CHAPTER I
Paris: 1793
The outrage.
It would have been very difficult to say why Citizen Deroulede was quiteso popular as he was. Still more difficult would it have been to statethe reason why he remained immune from the prosecutions, which werebeing conducted at the rate of several scores a day, now against themoderate Gironde, anon against the fanatic Mountain, until the whole ofFrance was transformed into one gigantic prison, that daily fed theguillotine.
But Deroulede remained unscathed. Even Merlin's law of the suspect hadso far failed to touch him. And when, last July, the murder of Maratbrought an entire holocaust of victims to the guillotine--from Adam Lux,who would have put up a statue in honour of Charlotte Corday, with theinscription: "Greater than Brutus", to Charlier, who would have had herpublicly tortured and burned at the stake for her crime--Deroulede alonesaid nothing, and was allowed to remain silent.
The most seething time of that seething revolution. No one knew in themorning if his head would still be on his own shoulders in the evening,or if it would be held up by Citizen Samson the headsman, for thesansculottes of Paris to see.
Yet Deroulede was allowed to go his own way. Marat once said of him: "Iln'est pas dangereux." The phrase had been taken up. Within the precinctsof the National Convention, Marat was still looked upon as the greatprotagonist of Liberty, a martyr to his own convictions carried to theextreme, to squalor and dirt, to the downward levelling of man to whatis the lowest type in humanity. And his sayings were still treasured up:even the Girondins did not dare to attack his memory. Dead Marat wasmore powerful than his living presentment had been.
And he had said that Deroulede was not dangerous. Not dangerous toRepublicanism, to liberty, to that downward, levelling process, thetearing down of old traditions, and the annihilation of pastpretensions.
Deroulede had once been very rich. He had had sufficient prudence togive away in good time that which, undoubtedly, would have been takenaway from him later on.
But when he gave willingly, at a time when France needed it most, andbefore she had learned how to help herself to what she wanted.
And somehow, in this instance, France had not forgotten: an invisiblefortress seemed to surround Citizen Deroulede and keep his enemies atbay. They were few, but they existed. The National Convention trustedhim. "He was not dangerous" to them. The people looked upon him as oneof themselves, who gave whilst he had something to give. Who can gaugethat most elusive of all things: _Popularity?_
He lived a quiet life, and had never yielded to the omni-prevalenttemptation of writing pamphlets, but lived alone with his mother andAnne Mie, the little orphaned cousin whom old Madame Deroulede had takencare of, ever since the child could toddle.
Everyone knew his house in the Rue Ecole de Medecine, not far from theone wherein Marat lived and died, the only solid, stone house in themidst of a row of hovels, evil-smelling and squalid.
The street was narrow then, as it is now, and whilst Paris was cuttingoff the heads of her children for the sake of Liberty and Fraternity,she had no time to bother about cleanliness and sanitation.
Rue Ecole de Medecine did little credit to the school after which it wasnamed, and it was a most unattractive crowd that usually thronged itsuneven, muddy pavements.
A neat gown, a clean kerchief, were quite an unusual sight down thisway, for Anne Mie seldom went out, and old Madame Deroulede hardly everleft her room. A good deal of brandy was being drunk at the two drinkingbars, one at each end of the long, narrow street, and by five o'clock inthe afternoon it was undoubtedly best for women to remain indoors.
The crowd of dishevelled elderly Amazons who stood gossiping at thestreet corner could hardly be called women now. A ragged petticoat, agreasy red kerchief round the head, a tattered, stained shift--to thispass of squalor and shame had Liberty brought the daughters of France.
And they jeered at any passer-by less filthy, less degraded thanthemselves.
"Ah! voyons l'aristo!" they shouted every time a man in decent clothes,a woman with tidy cap and apron, passed swiftly down the street.
And the afternoons were very lively. There was always plenty to see:first and foremost, the long procession of tumbrils, winding its wayfrom the prisons to the Place de la Revolution. The forty-four thousandsections of the Committee of Public Safety sent their quota, each intheir turn, to the guillotine.
At one time these tumbrils contained royal ladies and gentlemen,_ci-devant_ dukes and princesses, aristocrats from every county inFrance, but now this stock was becoming exhausted. The wretched QueenMarie Antoinette still lingered in the Temple with her son and daughter.Madame Elisabeth was still allowed to say her prayers in peace, but_ci-devant_ dukes and counts were getting scarce: those who had notperished at the hand of Citizen Samson were plying some trade in Germanyor England.
There were aristocratic joiners, innkeepers, and hairdressers. Theproudest names in France were hidden beneath trade signs in London andHamburg. A good number owed their lives to that mysterious ScarletPimpernel, that unknown Englishman who had snatched scores of victimsfrom the clutches of Tinville the Prosecutor, and sent M. Chauvelin,baffled, back to France.
