CHAPTER VI. THE CITIZEN COMMISSIONER
It was, after all, no miracle, unless the very timely arrival uponthe scene of a regiment of the line might be accepted in the light ofHeaven-directed. As a matter of fact, a rumour of the assault that wasto be made that night upon the Chateau de Bellecour had travelled as faras Amiens, and there, that evening, it had reached the ears of a certainCommissioner of the National Convention, who was accompanying thisregiment to the army of Dumouriez, then in Belgium.
Now it so happened that this Commissioner had meditated making a descentupon the Chateau on his own account, and he was not minded that anypeasantry should forestall or baulk him in the business which heproposed to carry out there. Accordingly, he issued certain ordersto the commandant, from which it resulted that a company, two hundredstrong, was immediately despatched to Bellecour, to either defend orrescue it from the mob, and thereafter to await the arrival of theCommissioner himself.
This was the company that had reached Bellecour in the eleventh hour,to claim the attention of the assailants. But the peasants, as we haveseen, were by no means disposed to submit to interference, and this theysignified by the menacing front they showed the military, abandoningtheir attack upon the Chateau until they should be clear concerning theintentions of the newcomers. Of these intentions the Captain did notleave them long in doubt. A brisk word of command brought his men into abristling line of attack, which in itself should have proved sufficientto ensure the peasantry's respect.
"Citizens" cried the officer, stepping forward, "in the name of theFrench Republic I charge you to withdraw and to leave us unhampered inthe business we are here to discharge."
"Citizen-captain," answered the giant Souvestre, constituting himselfthe spokesman of his fellows, "we demand to know by what right youinterfere with honest patriots of France in the act of ridding it ofsome of the aristocratic vermin that yet lingers on its soil?"
The officer stared at his interlocutor, amazed by the tone of the man asmuch as by the sudden growls that chorused it, but nowise intimidated byeither the one or the other.
"I proclaimed my right when I issued my charge in the name of theRepublic," he answered shortly.
"We are the Republic," Souvestre retorted, with a wave of the handtowards the ferocious crowd of men and women behind him. "We are theNation--the sacred people of France. In our own name, Citizen-soldier,we charge you to withdraw and leave us undisturbed."
Here lay the basis of an argument into which, however, the Captain,being neither politician nor dialectician, was not minded to be drawn.He shrugged his shoulders and turned to his men.
"Present arms!" was the answer he delivered, in a voice of supremeunconcern.
"Citizen-captain, this is an outrage," screamed a voice in the mob. "Ifblood is shed, upon your own head be it."
"Will you withdraw?" inquired the Captain coldly.
"To me, my children," cried Souvestre, brandishing his sabre, andseeking to encourage his followers. "Down with these traitors whodishonour the uniform of France! Death to the blue-coats!"
He leapt forward towards the military, and with a sudden roar hisfollowers, a full hundred strong sprang after him to the charge.
"Fire!" commanded the Captain, and from the front line of his companyfifty sheets of flame flashed from fifty carbines.
The mob paused; for a second it wavered; then before the smoke hadlifted it broke, and shrieking in terror, it fled for cover, leaving thevalorous Souvestre alone, to revile them for a swarm of cowardly rats.
The Captain put his hands to his sides and laughed till the tearscoursed down his cheeks. Checking his mirth at last, he called toSouvestre, who was retreating in disgust and anger.
"Hi! My friend the patriot! Are you still of the same mind or will youwithdraw your people?"
"We will not withdraw," answered the giant sullenly. "You dare not fireupon free citizens of the French Republic."
"Dare I not? Do you delude yourself with that, nor think that becausethis time I fired over your heads I dare not fire into your ranks. Igive you my word that if I have to command my men to fire a second timeit shall not be mere make-believe, and I also give you my word that ifat the end of a minute I have not your reply and you are not moving outof this--every rogue of you shall have a very bitter knowledge of howmuch I dare."
Souvestre was headstrong and angry. But what can one man, howeverheadstrong and however angry, do against two hundred, when his ownfollowers refuse to support him. The valour of the peasants wasdistinctly of that quality whose better part is discretion. The thunderof that fusillade had been enough to shatter their nerve, and toSouvestre's exhortations that they should become martyrs in the noblecause, of the people against tyranny, in whatsoever guise it came, theyanswered with the unanswerable logic of caution.
The end was that a very few moments later saw them in full retreat,leaving the military in sole and undisputed possession of Bellecour.
The officer's first thought was for the blazing stables, and he at onceordered a detachment of his company to set about quenching the fire, amatter in which they succeeded after some two hours of arduous labour.
Meanwhile, leaving the main body bivouacked in the courtyard, he enteredthe Chateau with a score of men, and came upon the ten gentlemen stillstanding in the shambles that the grand staircase presented. With theMarquis de Bellecour the Captain had a brief and not over courteousinterview. He informed the nobleman that he was acting under the ordersof a Commissioner, who had heard at Amiens, that evening, of the attackthat was to be made upon Bellecour. Not unnaturally the Marquis wasmistrustful of the ends which that Commissioner, whoever he might be,looked to serve by so unusual an act. Far better did it sort withthe methods of the National Convention and its members to leave thebutchering of aristocrats to take its course. He sought informationat the Captain's hands, but the officer was reticent to the point ofcurtness, and so, their anxiety but little relieved, since it might seemthat they had but escaped from Scylla to be engulfed in Charbydis, thearistocrats at Bellecour spent the night in odious suspense. Those thatwere tending the wounded had perhaps the best of it, since thus theirminds were occupied and saved the torture of speculation.
The proportion of slain was mercifully small: of twenty that had fallenit was found that but six were dead, the others being more or lessseverely hurt. Conspicuous among the men that remained, and perhaps thebravest of them all was old Des Cadoux. He had recovered his snuff-box,than which there seemed to be nothing of greater importance in theworld, and he moved from group to group with here a jest and there aword of encouragement, as seemed best suited to those he addressed.Of the women, Mademoiselle de Bellecour and her sharp tongued mother,showed certainly the most undaunted fronts.
Suzanne had not seen her betrothed since the fight upon the stairs. Butshe was told that he was unhurt, and that he was tending a cousin of hiswho had been severely wounded in the head.
It was an hour or so after sunrise when he sought her out, and theystood in conversation together--a very jaded pair--looking down from oneof the windows upon the stalwart blue-coats that were bivouacked in thequadrangle.
Suddenly on the still morning air came the sound of hoof-beats, and asthey looked they espied a man in a cocked hat and an ample black cloakriding briskly up the avenue.
"See?" exclaimed Ombreval; "yonder at last comes the great man weare awaiting--the Commissioner of that rabble they call the NationalConvention. Now we shall know what fate is reserved for us."
"But what can they do?" she asked.
"It is the fashion to send people of our station to Paris," he replied,"to make a mock of us with an affair they call a trial before theymurder us."
She sighed.
"Perhaps this gentleman is more merciful," was the hope she expressed.
"Merciful?" he mocked. "Ma foi, a ravenous tiger may be merciful beforeone of these. Had your father been wise he had ordered the few of usthat remained to charge those soldiers when they entered, and to havemet o
ur end upon their bayonets. That would have been a merciful fatecompared with the mercy of this so-called Commissioner is likely toextend us."
It seemed to be his way to find fault, and that warp in his characterrendered him now as heroic--in words--as he had been erstwhile scornful.
Suzanne shuddered, brave girl though she was.
"Unless you can conceive thoughts of a pleasanter complexion," she said,"I should prefer your silence, M. d'Ombreval."
He laughed in his disdainful way--for he disdained all things, exceptinghis own person and safety--but before he could make any answer they werejoined by the Marquis and his son.
In the courtyard the horseman was now dismounting, and a moment or twolater they heard the fall of feet, upon the stairs. A soldier threw openthe door, and holding it, announced:
"The Citizen-deputy La Boulaye, Commissioner of the National Conventionto the army of General Dumouriez."
