It was the Commune which had caused the attack on the palace, which the king must have seen, for he took refuge in the House, and not in the City Hall. The Commune wanted to smother the wolf—the she-wolf and the whelps—between two blankets in their den.
This shelter to the royals converted the Assembly into Royalists. It was asserted that the Luxembourg Palace, assigned to the king as a residence, had a secret communication with those catacombs which burrow under Paris, so that he might get away at any hour.
The Assembly did not want to quarrel with the Commune over such a trifle, and allowed it to choose the royal house of detention.
The city pitched on the temple. It was not a palace, but a prison, under the town's hand; an old, lonely tower, strong, heavy, lugubrious. In it Philip the Fair broke up the Middle Ages revolting against him, and was royalty to be broken down in it now?
All the houses in the neighborhood were illuminated as the royal captives were taken hither to the part called "the palace," from Count Artois making it his city residence. They were happy to hold in bondage the king no more, but the friend of the foreign foe, the great enemy of the Revolution, and the ally of the nobles and the clergy.
The royal servants looked at the lodgings with stupefaction. In their tearful eyes were still the splendors of the kingly dwellings, while this was not even a prison into which was flung their master, but a kennel! Misfortune was not to have any majesty.
But, through strength of mind or dullness, the king remained unaffected, and slept on the poverty-stricken bed as tranquilly as in his palace, perhaps more so.
At this time, the king would have been the happiest man in the world had he been given a country cottage with ten acres, a forge, a chapel and a chaplain, and a library of travel-books, with his wife and children. But it was altogether different with the queen.
The proud lioness did not rage at the sight of her cage, but that was because so sharp a sorrow ached in her heart that she was blind and insensible to all around her.
The men who had done the fighting in the capture of the Royalist stronghold were willing that the prisoners, Swiss and gentlemen, should be tried by court-martial. But Marat shrieked for massacre, as making shorter work than even a drum-head court.
Danton yielded to him. Before the snake the lion was cowed, and slunk away, trying to act the fox.
The city wards pressed the Assembly to create an extraordinary tribunal. It was established on the twentieth, and condemned a Royalist to death. The execution took place by torch-light, with such horrible effect, that the executioner, in the act of holding up the lopped-off head to the mob, yelled and fell dead off upon the pavement.
The Revolution of 1789, with Necker, Bailly, and Sieyes, ended in 1790; that of Barnave, Lafayette, and Mirabeau in 1792, while the Red Revolution, the bloody one of Danton, Marat, and Robespierre, was commencing.
Lafayette, repulsed instinctively by the army, which he had called upon in an address to march on Paris and restore the king, had fled abroad.
Meanwhile, the Austrians, whom the queen had prayed to see in the moonlight from her palace windows, had captured Longwy. The other extremity of France, La Vendee, had risen on the eve of this surrender.
To meet this condition of affairs, the Assembly assigned Dumouriez to the command of the Army of the East; ordered the arrest of Lafayette; decreed the razing of Longwy when it should be retaken; banished all priests who would not take the oath of allegiance; authorized house-to-house visits for aristocrats and weapons, and sold all the property of fugitives.
The Commune, with Marat as its prophet, set up the guillotine on Carrousel Square, with an apology that it could only send one victim a day, owing to the trouble of obtaining convictions.
On the 28th of August, the Assembly passed the law on domiciliary visits. The rumor spread that the Austrian and Prussian armies had effected their junction, and that Longwy had fallen.
It followed that the enemy, so long prayed for by the king, the nobles, and the priests, was marching upon Paris, and might be here in six stages, if nothing stopped him.
What would happen then to this boiling crater from which the shocks had made the Old World quake the last three years?
The insolent jest of Bouille would be realized, that not one stone would be left upon another.
It was considered a sure thing that a general, terrible, and inexorable doom was to fall on the Parisians after their city was destroyed. A letter found in the Tuileries had said:
"In the rear of the army will travel the courts, informed on the journey by the fugitives of the misdeeds and their authors, so that no time will be lost in trying the Jacobins in the Prussian king's camp, and getting their halters ready."
The stories also came of the Uhlans seizing Republican local worthies and cropping their ears. If they acted thus on the threshold, what would they do when within the gates?
It was no longer a secret.
A great throne would be erected before the heap of ruins which was Paris. All the population would be dragged and beaten into passing before it; the good and the bad would be sifted apart as on the last judgment day. The good—in other words, the religious and the Royalists—would pass to the right, and France would be turned over to them for them to work their pleasure; the bad, the rebels, would be sent to the left, where would be waiting the guillotine, invented by the Revolution, which would perish by it.
But to face the foreign invader, had this poor people any self-support? Those whom they had worshiped, enriched, and paid to defend her, would they stand up for her now? No.
The king conspired with the enemy, and from the temple, where he was confined, continued to correspond with the Prussians and Austrians: the nobility marched against France, and were formed in battle array by her princes; her priests made the peasants revolt. From their prison cells, the Royalist prisoners cheered over the defeats of the French by the Prussians, and the Prussians at Longwy were hailed by the captives in the abbey and the temple.
In consequence, Danton, the man for extremes, rushed into the rostrum.
"When the country is in danger, everything belongs to the country," he said.
All the dwellings were searched, and three thousand persons arrested; two thousand guns were taken.
Terror was needed; they obtained it. The worst mischief from the search was one not foreseen; the mob had entered rich houses, and the sight of luxuries had redoubled their hatred, though not inciting them to pillage. There was so little robbery that Beaumarchais, then in jail, said that the crowd nearly drowned a woman who plucked a rose in his gardens.
