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Title: Robespierre
        the story of Victorien Sardou's play adapted and novelized under his authority

Author: Ange Galdemar
        Victorien Sardou

Release date: September 1, 2023 [eBook #71538]
                Most recently updated: September 25, 2023

Language: English

Credits: Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBESPIERRE ***







[Illustration: Cover art]





[Frontispiece: MISS ELLEN TERRY AS CLARISSE DE MAULUÇON IN
"ROBESPIERRE."]




  Robespierre

  _The Story of Victorien Sardou's Play
  Adapted and Novelized under
  his authority_


  BY

  ANGE GALDEMAR



  NEW YORK
  DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
  1899




  Copyright, 1899,
  BY ANGE GALDEMAR.



  University Press:
  JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.




[Transcriber's note: The chapter titles below do not all match the
titles at the chapters.]


Contents


CHAPTER

I The Discovery

II The Voice of the Past

III The Englishman

IV The Arrest

V The Scaffold amid Flowers

VI The Prison of La Bourse

VII The Fête of the Supreme Being

VIII Beset by Memories and Forebodings

IX Hours of Anguish

X The Tumbrils

XI "All These Gliding Ghosts"

XII The Eve of the Battle

XIII A Broken Idol

XIV The Knell of the Tocsin

XV Death's Kindly Veil




MON CHER GALDEMAR,--

J'achève la lecture du roman qu'avec mon autorisation vous avez tiré
de mon drame "Robespierre."  Je ne saurais trop me féliciter de vous
avoir encouragé à entreprendre ce travail, où vous avez, de la façon
la plus heureuse, reproduit les incidents dra-matiques de ma pièce et
préparé votre lecteur à apprécier l'admirable évocation du passé que
Sir Henry Irving lui présente sur la scène du Lyceum.  Je ne doute
pas que le succèes de votre livre ne soil tel que vous le souhaite ma
vieille et constante amitié.

[Signature: Victor Sardoz]

MARLY-LE-ROI.




Robespierre



CHAPTER I

THE DISCOVERY

The Hôtel de Pontivy was situated in the Rue des Lions-Saint-Paul, in
the very heart of the Marais Quarter, which as early as the opening
of this story, the June of 1775, seemed to form by itself a little
province in Paris.

It was a magnificent spring night.  The sky, luminous with a galaxy
of stars, was reflected on the dark waters of the Seine lazily
flowing by.  A hush rested on the Rue des Lions-Saint-Paul, which lay
enshrouded in gloom and silence, indifferent to the fairy charms of
the hour.

Enclosed in high walls thickly clad with ivy, dark and mysterious as
a prison, the Hôtel de Pontivy had all the aspect of some chill
cloister apart from men and movement.  And yet behind those shutters,
where life seemed to pause, wrapped in slumber, some one is keeping
watch--the master of the house, Monsieur Jacques Bernard Olivier de
Pontivy, Councillor to the King's Parliament, sits late at his work,
taking no count of time.

But Monsieur de Pontivy has at last decided; he raises his eyes to
the clock.

"Twenty past two!" he exclaims.  "I really cannot wake that poor
fellow!"

Through the deep stillness of the vast room, with blinds and curtains
drawn, a stillness enhanced by the glare of candelabra lighted up, as
if in broad day, the heavy, green-repp armchairs, and bookshelves of
massive oak ornamented with brass rose-work, passing a litter of
cardboard boxes and waste-paper basket, and in the centre the
ministerial desk overladen with books and bundles, the councillor
makes his way towards a bureau that he has not yet opened.

"Perhaps it may be here," he says, as he turns over a whole file of
letters, old and new, receipts, accounts, plans and invoices--one of
those mixed files put aside for future classification.  Perhaps the
paper had been slipped in there by mistake?  Monsieur de Pontivy set
to work methodically, turning the papers over one by one, stopping
here and there to read a word that caught his attention, or threw a
sudden light on things long forgotten, and awakened projects long
dormant.

"Oh!  I must think over that," he exclaimed, as he put one or another
aside.

Now and again a ray of joy lit up his countenance, as he thought he
had found the missing paper, and as disappointment followed he
renewed the search with unabated ardour.

For more than half an hour he went on thus, seeking the lost
document, a lawyer's opinion recently received, which would assist
him in elucidating a difficult point which was to be secretly debated
the next day in Parliament, before judgment was delivered.  He had
thoughtlessly let his young secretary retire without asking him the
whereabouts of this document, which he alone could find.

Monsieur de Pontivy had hastened to his study this evening directly
dinner was over, to mature in solitude the arguments which were to
triumph on the morrow, and of which he wished to make a short,
concise summary before retiring to rest.

Having returned home sooner than usual that afternoon, the fancy had
seized him to advance the dinner-hour, but learning that his daughter
had not returned, he was obliged to forego his whim.  This hour was
rarely changed, the regulations of the house being rigorous to a
degree, but Monsieur de Pontivy in the excess of his despotic
authority was none the less displeased, being early himself, to find
no one awaiting him.  So when he heard the rumbling of the heavy
coach which brought back Clarisse and her governess, Mademoiselle
Jusseaume, he sought for a pretext to vent his ill-humour on them.

He had commenced to walk impatiently backwards and forwards the whole
length of the room, casting hasty glances out of the window,
wondering at the child's delay in coming to him, when the door opened
and a head appeared in the doorway, fair, with pale, delicate
features, large blue eyes, wide open to the day, in whose clear
depths, half-hidden by the fresh candour of first youth, lay a tinge
of melancholy.

It was Clarisse.

What an apparition, in such an austere and dreary place, that frail,
white-robed form standing on the threshold, a tender smile of dawn in
the dark room!  She entered on tip-toe, approaching her father with
greeting in her eyes and on her lips; he, continuing his walk, had
his back towards her.

"Already here?" she asked, and her voice fell on the silence like an
angelus.

Monsieur de Pontivy turned abruptly.

"How is it that you enter without knocking?"

The smile died on the child's lips.  She murmured, disconcerted and
abashed--

"I never used to knock, father, on entering your room."

"Then make it a point to do so in future.  You are no longer a child;
so learn to be discreet and to respect closed doors.  A closed room,
mademoiselle, is a sanctuary."

The young girl was accustomed to sermons, but had not expected one of
that kind just then.  She stood irresolute, hesitating whether to
advance or retire.

"Must I go?" she hazarded, trembling.

Monsieur de Pontivy, satisfied at having vented his ill-humour,
stooped to kiss his daughter's forehead, and then added, as if to
soften the effects of his reception--

"Where have you been to-day?"

"On the boulevards."

"Were there many people?"

The young girl, reassured by this encouragement, began brightly--

"Oh yes, and only imagine...!"

"That will do!  You can tell me that at table."

But at table she was supposed only to reply to her father, and he,
lost in meditation, did not question her that day.  And so passed all
the meals she partook of with her father and young de Robespierre,
Monsieur de Pontivy's secretary, whom the councillor made welcome
every day at his table, glad to have so near at hand one whose memory
and aid were easily available.

Timid at first, confining himself to the points put to him, the young
secretary had gradually become bolder, and sometimes, to Clarisse's
great delight, would lead the conversation on to subjects of
literature and art, opening out a new world before her, and shedding
rays of thought in her dawning mind.  She found a similar source of
pleasure on Sundays in the reception-room, while Monsieur de
Pontivy's attention was absorbed by his dull and solemn friends in
interminable games of whist, and Robespierre entertained her apart,
quickening her young dreams by the charm of an imagination at once
brilliant and graceful.  It was as dew falling from heaven on her
solitude.

Alas, how swiftly those hours flew!  Clarisse was just sixteen.  She
could not remember one day of real joy.  Her mother she had lost long
ago; her brother Jacques, two years younger than herself, was always
at school at the College de Navarre, and she saw him only once a
fortnight, at lunch, after mass, on Sunday.  At four o'clock an usher
fetched him, when he had submitted his fortnight's school-work for
the inspection of his father, who more often than not found fault
with his efforts, so that the lad frankly confessed to his sister
that, upon the whole, he preferred those Sundays on which he remained
at school.

From her cradle Clarisse had been given over to nurses and
chamber-maids, and at the age of eight she was confided to the care
of nuns, just when she was emerging from the long torpor of
childhood.  Here she remained until the day when Monsieur de Pontivy,
whose paternal solicitude had, up to then, been limited to taking her
to the country for the holidays, claimed her, and installed her in
his town residence under the charge of a governess.  But Clarisse had
only changed convents.  For going out but seldom, except to mass and
vespers on Sundays, at St. Paul's Church, or on fine days for a drive
in the great coach with her governess, she continued to grow like a
hot-house plant, closed in by the high walls of the house where
nothing smiled, not even the garden uncultivated and almost
abandoned, nor the courtyard where a few scattered weeds pushed their
way between the stones.

It is true the young girl fully made up for this in the country,
during the summer months at the Château de Pontivy, two miles from
Compiègne, where her father spent his holidays.  But they were so
short, those precious holidays!  The autumn roses had scarcely
unfolded when she was compelled to return with her father to Paris;
and all the charm and sweetness of September, with the tender tints
of its dying leaves, were unknown to her, though a semblance of its
grace crept into her room sometimes in the Rue des Lions-Saint-Paul,
and stole like melancholy into her young soul, but new-awakened to
the ideal, arousing a regret for joys denied.

These holidays were shorter since Monsieur de Pontivy recommenced his
duties as councillor to the Parliament which the King had just
re-established, and Clarisse began again to feel lonely, so lonely
that she looked forward impatiently to the dinner-hour, when the
young secretary brought with him some gay reports and rumours of
Paris, planted germs of poetry in her soul, and initiated her into
those charming trifles which constitute fashionable life.

All her suppressed tenderness and affection, which asked nothing
better than to overflow, were concentrated on her governess,
Mademoiselle Jusseaume, an excellent creature, upright and generous,
but impulsive, inconsequent, and without authority.  She was a good
Catholic, and saw that her charge scrupulously observed her religious
duties.  She kept her place, was submissive, discreet, and always
contented; and this was more than enough to satisfy Monsieur de
Pontivy, who classed all womankind in one rank, and that the lowest.

Of his two children the one in whom Monsieur de Pontivy took the
greater interest was his son, the heir to his name, and to whom would
descend later on the office of councillor.  But as this was as yet a
distant prospect, he contented himself with superintending his
education as much as possible, absorbed as he was in high functions
which he fulfilled with that perseverance and assiduity, that desire
to give incessant proofs of staunch fidelity, which arise from an
immeasurable pride.

Such a character can well be imagined.  Heartless, hard, and
implacable, strictly accomplishing his duty, honest to a fault,
making ever an ostentatious display of his principles, doing no man
harm, but also suffering no man to harm him, under an apparent
coldness he masked an excess of violence that the least suspicion or
provocation would arouse.

Clarisse had her black-letter days--days of scolding, when with eyes
brimful of tears she retired to her room, forbidden even to seek
refuge with her governess; and looking back through the mists of
childhood, she endured again those terrible scenes of anger, the
horror of which haunted her still.

The two women understood each other instinctively, almost without the
aid of words, living as they did that sequestered existence, in
constant communion, both losing themselves in the same vague dreams,
trembling on the borders of the unknown; each leaning on the other,
with this only difference that Clarisse with an indefinable feeling
of dawning force took the lead.

The same dim future smiled on both, the same far-off paradise of
delusive hopes in which they would gladly lose themselves, until
Mademoiselle Jusseaume, suddenly conscious of responsibility, would
rouse herself, blushing and trembling, as if at some guilty thought.
For in their day-dreams Monsieur de Pontivy had no part, did not
exist.  Was he to disappear?  Was he to die?  In any case he was
always absent from these speculations, and Mademoiselle Jusseaume,
the soul of righteousness, felt that this was altogether wrong.

"You must love your father," she would say, as if stirred by some
secret impulse, and the remark fell suddenly and unexpectedly on the
silence of the little room where the two were apparently deeply
absorbed in the mazy dancing of the flies.

"But I do love him!" Clarisse would answer without surprise, as if
replying to some inner thought.

She was, indeed, convinced of it, poor child!  Filial love beamed in
her eyes, love for her father: a mixture of respect for his age and
position, and of gratitude for his rare kindnesses, while he did not
realise the gulf that separated him from his daughter, a gulf which a
little tenderness, an occasional response, a smile however slight,
might have sufficed to bridge.  He did not realise the riches of this
mine, or seek its treasures of youth, of grace, and of love abounding
in every vein.  He had but to bend down, look into her large blue
eyes, those eyes where the dreams floated, to find a world of love.

However, he had other things to think about; Monsieur de Pontivy,
King's Councillor to the ancient Parliament, and unanimously returned
to the new; a man of position, rich, influential, highly connected,
of the old provincial noblesse, admitted to the council of the King,
honoured at Court, respected in the town, feared at home by a whole
crowd of cringing lackeys trembling before this potentate of fortune
and intellect, who seemed to them the very embodiment of justice.
His daughter, indeed!  He had three years before him to think of her,
which meant in his acceptance of the term but a speedy riddance of
her, to his own and her best advantage, a chance to establish her
well in the world in which he moved, in which his position would
enable him to procure for her without much difficulty an alliance
worthy of her name and rank.  Meanwhile he was happy, or rather
contented with his lot.  Had not the young King but lately said to
him, when he was admitted to a private audience to render homage and
tender his assurances of fidelity and respect to the successor of
Louis XV.:--

"Monsieur de Pontivy, I know the services you have rendered to
France, and I can only ask you to continue them."

These words had spread through Versailles.  The Councillor was
overwhelmed with compliments of the kind more acceptable to certain
natures for the spice of envy they contain, for is not the envy of
our fellows the very sign and seal of our success?

Thus the influential Abbé de Saint-Vaast, the future Cardinal de
Rohan, remarked to him some days after, whilst walking in the suite
of the Queen at Versailles, "Such words, Monsieur de Pontivy, stand
you in better stead than sealed parchment."

A smile of superiority, which he quickly changed to one of
patronising condescension, played round the Councillor's lips at the
thought that for a Rohan to compliment him meant that he sought
something in return.  Monsieur de Pontivy was not mistaken.  The Abbé
de Saint-Vaast wished to place with some lawyer in search of a
secretary a young man who, having finished his college studies,
intended to prepare for the Bar.

"I can recommend him," said the Abbé, "as intelligent, industrious,
and of an excellent character; one of the best pupils of
Louis-le-Grand, and recently chosen as most worthy the honour of
welcoming the King and Queen, who visited the college on their way to
the Pantheon."

"And his name?" asked Monsieur de Pontivy.

"Maximilien de Robespierre."

"And may I ask your lordship's reason for the particular interest
taken in this young man?"

"Why, yes, of course!  He comes from Arras, and was commended to me
by the bishop of that town, with excellent testimonials from a priest
of my diocese.  I gave him a grant for the college, and as he has
succeeded so far, I shall be glad to see him make his way.  And,
after all, are we not generally interested in the welfare of those we
have helped--a feeling which you doubtless understand, Monsieur de
Pontivy, since it is but human?"

"I understand it so well that I will take your nominee."

"Into your own service?"

"Yes, into my service.  Pray do not thank me.  I was in urgent need
of one, and am too glad to accept him on your recommendation."

It was true, for Monsieur de Pontivy with his manifold occupations
was at the moment without a secretary, and anxious to fill up the
post so soon as he could find a worthy candidate.  The offer of the
Abbé was doubly acceptable to him as an opportunity to oblige a
Rohan, and to enlist in his service a young man who had been chosen
before all his fellow-students as most worthy to welcome the King and
Queen.

The next day Robespierre was installed at the Hôtel de Pontivy.
After some preliminary questions as to his parentage, his studies,
his college life, Monsieur de Pontivy had adroitly brought the
conversation to bear on the visit of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette.
The young man gave a detailed account, standing in a respectful
attitude, his eyes lowered, and with an appearance of modesty, which
to a mind less vain than that of Monsieur de Pontivy's would have
suggested more self-sufficiency than was desirable.

"And the King, what did he say?  And the Queen?"

"Their majesties did not speak to me," said the young man, rather
confused.

"Ah!" exclaimed Monsieur de Pontivy, visibly satisfied.

"But the King smiled," continued Robespierre, "and received me
graciously."

"And the Queen?"

The young man hesitated, but drawing himself up resolutely under the
searching glance of the Councillor, he answered--

"Her Majesty was equally gracious."

But he was not telling the truth, for the Queen's thoughts had been
bent all the time on hastening her departure.  Monsieur de Pontivy
examined the young man critically.  He was dressed with the utmost
simplicity, but a certain air of distinction was apparent in his
whole person and manners.  Spruce and neat in appearance, sprightly
and brisk in manner, and at the same time respectful, decision of
character and firm will were written on his brow; his eyes of a pale
green were restless and piercing, though their gleam under the gaze
of others was veiled, and so subdued as to lend to the whole
countenance an unexpected tenderness.

"The young man is not so bad after all," mused Monsieur de Pontivy,
and he thought he was justified in admitting him to his table now and
again.  Had he not been honoured with a royal glance?  He could by no
means be looked upon as a chance comer.

A chance comer he certainly was not, as Monsieur de Pontivy soon
discovered by his work, quick, neat, perfectly accurate and orderly,
and his method in arrangement and classification, rare in a young man
of his years.  Pursuing his law studies, he was naturally interested
in the difficult and delicate questions which Monsieur de Pontivy had
so often to treat, elucidating them under his direction, and
astonishing him sometimes by his sagacious remarks, in which were
revealed a rare instinct for solving legal subtleties.

There is a certain kinship of the mind, a certain intellectual
affinity, which creates sympathy between those who may be separated
by a wide social gulf.  They certainly were so separated, this master
and his secretary: the one jealously asserting his prerogative, proud
of his name, of that _noblesse de robe_ of which he was one of the
ornaments, and which, seeing its growing influence on the destinies
of France, he had exalted to the highest rank; the other of doubtful
origin, hesitating even to make use of the titular prefix of
nobility, but shrewd and ambitious, and seeking to supply his
deficiencies of birth in the reflected light of the patrician world.

For, after all, who were the _de_ Robespierres?  The tangled
narrative of the young man had but half satisfied Monsieur de
Pontivy.  There was, first and foremost, his father, who left his
four children, when mad with grief at the loss of his wife, and
disappeared in Germany in most mysterious fashion.  But was young
Robespierre responsible for all this misty past?

That which pleased Monsieur de Pontivy most in his young secretary
were his orderly habits and his method of classifying and arranging
everything to hand.  So continuing that evening to look for the
report he wanted, he had hesitated to wake him.  He had seemed so
sleepy before going to bed, and it was the first time a document had
not been forthcoming.  The Councillor had looked everywhere--on the
files, under the blotters, and even in the waste-paper basket.  Had
the young fellow thrown it in the fire by mistake?  Naturally
distrustful, suspicions began gradually to form in his mind.  Had
Robespierre made use of it?  Had he given it to an attorney?  Once
doubting Monsieur de Pontivy did not rest.  Had he sold it?  Yes,
perhaps sold it to the counsel for the adverse party!  Everything is
possible!  One is never sure....  At any rate he would ease his mind
and ascertain at once.  Monsieur de Pontivy looked at his watch.

"Three o'clock!  So you have kept me up till this hour, my fine
fellow!  Now it is your turn!"

He took down a candlestick, lighted it at one of the chandeliers, and
went towards the door.  The whole house was wrapped in sleep.  Oh!
the awful stillness of that vast house, where not a soul seemed to
breathe, that house with its interminable corridors, so high and so
cold, like long, deserted lanes.  Thus alone, in the silence of the
night, he experienced a new sense of satisfaction, for was not the
house absolutely his?  Every living occupant, man or beast, was at
his bidding, under his sway; and at this hour, when all slept under
his protection, his proprietorship was accentuated, and he realised
to the full that he was absolute master.  In his long flowered
dressing-gown, holding the candlestick aloft in his right hand, with
his iron-grey head, clean-shaven visage, and true judge's nose, large
and massive as if hewn in one piece, and in keeping with the cold,
hard expression of his countenance, he could have been taken for the
spirit of avenging justice, or for some statue, descended from its
pedestal to carry light into the surrounding darkness.

Monsieur de Pontivy crossed a long passage, turned to the left, then
went up three steps, and turning again, found himself on a narrow
staircase leading to the second floor.  It was there that the young
secretary slept, in a little room looking on the courtyard.  He
lifted the candle to assure himself he was not mistaken, then knocked
softly, twice.  Receiving no answer he knocked again, somewhat louder.

"He sleeps soundly enough," he muttered; "at that age it comes easy."

The Councillor was on the point of returning.  After all, it would be
time enough to speak of the paper at breakfast, and already day was
beginning to break.  But again those subtle, insinuating suspicions
crept into his mind.  Yes! he must assure himself at once!  And he
knocked again, this time almost pushing the door.  It was not
fastened, and gave way, disclosing an empty room and a bed untouched.
With a rapid glance he searched the room.  All was in order.

"What!" he exclaimed, "at his age!  This is promising, certainly."

And he began to wonder which servant was accessory to these midnight
rambles, for this was surely not the first.  The hall door was barred
and double-barred when young Robespierre took leave of Monsieur de
Pontivy.  The porter was certainly culpable.  Yes, the whole domestic
staff was privy to the misconduct of his secretary!  The very next
day the Councillor would have a reckoning with them all, and it would
be a terrible reckoning!  But just at that moment, when Monsieur de
Pontivy was about to leave the room, he noticed the young man's hat
and stick lying near.  He stopped in surprise.

Was Robespierre in the house, then?

Monsieur de Pontivy again looked at the bed.  No, it had not been
slept in.  Other details struck him: the coat and vest hanging up,
and the frilled waistcoat carefully folded on a chair.  It was
enough,--the young man had not gone out.

Where was he?  In Louison's room, undoubtedly, on the third floor!
Louison, his daughter's maid!  She was from Perigord, sprightly and
complaisant, cunning enough, a veritable _soubrette_, with her sly
ways and her round cheeks.  Ah! how stupid he had been to have taken
her into the house, considering her age and bearing, scarcely
twenty-two, and dark and passionate as a Catalonian.

"I ought to have known as much," he said.

His daughter's waiting-woman!  The thought was distracting.  That she
should enter Clarisse's room every morning, carry her breakfast, see
her in bed, assist at each detail of her toilet, fresh from the young
man's embraces, his caresses still warm on her lips!  And these
things were taking place under his roof!

He left the room agitated but resolved.  It was very simple.
To-morrow she would be discharged the first thing, and he also should
be turned out, the hypocrite who, with all his smiling, respectful
airs, defiled his roof.  He did well to get himself protected by
priests, and Monsieur de Rohan, a nice present he had made!

All the young man's qualities, all the satisfaction he had given him,
disappeared before this one brutal fact.  He would not be sorry,
either, to be able to say to the Abbé de Saint-Vaast--

"You know the young man you recommended me.  Well, I surprised him in
the garret with a servant-maid, and I turned him out like a lackey.
But even lackeys respect my house."

He had now crossed the corridor and was descending the stairs, still
rehearsing the scene in his mind.  Smarting under his wounded
self-love, he exaggerated everything.  Had they not forgotten the
respect due to him, Monsieur de Pontivy, to his house, and worse
still, had they not mockingly set him at defiance?  He smiled grimly
at the thought.  He had now reached the last step of the second
staircase, and was turning into the corridor of the ground floor.

"Decidedly," he muttered, "I was mistaken in my estimate of that
young man.  He is a fool!"

All at once he stopped.  He caught the sound of whispering, and the
noise of a door being softly and cautiously closed.  Some one here,
at this hour!  Who can it be?  He blew out the candle, and gliding
along the wall, he approached, but suddenly recoiled, for in the grey
light of the dawn he had recognised Robespierre.  The young man was
advancing quietly in the direction of the stairs.

The truth, all the awful, maddening truth, the endless shame and
dishonour, rushed on Monsieur de Pontivy in a moment, and stunned him
like a blow.

Robespierre had come from Clarisse's room!

Everything swam before him.  He held in his hand the extinguished
candle, with such force that the bronze candlestick entered his
flesh.  He made a movement as if to use it as a weapon, and kill the
wretch there and then.  At that instant the young man saw him.  He
turned deadly pale and tried to escape, but Monsieur de Pontivy threw
himself on him, and seized him by the throat.

"Where do you come from?" he almost hissed.

The young man swayed with the shock, his knees, bent under him.

Monsieur de Pontivy, mad with rage, repeated--"Where do you come
from?"

He was strangling him.

Robespierre gave a hoarse scream.

"You are hurting me!" he gasped.

"Hurting you!  Hurting you! did you say?  What if I kill you, knock
out your cursed brains with this"--brandishing the bronze
candlestick--"yes, kill you, wretch, for bringing dishonour on my
house...."

But just then Monsieur de Pontivy felt a hand laid on his arm
arresting the blow.

It was Clarisse, drawn by the noise, half-dressed, her hair hanging
in disorder down her back.

"Oh, father!" she sobbed, falling on her knees, as if for pardon.

It was dishonour, yes, dishonour complete, palpable, avowed,
dishonour that flowed with his.  daughter's tears, and covered her
face with shame.  The agony of the father was augmented by that of
the head of the family, whose record of austerity and uprightness was
thus dragged in the mud.

The young man, having regained his self-possession, was about to
speak, but Monsieur de Pontivy gave him no time.

"Silence!" he thundered.  "Not a word!  Do you hear, sir?  Not a
word!  To your room, and await my orders!"

The command was accompanied with such a gesture that Robespierre
could only obey, and silently moved towards the staircase.

Then, turning towards Clarisse, he continued, "As to you ..."

But she lay lifeless on the floor.  He bent down, lifted her in his
arms, and carried her to her room; exhausted by her weight, he laid
her on the first armchair.

The young girl regained consciousness.  She opened her eyes and
recognised her father, and a sob rose in her throat, suffocating her.
She could not speak, but a word she had not pronounced for ten years,
a word from her far-off childhood, came to her lips, and she murmured
softly through her tears, "Papa! papa!"




CHAPTER II

THE VOICE OF THE PAST

Under what irresistible spell had she fallen?  Through what intricate
windings had the subtle poison entered the young girl's pure and
innocent soul, then steeped in the fresh dew of life's dawning hopes?
What sweet vision had the young man held out to her, to which she had
yielded in all innocence, her eyes dreamily fixed on the vague
unknown, and from which she had awaked, all pale and trembling, her
heart smitten with unspeakable dismay?

Or had they both been the puppets of Destiny, of blind Chance which
at so tender an age had brought them together under the same roof, in
an intimacy of daily intercourse, increased by the sadness of their
cloistered existence, so that they had been the victims of their
extreme youth, of the attraction they unconsciously exercised over
each other, both carried away by the strong currents of life.

She, influenced by a train of incidents insignificant in themselves,
rendered dangerous by repetition, details of every-day life which had
gradually drawn her towards the young man, whose presence at last
became a sweet necessity to her lonely existence.

He, suddenly stirred during the first few days of his residence in
the Hôtel Rue des Lions; never for a moment thinking of the distance
which separated him from the daughter of Monsieur de Pontivy.  Think?
How could he think, thrilling under the first revelation of love
disclosed to him with the eloquence of Rousseau in _la Nouvelle
Héloïse_, that romance of burning passion then in vogue?  He had
commenced to read the novel, by stealth, at Louis-le-Grand, and
finished it in three nights of mad insomnia, in his little room on
the third floor at the Hôtel de Pontivy.  All the sap of his youth
beat at his temples and throbbed in his veins at that flaming
rhetoric; every phrase burned like kisses on his lips.

He recited portions aloud, learned them by heart, found them sublime
in utterance.  He yearned to repeat them to others, as one does
music.  And to whom could he repeat them but to Clarisse, placed
there as if expressly to hear them?  So he did repeat them to her.
At all times and everywhere when alone with her.  At the harpsichord,
on long winter evenings, when the guests gravely and silently played
at cards, and he turned the pages of her music.  Out walking, when he
met her, as if by chance, and spoke to her--while the eyes of
Mademoiselle Jusseaume wandered absently from them--of Paris which
she knew so little, the gay _fêtes_ and gossip of the town, thus
opening out to her endless vistas of happiness until then unknown,
which involved promises of future joy.

He recited verses to her, pastorals, such as were then upon men's
lips, mythologic madrigals made for rolling round a bonbon.  She
found them charming, and sought to learn them by heart.  He copied
them and gave them to her.  This was a dangerous game.  He became
bolder, copied love-letters, then wrote them himself and compared
them with Rousseau's.  She read them, delighted at first, then
trembling, and when she trembled it was too late.

She was unconsciously dragged into a world of fancy and illusion by
the very strength of his youth and enthusiasm.  His presence in that
dull dwelling had seemed a ray of sunlight under which the bud of her
young life had opened into flower.  Thus, all unconscious of the
poisonous mist that was more closely enveloping her from day to day,
she found herself gliding insensibly down a steep declivity which
gave way under her feet as she advanced, and before she could recover
possession of her senses, or stay her quick descent to question
whereto it led, she was undone!

"Every girl who reads this book is lost," Rousseau had written at the
beginning of la Nouvelle Héloïse.  And she had done far worse.
Alone, given up to her own devices, just awakening to the mystery of
existence, pure, innocent, and guileless, she had imbibed its
insidious poison from the lips of one she had learned to love.  And
now she had fallen from these dizzy heights, dazed and crushed,
lonelier than ever, for Monsieur de Pontivy had turned Robespierre
out of the house soon after the fatal discovery.

The decision had been brief, in the character of a command:

"Of course, it is understood that what passed between us last night
shall go no further," Monsieur de Pontivy had said to the young
secretary, called to the Councillor's study at breakfast-time.  "You
can seek some pretext to treat me disrespectfully at table before the
servants, and I shall beg you to leave my house."

The young man listened respectfully.

"But I am willing to make reparation," he said.

The Councillor drew back under this new affront.

"You marry my daughter!  You forget who you are, Monsieur de
Robespierre!  You, the husband of Mademoiselle de Pontivy!  Enough,
sir, and do as I have said!"

The departure of young Robespierre took place as the Councillor
desired.  No one had the slightest suspicion of the real reason, and
Clarisse, who was suffering from a severe attack of brain fever, kept
her bed.

In refusing to give the hand of his daughter, even dishonoured, to
any one who was not of her rank, Monsieur de Pontivy was but true to
his principles, to his own code of morals, based upon caste prejudice
and foolish pride.

Could he have read the future of the young man he would not have
acted otherwise, and yet that young man was destined to become one of
the masters of France--but at what a price and under what conditions!


Nineteen years had passed since then, nineteen years in which events
succeeded each other with a rapidity and violence unparalleled in the
previous history of Europe.  The excesses of an arbitrary government,
added to universal discontent, had led to the Revolution.  But this
act of deliverance and social regeneration was unhappily to develop
even worse excesses.  The Reign of Terror was now raging.  Louis XVI.
and Marie Antoinette had perished on the scaffold, followed by a
large number of nobles and priests, victims of the tempest now at
flood, and drowning in its crimson tide numberless victims with no
respect of persons.  The whole nation, in the country and in Paris,
was perishing in the iron grasp of a new and more despotic
government.  Terror, monstrous parody of liberty, ruled the State,
which was adrift without rudder on the storm, while all its people
were driven to distraction by wild advocates of the guillotine.

Prominent among these fanatics, raised to power by the very
suddenness of events, was Maximilien de Robespierre, once the young
secretary of Monsieur de Pontivy, now styled simply Robespierre,
President of the National Assembly, or Convention, the most powerful
and most dreaded of the twelve conventionnels who, under the name of
members of the Committee of Public Safety, ruled the destinies of
France.

History is the romance of nations, more abundant in wild
improbabilities than the most extravagant fairy tale; and the French
Revolution stands out from the events which have perplexed the mind
of man since the world began, a still unsolved enigma.  The actors in
this fearful drama move like beings of some other sphere, the produce
of a wild imagination, the offspring of delirium, created to astound
and stupefy.  And it was the destiny of the secretary of Monsieur de
Pontivy to become one of these.  Still in the prime of his life,
scarcely thirty-six, he was one of the principal if not the chief
personage of the Revolution.

However signal his success, the course of events left him unchanged.
During the slow accession of a man to the summit of human aspiration,
his deficiences are sometimes dwarfed and his powers developed and
strengthened; but the foundation remains the same--just as trees
which ever renew their leaves, and absorb from the same soil a
perennial flow of life.

After nineteen years, marked by a succession of events so rapid, so
tumultuous, and of such moment that they would have sufficed to fill
a century of history, the secretary of Monsieur de Pontivy, whom we
last saw awake to love under the influence of Rousseau, found
himself, on a day given up to retirement and study, at _l'Ermitage_
of Montmorency, in the very room where the great philosopher wrote
_la Nouvelle Héloïse_, whose burning pages had been a revelation to
his youth.

He had come there to seek inspiration for the speech he was to
deliver on the Place de la Révolution at the approaching festival in
honour of the Supreme Being, a ceremony instituted and organised
under his direction, and which had been suggested to him by the
spiritualistic theories of Rousseau.

It was Friday, the 6th of June, 1794, or, to use the language of the
time, the 20th _prairial_ of the second year of the Republic.
Robespierre, having left Paris the evening before, had come down to
sleep in that quiet and flowery retreat, built at the entrance of the
forest of Montmorency, like a nest hidden in the under branches of a
tree.  Rousseau's _Ermitage_, which became State property after the
Revolution, had been secretly sublet to him by a friend and given
over to the care of a gardener, who also acted as sole domestic
during his visits, which were very frequent.  For he often fled from
Paris secretly, seeking solitude and calm, and a little of that
poetry of nature in which the fiercest Revolutionists, his peers in
crime, loved sometimes to refresh themselves in the short pauses of
their fratricidal and sanguinary struggles.

Robespierre descended to the garden soon after daybreak, inhaling the
fresh morning air, wandering under the shade of those great trees
where Rousseau used to walk, or sitting in his favourite nooks;
dreaming the while, his soul drinking to the full the infinite
sweetness of Nature's magic charms, quickened into life at the rosy
touch of morn.  He would busy himself in rustic pursuits, botanising,
or gathering periwinkles, the master's favourite flowers; thus
occupied he used to prolong his walk into the forest of Montmorency,
which seemed but a continuation of the garden.  Here, he would
sometimes find friends awaiting him, an intimate circle which he was
wont to gather round him to share a rustic meal upon the grass.

That morning he had awakened earlier than usual, beset with ideas for
his forthcoming speech, the first that he was to deliver at a public
ceremony, whose anticipated success would, like an apotheosis, deify
him in the eyes of the people, and set a decisive and brilliant seal
to that supremacy of power which was the goal of his boundless
ambition.  It was important that he should finish before noon, when
he had arranged an interview in the forest, a political interview of
the highest importance, which would perhaps effect a change in the
foreign policy of France.

Robespierre had slept in the very room which Rousseau had occupied on
the first floor, and in which were gathered all the furniture and
possessions of the great man, left behind in the haste of removal,
after his famous quarrel with the fair owner of _l'Ermitage_.  The
bed was Rousseau's, as were two walnut cabinets and a table of the
same rich wood, the very table on which the philosopher wrote the
first part of _la Nouvelle Hèloïse_; then a small library, a
barometer, and two pictures, one of which, by an English painter,
represented "The Soldier's Fortune," and the other "The Wise and
Foolish Virgins."  In these surroundings Robespierre seemed to
breathe more intimately the spirit of the master for whom he had such
an ardent admiration.

Robespierre had passed a sleepless night, judging from his pale,
feverish face and swollen eyelids.  Outwardly he was little changed.
Monsieur de Pontivy would have recognised his former secretary in
this man before whom all France trembled.  It was the same dapper
figure, spruce and neat as ever, with that nervous, restless manner
which time had but accentuated.  This nervousness, apparent in his
whole person, was visible even in his face, which, now deeply marked
with small-pox, twitched and contracted convulsively.  The high
cheek-bones and the green, cat-like eyes, shifting about in an uneasy
fashion, added to the unpleasant expression of the whole countenance.

He threw open the three windows of his room, which looked out on the
garden.  A whiff of fresh air fanned his face, charged with all the
sweet perfumes of the country.  Day had scarcely dawned, and the
whole valley of Montmorency was bathed in pale, uncertain light, like
floating mist.  He remained at one of the windows, gazing long and
earnestly out on awakening nature, watching the dawn as it slowly
lifted the veil at the first smiles of morning.  Then he seated
himself at the little table prepared for work, with sheets of paper
spread about, as if awaiting the thoughts of which they were to be
the messengers.  He slipped his pen in an inkstand ornamented with a
small bust of Rousseau, and commenced.

Jotting down some rough notes and sentences, he stopped to look out
of the window in a dreamy, absent manner, apparently without thought.
Thirty-five years ago, amid the same surroundings, in that same room,
on that very table, Rousseau had written those burning pages of
romance under whose influence Robespierre had stammered forth his
first love tale on the shoulder of Clarisse.  Did he ever think of
that drama of his youth, of that living relic of his sin wandering
about the world perhaps, his child, the fruit of his first love,
whose advent into life Clarisse had announced to him some months
after the terrible scene at the Rue des Lions-Saint-Paul?  Think?  He
had more important things to trouble him!  Think indeed!  The idea
had never entered his head.  For many years the intellectual appetite
had alone prevailed in him;--egoism, and that masterful ambition
which asks no other intoxicant than the delirium of success, and the
thought of realising one day, by terrorism even if necessary, Utopian
theories of universal equality.  And yet the letter in which Clarisse
had apprised him of her approaching motherhood would have moved a
stone:--


"DEAR MAXIMILIEN,--I never thought to write to you after the solemn
promise torn from me by my father, the day he declared I should never
be your wife.  An unexpected event releases me from my oath, and
brings me nearer to you.

"I am about to become a mother.

"My father knows this.  I thought that the announcement would conquer
his resistance, but I was mistaken.  My supplications were vain.

"He persists unshaken in his refusal, exasperated at my entreaties,
and is resolved to send me to a convent, where the innocent being
whose life is already considered a crime will first see the light.
My heart bleeds at the thought of the wide gulf that must separate
you from your child, orphaned before its birth.  And what pain for
you to have a child that you must never know!  But I will spare you
this.  You are the disposer of our destiny, Maximilien.  We are yours.

"I have some money saved, which, in addition to the kind help of
Mademoiselle Jusseaume, would enable us to cross to England, where a
priest of our faith will bless our union.  We can return afterwards
to France, if you wish; that shall be as you judge best, for you will
have no wife more submissive and devoted than the mother of your
child.

"I am sending this letter to your aunt's at Arras, requesting them to
forward it to you.  Write to me at the Poste Restante, Rue du Louvre,
under the name of the kind-hearted Mademoiselle Jusseaume, who is
reading over my shoulder while I write, her eyes full of tears.
Wherever I may be, your reply will always reach me.

"I kiss thee from my soul, dear companion of my heart--that heart
which through all its sufferings burns with an undying love and is
thine forever.

"CLARISSE DE PONTIVY."


This letter remained unanswered.  Had it reached its destination?
Yes; young Robespierre had actually received it, eight days after, in
Paris, at the Hôtel du Coq d'Argent, on the Quai des
Grands-Augustins, where he had hired a room after leaving Monsieur de
Pontivy's house.  He had read and re-read Clarisse's letter, then, on
consideration, he burnt it, so that no trace of it should be left.
Clarisse's proposal was a risky adventure.  What would become of them
both in England when her meagre resources were exhausted?  Return to
France?  Implore Monsieur de Pontivy's pardon?  A fine prospect!  He
would cause the marriage to be annulled, for it was illegal both in
England and in France, as the young people were not of age.  As to
him, his fate was sealed in advance.  He would be sent to the
Bastille.  And the child?  He scarcely gave a thought to it.  So much
might happen before its birth!

This, however, was made known to him, soon after, in another letter
from Clarisse.  The child--a boy--was born.  If he did not decide to
take them the child would be abandoned, and she sent to a convent.
Robespierre hesitated, crushing the letter between his fingers, then
resolutely burnt it, as he destroyed the first.  Paugh!  The
grandfather was wealthy.  The child would not starve.  Clarisse had
told him that she had given him Monsieur de Pontivy's Christian
name--Olivier.  The Councillor would eventually relent.  And was it
not, after all, one of those adventures of common occurrence in the
life of young men?  He, at least, had done his duty by offering to
make reparation by marriage.  Monsieur de Pontivy would not hear of
it.  So much the worse!

Ah! he was of mean birth, was he!--without ancestry, without
connections, without a future....  Without a future?  Was that
certain, though?

Monsieur de Pontivy's refusal, far from humiliating him, gave a spur
to his ambition.  All his latent self-esteem and pride rose suddenly
in one violent outburst.  Full of bitterness and wounded vanity he
finished his law studies in a sort of rage, and set out for Arras,
his native place, which he had left as a child, returning to it a
full-fledged lawyer.  No sooner was he called to the Bar than he came
into public notice, choosing the cases most likely to bring him
renown.

But these local triumphs, however flattering, only half-satisfied his
ambition.  He cared little or nothing for provincial fame.  He would
be also foremost in the ranks of those who followed with anxious
interest the great Revolutionary movement now astir everywhere, in
the highways and byways of France, with its train of new ideas and
aspirations.  Robespierre took part in this cautiously and adroitly,
reserving ample margin for retreat in case of future surprises, but
already foreseeing the brilliant career that politics would
thenceforth offer to ambition.

At the Convocation of the States-General, the young lawyer was sent
to Versailles to represent his native town.  Success was, at length,
within his grasp.  He was nearing the Court, and about to plunge into
the whirl of public affairs, in which he thought to find an avenue to
his ambition.

And yet he did not succeed all at once.  Disconcerted, he lost
command of himself, became impatient and excited by extreme
nervousness.  He had developed such tendencies even at Arras, and
time seemed only to increase them.  In the chamber of the
States-General, still ringing with the thunderous eloquence of
Mirabeau, the scene of giant contests of men of towering mental
stature, Robespierre vainly essayed to speak.  He was received with
mockery and smiles of ridicule.  He appeared puny and grotesque to
these colossal champions of Liberty, with his falsetto voice, his
petty gestures, his nervous twitches and grimaces, more like a monkey
who had lost a nut than a man.

But Robespierre's colleagues would have ceased their raillery perhaps
had they gone deeper into the motives and character of the man, and
sounded the subtle intricacies of his soul.  They would have found in
those depths a resolute desire to accomplish his aim, an insatiable
pride joined to the confidence of an apostle determined to uphold his
own doctrines, and to promote theories of absolute equality, and of a
return to the ideal state of nature.  They would have perhaps
discovered that this ambitious fanatic was capable of anything, even
of atrocious crime, to realise his dreams.

The impetuous tribune Mirabeau had said at Versailles: "That man will
go far, for he believes in what he says."  Mirabeau ought to have
said, "He believes in himself, and, as the effect of his mad vanity,
he looks upon everything he says as gospel truth."  And in this lay
his very strength.  This was the source of his success, founded on
that cult of self, and a confidence in his own powers carried to the
point of believing himself infallible.  Through all the jolts and
jars of party strife, the thunder and lightning contests, the eager
enthusiasm or gloomy despondency, the grand and tumultuous
outpourings of the revolutionary volcano through all this hideous but
sublime conflict, and amid dissensions of parties swarming from the
four corners of France, tearing each other to pieces like wild
beasts, Robespierre cunningly pursued a stealthy course, sinuously
ingratiating himself now with the more advanced, now with the more
moderate, always faithful to his original plan and policy.

Words!  Rhetoric! these were his arms.  Speech was not incriminating,
but actions were.  Words were forgotten, actions lived as facts, and
Robespierre kept as clear of these as possible.  During the most
startling manifestations of that horrible revolutionary struggle, he
was never seen, though the work of his hand could be traced
everywhere, for far from retiring he carried fuel to the flames,
knowing well that every one would be swallowed up in the fratricidal
strife.  When the danger was over and victory assured, he would
re-appear fierce and agitated, thus creating the illusion that he had
taken part in the last battle, and suffered personally in the contest.

Where was he at the insurrection of Paris, the 10th of August, 1792,
when the populace invaded the Tuileries, and hastened the fall and
imprisonment of the King, whom they sent to the scaffold some months
later?  Where was he a few days later, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th of
September, when armed bands wandered through Paris, forcing the
prison doors, and butchering the hostages?  Where was he during the
riots of February, 1793, when the famished populace prowled about
Paris asking for bread?  Where was he the evening of the 1st of May,
when eighteen thousand Parisians assailed the National Convention to
turn out the traitor deputies?  Where was he two days after, on the
2nd of June, when the insurrection recommenced?

Hidden, immured, barricaded, walking to and fro like an encaged
tiger-cat, excited and agitated, shaken with doubts, cold beads of
perspiration standing on his forehead, breathless to hear any news
which his agents and detectives might bring him, and only breathing
freely again when the result was known.