Aristocrats were getting scarce, so it was now the turn of deputies ofthe National Convention, of men of letters, men of science or of art,men who had sent others to the guillotine a twelvemonth ago, and men whohad been loudest in defence of anarchy and its Reign of Terror.
They had revolutionised the Calendar: the Citizen-Deputies, and everygood citizen of France, called this 19th day of August 1793 the 2ndFructidor of the year I. of the New Era.
At six o'clock on that afternoon a young girl suddenly turned the angleof the Rue Ecole de Medecine, and after looking quickly to the right andleft she began deliberately walking along the narrow street.
It was crowded just then. Groups of excited women stood jabbering beforeevery doorway. It was the home-coming hour after the usual spectacle onthe Place de la Revolution. The men had paused at the various drinkingbooths, crowding the women out. It would be the turn of these Amazonsnext, at the brandy bars; for the moment they were left to gossip, andto jeer at the passer-by.
At first the young girl did not seem to heed them. She walked quicklyalong, looking defiantly before her, carrying her head erect, andstepping carefully from cobblestone to cobblestone, avoiding the mud,which could have dirtied her dainty shoes.
The harridans passed the time of day to her, and the time of day meantsome obscene remark unfit for women's ears. The young girl wore a simplegrey dress, with fine lawn kerchief neatly folded across her bosom, alarge hat with flowing ribbons sat above the fairest face that evergladdened men's eyes to see.
Fairer still it would have been, but for the look of determination whichmade it seem hard and old for the girl's years.
She wore the tricolour scarf round her waist, else she had been moreseriously molested ere now. But the Republican colours were hersafeguard: whilst she walked quietly along, no one could harm her.
Then suddenly a curious impulse seemed to seize her. It was just outsidethe large stone house belonging to Citizen-Deputy Deroulede. She had sofar taken no notice of the groups of women which she had come across.When they obstructed the footway, she had calmly stepped out into themiddle of the road.
It was wise and prudent, for she could close her ears to obscenelanguage and need pay no heed to insult.
Suddenly she threw up her head defiantly.
"Will you please let me pass?" she said loudly, as a dishevelled Amazonstood before her with arms akimbo, glancing sarcastically at the lacepetticoat, which just peeped beneath the young girl's simple grey frock.
"Let her pass? Let her pass? Ho! ho! ho!" laughed the old woman, turningto the nearest group of idlers, and apostrophising them with a loudoath. "Did _you_ know, citizeness, that this street had been speciallymade for aristos to pass along?"
"I am in a hurry, will you let me pass at once?" commanded the younggirl, tapping her foot impati
ently on the ground.
There was the whole width of the street on her right, plenty of room forher to walk along. It seemed positive madness to provoke a quarrelsinglehanded against this noisy group of excited females, just home fromthe ghastly spectacle around the guillotine.
And yet she seemed to do it wilfully, as if coming to the end of herpatience, all her proud, aristocratic blood in revolt against thisevil-smelling crowd which surrounded her.
Half-tipsy men and noisome, naked urchins seemed to have sprung fromeverywhere.
"Oho, quelle aristo!" they shouted with ironical astonishment, gazing atthe young girl's face, fingering her gown, thrusting begrimed,hate-distorted faces close to her own.
Instinctively she recoiled and backed towards the house immediately onher left. It was adorned with a porch made of stout oak beams, with atiled roof; an iron lantern descended from this, and there was a stoneparapet below, and a few steps, at right angles from the pavement, ledup to the massive door.
On these steps the young girl had taken refuge. Proud, defiant, sheconfronted the howling mob, which she had so wilfully provoked.
"Of a truth, Citizeness Margot, that grey dress would become you well!"suggested a young man, whose red cap hung in tatters over an evil anddissolute-looking face.
"And all that fine lace would make a splendid jabot round the aristo'sneck when Citizen Samson holds up her head for us to see," addedanother, as with mock elegance he stooped and with two very grimyfingers slightly raised the young girl's grey frock, displaying thelace-edged petticoat beneath.
A volley of oaths and loud, ironical laughter greeted this sally.
"'Tis mighty fine lace to be thus hidden away," commented an elderlyharridan. "Now, would you believe it, my fine madam, but my legs arebare underneath my kirtle?"
"And dirty, too, I'll lay a wager," laughed another. "Soap is dear inParis just now."
"The lace on the aristo's kerchief would pay the baker's bill of a wholefamily for a month!" shouted an excited voice.
