CHAPTER XXVI.
BILLET'S SORROW.
At the time when the Queen and her consort were leaving Versailles,never more to return under its roof, the following scene was takingplace in one of its inner yards, damp with the rain which a bitter fallgale was beginning to dry up.
Over a dead body a man clad in black was bending: a man in the RoyalLifeguards uniform knelt on the other side. Three paces off stood athird person, with fixed eyes and closed hands.
The body was of a young man not more than twenty-three, all of whoseblood seemed to have poured out through ghastly wounds in the head andchest. His furrowed and livid white breast appeared yet to heave withthe disdainful breath of hopeless defense. The head thrown back and themouth open in pain and anger, recalled the fine figure of speech of theAncient Romans:
And with a long-drawn wail the spirit fled to the abode of shades.
The man in black was Gilbert: the Lifeguards officer, Count Charny; thebystander, Billet.
The corpse was Viscount Valence Charny's.
Gilbert regarded it with that fixed gaze which suspends the fleeingsoul in the dying and seems in the dead, able to recall the fled one.
"Cold and rigid; he is dead, and really dead," he said at last.
Charny uttered a hoarse groan and pressing the corpse in his arms,emitted so heart-rending a sob that the physician shuddered and Billetwent off a little to hide his head in a corner of the quadrangle.Suddenly the mourner raised the body, set it against the wall in asitting posture and slowly came away, but looking to see if it wouldnot revive and follow him.
Gilbert remained on one knee, resting his chin on his handthoughtfully, appalled and motionless.
Then Billet quitted the nook and came to him, saying, as he no longerheard the wails of the count which had made his heart ache:
"Alas, Dr. Gilbert, this is really civil war, and what you foretoldis coming to pass. Only, the trouble comes sooner than I believed andperhaps sooner then you calculated. I have seen villains slaughterwicked men: I have trembled in all my limbs and felt a horror forsuch monsters. But yet the men who were killed so far were worthless.Now, as you predicted, they are killing honest folk. They have killedViscount Charny; I do not shudder but I grieve; I do not feel so muchhorror for the murderers as fear for myself. The young gentleman hasbeen fouly done to death, for he was only a soldier and fought; heought not to have been butchered."
He uttered a sigh from his vitals.
"To think that I knew him when a child," he continued: "I can see himnow, riding along on his little grey pony, carrying bread round to thepoor on behalf of his mother. He was a fine pink and white-faced child,with big blue eyes, who was always laughing.
"Well, it is queer! since I have seen him laying there, bleeding anddisfigured, it is no longer as a corpse that I think of him, but as thepretty boy with the basket on his left arm and a purse in his righthand. Really, Dr. Gilbert, I believe that I have had enough of thiskind of thing, and I do not care to see any more of it, for as all youforetold is a-coming true, I shall be seeing you die, and then----"
"Be calm, Billet," said the physician, shaking his head gently, "myhour has not struck."
"But mayhap mine has. Down yonder the harvest is rotting; the land islaying unplowed; and my family languishes whom I love, and ten timesmore fondly since I have seen this corpse for which his family willweep."
"What are you driving at, Billet? Do you suppose that I am going topity your fate?"
"Oh, no," answered the farmer simply; "but as I must cry out when I amin pain, and as crying out leads to nothing, I want to relieve myselfin my own way. In short, I want to go home on my farm, Master Gilbert."
"What, again?"
"Look ye, a voice down there is calling me home."
"That voice is prompting you to desertion, Billet."
"I am no soldier to desert, sir."
"What you want to do is worse than desertion in a soldier."
"I should like that explained, doctor."
"You come to Paris to overthrow an old house and you turn away beforethe building is down."
"For fear it will tumble on my friends, yes, doctor."
"Rather, to save yourself."
"Why, there is no law against taking care of Number One," said Billet.
"A pretty calculation! as if the stones might not bound in falling androlling, and kill the runaway at a distance."
"Oh, you know I am not to be scared."
"Then you will remain, for I have need of you here, my dear Billet."
"My folks also have need of me at home."
"Billet, Billet, I thought you had agreed with me that a man has nohome when he loves his country."
"I should like to know if you would talk like that if your sonSebastian lay there in that young gentleman's stead?"
He pointed to the corpse.
"Billet, a day will come when my son will see me laid out like that,"was the stoical response.
"So much the worse for you, doctor, if he is as cold as you over it."
"I hope he will bear it better than me and be all the firmer fromhaving had my example."
"Then you want to inure the youth to seeing blood flow. At his tenderage, to be accustomed to fires, murders, gibbets, riots, night attacks;to see queens insulted and kings badgered; and when he is cool like youand steel like a sword-blade, do you expect he will love and respectyou?"
"No; I do not want him to see any such sights, which is why I have senthim down to Villers Cotterets along with Ange Pitou though I almostregret it at present."
"You say you are sorry for it to-day, why to-day?"
"Because he would have seen the fable of the Lion and the Mouse put inaction, which would be reality to him henceforth."
"What do you mean, Dr. Gilbert?"
"I say that he would have seen a brave and honest farmer come to town,one who can neither read nor write; who never dreamed that his lifecould have any influence, good or bad over the highest destinies: hewould have seen that this man, who was about to quit Paris, as hewishes once more to do--contribute efficaciously towards saving theKing, the Queen and the two royal children."
"How is this, Dr. Gilbert?" asked Billet, staring.
"How sublimely innocent you are! I will tell you. Did you not awake atthe first noise in the night, guess that the tumult was a tempest aboutto break on the royal residence and run to arouse General Lafayette,for the general was sleeping."
"That was natural enough; he had been riding about for twelve hours; hehad not been abed for four-and-twenty."
"You led him to the palace," continued Gilbert; "you led him into thethick of the scoundrels, crying: "Back, villains, the revenger is uponye!""
"That's right enough; I did that."
"Well, Billet, my friend, you see that you have great compensation;though you could not prevent this young gentleman from being butchered,you did perhaps stay the great crime of the slaughter of the royalfamily. Ingrate, would you leave your country's service just when sucha mighty reward was yours?"
"But who would know anything about it when I never suspected it myself?"
"You and I, Billet; is not that enough?"
The farmer meditated for a while before he said as he held out his handto the physician:
"I guess you are right, doctor. But, you know, man is a weak, selfish,unsteady creature; you are the only one who is just the other style.What made you so?"
"Misfortune," replied the other, with a smile filled with more griefthan a sob.
"Lord, how singular--I thought misfortune soured a man."
"Weak men, yes."
"But if I were to meet misfortune and it was to make me wicked?"
"You may meet misfortune but you will never become wicked. I answer forthat."
"Then," sighed Billet, "I shall stay and see the game out. But I shallshow the white feather more than once, like this."
"But I shall be at hand to uphold you."
"So be it," said the farmer. Thr
owing a lazy look on Viscount Charny'sbody, which servants came to remove, he said: "What a vastly pretty boyhe was, with his laughing eye, when he rode along on his little greywith the basket and the purse--poor little master Charny!"
Poor Billet! he had not the mesmerist's prophetic soul, and he couldnot dream what events we have to trace, now that the King and Queenhave started to Paris to follow the road marked by the Revolution'sredhot plowshare; now that Charny begins to see what a winsome andnoble wife he has; now that our minor characters are standing out; nowthat poor Ange Pitou, quitting Paris with regret is going to play agrand part in the drama of his own country--our romance is but well onthe way. We shall meet our dear old friends and alas! we shall fightour stubborn old enemies in the pages of the continuation to this book,under the title of "THE HERO OF THE PEOPLE."
THE END.
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