Almost before he was aware of it he found himself in the little square before the great Cathedral. With a sudden impulse he entered and leaned against one of the fretted columns. A chorister was practising softly in the transept overhead. 'Twas the benedictus from one of Mozart's masses.
"Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini," he sang over and over again. Calvert could not see the singer, but the young voice floated downward, reminding him of his own boyish voice. He closed his eyes and bowed his head against the cold stone. When he could stand it no longer, he went softly down the echoing aisle of the church, out through the great doors, into the yellow sunshine of the deserted little street. There were some linden-trees planted in a hollow square before the parvis of the Cathedral, and stone benches set beneath them. Upon one of these he sank down, as if physically weary. Perhaps he was—at any rate, a sudden, sick disgust for everything, for the melancholy afternoon sunshine and the yellowing grass and blighted flowers, took possession of him. The wind, rising, made a dreary sound among the stiffening leaves. One fluttered downward and lay upon the bench beside him. He noted with surprise the sudden chill, the first touch of coming winter. But that morning it had seemed like spring to him.
He looked up at the great front of the Cathedral, unchanging through so many changing years, and, as he looked, he thought how small and ephemeral a thing he was and his love and grief. The two great spires towering upward seemed to his sick fancy like two uplifted hands drawing benediction down on the weary, grief-stricken world, and before their awful patience and supplication something of his own impatience and bitterness passed from him and, comforted, he left the spot and made his way along the deserted quay and so back to the little inn where Mr. Jefferson awaited him.
CHAPTER XV
CHRISTMAS EVE
Had it not been for Mr. Morris's sudden return from London, Calvert would have felt alone, indeed, in Paris. Having received certain intelligence concerning the plan for the purchase of the American debt to France, Mr. Morris set off hastily for France and arrived there several days before Mr. Jefferson's departure for Havre. This absence, as all thought, was to be but temporary, but, when Mr. Jefferson left Paris on that morning of the 26th of September, it was never to return. He left his affairs in the hands of Calvert and Mr. Short, and, as for the former, he was only too happy to plunge into work and so forget, if possible, his own unhappiness. Mr. Morris easily divined it, however, and its cause, and tried, in his cynical, kindly fashion, to divert the young man. He made it a point to see Calvert frequently, and, indeed, it was not only out of kindness of heart that he did so, but because he had the greatest liking for the young gentleman and enjoyed his society above that of most of his acquaintances. It was easy enough for the two to see much of each other, for although the approach of winter brought a slight return of gayety, Paris was dreary and deserted enough. That first wave of fear which had seized upon the nobles had swept many of them out of France to Turin, to Frankfort, to Metz, to Coblentz, and to London. Many of those salons which Mr. Morris and Calvert had frequented were already closed, hostesses and guests alike in exile and poverty. Alarm succeeded alarm in Paris until, with the ill-starred feast to the Regiment of Flanders and the march on Versailles, alarm rose to panic. The incredible folly and stupidity which precipitated these events aroused Mr. Morris's contempt and indignation to the utmost pitch.
"What malignant devil is it, Ned," he fairly groaned, as he and Calvert sat over their wine one evening after dinner at the Legation, "that urges their unfortunate Majesties on to their destruction? What could have been more ill-advised, nay, more fatal in these starvation times, than the banquet to the Flanders Regiment? And the presence at it of their Majesties! Oh, Luxembourg must have been stricken mad to have urged them to go thither! And once there, who or what could have prevented that tipsy royalist enthusiasm, the wild burst of sympathy, the trampling of the tri-color cockade? They say the Queen moved among the half-crazed soldiers shining and beautiful as a star, boy. I had the whole scene from Maupas, a cousin of Madame de Flahaut, who is in the Body Guard. What wonder that Paris raged to remove the suborned Regiment of Flanders! And, if only the King had remained firm and kept it at Versailles, this other horror of the 5th and 6th of October would never have happened. But what can you expect from such a monarch? As I wrote President Washington this afternoon, 'If the reigning prince were not the small-beer character he is, there can be but little doubt that, watching events and making a tolerable use of them, he would regain his authority; but what will you have from a creature who, situated as he is, eats and drinks, sleeps well and laughs, and is as merry a grig as lives? There is, besides, no possibility of serving him, for, at the slightest show of opposition, he gives up everything and every person.' And yet I would like to attempt it, if only to thwart those rampant, feather-brained philosophers who are hurrying France to her doom."
"It is Lafayette I would like to serve," said Calvert, moodily. "D'Azay and I were with him at the Hôtel de Ville for the greater part of the day of the 5th of October. He was no longer master of himself or of those he commanded, and I could scarce believe that this harried, brow-beaten, menaced leader of the Milice was the alert and intrepid soldier I had served under before Yorktown."
"Ah, Ned, there is a man whom this revolution has spoiled and will spoil even more! Another lost reputation, I fear. Truly a dreadful situation to find one's self in. Marched by compulsion, guarded by his own troops, who suspect and threaten him! Obliged to do what he abhors, or suffer an ignominious death, with the certainty that the sacrifice of his own life will not prevent the mischief! And he has but himself to thank—the dreadful events of the 5th and 6th of October were, as far as concerned Lafayette, but the natural consequences of his former policy. Did I not warn him long ago of the madness of trimming between the court and popular party, of the danger of a vast, undisciplined body of troops?"
He got up and stumped about the room, irritation and pity expressed in every feature of his countenance, not wholly unmixed, it must be confessed (or so it seemed to Calvert, who could not help being a little amused thereat), with a certain satisfaction at his perspicacity. Suddenly he burst out laughing.