When a Cobbler Ruled a King Part 12

"'That's a remark inimical to the Republic!' he roared. 'For that I order your arrest!' And in two seconds I was in the grasp of a couple of gendarmes who hustled me, followed by Simon, to this prison. Simon made the charge, and I gave the name of Antoine Lecoste. The rest you know!

And for such offences are thousands of poor wretches doomed to death in these glorious days!"

"But what a misfortune," sighed Jean, "that you should be so imperilled when you are the soul of the n.o.ble schemes for releasing the little fellow! You stand about one chance in a million of being acquitted, from all I hear!"

"Do not fear for me, lad! One can never tell what may happen, of course, but, hark you! I have a band of trusty followers, and in view of the very thing that has happened, my arrest, we concerted, some time ago, a plan to rescue me if I am caught and condemned, even were I on the way to the very scaffold itself. And trust me, Jean, should it so fall out that we travel that road together, you shall share my rescue. If I go before you and am rescued, I will surely devise some scheme for your escape when your time comes. Only, if you are called to go before me, heaven alone can aid you!" Jean pressed his hand with a grat.i.tude too deep for words.

"Meanwhile," ended the Baron, "it is best that we do not seem too intimate, when our jailers are around. What a horrible place this is!

How long have you been here?" And Jean gave him a history of his imprisonment. The two talked nearly all that night. Jean had heard practically no news from the outer world in all the eight months, and he learned now much that astonished him. One of the events most amazing to him was the resignation of Simon from his post of tutor to Louis XVII, and the young king's solitary confinement. The other was that Danton, the great original Terrorist leader had perished on the scaffold as far back as April.

"How came it about?" inquired Jean in wonder. "I cannot understand it!

He was head and front of every thing!"

"Simple enough, in these days!" responded De Batz. "It is like the mountainous waves of the sea. One towers above all for a moment, only to be overtopped by the one behind it next instant. Robespierre became both tired and jealous of his great friend and compatriot, and decided to get rid of him. Nothing easier! He denounced Danton to the Convention, and he was tried and condemned by the very tribunal he had himself inst.i.tuted. Right here in the Conciergerie at that! You should have seen him during his trial! He sat and made paper pellets which he threw at his judges! Oh, Danton was a cool one, and he died bravely! But, let me tell you something. Robespierre's turn is coming next! The people are weary of him and his underhand ways, and 'tis whispered that he wishes to sweep all others out of his path and make himself Dictator. But it won't do! They are furious at him for causing Danton's death,--his closest friend, mind you!--and something is going to happen. The pot is on the point of boiling. It will take but a few days at most for it to boil over. And let me tell you who will be the next man of the hour,--Barras! He is already very popular. Keep your eye on Barras, Jean!"

Two days pa.s.sed, and the friends were left unmolested. During this time they exchanged thoughts on many subjects, and waited with apprehension lest one or the other should be called away, and strove to pa.s.s the hours as best they might. Jean begged De Batz to tell him what was the new plan for rescuing Louis XVII.

"That I cannot tell you just yet," said the Baron. "For it is not perfected, and I am under oath to reveal nothing. But if we get out of this alive, be sure that you will hear more about it later. But one thing I will say. I may have to disappear for a time to another part of France. If I am not in Paris, _find Caron_! You know who he is?" Jean nodded a.s.sent. Then he asked about how they were to escape.

"It is best that you should not know," said De Batz. "The manner of it will be attended with great risk, and you will come through it better if you are ignorant. Only, do not be surprised at anything that may happen!"

On the third day, the jailers entered the cell at noon, accompanied by a court-crier. Jean and the Baron exchanged a look, for they knew that the fate of at least one of them was to be sealed that day. To their joy, both their names were read to appear before the tribunal. The jailers left them saying that they would be back in half an hour.

"This is a G.o.dsend!" exclaimed the Baron. "Nothing could have been better than that we should go out at the same time. If we are rescued it will be together, and if not,--well, at least we will die in each other's company!" The jailers came back in a few moments and bound the hands of the two behind their backs. In the courtyard they found a band of thirty more victims, in charge of a corps of gendarmes, all petrified into a very apathy of fearful antic.i.p.ation. Strangely enough, there was not even a tear shed by the band of the condemned. The sobs and lamentations came wholly from the friends they were leaving.

Out from the courtyard, and along dark galleries and pa.s.sages they were herded like so many cattle, till at length they were pushed into the great gloomy room where sat the far-famed Tribunal of Terror. Three judges robed in black, wearing plumed hats, sat on a high platform, and scribbled occasional notes. A clerk called out the list of names, to which each prisoner responded. Then, one by one, the names were read again, and a charge against each was hastily gabbled over, which the prisoners scarcely heard and in nine cases out of ten did not understand. When asked if they had anything to say in their defence, each murmured calmly and hopelessly, "No!" After this, one of the judges rose and p.r.o.nounced the sentence:

"You are all found guilty of conspiring against the Republic! I p.r.o.nounce upon you the sentence of immediate death!"

