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El Dorado
by Baroness Orczy
May, 1999 [Etext #1752]
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EL DORADO
by Baroness Orczy
FOREWORD
There has of late years crept so much confusion into the mind of
the student as well as of the general reader as to the identity of
the Scarlet Pimpernel with that of the Gascon Royalist plotter
known to history as the Baron de Batz, that the time seems
opportune for setting all doubts on that subject at rest.
The identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel is in no way whatever
connected with that of the Baron de Batz, and even superficial
reflection will soon bring the mind to the conclusion that great
fundamental differences existed in these two men, in their
personality, in their character, and, above all, in their aims.
According to one or two enthusiastic historians, the Baron de Batz
was the chief agent in a vast network of conspiracy, entirely
supported by foreign money--both English and Austrian--and which
had for its object the overthrow of the Republican Government and
the restoration of the monarchy in France.
In order to attain this political goal, it is averred that he set
himself the task of pitting the members of the revolutionary
Government one against the other, and bringing hatred and
dissensions amongst them, until the cry of "Traitor!" resounded
from one end of the Assembly of the Convention to the other, and
the Assembly itself became as one vast den of wild beasts wherein
wolves and hyenas devoured one another and, still unsatiated,
licked their streaming jaws hungering for more prey.
Those same enthusiastic historians, who have a firm belief in the
so-called "Foreign Conspiracy," ascribe every important event of
the Great Revolution--be that event the downfall of the Girondins,
the escape of the Dauphin from the Temple, or the death of
Robespierre--to the intrigues of Baron de Batz. He it was, so
they say, who egged the Jacobins on against the Mountain,
Robespierre against Danton, Hebert against Robespierre. He it was
who instigated the massacres of September, the atrocities of
Nantes, the horrors of Thermidor, the sacrileges, the noyades:
all with the view of causing every section of the National
Assembly to vie with the other in excesses and in cruelty, until
the makers of the Revolution, satiated with their own lust, turned
on one another, and Sardanapalus-like buried themselves and their
orgies in the vast hecatomb of a self-consumed anarchy.
Whether the power thus ascribed to Baron de Batz by his historians
is real or imaginary it is not the purpose of this preface to
investigate. Its sole object is to point out the difference
between the career of this plotter and that of the Scarlet
Pimpernel.
The Baron de Batz himself was an adventurer without substance,
save that which he derived from abroad. He was one of those men
who have nothing to lose and everything to gain by throwing
themselves headlong in the seething cauldron of internal politics.
Though he made several attempts at rescuing King Louis first, and
then the Queen and Royal Family from prison and from death, he
never succeeded, as we know, in any of these undertakings, and he
never once so much as attempted the rescue of other equally
innocent, if not quite so distinguished, victims of the most
bloodthirsty revolution that has ever shaken the foundations of
the civilised world.
Nay more; when on the 29th Prairial those unfortunate men and
women were condemned and executed for alleged complicity in the
so-called " Foreign Conspiracy," de Batz, who is universally
admitted to have been the head and prime-mover of that conspiracy
--if, indeed, conspiracy there was--never made either the
slightest attempt to rescue his confederates from the guillotine,
or at least the offer to perish by their side if he could not
succeed in saving them.
And when we remember that the martyrs of the 29th Prairial
included women like Grandmaison, the devoted friend of de Batz,
the beautiful Emilie de St. Amaranthe, little Cecile Renault--a
mere child not sixteen years of age--also men like Michonis and
Roussell, faithful servants of de Batz, the Baron de Lezardiere,
and the Comte de St. Maurice, his friends, we no longer can have
the slightest doubt that the Gascon plotter and the English
gentleman are indeed two very different persons.
The latter's aims were absolutely non-political. He never
intrigued for the restoration of the monarchy, or even for the
overthrow of that Republic which lie loathed.
His only concern was the rescue of the innocent, the stretching
out of a saving hand to those unfortunate creatures who had fallen
into the nets spread out for them by their fellow-men; by those
who--godless, lawless, penniless themselves--had sworn to
exterminate all those who clung to their belongings, to their
religion, and to their beliefs.
The Scarlet Pimpernel did not take it upon himself to punish the
guilty; his care was solely of the helpless and of the innocent.
For this aim he risked his life every time that he set foot on
French soil, for it he sacrificed his fortune, and even his
personal happiness, and to it he devoted his entire existence.
Moreover, whereas the French plotter is said to have had
confederates even in the Assembly of the Convention, confederates
who were sufficiently influential and powerful to secure his own
immunity, the Englishman when he was bent on his errands of mercy
had the whole of France against him.
The Baron de Batz was a man who never justified either his own
ambitions or even his existence; the Scarlet Pimpernel was a
personality of whom an entire nation might justly be proud.
CONTENTS
PART I
I IN THE THEATRE NATIONAL
II WIDELY DIVERGENT AIMS
III THE DEMON CHANCE
IV MADEMOISELLE LANGE
V THE TEMPLE PRISON
VI THE COMMITTEE'S AGENT
VII THE MOST PRECIOUS LIFE IN EUROPE
VIII ARCADES AMBO
IX WHAT LOVE CAN DO
X SHADOWS
XI THE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
XII WHAT LOVE IS
XIII THEN EVERYTHING WAS DARK
XIV THE CHIEF
XV THE GATE OF LA VILLETTE
XVI THE WEARY SEARCH
XVII CHAUVELIN
XVIII THE REMOVAL
XIX IT IS ABOUT THE DAUPHIN
XX THE CERTIFICATE OF SAFETY
XXI BACK TO PARIS
XXII OF THAT THERE COULD BE NO QUESTION
XXIII THE OVERWHELMING ODDS
PART II
XXIV THE NEWS
XXV PARIS ONCE MORE
XXVI THE BITTEREST FOE
XXVI IN THE CONCIERGERIE
XXVIII THE CAGED LION
XXIX FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT
XXX AFTERWARDS
XXXI AN INTERLUDE
XXXII SISTERS
XXXIII LITTLE MOTHER
XXXIV THE LETTER
PART III
XXXV THE LAST PHASE
XXXVI SUBMISSION
XXXVII CHAUVELIN'S ADVICE
XXXVIII CAPITULATION
XXXIX KILL HIM!
XL GOD HELP US ALL
XLI WHEN HOPE WAS DEAD
XLII THE GUARD-HOUSE OF THE RUE STE.ANNE
XLIII THE DREARY JOURNEY
XLIV THE HALT AT CRECY
XLV THE FOREST OF BOULOGNE
XLVI OTHERS IN THE PARK
XLVII THE CHAPEL OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
XLVIII THE WANING MOON
XLIX THE LAND OF ELDORADO
PART I
CHAPTER I
IN THE THEATRE NATIONAL
And yet people found the opportunity to amuse themselves, to dance
and to go to the theatre, to enjoy music and open-air cafes and
promenades in the Palais Royal.
New fashions in dress made their appearance, milliners produced
fresh "creations," and jewellers were not idle. A grim sense of
humour, born of the very intensity of ever-present danger, had
dubbed the cut of certain tunics "tete tranche," or a favourite
ragout was called "a la guillotine."
On three evenings only during the past memorable four and a half
years did the theatres close their doors, and these evenings were
the ones immediately following that terrible 2nd of September the
day of the butchery outside the Abbaye prison, when Paris herself
was aghast with horror, and the cries of the massacred might have
drowned the calls of the audience whose hands upraised for
plaudits would still be dripping with blood.
On all other evenings of these same four and a half years the
theatres in the Rue de Richelieu, in the Palais Royal, the
Luxembourg, and others, had raised their curtains and taken money
at their doors. The same audience that earlier in the day had
whiled away the time by witnessing the ever-recurrent dramas of
the Place de la Revolution assembled here in the evenings and
filled stalls, boxes, and tiers, laughing over the satires of
Voltaire or weeping over the sentimental tragedies of persecuted
Romeos and innocent Juliets.
Death knocked at so many doors these days! He was so constant a
guest in the houses of relatives and friends that those who had
merely shaken him by the hand, those on whom he had smiled, and
whom he, still smiling, had passed indulgently by, looked on him
with that subtle contempt born of familiarity, shrugged their
shoulders at his passage, and envisaged his probable visit on the
morrow with lighthearted indifference.
Paris--despite the horrors that had stained her walls had remained
a city of pleasure, and the knife of the guillotine did scarce
descend more often than did the drop-scenes on the stage.
On this bitterly cold evening of the 27th Nivose, in the second
year of the Republic--or, as we of the old style still persist in
calling it, the 16th of January, 1794--the auditorium of the
Theatre National was filled with a very brilliant company.
The appearance of a favourite actress in the part of one of
Moliere's volatile heroines had brought pleasure-loving Paris to
witness this revival of "Le Misanthrope," with new scenery,
dresses, and the aforesaid charming actress to add piquancy to the
master's mordant wit.
The Moniteur, which so impartially chronicles the events of
those times, tells us under that date that the Assembly of the
Convention voted on that same day a new law giving fuller power to
its spies, enabling them to effect domiciliary searches at their
discretion without previous reference to the Committee of General
Security, authorising them to proceed against all enemies of
public happiness, to send them to prison at their own discretion,
and assuring them the sum of thirty-five livres "for every piece
of game thus beaten up for the guillotine." Under that same date
the Moniteur also puts it on record that the Theatre National
was filled to its utmost capacity for the revival of the late
citoyen Moliere's comedy.
The Assembly of the Convention having voted the new law which
placed the lives of thousands at the mercy of a few human
bloodhounds, adjourned its sitting and proceeded to the Rue de
Richelieu.
Already the house was full when the fathers of the people made
their way to the seats which had been reserved for them. An awed
hush descended on the throng as one by one the men whose very
names inspired horror and dread filed in through the narrow
gangways of the stalls or took their places in the tiny boxes
around.
Citizen Robespierre's neatly bewigged head soon appeared in one of
these; his bosom friend St. Just was with him, and also his sister
Charlotte. Danton, like a big, shaggy-coated lion, elbowed his
way into the stalls, whilst Sauterre, the handsome butcher and
idol of the people of Paris, was loudly acclaimed as his huge
frame, gorgeously clad in the uniform of the National Guard, was
sighted on one of the tiers above.
The public in the parterre and in the galleries whispered
excitedly; the awe-inspiring names flew about hither and thither
on the wings of the overheated air. Women craned their necks to
catch sight of heads which mayhap on the morrow would roll into
the gruesome basket at the foot of the guillotine.
In one of the tiny avant-scene boxes two men had taken their seats
long before the bulk of the audience had begun to assemble in the
house. The inside of the box was in complete darkness, and the
narrow opening which allowed but a sorry view of one side of the
stage helped to conceal rather than display the occupants.
The younger one of these two men appeared to be something of a
stranger in Paris, for as the public men and the well-known
members of the Government began to arrive he often turned to his
companion for information regarding these notorious personalities.
"Tell me, de Batz," he said, calling the other's attention to a
group of men who had just entered the house, "that creature there
in the green coat--with his hand up to his face now--who is he?"
"Where? Which do you mean?"
"There! He looks this way now, and he has a playbill in his hand.
