"And you say, Citizen Agesilaus, that your master left home this morning?"
"Oh, upon my soul! yes."
"At the usual hour?"
"It might be ten minutes earlier, or ten minutes later, I cannot say exactly."
"And you have not seen him since?"
"No, Citizen."
Lorin continued his walk, and after three or four turns again stopped and renewed his questions.
"Had he his sword with him?" demanded he.
"When he goes to the section he invariably carries it."
"Are you sure he has gone to the section?"
"He told me so, at least."
"In that case I shall join him," said Lorin; "but in case I miss him, tell him I have been here, and am coming back."
"Wait!" said Agesilaus.
"Why?"
"I hear his footstep on the staircase."
[Pg 264]
Almost at the same moment the door opened, and Maurice entered. Lorin bestowed a hasty glance upon him, and perceived nothing extraordinary in his appearance.
"So you are come at last," said he. "I have been waiting here these two hours."
"So much the better," said Maurice, smiling; "that has afforded you plenty of time to compose distichs and quatrains."
"Alas! mon ami," replied the improvisator, "I do not make them now."
"Why, is the world coming to an end?"
"My dear Maurice, I am very unhappy."
"You unhappy?"
"Yes, I am miserable. I am suffering from remorse."
"Remorse?"
"Oh, by Heaven! yes," said Lorin. "Between you and her I had to choose!—between you and her I could not hesitate; but, you see, Arthémise is in despair, for she was her friend."
"Poor girl!"
"And it was she who gave me her address—"
"You would have done much better to have allowed things to take their natural course."
"Yes; and at this very moment you would have been condemned in her stead. Powerfully argued, dear friend. And I came to ask your advice! I thought you were wiser than that."
"Never mind, ask away."
"This poor girl: do you understand? I wish to attempt some means of saving her. Even if I could only give or receive a blow in her defence, I feel as if it would do me good."
"You are mad, Lorin," said Maurice, shrugging his shoulders.
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"Perhaps if I made an appeal to the Revolutionary Tribunal?"
"It is too late, she is condemned."
"Truly," said Lorin, "it is dreadful to see this poor girl sacrificed thus."
"The more so since it was my safety that has entailed her death. But after all, Lorin, we have one consolation. She was a conspirator."
"Goodness!" said Lorin, "does not every one conspire nowadays? She has done no more, poor girl, than every one else does."
"Grieve for her neither too much, nor too loudly, my friend," said Maurice, "for we have to bear our share in this trouble. Believe me, we are not so fully cleared from the accusation of being her accomplices, that no stain remains behind. To-day, at the section, I was termed 'Girondin,' by the Captain of the Chasseurs of Saint Leu; and I, at the same time, found it necessary to convince him by a stroke from my sword that he was mistaken."
"Then that was the reason you returned so late?"
"Just so."
"But why did you not inform me?"
"Because in affairs of this nature you cannot restrain yourself, and the thing had to be concluded immediately, that it might make no noise."
"And that scum called you 'Girondin,' Maurice,—you, a thoroughbred Republican?"
"By Jove, he did! and this will convince you that another adventure of this nature and we become unpopular; and you well know, Lorin, in these times unpopular is a synonymous term for suspected."
"I know it well," said Lorin; "and that word appalls the bravest heart; but never mind—It is repugnant[Pg 266] to my feelings to allow this poor Héloïse to be led to the guillotine without asking her forgiveness."
"What do you wish to do?"
"I wish you to remain here; you have nothing to reproach yourself with, so far as she is concerned. With me, you see, the case is very different. Since I can do nothing for her, I will meet her on her way. I wish to go there, Maurice; do you comprehend me? Were she to give me only a wave of her hand—"
"I will accompany you then," said Maurice.
"Impossible, my friend: you are a municipal, secretary to a section, and you have just been tried, while I have only I been your defender. They would think you guilty, therefore remain here. As for me, it is quite another thing. I risk nothing, and therefore go."
"Go then," said he, "but be prudent."
Lorin smiled, shook Maurice's hand, and left.
Maurice opened his window, and waved a sad adieu; but before Lorin had turned the corner of the street, Maurice could not help gazing wistfully at him more than once, and each time, as if drawn by magnetic influence and sympathy. Lorin turned round, looked at him, and smiled.