Heat and brandy further addled the brains of this group of Frenchcitizens; hatred gleamed out of every eye. Outrage was imminent. Theyoung girl seemed to know it, but she remained defiant andself-possessed, gradually stepping back and back up the steps, closelyfollowed by her assailants.
"To the Jew with the gewgaw, then!" shouted a thin, haggard femaleviciously, as she suddenly clutched at the young girl's kerchief, andwith a mocking, triumphant laugh tore it from her bosom.
This outrage seemed to be the signal for the breaking down of the finalbarriers which ordinary decency should have raised. The language andvituperation became such as no chronicler could record.
The girl's dainty white neck, her clear skin, the refined contour ofshoulders and bust, seemed to have aroused the deadliest lust of hate inthese wretched creatures, rendered bestial by famine and squalor.
It seemed almost as if one would vie with the other in seeking for wordswhich would most offend these small aristocratic ears.
The young girl was now crouching against the doorway, her hands held upto her ears to shut out the awful sounds. She did not seem frightened,only appalled at the terrible volcano which she had provoked.
Suddenly a miserable harridan struck her straight in the face, withhard, grimy fist, and a long shout of exultation greeted this monstrousdeed.
Then only did the girl seem to lose her self-control.
"A moi," she shouted loudly, whilst hammering with both hands againstthe massive doorway. "A moi! Murder! Murder! Citoyen Deroulede, a moi!"
But her terror was greeted with renewed glee by her assailants. Theywere now roused to the highest point of frenzy: the crowd of bruteswould in the next moment have torn the helpless girl from her place ofrefuge and dragged her into the mire, an outraged prey, for thesatisfaction of an ungovernable hate.
But just as half-a-dozen pairs of talon-like hands clutched franticallyat her skirts, the door behind her was quickly opened. She felt her armseized firmly, and herself dragged swiftly within the shelter of thethreshold.
Her senses, overwrought by the terrible adventure which she had justgone through, were threatening to reel; she heard the massive doorclose, shutting out the yells of baffled rage, the ironical laughter,the obscene words, which sounded in her ears like the shrieks of Dante'sdamned.
She could not see her rescuer, for the hall into which he had hastilydragged her was only dimly lighted. But a peremptory voice said quickly:
"Up the stairs, the room straight in front of you, my mother is there.Go quickly."
She had fallen on her knees, cowering against the heavy oak beam whichsupported the ceiling, and was straining her eyes to catch sight of theman, to whom at this moment she perhaps owed more than her life: but hewas standing against the doorway, with his hand on the latch.
"What are you going to do?" she murmured.
"Prevent their breaking into my house in order to drag you out of it,"he replied quietly; "so, I pray you, do as I bid you."
Mechanically she obeyed him, drew herself to her feet, and, turningtowards the stairs, began slowly to mount the shallow steps. Her kneeswere shaking under her, her whole body was trembling with horror at theawesome crisis she had just traversed.
She dared not look back at her rescuer. Her head was bent, and her lipswere murmuring half-audible words as she went.
Outside the hooting and yelling was becoming louder and louder. Enragedfists were hammering violently against the stout oak door.
At the top of the stairs, moved by an irresistible impulse, she turnedand looked into the hall.
She saw his figure dimly outlined in the gloom, one hand on the latch,his head thrown back to watch her movements.
A door stood ajar immediately in front of her. She pushed it open andwent within.
At that moment he too opened the door below. The shrieks of the howlingmob once more resounded close to her ears. It seemed as if they hadsurrounded him. She wondered what was happening, and marvelled how hedared to face that awful crowd alone.
The room into which she had entered was gay and cheerful-looking withits dainty chintz hangings and graceful, elegant pieces of furniture.The young girl looked up, as a kindly voice said to her, from out thedepths of a capacious armchair:
"Come in, come in, my dear, and close the door behind you! Did thosewretches attack you? Never mind. Paul will speak to them. Come here, mydear, and sit down; there's no cause now for fear."
Without a word the young girl came forward. She seemed now to be walkingin a dream, the chintz hangings to be swaying ghostlike around her, theyells and shrieks below to come from the very bowels of the earth.
The old lady continued to prattle on. She had taken the girl's hand inhers, and was gently forcing her down on to a low stool beside herarmchair. She was talking about Paul, and said something about Anne Mie,and then about the National Convention, and those beasts and savages,but mostly about Paul.
The noise outside had subsided. The girl felt strangely sick and tired.Her head seemed to be whirling round, the furniture to be dancing roundher; the old lady's face looked at her through a swaying veil, andthen--and then ...
Tired Nature was having her way at last; she folded the quivering youngbody in her motherly arms, and wrapped the aching senses beneath hermerciful mantle of unconsciousness.
I Will Repay Page 2