The man with the protruding chin and the convex forehead, a face
like a marmoset, and eyes like a jackal. What?"
The other leaned over the edge of the box, and his small, restless
eyes wandered over the now closely-packed auditorium.
"Oh!" he said as soon as he recognised the face which his friend
had pointed out to him, "that is citizen Foucquier-Tinville."
"The Public Prosecutor?"
"Himself. And Heron is the man next to him."
"Heron?" said the younger man interrogatively.
"Yes. He is chief agent to the Committee of General Security
now."
"What does that mean?"
Both leaned back in their chairs, and their sombrely-clad figures
were once more merged in the gloom of the narrow box. Instinctively,
since the name of the Public Prosecutor had been mentioned between
them, they had allowed their voices to sink to a whisper.
The older man--a stoutish, florid-looking individual, with small,
keen eyes, and skin pitted with small-pox--shrugged his shoulders
at his friend's question, and then said with an air of
contemptuous indifference:
"It means, my good St. Just, that these two men whom you see down
there, calmly conning the programme of this evening's entertainment,
and preparing to enjoy themselves to-night in the company of the late
M. de Moliere, are two hell-hounds as powerful as they are cunning."
"Yes, yes," said St. Just, and much against his will a slight
shudder ran through his slim figure as he spoke. "Foucquier-Tinville
I know; I know his cunning, and I know his power--but the other?"
"The other?" retorted de Batz lightly. "Heron? Let me tell you,
my friend, that even the might and lust of that damned Public
Prosecutor pale before the power of Heron!"
"But how? I do not understand."
"Ah! you have been in England so long, you lucky dog, and though
no doubt the main plot of our hideous tragedy has reached your
ken, you have no cognisance of the actors who play the principal
parts on this arena flooded with blood and carpeted with hate.
They come and go, these actors, my good St. Just--they come and
go. Marat is already the man of yesterday, Robespierre is the man
of to-morrow. To-day we still have Danton and Foucquier-Tinville;
we still have Pere Duchesne, and your own good cousin Antoine St.
Just, but Heron and his like are with us always."
"Spies, of course?"
"Spies," assented the other. "And what spies! Were you present
at the sitting of the Assembly to-day?"
"I was. I heard the new decree which already has passed into law.
Ah! I tell you, friend, that we do not let the grass grow under
our feet these days. Robespierre wakes up one morning with a
whim; by the afternoon that whim has become law, passed by a
servile body of men too terrified to run counter to his will,
fearful lest they be accused of moderation or of humanity--the
greatest crimes that can be committed nowadays."
"But Danton?"
"Ah! Danton? He would wish to stem the tide that his own passions
have let loose; to muzzle the raging beasts whose fangs he himself
has sharpened. I told you that Danton is still the man of to-day;
to-morrow he will be accused of moderation. Danton and moderation!
--ye gods! Eh? Danton, who thought the guillotine too slow in its
work, and armed thirty soldiers with swords, so that thirty heads
might fall at one and the same time. Danton, friend, will perish
to-morrow accused of treachery against the Revolution, of moderation
towards her enemies; and curs like Heron will feast on the blood of
lions like Danton and his crowd."
He paused a moment, for he dared not raise his voice, and his
whispers were being drowned by the noise in the auditorium. The
curtain, timed to be raised at eight o'clock, was still down,
though it was close on half-past, and the public was growing
impatient. There was loud stamping of feet, and a few shrill
whistles of disapproval proceeded from the gallery.
"If Heron gets impatient," said de Batz lightly, when the noise
had momentarily subsided, the manager of this theatre and mayhap
his leading actor and actress will spend an unpleasant day
to-morrow."
"Always Heron!" said St. Just, with a contemptuous smile.
"Yes, my friend," rejoined the other imperturbably, "always Heron.
And he has even obtained a longer lease of existence this
afternoon."
"By the new decree?"
"Yes. The new decree. The agents of the Committee of General
Security, of whom Heron is the chief, have from to-day powers of
domiciliary search; they have full powers to proceed against all
enemies of public welfare. Isn't that beautifully vague? And
they have absolute discretion; every one may become an enemy of
public welfare, either by spending too much money or by spending
too little, by laughing to-day or crying to-morrow, by mourning
for one dead relative or rejoicing over the execution of another.
He may be a bad example to the public by the cleanliness of his
person or by the filth upon his clothes, he may offend by walking
to-day and by riding in a carriage next week; the agents of the
Committee of General Security shall alone decide what constitutes
enmity against public welfare. All prisons are to be opened at
their bidding to receive those whom they choose to denounce; they
have henceforth the right to examine prisoners privately and
without witnesses, and to send them to trial without further
warrants; their duty is clear--they must 'beat up game for the
guillotine.' Thus is the decree worded; they must furnish the
Public Prosecutor with work to do, the tribunals with victims to
condemn, the Place de la Revolution with death-scenes to amuse the
people, and for their work they will be rewarded thirty-five
livres for every head that falls under the guillotine Ah! if
Heron and his like and his myrmidons work hard and well they can
make a comfortable income of four or five thousand livres a week.
We are getting on, friend St. Just--we are getting on."
He had not raised his voice while he spoke, nor in the recounting
of such inhuman monstrosity, such vile and bloodthirsty conspiracy
against the liberty, the dignity, the very life of an entire
nation, did he appear to feel the slightest indignation; rather
did a tone of amusement and even of triumph strike through his
speech; and now he laughed good-humouredly like an indulgent
parent who is watching the naturally cruel antics of a spoilt boy.
"Then from this hell let loose upon earth," exclaimed St. Just
hotly, "must we rescue those who refuse to ride upon this tide of
blood."
His cheeks were glowing, his eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. He
looked very young and very eager. Armand St. Just, the brother of
Lady Blakeney, had something of the refined beauty of his lovely
sister, but the features though manly--had not the latent strength
expressed in them which characterised every line of Marguerite's
exquisite face. The forehead suggested a dreamer rather than a
thinker, the blue-grey eyes were those of an idealist rather than
of a man of action.
De Batz's keen piercing eyes had no doubt noted this, even whilst
he gazed at his young friend with that same look of good-humoured
indulgence which seemed habitual to him.
"We have to think of the future, my good St. Just," he said after
a slight pause, and speaking slowly and decisively, like a father
rebuking a hot-headed child, "not of the present. What are a few
lives worth beside the great principles which we have at stake?"
"The restoration of the monarchy--I know," retorted St. Just,
still unsobered, "but, in the meanwhile--"
"In the meanwhile," rejoined de Batz earnestly, "every victim to
the lust of these men is a step towards the restoration of law and
order--that is to say, of the monarchy. It is only through these
violent excesses perpetrated in its name that the nation will
realise how it is being fooled by a set of men who have only their
own power and their own advancement in view, and who imagine that
the only way to that power is over the dead bodies of those who
stand in their way. Once the nation is sickened by these orgies
of ambition and of hate, it will turn against these savage brutes,
and gladly acclaim the restoration of all that they are striving
to destroy. This is our only hope for the future, and, believe
me, friend, that every head snatched from the guillotine by your
romantic hero, the Scarlet Pimpernel, is a stone laid for the
consolidation of this infamous Republic."
"I'll not believe it," protested St. Just emphatically.
De Batz, with a gesture of contempt indicative also of complete
self-satisfaction and unalterable self-belief, shrugged his broad
shoulders. His short fat fingers, covered with rings, beat a
tattoo upon the ledge of the box.
Obviously, he was ready with a retort. His young friend's
attitude irritated even more than it amused him. But he said
nothing for the moment, waiting while the traditional three knocks
on the floor of the stage proclaimed the rise of the curtain. The
growing impatience of the audience subsided as if by magic at the
welcome call; everybody settled down again comfortably in their
seats, they gave up the contemplation of the fathers of the
people, and turned their full attention to the actors on the
boards.
CHAPTER II
WIDELY DIVERGENT AIMS
This was Armand S. Just's first visit to Paris since that
memorable day when first he decided to sever his connection from
the Republican party, of which he and his beautiful sister
Marguerite had at one time been amongst the most noble, most
enthusiastic followers. Already a year and a half ago the
excesses of the party had horrified him, and that was long before
they had degenerated into the sickening orgies which were
culminating to-day in wholesale massacres and bloody hecatombs of
innocent victims.
With the death of Mirabeau the moderate Republicans, whose sole
and entirely pure aim had been to free the people of France from
the autocratic tyranny of the Bourbons, saw the power go from
their clean hands to the grimy ones of lustful demagogues, who
knew no law save their own passions of bitter hatred against all
classes that were not as self-seeking, as ferocious as themselves.
It was no longer a question of a fight for political and religious
liberty only, but one of class against class, man against man, and
let the weaker look to himself. The weaker had proved himself to
be, firstly, the man of property and substance, then the
law-abiding citizen, lastly the man of action who had obtained for
the people that very same liberty of thought and of belief which
soon became so terribly misused.
Armand St. Just, one of the apostles of liberty, fraternity, and
equality, soon found that the most savage excesses of tyranny were
being perpetrated in the name of those same ideals which he had
worshipped.
His sister Marguerite, happily married in England, was the final
temptation which caused him to quit the country the destinies of
which he no longer could help to control. The spark of enthusiasm
which he and the followers of Mirabeau had tried to kindle in the
hearts of an oppressed people had turned to raging tongues of
unquenchable flames. The taking of the Bastille had been the
prelude to the massacres of September, and even the horror of
these had since paled beside the holocausts of to-day.
Armand, saved from the swift vengeance of the revolutionaries by
the devotion of the Scarlet Pimpernel, crossed over to England and
enrolled himself tinder the banner of the heroic chief. But he
had been unable hitherto to be an active member of the League.
The chief was loath to allow him to run foolhardy risks. The St.
Justs--both Marguerite and Armand--were still very well-known in
Paris. Marguerite was not a woman easily forgotten, and her
marriage with an English "aristo" did not please those republican
circles who had looked upon her as their queen. Armand's secession
from his party into the ranks of the emigres had singled him out
for special reprisals, if and whenever he could be got hold of,
and both brother and sister had an unusually bitter enemy in their
cousin Antoine St. Just--once an aspirant to Marguerite's hand,
and now a servile adherent and imitator of Robespierre, whose
ferocious cruelty he tried to emulate with a view to ingratiating
himself with the most powerful man of the day.
Nothing would have pleased Antoine St. Just more than the
opportunity of showing his zeal and his patriotism by denouncing
his own kith and kin to the Tribunal of the Terror, and the
Scarlet Pimpernel, whose own slender fingers were held on the
pulse of that reckless revolution, had no wish to sacrifice
Armand's life deliberately, or even to expose it to unnecessary
dangers.
Thus it was that more than a year had gone by before Armand St.
Just--an enthusiastic member of the League of the Scarlet
Pimpernel--was able to do aught for its service. He had chafed
under the enforced restraint placed upon him by the prudence of
his chief, when, indeed, he was longing to risk his life with the
comrades whom he loved and beside the leader whom he revered.
