It was already surmised that by the sacrifice of this illustrious head the popular hatred, so long displayed in murmurs, would at length be satisfied.
The means were not wanting for the completion of this tragedy; and in the mean time Fouquier Tinville, that fatal accuser, had resolved not to neglect the new mode of accusation which Simon had promised to place in his hands.
The day after he and Simon had met in the Salle des Pas-Perdus, the noise of arms again startled the prisoners who remained in the Temple.
These prisoners were Madame Elizabeth, Madame Royale, and the child who after having been called "Your Majesty" in his cradle, was now styled simply the "Little Capet."
General Hanriot, with his tricolored plume, his splendid horse, and long sword, followed by several of the National Guard, dismounted, and entered the dungeon where the royal child languished.
By the general's side walked a registrar of very unprepossessing appearance, carrying a writing-desk, a large roll of paper, and flourishing a pen of immoderate length.
[Pg 362]
Behind the scribe walked the public accuser. We have seen, we know, and shall meet again at a later period, this dry, jaundiced, cold man, with his blood-shot eyes, who made the ferocious Santerre himself tremble, even when cased in his armor.
Several National Guards and a lieutenant followed them.
Simon, smiling hypocritically, and holding his bear-skin bonnet in one hand and his shoemaker's stirrup in the other, walked before to show the committee the way.
They came to a very dirty chamber, spacious and ill-furnished, at the end of which, seated upon his bed, was the young Louis, in a state of perfect immobility.
When we saw the poor child fleeing from the brutal anger of Simon, he still retained a species of vitality, resenting the unworthy treatment of the shoemaker of the Temple. He fled, he wept, he prayed; then he feared and suffered, but still he hoped.
But now both fear and hope had vanished; without doubt the suffering still existed, but if it still remained, the infant martyr, whom they had made pay after so cruel a fashion for his parents' faults, buried it in the depths of his heart, and veiled it under an appearance of total insensibility. He did not even raise his head when the commissioners walked up to him.
Without further ceremony they instantly installed themselves. The public accuser seated himself at the head of the bed, Simon at the foot, the registrar near the window, the National Guard and their lieutenant on the side and rather in the shade.
Those among them who regarded the little prisoner with the slightest interest, or even curiosity, remarked the child's pallor, his extraordinary stoutness (resulting[Pg 363] from his bloated condition), and his bent legs, the joints of which had already begun to swell.
"That child is very ill," said the lieutenant, with an assurance that caused Fouquier to turn round, though already seated and prepared to question his victim.
Little Capet raised his eyes to discover who had uttered these words, and recognized the same young man who had already once before saved him from Simon's cruelty in the court of the Temple. A sweet and intelligent glance shot from his deep blue eyes, and that was all.
"Ah, ah! is that you, Citizen Lorin?" said Simon, thus calling the attention of Fouquier Tinville to the friend of Maurice.
"Myself, Citizen Simon," said Lorin, with his usual nonchalance.
And as Lorin though always ready to face danger was not the man to seek it uselessly, he availed himself of this circumstance to bow to Fouquier Tinville, which salutation was politely returned.
"You observed, I think, Citizen," said the public accuser, "that the child was ill; are you a doctor?"
"I have studied medicine, at least, if I am not a medical man."
"Well, and what do you discover in him?"
"Symptoms of sickness, do you mean?" asked Lorin.
"Yes."
"I find his cheeks and eyes puffed up, his hands thin and white, his knees swollen; and were I to feel his pulse, I should certainly count eighty-five or ninety pulsations in a minute."
The child appeared insensible to the enumeration of his sufferings.
"And to what might science attribute the condition of the prisoner?"
[Pg 364]
Lorin rubbed the tip of his nose, murmuring,—
"Phyllis wants to make me speak,
I am not the least inclined.
"Faith, Citizen!" replied he, "I am not sufficiently acquainted with little Capet's constitution to reply. However—"
Simon lent an attentive ear, and laughed in his sleeve to find his enemy so near committing himself.
"However," said Lorin, "I think he does not have sufficient exercise."
"I believe the little scoundrel," said Simon, "does not choose to walk."
The child remained quite unmoved by this apostrophe of the shoemaker.
Fouquier Tinville arose, advanced to Lorin, and addressed some words to him in a low tone. No one heard the words, but it was evident they assumed the form of interrogatories.
"Oh, oh! do you believe that, Citizen? It is a serious charge for a mother—"
"Under any circumstances, we shall find out. Simon pretends he has heard him say so, and has engaged to make him acknowledge it."
