GILBERT HAD rapidly read the letter put into his hands by Mirabeau, had read it over more slowly a second time, had put it into his waistcoat pocket, and, calling a coach, ordered himself to be driven to the Tuileries.
At the sight of Gilbert, the queen uttered a cry.
A part of the coat and ruffles of the doctor had been torn in the struggle which he had maintained in endeavouring to save Francois, and some drops of blood stained his shirt.
“Madame,” said he, “I crave pardon of your majesty in presenting myself thus before you, but I have already, in spite of myself, made you wait so long, that I was not willing that any further delay should take place.”
“And this unfortunate one, M. Gilbert Y'
“He is dead, madame; he has been assassinated, torn in pieces!”
“Oh! monsieur, see the fruits of your revolution. After having satiated themselves with the grand seigneurs, all functionaries, the guards, see how they turn against each other; but there are, at any rate, means of executing justice on these assassins.”
“We are silent on that head, madame. But it would be better still to prevent the murders than to punish the murderers.”
“And how, my God, can that be done? The king and I would ask nothing better.”
“Madame, all these evils come from a defiance of the people expressed towards the agents of the powers; put at the head of the government men who have the confidence of the people, and nothing of the kind will happen.”
“Ah! yes! M. de Mirabeau and M. de Lafayette, is it not so?”
“I had hoped that the queen had sent for me to say that she had persuaded the king not to be hostile to the combination which I had proposed to him.”
“Doctor, will you tell me seriously that I might to trust myself to a man who caused the 5th and 6th of October, and make peace with an orator who has publicly insulted me at the tribune?”
“Madame, believe me, it was not M. de Mirabeau who caused the 5th and 6th of October. It was hunger, the high price of grain, and poverty, which commenced the work of the day; but it was an arm mysteriously powerful which did the work of the night. Perhaps, some day, I shall have to defend you from this side, and to struggle with this dark power, which pursues not only you, but all other crowned heads—not only the throne of France, but all the thrones of the earth. As true as I have the honour to lay my life at your majesty's feet and the king's, M. de Mirabeau had nothing to do with these terrible days, and he had learnt at the Assembly, even as others did, it might be a little time, perhaps, even before the others, by a note, that the people were marching on Versailles.”
“Then you believe, II. Gilbert, that this man would consent to become attached to us?”
“He is quite so, madame; when Mirabeau separates himself from royalty, he is like a horse that prances, and only requires to feel the bridle and spur of its rider to return into its right road.”
“But being already of the party of the Duke of Orleans, he cannot be a member of every party.”
“That is your mistake, madame.”
“Does not M. de Mirabeau belong to the party of the Duke of Orleans?” repeated the queen.
“He is so little attached to the Duke of Orleans, that when he discovered that that prince had withdrawn to England before the threats of M. de Lafayette, he said, as he crushed the note of M. de Lauzun which announced the duke's departure, 'People say that I am one of the party of this man; I would not have him as a lacquey.'”
“That speaks something in his favour,” said the queen, trying to smile; “and if I could believe that, we could really rely upon him.”
“Do you wish that I should repeat what he has said to me?”
“Yes, I shall be glad to hear it.”
“Here it is, then, word for word. I fixed his words in my memory, since I hoped at some time to have the opportunity of repeating them to your majesty: 'If you have the means of making yourself heard by the king and queen, persuade them that they and we are lost if the royal family does not leave Paris. I am busied with a plan to enable them to get out. At any rate, you may assure them that they may reckon upon me.'”
“Then the advice of M. de Mirabeau also is that we should quit Paris?”
“It was his advice at that time.”
“Yes, if I may trust to a note received within the last half hour.”
“It is intended for your majesty.”
And Gilbert drew the paper from his pocket.
“Your majesty will excuse it,” said he, “but it is on common paper, and was written on the counter of a wine store.”
“Ah! that does not matter; paper and desk are quite in harmony with the politics of the present period.”
The queen took the paper and read:
“The events of to-day have changed the face of things.
“We can succeed well this deal.
“The Assembly will be afraid, and will establish martial law.
“M. de Mirabeau could sustain and carry the measure for establishing martial law.
“M. de Mirabeau could advocate the giving more power to the executive.
“M. de Mirabeau could attack M. de Necker upon the revenue and taxes.
“In place of a Necker ministry, it would be easy to make a Mirabeau one, and Lafayette will back Mirabeau.”
“But,” said the queen, “this letter is not signed.”
“Have I not had the honour to inform your majesty that it was Mirabeau himself who placed it in my hand?”
“What do you think of all this?”
“My opinion is that Mirabeau is perfectly right, and that the only thing that can save France is the coalition he proposes.”
“Well, let M. de Mirabeau send through you a list of the ministers he would support, and I will place it before the king.”
“And your majesty will support it?”
“I will. Then, in the meanwhile, and as a first proof of his loyalty, let M. de Mirabeau support the proposition for establishing martial law and giving greater power to the executive.”
“He shall do so. In return, whenever the fall of M. Necker becomes likely, a Mirabeau and Lafayette ministry will not be received unfavourably?” asked Gilbert.
“By me? No! I am anxious to prove that I am quite willing to sacrifice my private feelings for the good of the state. But you must remember I cannot answer for the king.”
