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The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic

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Title: The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic

Author: Eugène Sue

Translator: Daniel De Leon
        Solon De Leon


        
Release date: March 19, 2011 [eBook #35633]

Language: English

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THE SWORD OF HONOR




THE FULL SERIES OF

The Mysteries of the People

  :: OR : :

History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages

By EUGENE SUE


_Consisting of the Following Works_:

  THE GOLD SICKLE; or, _Hena the Virgin of the Isle of Sen_.
  THE BRASS BELL; or, _The Chariot of Death_.
  THE IRON COLLAR; or, _Faustina and Syomara_.
  THE SILVER CROSS; or, _The Carpenter of Nazareth_.
  THE CASQUE'S LARK; or, _Victoria, the Mother of the Camps_.
  THE PONIARD'S HILT; or, _Karadeucq and Ronan_.
  THE BRANDING NEEDLE; or, _The Monastery of Charolles_.
  THE ABBATIAL CROSIER; or, _Bonaik and Septimine_.
  THE CARLOVINGIAN COINS; or, _The Daughters of Charlemagne_.
  THE IRON ARROW-HEAD; or, _The Buckler Maiden_.
  THE INFANT'S SKULL; or, _The End of the World_.
  THE PILGRIM'S SHELL; or, _Fergan the Quarryman_.
  THE IRON PINCERS; or, _Mylio and Karvel_.
  THE IRON TREVET; or, _Jocelyn the Champion_.
  THE EXECUTIONER'S KNIFE; or, _Joan of Arc_.
  THE POCKET BIBLE; or, _Christian the Printer_.
  THE BLACKSMITH'S HAMMER; or, _The Peasant Code_.
  THE SWORD OF HONOR; or, _The Foundation of the French Republic_.
  THE GALLEY SLAVE'S RING; or, _The Family Lebrenn_.

Published Uniform With This Volume By

THE NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO.

28 CITY HALL PLACE NEW YORK CITY




  THE
  SWORD OF HONOR

  : : OR : :
  THE FOUNDATION OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC

  A Tale of The French Revolution

  By EUGENE SUE


  IN TWO VOLUMES

  TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH
  By SOLON DE LEON
  NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY, 1910
  Copyright, 1910, by the
  NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO.

  [The two volumes have been included in one etext.
          (Note of Transcriber)]




TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.


Most persons know the French Revolution as a tremendous outburst in
human affairs. Many know it as one of the race's great steps forward.
That, however, it was the revolution which carried into power the then
rising bourgeois, now capitalist, class; that this class, while
appealing for and using the help of the working class, secretly hated
and feared the demands of the latter, and blocked them at every
opportunity; that finally the bourgeoisie, having obtained as
revolutionists, by the aid of the workers, their end of the revolution,
became as violently reactionary as had been the nobility they fought,
and ruthlessly shot and guillotined to pieces the then definite
proletarian movement for full political equality and collective
ownership of the tools of production--that is an insight into the French
Revolutionary period hitherto vouchsafed to few. To that insight Eugene
Sue's genius has, with the present thrilling novel, made straight the
way for all.

This, _The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic_,
is the eighteenth and culminating unit in Sue's great historic-fiction
series, _The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian
Family Across the Ages_. Following close upon the previous volume, _The
Blacksmith's Hammer; or, The Peasant Code_, in which the popular storm
was seen gathering head under the atrocities of the gilded age of the
Grand Monarch, the present story portrays that storm breaking in all
the accumulated vigor of its centuries of postponement, and sweeping
away the empty lay figures of an outgrown feudalism. True, one barrier
to human liberty was thrown down only to disclose another. To the empire
of birth and privilege was to succeed the empire of the shekel; to the
rule of do-nothing kings, the rule of do-nothing plutocracy. But it is
in the act of drilling itself for the overthrow of that final parasite
class--for the final conquering, in other words, of freedom for the
race--that Sue portrays the proletariat in the next and closing work of
the series, _The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn_. Though
he minimizes none of the difficulties, his message for the future is of
hope only.

Nothing is more unanimous among historians of the period than
expressions of commiseration for the condition of the French people
before the Revolution. Yet nothing, on the other hand, is more unanimous
either than the condemnation showered upon this people the moment it
seizes the reins and enters upon the task of putting down its age-long
tyrannizers. Into this absurd breach of consistency Sue's genius saved
him from falling. In his pages Marat, Danton and Robespierre walk to
their doom with head erect, clean from the smut slung at them by their
bourgeois enemies, for whom _they were going too far_. Friends of the
People once, so they remained to the end; and in that mantle Sue has
preserved their memory for all time. For him who would rail at their
summary deeds Sue has far from spread a bed of roses. The memory of the
royalist massacres in the Vendee and of the triumphant bourgeois
massacres during the White Terror, rescued by his pen from the oblivion
in which they were sought to be buried, have thrown the Revolutionary
Terror into its proper perspective. It is a bagatelle beside the acts
committed by its denouncers.

Sue's clear presentation of the maxim, "To the peasant the land, to the
workman the tool"; his unflinching delineation of the debauchery of
court and ecclesiastical circles of the time; his revelation of the role
of the political machine under the guise of religion sending out its
arms as willing regicides or _agents provocateurs_ by turn; and his
clear depiction of the cowardly, grasping, double-dealing and
fraud-perpetrating character of the bourgeois, all of which is presented
in the easy reading of a story, make this thrilling work of fiction an
unsurpassable epitome of the period in which its action elapses.

Finally, it is the distinctive test of good literature upon any topic,
that it does not sate, but incites to further thought and study. Not the
least of the values of _The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the
French Republic_, is that it performs this reverent duty matchlessly for
the momentous period of which it treats.

SOLON DE LEON.

New York, April, 1910.




INDEX TO BOTH VOLUMES


PART I. FALL OF THE BASTILLE.

CHAPTER

I.   THE HOUSE IN ST. FRANCOIS STREET                                  7

II.   REVOLUTIONARY EFFERVESCENCE                                     22

III.  THE VOYANTS                                                     33

IV.   LITTLE RODIN                                                    46

V.    COUNT AND JESUIT                                                54

VI.   ROYALISTS AT BANQUET                                            68

VII.  NEWS FROM THE BARRICADES                                        83

VIII. IN THE HALL OF THE PORTRAITS                                   101

IX.   FILIAL CONFIDENCES                                             105

X.    DEPUTY DESMARAIS                                               111

XI.   LIONS AND JACKALS                                              122

XII.  REUNITED FROM THE BASTILLE                                     132

XIII. THE LEBRENN FAMILY                                             138

XIV.  THE BOURGEOIS UNMASKED                                         150

XV.   THE MYSTERIES OF THE PEOPLE                                    167


PART II. THE BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION.

CHAPTER

I.    THE NATION INSULTED--AND AVENGED                               179

II.   MIRABEAU                                                       189

III.  AT THE JACOBIN CLUB                                            195

IV.   THE KING ARRESTED                                              211

V.    THE DAY OF THE FIELD OF MARS                                   217

VI.   WAR AND COUNTER-WAR                                            229

VII.  TRIUMPHANT INSURRECTION                                        242

VIII. REPRISALS                                                      258

IX.   "TO THE FRONT!"                                                274

X.     ROYALTY ABOLISHED                                             287

XI.    BOURGEOIS TURNED SANS-CULOTTE                                 293

XII.   HOWLING WITH THE WOLVES                                       303

XIII.  THE HOWL RINGS FALSE                                          311


PART II--THE BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION. (Continued)


CHAPTER

XIV. JESUIT CAMPAIGNING                                                1

XV. THE KING ON TRIAL                                                 23

XVI. LEBRENN AND NEROWEG                                              33

XVII. PLANS FOR THE FUTURE                                            45

XVIII. THE KING SENTENCED                                             61

XIX. EXECUTION                                                        66

XX. MARRIAGE OF JOHN LEBRENN                                          69

XXI. A LOVE FROM THE GRAVE                                            76

XXII. MASTER AND FOREMAN                                              84

XXIII. TO THE WORKMAN THE TOOL                                        95

XXIV. LOST AGAIN                                                     101

XXV. ROYALIST BARBARITIES                                            111

XXVI. A REVOLUTIONARY OUTPOST                                        122

XXVII. THE HEROINE IN ARMS                                           137

XXVIII. SERVING AND MIS-SERVING                                      150

XXIX. BATTLE OF THE LINES OF WEISSENBURG                             159

XXX. DEATH OF VICTORIA                                               175

XXXI. ONRUSH OF THE REVOLUTION                                       178

XXXII. AD MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM!                                       188

XXXIII. ARREST OF ROBESPIERRE                                        196

XXXIV. THE NINTH THERMIDOR.                                          205

XXXV. DEATH OF ROBESPIERRE.                                          213


PART III--NAPOLEON.

CHAPTER

I. THE WHITE TERROR                                                  221

II. COLONEL OLIVER                                                   227

III. CROSS PURPOSES                                                  240

IV. LAYING THE TRAIN                                                 245

V. THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE                                           252

VI. IN THE ORANGERY AT ST. CLOUD                                     258

VII. GLORY; AND ELBA                                                 268

VIII. RETURN OF NAPOLEON                                             277

IX. WATERLOO                                                         288

X. DEPOSITION                                                        295


EPILOGUE.

I. "TO THE BARRICADES!"--1830                                        303

II. ORLEANS ON THE THRONE                                            317

CONCLUSION                                                           328




INTRODUCTION.


I, John Lebrenn, the son of Ronan, whose father was Alain, the last son
of Salaun Lebrenn the mariner, now take up the thread of our family
history, by writing the following narrative.

Thanks to God, Oh, sons of Joel! my eyes have seen the beautiful day
predicted to our ancestor Scanvoch the soldier by Victoria the Great,
now more than fifteen centuries ago, and awaited from age to age by our
family. I have witnessed the solemn judgment, the expiatory punishment
of Louis Capet, called Louis XVI, the last of that line of Kings of
Frankish origin. Rejoice, ye shades of my ancestors--ye martyrs of the
Church, of the Nobility, and of Royalty! Rejoice, ye obscure soldiers
who fought in the bloody conflicts that you engaged in from age to age,
in resolute insurrections of the oppressed against the oppressors of
centuries--of the sons of the conquered Gauls against the conqueror
Franks! Rejoice! Old Gaul has recovered her ancient republican freedom!
She has broken the abhorred yoke of the Kings, and the infamous yoke of
the Church of Rome.

I am writing this narrative in the year II of the French Republic, one
and indivisible.

My great-grandfather, Salaun Lebrenn, died at Amsterdam in his
ninety-first year, on December 20, 1715. His son Alain, born in 1685,
was then thirty years of age. He worked in Amsterdam as a printer, one
of the most lucrative trades, in that the large number of books, then
being written against the Church and royalty, could be published only at
Geneva, or in Holland, free countries in which the right of intellectual
free research was recognized and protected. My ancestor Alain sold in
1715 the modest patrimony which he inherited from his father Salaun,
left Holland, and settled down in France at the beginning of the Regency
under Louis XV, the successor of Louis XIV. The freedom then enjoyed was
great compared with conditions at the period of Louis XIV. Being
exceptionally skilled at his trade, my grandfather secured the position
of foreman in the printing house of one of the descendants of the famous
Estienne, in whose establishment our ancestor Christian was long
employed. Alain married the niece of his employer. Of that marriage was
born, in 1727, my father Ronan. He followed my grandfather's trade. The
latter died in 1751. My father had two children--my sister Victoria,
born in 1760, and myself, John Lebrenn, born in 1766.

My grandfather's life was spent in peace and obscurity. But great
misfortunes fell upon our family. As you will read in the course of the
following history, Oh, sons of Joel! it was not vouchsafed to my father
to witness, as I did, the brilliant victory that crowned fifteen
centuries of incessant, painful and bloody endeavor, thanks to which our
ancestors--successively slaves, serfs and vassals--conquered, at the
price of their lives and of innumerable rebellions, step by step, one by
one, the franchises that the French Republic has now confirmed and
consecrated in the face of the whole world, by proclaiming, in the name
of the Rights of Man, the downfall of Kings and the sovereignty of the
People.




PART I.

FALL OF THE BASTILLE.




CHAPTER I.

THE HOUSE IN ST. FRANCOIS STREET.


One night toward the middle of April, 1789, when the moon with its
radiance clearly lighted the scene, a man, wrapped in a great-coat, and
with his hat pulled far over his countenance, might have been seen
carefully surveying the neighborhood of a building located in one of the
most deserted streets of Paris, St. Francois Street, in the Swamp. A
lofty wall, its black stones weathered with years of exposure, ran
nearly the whole length of the thoroughfare, and served as facing to a
terrace surmounted with trees that had laughed to scorn the storms of a
century. Through their heavy foliage one caught glimpses of the stone
front, the peaked roof, and the high brick chimneys of a mansion in the
style of Louis XIV. A wall, pierced by several grated openings, formed a
deep, semi-circular approach, leading up to a coach gate of massive oak,
studded with enormous spikes of iron. To judge from the thick layers of
dust and cobwebs which covered the gate, many had been the days since it
was opened. A little bastard gate, closed with a wicket, and no less
massively built than the principal entrance, gave on its other side onto
a narrow and vaulted passage. To the left of this passage stood the door
of a lodge the windows of which overlooked a spacious garden, laid out
in the fashion of the previous century, and ornamented with vases and
statues of stone, stained and broken by time. In the center of the
garden rose another dwelling whose doors had been walled up, and whose
windows were sealed with plates of lead, soldered into iron frames set
in the masonry.

One more little building, snuggled up against the entry-gate and
evidently intended for the porter, was occupied only by a Jew and his
wife. The couple this evening were chatting in a lower room whose
half-open door communicated with the vaulted passage running to the
street.

David Samuel was in the neighborhood of thirty, his wife Bathsheba,
twenty-five. The lineage of Israel was strongly stamped on their
features. Bathsheba, seated before a little table lighted by a copper
lamp, was preparing to write at her husband's dictation. The latter,
sunk in an arm-chair, his forehead in his hands, was in grave mood, and
said to his wife after a silence of several minutes:

"The more I think over the present state of affairs, the more am I
convinced that it is the part of prudence and necessity for us to
prepare against unfortunate eventualities. In spite of our precautions
within and without, what goes on here may one day be uncovered by the
creatures of the Lieutenant of Police. We would then both be imprisoned,
my dear Bathsheba! Then, if I should die in prison--"

"Ah, my friend, what gloomy forebodings! Think not of such sad chances."

"Everything must be reckoned with. So, then, in case I die, our cousin
Levi, on whom I count as on myself--you know him--"

"Your confidence is well placed."

"I am sure of it. I wish to charge him, in that case, to take my place
in the sacred mission which my grandfather and father have handed down
to me. That is why I wish to hold ready, in advance, the memorandum
which will place our relative in possession of the knowledge he will
need in order to replace me. Come then, write as I dictate."

At the moment that Samuel uttered these last words, he heard a knocking
in a peculiar manner at the little bastard gate. First there were three
blows, then two, separated from the others by a pause; and then two
again; total, seven, the cabalistic number.

Samuel manifested no surprise at the signal. He left the room, traversed
the passage, drew close to the wicket, and asked in an undertone:

"Who knocks?"

"_A blind one._"

"What does he seek?"

"_The light._"

"What time is it?"

"_The hour of darkness, my brother!_"

Immediately upon the last response, Samuel swung back the gate. Two
persons wrapped in cloaks hurried through the passage and disappeared in
the garden. The Jew secured again the gate, and returned to his wife,
who, no more surprised than he by the mysterious entrance of the two
newcomers, said:

"Dictate, my friend; I shall write."

"In the year 1660," began Samuel, "Monsieur Marius Rennepont, a rich
Protestant shipowner and captain, lay in Lisbon. He had carried from
France, on his ship, Monsieur the Duke of San Borromeo, one of
Portugal's greatest lords. The very day of his arrival in Lisbon,
Monsieur Rennepont saw from his hotel on the Plaza Mayor, the
preparations for an auto-da-fe. On inquiry he learned that the next day
a Jew named Samuel was to be burnt in the cause of religion. Monsieur
Rennepont, being a humane and generous-minded man, and, moreover, having
sympathy for the fate of heretics as his own Protestant co-religionists
were beginning in France to be persecuted in spite of the Edict of
Nantes, resolved to snatch this Jew from the torture, and counted on the
support and protection of the Duke of San Borromeo.

"The latter, more than once during the passage, had made tender of his
services to the captain. Chance so willed it that he was the elder
brother of the Inquisitor of Lisbon. Monsieur Rennepont's hopes were
realized. The Duke of San Borromeo by his credit obtained from the
tribunal of the Inquisition a commutation of the Jew's sentence from
capital punishment to one of perpetual banishment. Monsieur Rennepont,
having saved his protege, made inquiries as to his character, and
received the best accounts thereof. He proposed that the Jew accompany
him to France, an offer which the latter accepted with gratitude. Later
on Monsieur Rennepont entrusted him with the money matters of his trade;
and Samuel devoted himself body and soul to his benefactor.

"That Hebrew, my grandfather, was soon able to prove his gratitude to
Monsieur Marius Rennepont. The Protestant persecutions increased in
fury. Those who refused to be converted were exposed to violence and
exactions of every sort. Monsieur Rennepont had a son whom he loved
passionately. In order to ensure to this son the enjoyment of his goods
by sheltering them from confiscation, he abjured the Protestant faith.
Dearly he paid for that moment of weakness. The Jesuit Society, for some
hidden reason which my grandfather never could fathom, pursued from age
to age with their secret surveillance and hatred a certain Lebrenn
family, with which one of Monsieur Rennepont's ancestors had been
connected by marriage in the middle of the Sixteenth Century.[1] For
reasons to be revealed later, that branch of the Renneponts had broken
off its relations with the Lebrenns; it was even ignorant of whether its
former allies had left any descendants.

"The Society of Jesus, enveloping in its covert network of espionage all
who, either closely or distantly, were connected with the Lebrenn
family, learned through its agents that Monsieur Marius Rennepont, in
spite of his apparent conversion to Catholicism, was in the habit of
attending, along with several of his co-religionists, a certain
Protestant church. Denounced by the Jesuits, Monsieur Rennepont incurred
the terrible penalties visited upon the fallen from faith--the galleys
for life, and the confiscation of his property. At the same time his
only son fell a victim to a duel without witnesses. Some time
thereafter, the father conceived the hazardous idea of escaping, at his
age, from the rigors of the galleys. He fled to a house several hours
distant from Paris, called my grandfather Samuel to his side, and
entrusted to him his wishes and his last testament. The goods
confiscated from him, had, by a royal order, been turned over to his
betrayers, the Jesuits, who thus profited by his fortune. But Monsieur
Rennepont, having long intended to leave to his son, should the latter
survive him, a certain patrimony had laid away in a secret place fifty
thousand crowns in gold. That sum he confided to my grandsire, charging
him to re-purchase this estate where we now are, then estimated at
between seven and eight thousand crowns. Samuel was instructed to carry
out certain orders with regard to the main dwelling of the estate, and
to live, with his descendants, in the lodge which we occupy.

"The sum thus remaining in my grandfather's hands, amounting to some
forty thousand crowns, he was to put out at interest as securely as
possible; the sums accruing from this interest were to be capitalized
and added to the principal for the space of about a century and a half,
that is to say, till the year 1832. Samuel was authorized to draw every
year two thousand livres from the profit of these investments, and to
pass on this duty, and the salary attached to it, to his own son, or in
case of the latter's death, to some relative, or co-religionist, known
to him for probity.

"Such is the solidarity which binds us Hebrews together, and which
constitutes our strength, that my grandsire, even had he no son, would
have found some faithful repository for his trust. But God willed that
it should be my father Isaac himself who was to acquit himself of this
debt of gratitude towards the protector of our ancestor, and that I, in
turn, should fulfil the same duty.

"The object of Monsieur Marius Rennepont in thus bequeathing to us the
duty of investing the interests on the sum which he confided to our
ancestor, was to leave to the third or fourth generation of his heirs an
enormous fortune, the employment of which will only be disclosed upon
the opening of his will, which his representatives will perform in
forty-three years, on the 13th of February, 1832, in this house, the
door of which is to remain sealed and the windows fastened until that
date."

At this point of his dictation Samuel was interrupted by a new series of
raps, in the pre-arranged fashion, at the little gate. He disappeared
for a moment, and almost as soon returned, saying to his wife:

"We shall have to postpone our writing--we can take it up later. You may
withdraw now about your household affairs. Prince Franz of Gerolstein
has just arrived with a new comrade whom he wishes to entertain here in
this chamber, before his initiation."

"We shall continue the dictation again, then, my friend," responded
Bathsheba, rising. And she added, with a deep sigh, "O, may you never
regret having affiliated yourself with the 'Seeing Ones,' or 'Voyants,'
as they call themselves."

"No, my beloved wife, never shall I regret my affiliation with the
Voyants. The ideas of which they have made themselves the propagandists
must infallibly bring about the reign of fraternity and the emancipation
of the human race. Then we, contemned Jews, shall enter into the
communion of the great human family. In affiliating myself with the
Voyants of Paris, in offering them the subterranean chambers which I
place at their disposal for their meetings, I serve our own personal
cause and also the cause of the disinherited, the downtrodden ones of
the world. I am fulfilling thereby a sacred duty. Whatever may hap, I
shall not regret having put my shoulder to the work of emancipation."

