VIII
LA FETE DE LA RAISON
On the 20th of Brumaire, day of the Feast of Reason, maddest day theworld has ever known, the Revolution, having overturned the socialorder, abolished the clergy, introduced the monetary system, institutedfraternal banquets, established popular education, and renamed thecalendar, now, as though unwilling that aught should exist save in itsimage, decreed the abolition of religion and set up the cult of Reason.The neighborhood of the Pretre Pendu, accustomed as it was to thevagaries of its tyrants, was yet astounded at the pitch of frenzy towhich exultation stirred the Marseillais and his companions.
The ecstasy of Javogues terrified all with its frantic joy; for him theconsummation of the human race had arrived. He spent the morning beforethe cabaret, astride a vat, dispensing wine and hand-shakes, his armsin the air haranguing the crowd that trembled to be present and darednot stay away.
"Religion is dead!" he bellowed to all comers. "The farce is ended! Theimpudent bubble is pricked!"
Boudgoust and Jambony, on either side, imitated his fury and hisgestures, while Cramoisin, twisting in the crowd, made all he met shoutto the cry of:
"Vive la Raison!"
The listeners for the most part simulated enthusiasm, with an eye toescape. A few echoed:
"Down with superstition!"
La Mere Corniche, hobbling into the midst of them, extended her hand toJavogues in rough familiarity, crying:
"Well, my big fellow, are you happy? What a day, hanh? No moresuperstitions for us! Touch hands."
"Touch there, mother!" Their hands met with a clap. "Didn't I tell you,from the first, there is no God?"
"Aye, you did. He never feared, that man!"
"I say it now," Javogues cried, and thrice he shouted: "There is noGod!"
Suddenly, flinging from the vat, he cleared a space about him with hisarm, and, seizing Genevieve by the shoulder to steady himself, cried:
"If there is a God, let him strike me down. Let the moment decidebetween us. I defy him!"
He raised his fist to the sky and remained waiting, while more thanone closed their eyes in terror. Then as the skies disgorged nothunderbolt, his arm relaxed, descending to his side, and the scornfullips with a sneer pronounced:
"Bah!"
"Vive Javogues!"
It was the voice of Cramoisin that acclaimed the victor.
Abandoning Genevieve, Javogues caught from the crowd a bakeress and afille de joie and forced them into each other's arms, crying:
"Embrace; the Revolution declares you sisters!"
Leaving the frightened women cowering, he again seized Genevieve asa prop, and clearing the throng, rolled up the street, invoking eachwindow with the exulting shout:
"Vive la Raison!"
While Cramoisin and Boudgoust combated for the relinquished vat,Jambony, serving the spigot, impudent and mocking, bellowed:
"Citoyens, it is not enough to wipe out cults: we must level thesteeples. Steeples are aristocratic. What's the use of making Templesof Reason of the ci-devant churches if steeples are to lord it overus. Steeples are the princes of the city!"
"Citoyen, the Section des Bonnes Nouvelles has already done so!" awoman cried.
"Then Vive la Section des Bonnes Nouvelles!"
With the departure of Javogues the crowd grew noisy, disputing andharanguing. From the top of the vat, which he had gained, Cramoisinbellowed in vain to them to listen to his ideas on the primevalinnocence and the community of women. The throng had turned to anotherwho, applauding the laws of burial, declared, beyond interring eachcitoyen under the simple tricolor flag, perfect equality could beobtained only by identical tombstones.
All at once la Mere Corniche, who had remained on the fringe of thecrowd, shrank into it with an exclamation of fear. At the entrance ofNo. 38 appeared Nicole. On her face was the brooding and the color ofdeath. For a moment she leaned against the wall, searching uneasilyamong the crowd. Then, still seeking, she approached, swaying from sideto side, and her eye fell on la Mere Corniche--and passed.
"It is not I," the old woman muttered, still trembling from thesuspense. "It's Cramoisin."
Then as Nicole, shaking her head, turned wearily and went down thestreet, rubbing from time to time against the wall, la Mere Cornichesaid to herself, "Ah, it is Javogues!"
