CHAPTER XIV. IN PRISON.
Since France had become a democratic republic, since the differences in rank were abolished, and liberty, equality, and fraternity alone prevailed, the aristocracy was either beyond the frontiers of France or else in the prisons. Outside of the prison were but citoyens and citoyennes; inside of the prison were yet dukes and duchesses, counts and countesses, viscounts and viscountesses; there, behind locks and bars, the aristocracy was represented in its most glorious and high-sounding names.
And there also, within these walls, was the proud, strict dame, whom Marie Antoinette had once, to her misfortune, driven away from the Tuileries, and who had not been permitted to possess a single foot of ground in all France—there, within the prison with the aristocrats, lived also Madame Etiquette. She had to leave the Tuileries with the nobility, and with the nobility she had entered into the prisons of the Conciergerie and of the Carmelite Convent. There she ruled with the same authority and with the same gravity as once in happier days she had done in the king’s palace.
The republic had mixed together the prisoners without any distinction, and in the hall, where every morning they gathered together to attend to the roll-call of the condemned who were to report for the guillotine; in the narrow rooms and cells, where they passed the rest of the day, the republic had made no distinction between all these inmates of the prison, dukes and simple knights, duchesses and baronesses, princesses of the blood and country nobility of inferior degree. But etiquette was there to remedy this unseemliness of fate and to re-establish the natural order of things—etiquette, which had enacted rules and laws for the halls of kings, enforced them also in the halls of prisons. Only for the ladies of the most ancient nobility, the duchesses and princesses of the blood, in the prison-rooms, as once in the king’s halls, the small stool (tabouret) was reserved, and they were privileged to occupy the rush-bottomed seats which were in the prisons, and which now replaced the tabouret. No lady of inferior rank would consent to sit down in their presence unless these ladies of superior rank had expressly requested and entitled their inferior companions of misfortune to do so. When, at the appointed hour, the halls were abandoned for the general promenade in the yards of the Conciergerie, or in the small cloistered gardens of the Carmelites, this recreation was preceded by a ceremony which shortened its already short hour by at least ten minutes: the ladies and the gentlemen, according to their order, rank, and nobility, placed themselves in two rows on either side of the outer door, and between them passed on first in ceremonial order of rank, as at a court-festival, the ladies and gentlemen who at court were entitled to the high and small levees, as well as to the tabouret, and to the kissing of the queen’s hand. As they passed, each bowed low, and then, with the same due observance of rank, as was customary at court, the ladies and gentlemen of inferior titles followed two by two, when the higher nobility had passed. [Footnote: “Souvenirs de la Marquise de Crequi,” vol. v].
It was yet the court-society which was assembled here in the rooms and cells of the prison; only this court-society, this aristocracy, had no more King Louis to do homage unto, but they served another king, they bowed low before another queen! This king to whom the nobility of France belonged was Death; this queen to which proud heads bowed low was the Guillotine!
It was King Death who now summoned the aristocrats to his court; the scaffold was the hall of festivity where solemn homage was made to this king. It would therefore have been against all etiquette to crowd into this hall of festivity with beclouded countenance; this would have diminished the respect due to King Death, if he had not been approached with full-court ceremonial, and with the serene, easy smile of a courtier. To die, to meet death was now a distinction, an honor for which each almost envied the other. When at ten o’clock in the morning the gathering took place in the large room, the conversation was of the most cheerful and unaffected easiness; they joked, they laughed, they speculated on politics, though it was well known that in a few minutes yonder door was to open, and that on its threshold the jailer would appear, list in hand; that from this list he would call out with his loud, croaking voice, as Death’s harbinger, the names of those whose death-warrants had been yesterday signed by Robespierre, and who would have immediately to leave the hall, to mount the wagons which were already waiting at the prison’s gate to drive them to the guillotine.
While the jailer read his list, suspense and excitement were visible on all faces, but no one would have so deeply lowered himself as to betray fear or anguish when his name fell from the lips of the jailer. The smile remained on the lip, friends and acquaintances were bidden farewell with a cheerful salutation, and with easy, unaffected demeanor they quitted the hall to mount the fatal vehicle.
To die gracefully was now considered as much bon ton as it had been once fashionable gracefully to enter the ballroom and do obeisance to the king; contempt and scorn would have followed him who might have exhibited a sorrowful mien, hesitation, or fear.
