Scaramouche: A Romance of the French Revolution

by Rafael Sabatini

  CHAPTER XIII. SANCTUARY

  Into the late afternoon of that endless day of horror with its perpetualalarms, its volleying musketry, rolling drums, and distant mutteringof angry multitudes, Mme. de Plougastel and Aline sat waiting in thathandsome house in the Rue du Paradis. It was no longer for Rougane theywaited. They realized that, be the reason what it might--and by now manyreasons must no doubt exist--this friendly messenger would not return.They waited without knowing for what. They waited for whatever mightbetide.

  At one time early in the afternoon the roar of battle approached them,racing swiftly in their direction, swelling each moment in volume and inhorror. It was the frenzied clamour of a multitude drunk with blood andbent on destruction. Near at hand that fierce wave of humanity checkedin its turbulent progress. Followed blows of pikes upon a door andimperious calls to open, and thereafter came the rending of timbers,the shivering of glass, screams of terror blending with screams of rage,and, running through these shrill sounds, the deeper diapason of bestiallaughter.

  It was a hunt of two wretched Swiss guardsmen seeking blindly to escape.And they were run to earth in a house in the neighbourhood, and therecruelly done to death by that demoniac mob. The thing accomplished, thehunters, male and female, forming into a battalion, came swinging downthe Rue du Paradis, chanting the song of Marseilles--a song new to Parisin those days:

  Allons, enfants de la patrie! Le jour de gloire est arrive Contre nous de la tyrannie L'etendard sanglant est leve.

  Nearer it came, raucously bawled by some hundreds of voices, a dreadsound that had come so suddenly to displace at least temporarilythe merry, trivial air of the "Ca ira!" which hitherto had been therevolutionary carillon. Instinctively Mme. de Plougastel and Aline clungto each other. They had heard the sound of the ravishing of that otherhouse in the neighbourhood, without knowledge of the reason. What if nowit should be the turn of the Hotel Plougastel! There was no realcause to fear it, save that amid a turmoil imperfectly understood andtherefore the more awe-inspiring, the worst must be feared always.

  The dreadful song so dreadfully sung, and the thunder of heavily shodfeet upon the roughly paved street, passed on and receded. They breathedagain, almost as if a miracle had saved them, to yield to fresh alarm aninstant later, when madame's young footman, Jacques, the most trustedof her servants, burst into their presence unceremoniously with a scaredface, bringing the announcement that a man who had just climbed over thegarden wall professed himself a friend of madame's, and desired to bebrought immediately to her presence.

  "But he looks like a sansculotte, madame," the staunch fellow warnedher.

  Her thoughts and hopes leapt at once to Rougane.

  "Bring him in," she commanded breathlessly.

  Jacques went out, to return presently accompanied by a tall man in along, shabby, and very ample overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat that wasturned down all round, and adorned by an enormous tricolour cockade.This hat he removed as he entered.

  Jacques, standing behind him, perceived that his hair, although nowin some disorder, bore signs of having been carefully dressed. It wasclubbed, and it carried some lingering vestiges of powder. The youngfootman wondered what it was in the man's face, which was turned fromhim, that should cause his mistress to out and recoil. Then he foundhimself dismissed abruptly by a gesture.

  The newcomer advanced to the middle of the salon, moving like a manexhausted and breathing hard. There he leaned against a table, acrosswhich he confronted Mme. de Plougastel. And she stood regarding him, astrange horror in her eyes.

  In the background, on a settle at the salon's far end, sat Aline staringin bewilderment and some fear at a face which, if unrecognizable throughthe mask of blood and dust that smeared it, was yet familiar. And thenthe man spoke, and instantly she knew the voice for that of the Marquisde La Tour d'Azyr.

  "My dear friend," he was saying, "forgive me if I startled you. Forgiveme if I thrust myself in here without leave, at such a time, in such amanner. But... you see how it is with me. I am a fugitive. In the courseof my distracted flight, not knowing which way to turn for safety, Ithought of you. I told myself that if I could but safely reach yourhouse, I might find sanctuary."

  "You are in danger?"

  "In danger?" Almost he seemed silently to laugh at the unnecessaryquestion. "If I were to show myself openly in the streets just now, Imight with luck contrive to live for five minutes! My friend, it hasbeen a massacre. Some few of us escaped from the Tuileries at the end,to be hunted to death in the streets. I doubt if by this time a singleSwiss survives. They had the worst of it, poor devils. And as for us--myGod! They hate us more than they hate the Swiss. Hence this filthydisguise."

