A Marriage Under the Terror

by Patricia Wentworth

  By the fire two men were talking in low voices—Hébert, sensual, swollen of body, flat and pale of face; and Marat, a misshapen, stunted creature with short, black, curling hair, pinched mouth, and dark, malignant gaze.

  “We get no further,” complained Hébert, in a dull, oily voice, devoid of ring.

  Marat shrugged his crooked shoulders.

  “We are so ideal, so virtuous,” he remarked viciously. “We were so shocked in September, my friend; you should remember that. Blood was shed—actually people were killed—fie then! it turns our weak stomachs. We look askance at our hands, and call for rose-water to wash them in.”

  “Very pretty,” drawled Hébert, pushing the fire with his foot. “There are fools in the world, and some here, no doubt; but after all, we all want the same thing in the end, though some make a boggle at the price. I want power, you want power, Danton wants it, Camille wants it, and so does even your piece of Incorruptibility yonder, if he would come out of his infernal pose and acknowledge it.”

  Robespierre looked up, and down again. No one could have said he heard. It was in fact not possible, but Hébert grew a faint shade yellower, and Marat’s eyes glittered maliciously.

  “Ah,” he said, “that’s just it—just the trouble. We all want the same thing, and we are all afraid to move, for fear of giving it to some one else. So we all sit twiddling our thumbs, and the Gironde calls the tune.”

  Hébert swore, and spat into the fire.

  “Now Danton is back, he will not twiddle his thumbs for long,” he said; “that is not at all his idea of amusing himself. He is turning things over—chewing the cud. Presently, you will see, the bull will bellow, and the whole herd will trot after him.”

  “Which way?” asked Marat sarcastically.

  “H’m—that is just what I should like to know.”

  “And our Maximilian?”

  “What does he mean? What does he want?” Hébert broke out uneasily, low-voiced. “He is all for mildness and temperance, justice and sobriety; but under it—under it, Marat?”

  Marat’s pointed brows rose abruptly.

  “The devil knows,” said he, “but I don’t believe Maximilian does.”

  Robespierre looked up again with calm, dispassionate gaze. His eye dwelt on the two for a moment, and dropped to the page before him. He wrote the words, “Above all things the State”—and deep within him the imperishable ego cried prophetic, “L’État, c’est moi!”

  The room began to fill. Men came in, cursing the cold, shaking snow from their coats, stamping icy fragments from their frozen feet. The fire was popular. Hébert and Marat were crowded from the place they had occupied, and a buzz of voices rose from every quarter. Here and there a group declaimed or argued, but for the most part men stood in twos and threes discussing the situation in confidential tones.

  If intellect was less conspicuous than in the ranks of the Gironde, it was by no means absent, and many faces there bore its stamp, and that of ardent sincerity. For the most part they were young, these men whose meeting was to make History, and they carried into politics the excesses and the violence of youth.

  Here leaned Hérault de Séchelles, one of the handsomest men in France; there, declaiming eagerly, to as eager a circle of listeners, was St. Just with that curious pallor which made his face seem a mere translucent mask behind which there burned a seven-times-heated flame.

  “I say that Louis can claim no rights as a citizen. We are fighting, not trying him. The law’s delays are fatal here. One day posterity will be amazed that we have advanced so little since Cæsar’s day. What—patriots were found then to immolate the tyrant in open Senate, and to-day we fear to lift our hands! There is no citizen to-day who has not the right that Brutus had, and like Brutus he might claim to be his country’s saviour! Louis has fought against the people, and is now no longer a Frenchman, but a stranger, a traitor, and a criminal! Strike, then, that the tocsin of liberty may sound the birth hour of the Nation and the death hour of the Tyrant!”

  “It is all delay, delay,” said Hérault gloomily to young Cléry. “Désèze works hard. Time is what he wants—and for what? To hatch new treasons; to get behind us, and stab in the dark; to allow Austria to advance, and Spain and England to threaten us! No, they have had time enough for these things. It is the reckoning day. Thirty-eight years has Louis lived and now he must give an account of them.”

