Having called at Couthon's house, and concluded this arrangement, Robespierre made his way to the Champs-Elysées through the Tuileries with his dog Blount, who gambolled joyously in his new-found freedom after a three days' confinement in the house. The Incorruptible walked quickly and briskly as usual, in spite of the intense heat, which was but little diminished by the shade of the chestnuts lining the avenue. He was already telling over in his mind those among his enemies who would be the first victims of the new law. As to Olivier and the two women, it was quite decided. They should remain in prison in the most absolute secrecy until the time came for him to be master.
At the end of the avenue he turned into the Allée de Veuves and went towards the Seine. Blount, who had scented the water, leapt and bounded forward in high glee. On fine summer days the dog used to swim in the river under the eyes of Robespierre. When he reached the banks of the Seine Blount was awaiting him, and at a sign jumped in the water, and the Incorruptible found some release from his harrowing thoughts in watching the gambols of his dog in the river.
At the Convention the Bill read by Couthon was received with loud protests, and the subsequent debate opened amid turbulence and uproar. That the judgments of the Revolutionary Tribunal should be accelerated by the suppression of evidence and cross-examinations had already frightened not a few; but when it became a question of transmitting to the Committee of Public Safety the right of life or death, the whole assembly was filled with fear. Up to that time the Convention alone had the right to sit in judgment on a representative of the people!
A voice was heard exclaiming—
"If that law is passed, nothing is left but to blow out our brains!"
Robespierre appeared in the tribune. The Bill was voted. The next day several attempts were made in the Convention to repeal the atrocious law which brought the Terror into their very midst, but all such efforts failed.
With so trenchant a law, a two-edged weapon which could be turned at will either against the Committee of Public Safety or against the Convention, according to the intricate windings of his subtle policy, with such a weapon Robespierre could keep his enemies of the Committee at bay. He had in future but to accuse them, and have them replaced by creatures of his own, satellites of his will.
However, all was going well. His adversaries, blind and unwary, had begun to tear each other to pieces in party disputes, and to split up into factions, the very day after the passing of the atrocious law which made him so dreaded.
The Incorruptible tried to take advantage of these cabals, but he was too hasty. The Committee, realising their danger, united against him; and this was the prelude to a terrible and decisive struggle, for in case of failure there remained nothing for Robespierre but to have recourse to force. Realising this to the full, he no longer attended the sittings of the Committee, but worked silently in the shade, preparing thecoup d'étatwhich was to rid him at once and for ever of all his enemies,—with Saint-Just, whom he had sent for from the Northern Army, with Hauriot, Commander-in-Chief of the armed force; Fleuriot-Lescot, Mayor of Paris; Payan, Agent of the Commune; and Dumas, President; and Coffinhal, Vice-President of the Revolutionary Tribunal. His design was very simple. He would denounce his adversaries of the Committee of Public Safety at the bar of the Convention and ask for their arrest and judgment. Should the Convention resist, he would subdue them with the help of Hauriot and his troops, and of all sections of the Commune, who on a sign from him and from Fleuriot, Payan, Dumas, Coffinhal, and their friends, would be stirred to insurrection, and would take the Tuileries by storm.
As to Olivier and the two women, they were always under his hand. Olivier, at La Force Prison, was in no way disturbed. Clarisse and Thérèse had been kept at La Bourbe by his orders. Twice the names of Olivier's mother andfiancéehad appeared on the list of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and twice their names had been struck off by Robespierre, who, anxious and watchful, took care that all lists should be submitted to him.
Soon the decisive hour approached. It was the 7th Thermidor. Six weeks had elapsed since the memorable Fête of the Supreme Being, and the passing of the horrible Prairial law, which had sent hundreds of victims to the scaffold. The Terror was at its height, and France, prostrate before the knife of the guillotine, was awaiting in distracted anxiety the result of the struggle. The guillotine was also waiting, ready to devour whichever of the two parties was vanquished—Robespierre's opponents or Robespierre himself and his partisans.
The Incorruptible, driven to the last extremity, had fixed the battle for the next day, the 8th Thermidor, when he would throw off his mask and accuse his adversaries of the Committee of Public Safety in presence of the Convention. Although he was almost certain of the issue, he deemed it none the less prudent to take infinite precautions, and to put Olivier and the two women in perfect safety, in case of defeat, however impossible it might seem. They must be taken from prison, and all three placed in some secure retreat, out of the reach of danger, from whence they could escape if necessary.
Robespierre thought of the Hôtel de Ville, where he reigned supreme. Behind this, in the Rue du Martroy, were some unoccupied apartments, in a building connected with and forming part of the hotel. Clarisse might live there with her niece and Olivier until they could with safety leave Paris. He unfolded his projects to Lebas, who alone knew of the secret drama which poisoned the private life of the Incorruptible at the very moment when his public career was reaching its climax. Lebas approved the plan.
"I am entirely at your service!"
"Thanks. I was counting on your help. But don't let us be too hasty. To-morrow will be time enough. Everything depends on the sitting. If you see that the majority hesitate from the commencement, go immediately to La Bourbe and take the two women out, then to La Force and see about my son. The apartments are ready. You have only to take them there. But save the women first. Olivier must find his mother and hisfiancéewhen he arrives."
Then taking two papers from his pocket, he added, "Here are the warrants of release."
"Agreed!" said Lebas, after reading them.
Next day at the Convention, Lebas, a parliamentary expert, judged that Robespierre would come out victorious from the contest, nor was he mistaken. The Incorruptible had brought a general accusation, without mentioning names, against members of the Committee of Public Safety and General Security. This was received in anxious silence, a few only daring to protest. But the printing of the speech, and its circulation in all the communes of Paris, was none the less voted. It was an official accusation, by the voice of Robespierre, of his adversaries, before the whole of France. It was victory; and nothing was left but to name the victims.
But the implicated members of the Committee of Public Safety did not give him time. Vadier boldly made for the tribune, followed by Cambon, who, feeling it was a case of kill or cure, played a daring game, and replied to the general accusation of Robespierre by a direct, personal accusation, denouncing him openly to the astonished Assembly. The real traitor, he declared, was this masterful Robespierre, who paralysed the will of the National Convention!
There was a counter-wave of feeling among the members of the Assembly at this public indictment, and censure of their slavish submission to Robespierre. They seemed suddenly to realise their position, and the more daring members, seeing the tide turn, prepared for the fight. Thus the attacked were in their turn attacking.
Billaud-Varennes succeeded Cambon at the tribune.
"The mask must be torn aside, no matter whose face it covers!" he cried. "I would rather my corpse should be the stepping-stone of the ambitious than by my silence be an accomplice of their crimes!"
Others succeeded Billaud-Varennes, reiterating his accusations more boldly and insultingly. Robespierre, disconcerted, tried to face the storm, but it was too late. In confining himself to a general accusation, in mentioning no names, he had frightened every one. The Assembly revoked their previous decision, and amended the Bill. The speech was not to be sent to the Communes, but to the Committee, to be examined.
