The Devil’s Laughter

by Frank Yerby

  The moment he saw Fleurette’s face, he knew something was wrong.

  “Jean!” she whispered; “men were here—horrible, rough men. They—they were kind enough to me after they had found out I was blind; but they left something for you. Here it is—some document or another. Oh, Jean—tell me what it is!”

  Jean took the heavy paper, much decorated with official seals, and read it. One glance, and he knew what it was. Of all the devices by which the Revolution deprived a man of his liberty, and ultimately his life, this was the cruellest: the paper he held in his hand was an ajournement or a suspended order of arrest. In effect, he was already doomed; he could come and go as he pleased, as long as he remained in Paris; but each hour, each minute, was menaced; as soon as Fouquier-Tinville was ready for it, as soon as he had enough evidence, or it merely suited his whims or convenience, Jean would be clapped into l’Abbaye, the Temple, La Conciergerie, Luxembourg, or any of fifty other prisons, to emerge finally only in that creaking cart of death. It was, Jean knew, designed to break the prospective prisoner’s spirit; by the time he was finally jailed, his nerves would be so shattered by the terrible ordeal of waiting, which could go on for weeks or even months, that his will to resist would be gone.

  “What is it, Jean?” Fleurette said.

  “Nothing,” Jean said; “something to do with an assembly of ex-soldiers. I shan’t go—’Tis of no importance. . . .”

  “Oh, Jean,” she whispered; “I’m so glad. . . .”

  They do not know me, Jean thought, as he made his way to the chemist’s shop to purchase the boon of merciful death for Lucienne; I shall not break. This means that their case against me is weak—they want to reduce me to gibbering terror before pressing it. . . . But they shall never press it. I shall arrange to get Fleurette out of Paris and then—

  But even as he shaped the thought, he knew it was almost impossible. The Convention had multiplied the papers necessary to leave the country until it took weeks to procure them. He had no passport, and the authorities who issued these necessary documents were furnished with a list of suspects. Unless he could buy a forged document, he had no way to flee.

  But Pierre could go; in fact, he had to. Jean realised that if his small part in the printing of the Vieux Cordeiler were ever discovered, his friend, too, would die. Pierre had still the advantage of not being upon any list of suspects—he had never been in politics, his name had not even appeared upon the pages of either Jean’s paper or Desmoulins’. But it must be done quickly. . . . Out of Paris now—tonight, and then, in some provincial seaport, papers for going abroad could be procured. . . .

  Jean raced to Pierre’s shop, told him the news. Pierre saw the necessity of flight at once; but at the next breath he proved how great was his loyalty.

  “I cannot tell Marianne—she might let something slip to Fleur. . . . Besides, there’s no time. . . . When I’m safe abroad, I’ll send for her. . . .”

  Leaving the shop, Jean turned at once towards the chemist’s. He pushed the matter of his own escape out of his mind, depending, as men in desperate straits often do, upon inspiration, upon unforeseen developments. During the whole of the night, after coming home with Lucienne’s vial, and another for himself if all else failed, he lay awake, trying to puzzle the matter out, falling asleep at dawn from weariness, without having the ghost of a plan in his mind.

  The next day, he clasped Lucienne’s hands through the bars, pressing the small vial into her palm, and she, smiling into his eyes, whispered:

  “Thank you, mon Jeannot. . .” Then: “Would—would you please kiss me good-bye?”

  He put his two hands through the bans and drew her to him. Her lips were ice; but they warmed slowly, became unbelievably tender. She clung her mouth to his a long, long time, until both their faces were wet with their combined tears.

  “Thank you, my Jeannot,” she whispered; “and know this—upon the oath of one about to die—that, even if it were never wholly true before, I shall quit this world tonight loving you with all my heart. . . .”

  So it was that Gervais la Moyte rode to his death alone, preceded by Lucille Desmoulins, and the widow Hébert, and a host of other people whose crime consisted of having known, or married, or befriended the wrong people. He died, as he had lived, with elegance.

  Jean’s slow, nerve-corroding ordeal went on until the first of Thermidor, July 19 of the old calendar; and it would have continued longer but for Nicole.

