“A horse? At this hour?”
“Business of the Nation.” The young secretary’s voice was hard and peremptory. He flourished his portfolio. “I am to ride ahead of the Citizen-Representative into Nevers. There is urgency. Make haste, or you will answer to the Citizen-Representative.”
A horse was quickly saddled, and upon this the young secretary, with a seat suggestive of a huntsman rather than a clerk, vanished at the gallop into the night.
THE Citizen-Representative, newly-risen, scrupulously shaved, his hair dressed as carefully as an aristocrat’s stalked into the main room between the bedrooms, calling briskly for chocolate.
Whilst he waited he sauntered to the window, and stood there considering the darkness and drizzle outside. Presently, however, the general stillness about him smote his attention as a sudden sound might have done at another time. It moved him apprehensively. He stepped swiftly to Mademoiselle de Montsorbier’s door, and rapped sharply with his knuckles. There was no answer. He tried the handle. It turned, and the door swung inwards, discovering to him the room’s lack of tenant. He noted the bed, undisturbed save by an impression of her form so faint as to suggest that it was some hours since she had lain there, nor then had lain there long.
With an oath, he flung headlong from the room. The innkeeper, terrified by the Representative’s furious demands for his secretary, backed by horrible threats of the guillotine in the event of prevarication or evasion, quaveringly swore that he knew nothing whatever of the missing person and that he learnt now for the first time of that person’s absence.
The Citizen-Representative stared at the mumbling oaf with such fierce flaming eyes that the fellow recoiled in dread. But the ostler, lounging near at hand and overhearing the angry interrogatory, came forward to supply the answer which was to quench Chauvinière’s last lingering hope.
“And you let him go?” said Chauvinière between his teeth. He was smiling terribly. “You let him go? Like that? Tell me which way he went. Use your worthless head, animal, or you may lose it.”
The ostler, answered the youth had ridden off in the direction of Nevers.
“Saddle me a horse,” he commanded, and on that horse he was, himself, riding away through the darkness to Nevers within ten minutes, leaving the post-boy to follow with the chaise.
Reaching Nevers at noon, he went to the President of the Revolutionary Committee, a heavy-bodied, lumbering tanner named Desjardins, and stated his immediate need. His papers had been stolen last night at La Charité by a youth whom he had befriended, and who he was now assured was a girl, a cursed aristocrat, no doubt. She was known to have ridden off in the direction of Nevers. Her recapture was of the utmost importance. Heads would fall if she were not re-taken.
That the agents of the Committee were active is not to be doubted. In fact their activities were proved by the recapture on the morrow, near Chatillon, of the horse which the girl had ridden, and later by the discovery in a ditch near Souvigny of a black riding-coat, boots and other articles of apparel which Chauvinière recognized as those worn by the fugitive, as well as of an empty portfolio of black leather with a metal clasp, which the Representative acknowledged his own property. Of the fugitive herself, however, there was no trace.
At last towards the end of April Chauvinière’s dreaded progress brought him to the little hill-town of Poussignot.
The Revolutionary Committee of Poussignot was hurriedly summoned to the little town-hall, overlooking the market-square, where the carpenters were already busy with the erection of the scaffold. In muttering awe they awaited the coming of this dread man from the Convention, who was to rouse that sleepy and hitherto contented township from its revolutionary languor.
He arrived at last, arrogant and overbearing, and already informed, it appeared, of certain things in and about Poussignot, for he produced a list of persons suspected of the new crime of incivisme, in one or another of its many forms.
It was upon naming the third of these — one Raoul Amédée de Corbigny — that he received his first check.
“Of what is he accused, that one?”
The question came abruptly from Doucier, the horse-leech, a man prominent in the local Jacobin Society, honest, fearless and formidable in debate, a man who might, had he chosen, represent his own section of the Nivernais in the National Convention. He was the first, as might have been expected, to throw off the spell of terror which Chauvinière had imposed upon the Committee.