At last, in the beginning of '94 he persuaded Blakeney to allow
him to join the next expedition to France. What the principal aim
of that expedition was the members of the League did not know as
yet, but what they did know was that perils--graver even than
hitherto--would attend them on their way.
The circumstances had become very different of late At first the
impenetrable mystery which had surrounded the personality of the
chief had been a full measure of safety, but now one tiny corner
of that veil of mystery had been lifted by two rough pairs of
hands at least; Chauvelin, ex-ambassador at the English Court, was
no longer in any doubt as to the identity of the Scarlet
Pimpernel, whilst Collot d'Herbois had seen him at Boulogne, and
had there been effectually foiled by him.
Four months had gone by since that day, and the Scarlet Pimpernel
was hardly ever out of France now; the massacres in Paris and in
the provinces had multiplied with appalling rapidity, the
necessity for the selfless devotion of that small band of heroes
had become daily, hourly more pressing. They rallied round their
chief with unbounded enthusiasm, and let it be admitted at once
that the sporting instinct--inherent in these English gentlemen--
made them all the more keen, all the more eager now that the
dangers which beset their expeditions were increased tenfold.
At a word from the beloved leader, these young men--the spoilt
darlings of society--would leave the gaieties, the pleasures, the
luxuries of London or of Bath, and, taking their lives tn their
hands, they placed them, together with their fortunes, and even
their good names, at the service of the innocent and helpless
victims of merciless tyranny. The married men--Ffoulkes, my Lord
Hastings, Sir Jeremiah Wallescourt--left wife and children at a
call from the chief, at the cry of the wretched. Armand--
unattached and enthusiastic--had the right to demand that he
should no longer be left behind.
He had only been away a little over fifteen months, and yet he
found Paris a different city from the one he had left immediately
after the terrible massacres of September. An air of grim
loneliness seemed to hang over her despite the crowds that
thronged her streets; the men whom he was wont to meet in public
places fifteen months ago--friends and political allies--were no
longer to be seen; strange faces surrounded him on every side--
sullen, glowering faces, all wearing a certain air of horrified
surprise and of vague, terrified wonder, as if life had become
one awful puzzle, the answer to which must be found in the brief
interval between the swift passages of death.
Armand St. Just, having settled his few simple belongings in the
squalid lodgings which had been assigned to him, had started out
after dark to wander somewhat aimlessly through the streets.
Instinctively he seemed to be searching for a familiar face, some
one who would come to him out of that merry past which he had
spent with Marguerite in their pretty apartment in the Rue St.
Honore.
For an hour he wandered thus and met no one whom he knew. At times
it appeared to him as if he did recognise a face or figure that
passed him swiftly by in the gloom, but even before he could fully
make up his mind to that, the face or figure had already disappeared,
gliding furtively down some narrow unlighted by-street, without
turning to look to right or left, as if dreading fuller recognition.
Armand felt a total stranger in his own native city.
The terrible hours of the execution on the Place de la Revolution
were fortunately over, the tumbrils no longer rattled along the
uneven pavements, nor did the death-cry of the unfortunate victims
resound through the deserted streets. Armand was, on this first
day of his arrival, spared the sight of this degradation of the
once lovely city; but her desolation, her general appearance of
shamefaced indigence and of cruel aloofness struck a chill in the
young man's heart.
It was no wonder, therefore, when anon he was wending his way
slowly back to his lodging he was accosted by a pleasant, cheerful
voice, that he responded to it with alacrity. The voice, of a
smooth, oily timbre, as if the owner kept it well greased for
purposes of amiable speech, was like an echo of the past, when
jolly, irresponsible Baron de Batz, erst-while officer of the
Guard in the service of the late King, and since then known to be
the most inveterate conspirator for the restoration of the
monarchy, used to amuse Marguerite by his vapid, senseless plans
for the overthrow of the newly-risen power of the people.
Armand was quite glad to meet him, and when de Batz suggested that
a good talk over old times would be vastly agreeable, the younger
man gladly acceded, The two men, though certainly not mistrustful
of one another, did not seem to care to reveal to each other the
place where they lodged. De Batz at once proposed the avant-scene
box of one of the theatres as being the safest place where old
friends could talk without fear of spying eyes or ears.
"There is no place so safe or so private nowadays, believe me, my
young friend," he said "I have tried every sort of nook and
cranny in this accursed town, now riddled with spies, and I have
come to the conclusion that a small avant-scene box is the most
perfect den of privacy there is in the entire city. The voices of
the actors on the stage and the hum among the audience in the
house will effectually drown all individual conversation to every
ear save the one for whom it is intended."
It is not difficult to persuade a young man who feels lonely and
somewhat forlorn in a large city to while away an evening in the
companionship of a cheerful talker, and de Batz was essentially
good company. His vapourings had always been amusing, but Armand
now gave him credit for more seriousness of purpose; and though
the chief had warned him against picking up acquaintances in
Paris, the young man felt that that restriction would certainly
not apply to a man like de Batz, whose hot partisanship of the
Royalist cause and hare-brained schemes for its restoration must
make him at one with the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Armand accepted the other's cordial invitation. He, too, felt
that he would indeed be safer from observation in a crowded
theatre than in the streets. Among a closely packed throng bent
on amusement the sombrely-clad figure of a young man, with the
appearance of a student or of a journalist, would easily pass
unperceived.
But somehow, after the first ten minutes spent in de Batz' company
within the gloomy shelter of the small avant-scene box, Armand
already repented of the impulse which had prompted him to come to
the theatre to-night, and to renew acquaintanceship with the
ex-officer of the late King's Guard. Though he knew de Batz to be
an ardent Royalist, and even an active adherent of the monarchy,
he was soon conscious of a vague sense of mistrust of this
pompous, self-complacent individual, whose every utterance
breathed selfish aims rather than devotion to a forlorn cause.
Therefore, when the curtain rose at last on the first act of
Moliere's witty comedy, St. Just turned deliberately towards the
stage and tried to interest himself in the wordy quarrel between
Philinte and Alceste.
But this attitude on the part of the younger man did not seem to
suit his newly-found friend. It was clear that de Batz did not
consider the topic of conversation by any means exhausted, and
that it had been more with a view to a discussion like the present
interrupted one that he had invited St. Just to come to the
theatre with him to-night, rather than for the purpose of
witnessing Mile. Lange's debut in the part of Celimene.
The presence of St. Just in Paris had as a matter of fact
astonished de Batz not a little, and had set his intriguing brain
busy on conjectures. It was in order to turn these conjectures
into certainties that he had desired private talk with the young
man.
He waited silently now for a moment or two, his keen, small eyes
resting with evident anxiety on Armand's averted head, his fingers
still beating the impatient tattoo upon the velvet-covered cushion
of the box. Then at the first movement of St. Just towards him he
was ready in an instant to re-open the subject under discussion.
With a quick nod of his head he called his young friend's
attention back to the men in the auditorium.
"Your good cousin Antoine St. Just is hand and glove with
Robespierre now," he said. "When you left Paris more than a year
ago you could afford to despise him as an empty-headed windbag;
now, if you desire to remain in France, you will have to fear him
as a power and a menace."
"Yes, I knew that he had taken to herding with the wolves,"
rejoined Armand lightly. "At one time he was in love with my
sister. I thank God that she never cared for him."
"They say that he herds with the wolves because of this
disappointment," said de Batz. "The whole pack is made up of men
who have been disappointed, and who have nothing more to lose.
When all these wolves will have devoured one another, then and
then only can we hope for the restoration of the monarchy in
France. And they will not turn on one another whilst prey for
their greed lies ready to their jaws. Your friend the Scarlet
Pimpernel should feed this bloody revolution of ours rather than
starve it, if indeed he hates it as he seems to do."
His restless eyes peered with eager interrogation into those of
the younger man. He paused as if waiting for a reply; then, as
St. Just remained silent, he reiterated slowly, almost in the
tones of a challenge:
"If indeed he hates this bloodthirsty revolution of ours as he
seems to do."
The reiteration implied a doubt. In a moment St. Just's loyalty
was up in arms.
The Scarlet Pimpernel," he said, "cares naught for your political
aims. The work of mercy that he does, he does for justice and for
humanity."
"And for sport," said de Batz with a sneer, "so I've been told."
"He is English," assented St. Just, " and as such will never own
to sentiment. Whatever be the motive, look at the result!
"Yes! a few lives stolen from the guillotine."
"Women and children--innocent victims--would have perished but
for his devotion."
"The more innocent they were, the more helpless, the more
pitiable, the louder would their blood have cried for reprisals
against the wild beasts who sent them to their death."
St. Just made no reply. It was obviously useless to attempt to
argue with this man, whose political aims were as far apart from
those of the Scarlet Pimpernel as was the North Pole from the
South.
"If any of you have influence over that hot-headed leader of
yours," continued de Batz, unabashed by the silence of his friend,
"I wish to God you would exert it now."
"In what way?" queried St. Just, smiling in spite of himself at
the thought of his or any one else's control over Blakeney and his
plans.
It was de Batz' turn to be silent. He paused for a moment or two,
then he asked abruptly:
"Your Scarlet Pimpernel is in Paris now, is he not?"
"I cannot tell you," replied Armand.
"Bah! there is no necessity to fence with me, my friend. The
moment I set eyes on you this afternoon I knew that you had not
come to Paris alone."
"You are mistaken, my good de Batz," rejoined the young man
earnestly; "I came to Paris alone."
"Clever parrying, on my word--but wholly wasted on my unbelieving
ears. Did I not note at once that you did not seem overpleased
to-day when I accosted you?"
"Again you are mistaken. I was very pleased to meet you, for I
had felt singularly lonely all day, and was glad to shake a friend
by the hand. What you took for displeasure was only surprise."
"Surprise? Ah, yes! I don't wonder that you were surprised to see
me walking unmolested and openly in the streets of Paris--whereas
you had heard of me as a dangerous conspirator, eh ?--and as a man
who has the entire police of his country at his heels--on whose
head there is a price--what?"
"I knew that you had made several noble efforts to rescue the
unfortunate King and Queen from the hands of these brutes."
"All of which efforts were unsuccessful," assented de Batz
imperturbably, "every one of them having been either betrayed by
some d--d confederate or ferreted out by some astute spy eager for
gain. Yes, my friend, I made several efforts to rescue King Louis
and Queen Marie Antoinette from the scaffold, and every time I was
foiled, and yet here I am, you see, unscathed and free. I walk
about the streets boldly, and talk to my friends as I meet them."
"You are lucky," said St. Just, not without a tinge of sarcasm.
"I have been prudent," retorted de Batz. "I have taken the
trouble to make friends there where I thought I needed them
most--the mammon of unrighteousness, you know-what?"
And he laughed a broad, thick laugh of perfect self-satisfaction.
"Yes, I know," rejoined St. Just, with the tone of sarcasm still
more apparent in his voice now. " You have Austrian money at your
disposal."
"Any amount," said the other complacently, "and a great deal of it
sticks to the grimy fingers of these patriotic makers of
revolutions. Thus do I ensure my own safety. I buy it with the
Emperor's money, and thus am I able to work for the restoration of
the monarchy in France."
