Part 6 (1/2)
De Vaudrey had nearly lost all control of his temper. In a moment the outbreak which the Countess was so anxious to avoid would have broken forth, had not the Count without giving his nephew time to speak said quickly:
”I leave you with the Countess. I hope that your respect and affection for her will cause you to lend more weight to her counsels than you are disposed to give to mine.”
As if fearing that he might have tried the young man's temper too far, or that he did not wish to prolong a useless scene, the Count left the room. De Vaudrey was alone with his Aunt.
The Countess went up to the n.o.ble-looking young man, and taking his hand in hers, asked in a sweet, winning voice:
”Who is this woman you love? What obstacle prevents the avowal of your pa.s.sion? If it is only a matter of fortune, take mine; it is all at your disposal, and I will give it to you cheerfully.”
”Ah, where shall I find a heart like yours?” exclaimed the Chevalier in a voice trembling with emotion. ”You have divined my secret. I adore a young girl as charming as she is pure. Yet never have I dared to whisper my pa.s.sion!”
”Her name--her family?” asked the Countess eagerly.
”She was born of the people,” said de Vaudrey proudly, yet tenderly.
”She is an orphan and lives by the labor of her hands.”
The Countess, who had never for a moment imagined such an answer to her question, was surprised, and she showed plainly that grief was mingled with her surprise.
”And you would make such a woman your wife?” she asked reproachfully.
”Do not judge her until you have seen her,” entreated the Chevalier.
”Consent to see her, and then advise me.”
The young man took the Countess's hands in his, and looked imploringly into her face.
But his Aunt turned away from him with a gesture of sorrow.
”In such a marriage,” she said sadly, ”there can be no happiness for you, and for her, only misery. Alas! I know too well the result of those unequal unions. You must renounce her. You owe obedience to your family and your King.” She burst into a flood of tears.
Diffidently the young man sought to comfort the Countess whose emotion seemed to have its spring in some hidden sorrow. He promised at last for her sake to consider again the horribly odious proposal of a State marriage, and drying her tears as well as he could, went his way, a victim of torn desires and intensest anguish....
CHAPTER IX
FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE
The giant stranger who had talked to Henriette and made friends with de Vaudrey was Jacques Danton. He and his colleague, Maximilien Robespierre, were destined to be the outstanding figures of the French Revolution. It is worth while to stop here for a little and consider these two men in their historical aspects and for the profound influence which they exerted on the lives of our characters.
As the storm clouds blacken the sky and the sullen sea (not yet lashed to fury) is ridged in deep, advancing breakers, the mariner's eye discerns these stormy petrels flying about or momentarily perched on the masts of the s.h.i.+p of State.
Mark them well--Danton and Robespierre: today, merely ”esurient advocates,” petty men of law come up from the provinces to win their fortunes in Paris; tomorrow, leaders of faction; some months or years later, the rulers of France!
[Ill.u.s.tration: PIERRE BECOMES THE DEVOTED WORs.h.i.+PPER OF LOUISE WHOM HE HAS SAVED FROM THE RIVER]
Danton--”the huge, brawny figure, through whose black brows and rude flattened face there looks a waste energy as of Hercules not yet furibund.”
Robespierre--aptly described as the meanest man of the Tiers Estat: ”that anxious, slight, ineffectual-looking man, under thirty, in spectacles; his eyes, troubled, careful; with upturned face, snuffing dimly the uncertain future-time; complexion of a multiplex atrabiliar color, the final shade of which may be the pale sea-green!”
Such were they, afterwards to be known respectively as ”the pock-marked Thunderer” and the ”sea-green Incorruptible” of the Revolution. The slight, fox-like man had got himself elected to the States-General which in May, 1789, convened at Versailles to take up the troubled state of the country, whilst the lion-like and fiery Danton was the president of the Cordeliers electoral district of Paris--the head of a popular faubourg faction, not yet of power in the State.