The day that Citizen Chauvelin's letter was received by the members ofthe Committee of Public Safety was indeed one of great rejoicing.
The Moniteur tells us that in the Seance of September 22nd, 1793, orVendemiaire 1st of the Year I. it was decreed that sixty prisoners,not absolutely proved guilty of treason against the Republic--onlysuspected--were to be set free.
Sixty!... at the mere news of the possible capture of the ScarletPimpernel.
The Committee was inclined to be magnanimous. Ferocity yielded for themoment to the elusive joy of anticipatory triumph.
A glorious prize was about to fall into the hands of those who had thewelfare of the people at heart.
Robespierre and his decemvirs rejoiced, and sixty persons had causeto rejoice with them. So be it! There were plans evolved already as tonational fetes and wholesale pardons when that impudent and meddlesomeEnglishman at last got his deserts.
Wholesale pardons which could easily be rescinded afterwards. Evenwith those sixty it was a mere respite. Those of le Salut Public onlyloosened their hold for a while, were nobly magnanimous for a day, quiteprepared to be doubly ferocious the next.
In the meanwhile let us heartily rejoice!
The Scarlet Pimpernel is in France or will be very soon, and on anappointed day he will present himself conveniently to the soldiers ofthe Republic for capture and for subsequent guillotine. England is atwar with us, there is nothing therefore further to fear from her. Wemight hang every Englishman we can lay hands on, and England could do nomore than she is doing at the present moment: bombard our ports, blusterand threaten, join hands with Flanders, and Austria and Sardinia, andthe devil if she choose.
Allons! vogue la galere! The Scarlet Pimpernel is perhaps on our shoresat this very moment! Our most stinging, most irritating foe is about tobe delivered into our hands.
Citizen Chauvelin's letter is very categorical:
"I guarantee to you, Citizen Robespierre, and to the Members of theRevolutionary Government who have entrusted me with the delicatemission..."
Robespierre's sensuous lips curl into a sarcastic smile. CitizenChauvelin's pen was ever florid in its style: "entrusted me with thedelicate mission," is hardly the way to describe an order given underpenalty of death.
But let it pass.
"... that four days from this date, at one hour after sunset, the manwho goes by the mysterious name of the Scarlet Pimpernel will be on thesouthern ramparts of Boulogne, at the extreme southern corner of thetown."
"Four days from this date..." and Citizen Chauvelin's letter is datedthe nineteenth of September, 1793.
"Too much of an aristocrat--Monsieur le Marquis Chauvelin..." sneersMerlin, the Jacobin. "He does not know that all good citizens had calledthat date the 28th Fructidor, Year I. of the Republic."
"No matter," retorts Robespierre with impatient frigidity, "whatever wemay call the day it was forty-eight hours ago, and in forty-eight hoursmore that damned Englishman will have run his head into a noose, fromwhich, an I mistake not, he'll not find it easy to extricate himself."
"And you believe in Citizen Chauvelin's assertion," commented Dantonwith a lazy shrug of the shoulders.
"Only because he asks for help from us," quoth Robespierre drily; "he issure that the man will be there, but not sure if he can tackle him."
But many were inclined to think that Chauvelin's letter was an idleboast. They knew nothing of the circumstances which had caused thatletter to be written: they could not conjecture how it was that theex-ambassador could be so precise in naming the day and hour when theenemy of France would be at the mercy of those whom he had outraged andflouted.
Nevertheless Citizen Chauvelin asks for help, and help must not bedenied him. There must be no shadow of blame upon the actions of theCommittee of Public Safety.
Chauvelin had been weak once, had allowed the prize to slip through hisfingers; it must not occur again. He has a wonderful head for devisingplans, but he needs a powerful hand to aid him, so that he may not failagain.
Collot d'Herbois, just home from Lyons and Tours, is the right man inan emergency like this. Citizen Collot is full of ideas; the inventorof the "Noyades" is sure to find a means of converting Boulogne into onegigantic prison out of which the mysterious English adventurer will findit impossible to escape.
