La comtesse de Charny. English

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  CAGLIOSTRO'S ADVICE.

  On the evening of this awful day, while the pike-bearers were scouringParis through streets illuminated but deserted, to exhibit rags dyed inblood, with shouts of "The tyrant is dead! behold his blood!" two menwhose dress was different, sat in silence in a room in a house in St.Honore Street.

  Dressed in black, one was sitting at a table, with his head resting onhis hand, plunged into deep reverie, if not grief. The other, wearing acountryman's dress, strode up and down, with wrinkled forehead, gloomyeye, and folded arms. Every time his crossing line brought him by thetable, he cast a glance on the thinker.

  At last the countryman stopped and said, as he fixed his eye on theother:

  "Come, now, Citizen Gilbert, am I a brigand because I voted for theking's death?"

  The man in black raised his head, shook his melancholy brow, and said,holding out his hand to his companion:

  "No, Billet, you are no more a brigand for that than I am an aristocratfor voting the other way. You voted according to your conscience, and Ito mine. It is a terrible thing to take away from man that which youcan not restore."

  "So it is your opinion that despotism is inviolable," returned Billet,"liberty is revolt, and there is no justice on earth except such askings, that is, tyrants, dispense? Then what remains for the people,the right to serve and obey? Do you, Gilbert, the pupil of Rousseau,say that?"

  "No, Billet, for that would be an impiety against the people."

  "Come," said the farmer, "I am going to talk to you with the roughnessof my plain good sense, to which I do not mind your answering with allthe sharpness of your fine wit. Do you admit that a nation, believingitself oppressed, should have the right to disestablish its church,lower or even demolish the throne, fight and make itself free?"

  "Not a doubt of it."

  "Then it has the right to gather in the spoils of the victory?"

  "Yes, Billet; but not to compass such things with murder and violence.Remember that it is written, 'Thou shalt not kill thy neighbor.'"

  "But the king was no neighbor of mine," returned Billet; "he was myenemy. I remember what my poor mother read me in the Bible of whatSamuel said to the Israelites who asked him to appoint a king."

  "So do I, Billet; and Samuel anointed Saul--he did not kill him.

  "Oh, I know that if I get to arguing with you in book learning, I shalllose. So I simply ask you, were we right to take the Bastile?"

  "Yes."

  "When the king took away our right to hold a meeting, were we right tomeet in another place?"

  "You were."

  "Had we the right, when the king gathered foreign troops at Versaillesto feast them and overawe us, to take him away from among them andlodge him in Paris?"

  "Yes."

  "To bring him back when he tried to run away from the country?"

  "Yes."

  "Then we had a right to shut him up where he was so little out ofmischief that he continued to correspond with the invader. Ought we nothave brought him before the court for trial, to doom him, and--"

  "Ay, to banish, to perpetually imprison, all except death, because,guilty in the result, he was not so in the intention. You judge himfrom the people's standing, Billet; but he acted like the son of kings.Was he a tyrant, as you call him? No. An oppressor of the people? No.An accomplice of aristocrats and an enemy of freedom? No."

  "Then you judge him as royalty would?"

  "No; for then he would have been acquitted."

  "But you did so by voting for his life."

  "No; with life imprisonment. Granting he was not your neighbor, butyour enemy, he was a vanquished one, and ought not to have beenslain in cold blood. That is not execution, but immolation. You haveconferred on royalty something like martyrdom, and made justice seemvengeance. Take care! In doing too much, you have not done enough.Charles of England was executed, but his son reigned. But James II.was banished, and his sons died in exile. Human nature is humane, andyou have alienated from the Republic for fifty or a hundred years theimmense proportion of the population judging revolutions by theirfeelings. Believe me, my friend, Republicans ought most to bewail thedeath of Louis, for the blood will fall on them, and cost the Republicits life."

  "There is some truth in what you say, Gilbert," said a voice at thedoor.

  "Cagliostro!" exclaimed both debaters, turning with the same impulse.

