XXIX
Meanwhile in Architect Caristie’s house, transformed for the necessities of the State into a prison, the old routine is now restored. Daily, once more, an hour before sunset, the captain of the guard with his half-dozen men, enters the courtyard, and in a loud voice reads the names that appear upon his roll-call. They are the names of those who on the morrow are summoned before the Revolutionary Tribunal, there to answer the charges that are trumped up against them by the venal spies, who make their living out of the blood of innocent men and women and children.
Impossible to refute those charges, since the law has decreed that it is a crime to be merely suspected of treason against the State. Foucquier-Tinville, the great Public Prosecutor in Paris, no longer troubles, it seems, to prepare fresh indictments against every accused in turn. He has a printed formula of accusation, with just the name left in blank, presently to be filled in as convenience arises. Therefore in other greater and lesser cities of France, patriots desirous of showing their zeal, can do no better than emulate the example set by so great a man. Local sections of the Committee of Public Safety prepare the indictments—set formulae with the names left in blank. These they pass on to the Public Prosecutor who mumbles as he reads them before the Tribunal with the President sitting up on the dais, and the accused—names left in blank—brought up to the bar, not allowed to say a word in their own justification, nor to question the witnesses brought up to testify against them.
Abandon all hope then, ye whose names are upon that Roll-call! tomorrow the Tribunal, the next day the guillotine! And once again now, day after day, the captain of the guard comes to the house, late of Architect Caristie, and reads; and at all the windows that overlook the courtyard heads appear, men, women and little children—clutching the bars and listening. Listening for their own name or that of one who is dear. Sighing with relief if neither has been called, or with resignation if tomorrow is destined to bring this miserable existence to an end.
And day after day Chauvelin presides over this tribunal of infamy. Self-appointed, he sits upon the dais and sees before him pass a daily file of doomed and dying. Sometimes ten, sometimes as many as twenty in a day, and still the prisons are full—fresh arrests make up for those whom the guillotine has claimed. Acquittals are rare, for moderation now has become a crime. Danton—aye! even Danton, the lion, has perished, he who ordered the September massacres, he who thundered forth from the tribune, “Liberty! Fraternity! Equality! or Death!” he has perished because he became guilty of this crime of moderation. The glorious revolution has no use for two such of its products as Danton and Robespierre—for the reality of the one and the canting hypocrisy of the other: so Danton it was who perished. “It is right,” he had dared to say once, “to repress the Royalists: but we should not confound the innocent with the guilty!”
“And who told thee,” Robespierre retorted, sea-green with hatred, “that one single innocent has perished by our hand?”
And because Danton had dared to raise his voice in the cause of the innocent, Danton had perished.
What chance then has Chauvelin to defend his Fleurette? His power is great. He can make or unmake your Pocharts and your Danous, your President Legrange or Public Prosecutor Isnard, but he cannot accord special privileges in prison for his own daughter. He cannot see her in private, comfort her, warn her if need be, tell her not to be afraid for Bibi chéri is there, on the watch, ready to protect her with his body, to stand by her in the last hour. He cannot. Pochart and Danou are on the watch. “We must not confound the innocent with the guilty:” Danton had dared to say. And for this he had perished: and though he perished, could not save one single innocent.
And all evening, after the sittings of the Tribunal are over, and ten—or mayhap fifteen or twenty—condemned to the guillotine, Chauvelin like a pale, thin ghost haunts the purlieus of Architect Caristie’s house. On pretext of his office he enters the courtyard with the captain of the guard and looks up at the windows to see if she is there. Once he saw her: just her little face peeping behind the opulent shoulders of one Claire de Châtelard, the best noted strumpet in Orange. The woman had one arm round Fleurette’s waist and when the captain of the guard read out the name of Claire known as Châtelard upon his list, Fleurette threw her arms round her, and laid her head upon the trollop’s breast.
Chauvelin turned away from the spectacle with a groan, and all night he lay awake thinking of his sweet flower laying her head upon the breast of a Claire de Châtelard.
Yet Claire de Châtelard bore herself bravely before him the next day, and when, on the day after that, he watched her from the window of the Hôtel de Ville mounting the steps of the guillotine, saw her standing there, superb and defiant with a coarse jest upon her sensual lips, he gloated over the thought that his Fleurette would no longer pillow her innocent head upon that breast. He tried to picture her, grieving for this friend, the propinquity, the squalor of that house of detention, from which there was but one egress, that egress the gate of Death. Claire de Châtelard today—Fleurette when? Every day the indictments are sent up to him for examination, the printed forms of accusation with the names left in blank, to be filled in as convenience demands: and every day a list of ten, perhaps fifteen names are sent along with these printed forms, and it is his business to direct the Public Prosecutor, a man of his own choosing, which of these names are to be inserted in the blank spaces, on the forms of accusation. Up to now he has been able to keep Fleurette’s name out, but it has been sent up to him on two consecutive days. The fight then was getting at close quarters. Pochart and Danou were pressing him, showing their teeth like snarling dogs ready to spring. And time was hurrying on. Time would presently bring back President Legrange and Prosecutor Isnard from Paris, time would inevitably bring to light his machinations for keeping those two men out of the way. Aye! time was hurrying on, and Fleurette’s name had twice appeared upon the list.
