definitely that I would not in any circumstances receive M. de La Tour
d'Azyr again! And then they pressed this explanation upon me. For a long
time I would not believe it."
"So that you believe it now," said Andre quickly. "Why?"
"I have not said that I believe it now. But... but... neither can I
disbelieve. Since we came to Meudon M. de La Tour d'Azyr has been here, and
himself he has sworn to me that it was so."
"Oh, if M. de La Tour d'Azyr has sworn... " Andre-Louis was laughing on
a bitter note of sarcasm.
"Have you ever known him lie?" she cut in sharply. That checked him.
"M. de La Tour d'Azyr is, after all, a man of honour, and men of honour
never deal in falsehood. Have you ever known him do so, that you should
sneer as you have done?"
"No," he confessed. Common justice demanded that he should admit that
virtue at least in his enemy. "I have not known him lie, it is true. His
kind is too arrogant, too self-confident to have recourse to untruth. But I
have known him do things as vile... "
"Nothing is as vile," she interrupted, speaking from the code by which
she had been reared. "It is for liars only - who are first cousin to thieves
- that there is no hope. It is in falsehood only that there is real loss of
honour."
"You are defending that satyr, I think," he said frostily.
"I desire to be just."
"Justice may seem to you a different matter when at last you shall have
resolved yourself to become Marquise de La Tour d'Azyr." He spoke bitterly.
"I don't think that I shall ever take that resolve."
"But you are still not sure - in spite of everything."
"Can one ever be sure of anything in this world?"
"Yes. One can be sure of being foolish."
Either she did not hear or did not heed him.
"You do not of your own knowledge know that it was not as M. de La Tour
d'Azyr asserts - that he went to the Feydau that night?"
"I don't," he admitted. "It is of course possible. But does it matter?"
"It might matter. Tell me; what became of La Binet after all?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?" She turned to consider him. "And you can say it with
that indifference! I thought... I thought you loved her, Andre"
"So did I, for a little while. I was mistaken. It required a La Tour
d'Azyr to disclose the truth to me. They have their uses, these gentlemen.
They help stupid fellows like myself to perceive important truths. I was
fortunate that revelation in my case preceded marriage. I can now look back
upon the episode with equanimity and thankfulness for my near escape from
the consequences of what was no more than an aberration of the senses. It is
a thing commonly confused with love. The experience, as you see, was very
instructive."
She looked at him in frank surprise.
"Do you know, Andre, I sometimes think that you have no heart."
"Presumably because I sometimes betray intelligence. And what of
yourself, Aline? What of your own attitude from the outset where M. de La
Tour d'Azyr is concerned? Does that show heart? If I were to tell you what
it really shows, we should end by quarrelling again, and God knows I can't
afford to quarrel with you now. I... I shall take another way.
"What do you mean?"
"Why, nothing at the moment, for you are not in any danger of marrying
that animal."
"And if I were?"
"Ah! In that case affection for you would discover to me some means of
preventing it - unless.. ." He paused.
"Unless?" she demanded, challengingly, drawn to the full of her sort
height, her eyes imperious.
"Unless you could also tell me that you loved him," said he simply,
whereat she was as suddenly and most oddly softened. And then he added,
shaking his head: "But that of course is impossible."
"Why?" she asked him, quite gently now.
"Because you are what you are, Aline - utterly good and pure and
adorable. Angels do not mate with devils. His wife you might become, but
never his mate, Aline - never."
They had reached the wrought-iron gates at the end of the avenue.
Through these they beheld the waiting yellow chaise which had brought
Andre-Louis. From near at hand came the creak of other wheels, the beat of
other hooves, and now another vehicle came in sight, and drew to a
stand-still beside the yellow chaise - a handsome equipage with polished
mahogany panels on which the gold and azure of armorial bearings flashed
brilliantly in the sunlight. A footman swung to earth to throw wide the
gates; but in that moment the lady who occupied the carriage, perceiving
Aline, waved to her and issued a command.
The postilion drew rein, and the footman opened the door, letting down
the steps and proffering his arm to his mistress to assist her to alight,
since that was the wish she had expressed. Then he opened one wing of the
iron gates, and held it for her. She was a woman of something more than
forty, who once must have been very lovely, who was very lovely still with
the refining quality that age brings to some women. Her dress and carriage
alike advertised great rank.
"I take my leave here, since you have a visitor," said Andre-Louis.
"But it is an old acquaintance of your own, Andre. You remember Mme. la
Comtesse de Plougastel?"
He looked at the approaching lady, whom Aline was now hastening forward
to meet, and because she was named to him he recognized her. He must, he
thought, had he but looked, have recognized her without prompting anywhere
at any time, and this although it was some sixteen years since last he had
seen her. The sight of her now brought it all back to him - a treasured
memory that had never permitted itself to be entirely overlaid by subsequent
events.
When he was a boy of ten, on the eve of being sent to school at Rennes,
she had come on a visit to his godfather, who was her cousin. It happened
that at the time he was taken by Rabouillet to the Manor of Gavrillac, and
there he had been presented to Mme. de Plougastel. The great lady, in all
the glory then of her youthful beauty, with her gentle, cultured voice - so
cultured that she had seemed to speak a language almost unknown to the
little Breton lad - and her majestic air of the great world, had scared him
a little at first. Very gently had she allayed those fears of his, and by
some mysterious enchantment she had completely enslaved his regard. He
recalled now the terror in which he had gone to the embrace to which he was
bidden, and the subsequent reluctance with which he had left those soft
round arms. He remembered, too, how sweetly she had smelled and the very
perfume she had used, a perfume as of lilac - for memory is singularly
tenacious in these matters.
For three days whilst she had been at Gavrillac, he had gone daily to
the manor, and so had spent hours in her company. A childless woman with the
maternal instinct strong within her, she had taken this precociously
intelligent, wide-eyed lad to her heart.
"Give him to me, Cousin Quintin," he remembered her saying on the last
of those days to his godfather. "Let me take him back with me to Versailles
as my adopted child."
But the Seigneur had gravely shaken his head in silent refusal, and
there had been no further question of such a thing. And then, when she said
good-bye to him - the thing came flooding back to him now
- there had been tears in her eyes.
"Think of me sometimes, Andre-Louis," had been her last words.
He remembered how flattered he had been to have won within so short a
time the affection of this great lady. The thing had given him a sense of
importance that had endured for months thereafter, finally to fade into
oblivion.
But all was vividly remembered now upon beholding her again, after
sixteen years, profoundly changed and matured, the girl - for she had been
no more in those old days - sunk in this worldly woman with the air of calm
dignity and complete self-possession. Yet, he insisted, he must have known
her anywhere again.
Aline embraced her affectionately, and then answering the questioning
glance with faintly raised eyebrows that madame was directing towards
Aline's companion -
"This is Andre-Louis," she said. "You remember Andre-Louis, madame?"
Madame checked. Andre-Louis saw the surprise ripple over her face,
taking with it some of her colour, leaving her for a moment breathless.
And then the voice - the well-remembered rich, musical voice - richer
and deeper now than of yore, repeated his name:
"Andre-Louis!"
Her manner of uttering it suggested that it awakened memories, memories
perhaps of the departed youth with which it was associated. And she paused a
long moment, considering him, a little wide-eyed, what time he bowed before
her.
"But of course I remember him," she said at last, and came towards him,
putting out her hand. He kissed it dutifully, submissively, instinctively.
"And this is what you have grown into?" She appraised him, and he flushed
with pride at the satisfaction in her tone. He seemed to have gone back
sixteen years, and to be again the little Breton lad at Gavrillac. She
turned to Aline. "How mistaken Quintin was in his assumptions. He was
pleased to see him again, was he not?"
"So pleased, madame, that he has shown me the door," said Andre-Louis.
"Ah!" She frowned, conning him still with those dark, wistful eyes of
hers. "We must change that, Aline. He is of course very angry with you. But
it is not the way to make converts. I will plead for you, Andre-Louis. I am
a good advocate."
He thanked her and took his leave.
"I leave my case in your hands with gratitude. My homage, madame."
And so it happened that in spite of his godfather's forbidding
reception of him, the fragment of a song was on his lips as his yellow
chaise whirled him back to Paris and the Rue du Hasard. That meeting with
Mme. de Plougastel had enheartened him; her promise to plead his case in
alliance with Aline gave him assurance that all would be well.
That he was justified of this was proved when on the following Thursday
towards noon his academy was invaded by M. de Kercadiou. Gilles, the boy,
brought him word of it, and breaking off at once the lesson upon which he
was engaged, he pulled off his mask, and went as he was - in a chamois
Waistcoat buttoned to the chin and with his foil under his arm to the modest
salon below, where his godfather awaited him.
The florid little Lord of Gavrillac stood almost defiantly to receive
him.
"I have been over-persuaded to forgive you," he announced aggressively,
seeming thereby to imply that he consented to this merely so as to put an
end to tiresome importunities.
Andre-Louis was not misled. He detected a pretence adopted by the
Seigneur so as to enable him to retreat in good order.
"My blessings on the persuaders, whoever they may have been. You
restore me my happiness, monsieur my godfather."
He took the hand that was proffered and kissed it, yielding to the
impulse of the unfailing habit of his boyish days. It was an act symbolical
of his complete submission, reestablishing between himself and his godfather
the bond of protected and protector, with all the mutual claims and duties
that it carries. No mere words could more completely have made his peace
with this man who loved him.
