“MY DEAR ANDREA: I know, and it has been remarked, that you do not hold the station at the Trianon which your birth entitles you to do: you lack a maid and a pair of lackeys as I do twenty thousand a year; but in the same way as I content myself with a thousand, you must shift with one maid—so take Nicole who will do you all the service requisite. She is active, intelligent and devoted; she will quickly pick up the tone and manners of the palace; take care not to stimulate but enchain her good-will to yourself. Keep her and do not fear that you are depriving me. A good friend gives me the advice that his Majesty, who has the kindness to think of us and to remark you on sight, will not let you want for the proper outfit for your appearance at court. Bear this in mind as of the highest importance. YOUR AFFECTIONATE FATHER.”
This threw the reader into painful perplexity. Poverty was pursuing her into her new prosperity, and making that a blemish which she considered merely an annoyance. She was on the point of angrily breaking her pen, and tearing the commenced letter in order to reproach her father with such an outburst of disinterested philosophical denial as Philip would have freely signed. But she seemed to see her father’s ironical smile when he should read this masterpiece and away fled her intention. So she answered with the following record of what was passing:
“FATHER: Nicole has just arrived and I receive her as you desire it; but what you write on the subject, drives me to despair. Am I less ridiculous with this little rustic girl as waiting-woman than alone among these rich ladies waited on hand and foot? Nicole will be miserable at my humiliation for servants smile or frown as their masters are looked upon. She will dislike me. As for the notice of his Majesty, allow me to tell you, father, that the King has too much intelligence to try to make a great lady of one so unfitted, and too much good nature to notice or comment on my poverty—far from it to want to change it into ease which your title and services would legitimatise in everybody’s eyes.”
It must be confessed that this candid innocence and noble pride mated the astuteness and corruption of her tempters.
Andrea spoke no more against Nicole but kept her. She confined herself to her corner so as to remind one of the Persian’s roseleaf floated on the goblet of rosewater brimfull, to prove that a superfluous joy may be added to perfect content.
When Nicole was left to herself she made a survey of the neighborhood. This did not promise much fun. But at an upper window over the stables she caught a glimpse of a man’s face which made her have recourse to a scheme to draw it out. She hid behind the curtains of the window left wide open.
She had to wait some time, but at length appeared a young man’s head; timid hands rested on the window-sill, and a face rose with caution.
Nicole nearly fell back flat on her two shoulders for it was Gilbert, her former companion on the manor of Taverney.
Unfortunately he had seen her, and he disappeared. He would rather have seen old Nick himself.
“What use now is my foolish discovery of which I was so proud? In Paris my knowledge that Nicole had a sweetheart whom she let into her master’s house gave me a hold on her. But out here, she has hold on me.”
Serving as lash to his hate, all his self-conceit boiled his blood with extreme vehemence. He felt sure that war was declared between him and the maid; but as he was a prudent youth who could be politic, he wanted to open hostilities in his own way and at his own time.
Watching night and day for a week, without showing himself again, Gilbert at last caught sight of the plume of the guards corporal which was familiar to him. It was indeed that of Corporal Beausire, the trooper who had followed the court from Paris to the Trianon.
Nicole played the coldly cruel for a while but in the end accorded Corporal Beausire an appointment. Gilbert followed the loving pair on the shady avenue leading to Versailles. He felt the ferocious delight of a tiger on a trail. He counted their steps, and sighs; he learnt by heart what they whispered to each other; and the result must have made him happy for he went up to his garret singing. Not only had he ceased to be afraid of Nicole but he impudently showed himself at the window.
She was taking up “a ladder” in a lace mitten of her mistress at her window, but she looked up on hearing him singing a song of their old times in the country when he was courting her.
She made a sour face which proclaimed her enmity. But Gilbert met it with so meaning a smile and his song and mien were so taunting that she lowered her head and colored up.
“She has understood me,” said Gilbert; “this is quite enough.”
Indeed she had the audacity to creep to his room door, but he had the prudence to deny her entrance, dangerous as was the temptation.
It was only after many a mine and counter-mine that at last chance made them meet at the chapel door.
“Good evening, Gilbert: are you here?”
“Oh, Nicole, good evening—so you’ve come to Trianon?”
“As you see, our young lady’s maid still.”
“And I our Master’s gardener’s-man.”
Whereupon she dropped an elaborate courtsey which won his bow like a courtier’s; and they went their ways. But each was but pretending for, Gilbert, following the girl, saw her once more go to meet a man in one of the shady walks.
It was dark but Gilbert noticed that this was not the trooper; rather an elderly man, with a lofty air and dainty tread spite of age. Going nearer and passing under his nose with audacity he recognized him as the Duke of Richelieu.
“Plague take her! after the corporal a Marshal of France—Nicole is aiming high in the army!” he said.
CHAPTER XV.
THE ROAD TO PREMIERSHIP IS NOT STREWN WITH ROSES.
WHILE all these petty plots were going on at Trianon amid the trees and flowers, making things lively for the people of that trifling world, the vast plots of the capital, threatening tempests, were unfolding their black wings over the Temple of Themis, as they said in those high-flown days.
The Parliaments, degenerate remnant of old French opposition to royalty, had recovered the art of hating under the capricious reign of Louis XV., and since they felt danger impending when their shield, Choiseul, was removed, they prepared to conjure it away.
The appointment of the Duke of Aiguillon, ex-Governor of Brittany, to the command of the Light Cavalry, thanks to Lady Dubarry’s influence over the King, was, to quote Jean Dubarry, “a smack in the face” for the Third Estate, from Feudality.
How would they take it?
Lawyers and politicians were keen-sighted gentlemen and where most folks are perplexed, they see clearly.
They resolved: “The Parliamentary Court will deliberate on the conduct of the ex-Governor of Brittany and give its opinion.”
The King parried this thrust by intimating to the peers and princes that they must not go to the Parliament session to take part in the discussion, as far as Duke Aiguillon was concerned.
Already unpopular, the Duke of Aiguillon was discouraged and sat in a state of torpor at the impending overthrow when his uncle, the Duke of Richelieu, was announced. He ran to welcome him with all the more eagerness as he had been trying to meet him lately without the old fox being discoverable.
“Uncle,” he began when he had cornered the other in an armchair so he could not retreat, “is it true that you, the wittiest man in France could not see that I should be as selfish for us two as for myself alone? you have been shunning me when I most have need of you.”
“Upon honor, I do not understand you.”
“I will in that case make all clear. The King was not inclined to make you Prime Minister vice Choiseul banished, and he did make me commander of the Light Cavalry, so that you suppose I sold you to get my reward.”
