by Eugène Sue
“You dare to say there was a good side to that carnage? Your language is odious!” interrupted the Bishop.
“The massacres of September had a good side and a bad side,” calmly reiterated the Abbot. “Here is the bad: The most active chiefs in the conspiracy, detained as suspects in the prisons, whence they were carrying on their plots, were killed; the royalists of Paris and the provinces, struck with terror, lay low and ceased their activity. It took three months to knit together all the threads of the conspiracy which had been snapped by the death of its leaders. The September massacres had also the bad aspect for us that they were combined with an outburst of patriotism. The volunteers, flocking in mass to the front, changed entirely by their bedevilled fury the previous tactics of the war. The Prussian infantry, the best in Europe, was overcome by the mad-caps — there is danger lest it may long remain in the panic into which it was thrown by the bayonet charge of the volunteers at the battle of Valmy.”
“Blue death! my reverend sir, you would best hold your tongue in matters of war, of which you know nothing!” the Count of Plouernel impatiently declared. “I served in the Emigrant corps which stormed the position of Croix-aux-Bois at the battle of Argonne; I was at the side of the Duke of Brunswick in the affray at Valmy; and I say that if the Prussian infantry was beaten down by these bare-feet, who precipitated themselves upon us like savages, it is now recovered from the panic, and asks nothing better than to avenge its disgrace. Yes, and let a war come, a real war, a great war, and the allies will make a butchery of these undisciplined hordes. The Prussians will feed fat their vengeance!”
“And I in turn tell you, that in this matter you are completely off your base,” was the Abbot’s unmoved rejoinder.
“By heaven, my reverend sir!” flared back the Count, “measure your terms!”
And the giggling Marquis cried, “Plague on it, Abbot, all you need is a switch to give us a flogging! Hi! hi! hi!”
“And in your case in particular, Marquis, it would fall where it was deserved. But to continue, I come now to the good, the excellent side of the September massacres.”
Again the mere mention of such a possibility was more than the Bishop could contain himself under. “It is impossible,” he broke in, “to sit still and hear it said in cold blood that that abominable carnage produced any good results.”
“Monseigneur,” was Morlet’s reply, “it does not at all become you to discredit events in which you did not participate. Disguised as a charcoal burner, and with my god-son as a chimney-sweep, I saw these massacres at close range. Do you remember, Count, what I told you over the supper-table, four years ago, the evening the Bastille was taken: The ferocious beast must get the taste of blood to put it in the humor of slaying? Well, so it was. And, to make the blood flow, I rolled back my sleeves to the elbow, and set to work! So I say again, the massacres of September held this much good for us, that they aroused general horror throughout Europe and exasperated the foreign powers, even including England, which was until then almost neutral, but is now become the soul of the coalition. Even in Paris, this execrable hot-bed of revolution, where, it must be admitted, the massacres were, in a moment of vertigo, accepted by all classes of the people as a measure of public safety, they now inspire unspeakable horror! The revolutionists themselves are divided into two camps — the patriots of the 10th of August, and the Septembrists — a precious germ of internal discord among the wretches. All in all, there is good, much good for us, in the days of September. The terror evoked by them will come to the assistance of the present plot. Everything is prepared; the posts are assigned, the depots of arms established, the proclamations printed. Lehiron, a knave for any trick, if you grease his palm well, is in charge of the band of make-believe sans-culottes which is to assail the King’s escort. I can answer for his intelligence and courage; he awaits his final orders next door. Finally, this very evening, and in spite of the careful guard kept about him, Louis XVI is to receive from his waiting-man Clery word of the project, merely that the prince may not be frightened at the tumult, and that he may follow with confidence those who give him the pass-word, ‘God and the King! Pilnitz and Brunswick.’ That, then, is how matters stand. A plot has been framed, it is on the eve of being carried out. Now, I put this question: Is the time ripe for action?”
Mute with astonishment, the Count, the Marquis and the Bishop stared blankly at one another. The Count was the first to break the silence:
“How is that! You give out the details, the agencies, the object of the plot, the execution of which is fixed for to-morrow, and still you seem to be in doubt as to whether action should be taken?”
“I ask deliberation on these two plain propositions: First, would it not be more opportune to await the day set for the execution of Louis XVI — his condemnation is not a matter of doubt — and only then attempt our stroke, in the hope that the horror of regicide will add to the number of our partisans? And secondly, — it is I, on my own initiative, on my own responsibility, who propose this grave question — would it not be more expedient, in the manifest interest of the Church and the monarchy — simply to allow Louis to be guillotined?”
The Jesuit’s proposal, as strange as it was unexpected, threw his hearers into such amazement that they were struck dumb anew, and sat with their mouths hanging open. Three taps at the door, given like a preconcerted signal, were heard in the stillness.
“It is my god-son,” whispered the Jesuit; and in a louder tone, he added: “Come in!”
Little Rodin was togged out in a red jacket and bonnet the same as the prelate. He saluted the company.
“What news, my child? What have you to tell us?” inquired his preceptor.