For this man was a coward.  And was this known?  No!  Not then!  All
that was known was what he wished to make public; that he was poor,
that he was worthy in every respect of the title of "Incorruptible"
given to him by a revolutionist in a moment of enthusiasm.  And, in
truth, he was free from any venal stain, and knew that in this lay
the greater part of his strength.

What was also known was that he was temperate and chaste.  His
private life, from the time he left Versailles with the
States-General to come to Paris and install himself in a humble
lodging in the Rue de Saintonge, would bear the closest scrutiny.  He
lived there frugally and modestly, his only resource being the
deputy's fees of eighteen francs a day, part of which he
ostentatiously sent to his sister at Arras.  Then suddenly he
established himself in the house of Duplay the carpenter, in the Rue
Saint-Honoré, a few steps from his club, the Jacobin Club; or, more
properly speaking, he was established there by force, by the
carpenter himself, an ardent admirer of his, who took advantage of a
chance hospitality during the riots to press him to remain
indefinitely.  He occupied a room under their roof where he had now
lived a year, surrounded by the jealous care of the whole family, in
republican simplicity, after the true patriarchal manner.

All this was well known, or if it had not been Robespierre would have
proclaimed it, for from this Spartan setting an atmosphere of
democratic virtue enveloped him, and raised him in solitary state
above his fellows.

Yes, he was above them!  Others gave themselves away, but he never!
Others had revealed their characters in unguarded moments, and laid
bare to the world their frailties and their virtues.  He had never
betrayed himself, for he never acted on impulse.  The others were
well known to be made of flesh and blood, of idealism, and dust, but
who knew the real Robespierre?  The very mystery and doubt in which
his true character was wrapped had lent credence to the common rumour
which attributed to him supernatural qualities.  He was compared to
the pure source, high among virgin snows, from which the Revolution
sprung.

He stood alone on his pedestal, inaccessible, unassailable.  All the
great leaders of the Revolution, his predecessors or his rivals, had
disappeared, carried off in the whirlwind, victims of their
exaggerated enthusiasm, as Mirabeau and Marat, or of Robespierre's
treachery, as Danton and Camille Desmoulins, ground in the sanguinary
mill of the Revolutionary Tribunal, on his sole accusation.

Thus when his path was cleared of those who stood most in his way, he
anticipated the time when he should hold the destiny of France in his
hand, aided by the Convention now subdued to his will, and the whole
armed force grovelling at his feet.

Yet one obstacle remained to be surmounted: the Committee of Public
Safety to whom the Convention had transferred its authority, and of
which he was a member, but where he felt a terrible undercurrent of
animosity directed against him.

At this point Robespierre realised that he must either cajole or
conquer them.  For if they were curbed and reduced to silence, he
would have all power absolutely in his own hands.  The hour was
approaching.  It was necessary to strike a decisive blow, and he
thought to have found the means to do so, and to overawe the
Committee, at his Festival of the Supreme Being, which would take
place in a couple of days, when he would speak to the assembled
multitude, and dominate his colleagues in his quality of President of
the Convention, a post he had sought in order to have an opportunity
to assert himself at this lay ceremony, this parody of the religious
celebrations of the old regime.

His intention was to confirm in public, amid the acclamations of the
populace, the religion of a new God, whose existence he had just
proclaimed--the God of Nature, a stranger to Christianity, borrowed
entire from Rousseau's famous pages in _le Vicaire Savoyard_.
Robespierre's sectarian temperament experienced a deeper satisfaction
than he had perhaps ever felt, at the thought that he was to declaim,
among flowers and incense, those empty, sonorous phrases which he was
writing on the little walnut table where his master had found some of
his most burning inspirations.  He became in his own eyes the high
priest of the Republic, offering incense on the altar of his own
superhuman sovereignty.  Yes, Robespierre could already hear the
enthusiastic applause of the multitude!  Who would dare to stand in
his way after such public consecration in the immense Place de la
Révolution, where for a week past the platform was being prepared.

Such was the man shadowed by Destiny, the further course of whose
chequered career, with its startling incidents, we are now to follow.


Robespierre had just finished his first discourse, for he was to
deliver two.  He closed it with a menace.  "People," it ran, "let us
under the auspices of the Supreme Being give ourselves up to a pure
joy.  To-morrow we shall again take arms against vice and tyrants!"

This was his note of warning to those who, he felt, ranged themselves
against him.  Completely satisfied with himself, he read and re-read
his sentences, stopping to polish periods and phrases, or seeking
graceful and sonorous epithets.  One passage especially pleased him,
for a breath of _le Vicaire Savoyard_ seemed to pervade it.  He spoke
of the presence of the Supreme Being, in all the joys of life.  "It
is He," he said, "who adds a charm to the brow of beauty by adorning
it with modesty; it is He who fills the maternal heart with
tenderness and joy; it is He who floods with happy tears the eyes of
a son clasped in his mother's arms."  Robespierre smiled at the music
of the phrasing which in his pedantry he thought his master would not
have disowned.

But he stopped.  After all, was it not a reminiscence of _le Vicaire
Savoyard_?  Perhaps he had made use of the same metaphor as Rousseau?
He would be accused of feeble imitation!  This could be easily
ascertained, as the book was near at hand, in the little bookcase
that once belonged to the master.  He had but to take it from the
case.  The key was in the lock, but it resisted, though he used all
his strength.  Growing impatient, he was about to break open the
door, but paused as though this would be sacrilege, and at last sent
for the gardener.

"This lock does not act, does it?" he said.

The gardener tried it in his turn, but with no better success.

"It is of the utmost importance for me to have a book which is in
there," said Robespierre, visibly annoyed.

"That can be easily managed, citizen; there is a locksmith a few
steps from here, on the road to the forest.  I will go and fetch his
apprentice."

The gardener ran downstairs, and Robespierre returned to his work.
He was soon aware of footsteps advancing.  It was the gardener
returning with the apprentice.

"This way, citizen," said the gardener.

The two men entered.  Robespierre had his back to them, and continued
to write, a happy inspiration having occurred to him, which he was
shaping into a sentence.  After they had tried several keys the door
yielded at last.

"Now it's right, citizen!" said the gardener.

"Thanks!" said Robespierre, still bending over his work, and absorbed
in his sentence.

Suddenly the sound of a voice floated up through the casement:--

  "Petits oiseaux de ce viant bocage...."

It was the young apprentice returning home across the garden,
singing.  Robespierre stopped in his writing, vaguely surprised.  He
had heard that air before!  But where?  When?  This he could not
tell.  It was the echo of a distant memory.  He turned his head
slowly in the direction of the cadence, but the song had ceased.

The fleeting impression was soon effaced, and Robespierre, having
already forgotten the coincidence, rose and went towards the now open
bookcase.  Taking Rousseau's volume, he opened it at these words: "Is
there in the world a more feeble and miserable being, a creature more
at the mercy of all around it, and in such need of pity, care, and
protection, as a child?"  He passed over two chapters, turning the
pages hastily.  The phrase he wanted was undoubtedly more towards the
end.  As one of the leaves resisted the quick action of his hand, he
stopped a moment to glance at the text: "From my youth upwards, I
have respected marriage as the first and holiest institution of
nature..."  Now he would find it.  The phrase he wanted could not be
much further!  It soon cheered his sight: "I see God in all His
works, I feel His presence in me, I see Him in all my surroundings."

Robespierre breathed freely again.  Here was only an analogy of
thought, suggested, hinted at by Rousseau, and which he, Robespierre,
had more fully developed.  Smiling and reassured he returned to his
place.




CHAPTER III

THE ENGLISHMAN

These words of Rousseau read before the open bookcase, suggestive as
they were of voices from the past still echoing through his memory,
had no meaning for him.  They kindled no spark in the dead embers of
his conscience to reveal the truth.  And yet it was a warning from
heaven--a moment of grave and vital import in the life of this man,
who, had he not been blinded by an insane ambition, might have
recognised in the passing stranger a messenger of Fate.

For the voice which had distracted him from his work was the voice of
Clarisse, and the young apprentice who had just left him was his son.

The outcast child, now grown to manhood, had been within touch of his
own father, but unseen by him.  No mysterious affinity had drawn them
together, though the voice had vaguely troubled him as he returned to
his work.

The young man on leaving _l'Ermitage_ took the path that led to the
forest.  He was a fine, stoutly built lad, with a brisk lively
manner, strong and supple, revealing in spite of his workman's garb
an air of good breeding which might have perhaps betrayed his origin
to a keen observer.  His hair was dark brown, his blue eyes looked
out from the sunburnt and weather-beaten face with an expression of
extreme sweetness, and his full lips smiled under a downy moustache.
He walked with rapid strides, a hazel stick in his hand, towards the
forest, which he soon reached, threading the paths and bypaths with
the assurance of one to whom the deep wood and its intricate
labyrinths was familiar.  He slackened his pace now and then to wipe
the perspiration from his forehead, keeping to the more shady side of
the way, for the sun, already high in the heavens, shed its rays in a
burning shower through the leaves, scorching the very grass in its
intensity.  At last, overcome by the heat, he took off his coat and
hung it at the end of the stick across his shoulder.

Presently he turned into an avenue of oak saplings through which a
green glade was visible, an oasis where refreshing coolness told of
the presence of running water.  Here he shaded his eyes with his
hands to make out a form outlined against the distance, and a smile
lit up his face as he recognised the approaching figure.  Hastening
his steps he called out--

"Thérèse!"

A fresh, clear voice answered--

"Good morning, Olivier!  Good morning!" as a young girl came towards
him with outstretched hands.  She was tall and lithe, of a fair, rosy
complexion, and wore a peasant's dress from which the colour had long
since faded.  She advanced rapidly, now and then replacing with a
quick, graceful movement the rebel locks of fair hair that caressed
her cheeks, all in disorder from the air and exercise.

"You bad boy!  Auntie and I have been quite anxious about you; but
where do you come from?"

For only answer the young man kissed her upturned forehead, and
allowed her to take the stick at the end of which his coat still hung.

"And where is mamma?" he asked, continuing to walk on.

"Why, here, of course!" called another voice, a woman's also, gay and
joyous as the other, but more mellow in tone, and Clarisse's head
appeared above the tall grass.

Instantly the young man was in his mother's arms, and seated by her
side on the trunk of a fallen chestnut lying parallel with the
stream, which in his haste he had cleared at a bound, discarding the
assistance of the little bridge of trees of which the young girl was
more prudently taking advantage.

"Ah! my poor Olivier!  What anxiety you have caused us!  Why are you
so late?  And after being out all night, too?"

"Did you not know that I should not be back?" the young man asked,
looking at his mother.

"Yes, but we expected you earlier this morning."

"It does certainly seem as if it had happened on purpose," he said,
as he explained to them why he was so late, and he went on to tell
them how he had been kept at the last moment by his employer for some
pressing work at Saint-Prix, a little village then in full gala, and
distant about a league from the forest.  The Democratic Society of
the district had joined for this occasion with the Montmorency
Society, and there were of course masts to put up, a stand to erect,
or rather to improvise, for everything was behindhand.  Olivier had
been told off to fix iron supports to the steps raised for the
convenience of the populace.  They had worked, he said, till late in
the night by candle light, and in the morning, when he was preparing
to come home, he had to go to _l'Ermitage_ to open a bookcase, just
to oblige the gardener who was such a good fellow, though the
tenant...

"Who is he?" interrupted Clarisse, always fearful and uneasy at the
thought of her son going to a stranger's house.

"I don't know at all," replied Olivier.  "I only know that he didn't
even disturb himself to thank me.  They have pretty manners, these
Republicans; the old aristocracy were at least polite."

But his mother stopped him.

"Oh, hush!  Do not speak like that; suppose you were heard!"

And, putting her arms round his neck, as if to shield him from some
possible danger, she asked him what news he brought from the workshop.

"Nothing but the same string of horrors at Paris, and it was even
said that the number of victims had sensibly increased."

Carried away by his subject, he detailed to the two women scraps of
conversation overheard that night at the village of Saint-Prix.  As
he spoke, Marie Thérèse, now seated near him on the grass, with his
coat spread before her, silently smoothed out the creases, and his
mother drank in every word with breathless attention.

Nothing was left of the Clarisse of sixteen but the velvet softness
of the blue eyes, and the sweet charm of their expression, with all
the pristine freshness of a pure soul still mirrored in their depth.
The thin, colourless face seemed modelled in deep furrows, and the
fair hair was already shot with silver.  Though poorly clad in the
dress of a peasant, she also might have betrayed her better birth to
a practised observer by her white hands, with tapered fingers and
delicate wrists, and by the supple grace of her bearing.  But who
could regard as an aristocrat this poor woman, almost old, sheltering
under her maternal wing the stout young workman, with his resolute
air and hands blackened at the forge?

She now went under the name of Durand, as did her son and her niece,
Marie Thérèse, who passed as the child of her brother-in-law.  The
young girl was, in reality, the daughter of her own brother, the
young student of the College of Navarre, who had been killed the
preceding year in Vendée, fighting in the ranks of the Chouans, in
the Royalist cause.  Clarisse's husband also met his fate at one of
these sanguinary combats, for he was so dangerously wounded that a
few days after he had been secretly conveyed to London he died in
great agony.

For Clarisse had been married, and was now a widow.

And her past: it could be written in a page--a little page; yet in
writing it her hand would have trembled at every line.  Deserted by
her betrayer, receiving no reply to her letters, she realised, when
too late, his cold egoism and ambition.  She had been separated from
her child, who was born in the retirement of a little village of
Dauphiné, whither her father had taken her, and had been immediately
confided to the care of peasants, where she was allowed to visit him
once a fortnight, subject to a thousand precautions imposed by
Monsieur de Pontivy.

And yet, with all this weight of sadness, Clarisse retained her
native grace.  Misfortune had but added charm to her delicate and
melancholy beauty.

It sometimes happened, though very seldom, that she was obliged to
accompany her father into society.  On one of these rare occasions
she attracted the notice of a young captain of the Queen's Guards,
Monsieur de Mauluçon, who sought her society assiduously, fell in
love with her, and asked Monsieur de Pontivy for her hand.

"Your offer does us much honour," the Councillor had replied, "but I
should wish you to see Mademoiselle de Pontivy herself, before
renewing your request to me."

And Monsieur de Pontivy notified the fact to Clarisse the same
evening with characteristic formality:

"Monsieur de Mauluçon," he said, "whose affection, it appears, you
have won, has done me the honour of asking for your hand.  I gave him
to understand that you alone would dispose of it.  He will be here
to-morrow afternoon to confer with you.  I do not know if he pleases
you, but this I know, that if you wish to accept his offer you must
lay before him the story of your past.  And I need not tell you that
if, after this, he persists in making you his wife, you can rely on
my consent."

"It shall be as you wish, father," Clarisse answered.

That open nature, which was her most touching trait, made her
father's attitude seem quite natural.  She did not wait to think that
Monsieur de Pontivy could have spared her the shame of this avowal by
making it himself, for the fault of another is more easily confessed
than our own.  Clarisse only felt that, having inflicted a wrong on
her father, she was in duty bound to expiate it.  And, in truth, it
did not cost her so much to make the confession to Monsieur de
Mauluçon as it would to have broken it to any other, for he had from
the first inspired her with unbounded confidence.  She had read a
manly generosity in the kindly expression of his frank, open face.
She would never have dreamt of becoming his wife, but since he had
offered himself why not accept the proffered support of so strong an
arm?  She well knew in her lonely existence that her father would
never be the loving friend and protector that, in the utter weakness
of her betrayed and blighted womanhood, she had yearned for through
so many long days!

But her child, her little Olivier, would he be an obstacle?  At the
thought her eyes filled with tears.  What did it matter?  She would
only love him the more, the angel, and suffering would but bind them
closer together!  However, it was now to be decided, and both their
destinies would be sealed, for she well knew that if Monsieur de
Mauluçon drew back after her confession, all prospects of marriage
would be over, for never again could she so humiliate herself, though
she could bring herself to it now, for she had read a deep and tender
sympathy in her lover's eyes.  And, after all, what mattered it if
she were not his wife?  She would at least remain worthy of his pity,
for he could not despise her.  Her confession would create a tie
between them which he would perhaps remember later on, when her
little Olivier engaged in the battle of life.

When Monsieur de Mauluçon came again to her, innocent of all
suspicion, he found her grave and deeply moved.  In a few brief words
she laid bare to him the history of her past, and he was too
high-souled, too strong and generous, to feel anything but an immense
pity for a heart of exquisite sensibility, wrecked by its own
confiding impulses, misunderstood, misled, and then forsaken.

He took both her hands in his and pressed them to his lips
respectfully.

"And the child," he said; "whose name does he bear?"

"Luc-Olivier.  Olivier is my father's Christian name."

"But he must have a name!  We will give him ours.  Mauluçon is as
good as Pontivy."

"How can that be?" Clarisse answered, thinking she must be dreaming.
"Do you mean you will adopt my child? ... Oh!  Monsieur! ...
Monsieur!..." and she stammered incoherent words of gratitude,
struggling with an emotion which seemed to strangle her.

"I also have a Christian name"--and he bent low, whispering softly in
her ear--"my name is Maurice."

She turned towards him with a wan smile, and as he stooped to kiss
his affianced bride she melted into tears.

The child was just two years old.  The young couple took him with
them in their travels.  They then established themselves at Pontivy,
near the grandfather, who had softened towards his daughter since her
marriage, partly won by the baby charm of his grandchild.  Their
visits to Paris became less frequent, for Monsieur de Mauluçon, in
order better to enjoy his home life, obtained an unlimited leave of
absence.  He now devoted himself to Olivier's education, who was
growing up a bright, frank, and affectionate boy.  Except Monsieur de
Pontivy and Clarisse's brother Jacques, no one but themselves knew
the story of his birth.  Jacques de Pontivy, recently married, had
kept it even from his wife, who died, however, some months after
giving birth to a baby girl, whom Clarisse now loved as much as her
own Olivier.

Life seemed to smile at last upon the poor woman, when the Revolution
broke out.  Jacques de Pontivy, who had intended to succeed his
father in Parliament, seeing the Royal Family menaced, entered the
army, which Monsieur de Mauluçon had also rejoined.  Both endeavoured
several times to give open proof of their loyal sentiments.  They
covered the flight of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, and were
nearly taken at the arrest of the King and Queen on their way to
Varennes, and the next year they were obliged to fly from France, and
both sought refuge in England, resolved to serve the Royalist cause
with all their energy and devotion to the last.

Clarisse, who had remained at Paris with her husband during those
stormy times, now rejoined her father at the Château de Pontivy, with
Olivier and little Marie Thérèse.

Monsieur de Pontivy, whose health was fast failing, was struck to the
heart by the rapid march of events and the sudden collapse of all his
most cherished surroundings.

"There is nothing left but to die," he would say sometimes, looking
on with indifference at the vain attempts of his son and son-in-law,
whose firm faith and enthusiasm he no longer understood, tired and
disgusted as he was with everything.

Another tie which bound Clarisse to France was the charge of the two
children.  Almost grown up now, they were still too young to be
exposed to the danger of travelling in such uncertain times, when the
frontiers were scarcely guarded, and France was committed to a course
which had estranged her from the nations of Europe.

But when Clarisse heard that Monsieur de Mauluçon and her brother
were on the eve of leaving London for Southampton to rejoin the royal
army in Vendée, she hesitated no longer.

Confiding the children to their grandfather's care, she left Pontivy,
and arrived in London, to find her husband and brother at the house
of a mutual friend, Benjamin Vaughan, whose acquaintance they had
made at the American Embassy in Paris, at a reception on the
anniversary of the United States Independence, and with whom they had
become intimate.

But Clarisse had hardly rejoined her husband, when a letter reached
her from Pontivy telling her that if she wished to hear her father's
last words she must come at once.  She returned to France almost
beside herself with grief, giving her whole soul to her husband in a
parting kiss.

It was to be their last.

Misfortune followed misfortune with astounding rapidity.  Monsieur de
Mauluçon and Jacques de Pontivy soon landed at Saint-Paire, and
joined the Vendean army.  At the first encounter Jacques was killed
by a Republican bullet, and Monsieur de Mauluçon mortally wounded.
He was secretly conveyed to London with other wounded royalists, and
in spite of the fraternal welcome and care he found under the roof of
the faithful friend who had always received them with open arms, he
died there of his wounds.  Clarisse learnt her double bereavement at
the time when her father was breathing his last.

Thus she became a widow and an orphan in that brief space of time.

Prostrated by this double blow, she was for some time at death's
door.  When she came to herself after a delirium which lasted nearly
a week, she saw her children--for Marie Thérèse, now doubly orphaned,
was more her child than ever--seated at her bedside awaiting in
unspeakable anxiety her return to consciousness.  She drew them to
her, and covered them with kisses.

"Console yourselves," she said, "I shall live, since you are here."

At this moment a man advanced smilingly towards her, his eyes
glistening with tears of joy.

"Leonard!" she said, "you here?"

It was an old servant of Monsieur de Pontivy, who had come in all
haste from Montmorency, where he lived, to attend the funeral of his
late master.

"Ah!" he cried, "Madame can rest assured Leonard will not leave her
till she is herself again."

"Then I shall remain ill as long as possible," she replied laughing,
and she held out her hands to him.

Her convalescence was short, and as soon as she was on her feet again
she began to think of the future.  But Leonard had already thought of
this.  "You cannot remain here," he said.  "Your name, your
connections, your fortune--everything denounces you, and exposes you
to the ill-treatment of so-called patriots.  You must leave Pontivy."

"Go?  But where?" asked Clarisse, "Abroad?  I have already thought of
that, but how can I reach the frontier with my young people without
passport, and without guide?"

"The surest way to find shelter and safety is to remain in France,"
Leonard answered.  "Listen to my plans.  I have a cottage hidden
among the trees in a little hollow of the forest of Montmorency.  The
place is lonely and little frequented.  You can take it in a borrowed
name as my tenant.  An honest couple, well known to me, a gardener
and his wife, will assist in the house, and in the cultivation of the
little plot of ground.  To avert suspicion, you can place your son
with me as apprentice.  I am one of the most influential members of
the Democratic Society of Montmorency.  My patronage is therefore a
guarantee of your Republican principles.  Olivier will learn a trade,
and remain under your care, for he can return home every night to
dinner, and thus, dear lady, we will await better times."

Clarisse consented joyfully, and in eight days the little family were
installed in the cottage of the forest, secure and safe, in a narrow
valley thickly planted with trees, whose bushy branches formed a
second roof over their humble dwelling.  Fourteen months Clarisse
lived there unnoticed, hearing only of the events happening at Paris
from the harrowing accounts of the guillotine and _noyades_ which her
son brought from the workshop, peopling the sleep of the two women
with fearful dreams.

When! oh, when! would they emerge from that obscurity?  When would
the trumpet-call of deliverance sound for France!  Clarisse dared not
think.  She trembled every instant for her own and her children's
safety; for Olivier above all, who already took a too lively interest
in the conversations of the workshop, and in popular manifestations.
Clarisse did not acknowledge it that morning when she met her son,
but she had not slept all night, although she had been aware that he
would not return.  So when the household duties were over she had
come long before the time fixed, to wait for him, as she often did,
in that green glade which opened on to the path he was wont to take.
When she saw him in the distance she used to beckon to him,
anticipating the joy of reunion; all a mother's tenderness smiling in
her eyes and on her lips.

Clarisse now hoped that, having been out all night, Olivier would not
assist at the _fête_.  But she was mistaken, for he took his coat
from Marie Thérèse and prepared to go.  "What! you are not going to
spend the day with us?"

"Now!" replied Olivier coaxingly.  "You don't really mean it.  And
what about the _fête_?  You know well my absence would be noticed.
All the youth of Montmorency will be there.  But I promise you to
return for supper.  At all events, I have an hour before me.  Let us
have a crust and some wine."

Clarisse rose from her seat, and Marie Thérèse helped the lad on with
his coat; then all three went in the direction of the little bridge,
but Olivier retraced his steps directly.  He had forgotten his stick.
Stooping to pick it up, he heard some one near him softly asking the
way, and looking up, he found himself in the presence of a stranger,
who pointed to a signpost knocked down by the wind, and from which
the writing was defaced.

"Which of these cross-roads leads to La Chèvre?" he asked.

"This one," Olivier answered.

The stranger thanked him, but at the sound of his voice, Clarisse,
who had been listening, turned, and as she came nearer she gave a cry
of joy.

"Is it possible!  You here, Vaughan!" and she came towards him with
outstretched hands.

The man's face lighted up with joy as he turned to greet her:

"Madame de Mauluçon!"

"Hush!" she said, then lowering her voice, she introduced the two
young people, who, surprised at first, smiled and shook hands with
this friend of their family, whose name they had so often heard at
Pontivy and Paris.  In a few words Clarisse explained to the newcomer
their circumstances, pointing out the peasant's cottage hidden among
the trees, where they lived away from the outside world.  As she
spoke her voice trembled, and she could with difficulty restrain her
tears, for the man before her had held her dying husband in his arms.
It was he who had heard his last words, closed his eyes, and sent
Clarisse the terrible news.  She longed to question him, but was
restrained by the presence of the children.  So when Marie Thérèse,
who with a woman's instinct felt they had sad and serious things to
say to each other, asked if they might leave them, Clarisse thanked
her with an eloquent look.

"That is right, children," she said, "go on; we will rejoin you
presently."

Alone with Vaughan, her eyes filled with tears; she overwhelmed him
with questions, which he answered with exquisite delicacy, softening
every painful detail.  Clothing his words considerately in a mist of
generalities, he guided the conversation with infinite tact, avoiding
some points, putting others in his turn, and finally he spoke of the
agreeable impression that Olivier and Marie Thérèse had produced on
him.

"What a pretty couple they would make!" he said; "but I suppose you
have already destined them for each other!"

Now she could smile.  He continued--

"Oh!  I saw that at once.  I congratulate you.  And when is the
wedding-day?"

Alas, how could she know?  Under this abominable Government, marriage
in the church had been abolished, and were they even to satisfy
themselves with a civil contract the mayor would demand their birth
certificates.  These were no longer in her possession, even had she
wished to produce them.  And where were they?

"I have them," replied Vaughan.

She looked at him in astonishment.

He then explained to her how he had found them among a bundle of
papers which her husband had been sorting, in order to burn the most
compromising, when death overtook him.  He--Vaughan, the confidant of
his last moments--had completed this task.  Among the letters, acts,
and accounts, relating chiefly to politics and the different
movements of the Chouans and the emigrants, he had found several
family documents, some insignificant, others of more importance.
These he had laid aside for Clarisse's perusal.

"I will now make a confession," he continued, "which must be made
sooner or later."

He stopped embarrassed, and then, as if suddenly resolved, added--

"The work of classification has put me in possession of a family
secret.  Among the papers which I have to return to you are the birth
and baptismal certificates of Olivier."

Clarisse looked at him anxiously.  He continued after a pause--

"In glancing over these I perceived that both were dated 1775, that
is, two years before your marriage."

Again he paused as if fearing to have said too much.

"And what conclusion did you draw from this?" she asked, resolved to
hear the worst.

"That by your marriage with Monsieur de Mauluçon Olivier was then
made legitimate."

She recoiled, pale and terrified.  Never had such a possibility
crossed her mind: her husband, the soul of loyalty and honour, he to
be suspected!

"You are mistaken," she said, and added, now quite calm and
self-possessed--

"Olivier bears the name of Monsieur de Mauluçon, but he is not his
son ... he is mine."

Vaughan made a gesture as if to prevent her continuing.  He knew too
much now.  Deeply affected and embarrassed, he murmured a confused
apology, overcome with admiration before this woman, who so frankly
confessed her shame rather than let suspicion rest for a moment on a
husband whose memory she revered.  She led her companion to the trunk
on which she had been sitting with her son, and asking him to listen
to her story, she told of her youthful folly, her isolated life, her
fall, and the cowardly desertion of the young secretary, whose name,
however, she concealed; then of the noble generosity of Monsieur de
Mauluçon, who had effaced the past by adopting as his own her son.

"Olivier knows nothing, of course?" asked Vaughan.

"Absolutely nothing.  He thinks he is Monsieur de Mauluçon's son."

Vaughan took both her hands in his.

"You have suffered much," he said.  "May the rest of your years be
years of joy and happiness!"

"God grant it!" she answered.  "But it is hardly to be hoped in such
fearful times of trouble and uncertainty."

He did not reply at once, but seemed preoccupied.  Then he said
suddenly, as if continuing his thoughts aloud--

"Why don't you come with me to England?"

"Are you returning, then?"

"Yes, in a few days."

She gave a little cry of joy, then added regretfully--

"It is useless to think of it.  There is always that question of
passport in the way."

Vaughan reassured her.

"I can arrange all that for you," he said.

She looked at him in astonishment, wondering how such a thing could
be possible to him, a foreigner.  Then suddenly struck by the
recollection that she had selfishly kept him occupied with her
affairs all the time, she hastened to ask him what had brought him to
France.  Perhaps she was detaining him?  And she begged him to
forgive her want of thought.

"You need not make any excuse," he said, smiling; "it would not have
interested you, for my presence here is due to politics.  It must
astonish you that I should come to France when our countries are at
war; but, be assured, I am well protected."

And Vaughan explained to her how he had been sent by an influential
member of the House of Commons to confer with the man who was looked
upon as the most powerful, the master, in fact, of the
Republic--Robespierre.

At the mention of this name Clarisse drew back terrified.

Vaughan evinced no particular surprise, for that name produced the
same effect on every woman.  Was not Robespierre, indeed, the
personification of that bloodthirsty Government in whose iron grip
France was then writhing in agony?

He traced a striking portrait of the Incorruptible, from the
intricacies of his subtle politics to the fierce and stubborn
ambition capable of anything to attain its end.  Clarisse listened,
spell-bound and trembling.

Vaughan, judging the man from a political standpoint, estimated him
at his true value.  His character, mediocre at the best, was
exaggerated in England.  The Whig party had commissioned Vaughan to
propose to Robespierre an arrangement which, if accepted, would most
likely change the face of things.  But would he accept?  Vaughan
doubted it, for the arrangement, though in one way flattering to the
self-love and pride of the Incorruptible, would at the same time
diminish his importance, and set a curb on his ambition, which, as
Vaughan well knew, with all the pretensions of the man to simplicity
and republican austerity, was all-absorbing and unbounded.

Seeing Clarisse so attentive, Vaughan continued to paint Robespierre
at home in the patriarchal circle of the Duplay family in the Rue
Saint Honoré, where he occupied a modest apartment between that of
the old couple and their younger son, as whose tutor he was acting
until the time came for his marriage with Cornelia, Duplay's youngest
daughter, to whom, as it seemed, he was devotedly attached.

Clarisse, her eyes fixed on Vaughan, drank in every word.  The
Englishman went on, giving a precise and detailed account of Duplay's
home--a home guarded by the wife, who watched the door in real
bull-dog fashion, for it was the centre of mistrust and suspicion.
Yes, Robespierre was well guarded.  He, Vaughan, even with an
introduction as Pitt's agent, had not been able to see him.  He had
only succeeded after many difficulties in obtaining an interview in
the forest, where he was to confer with him in secret, until joined
by the Duplay family.  Constantly beset by the fear of the Committee
of Public Safety, who watched his every movement, he had arranged for
a picnic in the glades, to avert suspicion from this forest interview.

Clarisse, pale and trembling, made a great effort to steady her
voice, and asked--

"Is he coming here?"

"Why, yes!" replied Vaughan; "he will be here directly.  I am a
little early."

Although accustomed to the effect which the name of Robespierre
always produced, Vaughan would have been surprised to see Clarisse's
emotion had he watched her face, but being preoccupied, he looked at
her without taking notice, and continued--

"Yes, the chance is opportune.  It will enable me to ask for your
passport.  He cannot refuse."

Clarisse looked at him, petrified with horror.

"And is it to him that you will go for our passports?" she said.

"Yes," replied Vaughan; "and I am quite sure of obtaining them."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Clarisse.  "It cannot be!"

"Why, dear friend?" asked Vaughan, beginning to show signs of
astonishment.

"He would want to know my name."

"Well! and I should tell him."

"Oh no; anything but that!" she gasped, bounding forward as if to
seal his lips with her hands; then she commenced to walk madly to and
fro, no longer able to control her emotion.

Vaughan, more and more mystified, looked at her in amazement.  "I
cannot understand you," he said.

She gazed at him for a moment, silent and hesitating, then, as if
suddenly resolved, she went up to him.

"A word will explain everything.  Since you are already possessed of
half the secret of my life, it is perhaps better that you should know
all."

She paused, and then continued--

"Olivier's father----"

"Well!" interposed Vaughan, now aghast in his turn, scarcely daring
to understand her.

"_He_ is Olivier's father!"

And as if broken with the effort, she sank down by the fallen
tree-trunk, and sobbed aloud.

"Oh, my poor, poor friend!" exclaimed Vaughan as he bent over her.
"I who thought your sufferings were at an end, and in my ignorance
added to them by telling you so brutally what I thought of that man!"

"You did not tell me more than I have thought myself," she said.
"For a long time, to my contempt for him has been added an absolute
abhorrence."

Vaughan here interrupted her with a gesture, intimating silence, his
eyes fixed on the distance.

"Is it he?" she said in a trembling whisper.

Vaughan continued to look.  He could make out the dim outline of a
man's form advancing through the trees.

Clarisse turned to escape, whispering as she went: "Will you come on
afterwards to the house?"

"No; to-morrow I will, not to-day.  He is sure to have me followed,"
replied Vaughan, his eyes still fixed on the advancing figure.

Clarisse was about to reply, but Vaughan had recognised Robespierre.

"It is he!" he exclaimed.  "Go quickly, he is coming this way,"
pointing to the path by which Olivier had come.

Clarisse had already crossed the stream and was standing behind a
curtain of reeds.  She parted them gently and asked, with shaking
voice--

"Where is he?"

Even in her fear she remained a woman, divided between a horror of
the man and the desire to see him again.

"Ah!  I see him...  Adieu, till to-morrow...."

The reeds fell back into their places, and Vaughan, left alone,
seated himself on the tree-trunk.  Robespierre soon came up, walking
leisurely, a bunch of blue periwinkles in his hand, his eyes on the
grass, seeking others.  He stooped here and there to gather and
arrange them daintily as a bouquet.  He was elegantly dressed, with
top-boots, chamois knee-breeches, a tight-fitting redingote of grey
stuff, and a waistcoat with revers.  A red-haired dog of Danish breed
gambolled before him, without fraternising unduly, as if his master's
faultless attire somewhat overawed him.  At a few steps from the
stream Robespierre perceived Vaughan, and came to an abrupt halt.  At
the same time two men appeared, wearing carmagnole jackets and
two-horned hats, and carrying stout cudgels.  Vaughan rose to meet
the Incorruptible.  The dog began to bark.

"Advance no further!" cried Robespierre.  "Who are you?"

He made a sign to the two men, who evidently had been acting as
scouts, and sent them towards Vaughan, who, though aware of his ways,
was still a little taken back at these strange preliminaries.
Vaughan gave the two men his note of introduction.

Robespierre took the paper, and drew out of his pocket a gold case,
from which he took a pair of blue, silver-rimmed spectacles, which he
carefully wiped and put on.

"It's all right," he said, after reading the note; and addressing
himself to the two men, he added, "Leave me now, but do not go far,
and, above all, keep watch round about."

And Robespierre crossed the bridge, and advanced towards Vaughan,
followed by his dog.




CHAPTER IV

THE ARREST

The two men measured each other from head to foot with rapid glances;
the one with curiosity, the other with mistrust; and, as if the
letter of introduction had not sufficed, Robespierre requested the
Englishman to give his name.  Vaughan complied, thinking it
unadvisible to bandy words with such a personage.  He it was, he
explained, who on his arrival from London had written to Robespierre
the day before, asking the favour of an interview.  He had been in
Paris two days, and was staying at the American Consulate, under the
name of Martin, but his real name was Vaughan--Benjamin Vaughan, one
of the Whig members of the Opposition in the House of Commons.  He
then unfolded to Robespierre the object of his mission, telling him
how he had been sent by the illustrious Fox, the fierce opponent of
Pitt's anti-republican policy...

"Yes, I know," Robespierre interposed.  "I know Mr. Fox is the
champion of democracy.  He is a grand character, and richly gifted.
I had his speeches translated, and read them with intense interest.
I followed every word of his fine oratorical contest with Burke, and
was deeply moved at the solemn rupture of their friendship of twenty
years' standing!  Ah!  There is something grand, heroic, thus to
sunder the closest tie in defence of one's principles.  It is worthy
of another age.  They are Romans, your leaders!  And what are Mr.
Fox's wishes, may I ask?"

The Englishman was about to explain the principal points, when
Robespierre again interrupted him by a gesture.  Did he not hear a
noise among the leaves, though Blount, the watch-dog, who prowled
round about like a vigilant sentinel, had not barked?  Robespierre
begged Vaughan to continue, but was still on the _qui-vive_,
listening with divided attention, nervous and uneasy, as if fearing
to be surprised in this conference with a stranger.

And the interview was, to say the least, compromising.  Fox and his
influential friends of the Whig party proposed a secret agreement
which would perhaps induce England and the Powers allied against
France to put down their arms, thus giving satisfaction to the
Royalists, without in any way interfering with the legitimate claims
of the Revolutionists.  Robespierre looked at the Englishman in
surprise, still unable to grasp his meaning.

Vaughan then explained more concisely that the Whig party dreamt of
establishing a Constitutional monarchy in France, on the same
principles as in England, with the little son of Louis XVI., now a
prisoner in the Temple, as King ...

"But think a moment!" interrupted Robespierre.

"With a Regency, of course, and an absolute guardianship," continued
Vaughan.

"The French nation would never hear of it."

"But why not, since the Regency would be confided to you?"

Robespierre started back.

"What, to me!  I, the Regent, the tutor of that boy?  You are joking!"

The "Incorruptible" did not think fit to tell him that five years
previously he had vainly solicited the position of tutor to the royal
infant at Versailles.  He now walked excitedly to and fro, asserting
positively his refusal, in short, broken phrases; all the while on
the alert for the slightest sound, and stopping now and then to ask,
"Did you hear anything?  I thought I heard steps?  Are you there,
Blount?  Hoop la!  Good dog!  Keep a good watch!"

Carried away by his vanity, Robespierre laid his soul bare before the
Englishman, who listened with the greatest curiosity and interest.
"Restore Royalty?  Ah! it was too ludicrous!  Had he worked, then, to
re-establish a kingdom for the son of the man he had sent to the
scaffold?  No! he had worked first for France, whom he had purged of
her internal evils, of the whole corrupt and infamous crowd that had
so long polluted her!  And then for himself; oh no! not from motives
of personal ambition, but because he felt himself called to
regenerate his country, to breathe into her a new soul, cleansed in
the pure waters of virtue and justice and equality.

"Regent, indeed?  Fox could not mean it!  Dictator, perhaps;
Protector, as was Cromwell; Lord-Protector of his country, now
degraded by centuries of tyranny and corruption.  Ah! they would soon
see her arise, pure and radiant, cleansed of all stain, regenerated
by a baptism of blood!  A few more heads, and then from the soil
soaked with the blood of aristocrats, those butchers of the old
regime, would spring the tree of liberty, the tree of life and
justice, of joy and love, which would bring forth marvellous fruits,
and to whose branches France would cling for support and nourishment,
as to a mother's breast!"

Vaughan gazed at him in bewilderment.  For through this ambition,
this bloodthirsty hypocrisy, he descried the madman; and the
Englishman said within himself that the man was absolutely dangerous.
He only interrupted Robespierre as a matter of form, knowing well
there was absolutely nothing in the way of common sense to be looked
for in such a fanatic.

"So you refuse?" said Vaughan, in conclusion.

"Decidedly!"

"Then I have only to retire, with your permission."

But Robespierre turned round abruptly.  Blount had started barking,
and a man was crossing their path.

"Who is that?" said Robespierre, in a frightened voice.

"The man looks like a beggar," said Vaughan, his eyes bent on the
approaching figure.

"Do you think so?" he answered, only half convinced.  "A spy,
perhaps?  For I am surrounded with spies, monsieur!  Ah, my life is
awful!  And if I were not working for the happiness of France ..."

A sound of voices was on the air, and the bark of a dog died away in
the distance.  It was Robespierre's two scouts driving off the beggar.

Released from suspense, Robespierre turned again to Vaughan.

"We must part company now," he said, "but not a word of our
interview!  I can count on your discretion, I am sure.  If not,
beware, for I could charge you with attempted bribery and corruption."

Vaughan assured him of his secrecy, telling him he was returning to
London by Geneva, to allay suspicion.  Seeing Robespierre's
agitation, he felt it was hardly the moment to ask for the passports
he required for Clarisse and her two young people.  He ventured,
however, but saw immediately by the expression of distrust on the
face of his interlocutor that he was not mistaken.  Robespierre
refused bluntly, saying that Vaughan should use every precaution to
avert discovery.  The slightest imprudence was sufficient to betray
him.  It would be too noticeable to travel in numbers in times when
every one was suspected and shadowed.  And what would it be for four
people?  His friend had but to come to him a few days hence, and he
would give her the passports, only too happy to be of service to a
family in whom Monsieur Vaughan was interested.

The latter politely declined this offer, feigning indifference, and
took leave of Robespierre, who kept him in sight until he disappeared
round a bend in the road.

Left alone, Robespierre's suspicions were aroused.  He began to ask
himself who was the woman in whom the Englishman was so much
interested.  Vaughan had friends, then, in France, to whom no doubt
he would describe their interview in the forest, or, at the very
least, how he had spent the morning.  Robespierre turned to call his
men, who were close at hand.

"Quickly," he cried.  "Set an agent on the track of the man who has
just left, and keep me informed of his actions and movements until he
leaves Paris.

"You are right, citizen, for the fellow looked d--d suspicious," said
one of the men, Didier, who played the part of a _Trivtay l'Ermite_
to the Incorruptible.

"How is that?" interrupted Robespierre, starting.

Then Didier, who had just heard it from one of his agents on watch in
the neighbourhood, told Robespierre of the interview between Clarisse
and Vaughan at the place they were standing.  He also described the
hurried departure of Clarisse when Robespierre arrived, and how she
had then flown, in all haste, to her house, a few steps off, and shut
herself in.

This was too much for Robespierre, whose misgivings had been already
awakened.

"What! a third person, a stranger, was cognizant of my interview with
the Englishman?  Let that woman be arrested instantly," he exclaimed.

"But there are two of them," said Didier, "mother and daughter."

"Then have them both arrested!  Arrest the three of them, for there
is also a son, I believe!"

"Yes, but he is not there at this moment," said Didier.

"Then arrest him when he returns!"

Didier gave the order to his companion, and returned to Robespierre.

"And where must they be taken?" he asked.  "To what prison?"

"Where you like!  Only see that they are arrested immediately.  Now
be quiet ... here come our friends!"

The tinkling of a bell was heard, and the crack of a whip.  Then gay
voices and bursts of laughter and merriment broke on the ear.  A man
made his appearance, who was lame and walked with the help of a
stick, preceded by Blount, the dog gambolling round him in welcome.
It was Duplay's nephew, Simon, the wooden-legged.  While a volunteer
in 1792, he had lost his left leg at the battle of Valmy, and now,
disabled and pensioned off by the army commission, he acted as
secretary to Robespierre.  Simon advanced gaily, like a guide
reaching his journey's end.

"Good morning, Maximilien!  Have you been here long?"

Robespierre was about to equivocate and say that he had only just
arrived, but he was spared the trouble of replying.  Cries of "Good
morning, Maximilien!  Good morning, friend!" sounded across the
hedge, a few steps from him.  The whole Duplay family appeared in
sight, all perched on a cart drawn by a lean, jaded beast.  Old
Duplay, in his shirt sleeves, his face all red and bathed in
perspiration, led the horse by the bridle over the ruts of the road,
while his son, Maurice, a boy of fifteen, ran about, his hair
floating in the wind, waving the branch of a tree to beat away the
flies.  Behind the cart, pushing it forward by the wheels, was
another man, neatly dressed.  This was Lebas, Robespierre's colleague
at the Convention and at the Committee of Public Safety, the husband
of one of Duplay's daughters.  In the cart were all the family:
mother Duplay, seated on a stool, a solidly built woman, with arms
bare to the elbow, holding the reins, and by her side, seated on a
heap of provisions and crockery, were the three daughters, Elizabeth,
the wife of Lebas; Victoire, the youngest, a fair-haired girl with
beautiful eyes; and Eleonore, or Cornélie, for the Duplays had
unearthed the name of a Roman matron to give her a character of
antique grace in the sight of Robespierre, who, it was said, was
going to marry her.