"What!" cried Robespierre, "I have the courage to make before the Convention revelations which I believe necessary to the salvation of the country, and my speech is to be submitted for examination to the very men whom I accuse!"
Victory had been followed by defeat; a partial defeat, it was true, for, seeing the hesitating attitude of the Convention, Robespierre hoped to win them back again the next day. He must, however, be prepared for every emergency! That very evening he would take steps to organise an insurrection of the Communes, which, in case of resistance, would annihilate the whole set of dastardly cowards. The Incorruptible wished to act within legal bounds as long as possible, and only to overstep them when forced to do so.
Robespierre looked round for Lebas, but he had disappeared, and this gave him grounds for hope that the two women, and perhaps Olivier, had reached the private apartments chosen by him in the Rue du Martroy.
"I must go and make sure that all is well," he said to himself; "there is not a moment to lose"—and leaving the Convention, he hastened in the direction of the Hôtel de Ville.
At that very moment Lebas reached the Hôtel de Ville with Clarisse and Thérèse. On leaving the prison of La Bourbe he had given a false address to the coachman who drove the prisoners, and he followed them at a distance in another carriage, accompanied by a man to superintend the luggage, who was one of the attendants at the Hôtel de Ville, and a devoted adherent of Robespierre. The second carriage soon overtook the first, when Lebas gave the correct address to the driver—
"13, Rue du Martroy!"
Clarisse and Thérèse mounted the stairs more dead than alive, ushered up respectfully by Lebas, and Urbain, the attendant, carrying their luggage. Where were they going? Who were these people? Lebas at the prison had scarcely spoken to Clarisse.
"For your safety," he had said simply, "for your niece's safety, do not question me before we arrive at our destination."
For her safety? For Thérèse's safety! Then they were to be saved? Who could save them? She would surely learn now who it was.
The two men stopped on the third floor, and Urbain opened a door.
"It is here!" said Lebas, making way for them to pass in.
The two women entered, and found themselves in a plain sitting-room with fittings and furniture of dark grey wood. Urbain took the luggage to a door opening on the left, through which a bedroom was visible.
"You must make yourself quite at home, here," said Lebas.
And he informed them that they were free, but from motives of prudence he who had saved them, and for whom Lebas was acting, had judged it advisable to offer them these apartments as a temporary residence, where they would be entirely out of danger's reach. Clarisse and Thérèse could not recover from their surprise, and wished to know to whom they owed their deliverance. But Lebas would not tell them, having received no orders to that effect. All he could say to reassure them was that their protector was all-powerful at the Paris Commune, and that the apartments were in direct communication, through a door which he indicated, with the Hôtel de Ville, so that they were under his immediate care.
Clarisse started. She understood now. She owed her safety to the Incorruptible! Her letter of the preceding month had reached Robespierre. She knew this already, as he had acknowledged it in a few brief words three days after receiving it—"Fear nothing, your son is safe!" And this was all she had heard.
Lebas was still giving the women particulars of their new surroundings. Everything had been arranged to render them as comfortable as possible. The man who had accompanied them was entirely at their disposal, and it was to his interest to serve them well. His wife would see also to their wants, and take charge of their apartments, where they would be absolutely free and unrestrained.
Only one precaution was earnestly recommended to them; to show themselves as little as possible at the windows of their sitting or bed room, so as not to attract the attention of neighbours. They were especially told to avoid this in the afternoon, from four to six. The windows looked on to the Rue du Martroy, through which the carts carrying the condemned passed. The scaffold was now installed at the Barrière du Trône Renversé, and it was the shortest way.
The two women shuddered.
"Unhappily we had no choice," Lebas added, seeing their repugnance, "but you will be warned by the cries of the crowd, and you can then retire to the dining-room which looks on to the courtyard. It lasts but a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, at the most."
But Clarisse scarcely listened, her whole mind occupied with one thought, the longing to inform Olivier, whose whereabouts she hoped soon to learn, of their release from prison.
"Could I write a few words to some one who is very dear to me?" she asked. "I wish to set his mind at rest about our welfare."
Lebas replied in the affirmative, and she thanked him gratefully. He politely protested; she owed him no thanks, these were solely due to him whose orders he was executing. He then offered to take the letter himself, saying he would return for it in a quarter of an hour, as he had another urgent duty to fulfil. And he retired, leaving the two women with Urbain, who busied himself arranging the furniture of the sitting-room.
Thérèse, now full of hope, gave thanks to God. They would perhaps soon see Olivier again. What joy! But to whom did they owe their release? She looked inquiringly at her aunt. Clarisse owned that she believed it was to an ex-secretary of Thérèse's grandfather, now all-powerful, and to whom she had written from the prison of La Bourbe. Thérèse seemed astonished that her aunt had not told her of this. But Clarisse made the very plausible excuse that she did not wish to raise her hopes, not knowing whether her appeal would have success.
The young girl was now looking through the shutters of one of the windows which Urbain had partly opened.
"Ah! there is a church!" she exclaimed, and immediately she thought that if they were allowed to go out she would go and pray for their protector, for he could not be all-powerful and not have done wrong; he must belong also to the Government of Terror.
At the mention of a church, Clarisse approached the window. She recognised the building; it was St. Gervais Church, on whose portal could be read in large letters the sadly ironical inscription: "National Property, to be let as a Warehouse."
At Clarisse's request Urbain had placed an ink-stand and blotting-paper on the table, and Clarisse hearing it was ready turned round joyfully. "At last I can write to Olivier!" she thought.
She then seated herself at the table and began to write, while Thérèse was making a tour round the room, taking a survey of the furniture. Suddenly catching sight of an illustrated paper on a sofa, she took it up to pass the time away. It was five weeks old, and had been preserved no doubt on account of the illustrations. Its pages gave an elaborate account of the Fête of the Supreme Being of which she had heard Olivier speak, and against which he had so vehemently protested during his visit to the prison of La Bourbe. It had taken place, then?
She became interested and commenced reading to herself in a low voice: "Description of the Procession.—Fireworks at the Fountain of the Tuileries.—Typical Groups.—Arrest of a Chouan.—Popular Indignation!"
"I saw that myself," interrupted Urbain.
Thérèse turned to the servant, who was now dusting the mantelpiece, and asked him why the man had been arrested.
"Why? Because he cried: 'Down with the scaffold!'"
The words struck Clarisse, who looked up from her writing. Only the day before thefêteOlivier had reproached the French for not daring to throw that cry in the teeth of the Government of Terror. Thérèse, seeing her aunt look up from her writing, was struck with the same coincidence, and both, almost in the same breath, questioned the domestic, who said that, as far as he could remember, the young man appeared to be about twenty. He had been arrested at once to save him from the crowd, who would otherwise have torn him to pieces.
