XXI
It seemed almost the worst moment of this awful day to see Adèle—Adèle!—standing there, like some sly and furtive rodent, snapping at the hand that had fed and tended it. The lessons taught by all these makers of a revolution which was going to be a millennium for the people, and inaugurate an era of brotherly love, had been well learnt by all those who had nothing to lose and everything to gain by venality, by treachery and the blackest of ingratitude. And Chauvelin himself had been head master in that school, where this wretched little bastard had learned how to hate; she was the personification of that proletariat which he had striven to exalt, of the low, mean mind that never tries to rise, and only strives to drag down others to the level of its own crass ignorance. Adèle was only a product of that levelling process which was going to make of mankind one great family, full of love for one another, of pity for the weak and contempt of the strong, and which had only succeeded in arousing a universal hatred in every breast and envy of everything that was lofty and pure. The levelling process according to its early protagonists—idealists for the most part—was destined to eliminate all tyranny and to protect those who were too weak to protect themselves; but all it had succeeded in doing was to substitute one tyranny for another; it had not levelled the classes, made one man as good as another; what it had done was to hurl down from his self-imposed altitude of nobility or of virtue every man who was unwilling to step down of his own accord. It had set every beggar on horseback who was a beggar by nature, and kept him there by virtue of ruthlessness and of cruelty. None but a fellow-beggar, more ruthless perhaps, and more cruel, could unseat him. Death was the only real leveller, and this glorious revolution had become a fraternity of death. The Republic of France must march to Liberty over corpses, one of its makers had said, and another added sententiously that no traitor failed to return, except the dead. Terror reigned now everywhere, marching hand in hand with its handmaiden the guillotine.
The time was no longer far distant when this titanic battle between all these beggars on horseback would reach its fiercest struggle ere it ended in a gigantic cataclysm, and when the gorge of all these tigers would rise at last in face of the daily hecatombs which had made a graveyard of the fair lands of France. But that time was not yet. Men like Chauvelin had seen visions of Retribution like fiery Fata Morgana pointing to the inevitable hour, but the Godets, the Danous, the Pocharts and the Adèles knew not the signs of the times. They had learnt their lesson and were applying it for their own advancement and above all for their own safety, destroying all that was destructible, taking Earth and Heaven to witness that they whose lives had been nought but misery and hunger would henceforth sweep off the face of the earth all those who had only known ease and comfort, who had practised virtue, and never known despair.
And Adèle, whose hatred of Fleurette had thriven all these years as in a forcing-house, had learnt her lesson well. Fleurette to her meant tyranny, the tyranny of riches over her poverty, of good food over her empty stomach, of neat kirtle over her rags. Poverty and Hunger had enchained her to Fleurette’s wheel, had forced her to wash dishes, to scrub floors, to sleep on a straw pallet. But now her turn had come. Her very misery had put it in her power to drag Fleurette down to her own level. She had imbibed the principles of this glorious revolution until she felt herself to be one of its prophets. She had spied on Fleurette and denounced her because she had seen at last a way to satisfy her hatred and to lull her envy to rest.
She had plenty to say when questioned by Pochart and Danou; proud of the fact that for over two years now she had supplied the Sisteron section of the Committee of Public Safety with information about the district. She had known the ci-devant Frontenacs and it was—she was proud to state—chiefly owing to her that they came to be suspected of treason. They used to turn one of their rooms into a chapel on Sundays and a ci-devant priest, who was not Constitutional, performed there rites and ceremonies with wafer and cup which had long since been decreed treasonable against the State. Adèle had been forced by the ci-devant Frontenac women to be present at these treasonable practices; she had even been made to scrub the floor of that temple of superstition and to remove the dust from the so-called altar. Her patriotic soul had risen in revolt and she had journeyed to Sisteron one day when she was free and placed the matter before the Committee of Public Safety who had commended her for her zeal.
“Adèle!” Fleurette exclaimed involuntarily. “How could you? Indeed le bon Dieu will punish you for this.”
At which remark everybody laughed—except Chauvelin, who smothered a groan. Oh! the child! the senseless, foolish, adorable child! She seemed wilfully to run her darling head into the noose. Adèle turned a sneering glance on Fleurette.
“I’ll chance a punishment from your bon Dieu,” she said flippantly, “for the joy of seeing you punished by the Revolutionary Tribunal.”
And strange to say Chauvelin did not strike her, though she stood quite near him, with only the width of the table between her and his avenging hand. But he did not strike her, even though his muscles ached with the desire to strike her on the mouth. It was pride that held him back. How those men would have laughed to see him lose his self-control with this wench who was only emitting principles that he indirectly had taught her. Retribution! Nemesis at every turn.