"Oh, will that sacred cause, to which you have given yourself, soul and
body, ever triumph? What dangers must be run, and for an uncertain end!"

"Everything proclaims the early victory of our cause! Be of good cheer!"

"Illusion, Samuel; the illusion of a generous heart. I fear you are but
cruelly deceived."

"It is no illusion, Bathsheba! Must it not be truth, which has so
irresistible an attraction? Why else should the offspring of a prince be
a Voyant?"

"You mean Prince Franz of Gerolstein?"

"He was initiated in Germany, the very cradle of our secret society. He
has become one of our most ardent converts. Blessings on the day when it
was given me to make acquaintance with the noble young man. Never did
the cause of humanity have a more eloquent apostle, a more great-hearted
defender. And still withal the society of which he is a member has
declared an implacable war upon all privilege of birth or riches, upon
all authority, royal or religious. 'Neither Kings nor priests!'--that is
our motto. The Prince holds these ideas of equality, of
emancipation--he, of a sovereign race! he, one destined to rule! Are not
these thrilling signs? The doctrines of the enfranchisement of the
working class are spread by the sovereign princes. The Emperor of
Austria, Joseph II, brother of Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France,
without owning allegiance to the Voyants, without completely accepting
their principles, nevertheless travels Europe incognito as a
philosopher, nowhere permitting that they pay him the honors due to
royal blood, visiting the bourgeois, the lower ranks, mingling with all
classes of society, observing for himself the trend of their spirit,
sympathizing with their new ideas, submitting himself, perhaps without
his own knowledge, to the influence of that regenerating breeze which is
sweeping over the old world. The reign of justice and equality is close
at hand!"

"In truth--these signs are thrilling," mused Bathsheba pensively.

"Yes, dear wife, the end of persecution and iniquity draws nigh. In a
few years, one will find difficulty in persuading himself that there was
a time when we Israelites were under the ban of the world; when there
was a price upon us; when we were tortured, hanged, burned, all because
we were Jews; and when the Protestants, like us, were sent to the
galleys or to death, solely because they were Lutherans or Calvinists.
Ah, no fear, the descendants of Monsieur Marius Rennepont will be able
to enjoy in security the huge fortune which they are to inherit, whether
they are Catholics or Protestants--my hope is firm."

Bathsheba reflected a moment and answered:

"My friend, I do not understand you. Monsieur Marius Rennepont left at
his death but fifty thousand crowns in gold as his whole heritage. Out
of this your ancestor paid the price of this mansion. How, then, will
his heirs inherit the colossal fortune of which you speak!"

"In this way, Bathsheba. My grandfather, after the death of Monsieur
Rennepont, by means of certain financial operations, succeeded, after
some little time, in recouping the eight thousand crowns paid for the
estate. In 1683 he had completely restored the fifty thousand crowns. He
took the cash; invested it, together with the interest and emoluments,
and fifteen years later, in 1696, the sum had already grown to three
hundred thousand livres, which, doubled by investment in 1710, made six
hundred thousand. Finally, in 1719, when my grandfather died, the sum
had reached nearly a million. The doubling of the capital took place in
ten, twelve, or fourteen years, depending on the rate of interest, it
being in different years seven, six, or five per cent.

"The million which my grandfather Samuel left at his death," continued
Samuel, "had, by 1724, become 1,200,000; 1742, two years after my birth,
nearly 5,000,000; in 1766, it was 9,600,000 livres; in 1780, 19,600,000
livres; and at this moment the bequest of Marius Rennepont has attained
the magnitude of 34,300,000 livres, 8 sous, 11 deniers. That is not all.
Just think of what it will be forty years from now, progressing at the
same rate: In 1794 it will climb to nearly 38,000,000; in 1808, to
76,000,000; in 1822, to 150,000,000; and in 1832, the time set for the
opening of the will of Monsieur Marius Rennepont and for the partition
of his fortune among his descendants, the fortune will have capped the
enormous figure of 220,000,000 livres!"

"It is certainly prodigious," rejoined Bathsheba. "Even with your
explanation, my surprise makes me dizzy. But that dizziness," she added,
with great emotion, "shall not keep me from feeling a noble pride in the
fact that it was your grandsire, your sire, and you yourself, who have
been till now the worthy repositories of such a treasure. Oh, Samuel,
you indeed acquit the debt of gratitude contracted by your grandfather
toward Monsieur Marius Rennepont."

"We but perform a sacred duty confided to our integrity and our
prudence," returned the Jew. "My grandparent, my parent and I have ever
been careful not to endanger the smallest part of this sum in risky
ventures. Thanks to the financial relations of our co-religionists with
all the banks of Europe, we have been able to confine ourselves
rigorously to investments of the highest security. Should God give to us
a son, my dear wife, he will have, I hope, the prudence and the probity
of his fathers. If the joy of having a son is denied us, or if some
unforeseen development should prevent me from carrying on this mission
of honor, our cousin Levi, whose uprightness I well know, will take my
place. Or better still, perhaps the Lord will grant me a green old age,
thus enabling me in 1832, with ninety winters on my back, to return in
person to the heirs of the house of Rennepont the sacred trust which
their ancestor so long ago confided to mine. That will be a day too good
to hope for, if I can be present at the opening of Monsieur Rennepont's
testament. But God alone knows the future!"

After a pause, Samuel continued:

"To bring his heirs together at the distant time set for the opening of
his will, Monsieur Rennepont, a short time before his death, hit upon
an ingenious plan. He transmitted to each of his descendants a medal
which bore on one side the legend:

       VICTIM OF S. J.
        PRAY FOR ME
           1682.

And on the reverse, the words:

    AT PARIS, SAINT FRANCOIS STREET, NO. 3
      IN A CENTURY AND A HALF YOU WILL BE
           FEBRUARY THE 13TH, 1832.

"It is by means of these medals, handed down from generation to
generation, that the Rennepont heirs will one day be reunited here, in
this, the house of their ancestor."

"My friend," asked Bathsheba, "in the note you were dictating to me for
our friend Levi, you made mention of a Lebrenn family, related to
Monsieur Rennepont, which, in spite of its relationship, will probably
not partake in the division of the fortune. Whence and why this
exclusion?"

"I learned from my father that the grandfather of Monsieur Rennepont,
after his abjuration, conceived the greatest aversion for his relatives
of the Lebrenn branch, severed all connection with them, and even
concealed the fact of their existence from his son, out of dread to
submit him some day to the influence of that family, the implacable
enemy, as it was, of the Church."

"And did the father of Monsieur Marius Rennepont remain true to the
Roman faith?"

"He did, my beloved Bathsheba; but his son, Monsieur Marius himself,
reaching the age of reason shortly after his father's death, embraced
Protestantism, which still later he feigned to renounce, in order to
protect his fortune for his son--a regrettable act of weakness."

"How, then, was the existence of this Lebrenn branch discovered? It all
grows more and more mysterious to me, and whets my curiosity."

"Shortly before his death, by suicide, Monsieur Marius Rennepont was
looking over some family papers running back to the Sixteenth Century,
to the period of the religious wars. There he found to a certainty proof
of the connection between the Renneponts and the Lebrenns. But whether
the latter had left any descendants he was unable to determine."

"Does that mean, Samuel, that should there be living survivors of the
Lebrenn family at the time the Rennepont fortune is partitioned, they
will have no share in it?"

"The formal wish of the testator," replied Samuel, "is that only those
who in 1832 present themselves here armed with their hereditary
medallion shall be admitted to benefice in the inheritance. I shall
abide by the instructions which have been handed down to me. According
to what my father said, who had his information direct from his father,
the confidant of Monsieur Rennepont himself, that clause was dictated by
motives which will be revealed in the will."

"Everything in this affair is strange and singular. Probably no one even
knows where to find the present descendants of Monsieur Rennepont."

"As to me, Bathsheba, I have not the slightest clue. Still--my father
did tell me that twice in his life, Rennepont heirs presented themselves
here with their hereditary medals bearing the address of this house,
drawn hither by curiosity or vague pecuniary expectations--curiosity and
expectations which met only with disappointment."

"What said your father to them?"

"Just what I should say in like case: 'I have nothing to communicate to
you. This house belongs to me; it was left me by my father. I know not
for what purpose or with what plan in view your ancestor designated this
building to his heirs as their rendezvous a century and a half from
date.'"

"That is, in fact, the answer commanded by prudence, Samuel. The world
must remain in ignorance of the great value of the bequest you are
charged with."

"Reasons of the utmost gravity impose upon us an absolute secrecy on the
subject. In the first place, according to what my father had from my
grandfather, the Society of Jesus, always so well served by its
innumerable host of spies, succeeded in finding out that Monsieur
Rennepont had saved an important sum from the confiscation which proved
so profitable to the reverend fathers; for the informers and the
executioners parted the spoils."

"Samuel! If these priests, so powerful, so masterful, and with so many
avenues of underground working should ever suspect the truth! I tremble
at the mere thought."

"Take heart, my good wife. The danger would be great, but I should know
how to escape it. It was even more necessary in my grandfather's and
especially in my father's case that they kept in profound secrecy the
treasures they possessed; for the governments of Louis XIV, the Regent,
and Louis XV, always in want, always at their wits' end for cash, were
none too scrupulous in the means they chose to replenish their coffers.
We Jews have always been a little beyond the pale of common rights, so
that my grandfather or my father, once suspected of being the possessors
of a sum amounting to several millions, would have been haled off on
_lettres de cachet_, thrown into the cell of some State prison, and kept
there till they had bought off their liberty, or, perhaps, their very
lives at the price of the treasure which they were suspected of
guarding."

"Ah, Samuel, I shudder to think that in those days every wickedness was
possible. They might even have put your father to the torture."

"Thanks be to God, all that is out of the question to-day. And still,
anticipating ill chances and exactions, we have always stowed our
treasure in safe places and safe hands. Should the mansion be ransacked
from cellar to eaves, the wealth of which we are the keepers would
escape the search--"

Pricking his ear, Samuel checked his speech and listened intently a
moment in the direction of the street gate. Then he said aloud to
himself:

"Who is knocking there? It is not one of our men."

"The hour is unearthly," answered Bathsheba, uneasily. "It is past
midnight. This lonely street has long since been deserted. May it not be
our lookout come to warn us of the approach of some peril?"

"No, our lookout would have given the established signal," answered the
Jew. "I'll go see what it may be."

And taking the lamp, he passed out of the chamber.




CHAPTER II.

REVOLUTIONARY EFFERVESCENCE.


Lamp in hand, Samuel approached the wicket gate. The light he carried
revealed to him standing outside a lackey in a livery of orange and
green, trimmed with silver lace. The fellow, swaying unsteadily on his
feet, and with the air of one half-seas over with drink, knocked again,
violently.

"Ho, friend!" cried Samuel. "Don't knock so hard! Perhaps you mistake
the house."

"I--I knock how I please," returned the lackey in a thick voice. "Open
the door--right off. I want to come in--gallows-bird!"

"Whom do you wish?"

"You do not want to open; dog of Jewry! Swine! My master will beat you
to death with his stick. He said to me: 'Carry--this letter to Samuel
the Jew--and above all--rascal--do not tarry at the inn!' So I want to
get in to your dog-kennel, you devil of a Jew!"

"May I ask your master's name?"

"My master is Monseigneur the Count of Plouernel, colonel in the Guards.
You know him well. You have before now lent him money--triple
Arab!--according to what my lord's steward says--and at good interest,
too."

"Have you your master's letter?"

"Yes--pig! And so, open. If not--I'll break in the gate."

"Then pass me the letter through the wicket, and hurry about it. Else I
shall go in and leave you as you are."

"Mule! Isn't he stubborn, that animal!" grumbled the lackey as he shoved
the letter through the grating. "I must have an answer, good and quick,
I was told," he added.

"When I have read the letter," replied Samuel.

"To make me wait outside the door--like a dog!" muttered the tipsy
servingman. "Me, the first lackey of my lord!"

Samuel, without paying the least attention to the impertinences of the
lackey, read the letter of the Count of Plouernel by the light of his
lamp, and then answered:

"Say to your master that I shall visit him to-morrow morning at his
rooms. Your errand is done. You may leave."

"You won't give me a written answer?"

"No, the reply I have just given you will suffice."

Leaving the valet outside to fume his wrath away, Samuel refastened the
wicket and returned to the room where he had left his wife. Bathsheba
said to him, with some uneasiness:

"My friend, did I not hear a threatening voice?"

"It was a drunken lackey who brought me a letter from the Count of
Plouernel."

"Another demand for a loan, I suppose?"

"Exactly. He has ordered me to undertake to secure for him the sum of
100,000 livres. He did not call on me direct for the loan, because he
thought me too poor to be able to furnish it."

"Will you lend him the money, my friend?"

"Surely, on excellent securities of thirty deniers to one. The Count is
good for it, and it will please me to squeeze him, along with other
great seigneurs, to the profit of the strong-box of the Voyants."

Hardly had Samuel uttered these words when Prince Franz of Gerolstein,
accompanied by one single companion, entered the room. Samuel and his
wife silently passed upstairs to the floor above, leaving the two alone.

Franz of Gerolstein, then at the age of twenty-five, tall of stature and
at once graceful and robust, presented an appearance both noble and
impressive. In his face could be read frankness, resolution, and
generosity. He was simply dressed. His companion, who was evidently a
woman disguised in male habiliments, seemed as young as he, though she
was really thirty. In spite of their rare beauty, her features bore the
stamp of virility. Her figure was tall and lithe; a brownish down marked
strongly her upper lip; everything harmonized with her masculine
garments. Yet the beauty of this woman was of a sinister character. The
marble-like pallor of her brow, the flashes of her black eyes, the
contraction of her pupils, the bitterness of the smile, frequently
cruel, which curled on her lips--all seemed to bear witness to the
ravages of passion or to some incurable chagrin. She seemed either a
superb courtesan, or a repentant Magdalen.

Neither Franz nor his companion broke the silence of the lower room for
an instant. The Prince spoke first, in a voice grave and almost solemn:

"Victoria, it is now three months since my visit to the Prison of the
Repentant Women. Your beauty, marked with a depth of sadness, seized
possession of me at once. I learned why you had been condemned to
confinement. Those reasons, once learned, moved me deeply. From that
time dates the interest with which you have inspired me. By the
intervention of a powerful friend, I am fortunate enough to have secured
your release."

"Yes, I owe you my liberty," responded she whom he called Victoria, in a
virile voice. "And moreover, you have given me, in my misfortune, many
proofs of affection."

"But the interest I have shown you has other springs than in your
misfortune--although that has much augmented it."

"What may they be, Franz? Speak--I am listening."

The Prince paused in silence for a second, and then asked:

"Know you who I am?"

"Have you not told me that you were a student in one of the universities
of Germany, your native land?"

"I deceived you as to my station, Victoria. I am no student."

"You deceived me! You whom I thought so true?"

"You will soon learn for what cause I hid from you the truth. But first
I would make you aware of the nature of the sentiments you inspire in
me. I can no longer hold back the confession. Hear me, then,
Victoria--"

The young woman shuddered, stopped the Prince, and said in tones of
bitterness:

"Unless I greatly mistake, I foresee the end of this speech, Franz. So
before you proceed, and in the hope of sparing you a refusal which would
be an insult to you, I must declare that I have not changed since I met
you. I must repeat what I said to you in our first interview: My heart
is dead to love--one single passion rules me, and that is, vengeance. I
have hid from you nothing of the past."

"Aye, I know that you have suffered. Victoria, if your heart is dead,
mine is no longer mine. I left behind in Germany a young girl, an angel
of candor, of virtue, of beauty. She is poor and obscure of birth, but I
have sworn before God to make her my wife. I shall remain true to my
love and to my oath."

"Oh, thanks, Franz, thanks for your confidence. It has lifted from me a
fearsome apprehension," said Victoria, with a sigh of joy. "I love you
with the tenderness of a sister, or rather, of a friend. For I am no
longer a woman, and it would have been cruelty on my part to inspire in
you a sentiment I could not share. But what, then, is the nature of your
feeling towards me?"

"I feel for you the tender compassion due to the sorrows of your
childhood and early youth--a profound esteem for the qualities which in
you have survived, have overcome, all the causes of your
degradation;--and finally, Victoria, I am united to you by an
indissoluble bond which reaches into the most distant past--that of
kinship."

Victoria gazed at the Prince in a sort of stupor as he proceeded: "We
are of one blood, Victoria. We are relatives. One cradle, one origin,
embraced our two families. Have you ever read the records your fathers
have handed down from age to age, for now over sixteen centuries?"

"I learned of those writings during the two years I spent with my mother
and brother, subsequent to the event I have related to you. The reading
of our annals, added to all the ferments of hate, already planted in my
soul, and to the disappearance of my father, now dead or languishing in
some pit of the Bastille, all created and matured in me that craving for
vengeance, or rather for reprisals, which now possesses me. I long to
serve that vengeance, at the cost of my life, if need be. That is why I
have consented to this initiation, the hour of which is now approached.
Vengeance will be but justice, and I wish it to be implacable."

"The hour is indeed arrived, Victoria, and also the moment to reveal to
you what we are to each other. You have in your plebeian annals a
princely name, that of Charles of Gerolstein. That prince was a
descendant of Gaelo the Pirate, who in the Tenth Century accompanied old
Rolf, chief of the Northman pirates, to the siege of Paris.[2] One of
the descendants of Gaelo, taking his departure from Norway, went, some
time in the Tenth Century, to establish himself with one of the
independent tribes of Germany. His courage, his military prowess, caused
his election as chief of the tribe. His son, equal to his father for
wisdom and bravery, succeeded him to the command. The chieftainship from
that time forward became hereditary in the family. Later, the tribe of
Gerolstein became one of the foremost in the German confederation. Thus
did the descendants of Gaelo found the sovereign house of Gerolstein,
to-day represented by my father, who now holds sway in his German
principality. Our relationship is beyond doubt, Victoria, and the bonds
thereof were again strengthened in the Sixteenth Century, when, in the
religious wars, the ancestors of us both fought together under Admiral
Coligny."

"So, Franz, you are of the race of sovereigns," Victoria made answer.
Then she continued: "It is now three months since you rescued me from
prison. Shame, grief, self-contempt have deterred me from returning to
my mother and brother. I am penniless. I wished to earn my living as a
sempstress, a trade in which my mother instructed me during my stay with
her. That would be the wisest thing to do. Why have you opposed my
desires?"

"Because I thought you could serve the cause of humanity more fruitfully
than by occupying yourself with the needle."

"You told me that I was to go through a novitiate of several months,
during which time I might demand no assistance in my work. I accepted of
you the money necessary for my modest needs. You were to me both brother
and teacher. I saw you every day for hours. Little by little my eyes
were opened to the light. Radiant horizons dazzled my vision. You filled
me with your generous aspirations. You fired me with that fever of
devotion and resignation, that thirst for sacrifices, from which spring
saints and martyrs. You followed with interest my progress in the new
path that you opened out to me. Day by day I wished that my initiation
might end. I wished to take my part in action, in your projects. But now
that you have revealed your birth, your station, I begin to doubt you.
Is the object of your society really that which you have taught me it
was, the recovery of the rights ravaged from the disinherited classes?"

"The least doubt on your part on that score, Victoria, would be a cruel
blow to me. We have taken arms for justice and right."

"Pardon me, Franz. Then the _level_, that inflexible emblem--the social
level--"

"Is our emblem. Equality of rights for man and woman!"

"It is your emblem, my lord? Yours, the son of a sovereign?"

"The aim of my life is the triumph of liberty, the birth of the
Republic! Hear me, Victoria. You have borne the hardships, the
sufferings, the shame of a prison. Which, you or a person unknown to
prison horrors, knows them better? Which would hate them more?"

"I read your thought. Despotism itself has taught you its horror."

"And you will no longer wonder at me--of a sovereign race, but yet as
lowly of origin as you, as both our families originated in the same
place--when I take the level as my emblem?"

"I shall wonder no more, Franz; but to my wonder succeeds a glow of
admiration." With her eyes full of tears, and bowing her knee before the
Prince of Gerolstein, Victoria kissed his hand, saying, "May you be
blessed and glorified for your generous sentiments."

"Rise, Victoria," answered the Prince with emotion. "My conduct does not
merit your admiration. It is but a puny sacrifice for us to make of our
privileges, compared with the grandeur of our cause." Then after a
pause, he resumed in mild and grave tones: "But now reflect on this
solemn moment of your initiation. There is still time for you to retract
your allegiance to us."

"Franz, after three months of proof, I shall not weaken at the last
moment. I am ready for the ceremony."

"Think of the terrible vows you are about to take."

"Be they what they may, I shall not be found wanting in faith, courage,
or devotion."

"I wished to reveal to you our family connection in order that you could
accept from me without embarrassment, as should be between relatives,
your means of livelihood for the future, should you not care to carry
out your plan. Your liberty of action shall remain complete and
absolute."

"I shall always accept from you, Franz, a service without blushing. But
more than ever before, am I resolved to pledge myself to your cause, to
the cause of the expropriated--if you think me worthy to serve it."

