by Eugène Sue
“I have no warrant for the arrest of Citizeness Desmarais. I shall refer the matter to the attorney for the Commune.”
“As to the chest, the object of your interrogation, I answer that it belongs not to me. It was sent here by my brother-in-law several days ago. It should contain, according to what has been told us, a birthday present for my wife; but I hasten to add that I have every ground for believing that Citizen Hubert, taking advantage of my confidence, has sought to conceal from investigation certain compromising papers, by sending them to me in that box. I learned of this circumstance only by certain words let fall by my brother-in-law just now, when I threatened to cause his arrest. I have nothing else to add.”
“Lift the cover off the box,” ordered the commissioner.
Several gendarmes thrust their bayonets between the cover of the chest and the lock, which yielded to their pressure. The case flew open. Advocate Desmarais threw an unquiet look into its interior, which was filled to the brim with daggers, pistols, and boxes of cartridges. Among these were several packages of proclamations issued by the royalist insurrectionary committee.
Despite his profound dissimulation and the extraordinary command he exercised over himself, Desmarais could not conceal the fright into which he was thrown by the exposure of the contents of the chest. But curbing his anxiety by a powerful effort, he feigned indifference, and tossed back into the box a copy of the proclamation, which he had hastily read.
The commissioner seated himself by a table, drew out an inkhorn, and began to write.
All at once Madam Desmarais appeared at the door of the parlor, pale, fainting, hardly able to keep her feet. Nevertheless in her face could be read the joy she felt over her brother’s escape, and as she entered she said, raising her eyes to heaven:
“Blessed be Thou, my God! He is saved!”
At the sight of his wife Desmarais leaped with rage, ran to her, seized her roughly by the arm and cried in a voice that betrayed the extent of his terror:
“Citizeness Desmarais, you are guilty of a crime against the nation. I call for your imprisonment.”
Madam Desmarais looked at her husband in amazement, unable, at first, to grasp the import of his words. Just at this moment Charlotte, informed by Gertrude of what was taking place, entered the room. She was in time to hear the last words of the advocate; she ran to Madam Desmarais, clasped her in her arms, and exclaimed:
“Great heaven! Imprison mother! Is it you, father, who thus threaten her!”
“Leave the room,” retorted the lawyer, accompanying the words with an imperious gesture. “Leave the room, my girl. Your presence is not needed.”
“I, leave the room, when you threaten mother? Never! Where she remains, I remain.”
“My child, be reassured,” replied Madam Desmarais in an undertone, giving her daughter a look of intelligence which included the commissioner. “Your father is not speaking seriously. Everything will come out to our satisfaction.”
These words, which might have been heard by the commissioner, still further exasperated the lawyer, who, under the double goad of his hypocrisy and trepidation, cried: “Citizeness Desmarais, in making yourself the confederate in the escape of a criminal, you have exposed yourself to carrying your head to the scaffold!”
At these words Charlotte uttered a piercing cry, and fell upon the neck of her mother, whom she still held in a tight embrace. But the latter, firmly persuaded that her husband was playing a role to conjure away the dangers which surrounded him, again said to her daughter, in order to calm her anguish:
“But, poor child, know that your father is forced to talk this way in the presence of a commissioner of police.”
Overwhelmed by so many emotions, Madam Desmarais forgot this time to lower her voice sufficiently as she spoke to her daughter. Her words fell with distinctness on the ears of her husband, standing near the commissioner of the Section, who was still occupied in writing his report. False and cowardly men, when in the grip of fear, are capable of any act of brutality to protect their own lives. So it now was with Desmarais; for, leaden pale with fright, he said to himself:
“I am lost! The commissioner heard my wife’s words.” Then, addressing the magistrate: “Citizen, I have called upon you for the arrest of Citizeness Desmarais, my wife.”
“And I have already told you, citizen,” rejoined the commissioner, “that I have no warrant for her arrest.”
“My dear girl,” whispered Madam Desmarais to her daughter, “your father insists on my arrest, knowing that he will not obtain it; be at ease.”