  "Yes; but there is also truth in what Billet said."

  "That is the trouble in it," sighed Gilbert; "the cause we plead hastwo faces, and each, as he looks upon it, can say he is right."

  "But he ought also to admit that he may be wrong."

  "What is your opinion, master?" asked the doctor.

  "Yes, your opinion?" said Billet.

  "You have been trying the accused over again, but you should test thesentence. Had you doomed the king, you would have been right. Youdoomed the man, and you were wrong."

  "I don't understand," said Billet.

  "You ought to have slain the king amid his guards and courtiers, whileunknown to the people--when he was to them a tyrant. But, after havinglet him live and dwell under the eyes of the private soldier, the pettycivil servant, the workman, as a man, this sham abasement elevated him,and he ought to have been banished or locked up, as happens to any man."

  "I did not understand you," said Billet to the doctor, "but I do theCitizen Cagliostro."

  "Just think of their five months' captivity molding this lump--who wasborn to be a parish beadle--into a statue of courage, patience, andresignation, on a pedestal of sorrow; you sanctified him so that hiswife adored him. Who would have dreamed, my dear Gilbert," said themagician, bursting into laughter, "that Marie Antoinette would everhave loved her mate?"

  "Oh, if I had only guessed this," muttered Billet, "I would have slainhim before! I could have done it easily."

  These words were spoken with such intense patriotism that Gilbertpardoned them, while Cagliostro admired.

  "But you did not do it," said the latter. "You voted for death; andyou, Gilbert, for life. Now, let me give you a last piece of advice.You, Gilbert, strove to be a member of the convention to accomplish aduty; you, Billet, to fulfill vengeance; both are realized. You havenothing more to do here. Be gone."

  The two stared at him.

  "To-morrow, your indulgence will be regarded as a crime, and on thenext day your severity as bad. Believe me, in the mortal strifepreparing between hatred, fear, revenge, fanaticism, few will remainunspotted; some will be fouled with mud, some with blood. Go, myfriends, go!"

  "But France?" said the doctor.

  "Yes, France?" echoed Billet.

  "Materially," said Cagliostro, "France is saved; the external enemy isbaffled, the home one dead. The Revolution holds the ax in one hand andthe tri-colored flag in the other. Go in tranquillity, for before shelays them down, the aristocracy will be beheaded, and Europe conquered.Go, my friends, go to your second country, America!"

  "Will you go with me, Billet?" asked the doctor.

  "Will you forgive me?" asked Billet.

  The two clasped hands.

  "You must go at once. The ship 'Franklin' is ready to sail."

  "But my son?"

  Cagliostro had opened the door.

  "Come in, Sebastian," he said; "your father calls you."

  The young man rushed into his father's arms, while Billet sighed.

  "My carriage is at the door," said Cagliostro. Then, in a whisperto the doctor while Billet was asking news of the youth, he said,emphatically:

  "Take him away; he must not know how he lost his mother. He mightthirst for revenge."

  Gilbert nodded and opened a money drawer.

  "Fill your pockets," he said to Billet.

  "Will there be enough in a strange country?" he asked.

  "Bless you! with land at five dollars an acre, cleared, we can buy acounty. But what are you looking round for?"

  "For what would be no use to me, who can not wr
ite."

  "I see; you want to send good-bye to Pitou. Let me."

  "What have you written?"

  "MY DEAR PITOU,--We are leaving France--Billet, Sebastian, and I--and send you our united love. We think that as you are manager of Billet's farm, you do not need anything. One of these days we may write for you to come over and join us.

  "Your friend, "GILBERT."

  "Is that all?" asked the farmer.

  "There is a postscript," said the writer, looking the farmer in theface as he said:

  "Billet hopes you will take the best of care of Catherine."

  Billet uttered a cry of gratitude and shook Gilbert's hand again.

  Ten minutes afterward, the post-chaise carried far from Paris Gilbertand his friend and the son of Andrea of Charny.