‘COMITÉ DE SALUT PUBLIC.’
‘COMITÉ DE SALUT PUBLIC.’
Would you believe it? I was so ignorant a young fellow, thatI had no idea of the meaning of the words: however, I entered the citizen’s room without fear, and sat down in his antechamber until I could be admitted to see him.
Here I found very few indications of his reverence’s profession; the walls were hung round with portraits of Robespierre, Marat, and the like; a great bust of Mirabeau, mutilated, with the wordTratîreunderneath; lists and Republican proclamations, tobacco-pipes, and firearms. At a deal table, stained with grease and wine, sat a gentleman with a huge pigtail dangling down to that part of his person which immediately succeeds his back, and a red nightcap containing a tricolour cockade as large as a pancake. He was smoking a short pipe, reading a little book, and sobbing as if his heart would break. Every now and then he would make brief remarks upon the personages or the incidents of his book, by which I could judge that he was a man of the very keenest sensibilities—‘Ah, brigand!’ ‘Oh, malheureuse!’ ‘Oh, Charlotte, Charlotte!’ The work which this gentleman was perusing is calledThe Sorrows of Werther; it was all the rage in those days, and my friend was only following the fashion. I asked him if I could see Father Schneider. He turned towards me a hideous pimpled face, which I dream of now at forty years’ distance.
‘Father who?’ said he. ‘Do you imagine that Citizen Schneider has not thrown off the absurd mummery of priesthood? If you were a little older you would go to prison for calling him Father Schneider—many a man has died for less!’ And he pointed to a picture of a guillotine, which was hanging in the room.
I was in amazement.
‘What is he? Is he not a teacher of Greek, an abbé, a monk, until monasteries were abolished, the learned editor of the songs of Anacreon?’
‘Hewasall this,’ replied my grim friend; ‘he is now a Member of the Committee of Public Safety, and would think no more of ordering your head off than of drinking this tumbler of beer.’
He swallowed, himself, the frothy liquid, and then proceeded to give me the history of the man to whom my uncle had sent me for instruction.
Schneider was born in 1756: was a student at Würzburg, and afterwards entered a convent, where he remained nine years. He here became distinguished for his learning and his talents as a preacher, and became chaplain to Duke Charles of Würtemberg. The doctrines of the Illuminati began about this time to spread in Germany, and Schneider speedily joined the sect. He had been a professor of Greek at Cologne; and being compelled, on account ofhis irregularity, to give up his chair, he came to Strasburg at the commencement of the French Revolution, and acted for some time a principal part as a revolutionary agent at Strasburg.
[‘Heaven knows what would have happened to me had I continued long under his tuition!’ said the Captain.’ I owe the preservation of my morals entirely to my entering the army. A man, sir, who is a soldier, has very little time to be wicked; except in the case of a siege and the sack of a town, when a little licence can offend nobody.’]
By the time that my friend had concluded Schneider’s biography, we had grown tolerably intimate, and I imparted to him (with that experience so remarkable in youth) my whole history—my course of studies, my pleasant country life, the names and qualities of my dear relations, and my occupations in the vestry before religion was abolished by order of the Republic. In the course of my speech I recurred so often to the name of my cousin Mary, that the gentleman could not fail to perceive what a tender place she had in my heart.
Then we reverted toThe Sorrows of Werther, and discussed the merits of that sublime performance. Although I had before felt some misgivings about my new acquaintance, my heart now quite yearned towards him. He talked about love and sentiment in a manner which made me recollect that I was in love myself; and you know that when a man is in that condition, his taste is not very refined, any maudlin trash of prose or verse appearing sublime to him, provided it correspond, in some degree, with his own situation.
‘Candid youth!’ cried my unknown, ‘I love to hear thy innocent story, and look on thy guileless face. There is, alas! so much of the contrary in this world, so much terror and crime and blood, that we who mingle with it are only too glad to forget it. Would that we could shake off our cares as men, and be boys, as thou art, again!’
Here my friend began to weep once more, and fondly shook my hand. I blessed my stars that I had, at the very outset of my career, met with one who was so likely to aid me. What a slanderous world it is! thought I; the people in our village call these Republicans wicked and bloody-minded; a lamb could not be more tender than this sentimental bottle-nosed gentleman! The worthy man then gave me to understand that he held a place under Government. I was busy in endeavouring to discover what his situation might be, when the door of the next apartment opened, and Schneider made his appearance.
At first he did not notice me, but he advanced to my newacquaintance, and gave him, to my astonishment, something very like a blow.
‘You drunken, talking fool,’ he said, ‘you are always after your time. Fourteen people are cooling their heels yonder, waiting until you have finished your beer and your sentiment!’
My friend slunk, muttering, out of the room.
‘That fellow,’ said Schneider, turning to me, ‘is our public executioner: a capital hand, too, if he would but keep decent time; but the brute is always drunk, and blubbering overThe Sorrows of Werther!’
. . . . .