"This," mocked Ombreval, to whom the name meant nothing, "is therepresentative of a Government of strict equality, and he is announcedwith as much pomp as was ever an ambassador of his murdered Majesty's."
Then a something out of the common in the attitude of his companionsarrested his attention. Mademoiselle was staring with eyes full of themost ineffable amazement, her lips parted, and her cheeks whiter thanthe sleepless night had painted them. The Marquis was scowling in asurprise that seemed no whit less than his daughter's, his head thrustforward, and his jaw fallen. The Vicomte, too, though in a milderdegree, offered a countenance that was eloquent with bewilderment. Fromthis silent group Ombreval turned his tired eyes to the door and tookstock of the two men that had entered. One of these was Captain Juste,the officer in command of the military; the other was a tall man, witha pale face, an aquiline nose, a firm jaw, and eyes that were verystern--either of habit or because they now rested upon the man who fouryears ago had used him so cruelly.
He stood a moment in the doorway as if enjoying the amazement which hadbeen sown by his coming. There was no mistaking him. It was the same LaBoulaye of four years ago, and yet it was not quite the same. The facehad lost its boyishness, and the strenuous life he had lived had scoredit with lines that gave him the semblance of a greater age than was his.The old, poetic melancholy that had dwelt in the secretary's countenancewas now changed to strength and firmness. Although little known as yetto the world at large, the great ones of the Revolution held him in highesteem, and looked upon him as a power to be reckoned with in the nearfuture. Of Robespierre--who, it was said, had discovered him and broughthim to Paris--he was the protege and more than friend, a protection andfriendship this which in '93 made any man almost omnipotent in France.
He was dressed in a black riding-suit, relieved only by the whiteneck-cloth and the tricolour sash of office about his waist. He removedhis cocked hat, beneath which the hair was tied in a club with the samescrupulous care as of old.
Slowly he advanced into the salon, and his sombre eyes passed from theMarquis to Mademoiselle. As they rested upon her some of the sternnessseemed to fade from their glance. He found in her a change almost asgreat as that which she had found in him. The lighthearted, laughinggirl of nineteen, who had scorned his proffered love when he had wooedher that April morning to such disastrous purpose, was now ripened intoa stately woman of three-and-twenty. He had thought his boyish passiondead and buried, and often in the years that were gone had he smiledsoftly to himself at the memory of his ardour, as we smile at thememory of our youthful follies. Yet now, upon beholding her again, sowondrously transformed, so tall and straight, and so superbly beautiful,he experienced an odd thrill and a weakening of the stern purpose thathad brought him to Bellecour.
Then his glance moved on. A moment it rested on the supercilious,high-bred countenance of the Vicomte d'Ombreval, standing with soproprietary an air beside her, then it passed to the kindly old face ofDes Cadoux, and he recalled how this gentleman had sought to stay theflogging of him. An instant it hovered on the Marquis, who--haggard offace and with his arm in a sling--was observing him with an expressionin which scorn and wonder were striving for the mastery; it seemed toshun the gaze of the pale-faced Vicomte, whose tutor he had been in theold days of his secretaryship, and full and stern it returned at last tosettle upon the Marquis.
"Citizen Bellecour," he said, and his voice, like his face, seemed tohave changed since last the Marquis had heard it, and to have grown moredeep and metallic, "you may marvel, now that you behold the Commissionerwho sent a company of soldiers to rescue you and your Chateau from thehands of the mob last night, what purpose I sought to serve by extendingto you a protection which none of your order merits, and you least ofany, in my eyes."
"The times may have wrought sad and overwhelming changes," answered theMarquis, with cold contempt, "but it has not yet so utterly abased usthat we bring ourselves to speculate upon the purposes of the rabble."
A faint crimson flush crept into Caron's sallow cheeks.