She sought the eye of Cramoisin. He was still on the vat, struckdumb in the midst of a furious harangue, following the girl as shedisappeared from sight.
* * * * *
The concierge, in her fear, had guessed rightly: Nicole sought theMarseillais. Her doubts of Barabant, dispelled on the instant of hisarrest, had given place to bitter reproaches, to self-accusation,and to an immense, confused hatred of the man who had betrayed him.The separation was irrevocable; she could see nothing ahead. In thedesolation of her hopes her anger turned against the Revolution.Barabant guilty! Barabant, the generous, impulsive advocate of greatideas, a traitor! At such a thought her whole being rose in revoltagainst the Revolution that would destroy him. Without distinguishingits abuses from its truths, reasoning from men to ideas, revolting atthe doctrine of the community of women that menaced her pure ambitions,she saw the Revolution only in the furious figure of Javogues, brutal,despotic, and mad. Shrinking from her comrades, without faith, withouthope, adrift, with the figure of Charlotte Corday ever before her,tormented with the thought of martyrdom, she followed Javogues,restlessly keeping him under her eye, seeking him with an instinctiveimpulse that gradually and fearfully shaped itself in her resolution.
The streets where she wandered were filled with barbaric processionsfrom the sack of the churches. Unshaven heads crowned with gorgeousmiters, ragged bodies clothed in purple robes, smudgy arms brandishinggolden chalices, crucifixes, and relics swept by with exultant, mockingchorus. In the churchyards troops of beggars demolished monuments andleveled the tombs, while still others beheaded the stone images in theniches of the doors.
Toward night the lowest elements of the social order were unchained.The drunkards, the thieves, the idiots, the pariahs, the beggars, thedestitute, the morbidly curious, the shrews, the hags, the harlots; allwho hated the good and many who had been taught to regard religion asthe shackles that fastened them to servitude, erupted into the night,to mock the Church and dishonor it.
Listless, troubled, and uneasy, through the demented city Nicolecontinued her search, stopping neither for lunch nor for supper,sorting, without success, each successive throng, while every scene oflicense and sacrilege that inflamed her anger steadied her resolve.
In the church of St. Gervais she stopped, appalled at the riot. Within,shrieks of laughter mingled with hoarse shouts of men and the surgingrhythm of music. Horror and rage possessed her, and she plunged in,seeking Javogues, while her hand went nervously to her breast.
The church was dim with the smoky glimmer of lamps, which veiledthe interior in a mantle of fog. The fishwives from the Marche St.Jean offered salted herrings to all comers, poisoning the air anddisgusting the nostrils, while on their track followed limonadiers withovertopping tanks, rattling their cups and hawking their beverage.
In the Chapel of the Virgin a hundred couples were dancing, bumpinginto one another, hilarious with wine and hoarse with shouting; whileabove the carnival, enthroned on the altar, a blue and white Goddessof Reason, a girl of fifteen, watched the rout, arranging her scarletliberty-cap or extending her hand with conscious smiles to those whoacclaimed her.
Among these women whirling with closed eyes and tumbled hair, amongthe reeling men, Nicole glided until satisfied that the Marseillaiswas absent; then she left the unholy halls and ran, panting, to St.Eustache.
There, inside the entrance, the uproar halted her, and she remained, inbewilderment, gazing down the enormous length, asking herself if hersenses had departed.
The great vista was transformed into a country-side; at her elbow wererustic huts and clumps of
trees, while in the distance, hidden underthe foliage of thickets, rose mounds that echoed to the creaking ofplanks under the rush of feet. Suddenly a hand caught her arm andDossonville's voice cried:
"Nicole, are you mad!"
Angry at this interruption to her plans, she turned with a gesture ofimpatience; but Dossonville, without relinquishing his grasp, continuedsternly:
"You cannot stay, you cannot!"
"I am going to."
The next moment some one seized her by the waist; she turned with ascream. It was Cramoisin who, unaware of her identity, had caught her.
At the sight of Nicole he relaxed his hold, in such utter terror thathe stumbled and fell on his back, when a band of women seized him bythe arms and legs and bore him raging into the crowd.
