“Now, Citizen Robespierre,” said Trimousette, rising and coming toward him, “surely, you cannot refuse the request of a lady. I came to you not only because you have all power, but because I knew you to be gallant—a gentleman, in short.”
So said the most sincere of women glancing at Robespierre with a look dangerously near to coquetry as well as flattery, and nobody had ever suspected this taciturn woman of being either a coquette or a flatterer. Yet, being a woman, she could be both coquette and flatterer for the man she loved. What perjuries will women commit for love! Robespierre reflected and Trimousette smiled. He spoke and she answered him with soft, insinuating words; and at last she got out of him the written commitment, charging her, too, with conspiring against the liberties of the people, and condemning her to be imprisoned with her husband, Citizen Fernand Belgarde, in the prison of the Temple.
Trimousette almost laughed aloud with joy when this grim document was made out, and again gave Robespierre a bewitching little curtsey, such as the most finished coquette might have done. She climbed joyfully into the dirty cab with the dirtier gendarmes who were to deliver her to the jailers in the Temple.
It was a mild March afternoon when he who had once been Duke of Belgarde sat at his prison window, looking down into the dreary old garden of the Temple. The window was semicircular, reaching from the floor half way to the low ceiling, and gave not much of sun or even light. The duke was thinking, strangely enough, of his duchess. She was a good little thing; shy, but not a born coward like the Valençay woman—nay, somewhat indifferent to danger and, for a woman, averse from shrieking and screaming, but timid in her attitude toward life. She had certainly showed some ingenuity in forwarding his escape three years and a half ago. The duke had made up his mind upon his arrest that there was not much chance of a duke and peer of France escaping the guillotine, and so quite coolly accepted the certainty that his name would soon be in the list which was posted up every morning, of those for whom the tumbrils would wait at seven o’clock in the evening. As his inexpertness with the pen had got him into his present plight, the duke determined to remedy that defect in his education. He had on his incarceration gravely explained to the turnkey that there might not be much use for writing in purgatory, where he declared all gentlemen went—the revolutionists going to eternal punishment, and the ladies to heaven. Nevertheless, he meant to improve his handwriting. On this March afternoon the duke, seated at a rickety table, was busy practicing his new accomplishment of writing, when he heard the door of his cell open behind him. He did not turn his head. This Citizen Belgarde was a disdainful fellow, and never saw his jailers until they stood before him. In spite of this, and perhaps because of it, he was a favorite with turnkey Duval, who often frankly expressed his regret that the day was not far off when Citizen Belgarde would be started in a tumbril on his way to the Place de la Révolution.
Trimousette, standing just within the door, which was closed behind her, had a good look at her duke—as good, that is, as her fast-beating heart would permit to her yearning tear-filled eyes. Upon his profile, clearly silhouetted against the window’s dim light, she saw the pallor of a prisoner. He still wore his shabby brocade coat and an embroidered waistcoat, but both were threadbare and dingy. His hair, long and curling, was tied with a black ribbon to distinguish him from the cropped heads which the revolutionists affected. But his eyes, the eyes of a fighter, were undaunted, and his mouth still knew how to smile. The Duke of Belgarde considered that he had lost the game of life, and the only thing left was to pay like a gentleman. As Trimousette watched, he threw down his pen, pushed his chair back, cocked his feet upon the table, and began to whistle quite jovially “Vive Henri Quatre.”
Still he had not looked toward her, and Trimousette’s courage, having brought her alone in night and storm from Brittany, and strongly sustained her when she went to see Robespierre of the green eyes and croaking voice, and got herself condemned to prison upon a capital charge—could not carry her the yard or two between her and her soul’s desire.
But then the duke turned, recognized her, rose, and, obeying a sudden impulse, opened his arms to her. True, he would have rejoiced to see a dog, even broken-legged Diane, anything which was connected with the splendid dream of the past. Yet was the duke actually glad to see the only woman who could love him without worrying him.
Trimousette did not fly into his arms. Poor soul, even at that moment rose the undying instinct of womanhood not to yield too quickly. The duke came forward and, by the same impulse, swept her into his arms. At once, in the twinkling of an eye, love was born within him, and he kissed her as a lover for the first time in their married life. A glory, as of the morning, rose before Trimousette’s eyes. She had lost all, even her life was a forfeit, but she had gained all—her husband’s love.
