The Galley Slave's Ring Part 26

Monsieur Lebrenn, left alone in the chamber, contemplated the colonel's casque for a moment, and muttered to himself:

"Truly, there are strange fatalities in this world."

He lifted up the casque and took it into that mysterious chamber which so much excited the curiosity of Gildas.

Lebrenn then joined his friends, from whom he learned that there was no longer any doubt but that the Republic would be proclaimed by the provisional government.

CHAPTER XI.

LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC!

After the battle, after the victory, the inauguration of the triumph, and the glorification of the ashes of the victims.

A few days after the overthrow of the throne of Louis Philippe, a large crowd gathered towards ten in the morning around the Madeleine Church, the facade of which was completely draped in black and silver. The front of the edifice bore the inscription:

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

LIBERTY--EQUALITY--FRATERNITY.

An immense mult.i.tude crowded the boulevards, where, from the site of the Bastille clear to the square of the Madeleine, there rose two long lines of lofty funeral tripods. On that day homage was rendered to the shades of the citizens who died in February in defense of freedom. A double cordon of National Guards under the command of General Courtais, with the old republican soldier Guinard as his lieutenant, lined the road.

The mult.i.tude, grave and calm, looked conscious of its new sovereignty, freshly conquered with the blood of its brothers.

Presently the cannon boomed, and the patriotic hymn, the Ma.r.s.eillaise, was intoned. The members of the provisional government arrived. They were Citizens Dupont of L'Eure, Ledru-Rollin, Arago, Louis Blanc, Albert, Flocon, Lamartine, Cremieux, Garnier-Pages and Marast. Slowly they ascended the broad stairs of the church. Tricolor sashes fastened with a knot were the sole badges that distinguished the citizens upon whom at that juncture rested the destinies of France.

Behind them, and acclaiming the Republic and popular sovereignty, came the heads of Departments, the high magistrature in red robes, the learned corps in their official dress, the marshals, the admirals and the generals in resplendent uniform.

Pa.s.sionate shouts of "Long live the Republic" broke out along the line of march of the dignitaries, most of whom, courtiers under so many regimes and now neophyte republicans, had grown grey in the service of the monarchy.

All the windows of the houses situated on Madeleine Square were choked with spectators. On the second floor of a shop occupied by one of Monsieur Lebrenn's friends Madam Lebrenn and her daughter were seen at a window. They were both clad in black. Monsieur Lebrenn, his son, as well as father Morin and his grandson George, who still wore his arm in a sling, stood behind them--all now const.i.tuting one family. On the evening before this memorable day Monsieur and Madam Lebrenn had announced to their daughter that they consented to her marriage with George. The beautiful visage of Velleda said as much. It expressed profound happiness, a happiness, however, that the character of the imposing ceremony which aroused a pious emotion in the merchant's family kept under restraint. When the procession had entered the church and the Ma.r.s.eillaise ceased, Monsieur Lebrenn cried out with eyes swimming in tears of joy:

"Oh! This is a great day! It sees the establishment in perpetuity of our Republic, clean of all excesses, of all proscription, of all stain!

Merciful as strength and right, fraternal as its own symbol, the first thought of the Republic has been to throw down the political scaffold, the scaffold, which, had the Republic been vanquished, it would have been made to dye purple with its own purest and most glorious blood!

Contemplate it--loyal and generous, the Republic summons those very magistrates and generals, until yesterday implacable enemies of the republicans, whom they smote both with the sword of the Law and the sword of the Army, to join with it in a solemn pact of oblivion, of pardon and of concord, sworn to over the ashes of the latest martyrs of our rights! Oh, it is beautiful; it is n.o.ble, thus to reach out to our foes of yesterday a friendly and unarmed hand!"

"My children," put in Madam Lebrenn, "let us hope, let us believe that the martyrs of liberty, whose ashes we to-day render homage to, may be the last victims of royalty."

"Yes! Everywhere freedom is awakening!" cried Sacrovir Lebrenn enthusiastically. "Revolution in Vienna--revolution in Milan--revolution in Berlin--every day brings the tidings that the republican ferment of France has caused all the thrones of Europe to shake! The end of monarchy has arrived!"

"One army on the Rhine, another on the frontier of Italy--both ready to march to the support of our brothers of Europe," said George d.u.c.h.ene.

