"I am capable of everything to the end of preventing an act reprobated by the General of my Order. The General of the Jesuits has spoken; all must obey him—even Kings, even the Pope. Silence and obedience are the words!"
So saying, and profiting by the stupor into which his audacity and self-possession threw the other conspirators, the Jesuit left the room.
"We are off, god-son," he said to little Rodin when he had descended to the second floor. "Come, my child; other cares call me elsewhere."
"Me also," responded the boy, blessing himself and rising. "I am ready to follow you, good god-father. Command. To hear you is to obey."
CHAPTER XV.
THE KING ON TRIAL.
As already recounted, John Lebrenn, in his capacity as municipal officer, was charged on the night of December 10, 1793, with the task of watching over Louis XVI, detained, with his family, at the Temple. Occupying a room before the chamber of the ex-King, Lebrenn felt for the prisoner a sort of compassion, as he reflected that this man, not without his good inclinations, and endowed with certain undeniable domestic virtues, had been pushed by his position as King to wrongful acts which were about to bring down a terrible punishment upon his head.
Louis submitted to his confinement with mingled carelessness and resignation, rarely displaying either annoyance or anger at the rigorous surveillance of which he was the object; he hoped that the penalty pronounced against him by the Convention would not exceed imprisonment until after the peace, and then banishment. For his wife, his sister, and his son and daughter, he showed great solicitude; one proof of the inherent sin of royalty, which could transform a good husband, a good brother, and a good father—a man without malice in his private life—into an execrable tyrant, capable of every transgression.
The curtains which screened the glass door separating the ante-chamber from that occupied by the fallen King accidentally falling apart in the middle, they revealed to John Lebrenn Louis XVI pacing up and down the room, although his usual bed-time had long sounded. The King seemed to be in a state of agitation which accorded ill with his apathetic nature. On the morrow he was to appear at the bar of the Convention; and during the day he had learned from Clery, his man-in-waiting, who, due to his secret connection with the royalists, was informed of their moves, that a plan was afoot to snatch him from his escort on the way from the Temple to the Convention. Quite likely to turn his mind from these thoughts, he opened the door leading into the room guarded by John Lebrenn, in order to speak with him. The countenance of his watchman seemed to inspire some confidence in the prisoner; perhaps he remarked on the young man's features an expression of compassion, easy to confound with the respectful interest of a subject for a prisoner King. He stepped into the room of his guard. Not out of respect for the King, but out of commiseration for the captive man, the soldier rose from the camp cot on which he had been sitting. Louis addressed him affably, as follows:
"My friend, I am not disposed to sleep, to-night. If you will, let us talk together, that my sleeplessness may be rendered less irksome."
"Willingly, Sire," replied Lebrenn.