On this general search day, the Commune summoned before its bar a Girondist editor, Girey-Dupre, who took refuge at the War Ministry, from not having time to get to the House. Insulted by one of its members, the Girondists summoned the Commune's president, Huguenin, before its bar for having allowed the Ministry to take Girey by force.
Huguenin would not come, and he was ordered to be arrested by main force, while a fresh election for a Commune was decreed.
The present one determined to hold office, and thus was civil war set going. No longer the mob against the king, citizens against aristocrats, the cottage against the castle; but hovels against houses, ward against ward, pike to pike, and mob to mob.
Marat called for the massacre of the Assembly; that was nothing, as people were used to his shrieks for wholesale slaughter. But Robespierre, the prudent, wary, vague, and double-meaning denunciator, came out boldly for all to fly to arms, not merely to defend, but to attack. He must have judged the Commune was very strong to do this.
The physician who might have his fingers on the pulse of France at this period must have felt the circulation run up at every beat.
The Assembly feared the working-men, who had broken in the Tuileries gates and might dash in the Assembly doors. It feared, too, that if it took up arms against the Commune, it would not only be abandoned by the Revolutionists, but be bolstered up by the moderate Royalists. In that case it would be utterly lost.
It was felt that any event, however slight, might lead this disturbance to colossal proportions. The event, related by one of our characters, who has dropped from sight for some time, and who took a share in it, occurred in the Chatelet Prison.
After the capture of the Tuileries, a special court was instituted to try cases of theft committed at the palace. Two or three hundred thieves, caught red-handed, had been shot off-hand, but there were as many more who had contrived to hide their acts.
Among the number of these sly depredators was "Captain" Beausire, a corporal of the French Guards once on a time, but more conspicuous as a card-sharper and for his hand in the plot of robbers by which the court jewelers were nearly defrauded of the celebrated set of diamonds which we have written about under their historic name of "The Queen's Necklace."
This Beausire had entered the palace, but in the rear of the conquerors. He was too full of sense to be among the first where danger lay in taking the lead.
It was not his political opinions that carried him into the king's home, to weep over the fall of monarchy or to applaud the triumph of the people; bless your innocence, no! Captain Beausire came as a mere sight-seer, soaring above those human weaknesses known as opinions, and having but one aim in view, to wit, to ascertain whether those who lost a throne might not have lost at the same time some article of value rather more portable and easy to put out of sight.
To be in harmony with the situation, Beausire had clapped on an enormous red cap, was armed with the largest-sized saber, and had splashed his shirt-front and hands with blood from the first quite dead man he stumbled upon. Like the wolf skulking round the edge and the vulture hovering over the battle-field, perhaps taken for having helped in the slaughter, some believed he had been one of the vanquishers.
The most did so accept him as they heard him bellow "Death to the aristocrats!" and saw him poke under beds, dash open cupboards, and even bureau drawers, in order to make sure that no aristocrat had hidden there.
However, for the discomfiture of Captain Beausire, at this time, a man was present who did not peep under beds or open drawers, but who, having entered while the firing was hot, though he carried no arms with the conquerors, though he did no conquering, walked about with his hands behind his back, as he might have done in a public park on a holiday. Cold and calm in his threadbare but well-brushed black suit, he was content to raise his voice from time to time to say:
"Do not forget, citizens, that you are not to kill women and not to touch the jewels."
He did not seem to feel any right to censure those who were killing men and throwing the furniture out of the windows.
At the first glance he had distinguished that Captain Beausire was not one of the storming-parties.
The consequence was that, about half past nine, Pitou, who had the post of honor, as we know, guarding the main entrance, saw a sort of woe-begone and slender giant stalk toward him from the interior of the palace, who said to him with politeness, but also with firmness, as if his mission was to modify disorder with order and temper vengeance with justice:
"Captain, you will see a fellow swagger down the stairs presently, wearing a red cap, swinging a saber and making broad gestures. Arrest him and have your men search him, for he has picked up a case of diamonds."
"Yes, Master Maillard," replied Pitou, touching his cap.
"Aha! so you know me, my friend?" said the ex-usher of the Chatelet Prison.
"I rather think I do know you," exclaimed Pitou. "Don't you remember me, Master Maillard? We took the Bastile together."
"That's very likely."
"We also marched to Versailles together in October."
"I did go there at that time."
"Of course you did; and the proof is that you shielded the ladies who went to call on the queen, and you had a duel with a janitor who would not let you go in."
"Then, for old acquaintance' sake, you will do what I say, eh?"
"That, and anything else—all you order. You are a regular patriot, you are."
"I pride myself on it," replied Maillard, "and that is why I can not permit the name we bear to be sullied. Attention! this is our man."
In fact, at this time, Beausire stamped down the grand stairs, waving his large sword and shouting: "The nation forever!"
Pitou made a sign to Maniquet and another, who placed themselves at the door without any parade, and he went to wait for the sham rioter at the foot of the stairs.
With a glance, the suspicious character noticed the movements, and as they no doubt disquieted him, he stopped, and made a turn to go back, as if he had forgotten something.
"Beg pardon, citizen," said Pitou; "this is the way out."
"Oh, is it?"
"And as the order is to vacate the Tuileries, out you go, if you please."
Beausire lifted his head and continued his descent.
At the last step he touched his hand to his red cap, and in an emphasized military tone, said:
"I say, brother-officer, can a comrade go out or not?"
