He sat silent so long, with his eyes on the table, that presently I grew nettled; wondering what ailed him, and why he did not speak and say the things that I expected. I had been so confident of the advice he would give me, that, from the first, I had tinged my story with the appropriate colour. I had let my bitterness be seen; I had suppressed no scornful word, but supplied him with all the ground he could desire for giving me the advice I supposed to be upon his lips.
And yet he did not speak. A hundred times I had heard him declare his sympathy with the people, his hatred of the corruption, the selfishness, the abuses of the Government; within the hour I had seen his eye kindle as he spoke of the fall of the Bastille. It was at his word I had burned thecarcan; at his instance I had spent a large sum in feeding the village during the famine of the past year. Yet now--now, when I expected him to rise up and bid me do my part, he was silent!
I had to speak at last. "Well?" I said irritably. "Have you nothing to say, M. le Curé?" And I moved one of the candles so as to get a better view of his features. But he still looked down at the table, he still avoided my eye, his thin face thoughtful, his hand toying with the crumbs.
At last, "M. le Vicomte," he said softly, "through my mother's mother I, too, am noble."
I gasped; not at the fact with which I was familiar, but at the application I thought he intended. "And for that," I said amazed, "you would----"
He raised his hand to stop me. "No," he said gently, "I would not. Because, for all that, I am of the people by birth, and of the poor by my calling. But----"
"But what?" I said peevishly.
Instead of answering me he rose from his seat, and, taking up one of the candles, turned to the panelled wall behind him, on which hung a full-length portrait of my father, framed in a curious border of carved foliage. He read the name below it. "Antoine du Pont, Vicomte de Saux," he said, as if to himself. "He was a good man, and a friend to the poor. God keep him."
He lingered a moment, gazing at the grave, handsome face, and doubtless recalling many things; then he passed, holding the candle aloft, to another picture which flanked the table: each wall boasted one. "Adrien du Pont, Vicomte de Saux," he read, "Colonel of the Regiment Flamande. He was killed, I think, at Minden. Knight of St. Louis and of the King's Bedchamber. A handsome man, and doubtless a gallant gentleman. I never knew him."
I answered nothing, but my face began to burn as he passed to a third picture behind me. "Antoine du Pont, Vicomte de Saux," he read, holding up the candle, "Marshal and Peer of France, Knight of the King's Orders, a Colonel of the Household and of the King's Council. Died of the plague at Genoa in 1710. I think I have heard that he married a Rohan."
He looked long, then passed to the fourth wall, and stood a moment quite silent. "And this one?" he said at last. "He, I think, has the noblest face of all. Antoine, Seigneur du Pont de Saux, of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Preceptor of the French tongue. Died at Valetta in the year after the Great Siege--of his wounds, some say; of incredible labours and exertions, say the Order. A Christian soldier."
It was the last picture, and, after gazing at it a moment, he brought the candle back and set it down with its two fellows on the shining table; that, with the panelled walls, swallowed up the light, and left only our faces white and bright, with a halo round them, and darkness behind them. He bowed to me. "M. le Vicomte," he said at last, in a voice which shook a little, "you come of a noble stock."
I shrugged my shoulders. "It is known," I said. "And for that?"
"I dare not advise you."
"But the cause is good!" I cried.
"Yes," he answered slowly. "I have been saying so all my life. I dare not say otherwise now. But--the cause of the people is the people's. Leave it to the people."
"Yousay that!" I answered, staring at him, angry and perplexed. "You, who have told me a hundred times that I am of the people! that the nobility are of the people; that there are only two things in France, the King and the people."
He smiled somewhat sadly; tapping on the table with his fingers. "That was theory," he said. "I try to put it into practice, and my heart fails me. Because I, too, have a little nobility, M. le Vicomte, and know what it is."
"I don't understand you," I said in despair. "You blow hot and cold, M. le Curé. I told you just now that I spoke for the people at the meeting of the noblesse, and you approved."
"It was nobly done."
"Yet now?"
"I say the same thing," Father Benôit answered, his fine face illumined with feeling. "It was nobly done. Fight for the people, M. le Vicomte, but among your fellows. Let your voice be heard there, where all you will gain for yourself will be obloquy and black looks. But if it comes, if it has come, to a struggle between your class and the commons, between the nobility and the vulgar; if the noble must side with his fellows or take the people's pay, then"--Father Benôit's voice trembled a little, and his thin white hand tapped softly on the table--"I would rather see you ranked with your kind."
"Against the people?"
"Yes, against the people," he answered, shrinking a little.
I was astonished. "Why, great heaven," I said, "the smallest logic----"
"Ah!" he answered, shaking his head sadly, and looking at me with kind eyes. "There you beat me; logic is against me. Reason, too. The cause of the people, the cause of reform, of honesty, of cheap grain, of equal justice,mustbe a good one. And who forwards it must be in the right. That is so, M. le Vicomte. Nay, more than that. If the people are left to fight their battle alone the danger of excesses is greater. I see that. But instinct does not let me act on the knowledge."
"Yet, M. de Mirabeau?" I said. "I have heard you call him a great man."
"It is true," Father Benôit answered, keeping his eyes on mine, while he drummed softly on the table with his fingers.
"I have heard you speak of him with admiration."
"Often."
"And of M. de Lafayette?"
"Yes."
"And the Lameths?"
M. le Curé nodded.
"Yet all these," I said stubbornly, "all these are nobles--nobles leading the people!"
