Read Ebook: Le chevalier de Maison-Rouge by Dumas Alexandre Maquet Auguste

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Ebook has 5238 lines and 131919 words, and 105 pages

XL. The Tavern of Noah's Well 384

L. The Visit to the Domicile 461

CHEVALIER DE MAISON-ROUGE.

THE ENROLLED VOLUNTEERS.

It was on the evening of the 10th of March, 1793, ten o'clock was striking from Notre Dame, and each stroke sounding, emitted a sad and monotonous vibration. Night had fallen on Paris, not boisterous and stormy, but cold, damp, and foggy. Paris itself at that time was not the Paris of our day, glittering at night with thousands of reflected lights,--the Paris of busy promenades, of lively chat, with its riotous suburbs, the scene of audacious quarrels, and daring crime,-- but a fearful, timid, busy city, whose few and scattered inhabitants, even in crossing from one street to another, ran concealing themselves in the darkness of the alleys, and ensconcing themselves behind their portes-coch?res, like wild beasts tracked by the hunters to their lair.

As we have previously said, it was the evening of the 10th of March, 1793. A few remarks upon the critical situation of the country, which had produced the changed aspect of the capital, before we commence stating the events the recital of which form the subject of this history.

The state of affairs was truly frightful. France, more respected as a physical power, but less esteemed as a moral one, since the massacres of September and the execution of the 21st of January, was literally blockaded, like a simple town, by the whole of Europe. England was on our coasts, Spain upon the Pyrenees, Piedmont and Austria on the Alps, Holland and Prussia to the north of the Pays-Bas, and with one accord from the Upper Rhine to the Scheldt two hundred and fifty thousand combatants marched against the Republic. Our generals were repulsed in every direction. Miacrinski had been obliged to abandon Aix-la-Chapelle, and draw back upon Liege; Steingel and Neuilly were driven back upon Limbourg; while Miranda, who besieged Maestricht, fell back upon Tongres. Valence and Dampierre, reduced to beat a retreat, did so with a loss of half their number. More than ten thousand deserters had already abandoned the army, and cleverly scattered themselves in the interior. At last the Convention, having no hope except in Dumouriez, despatched courier after courier, commanding him to quit the borders of the Biesboos , and return to take the command of the army of the Meuse.

Sensitive at heart, like an animate body, France felt at Paris--that is to say, at its core--each and every blow levelled at it by invasion, revolt, or treason, even from quarters the most distant. Each victory was a riot of joy; every defeat an insurrection of terror. It is therefore easy to comprehend what tumult was produced by the news of these successive losses which we had just experienced.

On the preceding evening, the 9th of March, they had had at the Convention a sitting more stormy than usual; all the officers had received orders to join their regiments at the same time, and Danton, that audacious proposer of improbable things ,--Danton mounting the tribune, cried out, "Soldiers are wanting, say you? Offer Paris an opportunity of saving France. Demand from her thirty thousand men, send them to Dumouriez; and not only is France saved, but Belgium is secured, and Holland is conquered." This proposition had been received with shouts of enthusiasm, registers had been opened in all the sections, calling on them to assemble in the evening. Places of public amusement were closed to avoid all distraction, and the black flag was hoisted at the H?tel de Ville, in token of distress. Before midnight, five and thirty thousand names were inscribed on the registers; only this evening, as it had before occurred in September, in every section, while inscribing their names, the enrolled Volunteers had demanded that before their departure the traitors might be punished.

The traitors were in fact the "contre-revolutionists,"--the hidden conspirators who from within menaced the Revolution, thus menaced from without. But as may be easily understood, the word "traitor" extended to all those to whom the extreme parties who at this period tore France wished to apply it. The traitors were the weaker party; as the Girondins were the weakest, the Montagnards decided that the Girondins must be the traitors.

On the next day, which was the 10th of March, all the Montagnard deputies were present at the sitting. The Jacobins, armed, filled the tribunes, after having turned out the women; the mayor presented himself with the Council of the Commune, confirming the report of the Commissioners of the Convention respecting the devotedness of the citizens, but repeating the wish, unanimously expressed the preceding evening, for a Tribunal Extraordinary appointed to judge the traitors. The report of the Committee was instantly demanded with loud vociferations. The Committee met immediately, and in five minutes afterward Robert Lindet declared that a Tribunal would be formed, composed of nine judges , divided into two permanent sections, and prosecuting, by order of the Convention or directly, all those who were found guilty in any way of attempting to mislead the people.

The Montagnards, in reply to this apostrophe, demanded to put the matter to the vote in loud tones. "Yes," exclaimed F?raud, "let us vote to make known to the world the men who are willing to assassinate innocence under the mask of the law." They voted at length; and against all expectation the majority decided-- that they would have juries; that these juries should be of equal numbers in the departments; that they should be nominated by the Convention. At the moment when these three propositions were approved, loud cries were heard; but the Convention, accustomed to receive occasional visits from the populace, inquired their wishes, and were informed in reply that it was merely a deputation of enrolled Volunteers, who, having dined at the Halle-au-Bl?, demanded to be permitted to display their military tactics before the Convention.

The doors were opened immediately, and six hundred men, armed with swords, pistols, and pikes, apparently half-intoxicated, filed off amid shouts of applause, and loudly demanded the death of the traitors. "Yes," replied Collot d' Herbois, addressing them, "yes, my friends, we will save you--you and liberty--notwithstanding their intrigues." These words were followed by an angry glance toward the Girondins, which plainly intimated they were not yet beyond reach of danger. In short, the sitting of the Convention terminated, the Montagnards scattered themselves among other clubs, running first to the Cordeliers and then to the Jacobins, proposing to place the traitors beyond the reach of the law by cutting their throats that very night.

