p> -The voice caught in a sob. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Je vous rends grâce</i>—whoever you are, I thank you from my heart. -It is my little Foucaud, my dearest, that must come to his <i>maman</i>, -and quickly.” -</p> - -<p> -I answered that I would summon him, and I rose to my feet. I had no -difficulty in finding the boy. He came, white-faced and wondering, and -knelt down. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Maman, maman</i>—canst thou hear me? My throat is a little hoarse, -<i>maman</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, my baby, my little son! Thou wilt be sweet and tender with Lolo -in the happy days that are coming. And thou wilt never forget -<i>maman</i>—say it, say it, lest her heart should break.” -</p> - -<p> -God of mercy! Who was I to stand and listen to these pitiful -confidences! I drew aside, watchful only of the boy lest his grief and -terror should drive him mad. In a moment a white hand, laden with a -dark thick coil of hair, was thrust through the opening. It was all -the unhappy woman could leave her darling to remember her by. No -glimpse of her face—no touch of her lips on his. From the dark into -the dark she must go, and his very memory of her should be associated -with the most dreadful period of his life. When they came for her in -another instant, I heard the agony of her soul find vent in a single -cry: “My lambs, alone amongst the wolves!” -</p> - -<p> -Kind Madame Beau was there beside me. -</p> - -<p> -“Lift him up,” she whispered. “He will be motherless in an hour.” -</p> - -<p> -As I stooped to take the sobbing and hysterical child in my arms, I -heard a voice speak low on the other side of the wall— -</p> - -<p> -“It is only an interruption, madame.” -</p> - -<p> -Gardel’s words—but the speaker! -</p> - -<p> -I stumbled with my burden—recovered myself, and consigned the boy to -the good soul that awaited him. Then hurriedly I leaned down again, -and hurriedly cried, “Carinne! Carinne!” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -There was no answer. Probably the speaker had retreated when the -wretched Madame Kolly was withdrawn from the wall. I called again. I -dwelt over the noxious gutter in excitement and anguish until I was -convinced it was useless to remain. Was it this, then? that out of all -the voices of France one voice could set my heart vibrating like a -glass vessel that responds only to the striking of its single -sympathetic note? I had thought to depose this idol of an hour from -its shrine; I had cried shame upon myself for ever submitting my -independence to the tyranny of a woman, and here a half-dozen words -from her addressed to a stranger had reinfected me with the fever of -desire. -</p> - -<p> -I got out a scrap of paper and wrote thereon, “<i>Jacob to Rachel. -Jean-Louis is still in the service of Mademoiselle de Lâge.</i>” -</p> - -<p> -I found a fragment of stick, notched the paper into the end of it, and -gingerly passed my billet through the hole in the wall. On the instant -a great voice uttered a malediction behind me, and I was jerked -roughly down upon the flags. My end of the stick dropped into the -gutter and wedged itself in slime. I looked up. Above me were Cabochon -and a yellow-faced rascal. This last wore a sword by his side and on -his head a high-crowned hat stuffed with plumes. I had seen him -before—Maillard, l’Abbaye Maillard, a hound with a keen enough scent -for blood to make himself a lusty living. He and his colleague Héron -would often come to La Force to count their victims before following -them to the scaffold. -</p> - -<p> -“Plots—plots!” he muttered, shaking his head tolerantly, as if he -were rebuking a child. “See to it, Citizen Cabochon.” -</p> - -<p> -The jailer fetched back the stick. The paper, however, was gone from -the end of it. -</p> - -<p> -“It will be in the sewer,” said Maillard, quietly. -</p> - -<p> -Cabochon had no scruples. He groped with his fingers. -</p> - -<p> -“It is not here,” he said after a time, eyeing me and very malignant. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said the other, “who is this fellow?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mordi</i>, Citizen President; he is a forgotten jackass that eats his -head off in the revolutionary stable.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Vraiment?</i> Then, it follows, his head must fall into the -revolutionary manger.” -</p> - -<p> -He nodded pleasantly twice or thrice; then turned and, beckoning -Cabochon to walk by him, strode away. -</p> - -<p> -I sat in particular cogitation against the wall. For the present, it -seemed, I enjoyed a distinction that was not attractive to my -fellow-prisoners; and I was left religiously to myself. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” said I aloud, “I have grown such a beard that at last the -national barber must take me in hand.” -</p> - -<p> -“M. Jean-Louis,” said a voice the other side of the trap, “will you -keep me kneeling here for ever?” -</p> - -<p> -I started and flung myself face downwards with a cry of joy. My heart -swelled in a moment so that it drove the tears up to my eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Carinne!” I cried, choking and half-sobbing; “is it thou indeed?” -</p> - -<p> -“Creep through the little hole,” she said, “and thou shalt see.” -</p> - -<p> -I laughed and I cried in a single breath. -</p> - -<p> -“Say what thou wilt, <i>ma fillette</i>. Yes, I will call thee as I choose. -Didst thou hear but now? I think it is a dying man that speaks to -thee. Carinne, say after all you keep a place in your heart for the -little odd Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -“Insidious! thou wouldst seek to devour the whole, like a little worm -in a gall.” -</p> - -<p> -“To hear your voice again! We are always shadows to one another now. -As a shadow I swear that I love you dearly. Oh, <i>ma mie, ma mie</i>, I -love you so dearly. And why were you cruel to leave me for that small -gust of temper I soon repented of? Carinne! My God! she is gone away!” -</p> - -<p> -“I am here, little Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -“There is a sound in your voice. Oh, this savage unyielding wall! I -will kiss it a foot above the trap. Will you do the same on the other -side?” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur forgets himself, I think.” -</p> - -<p> -“He is light-headed with joy. But he never forgets Mademoiselle de -Lâge—not though she punished him grievously for an indifferent -offence in the forests of Chalus.” -</p> - -<p> -“Jean-Louis, listen well to this: I was abducted.” -</p> - -<p> -“My God! by whom?” -</p> - -<p> -“By a vile citizen Representative journeying to Paris.” -</p> - -<p> -“By a——” -</p> - -<p> -“I had emerged from the trees after you left me, and was sitting very -passionate by the road, when he passed with his escort and discovered -me.” -</p> - -<p> -I kneeled voiceless as if I were stunned. -</p> - -<p> -“What would you!” said Carinne. “There was no Thibaut at hand to throw -him to the pigs. He forced me to go with him, and——” -</p> - -<p> -I vented a groan that quite rumbled in the gutter; and at that her -voice came through the hole a little changed— -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur has a delicate faith in what he professes to love.” -</p> - -<p> -I beat my hands on the wall. I cried upon Heaven in my agony to let me -reach through this inexorable veil of stone. -</p> - -<p> -“You talked once of the wicked licence of the times. How could I know, -oh, <i>ma mie</i>! And now all my heart is melting with love and rapture.” -</p> - -<p> -“But I had a knife, Jean-Louis. Well, but he was courteous to me; and -at that I told him who I was—no jill-flirt, but an unhappy waif of -fortune. Now, <i>mon Dieu</i>!—it turned out that this was the very man -that had come <i>en mission</i> to Pierrettes.” -</p> - -<p> -“Lacombe?” -</p> - -<p> -“No—a creature of the name of Crépin——” -</p> - -<p> -I uttered a cry. -</p> - -<p> -“Crépin! It was he that carried thee away?” -</p> - -<p> -“Truly; and who has, for my obduracy, consigned me to prison. Ever -since, little Thibaut, ever since—now at Les Carmes; now in the Rue -de Sèvres; at last, no later than yesterday, to this ‘extraordinary -question’ of La Force.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now thou art a sweet-souled Carinne! Send me something of thine -through the evil passage that I may mumble it with my lips. Carinne, -listen,”—and I told her the story of my connection with the villain. -</p> - -<p> -“I would wring his neck if they would spare mine,” I said. “But, alas! -I fear I am doomed, Carinne.” -</p> - -<p> -She had from me all the details in brief of my captivity. <i>Mon Dieu!</i> -but it was ecstasy this dessert to my long feast of neglect. At the -end she was silent a space; then she said very low— -</p> - -<p> -“He communicates with me; but I never answer. Now I will do so, and -perhaps thou shalt not die.” -</p> - -<p> -“Carinne.” -</p> - -<p> -“Hush, thou small citizen! The time is up; we must talk no longer.” -</p> - -<p> -I breathed all my heart out in a sigh of farewell. I thought she had -already gone, when suddenly she spoke again— -</p> - -<p> -“Jean-Louis, Jean-Louis, do you hear?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“I would have thee just the height for thine eyes to look into mine.” -</p> - -<p> -“Carinne? And what should they read there?” -</p> - -<p> -Again there was a pause, again I thought she had gone; and then once -more her voice came to me— -</p> - -<p> -“Little Thibaut, I <i>did</i> kiss the wall a foot above the trap.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -“Madame Beau,” said I, “when you shall be nearing old age—that is to -say, when your present years double themselves—it is very certain -that your lines will fall in pleasant places.” -</p> - -<p> -“And where will they be?” said she. -</p> - -<p> -“Where, but round your fine eyes and the dimples of your mouth!” -</p> - -<p> -She cried, “<i>Oh, qu’il est malin!</i>” and tapped my shoulder archly with -a great key she held in her hand. -</p> - -<p> -“And what is the favour you design to ask of me?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Firstly your permission to me to dedicate some verses to you,” said -I. “After that, that you will procure me the immediate delivery of -this little tube of paper.” -</p> - -<p> -“To whom is it addressed?” -</p> - -<p> -“To one Crépin, who lives in the Rue de Jouy, St Antoine.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Croyez m’en!</i>” she cried. “Do you not see I have dropped my key?” -</p> - -<p> -Then, as I stooped to pick up the instrument which she had let fall on -the pavement, “Slip the little paper into the barrel!” she muttered. -</p> - -<p> -I did so; and these were the words I had written on it:— -</p> - -<div class="letter"> - -<p> -“<i>I am imprisoned in La Force for any reason or none. It concerns me -only in that I am thereby debarred from vindicating upon your body the -honour of Mademoiselle de Lâge. If it gives you any shame to hear -that towards this victim of your base persecution, I, your one-time -comrade, entertain and have long entertained sentiments of the most -profound regard, prevail with yourself, I beseech you, to procure the -enlargement of a lady whose only crimes—as things are judged -nowadays—are her innocence and her beauty.</i> -</p> - -<p class="sign2"> -“<i><span class="sc">Jean-Louis Thibaut</span></i>.” -</p> - -</div> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Of all the degradations to which we in the prison were subjected, none -equalled that that was a common condition of our nightly herding. -Then—so early as eight o’clock during the darker months—would appear -the foul Cabochon—with his satellites and three or four brace of -hounds—to drive us like cattle to our sleeping-pens. Bayed into the -corridors, from which our cells opened, we must answer to our names -bawled out by a crapulous turnkey, who held in his jerking hands, and -consulted with his clouded eyes, a list that at his soberest he could -only half decipher. He calls a name—probably of one that has already -paid the penalty. There is no answer. The ruffian bullies and curses, -while the survivors explain the matter to him. He sulkily acquiesces; -shouts the tally once more, regardless of the hiatus—of course only -to repeat the error. Amidst a storm of menaces we are all ordered out -of our rooms, and this again and yet again, perhaps, until the beast -satisfies himself or is satisfied that none is skulking, and that -nothing is in error but his own drunken vision. Then at last the dogs -are withdrawn, the innumerable doors clanged to and barred, and we are -left, sealed within a fetid atmosphere, to salve our wounded dignity -as we can with the balm of spiritual self-possession. -</p> - -<p> -But now, on this particular evening, conscious of something in my -breast that overcrowed the passionless voice of philosophy, I felt -myself uplifted and translated—an essence impressionable to no -influence that was meaner than divine. -</p> - -<p> -“And who knows,” I said to myself, as we were summoned from the yard, -“but that Quatremains-Quatrepattes might have pronounced Carinne to be -the bright star in my horoscope?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not so fast, citizen,” growled Cabochon, who stood, list in hand, at -the door. -</p> - -<p> -“Rest content,” said I; “I am never in a hurry.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Par exemple!</i> you grow a little rusty, perhaps, for a notable actor. -It is well, then, that you have an engagement at last.” -</p> - -<p> -“To perform? And where, M. Cabochon?” -</p> - -<p> -“In the Palais de Justice. That is a theatre with a fine box, citizen; -and the verdict of those that sit in it is generally favourable—to -the public.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch12"> -CHAPTER XII.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE MOUSE-TRAP.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">Was</span> I so very small? I had the honour of a tumbril all to myself on -my journey to the Conciergerie, and I swear that I could have thought -I filled it. But Mademoiselle de Lâge was the pretty white heifer -that had caused me to puff out my sides in emulation of her large -nobility—me, yes, of whom she would have said, as the bull of the -frog, “<i>Il n’était pas gros en tout comme un œuf</i>.” Now I was -travelling probably to my grave; yet the exaltation of that interview -still dwelt with me, and I thought often of some words that had once -been uttered by a certain Casimir Bertrand: “To die with the wine in -one’s throat and the dagger in one’s back! What could kings wish for -better?” -</p> - -<p> -We came down upon the sullen prison by way of the Pont au Change and -the Quay d’Horloge, and drew up at a door on the river-side. I saw a -couple of turrets, with nightcap roofs, stretch themselves, as if -yawning, above me. I saw in a wide angle of the gloomy block of -buildings, where the bridge discharged itself upon the quay, a vast -heap of newly thrown-up soil where some excavations were being -conducted; and from the mound a sort of crane or scaffold, sinisterly -suggestive of a guillotine surmounting a trench dug for its dead, -stood out against a falling crimson sky. The river hummed in its -course; above a green spot on the embankment wall a cloud of dancing -midges seemed to boil upwards like steam from a caldron. Everything -suggested to me the <i>mise en scène</i> of a rehearsing tragedy, and then -promptly I was haled, like an inanimate “property,” into the -under-stage of that dark “theatre of varieties.” -</p> - -<p> -Messieurs the jailers, it appeared, were at their supper, and would -not for the moment be bothered with me. A gush of light and a violent -voice issued from a door to one side of a stony vestibule: “Run the -rascal into La Souricière, and be damned to him!” -</p> - -<p> -Thereat I was hurried, by the “blue” that was responsible for my -transfer, and an understrapper with the keys, by way of a gloomy -course—up and down—through doorways clinched with monstrous -bolts—under vaulted stone roofs where spiders, blinded by the lamp -glare, shrank back into crevices, and where all the mildew of -desolation sprouted in a poisonous fungus—along passages deeply -quarried, it seemed, into the very foundations of despair; and at last -they stopped, thrust me forward, and a door clapped to behind me with -a slam of thunder. -</p> - -<p> -I stood a moment where I was and caught at my bewildered faculties. It -took me, indeed, but a moment to possess myself of them. In those days -one had acquired a habit of wearing one’s wits unsheathed in one’s -belt. Then I fell to admiring the quite unwonted brilliancy of the -illumination that pervaded the cell. It was a particularly small -chamber—perhaps ten feet by eight or so—and consequently the single -lighted candle, held in a cleft stick the butt of which was thrust -into a chink in the stones, irradiated it to its uttermost corner. The -furniture was artless in its simplicity—a tub, a broken pitcher of -water, and two heaps of foul straw. But so abominable a stench filled -the place that no doubt there was room for little else. -</p> - -<p> -Now, from one of the straw beds, the figure of a man—my sole comrade -to be, it would appear—rose up as I stirred, and stood with its back -and the palms of its hands pressed against the wall. Remaining thus -motionless, the shadows blue in its gaunt cheeks, and little husks of -wheat caught in its dusty hair, it fixed me with eyes like staring -pebbles. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Défense d’entrer!</i>” it snapped out suddenly, and shut its mouth -like a gin. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur!” said I, “no going out, rather, for the mouse in the -trap.” -</p> - -<p> -He lifted one of his arms at right angles to his body, and let it drop -again to his side. -</p> - -<p> -“Behold!” he cried, “the peril! Hadst thou been closer thy head had -fallen!” -</p> - -<p> -“But thine,” said I. “Hast thou not already lost it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, early in the struggle, monsieur! Oh, very early! And then my soul -passed into the inanimate instrument of death and made it animate.” -</p> - -<p> -“What! thou art the guillotine itself?” -</p> - -<p> -“Look at me, then! Is it not obvious that I am that infernal engine, -nor less that I am informed with the <i>ego</i> that once was my victim and -is now my familiar—being myself, in effect?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Pardieu!</i> this is worse than the game of ‘Proverbs.’ It rests with -thy <i>ego</i>, then, to put a period to this orgy of blood.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave forth a loud wailing cry. -</p> - -<p> -“I am a demon, prejudged and predestined, and the saint of the Place -du Trône is possessed with me.” -</p> - -<p> -“A saint, possessed!” -</p> - -<p> -He wrung his hands insanely. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” he cried—“but is it not a fate to which damnation were -Paradise! For me, the gentle Aubriot, who in my material form had -shrunk from killing a fly—for me to thus deluge an unhappy land with -the blood of martyrs! But I have threshed my conscience with a knotted -discipline, and I know—yes, monsieur, I know—what gained me my -punishment. A cripple once begged of me a poor two sous. I hesitated, -in that I had but the one coin on me, and my nostrils yearned for -snuff. I hesitated, and the devil tripped up my feet. I gave the man -the piece and asked him a sou in change. For so petty a trifle did I -barter my salvation. But heaven was not to be deceived, and its -vengeance followed me like a snake through the grass. Ah!” (he jumped -erect) “but the blade fell within an ace of thy shoulder!” -</p> - -<p> -This was disquieting enough, in all truth. Yet I took comfort from the -thought that the madman could avail himself of no more murderous -weapon than his hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, M. Guillotin,” said I, “observe that it is characteristic of you -to lie quiescent when you are put away for the night.