In the Name of Liberty: A Story of the Terror

  I

  FAMINE

  On the first day of September, 1793, Nicole left the Rue Maugout withthe intention of visiting the Convention. Her step, that a year agowould have been confounded with the hum of life, now echoed down thequiet streets without interruption. Her eye, that once flashed soalertly through the curious crowd, passed with the indifference ofhabit down the deserted vista, and returned into the fixity of mentalabstraction. The passers-by were rare; those who hung on the windowsscreened themselves. At a few doorways groups of emaciated childrenwatched her progress, eyeing her basket with wolfish eyes. A year hadbrought but slight change in her. She still retained the bloom ofyouth, but her glance was more pensive. She was no longer gipsy orgirl. A certain thoughtfulness had succeeded, elusive and arch, thattold of the awakened imagination.

  Twice on her way a band of police enveloping a prisoner passed, aspasses a whirlwind over the stretches of the desert. Nicole gave thembut a casual glance; such of the inhabitants as the familiar fallof feet brought to the windows retired indifferently, the prisonersthemselves stoically adding their resignation to the monotony of thescene.

  On the thoroughfares knots of Tapedures, the ruffians of the Terror,became frequent, stalking the town, beating the streets for their humangame. Occasionally she met a bill-poster affixing the latest decreeof the Republic--violent notes, in blue, violet, yellow, or red, thatsplashed the walls on every side. About the bakeries and butcher-shopsknots of beggars were assembled, often reclining on the ground,watching with dreary, troubled glances those havens of food, ready tobattle for a scrap of refuse.

  A mother from a distant quarter, drifting from shop to shop, haltedbefore such a group with a timid inquiry. From the loiterers, watchingwith confident indifference, a hag, extending her shriveled arm,shouted sarcastically:

  "Welcome, citoyenne. You want something to eat? Take it; take it. Weare so tired of eating meat in this section--nothing but beef andmutton and venison and pheasants here, morning and night. We gettired of that sort of thing in the end, you know. You were right tocome here; see how well fed we are, how sleek! Don't believe him, hiscellars are full of meat. It's rotting away. No one to eat it!"

  From the fasting hags a rumble, rather than a laugh, went up. The womanwho had covered perhaps half of Paris melted into a storm of sobs,beseeching a crust or a bone for the sake of her children. Then thehag, her raillery changing to anger, burst out:

  "And we, have we no children? Are we not mothers, too? Hark to thewoman: she thinks she's the only one to be pitied! Be off! Leave us inpeace with your eternal wailings!"

  At other times, women from the quarter itself, returning from ascouring of the markets, would awaken a sudden flame of interest.

  "What luck?"

  "What did you get?"

  "Bread?"

  "Meat?"

  The scouts always denied success. Then a chorus arose:

  "She's hiding it!"

  "Show us your basket!"

  "Eh, and under your dress!"

  Once, in the Rue St. Honore, a slip of a girl had almost freed herselfof the questioning crowd, when a lean dog with a sharp nose bounded,sniffing, to her side. There was a quick turning in the crowd, and thenearest woman, leaping to her feet, shouted hysterically:

  "I smell dried fish!"

  The next moment, up the street a scuttling speck fled before a frenziedcloud from which shot out white arms and grasping hands.

  Through such mad scenes of famine, Nicole arrived at the Hall of theConvention; where, being early, she entered the Tuileries to await thearrival of Barabant.

  The gardens that once resounded with the hum of life, that oncewere gay with the swish of many colors, were now brown with theuninterrupted stretch of earth, rustling with the pervading sigh ofleaves. Already in the trees, in the air, and in the tired soil wasthe melancholy of the parting season. Each breath that disturbed thebranches, however slightly, set free a caravansary of flutteringleaves, and the leaves were sear.

  She seated herself on a bench and abandoning the basket and claspingher knee, watched the whirling leaves heap themselves about her feet.One or two poised on her shoulder, in her hair, without her heedingthem. Presently Goursac, also on his way to the Convention, joined her.

  "This is the work of the cursed Montagne!" he said grimly, viewing thedesolate gardens. "And yet Javogues is not satisfied. He would turn itinto a cemetery!"

  "Listen, my friend," she said earnestly. "If the Girondins fall, youwill not stay to sacrifice your life to Javogues?"