I know not whether it was his old friendship for my uncle, or my proper merits, which won the heart of this the sternest ruffian of Robespierre’s crew; but certain it is, that he became strangely attached to me, and kept me constantly about his person. As for the priesthood and the Greek, they were of course very soon out of the question. The Austrians were on our frontier; every day brought us accounts of battles won; and the youth of Strasburg, and of all France, indeed, were bursting with military ardour. As for me, I shared the general mania, and speedily mounted a cockade as large as that of my friend the executioner.
The occupations of this worthy were unremitting. St. Just, who had come down from Paris to preside over our town, executed the laws and the aristocrats with terrible punctuality; and Schneider used to make country excursions in search of offenders, with this fellow, as a provost-marshal, at his back. In the meantime, having entered my sixteenth year, and being a proper lad of my age, I had joined a regiment of cavalry, and was scampering now after the Austrians who menaced us, and now threatening theémigrés, who were banded at Coblentz. My love for my dear cousin increased as my whiskers grew; and when I was scarcely seventeen, I thought myself man enough to marry her, and to cut the throat of any one who should venture to say me nay.
I need not tell you that during my absence at Strasburg, great changes had occurred in our little village, and somewhat of the revolutionary rage had penetrated even to that quiet and distant place. The hideous ‘Fête of the Supreme Being’ had been celebrated at Paris; the practice of our ancient religion was forbidden; its professors were most of them in concealment, or in exile, or had expiated on the scaffold their crime of Christianity. In our poor village my uncle’s church was closed, and he, himself, an inmate in my brother’s house, only owing his safety to his great popularity among his former flock and the influence of Edward Ancel.
The latter had taken in the Revolution a somewhat prominent part; that is, he had engaged in many contracts for the army, attended the clubs regularly, corresponded with the authorities of his department, and was loud in his denunciations of the aristocrats in his neighbourhood. But owing, perhaps, to the German origin of the peasantry, and their quiet and rustic lives, the revolutionary fury which prevailed in the cities had hardly reached the country people. The occasional visit of a commissary from Paris or Strasburg served to keep the flame alive, and to remind the rural swains of the existence of a Republic in France.
Now and then, when I could gain a week’s leave of absence, I returned to the village, and was received with tolerable politeness by my uncle, and with a warmer feeling by his daughter.
I won’t describe to you the progress of our love, or the wrath of my Uncle Edward when he discovered that it still continued. He swore and he stormed; he locked Mary into her chamber, and vowed that he would withdraw the allowance he made me, if ever I ventured near her. His daughter, he said, should never marry a hopeless, penniless subaltern; and Mary declared she would not marry without his consent. What had I to do?—to despair and to leave her. As for my poor Uncle Jacob, he had no counsel to give me, and, indeed, no spirit left: his little church was turned into a stable, his surplice torn off his shoulders, and he was only too lucky in keepinghis headon them. A bright thought struck him: suppose you were to ask the advice of my old friend Schneider regarding this marriage? he has ever been your friend, and may help you now as before.
(Here the Captain paused a little.) You may fancy (continued he) that it was droll advice of a reverend gentleman like Uncle Jacob to counsel me in this manner, and to bid me make friends with such a murderous cut-throat as Schneider; but we thought nothing of it in those days; guillotining was as common as dancing, and a man was only thought the better patriot the more severe he might be. I departed forthwith to Strasburg, and requested the vote and interest of the Citizen President of the Committee of Public Safety.
He heard me with a great deal of attention. I described to him most minutely the circumstances, expatiated upon the charms of my dear Mary, and painted her to him from head to foot. Her golden hair and her bright blushing cheeks, her slim waist and her tripping tiny feet; and furthermore, I added that she possessed a fortune which ought, by rights, to be mine, but for the miserly old father. ‘Curse him for an aristocrat!’ concluded I, in my wrath.
As I had been discoursing about Mary’s charms, Schneider listened with much complacency and attention: when I spoke about her fortune, his interest redoubled; and when I called her father an aristocrat, the worthy ex-Jesuit gave a grin of satisfaction, which was really quite terrible. Oh, fool that I was to trust him so far!
. . . . .
The very same evening an officer waited upon me with the following note from St. Just:—
‘Strasburg:Fifth year of the Republic one and‘indivisible, 11 Ventôse.
‘The citizen Pierre Ancel is to leave Strasburg within two hours, and to carry the enclosed despatches to the President of the Committee of Public Safety at Paris. The necessary leave of absence from his military duties has been provided. Instant punishment will follow the slightest delay on the road.
‘Salut et Fraternité.’
There was no choice but obedience, and off I sped on my weary way to the capital.
As I was riding out of the Paris gate I met an equipage which I knew to be that of Schneider. The ruffian smiled at me as I passed, and wished me abon voyage. Behind his chariot came a curious machine, or cart; a great basket, three stout poles, and several planks, all painted red, were lying in this vehicle, on the top of which was seated my friend with the big cockade. It was theportable guillotinewhich Schneider always carried with him on his travels. Thebourreauwas readingThe Sorrows of Werther, and looked as sentimental as usual.
