‘If you but knew the suffering patience of the poor,’ said he, ‘the stubbornness of their devotion to those above them in station; the tacit submission with which they accept hardship as their birthright, you would despair of humanity—infinitely more from men’s humility than from their cruelty! We cannot stir them; we cannot move them,’ cried he. ‘“They are no worse off than their fathers were,” that is their reply. If the hour come, however, that they rise up of themselves——’
Once more did Gerald revert to the hardihood of such confessions to a stranger, when the other broke in——
‘Does the shipwrecked sailor on the raft hesitate to stretch out his hand to the sinking swimmer beside him. Come home with me from this, and let me speak to you. You will learn nothing from these men. There is Marat again! he has but one note in his voice, and it is to utter the cry of Blood!’
While the stormy speaker revelled wildly in the chaos of his incoherent thoughts, conjuring up scenes of massacre and destruction, the others madly applauding him, Brissot stole away, and beckoned Gerald to follow him.
It was daybreak ere they separated, and as Gerald gained his chambers he tore the white cockade he had long treasured as a souvenir of his days of Garde du Corps in pieces, and scattered the fragments from his window to the winds.
CHAPTER VIII. THE DÉPÔT DE LA PRÉFECTURE
Gerald had scarcely fallen asleep when he was aroused by a rude crash at his door, and looking up, saw the room filled with gendarmerie in full uniform. A man in plain black meanwhile approached the bed where he lay, and asked if he were called Gerald Fitzgerald.
‘A ci-devant Garde du Corps and a refugee too?’ said the questioner, who was the substitute of the Procureur du Roi. ‘This is the order to arrest you, Monsieur,’ said he.
‘On what charge, may I ask?’ said Gerald indolently.