The False Chevalier

  CHAPTER XLVIII

  SISTERS DEATH AND TRUTH

  At a second-story window, in an unpretentious part of the Rue St.Honore--known just then as the Rue Honore, for the saints had beenabolished, together with the terrestrial aristocracy--a young woman wassitting one late July afternoon employed in sewing. She was pale, thin,and poorly clad. Her fingers were very nervous as she hurried on withher work.

  For three years the surges of the Revolutionary deluge had succeeded oneanother with ever-increasing rapidity, and at last threatened to swallowthe entire inhabitants of the city. "The generation which saw themonarchical _regime_ will always regret it," Robespierre was crying,"therefore every individual who was more than fifteen years old in 1789should have his throat cut." "Away with the nobles!" was shoutinganother vicious leader, "and if there are any good ones so much theworse for them. Let the guillotine work incessantly through the wholeRepublic. France has nineteen millions too many inhabitants, she willhave enough with five." "Milk is the nourishment of infants," announcedanother; "blood is that of the children of liberty."

  The new doctrine was not merely being shouted; it was being carried intopractice as fast as the executioner could work, and sometimes in asingle afternoon the life-stream of two hundred hearts gushed outthrough two hundred severed necks on the Place de la Revolution. TheKing, and at last the Queen, were among the slaughtered. None knew butthat his or her turn, or that of his dearest ones might come next. A toorespectable dress, a thoughtless expression, the malice of anextortionate workman, or the offending of a servant, meant death. Eventhe wickedest were betrayed by their associates to the Goddess of Blood,and citizens, as they hurried along the deserted and filthy streets,looked at each other with suspicious eyes. On the throne of France'sancient sovereigns sat a shadowy monarch from hell, and all recognisedhis name and reign--The Reign of Terror.

  In the midst of that thunder-fraught atmosphere sat this poor girl,mechanically glancing down the street from time to time at the silenthouses, each with the legal paper affixed stating the names of theinmates, for the information of the revolutionary committees.

  Her bearing, though humble, announced her as one of the hated class, andby scrutinising her thin features we see that she is "the CitizenessMontmorency, heretofore Baroness."

  She was absorbed in thought. Recollections, one by one, of the changeswhich had made her an old woman in experience at the age when mostmaidens become brides, were crossing her mind. She recalled the alarmingnews brought to the Hotel de Noailles of the march of the viragoes onVersailles, and with that news her suspense for the safety of Germain;the entry of General Lafayette (who was married to a Noailles) into thehotel towards morning, smilingly assuring the family that all was well;her agony upon word of the attack on the royal apartments; the deadlyillness of Germain at the Hotel-Dieu Hospital, whither some NationalGuards had taken him; the pauper bed and gown in which the Sisters ofthe Hospital kept him hidden from the roused populace who searched thewards for him; her own assumption of the humble dress of a servitor tonurse him; his pretended death and burial by substitute; his longdelirium, her joy at his return to life; his gratitude andconvalescence; the forced dispersal of the Sisters, and with it herremoval of her charge to the half-deserted Hotel de Poix; the mobsacking mansion after mansion around them and their inexplicableexemption; an anonymous warning at length to flee, and the subterfugesof Dominique to cover their removal to the present house.

  She thought also of the faithfulness of Germain to the King throughouthis misfortunes, and how in order to be ready for service in case of aroyalist opportunity, he had refused even her own entreaties to flee.

  And sewing on and looking with habitual apprehension down the street,she thought of the blanks in the old circle--sadly, but without tears,for she had grown beyond tears over memories, so often had she beencalled to shed them for events.

  With sorrowful recollection she saw again her good friend, Helene deMerecourt, and her own sister Jeanne, disappear out of life.

  There was that terrible day when the King was beheaded, and that otherwhen the Queen followed him; Bellecour, d'Amoreau, the Canoness,Vaudreuil, the Guiches, the Polignacs, were in exile. Others wereconcealed, scattered, outlawed, some perhaps included in the massacres;some perhaps lost among the immense number crowded into the seventyprisons of the City. When would _her_ turn arrive? When Germain's?

  A distant sound made her lips part in alarm. It was the too well-knownsurging murmur of a mob approaching. She hastily rose and closed thewindow. The Rue Honore was one of the highways particularly exposed topersecution, for its chief portion was lined with mansions where dweltmany of the "aristocrats." The great _porte cochere_ and street wall ofone were in full view of her window, coated with insulting placards andpainted in huge letters, "NATIONAL PROPERTY--Liberty, Equality,Fraternity." How far the property had become national may be inferredfrom the fact that the patriot commissioner who took its chattels intohis charge, and whose name was signed with a mark at the bottom of theplacard, was--Gougeon.

  In this quiet part of the street, however, the smaller houses usuallypassed unscathed, and the neighbourhood had the advantage of itsresidents not being so prying as in quarters still poorer. So that byaid of some bribery of patriots of the section, discreetly done byDominique, their slender stores of money had thus far seemed to sufficeto obtain them immunity. We say seemed to suffice, because there wassomething very remarkable, after all, in the escape of a Montmorency,and particularly one so intimate with the obnoxious Marechale deNoailles.

  The mob of women and red-capped men swarmed up the street, led by adrum, and singing "Ca ira"--

  "Ah, on it goes, and on it goes, and on it goes!-- The aristocrats to the lantern! Ah, on it goes, and on it goes, and on it goes!-- The aristocrats, we'll hang them."