"Yes," he said.
"And you do not blame them?"
"No, I do not blame them."
"Nay, you admire them! You admire them, Father," I persisted, glowering at him.
"I know I do," he said. "I know that I am weak and a fool. Perhaps worse, M. le Vicomte, in that I have not the courage of my convictions. But, though I admire those men, though I think them great and to be admired, I have heard men speak of them who thought otherwise; and--it may be weak--but I knew you as a boy, and I would not have men speak so of you. There are things we admire at a distance," he continued, looking at me a little drolly, to hide the affection that shone in his eyes, "which we, nevertheless, do not desire to find in those we love. Odium heaped on a stranger is nothing to us; on our friends, it were worse than death."
He stopped, his voice trembling; and we were both silent for a while. Still, I would not let him see how much his words had touched me; and by-and-by----
"But my father?" I said. "He was strongly on the side of reform!"
"Yes, by the nobles, for the people."
"But the nobles have cast me out!" I answered. "Because I have gone a yard, I have lost all. Shall I not go two, and win all back?"
"Win all," he said softly--"but lose how much?"
"Yet if the people win? And you say they will?"
"Even then, Tribune of the People," he answered gently, "and an outcast!"
They were the very words I had applied to myself as I rode; and I started. With sudden vividness I saw the picture they presented; and I understood why Father Benôit had hesitated so long in my case. With the purest intentions and the most upright heart, I could not make myself other than what I was; I should rise, were my efforts crowned with success, to a point of splendid isolation; suspected by the people, whose benefactor I had been, hated and cursed by the nobles whom I had deserted.
Such a prospect would have been far from deterring some; and others it might have lured. But I found myself, in this moment of clear vision, no hero. Old prejudices stirred in the blood, old traditions, born of centuries of precedence and privilege, awoke in the memory. A shiver of doubt and mistrust--such as, I suppose, has tormented reformers from the first, and caused all but the hardiest to flinch--passed through me, as I gazed across the candles at the Curé. I feared the people--the unknown. The howl of exultation, that had rent the air in the Market-place at Cahors, the brutal cries that had hailed Gontaut's fall, rang again in my ears. I shrank back, as a man shrinks who finds himself on the brink of an abyss, and through the wavering mist, parted for a brief instant by the wind, sees the cruel rocks and jagged points that wait for him below.
It was a moment of extraordinary prevision, and though it passed, and speedily left me conscious once more of the silent room and the good Curé--who affected to be snuffing one of the long candles--the effect it produced on my mind continued. After Father Benôit had taken his leave, and the house was closed, I walked for an hour up and down the walnut avenue; now standing to gaze between the open iron gates that gave upon the road; now turning my back on them, and staring at the grey, gaunt, steep-roofed house with its flanking tower and roundtourelles.
Henceforth, I made up my mind, I would stand aside. I would welcome reform, I would do in private what I could to forward it; but I would not a second time set myself against my fellows. I had had the courage of my opinions. Henceforth, no man could say that I had hidden them, but after this I would stand aside and watch the course of events.
A cock crowed at the rear of the house--untimely; and across the hushed fields, through the dusk, came the barking of a distant dog. As I stood listening, while the solemn stars gazed down, the slight which St. Alais had put upon me dwindled--dwindled to its true dimensions. I thought of Mademoiselle Denise, of the bride I had lost, with a faint regret that was almost amusement. What would she think of this sudden rupture? I wondered. Of this strange loss of herfiancé?Would it awaken her curiosity, her interest? Or would she, fresh from her convent school, think that things in the world went commonly so--thatfiancéscame and passed, and receptions found their natural end in riot?
I laughed softly, pleased that I had made up my mind. But, had I known, as I listened to the rustling of the poplars in the road, and the sounds that came out of the darkened world beyond them, what was passing there--had I known that, I should have felt even greater satisfaction. For this was Wednesday, the 22nd of July; and that night Paris still palpitated after viewing strange things. For the first time she had heard the horrid cry, "A la lanterne!" and seen a man, old and white-headed, hanged, and tortured, until death freed him. She had seen another, the very Intendant of the City, flung down, trampled and torn to pieces in his own streets--publicly, in full day, in the presence of thousands. She had seen these things, trembling; and other things also--things that had made the cheeks of reformers grow pale, and betrayed to all thinking men that below Lafayette, below Bailly, below the Municipality and the Electoral Committee, roared and seethed the awakened forces of the Faubourgs, of St. Antoine, and St. Marceau!
What could be expected, what was to be expected, but that such outrages, remaining unpunished, should spread? Within a week the provinces followed the lead of Paris. Already, on the 21st the mob of Strasbourg had sacked the Hôtel de Ville and destroyed the Archives; and during the same week, the Bastilles at Bordeaux and Caen were taken and destroyed. At Rouen, at Rennes, at Lyons, at St. Malo, were great riots, with fighting; and nearer Paris, at Poissy, and St. Germain, the populace hung the millers. But, as far as Cahors was concerned, it was not until the astonishing tidings of the King's surrender reached us, a few days later--tidings that on the 17th of July he had entered insurgent Paris, and tamely acquiesced in the destruction of the Bastille--it was not until that news reached us, and hard on its heels a rumour of the second rising on the 22nd, and the slaughter of Foulon and Berthier--it was not until then, I say, that the country round us began to be moved. Father Benôit, with a face of astonishment and doubt, brought me the tidings, and we walked on the terrace discussing it. Probably reports, containing more or less of the truth, had reached the city before, and, giving men something else to think of, had saved me from challenge or molestation. But, in the country where I had spent the week in moody unrest, and not unfrequently reversing in the morning the decision at which I had arrived in the night, I had heard nothing until the Curé came--I think on the morning of the 29th of July.