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Nenni, nenni, nenni!</i>” he answered. “That may have been before the -hideous apotheosis of the instrument. Now, possessed as I am, I slash -and cut at whoever comes in my way.” -</p> - -<p> -<i>Mon Dieu!</i> but this was a wearisome lunatic! and I longed very -ardently to be left peacefully to my own reflections. I came forward -with a show of extreme fortitude. -</p> - -<p> -“This demon of yourself,” I said—“you wish it to be exorcised, that -the soil of France may grow green again?” -</p> - -<p> -A fine self-sacrificial rapture illumined his wild face. -</p> - -<p> -“Let me be hurled into the bottomless pit,” he cried, “that so the -Millennium may rise in the east like an August sun!” -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” said I, “I will commune with my soul during the night, that -perchance it may be revealed to me how the guillotine may guillotine -itself.” -</p> - -<p> -To my surprise the ridiculous bait took, and the poor wretch sunk down -upon his straw and uttered no further word. Crossing the cell to come -to my own heap, my foot struck against an iron ring that projected -from a flag. For an instant a mad hope flamed up in me, only to as -immediately die down. Was it probable that the “Mouse-trap”—into -which, I knew, it was the custom to put newly arrived prisoners before -their overhauling by the turnkeys and “scenting” by the dogs of the -guard—would be furnished with a door of exit as of entrance? -Nevertheless, I stooped and tugged at the ring to see what should be -revealed in the lifting of the stone. It, the latter, seemed a -ponderous slab. I raised one end of it a foot or so with difficulty, -and, propping it with the pitcher, looked to see what was underneath. -A shallow trough or excavation—that was all; probably a mere pit into -which to sweep the scourings of the cell. Leaving it open, I flung -myself down upon the mat of straw, and gave myself up to a melancholy -ecstasy of reflection. -</p> - -<p> -The maniac crouched in his corner. So long as the light lasted I was -conscious of his eyes fixed in a steady bright stare upon the lifted -stone. There seemed something in its position that fascinated him. -Then, with a dropping splutter, the candle sank upon itself and was -extinguished suddenly; and straightway we were embedded in a block of -gloom. -</p> - -<p> -Very soon I was asleep. Ease and sensation, drink and food—how -strangely in those days one’s soul had learned to withdraw itself from -its instinctive attachments; to hover apart, as it were, from that -clumsy expression of its desires that is the body with its appetites; -and to accept at last, as radically irreclaimable, that same body so -grievously misinformed with animism. Now I could surrender to -forgetfulness, and that with little effort, all the load of emotion -and anxiety with which a savage destiny sought to overwhelm me. Nor -did this argue a brutish insensibility on my part; but only a lifting -of idealism to spheres that offered a more tranquil and serener field -for meditation. -</p> - -<p> -Once during the night a single drawn sound, like the pipe of wind in a -keyhole, roused me to a half-recovery of my faculties. I had been -dreaming of Carinne and of the little pig that fell into the pit, and, -associating the phantom cry with the voluble ghosts of my brain, I -smiled and fled again to the heights. -</p> - -<p> -The noise of heavily grating bolts woke me at length to the iron -realities of a day that might be my last on earth. I felt on my face -the wind of the dungeon door as it was driven back. -</p> - -<p> -“Follow me, Aubriot!” grunted an indifferent voice in the opening. -</p> - -<p> -Lacking a response of any sort, the speaker, who had not even put -himself to the trouble of entering the cell, cried out gutturally and -ironically— -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Holà hé, holà hé</i>, Citizen Aubriot Guillotin! thou art called to -operate on thyself! <i>Mordi, mordi, mordi!</i> dost thou hear? thou art -invited to commit suicide that France may regenerate itself of thee!” -</p> - -<p> -I raised my head. A burly form, topped by a great hairy face, blocked -the doorway. I made it out by the little light that filtered through a -high-up grating above me. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mille démons!</i>” shouted the turnkey suddenly, “what is this?” -</p> - -<p> -He came pounding into the cell, paused, and lifted his hands like a -benedictory priest. “<i>Mille démons!</i>” he whispered again, with his -jaw dropped. -</p> - -<p> -I had jumped to my feet. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Pardieu!</i> Mr Jailer!” said I; “the guillotine, it appears, has -anticipated upon itself that law of which it is the final expression. -The rest of us you will of necessity acquit.” -</p> - -<p> -I looked down, half-dazed; but I recalled the odd sound that had -awakened me in the night. Here, then, was the explanation of it—in -this swollen and collapsed form, whose head, it seemed, was plunged -beneath the floor, as if it had dived for Tartarus and had stuck at -the shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“He has guillotined himself with a vengeance!” I exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“But how?” said the turnkey, stupidly. -</p> - -<p> -“But thus, it is obvious: by propping the slab-end on the pitcher; by -lying down with his neck over the brink of the trough; by upsetting -the vessel with a sweep of his arm as he lay. <i>Mon Dieu!</i> see how he -sprouts from the chink like a horrible dead polypus! This is no -mouse-trap, but a gin to catch human vermin!” -</p> - -<p> -“It was not to be foreseen,” muttered the man, a little scared. “Who -would have fancied a madman to be in earnest!” -</p> - -<p> -“And that remark,” said I, “comes oddly from the lips of a patriot.” -</p> - -<p> -He questioned me with his eyes in a surly manner. -</p> - -<p> -“Bah!” I cried; “are not Robespierre, Couthon, St Just in earnest? are -not you in earnest? and do you not all put your heads into traps? But -I beg you to take me out of La Souricière.” -</p> - -<p> -He had recovered his composure while I spoke. -</p> - -<p> -“Come, then,” he said; “thou art wanted down below. And as to that -rascal—<i>Mordi</i>!” he chuckled, “he has run into a <i>cul-de-sac</i> on his -way to hell; but at any rate he has saved the axe an extra notch to -its edge.” -</p> - -<p> -On the threshold of the room he stopped me and looked into my face. -</p> - -<p> -“How much for a <i>billet</i>?” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“You have one for me?” -</p> - -<p> -“That depends.” -</p> - -<p> -“But doubtless you have been paid to deliver it?” -</p> - -<p> -“And doubtless thou wilt pay to receive it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, <i>mon Dieu</i>!” said I; “but these vails! And patriots, I see, are -not so far removed from the lackeys they despise.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Pardi!</i>” said the bulky man. “Listen to the fox preaching to the -hens! But I will lay odds that in another twelve hours thou wilt be -stripped of something besides thy purse. What matter, then! thou wilt -have thy crown of glory to carry to the Lombard-house.” -</p> - -<p> -I gave him what was left to me. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” said I; and he put a scrap of paper into my hand. -</p> - -<p> -I unfolded it in the dim light and read these words, hurriedly -scrawled thereon in a hand unknown to me: “<i>Play, if nothing else -avails, the hidden treasures of Pierrettes</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“Follow me, Thibaut,” said the jailer. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -As might feel a martyr, who, with a toy knife in his hand, is driven -to face the lions, so felt I on my way to the Tribunal with that -fragment of paper thrust into my breast. At one moment I could have -cried out on the travesty of kindness that could thus seek to prolong -my agony by providing me with an inadequate weapon; at another I was -reminded how one might balance oneself in a difficult place with a -prop no stronger than one’s own little finger. Yet this thin shaft of -light cutting into desperate gloom had disquieted me strangely. -Foreseeing, and prepared stoically to meet, the inevitable, I had -even—before the <i>billet</i> was placed in my hands—felt a certain -curiosity to witness—though as an accused—the methods of procedure -of a Court that was as yet only known to me through the infamy of its -reputation. Now, however, caught back to earth with a rope of straw, -I trembled over the very thought of the ordeal to which I was invited. -</p> - -<p> -Coming, at the end of melancholy vaulted passages, to a flight of -stone steps leading up to a door, I was suddenly conscious of a -droning murmur like that of hived bees. The jailer, in the act of -running the key into the lock, beckoned me to mount to him, and, thus -possessed of me, caught me under the arm-pit. -</p> - -<p> -“Play thy card, then, like a gambler!” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“What!” I exclaimed in astonishment. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah bah!” he growled; “didst thou think delicacy kept me from reading -the message? But, fear not. Thou art too little a gudgeon for my -playing”—and he swung open the door. Immediately the hiss and patter -of voices swept upon me like rain. That, and the broad glare of -daylight after so much darkness, confused me for a moment. The next I -woke to the consciousness that at last my foot was on the precipice -path—the gangway for the passage of the pre-damned into the Salle de -la Liberté—the <i>arête</i> of the “Montagne,” it might be called, -seeing how it served that extreme faction for a ridge most perilous to -its enemies to walk on. -</p> - -<p> -This gangway skirted a wooden barricade that cut the hall at about a -third of its length. To my left, as I advanced, I caught glimpse over -the partition of the dismal black plumes on the hats of the judges, as -they bobbed in juxtaposition of evil under a canopy of green cloth. To -my right, loosely filling the body of the hall, was the public; and -here my extreme insignificance as a prisoner was negatively impressed -upon me by the indifference of those whom I almost brushed in passing, -for scarce a <i>poissarde</i> of them all deigned to notice the little -gudgeon as he wriggled on the national hook. Then in a moment my -conductor twisted me through an opening cut in the barricade, and I -was delivered over to the Tribunal. -</p> - -<p> -A certain drumming in my ears, a certain mist before my eyes, resolved -themselves into a very set manner of attention. The stark, whitewashed -walls seemed spotted with a plague of yellow faces—to my left a -throng of mean blotches, the obsequious counsel for the defence; to my -front the President and judges, in number three, like skulls decked -with hearse-plumes; to my right the jury, a very Pandora-box of -goblins, the lid left off, the evil countenances swarming over the -edge. All seemed to my excited imagination to be faces and nothing -else—drab, dirty, and malignant—ugly motes set against the staring -white of the walls, dancing fantastically in the white day-beams that -poured down from the high windows. Yet that I sought for most I could -not at first distinguish,—not until the owner of it stood erect by a -little table—placed to one side and a little forward of the judicial -dais—over which he had been leaning. Then I recognised him -instantly—Tinville, the Devil’s Advocate, the blood-boltered -vampire—and from that moment he was the court to me, judge, jury, and -counsel, and his dark face swam only in my vision like a gout of bile. -</p> - -<p> -Now, I tell you, that so dramatic was this Assembly by reason of the -deadliness of purpose that characterised it, that one, though a -prisoner, almost resented the flippant coxcombry of the three -sightless busts standing on brackets above the bench. For -these—Brutus, Marat, St Fargeau (his gods quit the indignant Roman of -responsibility for entertaining such company)—being jauntily -decorated with a red bonnet apiece and a grimy cockade of the -tricolour, jarred hopelessly in the context, and made of the bloodiest -tragedy a mere clownish extravaganza. And, behold! of this -extravaganza Fouquier-Tinville, when he gave reins to his humour, -discovered himself to be the very Sannio—the rude powerful buffoon, -with a wit only for indecency. -</p> - -<p> -Yet he did not at a first glance figure altogether unprepossessing. -Livid-skinned though he was, with a low forehead, which his hair, -brushed back and stiffly hooked at its ends, seemed to claw about the -middle like a black talon, there was yet little in his countenance -that bespoke an active malignancy. His large eyes had that look of -good-humoured weariness in them that, superficially, one is apt to -associate with unvindictive long-sufferingness. His brows, black also -and thick, were set in the habitual lift of suspense and inquiry. His -whole expression was that of an anxious dwelling upon the prisoner’s -words, lest the prisoner should incriminate himself; and it was only -when one marked the tigerish steadiness of his gaze and the <i>sooty</i> -projection of his under-lip over a strongly cleft chin that one -realised how the humour of the man lay all upon the evil side. For the -rest—as each detail of his personality was hammered into me by my -pulses—his black clothes had accommodated themselves to his every -ungainly habit of movement, his limp shirt was caught up about his -neck with a cravat like a rag of dowlas, and over his shoulders hung a -broad national ribbon ending in a silver medallion, with the one word -<i>Loi</i> imprinted on it like a Judas kiss. -</p> - -<p> -Thus the man, as he stood scrutinising me after an abstracted fashion, -his left arm bent, the hand of it knuckled upon the table, the -Lachesis thumb of it—flattened from long kneading of the yarn of -life—striding over a form of indictment. -</p> - -<p> -The atmosphere of the court was frowzy as that of a wine-shop in the -early hours of morning. It repelled the freshness of the latter and -communicated its influence to public and tribunal alike. Over all hung -a slackness and a peevish unconcern as to business. Bench and bar -yawned, and exchanged spiritless commonplaces of speech. True enough, -a gudgeon was an indifferent fish with which to start the traffic of -the day. -</p> - -<p> -At length the Public Accuser slightly turned and nodded his head. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Maître Greffier</i>,” said he, in quite a noiseless little voice, -“acquaint us of the charge, I desire thee, against this <i>patte-pelu</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -<i>Nom de Dieu!</i> here was a fine <i>coup d’archet</i> to the overture. My -heart drummed very effectively in response. -</p> - -<p> -A little black-martin of a fellow, with long coat-tails and glasses to -his eyes, stood up by the notaries’ table and handled a slip of paper. -Everywhere the murmur of Tinville’s voice had brought the court to -attention. I listened to the <i>greffier</i> with all my ears. -</p> - -<p> -“Act of Accusation,” he read out brassily, “against Jean-Louis -Sebastien de Crancé, <i>ci-devant</i> Comte de la Muette, and since -calling himself the Citizen Jean-Louis Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -Very well, and very well—I was discovered, then; through whose -agency, if not through Jacques Crépin’s, I had no care to learn. The -wonder to me was that, known and served as I had been, I should have -enjoyed so long an immunity from proscription as an aristocrat. But I -accused Crépin—and wrongfully, I believe—in my heart. -</p> - -<p> -“Hath rendered himself answerable to the law of the 17th Brumaire,” -went on the <i>greffier</i>, mechanically, “in that he, an <i>émigré</i>, hath -ventured himself in the streets of Paris in disguise, and——” -</p> - -<p> -The Public Accuser waved him impatiently to a stop. There fell a dumb -silence. -</p> - -<p> -“One pellet out of a charge is enough to kill a rat,” said he, -quietly: then in an instant his voice changed to harsh and terrible, -and he bellowed at me— -</p> - -<p> -“What answer to that, Monsieur <i>r-r-r-rat</i>, Monsieur <i>ratatouille</i>?” -</p> - -<p> -The change of manner was so astounding that I jumped as at the shock -of a battery. Then a hot flush came to my face, and with it a dreadful -impulse to strike this insolent on the mouth. I folded my arms, and -gave him back glare for glare. -</p> - -<p> -“Simply, monsieur,” I said, “that it is not within reason to accuse me -of returning to what I have never quitted.” -</p> - -<p> -“Paris?” -</p> - -<p> -“The soil of France.” -</p> - -<p> -“That shall not avail thee!” he thundered. “What right hast thou to -the soil that thou and thine have manured with the sacred blood of the -people?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur!” I began—“but if you will convert my very -refutation——” -</p> - -<p> -He over-roared me as I spoke. He was breathing himself, at my expense, -for the more serious business of the day. Positively I was being used -as a mere punching-bag on which this “bruiser” (<i>comme on dit à -l’Anglaise</i>) might exercise his muscles. -</p> - -<p> -“Silence!” he shouted; “I know of what I speak! thou walk’st on a bog, -where to extricate the right foot is to engulf the left. Emigrant art -thou—titular at least by force of thy accursed rank; and, if that is -not enough, thou hast plotted in prison with others that are known.” -</p> - -<p> -I smiled, awaiting details of the absurd accusation. I had formed, it -was evident, no proper conception of this court of summary -jurisdiction. The President leaned over his desk at the moment and -spoke with Tinville, proffering the latter his snuff-box. They -exchanged some words, a pantomime of gesticulation to me. As they -nodded apart, however, I caught a single wafted sentence: “We will -whip her like the Méricourt if she is obstinate.” -</p> - -<p> -To what vile and secret little history was this the key! To me it only -signified that, while I had fancied them discussing a point of my -case, the two were passing confidences on a totally alien matter. At -last I felt very small; and that would have pleased Carinne. -</p> - -<p> -“But, at any rate,” I thought, “the charge against me must now assume -some definite form.” -</p> - -<p> -He, that dark <i>bouche de fer</i> of the Terror, stared at me gloomily, as -if he had expected to find me already removed. Then suddenly he flung -down upon the table the paper he had in his hand, and cried -automatically, as if in a certain absence of mind, “I demand this man -of the law to which he is forfeit.” -</p> - -<p> -God in heaven! And so my trial was ended. They had not even allotted -me one from the litter of mongrel counsel that, sitting there like -begging curs, dared never, when retained, score a point in favour of a -client lest the hags and the brats should hale them off to the -lamp-irons. This certainly was Justice paralysed down one whole side. -</p> - -<p> -I heard a single little cry lift itself from the hall behind me and -the clucking of the <i>tricoteuses</i>. I felt it was all hopeless, but I -clutched at the last desperate chance as the President turned to -address (in three words) the jury. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>M. l’Accusateur Public</i>,” I said, hurriedly, “I am constrained to -tell you that I have in my possession that which may induce you to -consider the advisability of a remand.” -</p> - -<p> -The fellow stared dumfoundered at me, as if I had thrown my cap in his -face. The President hung on his charge. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” said the former, with an ironical nicety of tone—“and what is -the nature of this magnificent evidence?” -</p> - -<p> -I had out my scrap of paper, folded like a <i>billet-doux</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“If the citizen will condescend to cast his eye on this?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -He considered a minute. Curiosity ever fights in the bully with -arrogance. At length he made a sign to a <i>gendarme</i> to bring him that -on which, it seemed, my life depended. -</p> - -<p> -Every moment while he dwelt on the words was like the oozing of a drop -of blood to me. I had in a flash judged it best to make him sole -confidant with me in the contents of the paper, that so his private -cupidity might be excited, and he not be driven by necessity to play -the <i>rôle</i> of the incorruptible. The instant he looked up my whole -heart expanded. -</p> - -<p> -“The prisoner,” he said, “acquits his conscience of a matter affecting -the State. I must call upon you, <i>M. le Président</i>, to grant for the -present a remand.” -</p> - -<p> -Oh, <i>mon Dieu</i>! but the shamelessness of this avarice! I believe the -scoundrel would have blushed to be discovered in nothing but an act of -mercy. -</p> - -<p> -“The prisoner is remanded to close confinement in the Convent of St -Pélagie,” were the words that dismissed me from the court; and I -swear Fouquier-Tinville’s large eyes followed me quite lovingly as I -was marched away. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch13"> -CHAPTER XIII.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE RED CART.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">At</span> so early an hour was my trial (in the personal and suffering -sense) brought to a conclusion, that mid-day was not yet struck when -my guards delivered me over to the authorities at St Pélagie—a -one-time <i>communauté de filles</i> in the faubourg of St Victor, and -since appropriated ostensibly to the incarceration of debtors. My -arrival, by grace of Fortune, was most happily timed; and, indeed, the -persistency with which throughout the long period of my difficulties -this capricious <i>coureuse</i> amongst goddesses converted for my benefit -accident into opportuneness offered some excuse to me for remaining in -conceit with myself. -</p> - -<p> -Now I was taken in charge by a single turnkey—the others being -occupied with their dinner—and conducted by him to the jailer’s room -to undergo that <i>rapiotage</i>, or stripping for concealed properties, -the general abuse of which—especially where women were in -question—was a scandal even in those days of shameless brutality. -</p> - -<p> -As he pushed me into the little ill-lighted chamber and closed the -door hurriedly upon us, I noticed that the man’s hands shook, and that -his face was clammy with a leaden perspiration. He made no offer to -overhaul me; but, instead, he clutched me by the elbow and looked in a -half-scared, half-triumphant manner into my face. -</p> - -<p> -“Pay attention,” he said, in a quick, forced whisper. “Thy arrival -accommodates itself to circumstance—most admirably, citizen, it -accommodates itself. I, that was to expect, am here alone to receive -thee. It is far better so than that I should be driven to visit thee -in thy cell.” -</p> - -<p> -“I foresee a call upon my gratitude,” I said, steadily regarding him. -“That is at your service, citizen jailer, when you shall condescend to -enlighten me as to its direction.” -</p> - -<p> -“I want none of it,” he replied. “It is my own to another that -procures thee this favour.” -</p> - -<p> -“What other, and what favour?” -</p> - -<p> -“As to the first—<i>en bon Français</i>, I will not tell thee. For the -second—behold it!” -</p> - -<p> -With the words, he whipt out from under his blouse a thin, strong -file, a little vessel of oil, and a dab of some blue-coloured mastic -in paper—and these he pressed upon me. -</p> - -<p> -“Hide them about thy person—hide them!” he muttered, in a fearful -voice; “and take all that I shall say in a breath!” -</p> - -<p> -He glanced over his shoulder at the closed door. He was a blotched and -flaccid creature, with the staring dry hair of the tippler, but with -very human eyes. His fingers closed upon my arm as if for support to -their trembling. -</p> - -<p> -“Cell thirteen—on the first floor,” he said; “that is whither I shall -convey thee. Ask no questions. Hast thou them all tight?—<i>Allez-vous -en, mon ami!</i> A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.” -</p> - -<p> -“But——” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah! thou must needs be talking! Cement with the putty, then, and rub -the filings over the marks.” -</p> - -<p> -“I was not born yesterday. It is not <i>that</i> I would know.” -</p> - -<p> -“S-st! At nine by the convent clock, be ready to drop silently into -the cart that shall pass beneath thy window. Never mind what thou -hit’st on. A falling man does not despise a dunghill.” -</p> - -<p> -I hesitated, seeking to read this patriot’s soul. Was this all a snare -to clinch my damnation? Pooh! if I had ever fancied Tinville hunted -for the shadow of a pretext, this morning’s experience should have -disabused me of the fallacy. -</p> - -<p> -“Who commissions thee?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“One to whom I owe a measure of gratitude.” -</p> - -<p> -“But not I?” -</p> - -<p> -“From this time—yes.” -</p> - -<p> -He pushed at me to go before him. -</p> - -<p> -“At least,” I said, “acquaint me if it is the same that sent the -letter.” -</p> - -<p> -“I know nothing of any letter. <i>San’ Dieu!</i> I begin to regret my -complaisance. This fellow will strangle us all with his long tongue.” -</p> - -<p> -“But, for thyself, my friend?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, <i>nom de Dieu</i>! I have no fear, if thou wilt be discreet—and -grateful.” -</p> - -<p> -“And this tool—and the <i>rapiotage</i>!” -</p> - -<p> -“Listen then! The thief that follows a thief finds little by the road. -We are under no obligation to search a prisoner remanded from another -prison.” -</p> - -<p> -Impulsively I wrung the hand of the dear sententious; I looked into -his eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“The Goddess of Reason disown thee!” I said. “Thou shalt never be -acolyte to a harlot!—And I—if all goes well, I will remember. And -what is thy name, good fellow?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>M. un tel</i>,” said he, and added, “Bah! shall not thy ignorance of it -be in a measure our safeguard?” -</p> - -<p> -“True,” said I. “And take me away, then. I cannot get to work too -soon.” -</p> - -<p> -He opened the door, peeped out, and beckoned me. -</p> - -<p> -“All is well,” he whispered. “The coast is clear.”<a href="#n1b" id="n1a">[1]</a> -</p> - -<p> -As he drove me with harsh gestures across a yard, a turnkey, standing -at a door and twirling a toothpick in his mouth, hailed him -strenuously. -</p> - -<p> -“What perquisites, then, comrade?” -</p> - -<p> -“Bah!” cried my fellow; “I have not looked. He is a bone of Cabochon’s -picking.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -With what a conflict of emotions I set to work—tentatively at first; -then, seeing how noiselessly the file ran in its oiled groove, with a -concentration of vigour—upon the bars of my window, it is not -difficult to imagine. So hard I wrought that for hours I scarce gave -heed to my growling hunger or attention to my surroundings. As to the -latter, indeed, I was by this time sensibly inured to the conditions -of confinement, and found little in my cell when I came to examine it -to distinguish it from others I had inhabited. A bench, a pitcher, a -flattened mess of straw; here and there about the stone flags marks as -if some frantic beast had sought to undermine himself a passage to -freedom; here and there, engraved with a nail or the tooth of a comb -on the plaster coating of the walls, ciphers, initials, passionate -appeals to heaven or blasphemous indecencies unnameable; in one spot -a forlorn cry: “<i>Liberté, quand cesseras-tu d’être un vain mot!</i>” in -another, in feminine characters, the poor little utterance: “<i>On nous -dit que nous sortirons demain</i>,” made so pathetic by the later -supplement underscored, “<i>Vain espoir!</i>”—with all these, or their -like, was I grievously familiar—resigned, not hardened to them, I am -sure. -</p> - -<p> -The window at which I stood looked across a little-frequented -passage—the Puit d’Ermite—upon a blank wall; and was terminated with -a pretty broad sill of stone that screened my operations from casual -wayfarers in the street below. Once, peering forth as I could, with my -face pressed to the bars, I found myself to be situated so indifferent -high as that, free of the grate, I might drop to the pavement without -incurring risk of severer damage than a fractured leg or ankle, -perhaps. Obviously, every point had been considered in this trifling -matter of my escape. By whom? By him that had put me that pawn up my -sleeve in the Palais de Justice? Well, the pawn had checked the king, -it appeared; and now it must content me to continue the game with a -handkerchief over my eyes, like the great M. Philidor. -</p> - -<p> -By two o’clock, having cut through a couple of the bars close by their -junction with the sill, so that a vigorous pull at both would open a -passage for me large enough to squeeze through, I was absorbed in the -careful process of cementing and concealing the evidences of my work -when I heard a sound behind me and twisted myself about with a choke -of terror. But it was my friendly jailer, come with a trencher of -broken scraps for the famished animal in the cage. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Corps de Christ!</i>” he muttered, his face white and scared—“but here -is an admirable precaution! What if I had been Fouquier-Tinville -himself, then?” -</p> - -<p> -“You made no noise.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Par exemple!</i> I can shoot a hundredweight of bolts, it seems, so as -not to wake a weasel. I made no noise to deaf ears. But, for thyself, -monsieur—He that would steal corn must be careful his sack has no -holes in it. And now I’ll wager thou’st dusted thy glittering filings -out into the sunbeams, and a sentry, with pistols and a long musket, -pacing the cobbles down there!” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Soyez tranquille!</i> I have all here in my pocket.” -</p> - -<p> -He put down the platter, shrugged his shoulders, and came on tiptoe to -the window. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, it is excellent,” he whispered grudgingly—“if only thy caution -matched thy skill.” -</p> - -<p> -Then he came close up to me. -</p> - -<p> -“I have news,” he muttered. “All is in preparation. It needs only that -thou play’st thy part silently and surely. A moment’s decision and the -game is thine.” -</p> - -<p> -“But, the sentry, say’st thou?” -</p> - -<p> -“He will be withdrawn. What, is it not the eve of the <i>Décadi</i>?<a href="#n2b" id="n2a">[2]</a> -To-night, the wine-shops; to-morrow, full suburbs and an empty Paris, -but for thee the Public Accuser with his questions.” -</p> - -<p> -“And why should he not visit me to-day?” -</p> - -<p> -“Rest assured. He hath a double baking to occupy him.” -</p> - -<p> -A noise sounded in the corridor. The man put his finger to his lips, -pointed significantly at the remainder litter about the sill, stole to -the door, jangled his keys viciously and bellowed at me: “Thou shalt -have that or nothing! <i>Saint Sacrement</i>, but the dainty bellies of -these upstarts!”—and off he went, slamming the door after him, and -grumbling till he was out of hearing. -</p> - -<p> -“Excellent nameless one!” I cried to myself; and so, having most -scrupulously removed every trace of my work, I fell, while attacking -with appetite the meal left for me, into a sort of luminous meditation -upon the alluring prospect half opened out to my vision. -</p> - -<p> -“And whence, in the name of God,” I marvelled, “issues this unknown -influence that thus exerts itself on my behalf; and by what process of -gratitude can my jailer, in these days of a general repudiation of -obligations, have attached himself to a cause that, on the face of it, -seems a purely quixotic one?” -</p> - -<p> -Then, “Oh, merciful Heaven!” I thought, “can it be possible that set -in the far haze of a narrow vista of hope, an image—to whose wistful -absorption into the Paradise of dreams I have sought to discipline -myself—yet yearns to and beckons me from the standpoint of its own -material sweetness? I see the smile on its mouth, the lift of its -arms; I hear the little cry of welcome wafted to me. My God, the cry!” -</p> - -<p> -All in an instant some shock of association seemed to stun my brain. -The cry—the single cry that had issued upon my condemnation in the -hall of Justice! Had it not been the very echo of that I had once -heard uttered by a poor swineherd fallen into the hands of savages? -</p> - -<p> -I got to my feet in agitation. Now, suddenly it was borne to me that -from the moment of issue of that little incisive wail a formless -wonder had been germinating in my soul. Carinne present at my -trial!—no, no, it was impossible—unless—— -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen, the patriots in this corridor send thee greeting.” -</p> - -<p> -I started as if a bullet had flown past my ear. The voice seemed to -come from the next cell. I swept the cobwebs from my forehead. -</p> - -<p> -“A thousand thanks!” I cried. -</p> - -<p> -“They have dreamt that the ass cursed the thorough-bred for the -niceness of his palate,” went on the voice, “and most heartily they -commiserate thee.” -</p> - -<p> -There followed a faint receding sound like laughter and the clapping -of hands. I had no idea what to say; but the voice relieved me of the -embarrassment. -</p> - -<p> -“May I ask the citizen’s name?” -</p> - -<p> -“I am the Comte de la Muette.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Allons donc!</i>”—and the information, it seemed, was passed from cell -to cell. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” then came the voice, “we of the Community of the Eremites -of St Pélagie offer thee our most sympathetic welcome, and invite -thee to enrol thyself a member of our Society. Permit me, the -President, by name Marino, to have the honour of proposing thee for -election.” -</p> - -<p> -“By all means. And what excludes, Monsieur le Président?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>D’une haleine</i> (I mention it to monsieur as a matter of form), to -have been a false witness or a forger of assignats.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then am I eligible.” -</p> - -<p> -“Surely, monsieur. How could one conceive it otherwise! And it remains -only to ask—again as a matter of form—thy profession, thy abode, and -the cause of thy arrest.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well. My profession is one of attachment to a beautiful lady; I -live, I dare to believe, in her heart; and, for my arrest, it was -because, in these days of equality, I sought to remain master of -myself.” -</p> - -<p> -My answer was passed down the line. It elicited, I have the -gratification to confess, a full measure of applause. -</p> - -<p> -“I have the honour to inform M. le Comte,” said the President, “that -he is duly elected to the privileges of the Society. I send him a -fraternal embrace.” -</p> - -<p> -My inclination jumped with the humour of the thing. It was thus that -these unfortunates, condemned to solitary confinement, had conceived a -method of relieving the deadly tedium of their lot. Thus they passed -to one another straws of information gleaned from turnkeys or from -prisoners newly arrived. And in order to the confusion of any guard -that might overhear them, they studied, in their inter-communications, -to speak figuratively, to convey a fact through a fable, or, at the -least, to refer their statements to dreams that they had dreamt. At -the same time they formed a Society rigidly exclusive. Admitted -rascals, imprisoned in the corridor, they would by no means condescend -to notice. I had an example of this once during the afternoon, when -the whole place echoed with phantom merriment over a jest uttered by a -member. -</p> - -<p> -“M. le Comte!” cried a voice from the opposite row: “I could tell thee -a better tale than that.” -</p> - -<p> -Before the speaker could follow up his words, the President hammered -at my wall. -</p> - -<p> -“I beseech thee do not answer the fellow,” he said. “It is a rogue -that was suborned in the most pitiful case of the St Amaranthe.” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, monsieur!” exclaimed the accused; “it is a slander and a -lie. And how wouldst thou pick thy words with thy shoulder bubbling -and hissing under the branding-iron?” -</p> - -<p> -“As I would pick nettles,” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“I beseech thee!” cried again my neighbour the President, in a warning -voice, “this man can boast no claim to thy attention.” -</p> - -<p> -The poor rascal cried out: “It is inhuman! I perish for a word of -sympathy!” -</p> - -<p> -I would have given it him; but his protests were laughed into silence. -He yelled in furious retort. His rage was over-crowed, and drifted -into sullenness. -</p> - -<p> -“I dreamt I belaboured a drum,” said the President, “and it burst -under my hands.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Truly I did not regret the distraction this whimsical Society afforded -me. Left to myself, the fever of my mind would have corroded my very -reason, I think. To have been condemned to face those hours of tension -indescribable, with no company but that of my own thoughts, would have -proved such an ordeal as, I felt, would have gone far to render me -nerveless at the critical moment. So, responding to the dig of -circumstance in my ribs, I abandoned myself to frolic, and almost, in -the end, lapsed into the other extreme of hysteria. -</p> - -<p> -But, about five o’clock, closing in from the far end of the corridor, -a swift ominous silence succeeded the jangle; and I was immediately -aware of heavy footsteps treading the cemented floor of the passage, -and, following upon these, the harsh snap of locks and the rumbling of -a deep voice— -</p> - -<p> -“Follow me, De la Chatière.” -</p> - -<p> -The words were the signal for a shrilling chorus of sounds—whoops, -cat-calls, verberant renderings of a whole farmyard of demoniac -animals. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Miau, miau</i>, Émile! Thou art caught in thine own springe!” -</p> - -<p> -“They will ask thee one of thy nine lives, Émile!” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah—bah! if he pleads as he reasons, upside-down, they will only cut -off his feet.” -</p> - -<p> -“Plead thy poor sick virtue, Émile!” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no! that were one <i>coup de tête</i> that shall procure him -another.” -</p> - -<p> -“What need to lie when the truth will serve! Plead thy lost virtue, -Émile, and the jury will love thee.