Surprised by the sudden audacity of the interruption, Chauvinière answered impatiently: “He is accused of harbouring counter-revolutionary sentiments.”
“But the Committee of Poussignot demands precise accusations; not vague charges which of its own knowledge it perceives to be unfounded.”
An approving growl from the assembly informed Chauvinière that, infected by the example of their president, the members of the committee had so far recovered from the spell of his oratory as to be in a state of mutiny.
“Do you say that I lie?” he asked them icily.
“Oh! But Citizen-Representative! Only that you may have been misinformed. If you will suffer us to guide you in matters of local knowledge, citizen, you will accept our assurance that you have been misled. I assure you, citizen, that the gravest consequences might follow upon an unsubstantiated attack upon Corbigny. In Poussignot all know the stalwart republicanism of his principles; all know the unpretentious simplicity of his existence, and all love him. That is not a man to be lightly accused. For your own sake, Citizen-Representative, and for ours, you would do well to be fully armed with particulars of Corbigny’s incivisme before you demand of us his arrest.”
If the argument did not suffice to turn Chauvinière from his purpose, it sufficed to make him temporize. He announced he would visit Corbigny, and form at first hand an opinion of the real sentiments of the ci-devant Vicomte.
THE Château de Corbigny was perched amid vineyards halfway up the hill above the town, standing four-square, grey and a little dilapidated, flanked by round towers under red roofs.
Within doors, the Citizen-Representative found the same unpretentiousness. He encountered Corbigny in the vast stone kitchen, at table with the persons of his household. These consisted of his elderly steward, Fougereot, the latter’s wife, their two stalwart sons and a plump, comely young woman euphoniously named Filomène, who was responsible for the domestic comforts of the impoverished nobleman. Corbigny, himself, a man of thirty, fitted into his environment as if made for it. In dress he was almost a peasant, in dignity and courtesy a gentleman, whilst in speech and in countenance, with his lofty brow and sombre wistful eyes, he suggested the scholar and poet. He rose now to receive his visitor.
“I represent a government, citizen, that dispenses with ceremony,” said Chauvinière, but with a good deal less than his usual haughty sententiousness.
Corbigny smiled. “Will you not join our board, then?” He placed a chair. “It is of a republican simplicity.”
“That is as it should be,” said Chauvinière, who detested republican simplicity, and daily thanked God for a revolution which had brought the succulent things of life within his easy reach. He sat down. He was served by Filomène with bread and ham, both of which he found of an excellent quality, whilst Corbigny himself poured for him a wine which left little to be desired. Not so hopelessly republican, after all, this simple fare. Corbigny and his odd guest talked indifferently of this and that, whilst the others sat listening in uneasy silence. At last, the meal being ended, Chauvinière sat back, flung one buckskinned leg over the arm of his chair, and tucked his long hand under the tricolour sash of office that girdled him. “You are very snug here at Corbigny, citizen. I wonder that you have never brought a mistress to it.”
“What would you?” Corbigny said, laughing a little. “I have waited perhaps too long. Today...” he shrugged. “Today it would not be easy perhaps to find...” He checked abruptly, as one checks on the brink of an indiscretion.
But the i
ndiscretion was committed; for Chauvinière had no difficulty in completing the ci-devant’s sentence. He had meant to say that it was not easy to find a woman of his own class in a France which had been purged of aristocrats.
“To find what, citizen?” he coaxed.
“Oh, but nothing, citizen.” Corbigny was faintly embarrassed. “It does not matter. And it would be easy to find a more interesting topic of conversation than myself.”
“You are mistaken in both opinions. It matters very much.” Chauvinière had thought of something else. “Celibacy is an affront to Nature; and who affronts Nature is no good republican, since republicanism is based on Nature’s laws. That is why I say that it matters very much.”
When they began to realize that he was not jesting, Corbigny made haste to change the subject.