"I shall not speak to you of the perils confronting us. You are above
all, valiant. But it is necessary to reconcile you to a complete
renunciation of self. You will be an instrument; not a blind one, but at
once intelligent and passive. The Voyants are obliged to employ, for the
deliverance, regeneration and happiness of mankind, some of the very
means which the Society of Jesus uses to enslave and brutalize it. The
sword, according as it is used, may be the dagger of the assassin or the
glaive of the citizen wielded in defense of his country. It was the
glaive with which Brutus opposed the Roman aristocracy, and smote
Caesar."

"I know the end toward which I shall be guided, the triumph of right and
of justice. I shall obey."

"Perhaps you will also have to renounce your hopes of vengeance and
reprisals. Will you be equal to that?"

The young woman shook and her features darkened under the stress of the
internal struggle which these words caused her. Finally she broke out in
an altered voice:

"What, Franz! Shall centuries of oppression not have their day of
retribution? Shall the crimes of ages go unpunished? Shall the shades of
our martyred fathers not be appeased by vengeance? Shall the example of
inexorable justice not be given to the world, in the name of eternal
good? What! They would deny us one day, one single day of legitimate
reprisals after fifteen centuries of crime? Must the victims be
constrained to pardon their executioners?"

"Victoria, those who seek the birth of the reign of fraternity on earth
hold blood in abhorrence. They hope to accomplish the freedom, the
regeneration of mankind by mercy and pardon, and by educating the
working class."

"Then I renounce my vengeance!" said the young woman. "But if the
eternal enemies of humanity oppose themselves, by trickery or by
violence, to the emancipation of the oppressed; if on their part, the
conflict is engaged without either mercy or pity, shall the victims have
to kneel, and offer their throats to the knife?"

"In that case, Victoria, may the blood fall on the heads of those who
first shed it. Accursed be those who respond by treachery or violence to
our words of love, of concord, of justice and of reparation! Then will
be fulfilled once more, perhaps for the last time, that law of human
progress, which, so many times across the ages, has encrimsoned the
conquest of the most equitable reforms. Insurrection will have to impose
upon the oppressors concessions the voluntary granting of which would
have saved the world from all these woes. Accursed be those who shall
then attempt to oppose force to the demands of the times. Then,
Victoria, there shall be war, war tremendous, pitiless! It will be the
unchaining of popular passions. No bridle can hold them. The justice of
God will pass over a terror-stricken world. Then, in the midst of that
tempest which shall overturn thrones and altars--then, Victoria, you
shall appear, terrible as the Goddess of Vengeance, striking with her
broad sword the old world, condemned in the name of the good of the
peoples."

"Oh, my life, my whole life for one hour of such vengeance!" cried the
young woman, palpitating in wild exaltation. "Aye, let my life be a
hundred times more miserable, more abject, more horrible than that which
a King put upon me--I shall live it twice over in order to assist in the
hour of this vengeance. A day, an hour of reprisals, for my life of
misery!"

"Come then, Victoria, you shall be ours as we shall be yours, in life,
in death, in triumph, in vengeance!"

So speaking, the Prince of Gerolstein led Victoria Lebrenn out of
Samuel's chamber, across the garden, and into a deserted and
half-subterranean green-house.




CHAPTER III.

THE VOYANTS.


The half-underground hot-house into which Franz of Gerolstein conducted
his new convert was dimly lighted by a lamp placed at the foot of a
stairway leading still further beneath the earth. On the first step of
this staircase Franz found a package from which he produced two loose
robes and two masks. Addressing his companion, he said:

"Put this robe on over your garments, and hide your countenance behind
this mask."

They descended the stairs, and arrived in a corridor, lighted by the
hanging lamp whose rays had guided them from above. At the extremity of
the passage stood a man cloaked in red and with a black mask over his
visage. He held a naked sword in his hand, and advanced two steps to
meet the newcomers.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"We are of the _disinherited_," replied Franz. "For father we had
_enslavement_, for mother _ignorance_; our condition is _misery_. We are
of the poor, the oppressed, the damned here below."

"What do you wish, my brother?"

"_Liberty_, _knowledge_, _happiness_."

"Knock at that door," commanded the masked figure in red, stepping aside
to make way for Franz and his companion. "Knock and it shall be opened
unto you; seek, and ye shall find."

The door opened, and as soon closed behind the two initiates. For a
moment they were blinded by the brilliance which flooded the
subterraneous chamber to which they had now penetrated. It was lighted
by seventy candelabra, each bearing seven candles--again the mystic
number. The walls were covered with red drapery; at the further end a
raised platform formed a dais with closed curtains; on the front of the
dais was the picture of a carpenter's level. Several steps from the
platform, on a draped table, were thrown in confusion a royal crown, a
scepter, a pontifical tiara, a bishop's crosier, several collars of
chivalric orders, and a few ducal or princely coronets; besides these
there lay in the heap some pouches, half open, and full of gold and
silver pieces.

Directly behind the table on which thus lay cluttered the emblems of
religion, royalty, aristocracy and wealth, stood seven masked men,
garbed in long robes, silent and erect, their arms crossed on their
chests, seven specters, seven fantastic apparitions. The one whose duty
it was to officiate at the reception of initiates stood in the center.
Three Voyants were ranged to his right, three to his left. He addressed
Victoria, who keenly felt the impression produced on her by the strange
spectacle:

"Woman, your age?"

"Fifteen centuries, and more. I was born the first day of the
enslavement and misery of my brothers."

"What would you?"

"The end of oppression. I wish to beat down thrones and altars,
privileges of birth and of fortune, all the hoary monuments of
ignorance, of slavery, and of iniquity, all the monopolies, all the
privileges which flourish upon the people."

"What will happen when the level shall have passed over the old world,
and when the exploiters of the people shall have disappeared?"

"The darkness of ages shall be superseded by the revivifying warmth and
the fruitful light of the sun; harvests of abundance will cover with
their sheaves the soil tilled by a fecund revolution."

"Is your severance from the old world complete?"

"I have broken with the old world, and rallied to the new."

"Behold this pontifical tiara, this kingly crown; gaze on these symbols
of nobility, these sacks of gold and silver. You may demand of kings, of
priests, of nobles, of the rich, the enjoyments of life, all by devoting
yourself body and soul to these idols and to tyranny."

"It is my wish to overthrow those idols. I vow an implacable hatred to
the enemies of the people."

"From this hour," responded the cloaked president, apparently satisfied
with the interrogatory, "you shall be ours as we will be yours. Our
device so has it--_All for each; each for all._ By this device,
co-operation will replace in the future the selfishness of the masters
of the old world. Who caused all the evils of which selfishness has been
the source? He who first dug a ditch about a piece of common land and
said 'This is mine.' The usurpation was consecrated by men simple-minded
enough to respect these arbitrary boundaries; the spoliation of several
by one gradually became a right; the deed became the law, the exception
the rule. The tyranny growing out of this principle, initiated by
violence and perpetuated by custom, became rooted in the peoples' mind,
till at length they came to own an infant mewling in the cradle for
their King, and to kiss the boot of the Pope. What consequences have not
come out of these aberrations! Peoples have throttled each other. The
earth has its damned ones, more to be pitied than those with whom
superstition peoples hell. The damned on earth call themselves vassals,
serfs, proletarians, artisans, laborers! It is of these damned ones that
we seek the redemption. Think you the overturning of thrones and altars
will suffice for the deliverance of these victims? No, alas, no. To the
tyranny of King and Church will succeed an exploitation still more
tyrannical, that of the tribe of Business. Then the dispenser of work
and of wages will exert an empire absolute over his wage-earning
workingmen. On the ruins of the thrones and altars will soon grow up the
oligarchy of merchants and bourgeois.

"That oligarchy must also in its end be overthrown," continued the
initiator. "That is our final aim.[3] Our design is to unite by the bond
of a common faith, thousands of initiates in every country of
Europe--first in Germany, then in France, in England, and elsewhere; to
bring them gradually, by initiation, into the knowledge of the object of
our association; to have them swear obedience to its chiefs, visible and
invisible, and chosen from all ranks of society, from the highest to the
lowest; to recruit our partisans and co-workers in the very councils of
the Kings themselves, in the heart of the palace of the Popes. Our
enemies will find themselves, without their knowing it, perpetually
under our eyes; their plots will be revealed to us; their own creatures,
to all appearances the most devoted to them, will obey our orders, and
undermine the foundations of their social edifice. Then in the hour of
redemption the old world shall crumble and go down under its debris of
priests, nobles, and Kings.

"Woman," continued the master of ceremonies, outstretching his hand
toward Victoria, "you now know our purposes. Here are our sinews of
action. An annual assessment levied on all our brothers, who number
themselves by millions, makes us masters of a mighty treasure. That is
the source of the wealth in which revel those of our number whose duty
it is to mix with the mighty ones of the day, sharing in their
dalliances and dissipations--foxes to deceive, wolves to devour our
enemies. Victoria Lebrenn, it is for you, thanks to your remarkable
gifts of nature, to become one of our most active auxiliaries. But to
serve well our cause, it will be necessary that you abdicate your own
will, and that you stand ready, at any hour of the day or night, to
follow our orders."

"Command; I obey."

"I must first acquaint our brothers with the particulars of your life,
as you have set them down in your own hand, and confided them to your
converter."

Picking up a roll of manuscript, the presiding officer proceeded to read
the story of Victoria Lebrenn, as follows:

"In the year 1772, being then eleven years and a half old, I was one day
crossing the garden of the Tuileries, carrying dinner to my father, a
workman in a printing shop in Bac Street. I paused a moment to watch
some little children at play. A woman well dressed and with decent
features drew close to me, examined me attentively, and made me some
compliments on my good looks. Then noting the porringer with my father's
dinner, and learning from me that I was on my way to him, she proposed
that I go with her in her carriage. Delighted to have a carriage-ride
for the first time in my life, I readily agreed. Near the Draw Bridge a
coach was waiting, into which I got with my conductress. She offered me
some lozenges from a box, which I accepted. The lozenges contained some
species of narcotic, for in a few minutes I had fallen into a deep
sleep.

"When I awoke, it was night. I was lying in a great bed with damask
curtains. The ceiling of my chamber was of gold, and the room itself was
richly furnished. Beside my pillow was seated the woman by whose agency
I had been taken to the place. I asked her where I was. I wept at the
anxiety of my parents; she calmed me, promising that they should soon be
with me. She added that I was in the house of a person of great quality,
who was interested in my youth, wished me much good, and would enrich my
family. I knew I was not dreaming, but thought myself the heroine of a
fairy tale. Two women entered. They made me rise, and put me in a
perfumed bath. Then they dressed my hair, one of them winding a string
of pearls through it. They dressed me in silk and lace, and served me
with supper on plates of vermilion and gold. I experienced a sort of
vertigo; I obeyed mechanically. Still, I kept asking for my father and
mother. The woman of the carriage assured me that they would soon
arrive, and be overjoyed to see me so beautiful. A hard-visaged man
entered the chamber. I heard the old woman call him Monsieur Lebel, and
speak to him with great respect. The man scrutinized me carefully.
'Little one,' he said to me, 'you must go to bed now.' Then he went out.

"Doubtless, in the course of the repast, they had served me with several
glasses of heady wine, for I felt my reason clouding. I allowed myself
to be put to bed, though not without again inquiring for my parents.
They promised to take me back to them the next day. The woman and her
two companions bade me good night, snuffed the candles in the
candelabrum, and left me for light a single alabaster lamp, which threw
a pale illumination over the spacious room. I was about to succumb less
to sleep than to the leaden lethargy into which I had been plunged, when
a start of fright restored to me, for a few moments, all my senses. My
bed was set in an alcove. Two of the gilded panels which formed the
alcove slid back in their grooves, and I beheld an old man in a dressing
gown. I uttered a cry of astonishment--it was the King, Louis XV. I had
seen him but a short time before at a public ceremony in Paris. I was
stupefied into immobility. Close behind the King, in the secret
passageway leading into the alcove, stood a beautiful young woman
half-clad in a night robe, and holding a candle-stick. She laughed
aloud, and said to the King, pushing him by the shoulder--'Go on,
France, it is the loving hour!'

"That woman, I afterwards learned, was Countess Du Barry. I fainted with
fear. I was the victim of an odious assault. Five days afterward,
another poor child, aged like me, hardly twelve, the daughter of a
miller of Trianon, was delivered after the same manner to the lust of
Louis XV, and gave him the small-pox of which he died. Two days before
his death, the woman of whom I have spoken, one of the royal
procuresses, made me leave by night the little apartment in the palace
of Versailles, and get with her into a carriage, assuring me she was
about to restore me to my father, whom I continually called for, in
tears. I still was not fully aware of my dishonor. Instead of returning
me to my home, the procuress left me in an isolated dwelling not far
from Versailles. High walls surrounded the garden; the only entry was by
a gate which was kept under careful guard. Flight was impossible.

"In that house I found several young girls, of whom the youngest was
barely my age, and the oldest, twenty. The place was the habitual haunt
of great lords, prelates, and financiers. They came to sup with
us--suppers that ended in shameful orgies. My companions, the immature
victims, like myself, of kingly debauchery, gradually made known to me
the extent of my disgrace. At first I was overcome by shame; then
familiarity with vice, the contagion of example, the influence of the
corrupt atmosphere in which I dwelt, stifled my better sentiments and my
early training. I would never have dared at this time to return to my
family. I reached my sixteenth year without having left that house of
ill fame. By that time reflection and chagrin had matured my reason;
then there began to grow up beside the sense of my degradation, the
implacable hatred of the King and of those who, after him, had plunged
me still deeper into the mire of infamy. I assisted daily in the orgies
of the seigneurs of the Court, of the Church and of the Bourse. They
never supposed creatures of our sort capable of attaching any
importance to what they said in our presence; they expressed without
hesitation their disdain and aversion for the people. Just about that
time, several disturbances brought on by the dearness of provisions had
been quelled at the musket's mouth; our guests regretted that the acts
of repression had not been still more pitiless, saying, 'These flames
can never be quenched save by rivers of blood.'

"Thus there was created in me, a daughter of the people, a blind thirst
for vengeance. Louis XV was dead, but I followed with my hatred both
royalty and nobility, clergy and financiers. Our relations with the men
of this class taught me to see in them our merciless enemies. Still my
material comfort and my early degradation engendered in me a cowardly
inertia. I felt neither the courage nor the desire to flee the domicile
where I was held. I was seized with mortal terror at the bare thought of
encountering my father, my mother, my young brother; of soiling our
hearth with my presence. And, finally, knowing that their life was poor
and laborious, it seemed impossible to me to summon the will to work and
to share their privations. Ease and luxury were enervating, were
depraving me. Thus passed several years. I reached the age of twenty.
The woman who kept the place died, and my companions and I were turned
adrift. I was without resources and unable to earn my daily bread, my
apprenticeship as a sempstress having been cut short by my kidnapping.
The fear of misery, my determination not to continue in that abject
life, the uncertainty of the future, and lastly my attachment to my
family, overcame my shame and gave me the courage to return home. My
parents believed me dead; my appearance overwhelmed them with joy and
rendered them merciful. I confessed to them my past. They both covered
me with tears and caresses, and withheld every reproach. My father gave
me to read the plebeian legends of our family. Then my poor father,
exasperated by the deed that marred my childhood, printed and
distributed to the public with his own hand an account which he wrote
and entitled _A Night of Louis XV_. A few days after the publication of
this article, my father failed to come home at night. Since then we have
had no trace of him. Doubtless he now is dead, or languishes in the cell
of some State prison.

"For a year I remained with my mother and brother. I forced myself to
live down my past. I took up again my sempstress's apprenticeship, and
soon ceased to be a care to my mother. While my body had been stained,
my heart remained pure. I had never felt the pangs of love. I now
conceived a violent affection for a young sergeant in the French Guards
named Maurice, the son of one of our neighbors. The young fellow did not
know through what a slough my youth had been dragged, and thought me
entirely worthy of him; so much did I dread his scorn that I had not the
heart to disabuse him. He asked my hand of my mother. I begged her to
hide from him my past shame; moved by my tears she consented to silence.
We were affianced, Maurice and I. I had attained the summit of my
prayers. I felt a secret remorse in deceiving the man who loyally
offered me his hand, but I consoled myself with the thought of
fulfilling scrupulously my marriage vows and making my husband as happy
as possible. Cruelly was my dissimulation punished. One day, while
walking between my mother and my betrothed, we met one of my old
companions in misery. She knew me and addressed me in terms of a
terrible meaning. Terrified at the expression of Maurice's face at this
revelation, my heart broke--I collapsed. When I came to myself my mother
stood at my side in tears. Commanded by my beloved to tell him all, for
he still could not believe in my past indignity, my mother dared no
longer hide the truth. Maurice was stricken dumb with grief, for he
loved me with all his heart. He returned to the barracks in
bewilderment, and chancing to come into the presence of his colonel, the
Count of Plouernel, did not think to salute him. The Count, angered at
this want of respect, knocked off Maurice's hat with a blow of his cane.
He, half crazed with despair, raised his hand against his colonel. The
crime was punishable by death under the scourge. The next day the young
sergeant expired under that inhuman torture. The death of the man I
loved threw me into a sort of frenzy. Often before, as the record of our
family tells, had our fathers, as serfs or vassals, found themselves in
arms face to face with the race of Plouernel. This memory redoubled my
hatred for the colonel. Disgusted with life by the death of my only
love, I resolved to avenge on the Count of Plouernel the decease of
Maurice. I repaired to the quarters of the Guards at the hour when I
knew I could find the colonel in his rooms. My hope was dashed. My
paleness and agitation aroused the suspicions of the two under-officers
to whom I addressed myself. They demanded the reason of my desire to see
their chief. The brusqueness of my replies, my sinister and wild
appearance strengthened their mistrust. They fell upon me, searched me,
and found in my pocket--a dagger. Then I told them why I came. They
arrested me; they haled me to the Repentant Women. I was subjected in
that prison to the most barbarous treatment. One day a stranger visited
the place. He questioned me. My answers impressed him. A few days later
I was set at liberty, thanks to the efforts of this stranger, Franz, who
came in person to fetch me from the Repentant Women."

       *       *       *       *       *

The chief initiator concluded the reading of the melancholy recital, and
replaced the pages of manuscript on the table before him. "The account
of our sister is authenticated throughout," he said.

"To this story of my sad life," declared Victoria, "there is nothing to
add. Only to-day did I learn the name of the generous stranger to whom I
owe my release from prison; and again I declare myself ready to pledge
my devotion and service to the cause of humanity. Let the war upon the
oppressors be implacable!"

"From the most obscure to the most illustrious, all devotion is equal in
the eyes of our great cause, and in the eyes of its most noble martyr,
the immortal crucified master of Nazareth," added the initiator, drawing
aside the curtains of the dais and disclosing a Christ on a crucifix,
surmounted with the level of equality. Then he continued, speaking to
Victoria, "Woman, in the name of the poor carpenter of Nazareth, the
friend of the sorrowing and the disinherited, the enemy of the priests
and the rulers of his day--woman, do you swear faith, love, and
obedience to our cause?"

"I swear!" answered Victoria in a ringing voice, raising her hands
toward the crucifix. "I swear faith and obedience to our cause!"

"You are now ours as we are yours," replied the officiant, dropping the
curtains. "From to-morrow on you will receive our instructions from our
brother Franz. To work! The opening of the States General shall be the
signal for the enfranchisement of the people. The thrones shall
disappear beneath the scourge of the revolution!"[4]

At that moment the watch posted in the corridor of the Voyant temple of
liberty struck thrice precipitately on the door, giving the alarm. The
lights which had cast their radiance over the meeting went out as if by
magic, and a profound darkness took possession of the underground
chamber.

From the obscurity was heard the voice of Anacharsis Clootz, the masked
officiant, saying to the other Voyants who had been present at the
initiation of Victoria Lebrenn:

"Baboeuf, go with Buonarotti, Danton and Condorcet by the right exit. I
shall take the left, together with Franz, Loustalot, and our neophyte."




CHAPTER IV.

LITTLE RODIN.


While Anacharsis Clootz, the rich Dutch banker, later to be known as the
"Orator of the Human Race," was thus presiding at the initiation of
Victoria Lebrenn into the sect of the Voyants, Samuel, left alone with
his wife by the departure of Franz of Gerolstein and his companion, had
been just preparing to continue his dictation to Bathsheba, when he
heard the street-outlook rapping discreetly at the gate. Samuel,
hastening at the call, found the watcher holding by the hand a young boy
who cried bitterly.

"The poor little fellow has lost his way," said the lookout, passing the
boy in to Samuel. "I found him sitting down there by the buttress of the
gate, sobbing. You would better keep him with you for the night, and
to-morrow, in the daylight, he can be taken back to his folks--if you
can find out from him where he lives."

