The English Heiress

by Roberta Gellis

  “Ah, the gunsmith from Brittany,” Lefranc said, turning to see what had caused the disturbance. “Have you found a place to set up business yet?”

  “No, citizen. I have not had time to look. You remember we were ordered to stay within.”

  “Yes. Yes, that is true. Well, when this is over, come to the club. Perhaps I will hear of a good place. I will ask.”

  He nodded pleasantly to Roger’s renewed thanks and said sharply to the other men that “those two”, meaning Roger and Leonie, were good citizens and not “suspect”. Roger’s move had been judicious. The only other guest was dragged out, despite the landlord’s protests and the production of identity papers. The young man, a wool salesman, should be serving his country not making money, one of the commissioners growled. To love money better than France was “suspect”. No one argued terribly hard against the seizure, not even the man taken. They all thought it meant a few hours of inconvenience while a responsible person in authority straightened out the mistakes of the crude and ignorant commissioners. At worst they assumed it meant a few days’ detention while the validity of the papers and business were established. Had anyone foreseen the events of the next few days, no one would have dismissed the matter so lightly.

  For Roger and Leonie, however, the inspection had excellent results. The first was the establishment of their characters as “friends” of the Girondists. The second was a development of real rapport with the landlord and his wife and the proof that they could be trusted.

  After the commissioners left, the landlord took Roger aside and said, “You are not Breton. Why did Lefranc say you were?”

  Roger shrugged easily, but his right hand slipped down into his pocket. Could he trust this man? “He noticed my accent and I did not wish to admit that I am English by birth. I have lived in Brittany and also in the Côte d’Or—my wife is from the Dijon area. In these times, one does not look for trouble.”

  “My name is Aunay,” the landlord said, indicating a turn toward the development of a personal rather than a purely business relationship. “And I agree with you about trouble. You can count on me to say nothing. I knew you were not Breton because I am, yet you use phrases now and again that are from my country.”

  Roger mentally blessed his unconscious use of Pierre’s phrases, then changed the subject slightly by saying it seemed to him too late to bother going to bed. Since they were all awake anyway, they decided to have breakfast. Madame Aunay prepared the meal herself. She was a Parisian and not as trusting as her good-natured, provincial-born husband. She had noticed that neither Leonie nor Roger had any spare clothing to speak of. This cast grave suspicion on Roger’s story that he had come deliberately to Paris with the intention of staying. However, having heard Roger’s smooth response to her husband’s questions, she felt she would have a better chance to get the truth from the younger, more innocent and presumably more easily disconcerted Leonie. In this, she was gravely mistaken. Leonie was no more likely than Roger to falter at a lie or lack for a clever explanation. What was more, unlike him, she enjoyed the game.

  By the time Madame Aunay drew Leonie aside and the subject of the lack of clothing was specifically raised, Leonie had an inkling of what was troubling the woman and had her story pat. She turned her face away and uttered a sob. “Oh, I know I should not care,” she said. “Roger promised that he would replace all as soon as he had the money, but—but it will not be the same.”

  “What do you mean?” Madame Aunay asked.

  “Stolen—all was stolen. My whole trousseau! We were not supposed to marry until the spring, but when Roger said he would go to Paris, I—I could not bear to be parted from him.” Leonie had looked at her interlocutor while she answered the question, but now she turned her face away again, as if she were blushing. “I did not think it wise that he should be alone in Paris. Who knows whom he might meet—women, perhaps.”

  Madame Aunay laughed and nodded. “That was very wise. You are quite right. Paris is full of women looking for a man with a good, safe trade. But I do not understand…”

  “The chests of clothing, my sheets, my tablecloths—everything—was strapped on the back of the carriage. The guns had to be inside, you see, and Roger’s tools. One day when we stopped for a meal—oh, it was terrible!” Leonie sobbed dramatically again. “Someone cut the straps and disappeared with all our goods. All we had left were the few things that had been in the traveling bag we had been using so that the trunks would not need to be taken down each night. I cried and cried.”

  Madame Aunay clucked sympathetically. She thought them fools for having left their possessions open to such easy theft, but she had a born Parisian’s contempt for “rustics” and did not really find it surprising that those from the provinces should be so silly and trusting. If she did not watch what her own Gaston did, they would have been robbed and cheated many times. She was glad the explanation for the suspicious circumstance was so simple,for she was a good woman at heart, although experience had made her cautious. Now she was able to turn her attention to a far pleasanter subject—advice to a new bride.

  Soon after, the landlord and his wife returned to their daily tasks, and Roger and Leonie had a chance to exchange information on what had been said. The morning reached toward noon, and still the drums did not rattle to mark the end of what amounted to house arrest for everyone except the commissioners of investigation. Roger and Leonie slept for a while, but their room was hot in the breathless afternoon and they soon came down again. Out of boredom they asked if they could help out with any small chores. This and that was found for them to do, which helped to pass the time and confirmed their hosts’ good opinion of them.

  There was no release until the night of August thirty-first. Naturally, after so much inactivity, everyone rushed into the streets as soon as word came that the investigation was over. Perfect strangers told one another who and how many had been taken from this house and that. At first it was all just exciting, very uplifting to feel that you had escaped. Gradually, however, both Roger and Leonie began to feel uncomfortable and went back to the quiet of their room.