Again St. Just was silent. What could he say? Instinctively now,
as the fleshy personality of the Gascon Royalist seemed to spread
itself out and to fill the tiny box with his ambitious schemes and
his far-reaching plans, Armand's thoughts flew back to that other
plotter, the man with the pure and simple aims, the man whose
slender fingers had never handled alien gold, but were ever there
ready stretched out to the helpless and the weak, whilst his
thoughts were only of the help that he might give them, but never
of his own safety.
De Batz, however, seemed blandly unconscious of any such
disparaging thoughts in the mind of his young friend, for he
continued quite amiably, even though a note of anxiety seemed to
make itself felt now in his smooth voice:
"We advance slowly, but step by step, my good St. Just," he said.
"I have not been able to save the monarchy in the person of the
King or the Queen, but I may yet do it in the person of the
Dauphin."
"The Dauphin," murmured St. Just involuntarily.
That involuntary murmur, scarcely audible, so soft was it, seemed
in some way to satisfy de Batz, for the keenness of his gaze
relaxed, and his fat fingers ceased their nervous, intermittent
tattoo on the ledge of the box.
"Yes ! the Dauphin," he said, nodding his head as if in answer to
his own thoughts, "or rather, let me say, the reigning King of
France--Louis XVII, by the grace of God--the most precious life at
present upon the whole of this earth."
"You are right there, friend de Batz," assented Armand fervently,
"the most precious life, as you say, and one that must be saved at
all costs."
"Yes," said de Batz calmly, "but not by your friend the Scarlet
Pimpernel."
"Why not?"
Scarce were those two little words out of St. Just's mouth than he
repented of them. He bit his lip, and with a dark frown upon his
face he turned almost defiantly towards his friend.
But de Batz smiled with easy bonhomie.
"Ah, friend Armand," he said, "you were not cut out for diplomacy,
nor yet for intrigue. So then," he added more seriously, "that
gallant hero, the Scarlet Pimpernel, has hopes of rescuing our
young King from the clutches of Simon the cobbler and of the herd
of hyenas on the watch for his attenuated little corpse, eh?"
"I did not say that," retorted St. Just sullenly.
"No. But I say it. Nay! nay! do not blame yourself, my
over-loyal young friend. Could I, or any one else, doubt for a
moment that sooner or later your romantic hero would turn his
attention to the most pathetic sight in the whole of Europe--the
child-martyr in the Temple prison? The wonder were to me if the
Scarlet Pimpernel ignored our little King altogether for the sake
of his subjects. No, no; do not think for a moment that you have
betrayed your friend's secret to me. When I met you so luckily
today I guessed at once that you were here under the banner of the
enigmatical little red flower, and, thus guessing, I even went a
step further in my conjecture. The Scarlet Pimpernel is in Paris
now in the hope of rescuing Louis XVII from the Temple prison."
"If that is so, you must not only rejoice but should be able to
help."
"And yet, my friend, I do neither the one now nor mean to do the
other in the future," said de Batz placidly. "I happen to be a
Frenchman, you see."
"What has that to do with such a question?"
"Everything; though you, Armand, despite that you are a Frenchman
too, do not look through my spectacles. Louis XVII is King of
France, my good St. Just; he must owe his freedom and his life to
us Frenchmen, and to no one else."
"That is sheer madness, man," retorted Armand. "Would you have the
child perish for the sake of your own selfish ideas?"
"You may call them selfish if you will; all patriotism is in a
measure selfish. What does the rest of the world care if we are a
republic or a monarchy, an oligarchy or hopeless anarchy? We work
for ourselves and to please ourselves, and I for one will not
brook foreign interference."
"Yet you work with foreign money!"
"That is another matter. I cannot get money in France, so I get
it where I can; but I can arrange for the escape of Louis XVII is
King of France, my good St. Just; he must of France should belong
the honour and glory of having saved our King."
For the third time now St. Just allowed the conversation to drop;
he was gazing wide-eyed, almost appalled at this impudent display
of well-nigh ferocious selfishness and vanity. De Batz, smiling
and complacent, was leaning back in his chair, looking at his
young friend with perfect contentment expressed in every line of
his pock-marked face and in the very attitude of his well-fed
body. It was easy enough now to understand the remarkable
immunity which this man was enjoying, despite the many foolhardy
plots which he hatched, and which had up to now invariably come to
naught.
A regular braggart and empty windbag, he had taken but one good
care, and that was of his own skin. Unlike other less fortunate
Royalists of France, he neither fought in the country nor braved
dangers in town. He played a safer game--crossed the frontier and
constituted himself agent of Austria; he succeeded in gaining the
Emperor's money for the good of the Royalist cause, and for his
own most especial benefit.
Even a less astute man of the world than was Armand St. Just would
easily have guessed that de Batz' desire to be the only instrument
in the rescue of the poor little Dauphin from the Temple was not
actuated by patriotism, but solely by greed. Obviously there was
a rich reward waiting for him in Vienna the day that he brought
Louis XVII safely into Austrian territory; that reward he would
miss if a meddlesome Englishman interfered in this affair. Whether
in this wrangle he risked the life of the child-King or not
mattered to him not at all. It was de Batz who was to get the
reward, and whose welfare and prosperity mattered more than the
most precious life in Europe.
CHAPTER III
THE DEMON CHANCE
St. Just would have given much to be back in his lonely squalid
lodgings now. Too late did he realise how wise had been the
dictum which had warned him against making or renewing friendships
in France.
Men had changed with the times. How terribly they had changed!
Personal safety had become a fetish with most--a goal so difficult
to attain that it had to be fought for and striven for, even at
the expense of humanity and of self-respect.
Selfishness--the mere, cold-blooded insistence for self-advancement
--ruled supreme. De Batz, surfeited with foreign money, used it
firstly to ensure his own immunity, scattering it to right and left
to still the ambition of the Public Prosecutor or to satisfy the
greed of innumerable spies.
What was left over he used for the purpose of pitting the
bloodthirsty demagogues one against the other, making of the
National Assembly a gigantic bear-den, wherein wild beasts could
rend one another limb from limb.
In the meanwhile, what cared he--he said it himself--whether
hundreds of innocent martyrs perished miserably and uselessly?
They were the necessary food whereby the Revolution was to be
satiated and de Batz' schemes enabled to mature. The most
precious life in Europe even was only to be saved if its price
went to swell the pockets of de Batz, or to further his future
ambitions.
Times had indeed changed an entire nation. St. Just felt as
sickened with this self-seeking Royalist as he did with the savage
brutes who struck to right or left for their own delectation. He
was meditating immediate flight back to his lodgings, with a hope
of finding there a word for him from the chief--a word to remind
him that men did live nowadays who had other aims besides their
own advancement--other ideals besides the deification of self.
The curtain had descended on the first act, and traditionally, as
the works of M. de Moliere demanded it, the three knocks were
heard again without any interval. St. Just rose ready with a
pretext for parting with his friend. The curtain was being slowly
drawn up on the second act, and disclosed Alceste in wrathful
conversation with Celimene.
Alceste's opening speech is short. Whilst the actor spoke it
Armand had his back to the stage; with hand outstretched, he was
murmuring what he hoped would prove a polite excuse for thus
leaving his amiable host while the entertainment had only just
begun.
De Batz--vexed and impatient--had not by any means finished with
his friend yet. He thought that his specious arguments--delivered
with boundless conviction--had made some impression on the mind of
the young man. That impression, however, he desired to deepen, and
whilst Armand was worrying his brain to find a plausible excuse
for going away, de Batz was racking his to find one for keeping
him here.
Then it was that the wayward demon Chance intervened. Had St. Just
risen but two minutes earlier, had his active mind suggested the
desired excuse more readily, who knows what unspeakable sorrow,
what heartrending misery, what terrible shame might have been
spared both him and those for whom he cared? Those two minutes--
did he but know it--decided the whole course of his future life.
The excuse hovered on his lips, de Batz reluctantly was preparing
to bid him good-bye, when Celimene, speaking common-place words
enough in answer to her quarrelsome lover, caused him to drop the
hand which he was holding out to his friend and to turn back towards
the stage.
It was an exquisite voice that had spoken--a voice mellow and
tender, with deep tones in it that betrayed latent power. The
voice had caused Armand to look, the lips that spoke forged the
first tiny link of that chain which riveted him forever after to
the speaker.
It is difficult to say if such a thing really exists as love at
first sight. Poets and romancists will have us believe that it
does; idealists swear by it as being the only true love worthy of
the name.
I do not know if I am prepared to admit their theory with regard
to Armand St. Just. Mlle. Lange's exquisite voice certainly had
charmed him to the extent of making him forget his mistrust of de
Batz and his desire to get away. Mechanically almost he sat down
again, and leaning both elbows on the edge of the box, he rested
his chin in his hand, and listened. The words which the late M.
de Moliere puts into the mouth of Celimene are trite and flippant
enough, yet every time that Mlle. Lange's lips moved Armand
watched her, entranced.
There, no doubt, the matter would have ended: a young man
fascinated by a pretty woman on the stage--'tis a small matter,
and one from which there doth not often spring a weary trail of
tragic circumstances. Armand, who had a passion for music, would
have worshipped at the shrine of Mlle. Lange's perfect voice until
the curtain came down on the last act, had not his friend de Batz
seen the keen enchantment which the actress had produced on the
young enthusiast.
Now de Batz was a man who never allowed an opportunity to slip by,
if that opportunity led towards the furtherance of his own desires.
He did not want to lose sight of Armand just yet, and here the good
demon Chance had given him an opportunity for obtaining what he wanted.
He waited quietly until the fall of the curtain at the end of Act
II.; then, as Armand, with a sigh of delight, leaned back in his
chair, and closing his eyes appeared to be living the last
half-hour all over again, de Batz remarked with well-assumed
indifference:
"Mlle. Lange is a promising young actress. Do you not think so,
my friend?"
"She has a perfect voice--it was exquisite melody to the ear,"
replied Armand. "I was conscious of little else."
"She is a beautiful woman, nevertheless," continued de Batz with a
smile. "During the next act, my good St. Just, I would suggest
that you opened your eyes as well as your ears.
Armand did as he was bidden. The whole appearance of Mlle. Lange
seemed in harmony with her voice. She was not very tall, but
eminently graceful, with a small, oval face and slender, almost
childlike figure, which appeared still more so above the wide
hoops and draped panniers of the fashions of Moliere's time.
Whether she was beautiful or not the young man hardly knew.
Measured by certain standards, she certainly was not so, for her
mouth was not small, and her nose anything but classical in
outline. But the eyes were brown, and they had that half-veiled
look in them--shaded with long lashes that seemed to make a
perpetual tender appeal to the masculine heart: the lips, too,
were full and moist, and the teeth dazzling white. Yes!--on the
whole we might easily say that she was exquisite, even though we
did not admit that she was beautiful.
Painter David has made a sketch of her; we have all seen it at the
Musee Carnavalet, and all wondered why that charming, if
irregular, little face made such an impression of sadness.
There are five acts in "Le Misanthrope," during which Celimene is
almost constantly on the stage. At the end of the fourth act de
Batz said casually to his friend:
"I have the honour of personal acquaintanceship with Mlle. Lange.