And now Adèle embarked upon her main story. Her spying on Fleurette. Long, long had she suspected her, with her airs of virtue and bunches of forget-me-nots in front of a statue representing a ci-devant saint. “Saint Antoine de Padoue, priez pour nous!” every time she placed a fresh bunch of flowers before that statue. Bah! such superstition made a patriot’s gorge rise with disgust. But Adèle had said nothing. Not for a long time. She knew that citizen Chauvelin—he was known as Armand over at Laragne—was a great patriot and an intimate friend of Citizen Robespierre over in Paris. So Adèle decided to bide her time, and she did. Until that evening when at last the Frontenacs were arrested and the château ransacked. That night Adèle had had her suspicions aroused by Fleurette’s strange airs of mystery, her desire to meet Citizen Colombe alone on a dark night. Fleurette had always been such a Sainte Nitouche that Adèle guessed that something serious was in the wind.
Like a zealous patriot she had watched, and she had seen Fleurette hand over a casket and a wallet to young Colombe. She had heard the two talk over the question of hiding these things in a shed behind Citizen Colombe’s shop, and finally seen them locked in each other’s arms, which confirmed her in the idea that Fleurette, with all her appearances of virtue, was a woman guilty of moral turpitude.
And still Chauvelin did not strike her on the mouth. He fell to wondering what crime he had committed that was heinous enough to deserve this punishment of impotence.
The others listened for the most part in silence. Only occasionally did one or the other break into a chuckle. Nom de nom, what an event! Representative Chauvelin! the man of almost arrogant integrity, sent to Orange to spy and report on the workings of the Committee of Public Safety, one of the makers of the Terror, a man whose every glance was a menace, and every word a threat of death! When Adèle had finished speaking, Pochart winked across at Danou. Here was a find that would exalt them both, bring their names to the notice of the great men over in Paris. All sorts of possibilities of reward and advancement loomed largely before them. And Pochart rubbed his large, coarse hands contentedly together and Danou poured himself out a glass of water and drank it down. All these possibilities had made him thirsty.
Fleurette too was silent. For the first time in her life she had come in contact with human passions of which hitherto she had not even dreamed. Adèle, the little maid of all work, with the coarse hands, the red elbows and narrow ratlike face, who wore Fleurette’s cast-off clothes and worn-out shoes, had suddenly become an ununderstandable and terrifying enigma. Fleurette felt as if she could not utter a sound, that any word of protest which she might raise would choke her. The girl’s words, her bitter accusations, spoken in an even monotone, gave her a feeling as of an icy-cold grip upon her heart. Surrounded from her cradle onwards with love and care this first glimpse of spite and hatred paralysed her. Only when Adèle spoke of M’sieu’ Amédé and of that kiss which had tokened him to Fleurette, that delicious kiss under the almond-trees, only then did a hot blush rise to her cheeks, and tears of shame gather in her eyes.
Beyond that she felt like an automaton, while these four creatures who hated her and who hated Bibi were discussing her fate. Bibi was strangely silent and motionless although from time to time the others referred a question or two to him in which case he replied in curt monosyllables. There was much talk of “detention” and of “revolutionary tribunal.” Of course Fleurette did not understand what these meant. Since Bibi appeared so indifferent, she supposed that nothing very serious was going to happen to her.
Presently Adèle and Godet were dismissed. Adèle swept past her with her shawl once more over her head hiding the expression of her face. Her eyes did not meet Fleurette’s as she glided past like a little rat seeking its burrow. Perhaps she was ashamed. Godet was ordered to send two men along—they would be wanted to take the citoyenne to the house of detention. Godet gave the salute and followed Adèle out of the room.
Fleurette’s feet were aching. She had been standing quite still for over half an hour, and was longing to sit down. Bibi’s eyes were upon her now, and his long thin hands were fidgeting nervously with a paper-knife. At one time he clutched it so tightly, and half raised it, as if he meant to strike one or the other of his colleagues. Fleurette, tired and a little dizzy, only caught snatches of their conversation. At one time Bibi said very quietly:
“You are very bold, Citizen Danou, to measure your influence against mine.”
And the man on Bibi’s left retorted very suavely:
“If I have transgressed, citizen representative, I’ll answer for it.”
“You will,” Bibi rejoined, and his words came through his thin, compressed lips, harsh and dry like blows from a wooden mallet against a metal plate. “And with your head, probably.”
“Is that a threat, Citizen Chauvelin?” the other asked with a sneer.
“You may take it so if you wish.”
The man on Chauvelin’s right, Citizen Pochart, had in the meanwhile been writing assiduously on a large piece of paper. Now he pushed the paper in front of Chauvelin and said curtly:
“Will you sign this, citizen representative?”