"Indeed, I see how little you have changed!" he answered bitterly. "Youare of those that will not learn, Citizen. The fault lies here," headded, tapping his head, "and it will remain until we remove the oneswith the other. But now for the business that brings me," he proceeded,more briskly. "Four years ago, Citizen Bellecour, you laid your whipacross my face in the woods out yonder, and when I spoke of seekingsatisfaction action you threatened me with your grooms. I will not speakof your other brutalities on that same day. I will confine myself tothat first affront."
"Be brief, sir," cried the Marquis offensively. "Since you have theforce to compel us to listen to you, let me beg that you will at leastdisplay the generosity of detaining us no longer than you need."
"I will be as brief as it lies within the possibility of words,"answered Caron coldly. "I am come, Citizen Bellecour, to demand of youto-day the satisfaction which four years ago you refused me."
"Of me?" cried the Marquis.
"Through the person of your son, the Vicomte, as I asked for it fouryears ago," said Caron. "You are am old man, Citizen, and I do not fightold men."
"I am yet young enough to cut you into ribbons, you dog, if I wereminded to dishonour myself by meeting you." And turning to Ombreval forsympathy, he vented a low laugh of contemptuous wonder.
"Insolence!" sneered Ombreval sympathetically, whilst Mademoiselle stoodlooking on with cheeks that were growing paler, for that this eventwould end badly for either her father or her brother she never doubted.
"Citizen Bellecour," said Caron, still very coldly, "you have heard whatI propose, as have you also, Citizen-vicomte."
"For myself," began the youth "I am--"
"Silence, Armand!" his father commanded, laying a hand upon hissleeve. "Understand me, citizen-deputy, or citizen-commissioner, orcitizen-blackguard or whatever you call your vile self, you are come ona fruitless journey to Bellecour. Neither I nor my son is so lost to theduty which we owe our rank as to so much as dream of acceding to yourpreposterous request. I think, sir, that you had been better advised tohave left the mob to its work last night, if you but restrained it forthis purpose."
"Is that your last word?" asked La Boulaye, still calmly weathering thatstorm of insults.
"My very last, sir."
"There are more ways than one of taking satisfaction for that affront,Citizen Bellecour," rejoined La Boulaye, "and if the course which Inow pursue should prove more distasteful to you than that which Ilast suggested, the blame of it must rest with you." He turned to thebluecoat at the door. "Citizen-soldier, my whip."
There was a sudden movement among the aristocrats--a horrifiedrecoiling--and even Bellecour was shaken out of his splendid arrogance.
"Insolent cur!" exclaimed Ombreval with withering scorn; "to whatlengths is presumption driving you?"
"To the length of a horsewhip," answered La Boulaye pleasantly.
He received the whip from the hands of the soldier and he now advancedtowards Bellecour, unwinding the lash as he came. Ombreval barred hisway with an oath.
/> "By Heaven: you shall not!" he cried.
"Shall not?" echoed La Boulaye, his lips curling. "You had best standaside--you that are steeped in musk and fierceness." And before thestern and threatening contempt of La Boulaye's glance the young noblemanfell back. But his place was taken by the Vicomte de Bellecour, whoadvanced to confront Caron.
"Monsieur la Boulaye," he announced, "I am ready and willing to meetyou." And considering the grim alternative with which the Republicanshad threatened him, the old Marquis had not the courage to interfereagain.
"Ah!" It was an exclamation of satisfaction from the Commissioner. "Iimagined that you would change your minds. I shall await you, Citizen,in the garden in five minutes' time."
"I shall not keep you waiting, Monsieur," was the Vicomte's answer.
Very formally La Boulaye bowed and left the room accompanied by theofficer and followed by the soldier.
"Mon Dieu!" gasped the Marquise, fanning herself as the door closedafter the Republicans. "Open me a window or I shall stifle! How theplace reeks with them. I am a calm woman, Messieurs, but, on my honour,had he addressed any of you by his odious title of 'citizen' again, Iswear that I had struck him with my own hands."
There were some that laughed. But Mademoiselle was not of those.
Her eyes travelled to her brother's pale face and weakly frame, and herglance was such a glance as we bend upon the beloved dead, for in himshe saw one who was going inevitably to his death.