“Your majesty will authorize me to tell M. de Mirabeau that this list of proposed ministers is asked for by yourself?”
“I will permit M. Gilbert to use his own discretion as to how far he trusts a man who is our friend to-day and may become our enemy to-morrow.”
“On this point you may confide in me, madame; only, as the circumstances are of great importance, there is no time to lose; allow me then to proceed to the Assembly, and endeavour to see M. de Mirabeau this very day.”
The queen made with her hand a sign of acquiescence, and Gilbert then took leave. A quarter of an hour later he was in the Assembly.
The Assembly was in a very excited state on account of the crime committed at its very gates, and upon a man in some sense a dependent of theirs. The members hurried betwixt the tribune and their seats; betwixt their seats and the corridor. Mirabeau alone remained immovably in his place. He sat with his eyes fixed on the public tribune. His countenance brightened on seeing Gilbert.
Gilbert made a sign, which he answered by nodding his head.
Gilbert then tore a leaf from his pocketbook and wrote:
“Your proposals are received; not by both, but by the one whom both you and I believe has the most power.
“They wish to have a list of the proposed members to-day.
“Cause more power to be given to the executive.”
When he had folded the paper into the form of a letter, and addressed it to M. de Mirabeau, he called an usher and bid him carry it to its destination.
Mirabeau read it with such an expression of perfect indifference, that his nearest neighbour could not have guessed that the letter which he had just received corresponded exactly with his most ardent wishes; and with the same indifference he traced a few lines upon a sheet of paper lying before him, and, carefully folding the paper, gave it to the usher.
“Carry this letter,” said he, “to the gentleman who gave you the one you just now brought me.”
Gilbert eagerly opened the paper.
It contained a few lines which would have altered the future state of France, perhaps, if its propositions had been fairly carried out.
“I will address the Assembly, and assist as far as I can in carrying out your views.
“To-morrow I will send you a memoir on the present crisis, which I hope will be satisfactory.
“I send you the list of the ministers I propose; but I should be quite willing to alter a few names if you should wish any change.”
Gilbert tore a new leaf from his pocket-book, and wrote three or four lines, and gave them to the usher, who was not very far off.
“I am going to our mistress to inform her of what we wish, and to tell her on what conditions you will act; send word to my house, Rue St. Honore, just below L'Assumption, just opposite the cabinet maker's, Duplay, the result of the sitting as soon as it is terminated.”
Always anxious for excitement, and to struggle with political feelings, the queen awaited Gilbert's return with some impatience, especially when listening to the narration of Weber.
This consisted of the terrible scene whose end Weber had arrived in time to witness.
Sent for information by the queen, he passed by one end of the bridge of Notre Dame while the other was occupied by the bloody cortege who bore the head of Francois.
Near the bridge a young woman, pale, frightened, with perspiration standing coldly on her brow, and who, in spite of a tendency to embonpoint already visible, was running at a tolerably quick pace towards the Hotel de Ville, stopped suddenly.
This head, whose features she could not as yet distinguish, produced upon her, even at that distance, the effect of the Medusa's head upon the shield of Minerva.
And as the head approached her, it was easy to see by the expression of her face that she was all but changed into stone.
When the horrible trophy was not more than twenty paces from her, she uttered a cry, stretched out her hands with a desperate movement, and, as if the earth had fallen beneath her, she sank fainting on to the bridge.
It was the wife of Francois, already five months enceinte.
They carried her away without her knowing it. “Oh! my God!” said the queen, “it is a terrible testimony you have sent your servant, to teach her that if she is unhappy, there exist others still more so.”
Just at this moment Gilbert entered. He did not meet a queen, but a woman, that is to say, a wife, a mother. Her state of feeling could not have been better, and Gilbert, with advice at least, came to offer the means to put an end to these murmurs.
And the queen, looking into his eye, where tears were gathering, and on his brow, where perspiration stood in big heavy drops, seized Gilbert by the hands, and took from them the papers which they contained.
But before looking at this paper, important as it was, “Weber,” said she, “if this poor woman is not already dead, I will receive her to-morrow: if she be really enceinte, I will be the godmother of the child.”
“Ah! madame, madame,” cried Gilbert, “why cannot every Frenchman hear your voice broken with emotion, and see the hot tears run down your cheeks, as I do.”
The queen started: they were nearly the same words which in a crisis equally critical Charny had addressed to her.
She cast a hasty glance over the note of Mirabeau, but was too much troubled at this particular time to give an answer.
At seven o'clock in the evening, a valet without livery placed the following letter in Gilbert's hands:
“The sitting has been a warm one.
“Bugot and Robespierre wished to have a still higher court at law.
“I have caused it to be decreed that lese-nation (a new word which we have created) shall be judged by the royal privilege of Chatelet.
“I rely with confidence for the safety of France on the royal power, and three quarters of the Assembly will support it.
“To-day is the 21st of October. I hope,. even as it is, that royalty has made some progress since the 6th instant.
The note was not signed, but it was in the same handwriting as the one which referred to the ministerial changes, and that of the morning. It was truly the writing of Mirabeau.
Although one can easily understand all that Mirabeau had gained, and all that the royal family had consequently lost, we must inform our readers what the Chatelet really was.
One of its first judgments became the object of one of the most terrible scenes which occurred in the Greve in the year 1790; a scene which, since it is not foreign to our subject, we shall find best to weave into our narrative.
