The Sword of Honor Part 36

At the same instant Madam Desmarais was saying to herself:

"Let me hasten to write to my brother that he may even to-night quit Paris, by the St. Victor barrier." And, rus.h.i.+ng to her husband as the double doors of the parlor swung to, she exclaimed joyfully:

"Ah, my friend, what a fine fellow that commissioner is! He does like you--he _roars with the tigers and howls with the wolves_!"

"What!" exploded the lawyer, taken aback. "Do you mean to say--?"

"I mean this worthy man understood that in demanding my arrest, poor friend, you were only playing a role. Not so, Charlotte?"

"Oh, yes! For he said to mother, 'In these times of revolution, honest men are obliged to wear a mask.'"

"And I made answer," continued Madam Desmarais, "that, in fact, you were obliged to _howl with the wolves_, as you have so often repeated to me to-day."

"Wretched woman!" screamed the lawyer, as he sprang at his wife, his fist raised in a paroxysm of rage.

"Father, recollect yourself, for pity!"

A moment later Desmarais's fury gave way to prostration. His features were overspread with an ashen pallor, he reeled, and had barely time to throw himself into an arm-chair, mumbling as if his senses had forsaken him--"I am lost!--The guillotine!"

Madam Desmarais and her daughter flew to the advocate's side, raised his inert head, and made him breathe their salts. Hardly had he come to himself when Gertrude entered and announced:

"Monsieur Billaud-Varenne asks to speak with monsieur, on a very urgent matter."

The announcement of the visit of his colleague seemed to reanimate the lawyer. A glow of hope shone in his almost deathly countenance. He rose abruptly, saying:

"Billaud must have seen St. Just. If he accepts my proposition, I am saved!" Then, in a curt, hard voice he addressed his wife: "Retire to your apartment, madam; I have to talk business, grave political business, with Citizen Billaud-Varenne."

Followed by her daughter, Madam Desmarais went out, and her husband ordered Gertrude to show Citizen Billaud-Varenne into the parlor. As the maid left, the two police agents placed on watch were seated near the parlor door.

"Come now, let's compose ourselves," muttered the advocate, mopping the perspiration which beaded his brow. "Billaud-Varenne is another sort of monster, and perhaps more dangerous than Marat. What answer will he bring me? If St. Just consents to be my son-in-law, I have nothing more to fear! If not--ah! What a h.e.l.l!"

Billaud-Varenne entered. The Representative of the people was not a monster, as the advocate had christened him; but a man of inflexible convictions and rigid probity, besides being the possessor of some fortune. He did not touch, any more than Lepelletier St. Fargeau, Herault of Sech.e.l.les, and other wealthy citizens, the compensation allowed to a Representative. Gifted with natural eloquence, always sanguine, there was no patriot more devoted to the Revolution than Billaud-Varenne. He wore a short-haired black wig, and a maroon suit with steel b.u.t.tons; like Robespierre, St. Just, Camille Desmoulins and other Jacobins, he carried dignity even into the care of his person and his clothes.

"Eh, well, colleague," quoth Billaud-Varenne on entering, "what am I to surmise by this visit of the Section commissioner, whom I just met leaving your rooms?"

"Confess that it is a spicy incident to find, in the house one of us Mountainists a deposit of royalist poniards!"

"That is very easily explained: You receive a case from the depot, you don't know what is in it--nothing simpler."

"Do you think, my dear colleague, that it seemed so simple to the commissioner?"

"He could know nothing to the contrary. But, between ourselves, you exhibited extreme rigor towards your wife."

"You know that also--?"

"I know that you applied for her arrest, and that you demanded two watchmen, whom I found out there, in the ante-room. The precaution seems to me excessive."

"You disapprove of this measure, you, Billaud-Varenne, you, man of iron?"

"I disapprove of your whole procedure. My dear colleague, there are painful duties to which one resigns himself; but there are useless harshnesses which one does not call down upon his dear ones. That is my way of looking at it." Without noticing, or without seeming to notice, the uneasiness which his last words produced in Desmarais, Billaud-Varenne proceeded:

"But, let us speak of the object of my visit. I am just from the Jacobins, where I saw St. Just. He was highly sensible of the honor of the advances I made him on your part, on the subject of his marrying your daughter; but he refused to contract any union whatsoever."