Touched by the child's grief, Samuel took him into the lower room and
both he and Bathsheba bent all their energies toward quieting him. The
boy seemed to be about nine or ten years old. He was poorly clad, and of
a wan and ailing appearance. His face presented none of the smiling
prettiness usual with children of his age. His peaked features, his
sickly and cadaverous pallor, his thin, pale lips, his sly and shifty,
yet keen and observing glance--revealing a precocious cleverness--in
fine, something low, mean and crafty in the look of the boy would, no
doubt, have inspired aversion rather than sympathy in the breasts of the
couple were it not for the cruel desertion of which he seemed the
victim. Hardly had he entered the room when he dropped to his knees,
crossed himself, and clasping his hands exclaimed through his tears:

"Blessed be You, Lord God, for having pitied Your little servant and led
him to this good sir and this good lady. Save them a place in Your
paradise!"

Dragging himself on his knees toward the Jew and his wife, the urchin
kissed their hands effusively and with far too great a flood of
gratitude for sincerity. Bathsheba took him on her knees, and said to
him as she wiped his tear-stained face, "Don't cry, poor little one.
We'll take care of you to-night, and to-morrow we'll take you home. But
where do you live, and what is your name?"

"My name is Claude Rodin," answered the child; and he added, with a
monstrous sigh, "The good God has been merciful to my parents, and took
them to His holy paradise."

"Poor dear creature," answered Samuel, "you are, then, an orphan?"

"Alas, yes, good sir! My dear dead father used to be holy water
dispenser at the Church of St. Medard. My dear dead mother used to rent
out chairs in the same parish. They are now both with the angels; they
are walking with the blessed saints."

"And where do you live, my poor child?"

"With Monsieur the Abbot Morlet, my good lady; a holy man of God, and my
kind god-father."

"But how did it happen, my child, that you went astray at this late hour
of the night?" asked Samuel. "You must have left home all alone?"

"Just after benediction," answered little Rodin, crossing himself
devoutly, "Monsieur the Abbot, my good god-father, took me to walk with
him in the Place Royale. There were a lot of people gathered around some
mountebanks. I sinned!" cried the boy, beating his chest in contrition,
"the Lord God punished me. It is my fault--my fault--my very great
fault! Will God ever forgive me my sin?"

"But what great sin did you commit?" questioned Bathsheba.

"Mountebanks are heretics, fallen, and destined for hell," answered
little Rodin, pressing his lips together with a wicked air, and striking
his breast again. "I sinned, hideously sinned, in watching the games of
those reprobates. The Lord God punished me by separating me from my good
god-father. The swaying of the crowd carried him away from me. No use to
look for him! No use to call him! It was impossible to find him. It was
my very great fault!"

"And how did you get here from the Place Royale? The two points are far
apart."

"Having said my prayers, both mental and oral, several times, in order
to call to my aid the divine pity," replied Rodin emphatically and with
an air of beatitude, "I started out to find my way home, away down at
the end of the Roule suburb, near the Folie-Beaujon."

"Poor child," interrupted Bathsheba. "More than a league to travel! How
I pity the dear child. Go on with your story," she said to him.

"It is a long way, true enough," added Samuel, "but all he had to do was
to follow the boulevards. How did you come to lose the road?"

"A worthy gentleman, of whom I inquired the way, told me I would reach
home quicker by taking another street. I walked all evening, but all I
did was to get lost. The wrath of the Lord pursued me!" After sighing
and beating his breast again, little Rodin continued: "Then, at last,
passing your house, I felt so tired, so tired, that I fell on your
door-step from weariness, and prayed the good God to come to my help. He
deigned to hear the prayer of His little servant, and so you came to
pity me, my good sir and lady. May God receive you in heaven!"

"You shall spend the night here, dear child, and to-morrow we will take
you back to your god-father--so don't weep any more."

"Alas, good sir, the holy man will be so anxious! He will think me
lost!"

"It is impossible now to calm his anxiety. But are you hungry or
thirsty? Will you have something to eat or drink?"

"No, good mistress; only I'm terribly sleepy, and wish I could lie
down."

"I can well believe it," said Bathsheba, addressing her spouse; "after
such fatigue and worry, the little fellow must be worn out. It is only
natural that he should be dying to go to sleep."

"But where shall we put him? We are in a tight fix. We have but one
bed."

"Oh, good sir," eagerly broke in little Rodin, "don't put yourself out
for me. I shall sleep very well right there, if you will let me;" and
the boy indicated a re-enforced and brass-bound chest which his keen eye
had spied, and which formed a seat at the further end of the room. "That
will do me, very well."

"I never thought of the chest," remarked Samuel. "The boy is right. At
his age one sleeps anywhere. With plenty of warm covering he will pass
the night there almost as comfortably as in his own bed. It all comes
out for the best."

"I'll go fetch a cushion and a cloak, and fix him up as well as
possible," added Bathsheba, leaving the room.

The boy sat down and huddled himself together as if unable to resist the
lassitude and sleep which weighed upon him. His head sank upon his
chest, and his eyes closed. But immediately peeping under his lids he
saw on the table close beside him pens, ink, and several sheets of
freshly written paper. It was Samuel's unfinished letter to Levi.

"I surely was inspired in asking to sleep here," murmured the boy,
aside; "let me recall without forgetting anything the orders of my good
god-father," he thought, as the Jew's wife returned with the makeshift
bedding she had gone in search of.

"Here, dear boy," she said, "I'll put you to bed and tuck you in well
from the cold."

Simulating a heavy sleep, the urchin did not stir.

"Poor creature--asleep already," said Bathsheba. "I'll have to carry
him." Lifting little Rodin in her arms she placed him on the chest,
while Samuel arranged the cushion under his head and covered him up
with the cloak. These cares completed, Samuel and his wife turned again
to the completion of the note to their cousin Levi; but his thoughts
having been disarranged by the frequent interruptions, Samuel asked his
wife to re-read the letter from the beginning, after which he finished
it, while the young boy was seemingly sound asleep.

Bathsheba had just taken down the last of her husband's dictation when
suddenly another rap resounded at the gate.

"Samuel," cried the Jewess, pale and trembling, "that time the watcher
gave the alarm signal."

Samuel went to the gate, opened the wicket and asked the lookout:

"What is up?"

"For nearly quarter of an hour I have remarked two men, closely wrapped
in their cloaks, who came in from St. Gervais Street, and halted at the
corner of the garden wall. They examined the house minutely. Immediately
I fell on one of the stone benches in the dark passageway and pretended
to be asleep. Two or three times they passed by without noticing me;
they kept walking up and down, now examining the exterior of the
building, now conversing in low tones. Finally they saw me, and said
aloud--'There is a wine-bibber sleeping himself sober.' They walked once
more to some distance; then returning towards me, I heard them utter
these words: 'And now, let us report to the sergeant.' They quickened
their steps and vanished around the corner of St. Francois Street. Now
you are warned, Master Samuel."

"When you first observed them, was anyone within?" asked Samuel. "Are
you sure of that, lookout?"

"No one--except the child I brought to you, and whom you took in
yourself."

"These two men must be attached to the police, since they intended to go
straight to the sergeant; could their suspicions as to what went on here
have been awakened by their observations to-night?"

"There was no one in the street while our brothers were arriving. I am
sure of it; I kept good and sure guard."

"The suspicions of these fellows must, then, date from further back than
this evening. But, in that case, at the first suspicion of one of his
agents, the Lieutenant of Police would have had the house turned
topsy-turvy by his searchers. There is something inexplicable in the
conduct of these men. However, if they guessed that you were not really
asleep, but could hear, I believe they would have enjoyed giving you a
false scare. But then, to what purpose? No matter, forewarned is
forearmed. Maintain your watch, and the instant you get sight or sound
of the police sergeant, notify me with the usual signal."

Samuel thereupon ran to the green-house and gave the alarm, which,
repeated by the Voyant on guard at the door of the temple, was the
signal for the dispersal of the meeting. Then the Jew returned to the
room where his wife awaited him.

"Well, my friend," asked Bathsheba hurriedly in an undertone, and unable
to control her anxiety, "what is going on?"

"The danger is not imminent. Nevertheless, I have just warned our
brothers to leave the temple by the two secret issues. The flag-stone
which masks the descent under the hot-house will be replaced, for the
police spies were watching the house. They will cause it to be searched,
they must be able to discover nothing, and our friends must have time to
escape. Reassure yourself, my dear wife; we run not the slightest
danger."

"Lower, my friend, lower, lest you wake the child," cautioned Bathsheba,
indicating little Rodin, who seemed to be still sound asleep, although
his eyelids were imperceptibly winking. "Oh, may the alarms of this
night be vain, and may all danger escape you!"

"Dear wife, let us trust to Providence. It inspired me to write that
letter to our cousin Levi, and now, whatever may come, I am prepared.
The sacred mission bequeathed to us by my grandfather will be fulfilled,
and I shall have saved the heritage of Monsieur Marius Rennepont."

"First--a movable flag conceals the descent under the green-house.
Second--this renegade of a Jew is going to safeguard the fortune of a
certain Marius Rennepont," recited little Rodin to himself, not having
lost a word of the conversation between Samuel and his wife. "Oh, now, I
mustn't forget that name, nor the two secret exits of the _temple_, nor
the movable flag-stone of the green-house--nor a lot of other things!"

The alarm given by the lookout proved premature, for neither the
sergeant of police nor his men appeared on the scene that night to
ransack the house in St. Francois Street.




CHAPTER V.

COUNT AND JESUIT.


More than four months had elapsed since the night on which Victoria
Lebrenn was received into the society of the Illuminati, and on which
little Rodin, with froward slyness, had penetrated the secrets of the
Jew Samuel, the guardian of the Rennepont fortune. In short, it was the
night of July 13, 1789.

The Plouernel mansion, in the suburb of St. Germain, had been built, in
the beginning of the Seventeenth Century, by the order of Raoul of
Plouernel, peer and Marshal of France, and ambassador to Spain. This
seigneur, residing habitually at Versailles or at Paris, left to his
stewards and bailiffs the administration of his domains in Auvergne,
Beauvoisis, and Brittany. He never visited his country seat of
Plouernel, devastated at the time of the Breton uprising.[5] Marshal
Plouernel had had transported to his establishment in Paris all his
family portraits, the oldest of which represented Neroweg, the leude of
Clovis and count of the country of Auvergne. These portraits now adorned
one of the halls of the Plouernel mansion; among them was one draped in
black crepe, in token of mourning. The effigy hidden beneath the veil of
black was that of Colonel Plouernel, traitor, according to the
traditions of the monarchy, to his faith and to his King.

The first lackey of the Count of Plouernel, named Lorrain, the same who
some months previously had carried the missive to Samuel the Jew, was
showing into the Hall of the Portraits Abbot Morlet, of the Society of
Jesus, a holy man of God and god-father to little Rodin, who, in fact,
resembled him so closely as to be taken with reason for his son rather
than his god-son. The Abbot was about forty years of age, clad in black,
of middle height, weazened and nervous, with a fleshless, almost bald
forehead over which fell a few straggling hairs of tawny yellow. His
physiognomy, evil, insidious or beaming in turn, was above all
remarkable for its caustic smile and its half-veiled glance, resembling
that of a serpent. The Abbot was agitated, uneasy; he said to the lackey
who introduced him:

"Announce me to your master without delay."

"Monsieur Abbot," respectfully answered Lorrain, "my lord will not keep
you waiting an instant. His valets are just completing his toilet."

"His toilet!" exploded the Abbot. "To be thinking of such trifles--he
must be out of his head!"

Then pausing a moment and recalling the air of preparation and the
brilliant lighting of the parlors he had passed through on the ground
floor, he added:

"The Count seems to be expecting a large company?"

"My lord is giving a grand supper."

"How is it that the agitation prevailing in Paris since day before
yesterday and up to this very night does not compel the Count to be at
the head of his regiment of the Guards?"

"Monsieur the Abbot is unaware that my lord journeyed this morning to
Versailles to hand in his resignation, and to surrender the command of
his regiment."

"To surrender the command of his regiment!" echoed the Jesuit,
stupefied, and as if he could not believe what he heard. "What--"

At that moment Lorrain left the hall, walking backward as his master
entered.

Count Gaston of Plouernel had reached at this time his thirtieth year.
The facial traits of his Germanic ancestry were reproduced in him. The
whole effect of his person was one of audacity, haughtiness and
arrogance. He presented the accepted type of the great seigneur of his
time, and wore with grace his costume of plain blue cloth of Tours,
spangled with silver and embroidered in gold. His taffeta vest was half
lost to view under the billows of Alencon point lace which formed his
shirt frill and rivalled for costly workmanship the flowing ruffles of
his cuffs. His red-heeled shoes were fastened with diamond buckles.
Diamonds also glittered in the hilt of his small-sword, which he wore
ostentatiously slung under one of the tails of his coat.

At the sight of Abbot Morlet the Count seemed greatly surprised. He
cordially extended to him his hand, however, saying:

"Well! good day, holy Father. What good wind blows you to us? I thought
you at this time still a hundred leagues from Paris!"

"I just got in, and after attending to some indispensable duties,
hurried over to you, to communicate to you, my dear Count--to you, one
of the leaders of the court party--important information I had picked up
during my trip through several of our provinces. Judge of my surprise!
When I arrived here, I learned from your first lackey--that you had this
very day given up the command of your regiment. That's the way of it.
The monarchy, the nobility, the clergy, are attacked as they never have
been through the worst days of our history. And it is at such an hour
that you, one of the greatest lords of France, you, a man of spirit and
of courage, sheath your sword--at this hour when the battle is engaged
with the Third Estate! Ah, Count, if you did not belong to the house of
Plouernel, I would say that you were a coward and a traitor. But, as you
are neither coward nor traitor, I shall make bold to say that you are a
madman."

"On the contrary, my dear Abbot, never have I acted more wisely. Never
have I more studiously served our cause, or proven better my signal
devotion, not to the King--his weakness revolts me--but to the Queen, to
royalty!"

"So, you have judged it wise and politic to abandon the command of your
regiment in our present circumstances? Is it for me, only to-day
arrived, to have to inform you that Paris is laboring under the greatest
excitement, and perhaps on the verge of a formidable insurrection?
Didn't I see them, on the other side of the Seine, beginning to throw up
their barricades? Didn't I meet on every street corner groups of
malcontents, harangued by caballers of the Third Estate?"

"That is all true, Abbot. We are drawing near the moment of a decisive
crisis. The fever of revolution has lasted since day before yesterday,
since Saturday, the 11th of July. The first act took place in the Palais
Royal,[6] when the recall of Necker became known to the public. A young
man named Camille Desmoulins stirred up the gullible clowns in the
gardens by crying out that the King was centering his troops on Paris,
with the purpose of dissolving the National Assembly, arresting the
leaders, and massacring the people of Paris. The most resolute of his
hearers cried _To arms! To the barricades!_ and suited the action to the
word. Bezenval, the military commander of Paris, informed of the tumult,
ordered the dragoons of the Marquis of Crussol to horse. The dragoons
sabered the rabble. But that only angered the populace, and the
agitation spread to the suburbs. A soldier of my command told the people
that several French Guards had been sent to the Abbey Prison; for you
must know, good Father, that insubordination had crept into my regiment.
I had sent the mutineers in irons to the Abbey to await the time to
administer to them the scourging they deserved, when the populace hurled
themselves against the prison, put to rout the sentries, and liberated
the mutinous Guards. The latter received as great an ovation as if they
had had the honor of being Monsieur Necker, or Monsieur Mirabeau!"

"This detestable spirit of rebellion is only too like that which infests
many of our provinces. But these saturnalia were, I hope, put down with
the greatest severity?"

"Not a whit, my dear Father. A King who pretends to the title of 'Father
of the people' does not punish them--or very little. What was the
result? The mildness of the reproof redoubled the rabble's audacity. The
success of the expedition against the Abbey whetted their appetite, and
they turned their attention to the prison of La Force, where they
delivered all the debtors. The insurrection growing more and more
serious, the Prince of Lambesc at length received orders from Marshal
Broglie, the new Minister of War, to mount his regiment, the Royal
Germans, and charge upon this impious populace, then excitedly huddled
in the garden of the Tuileries. At the same time I was ordered to bring
up my regiment, to support, if necessary, the cavalry of Lambesc."

"The French Guards commanded by a colonel like you, Count, should easily
mow down these rebels. And yet you abandon your command. Your conduct is
an enigma."

"On the contrary, nothing is more clear. Do you know the difference
between a German and a Frenchman?"

"What do you mean?"

"Picture to yourself a tribune of the cross-roads, an insolent droll
named Gonchon,[7] who never spoke of himself but in the third person,
come to harangue the German soldiers in the name of the brotherhood of
man. The German soldier, understanding nothing of that demagogic trash,
draws at the command of his colonel, and sabers both Gonchon and the
mob! That is what the dragoons of Lambesc did; that is what the cavalry
of Berchiny would have done gladly, and the cavalry of Esterhazy and of
Roemer, or the regiments of Desbach, of Salis, or the Royal Swiss."

"Good! That is the medicine for this canaille."

"But hardly had Lambesc and his horse sabered the rabble in the garden
of the Tuileries, when that very mob poured back into Louis XV Place,
where I had stationed myself at the head of my regiment in battle array.
I gave the order to fire on the ructious rabble. Murmurs broke out
among the soldiers in the ranks; some made answer, _We will not fire on
the people!_ I ordered the mutinous men to be seized and shot on the
spot. The murmurs grew louder. I repeated the order. Bang! Several
soldiers struck me in the face! Whole companies broke ranks, waving the
butts of their muskets in the air."

"Everything is lost if we cannot count on the army!" cried the Abbot in
dismay.

"You have said it, Abbot--unless the court party is resolved to serve
royalty to the exclusion of the King. In the face of the stand taken by
my men, there was nothing to do but march them back to their quarters.
This morning I repaired to Versailles, and on gaining an audience with
the King I pleaded with his Majesty to authorize me to call a
court-martial to judge and condemn to death within the hour about a
hundred soldiers and under-officers of my regiment, the ringleaders of
the revolt. After long consideration, his Majesty answered with a sour
air that 'if it was a matter of shooting a half dozen or so
insubordinates, he saw no great obstacle in the way, but that he would
not listen at all to any mass slaughters.' Thereupon the King crabbedly
turned his back on me, shrugged his shoulders, and took himself off to
his private apartments. That is why, my good Father, I have renounced my
command in the French Guards. But reassure yourself," he added, in
response to the dumbfounded look the Abbot wore. "I shall remain neither
passive nor idle. I hope to serve our cause more actively, and, without
contradiction, more usefully, now, than if I still were at the head of
my regiment."

"That assurance overwhelms me with joy, dear Count," cried the Abbot
"What are your plans?"

"First, I give to-night a supper, a convivial repast in which I bring
together the influential heads of the court party, for the purpose of
deciding on our final measures--presided over by the most remarkable and
adorable woman I have ever met."

The Jesuit gazed at Monsieur Plouernel in amaze, and answered: "Are you
speaking seriously? Are you really dreaming of having a political
meeting of such importance presided over by--a woman?"

"Your astonishment will cease, my dear Abbot, when you make the
acquaintance of Madam the Marchioness Aldini, a Venetian by birth, the
widow of Marquis Aldini, a great Florentine lord who left his wife an
immense fortune. The Marchioness has resided in Paris for now nearly a
month."

"You know the lady for only a month, and you dare initiate her into the
secrets of our party!"

"Oh, Abbot, the Marchioness is more of our party than we ourselves! A
patrician and a Catholic, she nurses an invincible horror for the
populace and for revolutions. We shall never have a more ardent
auxiliary than she. And then, she is
beautiful--seductive--irresistible!"

"And where did you meet this beautiful personage?"

"One day last month I received a note stamped with outraged pride. The
writer, Marchioness Aldini, addressed to me, as colonel of the Guards, a
complaint against the insolence of several of my soldiers, who had
beaten her lackeys. Struck with the lofty tone of the missive, I called
on the Marchioness, who was occupying the establishment of the Countess
of St. Megrin, now in England, and maintained there a house on the
grandest scale. One of the Marchioness's private valets introduced me to
her in her parlor. Ah, Abbot! at the sight of her I stood spellbound,
enchanted! The extreme beauty of the foreign dame, the fire of her
glance, the expression of her face, the perfection of her stature, the
complete admirableness of her person--all threw me into transports of
admiration." Abbot Morlet puckered his brow dubiously, and the colonel
continued: "In short, the Marchioness realized, she surpassed, an ideal
a hundred times dreamt of by me, wearied as I am of the flirtatious
beauties of the city and the court. What a difference, or rather what a
distance, separates them from the Marchioness! Pride of patrician blood,
resoluteness of character, ardor, impetuosity of passion, all were
legible in her countenance of a masculine paleness, in her look of
flame. Something imperious in her posture, something virile in the
accents of her tongue, gave to this extraordinary woman--none other like
her!--an irresistible charm;--for, before she had spoken a word, I felt
myself captured, enchained, bewitched."

"And the fascination grew and grew, if that is possible," put in the
Jesuit sardonically, "when this beautiful lady opened her mouth? The
siren took you by the eyes and by the ears. She greeted you, I presume,
in the most charming and gallant manner?"

"Not a bit of it! On the contrary, she greeted me with an air of
arrogance and irritation. She taxed me severely for the insolence of my
soldiers."

"But the tigress finished by turning sweet?"

"Yes, after the greatest protestations on my part, and my assurance that
I would chastise the guilty soldiers."

"The anger of the Marchioness being calmed, the interview, no doubt,
took a most tender turn?"

"We spoke of the affairs of the day."