The wife of Louvet resided in the Rue Saint Honor?, near the Jacobins. She, hearing these vociferations, descended, entered the club, and heard this proposition; then quickly retraced her steps, and warned her husband of the impending danger. Louvet, hastily arming himself, ran from door to door to alarm his friends, but found them all absent; then fortunately ascertaining from one of the servants they had gone to P?tion's house, he followed them there. He found them quietly deliberating over a decree which ought to be presented on the morrow, and which by a chance majority they hoped to pass. He related what had occurred, communicated his fears, informed them of the plot devised against them by the Cordeliers and Jacobins, and concluded by urging them on their side to pursue some active and energetic measure.

Then P?tion rose, calm and self-possessed as usual, walked to the window, opened it, looked at the sky, and then extended his hand, which he drew in covered with moisture. "It rains," said he; "there will be nothing to-night."

Through this half-opened window the last vibration of the clock was heard striking ten.

Such were the occurrences of the 10th of March and the evening preceding it,--occurrences which, in this gloomy obscurity and menacing silence, rendered the abodes destined to shelter the living like sepulchres peopled by the dead. In fact, long patrols of the National Guard, preceded by men marching with fixed bayonets, troops of citizens, armed at hazard, pushing against each other, gendarmes closely examining each doorway, and strictly scrutinizing every narrow alley,--these were the sole inhabitants who ventured to expose themselves in the streets. Every one instinctively understood that some unusual and terrible plot was in progress.

The cold and drizzling rain, which had tended so much to reassure P?tion, had considerably augmented the ill-humor and trouble of these inspectors, whose every meeting resembled preparation for combat, and who, after recognizing each other with looks of defiance, exchanged the word of command slowly and with a very bad grace. One would have said on seeing them separate and return to their several posts, that they mutually feared an attack from behind.

On the same evening, when Paris was a prey to one of these panics ,--the evening on which the massacre of the lukewarm revolutionists was secretly debated, who after having voted the death of the king, recoiled to-day before the death of the queen, a prisoner in the Temple, with her children and her sister-in-law,--a woman, enveloped in a mantle of lilac printed cotton with black spots, her head almost buried in her hood, glided along the houses in the Rue Saint Honor?, seeking concealment under a door-porch, or in the angle of a wall, every time a patrol appeared, remaining motionless as a statue and holding her breath till he had passed, and once more pursuing her anxious course with increased rapidity, till some danger of a similar nature again compelled her to seek refuge in silence and immobility.

She had already travelled over with impunity part of the Rue Saint Honor?, when at the corner of the Rue de Grenelle she suddenly encountered, not a body of patrol, but a small troop of our brave enrolled Volunteers, who, having dined at the Halle-au-Bl?, found their patriotism considerably increased by the numerous toasts they had drunk to their future victories. The poor woman uttered a cry, and made a futile attempt to escape by the Rue du Coq.

"Ah, ah, Citizen!" cried the chief of the Volunteers , "Ah, where are you going?"

The fugitive made no reply, but continued her rapid movement.

"What sport!" said the chief; "it is a man disguised, an aristocrat who thinks to save himself."

The sound of two or three guns escaping from hands rather too unsteady to be depended upon, announced to the poor woman that her haste was a fatal mistake.

"No, no," cried she, stopping short, and retracing her steps; "no, Citizen; you are mistaken. I am not a man."

"Then advance at command," said the chief, "and reply to my questions. Where are you hastening to, charming belle of the night?"

"But, Citizen, I am not going anywhere. I am returning."

"Oh! returning, are you?"

"Yes."

"It is rather a late return for a respectable woman, Citizeness?"

"I am returning from visiting a sick relative."

"Poor little kitten!" said the chief, making a motion with his hand, before which the horrified woman quickly recoiled, "where is your passport?"

"My passport! What is that, Citizen? What do you mean?"

"Have you not read the decree of the Commune?"

"No."

"You have heard it proclaimed, then?"

"Alas, no! What, then, said this decree, in the name of God?"

"In the first place, we no longer say 'God'; we only speak of the 'Supreme Being' now."

"Pardon my error. It is an old custom."

"Bad habit--the habit of the aristocracy."

"I will endeavor to correct myself, Citizen; but you said--"

"I said that the decree of the Commune prohibited any one to go out, after ten at night, without a civic pass. Now, have you this civic pass?"

"Alas! no."

"You have forgotten it at your relative's?"

"I was ignorant of the necessity of taking it with me on going out."

"Then come with us to the first post; there you can explain all prettily to the captain; and if he feels perfectly satisfied with your explanation, he will depute two men to conduct you in safety to your abode, else you will be detained for further information. File left! forward! quick march!"

From the cry of terror which escaped the poor prisoner, the chief of the enrolled Volunteers understood how much the unfortunate woman dreaded this interview.

And the chief seizing the arm of the captive, placed it within his own, and dragged her, notwithstanding her cries and tears, toward the post of the Palais Egalit?.

They were already at the top of the barrier of Sergents, when suddenly a tall young man, closely wrapped in a mantle, turned the corner of the Rue des Petits-Champs at the very moment when the prisoner was endeavoring, by renewing her supplications, to regain her liberty. But without listening the chief dragged her brutally forward. The woman uttered a cry of grief mingled with terror. The young man saw the struggle, heard the cry, and bounding from the opposite side of the street, found himself facing the little troop.

"What is all this? What are you doing to this woman?" demanded he of the person who appeared to be the chief.

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