  “My faith,” growled Jean Bon, shaking his shaggy head, to which the winter moisture clung, “My faith, there are citizens in this room who will take matters into their own hands if the Convention does not come to the point very shortly.”

  “The Convention deliberates,” said Hérault gloomily, and Jean Bon interrupted him with a brutal laugh—

  “Thunder of Heaven, yes; talk, talk, talk, and nothing done. We want a clear policy. We want Danton to declare himself, and Robespierre to stop playing the humanitarian, and say what he means. There has been enough of turning phrases and lawyers’ tricks. Louis alive is Louis dangerous, and Louis dead is Louis dust; that’s the plain truth of it.”

  “He is of more use to us alive than dead, I should say,” cried Edmund Cléry impetuously. “Are we in so strong a position as to be able with impunity to destroy our hostages?”

  Hébert, who had joined the group, turned a cold, remembering eye upon him.

  “Austria does not care for Capet,” he said scornfully; “Antoinette and the boy are all the hostages we require. Austria does not even care about them very much; but such as they are they will serve. Capet must die,” and he sprang on a bench and raised his voice:

  “Capet must die!—I demand his blood as the seal of Republican liberty. If he lives, there will be endless plots and intrigues. I tell you it is his life now, or ours before long. The people is a hard master to serve, my friends. To-day they want a Republic, but to-morrow they may take a fancy to their old plaything again. ‘Limited Monarchy!’ cries some fool, and forthwith on goes Capet’s crown, and off go our heads! A smiling prospect, hein, mes amis?”

  There was a murmur, part protest, part encouragement.

  Hébert went on:

  “Some one says deport him; he can do no more harm than the Princes are doing already. Do you perhaps imagine that a man fights as well for his brother’s crown as for his own? The Princes are half-hearted—they are in no danger, the crown is none of theirs, their wives and children are at liberty; but put Capet in their place, and he has everything to gain by effort and all to lose by quiescence. I say that the man who says ‘Send Capet out of France’ is a traitor to the Republic, and a Monarchist at heart! Another citizen says, ‘Imprison him, keep him shut up out of harm’s way.’ Out of harm’s way—that sounds well enough, but for my part I have no fancy for living over a powder magazine. They plot and conspire, these aristocrats. They do it foolishly enough, I grant you, and we find them out, and clap them in prison. Now and then there is a little blood-letting. Not enough for me, but a little. Then what? More of the breed at the same game, and encore, and encore. Some day, my friends, we shall wake up and find that one of the plots has succeeded. Pretty fools we should look if one fine morning they were all flown, our hostages—Capet, the Austrian, the proud jade Elizabeth, and the promising youth. Shall I tell you what would be the next thing? Why, our immaculate generals would feel it their duty to conclude a peace with profits. There would be an embracing, a fraternising, a reconciliation on our frontiers, and hand in hand would come Austria and our army, conducting Capet to his faithful town of Paris. It is only Citizen Robespierre who is incorruptible—meaner mortals do not pretend to it. In our generals’ place, I myself, I do not say that I should not do the same, for I should certainly conclude that I was being governed by a parcel of fools, and that I should do well to prove my own sanity by saving my head.”

  Danton had entered as Hébert sprang up. His loose shirt displayed the powerful bull-neck; his broad, rugged forehead and deep-set passionate eyes bespoke the rough power and magnetism of his
personality. He came in quietly, nodding to a friend here and there, his arm through that of Camille Desmoulins, who, with dark hair tossed loosely from his beautiful brow, and strange eyes glittering with a visionary light, made an arresting figure even under Danton’s shadow.

  In happier days the one might have been prophet, ruler, or statesman; the other poet, priest, or dreamer of ardent dreams; but in the storm of the Red Terror they rose, they passed, they fell; for even Danton’s thunder failed him in the face of a tempest elemental as the crash of worlds evolving from chaos.

  He listened now, but did not speak, and Camille, at his side, flung out an eager arm.

  “The man must die!” he shouted in a clear, ringing voice. “The people call for his blood, France calls for his blood, the Convention calls for his blood. I demand it in the sacred name of Liberty. Let the scaffold of a King become the throne of an enduring Republic!”

