CHAPTER XI.
BOURGEOIS TURNED SANS-CULOTTE.
It was the evening of December 10, 1792. Monsieur Desmarais sat talking with his wife in the parlor of their dwelling. The attorney, elected to the Convention in September, no longer was content to affect patriotism in his acts and words; his very appearance now breathed a sans-culottism of the deepest dye. Thus he, once so precise about his person, shaved but once a week; his hair, now powderless, was clipped close like a Roundhead's; he wore a carmagnole jacket, hob-nailed shoes, wide pantaloons, a distinctive sign of the sans-culottes, and a red-checkered handkerchief rolled around his neck, after the style of Marat. In one of the corners of the parlor, now without mirrors or curtains and almost stripped of furniture, reposed a large square deal box, whose cover bore the words in large penciled characters: "Breakable. Handle with care." The chest seemed to be built with more care and solidity than is usual with packing-cases. Its cover, instead of being merely nailed, was fastened with hinges; a strong lock held it shut. Madam Desmarais, arrived from Lyons a brief half hour before, had not yet removed her traveling garments. Her face breathed anxiety. Her husband's features were pale and glowering; he seemed worked up, agitated. His wife continued the conversation:
"You understand, my friend, that, frightened at the rumors which were rife in Lyons on the subject of the triumph of a royalist conspiracy—that Paris was given up to fire and blood, the Convention dissolved, its members exposed to the greatest dangers—"
"It is incomprehensible to me what object anyone could have in propagating such sinister rumors," replied Desmarais. "We are on the tracks of a royalist plot, built, for a pretext, upon the trial of this unfortunate King; but the plot can not but miscarry. Paris seems seized with vertigo since August 10!"
"However that may be, my friend, frightened by these rumors, I set out for Paris. Besides, it costs me too much to live far from you in these terrible times. The reasons for our separation were the hope of allaying the passion of our daughter for that young Lebrenn, and your lively desire to shield me from the spectacle of the insurrections, the popular passions which were about to sweep over Paris. But our principal aim has not been attained. Charlotte persists in her determination to remain unmarried or to wed that ironsmith. She writes to him and receives his letters. So, then, whether she be at Paris or at Lyons, she will be neither nearer nor further from the scene of her love-affair. And finally, by the very fact that you are exposed to dangers of all sorts, my place is beside you, my friend. I have, then, resolved to leave you no longer. I also am much alarmed on my brother's score. Here it is more than a month that I haven't heard from him. Can you tell me what has become of him?"
"I know that he was denounced as a suspect; he probably has remained in Paris, where he is in hiding, and conspiring in favor of the monarchy. I do not in the least doubt it."
"What do you tell me! My brother denounced! My God! In these times such an accusation is a thing of terror—it may lead to the scaffold!"
"No doubt. But why doesn't he consent to resign himself, as I have, to howl with the wolves, and roar with the tigers?"
"Poor Hubert," replied Madam Desmarais in tears. "In the midst of the mortal dangers which he runs, he thinks of my birthday; he sends me a token of his brotherly affection." And the attorney's wife, casting her eyes towards the box in the corner, added, "Dear, good brother! How sensible I am of this new proof of his affection!"