And for the past three days not a word in the town about the English spies. After Architect Caristie and his family, it had been the widow Colmars and her daughter, and then General Paulieu and his family. Disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them up. Always traitors and aristos whose arrest was imminent, whose subsequent condemnation certain. But after that, three days’ respite: the Scarlet Pimpernel and his gang seemed to have disappeared in their turn. The hopes which insidious demons had whispered in Chauvelin’s ears were once more merged in a sea of despair. He derided himself for these hopes, lashed himself into a state of fury against himself for having allowed his mind to dwell upon them.
One scheme after another now did he devise and then reject. He would defy his enemies, the jury, the populace: loudly denounce the witnesses against Fleurette as liars and perjurers, pronounce her acquittal in the face of all opposition. Had he not made a point day after day of pronouncing acquittal on one or the other of the accused? just to test his power—to see how his enemies would behave? And he saw them lying low. Sneering. Whispering. Ogling him and laughing. They knew! They saw behind his schemes and his hopes. They reserved their counterattack. They could afford to wait, whilst he could not.
If only Fleurette bore herself well: did not allow herself to be carried away with admissions or inconsidered words, out of sentiment for that fool Amédé Colombe. Chauvelin longed to see her, if only to impress this one thing upon her; to say nothing. To admit nothing. To hold her tongue and to trust chéri Bibi. If only she did that, he felt that he might save her yet. And obsessed by this idea, devoured with the desire to convey this message to her, without compromising her or giving yet another advantage to his enemies, Chauvelin at evening would wander like a restless ghost through the city.
That afternoon after he watched Claire de Châtelard mount the steps of the guillotine, a joke upon her lips, this restlessness became exquisite torture, and racked with tumultuous thoughts, wrapped in a black mantle, he sallied forth into the streets. It was now early in June: nearly three weeks since that last carefree day, Fleurette’s eighteenth birthday, spent with her over at Lou Mas, when the scent of almond blossom had been in the air and the nightingale had sung in the old walnut-tree. The day had been sunless and chilly, after sunset the rain began to fall. But rain and weather held no terrors for Chauvelin in his present mood. Holding his mantle tightly round his shoulders and pulling his hat down over his eyes, he wandered aimlessly through the streets, over the river and back again, down unpaved streets and lonely lanes, now and then sitting down to rest in some obscure little outlying café, where no one knew or heeded him, and then starting off again on his restless course. But always drifting back instinctively to the purlieus of Architect Caristie’s house.
Almost opposite to it there was a small café: no one sitting outside because of the rain, but the interior lighted up, and sounds of merriment proceeding from within. Chauvelin thought of going inside, feeling that if he sat down there close to the window, he could watch the walls behind which lived and suffered his little Fleurette. He did not dare go in for fear of being recognized. He was just debating within himself whether he would go or stay, when he saw a man come out of the house of Architect Caristie, cross over to the café, then disappear behind its creaking door. A scavenger, no doubt, ragged and dirty—not a warder, he was too ill-clad for that—just a scavenger—but perhaps he had seen Fleurette. The thought fascinated Chauvelin. His mind clung to it: turned it over and over. The thought that here was a man who perhaps had seen Fleurette within the last few minutes, had swept corridor or staircase when she was passing by. And with that thought there was still the burning desire to send her a message, to tell her to be brave and trust in Bibi, but above all, oh! above all, not to be led into making any admission about those valuables belonging to Madame de Frontenac, or about her association with Amédé Colombe.
Chauvelin, leaning against the wall which faced the little café, dwelt on his thoughts and his desire. He allowed the rain to drip upon his hat and upon his shoulders from the roof above him. He no longer felt restless. He just wanted to stand there and watch for the return of the man, who perhaps would be seeing Fleurette again within the next few minutes. He wondered if he dare approach him, always with the idea of possibly conveying a message to Fleurette. But the fear that the man might know who he was, deterred him from entering the café himself. He had been a fairly conspicuous figure in the courtyard of Caristie’s house, standing by the side of the captain of the guard; if that scavenger was at work in the corridor, he might have looked out of the window and seen him, learned who he was. All through he had been at pains to show an indifferent attitude before his enemies: if this man happened to be a spy, would the knowledge that he, Chauvelin, was trying to establish communication with Fleurette compromise him hopelessly and do no good to her? As he stood there pondering and debating what he had better do, he saw the scavenger come out of the café. For a minute or two the man stood at the door, his hands buried in the pockets of his ragged breeches, contemplating the rain. The next moment another, equally dirty and bedraggled ruffian came down the street, paused at the entrance of the café and passed the time of day with the scavenger. The two mudlarks remained talking for a few moments, after which they parted; each going his own way. The scavenger recrossed the road and entered the Caristie House. The other passed on in the opposite direction and Chauvelin, after an instant’s hesitation, followed him. He came up with the man at the angle of the Rue Longue: and putting out his arm, touched him on the shoulder. With a cry of terror the man fell on his knees.