"He refuses!" gasped Desmarais, pale with consternation. "Is not the refusal perhaps revokable?"

"St. Just never turns back on a determination once taken."

"But, at least, I may know the cause of his declination? Answer my question, my dear colleague."

"St. Just would have been happy to enter your family, he told me, if Mademoiselle Desmarais had looked favorably upon his court; but he thinks that under the grave circ.u.mstances in which we now find ourselves, a man of politics should remain free from all bonds, even those of the family, in order to consecrate himself wholly to public affairs. He wishes to hold himself ready for all sacrifices, even that of his life."

"Perhaps St. Just deems my daughter has not been brought up in principles of civic duty sufficiently pure. Had he regarded me as a better patriot, his answer would have no doubt been different?"

"Of a truth, my dear colleague, you are a singular fellow. In the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, you voted with the extreme Left; at the Jacobins, I have heard you propose and support the most revolutionary motions; you vote with us of the Mountain; and yet you seem to fear lest we suspect the sincerity of your convictions!"

"And why, then, should I fear that anyone doubted my sincerity?"

"My faith, you must answer that question yourself!"

"Oh, then the answer is easy, my dear Billaud: The Revolution is, and should be, a jealous, distrustful, exacting mistress to those devoted to her; and I continually fear not having done enough, and being accused of lukewarmness." Then, anxious to escape from a subject that embarra.s.sed him, and to hide the cruel disappointment occasioned by St. Just's refusal, Desmarais added, "What is new to-night at the Jacobins?"

"A speech of hardly a quarter of an hour in length, but which created an incalculable impression upon its hearers."

"On what subject?"

"Louis XVI's penalty."

"And the speaker was--?"

"A young man whom I am proud to number among my friends, for his modesty equals his patriotism and merit. He is a simple iron-worker. We wished to nominate him for the Convention; he refused our offer, but consented to accept munic.i.p.al office."

"John Lebrenn!"

"Precisely. He was the orator in question."

"He is my pupil, my dear pupil!" returned Desmarais. "It is I who put him through his revolutionary education."

"This young man, ardent, generous, yet tender and delicate as he is by nature, has but one rule of conduct--eternal justice and morality. He is a lofty soul. Marat and Robespierre both congratulated him upon his speech, which concluded with these words:

"'Louis XVI was born kind, humane, and graced with parts, and behold what corrupting, subversive, detestable influences lurk in the very essence of kings.h.i.+p. It has turned this man, so happily made up, into a traitor, a perjurer, a murderer, a parricide who has unchained against his mother country the arms of foreigners and emigrants. Ah, citizens, in judging, in condemning this guilty one of high rank, it is less the man than the King and still less the King than royalty itself that you smite. The ax that will strike off the head of Louis XVI will decapitate the monarchy, that dynasty of a foreign race imposed on Gaul for so many centuries by violence and conquest.'"

"That's superb!" exclaimed the lawyer. "That's fine! Lo, the fruit of my lessons!"

"Your pupil closed by ably contrasting with the days of September the judicial condemnation of Louis Capet: 'Before August 10 the crimes of Louis XVI were notorious; they merited death,' quoth Lebrenn. 'Suppose the people in its fury had taken summary justice on the guilty one.

Suppose he had been stricken down during the insurrection. Compare that death, almost furtive, half veiled by the murk of battle, with the august spectacle which the Convention is now about to offer to the world, before G.o.d and man! A people calm in its sovereignty, judging and condemning, in the name of the law, the criminal who was its King. To the dagger of Brutus we shall oppose the sword of Justice! The tyrant shall be smitten in the name of all, in the public place. He shall pa.s.s from the throne to the scaffold. May in like manner the heads of all tyrants fall!'"

"That is immense!" again exclaimed Desmarais. "I am proud of my pupil."