"His name? his name?" they both gasped.
That Urbain could not tell them. Clarisse rose, mastering her emotion, and with all a mother's solicitude set herself to reassure Thérèse. Yes, they both had the same thought, hadn't they? She also was thinking of Olivier, but it could not be he. He would have written to them. Why, it was six weeks ago, and his visit to the prison would have been remembered! They would have been involved, but they had, on the contrary, been in no way made to feel it, and had been treated with every consideration.
"That is true," answered Thérèse, glad enough to be convinced.
Clarisse took the paper gently from her hands, saying, "Instead of reading all this awful news, which inflames your imagination, go, dear, and arrange our room a little." And she added in half a reproachful tone: "You have not even looked at it, yet!"
Then gently pushing her into the room, she shut the door sharply behind her.
A terrible fear had taken possession of Clarisse. Why in his letter to her had Robespierre sedulously avoided mentioning Olivier's whereabouts? Turning to Urbain, she addressed him in a hoarse voice: "You say you saw this young fellow?"
The good man evinced surprise at her strange recurrence to the subject.
"I had the honour to tell you so just now,citoyenne."
Then Urbain would recollect him? What was he like? His face? The colour of his eyes? But that was too much to ask. He was in such a state, so broken down. How was he dressed?
Urbain could just remember. He described the costume: grey carmagnole and breeches, black and grey striped waistcoat.
It was Olivier's costume! There was no longer any possible doubt. It was he!
"It is he! It is he!" she kept repeating, falling at last into a chair, on the point of swooning.
At this moment the door opened and a man appeared, who without crossing the threshold signed to the servant, to whom he spoke in a whisper. Urbain came towards Clarisse and delivered the message. "ThecitoyenRobespierre wishes to speak with you."
"Where is he? Oh! let him come! let him come!" she cried through her blinding tears.
The man left the room followed by Urbain. Clarisse waited in breathless suspense, her eyes fixed in mute agony on the half-opened door.
The Incorruptible came in, and before he had time to greet her, she had risen and was standing before him.
"My son? Where is my son?"
"Be assured, your son is safe."
She recoiled a step and fixed her eyes on him in amazed silence.
So it was true, the young man who had been arrested was Olivier!
Robespierre, greatly agitated, again essayed to reassure her, but she interrupted him eagerly. Where was he? In prison?
Robespierre lowered his eyes.
What! Had Olivier been sent to prison by him? Ah! things had come to a pretty pass. He was then the gaoler of his own son!
Robespierre made a gesture as if to protest. Then, mastering with difficulty his emotion, he explained everything. He had kept Olivier in prison as the only means of saving him. Had the lad been released he would have been reimprisoned by the Committee of Public Safety, who would have sent him to the scaffold, if it were only to show Robespierre that he had no right to grant a pardon! But Olivier would be free now. Lebas was at that very moment at La Force prison, and would soon bring him secretly from thence to them. Olivier should remain with his mother and Thérèse until the day when they could all three leave without danger, and seek safety in the provinces.
Clarisse listened, now calm and reassured. But how had Robespierre known?
"Who he was? Oh, in the most unexpected manner, with the assistance of some letters found in his valise, for he absolutely refused to give me his name."
Clarisse looked at Robespierre with a new fear in her eyes. Then he had seen him? Olivier knew the terrible secret of his birth?
"Oh, no!" replied the Incorruptible sadly, "don't be uneasy about that. I have not said a word, to lessen his love and trust in you, or disarm the bitter hatred he has for me, which avenges you too well..."
But Clarisse interrupted him. Robespierre was mistaking her feelings. She did not ask to be avenged, she did not even think any more of reproaching him with the past which divided them. It was all so far, so far away, that past!
The Incorruptible looked at her with eyes full of sadness and regret. Yes, there she stood, in her faded prison dress, her face lined before its time, a living reproach, a poor pale ghost of bygone days. Those blanched lips, with their melancholy droop, the token of long suffering and resignation, those lips had received his first kiss!
Clarisse would think no more of the past! He thought of it though, thought of it there, looking at her. Had he been so culpable, after all? Why had Monsieur de Pontivy filled his heart with hate and rancour by refusing him her hand and turning him out like a lackey? On account of a difference of caste? Well, from this prejudice had sprung the Revolution which had levelled all under the knife of the guillotine! That sad past, the terrible present, were both due to the pride of Clarisse's father. For he would not have thrown himself madly into the turmoil....
But Clarisse again interrupted him. The past was dead now, quite dead!
"No," he cried, "the past is not dead, since your son is here, the living proof of what has been..."
Clarisse shook her head.
"The punishment is mine, for if his hatred has been a blow to your pride, causing you some transient pain, it is I who must live out my life beside that hatred. Each time my son pronounces your name with loathing and indignation, I can only ask myself in terrified agony, if he will ever pardon me for having given him a father such as you!"
Robespierre, thoroughly disheartened, looked at her sadly. "You also!" he exclaimed. What! did Clarisse share the general error? Did not she penetrate through the apparent violence of his policy to the sublime end he had in view? He sought to explain his views to her, his notions for ensuring the universal happiness of mankind; he depicted the sacred ideal he dreamt of reaching by purging France of all base and evil-minded traitors who defiled her. He an assassin! He a tyrant! No! he was an avenger, an apostle of justice and virtue! He was not responsible for the excesses of a nation who had been enslaved for centuries, and had suddenly cast off their chains. Every conquest was of necessity accompanied by carnage, every revolution left the stains of blood behind!
Clarisse contemplated him with the same astonishment Vaughan had experienced in the forest of Montmorency, when Robespierre had unfolded to the Englishman his projects and visions of universal happiness, which could only be realised by the help of the guillotine.
"The future will justify me!" he continued. "When I am in power my deeds will convince you."
"But are you not all-powerful now?" Clarisse exclaimed in spite of herself.
He showed her she was mistaken. No, he was not supreme! Not yet! Enemies barred his way; but they were the last, and he was about to overthrow them in one decisive contest! Yes, he yearned for that moment to come, for his strength would not hold out much longer.
Then, lowering his voice, and trembling lest he should be heard, he told her of the wretched life he led; hunted down on all sides, hated, betrayed, his every movement watched, a dagger ever hanging over his head. He spoke of his sleepless nights! Oh! how he would hasten that last battle! To make the victory sure it would be as terrible as possible; the whole horde of wretches who had caused him such unspeakable torture should be swept from his path! Peace! Peace! how glad he should be to welcome it with open arms...