I will not speak of my voyage, in order to relate to you Schneider’s. My story had awakened the wretch’s curiosity and avarice, and he was determined that such a prize as I had shown my cousin to be should fall into no hands but his own. No sooner, in fact, had I quitted his room than he procured the order for my absence, and was on the way to Steinbach as I met him.
The journey is not a very long one; and on the next day my Uncle Jacob was surprised by receiving a message that the Citizen Schneider was in the village, and was coming to greet his old friend. Old Jacob was in an ecstasy, for he longed to see his college acquaintance, and he hoped also that Schneider had come into that part of the country upon the marriage-business of your humble servant. Of course Mary was summoned to give her best dinner, and wear her best frock; and her father made ready to receive the new State dignitary.
Schneider’s carriage speedily rolled into the courtyard, and Schneider’scartfollowed, as a matter of course. The ex-priest only entered the house; his companion remaining with the horses to dine in private. Here was a most touching meeting between him and Jacob. They talked over their old college pranks and successes; they capped Greek verses, and quoted ancient epigrams upon their tutors, who had been dead since the Seven Years’ War. Mary declared it was quite touching to listen to the merry friendly talk of these two old gentlemen.
After the conversation had continued for a time in this strain, Schneider drew up all of a sudden, and said, quietly, that he had come on particular and unpleasant business—hinting about troublesome times, spies, evil reports, and so forth. Then he called Uncle Edward aside, and had with him a long and earnest conversation; so Jacob went out and talked with Schneider’sfriend: they speedily became very intimate, for the ruffian detailed all the circumstances of his interview with me. When he returned into the house, some time after this pleasing colloquy, he found the tone of the society strangely altered. Edward Ancel, pale as a sheet, trembling, and crying for mercy; poor Mary weeping; and Schneider pacing energetically about the apartment, raging about the rights of man, the punishment of traitors, and the one and indivisible Republic.
‘Jacob,’ he said as my uncle entered the room, ‘I was willing, for the sake of our old friendship, to forget the crimes of your brother. He is a known and dangerous aristocrat; he holds communications with the enemy on the frontier; he is a possessor of great and ill-gotten wealth, of which he has plundered the Republic. Do you know,’ said he, turning to Edward Ancel, ‘where the least of these crimes, or the mere suspicion of them, would lead you?’
Poor Edward sate trembling in his chair, and answered not a word. He knew full well how quickly, in this dreadful time, punishment followed suspicion; and though guiltless of all treason with the enemy, perhaps he was aware that, in certain contracts with the Government, he had taken to himself a more than patriotic share of profit.
‘Do you know,’ resumed Schneider, in a voice of thunder, ‘for what purpose I came hither, and by whom I am accompanied? I am the administrator of the justice of the Republic. The life of yourself and your family is in my hands: yonder man, who follows me, is the executor of the law; he has rid the nation of hundreds of wretches like yourself. A single word from me, and your doom is sealed without hope, and your last hour is come. Ho! Grégoire!’ shouted he; ‘is all ready?’
Grégoire replied from the court, ‘I can put up the machine in half an hour. Shall I go down to the village and call the troops and the law people?’
‘Do you hear him?’ said Schneider. ‘The guillotine is in your courtyard; your name is on my list, and I have witnesses to prove your crime. Have you a word in your defence?’
Not a word came; the old gentleman was dumb; but his daughter, who did not give way to his terrors, spoke for him.
‘You cannot, sir,’ said she, ‘although you say it,feelthat my father is guilty; you would not have entered our house thus alone if you had thought it. You threaten him in this manner because you have something to ask and to gain from us: what is it, citizen?—tell us at how much you value our lives, and what sum we are to pay for our ransom?’
‘Sum!’ said Uncle Jacob; ‘he does not want money of us: my old friend, my college chum, does not come hither to drive bargains with anybody belonging to Jacob Ancel!’
‘Oh no, sir, no, you can’t want money of us,’ shrieked Edward; ‘we are the poorest people of the village: ruined, Monsieur Schneider, ruined in the cause of the Republic.’
‘Silence, father,’ said my brave Mary; ‘this man wants aprice: he comes with his worthy friend yonder, to frighten us, not to kill us. If we die, he cannot touch a sou of our money; it is confiscated to the State. Tell us, sir, what is the price of our safety?’
Schneider smiled, and bowed with perfect politeness.
‘Mademoiselle Marie,’ he said, ‘is perfectly correct in her surmise. I do not want the life of this poor drivelling old man: my intentions are much more peaceable, be assured. It rests entirely with this accomplished young lady (whose spirit I like, and whose ready wit I admire), whether the business between us shall be a matter of love or death. I humbly offer myself, Citizen Ancel, as a candidate for the hand of your charming daughter. Her goodness, her beauty, and the large fortune which I know you intend to give her, would render her a desirable match for the proudest man in the Republic, and, I am sure, would make me the happiest.’