“If I failed, you have won, and that is enough for the house of Richelieu. You have nothing to grumble about for you are high in favor and in six months will be ruler. Suppose I am the dog who snapped at the shadow of the meat—and letting the meat drop, sees another run away with it. I have learnt a lesson—but the meat is ours all the same. But what do I hear?”
“Nothing uncle; pray go on.”
“But it is a carriage—I am in the way.”
“No, no, go on for I love fables—— ”
“Nay, it may be the appointment as minister—the meat! the little countess—— ”
“She heartily loves you, uncle—— ”
“Well she has been working for you in camera—— ”
The servant entered.
“A deputation from Parliament,” he said with some trepidation.
“What did I tell you?” sneered the old noble.
“A Parliamentary deputation here?” queried the younger duke, far from encouraged by the other’s smile. “What can they want with me?”
“In the King’s name!” thundered a sonorous voice at the end of the anteroom.
“Whew!” muttered Richelieu.
Aiguillon rose, quite pale, and went to show in two members of Parliament, behind whom appeared two impassive ushers while at a distance a legion of frightened servants appeared.
Bowing to the duke, whom they officially recognized, the spokesman of the gentlemen of the Commission read a paper in a loud voice. It was the complete, particularised, circumstantial declaration that the Duke of Aiguillon was gravely inculpated and tainted with suspicions, moreover, guilty of deeds befouling his honor and that he was suspended in his functions as peer of France. The duke heard the reading like a man struck with lightning might listen to the thunder. He moved no more than a statue on its pedestal, and did not even put out his hand to take the document from the official of the Parliament. It was the marshal, standing up, alert and clear-headed, who took it, and returned the bow to the bearer. The Commission members were far while the duke remained in stupor.
“This is a heavy blow!” remarked Richelieu; “no longer a peer of the realm—it is humiliating.”
The victim turned round as if only now restored to life.
“Did you not expect it?” asked the elder.
“Did you, uncle?” was the retort.
“How could anybody suspect that Parliament would so smartly rap the favorite of the King and of the King’s favorite? these fellows will get themselves ground to powder.”
The duke sank into a seat, with his hand on his burning cheek.
“If they do such a thing because you are made commander of the Light Cavalry,” continued the old marshal, turning the dagger in the wound, “they will condemn you to be burnt at the stake when you are appointed Premier. These fellows hate you, Aiguillon; better distrust them.”
The duke bore this untimely joking with heroic constancy; his misfortune magnified him and purified his spirit. But the other took it for insensibility or even want of intelligence, perhaps, and thought that he had not stung deeply enough.
“However, being no longer a peer, you will be exposed to the long bills of these blackbirds,” he proceeded; “take refuge in obscurity for a few years. Besides, this safeguard, obscurity, will help you without your imagining it. Unpropped by your title, you will more grandly become the minister, because with more effort. Lady Dubarry will do more for you thus disarmed, for she wears you in her heart—and is a solid supporter.”
Aiguillon rose without shooting at the jester one angry look for all the suffering he inflicted.
“You are right, uncle,” he said, tranquilly, “and your wisdom shows in the last piece of advice. Lady Dubarry will defend me—she, to whom you introduced me and to whom you recommended me so warmly. Thank God! she likes me. She is brave and has full power over the King’s mind. I thank you, uncle, for your hint, and I shall hie to her residence at Luciennes as to a haven of safety. What, ho there! my horses to be put to the carriage.”
The marshal was sorely puzzled but he had some consolation when at evening he saw the delight of the Parisians on reading the posters proclaiming the disgrace of Aiguillon.
“Do you think, Rafté, that the duke will get out of this scrape?” asked the old intriguer of his valet and confidential man, who rather deserved the name of Crafty.
He had been forty years in his service.
“The King will.”
“Oh, the King will always have a loophole. But the King has nothing to do with this case.”
“Why, my lord, if the King can get through, Lady Dubarry will follow, and lead my lord of Aiguillon with her.”
“You do not understand politics, Rafté.”
Rafté was as keen as his master.
“Well, my lord, our lawyer, Flageot, who is member of Parliament, he thinks the King will not get out of it.”
“Who will net the lion?”
“The rat, instead of helping him out.”
“Oh, is Flageot the rat?”
“He says so. I always believe a lawyer when he promises anything unkind.”
“We must look into the Flageot method, then, Rafté. But let me have something to eat before I go to sleep. It has upset me to see my poor nephew unmade peer of France and his chances of the Prime-Minister-ship knocked on the head. An uncle naturally feels for his nephew, eh?”
From sighing he set to laughing.
“You would have made as good a minister yourself,” said Rafté.
On the morrow of the day when the terrible Parliamentary decree filled Paris and Versailles with noise, and all were in expectation of the next step, Richelieu returned to Versailles and carrying on his ordinary court life, saw his man Rafté enter with a letter which seemed to fill him with disquietude participated in by his master.
“The King is good,” said the duke after opening the letter and smiling though he had frowned at the start. “He appoints Aiguillon Prime Minister.”
Thus ran the letter:
“MY DEAR UNCLE: Your kind advice has borne fruit. I confided my chagrin to that excellent friend of our house, Lady Dubarry, who was good enough to repeat the confidence to his Majesty. The King is indignant at the rudeness done me by the Parliamentary gentry, after my having so faithfully employed myself in his service. In his State Council this day, he has cancelled the decree and bids me continue in my place as peer and duke. I know the pleasure this news will give you, my dear uncle. You have the news before anybody else in the world. Believe in my tender respect, my dear uncle, and continue your good graces and good advice to your affectionate
AIGUILLON.”
“He pokes fun at me into the bargain,” said the reader. “The idea of the King jumping into this hornet’ nest!”
“You would not believe me yesterday saying so.”
“I said that he would get out of it. You see he does.”
“In fact, Parliament is beaten.”
“So am I. And forever. I must pay the forfeit. You do not understand how grating on me will be the laughs at Luciennes. The duke is there now, laughing at me in chorus with La Dubarry, Jean and Chon, while the black boy snaps his fingers at me over the candy I gave him. ‘Odsboddikins!’ I have a soft heart, but this makes me furious.”
“Then you should not have acted as you did, my lord.”
“You goaded me on.”
“I? what do I care whether the Duke of Aiguillon is or is not a peer of France? Man of brains though you are, your grace makes blunders that I would not forgive in a low-bred fellow like me.”
“Explain, my old Rafté, and I will own if I am wrong.”
“You wanted to be revenged yesterday, did you not? you aimed to humble your nephew because he was likely to be the Premier instead of your grace—well, such revenge costs dear. But you are rich and can afford to pay.”
“What would you have done in my place, you knowing dog?”
“Nothing; you could not but show your spite because the Dubarry woman thought your nephew was younger than yourself.”
