Part 3 (2/2)

”Do you ask out of courteous curiosity, as meeting travelers may do, or for some other reason?”

”You may think whichever pleases you.”

”I am not making for the frontier, if that is what you want to know,”

laughed Barrington.

”I asked a question which it will be well for you to answer,” said the man, and it was evident that his companion was also on the alert.

”Have you authority to question me?” Barrington asked.

”Papers here,” said the man, touching his coat, ”and this.” His hand fell upon a pistol in his belt.

”Leave it there. It is the safest place.”

Seth's hands had come from his pocket with a pistol in it. Barrington still laughed.

”My friend seems as suspicious as you are. Let me end it, for truly I expected to be drinking with you before this, instead of trying to find a cause for quarrel. Your eyes must be sharp indeed if you can discover an aristocrat in me. I was for freedom and the people before you had struck a blow for the cause here in France. We are from the coast, before that from America, and we journey to Paris to offer our services to the Marquis de Lafayette.”

Perhaps the man believed him, perhaps he did not, but the result of an appeal to force was doubtful, and wine was an attraction. He held out his hand with an air that the welcome of France was in the action. For the present they could pose as friends, whatever might chance in the future.

”Sieur Motier the Marquis is now called, but in America that name would not appeal. We may drown our mistake in wine, the first but maybe not the last time we shall drink together.”

The landlord brought in the wine and departed without being questioned.

”Sieur Motier,” said Barrington, reflectively. ”News has traveled slowly to us in Virginia, and things here have moved quickly. You can tell me much. This meeting is a fortunate one for me.”

Into weeks and months had been crowded the ordinary work of a long period of time. After nearly three years of strenuous effort, the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly had come to an end. With Mirabeau as its master spirit, it had done much, some evil, but a great deal that was good. It had suppressed torture, done away with secret letters, and lightened the burden of many grievous taxes. Now, the one man who was able to deal with the crisis if any man was, the aristocrat who had become the darling of the rabble, the ”little mother” of the fisher-wives, the hope of even the King himself, was silent. Mirabeau was dead. In fear the King had fled from Paris only to be stopped at Varennes and brought back ignominiously to the capital. The Legislative a.s.sembly took the place of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, three parties in it struggling fiercely for the mastery, one party, that high-seated crowd called the Mountain, red republicans whose cry was ever ”No King,” growing stronger day by day.

Nations in arms were gathering on the frontiers of France, and the savagery of the populace was let loose. The Tuileries had been stormed, the Swiss Guard butchered, the royal family imprisoned in the Temple.

Quickly the Legislative a.s.sembly had given way to a National Convention, and the country was ripe for any and every atrocity the mind of man could conceive.

The patriot, sitting opposite to Barrington and drinking wine at intervals, told his tale with enthusiasm and with many comments of his own. He was full of the tenets of the Jacobin and Cordelian Clubs. For him the world, set spinning on a mad career when the Bastille fell, was moving too slowly again. There had been a good beginning, truly something had been done since, but why not make a good end of it?

Mirabeau, yes, he had done something, but the work had grown too large for him. He had died in good time before the people had become tired of him. France was for the people, and there must be death for all who stood in the people's way, and a quick death, too.

”Blood must run more freely, there will be no good end without that,” he said; ”the blood of all aristocrats, no matter what they promise, what they pretend. From the beginning they were liars. France has no use for them save to make carrion of.”

”And whose power is sufficient for all this?” Barrington asked.

”To-day, no one's. To-morrow;--who shall say? Things go forward quickly at times. A sudden wave might even raise me to power.”

”Then the good ending,” said Barrington.

The man caught no irony, he only heard the flattery.

”Then the blood flowing,” he laughed; ”so, as full in color and as freely spilt,” and he jerked the remains of the wine in his gla.s.s across the room, staining the opposite wall.

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