‘This must be a jest, Monsieur Schneider,’ said Mary, trembling, and turning deadly pale: ‘you cannot mean this; you do not know me: you never heard of me until to-day.’
‘Pardon me, belle dame,’ replied he; ‘your cousin Pierre has often talked to me of your virtues; indeed, it was by his special suggestion that I made the visit.’
‘It is false!—it is a base and cowardly lie!’ exclaimed she (for the young lady’s courage was up),—‘Pierre never could haveforgotten himself and me so as to offer me to one like you. You come here with a lie on your lips—a lie against my father, to swear his life away, against my dear cousin’s honour and love. It is useless now to deny it: Father, I love Pierre Ancel; I will marry no other but him—no, though our last penny were paid to this man as the price of our freedom.’
Schneider’s only reply to this was a call to his friend Grégoire.
‘Send down to the village for the maire and some gendarmes; and tell your people to make ready.’
‘Shall I putthe machineup?’ shouted he of the sentimental turn.
‘You hear him,’ said Schneider; ‘Marie Ancel, you may decide the fate of your father. I shall return in a few hours,’ concluded he, ‘and will then beg to know your decision.’
The advocate of the rights of man then left the apartment, and left the family, as you may imagine, in no very pleasant mood.
Old Uncle Jacob, during the few minutes which had elapsed in the enactment of this strange scene, sate staring wildly at Schneider, and holding Mary on his knees: the poor little thing had fled to him for protection, and not to her father, who was kneeling almost senseless at the window, gazing at the executioner and his hideous preparations. The instinct of the poor girl had not failed her; she knew that Jacob was her only protector, if not of her life—Heaven bless him!—of her honour. ‘Indeed,’ the old man said, in a stout voice, ‘this must never be, my dearest child—you must not marry this man. If it be the will of Providence that we fall, we shall have at least the thought to console us that we die innocent. Any man in France at a time like this would be a coward and traitor if he feared to meet the fate of the thousand brave and good who have preceded us.’
‘Who speaks of dying?’ said Edward. ‘You, brother Jacob?—you would not lay that poor girl’s head on the scaffold, or mine, your dear brother’s. You will not let us die, Mary; you will not, for a small sacrifice, bring your poor old father into danger?’
Mary made no answer. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘there is time for escape: he is to be here but in two hours; in two hours we may be safe, in concealment, or on the frontier.’ And she rushed to the door of the chamber, as if she would have instantly made the attempt: two gendarmes were at the door. ‘We have orders, mademoiselle,’ they said, ‘to allow no one to leave this apartment until the return of the Citizen Schneider.’
Alas! all hope of escape was impossible. Mary became quite silent for a while; she would not speak to Uncle Jacob; and inreply to her father’s eager questions, she only replied, coldly, that she would answer Schneider when he arrived.
The two dreadful hours passed away only too quickly; and, punctual to his appointment, the ex-monk appeared. Directly he entered, Mary advanced to him, and said calmly—
‘Sir, I could not deceive you if I said that I freely accepted the offer which you have made me. I will be your wife; but I tell you that I love another; and that it is only to save the lives of these two old men that I yield my person up to you.’
Schneider bowed, and said—
‘It is bravely spoken. I like your candour—your beauty. As for the love, excuse me for saying that is a matter of total indifference. I have no doubt, however, that it will come as soon as your feelings in favour of the young gentleman, your cousin, have lost their present fervour. That engaging young man has, at present, another mistress—Glory. He occupies, I believe, the distinguished post of corporal in a regiment which is about to march to—Perpignan, I believe.’
It was, in fact, Monsieur Schneider’s polite intention to banish me as far as possible from the place of my birth; and he had, accordingly, selected the Spanish frontier as the spot where I was to display my future military talents.
Mary gave no answer to this sneer: she seemed perfectly resigned and calm: she only said—
‘I must make, however, some conditions regarding our proposed marriage, which a gentleman of Monsieur Schneider’s gallantry cannot refuse.’
‘Pray command me,’ replied the husband-elect. ‘Fair lady, you know I am your slave.’
‘You occupy a distinguished political rank, citizen representative,’ said she; ‘and we in our village are likewise known and beloved. I should be ashamed, I confess, to wed you here; for our people would wonder at the sudden marriage, and imply that it was only by compulsion that I gave you my hand. Let us, then, perform this ceremony at Strasburg, before the public authorities of the city, with the state and solemnity which befits the marriage of one of the chief men of the Republic.’
‘Be it so, madam,’ he answered, and gallantly proceeded to embrace his bride.
Mary did not shrink from this ruffian’s kiss; nor did she reply when poor old Jacob, who sat sobbing in a corner, burst out, and said—‘Oh, Mary, Mary, I did not think this of thee!’
‘Silence, brother!’ hastily said Edward; ‘my good son-in-law will pardon your ill-humour.’
I believe Uncle Edward in his heart was pleased at the notion of the marriage; he only cared for money and rank, and was little scrupulous as to the means of obtaining them.
