Les Dieux ont soif. English

by Anatole France

  XXVII

  Robespierre, awake! The hour is come, time presses,... soon it will betoo late....

  At last, on the 8 Thermidor, in the Convention, the Incorruptible rises,he is going to speak. Sun of the 31st May, is this to be a secondday-spring? Gamelin waits and hopes. His mind is made up then!Robespierre is to drag from the benches they dishonour these legislatorsmore guilty than the federalists, more dangerous than Danton.... No! notyet. "I cannot," he says, "resolve to clear away entirely the veil thathides this mystery of iniquity."

  It is mere summer lightning that flashes harmlessly and without strikingany one of the conspirators, terrifies all. Sixty of them at least for afortnight had not dared sleep in their beds. Marat's way was to denouncetraitors by their name, to point the finger of accusation atconspirators. The Incorruptible hesitates, and from that moment he isthe accused....

  That evening at the Jacobins, the hall is filled to suffocation, thecorridors, the courtyard are crowded.

  They are all there, loud-voiced friends and silent enemies. Robespierrereads them the speech the Convention had heard in affrighted silence,and the Jacobins greet it with excited applause.

  "It is my dying testament," declares the orator. "You will see me drainthe hemlock undismayed."

  "I will drink it with you," answered David.

  "All, we all will!" shout the Jacobins, and separate without decidinganything.

  Evariste, while the death of _The Just_ was preparing, slept the sleepof the Disciples in the garden of Gethsemane. Next day, he attended theTribunal where two sections were sitting. That on which he served wastrying twenty-one persons implicated in the conspiracy of the Lazareprison. The case was still proceeding when the tidings arrived:

  "The Convention, after a six-hours' session, has decreed MaximilienRobespierre accused,--with him Couthon and Saint-Just; add AugustinRobespierre, and Lebas, who have demanded to share the lot of theaccused. The five outlaws stand at the bar of the house."

  News is brought that the President of the Section sitting in the nextcourt, the _citoyen_ Dumas, has been arrested on the bench, but that thecase goes on. Drums can be heard beating the alarm, and the tocsin pealsfrom the churches.

  Evariste is still in his place when he is handed an order from theCommune to proceed to the Hotel de Ville to sit in the General Council.To the sound of the rolling drums and clanging church bells, he and hiscolleagues record their verdict; then he hurries home to embrace hismother and snatch up his scarf of office. The Place de Thionville isdeserted. The Section is afraid to declare either for or against theConvention. Wayfarers creep along under the walls, slip downside-streets, sneak indoors. The call of the tocsin and alarm-drums isanswered by the noise of barring shutters and bolting doors. The_citoyen_ Dupont senior has secreted himself in his shop; Remacle theporter is barricaded in his lodge. Little Josephine holds Moutontremblingly in her arms. The widow Gamelin bemoans the dearness ofvictuals, cause of all the trouble. At the foot of the stairs Evaristeencounters Elodie; she is panting for breath and her black locks areplastered on her hot cheek.

  "I have been to look for you at the Tribunal; but you had just left.Where are you going?"

  "To the Hotel de Ville."

  "Don't go there! It would be your ruin; Hanriot is arrested ... theSections will not stir. The _Section des Piques_, Robespierre's Section,will do nothing, I know it for a fact; my father belongs to it. If yougo to the Hotel de Ville, you are throwing away your life for nothing."

  "You wish me to be a coward?"

  "No! the brave thing is to be faithful to the Convention and to obey theLaw."

  "The law is dead when malefactors triumph."

  "Evariste, hear me; hear your Elodie; hear your sister. Come and sitbeside her and let her soothe your angry spirit."

  He looked at her; never had she seemed so desirable in his eyes; neverhad her voice sounded so seductive, so persuasive in his ears.

  "A couple of paces, only a couple of paces, dear Evariste!"--and shedrew him towards the raised platform on which stood the pedestal of theoverthrown statue. It was surrounded by benches occupied by strollers ofboth sexes. A dealer in fancy articles was offering his laces, a sellerof cooling drinks, his portable cistern on his back, was tinkling hisbell; little girls were showing off their airs and graces. The parapetwas lined with anglers, standing, rod in hand, very still. The weatherwas stormy, the sky overcast. Gamelin leant on the low wall and lookeddown on the islet below, pointed like the prow of a ship, listening tothe wind whistling in the tree-tops, and feeling his soul penetratedwith an infinite longing for peace and solitude.

  Like a sweet echo of his thoughts, Elodie's voice sighed in his ear:

  "Do you remember, Evariste, how, at sight of the green fields, youwanted to be a country justice in a village? Yes, that would behappiness."

  But above the rustling of the trees and the girl's voice, he could hearthe tocsin and alarm-drums, the distant tramp of horses, and rumbling ofcannon along the streets.

  Two steps from them a young man, who was talking to an elegantly attired_citoyenne_, remarked:

  "Have you heard the latest?... The Opera is installed in the Rue de laLoi."

  Meantime the news was spreading; Robespierre's name was spoken, but in ashuddering whisper, for men feared him still. Women, when they heard themuttered rumour of his fall, concealed a smile.

  Evariste Gamelin seized Elodie's hand, but dropped it again swiftly nextmoment:

  "Farewell! I have involved you in my hideous fortunes, I have blastedyour life for ever. Farewell! I pray you may forget me!"

  "Whatever you do," she warned him, "do not go back home to-night. Cometo the _Amour peintre_. Do not ring; throw a pebble at my shutters. Iwill come and open the door to you myself; I will hide you in theloft."

  "You shall see me return triumphant, or you shall never see me more.Farewell!"

