EPILOGUE
An hour later Dossonville was arrested, thanks to his political somersault, which had brought him twenty denunciations before the Committee of Safety as having always spoken ill of the Jacobins and defamed the character of Robespierre. The accusation of a day served to cleanse the record of months.
Imprisoned for a few months at the Maison Talaru, he gained the frontier at a favorable moment and embarked for South America. Then for ten years, at sea or in the colonies, he was buffeted from continent to continent, always embroiled, always running on the lead of adventure, which he called his one bad habit.
When he again saw Paris, the Empire was at its crest. The city he had left a wilderness had flowered with the riotous luxuriance of the tropics. The Tuileries Gardens were again noisy with the laughter of promenaders, thronging to a review in the Place du Carrousel. Wherever he went his eye caught the flash of martial splendor and the sheen of sabers.
A little sadly he spent the days in the strange Babylon, seeking some trace of the great Revolution that once had rolled through the city, of the thundering mobs, the fervid cafés, the tricoteuses, and the creak of the roiling tumbrels.
The Cabaret of the Prêtre Pendu, its gibbet banished, had become the Cabaret of a Hundred and One Victories. The greeting of "citoyen" no longer resounded in the street. Of all the familiar faces in the Rue Maugout, not one confronted him. La Mère Corniche had been replaced by another concierge, bent and wrinkled after the manner of concierges, as though her life had been passed at her post.
Among the counts and barons, marshals and princes, of the Empire, galloping in glory, shouting frantically "Vive l'Empereur!" Dossonville recognized with bewilderment figures of Jacobins and Girondins, once worshipers of the sacred Republic. He sought out the Maison Talaru; lackeys were lounging before the door and a stream of carriages rolling through the restored porte-cochère. Once, hearing the rumor of a great execution for the afternoon, with a revival of interest he asked a passer-by:
"And the executioner, what do you call him?"
"Sanson."
"Charles Sanson?"
"His son."
Recalling the prophecy of the father, indifferent servitor to republic or kingdom, he returned pensively to the boulevards, where, to rid himself of black memories, he selected among the pomp and the glitter a fashionable café, and installed himself.
Presently, reviewing idly the gorgeous clientele, his eye rested on a knot of generals. The figure of the speaker caught his memory by a certain trick of exuberant gesture that recalled a comrade of other days. Calling a waiter, he demanded:
"That man over there, decorated with medals and laughing, in that cluster of fighters, do you see him?"
"The Baron de Ricordo—yes, sir."
"What's his name?"
"The Baron de Ricordo; a great man in the Senate, sir."
"Ah, I thought he resembled some one else. Thanks."
Almost immediately, dissatisfied, he recalled him.
"And his family name? Find that out."
"Monsieur, he is a Barabant, of the well-known Barabants of the Midi. The family is honorable and old. I—"
"Never mind. Ah, one thing more. Is he married? Tell me that."
"Monsieur, he marries this month,—a great marriage."
"Enough. That's sufficient."
At this moment the party pushed back their chairs and came straggling toward him.
"When you're young all folly's possible," said the voice of Barabant at his elbow.
"It's a wonder, I say, that we survive to middle age."
"Dame, yes!" replied the baron. "Will you believe it of me—at twenty-five I wept because I could not die for an idea!"
Dossonville, who was on the point of rising, fell back and lowered his head. The resplendent group swaggered down to the sidewalk, where presently a magnificent equipage rolled up, a lady extended her hand to the Baron de Ricordo, who, nodding to his comrades, sprang into the carriage and drove off.
Pushing back the untasted glass, Dossonville rang for his bill.
"Monsieur doesn't take his drink," the garçon objected.
Dossonville, looking down, saw that it was true.
"There is something the matter, monsieur?"
"Exactly."
"Monsieur complains—"
"Ah, I have looked at the bottom of the glass, my friend," he answered; but his glance was in the street. "When one drinks one should never do that."
Leaving the perplexed garçon to turn over his words, he sauntered among the thronged tables, and joining the slow procession of the promenaders, was swept gradually away.