Chapter Sixteen.
“Vive La Guillotine!”
It was midnight when I got clear of the Auberge ”à l’Irlandois” in the Rue d’Agnès, and being a fine, warm autumn night I was by no means the only occupant of the street. This was fortunate for me, for the guards posted at either end would have been more inquisitive as to a solitary stranger than one of a company of noisy idlers.
That night there had been a great performance in one of the theatres in Paris, which had lasted far into the night, and was only lately over. Those I overheard speak of it said it had been a great patriotic spectacle, in the course of which National Guards and cadets had marched across the stage, unfurling the banner of the Republic, and taking the oath of the people amid scenes of wild enthusiasm and shouting. To add to the enthusiasm of the occasion a party of real volunteers had appeared, and after receiving the three-coloured cockade from their sweethearts, had shouldered their guns and marched, singing the Marseillaise, straight from the theatre to the road for La Vendue, where they were going to shed their blood for their country.
The audience had risen, waving hats and handkerchiefs to bid them God-speed, and then poured forth into the streets, shouting the chorus, and cheering till they were hoarse and tired.
It was into a party of such loyal revellers that I found myself sucked before I was half-way out of the Rue d’Agnès; and yelling and shouting at the top of my voice I passed safely the guards, and reached the broad Rue Saint Honoré. Here the crowd gradually dispersed, some one way, some another, while a few, with cries of “A la Place,” held on in company. With these I joined myself, and presently came to a great open square, where on a high platform stood a grim and terrible looking object. “Vive la guillotine!” shouted the crowd as they caught sight of it.
It was strangely lit up with the glare of the torches of some workmen who were evidently busy upon it. I could see the fatal knife being raised once or twice and let fall with a crash by way of experiment. And each time the crowd cheered and laughed, and invited one of their number to ascend the platform and put his head in the empty collar. It made me sick to watch it, yet for safety’s sake I had to shout “Vive la guillotine!” with the rest of them, and laugh with the loudest.
Presently some one near noticed me and caught me by the arm.
“Here is one that will do, Citoyen Samson. Lift him up, comrades. Let us see if the knife is sharp enough.”
At the touch of his hand I broke into a cold sweat, and clung to his knees amid shouts of laughter. It was all very well for them, who were used to such jests. I was new to it, and fell a victim to a panic such as I have never known since. A herculean strength seemed to possess me. I flung my tormentors right and left, and darted away from them into the dark recesses of the surrounding gardens. They began by giving chase, but in the end let me go, and returned to their more congenial spectacle, and presently, tired even of that, went home to bed.
It was an hour before I durst look out from my hiding-place in the midst of a clump of thick bushes. I could still see the guillotine looming in the moonlight; but the workmen, like the sightseers, had gone. The only living persons were a few women, who had seated themselves on one of the benches in front of the instrument, evidently determined on a good view of to-morrow’s spectacle.
I retreated to my hiding-place with a shudder, glad I was too far away to overhear their talk.
But if I heard not theirs, I heard, oddly enough, another conversation, so near that had it been intended for my ears it could not have taken place in a better spot.
One of the speakers, by his voice, was an Englishman, of more than middle age; the other, a woman, who also spoke English, but with a foreign accent.
This is what I heard, and you may guess how much of it I comprehended:—
“No news yet?” said the old man anxiously.
“None. I expected to hear before this.”
“Who is the messenger?”
“A trusty servant of madame’s, and an Irishman.”
“So much the worse if he is caught.”
There was a pause. Then the old man inquired,—
“What hope is there for Sillery?”
“Absolutely none. He is as good as guillotined already.”
“Has Edward no influence then?”
“Not now. Duport is no longer a man, but a machine—deadly, mysterious, as yonder guillotine. He would denounce me, his wife, if the Republic demanded it.”
“God forbid! for you are our last friend.”
Then there was another pause, and the man spoke again. He was evidently broken-down by terror, and engrossed in his own safety.
“My fear now is,” he said, “that, if Sillery is doomed, the messenger should deliver Edward’s letter to Duport at all. It will only make matters worse for us.”
“Very true. It is no time for appeals to mercy,” said Madame Duport. “But you said you expected a letter for yourself.”
“Ay; money to escape with. That’s all I live for.”
“Money from Edward?”