  "Do you think that I, a Girondin, would fly from that rascal!" he criedindignantly. "He works in the dark; he is incapable of striking in theopen."

  "And if the Girondins fall?" she persisted. But he refused to entertainthe suggestion.

  "This reminds me," he said, with a sweep of his arm, "of the time wewere here a year ago. Do you remember?"

  She nodded.

  "Well," he said brusquely, "are you happy?"

  "Yes."

  "As happy as you thought?"

  "No," she said slowly, "but it is my fault. The fault of my position,if you wish. I am jealous!"

  "Of Louison?"

  "No! Of what may happen."

  "Why shouldn't he marry you?" he said angrily.

  "Because I have not asked him," she answered wearily. "And because Iwould not have it."

  "Why?"

  "Because I love him, my friend," she said in rebuke. "And because awaif of the streets does not marry a man of education and positionunless she wishes to drag him down."

  Goursac, to her surprise, leaned over and patted her hand; then, asthough ashamed to have shown such tenderness, he added gruffly:

  "That is the only thing that can make you happy."

  She did not deny it.

  "I know what you have passed through."

  She shook her head incredulously.

  "It is but the history of womankind," he said laconically.

  She took a leaf that had fallen on her hair and tore it slowly toshreds.

  "Yes," he continued, warming to the subject, "you but resume in ayear what woman has struggled for throughout the centuries. What ismarriage but the instinct of self-preservation? Who imagined the bond?The weaker being, woman; and all the advances up the social scale haveresulted from her silent striving toward equality with man. Withoutmarriage you are a slave at the mercy of an angry word or a hostilemood; a slave who, in her search for security, must learn, withouttears or show of fatigue, to render herself indispensable to the man."

  Nicole rose abruptly, frowning, and with nervous fingers; butimmediately she reseated herself with a forced laugh.

  Presently, seeing that he had said more than he should have, hewithdrew, leaving her immersed in the reverie his words had awakened.

  Goursac had guessed truly. What womankind has endured, she had begunfrom the bottom. The instinct of self-preservation within her hadawakened the immense intuitions that in the silent, enduring conflictof the sexes alike direct the wife, the mistress, and the outcast. Shehad studied Barabant, seeking the needs of his temperament, discoveringhis faults, and leading him to gradual dependence on her. Herimagination awoke. She saw the peril of mere domestic companionship.Where at first she had belittled the force of passionate love, she hadcome to realize its necessity and the need of constantly provoking hiscuriosity. She hid her thoughts from him, making of herself a mystery,employing that coquetry which, to the seeing eye, has at the bottomnothing but pathos. She had loved as a child. She had become an actress.

  But in her heart of jealousy and doubt she knew well all her artificescould avail no longer than her youth. In marriage alone was peace andsecurity. The daring of the thought frightened her. She knew it to bebeyond her lot, nor in her devotion to Barabant would she have it so,but each day the dream returned, as from a pit one sees a star, or froma wreck the beacon on the forbidden shore.

  Barabant found her lost in reve
rie, the leaves again unnoticed on hershoulders.

  "The effect is pretty," he said, smiling down at her.

  "On whom the leaves fall and rest, the earth will fall before the yearis out," Nicole said. "That's the superstition."

  "Nicole, I forbid you to say such things," he cried sharply. "They hurtme, and you know it!"

  Satisfied with this evidence of his affection, she sprang up, brushingaway the leaves, and saying with a smile:

  "There, they have no power now."

  "You are early."

  "Yes; I was a little melancholy; I wanted to reflect. The gardens aredelightful for that."

  "I do not find them so."

  "The mood is gone, now that you are here." She took his arm, smilingup into his face. They strolled through the alleys of chestnut andmaple, Nicole drawing her skirt across her, placing her feet daintily,shaking her head in pretended anger as from time to time a leaffluttered against her cheek.

  "And the Girondins, mon ami? You have told me nothing of them."

  "It grows worse and worse for them. The Jacobins are relentless."

  "Don't identify yourself too much with them, then."

  "But that is cowardice."

  "No. If the Girondins fall, all the more will the Nation need theModerates," Nicole answered anxiously, for her one dread was of hisimpulsive nature. "Why play into the hands of our enemies?"