Dark and strong, with clear, almond-shaped eyes, her hair neatly
plaited, Cornélie was dressed like her sisters, in light summer
clothes, with a simplicity in which a practised eye could detect a
grain of coquetry.  The three sisters wore bonnets, caught up and
fastened with tricolour ribbons and cockades, thus giving to the old
cart, decorated with branches and palms gathered on the way, an air
of gaiety and life.

It was a custom of the Duplays to come thus on fine days to join
their friend, in some shady, secluded spot for a picnic on the grass,
and enjoy his company for a few quiet hours of intimacy in the
silence and coolness of the wood.

The cart now stopped.

Robespierre gallantly assisted the women to alight, amidst timid
exclamations and flutters of fear and laughing protests of: "Oh!
dear!  How high!  I shall never be able to get down!" followed by
ripples of laughter and a whole babel of questions and chatter.
"Have you slept well, _bon ami_?  Ah!  How well you look this
morning!"

"The joy of seeing you," replied Robespierre.

They went into ecstasy over his slightest words.  Oh, how good he
was, how kind!  And what a dream the place was, so joyous, so cool!
Only he could have discovered such a spot!

Mother Duplay had already commenced unpacking the provisions--slices
of sausage, shrimp paste, cold chicken, a melon, watercress, Brie
cheese, and buns.  She called her daughters to help her, whilst
Duplay unharnessed the horse and Lebas conversed with Robespierre,
giving him the latest news from Paris.  Wooden-legged Simon looked
around for a convenient spot to spread the cloth, and the boy Maurice
occupied himself in coaxing Blount to stand on his hind legs and beg
for sugar.

Suddenly all movement was suspended, and every ear strained to
listen, for screams were heard coming from behind the clump of trees
in the background.

"It sounds like women's voices," said Cornélie anxiously.

"You were right, they were women's voices," repeated Madame Lebas,
who had advanced in the direction whence the sound came.

Robespierre hastened to reassure them.

"It is nothing!" he said calmly, and as every one looked at him
questioning, he added indifferently, "They are only arresting two
aristocrats!"

"Oh, is that all?" said the two women, reassured.

Duplay and Simon approached nearer the Incorruptible, scenting a
story.  Robespierre assumed an air of superior mystery.  It was a
good find....  He had tracked them down....

At this moment Didier appeared.

"Is everything right?" asked Robespierre.

"Everything is right, citizen," replied Didier.

Apparently satisfied, the Incorruptible turned round, and went
towards Cornélie, who had stooped to gather a daisy.  A few steps
off, on the other trunk, Robespierre had laid the bouquet of blue
periwinkles gathered in his morning walk through the forest.  He now
offered it to her.

"Oh, the pretty things!" she exclaimed, thanking him for the delicate
attention.

"It was the flower Rousseau loved," Robespierre observed.

"You are as kind and good as he," the young girl replied, knowing she
gave pleasure to the Incorruptible in thus comparing him to his
master.

Robespierre, pleased and flattered, fastened the flowers in the young
girl's dress.  A gentle breeze murmured through the leaves, fanning
them as it passed.  It had come from afar, laden with a scent of
cultivated blossoms, the heavy perfume of roses that grew in
Clarisse's garden.

"Ah, life is sweet sometimes," sighed Cornélie.

And Robespierre, inhaling deep draughts of the perfumed air, assented
with a smile.




CHAPTER V

THE SON

Olivier did not wait until the end of the rejoicings at Saint-Prix.
About five o'clock, profiting by a moment when the public were
occupied with one of the usual commonplaces of popular festivals, and
their attention was fixed on the simulated dispute of two mountebanks
on the stage, he made his way through the gaping groups until he
reached the country.  Besides the pleasure of surprising his mother
and Thérèse by his unexpected return, the thoughts of an early supper
and a long sleep possessed him pleasantly as he quickened his steps.

His nerves had been more unstrung by all this bustle and movement of
the revels than by the sleepless night he had passed on the eve of
the _fête_.  His brain reeled; he had been dazed in the midst of the
surging tumult, the boisterous merrymaking of a multitude let loose
under the burning midsummer sun, as the clamour rolled in swelling
waves of sound above the crowd, above the gleam and shimmer of
tricolour scarves and cockades, up to the official stands, in murmurs
of enthusiastic approval, which harmonised with the extravagant
harangues of the orators almost as a musical accompaniment.

How they mouthed their periods, and declaimed their sentences, lavish
of revolutionary rant, repeated and reiterated to such excess that
Olivier's heart throbbed and a pulse beat at his temples, responsive
to the din of those recurring words liberty, equality, fraternity,
truth, justice, virtue, tyrant, pervert, corruptor, and suspect!  And
to think that to-morrow it would all begin again!  For at the
workshop they discussed politics, and he dared not be indifferent, or
even appear luke-warm before these enthusiasts, or he would be
immediately suspected!  Ah, yes!  Every one was suspected who did not
howl with the wolves.

"My God!  I am weary to death of it all," he exclaimed, in a sudden
revulsion of feeling at the _rôle_ he had assumed for fourteen
months--he, the son of a noble, of a Vendean!  His lips quivered, his
breast heaved at the thought of the string of horrors discussed and
upheld in his presence, which caused every fibre of his being to
shrink, and against which his whole soul revolted in mute indignation.

The image of two women rose before his eyes: his mother with joined
hands imploring him to moderate his zeal, to subdue the impetuous
ardour of his youth a while longer.

"Have but a little patience," she would say; "it will not, cannot
last.  The reaction is nearer than you think."

He smiled at her over-confidence, feigned perhaps to quiet him, as he
hastened his steps, thinking of the expected kiss, picturing her joy
and surprise, imagining himself already in her arms, looking into her
eyes, so full of tender love, and saying to her, "Yes, mother, it is
I, and I am going to stay till to-morrow morning!"

Olivier had taken a path across a rough and woody district, which
shortened his walk by the third of a mile.  He felt worn out, but at
the sight of the trees in the distance which surrounded their little
cottage, he took heart and quickened his steps.

The gardener was waiting for him at the door, and Olivier called out
to him joyfully--

"Hallo, Paul!  You did not expect to see me so soon, eh?"

But the man's expression told him instantly that something unusual
had happened.  His mother was ill perhaps--or Thérèse?  He began to
question the man anxiously, and when he reached him, stammered out--

"What is amiss?  What is it?  Oh, tell me quickly!"

In a few words the gardener told him all: how the home had been
invaded; the arrest of the two women; the agent's rough, off-hand
replies to Clarisse's entreaties and protestations; then their tears,
their screams, and their hurried departure in the direction of
Montmorency, hastened, no doubt, to avoid disturbing the little
family gathering just near the Carrefour de la Chèvre.

Olivier, overpowered by the terrible details the gardener had been
giving him, did not even think of asking to what family gathering he
was alluding, but the name of the place, the Carrefour de la Chèvre
struck him at once, and made him think of Vaughan.

"And the Englishman?" he asked.

"Which Englishman?" the gardener replied.

Olivier, seizing him nervously by the arm, hurriedly explained.

"You know that when I left this morning, Thérèse was alone....  My
mother....  Did not she return afterwards with a stranger?"

"No," answered the gardener, "the citoyenne Durand returned alone,
and even...."

"And even, what?"

"And even in great haste.  She seemed excited, looking behind her, as
if she did not wish to be seen by the pleasure-party."

"What pleasure-party?" asked Olivier excitedly.

"A pleasure-party of citoyens and citoyennes, who were picnicking on
the grass at the cross-roads of la Chèvre, and who seemed to know all
about the arrest, for one of the agents went to speak to them
afterwards."

"And who were they?" asked Olivier, thinking he was on the track at
last.

"Indeed, citoyen, I do not know."

"Are they still there?" inquired Olivier, with a ray of hope.

"Oh! they have been gone a long time."

"In what direction?"

"I cannot say."

"And you say that my mother and Thérèse have been taken to
Montmorency?"

"I am quite sure of it, unless, of course, the agents could find
means of conveyance somewhere else."

"A conveyance?  What for?"

"To take them to Paris."

"Are they going to Paris, then?"

"I suppose so, as they are arrested."

Arrested!  Olivier could not reconcile himself to the idea.  Why
arrested?  What had they done?  Of what crime were they guilty?  For
the tenth time the gardener told him he knew no more than he did, and
the lad, beside himself with rage, violently reproached the gardener
for not having fetched him at once from Saint-Prix.

"And who would have watched the house?" the gardener replied, who had
thought it better to guard his bedridden wife than to compromise
himself by starting off in search of Olivier.

The young man rushed into the house like a whirlwind, his haggard
eyes roving round the empty rooms, with the mad, impossible hope that
Thérèse was hidden behind some piece of furniture, and would burst
upon him in a peal of laughter, as in the days of childish gambols.
Then suddenly he darted off like a madman in the direction of
Montmorency.  He would go and tell the news to Leonard, who must have
returned by this time.  Perhaps he already knew?  He stopped as
suddenly: an idea had struck him.  If the agents had ordered a
conveyance at Montmorency, he had only to interrogate the driver.
That was clear enough!  So he resumed his headlong course, jumping
the ditches as he went, reckless of all risks.

On the way he fell into Leonard's arms.  The locksmith had learnt
everything from the driver who had taken Clarisse and Thérèse to
Paris, and had stopped at the workshop on his way back.  The two
women had been placed in the prison of La Bourbe, at Port-Royal,
arrested as "suspects."

"But by whose orders?" asked Olivier, stupefied.

"Robespierre's."

"The wretch!" he vociferated as he fell on a chair, frantic with rage.

But he was soon on his feet again, resolute and decided.

"I must go!" he said; "I must start at once for Paris.  I must have
them from that prison!  For now prison means the guillotine!"

Leonard held him back, begging him to wait till the morrow,
entreating him to be prudent, and to do nothing rashly.  But Olivier
was deaf to counsel or entreaty, and at last succeeded in obtaining
from the locksmith the address of a furnished apartment in the Rue du
Rocher, in a quiet, respectable house.  Only giving himself time to
go in the adjoining room and take a travelling-bag he had left in
Leonard's care, packed with a few clothes and sundry other articles
brought with him from Pontivy, Olivier started for Paris, accompanied
at first by Leonard, who took leave of him at a junction of the roads.

"Pray for me, Leonard," he said, taking an affectionate farewell,
"for I say it again, they shall come out of that prison, even if I
have to pay for it with my life."

At midnight Olivier arrived at the Rue du Rocher, having walked the
whole way without really knowing how, mind and body being given up to
the one haunting thought.  He rang at the house indicated to him, and
secured a room, mentioning Leonard as a reference, and when the
concierge asked his name he replied--

"Germain, Citoyen Germain.  Could I go to my room now?  I am so
sleepy."

And yet he did not sleep.  He did not even attempt to lie down, but
paced the room impatiently, trying at times to sit down quietly, then
rising to recommence his walk to and fro, waiting for the daylight
with feverish impatience.  He undid his bed, rumpled it to make it
look as if it had been slept in, and going downstairs knocked gently
at the concierge's room to have the front door opened.  He then
hastened through the deserted streets to the prison of La Bourbe,
without once asking his way, for the directions Leonard had given him
were firmly engraved on his memory, and arrived there sooner than he
had expected.

When the grey and red mass of Port-Royal Abbey rose before him, his
heart beat wildly.  It was in one of those buildings, now transformed
into a prison, that his mother and his _fiancée_ were immured!  It
was within those walls that they suffered, that they wept bitter
tears in their utter despair, thinking surely of him, wondering what
had been his fate!

And the reality appeared even more desperate now!  In his haste to
reach them Olivier had not considered how to gain admittance to the
prison.  In a moment all the difficulty of such an undertaking rushed
on his mind, as he stood alone and helpless before those massive
walls.  Trying to solve the problem, he devised schemes only to
discard them as impracticable.  He no longer scanned the windows, for
fear of attracting attention.  He suspected a spy in every passer-by.
Once he even tried to assume a smile, thinking his mental agony might
be seen on his face.  He put on an air of indifference, making a
_détour_ of the prison, carelessly examining everything to avert
suspicion.  At last, thoroughly worn out, he moved away, vaguely
hoping to find a happy inspiration in some lonely spot, where he
could be more master of himself.

To whom could he turn for assistance?  He knew no one.  All the
friends of his family, formerly settled in Paris, were now either
abroad or in prison, if they had not perished on the scaffold or in
the war.  And then he thought of the Englishman Vaughan.  Where was
he to be found?  In prison, perhaps, arrested with the others in the
forest.  Everything was possible.  A sudden idea flashed across his
mind, an idea which, however, he quickly rejected, judging it
imprudent.  He had wandered into the Rue des Lions, the neighbourhood
of his grandfather's town house, and had thought of Benoit, the
porter.  Was he still there?  He shrugged his shoulders despairingly,
just remembering that the mansion was now the property of the State.
The neighbours might also recognise him, and he would compromise
himself uselessly.

Thus wandering, Olivier found himself back again in the Rue du
Rocher, in front of his lodgings, though he could not tell by what
way he had come.  Going up to his room, he locked himself in to rest
a while.  His head swam, and he realised for the first time that he
had eaten nothing since the previous day, so he called down to ask if
he could have something to eat.  As it was just breakfast-time they
sent up some eggs, a cutlet, and some fruit.  He ate the eggs, tasted
the cutlet, but did not finish it.  Then, as a reaction set in, he
sunk into an armchair and slept.

When Olivier awoke it was four o'clock.  He started up quickly, vexed
at having lost his day, and hurried downstairs.  On the ground floor
the concierge stopped him.

"I want a word with you," he said.  "You are really the citoyen
Germain, are you not?"

"Yes," answered Olivier, already apprehensive, and wondering what was
coming.

"Well, I was going to say you haven't shown me your passport.  I
didn't ask you last night, as it was so late."

"But I have not any," said Olivier, taken back.  Then, on second
thoughts, he added--

"That is to say, I left it in the country."

"You can easily procure one at the police section.  It is
indispensable.  We cannot keep you here without it.  That is the law
now."

"I know," said Olivier, forcing a smile, "Well, to-morrow I will put
everything right, for to-day I have so much to do."

"To-morrow is _décadi_," the concierge remarked, "and it would be
difficult for you."

"Then the day after to-morrow?"

"Very well," said the concierge, "but don't fail, for I am
responsible, you know."

Olivier thanked him and hastened away.  He had not reckoned on such a
complication.  If he could only see his mother and his _fiancée_,
what mattered anything else?  He retraced his steps towards the
prison, this time taking the Rue de l'Arcade, and finding himself
suddenly opposite the Madeleine, he turned into the Rue da la
Révolution.

There he noticed an unusual stir, which increased as he neared the
Place de la Révolution.  The streets appeared very gay, gayer than
those he had just left.  On looking up he saw that the houses were
decorated with tricolour scarves and flags, and that men perched on
ladders were hanging garlands and foliage over the shop windows.  At
the entrance of the Place masts were being erected by a continuous
stream of journeymen and workmen, with whom were mixed an increasing
crowd of onlookers.  Olivier thought of the previous day's _fête_,
and of the platforms he had helped to construct.

"So the Paris Democratic Society are having their _fête_ also," he
said to himself.

On questioning a passer-by he was told that preparations were being
made for a festival in honour of the Supreme Being, which was to take
place the next day on the Place de la Révolution.  Olivier had
forgotten this in the confusion of his mind, though he had heard it
spoken of among his comrades at the workshop.

The Festival of the Supreme Being!  The coming triumph of
Robespierre, the open parade of his hypocrisy and pride, amidst the
acclamations of a servile multitude dominated by a tyrannical and
terrorising Dictator!

Olivier's whole soul revolted against the injustice of human destiny
which placed supreme power in the hands of such a tyrant.  The image
of his mother and Thérèse, arrested by this man's orders, rose again
before his eyes.

Suddenly he stopped.

On the Place de la Révolution, between the statue of Liberty and the
entrance to the Tuileries, his astonished sight fell on an erection
which, to all appearance, was being taken down--cross-bars of wood,
lowered by the aid of ropes and pulleys, and an enormous knife slowly
descending.

Olivier turned pale, his knees shaking under him.

It was the guillotine!

The hideous, barbarous word breathing death--a horrible, ghastly
death--rang in his ears, and was re-echoed by mock voices of
despairing victims, the guil ... lo ... tine--the guil ... lo ...
tine--the guil ... lo ... tine.

Yes, this was the guillotine!

There it rose in front of him, the atrocious, abominable machine,
which had caused the best blood of France to flow, the instrument of
human butchery, which had severed so many heads; there it rose amidst
the festive preparations, as a fearful warning!

The knife continued its descent, slowly, silently, mirroring the sun
in blue metallic reflections, which seemed to sparkle in its rays.
Olivier followed every movement, with fascinated horror.

When the huge blade disappeared the young man shook himself together
with an effort, and seeing a woman of the people passing, questioned
her--

"What was that?"

The woman was wary in her answer, the question appeared to her so
ingenuous.

"It's Madame Robespierre!"

"I know it is the guillotine," replied Olivier, "but I wish to know
what they are doing there."

"They are taking it away."

"Ah!" he exclaimed, much relieved.

"But it is to be put up elsewhere."

"Where?" he asked, again cast down.

"At the Place de la Bastille."  And she added with a smile: "It seems
there are still some aristocrats to settle."

Olivier gave her an anxious, searching glance, but reading mere
ignorance in her eyes, he was reassured, and began to wonder at the
indifference of this people, this simple, open-hearted race, which
had allowed themselves to be duped so many long months.  He looked
around him at the vast square which, as the horrible scaffold was
removed, wore quite a festive air, smiling under its gay decorations
of flags and coloured devices and girandoles, which were
characteristic of the jovial humour and the drollery of the French
populace, always so light-hearted.

All this increased his own misery.

What?  Alone in the crowd, he must suffer, alone he must lament!  He
rebelled against it.  Was there no one to defy that infamous
instrument of torture which had been erected there as an insult to
human reason, and which was taken down to be set up elsewhere?  It
was indeed the end of France!  Not one upright soul, not one just man
brave enough to cry with outraged conscience: "Down with the
scaffold!"  Not a single Frenchman to be found to stay his
fellow-countrymen, ignorant of true justice, dupes of cruel men in
power, and to tear from their hands that ignoble invention, that
monument of death, and make a bonfire of it all!  Perhaps many
thought as he did, but they dared not! ... No, they dared not act!
And yet a spark was sufficient to inflame the multitude, frivolous
and easily led perhaps, but withal so noble, so humane, so generous!

Olivier crossed the Place de la Révolution, discouraged and
down-hearted.  He followed the parapet of the bridge without looking
where he was going, making his way unconsciously in the direction of
the Port-Royal quarter, where the prison lay.

An unexpected sight awaited him before the building.  People were
briskly entering by the principal door, moving gaily along with
cardboard boxes, baskets, and bags.  They were certainly neither
tradespeople nor officials, for some of them were smartly dressed.
They were visitors, perhaps?  The thought filled him with joy.  Alas!
if he were mistaken!

On questioning a guard, his hopes were confirmed.  They were
visitors, relations or friends of the prisoners, admitted to see them
and bring them sweets, fruits, and change of clothes.

"You have some one there?" asked the man.

"My mother and my _fiancée_"

"You wish to see them?"

"Yes, I do."

"Have you any money?"

Olivier had already offered him a piece of gold.

"Oh! not for me, for the concierge," the man protested as he beckoned
to Olivier to follow him.  Passing through the gateway, he presented
him to the concierge, a little man, thick set, brisk, and sly, who,
seeing them in the distance, had understood Olivier's object, and now
asked him the name of the prisoners he wished to see.

"The citoyennes Durand?  Very good!  Follow me.  They must be in the
Acacia Court;" and turning round, he added--

"Here is a card which you will return to me when you come out."

He then crossed a dark, narrow corridor, and stopped before an iron
grating, which he opened for Olivier to pass in.  As he showed him
the courtyard he said laughing--

"You will recognise them, won't you?"

And he went away, shutting the grating.




CHAPTER VI

THE PRISON OF LA BOURSE

Olivier found himself on the threshold of a vast courtyard enclosed
by high walls, and by two enormous stone and brick buildings with
cross-barred windows.  The roof of these buildings was bordered by a
spiked fence, in order, as it seemed, to make escape impossible.
These were the very structures he had seen from the street.  They
were connected by a stone corridor with a terrace at the end, running
parallel with it, where a sentinel patrolled with shouldered arms.
The entrance to this corridor was secured by an enormous grating,
which when opened put the courtyard in which Olivier now stood in
communication with another open space planted with trees.

The young man advanced with some hesitation, for he saw some of the
prisoners walking in the shade of an acacia, whose blossoms were
bathed in the rosy light of the setting sun.  A mound of grass
surrounding the tree lent rustic freshness to the scene.

Olivier scanned these moving groups with beating heart, anxiously
examining every one that passed him.  There were men, women, and even
children.  But he had recognised no one.  His mother and Thérèse
apparently were not there.

He would have questioned some one but dared not, vaguely fearing to
compromise his dear ones, forgetting that the people before him were
also prisoners, and their companions in suffering and misfortune.
Just then a young woman, pretty and graceful in her simple toilet,
wearing a white cambric cap finely goffered, came briskly towards him.

"You are perhaps looking for some one?" she said in a sweet voice.

"My mother and my _fiancée_, the citoyennes Durand."

"Oh! they are still at table!  Look, the young girl will not eat, and
the elder lady is trying to persuade her."

In his hesitation to advance further Olivier had not perceived, on
the other side of the acacia, a table laid with coarse earthenware,
which was being cleared by several turnkeys and waiters, and at which
a few prisoners still lingered.

Yes, it was they, his beloved ones, at last!  Olivier remained dumb,
divided between his longing to hold them in his arms and the fear of
taking them too brusquely by surprise.  His unknown ally seemed to
divine his feelings, for she said--

"If you like, I will go first to them."  Then, as if to reassure him,
she introduced herself: "I am the Countess de Narbonne."

Olivier, deeply moved, thanked her in broken phrases, and followed
his friendly guide at a distance.  Soon she was whispering in
Clarisse's ear, as if preparing her for the unexpected visit.
Clarisse turned round, and seeing her son, grew deadly pale.  She
rose and fell into his arms.

"Arrested?  You also, my son?"

He pressed her to him, reassuring her.

"Oh, no! ... I am free! ... Be at peace, mother ... I have had
permission to see you."

He then kissed Thérèse, who, still trembling, asked--

"Is it really true, you are free?"

Olivier again reassured them.  Clarisse wished to find a secluded
spot where they could talk undisturbed, and Thérèse having espied an
empty bench under another acacia, they took possession of it.

Olivier now anxiously questioned his mother, wanting to know every
detail of her arrest, but Clarisse interrupted him.  He must first
tell them about himself.  Was he really safe?  How did he get to
Paris?  Where was he staying?  Olivier was obliged to answer, telling
them his adventures as quickly as possible, that he might return to
their arrest.  When he had satisfied them, he asked breathlessly--

"And you?  Tell me everything.  I must know all."

Clarisse then told him of their arrest, departure, and halt at
Montmorency; of the long drive to Paris, their arrival in the prison
more dead than alive, and how they gained heart on learning it was
one of the least cruel in Paris.  She had been able to judge for
herself when she awoke in the morning, and was so cordially received
by her fellow-prisoners, men and women who, as she discovered on
their introducing themselves, belonged to her world.

She then pointed out to Olivier among those taking their after-dinner
promenade Madame de Narbonne, so gentle, so compassionate, and her
little girl, such a darling child! then the Count and Countess de
Lavergne; the Marquise de Choiseul, who had taken such kind and
delicate interest in Thérèse at breakfast; the whole family de
Malussie; the Count de Broglie; the Chevalier de Bar; the Maréchal de
Mouchy and his lady, whom Clarisse had met in her youth at
Versailles; Mademoiselle de Béthisy, and the Marquis d'Avaux.

"Yes," she said, with a sad smile.  "I have not found myself in such
elegant company since we left Pontivy."

"That is easily explained," replied Olivier; "the prisons of the
Republic are used only for the nobility."

"You are mistaken," Clarisse answered gently.  "Among the prisoners
there are, I can assure you, men and women of the lower middle-class,
who have given proofs of the highest nobility of soul."

"That is exactly what I mean--they are eminent in virtue, as the
others are in birth.  And they are consequently not wanted.  All that
is wanted is equality....  Equality in infamy!"

"Hush!  Be quiet, you may be heard!"

"Be quiet?  I shall be quiet when they tell me of what you are
accused; for, after all, why have you been arrested?  What have you
done?"

"That is just what we ask ourselves," answered Clarisse.  And then
she continued as if she were thinking aloud--

"At first I fancied that some one had denounced us, but I put that
thought aside at once, for who could have done so?"

"Who?" exclaimed Olivier, astonished that his mother as yet knew
nothing.  Looking at her fixedly, he continued--

"What!  Is it possible they have not told you?"

"Told me?  Who could tell me? ... Then it was...?" she asked
breathlessly.

"It was Robespierre!"

She bounded from her seat as if under an electric shock.  Incredulous
and stupefied, she protested in spite of herself.

"It is not true!" she exclaimed.

"How can it not be true?  Leonard heard it from the driver who took
you to Paris.  Robespierre was a few yards off our house at the
Carrefour de la Chèvre.  It was from that very spot he set his agents
upon you."

These details brought back the scene to Clarisse's memory.  And she
thought of Vaughan, undoubtedly arrested also.

Olivier recalled her to the present, continuing to speak.

"Yes, it was Robespierre, the infamous wretch!"

She threw herself on him.

"Oh no!  Hush!  I implore you!"

He struggled to continue, but she prevented him, trying to drown his
words.

"I am sure you are mistaken....  Leonard is mistaken....  It is
certain....  I should have known....  If it were he ... I should have
known!"

"No!  You could not have known.  You yourself said so just now.  Why
should they account to you for their actions?  It is he ... he and no
other!"

And Olivier then gave her minutely every detail as the gardener had
told it to him.  How one of the agents had conferred with Robespierre
after the arrest, at the Carrefour de la Chèvre, where he was
enjoying a picnic.

Ah!  Clarisse needed no such explanations.  It was he, she knew it
too well.  But how was she to persuade Olivier to the contrary?  How
prevent the son from cursing his father?

She tried to excuse Robespierre, attributing to him other motives.

"You see," she said, "he doesn't know who we are....  He is
mistaken....  His agents have misled him....  There could be so many
misunderstandings...."

Olivier shrugged his shoulders.

"How credulous you are!  Bah! he knows very well what he is doing!
It is his thirst for blood.  Oh! you don't half know what he is, that
Rob...."

Clarisse, horror-stricken, put her fingers to his lips, to arrest the
words.

"No!  No!  Don't pronounce that name in such a way!"

And seeing him look at her in bewilderment, she tried to give him
plausible reasons.

"You might be heard, and you would be compromised."

"But how?  Here?  Where everybody holds his name in execration?"

"Yes; but then there are turnkeys coming and going at every moment.
And what if there are spies among the prisoners...?"

And, as if clutching at a straw, she followed up the idea.

"Yes, spies--traitors?  You must not betray your feelings before
them."

"True! there is no lack of infamy among the populace!"

He then told his mother of the incidents of his wanderings in Paris,
of his utter astonishment at the apathy of the crowd round that
accursed scaffold which was being transported to the Place de la
Bastille, amidst the preparations for the Festival of the Supreme
Being.

And yet he knew that much of their indifference must be assumed.  How
many thought as he did!  How many had the long-awaited cry of
deliverance on their lips: "Down with the scaffold!"  Only they dared
not speak out!  If but one had the courage to give utterance to that
cry, there would be enough brave men found in the crowd to take it up
and re-echo it, carrying the more timid along with them.  When once a
move is made the multitude will quickly follow.

Clarisse looked at him.  A new thought had dawned on her mind, a
horrible thought!

What if Robespierre should have Olivier arrested without knowing who
he was?

She interrupted him.

"Is the house where you lodge quite safe?"

As Olivier replied in the affirmative, and was continuing the
narrative of his adventures, she took up the thread of his thoughts.
Suddenly a gleam of hope shone in her eyes, as if her mental
speculations had assured her.

"Ah!  I did well to write to him!" she thought.

To him, to Robespierre!  For she had written to the Incorruptible
that very morning.

She now turned this letter over in her mind, in which she had
informed him of her imprisonment, telling him her fears about her
son, whose age she particularly mentioned as nineteen years.  It was
a hint for Robespierre, who would understand, and perhaps be touched
to pity, and set her and Marie Thérèse at liberty, and spare the lad
who was her son and his own.

Clarisse had confided this letter to a prisoner set at liberty, whom
she earnestly entreated to see it safely delivered.

"It will be the easiest thing in the world," the man had replied;
"you can be quite at rest."

Clarisse did not suspect the irony of this reply, or that the
supposed prisoner was one of the spies to whom she had unwittingly
alluded a little while before.  Ah, yes; she could be at rest, truly!
The letter would reach Robespierre.  But under what conditions?  He,
who received so many!  Alas!  It is in the wounded heart that most
illusions take root!  Clarisse did not dream that anything could
interfere with her scheme, and began to speculate on the future,
counting the hours, and saying to herself that in all probability the
letter could reach Robespierre the next day.

The best she could do till then, she thought, was to moderate
Olivier's zeal, by showing him that their prison-life was not so
unbearable; and she imagined it would distract him if she presented
him to some of her companions in misfortune.  They had just taken
away the tables, so making the courtyard appear larger, and leaving
more room for the promenade.  Olivier was now noticing more clearly
the people in this little prison-world taking air and exercise in the
open space to which the green acacia-trees gave some semblance of a
garden.

The women, dressed simply in summer toilets, retained an air of
elegance in spite of the plain ribbon band fastening their hair, and
their fresh, newly ironed caps.  The men were gay and smiling, polite
and distinguished; they talked and played cards or chess together on
the benches, exchanging courtesies as if they were in a drawing-room.
"After you! ... I should not think of it! ..."  And in and out the
groups the concierge Haly came and went, giving his orders,
accompanied by two bulldogs, with enormous spiked collars.

Just then a fair-haired, bright-eyed boy of fifteen knocked up
against Olivier.

"Oh! pardon, monsieur!" said the lad, who was playing a game of fives
and running after the ball.

"What a nice lad!" said Olivier.

"It's young de Maillé," said Thérèse.  "Nobody knows why he has been
arrested.  His doom is settled, however, for they say he threw a
rotten herring at the head of the concierge."

Here Clarisse stopped her.

"So they say, but it is not true, for the concierge is a fairly
honest fellow."

And addressing a lady who was just passing, she continued, "Is it not
so, madame?  Haly is not a bad fellow, is he?"

"No, but a blockhead; a lamb, however, compared to the jailers of
other prisons."

Clarisse thus presented Olivier: "My son--Madame la Marquise de
Choiseul."

Olivier bowed courteously, and as Madame de Choiseul, struck by the
distinguished air of the young workman, held out her hand, Olivier
took it in his and kissed it.  In this high-born company all the
grace of his early education came back to him.

The marquise smiled and turned to Clarisse.

"Behold a son who betrays his mother!  Your name is not Durand.  You
belong to us.  I had thought as much."

And as Clarisse was about to reply, she added: "Hush!  I am not
asking your secrets."

She then assured the young man that his mother was right: the
concierge Haly, though rough, was rather kind than otherwise, letting
visitors enter, and even bring in provisions, sweets, and linen.

"And above all," she added, "he does us the great favour of letting
us walk about and disport ourselves here until night time."

She then pointed out to Olivier the various games in which the men
and children took part.

"As you see," she added, "they take full advantage of the permission."

Clarisse, well pleased with the tone of the conversation, tried to
retain the marquise.

"Tell him, madame, how you pass your evenings."

"What!  Have you not yet told him?" asked the marquise, who had been
a silent spectator of the meeting between the mother and her son.

"You must not forget that I only arrived yesterday," said Clarisse.
"I know nothing myself but what I have heard."

"Ah, true!" said Madame de Choiseul, who with a mother's heart now
understood Clarisse's kindly motive.

At once she pointed out to Olivier the windows of one of the
buildings.

"That is what we call our drawing-room--a large apartment in which we
gather in the evening.  There we play at guessing riddles, charades,
and _bouts-rimés_.  Some read verses, or recite to us, and we even
have music.  Look!  Do you see that gentleman seated over there under
an arch, turning the pages of an album?  That is the Baron de
Wyrbach, who plays some charming airs every evening on his _viola
d'amoré_.  He exhausts his ingenuity to find something new for us."

Olivier listened in astonishment, beginning to be really reassured.

"You see," continued the marquise, "we might imagine ourselves still
at Versailles."

Then she added with a sad smile--

"And so we are in one sense, for all that remains of Versailles is
now in prison."

And she mentioned many names, singling out among the prisoners those
who belonged to the old Court: the Prince and Princess de
Saint-Maurice, the Chevalier de Pons, and the Count d'Armaille, whose
nephew, young d'Hauteville, had been a page to Louis XVI.

A group had formed round a young woman seated on the grassy knoll,
her back against the acacia, fanning herself daintily.

"Look now!  Would you not think it a court of love in one of the
groves of Trianon?  It is Madame de Méré receiving the homage of her
admirers."

Madame de Méré rose at that moment to meet another lady who was
coming towards her, pretty, neat, and natty in her spotless toilet;
and Madame de Choiseul explained to Olivier who the newcomer was.

"That is Madame de Verneuil, who remains, though in prison, as
coquettish and as fashionably dressed as she used to be at Court.
She even finds time to make her usual change of toilet regularly
three times a day, without the assistance of maid or hairdresser.
Not only does she dress herself, and do her own hair, but she washes,
dries, and gets up her own linen!  And all this in such good-humour
that it brings tears to one's eyes."

Olivier was now quite reassured with regard to the severity of the
prison rules to which his mother and Thérèse were subjected.  He was,
nevertheless, astonished at the careless indifference which he saw
around him.  If the populace had revolted him on the Place de la
Révolution, this aristocratic company in the prison dumfounded him.
He could not hide his feelings, or refrain from expressing his
surprise; but he did so respectfully, with tact, and in perfectly
good taste.

Clarisse essayed to interrupt him; but Madame de Choiseul had already
replied--

"You have just come from the country, perhaps, and have not mixed in
the Parisian world for some time.  What you take for indifference is
in reality mere habit.  You cannot change the French people.  The
moment they find a struggle useless, they gaily make the best of it.
Believe me, their seeming frivolity only masks the resignation of a
Stoic.  There are still rebellious and desperate spirits to be found,
but they are in a minority.  The majority are heart-sick and ready to
go, that is, to die; and they do die with a smile on their lips,
French to the last!"

Voices and sounds of applause interrupted the marquise, and cries of
"Bravo!  Bravo!  That was very good!" were heard.  A young girl, her
arms tied behind her back, was bowing from the top of a ladder on
which she was standing, and to which she had mounted by the aid of
chairs and stools placed upon tables and benches.  As she tried to
descend all arms proffered assistance, and when she had reached the
ground another lady came forward, the Marquise d'Avaux, whom Madame
de Choiseul named to Olivier, and began to climb the improvised
ascent with faltering steps.

Clarisse, Thérèse, and Olivier watched this performance,
understanding nothing of it.  Madame de Choiseul looked at them to
note their expression, and with one accord the three turned to
question her--

"That is a new game, is it not?"

"Yes, and a rather gloomy one," answered Madame de Choiseul.  Then
she added solemnly, "Those ladies are learning how to walk to the
scaffold."

She explained to them that the wooden steps which the condemned had
to climb to reach the guillotine were difficult to ascend.  The women
encountered serious obstacles in mounting, being without the
assistance of their hands, which were tied behind them.  They
stumbled and slipped, their dresses sometimes catching in the
woodwork, to the great amusement of the rabble crowd.

"It is to avoid these accidents," she said, "and to be able to meet
their martyrdom respected by the mob, that they rehearse the role
which they may be called upon to play on the morrow, perhaps, in
public."

Olivier was dumb with admiration before this contempt of the
scaffold, the general resignation to the thought of death.

Presently peals of laughter were heard.  The Marquise d'Avaux, just
before reaching the last stool, caught her dress on the back of a
chair.  She laughed with the rest, and said gaily, showing her torn
skirt--

"Some more work for this evening!"

"You see," continued Madame de Choiseul, "what the indifference which
revolted you so much just now hides in reality.  Many of those young
women keep up the failing courage of the men at the scaffold, and
offer to die first."

But Clarisse, whose curiosity was now satisfied, tried to turn
attention from these gloomy subjects, her mother's heart telling her
they would reawaken Olivier's apprehensions.  She soon found a
pretext.  Madame de Narbonne passed them with her little girl,
holding a basket of fruit, of which the child partook without
restraint.

"What lovely cherries!" exclaimed Clarisse.

Madame de Narbonne stopped to offer her some, but Clarisse declined,
and when pressed, said--

"Not for me, thanks; but my niece will perhaps taste them."

When Thérèse also asked to be excused, Olivier intervened.

"Only taste," he said, and as she still declined, "Will you allow me,
mademoiselle?" he asked, taking a bunch from the basket which the
child now carried.  And he held one of the cherries up to his
_fiancée's_ lips.  "Won't you take one to please me?"

Clarisse could not help smiling.  Olivier saw the smile.  "And you,
also, mamma!" he said.

Clarisse allowed herself to be persuaded, looking gratefully at the
kind prisoner to whose good nature that little family scene was due,
and Olivier was beginning to renew his playful persuasions to
Thérèse, when a bell sounded from behind the big grating, tolling
slowly.

Madame de Narbonne turned pale.

"The call!" she gasped.

All conversation now ceased; men and women fell into groups, or left
each other abruptly, looking anxiously towards the iron gate, as if
expecting some one to appear.  Olivier felt the universal shudder of
dread, and his fears were again awakened.

"The call!  What call!" he asked.

But the Marquise de Choiseul had gone away with Madame de Narbonne,
carrying the little child along with them, in great haste.  Olivier,
turning round, met only the supplicating look of his mother, who had
perhaps understood.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said, with an effort.

Thérèse clung tremblingly to Clarisse, feeling that something
terrible was to happen, and Olivier going towards one of the
prisoners to question him was soon joined by Clarisse and Thérèse.

"The call?  Why, it is the summons to such of the prisoners as are
destined to appear before the Revolutionary Tribunal.  The bell had
been rung to assemble all the prisoners to meet the Recorder, who,
with list in hand, will read the names of those selected by the
Revolutionary Tribunal for trial."

"You mean for condemnation!" interrupted Olivier, with indignation.

The prisoner nodded assent.

"So all those who are named..."

"Will be taken in a cart to the Conciergerie, and..."

"And?"

"Ascend the scaffold two days after," said the prisoner in
conclusion, apparently resigned to his fate.

"Then it may be one of us, mamma?" asked Thérèse, bursting into tears.

Clarisse tried to master her emotion.

"No..." she said.  "It's too soon ... isn't it? ... tell her..."

And she implored Olivier with a look.

"How can one know?" he said, driven to distraction.

"Oh no! ... I assure you! ... You will see....  It is impossible! ..."

And still she murmured brokenly: "You will see....  It is impossible!
..."

The Recorder of the Revolutionary Tribunal now passed the grating,
accompanied by Haly, the concierge, and followed by turnkeys and
gendarmes, who, on entering the courtyard, formed themselves in line.
The Recorder was a little man, fat and full-blooded, his face twisted
into a sly, ugly smile.  He seemed highly amused at the spectacle,
and seated himself under the acacia, talking to the concierge, who
seemed surprised to see him, and said--

"I thought the Tribunal would not sit to-morrow on account of the
Festival of the Supreme Being?"

"You are right!  But they will sit the day after to-morrow.  You
understand, I want to be free to-morrow and to take part in the
festival...."

And with a cynical laugh he called for a glass of wine, which he
emptied at a draught.

"Attention!  We must begin business!" he said; and with this he
unfolded the paper, the terrible paper, wherein the fate of the
victims had been decided in advance.  But the day was near its close,
the Recorder could not see, and had to ask for a lantern.

The courtyard was full now.

Prisoners from the neighbouring yards had assembled in answer to the
call.  All this little world was affected by various feelings; some
were resigned, some hopeful, some indifferent or frightened as they
looked at the messenger of death, who seemed quite unconscious of his
ignominy.

What names would fall from his lips?  There were some, worn out and
weary, looking forward to death as a release, who would have
willingly put theirs into his mouth.  Others, more feeble, who were
undergoing the full horrors of suspense, stood in breathless fear,
almost choked with anguish.  Oh! that horrible hope of hearing
another's name called, rather than one's own!  And yet...

The Recorder was becoming impatient.

"Where is that lantern!" he shouted.  "Is every one asleep here?"

A few of the prisoners had refrained from joining the anxious crowd;
either from habit or indifference, without disturbing themselves,
they continued playing or conversing as before.  Clarisse and Thérèse
were seated at a little distance, their eyes fixed on the dread
official, while Olivier, standing near, ready to defend them, watched
the affecting scene with strained anxiety.

The Recorder was swearing now.

"Is that cursed lantern never coming?  So much the worse!  I shall
commence without it."

And he rose and tried to decipher the names in the dark.

"The first name is Bour ... no, Lour..."

Here a voice interrupted him in indignant protest.

"Oh! don't read like that!  You double their sufferings.  It is
horrible! too horrible!"

It was Olivier.

"Who dares to speak here?" thundered the Recorder.

Clarisse desperately pulled her son by the arm.

"I implore you! ... my child! ... I do implore you!"

At that moment some one appeared with a light.

"Ah! there's the lantern!" cried the concierge.

When the man had explained that he had not been able to find any
matches, the Recorder began to read the paper--

"Sourdeval!" he cried out.

Other lanterns were now lighting up the courtyard and the distracted
crowd, and every eye was turned in the direction of the prisoner who
had been named.

"Here I am!" cried a voice.

And a man advanced, his head erect, calm and impassive, without
casting a single glance on the spectators, knowing no one perhaps.
He crossed the line of gendarmes, and disappeared behind the grating
to fetch his belongings.

The Recorder proceeded with his grim and gloomy task, drawing tears
from some, heart-rending cries from others, and interrupted by
murmurs of pity or defiance.

The young de Maillé, who was called among the first, stopped playing
with the children to go to his death.  An old man, Monsieur de
Mauclère, at the sound of his name fainted away, and was carried out.
Madame de Narbonne, called also, confided her little daughter to
Madame de Choiseul.

"Where are you going, mamma?" asked the child.

And Madame de Narbonne had the courage to reply--

"I shall be back in a moment, my darling."

"Don't go, mamma! ... don't go! ... I don't want you to go!"

Madame de Narbonne hurried away to hide her tears, then, breaking
down entirely, leant on the grating and sobbed aloud.

The Maleyssie family, father, mother, and two young girls, threw
themselves into each other's arms, thanking heaven they were not to
be separated in this supreme hour, and would walk hand in hand to the
scaffold.  An old couple with white hair, the Maréchal and Maréchale
de Mouchy, worn with age, each walking with the aid of a stick, were
called together.  At once she took his arm, and so they made their
way with calm courage through the prisoners, who bared their heads in
reverence before such sublime resignation.  Another couple drew forth
cries of admiration: the Comte and Comtesse de Lavergne.  The Comte,
alone named, was taking leave of his wife, who, after assuring
herself she was not on the list, implored the Recorder to include
her.  On his replying that he had no orders to do so, she uttered the
cry of sedition punishable by death: "Vive le Roi!" and was inscribed
forthwith on the fatal list.

Olivier now held his mother pressed against him, while Marie Thérèse
and Clarisse, nestling together, followed the terrible spectacle with
joined hands.  All hearts were moved to admiration or to pity,
according to the acts of courage or faint-heartedness which were
displayed.  But brave deeds predominated.  A Monsieur de Gournay,
called out whilst engaged in filling his pipe on a bench, rose
quietly and lit it at a turnkey's lantern, and went towards the gate
without a word.  The Comte de Broglie, interrupted in a game of chess
with the Chevalier de Bar, as he rose pointed to the chess-board, and
said--

"You see, you would have lost, chevalier.  But cheer up!  I shall let
you have your revenge in the other world."

Then, calm and composed, taking leave of the chevalier, bowing to his
acquaintances, kissing the hands of the Marquise d'Avaux and of
Madame de Méré, he followed the gendarmes to his fate.

A discussion was taking place near to where Olivier was standing over
a name which had just been called.

"Leguay!"

Two men were speaking to each other; one was of middle age, turning
grey; the other quite young.

"Are you also Leguay?" asked the young man, who when his name was
called was surprised to see his fellow-prisoner advancing with him.

"Yes," was the reply.

"Are you married, or a bachelor?"

"Married, and father of two children."

"I am a soldier, and have neither wife nor child....  Go no further."

The Recorder, who was growing impatient at the conversation of the
two men, whom he took for relations taking leave of each other,
shouted--

"Well!  Leguay?"

"It is I," answered the young man.

Only Olivier, Clarisse, and Thérèse had witnessed this sublime
self-devotion.  Olivier made a movement as if to offer his hand to
the young hero, but he had already crossed over to the gendarmes.