“Mercy! I’ve done nothing!” he babbled almost incoherently.
“I dare say not,” Chauvelin said drily, “but it will be to thine advantage if thou’lt come along quietly with me.”
He seized the man by the arm and dragged him up from his knees. The poor wretch tried to wriggle himself free, but Chauvelin held him tightly, and without another word drew him within the shelter of the nearest doorway. Fortunately, though the man kept up a ceaseless litany of lamentations and cries for mercy, he did so under his breath, thus creating no disturbance nor exciting the attention of the few passersby who were hurrying homewards through the rain-swept streets.
“Are you willing, citizen,” Chauvelin began abruptly, as soon as he had assured himself that the doorway was deserted and no eavesdropper nigh, “are you willing to earn fifty livres tournoi?”
The man gave no immediate reply, it seemed as if he was shaking himself free from his first terror and pondering over this extraordinary proposal, so different to what he had anticipated. Then he cleared his throat, expectorated, slowly repeated the magic words: “Fifty livres tournoi!” and finally added in an awed whisper:
“I have not seen five livres tournoi for months.”
“Fifty are yours, citizen, if you’ll render me a service.”
“What is it?”
“That friend of yours, to whom you spoke just now—outside the café de la Lune—”
“Citizen Rémi?”
“He works in the Caristie House?”
“Yes.”
“In what capacity?”
“Cleaner,” the man replied laconically. “Rémi hung about for days trying to earn a bit of money. He hasn’t a sou, you understand? Same as me. A few days ago one of the inside men fell sick. Rémi presented himself and got the work. I know him well.”
“He has access to the prisoners?” Chauvelin asked.
“I suppose so.”
“Then tell him that there will be fifty livres for him too if he will convey a written message to number 142 in room 12.”
Again the man seemed to ponder: weighing the risks probably, and also the gain. Fifty livres tournoi! Immense. He had forgotten that there was such a sum of money left in the world: and then for him to have the handling of it! This led him once more to expectorate, which action apparently had the effect of stimulating his brainpower.
“It could be done,” he murmured at last.
“It can be done,” Chauvelin asserted emphatically, “but must be done quickly, or—”
“Rémi will be back at the Café de la Lune soon after eight o’clock. He always goes there for a sip of something after supper.”
“Good! Then you can meet him at that hour and tell him to wait for you, then come at once and find me here, under this doorway. I’ll have the letter ready—”
“The whole thing is very risky, citizen,” the man demurred.
“If it were not,” Chauvelin rejoined drily, “I would not spend one hundred livres tournoi in the attempt.”
“Fifty livres is not over much, when one risks one’s neck.”
“You are not risking your neck,” Chauvelin retorted, “as you well know. And you’ll not get more from me than fifty livres each. Take it or leave it.”
He knew how to deal with these mudlarks, apparently, for the man after he had spat once more once or twice, seemed satisfied.
“I’ll be back here,” he said laconically, “after I have seen Rémi again.”
Then Chauvelin let him go. The darkness and the rain soon swallowed him up: but Chauvelin himself remained for quite a while standing motionless under the doorway. He had not yet burnt his boats, was still free, if he thought the risk too great, to fail in his appointment. The man did not know who he was, had not seen him in the darkness and under the wide brim of his hat: but there was the risk that this Rémi might be a spy, who would take the letter intended for Fleurette straightway to Pochart or Danou. The letter might thus betray him and so minimize his power of saving Fleurette. He had to safeguard himself against the merest breath of suspicion in order to keep his power. The more irreproachable, detached, incorruptible he appeared before the populace, the more Spartan in his attitude towards his own child until the day of her trial, the greater his chance of saving her at the last. But his desire to warn her against unconsidered words or any kind of admissions outweighed for the moment every other consideration. He hurried back to his lodgings through the rain, and at once sat down to pen his letter to the child.
“My beloved one,” he began, “at last I am able to send a word to you, which I hope and trust will reach your darling little hands. Child of my heart, this is to entreat you to continue in your trust of me, for I swear to you by the memory of your dead mother, that while you trust me I can save you. I can save the man you love. Moreover, I entreat you, beloved child of my soul, do not make any admission when brought before the tribunal, as you must be shortly, alas! If witnesses testify against you, just hold your peace; if others question you, deny everything. This I entreat you to do for the sake of the love I bear you, for the sake of the tears I have shed these past weeks, ever since your folly hath brought you to this pass.”
He signed the letter “Bibi.” Thus he had mentioned no names and in addition taken the precaution of disguising his writing as far as he was able. After which he sealed the letter and slipped it in the inner pocket of his coat. Time was now hanging heavily. Like a beast in its cage, Chauvelin paced up and down the narrow room, his hands clenched behind his back, a world of soul agony expressed upon his wax-like face.
As soon as he heard the tower-clock of Notre-Dame strike eight, he picked up his hat and cloak and once more sallied forth into the streets.