At last, when the latter had disappeared at the corner of the quay, Maurice closed the window, threw himself into a fauteuil, and fell into one of those dreamy moods which in people of strong mind and vigorous constitution are often the presentiments of misfortune, as they resemble the calm which is the precursor of the storm. He was softly awakened from his revery, or rather state of stupor, by his official, who, on returning from the execution of some commission, entered with the sprightly air of a servant anxious to communicate his budget of news. Seeing his master preoccupied, however, he dared not in[Pg 267]terrupt him, and consoled himself by constantly passing and re-passing before him, without any reasonable cause for so doing.
"What is it?" at length said Maurice; "speak, if you have anything to tell me."
"Ah! Citizen, another desperate conspiracy."
Maurice merely shrugged his shoulders.
"A conspiracy enough to make the hair of one's head stand upright," continued Agesilaus.
"Indeed!" replied Maurice, like a man accustomed to hear daily of thirty conspiracies at this epoch.
"Yes, Citizen," replied Agesilaus; "it drives me to frenzy, you see. The very thought of it makes a good patriot's flesh creep."
"Let us hear this conspiracy," said Maurice.
"The Austrian has all but escaped."
"Nonsense!" said Maurice, beginning to listen with greater attention.
"It seems," continued Agesilaus, "that the Widow Capet was in communication with the girl Tison, who is to be guillotined to-day. She has not escaped that fate, unfortunate creature!"
"How had the queen communication with this girl?" demanded Maurice, who felt the perspiration exuding at every pore.
"Through a carnation. Can you imagine, Citizen, how they could have conveyed the plan to her in a carnation?"
"In a carnation? Who did this?"
"Monsieur le Chevalier de—wait then! His name is notorious, but as for me, I forget all these names. A Chevalier de Chateau—what a fool I am! It is not a Chateau—a Chevalier de Maison."
"De Maison-Rouge?"
[Pg 268]
"That is it."
"Impossible!"
"How impossible? when I told you they have found the trap-door, the subterranean passage, and coaches."
"On the contrary, you have told me nothing of all this."
"Well, I am going to tell you, then."
"Go on, then. If it is a story, it is at least a good one."
"No, Citizen, it is not a story, very far from it; and in proof of that, I had it from a citizen porter. The aristocrats had dug a mine, and this mine commenced at Rue de la Corderie, and terminated in the cellar of the little cabin belonging to Madame Plumeau, who has narrowly escaped being arrested as an accomplice. You know her, do you not?"
"Yes," replied Maurice; "go on!"
"Capet's wife was to escape by the subterranean passage. She already had her foot on the first step, when Simon caught her by her robe— But stay, they are beating to arms in the city, and the recall in the sections. Do you not hear the drum? There! It is said that the Prussians are at Dammartin, and have reconnoitred as far as the frontiers."
In the midst of this maze of words, a medley of truth and falsehood, probability and impossibility, Maurice seized the guiding thread. All sprung from the carnation presented before his eyes to the queen, and purchased by himself from the poor miserable flower-girl. This carnation contained the plan of a plot which had just come to light, the details of which, more or less true, had been reported by Agesilaus. At this moment the noise of the drum came nearer, and Maurice heard the crier proclaim in the street,—
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"Tremendous conspiracy discovered at the Temple by the Citizen Simon! Grand conspiracy in favor of the Widow Capet discovered at the Temple!"
"Yes, yes," said Maurice; "it is just as I thought. There is some truth in all this. And Lorin, in the midst of this popular excitement, goes to offer his hand to this girl and be cut to pieces."
Maurice snatched up his hat, buckled his sword-belt, and with two bounds was in the street.
"Where can he be?" said Maurice to himself. "Probably on the road to the Conciergerie," and he rushed toward the quay.
At the extreme end of the Quai de la Mégisserie some pikes and bayonets, bristling in the midst of the crowd, attracted his attention, and he fancied in the centre he could distinguish the uniform of a National Guard, and in the group signs of hostile movements. He ran, his heart oppressed with the dread of impending misfortune, toward the assemblage on the banks of the river.
The National Guard pressed by the company of Marseillais was Lorin. He was very pale, his lips compressed, his eyes menacing; his hand upon the handle of his sword, measuring the place best calculated to strike the blows he fully intended to inflict on his cowardly assailants.