  She came flying into the flat crying his name. Jean looked up from the big chair and smiled at her mockingly.

  “You,” he said, “are supposed to be in Marseilles, remember?”

  There was no surprise in his voice. He had known for a long time that she had never left Paris; but he had had too many other things to think about. As long as she did not trouble him, he was content. He realised this with a mild feeling of surprise. Life, he thought tiredly, takes the edges off everything—fades all colours; once I would have died for this woman, but now . . .

  “Jean,” Nicole gasped; “you really must help him! He is truly a nice man and. . . .”

  “Who is truly a nice man, Nicole?” Fleurette demanded from the doorway. Her voice was ice.

  “Julien—you know, the one who says he is my husband. . . .”

  “Can’t you,” Fleurette said acidly, “keep even your husbands straight?”

  Nicole stared at her. The edge in Fleurette’s voice had got through to her finally.

  “Fleur,” she breathed, “you—you’re angry with me! Why, Fleur? What did I do to annoy you?”

  “Nothing,” Fleurette said; “at least to you it was nothing. I imagine you’re quite accustomed to taking other women’s husbands up to your flat and keeping them there all night!”

  “Oh!” Nicole said; “but I didn’t, Fleur! Jean was at my place barely ten minutes. It isn’t my fault if he didn’t come home.”

  All her life, in her world of darkness, Fleurette had been listening to the tones of human voices, and judging them. She knew the truth when she heard it. Very quietly she came over to where Jean sat and touched her lips to his cheek.

  “Forgive me, my love,” she said. “And you, too, Nicole. I misjudged you, and I’m sorry.”

  “So?” Nicole said in her odd, vacant way; “it doesn’t matter, Fleur. Jean, you must help him! They’ve arrested him and he’s going to be tried. You’re a lawyer, and—”

  “No!” Fleurette got out; “no, Jean, no!”

  “Why not, Fleur!” Nicole said. “They’ll guillotine him if he doesn’t have help.”

  “And even if he does,” Fleurette snapped; “and afterwards they’ll kill Jean for trying to help him! Listen, Nicole—try to understand. They killed Manuel merely because he refused to testify against the Queen; they’ve murdered people because they were seen talking to Danton; they killed Lucille Desmoulins and poor Madame Hébert merely because they were their husbands’ wives—your friend Madame Roland because she was married to a Girondist. All the people we used to meet at her house are dead, guillotined or hounded to death: Roland killed himself, Clavière killed himself, Condorcet took poison, and Pétion and Buzot shot themselves to death and their poor bodies were eaten by wolves! And these are among the people we know alone. Do you know what you’re asking? That my Jean go out and give his life for a man he scarcely knows! You want that, Nicole? I ask you—is that what you want?”

  Nicole’s voice shuddered up from the depths of an unutterable horror. “No,” she whispered; “dear God—no!”

  “Where is he imprisoned?” Jean said.

  “Luxembourg. But Jean, you can’t. . . .”

  “Jean!” Fleurette cried; “you cannot! I can’t let you, I can’t. . . .“

  Jean stood up slowly.

  “Listen, my dove,” he said gently; “I was going to have to tell you this some time; now I cannot hide it longer: I am already proscribed.”

  “Jean!” Fleurette screamed. “Oh no, Jean—no!”

  Jean came ov
er to her and drew her gently into his arms.

  “That document those men brought,” he said slowly, “was an adjourned order for my arrest. That’s a technicality; it means that they are not yet ready to strike. But it means also that I cannot leave Paris. I have not the papers, and every gate is watched. So—under those circumstances, love-I prefer to defend M. Lamont. I’d rather defy them and go down fighting. I have already procured passports for you and Nicole; you will go to Switzerland, from there to England. My brother Bertrand is there.”

  “No!” Fleurette wept; “I will not leave you!”

  “You have no choice, my love,” Jean said. “You have two lives to guard, remember. . . .”

  “No,” Fleurette said flatly, “my child is better dead than having to grow up in a world of murderers!”

  And nothing he said would move her from her stand.

  The trial of Julien Lamont was a foregone conclusion: an émigré, a noble, was automatically an enemy of the State. But, unlike Gervais la Moyte, he had not taken up arms against France, and Jean made this the basis of his defence.