“Since, then, you refuse to arrest my wife, citizen commissioner, I call upon you to leave here two of your men to keep watch on Citizeness Desmarais until her case is settled.”
“I consent to leave two agents at your disposal for the surveillance of Citizeness Desmarais, since you insist upon it,” agreed the magistrate. Then, rising and passing the pen to the advocate, he continued: “Please sign the record of this seizure of arms, ammunition, and proclamations which has just taken place in your dwelling.”
“I wish to read the record carefully before I sign it, citizen commissioner; we may not agree on the wording of the document.”
“I shall wait while you read it,” the magistrate replied. And while the attorney made himself acquainted with the contents of the record, the commissioner approached Madam Desmarais, and said with a good-natured and meaning smile: “You are not frightened, citizeness, at the rigor of your husband?”
“Sir,” replied Madam Desmarais hesitantly, not knowing whether to distrust the officer or not, “my husband’s conduct does in truth seem to me a little strange.”
“Eh! by heaven! that’s very simple. Alas, in these unhappy times, honest men are often obliged to wear certain masks.”
“It was thanks to your generous intervention that my brother owes his safety.”
“Have a care, madam, that my men do not hear you; they are not all sure. But I have a last word of advice to give you: Try to warn monsieur, your brother, to leave Paris as soon as possible, and by the St. Victor barrier.”
“Ah, monsieur, what goodness!”
“I know that Monsieur Desmarais affects of necessity opinions far removed from his heart. Have no fear, then, madam; I caught his meaning when he asked for your arrest. So I am going to give you two jailers, the best men in the world. Adieu, madam, keep the secret for me, and count on my devotion;” and the magistrate added, half aloud: “One must howl with the wolves.”
As the commissioner moved away, Madam Desmarais said to her daughter joyfully, “What an excellent man! Thanks to him my brother will perhaps be able to leave Paris to-night without danger. What gratitude we all owe him!”
“By the St. Victor barrier, mother; doubtless, that barrier is less closely watched than the others. But how can we convey to uncle this precious information? There is the difficulty.”
“He gave me the number of a place, the home of one of his friends, where I might address a letter. I shall go write it at once, and Gertrude shall carry it.”
These various undertone conversations, and especially the conversation of his wife with the commissioner, put Desmarais on the griddle. But, obliged to pay all his attention to the police record, he could do no more than throw, from time to time, a hurried glance upon the speakers. He finally concluded the reading of the report, and having no fault to find with its contents, he signed it, saying once more, as he handed it back to the commissioner:
“I would remind you, citizen, that I request the arrest of Citizeness Desmarais, and in the meanwhile, I insist that two of your agents remain here at my disposition.”
“I have just issued orders to that effect. I leave you two men who will know how to perform their duty in every respect. Adieu, citizen; I shall not forget your request, nor the good example you present to the patriots in asking the arrest of Citizeness Desmarais. This very day Citizen Marat shall be enlightened by me on your patriotism.”
With these
words, which bore a double significance, the commissioner bowed low to Madam Desmarais and her daughter, marched out with his men, who carried with them the chest of arms, and said to two of the agents who accompanied him:
“You are to remain outside the parlor at the orders of Citizen Desmarais;” and added in a lower tone: “Keep watch around the house; follow the young woman who will go out.”
CHAPTER XIII.
THE HOWL RINGS FALSE.
AT THE SAME instant Madam Desmarais was saying to herself:
“Let me hasten to write to my brother that he may even to-night quit Paris, by the St. Victor barrier.” And, rushing to her husband as the double doors of the parlor swung to, she exclaimed joyfully:
“Ah, my friend, what a fine fellow that commissioner is! He does like you — he roars with the tigers and howls with the wolves!”
“What!” exploded the lawyer, taken aback. “Do you mean to say — ?”
“I mean this worthy man understood that in demanding my arrest, poor friend, you were only playing a role. Not so, Charlotte?”
“Oh, yes! For he said to mother, ‘In these times of revolution, honest men are obliged to wear a mask.’”