  Leaving the gardens, they entered the Place de la Revolution. The vastsquare that had swarmed with the multitude on the day of the executionof the king was devoid of movement, except where a few curious,wandering toward the emplacement of the absent guillotine, streakedlike insects across the placid expanse.

  Nearing the plaster statue of Liberty, Nicole was attracted by the lankfigure of a man.

  "Look over there," she said, drawing Barabant's attention. "Wouldn'tyou say that it was Dossonville?"

  "There's a little resemblance."

  "Much."

  Barabant, who continued to study the figure, exclaimed:

  "Really, the resemblance is striking!"

  At this moment the man, turning, disclosed indeed the familiarfeatures, while the well-known voice cried:

  "Mordieu! It is Nicole and my little orator Barabant! Well, what's thematter? Touch hands!"

  For Nicole, with a movement of superstition, had crossed herself, whileBarabant, stock-still, remained staring stupidly at the apparition,until he was able to blurt out:

  "What, it is you! Then you're not dead."

  "Not even once!" he cried, slapping his hand emphatically across hischest. "I give you my word, it is not true! Come, feel of me. Is thisthe arm or the chest of a specter?"

  "Still, I saw you," exclaimed Nicole, unable to reconcile the fact toher memory--"I saw you at the gate of the Abbaye--"

  "My dear girl," Dossonville responded, with much good humor, "believeme, I am not dead; and, what's more, I never have been dead that Iremember."

  "But--"

  "Mordieu, Nicole! are you determined to exterminate me?" Dossonvillecried. "Let us reason. You saw me at the gate, but you didn't see mecut down, did you?"

  "No."

  "Then I reject your theory."

  The three burst out laughing, until Dossonville suddenly exclaimed:

  "But come, Louison must have told you."

  "Louison!" echoed Barabant and Nicole, more and more amazed.

  "Extraordinary woman! She can even keep a secret then!" Dossonvillecried. "Why, it was Louison who found me in the crowd and piloted me tosafety."

  He recounted shortly the events of his escape, adding, as he extendedhis arm in a sweeping embrace of the horizon:

  "And here I have lain concealed. I don't say where; the secret is toogood. For ten months I lay like a rat. For the last two I have gone outonly after midnight. To-day is the first trip into the blessed sun."

  "Do you dare to risk it even now?" Barabant cried.

  "Yes, now. Everything is arranged," he answered carelessly. "It was alittle long coming, but it came."

  But suddenly Nicole, remembering, exclaimed: "Barabant, you must warnhim that Javogues is back."

  "Back!" Dossonville repeated. "When did he leave?"

  Barabant, in his turn, recounted the arrest and disappearance of theMarseillais, concluding:

  "He reappeared with the rise of the Terrorists."

  "Aie, aie!" Dossonville cried, having followed the recital withinterest; "I cannot say that the situation is pleasant for the CitoyenGoursac."

  A shadow passed over the brow of the young man, and he answeredbitterly:

  "I was a fool. We should have crushed the monster when we had him."

  "There's good in him."

  "What! You say it?"

  "He wanted to cut my throat," Dossonville replied; "but that's nothing.He is sincere. It is true, from his point of view, there are not threemen who should be alive in France to-day; but that is only a prejudice.I am keeping you; where are you bound?"

  "To the Convention."

  "Always a Girondin?"

  "Well," Barabant answered doubtfully, "the Girondins had their chance,and they could not control the Convention."

  "I say it's their own fault if they fall," Nicole interjected hastily.

  "Nicole, you are right," Dossonville replied. "Moreover, they areabout to lose their heads." He drew his finger across his neck. "In apolitical party, that's a grave failing."

  "What, guillotine the Girondins!" Barabant exclaimed. "GuillotineVergniaud, Brissot,--they would never dare!"

  "Bah! you look upon it too seriously," Dossonville retorted. "What isthe guillotine? Simply a vote of censure. But Louison--where can I findher?"

  "At the Pretre Pendu," Nicole answered. "You'll find her there aboutnoon. That is, if there is no execution this afternoon."

  "The Pretre Pendu? Don't know it."

  "It opened lately in the Rue Maugout, opposite No. 38."

  "You call it--"

  "The Pretre Pendu."

  "Charming!"

  "I warn you, Javogues will be there."

  "You are positive?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Good. Then I'll set out at once."