  He peeled off the shaggy greatcoat, and casting it from him steppedforth in the black satin that had been the general livery of the hundredknights of the dagger who had rallied in the Tuileries that morning tothe defence of their king.

  His coat was rent across the back, his neckcloth and the ruffles at hiswrists were torn and bloodstained; with his smeared face and disorderedheaddress he was terrible to behold. Yet he contrived to carry himselfwith his habitual easy assurance, remembered to kiss the trembling handwhich Mme. de Plougastel extended to him in welcome.

  "You did well to come to me, Gervais," she said. "Yes, here is sanctuaryfor the present. You will be quite safe, at least for as long as we aresafe. My servants are entirely trustworthy. Sit down and tell me all."

  He obeyed her, collapsing almost into the armchair which shethrust forward, a man exhausted, whether by physical exertion or bynerve-strain, or both. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wipedsome of the blood and dirt from his face.

  "It is soon told." His tone was bitter with the bitterness of despair."This, my dear, is the end of us. Plougastel is lucky in being acrossthe frontier at such a time. Had I not been fool enough to trust thosewho to-day have proved themselves utterly unworthy of trust, that iswhere I should be myself. My remaining in Paris is the crowning follyof a life full of follies and mistakes. That I should come to you inmy hour of most urgent need adds point to it." He laughed in hisbitterness.

  Madame moistened her dry lips. "And... and now?" she asked him.

  "It only remains to get away as soon as may be, if it is still possible.Here in France there is no longer any room for us--at least, not aboveground. To-day has proved it." And then he looked up at her, standingthere beside him so pale and timid, and he smiled. He patted the finehand that rested upon the arm of his chair. "My dear Therese, unless youcarry charitableness to the length of giving me to drink, you willsee me perish of thirst under your eyes before ever the canaille has achance to finish me."

  She started. "I should have thought of it!" she cried in self-reproach,and she turned quickly. "Aline," she begged, "tell Jacques to bring..."

  "Aline!" he echoed, interrupting, and swinging round in his turn. Then,as Aline rose into view, detaching from her background, and he at lastperceived her, he heaved himself abruptly to his weary legs again, andstood there stiffly bowing to her across the space of gleaming floor."Mademoiselle, I had not suspected your presence," he said, and heseemed extraordinarily ill-at-ease, a man startled, as if caught in anillicit act.

  "I perceived it, monsieur," she answered, as she advanced to do madame'scommission. She paused before him. "From my heart, monsieur, I grievethat we should meet again in circumstances so very painful."

  Not since the day of his duel with Andre-Louis--the day which had seenthe death and burial of his last hope of winning her--had they stood faceto face.

  He checked as if on the point of answering her. His glance strayed toMme. de Plougastel, and, oddly reticent for one who could be very glib,he bowed in silence.

  "But sit, monsieur, I beg. You are fatigued."

  "You are gracious to observe it. With your permission, then." And heresumed his seat. She continued on her way to the door and passed outupon her errand.

  When presently she returned they had almost unaccountably c
hangedplaces. It was Mme. de Plougastel who was seated in that armchair ofbrocade and gilt, and M. de La Tour d'Azyr who, despite his lassitude,was leaning over the back of it talking earnestly, seeming by hisattitude to plead with her. On Aline's entrance he broke off instantlyand moved away, so that she was left with a sense of having intruded.Further she observed that the Countess was in tears.

  Following her came presently the diligent Jacques, bearing a tray ladenwith food and wine. Madame poured for her guest, and he drank a longdraught of the Burgundy, then begged, holding forth his grimy hands,that he might mend his appearance before sitting down to eat.

  He was led away and valeted by Jacques, and when he returned he hadremoved from his person the last vestige of the rough handling he hadreceived. He looked almost his normal self, the disorder in his attirerepaired, calm and dignified and courtly in his bearing, but very paleand haggard of face, seeming suddenly to have increased in years, tohave reached in appearance the age that was in fact his own.

  As he ate and drank--and this with appetite, for as he told them he hadnot tasted food since early morning--he entered into the details of thedreadful events of the day, and gave them the particulars of his ownescape from the Tuileries when all was seen to be lost and when theSwiss, having burnt their last cartridge, were submitting to wholesalemassacre at the hands of the indescribably furious mob.

  "Oh, it was all most ill done," he ended critically. "We were timid whenwe should have been resolute, and resolute at last when it was too late.That is the history of our side from the beginning of this accursedstruggle. We have lacked proper leadership throughout, and now--as I havesaid already--there is an end to us. It but remains to escape, as soon aswe can discover how the thing is to be accomplished."

  Madame told him of the hopes that she had centred upon Rougane.