A growl from the old marshal was all the comment.
“Parliament was egged on by you to do what it has done; knowing the decree would be issued, you offered your services to your unsuspecting nephew.”
“I admit I was wrong. You ought to have given me a warning.”
“I, prevent you doing ill? you are always saying that I am of your making and I should be little after your model if I was not joyful at your making a mistake, or bringing about evil.”
“Oh, you think evil will come of it?”
“Certainly; you are obstinate and will keep open the breach—Aiguillon will be the bridge between Dubarry and Parliament on which all the fighting will take place. After he shall have been very well trampled upon, he will suffer the fate of used-up wood—they will cast him away into the lumber-room—that is, into the Bastile. He will be minister first, but you will be exiled all the same.”
“Bastile?” repeated Richelieu, shrugging his shoulders so sharply that he spilt half his snuff on the carpet. “Is our Louis the Fourteenth one?”
“No; but Lady Dubarry, with Aiguillon to back her, is up to the mark of Lady Maintenon. Beware! at present I do not know any princesses who will take you green goslings and sweetmeats when you lie in prison.”
“Pretty prognostics, these!” said the duke after a long silence. “You read the future, do you? what about the present?”
“Your grace is too wise for me to offer advice.”
“You knave, are you still poking fun at me?”
“Mind, my lord, a man is not a knave after forty, and I am sixty-seven.”
“If not a knave you are your own counsel—be mine.”
“If the King’s act is not known yet, why not let the President of Parliament have the duke’s letter and the royal decree in Council? Wait till the Parliament has debated on them, and then go and see your lawyer, Flageot. As he is your grace’s lawyer he must have some case of ours in hand. Ask him about it and learn how things stand.”
“But seeing the family lawyer is your province, Master Rafté.”
“Nay, that was all very well when Flageot was a simple ‘paper-stainer,’ but henceforth Flageot is an Attila, a scourge of kings, and only a duke and peer of France can talk to the likes of him.”
“Are you serious or having a jest?”
“To-morrow it will be serious, my lord.”
CHAPTER XVI.
THE ENDLESS LAW SUIT.
IT is not hard to guess what the dainty duke suffered in passing through the dirty and nauseating Paris of his era to reach the foul hole among ill-kempt houses which was called a street.
Before Flageot’s door the way for the ducal coach was stopped by another vehicle. He perceived a female’s headdress coming out of it, and as his seventy-five years had not rebuffed him in his reputation as a lover of the ladies, he hastened to wade through the mud to offer his arm to the lady who was stepping out unassisted.
He was not in luck: for the foot was the bony one of an old dame. Wrinkled face, the tan showing under a thick layer of rouge, proved that she was not merely old but decrepit.
But the marshal could not draw back: besides he was no chicken himself. The client—she must have been a client to be at this door—did not hesitate like he did: she put her paw with a horrible grin in the duke’s hand.
“I have seen this Gorgon’s head somewhere before,” he thought.
“Going to call on Flageot?” he inquired.
“Yes, your grace.”
“Oh, have I the honor of being known to you?” he exclaimed, disagreeably surprised as he stopped at the opening of the park passage.
“There is no woman who does not know the Duke of Richelieu,” was the reply.
“This baboon flatters herself that she is a woman,” muttered the Victor at Mahon: but he saluted with the utmost grace, saying aloud: “May I venture to ask to whom I have the honor of speaking?”
“I am your servant, the Countess of Bearn,” replied the old lady, making a court reverence on the miry planks of the alley, three paces from a sort of open trapdoor in which the marshal expected to see her tumble when she got to the third courtsey.
“Enchanted to hear it, my lady,” he responded. “So your ladyship has some law business on hand?”
“Law business, indeed! it is only one suit, but you must have heard about it as it is so long in the courts—my defense against the claim of the Saluce Brothers.”
“Of course! there is a popular song about it—it is sung to the tune of ‘the Bourbon Lass;’ and runs some way thus——
Your help, which I should ever vaunt,
For I am in a stew’
“You understand that is Lady Dubarry who sings. It is saucy to her, but these ballad-mongers respect nobody. Lord, how greasy this rope for a handrail is! Then you reply as follows:
Unsettled lawsuits are my fate,
To win I must rely on you.’”
“How shocking, my lord,” said the countess, who was a descendant of the house of Bearn and Navarre which gave Henry IV as King to France: “how dare they thus insult a woman of quality?”
“Excuse my singing out of tune, but this staircase puts me in a heat. Ah, we have reached his door. Let me pull the bell.”
The old dame let the duke pass her, but grumbled. He rang and Madame Flageot, the lawyer’s daughter as well as lawyer’s wife, did not think it beneath her to open the door. Introduced into the office a furious man was seen with a pen in his hand which he flourished, dictating to his principal clerk.
“Good heavens, what are you doing, Master Flageot?” asked the old countess whose voice made the proctor turn round.
“Oh, your ladyship’s most faithful! A chair for the Countess of Bearn. And the Duke of Richelieu, if my eyes do not deceive me. Another seat, Bernardet, for my Lord of Richelieu.”
“How is my suit going on,” inquired the lady.
“Fine, my lady, I was just busy on your behalf, and it will make a noise now, I can tell you.”
“If you have my action in motion, then you can attend to my lord duke.”
“If you please.”
“Well, you must know what brought me—— ”
“The papers M. Rafté brought from your lordship? It is put off indefinitely, at least it may be a year before the case comes up in the courts.”
“Eh, I should like to know the reasons?”
“Circumstances, my lord. The King having cancelled the Parliamentary decree about Duke Aiguillon, we reply by ‘burning our ships.’”
“I did not know you Parliament gentlemen had any ships.”
“Both Houses have refused to proceed with any cases before the courts until the King withdraws Lord Aiguillon.”
“You don’t say so?” exclaimed Richelieu.
“What, they won’t try my case?” said Lady Bearn with a terror she did not try to dissimulate. “This is iniquitous—rebellion to our Lord the King!”
“My lady, the King forgets himself—and we forget our duty too,” rejoined the lawyer loftily.
“You will be lugged into the Bastile.”
“I shall go, singing, and my colleagues will escort me, bearing palms.”
“The man is mad,” said the lady to the nobleman.
“We are all of a feather,” continued the proctor.
“This is curious,” observed the marshal.
“But you said you were attending to my suit,” protested the lady.
“And so I was. Yours is the first example I cite among the cases which will be suspended by our action—or, rather, inaction—he he! Here is the very paragraph concerning your ladyship.”