  Robespierre looked up with an expression of calm curiosity. These wild enthusiasms, this hot-blooded ardour, how strange, how inexplicable, and yet at times how useful. He leaned across the table and began to speak in a thin, colourless voice that somehow made itself heard, and enforced attention.

  “Capet has had a fair trial at the hands of a righteous and representative Assembly. If the Convention is satisfied that he is innocent, maligned perhaps by men of interested motives”—there was a slight murmur of dissent—“or influenced to unworthy deeds by those around him, or merely ignorant—strangely, stupidly ignorant—the Convention will judge him. But if he has sinned against the Nation, if he has oppressed the people, if he has given them stone for bread, and starvation for prosperity—if he has conspired with Austria against the integrity of France in order to bolster up a tottering tyranny, why, then”—he paused whilst a voice cried, “Shall the people oppressed through the ages not take their revenge of a day?” and an excited chorus of oaths and execrations followed the words—“why, then,” said the thin voice coldly, “still I say, the Convention will judge him.”

  Maximilian Robespierre took up his pen and wrote on. Something in his words had fanned the scattered embers into flame, and strife ran high. Jules Dupuis, foul-mouthed and blasphemous, screamed out an edged tirade. Jean Bon boomed some commonplace of corroboration. Marat spat forth a venomous word or two. Robespierre folded the paper on which he wrote, and passed the note to Danton at his elbow. The great head bent, the deep eyes read, and lifting, fixed themselves on Robespierre’s pale face. It was a face as strange as pale. Below the receding brow the green, unwinking eyes held steady. The red spark trembled in them and smouldered to a blaze.

  Danton looked strangely at him for a moment, and then, throwing back his great shoulders and raising his right hand high above the crowd, he thundered:

  “Citizens, Capet must die!”

  A roar of applause shook the room, and drowned the reverberations of that mighty voice—Danton’s voice, which shook not only the Mountain on which he stood, and from which he fell, but France beyond and Europe across her frontiers. It echoes still, and comes to us across the years with all the man’s audacious force, his pride of patriotism, and overwhelming energy! raised it now, and beckoning for silence——

  “We are all agreed,” he cried, “Louis is guilty, and Louis must die. If he lives, there is not a life safe in all France. The man is an open sore on the flesh of the Constitution, and it must be cut away, lest gangrene seize the whole. Above all there must be no delay. Delay means disintegration; delay means a people without bread, and a country without government. Neither can wait. Away with Louis, and our hands are free to do all that waits to be done.”

  “The frontiers—Europe—are we strong enough?” shouted a voice from the back.

  Danton’s eyes blazed.

  “Let Europe look to herself. Let Spain, Austria, and England look to themselves. The rot of centuries is ripe at last. Other thrones may totter, and other tyrants fall. Let them threaten—let them threaten, but we will dash a gage of battle at their feet—the bloody head of the King!”

  At that the clamour swallowed everything. Men cheered and embraced. There was shouting and high applause.

  Danton turned from the riot and fell into earnest talk with Robespierre. In Hébert’s ear Marat whispered:

  “As you said. The bull has roared, and we all follow.”

  “All?” asked Hébert significantly.

  “Some people have an inexplicable taste for being in the minority,” said Marat, shrugging.

  “As, for instance?”

  “Our young friend Dangeau.”

  “Ah, that Dangeau,” cursed Hébert, “I have a grudge against him.”

  “Very ungrateful of you, then,” said Marat briskly; “he saved Capet and his family at a time when it suited none of us that they should die. We want a spectacle—something imposing, public, solemn; something of a fête, not just a roaring crowd, a pike-thrust or two, and pff! it is all over.”

  “It is true.”

  “See you, Hébert, when we have closed the churches, and swept away the whole machinery of superstition, what are we going to give the people instead of them? I say La République must have her fêtes, her holidays, her processions, and her altars, with St. Guillotine as patron saint, and the good Citizen Sanson as officiating priest. We want Capet’s blood, but can we stop there? No, a thousand times! Paris will be drunk, and then, in a trice, Paris will be thirsty again. And the oftener Paris is drunk, the thirstier she will be, until——”

  “Well, my friend?” Hébert was a little pale; had he any premonition of the day when he too should kneel at that Republican altar?