Clarisse listened in amazement to this wild tirade. He had spoken of his haunted life, his sleepless nights. But were not these ever the lot of tyrants? He sought forgetfulness, peace, a renewal of some of the joys of life? Then why did he not stay the infamous proceedings of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and throw wide the prison doors? From every breast would then resound a cry of deliverance which would atone for all! What greater happiness for him, after causing so many tears than to dry them again! "Impossible! impossible!" answered Robespierre. Not yet! He would have to pay for it with his life like Danton! The hour had not yet come! Clemency was treason, mercy meant death. In order to survive it was necessary to denounce, accuse, strike, and slay remorselessly. For it was the fear of death which prompted the French to their most inhuman acts. It influenced every one, from the Convention, the Committees, the Revolutionary Tribunal, to the very crowd who had become the abject slaves of that terror which held France in absolute subjection. They had well called this Government "the Terror." Oh, yes! it was a terror for the victims, for the accusers, for the judges, a terror for all!
Clarisse looked at him, in bewilderment. There was no more hope, then? France was to perish under that rule of abject cowardice? Would no one take this evil by the throat and strangle it?
"Yes," replied Robespierre.
"But who, my God! who?"
"I!"
"You?"
"Yes, I myself!"
And Robespierre unfolded his plans. When once the Committee of Public Safety had perished on the scaffold he would be master, a master strong enough perhaps to do away with the executioner and to decree clemency! When would that day come? He could not tell yet! Perhaps in a few days! For the moment it was the vigil of arms. Nothing was now possible but patience?
Clarisse was listening to a far-off sound which reached them like the muffled roar of distant waves. What was that noise?
Robespierre had heard it also and started up pale and nervous.
It was the crowd greeting fresh cartloads of condemned, which were passing the Place de la Grêve.
Clarisse groaned; she understood! The death on the scaffold, the last ride of those condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal! Lebas had warned her; it was just the time! The tumbrils would pass there, in that street, under these very windows! Robespierre hastened to close the shutters.
Clarisse, completely unnerved, gave way to grief and despair. So, all those people were doomed to die, because the hour of mercy had not yet come! In a few days, Robespierre had said it himself, in a few days they might be saved! The unfortunate victims must die on the very eve of deliverance! Oh, it was horrible! horrible! horrible!
"What can be done? I am powerless," repeated the Incorruptible.
What! he could do nothing? Could he not now, at this moment, do what he thought to do in three days' time? Could he not call out from the window to the mob, the long-yearned-for-cry, "Mercy! oh, have mercy!" He had but to call these words out to the crowd whose idol he was, and it would be an atonement for all his life. "Mercy!" and he was a hero, a savior! "Mercy!" and his son would no longer have the right to hate him, and to curse his name!
Robespierre was grieved and distressed beyond measure. Clarisse did not know what she was saying! How could he stop the tumbrils, arrest that crowd, composed of the very scum of the nation? Why, there was not one self-respecting man among them! Nothing but a mob mad with the lust of blood. The only power they feared or respected was the Terror—the Scaffold! He, Robespierre, their idol? Nay, he was not! Their idol was the executioner! To fight single-handed against such a besotted, blinded rabble would be madness, sheer madness!
Clarisse paid no heed, but continued supplicating him with uplifted hands, deaf to all argument.
The tumult of the mob, which sounded nearer, causing the very sashes to shake, announced the approach of the tumbrils. Robespierre, drawn in spite of himself to the window, partly opened the shutters to look out, followed by Clarisse who stopped as the hubbub of the crowd grew suddenly louder, and uttered a stifled cry—
"Here they are!"
Robespierre closed the shutters again. Tears started to Clarisse's eyes. She appealed to the kindly qualities of his youth. She had known him ever compassionate and generous. He had but to call to mind how he had revolted against injustice, how solicitous he had ever been for the weak and oppressed. Think of that time! Think of it! and all the spirit of her youth rose to her lips in that cry of pity for the innocent victims of misrule. Yes, innocent! They were innocent! And he refused to save them!
"Once more I tell you it is madness," Robespierre groaned in despair. Would she not understand, it was his death she was crying out for, her own death too, and the death of her niece? He had only to attempt to save those unhappy victims, and the crowd would at once turn upon him with the fury of wild beasts! He would be accused of treason by thesans-culottes, and the fishwives dancing yonder under the windows and howling theCarmagnole! He would be cut to pieces by the swords of the prison escort, crushed under the cartwheels, and cast into the gutter by the rabble for having dared to arrest the reign of Terror! Was that what Clarisse wanted? Or would she perhaps allow him to live still to be able to save her, to save her niece and her son?
The entrance door was pushed open. Robespierre turned, and seeing Urbain understood that Lebas had at last arrived with Olivier. He did not, however, wish to be seen by his son.
"Let Citoyen Lebas and his companion wait outside till I have gone," he said.
Urbain looked astonished.
"But there is no one with Citoyen Lebas," he replied.
Clarisse started up.
"What! no one?" asked Robespierre.
"And Olivier?" Clarisse said in a low voice, trembling with suspense.
Robespierre moved towards the door and called anxiously to Lebas. The day was fast closing, the setting sun, peering in through the half-open shutters, shed a crimson light in the apartment, staining here and there in patches and streaks the furniture and curtains with the hue of blood.
Lebas came in alone.
Olivier was no longer at the prison of La Force!
"Escaped?" asked Robespierre breathlessly.
"Unfortunately not!" said Lebas, "but taken by Coulongeon, the police-agent, by order of the Committee of Public Safety, to ... Where? No one could tell! To the Conciergerie perhaps?"
"Before the Tribunal!" Clarisse almost screamed.
Robespierre was stunned. The wretched members of the Committee had placed Olivier on trial! He had been, perhaps, condemned, and might even now be on the road to the scaffold, in one of those approaching tumbrils. He cried breathlessly to Lebas—
"Oh, quick! Go down and see!"
Lebas rushed off, and Robespierre ran to the window, Clarisse in mad despair following him.
"If he is ... you will, you must, cry out to the people that he is your son!"
Alas! Could he? The populace would answer that his son was aChouan! that he might thank the Tribunal for freeing him from such disgrace.
Thérèse, drawn from the bedroom by the deafening cries of the crowd, now entered, trembling with fear. The carts were there... She could hear them!
"Mamma! mamma! do you hear?"
She stopped at sight of Robespierre.
"The friend who saved us," said Clarisse, answering her look of surprise.
Thérèse went straight to the window, but Clarisse barred the way.
"Oh, no! she must not look at such a spectacle. Better kneel down and pray.... Pray for those about to die and for them also, yes for themselves, with all her soul!"
Thérèse fell on her knees and joined her hands, her large blue eyes, brimful of tears, lifted towards Saint Gervais, the deserted church, where the lingering spirit of outraged religion might perhaps accomplish a miracle!
The terrible tumult now burst on their ears like the rumble of thunder. As it drew nearer, separate sounds were distinguishable; screams, ribald laughter, hooting, degrading clamour, and coarse jokes reached them; all the hatred and fury of the Parisian populace was manifest in those hideous revels. The crowd was ushering the first tumbril into the Rue du Martroy, preceded by the mænads of the guillotine, loathsome, drinkbesotted viragoes, who yelled, and contorted themselves, dancing theCarmagnolein front of the condemned. Discordant strains of revolutionary songs rose above the rumbling of the cart-wheels, the clank of horses' hoofs, and the cracking of whips.