Snatching from his clerk the sheet of paper on which he was writing, he read with emphasis:
“—— ‘Their estate lost, fortune compromised, and their duties trodden under foot. His Majesty may imagine what such will suffer. For instance, the dependent must hold inert in his hands an important affair on which depends the fortune of one of the first families of the kingdom: by his care, industry and I make so bold as to say his talent, he was bringing this matter at length—great length—to a brilliant close, and the rights of the most high and powerful lady Angelique Charlotte Veronique de Bearn, were just going to be acknowledged and proclaimed when the breath of Discord—’ I stopped at the breath, my lady; the figure of speech was so fine—— ” said the proctor.
“Master Flageot,” said the old litigant, “forty years ago I selected your father to be my lawyer, a worthy gentleman: I continued you in the matter; in which you have made some ten or twelve thousand a-year and might be making more—”
“Write that down,” interrupted the legal gentleman: “it is a proof, an item of testimony—it shall be inserted in the appendix of supporting documents.”
“Stay,” went on the countess: “I withdraw my papers; henceforth you lose my trust.”
This disgrace struck the lawyer like a thunderbolt: recovering from the stupefaction, he raised his eyes like a martyr ready for the golden chariot to mount to heaven, and said:
“Be it so. Bernardet, give the lady her documents and register this fact, that the petitioner preferred his conscience to his fees.”
“I beg your ladyship’s pardon,” interposed Richelieu, “but it is useless to withdraw your papers, for this worthy practitioner’s legal brethren, I take it, will not accept the case. He is not so dull as to be the only one to protest and lose his business. As for me, I declare Master Flageot a very honest lawyer, in whose box my papers are as safe as in my own. So here I leave them, paying the fees just the same as though the case was up for trial.”
“How right they are who say that your lordship is generous and liberal!” burst forth the proctor; “I shall propagate your lordship’s fame.”
Richelieu bowed as though overwhelmed.
“Bernardet,” cried the enthusiastic lawyer, “in the peroration, insert the eulogium of the Duke of Richelieu.”
“No, never! I like to do good deeds by stealth, sir. Do not disoblige me, my master, or I should deny it—I would give you the lie, sir—my modesty is so touchy. Come, countess, what say you?”
“That my case ought to be tried and it shall have a hearing.”
“It will not be tried unless the King sends his army and all the great guns into the courtroom,” replied the proctor.
“Do you not think that the King will wriggle out of this bag,” asked Richelieu of the proctor in a whisper.
“Impossible. A country without courts going on is a land without daily bread.”
“But this will anger the King.”
“We have screwed up our minds to anything—prison, death. A man may wear a black gown, but a heart can be under it.” And he thumped his chest.
“This is a black lookout for the cabinet,” said the duke to his fellow-client. “It seems to me that you might apply to your presentee at court, Lady Dubarry, who is perhaps powerful enough to open this deadlock.”
“Thanks, you give me the idea of going to her country house, and she shall tell the King that this stoppage of legal business will not suit me, whom she has reasons to oblige. His Majesty will speak to the Lord High Chancellor and he has a long arm. Master Flageot, please to refresh your mind with my case, for it will soon be coming up, I warrant you.”
Flageot turned his head with incredulity not remarked by the willful old dame.
“Since you will go to Luciennes,” suggested Richelieu, “you might convey my compliments. We are companions in affliction since my law case will not be tried. Besides you can testify to the displeasure these pettifoggers are causing me; and you might kindly add that it was at my hint that your ladyship thought of taking this clever step. Do me the honor to accept my hand as far as your carriage. Adieu, Master Flageot, I leave you to your petition.”
“Rafté was right,” mused the duke when by himself. “These Flageots are going to make a revolution. However, God be thanked. I am carrying water on both shoulders! I am for the court and of the Parliamentarians. Lady Dubarry will plunge into politics and get drowned. Decidedly, this Rafté is a good scholar of mine and I will make him my Chief Secretary when I am Premier.”
Lady Bearn profited literally by the duke’s advice so that, in two hours and a half, she was dancing attendance at Luciennes, in company with Lady Dubarry’s pet page, the black boy Zamore.
Her name raised some curiosity in the Countess’s boudoir, as it was well-known from her having been sponsor at the presentation of the favorite to the court. No other lady of title would do this office and she only accepted the shameful mission of go-between on her own conditions. Duke Aiguillon was plotting with the favorite when Chon asked a hearing for Countess Bearn.
“I should like you to stay by,” said she to the duke, “in case the old beggar tries for a loan. You will be useful as she will ask for less.”
Lady Bearn, with her face drawn down to suit the disaster, took the armchair in front of her hostess and began:
“A great misfortune brings me, news which will much afflict his Majesty—these Parliamentarians—— ”
“This is the Duke of Aiguillon,” Lady Dubarry hastened to say as he groaned, for fear of something awkward being said.
But the old dame was not one to make blunders; she hastened to proceed:
“I know the turpitude of these crows, and their lack of respect for merit and birth.”
This blunt compliment to the duke earned his handsome bow for the litigant, who rose and returned it before she went on:
“But it is no longer his grace to whom they do harm, but to all the people. They will let no cases be tried.”
“Tush, no more law-dealing in France,” said Jeanne Dubarry; “What difference will that make?”
The duke smiled, but the old hag, instead of taking things pleasantly, looked as morose as possible.
“It is a great woe, but it is plain that your ladyship has no trials on the board.”
“I see, and I remember that you have an important suit.”
“To which delay is dangerous.”
“Poor lady!”
“The King will have to do something.”
“Oh, he will exile the judges.”
“That will adjourn the trials indefinitely.”
“If you know of any remedy, my lady, I wish you would kindly state it.”
“There is one way,” remarked Aiguillon, “but the King may not like to use it. It is the ordinary resource of royalty when the other branches of the ruling powers are burdensome. The King says, ‘I will have it so!’ whether the opponents say they will not or the other thing.”
“Excellent plan,” exclaimed Lady Bearn with enthusiasm. “Oh, my lady, if you who can influence the King, would get him to say: ‘I will have Lady Bearn’s case tried!’ it would be realizing what you promised long ago.”
Aiguillon bit his lip, bowed and quitted the boudoir, for he heard a coach and he thought it was the royal one.
“Here comes the King,” said the hostess, rising to dismiss the pleader.
“Oh, won’t your ladyship let me throw myself at the royal feet to—— ”
“Ask for a special court to try the case? I am most willing,” replied the countess quickly. “Stay here and have your wish.”
Lady Bearn had hardly adjusted her headdress before the sovereign entered.
“Ha, you have visitors?” he exclaimed.
“It is my Lady Bearn,” said the other lady.
“Sire, I crave for justice,” squeaked the old dame, making a low courtsey. “Against the Parliament, which will do no acts of justice. Your Majesty, I beg for a special tribunal.”
“A royal special court?” said the monarch. “Why, this is almost a revolution, my lady.”