One morning the jailer had read his list, and sixteen gentlemen and ladies of the aristocracy had consequently to leave the hall of the Conciergerie to enter both wagons now ready at the gate. As they were starting for the fatal journey a second turnkey appeared, to say that through some accident only one of the wagons was ready, and that consequently only eight of the sentenced ones could be driven to the guillotine. This meant that the accident nullified eight death-warrants and saved the lives of eight sentenced persons. For it was not probable that these eight persons would next morning be honored with an execution. Their warrants were signed, their names had been called; neither the tribunal of the revolution nor the jailer could pay special attention whether their heads had fallen or not. The next day would bring on new condemnations, new lists, new distinctions for the wagons, new heads for the guillotine. Whoever, on the day appointed for the execution, missed the guillotine, could safely reckon that his life was saved; that henceforth he was amongst the forgotten ones, of whom a great number filled the prisons, and who expected their freedom through some favorable accident.
To-day, therefore, only eight of the sixteen condemned were to mount the wagon. But who were to be the favored ones? The two turnkeys, with cold indifference, left the choice to the condemned. Only eight could be accommodated in the wagon, they said, and it was the same who went or who remained. “Make your choice!”
A strife arose among the sixteen condemned ones—not as to who might remain behind, but as to those who might mount into the wagon.
The ladies declared that, according to the rules of common politeness, which allowed ladies to go first, the choice belonged to them; the gentlemen objected to this motion of the ladies on the plea that to reach the guillotine steps had to be ascended, and as etiquette required that in going up-stairs the gentlemen should always precede the ladies, they were also now entitled to go first and to mount the steps of the scaffold before the ladies. At last all had to give way to the claims of the Duchess de Grammont, who declared that at this festival as at every other the order of rank was to be observed, and that she, as well as all the gentlemen and ladies of superior rank, had the undisputed privilege now, as at all other celebrations, to take the precedency.
No one ventured to oppose this decision, and the Duchess de Grammont, proud of the victory won, was the first to leave the room and mount the wagon.
Another time the turnkey began to read the list: every one listened with grave attention, and at every call a clear, cheerful “Here I am!” followed.
But after the jailer, with wearied voice, had many times repeated a name from his list, the accustomed answer failed. No one came forward, no one seemed to be there to lay claim to that name and to the execution. The jailer stopped a few minutes, and as all were dumb, he continued, indifferent and unmoved, to call out the names.
“We will then have only fifteen heads to deliver to-day,” said he, after reading the list, “for there must have been a mistake. One of the names is false, or else the person to whom it belongs has already been delivered.”
“It is probably but a blunder of the pen!” exclaimed a handsome young man who, smiling, stepped out of the crowd of listeners and passed on to the side where the victims stood. “You read Chapetolle. There is no such name here. The hand of the writer was probably tired of writing the numerous lists of those who are sentenced to death, and he has therefore written the letters wrong. My name is Chapelotte, and I am the one meant by Chapetolle.”
“I do not know,” said the jailer, “but it is certain that sixteen sentenced ones ought to go into the wagons, and that only fifteen have reported themselves in a legal way.”
“Well, then, add me in an illegal manner to your fifteen,” said the young man, smiling. “Without doubt it is my name they intended to write. I do not wish to save my life through a blunder in writing, and who knows if another time I may find such good company as to-day in your chariot? Allow me then to journey on with my friends.”
The jailer had no reason to refuse him this journey, and he had the satisfaction besides of being thus able to deliver sixteen sentenced prisoners to the guillotine.
Such was the society of the aristocrats, among whom Josephine lived the long, dreary days of her imprisonment. The cell she occupied was shared by two companions of misfortune, the Duchess de Aguillon and the beautiful Madame de Fontenay, who afterward became Madame Tallien, so distinguished and renowned for her beauty and wit. Therese de Fontenay knew, and every one knew, that she was already sentenced, even if her sentence was not yet written down and countersigned. It was recorded in the heart of Robespierre. He had sentenced her, without any concealment. She had but a few weeks more to endure the martyrdom, the anguish of hope and of expectation. She was his secure victim; Robespierre needed not hasten the fall of this beautiful head, which was the admiration of all who saw it. This beauty was the very crime which Robespierre wanted to punish, for with this beauty, Therese de Fontenay, who then resided in Bordeaux with her husband, had captivated the old friend and associate in sentiments of Robespierre, the fanatical Tallien; with this beauty she had converted the man of blood and terror into a soft, compassionate being, inclined to pardon and to mercy toward his fellow-beings.