"This would be frightful," said Lorin; "but indeed it is possible; the Austrian is not exempt from sin, and right or wrong, does not concern me—They have made her out a Messalina: but not content with that, they wish to make her an Agrippina. I must acknowledge it appears to me rather hard."
"This is what has been reported by Simon," said the impassible Fouquier.
"I do not doubt that Simon has said all this. There are some men who stick at nothing, even the most impos[Pg 365]sible accusations. But do you not find," said Lorin, fixing his eyes steadily on Fouquier,—"do you not find—you, an intelligent and upright man, possessed with a strong mind—that to inquire of a child concerning such circumstances as those which all the most natural and most sacred laws of Nature command us to respect, is to insult all human nature in the person of a child?"
The accuser did not frown, but took a note from his pocket and showed it to Lorin.
"The Convention enjoins me to investigate," said he; "the rest does not concern me. I shall investigate."
"It is just," said Lorin; "and I declare that if this child acknowledges—" And the young man shook his head, expressive of disgust.
"Besides," continued Fouquier, "it is not only upon the denunciation of Simon that we proceed; the accusation is public."
And Fouquier drew a second paper from his pocket.
This was a number of the paper entitled "Le Père Duchesne;" which, as is well known, was written by Hébert.
The accusation indeed appeared there in full.
"It is written, and even printed," said Lorin; "but till I hear a similar accusation proceed from the lips of the child,—mind, I mean voluntarily, freely, and without menaces,—notwithstanding Simon and Hébert, I shall disbelieve it, as much as you in reality do yourself."
Simon impatiently awaited the issue of this conversation.
The miserable creature was not unaware of the power exercised upon an intelligent man by the looks which he receives from the crowd, expressive either of sympathy or subtle hatred. Sometimes this subtle influence repels, sometimes it attracts, makes the thought flow out and even draws the person of the man toward that other[Pg 366] man of equal or superior mental calibre whom he recognizes in the crowd.
But Fouquier Tinville had felt the keen observation of Lorin, and was anxious to be fully understood by him.
"The examination is about to commence," said the public accuser. "Registrar, resume your pen!"
The registrar, who had just drawn out the preliminaries of the investigation, was waiting, like Hanriot, Simon, and all the rest, till the colloquy between Fouquier and Lorin had ceased.
The child alone appeared perfectly unconscious of the scene in which he was soon to become the principal actor, and his face, which had for an instant gleamed with a ray of the highest intelligence, had relapsed into its listless, apathetic expression.
"Silence!" cried Hanriot, "the Citizen Fouquier Tinville is going to interrogate the child."
"Capet," said the public accuser, "do you know what has become of your mother?"
The little Louis turned from an ashy paleness to a brilliant red, but made no reply.
"Did you hear me, Capet?"
He still remained silent.
"Oh, he hears well enough," said Simon, "only he is like the ape, he will not reply for fear he should be taken for a man, and so made to work."
"Reply, Capet!" said Hanriot; "it is the Commission of the Convention that interrogates you. You must show obedience to the laws."
The child turned pale, but did not reply.
Simon made a frantic gesture of rage. With natures so stupid and brutal as his, anger becomes an intoxication, attended with all the loathsome symptoms of alcoholic inebriety.
[Pg 367]
"Will you reply, wolf's cub?" showing him the strap.
"Be quiet, Simon," said Fouquier Tinville; "you have not the right to speak."
This expression, which had become habitual to Tinville at the Revolutionary Tribunal, now escaped him involuntarily.
"Do you hear, Simon?" said Lorin. "This is the second time you have been told this in my presence; the first was when you accused Tison's daughter, whom you had the pleasure of bringing to the scaffold."
Simon was silent.
"Does your mother love you, Capet?" asked Fouquier.
Still the same silence.
"They say not," continued the accuser.
Something like a ghastly smile passed over the child's pale lips.
"But then, I say," roared Simon, "he has told me she loves him too much!"
"Look here, Simon," said Lorin, "you are angry that the little Capet chatters so much when you are together, and remains silent before company to-day."
"Oh, if we were alone!" said Simon.
"Yes, if you were alone; but unfortunately you are not alone. Oh, if you were, brave Simon, excellent patriot! how you would belabor the poor child, eh? But you are not alone, and dare not show your rage before honest men like us who know that the ancients, whom we endeavor to take for our models, respected all who were weak. You dare not, for you are not alone; and you are not valiant, my worthy man, when you have children of five feet six inches to combat."