“And I made answer,” continued Madam Desmarais, “that, in fact, you were obliged to howl with the wolves, as you have so often repeated to me to-day.”
“Wretched woman!” screamed the lawyer, as he sprang at his wife, his fist raised in a paroxysm of rage.
“Father, recollect yourself, for pity!”
A moment later Desmarais’s fury gave way to prostration. His features were overspread with an ashen pallor, he reeled, and had barely time to throw himself into an arm-chair, mumbling as if his senses had forsaken him— “I am lost! — The guillotine!”
Madam Desmarais and her daughter flew to the advocate’s side, raised his inert head, and made him breathe their salts. Hardly had he come to himself when Gertrude entered and announced:
“Monsieur Billaud-Varenne asks to speak with monsieur, on a very urgent matter.”
The announcement of the visit of his colleague seemed to reanimate the lawyer. A glow of hope shone in his almost deathly countenance. He rose abruptly, saying:
“Billaud must have seen St. Just. If he accepts my proposition, I am saved!” Then, in a curt, hard voice he addressed his wife: “Retire to your apartment, madam; I have to talk business, grave political business, with Citizen Billaud-Varenne.”
Followed by her daughter, Madam Desmarais went out, and her husband ordered Gertrude to show Citizen Billaud-Varenne into the parlor. As the maid left, the two police agents placed on watch were seated near the parlor door.
“Come now, let’s compose ourselves,” muttered the advocate, mopping the perspiration which beaded his brow. “Billaud-Varenne is another sort of monster, and perhaps more dangerous than Marat. What answer will he bring me? If St. Just consents to be my son-in-law, I have nothing more to fear! If not — ah! What a hell!”
Billaud-Varenne entered. The Representative of the people was not a monster, as the advocate had christened him; but a man of inflexible convictions and rigid probity, besides being the possessor of some fortune. He did not touch, any more than Lepelletier St. Fargeau, Herault of Sechelles, and other wealthy citizens, the compensation allowed to a Representative. Gifted with natural eloquence, always sanguine, there was no patriot more devoted to the Revolution than Billaud-Varenne. He wore a short-haired black wig, and a maroon suit with steel buttons; like Robespierre, St. Just, Camille Desmoulins and other Jacobins, he carried dignity even into the care of his person and his clothes.
“Eh, well, colleague,” quoth Billaud-Varenne on entering, “what am I to surmise by this visit of the Section commissioner, whom I just met leaving your rooms?”
“Confess that it is a spicy incident to find, in the house one of us Mountainists a deposit of royalist poniards!”
“That is very easily explained: You receive a case from the depot, you don’t know what is in it — nothing simpler.”
“Do you think, my dear colleague, that it seemed so simple to the commissioner?”
“He could know nothing to the contrary. But, between ourselves, you exhibited extreme rigor towards your wife.”
“You know that also — ?”
“I know that you applied for her arrest, and that you demanded two watchmen, whom I found out there, in the ante-room. The precaution seems to me excessive.”
“You disapprove of this measure, you, Billaud-Varenne, you, man of iron?”
“I disapprove of your whole procedure. My dear colleague, there are painful duties to which one resigns himself; but there are useless harshnesses which one does not call down upon his dear ones. That is my way of looking at it.” Without noticing, or without seeming to notice, the uneasiness which his last words produced in Desmarais, Billaud-Varenne proceeded:
“But, let us speak of the object of my visit. I am just from the Jacobins, where I saw St. Just. He was highly sensible of the honor of the advances I made him on your part, on the subject of his marrying your daughter; but he refused to contract any union whatsoever.”
“He refuses!” gasped Desmarais, pale with consternation. “Is not the refusal perhaps revokable?”
“St. Just never turns back on a determination once taken.”
“But, at least, I may know the cause of his declination? Answer my question, my dear colleague.”
“St. Just would have been happy to enter your family, he told me, if Mademoiselle Desmarais had looked favorably upon his court; but he thinks that under the grave circumstances in which we now find ourselves, a man of politics should remain free from all bonds, even those of the family, in order to consecrate himself wholly to public affairs. He wishes to hold himself ready for all sacrifices, even that of his life.”
