CHAPTER XXVII. AN EPISODE OF MY LIFE
If I could have turned my thoughts from my own desolate condition, the aspect of Paris on the morning after the battle might well have engaged my attention. The very streets presented a scene such as never can be forgotten! The Government had adventured on the bold experiment of employing the masses to control the few, and the fruits of this dangerous alliance might be seen in the various groups that passed along. Officials wearing their badges of duty, officers in full uniform, walked arm in arm with leaders of the popular party; men high in the state talked familiarly in the midst of little groups of working-men; parties of the popular force, rudely armed, ill-dressed, and disorderly, presented arms as some officer of rank rode by. All attested the existence of that strange compact by which the nation was again to be subjugated, and terror made the active principle of a government. The terrific songs of the bloody days of the Revolution were once more heard, and the cruel denunciations of the mob again rang aloud in the open streets! I heard and saw all these like one in a dream, as, with my portfolio of office-papers under my arm, I held my way to the Tuileries; nor was it till I had reached the wooden stockade in front of that palace that I became collected enough to ask myself whither I was going, and for what.
The machinery of government to which I belonged was annihilated and destroyed; they who had guided and controlled it were gone; and there I stood alone, friendless, and without a home in that vast city, not knowing which way to turn me. I wandered into the garden of the Tuileries, and sat down upon a bench in one of the less-frequented alleys. The cries and shouts of the populace rung faintly in my ear, and the noises of the city came dulled and indistinct by distance. From the quiet habits of my simple life, I had scarcely learned anything whatever of Paris. My acquaintances were limited to the few I had seen at the bureau, and these I only met when there. My means were too scanty to admit of even the cheapest pleasures; and up to this my existence had been one uniform but contented poverty. Even this humble provision was now withdrawn from me. What was I to do? Was there a career by which I could earn my bread? I knew of none save daily labor with my hands; and where to seek for even this I did not know. In my little lodging behind the bureau I possessed a few articles of clothes and some books; these, if sold, would support me for a week or two; and then—ay, then! But who can tell? thought I: a day has marred,—who knows but another day may make my fortune?
It was night when I turned homeward. To my surprise, the stair was not lit up as usual, and it was only after repeated knockings that the door was opened to me, and old Lizette, my landlady's servant, with a voice broken by sobs, bade me pass in quietly, and to make no noise. I asked eagerly if any misfortune had occurred, and heard that Monsieur Bernois, my landlord, had been mortally wounded in the affray of the night before, and was then lying at the point of death.
“Is it the surgeon, Lizette?” cried Marguerite, a little girl of about fourteen, and whose gentle “Good-day” had been the only thing like welcome I had ever heard during my stay there; “is it the surgeon?”
“Hélas, no, mademoiselle, it is the lodger!”
I had not even a name for them! I was simply the occupant of a solitary chamber, for whom none cared or thought; and yet at that instant I felt my isolation the greatest blessing of Heaven, and would not have exchanged my desolate condition for all the ties of family!
“Oh, sir,” cried Marguerite, “have pity on us, and come to papa. He is bleeding on the bed here, and none of us know how to aid him!”
“But I am no less ignorant, mademoiselle,” said I; “would that I could be of any use to you!”
“Oh, come,” cried she, “come; and Heaven may direct you how to succor us, for we are utterly deserted!”