Part 41 (1/2)
”Pardon, dear sir, hi! hi! or, rather, dear madam! Ah, ah, ah! if you knew what a winsome face you had! Pardon me, I am all upset over it--it is too much for me. Ah, ah, ah! Oh, the idea! I shall die of bottled-up laughter if you don't let me give vent to it!”
Suiting action to word, the Marquis went off into another roar of hysterics. Hubert's violent nature was about once more to get the better of him, but once more was it appeased by the solicitations of the Count and his brother. At last he cooled down sufficiently to make known to the company the secret of his transfiguration, and how he owed his life to his sister's devotion. During these confidences, the laughter of the Marquis gradually died out.
”Then, that part of St. Honore Street where you have just missed arrest, dear Monsieur Hubert,” said the Count, ”will to-night be watched by the police, and I may, on leaving here, fall into their hands. For the refuge where I have hidden myself since my return to Paris is situated close to the St. Honore Gate. The wife of a former whipper-in in the King's Huntsmen is giving me asylum. From the window of my garret I can see the house of this Desmarais, your brother-in-law; whom I now regret not having allowed to die under the cudgels when I had him flogged by my lackeys.”
”You live near the St. Honore Gate, you say, Count? What is the number of the house, if you please?” asked the Abbot with a start.
”Number 19; the entrance is distinguished by a small gate-way.”
”You could not have chosen your refuge worse! I am glad to be able to warn you of your danger. At No. 17 of that same street live two members of the Lebrenn family, John the iron-worker, and that beautiful woman whom you knew under the name of Marchioness Aldini. Be on your guard, for if these people came to know where you were hidden, they would not let slip the opportunity to wreak on you the hate with which they have pursued your family for so many centuries.”
”Now that that fool of a Marquis has become almost reasonable, let us resume the course of our deliberation,” replied the Count, thanking Morlet for his information; and addressing Hubert: ”When you came in, the priest was having the presumption to propose for our consideration the question whether it would not be wiser to postpone the projected stroke until after the King was sentenced, instead of to-morrow, as we purpose.”
”Any such delay would be all the sadder seeing that this very evening a case of arms, containing also several copies of our proclamation, was seized in my brother-in-law's house. The Committee of General Safety thus has by this time the most flagrant proof of a conspiracy. So then, I say, we must make haste. Yesterday and day before I saw several officers and grenadiers of my old battalion, who are very influential in their quarter. They await but the signal to run to arms. The bourgeoisie has a horror of the Republic.”
”Confess, Monsieur Hubert, that it would be better for the bourgeoisie to resign itself to what it calls 'the privileges of the throne, the immunities of the n.o.bility and clergy,' than to submit to the tyranny of the populace,” rejoined Plouernel.
”Monsieur Count, a few years ago you administered through the cudgels of your lackeys a good dressing down to a man whom I have the unhappiness to possess for brother-in-law. I, in his place, would have paid you back, not by proxy, through hirelings, but in person. Now, great seigneur that you are, what would you have done in that case?”
”Eh! My G.o.d, my poor Monsieur Hubert! If I did not, in the first moment of anger, run you through the body with my sword, I would have been under the obligation of asking for a lettre de cachet and sending you to the Bastille.”
”Because a man of your birth could not consent to fight a bourgeois?”
”Certainly; for the tribunal composed of our seigneurs the Marshals of France, to which the n.o.bility refers its affairs of honor, would have formally prohibited the duel; and we are bound by oath to respect the decisions of Messieurs the Marshals. For the common herd we have nothing but contempt.”
”It seems to me we are wandering singularly astray from the question at stake,” interposed the Bishop. ”Let us come back to it.”
”Not at all, Monsieur Bishop,” retorted Hubert. ”We must first of all know what we are conspiring for. If we are conspiring to overthrow the Republic, we must know by what regime we shall replace it. Shall it be by an absolute monarchy, as before, or by the const.i.tutional monarchy of 1791? Well, gentlemen of the n.o.bility, gentlemen of the clergy, what we want, we bourgeois, we of the common herd, whom you despise, is the const.i.tutional monarchy. Take that for said.”
”So that the bourgeoisie may reign in fact, under the semblance of a kingdom? We reject that sort of a government,” sneered Plouernel.
”Naturally.”
”Whence it follows that you wish to subst.i.tute the bourgeois oligarchy, the privilege of the franc, for our aristocracy?”
”Without a doubt. For we hold in equal aversion both the old regime, that is, the rule of unbridled privilege, and the Republic.”
”Let us come back to the subject,” snapped Jesuit Morlet. ”The bourgeoisie, the n.o.bility, the clergy--all abominate the Republic. So much is settled. Let us, then, first attend to the overthrow of the Republic; later we may decide on its successor. Let us decide immediately whether we shall or shall not delay the execution of our plot of to-morrow--the first question; and the second, which, to tell the truth, ought to take precedence over the other--whether it would not be better after all, in the combined interests of the Church, the monarchy, the n.o.bility and the bourgeoisie, simply to let them, without any more ado, send Louis to the guillotine!”
The Jesuit's words were again received with imprecations by the Bishop and Monsieur Plouernel, while the Marquis, finding the idea funnier and funnier, burst into irrepressible laughter. Hubert, greatly surprised, but curious to fathom the Abbot's purposes, insisted on knowing the reasons on which he based his opinion. Accordingly, when silence was restored, the Jesuit commenced:
”I maintain, and I shall prove, that the sentencing and execution of Louis XVI offer to us precious advantages. This sovereign--I leave it to you, Count, and to you, Monsieur Hubert--is completely lost, both as an absolute King, because he lacks energy, and as a const.i.tutional King, because he has twenty times striven to abolish the Const.i.tution which he pledged himself to support. So much is self-evident and incontestible.
Accordingly, the death of Louis XVI will deliver us from the unpleasant outcome of an absolute King without vigor, if absolute royalty is to prevail; and will spare us a const.i.tutional King without fidelity to his oath, if const.i.tutional royalty wins out. That settles the first and extremely interesting point. Second point, the execution of the King will deal a mortal blow to the Republic. Louis XVI will become a martyr, and the wrath of the foreign sovereigns will be aroused to the last notch against a rising Republic which for first gage of battle throws at their feet the head of a King, and summons their peoples to revolt. The extermination of the Republic will thus become a question of life and death for the monarchs of Europe; they will summon up a million soldiers, and invest vast treasuries, coupled with the credit of England. Can the outcome of such a struggle be doubted? France, without a disciplined army; France, ruined, reduced to a paper currency, torn by factions, by the civil war which we priests will let loose in the west and south--France will be unable to resist all Europe. But, in order to exasperate the foreign rulers, to excite their hatred, their fury, they must be made to behold the head of Louis XVI rolling at their feet!”
”Reverend sir, you frighten me with your doctrines!” was all the Count of Plouernel could say. With a paternal air the Jesuit continued:
”Big baby! I am through. One of two things: Either to-morrow's plot works well, or it works ill. In the first case, Louis XVI is delivered; the Convention is exterminated. A thousand resolute men can carry out the stroke. But afterwards? You will have to fight the suburbs, the Sections, the troops around Paris, which will run to the succor of the capital.”
”We shall fight them!” was Hubert's exclamation.
”We shall cut them to pieces! Neither mercy nor pity for the rebels!”
cried Plouernel.