Which? Part 12

"No, I have not changed. As you knew me so will you find me. But, my good friend, we must be prudent. You did well to come to my house. You and your daughter must remain here. You are relatives of mine; that is understood. Later, we can make other arrangements; but this evening I shall take you to the political club to which I belong. I will introduce you as my brother-in-law, a brave patriot from the south."

"But what the devil shall I do at the club?" inquired Coursegol.

"What shall you do there? Why, you will howl with the wolves; that is the only way to save yourself from being eaten by them!"

But Coursegol demurred.

"M. Bridoul is right," urged Dolores, timidly.

"Niece, you are wise to take your uncle's part," remarked Bridoul; "but you must take care not to call me monsieur. That is more than enough to send you to prison as times are now."

"Is everything a crime then?" cried Coursegol.

"Everything," answered Bridoul, "and the greatest crime of all would be to remain at home while all good patriots are listening to the friends of the people in the political meetings. You will be closely watched, for we are surrounded by spies; and if any act of yours arouses the slightest suspicion we shall all go to sleep on the straw in the Conciergerie or the Abbaye, until we are sent to the block!"

Coursegol uttered a groan.

"Why do you sigh?" asked Bridoul. "All this does not prevent me from doing a service to such as deserve it. On the contrary, I should be rich if the number of thousand louis I possess equalled the number of lives I have saved since the tenth of August!"

"Hush, husband!" said Madame Bridoul, quickly. "What if some one should hear you!"

"Yes, yes, Cornelia, I will be prudent. Here we are all good patriots, worthy sans-culottes, ever ready to cry: 'Vive la Nation!'"

As he spoke Bridoul returned to his shop, for several customers were coming in.

The former dragoon was over forty years of age. He was small of stature, and in no way resembled one's ideal of a brave cavalier. His short limbs, his protruding stomach, his enormous arms and his fat hands gave him, when he was not moving about, the appearance of a penguin in repose. The large head covered with bushy gray hair, that surmounted his short body imparted to him really an almost grotesque look; but so much kindness shone in his eyes, and his voice was so rich and genial that one instantly divined a brave man beneath this unattractive exterior and was irresistibly attracted to him. Twenty-five years of his existence had been spent in the service of the king. He had cheerfully shed his blood and risked his life, and, thanks to the shrewdness he had displayed in his dealings with recruiting officers, he was now the possessor of several thousand francs. This little fortune enabled him to leave the army and to marry. A pretty shop-girl on the Faubourg du Roule, whose beautiful eyes, as he, himself, expressed it, had pierced his heart from end to end, consented, though she was much his junior, to a union of their destinies. In 1789 the newly married couple purchased the stock of a wine-shop, over the door of which, after the 10th of August, they prudently hung the sign of the "Bonnet Rouge."

At heart, Bridoul and his wife were still ardent royalists. They bitterly deplored the imprisonment of Louis XVI. and his family, but they were governed by a feeling which soon became general, and under the empire of which most of the events of this b.l.o.o.d.y period were accomplished. They were afraid. It would not do for them to be cla.s.sed with suspected persons, so they did not hesitate to violate their conscience and their heart by openly professing doctrines which they secretly abhorred, but which gave them the reputation of irreproachable patriots. Hence the "Bonnet Rouge" soon became the rendezvous of the Revolutionists of that quarter; and through them Bridoul acquired information with regard to their plans that enabled him to save the lives of many citizens. Fear had made him cautious but not cowardly; and he was fortunate enough to find in his wife a valuable auxiliary whose resolution, courage and coolness were never failing. After this explanation, not one will be surprised at the welcome this worthy couple accorded Dolores and Coursegol. They were ever ready to do good and to succor the distressed.

The evening after her arrival, Dolores was installed in a chamber over the shop. Coursegol occupied a small room adjoining this chamber. They could reach their apartments without pa.s.sing through the saloon; so Dolores and Coursegol were not compelled to mingle against their will with the crowd of customers that filled the wine-shop during the day. It was decided that they should all take their meals at a common table, which was to be served in the back shop where Bridoul and his wife slept. It was also decided that Dolores should lay aside the Provencale costume which she had worn on her arrival in Paris, and dress like a daughter of the people. Everything that would be likely to attract attention must be scrupulously avoided, for the beauty of Dolores had already awakened too much interest on the part of curious customers.

The following Sunday morning, Dolores, who felt certain that Cornelia Bridoul was a devout Christian, said to her:

"At what hour do you go to church? I would like to accompany you?"

"To church! For what?" asked Cornelia, evidently surprised.

"To hear ma.s.s."

"Would you listen to a ma.s.s celebrated by a perjured priest?"

And, as Dolores looked at her in astonishment, Cornelia added:

"The sacred offices are now celebrated only by renegade priests, who have forsaken the tenets of the church to render allegiance to the const.i.tution."

