Part 8 (1/2)
”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 cla.s.s they belong--n.o.bles, 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 d.a.m.nable 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-establis.h.i.+ng discipline among my soldiers and preventing them from becoming the allies of the revolution.”
”And yet you are astonished when I p.r.o.nounce 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 G.o.d 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 d.a.m.nable 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 n.o.bility, 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 G.o.d, Marchioness, I am of your opinion,” echoed the Viscount of Mirabeau. ”Six months ago the n.o.bility 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 n.o.bility and the clergy attempted to hold their deliberations by Order, and refused to mingle with the bourgeois for the examination of credentials.