“Gentle god-father, there is a man down below, with the porter, disguised as a woman. He gave the pass-word, but the porter, not recognizing him, replied that he knew not what he was after with his jargon. Scenting a possible spy, the porter sent his wife up to me on the second floor, to warn me of what had happened.”
“Doubtless it is one of our men, obliged to take refuge in disguise,” began the Count.
“It is more serious than that,” the Bishop dissented. “How are you to make sure he is one of us?”
“A man tricked out as a woman!” exclaimed the Marquis. “Is this carnival time?”
“You know all our people by sight?” asked Morlet of his god-son.
“Yes, dear god-father. When I’ve seen a person once, I do not forget him. The Lord God,” and he crossed himself, “has blessed His little servant with the gift of memory, which he has so much use for.”
“Go down to the porter’s lodge,” returned his dear god-father. “Examine the personage in question. If you recognize him, tell the porter to let him come up. If not, come back and let me know.”
“Yes, good god-father, your orders shall be followed to the dot!” responded little Rodin, sliding out of the door, while the Bishop asked, dubiously:
“But may not that child make a mistake? Meseems the errand is poorly entrusted.”
“My god-son is a prodigy of cleverness and penetration,” returned the Abbot.
The interrupted topic of discussion was immediately resumed by the Count.
“I refuse to sit under a chairman,” said he, “a priest, a subject of the King, who has the sacrilegious audacity of bringing up for consideration the abominable question, Is it, yes or no, expedient to allow Louis XVI to be guillotined?”
“Such abomination would seem incredible,” chimed in the Bishop, “did one not know that the Society of Jesus often preaches regicide.”
“The Society of Jesus has preached, has counseled regicide whenever it became important to suppress Kings ad majorem Dei gloriam — to the greater glory of God! The church is above monarchs,” retorted the representative of the Society.
“A capital pleasantry!” put in the Marquis. “Here we are met to advise on measures to save the King, and the priest proposes to us to let them clip his head! The idea is brilliant!”
“Good god-father, in the person rigged out as a woman I have recognized Monsieur Hubert.”
“Let him come in,” ordered the recipient of the information.
Still in Madam Desmarais’s hat and fur cloak Hubert entered the room. At the sight, the Marquis greeted him with a roar of laughter. Pale with rage, Hubert threw at his feet his feminine head-gear, dashed off the cloak which hid his vest and grey trousers, rushed at the Marquis, and, shaking his fist under the latter’s nose, cried:
“You shall give me a reason for your insolence, you pigeon-house tenant!”
But the Count of Plouernel and his brother the Bishop interposed between the two, and succeeded in calming the financier’s irritation, explaining to him that the Marquis was a hare-brain, and should not be taken seriously. Apparently bent upon proving his reputation, the Marquis cried out:
“Pardon, dear sir, hi! hi! or, rather, dear madam! Ah, ah, ah! if you knew what a winsome face you had! Pardon me, I am all upset over it — it is too much for me. Ah, ah, ah! Oh, the idea! I shall die of bottled-up laughter if you don’t let me give vent to it!”
Suiting action to word, the Marquis went off into another roar of hysterics. Hubert’s violent nature was about once more to get the better of him, but once more was it appeased by the solicitations of the Count and his brother. At last he cooled down sufficiently to make known to the company the secret of his transfiguration, and how he owed his life to his sister’s devotion. During these confidences, the laughter of the Marquis gradually died out.
“Then, that part of St. Honoré Street where you have just missed arrest, dear Monsieur Hubert,” said the Count, “will to-night be watched by the police, and I may, on leaving here, fall into their hands. For the refuge where I have hidden myself since my return to Paris is situated close to the St. Honoré Gate. The wife of a former whipper-in in the King’s Huntsmen is giving me asylum. From the window of my garret I can see the house of this Desmarais, your brother-in-law; whom I now regret not having allowed to die under the cudgels when I had him flogged by my lackeys.”
“You live near the St. Honoré Gate, you say, Count? What is the number of the house, if you please?” asked the Abbot with a start.
“Number 19; the entrance is distinguished by a small gate-way.”
“You could not have chosen your refuge worse! I am glad to be able to warn you of your danger. At No. 17 of that same street live two members of the Lebrenn family, John the iron-worker, and that beautiful woman whom you knew under the name of Marchioness Aldini. Be on your guard, for if these people came to know where you were hidden, they would not let slip the opportunity to wreak on you the hate with which they have pursued your family for so many centuries.”
“Now that that fool of a Marquis has become almost reasonable, let us resume the course of our deliberation,” replied the Count, thanking Morlet for his information; and addressing Hubert: “When you came in, the priest was having the presumption to propose for our consideration the question whether it would not be wiser to postpone the projected stroke until after the King was sentenced, instead of to-morrow, as we purpose.”
“Any such delay would be all the sadder seeing that this very evening a case of arms, containing also several copies of our proclamation, was seized in my brother-in-law’s house. The Committee of General Safety thus has by this time the most flagrant proof of a conspiracy. So then, I say, we must make haste. Yesterday and day before I saw several officers and grenadiers of my old battalion, who are very influential in their quarter. They await but the signal to run to arms. The bourgeoisie has a horror of the Republic.”
