The Sword of Honor Part 41

"Pardon, dear sir, hi! hi! or, rather, dear madam! Ah, ah, ah! if you knew what a winsome face you had! Pardon me, I am all upset over it--it is too much for me. Ah, ah, ah! Oh, the idea! I shall die of bottled-up laughter if you don't let me give vent to it!"

Suiting action to word, the Marquis went off into another roar of hysterics. Hubert's violent nature was about once more to get the better of him, but once more was it appeased by the solicitations of the Count and his brother. At last he cooled down sufficiently to make known to the company the secret of his transfiguration, and how he owed his life to his sister's devotion. During these confidences, the laughter of the Marquis gradually died out.

"Then, that part of St. Honore Street where you have just missed arrest, dear Monsieur Hubert," said the Count, "will to-night be watched by the police, and I may, on leaving here, fall into their hands. For the refuge where I have hidden myself since my return to Paris is situated close to the St. Honore Gate. The wife of a former whipper-in in the King's Huntsmen is giving me asylum. From the window of my garret I can see the house of this Desmarais, your brother-in-law; whom I now regret not having allowed to die under the cudgels when I had him flogged by my lackeys."

"You live near the St. Honore Gate, you say, Count? What is the number of the house, if you please?" asked the Abbot with a start.

"Number 19; the entrance is distinguished by a small gate-way."

"You could not have chosen your refuge worse! I am glad to be able to warn you of your danger. At No. 17 of that same street live two members of the Lebrenn family, John the iron-worker, and that beautiful woman whom you knew under the name of Marchioness Aldini. Be on your guard, for if these people came to know where you were hidden, they would not let slip the opportunity to wreak on you the hate with which they have pursued your family for so many centuries."

"Now that that fool of a Marquis has become almost reasonable, let us resume the course of our deliberation," replied the Count, thanking Morlet for his information; and addressing Hubert: "When you came in, the priest was having the presumption to propose for our consideration the question whether it would not be wiser to postpone the projected stroke until after the King was sentenced, instead of to-morrow, as we purpose."

"Any such delay would be all the sadder seeing that this very evening a case of arms, containing also several copies of our proclamation, was seized in my brother-in-law's house. The Committee of General Safety thus has by this time the most flagrant proof of a conspiracy. So then, I say, we must make haste. Yesterday and day before I saw several officers and grenadiers of my old battalion, who are very influential in their quarter. They await but the signal to run to arms. The bourgeoisie has a horror of the Republic."

"Confess, Monsieur Hubert, that it would be better for the bourgeoisie to resign itself to what it calls 'the privileges of the throne, the immunities of the n.o.bility and clergy,' than to submit to the tyranny of the populace," rejoined Plouernel.

"Monsieur Count, a few years ago you administered through the cudgels of your lackeys a good dressing down to a man whom I have the unhappiness to possess for brother-in-law. I, in his place, would have paid you back, not by proxy, through hirelings, but in person. Now, great seigneur that you are, what would you have done in that case?"

"Eh! My G.o.d, my poor Monsieur Hubert! If I did not, in the first moment of anger, run you through the body with my sword, I would have been under the obligation of asking for a lettre de cachet and sending you to the Bastille."

"Because a man of your birth could not consent to fight a bourgeois?"

"Certainly; for the tribunal composed of our seigneurs the Marshals of France, to which the n.o.bility refers its affairs of honor, would have formally prohibited the duel; and we are bound by oath to respect the decisions of Messieurs the Marshals. For the common herd we have nothing but contempt."

"It seems to me we are wandering singularly astray from the question at stake," interposed the Bishop. "Let us come back to it."

"Not at all, Monsieur Bishop," retorted Hubert. "We must first of all know what we are conspiring for. If we are conspiring to overthrow the Republic, we must know by what regime we shall replace it. Shall it be by an absolute monarchy, as before, or by the const.i.tutional monarchy of 1791? Well, gentlemen of the n.o.bility, gentlemen of the clergy, what we want, we bourgeois, we of the common herd, whom you despise, is the const.i.tutional monarchy. Take that for said."

"So that the bourgeoisie may reign in fact, under the semblance of a kingdom? We reject that sort of a government," sneered Plouernel.