An you care for an introduction to her, we can go round to the
green room after the play."
Did prudence then whisper, "Desist"? Did loyalty to the leader
murmur, "Obey"? It were indeed difficult to say. Armand St. Just
was not five-and-twenty, and Mlle. Lange's melodious voice spoke
louder than the whisperings of prudence or even than the call of
duty.
He thanked de Batz warmly, and during the last half-hour, while
the misanthropical lover spurned repentant Celimene, he was
conscious of a curious sensation of impatience, a tingling of his
nerves, a wild, mad longing to hear those full moist lips
pronounce his name, and have those large brown eyes throw their
half-veiled look into his own.
CHAPTER IV
MADEMOISELLE LANGE
The green-room was crowded when de Batz and St. Just arrived there
after the performance. The older man cast a hasty glance through
the open door. The crowd did not suit his purpose, and he dragged
his companion hurriedly away from the contemplation of Mlle.
Lange, sitting in a far corner of the room, surrounded by an
admiring throng, and by innumerable floral tributes offered to her
beauty and to her success.
De Batz without a word led the way back towards the stage. Here,
by the dim light of tallow candles fixed in sconces against the
surrounding walls, the scene-shifters were busy moving
drop-scenes, back cloths and wings, and paid no heed to the two
men who strolled slowly up and down silently, each wrapped in his
own thoughts.
Armand walked with his hands buried in his breeches pockets, his
head bent forward on his chest; but every now and again he threw
quick, apprehensive glances round him whenever a firm step echoed
along the empty stage or a voice rang clearly through the now
deserted theatre.
"Are we wise to wait here?" he asked, speaking to himself rather
than to his companion.
He was not anxious about his own safety; but the words of de Batz
had impressed themselves upon his mind: "Heron and his spies we
have always with us."
From the green-room a separate foyer and exit led directly out
into the street. Gradually the sound of many voices, the loud
laughter and occasional snatches of song which for the past
half-hour had proceeded from that part of the house, became more
subdued and more rare. One by one the friends of the artists were
leaving the theatre, after having paid the usual banal compliments
to those whom they favoured, or presented the accustomed offering
of flowers to the brightest star of the night.
The actors were the first to retire, then the older actresses, the
ones who could no longer command a court of admirers round them.
They all filed out of the greenroom and crossed the stage to
where, at the back, a narrow, rickety wooden stairs led to their
so-called dressing-rooms--tiny, dark cubicles, ill-lighted,
unventilated, where some half-dozen of the lesser stars tumbled
over one another while removing wigs and grease-paint.
Armand and de Batz watched this exodus, both with equal
impatience. Mlle. Lange was the last to leave the green-room.
For some time, since the crowd had become thinner round her,
Armand had contrived to catch glimpses of her slight, elegant
figure. A short passage led from the stage to the green-room
door, which was wide open, and at the corner of this passage the
young man had paused from time to time in his walk, gazing with
earnest admiration at the dainty outline of the young girl's head,
with its wig of powdered curls that seemed scarcely whiter than
the creamy brilliance of her skin.
De Batz did not watch Mlle. Lange beyond casting impatient looks
in the direction of the crowd that prevented her leaving the
green-room. He did watch Armand, however--noted his eager look,
his brisk and alert movements, the obvious glances of admiration
which he cast in the direction of the young actress, and this
seemed to afford him a considerable amount of contentment.
The best part of an hour had gone by since the fall of the curtain
before Mlle. Lange finally dismissed her many admirers, and de
Batz had the satisfaction of seeing her running down the passage,
turning back occasionally in order to bid gay "good-nights" to the
loiterers who were loath to part from her. She was a child in all
her movements, quite unconscious of self or of her own charms, but
frankly delighted with her success. She was still dressed in the
ridiculous hoops and panniers pertaining to her part, and the
powdered peruke hid the charm of her own hair; the costume gave a
certain stilted air to her unaffected personality, which, by this
very sense of contrast, was essentially fascinating.
In her arms she held a huge sheaf of sweet-scented narcissi, the
spoils of some favoured spot far away in the South. Armand
thought that never in his life had he seen anything so winsome or
so charming.
Having at last said the positively final adieu, Mlle. Lange with
a happy little sigh turned to run down the passage.
She came face to face with Armand, and gave a sudden little gasp
of terror. It was not good these days to come on any loiterer
unawares.
But already de Batz had quickly joined his friend, and his smooth,
pleasant voice, and podgy, beringed hand extended towards Mlle.
Lange, were sufficient to reassure her.
"You were so surrounded in the green-room, mademoiselle," he said
courteously, "I did not venture to press in among the crowd of
your admirers. Yet I had the great wish to present my respectful
congratulations in person."
"Ah! c'est ce cher de Batz!" exclaimed mademoiselle gaily, in
that exquisitely rippling voice of hers. "And where in the world
do you spring from, my friend?
"Hush-sh-sh!" he whispered, holding her small bemittened hand in
his, and putting one finger to his lips with an urgent entreaty
for discretion; "not my name, I beg of you, fair one."
"Bah!" she retorted lightly, even though her full lips trembled
now as she spoke and belied her very words. You need have no fear
whilst you are in this part of the house. It is an understood
thing that the Committee of General Security does not send its
spies behind the curtain of a theatre. Why, if all of us actors
and actresses were sent to the guillotine there would be no play
on the morrow. Artistes are not replaceable in a few hours; those
that are in existence must perforce be spared, or the citizens who
govern us now would not know where to spend their evenings."
But though she spoke so airily and with her accustomed gaiety, it
was easily perceived that even on this childish mind the dangers
which beset every one these days had already imprinted their mark
of suspicion and of caution.
"Come into my dressing-room," she said. "I must not tarry here
any longer, for they will be putting out the lights. But I have
a room to myself, and we can talk there quite agreeably."
She led the way across the stage towards the wooden stairs.
Armand, who during this brief colloquy between his friend and the
young girl had kept discreetly in the background, felt undecided
what to do. But at a peremptory sign from de Batz he, too, turned
in the wake of the gay little lady, who ran swiftly up the rickety
steps, humming snatches of popular songs the while, and not
turning to see if indeed the two men were following her.
She had the sheaf of narcissi still in her arms, and the door of
her tiny dressing-room being open, she ran straight in and threw
the flowers down in a confused, sweet-scented mass upon the small
table that stood at one end of the room, littered with pots and
bottles, letters, mirrors, powder-puffs, silk stockings, and
cambric handkerchiefs.
Then she turned and faced the two men, a merry look of unalterable
gaiety dancing in her eyes.
"Shut the door, mon ami," she said to de Batz, "and after that
sit down where you can, so long as it is not on my most precious
pot of unguent or a box of costliest powder."
While de Batz did as he was told, she turned to Armand and said
with a pretty tone of interrogation in her melodious voice:
"Monsieur?"
"St. Just, at your service, mademoiselle," said Armand, bowing
very low in the most approved style obtaining at the English
Court.
"St. Just?" she repeated, a look of puzzlement in her brown eyes.
"Surely--"
"A kinsman of citizen St. Just, whom no doubt you know, mademoiselle,"
he exclaimed.
"My friend Armand St. Just," interposed de Batz, "is practically
a new-comer in Paris. He lives in England habitually."
"In England?" she exclaimed. "Oh! do tell me all about England.
I would love to go there. Perhaps I may have to go some day. Oh!
do sit down, de Batz," she continued, talking rather volubly, even
as a delicate blush heightened the colour in her cheeks under the
look of obvious admiration from Armand St. Just's expressive eyes.
She swept a handful of delicate cambric and silk from off a chair,
making room for de Batz' portly figure. Then she sat upon the
sofa, and with an inviting gesture and a call from the eyes she
bade Armand sit down next to her. She leaned back against the
cushions, and the table being close by, she stretched out a hand
and once more took up the bunch of narcissi, and while she talked
to Armand she held the snow-white blooms quite close to her
face--so close, in fact, that he could not see her mouth and chin,
only her dark eyes shone across at him over the heads of the
blossoms.
"Tell me all about England," she reiterated, settling herself down
among the cushions like a spoilt child who is about to listen to
an oft-told favourite story.
Armand was vexed that de Batz was sitting there. He felt he could
have told this dainty little lady quite a good deal about England
if only his pompous, fat friend would have had the good sense to
go away.
As it was, he felt unusually timid and gauche, not quite knowing
what to say, a fact which seemed to amuse Mlle. Lange not a little.
"I am very fond of England," he said lamely; "my sister is married
to an Englishman, and I myself have taken up my permanent
residence there."
"Among the society of emigres?" she queried.
Then, as Armand made no reply, de Batz interposed quickly:
"Oh! you need not fear to admit it, my good Armand; Mademoiselle
Lange, has many friends among the emigres--have you not,
mademoiselle?"
"Yes, of course," she replied lightly; "I have friends everywhere.
Their political views have nothing to do with me. Artistes, I
think, should have naught to do with politics. You see, citizen
St. Just, I never inquired of you what were your views. Your name
and kinship would proclaim you a partisan of citizen Robespierre,
yet I find you in the company of M. de Batz; and you tell me that
you live in England."
"He is no partisan of citizen Robespierre," again interposed de
Batz; "in fact, mademoiselle, I may safely tell you, I think, that
my friend has but one ideal on this earth, whom he has set up in
a shrine, and whom he worships with all the ardour of a Christian
for his God."
"How romantic!" she said, and she looked straight at Armand.
"Tell me, monsieur, is your ideal a woman or a man?"
His look answered her, even before he boldly spoke the two words:
"A woman."
She took a deep draught of sweet, intoxicating scent from the
narcissi, and his gaze once more brought blushes to her cheeks.
De Batz' good-humoured laugh helped her to hide this unwonted
access of confusion.
"That was well turned, friend Armand," he said lightly; "but I
assure you, mademoiselle, that before I brought him here to-night
his ideal was a man."
"A man!" she exclaimed, with a contemptuous little pout. "Who was
it?"
"I know no other name for him but that of a small, insignificant
flower--the Scarlet Pimpernel," replied de Batz.
"The Scarlet Pimpernel!" she ejaculated, dropping the flowers
suddenly, and gazing on Armand with wide, wondering eyes. "And do
you know him, monsieur?"
He was frowning despite himself, despite the delight which he felt
at sitting so close to this charming little lady, and feeling that
in a measure his presence and his personality interested her. But
he felt irritated with de Batz, and angered at what he considered
the latter's indiscretion. To him the very name of his leader was
almost a sacred one; he was one of those enthusiastic devotees who
only care to name the idol of their dreams with bated breath, and
only in the ears of those who would understand and sympathise.
Again he felt that if only he could have been alone with
mademoiselle he could have told her all about the Scarlet
Pimpernel, knowing that in her he would find a ready listener, a
helping and a loving heart; but as it was he merely replied tamely
enough:
Yes, mademoiselle, I do know him."
"You have seen him?" she queried eagerly; "spoken to him?"
"Yes."
