Ange Pitou

by Alexandre Dumas

  "Oh, oh, Doctor!" murmured Billot, "Monsieur de Necker a villain—never!"

  "As you will be, my good Billot, a villain in the eyes of little Pitou here, in case one of Mr. Pitt's agents should teach him certain theories, backed by the influence of a pint of brandy and ten livres per day for getting up disturbances. This word 'villain,' do you see, Billot, is the word by which in revolutions we designate the man who thinks differently from us; we are all destined to bear that name more or less. Some will bear it so far that their countrymen will inscribe it on their tombs, others so much farther that posterity will ratify the epithet. This, my dear Billot, is what I see, and which you do not see. Billot, Billot! people of real worth must therefore not withdraw."

  "Bah!" cried Billot, "even were honest people to withdraw, the Revolution would still run its course; it is in full motion."

  Another smile rose to the lips of Gilbert.

  "Great child!" cried he, "who would abandon the handle of the plough, unyoke the horses from it, and then say: 'Good! the plough has no need of me; the plough will trace its furrow by itself.' But, my friends, who was it undertook the Revolution? honest people, were they not?"

  "France flatters herself that it is so. It appears to me that Lafayette is an honest man; it appears to me that Bailly is an honest man; it appears to me that Monsieur de Necker is an honest man; it appears to me that Monsieur Elie, Monsieur Hullin, and Monsieur Maillard, who fought side by side with me, are honest people; it appears to me that you yourself—"

  "Well, Billot, if honest people, if you, if I, if Maillard, if Hullin, if Elie, if Necker, if Bailly, if Lafayette should withdraw, who would carry on the work? Why, those wretches, those assassins, those villains whom I have pointed out to you,—the agents, the agents of Mr. Pitt!"

  "Try to answer that, Father Billot," said Pitou, convinced of the justice of the doctor's argument.

  "Well, then," replied Billot, "we will arm ourselves, and shoot these villains down as if they were dogs."

  "Wait a moment; who will arm themselves?"

  "Everybody."

  "Billot, Billot! remember one thing, my good friend, and it is this, that what we are doing at this moment is called—what do you call what we are now doing, Billot?"

  "Talking politics, Monsieur Gilbert."

  "Well! in politics there is no longer any absolute crime; one is a villain or an honest man, as we favor or thwart the interests of the man who judges us. Those whom you call villains will always give some specious reasons for their crimes; and to many honest people, who may have had a direct or an indirect interest in the commission of these crimes, these very villains will appear honest men also. From the moment that we reach that point, Billot, we must beware. There will then be men to hold the plough-handle. It will move onward, Billot; it will move onward, and without us."

  "It is frightful," said the farmer; "but if it moves onward without us, where will it stop?"

  "God only knows!" exclaimed Gilbert; "as to myself, I know not."

  "Well, then, if you do not know,—you who are a learned man, Monsieur Gilbert,—I, who am an ignoramus, cannot be expected to know anything of the matter. I augur from it—"

  "Well, what do you augur from it? Let us hear."

  "I augur from it that what we had better do—I mean Pitou and myself—is to return to the farm. We will again take to the plough, the real plough,—that of iron and wood, with which we turn up the earth, and not the one of flesh and blood, called the French people, and which is as restive as a vicious horse. We will make our corn grow instead of shedding blood, and we shall live free, joyous, and happy as lords in our own domain. Come with us; come with us, Monsieur Gilbert I The deuce! I like to know where I am going!"

  "One moment, my stout-hearted friend," cried Gilbert. "No, I know not whither I am going. I have told you so, and I repeat it to you; however, I still go on, and I will continue to do so. My duty is traced out to me; my life belongs to God; but my works are the debt which I shall pay to my country. If my conscience says to me, 'Go on, Gilbert, you are in the right road; go on,' that is all that I require. If I am mistaken, men will punish me; but God will absolve me."

  "But sometimes men punish those who are not mistaken. You said so yourself just now."