The Recorder now scribbled something on the list, and the people
expected him to commence a new series.  But he folded the paper, and
after asking for another glass of wine, said--

"That is all for to-day."

At these words an immediate feeling of relief ran through the crowd,
awakening them from that terrible nightmare.

"Thank God!" said Clarisse, with a sigh.

"And you told me you were quite safe!" exclaimed Olivier.

Again she had the courage to conceal the truth.

"Oh! my anxiety was for others, not for ourselves."

Olivier shook his head incredulously, and was about to reply, when
the voice of Haly announcing the hour for the visitors to leave
interrupted him.

"All visitors out!  It is time to close!"

The Recorder by this time disappeared, preceded by gendarmes.  The
prancing of horses was heard in the neighbouring courtyard, amidst a
confusion of orders and counter-orders.  It was the men on duty who
were putting the prisoners in the cart, now ready to start.  Haly,
posted at the grating of the gate by which Olivier had entered,
received the cards of the visitors, examining them by the light of
his lantern, which he suspiciously lifted to a level with their faces.

Olivier did not hurry his departure, in spite of the insistence of
his mother, who was terrified at the thought that the gate might shut
on him.  But the concierge saw him.

"Hallo!  You there!  If you want to stay, you know, you have only to
say so."

"He is coming!" cried the two women.

And kissing him quickly, they pushed him towards the gate.

Olivier, before leaving, had promised his mother not to try and see
them for some days, but to rest satisfied with writing, without
giving his address.

The two women glanced in spite of themselves at the neighbouring
courtyard, whence came a noise of wheels and the tramp of horses.
They stooped, and saw through the large grating the cart with its
load of the condemned roll away by the light of torches held by the
turnkeys, and driven by a coachman in a carmagnole and red bonnet.
As the vehicle was disappearing the two women recognised Madame de
Narbonne in tears, sending kisses to the prison, in which her little
girl had now wept herself to sleep.

"Oh! it is horrible!" said Thérèse.

And she fell on Clarisse's shoulder, thoroughly broken by the
terrible emotions of the day.

At this moment the cart reached the street, and passed close to
Olivier, who commenced mechanically to follow it, while the people of
the quarter, seated at their doors, and accustomed to this daily
spectacle, looked on with indifference.  But at a bend in the road
Olivier let the cart go out of sight, lost in reflection.  He walked
straight on as a man in a dream, stopping on the quay to look down at
the Seine.  The cooling freshness of the water seemed to revive him.
He breathed the air gratefully, and continued his walk along the
river, feeling less depressed.

Suddenly from the heights of Port-Royal his eyes were dazzled by a
rush of unusual light.  Showers of golden fire trailed in the air
over the Tuileries gardens.  It was a trial of the fireworks to be
let off the next day.  Olivier crossed the bridge, and hastening his
steps reached the Place de la Révolution, which at that hour was
filled with loungers from the boulevards, curious to see the
preparations for the _fête_.  Under a sky studded with stars, the
immense space lay extended before him, with its stands already decked
with flowers; its masts connected by garlands of foliage and coloured
glass; its flags, and plumes, and banners floating in the wind.

Here and there fiddlers, standing on chairs, taught to choirs of
young girls and young men the new anthem by Gossec, to be sung at the
_fête_, a hymn to the Supreme Being, composed specially for the
occasion.  Some, carried away by their enthusiasm, followed up the
hymn with a waltz or a gavotte.

Olivier opened his eyes in astonishment, asking himself if all this
was real, or if he was in an extravagant dream.  On one side he saw
but sorrow, on the other only joy!  On one side, tears, despair, and
the scaffold; on the other, laughter, revelry, and flowers!  And the
laughter and flowers were to honour and glorify the very one who was
the cause of all this misery, who tore children relentlessly from the
arms of their mothers as he sent them to death!

At this very moment the abhorred name fell on his ears: "Robespierre!
... There's Robespierre!" he heard the crowd whispering.

He turned round and saw some of them looking curiously at a man who
was crossing the square, seemingly in great haste, with a woman
leaning on his arm.  Olivier understood that it was the Incorruptible
who was passing within barely an arm's length of him!  He watched him
disappear in the crowd.

They were right; it was Robespierre, who had been enjoying a walk in
the Champs-Elysées with Cornélie Duplay.  Returning home to supper,
at Duplay's house in the Rue Saint-Honoré, he could not resist
crossing the square to have a foretaste of the rejoicings in honour
of _his fête_, to contemplate behind the curtain the scene of his
approaching triumph.  Cornélie had just said to him in delight,
indicating the dancing groups,--

"The people seem to be devoted to it, heart and soul."

This flattered Robespierre's pride, who rewarded her with a gentle
pressure of the arm.

They continued their walk, deep in their own thoughts.  Cornélie was
wondering if her dress would be at home when she arrived, that
beautiful dress for the _fête_, confided on this special occasion to
a private dressmaker.  Robespierre, always suspicious and alert, was
asking himself if he had done well to listen to her, and thus cross
the Place de la Révolution at the risk of suggesting to the Committee
of Public Safety the idea, absurd in itself, that he had wished to
attract the notice of the populace.

The couple now reached the door of the Duplays, in the Rue
Saint-Honoré, and Robespierre stepped aside gallantly for Cornélie to
pass in.

At the same moment Olivier, who had stopped in deep thought at the
Place de la Révolution, retraced his steps homeward, fired with a
sudden resolution for the morrow.

"I will be at that _fête_," he said.

And the dark night swallowed him.




CHAPTER VII

THE FÊTE OF THE SUPREME BEING

The Duplays' house, in which Robespierre lodged, was situated in the
Rue Saint-Honoré, opposite the Church of the Assumption.  The front
door opened on to a large vaulted passage littered with planks
propped up against the wall.  At the end of this a small courtyard
was formed by the quadrangular shape of the two-storied house.  The
first floor was occupied by the Duplay couple and their two
daughters, Cornélie and Victoire.  The ground floor was divided into
three rooms, including the dining-room and the drawing-room.
Robespierre lived in a room on the first floor of the left wing,
which formed one side of the quadrangle.  The ground floor of this
wing, along which ran a shed, was used by the old Duplay as a
carpenter's workshop.  Robespierre's window was above the carpenter's
shed, one room, and his quarters were connected with the main
building by means of a wooden staircase, which led from his room to
the dining-room.  He was thus well guarded on one side by the Duplay
family, as he was on the other by young Maurice Duplay and Simon, the
wooden-legged, who occupied two rooms on a line with Robespierre's,
which also looked on to the shed.

It would have been certainly difficult for Robespierre to find a
house more suited to his craving for an ostentatious display of
Republican simplicity.  The joiner's bench, the planks and tools
littering the courtyard, the shed full of workmen during the day,
sawing, piecing, and planing; the personal appearance of old Duplay,
who only put aside his apron to come to table, or to go to the
Jacobin Club, at which he was a constant attendant, or to the
Revolutionary Tribunal, where he acted as deputy jury-man--all this
marked the simple and industrious surroundings in which he lived.

Two of his colleagues at the Convention had been lately received in
the courtyard by Cornélie Duplay, who was hanging out some stockings
to dry; and Robespierre had enjoyed their surprise from the window of
his room, where he was shaving himself.  He was suspected of aiming
at the Dictatorship!  Was he?  And this was the spectacle which met
the astonished eyes of visitors who surprised him in his private life!

Robespierre and Cornélie had been received at the door by Blount, who
barked and gambolled with joy at his master's return.  The Duplay
family, cooling themselves in the courtyard, were awaiting their
return.

"Here they are at last!" some one cried.

It was mother Duplay, seated in the background under the dining-room
window, washing a salad under the pump, her sleeves tucked up to the
elbow, all ears for the slightest sound.

"But we are not late, mamma!" said Cornélie, who had prudently
stopped to avoid being splashed.

"Not so very," answered the good woman, "but one never knows what may
happen in such a crowd!"  And looking towards Robespierre, from whom
Victoire was taking his hat and stick, she added: "You can't help
being anxious about people you love.  Can you?"

But Robespierre was for the moment entirely occupied with his dog,
who barked and jumped on his master in frantic delight.

"Yes, you good old dog, here I am! ... Yes! ... Yes! ... I couldn't
take you with me, because of the crowd.  It isn't fit for a good dog
like you."

"Then there were many people?" asked Duplay, who smoked his pipe,
seated on a joiner's bench near little Maurice, his son, who was
amusing himself by planing a small plank.

"Yes, a great many."

"An enormous crowd," added Cornélie, "particularly on the Place de la
Révolution."

"What!  You crossed the Place de la Révolution?"

Robespierre hastened to explain that Cornélie had had a fancy to come
that way, which was, after all, excusable, as the people were dancing.

"What!  Already?" asked Victoire, her eyes sparkling.

"Yes, already!" said Robespierre.

And he told them all about their walk through the strange crowd, so
lively and so full of enthusiasm, turning now and then to Cornélie
for corroboration.  But Cornélie wore an absent air, replying only in
monosyllables, for she had just learnt that her dress had not yet
arrived; though she took some comfort on hearing that her sisters
were in no better plight.

Mother Duplay, with arms akimbo, lingered to listen with enraptured
interest to Robespierre's narrative.

"I said as much to Duplay!  It will be a triumph."

Duplay here interrupted her.

"Well, are we to have supper to-night?"

"You may well ask, but when Maximilien talks I forget everything."

Then taking up her basket of salad, she called Victoire to help her.
They used to dine out of doors when the weather was fine; the table
was already there, and had only to be laid.  Ah! that _fête_--how it
turned everybody's head!  Mother Duplay was certainly late, to her
great discomfiture.  Yes, she was late--she, the pink of punctuality.

"And the chicken will be burnt to a cinder!"

She ran to the kitchen, on the ground floor, next to the dining room,
and found her youngest daughter, Madame Lebas, already there.

"I thought of it, mamma!" she said.

The chicken, nicely cooked to a golden brown, swimming in gravy, was
ready to be served.

"Now then!  Let us make haste!" said Madame Duplay, highly amused at
being caught by her daughter.  "Strain the soup while I prepare the
salad.  Oh, Victoire, we haven't laid the cloth yet!"

With the Duplays, it was a long-established custom that everything
connected with the kitchen or the table should be entrusted only to
the family; the maid washed up when the meal was over.  Perhaps this
was an excess of prudence, or a fear of poison.  Whatever the motive
was, Robespierre highly approved the practice.

"It is well to know what one is eating," he would often say.

The two girls and Madame Lebas took it in turns to wait at table, and
so they could all speak freely, without being restrained by the
presence of the servant.

The soup was now served up, steaming hot, and Madame Lebas was
ladling it out in equal portions, reserving the last, as the hottest,
for Robespierre.

"To table!  To table!" she cried, placing chairs for every one.

But Robespierre and Duplay did not move.  They were deeply interested
in something Lebas was telling them.  Duplay's son-in-law had just
returned from the Tuileries, where he had gone "to feel the pulse of
the Convention," as he expressed it.  The National Assembly, although
undermined by some evil-minded members, would be excellently
represented at the _fête_ on the morrow.  The abominable rogues who
had charged Robespierre with intending to turn this popular
manifestation to his own profit had been disappointed--an appropriate
reward for their drivelling calumny!  No one attached the slightest
importance to their scandalous reports.  The Convention, as well as
the people, were with Robespierre.  Only the Committee of Public
Safety...

"But, I say, children, the soup will be cold," Madame Duplay called
out in desperation.

Simon the wooden-legged came down from his room, declaring that he
was famished.

"Here we are!  Here we are!" the three men exclaimed, taking their
seats.

Robespierre had made a sign to Lebas to change the conversation on
account of the women.  Then significantly shrugging his shoulders, he
whispered to him--

"The Committee of Public Safety?  Well, I shall be ready for them!"

At table Robespierre, who was seated between Monsieur and Madame
Duplay, hardly tasted his soup.

"The soup doesn't please you, friend?"

"Oh yes!  Very good!  Excellent!"

Victoire cleared away the soup plates as slowly as possible, waiting
for Robespierre.  When he had finished, she said--

"That is right, _bon ami_.  You know you have to keep up your
strength for to-morrow."

Madame Lebas now returned from the kitchen with the capon, and was
greeted by a general murmur of admiration.

"Splendid!" cried Simon Duplay, who was a bit of a gourmand.

"To-morrow, children, you shall have duck, duck and turnips!" said
Madame Duplay, much gratified, as she set to work to carve the fowl,
giving Robespierre the white meat, which he took mechanically, deep
in thought.  Lebas told them that he had seen Fouquier-Tinville, the
Public Prosecutor, who was returning from the Bastille, where he had
been to inspect the new installation.

"Ah, yes! the guillotine!" interposed mother Duplay, continuing to
carve.  "But it didn't work to-day, did it?"

"It will not work to-morrow either," said Robespierre, "but the day
after to-morrow ..."

"Will you allude to it in your discourse, _bon ami_?"

"Yes, towards the end; for it is well that the aristocrats should
know that we are not disarming."

"Decidedly," chimed in Duplay, "that would be too stupid."

Robespierre, warmed by the tone of the conversation, recovered his
appetite.

"At all events," he said, "the _fête_ to-morrow will be a warning for
every one; for the aristocrats, as well as for many a Judas of the
party."

He stopped to express his appreciation of the fowl, sending up his
plate for more.

"A leg, or a wing?" asked mother Duplay, delighted.

Robespierre suddenly turned round.  He had heard a noise.

"I am sure the front door has just been opened," he said.

Simon Duplay took out a match to light a lamp, and young Maurice
rose, looking out into the dark.

"It's true," he said; "it's a woman with a large parcel."

"Our dresses, surely!" exclaimed Cornélie, who had been somewhat
morose and silent until then.

"Yes, our dresses," cried Madame Lebas and Victoire expectantly.

It was, after all, only the dresses, which the dressmaker had at last
brought.  The enormous box was handled by them eagerly; they wished
to open it there and then.  However, Victoire, prudently fearing to
soil the contents, carried it into the dining-room, followed by her
sisters.

The conversation was resumed with lively interest by the light of the
lamp just lit, and opinions were freely expressed that as Royalty had
her _fêtes_, the world would now see what a Republican _fête_ could
be like.  It would be truly national, imposing, and symbolical.

The young women had not yet returned.

"Hullo! you children! what are you doing there?" called out old
Duplay.

"Here we are!  Here we are!" answered Victoire, appearing that moment
on the threshold of the dining-room in a pretty white dress,
coquettishly pushing back her hair, disordered by her hasty toilet.

"Doesn't it suit me?" she said.  "Oh! don't look at my hair; it isn't
arranged," and she ran down the steps followed by Madame Lebas and
Cornélie, also arrayed in their new finery.

Mother Duplay scolded her daughters.

"What!  You dressed yourselves in the dining-room?  Why, it is
positively improper!  Isn't it, Maximilien?"

Robespierre smiled.

"Let them alone, _bonne mère_.  It's not _fête_ every day!"

And he looked at the dresses, pronouncing them charming, and in
perfect taste.

Madame Lebas was in blue, Victoire in white, and Cornélie in red.

"The three colours!" observed the boy Maurice.

"We wanted to give you a surprise," said Cornélie, advancing towards
Robespierre.

"Nothing could have given me more pleasure," he replied.  "That is
what I call true patriotism."

The noise of hurrying feet, the sound of voices and music, the hum of
Paris in the distance preparing for the coming _fête_ centered
through the open window.  Fireworks burst in mid-air, then suddenly
seemed to radiate in a blaze of glory.

"Oh, look!" exclaimed the boy Maurice, as showers of golden fire fell
in a cascade of light.  Robespierre musingly watched their slow
descent, which to his overstrained imagination took the form of one
huge halo of glory.

Robespierre was early up and dressed next morning, and he was
received by the Duplays in the courtyard with cries of surprise, for
it was scarcely nine o'clock.  "What! dressed already!  And we
haven't commenced!"

Robespierre told them he had hastened in order to be at the Tuileries
in time to superintend things a bit, and to arrange matters with his
friends, that there might be no hitch.  People would talk so!  The
slightest thing might mar the splendour of the manifestation, which
would be a pity on such a splendid day!

"The sky is naturally propitious for the _fête_ of the Supreme
Being," said Victoire; "but you will have some breakfast, I suppose?"

"No, I shall breakfast over there."

They now surrounded him, retaining him to arrange the folds of his
cravat, or brush grains of powder from the revers of his coat, which
they all declared suited him to perfection.  He received the
compliment with visible pleasure, as he had given himself no little
trouble over his toilet for the great occasion.

He wore a light blue coat, nankeen breeches buttoned above the knees,
where a stream of tri-colour ribbons was attached.  White silk
stockings and buckled shoes completed the array of this real
Republican dandy.  He was powdered of course, as usual, and had even
indulged in an extra puff or so, but his most extravagant conceit was
displayed in the lace waistcoat which spread like a filmy foam across
his breast.  The women went into ecstasies over this, and declared
his taste exquisite.  As he was taking leave, Cornélie appeared with
an enormous bouquet of wild flowers and ears of corn in her hand.

"And the bouquet?" she asked, giving it to him at the same time.

"Ah! yes!  I had forgotten it.  How kind you are!  _Au revoir_.  I
shall see you by and by, looking your best, I am sure!"

And Robespierre, spick and span in his new clothes, all curled and
perfumed, picked his way daintily across the courtyard.

At the door he found Lebas, Simon the wooden-legged, and the boy
Maurice Duplay awaiting him.  They wished to escort him to the
Tuileries.  Didier, the agent, now came up, accompanied by two of his
men, and they all started in the direction of the Rue Saint-Honoré,
keeping to the right.  The Incorruptible conversed with Lebas.

A breeze stirred the flowers that decorated the front of the houses,
wafting abroad their perfume.  People were filling the streets from
all directions, all in festive attire, with palms and ears of corn in
their hands.  On recognising the Incorruptible, they bowed to him;
delighted, he discreetly returned their salutations.

Robespierre had turned into the Passage des Feuillantes, and found
himself on the terrace.  Here a surprise awaited him.  The garden was
already, at that early hour, three-quarters full, looking like an
immense sea with wave upon wave of tricolour ribbons, plumes, and
cockades.  He continued his way along the Terrace des Feuillantes, a
smile on his lips, returning the greetings as he went, and then
joined the stream of people moving towards the Tuileries, happy to
lose himself in that crowd flocking to his own apotheosis.

Flowers festooned the front of the Palace from end to end, lending to
it the freshness of spring-tide.

When Robespierre arrived he cast a hasty glance at the vast
amphitheatre which awaited the National Convention.  It was still
empty.  The amphitheatre extended from the gardens to the balcony of
the Horloge, from which projected a tribune, erected above the seats
of the deputies--the tribune of the President, his tribune.  It was
from there that he would speak to the people, assembled to hear and
to applaud him.

Robespierre entered the Palace alone, Lebas and the two Duplays
having gone back to the Rue Saint-Honoré to fetch the family.
Beaming with expectation, the Incorruptible looked about in search of
some familiar faces, but he found none.  He crossed the Convention
Chamber to the offices of the Committee of Public Safety, and
questioned the men in charge, who told him that only the members
Barère, Collot d'Herbois, Prieur, and Carnot had put in an appearance
for a moment, and then had gone to breakfast at a restaurant.  As he
crossed the Hall of Liberty he met Vilate, a fellow-juryman of
Duplay's on the Revolutionary Tribunal.  Vilate was under an
obligation to Robespierre, who, in conjunction with Barère, had
procured for him a residence in the Palace at the Flora Pavilion.  It
was the surest way of having a spy ready at hand, a reliable and
silent witness of every act and move of the Committee of Public
Safety.  Vilate, at once insinuating and deferential, invited him to
breakfast.

"It would be so convenient," he suggested, for he could breakfast,
and yet not lose the splendid spectacle of the crowd as seen from the
first story.  Robespierre accepted the invitation, and remained for
two hours there.  Even after Vilate had left him he stayed on,
looking down on all the preparations, lost in a day-dream of
anticipated joy.  He was nearing the supreme moment, the popular
moment, which would raise him so high above his colleagues that
henceforth any steps taken against him would be considered as
directed against the nation itself.  He smiled.  His dictatorship?
Was it not imposed on him by the French people?  Was it not the
outcome of the public will?  It would be presently called for by a
hundred thousand voices in these very gardens, in presence of all
France, represented by the three hundred deputies of the Convention.
He remained in meditation, smiling still, his forehead pressed
against a pane of the window, his looks plunged in that living sea
swaying at his feet.  If ever Robespierre was happy, it was at this
supreme moment.

Some one knocked.

"Come in!" he said, as if awakened from a dream.

It was Lebas, who, all out of breath, came to tell him that the
Convention was assembled, and only awaited his arrival.

"Vilate sent me here.  I was wondering where to find you."

Robespierre looked up in astonishment.

"It can't be very late," he said.

"Why, it is half-past twelve!"

"Half-past twelve?"

The _fête_ had been fixed for noon.  He was then half an hour behind
time!  And the ironical smiles of some of his colleagues when he
appeared in the tribune were not the least bitter consequences of his
unpunctuality.

A voice was heard saying--

"He has at last decided to put in an appearance!"

And then another--

"He hasn't even the courtesy of kings, yet he has enough of their
insolence!"

Robespierre recognised the voice.

It was Barère's.  Drops of gall were already falling into his cup of
joy.  But as the people began to applaud at the lower end of the
gardens, Robespierre advanced to the edge of the tribune, and bowed.
The expectant crowd swayed as one man towards him, unwilling to lose
a single gesture or a single word.  So stood the Incorruptible,
enwrapped and penetrated by the inebriating vapours of adulation and
the perfume of all the palms and bouquets that rose as incense at his
feet.

But again a discordant note was touched, and another voice was heard--

"See how like a throne the tribune stands!"

And in fact, set high above the steps, it did seem raised on a
pedestal.  Robespierre felt this as in some embarrassment he unfolded
his manuscript, and commenced.  His voice was almost inaudible,
except to the members of the Convention seated near him.  Passages on
which he counted most passed unheeded, and he felt the encouragement
of his friends to be indiscriminate and misplaced, like that of some
theatre claque.

When he had finished he was greeted with considerable applause, that
was more formal than genuine; it mounted from the gardens and reached
him, mingled with the strains of Gossec's hymn, just started by the
Opera choir.  Robespierre left the tribune dissatisfied with himself,
but convinced that his address to the people on the Place de la
Révolution, from the altar of flowers erected at the foot of the
statue of Liberty, would retrieve this first failure.  There he would
be in direct contact with people, and then they would see!  For he
felt the people were with him; their acclamation coming up to him
from the gardens was proof enough.

He descended the steps, followed by the Convention, and went towards
the first fountain on the lawn, from which rose an allegorical group,
representing Atheism surrounded by the Vices, led by Folly, while
Wisdom, standing apart, pointed a warning finger at the group.  He
was to set a match to this ingenious specimen of artistic pyrotechny,
when Atheism was supposed to disappear, dragged down by Folly and the
Vices, leaving Wisdom alone, radiantly triumphant.  But it was the
very opposite that happened.  Wisdom caught fire and upset the whole
arrangement, provoking disrespectful laughter among the deputies.

Robespierre turned pale.  The _fête_ had certainly not opened
auspiciously.  Then, in spite of himself, an instinctive and
uncontrollable desire to lean on some one, which always took
possession of him in hours of suffering, mastered him.  As he looked
round in search of a sympathising glance, his eyes fell on a fair,
rosy child, in its young mother's arms, trying to play with bouquets
of corn and wild flowers which its mother kept from him.  Robespierre
recognised the bouquet which in his excitement he had left on the
tribune, and which the young woman now held out to him.  This
delicate attention fell on his parched soul like refreshing dew, and
he gratefully accepted the simple homage offered with such charming
frankness.

Robespierre now headed the procession, preceded by trumpets and
drums, followed by the Convention through the line of National
Guards, who kept back the curious crowd on either side of the garden,
as the line wound its way towards the swing-bridge which opened on to
the Place de la Révolution.

The deputies were all there, dressed in official garb: dark blue
coat, red collar and cuffs, tight-fitting knee breeches of doeskin,
high boots, broad tricolour sashes across the breast, fastened on the
left shoulder, and tricolour plumes in their hats.  Each member
carried in his hand a bouquet of flowers and ears of corn.

Robespierre was conspicuous by the difference in his attire, which
was of a lighter blue.  He walked well ahead of his colleagues, as if
to accentuate the distance between himself and them in the eyes of
the crowd, who, with keen curiosity, were climbing on stools, on
ladders, on the bases of statues, on gates, and even on the trees, to
get a better view of him.  Thus Robespierre, whose serenity had now
returned, advanced towards the Place de la Révolution, where he knew
that the greater mass of the people were assembled to receive him
with thunders of applause.

The sound of "_Vivat!  Vivat!_" was heard in the distance,
accompanied by the roll of the Champ-de-Mars cannon, which fired a
resounding salute at regular intervals.  Those vivas were welcoming
on the Place de la Révolution the _cortège_ which had preceded
Robespierre and the members of the Convention; the delegates from the
different sections of Paris, who entered amidst the beat of drums and
blare of brass instruments, headed by a standard-bearer.  The
procession had no sooner reached the square than they parted into two
lines; on one side women and young girls, dressed in white and
crowned with roses; on the other, old men and youths, carrying
branches of oak and laurel.  The crowd, kept back by a rope of
tricolour ribbons, received the procession with enthusiastic shouts,
chanting with the choirs the choruses of the _Chant du Départ_.  To
the passionate strains of Mehul's national anthem succeeded soon
after a hymn appropriate to the occasion, Gossec's composition
calling down the benediction of the Supreme Being on France and on
humanity.

The people applauded, but stopped directly to welcome another group
of the Paris section, a company of young Republican warriors dressed
in blue and rose-colour, holding aloft lances decked with tricolour
ribbons.  The greatest triumph of all, however, was the group
symbolising the Four Ages--Childhood, Youth, Manhood, and Old
Age--represented by a multitude of children, youths, maidens, men and
women, both middle-aged and old, some crowned with violets, others
with myrtle, oak-leaves, olive-branches, and vine-leaves.  One
unanimous cry of admiration rose from the crowd and resounded through
the immense square, where the sun fell in burning rays on the silks,
velvets, and brocades, playing in the gold fringe of flags and
banners, and on the many tricolour ribbons and streamers, in a flood
of dazzling light.

The excitement of the populace was now at its height, and, as the
members of the Convention appeared in sight, a cry rose suddenly--

"He is here!"

"Who?"

"Robespierre."

A tremor of curiosity ran through the crowd who, mad with excitement,
poured forth their welcome in a storm of enthusiastic cheers and
plaudits, even before their hero came in sight.  A sheriff, then a
delegate, then a master of ceremonies, were by turns loudly cheered
by the eager multitude, who in their impatience had taken them for
the Incorruptible.  At last he passed, smiling affably, hat in his
hand, and the cry ran from mouth to mouth--

"It is he!  It is he!"

This time it was really Robespierre; there was no mistake.  Hats,
caps, handkerchiefs, waved on all sides; women raised sprays of loses
in the air and men branches of palm.

This outburst threatened to break up the _cortège_ of the Four Ages,
which, like the preceding one, had ranged itself round the statute of
Liberty, where Robespierre was to deliver his discourse.  Children
begged their mothers to lift them up, that they might see also.  At
the same moment the solemn chords of a harp floated on the air.

Robespierre advanced slowly, slackening his pace, for he had become
suddenly aware of the great distance which separated him from the
deputies, who filed into the square six abreast, grave and slow, like
judges.  The different groups of the procession, who had arranged
themselves in regular lines, now unveiled the statute of Liberty,
where an altar of flowers and foliage had been erected.  It was at
this altar that Robespierre was to officiate, and consecrate amidst
the burning of incense the worship of the Supreme Being.

The Incorruptible was now passing the very spot where on the previous
day the scaffold still stood.  A woman in the crowd called attention
to this in all simplicity.  But her voice was quickly drowned by a
hundred harps, whose dulcet music filled the air.  All members of the
Convention had reached the Place de la Révolution, when a new
_cortège_ came in sight, the chariot of Agriculture, draped in blue,
covered with garlands of roses, and drawn by a yoke of oxen with
gilded horns.  The goddess of Agriculture was impersonated by a
beautiful girl from the Opera, who smiled on the crowd with her light
blue eyes, looking the very incarnation of luxuriant youth, her
blonde beauty framed in ripe golden corn and fruits of the rich
harvest.

Robespierre, now standing before the altar, was burning incense in a
golden tripod, amidst the mute reverence of the crowd, who behaved as
if assisting at some religious ceremony.  Presently, descending the
steps of the altar, he turned to address the multitude.

All music had ceased, each voice was silenced, every whisper hushed;
even the cries of pedlars and street-hawkers were unheard.  A hundred
thousand eyes were fixed on Robespierre, who, set up on high and
wrapped in clouds of incense, appeared to tower in stature, to
dominate that mass of human beings with all the force of a prevailing
pride.

A sudden inspiration seized him: he would repeat the more notable
phrases of his former discourse, here, to that crowd whose mighty
heart he felt beating with his own; he would have his revenge, and
hear his burning words applauded by the nation itself!  Ah! had the
deputies been indifferent, cold, hesitating in their applause?  Well,
they should receive a lesson that would be at once a warning and a
mandate!  The delegates of the nation should be censured publicly by
the very nation they represented!

Robespierre had delivered the opening sentences of his speech.
Carried away by the enthusiastic ovation of the crowd, now entirely
master of himself and of his discourse, his words flowed freely and
abundantly, and he declaimed without once referring to his notes, in
a clear, penetrating voice.  Every point was greeted with a thunder
of applause as he spoke on, stimulated by a glow of satisfaction
which touched the most secret fibres of his being.  He felt himself
to be for ever and in very deed master of France, acclaimed Dictator,
solely by the people's will.  Through the fumes of this mad delirium
he saw the Convention vanquished, paralysed with fear and amazement.

He was thanking the French nation, who had laid aside their work to
lift their thoughts and aspirations towards the Great, the Supreme
Being.

"Never," exclaimed the Incorruptible, "never has this world which He
created offered Him a sight more worthy of His regard.  He has seen
the reign of tyranny, crime, and imposture on the earth----"

But a stir was noticeable in the crowd, not far from Robespierre.  A
man had just made an observation in an audible whisper, attracting
the attention of the bystanders.  They looked at him in surprise,
trying to divine his meaning, but Robespierre, who was too far off to
have heard, continued--

"Frenchmen! if you would triumph over your enemies, be just, give to
the Divine Being the only offerings worthy of Him--virtue,
compassion, forbearance----"

"With the guillotine!" called the voice in the crowd, with a bitter
laugh.

A murmur rose round the man, every one whispering out of respect for
Robespierre, who continued his harangue.  They questioned the man,
threatened him.  Voices grew louder.  "Silence!" called the
officials, but the disturbance went on.  "He ought to be arrested!"
and the words drunkard, aristocrat, _chouan_, were thrown at him.
"What did he want?  What did he say?"

"Yes, what did you say?" asked a patriot coming close to him.

"I say only what you ought all to cry out to that charlatan--'Instead
of burning incense to your idol, Tyrant, burn the guillotine!'"

This daring critic, as the reader will guess at once, was Olivier.

His voice was drowned in a burst of applause which greeted the words
of Robespierre encouraging him to go on with his speech.

In presence of such irony Olivier lost all self-control.

"And they can applaud him, the fools!  They can applaud him!"

The fury of the multitude, now unchained, knew no bounds.  Cries of
"To death with him!  To death!" were heard amidst the awful tumult,
which completely drowned the voice of Robespierre, whose anxiety was
now also aroused.  Olivier, down-trodden, his clothes torn to
tatters, fought and struggled in the grasp of twenty or more of the
infuriated populace.  "He must be killed!  He is an aristocrat!  A
_chouan_!  To death with him!"  One of the patriots lifted a
be-ribboned spike in the air, threatening to pierce his eyes.  But a
man armed to the teeth, dagger and pistols in his belt, pushed aside
the crowd and seized the offender by the throat.  He then turned and
bade them make way for the officers of the peace who followed him.

"Stand back there!" he cried.  "This man is to be dealt with by
justice only!"

It was Héron, chief police-agent of the Committee of Public Safety.

With the assistance of his men Héron dragged the offender to the feet
of Robespierre, who, being informed of the affair, had asked to see
the interrupter.

But a vociferating crowd obstructed the passage.  Robespierre
impatiently descended the steps of the altar.  The whole Convention
and the _cortège_ had moved also, wishing to see.  The police forced
a way in the crowd for Robespierre.  At the name of the Incorruptible
the multitude gave way, and Olivier appeared before him, struggling
in the powerful grasp of Héron.

"Against whom does this madman, who disturbs our _fête_, bear a
grudge?" asked Robespierre.

"Against you! hypocrite and scoundrel!" Olivier cried; "against you,
who dare speak of justice and humanity on this spot soaked with the
blood you have spilled!"

A horrified scream rose from the crowd, but was as soon hushed at a
sign from Robespierre.  Olivier tried to throw himself on him, but
was held back by the police.

"Look at the soles of your shoes, you butcher!" he cried desperately.
"They are red with blood!"

He was not allowed to continue.

The Incorruptible motioned the agents to remove him out of reach of
the furious and exasperated crowd, who continued to cry out--

"To death with him!  To death!"

Olivier turned in the grasp of his gaolers and cried--

"You can kill me, murder me, ruffians!  but I have cried out, as
others will cry out after me, 'Down with the scaffold!'"

His words were lost in the tumult.  Robespierre reascended the steps
of the statue, and tried to calm the people.

"Citizens!" he said, "let us give ourselves up to the joys of this
_fête_, which the insults and outrages of a rebel shall not disturb!
To-morrow the sword of Justice will strike with renewed ardour the
enemies of our country!"

Loud plaudits followed, and cries of "Long live the Republic!  Long
live Robespierre!  Long live the Incorruptible!"

"Down with the scaffold!" cried a faint voice in the distance.

It was Olivier, whom the police, aided by the National Guards, were
carrying away in chains.




CHAPTER VIII

AN EVENING AT THE DUPLAYS'

Robespierre slowly descended the altar steps with a preoccupied air,
for that last desperate cry of Olivier had struck its mark.  However
self-possessed he might be, he had felt the blow acutely.  That
voice, full of hatred and revenge, had risen from the crowd he
thought entirely at one with him!  In their very applause at that
moment the people were protesting against an insult coming from their
ranks!  They were driven to defend him, when he had dreamt that the
populace would receive him with instant and unanimous enthusiasm,
insuring to him for ever the esteem of France!

Pale and anxious, he followed the procession to the Champ de Mars,
where the _fête_ was to close with one crowning patriotic
demonstration.  He felt that his supremacy was tottering, and
wondered how many more discordant notes would disturb the prevailing
harmony.  Alas! there were already signs of jarring discord.  Certain
members of the Convention talked aloud in a free, sarcastic strain,
on the road, openly exchanging opinions, emboldened by Olivier's
public insult.  Words of dark and ominous import reached the ears of
Robespierre--words of hatred and scorn, of tragic foreboding, and
portentous prophecy.  "I despise and hate him!" said one.  "There is
but one step from the Tarpeian Rock to the Capitol!" said another.
And a third added: "A Brutus may yet arise!"  To close the mouths of
these backbiters, he mentally reflected, and to save all, nothing was
wanted but the _vox populi_, the supreme and national mandate,
uprising from the assembled multitude and re-echoed through the whole
of France: "Robespierre Dictator!  Dictator for life!"  But the
Incorruptible awaited any such acclaim in vain.

The _fête_ of the Champ de Mars which followed was wanting in the
brilliancy and magnificence of the preceding festival.  Every one was
hot and unstrung.  Robespierre again addressed the people, who, tired
from having stood so long under a burning sun, were listless and
absent-minded.  The demonstration was drawing to its close amidst a
general feeling of depression.

Nothing but confusion reigned on the march homeward.  Robespierre was
to return to the Tuileries to meet several of his colleagues, but
instead, he hurried away, fully resolved to shut himself up in his
room and open his door to no one, not even to the Duplays, who had
dogged his steps the whole way back, trying to catch him up, and only
succeeding at the threshold of their house, where Robespierre begged
them to have their little festive party without him.

"I want rest," he said.

"The _fête_ went very well, didn't it?" asked mother Duplay.

"Yes, very well!" replied Robespierre.

"Then you are satisfied?"

"Perfectly!"

As Cornélie began to tell him of some details which she thought had
escaped him, he put her off gently, saying--

"Was it so?  Indeed!  Well, you will tell me that to-morrow."

"What!  You will not dine with us?"

"No; I must ask to be excused."

And as she pressed him to join them, he repeated--

"No, no; I must beg you to excuse me!  _Au revoir_ till to-morrow!
_Au revoir!_"

With these words he went up to his room and locked himself in.

Every one was in low spirits at the Duplays' that evening.  They
scarcely tasted their supper.  No one was deceived by Robespierre's
feigned indisposition; they were well aware that the _fête_ had been
a great disappointment to him, and they shared his chagrin, though
they determined that this should be in no way apparent.

"We must not disturb his meditations," observed mother Duplay.

"But are we not going to see the fireworks?" asked the boy Maurice
anxiously.

"We are not," declared mother Duplay.  "How could we enjoy ourselves
without him?"

And they went early to bed.

The house, which had awakened to joy, now slumbered silently whilst
Paris was being lit up to prepare for the populace, again in holiday
mood, the promised display of fireworks.

Robespierre rejoined the Duplays next day at supper.  He had spent
the morning and afternoon locked in his room, under pretext of
working.  And work he did.  Alone, in sullen silence, he prepared
that atrocious Prairial law, which he intended to lay before
Convention forthwith--a law which aimed at nothing less than the
entire suppression of the right of defence before the Revolutionary
Tribunal.  Moral evidence was to suffice; cross-examinations,
depositions, and the testimony of witnesses were to be done away
with.  To be a "suspect" would itself be a proof of guilt.

Ah! he had been insulted!  Well, this was his reply to the insult.
He had wished to establish his dictatorship under conditions of
peace, but the great pacific demonstration had not availed him.  Were
these cowards only to be subjugated by terror?  They should have it
then, with renewed vigour, in a whirlwind of tempestuous violence
carrying everything before it.  It should be a fearful and memorable
lesson!  Every trace of those stubborn, headstrong rebels should be
swept away by the stroke of its formidable wing!

This law, drafted entirely by him, with its every villainy cunningly
concealed, or placed in the light of a sacred duty, and as the only
means of assuring public safety, Robespierre would himself lay before
the Convention.  The deputies, who had been insulted in the person of
their President by that brawling meddler arrested on the Place de la
Révolution, could not but pass the law, after such a scandalous
scene.  That public insult of the riotous rebel was an excellent
pretext.  It would help him to take them by surprise, to wring from
them the vote which would place entirely at his mercy not only his
rivals who had expressed their opinions so freely, but also that rude
scoffer, already doomed to die.

His trial would not last long!  But before his death he should be
brought before Robespierre.  He should lay bare the most secret
recesses of his soul, denounce his accomplices, and disclose his
connections and parentage.  Such an insult, the cruellest Robespierre
had as yet sustained, demanded an exemplary penalty.  The death of
the man himself would not suffice; he should pay with the heads of
every one connected with him in any way--accomplices, friends, and
relations.  Ah! the wretch, he had sacrificed not only his own life,
but the lives of all near and dear to him!

Pondering still on the cross-examination he would so soon be able to
enforce, Robespierre descended into the dining-room, where the family
had assembled for supper.  The table had not been laid out-of-doors,
partly on account of the uncertain weather, but more especially to
divert Robespierre's attention, by a change of surroundings, from the
remembrance of the last two days, and to turn into a fresh channel
the secret thoughts of their good friend, which they felt still dwelt
on the failure of his inauguration.

Robespierre found the family so bright and affable that his
reappearance was not embarrassing.  He had but to explain vaguely the
cause of his indisposition, which was quite gone.  Oh, yes! every one
could see that!  Why, he looked so well, so full of life!  What a
good thing it was, after all, to have had a day's rest!

But this conspiracy of smiles, which had put him at his ease so
quickly, soon began to irritate him.  The whole family racked their
brains to find scraps of news and items of interest outside the one
all-absorbing subject of his thoughts.  When the dessert came on,
however, Robespierre himself turned the conversation to the carefully
avoided theme, and asked their candid opinion of the previous day's
_fête_.

As they resorted to evasions, giving a host of details to escape the
main question, he asked them plainly what they thought of his
personal success.

"It was gigantic!" said Madame Duplay.

"Ah, that's a woman's answer--a mother's!" he replied sadly.

And longing for sympathy, he opened his heart to them; he had been
disappointed in his dearest hopes; everything must begin over again.
Lebas interrupted him.

"You exaggerate, I think."

Robespierre replied calmly--

"I am so far from exaggerating that I have passed the whole day in
preparing my revenge."

Here they were interrupted by a knock at the door, and young Duplay
rose to open it.

"Ah! it is Buonarotti!" they all exclaimed.  "What a pleasant
surprise!"

But it was not a surprise at all.  The demoiselles Duplay had invited
Buonarotti to supper, a valuable and ever-welcome guest, in so far
that he played the harpsichord to perfection, and used to accompany
Lebas, who was always ready to show his talent on the violin.
Buonarotti was an original character, a Corsican by birth, claiming
descent from Michaël-Angelo.  He was an ardent revolutionist, and an
enthusiastic admirer of Robespierre.  He had begged to be excused
from accepting the invitation to dinner, but promised to come in
afterwards to cheer up his friend.

The family took advantage of his entrance to leave the table and move
to the drawing-room, where music was soon started, in spite of the
terrible longing Buonarotti had to talk politics, and to give
Robespierre an account of the different opinions of the _fête_ which
he had picked up here and there.  But they had dragged him coaxingly
to the harpsichord, laying a sonata of Mozart before him, of which
Lebas had already struck the first bars on his violin.

In no other apartment was the hero-worship of the Duplays more
evident than in this drawing-room, with its furniture covered in
Utrecht velvet, where portraits of the Incorruptible faced each other
in every conceivable form and position--on the walls, on the tables,
on the brackets, and even on the harpsichord; in crayon,
water-colours, plaster-cast medallions, bronze, and terra-cotta.
This was the sanctuary in which the Duplays loved to congregate under
the auspices of their demigod.  It was here they spent their
evenings, when sometimes a few friends were admitted to the intimacy
of the family circle.  The young women, seated at the round table,
would occupy themselves with sewing or embroidery, whilst the men
conversed on one subject or another, more often suggested by some
letters or reports among Robespierre's correspondence, which was
usually sorted by Lebas or Duplay.

The hours were sometimes enlivened by music, and sometimes also by
recitation.  When there was music Lebas and Buonarotti carried off
all the honours, but in recitation it was Robespierre who triumphed,
for he had preserved from his youth the love of rhymed and sonorous
phrases.  As he had read aloud to himself long ago in his little room
at the Hôtel de Pontivy the burning pages of "La Nouvelle Héloïse,"
so he read now, amidst these austere Republican surroundings, the
tragedies of Corneille and of Racine, giving himself up to the magic
sway of the rhythmic verse, a smile of appreciation on his lips.

But that evening he was quite preoccupied, and gave but little
attention to the music, as he sat with his back to the mantelpiece,
entirely absorbed in the voluminous correspondence which had just
reached him--letters, reports, denunciations and the like.  He sorted
them feverishly, handing them one by one to Simon the wooden-legged,
who stood near him, either to classify them or to throw them in the
waste-paper basket.  Mother Duplay, ensconced in a deep armchair, was
indulging in her after-dinner nap, whilst old Duplay smoked his pipe,
leaning on the window ledge to watch the departure of some of the
workmen kept late over some pressing work.  Young Maurice Duplay ran
backwards and forwards from one group to another, as lively and
active as a squirrel.

Buonarotti, still at the harpsichord, was now playing the hymn to the
Supreme Being, by Gossec.  The air fell on Robespierre's ears and
brought back the previous day's _fête_ to his memory: the procession
from the gardens of the Tuileries; the affectation of the deputies in
keeping so far behind him to make it appear that he had already
assumed the role of Dictator; the whole plot which he felt was
undermining the popular rejoicings; and the untoward scene of that
final insult.  All this and more was suggested by that hymn composed
to celebrate his apotheosis, but reminding him to-day of his defeat.
His defeat! yes, nothing less than defeat!  These anonymous letters,
inspired by hatred and envy, proved it only too plainly, and it was
emphasised by the reports of his police agents, in whose obsequious
language a certain embarrassment could be detected.

Just then Didier, the chief agent, entered, bringing the latest news,
and when Robespierre asked him his impression of the _fête_, he
declared it to have been perfect.

"You are lying!" said Robespierre.