“It is the means to curb these rebels of whom you are the master. Your Majesty knows that they have no right to reply if you say ‘I will do this.’”
“The idea is grand,” said Lady Dubarry.
“Grand, yes; but not good,” responded the King.
“It would be a splendid ceremony—the King going in state to open the special court royal, with all the peers and ladies in the train, and he so glorious in the ermine-lined mantle, the royal diamonds in the crown, and the gold sceptre carried before him—all the lustre beseeming your Majesty’s handsome and august countenance.”
“Do you think so?” asked the King, wavering. “It is a fact that such a sight has not been seen for a long time,” he added with affected unconcern. “I will see about it next time the Parliaments do anything vexatious.”
“They have done it, Sire,” interposed La Dubarry. “The pests have determined to hold no more law courts until your Majesty lets them have their own way.”
“Mere rumors.”
“Please your Majesty, my proctor returned me the brief and papers in my case because there would be no trial for ever so long.”
“Mere scarecrows, I tell you.”
Zamore scratched at the door, that being the way to knock when royalty is in a room, and brought a letter.
Lord High Chancellor Maupeou, hearing where the King was, solicited an interview through the countess’s good graces.
“You may stay,” said the King to Lady Bearn. “Good morning, my lord—what is the news?”
“Sire, the Parliament which annoyed your Majesty is no more. The members wish to resign and have handed in their applications to be relieved all together.”
“I told you this was a serious dilemma,” whispered the young countess to her royal lover.
“Very serious,” said Louis, with impatience. “Exile the pack, Maupeou!”
“But they will hold no law courts in exile, Sire.”
“Chancellor,” observed the ruler, gravely; “Law must be dealt out and I see no means but the efficacious if solemn one: I will hold a royal and special tribunal. Those gentry shall tremble for once.”
“Sire, you are the greatest King in the whole world!”
“Yes, indeed,” cried the chancellor, Chon and her fortunate sister like an echo.
“That is more than the whole world says, though,” muttered the King.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SECRET SOCIETY LODGE.
THE famous royal special court, the “Bed of Justice,” (which is the French equivalent for the “Star Chamber,”) was held with all the ceremonial which royal pride required on one hand and the intriguers who urged their master to this exercise of royal claims, on the other.
The King pretended to be serene, but he was not at ease: yet his magnificent costume was admired and nothing cloaks a man’s defects like majesty. The Dauphiness wore a plaintive look through all the affair. Lady Dubarry was brave, with the confidence given by youth and beauty. She seemed a ray of lustre from the King whose left-hand queen she was.
Aiguillon walked among the peers firmly, so that none could have guessed that it was across him the King and Parliament were exchanging blows. He was pointed at by the crowd and the Parliamentarists scowled at him; but that was all.
Besides, the multitude, kept at a distance by the soldiers, betrayed its presence only by a humming, not yet a hooting.
The King’s speech began in honey but ended in a dash of vitriol so sharp that the nobles smiled. But Parliament, with the admirable unanimity of constitutional bodies, kept a tranquil and indifferent aspect which highly displeased the King and the aristocratic spectators on the stands.
The Dauphiness turned pale with wrath, from thus for the first time measuring popular resistance, and calculating the weight of its power.
After the King’s speech was read by the Chancellor, the King, to the amazement of everybody made a sign that he was going to speak.
Attention became stupor.
How many ages were in that second!
“You hear what my chancellor informs you of my will,” he said in a firm voice: “Think only to carry it out, for I shall never change.”
The whole assembly was literally thunderstricken. The Dauphiness thanked the speaker with a glance of her fine eyes. Lady Dubarry, electrified, could not refrain from rising, and she would have clapped her hands but for the fear that the mob would stone her to death on going out, or to receive next day satirical songs each worse than the other.
“Do you hear?” she said to the Duke of Richelieu, who had bowed lowly to his triumphing nephew. “The King will never change, he says.”
“They are terrible words, indeed,” he replied, “but those poor Parliamentists did not notice that in saying he would never change, the King had his eyes on you.”
She was a woman and no politician. She only saw a compliment where Aiguillon perceived the epigram and the threat.
The effect of the royal ultimatum was immediately favorable to the royal cause. But often a heavy blow only stuns and the blood circulates the more purely and richly for the shock.
This was the reflection made by three men in the crowd, as they looked on from the corner. Chance had united them here, and they appeared to watch the impression of the throng.
“This ripens the passions,” observed one of them, an old man with brilliant eyes in a soft and honest face. “A Bed of Justice is a great work.”
“Aye, but you may make a bed and not get Justice to go to sleep on it,” sneered a young man.
“I seem to know you—we have met before?” queried the old man.
“The night of the accident through the fireworks; you are not wrong, M. Rousseau.”
“Oh, you are my fellow-countryman, the young surgeon, Marat?”
“Yes, at your service.”
The third man did not speak. He was young and had a noble face; during the ceremony he had done nothing but study the crowd. The surgeon was the first to depart, plunging onto the thick of the mob, which had forgotten him, being less grateful than Rousseau, but he intended to remind them some day.
Waiting till he had gone, the other young man addressed the philosopher, saying:
“Are you not going?”
“I am too old to risk myself in that crush.”
“In that case,” said the young man, lowering his voice, “we shall meet to-night in Plastriere Street—Do not fail, Brother Rousseau!”
The author started as though a phantom had risen in face of him. His usually pale tint became livid. He meant to reply to the other but he had vanished.
After these singular words from the stranger, trembling and unhappy, Rousseau meandered among the groups without remembering that he was old and feared the press. Soon he got out upon Notre Dame Bridge, and he crossed in musing and self-questioning, the Grêve Ward next his own.
“So, the secret which every one initiated is sworn to guard at the peril of his life, is in the grip of the first comer. This is the result of the secret societies being made too popular. A man knows me, that I am his associate—perhaps his accomplice! Such a state of things is absurd and intolerable. I wanted to learn the bottom of the plan for human regeneration framed by those chosen spirits called the Illuminati: I was mad enough to believe that good ideas could come from Germany, that land of mental mist and beer. I have entangled myself with some idiots or knaves who used it as cloak to conceal their folly. But no, this shall not be. A lightning flash has shown me the abyss, and I am not going to throw myself into it with lightness of heart.”
Leaning on his cane, he stopped in the street for an instant.
“Yet it was a lovely dream,” he meditated. “Liberty in bondage, the future conquered without noise and shocks, and the net mysteriously spun and laid over the tyrants while they slumbered. It was altogether too lovely and I was a dupe to believe it. I do not want any of these fears, doubts and shadows which are unworthy of a free mind and independent body.”
At this, he caught sight of some police officers, and they so frightened the free mind and impelled the independent body, that he hastened to seek the darkest shade under the pillars where he was strolling.