"Strange, out of all whooping! A colonel of thirty, a man of the court,
besides, to speak decorously of the events of the day--with a beautiful
lady--and he so lusty elsewhere!"

"So it was, nevertheless, reverend Father. I never even thought, at that
first interview, of venturing upon the slightest word of gallantry, so
struck was I with the spirit of the Marchioness. Blue death! I was pale
with rage at hearing the Marchioness's bitter sarcasms. I should have
been glad--may God blast me!--to put myself at the head of my regiment
and shoot down all the bourgeois in the States General."

"This retrospective zeal flows from an excellent sentiment; and I know
not how sufficiently to applaud the beautiful Venetian for having
aroused that sentiment in you. Strongly do I approve the belle's
sarcasms, her scorn for the ranters of the Third Estate, and the
populace which supports them. Still, methinks it is very surprising that
a stranger should interest herself so warmly in our affairs," added the
Jesuit thoughtfully.

Without a pause, the priest continued: "Tell me, Count--Have you dealt
out the punishment to the insolent soldiers who beat the lackeys of
Madam the Marchioness?"

"It was impossible to discover them."

"And she hasn't asked you for an account of their punishment? Strange!
Do you know what I think, Count? The outrage was an imaginary one. It
was the Marchioness's pretext to secure a first interview with you."

"Come, Abbot, you are insane! For what reason should she have sought to
inveigle me into an interview?"

"I'll tell you, Count, for I foresee the end of this adventure. You
returned often to visit the Marchioness? You became enamored of her? And
soon the beautiful Venetian, answering your passion, granted you the
boon of love for thanks--after having wheedled out of you all our
party's closest secrets."

"You are mistaken, holy Father. On the faith of a gentleman, the
Marchioness loves me as passionately as I love her; but she has placed
certain conditions on her favors."

"And what may the conditions be with which she has hedged about her
bounty?"

"A struggle to the death against the revolution; the exaltation of
royalty, of the privileges of the nobility and the Church; the
extermination of our enemies. Only on these conditions, Abbot, shall my
love receive its sweetest recompense."

"Count," cried the Jesuit after a moment's silence, "you are only twenty
years old! What am I saying? You are barely sixteen--you are still at
the age of innocence and childlike credulity. You have been blindfolded,
duped, made game of, tossed in a blanket, like the most artless of young
fellows! Oh, the women! And you think yourself a Lovelace, a
lady-killer, my poor Count! And you presume to play a role in the
politics of the court!"

"Monsieur Abbot Morlet, familiarity has its limits--do not oblige me to
recall the fact to you any more forcibly!" exclaimed Monsieur Plouernel,
flaring into a rage. Then, calming himself with an effort, he
continued, sarcastically: "It suits you ill indeed, my reverend sir, to
twit me on the empire exercised over me by women. Has no woman ever
reigned over you? Could not the record of the vestry tell of a fertile
gossip, the hirer-out of chairs at the Church of St. Medard, and widow
of Goodman Rodin, the dispenser of holy water in the same parish? Your
mistress is the mother of that little Rodin whom you brought here one
day last year!"

Unmoved by the raillery of Monsieur Plouernel, the Jesuit replied:

"Your sarcasm is in the last degree pleasant, and moreover, well to the
point, in that it furnishes me the occasion, Count, to give you an
excellent lesson. You need the bit, the bridle, and also the whip, my
fine gentleman."

"I am listening, reverend sir."

"Your love for fine ladies of irresistible beauty is capable of leading
you into the most mournful follies; while I, by reason of my love for my
gossip Rodin, shall be, I hope, able to prevent, and what is more, to
repair your insanities."

"This is getting curious, Abbot. Continue."

"About four months ago, about the beginning of April, at a late hour of
the night, a child, overcome with fatigue, fell on the doorstep of a
house in St. Francois Street, in the Swamp."

"St. Francois Street, in the Swamp! A rascal of a Jew, a skin-flint of a
usurer, lives there. You know him, Abbot? He does business with the
clergy too?"

"It was at the door of that very house that the child sank down with
weariness, crying and shivering. The Jew, out of the pity of his heart,
took in the little fellow, who, he supposed, had lost his way. Then,
succumbing to fatigue and drowsiness, the lad fell asleep on a bench in
the room in which the Jew and his wife were conversing."

"Bless my heart, holy Father! Your voice is trembling, your nose is
growing red, your look is softening, and your eye grows moist! That
infant gifted with so precocious an intelligence, that prodigy, surely
can be no other than little Rodin, your god-son! Honor to you, Abbot,
and to your gossip! You have performed a prodigy, like the Virgin Mary
with the Holy Ghost!"

"Throughout, the little fellow lost not a word of the conversation
between the Jew and his wife; and thanks to a false alarm, adroitly
given without by one of our brothers and myself, my god-son, in the
course of his feigned sleep, surprised two secrets of inestimable import
for the welfare of religion and the nobility. You shall judge--"

"You are deceiving yourself, Abbot, in trying to make me believe that
from the chatter of a miserable Jew and his wife, a chatter surprised by
an urchin, secrets of such importance can be won."

"Count--what do you think of a fortune of nearly 220 millions of francs?
Isn't it a magnificent sum? If these 220 millions should pass into the
possession of a party religious, able, tireless, blessed with cleverness
and boldness, would they not become a lever of immense power? Again,
suppose there were a mysterious sect, the object of which was the
annihilation of the Catholic Church, the overthrow of thrones, the
abolition of the privileges of birth and of fortune; suppose that sect
extended its ramifications throughout all Europe, that it counted in its
ranks classes the most diversified in society, from the lowest to the
highest, and that some of them were even of kingly rank; suppose that
association had at its disposal a considerable treasure; suppose its
masters, men and women, to be capable of assuming, at need, any mask,
any role; that, thanks to their specious masquerade, they introduced
themselves among the royalists, and fathomed the secrets of our
party;--then, Count, what would you think of the discovery of that sect?
Would it not be of the primest importance? What say you?"

"Surely; but only if the pretended sect existed. Come, holy Father, it
is with surprise and regret that I see a man of your good sense fall
into the net of these absurd fables about the Voyants of France, the
Illuminati of Germany, and other fish-yarns, veritable Mother Goose
tales!"

"If I prove to you the existence of this society--if I show you the
place where their leaders meet, will you admit that the revealer of the
secret has rendered a signal service to the throne and the altar? Well,
Count, compare now the results of your mad-cap passion for the beautiful
foreign Marchioness, with the consequences of what you term my love for
my gossip Rodin. According to you, my god-son is one of the visible and
carnal outcomes of that love; if so I owe to the wily youngster
first--the discovery of a treasure which should some day reach more than
200 millions, on the trail of which our Society of Jesus has been for
over a century; and, second--the unearthing of a den of Voyants."




CHAPTER VI.

ROYALISTS AT BANQUET.


The answer which the Count of Plouernel was about to make to his friend
the Jesuit was interrupted by the arrival of several of his convivial
friends of the court party--dukes, marquises, canons, and archbishops.
Among them was the Viscount of Mirabeau, nicknamed, by reason of his
portly front and the quantity of liquor he could contain, "Barrel
Mirabeau." He was an infantry colonel, and younger brother to the famous
orator of the Third Estate. He seemed to be in great heat, and cried in
a loud voice to Monsieur Plouernel:

"Good evening, my dear Count. Devil take this infamous town of Paris and
its Parisians! Long live Versailles, the true capital of France."

"Whence all this anger, Viscount?"

"Anger! Allow me to inform you that just now this vile populace, which
to-night overflows in all the streets, had the impudence to stop my
carriage on the Louis XV Bridge. By God's death, I shall punish these
people!"

"What did you say to the insolent creatures?"

"I was treating this fraction of the 'sovereign people' like the abject
rabble that they are, when my lackey, trembling like a hare, and hoping
to secure our release, conceived the infernal idea of calling out to the
beggars 'Make way, there, if you please, for the carriage of Monsieur
Mirabeau!' Immediately the tempest turned to a zephyr, and the stupid
people made way for me, to cries of 'Long live Mirabeau!'"

"They must have taken you for your brother!"

"Death and fury! It is but too true! I shall never forgive my brother
that insult!"

"Calm yourself, Viscount; but yet a few days and that filthy populace
will be clouted back into the mire where it belongs."

"Her Excellency, Marchioness Aldini," loudly announced one of
Plouernel's valets at that moment, swinging back both sides of the great
door of the parlor, into which he introduced--Victoria Lebrenn under her
borrowed name and title.

The friends of Monsieur Plouernel thus beheld Marchioness Aldini for the
first time. All were struck with astonishment at her beauty, heightened
as it was by the splendor of her toilet. For Victoria now wore a
trailing robe of poppy-colored cloth of Tours, trimmed with black lace.
The cut of her corsage left bare her arms, shoulders and the rise of her
breast, which seemed sculptured in the purest marble. Her black hair was
not buried, as was the custom of the time, under a layer of white
powder, but, glowing with the luster of ebony, and rolled in thick and
numerous ringlets around her head, majestically crowned her brow. A
triple string of Venetian sequins served both as diadem and collar.
Nothing can give an adequate idea of the effect of this original mode,
at once elegant and severe, which was still more remarkable in that it
differed completely from the pomponned attires of the period, and
harmonized marvellously with Victoria's own cast of beauty.

Plouernel's friends, seized with admiration, were for a moment
speechless. Every look was fastened on the foreign dame;--even Abbot
Morlet experienced the fascination, and said to himself as he gazed at
her:

"I can understand how the Count is mad over her. The danger is greater
than I suspected. She is a very siren."

Of all Plouernel's assembled friends, the Abbot was the only one to
penetrate the true nature of Victoria's beauty. Her pallor, her flashing
black eyes, her bitter and sardonic smile, gave to her face an
indefinable somberness, which was in accord with the severity of her
costume of red, black and gold.

Soon the voice of Monsieur Plouernel's chief butler was heard,
announcing that supper was served. The Count offered his arm to
Victoria, to lead her into the capacious dining room. Walls of white
plaster were relieved by gilded moldings which framed large panels
frescoed with birds, fruits and flowers. A splendid silver service was
laid out on the table, along with a brilliantly colored set of Sevres
china. On the burnished surface of the silver glittered the glow of
rose-colored candles, held in candelabra of vermilion. The banqueters
took their seats about the table. The Count, who had escorted Victoria
to a place beside himself, opened the feast.

"Permit me, my friends," he said, "to follow a custom recently
introduced from England into France, and to propose a first toast to
Madam the Marchioness Aldini, who has deigned to accept my invitation to
supper." The Count rose, glass in hand--"To Madam the Marchioness
Aldini!"

The whole company, following the Count's example, rose in their places;
holding their glasses in their out-stretched hands, they repeated:

"To Madam the Marchioness Aldini!"

Draining their glasses, they resumed their seats.

Victoria in her turn rose. After a moment's pause she replied:

"In response to the courtesy of Monsieur the Count of Plouernel, and of
yourselves, my lords prelates, and gentlemen, I propose with my heart
and with my lips a toast to the Church, to the monarchy, and to the
nobility,--and to the extermination of revolutionists, of whatever
rank."

With these words Victoria moistened her lips in the wine which filled
her glass, while Plouernel's friends, transported by the words of the
young woman, repeated in ecstasy, to the music of their clinking
glasses--

"To the Church! To the King! To the nobility! To the extermination of
the revolutionists!"

The roisterers sat down; even Abbot Morlet muttered to himself, "Ah, if
the Marchioness is sincere, what an ally we should have in her! What a
magic effect the energy of her words produced on these foppish
gentlemen, and on these brainless and imprudent prelates, imbeciles who
don't even know how to cloak their vices under their sacred robes!"

Victoria, who had been cautiously watching the Jesuit, replied to his
thought in her own mind: "That priest with the cadaverous mask keeps his
snaky looks ever fastened on me. He alone, of all this company, seems to
mistrust me. We must redouble our care and boldness--the game is on."

Meanwhile a Cardinal was puzzling over something, and thinking to
himself: "Where did I meet that beautiful Marchioness, or at least a
girl who much resembled her? Ah! I remember! It was in the little house
where the Dubois woman kept her nymphs, in the King's 'Doe Park,' as he
called it, near Versailles. Come, come, that must be an
illusion--although, that Italian lord, Aldini, not knowing the
antecedents of the old inmate of the Dubois house, might well have left
her his name, his title, and all. But let us look into things a bit
before we pass a rash judgment."

The Viscount of Mirabeau was the first to speak aloud. "Madam the
Marchioness," he said, "has pledged us a toast to the death of the
revolutionists of all ranks and conditions. I understand how a
bourgeois, or a peasant, can be a revolutionary; but I can not admit
that princes, nobles, or clericals would train with that breed."

"All revolutionists are fit for the noose," retorted a Duke. "But the
opinions of the groundlings may be explained by their desire to shake
off the yoke. The people is at the end of its patience; it is kicking
the traces; it rebels."

"You speak words of gold, my dear Duke," answered young Mirabeau. "We
shall hang them all, and we shall show ourselves without pity for those
pretended revolutionists, Orleans, Talleyrand, Lafayette, and my
unworthy brother Mirabeau, who has brought dishonor upon our house."

"No, no pity for traitors, to whatever class they belong--nobles,
clergy, or bourgeoisie," cried the Count of Plouernel.

"On the day of reckoning," echoed the Cardinal, "these felons shall all
be hanged, high and low alike."

"They shall all be hanged at the same height--on their own principle of
equality!" added a young Marquis, laughing.

Victoria cut short his laugh. "By the blood of Christ," she cried, "is
there not in France a revolutionist a hundred times more damnable than
the gentlemen, the bishops, and even than the princes of the blood who
league themselves with the revolution--I would say, the most guilty?"

Surprise fell upon the company. Finally the Count of Plouernel stammered
out: "What! Who is that revolutionist--more highly situated, according
to you, than gentlemen or bishops--or even princes of the blood?"

"The King, Louis XVI!"

Again silence and stupefaction fell upon the thunder-struck banqueters.
Some exchanged frightened glances. Others, deep in thought, sought for
the key to the enigma. The rest stared at Victoria with anxious
curiosity. Abbot Morlet alone said to himself: "Aha! I catch the woman's
trend."

"How, Marchioness," fumbled Plouernel, "according to you--the
King--would be--a revolutionist--and so cut out for the gibbet?"

"What was your motive, Count, for giving up your commission as colonel
in the French Guards?" returned Victoria, unmoved.

"As I wrote you, Marchioness, I surrendered the command of my regiment
because the King refused to authorize the severity which alone, to me,
seems capable of re-establishing discipline among my soldiers and
preventing them from becoming the allies of the revolution."

"And yet you are astonished when I pronounce the name of the accomplice
of the revolutionists! I denounce the King, Louis XVI."

"You are a woman of genius, madam," acclaimed the Viscount of Mirabeau
warmly. "You justly signalize one of the causes of the revolution. Honor
to you, madam."

"I have no right to these praises, Viscount. I am a woman whom God has
dowered with some little good sense, that is all. I am a patrician and a
Catholic."

"Nevertheless, Madam Marchioness," interposed the Duke who had spoken
before, "it seems to me hazardous to pretend that the King, our Sire, is
a revolutionist. In truth, it is pursuing the metaphor to its extreme
limits. I should hesitate to follow you upon that ground."

Here the Marquis broke in again with his irrepressible laugh, saying:
"On one side the revolutionary King--on the other the 'sovereign
people.' What a comicality! What a mess!"

Victoria continued: "King Louis XVI is the first, the most damnable of
revolutionists. Neither grace nor pity for the guilty! What I say, I
maintain; I shall prove it. I shall essay to rouse in you all
remorse--for you represent here the nobility, the clergy, and the world
of money, and you are nearly as responsible as the King. I shall soon
make it clear to you."

"By the life of God, Marchioness, I am of your opinion," echoed the
Viscount of Mirabeau. "Six months ago the nobility should have saddled
its horses, and, whether the King consented or no, ridden against the
revolution and put every peasant to the saber."

"Six months ago the curates should have stirred themselves, roused their
parishes to the sound of the tocsin, and put arms into their hands.
They also will have to enter the fight," quoth Abbot Morlet, speaking
aloud for the first time since the beginning of the banquet.

"We understand each other, Monsieur Abbot," answered Victoria; and then
to Mirabeau: "We judge the situation alike, Monsieur Viscount--the
moment calls for a general and armed uprising."

"But we who are less keen-sighted," objected the Duke, "we confess the
weakness of our prevision; we reject your conclusions."

"We are the three ninnies--the Duke, the Cardinal and I," put in the
Marquis, cracking another joke.

"Decidedly," observed the Cardinal aside to himself. "I was the dupe of
an accidental resemblance. This patrician Marchioness has nothing in
common with the lovely nymph of the Dubois woman's lupanar."

Victoria began her proof: "Is not Louis XVI the worst of the
revolutionists? Judge! On May 5th of this year, 1789, did he not convene
the States General, instead of summoning to Versailles 25,000 men whom
he had under his hand, led by resolute heads? At that time the
revolution, hardly hatched, could have been stamped into oblivion. I am
willing to excuse him for that mistake, but here is one more serious:
The States General convened the 5th of May. The majority of the nobility
and the clergy attempted to hold their deliberations by Order, and
refused to mingle with the bourgeois for the examination of credentials.
The Third Estate insisted, and upon a new refusal of the nobles and
clergy, left the hall. At length the deputies of the communes had the
insolence to declare themselves, on the 17th of June, the National
Assembly, in the name of the pretended sovereignty of the people. They
arrogated to themselves the right to vote the taxes, and declared that
if the royal authority should order them to dissolve, they would not be
responsible for the outcome. Did not the King tolerate all these
audacities?"

"'Tis true," acquiesced the Viscount of Mirabeau. "It all passed before
our eyes, at Versailles."

"That is the second crime I impute to the King," Victoria continued.
"Louis XVI could still have crushed out in its cradle this rising
rebellion, scattered by force this handful of malcontents--"

"That has been tried, madam, by us of the court party," interposed the
Duke. "We induced his Majesty to allow the seats of the Assembly to be
occupied by troops. On the morning of the 19th of June these so-called
Representatives of the people found the corridors of their chamber
occupied by two companies of grenadiers, with loaded muskets."

"Yes," put in the Marquis bitterly, "the King had the cleverness on that
occasion to commit what was, from the point of view of the
revolutionists, an assault upon the National Assembly, by allowing their
meeting place to be invaded by the troops; and at the same time to
perpetrate a new assault against royalty by not preventing the rebels
from reuniting in the Tennis Court at Versailles; mistakes, mistakes,
ever more mistakes."

"All this is conclusive evidence," chimed in Barrel Mirabeau. "This
unfortunate King seems to be infatuated with folly."

"Either brace up foolish Kings or suppress them--else look out for the
safety of the monarchy, Monsieur Viscount," replied Victoria.

"Thanks to God," went on a cavalry officer at the other end of the
table, "thanks to God the King's brother, Monseigneur the Count of
Provence, rose to the emergency. At this vexatious juncture the prince
took an energetic step. Without even asking the King, he hired the
Tennis Court for a whole month!"

Victoria broke out into a peal of grim and mocking laughter. "There is a
party leader," she said, "of great bravery and great wisdom! One need go
into no ecstasies over his courage!"

"Madam the Marchioness is right," chimed in the Viscount of Mirabeau
again. "This measure had no other effect upon the rebels than to cause
them, the next day, to instal themselves in the Church of St. Louis."

"And then the clergy, or at least a part of the clergy, committed
another imbecility--they rallied to the Third Estate. The shaven-heads
have their share of responsibility in all this," said the Count of
Plouernel.

"The high clergy protested, against this treason, the blame of which
should be thrown on the curates of the country districts," declared the
Cardinal in self-defense.

"Monsieur the Cardinal is in error!" it was the harsh voice of Abbot
Morlet that broke in. "That fraction of the clergy which went over to
the Third Estate displayed great political sense. The low clergy did
just what they should have done."

"Peace, Abbot, peace there!" cried the Cardinal in accents of sovereign
scorn. "You are talking nonsense, my dear sir!"

"I maintain what I stated--'tis but little I care for the approbation of
Monsieur the Cardinal," snapped Morlet.

"What's that you say, Abbot?" flashed back the Cardinal in great
irritation. "Measure your words!"

"I wish to talk with reasonable men," returned Morlet, impassibly. "This
is addressed to you, gentlemen. The royal power having tolerated the
existence of this Assembly of malcontents, the clergy, both high and
low, should have seized upon the fact, and turned it to its own
advantage. By the simple means of choosing its best men, and joining
them to the Third Estate, it would then have been able at need to stand
in with revolutionary motions, in order to drive the dissatisfied
element to the last extremes in the paroxysms of their rage."

"Monsieur the Abbot is a profound politician; he is in the right of the
matter," assented Victoria.

"At the risk of contradicting you, Madam the Marchioness," objected the
Cardinal passionately, "I must declare that the Abbot has only once more
exhibited the evil spirit of the Society of Jesus, which has always been
a veritable pest to the Church. Our holy mother were well rid of that
abominable, execrable society!"

"So the priest is a Jesuit!" thought Victoria to herself, a light
dawning upon her.

