Part 17 (1/2)
”Their legs will crack this very morning in Paris at eight o'clock.”
”Those living beings whom I have seen, that cruel death!” she cried.
”Where is the Prime Minister? Christ help me!”
She took no heed of her flimsy, incongruous dress, her fatigue, her need of sleep. Her soul was overwhelmed with the Christian desire to save, and in her sudden energy the girl over-awed the reptile before her.
”Why do you wait, sir?” she exclaimed. ”Conduct me to the Minister instantly!”
”What, at this hour? In this manner? Does my lady reflect what will be said to-morrow throughout the town?” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.
”You have my command,” she answered him, motioning to her maid to follow.
Sometimes leading, and sometimes instructed where to go, the Abbe preceded her through a long maze of chambers and pa.s.sages, in each of which sentinels were posted, until they came to the antechamber of Monsieur de Calonne.
By good luck, the Minister, like herself, had not yet retired, but was signing papers.
His astonishment was unbounded at both her appearance and her agitated and remarkable request.
”Baroness,” said he, ”these men for whom you have such singular though meritorious sympathy have flagrantly wronged yourself and the King. How much better are they than the thousands who suffer the same fate every year under the well-weighed sentences of the bench?”
”What rends me, sir, is to see human beings die, into whose faces I have looked.”
”That speaks well for your heart, Madame; but what about the laws?”
”Are laws just under which three lives are set against a few trinkets?”
”Well, Baroness, that is the business not of you nor me, but of the magistrates. You admit at least the guilt of the criminals against society?”
”What has society done for these creatures? What have we who live at ease in Versailles done to make them good citizens? But I cease to argue, my lord, and know that in doing so I am presuming beyond any rights I might have. Listen, then, with your good heart--for all France knows the good heart of Monsieur de Calonne--to the intercession of a woman for three of her dying, neglected, and miserable fellow-men.”
”They have a fair and powerful advocate,” he said, smiling agreeably.
Calonne no longer resisted her appeal, but wrote the necessary order.
Putting profound grat.i.tude as well as respect into her three parting curtseys, she flew with it to her chamber.
”Get me an _enrage_,” she exclaimed to Jude. An _enrage_ was one of those lean post-horses specially used for quick travel to and from Paris, a distance they could make in a couple of hours.
She would trust no one with the Minister's order, but rapidly threw on a cloak and cap during the absence of the Abbe.
_Enrages_ were generally to be had on short notice day or night, but this night it seemed as if there were none in all Versailles; her anxiety and impatience increased, and she paced the room in agony of mind. At last Jude returned, and announced the vehicle.
Descending hastily, she stepped into it, still commanding the Abbe to accompany her. As it rattled forward, she kept her eyes fixed impatiently upon the face of her watch. Half-past six--three-quarters--seven--the quarter--the half--at length they were checked at the Chatelet by the crowd surging and swaying around them, with the wave-like confusion of the riot, heard the musketry, and learned from a guard who ran to protect her the cause of the trouble, and that the execution was about to take place on the Place de Greve.
Jude, in cowardly terror, fell back in a stupor, but the coachman was of that Parisian type to whom popular danger was like champagne, and on the promise of a louis he lashed his foaming horse to the Place de Greve.