M. de Kercadiou's face flushed a deeper pink, his lip trembled, and
there was a huskiness in the voice that murmured "My dear boy!" Then he
recollected himself, threw back his great head and frowned. His voice
resumed its habitual shrillness. "You realize, I hope, that you have behaved
damnably... damnably, and with the utmost ingratitude?"
"Does not that depend upon the point of view?" quoth Andre-Louis, but
his tone was studiously conciliatory.
"It depends upon a fact, and not upon any point of view. Since I have
been persuaded to overlook it, I trust that at least you have some intention
of reforming."
"I... I will abstain from politics," said Andre-Louis, that being the
utmost he could say with truth.
"That is something, at least." His godfather permitted himself to be
mollified, now that a concession - or a seeming concession - had been made
to his just resentment.
"A chair, monsieur."
"No, no. I have come to carry you off to pay a visit with me. You owe
it entirely to Mme. de Plougastel that I consent to receive you again. I
desire that you come with me to thank her."
"I have my engagements here... " began Andre-Louis, and then broke off.
"No matter! I will arrange it. A moment." And he was turning away to reenter
the academy.
"What are your engagements? You are not by chance a
fencing-instructor?" M. de Kercadiou had observed the leather waistcoat and
the foil tucked under Andre-Louis' arm.
"I am the master of this academy - the academy of the late Bertrand des
Amis, the most flourishing school of arms in Paris to-day."
M. de Kercadiou's brows went up.
"And you are master of it?"
"Maitre en fait d'Armes. I succeeded to the academy upon the death of
des Amis."
He left M. Kercadiou to think it over, and went to make his
arrangements and effect the necessary changes in his toilet.
"So that is why you have taken to wearing a sword," said M. de
Kercadiou, as they climbed into his waiting carriage.
"That and the need to guard one's self in these times."
"And do you mean to tell me that a man who lives by what is after all
an honourable profession, a profession mainly supported by the nobility, can
at the same time associate himself with these peddling attorneys and low
pamphleteers who are spreading dissension and insubordination?"
"You forget that I am a peddling attorney myself, made so by your own
wishes, monsieur."
M. de Kercadiou grunted, and took snuff. "You say the academy
flourishes?" he asked presently.
"It does. I have two assistant instructors. I could employ a third. It
is hard work."
"That should mean that your circumstances are affluent."
"I have reason to be satisfied. I have far more than I need."
"Then you'll be able to do your share in paying off this national
debt," growled the nobleman, well content that as he conceived it
- some of the evil Andre-Louis had helped to sow should recoil upon
him.
Then the talk veered to Mme. de Plougastel. M. de Kercadiou,
Andre-Louis gathered, but not the reason for it, disapproved most strongly
of this visit. But then Madame la Comtesse was a headstrong woman whom there
was no denying, whom all the world obeyed. M. de Plougastel was at present
absent in Germany, but would shortly be returning. It was an indiscreet
admission from which it was easy to infer that M. de Plougastel was one of
those intriguing emissaries who came and went between the Queen of France
and her brother, the Emperor of Austria.
The carriage drew up before a handsome hotel in the Faubourg
Saint-Denis, at the corner of the Rue Paradis, and they were ushered by a
sleek servant into a little boudoir, all gilt and brocade, that opened upon
a terrace above a garden that was a park in miniature. Here madame awaited
them. She rose, dismissing the young person who had been reading to her, and
came forward with both hands outheld to greet her cousin Kercadiou.
"I almost feared you would not keep your word," she said. "It was
unjust. But then I hardly hoped that you would succeed in bringing him." And
her glance, gentle, and smiling welcome upon him, indicated Andre-Louis.
The young man made answer with formal gallantry.
"The memory of you, madame, is too deeply imprinted on my heart for any
persuasions to have been necessary."
"Ah, the courtier!" said madame, and abandoned him her hand. "We are to
have a little talk, Andre-Louis," she informed him, with a gravity that left
him vaguely ill at ease.
They sat down, and for a while the conversation was of general matters,
chiefly concerned, however, with Andre-Louis, his occupations and his views.
And all the while madame was studying him attentively with those gentle,
wistful eyes, until again that sense of uneasiness began to pervade him. He
realized instinctively that he had been brought here for some purpose deeper
than that which had been avowed.
At last, as if the thing were concerted - and the clumsy Lord of
Gavrillac was the last man in the world to cover his tracks - his godfather
rose and, upon a pretext of desiring to survey the garden, sauntered through
the windows on to the terrace, over whose white stone balustrade the
geraniums trailed in a scarlet riot. Thence he vanished among the foliage
below.
"Now we can talk more intimately," said madame. "Come here, and sit
beside me." She indicated the empty half of the settee she occupied.
Andre-Louis went obediently, but a little uncomfortably. "You know,"
she said gently, placing a hand upon his arm, "that you have behaved very
ill, that your godfather's resentment is very justly founded?"
"Madame, if I knew that, I should be the most unhappy, the most
despairing of men.". And he explained himself, as he had explained himself
on Sunday to his godfather. "What I did, I did because it was the only means
to my hand in a country in which justice was paralyzed by Privilege to make
war upon an infamous scoundrel who had killed my best friend - a wanton,
brutal act of murder, which there was no law to punish. And as if that were
not enough - forgive me if I speak with the utmost frankness, madame - he
afterwards debauched the woman I was to have married."
"Ah, mon Dieu!" she cried out.
"Forgive me. I know that it is horrible. You perceive, perhaps, what I
suffered, how I came to be driven. That last affair of which I am guilty -
the riot that began in the Feydau Theatre and afterwards enveloped the whole
city of Nantes - was provoked by this."
"Who was she, this girl?"
It was like a woman, he thought, to fasten upon the unessential.
"Oh, a theatre girl, a poor fool of whom I have no regrets. La Binet
was her name. I was a player at the time in her father's troupe. That was
after the Rennes business, when it was necessary to hide from such justice
as exists in France - the gallows' justice for unfortunates who are not
'born.' This added wrong led me to provoke a riot in the theatre."
"Poor boy," she said tenderly. "Only a woman's heart can realize what
you must have suffered; and because of that I can so readily forgive you.
But now... "
"Ah, but you don't understand, madame. If to-day I thought that I had
none but personal grounds for having lent a hand in the holy work of
abolishing Privilege, I think I should cut my throat. My true justification
lies in the insincerity of those who intended that the convocation of the
States General should be a sham, mere dust in the eyes of the nation."
"Was it not, perhaps, wise to have been insincere in such a matter?"
He looked at her blankly.
"Can it ever be wise, madame, to be insincere?"
"Oh, indeed it can; believe me, who am twice your age, and know my
world."
"I should say, madame, that nothing is wise that complicates existence;
and I know of nothing that so complicates it as insincerity. Consider a
moment the complications that have arisen out of this."
"But surely, Andre-Louis, your views have not been so perverted that
you do not see that a governing class is a necessity in any country?"
"Why, of course. But not necessarily a hereditary one."
"What else?"
He answered her with an epigram. "Man, madame, is the child of his own
work. Let there be no inheriting of rights but from such a parent. Thus a
nation's best will always predominate, and such a nation will achieve
greatly."
"But do you account birth of no importance?"
"Of none, madame - or else my own might trouble me." From the deep
flush that stained her face, he feared that he had offended by what was
almost an indelicacy. But the reproof that he was expecting did not come.
Instead -
"And does it not?" she asked. "Never, Andre?"
"Never, madame. I am content."
"You have never.., never regretted your lack of parents' care?"
He laughed, sweeping aside her sweet charitable concern that was so
superfluous. "On the contrary, madame, I tremble to think what they might
have made of me, and I am grateful to have had the fashioning of myself."
She looked at him for a moment very sadly, and then, smiling, gently
shook her head.
"You do not want self-satisfaction... Yet I could wish that you saw
things differently, Andre. It is a moment of great opportunities for a young
man of talent and spirit. I could help you; I could help you, perhaps, to go
very far if you would permit yourself to be helped after my fashion."
"Yes," he thought, "help me to a halter by sending me on treasonable
missions to Austria on the Queen's behalf, like M. de Plougastel. That would
certainly end in a high position for me."
Aloud he answered more as politeness prompted. "I am grateful, madame.
But you will see that, holding the ideals I have expressed, I could not
serve any cause that is opposed to their realization."
"You are misled by prejudice, Andre-Louis, by personal grievances. Will
you allow them to stand in the way of your advancement?"
"If what I call ideals were really prejudices, would it be honest of me
to run counter to them whilst holding them?"
"If I could convince you that you are mistaken! I could help you so
much to find a worthy employment for the talents you possess. In the service
of the King you would prosper quickly. Will you think of it, Andre-Louis,
and let us talk of this again?"
He answered her with formal, chill politeness.
"I fear that it would be idle, madame. Yet your interest in me is very
flattering, and I thank you. It is unfortunate for me that I am so
headstrong."
"And now who deals in insincerity?" she asked him.
"Ah, but you see, madame, it is an insincerity that does not mislead."
And then M. de Kercadiou came in through the window again, and
announced fussily that he must be getting back to Meudon, and that he would
take his godson with him and set him down at the Rue du Hasard.
"You must bring him again, Quintin," the Countess said, as they took
their leave of her.
"Some day, perhaps,"said M. de Kercadiou vaguely, and swept his godson
out.
In the carriage he asked him bluntly of what madame had talked.
"She was very kind - a sweet woman," said Andre-Louis pensively.
"Devil take you, I didn't ask you the opinion that you presume to have
formed of her. I asked you what she said to you.
"She strove to point out to me the error of my ways. She spoke of great
things that I might do - to which she would very kindly help me - if I were
to come to my senses. But as miracles do not happen, I gave her little
encouragement to hope."
"I see. I see. Did she say anything else?"
He was so peremptory that Andre-Louis turned to look at him.
"What else did you expect her to say, monsieur my godfather?"
"Oh, nothing."
"Then she fulfilled your expectations."
"Eh? Oh, a thousand devils, why can't you express yourself in a
sensible manner that a plain man can understand without having to think
about it?"
He sulked after that most of the way to the Rue du Hasard, or so it
seemed to Andre-Louis. At least he sat silent, gloomily thoughtful to judge
by his expression.
"You may come and see us soon again at Meudon," he told Andre-Louis at
parting. "But please remember - no revolutionary politics in future, if we
are to remain friends."
One morning in August the academy in the Rue du Hasard was invaded by
Le Chapelier accompanied by a man of remarkable appearance, whose herculean
stature and disfigured countenance seemed vaguely familiar to Andre-Louis.
He was a man of little, if anything, over thirty, with small bright eyes
buried in an enormous face. His cheek-bones were prominent, his nose awry,
as if it had been broken by a blow, and his mouth was rendered almost
shapeless by the scars of another injury. (A bull had horned him in the face
when he was but a lad.) As if that were not enough to render his appearance
terrible, his cheeks were deeply pock-marked. He was dressed untidily in a
long scarlet coat that descended almost to his ankles, soiled buckskin
breeches and boots with reversed tops. His shirt, none too clean, was open
at the throat, the collar hanging limply over an unknotted cravat,
displaying fully the muscular neck that rose like a pillar from his massive
shoulders. He swung a cane that was almost a club in his left hand, and
there was a cockade in his biscuit-coloured, conical hat. He carried himself
with an aggressive, masterful air, that great head of his thrown back as if
he were eternally at defiance.
Le Chapelier, whose manner was very grave, named him to Andre-Louis.
"This is M. Danton, a brother-lawyer, President of the Cordeliers, of
whom you will have heard."
Of course Andre-Louis had heard of him. Who had not, by then?
Looking at him now with interest, Andre-Louis wondered how it came that
all, or nearly all the leading innovators, were pock-marked. Mirabeau, the
journalist Desmoulins, the philanthropist Marat, Robespierre the little
lawyer from Arras, this formidable fellow Danton, and several others he
could call to mind all bore upon them the scars of smallpox. Almost he began
to wonder was there any connection between the two. Did an attack of
smallpox produce certain moral results which found expression in this way?
He dismissed the idle speculation, or rather it was shattered by the
startling thunder of Danton's voice.
"This -- Chapelier has told me of you. He says that you are a patriotic
-- ."
More than by the tone was Andre-Louis startled by the obscenities with
which the Colossus did not hesitate to interlard his first speech to a total
stranger. He laughed outright. There was nothing else to do.
"If he has told you that, he has told you more than the truth! I am a
patriot. The rest my modesty compels me to disavow."
"You're a joker too, it seems," roared the other, but he laughed
nevertheless, and the volume of it shook the windows. "There's no offence in
me. I am like that."
"What a pity," said Andre-Louis.
It disconcerted the king of the markets. "Eh? what's this, Chapelier?
Does he give himself airs, your friend here?"
The spruce Breton, a very petit-maitre in appearance by contrast with
his companion, but nevertheless of a down-right manner quite equal to
Danton's in brutality, though dispensing with the emphasis of foulness,
shrugged as he answered him:
"It is merely that he doesn't like your manners, which is not at all
surprising. They are execrable."
"Ah, bah! You are all like that, you - Bretons. Let's come to business.
You'll have heard what took place in the Assembly yesterday? You haven't? My
God, where do you live? Have you heard that this scoundrel who calls himself
King of France gave passage across French soil the other day to Austrian
troops going to crush those who fight for liberty in Belgium? Have you heard
that, by any chance?"
"Yes," said Andre-Louis coldly, masking his irritation before the
other's hectoring manner. "I have heard that."
"Oh! And what do you think of it?" arms akimbo, the Colossus towered
above him.
Andre-Louis turned aside to Le Chapelier.
"I don't think I understand. Have you brought this gentleman here to
examine my conscience?"
"Name of a name! He 's prickly as a - porcupine!" Danton protested.
"No, no." Le Chapelier was conciliatory, seeking to provide an antidote
to the irritant administered by his companion. "We require your help, Andre.
Danton here thinks that you are the very man for us. Listen now... "
"That's it. You tell him," Danton agreed. "You both talk the same
mincing - sort of French. He'll probably understand you."
Le Chapelier went on without heeding the interruption. "This violation
by the King of the obvious rights of a country engaged in framing a
constitution that shall make it free has shattered every philanthropic
illusion we still cherished. There are those who go so far as to proclaim
the King the vowed enemy of France. But that, of course, is excessive.
"Who says so?" blazed Danton, and swore horribly by way of conveying
his total disagreement.
Le Chapelier waved him into silence, and proceeded.
"Anyhow, the matter has been more than enough, added to all the rest,
to set us by the ears again in the Assembly. It is open war between the
Third Estate and the Privileged."
"Was it ever anything else?"
"Perhaps not; but it has assumed a new character. You'll have heard of
the duel between Lameth and the Duc de Castries?"
"A trifling affair."
"In its results. But it might have been far other. Mirabeau is
challenged and insulted now at every sitting. But he goes his way,
cold-bloodedly wise. Others are not so circumspect; they meet insult with
insult, blow with blow, and blood is being shed in private duels. The thing
is reduced by these swordsmen of the nobility to a system."
Andre-Louis nodded. He was thinking of Philippe de Vilmorin. "Yes," he
said, "it is an old trick of theirs. It is so simple and direct - like
themselves. I wonder only that they didn't hit upon this system sooner. In
the early days of the States General, at Versailles, it might have had a
better effect. Now, it comes a little late."
"But they mean to make up for lost time - sacred name!" cried Danton.
"Challenges are flying right and left between these bully-swordsmen, these
spadassinicides, and poor devils of the robe who have never learnt to fence
with anything but a quill. It's just -- murder. Yet if I were to go amongst
messieurs les nobles and crunch an addled head or two with this stick of
mine, snap a few aristocratic necks between these fingers which the good God
has given me for the purpose, the law would send me to atone upon the
gallows. This in a land that is striving after liberty. Why, Dieu me damne!
I am not even allowed to keep my hat on in the theatre. But they - these
--s!"
"He is right," said Le Chapelier. "The thing has become unendurable,
insufferable. Two days ago M. d'Ambly threatened Mirabeau with his cane
before the whole Assembly. Yesterday M. de Faussigny leapt up and harangued
his order by inviting murder. 'Why don't we fall on these scoundrels, sword
in hand?' he asked. Those were his very words: 'Why don't we fall on these
scoundrels, sword in hand.'"
"It is so much simpler than lawmaking," said Andre-Louis.
"Lagron, the deputy from Ancenis in the Loire, said something that we
did not hear in answer. As he was leaving the Manege one of these bullies
grossly insulted him. Lagron no more than used his elbow to push past when
the fellow cried out that he had been struck, and issued his challenge. They
fought this morning early in the Champs Elysees, and Lagron was killed, run
through the stomach deliberately by a man who fought like a fencing-master,
and poor Lagron did not even own a sword. He had to borrow one to go to the
assignation."
Andre-Louis - his mind ever on Vilmorin, whose case was here repeated,
even to the details - was swept by a gust of passion. He clenched his hands,
and his jaws set. Danton's little eyes observed him keenly.
"Well? And what do you think of that? Noblesse oblige, eh? The thing is
we must oblige them too, these --s. We must pay them back in the same coin;
meet them with the same weapons. Abolish them; tumble these assassinateurs
into the abyss of nothingness by the same means.
"But how?"
"How? Name of God! haven't I said it?"
"That is where we require your help," Le Chapelier put in. "There must
be men of patriotic feeling among the more advanced of your pupils. M.
Danton's idea is that a little band of these - say a half-dozen, with
yourself at their head - might read these bullies a sharp lesson."
Andre-Louis frowned.
"And how, precisely, had M. Danton thought that this might be done?"
M. Danton spoke for himself, vehemently.
"Why, thus: We post you in the Manege, at the hour when the Assembly is
rising. We point out the six leading phlebotomists, and let you loose to
insult them before they have time to insult any of the representatives. Then
to-morrow morning, six -- phlebotomists themselves phlebotomized secundum
artem. That will give the others something to think about. It will give them
a great deal to think about, by --! If necessary the dose may be repeated to
ensure a cure. If you kill the --s, so much the better."
He paused, his sallow face flushed with the enthusiasm of his idea.
Andre-Louis stared at him inscrutably.
"Well, what do you say to that?"
"That it is most ingenious." And Andre-Louis turned aside to look out
of the window.
"And is that all you think of it?"
"I will not tell you what else I think of it because you probably would
not understand. For you, M. Danton, there is at least this excuse that you
did not know me. But you, Isaac - to bring this gentleman here with such a
proposal!"
Le Chapelier was overwhelmed in confusion. "I confess I hesitated," he
apologized. "But M. Danton would not take my word for it that the proposal
might not be to your taste."
"I would not!" Danton broke in, bellowing. He swung upon Le Chapelier,
brandishing his great arms. "You told me monsieur was a patriot. Patriotism
knows no scruples. You call this mincing dancing-master a patriot?"
"Would you, monsieur, out of patriotism consent to become an assassin?"
"Of course I would. haven't I told you so? haven't I told you that I
would gladly go among them with my club, and crack them like so many -
fleas?"
"Why not, then?"
"Why not? Because I should get myself hanged. Haven't I said so?"
"But what of that-being a patriot? Why not, like another Curtius, jump
into the gulf, since you believe that your country would benefit by your
death?"
M. Danton showed signs of exasperation. "Because my country will
benefit more by my life."
"Permit me, monsieur, to suffer from a similar vanity."
"You? But where would be the danger to you? You would do your work
under the cloak of duelling - as they do."
"Have you reflected, monsieur, that the law will hardly regard a
fencing-master who kills his opponent as an ordinary combatant, particularly
if it can be shown that the fencing-master himself provoked the attack?"
"So! Name of a name!" M. Danton blew out his cheeks and delivered
himself with withering scorn. "It comes to this, then: you are afraid!"
"You may think so if you choose - that I am afraid to do slyly and
treacherously that which a thrasonical patriot like yourself is afraid of
doing frankly and openly. I have other reasons. But that one should suffice
you."
Danton gasped. Then he swore more amazingly and variedly than ever.
"By --! you are right," he admitted, to Andre-Louis' amazement. "You
are right, and I am wrong. I am as bad a patriot as you are, and I am a
coward as well." And he invoked the whole Pantheon to witness his
self-denunciation. "Only, you see, I count for something: and if they take
me and hang me, why, there it is! Monsieur, we must find some other way.
Forgive the intrusion. Adieu!" He held out his enormous hand..
Le Chapelier stood hesitating, crestfallen.
"You understand, Andre? I am sorry that... "
"Say no more, please. Come and see me soon again. I would press you to
remain, but it is striking nine, and the first of my pupils is about to
arrive."
"Nor would I permit it,". said Danton. "Between us we must resolve the
riddle of how to extinguish M. de La Tour d'Azyr and his friends."
"Who?"
Sharp as a pistol-shot came that question, as Danton was turning away.
The tone of it brought him up short. He turned again, Le Chapelier with him.
"I said M. de La Tour d'Azyr."
"What has he to do with the proposal you were making me?"
"He? Why, he is the phlebotomist in chief."
And Le Chapelier added. "It is he who killed Lagron."
"Not a friend of yours, is he?" wondered Danton.
"And it is La Tour d'Azyr you desire me to kill?" asked Andre-Louis
very slowly, after the manner of one whose thoughts are meanwhile pondering
the subject.
"That's it," said Danton. "And not a job for a prentice hand, I can
assure you.
"Ah, but this alters things," said Andre-Louis, thinking aloud. "It
offers a great temptation."
"Why, then... ?" The Colossus took a step towards him again.
"Wait!" He put up his hand. Then with chin sunk on his breast, he paced
away to the window, musing.
Le Chapelier and Danton exchanged glances, then watched him, waiting,
what time he considered.
At first he almost wondered why he should not of his own accord have
decided upon some such course as this to settle that long-standing account
of M. de La Tour d'Azyr. What was the use of this great skill in fence that
he had come to acquire, unless he could turn it to account to avenge
Vilmorin, and to make Aline safe from the lure of her own ambition? It would
be an easy thing to seek out La Tour d'Azyr, put a mortal affront upon him,
and thus bring him to the point. To-day this would be murder, murder as
treacherous as that which La Tour d'Azyr had done upon Philippe de Vilmorin;
for to-day the old positions were reversed, and it was Andre-Louis who might
go to such an assignation without a doubt of the issue. It was a moral
obstacle of which he made short work. But there remained the legal obstacle
he had expounded to Danton. There was still a law in France; the same law
which he had found it impossible to move against La Tour d'Azyr, but which
would move briskly enough against himself in like case. And then, suddenly,
as if by inspiration, he saw the way - a way which if adopted would probably
bring La Tour d'Azyr to a poetic justice, bring him, insolent, confident, to
thrust himself upon Andre-Louis' sword, with all the odium of provocation on
his own side.
He turned to them again, and they saw that he was very pale, that his
great dark eyes glowed oddly.
"There will probably be some difficulty in finding a suppleant for this
poor Lagron," he said. "Our fellow-countrymen will be none so eager to offer
themselves to the swords of Privilege.
"True enough," said Le Chapelier gloomily; and then, as if suddenly
leaping to the thing in Andre-Louis' mind: "Andre!" he cried. "Would you...
"
"It is what I was considering. It would give me a legitimate place in
the Assembly. If your Tour d'Azyrs choose to seek me out then, why, their
blood be upon their own heads. I shall certainly do nothing to discourage
them." He smiled curiously. "I am just a rascal who tries to be honest -
Scaramouche always, in fact; a creature of sophistries. Do you think that
Ancenis would have me for its representative?"
"Will it have Omnes Omnibus for its representative?" Le Chapelier was
laughing, his countenance eager. "Ancenis will be convulsed with pride. It
is not Rennes or Nantes, as it might have been had you wished it. But it
gives you a voice for Brittany."
"I should have to go to Ancenis... "
"No need at all. A letter from me to the Municipality, and the
Municipality will confirm you at once. No need to move from here. In a
fortnight at most the thing can be accomplished. It is settled, then?"
Andre-Louis considered yet a moment. There was his academy. But he
could make arrangements with Le Duc and Galoche to carry it on for him
whilst himself directing and advising. Le Duc, after all, was become a
thoroughly efficient master, and he was a trustworthy fellow. At need a
third assistant could be engaged.
"Be it so," he said at last.
Le Chapelier clasped hands with him and became congratulatorily
voluble, until interrupted by the red-coated giant at the door.
"What exactly does it mean to our business, anyway?" he asked. "Does it
mean that when you are a representative you will not scruple to skewer M. le
Marquis?"
"If M. le Marquis should offer himself to be skewered, as he no doubt
will."
"I perceive the distinction," said M. Danton, and sneered. "You've an
ingenious mind." He turned to Le Chapelier. "What did you say he was to
begin with - a lawyer, wasn't it?"
"Yes, I was a lawyer, and afterwards a mountebank."
"And this is the result!"
"As you say. And do you know that we are after all not so dissimilar,
you and I?"
"What?"
"Once like you I went about inciting other people to go and kill the
man I wanted dead. You'll say I was a coward, of course."
Le Chapelier prepared to slip between them as the clouds gathered on
the giant's brow. Then these were dispelled again, and the great laugh
vibrated through the long room.
"You've touched me for the second time, and in the same place. Oh, you
can fence, my lad. We should be friends. Rue des Cordeliers is my address.
Any - scoundrel will tell you where Danton lodges. Desmoulins lives
underneath. Come and visit us one evening. There's always a bottle for a
friend."
After an absence of rather more than a week, M. le Marquis de La Tour
d'Azyr was back in his place on the Cote Droit of the National Assembly.
Properly speaking, we should already at this date allude to him as the
ci-devant Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr, for the time was September of 1790, two
months after the passing - on the motion of that downright Breton leveller,
Le Chapelier - of the decree that nobility should no more be hereditary than
infamy; that just as the brand of the gallows must not defile the possibly
worthy descendants of one who had been convicted of evil, neither should the
blazon advertising achievement glorify the possibly unworthy descendants of
one who had proved himself good. And so the decree had been passed
abolishing hereditary nobility and consigning family escutcheons to the
rubbish-heap of things no longer to be tolerated by an enlightened
generation of philosophers. M. le Comte de Lafayette, who had supported the
motion, left the Assembly as plain M. Motier, the great tribune Count
Mirabeau became plain M. Riquetti, and M. le Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr just
simple M. Lesarques. The thing was done in one of those exaltations produced
by the approach of the great National Festival of the Champ de Mars, and no
doubt it was thoroughly repented on the morrow by those who had lent
themselves to it. Thus, although law by now, it was a law that no one
troubled just yet to enforce.
That, however, is by the way. The time, as I have said, was September,
the day dull and showery, and some of the damp and gloom of it seemed to
have penetrated the long Hall of the Manege, where on their eight rows of
green benches elliptically arranged in ascending tiers about the space known
as La Piste, sat some eight or nine hundred of the representatives of the
three orders that composed the nation.
The matter under debate by. the constitution-builders was whether the
deliberating body to succeed the Constituent Assembly should work in
conjunction with the King, whether it should be periodic or permanent,
whether it should govern by two chambers or by one.
The Abbe Maury, son of a cobbler, and therefore in these days of
antitheses orator-in-chief of the party of the Right - the Blacks, as those
who fought Privilege's losing battles were known - was in the tribune. He
appeared to be urging the adoption of a two-chambers system framed on the
English model. He was, if anything, more long-winded and prosy even than his
habit; his arguments assumed more and more the form of a sermon; the tribune
of the National Assembly became more and more like a pulpit; but the
members, conversely, less and less like a congregation. They grew restive
under that steady flow of pompous verbiage, and it was in vain that the four
ushers in black satin breeches and carefully powdered heads, chain of office
on their breasts, gilded sword at their sides, circulated in the Piste,
clapping their hands, and hissing
"Silence! En place!"
Equally vain was the intermittent ringing of the bell by the president
at his green-covered table facing the tribune. The Abbe Maury had talked too
d'Azyr again! And then they pressed this explanation upon me. For a long
time I would not believe it."
"So that you believe it now," said Andre quickly. "Why?"
"I have not said that I believe it now. But... but... neither can I
disbelieve. Since we came to Meudon M. de La Tour d'Azyr has been here, and
himself he has sworn to me that it was so."
"Oh, if M. de La Tour d'Azyr has sworn... " Andre-Louis was laughing on
a bitter note of sarcasm.
"Have you ever known him lie?" she cut in sharply. That checked him.
"M. de La Tour d'Azyr is, after all, a man of honour, and men of honour
never deal in falsehood. Have you ever known him do so, that you should
sneer as you have done?"
"No," he confessed. Common justice demanded that he should admit that
virtue at least in his enemy. "I have not known him lie, it is true. His
kind is too arrogant, too self-confident to have recourse to untruth. But I
have known him do things as vile... "
"Nothing is as vile," she interrupted, speaking from the code by which
she had been reared. "It is for liars only - who are first cousin to thieves
- that there is no hope. It is in falsehood only that there is real loss of
honour."
"You are defending that satyr, I think," he said frostily.
"I desire to be just."
"Justice may seem to you a different matter when at last you shall have
resolved yourself to become Marquise de La Tour d'Azyr." He spoke bitterly.
"I don't think that I shall ever take that resolve."
"But you are still not sure - in spite of everything."
"Can one ever be sure of anything in this world?"
"Yes. One can be sure of being foolish."
Either she did not hear or did not heed him.
"You do not of your own knowledge know that it was not as M. de La Tour
d'Azyr asserts - that he went to the Feydau that night?"
"I don't," he admitted. "It is of course possible. But does it matter?"
"It might matter. Tell me; what became of La Binet after all?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?" She turned to consider him. "And you can say it with
that indifference! I thought... I thought you loved her, Andre"
"So did I, for a little while. I was mistaken. It required a La Tour
d'Azyr to disclose the truth to me. They have their uses, these gentlemen.
They help stupid fellows like myself to perceive important truths. I was
fortunate that revelation in my case preceded marriage. I can now look back
upon the episode with equanimity and thankfulness for my near escape from
the consequences of what was no more than an aberration of the senses. It is
a thing commonly confused with love. The experience, as you see, was very
instructive."
She looked at him in frank surprise.
"Do you know, Andre, I sometimes think that you have no heart."
"Presumably because I sometimes betray intelligence. And what of
yourself, Aline? What of your own attitude from the outset where M. de La
Tour d'Azyr is concerned? Does that show heart? If I were to tell you what
it really shows, we should end by quarrelling again, and God knows I can't
afford to quarrel with you now. I... I shall take another way.
"What do you mean?"
"Why, nothing at the moment, for you are not in any danger of marrying
that animal."
"And if I were?"
"Ah! In that case affection for you would discover to me some means of
preventing it - unless.. ." He paused.
"Unless?" she demanded, challengingly, drawn to the full of her sort
height, her eyes imperious.
"Unless you could also tell me that you loved him," said he simply,
whereat she was as suddenly and most oddly softened. And then he added,
shaking his head: "But that of course is impossible."
"Why?" she asked him, quite gently now.
"Because you are what you are, Aline - utterly good and pure and
adorable. Angels do not mate with devils. His wife you might become, but
never his mate, Aline - never."
They had reached the wrought-iron gates at the end of the avenue.
Through these they beheld the waiting yellow chaise which had brought
Andre-Louis. From near at hand came the creak of other wheels, the beat of
other hooves, and now another vehicle came in sight, and drew to a
stand-still beside the yellow chaise - a handsome equipage with polished
mahogany panels on which the gold and azure of armorial bearings flashed
brilliantly in the sunlight. A footman swung to earth to throw wide the
gates; but in that moment the lady who occupied the carriage, perceiving
Aline, waved to her and issued a command.
The postilion drew rein, and the footman opened the door, letting down
the steps and proffering his arm to his mistress to assist her to alight,
since that was the wish she had expressed. Then he opened one wing of the
iron gates, and held it for her. She was a woman of something more than
forty, who once must have been very lovely, who was very lovely still with
the refining quality that age brings to some women. Her dress and carriage
alike advertised great rank.
"I take my leave here, since you have a visitor," said Andre-Louis.
"But it is an old acquaintance of your own, Andre. You remember Mme. la
Comtesse de Plougastel?"
He looked at the approaching lady, whom Aline was now hastening forward
to meet, and because she was named to him he recognized her. He must, he
thought, had he but looked, have recognized her without prompting anywhere
at any time, and this although it was some sixteen years since last he had
seen her. The sight of her now brought it all back to him - a treasured
memory that had never permitted itself to be entirely overlaid by subsequent
events.
When he was a boy of ten, on the eve of being sent to school at Rennes,
she had come on a visit to his godfather, who was her cousin. It happened
that at the time he was taken by Rabouillet to the Manor of Gavrillac, and
there he had been presented to Mme. de Plougastel. The great lady, in all
the glory then of her youthful beauty, with her gentle, cultured voice - so
cultured that she had seemed to speak a language almost unknown to the
little Breton lad - and her majestic air of the great world, had scared him
a little at first. Very gently had she allayed those fears of his, and by
some mysterious enchantment she had completely enslaved his regard. He
recalled now the terror in which he had gone to the embrace to which he was
bidden, and the subsequent reluctance with which he had left those soft
round arms. He remembered, too, how sweetly she had smelled and the very
perfume she had used, a perfume as of lilac - for memory is singularly
tenacious in these matters.
For three days whilst she had been at Gavrillac, he had gone daily to
the manor, and so had spent hours in her company. A childless woman with the
maternal instinct strong within her, she had taken this precociously
intelligent, wide-eyed lad to her heart.
"Give him to me, Cousin Quintin," he remembered her saying on the last
of those days to his godfather. "Let me take him back with me to Versailles
as my adopted child."
But the Seigneur had gravely shaken his head in silent refusal, and
there had been no further question of such a thing. And then, when she said
good-bye to him - the thing came flooding back to him now
- there had been tears in her eyes.
"Think of me sometimes, Andre-Louis," had been her last words.
He remembered how flattered he had been to have won within so short a
time the affection of this great lady. The thing had given him a sense of
importance that had endured for months thereafter, finally to fade into
oblivion.
But all was vividly remembered now upon beholding her again, after
sixteen years, profoundly changed and matured, the girl - for she had been
no more in those old days - sunk in this worldly woman with the air of calm
dignity and complete self-possession. Yet, he insisted, he must have known
her anywhere again.
Aline embraced her affectionately, and then answering the questioning
glance with faintly raised eyebrows that madame was directing towards
Aline's companion -
"This is Andre-Louis," she said. "You remember Andre-Louis, madame?"
Madame checked. Andre-Louis saw the surprise ripple over her face,
taking with it some of her colour, leaving her for a moment breathless.
And then the voice - the well-remembered rich, musical voice - richer
and deeper now than of yore, repeated his name:
"Andre-Louis!"
Her manner of uttering it suggested that it awakened memories, memories
perhaps of the departed youth with which it was associated. And she paused a
long moment, considering him, a little wide-eyed, what time he bowed before
her.
"But of course I remember him," she said at last, and came towards him,
putting out her hand. He kissed it dutifully, submissively, instinctively.
"And this is what you have grown into?" She appraised him, and he flushed
with pride at the satisfaction in her tone. He seemed to have gone back
sixteen years, and to be again the little Breton lad at Gavrillac. She
turned to Aline. "How mistaken Quintin was in his assumptions. He was
pleased to see him again, was he not?"
"So pleased, madame, that he has shown me the door," said Andre-Louis.
"Ah!" She frowned, conning him still with those dark, wistful eyes of
hers. "We must change that, Aline. He is of course very angry with you. But
it is not the way to make converts. I will plead for you, Andre-Louis. I am
a good advocate."
He thanked her and took his leave.
"I leave my case in your hands with gratitude. My homage, madame."
And so it happened that in spite of his godfather's forbidding
reception of him, the fragment of a song was on his lips as his yellow
chaise whirled him back to Paris and the Rue du Hasard. That meeting with
Mme. de Plougastel had enheartened him; her promise to plead his case in
alliance with Aline gave him assurance that all would be well.
That he was justified of this was proved when on the following Thursday
towards noon his academy was invaded by M. de Kercadiou. Gilles, the boy,
brought him word of it, and breaking off at once the lesson upon which he
was engaged, he pulled off his mask, and went as he was - in a chamois
Waistcoat buttoned to the chin and with his foil under his arm to the modest
salon below, where his godfather awaited him.
The florid little Lord of Gavrillac stood almost defiantly to receive
him.
"I have been over-persuaded to forgive you," he announced aggressively,
seeming thereby to imply that he consented to this merely so as to put an
end to tiresome importunities.
Andre-Louis was not misled. He detected a pretence adopted by the
Seigneur so as to enable him to retreat in good order.
"My blessings on the persuaders, whoever they may have been. You
restore me my happiness, monsieur my godfather."
He took the hand that was proffered and kissed it, yielding to the
impulse of the unfailing habit of his boyish days. It was an act symbolical
of his complete submission, reestablishing between himself and his godfather
the bond of protected and protector, with all the mutual claims and duties
that it carries. No mere words could more completely have made his peace
with this man who loved him.
M. de Kercadiou's face flushed a deeper pink, his lip trembled, and
there was a huskiness in the voice that murmured "My dear boy!" Then he
recollected himself, threw back his great head and frowned. His voice
resumed its habitual shrillness. "You realize, I hope, that you have behaved
damnably... damnably, and with the utmost ingratitude?"
"Does not that depend upon the point of view?" quoth Andre-Louis, but
his tone was studiously conciliatory.
"It depends upon a fact, and not upon any point of view. Since I have
been persuaded to overlook it, I trust that at least you have some intention
of reforming."
"I... I will abstain from politics," said Andre-Louis, that being the
utmost he could say with truth.
"That is something, at least." His godfather permitted himself to be
mollified, now that a concession - or a seeming concession - had been made
to his just resentment.
"A chair, monsieur."
"No, no. I have come to carry you off to pay a visit with me. You owe
it entirely to Mme. de Plougastel that I consent to receive you again. I
desire that you come with me to thank her."
"I have my engagements here... " began Andre-Louis, and then broke off.
"No matter! I will arrange it. A moment." And he was turning away to reenter
the academy.
"What are your engagements? You are not by chance a
fencing-instructor?" M. de Kercadiou had observed the leather waistcoat and
the foil tucked under Andre-Louis' arm.
"I am the master of this academy - the academy of the late Bertrand des
Amis, the most flourishing school of arms in Paris to-day."
M. de Kercadiou's brows went up.
"And you are master of it?"
"Maitre en fait d'Armes. I succeeded to the academy upon the death of
des Amis."
He left M. Kercadiou to think it over, and went to make his
arrangements and effect the necessary changes in his toilet.
"So that is why you have taken to wearing a sword," said M. de
Kercadiou, as they climbed into his waiting carriage.
"That and the need to guard one's self in these times."
"And do you mean to tell me that a man who lives by what is after all
an honourable profession, a profession mainly supported by the nobility, can
at the same time associate himself with these peddling attorneys and low
pamphleteers who are spreading dissension and insubordination?"
"You forget that I am a peddling attorney myself, made so by your own
wishes, monsieur."
M. de Kercadiou grunted, and took snuff. "You say the academy
flourishes?" he asked presently.
"It does. I have two assistant instructors. I could employ a third. It
is hard work."
"That should mean that your circumstances are affluent."
"I have reason to be satisfied. I have far more than I need."
"Then you'll be able to do your share in paying off this national
debt," growled the nobleman, well content that as he conceived it
- some of the evil Andre-Louis had helped to sow should recoil upon
him.
Then the talk veered to Mme. de Plougastel. M. de Kercadiou,
Andre-Louis gathered, but not the reason for it, disapproved most strongly
of this visit. But then Madame la Comtesse was a headstrong woman whom there
was no denying, whom all the world obeyed. M. de Plougastel was at present
absent in Germany, but would shortly be returning. It was an indiscreet
admission from which it was easy to infer that M. de Plougastel was one of
those intriguing emissaries who came and went between the Queen of France
and her brother, the Emperor of Austria.
The carriage drew up before a handsome hotel in the Faubourg
Saint-Denis, at the corner of the Rue Paradis, and they were ushered by a
sleek servant into a little boudoir, all gilt and brocade, that opened upon
a terrace above a garden that was a park in miniature. Here madame awaited
them. She rose, dismissing the young person who had been reading to her, and
came forward with both hands outheld to greet her cousin Kercadiou.
"I almost feared you would not keep your word," she said. "It was
unjust. But then I hardly hoped that you would succeed in bringing him." And
her glance, gentle, and smiling welcome upon him, indicated Andre-Louis.
The young man made answer with formal gallantry.
"The memory of you, madame, is too deeply imprinted on my heart for any
persuasions to have been necessary."
"Ah, the courtier!" said madame, and abandoned him her hand. "We are to
have a little talk, Andre-Louis," she informed him, with a gravity that left
him vaguely ill at ease.
They sat down, and for a while the conversation was of general matters,
chiefly concerned, however, with Andre-Louis, his occupations and his views.
And all the while madame was studying him attentively with those gentle,
wistful eyes, until again that sense of uneasiness began to pervade him. He
realized instinctively that he had been brought here for some purpose deeper
than that which had been avowed.
At last, as if the thing were concerted - and the clumsy Lord of
Gavrillac was the last man in the world to cover his tracks - his godfather
rose and, upon a pretext of desiring to survey the garden, sauntered through
the windows on to the terrace, over whose white stone balustrade the
geraniums trailed in a scarlet riot. Thence he vanished among the foliage
below.
"Now we can talk more intimately," said madame. "Come here, and sit
beside me." She indicated the empty half of the settee she occupied.
Andre-Louis went obediently, but a little uncomfortably. "You know,"
she said gently, placing a hand upon his arm, "that you have behaved very
ill, that your godfather's resentment is very justly founded?"
"Madame, if I knew that, I should be the most unhappy, the most
despairing of men.". And he explained himself, as he had explained himself
on Sunday to his godfather. "What I did, I did because it was the only means
to my hand in a country in which justice was paralyzed by Privilege to make
war upon an infamous scoundrel who had killed my best friend - a wanton,
brutal act of murder, which there was no law to punish. And as if that were
not enough - forgive me if I speak with the utmost frankness, madame - he
afterwards debauched the woman I was to have married."
"Ah, mon Dieu!" she cried out.
"Forgive me. I know that it is horrible. You perceive, perhaps, what I
suffered, how I came to be driven. That last affair of which I am guilty -
the riot that began in the Feydau Theatre and afterwards enveloped the whole
city of Nantes - was provoked by this."
"Who was she, this girl?"
It was like a woman, he thought, to fasten upon the unessential.
"Oh, a theatre girl, a poor fool of whom I have no regrets. La Binet
was her name. I was a player at the time in her father's troupe. That was
after the Rennes business, when it was necessary to hide from such justice
as exists in France - the gallows' justice for unfortunates who are not
'born.' This added wrong led me to provoke a riot in the theatre."
"Poor boy," she said tenderly. "Only a woman's heart can realize what
you must have suffered; and because of that I can so readily forgive you.
But now... "
"Ah, but you don't understand, madame. If to-day I thought that I had
none but personal grounds for having lent a hand in the holy work of
abolishing Privilege, I think I should cut my throat. My true justification
lies in the insincerity of those who intended that the convocation of the
States General should be a sham, mere dust in the eyes of the nation."
"Was it not, perhaps, wise to have been insincere in such a matter?"
He looked at her blankly.
"Can it ever be wise, madame, to be insincere?"
"Oh, indeed it can; believe me, who am twice your age, and know my
world."
"I should say, madame, that nothing is wise that complicates existence;
and I know of nothing that so complicates it as insincerity. Consider a
moment the complications that have arisen out of this."
"But surely, Andre-Louis, your views have not been so perverted that
you do not see that a governing class is a necessity in any country?"
"Why, of course. But not necessarily a hereditary one."
"What else?"
He answered her with an epigram. "Man, madame, is the child of his own
work. Let there be no inheriting of rights but from such a parent. Thus a
nation's best will always predominate, and such a nation will achieve
greatly."
"But do you account birth of no importance?"
"Of none, madame - or else my own might trouble me." From the deep
flush that stained her face, he feared that he had offended by what was
almost an indelicacy. But the reproof that he was expecting did not come.
Instead -
"And does it not?" she asked. "Never, Andre?"
"Never, madame. I am content."
"You have never.., never regretted your lack of parents' care?"
He laughed, sweeping aside her sweet charitable concern that was so
superfluous. "On the contrary, madame, I tremble to think what they might
have made of me, and I am grateful to have had the fashioning of myself."
She looked at him for a moment very sadly, and then, smiling, gently
shook her head.
"You do not want self-satisfaction... Yet I could wish that you saw
things differently, Andre. It is a moment of great opportunities for a young
man of talent and spirit. I could help you; I could help you, perhaps, to go
very far if you would permit yourself to be helped after my fashion."
"Yes," he thought, "help me to a halter by sending me on treasonable
missions to Austria on the Queen's behalf, like M. de Plougastel. That would
certainly end in a high position for me."
Aloud he answered more as politeness prompted. "I am grateful, madame.
But you will see that, holding the ideals I have expressed, I could not
serve any cause that is opposed to their realization."
"You are misled by prejudice, Andre-Louis, by personal grievances. Will
you allow them to stand in the way of your advancement?"
"If what I call ideals were really prejudices, would it be honest of me
to run counter to them whilst holding them?"
"If I could convince you that you are mistaken! I could help you so
much to find a worthy employment for the talents you possess. In the service
of the King you would prosper quickly. Will you think of it, Andre-Louis,
and let us talk of this again?"
He answered her with formal, chill politeness.
"I fear that it would be idle, madame. Yet your interest in me is very
flattering, and I thank you. It is unfortunate for me that I am so
headstrong."
"And now who deals in insincerity?" she asked him.
"Ah, but you see, madame, it is an insincerity that does not mislead."
And then M. de Kercadiou came in through the window again, and
announced fussily that he must be getting back to Meudon, and that he would
take his godson with him and set him down at the Rue du Hasard.
"You must bring him again, Quintin," the Countess said, as they took
their leave of her.
"Some day, perhaps,"said M. de Kercadiou vaguely, and swept his godson
out.
In the carriage he asked him bluntly of what madame had talked.
"She was very kind - a sweet woman," said Andre-Louis pensively.
"Devil take you, I didn't ask you the opinion that you presume to have
formed of her. I asked you what she said to you.
"She strove to point out to me the error of my ways. She spoke of great
things that I might do - to which she would very kindly help me - if I were
to come to my senses. But as miracles do not happen, I gave her little
encouragement to hope."
"I see. I see. Did she say anything else?"
He was so peremptory that Andre-Louis turned to look at him.
"What else did you expect her to say, monsieur my godfather?"
"Oh, nothing."
"Then she fulfilled your expectations."
"Eh? Oh, a thousand devils, why can't you express yourself in a
sensible manner that a plain man can understand without having to think
about it?"
He sulked after that most of the way to the Rue du Hasard, or so it
seemed to Andre-Louis. At least he sat silent, gloomily thoughtful to judge
by his expression.
"You may come and see us soon again at Meudon," he told Andre-Louis at
parting. "But please remember - no revolutionary politics in future, if we
are to remain friends."
One morning in August the academy in the Rue du Hasard was invaded by
Le Chapelier accompanied by a man of remarkable appearance, whose herculean
stature and disfigured countenance seemed vaguely familiar to Andre-Louis.
He was a man of little, if anything, over thirty, with small bright eyes
buried in an enormous face. His cheek-bones were prominent, his nose awry,
as if it had been broken by a blow, and his mouth was rendered almost
shapeless by the scars of another injury. (A bull had horned him in the face
when he was but a lad.) As if that were not enough to render his appearance
terrible, his cheeks were deeply pock-marked. He was dressed untidily in a
long scarlet coat that descended almost to his ankles, soiled buckskin
breeches and boots with reversed tops. His shirt, none too clean, was open
at the throat, the collar hanging limply over an unknotted cravat,
displaying fully the muscular neck that rose like a pillar from his massive
shoulders. He swung a cane that was almost a club in his left hand, and
there was a cockade in his biscuit-coloured, conical hat. He carried himself
with an aggressive, masterful air, that great head of his thrown back as if
he were eternally at defiance.
Le Chapelier, whose manner was very grave, named him to Andre-Louis.
"This is M. Danton, a brother-lawyer, President of the Cordeliers, of
whom you will have heard."
Of course Andre-Louis had heard of him. Who had not, by then?
Looking at him now with interest, Andre-Louis wondered how it came that
all, or nearly all the leading innovators, were pock-marked. Mirabeau, the
journalist Desmoulins, the philanthropist Marat, Robespierre the little
lawyer from Arras, this formidable fellow Danton, and several others he
could call to mind all bore upon them the scars of smallpox. Almost he began
to wonder was there any connection between the two. Did an attack of
smallpox produce certain moral results which found expression in this way?
He dismissed the idle speculation, or rather it was shattered by the
startling thunder of Danton's voice.
"This -- Chapelier has told me of you. He says that you are a patriotic
-- ."
More than by the tone was Andre-Louis startled by the obscenities with
which the Colossus did not hesitate to interlard his first speech to a total
stranger. He laughed outright. There was nothing else to do.
"If he has told you that, he has told you more than the truth! I am a
patriot. The rest my modesty compels me to disavow."
"You're a joker too, it seems," roared the other, but he laughed
nevertheless, and the volume of it shook the windows. "There's no offence in
me. I am like that."
"What a pity," said Andre-Louis.
It disconcerted the king of the markets. "Eh? what's this, Chapelier?
Does he give himself airs, your friend here?"
The spruce Breton, a very petit-maitre in appearance by contrast with
his companion, but nevertheless of a down-right manner quite equal to
Danton's in brutality, though dispensing with the emphasis of foulness,
shrugged as he answered him:
"It is merely that he doesn't like your manners, which is not at all
surprising. They are execrable."
"Ah, bah! You are all like that, you - Bretons. Let's come to business.
You'll have heard what took place in the Assembly yesterday? You haven't? My
God, where do you live? Have you heard that this scoundrel who calls himself
King of France gave passage across French soil the other day to Austrian
troops going to crush those who fight for liberty in Belgium? Have you heard
that, by any chance?"
"Yes," said Andre-Louis coldly, masking his irritation before the
other's hectoring manner. "I have heard that."
"Oh! And what do you think of it?" arms akimbo, the Colossus towered
above him.
Andre-Louis turned aside to Le Chapelier.
"I don't think I understand. Have you brought this gentleman here to
examine my conscience?"
"Name of a name! He 's prickly as a - porcupine!" Danton protested.
"No, no." Le Chapelier was conciliatory, seeking to provide an antidote
to the irritant administered by his companion. "We require your help, Andre.
Danton here thinks that you are the very man for us. Listen now... "
"That's it. You tell him," Danton agreed. "You both talk the same
mincing - sort of French. He'll probably understand you."
Le Chapelier went on without heeding the interruption. "This violation
by the King of the obvious rights of a country engaged in framing a
constitution that shall make it free has shattered every philanthropic
illusion we still cherished. There are those who go so far as to proclaim
the King the vowed enemy of France. But that, of course, is excessive.
"Who says so?" blazed Danton, and swore horribly by way of conveying
his total disagreement.
Le Chapelier waved him into silence, and proceeded.
"Anyhow, the matter has been more than enough, added to all the rest,
to set us by the ears again in the Assembly. It is open war between the
Third Estate and the Privileged."
"Was it ever anything else?"
"Perhaps not; but it has assumed a new character. You'll have heard of
the duel between Lameth and the Duc de Castries?"
"A trifling affair."
"In its results. But it might have been far other. Mirabeau is
challenged and insulted now at every sitting. But he goes his way,
cold-bloodedly wise. Others are not so circumspect; they meet insult with
insult, blow with blow, and blood is being shed in private duels. The thing
is reduced by these swordsmen of the nobility to a system."
Andre-Louis nodded. He was thinking of Philippe de Vilmorin. "Yes," he
said, "it is an old trick of theirs. It is so simple and direct - like
themselves. I wonder only that they didn't hit upon this system sooner. In
the early days of the States General, at Versailles, it might have had a
better effect. Now, it comes a little late."
"But they mean to make up for lost time - sacred name!" cried Danton.
"Challenges are flying right and left between these bully-swordsmen, these
spadassinicides, and poor devils of the robe who have never learnt to fence
with anything but a quill. It's just -- murder. Yet if I were to go amongst
messieurs les nobles and crunch an addled head or two with this stick of
mine, snap a few aristocratic necks between these fingers which the good God
has given me for the purpose, the law would send me to atone upon the
gallows. This in a land that is striving after liberty. Why, Dieu me damne!
I am not even allowed to keep my hat on in the theatre. But they - these
--s!"
"He is right," said Le Chapelier. "The thing has become unendurable,
insufferable. Two days ago M. d'Ambly threatened Mirabeau with his cane
before the whole Assembly. Yesterday M. de Faussigny leapt up and harangued
his order by inviting murder. 'Why don't we fall on these scoundrels, sword
in hand?' he asked. Those were his very words: 'Why don't we fall on these
scoundrels, sword in hand.'"
"It is so much simpler than lawmaking," said Andre-Louis.
"Lagron, the deputy from Ancenis in the Loire, said something that we
did not hear in answer. As he was leaving the Manege one of these bullies
grossly insulted him. Lagron no more than used his elbow to push past when
the fellow cried out that he had been struck, and issued his challenge. They
fought this morning early in the Champs Elysees, and Lagron was killed, run
through the stomach deliberately by a man who fought like a fencing-master,
and poor Lagron did not even own a sword. He had to borrow one to go to the
assignation."
Andre-Louis - his mind ever on Vilmorin, whose case was here repeated,
even to the details - was swept by a gust of passion. He clenched his hands,
and his jaws set. Danton's little eyes observed him keenly.
"Well? And what do you think of that? Noblesse oblige, eh? The thing is
we must oblige them too, these --s. We must pay them back in the same coin;
meet them with the same weapons. Abolish them; tumble these assassinateurs
into the abyss of nothingness by the same means.
"But how?"
"How? Name of God! haven't I said it?"
"That is where we require your help," Le Chapelier put in. "There must
be men of patriotic feeling among the more advanced of your pupils. M.
Danton's idea is that a little band of these - say a half-dozen, with
yourself at their head - might read these bullies a sharp lesson."
Andre-Louis frowned.
"And how, precisely, had M. Danton thought that this might be done?"
M. Danton spoke for himself, vehemently.
"Why, thus: We post you in the Manege, at the hour when the Assembly is
rising. We point out the six leading phlebotomists, and let you loose to
insult them before they have time to insult any of the representatives. Then
to-morrow morning, six -- phlebotomists themselves phlebotomized secundum
artem. That will give the others something to think about. It will give them
a great deal to think about, by --! If necessary the dose may be repeated to
ensure a cure. If you kill the --s, so much the better."
He paused, his sallow face flushed with the enthusiasm of his idea.
Andre-Louis stared at him inscrutably.
"Well, what do you say to that?"
"That it is most ingenious." And Andre-Louis turned aside to look out
of the window.
"And is that all you think of it?"
"I will not tell you what else I think of it because you probably would
not understand. For you, M. Danton, there is at least this excuse that you
did not know me. But you, Isaac - to bring this gentleman here with such a
proposal!"
Le Chapelier was overwhelmed in confusion. "I confess I hesitated," he
apologized. "But M. Danton would not take my word for it that the proposal
might not be to your taste."
"I would not!" Danton broke in, bellowing. He swung upon Le Chapelier,
brandishing his great arms. "You told me monsieur was a patriot. Patriotism
knows no scruples. You call this mincing dancing-master a patriot?"
"Would you, monsieur, out of patriotism consent to become an assassin?"
"Of course I would. haven't I told you so? haven't I told you that I
would gladly go among them with my club, and crack them like so many -
fleas?"
"Why not, then?"
"Why not? Because I should get myself hanged. Haven't I said so?"
"But what of that-being a patriot? Why not, like another Curtius, jump
into the gulf, since you believe that your country would benefit by your
death?"
M. Danton showed signs of exasperation. "Because my country will
benefit more by my life."
"Permit me, monsieur, to suffer from a similar vanity."
"You? But where would be the danger to you? You would do your work
under the cloak of duelling - as they do."
"Have you reflected, monsieur, that the law will hardly regard a
fencing-master who kills his opponent as an ordinary combatant, particularly
if it can be shown that the fencing-master himself provoked the attack?"
"So! Name of a name!" M. Danton blew out his cheeks and delivered
himself with withering scorn. "It comes to this, then: you are afraid!"
"You may think so if you choose - that I am afraid to do slyly and
treacherously that which a thrasonical patriot like yourself is afraid of
doing frankly and openly. I have other reasons. But that one should suffice
you."
Danton gasped. Then he swore more amazingly and variedly than ever.
"By --! you are right," he admitted, to Andre-Louis' amazement. "You
are right, and I am wrong. I am as bad a patriot as you are, and I am a
coward as well." And he invoked the whole Pantheon to witness his
self-denunciation. "Only, you see, I count for something: and if they take
me and hang me, why, there it is! Monsieur, we must find some other way.
Forgive the intrusion. Adieu!" He held out his enormous hand..
Le Chapelier stood hesitating, crestfallen.
"You understand, Andre? I am sorry that... "
"Say no more, please. Come and see me soon again. I would press you to
remain, but it is striking nine, and the first of my pupils is about to
arrive."
"Nor would I permit it,". said Danton. "Between us we must resolve the
riddle of how to extinguish M. de La Tour d'Azyr and his friends."
"Who?"
Sharp as a pistol-shot came that question, as Danton was turning away.
The tone of it brought him up short. He turned again, Le Chapelier with him.
"I said M. de La Tour d'Azyr."
"What has he to do with the proposal you were making me?"
"He? Why, he is the phlebotomist in chief."
And Le Chapelier added. "It is he who killed Lagron."
"Not a friend of yours, is he?" wondered Danton.
"And it is La Tour d'Azyr you desire me to kill?" asked Andre-Louis
very slowly, after the manner of one whose thoughts are meanwhile pondering
the subject.
"That's it," said Danton. "And not a job for a prentice hand, I can
assure you.
"Ah, but this alters things," said Andre-Louis, thinking aloud. "It
offers a great temptation."
"Why, then... ?" The Colossus took a step towards him again.
"Wait!" He put up his hand. Then with chin sunk on his breast, he paced
away to the window, musing.
Le Chapelier and Danton exchanged glances, then watched him, waiting,
what time he considered.
At first he almost wondered why he should not of his own accord have
decided upon some such course as this to settle that long-standing account
of M. de La Tour d'Azyr. What was the use of this great skill in fence that
he had come to acquire, unless he could turn it to account to avenge
Vilmorin, and to make Aline safe from the lure of her own ambition? It would
be an easy thing to seek out La Tour d'Azyr, put a mortal affront upon him,
and thus bring him to the point. To-day this would be murder, murder as
treacherous as that which La Tour d'Azyr had done upon Philippe de Vilmorin;
for to-day the old positions were reversed, and it was Andre-Louis who might
go to such an assignation without a doubt of the issue. It was a moral
obstacle of which he made short work. But there remained the legal obstacle
he had expounded to Danton. There was still a law in France; the same law
which he had found it impossible to move against La Tour d'Azyr, but which
would move briskly enough against himself in like case. And then, suddenly,
as if by inspiration, he saw the way - a way which if adopted would probably
bring La Tour d'Azyr to a poetic justice, bring him, insolent, confident, to
thrust himself upon Andre-Louis' sword, with all the odium of provocation on
his own side.
He turned to them again, and they saw that he was very pale, that his
great dark eyes glowed oddly.
"There will probably be some difficulty in finding a suppleant for this
poor Lagron," he said. "Our fellow-countrymen will be none so eager to offer
themselves to the swords of Privilege.
"True enough," said Le Chapelier gloomily; and then, as if suddenly
leaping to the thing in Andre-Louis' mind: "Andre!" he cried. "Would you...
"
"It is what I was considering. It would give me a legitimate place in
the Assembly. If your Tour d'Azyrs choose to seek me out then, why, their
blood be upon their own heads. I shall certainly do nothing to discourage
them." He smiled curiously. "I am just a rascal who tries to be honest -
Scaramouche always, in fact; a creature of sophistries. Do you think that
Ancenis would have me for its representative?"
"Will it have Omnes Omnibus for its representative?" Le Chapelier was
laughing, his countenance eager. "Ancenis will be convulsed with pride. It
is not Rennes or Nantes, as it might have been had you wished it. But it
gives you a voice for Brittany."
"I should have to go to Ancenis... "
"No need at all. A letter from me to the Municipality, and the
Municipality will confirm you at once. No need to move from here. In a
fortnight at most the thing can be accomplished. It is settled, then?"
Andre-Louis considered yet a moment. There was his academy. But he
could make arrangements with Le Duc and Galoche to carry it on for him
whilst himself directing and advising. Le Duc, after all, was become a
thoroughly efficient master, and he was a trustworthy fellow. At need a
third assistant could be engaged.
"Be it so," he said at last.
Le Chapelier clasped hands with him and became congratulatorily
voluble, until interrupted by the red-coated giant at the door.
"What exactly does it mean to our business, anyway?" he asked. "Does it
mean that when you are a representative you will not scruple to skewer M. le
Marquis?"
"If M. le Marquis should offer himself to be skewered, as he no doubt
will."
"I perceive the distinction," said M. Danton, and sneered. "You've an
ingenious mind." He turned to Le Chapelier. "What did you say he was to
begin with - a lawyer, wasn't it?"
"Yes, I was a lawyer, and afterwards a mountebank."
"And this is the result!"
"As you say. And do you know that we are after all not so dissimilar,
you and I?"
"What?"
"Once like you I went about inciting other people to go and kill the
man I wanted dead. You'll say I was a coward, of course."
Le Chapelier prepared to slip between them as the clouds gathered on
the giant's brow. Then these were dispelled again, and the great laugh
vibrated through the long room.
"You've touched me for the second time, and in the same place. Oh, you
can fence, my lad. We should be friends. Rue des Cordeliers is my address.
Any - scoundrel will tell you where Danton lodges. Desmoulins lives
underneath. Come and visit us one evening. There's always a bottle for a
friend."
After an absence of rather more than a week, M. le Marquis de La Tour
d'Azyr was back in his place on the Cote Droit of the National Assembly.
Properly speaking, we should already at this date allude to him as the
ci-devant Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr, for the time was September of 1790, two
months after the passing - on the motion of that downright Breton leveller,
Le Chapelier - of the decree that nobility should no more be hereditary than
infamy; that just as the brand of the gallows must not defile the possibly
worthy descendants of one who had been convicted of evil, neither should the
blazon advertising achievement glorify the possibly unworthy descendants of
one who had proved himself good. And so the decree had been passed
abolishing hereditary nobility and consigning family escutcheons to the
rubbish-heap of things no longer to be tolerated by an enlightened
generation of philosophers. M. le Comte de Lafayette, who had supported the
motion, left the Assembly as plain M. Motier, the great tribune Count
Mirabeau became plain M. Riquetti, and M. le Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr just
simple M. Lesarques. The thing was done in one of those exaltations produced
by the approach of the great National Festival of the Champ de Mars, and no
doubt it was thoroughly repented on the morrow by those who had lent
themselves to it. Thus, although law by now, it was a law that no one
troubled just yet to enforce.
That, however, is by the way. The time, as I have said, was September,
the day dull and showery, and some of the damp and gloom of it seemed to
have penetrated the long Hall of the Manege, where on their eight rows of
green benches elliptically arranged in ascending tiers about the space known
as La Piste, sat some eight or nine hundred of the representatives of the
three orders that composed the nation.
The matter under debate by. the constitution-builders was whether the
deliberating body to succeed the Constituent Assembly should work in
conjunction with the King, whether it should be periodic or permanent,
whether it should govern by two chambers or by one.
The Abbe Maury, son of a cobbler, and therefore in these days of
antitheses orator-in-chief of the party of the Right - the Blacks, as those
who fought Privilege's losing battles were known - was in the tribune. He
appeared to be urging the adoption of a two-chambers system framed on the
English model. He was, if anything, more long-winded and prosy even than his
habit; his arguments assumed more and more the form of a sermon; the tribune
of the National Assembly became more and more like a pulpit; but the
members, conversely, less and less like a congregation. They grew restive
under that steady flow of pompous verbiage, and it was in vain that the four
ushers in black satin breeches and carefully powdered heads, chain of office
on their breasts, gilded sword at their sides, circulated in the Piste,
clapping their hands, and hissing
"Silence! En place!"
Equally vain was the intermittent ringing of the bell by the president
at his green-covered table facing the tribune. The Abbe Maury had talked too