Robespierre had half opened the shutters, and tried to distinguish the first cart through the dense crowd. Clarisse struggled with him to look also, but the Incorruptible held her back resolutely.
"No; I will look alone!"
"Do you see him? Tell me; is he there?"
"No," he replied, still preventing her from approaching.
Then, as Robespierre made an eager movement, she gasped in her agony—
"He is there; I know it!" and again she struggled to reach the window.
"I swear to you he is not there!" and exhausted he quitted hold of her to wipe his brow.
The first tumbril had passed. The songs and cries of the mob surrounding it were lost in distance, and these muffled sounds were mingled with the murmurs of the crowd awaiting the other tumbrils. Olivier was not in the first. But the second? He was perhaps in the second?
Clarisse would have cried out in her despair, but she struggled against the mad impulse and suppressed her choking sobs lest she should reveal the awful truth to Thérèse, who, still on her knees, her eyes turned to the desecrated church, prayed aloud:
"Our Father Which art in Heaven; hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done...."
But she was interrupted by another outburst from the mob announcing the second tumbril. Already scraps of the furies' songs reached her from the distance:
"Dansons la Carmagnole!Vive le sonVive le sonDansons la CarmagnoleVive le sonDu canon!..."
Clarisse, taking advantage in a moment of Robespierre's relaxed vigilance, pressed nearer to the windows.
"The second cartload!"
"There are two of them," said Robespierre, who, taller than she, could command a more distant view.
Two! two carts! It was impossible for Olivier not to be in one of them. Clarisse felt it! He must be there!
"He is there, I feel it.... I tell you he is there!"
In her anxiety to see better she grew regardless of precaution. Robespierre struggled to draw her from the window. It was madness. She might be seen!
Thérèse still raised her voice, choked with tears, in supplications to heaven:
"Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen!"
A cry of anguish rent the air. Clarisse had recognised Olivier! "There in that cart!" Robespierre strained his eyes, half dead with fear.... "Where? Where?" He could not see him! "Oh yes! Yes! there, in the second cart! That young man standing, his head bent!..." And unable longer to contain herself, in the madness of grief, she placed her hand on the window clasp and would have opened it; but Robespierre prevented her, and the struggle began again. No! she was mistaken! She need only look! The young man was raising his head.
"There, you see, it is not he!"
"Then he must be in another cart!..." And worn out with agonising suspense and excitement she sank down in a chair. Again the noisy clamour died into the distance.
Robespierre took courage now. It was surely the last cartload!
"You look!" cried Clarisse.... "I cannot look again!"
Oh! if it were the last! If it were the last and their torture at an end!
She leant her head on her hands and closed her eyes, in order to see no more, while great silent tears trickled through her fingers.
Robespierre lifted the shutters and stopped to look through, but quickly let them fall again. Alas! It was not over! There was still another tumbril. The buzz of sounds advancing gradually betokened it too well!
In one bound Clarisse was at the window.
"Will it never end!"
Robespierre made a gesture to close her mouth.
"For God's sake, do not scream!"
But Clarisse did not heed him; she would go out! Out, into the street! It was too awful! She would put an end to it all! Robespierre held her back with fresh entreaties. Maddened by the restraint, she struggled desperately to free herself.
Thérèse, distracted from her orisons by the violence of the scene, turned her head. Seeing Clarisse's state, she understood all in a moment. Olivier was there in one of those tumbrils! Olivier was on the way to the scaffold! ... And Clarisse, now regardless of consequences, owned the truth.
"Oh yes, Olivier, our Olivier, he is there! They are going to kill him!..."
"Olivier! kill him!" repeated Thérèse, half dazed; then the awful reality rushed suddenly upon her. She started to her feet with a cry that echoed through the house.
"Olivier going to die? Oh! mamma, mamma!"
Robespierre continued his supplications, holding Clarisse, who still struggled, in his grasp. She would have her son! She would go and demand him from the executioner! Every mother there would intercede for her!
"If they will not give him to me, let them kill me, kill me with him! I will go! I will go! I must save my son! For God's sake, let me go!"
Robespierre implored Thérèse to help him hold Clarisse back. The young girl, realising the madness of the act, appealed also to her aunt, speaking words of consolation and of hope.
But her voice was drowned in the roar of the mob, that rose and beat against the window-panes like the waves of an angry sea.
"Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!"
howled the Mænads, flinging their fearful watch-word on the wind, heralding the dreadful spectacle of advancing doom, dancing a veritable dance of death.
"Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,Les aristocrats à la lanterne;Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,Let aristocrats on les pendra."
Clarisse had now freed herself, and ran to the door to open it. But Robespierre, quick as thought, stood before her and barred the way.
"Remain where you are, I charge you!"
Then resolutely and solemnly he added—
"I myself will go! And if he is in that cart, I will brave all to save him!" Seeing that Clarisse seemed doubtful, he added with emphasis—"I swear it to you!"
A flood of tears, tears of gratitude, was Clarisse's only answer.
"May you be forgiven all for those brave words!" she sobbed.
He led her to a chair near the window, and in a state of exhaustion she allowed herself to be seated. Thérèse bending over her forgot her own tears, in drying those of Clarisse. Robespierre, drawn to the window by a fresh outburst in the street, turned and looked out. There was but one more cart now! The prison escort followed in the rear. It was indeed the last!
The last! It was the last cartload! If Olivier was not there, he was saved! But he must be! Alas, he must; where else could he be? Struggling between hope and fear, Clarisse fell on her knees, and with clasped hands prayed aloud.
"O Lord, my God! my God! God of mercy and compassion, grant that my child may not be there!"
Thérèse had also fallen on her knees beside Clarisse, so that the two now knelt, locked in each other's arms, and prayers and supplications rose from both their lips.
"Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!"
howled the mob.
"Lord, my God, have pity on us!" repeated the women.
Robespierre, livid to the lips, continued his agonising watch.
Growing anxious at the silence of the Incorruptible, Clarisse would have risen, but her strength failed her, and she sank down again on her knees, her eyes fixed on Olivier's father, trying to read in his drawn features evidence of his hopes or fears. Thérèse joined her in this mute questioning.
Robespierre was alternately raising himself, bending aside, or stooping lower to see more plainly.
Suddenly he gave an exultant cry—
"He is not there!"
"Are you sure? Are you sure?" gasped Clarisse, trying to rise.
Thérèse, more easily convinced, kissed the poor mother in a burst of joy.
"Are you sure? Are you sure, though?" repeated Clarisse in a fainting voice.
Robespierre to convince her came and raised her, and supporting her in his arms, carried her to the window.
"Do you believe me now?" he said.
It was true. There were only women in the cart.