It was not far to his house, where he took refuge from his thoughts and his wife, the spitfire of this modern Socrates.
He now began to think that there might be danger in not keeping the appointment at the secret lodge of which the stranger in the mob had spoken.
“If they have penalties against turncoats, they must have them for the lukewarm and the negligent,” he reasoned. “I have always noticed that black threats and great danger amount to little; one must be on guard against petty stings, paltry revenge; hoaxes and annoyances of small calibre. The application of wild justice by capital sentences is extremely rare. Some day my brother Freemasons will even up matters with me by stretching a rope across my staircase so that I shall break a limb or knock out the half-dozen teeth still my own. Or a brick may stave in my skull as I go under a scaffolding. Better than that, they may have some pamphleteer, living near me, in the league, who will watch what I do. That can be done as the meetings are held in my own street. This quill-driver will publish details of how my wife scolds, which will make me the laughing-stock of all the town. Have I not enemies all around me?”
Then his thoughts changed.
“Pah, where is courage, and where honor?” he said. “Am I afraid of myself? Shall I see a rogue or a poltroon when I look in the glass? No, this shall not be. I will keep the tryst though the entire universe coalesces to work my misery—though the cellars in the street broke down to swallow me up. Pretty reasonings fear lead a man into. Since that man spoke to me, I have been swinging round in a circle of nonsense. I am doubting everything—myself included. This is not logical. I know that I am not an enthusiast and I would not believe this association could work wonders unless it would do so. What says that I am not going to be the regenerator of humanity,—I, who have searched, and whom the mysterious agents of this limitless power sought out on the strength of my writings? Am I to recede from following up my theory and putting it into action?”
He became animated.
“What is finer? Ages on the march—the people issuing from the state of brutes; step following step in the gloom and a hand beckoning out of the darkness. The immense pyramid arising on the tip of which future ages will set the crown—the bust of Rousseau, citizen of Geneva, who risked his life and his liberty to be true to his motto: ‘Truth is more than life.’”
Night came and he passed out of his house.
He peeped around to make sure.
No vehicles were about. The street was full of loungers, who stared at one another, as usual, or halted at the store-windows to ogle the girls. A man the more would not be perceived in the scuffle. Rousseau dived into it, and he had no long road to travel.
Before the door where Rousseau was to meet the brothers, a street singer with a shrill fiddle was stationed. Nothing was more favorable to a jam in the thoroughfare than the crowd caused by the amateurs of this rude music. Everybody had to go one side or another of the group. Rousseau remarked that many of those who chose to take the inside and go along by the houses, became lost on the road as though they fell down some trapdoor. He concluded that they came on the same errand as himself and meant to follow their example.
Passing behind the group round the musician, he watched the first person passing this who went up the alley of the house. He was more timid than him, and his friends, for he waited till ten had disappeared. Then, too, when a cab came along and called all eyes toward the street, he dived into the passage.
It was black, but he soon spied a light ahead, under which was seated a man, placidly reading as a tradesman is in the custom to do after business hours. At Rousseau’s steps, he lifted his head, and plainly laid his finger on his breast, lit up by the lamp. The philosopher replied to the sign by laying a finger on his lips.
Thereupon the guard rose and opening a door so artistically cut in the panelling so as to be unseen, he showed Rousseau a flight of stairs. It went steeply down into the ground.
On the visitor entering, the door closed noiselessly but rapidly.
Groping with his cane, Rousseau went down the steps, thinking it a poor joke for his colleagues to try to break his neck and limbs so soon on the threshold.
But the stairs were not so long as steep. He had counted seventeen steps when a puff of the warm air from a collection of men smote his face.
It was a cellar, hung with canvas painted with workmen’s tools, more symbolical than accurate. A solitary lamp swung from the ceiling and cast a sinister glimmer on faces honest enough in themselves. The men were whispering to each other on benches. Instead of carpet or even planks, reeds had been strewn to deaden sound.
Nobody appeared to pay any heed to Rousseau. Five minutes before, he had wished for nothing so much as this entrance; now he was sorry that he had slipped in so smoothly.
He saw one place empty on one of the rear benches and he went and sat there modestly. He counted thirty-three heads in the gathering. A desk on a raised stage waited for the chairman of the club.
He remarked that the conversation was very brief and guarded. Many did not move their lips; only three or four couples really chatted.
Those who were silent strove to hide their faces, an easy matter from the lamp throwing masses of shadow. The refuge of these timid folk seemed to be behind the chairman’s stage.
But two or three, to make up for this shrinking, bustled about to identify their colleagues. They went to and fro, spoke together, and often disappeared through a doorway masked by a curtain painted with red flames on a black ground.
Presently a bell rang.
Plainly and simply a man left the bench where he had been mixed up with the others and took his place at the desk. After having made some signs with fingers and hands which the assemblaged repeated, and sealed all with a more explicit gesture, he declared the lodge open.
He was a complete stranger to Rousseau; under the appearance of a superior craftsman, he hid much presence of mind and he spoke with eloquence as fluent as a trained orator. His speech was clear and short, signifying that the lodge was held for the reception of a new member.
“You must not be surprised at the meeting taking place where the usual initiation ceremonies cannot be performed. Such tests are considered useless by the chiefs. The brother to be received is one of the torches of contemporaneous philosophy, a deep spirit devoted to us by conviction, not fear. He who has plumbed all the mysteries of nature and the human heart would not feel the same impression as the ordinary mortal who seeks our assistance in will, strength and means. To win his co-operation it will be ample to be content with the pledge and acquiescence of this distinguished mind and honest and energetic character.”
The orator looked round to see the effect of his plea. It was magical on Rousseau. He knew what were the preliminary proceedings of secret societies; he viewed them with the repugnance natural in superior minds. The absurd concessions but useful ones, required to simulate fear in the novices when there was nothing to fear appeared to him the culmination of puerility and idle superstition.
Moreover, the timid philosopher, the enemy of personal display, reckoned himself unfortunate if compelled to be a sight even though the attacks upon him would be in earnest. To be thus dispensed from the trial was more than satisfaction. He knew the rigor of Equality in the masonic rites; this exception in his favor was therefore a triumph.
“Still,” said the chairman, “as the new brother loves Equality like myself, I will ask him to explain himself on the question which I put solely for form’s sake: ‘What do you seek in our society?’”
