The False Chevalier Part 49

"That one's not _Sans-culotte_ enough for me," called out a young woman in a red bonnet, and crossing over with the stride of a Grenadier to Cyrene, stood before her, arms akimbo, and cried shrilly, "Saint Guillotine for your patron, my delicate Ma'mselle."

The use of the prescribed address "ma'mselle" was evidently regarded as a witticism, for shouts of laughter filled the place.

Just then the President rang his bell, and as he did so he looked at Cyrene significantly. Shrink as she might from his leer, she could not but feel grateful, for he had evidently rung purposely.

A secretary began the minutes, which consisted of resolutions of Jacobin joy at the capture of a once idolised patriot who had lately been denounced by Robespierre for counselling mercy to prisoners.

The name of Robespierre excited enthusiastic applause.

A set of benches facing those of the applicants had stood thus far empty. They were now filled by the entry of a body of representatives furnished by certain of the forty-eight sections of the City, whereupon the "Ma.r.s.eillaise" was again beat, and several of the councillors lit their pipes.

The princ.i.p.al sections represented were those of the Pikes and the Fish-market.

Some one called for "ca ira." It was succeeded by a harangue of the Admiral against the captured ex-patriot. Cyrene followed with horror every word of his oratory, every movement of his declamation, the air of pride with which he played upon the pa.s.sions of the _Sans-culottes_, and the wicked sweep of the principles he announced.

"That all mankind deserve ma.s.sacre," he cried, smiling, "is the philosophic general rule; the sole exceptions are the true patriots. By t.i.tle of liberty, the possessions of all belong to them alone. And how can we know the true patriot? _By his red cap and his red hand._"

Finally the long suspense of the applicants was brought to a close; the secretary called the first on the list.

"Citizeness Montmorency."

At the once great name a silence fell over the place.

Then a murmur ran through the benches of the Jacobin women, while Cyrene summoned her courage. The murmur was not long in taking shape.

"The Montmorencys are a brood of monsters," energetically called the young Jacobiness, rising in her place.

"The aristocrat to the guillotine!" shouted a drunken man.

"The guillotine!"

"Yes, yes--to La Force immediately!"

These and similar cries resounded. They fell upon Cyrene's ears like thunders of hostile artillery in a battle. Dominique sat quite still.

His mistress rose. Now that the instant of danger had actually come she felt an inconquerable courage well up in her, which, as she stood with brilliant eye and glowing cheek, made her very beautiful. This was not in her favour with the envious knitters; but while they commented in frightful language on her gentle build, the secretary said--"Are you the person?"

"I am," she answered clearly.

"Are you not," he continued glancing at the audience for approbation, "the late aristocrat Baroness of that name?"

"I am," she replied, in a tone still clearer and more fearless.

The President's face gleamed with admiration. He rang his bell sharply and the clamours subsided. His glittering eyes devoured her features, while he said--

"Does anybody know the citizeness and answer for her civism?" He hurriedly added, "Adjourned; call the next."

Dominique caught her by the arm to make their exit, for though he could not a.s.sign a reason for the Admiral's device of favour, he was ready to take advantage of it.

As they started, one of the section members sprang up and exclaimed--

"I answer for the citizeness."

He was a man of less than thirty, and of open, enthusiastic expression, and wore the uniform of a National Guard.

"You, citizen la Tour?" the Admiral exclaimed.

Cyrene eyed the member in grateful but intense wonder. She had never to her knowledge seen him before.

"Yes, citizen President," he replied earnestly, "I answer for the citizeness because she saved my life."

The crowd hushed by a common impulse.

"You all know me, brothers," he cried, "my record for the Revolution, my pa.s.sion for liberty--Liberty, Liberty, Liberty! It has been my dream under the stars, my labour under the sun, my love and my desire. I was, as all know, a patriot proscribed and condemned to death before the Revolution began. I was of the first at the hanging of Foulon, at the sacking of Reveillon, and at the walls of the Bastille. I was wounded in the stand against the Dragoons of Lambesc, and all know my scars in the battles of the North. I name these things only to prove the claim of this woman to civic rights. By her pity she saved my life in the old days, at the last moment before my breaking on the wheel. Imagine to yourselves that moment. Ask how I can feel other than grat.i.tude and devotion to my benefactress. In the evil days of the aristocrats she was a friend of the poor. I present her now to you when it is in our power to confer liberty upon her who set at liberty, life upon her who saved life. I, the child of the Revolution, pray this as my right; she claims it also for herself as a heroine of civic virtue. Give your suffrages."

