"Your immodesty," said he, "falls in nothing short of the extraordinary frame of mind that you appear to be developing in connection with other matters. We shall have you beating a drum and screeching the Ca ira in the streets of Paris presently, like Mademoiselle de Mericourt."
She rose from the table, her face very white, her hand pressing upon her corsage. A moment she looked at him. Then:
"Do not let us talk of ourselves," she exclaimed at last. "There is a man in the Conciergerie who dies at noon unless you are forthcoming before then to save him. He himself will not betray you because he--No matter why, he will not. Tell me, Monsieur, how do you, who account yourself a man of honour above everything, intend to deal with this situation?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Once he is dead and done with--provided that he does not first betray me--I trust that, no longer having this subject to harp upon, you will consent to avail yourself of our pa.s.sport, and accompany me out of France."
"Honour does not for instance, suggest to you that you should repair to the Conciergerie and take the place that belongs to you, and which another is filling?"
A sudden light of comprehension swept now into his face.
"At last I understand what has been in your mind since yesterday, what has made you so odd in your words and manner. You have thought that it was perhaps my duty as a man of honour to go and effect the rescue of this fellow. But, my dear child, bethink you of what he is, and of what I am. Were he a gentleman--my equal--my course would stand clearly defined. I should not have hesitated a moment. But this canaille! Ma foi! let me beg of you to come to your senses. The very thought is unworthy in you."
"I understand you," she answered him, very coldly. "You use a coward"s arguments, and you have the effrontery to consider yourself a man of honour--a n.o.bleman. I no longer marvel that there is a revolution in France."
She stood surveying him for a moment, then she quietly left the room. He stared after her.
"Woman, woman!" he sighed, as he set down his napkin and rose in his turn.
His humour was one of pitying patience for a girl that had not the wit to see that to ask him--the most n.o.ble d"Ombreval--to die that La Boulaye might live was very much like asking him to sacrifice his life to save a dog"s.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE CONCIERGERIE
It wanted but a few minutes to noon as the condemned of the day were being brought out of the Conciergerie to take their places in the waiting tumbrils. Fourteen they numbered, and there was a woman amongst them as composed as any of the men. She descended the prison steps in nonchalant conversation with a witty young man of some thirty years of age, who had been one of the ornaments of the prerevolutionary salons.
Had the pair been on the point of mounting a wedding coach they could not have shown themselves in better spirits.
Aristocrats, too, were the remaining twelve, with one exception, and if they had not known how to live, at least they could set a very splendid example of how to die. They came mostly in pairs, and the majority of them emulating the first couple and treating the whole matter as a pleasantry that rather bored them by the element of coa.r.s.eness introduced by the mob. One or two were pale, and their eyes wore a furtive, frightened look. But they valiantly fought down their fears, and for all that the hearts within them may have been sick with horror, they contrived to twist a smile on to their pale lips. They did not lack for stout patterns of high bearing, and in addition they had their own arrogant pride--the pride that had brought them at last to this pa.s.s--to sustain them in their extremity. n.o.blesse les obligeait. The rabble, the canaille of the new regime, might do what they would with their bodies, but their spirits they could not break, nor overcome their indomitable pride. By the brave manner of their death it remained for them to make amends for the atrocious manner of their lives, and such a glamour did they shed upon themselves by the same brave manner, that it compelled sympathy and admiration of those that beheld them, and made upon humanity an impression deep enough to erase the former impression left by their misdeeds.
Like heroes, like sainted martyrs, they died, these men who, through generation after generation, had ground and crushed the people "neath the iron heel of tyranny and oppression, until the people had, of a sudden, risen and reversed the position, going to excesses, in their lately-awakened wrath, that were begotten of the excesses which for centuries they had endured.
Last of this gallant and spruce company (for every man had donned his best, and dressed himself with the utmost care) came Caron La Boulaye.
He walked alone, for although their comrade in death, he was their comrade in nothing else. Their heads might lie together in the sawdust of Sanson"s basket, but while they lived, no contact would they permit themselves, of body or of soul, with this sans-culotte. Had they known why he died, perhaps, they had shown him fellowship. But in their nescience of the facts, it would need more than death to melt them into a kindness to a member of the Convention, for death was the only thing they had in common, and death, as we have seen, had not conquered them.
As he was about to pa.s.s out, a gaoler suddenly thrust forward a hand to detain him, and almost simultaneously the door, which had swung to behind the last of his death-fellows, re-opened to admit the dapper figure of the Incorruptible.
He eyed Caron narrowly as he advanced into the hall, and at the composure evident in the young man"s bearing, his glance seemed to kindle with admiration, for all that his lips remained cruel in their tightened curves.
Caron gave him good-day with a friendly smile, and before Robespierre could utter a word the young man was expressing his polite regrets at having baulked him as he had done.
"I had a great object to serve, Maximilien," he concluded, "and my only regret is that it should have run counter to your wishes. I owe you so much--everything in fact--that I am filled with shame at the thought of how ill a return I am making you. My only hope is that by my death you will consider that I have sufficiently atoned for my ingrat.i.tude."
