Part 12 (1/2)
”'That's a remark inimical to the Republic!' he roared. 'For that I order your arrest!' And in two seconds I was in the grasp of a couple of gendarmes who hustled me, followed by Simon, to this prison. Simon made the charge, and I gave the name of Antoine Lecoste. The rest you know!
And for such offences are thousands of poor wretches doomed to death in these glorious days!”
”But what a misfortune,” sighed Jean, ”that you should be so imperilled when you are the soul of the n.o.ble schemes for releasing the little fellow! You stand about one chance in a million of being acquitted, from all I hear!”
”Do not fear for me, lad! One can never tell what may happen, of course, but, hark you! I have a band of trusty followers, and in view of the very thing that has happened, my arrest, we concerted, some time ago, a plan to rescue me if I am caught and condemned, even were I on the way to the very scaffold itself. And trust me, Jean, should it so fall out that we travel that road together, you shall share my rescue. If I go before you and am rescued, I will surely devise some scheme for your escape when your time comes. Only, if you are called to go before me, heaven alone can aid you!” Jean pressed his hand with a grat.i.tude too deep for words.
”Meanwhile,” ended the Baron, ”it is best that we do not seem too intimate, when our jailers are around. What a horrible place this is!
How long have you been here?” And Jean gave him a history of his imprisonment. The two talked nearly all that night. Jean had heard practically no news from the outer world in all the eight months, and he learned now much that astonished him. One of the events most amazing to him was the resignation of Simon from his post of tutor to Louis XVII, and the young king's solitary confinement. The other was that Danton, the great original Terrorist leader had perished on the scaffold as far back as April.
”How came it about?” inquired Jean in wonder. ”I cannot understand it!
He was head and front of every thing!”
”Simple enough, in these days!” responded De Batz. ”It is like the mountainous waves of the sea. One towers above all for a moment, only to be overtopped by the one behind it next instant. Robespierre became both tired and jealous of his great friend and compatriot, and decided to get rid of him. Nothing easier! He denounced Danton to the Convention, and he was tried and condemned by the very tribunal he had himself inst.i.tuted. Right here in the Conciergerie at that! You should have seen him during his trial! He sat and made paper pellets which he threw at his judges! Oh, Danton was a cool one, and he died bravely! But, let me tell you something. Robespierre's turn is coming next! The people are weary of him and his underhand ways, and 'tis whispered that he wishes to sweep all others out of his path and make himself Dictator. But it won't do! They are furious at him for causing Danton's death,--his closest friend, mind you!--and something is going to happen. The pot is on the point of boiling. It will take but a few days at most for it to boil over. And let me tell you who will be the next man of the hour,--Barras! He is already very popular. Keep your eye on Barras, Jean!”
Two days pa.s.sed, and the friends were left unmolested. During this time they exchanged thoughts on many subjects, and waited with apprehension lest one or the other should be called away, and strove to pa.s.s the hours as best they might. Jean begged De Batz to tell him what was the new plan for rescuing Louis XVII.
”That I cannot tell you just yet,” said the Baron. ”For it is not perfected, and I am under oath to reveal nothing. But if we get out of this alive, be sure that you will hear more about it later. But one thing I will say. I may have to disappear for a time to another part of France. If I am not in Paris, _find Caron_! You know who he is?” Jean nodded a.s.sent. Then he asked about how they were to escape.
”It is best that you should not know,” said De Batz. ”The manner of it will be attended with great risk, and you will come through it better if you are ignorant. Only, do not be surprised at anything that may happen!”
On the third day, the jailers entered the cell at noon, accompanied by a court-crier. Jean and the Baron exchanged a look, for they knew that the fate of at least one of them was to be sealed that day. To their joy, both their names were read to appear before the tribunal. The jailers left them saying that they would be back in half an hour.
”This is a G.o.dsend!” exclaimed the Baron. ”Nothing could have been better than that we should go out at the same time. If we are rescued it will be together, and if not,--well, at least we will die in each other's company!” The jailers came back in a few moments and bound the hands of the two behind their backs. In the courtyard they found a band of thirty more victims, in charge of a corps of gendarmes, all petrified into a very apathy of fearful antic.i.p.ation. Strangely enough, there was not even a tear shed by the band of the condemned. The sobs and lamentations came wholly from the friends they were leaving.