"You are going out," returned Pitou; "only, in the first place, you must submit to a little formality."
"Hem! what is it, my handsome captain?"
"You will have to be searched."
"Search a patriot, a capturer of the tyrants' den, a man who has been exterminating aristocrats?"
"That's the order; so, comrade, since you are a fellow-soldier," said the National Guardsman, "stick your big toad-sticker in its sheath, now that all the aristos are slain, and let the search be done in good part, or, if not, I shall be driven to employ force."
"Force?" said Beausire. "Ha! you talk in this strain because you have twenty men at your back, my pretty captain; but if you and I were alone together—"
"If we were alone together, citizen," returned the man from the country, "I'd show you what I should do. In this way, I should seize your left wrist with my right hand; with my left, I should wrench your saber from your grasp, like this, and I should snap it under my foot, just like this, as being no longer worthy of handling by an honest man after a thief."
Putting into practice the theory he announced, Pitou disarmed the sham patriot, and breaking the sword, tossed the hilt afar.
"A thief? I, Captain de Beausire, a thief?" thundered the conqueror in the red cap.
"Search Captain Beausire with the de," said Pitou, pushing the card-sharper into the midst of his men.
"Well, go ahead with your search," replied the victim of suspicion, meekly dropping his arms.
They had not needed his permission to proceed with the ferreting; but to the great astonishment of Pitou, and especially of Maillard, all their searching was in vain. Whether they turned the pockets inside out, or examined the hems and linings, all they found on the ex-corporal was a pack of playing-cards so old that the faces were hardly to be told from the backs, as well as the sum of eleven cents.
Pitou looked at Maillard, who shrugged his shoulders as much as to say, "I have missed it somehow, but I do not know what I can do about it now."
"Go through him again," said Pitou, one of whose principal traits was patience.
They tried it again, but the second search was as unfruitful as the former; they only found the same pack of cards and eleven cents.
"Well," taunted Beausire, triumphantly, "is a sword still disgraced by having been handled by me?"
"No," replied Pitou; "and to prove it, if you are not satisfied with the excuses I tender you, one of my men shall lend you his, and I will give you any other satisfaction you may like."
"Thanks, no, young sir," said the other, drawing himself up to his full height; "you acted under orders, and an old veteran like me knows that an order is sacred. Now I beg to remark that Madame de Beausire must be anxious about my long absence, and if I am allowed to retire—"
"Go, sir," responded Pitou; "you are free."
Beausire saluted in a free-and-easy style and took himself out of the palace. Pitou looked round for Maillard, but he was not by.
"I fancy I saw him go up the stairs," said one of the Haramont men.
"You saw clearly, for he is coming down," observed Pitou.
Maillard was in fact descending, and as his long legs took the steps two by two, he was soon on the landing.
"Well, did you find anything?" he inquired.
"No," rejoined the captain.
"Then, I have been luckier than you, for I lighted on the case."
"So we were wrong, eh?"
"No; we were right."
Maillard opened the case and showed the old setting from which had been prized all the stones.
"Why, what does this mean?" Pitou wanted to know.
"That the scamp guessed what might happen, picked out the diamonds, and as he thought the setting would be in his way, he threw it with the case into the closet where I found it."
"That's clear enough. But what has become of the stones?"
"He found some means of juggling them away."
"The trickster!"
"Has he been long gone?" inquired Maillard.
"As you came down, he was passing through the middle yard."
"Which way did he take?"
"He went toward the water-side."
"Good-bye, captain."
"Are you going after him, Master Maillard?"
"I want to make a thorough job of it," returned the ex-usher.
And unfolding his long legs like a pair of compasses, he set off in pursuit of Captain Beausire.
Pitou was thinking the matter over when he recognized the Countess of Charny, and the events occurred which we have related in their proper time and place. Not to mix them up with this present matter, we think, falls into line here.
Rapid as was Maillard's gait, he could not catch up with his quarry, who had three things in his favor, namely: ten minutes' start, the darkness, and the number of passengers on the Carrousel, in the thick of whom he disappeared.
But when he got out upon the Tuileries quay, the ex-usher kept on, for he lived in the working-quarter, and it was not out of his way home to keep to the water-side.
A great concourse was upon the bridges, flocking to the open space before the Palace of Justice, where the dead were laid out for identification, and people sought for their dear ones, with hope, or, rather, fear.
Maillard followed the crowd.
At a corner there he had a friend in a druggist, or apothecary, as they said in those days. He dropped in there, sat down, and chatted of what had gone on, while the surgeons rushed in and about to get the materials they wanted for the injured; for among the corpses a moan, a scream, or palpable breathing showed that some wretch still lived, and he was hauled out and carried to the great hospital, after rough dressing.
So there was a great hubbub in the worthy chemist's store; but Maillard was not in the way; on such occasions they were delighted to see a patriot of the degree of a hero of the Bastile, who was balm itself to the lovers of liberty.
He had been there upward of a quarter of an hour, with his long legs tucked well under him and taking up as little room as possible, when a woman, of the age of thirty-eight or so, came in. Under the garb of most abject poverty, she preserved a vestige of former opulence, and a bearing of studied aristocracy, if not natural.
But what particularly struck Maillard was her marked likeness to the queen; he would have cried out with amaze but for his having great presence of mind. She held a little boy by the hand, and came up to the counter with an odd timidity, veiling the wretchedness of her garments as much as she could, though that was the more manifest from her taking extreme care of her face and her hands.