“Perhaps St. Just deems my daughter has not been brought up in principles of civic duty sufficiently pure. Had he regarded me as a better patriot, his answer would have no doubt been different?”
“Of a truth, my dear colleague, you are a singular fellow. In the Constituent Assembly, you voted with the extreme Left; at the Jacobins, I have heard you propose and support the most revolutionary motions; you vote with us of the Mountain; and yet you seem to fear lest we suspect the sincerity of your convictions!”
“And why, then, should I fear that anyone doubted my sincerity?”
“My faith, you must answer that question yourself!”
“Oh, then the answer is easy, my dear Billaud: The Revolution is, and should be, a jealous, distrustful, exacting mistress to those devoted to her; and I continually fear not having done enough, and being accused of lukewarmness.” Then, anxious to escape from a subject that embarrassed him, and to hide the cruel disappointment occasioned by St. Just’s refusal, Desmarais added, “What is new to-night at the Jacobins?”
“A speech of hardly a quarter of an hour in length, but which created an incalculable impression upon its hearers.”
“On what subject?”
“Louis XVI’s penalty.”
“And the speaker was — ?”
“A young man whom I am proud to number among my friends, for his modesty equals his patriotism and merit. He is a simple iron-worker. We wished to nominate him for the Convention; he refused our offer, but consented to accept municipal office.”
“John Lebrenn!”
“Precisely. He was the orator in question.”
“He is my pupil, my dear pupil!” returned Desmarais. “It is I who put him through his revolutionary education.”
“This young man, ardent, generous, yet tender and delicate as he is by nature, has but one rule of conduct — eternal justice and morality. He is a lofty soul. Marat and Robespierre both congratulated him upon his speech, which concluded with these words:
“‘Louis XVI was born kind, humane, and graced with parts, and behold what corrupting, subversive, detestable influences lurk in the very essence of kingship. It has turned this man, so happily made up,
into a traitor, a perjurer, a murderer, a parricide who has unchained against his mother country the arms of foreigners and emigrants. Ah, citizens, in judging, in condemning this guilty one of high rank, it is less the man than the King and still less the King than royalty itself that you smite. The ax that will strike off the head of Louis XVI will decapitate the monarchy, that dynasty of a foreign race imposed on Gaul for so many centuries by violence and conquest.’”
“That’s superb!” exclaimed the lawyer. “That’s fine! Lo, the fruit of my lessons!”
“Your pupil closed by ably contrasting with the days of September the judicial condemnation of Louis Capet: ‘Before August 10 the crimes of Louis XVI were notorious; they merited death,’ quoth Lebrenn. ‘Suppose the people in its fury had taken summary justice on the guilty one. Suppose he had been stricken down during the insurrection. Compare that death, almost furtive, half veiled by the murk of battle, with the august spectacle which the Convention is now about to offer to the world, before God and man! A people calm in its sovereignty, judging and condemning, in the name of the law, the criminal who was its King. To the dagger of Brutus we shall oppose the sword of Justice! The tyrant shall be smitten in the name of all, in the public place. He shall pass from the throne to the scaffold. May in like manner the heads of all tyrants fall!’”
“That is immense!” again exclaimed Desmarais. “I am proud of my pupil.”
“And what enhances your pupil’s worth, my dear colleague, is that his modesty is equal to his patriotism. Robespierre, mounting the tribunal after Lebrenn, commended his discourse with the words: ‘This young man has just spoken to us in the language of the philosopher, the historian, the statesman. He is a simple workman, who toils ten hours a day at his rough trade of iron-worker to supply his wants.’ These words of Robespierre’s signalized the ovation received by Lebrenn at the Jacobins. And now I take my leave of you, my dear Desmarais, reiterating my regret at having failed in the mission you entrusted me with to St. Just. Moreover, he will probably tell you himself to-morrow at the Convention how sensible he was of your tenders, and for what reasons he feels constrained to decline them.”