Brought to bay by the Incorruptible's questions, the police agent
owned the truth.  The affair bad been a disastrous failure.  It was
the fault of the organisers, of Didier's own scouts.  Every one, in
fact, was to blame.  The men hired to applaud had been imprudently
paid in advance.  They had drunk hard, lingered in the taverns, and
only arrived on the scene when the _fête_ was already compromised.
Didier gave him other details, corroborating the reports which had
just reached him, and opened his eyes to things ignored before.
Robespierre was dumfounded on hearing of the audacious conduct of his
enemies.  He called Duplay, who was still at the window, to seek
counsel with him.  But Didier, emboldened by the interest which the
Incorruptible took in his disclosures, ventured himself to proffer
advice.

"Between ourselves," he said, "the guillotine is becoming unpopular."

And he confessed that the young fanatic's cry of "Down with the
scaffold!" at the _fête_, seemed to have been trembling on the lips
of a considerable number of the spectators, who were more than half
inclined to protect the insulter from the violence of the crowd.

"They are heartily sick of it," he continued.  "Another proof of this
is the protest the inhabitants near the Bastille have been making
against its erection there.  The Committee of Public Safety had to
see into the affair to-day in your absence, and have decided that the
guillotine should be transported to the Barrière du Trône."

This last piece of news exasperated Robespierre beyond measure.
What!  His colleagues of the Committee dared to take such an
important step in his absence?  And that, too, the very day after he
had been publicly insulted!  In truth, the moment was well chosen to
show themselves ashamed of the scaffold!  And as Robespierre
questioned Duplay on the number of prisoners condemned during the
day, he was astonished to learn that there were only fifteen.  Had
the Tribunal then been won over by the Conspiracy of the Lenient?
However, the carpenter assured him that it was simply a coincidence,
for he had heard Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor, remark at
the conclusion of the sitting that if things continued at this rate
there would never be an end of it.  There were, it appeared, at that
moment seven thousand prisoners under lock and key.

"Fouquier-Tinville is right," said Robespierre; "things move too
slowly."

"But how can they go quicker?" asked Duplay, who regarded his
juryman's duties as sacred.

"Have patience!  I have my plans."

"May we hear them?"

"You shall know to-morrow.  I must first of all make an example of
that young fanatic, with whom it is time to deal."

And turning to Didier he asked--

"Where is he?"

"A few steps from here, at the police station of the Rue
Saint-Florentin, where Héron has locked him up, pending your orders."

"Very well!  Bid Héron bring him here; I wish to examine him
instantly."

The peremptory tone admitted no reply.  Didier, wishing the company
good-night, left the room with Simon Duplay, whom the Incorruptible
had charged with several messages, and Cornélie, taking advantage of
their departure, called Robespierre to the harpsichord.

"And now, I hope you will take a little notice of us," she said,
coming towards him in half petulant, half coquettish mood.

Robespierre, softening at her approach, kissed her hand.  Only let
him have the time to answer a letter from his friend Saint-Just, and
he would be entirely at her disposal.  And he seated himself at the
round table to write.  Only Buonarotti played now.  Lebas had laid
down his violin, and whilst filling his pipe asked Robespierre for
news of the Army of the North, where Saint-Just then was.  All was
going well there.  Robespierre had also good news from his brother
Augustin, then at Lyons, and on the point of returning.  Augustin
warmly recommended to him a young general of the artillery whom he
had known at Nice, and who had already distinguished himself at
Toulon.

"Augustin tells me that this young man could replace, to some
advantage, that drunkard Hauriot as commander of the armed force of
Paris."

Buonarotti, who was still at the harpischord, turned at the mention
of Toulon.

"Bonaparte?" he said.

Robespierre looked across.  He knew him, then?

Yes, he knew him.  They had lived together in Corsica.  And as the
Incorruptible asked what were the sentiments of the young soldier, he
replied--

"Excellent.  He is Republican to the core."

"Well, we shall see," said Robespierre, favourably inclined to a
change, adverse as he was to the idea of a military commander
remaining too long in the same post.

And he began his letter to Saint-Just, at the same time lending an
ear to Lebas, who was telling Duplay of certain rumours coming from
the army of the aspiration of some of its chiefs to the dictatorship.
But Duplay interrupted him--

"_Sapristi_!  I had almost forgotten!"

Robespierre raised his eyes inquiringly.

"I have a letter also to give you."

"From whom?" asked the Incorruptible, reassured as soon as he knew it
was only a letter.

"From a prisoner, I think, who very innocently confided it to one of
our spies.  It was given to me just now at the Tribunal."

Duplay searched in his pockets, and having found the letter, handed
it to Robespierre, who continued writing.

"Look at it with Lebas," he said.

Lebas took the letter, and going to the mantel-piece, commenced to
read it by the light of a candle.  Duplay, in the act of filling his
pipe, looked over his shoulder.

It was Clarisse's letter to Robespierre, and read thus--


"I should not write to you if I had only my own life to plead for.
But I have to protect that of two children, my niece imprisoned here
with me and a son of nineteen years, who may be arrested at any
moment and sent to the scaffold, and good God, by whom!  CLARISSE."


Robespierre had now finished his letter to Saint-Just, and whilst
closing it, asked--

"Well, and the letter?"

"It is a woman who supplicates you for her niece imprisoned with
her," answered Lebas.

Robespierre, annoyed, stopped him, saying curtly that he received
twenty such letters every day.

"She also supplicates you for her son," added Lebas, still perusing
the note.

Robespierre simply shrugged his shoulders and sealed his letter to
Saint-Just.

"Always the same refrain!" he said.

"Shall I throw it in the basket, then?"

"Yes, do, for goodness' sake!"

But Duplay took the letter from Lebas's hands, twisted it into a
spill, and ignited it at the candle to light his pipe.

Robespierre now rose and went towards the harpsichord, where he was
received with joyous exclamations.

"Here you are at last!"

Cornélie whispered a few words to Buonarotti, and placed a new piece
of music before him.

"As a reward," she said, "Buonarotti will sing you one of his latest
compositions."

"And the words are by a friend of yours," added Madame Lebas, with a
mysterious air.

Robespierre, puzzled, asked the name of this friend, but Victoire
wished him to guess, and when he demurred a battle of words ensued,
in which his stronger will prevailed.

"Very well, then!  We will tell you the poet's name."

And as he was all attention, they exclaimed in chorus--

"Maximilian Robespierre!"

The Incorruptible smiled.  What were they talking about?  He the
author of a poem!

"Yes."

Before he had time to protest, Cornélie recited the first verse--

  "_Crois-moi, jeune et belle Ophélie..._"


Ah, yes!  They were right.  Robespierre remembered the piece now.  He
had composed it at Arras, and read it in public before the Society of
the Rosati, of which he was a member.  He went on with the verse from
memory, while Cornélie followed in the book--

  "_Si flatteur que soit ton miroir,
  Sois charmante avec modestie,
  Fais semblant de n'en rien savoir._"


What! had Buonarotti really set that to music?  Robespierre was very
curious to hear it.

"With pleasure!" said the Corsican.

Madame Lebas, seated at the piano, struck the first chord of the
accompaniment, and Buonarotti commenced the song.  Every one had
gathered round the singer.

The first verse was greeted with loud applause.

Ah, how pretty it was!  How well the music chimed in with the words!
What simplicity!  What grace!

Robespierre, delighted, joined in the chorus of praise,
congratulating Buonarotti.

Suddenly every one stopped.  An ominous cry came through the open
window--

"Buy to-day's list of the condemned."

It was the voice of newsvendors calling out the result of the day's
sitting at the Revolutionary Tribunal.  The Incorruptible showed
signs of uneasiness.  Buonarotti had already begun the second verse--

  "_Sur le pouvair de tes appas
  Demeure toujours alarmée..._"


But a new cry was heard--

"Winning numbers! ... Lottery of Sainte-Guillotine!  Buy!  Buy!"

"Shut that window!" Robespierre called out impatiently.

The boy Maurice ran to do so.

"Why!" he exclaimed, "here is Héron, and three people with him."

At Héron's name Robespierre turned round sharply, and as every one
seemed surprised at the untimely visit, he explained--

"Oh, it's all right!  I expected him.  He is bringing the young
villain of yesterday's _fête_."

"Ah yes," said the women, "the _chouan_ of the Place de la Concorde!"
and they looked curiously towards the door, at which the new-comers
were now knocking.

"Come in!" cried Duplay.

Héron entered and bowed to every one in the room.

"Is the culprit with you?" asked Robespierre nervously.

The police-agent replied in the affirmative, and was ordered to
introduce the prisoner.  Héron turned and signed to two men, who
appeared escorting Olivier, pale and dejected, his hands tied behind
his back.  The young man, no longer resisting, seemed already to
offer himself as a victim.

"He is a nice-looking fellow," observed Madame Lebas, in a low voice.

Héron pushed Olivier forward, who, perfectly indifferent to his
impending cross-examination, stood sullenly aside.  Robespierre,
always mistrustful, made a rapid survey of the young man from head to
foot, keeping, however, at a safe distance from the fettered prisoner.

"What have you learnt about him?" he asked Héron.

The agent did not know much.  The day before, while under arrest, the
prisoner had let fall some words by which Héron understood that his
mother, arrested with a young girl he loved, was threatened with the
scaffold.  But since his imprisonment he had been completely mute.
No one had been able to draw a word from him, and things would have
very likely remained thus had not Madame Beaugrand, a lodging-house
keeper of the Rue du Rocher, come to the police-station for the
purpose of obtaining some particulars of the arrest, the news of
which had reached her.  From the description of the young man she
fancied he might be one of her lodgers, who had arrived the day
before, and inscribed himself under the name of Germain, blacksmith's
apprentice.  Brought face to face with the prisoner, she exclaimed
immediately, "Oh yes! it is he! most certainly!"

"And his papers!" asked Robespierre.

"He had none!  Not even a passport!  They had only found in his
possession a set of keys, some paper-money in _assignats_, a
pocket-book, and some small change in a purse."  As he spoke, Héron
placed these articles on the table.

"And no arms?" interposed Robespierre again.

The police-agent replied in the negative.

"Untie his hands.  We shall see if they are a workman's."

Duplay examined them, the women watching with great interest the
while.  The carpenter declared it to be very possible, as the hands
looked used to handling wood and iron.

"In war, most likely!" said Robespierre.

The Incorruptible then stated his suspicions more precisely.  The man
was perhaps a _chouan_, come in disguise from Vendée to stab him in
the excitement of the _fête_!

The women cried out in horror at the thought, and added, "Of course
he was not without accomplices!"

As this idea fastened in his mind, Robespierre wished to know if the
young man's room had been searched.  Héron had not neglected to do
so, as could well be imagined!  He had, however, only found a few
scattered clothes and a valise, which one of his men had with him.
He had brought it to open before Robespierre.

"Why didn't you say so, then?  Be quick and open it!"

Héron tried a set of keys, and after some delay the valise was
unlocked.

The police-agent examined its contents, and enumerated them: linen,
articles of toilet, and an ivory casket mounted in silver.  He took
out the ivory casket, which drew a cry of admiration from mother
Duplay, and passed it from hand to hand.  Héron then drew forth a
rather heavy roll, from which he tore the paper wrapper, disclosing a
number of _louis d'or_.  He deposited them on the table, and set to
work to count them, remarking that the young apprentice was, after
all, richer than himself!

Meanwhile the agent continued his search.

"Ah, some letters!" he exclaimed.

"Give them to Lebas," said Robespierre.

Lebas took the packet from the agent's hands.

"Go and examine them by the mantelpiece under the lamp," Robespierre
continued, "and tell me their contents."

The curiosity of the women had now reached its height.  Héron had
drawn out a gold medallion, encircled with small pearls.

"Those are real pearls," observed mother Duplay.

The medallion was opened, and found to contain a lock of fair hair,
with the initials M.T.  The jewel was handed round, admired, and
examined carefully, giving rise to all sorts of reflections, in
Olivier's presence, who looked on apparently unconcerned.

Robespierre was exasperated at this indifference.  He knew, however,
how to restrain himself, and said mockingly--

"You will not tell me, I suppose, that there is nothing extraordinary
for a sum of money like that and such jewels to be found in the
possession of an apprentice?"

Héron insinuated that perhaps he had stolen them, at which Olivier
simply shrugged his shoulders.  Duplay endorsed Héron's opinion.  In
fact, he had not the slightest doubt about it.  The young man had
stolen them.

Olivier could bear it no longer.

"Everything there belongs to me!" he said.

And as they seemed still to doubt, he repeated in a loud voice--

"Everything belongs to me!  And, since you seem so anxious about it,
know that I am an aristocrat, a royalist, and a _chouan_!"

The men cried out almost with one voice--

"At last!  He owns it!"

Olivier took up the word at once.

"Very well!  Since I have owned it, why don't you get quit of me, and
send me forthwith to the scaffold?  I am weary of it all!"

But Robespierre calmly told him not to be in such a hurry, for he
wished to know his name.  As the young man defied him, saying he
would have to ask elsewhere, for he should never learn it from him,
Robespierre grew furious.  He must have his name, and the names of
his accomplices as well, for he was not single-handed; that was
certain!

"And if I have no accomplice, you will find some, I'll be bound!"
cried Olivier ironically.  "But you shall not have my name!"

Lebas, having finished the letters, came forward, and Robespierre
gave him a questioning glance.  The letters, he said, revealed
nothing in particular.  They had been written two or three years ago,
and bore no address or signatures of importance.  Two signed Marie
Thérèse were apparently from a young girl, the prisoner's sister or
_fiancée_.

"Then the medallion belongs to her," put in Victoire; "M.T. are the
initials on it."

But these letters revealed nothing, nor did three others signed "Your
mother," couched in terms of endearment and advice.  The style was
most certainly that of an aristocrat.  Only one letter--dated
1791--gave a slight indication, a very vague one.

Robespierre pricked up his ears--

"And the contents of that letter?" he asked.

Lebas scanned it once more.  It was dated 1791, from a country place
in one of the suburbs of Paris, and addressed to the young man, then
a student, by his grandfather, who seemed also to be his godfather,
for he says: "I shall expect you to-morrow evening, for my _fête_ and
yours, the Feast of St. Olivier."

"Is Olivier, then, his name?" inquired Robespierre, looking at the
young man.

But Lebas continued reading.  "The valet, my dear child, will not
fetch you this time.  At fifteen a lad ought to be able to travel
alone."

"The letter being dated May, 1791, the young man must be now
nineteen," Lebas observed.

"Nineteen! yes, just nineteen!" repeated Robespierre, as if a thought
had struck him.  "Go on!  Go on?  What comes next?"

Lebas continued: "My travelling-coach will wait for you in the Rue
des Lions, before the door of the hotel."

"There can be only one Rue des Lions in Paris, the Rue des
Lions-Saint-Paul?" interposed Robespierre, more and more impressed,
and still looking intently at the youth.

"Just so!" Lebas answered.

"Go on with the letter!  Go on!"

Lebas resumed his reading: "Benoit..."

"The concierge!" interrupted Robespierre, scarcely able to hide his
emotion.

Lebas went on: "Benoit will open the shutters of the little room
leading out of my study to the garden.  In a bookcase, the one
surmounted by the busts of Cicero and Socrates, you will find just
within your reach, and will bring to me, volumes x. and xi. of a set
of folios bound in red morocco, with the title..."

"_Arrêts du Parlement!_" exclaimed Robespierre, to the general
surprise, carried beyond himself by the revelation which had suddenly
burst upon him.

Olivier looked at him, in bewilderment.

"That is it!  _Arrêts du Parlement_," repeated Lebas; "but how did
you know?"

Robespierre, mastering his feelings, and without taking his eyes off
Olivier, answered with assumed indifference--

"Oh!  I have had those books in my hands many a time at Monsieur de
Pontivy's, King's Councillor in Parliament, and that young man's
grandfather."

Olivier turned deadly pale, and grasped convulsively at the back of a
chair for support.  His mother was lost!  Exclamations of surprise
and astonishment had greeted the Incorruptible's words.  Then
Robespierre knew his family, and all about him?  And all eyes were
fixed on the young man with renewed curiosity.

"Yes ... I know," ... answered Robespierre, forcing himself to appear
calm, "I know ... who he is..."

"Oh, now we shall hear the whole story!" they all exclaimed, clapping
their hands.

"Certainly you shall," Robespierre replied, "but in order to make
sure I should like to be alone with him.  We are too many here; I
shall call you back presently.  Let Héron and the police-agents wait
in the courtyard."

Every one prepared to leave the room, looking rather disappointed,
specially the women, who wondered what would be the outcome of it all.

As Lebas was passing out Robespierre stopped him.

"Don't go," he said, "I may want you."

And the three men remained alone.

The father was face to face with his son!

Robespierre's anger had all melted before this sudden revelation.  He
preserved, however, a stern countenance, subduing the almost
uncontrollable emotion which threatened to overpower him.  He was
still struggling with it, trying to regain possession of himself,
and, moved by a natural impulse, he told Olivier in a gentle voice to
be seated.

The prisoner, however, did not heed him, and when Robespierre
repeated his words even more persuasively, and in a trembling voice,
Olivier still paid no attention.  Seeing Lebas shrug his shoulders,
intimating that Robespierre was really very good to insist, the
Incorruptible explained--his eyes still fixed on Olivier--that it was
but natural for him to show kindness towards the grandchild of a man
whose secretary he had been for eighteen months.

The young man stared back in surprise.

"They never told you, then?" said Robespierre.  "Of course not....
They loathe my very name, your people, do they not?"

But he immediately added, to Lebas's astonishment, that this was no
reason why he should forget his stay in Monsieur de Pontivy's house.
He could not help thinking now of the happy evenings he had spent
there and the many pleasant meals of which he had partaken, side by
side with Olivier's mother.  That dim, sweet spirit of the past,
which the young man's presence had called from its grave, had
softened his heart strangely towards him.

But Olivier interrupted him harshly.  Robespierre might harden his
heart again, then!  His life was in Robespierre's hands!  He could
take it if it pleased him to do so.  All the family had been victims
to the Revolution: his grandfather who died of grief, his uncle
killed in Vendée, his father mortally wounded defending the cause of
the King....

"But your mother?  She is alive; you have not the right to sacrifice
her life!"

Robespierre went on thus carefully, trying by well-placed
insinuations and questions to wring the truth from him.  If Olivier
had cried "Down with the scaffold!" it was because he trembled for
his mother's life? ... because she was arrested?

"Am I not right in this?" he urged, with deep anxiety.  "Is she not
arrested?"

But he was met by a blunt denial.

And so the struggle between father and son went on; the former
impatient to learn the woman's hiding-place, the latter firm and
unshaken in his refusal to betray it to one whom he regarded as a
tiger seeking his prey.

Robespierre, though wounded by every syllable, continued his soft
persuasions.  What! was it possible Olivier could not understand his
wish to protect his mother, and to place her out of harm's reach, in
memory of the time he had passed so happily at her side?

Olivier smiled in bitter irony.  Robespierre need not waste his
words.  He well knew he had too much pride to allow any such
remembrance to incline him to leniency.  Ah, there were memories in
that sweet past, as he called it, for which his mother would pay with
her head!  Friendship?  _Robespierre's friendship_!  Why, it paved
the road to the scaffold!  All his friends had trodden that deadly
path.

A cry of indignation escaped Lebas, but Robespierre quieted him in a
husky voice, himself a prey to the most feverish agitation.  The
lad's head had been turned by the _chouans_!  He was not responsible
for what he said!  Then turning to Olivier he tried, with a ring of
sadness in his voice, to persuade him that had he been a tyrant he
would have punished his insolence, he would not have attempted to
reason with him.  But Olivier remained unmoved.  This kindness was
assumed, he told himself, to hide some dastardly plot!  Robespierre
only wanted to find his mother that he might avenge her son's insult
on herself.  In vain the Incorruptible protested, deeply grieved and
wounded.  Olivier stoutly maintained his position, declaring that
Robespierre was not a man to pardon any one who had publicly insulted
him with such outspoken contempt and hatred.

"Wretch!" cried out Lebas.

But Robespierre signed to him to stop.  Hatred?  That word in the
young man's mouth sounded like blasphemy.  And trying to master
himself, that his voice should not tremble, he asked him--

"Then you do hate me very much?"

Olivier again furiously asserted his abhorrence, and was met by the
question--

"When have I ever wronged you?"

At this Olivier, losing self-control, nearly betrayed his secret.

"Wronged me! ... When have you wronged me?" the young man repeated.
"Wasn't it through you that my mother was..."

But recollecting himself he stopped short.

"Arrested?" put in Robespierre.

"No!" exclaimed Olivier.

And then the struggle recommenced.

Robespierre was, however, quite sure now of the arrest.  What he
wanted to know was the name of the prison to which the two women had
been taken, and he came near to the chair by which the prisoner was
standing.  Olivier instinctively recoiled a step, Robespierre,
completely exhausted, made one last effort.  He implored the young
man to lay aside his mistrust and hatred, to help him to save those
who were so dear to him.

"To help you to kill them, you mean!"

Robespierre started from his seat, exasperated beyond measure.  This
was going too far!  Olivier must be mad!  Could he not, would he not
realise that the very way to kill the two unhappy women was to leave
them for the executioner to do his work!  Their turn would soon come.

"If yours does not come first!" interrupted Olivier.

What madness!  Perhaps at this very moment they were entering the
cart which was to take them to the Revolutionary Tribunal, and the
next day to the scaffold.  It was Olivier who was sending them to
death, and all because he was too obstinate to say the word which
would save them!  He was a blind, unnatural son; he would kill his
own mother!

Olivier, though amazed at Robespierre's persistence, remained
unshaken.

"Are you so thirsty for her blood?" he cried, hurling at him this
last insult.

At these words Robespierre lost all self-control.

"Fool!" he cried, "insensate fool!" as he paced the room in
unrestrained excitement.

But Lebas had heard enough.

"Let us have done with this madman," he said, hurrying towards the
door to call in the police-agents.

But Robespierre turned round--

"No!  Not yet!..."

Lebas, pretending not to have heard, called out--

"Héron!  Hér..."

Robespierre threw himself on him, and pinning him to the wall, said
breathlessly--

"Don't call, I tell you!  Don't call!"

Then lowering his voice he muttered in a dry whisper--

"Be quiet, man, I say!  Be quiet! ... It is my son!"

"Ah!" and Lebas looked at him in stupefied amazement.

When he had sufficiently recovered from his surprise, he asked in a
low voice--

"Why do you not tell him so?"

Could Robespierre tell him?  Tell the lad who loathed him!  Would he
believe him?  Olivier would say it was false, or how could he hate
him so?

"Oh, no!  I cannot tell him that I am his father!" he said sadly,
sinking down exhausted on a chair.

Lebas took his hand and pressed it sympathetically, deeply touched.

"You are right!" he murmured.

And turning to Olivier he said aloud--

"Then let us discover the prisoners without him!"

Olivier understood that matters were becoming very serious.  However,
Robespierre looked discouraged.  How was it possible to find the
women, under their assumed names, in Vendée?  But Lebas remarked that
they might be in Paris.  At this Olivier visibly trembled, which
Lebas did not fail to notice.

"Why," he continued--"why should he be so far from them?"

The point of this remark struck Robespierre.

"Yes, to be sure; you are right," he said, and interpreting Lebas's
thoughts he bade him take a carriage and drive to each prison and
interview every woman that had been arrested with a young girl.
Lebas, who had already put on his hat, remarked that he did not think
the night would suffice; there were so many women arrested with a
daughter or a younger sister.  And what if Olivier spoke the truth,
and his mother had been inscribed on the prison-register under
another name--her husband's, for instance?

"Mauluçon," interrupted Robespierre, the name suddenly recurring to
him.

Lebas took out a note-book from his pocket.  Was he a soldier, or a
magistrate, this Mauluçon?  Robespierre could not say.  All he knew
of him was that among the people represented as having gone into
mourning for Louis XVI. he had seen the names of Pontivy, his
son-in-law Mauluçon, and his daughter Clarisse.

"Clarisse!" repeated Lebas, stopping his note-taking.

Robespierre looked at him in surprise.  In what way could that name
interest him?  Lebas had now closed his note-book, deep in thought.
Clarisse?  Olivier's mother was called Clarisse?  But the woman who
implored Robespierre's clemency for her son, aged nineteen, the woman
whose letter he had refused to read just now ...

"Was signed Clarisse?" cried Robespierre breathlessly.

"Yes," replied Lebas.

"That is his mother!"...

And pointing to the young man, who was on the brink of swooning.

"You see, it is she!  Look at him; there is no mistaking, it is she!"

"She is at the prison of La Bourbe, then," said Lebas.

Robespierre could no longer hide his joy, at last he knew where to
find them!

But he was interrupted by a cry of pain.  Olivier, thinking his
mother now irretrievably lost, had fainted away.  Robespierre ran to
him, and bending over tried to bring him to consciousness, gently
reassuring him, swearing he was going to give the prisoners their
liberty.

But Lebas, who was also bending over the young man, reminded the
Incorruptible that Olivier no longer heard him.  Then Robespierre,
with infinite precautions, assisted by Lebas, lifted him into an
armchair, and taking a bottle of scent left behind by the ladies,
gently bathed Olivier's temples with the perfume.  Lebas, rather
anxious lest Robespierre's paternal solicitude should be discovered,
remained on the watch, imploring him to be prudent.

"Some one might come in!" he urged.

Robespierre, entirely taken up with Olivier, shrugged his shoulders.

"Let them come!" he said impatiently.  "I have a right surely to
pardon my own son!"

Lebas recalled him to reality.

No! he had no right to pardon a _chouan_, who had insulted the
Republic the day before in presence of the whole nation.
Robespierre's enemies would seize the occasion to cite the example of
Brutus sacrificing his son to the interest of his country.  They
would exact from him a like proof of patriotism....

Robespierre was trying to loosen Olivier's cravat, but not succeeding
asked Lebas's assistance.  After all, he was right, especially as his
enemies on the Committee of Public Safety, out of hatred for him,
would kill the lad all the quicker.  Opening the collar gently, he
continued the while to reason about it, saying that the only means of
saving him was to throw him brutally into prison, so as to mislead
them, and to get him out secretly after three days.

The young man heaved a sigh.

"He is coming to," said Robespierre, checking his speculations.

Lebas observed that it was high time to let others come in; they
would wonder at the length of the cross-examining.  Robespierre
assented, his eyes fixed on his son, who seemed now coming to
himself.  As the Incorruptible bent over him to ascertain if this was
so, his lips touched the pale forehead.

But he heard steps, and had only time to pull himself up, when Héron
entered, followed by his men.

Héron looked straight at Olivier, who had now recovered his senses.

"What!  Did he faint?" he asked.

Robespierre had regained possession of himself, and at once assumed a
brutal demeanour.  Yes, the scoundrel had been playing a farce, and
an infamous farce too!  The family now entered also, brimming with
curiosity and questions.

"Has the young man made a confession?"

"No; but he has betrayed himself, and I know all that I desired."

General satisfaction was expressed.  At last, then, he was caught,
and his accomplices!  At this moment Madame Lebas and Victoire
discovered in what a sad state Olivier was.  Had he been ill, then?
They would have come to him; but Robespierre stopped them, assuming
contempt.

"It was better," he said, "to leave the young madman alone, for he
really did not deserve that any one should take interest in him."

"Monster!" Olivier groaned.

Robespierre had heard the word.  He took hold of Lebas's arm, as if
for support, and pressed it convulsively.  Then, in a voice which he
tried to render harsh, he told him to conduct Olivier to the Prison
de la Force.  Héron had only waited for this; and his men seized
their prisoner, who at the roughness of the police-agents gave a
sharp cry.

"You brutes!" exclaimed Robespierre, in a faltering voice, taking a
step towards his son in spite of himself.  But Lebas stopped him.

"Be careful!" he whispered.

Robespierre sat down, realising his imprudence.

Lebas again whispered to him--

"Don't be uneasy, I will watch over him."

And telling the men not to handle the prisoner too roughly, he went
out with them.

Robespierre watched his son disappear, and when he had gone he felt
some one take his hand.  This made him tremble.  It was Cornélie.

How tired he seemed!  Every one was around him now.  That young
madman had given him terrible trouble, hadn't he?

"Yes," he replied, wiping his temple, "it was very trying!
Exceedingly trying!"

Duplay remarked that, judging from the length of the
cross-examination, he must have learnt something very important.
Robespierre made a gesture, as if protesting.  Then rising abruptly
he took leave of the company, on the pretext of urgent work.

"The lad can rest assured," said Duplay, "it is his death-warrant our
friend has gone to sign."

"What a pity!" observed Victoire; "the young fellow seemed so nice!"

But mother Duplay stopped her daughter indignantly, asking her if she
was mad.  What would the Incorruptible say if he could hear her?




CHAPTER IX

HOURS OF ANGUISH

Once in his room, Robespierre sank exhausted into a chair.  At last
he was alone!  He could now give free vent to his long suppressed
emotion.  The feeling uppermost at the moment was one of dread
dismay, as the terrible position rose before his mind, with all its
fearful consequences.  He gave no thought to the insult, it was the
fate of the two women which haunted him.  If he saved them it would
atone for all in the eyes of his son.  They had been arrested, thrown
into prison, and cast for death, but he would set them free.

Who had arrested them?  What had they done?  Were they implicated in
some seditious plot which would render it difficult to deliver them?
As to Olivier's release, he would see to that.  By causing things to
drag a little, Olivier's trial could be put off until Robespierre had
the power in his own hands, and could act as he liked towards his
son.  It was after all his concern, for it was he whom Olivier had
insulted, and not the Republic, which he could not yet impersonate.
Had he even been proclaimed dictator, and sole representative of
France, he would, he supposed, have had the right to pardon.  It
would seem but natural that his first act on accession to power
should be an act of clemency!  The most important thing then at
present was that Olivier should remain in prison as long as possible
under the closest supervision.

But again, why had the women been arrested?  By whose orders?  They
were perhaps at that very moment at the Conciergerie, on their trial,
before the Revolutionary Tribunal.  He could, no doubt, secure their
acquittal, but what if the inquiry brought Olivier's name to light?

"I am wandering!" he caught himself exclaiming.  How, indeed, could
the name of Olivier be mentioned during the trial?  The young man had
nothing to do with it.  He had insulted Robespierre, it was to him
personally he had to answer.

The Incorruptible rubbed his eyes, unable longer to follow the thread
of his own thoughts.  He was suddenly reminded of the law to be
submitted by him next day to the Convention, the vindictive law which
would ensure conviction without proof, evidence, or even
cross-examination.  This law would be of twofold service to him; it
would rekindle the Terror, would help Robespierre to get rid of those
who were still in his way, and be the means of reducing the two women
to silence, thus saving not only Olivier's life, but theirs also.
Olivier would then see that Robespierre was not the monster he
imagined, for he would owe the lives of his mother and of his
_fiancée_ to him, the very man he had so wantonly insulted!

Robespierre's reflections were suddenly interrupted by a knock.  He
started up.  Some one was calling him.  He listened, and recognising
Lebas's voice, hastened to open the door.

"I saw a light through your window," said Lebas, "and knew you had
not yet gone to bed."

"Well, what have you learnt?" Robespierre asked anxiously.

"They are still at the prison of La Bourbe."

"Both of them?"

"Yes, both of them."

"Ah!" sighed Robespierre, with relief.

"And I have given strict instructions in your name, that they were
not to be allowed out, under any circumstances.  I am quite satisfied
on that point, since the Concierge knows that they have been arrested
by your orders."

"By my orders?"

"Yes, alas!"

And he whispered to the Incorruptible, as if fearing to be heard--

"They are the two women from Montmorency."

"The women of the forest?"

"Yes!"

Robespierre leant back against his desk for support.  Lebas pulled an
armchair towards him, into which he sank quite overcome.

"You could not have prevented it!" said Lebas gently; "nowadays
surprises of that sort are common enough.  How could you know?"

The Incorruptible gave no reply, but seemed lost in a dream.

"Take some rest now....  You must feel exhausted....  I feel so
myself....  _Au revoir_ till to-morrow.  After all, why should you
worry?  Are we not the masters?"

"That is the question!" murmured Robespierre, without lifting his
eyes.

But Lebas had just closed the door, and wished him good night.

Robespierre, left alone, resumed his train of thought.  He had,
himself, then, ordered the two women to be arrested.  This made
everything clear to his mind!  He now understood why Olivier had
insulted him, and matters were more complicated than he had imagined.
But what was Clarisse doing at Montmorency?  How had she gained
acquaintance with that man Vaughan, who had proposed to him the
Regency in the name of England?  For one moment he was vain enough to
think that Clarisse had acted in conjunction with the Englishman.
She had perhaps an idea of winning Robespierre over to the Royalist
cause, and of rendering homage to his exalted position and power,
realising all the good he could do.  If this were indeed the fact,
then she knew everything, was aware of the Englishman's proposals,
and of the forest interview!  She was in possession of his secret and
could by a single word completely ruin him!

No!  No!  He was raving! ... Why! he was accusing the mother of his
child!  For she was the mother of his son!  Then he alone was in
fault; ... he who had her arrested for no reason!  For no reason?
Was that so certain?  And he sought about in his mind for excuses.
Yes! he was the dupe of Fate, the tool of blind Destiny!  Why had
Clarisse been there?  Why had she been implicated with the secret
interview?  Why?  Ah! why?

With closed eyes, still repeating that unanswered "Why?" he fell into
a half sleep.  Little by little the image of a cell in the prison of
La Bourbe rose before him; Clarisse was there.  She appeared to him,
as he had seen her in her youth, at the Rue des Lions, with her sweet
pale face, large blue eyes, fair silken hair, so fair ... so fair....
He began to wonder that one so young and frail should have a son so
big as Olivier!  His dream-thoughts became more confused....  She was
now Olivier's _fiancée_....  He was promising her to marry them in
London, through the intervention of Vaughan ... of Fox....  Fox was
all powerful in England, as he, Robespierre, was in France....  His
head gradually sunk on his shoulder, and he fell asleep at last.

The lamp, turned very low, shed upon him a flickering light, pale and
subdued as the glow of a sanctuary lamp, softening as if in pity the
stern lines of his troubled countenance, which even in sleep did not
relax the painful contraction of its features.  He had fallen asleep,
dressed as he was, his head aslant, his arms hanging by his sides
listlessly.  Now and then, his whole frame would twitch and quiver
nervously, and vague, incoherent words escaped his lips at intervals;
harsh, guttural sounds fell from him suddenly in that silent
apartment, whose curtains and drapery in the subdued light assumed
the soft and delicate tints of a young girl's chamber.

Its hangings were really of damask, with designs of white flowers on
a blue ground, cut out of an old dress by Madame Duplay.  This was
the one obvious attempt at ornament.  The Incorruptible's room was
otherwise very modestly furnished, containing only the armchair in
which he had fallen asleep, a few cane chairs, a very simple desk, a
plain deal bookcase overladen with books and fastened to the wall,
and a bed of walnut-wood.

The room was situated, as already said, in a wing which connected the
main building occupied by the Duplay family with an outhouse opening
on the Rue Saint-Honoré.  It also communicated with little Maurice's
room, to whom the Incorruptible in his leisure hours gave lessons in
history, and on the duties of a citizen.  The child, who had been
sent early to bed on the arrival of the police-agents with Olivier,
now slept soundly.

At about three o'clock, the boy awoke with a start.  He heard a noise
in the next room, and, thinking he recognised Robespierre's voice,
turned over to sleep again.  It was not the first time his good
friend had talked aloud in his sleep.  But he was awakened again by
the falling of a chair, and jumped from his bed anxiously and ran to
open the door.  In the flickering light of the nearly extinguished
lamp he discerned the Incorruptible standing erect, still dressed,
and gesticulating wildly as if pushing some one back.  The boy
advanced towards him, asking what was amiss.  Robespierre stared at
him with a frightened look, then folding him in his arms, he fell on
his knees moaning.  Between his groans the child could catch the
words--

"My son! ... My son!"

Then the lamp went quite out.

The child gently disengaged himself.  _Bon ami_ had called him his
son!  Yes, he was his son, his affectionate and dutiful son.  Then
with tender solicitude he helped him to rise.  The day was already
peeping through the half-closed shutters.  Maurice with some
difficulty succeeded in replacing his friend on the armchair in which
he had passed the night, and asked him if he wished for anything.
But Robespierre had fallen asleep again.

The boy returned to his room, walking backwards on tiptoe, fearing to
awaken him, and went to bed again.

At seven o'clock in the morning Robespierre opened his eyes.  He
remembered nothing.  The fact of having slept in his clothes, and in
an armchair, did not surprise him.  He had often done so in the days
of sore trial.  He drew aside the curtains, and the room was suddenly
flooded with daylight.  Some one knocked.  It was Maurice Duplay,
asking if he could come in.

The boy's early visit surprised Robespierre.

"Are you well, _bon ami_?"

"Yes, why?"

"Nothing ... only ... last night ... you know..."

"Last night?  Well!"

"You rather frightened me!"

"Frightened you?"

"Yes, you frightened me!"

The child then told him what had taken place in the night.

"Are you quite sure?" asked Robespierre anxiously.

"Oh! quite sure, and since you called me your son it shows you
recognised me, and had not the fever so badly after all."

"Yes, you are right!  It was nothing since ... as you said ... since
I recognised you; ... for it was you of course I called my son: ...
you _are_ my good little son, are you not?"

And he patted his cheeks, adding--

"But you must not speak of it to anybody! not to anybody, mind!  It
is not worth while worrying your father and mother."

"Oh no!  I have never said anything!"

Robespierre began again to feel uneasy.

"How do you mean?  You have _never_ said anything?"

"Why, it is not the first time it has happened to you."

"Have you heard me before, then?"

"Oh yes! speaking loud in your sleep."

"And what did I say?"

"Oh, I never understood anything, ... disconnected words, that's
all....  And then I was so accustomed, I did not pay much attention.
But last night it was too much and I got up."

"You should not have done so, it was nothing more serious than usual,
only the worry and bother that upset me so."

"It was the cross-examination of the Chouan yesterday which unstrung
you, I suppose?"

"Perhaps; ... it may be....  But, you see, now I am quite well."

As the lad was going he called after him.

"Now you know, and you won't give it another thought, will you?  And
not a word, mind, not a word!  Now go, child."

He was subject to such nightmares then?

"Perhaps I don't take enough exercise," he thought, and he resolved
to go out at once into the open air.  A good walk to the
Champs-Elysées would completely revive him.  He changed his clothes,
shaved, powdered and perfumed himself as usual, and had actually
started, but went back and took from a drawer in his desk the draft
of the new law which he had prepared the day before, and put it in
his pocket.  He had decided after reflection not to submit it
himself, but to confide it to Couthon, one of the most faithful of
his friends on the Committee with Lebas, Saint-Just, and Augustin.
Couthon would read the document from the tribune, and this would
leave him fresh and fit for the ensuing debate.

Having called at Couthon's house, and concluded this arrangement,
Robespierre made his way to the Champs-Elysées through the Tuileries
with his dog Blount, who gambolled joyously in his new-found freedom
after a three days' confinement in the house.  The Incorruptible
walked quickly and briskly as usual, in spite of the intense heat,
which was but little diminished by the shade of the chestnuts lining
the avenue.  He was already telling over in his mind those among his
enemies who would be the first victims of the new law.  As to Olivier
and the two women, it was quite decided.  They should remain in
prison in the most absolute secrecy until the time came for him to be
master.

At the end of the avenue he turned into the Allée de Veuves and went
towards the Seine.  Blount, who had scented the water, leapt and
bounded forward in high glee.  On fine summer days the dog used to
swim in the river under the eyes of Robespierre.  When he reached the
banks of the Seine Blount was awaiting him, and at a sign jumped in
the water, and the Incorruptible found some release from his
harrowing thoughts in watching the gambols of his dog in the river.

At the Convention the Bill read by Couthon was received with loud
protests, and the subsequent debate opened amid turbulence and
uproar.  That the judgments of the Revolutionary Tribunal should be
accelerated by the suppression of evidence and cross-examinations had
already frightened not a few; but when it became a question of
transmitting to the Committee of Public Safety the right of life or
death, the whole assembly was filled with fear.  Up to that time the
Convention alone had the right to sit in judgment on a representative
of the people!

A voice was heard exclaiming--

"If that law is passed, nothing is left but to blow out our brains!"

Robespierre appeared in the tribune.  The Bill was voted.  The next
day several attempts were made in the Convention to repeal the
atrocious law which brought the Terror into their very midst, but all
such efforts failed.

With so trenchant a law, a two-edged weapon which could be turned at
will either against the Committee of Public Safety or against the
Convention, according to the intricate windings of his subtle policy,
with such a weapon Robespierre could keep his enemies of the
Committee at bay.  He had in future but to accuse them, and have them
replaced by creatures of his own, satellites of his will.

However, all was going well.  His adversaries, blind and unwary, had
begun to tear each other to pieces in party disputes, and to split up
into factions, the very day after the passing of the atrocious law
which made him so dreaded.

The Incorruptible tried to take advantage of these cabals, but he was
too hasty.  The Committee, realising their danger, united against
him; and this was the prelude to a terrible and decisive struggle,
for in case of failure there remained nothing for Robespierre but to
have recourse to force.  Realising this to the full, he no longer
attended the sittings of the Committee, but worked silently in the
shade, preparing the _coup d'état_ which was to rid him at once and
for ever of all his enemies,--with Saint-Just, whom he had sent for
from the Northern Army, with Hauriot, Commander-in-Chief of the armed
force; Fleuriot-Lescot, Mayor of Paris; Payan, Agent of the Commune;
and Dumas, President; and Coffinhal, Vice-President of the
Revolutionary Tribunal.  His design was very simple.  He would
denounce his adversaries of the Committee of Public Safety at the bar
of the Convention and ask for their arrest and judgment.  Should the
Convention resist, he would subdue them with the help of Hauriot and
his troops, and of all sections of the Commune, who on a sign from
him and from Fleuriot, Payan, Dumas, Coffinhal, and their friends,
would be stirred to insurrection, and would take the Tuileries by
storm.

As to Olivier and the two women, they were always under his hand.
Olivier, at La Force Prison, was in no way disturbed.  Clarisse and
Thérèse had been kept at La Bourbe by his orders.  Twice the names of
Olivier's mother and _fiancée_ had appeared on the list of the
Revolutionary Tribunal, and twice their names had been struck off by
Robespierre, who, anxious and watchful, took care that all lists
should be submitted to him.

Soon the decisive hour approached.  It was the 7th Thermidor.  Six
weeks had elapsed since the memorable Fête of the Supreme Being, and
the passing of the horrible Prairial law, which had sent hundreds of
victims to the scaffold.  The Terror was at its height, and France,
prostrate before the knife of the guillotine, was awaiting in
distracted anxiety the result of the struggle.  The guillotine was
also waiting, ready to devour whichever of the two parties was
vanquished--Robespierre's opponents or Robespierre himself and his
partisans.

The Incorruptible, driven to the last extremity, had fixed the battle
for the next day, the 8th Thermidor, when he would throw off his mask
and accuse his adversaries of the Committee of Public Safety in
presence of the Convention.  Although he was almost certain of the
issue, he deemed it none the less prudent to take infinite
precautions, and to put Olivier and the two women in perfect safety,
in case of defeat, however impossible it might seem.  They must be
taken from prison, and all three placed in some secure retreat, out
of the reach of danger, from whence they could escape if necessary.

Robespierre thought of the Hôtel de Ville, where he reigned supreme.
Behind this, in the Rue du Martroy, were some unoccupied apartments,
in a building connected with and forming part of the hotel.  Clarisse
might live there with her niece and Olivier until they could with
safety leave Paris.  He unfolded his projects to Lebas, who alone
knew of the secret drama which poisoned the private life of the
Incorruptible at the very moment when his public career was reaching
its climax.  Lebas approved the plan.

"I am entirely at your service!"

"Thanks.  I was counting on your help.  But don't let us be too
hasty.  To-morrow will be time enough.  Everything depends on the
sitting.  If you see that the majority hesitate from the
commencement, go immediately to La Bourbe and take the two women out,
then to La Force and see about my son.  The apartments are ready.
You have only to take them there.  But save the women first.  Olivier
must find his mother and his _fiancée_ when he arrives."

Then taking two papers from his pocket, he added, "Here are the
warrants of release."

"Agreed!" said Lebas, after reading them.

Next day at the Convention, Lebas, a parliamentary expert, judged
that Robespierre would come out victorious from the contest, nor was
he mistaken.  The Incorruptible had brought a general accusation,
without mentioning names, against members of the Committee of Public
Safety and General Security.  This was received in anxious silence, a
few only daring to protest.  But the printing of the speech, and its
circulation in all the communes of Paris, was none the less voted.
It was an official accusation, by the voice of Robespierre, of his
adversaries, before the whole of France.  It was victory; and nothing
was left but to name the victims.