"The true pest of the Church," retorted Abbot Morlet, "has always been
clad in the purple--cardinals and prelates, nearly all sots, imbeciles
and peacocks!"

"The impudence of this priestlet, this scoundrel, this hypocrite!" the
Cardinal cried in a fury. "Out of here with the insolent fellow!"

"By the blood of Christ," interjected Victoria quickly, addressing the
two churchmen, "is this the hour for discord and recrimination? Do you
forget, your Eminence, and you, Monsieur Abbot, that at this moment the
safety of the Church depends upon the unity of her defenders?"

All the company, with the sole exceptions of the Cardinal and the Abbot,
took up the word: "'Tis true--'tis evident! Let us not forget. Let us
remain united for the conflict!"

When the tumult had subsided, Victoria took up again her interrupted
discourse: "In casting a rapid glance over the past, I did not intend to
arouse suspicion among you or raise dissension. In pointing out the
faults committed, I wished only to forewarn you against similar errors,
and to show you how to escape new mistakes. Please, then, to give me
your attention a few minutes longer: The session in the Tennis Court was
a brutal challenge hurled in the teeth of royalty. The Queen, who is a
woman of valor, understood it; she pressed the King to take energetic
measures, and pledged him to have the National Assembly dissolved by
force. Louis XVI submitted to the influence of the Queen; on the 28th of
June he went into the heart of the Assembly, surrounded by his guards,
and through his chancellor ordered the deputies to disperse, abolished
their decrees, and annulled their deliberations. He acted the part of a
sovereign."

"His Majesty indeed displayed great courage that day, and many of the
deputies of the nobility and the clergy applauded the act of dissolution
and immediately left the chamber," declared the Duke.

"The King," assented Victoria sardonically, "his faithful nobles and his
faithful clergy left the hall. But they left the rebels behind them.
Then Abbot Sieyes sprang to the tribunal and cried 'Continue in session,
Representatives of the people! We are to-day what we were yesterday!'"

"But the King did not falter, thank God!" continued the Duke. "His
Majesty commanded the Marquis of Breze to convey to the malcontents his
orders to disperse."

"Shame and misfortune!" exclaimed the Viscount of Mirabeau. "It was my
own brother who then answered Breze, 'Go and say to your master who sent
you, that we are here by the will of the people, and that we shall never
quit this hall save by force of bayonets!'"

"Very well, Monsieur Viscount! Your brother pointed out to the royal
power its means of safety--_force of bayonets_," answered Victoria. "By
the blood of Christ, what did Louis XVI do to restore the rebels to
their senses? Absolutely nothing. Then the latter, encouraged by their
immunity from punishment, declared, in their next session, the
inviolability of the National Assembly."

"Alas, it was upon the motion of my abominable brother that that
declaration was carried! God's blood, I think I could have turned
fratricide at the moment," declared Barrel Mirabeau.

"Your house was not the only one to tremble at such felony," Victoria
replied. "Did not nearly all the deputies of the nobility, even the most
hostile to the revolution, rally around the Third Estate, dragging with
them all the clericals?"

"Should the members of the nobility, then, Madam Marchioness," objected
the Duke, "because the monarchy showed weakness, have abandoned it
without attempting to defend it from within the Assembly? No, certainly
not."

"Sir Duke," replied Victoria, "the members of the nobility and of the
clergy who remained faithful to the throne were in the minority. What
could they do for the monarchy? Nothing. Their presence among the ranks
of the rebels served only to excuse the slips of the King, for then he
could respond with a show of reason, 'I can not dissolve an Assembly
which contains so great a number of my servants.'"

"Such was, in fact, the response made by his Majesty to the Queen when
she secured the recall of Necker and the appointment of a new minister
chosen by Monsieur Broglie. Nevertheless, with the assistance of the
Marshal, the monarchy will still prove able to overcome the revolution.
At least, that is my opinion," vouchsafed the Count of Plouernel.

"May God so will it," rejoined Victoria again. "But up till now the new
minister has done nothing but make mistakes--"

Victoria was interrupted by the entrance of one of the lackeys, whom
Plouernel had dismissed from the banquet hall in order that his guests
might discuss political affairs confidentially and in safety, who said:

"The steward, my lord, asks to see you immediately."

"Let him enter," said the Count; and as the lackey went to fetch him,
the host explained to his guests: "I charged my steward to send out
several of my men in disguise, in order to learn through them what was
going on in the several quarters of Paris."

"It is indeed very useful, in these days of effervescence," nodded
Victoria, "to keep closely informed on the state of affairs."

The steward entered, bowed humbly to the company, and took up his post
close by the door, like a servant awaiting orders.

"Well, Master Robert, what news?" demanded the Count. The company turned
around in their chairs and fixed their attention upon the new arrival.




CHAPTER VII.

NEWS FROM THE BARRICADES.


Pursuant to the Count's order, the steward, bowing again, proceeded with
his account of what he had learned.

"The news, alas, is very bad, my lord," he began. "One of our men has
just arrived from the suburb of St. Antoine. The streets are blocked
with barricades; they are forging pikes in the iron-mongers' and
blacksmiths' shops; the houses are all illuminated. People are carrying
up to the roofs of their dwellings beams and paving stones, to hurl down
upon the troops of his Majesty Louis XVI, whom may God protect! Women
and children are pouring musket balls and making cartridges. They have
pillaged the armorers' shops in the district. In short, the whole of
that impious plebs is swarming in the streets, screeching like the
damned, especially against her Majesty our good Queen, his Royal
Highness the Count of Artois, and their Holinesses our lords the Princes
of Conti and Conde."

"And what are the pretexts for these insolent cries and rebellious
preparations?" asked the Count.

"My lord, it is the word among this blasphemous people that the court is
plotting evil against the deputies of the Third Estate, and that his
Majesty our Sire--may God protect him--is preparing to march on Paris at
the head of fifty thousand troops, to deliver the suburbs to the
flames, blood, sack and pillage, and the girls and women to infamy!"

"The rabblement is at least aware of the punishment it deserves--and
will receive!" cried the younger Mirabeau.

"What is the feeling in the other quarters," queried the Count of
Plouernel. "Are they also, perchance, boiling over?"

"In the neighborhood of the St. Honore Gate the mob has invaded the
Garde-Meuble, or King's Storage-House, and seized the old arms they
found collected there. It is a pity, my lord; you can see tattered
brigands, in their bare feet, yet casqued and cuirassed, and with lances
in their fists. Such magnificent arms in such hands! What a
desecration!"

"Oh, the gallant cavaliers--armed cap-a-pie for the tourney!" cried the
Marquis, affecting laughter.

"Those among this awful horde who have bonnets on," continued the
steward, "have fastened in them cockades of green cloth or paper, as a
sign of hope. My lord, it is like a frenzy. Out in the open street the
scoundrels hug without knowing each other, and with tears in their eyes,
cry, like henhawks 'To arms, citizens! Down with tyranny! Long live
liberty! Long live the nation!'"

"But the other suburbs," pursued the Count. "Are they also wrought up
like this cursed suburb of St. Antoine?"

"Aye, my lord--unless it be the suburb of St. Marcel, which is almost
deserted. The evil creatures of that district, to the number of twenty
thousand, flocked to the City Hall during the day to demand arms. The
Provost of the merchants, Monsieur Flesselles, sent them to the
Lazarist monks. When the great band of beggars arrived at the holy
convent, the good and religious men made answer to them that Monsieur
Flesselles was making game of them, for never had a grain of powder or a
firearm found its way into the Convent of St. Lazare. Then these bandits
from St. Marcel broke out into threats of death against Monsieur
Flesselles, and being presently joined by another mob of rascals from
the suburb of St. Victor, they went off all together to the Hospital of
the Invalids in search of weapons."

"And were received, no doubt, with the gun-fire of the brave veterans
sheltered there?" said the Count.

"Alas, no! my lord. The pensioners made not the slightest resistance,
and the scoundrelly people fell into possession of more than thirty
thousand guns and several cannon."

"The veterans!" gasped the Viscount of Mirabeau. "They, old soldiers, to
give up their arms! Do we then face defection and treason on every side!
Very well! we shall hang and shoot the invalids, men and officers, to
the last one."

"Oh, the idea!" shouted the Marquis, with another burst of forced
laughter, "So now our bare-feet have thirty thousand guns--and some
cannon--which they don't know how to use!"

"You have nothing else to tell us?" said Plouernel to the steward.

"No, my lord."

"Then send our men out again for information. The instant they return,
come to me with what they have learned."

The steward bowed for the third time and withdrew. Upon the faces of the
convivial friends blank consternation reigned at the news he had
brought. They gazed at one another speechless.

"Do you know, gentlemen," at last spoke up the Cardinal, "that all this
is getting frightful? The very marrow in my bones is chilled."

"It is my opinion," the Duke answered, "that France will soon be no
longer habitable. We shall have to flee abroad."

"Come, come, my dear Duke," said the Count of Plouernel, "a few
regiments of infantry, supported by a piece of artillery or two, will
suffice to exterminate these upstarts. The French nobility will whip
them down. We shall unsheath our swords."

"I think the rabble will whip better troops than those, once they have
got the smell of gunpowder," said Abbot Morlet.

"You are talking nonsense, Abbot," replied Mirabeau. "It is impossible
that bare-footed ragamuffins, poorly armed, and without discipline,
should be victorious over seasoned troops. If it ever came to that pass,
I should snap my sword."

For the first time since the arrival of the momentous news, Victoria
spoke: "A traitorous King would prevent you from breaking it; he would
order you to return it to its scabbard."

"It is for us to have the courage to sacrifice the King to the safety of
the monarchy. We shall have all the brave ones--" Mirabeau began.

"By heaven!" interrupted the Duke, "this is serious, and requires
thought. Sacrifice the King!"

"What shall we do with the King?" questioned the Cardinal.

"In other times," replied Victoria, "they shut up do-nothing Kings in,
the depths of a cloister. Force Louis XVI to abdicate. The Dauphin is an
infant, you will constitute a council of regents, composed of men of
inflexibility. The shameless plebeians have too much blood; it will rise
to their heads and give them a false energy. Bleed them, bleed them
white, by repression and defeat. You have cannons and muskets; bombard
them--blow them back into the depths they sprung from!"

"Ah, Marchioness," answered Plouernel, "you are the terrible archangel
who with her flaming sword will defend the monarchy and nobility. You
are right. Safety lies in the abdication of the King and the formation
of an inflexible council of regents. The monarch must be eliminated."

"Your most dangerous enemy, Count of Plouernel," replied she, "is the
Third Estate! Has this bourgeoisie not told you, through Sieyes's organ,
that up till now it has been nothing, it _which ought to be everything_!
There is the enemy. The people, its intoxication once passed, will fall
back into its misery and abject submissiveness. Having cried its cry in
the public place, hunger will again seize it by the throat. 'The people,
always ridden by want, has never the time to carry out the revolutions
which it essays.' It is against the bourgeoisie that war to the knife
must be carried on."

"For one proof out of a thousand of the truth of that statement,"
assented the Count, "is not Desmarais the lawyer one of the firiest
tribunes in the National Assembly?"

"My dear Count," said the cavalry officer to Plouernel, "did you not
once treat a fellow of that name to a good cudgeling?"

"This Desmarais is himself the hero of that episode you refer to--the
very same whippersnapper," answered the Count.

Aside Victoria said to herself: "And my brother John is the sweetheart
of Mademoiselle Desmarais. A singular coincidence!"

"How did you come to give him his cudgel sauce, Count?" inquired the
Cardinal.

"My counsel were arguing before the court a case involving an estate
left to my brother, Abbot Plouernel, at present in Rome. Desmarais,
forgetting the respect due to a man of my station, had the insolence to
speak of me in terms hardly reverent. Informed of the fact by my
attorneys, I had Desmarais seized by three of my servants one night as
he was leaving his lodgings. They administered to him a sound drubbing
with green sticks, after which my first lackey said to him: 'Sir, the
thrashing which we have just had the honor of presenting to you, is from
Monseigneur Plouernel, our master. Let the lesson be a profitable one.'"

"That," said the Viscount of Mirabeau, "was as good as the exquisite
bastinado given to Arouet 'Voltaire' by the orders of the Prince of
Rohan. That's the way to treat the bourgeoisie."

"Voltaire perhaps owes his fame to that little chastisement," suggested
the Duke.

Coming back to the subject which was on everyone's mind, Abbot Morlet
was the next to speak. "Madam the Marchioness has just uttered a great
truth," said he. "The Church, the nobility and royalty have no more
terrible enemy than the bourgeoisie. In a state, three elements are
necessary for a good organization--a God, a King, and a people. In order
to carry on production and nourish the representatives of God and the
King, the bourgeoisie should be suppressed."

"You are stingy in your allotments, Abbot," put in the Duke. "Would you,
then, suppress the nobility?"

"Who says _King_ says _nobility_, and who says God says clergy," replied
the Abbot. "In other words, if we wish to enjoy our privileges in peace,
we must either extirpate or annul the bourgeoisie. Now, if we know how
to use the people skilfully, they will come to our aid in this task of
extirpation, for the plebeian hates a bourgeois more than he does a
noble."

"Still, we see the populace gone mad over the deputies of the Third
Estate. Several of them have already grown to the bulk of idols," said
the Count.

"The bourgeoisie is, and will for still a long time remain, as hostile
toward the people as it is toward the nobles. The people know this, and
that is what renders them hostile to the bourgeoisie," Victoria
declared.

"It is marvellous how the thoughts of Madam the Marchioness accord with
mine," exclaimed Abbot Morlet. "This antagonism which she has just
mentioned will some day, perhaps, be our salvation; for I have no faith
in the party of the court, composed in part, as it is, of young
mad-caps."

"By heaven, Abbot," the whole company cried with one voice, "but you are
impertinent!"

The Abbot shrugged his shoulders and continued impassively. "The
revolution will plunge on in its course. First the royalty and the
nobility will fall beneath the blows of the tribunes of the Third
Estate. Then will fall the Church--but only to rerise more powerful than
before, to rear again the scaffolds and relight the pyres of the
Inquisition."

"You are talking nonsense, Abbot," again put in Barrel Mirabeau. "Your
prophecies partake of desperation."

"Nobility and royalty will disappear in the tempest," pursued the Abbot,
"but it remains with us to make that disappearance one of the phases of
a rebirth that will establish theocracy more powerful than ever. The
instant will be decisive, momentous. It may one day come about that the
bourgeoisie will merge its cause with that of the populace; that it will
establish education free, unified, common, and uncontrolled by the
Church; that it will abolish private property, making common to each and
all the tools of production. Should the bourgeoisie decide thus to
emancipate the proletariat, Throne and Altar are done for forever. It is
for us, then, to nurse the antagonism already existent between the two,
to envenom their mutual mistrust and reproaches. We must inflame the
fear of the bourgeoisie for the populace; we must kindle the mistrust of
the laborers toward the bourgeois; we must prick the people on to
excess; above all we must invoke to pillage and massacre that furious
beast which is not the people, but which in times of revolution is
confounded with it--it is the _red specter_ which we must make use of to
terrify the bourgeoisie and drive it to sunder its cause from that of
the people. That is how we can countermine the revolution, and force the
sovereigns of Europe to unite, to invade France, and to exterminate our
enemies. Let us mingle, in disguise, with the people; let us provoke and
irritate their appetite for blood. Let us and our agents strike the
first blows--pillage--burn--mow off heads--those of our friends, too,
for we must above all avert suspicion; make the blood pour, to rouse the
beast and put it in appetite for sack and massacre!"

Even Barrel Mirabeau was taken aback at this diatribe. "God's death, Sir
Abbot," he cried with horror, "do you take us for gallows-tenders?"

"To make of us mowers of heads!" cried the Count of Plouernel. "'Tis
insanity!"

"What exquisite fastidiousness!" retorted Morlet.

"You must have clean lost your senses, Abbot," returned Plouernel. "To
dare to propose such a role to us--to make hyenas out of us!"

"We sons of the Church," answered the Abbot, "shall then assume the role
ourselves, if it is so repugnant to you, gentlemen of the nobility.[8]
You fear to soil your lace cuffs and silk stockings with mire and blood;
we of the clergy, less dainty, and arrayed in coarser garb, are free
from any such false delicacy. We shall roll up our cuffs to the elbow,
and perform our duty. We shall save you, then, my worthy gentlemen, with
or without your aid; that will be an account to be settled afterwards
between us."

"The priest has been vomited forth from hell," thought Victoria, to
herself. "He is a demon incarnate."

"We shall know how to save the monarchy, Sir Abbot," replied the Count
of Plouernel to his friend Morlet, "even without the need of you folks
of the Church; have no worry on that score. You forget that it was our
sword which established the monarchy in Gaul and revived the Catholic
Church, fourteen centuries ago, without the aid of the cassocks of that
time."

"Fine words--but empty," answered the Abbot. "If you are indeed so
determined to draw the sword, Monsieur Count, will you then please tell
me why, this very day, you resigned into the hands of the King the
command of your regiment? Your boast comes at a poor season."

"You well know why, Monsieur Abbot," the Count retorted. "My regiment
grew uncontrollable. The evil, however, dates far back. The first
symptoms of insubordination in the French Guards showed themselves two
years ago. A sergeant named Maurice"--Victoria shuddered--"had the
insolence to pass me without saluting; and after I took off his cap with
a stroke of my cane, he had the audacity to raise his hand against his
colonel. I handed the mutineer over to the scourges till he dropped
dead. That is how I avenge my honor."

As Monsieur Plouernel thus told the story of Sergeant Maurice, Victoria
was unable to control herself. Her features contracted, and she fixed on
Plouernel a look of menace. Then a sudden flush overspread her
features. None of this was lost upon the Abbot. "What is this mystery?"
he pondered. "The Marchioness casts an implacable look at the Count,
then she blushes--she who till now has been as pale as marble. What can
there have been between this Italian Marchioness and this sergeant in
the French Guards, now two years dead?"

At that moment the steward again entered the banquet hall and approached
the Count of Plouernel.

"What news, Robert?" asked the latter.

"Terrible, my lord!"

"My Robert is not an optimist," explained Plouernel to the company. "In
what does this terrible news consist?"

"The barriers of the Throne and St. Marcel are on fire. Everywhere the
tocsin is clanging. The people of the districts are gathering in the
churches."

"Behold the sway of our holy religion over the populace--they pray
before the altars," cried the Cardinal briskly.

"Alas, my lord, it is not to pray, at all, that the rebels are swarming
into the churches, but to listen to haranguers, and among others a
comedian by the name of Collot D'Herbois, who preaches insurrection.
They trample the sacred vessels under foot, spit on the host, and tear
down the priestly ornaments."

"Profanation! Sacrilege!" exclaimed the Cardinal, suddenly modifying his
ideas on the sway of his faith over the people.

"One of our men," continued the steward, "saw them putting up bills
which the rabble read by the light of their torches. One of the placards
read: 'For sale, because of death, the business of Grand Master of
Ceremonies. Inquire of the widow Breze.'"

"Ah, poor Baked one," sang out the Marquis, making a hideous pun on the
unfortunate officer's name, "you are cooked! All they have to do now is
to eat you!"

"On other placards were written in large letters, 'Names of the Traitors
to the Nation: Louis Capet--Marie
Antoinette--Provence--Artois--Conti--Bourbon--Polignac--Breteuil--Foulon'--and
others."

"That is intended to point out these names to the fury of the populace!"
gasped the Viscount of Mirabeau.

"The rumor runs through Paris that to-morrow the people will rise in
arms and march on Versailles."

"So much the better," exclaimed the Viscount. "They will be cut to
pieces, this rabble. Cannoniers--to your pieces--fire!"

"Go on, tell us what you know," said Plouernel to his steward Robert.
"Is that all?"

"Alas no, my lord. This miserable populace in arms surrounds and
threatens the City Hall. The old Board of Aldermen is dissolved, and is
replaced by a new revolutionary committee, which has taken the power
into its own hands."

"Are the names of this committee known?" asked the Count.

"Yes, my lord. From the City Hall windows they threw to the rioting
people lists with the names. Here is one which our emissary got hold
of:--'President of the permanent committee, Monsieur Flesselles,
ex-Provost of the merchants'--"

"Oh, well," laughed the Duke, "if the other members of the committee
are revolutionists of that stamp, we can sleep in peace. Flesselles is
in our employ."

"Finish reading your paper," ordered the Count.

"'The said committee, in session assembled, decrees: Article I--A city
militia shall immediately be organized in each district, composed of
licensed business men. Article II--The cockade of this militia shall be
blue and red, the city colors.'"

"Is that all? Finish reporting," said Plouernel, seeing the steward
pause.

"One of our spies, on entering the neighborhood of the Palais Royal,
heard threats hurled against his Majesty Louis XVI, and especially
against her Majesty, the Queen. Everyone looks for terrible events
to-morrow, my lord."

Seeing he had nothing more to report, Plouernel allowed the steward to
depart, first ordering him to come back with any fresher information.

"Now gentlemen," Victoria began when the steward had withdrawn from the
room, "the gravity of the situation takes foremost place. There is no
longer room for deliberation--there must be action. Time is pressing.
Count, has the court foreseen that the agitation in Paris would drive
the malcontents to open revolt? Is it prepared to combat the uprising?"