The matter then was finally arranged; and presently, after Schneider had transacted the affairs which brought him into that part of the country, the happy bridal party set forward for Strasburg. Uncles Jacob and Edward occupied the back seat of the old family carriage, and the young bride and bridegroom (he was nearly Jacob’s age) were seated majestically in front. Mary has often since talked to me of this dreadful journey. She said she wondered at the scrupulous politeness of Schneider during the route; nay, that at another period she could have listened to and admired the singular talent of this man, his great learning, his fancy, and wit; but her mind was bent upon other things, and the poor girl firmly thought that her last day was come.
In the meantime, by a blessed chance, I had not ridden three leagues from Strasburg, when the officer of a passing troop of a cavalry regiment, looking at the beast on which I was mounted, was pleased to take a fancy to it, and ordered me, in an authoritative tone, to descend, and to give up my steed for the benefit of the Republic. I represented to him, in vain, that I was a soldier like himself, and the bearer of despatches to Paris. ‘Fool!’ he said; ‘do you think they would send despatches by a man who can ride at best but ten leagues a day?’ And the honest soldier was so wroth at my supposed duplicity, that he not only confiscated my horse, but my saddle, and the little portmanteau which contained the chief part of my worldly goods and treasure. I had nothing for it but to dismount, and take my way on foot back again to Strasburg. I arrived there in the evening, determining the next morning to make my case known to the Citizen St. Just; and though I made my entry without a sou, I don’t know what secret exultation I felt at again being able to return.
The antechamber of such a great man as St. Just was, in those days, too crowded for an unprotected boy to obtain an early audience; two days passed before I could obtain a sight of the friend of Robespierre. On the third day, as I was still waiting for the interview, I heard a great bustle in the courtyard of the house, and looked out with many others at the spectacle.
A number of men and women, singing epithalamiums, and dressed in some absurd imitation of Roman costume, a troop of soldiers and gendarmerie, and an immense crowd of thebadaudsof Strasburg, were surrounding a carriage which then entered the court of the mayoralty. In this carriage, great God! I saw my dear Mary, and Schneider by her side. The truth instantly cameupon me; the reason for Schneider’s keen inquiries and my abrupt dismissal; but I could not believe that Mary was false to me. I had only to look in her face, white and rigid as marble, to see that this proposed marriage was not with her consent.
I fell back in the crowd as the procession entered the great room in which I was, and hid my face in my hands; I could not look upon her as the wife of another,—upon her so long loved and truly—the saint of my childhood—the pride and hope of my youth—torn from me for ever, and delivered over to the unholy arms of the murderer who stood before me.
The door of St. Just’s private apartment opened, and he took his seat at the table of mayoralty just as Schneider and his cortége arrived before it.
Schneider then said that he came in before the authorities of the Republic to espouse the Citoyenne Marie Ancel.
‘Is she a minor?’ said St. Just.
‘She is a minor, but her father is here to give her away.’
‘I am here,’ said Uncle Edward, coming eagerly forward and bowing. ‘Edward Ancel, so please you, citizen representative. The worthy Citizen Schneider has done me the honour of marrying into my family.’
‘But my father has not told you the terms of the marriage,’ said Mary, interrupting him, in a loud, clear voice.
Here Schneider seized her hand, and endeavoured to prevent her from speaking. Her father turned pale, and cried, ‘Stop, Mary, stop! For Heaven’s sake, remember your poor old father’s danger!’
‘Sir, may I speak?’
‘Let the young woman speak,’ said St. Just, ‘if she have a desire to talk.’ He did not suspect what would be the purport of her story.
‘Sir,’ she said, ‘two days since the Citizen Schneider entered for the first time our house; and you will fancy that it must be a love of very sudden growth which has brought either him or me before you to-day. He had heard from a person who is now, unhappily, not present, of my name and of the wealth which my family was said to possess; and hence arose this mad design concerning me. He came into our village with supreme power, an executioner at his heels, and the soldiery and authorities of the district entirely under his orders. He threatened my father with death if he refused to give up his daughter; and I, who knew that there was no chance of escape, except here before you, consented to become his wife. My father I know to be innocent, for all his transactions with the State have passed through my hands. Citizen representative,I demand to be freed from this marriage; and I charge Schneider as a traitor to the Republic, as a man who would have murdered an innocent citizen for the sake of private gain.’
During the delivery of this little speech, Uncle Jacob had been sobbing and panting like a broken-winded horse; and when Mary had done, he rushed up to her and kissed her, and held her tight in his arms. ‘Bless thee, my child!’ he cried, ‘for having had the courage to speak the truth, and shame thy old father and me, who dared not say a word.’
‘The girl amazes me,’ said Schneider, with a look of astonishment. ‘I never saw her, it is true, till yesterday; but I used no force: her father gave her to me with his free consent, and she yielded as gladly. Speak, Edward Ancel, was it not so?’
‘It was, indeed, by my free consent,’ said Edward, trembling.
‘For shame, brother!’ cried old Jacob. ‘Sir, it was by Edward’s free consent and my niece’s; but the guillotine was in the courtyard! Question Schneider’s famulus, the man Grégoire, him who readsThe Sorrows of Werther.’