Tallien had been sent as commissionnaire from the Convention to Bordeaux, and there with inexorable severity he had raged against the unfortunate merchants, from whom he exacted enormous assessments, and whom he sentenced to the guillotine if they refused, or were unable to pay. But suddenly love changed the bloodthirsty tiger into a sensitive being, and the beautiful Madame de Fontenay, who had become acquainted with Tallien in the prison of Bordeaux, had worked a complete change in his whole being. For the first time this man, who unmoved had condemned to death King Louis and the Girondists, found on his lips the word “pardon;” for the first time the hand which had signed so many death-warrants wrote the order to let a prisoner go free.
This prisoner was Therese de Fontenay, the daughter of the Spanish banker Cabarrus, and she rewarded him for the gift of her life with a smile which forever made him her captive. From this time the death-warrants were converted into pardons from his lips, and for every pardon Therese thanked him with a sweet smile, with a glowing look of love.
But this leniency was looked upon as criminal by the tribunal of terror in Paris. They recalled the culprit who dared pardon instead of punishing; and if Robespierre did not think himself powerful enough to send Tallien as a traitor and as an apostate to the scaffold, he punished him for his leniency by separating from him Therese de Fontenay, who had abandoned the husband forced upon her, and who had followed Tallien to Paris, and Robespierre had sent her to prison.
There, at the Carmelites’, was Therese de Fontenay; she occupied the same cell as Josephine; the same misfortune had made them companions and friends. They communicated one to the other their hopes and fears; and when Josephine, with tears in her eyes, spoke to her friend of her children, of her deep anguish, for they were alone and abandoned in the world outside of the prison walls, whilst their unfortunate pitiable mother languished in prison, Therese comforted and encouraged her.
“So long as one lives there is hope,” said Therese, with her enchanting smile. “Myself, who in the eyes of you all am sentenced to death, hope—no, I hope not—I am convinced that I will soon obtain my freedom. And I swear that, as soon as I am free, I will stir heaven and earth to procure the liberty of my dear friend Josephine and of her husband the Viscount de Beauharnais, and to give back to the poor orphaned children their parents.”
Josephine answered with an incredulous smile, and a shrugging of the shoulders; and then Therese’s very expressive countenance glowed, and her large, black eyes flashed deeper gleams.
“You have no faith in me, Josephine,” she said, vehemently; “but I repeat to you, I will soon obtain my freedom, and then I will procure your liberty and that of your husband.”
“But how will you obtain that?” asked Josephine, shaking her head.
“I will ruin Robespierre,” said Therese, gravely.
“In what do your means of ruining him consist?”
“In this letter here,” said Therese, as she drew out of her bosom a small paper folded up. “See, this sheet of paper; it consists but of a few lines which, since they would not furnish me with writing-materials, I have written with my blood on this sheet of paper, which I found yesterday in the garden during the promenade. The turnkey will give this letter to-day to Tallien. He has given me his word, and I have promised him that Tallien will recompense him magnificently for it. This letter will ruin Robespierre and make me free, and then I will procure the freedom of the Viscount and of the Viscountess de Beauharnais.”
“What then, in that letter is the magic word which is to work out such wonders?”
Therese handed the paper to her friend.
“Read,” said she, smiling.
Josephine read: “Therese of Fontenay to the citizen Tallien. Either in eight days I am free and the wife of my deliverer, the noble and brave Tallien, who will have freed the world from the monster Robespierre, or else, in eight days, I mount the scaffold; and my last thought will be a curse for the cowardly, heartless man who has not had the courage to risk his life for her he loved, and who suffers for his sake, for his sake meets death—who had not the mind to consider that with daring deed he must destroy the bloodthirsty fiend or be ruined by him. Therese de Fontenay will ever love her Tallien if he delivers her; she will hate him, even in death, if he sacrifices her to Robespierre’s blood-greediness!”
“If, through mishap, Robespierre should receive this letter, then you and Tallien are lost,” sighed Josephine.
“But Tallien, and not Robespierre, will receive it, and I am saved,” exclaimed Therese. “Therefore, my friend, take courage and be bold. Wait but eight days patiently. Let us wait and hope.”
“Yes, let us wait and hope,” sighed Josephine. “Hope and patience are the only companions of the captive.”