"Everything has been anticipated, madam," answered Plouernel. "Measures
are on foot to repulse the rebels. This very morning I received word as
to the plans of the court."

"Why then do you allow us to wander into objectless suppositions and
discussions?" asked the Cardinal.

"I was commanded to exercise the utmost discretion in the matter of the
court's projects. But in view of the information which my steward has
just brought in on the popular frenzy in Paris, and on the assaults
which the discontented element is meditating, I hold it my duty to
inform you of the plans laid down."

Drawing a note from his pocket, the Count continued, reading:

     "Monsieur the Marshal Broglie is appointed commander-in-chief. He
     said this morning to the Queen: 'Madam, with the fifty thousand men
     at my command I pledge myself to bring to their senses both the
     luminaries of the National Assembly and the mob of imbeciles which
     hearkens to them. The gun and the cannon will drive back under
     earth these insolent tribunes, and absolute power will again assume
     the place which the spirit of republicanism now disputes with it.'

     "Monsieur the Marshal Broglie is invested with full military
     powers. Bezenval is placed in command of Paris, De Launay holds the
     Bastille and threatens with his artillery the suburb of St.
     Antoine; the garrison of that fortress has for several days been
     secretly increased, and ammunition worked in. The Bastille is the
     key to Paris, inasmuch as it commands the respect of the most
     dangerous suburbs, and can annihilate them with its guns.

     "The last regiments recalled from the provinces by the Marshal will
     arrive to-night on the outskirts of Versailles and will powerfully
     re-enforce the Swiss and the foreign regiments. An imposing array
     of artillery and a large troop of cavalry will complete this corps
     of the army. Thus united, the troops will move, day after
     to-morrow, July the 15th, to the invasion of the National Assembly,
     which will have been allowed to convene. The Assembly will be
     surrounded by the German regiments, and the ring-leaders of the
     Third Estate forthwith arrested."

In a lowered and confidential tone the Count continued:

     "The most dangerous of the rebels will be shot at once. A goodly
     number of them will be thrown into the deepest dungeons of the
     different State prisons of the kingdom. Finally, the small fry of
     the Third Estate will be exiled to at least a hundred leagues from
     Paris. A royal warrant will dissolve the National Assembly and
     annul its enactments. After which Monsieur Broglie, at the head of
     his army, will march on Paris, take military possession of it,
     establish courts-martial which will at once judge and put to death
     all the chiefs of the sedition, banish the less culpable, and
     confiscate their goods to the benefit of the royal fisc. Should it
     resist, Paris will be besieged and treated like a conquered
     city--three days and three nights of pillage will be granted to the
     troops. After which, the royal authority will be re-established in
     full glory."

"There, gentlemen, that is the plan of campaign of the court."

Loud acclamations from the company--excepting only the Abbot--greeted
the reading of the communication by Monsieur Plouernel.

"This plan seems to me to be at all points excellently expeditious and
practical," said Victoria. "It has every chance of success. Still, has
the court foreseen the event of Paris, protected by barricades and
defended by determined men, resisting with the force of despair? Has the
court foreseen the event of Monsieur Broglie being defeated in his
conflict with the people?"

"Madam, that case also is provided for," answered Plouernel. "The King
and the royal family, protected by a powerful force, will leave
Versailles and retire to a fortified place on the frontier. The Emperor
of Austria, the Kings of Prussia and Sweden, and the majority of the
princes of the Germanic Confederation, will be prepared to assist the
royal power. Their armies will cross the frontier, and his Majesty, at
the head of the arms of the coalition, will return to force an entry
into his capital, which will be subjected to terrible chastisement."

"One and all, we are prepared to shed our blood for the success of this
plan," cried the Viscount of Mirabeau, swelling with enthusiasm. "To
battle!"

"Has this plan the approval of the King?" asked Victoria. "Can one count
on his resolution?"

"The Queen but awaits the hour of putting it into practice to inform his
Majesty of it," answered the Count. "Nevertheless, the King has already
consented to the assembling of a corps of the army at Versailles. That
is a first step gained."

"But if the King should refuse to follow the plan? What course do you
then expect to take?" persisted Victoria.

"It will go through without the consent of Louis XVI. If necessary, we
shall proceed to depose him. Then Monseigneur the Count of Provence will
be declared Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, and the Queen, Regent,
with a council of unbending royalists. Then we shall see courts-martial
and firing squads in permanence! Volleys unceasing!"

"It is done for royalty if the court dare put its plan, into execution,"
muttered Victoria to herself. "To-morrow the Bastille will be taken."
Then, rising, her face glowing with animation, and holding her glass
aloft, she called, in her brilliant voice:

"To the death of the Revolution! To the re-establishment of Royalty! To
the triumph of the Church! To the Queen!"

And catching her fire, the whole company, with one voice, cried:

"Death to the Revolution!"

"Meet me to-morrow morning at Versailles, gentlemen, in battle," cried
Plouernel.

And all except the Abbot shouted back the reply:

"In battle! We shall all be at Versailles to deal the people its
death-blow!"

The sarcastic coolness of the priest sat the Count ill. "Are you
stricken dumb, Abbot," he inquired, "or do you lack confidence in our
plan?"

"No, I have not the slightest confidence in your plans," answered the
prelate calmly. "Your party is marching from blusterings to retreats,
and on to its final overthrow, which will be that of the monarchy. But
we shall be there, we the 'shaven-heads,' the 'priestlets,' as you dub
us; the 'creatures of the Church,' 'hypocrites and Pharisees,' to repair
your blunders, you block-heads, you lily-livers! We of the frock and
cassock contemn you!"

This deliverance of the Abbot was followed by a storm of indignant cries
from the assembled guests. Threats and menaces rose high.

"By heaven!" shouted Barrel Mirabeau, "if you were not a man of the
cloth, Abbot, you would pay dear for your insults!"

"Let him rave," said the Cardinal, shrugging his shoulders, "let him
rave, this hypocrite of the vestry-room, this rat of the Church, this
Jesuit!"

"Mademoiselle Guimard awaits his Eminence in her carriage!" called out a
lackey, stepping into the room.

"The devil! The devil!" muttered his Eminence the Cardinal as he rose
to go. "I clean forgot my Guimard in the midst of my political cares.
Well, I must go to face the anger of my tigress!"

The banquet broke up. The guests left the table, and gathered in little
groups before parting, still carrying on the discussion of the evening.
Only Abbot Morlet stood apart, and as he let his sardonic glance travel
from group to group, he muttered to himself grimly:

"Simpleton courtiers! Imbecile cavaliers! Stupid prelates! Go to your
Oeil-de-Boeuf! Go to Versailles--go! To-morrow the dregs of the populace
will have felled their first head. The appetite for killing comes by
killing. As to that foreign Marchioness, of whom it is well to have
one's doubts, if it becomes advisable to get rid of her, her handsome
head with its black hair will look well on the end of a pike some of
these days. So let's be off. I must prepare that bully of a Lehiron, the
old usher of the parish of St. Medard, to call together to-night his
band of rascals, ready for anything. And then to get ready my disguise
and that of my god-son, little Rodin!"




CHAPTER VIII.

IN THE HALL OF THE PORTRAITS.


Half an hour later none of that brilliant company remained in the home
of the Count of Plouernel save the Count himself, and Victoria Lebrenn.
The two were in the Hall of the Portraits, in contemplation of which the
beautiful Marchioness seemed lost. Struck with her long silence, and
seeing her gaze riveted upon the pictures, the Count approached her,
saying in a surprised and passionate voice:

"Do you know, Madam Marchioness, that I shall end by becoming jealous of
my ancestors? For several minutes they alone have been happy enough to
draw your attention."

"True, Count. I was reflecting on the glory of your race. Proud was I,
for your sake, of your illustrious origin."

"Ah, Victoria, such words! But allow me to tell you, my radiant
Marchioness, how I love you. Every day I feel my mad passion grow. By my
honor as a gentleman, you could have led me on to treason as easily as
you have confirmed me in the path of loyalty which I now tread. You have
so mastered me that to possess your love I would have betrayed my King,
and forever stained my escutcheon." Then, casting himself on his knees
before the Marchioness, the Count continued in a trembling voice, "Is
that not yet sufficient, Victoria?"

At the moment that the Count of Plouernel had seized and was covering
with kisses the hand of Victoria, a loud knock was heard at the door of
the salon.

"Rise, Count," said Victoria, quickly. "It is one of your men."

Robert the steward entered precipitately, bearing in one hand a tray on
which lay a despatch. He said to his master:

"A courier from Versailles brought this despatch for my lord. The
courier reached the house only with the greatest difficulty. To escape
arrest by the people in the streets he was forced to leave his horse
some distance from the barrier, and to throw off his royal livery."

"You may go," replied Monsieur Plouernel, as he took the message.

He tore open the envelope and made haste to read the contents of the
missive, while Victoria followed him with curiosity burning in her eyes,
and said in her most winning voice as she drew close to him, "News of
importance, no doubt, my dear Gaston? You seem much moved by it."

"Read, Marchioness, for I have no secrets from you," answered Plouernel,
handing the despatch to Victoria. "Judge of the extreme urgency of my
information!"

The young woman eagerly grasped the letter, cast her eyes over it, and
then said, with a silvery laugh: "But it is in cipher. Give me the key.
I cannot read it--without your help."

"True--pardon my distraction," replied the Count, and he read as
follows, translating the cipher as he went:

     "To-day's events in Paris, and the news from the country, are of
     such nature that our measures must be pushed forward to execution.
     Repair to Versailles at once. Let not one of our friends be
     missing. It will probably be done to-morrow.

     "Versailles, seven o'clock in the evening."

"And it is now past midnight!" exclaimed Victoria, "You should have
received the message at least two or three hours ago. Whence the delay?
Must it be laid to negligence, or treachery? Both suppositions are
possible."

"You forget, Marchioness, that the messenger was compelled to use great
precautions to enter Paris, and that his precautions in themselves, were
quite capable of causing the delay. So that it is neither false play nor
carelessness--no one is guilty."

"So it may be. But there is not a moment to lose. You must be off to
Versailles at once. Order your carriage immediately. Let your
coach-wheels scorch the pavement."

"It would be imprudent to take a carriage into the streets to-night. I
shall go on horseback accompanied by one of my men; I shall go towards
Great Rock and Queen's Court, till I pick up the road that runs from
Courbevoie to Versailles. Then, like the wind for Versailles."

Monsieur Plouernel grasped the young woman's hand and added in a voice
of emotion--"God save the throne!"

Victoria turned towards the door, paused a moment on the sill to make a
final gesture of farewell, and left the room, musing to herself:

"_In order to strike terror to the court, to make their plant miscarry,
the people must take the Bastille to-morrow! No hesitation--it must be
done!_"




CHAPTER IX.

FILIAL CONFIDENCES.


The home of Monsieur Desmarais, attorney at the court of Paris, deputy
of the Third Estate to the National Assembly, the same who had been
beaten by the orders of the Count of Plouernel, was situated near the
St. Honore Gate. There he occupied a beautiful dwelling of recent
construction and decorated with taste. The day after the banquet
participated in at the Plouernel mansion by the heads of the court
party, Madam Desmarais and her daughter Charlotte, a charming girl of
seventeen, were engaged in a sad interchange of thoughts.

"Ah, my child," said Madam Desmarais, "how troubled I feel at what is
going on in Paris!" As her child did not answer, the mother stopped and
looked at her. The girl was plunged in deep revery.

For a moment longer the girl maintained her silence. Then, her face
suffused and her eyes filled with tears, she fell upon her mother's
neck, buried her face in the maternal breast, and murmured in a
smothered voice:

"Mother, dear, for the first time in my life I have lacked confidence in
you. Pardon your child!"

Surprised and disturbed, Madam Desmarais pressed her daughter to her
bosom, dried her tears, urged her to calm herself, and said, embracing
her tenderly: "You, to lack confidence in me, Charlotte? You have a
secret from me? Am I not, then, your _bestest_ friend?"

"Alas, I fear I had almost forgotten it. Be indulgent toward your
daughter!"

"My heaven! What anguish you are putting me to! I can not believe my
ears. You--to have committed a fault?"

"I doubted your heart and your justice. I formed a bad judgment of my
father and you, who have surrounded me with tenderness since my birth."

"Finish your confidence, painful as it may be. Put an end to my
uncertainty," pleaded the mother.

Charlotte drew back a moment; then she proceeded in broken accents:

"About six months ago, we came to live on the second story of this
house, then still unfinished. Father was much taken with one of the
workmen--"

"You speak of John Lebrenn, the foreman of our ironsmith, Master
Gervais?"

"Struck with the excellent education of Monsieur John Lebrenn, father
offered him the freedom of our library, and made him promise to come and
visit us on his holidays. Father therefore considered Monsieur John
Lebrenn worthy of admission to our friendship. That is how I must
interpret father's actions."

"Your father evinced, perhaps, too much good will towards the young
fellow, and my brother has taken my husband to task for authorizing too
intimate relations between us and a simple workman. Each should keep
his place."

"Uncle Hubert," answered Charlotte, "always showed himself hostile
towards Monsieur Lebrenn, and even jealous of him."

"Your uncle Hubert is a banker of wealth, and could have entertained for
the protege of my husband neither jealousy nor animosity."

"Nevertheless, father's 'protege' has been able to be of value to him,
for I have often heard father say to Monsieur John that it was to him
and his efforts that he owed his election as deputy for Paris."

"It is a matter of common kindness for my husband to thank this young
workman for some services he was able to perform in the interest of his
election."

"Allow me, dear mother, to tell you that father does not look at things
as you do; for last Sunday he invited Monsieur John to dinner with us,
calling him _my friend_. Father repeated to him several times that,
thanks to the progress of the revolution, privileges of birth would be
soon wiped out, and that equality and fraternity would reign among men."

"Well, Charlotte! And suppose equality were to reign among men--what
conclusion do you draw from that?"

"Monsieur John Lebrenn being the equal of my father, bonds of friendship
could exist between them."

"I shall admit, for the moment, that an ironsmith's apprentice might
think himself the equal of an attorney at the bar of Paris. What do you
conclude therefrom?"

"I hoped you would have understood," stammered the young girl in
confusion, and more embarrassed than ever at seeing her mother so far
from suspecting the nature of the confidence she was about to make.

Suddenly a dull and heavy roar, prolonged and repeated from echo to
echo, shook and rattled the windows of the room.

"What noise is that!" cried Madam Desmarais with a start, and raising
her head.

Crash upon crash, more distinct than the first, rattled again the
windows and even the doors of the dwelling. At that instant in rushed
one of Madam Desmarais's maids, screaming out with affright:

"Madam, Oh, madam! It is the cannon! It is the roar of artillery!"

"Great God!" exclaimed Madam Desmarais, turning pale. "And my husband!
To what dangers will he be exposed!"

"Do not worry, dear mother. Father is at Versailles," spoke out
Charlotte, now the comforter.

"They are attacking Paris. The counter-attack will lead on to
Versailles. There will be uprisings, insurrections, massacres!"

"The suburbs are attacking the Bastille," answered Gertrude, the maid,
all of a tremble. "At daybreak our neighbor, Monsieur Lebrenn the
ironsmith, armed with sword and gun, placed himself at the head of a
troop, and marched upon the fortress."

"Alas, he rushes into the arms of death--I shall never see him more!"
cried Charlotte, starting to her feet. And overcome with emotion and
fear, she paled, her eyes closed, and she fainted in the arms of her
mother and the servant, who bent over her plying their simple
restorative cares.

For a long time the detonation of the artillery and the rattle of
musketry continued unabated. At length the firing slackened, became
desultory, and finally ceased altogether. The tumult gave way to a
profound silence. Charlotte regained consciousness. Her face hidden in
her hands, she was now seated beside her mother, who regarded her
daughter with a severe and saddened look. The older woman seemed to
hesitate to speak to the girl; finally she addressed her in a voice that
was hard and dry:

"Thank heaven, Charlotte, you have recovered from your faint. Let us
continue our interview, that was so unfortunately interrupted. Meseems
it is of extreme importance for us all. I can guess its conclusion."

The hard lines in the face of Madam Desmarais and the iciness in her
tone took the young girl aback; but overcoming the passing emotion, she
raised her head, revealing her countenance wet with tears, and answered:

"I have never practised dissimulation towards you. So, just now, I could
not conceal the fears which assailed me for John Lebrenn--for I love him
passionately. I have pledged him my faith, I have received his in
return. We have sworn our troth, one to the other. There, my dear
mother, that is the confidence, I wished to make to you."

"Oh, woe is us! The predictions of my brother are realized. How right he
was to reproach my husband for his relations with that workingman!
Unworthy daughter!" continued Madam Desmarais addressing Charlotte, "How
could you so far forget your duties as to think of uniting your lot with
that of a miserable artisan? Shame and ignominy! Dishonor to your
family--"

"Mother," replied Charlotte, raising her head proudly, "my love is as
noble and pure as the man who calls it forth."

Gertrude, the serving maid, here again broke precipitately into the
room, joyfully crying as she crossed the threshold:

"Madam, good news! Your husband has just entered the courtyard."

"My husband in Paris!" exclaimed Madam Desmarais. "What can have taken
place at Versailles? Perhaps the Assembly is dissolved! Perhaps he is
proscribed, a fugitive! My God, have pity on us!"

She rushed to the door to meet her husband, but checked herself long
enough to say to Charlotte:

"Swear to me to forget at once this shameful love. On that condition I
consent to withhold from your father all knowledge of the wretched
affair."

"My father shall know all!" replied Charlotte resolutely, as Monsieur
Desmarais entered the room.




CHAPTER X.

DEPUTY DESMARAIS.


The deputy of the Third Estate was a man in the prime of life; his
intellectual face betrayed more of diplomacy than of frankness. The
disorder of his apparel and the perspiration that covered his brow
bespoke the precipitancy of his return. His pallor, the contortion of
his features, the fear portrayed upon them, disclosed the anxiety of his
mind. But his whole expression relaxed at sight of Charlotte and her
mother. He pressed them several times in turn to his bosom, and cried
joyously:

"Dear wife--dear daughter--embrace me again! I never before thought what
a consolation in these cursed times the sweet joys of the domestic
hearth would prove."

And again embracing his wife and daughter, the advocate added,
"Blessings on you both for your presence. You have made me forget for a
moment the atrocities committed by a cannibal people!"

As Monsieur Desmarais uttered these last words, a storm of triumphal
outcries, first distant, then gradually drawing nearer, smote upon his
ear: "Victory! The Bastille is taken by the people! Down with the court!
Down with the traitors! Down with the King! Death to the King! Long live
the Nation!"

Then as gradually the cries moved away and died out in the distance.

"The Bastille is taken--but how much blood had to be shed in the heroic
attack!" thought Charlotte, endeavoring to curb her apprehensions for
John Lebrenn. Then, carrying her handkerchief to her lips to smother a
sob, she added to herself, "He is dead, perhaps. O, God, have pity on my
grief."

"What mean these cries, my friend?" asked Madam Desmarais of her
husband. "Is it possible that the Bastille has fallen into the hands of
the people? Can the working classes have overcome the army? In what sort
of times do we live?"

"The Bastille is taken! Cursed day--the people are on top!"

Charlotte heard with astonishment the execrations of her father on the
victory just won by the people. But before she was able to explain to
herself this revulsion in her father's beliefs, Gertrude re-entered the
room, calling out through the open door--

"Good news again! Mother Lebrenn, our neighbor, has sent one of her
apprentices to inform you that she has just received a note from
Monsieur John, saying that he received a slight gunshot wound in the
shoulder during the battle--and announcing that the people is everywhere
victorious!"

"John Lebrenn!" exclaimed Monsieur Desmarais, enraged. "He took part in
that insurrection! Send answer to Mother Lebrenn that I take no interest
in parties to massacre!" Then recollecting himself, he added, "No--say
to the apprentice that you have delivered the message."

"Not a word of interest, and John wounded," thought Charlotte. "Ah, at
least, thanks to You, my God, John's wound is slight. I need not tremble
for his life."

"If the revolution one of these days miscarries, it will be the fools of
the stamp of this Lebrenn who will be to blame," continued Desmarais
bitterly. "They will not comprehend that the ideal government is a
bourgeois, constitutional monarchy, amenable to the courts, disarmed,
and subordinated to an assembly of representatives of the Third Estate.
These miserable workingmen dishonor the revolution by assassination."

"Father," responded Charlotte firmly, her forehead flushed with a
generous resolve, "Monsieur John Lebrenn can not be called an assassin."

"I, too, believed in the honesty of that workman whom I showered with
favors, in spite of the warnings of your uncle Hubert," replied
Desmarais. "But when John Lebrenn takes part in this insurrection, I
withdraw my esteem. I look upon him as a brigand!"

"John Lebrenn a brigand!" exclaimed Charlotte, unable to restrain her
indignation. "Is it you, father, who thus insult a man whom you but now
called your friend! What a contradiction in your language!"

"My dear husband," interposed Madam Desmarais, interrupting her daughter
to retard an explanation of which she dreaded the issue: "You have not
yet told us what compelled your departure from Versailles, and why you
are in Paris instead of in session with the National Assembly."

"Last evening and night the most sinister rumors were in circulation
about Versailles. According to some, the court party had secured from
the King the dissolution of the Assembly. The members of the Left were
to be arrested as seditious characters, and imprisoned or banished from
the kingdom."