“No. From my kinswoman, Alice Gorman.—Hush! what was that?” he cried, breaking into a whisper.
“Only a falling leaf.—How was she to reach you?”
“She was to send it to Edward, and he would forward it by the same messenger that carried his letter to Duport.”
“Pray Heaven that be lost too,” said the lady. “You are safer in Paris. Besides, money without a passport will avail nothing.”
The old man gave a bitter laugh.
“They all desert me,” said he querulously. “My nephew never shows sign; Sillery is to perish, you fear to speak to me; even my poor wife chides me.”
“Surely Madame Lestrange—”
Here I started again, and slight as was the sound it broke up the conference. They separated, one in either direction, the lady gliding towards the benches in front of the guillotine, the old man (whom I now knew to be Mr Lestrange) creeping under the shadow of the trees, and presently lying at full length on a seat apparently fast asleep.
I curled myself up on a seat not far off, where I could watch him without being seen by him. A little before dawn he got up, and after carefully looking up and down the road, walked hurriedly back towards the Place de la Revolution, where he lost himself among the now increasing groups who mustered in the grey light for an early seat at the spectacle of the hour.
I dropped into a seat not far off, and in the distance, among a row of pale, hard, fatigued faces, I could see the deputy’s wife, who never looked our way, but sat with her eyes fixed on the dreadful machine.
The old man looked across at her once and again, and then tried nervously to join in the general talk, and nod assent to the loyal sentiments of those who crowded near.
As for me, I was too sick even to keep up appearances, and was thankful when one rough interloper shouldered me from my place and sent me sprawling down among the feet of the onlookers.
“Shame! Let the young citoyen have a view,” called some one.
“We are all equal,” said the usurper. “Let him take the place from me, and he may have it.”
I declined the challenge, and slunk off at the back of the crowd, which was all too busy and expectant to heed whether I got a view or not.
What I heard that morning was bad enough. There was the sound of the drums and the dull rumble of wheels, drowned by yells and shouts from the men and screams from the women; then a silence, when no one stirred, but every neck was craned forward to see; then a sudden tap of the drum; then the harsh crash of the knife; then a gasp from a thousand throats, and a great yell of “Vive la Liberté.” Three times I heard it all. Then the spectacle was at an end, and the crowd dispersed.
I kept a keen look-out among the groups that straggled past me for the bent figure of Mr Lestrange, but no sign of him could I see. After all, thought I, this errand of mine to Paris was to be all for nothing, when close by I perceived Citoyenne Duport walking aloof from the crowd and bending her steps towards the gardens. I resolved, cost what it might, not to lose sight of her, and followed her at a distance till the paths were quite deserted.
Then I quickened my steps and came up with her.
“Madame Duport,” said I boldly, “I am the messenger you and Mr Lestrange expect.”
She looked round at me with blanched face, and held up her hand with a gesture of silence.
“No, no,” said she, “I am not Madame Duport. You mistake, my friend.”
“Madame need not fear me; I am no mouchard. I overheard all you and Mr Lestrange said last night. Here is the letter I bear to Deputé Duport. Either I must deliver it myself or ask madame to do so.”
She held out her hand for it.
“We are at your mercy,” said she. “Is this from Lord Edward himself?”
“I know nothing of it, madame,” said I, and recounted the story of how I had come by the missive in the wood near Morlaix.
She sighed, and said,—
“John Cassidy is happier where he lies than we are. Is this your only missive?”
“No; I have a letter for Mr Lestrange, and beg you to tell me his address.”
At that moment she looked round, and gave a little scream as first a footstep, then a voice, fell on her ear.
“Adèle,” said a lean, bilious-looking man, with a hard, pinched face and knit lips, approaching from one of the side-walks—“Adèle, what do you here?”
“My husband,” said the lady, so far recovering her composure as to smile and advance to meet him, “you are come in a good moment. This lad bears a missive for you, and, having discovered me in the crowd, was begging me to deliver it for him. Here it is.”
Duport took the letter with a frigid glance at me as if to say he believed not a word of the story, and mechanically tore it open.
I watched his eyebrows give a sudden twitch as he read the contents.
“Who gave you this?” demanded he.
I repeated my story, which once more he received with an incredulous stare.
Then turning to his wife he said, half to himself, half to her,—
“From Edward Fitzgerald on behalf of his kinsman, Sillery. But too late. Come, Adèle. The twenty-two are before the Tribunal to-day, and I have a place for you in the gallery.”
And without heeding me further (for which I was devoutly thankful), he drew his wife’s arm in his own and walked off rapidly in the direction of the Tuileries.
Lest my reader should suppose that my letter to Deputé Duport was one of great moment to my own story, let me say at once it was not so, at least directly. It was, as the deputy had said, a letter addressed by Lord Edward Fitzgerald, a young Irish nobleman (of whom more hereafter), to Duport, claiming, for the sake of old comradeship, his good offices on behalf of one of the twenty-two impeached Girondist deputies, Sillery by name, whose adopted daughter, or, rather, the adopted daughter of whose wife, Lord Edward had lately married. Many letters of the kind were no doubt constantly coming into the hands of powerful members of the Convention just then; and many, like it, came too late.
Next morning, so I was told, the whole of the accused, and Sillery first of the batch, were guillotined; the headsman doing his work with such dexterity that in thirty-one minutes the twenty-two were all disposed of.
My letter to Mr Lestrange (which I still carried in my stocking) was another matter, and concerned me considerably, especially now that I understood it was from my lady at Knockowen. Where to find him I knew not, and to be found with the letter on me might compromise not merely me but him and his Irish kinsfolk.
All things considered, I decided to read the letter and commit it to memory, and then destroy it, hoping my good intentions might be excuse enough for the breach of faith. And, indeed, when that afternoon I sought a sheltered place in the woods and produced the soiled and stained letter from my stocking, I was glad I had done what I did.
“Dear Cousin,” wrote my lady at Knockowen, “I hear there is a chance of getting a letter to you by the messenger who is to carry back Lord Edward’s petition on behalf of the poor Marquis Sillery. Your nephew, Captain Lestrange, told us of his trouble when he was here in the summer, and gave us to understand there was little to be hoped for. If Sillery perish, your position in Paris will be painful indeed. I would fain send you the money you ask for, but Maurice keeps me so low in funds that I cannot even pay for my own clothes. I trust, however, your nephew may bring you some relief, as he spoke of going to Paris this autumn on a secret mission for the English Government. Affairs with us are very bad, and, indeed, Maurice succeeds so ill in winning the confidence of either party, loyalist or rebel, that he talks of sending me and Kit over to you till times are better here. Take the threat for what it is worth, for I should be as sorry as you would, and I hear Paris is a dreadful place to be in now. But you know Maurice. Kit is well, but all our troubles prey on her spirits. I suspect if your nephew were in Paris, she would be easier reconciled to our threatened pilgrimage than I. Between ourselves, my dear cousin, as Maurice now holds all the mortgages for your Irish estates, it would be well to keep in with him, even if the price be a visit from your affectionate cousin,—
“Alice Gorman.”
“P.S.—I forget if you are still in the Quai Necker, but am told Lord Edward’s messenger will know where to deliver this.”
Such was my lady’s letter, and you may guess if it did not set the blood tingling in my veins, and make Paris seem a very different place from what it was an hour before.
I carefully read and re-read the letter till I had it by heart, and then as carefully tore it into a thousand pieces and scattered them to the wind. The one sentence referring to Captain Lestrange’s visit as an agent for the British Government was (little as I yet knew of the state of affairs in Paris) enough to hurry the innocent folk to whom it was addressed to the guillotine. What if my little lady and her mother were by this time in this terrible city and liable to the same fate?
I spent that afternoon wandering along the river on both banks, seeking for the Quai Necker, but nothing of that name could I find. The names were mostly new, and in honour of some person or place illustrious in the Revolution. At last, in despair, I was giving up the quest, when on an old book-stall I lit upon a plan of Paris dated ten years ago.
The bouquineur, a sour fellow whose trade had evidently suffered in recent months, would by no means allow me to look at it till I had paid the five sous he demanded, which I was glad enough to do. And after a very little study I found the Quai Necker marked down near the cathedral; and having carefully noted its bearings, I carried my map to a stall higher up, where I sold it for eight sous, thus making one of the most profitable bargains I ever struck.
Before dark, and while all Paris was ringing with the news that the twenty-two unfortunate Girondists were to be executed next morning, I found myself standing in a shabby passage beside the river, under the shadow of the great cathedral of Notre Dame.