"Oh! do tell me all about him. You know quite a number of us in
France have the greatest possible admiration for your national
hero. We know, of course, that he is an enemy of our Government--
but, oh! we feel that he is not an enemy of France because of
that. We are a nation of heroes, too, monsieur," she added with a
pretty, proud toss of the head; "we can appreciate bravery and
resource, and we love the mystery that surrounds the personality
of your Scarlet Pimpernel. But since you know him, monsieur, tell
me what is he like?
Armand was smiling again. He was yielding himself up wholly to
the charm which emanated from this young girl's entire being, from
her gaiety and her unaffectedness, her enthusiasm, and that
obvious artistic temperament which caused her to feel every
sensation with superlative keenness and thoroughness.
"What is he like?" she insisted.
"That, mademoiselle," he replied, "I am not at liberty to tell
you."
"Not at liberty to tell me!" she exclaimed; "but monsieur, if I
command you--"
"At risk of falling forever under the ban of your displeasure,
mademoiselle, I would still remain silent on that subject."
She gazed on him with obvious astonishment. It was quite an
unusual thing for this spoilt darling of an admiring public to be
thus openly thwarted in her whims.
"How tiresome and pedantic!" she said, with a shrug of her pretty
shoulders and a moue of discontent. "And, oh! how ungallant! You
have learnt ugly, English ways, monsieur; for there, I am told,
men hold their womenkind in very scant esteem. There!" she added,
turning with a mock air of hopelessness towards de Batz, "am I not
a most unlucky woman? For the past two years I have used my best
endeavours to catch sight of that interesting Scarlet Pimpernel;
here do I meet monsieur, who actually knows him (so he says), and
he is so ungallant that he even refuses to satisfy the first
cravings of my just curiosity."
"Citizen St. Just will tell you nothing now, mademoiselle,"
rejoined de Batz with his good-humoured laugh; "it is my presence,
I assure you, which is setting a seal upon his lips. He is,
believe me, aching to confide in you, to share in your enthusiasm,
and to see your beautiful eyes glowing in response to his ardour
when he describes to you the exploits of that prince of heroes.
En tete-a-tete one day, you will, I know, worm every secret out
of my discreet friend Armand."
Mademoiselle made no comment on this--that is to say, no audible
comment--but she buried the whole of her face for a few seconds
among the flowers, and Armand from amongst those flowers caught
sight of a pair of very bright brown eyes which shone on him with
a puzzled look.
She said nothing more about the Scarlet Pimpernel or about England
just then, but after awhile she began talking of more indifferent
subjects: the state of the weather, the price of food, the
discomforts of her own house, now that the servants had been put
on perfect equality with their masters.
Armand soon gathered that the burning questions of the day, the
horrors of massacres, the raging turmoil of politics, had not
affected her very deeply as yet. She had not troubled her pretty
head very much about the social and humanitarian aspect of the
present seething revolution. She did not really wish to think
about it at all. An artiste to her finger-tips, she was spending
her young life in earnest work, striving to attain perfection in
her art, absorbed in study during the day, and in the expression
of what she had learnt in the evenings.
The terrors of the guillotine affected her a little, but somewhat
vaguely still. She had not realised that any dangers could assail
her whilst she worked for the artistic delectation of the public.
It was not that she did not understand what went on around her,
but that her artistic temperament and her environment had kept her
aloof from it all. The horrors of the Place de la Revolution made
her shudder, but only in the same way as the tragedies of M.
Racine or of Sophocles which she had studied caused her to
shudder, and she had exactly the same sympathy for poor Queen
Marie Antoinette as she had for Mary Stuart, and shed as many
tears for King Louis as she did for Polyeucte.
Once de Batz mentioned the Dauphin, but mademoiselle put up her
hand quickly and said in a trembling voice, whilst the tears
gathered in her eyes:
"Do not speak of the child to me, de Batz. What can I, a lonely,
hard-working woman, do to help him? I try not to think of him,
for if I did, knowing my own helplessness, I feel that I could
hate my countrymen, and speak my bitter hatred of them across the
footlights; which would be more than foolish," she added naively,
"for it would not help the child, and I should be sent to the
guillotine. But oh sometimes I feel that I would gladly die if
only that poor little child-martyr were restored to those who love
him and given back once more to joy and happiness. But they would
not take my life for his, I am afraid," she concluded, smiling
through her tears. "My life is of no value in comparison with
his."
Soon after this she dismissed her two visitors. De Batz, well
content with the result of this evening's entertainment, wore an
urbane, bland smile on his rubicund face. Armand, somewhat serious
and not a little in love, made the hand-kiss with which he took
his leave last as long as he could.
"You will come and see me again, citizen St. Just?" she asked
after that preliminary leave-taking.
"At your service, mademoiselle," he replied with alacrity.
"How long do you stay in Paris?"
"I may be called away at any time."
"Well, then, come to-morrow. I shall be free towards four
o'clock. Square du Roule. You cannot miss the house. Any one
there will tell you where lives citizeness Lange."
"At your service, mademoiselle," he replied.
The words sounded empty and meaningless, but his eyes, as they
took final leave of her, spoke the gratitude and the joy which he
felt.
CHAPTER V
THE TEMPLE PRISON
It was close on midnight when the two friends finally parted
company outside the doors of the theatre. The night air struck
with biting keenness against them when they emerged from the
stuffy, overheated building, and both wrapped their caped cloaks
tightly round their shoulders. Armand--more than ever now--was
anxious to rid himself of de Batz. The Gascon's platitudes
irritated him beyond the bounds of forbearance, and he wanted to
be alone, so that he might think over the events of this night,
the chief event being a little lady with an enchanting voice and
the most fascinating brown eyes he had ever seen.
Self-reproach, too, was fighting a fairly even fight with the
excitement that had been called up by that same pair of brown
eyes. Armand for the past four or five hours had acted in direct
opposition to the earnest advice given to him by his chief; he had
renewed one friendship which had been far better left in oblivion,
and he had made an acquaintance which already was leading him
along a path that he felt sure his comrade would disapprove. But
the path was so profusely strewn with scented narcissi that
Armand's sensitive conscience was quickly lulled to rest by the
intoxicating fragrance.
Looking neither to right nor left, he made his way very quickly up
the Rue Richelieu towards the Montmartre quarter, where he lodged.
De Batz stood and watched him for as long as the dim lights of the
street lamps illumined his slim, soberly-clad figure; then he
turned on his heel and walked off in the opposite direction.
His florid, pock-marked face wore an air of contentment not
altogether unmixed with a kind of spiteful triumph.
"So, my pretty Scarlet Pimpernel," he muttered between his closed
lips, "you wish to meddle in my affairs, to have for yourself and
your friends the credit and glory of snatching the golden prize
from the clutches of these murderous brutes. Well, we shall see!
We shall see which is the wiliest--the French ferret or the
English fox."
He walked deliberately away from the busy part of the town,
turning his back on the river, stepping out briskly straight
before him, and swinging his gold-beaded cane as he walked.
The streets which he had to traverse were silent and deserted,
save occasionally where a drinking or an eating house had its
swing-doors still invitingly open. From these places, as de Batz
strode rapidly by, came sounds of loud voices, rendered raucous by
outdoor oratory; volleys of oaths hurled irreverently in the midst
of impassioned speeches; interruptions from rowdy audiences that
vied with the speaker in invectives and blasphemies; wordy
war-fares that ended in noisy vituperations; accusations hurled
through the air heavy with tobacco smoke and the fumes of cheap
wines and of raw spirits.
De Batz took no heed of these as he passed, anxious only that the
crowd of eating-house politicians did not, as often was its wont,
turn out pele-mele into the street, and settle its quarrel by the
weight of fists. He did not wish to be embroiled in a street
fight, which invariably ended in denunciations and arrests, and
was glad when presently he had left the purlieus of the Palais
Royal behind him, and could strike on his left toward the lonely
Faubourg du Temple.
From the dim distance far away came at intervals the mournful
sound of a roll of muffled drums, half veiled by the intervening
hubbub of the busy night life of the great city. It proceeded
from the Place de la Revolution, where a company of the National
Guard were on night watch round the guillotine. The dull,
intermittent notes of the drum came as a reminder to the free
people of France that the watchdog of a vengeful revolution was
alert night and day, never sleeping, ever wakeful, "beating up
game for the guillotine," as the new decree framed to-day by the
Government of the people had ordered that it should do.
From time to time now the silence of this lonely street was broken
by a sudden cry of terror, followed by the clash of arms, the
inevitable volley of oaths, the call for help, the final moan of
anguish. They were the ever-recurring brief tragedies which told
of denunciations, of domiciliary search, of sudden arrests, of an
agonising desire for life and for freedom--for life under these
same horrible conditions of brutality and of servitude, for
freedom to breathe, if only a day or two longer, this air,
polluted by filth and by blood.
De Batz, hardened to these scenes, paid no heed to them. He had
heard it so often, that cry in the night, followed by death-like
silence; it came from comfortable bourgeois houses, from squalid
lodgings, or lonely cul-de-sac, wherever some hunted quarry was
run to earth by the newly-organised spies of the Committee of
General Security.
Five and thirty livres for every head that falls trunkless into
the basket at the foot of the guillotine! Five and thirty pieces
of silver, now as then, the price of innocent blood. Every cry in
the night, every call for help, meant game for the guillotine, and
five and thirty livres in the hands of a Judas.
And de Batz walked on unmoved by what he saw and heard, swinging
his cane and looking satisfied. Now he struck into the Place de
la Victoire, and looked on one of the open-air camps that had
recently been established where men, women, and children were
working to provide arms and accoutrements for the Republican army
that was fighting the whole of Europe.
The people of France were up in arms against tyranny; and on the
open places of their mighty city they were encamped day and night
forging those arms which were destined to make them free, and in
the meantime were bending under a yoke of tyranny more complete,
more grinding and absolute than any that the most despotic kings
had ever dared to inflict.
Here by the light of resin torches, at this late hour of the
night, raw lads were being drilled into soldiers, half-naked under
the cutting blast of the north wind, their knees shaking tinder
them, their arms and legs blue with cold, their stomachs empty,
and their teeth chattering with fear; women were sewing shirts for
the great improvised army, with eyes straining to see the stitches
by the flickering light of the torches, their throats parched with
the continual inhaling of smoke-laden air; even children, with
weak, clumsy little fingers, were picking rags to be woven into
cloth again all, all these slaves were working far into the night,
tired, hungry, and cold, but working unceasingly, as the country
had demanded it: "the people of France in arms against tyranny!"
The people of France had to set to work to make arms, to clothe
the soldiers, the defenders of the people's liberty.
And from this crowd of people--men, women, and children--there
came scarcely a sound, save raucous whispers, a moan or a sigh
quickly suppressed. A grim silence reigned in this thickly-peopled
camp; only the crackling of the torches broke that silence now and
then, or the flapping of canvas in the wintry gale. They worked on
sullen, desperate, and starving, with no hope of payment save the
miserable rations wrung from poor tradespeople or miserable farmers,
as wretched, as oppressed as themselves; no hope of payment, only
fear of punishment, for that was ever present.
The people of France in arms against tyranny were not allowed to
forget that grim taskmaster with the two great hands stretched
upwards, holding the knife which descended mercilessly,
indiscriminately on necks that did not bend willingly to the task.
A grim look of gratified desire had spread over de Batz' face as
he skirted the open-air camp. Let them toil, let them groan, let
them starve! The more these clouts suffer, the more brutal the
heel that grinds them down, the sooner will the Emperor's money
accomplish its work, the sooner will these wretches be clamoring
for the monarchy, which would mean a rich reward in de Batz'
pockets.
To him everything now was for the best: the tyranny, the
brutality, the massacres. He gloated in the holocausts with as
much satisfaction as did the most bloodthirsty Jacobin in the
Convention. He would with his own hands have wielded the
guillotine that worked too slowly for his ends. Let that end
justify the means, was his motto. What matter if the future King
of France walked up to his throne over steps made of headless
corpses and rendered slippery with the blood of martyrs?
The ground beneath de Batz' feet was hard and white with the
frost. Overhead the pale, wintry moon looked down serene and
placid on this giant city wallowing in an ocean of misery.
There, had been but little snow as yet this year, and the cold was
intense. On his right now the Cimetiere des SS. Innocents lay
peaceful and still beneath the wan light of the moon. A thin
covering of snow lay evenly alike on grass mounds and smooth
stones. Here and there a broken cross with chipped arms still
held pathetically outstretched, as if in a final appeal for human
love, bore mute testimony to senseless excesses and spiteful
desire for destruction.
But here within the precincts of the dwelling of the eternal
Master a solemn silence reigned; only the cold north wind shook
the branches of the yew, causing them to send forth a melancholy
sigh into the night, and to shed a shower of tiny crystals of snow
like the frozen tears of the dead.
And round the precincts of the lonely graveyard, and down narrow
streets or open places, the night watchmen went their rounds,
lanthorn in hand, and every five minutes their monotonous call
rang clearly out in the night:
"Sleep, citizens! everything is quiet and at peace!"
We may take it that de Batz did not philosophise over-much on what
went on around him. He had walked swiftly up the Rue St. Martin,
then turning sharply to his right he found himself beneath the
tall, frowning walls of the Temple prison, the grim guardian of so
many secrets, such terrible despair, such unspeakable tragedies.
Here, too, as in the Place de la Revolution, an intermittent roll
of muffled drums proclaimed the ever-watchful presence of the
National Guard. But with that exception not a sound stirred round
the grim and stately edifice; there were no cries, no calls, no
appeals around its walls. All the crying and wailing was shut in
by the massive stone that told no tales.
Dim and flickering lights shone behind several of the small
windows in the facade of the huge labyrinthine building. Without
any hesitation de Batz turned down the Rue du Temple, and soon
found himself in front of the main gates which gave on the
courtyard beyond. The sentinel challenged him, but he had the
pass-word, and explained that he desired to have speech with
citizen Heron.
With a surly gesture the guard pointed to the heavy bell-pull up
against the gate, and de Batz pulled it with all his might. The
long clang of the brazen bell echoed and re-echoed round the solid
stone walls. Anon a tiny judas in the gate was cautiously pushed
open, and a peremptory voice once again challenged the midnight
intruder.
De Batz, more peremptorily this time, asked for citizen Heron,
with whom he had immediate and important business, and a glimmer
of a piece of silver which he held up close to the judas secured
him the necessary admittance.
The massive gates slowly swung open on their creaking hinges, and
as de Batz passed beneath the archway they closed again behind him.
The concierge's lodge was immediately on his left. Again he was
challenged, and again gave the pass-word. But his face was
apparently known here, for no serious hindrance to proceed was put
in his way.
A man, whose wide, lean frame was but ill-covered by a threadbare
coat and ragged breeches, and with soleless shoes on his feet, was
told off to direct the citoyen to citizen Heron's rooms. The man
walked slowly along with bent knees and arched spine, and shuffled
his feet as he walked; the bunch of keys which he carried rattled
ominously in his long, grimy hands; the passages were badly
lighted, and he also carried a lanthorn to guide himself on the
way.
Closely followed by de Batz, he soon turned into the central
corridor, which is open to the sky above, and was spectrally
alight now with flag-stones and walls gleaming beneath the silvery
sheen of the moon, and throwing back the fantastic elongated
shadows of the two men as they walked.
On the left, heavily barred windows gave on the corridor, as did
here and there the massive oaken doors, with their gigantic hinges
and bolts, on the steps of which squatted groups of soldiers
wrapped in their cloaks, with wild, suspicious eyes beneath their
capotes, peering at the midnight visitor as he passed.
There was no thought of silence here. The very walls seemed alive
with sounds, groans and tears, loud wails and murmured prayers;
they exuded from the stones and trembled on the frost-laden air.
Occasionally at one of the windows a pair of white hands would
appear, grasping the heavy iron bar, trying to shake it in its
socket, and mayhap, above the hands, the dim vision of a haggard
face, a man's or a woman's, trying to get a glimpse of the outside
world, a final look at the sky, before the last journey to the
place of death to-morrow. Then one of the soldiers, with a loud,
angry oath, would struggle to his feet, and with the butt-end of
his gun strike at the thin, wan fingers till their hold on the
iron bar relaxed, and the pallid face beyond would sink back into
the darkness with a desperate cry of pain.
A quick, impatient sigh escaped de Batz' lips. He had skirted the
wide courtyard in the wake of his guide, and from where he was he
could see the great central tower, with its tiny windows lighted
from within, the grim walls behind which the descendant of the
world's conquerors, the bearer of the proudest name in Europe, and
wearer of its most ancient crown, had spent the last days of his
brilliant life in abject shame, sorrow, and degradation. The
memory had swiftly surged up before him of that night when he all
but rescued King Louis and his family from this same miserable
prison: the guard had been bribed, the keeper corrupted,
everything had been prepared, save the reckoning with the one
irresponsible factor--chance!
He had failed then and had tried again, and again had failed; a
fortune had been his reward if he had succeeded. He had failed,
but even now, when his footsteps echoed along the flagged
courtyard, over which an unfortunate King and Queen had walked on
their way to their last ignominious Calvary, he hugged himself
with the satisfying thought that where he had failed at least no
one else had succeeded.
Whether that meddlesome English adventurer, who called himself the
Scarlet Pimpernel, had planned the rescue of King Louis or of
Queen Marie Antoinette at any time or not--that he did not 'know;
but on one point at least he was more than ever determined, and
that was that no power on earth should snatch from him the golden
prize offered by Austria for the rescue of the little Dauphin.
"I would sooner see the child perish, if I cannot save him myself,"
was the burning thought in this man's tortuous brain. "And let
that accursed Englishman look to himself and to his d--d confederates,"
be added, muttering a fierce oath beneath his breath.
A winding, narrow stone stair, another length or two of corridor,
and his guide's shuffling footsteps paused beside a low
iron-studded door let into the solid stone. De Batz dismissed his
ill-clothed guide and pulled the iron bell-handle which hung
beside the door.
The bell gave forth a dull and broken clang, which seemed like an
echo of the wails of sorrow that peopled the huge building with
their weird and monotonous sounds.
De Batz--a thoroughly unimaginative person--waited patiently
beside the door until it was opened from within, and he was
confronted by a tall stooping figure, wearing a greasy coat of
snuff-brown cloth, and holding high above his head a lanthorn that
threw its feeble light on de Batz' jovial face and form.
"It is even I, citizen Heron," he said, breaking in swiftly on the
other's ejaculation of astonishment, which threatened to send his
name echoing the whole length of corridors and passages, until
round every corner of the labyrinthine house of sorrow the murmur
would be borne on the wings of the cold night breeze: "Citizen
Heron is in parley with ci-devant Baron de Batz!"
A fact which would have been equally unpleasant for both these
worthies.
"Enter!" said Heron curtly.
He banged the heavy door to behind his visitor; and de Batz, who
seemed to know his way about the place, walked straight across the
narrow landing to where a smaller door stood invitingly open.
He stepped boldly in, the while citizen Heron put the lanthorn
down on the floor of the couloir, and then followed his nocturnal
visitor into the room.
CHAPTER VI
THE COMMITTEE'S AGENT
It was a narrow, ill-ventilated place, with but one barred window
that gave on the courtyard. An evil-smelling lamp hung by a chain
from the grimy ceiling, and in a corner of the room a tiny iron
stove shed more unpleasant vapour than warm glow around.
There was but little furniture: two or three chairs, a table which
was littered with papers, and a corner-cupboard--the open doors of
which revealed a miscellaneous collection--bundles of papers, a
tin saucepan, a piece of cold sausage, and a couple of pistols.
The fumes of stale tobacco-smoke hovered in the air, and mingled
most unpleasantly with those of the lamp above, and of the mildew
that penetrated through the walls just below the roof.
Heron pointed to one of the chairs, and then sat down on the
other, close to the table, on which he rested his elbow. He picked
up a short-stemmed pipe, which he had evidently laid aside at the
sound of the bell, and having taken several deliberate long-drawn
puffs from it, he said abruptly:
"Well, what is it now?"
In the meanwhile de Batz had made himself as much at home in this
uncomfortable room as he possibly could. He had deposited his hat
and cloak on one rickety rush-bottomed chair, and drawn another
close to the fire. He sat down with one leg crossed over the
other, his podgy be-ringed hand wandering with loving gentleness
down the length of his shapely calf.
He was nothing if not complacent, and his complacency seemed
highly to irritate his friend Heron.
"Well, what is it?" reiterated the latter, drawing his visitor's
attention roughly to himself by banging his fist on the table.
"Out with it! What do you want? Why have you come at this hour
of the night to compromise me, I suppose--bring your own d--d neck
and mine into the same noose--what?"
"Easy, easy, my friend," responded de Batz imperturbably; "waste
not so much time in idle talk. Why do I usually come to see you?
Surely you have had no cause to complain hitherto of the
unprofitableness of my visits to you?"
"They will have to be still more profitable to me in the future,"
growled the other across the table. "I have more power now."
"I know you have," said de Batz suavely. "The new decree? What?
You may denounce whom you please, search whom you please, arrest
whom you please, and send whom you please to the Supreme Tribunal
without giving them the slightest chance of escape."
"Is it in order to tell me all this that you have come to see me
at this hour of the night?" queried Heron with a sneer.
"No; I came at this hour of the night because I surmised that in
the future you and your hell-hounds would be so busy all day
'beating up game for the guillotine' that the only time you would
have at the disposal of your friends would be the late hours of
the night. I saw you at the theatre a couple of hours ago, friend
Heron; I didn't think to find you yet abed."
"Well, what do you want?"
"Rather," retorted de Batz blandly, "shall we say, what do YOU
want, citizen Heron?"
"For what?
"For my continued immunity at the hands of yourself and your pack?"
Heron pushed his chair brusquely aside and strode across the
narrow room deliberately facing the portly figure of de Batz, who
with head slightly inclined on one side, his small eyes narrowed
till they appeared mere slits in his pockmarked face, was steadily
and quite placidly contemplating this inhuman monster who had this
very day been given uncontrolled power over hundreds of thousands
of human lives.