Chauvinière left shortly, but on the morrow he inaugurated that novel mission of his. From the rostrum of the Jacobin Society of Poussignot he propounded his new gospel with the frenzied rhetoric and specious cant with which he had learnt to sway the passions of emotional unintelligent mobs. France was being depopulated by the events. That was his starting point. The evil brood of aristocracy must be replaced by a race of free men, born in an enlightened age. To neglect this was to neglect the most sacred duty that the Nation had the right to claim from them. It was to expose the Republic, through depopulation, to ultimate destruction. Forth came, then, that master-phrase of his: “Celibacy is an affront to Nature!” As none knew better than Chauvinière, who made intellectual toys for himself out of these things, such was the crack-brained state of the popular mind that the more extravagant a doctrine, the more assured it was of acceptance.
Within ten days the movement had reached such a pitch that it was proposed and unanimously agreed at the Society of Jacobins that, as the Citizen-Representative had propounded, for a man of twenty-five to remain unmarried in the face of the country’s needs was to give proof of incivisme, to be punished as incivisme was punished by declaring him outside the law and sending him to the guillotine. And in the Commune of Poussignot that amazing resolution of the Jacobins was raised to the equivalent of a law.
At last the ground was sufficiently prepared for an attack upon the elusive ci-devant Vicomte de Corbigny. A definite accusation of incivisme, hitherto difficult, was now rendered easy.
The accusation was laid, and M. de Corbigny was haled before the bar of the Tribunal to receive the usual admonition. To do honour to the court and the occasion, he had dressed himself with unusual care, in garments stored up for ceremonious occasions: a black coat with silver buttons, silk breeches and stockings and buckled shoes.
“The Citizen ci-devant Vicomte de Corbigny, belongs by birth to a class which the Republic has abolished. Himself he has gone unscathed because of the republican spirit by which he is believed to be inspired. He should perceive that he is now provided with an opportunity of placing his republicanism beyond all possibility of future question.
“Acquainted as I am with his household, in which I have had the honour to be entertained, I am fortunately in a position to advise him. A girl of the people who serves him should prove domestically a very suitable wife. Therefore, this court counsels him not only to marry, but to marry Filomène Paulard, thus affording an abiding proof of his acceptance of the religion of equality — a religion in which France will tolerate no heretics.”
The riff-raff largely composing the audience hailed the proposal uproariously as worthy of Solomon. When that uproar died down, Monsieur de Corbigny at last spoke. A scarlet flush had overspread his long and rather melancholy countenance. But his voice remained calm and steady.
“You know...” He half-turned, so as to include the entire assembly. “You all know my habits of life and of thought, and the simple creed by which I have governed my existence. I believe in communism, and I have given proofs of that belief. The Nation is above the individual, and I recognize the Nation’s right to demand of me my property and, at need, my life. But I do not recognize the Nation’s right to demand of me my soul...”
Chauvinière impatiently interrupted him. “We have abolished all that!”
But Corbigny went on as if the interruption had not been: “Nor do I recognize the Nation’s voice in that demand. With submission, citizen-judges, you were placed here to administer the existing laws and not to create new ones. The making of laws is the sole prerogative of the National Convention, and any man or group of men infringing that prerogative and arrogating any such rights are themselves guilty of an incivisme for which they may be indicted.”
Chauvinière admired the shrewdness and subtlety of that counter-attack, and was thankful that it was made before men of too low an order of intelligence to appreciate it. A growl of anger and mockery was all it drew from the assembly, and when that subsided the President spoke without emotion: “You have three days for consideration, Citizen Corbigny.”
Corbigny advanced a step, throwing off his imperturbability. His eyes blazed in a face that passion turned from red to white. “Three seconds would be too much, Citizen-President, for consideration; three centuries not enough to alter my resolve to reject this infamy.”
And whilst the crowd surged snarling and growling, the President, impassive as doom, insisted: “Nevertheless, you have three days.”