For some time it was impossible for her to make herself heard owing to the uproar; but at last she addressed the master of the establishment, saying:
"Please, sir, I want an emetic for my husband, who is ill."
"What sort do you want, citizeness?" asked the dispenser of drugs.
"Any sort, as long as it does not cost more than eleven cents."
This exact amount struck Maillard, for it will be remembered that eleven coppers were the findings in Beausire's pockets.
"Why should it not cost more than that?" inquired the chemist.
"Because that is all the small change my man could give me."
"Put up some tartar emetic," said the apothecary to an assistant, "and give it to the citizeness."
He turned to attend to other demands while the assistant made up the powder. But Maillard, who had nothing to do to distract his attention, concentrated all his wits on the woman who had but eleven cents.
"There you are, citizeness; here's your physic," said the drug clerk.
"Now, then, Toussaint," said the woman, with a drawl habitual to her, "give the gentleman the eleven cents, my boy."
"There it is," replied the boy, putting the pile of coppers on the counter. "Come home quick, Mamma Oliva, for papa is waiting."
He tried to drag her away, repeating, "Why don't you come quick? Papa is in such a hurry."
"Hi! hold on, citizeness!" cried the budding druggist; "you have only given me nine cents."
"What do you mean by only nine?" exclaimed the woman.
"Why, look here; you can reckon for yourself."
The woman did so, and saw there were just nine.
"What have you done with the other two coins, you wicked boy?" she asked.
"Me not know nothing about 'em," whimpered the child. "Do come home, Mamma Oliva!"
"You must know, for I let you carry the money."
"I must have lost 'em. But come along home," whined the boy.
"You have a bewitching little fellow there, citizeness," remarked Maillard; "he appears sharp-witted, but you will have to take care lest he become a thief."
"How dare you, sir!—a thief?" cried the woman called Oliva. "Why do you say such a thing, I should like to know?"
"Only because he has not lost the two cents, but hid them in his shoe."
"Me?" retorted the boy. "What a lie!"
"In the left shoe, citizeness—in the left," said Maillard.
In spite of the yell of young Toussaint, Mme. Oliva took off his left shoe and found the coppers in it. She handed them to the apothecary's clerk, and dragged away the urchin with threats of punishment which would have appeared terrible to the by-standers, if they had not been accompanied by soft words which no doubt sprung from maternal affection. Unimportant as the incident was in itself, it certainly would have passed without comment amid the surrounding grave circumstances, if the resemblance of the heroine to the queen had not impressed the witness. The result of his pondering over this was that he went up to his friend in drugs, and said to him, in a respite from trade:
"Did you not notice the likeness of that woman who just went out to—"
"The queen?" said the other, laughing.
"Yes; so you remarked it the same as I?"
"Oh, ever so long ago. It is a matter of history."
"I do not understand."
"Do you not remember the celebrated trial of 'The Queen's Necklace'?"
"Oh, you must not put such a question to an usher of the law courts—he could not forget that."
"Well, you must recall one Nicole Legay, alias Oliva."
"Oh, of course; you are right. She played herself as the queen upon the Prince Cardinal Rohan."
"While she was living with a discharged soldier, a bully and card-cheat, a spy and recruiter, named Beausire."
"What do you say?" broke out Maillard, as though snake-bitten.
"A rogue named Beausire," repeated the druggist.
"Is it he whom she styles her husband?" asked Maillard.
"Yes."
"And for whom she came to get the physic?"
"The rascal has been drinking too hard."
"An emetic?" continued Maillard, as one on the track of an important secret and did not wish to be turned astray.
"A vomitory—yes."
"By Jupiter, I have nailed my man!" exclaimed the visitor.
"What man?"
"The man who had only eleven cents—Captain de Beausire, in short. That is, if I knew where he lives."
"Well, I know if you do not; it is close by, No. 6 Juiverie Street."
"Then I am not astonished at young Beausire stealing two cents from his mother, for he is the son of the cheat."
"No cheat there—his living likeness."
"A chip of the old block. My dear friend," continued Maillard, "straight as a die, how long does your dose take to operate?"
"Immediately after taking; but these fellows fight shy of medicine. He will play fast and loose before he takes it, and his wife will have to make a cup of soup to wash the taste out of his mouth."
"You mean I may have time to do what I have to do?"
"I hope so; you seem to feel great interest in our Captain Beausire?"
"So much so that, for fear he will be very bad, I am going to get a couple of male nurses for him."
Leaving the drug store with a silent laugh, the only one he indulged in, Maillard hurried back to the Tuileries.
Pitou was absent, for we know he was attending on the Countess of Charny, but Lieutenant Maniquet was guarding the post. They recognized each other.
"Well, Citizen Maillard, did you overtake the fellow?" asked Maniquet.
"No; but I am on his track."
"Faith, it is a blessing; for though we did not find the diamonds on the knave, somehow I am ready to bet that he has them."
"Make the bet, citizen, and you will win," said the usher.
"Good; and can we help you catch him?"
"You can."
"In what way, Citizen Maillard? We are under your orders."
"I want a couple of honest men."
"You can take at random, then. Boulanger and Molicar, step out this way."
That was all the usher desired; and with the two soldiers of Haramont he proceeded at the double-quick to the residence of Beausire.
In the house they were guided by the cries of young Toussaint, still suffering from a correction, not maternal, as Papa Beausire, on account of the gravity of the misdemeanor, had deemed it his duty to intervene and add some cuffs from his hard hand to the gentle slap which Oliva had administered much against her will with her softer one to her beloved offspring.