  In front of the confiscated hotel the _Sans-culottes_ stopped, and,joining hands in a circle, whirled around in the wild Revolutionarydance, "the Carmagnole," singing the words--

  "Madame Veto had pledged her word, _Madame Veto had pledged her word_ To put all Paris to the sword, _To put all Paris to the sword_, But we all missed our biers Thanks to our canoneers. Dance, dance the Carmagnole, Hurrah for the sound, _Hurrah for the sound_, Dance, dance the Carmagnole, Hurrah for the sound of the cannon!"

  She watched the dancers, involuntarily fascinated. All at once an objecttapped against the window, and she noticed many eyes turned up to her inmalicious amusement. The object was pushed up to her on a long pole andagain tapped on the window; she dropped her sewing and sprang back witha scream. It was a human hand. A shout of coarse laughter met her ears,and the hand was withdrawn. She sank back in her chair and burst intotears.

  "Wretches!" cried a woman, darting forward from behind her and shaking afist at the window.

  "Oh, be careful," Cyrene gasped, pulling back the arm. "Have they seenyou?"

  "I fear so," was the answer, as dismayed as her question; and a numberof blows and thrusts sounded against the door below. But it was only amomentary diversion; the crowd had work cut out for it somewhere elseand the drum drew them onwards.

  "Oh, Germain," she said hysterically, "why do you risk your life so?"

  "Because it is worthless," replied the apparent woman, pulling off hishood and throwing aside the rest of his disguise. But I am a fool toendanger you that way. Oh my darling, you who saved my life, is it notrather to comfort you at times like this that I live?" and he knelt andkissed her hand.

  "Dearest," she answered softly, "you make my life happy in the verymidst of horrors."

  "I am unworthy of your love," he returned mournfully, rising to hisfeet.

  "You say that too often; but have not the old reasons lost their force?Even here we could make a home. Let us defer our marriage no longer."

  "We cannot marry," he said slowly.

  She thought he spoke of the prohibition of Christian rites by the law,and said--"But
Dominique knows of a priest, who is hidden in a cellar athis cousin's."

  He shook his head and she read a soul of infinite sorrow in his eyes asthey rested on her face.

  "It is the thought of his own death," was the interpretation thatflashed upon her.

  A rap was heard.

  "Come in, Dominique," said he.

  The list of inmates affixed to the front of the house would haveexplained Germain's disguise. It read--

  "The Citizen Dominique Levesque, boarding-house keeper.

  "_The Citizeness Marie Levesque, his wife._

  "The Citizeness Montmorency, sempstress."

  "Citizeness Levesque" was sometimes observed about the house by theneighbours, but the family, like many others, cultivated no intercourse.Wearing the garb only whenever absolutely necessary, he took part eachday in whatever work was obtained to support the household, and at nightwent out to keep track of what was happening.

  At the time of the guillotining of the Queen, he was restrained withdifficulty from throwing his life away in an insane rush upon themurderers.

  "My Lady Baroness," Dominique said, clinging to all the old delicateform of his respect--for the faithful servitor was as chivalrous as anyknight--"I regret to report that there is a new law compelling everybodyto take out cards of civism, as they call them, at the Hotel de Ville.During the trouble at our door a few moments ago, some of the_Sans-culottes_ threatened to return. I consider it absolutely necessarythat Madame and I should go at once and obtain these credentials."

  "Is there no way of getting them without Madame? It looks to medangerous," Lecour said.

  "The demand must be made in person, Monsieur le Chevalier. I havethought that question over very carefully."

  "If is the most dangerous thing yet."

  "I do not conceal the risk, Monsieur."

  "Dear Dominique," Cyrene put in firmly, "I am ready to do all you say."

  "Yes, our more than parent," Lecour added in tears, "she is ready totrust her life in your hands," and going over to Dominique he put hisarm upon his shoulder and kissed him.

  The old man's lip trembled and he withdrew, and at the same time Cyrenealso left the chamber to prepare for the ordeal.

  Then did Germain fully realise the sharpness of dread. She whom he lovedwas in the direst peril. He saw the gulf which had swallowed so manyothers yawning for her life, and he trembled as he had never trembledbefore. It must be said for him that he had always valued his own lifelittle and had been willing to risk it for another on more occasionsthan one. It was when not he but his heart's beloved was in such dangerthat his eyes were opened to the greatness of the fact of death.Moreover he felt that he was helpless to lessen the peril. For him toaccompany her to the Hotel de Ville was to make her fate absolutelycertain. That charge must be left to Dominique, and--God!

  God! He had not dared to think of God for years; yet now the Divine Faceappeared through the dissolving vision of things mortal, and he suddenlysaw it looming dim and awful as the one changeless Reality.

  Her step sounded returning and he composed himself. Both tried to bebrave. Both were thinking of the other's happiness.

  "Have no anxieties, my dear one," she exclaimed, coming close to him,her eyes moistened and voice trembling slightly, "I have our goodDominique to take care of me, and we shall soon return."

  "I do not doubt it," he replied as cheerily as he was able, bending andgently kissing her forehead. "Prudence and Courage!--all shall gorightly."

  But at the touch of his lips she started, threw her arms around his neckand passionately drew him to her.

  "And what, my beloved, if it should _not_ go rightly?--what for you tobe left behind?"

  "Darling, darling, do not say it," he cried, fervently returning herembraces. "All must and will go rightly. We cannot live without eachother. Trust in Providence."

  Ah, what those words meant for him!

  "I do," she murmured, "but would that Dominique's priest were here. Ilong for the eternal union of our souls."

  He pressed her to his breast in great emotion, then loosed his arms andstood looking sorrowfully at her again, as for the last time.

  "_Au revoir_," she whispered, her eyes intensely searching into his.

  "_Au revoir, ma chere_," he answered, mastering his voice with all hisstrength.

  Then she and Dominique left the house.