  “Add it up, Leonie,” Roger said. “All together we spoke to about twenty householders and they gave us news of about seventy or eighty others of which they had heard. Even if only half what they told us was true, thousands of people must have been taken prisoner.”

  “What can it mean? Roger, there cannot be thousands of spies and traitors.”

  “No, but there can easily be thousands who would wish to see the monarchy restored. If the mobs who have terrorized everyone and pushed even the conservative deputies into more and more radical positions are sent off to fight the Prussians—although God knows what good they will be against disciplined solders—those deputies who have counted on the support of the mob may be in trouble.”

  “Then they will not do it. They will see France defeated before they relinquish their power,” Leonie said bitterly.

  “I don’t think so. They may be fanatics and may even be dishonest fanatics, but they are not—even the dishonest ones—traitors in the sense that they wish to see the Prussians triumph. That is the one thing they cannot permit because it would result in the restoration of the monarchy.”

  “But thousands of people cannot be kept in prison for long. There is no way…”

  “No,” Roger agreed, tight-lipped. “They must either let them go—and what would that accomplish, except to make the radicals even more hated and to demonstrate that they are a small, weak minority who can only succeed when hysteria drives the majority to bow to them—or they must… Nonsense! This business of night visitations and listening to unsubstantiated horror stories in the streets is making me take my own lurid imaginings as truth. You are probably right, Leonie. This was not a planned thing but a panic reaction. In a few days, particularly if the war news grows better, the prisoners will be released and the whole affair will blow over.”

  Unfortunately, the next day brought wo
rse news from the front, not better. Verdun was besieged. Before that news came, there had been some protests against the arbitrary and violent behavior of the commissioners. Some had used the opportunity to loot houses as well as to seize “suspicious” persons. The assembly called for the dissolution of the Commune of Paris, which had instigated the visitations. The commune struck back. Robespierre prepared an address justifying the actions of the commune and calling for the continued dominance of the only organization, he said, that represented the will of the people.

  A mob was generated to support this address, but for the moment shame had conquered panic and the assembly stood firm. However, after the news came of the further Prussian advance, insanity seemed to supervene. Danton called openly for terrorization of the royalists. Vergniaud incited the mob to “dig the graves of our enemies.” Then Danton was up again, crying, “Let everyone who refuses to serve in person or to give up his arms be punished with death!”

  Roger brought the news of these increasingly incendiary speeches from the “club”, which he visited periodically. Although the city was quiet, there was no peace in the quietness. Rather, an air of restrained hysteria, a kind of hushed panting that any moment could break into wild, clamorous action existed. Through the day there were rumors brought to the café by customers of new imprisonments. Leonie borrowed a needle and thread from Madame Aunay and sewed a belt with two deep pockets that she could wear under her voluminous skirts to carry a pair of small, one-shot ladies’ pistols. By splitting short sections of the seams in the sides of her gowns, she devised a method of reaching the guns without having to lift her skirts.

  Roger did not permit her to fire the weapons for fear of the noise, but Leonie practiced drawing and aiming until she was accustomed to the weight and the working of the mechanism. That night Roger did not ask Leonie’s permission to make love. He seized on her hungrily, as if it might be his last opportunity, and she responded with near violence.

  On September second, the dreaded sound of the tocsin came, and all the steeples and public buildings displayed the black flag of emergency. Roger did not go out for news because there was too much chance that a young, able-bodied man might be swept up and pressed into the army. The Café Breton, however, was on the Capucines, just a little way from the Jacobin Club. From the doorway it could be seen that there was considerable activity there in the late afternoon. Finally, Aunay who was well known to the members, went down to inquire.

  He returned white-faced. “There has been a tragic accident,” he told them. “Some of the priests who were at the mairie were seized by the Marseillais and carried off to the Abbaye prison. On the way those maniacs incited the crowd to murder them.”

  “Who are the Marseillais?” Leonie asked.

  “You have not heard of them?” A mute headshake was enough. “They are a battalion,” Aunay continued. “At least, that is what they call themselves. They came from the south and appeared in Paris near the beginning of the month. They took part in the storming of the Tuileries on the tenth, and everywhere they go they drag with them a cannon, ready loaded. They do not desire peace or freedom,” Aunay said bitterly, his good-natured mouth drawn hard, “only blood.”

  Leonie shrank toward Roger, who put an arm about her comfortingly, cast a significant glance at Aunay, and said, “Well, they have had their blood now. I hope they will be content and allow the rest of us some peace.”

  But he said it only for Leonie. Aunay’s face gave him the lie, and the fearful glances of the landlord’s wife did nothing to improve the situation. Nor was the anxiety misplaced, although all was quiet for some hours. In the dusk a confused sound drifted to them over the river from the left bank. Had they not been already uneasy, they might not have noticed it at all or might only have wondered vaguely what it was. Even anxious as they were, Roger and Leonie might have missed the significance of the dull snarling that rose and fell sporadically as the wind shifted. Both had brief acquaintance with the sound of a mob, but only very close, where the high-pitched shrieks and yells dominated.

