GILBERT'S ANXIETY required no stimulation. He remembered what Andree had told him of his son's route, and hurried after it, and reached the lane of St. Hyacinthe.
Here he began to inspect the locality, and in the third door, by the grated cross, recognised Andree's description, which was too exact to admit a doubt. He knocked, but no one answered. He knocked again.
He fancied that he heard a timid and suspicious step approach him, by the stair-way.
“Who is there?” said a female voice.
“Open the door; I am the father of the wounded child whom you received.”
“Open, Albertine!” said another voice. “It is Dr. Gilbert!”
“Father, father!” said a third voice, in which Gilbert recognised his son's.
The door was opened, and he ascended the steps, uttering his thanks as he went.
At the last step he found himself in a kind of cellar, lighted by a lamp, and covered with papers, as Andree had said.
In the dark, and on a kind of pallet, Gilbert saw his son, who appealed to him with outstretched hands. Powerful as Gilbert's self-control was, paternal love triumphed over philosophical decorum, and he clasped his child to his breast warmly, though he took care not to wound his bleeding arm or sore chest.
After a long paternal kiss, in which all was communicated, though unuttered, Gilbert turned to his host.
He stood erect, with his legs apart, one hand resting on the table, the other on his hip, looking by the light of the lamp at the scene which passed before him.
“Look, Albertine,” said he, “and thank the chance which has enabled me to be of service to one of my confreres.”
As the surgeon spoke, Gilbert looked around, and for the first time looked at the shapeless being before him.
A yellow and green light seemed to flash from his eyes, and declared that, like one of those persons pursued by Latona, if not human, he was not a toad.
Gilbert shuddered in spite of himself. He seemed in some dream to have already seen this man in a sea of carnage.
He approached Sebastian, and clasped him more tenderly than before.
He soon triumphed over this feeling, and going to the stranger, pressed his hand tenderly, saying,
“Receive my thanks, sir, for the preservation of my son's life. Believe me, I speak truly, and from my heart.”
“Sir,” said the surgeon, “I have done only what feelings and science inspired and required. As Terence says:
'Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienura puto.'
“My heart, too, is tender, and I cannot see even an insect suffer—certainly then I cannot see a man.”
“May I ask to what philanthropist I have the honour to speak?”
“You do not know me, brother?” said the surgeon, smiling with an air he wished to make insinuatory, but which was hideous. “Eh! well—I know you are Dr. Gilbert, the friend of Washington and Lafayette.” He laid particular stress upon the last name. “The men of America and France, the honest Utopians who made such magnificent theories about constitutional monarchy, addressed to his majesty Louis XVI., which his majesty Louis XVI. rewarded by sending you to the Bastille, directly you touched the soil of France. You wished to save him by sweeping away impediments in his future course. He sent you to prison as a reward. Royal gratitude!”
On this occasion the surgeon laughed terribly.
“As you know me, sir, it is another reason why I repeat my questions, and ask your name in return.”
“Ah, we became acquainted very long ago, sir. Twenty years ago, on a terrible night, you were then about as old as this child. You were brought dead, wounded and dying as he is. You were brought to me by Master Rousseau, and I bled you on a table covered with bodies and amputated limbs. On that terrible night, it is pleasant to remember, thanks to a knife that knows how far to enter, to cut, to cure, or to cicatrize, I saved many lives.”
“Oh!” said Gilbert, “you are Jean Paul Marat.”
In spite of himself, he drew back a pace.
“You see, Albertine, that my name has its influence!”
And he burst into a malicious laugh.
“But,” said Gilbert, quickly, “why are you here, in this cellar, lighted only by a smoky lamp? I thought you physician of Monsieur d'Artois.”
“I was his veterinary surgeon. The prince, however, has emigrated, and having no horses, needs no veterinary surgeon. Besides, I resigned,—I would not serve tyrants.”
“Why, though, are you here, in this cellar,—in this den?”
“Because I am a patriot, and denounce the ambitious in my writings. M. Bailly hates me, Necker fears me, Lafayette pursues me, and has put a price on my head. The ambitious dictator! From my cavern, I pursue, denounce, and brave the dictator. Do you know what has been done?”
“He has had made in the Faubourg Saint Antoine fifteen thousand snuff-boxes with his portrait. I beg all good citizens to break them wherever they find them. It is the password, this, of a royalist plot. You do not know, that while poor Louis weeps hot tears at the follies the Austrian makes him commit, Lafayette conspires with the queen.”
“With the queen?” said Gilbert, in thought.