The door was locked.
"In the name of the law, open!" called out Maillard.
A conversation in a low voice ensued, during which young Toussaint was hushed, as he thought that the abstraction of the two cents from his mother was a heinous crime for which Justice had risen in her wrath; while Beausire, who attributed it to the domiciliary visits, tried to tranquilize Oliva, though he was not wholly at his ease. He had, moreover, gulped down the tartar as soon as he had chastised his son.
Mme. Beausire had to take her course, and she opened the door just as Maillard was going to knock for a second time.
The three men entered, to the great terror of Oliva and Master Toussaint, who ran to hide under a ragged straw-bottomed chair.
Beausire had thrown himself on the bed, and Maillard had the satisfaction of seeing by the light of a cheap candle smoking in an iron holder that the physic paper was flat and empty on the night-table. The potion was swallowed, and they had only to abide the effects.
On the march, Maillard had related to the volunteers what had happened, so that they were fully cognizant of the state of matters.
"Citizens," he restricted himself to saying, "Captain Beausire is exactly like that princess in the Arabian Nights' Entertainment, who never spoke unless compelled, but who, whenever she opened her mouth, let fall a diamond. Do not, therefore, let Beausire spit out a word unless learning what it contains. I will wait for you at the Municipality offices. When the gentleman has nothing more to say to you, take him to the Chatelet Prison, where you will say Citizen Maillard sent him for safe keeping, and you will join me at the City Hall with what he shall have delivered."
The National Guards nodded in token of passive obedience, and placed themselves with Beausire between them. The apothecary had given good measure for eleven cents, and the effect of the emetic was most satisfactory.
About three in the morning, Maillard saw his two soldiers coming to him. They brought a hundred thousand francs' worth of diamonds of the purest water, wrapped in a copy of the prison register, stating that Beausire was under ward and lock. In his name and the two Haramontese, Maillard placed the gems in charge of the Commune attorney, who gave them a certificate that they had deserved the thanks of the country.
Imprisoned in the Chatelet, Beausire was brought before the jury specially charged to deal with thefts committed in the taking of the Tuileries. He could not deny what was only too clearly brought forth, so he most humbly confessed his deed and sued for clemency.
His antecedents being looked up, they so little edified the court on his moral character, that he was condemned to five years in the hulks and transportation to the plantations.
In vain did he allege that he had been led into crime by the most commendable feelings, namely, to provide a peaceful future for his wife and child; nothing could alter the doom, and as the court was one without appeal, and the sentences active, it was likely to be executed immediately.
Better for him had it not been deferred for a day. Fate would have it that one of his old associates was put in prison with him on the eve of his sentence being carried out. They renewed acquaintance and exchanged confidences.
The new-comer was, he said, concerned in a well-matured plot which was to burst on Strand Place or before the Justice Hall. The conspirators were to gather in a considerable number, as if to see the executions taking place at either spot, and, raising shouts of "Long live the king!" "The Prussians are coming, hurrah!" "Death to the nation!" they were to storm the City Hall, call to their help the National Guards, two thirds Royalist, or at least Constitutional, maintain the abolition of the Commune, and, in short, accomplish the loyal counter-revolution.
The mischief was that Beausire's old partner was the very man who was to give the signal. The others in the plot, ignorant of his arrest, would hie to the place of execution, and the rising would fall to the ground from nobody being there to start the cries.
This was the more lamentable, added the friend, from there never being a better arranged plot, and one that promised a more certain result.
His arrest was the more regrettable still as, in the turmoil, the prisoner would most certainly be rescued and get away, so that he would elude the branding-iron and the galleys.
Though Captain Beausire had no settled opinions, he leaned toward royalty, so he began to deplore the check to the scheme, in the first place for the king's sake, and then for his own.
All at once he struck his brow, for he was illumined with a bright idea.
"Why, this first execution is to be mine!" he said.
"Of course, and it would have been a rich streak of luck for you."
"But you say that it will not matter who gives the cue, for the plot will burst out?"
"Yes. But who will do this, when I am caged, and can not communicate with the lads outside?"
"I," replied Beausire in lofty, tragic tones. "Will I not be on the spot, since it is I whom they are to put in the pillory? So I am the man who will cry out the arranged shouts; it is not so very hard a task, methinks."
"I always said you were a genius," remarked the captain's friend, after being wonder-struck.
Beausire bowed.
"If you do this," continued the Royalist plotter, "you will not only be delivered and pardoned, but still further, when I proclaim that the success of the outbreak is due to you, you can shake hands with yourself beforehand on the great reward you will earn."
"I am not going to do the deed for anything like lucre," said the adventurer, with the most disinterested of manners.
"We all know that," rejoined the friend; "but when the reward comes along, I advise you not to refuse it."
"Oh, if you think I ought to take it—" faltered the gambler.
"I press you to, and if I had any power over you, I should order you," resumed the companion, majestically.
"I give in," said Beausire.
"Well, to-morrow we will breakfast together, for the governor of the jail will not refuse this favor to two old 'pals,' and we will crack a jolly good bottle of the rosy to the success of this plot."
Though Beausire may have had his doubts on the kindness of prison governors, the request was granted, to his great satisfaction. It was not one bottle they drained, but several. At the fourth, Beausire was a red-hot Royalist. Luckily, the warders came to take him to the Strand before he emptied the fifth. He stepped into the cart as into a triumphal chariot, disdainfully surveying the throng for whom he was storing up such a startling surprise.