  "And I say it again. It matters not, I persist, Billot; be it an error or not, I shall go on. To guarantee that the events will not prove my inability, God forbid that I should pretend to do so! But before all, Billot, the Lord has said, 'Peace be to the man of good intentions!' Therefore, be one of those to whom God has promised peace. Look at Monsieur de Lafayette, in America as well as France; this is the third white charger he has worn out, without counting those he will wear out in future. Look at Monsieur de Bailly, who wears out his lungs. Look at the king, who wears out his popularity. Come, come, Billot, let us not be egotistical. Let us also wear ourselves out a little. Remain with me, Billot."

  "But to do what, if we do not prevent evil being done?"

  "Billot, remember never to repeat those words; for I should esteem you less. You have been trampled under foot, you have received hard fisticuffs, hard knocks from the butt-ends of muskets, and even from bayonets, when you wished to save Foulon and Berthier."

  "Yes, and even a great many," replied the farmer, passing his hand over his still painful body.

  "And as to me," said Pitou, "I had one eye almost put out."

  "And all that for nothing," added Billot.

  "Well, my children, if instead of there being only ten, fifteen, twenty of your courage, there had been a hundred, two hundred, three hundred, you would have saved the unhappy man from the frightful death which was inflicted on him; you would have spared the nation the blot which has sullied it. And that is the reason why, instead of returning to the country, which is tolerably tranquil,—that is why, Billot, I exact as far as I can exact anything of you, my friend, that you should remain at Paris; that I may have always near me a vigorous arm, an upright heart; that I may test my mind and my works on the faithful touchstone of your good sense and your pure patriotism; and, in fine, that we may strew around us, not gold, for that we have not, but our love of country and of the public welfare, in which you will be my agent with a multitude of misled, unfortunate men,—my staff, should my feet slip; my staff, should I have occasion to strike a blow."

  "A blind man's dog," said Billot, with sublime simplicity.

  "Precisely," said Gilbert, in the same tone.

  "Well," said Billot, "I accept your proposal. I will be whatever you may please to make me."

  "I know that you are abandoning everything,—fortune, wife, child, and happiness,—Billot. But you may be tranquil; it will not be for long."

  "And I," said Pitou, "what am I to do?"

  "You?" said Gilbert, looking at the ingenuous and hardy youth who boasted not much of his intelligence,—"you will return to the farm, to console Billot's family, and explain to them the holy mission he has undertaken."

  "Instantly!" cried Pitou, trembling with joy at the idea of returning to Catherine.

  "Billot," said Gilbert, "give him your instructions."

  "They are as follows," said Billot.

  "I am all attention."

  "Catherine is appointed by me as mistress of the house. Do you understand?"

  "And Madame Billot?" exclaimed Pitou, somewhat surprised at this slight offered to the mother, to the advancement of the daughter.

  "Pitou," said Gilbert, who had at once caught the idea of Billot, from seeing a slight blush suffuse the face of the honest farmer, "remember the Arabian proverb, 'to hear is to obey.'"

  Pitou blushed in his turn. He had almost understood, and felt the indiscretion of which he had been guilty.

  "Catherine has all the judgment of the family," added Billot, unaffectedly, in order to explain his idea.

  Gilbert bowed in token of assent.

  "Is that all?" inquired the youth.

  "All that I have to say," replied Billot."

  "But n
ot as regards me," said Gilbert.

  "I am listening," observed Pitou, well disposed to attend to the Arabian proverb cited by Gilbert.

  "You will go with a letter I shall give you to the College Louis-le-Grand," added Gilbert. "You will deliver that letter to the Abbé Bérardier; he will intrust Sebastien to you, and you will bring him here. After I have embraced him, you will take him to Villers-Cotterets, where you will place him in the hands of the Abbé Fortier, that he may not altogether lose his time. On Sunday and Thursdays he will go out with you. Make him walk frequently in the meadows and in the woods. It will be more conducible to my tranquillity and his health that he should be in the country yonder than here."