  “You quote the law to me,” he said, glaring into the face of the public prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville; “and I say to you that this law is itself a crime! Of what is this man guilty? I tell you simply—of fleeing for his life! He was a neighbour of mine on the Côte d’Azur; he oppressed no one, his people loved him; and because he preferred to go rather than stay and die—by officially permitted butchery like the Princess Lamballe’s—you condemn him. . . .”

  “The law is not on trial here, Citizen,” the President remarked acidly, ringing his little bell.

  “Ah, but it is!” Jean cried; “the law and all the men who made it. I am trained to the law, Citizen President; but the law I learned was designed to safeguard the innocent against oppressors; not to be twisted into an instrument of oppression itself! This man fled, he has never borne arms against France or plotted against her! Would you condemn him then for the crime of failing to choose his parents among the peasantry? Sever his innocent head, indeed, for the crime of being born?”

  A ripple of applause came from the galleries. The people of Paris were sick to death of the Terror; in the Convention itself the Montagnards and the Moderates were closing ranks against Robespierre; he had united all his foes by removing the immunity of the members of the Convention themselves. Knowing themselves at the mercy of the arch-terrorist, men who had bowed with craven servility to Robespierre’s will gained the desperate courage of cornered rats. Tallien, Barras, and Legendre, Sieyès and Fouché were plotting against him. Knowing these things, Jean Paul had hope.

  Time, time, time! he thought; if they strike quickly, Lamont can be saved. If they can hold together long enough—if they hit him now while he sulks away from the Convention; since the arrest of his manic priestess, Catherine Théot, he has not been seen. Ah, Robespierre—mark well the words that Danton left you! For truly if they are brave, you’ll follow him, and France will know peace again. . . .

  But time was running out while they delayed. FouquierTinville was on his feet screaming:

  “This speech of yours, Citizen, is dangerously close to incivisme!”

  In the gallery, Fleurette caught her breath. Nicole caught her hand and held it hard.

  “Incivisme!” Jean spat, “always incivisme! Where were you, Citizen Prosecutor, when the Prussians crossed the border? I ask you, where? I ask you further to define this incivisme of yours: a lack of civic spirit, is it not—in short a want of love for France? Answer me! Is it not so defined?”

  “Yes,” Fouquier sneered, “that definition is as good as any other. . . .”

  “And I am incivique?” Jean thundered, his voice as big as Danton’s now, as thunderous; “I?” His hands came up, ripping at his coat, his shirt. In a moment he stood before the Tribunal, naked to the waist; the whole of his upper trunk covered with the red, semi-circular scars the shrapnel had made, his back criss-crossed with the scars of the whip.

  “Look, Citizens!” he boomed, “upon the marks of my incivisme! Count them if you will—twenty-three wounds through which my blood poured at Horideschoote in defence of France! I beg you, Citizen President, Citizen Procurator, Citizens Jurymen, to pay special attention to my left forearm, and my back! Those marks you see there are the stripes laid upon me in the bagne at Toulon; this brand which marks me a forçat, a convict, is a tender memento of royalist gentility! For I was arrested, as Citizen Fouquier-Tinville well knows, for my revolutionary activities at a time when it was dangerous to be a revolutionist; at a time when the rats who now gnaw upon the prostrate body of France were still skulking in their holes!”

  The galleries were loud now with cheering.

  “Enough of my incivisme,” Jean smiled. “It means nothing to the men who hounded Danton to death, who murdered that same Camille Desmoulins who launched the attack upon the Bastille. Their memories are short, their eyes blinded by the blood of women, children, the ancient and the helpless. . . .”

  “I defend this man because he is just, and pursued by an unjust law. I say, free him! End this law! End the government of France by murder. You must, you know, Citizen President, Citizen Procurator; for not even you can go home night after night to your beds pursued by the gibbering ghosts of the legions of the innocents you have so foully slain. I have done. Do what you will with this just man there. Do what you will with me!”

  The President was on his feet ringing his bell, trying to still the uproar.

  “The court stands adjourned until tomorrow!” he bellowed. “Bailiff, clear the court!”