  Marat’s face was convulsed for a moment.

  “I don’t know,” he said, in sombre tones.

  “But Dangeau,” said Hébert after a pause, “the fellow sticks in my gorge. He is one of your moral idealists, who want to cross the river without wetting their feet. He has not common-sense.”

  “Danton is his friend,” said Marat with intention.

  “And it’s ‘ware bull.’”

  “I know that. See now if Danton does not pack him off out of Paris somewhere until this business is settled.”

  “He might give trouble—yes, he might give trouble,” said Marat slowly.

  “He is altogether too popular,” grunted Hébert.

  Marat shrugged his shoulders.

  “Oh, popularity,” he said, “it’s here to-day and gone to-morrow; and when to-morrow comes——”

  “Well?”

  “Our young friend will have to choose between his precious scruples and his head!”

  Marat strolled off, and Jules Dupuis took his place. He came up in his short puce coat, guffawing, and purple-faced, his loose skin all creased with amusement.

  “Hé, Hébert,” he chuckled, “here’s something for the Père Duchesne,” and plunged forthwith into a scurrilous story. As he did so, the door opened and Dangeau came in. He looked pale and very tired, and was evidently cold, for he made his way to the fireplace, and stood leaning against it looking into the flame, without appearing to notice what was passing. Presently, however, he raised his head, recognising the two men beside him with a curt nod.

  Hébert appeared to be well amused by Dupuis’ tale. Its putrescent scintillations stimulated his jaded fancy, and its repulsive dénouement evoked his oily laugh.

  Dangeau, after listening for a moment or two, moved farther off, a slight expression of disgust upon his face.

  Hébert’s light eyes followed him.

  “The Citizen does not like your taste in wit, my friend,” he observed in a voice carefully pitched to reach Dangeau’s ear.

  Dupuis laughed grossly.

  “More fool he, then,” he chuckled.

  “You and I, mon cher, are too coarse for him,” continued Hébert in the same tone. “The Citizen is modest. Tiens! How beautiful a virtue is modesty! And then, you see, the Citizen’s sympathies are with these sacrés aristocrats.”

  Dangeau looked up with a glance lik
e the flash of steel.

  “You said, Citizen—?” he asked smoothly.

  Hébert shrugged his loosely-hung shoulders.

  “If I said the Citizen Deputy had a tender heart, should I be incorrect? Or, perhaps, a weak stomach would be nearer to the truth. Blood is such a distressing sight, is it not?”

  Dangeau looked at him steadily.

  “A patriot should hold his own life as lightly as he should hold that of every other citizen sacred until the State has condemned it,” he said with a certain quiet disgust; “but if the Citizen says that I sympathise with what has been condemned by the State, the Citizen lies!”

  Hébert’s eyes shifted from the blue danger gleam. Bully and coward, he had the weakness of all his type when faced. He preferred the unresisting victim and could not afford an open quarrel with Dangeau. Danton was in the room, and he did not wish to offend Danton yet. He moved away with a sneer and a mocking whisper in the ear of Jules Dupuis.

  Dangeau stood warming himself. His back was straighter, his eye less tired. The little interchange of hostilities had roused the fire in his veins again, and for the moment the cloud of misgiving which had shadowed him for the last few days was lifted. When Danton came across and clapped him on the shoulder, he looked up with the smile to which he owed more than one of his friends, since to a certain noble gravity of aspect it lent a very human, almost boyish, warmth and glow.

  “Back again, and busy again?” he said, turning.

  “Busier than ever,” said Danton, with a frown. He raised his shoulders as if he felt a weight upon them. “Once this business of Capet’s is arranged, we can work; at present it’s just chaos all round.”

  Dangeau leaned closer and spoke low.

  “I was detained—have only just come. Has anything been done—decided?”

  “We are unanimous, I think. I spoke, they all agreed. Robespierre is with us, and his party is well in hand. Death is the only thing, and the sooner the better.”