  "I have understood you perfectly," said Pitou, delighted to be thus restored to the friend of his childhood, and to the vague aspirations of a sentiment somewhat more adult, which had been awakened within him by the magic name of Catherine.

  He rose and took leave of Gilbert, who smiled, and of Billot, who was dreaming.

  Then he set off, running at full speed, to fetch Sebastien Gilbert, his foster-brother, from the college.

  "And now we," said Gilbert to Billot,—"we must set to work."

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  Chapter XV

  Medea

  A DEGREE of calmness had succeeded at Versailles to the terrible moral and political agitations which we have placed before the eyes of our readers.

  The king breathed again, and although he could not help reflecting on the suffering his Bourbon pride had endured during his journey to Paris, he consoled himself with the idea of his reconquered popularity.

  During this time Monsieur de Necker was organizing, and by degrees losing his.

  As to the nobility, they were beginning to prepare their defection or their resistance.

  The people were watching and waiting.

  During this time the queen, thrown back as it were on the resources of her own mind, assured that she was the object of many hatreds, kept herself in the background, almost dissembled; for she also knew that although the object of hatred to many, she was at the same time the object of many hopes.

  Since the journey of the king to Paris she had scarcely caught a glimpse of Gilbert.

  Once, however, he had presented himself to her in the vestibule which led to the king's apartments.

  And there, as he had bowed to her very humbly and respectfully, she was the first to begin a conversation with him.

  "Good-day, sir," said she to him; "are you going to the king?"

  And then she added, with a smile, in which there was a slight tinge of irony:—

  "Is it as counsellor, or as physician?"

  "It is as his physician, Madame," replied Gilbert." I have to-day an appointed service."

  She made a sign to Gilbert to follow her. The doctor obeyed.

  They both of them went into a small sitting-room, which led to the king's bedroom.

  "Well, sir," said she, "you see that you were deceiving me when you assured me the other day, with regard to the journey to Paris, that the king was incurring no danger."

  "Who,—I, Madame I" cried Gilbert, astonished.

  "Undoubtedly! was not the king fired at?"

  "Who has said that, Madame?"

  "Everybody, sir; and above all, those who saw the poor woman fall almost beneath the wheels of the king's carriage. Who says that? Why, Monsieur de Beauvau and Monsieur d'Estaing, who saw your coat torn and your frill perforated by the ball."

  "Madame!"

  "The ball which thus grazed you, sir, might have killed the king, as it killed that unfortunate woman; for, in short, it was neither you nor that poor woman that the murderers wished to kill."

  "I do not believe in such a crime," replied the doctor, hesitating.

  "Be it so; but I believe in it, sir," rejoined the queen, fixing her eyes on Gilbert.

  "At all events, if there was intentional crime, it ought not to be imputed to the people."

  The queen gave Gilbert a searching look.

  "Ah!" she exclaimed, "to whom, then, must it be attributed Speak!"

  "Madame," continued Gilbert, shaking his head, "for some time past I have been watching and studying the people. Well, then, the people, when they assassinate in Revolutionary times,—the people kill with their hands; they are then like the furious tiger, the irritated lion. The tiger and the lion use no intermediate agent between their fury and their victim; they kill for killing's sake: they spill blood to spill it; they like to dye their teeth, to steep their claws in it."

  "Witness Foulon and Berthier, you would say. But was not Flesselles killed by a shot from a pistol? I was so told, at least; but after all," continued the queen, in a tone of irony, "perhaps it was not true; we crowned heads are so surrounded by flatterers."

  Gilbert, in his turn, looked intently at the queen.

  "Oh! as to him," said he, "you do not believe more than I do, Madame, that it was the people who killed him. There were people who were interested in bringing about his death."

  The queen reflected.

  "In fact," she replied, "that may be possible."

  "Then?" said Gilbert, bowing, as if to ask the queen if she had anything more to say to him.