And whilst the deliberations go on, whilst this committee of butchersare busy slaughtering in imagination the game they have not yetsucceeded in bringing down, there comes another messenger from CitizenChauvelin.
He must have ridden hard on the other one's heels, and something veryunexpected and very sudden must have occurred to cause the Citizen tosend this second note.
This time it is curt and to the point. Robespierre unfolds it and readsit to his colleagues.
"We have caught the woman--his wife--there may be murder attemptedagainst my person, send me some one at once who will carry out myinstructions in case of my sudden death."
Robespierre's lips curl in satisfaction, showing a row of yellowishteeth, long and sharp like the fangs of a wolf. A murmur like unto thesnarl of a pack of hyenas rises round the table, as Chauvelin's letteris handed round.
Everyone has guessed the importance of this preliminary capture:"the woman--his wife." Chauvelin evidently thinks much of it, for heanticipates an attempt against his life, nay! he is quite prepared forit, ready to sacrifice it for the sake of his revenge.
Who had accused him of weakness?
He only thinks of his duty, not of his life; he does not fear forhimself, only that the fruits of his skill might be jeopardized throughassassination.
Well! this English adventurer is capable of any act of desperation tosave his wife and himself, and Citizen Chauvelin must not be left in thelurch.
Thus, Citizen Collot d'Herbois is despatched forthwith to Boulogne to bea helpmeet and counsellor to Citizen Chauvelin.
Everything that can humanly be devised must be done to keep the womansecure and to set the trap for that elusive Pimpernel.
Once he is caught the whole of France shall rejoice, and Boulogne, whohad been instrumental in running the quarry to earth, must be speciallyprivileged on that day.
A general amnesty for all prisoners the day the Scarlet Pimpernel iscaptured. A public holiday and a pardon for all natives of Boulogne whoare under sentence of death: they shall be allowed to find their way tothe various English boats--trading and smuggling craft--that always lieat anchor in the roads there.
The Committee of Public Safety feel amazingly magnanimous towardsBoulogne; a proclamation embodying the amnesty and the pardon is at oncedrawn up and signed by Robespierre and his bloodthirsty Council of Ten,it is entrusted to Citizen Collot d'Herbois to be read out at everycorner of the ramparts as an inducement to the little town to do itslevel best. The Englishman and his wife--captured in Boulogne--willboth be subsequently brought to Paris, formally tried on a charge ofconspiring against the Republic and guillotined as English spies, butBoulogne shall have the greater glory and shall reap the first andrichest reward.
And armed with the magnanimous proclamation, the orders for generalrejoicings and a grand local fete, armed also with any and every powerover the entire city, its municipality, its garrisons, its forts, forhimself and his colleague Chauvelin, Citizen Collot d'Herbois starts forBoulogne forthwith.
Needless to tell him not to let the grass grow under his horse'shoofs. The capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel, though not absolutely anaccomplished fact, is nevertheless a practical certainty, and no onerejoices over this great event more than the man who is to be presentand see all the fun.
Riding and driving, getting what relays of horses or waggons fromroadside farms that he can, Collot is not likely to waste much time onthe way.
It is 157 miles to Boulogne by road, and Collot, burning with ambitionto be in at the death, rides or drives as no messenger of good tidingshas ever ridden or driven before.
He does not stop to eat, but munches chunks of bread and cheese in therecess of the
lumbering chaise or waggon that bears him along wheneverhis limbs refuse him service and he cannot mount a horse.
The chronicles tell us that twenty-four hours after he left Paris,half-dazed with fatigue, but ferocious and eager still, he is borneto the gates of Boulogne by an old cart horse requisitioned from somedistant farm, and which falls down, dead, at the Porte Gayole, whilstits rider, with a last effort, loudly clamours for admittance into thetown "in the name of the Republic."
Chapter XXI: Suspense