[CHAPTER XIX.]
CAPTAIN BEAUSIRE APPEARS AGAIN.
After the capture of the Tuileries, a special court was instituted to try cases of theft committed at the palace. Two or three hundred thieves, caught red-handed, had been shot off-hand, but there were as many more who had contrived to hide their acts.
Among the number of these sly depredators was "Captain" Beausire, a corporal of the French Guards once on a time, but more conspicuous as a card-sharper and for his hand in the plot of robbers by which the court jewelers were nearly defrauded of the celebrated set of diamonds which we have written about under their historic name of "The Queen's Necklace."
This Beausire had entered the palace, but in the rear of the conquerors. He was too full of sense to be among the first where danger lay in taking the lead.
It was not his political opinions that carried him into the king's home, to weep over the fall of monarchy or to applaud the triumph of the people; bless your innocence, no! Captain Beausire came as a mere sight-seer, soaring above those human weaknesses known as opinions, and having but one aim in view, to wit, to ascertain whether those who lost a throne might not have lost at the same time some article of value rather more portable and easy to put out of sight.
To be in harmony with the situation, Beausire had clapped on an enormous red cap, was armed with the largest-sized saber, and had splashed his shirt-front and hands with blood from the first quite dead man he stumbled upon. Like the wolf skulking round the edge and the vulture hovering over the battle-field, perhaps taken for having helped in the slaughter, some believed he had been one of the vanquishers.
The most did so accept him as they heard him bellow "Death to the aristocrats!" and saw him poke under beds, dash open cupboards, and even bureau drawers, in order to make sure that no aristocrat had hidden there.
However, for the discomfiture of Captain Beausire, at this time, a man was present who did not peep under beds or open drawers, but who, having entered while the firing was hot, though he carried no arms with the conquerors, though he did no conquering, walked about with his hands behind his back, as he might have done in a public park on a holiday. Cold and calm in his threadbare but well-brushed black suit, he was content to raise his voice from time to time to say:
"Do not forget, citizens, that you are not to kill women and not to touch the jewels."
He did not seem to feel any right to censure those who were killing men and throwing the furniture out of the windows.