Le Chatelet had been of great historical importance in history, ever since the thirteenth century, and both as a tribunal and court had exercised great influences over the mighty ones during the five centuries succeeding the good King Louis IX.—another king who was a builder, if ever there was one. He built Notre Dame. He founded the hospitals De la Trinite, De Saint Catherine, and De Saint Nicholas, near the Louvre. Ho paved the streets of Paris. He had, in truth, a great bank to run to for all these expenses—the Jews, to wit. In 1189 he was tinctured with the follies of the time.
The folly of the time was the wish to take Jerusalem from the guardianship of the Soldan. He joined Richard Coeur de Lion, and started for the holy places. But before he went, in order that the good Parisians should not lose their time, and never dream in their leisure moments of revolting against him, as at his instigation they had revolted more than once, he left them a plan, and bid them execute it after his departure.
He left them a programme, and bid them build one of those thick walls of the twelfth century, ornamented with towers.
This wall was the third which surrounded Paris.
It contained, within its bounds, a number of small hamlets, which were destined, eventually, to become a portion of the great whole.
These hamlets and villages, however poor and small they might be, possessed each their justice seigneuriale. All these justice seigneuriales contradicting each other, from time to time, caused great confusion in this strange capital. There was, it seems, at the time a certain seigneur of Vincennes, who, having apparently more to complain of these contradictions than any of the others, determined to put an end to them.
And it is easy to understand that when Louis IX. distributed justice under the oak, now become proverbial, he did it as a seigneur, not as a king.
He ordered, however, as king, that all the causes determined by these petty juges seigneurales should, by appeal, be brought before the Chatelet of Paris. The jurisdiction of the Chatelet, consequently, was all powerful.
The Chatelet was then the supreme court of justice, until the parliament took upon itself to determine even the appeals of the Chatelet. But the Assembly was about to suspend these parliaments.
“We have buried them in a very lively fashion,” said Lameth, in returning from the sitting.
And in place of parliament, upon the suggestion of Mirabeau, they were about to restore the privileges of the Chatelet, and with increased powers.
This was a great triumph for royalty, since the crime of lese nation would be brought before its own court.
The first crime that the Chatelet had to take cognisance of was the one which we are going to narrate.
The very day of the promulgation of the law authorizing the power of the Chatelet, two assassins of the unhappy Francois were hung in the Greve without any other trial than l'accusation and the notoriety of the crime.
Two cases remained for judgment—that of the farmer general, Augeard, and that of the inspector-general of the Suisses, Pierre Victor de Bezenval.
These were two men devoted to the court, and for this reason they hastened to transfer their causes to the Chatelet.
Augeard was accused of having furnished the funds with which the Camarilla of the queen paid, in July, the troops assembled in the Champ-de-Mars. The Chatelet acquitted him without much scandal.
Bezenval's name could not have been more popular—the wrong way. He it was who had commanded the Suisses at Reveillon, the Bastille, and the Champ-de-Mars. The people remembered these three circumstances, and were not indisposed to take their revenge.
Very precise orders were given to the court at Chatelet: under any pretence, the king and queen wished M. de Bezenval to escape condemnation.
He knew there was only this double protection to save him. As he entered the hall he was saluted, almost unanimously, with cries for his death. “Bezenval a la lanterne!” “Bezenval to the gallows!'' was bellowed forth from all sides.
With great trouble silence was obtained.
One of the spectators profited by it. “I demand!” cried he, in a loud strong voice, “that he be out into thirteen pieces, and a piece sent to each canton.”
But in spite of the charges brought against him, and the animosity of the audience, Bezenval was acquitted.
Indignant at this double acquittal, one of the spectators wrote four verses on a piece of paper, which he rolled into a ball and sent to the president.
The stanza was signed. This was not all; the president turned in order to seek out the author. The author, seated on the end of a bench, solicited by his gesture the attention of the president. But before him, the countenance of the president fell. He did not dare to have him arrested. The author was Camille Desmoulins.
One of those who went out in the crowd, and who, to judge from his dress, was a simple bourgeois of the Marais, addressed one of his neighbours, and laying his hand on his shoulder, although he seemed to belong to a higher class, said to him: “Well, Doctor Gilbert, what do you think of these two acquittals?”
The one whom he had addressed turned round and looked at the questioner, and seemed as if he wished to recognise the form, the tones of whose voice he had recognised. “Of you, and not of me, my master, must that question be asked—of you who know everything, the present! the past! and the future!”
“Well, then, I think, after these two shameless acquittals, it will be best to pity the poor innocent fellow to be tried next in this court.”
“But why do you think,” asked Gilbert, “that the one who will succeed them will be innocent, and succeeding them, will be punished?”
“For the simple reason,” answered the other with the irony that seemed to be natural to him, “that it is customary, in this world, for the good to suffer for the bad.”
“Adieu, master,” said Gilbert, taking his hand off Cagliostro, for even in these few words the terrible sceptic will have been recognised.
“Because I have something to attend to,” said Gilbert, smiling.
“You are going somewhere?”—” Yes.”
“To whom?—to Mirabeau, to Lafayette, or to the queen?”
Gilbert stopped, and looked at Cagliostro with an uneasy air.
“Do you know that you frighten me?” said he.
