Part 31 (2/2)
knapsacks. The old man acted as spokesman, and addressed one of the officers:
”Citizen, I am named Matthew Bernard, master tanner, No. 71 St. Victor Street, where I live with my five sons and my grandson. We come, they and I, to enlist; we leave for the frontier.”
The wife of the brave citizen, his daughter, a young girl of seventeen, and his son's wife, awaited them outside. On the countenances of the three women was legible neither fear nor regret; the tears that shone in their eyes were tears of enthusiasm.
”Farewell, wife! Farewell, daughter and daughter-in-law! We depart a.s.sured of your safety. The prisons are purged,” said the old man in a voice calm and strong. ”We have none now to fight but the Prussians on the frontier. Adieu till we meet again. Long live the Nation! Long live the Republic! Death to the priests and the aristocrats!”
In the midst of the procession of recruits, I heard the snapping of a whip, and these words, shouted out in deep and joyous tones:
”Make way, citizens, make way, please! Oh, hey! Alright, Double-grey!
Alright, Reddy!” And soon I saw drawing near, through the crowd which fell back to give him pa.s.sage, a man in the hey-day of his strength, with an open and martial countenance, clad in a great-coat and an oilskin hat. He rode a grey horse, and led by the bridle a bay, both harnessed for the carriage. Across the crupper of one of the animals were slung a saddle-bag of oats and a bale of gra.s.s tied with a cord; the other horse carried a valise. The great-coat of the rider was drawn-tight at the waist by the belt of a cavalry saber that hung beside him. I remarked with surprise that the white leather of his sword-ta.s.sel was red, as if wet with blood.
”Citizen officers,” called the rider without descending from the horse he rode, and which he reined in on the threshold of the tent, ”Write as a voluntary recruit James d.u.c.h.emin, stage driver by occupation and formerly an artilleryman; I have sold my coach to pay my expenses on the way. I am off to the frontier with my horses Double-grey and Reddy, of whom I make an offering to the country, asking only the favor not to be separated from them and to be enrolled with them in a regiment of field artillery. You'll see them do famously in the harness when they're hitched up to a four-pounder. So, then, citizen officers, write us down, my horses and me. I have just lent a hand to the patriots who are working down there, at the Abbey,” added the stage driver, carrying his hand to the blood-reddened saber. ”The business is done. The prisons are purged;--now, to the front!”
The day was nearly over when I arrived at the a.s.sembly to put myself at the disposal of the Military Committee. While awaiting my turn for enrolment, I wandered into the a.s.sembly galleries. I was anxious to know whether the ma.s.sacre in the prisons was known to the popular Representatives. I then learned that the a.s.sembly, informed as to the occurrences at the Abbey, at La Force, and at the Chatelet, had sent to these places, with instructions to oppose the carnage, a commission composed of Citizens Bazire, Dussaulx, Francis of Neufchateau, Isnard and Lequino.
Soon several of the commissioners entered the chamber, accompanied by Tallien, a member of the Commune, who took the floor and said:
”Citizens, the commissioners of the a.s.sembly are powerless to turn aside the vengeance of the people, a vengeance in some sort just, for, we must say it, these blows have fallen upon the issuers of false notes, whom the law condemns to death. What excited the vengeance of the people was that they found in the prisons none but recognized criminals!”
I left the a.s.sembly chamber and returned to take my place in the line and pa.s.s before the Committee. The Committee was presided over, that day, by Carnot the elder, an officer of genius, and one of the greatest captains of the time. I had myself inscribed as an iron-worker, and received the order to appear next morning at daybreak, at the green-house of the Louvre, where they were setting up the forges and work-benches for the fas.h.i.+oning of the munitions of war.
While awaiting Victoria, at our lodging, I busied myself with recording in my journal the various events of the day. One in the morning sounded; my sister had not returned. Up till now, I had felt no anxiety for her; only those who would attempt to disarm the popular anger, only those, on that day, ran any danger; and Victoria partook of the general sentiment of Paris on the subject of a ma.s.s extermination. But suddenly there flashed back to my mind Jesuit Morlet and his tool Lehiron. I knew the hatred entertained by the reverend Father for my sister. These thoughts threw me into deep anxiety. The Jesuit Morlet and Lehiron were capable of any crime; and on this unlucky day, when blood flowed in torrents, nothing would have been easier than for the wretches to make away with Victoria. Faithful to his hope of seeing the Revolution besmirch itself or lose itself in excesses, Abbot Morlet would not fail to be on hand to urge on the carnage of the prisoners; he could easily, under a new disguise, repair to the prisons with Lehiron and his cut-throats, and, on encountering my sister, point her out to their weapons.
The gloomiest of apprehensions were raised in me by these reflections.
My alarm increased from minute to minute. There was, alas, no way to still it. My anguish had almost reached the breaking point when I heard hurried steps on the stair-landing. I ran to the door. It flew open.
Victoria uttered a cry of joy, threw herself into my arms, pressed me convulsively to her breast, and broke into tears. Then, between her sobs, she murmured in a voice choked with joy:
”Brother, my poor brother, I find you again! G.o.d be praised!”
As her emotion subsided, Victoria acquainted me in the following words with the source of her alarm:
”Just now, on my way here, I met, ten steps from the house, our neighbor Dubreuil. On seeing me he stopped, looked at me an instant with an expression of surprise and grief, and said, 'Are you coming to see John?' 'Surely,' answered I. 'Alas, poor John harangued the crowd this morning at this very place; he spoke against the ma.s.sacre in the prisons; they took him for a traitor, and the crowd, in its temper--'
and our neighbor buried his face in his hands and did not finish. I understood everything. Yielding to the goodness of your heart, desiring to oppose popular justice in its course, you had paid for the attempt with your life!--such was my first thought. For an instant I stood motionless with stupor, my soul in a whirl. I felt I should go mad. Then I ran to our door. 'Brother, brother!' I cried. 'Whence your alarm, mademoiselle?' the porter asked me; 'Monsieur John is upstairs since ten o'clock.' My heart bounded with joy;--but I was not completely rea.s.sured till I saw you.”
I recounted to my sister the cause of our neighbor's mistake in thinking I had lost my life in the attempt to intervene in favor of the prisoners. And I followed by confiding to Victoria the fears which her own prolonged absence had caused me.
”True,” Victoria answered, ”the Jesuit did appear once at the Abbey Prison with Lehiron and some of his brigands. But they soon saw that that was not the place for them, for at the Abbey there was no pillaging, there was no a.s.sa.s.sination. We judged and condemned the guilty; we freed the innocent.”
”Alas, and in the name of what law did you condemn the ones, and acquit the others?”
”In the name of Eternal Justice, which smites the wicked and spares the good.”
I heard Victoria in a sort of daze. ”And even if,” exclaimed I, ”a semblance of justice did preside over the carnage, by what right did these men const.i.tute themselves the accusers, judges and executioners of the prisoners?”
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