But the implicated members of the Committee of Public Safety did not
give him time.  Vadier boldly made for the tribune, followed by
Cambon, who, feeling it was a case of kill or cure, played a daring
game, and replied to the general accusation of Robespierre by a
direct, personal accusation, denouncing him openly to the astonished
Assembly.  The real traitor, he declared, was this masterful
Robespierre, who paralysed the will of the National Convention!

There was a counter-wave of feeling among the members of the Assembly
at this public indictment, and censure of their slavish submission to
Robespierre.  They seemed suddenly to realise their position, and the
more daring members, seeing the tide turn, prepared for the fight.
Thus the attacked were in their turn attacking.

Billaud-Varennes succeeded Cambon at the tribune.

"The mask must be torn aside, no matter whose face it covers!" he
cried.  "I would rather my corpse should be the stepping-stone of the
ambitious than by my silence be an accomplice of their crimes!"

Others succeeded Billaud-Varennes, reiterating his accusations more
boldly and insultingly.  Robespierre, disconcerted, tried to face the
storm, but it was too late.  In confining himself to a general
accusation, in mentioning no names, he had frightened every one.  The
Assembly revoked their previous decision, and amended the Bill.  The
speech was not to be sent to the Communes, but to the Committee, to
be examined.

"What!" cried Robespierre, "I have the courage to make before the
Convention revelations which I believe necessary to the salvation of
the country, and my speech is to be submitted for examination to the
very men whom I accuse!"

Victory had been followed by defeat; a partial defeat, it was true,
for, seeing the hesitating attitude of the Convention, Robespierre
hoped to win them back again the next day.  He must, however, be
prepared for every emergency!  That very evening he would take steps
to organise an insurrection of the Communes, which, in case of
resistance, would annihilate the whole set of dastardly cowards.  The
Incorruptible wished to act within legal bounds as long as possible,
and only to overstep them when forced to do so.

Robespierre looked round for Lebas, but he had disappeared, and this
gave him grounds for hope that the two women, and perhaps Olivier,
had reached the private apartments chosen by him in the Rue du
Martroy.

"I must go and make sure that all is well," he said to himself;
"there is not a moment to lose"--and leaving the Convention, he
hastened in the direction of the Hôtel de Ville.




CHAPTER X

THE TUMBRILS

At that very moment Lebas reached the Hôtel de Ville with Clarisse
and Thérèse.  On leaving the prison of La Bourbe he had given a false
address to the coachman who drove the prisoners, and he followed them
at a distance in another carriage, accompanied by a man to
superintend the luggage, who was one of the attendants at the Hôtel
de Ville, and a devoted adherent of Robespierre.  The second carriage
soon overtook the first, when Lebas gave the correct address to the
driver--

"13, Rue du Martroy!"

Clarisse and Thérèse mounted the stairs more dead than alive, ushered
up respectfully by Lebas, and Urbain, the attendant, carrying their
luggage.  Where were they going?  Who were these people?  Lebas at
the prison had scarcely spoken to Clarisse.

"For your safety," he had said simply, "for your niece's safety, do
not question me before we arrive at our destination."

For her safety?  For Thérèse's safety!  Then they were to be saved?
Who could save them?  She would surely learn now who it was.

The two men stopped on the third floor, and Urbain opened a door.

"It is here!" said Lebas, making way for them to pass in.

The two women entered, and found themselves in a plain sitting-room
with fittings and furniture of dark grey wood.  Urbain took the
luggage to a door opening on the left, through which a bedroom was
visible.

"You must make yourself quite at home, here," said Lebas.

And he informed them that they were free, but from motives of
prudence he who had saved them, and for whom Lebas was acting, had
judged it advisable to offer them these apartments as a temporary
residence, where they would be entirely out of danger's reach.
Clarisse and Thérèse could not recover from their surprise, and
wished to know to whom they owed their deliverance.  But Lebas would
not tell them, having received no orders to that effect.  All he
could say to reassure them was that their protector was all-powerful
at the Paris Commune, and that the apartments were in direct
communication, through a door which he indicated, with the Hôtel de
Ville, so that they were under his immediate care.

Clarisse started.  She understood now.  She owed her safety to the
Incorruptible!  Her letter of the preceding month had reached
Robespierre.  She knew this already, as he had acknowledged it in a
few brief words three days after receiving it--"Fear nothing, your
son is safe!" And this was all she had heard.

Lebas was still giving the women particulars of their new
surroundings.  Everything had been arranged to render them as
comfortable as possible.  The man who had accompanied them was
entirely at their disposal, and it was to his interest to serve them
well.  His wife would see also to their wants, and take charge of
their apartments, where they would be absolutely free and
unrestrained.

Only one precaution was earnestly recommended to them; to show
themselves as little as possible at the windows of their sitting or
bed room, so as not to attract the attention of neighbours.  They
were especially told to avoid this in the afternoon, from four to
six.  The windows looked on to the Rue du Martroy, through which the
carts carrying the condemned passed.  The scaffold was now installed
at the Barrière du Trône Renversé, and it was the shortest way.

The two women shuddered.

"Unhappily we had no choice," Lebas added, seeing their repugnance,
"but you will be warned by the cries of the crowd, and you can then
retire to the dining-room which looks on to the courtyard.  It lasts
but a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, at the most."

But Clarisse scarcely listened, her whole mind occupied with one
thought, the longing to inform Olivier, whose whereabouts she hoped
soon to learn, of their release from prison.

"Could I write a few words to some one who is very dear to me?" she
asked.  "I wish to set his mind at rest about our welfare."

Lebas replied in the affirmative, and she thanked him gratefully.  He
politely protested; she owed him no thanks, these were solely due to
him whose orders he was executing.  He then offered to take the
letter himself, saying he would return for it in a quarter of an
hour, as he had another urgent duty to fulfil.  And he retired,
leaving the two women with Urbain, who busied himself arranging the
furniture of the sitting-room.

Thérèse, now full of hope, gave thanks to God.  They would perhaps
soon see Olivier again.  What joy!  But to whom did they owe their
release?  She looked inquiringly at her aunt.  Clarisse owned that
she believed it was to an ex-secretary of Thérèse's grandfather, now
all-powerful, and to whom she had written from the prison of La
Bourbe.  Thérèse seemed astonished that her aunt had not told her of
this.  But Clarisse made the very plausible excuse that she did not
wish to raise her hopes, not knowing whether her appeal would have
success.

The young girl was now looking through the shutters of one of the
windows which Urbain had partly opened.

"Ah! there is a church!" she exclaimed, and immediately she thought
that if they were allowed to go out she would go and pray for their
protector, for he could not be all-powerful and not have done wrong;
he must belong also to the Government of Terror.

At the mention of a church, Clarisse approached the window.  She
recognised the building; it was St. Gervais Church, on whose portal
could be read in large letters the sadly ironical inscription:
"National Property, to be let as a Warehouse."

At Clarisse's request Urbain had placed an ink-stand and
blotting-paper on the table, and Clarisse hearing it was ready turned
round joyfully.  "At last I can write to Olivier!" she thought.

She then seated herself at the table and began to write, while
Thérèse was making a tour round the room, taking a survey of the
furniture.  Suddenly catching sight of an illustrated paper on a
sofa, she took it up to pass the time away.  It was five weeks old,
and had been preserved no doubt on account of the illustrations.  Its
pages gave an elaborate account of the Fête of the Supreme Being of
which she had heard Olivier speak, and against which he had so
vehemently protested during his visit to the prison of La Bourbe.  It
had taken place, then?

She became interested and commenced reading to herself in a low
voice: "_Description of the Procession.--Fireworks at the Fountain of
the Tuileries.--Typical Groups.--Arrest of a Chouan.--Popular
Indignation!_"

"I saw that myself," interrupted Urbain.

Thérèse turned to the servant, who was now dusting the mantelpiece,
and asked him why the man had been arrested.

"Why?  Because he cried: 'Down with the scaffold!'"

The words struck Clarisse, who looked up from her writing.  Only the
day before the _fête_ Olivier had reproached the French for not
daring to throw that cry in the teeth of the Government of Terror.
Thérèse, seeing her aunt look up from her writing, was struck with
the same coincidence, and both, almost in the same breath, questioned
the domestic, who said that, as far as he could remember, the young
man appeared to be about twenty.  He had been arrested at once to
save him from the crowd, who would otherwise have torn him to pieces.

"His name? his name?" they both gasped.

That Urbain could not tell them.  Clarisse rose, mastering her
emotion, and with all a mother's solicitude set herself to reassure
Thérèse.  Yes, they both had the same thought, hadn't they?  She also
was thinking of Olivier, but it could not be he.  He would have
written to them.  Why, it was six weeks ago, and his visit to the
prison would have been remembered!  They would have been involved,
but they had, on the contrary, been in no way made to feel it, and
had been treated with every consideration.

"That is true," answered Thérèse, glad enough to be convinced.

Clarisse took the paper gently from her hands, saying, "Instead of
reading all this awful news, which inflames your imagination, go,
dear, and arrange our room a little."  And she added in half a
reproachful tone: "You have not even looked at it, yet!"

Then gently pushing her into the room, she shut the door sharply
behind her.

A terrible fear had taken possession of Clarisse.  Why in his letter
to her had Robespierre sedulously avoided mentioning Olivier's
whereabouts?  Turning to Urbain, she addressed him in a hoarse voice:
"You say you saw this young fellow?"

The good man evinced surprise at her strange recurrence to the
subject.

"I had the honour to tell you so just now, _citoyenne_."

Then Urbain would recollect him?  What was he like?  His face?  The
colour of his eyes?  But that was too much to ask.  He was in such a
state, so broken down.  How was he dressed?

Urbain could just remember.  He described the costume: grey
carmagnole and breeches, black and grey striped waistcoat.

It was Olivier's costume!  There was no longer any possible doubt.
It was he!

"It is he!  It is he!" she kept repeating, falling at last into a
chair, on the point of swooning.

At this moment the door opened and a man appeared, who without
crossing the threshold signed to the servant, to whom he spoke in a
whisper.  Urbain came towards Clarisse and delivered the message.
"The _citoyen_ Robespierre wishes to speak with you."

"Where is he?  Oh! let him come! let him come!" she cried through her
blinding tears.

The man left the room followed by Urbain.  Clarisse waited in
breathless suspense, her eyes fixed in mute agony on the half-opened
door.

The Incorruptible came in, and before he had time to greet her, she
had risen and was standing before him.

"My son?  Where is my son?"

"Be assured, your son is safe."

She recoiled a step and fixed her eyes on him in amazed silence.

So it was true, the young man who had been arrested was Olivier!

Robespierre, greatly agitated, again essayed to reassure her, but she
interrupted him eagerly.  Where was he?  In prison?

Robespierre lowered his eyes.

What!  Had Olivier been sent to prison by him?  Ah! things had come
to a pretty pass.  He was then the gaoler of his own son!

Robespierre made a gesture as if to protest.  Then, mastering with
difficulty his emotion, he explained everything.  He had kept Olivier
in prison as the only means of saving him.  Had the lad been released
he would have been reimprisoned by the Committee of Public Safety,
who would have sent him to the scaffold, if it were only to show
Robespierre that he had no right to grant a pardon!  But Olivier
would be free now.  Lebas was at that very moment at La Force prison,
and would soon bring him secretly from thence to them.  Olivier
should remain with his mother and Thérèse until the day when they
could all three leave without danger, and seek safety in the
provinces.

Clarisse listened, now calm and reassured.  But how had Robespierre
known?

"Who he was?  Oh, in the most unexpected manner, with the assistance
of some letters found in his valise, for he absolutely refused to
give me his name."

Clarisse looked at Robespierre with a new fear in her eyes.  Then he
had seen him?  Olivier knew the terrible secret of his birth?

"Oh, no!" replied the Incorruptible sadly, "don't be uneasy about
that.  I have not said a word, to lessen his love and trust in you,
or disarm the bitter hatred he has for me, which avenges you too
well..."

But Clarisse interrupted him.  Robespierre was mistaking her
feelings.  She did not ask to be avenged, she did not even think any
more of reproaching him with the past which divided them.  It was all
so far, so far away, that past!

The Incorruptible looked at her with eyes full of sadness and regret.
Yes, there she stood, in her faded prison dress, her face lined
before its time, a living reproach, a poor pale ghost of bygone days.
Those blanched lips, with their melancholy droop, the token of long
suffering and resignation, those lips had received his first kiss!

Clarisse would think no more of the past!  He thought of it though,
thought of it there, looking at her.  Had he been so culpable, after
all?  Why had Monsieur de Pontivy filled his heart with hate and
rancour by refusing him her hand and turning him out like a lackey?
On account of a difference of caste?  Well, from this prejudice had
sprung the Revolution which had levelled all under the knife of the
guillotine!  That sad past, the terrible present, were both due to
the pride of Clarisse's father.  For he would not have thrown himself
madly into the turmoil....

But Clarisse again interrupted him.  The past was dead now, quite
dead!

"No," he cried, "the past is not dead, since your son is here, the
living proof of what has been..."

Clarisse shook her head.

"The punishment is mine, for if his hatred has been a blow to your
pride, causing you some transient pain, it is I who must live out my
life beside that hatred.  Each time my son pronounces your name with
loathing and indignation, I can only ask myself in terrified agony,
if he will ever pardon me for having given him a father such as you!"

Robespierre, thoroughly disheartened, looked at her sadly.  "You
also!" he exclaimed.  What! did Clarisse share the general error?
Did not she penetrate through the apparent violence of his policy to
the sublime end he had in view?  He sought to explain his views to
her, his notions for ensuring the universal happiness of mankind; he
depicted the sacred ideal he dreamt of reaching by purging France of
all base and evil-minded traitors who defiled her.  He an assassin!
He a tyrant!  No! he was an avenger, an apostle of justice and
virtue!  He was not responsible for the excesses of a nation who had
been enslaved for centuries, and had suddenly cast off their chains.
Every conquest was of necessity accompanied by carnage, every
revolution left the stains of blood behind!

Clarisse contemplated him with the same astonishment Vaughan had
experienced in the forest of Montmorency, when Robespierre had
unfolded to the Englishman his projects and visions of universal
happiness, which could only be realised by the help of the guillotine.

"The future will justify me!" he continued.  "When I am in power my
deeds will convince you."

"But are you not all-powerful now?" Clarisse exclaimed in spite of
herself.

He showed her she was mistaken.  No, he was not supreme!  Not yet!
Enemies barred his way; but they were the last, and he was about to
overthrow them in one decisive contest!  Yes, he yearned for that
moment to come, for his strength would not hold out much longer.

Then, lowering his voice, and trembling lest he should be heard, he
told her of the wretched life he led; hunted down on all sides,
hated, betrayed, his every movement watched, a dagger ever hanging
over his head.  He spoke of his sleepless nights!  Oh! how he would
hasten that last battle!  To make the victory sure it would be as
terrible as possible; the whole horde of wretches who had caused him
such unspeakable torture should be swept from his path!  Peace!
Peace! how glad he should be to welcome it with open arms...

Clarisse listened in amazement to this wild tirade.  He had spoken of
his haunted life, his sleepless nights.  But were not these ever the
lot of tyrants?  He sought forgetfulness, peace, a renewal of some of
the joys of life?  Then why did he not stay the infamous proceedings
of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and throw wide the prison doors?  From
every breast would then resound a cry of deliverance which would
atone for all!  What greater happiness for him, after causing so many
tears than to dry them again!  "Impossible! impossible!" answered
Robespierre.  Not yet!  He would have to pay for it with his life
like Danton!  The hour had not yet come!  Clemency was treason, mercy
meant death.  In order to survive it was necessary to denounce,
accuse, strike, and slay remorselessly.  For it was the fear of death
which prompted the French to their most inhuman acts.  It influenced
every one, from the Convention, the Committees, the Revolutionary
Tribunal, to the very crowd who had become the abject slaves of that
terror which held France in absolute subjection.  They had well
called this Government "the Terror."  Oh, yes! it was a terror for
the victims, for the accusers, for the judges, a terror for all!

Clarisse looked at him, in bewilderment.  There was no more hope,
then?  France was to perish under that rule of abject cowardice?
Would no one take this evil by the throat and strangle it?

"Yes," replied Robespierre.

"But who, my God! who?"

"I!"

"You?"

"Yes, I myself!"

And Robespierre unfolded his plans.  When once the Committee of
Public Safety had perished on the scaffold he would be master, a
master strong enough perhaps to do away with the executioner and to
decree clemency!  When would that day come?  He could not tell yet!
Perhaps in a few days!  For the moment it was the vigil of arms.
Nothing was now possible but patience?

Clarisse was listening to a far-off sound which reached them like the
muffled roar of distant waves.  What was that noise?

Robespierre had heard it also and started up pale and nervous.

It was the crowd greeting fresh cartloads of condemned, which were
passing the Place de la Grêve.

Clarisse groaned; she understood!  The death on the scaffold, the
last ride of those condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal!  Lebas
had warned her; it was just the time!  The tumbrils would pass there,
in that street, under these very windows!  Robespierre hastened to
close the shutters.

Clarisse, completely unnerved, gave way to grief and despair.  So,
all those people were doomed to die, because the hour of mercy had
not yet come!  In a few days, Robespierre had said it himself, in a
few days they might be saved!  The unfortunate victims must die on
the very eve of deliverance!  Oh, it was horrible!  horrible!
horrible!

"What can be done?  I am powerless," repeated the Incorruptible.

What! he could do nothing?  Could he not now, at this moment, do what
he thought to do in three days' time?  Could he not call out from the
window to the mob, the long-yearned-for-cry, "Mercy! oh, have mercy!"
He had but to call these words out to the crowd whose idol he was,
and it would be an atonement for all his life.  "Mercy!" and he was a
hero, a savior!  "Mercy!" and his son would no longer have the right
to hate him, and to curse his name!

Robespierre was grieved and distressed beyond measure.  Clarisse did
not know what she was saying!  How could he stop the tumbrils, arrest
that crowd, composed of the very scum of the nation?  Why, there was
not one self-respecting man among them!  Nothing but a mob mad with
the lust of blood.  The only power they feared or respected was the
Terror--the Scaffold!  He, Robespierre, their idol?  Nay, he was not!
Their idol was the executioner!  To fight single-handed against such
a besotted, blinded rabble would be madness, sheer madness!

Clarisse paid no heed, but continued supplicating him with uplifted
hands, deaf to all argument.

The tumult of the mob, which sounded nearer, causing the very sashes
to shake, announced the approach of the tumbrils.  Robespierre, drawn
in spite of himself to the window, partly opened the shutters to look
out, followed by Clarisse who stopped as the hubbub of the crowd grew
suddenly louder, and uttered a stifled cry--

"Here they are!"

Robespierre closed the shutters again.  Tears started to Clarisse's
eyes.  She appealed to the kindly qualities of his youth.  She had
known him ever compassionate and generous.  He had but to call to
mind how he had revolted against injustice, how solicitous he had
ever been for the weak and oppressed.  Think of that time!  Think of
it! and all the spirit of her youth rose to her lips in that cry of
pity for the innocent victims of misrule.  Yes, innocent!  They were
innocent!  And he refused to save them!

"Once more I tell you it is madness," Robespierre groaned in despair.
Would she not understand, it was his death she was crying out for,
her own death too, and the death of her niece?  He had only to
attempt to save those unhappy victims, and the crowd would at once
turn upon him with the fury of wild beasts!  He would be accused of
treason by the _sans-culottes_, and the fishwives dancing yonder
under the windows and howling the _Carmagnole_!  He would be cut to
pieces by the swords of the prison escort, crushed under the
cartwheels, and cast into the gutter by the rabble for having dared
to arrest the reign of Terror!  Was that what Clarisse wanted?  Or
would she perhaps allow him to live still to be able to save her, to
save her niece and her son?

The entrance door was pushed open.  Robespierre turned, and seeing
Urbain understood that Lebas had at last arrived with Olivier.  He
did not, however, wish to be seen by his son.

"Let Citoyen Lebas and his companion wait outside till I have gone,"
he said.

Urbain looked astonished.

"But there is no one with Citoyen Lebas," he replied.

Clarisse started up.

"What! no one?" asked Robespierre.

"And Olivier?" Clarisse said in a low voice, trembling with suspense.

Robespierre moved towards the door and called anxiously to Lebas.
The day was fast closing, the setting sun, peering in through the
half-open shutters, shed a crimson light in the apartment, staining
here and there in patches and streaks the furniture and curtains with
the hue of blood.

Lebas came in alone.

Olivier was no longer at the prison of La Force!

"Escaped?" asked Robespierre breathlessly.

"Unfortunately not!" said Lebas, "but taken by Coulongeon, the
police-agent, by order of the Committee of Public Safety, to ...
Where?  No one could tell!  To the Conciergerie perhaps?"

"Before the Tribunal!" Clarisse almost screamed.

Robespierre was stunned.  The wretched members of the Committee had
placed Olivier on trial!  He had been, perhaps, condemned, and might
even now be on the road to the scaffold, in one of those approaching
tumbrils.  He cried breathlessly to Lebas--

"Oh, quick!  Go down and see!"

Lebas rushed off, and Robespierre ran to the window, Clarisse in mad
despair following him.

"If he is ... you will, you must, cry out to the people that he is
your son!"

Alas!  Could he?  The populace would answer that his son was a
_Chouan_! that he might thank the Tribunal for freeing him from such
disgrace.

Thérèse, drawn from the bedroom by the deafening cries of the crowd,
now entered, trembling with fear.  The carts were there...  She could
hear them!

"Mamma! mamma! do you hear?"

She stopped at sight of Robespierre.

"The friend who saved us," said Clarisse, answering her look of
surprise.

Thérèse went straight to the window, but Clarisse barred the way.

"Oh, no! she must not look at such a spectacle.  Better kneel down
and pray....  Pray for those about to die and for them also, yes for
themselves, with all her soul!"

Thérèse fell on her knees and joined her hands, her large blue eyes,
brimful of tears, lifted towards Saint Gervais, the deserted church,
where the lingering spirit of outraged religion might perhaps
accomplish a miracle!

The terrible tumult now burst on their ears like the rumble of
thunder.  As it drew nearer, separate sounds were distinguishable;
screams, ribald laughter, hooting, degrading clamour, and coarse
jokes reached them; all the hatred and fury of the Parisian populace
was manifest in those hideous revels.  The crowd was ushering the
first tumbril into the Rue du Martroy, preceded by the mænads of the
guillotine, loathsome, drinkbesotted viragoes, who yelled, and
contorted themselves, dancing the _Carmagnole_ in front of the
condemned.  Discordant strains of revolutionary songs rose above the
rumbling of the cart-wheels, the clank of horses' hoofs, and the
cracking of whips.

Robespierre had half opened the shutters, and tried to distinguish
the first cart through the dense crowd.  Clarisse struggled with him
to look also, but the Incorruptible held her back resolutely.

"No; I will look alone!"

"Do you see him?  Tell me; is he there?"

"No," he replied, still preventing her from approaching.

Then, as Robespierre made an eager movement, she gasped in her agony--

"He is there; I know it!" and again she struggled to reach the window.

"I swear to you he is not there!" and exhausted he quitted hold of
her to wipe his brow.

The first tumbril had passed.  The songs and cries of the mob
surrounding it were lost in distance, and these muffled sounds were
mingled with the murmurs of the crowd awaiting the other tumbrils.
Olivier was not in the first.  But the second?  He was perhaps in the
second?

Clarisse would have cried out in her despair, but she struggled
against the mad impulse and suppressed her choking sobs lest she
should reveal the awful truth to Thérèse, who, still on her knees,
her eyes turned to the desecrated church, prayed aloud:

"_Our Father Which art in Heaven; hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom
come; Thy will be done...._"

But she was interrupted by another outburst from the mob announcing
the second tumbril.  Already scraps of the furies' songs reached her
from the distance:

  "_Dansons la Carmagnole!
      Vive le son
      Vive le son
  Dansons la Carmagnole
      Vive le son
      Du canon!..._"


Clarisse, taking advantage in a moment of Robespierre's relaxed
vigilance, pressed nearer to the windows.

"The second cartload!"

"There are two of them," said Robespierre, who, taller than she,
could command a more distant view.

Two! two carts!  It was impossible for Olivier not to be in one of
them.  Clarisse felt it!  He must be there!

"He is there, I feel it....  I tell you he is there!"

In her anxiety to see better she grew regardless of precaution.
Robespierre struggled to draw her from the window.  It was madness.
She might be seen!

Thérèse still raised her voice, choked with tears, in supplications
to heaven:

"_Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour
of our death.  Amen!_"

A cry of anguish rent the air.  Clarisse had recognised Olivier!
"There in that cart!"  Robespierre strained his eyes, half dead with
fear....  "Where?  Where?"  He could not see him!  "Oh yes!  Yes!
there, in the second cart!  That young man standing, his head
bent!..."  And unable longer to contain herself, in the madness of
grief, she placed her hand on the window clasp and would have opened
it; but Robespierre prevented her, and the struggle began again.  No!
she was mistaken!  She need only look!  The young man was raising his
head.

"There, you see, it is not he!"

"Then he must be in another cart!..."  And worn out with agonising
suspense and excitement she sank down in a chair.  Again the noisy
clamour died into the distance.

Robespierre took courage now.  It was surely the last cartload!

"You look!" cried Clarisse....  "I cannot look again!"

Oh! if it were the last!  If it were the last and their torture at an
end!

She leant her head on her hands and closed her eyes, in order to see
no more, while great silent tears trickled through her fingers.

Robespierre lifted the shutters and stopped to look through, but
quickly let them fall again.  Alas!  It was not over!  There was
still another tumbril.  The buzz of sounds advancing gradually
betokened it too well!

In one bound Clarisse was at the window.

"Will it never end!"

Robespierre made a gesture to close her mouth.

"For God's sake, do not scream!"

But Clarisse did not heed him; she would go out!  Out, into the
street!  It was too awful!  She would put an end to it all!
Robespierre held her back with fresh entreaties.  Maddened by the
restraint, she struggled desperately to free herself.

Thérèse, distracted from her orisons by the violence of the scene,
turned her head.  Seeing Clarisse's state, she understood all in a
moment.  Olivier was there in one of those tumbrils!  Olivier was on
the way to the scaffold! ... And Clarisse, now regardless of
consequences, owned the truth.

"Oh yes, Olivier, our Olivier, he is there!  They are going to kill
him!..."

"Olivier! kill him!" repeated Thérèse, half dazed; then the awful
reality rushed suddenly upon her.  She started to her feet with a cry
that echoed through the house.

"Olivier going to die?  Oh! mamma, mamma!"

Robespierre continued his supplications, holding Clarisse, who still
struggled, in his grasp.  She would have her son!  She would go and
demand him from the executioner!  Every mother there would intercede
for her!

"If they will not give him to me, let them kill me, kill me with him!
I will go!  I will go!  I must save my son!  For God's sake, let me
go!"

Robespierre implored Thérèse to help him hold Clarisse back.  The
young girl, realising the madness of the act, appealed also to her
aunt, speaking words of consolation and of hope.

But her voice was drowned in the roar of the mob, that rose and beat
against the window-panes like the waves of an angry sea.

  "_Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!_"

howled the Mænads, flinging their fearful watch-word on the wind,
heralding the dreadful spectacle of advancing doom, dancing a
veritable dance of death.

  "_Ah!  Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
  Les aristocrats à la lanterne;
  Ah!  Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
  Let aristocrats on les pendra._"


Clarisse had now freed herself, and ran to the door to open it.  But
Robespierre, quick as thought, stood before her and barred the way.

"Remain where you are, I charge you!"

Then resolutely and solemnly he added--

"I myself will go!  And if he is in that cart, I will brave all to
save him!"  Seeing that Clarisse seemed doubtful, he added with
emphasis--"I swear it to you!"

A flood of tears, tears of gratitude, was Clarisse's only answer.

"May you be forgiven all for those brave words!" she sobbed.

He led her to a chair near the window, and in a state of exhaustion
she allowed herself to be seated.  Thérèse bending over her forgot
her own tears, in drying those of Clarisse.  Robespierre, drawn to
the window by a fresh outburst in the street, turned and looked out.
There was but one more cart now!  The prison escort followed in the
rear.  It was indeed the last!

The last!  It was the last cartload!  If Olivier was not there, he
was saved!  But he must be!  Alas, he must; where else could he be?
Struggling between hope and fear, Clarisse fell on her knees, and
with clasped hands prayed aloud.

"O Lord, my God! my God!  God of mercy and compassion, grant that my
child may not be there!"

Thérèse had also fallen on her knees beside Clarisse, so that the two
now knelt, locked in each other's arms, and prayers and supplications
rose from both their lips.

  "_Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!_"

howled the mob.

"Lord, my God, have pity on us!" repeated the women.

Robespierre, livid to the lips, continued his agonising watch.

Growing anxious at the silence of the Incorruptible, Clarisse would
have risen, but her strength failed her, and she sank down again on
her knees, her eyes fixed on Olivier's father, trying to read in his
drawn features evidence of his hopes or fears.  Thérèse joined her in
this mute questioning.

Robespierre was alternately raising himself, bending aside, or
stooping lower to see more plainly.

Suddenly he gave an exultant cry--

"He is not there!"

"Are you sure?  Are you sure?" gasped Clarisse, trying to rise.

Thérèse, more easily convinced, kissed the poor mother in a burst of
joy.

"Are you sure?  Are you sure, though?" repeated Clarisse in a
fainting voice.

Robespierre to convince her came and raised her, and supporting her
in his arms, carried her to the window.

"Do you believe me now?" he said.

It was true.  There were only women in the cart.

"Only women!  My God, what a relief!" exclaimed Clarisse leaving the
window.

But she suddenly realised that her mother's heart had made her
selfish and inhuman, and with joined hands she implored pardon of
those unfortunate victims.  She had fallen on her knees again, her
head on the back of a chair, thoroughly prostrate with exhaustion.

Robespierre was now preoccupied with thoughts of Olivier.  He was not
in the tumbrils!  Where was he, then?

Confiding Clarisse to the young girl's care, he took his hat to go.

"Whoever you are, sir, may God bless you!" said Thérèse with a long
look of gratitude.

Robespierre turned and looked earnestly at her.  He tried to speak,
but his voice failed him.  Feeling his eyes fill with tears, he
hurried from the room.

Vague, far-away murmurs came to them from the distance, then ceased
entirely, while the belfry clock of Saint Gervais struck six.




CHAPTER XI

"ALL THESE GLIDING GHOSTS"

On the stairs Robespierre met Urbain who was just coming up.

"Quick! fetch me a hackney-coach!" he called.

The man turned and hurried down the stairs two steps at a time.  A
fiacre was crossing the street, crawling as if waiting for a fare,
and the driver cynically inquired if he should take him to the
scaffold.

"Place du Trône Renversé, _citoyen_?  The fun hasn't commenced yet!"

Urbain opened the door while Robespierre gave the address: "To the
Committee of Public Safety! and make haste!"

He then threw himself back in the carriage, which turned round, and
rolled rapidly in the direction of the Tuileries.  The Incorruptible
would soon have the key to the mystery!  The police-agent of the
Committee, Coulongeau, could tell him at once where to find Olivier.
He would wring the secret from him by force if necessary!

When he arrived at the Tuileries, Robespierre looked vainly for the
police-agent; he wandered from room to room, questioning every one he
met, putting the whole official staff at their wits' end, but no
Coulongeau was to be found.

The absence of the police-agent confirmed Robespierre's suspicions.
Olivier must then be at the Conciergerie under guard.

"Oh!  I can be there in time!" he thought, and leaving the Tuileries,
he went home to supper at the Duplays.

It was now seven.  The family, who had waited supper for Robespierre
and Lebas, were growing anxious, as they knew that the sitting of the
Convention had been long finished.  Duplay, who had just returned
from the Revolutionary Tribunal, took an optimistic view of things.
The sitting had been certainly a failure for Robespierre, but he was
not a man to be trifled with!  He would promptly retaliate, and
assuredly the meeting at the Jacobin Club that evening would turn the
tables upon his foes.  The women with one consent decided to attend,
feeling it was but right to show their sympathy, though Duplay raised
a few feeble objections, mainly as a matter of form.

"But since you are so sure we shall be victorious," urged little
Maurice ingenuously, "what do we risk?"

Robespierre appeared at that moment, his face drawn and haggard.  He
tried, however, to smile as if nothing were amiss before the family,
and said, in answer to inquiries for Lebas, "He will soon be here; I
saw him less than an hour ago."

"Where?"

"At the Hôtel de Ville."

They understood, of course.  Robespierre and Lebas had been to assure
themselves that the forces of the Commune were in readiness in case
some fresh phase of affairs might force the Incorruptible to break
the bounds of the law; and when they proposed to go with him to the
Jacobin Club after supper he seemed touched, and, feeling sure of
success, was not unwilling that his intimate friends should witness
his triumph.

The front door opened.  It was Lebas returning, completely out of
breath, from the Place du Trône.  After having assured himself that
Olivier was not in the tumbrils, he had gone, to be quite certain, to
the very foot of the scaffold.  The Incorruptible met him with
questioning looks.

"You can be at rest!  He is safe for to-day..."

"Yes, I know," said Robespierre, "but have you found out where he is?"

"No," answered Lebas.

"He can only be at the Conciergerie, then.  I will go there this
evening after the meeting at the Jacobins."

Supper was soon over.  Robespierre wished to be at the Jacobins at
eight o'clock, at the very beginning of the sitting, for fear of
being taken unawares by the Committee, who were capable of anything.

"I am sure my worst enemies will be there," he muttered to Duplay,
who assured him to the contrary, as the family started along the Rue
Sainte-Honoré in anxious groups.  The Incorruptible walked ahead, at
some distance from them; Cornélie noticed in astonishment that he did
not offer her his arm as usual, and said so to Lebas, who, forcing a
smile, answered, "He is so preoccupied just now!"

Cornélie tossed her head.  It was not the first time she had
accompanied him to the Jacobin Club in times of anxiety, and on those
days he was most attentive, and seemed to feel in special need of
sympathy.  Lebas did not reply, thinking of Clarisse and Olivier,
whilst Cornélie continued her threnody of woes.  Robespierre was a
few paces in front of her, walking alone, and did not even turn to
bestow on her a single glance.

"Something is amiss," she said.  "I never saw him thus before."

He was in fact thinking of Clarisse, of her joy a few hours hence to
have her son again, for Robespierre would take Olivier from the
Conciergerie directly he was sure of his triumph at the Jacobins; he
thought also of this triumph, now so certain, which would seem all
the greater if Clarisse could witness it.  She would see then how
highly he was esteemed, admired, and loved by all true, honest
Republicans, by all staunch soldiers of justice and humanity.
Suddenly he stopped at the door of the Jacobins, and went in without
even turning to see if any one was following.

This building, once the property of the monks of St. James, had
recently been turned by the Revolutionists into a political club.  A
powerful party reigned there, exercising an occult influence on the
direction of public affairs and on the rulings of the Convention,
whom they terrorised by their democratic arrogance and their violent,
obstinate fanaticism.

The meetings were held in a part of the building formerly known as
the convent-church, opening on to a long gallery hung with portraits
of monks, which led to the ancient library.  At the lower end of this
assembly-room an altar was still standing, stripped of all its
ornaments and symbols of sacred services, now forgotten in the hall
where fierce fanatics, breathing slaughter, hounded to death the
victims of the guillotine.

When empty, with its amphitheatre, its presidential stand, its
tribune, the room had the aspect of an ordinary debating hall.  When
full, it was a tribunal of inquisition, the headquarters of terror
and of fear.

Robespierre had become the ruling spirit of the Club.  He was their
lord-paramount, whose word was absolute, and he was greeted on his
appearance by a thunder of applause.  The hall was filled with an
enthusiastic crowd, exasperated at the partial defeat of their idol
at the Tuileries.  Robespierre, deeply touched, returned their
salutations gratefully, and re-read his speech prepared for the
Convention, interrupted at every point by loud approval.  In order to
stir their minds to the necessary pitch of excitement, he spoke of
this as his last testament, and so induced another outburst of
extravagant sympathy.

"I will die with you, Robespierre!" called out one deputy.

"Your enemies are the enemies of the whole nation!" cried another.
"Say the word, and they shall no longer exist!"

Robespierre looked at them with eyes full of gratitude.  He was
hoping that some one would commence an attack, that he might
retaliate there and then, and so accentuate his triumph.  He had
perceived among the crowd his adversaries, Billaud-Varennes and
Collot d'Herbois.  They tried to speak, and were hissed; they
persisted, and were greeted with cries of "To death with them!"
Daggers even were drawn, and they had scarcely time to escape.

The name of Robespierre was in every mouth in that vast hall,
acclaimed with cries of wild approval that re-echoed to the very
Tuileries.

The Duplay family, as may be imagined, beside themselves with joy,
waited for Robespierre outside, but he was nowhere to be seen.  It
was in vain they inquired of every likely passer-by.  He had
completely disappeared.

Leaving the Assembly-room among the first he had slipped out under
cover of night, taking a short cut to the Tuileries, whose dark mass
aided his further flight.  For he was flying from his glorification,
escaping from his rabid admirers, who would have borne him in triumph
through the streets of sleeping Paris, making them ring with
thunderous shouts of triumph.  Creeping along the side of the walls,
his face muffled in his collar, he hastened his steps to the
Conciergerie, and as he walked his thoughts reverted to the subject
of his reception.  The Jacobins' enthusiasm must have resounded to
the chamber of the Committee of Public Safety, and fallen like a
thunderbolt among the traitors in the very midst of their dark plots!
The effect must have been terrible!  He already pictured the
Convention appealing to him with servile supplication, delivering the
Committee into his hands, and asking the names of his enemies, that
they might pass sentence on them all.  He smiled triumphantly as he
crossed the Pont-Neuf, without casting a glance at the splendid
spectacle which lay at his feet on either side of the bridge; for it
was July, and all the glory of a summer sky studded with stars was
mirrored in the stream.

He walked on quickly, wrapt in his own thoughts.  Ah! not only did
they wish to ruin him, but they would have sent Olivier to his death!
He had forestalled them, however.  The very next day they should take
his son's vacant place in that same Conciergerie, the antechamber of
the guillotine!

Robespierre had reached the quay, and was now at the foot of the
Silver Tower, whose pointed spire stood out in the moonlight like a
gigantic finger raised to heaven.  It was in that tower that
Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor of the Revolutionary
Tribunal--death's henchman--lived.  Robespierre scanned the windows.
All lights were out.  Fouquier slept, then?  What brute
insensibility!  But he would sleep also, he told himself.  Ah, yes!
the terrors of the scaffold would soon be over!  No more butchery, no
more guillotine!  He had promised it to the mother of his son, and he
would keep his word ... he would, within three days.

Reaching the side entrance of the Conciergerie, he gave three knocks,
and a grating was opened in the door.

"It is I--Citoyen Robespierre."

The gate swung back on its hinges, and a voice was heard exclaiming--

"_Salut et fraternité, citoyen!_"

It was Collas, the turnkey, on duty.

"I want Citoyen Fouquier-Tinville."

"He has not returned, _citoyen_."

Robespierre betrayed impatience.

"Can I do anything for you, _citoyen_?" said Collas.

"I wish to know if you have among your prisoners a certain Germain,
lately at La Force prison."

"Well, we can see that on the prison register, _citoyen_.  Nothing
will be easier, if the registrar is still here.  Let me ascertain
through the watchman.  Would you care to follow me?  Just wait a
moment; I have not the keys."

Collas went back into his lodge, and returned with a bunch of keys.
Then, taking down a lantern from the wall, he commenced threading the
mazy alleys of the Conciergerie, followed by the Incorruptible.  It
was the first time Robespierre had entered this prison in which so
many of his victims had been immured.  The two men turned into the
old banqueting hall of the Kings of France, a long gallery with a
vaulted ceiling of oval arches supported on massive pillars; keeping
to the left, they came upon an iron trellised gate, which the turnkey
opened.  Robespierre found himself in a railed enclosure, a kind of
antechamber leading to another vaulted gallery, which in the dim
light seemed of indefinite length.  Two towering gates on the left
opened into a court on which the moon shone, lighting up vividly a
pile of buildings surrounded with grey arcades.

As Robespierre and the turnkey advanced they came upon a man sleeping
in a chair, with a lantern at his feet.  It was the night watchman.

"Hallo, Barassin!" called the turnkey, shaking his bunch of keys in
his ears.

The man woke with a start.  At the mention of Robespierre he rose in
a tremor of fear at being caught slumbering on duty.  He excused
himself profusely--he had been so hard-worked this last month; there
was no sleeping at all with the cart-loads of prisoners coming at
every moment.  Then, with officious zeal, he invited Robespierre to
remain with him while Collas went to ascertain if the registrar was
still there, though this was very unlikely at that late hour.  The
turnkey went on his errand.

"What part of the prison is this?" asked Robespierre, looking around.

"We are between the two gates, _citoyen_.  Have you never been to the
Conciergerie before?"

"No; never."

Now was his chance!  Barassin had a subject to interest the
Incorruptible, and he launched forth into a long description,
overcrowded with details.

On the other side of that little door to the right was the ward of
the male prisoners.  Here at the end was the women's courtyard,
facing the arched building in which were their cells.  Robespierre
had but to advance a little, and he could see through the gate the
fountain in which they washed their linen, for they remained dainty
to the last, and wished to ascend the scaffold in spotless clothes.
Barassin laughed a loud brutish laugh, happy at the seeming interest
Robespierre took in his explanations.

"Is the Recorder's office on the left, then?" questioned the
Incorruptible, his eyes fixed on the dark gallery through which the
turnkey had disappeared.

Barassin began another string of details.  Yes, that gallery led to
it, and to the exit as well, through the concierge's lodge, where the
condemned had their hair cut after the roll-call.

"The call takes place here, just where you are standing," he
explained.

Robespierre started, and moved away.  His eyes rested on the long
line of cells, whose doors were lost in long perspective under the
vaulted archway he had noticed on his entrance, and which had seemed
so vast through the iron bars of the second gate.  He lowered his
voice to ask if those cells were occupied.  Barassin's reply
reassured him; there was no one there just then.  Then, indicating a
cell opposite Robespierre, the watchman continued, carried away by
his subject--

"This is the cell in which the Queen was locked up."

He opened a panel in the door that Robespierre might glance within.
The Incorruptible hesitated at first, and as he bent over resolutely
to look, Barassin found further material for his questionable wit:

"It's not such a palace as her Versailles, eh?"

Robespierre quickly closed the aperture, on the outside of which he
perceived a black cross.

"What! a cross?" he exclaimed, staring the while at the sign of
redemption.

The watchman told him that some prisoner had probably daubed this
cross on the panel after the Queen's death.  The prisoners always
stopped before it to pray, and it was their habit to scribble in that
way over the prison walls with pencils, or even nails.

"Why, here's your name!" he chuckled, highly amused.

Robespierre shuddered.

"My name?"

Barassin raised his lantern, throwing the light on an inscription in
large letters on the wall, under some prison notices.

The Incorruptible read--

"We shall be avenged, Robespierre, monster! your turn will come!"

The watchman swung his lantern from place to place, lighting up, for
the Incorruptible's benefit, other ominous inscriptions addressed to
him.

"Robespierre, the tyrant!"

"Robespierre, the assassin!"

The Incorruptible turned pale.

He was well accustomed to insult and abuse, no doubt, but these
imprecations on the walls, in that gruesome and silent prison, seemed
like the last curses of the dead, written in letters of fire and
blood!

"They must occupy themselves, I suppose!" remarked Barassin, still
laughing.

The Incorruptible turned away, feeling ill at ease.  Again he
questioned the man, fixing him the while as if he would fathom the
depths of his experience.  Did he keep watch every night?  He must
have witnessed some heart-rending scenes?  Was he not disturbed in
his sleep, living thus in continual contact with the dread spectre of
death?  Could he really sleep?  Did not the cries of the victims
disturb his slumber?  Was he not haunted by their solemn leavetakings
and their sobs?

Citoyen Robespierre could rest assured!  Barassin slept soundly
enough!  Such fancies were very well for women!  In the first place,
the dead never returned, and then, after all, it was not Barassin who
killed the victims, was it?

Steps were heard advancing, and the turnkey made his reappearance.
The registrar had gone away and taken the keys with him.  It was
impossible to get at the prison register.  He then suggested that
Robespierre should go with him to the men's ward.

"Let us awake the prisoners.  If the man you seek is there you will
easily recognize him."

The Incorruptible refused, starting involuntarily.  He had no wish to
be seen by the prisoners.

Then, there was but one course left.  Barrassin might accompany him,
and speak to the men's turnkey, who would look for this Germain from
bed to bed, and Barassin would bring back to Robespierre the result
of the inquiry, as he himself had to return to his post.  Robespierre
would have to wait a little while, of course.  And Collas moved the
watchman's chair towards him.

"Very good!  I will wait, but be quick!"

