The idea we have expressed regarding the scaffold seemed to have struck them both.
"See," said Maurice, "how the hideous monster rears her red arms; might it not be said that she calls us, and grins at us through her wicket as if it was her horrid mouth?"
"I," said Lorin, "must confess I do not belong to the school of poetry which sees everything blood-color. I see[Pg 454] everything couleur-de-rose, and even at the foot of that dreadful machine I should sing and hope still. 'Dum spiro spero.'"
"You hope when they murder women?"
"Maurice," said Lorin, "child of the Revolution, do not deny your mother! Ah! Maurice, remain a stanch and loyal patriot. She who is condemned to die is unlike all other women; she is the evil genius of France."
"Oh, it is not she that I regret; it is not for her I weep!" cried Maurice.
"Yes; I understand, it is Geneviève."
"Ah!" said Maurice, "there is one thought that drives me mad! It is that Geneviève is in the hands of those purveyors to the guillotine, Hébert and Fouquier Tinville,—in the hands of the men who sent here the poor Héloïse, and are now sending the proud Marie Antoinette."
"Well!" said Lorin, "it is this very fact that inspires me with hope. When the rage of the people has feasted on two tyrants it will be satiated for some time at least,—like the boa-constrictor, which requires three months to digest what he has devoured. Then the popular rage will swallow no more; and as is said by the prophets of the faubourg, 'the lesser morsels will be no longer palatable.'"
"Lorin! Lorin!" said Maurice, "I am more positive than you, and I say it in a whisper, but am ready to repeat it aloud,—Lorin, I hate the new queen who seems destined to succeed the Austrian, whom she destroys. It is a sad queen whose purple is daily dyed in blood, and to whom Sanson is prime minister."
"Bah! we shall escape her."
"I do not think so," said Maurice, shaking his head; "to avoid being arrested at your house we have no resource but to live in the street."
[Pg 455]
"Bah! we can quit Paris; there is nothing to prevent us. We need not complain. My uncle will await us at Saint Omer; money, passport, nothing will be wanting. There exists not the gendarme who shall arrest us; what do you think? We remain in Paris because we choose to do so."
"No; that is not correct, excellent friend, devoted and faithful as you are— You remain because I wish to continue here."
"And you wish to remain to discover Geneviève. Well! nothing is more simple, just, or natural. You think she is in prison; nothing more probable. You wish to keep watch over her, and on that account we cannot quit Paris."
Maurice drew a deep sigh; it was evident his thoughts were wandering.
"Do you remember the death of Louis XVI?" said he. "I can see him yet, pale with pride and emotion. I was then one of the chiefs of this crowd, in whose folds I conceal myself to-day. I was greater at the foot of the scaffold than the king upon it had ever been. What a change, Lorin! and when one thinks that nine short months have sufficed to work this change!"
"Nine months of love, Maurice— Love ruined Troy!"
Maurice sighed; his wandering thoughts now took another direction.
"Poor Maison-Rouge," said he; "this is a sad day for him!"
"Alas!" said Lorin, "shall I tell you what appears to me the most melancholy thing about revolutions?"
"Yes," said Maurice.
"It is that one often has for friends those we should prefer as enemies; and for enemies those we would wish—"
[Pg 456]
"There is one thing I can hardly believe," interrupted Maurice.
"What?"
"It is that he will not invent some project, though the most hopeless, to save the queen."
"What! one man stronger than a hundred thousand!"
"I said, 'though the most hopeless.' I know that to save Geneviève—" Lorin frowned.
"I again tell you, Maurice," said he, "you are wild! No; even were it possible for you to save Geneviève, you would not become a bad citizen. But enough of this, Maurice; they are listening to us. Look how the heads undulate; see! there is Sanson's valet raising himself from under his basket, and looking in the distance. The Austrian arrives."
In short, as if to accompany this undulation which Lorin had remarked, a shuddering, prolonged and increasing, pervaded the crowd. It was one of those hurricanes which commence with a whistle and terminate with a bellow. Maurice raised himself by the help of the lamp-post, and looked toward the Rue Saint Honoré.
"Yes," said he shuddering; "there she is." And another machine now made its appearance, almost as revolting as the guillotine. It was the fatal car.
On the right and left glittered the arms of the escort; while in front marched Grammont, replying with flashes of his sabre to the shouts and cries of some fanatics. But ever as the cart advanced these cries subsided under the haughty courage of the condemned.
Never had a countenance commanded more respect; never had Marie Antoinette looked more the queen. Her proud courage struck terror into those around her.
Indifferent to the exhortations of the Abbé Girard, who despite of her opposition accompanied her, her face[Pg 457] moved neither to the right nor left; her deep thought was as immutable as her look; even the jolting motion of the cart upon the uneven pavement did not by its violence disturb the rigidity of her demeanor. She might have been taken for a marble statue conveyed in the car, had it not been for her brilliant eyes, and her hair waving in the wind.
A silence equal to that of the desert fell suddenly upon the three hundred thousand spectators of this scene, witnessed by the heavens for the first time by the light of the sun.
In the place where Maurice and Lorin were standing they heard the creaking of the axles and the snorting of the horses.
The car stopped at the foot of the scaffold.
The queen, who doubtless was not thinking of this moment, recalled herself, and understood it all; she threw a haughty glance upon the crowd, and again beheld the pale young man she had previously seen standing on the cannon. He was now mounted on a wall, and repeated the respectful salutation he had before offered her as she left the Conciergerie. He then disappeared. Many persons seeing him, it was soon reported, from his being dressed in black, that a priest was in attendance on Marie Antoinette, to give her absolution ere she ascended the scaffold.
Further than that no one disturbed the Chevalier. In moments of highest concern, certain things are treated with marked deference.
The queen cautiously descended the steps from the car, supported by Sanson, who to the last moment, in accomplishing the task to which he himself appeared to be condemned, treated her with the greatest respect.
As the queen walked toward the steps of the scaffold[Pg 458] some of the horses reared, and several of the foot-guards and soldiers appeared to oscillate and lose their equilibrium; then a shadow was seen to glide under the scaffold; but tranquillity was almost instantaneously re-established, since no one was willing to quit his place at this solemn moment,—no one was willing to lose the minutest detail of the dreadful tragedy about to be accomplished. All eyes were directed toward the condemned.
The queen was already on the platform of the scaffold. The priest still continued to address her; an assistant moved her gently forward, while another removed the scarf from her shoulders.
Marie Antoinette felt the touch of the infamous hand upon her neck, and making a sudden movement trod upon Sanson's foot, who, without her having seen him, was engaged in fixing her to the fatal plank. Sanson drew back his foot.
"Excuse me, sir," said the queen; "I did not do it intentionally."
These were the last words pronounced by the daughter of the Cæsars, the queen of France, the widow of Louis XVI.
As the clock of the Tuileries struck a quarter after twelve, the queen was launched into eternity.
A terrible cry—a cry comprising at once joy, terror, sorrow, triumph, expiation—rose like a storm, drowning a feeble burst of lamentation which at the same moment issued from beneath the scaffold.
The gendarmes heard it notwithstanding, feeble as it was, and advanced some steps in front. The crowd, now less compact, expanded like a river whose dike has been enlarged, threw down the fence, dispersed the guards, and rushed like the returning tide to beat the foot of the scaffold, which was already shaking.
[Pg 459]
All wished for a nearer view of the remains of that royalty which they believed, root and branch, forever exterminated in France.
But the gendarmes had another object in view,—they sought the shadow which had repassed their lines, and glided beneath the scaffold.
Two of them returned leading between them by the collar a pale young man, whose hand held a blood-stained handkerchief, which he pressed to his heart; he was followed by a little spaniel howling piteously.
"Death to the aristocrat! death to the noble!" cried some men of the people; "he has dipped his handkerchief in the Austrian's blood,—to death with him!"
"Good Heavens!" said Maurice to Lorin, "do you recognize him? Do you recognize him?"
"Death to the royalist!" repeated the madmen; "take away the handkerchief he wishes to preserve as a relic! wrest it from him! tear it from him!"
A haughty smile flitted across the young man's lips, he tore open his shirt, bared his breast, and dropped the handkerchief.
"Gentlemen," said he, "this blood is not the queen's, but my own. Let me die in peace;" and a deep, gushing wound appeared widely gaping under the left breast. The crowd uttered one cry and retired. The young man sank slowly upon his knees, and gazed upon the scaffold as a martyr looks upon the altar.
"Maison-Rouge!" whispered Lorin to Maurice.
"Adieu!" murmured the young man, bowing his head with an angelic smile,—"adieu! or rather, au revoir!" and he expired in the midst of the stupefied guards.
"There is still this expedient, Lorin," said Maurice, "before becoming an unworthy citizen."
[Pg 460]
The little spaniel turned toward the corpse, terrified and howling lamentably.
"Why, there is Jet," said a man, holding a large club in his hand,—"why, there is Jet; come here, old fellow."
The dog advanced toward him, but was scarcely within arm's length of the man who had called him, when the brutal wretch raised his club and dashed out his brains, at the same time bursting into a hoarse laugh.
"Cowardly wretch!" cried Maurice.
"Silence!" whispered Lorin, "or we are lost. It is Simon."
[Pg 461]