"Naturally."

"Whence it follows that you wish to subst.i.tute the bourgeois oligarchy, the privilege of the franc, for our aristocracy?"

"Without a doubt. For we hold in equal aversion both the old regime, that is, the rule of unbridled privilege, and the Republic."

"Let us come back to the subject," snapped Jesuit Morlet. "The bourgeoisie, the n.o.bility, the clergy--all abominate the Republic. So much is settled. Let us, then, first attend to the overthrow of the Republic; later we may decide on its successor. Let us decide immediately whether we shall or shall not delay the execution of our plot of to-morrow--the first question; and the second, which, to tell the truth, ought to take precedence over the other--whether it would not be better after all, in the combined interests of the Church, the monarchy, the n.o.bility and the bourgeoisie, simply to let them, without any more ado, send Louis to the guillotine!"

The Jesuit's words were again received with imprecations by the Bishop and Monsieur Plouernel, while the Marquis, finding the idea funnier and funnier, burst into irrepressible laughter. Hubert, greatly surprised, but curious to fathom the Abbot's purposes, insisted on knowing the reasons on which he based his opinion. Accordingly, when silence was restored, the Jesuit commenced:

"I maintain, and I shall prove, that the sentencing and execution of Louis XVI offer to us precious advantages. This sovereign--I leave it to you, Count, and to you, Monsieur Hubert--is completely lost, both as an absolute King, because he lacks energy, and as a const.i.tutional King, because he has twenty times striven to abolish the Const.i.tution which he pledged himself to support. So much is self-evident and incontestible.

Accordingly, the death of Louis XVI will deliver us from the unpleasant outcome of an absolute King without vigor, if absolute royalty is to prevail; and will spare us a const.i.tutional King without fidelity to his oath, if const.i.tutional royalty wins out. That settles the first and extremely interesting point. Second point, the execution of the King will deal a mortal blow to the Republic. Louis XVI will become a martyr, and the wrath of the foreign sovereigns will be aroused to the last notch against a rising Republic which for first gage of battle throws at their feet the head of a King, and summons their peoples to revolt. The extermination of the Republic will thus become a question of life and death for the monarchs of Europe; they will summon up a million soldiers, and invest vast treasuries, coupled with the credit of England. Can the outcome of such a struggle be doubted? France, without a disciplined army; France, ruined, reduced to a paper currency, torn by factions, by the civil war which we priests will let loose in the west and south--France will be unable to resist all Europe. But, in order to exasperate the foreign rulers, to excite their hatred, their fury, they must be made to behold the head of Louis XVI rolling at their feet!"

"Reverend sir, you frighten me with your doctrines!" was all the Count of Plouernel could say. With a paternal air the Jesuit continued:

"Big baby! I am through. One of two things: Either to-morrow's plot works well, or it works ill. In the first case, Louis XVI is delivered; the Convention is exterminated. A thousand resolute men can carry out the stroke. But afterwards? You will have to fight the suburbs, the Sections, the troops around Paris, which will run to the succor of the capital."

"We shall fight them!" was Hubert's exclamation.

"We shall cut them to pieces! Neither mercy nor pity for the rebels!"

cried Plouernel.

"We shall have the bandits from the prisons set fire to the suburbs at all four corners! A general conflagration!" suggested the Bishop.

"And these worthy tenants of the suburbs," giggled the Marquis, "seeing their kennels ablaze, will think of nothing else but to fire in the air, to check the flames. Hi! hi! hi! The idea is a jolly one!"

Morlet the Jesuit again brought the conversation back into its channel.

"Monsieur Hubert," he said to the banker, "at what number do you estimate the energetic bourgeois who will take part in the fight?"

"Five or six thousand, old members of the National Guard. I can answer for that number."

"I am willing to concede you ten thousand. There are ten thousand men.

And you, Count, how many do you think there are of the returned Emigrants, the old officers and soldiers of the const.i.tutional guard of Louis XVI, and finally of the ex-servitors of the King and the Princes--coachmen, lackeys, whippers-in, stable-boys and other menials, who form your minute-militia?"

"I figure on four thousand--or less," replied the Count.