Rousseau took two steps forward, and answered, as his dreamy and melancholy eye wandered over the meeting:
“I seek here what I have not found elsewhere. Truths, not sophisms. If I have agreed to come here, after having been entreated—(he emphasized the word)—it is from my belief that I might be useful. It is I who am conferring the obligation. Alas! we all may have passed away before you can supply me with the means of defense, or help me to freedom with your hands if I should be imprisoned, or give me bread and comfort if afflicted—for the light cometh slowly, progress has a halting step, and where the light is quenched, none of us may be able to revive it—— ”
“Illustrious brother, you are wrong,” said the soft and penetrative voice of one who charmed the philosopher, “more than you imagine lies in the scope of this society: it is the future of the world. The future is hope—science—heaven, the Chief Architect who hath promised to illuminate His great building, the earth. The Architect does not lie.”
Startled by this lofty language, Rousseau looked and recognized the young man who had reminded him of the meeting at the street corner. It was Baron Balsamo. Clad in black with marked richness and great style, he was leaning on the side rail of the platform, and his face, softly lighted up, shone with all its beauty, grace and natural expressiveness.
“Science?” repeated the author, “a bottomless pit. Do you prate to me of science—comfort, future and promise where another tells of material things, rigor and violence—which am I to believe?” And he glanced at Marat whose hideous face did not harmonize with Balsamo’s. “Are there in the lodge meeting wolves just as in the world above—wolf and lamb! Let me tell you what my faith is, if you have not read it in my books.”
“Books,” interrupted Marat, “granted that they are sublime; but they are utopias; you are useful in the sense of the old prosers being useful. You point out the boon, but you make it a bubble, beautiful with the sunshine playing in a rainbow on it, but it bursts and leaves a nasty taste on the lips.”
“Have you seen the great acts of nature accomplished without preparation?” retorted Rousseau. “You want to regenerate the world by deeds? this is not regeneration but revolution.”
“Then,” sharply replied the surgeon, “you do not care for independence, or liberty?”
“Yes, I do,” returned the other, “for independence is my idol—liberty my goddess. But I want the mild and radiant liberty which warms and vivifies. The equality which brings men together by friendship, not fear. I wish the education and instruction of each element of the social body, as the joiner wishes neat joints and the mechanician harmony. I retract what I have written—progress, concord and devotion!”
“Rivers of milk and honey—the dreams of the poets which philosophers want to realise.”
Rousseau replied no more, it was so odd for him to be accused of moderation when all Europe called him an extreme innovator. He sat down in silence after having sought for the approval of the person who had defended him.
“You have heard?” asked the chairman, rising. “Is the brother worthy to enter the society? does he comprehend his duties?”
“Yes,” replied the gathering, but the one of reservation showed no unanimity.
“Take the oath,” said the presiding officer.
“It will be disagreeable to me to displease some of the members,” said the philosopher with pride, “but I think that I shall do more for the world and for you, brothers, apart from you, in my own isolation. Leave me then to my labors. I am not shaped to march with others whom I shun; yet I serve them, because I am one of you, and I try to believe you are better than you are. Now, you have my entire mind.”
“He won’t take the oath!” exclaimed Marat.
“I refuse positively. I do not wish to belong to the society. Too many proofs come up that I shall be useless to it.”
“Brother,” said the member with the conciliating speech, “allow me thus to call you, for we are all brothers apart from all combinations of human minds—do not yield to a movement of spite—sacrifice a little of your proper pride. Do for us what may be repugnant to you. Your counsel, ideas and presence are the Light. Do not plunge us into the double darkness of your refusal and your absence.”
“Nay, I take away nothing,” said the author; “if you wish the name and the spiritual essence of Jean Jacques Rousseau, put my books on your chairman’s table, and when my turn to speak comes round, open one and read as far as you like. That will be my advice—my opinion.”
“Stop a moment,” said Surgeon Marat as the last speaker took a step to go out. “Free will is all very well and the illustrious philosopher’s should be respected like the rest; but it strikes me as far from regular to let an outsider into the sanctuary who—being bound by no clause, even tacit—may, without being a dishonest man, reveal our proceedings.”
Rousseau returned him his pitying smile.
“I am ready for the oath, if one of discretion,” he said.
But the unnamed member who had watched the debate with authority which nobody questioned, though he stood in the crowd, approached the chairman and whispered in his ear.
“Quite so,” replied the Venerable, and he added: “You are a man, not a brother, but one whose honor places you on our level. We here lay aside our position to ask your simple promise to forget what has passed between us.”
“Like a dream in the morning: I swear on my honor,” replied Rousseau with feeling.
He went out upon these words, and many members at his heels.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE INNERMOST CIRCLE.
THOSE who went out were brothers of the second and third circles, and left seven who were masters in their lodge. They recognized each other by signs proving they were admitted to the high degrees.
Their first care was to close the doors. The presiding officer, who was now Balsamo, showed his ring. On it were graved the letters L. P. D. They stood for Latin words meaning “Destroy the Lilies!” The Lily is the emblem of the House of Bourbon.
This chief was charged with the universal correspondence of the order. The six other highest leaders dwelt in America, Russia, Sweden, Spain and Italy.
He had brought some of the more important messages received to impart them to his associates placed under him but above the files.
The most important was from Swedenborg the spiritualist, who wrote from Sweden:
“Look out in the South, brothers, where the burning sun hatched a traitor. He will be your ruin, brothers. Watch at Paris, for there the false one dwells: the secrets of the Order are in his hands and a hateful sentiment moves him. I hear the denunciation, made in a low voice. I see a terrible doom, but it may fall too late. In the interim, brothers, keep watchful. One treacherous tongue, however ill-instructed, would be enough to upset all our skillfully contrived plans.”
The conspirators looked at one another in mute surprise. The language of the ferocious Rosicrucian and his foresight, to which many examples gave imposing authority, all contributed no little to cloud the committee presided over by the mesmerist.
“Brothers,” he said, “this inspired prophet is seldom wrong. Watch therefore, as he bids us. Like me, now, you know that the war has begun. Do not let us be baffled by these ridiculous foes whose position we undermine. Do not forget, though, that they have an army of fierce hirelings at their disposal—a powerful argument in the eyes of those who do not see far beyond earthly limits. Brothers, be on your guard against the traitors who are bribed.”
“Such alarm seems puerile to me,” said a voice: “we are gaining in strength daily, and are led by brilliant genius and mighty hands.”
Balsamo bowed at this flattery.
“True, but treachery sneaks in everywhere,” remarked Marat, who had been promoted to a superior rank, spite of his youth, and for the first time sat in the superior council. “Think, brothers, that a great capture may be made by increasing the size of the bait. While Chief of Police Sartines, with a bag of silver, may catch a subordinate, the Prime Minister, with one of gold, may buy one of the superiors.