"Only women! My God, what a relief!" exclaimed Clarisse leaving the window.
But she suddenly realised that her mother's heart had made her selfish and inhuman, and with joined hands she implored pardon of those unfortunate victims. She had fallen on her knees again, her head on the back of a chair, thoroughly prostrate with exhaustion.
Robespierre was now preoccupied with thoughts of Olivier. He was not in the tumbrils! Where was he, then?
Confiding Clarisse to the young girl's care, he took his hat to go.
"Whoever you are, sir, may God bless you!" said Thérèse with a long look of gratitude.
Robespierre turned and looked earnestly at her. He tried to speak, but his voice failed him. Feeling his eyes fill with tears, he hurried from the room.
Vague, far-away murmurs came to them from the distance, then ceased entirely, while the belfry clock of Saint Gervais struck six.
On the stairs Robespierre met Urbain who was just coming up.
"Quick! fetch me a hackney-coach!" he called.
The man turned and hurried down the stairs two steps at a time. A fiacre was crossing the street, crawling as if waiting for a fare, and the driver cynically inquired if he should take him to the scaffold.
"Place du Trône Renversé,citoyen? The fun hasn't commenced yet!"
Urbain opened the door while Robespierre gave the address: "To the Committee of Public Safety! and make haste!"
He then threw himself back in the carriage, which turned round, and rolled rapidly in the direction of the Tuileries. The Incorruptible would soon have the key to the mystery! The police-agent of the Committee, Coulongeau, could tell him at once where to find Olivier. He would wring the secret from him by force if necessary!
When he arrived at the Tuileries, Robespierre looked vainly for the police-agent; he wandered from room to room, questioning every one he met, putting the whole official staff at their wits' end, but no Coulongeau was to be found.
The absence of the police-agent confirmed Robespierre's suspicions. Olivier must then be at the Conciergerie under guard.
"Oh! I can be there in time!" he thought, and leaving the Tuileries, he went home to supper at the Duplays.
It was now seven. The family, who had waited supper for Robespierre and Lebas, were growing anxious, as they knew that the sitting of the Convention had been long finished. Duplay, who had just returned from the Revolutionary Tribunal, took an optimistic view of things. The sitting had been certainly a failure for Robespierre, but he was not a man to be trifled with! He would promptly retaliate, and assuredly the meeting at the Jacobin Club that evening would turn the tables upon his foes. The women with one consent decided to attend, feeling it was but right to show their sympathy, though Duplay raised a few feeble objections, mainly as a matter of form.
"But since you are so sure we shall be victorious," urged little Maurice ingenuously, "what do we risk?"
Robespierre appeared at that moment, his face drawn and haggard. He tried, however, to smile as if nothing were amiss before the family, and said, in answer to inquiries for Lebas, "He will soon be here; I saw him less than an hour ago."
"Where?"
"At the Hôtel de Ville."
They understood, of course. Robespierre and Lebas had been to assure themselves that the forces of the Commune were in readiness in case some fresh phase of affairs might force the Incorruptible to break the bounds of the law; and when they proposed to go with him to the Jacobin Club after supper he seemed touched, and, feeling sure of success, was not unwilling that his intimate friends should witness his triumph.
The front door opened. It was Lebas returning, completely out of breath, from the Place du Trône. After having assured himself that Olivier was not in the tumbrils, he had gone, to be quite certain, to the very foot of the scaffold. The Incorruptible met him with questioning looks.
"You can be at rest! He is safe for to-day..."
"Yes, I know," said Robespierre, "but have you found out where he is?"
"No," answered Lebas.
"He can only be at the Conciergerie, then. I will go there this evening after the meeting at the Jacobins."
Supper was soon over. Robespierre wished to be at the Jacobins at eight o'clock, at the very beginning of the sitting, for fear of being taken unawares by the Committee, who were capable of anything.
"I am sure my worst enemies will be there," he muttered to Duplay, who assured him to the contrary, as the family started along the Rue Sainte-Honoré in anxious groups. The Incorruptible walked ahead, at some distance from them; Cornélie noticed in astonishment that he did not offer her his arm as usual, and said so to Lebas, who, forcing a smile, answered, "He is so preoccupied just now!"
Cornélie tossed her head. It was not the first time she had accompanied him to the Jacobin Club in times of anxiety, and on those days he was most attentive, and seemed to feel in special need of sympathy. Lebas did not reply, thinking of Clarisse and Olivier, whilst Cornélie continued her threnody of woes. Robespierre was a few paces in front of her, walking alone, and did not even turn to bestow on her a single glance.
"Something is amiss," she said. "I never saw him thus before."
He was in fact thinking of Clarisse, of her joy a few hours hence to have her son again, for Robespierre would take Olivier from the Conciergerie directly he was sure of his triumph at the Jacobins; he thought also of this triumph, now so certain, which would seem all the greater if Clarisse could witness it. She would see then how highly he was esteemed, admired, and loved by all true, honest Republicans, by all staunch soldiers of justice and humanity. Suddenly he stopped at the door of the Jacobins, and went in without even turning to see if any one was following.
This building, once the property of the monks of St. James, had recently been turned by the Revolutionists into a political club. A powerful party reigned there, exercising an occult influence on the direction of public affairs and on the rulings of the Convention, whom they terrorised by their democratic arrogance and their violent, obstinate fanaticism.
The meetings were held in a part of the building formerly known as the convent-church, opening on to a long gallery hung with portraits of monks, which led to the ancient library. At the lower end of this assembly-room an altar was still standing, stripped of all its ornaments and symbols of sacred services, now forgotten in the hall where fierce fanatics, breathing slaughter, hounded to death the victims of the guillotine.
When empty, with its amphitheatre, its presidential stand, its tribune, the room had the aspect of an ordinary debating hall. When full, it was a tribunal of inquisition, the headquarters of terror and of fear.
Robespierre had become the ruling spirit of the Club. He was their lord-paramount, whose word was absolute, and he was greeted on his appearance by a thunder of applause. The hall was filled with an enthusiastic crowd, exasperated at the partial defeat of their idol at the Tuileries. Robespierre, deeply touched, returned their salutations gratefully, and re-read his speech prepared for the Convention, interrupted at every point by loud approval. In order to stir their minds to the necessary pitch of excitement, he spoke of this as his last testament, and so induced another outburst of extravagant sympathy.
"I will die with you, Robespierre!" called out one deputy.
"Your enemies are the enemies of the whole nation!" cried another. "Say the word, and they shall no longer exist!"
Robespierre looked at them with eyes full of gratitude. He was hoping that some one would commence an attack, that he might retaliate there and then, and so accentuate his triumph. He had perceived among the crowd his adversaries, Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois. They tried to speak, and were hissed; they persisted, and were greeted with cries of "To death with them!" Daggers even were drawn, and they had scarcely time to escape.
The name of Robespierre was in every mouth in that vast hall, acclaimed with cries of wild approval that re-echoed to the very Tuileries.