Grégoire stepped forward, and looked hesitatingly at Schneider as he said, ‘I know not what took place within doors; but I was ordered to put up the scaffold without; and I was told to get soldiers, and let no one leave the house.’
‘Citizen St. Just,’ cried Schneider, ‘you will not allow the testimony of a ruffian like this, of a foolish girl, and a mad ex-priest, to weigh against the word of one who has done such service to the Republic: it is a base conspiracy to betray me; the whole family is known to favour the interest of theémigrés.’
‘And therefore you would marry a member of the family, and allow the others to escape: you must make a better defence, Citizen Schneider,’ said St. Just, sternly.
Here I came forward, and said that, three days since, I had received an order to quit Strasburg for Paris, immediately after a conversation with Schneider, in which I had asked him his aid in promoting my marriage with my cousin, Mary Ancel; that he had heard from me full accounts regarding her father’s wealth; and that he had abruptly caused my dismissal, in order to carry on his scheme against her.
‘You are in the uniform of a regiment in this town; who sent you from it?’ said St. Just.
I produced the order, signed by himself, and the despatches which Schneider had sent me.
‘The signature is mine, but the despatches did not come from my office. Can you prove in any way your conversation with Schneider?’
‘Why,’ said my sentimental friend Grégoire, ‘for the matter of that, I can answer that the lad was always talking about this young woman: he told me the whole story himself, and many a good laugh I had with Citizen Schneider as we talked about it.’
‘The charge against Edward Ancel must be examined into,’ said St. Just. ‘The marriage cannot take place. But if I had ratified it, Mary Ancel, what would then have been your course?’
Mary felt for a moment in her bosom, and said—‘He would have died to-night—I would have stabbed him with this dagger.’[3]
. . . . .
The rain was beating down the streets, and yet they were thronged; all the world was hastening to the market-place, where the worthy Grégoire was about to perform some of the pleasant duties of his office. On this occasion it was not death that he was to inflict; he was only to expose a criminal who was to be sent on afterwards to Paris. St. Just had ordered that Schneider should stand for six hours in the publicplaceof Strasburg, and then be sent on to the capital, to be dealt with as the authorities there might think fit.
The people followed with execrations the villain to his place of punishment; and Grégoire grinned as he fixed up to the post the man whose orders he had obeyed so often—who had delivered over to disgrace and punishment so many who merited it not.
Schneider was left for several hours exposed to the mockery and insults of the mob; he was then, according to his sentence, marched on to Paris, where it is probable that he would have escaped death, but for his own fault. He was left for some time in prison, quite unnoticed, perhaps forgotten: day by day fresh victims were carried to the scaffold, and yet the Alsatian tribune remained alive; at last, by the mediation of one of his friends, a long petition was presented to Robespierre, stating his services and his innocence, and demanding his freedom. The reply to this was an order for his instant execution: the wretch died in the last days of Robespierre’s reign. His comrade, St. Just, followed him, as you know; but Edward Ancel had been released before this, for the action of my brave Mary had created a strong feeling in his favour.
‘And Mary?’ said I.
Here a stout and smiling old lady entered the Captain’s little room: she was leaning on the arm of a military-looking man of some forty years, and followed by a number of noisy rosy children.
‘This is Mary Ancel,’ said the Captain, ‘and I am Captain Pierre, and yonder is the Colonel, my son; and you see us here assembled in force, for it is the fête of little Jacob yonder, whose brothers and sisters have all come from their schools to dance at his birthday.’
BEATRICEMERGER, whose name might figure at the head of one of Mr. Colburn’s politest romances—so smooth and aristocratic does it sound—is no heroine, except of her own simple history; she is not a fashionable French Countess, nor even a victim of the Revolution.
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She is a stout, sturdy girl of two-and-twenty, with a face beaming with good-nature, and marked dreadfully by small-pox; and a pair of black eyes, which might have done some execution had they been placed in a smoother face. Beatrice’s station in society is not very exalted; she is a servant-of-all-work: she will dress your wife, your dinner, your children; she does beefsteaks and plain work; she makes beds, blacks boots, and waits at table;—such, at least, were the offices which she performed in the fashionable establishment of the writer of this book; perhaps her history may not inaptly occupy a few pages of it.
‘My father died,’ said Beatrice, ‘about six years since, and left my poor mother with little else but a small cottage and a strip of land, and four children too young to work. It was hard enough in my father’s time to supply so many little mouths with food; and how was a poor widowed woman to provide for them now, who had neither the strength nor the opportunity for labour?
‘Besides us, to be sure, there was my old aunt; and she wouldhave helped us, but she could not, for the old woman is bedridden; so she did nothing but occupy our best room, and grumble from morning till night: Heaven knows! poor old soul, that she had no great reason to be very happy; for you know, sir, that it frets the temper to be sick; and that it is worse still to be sick and hungry too.