“On the contrary, I should reassure,” observed Cagliostro.
“Am I not one of your friends?”—“I believe so.”
“Be sure, and if you want any proof—”
“Come with me, and I will give you information about these negotiations which you believe are so secret; information go secret, that even you, who seem to be conducting them, know nothing about them.”
“Listen!'' said Gilbert; “perhaps you will summon to you some of those influences with which you are familiar. But never mind, things are so dark that I think I would accept a little light even if it came from Satan himself. I will follow you, or you may conduct me.”
“Oh! be easy; it won't be far; and it shall be in a place where you are not known; only allow me to hail this coach that is passing; the style of dress in which I have come out prevented my bringing my carriage.” And he made a sign to a coach that was on the other side of the way. The coach drew up, and both got in.
“Where shall I take you, my jolly bourgeois?” asked the cabman of Cagliostro, as if he knew, in spite of his apparently simple dress, that the latter led the other, and moulded him to his will.
“Where thou knowest,” said Balsamo, making a kind of masonic sign.
The coachman looked at Balsamo with astonishment. “Pardon, monseigneur,” said he, “that I did not recognise you at once.”
“This is never my case,” said Cagliostro, in a firm, sonorous voice, “in spite of their number, I never forget any one, from the highest to the lowest, of my subjects.”
The driver shut the door to, mounted his box, and drove at a rapid rate to the corner of the Rue Saint-Claude.
The carriage stopped, and the porter saw the door opened with such rapidity as showed the zeal and respect of the driver.
Cagliostro made a sign to Gilbert to get out first, and then he himself descended from the carriage.
“Have you nothing to say to me?” asked he.
“Yes, monseigneur,” answered the driver; “I was to have made my report this evening, if I were lucky enough to meet you.”
“That which I have to say, monseigneur, ought not to be heard or listened to by profane ears.”
“Oh!'' said Cagliostro, smiling, “he who listens to us is not quite one of the profane ears. ”
This was Gilbert, who had moved some distance.
But still he could not prevent himself looking at them, and listening a little.
He saw a smile as the driver spoke flit across the countenance of Balsamo.
He heard the two names, Monsieur and Favras.
The report concluded, Cagliostro drew a double louis from his pocket, and wished to give it to the driver. But the latter shook his head. “Monseigneur knows well,” said he, “that it is forbidden to receive money for our reports.”
“It is not for thy report I wish to pay thee, it is for the drive.”
“For that I will accept it,” said the driver. And, in taking the louis, he added: “Thanks, monseigneur, my day's work's done.'“ And, jumping lightly on his box, he drove off at a round trot, and left Gilbert struck with amazement at what he had just heard.
“Come,” said Cagliostro, who was holding the door open for Gilbert, who never dreamt of entering; “will you not come in, my dear doctor?''
“Yes,” said Gilbert, “excuse me.”
And he crossed the threshold, staggering like a drunken man.
In the antechamber he saw the same German servant whom he had met there sixteen years before. He was standing in the same place, and held in his hands a similar book; only, like himself, the count, and the very chamber itself, he had aged sixteen years.
Fritz guessed from his eye the passage down which his master intended to conduct Gilbert, and rapidly opening two doors, he stopped at the third, to see if Cagliostro had any further orders to give.
This third door was that of the saloon.
Cagliostro made a sign to Gilbert to enter the saloon, and another to Fritz to retire. Only he said, “I am not at home until further orders.” Then, turning towards Gilbert, “Now, sit down; I am quite at your service dear doctor.”
Gilbert sighed, and leant his head on his hand. The memories of the past had mastered, for a time, at least, his present curiosity.
Cagliostro looked at Gilbert as Mephistopheles might have looked at Faust, when that German philosopher imprudently let him go before him.
All at once, he said: “It seems, dear doctor, that you recognise this room again?”
“Yes!” said Gilbert; “and it recalls the many obligations I owe you.”
“In truth,” said Gilbert, addressing himself as much as Cagliostro, “you are a strange man; and if all-powerful reason would permit me to place any faith in the magic stories of the middle ages, I should be tempted to believe that you were a sorcerer, like Merlin, or a melter of gold, like Nicholas Flamel.”
“To the world I am so, but not to you. I have never endeavoured to deceive you by marvels. You know I have always made you understand everything, and if sometimes you have seen Truth at my summons issue forth from her well, better dressed and clad than is her wont, it is, true Sicilian as I am, that I have a taste for tinsel. But let the events of the past sleep quietly in the past, in their tomb; let us speak of the present—let us speak of the future, if you like.”
“Count, you have called me back to realities! The future! What if this future were in your hands! What if your eyes could read the indistinct hieroglyphics!”
“Let us see, then, doctor, how we are as regards these ministerial arrangements.”
“Yes; of our Mirabeau and Lafayette ministry.”
“That is one of those vague rumours you, like others, have heard repeated, and you wish, by questioning me, to ascertain its truth.”
“Doctor, you are the very incarnation of doubt, and if there is anything terrible about you, it is that you doubt, not because you do not believe, but because you do not wish to believe. It will be best to tell you, at first, what you know as well as I do, and afterwards I will tell you what I know better than you.”
“For the last fifteen days you have spoken to the king of M. de Mirabeau as the only man who can save the monarchy.”