On Notre Dame Bridge, a woman and a little boy were waiting for him to come along. He recognized poor Oliva, in tears, and young Toussaint, who, on beholding his father among the soldiers, said:
"Serves him right; what did he beat me for?"
The proud father smiled protectingly, and would have waved a blessing but his hands were tied behind his back.
The City Hall Square was crammed with people. They knew that this felon had robbed in the palace, and they had no pity for him. Hence, the Guards had their work cut out to keep them back when the cart stopped at the pillory foot.
Beausire looked on at the uproar and scuffling, as much as to say: "You shall see some fun in awhile; this is nothing to the joker I have up my sleeve!"
When he appeared on the pillory platform, there was general hooting; but at the supreme moment, when the executioner opened the culprit's shirt and pulled down the sleeve to bare the shoulder, and then stooped down to take the red-hot brand, that happened which always does—all was silent before the majesty of the law.
Beausire snatched at this lull, and gathering all his powers, he shouted in a full, ringing and sonorous voice:
"Long live the king! Hurrah for the Prussians! Down with the nation!"
However great a tumult the prisoner may have expected, the one this raised much exceeded it; the protest was not in shouts, but howls. The whole gathering uttered an immense roar and rushed on the pillory.
This time the guards were insufficient to protect their man. Their ranks were broken, the scaffold swarmed upon, the executioner thrown over, and the condemned one torn from the stand and flung into the surging mob.
He would have been flayed, dismembered, and torn to pieces but for one man, arrayed in his scarf as a town officer, who luckily saw it all from the City Hall steps.
It was the Commune attorney, Manuel. He had strongly humane feelings, which he often had to keep hidden, but they moved him at such times.
With great difficulty he fought his way to Beausire, and laying hold of him, said in a loud voice:
"In the name of the law, I claim this man!"
There was hesitation; he unloosed his scarf, floating it like a flag, and called for all good citizens to assist him.
A score clustered round him and drew Beausire, half dead, from the crowd. Manuel had him carried into the Hall, which was seriously threatened, so deep was the exasperation. Manuel came out on the balcony.
"This man is guilty," he said, "but of a crime for which he has not been tried. Let us select a jury from among us to assemble in a room of the City Hall. Whatever the sentence, it shall be executed; but let us have a legal sentence."
Is it not curious that such language should be used on the eve of the massacre of the prisoners, by one of the men accused of having organized it, at the peril of his life?
This pledge appeased the mob. Beausire was dragged before the improvised jury. He tried to defend himself, but his second crime was as patent as the first; only in the popular eye it was much graver.
Was it not a dreadful crime and deserving of condign punishment to cheer the king who was put in prison as a traitor, to hurrah for the Prussians who had captured a French town, and to wish death to the nation, in agony on a bed of pain?
So the jury decided not only that the culprit deserved the capital penalty, but that to mark the shame which the law had sought to define by substituting the guillotine for the gallows, that he should be hanged, and on the spot where he committed the offense.
Consequently the headsman of Paris had his orders to erect a gibbet on the pillory stand.
The view of this work and the certainty that the prisoner could not escape them, pacified the multitude.
This was the matter which the Assembly was busied with. It saw that everything tended to a massacre—a means of spreading terror and perpetuating the Commune. The end was that they voted that the Commune had acted to merit the gratitude of the country, and Robespierre, after praising it, asserted that the House had lost the public confidence, and that the only way for the people to save themselves was to retake their powers.
So the masses were to be without check, but with a heart full of vengeance, and charged to continue the August massacre of those who had fought for the palace on the tenth, by following them into the prisons.
It was the first of September, and a storm seemed to oppress everybody with its suspended lightning.
Thus stood matters, when Dr. Gilbert's "officiator"—the word servant was abolished as non-republican—announced at nine in the evening that his carriage was at the door.
He donned his hat, buttoned up his outer coat, and was going out, when he saw the door-way blocked by a man in a cloak and a slouch hat. Gilbert recoiled a step, for all was hostile that came in the dark at such a period.
"It is I, Gilbert," said a kindly voice.
"Cagliostro!" exclaimed the doctor.
"Good; there you are forgetting again that I am no longer under that name, but bear that of Baron Zannone. At the same time, Gilbert, for you I am changed in neither name nor heart, and am ever your Joseph Balsamo, I hope."
"Yes; and the proof is that I was going to find you."
"I suspected as much, and that is what has brought me," said the magician. "For you can imagine that in such times I do not go into the country, as Robespierre is doing."
"That is why I feared that I should not find you at home, and I am happy to meet you. But come in, I beg."
"Well, here I am. Say your wish," said Cagliostro, following the master into the most retired room.
"Do you know what is going on?" asked the host, as soon as both were seated.
"You mean what is going to happen; for at present nothing is doing," observed the other.
"No, you are right; but something dreadful is brewing, eh?"
"Dreadful, in sooth; but such is sometimes needful."
"Master, you make me shudder," said Gilbert, "when you utter such sayings with your inexorable coolness."
"I can not help it. I am but the echo of fate."
Gilbert hung his head.
"Do you recall what I told you when I warned you of the fate of Marquis Favras?"
The physician started; strong in facing most men, he felt weak as a child before this mysterious character.
"I told you," went on the enigma, "that if the king had a grain of common sense, which I hoped he had not, he would exercise the wish for self-preservation to flee."