The two men went away, turning to the left, through the small gate,
which Barassin carefully closed behind him.  Robespierre followed the
watchman with his eyes.

"Happy brute!  He can sleep in peace!" he exclaimed.

So this man's sleep was not disturbed by such horrible visions as
haunted Robespierre!  But then, as the watchman said, _he_ had not
killed the victims; his name had not been inscribed on these walls as
a term and brand of infamy and hatred.

That writing on the wall seemed to be dancing before his eyes.
"Robespierre, assassin; your turn will come!"  So this was the cry
which rose from every breast!  If he was vanquished in the morrow's
struggle, if he had to ascend the scaffold without having
accomplished the act of social regeneration of which he had so long
dreamt, he would leave behind him the execrated memory of a despot
and bloodthirsty tyrant!  His name would be coupled with all the
monsters of history!  Robespierre would be cited by posterity side by
side with Nero, Caligula, Tiberius!

Stepping slowly towards the watchman's seat, he sat down sideways,
his eyes fixed, like a somnambulist's, and his arm resting on the
back of the chair, as he repeated in a low murmur--

"Your turn will come!"

Almost the same dread, ominous words had the night before forced him
to start up suddenly, and impelled him to rush towards the window of
his room.

"Arise, Robespierre, arise?  Your hour has come!"

It was the shade of Camille Desmoulins that had uttered the grim
summons!  Camille, accompanied by his wife, the pale and sweet
Lucile, sought to draw him to them, to drag him along with them on
the blood-strewn way to which they had been doomed!  But the phantoms
had all vanished with the refreshing dawn.  It was fever, of course!
He was subject to it; it peopled his sleep with harrowing visions and
fearful dreams.  But these were nothing but excited hallucinations,
creatures of his overwrought brain....

Robespierre had now closed his eyes, overcome with fatigue, and still
continued the thread of his thoughts and fancies.  His ideas were
becoming confused.  He was vaguely wondering whether such imaginings
were due to fever after all?  If this was not the case, it was
perhaps his conscience that awakened from its torpor, and rose at
night to confront him with his victims?  Yes, his conscience that
relentlessly gnawed at his heart-strings, and wrung from him a
gasping confession of alarm!  Had not Fouquier-Tinville seen the
Seine one night from his terrace rolling waves of blood?  This was
also a mere delusion ... the outcome of remorse, perhaps?  Remorse?
Why?  Remorse for a just deed, for a work of redemption?  No!  It
sprung rather from a diseased imagination caused by an over-excited
and over-active brain, which, weakened by excess, clothed the
simplest objects with supernatural attributes.

Robespierre's eyes were now half-closed, and wandered dreamily to the
women's courtyard, where grey arches stood out in clear and sharp
relief under the soft moonlight.  He was in deep reverie, wondering
what could be the true cause of such strange illusions, and as he
wondered, examples from past history came crowding to his mind.

Yes ... did not Brutus imagine that he saw the shade of Cæsar gliding
into his tent, when it could have been nothing but the flicker of a
lamp on the curtains moved by the wind, or a moonbeam playing, as
that one yonder, on a pillar?

As he gazed his eyes dilated in horror.  It was no moonbeam.  The
outlines of a woman's form, ethereal and transparent, stood
motionless against the pillar.  It moved!  Another form, white and
shadowy, glided towards the first, and a third emerged from the dim
background and joined them.  Robespierre followed every movement with
horror-stricken gaze.  He rose, crept nearer: was he awake, or was it
indeed a dream?  Had he again fallen a prey to delusions at the very
moment when he was persuading himself of their unreality?  He was not
asleep!  He was wide awake!  He felt the hot blood coursing through
his veins, he walked to and fro, and was completely self-possessed!
He knew he was at the Conciergerie, and had come to fetch his son
Olivier.  A little while ago he had conversed with two men there, on
that very spot, the turnkey and the night watchman.  And yet his
nervous imagination conjured up before his eyes those chimerical
visions clothed with the semblance of reality!  For, of course, he
was not deceived, he knew well enough they were unreal delusions, and
yet he felt nervous and ill at ease!

"What strange beings we are!" he thought.  "Poor human nature!  We
pride ourselves on our strength of mind, and yet we are subject to
such hallucinations!"

Again he was startled from his musings.  Other forms suddenly
appeared in the white moonlit courtyard, walking slowly up and down,
in pairs, singly, or in groups.  They came and went, stopped,
conversed with or took leave of each other, all in a great hush,
without seeming to notice the Incorruptible, who in his fear kept as
much as possible aloof, never moving his eyes from them a moment.

Suddenly, he uttered a cry.  He had bent forward to examine their
features and had recognised ... Madame Roland! ... Madame Roland! ...
and Madame Elizabeth, the king's sister; ... Good God! and there was
Charlotte Corday, the girl who had killed Marat!  The courtyard
filled with new forms, blanched and wan, gliding about with
supernatural grace in the pale moonlight.  Robespierre stood rooted
to the spot, seized with wild terror.

"Am I mad?" he asked himself.

Ghosts!  Yes, they were ghosts!  What! was he going to believe in
ghosts, like old women and children?  It was folly, crass folly, and
he repeated aloud--"Madness! sheer madness!"

But what did it all mean!  What were those wandering forms which
reminded him of beings long dead?  Were they subtle effluences of
their bodies that could pass through the prison walls, invisible by
day, but luminous at night, as phosphorescent spectres were said to
flit among tombstones in churchyards by moonlight, to the dismay of
the weak and credulous.

"Yes, the weak and credulous!" he repeated, in a voice which quavered
none the less, "the weak and credulous, easily prone to fear and
remorse..."

He went towards the gate of the men's ward livid with fright, in the
hope that the watchman would come and put an end to these harrowing
phantasms.

He cried out in desperation--

"Does the man never mean to come!"

At that moment a man's form appeared in the gallery to his right, and
he went towards it hopefully.  Barassin?  But he recoiled.  No! it
was not he!  The form grew more distinct, others followed.  There
were now six, eight, ten, twenty of them, a band of prisoners slowly
and silently moving towards the gate.  They were coming, all coming!
He recognised them:

"The Girondins! .. Brissot! .. Vergniaud! .."

Were all his victims then going to show themselves behind those iron
bars like avengers, to torture and madden him?

Robespierre was suddenly dazzled by a stream of moonlight
illuminating an iron grating just above him, which he had not noticed
on his entrance.  Outlines of fresh forms appeared behind the bars,
gradually growing more distinct.  They were the ghosts of other
victims!  For he recognised them, while they, apparently, were
unconscious of his presence.

He took his eyes off these for a moment to see if the spectres
gathered behind the grating of the ground floor were still there.
Yes!  They were still there.  They were everywhere then?  Everywhere!
... What were they doing?  Why did they come and force the past upon
him in this way?  After spending the day in struggling with the
living, must his nights be spent in encounters with the dead?  He
continued staring in mute and fascinated horror, as motionless as
those ghosts gathered behind the closed grill, and seeming to await
the gruesome roll-call of the condemned.

At their silence he presently took heart.  None of them had their
eyes fixed on him.  This was proof, he thought, that they existed
only in his imagination.  For, after all, if they were real, they
would have stared at him in anger, with terrible and threatening
looks ... they would have rushed upon him, one and all.  Those iron
barriers would have yielded to their united effort, and burst asunder!

Even as he thought this the gratings swung back noiselessly.

Robespierre recoiled, his flesh creeping, cold beads of perspiration
starting on his forehead.

The gates had opened!  It was all true then!  They were real!  The
whole array of spectres was coming down upon him!  They were
advancing slowly, they were entering the courtyard!  No, they had not
seen him!  Robespierre was still retreating, step by step.

"They haven't seen me!" he gasped.  If he could gain the passage to
the left of the archway, which was the only exit available, he was
safe!  He would escape them!  For they were not likely to follow him
into the street....

He reached the vaulted passage, stepping cautiously backwards,
keeping them in sight all the while, like a criminal in dread of
detection.  But at the entrance of the passage Danton and Camille
Desmoulins confronted him.

"Danton!  Camille!"

He started back, shaking with fear.  Every exit was barred!

These two noted victims were advancing carelessly, conversing
together.  They had not noticed him either!

The door of the Queen's cell now moved.

What! was that going to open too?

Marie Antoinette appeared on the threshold, descended the few steps
and joined the others, who all made deep obeisance at the approach of
their sovereign.

The Queen! it was indeed the Queen!

Robespierre felt now that he was lost.  Flight had become impossible.
The one remaining means of escape was by the little grating of the
men's courtyard.  He tried to reach it, still walking backwards,
without once losing sight of the apparitions, his arms stretched
behind him, every muscle strained, and both hands clenched
convulsively.  He soon came in contact with the grating, and tried to
push it open with his back.  Not succeeding he abruptly turned round.
It was locked!  He tried madly to force it, but the massive iron bars
proved too much for his strength.  He seized and shook the lattice in
his agony.  The rattling noise made him turn quickly, thinking all
the spectres had come down upon him.  But no!  They stood still in
the same places, motionless, and apparently unconscious of his
presence.  But this could not last; ... they must see him sooner or
later!  And if he were seen he would surely be the prey of these
arisen tenants of the tomb!  He wiped the cold sweat from his brow,
panting and breathless, and made a sudden frantic effort in his
overwhelming panic to repel the ghastly vision, turning away from it.

"It is absurd!  The dead never return!" he cried, stamping violently.

He persuaded himself that it was only necessary to disbelieve in it
and the vision would fade, to refuse to look, and he would no longer
see the phantoms.  He then turned round boldly, as if to prove his
words.

Every eye was upon him.  They appeared terrible in the awful majesty
of their wrongs, as if accusing him, as if judging him.  He remained
motionless, terror-stricken.  Yes, they were all looking at him!
Slowly, silently they glided towards him.

"Oh! no further! no further!" he cried.  "I implore you!  I am
frightened!..."

Every limb trembled, as he thus prayed them to desist.

"Oh yes!  I know what you are going to say, I see the word trembling
on your lips: 'Assassin!'"

The victims seemed to him to bend their heads in mute assent.  He
feared they would speak, and hastened to prevent them....  Yes, he
was an assassin, he knew it! ... It was just and right they should
call him so!  He knew, yes, he knew, what they wanted of him....  He
must set free the prisoners, overthrow the scaffold?

The victims again nodded approval.

Yes! ... Yes! ... he would do everything, anything they asked.  He
swore it to them....

"But in pity go!  I entreat you!  Oh go! in pity, go and leave me!"

The spectres remained motionless, their eyes still fixed upon him.

"Mercy!" he cried.  "Have mercy!"

Yes, mercy! ... he begged for mercy!  Their looks would kill him!  He
could not bear it any longer!  It was too much!  His fright now
bordered on madness, and he cried out: "Let me alone!  I am
frightened!  horribly frightened!"

So saying he tottered forward, ready to drop from exhaustion, and
tried to grasp the back of the chair for support.  But it gave way.

"Help! help!" he screamed.

"Hullo! who's calling?" cried a voice outside.

It was Barassin returning from the registrar's office.  He opened the
grating and entered, then drew back in bewilderment at the sight of
Robespierre on the ground, his head buried in his hands.  The
watchman at once thought that he must have fallen asleep on the
chair, and slipped on to the paved courtyard.  He laid down his
lantern, and tried to raise the Incorruptible.  Robespierre awoke and
lifted his haggard eyes.  At sight of the man he violently pushed him
away.

"I see, you're not quite awake yet!" laughed Barassin.

Robespierre rubbed his eyes, and looked anxiously around.

"You've had a dream? ... A nightmare, eh?"

"Yes!" answered Robespierre, now himself again.  "I have had a
fearful dream."  Then rising with difficulty, he fell exhausted on
the chair which the watchman held out to him.

Barassin now told Robespierre the result of his quest.  They had
interrogated the prisoners, from bed to bed.  The young man he sought
was not among them.

Robespierre, still uneasy, and casting anxious and furtive glances in
every corner, expressed his thanks.

Suddenly he rose and seized Barassin by the arm.

"Are we alone, here?" he asked.

"Why, yes!" answered the man in some surprise.

"Then let us go!" said Robespierre, impatiently, "let us go at once!"

Barassin took his lantern, and walked in front.

"This way!" he said, opening the wicket through which they had
entered.

In the gallery Robespierre again seized the man's arm, and bent
forward to see if the way was clear; then feeling immense relief, he
rushed towards the exit, almost running, and followed with difficulty
by Barassin, who with the lantern dangling in his hand could scarcely
keep pace with him.

"Hallo!  Citoyen Robespierre!" he panted, "you're going too fast!"

But the Incorruptible continued his headlong flight.




CHAPTER XII

THE EVE OF THE BATTLE

Robespierre could breathe again.  He was once more in the open, the
silent stars above him, the Seine flecked with white bars of
reflected moonlight, flowing at his feet.  But he dared not linger
there.  He turned quickly, and darted along close to the walls,
fearing that for him, as once for Fouquier-Tinville, the water would
take the crimson hue of blood.  By slow degrees he became calmer.
Refreshing gusts of cool night air fanned his fevered brow, and
restored him to reality.  He thought of Olivier again.  If he were
not in the Conciergerie, where could he be?

Entering the inner court of the Tuileries, at first he seemed
undecided, and then, as if under a sudden impulse, went straight
towards the Pavilion of Liberty.  The Committee of Public Safety held
its meetings there, in the very apartment once occupied by Louis XVI.
This committee usually worked far into the night, and Robespierre was
sure of finding some one.  As he expected, he met Billaud-Varennes
and Collot d'Herbois, who were crossing the vestibule of the ground
floor at that moment.  He accosted them angrily, for the two men, who
had been hissed and hooted at the Jacobin Club, now seemed to exult,
as though they held some secret threat over his head.  The ironical
smiles he fancied he saw playing round their lips aggravated his fury.

"So you have released the prisoner I sent to La Force?" he cried.

"Quite true!" replied Billaud-Varennes, relishing Robespierre's
discomfiture as a set-off against the Jacobins' hooting.

"For what reason?"

"To cross-examine him."

"Where is he?"

"That is for you to find out."

"I command you to send him back immediately to La Force!"

"We receive no orders from you!"

"Then it is to be war between us?  You shall have it, scoundrels! war
to the knife!  And to-morrow too!" and turning away abruptly, he went
towards the steps, and pushed the door open in a violent rage.

Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois retraced their steps to apprise
their colleagues at the Convention of their stormy interview with
Robespierre.  But on the threshold of the Assembly-room Billaud
stopped his companion.

"Wait a moment," he said, "let me cross-examine the young man first."

So saying, he went upstairs to the attics, where Olivier had been
locked up ever since five o'clock under the charge of a gendarme, to
whom Coulongeon, the Committee's agent, had confided him, with strict
orders that the prisoner was to be kept entirely out of sight until
the Committee had decided on his fate.


Coulongeon was one of the sharpest detectives of the Committee.  It
was he who, disguised as a beggar, had been the object of Blount's
sudden barks in the forest of Montmorency, where he had witnessed the
interview between Robespierre and Vaughan.  Driven away by
Robespierre's agents, he had gone immediately to the entrance of the
forest, expecting vainly the Englishman's reappearance.

On his return to Paris the same evening he had reported his discovery
at once to the Committee of Public Safety.  Billaud-Varennes rubbed
his hands gleefully.  He was on the scent of a plot.  An Englishman?
That could be no other than Vaughan, Fox's agent, who was known to
have been already two days in Paris.  Ah!  Robespierre had secret
interviews with him, had he?  A plot, of course!  It was splendid!
Nothing could be more opportune!

"Run quickly, and ascertain if the Englishman is still at the
American Consulate, while we draw up the warrant of arrest!" was his
immediate order.

But at the Consulate the detective was told that Vaughan had just
left Paris.  Suspecting a trick, he took other means to continue his
inquiries, only to find after all that the Englishman had started for
Geneva directly after leaving Montmorency.

The members of the Committee were greatly disappointed on learning
that the plot must remain unravelled, for how could they prove the
interview without witnesses?  Coulongeon was the only one who had
seen Robespierre speaking with Vaughan, but he was in the pay of the
Committee, and no one would believe him.  They rested their hopes on
the probable return of the Englishman, but they waited to no purpose,
and were finally obliged to abandon the attempt.

One evening, however, Coulongeon had brought the Committee an
unlooked-for piece of news.  Having had a message to take to the
prison of La Bourbe, he had found himself in the Acacia courtyard
among the prisoners just at their supper-hour.  Two female prisoners
had attracted his attention.  It seemed to him as if it was not the
first time he had seen them, and after searching his memory for a
moment, he recognised them as the two women who were with Vaughan in
the forest of Montmorency before Robespierre arrived on the scene.
Yes, he remembered it all now!  It was so!  There was not the
slightest doubt!  The gaoler, when questioned, completely confirmed
his suspicions.  The women did come from Montmorency, where they had
been arrested by Robespierre's orders.  "Now we have two witnesses!"
Billaud-Varennes cried in delight.

"Three!" the agent interjected.  "For, now I come to think of it,
there was a young man with them."

"He must be found also!  Quick to Montmorency, and bring him back
with you!"

At Montmorency, after two days of fruitless search, the detective
discovered Clarisse's house in the forest.  The gardener on being
interrogated replied that he was completely ignorant of the
whereabouts of Olivier, who had disappeared the very day his mother
and his _fiancée_ were arrested....  Perhaps Leonard the locksmith
could tell him.  Questioned in his turn, Leonard replied evasively.
Coulongeon then informed him who he was, and threatened him with the
law, so that Leonard ended by owning that the young man had started
the same night for Paris.  He swore that was all he knew.
Coulongeon, pretending to be quite satisfied, thanked him and went
away.  But returning soon after he adroitly questioned the neighbours
on Leonard's connections and acquaintances.  The agent learnt that
when the locksmith went to Paris he took up his abode in furnished
apartments in the Rue de Rocher, kept by a certain widow Beaugrand.

"Now I am on the right track," thought Coulongeon.

Once back in Paris the agent had little difficulty in making the good
woman speak.  Did the widow Beaugrand know the young man?  Pardieu!
She knew him too well!  He was the daring insulter of Robespierre,
the young madman arrested on the Fête of the Supreme Being who was
now imprisoned at La Force.

The joy of the Committee knew no bounds, when they learnt the news on
leaving the hall of the Convention on the 8th Thermidor.

Billaud-Varennes, as can be imagined, was also overjoyed.

"We will have the three prisoners out of gaol, at once, and keep them
here at hand."

Two orders of release had been immediately drafted, one for the
prison of La Bourbe, the other for La Force.

Coulongeon had gone first of all to La Force to fetch Olivier, whom
he conducted straight to the Tuileries and locked in a little chamber
above the Committee-room under charge of a gendarme.  But at the
prison of La Bourbe he was too late; the two women had been taken
away by Lebas, under an order of release from Robespierre.

On his return the police-agent had sought Billaud-Varennes to apprise
him of the result of his errand, but finding that he was away until
after the meeting of the Jacobins, he left a sealed note for him with
full particulars.

Billaud received this on his return from the Jacobins accompanied by
Collot d'Herbois.

"Out of three witnesses, only one is left to us!" he exclaimed on
reading it.  "The most important one, however!  We have the man
himself who insulted the traitor!  We must cross-examine him
directly.  It will be amusing."

Robespierre just then appeared on the scene and hastened the
examination by his violent outburst.

Billaud-Varennes began to cross-examine Olivier in the little chamber
above the Committee-room.  The young man knew nothing of the plot.
Robespierre might have had an interview with Vaughan in the forest,
this was very possible, but he, Olivier, had left just after the
Englishman's arrival.

"You spoke to him, I suppose?"

"To whom?"

"To Vaughan."

"Why, yes!  I exchanged a few words with him."

"You knew him, then?"

"My mother knew him.  He was an old friend of hers."

"She knew then what he came to Montmorency for?"

"Not in the least.  It was quite a chance-meeting.  He had lost his
way, when they..."

"And you know absolutely nothing of what passed after your departure?"

"Nothing, except that my mother and my _fiancée_ were arrested by
Robespierre's infamous orders."

Billaud-Varennes left the room greatly disappointed.  He wondered if,
after all, Olivier was telling the truth.

"However, the young man has the night to reflect over it," he said to
himself, as he descended the stair.  "I will question him again
to-morrow after having conferred with the Committee, perhaps by that
time he will have decided to speak!  And yet I cannot but think he
was sincere."

With this he re-entered the room where his colleagues were assembled.
But such an extraordinary scene of animation presented itself when he
opened the door that he forgot the object of his visit.

This Committee-room, like the others next to it, formed part of a
suite of apartments recently belonging to the King.  It offered a
strange spectacle, with its mixture of elegance and vulgarity, which
said more than words for the ravages of the Revolution.

Over the five doors, two of which opened on to a long corridor, the
royal arms surmounted by a crown had been roughly erased.  The walls
and panels of the doors were covered with printed decrees of the
Convention, and tricolour placards were pasted up everywhere.  This
array of Revolutionary literature struck the observer as at once
ominous and pathetic, in the midst of all the grace and beauty of
that white and gold reception-room, decorated in the purest Louis XV.
style, with its daintily carved cornices and painted ceiling, where
Nymphs and Cupids sported in the glowing spring-tide among flowers.
The contrast was even more apparent in the furniture.  Gilded
armchairs covered with rare tapestry, now all torn, stood side by
side with plain deal seats, some of which were very rickety.  A
sideboard laden with eatables and wine-bottles completed the
installation of the Terror in the palace of the Tuileries.

Billaud-Varennes was still standing there on the threshold.  Collot
d'Herbois, surrounded by Barère, Carnot, Prieur, and Elie Lacoste,
was violently addressing Saint-Just, Robespierre's friend, who was
seated at the table, engaged in writing the speech he was to deliver
before the Convention on the morrow.  Saint-Just, calm and
contemptuous, replied to their insults by a shrug of the shoulders.
This disdain exasperated Collot d'Herbois beyond measure, and
Saint-Just aggravated him still more by ironical inquiries about the
Jacobins' meeting.

"You are nothing more than a traitor!" cried Collot; "it is our
indictment you are drawing up there, I suppose?"

"Yes, traitor! threefold traitor!" exclaimed Elie Lacoste.  "Traitor
and perjurer, you form with Robespierre and Couthon a triumvirate of
calumny, falsehood, and betrayal."

Saint-Just, without losing self-possession a moment, stopped in his
writing, and coldly offered to read them his speech.

Barère disdainfully refused to listen.

"We fear neither you nor your accomplices!  You are but a child,
Couthon a miserable cripple, and as to Robespierre..."

At this moment an usher brought in a letter to Barère.  He looked
uneasy after he had read it, and signed to his colleagues to follow,
leaving Saint-Just free to continue his work.  In the lobby Barère
told them it was a letter from Lecointre announcing the approaching
attack upon the Committee by the troops of the Commune, and offering
the battalion of his section for their defence.

"It is exactly as I told you!" cried Elie Lacoste.  "The leaders of
the Commune must be instantly arrested, and with them Robespierre and
his two accomplices!"

"Commencing with Saint-Just and his speech," said Collot.

"Robespierre was here just now," observed Billaud-Varennes, who had
followed his colleagues out of the room; "he wanted to know what we
had done with the prisoner from La Force.  We told him we had not to
render account to him, whereupon he went away in a rage, crying out,
'You want war?  War you shall have then!'  We have been warned by the
Incorruptible himself, you see!"

"Yes, but we shall crush him through his Englishman!  We have
witnesses enough now!"

"Nay, unhappily we have not!" replied Billaud.

"What! we have no witnesses?" exclaimed Barère in surprise.  "What do
you mean? ... Has not Coulongeon...?"

"Coulongeon arrived too late at La Bourbe Lebas had just taken them
off, by Robespierre's orders--no one knows whither."

"Oh! the villain! he suspected something, then, and abducted them to
suppress their evidence; but we have at any rate the young man from
La Force."

"He is upstairs, but he knows nothing."

"He lies, he is a traitor!"

"No, he seemed quite sincere, and he execrates Robespierre; but I
shall question him again to-morrow."

"And meanwhile we must resort to stratagem," remarked Barère.

They discussed and debated the question, and all came to the
conclusion that Barère was right.  Their safety lay in stratagem.
After all, there was no immediate peril.  Robespierre was not fond of
violent measures, he would not break the bounds of the law unless
driven to it.  It was out of sheer vexation that he had thrown that
challenge in Billaud-Varennes' face; and after all, since Saint-Just
had again assured them of the Incorruptible's pure intentions, it
would be perhaps prudent to dissemble and to disarm the triumvirate
by simulating confidence.

On the whole the members of the Committee were undecided, hesitating
between two alternatives, one as dangerous as the other.  Either they
must openly attack Robespierre and overthrow him, and thus add to the
already unbounded power of the Committee, which would then more
easily crush the Convention; or they must leave the power in
Robespierre's hands, who, when once master, would lose no time in
annihilating them.

The members returned to the Committee-room where Saint-Just was still
writing.  They spoke as if they had altered their mind on thinking
things over.  They regretted their hasty words, for after all the
patriotism of Robespierre and his friends had stood a long test.
They spoke of precautions to be taken in case of an unexpected
attack, for warnings had reached them from every quarter.  All this
was discussed aloud before Saint-Just, ostensibly to show their
complete confidence in him.

Saint-Just, to all appearance the dupe of their hypocrisy, assured
them they were unnecessarily alarmed.  If the Jacobins and the
Commune had formed any projects against the Committee, he would have
heard of it.  There was certainly considerable excitement in the
streets among the people whose anger had been aroused at the
calumnies to which Robespierre had been subject.  But the
Incorruptible would soon calm them down.  As far as he, Saint-Just,
was concerned, he was ready to forget the somewhat hasty words which
one of his colleagues had addressed to him in the heat of the moment.

Collot d'Herbois upon a sign from Barère feigned to regret his hasty
speech, which was, of course, he said, the outcome of excitement.  It
was so easy in these times of anger and enmity to be carried away by
the fever of the moment.  The dissensions of the Committee were
making them the laughing-stock of their enemies.

Saint-Just, cold and impassive as before, quietly assented, and
meanwhile continued to draft his speech, and when he had finished put
it in his pocket, and looked up at the clock.  It was five in morning.

"At ten, the speech will be copied, and I shall read it to you before
the sitting, so that there may be no unpleasantness," said
Saint-Just, rising to go.

Taking his hat and stick, he moved off, the others, to all appearance
reassured, pretending to do likewise; but Saint-Just had no sooner
disappeared than they returned to the Committee-room.  It was agreed
to send for the three leaders suspected of assisting Robespierre in
the insurrection: Hauriot, the Commander of the troops; Payan, the
Commune agent; and Fleuriot-Lescot, Mayor of Paris.  The ushers
returned with the two last named, but Hauriot was not to be found.
For the space of four hours they retained Payan and Fleuriot-Lescot,
smoking, drinking, eating, talking, and discussing, in the sultry and
oppressive heat which heralded the near approach of a storm.  They
thus held them in check for the time being, overwhelming them
meanwhile with questions, to which they replied in terms that tended
to calm the anxiety of the Committee.

During this time the Parisian populace, who had not slept either, had
entered the Convention, the assembly-hall of which, situated also in
the palace of the Tuileries, within ear-shot of the Committee, had
been filling since five o'clock that morning, though the sitting was
not to commence until noon.

Every moment messengers arrived at the Committee-room, ushers out of
breath bringing news, messages, and reports in an endless succession,
which increased as the hours advanced.  Payan and Fleuriot-Lescot had
just left, after completely reassuring the Committee.  It was now
half-past ten, and the sitting was opened.  Saint-Just did not put in
an appearance, but the thump of crutches was heard in the corridor,
announcing the arrival of Couthon, the cripple.

"Where is Saint-Just?"

"He is coming!"

For one hour Couthon kept the Committee in suspense, entertaining
them with Saint-Just's favourite theme, Robespierre's single-minded
patriotism, but still no Saint-Just appeared.  The Committee began to
feel annoyed, and soon Carnot, who suspected treachery, spoke out
boldly.  It was nothing less, he said, than a preconcerted plan
between Couthon, Saint-Just, and Robespierre.

Couthon protested.

"You do wrong to speak ill of the patriot Robespierre!  You are
basely calumniating a friend of your childhood!"

"If I am base, you are a traitor!" retorted Carnot, beside himself
with rage.

But Couthon, anticipating a storm, took up his crutches and stumped
off, protesting as he went.  Sinister sounds now reached the
Committee.  They had been betrayed!  Saint-Just was going to denounce
them from the tribune!  The document he had been drafting before
them, there on that table, was nothing more or less than the
indictment of the Committee!  Barère had just received trustworthy
information to that effect.  Robespierre had drawn up a list of
eighteen names of those destined for the scaffold.  A deputy entered
and asked for Billaud-Varennes.  He was told that Billaud had just
gone out, but would return shortly.

"Ah!  Here is Fouché!" some one exclaimed.

It was in truth Fouché, the deputy, who now entered.  He was beset
with questions.  Yes! they were not mistaken, he told them.
Robespierre was now going to throw off the mask, and denounce some of
his colleagues.  "And I am sure he has not forgotten me," added
Fouché, ironically.

He was immediately surrounded by eager questioners.  The names?  Did
he know the names? they asked anxiously.  Fouché did not know; but
everybody was threatened, and each must look after himself; the
sitting would soon begin.

All turned their eyes anxiously to the clock.  It was not yet noon;
they had still twelve minutes!  Now another deputy came in,
breathless with the news that Robespierre had just entered the Hall
of the Convention, with his brother Augustin, Couthon, Saint-Just,
Lebas, and all his followers.  The galleries, crowded to excess, had
received the Incorruptible with loud cheers.

"Hark, the rabble are applauding; he has hired his usual _claque_,"
said one.

"That's true," another answered.  "Since five this morning the
Robespierrists, male and female, have taken possession of the
galleries, yelling, feasting, and drinking."

"They are already drunk."

"Well!  Let us go and offer our heads to the drunkards!" exclaimed
Fouché.

But just then a door on the right opened, and Billaud-Varennes
entered.  Every one paused.

"Here is Billaud at last."

Billaud was looking anxious, and wiping his brow, worn out with the
heat, he asked for a glass of beer.  They eagerly questioned him.

"Was it true, then?  They would have to fight?"

"Yes! fight to the death.  They ought to have listened to him.
Robespierre had told him plainly enough that there would be war.  And
now that they could not prove the plot...."

"What plot?" asked Fouché.

"Ah, yes!  It's true; you don't know...."

Billaud made a sign to shut the doors, as Robespierre had spies in
all the corridors.  The doors securely closed, Billaud-Varennes again
told the story of the Englishman.  Fouché listened with curiosity.
Other members, Vadier, Amar, Voullaud, who had just entered, also
followed Billaud's story with keen interest, while those who already
knew of the plot, came and went, deep in discussion, waiting for
Billaud to finish, to give their opinion.

Billaud-Varennes now produced the order of release for the two women,
signed by Robespierre, and brought from the prison of La Bourbe by
Coulongeon.

"There can be no doubt.  We have in this quite enough to ruin him,"
said Fouché; "but what about that young man from La Force?"

"I questioned him again closely just now in the next room.  He
persists in his first statement, which appears to me quite
genuine--as genuine as is his rage against Robespierre, whom he
regrets, he says, not to have stabbed at the Fête of the Supreme
Being."

"Ah! if he had! what a riddance!" was the cry with which one and all
greeted Billaud's last words.

"True; but he has not done it," observed Fouché drily.  "As to the
plot, it has escaped our grasp."

"Not so," some one remarked; "his treason is evident."

A warm discussion ensued.  The treachery was obvious to the
Committee, but it would not be so in the eyes of the public.  It must
be proved.  And where was the Englishman?  Where were the women?  To
accuse Robespierre thus, without sufficient proof, was sheer folly.
The only witness available, the agent Coulongeon, was in the pay of
the Committee.  Robespierre would make a speech on it, call it a
concocted plan, and annihilate his accusers with an oratorical
flourish.

"Nothing truer!" remarked another deputy.

"He has only to open his mouth and every one trembles."

"Very well; let us gag him," said Fouché.  "It's the only means of
putting an end to it all."

They looked at him, not quite catching his meaning.  Fouché explained
his idea.  They had but to drown Robespierre's voice at the sitting
by their clamour.  They had but to howl, scream, vociferate; the
people in the galleries would protest noisily, and their outcry would
add to the tumult.  Robespierre would strain his voice in vain to be
heard above the uproar, and then fall back exhausted and vanquished.

"That's it," they cried unanimously.

Billaud also thought this an excellent idea, and at once began to
arrange for letting all their friends know as soon as possible, for
Robespierre must be prevented from uttering a single audible word.
Every one approved.  Just then a door opened.

"Be quick!  Saint-Just is ascending the tribune!" called a voice.

"Very well.  We may as well commence with him."

And they one and all made for the doors in an indescribable disorder.

"Now for it," cried Billaud, laying his glass down on the sideboard.

But meanwhile Fouché signed to Vadier, Amar, and Voullaud to remain.
They looked at him in surprise.  Fouché waited for the noise to
subside, then assuring himself that no one could overhear him, he
confided his fears to them.  It was not everything to drown
Robespierre's voice.  Even arrested, condemned, and on the
death-tumbril, his hands bound, Robespierre would still be dangerous;
a sudden rush and riot could deliver him, and crush them all!  Then
lowering his voice, he continued--

"The young madman of whom Billaud spoke just now...."

"Well?"

"Where is he?"

Amar pointed to a door on the left.

"Let him come in!" said Fouché; "I will speak to him in the name of
the Committee."

They did not yet quite grasp his meaning, but Voullaud went all the
same and opened the door.

"Hush!" said Fouché, "here is the young man!"

Olivier entered, followed by a gendarme, who, on seeing Fouché and
the other members, stopped on the threshold.  Olivier looked at them
indifferently, expecting to be again cross-examined about the
Englishman.  Fouché had taken his hat and put it on, as if going out.

"Young man, you were the first to charge the despot, whom we are
about to fight, with his crimes!  This is sufficient to recommend you
to the indulgence of the Committee."

As Olivier advanced in astonishment, he continued--

"You may go if you like!"

Fouché turned to the gendarme--

"The citoyen is free!"

The gendarme retired.

Vadier now understood Fouché's idea.  Taking up his hat also, he
remarked--

"And if our enemy is victorious, take care not to fall again into his
clutches!"

Olivier who was preparing to go, stopped suddenly.  Unhappily, he
said, he had not only himself to tremble for.  His mother and
_fiancée_ were in prison and Robespierre would revenge himself on
them.

"Most probably!" replied Fouché.

"Then the Committee ought to release them also, and with even more
reason!"

Fouché shrugged his shoulders regretfully.

It had been the intention of the Committee, but the two prisoners
were beyond their reach.

"How?" asked Olivier anxiously.

Simply because they were no longer at the prison of La Bourbe.

Olivier gasped--

"Condemned?"

"Not yet!  But Lebas had taken them away with an order from
Robespierre."

Here Fouché, picking up the order left on the table by
Billaud-Varennes, showed it to Olivier, who read it in horrified
amazement.

"Where are they then," he cried.

"At the Conciergerie, where they would be judged within twenty-four
hours."

"The wretch! the wretch!"

He implored them that they might be released.  The Committee were
all-powerful!--They, powerful, indeed?  They looked at him pityingly.
He believed that?  What simplicity!  How could they release the two
women when they were on the point of being sacrificed themselves?
They would have difficulty enough to save their own heads!

"To-morrow," continued Fouché, "we shall most likely be with your
mother, at the foot of the scaffold."

Olivier looked at them in terror.  Was it possible?  Was there no one
that could be found to kill this dangerous wild beast?

Fouché, who had consulted his colleagues in a rapid glance, now felt
the moment ripe.

"Assassinate him, you mean?" he asked.

Olivier lost all self-control.  Is a mad dog assassinated?  He is
killed, that's all!  What did it matter if the one who did it were
torn to pieces; he would have had his revenge, and would save further
victims.

"Certainly," said Fouché, "and if Robespierre is victorious, it is
the only chance of saving your mother."

"But don't rely on that!" Vadier remarked.

Amar went even further.

"Patriots like Brutus are not often found!" he said.

But Olivier cried out in his fury that only one was wanted, and then
looked about for the door.

"Which is the way out?"

Vadier pointed to the exit.

"Thank you, citoyens! ... Adieu! au revoir!"

The four men silently watched him disappear, and then looked at each
other....  Would he do it?  It was not impossible!

"Meanwhile, let us go and howl!" suggested Fouché.

And they rushed into the Convention-room.




CHAPTER XIII

A BROKEN IDOL

Saint-Just is in the tribune.  Collot d'Herbois occupies the
presidential chair, Collot who, at two in the morning, suspecting
Saint-Just's treachery, had openly charged him with it.  War is in
the air, and every member is at his post.

Fouché looks round for Robespierre as he crosses to his seat.  There
he is; in the semicircle before the bust of Brutus, at the foot of
the tribune which he seems to guard like a vigilant sentinel.

"He is dressed as he was at the Fête of the Supreme Being," whispers
Fouché ironically to his neighbour.

Yes, the Incorruptible has on his sky-blue coat, white-silk
embroidered waistcoat, and nankeen knee-breeches buttoned over white
stockings, nor has he omitted the powder and the curls.  What a
strange figure, with his dapper daintiness, his old-fashioned attire,
in that seething furnace of fifteen hundred people, actors and
spectators, so closely packed, and, most of them with bared breasts,
suffocating in the awful heat which oppresses them!  The
_sans-culottes_ up in the gallery have even taken off their
traditional red nightcaps, which they hang on the handles of their
sword-sticks like bloodstained trophies.

It is as they expected.  Since five the hall has been taken
possession of by Robespierrists.  All the worst scum of Paris has
gathered there; all the bloodhounds of the Revolution, all the
riff-raff who accompany the death-tumbrils to the scaffold to the
song of the _Carmagnole_; fish-wives and rowdies, recruited and hired
at twenty-four sous apiece to drown with their vociferations every
hostile attempt made against the idol of the Commune.

This brutish mob, reeking of sausages, pressed meat, gingerbread and
beer, eating and drinking, poison the atmosphere of the Hall.

Robespierre's arrival at twelve o'clock is hailed by repeated rounds
of loud applause, which he acknowledges with a gracious bow, proud
and smiling.  Turning to Lebas who accompanies him, he remarks, "Did
I not tell you it would be a success?"

So certain is he of victory that before starting he had set the
Duplays quite at ease as to the issue of the struggle.  "Believe me,"
he had said, "the greater part of the Convention are unbiassed."

But suddenly, at the commencement of the sitting, when Saint-Just
appears in the tribune, a counter movement makes itself felt in the
assembly.  Robespierre realising the importance of at once preventing
any hostile demonstration, advances to the foot of the tribune,
determined to daunt his opponents by a bold front.  Saint-Just at
once renews the accusation brought against the Committee by the
Incorruptible the day before, accentuating it without mentioning
names.

It is now that the anti-Robespierrist plot, admirably planned, begins
to work.

Tallien, one of the conspirators, breaks in upon Saint-Just violently.

"Enough of these vague accusations!" he cries.  "The names!  Let us
have the names!"

Saint-Just, encouraged by a look from Robespierre, simply shrugs his
shoulders, and continues.  But his voice is immediately drowned in a
thundering clamour, and in spite of the vehement protestations of
Robespierre, he is unable to finish his speech.  The
anti-Robespierrist cabal are playing their part well.  They simply
roar.

Billaud-Varennes demands a hearing.  He is already in the tribune,
greeted by sustained applause.

Robespierre, growing excited, protests and persists in speaking, but
his voice is drowned in cries of "Silence!  Silence!  Let
Billaud-Varennes speak!"  Collot d'Herbois rings the president's
bell, and adds to the noise under the pretext of repressing it.

"Let Billaud-Varennes speak!  Let Billaud-Varennes speak!"

But Robespierre continues to protest--

"Don't listen to that man!  His words are but poisonous drivel!"

Immediately loud cries are heard--

"Order!  Order!  Robespierre is not in the tribune!  Billaud-Varennes
is in the tribune!  Silence!  Silence!"

And Robespierre, with a shrug of contempt, returns to his place.

Silence being gradually restored, Billaud-Varennes begins to speak.

"I was at the Jacobins' yesterday; the room was crowded with men
posted there to insult the National representatives, and to
calumniate the Committee of Public Safety which devotes its days and
nights to kneading bread for you, to forging arms and raising armies
for you, to sending them forth to victory!"

A voice is heard in approval, and fresh applause breaks out; but the
gaze of the orator is fixed on that part of the assembly called the
Mountain.  He seems to recognise some one, at whom he points with
lifted arm.

"I see yonder, on the Mountain, one of the wretches who insulted us
yesterday.  There he stands!"

This is the signal for renewed uproar.  Several members spring up and
turn round towards the person indicated.

"Yes, yes, behold him!" cries Billaud.

The agitation increases.  Cries of "To the door with him!  Turn him
out!" are heard.  The man pleads innocence, and tries to weather the
storm, but seeing the majority against him escapes as best he can,
mixes with the crowd and disappears.  Silence is with difficulty
restored among the infuriated members.

The orator continues, throwing violent and insidious phrases
broadcast among the assembly like lighted fire-brands.  His thrusts
strike nearer home now; he accuses Robespierre openly to his face.

"You will shudder when I tell you that the soldiery is under the
unscrupulous control of that man who has the audacity to place at the
head of the section-men and artillery of the city the degraded
Hauriot, and that without consulting you at all, solely according to
his own will, for he listens to no other dictates.  He has, he says,
deserted the Committees because they oppressed him.  He lies!"

Robespierre rises, his lips quivering at the insult, and attempts to
reply from his place.

"Yes, you lie!" continues Billaud.  "You left us because you did not
find among us either partisans, flatterers, or accomplices in your
infamous projects against Liberty.  Your sole aim has been to sow
dissension, to disunite us that you might attack us singly and remain
in power at the head of drunkards and debauchees, like that secretary
who stole a hundred and fifty thousand livres, and whom you took
under your wing, you, the Incorruptible, you who make such boast of
your strict virtue and integrity!"

Laughter, mixed with some applause is heard, but Robespierre shrugs
his shoulders contemptuously at such vulgar abuse.  Fouché, from his
bench, laughs loudly with the rest, and leaning towards his
neighbour, whispers--

"Clever tactics! ... Billaud is splendid!"

The speaker, in conclusion, appeals to the patriotism of the
assembly, and implores the members to watch over its safety.  If they
do not take energetic measures against this madman, he says, the
Convention is lost, for he only speaks of purifying it that he may
send to the scaffold all those who stand in the way of his personal
ambition.  It is, he insists, the preservation of the Convention
which is at stake, the safety of the Republic, the salvation of their
country.

"I demand," so runs his peroration, "that the Convention sit
permanently until it has baffled the plans of this new Catiline,
whose only aim is to cross the trench which still separates him from
supremacy by filling it with our heads!"

Thunders of applause greet Billaud-Varennes' words; shouts, cheers,
and waving of hands which continue long after he has left the tribune.

Robespierre now leaves his seat in great agitation, crying--

"It is all false, and I will prove it!"

But his words are again drowned in an uproar of voices, and cries of
"Silence!  Silence!"

"I will give the traitor his answer!" exclaims Robespierre, trying to
make himself heard above the tumult which increases at every word he
utters, so that his voice is now completely lost.  Some of the
members rush into the semicircle, forming a living rampart round the
tribune.

The din is dominated by a new voice from the presidential chair.

"Silence, let no man speak!" it thunders forth.

It is Thuriot, who has just replaced Collot d'Herbois in the chair.

"I demand a hearing!" vociferates the Incorruptible, "and I will be
heard!"

"You shall not!"

"I wish to speak!" cries a deputy, taking at the same time possession
of the tribune.

It is Vadier.

Thuriot rings the president's bell.

"Vadier has speech!"

"Yes, Vadier!  Vadier!" members exclaim from all sides.

Robespierre continues to protest, disputing frantically with his
neighbours in his fury.

"It is infamous treachery!  Infamous!"

Again they call out--

"Vadier!  Silence!  Vadier!  Vadier!"

"_Citoyens!_" commences Vadier--

But the speaker is interrupted by Robespierre who furiously persists
in claiming a hearing.

"Compel him to be quiet!" cries some one.

Thuriot rings his bell, and orders Robespierre to let Vadier speak.

"Vadier is to speak!  Silence!"

Robespierre once more resigns himself to his fate, and returns to his
place.

The tumult dies away in a low murmur, above which Vadier's
mellifluous voice is heard.

"_Citoyens!_" he begins, "not until the 22nd Prairial did I open my
eyes to the double-dealing of that man who wears so many masks, and
when he cannot save one of his creatures consigns him to the
scaffold!"

Laughter and applause run round the assembly.  Thus encouraged,
Vadier continues--

"Only listen to him.  He will tell you, with his usual modesty, that
he is the sole defender of Liberty, but so harassed, so discouraged,
so persecuted! ... And it is he who attacks every one himself!"