"Fool!" croaked Robespierre, "you are sacrificing yourself for some chimaera and the life you are saving is that of a very worthless and vicious individual. Of your ingrat.i.tude to me we will not speak.
But even now, in the eleventh hour, I would have you bethink you of yourself."
He held out his hands to him, and entreaty was stamped upon Robespierre"s countenance to a degree which perhaps no man had yet seen.
"Bethink you, cher Caron--" he began again. But the young man shook his head.
"My friend, my best of friends," he exclaimed, "I beg that you will not make it harder for me. I am resolved, and your entreaties do but heighten my pain of thwarting your--the only pain that in this supreme hour I am experiencing. It is not a difficult thing to die, Maximilien.
Were I to live, I must henceforth lead a life of unsatisfied desire. I must even hanker and sigh after a something that is unattainable. I die, and all this is extinguished with me. At the very prospect my desires fade immeasurably. Let me go in peace, and with your forgiveness."
Robespierre eyed him a moment or two in astonishment. Then he made an abrupt gesture of impatience.
"Fool that you are! It is suicide you are committing. And for what?
For a dream a shadow. Is this like a man, Caron"? Is this--Will you be still, you animal?" he barked at a gaoler who had once before touched him upon the arm. "Do you not see that I am occupied?"
But the man leant forward, and said some words hurriedly into Robespierre"s ear, which cast the petulance out of his face and mind, and caused him of a sudden to become very attentive.
"Ah?" he said at last. Then, with a sudden briskness: "Let the Citizen La Boulaye not go forth until I return," he bade the gaoler; and to Caron he said: "You will have the goodness to await my return."
With that he turned and stepped briskly across the hall and through the door, which the gaoler, all equality notwithstanding, hastened to open for him with as much servility as ever the haughtiest aristocrat had compelled.
Saving that single gaoler, La Boulaye was alone in the s.p.a.cious hall of the Conciergerie. From without they heard the wild clamouring and Ca-iraing of the mob. Chafing at this fresh delay, which was as a prolongation of his death-agony, La Boulaye was pacing to and fro, the ring of his footsteps on the stone floor yielding a hollow, sepulchral echo.
"Is he never returning?" he cried at last; and as if in answer to his question, the drums suddenly began to roll, and the vociferations of the rabble swelled in volume and grew shriller. "What is that?" he inquired.
The gaoler, on whose dirty face some measure of surprise was manifested, approached the little grating that overlooked the yard and peered out.
"Sacrenom!" he swore. "The tumbrils are moving. They have left you behind, Citizen."
But La Boulaye gathered no encouragement, such as the gaoler thought he might, from that contingency. He but imagined that it was Robespierre"s wish to put him back for another day in the hope that he might still loosen his tongue. An oath of vexation broke from him, and he stamped his foot impatiently upon the floor.
Then the door opened suddenly, and Robespierre held it whilst into the room came a woman, closely veiled, whose tall and shapely figure caused the young Deputy"s breath to flutter. The Incorruptible followed her, and turning to the gaoler:
"Leave us," he commanded briskly.
And presently, when those three stood alone, the woman raised her veil and disclosed the face he had expected--the beautiful face of Suzanne de Bellecour, but, alas! woefully pale and anguished of expression. She advanced a step towards Caron, and then stood still, encountering his steadfast, wonder-struck gaze, and seeming to falter. With a sob, at last she turned to Maximilien, who had remained a pace or two behind.
"Tell him, Monsieur," she begged.
Robespierre started out of his apparent abstraction. He peered at her with his short-sighted eyes, and from her to Caron. Then he came forward a step and cleared his throat, rather as a trick of oratory than to relieve any huskiness.
"To put it briefly, my clear Caron," said he, "the Citoyenne here has manifested a greater solicitude for your life than you did yourself, and she has done me the twofold service of setting it in my power to punish an enemy, and to preserve a friend from a death that was very imminent.
In the eleventh hour she came to me to make terms for your pardon.
She proposed to deliver up to me the person of the ci-devant Vicomte d"Ombreval provided that I should grant you an unconditional pardon.
You can imagine, my good Caron, with what eagerness I agreed to her proposal, and with what pleasure I now announce to you that you are free."
"Free!" gasped La Boulaye, his eyes travelling fearfully from Robespierre to Mademoiselle, and remaining riveted upon the latter as though he were attempting to penetrate into the secrets of her very soul.
"Practically free," answered the Incorruptible. "You may leave the Conciergerie when you please, thought I shall ask you to remain at your lodging in the Rue Nationale until this...o...b..eval is actually taken. Once he has been brought to Paris, I shall send you your papers that you may leave France, for, much though I shall regret your absence, I think that it will be wiser for you to make your fortune elsewhere after what has pa.s.sed."
La Boulaye took a step in Suzanne"s direction.
"You have done this?" he cried, in a quivering voice. "You have betrayed the man to whom you were betrothed?"