“In our company the obscure brother knows nothing. He may at the most know the names of a few of those above him, but these names afford no information. Our constitution is admirable, but it is eminently aristocratic. The lower members can know nothing and do nothing. They are only gathered to tell them some nonsense, and yet they contribute to the solidity of the building. They bring the mortar and the bricks as others bring the tools and the plan. But, without bricks and mortar, how can you have a Temple? The workman gets but a poor wage, although I for one regard him as equal to the Architect’s clerk, whose plan creates and gives existence to the work. I regard him as an equal, I say, as he is a man and all men are equal, as the philosophers teach, for he bears his portion of misery and fatality like another, more than others, as he is exposed to the fall of a stone or the breaking down of a scaffold.”
“I interrupt you, brother,” said Balsamo. “You are talking wide of the question bringing us together. Your fault, brother, is in generalizing subjects, and exaggerating zeal. We are not discussing whether the constitution of our society is good or bad, but to maintain its firmness and integrity. If I were wrangling with you I should say, ‘No, the organ which receives the movement is not the equal of the genius of the creator; the workman is not on a level with the architect; arms are not equal to the brains.’”
“If Sartine arrests one of our lowliest brothers he will send him to jail just as sure as you or me,” protested the surgeon.
“Granted; but the person will suffer, not the society. It can endure such things. But if the head is imprisoned, the plot stops—the army loses the victory if the general is slain. Brothers, watch for the safety of the Supreme Chief!”
“Yes, but let them look out for us.”
“It is their duty.”
“And have their faults more severely punished.”
“Again, brother, you overstep the regulations of the Order. Are you ignorant that all the members are alike and under the same penalties?”
“In such cases the great ones elude the chastisement.”
“That is not what the Grand Masters think, brother; but hearken to the end of the letter from the great prophet Swedenborg, one of the greatest among us; here is what he adds:
“The harm will come from one of the great ones—very great—of the Order; or, if not from him directly, the fault will be imputable to him. Remember that Fire and Water may be accomplices: one gives light and the other gives revelations.”
This enigmatical allusion would seem to be to the process of showing the future in the glass of water, which was one of the conjuring experiments of Joseph Balsamo.
“Watch, brothers, (Concluded the seer) over all things and all men!”
“Let us, then, repeat the oath,” said Marat, grasping at his hold in the letter and the chief’s speech, “the oath which binds us and pledges us to carry it out in full rigor in case one of us betrays or is the cause of a treacherous act.”
Balsamo rose and uttered these awful words in a low voice, solemn and terrifying:
“In the name of the Architect of the Universe, I swear to break all carnal bonds attaching me to father and mother, sister and brother, wife, friends, mistress, kings, captains, benefactors, all unto whomsoever I have promised faith, obedience, gratitude or service.
“I vow to reveal to the chief whom I acknowledge according to the rules of the Order, what I have seen, heard, learnt or divined, and moreover to ascertain what happens beyond my knowledge.
“I honor all means to purify the globe of the enemies of truth and freedom.
“I subscribe to the vow of silence; I consent to die as if by the thunderbolt on the day when I deserve punishment and I will wait without remonstrance for the deadly stab to accomplish its work wherever I shall be.”
The seven men repeated the oath, standing up with uncovered heads, a sombre gathering.
“We are pledged to one another,” said Balsamo when the last word was spoken; “let us waste no time in idle arguments. I have a report to make to the Committee on the principal work of the year. France is situated in the center of Europe like its heart, and it makes the other parts of the body live. In its agitations may be sought the cause of the ills of the general organism. Hence I have come out of the East to sound this heart like a physician; I have listened to it, sounded it and experimented with it. A year ago when I began, monarchy was weakening. To-day, vices are destroying it. I have quickened the debauchery and favored what will be deadly.
“One obstacle stood in the way—a man, not merely the First Minister but the foremost man in the realm. It was Choiseul whom I have removed. This important work was undertaken by many intriguers and much hatred during ten years, but I accomplished it in a few months, by means which it is useless to describe. By a secret, which is one of my strong means, the greater as it must remain hidden from all eyes and never be manifested save by its effect, I have overturned and driven away Choiseul. Look at the fruit of the toil: all France is crying for Choiseul and rising to bring him back as orphans appeal to heaven to restore their father. Parliament uses its only right, inertia. But if it does not go on, there will be no work and the wage-earners will earn no money. No money for the workers—no rent, no tax paying—gold, the blood of a realm, will be wanting.
“They will try to make the poor pay—and there will be a struggle. But who will struggle against the masses? not the army, which is recruited from the people, eating the black bread of the farm hand, and drinking the sour wine of the vineyard laborer. The King has his household troops, the foreign regiments, five or six thousand men at the most—what will this squad of pigmies do against an army of giants?”
“Bid them rise!” exclaimed the chiefs.
“Yes, yes, let us set to work,” said Marat.
“Young man, your advice is not asked,” coldly said Balsamo. “Yet you may speak.”
“I will be brief,” said Marat; “mild attempts rock the people to sleep when they do not discourage them. Mere chipping at the stone is the theory of the Rousseaus, who are always bidding us to wait. We have been waiting seven centuries! This poor and feeble opposition has not advanced humanity by a single step. Have we seen one abuse redressed in three hundred years? Enough of these poets and theorists! let us have work and deeds. For three hundred years we have been physicking France and it is high time that the surgeons were called in, with scalpel and lancet. Society is gangrened and we must cut away and apply the redhot iron. A revolt, though it be put down, enlightens slaves more on their power than a thousand years of precepts and examples. It may not be enough, but it is much!”
A flattering murmur rose from several hearers.
“Where are our enemies,” continued the young man; “on the steps of the throne, guarding it as their palladium. We cannot reach royalty but over the bodies of those insolent, gold-coated guards. Well, let us fell them, as we read has been done to the body-guards of tyrants before now. Thus will we get near enough to the gilded idol to hurl it down. Count these privileged heads. Scarce two hundred thousand. Let us walk through the lovely garden, which is France, as Tarquin did in his, and cut off the heads of these flaunting poppies, and all will be done. When dwarfs aim to slay a colossus they attack its feet; when men want to fell the oak they chop at the root. Woodmen, take the ax, let us hack at the base of the tree and it will fall in the dust.”
“And crush you, pigmies,” commented the Supreme Chief in a voice of thunder. “You declaim against poets and you spout fustian. Brother, you have picked up these phrases in some novel you concoct in your garret.”
Marat blushed.
“Do you know what a revolution is?” said the Grand Copt. “I have seen two hundred, and they have tended to nothing because the revolutionists were in too great a haste. You talk of chopping down giant trees. This tree is not an oak but one of those immense redwoods of the far western American forests which I have seen. If they were felled, a horseman starting from the base to avoid the high-up branches would be overtaken and smashed. You cannot wish this. You cannot obtain the warrant from me.”
“I have lived some forty generations of man.”