AT the leisurely pace of a man who meditates, M. de Corbigny took his way home up the hill through the April dusk. He did not relish the thought of dying. Even less, however, did he relish the thought of the horrible mésalliance by which he might save his life. The futility of flight was too apparent. He would be hunted down, and at a time when it was impossible to move openly in the country without papers he would soon be overtaken and brought back in ignominy. Let him at least preserve his self-respect. Reluctant though he might be to die, life, after all, was not so delectable in these days.
He mounted a stile into one of his meadows, and as he leapt lightly down upon the turf, he was suddenly aware of a figure, faintly visible in the gloom, crouching behind the wall. A moment he stood gazing, then called out, challenging; whereupon the figure came upright, and was off at speed across the narrow strip of meadowland towards the woods.
The eccentricity of this behaviour, thought M. de Corbigny, called for investigation. He was fleet of foot, and he was upon the fugitive before the latter had covered half the distance to his goal. He clutched the shoulder of a stripling, clad in the blouse, loose pantaloons and wooden shoes of a peasant. “A word with you, my friend. You are too fleet for honesty, to say nothing of your skulking behind a wall.”
“Let me go,” snarled a boyish voice. “I have done you no harm.” The figure writhed in his grasp. “Don’t dare to detain me!”
“Dare!” Corbigny laughed.
Something bright gleamed suddenly in the boy’s hand. On the instant Corbigny had him in a wrestler’s grip which pinned his arms helplessly to his sides. He hugged the murderous rascal close, intending to throw him. Instead, as if contact with that young body had burnt him, he thrust it sharply from him, and stepped back. The supposed stripling stood before him, breathing hard with head a little bowed, making no further attempt to escape.
“Who are you? What are you? And why are you dressed as a man? Answer me. I will not hurt you.”
The sudden gentleness of his voice, more, its high-bred inflection wrought a change in the other’s attitude. He threw back his head, showing a face that gleamed white and ghostly in the half-light. “Who are you? What is your name?” came the counter-questions in a voice which left Corbigny little doubt of the person’s quality.
“Until lately I was known as the Vicomte de Corbigny. Since then I have enjoyed a certain peace as a ci-devant. At the moment I scarcely know how to describe myself. But this land is still mine, and that house up yonder, which I shall place at your disposal if you will deal frankly with me.”
“You are a gentleman!”
He inclined his head a little. “It surprises you to meet one at large in France, of
course. But not more than it surprises me to meet a lady.”
He heard the sharp intake of her breath. “How do you know that?”
“How? I have my instincts, madame — or, is it mademoiselle?”
She hesitated long before passionately answering him: “Oh, if you are a trickster, play your vile trick. I care not. I am sick and weary. I should welcome even such rest as the guillotine brings. I am Cléonie de Montsorbier. You are incredulous? You have heard of us in prison in Paris. We are a Nivernaise family, and there should be interest in us hereabouts. You may even have heard that I was removed to a house of lunatics, but not that I was removed thence. It’s a long story, M. le Vicomte.”
“Tell it me as we walk,” said he, and, taking her by the arm he turned her about to face the house whose windows glowed ruddily in the deepening night.
As they went she told him briefly of her pseudo-secretaryship, and of her escape at La Charité from her republican protector whom she left unnamed. She had hoped to shelter at the Château de Blesson, with her cousins there. But to her dismay, on reaching it in the dawn, she had found it closed and shuttered, the family gone. Thence on a tired horse, she had plodded on to Verrues ten miles away, where another cousin dwelt. She found Verrues a blackened ruin, and in her weariness and despair, she sat down before it, and gave way to tears.
Thus she was surprised by a group of scared peasants. Because it was not in their simple hearts to let a gentlewoman suffer, they gave her shelter for some days; until fearing lest she should bring trouble upon them, and also because to lie there in hiding was too temporary a measure to suit her impatient eager spirit, she procured from them the peasant garments in which she stood, and departed, hoping to make her way on foot across the Nivernais and Burgundy, and thence slip over the frontier into Switzerland. But the journey had been one of hardships beyond all that she had feared.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 568