"The Republic will make the rounds of the world! From that time on--no more wars, not so Monsieur Lebrenn? Union! The fraternity of the peoples! Universal peace! Labor! Industry! Happiness for all! No more insurrections, since the peaceful struggle of universal suffrage will henceforth replace the fratricidal struggles in which so many of our brothers have perished."

"Oh!" cried Velleda Lebrenn, who had watched her betrothed with sparkling eyes as he spoke. "How happy one must feel to live in times like these! What great and n.o.ble things are we not about to witness; not so, father?"

"To doubt it, my children, would be to deny the onward march, the constant progress of humanity," answered Lebrenn. "Never yet did mankind retrogress."

"May the good G.o.d hear you, Monsieur Lebrenn," put in father Morin.

"Although I am quite old, I expect to see a good part of that beautiful picture. To want more than that, one must be quite a glutton," added the old man navely, and casting a tender look upon the merchant's daughter.

"Could I, after that, still have anything to wish for, now that I know that this good and beautiful girl is to be the wife of my grandson? Is he not now a member of a family of good people? The daughter is worthy of the mother, the son is worthy of the father. Zounds! When one has seen all that, and is as old as I am, there is nothing more that the heart can wish for--one may take his leave with a contented mind."

"Take your leave, good father?" said Madam Lebrenn, taking and warming in her own one of the trembling hands of the old man. "And what about those who remain behind and love you?"

"And who will feel doubly happy," added Velleda embracing the grandfather, "if you remain to witness their happiness."

"And who desire to render homage in you, good father, and for many long years, to labor, to courage, and to a big good heart!" exclaimed Sacrovir in accents of respectful deference, while the old man, more and more moved, carried his tremulous and venerable hands to his eyes.

"Oh! Do you imagine, Monsieur Morin," asked the merchant, smiling, "that you are not our 'good grandfather' as well? Do you imagine you do not belong to us, as well as to our dear George? As if our affections were not his own, and his own ours!"

"My G.o.d! My G.o.d!" exclaimed the old man, so moved with delight that tears filled his eyes. "What can I say to all that? It is too much--too much--all I can say is thanks, and weep. George, you who can talk, speak for me, do!"

"That is easy enough for you to say, grandfather," replied George, no less moved than Monsieur Morin.

"Father!" suddenly cried Sacrovir, stepping to the window. "Look! Look!"

And he added with exaltation:

"Oh, you brave and generous people of all peoples!"

At the call of the young man all rushed to the window.

The funeral ceremony being over, the boulevard was now free. At the head of a long procession of workingmen, there marched four members of their cla.s.s carrying on their shoulders a species of shield decked with ribbons, in the middle of which a small casket of white wood was placed.

Immediately behind followed a banner bearing the inscription:

LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC!

LIBERTY--EQUALITY--FRATERNITY.

AN OFFERING TO THE FATHERLAND.

The people who lined the street shouted in transports of joy:

"Long live the Republic!"

"Oh!" cried the merchant with moist eyes. "I recognize them by their conduct! It is like themselves, the proletarians--they who uttered the sublime sentiment: _We gave three months of misery to the service of the Republic_, they the poor workingmen in the civil service, who were the first to be struck by the commercial crisis! And yet, behold them, the first to offer to the country the little that they possess--half their morrow's bread, perhaps!"

"And these men," added Madam Lebrenn, "who set such a n.o.ble example to the rich and the happy of the land; these men who display so much abnegation, such broadness of heart, so much resignation, so much patriotism, are they not to escape from their servitude! What, are their intelligence and industry forever to remain sterile only to themselves!

Is for them a family ever to be the source of worry, the present a continuous privation, the future a frightful nightmare, and property a sardonic dream! No, no, you G.o.d of Justice! These men who have triumphed with so much grandeur have at last climbed to the top of their Calvary!

The day of justice has come for them also! With your father, my children, I say--this is a glorious day, a day of equity and of justice, free from all taint of vengeance!"

"And those sacred words are the symbol of the emanc.i.p.ation of the workers!" exclaimed Monsieur Lebrenn pointing to the inscription in front of the church:

LIBERTY--EQUALITY--FRATERNITY.

CHAPTER XII.