But that same evening after supper, as Dolores was about retiring to her chamber, Cornelia, who was sitting with her guest in the room in the rear of the shop, while Bridoul and Coursegol were closing the saloon, said to her:

"This morning you were regretting that you could not attend church. I have been informed that an aged saint, who has found shelter with some worthy people in the neighborhood, will celebrate ma.s.s this evening."

"Oh! let us go!" cried Dolores.

"Very well, you shall go; Coursegol will accompany us; Bridoul will remain at home and take care of the house."

A few moments later, Dolores, Cornelia and Coursegol, provided with the pa.s.s that all good patriots were obliged to carry if they were in the streets of Paris after ten o'clock at night, stole out of the wine-shop and turned their steps toward the Place Royale. The streets which they traversed, looking back anxiously now and then to make sure that they were not followed, were dark and almost deserted. It was only occasionally that they met little groups of two or three persons, who pa.s.sed rapidly, as if they distrusted the other pa.s.sers-by. A policeman stopped our friends. They displayed their pa.s.ses, and he allowed them to pursue their way without further questions. At last, they reached the Place Royale, and turned into a side street. At a half-open door stood a man clad in a blouse, and wearing a red cap. Cornelia said a few words to him in a low tone.

"Pa.s.s in," was his response.

He stepped aside. Dolores and Cornelia hastily entered, but Coursegol, who was to watch in the street, remained outside. The two women ascended to the fifth floor, and at last reached a door which was guarded as the one below had been. Cornelia gave the pa.s.sword and they entered. They traversed several rooms and finally found themselves in a s.p.a.cious apartment dimly lighted by two candles. There were no windows, and the only means of lighting and ventilating the room was a sky-light; but this was now covered with heavy linen, undoubtedly for the purpose of concealing what was pa.s.sing within from any spy who might be seized with a fancy for a promenade on the roof. At one end of the room, and separated from it by a thick curtain, was an alcove. There were about twenty people, mostly women, in the room. Every one stood silent and motionless, as if awaiting some mysterious event. When the clock struck eleven, a voice from behind the curtain said: "Close the doors."

The man on guard obeyed and came and took his place with the others, who with one accord fell upon their knees. At the same instant, the curtains parted, revealing the interior of the alcove in which stood a lighted altar surmounted by a cross of dark wood. At the foot of the altar stood an old white-haired priest, arrayed in sacerdotal robes, and a.s.sisted by two young men who acted as a choir. The service began. Dolores could not restrain her tears. After a few moments she became calmer and began to pray. She prayed fervently for Philip, for Antoinette, for all whom she loved and for herself. The ceremony was short. The priest addressed a brief exhortation to his audience. The time of pomp and of long sermons had gone by. At any moment they might be surprised, and the life of every one present would have been in danger had they been arrested in that modest room which had become for the nonce the only asylum of the proscribed Romish Church.

When the service was concluded, the curtains were again drawn and the worshippers withdrew, not without depositing in a box an offering for the venerable priest who had officiated. Just as Dolores and Cornelia were leaving the room, the brave old man pa.s.sed them. He was arrayed in the garb of a worthy patriot, and was so effectually disguised that they would not have recognized him if he had not addressed them. As for the altar, it had disappeared as if by enchantment.

So, either in this house or in some other, Dolores regularly attended the offices of her church. Not a Sunday pa.s.sed that Cornelia did not conduct her to some mysterious retreat, where a little band of brave-hearted Christians met to worship together. She was in this way made familiar with heroic deeds which gave her courage to brave the dangers that threatened every one in those trying days, and she was thus initiated into a sort of league, formed without previous intent, for the purpose of providing a means of escape for those who were in danger of becoming the victims of the dread and merciless Committee of Public Safety. It was in this way that she was led to accompany Cornelia one evening when the latter went to carry food to a n.o.bleman whose life was in danger, and who was concealed in the neighborhood of the Invalides, and, on another occasion, to aid in the escape of an old man who had been condemned to die. The enthusiasm of Dolores was so great that she often exposed herself to danger imprudently and unnecessarily. She was proud and happy to a.s.sist the Bridouls in their efforts, and she conceived for them an admiration and an affection which inspired her with the desire to equal them in their n.o.ble work to which they had so bravely consecrated themselves.

But Coursegol, ignorant of most of the dangers to which Dolores exposed herself, or who knew of them only when it was too late to blame her for her temerity, had not lost sight of the motives which had induced him to accompany the girl on her expedition to Paris.

What they had aimed to do, as the reader doubtless recollects, was to find Philip de Chamondrin and Antoinette de Mirandol, who had both been missing since the death of the Marquis and the destruction of the chateau. Though Bridoul persisted in declaring that his former captain was not in Paris, Coursegol was not discouraged. For three months he pursued an unremitting search. He found several men who, like himself, had formed a part of M. de Chamondrin's company. He succeeded in effecting an entrance to the houses of some of the friends whom his master had visited during his sojourn in Paris. He frequented public places. He might have been seen, by turn, in the Jacobin Club, in the galleries of the Convention, at the Palais egalite, in every place where he would be likely to find any trace of Philip; but nowhere could he discover the slightest clew to his whereabouts. Every evening on his return home, after a day of laborious search, he was obliged to admit his want of success to Dolores. She listened sadly, then shook her head and said:

"Bridoul is right. Philip and Antoinette have left the country; we shall never see them again. After all, it is, perhaps, for the best, since they are in safety."

But, even while she thus attempted to console herself, Dolores could not conceal the intense sorrow and disappointment that filled her heart, and which were caused, not so much by the absence of her friends as by the mystery that enshrouded their fate. If it be misery to be separated from those we love, how much greater is that misery when we know nothing concerning their fate, and do not even know whether they are dead or alive! Dolores loved Antoinette with all a sister's tenderness, and Philip, with a much deeper and far more absorbing pa.s.sion, although she had voluntarily sacrificed her hopes and forced herself to see in him only a brother. She had paid for the satisfaction of knowing that he was happy and prosperous with all that made life desirable; and this uncertainty was hard to bear.

"Come, come, my child, do not weep," Coursegol would say at times like these. "We shall soon discover what has become of them."

"They are in England or in Germany," added Bridoul, "probably quite as much distressed about you as you are about them. You will see them again some day. Until then, have patience."

More than four months had pa.s.sed when it was suddenly announced that the king, who had been a prisoner in the Temple for some time, was to be brought to trial. It was also rumored that a number of n.o.blemen had eluded the vigilance of the authorities and had entered Paris resolved upon a desperate attempt to save him at the very last moment.

Coursegol's hope revived. He felt certain that Philip would not hesitate to hazard his life in such an enterprise if he were still alive; and it was in the hope of meeting him that he attended the trial of the unfortunate monarch, and that, on the twentieth day of January, he accompanied Bridoul to the very steps of the guillotine. The king was beheaded; no attempt was made to rescue him. Then Coursegol decided upon a step which he had been contemplating for some little time.

It will be remembered that Philip on his first arrival in Paris, had been attached to the household of the Duke de Penthieore, into which he had been introduced by the efforts of the Chevalier de Florian. The duke was the only member of the royal family who had remained in France unmolested. He owed this fortunate exemption of which the history of that epoch offers no similar example, to his many virtues and especially to his well known benevolence. Since the death of his daughter-in-law, the Princess de Lamballe, whom he had been unable to save from the hands of the executioners, he had lived with his daughter, the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans at the Chateau de Bisy, in Vernon. He was living there, not as a proscribed man but as a prince, ill, broken-hearted at the death of his relatives, almost dying, surrounded by his friends and protected from the fury of the Revolutionists by the veneration of the inhabitants of Vernon, who had displayed their reverence by planting with great pomp, in front of the good duke's chateau, a tree of liberty crowned with this inscription: "A Tribute to Virtue;" and who evinced it still more strongly a little later by sending a deputation to his death-bed to implore him before his departure from earth, to bless the humble village in which his last days had been spent.

One morning, Coursegol, having obtained a pa.s.sport through Bridoul, started for Vernon. This village is situated a few leagues from Paris on the road to Normandy. Coursegol, who in his double role of peasant and soldier was accustomed to walking, made the journey afoot, which enabled him to see with his own eyes the misery that was then prevailing in the provinces as well as in Paris. It was horrible. On every side he saw only barren and devastated fields, and ragged, starving villagers, trembling with fear. The revolution which had promised these poor wretches deliverance and comfort, had as yet brought them only misfortunes.

Coursegol reached Vernon that evening, spent the night at an inn, and the next morning at sunrise, repaired to the duke's chateau. That good old man had long been in the habit of receiving all who desired to speak with him, so it was easy for Coursegol to obtain an interview. He was ushered into a hall where several persons were already waiting, and through which the duke was obliged to pa.s.s on his way to attend morning services in the chapel.

At ten o'clock, the duke appeared. Coursegol, who had not seen him for several years, found him greatly changed. But the face surrounded by white floating locks had not lost the benign expression which had always characterized it; and he displayed the same simplicity of manner that had always endeared him to the poor and humble. When he entered the hall, the people who had been waiting for him, advanced to meet him.

They were mostly n.o.blemen who owed their lives to his influence, and who, thanks to him, were allowed to remain in France unmolested. He listened to them with an abstracted air, glancing to the right and left while they offered him their homage. Suddenly he perceived Coursegol who was standing at a little distance awaiting his turn. He stepped toward him and said:

"What do you desire, my friend?"

Coursegol bowed profoundly.

"Monseigneur," he replied, "I am the servant of the Marquis Philip de Chamondrin, who once had the honor to belong to your household."

"Chamondrin! I remember him perfectly; a brave young man for whom my poor Lamballe obtained a commission as captain of dragoons. I had news of him quite recently."