There was no surprise and scarcely any interest created by this. Why should there be! They had expected it from the beginning! For the most part they were as those already dead. The gendarmes hurried them out by another pa.s.sage, and they came to an open gate, beyond which stood the tumbrils waiting for their daily load. Here a great crowd of the populace had collected. But where months ago they had hooted and jeered at the doomed ones, now the sympathy of the majority was with the victims, and the carts were loaded in a sorrowful silence, broken only by the occasional cry of some outsider who beheld a friend among the condemned.

Jean and De Batz were reserved for the last cart, and just before they entered, the boy saw his friend make an almost imperceptible motion of the head to a man in the crowd who instantly disappeared. "Courage!"

whispered the Baron to his little comrade, as they were flung unceremoniously into the tumbril, accompanied by ten or twelve others.

That ride was a thing to be remembered as one recalls a shuddering nightmare. Crowded in as they were, Jean saw no possible hope of rescue, and the cart jolted on roughly through street after street. They had approached very near the Place de la Revolution and the termination of their ride, when a heavy cart that had driven in between them and the forward tumbril, suddenly broke down, a wheel flew off, and the way was completely blocked.

"Good!" muttered the Baron to Jean. "The first step is a success!" The driver of their tumbril swore roundly, but nothing could be done except drive back a block or two and proceed through a very narrow street, scarcely more than an alley. Meanwhile the crowd had forsaken them, and had hastened on to the guillotine, lest it be too late for the first of the day's executions. The last tumbril would doubtless arrive in good time without their a.s.sistance!

The narrow alley into which they now turned was lined with rickety wooden houses, and Jean noticed that De Batz watched one of these narrowly, so he also kept his eye upon it. They had almost reached it when suddenly, out from it rushed ten or fifteen men, all shouting, swearing, lunging at each other with knives and bludgeons, apparently engaged in a fierce dispute that could only be settled by drawing blood.

They surged about the tumbril, while the astonished driver sought to clear the way by flouris.h.i.+ng his whip, and shouting for a free pa.s.sage.

In the midst of all this confusion, Jean presently felt a knife inserted between the cords that bound his wrists, and in a second his hands were free. Then he saw that De Batz had likewise been released from his fetters. In the midst of the greatest racket he heard the Baron whisper:

"Slip down! Get among them!" Fortunately they were both seated at the rear end of the cart. Before Jean realised it, he was down and in the midst of the noisy group shouting and struggling like the rest. If the other inmates of the cart realised what was happening, they were either too apathetic to care, or too glad that even a few might escape, to make any outcry. The struggling, fighting men, gradually ceased their blows and pretending to be appeased, gathered into a group, carefully concealing in their midst the Baron and Jean. The wrathful driver of the tumbril shook his fist at them, swore to have them all arrested later, gathered up his reins, and the cart lumbered heavily away, while he remained entirely in ignorance of the fact that his load was lighter by two! When it had disappeared, they all hurried into the house from whence the men had issued.

"Oh!" sobbed Jean, now that the terrible tension was relieved, "if we could only have saved the rest! It seems horrible that they should go on to what we have escaped!"

"It could not be done," said De Batz. "It was an awful risk even for _one_, and for _two_ a still greater peril. But had there been more,--why all would have perished! You yourself would not have been saved, had I not given my men a sign." The men now gathered about their leader, who congratulated them on the successful outcome of the plot.

"But we must not remain here," he ended. "One by one you must leave the house, all but Jean and myself. It would not do for us to be seen in broad daylight so soon. We will hide in the cellar till to-night."

Gradually the men dispersed, and till long after midnight, Jean and the Baron kept each other company in the dark cellar, for the house was an abandoned one. At length the time came for them to part.

"Return to the Rue de Lille," ordered De Batz, "and keep hidden there for a few days. Things are going to happen, as I told you, and after that it may be safe to go out. I must leave Paris, perhaps for some time. But one injunction I leave with you,--_find Caron_! No,--do not thank me, my boy, for helping you to this escape! It is only what we owe to each other, and to Louis XVII! But thank G.o.d for helping us to accomplish it. Adieu! adieu! _Find Caron!_"

And so they parted!

THE TENTH THERMIDOR

CHAPTER XIII

THE TENTH THERMIDOR

It would be impossible to describe the meeting between Jean and his loved ones on that memorable night. To Mere Clouet and Yvonne it seemed as though he had actually risen from the dead. For months they had received absolutely no news of him, or his fate. Yvonne confided to him that Mere Clouet had even gone to witness the daily executions at such times as she felt she could be away from necessary work, though the sight of them nearly killed her. But it seemed the only way in which she could learn whether the boy had yet been doomed to perish. As her work, however, compelled her to miss many days, she could never be certain that he had not been executed in her absence.

