Zanoni Part 47

"Citizen, I beg to advise thee (The courteous use of the plural was proscribed at Paris. The Societies Populaires had decided that whoever used it should be prosecuted as suspect et adulateur! At the door of the public administrations and popular societies was written up, "Ici on s'honore du Citoyen, et on se tutoye"!!! ("Here they respect the t.i.tle of Citizen, and they 'thee' and 'thou' one another.") Take away Murder from the French Revolution and it becomes the greatest farce ever played before the angels!) that thou art treading on my feet. I beg thy pardon, but now I look at thine, I see the hall is not wide enough for them."

"Ho! Citizen Nicot," cried a Jacobin, shouldering his formidable bludgeon, "and what brings thee hither?--thinkest thou that Hebert's crimes are forgotten already? Off, sport of Nature! and thank the Etre Supreme that he made thee insignificant enough to be forgiven."

"A pretty face to look out of the National Window" (The Guillotine.), said the woman whose robe the painter had ruffled.

"Citizens," said Nicot, white with pa.s.sion, but constraining himself so that his words seemed to come from grinded teeth, "I have the honour to inform you that I seek the Representant upon business of the utmost importance to the public and himself; and," he added slowly and malignantly, glaring round, "I call all good citizens to be my witnesses when I shall complain to Robespierre of the reception bestowed on me by some amongst you."

There was in the man's look and his tone of voice so much of deep and concentrated malignity, that the idlers drew back, and as the remembrance of the sudden ups and downs of revolutionary life occurred to them, several voices were lifted to a.s.sure the squalid and ragged painter that nothing was farther from their thoughts than to offer affront to a citizen whose very appearance proved him to be an exemplary sans-culotte. Nicot received these apologies in sullen silence, and, folding his arms, leaned against the wall, waiting in grim patience for his admission.

The loiterers talked to each other in separate knots of two and three; and through the general hum rang the clear, loud, careless whistle of the tall Jacobin who stood guard by the stairs. Next to Nicot, an old woman and a young virgin were muttering in earnest whispers, and the atheist painter chuckled inly to overhear their discourse.

"I a.s.sure thee, my dear," said the crone, with a mysterious shake of head, "that the divine Catherine Theot, whom the impious now persecute, is really inspired. There can be no doubt that the elect, of whom Dom Gerle and the virtuous Robespierre are destined to be the two grand prophets, will enjoy eternal life here, and exterminate all their enemies. There is no doubt of it,--not the least!"

"How delightful!" said the girl; "ce cher Robespierre!--he does not look very long-lived either!"

"The greater the miracle," said the old woman. "I am just eighty-one, and I don't feel a day older since Catherine Theot promised me I should be one of the elect!"

Here the women were jostled aside by some newcomers, who talked loud and eagerly.

"Yes," cried a brawny man, whose garb denoted him to be a butcher, with bare arms, and a cap of liberty on his head; "I am come to warn Robespierre. They lay a snare for him; they offer him the Palais National. 'On ne peut etre ami du peuple et habiter un palais.'" ("No one can be a friend of the people, and dwell in a palace."--"Papiers inedits trouves chez Robespierre," etc., volume ii. page 132.)

"No, indeed," answered a cordonnier; "I like him best in his little lodging with the menuisier: it looks like one of US."

Another rush of the crowd, and a new group were thrown forward in the vicinity of Nicot. And these men gabbled and chattered faster and louder than the rest.

"But my plan is--"

"Au diable with YOUR plan! I tell you MY scheme is--"

"Nonsense!" cried a third. "When Robespierre understands MY new method of making gunpowder, the enemies of France shall--"

"Bah! who fears foreign enemies?" interrupted a fourth; "the enemies to be feared are at home. MY new guillotine takes off fifty heads at a time!"

"But MY new Const.i.tution!" exclaimed a fifth.

"MY new Religion, citizen!" murmured, complacently, a sixth.

"Sacre mille tonnerres, silence!" roared forth one of the Jacobin guard.

And the crowd suddenly parted as a fierce-looking man, b.u.t.toned up to the chin, his sword rattling by his side, his spurs clinking at his heel, descended the stairs,--his cheeks swollen and purple with intemperance, his eyes dead and savage as a vulture's. There was a still pause, as all, with pale cheeks, made way for the relentless Henriot.

(Or H_a_nriot. It is singular how undetermined are not only the characters of the French Revolution, but even the spelling of their names. With the historians it is Vergniau_d_,--with the journalists of the time it is Vorgniau_x_. With one authority it is Robespierre,--with another Robe_r_spierre.) Scarce had this gruff and iron minion of the tyrant stalked through the throng, than a new movement of respect and agitation and fear swayed the increasing crowd, as there glided in, with the noiselessness of a shadow, a smiling, sober citizen, plainly but neatly clad, with a downcast humble eye. A milder, meeker face no pastoral poet could a.s.sign to Corydon or Thyrsis,--why did the crowd shrink and hold their breath? As the ferret in a burrow crept that slight form amongst the larger and rougher creatures that huddled and pressed back on each other as he pa.s.sed. A wink of his stealthy eye, and the huge Jacobins left the pa.s.sage clear, without sound or question. On he went to the apartment of the tyrant, and thither will we follow him.

CHAPTER 7.VII.

Const.i.tutum est, ut quisquis eum HOMINEM dixisset fuisse, capitalem penderet poenam.

--St. Augustine, "Of the G.o.d Serapis," l. 18, "de Civ. Dei," c. 5.

(It was decreed, that whoso should say that he had been a MAN, should suffer the punishment of a capital offence.)

Robespierre was reclining languidly in his fauteuil, his cadaverous countenance more jaded and fatigued than usual. He to whom Catherine Theot a.s.sured immortal life, looked, indeed, like a man at death's door.

On the table before him was a dish heaped with oranges, with the juice of which it is said that he could alone a.s.suage the acrid bile that overflowed his system; and an old woman, richly dressed (she had been a Marquise in the old regime) was employed in peeling the Hesperian fruits for the sick Dragon, with delicate fingers covered with jewels. I have before said that Robespierre was the idol of the women. Strange certainly!--but then they were French women! The old Marquise, who, like Catherine Theot, called him "son," really seemed to love him piously and disinterestedly as a mother; and as she peeled the oranges, and heaped on him the most caressing and soothing expressions, the livid ghost of a smile fluttered about his meagre lips. At a distance, Payan and Couthon, seated at another table, were writing rapidly, and occasionally pausing from their work to consult with each other in brief whispers.

Suddenly one of the Jacobins opened the door, and, approaching Robespierre, whispered to him the name of Guerin. (See for the espionage on which Guerin was employed, "Les Papiers inedits," etc., volume i.

page 366, No. xxviii.) At that word the sick man started up, as if new life were in the sound.

"My kind friend," he said to the Marquise, "forgive me; I must dispense with thy tender cares. France demands me. I am never ill when I can serve my country!"

The old Marquise lifted up her eyes to heaven and murmured, "Quel ange!"

Robespierre waved his hand impatiently; and the old woman, with a sigh, patted his pale cheek, kissed his forehead, and submissively withdrew.

The next moment, the smiling, sober man we have before described, stood, bending low, before the tyrant. And well might Robespierre welcome one of the subtlest agents of his power,--one on whom he relied more than the clubs of his Jacobins, the tongues of his orators, the bayonets of his armies; Guerin, the most renowned of his ecouteurs,--the searching, prying, universal, omnipresent spy, who glided like a sunbeam through c.h.i.n.k and crevice, and brought to him intelligence not only of the deeds, but the hearts of men!

"Well, citizen, well!--and what of Tallien?"

"This morning, early, two minutes after eight, he went out."

"So early?--hem!"

"He pa.s.sed Rue des Quatre Fils, Rue de Temple, Rue de la Reunion, au Marais, Rue Martin; nothing observable, except that--"

"That what?"

"He amused himself at a stall in bargaining for some books."

"Bargaining for books! Aha, the charlatan!--he would cloak the intriguant under the savant! Well!"

"At last, in the Rue des Fosses Montmartre, an individual in a blue surtout (unknown) accosted him. They walked together about the street some minutes, and were joined by Legendre."

"Legendre! approach, Payan! Legendre, thou hearest!"

"I went into a fruit-stall, and hired two little girls to go and play at ball within hearing. They heard Legendre say, 'I believe his power is wearing itself out.' And Tallien answered, 'And HIMSELF too. I would not give three months' purchase for his life.' I do not know, citizen, if they meant THEE?"

"Nor I, citizen," answered Robespierre, with a fell smile, succeeded by an expression of gloomy thought. "Ha!" he muttered; "I am young yet,--in the prime of life. I commit no excess. No; my const.i.tution is sound, sound. Anything farther of Tallien?"

"Yes. The woman whom he loves--Teresa de Fontenai--who lies in prison, still continues to correspond with him; to urge him to save her by thy destruction: this my listeners overheard. His servant is the messenger between the prisoner and himself."

"So! The servant shall be seized in the open streets of Paris. The Reign of Terror is not over yet. With the letters found on him, if such their context, I will pluck Tallien from his benches in the Convention."

Robespierre rose, and after walking a few moments to and fro the room in thought, opened the door and summoned one of the Jacobins without.

To him he gave his orders for the watch and arrest of Tallien's servant, and then threw himself again into his chair. As the Jacobin departed, Guerin whispered,--

"Is not that the Citizen Aristides?"

"Yes; a faithful fellow, if he would wash himself, and not swear so much."

"Didst thou not guillotine his brother?"