  It lifted him out of his gloom. He was disposed to be optimistic.

  "You are wrong to have abandoned that hope," he assured her. "If thismayor is so well disposed, he certainly can do as his son promised. Butlast night it would have been too late for him to have reached you, andto-day, assuming that he had come to Paris, almost impossible for himto win across the streets from the other side. It is most likely that hewill yet come. I pray that he may; for the knowledge that you and Mlle.de Kercadiou are out of this would comfort me above all."

  "We should take you with us," said madame.

  "Ah! But how?"

  "Young Rougane was to bring me permits for three persons--Aline, myself,and my footman, Jacques. You would take the place of Jacques."

  "Faith, to get out of Paris, madame, there is no man whose place I wouldnot take." And he laughed.

  Their spirits rose with his and their flagging hopes revived. But asdusk descended again upon the city, without any sign of the delivererthey awaited, those hopes began to ebb once more.

  M. de La Tour d'Azyr at last pleaded weariness, and begged to bepermitted to withdraw that he might endeavour to take some rest againstwhatever might have to be faced in the immediate future. When he hadgone, madame persuaded Aline to go and lie down.

  "I will call you, my dear, the moment he arrives," she said, bravelymaintaining that pretence of a confidence that had by now entirelyevaporated.

  Aline kissed her affectionately, and departed, outwardly so calm andunperturbed as to leave the Countess wondering whether she realized theperil by which they were surrounded, a peril infinitely increased by thepresence in that house of a man so widely known and detested as M. de LaTour d'Azyr, a man who was probably being sought for by his enemies atthis moment.

  Left alone, madame lay down on a couch in the salon itself, to beready for any emergency. It was a hot summer night, and the glass doorsopening upon the luxuriant garden stood wide to admit the air. On thatair came intermittently from the distance sounds of the continuinghorrible activities of the populace, the aftermath of that bloody day.

  Mme. de Plougastel lay there, listening to those sounds for upwards ofan hour, thanking Heaven that for the present at least the disturbanceswere distant, dreading lest at any moment they should occur nearer athand, lest this Bondy section in which her hotel was situated shouldbecome the scene of horrors similar to those whose echoes reached herears from other sections away to the south and west.

  The couch occupied by the Countess lay in shadow; for all the lights inthat long salon had been extinguished with the exception of a clusterof candles in a massive silver candle branch placed on a round marquetrytable in the middle of the room--an island of light in the surroundinggloom.

  The timepiece on the overmantel chimed melodiously the hour of ten,and then, startling in the suddenness with which it broke the immediatesilence, another sound vibrated through the house, and brought madameto her feet, in a breathless mingling of hope and dread. Some onewas knocking sharply on the door below. Followed moments of agonizedsuspense, culminating in the abrupt invasion of the room by the footmanJacques. He looked round, not seeing his mistress at first.

  "Madame! Madame!" he panted, out of breath.

  "What is it, Jacques!" Her voice was steady now that the need forself-control seemed thrust upon her. She advanced from the shadowsinto that island of light about the table. "There is a man below. He isasking... he is demanding to see you at once."

  "A man?" she questioned.

  "He... he seems to be an official; at least he wears the sash of office.And he refuses to give any name; he says that his name would conveynothing to you. He insists that he must see you in person and at once."

  "An official?" said madame.

  "An official," Jacques repeated. "I would not have admitted him, butthat he demanded it in the name of the Nation. Madame, it is for you tosay what shall be done. Robert is with me. If you wish it... whatever itmay be..."

  "My good Jacques, no, no." She was perfectly composed. "If this manintended evil, surely he would not come alone. Conduct him to me, andthen beg Mlle. de Kercadiou to join me if she is awake."

  Jacques departed, himself partly reassured. Madame seated herself in thearmchair by the table well within the light. She smoothed her dress witha mechanical hand. If, as it would seem, her hopes had been futile, sohad her momentary fears. A man on any but an errand of peace would havebrought some following with him, as she had said.

  The door opened again, and Jacques reappeared; after him, steppingbriskly past him, came a slight man in a wide-brimmed hat, adorned by atricolour cockade. About the waist of an olive-green riding-coat he worea broad tricolour sash; a sword hung at his side.

  He swept off his hat, and the candlelight glinted on the steel buckle infront of it. Madame found herself silently regarded by a pair of large,dark eyes set in a lean, brown face, eyes that were most singularlyintent and searching.

  She leaned forward, incredulity swept across her countenance. Then hereyes kindled, and the colour came creeping back into her pale cheeks.She rose suddenly. She was trembling.

  "Andre-Louis!" she exclaimed.