For several days Jean remained securely hidden. It would have been far from safe for him to show his face out of doors, for his enemy, La Souris, was still very active. So he stayed indoors, played with Moufflet, and asked incessant questions about the long period of his imprisonment, striving to learn every detail of what had occurred in his absence.

While he was thus in hiding, Paris was full of strange mutterings and subdued excitement. People conversed in undertones in the streets, gesticulated freely and had heated arguments. Detachments of soldiers were stationed in every quarter, and an uprising of some kind was plainly expected. Jean remembered the words of the Baron de Batz, and scented trouble but could make little of what he slyly witnessed from the windows. In fact, people seemed themselves scarcely to comprehend the true cause of all this ferment. Naturally the unrest communicated itself to Mere Clouet and the children. Yvonne begged to be allowed to go out and investigate but Mere Clouet and Jean would not hear of this.

At last, on the afternoon of July twenty-eighth, Mere Clouet herself could no longer contain her curiosity.

"I am going out myself!" she announced. "I at least will be safe in the streets, and something unusual is happening to-day. Rest you here! I will come back shortly, and tell you all about it!" And she hurried away.

Now it must be explained that France, from the time of September, 1792, had determined to change the names of all the months, and number the years beginning from her birth as a Republic. Consequently this day of July 28, 1794, or the Tenth Thermidor, year II, as she called it, was destined to be a date long remembered in history.

In about two hours Mere Clouet came back. She was breathless, her eyes were flas.h.i.+ng, and she was under the influence of some keen excitement.

"My soul!" she exclaimed, sinking into a seat "What I have seen! What I have heard! What times we live in! You will scarcely believe me! I went to the Rue St. Honore. It was filled with a shouting crowd. I asked a woman what was happening, and she looked at me as though she thought me insane for not knowing! 'Where have you been?' she cried. 'What! do you not know that Robespierre was yesterday condemned by the Convention for his barbarity, declared an outlaw, and naturally headed for the scaffold? Coward that he is! He tried to kill himself, but missed his aim and only wounded his jaw. He's on the way to the guillotine now, with a few others of a similar stripe,--Couthon, Henriot, St. Just!

Curse him! Curse him! He put to death my husband and my father for no crime at all,--they were good Republicans! And Barras,--he's in command of all the forces of Paris, and will soon be at the head of the government, also. He is at least a humane man! Ah, here comes the tumbril now!'

"Then a mighty roar went up from the crowd, a cart jolted up the street, and there sat that Robespierre, his hands tied behind him, and his wicked face bound up in a rag! Faugh! the sight turned me sick! But here's something else quite as wonderful! Directly beside him, cheek by jowl, sat (you'll never believe me!) that ruffian Simon the cobbler, in the very Carmagnole suit he used to wear in the Temple. His teeth fairly chattered with fright! Ah, but I wish the little fellow could have seen him! Was ever a punishment so well deserved!

"Never, in all my life have I witnessed such a sight! People sang for very joy, and even strangers embraced each other. They say that in some of the prisons, many were set free! I saw a man pay thirty francs for a newspaper telling how yesterday Robespierre was condemned! They say the Reign of Terror is over! Thank G.o.d! Thank G.o.d!" And Mere Clouet, no longer able to control herself, sobbed in sheer ecstasy of joy.

The Reign of Terror _was_ over, at last! In a few days that became apparent. Exiles flocked back to the country. Prisons gave up their "suspects" to the number of ten thousand. Families were reunited, and people who had been existing miserably in all sorts of hiding-places, came out of their seclusion. Paris became a city of resurrected hopes and homes.

On the morning of the Tenth Thermidor, Barras had made a tour of all the military posts of Paris, in the course of which he stopped at the Temple and inspected it. When he saw the condition in which poor little Louis XVII was kept in solitude, he was filled with pity, and announced that this must be improved, and that he would at once take steps to accomplish it. We will now see what the Tenth Thermidor brought to this unfortunate little monarch.

Six months had pa.s.sed since Louis Charles had been barred into his lonely cell. Not that he realised the time at all! One day dragged on wearily and gave place to the next, but he took no heed, and probably knew not whether his time of incarceration had been six months or as many years.

It was the twenty-eighth of July, 1794. For three days the child had lain inert upon his bed. Life had become absolutely insupportable to him. At the very moment when he had been compelled to rise and take in his morning meal, wis.h.i.+ng that they would send in no more food so that he might die the quicker, Robespierre and Simon were pa.s.sing through the streets in a tumbril to their well-deserved reward. But he knew it not!

That night the light of a candle shone through his wicket, and an unusually gentle voice called to him: "Capet! Little Capet! Are you there?" "Yes!" he answered feebly.

"Can you not come here a moment?" the voice continued. But the boy was too weak to try, and too exhausted even to answer again. Then the light disappeared, and the gentle voice was silent. He pa.s.sed the night in a feverish sleep. His poor limbs were wasted and thin, and great swellings on his knees and arms gave him unspeakable pain. No one would have recognised in him now even the pale captive of the cobbler, much less the beautiful boy of the Tuileries.