  And the next morning, after a sleepless night spent holding his weeping wife in his arms, Jean looked up to see the galleries empty, closed to spectators, turned to find himself cited for contempt for inciting the spectators, listened to Fouquier-Tinvilie’s weary tissue of lies in hopeless disgust. The jury was out ten minutes; the verdict: death.

  Lamont had time to embrace his defender before he was led away.

  “You will die for this,” he whispered in awe. “Now I know God still makes gallantry in man!”

  They guillotined Julien Lamont, ci-devant Marquis de Saint Gravert, at nine o’clock the next morning. Jean did not go to see it. He waited quietly at home for the sound of booted steps upon the stairs.

  But Nicole la Moyte went and saw an execution for the first time. She did not flinch or turn away from it. She heard it all, saw it all. There was something in Julien’s face that stirred her; something about the colour of blood. . . .”

  There was a veil before her eyes. She heard the hoarse voices of the canalille double: once now, here, at this moment; and again far off at another place, another time. They shoved her cruelly, and at their touch her flesh crawled, not from this touch, living, now, actual; but from another touch, blows, curses, long ago, but again living super-imposed upon the now. She wandered through the crowd, dazed, hearing them screaming, cursing, and a voice kept calling out: “Jean! Marmot! Where are you? My children, where are you?”

  He was standing on the scaffold now, waiting to be bound. He looked towards her, and she heard someone crying: “Julien! Why, it’s Julien! Why are you not in Austria? Oh, Julien, Julien—the children—they’re killing the children!”

  And then, in that dead centre of silence as Samson bound him to the plank, she knew the voice was her own.

  “It’s Julien,” she whispered. “Julien, my husband—my good, brave, gallant husband whom I never loved. They’re killing him. They killed my children. They killed Marie, thinking she was me, because we had changed dresses. And I—I forgot. Because they did things to me, I forgot. So many of them—so many things—horrible!”

  The blade smashed down. She watched it dry-eyed. Blood. The colour of blood. So much blood—who would have ever thought that such little bodies could hold so much? Dead. Little Jean dead—little Jean whom I named after the only man I ever truly loved. Marmot dead—my little blue-eyed doll. And Jean—Jeannot, is he dead, too?

&
nbsp; She moved through the crowd slowly. The veil was clearing now, lifting inch by inch, and the brightness dazzled her. There was a man named Claude—gone now. I married him, though I should not have, for Julien was still alive. Forgive me, God—for that. This—this is Paris. I’ve been here a long time. I’ve seen Jean again. I’ve tried to make him love me again, with his body—as we did that lovely, lovely night of the snows. . . .”

  But he would not. Why? That—that girl! The girl who cannot see, Fleur—his wife. He loves her—not me . . . oh, God, oh, kind God, oh, sacred, tender, loving, forgiving Mother of God! I’m alone—all alone in a city of murderers! I have been dead, but now I am alive again, and that is the cruellest thing of all, because now I would not live. . . .”

  Jean! Jeannot—you stood up in the Tribunal and defended Julien; yesterday—or years ago, when was it, love? You bared your body, your strong, beautiful body, and showed them your scans. So many, many scars—oh, my Jeannot, how they must have tortured you! Did you cry, my love, did you cry? No—you are too brave for that; but are you brave enough? Can you die like Julien died when they come for you? When they come for you! Dear God—for me you did this thing! To save my husband, your life is forfeited!

  She was running now wildly through the crowd. She reached the house three minutes before the police of the Committee came to arrest him. She was on the landing panting from lack of breath when they thundered up the stairs.

  “Jean!” she screamed; her voice high, formlessly, deadly shrill; “Jean! They’re coming—run!”

  He threw open the door and saw it. They had reached the landing, their pikes levelled. And Nicole la Moyte without hesitation hurled herself upon the points of those pikes, gathering death into her arms like a tender lover, and fell sideways, crashing through the weak balustrade to the rez-de-chaussde, five flights below.

  But she took three of them with her, dragging them over by their pike-shafts.

  Jean stood there looking down at the broken heap at the bottom of the stairwell. Then he called over his shoulder: