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Robert Tournay: A Romance of the French Revolution

by William Sage · English · Gutenberg #34846 · 511,875 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Robert Tournay: A Romance of the French Revolution

Author: William Sage


        
Release date: January 4, 2011 [eBook #34846]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34846

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT TOURNAY: A ROMANCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ***




Produced by Bethanne M. Simms, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









                           ROBERT TOURNAY

                 A Romance of the French Revolution

                          BY WILLIAM SAGE


    _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
    ERIC PAPE AND MARY AYER_

    BOSTON AND NEW YORK

    HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

    The Riverside Press, Cambridge
    1900

    COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY WILLIAM SAGE

    AND HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

    TO MY MOTHER
    TO WHOM I OWE EVERYTHING
    I LOVINGLY DEDICATE
    THIS STORY.


[Illustration: "A CHEER FOR THE GODDESS OF LIBERTY"]




CONTENTS


I. HOW TOURNAY CAME TO PARIS

II. A LITTLE BREAKFAST AT ST. HILAIRE'S

III. THE BAKER AND HIS FAMILY

IV. THE "BON PATRIOT"

V. A BROKEN DOOR

VI. A MAN AND A MARQUIS

VII. GAILLARD GOES ON A JOURNEY

VIII. PERE LOUCHET'S GUESTS

IX. PRISON BOAT NUMBER FOUR

X. OVER THE FRONTIER

XI. UNDER WHICH FLAG?

XII. THE FOUR COMMISSIONERS

XIII. THE SWORD OF ROCROY

XIV. SOMETHING HIDDEN

XV. THE PRESIDENT'S NOTE

XVI. BENEATH THE MASK

XVII. PIERRE AND JEAN

XVIII. THE LUXEMBOURG

XIX. TAPPEUR AND PETITSOU

XX. UNCLE MICHELET

XXI. CITIZENESS PRIVAT

XXII. CITIZENESS PRIVAT'S CARD

XXIII. TOURNAY'S VISITOR

XXIV. TWO WOMEN

XXV. NO. 7 RUE D'ARCIS

XXVI. THE END OF THE TERROR




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


"A CHEER FOR THE GODDESS OF LIBERTY"

DE LACHEVILLE FACING A YOUNG WOMAN

"STOP!" CRIED TOURNAY

ADJUSTED THE NECKCLOTH TO HIS SATISFACTION

"WOULD YOU MURDER ME?"

A MOMENT THEY STOOD IN SILENCE




ROBERT TOURNAY




CHAPTER I

HOW TOURNAY CAME TO PARIS


The Marquis de Lacheville sat in the dining-hall of the chateau de
Rochefort. In his hand he held a letter. Although it was from a woman,
the writing was not in those delicately traced characters which suggest
the soft hand of some lady of fashion. The note-paper was scented, but
the perfume, like the color, was too pronounced; and the spelling,
possibly like the lady's character, was not absolutely flawless.

A smile played about the cold thin lips of the marquis; he carelessly
thrust the missive into his pocket, as one disposes of a bill he does
not intend to pay, and lifting his eyes, allowed his gaze to wander
through the open window toward the figure of a young girl who stood
outside upon the terrace.

She was watching a game of tennis in the court below, now and then
conversing with the players, whose voices in return reached de
Lacheville's ears on the quiet summer air.

A few minutes before in that dining-hall the Baron de Rochefort had
betrothed his daughter Edme to his friend and distant kinsman, Maurice
de Lacheville. In the eyes of the world it was a suitable match. The
marquis was twenty-five, the girl eighteen. She was an only child; and
their rank and fortunes were equal.

They did not love each other. The marquis loved no one but himself.
Mademoiselle had been brought up to consider all men very much alike.
She might possibly have had some slight preference for the Marquis de
St. Hilaire, who was now playing tennis in the court beneath; but it was
well known that he was dissipating his fortune at the gaming-table.
Mademoiselle did not lack strength of will; but, her heart not being
involved, she allowed her father to make the choice for her, as was the
custom of the time.

De Lacheville continued sitting at the table, now looking
dispassionately at the woman who was to become his wife, now looking
beyond toward the wide sweep of park and meadow land, while he
calculated how much longer his cousin, the baron, would live to enjoy
possession of his great wealth.

What the young girl thought is merely a matter of conjecture. She was as
fresh and sweet as the pink rose which she plucked from the trellis and
gayly tossed to the marquis below. He caught it gracefully and put it to
his lips--while she laughed merrily with never a thought for the marquis
within.

Near the tennis court stood another man. He was tall and well-made,
with dark eyes and a sun-browned face. Beyond furnishing new balls and
rackets when required, he took no part in the game, for he was the son
of the intendant of the chateau and therefore a servant.

He watched the rose which the lady so carelessly tossed, with hungry
eyes, as a dog watches a bone given to some well-fed and happier rival.
At the call from one of the players he replaced a broken racket, then
took up his former post, apparently intent upon the game, but in reality
his mind was far afield.

It was in the early summer days of the year 1789. Looking out over the
baron's noble estates through the eyes of a girl like mademoiselle, the
world was very beautiful. Glancing at it through the careless eyes of
the prodigal St. Hilaire, it seemed very pleasing; but in spite of these
waving crops, and wealthy vineyards, in spite of the plenty in the
baron's household and the rich wines in his cellar, throughout France
there were many who had not enough to eat. Men, and women too, were
crying out for their share of the world's riches.

A new wave of thought was sweeping over France. A thought as old as the
hills, yet startlingly new to each man as he discovered it. Books were
being written and words spoken which were soon to cause great political
changes in a land already seething with discontent. Change and Progress
at last were in the saddle, and they were riding fast. As the careless
noblemen batted their tennis balls back and forth, thinking only of
their game; as the young girl leaned over the rose-covered terrace,
thinking of the sunlight, the flowers, and the beauty of life, Robert
Tournay, the intendant's son, pondered deeply on the "rights of man"
while he ran after the tennis balls for those who played the game.

As if wearied by the contemplation of his prospective married bliss,
Monsieur de Lacheville yawned, arose from his seat and strolled
leisurely from the room, descended the staircase and came out into the
park in the rear of the chateau, unobserved by the tennis players. The
note in his pocket called him to a rendezvous; and the marquis, after
some deliberation, had decided to keep it. Once in the wooded park and
out of sight of the house, he quickened his pace to a brisk walk;
proceeding thus for half a mile he suddenly left the driveway and
plunging through the thick foliage by a path which to the casual eye was
barely visible, came out into a shady and unfrequented alley.

A few minutes after de Lacheville's disappearance into the woods, the
other noblemen, wearied of their sport, retired into the house for
refreshment.

This left young Tournay free for the time being, and he availed himself
of the opportunity to go down toward a pasture beyond the park where
some young horses were running wild, innocent of bit or bridle. It was
Tournay's intention to break one of these colts for Mademoiselle de
Rochefort. She was a fearless rider, and it gave the young man pleasure
to be commissioned to pick out an animal at once gentle and mettlesome
for the use of his young mistress.

The Tournays, from father to son, had been for generations the
intendants of the de Rochefort estate. With the baron's permission
Matthieu Tournay had sent his son away to school, and he had thus
received a better education than most young men of his class. He was of
an ambitious temper, and this very education, instead of making him more
contented with his lot in life, increased his restlessness. It only
served to show him more clearly the line that separated him from those
he served. In his own mind he had never defined his feeling for
Mademoiselle de Rochefort. He only knew that it gave him great pleasure
to serve her; and yet, as he did her bidding, he felt a pang that
between them was the gulf of caste; that even when she smiled upon him
it was merely the favored servant whom she greeted; that although he
might be as well educated as the Count de Blois, a better horseman than
St. Hilaire, and a better man than de Lacheville, _they_ could enter as
equals into the presence of this divine being, while such as he must
always take his place below the salt.

It was with such thoughts as these revolving in his brain that the
intendant's son walked through the woods of the park. He followed no
path, for he knew each tree and twig from childhood. Suddenly he was
interrupted in his reverie by the sound of voices, and stopping short,
recognized the voice of the Marquis de Lacheville in conversation with
a woman. Tournay hesitated, then went forward cautiously in the
direction whence the sound came. Had he been born a gentleman he would
have chosen another way; or at least would have advanced noisily.
Indeed, such had been his first impulse,--but a much stronger interest
than curiosity impelled him forward; and drawing near, he looked through
a gap in the hedge.

On the other side stood de Lacheville facing a young woman. Her cheeks
were flushed, and the manner in which she toyed with a riding-whip
showed that the discussion had been heated. Although she was handsomely
dressed in a riding-habit and assumed some of the airs of a lady,
Tournay recognized her at once as a young girl who had disappeared some
months before from the village of La Thierry, and whose handsome face
and vivacious manner had caused her to be much admired. Near her stood
the nobleman, calm and self-composed. Before men, de Lacheville had been
known to flinch; but with a woman of the humbler class the marquis could
always play the master.

"And now, Marianne," said the nobleman slowly, "you had better go,--and
do not make the mistake of coming here again."

Although she had evidently been worsted in the argument, a defiant look
flashed in her dark eyes as she answered him: "If I believe you speak
the truth I shall not come here again."

[Illustration: DE LACHEVILLE FACING A YOUNG WOMAN]

"Of course I speak the truth," replied de Lacheville lightly. "I shall
marry Mademoiselle de Rochefort"--

The young woman winced, but she did not speak.

De Lacheville went on slowly as if he enjoyed the situation--"In a year
or two--I am in no hurry. She is very beautiful"--here he paused
again--"but I prefer your style of beauty, Marianne; I prefer your
vivacity, your life, your fire; I like to see you angry. My engagement
to Mademoiselle de Rochefort need make no difference in my regard for
you. That depends upon yourself." Here the marquis stepped forward and
kissed her on the lips.

Tournay controlled himself by a great effort, his heart swelling with
the resentment of a man who hears that which he holds sacred insulted by
another. And this man who held Mademoiselle de Rochefort in such slight
esteem was to be her husband.

"And now, Marianne," said the nobleman, "you must ride away as you
came," and suiting the action to the words he swung her into the saddle.
She was docile now and gathered up the reins obediently. "And,
Marianne," continued the nobleman, "never write letters to me. I am
rather fastidious and do not want my illusions dispelled too soon.
Good-by, my child."

She flushed as he spoke, and a retort seemed about to spring to her
lips; but instead of replying she shrugged her shoulders, gave a sharp
cut of the whip to the horse, and rode off down the pathway.

De Lacheville laughed. "She has spirit to the last. She pleases me;" and
turning, beheld Robert Tournay in the path before him.

For a moment neither spoke; then the nobleman asked sternly, "Have you
been spying upon me?"

"I have heard what has passed between you and that woman," replied
Tournay with a significance that made the marquis start.

"You villain," replied the nobleman hotly, "if you breathe a word about
what you have seen I will have you whipped by my lackeys."

Tournay's lips curled defiantly.

"Or," continued the marquis, "if one word of scandal reaches the ears of
Mademoiselle de Rochefort"--

Before the words had left his lips, Tournay sprang forward and had him
by the arm.

"Do not stain her name by speaking it," he cried fiercely. "I have heard
you insult her; I have seen how you would dishonor her; you, who are not
worthy to touch the hem of her garment. What right have you to become
her husband? Your very presence would degrade her. You shall not wed
her."

White with rage, if not from fear, the marquis struggled to free himself
from Tournay's grasp, but he could neither throw off his antagonist nor
move his arm enough to draw his sword. Finding himself powerless in the
hands of the stronger man, he remained passive, only the twitching of
his mouth betraying his passion.

"And you would prevent my marriage," he said coldly. "So be it. Go to
the baron; tell your story. Go also to mademoiselle, his daughter;
repeat the scandal to her ears; say, 'I am your champion;' and how will
they receive you? The baron will have you kicked from the room and
mademoiselle will scorn you. Championed by a servant! What an honor for
a lady!"

The truth of what he said struck Tournay harder than any blow; his arms
dropped to his side, and he stepped back, as if powerless.

The marquis arranged the lace ruffle about his neck. Placing his hand
upon his sword he eyed Tournay as if debating what course to pursue. He
smarted under the treatment he had received, and his eyes glittered
viciously as if he meditated some prompt reprisal. But above all the
marquis was politic, and he also knew that in his biting tongue he
possessed a weapon keener than a sword.

He stooped and plucked a flower from the border of the path, and as he
spoke a sarcastic smile played mockingly about his lips.

"I shall marry mademoiselle," he began, slowly dwelling on each word,
while he plucked the petals from the flower, and tossed them, one by
one, into the air. The gesture was a careless one, but there was a
vicious cruelty about his fingers as he tore the flower. "And you,"
continued the marquis,--"you, who one might think had dared to raise
your eyes toward the lady's face"--

Tournay stood dumb before his inquisitor. His heart raged and he writhed
as if under the lash, but still he stood passive and suffering.

"And you shall be our servant," ended the nobleman, with a laugh,
turning and walking haughtily up the path, but with his hand still on
his sword-hilt lest he should be again taken by surprise.

As the heels of the marquis crunched the gravel-walk Tournay felt the
truth of each word that he had spoken borne in upon his mind with
overwhelming force. It was not fear of the marquis's sword that had kept
him silent. It was the hopelessness of his own position. What right had
he to speak? And who would listen to him?

Silently the young man slipped into the forest as if to seek consolation
from the great murmuring trees. As he walked slowly beneath their green
arches as under some cathedral roof, a quiet strength came to his soul.
He seemed to feel that the day would come when his voice would be heard
and listened to. Until then he must bide his time; and in this frame of
mind he went back to the chateau.

When Tournay reached the house he was greeted by an order from the
baron. The tracks of a boar had been recently discovered in the forest
by one of the gamekeepers, and the intendant's son, who was himself a
keen huntsman, was directed to escort the party of gentlemen through the
woods to a glade where the animal was supposed to have his lair.

After he had collected the guns and ammunition, called up the dogs and
ordered the grooms to bring round the horses, Tournay went to the front
of the chateau to await the pleasure of the young gentlemen who intended
participating in the hunt.

There were half a dozen of them standing under the porte-cochere, and
Tournay disliked them all in greater or less degree; excepting perhaps
the Marquis de St. Hilaire. St. Hilaire was the eldest of the group, the
tallest and the handsomest. He rarely addressed any remark to Tournay,
but when he did, it was with perfect politeness. When the Marquis de St.
Hilaire rode his horse he did it with a grace none could surpass; when
he shot, he hit the mark. He had the reputation of being one of the most
dissipated young noblemen in the kingdom. He certainly spent money more
lavishly than the most prodigal. This reputation was at once the envy
and admiration of a host of young followers; and yet if asked, no one
could mention any particular debauchery of which he had been guilty.
When his companions, under the excitement of wine, committed extravagant
follies and excesses, St. Hilaire, although by no means sparing of the
winecup, maintained a certain dignity essentially his own. At the
gaming-table it was always the Marquis de St. Hilaire who played the
highest. He won a fortune or lost an estate with the same calm and
outward indifference. On every occasion he was the cool, polished
gentleman.

As Tournay approached the group of noblemen, the Marquis de Lacheville,
determined to keep him in a state of submission, greeted him with an
arrogant rebuke.

"You have kept us waiting a pretty length of time."

"I only received notice of your intended hunt a short time ago, and
various preparations had to be made," was the rejoinder.

"Make no excuses," continued the marquis,--"you always have plenty of
those upon the end of your tongue."

Tournay bit his lip to keep from replying.

"Whose horse is that?" called out the marquis a moment later, pointing
out one of the animals among the number which were being led up by the
grooms.

"My own, monsieur le marquis--a present from the baron."

"Well, it is by all odds the best one among them; I will ride it." And
the marquis swung himself into the saddle without waiting for a reply.

Tournay made no audible reply, but the color deepened on his cheek, as
he quietly took another horse.

"We shall never see that boar if we delay much longer," called out St.
Hilaire, who was long since in the saddle. "Are you ready, gentlemen?"

With one accord they all started down the avenue at a swift gallop;
Tournay following a short distance behind them.

For a mile or so they swept along the parkway until they arrived at the
gate which led into the wood. De Lacheville had been correct in his
judgment of the horse, and was the first to reach the gate. This seemed
to make him good-natured for the time being; and as they cantered
through the forest he allowed Tournay, who was best acquainted with the
ground, to ride in advance.

On approaching the entrance to the glade, the party dismounted and the
horses were fastened to the trees. The Counts d'Arlincourt and de Blois
went to the right; the Marquis de St. Hilaire to the left; Tournay took
two dogs and went toward the northern end; while de Lacheville remained
near the entrance.

It was arranged that Tournay with the dogs should rout the animal from
its lair in the upper end of the dale, and, the thicket being
surrounded, one of the gentlemen would be sure to bring it down with a
shot as it ran out.

Tournay had not gone half the distance when he heard a noise in the
underbrush, and looking in the direction whence it came, saw the boar
making its way leisurely down the glade, snuffing from time to time at
the roots of trees for acorns.

Tournay tried to work down ahead of the animal and drive him off to his
right in the direction of the Marquis St. Hilaire, as he was the best
shot in the company, and with a sportsman's instinct Tournay wanted to
give him the opportunity to win the tusks. One of the dogs, however,
upset this plan by slipping the leash and bounding off in the direction
of the boar; that animal took the alarm at once and started on a run
down the glade with Tournay and the two dogs after him in full pursuit.

"The Marquis de Lacheville will be the one to shoot him," thought
Tournay bitterly.

The boar, plunging through a thicket, made straight for the spot where
the horses had been tied, and where the Marquis de Lacheville had taken
up his position.

"Why does he not fire?" was Tournay's mental inquiry as he followed the
trail at full speed, with ear alert in the momentary expectation of
hearing the sound of a gun. "Can it be that the marquis is going to risk
attacking him with the knife?" And he dashed into the thicket,
regardless of the brushwood and briars that impeded his progress, to
come out on the other side, leaving a portion of his hunting blouse in
the grasp of a too-persistent bramble.

Here he beheld so ludicrous a sight that it would have moved him to
merriment, had it not overcome him with wonder. The marquis lay
sprawling on the grass, his eyes rolling with terror and his loaded gun
lying harmlessly by his side. The horses were straining at the tethers
and neighing with fright, while in the wood beyond, the boar was
disappearing from sight with the dogs upon his haunches.

As Tournay approached, the marquis struggled to his feet. For a moment
he stood silent and then said gruffly:--

"The brute sprang through the bushes before I expected him; my foot
slipped and I fell, so he got by me."

In the instant it flashed through Tournay's mind that the marquis had
fallen in trying to avoid the boar. He received the explanation in
silence, his face clearly betraying his suspicion.

The marquis eyed him savagely. "Where are the others?" he demanded.

"They have evidently missed all the sport," was the curt rejoinder.

The marquis scowled, but his anxiety to conceal the mishap from his
companions led him to overlook the ring of sarcasm in Tournay's voice.

"Did they hear or see the boar?" he inquired.

"I fear not. The animal started too near the centre of the glade, and
luckily for him made straight for you."

"We have not seen him, either," was the cool rejoinder.

"But I saw him," exclaimed Tournay with open-eyed astonishment.

"Up in the thicket beyond? Possibly," admitted the marquis, who had now
regained his self-possession and had resolved to put the best possible
face on the matter.

"No! Right here in the open, as he ran into that clump of beeches."

"You are mistaken. I did not see him," the marquis insisted, approaching
his horse and untethering him.

"Monsieur le marquis was possibly not looking in the right direction."

De Lacheville mounted his horse. He bent down from the saddle, saying
fiercely, "Twice this day you have ventured to oppose me. Have a care!
You will rue the hour when you dispute any statement of mine."

Tournay looked up at him defiantly, and with a significance too deep to
be misconstrued, said: "I will not lie at your bidding, Monsieur de
Lacheville."

"You insolent villain!" and the marquis' whip fell viciously across the
defiant brow. The next instant the nobleman was dragged from the saddle
and his riderless horse galloped off through the woods.

For a moment the two men stood looking at each other.

Tournay was the first to speak: "You will fight me for that blow,
Monsieur de Lacheville."

The marquis gave a harsh laugh: "We do not fight lackeys--we whip them."

"We are alone, and man to man you shall fight me with my weapons,
monsieur le Marquis." Tournay spoke with a certain air of dignity and
with a suppressed fierceness that made the marquis draw back; yet such
was the nobleman's contempt for the man of humble birth that he made no
response beyond flicking the whip which he still retained in his hand,
and looking at him disdainfully.

"You have a hunting-knife at your side; arm yourself," commanded Tournay
sternly, at the same time drawing from beneath his hunting-blouse a
long, keen blade.

The marquis turned pale. "I do not fight with such a weapon," he
faltered, looking about him as if in hopes of succor from his friends.

"Then for once the low-born has the advantage," replied Tournay
pitilessly, "and unless Heaven intervenes, I shall kill you for that
blow."

The blow itself was forgotten even as he spoke, and he felt a fierce joy
as he whispered to himself, "If heaven so wills it, you shall never
marry her, Marquis de Lacheville."

There was no fire of revenge in his eyes as he advanced, but the marquis
saw the light that burned there and, realizing his pressing danger, drew
his own hunting-knife.

There was a thrust and parry. Tournay closed in upon him, and the
nobleman fell backward with a groan.

The next instant Tournay threw aside the knife and stood looking with
awe upon the prostrate body. The bushes behind him parted with a rustle
and he looked over his shoulder to see the Marquis de St. Hilaire
standing by him.

"What's the matter?" inquired the latter sternly. "Has the marquis
injured himself?"

"He struck me," exclaimed Tournay, his face, except for a bright red
line across the brow, deadly pale. "And I--I have killed him."

St. Hilaire stooped down and undid the marquis's waistcoat, Tournay
giving way to him. "He's not dead," said St. Hilaire, after a short
examination. "Your blade struck the rib. He is not even fatally hurt,
but has fainted."

Tournay stood passive and silent.

St. Hilaire rose to his feet and proceeded to cut some strips from his
own shirt to make a bandage for de Lacheville's wound.

"As far as you are concerned, you might as well have killed him," he
said as he bound up the wound. "The penalty is the same."

"I'm not afraid of the penalty."

"Young man," said St. Hilaire, busying himself over the wound, "mount
that horse of yours and ride away from this part of the country as fast
as you can. I shall not see you."

"I'm not a coward to run away."

"Don't be a fool and stay," replied St. Hilaire sharply, without looking
up from his occupation. "You have acted as I would have done had I been
in your place, but I should not stay afterward with all the odds against
me. Come, you have only a minute to decide. I'll see the marquis has the
proper care."

In another minute Robert Tournay was on his horse's back riding swiftly
away from the scene. He only thought of one point of refuge and that was
the city of his dreams, the great city of Paris. Toward it he turned his
horse's head. When he had gone far enough to no longer fear pursuit he
dismounted and turned the horse loose, knowing that a man riding a fine
animal could be more easily traced; so the rest of his journey of a
hundred miles was made on foot.

It was about the noon hour, July 12, 1789, when he entered the southern
gates of the city. He had been walking since early morning, yet when
once in the town he was not conscious of any fatigue.

It seemed to him that there was an unwonted excitement in the air, and
the faces of many people in the crowded streets wore an anxious or an
expectant look. Several times he was on the point of stopping some
passer-by to ask if there was any event of unusual importance taking
place, but the fear of being thought ignorant of city ways deterred him.
So he wandered about the streets in search of some cheap and clean
lodging suitable to the size of his purse, where he could be comfortably
housed until his plans for the future matured. He went through narrow,
ill-smelling streets, where strange-looking faces peered at him
curiously from low wine-shops. Thence he wandered into the neighborhood
of beautiful gardens, where he marveled at the splendid buildings, any
one of which he fancied might be the home of the Marquis de St. Hilaire.
Finally, he came upon a number of people streaming through an arcade
under some handsome buildings. Judging that something of unusual
interest was going on there, and being moved by curiosity, he pushed his
way in with the rest, and found himself in a quadrangle of buildings
enclosing a garden. This garden was filled with a dense crowd. Turning
to a man at his elbow, he asked the reason of such an assemblage.

"The king has dismissed Necker," was the reply, "and the people are
angry."

"I should think they might well be angry," replied Tournay, who admired
the popular minister of finance. "Did the king send away such a great
man without cause?"

"I know not what cause was assigned, I do not concern myself much with
such affairs, but I know the people are very wroth and there has been
much talk of violence. Some blood has been shed. The German regiments
fired once or twice upon a mob that would not disperse."

"The villainous foreign regiments!" said Tournay. "Why must we have
these mercenary troops quartered in our city?" He had been in the city
but a few hours, but in his indignation he already referred to Paris as
"our city."

"The native troops would not fire when ordered, and were hurried back to
the barracks by their officers. Worse may come of it. There is much
speech-making and turmoil; I am going home to keep out of the trouble;"
and the stranger hurried away.

Tournay elbowed through the crowd. Standing upon a table under one of
the spreading trees, a young man was speaking earnestly to an excited
group of listeners that grew larger every moment. Tournay pressed near
enough to hear what he was saying.

He was tall and slender, with dark waving hair and the face of a poet.
He spoke with an impassioned eloquence that moved his hearers mightily,
bringing forth acclamation after acclamation from the crowd. He
denounced tyranny and exalted liberty till young Tournay's blood surged
through his veins like fire. He had thought all this himself, unable to
give it expression; but here was a man who touched the very note that he
himself would have sounded, touched the same chord in the heart of every
man who heard his voice, and by some subtle power communicated the
thrill to those outside the circle till the crowd in the garden was
drunk with excitement.

"Citizens," cried the young man, "the exile of Necker is the signal for
a St. Bartholomew of patriots. The foreign regiments are about to march
upon us to cut our throats. To arms! Behold the rallying sign." And
stretching up his arm he plucked a green leaf from the branch above his
head and put it in his hat.

The next instant the trees were almost denuded of their leaves. Tournay,
with a green sprig in his hat, swung his hat in the air, and cried, "To
arms--down with the foreign regiments--Vive Necker!"

He struggled to where the orator was being carried off on men's
shoulders. "What is it?" he said, in his excitement seizing the young
man by the coat,--"what is it that we are to do?"

"Procure arms. Watch and wait,--and then do as other patriots do," was
the reply.

The crowd surged closer about him. The coat gave way, and Tournay was
left with a piece of the cloth in his hand. Waving it in the air with
the cry of "Patriots, to arms!" he was forced onward by the crowd.




CHAPTER II

A LITTLE BREAKFAST AT ST. HILAIRE'S


The Marquis Jean Raphael de St. Hilaire was giving a breakfast-party. It
was not one of those large affairs for which the marquis was noted,
where a hundred guests would sit down in his large salon to a repast
costing the lavish young nobleman a princely sum. This being merely the
occasion of a modest little dejeuner, the covers were laid in the
marquis's morning cabinet on the second floor, which was more suitable
for such an informal meal.

There were present around the table the Count and Countess d'Arlincourt;
the old Chevalier de Creux; the witty Madame Diane de Remur; the Count
de Blois, dressed in the very latest and most exact fashion; and the
Marquis de Lacheville, with the pallor of recent illness on his face. At
the lower end of the board sat a young poet who was riding on his first
wave of popularity; and next to him was a philosopher.

The guests, having finished the dessert, were lingering over a choice
vintage from the marquis's cellar.

The host, leaning back in his chair with half-closed eyes, listened
carelessly to the hum of conversation while he toyed with a few sugared
almonds.

"And so you think, chevalier," said the Countess d'Arlincourt in reply
to a remark by the old nobleman, "that our troublesome times are not yet
over?"

"Not yet, my dear countess, nor will they be over for a long time to
come."

"Oh, how pessimistic you are, chevalier; for my part I do not see how
affairs can be worse than they have been for the last year."

"For a longer period than that," remarked her husband, the Count
d'Arlincourt.

"Well, I remember particularly, it was a year ago when you first told me
that you could not afford to make me a present of a diamond crescent to
wear in my hair at the Duchess de Montmorenci's fancy dress-ball. You
had never used that word to me before."

"You have been extremely fortunate," said the Chevalier de Creux,
turning a pair of small, bright eyes upon the countess and speaking with
just the slightest accent of sarcasm. "Even longer ago than a year, many
persons were in need of other necessities than diamonds."

"Oh, yes, I know," interrupted the countess hastily, anxious to show
that she was not as ignorant as the chevalier's tone implied,--"bread.
Why don't they give the people enough bread? It is a very simple demand,
and things would then be well."

"My dear child," put in Madame de Remur, "it would do no good to give
them bread to-day; they would be hungry again to-morrow. The trouble is
with the finances. When they are set right everything will go well; and
the people can buy all the bread they want, and you can have your
diamond crescent," and the speaker smiled at the chevalier and shrugged
her white shoulders.

"Yes, but," persisted the countess, raising her pretty eyebrows, "when
_will_ the finances be set right? The people cannot go forever without
bread."

"Nor can women go forever without diamonds," laughed Madame de Remur.

"Women with your eyes, fair Diane, have no need of other diamonds," said
the Marquis de St. Hilaire debonairely. The lady smiled graciously at
the compliment. She was a young and attractive widow and she looked at
St. Hilaire not unkindly.

"We have frequently had financial crises in the past," said
d'Arlincourt, "and gotten safely over them; and so we should to-day,
were it not for the host of philosophical writers who have broken loose;
who call the people's attention to their ills, and foment trouble where
there is none. Of course you will understand that I make the usual
exception as to present company," he added, bowing slightly to the
philosopher. But the latter seemed lost in thought and did not appear to
hear the count's remark. The poet took up the conversation in a low
tone.

"Should we not look to these very men, these philosophers, these
encyclopaedists, to point the way out of the difficulty?" and he turned
from one to the other with a shrug.

"Bah, no! They are the very ones to blame, I tell you," repeated
d'Arlincourt.

"My dear count," cried Madame d'Arlincourt, "I cannot permit you to
speak slightingly of our philosophers. They are all the fashion now. The
door of every salon in Paris is open to them. The other night, at a
great reception given by the Duchess de Montmorenci, half the invited
guests were philosophers, poets, encyclopaedists. They say that even some
of the nobility were overlooked in order to make room for the men of
letters."

The Marquis de St. Hilaire threw a small cake to the spaniel that sat on
its haunches begging for it.

"We cannot very well overlook this new order of nobility of the
ink-and-paper that has exerted such an influence during the last
generation," he said carelessly.

"I should not overlook them if I had my way," cried the Count
d'Arlincourt. "I should lock them safely up in the Bastille."

"Oh!" cried the ladies in one breath; "barbarian!"

"These men are doubtless responsible for the inflamed state of the
public mind," said St. Hilaire, again taking up the conversation.

"Of course they are," agreed the count.

"And so are Calonne and Brienne," continued the marquis. "They
mismanaged affairs during their terms of office."

Here the philosopher smiled an assent.

"But the blame rests more heavily upon other shoulders than those of
scribbling writers or corrupt officials," and the marquis paused to look
around the table.

"I am all attention," cried the Countess d'Arlincourt, prepared for
something amusing. "Upon whom does it rest?"

"Upon the nobility themselves," answered St. Hilaire.

For a moment there was silence; then came a storm of protests from all
sides, only the chevalier and the philosopher making no audible reply,
although the latter said to himself:--

"You are right, monsieur le marquis."

"St. Hilaire is in one of his mad fits," de Lacheville exclaimed.

"If it were not for the nobility there would be no poetry, no wit,"
murmured the poet.

"The nobility is the mainstay of the throne, the vitality of the
country," said d'Arlincourt.

"What have _we_ done?" cried the ladies in concert. "We ask for nothing
better than to have everybody contented and happy." And they shrugged
their pretty white shoulders as if to throw off the burden that St.
Hilaire had placed there.

"Look at me," exclaimed St. Hilaire, rising and speaking with an
animation he had not shown before. He was a man of twenty-five with a
face so handsome that dissipation had not been able to mar its beauty.
"I am a type of my class."

"An honor to it," said the poet.

"Thank you; then you will agree that the cap which I put on will fit
other heads as well. I have wasted two fortunes."

"St. Hilaire is in one of his remorseful moods," whispered de Lacheville
in the ear of Madame de Remur.

"I have spent them in riotous living with men like myself." Here he
looked at de Lacheville.

"I feel deeply honored, my dear marquis," said the latter, bowing.

"When I wanted more money I knew where to get it."

"Happy fellow," called out de Lacheville with a laugh.

"I went to the steward who managed my estates. I have estates, or rather
had them, for they are now mortgaged to the last notch, in Normandy,
Picardy, Auvergne and Poitou--I would say to my steward, 'I need more
money.'"

"'Very well, monsieur le marquis, but I must put on the screws a little
to get it.'

"'Put on a dozen if you like, but get me the funds.'

"'It shall be done, monsieur le marquis.'

"Again and again I went to him for money. He always responded in the
same manner, but each time the screws had to be turned a little tighter.
Do you suppose my peasants love me for that? No, they hate me just as
yours hate you, de Lacheville, and yours hate you, d'Arlincourt." De
Lacheville laughed, and the count lifted up his hand in denial. "I knew
that the day of reckoning would come," St. Hilaire went on. "Every time
I went to Monsieur Rignot, my steward, every time he put on the screws
at my request, I knew it was bringing us nearer the final smash."

"Us!" repeated d'Arlincourt, with a gesture of impatience.

"Yes, us," said St. Hilaire; "we are all in the same boat, but we have
all done the same thing in a greater or less degree. We shall all have
to pay the penalty."

"There is where I differ with you, my dear marquis," said the Count
d'Arlincourt; "I am willing to take what responsibility falls to me by
right, but I emphatically refuse to pay the penalty of your follies."

"My follies are but those of my class. You may have been an exception
yourself, d'Arlincourt, but that will not save you."

"What penalties must we pay? Save him from what?" demanded the pretty
countess, looking at St. Hilaire with her large blue eyes.

"From the revolution," was the answer. There was a general exclamation
of surprise. D'Arlincourt took up the word.

"Like all men given to excess,--pardon the remark, marquis, but you have
yourself admitted it,--you exaggerate the present unquiet state of
affairs. The people will not revolt. They have no real cause. If you had
made such a statement twenty years ago during the ascendancy of the
infamous du Barry I might not have contradicted you. But now the people
as a mass are loyal. They love their king."

"I still affirm," said St. Hilaire, "that the time is ripe for a
revolution. Sooner or later it must come."

The chevalier from the further end of the table said quietly; "It _has_
come."

"Surely you are not serious," said d'Arlincourt, turning to the
chevalier, "in calling the disturbance of the past few days a
revolution. Why, I have seen more serious revolts than this blow into
nothing. Our Paris mob is a fickle creature, demanding blood one moment
and the next moment throwing up its cap with delight if you show it a
colored picture."

"The disturbance of to-day will become great enough to shake France to
its centre," said the chevalier.

"One would think that you possessed the gift of second sight," laughed
de Lacheville.

"I do," replied the old man impressively.

"Give us an example of it, then," demanded d'Arlincourt. "What part am I
to take in the new revolution?"

"I see behind you, my dear d'Arlincourt," replied the chevalier, leaning
back in his chair and looking in the count's direction through
half-closed eyelids, "the shadow of a scaffold."

Unwittingly the count turned with a start, to see Blaise standing behind
him in the act of filling his glass with wine. There was a general
laugh.

"Madame de Remur will bare her white shoulders to the rude grasp of the
executioner. De Lacheville will escape. No, he will not. He will die by
his own hand to cheat the scaffold."

"And I," interrupted the Countess d'Arlincourt, "shall I share their
fate?"

The chevalier looked at her with a peculiar expression in his eyes. "My
sight fails here," he said. "I cannot foretell your fate. Yet you may
live; your beauty should save you. People do not kill those who please
them; those who bore them are less fortunate." And he turned his
snapping brown eyes in the direction of the gentle poet and the
venerable philosopher.

"St. Hilaire's sudden and great interest in the people's welfare may
prove of service to him," remarked d'Arlincourt significantly.

"It will not save him," replied the chevalier. "He will finally come to
the same end. The shadow of the scaffold is behind him also."

St. Hilaire laughed as he cracked an almond. "Though I may sympathize
somewhat with a people who have been oppressed and robbed, I should feel
unhappy indeed to be left out in the cold when so many of the
illustrious had gone before. But you have overlooked yourself. That is
like you, chevalier, unselfish to the last."

"Oh, I am too old to be of importance; I shall die of gout," said the
old nobleman.

"You have disposed of us effectually," said the poet, "and I shall be
greatly honored at being permitted to leave this world in such good
company. But may I ask, are we to be the sole victims of your
revolution?"

"Far from it," answered the old chevalier, closing his eyes and speaking
in an abstracted manner, as if talking to himself, while his friends
listened in rapt attention, half inclined to smile at the affair as at a
joke, and yet so serious was he that they could not escape the influence
of his seriousness.

"I can see," he continued, "a long line of the most illustrious in
France. They are passing onward to the block. They are princes of the
blood; aye, even the king's head shall fall."

"Enough!" cried out the voice of d'Arlincourt, above the general
exclamations of horror that the chevalier's pretended vision called
forth. "You overstep the line, Chevalier de Creux. I do not object to a
pleasantry, but when you go so far as to predict the execution of the
king you carry a jest too far. It is time to call a halt."

"But was it a jest?" asked the chevalier dryly.

"A very poor one," said de Lacheville.

"My dear friend," said the chevalier in his blandest tone, "I am not
predicting what I should like to have take place. Not what ought to be,
but what will be."

The count scowled and de Lacheville turned away with a shrug and began a
conversation with Madame de Remur.

"We all know that the chevalier is a merry gentleman, yet no jester,"
said St. Hilaire. "What will be, will be. I, for one, am willing to
drink a toast to the chevalier's revolution. Blaise, bring out some of
that wine I received from the Count de Beaujeu. I lost fifty thousand
livres to him the night he made me a present of this wine; it will be
like drinking liquid gold."

Blaise filled the glasses amid general silence.

St. Hilaire rose to his feet, holding his wine-glass above his head.

"What, my friends, you are not afraid?" he exclaimed in a tone of
surprise, looking about the table where only the chevalier and the
philosopher had followed his example. "Is it possible you have taken the
chevalier's visions so much to heart?"

They all rose from their places, ashamed to have it thought that they
had taken in too serious a vein the little comedy played by the
chevalier.

"Any excuse to drink such wine as this," said de Lacheville, with a
forced laugh.

"We drink to the revolution!" cried St. Hilaire in his reckless
manner--and he touched glasses with Madame de Remur and then with the
Countess d'Arlincourt. As the glasses clinked about the table, a heavy
booming sound fell upon the ears of the revelers.

"What noise is that?" cried the countess nervously. They stopped to
listen, holding their glasses aloft. The booming ceased, then followed a
roar like that of the angry surf beating upon a rockbound shore.

"It is the chevalier's revolution," exclaimed Madame de Remur.

"Are we to be frightened from drinking our toast by a little noise?"
cried St. Hilaire. "What if it be the revolution? Let us drink to it.
Come!" and they drained their glasses to the accompaniment of what
sounded like a volley of musketry.

The ladies looked pale and were glad to quit the table for the salon,
where they were joined by the poet and the philosopher, leaving the
others still at their wine.

The Marquis de Lacheville took another glass, and then a third.

"You had best be careful how you heat your blood with this rich wine, de
Lacheville, while that wound in your side is scarcely healed," remarked
d'Arlincourt.

"Confound the wound, and curse the young villain who gave it me,"
growled de Lacheville. "I have been forced to lead the life of an
anchorite for the past fortnight; but such nectar as this cannot
inflame, it only soothes," and he reached out his hand toward the
decanter. As he did so, the sound of guns reverberated again through the
room, making the windows rattle and jarring the dishes on the table. The
ladies in the adjoining room cried out in alarm, and d'Arlincourt rose
and went to reassure them.

"I will go with you," said the chevalier, and he joined the count.

De Lacheville threw his napkin down upon the spot of wine that had
splashed from his upraised glass upon the damask cloth.

"The devil take them!" he cried petulantly; then filling his glass again
with an air of bravado, "will they not permit a man to breakfast in
peace?"

"Your nerves must be badly shaken, de Lacheville, if you permit such a
slight thing to disturb you," laughed St. Hilaire, filling a glass to
the brim.

D'Arlincourt entered from the next room hurriedly. "I am going to see
what all this firing means," he said. "Will you accompany me,
gentlemen?"

"I make it a point never to seek for news or excitement, but rather
allow them to come to me," said St. Hilaire leisurely. "You would better
sit down and let me send a servant to ascertain the cause of this
turmoil."

"Why leave the house in search of truth when we have with us an oracle
in the shape of the chevalier?" interposed the Marquis de Lacheville.

"I shall be able to bring a more accurate account," replied d'Arlincourt
with an impatient shrug.

"As you will," said St. Hilaire. "Blaise, give the Count d'Arlincourt
his hat and sword. Are you quite sure you do not want some of my lackeys
to accompany you?" he asked.

D'Arlincourt declined the offer and hastily left the room.

The two marquises were left in possession of the dining-room and the
wine. They both continued to drink, each after his own fashion. With
each successive glass, de Lacheville became louder in voice and more
boastful, while as St. Hilaire sipped his wine, he became quieter and
more indifferent.

Within ten minutes d'Arlincourt returned to them, his face betraying
great excitement.

"A mob has attacked and captured the Bastille. The multitude is surging
through the streets. They will pass before this very door."

"It is impossible that they could have taken the Bastille!" exclaimed de
Lacheville, rising to his feet and steadying himself by holding to the
back of his chair.

"There are thirty thousand of them," replied d'Arlincourt, "and through
some treachery they have obtained arms. In order to save bloodshed
Governor Delaunay surrendered the fortress on receiving the promise of
the insurgents that the lives of all its defenders should be spared.
They are now dragging him through the streets, crying out for his blood.
The man was mad to trust the word of such a rabble."

"Let us go into the salon," remarked St. Hilaire quietly. "There we can
reassure the ladies and also view this interesting spectacle."

The three gentlemen entered the room which fronted upon the street,
d'Arlincourt with compressed lips and flashing eyes; de Lacheville,
unsteady of gait and with wine-flushed face, murmuring maledictions
against the beast multitude; and St. Hilaire, cool and calm as was his
wont.

In the salon they found the chevalier entertaining Madame de Remur with
an anecdote which was the occasion of much laughter on her part.

The poet was reciting some of his own verses to the countess, while the
philosopher was asleep in an arm-chair.

"The crowd have torn down the Bastille," cried de Lacheville, speaking
in a thick voice, "and they are now coming down this street, seeking
whom they can devour."

The ladies cried out in terror.

"Marquis, you have interrupted one of my best stories," said the
chevalier petulantly.

"But, chevalier, the mob have taken the Bastille."

"Couldn't you have allowed them two minutes more to complete their work?
However, what you say is very interesting, though it does not surprise
me. I have been expecting it."

"You forget that the chevalier is gifted with second sight," said the
count, with a slight sneer.

"I have been expecting it for some time," continued the chevalier,
"though what they wanted to take it for, I cannot imagine. If they
should attack the Hotel de Ville or the Louvre, or march against
Versailles, I could understand it."

Madame de Remur and the philosopher, who had awakened from his nap, had
approached to hear the news; and the Marquis de Lacheville repeated it
to them as if he had been an eye-witness of the whole affair.

"For my part," he said in conclusion, "I think this disturbance amounts
to very little; the Baron de Besneval has but to give the order to his
troops, and the valiant mob will disperse like chaff. I have seen such
fellows run before this. It is amusing to see what a steel bayonet will
do toward accelerating the pace of the canaille."

"They say that the French Guards are not loyal," remarked the chevalier.

"The French Guards be hanged!" shouted the Marquis de Lacheville hotly.
"I would not trust them further than the canaille itself; they are a
white-livered lot in spite of their gaudy uniforms. Thank heaven, we
have other troops who are good and loyal, and who will put down these
disorders in a trice."

"We shall look to you, then, marquis," said the cavalier, "to restore
peace and quiet for us at once."

"I would not soil my hands with such dirt," replied de Lacheville
haughtily, and scowling at what he thought was a disposition on the part
of the chevalier to ridicule him.

"Is there really danger?" inquired the Countess d'Arlincourt of her
husband.

"The situation is grave, but I hardly think there is great cause for
alarm," he answered. "The king has too many loyal subjects to permit
anarchy and riot to exist for any length of time."

"Let us go out upon the balcony," interrupted St. Hilaire; "the show is
about to pass under our windows." He threw open the windows and ushered
his friends out upon the balcony with a gesture as if he were bidding
them welcome to his box at the opera.

Down the street, with a roar that drowned all other sounds, came the
surging mass like a torrent that had burst its bounds. In the front
ranks, carried on the shoulders of a dozen, were two men dressed in the
uniform of the French Guards. They were greeted on all sides with
acclamations.

"See how the Guards fraternize with the mob," said de Lacheville. "Down
with the French Guards! Down with the rabble!" he cried in his
excitement, shaking his fist over the railing.

St. Hilaire gripped his arm. "I don't care how much you expose your own
life, but as I do not wish to bring insult or danger upon the ladies
under my roof, perhaps you had better refrain from expressing your
opinions for the present."

"Do you think they would dare attack this house?" demanded de
Lacheville, turning pale.

"Men who have successfully stormed a prison are not likely to hesitate
before the walls of a house, even though it does belong to a marquis,"
replied St. Hilaire. "Look at that!" he exclaimed suddenly, pointing up
the street. Then turning to d'Arlincourt, he said, "Get the ladies
inside as quickly as possible." The count had no sooner followed his
directions, than along the street, borne on long poles on a level with
the very eyes of those on the balcony, appeared two heads dripping with
blood.

"Dear me, whose are those?" exclaimed the chevalier, adjusting his
eyeglasses. "By my soul, it's poor Delaunay's head. They have treated
him most shabbily. Can you make out the other, St. Hilaire?"

"No," answered the marquis, "I was never good at recognizing faces," and
he stepped to the window to reassure the ladies in the salon.

The chevalier leaned over the railing and called out to one of the men
in the crowd:--

"My good fellow, will you have the kindness to tell me whose head they
are carrying on the second pole?"

The man, thus addressed, looked up. He was tall and broad-shouldered,
with face browned from exposure to the sun. With one arm he supported a
member of the French Guards who had been wounded.

"Flesselle's," he answered. "He has betrayed the people again and again.
He has received a terrible punishment."

The man who had given the chevalier this answer did not move on
immediately, but stood looking up at the balcony. The old nobleman,
following this look, saw that it rested on the Marquis de Lacheville.

The latter, meeting the man's eye at the same moment, recognized Robert
Tournay. He started forward as if about to speak, then noticing the
weapon in Tournay's hand and remembering the recent warning of St.
Hilaire, he checked himself. Neither spoke, but the marquis could not
repress a look of hatred, which was answered by a look of defiance by
Tournay. Then the latter turned away with his companion leaning on his
shoulder. The crowd closed up and he was soon lost to sight.

"They have killed Flesselle, the mayor of Paris," said the chevalier, as
St. Hilaire joined him a moment later. "Well," he continued, as if in
answer to St. Hilaire's shrug, "Flesselle was a fool, but I am sorry for
poor Delaunay. Come, St. Hilaire, let us go in, the crowd is thinning
out now; in a short time the streets will be passable and I must be
going. I have to thank you for a most enjoyable day, marquis."

"The pleasure has been mine," replied the Marquis de St. Hilaire,
bowing.

"Are you going to the duchess's to-night?" inquired the chevalier.

"No, I think not," answered St. Hilaire, putting his hand upon the
window-bar. "After you, my dear chevalier," indicating the way into the
salon. As he was about to step into the room the chevalier turned and
took a final look at the street. The main body of the mob had passed and
their shouts were heard receding in the distance; although underneath
the window were still a number of persons, coming and going in restless
excitement.

"I think, marquis," he said, with his curious smile, "that your friends
need soap and water badly."

"They do, chevalier," said the other, returning the smile, "and the
smell is sickening. Come to my bedroom; I will give you a new perfume."

That evening, after the departure of his guests, the Marquis de St.
Hilaire called in his man of affairs.

"Rignot," he demanded carelessly, "have I a single estate that is
unencumbered?"

"Unfortunately no, monsieur le marquis."

"Think again, Rignot. Is there not some little estate still intact? Some
small farm heretofore overlooked by us?"

"Not a cottage, monsieur le marquis."

"What bills are unpaid?"

"Some three hundred thousand livres are rather pressing."

"Is that the sum total of all my liabilities? I want a full statement
to-night."

"You owe about eight hundred thousand francs, monsieur le marquis."

"Pay them at once."

"But, monsieur le marquis, it will be impossible. Where shall I get the
funds?"

"You may sell my furniture, personal property"--

"What, everything, monsieur le marquis?"

"Yes, everything; and after paying all my debts, if there is anything
left, take out a commission for yourself and give me the balance;" and
then he turned to the window and looked out on the lights of the city of
Paris, indicating that the interview was at an end. Rignot withdrew.

"Assuredly," said the Marquis de St. Hilaire with a yawn, "this
revolution arrives in good time. I should soon have become a beggar."




CHAPTER III

THE BAKER AND HIS FAMILY


The Count d'Arlincourt had just left the palace at Versailles.

He had been present at the reception to the Royal Flanders regiment. He
had heard their vow of fidelity to the king. He had been among the
officers and the nobles of the court who had trampled under foot the
tricolor of Paris and decorated their coats with the white cockade, and
now he left the royal presence with his sovereign's thanks and
commendations ringing in his ears.

As he proceeded through the courtyard three gentlemen entered at the
main gate. A shade of annoyance passed over the count's brow as he
recognized St. Hilaire and two other noblemen, all members of the States
General, and all reputed to lean somewhat too radically toward the
popular side in politics. He had hardly seen St. Hilaire since the
breakfast party at the house of the latter three months before. The
toast of the marquis and his expressed sympathy with revolutionary
orders had caused a decided estrangement.

Indeed, St. Hilaire and the two noblemen who were with him had become
alienated from their order, and many of their former friends among the
nobility had refused to speak or hold any relations with them whatever.

The count could not avoid meeting them, but he was undecided whether to
ignore them entirely or pass them with such a slight inclination of the
head as to be equally cutting.

The cordial bow of the Marquis de St. Hilaire, however, for whom he had
always felt a peculiar and inexplicable regard, caused him to change his
mind.

He saluted the three gentlemen politely, though with a certain reserve
of manner natural to him, and addressed St. Hilaire.

"A word with you, marquis," he said, "if I may be pardoned for taking
you from these gentlemen for a few minutes?"

St. Hilaire turned to his companions: "With your permission, messieurs,
I will join you in five minutes in the palace."

The gentlemen bowed in assent and walked toward the palace, leaving the
count and the marquis alone in the centre of the court.

"You were not present at the reception in the palace. We missed you
greatly, marquis," the former began, with an attempt at cordiality of
manner, having resolved to make one last appeal to his friend.

"Thank you, my dear d'Arlincourt, for your kindness in saying so,"
replied the marquis affably, "but I must tell you frankly that even if
affairs in the Assembly had not claimed my time, other circumstances
would have rendered my presence at this banquet impossible."

"The king," continued d'Arlincourt quietly, "inquired for you several
times and seemed much disturbed at your absence."

"I am now on my way to wait upon his majesty," replied St. Hilaire.

The count's face lighted up. "A tardy apology is better than none at
all, for I presume you are going to explain your absence."

"The two gentlemen who have left us, and myself, have been sent by the
convention as a committee to urge his majesty to sanction their latest
decrees,--the bill relating to popular rights," replied St. Hilaire
quietly.

"For the love of Heaven, Raphael!" burst out the count, "can it be
possible that you intend to persist in championing the popular cause,
like the Duke d'Orleans, or the Marquis de Lafayette? Your present
position is that of a madman. Come back to our side now. To-morrow it
may be too late."

"For the life of me, Andre," replied St. Hilaire lightly, "I cannot tell
you to-day what my line of action will be to-morrow, but in any case I
beg you will not compare me either with the duke or Lafayette. I am
neither as dull as the one nor as virtuous as the other. Why not permit
me still to resemble only the Marquis de St. Hilaire?"

"Then," replied the count warmly, "I tell you that as the Marquis de St.
Hilaire, your duty to the king should have brought you to the reception
in honor of the Flanders regiment."

The marquis dropped his air of levity suddenly. "Do you know, count,"
he said slowly, "I have just come from the Assembly, where news reached
us a little while ago that a mob of forty thousand was marching from
Paris toward Versailles."

The count started with surprise, but betrayed no other emotion.

"Is it a fitting time to be feting a regiment composed of mercenaries?
Is it a fitting time to be clinking glasses and drinking toasts when
forty thousand men and women are approaching with their cry for bread?"

The count drew himself up as he replied,--"What more fitting time could
there be for the loyal nobles to gather about their sovereign than in
the hour of danger? I, for one, would not let the fear of any Paris mob
keep me from the king's side at such a moment."

St. Hilaire flushed deeply. "Count d'Arlincourt," he said quickly, "I
pass over that insinuation because it comes from an old friend. But know
this: that I am one of the members of the Assembly who have sworn to
support the constitution and enforce the rights of man. I should indeed
have been false to my trust had I participated in a fete to these
foreigners where oaths were openly made to defeat that constitution."

"Our ideas of duty evidently differ," replied the count stiffly. "My
duty is to my king."

"They do differ," said St. Hilaire. "My first allegiance is to the
nation. Count d'Arlincourt, I respect you and your opinions, but I also
have a regard for my oath. I have chosen my path and I shall follow
it."

"Good-day, Marquis de St. Hilaire," said the count, in his usual cold
manner.

"Farewell, Count d'Arlincourt," was the polite rejoinder, and raising
his hat St. Hilaire passed onward in the direction of the palace.

Forty thousand men and women were marching from Paris to Versailles.
They had forced a king to recall a banished minister. They had sacked a
prison fortress,--razing to the ground walls that had frowned on them
for ages, wiping out in one day a landmark of tyranny that had been
standing there for centuries. Now they were coming to see their king at
his palace. They had heard of the banquet at Versailles, given in honor
of the royal Flanders regiment, where wine had flowed like water and
where food was in abundance. At such a banquet, they argued, there must
be bread enough for the whole world; and they were coming to get their
share of it.

Although it was in the month of October, the sun was hot and the road
dusty. In the front rank, amid all the dust and sweat and noise, walked
Robert Tournay. He carried no weapon, nor did he seek to lead; but
animated by curiosity and by sympathy, he felt himself drawn into this
great heaving mass of people who had decided to correct these abuses
themselves, even if to do it they had to take the laws into their own
hands.

Hearing a shout and rumble of wheels behind him, Tournay looked over his
shoulder to see a cannon coming through the crowd, which parted on each
side to let it pass, and then closed up behind it. This cannon was drawn
along the road by a score of men, whose bare feet, beating the dust,
sent up a pulverous cloud that blew back into the faces of those behind
like smoke.

Seated upon the gun carriage, her hair streaming in the wind, was a
young woman wearing the red cap of liberty, and waving in her hand a
blood-red flag. The cannon stopped under the shade of some poplar trees,
and men stood around it wiping the perspiration from their foreheads.

"A cheer for the Goddess of Liberty," cried a voice in the crowd. A
shout went up that made the poplars tremble.

"Citizens," cried the girl, in response, standing erect and flinging her
flag to the breeze, "you want bread!"

"Bread! Bread!" was the answering shout.

"The women of Paris will lead you to it. Then you shall help
yourselves."

"Show us where it is and we'll take it fast enough," was the answering
cry.

"Where should it be but in the king's palace? There they are feasting
while the people in Paris are starving. They shall give the people of
their bread!"

"What if they have eaten it all?" asked another voice.

"Then shall the king bake more," answered the girl--"enough for every
one in his kingdom. He shall be the nation's baker, and his wife shall
help him knead the dough, and their little boy shall give out the
loaves."

There was a laugh at this and cries of "Good! Good!"

"My friends," she continued, taking off her cap and swinging it by the
tassel, "this marching is hot work, and talking is dry business. Has any
one a drink for La Demoiselle Liberte?"

A number of bottles were instantly proffered her.

"This _eau de vie_ puts new life into one," she exclaimed, throwing back
her head and putting a flask to her lips. With an easy gesture she took
a deep draught of the liquor, to the increasing admiration of the
bystanders. On removing the bottle from her lips, she said with a nod:
"How many of you men can beat that? Here goes one more." She was on the
point of repeating the act when she caught sight of Tournay, who had
drawn near and stood by the wheel of the truck looking at her intently.

"Here, friend, you look at this liquor thirstily; take a good pull at
it. You're a likely youth, and a sup of brandy will foster your
strength! What! You will not drink? Bah, man! I would not have it said
that I was a little boy, afraid of good liquor. But why do you stare at
me like that, without speaking? Have you no tongue?" Tournay put aside
the proffered bottle and said:--

"I stared at you because I know you. You are Marianne Froment, the
miller's daughter, who left La Thierry a year ago. And you should
remember Robert Tournay."

The young woman shook her head with a decided gesture.

"You mistake, friend; my name is not Marianne Froment. I know no miller,
and have never heard of the place you speak of."

Tournay remembered when he had seen her last in the alley of the park.
He felt no animosity toward her; instead he felt compassion for the
silly girl whose head had been turned by the flattery of a nobleman who
had already grown tired of her.

"It is you who are mistaken, Marianne," he replied quietly, "although
when I knew you at La Thierry, drinking strong liquor was not one of
your practices."

"I am La Demoiselle Liberte," replied the girl defiantly, throwing her
brown curls back from her forehead and replacing her cap. "I have drunk
such liquor as this from my cradle. So here's to you! May you some day
grow to be a man."

Tournay stayed the bottle in its course to her lips, and took her hand
in his.

"You are Marianne Froment," he persisted, "and it would be much better
for you to be in the quiet country of La Thierry. Why not go back?"

"If Marianne did go back, who would speak to her? Who among all those
who live there would take her by the hand?" she asked.

"Have I not taken you by the hand just now?" asked Tournay.

"I believe you would be the only one," she replied, stifling a sigh.
"Not even my father would do that. But you are no longer at La Thierry.
What are you doing here, and what sent you away from home? Are you going
back?"

Tournay shook his head. "There are reasons," he replied slowly, "why I
can never return."

"Neither can Marianne Froment," rejoined the girl. "Therefore,
compatriot, drink with me to our future good comradeship. And pass the
bottle to your neighbor. Then let us go on together. _En avant_, my
friends," she cried out in a loud voice. "The sooner we start again the
earlier we shall reach our bakery. Follow the carriage of La Demoiselle
Liberte, and she will lead you to it."

A score of brawny arms grasped the ropes attached to the truck, and with
a heavy rattle the cannon was drawn through the crowd, which cheered it
on its way.

The forty thousand swept into Versailles in an overpowering tide,
finding nothing to stop their triumphant course.

The crowd choked up the streets of the town, filling the public square
and invading the Assembly chamber.

The Assembly, with all the gravity and dignity of its recent birth, rose
to its feet to greet as many of the Paris deputation as could crowd into
the room, steaming with the sweat and dust of the march. Outside the
door another crowd remained, clamoring noisily.

The president of the Assembly addressed them in a few words full of
dignity. "I have just learned," he said in his quiet way, "that the
king has been pleased to accord his royal sanction to all the articles
of the Bill of Popular Rights which was passed by your Assembly on the
5th of August."

"Will that give the people more bread?" asked La Demoiselle, looking up
at Tournay with an inquiring expression in her brown eyes. Despite her
red cap, her swagger, and her boisterous talk, she was very pretty and
child-like. As he looked down upon her standing by his side her brown
head did not reach his shoulder.

"Whether it gives them bread or not, it is a glorious thing for the
people," exclaimed Tournay with enthusiasm.

A few minutes later the demoiselle yawned. "The old fellow is too
tiresome," she said; "let us go to the palace and get our bread."

Evidently the same thought moved the rest of the deputation. They began
to file out, while President Meunier was still addressing them, with a
restless scuffling of their feet, and a murmuring among themselves, "To
the palace! To the palace!"

The last Tournay saw of Demoiselle Liberte she was pushing through the
crowd that made way for her right willingly, while she cried out: "I
will show you the bakery, my brave people; I am now on my way to
interview the chief baker."

       *       *       *       *       *

The forty thousand got their bread. They got their bread and more. They
pressed in so close upon their monarch, they were so menacing, so
determined in their way, that he promised to dismiss his royal Flanders
regiment and go back to Paris with his beloved subjects. And so the
hungry, sullen, desperate mob became a shouting, happy, victorious one.
They cheered their monarch, who had sworn to be a father to his people;
they cheered the royal family, even the queen; but most of all they
cheered the loaves of bread which were distributed among the eager
multitude. Every shop in the town was soon depleted of its stock, and
all the bakers were working over-time to supply the food.

"Did I not tell you I would lead you where bread was plenty?" demanded
the Demoiselle de la Liberte gayly of those gathered around. "The king
is a capital baker; we have only to keep him with us and we shall have
food at all times." And she dipped her crust in a cup of wine.

"We will take our baker back with us to Paris," cried one.

"Aye, and the baker's wife and his little boy," cried another. At this
there was a laugh.

Tournay, who had aided in the distribution of the food, approached the
group, relieved by the thought that all were satisfied and contented, at
least for the moment.

"Ah, there is my handsome compatriot," exclaimed the demoiselle as soon
as she set eyes upon him. "Wilt thou join us in our supper, compatriot?"
she called out. She was seated carelessly on the truck of the
gun-carriage, with a cup of wine in one hand and a half-loaf in the
other, her face flushed with excitement. Unlike most of the women who
stood about her, she was of graceful form, with hands and arms
unblackened by hard toil, and the skin of her throat soft and white. She
wore her red cap in a rakish manner on the side of her head, its tassel
falling down over her forehead between her eyes. Every little while she
would throw it back by a quick toss of the head.

Tournay took the cup from her outstretched hand, and put it to his lips.
"Marianne," he said in a low tone, "it would be better if you were at
home among your own people."

"Why do you still call me by that name?" she asked in a tone of
suppressed passion. "_My_ home is Paris. _These_ are my people. They
never question who I am nor whence I came. There is not one in La
Thierry who would deal thus with me, unless it be yourself. You took my
hand this morning. And for that I will take yours and call you my
compatriot." Then changing to her usual tone of gayety, she cried aloud,
"Come, compatriot! This has been a glorious day. The people of Paris
have captured their king and are about to take him to Paris. Give us a
toast!"

Tournay felt that what she had said was true. Probably not one of those
who had known Marianne in La Thierry would speak to her should she
return there. He turned to those who stood around the gun. "Friends," he
cried, "I drink to freedom! May all among you who love it as I do live
for it and be ready to die for it." There was a shout as he turned away
and left them, and over his shoulder, looking back, he saw the
demoiselle dancing on the cannon, cup in hand.

He left the crowded part of the city to find some quiet spot as a change
from the noise and tumult of the past two days. Turning a corner he came
face to face with a man whom he had seen among the crowd in the Assembly
hall,--a man of gigantic stature with deep-set eyes. His appearance was
so striking that he could have passed nowhere unnoticed, and even in the
crowded hall Tournay's gaze had returned to him constantly. As they met,
Tournay again looked at him earnestly. The man stopped with the abrupt
question:--

"Why did you come to Versailles?"

"Because," answered Tournay, "when I saw great numbers of people in
Paris starving, and heard of the banqueting here, my blood boiled. This
Flanders regiment, which is feeding fat at the people's cost, must be
sent away. We cannot pause on our way to freedom with the destruction of
the Bastille. The king must come to Paris where the people need him, and
not spend his time here under the influence of a corrupt nobility."

"The king," mused the other; "do you believe in kings?"

"How do you mean?--'Do I believe in kings'?"

"Seventeen years ago," said the giant, "when only a boy, I stood in the
cathedral at Rheims while the coronation of the king was taking place.
I had never seen a king before, and moved by a strong desire to see a
being so exalted, I had walked many leagues to gratify my curiosity.
When I saw a pale-faced stripling kneel before the archbishop to receive
the crown, I could hardly keep from bursting into loud laughter at the
thought that such a puny creature could hold the destiny of a great
nation in his hands. I have often thought of it since, and to this day
it is as absurd as it was then."

"I think a nation should have a king," said Tournay, after a few
moments' thought. "But he should reign in the interests of his people.
And of all the people, not a small part."

"And so you came down here to see that our little king did his duty,"
suggested the large man, smiling.

"I came here, as I have already said, because in my humble way I wanted
to do something for my country."

"For your country?" repeated his companion interrogatively; "for the
people?"

"Yes," answered Tournay, "the people,--the common people, to whom I
belong; those who have never had a voice lifted up to speak for them,
nor a hand to fight their battles."

"There is a voice to speak for them at last," replied the giant, his
eyes shining with a fierce light. "France is full of them. From north to
south, from east to west, they have been called and are answering. In
the Assembly their voices are heard. In every street in Paris their
voices are heard. I can speak for them and I will; aye and fight for
them too," and he lifted his massive arm with a gesture which in its
force seemed to indicate that alone he could fight for and win the
people's cause. "Throughout France there are millions of arms which like
mine are ready to strike down tyranny. Have no fear, my friend. The
nation has found a champion in itself! The people have taken up their
own cause!" The power of the man, his earnestness and energy, stirred
Tournay to the depths of his soul. He looked with admiration at the
lion-like figure standing before him. Then grasping the man's hand he
said with earnestness:--

"I too am one of them,--I may not be of much use, still I am one. Will
you show me how I can be of more service?"

"A stout arm and a brave heart are always worth much," replied the
giant. "I like you, friend; your voice has the true ring in it. And
where Jacques Danton likes he trusts. Come with me and I will tell you
more."




CHAPTER IV

THE "BON PATRIOT"


Colonel Robert Tournay of the Republican army sat over his coffee in the
cafe of the "Bon Patriot" one December morning in the year 1793 of the
Gregorian Calendar, and the year 2 of the French Republic.

The four years that had passed since the July afternoon, when he first
entered Paris through the southern gate, had been full of stirring
events in which Tournay had taken such an active part as to make the
time equal to many years of an ordinary lifetime,--years which had drawn
lines upon his forehead that are not usual upon the brow of twenty-six.
His figure was considerably heavier, but even more elastic and muscular,
telling of a life of constant bodily exercise.

Shortly after his return to Paris from Versailles on the eventful day
when the Demoiselle de la Liberte, accompanied by her forty thousand,
brought the baker and his family back to their people, Tournay had
enrolled himself in the National Guard to protect Paris and the country
against foreign invasion.

From Paris to the army at the front was the next step, where he served
with such bravery as to gain promotion to his present rank. Promotions
were rapid in those days, and men rose from the lowest social ranks to
the highest military positions, if they proved their fitness by valor
and ability.

By the winter of '93 Tournay had won the shoulder-straps of a colonel,
and had now been sent to Paris by General Hoche with dispatches to the
National Convention. His dispatches had been delivered and he was
waiting impatiently for the reply which he was to take back to the
front. More than eighteen months had passed since he had been in Paris,
and the scenes in the city streets had a new charm for him. It was with
a feeling of pride that he looked out from the windows of the "Bon
Patriot" and saw the active, bustling crowds on the boulevards and
realized that the Republic was an accomplished fact and that he had done
his part toward creating it. And yet there was some sadness mingled with
his pride. Although an ardent Republican he could not sympathize in all
the horrors of the Revolution,--indeed he had been greatly shocked by
them. Yet his long absence from Paris had prevented him from witnessing
the worst phases of the reign of terror, and thus he could not fully
realize them. He was, moreover, first of all, a man of the people. He
had resented from childhood the cruelty and oppressions under which they
had suffered, and his joy at the abolition of unjust laws, his pride in
the assertion of equality for all men, overweighed his regret for the
bloodshed that had accompanied the triumph of their cause and the
gaining of the Republic.

Sitting over his coffee, he recalled his early life at La Thierry. Since
the day of his flight, he had never returned there, and with the
exception of an annual letter from his father, who although a Royalist
could not quite make up his mind to cast off his only son, he had no
communication with the inhabitants of the chateau. From these occasional
and brief epistles he had learned that the Baron de Rochefort had gone
to England almost at the outbreak of the Revolution. In a more
roundabout way he learned the cause of the baron's departure to be a
secret mission to the Court of St. James on behalf of the tottering
French monarchy. The mission had come to naught; the baron had fallen
ill in London and died there a few months after his arrival.

Edme, his only child, was therefore left at La Thierry, where she lived
in great seclusion, with Matthieu Tournay still in faithful attendance.
The marriage with the Marquis de Lacheville had never taken place. As
the Revolution progressed and the de Rochefort fortune dwindled, the
marquis's ardor, never at glowing heat, cooled perceptibly, and during
the past two years nothing had been heard of him at the chateau. It was
thought that he had either gone abroad or was living in seclusion in
Paris.

Tournay had sometimes felt a little anxious as to the safety of
Mademoiselle Edme and his father, but the letters he received from old
Matthieu were reassuring, and as the place was a secluded one and the
family not known to have shared actively in the royalist cause, his
anxieties had for some time been allayed and he thought of them now as
likely to escape suspicion and to remain there in quiet obscurity.

Tournay was roused from his reverie by the conversation of two men at an
adjoining table, or, more strictly speaking, a man and a boy, for the
younger was not over seventeen years of age. His face was quite innocent
of any beard. On his yellow curls he wore the red nightcap of the
Jacobins and his belt was an arsenal of knives and pistols. Taking up a
glass of beer he blew off the froth with a quick puff of the lips.

"Thus would I blow off the heads of all kings," he said in a voice that
courted attention; "I give you a toast, comrade: death to every tyrant
in Europe."

"I'll drink that toast willingly," answered the other, a big fellow, who
despite his swagger and insolent manner, had a face bearing considerable
traces of good looks. "But I should prefer to drink confusion to each in
a separate glass, seeing that you are standing treat for the day," and
he laughed at his own wit.

"The Revolution does not march quick enough to suit my fancy," he went
on, turning his glass upside down to indicate that it needed
replenishing, and then wiping the froth from the ends of his drooping
brown mustache. "The convention is too slow in its work of purging the
nation. Were it not for Robespierre we should make no progress. Why are
there still aristocrats walking in the broad light of day?"

"Very few come out in the daylight, citizen," remarked the boy. "They
creep out at night generally."

"Well, why are they allowed to live at all, young friend?" said the
elder man, striking the table with his fist.

"Be patient, good Citizen Gonflou; the Committee of Public Safety has
sent out a good batch of arrests within the last twenty-four hours,"
said the lad knowingly. "I have it from my brother, who has been charged
with the execution of one."

"Your brother, Bernard Gardin?" inquired the other as he drained his
glass. "Who is it now?"

"Bernard has gone down to our old home in the village of La Thierry to
arrest a young aristocrat by the name of Edme de Rochefort," replied the
boy.

"Oh, oh, a woman!" laughed Gonflou. "Well, I'm glad I've not got your
brother's work. I'm too tender-hearted when it comes to be a question of
women."

Tournay uttered an exclamation of surprise. The next instant he tipped
over his coffee-cup with a clatter to cover up the betrayal of interest
in the conversation, and in replacing it, managed to draw his chair
nearer to the two men.

"When did he start?" was the inquiry of Gonflou.

"This morning at six. He will return in four days."

Recovered from the first shock, Tournay's resolution was immediate. Edme
de Rochefort must be saved from arrest--and from the death that was
almost certain to follow.

He was a man of action, accustomed to think quickly, and he began at
once to devise means to save her. His first thought was of Danton. On
this man's friendship he felt sure he could rely. His ability and
willingness to assist him he resolved to test immediately.

The conversation between the two men at the adjoining table took another
turn and he saw he was likely to hear no more on this subject, so he
rose from his seat and hurried from the cafe. Ten minutes later he
climbed the dark stairway that led to Danton's lodging. Here he found
the Republican giant in his shirtsleeves,--a short pipe between his
lips, bending over his writing table. He did not look up as Tournay took
a chair at his elbow, but a nod from the massive head showed that he was
aware of his presence.

"Jacques," asked Tournay abruptly, "was an order for the arrest of a
certain Citizeness Edme de Rochefort signed by the committee last
night?"

Danton looked at him for a moment while he stroked his chin
thoughtfully.

"Hum--de Rochefort? A daughter of the Baron Honore who went to England
as emissary from the late monarchy? Yes, I believe the woman is to be
arrested," was the reply.

"If I furnish you with abundant reason for it will you have the order
rescinded at once?"

"I cannot," was the answer.

"Is there any other charge against the Citizeness de Rochefort except
that she is the daughter of her father?"

"None that I know of."

"Why arrest a young woman merely because her father went to England as
an emissary of Louis Capet more than three years ago?"

Danton shrugged his shoulders. Tournay continued.

"In view of the length of time which has elapsed, in view of the
absolute lack of result from the baron's mission, in view of the youth
and innocence of this girl, will you not endeavor to have this order
rescinded?"

"Why do you desire it so strongly?" demanded Danton, laying down his pen
for the first time.

"Because I have known her from a child. I was born on the de Rochefort
estate," was the prompt reply.

"Is that all?" asked Danton.

"No, it is not the only reason. I abhor this dragging of the weak and
innocent into the political whirlpool. We do not need to make war upon
women. I have protested against this before now, and I tell you again
that we are disgracing the Republic by the crimes committed in its name.
You are all-powerful with the masses, Jacques, your voice is always
listened to,--why do you not put an end to the atrocities, which instead
of decreasing, are growing worse daily? Where is your eloquence? Where
is your power? How can you sit passively by and see these horrors? Are
they done with your sanction? Can it be that a man with your strength
can take a pleasure in crushing the weak and defenseless?"

"Would to God that I had the power to stop it," cried Danton. "Do you
think that I take pleasure in the arrest of innocent young women? Do you
think that it is with delight that I see our prisons crowded with
thousands whose only crime is to have been born among the aristocrats?"
He rose and paced the floor savagely. "You talk of my power with the
people. You say they listen to my voice. To keep that power I must
remain in advance. If once I lag behind it is gone forever. We have
given life to this terrible creature the Revolution, and we must march
before it. If we falter it will crush us too."

"Let it crush us then," cried Tournay, springing to his feet. "I will no
longer be driven by it."

Danton looked at him a moment with kindly eyes, then shook his head and
said mournfully: "And France, what would she do without me? All I have
done has been done for her sake. And I do not regret what has been
done," he continued, resuming his former manner. "No, when I see what we
have done I regret nothing. That the innocent have perished, I know, and
I deplore it. That the innocent must still perish is inevitable. But
what is the blood of a few thousand to wash out the cruelty of ages?
What are the cries of a few compared with the groans of millions
throughout the centuries! Even now the allied armies of all Europe are
thundering at the doors of France. We cannot pause now. They have dared
us to the combat, and in return, as gage of battle, we have hurled them
down the bleeding head of a king. We must go on."

Then sinking into his seat, he said quietly, "No, Robert, my friend, let
Robespierre and his followers have their way in these small matters for
a little while longer. What are the lives of a few peachy-cheeked girls
weighed against the destiny of a nation?" And he took up his pen.

Tournay sat in silent thought for a few minutes. He saw that it would be
useless to say more. After Danton's pen had labored heavily over a few
pages, he exclaimed, "Jacques!"

"Well?"

"Will you procure me a passport from the Committee of Public Safety
which will take me to the German frontier?"

"Are you going to run away?" asked Danton, still busy over his work.

"Whatever happens, I shall never leave France," replied Tournay quietly.

"Very well," said Danton, ringing a bell. "I never shall suspect your
patriotism, but there are those who might if you talked to them as you
have to me."

As his secretary appeared in answer to the summons, he took up a sheet
of paper to write the order.

"Make it for Colonel Robert Tournay and wife," said Tournay carelessly,
leaning over his shoulder.

Danton looked up at him suddenly. "I did not know you were married," he
said.

Tournay made no reply.

Danton wrote a few lines rapidly. "Take this to the secretary of the
Committee of Public Safety," he said to his clerk, "and return with an
answer in half an hour."

In less than that time the man returned with the information that the
secretary was away and would not return until two o'clock that
afternoon.

"Will that do?" asked Danton, turning to Tournay.

"And it is now ten," said Tournay rather impatiently. "It will have to
do, I am afraid."

"I will send it to your lodgings the moment it comes in," said Danton,
resuming his work.

"Very well, do so, and many thanks. If I am not there have it left with
the friend who shares my lodgings." Tournay quitted the office and
hastened home, stopping on the way at a stable where his horse was
quartered, to give instructions that the animal be saddled and brought
to his door without delay.

Reaching his house, he ran up the four flights of stairs that led to the
little suite of rooms which he was sharing with his friend Gaillard.

Gaillard was a versatile fellow; he had been a poet, an actor, and a
journalist. Sometimes the one and sometimes the other, as inclination
prompted or destiny decreed.

Shortly after Tournay's first arrival at Paris, he had met Gaillard, who
was then a journalist, at a public meeting. The chance acquaintance led
to friendship. He had found the young writer in some financial straits
and had rendered him such assistance as his own slender purse could
afford.

Gaillard, who never forgot the favor, was devoted to his friend. He
watched his career as a soldier with interest and pride, and now that
Tournay had come to Paris for a few days, Gaillard had insisted that his
small chambers should have the honor of sheltering the gallant officer
of the Republic.

Gaillard was at present amusing crowds nightly at the Theatre of the
Republic, where he was playing a series of comedy roles.

It was with satisfaction that Tournay, as he ascended the stairs, heard
Gaillard's voice in the room, repeating the lines of his part for that
evening's performance.

"Well, my brave colonel, how goes the convention to-day?" said Gaillard,
as Tournay entered the room. "Has the Tribunal done me the honor to
request that I be shaved by the guillotine?"

"I have not been to the convention to-day. Other business has
prevented," replied Tournay, going into his bedroom and taking a pair of
pistols from his wardrobe.

"No? then I must wait until I get to the club before I learn the exact
number of the nobility who are to patronize the national razor to-day."

"Are you in the piece for to-night, Gaillard?" asked Tournay, hardly
hearing what his friend was saying.

"I am."

"That's unfortunate, for I wanted to ask a great service of you," said
Tournay, as he proceeded to clean and load the weapon.

"Tell me what it is; I may be able to help you."

"I am going at once to La Thierry."

"La Thierry?" inquired Gaillard.

"Yes. It is my birthplace. I am going there on an important errand. I
must start instantly. I cannot even wait for a paper which is to be sent
to me here by Danton. I am perfectly willing to let you know that it is
a passport to the frontier, for myself and one other. The paper will not
arrive until two o'clock, several hours after I am on the way. I must
have a swift messenger follow with it and join me at the inn in the
village of La Thierry."

"I will see that this is done," replied Gaillard. "Is that all?"

"That is all," said Tournay, hurrying from the room. On the threshold he
turned. "Are you positive that you will be able to find a trustworthy
messenger? Failure would be fatal."

"I swear to you to have it there," cried Gaillard, lifting up his arm
and striking a dramatic attitude.

Tournay knew that, despite his apparent frivolity, Gaillard possessed
not only a loyal heart, but a clear head, and he felt that he could
trust him thoroughly. Much relieved in mind, he descended the stairway
and sprang upon his horse at the door. Since leaving Danton he had been
thinking out a plan which he hoped would successfully save Mademoiselle
Edme de Rochefort, but to carry it into effect he must reach La Thierry
before Gardin. So putting spurs to his horse, he dashed through the
streets at a pace which threatened the lives of a number of the good
citizens. In a short time he was out of the gates, galloping along the
road toward La Thierry at a tremendous pace. Then suddenly recollecting
that the road to be traveled was a long one, he drew a tighter rein on
his horse and slackened his speed.

"Thou must restrain thy ardor," he said, leaning forward and stroking
the sleek neck of the animal affectionately; "thou hast a long journey
before thee and must not break down under it."

At ten o'clock that night he drew up before the inn at Vallieres, just
half the distance to La Thierry. He reluctantly saw that his horse had
entirely given out. As for himself, he would have gone on if he could
have obtained a fresh beast. He looked critically at those in the stable
of the inn, and realized that with four hours' rest his own horse would
bring him to his journey's end more readily than any of the sorry
animals the landlord had to offer. Having come to this decision he threw
himself fully dressed on a bed for a short sleep. He slept until two in
the morning. Then, after a hasty cup of coffee, he was again in the
saddle and continuing his journey.

He rode steadily on with the advancing day, passing some travelers, none
of whom he recognized. At noon he entered the village of Amand. Thence
there were two roads to La Thierry. One, the more direct, led to the
right over the hill; the other, to the left and along the river, was the
longer but the better road. If his horse had been fresh, Tournay would
have taken the short-cut, going over hill and dale at a gallop, but his
tired beast decided him to choose the river road.

Toward the end of the afternoon he saw in the distance the spire of the
church of La Thierry. He felt positive by this time that Gardin must
have taken the upper road or he should have overtaken him before this,
so rapidly had he traveled.

Every step of the way was familiar to him. Every bend in the river,
every stone by the wayside was associated with his boyhood. Just before
he came to the village of La Thierry, he left the main road and turning
to the right followed a lane that made a short cut to the chateau de
Rochefort. It was about two miles long and in summer was an archway of
shaded trees and full of refreshment. Now the branches were bare, and
the flying feet of his steed sank to the fetlocks in the carpet of damp,
dead leaves.

As he approached the chateau on the right he heard a sound that caused
him to draw rein in consternation. Springing from his horse he fastened
him to a sapling by the wayside, seized his pistols from his holsters,
and hurried forward on foot. At every step he took the sounds grew
louder. There was no mistaking their meaning.

The lane terminated about a hundred yards from the house. Tournay threw
himself flat upon the earth and working his way to a place where he was
sheltered by the overhanging branches of some hemlock trees, looked
cautiously out toward the chateau.

An attack was being made on the chateau at the front. Half a score of
men armed with clubs and various other weapons were endeavoring to break
down the iron-studded oaken door. A gigantic figure with shirt open to
the waist, whom Tournay recognized as the blacksmith of La Thierry, was
dealing blow after blow in rapid succession with a huge sledge-hammer.
The door, which had been built to resist a siege during the religious
wars of the sixteenth century, groaned and trembled under the blows of
the mighty Vulcan, but still held fast to the hinges. A man, standing a
little apart from the others and directing their movements, Tournay knew
to be Gardin. Seeing that they were making little headway, the latter
ordered his men to desist, evidently to form a more definite plan of
attack. In the mean time Tournay was working along the line of the
hemlocks towards the rear of the house. Suddenly three or four men
detached themselves from the attacking party and approached him. Fearing
that he had been discovered, he lay perfectly quiet. He soon saw that
they were making for the trunk of a sturdy ash-tree which had been
recently felled by a stroke of lightning. This they soon stripped of its
branches, and hewing off about thirty feet of the trunk they bore it
back on their shoulders with shouts of triumph. Here was a battering-ram
which would clear a way for them.

Seeing them again occupied with the assault, Tournay continued to crawl
cautiously along the edge of the grove until he was in a line with the
rear buildings. Here were the servants' rooms, the business offices of
the estate, and at one corner the office and the rooms occupied by
Matthieu Tournay, the steward. This, the oldest part of the building,
was covered thick with old ivy, by whose gnarled and twisted roots he
had climbed often, when a boy, to the little chamber in the roof which
had been his own. From this he knew well how to reach the apartments in
the main building. The repeated blows of the ash-tree against the doors
warned him that they could not resist the attack much longer. He climbed
quickly up until he reached the well-known little window under the
eaves. Dashing it open with his fist he swung himself into the
attic-room which he had known so well in his boyhood.




CHAPTER V

A BROKEN DOOR


"Open, in the name of the Republic."

No answer.

Crash! Crash! Blow followed blow upon the door of the old chateau.

"Again, citizens, once again! Brasseur! bring fagots, we'll fire the old
trap. Forgons, take this sledge-hammer in your big hands. At it,
man!--we'll soon have the lair of the aristocrats down about their ears.
Defour, Haillons, and you others, take up that ash-tree and let it
strike in the same place as before."

Amid a pandemonium of shouts and curses the blows continued to rain upon
the iron-studded outer door of the chateau de Rochefort, and the tree,
used as a battering-ram, poised upon the shoulders of a dozen men, was
dashed forward with a force that made the hinge-bolts start from their
sockets and the oaken panels fill the air with splinters.

The besieged had taken refuge in one of the large salons on the second
floor. There were only four of them: an old man, a priest, and two
women.

"They have nearly forced the outer door," cried old Matthieu Tournay,
wiping the perspiration from his brow with trembling hand.

"But the inner one," exclaimed the priest, laying his hand on Matthieu's
arm. "How long will that keep them off?"

"They'll break through that easily. Nothing can save us now; we are all
lost," replied the old man.

"May the Blessed Virgin preserve us from the monsters," murmured the
priest, looking towards the woman.

Edme de Rochefort stood near the window. The terrifying sounds which
echoed through the lower part of the building would have unnerved her,
had not anger supplied a sustaining force, and brought a deep flush to
supplant the pallor on her cheeks. The spirit of her race was roused
within her. Had she been a man she would have charged alone, sword in
hand, against the mob; but being only a woman she stood waiting the
issue. Trembling slightly, she stood with her small hands clenched and
white teeth firmly set. At her elbow was Agatha, her maid. She was paler
than her mistress, but it was not for herself she feared. Her devotion
made her fear more for Edme's safety than for her own.

As the shouts redoubled Edme saw the two old men turn, pallid and
trembling, towards her.

"They seek me only," she said resolutely. "Why should I endanger your
lives by remaining here? I will go to meet them!"

"You shall not go!" cried Agatha, placing herself in front of her
mistress.

"It can only be a question of a few minutes at the longest. Let me go,
Agatha."

"Listen," cried the priest, "they are in the house! They are coming up
the stairway now!"

"No," cried old Matthieu, "I can still hear them down there in the
courtyard."

Nevertheless a quick footstep was heard approaching from the corridor.
The portieres at the further end of the room were thrown apart, and a
man, wearing the uniform of the Republican army, entered the salon.

"Robert!" came in a glad cry from old Tournay's lips.

Tournay did not wait to exchange words with his father, but approached
Edme.

"I have ridden from Paris to prevent your arrest, mademoiselle; thank
God I have arrived in time. Only do as I direct and I shall be able to
save you."

"How are we to know that we can trust you?" she said, looking at him
fixedly.

He caught his breath as if unprepared for such a question. "You _must_
trust me, mademoiselle."

Edme laughed scornfully.

The color which rose to his cheek showed that her laugh cut even deeper
than her words.

"Mademoiselle," he began, "if you"--

She interrupted him passionately. "Are not those men below who seek to
destroy my chateau your friends? They have been clamoring for admittance
in the name of the Republic." And she looked significantly at the
tricolored cockade in his hat.

"And because I am a Republican and wear the uniform of the nation do
you really think that I could have anything in common with those
ruffians? You do me great injustice; I am here with one object, to
protect this household."

Edme continued to look steadily at him.

"You say nothing, mademoiselle. You condemn me by your silence. I will
prove to you how deeply you wrong me even if it take my life. I would
give that gladly only to prove it to you. But there is more than my life
at stake. There is your safety--and the safety of these, your servants.
My father--mademoiselle!"

Edme's look softened a little as she answered:--

"Although since you left our house we have only thought of you as an
enemy, still I believe your father's son would be incapable of
treachery. As for saving us, listen to the mob below. One man is
helpless against so many."

"I can save you--but it depends upon yourself. No matter what I may say
or do, you must trust me implicitly."

"Oh! do as my son says, mademoiselle!" interposed old Matthieu, joining
his hands beseechingly. "For your sake, for all our sakes, listen to and
be guided by him."

"If you can really protect us in this dreadful hour I should be guilty
if I risked the lives of those who have faithfully remained at my side,
by refusing your aid. I will follow your father's and your counsel,"
said Edme quietly.

"Is the door of the salon barred?" asked Tournay of his father.

"With such slight fastenings as we have," answered the old man.

"See that it is fast," said Tournay. "It will give us a few minutes.
Then listen to me."

There was a crash--louder than any that had yet been heard, and the mob
poured into the lower part of the chateau.

Here they paused for a moment to recover breath and wipe the
perspiration from their brows. Then some of the party began again their
work of destruction among the pieces of furniture, while others brought
up wine from the cellar to refresh themselves and their thirsty
companions.

Gardin, anxious only to make the arrest, stormed at this slight delay.

"Cannot you leave your wine until your work is done, citizens?" he
called out impatiently. "The aristocrat is above stairs--follow me!"

Through the large hall of the chateau and up the broad staircase, on the
heels of their leader, swarmed the mob, yelling and cursing.

Gardin and Forgons, like bloodhounds who scent their prey, made direct
for the door of the great salon, where the little party awaited them.
Gardin shook the door violently, then threw himself against it to force
an entrance.

"Here, citizen, we have already proven that two pair of shoulders are
better than one at that game," laughed Forgons, adding his strength to
that of Gardin. Under their combined weight the door yielded with a
suddenness that precipitated both men into the room,--Gardin on his
hands and face while Forgons fell over him,--and the two rolled
together in the middle of the floor. Amid a shout of rough laughter from
the men in the rear the two leaders regained their feet.

The scowl on Gardin's face vanished in a look of astonishment when he
found himself face to face with a man in the uniform of a colonel of the
French army.

Matthieu and the old priest had retreated to the corner of the room at
their entrance. Beside the chimney-piece stood Edme de Rochefort. The
sight of the frenzied mob, the knowledge that it was her arrest alone
they sought; the shrinking dread which the thought of their rude touch
inspired, made her heart sink with sickening terror. Yet beyond
trembling slightly, she gave no sign of fear.

Gardin had expected to find a frightened girl, surrounded possibly by a
few servants who remained faithful. The sight of Tournay's tall figure,
his resolute face, above all his uniform, standing between him and the
object of his search, made him hesitate.

"There she is! That's the aristocrat!" exclaimed Forgons, as Gardin
hesitated. "Let me get my hands upon her." He rushed forward, but before
he could touch Edme, Tournay pushed him backward with a force that sent
him reeling into the group of men behind.

"A thousand devils," cried Forgons, when he regained his equilibrium,
"what is the meaning of this, citizen colonel? Are you defending the
little aristocrat?"

"Keep back, will you, Forgons," interposed Gardin, fearing that his
dignity as leader would be usurped. "Leave me to manage this affair. I
am here," he said, addressing Colonel Tournay, "to apprehend the person
of an aristocrat, and shall brook no interference on the part of any
one."

"Let me look at your warrant," demanded Tournay, in a tone of authority.

"I am not obliged to show that to you," replied Gardin doggedly.

"Let me see it, I say!" was the determined rejoinder.

Gardin slowly drew a document from the breast of his coat and handed it
over with a sullen "Well, there's no harm in your seeing it."

Tournay read it carefully. Then folding it up with great deliberation he
returned it.

"It seems quite regular."

"Regular," repeated Gardin, with a laugh,--"well, I like that. Of course
it's quite regular,--signed and stamped by the Committee of Public
Safety." Then with a show of mock politeness: "Now if the citizen colonel
will condescend to step aside I will conduct this young citizeness from
the room."

"That order of arrest calls for a certain citizeness de Rochefort, does
it not?" asked Tournay, without moving.

"Certainly it does. The Citizeness Edme de Rochefort who stands there,
right behind you."

"You will not find her here," replied Tournay.

"None of your jests with me, citizen colonel; why, as I said before,
she's standing behind you. I should know her for an aristocrat by the
proud look on her face if I had not seen her a hundred times here in La
Thierry."

"This is not Citizeness de Rochefort."

"That's a lie," replied Gardin bluntly, "and in any case she is the
woman I am going to arrest."

"That woman is Citizeness Tournay, my wife. You cannot arrest her on
that warrant, Citizen Gardin."

As the colonel spoke these words, which he did slowly and deliberately,
Mademoiselle de Rochefort drew a quick, short breath.

"It is a trick," cried Gardin savagely; "you are trying to save her by a
subterfuge."

Tournay repeated coolly, "She is my wife, and I am Robert Tournay,
colonel in the Army of the Moselle. Again I advise you not to try to
arrest her without a warrant."

"And I say again it is a lying trick," cried Gardin, beside himself with
rage. "You cannot save your aristocratic sweetheart this way, citizen
colonel. The Republic demands her arrest and I mean to take her."

"Citizen Ambrose," said Tournay, turning to the priest, "is not this
woman my wife?"

"Most certainly," said the old priest, coming forward with dignity;
"this lady is Madame Robert Tournay."

"Madame!" cried Gardin, repeating the word in a rage. "There are no
ladies in France now, and all priests are liars. This is a trick, and
you, citizen colonel, shall answer for it. Out of my way!" He grasped
Tournay by the lapel of his coat, and twisting his fingers into the
cloth endeavored to force the colonel to one side. There was a sharp
struggle, then Tournay threw him off with such violence as to send him
staggering across the room. His head struck the sharp edge of a mahogany
cabinet as he reeled backward, and he rolled senseless to the floor.

With a shout of rage at the assault upon their leader the mob rushed
forward to close about Tournay. But he was too quick for them; the
muzzles of a pair of pistols met them as they advanced, one covering
Forgons, who was in front, the other leveled at the men behind him.

The mob cowered and fell back a little. Clubs, hammers, and knives were
their only weapons, which they still brandished threateningly. If
Tournay had shown the least sign of flinching he would have fallen the
next moment, beaten and crushed to death. He advanced a step forward.
Before the threatening muzzles of the steadily-aimed pistols, the men
recoiled still further, and were quiet for a moment. Tournay seized the
opportunity to speak.

"This fellow," he cried in a loud voice, pointing to Gardin, "has dared
to lay hands upon an officer of the Republican army. In doing so he has
insulted the nation and deserves death. Is there any man here who would
repeat this insult?"

The mob, taken by surprise, looked at their fallen leader and then at
the two shining pistol-barrels that confronted them, and remained
irresolute. Tournay thought he heard Edme catch her breath quickly when
the answer from the mob drowned everything.

"No, no! There are none here who would insult the nation!"

"Citizens, I am of the people, like yourselves. I am also a soldier of
France. I have fought its battles, I wear its colors. See!" he went on,
taking off his hat and pointing to the tricolor cockade--"here is the
tricolor. If you do not respect that, you insult the Republic. Is there
any one here who would dare to insult the Republic?"

"No, no!" came in quick response. "Long live the Republic!"

"But all who wear the tricolor are not our friends," muttered Forgons
uneasily.

"Citizens," continued Tournay, affecting not to hear, "Gardin has no
warrant to arrest this woman, who is not an aristocrat, since she has
become my wife, the Citizeness Tournay. As for Gardin, he has insulted
the Republic. He has forfeited the right to lead you. In the name of the
Republic I appoint you, Forgons, the secretary of this section. To-night
I return to Paris and will see that the confirmation of your appointment
is sent you at once. Now, citizens, take up this fellow," he said,
pointing to Gardin. "He shows signs of returning consciousness. A little
cold water pumped over his head will bring him back to life. Come,
follow me, I will be your leader for the present."

The mob took up the body and bore it off, cheering loudly for the
Republic. Forgons went with them slowly, shaking his head, with a
puzzled expression on his face.




CHAPTER VI

A MAN AND A MARQUIS


Colonel Tournay accompanied the crowd of zealous Republicans who had
been the followers of Gardin, until he saw them dispersed to their
various homes or noisily installed in the wine-room of the village inn.
Then he rapidly retraced his steps to the chateau.

He found Mademoiselle Rochefort seated in the salon, contemplating half
mournfully, half disdainfully, the evidences of the mob's incursion,
which surrounded her in the shape of costly pieces of furniture from the
drawing-room, now marred and broken; and bottles from the wine cellars,
shattered and strewn upon the floor.

She did not make any movement as Tournay entered the room, but seemed
occupied with her own thoughts; and for a few moments he stood in
silence, hesitating to speak, as if the communication he had to make
required more tact and diplomacy than for the moment he felt himself
master of.

Finally, approaching her, he said: "Mademoiselle, the immediate danger
is past. You have nothing to fear for the present. As soon as you have
recovered sufficiently I would like to speak with you."

She let her hand drop from her forehead and looked up at him. Her face
was very pale, but she was quite composed and the voice was firm with
which she answered:--

"I am able to hear you now, Robert Tournay."

He drew a sigh of relief. "She has the de Rochefort spirit," he thought.

"All is quiet now," he said. "But when Gardin fully recovers
consciousness I fear he will excite his followers to further violence.
It will be unsafe for you to remain here." As she did not answer, he
continued,--"I have made arrangements, mademoiselle, to conduct you to
the German frontier. Can you prepare to accompany me at once?"

"I am prepared to leave here at once--but--I cannot go with you. It is
better that I go alone," Mademoiselle de Rochefort replied.

"Alone! It would be folly in you to attempt it. Do you suppose that I
could stand quietly by and see you incur such a danger?"

Mademoiselle de Rochefort's eyes, at all other times so frank and
fearless, did not meet his earnest gaze; she answered him hastily, as
one who would have an unpleasant interview come to a speedy end:--

"You have saved me from a great danger. Believe me, I am not ungrateful.
You have already done too much. I cannot accept anything more from you.
Pray leave me now to go my own way."

"That is impossible, mademoiselle; I shall only leave you when you are
across the frontier. Traveling as my wife, under the passports that I
have secured, the journey can be made in comparative safety, provided
always that we start in time."

At the words "my wife" Mademoiselle de Rochefort started, but she only
repeated:--

"I cannot go with you."

"But," ejaculated Tournay, "I don't understand; it was agreed"--

She looked up at him. "I agreed to permit you to tell those wretches
that I was your wife, Father Ambrose, your father, and you, all
protesting that it was the only way to prevent them from destroying the
chateau and those within it. But you also said that the marriage would
not be considered valid, and as soon as the danger was over you would go
away."

"I said," answered Tournay quietly, "that I should in no way consider
the marriage valid; that when I had once taken you to a place of safety
I should leave you. But until then I shall remain by your side."

"Some one said you would go away at once, either your father or the
priest, and so I yielded. Now you tell me I must go away with you,
and"--she hesitated at the words, "be known as your wife."

"But no one will know who you are," said Tournay earnestly. "The
carriage will be a closed one--you shall have Agatha with you. No one
shall be allowed to intrude upon you. Three or four days will bring us
to the frontier. As soon as you are there, and in the care of some of
your friends who have already emigrated, I will leave you. Cannot you
trust me three days?" he asked sorrowfully.

"I cannot go with you," she repeated. "You are of the Republic--I have
already accepted too much from your hands. Can I forget that those hands
which you now stretch out to aid me have helped to tear down a throne?
that like all the Republicans, you share the guilt of a king's murder?"

"I am only guilty of loving France more than the king. I did help to
destroy a monarchy, but it was to build up a Republic."

"Then, instead of aiding, you should denounce me. I am of the Monarchy
and I hate your Republic," she said defiantly. "I will accept protection
from one of my own order or trust to God and my own efforts to preserve
me."

"Where are those of your own order?" demanded Tournay bitterly. "They
are scattered like leaves. Some have taken refuge in England or in
Prussia. Some are hiding here in France. Your own class fail you in the
time of need."

"They do not fail," cried Edme. "If none are here it is because they are
risking their lives elsewhere for our unhappy and hopeless cause; or
languishing in your Republican prisons where so many of the chivalry of
France lie awaiting death."

As if the thought goaded her to desperation she added fiercely, "Where I
will join them rather than purchase my freedom at the price you
propose."

"Mademoiselle," said Tournay calmly but with great firmness, "listen to
reason. There is no time for lengthy explanation. I am actuated only by
a desire for your safety. You must accompany me hence. I shall take you
away with me."

Edme arose and confronted him with a look of scorn. "I stood here a
short time ago," she said, "and before all that rabble heard myself
proclaimed your wife; I, Edme de Rochefort, called a wife of a
Republican--one of their number. Oh, the shame of it! What would my
father have said if he had heard that I owed my life to a man steeped in
the blood of the Revolution? That his daughter consented to be called
the wife of her steward's son! a man of ignoble birth, a servant"--

"Stop!" cried Tournay, the blood mounting to his forehead. "Stop! It is
true that those of my blood have served your family for generations. It
was one of my blood, I have heard it told, who in days gone by gave up
his life for one of your ancestors upon the field of battle. Was that
ignoble? My father served yours faithfully during a long life; was that
ignoble? So have I, in my turn, served you. I was born to the position,
but I served you proudly, not ignobly. In speaking thus, you wrong
yourself more than you do me, mademoiselle."

[Illustration: "STOP!" CRIED TOURNAY]

The suddenness of his outburst silenced her. He saw that her bosom
heaved convulsively. He could not guess the conflicting emotions in her
breast; her pride struggling with her gratitude; her horror and
detestation of the Republic contending with her admiration for his brave
bearing in the face of danger; but as he looked at her, slight and
girlish, standing there before him with flushed cheeks, as he saw the
fire flash in her eyes although her hands trembled, he realized keenly
how young, how defenseless she was, and his sudden burst of anger
subsided. Her very pride moved him to pity by its impotence, and his
heart yearned to be permitted to protect her from all the dangers which
threatened her.

In a voice that trembled with emotion he went on:--

"Mademoiselle, I have known you since you were a child, and I have
served you faithfully. Your wishes, your caprices have been my law. It
was no galling servitude to me, mademoiselle, for mine was a service of
love." He uttered the last words almost in a whisper, then stopped
suddenly, as if the avowal had slipped from his lips unwittingly.

Mademoiselle de Rochefort started; while he spoke she had turned away;
so he could not see her face, but he could imagine the look of disdain
and scorn with which she had listened.

"Yes, I dared to love you," he continued. "I never meant to tell you,
but now that the avowal has slipped from my lips I would have you know
that I always loved you. That is why I am here now, pleading with you,
not for your love, for that I know never can be mine, but for your
safety, your life." She remained silent, and he continued, speaking
rapidly,--"You have said that a king's blood is upon my hands. His death
was necessary and I do not regret it." Edme shuddered and letting
herself sink back into a chair sat there with her head resting on her
hand, while she still kept her face turned from him. "I do not regret
it, because it has given us the Republic. I glory in the Republic which
has made me your equal." Bending over her, he said in a low voice, "I
love you and am worthy of your love. Mademoiselle, listen to me. Come
with me while there is yet time. Give me but the right to be your
protector. I will protect you as the man guards the object of his
purest, his deepest affection." In his fervor he bent over her until his
lips almost touched her hair. "I will win a name that even you will be
proud to own. Edme, come with me. It is the love of years that speaks to
you thus--Come!" and he took her hand in his. As his fingers closed upon
hers she sprang to her feet.

"Do not touch me," she cried, with a tone almost of terror. "I will hear
no more. I cannot bear it. I cannot bear to see you. Go! for the love of
heaven, leave me."

For a moment Tournay stood still. Her words wounded him to the quick,
yet as they stabbed deepest, he loved her the more. Without speaking
again he turned and left her. As he descended the stairs and passed out
through the broken doorway he vowed within himself that despite her
pride, despite what she might say or do, he would yet find means to
save her.

An hour passed, and Edme remained in the salon where Tournay had left
her. The spirit she had shown a short time before seemed much subdued.
Darkness had settled down over the room, and she felt herself alone and
deserted. A current of air, coming through the broken doorway, swept up
the stairs into the apartment, chilling her with its cold breath. She
wondered what had become of Father Ambrose and old Matthieu, and whether
Agatha had deserted her. Yet she did not seek for them. Indeed, she did
not know where to find them, for the house had all the silence of
emptiness.

She tried to plan what she should do in case she had been entirely
abandoned, but her brain, usually so active, seemed benumbed. She could
not think. Conscious that she must shake off this feeling of
helplessness, she was about to rise and go in search of a light, when
she heard a footstep outside in the corridor. "Agatha has come back,"
she thought, and stepped forward to meet her maid. The sound of
footsteps approached until they reached the door of the salon; there
they seemed to hesitate.

Edme was on the point of calling Agatha by name, when the door was
pushed open and a man entered and passed stealthily across the floor of
the salon into the ante-chamber without noticing her presence. Edme
thrust her hand over her mouth to stifle the cry that was upon her
lips.

The man was evidently familiar with the surroundings, for almost
immediately the light of a candle shone out from the ante-room, throwing
a faint glow upon the polished floor of the salon. Edme had seen him
very imperfectly in the darkness. She was uncertain whether he was one
of the mob, returned alone for plunder, or one of the lackeys of her
household who had got the better of his terror and returned to the
chateau.

Unable to bear the suspense, she advanced toward the door of the
ante-room. Her heart beat rapidly as she placed her hand upon the door,
which had been left ajar. She hesitated one moment, then summoning up
the courage that had sustained her during the whole of that terrible
afternoon, she boldly pushed the door open and looked into the room. To
her amazement she saw, bending over a cabinet, her cousin, the Marquis
de Lacheville. The marquis held a candle in one hand while he searched
hurriedly for something in the drawer of the cabinet. In his haste and
anxiety he threw out the contents of each drawer as he opened it till
the floor was littered with papers. So intent was he upon his search
that he did not hear Edme's approach.

"Monsieur de Lacheville!" she said in a low tone. Upon hearing his name,
the marquis uttered a cry like that of a hunted animal, and turning,
confronted her.

"Mademoiselle de Rochefort, you here! How you startled me!" he
exclaimed, endeavoring to control himself; but his knees shook, and his
lips twitched nervously.

"Your coming gave me a start also, monsieur. You glided across the floor
of the salon so like a phantom, I did not know who it was, nor what to
think."

"I have just arrived from Paris, where I have been in hiding for
months," he stammered. "Upon seeing the doors all battered down and the
frightful disorder in the lower halls, I thought the chateau must be
deserted and that you had sought some place of refuge. Knowing that in
times past the baron, your father, was in the habit of keeping money in
this old secretary, I have been ransacking it from top to bottom. I have
need of a considerable sum; but I find nothing here--not a sou."

Edme noticed that his dress was in great disorder and that his face was
pale and haggard. Every few moments he put up his hand in an attempt to
stop the nervous twitching of the mouth which he seemed unable to
control.

"My nerves have been much shaken lately," he said, as she looked at him
with wonder. And then he laughed discordantly. The sound of the
mirthless laughter, accompanied by no change in the expression of his
face, was painful to Edme's ears.

"I have been pursued," he said, "hunted in Paris like a dog, but I have
given them the slip; they shall not overtake me now." The wild look in
his eyes became more intense. "I am going to leave France; I have a
friend whom I can trust waiting for me near at hand. Together in
disguise we are going to the frontier--either to Belgium or Germany. We
shall be safe there. But I must have some more money, money for our
journey." His fear had so bereft him of his reason that he apparently
forgot the presence of his cousin, the mistress of the house, and turned
once more to the old writing-desk to recommence his search with feverish
haste.

"To Germany!" cried Edme joyfully. "You are going to Germany? then you
can take me with you. We can leave this unhappy blood-stained country
for a land of law and order."

The marquis turned upon her sharply.

"Why did not your father take you with him to England?" he demanded.

"Why? You have no need to ask the question. He went upon some secret
business for King Louis. He went away unexpectedly. When he left he
imagined that I, a woman, living in quiet seclusion, would be perfectly
safe, notwithstanding the disordered state of the country even at that
time."

"Can you not find a place of refuge with some friend here in France?"
asked de Lacheville. "The journey I am about to undertake will be full
of danger and fatigue."

"I am not afraid of danger," replied Edme, "and as for fatigue, I am
strong and able to support it."

"But," persisted de Lacheville, "if you could find some suitable refuge
here it would be so much better."

"I cannot," retorted Edme, in a decided tone of voice, "and I prefer to
accompany you to Germany, although it seems to me that you offer your
escort somewhat reluctantly."

"The fact is, Cousin Edme," replied the marquis, "I cannot take you with
me. Alone, my escape will be difficult; with you it will be impossible."

Edme looked at him for a moment with open-eyed wonder, then she repeated
the word. "Impossible! Do you mean to tell me that you, a kinsman, are
going to leave me here to meet whatever fate may befall me, while you
save yourself by flight?"

"No, no, you do not understand me," the marquis replied, his pale face
flushing. "It is for your own sake that I cannot take you. It will mean
almost certain capture. If, as I said before, you could remain in some
place of safety in France for a little while"--

"I am ready to run whatever risk you do," replied the girl coolly. "When
do you start?"

"Mademoiselle, this is madness," exclaimed de Lacheville, pacing the
floor. "Can you not listen to reason?"

The sound of shouting in the distance caused him to stop suddenly and
run to the window. The candle had burned down to the socket and went out
with a few last feeble flickers. The cries of Gardin's ruffians were
borne to him on the wind.

The slight composure which he had managed to regain during his talk with
Edme left him again, and he turned toward her, the trembling, shaking
coward that he was when she had first discovered him.

"Do you hear that?" he whispered, his hand shaking as he put it to his
lips.

"I have heard it in this very room to-day," replied Edme, looking at him
with disdain.

"They are coming here again," he whispered hoarsely. "But they shall not
find me," he exclaimed fiercely, clenching his fist and shaking it in a
weak menace toward the spot whence the sound came. "I have a swift horse
in the courtyard beneath. In an hour I shall be safe from them," and he
prepared to leave the room.

The ordeal of the afternoon had told on Edme's nerves and the thought of
being left alone again made her desperate.

"You shall not leave me here alone," she cried, seizing his arm. "You
were born a man--behave like one. Devise some means to take me from this
place at once. Do not leave me alone to face those wretches again, or I
shall believe you are a coward."

De Lacheville roughly released himself from her grasp.

"I care not what you think of me," he snarled. "It is each for himself.
I cannot imperil my safety for a woman. I must escape." And he rushed
from the room.

She heard the crunching of his horses' feet upon the gravel, and going
to the window saw him ride rapidly away. The remembrance of the young
Republican leader offering to risk his life for her, and the cowering
figure of her cousin, indifferent to all but his own safety, flashed
before her in quick contrast. She turned away from the window to find
herself in the arms of Agatha, who had at that moment returned.

"Agatha," she exclaimed, "do your hear those hoof-beats? Monsieur de
Lacheville is running away. He, a nobleman, is a coward and flies from
danger, while another man, a Republican--oh, Agatha, Agatha, what are we
to do? whom are we to believe; in whom should we trust?"

"Calm yourself, mademoiselle," replied Agatha, "and think only of what I
have to tell you. Listen to me closely. We must leave at once. I have a
plan of flight. I have been making a few hurried preparations."

"True, Agatha, in my bewilderment and anger, I forgot for the moment the
danger we incur by remaining here. Where are Father Ambrose and
Matthieu?"

"Matthieu is here in the chateau; he says he will never desert you as
long as you can have need of his poor services. Father Ambrose has
disappeared, but I think he is in a place of safety. But now you are to
be thought of. Will you trust me?"

"How can you ask that, Agatha? Have you not always proved faithful?"

"I mean, can you trust me to lead, and will you follow and be guided by
my suggestions?"

"I will do just as you may direct. I know you have a wise head, Agatha."

"This is my plan, then," continued the maid; "listen carefully while I
tell it to you."

An hour later the two women, dressed as peasants, with faces and hands
brown from apparent exposure to the sun in the hayfield, left the park
behind the chateau de Rochefort, and made their way along a hedge-bound
lane that wound through the fields. As they reached the crest of a hill
they stopped and looked back at the chateau. A red glow appeared in the
eastern sky.

"Look, Agatha," said Edme, "morning is coming, the sun is about to
rise."

Suddenly the glow leaped into a broad flame which lit up the whole sky.

"'Tis the chateau on fire!" cried both women in one breath, and clinging
to each other they stood and watched it burn.




CHAPTER VII

GAILLARD GOES ON A JOURNEY


The first object that Robert Tournay saw as he rode into the inn yard at
La Thierry was a horse reeking with sweat. The next moment he was
greeted by the smiling face of Gaillard, who came out of the inn. "Have
you brought the passport?" cried Tournay eagerly, as he grasped his
friend by the hand.

For reply Gaillard took a paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and
disclosed the seal of the Committee of Public Safety. "Am I in time?" he
asked. "I have ridden post haste to get here with it. Can I serve you
further?"

"Come into the inn, and I'll tell you," replied Tournay. "I am almost
exhausted and must have something to eat."

Ordering some supper and a bottle of wine, which were brought at once,
Tournay helped Gaillard and himself bountifully. They ate and drank for
a few minutes in silence, Gaillard waiting for him to speak.

Gaillard was rather short in stature, with a pair of broad, athletic
shoulders. His face was freckled, and animated by a pair of particularly
active blue eyes. A large mouth, instead of adding to his plainness, was
rather attractive than otherwise, for on all occasions it would widen
into the most encouraging, good-natured smile, showing two rows of
regular, white teeth, firmly set in a strong jaw.

After he had partaken of a little food and drink, Tournay recounted to
Gaillard the substance of what had taken place at the chateau, leaving
out most of his final interview with Edme de Rochefort, but dwelling on
her flat refusal to accept his escort to the frontier.

The actor listened to him intently and in silence; his face, usually
humorous, expressive of deep and earnest thought.

"Now what do you advise?" asked Tournay, as he pushed back his plate and
emptied the last of the wine into Gaillard's glass.

"What plan have you?" questioned Gaillard.

"I mean to take her away from here at all hazards," answered Tournay.

"Quite right," nodded Gaillard.

"But I can't very well pick her up and carry her off bodily," continued
Tournay. "And if I did she would be quite capable of surrendering
herself into the hands of the first committee in the first town where
they stop us to examine our passport."

"Then we must induce her to go of her own free will."

"Which she will not do," replied Tournay gloomily.

"It seems to me," said Gaillard, speaking slowly, while he held his
glass of wine to the light and inspected it minutely, "that if some one
should approach Mademoiselle de Rochefort, purporting to come from some
of her friends who have already gone abroad, and should say he was sent
secretly to conduct her to them, she would be willing to go with him."

"Unless she suspected him to be an impostor, she might possibly go,"
replied Tournay.

"He will have to convince her that he is not an impostor, and after a
night spent in the chateau alone she is more likely to believe in him,"
was Gaillard's reply. "How about Gardin," he asked suddenly. "Do you
anticipate any further trouble from that quarter?"

"I hardly think so," replied Tournay. "I shall go back to the chateau at
once and remain in the vicinity all night unknown to Mademoiselle de
Rochefort. See if you cannot procure a carriage here suitable for a long
journey. Then come up the chateau road. I shall be in waiting for you at
the entrance to the park. We will confer together as to a plan of action
to be carried out at daylight."

"Good," replied Gaillard; "I will set about my part of the work at
once."

The two men rose from the table; Gaillard went to the inn stables and
Tournay mounted his horse and rode toward the chateau.

He had not made half the distance between the village and the chateau
when he heard a footstep crunch on the gravel of the road, and reined
in his horse just as the figure of a man crept by him.

"Who is there?" cried Tournay, clicking the hammer of his pistol.

"A good citizen," was the reply in a timid voice.

"Father, is it you?" exclaimed Tournay, springing from his horse and
approaching the figure. "Is all well at the chateau?"

"It is my son, Robert," cried the old man. "I did not recognize your
voice until after I had spoken; but I am no good citizen of your present
disorderly Republic."

"Is all well at the chateau?" repeated Robert Tournay.

"Well? How can we all be well when the doors are broken in and the
furniture strewn about the place in pieces? Can I call all well when"--

"Mademoiselle Edme?" interrupted Robert, with impatience, "how about
her?"

"She has gone," said Matthieu Tournay.

"Gone!" cried Robert, clutching his father by the shoulder. "Gone--how
and where?"

"You need not be alarmed for her safety," said the old man; "she is with
Agatha,--a brave, clever girl, capable of anything. They set out this
very night to seek a refuge with some relatives of Agatha who will keep
them in safety."

"And you permitted them to go?" demanded the younger Tournay, almost
shaking his father in his excitement.

"Permitted them? Yes, and encouraged them. I would myself have gone with
them if I had not feared that my feebleness would impede rather than
assist their flight. As it is, you need have no apprehension; when
Agatha undertakes a thing she carries it through, and mademoiselle also
is resolute and strong-willed. They will be safe enough, I warrant."

"Where did they go?" asked Robert.

"I've promised not to tell," said the old man doggedly.

"Father," exclaimed young Tournay, "do you not see how important it is
that I should know where they have gone? If you have any affection for
mademoiselle you will tell me. Cannot you trust your own son?"

"Will you promise not to prevent their going?" replied the old man.

Tournay thought for a moment. "Yes."

"To La Haye, in the province of Touraine, near the boundary of La
Vendee."

"Will they reach there in safety?" inquired Tournay, half to himself.

"You need have no alarm on that score. They have disguised themselves as
peasants; no one will be able to recognize them. Look!" he added
suddenly, pointing in the direction of the chateau.

A tongue of flame shot into the night air, then another and another
followed in quick succession.

"Is the chateau on fire?" cried Robert in consternation.

As if in answer the flames burst fiercely forth, and the noble old pile
stood revealed to them by the light of the fire that consumed it.

The surrounding landscape became brilliant as day, and the great oaks of
the park waved their bare branches frantically in the direction of the
edifice they had sheltered so many years; seeming to sigh pityingly as
one turret after another fell crashing to the ground.

Young Tournay looked around to see if any of the attacking party were
still lurking in the vicinity; but with the exception of himself and his
father, no human eye was witness of the burning.

"Gardin's men must have ignited that during their drunken invasion of
the wine-cellar," he exclaimed excitedly. Then in the next breath he
added, "Thank God! Mademoiselle has been spared this sight."

Old Tournay stood looking at the conflagration in silence; then turning
away with a sigh, he said simply, "There goes the only home I have ever
known; where my father lived before me and where you were born, Robert.
I must now find a new place to pass what few days of life remain to me."

Tournay laid his hand on his father's arm. "Will you come with me to
Paris?" he asked.

"No, no," replied his father. "I am not in sympathy with Paris, Robert,
nor with your ways. I don't understand them, boy. It may be all right
for you. I know you are a good son, you have always been that, but I
shall find a shelter in La Thierry. None will molest an old man like
me."

Leading his horse by the bridle, Tournay walked back to the village with
his father. On the way they were met by Gaillard, who had seen the
flames and had guessed their meaning.

Robert Tournay explained the situation to him as they all went back to
the inn. Greatly in need of rest, Robert threw himself down to wait
until the morrow.

They were up with the dawn, when Gaillard had a new suggestion to offer.

"You must return at once to Paris, my friend, for you must arrive there
before Gardin. You will need all the influence of your own military
position and the aid of your most powerful friends to enable you to meet
the charges that man will bring against you for frustrating the arrest.
I will try to find mademoiselle at La Haye, and will meet you at our
lodgings as soon as possible."

Robert grasped his companion's hand warmly.

"I shall never forget your friendship, Gaillard."

"You may remember it as long as you like if you will not refer to it. I
can never repay you for your many acts of friendship toward me."

"But your profession," interrupted Tournay, "how can you leave the
theatre all this time? How will your place be filled?"

"Oh, it will be filled very well. I arranged all that before leaving;
whether I shall find it vacant or not when I return is another matter.
But it does not trouble me; let it not trouble you, my friend." And with
a cheerful wave of the hand, Gaillard departed.




CHAPTER VIII

PERE LOUCHET'S GUESTS


In the southern part of the province of Touraine, in the village of La
Haye, lived Pierre Louchet, or as his neighbors called him, Pere
Louchet.

Logically speaking, Louchet, being a bachelor, had no right to this
title, but as he took a paternal interest in all the young people of the
village, they had fitted him with this sobriquet, partly in a spirit of
gentle irony and partly in affectionate recognition of his fatherly
attitude toward them.

Pere Louchet lived alone in a little cottage that was always as neat and
well-kept as if some feminine hand held sway there. Indeed, if he fell
sick, or was too busy with the crops on his small farm to pay proper
attention to his household duties, there were plenty of women from the
neighboring cottages who were glad to come in and make his gruel or
sweep up his hearth, so it was not on account of any unpopularity with
the gentler sex that he lived on in a state of celibacy.

In a society where marriage was almost universal, such an eccentricity
as that exhibited by Pierre Louchet in remaining single did not escape
comment. Indeed at the age of fifty he was as often bantered on the
subject as he had been at thirty. But neither the raillery and
innuendoes of the neighbors nor the entreaties, threats, and cajoleries
of his sister, Jeanne Maillot, had ever moved him to take a wife.

"It's a family disgrace," said Jeanne, putting her red hands on her
hips, and regarding her elder brother with a look of scorn. "Here am I
ten years younger than you, and with five children. And Marie who lives
at Fulgent has eight. And you, the only man in our family, sit there by
the chimney and smoke your pipe contentedly, and let the young girls of
La Haye grow up around you one after another, marry, settle down, and
have daughters who are old enough to be married by this time; and you do
nothing to keep up the name of Louchet."

"'T is not much of a name," replied Pierre.

"It is one your father had, and was quite good enough for me, until I
took Maillot."

"If I should marry, there would be less for your own children when I am
gone."

"I'm sure it was your happiness I was thinking of before all," replied
Jeanne, mollified at this presentation of the case.

"If it's my happiness you are thinking about, let me stay as I am. I and
my pipe are quite company enough, and if I want more I only have to step
across a field and I can find you and your good husband Maillot." And
Pere Louchet's eyes would twinkle kindly while his pipe sent up a
thicker wreath of smoke.

One young woman once declared maliciously that Pere Louchet squinted.
But those who heard the remark declared that it was because he was
always endeavoring to look in any direction except towards her who
sought to attract his attention, and after that the slander was never
repeated.

One morning in December the neighborhood of La Haye was set all in a
flutter of curiosity by a sudden increase in the family in Pere
Louchet's cottage.

As an explanation of it he remarked with his eyes twinkling more than
usual: "I am getting old and need help about the place, and that is why
a nephew and a niece of my brother-in-law Maillot have come to live with
me."

Paul and Elise Durand were natives of "up north" and had never before
been as far south as La Haye. The woman was about twenty-five years old,
brown as a berry, with a sturdy figure and strong arms. Her brother was
tall and slender. He said he was nearly twenty, yet he was small for his
age and his entire innocence of any beard gave him a still more boyish
appearance. He spoke with a softer accent than most country lads in
those parts, but that was because he came from the neighborhood of
Paris; and then he and his sister had both been in the service of a
great "Seigneur" before the Revolution.

In the neighboring province of La Vendee the peasants, led by the
priests and nobles, were threatening to take up arms in support of the
monarchy. But the inhabitants of La Haye took little interest in
political affairs, and although they shared somewhat the sentiment of
opposition in La Vendee to the new government in Paris, they busied
themselves generally with their vineyards and their crops and took no
active part in politics. Paul and Elise were content in the fact that
their new home was so quiet and so remote from the strife that was
raging so fiercely all about them.

One morning, shortly after her arrival, Elise was resting by the stile
which divided the field of Pere Louchet from that of his brother-in-law.
She had placed on the stile the bucket containing six fresh cheeses
wrapped in cool green grape leaves, while she herself sat down upon the
bottom step beside it, to remove her wooden sabot and shake out a little
pebble that had been irritating her foot. The wooden shoe replaced, she
took up her pail and was about to spring blithely over the stile, when
she drew back with a little cry of surprise mingled with alarm. Standing
on the other side, his arm resting on the top step, leaned a young man
who had evidently been watching her closely.

Drawing a short pipe from between a row of white teeth, his mouth
expanded in a wide grin.

"Did I frighten you?" he said, in a slight foreign accent but with an
extremely pleasant tone of voice.

"Not at all," answered Elise, looking at him frankly. "I'm not easily
frightened. If you will move a little to one side, I can cross the stile
and go about my affairs."

"What have you in the pail?" asked the man, as he complied with her
request.

"Cheeses," she answered, as he came lightly over the wall. "It's clear
you're not of this part of the country or you would never have asked
that question."

"I am not from this part of the country," said the stranger. "You ought
to know that by my accent."

"Where is your native place?" asked Elise, her curiosity aroused.

"A long distance from here--Prussia. Have you ever heard of that
country?"

"Yes."

"We are most of us against the Republic--there," said he. "I am, for
one," and he looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. She made no
reply. "Let me carry your cheeses," he said, laying his hand upon the
bucket.

"They are not heavy," said Elise, "and I must hurry home."

"All ways are the same to me and I will go along with you," he said,
taking the bucket from her. "It's heavy for you."

"It's no burden for me, and as I don't know you I prefer to go home by
myself," she said frankly.

"Oh, I'm a merry fellow--you need not fear me. I am your friend."

"I have no way of being sure of that," was the reply, "though you don't
look as if you could be an enemy."

"I should be glad for an opportunity to prove myself your friend. And I
could prove that I am no stranger by telling you a good deal about
yourself and your brother Paul."

"Indeed," was all Elise vouchsafed in reply, but she looked a little
uncomfortable.

"I might tell you of an order of arrest that was not carried out; of a
chateau burned; of the midnight flight of two women and the arrival at
La Haye of a woman and her younger brother; all this I might tell you,
with the assurance that these secrets are safe in the keeping of a
friend."

"How will you prove that you are a friend?" Elise said in a low voice
with apparent unconcern, although she felt her heart beating with fear.

"The fact that I have just told you what I know and shall tell no one
else, should be one proof," he said. Elise did not answer, but looked at
him with a keen expression as if she would read his thoughts.

He had a frank, open face, the very plainness of which bespoke the
honesty of the man.

"Suppose I should say that I came from Hagenhof in Prussia and that I
was sent here by friends of your brother who have gone there. Suppose I
should say that they wanted you to join them and that I could take you
there with little risk to yourselves, would you be inclined to trust me
then?"

"What risk do we incur by remaining where we are?" inquired Elise,
without answering his question.

"You will always run the risk of discovery while in France," he replied.
"But tell me, are you inclined to trust me?"

"Yes," answered Elise, stopping and looking him full in the face. "I
am."

"Good," he cried, setting down the pail and extending his hand.

"I am disposed to trust you," she went on, "but in order to do so fully
I should wish to see a letter from the friend you speak of."

"It is dangerous to carry such a writing," he replied significantly.

"True, but you can mention names."

"I can, and will,--names your brother will know well. The Baron von
Valdenmeer, for instance. Besides, if I were your enemy I need not come
thus secretly. Your enemies can use open means."

"I said"--Elise hesitated--"I am disposed to believe you are what you
claim to be, but I can do nothing without the consent of my brother."

"Good! will you obtain his consent?"

"I will try."

"Good again. You will succeed. Talk with him and get his consent to
leave here. And as soon as possible I will make all the arrangements for
the journey so that we may leave in a week or at the latest a fortnight.
Then if you have not persuaded your brother that it is for his interest
to go with me, I will try and add my arguments to yours."

"I trust you will find us ready," said Elise; "but in the mean time
shall you remain here?"

"No, I must go to Paris," was the Prussian's answer. "If you should have
occasion to communicate with me, a word sent to Hector Gaillard, 15 Rue
des Mathurins, will reach me. But do not send any word unless it is of
the greatest importance, and then employ a messenger whom you can
trust."

"Is that your name?" asked the woman.

"That is my name while in France. Can you remember that and the
address?"

"I can."

"Then good-by. And a word at parting," he said--turning after he had
leaped the fence. "It is perhaps needless to caution you, but my advice
would be that your brother should not go too often to the village. His
hands are too small. Good-by." And he walked off up the lane smoking his
short pipe, and whistling gayly.

Two days later Gaillard joined his friend Tournay in Paris. He found
Tournay much more hopeful than when he had left him, and his spirits
rose still more as he heard Gaillard's news.

"It is Wednesday," Tournay said. "On Saturday the convention has
promised to send me back with my dispatches. Can you be ready for La
Haye by Saturday morning?"

"Yes," said Gaillard, "twelve hours earlier if necessary."

"It is agreed then for Saturday, unless the convention delays."

Three days after her meeting with Gaillard, Elise, on returning from a
neighboring town where she had gone to dispose of some butter, found the
kitchen deserted and the fire out. She had expected to find a bowl of
hot potato soup and a plate of sausage and garlic. Instead she found a
cold hearthstone and an empty casserole.

As usual, the first thought of the devoted sister was of Paul, and she
called his name loudly. It did not take long to ascertain that the house
was empty, and with her heart beating wildly with anxiety she ran
outside the cottage crying, "Oh, Paul, my child,--my brother, Paul!"
There was no answer save from the cattle in the outhouse who shook their
stanchions, impatient for their evening meal. She looked about for Pere
Louchet. He also was absent. Evidently he had driven in the cows and had
been prevented from feeding them. Something serious had happened, and it
must have occurred within an hour, for at this time the cattle were
usually feeding.

Elise sat down for a moment on an upturned basket to collect herself.
Her first thought was to go to Maillot's in search of them. They might
be there, yet it would take an hour to go to Maillot's and return. And
then what if Louchet and Paul were not there! What if the couple had
been murdered and the bodies were still on the farm? Elise shuddered at
the thought, and called loud again, "Paul, Paul, my brother, art thou
not here?"

From the hay in the loft above came a smothered sound. With a glad cry
Elise sprang up the stairs, to see Pere Louchet's head and shoulders
emerging from under a pile of clover.

"Where is Paul?" cried Elise, pouncing upon him before he had freed
himself from the hay, and almost dragging him to his feet. He blinked at
her for a moment while he picked the stray wisps of straw from his hair
and neck.

"Gone," he said laconically.

"Gone! Where?" cried Elise, frantically taking him by the shoulders and
shaking him so that the hayseed and straw flew from his coat. "Pere
Louchet, what is the matter? I never saw you like this before; have you
been drinking?"

"No," he said slowly, and then as if the thought occurred to him for the
first time, he went toward a cask of cherry brandy which stood in a
corner of the granary and drew almost a tin-cupful.

With blazing eyes Elise saw him measure out the liquor slowly, with a
hand that trembled slightly, and put the cup to his lips. She felt as if
she must spring upon him and dash the cup from his hands, but she
controlled herself with an effort. Louchet drained off the brandy to the
last drop, straightened up, and looked at Elise. He acted like a
different man.

"Paul was taken from here about an hour ago by three men. They had
papers and red seals and tricolor cockades enough to take a dozen."

"And you let them take him?" cried Elise.

Pere Louchet looked at his niece quizzically with his twinkling eye.

"There were three of them, Elise, my child, and they had big red seals
and swore a great deal."

"Of course," admitted the woman hastily, "you could do nothing by
force."

"I did try to prevent them from going upstairs where Paul was," the old
man replied, "but one of them knocked me on the head and into a corner
where I lay like a log."

"Oh that I had been here," moaned Elise, as she and Louchet went toward
the house. "If I could only know where they have taken Paul!"

"To Tours," replied Pere Louchet with decision.

"How do you know?" asked Elise quickly.

"I remember it plainly now. When I lay in the corner with a kind of
dazed feeling in my head, not wishing to get up and stir around, I saw
one of the men--not the one who hit me, but a smaller man with a larger
hat and more cockades and more seals, take a paper out of his pocket and
read it to Paul. I tried to make out what it said, for although I could
hear every word that was uttered, I could not get an idea in my head
that would hold together; but I was able to catch the word Tours; I am
sure they have gone to Tours."

"How is your head now, Pere Louchet?" asked Elise with feverish
eagerness.

"As clear as a bell," was the reply. "Let me have one little nip more of
that brandy and it will be clearer."

"Can you ride?"

"Like a boy."

"Good! Make up a bundle of food and clothing for a two-days' journey and
I'll have a horse at the door by the time you are ready."

Ten minutes later Pere Louchet, with a bundle of necessities strapped on
his back, was mounted on one of his best horses which Elise had saddled
for him.

"Now, where am I to ride to?" he demanded, directing his twinkling eye
down upon his niece.

"Ride to Paris. Seek out Gaillard, 15 Rue Mathurins; give him this
letter. That is all I ask of you."

"And you--what are you going to do?" said Pere Louchet, putting the
letter in his inside breast pocket with a slap on the outside to
emphasize its safety.

"I ride toward Tours," replied the intrepid woman.




CHAPTER IX

PRISON BOAT NUMBER FOUR


Paul Durand was confined in the prison at Tours. The prison was so
crowded that he had to be placed in a small room at the top of the
building adjoining the quarters occupied by the jailer and his family.

Paul was paler than usual, the result of fatigue from the long, rapid
ride from La Haye, but he showed no signs of fear and held up his head
bravely as the jailer entered the room. The latter carried a bundle
under his arm.

"You are to take these clothes," he said, "go into the adjoining room,
and put them on in place of the garments you have on."

Paul took the bundle and went into the next room. For fifteen minutes
the jailer sat upon the one chair the room contained, humming and
jingling his bunch of keys. Then the door into the outer corridor was
thrown open and a large man entered. The jailer sprang to his feet with
alacrity.

"Where's the prisoner, Potin?" demanded the newcomer in a harsh voice.

"In the next room, Citizen Leboeuf," replied Potin.

Leboeuf strode toward the door and laid his hand upon the latch.

"I beg your pardon, Citizen Leboeuf, but the prisoner may not be ready
to receive you."

"Well, there's no particular reason to be squeamish, is there?" asked
Leboeuf, screwing his fat face into a leer.

"If you will wait another minute I think the prisoner will come out,"
suggested Potin deferentially, jingling his keys.

"Bah, you show your lodgers too much consideration, citizen jailer; you
spoil them." Nevertheless Leboeuf allowed his hand to drop from the
latch and took a few impatient strides across the floor.

The door opened and, turning, Leboeuf saw Mademoiselle de Rochefort
standing on the threshold. She was thinner than when she left La
Thierry: but her eyes had lost none of their fire, and she looked
Citizen Leboeuf in the face without flinching. His dull eyes kindled
while he looked at her some moments without speaking.

"Do you know who I am?" he inquired in his thick, husky voice.

"Yes, I overheard the jailer call you Citizen Leboeuf."

"Right. I am Citizen Leboeuf; and do you know why you have been
brought here?"

"A paper was read to me last night which pretended to give some
explanation," was her quiet rejoinder.

"In order to save time and expense your trial will take place at Tours,
rather than at Paris. I am one of the judges of this district."

Mademoiselle Edme looked at him with an expression of indifference.

"You do not appear to be afraid."

"I am not afraid," was the quiet reply.

Leboeuf eyed her with evident admiration.

"Why did you put on boy's clothes?" he asked abruptly.

"In order to avoid detection," she answered frankly, coming forward and
seating herself in the chair which Potin had vacated upon her entrance.
Leboeuf was standing before her, hat in hand, an act of politeness he
had not shown to any one for years.

"And you did it well," he said. "You threw them off the track
completely. Had it not been for me, your hiding-place would never have
been discovered. It was a splendid trick you played upon those bunglers
from Paris." And he slapped his thigh in keen appreciation of it, and
laughed hoarsely.

"I will take your boy's clothes with me," he continued as he prepared to
leave the room, "lest you should be tempted to put them on again from
force of habit. We don't want you turning into a boy any more. No, you
make too pretty a woman." Then going up to the jailer he said something
to him in a low voice which Edme could not hear. Potin seemed to be
remonstrating feebly. Leboeuf scowled, and from his manner appeared to
insist upon the point at issue.

"Are you sure you are not afraid?" he said again abruptly to Edme as he
went to the door and stood with one hand on the latch looking back into
the room.

"No!"

He looked at her admiringly.

"Remember you are a woman now and have a perfect right to be afraid;
also to kick and scream when anything is the matter."

Edme made no reply.

"In case you should ever feel afraid," he said significantly, "just send
for Leboeuf, that's all," and with this he left the room.

Edme remained in Potin's charge for two days. The jailer treated her
with great consideration, and she congratulated herself upon having
fallen into such kindly hands. She momentarily expected to be summoned
before the Tribunal. She did not know what the result would be; but she
looked forward to her trial with impatience. In any event it would end
the suspense in which she was living.

On the afternoon of the second day Potin entered her room, accompanied
by one of his deputies.

"You must prepare to go with this man, citizeness," said the little
jailer.

"Has the Tribunal sent for me? she inquired.

"Not yet. But you are to be transferred to another prison."

"I prefer to stay here," she said. "Cannot you ask them to allow me to
remain?"

"You have no choice in the matter, nor have I; I have only my orders."

"From whom did the order come? From that man Leboeuf who came here the
other day?" she demanded quickly.

"I am not at liberty to say," replied Potin, shifting his feet uneasily.

"Are you forbidden to tell me where I am to be taken?" was her next
question.

"To prison boat Number Four. The city prisons are so full," he
continued, in answer to her look of surprised inquiry, "that great
numbers have to be lodged in the boats anchored in the river. Number
Four is one of the largest," he added as if by way of consolation.

In company of the deputy Edme was conducted to the floating prison on
the Loire. As they stepped over the side they were met by a little
round-shouldered man with splay feet. His face was wrinkled and brown
almost to blackness; his dress showed that he had a fondness for bright
colors, as he wore a purple shirt with a crimson sash, a bright yellow
neckcloth, and a red cap. The deputy turned over his charge to him,
received his quittance, and went away.

Edme was conducted to a room in the stern of the vessel. It was a small
room and to her surprise she found it furnished comfortably, almost
luxuriously. On a table in the centre stood a carafe of wine and a
basket of sweet biscuit. Two or three chairs and a couch completed the
equipment of the room. At the extreme end, the porthole had been
enlarged into a window which looked out over the river. This window was
closed by wooden bars. Otherwise the place looked more like the
comfortable quarters of some ship's officer than a jail.

"Is this where I am to remain?" she asked of her new jailer.

The man nodded and withdrew, locking the door after him.

Edme threw herself into a chair. It was intended that she should at
least be comfortable while in prison, and this thought helped to keep up
her spirits. She rose, took a glass of wine and some of the biscuit, and
then after finishing this refreshment, feeling fatigued, she lay down
upon the couch and fell asleep.

It was nearly dark when she awoke. Lying on the couch she could see the
dying light of the short December day shining feebly in at the window,
reflected by the metal of a swinging lamp over the table. As she lay
there she became aware of a noise that had evidently awakened her. It
was the sound of wailing and lamentation, accompanied by the creaking of
timber and the swash of water.

Rising from the bed she went to the window and looked out over the
river.

Going down the stream were two other prison boats. They were scarcely
fifty yards away and proceeded slowly with the current, the water
lapping against their black sides. They were old vessels, and creaked
and groaned as if they were about to fall apart from very rottenness.
From between their decks came the sound of human voices raised in cries
of fear, despair, and lamentation; all mingled in a strange, horrible
medley, which, borne over the water by the sighing night wind, struck a
chill into Edme's heart.

The vessels, stealing down the river with their sailless masts against
the evening sky, looked like phantom ships conveying cargoes of
unrestful, tortured spirits into darkness. The sight so fascinated Edme
that she stood watching them until they drifted out of sight and the
cries of those on board grew fainter and fainter in the distance. So
absorbed had she been as not to hear the lock click in the door and a
man enter the room. She only became aware of his presence on hearing a
heavy sigh just behind her, and turning her head she saw Leboeuf's
heavy face at her shoulder. She gave a startled cry and stepped nearer
the window.

"It is a sad sight, is it not," he remarked, with a look of sympathy
ill-suited to the leer in his eyes, "and one that might easily frighten
the strongest of us."

"It is your sudden appearance, when I thought I was entirely alone, that
startled me," replied Edme, regaining her composure with an effort. "I
was so intent upon looking at those boats that I did not hear you come
in."

"I see you didn't. I may be bulky, but I'm active and can move quietly,"
and he gave a chuckle.

Edme thought him even more repulsive than at the time of his visit to
the prison. His face seemed coarser and more inflamed, and his eyes, so
dull and heavy before, shone as if animated by drink.

"Where are they taking those poor people?" she asked; "for I presume
those are prison boats."

"They are," was the reply in a thick utterance. "Just like this. Are you
sure that you want to know where they are being taken?"

"Would I have asked you otherwise?"

"Are you sure you won't faint?"

Edme gave a shrug of contempt. She saw that he was trying to work upon
her fears, and felt her spirit rise in antagonism.

The look of admiration that he gave her was more offensive than his
pretended sympathy. Leaning forward he whispered, "They are going down
the river for about two miles. There they will get rid of their
troublesome freight and return empty."

"What do you mean?" asked Edme. "Where do they land the prisoners?"

"They don't land them, they water them," and he gave a low, inward
laugh. "They drown every prisoner on board. Tie them together in
couples, man and woman, and tumble them overboard by the score."

Edme gave a cry of horror. "It is too horrible to be true. I don't
believe it!"

"Why not?" asked Leboeuf; "drowning is an easy death, and every one of
them has been fairly and honestly condemned. This boat is to follow in
its turn. Every prisoner here has looked upon the sun for the last time,
though not one of them knows just when he is to die."

The idea of such wholesale murder seemed so utterly impossible to her
that in her mind she set down Leboeuf's whole account as a fiction of
his drink-besotted brain, called up to frighten her. Yet at the moment
when she turned from him in disgust to look out of the window, she saw
that their own vessel had begun to move slowly through the water.

"We have started," said Leboeuf, as if he were mentioning a matter of
the smallest consequence.

"You say that every one upon this boat is a condemned person," said Edme
quietly, repressing her terror with an effort.

Leboeuf nodded.

"But I am not. I have not even had a hearing."

"No?" exclaimed Leboeuf in a tone of surprise. "Then those jailers
have made another mistake."

Edme advanced toward him one step, and in a tone which made the huge man
draw back, said:--

"I was brought here by your order!"

"Oh, no, I knew nothing of the change. It was that villain Potin."

"I was brought here by your order," she repeated. "I demand that I be
taken where I can have a trial."

"Potin has made another mistake," was all Leboeuf would vouchsafe in
reply.

"If there has been any mistake, it is yours. I demand that you set it
right."

"It is too late!"

"There must be some one aboard this vessel who has the power to do it,
if you have not. I will go and appeal for aid," and she took a step
toward the door.

Leboeuf interposed his bulky body between her and the means of exit;
closed and locked the door on the inside.

"I will cry aloud. Some one will hear me," she said in desperation.

"Who will hear you above all that noise?" he inquired tersely.

The prisoners on the boat, now fully aware that their time of execution
had come, were crying out against their fate,--some praying for mercy,
some calling down the maledictions of heaven upon their butchers, while
others wept silently.

"Merciful Virgin, protect me. I have lost all hope," cried Edme, turning
from Leboeuf and sinking despairingly upon her knees.

"Ah, now you are frightened!" exclaimed Leboeuf, "admit that you are
frightened!"

"If it is any satisfaction to have succeeded in terrifying a woman
unable to defend herself, I will not rob you of the pleasure, but know
that it is not death, but the manner of it, that I fear."

"But you are afraid; you have confessed to it at last, and now Leboeuf
will see that they do not harm you." He gave a grim chuckle as if he
enjoyed having won his point. Rapidly pushing the table to one side,
turning back the rug that covered the floor, he stooped; and to Edme's
astonished gaze lifted up a trap door in the floor of the cabin. Edme
drew back from the black hole at her feet.

"It is large enough to afford you air for several hours," Leboeuf
said. "By that time I will get you out again. Quick, descend the steps."

Edme, fearing further treachery, drew back in alarm. "I prefer to meet
my fate here."

Leboeuf struck a light and by the rays of the lamp a ladder was
revealed.

"I tell you it is certain death to remain here fifteen minutes longer.
Even I could not save you then. The more they throw into the water the
more frenzied they become for other victims. They will ransack the
entire boat; but they won't find you down there. Leboeuf alone knows
this place. Quick! If you would live to see the sun rise to-morrow, go
down the steps of that ladder."

He took her by the shoulder to assist in the descent. His touch was so
distasteful to her that she threw off his hand and went down the ladder
unaided. "Make not the slightest sound, whatever you may hear going on
up here above you, and wait patiently until I come to release you."

With these words the door was shut down and Leboeuf went out and up to
the deck alone.

The vessel had reached a point in the river just outside the city. Here
the stream narrowed and ran swiftly between the banks.

The sky was windy; and between the rifts of the high-banked clouds the
moon shone fitfully. To the east lay the city of Tours, its spires
standing out in sharp silhouette against the sky. On the river bank the
wind swept over the dead, dry grass with a mournful, swaying sound and
rattled the rotting halyards of the old hulk, which with one small sail
set in the bow to keep it steady, made slowly down the river with the
current, hugging the left bank as if fearful of trusting itself to the
swifter depths beyond.

A rusty chain rasped through the hawse-hole, and the vessel swung at
anchor.

In a small and close compartment in the ship's depths, totally without
light, and with her nerves wrought upon by Leboeuf's appalling story,
Edme could only guess at what was happening above her head.

She knew that something terrible was taking place. She could hear a
confusion of cries and trampling of feet; of hoarse shouts and commands;
and she pictured in her imagination scenes quite as horrible as were
actually taking place above her. In every wave that splashed against the
vessel's side she could see the white face of a struggling, drowning
creature, and every sound upon the vessel was the despairing death-note
of a fresh victim. Through it all she could see the large face of
Leboeuf leering at her with his bleary eyes. To have exchanged one
fate for a worse one was to have gained nothing, and in her mental agony
she almost envied those who a short time ago had been struggling
helplessly in the hands of their executioners, and whose bodies now were
quietly sleeping in the waters of the flowing river.

A quiet fell upon the vessel. The last cry had been uttered, the last
command given, and no sound reached Edme's ears but the soft plash of
the water as it struck under the stern of the boat.

Then the remembrance of Leboeuf's face and look became still more
vivid. She feared him in spite of all her courage; in spite of her pride
that was greater than her courage, she feared him. The knowledge that he
was aware of his power and took delight in it made the thought that she
would soon have to face him there alone more terrible than her dread of
the worst of deaths.

A footfall sounded on the floor above her head. That it was not
Leboeuf's heavy tread, Edme was certain. Rather than fall into his
hands again she would trust herself to the mercies of the worst ruffian
among the executioners, and she struck with her clenched hand a
succession of quick knocks upon the trap.

The footsteps ceased, and in the stillness that followed Edme called out
to the man above her and told him where to find the opening. In another
instant the door was lifted up and she came up into the cabin.

"Kill me," she cried out; "throw me into the river if it be your
pleasure, but I implore you, do not let"--

The man's hand closed over her mouth, and lifting her in his arms he
carried her across the cabin. The room was dark; either Leboeuf had
put out the light when he left, or the newcomer had extinguished it, but
Edme saw that he bore her toward the window from which the lattice had
been removed. She closed her eyes to meet the end. She felt herself
swiftly lifted through the window, and then instead of water her feet
struck a firm substance.

"Steady for one moment," said a voice in her ear as she opened her eyes
in bewilderment to find herself standing on the seat of a small skiff, a
man supporting her by the arm. Her face was on a level with the window,
and looking back into the cabin she saw a light at the further end, as
the bulky form of Leboeuf appeared at the door, lantern in hand, his
heavy countenance made more ugly by an expression of surprise and rage.

Voices were heard in hot dispute, then came two pistol shots so close
together as to seem almost one. A figure leaped through the smoke that
poured from the window, and Edme from her seat in the skiff's bow where
she had been swung with little ceremony, saw a man cut the line, while
the other bent over his oars and made the small craft fly away from the
vessel, straight for the opposite shore. The man who had leaped from the
window took his place silently in the stern. Placing one hand on the
tiller, he turned and looked intently over his shoulder at the dark
outline of the prison ship, which was rapidly receding into the gloom.

His hat had fallen off, and in the uncertain light Edme saw for the
first time that it was Robert Tournay.

Before a word could be uttered by any of them, a tongue of flame shot
out from the vessel behind them, followed by a loud and sharp report.
The dash of spray that swept over the boat told that the shot had struck
the water close by them.

The man at the oars shook the water from his eyes and redoubled his
efforts. "Head her down the river a little," he said.

"But the carriage is at least two miles above here," replied Tournay.

"No matter," answered Gaillard. "The shore here is too steep. We must
land a little further down."

Tournay altered their course and steered the boat slantingly across the
current.

They were now nearing the right-hand shore, which rose abruptly from the
river to a height of some twenty feet. The current here was swifter, and
the greatest caution had to be exercised. A second flash flamed out from
the prison ship, a sound of crashing wood, and the little skiff seemed
to leap into the air and then slide from under their feet, while the icy
water of the Loire rushed in Edme's ears,--strangling her and dragging
her down, until it seemed as if the water's weight would crush her. Then
she began to come upward with increasing velocity until at last, when
she thought never to reach the surface, she felt her head rise above the
water and saw the cloudy, threatening sky, which seemed to reel above
her as she gasped for breath.

Another head shot to the surface by her side, and she felt herself
sustained, to sink no more. The words: "Place your right hand upon my
shoulder and keep your face turned down the stream away from the
current," came to her ears as if in a dream. Instinctively she obeyed.
With a few rapid strokes Tournay reached the shore. The bank overhung
the river and under it the water ran rapidly.

With only one arm free he could not draw himself and Edme up the steep
incline. Twice he succeeded in catching a tuft of grass or projecting
root, and each time the force of the current broke his hold upon it, and
twirling them round like straws carried them on down the stream.

Gaillard, who had been struck by a splinter on the forehead, was at
first stunned by the blow, and without struggling was swept fifty yards
down the river. The cold water brought him back to consciousness, and he
struck out for the shore. He noticed, some hundred yards below, a place
where the river swept to the south and where the bank was considerably
lower. Allowing himself to be borne along by the current, he took an
occasional stroke to carry him in toward the shore, and made the point
easily.

Drawing himself from the water by some overhanging bushes, he shook
himself like a wet dog, and sitting on the river's edge proceeded to
bind up his injured eye, while with the other he looked anxiously along
the river-side. Suddenly he bent down and caught at an object in the
water.

"Let me take the girl," he said quickly. "Now your hand on this
bush--there!" And with a swift motion he drew Edme up, and Tournay,
relieved of her weight, swung himself to their side.

For a short time they lay panting on the bank. Gaillard was the first to
get upon his feet.

"We shall perish of cold here," he exclaimed, springing up and down to
warm his benumbed blood, while the wet ends of his yellow neckerchief
flapped about his forehead.

"Can you walk, Mademoiselle de Rochefort?"

Edme placed her hand upon her side to still the sharp shooting pain, and
answered "Yes."

"Good; the road is only a few rods from here, but we must follow it at
least two miles to the west."

"I shall be able to do it!"

As she uttered these words the pain in her side increased. She felt her
strength leave her, and but for the support of Tournay's arm she would
have fallen to the ground.

"She has fainted," cried Tournay in consternation.

"No," she remonstrated feebly, struggling with the numbness that was
overpowering her. "It is the cold. Let me rest for a moment; I shall be
better soon."

"Mademoiselle, you must walk, else you will die of cold," exclaimed
Tournay. "Take her by the arm, Gaillard."

Instead of complying with the request, Gaillard stood with head bent
forward peering up the road into the night gloom.

"Gaillard! man, do you not hear me?"

"The carriage! I hear the rattle of its wheels," cried Gaillard
joyfully. "Agatha can always be depended upon to do the right thing at
the right moment!"

"Hurry to meet her," cried Tournay; "tell her we are here!"

Gaillard sprang rapidly forward, shouting as he ran.

"Courage but a little moment longer," whispered Tournay, and taking Edme
in his arms he followed Gaillard as fast as his burden permitted.

She had not entirely lost consciousness, but cold and fatigue had
combined to enervate and render her powerless of motion.

In a half swoon she felt herself carried she knew not whither. She felt
Tournay's strong arms about her, and a sense of security came over her
as she faintly realized that each step took her further away from the
dreaded Leboeuf.

Tournay hastened toward the carriage. The wind swept freshly over the
marshes, and he held Edme close as if to shield her from the cold. Her
hair blew back into his face, covering his eyes and touching his lips.
As he felt her soft tresses against his cheek his heart throbbed so that
he forgot cold, fatigue, and danger.... Where they blinded him he gently
put the locks aside with one hand in a caressing manner and looked
tenderly down into the white face pressed against his wet coat.

The sound of wheels upon the frozen road came nearer. Lights flashed
around a turn in the road, and Tournay staggered to the carriage door as
the vehicle drew up suddenly.

"Hurrah!" cried Gaillard from the box, where he had taken the reins from
the driver. "We have won!"




CHAPTER X

OVER THE FRONTIER


In the carriage Agatha related to her mistress what had occurred after
her disappearance from La Haye. How she had sent Pere Louchet with the
message to Gaillard at Paris, and then had followed on to Tours and
discovered where her mistress was imprisoned. Tournay and Gaillard,
coming post haste to Tours, had reached there on the same day that saw
the transfer of Mademoiselle de Rochefort to the prison-ship upon the
Loire. Together with Agatha, they had formulated a plan of rescue and
put it into immediate execution.

The two men had approached the vessel in a small skiff on the river,
while Agatha had awaited them in a carriage on the other side. The
moving of the prison ship down the river might have disconcerted their
plans had not the watchful Agatha seen the movement, and following along
the shore reached them when they had almost succumbed from the exposure
and cold.

The carriage was a commodious one and well equipped for the long
journey, and in a few minutes Agatha had her mistress in a change of
warm clothing. As soon as Edme was able, she bade Agatha call Tournay to
the carriage door.

"Thanks are a small return for what you have done," she said as he rode
by her side, "yet they are all I have to give." Then she stretched her
hand out to him with an impulsive gesture,--"Robert Tournay, I misjudged
you when you were last at La Thierry. Will you forgive it?"

It was the first time she had spoken to him as one addresses an equal,
and it moved him greatly. He leaned forward and took the hand she gave
him, looking down at her with a smile that lit up his face, as he
said:--

"Mademoiselle, I forgave the words you spoke as soon as they were
uttered. It is happiness enough to know that I have saved you." Before
he released it, he thought he felt the hand in his tremble a little.

The remembrance flashed through her mind, how, years before, she had
once noticed Tournay's manly bearing as he rode into the chateau-court
upon a spirited horse. She had at that time thought him handsome, with
an air about him superior to his station, and then had dismissed him
from her thoughts. As he rode before her now, the water still dripping
from his clothing, hatless, with damp locks clinging to his forehead,
she thought she had never looked upon a nobler figure among all the
gentlemen who in the old days frequented the chateau of the baron, her
father.

"Where are we going?" she asked, with more emotion than such a simple
question warranted.

"To the German frontier," was the reply. "We must travel rapidly night
and day. I shall hardly dare to stop for rest until you are safely over
the border."

"I leave myself in your charge," she said, leaning back in the carriage.

He gave a word of command and the coach rushed forward through the
night.

Tournay's words had recalled vividly to Edme her unhappy situation.
Although innocent of all crime, she was proscribed and forced to fly
from her own country to take refuge among those who were invading it.
And the man who rode by the side of her carriage, and had undertaken to
convey her in safety across the border, was a soldier, fighting for the
government that persecuted her. Laying her head upon Agatha's shoulder
she felt her heart swell with bitterness. For hours, during which Agatha
imagined that she slept, she watched in silence through the window the
dark outlines of the swiftly moving landscape. Finally long after
Agatha's regular breathing announced her slumber, Edme, worn out by the
excitement and fatigue, leaned back in the opposite corner and slept
like a tired child.

For five days the coach rolled toward the frontier, Tournay and Gaillard
riding on horseback.

Through Blois, Orleans, Arcis sur-Aube to Bar-le-Duc and on toward Metz
they went, stopping only to exchange their worn-out horses for fresh
ones, and for such few hours of rest as were absolutely indispensable.

During all the journey, Tournay saw little of Mademoiselle de Rochefort,
although her comfort and her safety were his constant care. The
passport with which he was provided prevented all delay; and it was
thought best that mademoiselle should remain as secluded in the carriage
as possible. When she did step out for a breath of air or a few hours'
rest at some inn she always wore a veil to hide her features. Whenever
he approached her to inform her as to the route they traveled he always
did so with the greatest deference, showing marked solicitude for her
health and comfort; expressing deep regret that the nature of their
journey rendered the great speed imperative.

One afternoon as they crossed the little stream of the Sarre, Tournay,
who had been riding some fifty yards in advance, drew rein and waited
for the carriage to come up to him.

"In an hour, mademoiselle," he said, as in obedience to his signal the
vehicle drew up by the roadside, "we shall be across the frontier, and
in Germany. At Hagenhof resides the Baron von Waldenmeer, who I think is
known to you as your father's friend."

"He was one of my father's friends," Mademoiselle Edme acquiesced.

"I remember having often heard his name mentioned at La Thierry," said
Tournay. "So I took this direction rather than further south, which
would have been somewhat shorter. A few hours will bring us to Hagenhof,
where you will be able to put yourself under the baron's protection."

"And you?" inquired Edme, "what are you going to do?"

"I shall return to France."

       *       *       *       *       *

The armies of Prussia and Austria, three hundred thousand strong, were
drawing in on France, to help to crush out the Republic and restore the
old regime.

The Baron von Waldenmeer's division was already on the frontier,
quartered at Falzenberg--waiting for other troops to come up before
joining the Austrian army at Wissembourg, near which the French had
concentrated a large force.

On a cold December afternoon two batteries of Prussian heavy artillery
were proceeding through the wood on the road going east from Inweiler,
whence they had been sent to join the main body of troops at Falzenberg.
It was snowing and at five o'clock darkness was already settling down on
the woodland road. Over the snow-carpeted leaves the wheels of the gun
carriages rolled almost noiselessly.

"Paff," growled Lieutenant Saueraugen, wiping the flakes from his
eyelashes for the twentieth time, as he thought of the hot sausages at
that moment being devoured in the mess-room at Falzenberg, and ten miles
between it and him. "A pest on such weather and such slow progress! at
this rate we shall not be at Falzenberg before midnight."

"_Donnerwetter!_ what is this?" he cried with his next breath, as along
the road that crossed from the north came a two-horse carriage at a
rapid gait. The driver of the vehicle saw the battery on the other road,
and tried to check the speed of his horses. The rider on the nigh leader
of the caisson whirled his horse to the left, but it received the
carriage pole on the right foreleg and went to the ground, dragging its
mate with it. Then followed a snorting of frightened animals and a
rattling of harness, flavored with the shouts and oaths of the
lieutenant and his men as they tried to bring order out of the
entanglement.

Two men on horseback rode up from behind the carriage, and with their
assistance the fallen horses were brought to their feet and the broken
harness repaired.

"Who the devil are you that tear through these woods like this?"
demanded the German, examining the abrasure on the leader's leg. "Come,
give account of yourselves." The two riders had remounted and seemed
anxious to be off.

"We are bound for Hagenhof," replied one of them. "We are in a great
hurry, and regret this accident, for which we are entirely to blame.
Name the amount which you think a proper compensation for your injured
horse and broken harness and we will gladly pay it."

He had spoken in German and in the easy, careless manner of one who
deemed the matter too trivial to be the cause of any controversy.

"You are French!" exclaimed the lieutenant, looking at the party
closely.

"We are," replied the man who had spoken before.

"You must accompany me to Falzenberg," said the German officer, "and
interview the general there."

"What does he say?" inquired the second Frenchman of his companion.

"Come, you had best not chatter your French before me," put in the surly
lieutenant, as one of the Frenchmen proceeded to interpret to the other.
"You may be spies for all I know, but that we shall find out when we get
to Falzenberg."

The dark eyes of the second Frenchman looked inquiringly at his comrade.
The other again translated the officer's words.

"We are most unfortunate, Gaillard, to have fallen in with this
imbecile," was the reply.

"My friend commends your prudence and judgment," repeated the
interpreter, his mouth widening and showing his white teeth, "and
desires me to tell you that we have important business at Hagenhof. If
you will send us there under an escort, we shall be able to prove that
we are not spying upon the movement of your troops."

The lieutenant scowled. "Can so few words of your language stand for all
that in German?" he demanded.

The Frenchman laughed lightly as he replied, "Our language is very
flexible."

"So perhaps may be your necks," said the officer brutally, a suspicion
entering his mind that he was being laughed at. "But you must come with
me to Falzenberg, and there's an end of it."

"Why not to Hagenhof?" persisted Gaillard with perfect good-humor.

"To Falzenberg!" roared the Prussian officer, swearing roundly, "and
before we start, let me see what sort of freight you are carrying along
the road." He approached the carriage with the intention of opening the
door.

Tournay wheeled his horse between him and the coach with a suddenness
that made the German jump aside to avoid being trodden upon by the
animal.

"We are going to General von Waldenmeer at Hagenhof," he said, speaking
his own language, "and if you prevent or delay our journey you may rue
it."

The lieutenant, infuriated at this interference, caught Tournay's horse
by the bridle with one hand, while the other flew to his belt; but the
mention of General von Waldenmeer's name and the ring of decision in the
speaker's voice caused him to pause.

"General von Waldenmeer at Hagenhof," repeated Tournay slowly and
distinctly, as if he were speaking to a person of defective hearing.

"Who is making so free with the name of Waldenmeer?" cried a voice in
the French tongue but with a strong German accent; and half a dozen
Prussian officers came riding out of the wood, the fresh-fallen snow
flying from the evergreen branches like white down as their horses drove
through them.

They circled round the group by the carriage, drawing their animals up
with a suddenness that threw them on their haunches.

"Who is it that claims the friendship of von Waldenmeer?" repeated one
of the number, this time speaking in German. He was a young man about
twenty-two, with short, dark red hair, and a small mustache. He rode a
black horse that pranced and curvetted nervously.

"These people, my colonel," said the lieutenant, growing suddenly
polite. "I was about to tell them"--

"Never mind what you were about to tell them, Lieutenant Saueraugen,"
replied the colonel haughtily, "but inform me as briefly as possible
what has occurred."

Confused by the thought that possibly he had been rude to friends of
General von Waldenmeer, the lieutenant stammered through a recital which
was far from clear.

While the lieutenant was speaking, the young Prussian colonel was
slapping his boot sharply with his riding-whip, or checking the
impatient pawing of his horse.

"_Potstausend!_" he exclaimed, interrupting the unhappy lieutenant in
the middle of his story. "I cannot make head or tail of your account,
Saueraugen. Broken harness, and French spies, closed carriage, and
injured horses." Then, turning to Tournay, he addressed him in French:--

"I understand you are on your way to find General von Waldenmeer,--he is
in the field, quartered at present at Falzenberg. You can accompany me
there."

"We are bound for General von Waldenmeer's castle at Hagenhof," replied
Tournay politely, "and with your permission we will proceed there."

"Do you know the general?" inquired the Prussian colonel.

"I have not that honor."

"I am his son, Karl von Waldenmeer, and I think it would be best for you
to accompany me to Falzenberg, where I am going to join my father."

"Perhaps if the baroness is still at Hagenhof it would better suit the
inclination of the lady whom I escort, Mademoiselle de Rochefort, to go
forward rather than be compelled to go to Falzenberg."

Colonel von Waldenmeer sat in thought during the long space, for him, of
five seconds. "I think you would better come with me as far as
Falzenberg," he said.

"As you command," answered Tournay.

"Did I understand you to say that the occupant of that carriage was a
Mademoiselle de Rochefort?" asked the young von Waldenmeer, as Tournay
spoke aside to Gaillard.

"Yes."

"What is the nature of your business with the baron my father?" was the
next question, abruptly put.

"Will you permit me to discuss that with the baron himself?"

"As you will," answered the Prussian colonel with hauteur. Then turning
to the group of officers who had sat motionless upon their horses, he
said:--

"Gentlemen, you will please accompany this carriage to Falzenberg.
Lieutenant Saueraugen, bring up your batteries with all possible speed
and report to me. Franz von Shiffen, you will please come with me." He
gave his black charger a slight touch with the spur, the spirited animal
sprang forward, and he was seen galloping down the road, with Franz von
Shiffen riding hotly after him.

Baron von Waldenmeer, general of the division of the Rhine, was seated
with a beer mug before him and his pipe freshly lit, enjoying his
evening smoke, when word was brought to him that the party of Frenchmen,
encountered by his son and some other members of his staff on the road
from Inweiler, had arrived at Falzenberg, and was now awaiting his
pleasure in the room below. His son, who had come in some time before,
had told him of the incident of the meeting.

The baron blew a cloud of smoke out of his capacious mouth.

"Show the entire party up here at once. We can then hear their story and
decide as to the probability of it. You, Karl, send word to General von
Scrappenhauer that I shall have to defer our party of Skat for an hour.
Ludwig, have your father's beer mug replenished. Would you have his
throat become like the bed of a dried-up stream? And now send up your
Frenchmen; I am waiting for them."

Ludwig von Waldenmeer, who was the picture of his younger brother Karl,
except that he was heavier in build and larger of girth, passed the
beer flagon from his end of the table to his father.

Karl gave a few commands to an orderly, then took a seat by the
general's side. The latter was a man of about sixty. Around his shining
bald pate was a fringe of grizzled hair that had once been red. His
mustache was a bristling, scrubby brush of the same color. Although not
of great height he was broad of chest and still broader about the
waistband; and even in his lightest boots he rode in the saddle at two
hundred pounds.

An orderly opened the door and ushered in the four French travelers.
Mademoiselle de Rochefort entered first. She paused for a moment at the
sight of a room full of officers. Then she took a few steps into the
room and stood awaiting the baron's command. The baron took one look at
the figure before him, then rose suddenly to his feet and came toward
her; the other officers took the signal and rose from their places at
the table and stood beside their chairs.

"You are the daughter of Honore de Rochefort. One has no need to ask the
question, it is answered by your face." And General von Waldenmeer took
Edme by the hand and led her to a seat by his side. Agatha kept at her
mistress's elbow like a faithful guardian.

Tournay and Gaillard, travel-stained and splashed with mud from head to
foot, remained standing by the door.

"If you have come, as I surmise, to find in Prussia a home denied you by
your native land, let me say that nowhere will you find a warmer
welcome than under the roof of von Waldenmeer," and the general put her
hand to his lips.

"I have come," she replied, "to find a refuge from the persecution which
follows me in my own unhappy country. Thanks to the devotion of these
friends," and she turned toward Tournay with a look of gratitude, "I
have been able to reach here in safety, to throw myself upon your
protection, and to ask your advice as to my future movements."

"If you will pardon this reception in a rough soldier's camp,
mademoiselle, and can put up with such poor accommodation as this house
affords, to-morrow you shall be escorted on to Hagenhof, where my wife
will receive you as one of her own daughters." And he bent over her hand
for the second time.

This unusual show of gallantry on the part of their general caused Franz
von Shippen to place his hand before his mouth to hide a smile, while
Ludwig von Waldenmeer looked up at the ceiling.

"Franz," called o

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