"And what do you think now?" I said thoughtfully, when I had listened to his tale.
"Only what I did before," he answered stoutly. "It has come. Without money, and therefore without soldiers who will fight, with a starving people, with men's minds full of theories and abstractions, that all tend towards change, what can a Government do?"
"Apparently it can cease to govern," I said tartly; "and that is not what any one wants."
"There must be a period of unrest," he replied, but less confidently. "The forces of order, however, the forces of the law have always triumphed. I don't doubt that they will again."
"After a period of unrest?"
"Yes," he answered. "After a period of unrest. And, I confess, I wish that we were through that. But we must be of good heart, M. le Vicomte. We must trust the people; we must confide in their good sense, their capacity for government, their moderation----"
I had to interrupt him. "What is it, Gil?" I said with a gesture of apology. The servant had come out of the house and was waiting to speak to me.
"M. Doury, M. le Vicomte, from Cahors," he answered.
"The inn-keeper?"
"Yes, Monsieur; and Buton. They ask to see you."
"Together?" I said. It seemed a strange conjunction.
"Yes, Monsieur."
"Well, show them here," answered, after consulting my companion's face. "But Doury? I paid my bill. What can he want?"
"We shall see," Father Benôit answered, his eyes on the door. "Here they come. Ah! Now, M. le Vicomte," he continued in a lower tone, "I feel less confident."
I suppose he guessed something akin to the truth; but for my part I was completely at a loss. The innkeeper, a sleek, complaisant man, of whom, though I had known him some years, I had never seen much beyond the crown of his head, nor ever thought of him as apart from his guests and his ordinary, wore, as he advanced, a strange motley of dignity and subservience; now strutting with pursed lips, and an air of extreme importance, and now stooping to bow in a shame-faced and half-hearted manner. His costume was as great a surprise as his appearance, for, instead of his citizen's suit of black, he sported a blue coat with gold buttons, and a canary waistcoat, and he carried a gold-headed cane; sober splendours, which, nevertheless, paled before two large bunches of ribbons, white, red, and blue, which he wore, one on his breast, and one in his hat.
His companion, who followed a foot or two behind, his giant frame and sun-burned face setting off the citizen's plumpness, was similarly bedizened. But though be-ribboned and in strange company, he was still Baton, the smith. His face reddened as he met my eyes, and he shielded himself as well as he could behind Doury's form.
"Good-morning, Doury," I said. I could have laughed at the awkward complaisance of the man's manner, if something in the gravity of the Curé's face had not restrained me. "What brings you to Saux?" I continued. "And what can I do for you?"
"If it please you, M. le Vicomte," he began. Then he paused, and straightening himself--for habit had bent his back--he continued abruptly, "Public business, Monsieur, with you on it."
"With me?' I said, amazed. On public business?"
He smiled in a sickly way, but stuck to his text. "Even so, Monsieur," he said. "There are such great changes, and--and so great need of advice."
"That I ought not to wonder at M. Doury seeking it at Saux?"
"Even so, Monsieur."
I did not try to hide my contempt and amusement; but shrugged my shoulders, and looked at the Curé.
"Well," I said, after a moment of silence, "and what is it? Have you been selling bad wine? Or do you want the number of courses limited by Act of the States General? Or----"
"Monsieur," he said, drawing himself up with an attempt at dignity, "this is no time for jesting. In the present crisis inn-keepers have as much at stake as, with reverence, the noblesse; and deserted by those who should lead them----"
"What, the inn-keepers?" I cried.
He grew as red as a beetroot. "M. le Vicomte understands that I mean the people," he said stiffly. "Who deserted, I say, by their natural leaders----"
"For instance?"
"M. le Duc d'Artois, M. le Prince de Condé, M. le Duc de Polignac, M.----"
"Bah!" I said. "How have they deserted?"
"Pardieu, Monsieur! Have you not heard?"
"Have I not heard what?"
"That they have left France? That on the night of the 17th, three days after the capture of the Bastille, the princes of the blood left France by stealth, and----"
"Impossible!" I said. "Impossible! Why should they leave?"
"That is the very question, M. le Vicomte," he answered, with eager forwardness, "that is being asked. Some say that they thought to punish Paris by withdrawing from it. Some that they did it to show their disapproval of his most gracious Majesty's amnesty, which was announced on that day. Some that they stand in fear. Some even that they anticipated Foulon's fate----"
"Fool!" I cried, stopping him sternly--for I found this too much for my stomach--"you rave! Go back to your menus and your bouillis! What do you know about State affairs? Why, in my grandfather's time," I continued wrathfully, "if you had spoken of princes of the blood after that fashion, you would have tasted bread and water for six months, and been lucky had you got off unwhipped!"
He quailed before me, and forgetting his new part in old habits, muttered an apology. He had not meant to give offence, he said. He had not understood. Nevertheless, I was preparing to read him a lesson when, to my astonishment, Buton intervened.
"But, Monsieur, that is thirty years back," he said doggedly.
"What, villain?" I exclaimed, almost breathless with astonishment, "what do you in thisgalère?"
"I am with him," he answered, indicating his companion by a sullen gesture.
"On State business?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"Why,mon Dieu," I cried, staring at them between amusement and incredulity, "if this is true, why did you not bring the watch-dog as well! And Farmer Jean's ram? And the good-wife's cat? And M. Doury's turnspit? And----"
M. le Curé touched my arm. "Perhaps you had better hear what they have to say," he observed softly. "Afterwards, M. le Vicomte----"
I nodded sulkily. "What is it, then?" I said. "Ask what you want to ask."
"The Intendant has fled," Doury answered, recovering something of his lost dignity, "and we are forming, in pursuance of advice received from Paris, and following the glorious example of that city, a Committee; a Committee to administer the affairs of the district. From that Committee, I, Monsieur, with my good friend here, have the honour to be a deputation."
"With him?" I said, unable to control myself longer. "But, in heaven's name, what has he to do with the Committee? Or the affairs of the district?"
And I pointed with relentless finger at Buton, who reddened under his tan, and moved his huge feet uneasily, but did not speak.
"He is a member of it," the inn-keeper answered, regarding his colleague with a side glance, which seemed to express anything but liking. "This Committee, to be as perfect as possible, Monsieur le Vicomte will understand, must represent all classes."
"Even mine, I suppose," I said, with a sneer.
"It is on that business we have come," he answered awkwardly. "To ask, in a word, M. le Vicomte, that you will allow yourself to be elected a member, and not only a member----
"What elevation!"
"But President of the Committee."
After all--it was no more than I had been foreseeing! It had come suddenly, but in the main it was only that in sober fact which I had foreseen in a dream. Styled the mandate of the people, it had sounded well; by the mouth of Doury, the inn-keeper, Buton assessor, it jarred every nerve in me. I say, it should not have surprised me; while such things were happening in the world, with a King who stood by and saw his fortress taken, and his servants killed, and pardoned the rebels; with an Intendant of Paris slaughtered in his own streets; with rumours and riots in every province, and flying princes, and swinging millers, there was really nothing wonderful in the invitation. And now, looking back, I find nothing surprising in it. I have lived to see men of the same trade as Doury, stand by the throne, glittering in stars and orders; and a smith born in the forge sit down to dine with Emperors. But that July day on the terrace at Saux, the offer seemed of all farces the wildest, and of all impertinences the most absurd.
"Thanks, Monsieur," I said, at last, when I had sufficiently recovered from my astonishment. "If I understand you rightly, you ask me to sit on the same Committee with that man?" And I pointed grimly to Buton. "With the peasant born on my land, and subject yesterday to my justice? With the serf whom my fathers freed? With the workman living on my wages?"
Doury glanced at his colleague. "Well, M. le Vicomte," he said, with a cough, "to be perfect, you understand, a Committee must represent all."
"A Committee!" I retorted, unable to repress my scorn. "It is a new thing in France. And what is the perfect Committee to do?"
Doury on a sudden recovered himself, and swelled with importance. "The Intendant has fled," he said, "and people no longer trust the magistrates. There are rumours of brigands, too; and corn is required. With all this the Committee must deal. It must take measures to keep the peace, to supply the city, to satisfy the soldiers, to hold meetings, and consider future steps. Besides, M. le Vicomte," he continued, puffing out his cheeks, "it will correspond with Paris; it will administer the law; it will----"
"In a word," I said quietly, "it will govern. The King, I suppose, having abdicated."
Doury shrank bodily, and even lost some of his colour. "God forbid!" he said, in a whining tone. "It will do all in his Majesty's name."
"And by his authority?"
The inn-keeper stared at me, startled and nonplussed; and muttered something about the people.
"Ah!" I said. "It is the people who invite me to govern, then, is it? With an inn-keeper and a peasant? And other inn-keepers and peasants, I suppose? To govern! To usurp his Majesty's functions? To supersede his magistrates; to bribe his forces? In a word, friend Doury," I continued suavely, "to commit treason. Treason, you understand?"
The inn-keeper did; and he wiped his forehead with a shaking hand, and stood, scared and speechless, looking at me piteously. A second time the blacksmith took it on himself to answer.
"Monseigneur," he muttered, drawing his great black hand across his beard.
"Buton," I answered suavely, "permit me. For a man who aspires to govern the country, you are too respectful."
"You have omitted one thing it is for the Committee to do," the smith answered hoarsely, looking--like a timid, yet sullen, dog--anywhere but in my face.
"And that is?"
"To protect the Seigneurs."
I stared at him, between anger and surprise. This was a new light. After a pause, "From whom?" I said curtly.
"Their people," he answered.
"Their Butons," I said. "I see. We are to be burned in our beds, are we?"
He stood sulkily silent.
"Thank you, Buton," I said. "And that is your return for a winter's corn. Thanks! In this world it is profitable to do good!"
The man reddened through his tan, and on a sudden looked at me for the first time. "You know that you lie, M. le Vicomte!" he said.
"Lie, sirrah?" I cried.
"Yes, Monsieur," he answered. "You know that I would die for the seigneur, as much as if the iron collar were round my neck! That before fire touched the house of Saux it should burn me! That I am my lord's man, alive and dead. But, Monseigneur," and, as he continued, he lowered his tone to one of earnestness, striking in a man so rough, "there are abuses, and there must be an end of them. There are tyrants, and they must go. There are men and women and children starving, and there must be an end of that. There is grinding of the faces of the poor, Monseigneur--not here, but everywhere round us--and there must be an end of that. And the poor pay taxes and the rich go free; the poor make the roads, and the rich use them; the poor have no salt, while the King eats gold. To all these things there is now to be an end--quietly, if the seigneurs will--but an end. An end, Monseigneur, though we burn châteaux," he added grimly.
The unlooked-for eloquence which rang in the blacksmith's words, and the assurance of his tone, no less than this startling disclosure of thoughts with which I had never dreamed of crediting him, or any peasant, took me so aback for a moment that I stood silent. Doury seized the occasion, and struck in.
"You see now, M. le Vicomte," he said complacently, "the necessity for such a Committee. The King's peace must be maintained."
"I see," I answered harshly, "that there are violent men abroad, who were better in the stocks. Committee? Let the King's officers keep the King's peace! The proper machinery----"
"It is shattered!"
The words were Doury's. The next moment he quailed at his presumption. "Then let it be repaired!" I thundered. "Mon Dieu!that a set of tavern cooks and base-born rascals should go about the country prating of it, and prating to me! Go, I will have nothing to do with you or your Committee. Go, I say!"
"Nevertheless--a little patience, M. le Vicomte," he persisted, chagrin on his pale face--"nevertheless, if any of the nobility would give us countenance, you most of all----"
"There would then be some one to hang instead of Doury!" I answered bluntly. "Some one behind whom he could shield himself, and lesser villains hide. But I will not be the stalking-horse."
"And yet, in other provinces," he answered desperately, his disappointment more and more pronounced, "M. de Liancourt and M. de Rochefoucauld have not disdained to----"
"Nevertheless, I disdain!" I retorted. "And more, I tell you, and I bid you remember it, you will have to answer for the work you are doing. I have told you it is treason. It is treason; I will have neither act nor part in it. Now go."
"There will be burning," the smith muttered.
"Begone!" I said sternly. "If you do not----"
"Before the morn is old the sky will be red," he answered. "On your head, Seigneur, be it!"
I aimed a blow at him with my cane; but he avoided it with a kind of dignity, and stalked away, Doury following him with a pale, hang-dog face, and his finery sitting very ill upon him. I stood and watched them go, and then I turned to the Curé to hear what he had to say.
But I found him gone also. He, too, had slipped away; through the house, to intercept them at the gates, perhaps, and dissuade them. I waited for him, querulously tapping the walk with my stick, and watching the corner of the house. Presently he came round it, holding his hat an inch or two above his head, his lean, tall figure almost shadowless, for it was noon. I noticed that his lips moved as he came towards me; but, when I spoke, he looked up cheerfully.
"Yes," he said in answer to my question, "I went through the house, and stopped them."
"It would be useless," I said. "Men so mad as to think that they could replace his Majesty's Government with a Committee of smiths and pastrycooks----"
"I have joined it," he answered, smiling faintly.
"The Committee?" I ejaculated, breathless with surprise.
"Even so."
"Impossible!"
"Why?" he said quietly. "Have I not always predicted this day? Is not this what Rousseau, with hisSocial Contract, and Beaumarchais, with his 'Figaro,' and every philosopher who ever repeated the one, and every fine lady who ever applauded the other, have been teaching? Well, it has come, and I have advised you, M. le Vicomte, to stand by your order. But I, a poor man, I stand by mine. And for the Committee of what seems to you, my friend, impossible people, is not any kind of government"--this more warmly, and as if he were arguing with himself--"better than none? Understand, Monsieur, the old machinery has broken down. The Intendant has fled. The people defy the magistrates. The soldiers side with the people. Thehuissiersand tax collectors are--the Good God knows where!"
"Then," I said indignantly, "it is time for the gentry to----"
"Take the lead and govern?" he rejoined. "By whom? A handful of servants and game-keepers? Against the people? against such a mob as you saw in the Square at Cahors? Impossible, Monsieur."
"But the world seems to be turning upside down," I said helplessly.
"The greater need of a strong unchanging holdfast--not of the world," he answered reverently; and he lifted his hat a moment from his head and stood in thought. Then he continued: "However, the matter is this. I hear from Doury that the gentry are gathering at Cahors, with the view of combining, as you suggest, and checking the people. Now, it must be useless, and it may be worse. It may lead to the very excesses they would prevent."
"In Cahors?"
"No, in the country. Buton, be sure, did not speak without warrant. He is a good man, but he knows some who are not, and there are lonely châteaux in Quercy, and dainty women who have never known the touch of a rough hand, and--and children."
"But," I cried aghast, "do you fear a Jacquerie?"
"God knows," he answered solemnly. "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. How many years have men spent at Versailles the peasant's blood, life, bone, flesh! To pay back at last, it may be, of their own! But God forbid, Monsieur, God forbid. Yet, if ever--it comes now."
* * * * *
When he was gone I could not rest. His words had raised a fever in me. What might not be afoot, what might not be going on, while I lay idle? And, presently, to quench my thirst for news, I mounted and rode out on the way to Cahors. The day was hot, the time for riding ill-chosen; but the exercise did me good. I began to recover from the giddiness of thought into which the Curé's fears, coming on the top of Buton's warning, had thrown me. For a while I had seen things with their eyes; I had allowed myself to be carried away by their imaginations; and the prospect of a France ruled by a set of farriers and postillions had not seemed so bizarre as it began to look, now that I had time, mounting the long hill, which lies one league from Saux and two from Cahors, to consider it calmly. For a moment, the wild idea of a whole gentry fleeing like hares before their peasantry, had not seemed so very wild.
Now, on reflection, beginning to see things in their normal sizes, I called myself a simpleton. A Jacquerie? Three centuries and more had passed since France had known the thing in the dark ages. Could any, save a child alone in the night, or a romantic maiden solitary in her rock castle, dream of its recurrence? True, as I skirted St. Alais, which lies a little aside from the road, at the foot of the hill, I saw at the village-turning a sullen group of faces that should have been bent over the hoe; a group, gloomy, discontented, waiting--waiting, with shock heads and eyes glittering under low brows, for God knows what. But I had seen such a gathering before; in bad times, when seed was lacking, or when despair, or some excessive outrage on the part of thefermier, had driven the peasants to fold their hands and quit the fields. And always it had ended in nothing, or a hanging at most. Why should I suppose that anything would come of it now, or that a spark in Paris must kindle a fire here?
In fact, I as good as made up my mind; and laughed at my simplicity. The Curé had let his predictions run away with him, and Buton's ignorance and credulity had done the rest. What, I now saw, could be more absurd than to suppose that France, the first, the most stable, the most highly civilised of States, wherein for two centuries none had resisted the royal power and stood, could become in a moment the theatre of barbarous excesses? What more absurd than to conceive it turned into thePetit Trianonof a gang ofrôturiersandcanaille?
At this point in my thoughts I broke off, for, as I reached it, a coach came slowly over the ridge before me and began to descend the road. For a space it hung clear-cut against the sky, the burly figure of the coachman and the heads of the two lackeys who swung behind it visible above the hood. Then it began to drop down cautiously towards me. The men behind sprang down and locked the wheels, and the lumbering vehicle slid and groaned downwards, the wheelers pressing back, the leading horses tossing their heads impatiently. The road there descends not inlacets, but straight, for nearly half a mile between poplars; and on the summer air the screaming of the wheels and the jingling of the harness came distinctly to the ear.
Presently I made out that the coach was Madame St. Alais'; and I felt inclined to turn and avoid it. But the next moment pride came to my aid, and I shook my reins and went on to meet it.
I had scarcely seen a person except Father Benôit since the affair at Cahors, and my cheek flamed at the thought of therencontrebefore me. For the same reason the coach seemed to come on very slowly; but at last I came abreast of it, passed the straining horses, and looked into the carriage with my hat in my hand, fearing that I might see Madame, hoping I might see Louis, ready with a formal salute at least. Politeness required no less.
But sitting in the place of honour, instead of M. le Marquis, or his mother, or M. le Comte, was one little figure throned in the middle of the seat; a little figure with a pale inquiring face that blushed scarlet at sight of me, and eyes that opened wide with fright, and lips that trembled piteously. It was Mademoiselle!
Had I known a moment earlier that she was in the carriage and alone, I should have passed by in silence; as was doubtless my duty after what had happened. I was the last person who should have intruded on her. But the men, grinning, I dare say, at the encounter--for probably Madame's treatment of me was the talk of the house--had drawn up, and I had reined up instinctively; so that before I quite understood that she was alone, save for two maids who sat with their backs to the horses, we were gazing at one another--like two fools!
"Mademoiselle!" I said.
"Monsieur!" she answered mechanically.
Now, when I had said that, I had said all that I had a right to say. I should have saluted, and gone on with that. But something impelled me to add--"Mademoiselle is going--to St. Alais?"
Her lips moved, but I heard no sound. She stared at me like one under a spell. The elder of her women, however, answered for her, and said briskly:----
"Ah,oui, Monsieur."
"And Madame de St. Alais?"
"Madame remains at Cahors," the woman answered in the same tone, "with M. le Marquis, who has business."
Then, at any rate, I should have gone on; but the girl sat looking at me, silent and blushing; and something in the picture, something in the thought of her arriving alone and unprotected at St. Alais, taken with a memory of the lowering faces I had seen in the village, impelled me to stand and linger; and finally to blurt out what I had in my mind.
"Mademoiselle," I said impulsively, ignoring her attendants, "if you will take my advice--you will not go on."
One of the women muttered "Ma foi!" under her breath. The other said "Indeed!" and tossed her head impertinently. But Mademoiselle found her voice.
"Why, Monsieur?" she said clearly and sweetly, her eyes wide with a surprise that for the moment overcame her shyness.
"Because," I answered diffidently--I repented already that I had spoken--"the state of the country is such--I mean that Madame la Marquise scarcely understands perhaps that--that----"
"What, Monsieur?" Mademoiselle asked primly.
"That at St. Alais," I stammered, "there is a good deal of discontent, Mademoiselle, and----"
"At St. Alais?" she said.
"In the neighbourhood, I should have said," I answered awkwardly. "And--and in fine," I continued very much embarrassed, "it would be better, in my poor opinion, for Mademoiselle to turn and----"
"Accompany Monsieur, perhaps?" one of the women said; and she giggled insolently.
Mademoiselle St. Alais flashed a look at the offender, that made me wink. Then with her cheeks burning, she said:----
"Drive on!"
I was foolish and would not let ill alone. "But, Mademoiselle," I said, "a thousand pardons, but----"
"Drive on!" she repeated; this time in a tone, which, though it was still sweet and clear, was not to be gainsaid. The maid who had not offended--the other looked no little scared--repeated the order, the coach began to move, and in a moment I was left in the road, sitting on my horse with my hat in my hand, and looking foolishly at nothing.
The straight road running down between lines of poplars, the descending coach, lurching and jolting as it went, the faces of the grinning lackeys as they looked back at me through the dust--I well remember them all. They form a picture strangely vivid and distinct in that gallery where so many more important have faded into nothingness. I was hot, angry, vexed with myself; conscious that I had trespassed beyond the becoming, and that I more than deserved the repulse I had suffered. But through all ran a thread of a new feeling--a quite new feeling. Mademoiselle's face moved before my eyes--showing through the dust; her eyes full of dainty surprise, or disdain as delicate, accompanied me as I rode. I thought of her, not of Buton or Doury, the Committee or the Curé, the heat or the dull road. I ceased to speculate except on the chances of a peasant rising. That, that alone assumed a new and more formidable aspect; and became in a moment imminent and probable. The sight of Mademoiselle's childish face had given a reality to Buton's warnings, which all the Curé's hints had failed to impart to them.
So much did the thought now harass me, that to escape it I shook up my horse, and cantered on, Gil and André following, and wondering, doubtless, why I did not turn. But, wholly taken up with the horrid visions which the blacksmith's words had called up, I took no heed of time until I awoke to find myself more than half-way on the road to Cahors, which lies three leagues and a mile from Saux. Then I drew rein and stood in the road, in a fit of excitement and indecision. Within the half-hour I might be at Madame St. Alais' door in Cahors, and, whatever happened then, I should have no need to reproach myself. Or in a little more I might be at home, ingloriously safe.
Which was it to be? The moment, though I did not know it, was fateful. On the one hand, Mademoiselle's face, her beauty, her innocence, her helplessness, pleaded with me strangely, and dragged me on to give the warning. On the other, my pride urged me to return, and avoid such a reception as I had every reason to expect.
In the end I went on. In less than half an hour I had crossed the Valaridré bridge.
Yet it must not be supposed that I decided without doubt, or went forward without misgiving. The taunts and sneers to which Madame had treated me were too recent for that; and a dozen times pride and resentment almost checked my steps, and I turned and went home again. On each occasion, however, the ugly faces and brutish eyes I had seen in the village rose before me; I remembered the hatred in which Gargouf, the St. Alais' steward, was held; I pictured the horrors that might be enacted before help could come from Cahors; and I went on.
Yet with a mind made up to ridicule; which even the crowded streets, when I reached them, failed to relieve, though they wore an unmistakable air of excitement. Groups of people, busily conversing, were everywhere to be seen; and in two or three places men were standing on stools--in a fashion then new to me--haranguing knots of idlers. Some of the shops were shut, there were guards before others, and before the bakehouses. I remarked a great number of journals and pamphlets in men's hands, and that where these were, the talk rose loudest. In some places, too, my appearance seemed to create excitement, but this was of a doubtful character, a few greeting me respectfully, while more stared at me in silence. Several asked me, as I passed, if I brought news, and seemed disappointed when I said I did not; and at two points a handful of people hooted me.
This angered me a little, but I forgot it in a thing still more surprising. Presently, as I rode, I heard my name called; and turning, found M. de Gontaut hurrying after me as fast as his dignity and lameness would permit. He leaned, as usual, on the arm of a servant, his other hand holding a cane and snuff-box; and two stout fellows followed him. I had no reason to suppose that he would appreciate the service I had done him more highly, or acknowledge it more gratefully, than on the day of the riot; and my surprise was great when he came up, his face all smiles.
"Nothing, for months, has given me so much pleasure as this," he said, saluting me with overwhelming cordiality. "By my faith, M. le Vicomte, you have outdone us all! You will have such a reception yonder! and you have brought two good knaves, I see. It is not fair," he continued, nodding his head with senile jocularity. "I declare it is not fair. But you know the text? 'There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than----' Ha! ha! Well, we must not be jealous. You have taught them a lesson; and now we are united."
"But, M. le Baron," I said in amazement, as, obeying his gesture, I moved on, while he limped jauntily beside me, "I do not understand you in the least!"
"You don't?"
"No!" I said.
"Ah! you did not think that we should hear it so soon," he replied, shaking his head sagely. "Oh, I can tell you we are well provided. The campaign has begun, and the information department has not been neglected. Little escapes us, and we shall soon set these rogues right. But, for the fact, that damned rascal Doury let it out. I hear you told them some fine home-truths. A Committee, the insolents! And in our teeth! But you gave them a sharp set-back, I hear, M. le Vicomte. If you had joined it, now----"
He stopped abruptly. A man crossing the street had slightly jostled him. The old noble lost his temper, and on the instant raised his stick with a passionate oath, and the man cowered away begging his pardon. But M. de Gontaut was not to be appeased.
"Vagabond!" he cried after him, in a voice trembling with rage, "you would throw me down again, would you? We will put you in your place by-and-by. We will; why,Dieu!when I was young----"
"But, M. le Baron," I said to divert his attention, for two or three bystanders were casting ugly looks at us, and I saw that it needed little to bring about a fracas, "are you quite sure that we shall be able to keep them in check?"
The old noble still trembled, but he drew himself up with a gesture of pathetic gallantry.
"You shall see!" he cried. "When it comes to hard knocks, you shall see, Monsieur. But here we are; and there is Madame St. Alais on the balcony with some of her bodyguard." He paused to kiss his hand, with the air of a Polignac. "Up there, M. le Vicomte, you will see what you will see," he continued. "And I--I shall be in luck, too, for I have brought you."
It seemed to me more like a dream than a reality. A fortnight before, I had been spurned from this house with insults; I had been bidden never to enter it again. Now, on the balconies, from which pretty faces and powdered heads looked down, handkerchiefs fluttered to greet me. On the stairs, which, crowded with servants and lackeys, shook under the constant stream of comers and goers, I was received with a hum of applause. In every corner snuff-boxes were being tapped and canes handled; the flashing of roguish eyes behind fans vied with the glitter of mirrors. And through all a lane was made for me. At the door Louis met me. A little farther on, Madame came half-way across the room to me. It was a triumph--a triumph which I found inexplicable, unintelligible, until I learned that the rebuff which I had administered to the deputation had been exaggerated a dozen times, nay, a hundred times, until it met even the wishes of the most violent; while the sober and thoughtful were too glad to hail in my adhesion the proof of that reaction, which the Royalist party, from the first day of the troubles, never ceased to expect.
No wonder that, taken by surprise and intoxicated with incense, I let myself go. To have declared in that company and with Madame's gracious words in my ears, that I had not come to join them, that I had come on a different errand altogether, that though I had repelled the deputation I had no intention of acting against it, would have required a courage and a hardness I could not boast; while the circumstances of the deputation, Doury's presumption and Buton's hints, to say nothing of the violence of the Parisian mob, had not failed to impress me unfavourably. With a thousand others who had prepared themselves to welcome reform, I recoiled when I saw the lengths to which it was tending; and, though nothing had been farther from my mind when I entered Cahors than to join myself to the St. Alais faction, I found it impossible to reject their apologies on the spot, or explain on the instant the real purpose with which I had come to them.
I was, in fact, the sport of circumstances; weak, it will be said, in the wrong place and stubborn in the wrong; betraying a boy's petulance at one time, and a boy's fickleness at another; and now a tool and now a churl. Perhaps truly. But it was a time of trial; nor was I the only man or the oldest man who, in those days, changed his opinions, and again within the week went back; or who found it hard to find a cockade, white, black, red or tricolour, to his taste.
Besides, flattery is sweet, and I was young; moreover, I had Mademoiselle in my head and nothing could exceed Madame's graciousness. I think she valued me the more for my late revolt, and prided herself on my reduction in proportion as I had shown myself able to resist.
"Few words are better, M. le Vicomte," she said, with a dignity which honoured me equally with herself. "Many things have happened since I saw you. We are neither of us quite of the same opinion. Forgive me. A woman's word and a man's sword do no dishonour."
I bowed, blushing with pleasure. After a fortnight spent in solitude these moving groups, bowing, smiling, talking in low, earnest tones of the one purpose, the one aim, had immense influence with me. I felt the contagion. I let Madame take me into her confidence.
"The King"--it was always the King with her--"in a week or two the King will assert himself. As yet his ear has been abused. It will pass; in the meantime we must take our proper places. We must arm our servants and keepers, repress disorder and resist encroachment."
"And the Committee, Madame?"
She tapped me, smiling, with the ends of her dainty fingers.
"We will treat it as you treated it," she said.
"You think that you will be strong enough?"
"We," she answered.
"We?" I said, correcting myself with a blush.
"Why not? How can it be otherwise?" she replied, looking proudly round her. "Can you look round and doubt it, M. le Vicomte?"
"But France?" I said.
"We are France," she retorted with a superb gesture.
And certainly the splendid crowd that filled her rooms was almost warrant for the words; a crowd of stately men and fair women such as I have only seen once or twice since those days. Under the surface there may have been pettiness and senility; the exhaustion of vice; jealousy and lukewarmness and dissension; but the powder and patches, the silks and velvets of the oldrégime, gave to all a semblance of strength, and at least the appearance of dignity. If few were soldiers, all wore swords and could use them. The fact that the small sword, so powerful a weapon in the duel, is useless against a crowd armed with stones and clubs had not yet been made clear. Nothing seemed more easy than for two or three hundred swordsmen to rule a province.
At any rate I found nothing but what was feasible in the notion; and with little real reluctance, if no great enthusiasm, I pinned on the white cockade. Putting all thoughts of present reform from my mind, I agreed that order--order was the one pressing need of the country.
On that all were agreed, and all were hopeful. I heard no misgivings, but a good deal of vapouring, in which poor M. de Gontaut, with the palsy almost upon him, had his part. No one dropped a hint of danger in the country, or of a revolt of the peasants. Even to me, as I stood in the brilliant crowd, the danger grew to seem so remote and unreal, that, delicacy as well as the fear of ridicule, kept me silent. I could not speak of Mademoiselle without awkwardness, and so the warning which I had come to give died on my lips. I saw that I should be laughed at, I fancied myself deceived, and I was silent.
It was only when, after promising to return next day, I stood at the door prepared to leave, and found myself alone with Louis, that I let a word fall. Then I asked him with a little hesitation if he thought that his sister was quite safe at St. Alais.
"Why not?" he said easily, with his hand on my shoulder.
"The 'trouble is not in the town only," I hinted. "Nor perhaps the worst of the trouble."
He shrugged his shoulders. "You think too much of it,mon cher," he answered. "Believe me, now that we are at one the trouble is over."
And that was the evening of the 4th of August, the day on which the Assembly in Paris renounced at a single sitting all immunities, exemptions, and privileges, all feudal dues, and fines, and rights, all tolls, all tithes, the salt tax, the game laws,capitaineries!At one sitting, on that evening; and Louis thought that the trouble was over!