  "I understand, sir," said the queen, gently, stopping the doctor with an almost friendly gesture; "however that may be, let me tell you that you will never save the king's life so effectually by your medical skill as you did three days ago with your own breast."

  Gilbert bowed a second time.

  But as he saw that the queen remained, he remained also.

  "I ought to have seen you again, sir," said the queen, after a momentary repose.

  "Your Majesty had no further need of me," said Gilbert.

  "You are modest."

  "I wish I were not so, Madame."

  "And why?"

  "Because, being less modest, I should be less timid, and consequently better able to serve my friends or to frustrate enemies."

  "Why do you make that distinction? You say, my friends, but do not say my enemies."

  "Because, Madame, I have no enemies; or rather, because I will not, for my part at least, admit that I have any."

  The queen looked at him with surprise.

  "I mean to say," continued Gilbert, "that those only are my enemies who hate me, but that I on myside hate no one."

  "Because?"

  "Because I no longer love any one, Madame."

  "Are you ambitious, Monsieur Gilbert?"

  "At one time I hoped to become so, Madame."

  "And—"

  "And that passion proved abortive, as did every other."

  "There is one, however, that still remains in your heart," said the queen, with a slight shade of artful irony.

  "In my heart? And what passion is that, good Heaven?"

  "Your patriotism."

  Gilbert bowed.

  "Oh, that is true!" said he. "I adore my country, and for it I would make every sacrifice."

  "Alas!" said the queen, with undefinable melancholy, "there was a time when a good Frenchman would not have expressed that thought in the terms you now have used."

  "What does the queen mean to say?" respectfully inquired Gilbert.

  "I mean to say, sir, that in the times of which I speak, it was impossible for a Frenchman to love his country, without at the same time loving his queen and king."

  Gilbert blushed; he bowed, and felt within his heart one of those electric shocks, which, in her seducing intimacies, the queen produced on those who approached her.

  "You do not answer, sir," she said.

  "Madame!" cried Gilbert, "I may venture to boast that no one loves the monarchy more ardently than myself."

  "Are we living in times, sir, when it is sufficient to say this; and would it not be better to prove it by our acts "

  "But, Madame," said Gilbert, with surprise, "I beg your Majesty to believe that all the king or queen might command—"

  "You would do,—is it not so?"
/>
  "Assuredly, Madame."

  "In doing which, sir," said the queen, resuming, in spite of herself, a slight degree of her accustomed haughtiness, "you would only be fulfilling a duty."

  "Madame—"

  "God, who has given omnipotence to kings," continued Marie Antoinette, "has released them from the obligation of being grateful to those who merely fulfil a duty."

  "Alas, alas, Madame," rejoined Gilbert, "the time is approaching when your servants will deserve more than your gratitude, if they will only fulfil their duty."

  "What is it you say, sir?"

  "I mean to say, Madame, that in these days of disorder and demolition, you will in vain seek for friends where you have been accustomed to find servants. Pray, pray to God, Madame, to send you other servants, other supporters, other friends than those you have."

  "Do you know any such?"

  "Yes, Madame."

  "Then point them out to me."

  " See now, Madame; I who now speak to you,—I was your enemy but yesterday."

  "My enemy! and why were you so?"

  "Because you ordered that I should be imprisoned."

  "And to-day?"

  "To-day, Madame," replied Gilbert, bowing, "I am your servant."

  "And your object?"

  "Madame—"

  "The object for which you have become my servant. It is not in your nature, sir, to change your opinion, your belief, your affections, so suddenly. You are a man, Monsieur Gilbert, whose remembrances are deeply planted; you know how to perpetuate your vengeance. Come, now, tell me what was the motive of this change?"

  "Madame, you reproached me but now with loving my country too passionately."

  "No one can ever love it too much, sir; the only question is to know how we love it. For, myself, I love my country." (Gilbert smiled.) "Oh, no false interpretations, sir! my country is France. A German by blood, I am a Frenchwoman in my heart. I love France; but it is through the king. I love France from the respect due to God, who has given us the throne. And now to you, sir."