"Oh!" muttered Simon, grinding his teeth.
"Capet," said Fouquier, "have you confided any secrets to Simon?"
[Pg 368]
The child never turned round, but his face assumed an expression of irony impossible to describe.
"About your mother?" continued Fouquier.
A look of supreme contempt passed over his countenance.
"Reply, yes or no!" cried Hanriot.
"Say yes!" roared Simon, holding his leather stirrup over the child's head.
The child shuddered, but made no movement to avoid the blow. Those present uttered a cry expressive of their disgust. Lorin did more. Before the wretch could lower his arm he darted forward and seized him by the wrist.
"Will you let me go?" roared Simon, purple with rage.
"Come, there is no harm," said Fouquier, "in a mother loving her child. Tell us in what way your mother loved you, Capet. It may be useful to her."
The young prisoner started at the idea of being useful to his mother.
"She loves me as a mother loves her son, sir," said he; "there are not two ways for mothers to love their sons, or sons to love their mothers."
"And I, little serpent, declare that you have told me your mother—"
"You have dreamed that," interrupted Lorin, quietly, "you must often have the nightmare, Simon."
"Lorin! Lorin!" growled Simon, grinding his teeth.
"Yes, again, Lorin. There is no way of beating Lorin, since he chastises the wicked; there is no way to denounce him for what he did in arresting your arm, as it was done before General Hanriot and Fouquier Tinville, who approve of it, and they are not lukewarm in the cause. There is then no way to bring him to the guil[Pg 369]lotine, as you did poor Héloïse Tison. It is very grievous, very vexatious, very enraging; still it is so, my poor Simon!"
"Later! later!" replied the shoemaker, with his mocking laugh.
"Yes, dear friend," said Lorin, "I hope with the help of the Supreme Being—Ah! you expected I was going to say with the help of God! But I hope with the assistance of the Supreme Being, and my good sword, to disembowel you first; but move aside, Simon, you prevent me from seeing."
"Rascal!"
"Be silent, you prevent me from hearing," and Lorin silenced him with a threatening look.
Simon clinched his black hands and shook his fists, but as Lorin had told him, he was obliged to confine himself to these manifestations.
"Now he has begun to speak," said Hanriot, "he will continue no doubt. Go on, Fouquier!"
"Will you reply now?" demanded Fouquier.
The child returned to his former silence.
"You see, Citizen! you see!" exclaimed Simon.
"The obstinacy of this child is strange," said Hanriot, troubled in spite of himself at this royal firmness.
"He is ill advised," said Lorin.
"By whom?" demanded Hanriot.
"By his guardian."
"Do you accuse me?" cried Simon,—"do you denounce me? Ah! that is curious—"
"Let us try gentleness," said Fouquier. Then turning toward the child, whom one would have supposed to be insensible,—
"My child," said he, "reply to the National Commission; do not aggravate your situation by refusing us any[Pg 370] useful information. You have spoken to the Citizen Simon about your mother,—how you caress her and love her; how she caresses and loves you?"
Louis threw a glance around the assembly, which gleamed with hatred when it rested on Simon, but he did not reply.
"Do you feel yourself unhappy?" demanded the accuser; "are you uncomfortably lodged, badly fed, and unkindly treated? Would you wish more liberty, better food, another prison, another guardian? Would you like a horse to ride upon, and some companions of your own age?"
Louis still maintained the profound silence he had only once broken, to defend his mother.
The Commission was utterly confounded at so much firmness and intelligence evinced by a child.
"Ah, these kings!" said Hanriot, in a low voice, "what a race! They are like tigers; even the young ones inherit their wickedness."
"How are we to write the investigation?" asked the registrar, much embarrassed.
"There is no charge against Simon; there is nothing to write," said Lorin; "that will suit him exactly."
Simon again shook his fist at his implacable enemy.
Lorin began to laugh.
"You will not laugh like that the day you will sneeze in the sack," said Simon, drunk with fury.
"I do not know whether I shall precede or follow you in the little ceremony you menace me with," said Lorin; "but this I do know, that many will laugh when your turn comes. Gods!—I have spoken in the plural,—gods! you will not be ugly then, Simon; you will be hideous."
[Pg 371]
And Lorin retired behind the Commission, with a fresh burst of laughter.
The Commission, having nothing more to attend to, withdrew.
As for the poor child, released from his tormentors, he began to sing a little melancholy ditty which had been a great favorite of his father.
[Pg 372]