“What is it?” Chauvelin asked.
“Order for the provisional arrest of one Fleur Chauvelin, suspect of treasonable connections with the enemies of France, pending her appearance before the Revolutionary Tribunal.”
Chauvelin raised the paper and read it through carefully. His hand that held the paper was perfectly steady.
“Your signature,” Pochart went on, and held out the quill pen invitingly toward Chauvelin, “as Representative of the National Convention on special mission is necessary on this order.”
“You may take that as a threat too, Citizen Chauvelin,” Danou added with a sly wink directed at his colleague Pochart, “for if you do not sign, there’s others that will, and sign one too that will be even more unpleasant for you.”
Chauvelin took the pen, and the two men, Pochart and Danou, sprawling over the table, had the satisfaction of seeing him sign the order for the arrest of his own child—her death probably. Not the first time either that something of the sort had occurred, that a man put his seal on the death-warrant of his kith or kin. Had not Philippe d’Orléans voted for the death of his cousin the King? Chauvelin signed with a steady hand, his lips tightly pressed one against the other. They should not see, these fiends, what torture he was enduring; they should not see that at this moment he felt just like a brute beast writhing in agony. Not that he had abandoned hope with regard to Fleurette. He felt confident that he could turn the order into a mere scrap of paper presently, and see those two snarling dogs fawning at his feet once more, kicked with the toe of his boot and howling in vain for mercy.
It was only from humiliation that, conscious of his power, he had decided that silence and outward acquiescence were his best policy. He had certain cards up his sleeve which the others wot not of, but he could only play them if he succeeded in lulling them into a sense of security by his obvious indifference. Fortunately his reputation stood him in good stead. He was known by his enemies to be so ruthless and so unscrupulous—such an ardent patriot, declared his friends—that his indifference now where his own daughter was concerned, did not even astonish Pochart and Danou. It was just like Citizen Chauvelin to send his own daughter to the guillotine. And this estimate of his character helped him to play the role that would mean life to Fleurette.
So there he sat for a few minutes, perfectly impassive, his face a mask, his hand perfectly steady, perusing the paper, and then deliberately drawing his pen through one of the words and substituting another.
“We’ll say the house of Caristie,” he said dryly, “the other is already full.”
Pochart shrugged his shoulders. Why not concede this point? It was so fine to have the citizen representative under one’s thumb. What matter if his daughter was thrust into one prison rather than another?
“Is the guard there?” Danou asked. “We have plenty of business to see to. This one has lasted quite long enough.”
“There is still that report from Avignon to look through,” Pochart added. “It will need your attention, citizen representative.”
“I’ll be with you in one moment,” Chauvelin replied calmly.
He rose and went to the door. Opened it. Yes! there was the guard sent hither by Godet, two men to escort his Fleurette to the house of Caristie the architect, now transformed into a house of detention. Chauvelin did not even wince at sight of them. He closed the door quietly and then approached Fleurette. He took hold of her hand and drew her to the furthest corner of the room, out of earshot.
“You are not frightened, little one?” he whispered to her.
“No, Bibi chéri,” she replied simply. “If you tell me not to be.”
“There is nothing to be frightened at, Fleurette. These brutes wish you ill; but—”
“Why should they?”
“But I can protect you.”
“I know you can, chéri Bibi.”
“And you won’t see that wretch Adèle again.”
“I wonder why she hates me! I thought we were friends.”
“There are no friends these days, little one,” he said almost involuntarily. “Only enemies or the indifferent—They are the least dangerous.”
“There are those whom we love.”
“You are thinking of Amédé?”
“And of you, chéri Bibi.”
“You believed me, didn’t you, little one, when I told you that young Colombe is safely out of harm’s way?”
“Yes,” she said, “I believed you.”
“Then you will hold your tongue about—about what you know?”
“I promise you, chéri Bibi. But I won’t allow Amédé to suffer for what I did,” she added with that determined little air of hers, which Chauvelin had learned to dread.
“He won’t. He can’t,” he declared, whilst an exclamation of impatience at her obstinacy almost escaped him. “Have I not told you—”
“We are waiting, Citizen Chauvelin,” Danou’s unctuous voice broke in at this point. “As you are near the door, perhaps you will call the guard.”
He did. And stood silently by, while Fleurette was ordered to follow the men. She obeyed, after a last, smiling glance at Bibi. No! she was not frightened; she felt sure that he could protect her, and so long as M’sieu’ Amédé was safe—
The last words she said before she finally passed through the door were:
“Poor old Louise! You’ll tell her, won’t you, Bibi, not to fret for me? and tell her to send me my crochet work if she can. I shall have plenty of time on my hands to get on with it.”