"Great heaven--that is where you sit, my friend! To what danger have you
not been exposed!"

"They would not have taken me from my curule chair alive," responded the
attorney grandly. "But the court party, frightened by the peals of the
cannon at the Bastille, the roar of which carried to Versailles, drew
back before the fearsome consequences of such an attempt."

"I breathe again," exclaimed Madam Desmarais with a sigh of relief. "You
are neither a fugitive nor proscribed. God be praised!"

"Still, other reports agitated Versailles and the Assembly on the score
of the uneasiness in Paris. During the night they saw, from the
housetops, the gleam of burning barriers. In the morning a courier
despatched by Baron Bezenval, commandant of Paris, brought news to the
government that the people of the suburb of St. Antoine, assisted by
those from the other suburbs, were besieging the Bastille. This sort of
aggression was considered by the majority of the representatives an
enterprise as blameworthy as it was senseless. No one could conjecture
that a mob of people, in rags, almost without arms, could take a
fortress defended by a garrison and a battery of artillery. The attempt
was in the highest degree extravagant."

"The victory of the people was truly heroic," answered Madam Desmarais.
"It really savors of the miraculous."

"Alas, a few more miracles of that stamp and the royal power is
overthrown, and we fall into anarchy," moodily replied the advocate.
"The people, drunk with its triumph, will not content itself with wise
reforms. Having overthrown the royalty, the nobility, and the clergy, it
will turn on the bourgeoisie, and we, its allies during the combat,
shall become its victims after the victory. It will push to the end the
logic of its principles."

"Good heavens, my friend, you express to-day the same opinions you till
lately fought in my brother!"

"Your brother Hubert is a violent man who knows nothing of politics,"
answered the attorney, much embarrassed by his wife's observation; and
he added, "This morning the National Assembly, wishing to ascertain the
truth as to the conflicting rumors of events in Paris, commissioned
several of its members, myself among the number, to learn by actual
witness the march of affairs, and, if possible, to check the shedding of
blood. In spite of our haste to the city, when we arrived the people
were already masters of the Bastille and had already disgraced their
victory by slaughtering the Marquis De Launay, governor of the fortress,
and several officers. These murders were then followed by ghoulish
scenes, which I beheld with my own eyes. But everything in its time. My
colleagues and I went to the City Hall. We succeeded, with much effort,
in working our way through the swarms of people in arms. We saw the
unhappy Flesselles, President of the Committee of Notables, livid,
whelmed with blows and insults, his clothing torn to ribbons, dragged
into the square and massacred: after the noble, the bourgeois! Among the
assassins I remarked a brawny giant, with the face of a gallows-bird,
and a little short man whose visage half vanished under a shock of red
beard, evidently false, who dragged at his side a young boy of eight or
nine years. At one instant I thought that the unhappy Fleselles might
be saved, but the declamations of the red-bearded man and the giant
raised to a paroxysm the fury of a band of savages whom they seemed to
direct, and I knew then that the Provost of the merchants was lost. The
fellow with the red beard drew up to him and cracked his head at one
blow, with the butt of his pistol. The savage band hurled itself upon
the unfortunate man as he fell to earth, and riddled him with wounds.
The giant put the climax to the horrible deed: he cut off the head and
impaled it on the end of a pike. Then the whole band of scoundrels, the
little boy along with the rest, began to dance around the hideous
trophy, singing and shouting."

"My blood freezes in my veins, my friend, when I think of the danger you
ran in the midst of that frantic populace," said Madam Desmarais. "Those
madmen are worse than cannibals--and Paris seems to be in their power."

"That is what I saw; but unfortunately that is not the only crime there
is to deplore. Other murders followed this first one. The blood thus
shed threw the populace into a species of frenzy. Finally I was able to
escape, to get out of the crowd, and I hastened to you, dear wife, and
to our daughter. These are the crimes that the takers of the Bastille
either perpetrated, or are accomplices in. By giving the signal for
insurrection, they have thrown the people into all the dangers of a
revolt. That is why John Lebrenn is no better in my eyes than a common
bandit."

"You are unjust, father, toward him whom you called your friend,"
ventured Charlotte, in a voice firm with resolution. "On reflection you
will return to sentiments that are more just to Monsieur Lebrenn."

Struck with astonishment at his daughter's words and tone, the advocate
questioned his wife with a look, as if to seek the cause of this strange
appeal on the part of Charlotte for Monsieur John.

"It is I, father, who can give you the explanation you seek of my
mother. I shall not falter in doing so," said Charlotte; and after a
momentary pause she continued:

"I shall not recall to you how many times you have uttered yourself in
terms of friendship and esteem for Monsieur Lebrenn. The good opinion
you held of him was merited, and I dare vouch that he will continue to
show himself worthy of it. I shall not recall to you the proofs of
devotion Monsieur Lebrenn has given you, notably at the time of your
election. It is not willingly that I bring back to your memory the
incident of the outrage of which you were the victim at the instigation
of Monsieur the Count of Plouernel, and which you communicated to
Monsieur Lebrenn in confidence one evening about two months ago. It
costs me much to reopen in your heart that rankling wound. But do you
remember the generous choler with which Monsieur Lebrenn was seized at
your revelation? 'I am but a mechanic, and without doubt this great lord
will consider me unworthy to raise a sword against him,' said Monsieur
John to you, 'but I swear to God, I shall punish the wretch with these
stout arms that heaven has bestowed upon me.' Already he was bounding
towards the door to be off to avenge your insult, when you and my mother
stopped him with great difficulty, plying your supplications to make him
promise not to attack your enemy. And then, clasping him in your arms,
you said to him, your voice quivering with emotion, and your eyes filled
with tears, 'Ah, my friend, you shall be my son; for no otherwise than
as a son did you feel the insult I received. This mark of attachment,
joined to all the other proofs of your affection, renders you so dear to
my heart that from this moment I shall look upon you as one of the
members of our family. You have won all our hearts--'"

"And what has all this to do with the excesses which Monsieur Lebrenn
has been one of the instigators of, and with the assassinations which I
have witnessed? Come, speak clearly, explain yourself. I understand
nothing of all this pathos."

"By what right, father, do you render Monsieur Lebrenn responsible for a
murder to which he was an entire stranger?"

"But whence this great interest, my daughter, in taking the part of
Monsieur Lebrenn against your father?"

"In spite of my ignorance of politics, dear father, I know that in
attacking the Bastille the people wished to destroy the house of durance
where shuddered so many innocent victims. And perhaps Monsieur Lebrenn,
in joining himself with the insurgents, hoped to find his father in one
of the dungeons of the fortress."

"And if by chance he should discover him!" exclaimed advocate Desmarais,
more and more surprised and irritated at his daughter's persistence in
defending Lebrenn. "Does that chance absolve him from the excesses for
which the taking of the Bastille was the signal? Ought not the
responsibility for these acts fall upon those who took part in the
attack, among others on Monsieur Lebrenn, who, it seems, is one of the
leaders of the insurrection?"

"Does the memory of services rendered, father, weigh so heavily upon
you that you seek to evade all recollection of them, under the pretext
of a responsibility which you endeavor to load on a generous man for the
crimes committed by others?"

"Do you know, Charlotte," answered the advocate severely, after a few
moments' reflection, "that your persistence in defending that man would
justly give me strange suspicions regarding your conduct?"

"My friend," interrupted Madam Desmarais, "do not attach any importance
to a few words which have escaped our daughter in a moment of
excitement."

"You are mistaken, dear mother. I am perfectly calm. But I can not
submit to hearing a man of heart and honor calumniated without
protesting against what I regard as a great wrong to him. Why should I
not say to father what I have just said to you, mother--that for two
months my faith has been pledged to Monsieur John Lebrenn, that I have
sworn to him to have no other husband than he? And I shall add, before
you, my father, and you, my mother, that I shall be true to my promise."

"Great God!" cried the advocate, stunned with amazement, "that miserable
workman has dared to raise his eyes to my daughter! He has stolen my
child from me! Death and damnation, I shall have vengeance!"

"You are in error, father; your daughter has not been stolen away,"
proudly returned Charlotte. "That _miserable_ workingman in whose
presence you have so many times argued against the privileges of birth,
against the artificial distinctions which separate the classes in
society--that _miserable_ workingman whom you treated as a friend, an
equal, when you judged his support necessary to your ambition--that
_miserable_ workingman placed his faith in the sincerity of your
professions, father, he saw in me his equal--and his love has been as
pure, as respectful as it has been deep--and devoted--and my heart--is
given to him--"

"You are a brazen hussy!" yelled the lawyer, pale with rage. "Leave my
presence! You disgrace my name!"

"On the contrary, father, I hope I do honor to your name, in putting
into practise those principles of equality and fraternity whose generous
promoter you have made yourself."

At that moment the noise of many voices was heard under the windows of
the Desmarais apartment, crying enthusiastically: "Long live Citizen
Desmarais! Long live the friend of the people! Long live our
representative!" These eloquent testimonies of the popular affection for
Monsieur Desmarais offered so strange a contradiction to the reproaches
which he had just addressed to Charlotte, that under the impression of
the contrast the lawyer, his wife and his daughter fell silent.

"Do you hear them, father?" Charlotte at last ventured. "These brave
people believe, the same as I, in the sincerity of your principles of
equality. They acclaim you as the friend of the people."

At the same instant Gertrude ran into the room breathless with
excitement, exclaiming: "A troop of the vanquishers of the Bastille,
with Monsieur John Lebrenn at their head, has halted before the house.
They want monsieur to appear on the balcony and address them."

"Death of my life! This is too much," snarled the advocate, at the
moment that new cries resounded from without:

"Long live Citizen Desmarais. Long live the friend of the people! Come
out! Come out! Long live the Nation! Down with the King! Death to the
aristocrats!"

"My friend, you can not hesitate. You will run the greatest danger by
not appearing and saying a few good words to these maniacs. In bad
fortune we must show a good heart," said Madam Desmarais, alarmed; then
addressing Gertrude: "Quick, quick, open the window to the balcony."




CHAPTER XI.

LIONS AND JACKALS.


Gertrude hastened to execute her mistress's order, and revealed to the
deputy's family St. Honore Street, packed, as far as the eye could
reach, with a dense crowd. The windows of the houses bordering on it
were filled by their inhabitants, drawn thither by the commotion. The
column of the vanquishers of the Bastille was stationed in front and to
both sides of the Desmarais domicile; it was composed for the most part
of men of the people, clad in their working clothes. Some carried guns,
pikes, or swords; several among them were armed with the implements of
their trade. All, bourgeois, mechanics, soldiers, acclaimed the victory
of the people with the cry, a thousand times repeated:

"Long live the Nation!"

In the center of the column glowered two pieces of light artillery
captured in the courtyard of the redoubtable prison. On the caisson of
one of these cannon, erect, majestically leaning on a pike-staff from
which floated the tricolor, stood a woman of massive stature, a red
kerchief half concealing the heavy tresses which fell down upon her
shoulders. Her dark robe disclosed her robust arms. She held her pike in
one hand--in the other a shattered chain. Woman of the people as she
was, she seemed the genius of Liberty incarnate.

To the rear of the cannon rested a cart trimmed with green branches and
surrounded by men who bore at the end of long poles or of pikes chains,
garrottes, gags, iron boots, iron corsets, pincers, and other strange
and horrible instruments of torture gathered up in the subterranean
chambers of the Bastille. In the car were three of the prisoners
delivered by the people. One of these was the Provost of Beaumont,
imprisoned fifteen years before for having denounced the famine
agreement. Another, who seemed to have lost his reason in the sufferings
of a long and drear captivity, was the Count of Solange, imprisoned by
_lettre de cachet_ during the reign of Louis XV. The last of the three
prisoners was broken, bent to the ground, tottering. He lifted to heaven
his colorless eyes--alas, the unfortunate man had become blind in his
dungeon. It was the father of John Lebrenn. Poor victim of tyranny! He
feebly supported himself by the arm of his son, wounded though the
latter was.

Such was the picture that met the gaze of advocate Desmarais as he
stepped out upon the balcony of his dwelling, his wife and daughter on
either side of him. Charlotte's first glances went in search of, and as
soon found, John Lebrenn. With a woman's intuition she divined that the
aged figure beside him, snatched from the cells of the Bastille was
indeed his father.

The appearance of advocate Desmarais and his family was greeted with a
new outburst of acclaim:

"Long live the friend of the people!"

In stepping forth upon the balcony, Desmarais had yielded merely to
policy. He made a virtue of necessity. Condescending, gracious,
complaisant, he began by greeting with smile, look, and gesture the
populace assembled beneath his windows. Then he bowed, and placed his
hand on his heart as if to express by that pantomime the emotion, the
gratitude, which he experienced at the demonstration of which he was the
object.

Silence was re-established among the crowd. John Lebrenn, still standing
in the cart beside his father, addressed the attorney in a voice clear
and sonorous:

"Citizen Desmarais, defender of the rights of the people, thanks to you,
our representative in the National Assembly! Your acts, your speeches,
have responded to all that we expected of you. Honor to the friend of
the people!"

The advocate signified that he wished to reply. The tumult was hushed,
and the deputy of the Third Estate delivered himself as follows:

"Citizens! my friends, my brothers! I can not find words in which to
express the admiration your victory inspires me with. Thanks to your
generous efforts, the most formidable rampart of despotism is
overthrown! Be assured, citizens, that your representatives know the
significance of the taking of the Bastille. The Assembly has declared
that the ministers and the councillors of his Majesty, whatever their
rank in the state, are responsible for the present evils and those which
may follow. Responsibility shall be demanded of the ministers and all
functionaries!"

"Bravo! Long live Desmarais! Long live the Assembly! Long live the
Nation! Death to the King! Death to the Queen! Down with the
aristocrats!"

"Nothing could be more pleasing to me, citizens," continued Desmarais,
"than the choice you have made of Citizen Lebrenn as the spokesman of
the sentiments that animate you. Honor to this young and valiant
artisan, the son of one of the victims rescued from the Bastille!"

This allocution, pronounced by advocate Desmarais with every appearance
of great tenderness, moved the people. Tears dimmed the eyes of all. The
father of John Lebrenn seized his son in his arms, and Charlotte, unable
to restrain her tears, murmured as she cast a look of gratitude toward
heaven, "Thanks to you, my God! My father is his true old noble self
again. He sees the injustice of his opposition to John!"

When the emotion produced by his last words had somewhat subsided,
advocate Desmarais resumed: "Adieu till we meet again, citizens, my
friends--my brothers! I return to Versailles. The Assembly has
despatched three of my colleagues and myself to learn at first hand how
it fares with the good people of Paris. When our report is called for,
we shall be ready. Long live the Nation!"

With a final farewell gesture to the throng, Desmarais quitted the
balcony and re-entered his apartment. In a few moments the column took
up its interrupted march, and disappeared. Almost immediately there
disgorged itself tumultuously into St. Honore Street a band of men of an
aspect strangely contrasting with that of the populace just addressed by
Monsieur Desmarais. Some were dressed in rags, others wore a garb less
sordid, but nearly all bore on their faces the stamp of vice and crime.
The band was composed of men without occupation; do-nothing workmen;
debauched laborers; petty business men ruined by misconduct, become
pickpockets, sharpers, infesters of houses of ill fame and other evil
resorts; robbers and convicts, assassins--a hideous crowd, capable of
every crime; an execrable crowd, whom our eternal enemies keep in fee
and easily egg on to these saturnalia, for which the people is but too
often held culpable; wretches in the hire of the priests, the nobles and
the police.

At the head of these bandits marched a man with the face of a brigand,
of gigantic stature and herculean frame, and conspicuously well clad.
Once a "cadet," then a gaming-house proprietor, then usher of the Church
of St. Medard, Lehiron, for such was the name of the leader of the band,
had been expelled from his last employment for the theft of the
poor-box. Around his waist a sash of red wool held two horse-pistols and
a cutlass that had parted company with its sheath. His coat and the
cuffs of his shirt rolled back to the elbow, he gesticulated wildly with
his bare hands, which were clotted with blood. At the end of a pike he
still bore the head of Monsieur Flesselles, and from time to time, while
brandishing the hideous trophy, he would cry out in a stentorian voice:

"Long live the Nation! To the lamp-post with the aristocrats! Death to
all the nobles!"

"Death to the enemies of the people! The aristocrats to the lamp-post!"
repeated all the bandits, brandishing their pikes, their sabers, or
their guns blackened with powder.

"To the lamp-post with the aristocrats!" also cried the shrill and
piercing voice of an urchin who gave his hand to a miserably clad
character, the man of the false beard of whom Desmarais had spoken. It
was the Jesuit Morlet, and the boy his god-son, little Rodin. At the
moment that the band hove in sight of the lawyer's dwelling, the Jesuit
drew close to Lehiron, and spoke a few words to him in a low voice. The
latter stopped, signed to his followers for silence and cried at the top
of his leathern lungs:

"Death to the bourgeois! Death to the traitors! To the lamp-post with
Desmarais!"

Then the band resumed its way; and Abbot Morlet, posted at the head of
the troop, made haste to bring it up to the last straggling files of the
vanquishers of the Bastille. Then, upon the carriage of the cannon
whence she dominated the throng, he beheld the woman with the red
handkerchief and the dark robe. In spite of the change which her costume
imparted to her features, the Jesuit was stupefied to
recognize--Marchioness Aldini!

Barely had he recovered from his surprise when the Marchioness descended
from the piece of artillery. As hastily, the Jesuit quitted his
companions in order to trace her, and, if possible, clear up the
suspicions which in his mind surrounded this one-time Marchioness, now
heroine of the people. Little Rodin followed his dear god-father, and
the two, elbowing their way through the people of the quarter, who were
seized with surprise and affright at the murderous cries uttered by the
sinister band which approached, inquired, as they went, for the
beautiful dark woman coiffed in a red handkerchief who had just leaped
down from the cannon--having, so the Abbot pretended, a message for her.
Finally a woman haberdasher, drawn to the threshold of her booth,
replied to Abbot Morlet's interrogations:

"Yes, the beautiful young woman you seek has entered house No. 17, along
with our neighbor John Lebrenn. That is all I can tell you."

"Then the Lebrenn family lives in this street, my dear woman?"

"Certainly. Mother Lebrenn and her family occupy two rooms on the fourth
floor of No. 17."

"Thank you for your information, my dear woman," replied the Jesuit,
with difficulty concealing the joy that the unexpected discovery caused
him. "Many thanks!"

"And so," continued the Abbot, "I recover the traces of that family whom
we have lost from sight for over a century. What a lucky chance! Two
woodcocks in one springe--Marchioness Aldini and the family of Lebrenn.
An enemy spotted, is one-half throttled. Let us train our batteries to
suit."

"Dear god-father," put in little Rodin at that moment, with a determined
air, "I am not afraid to look at heads mowed off."

"My child," replied the Jesuit with fatherly pride and happiness, "it is
not enough to have no fear; one must actually feel his heart grow
lightened when he sees the enemies of our holy mother, the Church of
Rome, put to death."

"Dear god-father, was Monsieur Flesselles, then, an enemy of our holy
mother, the Church?"

"My child, the death of Monsieur Flesselles, innocent or guilty, was
useful to the good cause."

Meanwhile, Lehiron's band, just then passing under the windows of
Desmarais's home, continued to shriek, "Death to the enemies of the
people! Death to the bourgeois! To the lamp-post with Desmarais!"

The cries had not yet reached the ears of the attorney, who had no
sooner withdrawn from the balcony than his daughter, throwing herself
into his arms, said to him in a voice broken with sobs of joy:

"Thanks, Oh, thanks, father, for what you have just said!"

"What are you thanking me for now?"

"For the noble utterances you have just addressed to Monsieur John
Lebrenn," replied Charlotte delighted, not noticing the brusque
transformation which came over the face of the advocate at her words.

"How! You have the presumption to abuse the necessity I found myself
reduced to, in speaking a few words of good will to that laborer in
order to save my house from pillage, and perhaps to protect my own life
and that of my wife and daughter--you presume to abuse that necessity to
oblige me to give my consent to your union with an ironsmith's
apprentice? You are an unworthy daughter!"

"Then--your cordial words, your touching protestations, were but lies!"
murmured the young girl, crushed by her father's rough speech. "It was
all comedy and imposture!"

"Charlotte," continued Desmarais in a tone of harsh resolve, "cut short
this passion which is a disgrace to all of us! I swear you shall never
see that man again. To-morrow you leave Paris. It is my will."

"Father, my father--I implore you--revoke that sentence--"

"My dear friend," pursued Desmarais, addressing his wife and not heeding
his daughter, "I shall delay for twenty-four hours my return to
Versailles. Hasten all your preparations for the trip. We shall leave
to-morrow morning. I shall take you along, as well as our daughter."

"Pity, father! Do not drive me to despair--"

"You know my will. Nothing can bend it."

"Cursed be this day," cried the young girl with indignation; "cursed be
this day when you force me to forget the respect I owe a father. Helas!
it is you, you yourself, father, who just now, this very hour, protested
your love for the people, your disdain for the privileges of birth and
wealth. And now you declare before me that your protestations were
false, that you despise the people, fear them

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