  On nearing the Hotel de Ville, he caught the well-remembered roar of theold great days rising to the grey heavens. In the Place de Greve a clashof arms, the glitter of scarfs and uniforms, Hanriot's cannon drawn up.He mounts the grand stairs and, entering the Council Hall, signs theattendance book. The Council General of the Commune, by the unanimousvoice of the 491 members present, declares for the outlawed patriots.

  The Mayor sends for the Table of the Rights of Man, reads the clausewhich runs, "When the Government violates the Rights of the people,insurrection is for the people the most sacred and the mostindispensable of duties," and the first magistrate of Paris announcesthat the Commune's answer to the Convention's act of violence is toraise the populace in insurrection.

  The members of the Council General take oath to die at their posts. Twomunicipal officers are deputed to go out on the Place de Greve andinvite the people to join with their magistrates in saving thefatherland and freedom.

  There is an endless looking for friends, exchanging news, giving advice.Among these Magistrates, artisans are the exception. The Communeassembled here is such as the Jacobin purge has made it,--judges andjurors of the Revolutionary Tribunal, artists like Beauvallet andGamelin, householders living on their means and college professors, cosycitizens, well-to-do tradesmen, powdered heads, fat paunches, and goldwatch-chains, very few sabots, striped trousers, carmagnole smocks andred caps.

  These bourgeois councillors are numerous and determined, but, when allis said, they are pretty well all Paris possesses of true Republicans.They stand on guard in the city mansion-house, as on a rock of liberty,but an ocean of indifference washes round their refuge.

  However, good news arrives. All the prisons where the proscribed hadbeen confined open their doors and disgorge their prey. AugustinRobespierre, coming from La Force, is the first to enter the Hotel deVille and is welcomed with acclamation.

  At eight o'clock it is announced that Maximilien, after a protractedresistance, is on his way to the Commune. He is eagerly expected; he iscoming; he is here; a roar of triumph shakes the vault of the oldMunicipal Palace.

  He enters
, supported by twenty arms. It is he, the little man there,slim, spruce, in blue coat and yellow breeches. He takes his seat; hespeaks.

  At his arrival the Council orders the facade of the Hotel de Ville to beilluminated there and then. It is there the Republic resides. He speaksin a thin voice, in picked phrases. He speaks lucidly, copiously. Hishearers who have staked their lives on his head, see the naked truth,see it to their horror. He is a man of words, a man of committees, awind-bag incapable of prompt action, incompetent to lead a Revolution.

  They draw him into the Hall of Deliberation. Now they are all there,these illustrious outlaws,--Lebas, Saint-Just, Couthon. Robespierre hasthe word. It is midnight and past, he is still speaking. MeantimeGamelin in the Council Hall, his bent brow pressed against a window,looks out with a haggard eye and sees the lamps flare and smoke in thegloom. Hanriot's cannon are parked before the Hotel de Ville. In theblack Place de Greve surges an anxious crowd, in uncertainty andsuspense. At half past twelve torches are seen turning the corner of theRue de la Vannerie, escorting a delegate of the Convention, clad in theinsignia of office, who unfolds a paper and reads by the ruddy light thedecree of the Convention, the outlawry of the members of the insurgentCommune, of the members of the Council General who are its abettors andof all such citizens as shall listen to its appeal.

  Outlawry, death without trial! The mere thought pales the cheek of themost determined. Gamelin feels the icy sweat on his brow. He watches thecrowd hurrying with all speed from the Place. Turning his head, he findsthat the Hall, packed but now with Councillors, is almost empty. Butthey have fled in vain; their signatures attest their attendance.

  It is two in the morning. The Incorruptible is in the neighbouring Hall,in deliberation with the Commune and the proscribed representatives.

  Gamelin casts a despairing look over the dark Square below. By the lightof the lanterns he can see the wooden candles above the grocer's shopknocking together like ninepins; the street lamps shiver and swing; ahigh wind has sprung up. Next moment a deluge of rain comes down; thePlace empties entirely; such as the fear of the Convention and its dreaddecree had not put to flight scatter in terror of a wetting. Hanriot'sguns are abandoned, and when the lightning reveals the troops of theConvention debouching simultaneously from the Rue Antoine and from theQuai, the approaches to the Hotel de Ville are utterly deserted.

  At last Maximilien has resolved to make appeal from the decree of theConvention to his own Section,--the _Section des Piques_.

  The Council General sends for swords, pistols, muskets. But now theclash of arms, the trampling of feet and the shiver of broken glass fillthe building. The troops of the Convention sweep by like an avalancheacross the Hall of Deliberation, and pour into the Council Chamber. Ashot rings out; Gamelin sees Robespierre fall; his jaw is broken. Hehimself grasps his knife, the six-sous knife that, one day of bitterscarcity, had cut bread for a starving mother, the same knife that, onesummer evening at a farm at Orangis, Elodie had held in her lap, whenshe cried the forfeits. He opens it, tries to plunge it into his heart,but the blade strikes on a rib, closes on the handle, the catch givingway, and two fingers are badly cut. Gamelin falls, the blood pouringfrom the wounds. He lies quite still, but the cold is cruel, and he istrampled underfoot in the turmoil of a fearful struggle. Through thehurly-burly he can distinctly hear the voice of the young dragoon Henry,shouting:

  "The tyrant is no more; his myrmidons are broken. The Revolution willresume its course, majestic and terrible."

  Gamelin fainted.

  At seven in the morning a surgeon sent by the Convention dressed hishurts. The Convention was full of solicitude for Robespierre'saccomplices; it would fain not have one of them escape the guillotine.

  The artist, ex-juror, ex-member of the Council General of the Commune,was borne on a litter to the Conciergerie.