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Taisez-vous, donc!</i>” roared a jailer. He was answered by a shriek of -laughter. In the midst of the noise I heard the door of my -neighbouring cell flung open and Marino summoned forth. As the party -retreated: “M. le Président, M. le Président!” shouted a voice—“Art -thou going without a word? But do not, I beseech thee, in the pride of -thy promotion neglect to nominate thy successor!” -</p> - -<p> -“Lamarelle, then,” answered the poor fellow, in a voice that he tried -vainly to control. -</p> - -<p> -He was led away. The babble boiled over and simmered down. In a very -few moments a tense quiet had succeeded the uproar. This—due partly -to the reaction from excitement, partly to the fact that jailers were -loitering at hand—wrought in me presently a mood of overbearing -depression. I durst give no rein to my hopes or to my apprehensions, -lest, getting the bit between their teeth, they should fairly run away -with my reason. The prospect of another four hours of this mindless -inaction—hours of which every second seemed to be marked off by the -tick of a nerve—was a deplorable one, indeed. -</p> - -<p> -I tramped ceaselessly to and fro in my cage, humming to myself and -assuming the habit of a philosophy that fitted me about as well as -Danton’s breeches would have done. I grimaced to my own reflections -like a coquette to her mirror. I suffered from my affectation of -self-containment as severely as though I were a tight-laced <i>femme à -la mode</i> weeping to hear a tale of pity. The convent clock, moving -somewhere with a thunderous click as if it were the very <i>doyen</i> of -death-watches, chimed the dusk upon me in reluctant quarters. Ghostly -emanations seemed to rise from the stones of my cell, sorrowful shapes -of the lost and the hopeless to lean sobbing in its corners. Sometimes -I could have fancied I heard a thin scratching on the walls about me, -as if the returned spectres of despair were blindly tracing with a -finger the characters they had themselves engraved thereon; sometimes, -as I wheeled to view of the dull square of the window, a formless -shadow, set against it, would appear to drop hurriedly and fold upon -itself like a bat. By the time, at last, that, despite my resolves, I -was worked up to a state of agitation quite pitiful, some little -relief of distraction was afforded me by the entrance into my cell of -a stranger turnkey, with some coarse food on a plate in his one hand, -and, in the other, a great can of water, from which he replenished my -pitcher. During the half minute he was with me a shag beast of a dog -kept guard at the door. -</p> - -<p> -“Fall to, then,” growled the man; “if thou hast the stomach for -anything less dainty than fat pullets and butter.” -</p> - -<p> -In effect, I had none for anything; yet I thought it the sensible -policy to take up the plate, when the fellow was withdrawn, and munch -away the drawling minutes lest I should spend them in eating out my -heart. -</p> - -<p> -Other than this rascal no soul came near me. I had had, it seemed, my -full warning—my complete instructions. Yet, lacking reassurance -during this long trial of suspense, I came to feel as if all affecting -my escape must be a chimera—a fancy bred of the delirium that -precedes death. -</p> - -<p> -Well, as my friendly <i>huissier</i> might have said, Time flies, however -strong the head-wind; and at length the quarters clanged themselves -into that one of them that was the prelude to my most momentous -adventure. And immediately thereon (God absolve me for the -inconsistency!) a frantic revulsion of feeling set in, so that I would -have given all but my chance of escape to postpone the act of it -indefinite hours. Now I heard the throb of the seconds with a terror -that was like an acute accent to my agony of suspense. It grew—it -waxed monstrous and intolerable. I must lose myself in some physical -exertion if I would preserve my reason. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly a nightmare thought faced me. What if, when the time came, -the cut bars should remain stubborn to my efforts to bend them! What -if I had neglected to completely sever either or both, and that, while -I madly wrought to remedy my error, the moment should pass and with it -the means to my deliverance! -</p> - -<p> -Sweating, panting, in a new reaction to the frenzy for liberty, I -sprang to the window, gripped the bars, and, with all my force, -dragged them towards me. They parted at the cuts and yielded readily. -A sideway push to each, and there would freedom gape at me. -</p> - -<p> -In the very instant of settling my shoulder to the charge, I was aware -of a sound at my cell door—the cautious groping of wards in a lock. -With a suppressed gasp I came round, with my back to the tell-tale -grating, and stood like a discovered murderer. -</p> - -<p> -A lance of dull light split the blackness perpendicularly. -</p> - -<p> -“Open again when I tap,” said a little voice—that cracked like -thunder in my brain, nevertheless,—and the light closed upon itself. -</p> - -<p> -God of all irony!—the little voice—the little dulcet undertone that -had cried <i>patte-pelu</i> upon me in the hall of Justice! So the turnkey -had miscalculated or had been misinformed, and M. l’Accusateur Public -would not postpone the verbal satisfaction of his cupidity to the -<i>Décadi</i>. <i>Le limier rencontrait</i>; I was bayed into a corner, and my -wit must measure itself against a double row of teeth. -</p> - -<p> -For an instant a mad resentment against Fate for the infernal -wantonness of its cruelty blazed up in my breast, so that I could -scarce restrain myself from bounding upon my enemy with yells of fury. -Then reason—set, contained and determined—was restored to me, and I -stood taut as a bowstring and as vicious. -</p> - -<p> -A moment or two passed in silence. I could make out a dusky undefined -heap by the door. “In the dark all cats are grey.” -</p> - -<p> -At length: “Who is there?” I said quietly. -</p> - -<p> -The figure advanced a pace or two. -</p> - -<p> -“Speak small, my friend,” it said, “as if thou wert the very voice of -conscience.” -</p> - -<p> -This time there was no doubt. I ground my teeth as I answered: “Of -<i>thy</i> conscience, monsieur? Then should I thunder in thy ears like a -bursting shell.” -</p> - -<p> -“What is this!” said he, taking a backward step. -</p> - -<p> -On my honour I could not have told him. I felt only to myself that if -this man baulked me of my liberty I should kill him with my hands. But -doubtless indignation was my bad counsellor. -</p> - -<p> -“How!” he muttered, with a menacing devil in his voice. “Does the fool -know me?” -</p> - -<p> -I broke into wicked laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“Hear the unconscious humorist!” I cried—and the cry seemed to reel -in my throat; for on the instant, dull and fateful, clanged the first -note of the hour. -</p> - -<p> -Now God knows what had urged me to this insanity of defiance, when it -was obvious that my best hope lay in throwing a sop of lies to my -Cerberus. God knows, I say; and to Him I leave the explanation. Yet, -having fallen upon this course, I can assert that not once during the -day had I felt in such good savour with myself. -</p> - -<p> -He came forward again with a raging malediction. -</p> - -<p> -“Thy pledge!” he hissed; “the paper—the treasure! God’s name! dost -thou know who it is thou triflest with?” -</p> - -<p> -I heard the rumble of wheels over the stones down below. My very soul -seemed to rock as if it were launched on waves of air. The wheels -stopped. -</p> - -<p> -“Listen,” I said, in a last desperation. “It was a ruse, a lie to gain -time. I know of no treasure, nor, if I did, would I acquaint thee of -its hiding-place.” -</p> - -<p> -A terrible silence succeeded. I stood with clinched hands. Had I heard -the cart move away again I should have thrown myself upon this demon -and sought to strangle him. Then, “Oh, my God! oh, my God!” he said -twice, in a dreadful strained voice, and that was all. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly he made a swift movement towards me. I stood rigid, still -with my back to the damning grate; but, come within a foot of me, he -as suddenly wheeled and went to the door. -</p> - -<p> -“Open, Gamache,” he whispered, like a man winded, and tapped on the -oak: “open—I have something to say to thee.” -</p> - -<p> -In another moment I was alone. I turned, and, in a frenzy of haste, -drove the bars right and left with all my force. Like a veritable ape -of destiny I leapt to the sill and looked down. A white face stared up -at me. The owner of it was already in the act of gathering his reins -together. I heard a soft tremulous <i>ouf!</i> issue from his lips, and on -the breath of it I dropped and alighted with a thud upon something -that squelched beneath my weight. As I got to my knees, he on the -driving-board was already whipping his horses to a canter. -</p> - -<p> -“Quick, quick!” he said. “Come up and sit here beside me.” -</p> - -<p> -I managed to do so, though the cargo we carried gave perilous -foothold. -</p> - -<p> -Then at once I turned and regarded my preserver. -</p> - -<p> -“Saints in heaven!” I whispered, “Crépin!” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -He was a very <i>sans-culotte</i>, and his face and eyebrows were darkened. -But I knew him. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he said; “I am no rogue of a Talma to act a part. But what, in -God’s name, delayed thee?” -</p> - -<p> -“Fouquier-Tinville.” -</p> - -<p> -His jaw dropped at me. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Si fait vraiment</i>,” I said, and gave him the facts. -</p> - -<p> -He shivered as I spoke. The instant I was done, “Get under the -canvas!” said he, in a terrible voice. “There will be hue-and-cry, and -if I am followed, we are both lost. Get under the canvas, and endure -what thou canst not cure!” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -My God! the frightfulness of that journey! of the company I lay with! -We drove, as I gathered, by the less-frequented streets, and reached -the barrier of St Jacques by way of the Rue de Biron. Here, for the -first time, we were stopped. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Halte là!</i>” bawled a tipsy voice. “What goods to declare, friend?” -</p> - -<p> -“Content thyself,” I heard Crépin answer. “They bear the Government -mark.” -</p> - -<p> -“How, then, carrier?” -</p> - -<p> -“Peep under the cart-tail, and thou shalt see.” -</p> - -<p> -The gendarme lifted a corner of the canvas with his sword-point. A -wedge of light entered, and amazed my panic-stricken eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Il est bon là!</i>” chuckled the fellow, and withdrew his sword. He -had noticed nothing of me; but, as we whipped to a start, he made a -playful cut at the canvas with his weapon. The blade touched my thigh, -inflicting a slight flesh-wound, and I could not forbear a spasmodic -jerk of pain. At this he cried out, “<i>Holà hé!</i> here is a dead frog -that kicks!” and came scuttling after us. Now I gave myself up for -lost; but at the moment a frolicsome comrade hooked the runner’s ankle -with a stick, and brought the man heavily to the ground. There -followed a shout; a curse of fury, and—Fortune, it appeared, had -again intervened on my behalf. -</p> - -<p> -Silence succeeded, for all but the long monotonous jolting and -pitching over savage ground. At length Crépin pulled up his horses, -and, leaning back from his seat, tossed open a flap of the canvas. -</p> - -<p> -“Come, then,” he said in a queer voice. “We have won clear by the -grace of Heaven.” -</p> - -<p> -I wallowed, faint and nauseated, from my horrible refuge. Sick, and in -pain of mind and body, I crept to a seat beside my companion. We were -on a dark and desolate waste. A little moon lay low in the sky. Behind -us the <i>enceinte</i> of the city twinkled with goblin lights. -</p> - -<p> -“And these?” I said, weakly, signifying our dreadful load. “Whither -dost thou carry them, Crépin?” -</p> - -<p> -“Whither I carry thee, Monsieur le Comte—to the quarries under the -Plain of Mont-Rouge.” -</p> - -<p> -“To unconsecrated ground?” -</p> - -<p> -“What would you? The yards are glutted. The Madeleine bulges like a -pie-crust. At last by force of necessity we consecrate this, the -natural cemetery of the city, dug by itself, to the city’s patron -saint, La Guillotine.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me, my preserver and, as God shall quit thee, also my -friend—you received my letter?” -</p> - -<p> -“Else, why art thou here?” -</p> - -<p> -“But, thou hast done me an incalculable wrong!” -</p> - -<p> -“And an incalculable benefit. Oh, monsieur, do I not atone?” -</p> - -<p> -“To me, yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“Let that pass, then. But, even there, I would not have thee underrate -my service. Have I not, to save thee, annihilated time; called in a -debt of gratitude that I kept in reversion for my own needs; suborned -the very hangman’s carter that I might help thee in thy extremity?” -</p> - -<p> -“And all this is due to thee?” -</p> - -<p> -“Assuredly—and for what reason? Because, in total ignorance of thy -claim to it, I took a fancy to a sweet face. Now I think you will -acknowledge, M. le Comte, that the Revolution, for all its excesses, -is capable of producing a gentleman of honour who knows how to make -reparation.” -</p> - -<p> -“Truly, this is no small thing that you have done.” -</p> - -<p> -“Truly I think thou might’st apply superlatives to it, without -extravagance. To outwit and baulk the Public Accuser—the cat-fish of -the Committee of Safety—<i>Dame!</i> is there a hole in all Paris too -small to admit his tentacles? But I tell thee, monsieur, I am already -in the prison of my own holy namesake.” -</p> - -<p> -“I would kiss thy hands, but——” -</p> - -<p> -“What now?” -</p> - -<p> -“My letter referred to other than myself.” -</p> - -<p> -He turned and, I thought, looked at me oddly. -</p> - -<p> -“In these days, what safer refuge for a woman than prison,” he said, -“provided she hath a friend at Court? Understand, monsieur, I have -found Mademoiselle de Lâge respectable lodgings, that is all.” -</p> - -<p> -“Where you hold her as Lovelace held the estimable Clarisse. Crépin, -I cannot accept my life on these terms.” -</p> - -<p> -The words jerked on my lips as the waggon was brought to a stand with -a suddenness that made the harness rattle. A tall figure, that seemed -to have sprung out of the earth, stood at the horses’ heads. -</p> - -<p> -“Gusman,” said my companion quietly; “this is Citizen Thibaut, whom -you are to conduct to the secret lodging. Hurry, then, Thibaut.” -</p> - -<p> -I got with some difficulty to the ground. -</p> - -<p> -“And you?” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“I go yet a mile to deliver my goods. We will discuss this matter -further, <i>bien entendu</i>, on my return.” -</p> - -<p> -He flogged his cattle to an immediate canter, leaving me in all -bewilderment alone with the stranger. On every side about us, it -seemed, stretched a melancholy waste—a natural graveyard sown with -uncouth slabs of stone. The wind swayed the grasses, as if they were -foam on black water; the tide of night murmured in innumerable gulfs -of darkness. -</p> - -<p> -“Come, then!” muttered the figure, and seized my hand. -</p> - -<p> -We walked twenty cautious paces. I felt the clutch of brambles at my -clothes. Suddenly he put his arm about me, and, as we moved, forcibly -bent down my head and shoulders. At once I was conscious of a confined -atmosphere—damp, earthy, indescribable. It thickened—grew closer and -infinitely closer as we advanced. -</p> - -<p> -Now I could walk upright; but my left shoulder rasped ever against -solid rock. The blackness of utter negation was terrible; the cabined -air an oppression that one almost felt it possible to lift from one’s -head like an iron morion. For miles, I could have fancied, we thridded -this infernal tunnel before the least little blur of light spread -itself like salve on my aching vision. -</p> - -<p> -Then suddenly, like a midnight glowworm, the blur revealed itself, a -fair luminous anther of fire in a nest of rays—and was a taper -burning on the wall of a narrow chamber or excavation set in the heart -of the bed-stone. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Voilà ton ressui!</i>” exclaimed my sardonic guide; and, without -another word, he turned and left me. -</p> - -<p> -I stood a moment confounded; then, with a shrug of my shoulders, -walked into the little cellar and paused again in astonishment. From a -stone ledge, on which it had been lying, it seemed, prostrate, a -figure lifted itself and, standing with its back to me, swept the long -hair from its eyes. -</p> - -<p> -I stared, I choked, I held out my arms as if in supplication. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!</i>” I cried—“if it is not Carinne, let me die!” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch14"> -CHAPTER XIV.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE QUARRIES OF MONT-ROUGE.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">She</span> turned, the dear figure. I heard her breath catch as she leaned -forward and gazed at me. Her hair was all tumbled abroad; her sweet -scared eyes looked out of a thicket of it like little frightened birds -from a copse. She took a hurried step or two in my direction, then -cried, “<i>C’est un coup du ciel!</i>” and threw up her hands and pressed -them to her face. -</p> - -<p> -I dropped my yearning arms. A needle of ice pierced my heart. -</p> - -<p> -“A judgment of heaven?” I cried, sorrowfully. -</p> - -<p> -The sound of my voice seemed like the very stroke of a thyrsus on her -shoulders. She broke into an agitated walk—pacing to and fro in front -of me—wringing her hands and clasping them thus to her temples. Her -shadow fled before or after her like a coaxing child. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly, to my amazement, she darted upon me, and seized and shook me -in a little fury of passion. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Prends cela, prends cela, prends cela!</i>” she cried; and then as -suddenly she released me, and ran back to her ledge, and flung herself -face-downwards thereon, sobbing as if her heart would break. -</p> - -<p> -Shocked and astounded beyond measure, I followed and stood over her. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle de Lâge,” I said, miserably—“of what am I guilty?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of everything—of nothing! Perhaps it is I that am to blame!” she -cried in a muffled voice. -</p> - -<p> -“What have I done?” -</p> - -<p> -She sat up, weeping, and pressed the pain from her forehead. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, monsieur! it is not a little thing to pass twelve hours in the -most terrible loneliness—in the most terrible anxiety!” -</p> - -<p> -“I do not understand.” -</p> - -<p> -“You do not, indeed—the feelings of others—the wisdom of -discretion.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle!” I exclaimed, in all patience. -</p> - -<p> -She sat, with her palms resting upon the ledge. She looked up at me -defiantly, though she yet fought with her sobs. -</p> - -<p> -“It was doubtless a fine thing in your eyes this morning,” she said, -“to throw scorn to that wretch who could have destroyed you with a -word.” -</p> - -<p> -I felt my breath come quickly. -</p> - -<p> -“That wretch!” I whispered—“this morning?” -</p> - -<p> -“It was what I said, monsieur,—the <i>loup-garou</i> of the Salle de la -Liberté. But where one attaches any responsibility to life, one -should learn to distinguish between bravado and courage.” -</p> - -<p> -I think I must have turned very pale, for a sudden concern came into -her face. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle,” I said, “will persist in giving me the best reason for -holding life cheaply—that I cannot, it seems, find favour with her.” -</p> - -<p> -“Was it, then, monsieur, that you yourself were your only -consideration?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! give me at least the indulgence,” I cried, “to retort upon an -insolent that insults me.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Grand Dieu!</i>” she said, mockingly; “but what a perverted heroism! -And must a man’s duty be always first towards his dignity, and -afterwards, a long way——” -</p> - -<p> -She broke off, panting, and tapping her foot on the ground. I looked -at her, all mazed and dumfoundered. -</p> - -<p> -“And afterwards?” I repeated. She would not continue. A little silence -succeeded. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle,” I said at length sadly—“let me speak out what is in -my heart, and have done with it. That little cry of pity and of -protest that I heard uttered this morning when sentence was demanded -upon me in the Palais de Justice, and that I must needs now associate -with this new dear knowledge of your freedom—if I have put upon it an -unwarrantable construction, something beyond the mere expression of a -woman’s sympathy with the unfortunate—you will, I am sure, extend -that sympathy to my blindness, the realisation of which must in itself -prove my heavy punishment. If, also, I have dared to translate the -anxiety you have by your own showing suffered, here in this savage -burrow, into a sentiment more profound than that of simple concern for -an old-time comrade, you will spare my presumption, will you not, the -bitterness of a rebuke? It shall not be needed, believe me. My very -love——” -</p> - -<p> -She interrupted me, rising to her feet white and peremptory. -</p> - -<p> -“Not for me, monsieur—not for me! And, for <i>my</i> associations—they -shall never be of that word with deceit!” -</p> - -<p> -“Deceit!” -</p> - -<p> -“But is it not so? Have you not approached my confidence in a false -guise, under a false name? Oh!” (she stamped her foot again) “cannot -you see how my condescension to the Citizen Thibaut is stultified by -this new knowledge of his rank? how to favour now what I had hitherto -held at arm’s-length would be to place myself in the worst regard of -snobbishness!” -</p> - -<p> -“No, mademoiselle—I confess that I cannot;—but then I journeyed -hither in the National hearse.” -</p> - -<p> -“I do not understand.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, only that there one finds a ragpicker’s head clapt upon a -monseigneur’s neck in the fraternity that is decreed to level all -distinctions. What is the advantage of a name, then, when one is -denied a tombstone?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” she cried, “you seek to disarm me with levity. I recognise your -habit of tolerant contempt for the mental equipment of my sex. It does -not become you, monsieur;—but what does it matter! I know already -your opinion of me, and how compound it is of disdain and disgust. I -am soulless and cruel and capricious—perhaps ill-favoured also; but -there, I think, you pronounce me inoffensive or something less. But I -would have you say, monsieur—what was Lepelletier to me? I should -have sickened, rather, to break bread with my uncle—whom heaven -induce to the shame of repentance! And I was ill that night, so that -even you might have softened in your judgment of me.” -</p> - -<p> -I stood amazed at the vehemence of her speech, at the rapidity of -inconsequence with which she pelted me with any chance missile that -came to her hand. It was evident the poor child was overwrought to a -degree; and I was fixed helpless between my passionate desire to -reassure and comfort her and my sense of her repudiation of my right -to do so. Now, it happened that, where words would have availed -little, a mute appeal—the manner of which it was beyond my power to -control—was to serve the best purposes of reconciliation. For -suddenly, as I dwelt bewildered upon the wet flashing of Carinne’s -eyes, emotion and fatigue, coupled with the sick pain of my wound, so -wrought upon me that the vault went reeling and I with it. I heard her -cry out; felt her clutch me,—and then there was sense for little but -exhaustion in my drugged brain. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -“I am on the floor, Carinne?” -</p> - -<p> -“On the floor, <i>mon ami</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“I am not so little a weight, you see. You tried to support me to the -bench and failed—for I know.” -</p> - -<p> -“But you were a dead-weight.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not dead yet, <i>chattemite</i>. Only I think I am dying.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no, little Thibaut! <i>À Dieu ne plaise!</i> You will not be so -wicked. And what makes you think so?” -</p> - -<p> -“I am so near heaven.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean me? But I burn.” -</p> - -<p> -“Kiss me, then, and give me of your fire.” -</p> - -<p> -“But, if you were to recover?” -</p> - -<p> -“I would return it.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is infamous. You presume upon my tenderness, that is all for your -cruel wound. Yet I do not think you are much hurt.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not now, with your hand upon my heart. Tell me, Carinne—it was -Jacques Crépin that brought you here?” -</p> - -<p> -“That had me conveyed hither by his deputy, Gusman. It was this -morning, after your trial. He had had me released from prison—<i>le -pécheur pénitent</i>. God had moved him to remorse, it seemed, and some -unknown—perhaps one that had overheard us in La Force—to knowledge -of our friendship,—yours and mine. He procured me my passport; -accompanied me beyond the barrier d’Enfer; committed me to the keeping -of this deadman of the quarries. He swore he would play his life -against yours—would win you to me here or perish in the attempt. -Judge then, you, of my waiting torture—my anguish of expectation in -this solitude!” -</p> - -<p> -“Would win me to you! And you desired this thing? <i>Oh, ma mie, ma -mie!</i> how, then, could you welcome me as you did?” -</p> - -<p> -“I do not know.” -</p> - -<p> -“And deny and abuse me and give me such pain?” -</p> - -<p> -“I do not know.” -</p> - -<p> -“For you love me very dearly... Carinne, I am dying!” -</p> - -<p> -“I do not believe you. That trick shall not serve a second time.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -“And what are we to do now, Carinne?” -</p> - -<p> -“Thou must be asking thyself that question,” said a -voice—Crépin’s—that clanged suddenly in the vaulted labyrinth. The -man himself stood looking down upon us. Beside him the gaunt figure of -my guide held aloft a flambeau that talked with a resinous sputter. -Its flare reddened the auburn curls of the Sectional President, and -informed his dissolute face with a radiance that was like an inner -consciousness of nobility. -</p> - -<p> -“My task ends here,” he said, quietly. “And shall we cry quits, M. le -Comte?” -</p> - -<p> -I lay on the floor, my head in Carinne’s lap. -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen Crépin,” I said, “thou hast acquitted thyself like a -gentleman and a man of courage. I would not wish, for thy sake, that -the risk had been less; I would not, for ours, know that it hath -involved thee in the toils.” -</p> - -<p> -“We are all in the toils nowadays,” said he; “and happy the lion that -can find a mouse for his friend. To the extent of my power I have -done; yet, I warn thee, thou art not out of the wood. If the weasel -wakes to the manner of his outwitting, not a river of blood shall -divert him from the scent till he has run thee down—thee, and me -also. Oh! I desire thee, do not misapprehend the importance of my -service.” -</p> - -<p> -Carinne looked up. She made an involuntary gesture with her hands. -This dear child, in her sweet surrender, became the archetype of -womanhood. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” she said, softly, “you have stood aside so honourably, you -have made us so greatly your debtors, that you will not now stultify -your own self-sacrifice by imposing upon us a heritage of remorse? If -you are in such danger, why not remain here with us?” -</p> - -<p> -He did not answer for some moments; but he shook his head very -slightly as he gazed down on us. -</p> - -<p> -“As to life,” he said presently, “my compact is with the senses. There -is a higher ideal to reach to, no doubt; but <i>Mordi</i>! I confess, for -myself I cannot feel the epicure and play the ascetic. To continue in -love with virtue, one must take it only, like opium, in occasional -doses. An habitual indulgence in it degrades the picturesqueness of -its own early evoking. Perhaps it should be ethically grateful to me -to remain here to contemplate the fruit of my generosity ripening for -another’s picking. Perhaps the guillotine is awaiting me in Paris. -Well, mademoiselle, of the two evils I prefer the latter. Here, to -feed on my own self-righteousness would be to starve at the end of a -day; there, the glory of doing, of directing, of enjoying, will soon -woo me from memory of a sentiment that was no more part of my real -self than the mistletoe is part of the harsh trunk it beautifies. For -death, I do not fear it, if it will come to me passionately, like a -mistress.” -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur!” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, mademoiselle! believe me that I can offer no higher testimony to -your worth than the assurance that I have for six months lost myself -in you!” -</p> - -<p> -I looked at this ex-waiter in marvel. His dishes could never have -shown a finer polish than his manners. Moreover, in what intervals of -supplying food to others had he sat himself down to his own feast of -reason? One was accustomed in those days to hear coal-heavers -discussing Diderot, but not in the language of Diderot. I gazed on his -face and thought I saw in it a neutral ground, whereon a beast and an -angel hobnobbed in the intervals of combat. -</p> - -<p> -Beside him the torch-bearer—silent, melancholy, astringent—held his -brand aloft motionless, as if his arm were a sconce of iron. -</p> - -<p> -“You are hurt, monsieur?” said Crépin, suddenly referring to me. -</p> - -<p> -“It is nothing—a bite, a scratch; an excuse for a pillow.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” (he fetched a flask from his pocket and uncorked it)—“this is -ethereal cream of mint—a liqueur I affect, in that it reminds me of -lambs, and innocence—and shepherdesses. Let us pledge one another, -like good friends, at parting! And it will confirm thy cure, monsieur, -so happily begun.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle?” he said pleadingly, and offered it to Carinne. -</p> - -<p> -She touched it with her lips—I, more effectively, with mine. Crépin -cried “<i>Trinquons!</i>” and, taking a lusty pull, handed the flask to -Gusman, who drained it. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” said he, “we are united by a bond the sweetest in the -world—the sympathy of the palate. We have made of ourselves a little -rosary of wine beads.” -</p> - -<p> -He put his hand lightly on Gusman’s shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -“This austerity,” he said—“this Bailly of the Municipality of the -dead—I have purchased ye his favour with the one bribe to which he is -susceptible. Kings might offer him their crowns; easy maids their -honour. They should no more draw him from his reserve than Alexander -drew Diogenes from his tub. But there is a <i>séductrice</i> to his -integrity, and the name of it is right Hollands. My faith! I would not -swear <i>my</i> fidelity to such a frowzy mistress; but taste is a matter -of temperament. Is it not so, Jacques?” -</p> - -<p> -“While the keg lasts, I will hold the safety of thy friends in pawn to -thee.” -</p> - -<p> -So replied the spectral figure—a voice, a phantom—the very enigma of -this charnel city of echoes. -</p> - -<p> -The liqueur had revived and comforted me amazingly. I raised myself on -my elbow. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” I cried, “if good intentions could find favour with thee, I -would make thy keg a kilderkin, Citizen Gusman!” -</p> - -<p> -The figure stood mute, like a man of bronze. Crépin laughed -recklessly. -</p> - -<p> -“He is the fast warden of these old catacombs,” he said—“the undying -worm and sole master of their intricacies. Himself hath tunnelled them -under the ground, I believe, like the tan-yard grub that bores into -poplar-trees. Silence and secrecy are his familiars; but, I tell thee, -monsieur, he will absorb Hollands till he drips with it as the roofs -of his own quarries drip with water. The keg once drained, and—if -thou renew’st it not—he will sell thee for a single measure of -schnapps. Is it not so, Jacques?” -</p> - -<p> -“It is so,” said the figure, in a deep, indifferent voice. -</p> - -<p> -Crépin laughed again, then suddenly turned grave, and leaned down -towards me. -</p> - -<p> -“Harkee, M. le Comte!” he said, “is thy pocket well lined?” -</p> - -<p> -“With good intentions, M. le Président.” -</p> - -<p> -He nodded and, fetching a little bag of skin out of his breast, forced -it into my hand. -</p> - -<p> -“It is all I can spare,” he said; “and with that I must acquit my -conscience of the matter.” -</p> - -<p> -“If ever I live to repay thee, good fellow——” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, bah, monsieur! I owe thee for the Médoc. And now—escape if thou -seest the way open. This strange creature will be thy bond-slave while -the keg runs. Afterwards—<i>eh bien! C’est à toi la balle</i>. For food, -thou must do as others here—take toll of the country carts as they -journey to the barriers. They will not provide thee with sweetbreads -in wine; but—well, monsieur, there are fifty ways, after all, of -cooking a cabbage.” -</p> - -<p> -I rose, with difficulty, to my feet. Carinne, still seated on the -floor, held her hand in mine. Something like a gentle quinsy in my -throat embarrassed my speech. -</p> - -<p> -“Good citizen——” I muttered. -</p> - -<p> -Crépin made a gesture with his hand and backed in a hurry. -</p> - -<p> -“I desire no expression of gratitude,” he said loudly. -</p> - -<p> -“Good citizen,” I repeated, “thou wouldst not rebuke our selfishness -by denying us, thy most faithful debtors, the privilege claimed by -even a minor actor in this escapade?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of whom dost thou speak?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of a turnkey at St Pélagie’s.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mordi!</i> I drenched him once for the colic—that is all. The fool -fancied he had swallowed an eft that was devouring his entrails.” -</p> - -<p> -He cried “<i>Portez vous bien!</i>” and a quick emotion, as of physical -pain, flickered over his face like a breath of air over hot coals. -Carinne was on her feet in a moment, had gone swiftly to him, and had -taken his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” she said, in a wet voice, “it is true that honour, like -sweet vines, may shoot from beds of corruption. God forbid that I pass -judgment on that which influences the ways of men; but only—but only, -monsieur, I hope you may live very long, and may take comfort from the -thought of the insignificance of the subject of your so great -sacrifice.” -</p> - -<p> -She drooped her dear head. The other looked at her with an intense -gaze. -</p> - -<p> -“But, nevertheless,” he said, quietly, “it was the letter of M. le -Comte, of my honoured father Epicurus, that moved me to the sacrifice. -That is great, as you say. I never realised how great till this -moment. Yet—ah, mademoiselle! I would not sanctify it out of the -category of human passions by pretending that I was induced to it by -any sentiment of self-renunciation. Thyself should not have persuaded -me to spare thee—nor anything less, may be, than an appeal from my -preceptor in the metaphysics of the senses. I take no shame to say so. -I am not a traitor to my creed; and it would offend me to be called a -puritan.” -</p> - -<p> -He put the girl’s hand gently away from him. -</p> - -<p> -“Still,” he said, “I may not deem myself worthy to touch this flower -with my lips.” -</p> - -<p> -And at that he turned and went from us, summoning Gusman to accompany -him, and crying as he vanished, “Good luck and forgetfulness to all!” -</p> - -<p> -So disappeared from our lives this singular man, who persisted to the -very last in lashing me with the thong of my own twisting. We never -saw him again; once only we heard of him. -</p> - -<p> -As the flash of the retreating torch glimmered into attenuation, -Carinne returned to me and sat down at my side. -</p> - -<p> -“Little Thibaut,” she said softly, “he designed me so great a wrong -that I know not where to place him in my memory.” -</p> - -<p> -“With the abortive children of thy fancy, Carinne; amongst the -thoughts that are ignorant of the good in themselves.” -</p> - -<p> -She sighed. -</p> - -<p> -“And so it was thou wast his informer as to our friendship? And why -didst thou write, Jean-Louis?” -</p> - -<p> -“To urge him, by our one time intimacy, to cease his persecution of a -beautiful and most innocent lady.” -</p> - -<p> -“I did not know, I did not know!” she cried; and suddenly her arms -were round my neck, and I lay in a nest of love. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! I am glad to be pretty, for the sake of the little Thibaut, that -saved me from barbarous men, and from myself, and, alas! from my -uncle! Little Thibaut, did I hurt when I beat thee? Beat me, then, -till I cry with the pain.” -</p> - -<p> -She sobbed and laughed and held my face against her bosom. In the -midst, the candle on the wall dropped like a meteor, and instantly we -were immured in a very crypt of darkness. -</p> - -<p> -She cried in a terrified voice: “Oh, <i>mon Dieu</i>! hold me, or I sink!” -and committed herself shuddering to my embrace. -</p> - -<p> -The blackness was blind, horrible, beyond reason. We could only shut -our eyes and whisper to one another, expecting and hoping for Gusman’s -return. But he came no more that night, and by-and-by Carinne slept in -my arms. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -The glare of torch-light on my face brought me to my senses. That -sombre deadman, as Carinne called him, stood above us—visionless, -without movement, it seemed—a lurid genii presented in a swirling -drift of smoke. He might never have moved from the spot since we had -last seen him there. -</p> - -<p> -“Why dost thou wake us, good friend?” said I. “Hast thou a midnight -service for the dead here?” -</p> - -<p> -“It is high morning,” said he, in a voice like a funeral bell. -</p> - -<p> -“Morning!” -</p> - -<p> -I sat up in amazement. Truly I had not thought of it. We had slept the -clock round; but there was no day in this hideous and melancholy -underworld. -</p> - -<p> -I looked down at my companion. She had slipped from my hold of her, -and lay across my knees. Her hair curled low on her forehead; her -eyelids were misted with a faint blue shadow, like the sheaths of -hyacinth buds before they open; her lips were a little parted, as Love -had left them. <i>Mon Dieu!</i> there is no sight so tender and so pathetic -as that of a fair child asleep; and what was Carinne but a child! -</p> - -<p> -In an access of emotion I bent and softly touched the lips with mine. -This infant so brave and so forlorn, whose head should have been -pillowed on flowers, whose attendants should have been the lady -fairies! -</p> - -<p> -“She is very pretty,” said the deadman. -</p> - -<p> -“Ha, ha!” I cried. “Hast thou found it out? There shall spring a -blossom for thee yet, old Gusman, in this lifeless city of thine!” -</p> - -<p> -He twirled his torch for the first time, so that it spouted fire like -a hand-grenade. -</p> - -<p> -“Blossoms!” he barked. “But thou shalt know I have my garden walks -down here—bowers of mildew, parterres of fine rank funguses, royal -worms even, that have battened for centuries on the seed of men.” -</p> - -<p> -He crooked his knees, so that he might stare into my face. -</p> - -<p> -“Not altogether a city of the dead,” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it peopled with ghosts, then?” -</p> - -<p> -“Very thickly, without doubt. Thou shalt see them swarm like maggots -in its streets.” -</p> - -<p> -I shrugged my shoulders. The creature stood erect once more, and made -a comprehensive gesture. -</p> - -<p> -“This?” he said,—“you must not judge by this. It is the Holy of -Holies, to which none has access but the High Priest of the -Catacombs—and such as he favours.” -</p> - -<p> -“And what, in a rude age, keeps it sacred?” -</p> - -<p> -He swept his torch right and left. -</p> - -<p> -“Look, then!” said he. -</p> - -<p> -We lay in a vaulted chamber hewn out of the rock. On all sides I -fancied I caught dim vision of the mouths of innumerable low tunnels -that exhaled a mist of profound night. -</p> - -<p> -“Knowledge!” exclaimed the fearful man; “the age-long lore of one that -hath learnt his every footstep in this maze of oubliettes. There are -beaten tracks here and there. Here and there a fool has been known to -leave them. It may be days or weeks before I happen across his -body—the eyes slipping forward of their lids, his mouth puckered out -of shape from sucking and gnawing at the knuckles of his hands.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is terrible! And none comes hither but thou?” -</p> - -<p> -“I, and the beasts of blood that must not be denied. When they hunt, I -lead; therefore it is well to win my favour.” -</p> - -<p> -Carinne hurriedly raised herself. She threw her arms about me. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, my husband!” she cried, “take me where I may see the sweet -daylight, if only for a moment!” -</p> - -<p> -I had thought the poor child slept. -</p> - -<p> -“Hush!” I murmured. “Citizen Gusman is going to show us his township!” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -By interminable corridors, so intricate that one would have thought -their excavators must have lain down to die, each at the limit of his -boring, from sheer despair of ever finding their way to the open -again, we followed the flare of the torch, our eyes smarting in its -smoke, our arms most fervently linked, Carinne’s to mine, in -inseparable devotion. Now and again I would hear my poor little friend -whisper, “Light, light!” as if her very heart were starving; and then -I would draw her face to mine and cry confidently, “It is coming, <i>ma -mie</i>!” Still on we went over the uneven ground, thridding an endless -labyrinth of death, oppressed, weighed upon, hustled by inhuman walls, -breathing and exhaling the thin black fluid that is the atmosphere of -the disembodied. -</p> - -<p> -Sometimes, as if it crouched beneath a stroke, the flame of the torch -would dip and shrink under a current of gas, then leap jocund again -when the peril was swept by; sometimes the tinkle of falling water -would gladden our ears as with a memory of ancient happiness; and, -passing on, in a moment we should be bedewed with spray, and catch a -glimpse, in the glare, of a very dropping well of fire. At length, at -the turning of a corridor, Gusman called us to a halt. -</p> - -<p> -He hollowed his left hand to his mouth. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Holà—làee—eh—h—h!</i>” he yelled, like a very <i>lutin</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Là—là—là—là—làee—eh—làee—eh—làee—eh!</i>” was hooted -and jangled back in a tumbling torrent of sound, that seemed to issue -from the throat of a passage facing us and to shake the very roofs -with merriment. Involuntarily we shrunk against the wall, as if to -allow space to the impetuous rush we foresaw. <i>Mon Dieu</i>, the strange -illusion! Only the swarming imps of echoes, summoned to the Master -call, came hurrying forth, leaping and falling over one another, -fighting and struggling, clanging with reverberant laughter, -distributing themselves, disappearing down this or that corridor, -shouting over their shoulders as they fled—faint, fainter—till -silence settled down once more like water in the wake of a vessel. -</p> - -<p> -Gusman slewed his head about—cockt as it had been to the outcry—to -view of us. -</p> - -<p> -“They are lively to-day,” he said, with an unearthly distortion of his -features. -</p> - -<p> -“The echoes?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>C’est cela, citoyen.</i> So men entitle them. No doubt it is human to -think to put terror out of countenance by miscalling it.” -</p> - -<p> -“How, then?” -</p> - -<p> -He beckoned us to follow; plunged into the very funnel mouth that had -vomited the eerie babble; led us swiftly by a winding passage, and -stopped. -</p> - -<p> -“Behold!” said he, flashing his torch to and fro over the surface of a -roughly piled and cemented wall that seemed to close the entrance to a -vast recess. -</p> - -<p> -“Behold!” said he, sweeping the flame to the ground at the wall-foot. -</p> - -<p> -We saw a skull or two; a few scattered bones. An indescribable brassy -odour assailed our nostrils. The stones shone with an oily exudation. -</p> - -<p> -“What company lies here, citizen?” -</p> - -<p> -“A brave one, by my faith—a whole cemetery <i>en bloc</i>. <i>Comment -diable!</i> shall they have fitted themselves each with his own by the -day of Judgment! They pretend to sleep, piecemeal as they were bundled -in; but utter so little as a whisper down there, and they will begin -to stir and to talk. Then if thou shout’st, as I did—my God, what a -clamour in reply! But one would have thought they had protested enough -already.” -</p> - -<p> -“In what manner?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ask the killers of September, thou. They are held honest men, I -believe.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is enough,” said I. “Lead on, Citizen Gusman, and find us a glint -of light, in the name of God!” -</p> - -<p> -I glanced, with a shudder, at Carinne. Thank heaven! she had not, it -appeared, understood. So here, in one dreadful lime-cemented heap, -were massed the victims of those unspeakable days! I remembered the -Abbaye and the blood-mark on the lip of Mademoiselle de Lâge; and I -held the girl to my side, as we walked, with a pressure that was -convulsive. -</p> - -<p> -Again the torch danced before us, and again we followed; and yet again -the deadman called us to a stop, and whirled his half-devoured brand. -</p> - -<p> -“Observe well,” said he; “for it is in this quarter ye must sojourn, -and here seek refuge when warning comes.” -</p> - -<p> -This time a very hill of skulls and ribs and shanks—a lifeless -crater—a Monte Testaccio of broken vessels that had once contained -the wine of life. The heap filled a wide recess and rose twenty feet -to the roof. -</p> - -<p> -“The contribution of ‘Les Innocens,’” said Gusman, as if he were some -spectral minister of affairs announcing in the Convention of the dead -a Sectional subscription. -</p> - -<p> -He pointed to a little closet of stone, like a friar’s cell, that -pierced the wall to one side of the heap. -</p> - -<p> -“Behold your hermitage!” said he. -</p> - -<p> -Carinne, clinging to me, cried, “No, no!” in a weeping voice. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Eh bien!</i>” said the creature, indifferently; “you can take or leave, -as you will.” -</p> - -<p> -“We will take, citizen.” -</p> - -<p> -“Look, then!” (he gripped my arm and haled me to the mound) “and note -what I do.” -</p> - -<p> -There was a point—roughly undistinguishable from the rest—where a -welded mass of calcareous bone and rubbish lay upon the litter. This -was, in effect, a door in one piece, with an infant’s skull for handle -and concealed hinges of gut to one side to prevent its slipping out of -place. Removed, it revealed a black mouth opening into an inner -vacancy. -</p> - -<p> -“Underneath lies a great box or kennel of wood,” said Gusman, “with a -manhole cut in its side; and round and over the box the stuff is -piled. At the very word of warning, creep in and close the entrance. -It is like enough ye will need it.” -</p> - -<p> -“And here we are to stay?” -</p> - -<p> -“That is according to your inclination.” -</p> - -<p> -“But <i>Mor’ Dieu</i>, my friend! if thou wert to forget or overlook us -entombed in this oubliette?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Soyez content.</i> I might forget thou wert lacking food, but never -that the citizen President gave thee a purse.” -</p> - -<p> -“But——” -</p> - -<p> -“Tst, tst! Wouldst thou explore farther my city of shadows? Here the -wild quarries merge into the catacombs. Hence, a little space, thou -wilt find company and to spare;—light, also, if Mademoiselle wills.” -</p> - -<p> -The poor child uttered a heart-moving sigh. -</p> - -<p> -“Come, then,” said Gusman, with a shrug of his shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -He preceded us the length of a single corridor, low and narrow—a mere -human mole-run. All throughout it the rock seemed to grip us, the air -to draw like wire into our lungs. And then, suddenly, we were come to -a parapet of stone that cut our path like a whitewashed hoarding. For -through a fissure in the plain above it a wedge of light entered—a -very wise virgin with her lamp shining like snow;—and under the beam -we stopped, and gazed upwards, and could not gaze enough. -</p> - -<p> -But, for Carinne—she was translated! She laughed; she murmured; she -made as if she caught the sweet wash like water in her hands and -bathed her face with it. -</p> - -<p> -“And now I am ready,” said she. -</p> - -<p> -Then we scaled the wall, jumping to a lower terrace of rock: and -thereafter ran the corridor again, descending, but now of ample enough -width and showing a design of masonry at intervals, and sometimes -great stone supports to the roof where houses lay above. And in a -moment our path swept into a monstrous field of bones—confused, -myriad, piled up like slag about a pit-mouth; and we thridded our way -therethrough along a dusty gully, and emerged at once into a high -vaulted cavern and the view of living things. -</p> - -<p> -Living things!—<i>Grand Dieu!</i> the bats of the living Terror. They -peered from holes and alcoves; they mowed and chattered; they shook -their sooty locks at us and hailed Gusman in the jargon of the -underworld. Thieves and rogues and cowards—here they swarmed in the -warrens of despair, the very sacristans of devil-worship, the unclean -acolytes of the desecrated rock-chapels, whose books of the Gospel -were long since torn for fuel. -</p> - -<p> -Out of one pestilent cavern, wherein I caught glimpse of an altar -faced with an arabesque of cemented bones, something like a dusky ape, -that clung with both hands to a staff for support, came mouthing and -gesticulating at us. -</p> - -<p> -“Bread, bread!” it mumbled, working its black jaws; and it made an -aimless pick at Carinne’s skirt. -</p> - -<p> -“There is for thee, then!” thundered Gusman; and he flapped his torch -into the thing’s face. The animal vented a hideous cry and shuffled -back into its hole, shedding sparks on its way as if it smouldered -like an old rag. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, <i>mon ami</i>!” whispered Carinne, in a febrile voice—“better the -den by the skulls than this!” -</p> - -<p> -The deadman gave an acrid grin. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>À la bonne heure</i>,” said he. “Doubtless hunger pinches. Come back, -then; and I will open my wallet and thou shalt thy purse.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Early in the afternoon—so far as in that rayless desolation one could -judge it to be—there broke upon our eyes the flutter of an advancing -light, upon our ears the quick secret patter of hurrying steps. These -ran up to the very opening of our lair and stopped. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Hide!</i>” said the deadman’s voice, “I hear them call me to the -search! Hide!” and, without another word, he retreated as he had come. -</p> - -<p> -Carinne uttered a little shuddering “Oh!” She took my head between her -hands and kissed my lips, the admirable child. Then we emerged from -our den (the ghostliest glimmer reached us from some distant corner, -where, no doubt, Gusman had left a light burning), and stole swiftly -to the mound-foot. I felt about for the infant’s skull (the position -of which I had intensely remarked), and in a moment found it and laid -bare the aperture. -</p> - -<p> -“Dive, little rabbit,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“I am within, Jean-Louis.” -</p> - -<p> -I followed, feet first, and with my toes just touching bottom, reached -out and pulled the trap upon us. Then, with a feeling as if I were -wrenching off a blouse over my shoulders, I let myself back into the -hole—upon a carpet of muffling dust—and <i>ma bonne amie</i> caught at -me, and we stood to hear our own hearts beating. Like the thick throb -of a clock in an under-room—thus, I swear, our pulses sounded to us -in that black and horrible stillness. The box had, it appeared, been -very compactly built in at the first—and before the superincumbent -litter of rubbish had been discharged over and around it—with the -strongest bones, for that these were calculated to endure, without -shifting, the onset of one hurriedly concealing himself; yet this -necessary precaution went near to stultifying itself by so helping to -exclude the air as to make breathing a labour to one confined within. -Fortunately, however, no long strain upon our endurance was demanded -of us. -</p> - -<p> -Now the hunters came upon us so silently, that there, in our ghastly -prison, a spray of light, scattered through the chinks of the trap, -was our first intimation of their presence. Then, as we maddened to -see the glint withdrawn, a low voice came to our ears. -</p> - -<p> -“Stop, then! What is this?” -</p> - -<p> -“The dust of the Innocents, citizen.” (Gusman’s voice.) -</p> - -<p> -“It is with the dust of the depraved in breeding fat maggots, is it -not?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ay, so long as they can find flesh food.” -</p> - -<p> -“But what if such food were concealed herein? That little <i>babouin</i> of -St Pélagie—<i>peste!</i> a big thigh-bone would afford him cover.” -</p> - -<p> -I felt my hand carried to Carinne’s lips in the darkness. -</p> - -<p> -Gusman kicked at the mound with his sabot. -</p> - -<p> -“Close litter,” said he. “A man would suffocate that burrowed into -it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is that so? Rake me over that big lump yonder—<i>voilà!</i>—with the -little skull sticking from it.” -</p> - -<p> -I felt my heart turn like a mountebank—felt Carinne stoop suddenly -and rise with something huddled in her hands. The astonishing child -had, unknown to me, preconceived a plan and was prepared with it on -the very flash of emergency. She leant past me, swift and perfectly -silent, and immediately the little spars of light about the trap went -out, it seemed. If in moving she made the smallest sound, it was -opportunely covered by the ragged cough that issued at the moment from -Gusman’s throat. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Dépêche-toi!</i>” said the authoritative voice. “That projecting -patch, citizen—turn it for me!” -</p> - -<p> -“There is nothing here.” -</p> - -<p> -“But, there, I say! No, no! <i>Mille tonnerres</i>,—I will come myself, -then!” -</p> - -<p> -I heard Gusman’s breath vibrant outside the trap; heard him hastily -raise the covering an inch or two, with an affectation of labouring -perplexity. I set my teeth; I “saw red,” like flecks of blood; I -waited for the grunt of triumph that should announce the discovery of -the hole. -</p> - -<p> -“It is as I told thee,” said the deadman; “there is nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -I caught a note of strangeness in his voice, a suppressed marvel that -communicated itself to me. The sweat broke out on my forehead. -</p> - -<p> -“H’mph!” muttered the inquisitor; and I heard him step back. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly he cried, “<i>En avant, plus avant!</i> To thy remotest -boundaries, citizen warden! We will run the little rascal to earth -yet!” -</p> - -<p> -The light faded from our ken; the footsteps retreated. I passed a -shaking hand over my eyes—I could not believe in the reality of our -escape. -</p> - -<p> -At length, unable any longer to endure the silence, I caught at -Carinne in the blackness. -</p> - -<p> -“Little angel,” I said; “in God’s name, what didst thou do?” -</p> - -<p> -She bowed her sweet face to my neck. -</p> - -<p> -“Only this, Jean-Louis. I had noticed that my poor ragged skirt was -much of the colour of this heap; and so I slipped it off and stuffed -it into the hole.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -We dwelt an hour in our horrible retreat, from time to time cautiously -lifting the trap a finger’s-breadth for air. At the end, Gusman -reappeared with his torch and summoned us to our release. He looked at -Carinne, as St Hildephonsus might have gazed on the Blessed Virgin. -</p> - -<p> -“It was magnificent,” he said. “I saw at once. Thou hast saved me no -less than thyself. That I will remember, <i>citoyenne</i>, when the -opportunity serves.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -On the third day our deadman came to us with a copy of the ‘Moniteur’ -in his hand. He pointed silently to a name in the list of the latest -executed. Carinne turned to me with pitiful eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Ah, le pauvre Crépin!</i>” I cried, in great emotion. “What can one -hope but that death came to him passionately, as he desired!” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen Gusman, we are resolved. We must go forth, if it is only to -perish. We can endure this damning gloom no longer.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked down on us as we sat, this genii of the torch. His face was -always framed to our vision in a lurid wreath; was the sport of any -draught that swayed the leaping fire. Submitted to daylight, his -features might have resolved themselves into expressionlessness and -immobility. To us they were ever shifting, fantastic, possessed with -the very devils of the underworld. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he said at length—“I owe the citizeness a debt of gratitude; -but—<i>sang Dieu!</i> after all I might repudiate it when the keg -threatened to suck dry. I am myself only when I am not myself. That -would be a paradox in the world above there, eh? At least the moment -is opportune. They hunt counter for thee, Thibaut. For the wench—she -is not in their minds, nor associated in any manner with thee. That -lends itself to an artifice. The idea tickles me. <i>Sang Dieu!</i> Yes, I -will supply thee with a passport to Calais. Wait!” -</p> - -<p> -He went from us. We knew better than to interrupt or question him; but -we held together during his absence and whispered our hopes. In less -than half an hour he returned to us, some papers grasped in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Observe,” said he. “It is not often, after a harvest of death, that -the <i>glaneurs</i> of the Municipality overlook a stalk; yet now and again -one will come to me. Citizen Tithon Riouffe, it appears, meditated a -descent upon <i>la maudite Angleterre</i>. He had his papers, signed and -countersigned, for himself, and for his wife Sabine, moreover. It is -lucky for you that he proved a rascal, for they shaved him -nevertheless. What Barrère had granted, St Just rendered nugatory. -But, if they took his head, they left him his passports, and those I -found in his secret pocket.” -</p> - -<p> -He broke off, with a quick exclamation, and peered down at me, holding -the torch to my face. -</p> - -<p> -“Mother of God!” he cried—“I will swear there is something a likeness -here! I have a mind to fetch the head and set it to thine, cheek by -jowl! <i>Hé bien, comment, la petite babiole</i>—that disturbs her! Well, -well—take and use the papers, then, and, with discretion, ye shall -win free!” -</p> - -<p> -Carinne caught at the rough hand of our preserver and kissed it. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur, thou art a deadman angel!” she cried; and broke into a -little fit of weeping. -</p> - -<p> -His lids fell. I saw his throat working. He examined his hand as if he -thought something had stung it. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, she is very pretty,” he muttered. “I think I would give my life -for her.” -</p> - -<p> -Then he added, vaguely: “<i>Chou pour chou</i>—I will take it out in -Hollands.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch15"> -CHAPTER XV.<br> -<span class="chap_sub">THE SALAD COURSE.</span> -</h3> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span class="sc">Citoyen Tithon Riouffe</span> <i>et femme</i> had yet to experience the most -extraordinary instance of that favouritism, by an after-display of -which, towards those whom she has smitten without subduing, Fortune -proclaims herself the least supernatural of goddesses. Truly, they had -never thrown into the lottery of events with a faint heart; and now a -first prize was to be the reward of their untiring persistency. -</p> - -<p> -Possibly, indeed, the papers of recommendation might have sufficed of -themselves; yet that they would have carried us (having regard to our -moulting condition, poor cage-worn sparrows! and the necessary -slowness of our advance) in safety to the coast, I most strenuously -doubt. -</p> - -<p> -Dear God! the soughing of the May wind, the whisper of the grasses, -the liquid flutter of the stars, that were like lights reflected in a -lake! The hour of ten saw us lifted to the plain in body—to the -heavens in spirit. For freedom, we were flying from the land of -liberty; for life, from the advocates of the Rights of Man. We sobbed -and we embraced. -</p> - -<p> -“Some day,” we cried to Gusman, “we will come back and roll thee under -a hogshead of schnapps!”—and then we set our faces to the north, and -our teeth to a long task of endurance—one no less, indeed, than a -sixty-league tramp up the half of the Isle de France and the whole of -Picardie. Well, at least, as in the old days, we should walk together, -with only the little rogue that laughs at locksmiths riding sedan -between us. -</p> - -<p> -It was our design to skirt, at a reasonable distance, the east walls -of the city, and to strike at Pantin, going by way of Gentilly and -Bercy—the road to Meaux. Thence we would make, by a north-westerly -course, the Amiens highway; and so, with full hearts and purses -tight-belted for their hunger, for the pathetically distant sea. -</p> - -<p> -And all this we did, though not as we had foreseen. We toiled onwards -in the dark throughout that first sweet night of liberty. For seven -hours we tramped without resting; and then, ten miles north of the -walls, we lay down under the lee of a skilling, and, rolled in one -another’s arms, slept for four hours like moles. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -I woke to the prick of rain upon my face. Before my half-conscious -eyes a hectic spot faded and went wan in a grey miasma like death. It -was the sun—the cheek of the virgin day, grown chill in a premature -decline. -</p> - -<p> -I sat up. From the south-west, like the breath of the fatal city -pursuing us, a melancholy draft of cloud flowed and spread itself, -making for the northern horizon. It wreathed in driving swirls and -ripples, as if it were the very surface of a stream that ran above us; -and, indeed almost before we were moved to a full wakefulness, we were -as sopt as though we lay under water. -</p> - -<p> -A swampy day it was to be. The drops soon fell so thickly that heaven -seemed shut from us by a skylight of blurred glass. The interval from -cloud to earth was like a glaze upon the superficies of a fire-baked -sphere. The starved clammy fields shone livid; the highway ran, -literally; the poplars that skirted it were mere leafy piles in a -lagoon. Then the wind rose, shouldering us forward and bombarding us -from the rear in recurrent volleys, till I, at least, felt like a -fugitive saurian escaping from the Deluge with my wet tail between my -legs. -</p> - -<p> -I looked at my comrade, the delicate gallant lady. Her hair was -whipped about her face, her skirt about her ankles. The red cap on her -head, with which Gusman had provided her, hung over like the comb of a -vanquished cockerel. She was not vanquished, however. Her white teeth -clicked a little with the cold; but when she became conscious of my -gaze, she returned it with an ardour of the sweetest drollery. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Enfin, mon p’tit Thibaut</i>,” she said; “I prefer Liberty in her -chilly moods, though she make a <i>noyade</i> of us.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is almost come to that. With a brave effort, it seems, we might -rise to the clouds by our own buoyancy. Take a long breath, Carinne. -Canst thou swim?” -</p> - -<p> -She laughed and stopped a moment, and took me by the hands. -</p> - -<p> -“I should be able to,” she said; “I feel so like a fish, or a lizard, -whose skin is a little loose on his body. Am I not a dreadful sight, -Jean-Louis?” -</p> - -<p> -“Thou art never anything but beautiful in my eyes.” -</p> - -<p> -“Fie, then, fie then! cannot I see myself in them! Very small and very -ugly, Jean-Louis—an imp of black waters.” -</p> - -<p> -“And I see babies in thine, Carinne. That is what the peasants call -them. And I never loved my own image so well as now. It has a little -blue sky to itself to spite the reality. It is a fairy peeping from a -flower. <i>Ma mie</i>, and art thou so very cold and hungry?” -</p> - -<p> -“Truly, my teeth go on munching the air for lack of anything better.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is pitiful. We must brave the next town or village to procure -food. There are no berries here, Carinne; no little conies to catch in -a springe of withe and spit for roasting on an old sabre; and if there -were, we must not stop to catch them.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is true we must eat, then. The plunge has to be made—for liberty -or death. <i>Formez vos bataillons!</i> Advance, M. le Comte, with thy -heart jumping to the hilt of thy sword!” -</p> - -<p> -She cried out merrily. She was my own, my property, the soul of my -confidence; yet I could have cheered her in the face of a multitude as -(God forgive the comparison!) the mob cheered the <i>guenipe</i> Théroigne -when she entered the Bastille. -</p> - -<p> -So, once more we drove and were driven forward; and presently, six -miles north of St Denis, down we came, with stout courage, I hope, -upon the village of Écouen, and into immediate touch with that -fortune that counselled us so amiably in the crisis of our affairs. -</p> - -<p> -Yet at the outset this <i>capricieuse</i> essayed to terrify us out of all -assurance of self-confidence, and was the coquette to give us a bad -quarter of an hour before she smiled on our suit. For at the very -barrier occurred a <i>contretemps</i> that, but for its happy adaptation by -us to circumstance, threatened to put a short end to our fugitive -romance. -</p> - -<p> -We assumed a breezy deportment, under the raking scrutiny of five or -six patriot savages—mere arrogant <i>péagers</i>, down whose dirty faces -the rain trickled sluggishly like oil. Foul straw was stuft into their -clogs; over their shoulders, nipped with a skewer at the neck, were -flung frowzy squares of sacking, in the hanging corners of which they -held the flint-locks of their pieces for dryness’ sake. By the door of -the village taxing-house, that stood hard by the barrier, a -ferret-faced postilion—the only man of them all in boots—lounged, -replaiting the lash of his whip and drawing the string through his -mouth. -</p> - -<p> -“Graceless weather, citizens!” said I. -</p> - -<p> -A squinting <i>bonnet-rouge</i> damned me for <i>un âne ennuyant</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“Keep thy breath,” said he, “for what is less obvious;” and he surlily -demanded the production of our papers. -</p> - -<p> -“A good patriot,” growled another, “walks with his face to Paris.” -</p> - -<p> -“So many of them have their heads turned, it is true,” whispered -Carinne. -</p> - -<p> -The squinting man wedged his eyes upon her. -</p> - -<p> -“What is that?” he said sharply—“some <i>mot de ralliement</i>? Be -careful, my friends! I have the gift to look straight into the hearts -of traitors!” -</p> - -<p> -It was patent, however, that he deceived himself. He snatched the -papers rudely from me, and conned them all at cross-purposes. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Sacré corps!</i>” he snapped—“what is thy accursed name?” -</p> - -<p> -“It is plain to read, citizen.” -</p> - -<p> -“For a mincing aristocrat, yes. But, for us—we read only between the -lines.” -</p> - -<p> -“Read on them, then, the names of Citizen Tithon Riouffe and wife.” -</p> - -<p> -The indolent postilion spat the string from his lips, looked up -suddenly, and came swiftly to the barrier. -</p> - -<p> -“How?” said he, “what name?” -</p> - -<p> -I repeated the words, with a little quaver in my voice. The man cockt -his head evilly, his eyes gone into slits. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, <i>le bon Dieu</i>!” he cried, in acrid tones, “but the assurance of -this ragged juggler!” -</p> - -<p> -Carinne caught nervously at my hand. -</p> - -<p> -“I do not understand the citizen,” said I, in my truculent voice. -</p> - -<p> -“But I think, yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“That that is not the name on the passport?” -</p> - -<p> -“I know nothing of the passport. I know that thou art not Riouffe, and -it is enough.” -</p> - -<p> -Squint-eyes croaked joyously. -</p> - -<p> -“Come!” he said; “here is a sop to the weather.” -</p> - -<p> -As for me, I could have whipped Gusman for his talk of a fortuitous -resemblance. -</p> - -<p> -“I am Riouffe,” said I, stubbornly, “whatever thou mayst think.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, it is said,” cried the postilion. He chirped shrilly like a -ferret. “And, if thou art Riouffe, thou art a damned aristocrat; and -how art thou the better for that?” -</p> - -<p> -“Bah!” I exclaimed. “What dost thou know of me, pig of a stable-boy?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of thee, nothing. Of Riouffe, enough to say that thou art not he.” -</p> - -<p> -“Explain, citizen!” growled a curt-spoken patriot, spitting on the -ground for full-stop. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mes amis</i>,” cried the deplorable rogue. “Myself, I conveyed the -Citizen Tithon Riouffe to Paris in company with the Englishman. The -Englishman, within the fifteen days, returns alone. He breaks his -journey here, as you know, to breakfast at the ‘Anchor.’ But, for -Riouffe—I heard he was arrested.” -</p> - -<p> -Grace of God! here was a concatenation of mishaps—as luckless a -<i>rencontre</i> as Fate ever conceived of cruelty. My heart turned grey. -The beastly triumphant faces of the guard swam in my vision like -spectres of delirium. Nevertheless, I think, I preserved my reason -sufficiently to assume a <i>sang froid</i> that was rather of the nature of -a fever. -</p> - -<p> -“The question is,” said I, coolly, “not as to whether this lout is a -fool or a liar, but as to whether or no my papers are in order. You -will please to observe by whom they are franked.” (I remembered, in a -flash, the deadman’s statement.) “The name of the Citizen Deputy, who -assured me a safe conduct <i>to</i> Paris, being on this return passport, -should be a sufficient guarantee that his good offices did not end -with my arrival. I may have been arrested and I may have been -released. It is not well, my friends, to pit the word of a horse-boy -against that of a member of the Committee of Public Safety.” -</p> - -<p> -My high manner of assurance had its effect. The faces lowered into -some expression of chagrin and perplexity. And then what must I do but -spoil the effect of all by a childishly exuberant anti-climax. -</p> - -<p> -“I will grant,” said I, “that a change in the habit of one’s dress may -confuse a keener headpiece than a jockey’s. What then! I arrive from -England; I return from Paris—there is the explanation. Moreover, in -these days of equality one must economise for the common good, and, -rather than miss my return seat in the Englishman’s carriage and have -to charter another, I follow in his track, when I find he is already -started, in the hope to overtake him. And now you would delay us here -while he stretches longer leagues between us!” -</p> - -<p> -Carinne gave a little soft whimper. The postilion capered where he -stood. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mes amis!</i>” he cried, “he speaks well! It needs only to confront him -with the Englishman to prove him an impostor.” -</p> - -<p> -<i>Misérable!</i> What folly had I expressed! It had not been sufficiently -flogged into my dull brain that the islander was here, now, in the -village! I had obtusely fancied myself safe in claiming knowledge of -him, while my secure policy was to have blustered out the situation as -another and independent Riouffe. That course I had now made -impossible. I could have driven my teeth through my tongue with -vexation. Carinne touched my hand pitifully. It almost made my heart -overflow. “Thus,” I said by-and-by to her, “the condemned forgives his -executioner,” and—“Ah, little Thibaut,” she whispered, “but you do -not know how big you looked.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -For the moment they could not find the Englishman. He had finished his -breakfast and wandered afield. That was a brief respite; but nothing, -it seemed, to avail in the end. -</p> - -<p> -In the meantime they marched us into the taxing-house, where at a -table sat a commissary of a strange figure. I had blundered -desperately; yet here, I flatter myself, I turned my faculty for -construing character to the account of retrieving my own. -</p> - -<p> -In Citizen Tristan I read—and quite rightly, as events showed—a -decent burgher aggrandised, not against his will, but against the -entire lack of one. His face was shaped, and something coloured, like -a great autumn pear. It was narrow at the forehead, with restless, -ineffective eyes, and it dropped to a monstrous chin—a -self-protective evolution in the era Sainte Guillotine. Obviously he -had studied to save his neck by surrounding it with a rampart of fat. -For the rest he was very squat and ungainly; and he kept shifting the -papers on his desk rather than look at us. -</p> - -<p> -“Here is a man,” thought I, “who has been promoted because in all his -life he has never learned to call anything his own.” -</p> - -<p> -Our guard presented us arrogantly; the wizened post-boy laid his -charge volubly. -</p> - -<p> -“Call your witness,” said I in a pet. “The case lies in a nutshell.” -</p> - -<p> -My words made an impression, no doubt, though they were uttered in -mere hopeless bravado. -</p> - -<p> -“But, it seems he cannot be found,” protested the commissary, -plaintively. -</p> - -<p> -“Then,” I urged, “it is bad law to detain us.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are detained on suspicion.” -</p> - -<p> -“Of not being ourselves? Oh, monsieur——!” -</p> - -<p> -He took me up peevishly. -</p> - -<p> -“Eh, eh! <i>voilà ce que c’est!</i> Monsieur to me? Art thou not an -aristocrat, then?” -</p> - -<p> -I answered pregnantly, “The question in itself is a reflection upon -him that signed this passport.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked about him like a trapped creature, dumbly entreating the -Fates for succour. It was my plain policy to harp upon the strings of -his nerves. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said I, “a citizen commissary, I perceive, must have the -courage of his opinions; and I can only hope thine will acquit thee -when the reckoning is called.” -</p> - -<p> -He shifted in his chair; he spluttered little deprecatory -interjections under his breath; he shot small furtive glances at his -truculent following. Finally he bade all but us two out of the room, -and the guard to their post at the barrier. The moment they were -withdrawn grumbling, he opened upon me with a poor assumption of -bluster— -</p> - -<p> -“Thou art very big with words; but here I am clearly within my -rights.” -</p> - -<p> -“Are not my papers in order, then?” -</p> - -<p> -“It would at least appear so.” -</p> - -<p> -His lids rose and fell. Patently his self-possession was an insecure -tenure. -</p> - -<p> -“Citizen,” I said, shaking my finger at him. “Since when hast thou -learned to set thy will in opposition to that of Barrère?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Oh, nom de Dieu!</i>” he whimpered, in great distress; and rose and -trundled up and down the room. “I oppose nobody. I am a most unhappy -being, condemned by vile circumstance to give the perpetual lie to my -conscience.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is an ignoble <i>rôle</i>,” said I, “and quite futile of itself.” -</p> - -<p> -He paused suddenly opposite me. His fat lips were shaking; his eyes -blinked a nerveless anxiety. -</p> - -<p> -“I contradict nobody,” he cried; and added afflictedly, “I suppose, if -you are Riouffe, you are Riouffe, I suppose.” -</p> - -<p> -“It all lies in that,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Then,” he cried feebly—“what the devil do you want of me?” -</p> - -<p> -I could have laughed in his poor gross face. -</p> - -<p> -“What, indeed,” said I. “My account with you will come later. You will -be prepared then, no doubt, to justify this detention. For me, there -remains Barrère.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no!” he cried; “I desire only to steer wide of quicksands. You -may guess, monsieur, how I am governed. This <i>fripon</i> takes my fellows -by the ears. He gives you the lie, and you return it in his teeth. -What am I to say or think or do?” -</p> - -<p> -“Is it for me to advise a commissary?” -</p> - -<p> -He rumpled his limp hair desperately as he walked. -</p> - -<p> -“You will not help me! You drive me to distraction!” -</p> - -<p> -He stopped again. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you Riouffe?” he cried. -</p> - -<p> -“You have my passport, monsieur.