The Duplay family, as may be imagined, beside themselves with joy, waited for Robespierre outside, but he was nowhere to be seen. It was in vain they inquired of every likely passer-by. He had completely disappeared.
Leaving the Assembly-room among the first he had slipped out under cover of night, taking a short cut to the Tuileries, whose dark mass aided his further flight. For he was flying from his glorification, escaping from his rabid admirers, who would have borne him in triumph through the streets of sleeping Paris, making them ring with thunderous shouts of triumph. Creeping along the side of the walls, his face muffled in his collar, he hastened his steps to the Conciergerie, and as he walked his thoughts reverted to the subject of his reception. The Jacobins' enthusiasm must have resounded to the chamber of the Committee of Public Safety, and fallen like a thunderbolt among the traitors in the very midst of their dark plots! The effect must have been terrible! He already pictured the Convention appealing to him with servile supplication, delivering the Committee into his hands, and asking the names of his enemies, that they might pass sentence on them all. He smiled triumphantly as he crossed the Pont-Neuf, without casting a glance at the splendid spectacle which lay at his feet on either side of the bridge; for it was July, and all the glory of a summer sky studded with stars was mirrored in the stream.
He walked on quickly, wrapt in his own thoughts. Ah! not only did they wish to ruin him, but they would have sent Olivier to his death! He had forestalled them, however. The very next day they should take his son's vacant place in that same Conciergerie, the antechamber of the guillotine!
Robespierre had reached the quay, and was now at the foot of the Silver Tower, whose pointed spire stood out in the moonlight like a gigantic finger raised to heaven. It was in that tower that Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal—death's henchman—lived. Robespierre scanned the windows. All lights were out. Fouquier slept, then? What brute insensibility! But he would sleep also, he told himself. Ah, yes! the terrors of the scaffold would soon be over! No more butchery, no more guillotine! He had promised it to the mother of his son, and he would keep his word ... he would, within three days.
Reaching the side entrance of the Conciergerie, he gave three knocks, and a grating was opened in the door.
"It is I—Citoyen Robespierre."
The gate swung back on its hinges, and a voice was heard exclaiming—
"Salut et fraternité, citoyen!"
It was Collas, the turnkey, on duty.
"I want Citoyen Fouquier-Tinville."
"He has not returned,citoyen."
Robespierre betrayed impatience.
"Can I do anything for you,citoyen?" said Collas.
"I wish to know if you have among your prisoners a certain Germain, lately at La Force prison."
"Well, we can see that on the prison register,citoyen. Nothing will be easier, if the registrar is still here. Let me ascertain through the watchman. Would you care to follow me? Just wait a moment; I have not the keys."
Collas went back into his lodge, and returned with a bunch of keys. Then, taking down a lantern from the wall, he commenced threading the mazy alleys of the Conciergerie, followed by the Incorruptible. It was the first time Robespierre had entered this prison in which so many of his victims had been immured. The two men turned into the old banqueting hall of the Kings of France, a long gallery with a vaulted ceiling of oval arches supported on massive pillars; keeping to the left, they came upon an iron trellised gate, which the turnkey opened. Robespierre found himself in a railed enclosure, a kind of antechamber leading to another vaulted gallery, which in the dim light seemed of indefinite length. Two towering gates on the left opened into a court on which the moon shone, lighting up vividly a pile of buildings surrounded with grey arcades.
As Robespierre and the turnkey advanced they came upon a man sleeping in a chair, with a lantern at his feet. It was the night watchman.
"Hallo, Barassin!" called the turnkey, shaking his bunch of keys in his ears.
The man woke with a start. At the mention of Robespierre he rose in a tremor of fear at being caught slumbering on duty. He excused himself profusely—he had been so hard-worked this last month; there was no sleeping at all with the cart-loads of prisoners coming at every moment. Then, with officious zeal, he invited Robespierre to remain with him while Collas went to ascertain if the registrar was still there, though this was very unlikely at that late hour. The turnkey went on his errand.
"What part of the prison is this?" asked Robespierre, looking around.
"We are between the two gates,citoyen. Have you never been to the Conciergerie before?"
"No; never."
Now was his chance! Barassin had a subject to interest the Incorruptible, and he launched forth into a long description, overcrowded with details.
On the other side of that little door to the right was the ward of the male prisoners. Here at the end was the women's courtyard, facing the arched building in which were their cells. Robespierre had but to advance a little, and he could see through the gate the fountain in which they washed their linen, for they remained dainty to the last, and wished to ascend the scaffold in spotless clothes. Barassin laughed a loud brutish laugh, happy at the seeming interest Robespierre took in his explanations.
"Is the Recorder's office on the left, then?" questioned the Incorruptible, his eyes fixed on the dark gallery through which the turnkey had disappeared.
Barassin began another string of details. Yes, that gallery led to it, and to the exit as well, through the concierge's lodge, where the condemned had their hair cut after the roll-call.
"The call takes place here, just where you are standing," he explained.
Robespierre started, and moved away. His eyes rested on the long line of cells, whose doors were lost in long perspective under the vaulted archway he had noticed on his entrance, and which had seemed so vast through the iron bars of the second gate. He lowered his voice to ask if those cells were occupied. Barassin's reply reassured him; there was no one there just then. Then, indicating a cell opposite Robespierre, the watchman continued, carried away by his subject—
"This is the cell in which the Queen was locked up."
He opened a panel in the door that Robespierre might glance within. The Incorruptible hesitated at first, and as he bent over resolutely to look, Barassin found further material for his questionable wit:
"It's not such a palace as her Versailles, eh?"
Robespierre quickly closed the aperture, on the outside of which he perceived a black cross.
"What! a cross?" he exclaimed, staring the while at the sign of redemption.
The watchman told him that some prisoner had probably daubed this cross on the panel after the Queen's death. The prisoners always stopped before it to pray, and it was their habit to scribble in that way over the prison walls with pencils, or even nails.
"Why, here's your name!" he chuckled, highly amused.
Robespierre shuddered.
"My name?"
Barassin raised his lantern, throwing the light on an inscription in large letters on the wall, under some prison notices.
The Incorruptible read—
"We shall be avenged, Robespierre, monster! your turn will come!"
The watchman swung his lantern from place to place, lighting up, for the Incorruptible's benefit, other ominous inscriptions addressed to him.
"Robespierre, the tyrant!"
"Robespierre, the assassin!"
The Incorruptible turned pale.
He was well accustomed to insult and abuse, no doubt, but these imprecations on the walls, in that gruesome and silent prison, seemed like the last curses of the dead, written in letters of fire and blood!
"They must occupy themselves, I suppose!" remarked Barassin, still laughing.