  It was the renewed and increased tension of Aunay and his wife that alerted Roger. “What is it?” He asked.

  “The sans-culottes are on the march again,” Madame Aunay breathed. “Gaston, should we lock and shutter?”

  “God knows,” the landlord groaned. “They are far across the river. They may never come here. Let us pray for that.”

  “It is better to act first and pray later,” Roger snapped. “If we will be safer with the doors locked, I will make up to you whatever custom you will lose by closing. My wife was once caught in a riot.”

  They looked at Leonie, who was very still but whose eyes were so wide that the whites showed all around the irises. Aunay shook his head.

  “Believe me, I am not concerned with my custom but with all our safety. If I am open and they come and I serve them, that may suit their humor and they will pass on. If I lock up, they might pass by but it is much more likely that they will break in and drag us all out. We will have become enemies by trying to save ourselves.

  “I see.” Roger looked at Leonie, but she seemed no worse. He could not send her away, yet there were things he needed to know. “How likely is it that they will come here?”

  Aunay shrugged. “God knows that too. In the past, the clubs here, Jacobins and the Feuillants, were friends of the mob and its attention was directed elsewhere. But this business is not the doing of the clubs. Those in the Hôtel de Ville—the commune—Marat, Danton, who are of the Cordeliers Club—they lead, if anyone leads. Then too, if they should take it into their heads to ‘appeal’ to the assembly…”

  “That is only a few streets away,” Leonie breathed.

  Suddenly, Madame Aunay began to weep. “Our whole lives are in this place,” she cried. “We are too old to begin again.”

  Leonie’s breath shuddered in incipient hysteria. Roger glanced from her to the stricken, white-faced landlord.

  “Then let us not sit here like a group of dummies and wait to be destroyed. Aunay, have you a cellar?”

  “It is no place to hide in,” the landlord disclaimed, shaking his head.

  Leonie whimpered. She had had enough of cellars.

  “I do not wish to hide in it,” Roger snapped. “But I think you should put all the brandy and all the good wine there and also as much of the furniture as will fit. The less there is for them to get drunk on and for them to break up, the less chance there will be for damage to be done. If you think we can get away with it, we should fill the empty places on the shelves with bottles of watered wine and well-diluted brandy. That will also reduce the chances of drunkenness.”

  “You have a head, Saintaire. You have a head,” the landlord cried, color coming back into his face.

  Madame Aunay wiped her eyes. “Yes, Gaston,” she exclaimed, “and do you put on the clothes you clean in and a dirty, torn apron and I will also. Yes, yes, and I will dress Madame Saintaire as a barmaid, and you m’sieu, can be our porter. Come quick, let us get to work.”

  They changed clothes first, Roger thinking amusedly that the use of citoyen and citoyenne was a thin veneer. At the first stress the old forms came back. The change of appearance to make them seem of the same class as the rioters was most important. Lives were the greatest essential to be saved. Then Roger’s tools and parts and spare pistols were secreted in the darkest corner of the cellar. Enough havoc was wrought with clubs and knives. No one wanted to see guns in the hands of the mob.

  The fine brandies and other “strong waters” followed, the landlord masking them with a layer of empty bottles. The reminder of the empties he brought up, and Leonie and Madame Aunay began to fill them, as Roger had suggested, with watered wine. Then the best glass and china were carried down, and finally, the extra benches and tables that made the café a comfortable, cozy place were piled so as to hide, as best as possible, the most valuable wines and liquors.

  It might save the Aunays some losses, Roger thou
ght, as he grunted with the effort of maneuvering a long, heavy table around a corner to set it in front of the cellar door, but far more important to him was that the color had come back to Leonie’s face and the look of helpless terror was gone from it. That had been his intention from the beginning, and he had succeeded. He had broken the feeling that there was nothing to do but wait for disaster to strike. Activity was necessary in time of stress to stem panic.

  They were so busy that they did not hear the noise of the mob fade. That was just as well, for it would have given them a totally false sense of security. Having massacred the two dozen people they had taken at the mairie, the agitators had begun to cry, To the Carmelites! Where the nonjuring priests who were to be “transported” were being held. It was the noise of this further massacre that took place in the previously sacred sanctuary that those in the Café Breton had heard faintly. But that had not sated the mob.

  “It is not enough! We must purge the prisons of all who would slay your wives and your children while you are marching against the enemy,” the leaders cried. “Back to the Abbaye!”

  Most followed, but there were those who were afraid and desired the sanction of the assembly or who did not wish the assembly to escape being smeared with as much blood as the Commune of Paris would be. They rushed across the bridge and across the Place Louis XV—where the statue that had been cast down had already been hauled away to melt into cannon—to demand that the deputies lead them.

  “The people,” the commissioners sent by the commune told the assembly, “wish to break open the doors of the prisons.”

  The assembly had not the courage to keep out the commissioners, but the guards did manage to divert the crowd that had followed them. This relatively small mob surged through the streets near the Salle de Ménage bellowing the words of the new anthem called “La Marseillaise”.