"Vive la Tour! vive the citizeness!" resounded in shouts through the hall. Once more the Admiral rang his bell, and silenced followed.

"Yes, citizeness," he said, addressing her, "your courage is French courage, your virtue French virtue, and the good heart of the nation sees in you a daughter of the people. Incarnating the spirit of the race, be welcome at the tables of fraternity, and accept the homage of all hearts."

At a motion of his hand the secretary hastily filled in her certificate, and Dominique, without waiting for his own, hurried her away. Even as they left they heard Wife Gougeon scream--

"Death to the aristocrat!"

They hastened across the Place de Greve, but had not yet reached the corner of the street beyond, when in the dusk Cyrene heard the sound of rus.h.i.+ng wheels, felt herself choked by a gag from behind, and was pushed helpless by rough hands into a coach and driven away. Behind her she heard a sound of scuffle and the voice of Dominique cry aloud in anguish--

"They have finished me!"

"Be quiet, my lady," spoke the voice of Abbe Jude.

She knew no more till she woke in darkness.

CHAPTER L

JUDGMENT DAY

Germain, left alone in the house, bolted the door, returned with trembling limbs to the room above and threw himself down in his chair blanched and nerveless. They who have experienced the minutes when a well-loved one hangs between life and death can alone know what he suffered. It was now that the fleeting poverty of the ideals he had been following became visible. The elegance, the pride, the historic glamour, the fine breeding of the Old _Regime_, by which he had been fascinated, had they not fallen to pieces like a flower whose petals are scattered in the tempest? Even the burning hope of his heart, the dream of a life of earthly bliss with his love, was showing its insecurity and dropping asunder. His s.h.i.+p was sinking in the ocean of Eternity. How futile his intrigue, how mean his deceptions, how insufficient his excuses. The Everlasting Presence gazed through them, and in its all-illumining blaze they fell and sank away. He saw that that which underlies life and death and all that is, is a living Conscience, to which all must perforce conform. Pride, deception, selfishness, uncontrol of pa.s.sion, the taking of that which was not his, and the injuring of honourable men--these excrescences he saw upon his soul, and that without their surgery it would never be divine. He remembered the prophetic warning of his father that "Eternal Justice calls us to exact account"; and the pertinacity of Retribution in the matter of the Golden Dog. He saw that the justice of this life and the next are one, and are absolutely complete in their demands. One great conclusion came to him with overwhelming force; he saw that it was the plan of Heaven that _no man must profit by any fruit of his wrong_. He now himself must meet that justice and make that retribution.

At length, leaving the room, he dragged himself up the stair leading to his own chamber, a cramped place in the flat above, bearing small resemblance to his luxurious apartments of former days; yet around it were hung the de Lincy family portraits; his sword of the Bodyguard lay on the mantel; and in the s.p.a.ce behind the door were the old Chevalier's iron-bound muniment-chest and his own little portmanteau gilded with his arms.

With fevered face and icy hands he opened the latter and sought out the packet of his proofs of _n.o.blesse_. Then turning to the fireplace beneath the mantel, he threw the papers one by one into it--his falsified birth-certificate, his father's altered marriage-contract, the letter of the gentlemen of Montreal, the apology of Councillor de Lery, the will of the Chevalier de Lincy and the attestation of the Genealogist of France. He took a flint and steel from the mantel and quickly struck spark after spark into them until they sprang into flames. Then he added his great genealogical tree of the de Lincys, whose branches withered and quivered, like his heart, as the fire attacked the broad folds of the parchment. Packet after packet the precious archives of the Lecours de Lincy went upon the pile until he had emptied the muniment-chest; the fire raged and reddened into a solid ma.s.s, and they were irrevocably gone. Next he took up de Bailleul's will--sorrowfully and hesitatingly, for it was his t.i.tle to Eaux Tranquilles--but the following instant he threw it also on the flames.

Then he deliberately cast in his Grand Cross of St. Louis and the insignia of the Order of the Holy Ghost. His _Diamond Armorial_ followed, he tore his seal, cut with the pretended coat-of-arms, from his watch-chain, broke up with his foot his little portmanteau, and tearing down the de Lincy portraits one by one watched all blaze up and consume together. At last, on the top of the heap, he mournfully laid his sword of the Bodyguard and saw its golden handle and delicate blade begin to glow and discolour.

"Disappear, old dreams;" he murmured, "Eternal Justice visit me for all!

But afflict not _her_; spare thine angel for her own sake. Oh, spare _her_."