Within two feet from Lorin stood Simon. He was laughing ferociously, and pointing him out to the Marseillais and the populace, saying,—
"Look at him! look well at him! He is one of those that I drove from the Temple yesterday for an aristocrat. He is one of those who favored the correspondence with the carnations. This is an accomplice of the girl Tison, who will pass here presently. Well, do you see?—he walks quietly on the quay while his coadjutor goes to[Pg 270] the guillotine; and perhaps she was even more to him than an assistant. She might be his mistress, and he is here to bid her farewell, or to try to save her!"
Lorin was not the man to endure more. He drew his sword. At the same time the crowd opened before a man who charged headlong into the group, whose broad shoulders had already knocked down two or three spectators who were preparing to become actors in this scene.
"Be happy, Simon," said Maurice. "You regretted, no doubt, that I was not with my friend to enable you to turn your new title of Denunciator to full account. Denounce! Simon, denounce! I am here."
"Faith! yes," said Simon, with his hideous sneer; "and your arrival is very apropos. This," continued he, "is the elegant Maurice Lindey, who was accused at the same time as the girl Tison, but was acquitted because he was rich."
"To the lamp-post with them! to the lamp-post!" cried the Marseillais.
"Yes, forsooth, you had better make the attempt!" said Maurice, and advancing a step he pricked one of the foremost of the cut-throats in the forehead, so that the blood from his wound nearly blinded him.
"Have at the murderer!" cried the latter.
The Marseillais lowered their pikes, raised their hatchets, and loaded their guns, while the frightened crowd dispersed, leaving the two friends to contend alone against this storm of blows. They regarded each other with a last sad, yet sublime smile, while calmly awaiting their destruction from the whirlwind of iron and flame which threatened them, when all at once the door of the house against which they were leaning opened, and a swarm of young people, attired in the habits of those termed[Pg 271] "Muscadins," or "Fops," each wearing a sword and brace of pistols in his girdle, rushed upon the Marseillais, and were instantly engaged in a terrific contest.
"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Maurice and Lorin, simultaneously, animated by this unexpected relief, without reflecting that to fight in the ranks of the new-comers was to confirm Simon's accusation,—"Hurrah!"
But if they were forgetful of their own safety, another thought for them. A short young man, about five-and-twenty years of age, with blue eyes, who fought without any intermission, with infinite science and valor, with a heavy sword which any one would have thought his delicate and feminine hand incapable of wielding, perceiving that Maurice and Lorin, instead of escaping by the door which he seemed to have left open for that purpose, remained fighting by his side, turned to them and said in a low voice,—
"Fly directly through this door; pay no attention to what we do here, or you will uselessly compromise yourselves."
Then, seeing the two friends hesitate, he suddenly cried, addressing himself to Maurice, "Away! no patriots among us, Citizen Lindey; we are aristocrats here!"
At these words, united to the audacity which would induce a man publicly to accuse himself of what at this period must lead to certain death, the crowd uttered a loud shout.
But the fair young man and two or three of his friends, without evincing any symptoms of alarm, pushed Maurice and Lorin into the alley, and closed the door behind them. They then threw themselves into the mêlée, which was now considerably augmented by the approach of the fatal cart.
[Pg 272]
Maurice and Lorin, thus miraculously saved, regarded each other in amazement. The outlet seemed to have been designed for the express purpose of their escape. They entered a court, and at the end discovered a small private door which opened into Rue Saint Germain l'Auxerrois.
At this moment a detachment of gendarmes issued from Pont-au-Change, who had soon swept the quay, although, from the cross-street where our two friends had concealed themselves, they heard for an instant the noise of an obstinate struggle. These gendarmes preceded the cart which conducted the hapless Héloïse to the scaffold.
"Gallop!" cried a voice,—"gallop."
The cart proceeded at a quick pace, and Lorin saw the unfortunate girl standing, a smile upon her lips, and calm reliance in her eye, but was unable to exchange even a gesture with her, as she passed without seeing him, in the midst of a perfect maelstrom of people, shouting,—
"To the guillotine with the aristocrat! to the guillotine!"
The noise decreased in the distance till it reached the Tuileries. Then the little door through which Maurice and Lorin had escaped, again opened, and three or four Muscadins, with their clothes torn and stained with blood, passed through. It was probably all that remained of the little troop. The fair young man went through the last.
"Alas!" said he, "this cause is then accursed!" and casting from him his sword, notched and bloody, he rushed toward Rue des Lavandières.
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