“Yes, with the queen,” said Marat, sharply. “You will not say that she does not conspire. She distributed the other day so many ribands and white cockades, that white riband rose three cents a yard. The thing is certain; I heard it from one of the daughters of Madame Berlin, the queen's marchande des modes, her prime minister. That lady said, 'I have been all day at work with her majesty.'”
“And where do you denounce all that?”
“In my paper, a journal I have founded, 'L'Ami du Peuple' or 'Le Publiciste Parisien,' a political and impartial paper. To pay for the paper and printing of the first number. I sold even the covering of the bed in which your child lies.”
Gilbert did turn, and saw that Sebastian really lay on a perfectly bare mattress, and that, overcome by fatigue and pain, he slept.
The doctor approached him, to ascertain whether or no he had fainted. Reassured, however, by his regular respiration, he returned to Marat, who inspired the same interest called forth by a wild animal.
“Ah! ha! turkeys fly in gangs,—eagles fly alone. I am assisted by my hand and head.
“See you that table? It is Vulcan's forge, where thunderbolts are made. Every day I write eight pages, which are sold in the morning. Sometimes eight pages will not suffice, and then I write sixteen. What I begin with large type, generally ends in small. Other journalists relieve each other at intervals and then suspend; it is not my way: 'The Friend of the People' always appears. It is not merely a name but a person. It is myself.”
“But how do you accomplish all this work?”
“Ah, that is a secret between death and myself. I have given up ten years of my life, and she grants me days that need no rest, nights that need no repose. My life is simple. I write all day and all night. Lafayette's police compels me to live in secret, and forces me to activity. At first it annoyed me, and was oppressive to me,—now I like it. I like to look at society through the miserable gratings of my cavern, through my dark cage. In the depth of night I reign over the living, and judge without appeal science and politics. With one hand I demolish Newton, Franklin, La Place, Monge, Lavoisier; with the other I make Bailly, Necker, and Lafayette tremble. I will overthrow all that. Yes, perhaps as Samson overthrew the Temple and buried himself beneath the ruins, I, too, may be crushed amid the fragments of the throne.”
This man repeated in a cavern, and in the rags of misery, nearly what Cagliostro had in embroidery said in the palace.
“But,” said he, “popular as you are, why have you not at least procured a nomination to the National Assembly?”
“Ah!” said Marat, almost at once, “were I sustained as tribune of the people, by some thousands of determined men, I promise you that in six weeks the constitution would be perfected, and the political machine proceed perfectly. Not a villain should dare to interfere with it—the nation would be free and happy, and in less than one year it would become flourishing, and remain so as long as I live.”
The vain-glorious creature became transformed beneath Gilbert's eye. His own eyes became blood-shot, as his yellow skin shone with sweat. The monster was great on account of his ugliness, as others are on account of their beauty.
“Ah!” continued he, resuming his thought, which enthusiasm had interrupted. “I will not be tribune; I cannot find the thousands of men I need. I have, though, writing materials—pen, ink, and paper. I have readers and subscribers, who look on me as a prophet and an oracle. I have the people, the friend of whom I am, and whom I lead trembling from treason, from terror. In the first number of 'L'Ami du Peuple' I denounced the aristocrats, and said there were six hundred criminals in France, and that six hundred ropes were required. I was deceived nearly a month, for on the 5th and 6th of October I became enlightened, and saw that not six hundred, but ten thousand aristocrats should be destroyed.”
Gilbert smiled. Fury which had reached this point surpassed folly.
“Take care,” said he. “There is not hemp enough in France to make the ropes you think so necessary.”
“I trust,” said Marat, “that more expeditious means will be tried. Do you know whom I expect in ten minutes to knock at my door?”
“A person of our profession, a member of the National Assembly, whom you know by name, Citizen Guillotin.”
“Do you know what Guillotin has invented? A wonderful machine which kills without pain. Death should be a punishment, not a torture. He has invented this machine, and one of these days we will try it.”
Gilbert shuddered. This was the second time he had heard of this machine. From the man in the cellar, and from Cagliostro in the palace.
“Ah!” said Marat, as a knock was just then heard. “It is he. Go, Albertine, arid open.”
Amazed, terrified, a prey to something like swimming in the head, Gilbert went instinctively to Sebastian's side, intending to take him in his arms and carry him home.
“Look,” said Marat, mechanically, “at a machine which is self-acting, and needs but one man to put it in motion, which by changing the knife three times, can cut off a hundred heads a day, without any other sensation than a slight coolness about the neck.”
“Ah! is it you, doctor?” said Marat, turning to a little man who had a box of the form and size of those which contain children's toys in his hands. “What have you there?”
“A model of my famous machine, dear Marat. I am not mistaken,” said the little man. “Is that Doctor Gilbert I see?”
“It is,“ said Gilbert, bowing.
“I am delighted to see you; you are not in the way at all, and I shall be glad to have the opinion of so distinguished a man on my invention. I must tell you, Marat, I found a very skilful carpenter, Guidon, to make my large machine. He asks five thousand francs for it, but no sacrifice is too great, in my opinion, for the benefit of man. In two months it will be completed, and tried. Yes. I will, in the interim, propose the matter to the Assembly, and I hope they will approve the proposition, and that you will prepare the way in your excellent journal, though, indeed, my machine recommends itself, as you are about to see. A few lines in 'L'Ami du Peuple' will do no harm.”
“Be easy about the matter,” said Marat, “I will not only afford you a few lines, but an entire number.”
“You are very good, dear Marat, but I wish you to judge for yourself,” said Guillotin.
He drew from his pocket a second box, about the size of the first, and a noise inside denoted that it contained something alive, or rather something anxious to get out.
This noise was observed immediately by Marat's quick ear.
“Ah, ha!” said the latter. “What is that?”
“You shall see,” said Guillotin.
Marat put his hand on the box.
“Be careful not to let them escape, for we cannot retake them. They are mice, whom we are about to decapitate. What are you going to do. Doctor Gilbert? Not go?”
“Alas! yes, sir,” replied Gilbert, “to my great regret. But my son, wounded tins evening by being knocked down in the street, has been relieved, bled, and dressed by Doctor Marat, to whom, under similar circumstances, I am indebted for my own life, and whom I again thank. The child needs a fresh bed, rest and care. I cannot, then, witness your interesting experiment.”
“But you will see the great experiment we will make two months hence? Will you not, doctor?''
“I will remember your promise.”
“Doctor,” said Marat, “I need not remind you to keep the place of my concealment a secret.”
“Your friend, Lafayette, if he knew it, would have me shot like a dog, or hung as a robber.”
“Shot! hung!” said Guillotin, “all that will be done away with. Shooting and hanging will disappear. There will be a quiet, easy, and instantaneous death established. A death so easy, that all men disgusted with life, and who wish to die like sages and philosophers, will prefer it to a natural one. Come, look at it, dear Marat, look at it.”
Without attending any longer to Dr. Gilbert, Guillotin opened the large box, and began to arrange his machine with equal curiosity and enthusiasm.
Gilbert took advantage of the opportunity to lift up Sebastian, who was yet asleep, and carried him away.
Albertine again escorted him to the gate, which she carefully closed behind him.
Once again in the street, he felt, by the cold on his face, that he was covered with perspiration, which the night wind was congealing.
“Oil, my God! what is about to befall this city, whose cellars conceal, perhaps, even now five hundred philanthropists, occupied and busy in such discoveries as that I was so near seeing just now, and which, one day, will burst forth beneath the light of heaven.”
From the Street de la Sourdiere to the house of Gilbert, Rue St. Honore, was but a step.
Cold and motion had awakened Sebastian. He wished to walk, but his father would not consent, and continued to carry him.
When the doctor came to the door, he placed Sebastian on his feet, for a moment, and knocked; he had not long to wait in the street.
A coarse, though quick voice, was heard on the other side of the door. “Is it you, M. Gilbert?” said the voice.
“Heaven be praised,” said Pitou as he opened the door. “Sebastian is found and unhurt, I trust, M. Gilbert.”
“At least, without any serious accident,” said the doctor. “Come, Sebastian.”
Leaving to Pitou the care of closing the door in the face of the drowsy porter, who appeared in chemise and nightcap, with Sebastian in his arms, he began to go upstairs.
Uneasy and afraid, Pitou followed. By his muddy and stained shoes, it was easy to see that he had just arrived, after a long journey.
Gilbert thanked Pitou as a brave fellow should be thanked—that is, by a pressure of the hand, and as he thought that after a journey of eighteen leagues, and anxiety for six hours, the traveller ought to have some rest, he wished him good-night, and sent him to his bed.
As for Gilbert, he did not wish to leave to another the care of watching and attending Sebastian. He himself examined the bruise on the breast of his child, and applied his ear to several places on his chest, and being assured that respiration was thoroughly free, he settled himself in an easy chair near the child, who, in spite of much fever, sank quickly to sleep.
But soon, remembering the uneasiness which Andree must feel, according to that which he had himself experienced, he called his valet, and directed him to put at once into the post, so that it should reach her address early in the morning, a letter in which were written the following words:
“Re-assure yourself; the child is found and is not injured.”