"He did so."
"Yes; but I meant while it was in good time; it was, you know, too late when he went. I added, you may remember, that if he and the queen and the nobles remained, I would bring on the Revolution."
"You are right again, for the Revolution rules," said Gilbert, with a sigh.
"Not completely, but it is getting on. Do you further recall that I showed you an instrument invented by a friend of mine, Doctor Guillotin? Well, that beheading machine, which I exhibited in a drinking-glass to the future queen at Taverney Manor, you will remember, though you were but a boy at the time—no higher than that—yet already courting Nicole—the same Nicole whose husband, Beausire, by the way, is being hung at the present speaking—not before he deserved it! Well, that machine is hard at work."
"Too slowly, since swords and pikes have to be supplementing its blade," said Gilbert.
"Listen," said Cagliostro; "you must grant that we have a most block-headed crew to deal with. We gave the aristocrats, the court, and the monarchs all sorts of warnings without their profiting or being advised by them. We took the Bastile, their persons from Versailles, their palace in Paris; we shut up their king in the temple, and the aristocrats in the other prisons; and all serves for no end. The king, under lock and bolt, rejoices at the Prussians taking his towns, and the lords in the abbey cheer the Germans. They drink wine under the noses of poor people who can not get wholesome water, and eat truffle pies before beggars who can not get bread. On King Wilhelm of Prussia being notified that if he passes Longwy into French territory, as it will be the warrant for the king's death, he replies: 'However imbittered may be the fate of the royal family, our armies must not retrograde. I hope with all my heart to arrive in time to save the King of France, but my duty before all is to save Europe.' And he marches forward to Verdun. It is fairly time to end this nonsense."
"End with whom?" cried Gilbert.
"With the king, the queen, and their following."
"Would you murder a king and a queen?"
"Oh, no; that would be a bad blunder. They must be publicly tried, condemned, and executed, as we have the example set by the execution of Charles I. But, one way or another, doctor, we must get rid of them, and the sooner the better."
"Who has decided this?" protested Gilbert. "Let me hear. Is it the intelligence, the honor, and the conscience of the people of whom you speak? When genius, loyalty, and justice were represented by Mirabeau, Lafayette, and Vergniaud, if you had said 'Louis must die,' in the name of those three I should still have shuddered, but I should doubt. In whose name do you pronounce now? Hissed actors, paltry editors, hot-heads like Marat, who have to be bled to cool them when they shriek for thousands of heads. Leave these failures who think they are wonders because they can undo in a stroke the work which it has taken nature a few score years, for they are villains, master, and you ought not to associate with such burlesques of men."
"My dear Gilbert, you are mistaken again," said the prime mover; "they are not villains; you misuse the word. They are mere instruments."
"Of destruction."
"Ay; but for the benefit of an idea. The enfranchisement of the people, Gilbert; liberty, the Republic—not merely French—God forbid me having so selfish an idea! but universal, the federation of the free world. No, these men have not genius, or honor, or conscience, but something stronger, more inexorable, less resistible—they have instinct."
"Like Attila's."
"You have hit it. Of Attila, who called himself the Scourge of God, and came with the barbaric blood of the north to redeem Roman civilization, corrupted by the feasting, debauched emperors."
"But, in brief, to sum up instead of generalizing, whither will tend a massacre?" asked Gilbert.
"To a plain issue. We will compromise the Assembly and Commune and the people of Paris. We must soak Paris in blood; for you understand that Paris is the brain of France, or of Europe, so that Paris, feeling that there is no forgiveness possible for her, will rise like one man, urge France before her, and hurl the enemy off the sacred soil."
"But you are not a Frenchman; what odds is it to you?" asked Gilbert.
"You were not an American, but you were glad to have the rebel Paul Jones take you to America and aid the rebels to free the Colonies from the British yoke. How can a man of superior mettle and intelligence say to another: 'Do not meddle with us, for you are not French?' Are not the affairs of France those of the world? Is France working solely for herself now, think you? Hark you, Gilbert; I have debated all these points with a mind far stronger than yours—the man or devil named Althotas; and one day he made a calculation of the quantity of blood which must be shed before the sun rises on the free world. His reasonings did not shake my conviction. I marched on, I march on, and on I shall march, overturning all that stands in my path, and saying to myself, in a calm voice, as I look around with a serene look: Woe to the obstacle, for this is the future which is coming! Now you have the pardon of some one to ask? I grant it beforehand. Tell me the name of the man or the woman?"
"I wish to save a woman whom neither of us, master, can allow to die."
"The Countess of Charny?"
"The mother of Sebastian Gilbert."
"You know that it is Danton who, as Minister of Justice, has the prison keys."
"Yes; but I also know that the chief of the Invisibles can say to Danton, 'Open or shut that door.'"
Cagliostro rose, and going over to a writing-desk, wrote a cabalistic sign on a small square of paper. Presenting this to Gilbert, he said:
"Go and find Danton, and ask him anything you like." Gilbert rose.
"What are you going to do when the king's turn comes?"
"I intend to be elected to the convention, so as to vote with all my power against his death."
"Be it so; I can understand that," said the leader. "Act as your conscience dictates, but promise me one thing."
"What is it?"
"There was a time when you would have promised without a condition, Gilbert."
"At that time you would not have told me that a nation could heal itself by murdering, or a people gain by massacre."
"Have it your own way. Only promise me that, when the king shall be executed, you will follow the advice I give you."