The Incorruptible turned away, feeling ill at ease. Again he questioned the man, fixing him the while as if he would fathom the depths of his experience. Did he keep watch every night? He must have witnessed some heart-rending scenes? Was he not disturbed in his sleep, living thus in continual contact with the dread spectre of death? Could he really sleep? Did not the cries of the victims disturb his slumber? Was he not haunted by their solemn leavetakings and their sobs?
Citoyen Robespierre could rest assured! Barassin slept soundly enough! Such fancies were very well for women! In the first place, the dead never returned, and then, after all, it was not Barassin who killed the victims, was it?
Steps were heard advancing, and the turnkey made his reappearance. The registrar had gone away and taken the keys with him. It was impossible to get at the prison register. He then suggested that Robespierre should go with him to the men's ward.
"Let us awake the prisoners. If the man you seek is there you will easily recognize him."
The Incorruptible refused, starting involuntarily. He had no wish to be seen by the prisoners.
Then, there was but one course left. Barrassin might accompany him, and speak to the men's turnkey, who would look for this Germain from bed to bed, and Barassin would bring back to Robespierre the result of the inquiry, as he himself had to return to his post. Robespierre would have to wait a little while, of course. And Collas moved the watchman's chair towards him.
"Very good! I will wait, but be quick!"
The two men went away, turning to the left, through the small gate, which Barassin carefully closed behind him. Robespierre followed the watchman with his eyes.
"Happy brute! He can sleep in peace!" he exclaimed.
So this man's sleep was not disturbed by such horrible visions as haunted Robespierre! But then, as the watchman said,hehad not killed the victims; his name had not been inscribed on these walls as a term and brand of infamy and hatred.
That writing on the wall seemed to be dancing before his eyes. "Robespierre, assassin; your turn will come!" So this was the cry which rose from every breast! If he was vanquished in the morrow's struggle, if he had to ascend the scaffold without having accomplished the act of social regeneration of which he had so long dreamt, he would leave behind him the execrated memory of a despot and bloodthirsty tyrant! His name would be coupled with all the monsters of history! Robespierre would be cited by posterity side by side with Nero, Caligula, Tiberius!
Stepping slowly towards the watchman's seat, he sat down sideways, his eyes fixed, like a somnambulist's, and his arm resting on the back of the chair, as he repeated in a low murmur—
"Your turn will come!"
Almost the same dread, ominous words had the night before forced him to start up suddenly, and impelled him to rush towards the window of his room.
"Arise, Robespierre, arise? Your hour has come!"
It was the shade of Camille Desmoulins that had uttered the grim summons! Camille, accompanied by his wife, the pale and sweet Lucile, sought to draw him to them, to drag him along with them on the blood-strewn way to which they had been doomed! But the phantoms had all vanished with the refreshing dawn. It was fever, of course! He was subject to it; it peopled his sleep with harrowing visions and fearful dreams. But these were nothing but excited hallucinations, creatures of his overwrought brain....
Robespierre had now closed his eyes, overcome with fatigue, and still continued the thread of his thoughts and fancies. His ideas were becoming confused. He was vaguely wondering whether such imaginings were due to fever after all? If this was not the case, it was perhaps his conscience that awakened from its torpor, and rose at night to confront him with his victims? Yes, his conscience that relentlessly gnawed at his heart-strings, and wrung from him a gasping confession of alarm! Had not Fouquier-Tinville seen the Seine one night from his terrace rolling waves of blood? This was also a mere delusion ... the outcome of remorse, perhaps? Remorse? Why? Remorse for a just deed, for a work of redemption? No! It sprung rather from a diseased imagination caused by an over-excited and over-active brain, which, weakened by excess, clothed the simplest objects with supernatural attributes.
Robespierre's eyes were now half-closed, and wandered dreamily to the women's courtyard, where grey arches stood out in clear and sharp relief under the soft moonlight. He was in deep reverie, wondering what could be the true cause of such strange illusions, and as he wondered, examples from past history came crowding to his mind.
Yes ... did not Brutus imagine that he saw the shade of Cæsar gliding into his tent, when it could have been nothing but the flicker of a lamp on the curtains moved by the wind, or a moonbeam playing, as that one yonder, on a pillar?
As he gazed his eyes dilated in horror. It was no moonbeam. The outlines of a woman's form, ethereal and transparent, stood motionless against the pillar. It moved! Another form, white and shadowy, glided towards the first, and a third emerged from the dim background and joined them. Robespierre followed every movement with horror-stricken gaze. He rose, crept nearer: was he awake, or was it indeed a dream? Had he again fallen a prey to delusions at the very moment when he was persuading himself of their unreality? He was not asleep! He was wide awake! He felt the hot blood coursing through his veins, he walked to and fro, and was completely self-possessed! He knew he was at the Conciergerie, and had come to fetch his son Olivier. A little while ago he had conversed with two men there, on that very spot, the turnkey and the night watchman. And yet his nervous imagination conjured up before his eyes those chimerical visions clothed with the semblance of reality! For, of course, he was not deceived, he knew well enough they were unreal delusions, and yet he felt nervous and ill at ease!
"What strange beings we are!" he thought. "Poor human nature! We pride ourselves on our strength of mind, and yet we are subject to such hallucinations!"
Again he was startled from his musings. Other forms suddenly appeared in the white moonlit courtyard, walking slowly up and down, in pairs, singly, or in groups. They came and went, stopped, conversed with or took leave of each other, all in a great hush, without seeming to notice the Incorruptible, who in his fear kept as much as possible aloof, never moving his eyes from them a moment.
Suddenly, he uttered a cry. He had bent forward to examine their features and had recognised ... Madame Roland! ... Madame Roland! ... and Madame Elizabeth, the king's sister; ... Good God! and there was Charlotte Corday, the girl who had killed Marat! The courtyard filled with new forms, blanched and wan, gliding about with supernatural grace in the pale moonlight. Robespierre stood rooted to the spot, seized with wild terror.
"Am I mad?" he asked himself.
Ghosts! Yes, they were ghosts! What! was he going to believe in ghosts, like old women and children? It was folly, crass folly, and he repeated aloud—"Madness! sheer madness!"
But what did it all mean! What were those wandering forms which reminded him of beings long dead? Were they subtle effluences of their bodies that could pass through the prison walls, invisible by day, but luminous at night, as phosphorescent spectres were said to flit among tombstones in churchyards by moonlight, to the dismay of the weak and credulous.
"Yes, the weak and credulous!" he repeated, in a voice which quavered none the less, "the weak and credulous, easily prone to fear and remorse..."
He went towards the gate of the men's ward livid with fright, in the hope that the watchman would come and put an end to these harrowing phantasms.
He cried out in desperation—
"Does the man never mean to come!"
At that moment a man's form appeared in the gallery to his right, and he went towards it hopefully. Barassin? But he recoiled. No! it was not he! The form grew more distinct, others followed. There were now six, eight, ten, twenty of them, a band of prisoners slowly and silently moving towards the gate. They were coming, all coming! He recognised them: