A Sheaf of Bluebells

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

I

It was a strange experience for Fernande to see Ronnay de Maurel in the midst of the men who worked under his orders. Outwardly—by dress and appearance—one of themselves, there was obviously an inward force and authority in him which the workers readily recognized. Somehow her visit to the foundries discouraged and disappointed her. Not that Ronnay was in any way less under her sway than he had been in the romantic atmosphere of the woods. On the contrary, every time that her eyes met his, she read in them more and more clearly the progress which his passion for her was making in the subjugation of his will-power and of his senses; and every time that in the course of his demonstrations to her, of the various processes which went to the making of the "mouths of fire," his hand came in contact with hers, she could feel the tremor which went through him at her touch.

No, indeed! she had no cause to think that the untamed bear would not be ready to dance the moment she began to pipe; but here, in the foundries where he ruled as lord and master, where thousands of men obeyed at a word or sign from him, she first realized that between enslaving a man like de Maurel, through his passions or his sensibilities, to the chariot wheel of her beauty, and gaining a real mastery over his thoughts and actions, there was the immeasurable gulf of ingrained convictions and of the fetish of intellectual freedom.

That de Maurel was the real master in the foundries of La Frontenay Fernande could not doubt for a moment.

"Keep your eyes and ears open, child," Madame la Marquise had said to her, when she at last expressed reluctant approval of her niece's plan to visit the ogre in his lair. "We hear many rumours of discontent at the works—of insubordination—of open revolt. It would serve an abominable democrat like my son Ronnay right, if the proletariat which he upholds against his own traditions and his own caste were to turn against him now as they turned against us in '89. Keep your eyes and ears open, Fernande; the discontent of which we hear may prove a splendid card in our hands."

Fernande had not altogether understood what Madame la Marquise was driving at.

"Of what use can discontent among M. de Maurel's workmen be to us?" she had asked, wondering.

"If they were to turn against their master, my dear," quoth Madame dryly.

"Oh!"

"And rally round to us...."

"Do you think it likely, ma tante?"

"More than likely. Laurent and your father and I have a plan ..." said Madame with some hesitation; "we have put it before de Puisaye and our other leaders.... I can't speak of it just yet, child," she added somewhat impatiently, "but it is most important that you should keep your eyes and ears open to-day. We must reckon, remember, that King Mob, in whose name these execrable revolutionists have murdered their King and hundreds of innocent men, women and children, has felt the power of his own will. He has tasted the sweets of open revolt against constituted authority, and he has been given a free hand to murder, to pillage and to outrage. He is not likely to be so easily curbed again; he will rebel as he has rebelled before. His so-called Emperor has placed an iron heel upon his neck ... and Ronnay de Maurel and his like think that they can quench the flame of lawlessness which they themselves have kindled. Bah! methinks that it is King Mob who will avenge us all one day, by turning against the hands that first led him to strike against imaginary tyrants, and then forged the chains that made a slave of him."

And Fernande de Courson, as she wandered through the workshops of La Frontenay, thought of Madame la Marquise's impassioned tirade. How little revolt was there in these ordered places wherein men toiled and sweated in order that the Emperor might have all the cannons and powder he wanted wherewith to conquer the enemies of France! Here were no murmurings, no rebellion over authority; every man knew, as de Maurel passed him by and gave a look to the work in hand, that here was the master whose word and will must be law if all the toil, the patriotism, the enthusiasm which went to the making of these "mouths of fire" were to prove useful to the State.

The place was not picturesque. It was not inviting. The men, stripped to the waist, were covered with grime. But on their bearded faces they wore the same look of energy and of determination which glowed in the eyes of the soldiers who followed the young General Bonaparte over the Alps and across the Danube, through the snows of Poland and the sands of the desert from victory to victory. There was the same spirit—of that there could be no doubt—which had roused the whole nation to defend itself against the foreigners—the same spirit that made every man, woman and child, who could not fight the foe, toil in order to help subjugate him.

That de Maurel understood how to deal with the men was equally obvious. They evidently looked up to and trusted him, and Madame la Marquise's dream of seeing the proletariat turn against the hands that fed it would certainly not come true at La Frontenay.

Not that every cog-wheel of the gigantic machinery worked with equal smoothness. Though, for the most part, de Maurel's progress through his workshops was accompanied by looks of deference and at times of genuine affection and gratitude, there were murmurings, too. More than once Fernande caught the drift of a muttered complaint: "The heaviness of the toil, the unhealthy conditions, the dearness of food at home." De Maurel, however, had only one answer for all and sundry: "France," he said, and his ringing voice sounded above the din of hammers and heavy tools, above the roar of furnaces and bellows, "France has her back up against the wall, my men! the whole of Europe is up in arms against her! every one of her sons must either fight or toil till victory is assured. After that ... well ... toil will be less hard ... life more healthy ... food less dear!"

"My wife and children have not tasted meat for a month," retorted one man moodily.

"I have not tasted any for half a year," was de Maurel's cheerful reply. "My uncle and I up at La Vieuville live as you do down here; we toil as you do, suffer as much as you. When the Emperor hath brought the Prussian to his knees and compelled Austria to sue for peace, we'll all feast together ... and not before."

"'Tis dog's work sweating in front of these furnaces all the day ..." growled another man.

"Try sweating in front of the Prussian cannon, mon ami," retorted "the General," with a careless shrug of his broad shoulders.

He passed on and in his wake the murmurings somehow died down. He had a way with him, and he was so full of energy and breathed vitality from every pore to such a degree, that instinctively toil appeared lighter, and it seemed a humiliation to grumble.

It was only in the powder factory that the tempers of the men appeared of a different mettle.