‘At that time, in the country where we lived (in Picardy, not very far from Boulogne), times were so bad that the best workman could hardly find employ; and when he did, he was happy if he could earn a matter of twelve sous a day. Mother, work as she would, could not gain more than six; and it was a hard job, out of this, to put meat into six bellies, and clothing on six backs. Old Aunt Bridget would scold, as she got her portion of black bread; and my little brothers used to cry if theirs did not come in time. I, too, used to cry when I got my share; for mother kept only a little, little piece for herself, and said that she had dined in the fields,—God pardon her for the lie! and bless her, as I am sure He did; for, but for Him, no working man or woman could subsist upon such a wretched morsel as my dear mother took.
‘I was a thin, ragged, barefooted girl, then, and sickly and weak for want of food; but I think I felt mother’s hunger more than my own; and many and many a bitter night I lay awake, crying, and praying to God to give me means of working for myself and aiding her. And He has, indeed, been good to me,’ said pious Beatrice, ‘for He has given me all this!
‘Well, time rolled on, and matters grew worse than ever: winter came, and was colder to us than any other winter, for our clothes were thinner and more torn; mother sometimes could find no work, for the fields in which she laboured were hidden under the snow; so that when we wanted them most we had them least—warmth, work, or food.
‘I knew that, do what I would, mother would never let me leave her, because I looked to my little brothers and my old cripple of an aunt; but, still, bread was better for us than all my service; and when I left them the six would have a slice more; so I determined to bid good-bye to nobody, but to go away, and look for work elsewhere. One Sunday, when mother and the little ones were at church, I went in to Aunt Bridget, and said, “Tell mother when she comes back, that Beatrice is gone.” I spoke quite stoutly, as if I did not care about it.
‘“Gone! gone where?” said she. “You an’t going to leave me alone, you nasty thing; you an’t going to the village to dance, you ragged, barefooted slut: you’re all of a piece in this house—your mother, your brothers, and you. I know you’ve got meat in thekitchen, and you only give me black bread;” and here the old lady began to scream as if her heart would break; but we did not mind it, we were so used to it.
‘“Aunt,” said I, “I’m going, and took this very opportunity because youwerealone; tell mother I am too old now to eat her bread and do no work for it: I am going, please God, where work and bread can be found:” and so I kissed her: she was so astonished that she could not move or speak; and I walked away through the old room, and the little garden, God knows whither!
‘I heard the old woman screaming after me, but I did not stop nor turn round. I don’t think I could, for my heart was very full; and if I had gone back again, I should never have had the courage to go away. So I walked a long, long way, until night fell; and I thought of poor mother coming home from mass, and not finding me; and little Pierre shouting out, in his clear voice, for Beatrice to bring him his supper. I think I should like to have died that night, and I thought I should too; for when I was obliged to throw myself on the cold, hard ground, my feet were too torn and weary to bear me any farther.
‘Just then the moon got up; and do you know I felt a comfort in looking at it, for I knew it was shining on our little cottage, and it seemed like an old friend’s face. A little way on, as I saw by the moon, was a village; and I saw, too, that a man was coming towards me; he must have heard me crying, I suppose.
‘Was not God good to me? This man was a farmer, who had need of a girl in his house; he made me tell him why I was alone, and I told him the same story I have told you, and he believed me and took me home. I had walked six long leagues from our village that day, asking everywhere for work in vain; and here, at bedtime, I found a bed and a supper!
‘Here I lived very well for some months; my master was very good and kind to me; but, unluckily, too poor to give me any wages; so that I could save nothing to send to my poor mother. My mistress used to scold; but I was used to that at home, from Aunt Bridget; and she beat me sometimes, but I did not mind it; for your hardy country girl is not like your tender town lasses, who cry if a pin pricks them, and give warning to their mistresses at the first hard word. The only drawback to my comfort was, that I had no news of my mother; I could not write to her, nor could she have read my letter, if I had; so there I was, at only six leagues’ distance from home, as far off as if I had been to Paris or to ‘Merica.
‘However, in a few months I grew so listless and homesick, that my mistress said she would keep me no longer; and though Iwent away as poor as I came, I was still too glad to get back to the old village again, and see dear mother, if it were but for a day. I knew she would share her crust with me, as she had done for so long a time before; and hoped that, now, as I was taller and stronger, I might find work more easily in the neighbourhood.
‘You may fancy what a fête it was when I came back; though I’m sure we cried as much as if it had been a funeral. Mother got into a fit, which frightened us all; and as for Aunt Bridget, sheskreeledaway for hours together, and did not scold for two days at least. Little Pierre offered me the whole of his supper; poor little man! his slice of bread was no bigger than before I went away.
‘Well, I got a little work here, and a little there; but still I was a burden at home rather than a breadwinner; and, at the closing in of the winter, was very glad to hear of a place at two leagues’ distance, where work, they said, was to be had. Off I set, one morning, to find it, but missed my way, somehow, until it was night-time before I arrived.—Night-time and snow again; it seemed as if all my journeys were to be made in this bitter weather.
