The False Chevalier Part 51

Know that I loved you from the first moment I saw you in the house of the Princess de Poix. I loved you, I adored you secretly, I sought for a favourable time to declare my pa.s.sion."

Her eyes opened wide as she listened, and she would have given worlds to escape, yet her feeling was mainly of pity.

"This is very unfortunate. Calm yourself, Abbe. I will ever have a lively feeling of gratefulness for your devotion. Think of me on those terms."

"Ah, Madame, those were the only terms which might have been possible in former days; but they do not belong to the new _regime_. We are all equal now. Nothing will satisfy me short of possessing you entirely."

"Abbe, you are excited."

"No, citizeness, I have long been determined you shall be my mate." She shrank from the word and the uncanny pa.s.sion of his gaze.

"When you will have reflected a few hours you will see that this is impossible."

"What! impossible? And why impossible? Ah, yes, I know, it is because of your pretty-faced lover Repentigny. I know all about that. I could have crushed him between my fingers; and I will crush him yet. What!--that man between myself and you! Why, then, did I bring you here? Was it to allow his interference with my object? After all I have done for you, am I to be met with answers of this sort?"

"I appreciate entirely your services, Abbe; they are too great to be underrated."

"They shall be more, citizeness. In these days it is _my_ turn to dictate."

"Am I to understand that this has been your aim all along?"

He hesitated, but replied boldly, "It has, and were it not for that, I might long ago have pointed out both you and your doll-head lover to the Committee of Public Safety."

"Then your whole service has been abstention from positive treachery for your own ends?"

"You dare me? Caution, citizeness! You are in my power."

"In your power? You are a coward as well as a knave, then?"

"Remember still more," he hissed, losing all control of himself, "that your lover also is in my power; he is captured."

"My G.o.d! you have brought us to this!" she cried.

The door creaked and the Admiral entered.

"Be off, you cur!" said he, standing sternly over the Abbe, who shrank as if struck. "Go to your work, you----"

A look of terror upon his countenance, Jude precipitated himself through the doorway.

The Admiral closed it, and returning, sat down by the candle and began to talk to Cyrene. Seeing his features so close and large and accentuated by the candle-light, their coa.r.s.eness and horror filled her with wonder.

"So that fellow boasts of his fidelity!" he exclaimed, in a repulsively modulated and familiar tone. "What a wealth of tenderness such a kidnapping shows! Possibly you knew his profession, citizeness?--that of salaried spy. Your protector he claims to be? Excellent--when he could not turn a straw in your favour. He has deprived you of your freedom; that was easier in these times. I, on the other hand," he added, smiling yet more hideously, "am here to return it to you."

"I thank you," she replied wearily, without hope.

"I shall reveal to you the true reason of your immunity for so long from the wrath of the people. It was because of Repentigny, not of yourself.

I arranged it, and you were then unknown to me. Through him Bec and Caron, two friends of the people, had died six years ago, in the days of the tyrant. It was I, as avenger, not the worm Jude as lover, who watched over your household in the Rue Honore, reserving Repentigny for prolonged punishment. It was I whose power surrounded you as it has surrounded all Paris." He paused proudly.

"Citizeness, last night I saw you for the first time. Your wonderful courage, your astonishing beauty, overcame the most martial of hearts."

She started and shivered violently. Was she to endure two proposals within the hour, from such revolting creatures, and at what violence would their outrages end?

"Come," he said, offering to embrace her. She started back in terror.

"Do not tremble," he went on patronisingly; "you have nothing to fear from me, everything to expect. I am able to give you whatever you ask--mansions, carriages, jewels, pleasures, unlimited wealth, unlimited power. These are in my hands. I rule Paris--yes, France--and shall rule Europe. You shall sit by my side, and the whole world shall serve you.

They shall fear or love you as you will, but I am able to see that they obey you or sink under my hand. Do not fear the squalor of these brutes whom I govern; you shall see nothing of them, for we shall sit upon the heights of the Revolution. Around us Paris shall always be gay and fascinating. Tell me your slightest wish, citizeness; it shall be yours."

"You will grant me a wish?" she exclaimed.

"a.s.suredly," he answered.

"Take me, then," said she, "to him you call Repentigny."

"Repentigny or Lecour?" he said, pointing to the name. "Citizeness, he is unworthy of you--totally unworthy."

"Maligner!"

"Keep your coolness, Madame; the man has long deceived you. The story that he is a plebeian is true. I can prove it."

"I asked you nothing of that sort; take me--only take me to him. Keep your promise."

"Very well, citizeness, there is but one condition. He is in the Conciergerie--in going to him you must, like him, be committed to be condemned."

"Gladly! gladly! Take me to him--take me to him--for the love of heaven."

"I love not heaven very much, citizeness, but, curse you, you seem fool enough to be granted what you ask. Look out of this door."

Obeying, she saw that a crowd of _Sans-culottes_ had filled the shop.

Carmagnoled and sabred, they lounged in slothful consultation and obscured the air with bad tobacco-smoke. On the Admiral opening the door, they rose in a disorderly way and made him a sort of salute.

"Arrest her," he ordered, beckoning the two foremost and waving his skinny hand back to Cyrene. They came forward and grasped her arms.

"To the Conciergerie!" he said, "and each of you answers for her with your head."

As terrified as she, the two guards tied her hands and marched her off through the Street of the Hanged Man.

In times of great misery strange things bring us happiness; the thought of her condemnation to death lifted her like an aerial tide, because being with Germain went with it.

CHAPTER LII

THE SUPREME EXACt.i.tUDE

Whoever pa.s.sed within the walls of the Conciergerie was counted lost. Of the prisons of the Revolution, it was that to which the accused were transferred from the others on the eve of sentence; and underneath it was the hall of the pretended court infamous to all time as "the Tribunal of Blood." The _fiacre_ containing Germain and the National Guards in whose charge Hache placed him, was followed by the mob to the doors, and at times it appeared as if he would certainly be torn away and hanged to a lantern rope. In front of the Conciergerie, whose portal was lit luridly by two torches, a delighted audience of _Sans-culottes_ received his approach with clapping.