“Confess, Monsieur Hubert, that it would be better for the bourgeoisie to resign itself to what it calls ‘the privileges of the throne, the immunities of the nobility and clergy,’ than to submit to the tyranny of the populace,” rejoined Plouernel.
“Monsieur Count, a few years ago you administered through the cudgels of your lackeys a good dressing down to a man whom I have the unhappiness to possess for brother-in-law. I, in his place, would have paid you back, not by proxy, through hirelings, but in person. Now, great seigneur that you are, what would you have done in that case?”
“Eh! My God, my poor Monsieur Hubert! If I did not, in the first moment of anger, run you through the body with my sword, I would have been under the obligation of asking for a lettre de cachet and sending you to the Bastille.”
“Because a man of your birth could not consent to fight a bourgeois?”
“Certainly; for the tribunal composed of our seigneurs the Marshals of France, to which the nobility refers its affairs of honor, would have formally prohibited the duel; and we are bound by oath to respect the decisions of Messieurs the Marshals. For the common herd we have nothing but contempt.”
“It seems to me we are wandering singularly astray from the question at stake,” interposed the Bishop. “Let us come back to it.”
“Not at all, Monsieur Bishop,” retorted Hubert. “We must first of all know what we are conspiring for. If we are conspiring to overthrow the Republic, we must know by what regime we shall replace it. Shall it be by an absolute monarchy, as before, or by the constitutional monarchy of 1791? Well, gentlemen of the nobility, gentlemen of the clergy, what we want, we bourgeois, we of the common herd, whom you despise, is the constitutional monarchy. Take that for said.”
“So that the bourgeoisie may reign in fact, under the semblance of a kingdom? We reject that sort of a government,” sneered Plouernel.
“Naturally.”
“Whence it follows that you wish to substitute the bourgeois oligarchy, the privilege of the franc, for our aristocracy?”
“Without a doubt. For we hold in equal aversion both the old regime, that is, the rule of unbridled privilege, and the Republic.”
“Let us come back to the subject,” snapped Jesuit Morlet. “The bourgeoisie, the nobility, the clergy — all abominate the Republic. So much is settled. Let us, then, first attend to the overthrow of the Republic; later we may decide on its successor. Let us decide immediately whether we shall or shall not delay the execution of our plot of to-morrow — the first question; and the second, which, to tell the truth, ought to take precedence over the other — whether it would not be better after all, in the combined interests of the Church, the monarchy, the nobility and the bourgeoisie, simply to let them, without any more ado, send Louis to the guillotine!”
The Jesuit’s words were again received with imprecations by the Bishop and Monsieur Plouernel, while the Marquis, finding the idea funnier and funnier, burst into irrepressible laughter. Hubert, greatly surprised, but curious to fathom the Abbot’s purposes, insisted on knowing the reasons on which he based his opinion. Accordingly, when silence was restored, the Jesuit commenced:
“I maintain, and I shall prove, that the sentencing and execution of Louis XVI offer to us precious advantages. This sovereign — I leave it to you, Count, and to you, Monsieur Hubert — is completely lost, both as an absolute King, because he lacks energy, and as a constitutional King, because he has twenty times striven to abolish the Constitution which he pledged himself to support. So much is self-evident and incontestible. Accordingly, the death of Louis XVI will deliver us from the unpleasant outcome of an absolute King without vigor, if absolute royalty is to prevail; and will spare us a constitutional King without fidelity to his oath, if constitutional royalty wins out. That settles the first and extremely interesting point. Second point, the execution of the King will deal a mortal blow to the Republic. Louis XVI will become a martyr, and the wrath of the foreign sovereigns will be aroused to the last notch against a rising Republic which for first gage of battle throws at their feet the head of a King, and summons their peoples to revolt. The extermination of the Republic will thus become a question of life and death for the monarchs of Europe; they will summon up a million soldiers, and invest vast treasuries, coupled with the credit of En
gland. Can the outcome of such a struggle be doubted? France, without a disciplined army; France, ruined, reduced to a paper currency, torn by factions, by the civil war which we priests will let loose in the west and south — France will be unable to resist all Europe. But, in order to exasperate the foreign rulers, to excite their hatred, their fury, they must be made to behold the head of Louis XVI rolling at their feet!”
“Reverend sir, you frighten me with your doctrines!” was all the Count of Plouernel could say. With a paternal air the Jesuit continued:
“Big baby! I am through. One of two things: Either to-morrow’s plot works well, or it works ill. In the first case, Louis XVI is delivered; the Convention is exterminated. A thousand resolute men can carry out the stroke. But afterwards? You will have to fight the suburbs, the Sections, the troops around Paris, which will run to the succor of the capital.”
“We shall fight them!” was Hubert’s exclamation.
“We shall cut them to pieces! Neither mercy nor pity for the rebels!” cried Plouernel.
“We shall have the bandits from the prisons set fire to the suburbs at all four corners! A general conflagration!” suggested the Bishop.
“And these worthy tenants of the suburbs,” giggled the Marquis, “seeing their kennels ablaze, will think of nothing else but to fire in the air, to check the flames. Hi! hi! hi! The idea is a jolly one!”