"Any advice from the master will be precious," he said, holding out his hand.
"And will be followed?" persisted Cagliostro.
"I swear, if not hurtful to my conscience."
"Gilbert, you are unjust. I have offered you much; have I ever required aught of you?"
"No, master," was Gilbert's reply; "and now, furthermore, you give me a life dearer than mine own."
"Go," said the arch-revolutionist, "and may the genius of France, one of whose noblest sons you are, ever guide you."
The count went out, and Gilbert followed him, stepping into the carriage still waiting, to be driven to the Minister of Justice.
Danton was waiting for one of two things: if he turned to the Commune, he and Marat and Robespierre would rule, and he wanted neither of them. Unfortunately, the Assembly would not have him, and its support to rule alone was the other alternative.
When Gilbert came, he had been wrestling with his wife, who guessed that the massacre was determined upon. He had told her that she talked like a woman in asking him to die rather than let the red tide flow on.
"You say that you will die of the stain, and that my sons will blush for me. No; they will be men some day, and if true Dantons, they will carry their heads high; if weak, let them deny me. If I let them commence the massacre by me, for opposing it, do you know what will become of the revolution between that blood-thirsty maniac, Marat, and that sham utopist, Robespierre? I will stay the bloodshed if I can, and if not, I will take all the guilt on my shoulders. The burden will not prevent me marching to my goal, only I shall be the more terrible."
Gilbert entered.
"Come, Doctor Gilbert, I have a word for you."
Opening a little study door, he led the visitor into it.
"How can I be useful to you?" he asked.
Gilbert took out the paper the Invisible had given him and presented it to Danton.
"Ha! you come on his account, do you? What do you desire?"
"The liberation of a woman prisoned in the abbey."
"The name?"
"The Countess of Charny."
Danton took a sheet of paper and wrote the release.
"There it is," he said; "are there others you would wish to save? Speak; I should like to save some of the unfortunates."
"I have all my desire," said Gilbert, bowing.
"Go, doctor," said the minister; "and when you need anything of me, apply direct. I am happy to do anything for you, man to man. Ah," he muttered at the door, in showing him out, "if I had only your reputation, doctor, as an honorable man!"
Bearer of the precious paper which assured Andrea's life, the father of her son hastened to the abbey. Though nearly midnight, threatening groups still hung round the door. Gilbert passed through the midst of them and knocked at it. The gloomy panel in the low arched way was opened. Gilbert shuddered as he went through—it was to be the way to the tomb.
The order, presented to the warden, stated that instant release was to be given to the person whom Dr. Gilbert should point out. He named the Countess of Charny, and the governor ordered a turnkey to lead Gilbert to the prisoner's cell.
The doctor followed the man up three flights of a spiral staircase, where he entered a cell lighted by a lamp.
Pale as marble, in mourning, a woman sat at a table bearing the lamp, reading a shagreen prayer-book adorned with a silver cross. A brand of fire burned in the fire-place. In spite of the sound of the door opening, she did not lift her eyes; the steps approaching did not move her; she appeared absorbed in her book, but it was absence of mind, for Gilbert stood several minutes without her turning a leaf.
The warder had closed the door, with himself on the outer side.
"My lady the countess," ventured Gilbert, after awhile.
Raising her eyes, Andrea looked without perceiving at first; the veil of her mind was between her and the speaker, but it was gradually withdrawn.
"Ah, and is it you, Doctor Gilbert—what do you want?" she inquired.
"Madame, very ugly rumors are afloat about what is going to happen in the prisons."
"Yes; it is said that the prisoners are to be slaughtered," rejoined Andrea; "but you know, Doctor Gilbert, that I am ready to die."
"I come to take you away madame," he continued, bowing.
"Whither would you take me, doctor?" she asked, in surprise.
"Wherever you like, madame; you are free."
He showed her the release order signed by Danton, which she read; but instead of returning it, she kept it in her hand.
"I might have suspected this," she observed, trying to smile, but she had forgotten the way. "You were sure to try to prevent me dying."
"Madame, there is but one existence which would be dearer to me than my parents', had I ever known my parents—it is yours."
"Yes; and that is why you broke your promise to me."
"I did not, madame, for I sent you the poison."
"By my son?"
"I did not tell you by what hand I should send it."
"In short, you have thought of me, Gilbert. So you entered the lion's den for my sake, and came forthwith the talisman which unseals doors?"
"I told you, madame, that as long as I lived you should not die."
"Nay, Doctor Gilbert, I believe that this time I hold death by the hand," said Andrea, with something more like a smile than her previous attempt.
"Madame, I declare to you that I will stay you from dying, even though I have to employ force."
Without replying, Andrea tore the order into pieces and tossed them into the fire.
"Try it," she said.
Gilbert uttered an outcry.
"Doctor Gilbert," said she, "I have given up the idea of suicide, but not of dying. I long for death."
Gilbert let a groan escape him.
"All that I ask of you is that you will save my body from outrage after death—it has not escaped it in life. Count Charny rests in the family vault at Boursonnes. There I spent the happiest days of my life, and I wish to repose by him."
"Oh, in Heaven's name, I implore you—"
"And I implore you in the name of my sorrow—"
"It is well, lady; you were right in saying that I am bound to obey you in all points. I go, but I am not vanquished."
"Do not forget my last wish."
"If I do not save you in spite of yourself, it shall be accomplished," replied Gilbert.
Saluting her for the last time, he went forth, and the door banged to with that lugubrious sound peculiar to prison doors.