‘When I came to the farmers door, his house was shut up, and his people all a-bed; I knocked for a long while in vain; at last he made his appearance at a window upstairs, and seemed so frightened, and looked so angry, that I suppose he took me for a thief. I told him how I had come for work. “Who comes for work at such an hour?” said he. “Go home, you impudent baggage, and do not disturb honest people out of their sleep.” He banged the window to; and so I was left alone to shift for myself as I might. There was no shed, no cowhouse, where I could find a bed; so I got under a cart, on some straw; it was no very warm berth. I could not sleep for the cold; and the hours passed so slowly, that it seemed as if I had been there a week, instead of a night; but still it was not so bad as the first night when I left home, and when the good farmer found me.
‘In the morning, before it was light, the farmer’s people came out, and saw me crouching under the cart: they told me to get up; but I was so cold that I could not: at last the man himself came, and recognised me as the girl who had disturbed him the night before. When he heard my name and the purpose for which I came, this good man took me into the house, and put me into one of the beds out of which his sons had just got; and if I was cold before, you may be sure I was warm and comfortable now: such a bed as this I had never slept in, nor ever did I have such good milk-soup as he gave me out of his own breakfast.Well, he agreed to hire me; and what do you think he gave me?—six sous a day! and let me sleep in the cowhouse besides: you may fancy how happy I was now, at the prospect of earning so much money.
‘There was an old woman among the labourers who used to sell us soup: I got a cupful every day for a halfpenny, with a bit of bread in it; and might eat as much beetroot besides as I liked: not a very wholesome meal, to be sure, but God took care that it should not disagree with me.
‘So, every Saturday, when work was over, I had thirty sous to carry home to mother; and tired though I was, I walked merrily the two leagues to our village, to see her again. On the road there was a great wood to pass through, and this frightened me; for if a thief should come and rob me of my whole week’s earnings, what could a poor lone girl do to help herself? But I found a remedy for this too, and no thieves ever came near me; I used to begin saying my prayers as I entered the forest, and never stopped until I was safe at home; and safe I always arrived, with my thirty sous in my pocket.—Ah! you may be sure, Sunday was a merry day for us all.’
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This is the whole of Beatrice’s history which is worthy of publication; the rest of it only relates to her arrival in Paris, and the various masters and mistresses whom she there had the honour to serve. As soon as she enters the capital the romance disappears, and the poor girl’s sufferings and privations luckily vanish with it. Beatrice has got now warm gowns, and stout shoes, and plenty of good food. She has had her little brother from Picardy; clothed, fed, and educated him: that young gentleman is now a carpenter, and an honour to his profession. Madame Merger is in easy circumstances, and receives, yearly, fifty francs from her daughter. To crown all, Mademoiselle Beatrice herself is a funded proprietor, and consulted the writer of this biography as to the best method of laying out a capital of two hundred francs, which is the present amount of her fortune.
God bless her! she is richer than his Grace the Duke of Devonshire; and, I dare to say, has, in her humble walk, been more virtuous and more happy than all the dukes in the realm.
It is, indeed, for the benefit of dukes and such great people (who, I make no doubt, have long since ordered copies of these Sketches from Mr. Macrone) that poor little Beatrice’s story has been indited. Certain it is that the young woman would never have been immortalised in this way, but for the good which her betters may derive from her example. If your ladyship will butreflect a little, after boasting of the sums which you spend in charity; the beef and blankets which you dole out at Christmas; the poonah-painting which you execute for fancy fairs; the long, long sermons which you listen to at St. George’s, the whole year through;—your ladyship, I say, will allow that, although perfectly meritorious in your line, as a patroness of the Church of England, of Almack’s, and of the Lying-in Asylum, yours is but a paltry sphere of virtue, a pitiful attempt at benevolence, and that this honest servant-girl puts you to shame! And you, my Lord Bishop; do you, out of your six sous a day, give away five to support your flock and family? Would you drop a single coach-horse (I do not saya dinner, for such a notion is monstrous in one of your lordship’s degree) to feed any one of the starving children of your lordship’s mother—the Church?
I pause for a reply. His lordship took too much turtle and cold punch for dinner yesterday, and cannot speak just now; but we have, by this ingenious question, silenced him altogether: let the world wag as it will, and poor Christians and curates starve as they may, my lord’s footmen must have their new liveries, and his horses their four feeds a day.
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When we recollect his speech about the Catholics—when we remember his last charity sermon,—but I say nothing. Here is a poor benighted superstitious creature, worshipping images, without a rag to her tail, who has as much faith, and humility, and charity, as all the reverend bench.
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This angel is without a place; and for this reason (besides the pleasure of composing the above slap at Episcopacy)—I have indited her history. If the Bishop is going to Paris, and wants a good honest maid-of-all-work, he can have her, I have no doubt; or if he chooses to give a few pounds to her mother, they can be sent to Mr. Titmarsh, at the publisher’s.
Here is Miss Merger’s last letter and autograph. The note was evidently composed by anécrivain public:—