“It is my opinion, count; hence you will easily understand the present coalition.”
“It is mine too, doctor; hence the coalition you have presented to the king will fail.”
“The king, sufficiently struck by what you had told him—pardon me, but I am obliged to commence from the beginning, in order to show you that I am not ignorant of any one phase of the negotiation—the king, I say, sufficiently struck by what you had told him, has conversed with the queen concerning the combination, and the queen was less opposed to the project than the king even; she discussed with you the for and against, and finished by authorizing you to speak to M. de Mirabeau. Is not that the truth, doctor?” said Cagliostro, looking Gilbert in the face.
“I must confess that to this time you have kept on the right way.”
“Well, the queen yielded for two reasons; the first is, that she has suffered much, and to propose an intrigue to her is to assist her to forget; the second reason is, that the queen is a woman, and she has been told that M. de Mirabeau is like a lion, a tiger, a bear, and no woman knows how to resist the wish, so flattering to her vanity, to tame a bear, a tiger, a lion. She said, 'It will be curious to bring to my feet the man who hates me, and cause him to apologise on the very tribune where he insulted me. I shall see him at my knees; this shall be my reward, my vengeance! And if from this genuflexion any good results to France and royalty, so much the better.' But I tell you that Mirabeau, the man of genius, the man of wit, the great orator, will spend his life and sink into the tomb without ever arriving at what all the world would have him attain to—that is to say, he will never be minister. Ah! mediocrity, after all, dear Gilbert, is a great protection.”
“Then,” asked Gilbert, “the king opposes the arrangement?”
“Peste! he takes care; he must discuss the matter with the queen, when he has nearly pledged his word. You know, the politics of the king consist in that one word, nearly; he is nearly constitutional, he is nearly a philosopher, he is nearly popular. Go to-morrow to the Assembly, my dear doctor, and you will see what will happen.”
“Can you not tell me beforehand?”
“You shall have the pleasure of being surprised.”
“To-morrow? It is a long time.”
“Then do better. It is five o'clock; in another hour the Jacobin club will open. You know these Jacobins are night-birds: do you belong to the society?”
“No; Camille Desmoulins and Danton made me belong to the Cordeliers.”
“As I said, the Jacobin club will meet in an hour. It is a society well put together, and one in which you will not be out of place—be easy. We will dine together; after dinner we will take a carriage; we will go to the Rue St. Honore, and then, forewarned twelve hours, you will have time, perhaps, to prepare for the blow.”
“Monseigneur, dinner is served,” said a valet, opening the two leaves of a door leading into the dining-room, splendidly lit and sumptuously furnished.
“Come,” said Cagliostro, taking the arm of Gilbert.
Gilbert went with the enchanter, entertaining some hope that he might gain a little light from the conversation, to guide him through the dark night which seemed now to surround him.
Two hours after, a carriage without liveries and emblazonries stopped before the steps of the Eglise, St. Roch.
Two men dressed in black descended from the vehicle, and passed along the right side of the street, to the little gateway of the convent of the Jacobins.
The two new-comers had only to follow the crowd, for the crowd was great.
“Will you go into the nave, or take a place in the tribunes?” Cagliostro asked Gilbert.
“I believe,” said Gilbert, “the nave is devoted solely to the members.”
“Without doubt,” said Cagliostro, smiling, “but do not I belong to all societies? and since I belong to them, do not my friends too? Here is a ticket for you, if you wish; as for me, I have only to speak one word.”
“They will recognise us as strangers, and make us go out,” observed Gilbert.
“The society of the Jacobins has been founded three months, there are already sixty thousand members in France, and there will be four hundred thousand before the year is out; moreover, my dear friend,” said Cagliostro, smiling, “here is truly the Grand-Orient, the centre of all secret societies, and not with that imbecile Fauchet, as some think; and if you have not the right to enter here as a Jacobin, you have the right to a place as one of the Rose Cross.”
“No matter,” said Gilbert, “I like the tribunes best.”
“To the tribunes, then,” said Cagliostro. And he went to the right, up a staircase which conducted to the improvised tribunes.
The tribunes were full, but to the first one he addressed Cagliostro had only to make a sign, and speak one word in a low tone, and two men who were seated before him, as if they had been forewarned of his intended arrival, and were only there to guard the seats of himself and Doctor Gilbert, immediately rose and retired.
The sitting had not as yet commenced. The members of the Assembly were spread confusedly over the nave; some formed themselves into groups, and others promenaded in the narrow space left them by their numerous colleagues, while others sat alone in the shade, leaning against the massive pillars.
A few lights sprinkled here and there lessened the gloom, and lit up the countenances and figures of those who happened to be standing near them.
It was easy to see, in spite of the darkness, that in the midst an aristocratic reunion existed. Embroidered coats, and the naval and military uniforms of officers, mottled the crowd, reflecting the light from their gold and silver lacings.
For the lower class there was a second salle below the first, which opened at a different hour, so that the people and the aristocracy did not elbow each, other. For the instruction of the people they had founded a fraternal society.
As for the Jacobins, they were at this time a military society; aristocratic, intellectual and, above all, literary and artistic.
In reality, men of letters and artists were in a majority.
Gilbert cast a long look at this brilliant assembly, recognising each, and calculating in his mind all their different capacities.
Perhaps this loyal assembly comforted him somewhat.
“In one word,” said he to Cagliostro, “what man do you see among all these men who is really hostile to royalty?”
“Should I examine them with the eyes of all the world, with yours, with those of M. Necker, with those of the Abbe Maury, or with my own?”
“With your own,” said Gilbert. “Is it not fit that they should be examined by the eyes of a sorcerer?”
“Very well, then; there are two who are hostile to royalty.”
“Oh! that's not many among four hundred men.”
“It is enough, if one of these two men is to be the slayer of Louis XVI. and the other his successor!”
Gilbert started. “Oh!” murmured he, “are there here a future Brutus and a future Caesar?”
“You will point them out, will you not, count?” said Gilbert, with a smile of doubt upon his brow.
“Oh, unbeliever, whose eyes are covered with scales!” murmured Cagliostro. “I will do more if you wish; I will let you touch them with your finger: with which one will you begin?”
“I think with the destroyer. I have a great regard for chronology. Let us begin with Brutus.”
“Thou knowest,” said Cagliostro, becoming animated, as if he were inspired, “thou knowest that men do not always pursue the same end by the same means. Our Brutus will not resemble in any way the Brutus of old.”
“Only another reason why I should wish to see him.”
“Very well,” said Cagliostro, “look at him!”
And he stretched his arm in the direction of a man who leant against the pulpit, whose head only, just at this moment, stood forth in the light, the rest of the body being in the shade.
This head, pale and livid, seemed like a head nailed in the ancient days of proscription to the tribune.
The eyes alone seemed to sparkle with an expression of hatred almost disdainful, with the expression of a viper that knows its tooth contains a mortal venom. They followed in their numerous evolutions the fiery and wordy Barnave.
Gilbert felt a chill run through his whole body. “Really,” said he, “you have warned me beforehand; there is here neither the head of Brutus nor that of Cromwell.”
“No!” said Cagliostro, “but it is perhaps that of Cassius. You know, my dear fellow, what Caesar said: 'I do not fear all these fat men, these bon-vivants, who pass their days at the table and their nights in orgies; no! those that I fear are the dreamers, with their thin bodies and pale visages.'”
“He whom you have pointed out certainly fulfils these last conditions.”
“Then do you not know him?” asked Cagliostro.
“Ay!” said Gilbert, looking at him with attention; “I know him, or rather I recognise him as a member of the National Assembly.”
“For one of the most long-winded orators of the Left.”
“No one listens when he speaks.”
“A little lawyer of Arras, called Maximilien de Robespierre.”
“Quite right! Now look at this head with attention.”
“No, but you may be a disciple.”
“I see there is an expression of hatred to genius.”
“That is to say, that you too judge him like the rest of the world. Yes, it is true, his voice, feeble and a little sharp; his thin and sad face; the skin of his forehead, which seems drawn tightly over his skull, like yellow and immovable parchment; his glassy eye, which only now and then lets a flash of greenish light escape, and then immediately grows dull; this continual discord of the muscles and the voice; this laborious physiognomy, fatigued through its very immobility; this invariable olive-coloured dress—yes, I can understand that all this ought not to make any very great impression on an Assembly so rich in orators; one which Has the right to be difficult to please, accustomed as it is to the lion-like face of Mirabeau, to the audacity of Barnave, to the sharp repartee of Maury, the warmth of Cazales, and the logic of Sieyes; but we cannot reproach him, as Mirabeau, with immorality; he is an honest man; he will not desert his principles, and if ever he deserts the law, it will be to destroy the old text with the new law.”
“But then,” asked Gilbert, “what is this Robespierre?”
“Well done, thou aristocrat of the seventeenth century. 'What, then, is this Cromwell?' asked Earl Stafford, whose head the Protector cut off. 'A brewer, I believe.'”
“Would you have me believe that my head runs the same risk as that of Sir Thomas Wentworth?” said Gilbert, forcing a smile, which froze on his lips.
“Then so much the more reason to take care,” observed Gilbert.
“What is Robespierre? Well, perhaps no one in the whole of France knows except myself. I like to know whence come the elected of fate; it assists me to tell where they will go. The Robespierres were Irish; perhaps their ancestors formed part of those Irish colonies which, in the sixteenth century, came to inhabit the seminaries and monasteries of our southern coasts. There they received from our Jesuits the good educations they were accustomed to give to their pupils. From father to son they were notaries. One branch of the family—that from which this man descends—established himself at Arras, a great centre, as you know, of noblesse and the Church. There were in the town two seigneurs, or rather, two kings; one was the Abbe of Saint Waast, the other was the Bishop of Arras, whose palace threw one half the town into the shade. It was in this town that he whom you see there was born in 1759. What he did as a child, what as a young man, and what he is doing at this moment, I will tell you in two words; what he will do, I have already told you in one word. There were four children in the house; the head of the family lost his wife; he was avocat aux conseils at Arras; he sank into a profound melancholy; he ceased to plead; started for a journey, and never returned. At eleven years old, this one, the eldest, found himself at the head of the family in his turn:—guardian of a brother and two sisters: at his age! strange! strange! The child undertook the task, and became a man at once; in twenty-four hours he became what he still remains—a countenance that seldom smiles, a heart that has never known joy. He was the best pupil of the college. One of the offices of the college of Louis le Grand, in the gift of the Abbe of Saint Waast, was obtained for him from that prelate. He arrived alone at Paris, with a recommendation to a canon of Notre Dame. In the same year the canon died; nearly at the same time, his youngest and best-loved sister died. The shadow of the Jesuits, whom they were about to expel from France, cast itself again upon the walls of Louis le Grand. You know this building, where, even now, your young Sebastian is studying; its courts, dark and melancholy as those of the Bastille, would cloud the happiest countenance—that of young Robespierre was already pale, they made it livid. Other children went out sometimes. For them, the year bad its Sundays and fete-days; for the orphan, without protection, every day was the same. While the others enjoyed the air of their family, he breathed that of solitude, sadness, and melancholy. Hatred and envy grew up in his heart, and took away the flower from his soul. This hatred destroyed the child, and made him a dull young man. Some day, they will not believe in the truth of a portrait of Robespierre at twenty-four, holding a rose in one hand and the other on his breast, with the device, 'All for my friend!'”
Gilbert sighed sadly when he looked at Robespierre.
“It is true,” continued Cagliostro, “that when he took this device, and had himself painted thus, the girl swore that nothing on earth should separate their destiny; he also swore it, and he was a man to keep an oath. He travelled for three months, and returned to find her married. For the rest, the Abbe de Saint Waast was still his friend; he had given the office in the college of Louis le Grand to his brother, and made Robespierre one of the judges of the criminal courts. A case to be tried—an assassin to punish—came on. Robespierre, too full of remorse to dare to take the life of a man, although guilty, gave in his resignation. He became an avocat, because he wished to live with and maintain his young sister. The brother got on badly at Louis le Grand, but afterwards succeeded better. At last the peasants begged him to plead for them against the Bishop of Arras. The peasants were right: Robespierre was convinced of this by a strict examination of the evidence; pleaded, gained the cause of the peasants, and, still warm with success, was sent to the Assembly. At the National Assembly, Robespierre found himself placed betwixt powerful hatreds and profound contempt—hatred from the clergy for having dared to plead against a bishop; contempt from the nobles, since he had been brought up through charity.”
“But tell me,” interrupted Gilbert, “what has he done up till to-day?”
“Oh, my God! perhaps nothing to others—enough to me. If it did not coincide with my views, the fact of this man being poor, I would give him a million to-morrow.”
“Once again I ask you, what has he done?”
“Do you remember the day when the clergy came to the Assembly to pray the state, kept in suspense by the royal veto, to commence their labours?”
“Then read the speech made by the little lawyer of Arras on that day, and you will see that if there is not a future shadowed forth in this sour vehemence, there is at least eloquence.”
“Then? Ah! it is true we must skip from May to October, when, on the 5th, Maillard, the delegate of the women of Paris, came, in the name of his clients, to address the Assembly. Well, all the members of the Assembly remained immovable and silent. This little lawyer not only showed himself more cross and sour, but more audacious than any. All the pretending defenders of the public were silent; he rose twice—the first time in the midst of a tumult, the second time in the midst of silence. He assisted Maillard, who spoke in the name of the famine, and who asked for bread.”
“Yes, in effect,” said Gilbert, thoughtfully; “but perhaps he will change.”
“Oh! my dear doctor, you do not know the Incorruptible, as they called him one day; otherwise, who could buy this little lawyer, who laughs at all the world? This man, who, a little later—listen, Gilbert, well to what I am now saying—will be the terror of the Assembly, is to-day the butt. It is agreed among the Jacobin nobles that M. de Robespierre is the ridiculous man of the Assembly—the one who amuses everybody, and one whom all may jeer. In the eyes of Lameth, of Cazales, of Maury, of Barnave, of Dupont, M. de Robespierre is a ninny. When he speaks, all the world talks; when he raises his voice, all cry out; and when he has pronounced—always in favour of right, and often to defend a principle—a discourse to which no one has listened, the orator fixes his eyes upon some member—no matter which—and asks ironically what impression his speech has made. One only of his colleagues understands him. Guess who that is: Mirabeau. 'This man will go great lengths,' he said to me the day before yesterday, 'because he believes what he says '—a thing which you know well seems singular to Mirabeau.”
“But,” said Gilbert, “I have read the speeches of this man, and have found them flat and dull.”
“Eh! mon Dieu, I never said he was a Demosthenes or a Cicero, a Mirabeau or a Barnave. No; M. de Robespierre is what one chooses to call him. And then they have treated his speeches at the printer's much in the same way as in the tribune—at the tribune they interrupted him, in the printing—-house they mutilated him. The journalists do not even name M. de Robespierre. No; the journalists do not know his name! They call him M. B—, M. N—or M—. God and myself alone, perhaps, only know what there is in that breast, in that heart. In his melancholy apartments of the triste Marais, in his cold lodging, poor, badly furnished, in the Rue Saintonge, where he lives carefully on his salary as deputy, he is as lonely as he was in the damp courts of Louis le Grand. Until the last year his countenance still looked young. He does not leave the Jacobins, and, from emotion which is invisible to all, he has suffered hemorrhage, which has left him senseless two or three times. You are a great algebraist, Gilbert, but I defy you to calculate the blood which it will cost this noblesse who insult him, these priests who persecute him, this king who ignores him, the blood which Robespierre loses.”
“But why does he come to the Jacobin club?”
“It is that, hissed at at the Assembly, he is listened to at the Jacobin. Of the Jacobins Robespierre is the type; society abridges itself in him, and he is the expression of society—nothing more, nothing less; he walks in the same time as society does, without following it, without being in advance. I promised you, did I not, to let you ere a little instrument, which has for its object the taking off a head, perhaps two, in a minute? Well, of all the people here present, the one who will give most employment to this deadly machine is the little lawyer of Arras, M. de Robespierre.”
“In truth,” said Gilbert, “you are somewhat funereal, and if your Caesar does not make up for your Brutus, I am capable of forgetting the cause for which I came here. Pardon, but what about Caesar?”
“Look! you may see him down there. He speaks with a man whom he does not know as yet, but who will exert a great influence over his destiny. This man calls himself Barras; do you recollect this name, and recall it when necessary.”
“I do not know, count, whether you deceive yourself or not,” said Gilbert, “but in any case you have chosen your types well. Your Caesar has a good forehead to carry a crown on, and his eyes, though I cannot exactly catch their expression—
“Yes! because they are cast down. It is those very eyes which point out the future, doctor.”
“He says that if he had defended the Bastille, it would not have been taken.”
“Men like him do not wish to be anything until they can be it completely.”
“And so you have the pleasantry to think so much of this little sous-lieutenant?”
“Gilbert,” said Cagliostro, as he stretched his hand towards Robespierre, “as surely as one shall reconstruct the scaffold of Charles the First, so surely shall that one”—and he pointed to the sous-lieutenant—“so surely shall he reconstruct the throne of Charlemagne!”
“Then,” cried Gilbert, discouraged, “our struggle for liberty is useless?”
“And who has told you that the one will not do as much for it with the throne, as the other with the scaffold?”
“He will be, then, a Titus, a Marcus Aurelius—the god of peace, coming to console the world for the age of brass!”
“He will belong to the line of Alexander and Hannibal! Born in the midst of war, he will become great through war and fall by war! I have defied you to calculate how much blood the blood lost by Robespierre will cost the noblesse and the clergy; take the blood which will be lost by priests and nobles, multiply them time after time, and you will not have obtained a knowledge of the river of blood, the lake, the sea of blood, which this man, with his army of five hundred thousand men, and his battles lasting three days, will spill!”
“And what will be the result of all this?”
“That which results from all beginnings, Gilbert; we are charged to bury the old world; our children will see a new world born. This man is the giant who guards the door. Like Louis XIV., like Leo X. and Augustus, he will give his name to the age which he commences!”
“And what is his name?” asked Gilbert, in some measure controlled by the air of conviction evident in Cagliostro.
“He is only called Bonaparte at present,” replied the prophet; “but some day he will call himself Napoleon.”
Gilbert rested his head on his hand, and sank into a reverie so deep that he did not perceive at once that the seance was opened, and that an orator had mounted the tribune.
An hour passed, and the different noises of the Assembly had not power sufficient to draw Gilbert from his meditation; then he felt a hand, strong and powerful, laid upon his shoulder.
He turned; Cagliostro had disappeared, but in his place he found Mirabeau.
Mirabeau's countenance was filled with anger.
Gilbert looked at him with a questioning eye.
“It is that we are played with, baffled, betrayed; it is that the court does not wish my services; that it has taken me for a dupe, and you for a fool!”
“I do not understand you, count!”
“The resolution which has just been taken.”
“Then you have slept, have you?”
“No!” said Gilbert, “I dreamt.”
“Well, to-day, in reply to my motion of yesterday, which proposes to invite the ministers to assist at the national deliberation, three friends of the king demanded that no member of the Assembly should be a minister during the session. Then this combination so laboriously constructed passed away before the capricious breath of his majesty Louis XVI. But,” continued Mirabeau, in the meanwhile, like Ajax, his finger pointing heavenwards: “but, as sure as my name is Mirabeau, I will repay them; and if their breath can overturn a ministry, I will show them that mine can upset a throne!”
“But,” said Gilbert,” you will not go less to the Assembly? You will struggle to the end?”
“I will go to the Assembly; I will struggle to the end! I am one of those buried, but beneath ruins .'”
And Mirabeau, half exploding, became more beautiful and terrible from the divine furore which the thunder of his passion had stamped upon his face.
The very next day, indeed, upon the proposition of Lanjuinais, in spite of the efforts of the superhuman genius brought to bear on the question by Mirabeau, the National Assembly adopted the following motion by an immense majority: “That no member of the Assembly could be a minister during the session.”
“And I,” cried Mirabeau, when the decree was voted, “propose an amendment, which shall alter nothing—here it is: 'All the members of the present Assembly may hold office and become ministers, except M. le Comte de Mirabeau.'”
Deaf to this audacity, although spoken in the midst of universal silence, Mirabeau descended from his desk with that step with which he had marched to M. de Dreux Breze, when he said to him, “We are here by the will of the people, we shall not go out except with a bayonet in our stomach.” He left the salle.
The defeat of Mirabeau resembled the triumph of another.
Gilbert had not even come to the Assembly. He had remained at home, and dreamt over the predictions of Cagliostro without believing them; but meanwhile he could not banish them from his mind. The present seemed to him very little when compared with the future!