Heron was one of those tall men who look mean in spite of their
height. His head was small and narrow, and his hair, which was
sparse and lank, fell in untidy strands across his forehead. He
stooped slightly from the neck, and his chest, though wide, was
hollow between the shoulders. But his legs were big and bony,
slightly bent at the knees, like those of an ill-conditioned
horse.
The face was thin and the cheeks sunken; the eyes, very large and
prominent, had a look in them of cold and ferocious cruelty, a
look which contrasted strangely with the weakness and petty greed
apparent in the mouth, which was flabby, with full, very red lips,
and chin that sloped away to the long thin neck.
Even at this moment as he gazed on de Batz the greed and the
cruelty in him were fighting one of those battles the issue of
which is always uncertain in men of his stamp.
"I don't know," he said slowly, "that I am prepared to treat with
you any longer. You are an intolerable bit of vermin that has
annoyed the Committee of General Security for over two years now.
It would be excessively pleasant to crush you once and for all, as
one would a buzzing fly."
"Pleasant, perhaps, but immeasurably foolish," rejoined de Batz
coolly; "you would only get thirty-five livres for my head, and I
offer you ten times that amount for the self-same commodity."
"I know, I know; but the whole thing has become too dangerous."
"Why? I am very modest. I don't ask a great deal. Let your
hounds keep off my scent."
"You have too many d--d confederates."
"Oh! Never mind about the others. I am not bargaining about
them. Let them look after themselves."
"Every time we get a batch of them, one or the other denounces
you."
"Under torture, I know," rejoined de Batz placidly, holding his
podgy hands to the warm glow of the fire. "For you have started
torture in your house of Justice now, eh, friend Heron? You and
your friend the Public Prosecutor have gone the whole gamut of
devilry--eh?"
"What's that to you?" retorted the other gruffly.
"Oh, nothing, nothing! I was even proposing to pay you three
thousand five hundred livres for the privilege of taking no
further interest in what goes on inside this prison!"
"Three thousand five hundred!" ejaculated Heron involuntarily, and
this time even his eyes lost their cruelty; they joined issue with
the mouth in an expression of hungering avarice.
"Two little zeros added to the thirty-five, which is all you would
get for handing me over to your accursed Tribunal," said de Batz,
and, as if thoughtlessly, his hand wandered to the inner pocket of
his coat, and a slight rustle as of thin crisp paper brought drops
of moisture to the lips of Heron.
"Leave me alone for three weeks and the money is yours," concluded
de Batz pleasantly.
There was silence in the room now. Through the narrow barred
window the steely rays of the moon fought with the dim yellow
light of the oil lamp, and lit up the pale face of the Committee's
agent with its lines of cruelty in sharp conflict with those of
greed.
"Well! is it a bargain?" asked de Batz at last in his usual
smooth, oily voice, as he half drew from out his pocket that
tempting little bundle of crisp printed paper. "You have only to
give me the usual receipt for the money and it is yours."
Heron gave a vicious snarl.
"It is dangerous, I tell you. That receipt, if it falls into some
cursed meddler's hands, would send me straight to the guillotine."
"The receipt could only fall into alien hands," rejoined de Batz
blandly, "if I happened to be arrested, and even in that case they
could but fall into those of the chief agent of the Committee of
General Security, and he hath name Heron. You must take some
risks, my friend. I take them too. We are each in the other's
hands. The bargain is quite fair."
For a moment or two longer Heron appeared to be hesitating whilst
de Batz watched him with keen intentness. He had no doubt himself
as to the issue. He had tried most of these patriots in his own
golden crucible, and had weighed their patriotism against Austrian
money, and had never found the latter wanting.
He had not been here to-night if he were not quite sure. This
inveterate conspirator in the Royalist cause never took personal
risks. He looked on Heron now, smiling to himself the while with
perfect satisfaction.
"Very well," said the Committee's agent with sudden decision,
"I'll take the money. But on one condition."
"What is it?"
"That you leave little Capet alone."
"The Dauphin!"
"Call him what you like," said Heron, taking a step nearer to de
Batz, and from his great height glowering down in fierce hatred
and rage upon his accomplice; "call the young devil what you like,
but leave us to deal with him."
"To kill him, you mean? Well, how can I prevent it, my friend?"
"You and your like are always plotting to get him out of here. I
won't have it. I tell you I won't have it. If the brat disappears
I am a dead man. Robespierre and his gang have told me as much.
So you leave him alone, or I'll not raise a finger to help you, but
will lay my own hands on your accursed neck."
He looked so ferocious and so merciless then, that despite himself,
the selfish adventurer, the careless self-seeking intriguer, shuddered
with a quick wave of unreasoning terror. He turned away from Heron's
piercing gaze, the gaze of a hyena whose prey is being snatched from
beneath its nails. For a moment he stared thoughtfully into the fire.
He heard the other man's heavy footsteps cross and re-cross the
narrow room, and was conscious of the long curved shadow creeping
up the mildewed wall or retreating down upon the carpetless floor.
Suddenly, without any warning he felt a grip upon his shoulder.
He gave a start and almost uttered a cry of alarm which caused
Heron to laugh. The Committee's agent was vastly amused at his
friend's obvious access of fear. There was nothing that he liked
better than that he should inspire dread in the hearts of all
those with whom he came in contact
"I am just going on my usual nocturnal round," he said abruptly.
"Come with me, citizen de Batz."
A certain grim humour was apparent in his face as he proffered
this invitation, which sounded like a rough command. As de Batz
seemed to hesitate he nodded peremptorily to him to follow.
Already he had gone into the hall and picked up his lanthorn.
From beneath his waistcoat he drew forth a bunch of keys, which he
rattled impatiently, calling to his friend to come.
"Come, citizen," he said roughly. "I wish to show you the one
treasure in this house which your d--d fingers must not touch."
Mechanically de Batz rose at last. He tried to be master of the
terror which was invading his very bones. He would not own to
himself even that he was afraid, and almost audibly he kept
murmuring to himself that he had no cause for fear.
Heron would never touch him. The spy's avarice, his greed of
money were a perfect safeguard for any man who had the control of
millions, and Heron knew, of course, that he could make of this
inveterate plotter a comfortable source of revenue for himself.
Three weeks would soon be over, and fresh bargains could be made
time and again, while de Batz was alive and free.
Heron was still waiting at the door, even whilst de Batz wondered
what this nocturnal visitation would reveal to him of atrocity and
of outrage. He made a final effort to master his nervousness,
wrapped his cloak tightly around him, and followed his host out of
the room.
CHAPTER VII
THE MOST PRECIOUS LIFE IN EUROPE
Once more he was being led through the interminable corridors of
the gigantic building. Once more from the narrow, barred windows
close by him he heard the heart-breaking sighs, the moans, the
curses which spoke of tragedies that he could only guess.
Heron was walking on ahead of him, preceding him by some fifty
metres or so, his long legs covering the distances more rapidly
than de Batz could follow them. The latter knew his way well
about the old prison. Few men in Paris possessed that accurate
knowledge of its intricate passages and its network of cells and
halls which de Batz had acquired after close and persevering
study.
He himself could have led Heron to the doors of the tower where
the little Dauphin was being kept imprisoned, but unfortunately he
did not possess the keys that would open all the doors which led
to it. There were sentinels at every gate, groups of soldiers at
each end of every corridor, the great--now empty--courtyards,
thronged with prisoners in the daytime, were alive with soldiery
even now. Some walked up and down with fixed bayonet on shoulder,
others sat in groups on the stone copings or squatted on the
ground, smoking or playing cards, but all of them were alert and
watchful.
Heron was recognised everywhere the moment he appeared, and though
in these days of equality no one presented arms, nevertheless
every guard stood aside to let him pass, or when necessary opened
a gate for the powerful chief agent of the Committee of General
Security.
Indeed, de Batz had no keys such as these to open the way for him
to the presence of the martyred little King.
Thus the two men wended their way on in silence, one preceding the
other. De Batz walked leisurely, thought-fully, taking stock of
everything he saw--the gates, the barriers, the positions of
sentinels and warders, of everything in fact that might prove a
help or a hindrance presently, when the great enterprise would be
hazarded. At last--still in the wake of Heron--he found himself
once more behind the main entrance gate, underneath the archway on
which gave the guichet of the concierge.
Here, too, there seemed to be an unnecessary number of soldiers:
two were doing sentinel outside the guichet, but there were others
in a file against the wall.
Heron rapped with his keys against the door of the concierge's
lodge, then, as it was not immediately opened from within, he
pushed it open with his foot.
"The concierge?" he queried peremptorily.
From a corner of the small panelled room there came a grunt and a
reply:
"Gone to bed, quoi!"
The man who previously had guided de Batz to Heron's door slowly
struggled to his feet. He had been squatting somewhere in the
gloom, and had been roused by Heron's rough command. He slouched
forward now still carrying a boot in one hand and a blacking brush
in the other.
"Take this lanthorn, then," said the chief agent with a snarl
directed at the sleeping concierge, "and come along. Why are you
still here?" he added, as if in after-thought.
"The citizen concierge was not satisfied with the way I had done
his boots," muttered the man, with an evil leer as he spat
contemptuously on the floor; "an aristo, quoi? A hell of a place
this ... twenty cells to sweep out every day ... and boots to
clean for every aristo of a concierge or warder who demands it....
Is that work for a free born patriot, I ask?"
"Well, if you are not satisfied, citoyen Dupont," retorted Heron
dryly, "you may go when you like, you know there are plenty of
others ready to do your work..."
"Nineteen hours a day, and nineteen sous by way of payment.... I
have had fourteen days of this convict work..."
He continued to mutter under his breath, whilst Heron, paying no
further heed to him, turned abruptly towards a group of soldiers
stationed outside.
"En avant, corporal!" he said; "bring four men with you ... we go
up to the tower."
The small procession was formed. On ahead the lanthorn-bearer,
with arched spine and shaking knees, dragging shuffling footsteps
along the corridor, then the corporal with two of his soldiers,
then Heron closely followed by de Batz, and finally two more
soldiers bringing up the rear.
Heron had given the bunch of keys to the man Dupont. The latter,
on ahead, holding the lanthorn aloft, opened one gate after
another. At each gate he waited for the little procession to file
through, then he re-locked the gate and passed on.
Up two or three flights of winding stairs set in the solid stone,
and the final heavy door was reached.
De Batz was meditating. Heron's precautions for the safe-guarding
of the most precious life in Europe were more complete than he had
anticipated. What lavish liberality would be required! what
superhuman ingenuity and boundless courage in order to break down
all the barriers that had been set up round that young life that
flickered inside this grim tower!
Of these three requisites the corpulent, complacent intriguer
possessed only the first in a considerable degree. He could be
exceedingly liberal with the foreign money which he had at his
disposal. As for courage and ingenuity, he believed that he
possessed both, but these qualities had not served him in very
good stead in the attempts which he had made at different times to
rescue the unfortunate members of the Royal Family from prison.
His overwhelming egotism would not admit for a moment that in
ingenuity and pluck the Scarlet Pimpernel and his English
followers could outdo him, but he did wish to make quite sure that
they would not interfere with him in the highly remunerative work
of saving th