"Hear, hear!" shouts a voice.  "Excellent!  That's it, exactly!"

"He says," continues Vadier, "that he is prevented from speaking.
Yet, strange to say, no one ever speaks but he!"

This new sally is hailed with renewed roars of laughter, and on every
side members are convulsed with merriment.  Robespierre writhes in
his seat, casting glances of hatred and contempt around him.

But Vadier is in the right mood, and goes on--

"This is his regular refrain: 'I am the best friend of the Republic,
and as So-and-so has looked askance at me, So-and-so conspires
against the Republic, since I and the Republic are one!'"

Again laughter and cheers.  "Very good, Vadier!  That's it, Vadier!"

By this time the orator's ironical and facetious allusions have
served their purpose well, covering Robespierre with ridicule, and
lowering him in the eyes of many who were still wavering, hardly
daring to join the opposition.

But Vadier, carried away by success, wanders presently from the main
point, and loses himself in a maze of petty details.  He repeats
anecdotes going the rounds of taverns and wine-shops, speaks of
Robespierre's spies dogging the heels of the Committee, and quotes
his personal experience.  The attention of the assembly begins to
flag.  Robespierre feels this and, taking instant advantage of it,
tries to bring the Convention back to a sense of its dignity.

"What! can you give credence to such arrant nonsense?"

But Tallien has realised the danger, and rushing towards the tribune
cries--

"I demand a hearing!  We are wandering from the main question!"

"Fear not!  I shall return to it!" replies Robespierre, who has now
reached the semicircle, and tries to enter the tribune by another
stairway.

But several members standing on the steps push him back.

"No! we will have Tallien!  Tallien!"

"After me!" cries Robespierre, still struggling.

"Tallien!  Tallien has speech now!"

But Robespierre climbs up by the banister with the fury of a madman.

"Unjust, infamous judges!  Will you then only listen to my enemies!"

The Incorruptible is answered by the one cry rising from a hundred
throats.

"Silence!  Order!  Order!  Tallien!  Tallien!"

Tallien is in the tribune.

"_Citoyens!_" he breaks out in a stentorian voice.

"Hold!  Scoundrel!" shouts Robespierre, desperately.

"Have the madman arrested!" cries a voice in the crowd.

Robespierre still does his utmost to force a passage on the stairway.

"I will speak!  I will be heard, wretches!  I will speak!"

The uproar increases, aggravated by Robespierre's boisterous
pertinacity.  The jingling of Thuriot's bell at last restores order,
though not without difficulty.

The opening words of Tallien's speech are already audible, amidst
enthusiastic cheers.  Robespierre, held firmly by some of the
deputies, has ceased his struggles, and stands on the steps in an
indignant attitude, his features twitching convulsively, his eyes,
glaring in hatred, fixed on the new speaker who is preparing to hurl
at him another shower of insults.

"The masks are torn away!" cries Tallien.

"Bravo!  Bravo!"

"It was the speech delivered yesterday in this very hall, and
repeated the same evening at the Jacobin Club, that brought us face
to face with this unmasked tyrant, this vaunted patriot, who at the
memorable epoch of the invasion of the Tuileries and the arrest of
the King, only emerged from his den three days after the fight..."

Sneers and hisses reach Robespierre, repeated up to the very steps of
the tribune, below which he stands.

"This honourable citizen, who poses before the Committee of Public
Safety as champion of the oppressed, goes home, and in the secrecy of
his own house draws up the death-lists which have stained the altar
of new-born Liberty with so much blood!"

Renewed cheers and cries of "Hear! hear!" rise from nearly every seat
in the hall.

"But his dark designs are unveiled!" continues Tallien.  "We shall
crush the tyrant before he has succeeded in swelling the river of
blood with which France is already inundated.  His long and
successful career of crime has made him forget his habitual prudence.
He has betrayed himself at the very moment of triumph, when nothing
is wanting to him but the name of king! ... I also was at the
Jacobins' yesterday, and I trembled for the Republic when I saw the
vast army that flocked to the standard of this new Cromwell.  I
invoked the shade of Brutus, and if the Convention will not have
recourse to the sword of justice to crush this tyrant, I am armed
with a dagger that shall pierce his heart!"

Tallien makes a movement as if to rush on Robespierre dagger in hand;
but he is arrested by a burst of unanimous applause.  A hundred
deputies have risen and are calling out: "Bravo, Tallien!  Bravo!"

The orator, in an attitude of defiance, gazes steadily at
Robespierre, who, grasping convulsively at the railings of the
tribune, screams himself hoarse, challenging Tallien and the deputies
around, while they answer him with abuse, shaking their fists in his
face.  It is a veritable Babel of cries, appeals, and insults.  The
President, now upstanding, vainly tries to restore order with his
bell.

At last there is a lull, of which Robespierre attempts to take
advantage.

"Vile wretches!" he cries, "would you condemn me unheard?"

But he is answered by a telling home-thrust--

"It is your own Prairial law we are putting into force!"

And applause breaks out again louder than ever.

Robespierre, tired of struggling against the rough gang on the
stairway, descends to the centre of the semicircle, and addresses the
deputies of the Mountain.

"Give me a hearing! _citoyens_!  I pray you give me speech!"

He was answered by an ominous cry--

"No! no!  The arrest!  To the votes for the arrest!"

To the votes!  The arrest!  Robespierre recoils in terror at the
fearful words.  His looks travel to the deputies of the centre, those
of the Plain as they are called.

"It is to the Plain I address myself and not to these traitors!" he
exclaims.

But the Plain remains impassive.

Shouts are now heard from all sides, "The arrest!  The arrest!"

Not a single voice mediates in his favour!  Not one dares to defend
his cause!  The crowd in the gallery have remained silent and unmoved
from the very outset of the stormy scene.

A cry of anguish rises to Robespierre's lips.  "Villains!  Wretches!"
he gasps.

But his voice is again drowned.

"You are the villain!  To death with the tyrant!  To death with him!
To the vote for his arrest!  To the vote for his arrest!"

Robespierre, now completely exhausted, makes one supreme effort,
addressing himself to Thuriot, who is still vainly trying to restore
silence with his bell.

"President of assassins, for the last time I demand the right of
speech."

"No!  No!" cry all the deputies.

"Then decree my murder...."

But his voice breaks, and the last word is lost in a hoarse cry.

"It is Danton's blood that chokes you!"

Robespierre, livid at the taunt, turns to the interrupter.

"Danton?  It is he, then, you will avenge?  Why did you not protect
him, cowards?"

Replies are hurled at him from every corner.  Had he not gagged
Danton's defenders?  Now they were going to avenge him!  Now their
turn had come!

"Did you not hound him to his death, you curs?" shouts Robespierre,
with one last cry of rage.

But a pregnant remark falls on the assembly and hastens the end.

"It is hard work, indeed, to drag down a tyrant!"

There is no more hope for Robespierre.

This interruption recalls the Convention to the danger that threatens
them.  The turmoil is re-doubled.  Tallien, from the tribune, which
he has not yet quitted, demands of the president that the traitor's
arrest be put to the vote.

"To the vote!  To the vote!" echoes through the Hall.

But suddenly an unexpected incident attracts general attention.

A deputy advances to the centre of the semi-circle: "I demand to
share my brother's fate, as I have striven to share his nobler deeds."

It is Augustin Robespierre, who had returned to Paris the day before,
and, acting on a generous impulse, thus offers the sacrifice of his
life, a sacrifice that is accepted out of hand.

"The arrest of the brothers Robespierre!"

"And mine!" calls out Lebas proudly, joining the two.

"And Saint-Just!" cries a voice.

"And Couthon!"

"To the vote!  To the vote!"

The president has risen.  He will put these arrests to the vote when
silence is restored.

"Silence for the voting!  Silence!"

"Every one to his seat!"

The deputies take their respective places.  Then in the deep and
awful silence which follows, under the strained gaze of the mob in
the gallery, the president speaks--

"_Citoyens_, I put to the vote, by standing and sitting, the arrest
of Maximilien Robespierre, of Augustin Robespierre, of Couthon, of
Saint-Just, and of Lebas.  Let those who vote for these arrests stand
up."

A hundred deputies rise.  They are those of the Mountain.

Seeing the men of the Plain remain motionless, a ray of hope cheers
Robespierre's despair.

Since the centre refuses to vote for his arrest, they must be,
surely, on his side.

"Oh, ye at least, righteous men of the Plain!" he pleads.

Those of the Plain start, draw themselves up, then silently and
spontaneously rise to a man!  It is the death-blow!  The whole
assembly are now standing.  The arrests are unanimously voted.

Robespierre is lost.  He totters, and nearly falls on a bench at the
foot of the tribune.

The president now officially announces the result of the voting
amidst deafening shouts of triumph.  The ushers advance to arrest
Robespierre, but he rises, livid with rage, and thrusts them aside.

The President sees this.

"Robespierre refuses to obey!  Ushers, call in the gendarmes!"

The whole assembly echo his words, and shout: "The gendarmes!  Bring
in the gendarmes!"

The spectators in the gallery rise in their excitement and join in
the general clamour.

"_Vive la Liberté!  Vive la Liberté!_"

Robespierre staggers under these crushing blows, and shrieks in his
despair--

"Liberty, indeed!  She is no more!  The triumph of those ruffians is
her death-knell!"

But the guards have entered.  They surround the accused, and push
them towards the door.  Robespierre walks with head erect, and folded
arms between two gendarmes.  He does not even cast a glance on the
crowd who had hailed his entrance with loud cheers, and who now hiss
and hoot him.  The public are descending and mix with the deputies.
The whole floor is crowded.  The Convention-hall where a loud,
incessant buzzing is all that can be heard, resembles a gigantic
beehive, for no single voice is distinguishable in the tempestuous
clamour that follows that solemn act at last accomplished.

A cry rises above the universal hum: "Long live the Convention!" but
is instantaneously succeeded by another more mighty and prevailing
shout: "Long live the Republic!"

Meanwhile the accused have disappeared.




CHAPTER XIV

THE KNELL OF THE TOCSIN

Urbain, who had witnessed Robespierre's signal defeat and downfall
from a seat in the gallery, ran immediately to the Rue du Martroy, to
warn Clarisse and Thérèse that their retreat at the Hôtel de Ville
was no longer safe or secure.

The man found Clarisse in the drawing-room.  At the announcement of
the fearful news, the mother's first thought was for her son.

"Then Olivier is lost!" she cried.

In Robespierre lay her only hope, for Robespierre alone could tear
him from the grasp of the Committee.  Now that Robespierre was
vanquished and powerless, what would become of Olivier?  Urbain,
though he himself felt apprehensive, tried to reassure Clarisse, and
at this moment Thérèse entered the room.  She had heard all!  What!
Robespierre?  Their safety, Olivier's safety, was in the hands of
Robespierre!  She came forward, and asked in amazement--

"What! the man that was here yesterday, our protector, was--"

"Yes, it was he!" answered Clarisse, through her tears, "your
grandfather's former secretary."

As Thérèse, still trembling from the shock of hearing that name, was
about to answer, Clarisse added hastily--

"Hush, child!  Forget all his past, and think of him only as he was
yesterday!  He is now vanquished and fallen, and with him, alas!
falls our last hope!"

Thérèse, putting aside her own fears before her aunt's uncontrollable
grief, mastered her emotion and drove back the tears which rose to
her eyes, to dry those of Clarisse, speaking words of comfort and
hope which she herself could not feel.

"Do not give way to despair, mother!  God will watch over us....  We
have implored Him so much!"

Urbain also tried to comfort her by promising to keep her informed of
whatever happened.  There was some talk of an insurrection of the
Commune, he told her, of an attack on the Convention by an armed
force, headed by Coffinhal, who was entirely devoted to Robespierre.
Who could tell whether the Incorruptible's vengeance might not be
brooding!  Once rescued, he would again be all-powerful, and change
the face of affairs!

"With him, one never knows what may happen!" continued Urbain
hopefully.  "He has so many resources, and he is, besides, so
popular!"

Clarisse, worn out with grief, was, of necessity, resigned.

"May God's will be done!" she sighed.  "I shall wait for you here."

Urbain left them, and the two women knelt in prayer.

The storm which had hung threateningly over Paris all day now burst
out.  Night had just set in when streaks of lurid light shot through
the darkness, heralding a thunder-storm.  Suddenly the sound of a
bell was heard.  It grew louder and louder, pealing a signal of alarm.

Clarisse had risen and stood erect and pale.

"The tocsin!" she gasped, and then ran to the window, followed by
Thérèse.

Troops could be discerned in the distance, brandishing pikes and guns.

A shout reached the two women--

"Down with the Convention!"

Other cries were raised.

"Call out the Sections!  Call out the Sections!  Long live the
Incorruptible!"

The roll of drums was heard.  They were beating to arms!  Horsemen
galloped past in great disorder.  Beyond doubt it was an insurrection!

Then some one knocked, and the two women turned.

"Come in!" cried Clarisse.

Urbain appeared, breathless and bathed in perspiration.

"I told you so!  Robespierre has been rescued!"

"Rescued!" exclaimed both women, unable to conceal their joy.

"Yes! rescued on the way to the Conciergerie, and carried in triumph
to the Hôtel de Ville, where he now is, with his brother and his
friends, Lebas, Couthon, and Saint-Just, rescued with him!  It is war
to the knife between the Communes and the Convention.  Both parties
are arming.  Coffinhal has had to fall back on the Hôtel de Ville."

The cries outside grew louder and nearer, while the tocsin still rang
out.

"To arms!  To arms!  Long live the Incorruptible!"

"Do you hear?  They are stirring up the Sections!  They will make a
new attack on the Tuileries!"

"And what is to become of us?" asked Clarisse, "and of my son?"

"I don't know about your son.  But Citoyen Robespierre has thought of
you two.  It was he who has sent me."

"To tell us?..."

"To tell you that you are no longer safe here.  The street is guarded
by sectioners.  They might come up here at any moment to fire from
the windows in case of attack.  I have orders to conduct you to the
Hôtel de Ville, where Citoyen Robespierre has provided for your
safety, but he wishes to see you first.  You must wait for him in the
antechamber of the Commune's Council Hall, where he is at this moment
conferring with his colleagues.  He will join you as soon as he is at
liberty; you have only to follow me.  This room communicates directly
through a corridor with the Hôtel de Ville."

"Then let us go!" said Clarisse; and, taking Thérèse by the hand, she
followed the man.

The two women crossed a suite of rooms and corridors where officials
came and went in hot haste.  Urbain led the way, turning now and then
to direct them aright.  Presently he stopped and said, pointing to a
door--

"It is in here!" and he opened it.

Clarisse and Thérèse now found themselves in a room decorated with
Revolutionary emblems, the walls covered with a greenish paper.  Two
candlesticks stood on the mantelpiece.

"It was here Citoyen Robespierre told me to bid you wait.  He is in
the next room attending a meeting in the Commune's Council Hall."

Whilst he spoke Urbain indicated a door, a little way from that by
which the two women had entered, behind which a confused murmur of
voices was audible.

"I will go and let him know you are here," he said.

The two women were now alone.  Clarisse cast a hasty glance round.
The apartment was very plainly furnished; in fact, almost void of
furniture.  Against a panelling between two doors on the left was a
raised platform, on which stood a large copper-embossed table.  At
the foot of the platform were a couple of chairs and an armchair, the
only other furniture of a room which had all the gloomy appearance of
a deserted vestibule.

Just then a flash of lightning ran round the apartment.  The two
women turned.  A bust representing the Republic appeared in the vivid
and sudden light, ghastly amid the surrounding darkness, while a
trophy surmounting the bust seemed to emit sparks of fire.  An awful
thunder-clap burst on their ears, and screams and cries reached them
through the two windows.  Clarisse and Thérèse, taking each other by
the hand, tremblingly looked out to see what was happening, and
Clarisse recognised the Place de la Grêve.

A large crowd, sectioners and populace, swarmed in the square.
Cannons were being rolled hither and thither amidst a brandishing of
pikes, guns, bayonets, and flags--all the noise and bustle of war and
riot mingling with the roar of thunder and the flash of lightning.

"Come from the dreadful sight!" said Clarisse, pulling Thérèse gently
away.

At that moment a door opened, and as the two women turned Robespierre
appeared, attended by Urbain.  The Incorruptible bore unmistakable
marks of the anguish of that extraordinary day on his haggard and
sunken face.

"Let us sit down!" he said, "I am worn out!" and going towards a
chair he sank down on it, wiping great beads of perspiration from his
brow.  Then he turned to Urbain.

"Open the window, it is stifling!"

He raised his eyes to Clarisse, who was standing near.

"Excuse me.... but I am almost broken down ... Come closer ... Take
this chair ... Urbain has told you how things have gone with me?"

"Yes," Clarisse answered, seating herself, whilst Thérèse, standing
by her side, examined with mixed feelings the face of the man whose
terrible name she had so lately learnt.

A painful silence ensued.  Clarisse, who burned to question him about
Olivier, hesitated in view of the utter prostration of the man before
her, whose own head was now at stake, but Robespierre divined her
thoughts.

"You are thinking of your son?" he said.

"Yes, my son!  Where is he?"

"Alas!  I know nothing!" answered Robespierre.

Then, in a fainting voice, he told her of his useless inquiries at
the Conciergerie, of the conspiracy of the Committee of Public
Safety, who kept Olivier hidden away--where he did not know.

"Had I won the day at the Convention I should have delivered him--but
now...."

Clarisse had risen in new terror.  Was her martyrdom to recommence?
But Robespierre reassured her.  He might yet be victorious in the
struggle between the Communes and the Convention.  Once master of the
Assembly, master of the Committee, he could save Olivier.

"But if ... but if you should not succeed?" asked Clarisse, allowing
her mother's heart to overcome her.

"He will be saved all the same!  His only crime was that he insulted
me.  At my fall he will be looked upon as a hero.  He will be
restored to you both ... to you both," he repeated gently, looking at
Thérèse the while.

"Give me your hand, my child, and do not let it tremble in mine....
It is on your youthful love I shall have smiled for the last time...."

Clarisse, deeply moved by the scene, tried to speak, but Robespierre
interrupted her--

"In the meantime you must not stay here....  You must remain in the
room by which you entered...  Urbain will fetch you as soon as we
have started for the Tuileries, and will take you to a safe retreat,
where you will await the course of events...  If I am vanquished
again you are also free...."

And looking at them sadly he added--

"For are not you also my victims?"

Clarisse, touched with pity, stopped him and spoke words of
consolation.  Why should he talk as if everything were lost!

Alas!  Everything was nearly lost!  He had been persuaded to hasten
the attack on the Convention.  It was a trap that had been set in
vengeance.

"But by whom?" asked Clarisse.

"By the dead!"

Clarisse and Thérèse were startled.

"The dead?"

"Yes ...  But you cannot understand..."

Robespierre looked straight before him as if following the train of
some fleeting thought....  Suddenly he rose.

"Enough of that, however.  Let us think of your safety."

He then beckoned to Urbain, who advanced.

"Conduct the _citoyennes_ to the next room, and do as I have already
instructed you!"

Loud cries and calls from the Commune's Council Hall, resounded
through the open door.

"Go quickly!  My friends are coming!" said Robespierre, as he
hastened the departure of the two women, conducting them to the
threshold of the antechamber.  But his friends, Lebas, Augustin
Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon, Fleuriot-Lescot, Coffinhal, Payan,
Dumas, were now entering, shutting the door sharply behind them, in a
great flurry in their impatience to be alone.

"This is hardly the moment to dally with women!" exclaimed one of
them in irritation.

It was Coffinhal, vice-president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and
one of the most ardent promoters of the insurrection.  Robespierre
replied in a weary tone--

"For God's sake, have not I the right to be a man!" and he sank into
an armchair.

Just then the door opened again.  A group of patriots entered in
great excitement, speaking at the top of their voices, and
gesticulating wildly.  They immediately surrounded Robespierre.  What
was to be done? they asked.  Were they to march on the Tuileries?  If
the attack were put off any longer the Convention would take the
offensive....  Every moment was precious!  It was really ridiculous
to beat to arms and ring the tocsin, and then waste time discussing
all night long!  What were they waiting for, and for whom?

Some of the patriots approached the windows.  The howling crowd
which, a few minutes ago swarmed in the Place de la Grêve, had
perceptibly thinned.

Robespierre remained seated, silently wiping his brow, irritated
beyond measure by all this needless commotion.  At last out of all
patience, he started up....  What prevented him from marching
forward?  What was he waiting for?  Waiting!  He was purely and
simply waiting for Paris, the whole of Paris, which at the voice of
his friends, must rise in his defence!  Had they come?  Yes, they had
come ... and gone again, too!  He had only to look out on the square
to convince himself of it! ...

The groups round the windows gave signs of assent.

"They have grown tired of waiting," said Fleuriot-Lescot.

"And it is their supper-time," observed the Incorruptible, with a
bitter smile as he sat down again.

The sky was suddenly overclouded, and rain poured down in torrents.

"That will help to empty the square!" observed Robespierre.

The patriots now leant out of the windows trying to call back those
who were running to escape the shower.

"Hallo, there!  Wait a while!  Where are you running to, cowards?
Everything is ready for the onset!"

Lebas, who had also approached one of the windows, stood back
discouraged.

"They are deserting us by hundreds!" he exclaimed.

The patriots again eagerly pressed Robespierre.  There was all the
more reason for them to march on the Tuileries at once.

"Decide, for goodness' sake!" said Coffinhal; "enough time has been
lost already!"

Robespierre rose from his seat, and answered wearily--

"Very well! let us go!  And God grant that the defenders of the
Convention be as valiant as ours!" he added in bitter sarcasm.

"Before starting," suggested Payan, "you had better sign this last
proclamation.  It will serve to rouse the sectioners of the Pignes
Quarter."

"Very well!  Give it to me!"

Lebas handed him a pen.

Robespierre wrote the first letters of his name, Rob....

He stopped suddenly.  A distant sound, as of a trumpet-call, rang out
in fearful warning.  They look at each other anxiously.  What could
it be?

A man ran in upon them, in breathless haste.  It was Didier,
Robespierre's agent.

"The attack!" he panted.  "The troops of the Convention are coming
upon us, led by Barras!"

"But what does it all mean?" they cried wildly.  "What has happened?"

There was not a moment to lose!  The assailants were advancing in
double column; Leonard Bourdon reading by the light of the torches
the decree of the Convention declaring the insurgents outlaws.  Yes,
outlaws!  Anybody was at liberty to fire on them!

"But the people," asked Lebas, "the people are with us?"

No! the people were no longer with the insurgents.  They had turned
back, and were following the assailants with loud cheers.
Robespierre and his friends could even then hear their deafening
shouts and threats.

"Hark!  Do you hear them?" said Didier.  "They are on the quay!"

Now followed a regular panic.  The maddest proposals succeeded each
other.  They ought to fall back on to the Faubourg! said one.  No, to
the arsenal! suggested another.

But Robespierre resolutely and authoritatively interposed--

"It would be absolute madness!  Prepare yourselves for the fight!
Get the guns ready.  There are artillerymen enough in the square to
shoot them all down."

"Yes!  That is the best plan!  The Incorruptible is right."

Coffinhal ran to the window to give a signal to the gunners.  A loud
cry of "Long live the Republic!" answered him.  Robespierre
recommended prudence to Coffinhal.  He must instruct the gunners to
let the enemy first reach the square, and then at close quarters fire
on them, while Bourdon would be reading the decree.

Every one approved this plan, and the order was repeated to
Coffinhal.  Prudence and self-possession were necessary.  Didier, on
being questioned, assured them that the cannon still commanded the
square.  They were a match for any assailants!  Robespierre continued
to give orders.  The patriots in the next room, the General Council
Chamber, must be informed of the plan.  Lebas went to open the door,
but started back on the threshold.

"The room is empty!" he cried.  "The cowards! they have fled!"

They looked at each other in dumb amazement.  The men on watch at the
windows now announced that the assailants were in sight.  They could
discern the gleam of torches, but the gunners had not moved.

Again that brazen trumpet-call fell ominously on their ears,
accompanied by the low rumbling of distant thunder.  A sudden roll of
drums burst out, and then all was hushed.  The sound of a voice,
coming up from the square in solemn, measured tones, broke upon the
silence.

"In the name of the French Republic, the National Convention decrees
Robespierre and all those who have taken part in the rebellion to be
out of law."

A vague, indistinct murmur now arose from the square.

The voice continued with startling resonance--

"_Citoyens!_ the Convention command you to make way for us!"

Robespierre and his friends were leaning out of the windows
breathless with suspense, their eyes fastened on the artillery.

"Why don't they fire?" said Coffinhal.

Robespierre leant on a bar of the window, his hands clenched over it,
his face pale, perspiration trickling down his forehead.

"Can't you fire at them, you dolts!"

Ah! they were getting their guns ready; they would fire now!

There was a sudden movement of relief and hopefulness that lasted
only for a moment and then gave place to horror.

The sectioners had turned their cannon against the Hôtel de Ville!

One cry, the despairing cry of the vanquished, echoed through the
room.

"We are betrayed!  _Sauve qui peut!_"

Then followed an indescribable scene of panic.  All was irreparably
lost.  Defeat, merciless and sanguinary, stared them in the face.
Cries and shouts came up from the square, but one cry rose above all.

"_En avant!_  Forward!"

Drums beat the charge.

Some ran to the doors, others to the windows to get upon the roof.
Augustin Robespierre already on the ledge of one of the windows,
prepared to escape by the cornice.  His foot slipped and he fell on
to the pavement amidst derisive shouts.

"They shall not have me alive!" cried Lebas, drawing two pistols from
his belt; and he placed one on the table near Robespierre, who had
fallen prostrate on a chair.

"That is for you, Robespierre!  Adieu!" and he rushed put.

Robespierre looked at the pistol, and pushed it aside with an
expression of utter weariness.

"Why should I?  Let death come as it pleases!"

Just then a door opened and Clarisse, breathless with fear, rushed
in, clasping Thérèse tightly by the hand.  Fearful and threatening
sounds entered with her through the open door.

Robespierre turned and saw her.

"Unhappy woman!  Not gone yet!"

Almost mad with terror, she told him that they could not escape, the
assailants were at their heels.

Robespierre wildly seized the pistol from the table and pointed to
the other exit.

"Fly that way!  I will kill the first to gain time!"

Clarisse dragged Thérèse towards the door, but recoiled with a
terrified shriek.  Loud shouts were heard coming that way.
Robespierre rushed forward and pushed them towards another door
opposite.

"This way, then!  Fly! for pity's sake, fly!"

Clarisse and Thérèse crossed over to the other exit.  But through the
door they had just left a fearful cry entered, and nailed them to the
spot.

"This way!  Follow me!"

It was Olivier's voice!  Robespierre recognised it also, and was
struck dumb with horror!  All three fastened their eyes on the door
in agonised suspense.

Olivier, all dishevelled, his clothes in disorder, appeared on the
threshold.  His eyes met Robespierre's, who was standing near the
platform.  He rushed on him, pistol in his hand, exclaiming--

"Ah! villain.  You will kill no one else, now!" and was about to
fire, but Clarisse threw herself on him, and held his arm.

"Oh! you, Olivier! you of all the world!  Oh! horror!"

And she tore the pistol from his grasp and flung it away.  He looked
first at her, then at Thérèse, bewildered at their presence.
Robespierre, still grasping his pistol, silently watched the scene.
His son's act was his death-blow.  Deliberately he turned the muzzle
of the weapon towards himself.

"I shall kill no one else ... but myself!" he sighed, and with the
word he pulled the trigger and fell wounded on the steps of the
platform.  The bullet had broken his jaw.

Clarisse, beside herself at this double shock, rushed to
Robespierre's side and attempted to staunch the blood flowing from
his wound.  As he fell, some drops of blood splashed on the
half-signed proclamation, and added a ghastly flourish to the initial
letters R...o...b...

Thérèse, standing near Olivier, was weeping bitterly and telling him
of the efforts Robespierre had made to save them all.

"He?" cried Olivier, still incredulous.

The room filled rapidly from every side with the assailants armed
with pikes, swords, knives, and muskets.  They rushed in, screaming
and shouting "Victory!  Victory!"  But all drew back on seeing
Robespierre stretched on the ground, bathed in blood.  A national
representative ran to the window and announced the news to the crowd
swarming in the Place de la Grêve.

"_Citoyens!_ the tyrant has shot himself!  The tyrant has forestalled
the law!  Long live the Convention!"

Cries of "Long live the Convention!" re-echoed from the square, and
were taken up and repeated from afar, till they gradually died in the
distance.

Robespierre, raising himself with Clarisse's aid, looked around for
Olivier and Thérèse among the crowd.

"At all events, the child is saved and you also," he said....  "Let
me not pass away without your forgiveness!"

"Oh yes!  I forgive you!" Clarisse murmured amidst her tears.

"I thank you!" he answered feebly, and fell back fainting.

A rough, commanding voice broke in on Clarisse's grief.

"Take him up!"

Clarisse still remained, kneeling, but they pushed her aside.

"Now then!  Get out of the way!"

She rose with difficulty, every limb trembling, and escaped from the
crowd with Thérèse and Olivier through an open door.  Some men
advanced to carry Robespierre away, who looked already like a corpse,
with his eyes closed, and the blood gushing through his lips.  One
man held his head, another his legs, and thus the ghastly burden was
carried through the crowd of assailants, who stood aside to make way
for it.  Clarisse, standing in one of the doorways as the gloomy
procession passed, clung to her son, imploring his pity.

"Oh! pardon him!  Do you too pardon him!  I beg you, pardon him!"

"Make room for the Incorruptible!" shouted a voice in ribald mockery.

They shrunk back, but Clarisse all the while passionately entreated
her son to pardon Robespierre.

"Oh, hear me, my son, I implore you!  Say that you forgive him!"

"Yes, mother, I forgive him, and may God have mercy on him!" Olivier
murmured, casting a long look after the grim procession till it was
lost to sight.

Olivier then turned to his mother and his fiancée.

"Now, let us get away from here!" he says.

"Is it really true?  Are you free?" asked Clarisse.

"Yes, quite free!  I will tell you all about it presently.  But we
must secure a passport if we want to leave Paris....  Let us make
haste!"

The two women passed out under Olivier's protection, and descended
the Hôtel de Ville's grand staircase through the crowd, which
followed fallen Robespierre with cries of "Victory!  Victory!"




CHAPTER XV

DEATH'S KINDLY VEIL

Robespierre has thus been vanquished for the second time!

Where will they take him?  To the Tuileries, to the Convention, into
the very midst of the victorious National Assembly, where the dying
despot is to be exposed to the raillery of the populace, before being
carried to the scaffold.  Robespierre is laid down in the courtyard
of the Hôtel de Ville, and placed with infinite care on a litter.
They lift his head and bind up his wound, for he must live long
enough to receive the final retribution.  The bullet has but half
robbed the scaffold of its prey.

Artillerymen now come forward, and take him up again, but
Robespierre, still unconscious, knows nothing of what is passing
round him.  They lift the wreck of what was once the Incorruptible
and continue their way.  Saint-Just walks in the rear between two
gendarmes, his hands bound behind him, very pale, with head erect,
and perfectly indifferent to the insults hurled at him--the only one
of his allies who is with Robespierre in the hour of defeat.  The
others are either dead, hidden or fled.  But their turn will come,
for hot search is afoot for the cowards and fugitives.

The gloomy _cortège_ crosses the Place de la Grêve, and moves in the
direction of the quay, on its way to the Tuileries, beneath a
cloudless sky that smiles after the rain, as the stars are gradually
effaced by the first gleams of dawn.  It is three o'clock.  The
_cortège_ is followed by a curious and gaping crowd.  Passers-by stop
and ask, "What is it?"

"Robespierre, who is wounded.  They are taking him to the Convention."

Then the inquirers' faces light up with joy.

"It is all over, then! ... The tyrant is going to die! ... There will
be no more scaffold!"

And the passers-by joined the crowd.

But at the Convention the order had been given that the "monster" was
not to be received.  Even a captive and almost a corpse, they will
not allow Robespierre again to cross the threshold, once he has been
banished from their midst.  The Incorruptible, as an outlaw, belongs
to justice only.  So the wounded man is taken up and laid at the foot
of the grand staircase leading to the Committee of Public Safety.

There, on the very spot where, two days before, Robespierre,
returning from the Conciergerie, hurled defiance at Billaud-Varennes,
he now lies on a litter, vanquished, ruined, gasping out his life!

A peremptory order is given, and flies from mouth to mouth.
Robespierre is to be transported to the Committee's waiting-room.
Saint-Just walks in front now, with Dumas, President of the
Revolutionary Tribunal, who has been discovered hidden in a corner of
the Hôtel de Ville, and several others whose arrest and arrival is
also announced.

The litter is carried into the room.  Robespierre still unconscious
is lifted out and laid on a table, and his head is pillowed on a deal
box, containing samples of munition bread.  His shirt, loosened at
the neck, and leaving the throat bare, is covered with blood which
still flows freely from the mutilated jaw.  The sky-blue coat is
soiled and torn, the nankeen breeches, the white stockings, washed
and ironed by Cornélie Duplay, are now all stained and disfigured.

The Incorruptible is a mutilated mass, but a living mass, still
breathing and still suffering.

Robespierre has opened his eyes; he raises his right hand, groping
instinctively for his handkerchief, wishing to wipe his mouth.  His
trembling fingers come in contact with a white leather pistol-case,
which he lifts to his lips to staunch the blood.  By an irony of fate
the case bears the inscription--"_The Great Monarch; Lecourt,
manufacturer to the King_."

Robespierre appears to revive.  He looks round, and his eyes fall on
Saint-Just and Dumas, side by side in the recess of one of the
windows, shrugging their shoulders at the rudeness of the people who
pass through the room and stare at them as if they were curiosities.
The insults are now directed against Robespierre, who turns
away:--"There is fallen majesty for you!" exclaims one....  "Majesty
laid low," says another....  "With his bandages he looks like a mummy
or a nun!" ... "Yes, a nun with her head-gear awry!" ... "He is
thinking of his Supreme Being!  It's just the right moment!"

But Robespierre, under this railing clamour and abuse, does not stir.
There he lies, stretched out motionless, his eyes fixed on the
ceiling, the very embodiment of silent scorn.  Slowly and without a
word, he drinks the cup of bitterness; he will drink it so, to the
very dregs.  A conqueror, he would have been to them a god;
vanquished, they nail him to the pillory.  Such is the constant
perfidy of human nature!  And yet he had been so near success, so
near!  If the Convention had not proved so cowardly at the sitting,
had not succumbed directly before Tallien's attack! ... If they had
but let him speak!  If they had allowed him to defend himself!  But
the plot had been too well laid.  Then Robespierre's thoughts wander
to the other wretches, the Communes, the cowards on whom he had
counted, the vile traitors and base deserters!

His bitter meditations are suddenly cut short by a shooting pain in
the knee, which runs through him like a knife.  It is his garter,
which is too tightly drawn.  He raises himself and stretches out his
hand to undo it, but his strength fails, and he falls back again.
Suddenly he feels some one gently loosening it.  He lifts himself
again and bends forward.  Can he be dreaming?  That young man ...
yes, it is Olivier! ... Olivier, himself!

"Oh, thank you, my ... thank you, my ... thank you, monsieur!" he
says hastily.

He is on the point of saying, "my son!" but has strength enough left
to recollect himself.  No!  Olivier must never know the secret of his
birth, never, never!

Robespierre falls back again.  The emotion is too much for him, and
he faints away.

Yes, it is Olivier, who has just obtained from the Committee a
passport for his mother, his _fiancée_, and himself.  Crossing the
waiting-room he had seen Robespierre stretched out on the table in
front of him.  Touched with pity at his vain and painful attempts to
undo the garter, he had come to his assistance.

Olivier now leaves the Committee of Public Safety to rejoin Clarisse
and Thérèse, who are waiting for him in the Tuileries Gardens, and
overcome with fatigue have sat down on a bench, and seeing them in
the distance hastens his steps.

"I have the passport!" he exclaims.

"Then let us go, and lose no time!" Clarisse answers; "let us return
to Montmorency, at once!  I long to leave the city of woe and misery."

"We cannot go yet," replies Olivier.  "The passport must bear the
stamp of the Committee of General Security to be of any use, and I
must present myself before the Committee at three o'clock."

"Then, what are we to do?  Where shall we go?" asks Clarisse wearily.

"We can only go to the Rue du Rocher, to Leonard's landlady.  She
will receive me with open arms, you will see, now she has no longer
Robespierre to fear."

It is five o'clock, and day has just dawned.  The air is soft and
fresh, the sky above of sapphire blue; the trees, the streets, the
very houses, seem smiling with renewed life, after the refreshing
shower.

In this brightening dawn Robespierre is being taken to the
Conciergerie, for the Committee of Public Safety have altered their
decision.  Robespierre and his accomplices, now found and arrested,
are to be confined in the Conciergerie in order to undergo the
formality of identification.  From thence they are to be taken to the
scaffold without trial or judgment, as outlaws.

So Robespierre is replaced on the litter, followed by the gaping
crowd.  He sleeps the whole way, lulled by the measured tread of the
men who carry him, and only awakes to find himself in a narrow cell,
in charge of a gendarme.

"Can I write?" he asks.

"No!"

"Where am I?"

"At the Conciergerie."

His eyes flash for a second.  He looks round uneasily and
repeats--"At the Conciergerie!  In what part of the Conciergerie?"

"Between the Queen's cell and the Girondins' Chapel."

Between his victims!  He is between his victims!  The fearful warning
on the prison walls passes again before his eyes: "Robespierre, your
hour will come!..."  The dead were right!  If he had done away with
the guillotine in time, he would perhaps not be there, himself a
victim of the Terror he had let loose!  But he could not!  No, he
could not, it was too soon....  He would have been engulfed in the
turmoil, just the same! ... In continuing the Revolutionary Tribunal,
in keeping the executioner at his post, he was merely protecting his
own head!

His mind is flooded with ideas....  He is, dreaming vaguely, his dim
eyes fixed on the low ceiling of his cell....  His youth smiles at
him through the mist of years, every detail of the past comes back to
him in clear and lucid vision.

He sees Clarisse seated at her harpsichord, he is turning over the
leaves of her music ... but the vision trembles, and then fades away.
Fever gradually rises to his brain, takes entire possession of him,
and deadens his senses, so that he is completely unconscious, and
when Fouquier-Tinville, his creature of the Revolutionary Tribunal,
his accomplice in the days of bloodshed, comes forward to identify
him, he does not recognise his voice.

The end is now approaching.  At five in the afternoon the gendarmes
come to conduct Robespierre to the scaffold.  The Convention has
decreed that for this occasion the guillotine shall be erected at the
Place de la Révolution.  Robespierre is borne on the litter through
the crowd of prisoners, the victims of his hatred and his laws, and
when the dying man has passed the threshold they breathe again.  With
him death departs and new life comes in.

The tumbril is waiting in the courtyard, surrounded by a crowd of
_sans-culottes_ and Mænads, and hundreds of spectators eager to
witness the startling spectacle, are swarming in the streets to hoot
and abuse Robespierre as heartily as they had cheered and applauded
him at the Fête of the Supreme Being!  To effect this startling
change one sitting of the Convention has sufficed!

Robespierre is now in sight.  This is the signal for the wildest
uproar.  He is seated on a bench in the first tumbril, and fastened
against the bars of the cart to keep him from falling.  The fresh air
has revived him; he allows them to do as they please, looking on in
silent scorn.  Others of the condemned are placed in the same
tumbril: Augustin Robespierre, Saint-Just, Dumas the president,
Hauriot, and Couthon.  The two last are seated right and left of
Robespierre.  Four other carts follow, equally loaded.  The condemned
number twenty-two in all.

Now Robespierre's _via dolorosa_ begins.

Abuse and insults rain down on them in torrents, covering Robespierre
and his accomplices with ignominy.

The ghastly procession crosses the Pont-au-Change, the Quay de la
Mégisserie, and passing the Rue de la Monnaie it enters the Rue
Saint-Honoré.

Curses are heard mingling with the shrieks of the rabble, for among
the crowd there are many victims of the Terror, widows and orphans
conjuring up the memory of all their anguish, all the drama of the
guillotine, the work of the Incorruptible.

A woman clutches at the tumbril in which Robespierre sits, a woman
whose two children had been torn from her by the Prairial law.

"Monster!" she cries, "vile monster! in the name of all mothers, I
curse you to hell!"

The crowd following the _cortège_ grows denser as it proceeds.  It is
_Decadi_, the Republican Sunday.  All Paris is out of doors.  The
windows and balconies are thronged with men and women in festal
attire, pressing forward to see the procession file past, and
showering down shouts of joy and triumph, for the passing of those
tumbrils means also the passing away of the reign of Terror.

Robespierre continues his dreadful way, his eyes fixed and glassy,
his face wrapped in the bandage which holds his jaw together, and
partly hides it like some ghastly mask.  By his side sits Hauriot,
livid and terrified, covered with the mud and filth of the sewer into
which he had fallen.  Couthon and Augustin Robespierre, pitifully
mutilated, are lying at the bottom of the cart.  Saint-Just alone
stands erect, his hands bound, and retains his scornful air.

The tumbrils enter the Rue Saint-Honoré near the Jacobin Club, where
two days before the Incorruptible reigned supreme.  The martyrdom is
not over.  They are before the house of the Duplays.

The _cortège_ stops.

At a given signal a child dips a broom in a pail of blood, and
sprinkles the front door.

"Ha!  Robespierre, here is your cavern branded with the blood of your
victims!" cries a voice.

A plaintive howl is heard from behind the blood-smeared door.  It is
Blount, who has scented his master.  Robespierre shuts his eyes but
it is useless, for he can hear!

People question each other in the crowd.  Where are the Duplays?  In
prison!  The father at Plessis, the mother at Sainte-Pilagie with her
young son.  Lebas has killed himself!  His body is there in one of
the carts.  As to the daughters, they have fled, most probably.

But now for the guillotine!

The _cortège_ continues its way, while the heart-rending moans of
Blount can still be heard in the distance.  That cry of the faithful
dog, recognising his master and calling to him, is the last adieu to
Robespierre from his recent home.

The first tumbril is already at the top of the Rue Saint-Florentin.
A man turns out of the street and runs in the direction of the Rue de
la Révolution.

The crowd cry after him--

"Hallo, there! will you not see the Incorruptible's head cut off?
Stop! stop!  Don't be so chicken-hearted!"

But the man is already far away.  It is Olivier, returning from the
Committee of General Security, where he had at last succeeded in
having his passport countersigned, after endless trouble.  He tries
to cross the Rue Saint-Honoré, but the crowd fills the street; so he
retraces his steps, followed the Jardin des Tuileries, and reaches
the Rue Saint-Florentin, at the very moment when the tumbrils are at
hand.

Away from them he hurries, towards the Rue de Rocher, where Clarisse
and Thérèse are impatiently awaiting him in their room.  The
landlady, anxious to be taken back to favour, has been worrying them
with officious attention since the morning.

Olivier bursts in upon them eagerly--

"It's done!  Now we can start!  Is the carriage ready?"

The widow Beaugrand is in despair.

"Then you have decided to go?  Will you not wait until to-morrow?  I
have such a nice supper prepared!"

Olivier grows impatient.  Clarisse and Thérèse get ready to start.

"It's all right!  Everything is arranged," says the landlady.  "The
carriage has been ordered, and is just two steps from here."

She hastens downstairs, followed by Olivier and the two women, who
wait outside.  The street is deserted.  The day melts in a soft
twilight.  Stars already twinkle in the cloudless sky.  Light, happy
laughter comes from a balcony opposite, the echo of childish
merriment, which soon ceases with the closing of a door.

The carriage has arrived, an open _char-à-banc_ with four seats.
Olivier helps his mother and his _fiancée_ in, then climbs up on the
box beside the driver.

"To Montmorency!  And take the shortest cut!"

The carriage rolls away amidst the farewells and good wishes of the
widow Beaugrand.  However, at the end of the Rue du Rocher it stops
suddenly and draws up to the side of the road.  Two carts are coming
at full gallop, driven by men in red nightcaps.  Olivier asks
impatiently--

"What is the matter now?"

"It's the dead bodies of the condemned, citoyen; they are taking them
to the Cemetery des Errancy.  Ah! now, the Incorruptible can kill no
more!"

The two women have heard!

Clarisse and Thérèse fall on their knees, their hands clapped, and
their eyes lifted in prayer.  Olivier bares his head.  The carts are
passing.  Clarisse and Thérèse make the sign of the cross.  Olivier,
pale with emotion, follows their example, turning towards Thérèse and
his mother, whose eyes dwell with strange emotion on his face.  Her
tear-dimmed gaze is full of mute thanksgiving, the secret of which
Olivier will never know.










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