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, yes, I know!” he exclaimed in a frenzy; “but—Mother of God, -monsieur! do you not comprehend the post-boy to swear you are not the -Englishman’s Riouffe?” -</p> - -<p> -“Confront me, then, with the Englishman.” -</p> - -<p> -“He cannot be found.” -</p> - -<p> -I shrugged my shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“I can only recall monsieur’s attention,” said I, “to the fact that -certain citizens, travelling under safe-conduct of a member of the -Committee of Safety, and with their papers in indisputable order, are -suffering a detention sufficiently unwarrantable to produce the -gravest results.” -</p> - -<p> -The commissary snatched up his hat and ran to the door. -</p> - -<p> -“Go thy ways!” he cried. “Myself, I will conduct you through the -village. For the rest, when the Englishman is found, and if he denies -thee——” -</p> - -<p> -He did not finish the sentence. In a moment we were all in the rainy -street. My accuser was vanished from the neighbourhood of the barrier. -A single patriot only was in evidence. This man made a feint of -bringing his musket to the charge. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Qui va là?</i>” he grunted. “<i>Est-ce qu’il se sauve, ce cochon!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -Fear lent the commissary anger. -</p> - -<p> -“To thy post!” he shouted. “Am I to be made answerable to every dog -that barks!” -</p> - -<p> -Red-bonnet fell back muttering. We hurried forward, splashing over the -streaming cobbles. The street, by luck of weather, was entirely -deserted. Only a horseless <i>limonière</i>, standing at the porch of the -village inn, gave earnest of some prospective interest. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly I felt Carinne’s little clutch on my arm. -</p> - -<p> -“The Englishman!” she whispered, in a gasp. -</p> - -<p> -My teeth clicked rigid. I saw, ahead of us, a tall careless figure -lounge into the open and stop over against the door of the carriage. -At the same moment inspiration came to the commissary. His gaze was -introspective. He had not yet noticed the direction of ours. He -slapped his hand to his thigh as he hurried forward. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mon Dieu!</i>” cried he, “it is simple. Why did I not think of it -sooner? Prove, then, thy knowledge of this Englishman by giving me his -name!” -</p> - -<p> -With the very words I set off running. A startled cry, to which I paid -no heed, pursued me. -</p> - -<p> -“I hold a hostage! I hold a hostage!” screamed the commissary; and -immediately, as I understood, nipped Carinne by the elbow. -</p> - -<p> -But by then I was come up with the stranger. He turned and received me -straddle-legged, his eyes full of a passionless alertness. I lost not -an instant. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” I panted, “we are fugitive aristocrats. In the name of -God, help us!” -</p> - -<p> -I could have adored him for his reception of this astounding appeal. -He never moved a muscle. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Tout droit!</i>” said he; “but give us the tip!” -</p> - -<p> -“Riouffe is dead” (his eyelids twitched at that)—“I have his -passports. I am Riouffe—and this is madame, my wife.” -</p> - -<p> -Simultaneously, in the instant of my speaking, the frantic commissary -brought up Carinne, and, to a metallic clang of hoofs, our fateful -post-boy issued from the inn-yard in charge of his cattle. For a -moment the situation was absolutely complete and dramatic,—the -agonised suitor proposing; the humorous and heroic <i>nonchalant</i> -disposing; the petrified jockey, right; the hostage <i>chevalière</i> in -the grasp of the heavy villain, left. Then all converged to the -central interest, and destroyed the admirable effectiveness of the -tableau. -</p> - -<p> -“Goddam milor’ the Englishman!” shrieked the commissary; “he does not -know thy name!” -</p> - -<p> -The stranger put out a hand as he stood, and clapped me on the -shoulder so that I winced. -</p> - -<p> -“Riouffe!” he cried, in a very bantering voice—“not know his friend -Jack Comely!” (“<i>ne savoir pas son ami Jack Comely—pooh!</i>”) -</p> - -<p> -“That he will swear to, my Jack,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -The commissary released Carinne, and fell back gasping. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Pardon! les bras m’en tombent!</i>” he muttered, in dismayed tones, and -went as white and mottled as a leg of raw mutton. -</p> - -<p> -But the stranger advanced to Carinne, with a blush and a gallant bow. -</p> - -<p> -“Madame,” said he, “I cannot sufficiently curse my impatience for -having cut you out of a stage. It was an error. <i>Entrez, s’il vous -plait.</i>” -</p> - -<p> -He spoke execrable French, the angel! It was enough that we all -understood him. We climbed into the <i>limonière</i>; the stranger -followed, and the door was slammed to. The landlord, with a hussy or -so, gaped at the inn-door. The post-boy, making himself -infinitesimally small to the commissary, limbered up his cattle—three -horses abreast. One of these he mounted, as if it were a nightmare. In -a moment he was towelling his beasts to a gallop, to escape, one would -think, the very embarrassment he carried with him. From time to time -he turned in his saddle, and presented a scared face to our view. -</p> - -<p> -“Well?” said the stranger, looking at us with a smile. -</p> - -<p> -He was a fair-faced young man, bold-mouthed, and ripe with -self-assurance. His dress was of the English fashion—straight-crowned -beaver hat, with the band buckled in front, green tabinet kerchief, -claret-coloured coat tight-buttoned,—altogether a figure very spruce -and clean, like a <i>piqueur d’écurie</i>. -</p> - -<p> -I regarded him in solemn amazement. The whole rapid incident had been -of a nature to make me doubt whether I was awake or dreaming. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Ma mie</i>,” said Carinne, reproachfully; “Milord awaits your -explanation.” -</p> - -<p> -I rose a little and bowed. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” said I, stupidly, “we are Jorinde and Joringel.” -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Sir Comely, a fine scapegrace, had journeyed to Paris out of curiosity -to witness a guillotining. With him, in the packet, crossed Monsieur -Tithon Riouffe, an <i>émigré</i> returning, under safe-conduct of the -ineffective Barrère, to snatch his wife from the whirlpool. The two -gentlemen met, hobnobbed, and shared a four-wheeled carriage as far as -the tragic city, whence (as agreed between them) on a certain day of -the fifteen during which the vehicle remained at the <i>Remise</i> at their -disposition, they—accompanied, it was to be hoped, by madame—were to -return in it to Calais. The day arrived; M. Riouffe failed to keep his -appointment. The other awaited him, so long as a certain urgency of -affairs permitted. At length—his own safety being a little -menaced—he was driven to start on the return journey alone. -</p> - -<p> -All this we learned of him, and he of us the broad outline of our -story. A full confidence was the only policy possible to our dilemma. -He honoured it <i>en prince</i>. -</p> - -<p> -He was quite admirably concerned to hear of the fate of his -fellow-traveller—<i>le malheureux chevreuil</i>! he called him. The -extraordinary concatenation of chances that had substituted us for -that other two did not, however, appear to strike him particularly. -But he “strapped his vitalities!” (that is, as we understood it, -“lashed himself into merriment”), in the insular manner, very often -and very loudly, over this chance presented to him of hoodwinking the -authorities. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s rich, it’s royal, it’s rare!” he cried, “thus to double under -the nose of the old cull of a bigwig, and to be sport in the next -county while he’s hunting for a gate through the quickset. I pledge -you my honour, monsieur, to see the two of you through with this; but, -egad! you must draw upon my portymanteau at the next post if you are -to win clear!” -</p> - -<p> -<i>Grâces au Ciel</i> for the merry brave! It was like endeavouring to -read inscriptions in the Catacombs to interpret his speech; but one -phrase he had trippingly, and that in itself was a complete index to -his character— -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Je ne me mouche pas du pied</i>”—I know better than to blow my nose -with my feet. -</p> - -<p> -And now, if for nothing else, I loved him for his boyish, shy, but -most considerate attitude towards Carinne. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -And thus was our escape accomplished. Winged with our passports, and -cheered to the finish by the assurance of this gay and breezy -islander, we came to the coast on a memorable afternoon, and bade -adieu for ever to the family despotism of Fraternity. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me, <i>ma belle épousée</i>—for five days (the guests, the -property, the <i>protégés</i>—what thou wilt—of this Sir Comely, this -excellent Philippe le Bel) we have shut our eyes, here in this -immeasurable London, to our necessitous condition and the prospect -that faces us. Carinne, <i>mon enfant</i>, it is right now to discuss the -means by which we are to live.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have thought of it, little Thibaut. I will paint portraits.” -</p> - -<p> -I started. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” I cried, “I am very hungry! Let us signalise this last -consumption of the poor Crépin’s purse by a feast of elegance. Be -assured his ghost will call the grace.” -</p> - -<p> -We entered an inn, opportunely near the spot whither we had wandered. -It was in an important part of the town, close by the lion-surmounted -palace of some monseigneur; and coaches and berlines discharged -themselves in frequent succession in its yard. We walked into the -<i>salle à manger</i>, sat down, and endeavoured to make our wishes known -to the waiter. The room was fairly empty, but a party of half-a-dozen -young “bloods”—<i>hommes de bonne compagnie</i>—sitting at a neighbouring -table, seemed moved with a certain curiosity about us, and by-and-by -one of these rose, crossed over, and, addressing me in very good -French, asked if he could be of service in interpreting my -desires—“For,” says he, with a smile, “I perceive that monsieur is -from over the Channel.” -</p> - -<p> -“Alas, monsieur!” I answered. “We are, indeed, of that foundered -vessel, <i>La Ville de Paris</i>, the worthless wreckage of which every -tide washes up on your coasts.” -</p> - -<p> -Some compliments passed, and he withdrew to join his companions. A -little whispering was exchanged amongst them, and then suddenly our -dandy arose and approached us once more, with infinite complaisance. -</p> - -<p> -“Monsieur,” he said, “I cannot, I find, convince my friends of the -extent to which your nation excels in the art of making salads. Would -you do us the favour to mix one for us?” -</p> - -<p> -I hesitated. -</p> - -<p> -“It is one of thy accomplishments,” said Madame la Comtesse, at a -hazard. -</p> - -<p> -It was, indeed, though she could not have known it; or that -Brillat-Savarin himself had once acknowledged me to be his master in -the art. -</p> - -<p> -“I shall be charmed,” I said. -</p> - -<p> -I called for oil, wine, vinegar, sweet fruits, the sauces of soy and -ketchup, caviare, truffles, anchovies, meat-gravy, and the yolks of -eggs. I had a proportion and a place for each; and while I broke the -lettuces, my company sat watching, and engaged me in some pretty -intimate conversation, asking many questions about Paris, my former -and present conditions, and even my place of abode. -</p> - -<p> -I answered good-humouredly on account of my dear Philippe, who was of -the very complexion and moral of these frank rascals; and presently -they pronounced my salad such a dish as Vitellius had never conceived; -and, from their table, they drank to its author and to the beautiful -eyes of Madame la Comtesse. -</p> - -<p> -It was all comical enough; but, by-and-by when, having finished our -meal, we found ourselves in the street again, Carinne thrust a folded -slip of paper into my hand. -</p> - -<p> -“What is this, <i>mignonne</i>?” -</p> - -<p> -“Look, then,” said she. “It was conveyed by the <i>élégant</i> under thy -plate.” -</p> - -<p> -I opened and examined it. It was a note for five pounds. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Au diable!</i>” I murmured, flushing scarlet. -</p> - -<p> -Carinne placed her hand on my arm. She looked up in my face very -earnest and pitiful. -</p> - -<p> -“Jourdain,” she said, “makes his living by turning his knowledge of -weaving to account; De Courcy begs his by ‘<i>parfilage</i>.’ Which is the -better method, <i>mon ami</i>? Is it not well to face the inevitable -courageously by taking thy accomplishments to market?” -</p> - -<p> -“I will become a salad-dresser,” said I. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -On the following day arrived a very courteous note from my -<i>petit-maître</i> of the dining-room, entreating me, as a special -favour, to come that evening to a certain noble house and make the -salad for a large dinner-party that was to be given therein. I went, -was happy in confirming the great opinion formed of my powers, and was -delicately made the recipient of a handsome present in acknowledgment -of my services. From that moment my good little fortunes rolled up -like a snow-ball. Within a period of eighteen months I had -accumulated, by the mere “art of selection,” a sum of near a hundred -thousand francs—truly a notable little egg’s-nest. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -One morning, not so very long ago, Madame de Crancé came to me with -her eyes shining. -</p> - -<p> -“Little Thibaut,” said she, “thou hast a great heart. Yet—though -doubtless thou wert right to insist that the husband should be the -bread-winner—it has grieved me to stand by and watch my own -particular gift rusting from disuse. Well, sir, for thy rebuke I have -at last a surprise for thee. Behold!” and with that she fetched a -canvas from behind her back, where she had been secreting it, and -presented it to my view. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it not like?” she said, her throat swelling with joy and pride. -</p> - -<p> -I made my eyes two O’s,—I “hedged,” as the sportsmen say. -</p> - -<p> -“It is, indeed, <i>ma mie</i>. It is like nothing in the world except, of -course——” -</p> - -<p> -I stopped, sweating with apprehension. She relieved me at once. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” she cried, “is it not baby himself—the dear, sweet rogue! I -threw all my soul into it for thy sake.” -</p> - -<p> -“Carinne!” I exclaimed, passionately grateful; “I knew I could not be -mistaken.” -</p> - -<p class="center mt1"> -[The End] -</p> - - -<h2 id="notes"> -NOTES. -</h2> - -<p> -<a href="#n1a" id="n1b">[1]</a> -“Nothing would appear to more graphically illustrate the moral -influence of the ‘Terror’ than that common submission to a force that -was rather implied than expressed. Now it seems a matter for marvel -how a great many thousands of capable men, having nothing to hope from -the intolerable tyranny that was massing them in a number of professed -slaughter-houses, should not only have attempted no organised -retaliation, but should, by unstiffening their necks (in a very heroic -fashion, be it said) to be the footstools to a few monstrous bullies, -have tacitly allowed the righteousness of a system that was destroying -them to go by implication. Escapes from durance were, comparatively -speaking, rare; resistance to authority scarcely ever carried beyond -the personal and peevish limit. Yet it is a fact that many of the -innumerable prisons—of which, from my own observation, I may instance -St Pélagie—were quite inadequately guarded, and generally, indeed, -open to any visitor who was prepared to ‘tip’ for the privilege of -entry.”—Extracted from an unpublished chapter of the Count’s -Reminiscences. -</p> - -<p> -<a href="#n2a" id="n2b">[2]</a> -<b>Décadi</b> the Revolutionary Sabbath.—<span class="sc">Ed</span>. -</p> - - -<h2> -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES. -</h2> - -<p> -The cover from the Dodd, Mead and Co. edition (New York, 1898) was -used for this ebook. This edition was also consulted for the changes -listed below. -</p> - -<p> -Minor spelling inconsistencies (<i>e.g.</i> caldron/cauldron, say’st/sayst, -wineshop/wine-shop, etc.) have been preserved. -</p> - -<p> -[Text edition only] <i>#</i> is used to indicate bolded text. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -<b>Alterations to the text</b>: -</p> - -<p> -Convert footnotes to endnotes, and add a corresponding entry to the -TOC. -</p> - -<p> -Silently correct a few punctuation errors. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[CHAPTER II] -</p> - -<p> -Change “with her priestesses of the <i>Salpétrière</i>” to <i>Salpêtrière</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[CHAPTER XIV] -</p> - -<p> -“cockt as it had been to the <i>out-cry</i>” to <i>outcry</i>. -</p> - -<p class="center mt1"> -[End of text] -</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES OF THE COMTE DE LA MUETTE DURING THE REIGN OF TERROR ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may -do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected -by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark -license, especially commercial redistribution. -</div> - -<div style='margin-top:1em; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE</div> -<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE</div> -<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project -Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person -or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the -Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when -you share it without charge with others. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country other than the United States. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work -on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the -phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: -</div> - -<blockquote> - <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most - other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you - are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws - of the country where you are located before using this eBook. - </div> -</blockquote> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project -Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg™ License. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format -other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain -Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -provided that: -</div> - -<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation.” - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ - works. - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. - </div> -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of -the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set -forth in Section 3 below. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right -of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, -Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up -to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread -public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state -visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. -</div> - -</div> -</body> -</html> diff --git a/old/old/69579-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/old/69579-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 3f5c736..0000000 --- a/old/old/69579-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null |
