Red Caps and Lilies

by Katharine Adams

As they stood there in the great square, they could see the black, sinister guillotine in the distance. Dian shut his eyes and stood for a few moments with his head bowed over his clasped hands. He was giving thanks for the long, warm summer days, the comfort of the stars at night, and the confidence of his sheep as he led them home at sundown. The noise of the city was all about him. Wild voices were singing the “Ça Ira,” the song of the revolution, rough, ragged groups of men and women in scarlet caps jostled past him. There were sounds of pounding and hammering everywhere, and he could hear the clanging of anvils from near-by forges. All over the city, these forges had sprung up over night, to make weapons for the people.

They walked the great length of the square and, except for a curious glance or so at Dian because of his red locks and his great stature, no one noticed them at all. They kept in the midst of the crowd going up the rue Saint Honoré. The tri-color ribbons and the gay red caps of the half-starved crowds made splashes of brilliance through the greyness. The farm boy touched Dian’s arm.

“Listen,” he said and his voice sank almost to a whisper. “Listen! I hear the roar of the tumbrils. They are coming this way. They almost always do. I have seen them before.” He caught Dian’s arm as he spoke, and Dian could feel him trembling.

The shepherd laid his hand on the lad’s arm. “Let us come away from all this. I do not want to see them. I cannot help them by seeing them.”

“Do you want to help them?” the boy asked.

“I want to help everyone,” Dian answered.

They walked down a side street, away from the rue Saint Honoré, but the roar of the tumbrils followed them for a long time. Dian was sad at heart. He knew too well that for long centuries the people of France had been kept down and abused and embittered by the tyranny and injustice of the nobles, but he knew also that every day many innocent people were going to their death in the great square, that the revolution no longer had any dignity, no longer was a striving for justice and equal rights for all. It had grown to be a nightmare of wild, undisciplined horror. Dian was in earnest when he said that he wanted to help everyone—Grigge as well as Lisle. He wanted it more than anything else in all the world.

As they walked, the boy told Dian that his name was Raoul, and that he came into the city once a week with his master. He said that they always stayed over night, at lodgings above a seed shop near the west barrier, and returned to the country the following day. They walked on until they came in sight of the Bois, a dark blur against the winter sky. The Bois is a wood in the heart of Paris. It had the same charm and mystery about it then that it has to-day. Dian stood looking at it, thinking of what Neville had told him of the gay coaching parties and promenades and daily drives in their gilded coaches of the Saint Frères and other families of the nobility. They were all gone now, these same families, hiding for their lives.

Dian knew the Saint Frère house as soon as he saw it, not so much by the plan he had, which would help him more in finding his way about inside, as by an engraving which he had seen in the study of the old Comte Saint Frère at Les Vignes. It was not difficult to distinguish it from the other great houses near it. There was something medieval and different about it. Indeed, there was no house in all of Paris quite so old.

He did not speak of the house to Raoul, as they passed by it. They had a modest meal of coffee and bread for a few sous at a stand near the farmer boy’s lodgings. Then Dian went with him as far as the seed shop and there they bid each other good-by. Raoul said that he was glad to have met him, for he was timid about going alone in the streets while the city was in such a turmoil, and it was good to have the company of one who, like himself, knew the country and farm ways. Dian answered that he would know how to find him at his lodgings. The boy assured him that he could always be found there on Thursdays, unless the weather was so bad that his master gave up coming into Paris.