"Diable!" Dossonville muttered to himself. "If the beast recognized me,I am done for." Then taking the girl's arm, he repeated: "Nicole, youcannot remain; it is impossible."
"I can protect myself," she said savagely.
"Nicole--"
"I must stay!"
In a moment Dossonville guessed something of her design, andwithdrawing a step, said sternly:
"Whom are you seeking?"
"No one."
"You are meditating something desperate."
"No."
"You will not come?"
She shook her head impatiently.
"Then my life is in your hands; I will not leave you."
Satisfied with this solution, that offered her a certain protection,Nicole inclined her head, and caring little how far she betrayedherself to him, hastened feverishly into the throng. The loathing andhatred which communicated itself to her body banished all other senses;her breast rose tumultuously, her forehead grew ugly with anger, whileher restless eyes beheld the saturnalia without comprehension.
Silently she dragged him about the great space. On the altars of thechapels were spilled bouquets and bottles of wine pell-mell withsausages, pates, vegetables, and meats. A score of hands clutched thefood, scattering it over the steps, splashing the altars with the redstains of wine. The people gorged, drank, embraced, and fell sprawling;while at times, with a drunken cheer, some one in the tangle would hurla sausage or a ball of dripping bread at the statues and portraitsabove, crying:
"There's for you, ci-devant Virgin!"
"Eat a little and become a good republican!"
Out of the scramble, boys and girls were thrust forward to plunge theirtiny hands into the food in sign of liberty, while bottles of wine,snatched from the famished lips of beggars, were held out to them,until in their intoxication they furnished amusement to the ribaldcrowd.
"Pass on, pass on," cried Nicole.
A rush of women brushed them against the wall. In the procession weretossing a dozen statues capped with liberty-bonnets. In front of them,a woman, leaping forward, embraced a statue in her arms and bore itcrashing to the floor.
At the next chapel, Dossonville felt a sudden tension on his arm.Within, a band of madmen and crazy women were performing a mockeryof a mass. Before a half-naked girl in stupor on the altar Boudgoustwas kneeling, while Jambony, insolent and sneering, swung a chain ofsausages to and fro as censers.
Below the figure of the Goddess of Reason had been placed a hastilyconstructed guillotine, which Boudgoust elevated and replaced, pouringover it a libation of red wine, announcing:
"The blood of aristocrats we offer thee!"
Then turning, he led the uproarious congregation, crouching below, in alitany:
"St. Guillotine, protector of patriots, pray for us. St. Guillotine, terror of aristocrats, protect us. Lovely machine, have pity on us. Admirable machine, have pity on us. St. Guillotine, deliver us of our enemies!"
"Pass on, pass on," Nicole cried, after the unavailing search.
"If it is not they, it is Javogues," thought Dossonville, who had beenwondering whom she was seeking.
They left the chapels and emerged into the aisle, where no soundpredominated and everything was heard; where it seemed that Hell,having overturned Heaven, was struggling to annihilate itself in theneed of venting its wickedness.
For a moment Nicole forgot herself, aghast at the frenzy of her kind.She raised her eyes in terror to the deep vaults stretching upwardundisturbed, serene and awful, as though from the dim regions, which inher childhood she had peopled with visions, the avenging thunderboltwas about to smite the scoffers.
On every side the shouts grew wilder. Vile women, dropping the maskof their sex, pursued men in long, haggard, furious lines over theartificial mounds that groaned under the chase. The half-naked figureof Cramoisin appeared, surrounded by bacchantes, exhorting the crowdto return to the primitive innocence. Forms meaningless and confusedflitted, whirled, reeled before them in an unending danse Macabre,while mingled with the tempest came the ever-exultant shout:
"Vive la Raison! Vive la Raison!"
Suddenly, by the catch of her breath and by the involuntary "Ah!"Dossonville knew that Nicole had found Javogues.
Without awaiting her leap, he hurled himself on her and bore her backinto a thicket, struggling and pleading and burying her teeth in thehand that muffled her screams. Then when the mad struggles had snappedthe bonds of consciousness, he picked her up in his arms and boreher quickly out through the unbridled mob, who broke into applause,believing her overcome with drunkenness.