Robert Tournay Part 6

"What bills are unpaid?"

"Some three hundred thousand livres are rather pressing."

"Is that the sum total of all my liabilities? I want a full statement to-night."

"You owe about eight hundred thousand francs, monsieur le marquis."

"Pay them at once."

"But, monsieur le marquis, it will be impossible. Where shall I get the funds?"

"You may sell my furniture, personal property"--

"What, everything, monsieur le marquis?"

"Yes, everything; and after paying all my debts, if there is anything left, take out a commission for yourself and give me the balance;" and then he turned to the window and looked out on the lights of the city of Paris, indicating that the interview was at an end. Rignot withdrew.

"a.s.suredly," said the Marquis de St. Hilaire with a yawn, "this revolution arrives in good time. I should soon have become a beggar."

CHAPTER III

THE BAKER AND HIS FAMILY

The Count d'Arlincourt had just left the palace at Versailles.

He had been present at the reception to the Royal Flanders regiment. He had heard their vow of fidelity to the king. He had been among the officers and the n.o.bles of the court who had trampled under foot the tricolor of Paris and decorated their coats with the white c.o.c.kade, and now he left the royal presence with his sovereign's thanks and commendations ringing in his ears.

As he proceeded through the courtyard three gentlemen entered at the main gate. A shade of annoyance pa.s.sed over the count's brow as he recognized St. Hilaire and two other n.o.blemen, all members of the States General, and all reputed to lean somewhat too radically toward the popular side in politics. He had hardly seen St. Hilaire since the breakfast party at the house of the latter three months before. The toast of the marquis and his expressed sympathy with revolutionary orders had caused a decided estrangement.

Indeed, St. Hilaire and the two n.o.blemen who were with him had become alienated from their order, and many of their former friends among the n.o.bility had refused to speak or hold any relations with them whatever.

The count could not avoid meeting them, but he was undecided whether to ignore them entirely or pa.s.s them with such a slight inclination of the head as to be equally cutting.

The cordial bow of the Marquis de St. Hilaire, however, for whom he had always felt a peculiar and inexplicable regard, caused him to change his mind.

He saluted the three gentlemen politely, though with a certain reserve of manner natural to him, and addressed St. Hilaire.

"A word with you, marquis," he said, "if I may be pardoned for taking you from these gentlemen for a few minutes?"

St. Hilaire turned to his companions: "With your permission, messieurs, I will join you in five minutes in the palace."

The gentlemen bowed in a.s.sent and walked toward the palace, leaving the count and the marquis alone in the centre of the court.

"You were not present at the reception in the palace. We missed you greatly, marquis," the former began, with an attempt at cordiality of manner, having resolved to make one last appeal to his friend.

"Thank you, my dear d'Arlincourt, for your kindness in saying so,"

replied the marquis affably, "but I must tell you frankly that even if affairs in the a.s.sembly had not claimed my time, other circ.u.mstances would have rendered my presence at this banquet impossible."

"The king," continued d'Arlincourt quietly, "inquired for you several times and seemed much disturbed at your absence."

"I am now on my way to wait upon his majesty," replied St. Hilaire.

The count's face lighted up. "A tardy apology is better than none at all, for I presume you are going to explain your absence."

"The two gentlemen who have left us, and myself, have been sent by the convention as a committee to urge his majesty to sanction their latest decrees,--the bill relating to popular rights," replied St. Hilaire quietly.

"For the love of Heaven, Raphael!" burst out the count, "can it be possible that you intend to persist in championing the popular cause, like the Duke d'Orleans, or the Marquis de Lafayette? Your present position is that of a madman. Come back to our side now. To-morrow it may be too late."

"For the life of me, Andre," replied St. Hilaire lightly, "I cannot tell you to-day what my line of action will be to-morrow, but in any case I beg you will not compare me either with the duke or Lafayette. I am neither as dull as the one nor as virtuous as the other. Why not permit me still to resemble only the Marquis de St. Hilaire?"

"Then," replied the count warmly, "I tell you that as the Marquis de St.

Hilaire, your duty to the king should have brought you to the reception in honor of the Flanders regiment."

The marquis dropped his air of levity suddenly. "Do you know, count,"

he said slowly, "I have just come from the a.s.sembly, where news reached us a little while ago that a mob of forty thousand was marching from Paris toward Versailles."

The count started with surprise, but betrayed no other emotion.

"Is it a fitting time to be feting a regiment composed of mercenaries?

Is it a fitting time to be clinking gla.s.ses and drinking toasts when forty thousand men and women are approaching with their cry for bread?"

The count drew himself up as he replied,--"What more fitting time could there be for the loyal n.o.bles to gather about their sovereign than in the hour of danger? I, for one, would not let the fear of any Paris mob keep me from the king's side at such a moment."

St. Hilaire flushed deeply. "Count d'Arlincourt," he said quickly, "I pa.s.s over that insinuation because it comes from an old friend. But know this: that I am one of the members of the a.s.sembly who have sworn to support the const.i.tution and enforce the rights of man. I should indeed have been false to my trust had I partic.i.p.ated in a fete to these foreigners where oaths were openly made to defeat that const.i.tution."

"Our ideas of duty evidently differ," replied the count stiffly. "My duty is to my king."

"They do differ," said St. Hilaire. "My first allegiance is to the nation. Count d'Arlincourt, I respect you and your opinions, but I also have a regard for my oath. I have chosen my path and I shall follow it."

"Good-day, Marquis de St. Hilaire," said the count, in his usual cold manner.

"Farewell, Count d'Arlincourt," was the polite rejoinder, and raising his hat St. Hilaire pa.s.sed onward in the direction of the palace.

Forty thousand men and women were marching from Paris to Versailles.

They had forced a king to recall a banished minister. They had sacked a prison fortress,--razing to the ground walls that had frowned on them for ages, wiping out in one day a landmark of tyranny that had been standing there for centuries. Now they were coming to see their king at his palace. They had heard of the banquet at Versailles, given in honor of the royal Flanders regiment, where wine had flowed like water and where food was in abundance. At such a banquet, they argued, there must be bread enough for the whole world; and they were coming to get their share of it.

Although it was in the month of October, the sun was hot and the road dusty. In the front rank, amid all the dust and sweat and noise, walked Robert Tournay. He carried no weapon, nor did he seek to lead; but animated by curiosity and by sympathy, he felt himself drawn into this great heaving ma.s.s of people who had decided to correct these abuses themselves, even if to do it they had to take the laws into their own hands.

Hearing a shout and rumble of wheels behind him, Tournay looked over his shoulder to see a cannon coming through the crowd, which parted on each side to let it pa.s.s, and then closed up behind it. This cannon was drawn along the road by a score of men, whose bare feet, beating the dust, sent up a pulverous cloud that blew back into the faces of those behind like smoke.

Seated upon the gun carriage, her hair streaming in the wind, was a young woman wearing the red cap of liberty, and waving in her hand a blood-red flag. The cannon stopped under the shade of some poplar trees, and men stood around it wiping the perspiration from their foreheads.

"A cheer for the G.o.ddess of Liberty," cried a voice in the crowd. A shout went up that made the poplars tremble.

"Citizens," cried the girl, in response, standing erect and flinging her flag to the breeze, "you want bread!"