Out from the courtyard, and along dark galleries and pa.s.sages they were herded like so many cattle, till at length they were pushed into the great gloomy room where sat the far-famed Tribunal of Terror. Three judges robed in black, wearing plumed hats, sat on a high platform, and scribbled occasional notes. A clerk called out the list of names, to which each prisoner responded. Then, one by one, the names were read again, and a charge against each was hastily gabbled over, which the prisoners scarcely heard and in nine cases out of ten did not understand. When asked if they had anything to say in their defence, each murmured calmly and hopelessly, ”No!” After this, one of the judges rose and p.r.o.nounced the sentence:
”You are all found guilty of conspiring against the Republic! I p.r.o.nounce upon you the sentence of immediate death!”
There was no surprise and scarcely any interest created by this. Why should there be! They had expected it from the beginning! For the most part they were as those already dead. The gendarmes hurried them out by another pa.s.sage, and they came to an open gate, beyond which stood the tumbrils waiting for their daily load. Here a great crowd of the populace had collected. But where months ago they had hooted and jeered at the doomed ones, now the sympathy of the majority was with the victims, and the carts were loaded in a sorrowful silence, broken only by the occasional cry of some outsider who beheld a friend among the condemned.
Jean and De Batz were reserved for the last cart, and just before they entered, the boy saw his friend make an almost imperceptible motion of the head to a man in the crowd who instantly disappeared. ”Courage!”
whispered the Baron to his little comrade, as they were flung unceremoniously into the tumbril, accompanied by ten or twelve others.
That ride was a thing to be remembered as one recalls a shuddering nightmare. Crowded in as they were, Jean saw no possible hope of rescue, and the cart jolted on roughly through street after street. They had approached very near the Place de la Revolution and the termination of their ride, when a heavy cart that had driven in between them and the forward tumbril, suddenly broke down, a wheel flew off, and the way was completely blocked.
”Good!” muttered the Baron to Jean. ”The first step is a success!” The driver of their tumbril swore roundly, but nothing could be done except drive back a block or two and proceed through a very narrow street, scarcely more than an alley. Meanwhile the crowd had forsaken them, and had hastened on to the guillotine, lest it be too late for the first of the day's executions. The last tumbril would doubtless arrive in good time without their a.s.sistance!
The narrow alley into which they now turned was lined with rickety wooden houses, and Jean noticed that De Batz watched one of these narrowly, so he also kept his eye upon it. They had almost reached it when suddenly, out from it rushed ten or fifteen men, all shouting, swearing, lunging at each other with knives and bludgeons, apparently engaged in a fierce dispute that could only be settled by drawing blood.
They surged about the tumbril, while the astonished driver sought to clear the way by flouris.h.i.+ng his whip, and shouting for a free pa.s.sage.
In the midst of all this confusion, Jean presently felt a knife inserted between the cords that bound his wrists, and in a second his hands were free. Then he saw that De Batz had likewise been released from his fetters. In the midst of the greatest racket he heard the Baron whisper:
”Slip down! Get among them!” Fortunately they were both seated at the rear end of the cart. Before Jean realised it, he was down and in the midst of the noisy group shouting and struggling like the rest. If the other inmates of the cart realised what was happening, they were either too apathetic to care, or too glad that even a few might escape, to make any outcry. The struggling, fighting men, gradually ceased their blows and pretending to be appeased, gathered into a group, carefully concealing in their midst the Baron and Jean. The wrathful driver of the tumbril shook his fist at them, swore to have them all arrested later, gathered up his reins, and the cart lumbered heavily away, while he remained entirely in ignorance of the fact that his load was lighter by two! When it had disappeared, they all hurried into the house from whence the men had issued.
”Oh!” sobbed Jean, now that the terrible tension was relieved, ”if we could only have saved the rest! It seems horrible that they should go on to what we have escaped!”