"Let us say five thousand. Add them to Monsieur Hubert's ten thousand National Guards, and we have a total of fifteen thousand men. Now, although Paris has vomited to the frontiers since September fifty thousand volunteers, how estimate you the number remaining of these sans-culottes and Jacobins of the suburbs, the Sections and the federations, and finally the regiments of infantry, cavalry and artillery which are republican?"

"There are fifteen thousand men, about, troops of all arms, not in Paris, but within the const.i.tutional limits, that is, within twelve leagues of the capital," Hubert answered.

"These troops could reach Paris in one day's march. There you have fifteen thousand men in trained and equipped corps, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, devoted to the Republic and the Convention; troops equal in number to your fifteen thousand insurgents. We can number the Jacobin population of the suburbs and the Sections, and the hordes of the federations, at thirty thousand--scamps, armed with pikes or guns, and provided with cannon as well! Now, suppose the King liberated, and the members of the Convention exterminated. You then find yourselves face to face with a regular and irregular army of forty-five thousand determined villains, while you number only fifteen thousand men, without artillery, and extremely ill provided with supplies."

"A brave man doesn't count his enemies--he attacks them!" exclaimed Hubert.

"We shall have for auxiliaries the foreign armies," interjected Plouernel, "and the civil war in the west and south."

"Let us not be carried away by fancies. We are considering a levy of defenders which must be made to-morrow, in Paris; we are considering a fight which will be over in one day, in the capital," returned Abbot Morlet, coldly.

"If we are beaten in Paris, we shall retreat to the revolted provinces!

We shall be new food to the civil war!" cried the Bishop.

"The mitre weighs too much for your head, monseigneur," retorted the Jesuit. "Retreat to the provinces, say you? But if the insurrection is defeated, how are you going to slip through the hands of the victors in the fray? All or nearly all of you will be ma.s.sacred or guillotined."

"Eh!" cried the Count, in a rage, "our friends the foreigners will avenge us! They will burn Paris to the ground!"

"And the King? He will have been, I suppose, delivered by a bold sortie.

But the insurrection worsted, he will be retaken and will not escape death."

"Well, we shall avenge him by a civil and a foreign war," was the lame solution of the problem proposed by the Count.

"Let us proceed," continued the Abbot. "Since, taking your own figures, it is a hundred to one that, even if you succeed in s.n.a.t.c.hing Louis from his jailers for an instant, he will not fail to be retaken and have his head shorn off, what will your insurrection have availed you? Let the good populace, then, tranquilly trim the neck of this excellent prince.

His death will be the signal for civil war, for the foreign invasion, and for the stamping out of the Republic. Do not uselessly endanger your lives and those of your friends; they can, like you, render great service at the proper moment. Accordingly, I sum up: the interests of all--bourgeoisie, n.o.bles and clergy--will best be served by letting Louis XVI be guillotined with the briefest possible delay. I have spoken."

The inflexible logic of the prelate made a keen impression on his auditors. He spoke sooth in regard to the certain defeat of the royalist insurrection, and in relation to the redoubled fury into which the death of Louis would throw the rulers of the surrounding monarchies. Nothing, indeed, could be more formidable than their concerted efforts and activity against the Republic--impoverished, torn by factions and almost without trained troops as the latter would be. But the Jesuit suspected not, was unable, despite his profound cunning, to conceive, what prodigies love of country and the republican faith were soon to give birth to.

"By the Eternal! my reverend sir," at last cried the Count, "why, then, have you approved of our projects, why have you put at our service Lehiron and his band of frightful villains after his own pattern, to help undertake the affair?"

"Firstly, because I might have been mistaken in my conjectures--_Errare humanum est_--to err is human. A man of sense is not obstinate in his error. Secondly, and this is supreme to me, I have received from the General of my Order, at Rome, these instructions: '_It is important to our holy mother the Church that Louis XVI be crowned with the palm of martyrdom_.' So that, having tested the danger and uselessness of an uprising, I declare point-blank my determination not to take the least part in it; I declare that I shall withhold from it whatever means of action I can in any way control; in short, I shall oppose it in all possible manner, licit and illicit. On the which account," concluded the Jesuit, rising and bowing, "I shall now withdraw, so please you, my humble reverence from your honorable company. I have nothing more to do here."