Crowned with the Immortals

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CROWNED WITH THE IMMORTALS ti ©tttntUe gtesmoitlms CROWNED WITH THE IMMORTALS BY MRS. HYLTON DALE LONDON H. S. NICHOLS 3 SOHO SQUARE and 62a PICCADILLY W. MDCCCXCVI (AU rights reserved) Printed and Published by H. S. NICHOLS 3 SOHO SQUARE LONDON W j_B*Mcat*& By KIND PERMISSION TO MONSIEUR JULES CLARETIE, WHOSE EXHAUSTIVE HISTORY OF CAMILLE DESMOULINS HAS INSPIRED MUCH OF THIS STORY. MARIANNE DALE. CONTENTS PAGE Dawning Love i The Crookedness of True Love's Path .22 Donning the Cockade 42 The Performance of "Charles IX." .75 " Chagrin d'Amour "........ 97 A Happy Sdpper Party ........ 121 An Ideal Marriage ... .... 145 At the Opera 183 Camille Pleads for Mercy for All 218 A Heartrending Parting . . . . 245 The Trial 273 At the Guillotine 294 Camille's Lilac 3r3

Chapter I Dawning

love One beautiful day in the year 1788, a fair, graceful young girl of seventeen, with an ex pressive, mobile face, blue eyes, and luxuriant blonde tresses, was walking with her mother under the fine trees now bursting into full leaf in the gardens of the old Palace of the Luxem bourg, in Paris. Many other people like them selves were enjoying the exceptionally warm spring weather, lovely sunshine, and balmy breezes. Amongst these was a young man who bowed low to Madame Duplessis in passing, and let his large black eyes rest admiringly and lingeringly on the fresh, innocent face of her youthful daughter. " Who is that gentleman, mamma ? " asked little Lucile Duplessis, as the young man's slen der, agile figure disappeared down one of the avenues of trees. " I seem to know his face." " That is M. Camille Desmoulins, a young barrister from Guise in Picardy.

He comes to see your father occasionally, but has not been very often of late." " Papa knows so many people," said Lucile. " Does he like M. Desmoulins ? " " Very much indeed. He says he is a very clever young man. He prophesies that the world will one day hear of Camille Desmoulins ; and I feel assured of it too. But in the meanwhile, until he makes a practice, I fear he has not much money." "Bah! What is money ?" said Lucile, a little contemptuously. She was one of two children, her parents being in good circumstances, so she had never felt the want of money, or probably her tone would have been different. " If a man has brains, he will soon make money, if he wants to do so. That is easy enough." " Not so easy as you think, my child. It depends upon the quality of the brains as well as circumstances.

Some have the faculty of making money — the energy, the purpose, the per severance, and shrewd qualities which go to form the man of business ; whereas others — and I think M. Desmoulins is one — care little for money, but much for such abstract qualities as justice, humanity, liberty, and perhaps fame." " I feel I should like M. Desmoulins, mamma. The picture you draw of his character is most interesting," said Lucile. She was an enthusiastic little being, full of romantic notions, which her easy life at home with her parents, who adored her, had done much to foster. As she walked on with her mother, her active mind built castles in the air around the bright-looking young man whose image had just flashed upon her sight, and made an in effaceable impression on her youthful heart and lively imagination.

It was thus that Lucile Duplessis and Camille Desmoulins first regarded each other with looks of interest. In the Luxembourg gardens their eyes i — first met with dawning love ; in the same gardens, later on, their last agonised and mute farewell was taken before Camille went forth to his pitiless death, to be joined a few days later by his adored Lucile, who blessed God for His mercy in thus re-uniting her to her beloved husband. This meeting at the Luxembourg was fol lowed by others in the gardens of the Champs Elysees, and in the streets of Paris, when Lucile and her sister Adele accompanied their mother in her walks, or at M. Duplessis' house, where the young man, who was full of fascinating and charming qualities, soon became popular with all the family. The strong and vivid impression which he had made on Lucile's virgin heart was warmly reciprocated by his impulsive one.

In a very little time the young couple were deeply in love with each other, not with the ephemeral passion of youth, but with the pro found and earnest love of matured, deep-rooted seeling. Camille Desmoulins was endowed with ex ceptional powers of mind and heart. He was a great classical scholar and earnest student of ancient history, yet was saturated with all the most modern ideas of the day. He was a brilliantly witty writer, and was enthusiastic and eloquent. Until he fell in love with little Lucile Duplessis, one passion only filled his heart and mind, that of liberty, the love of which he assimilated at school from the study of Cicero and other great classical authors. His father, a worthy man who held a small government appointment, early recognised his son's high order of intelligence, and gave him a most judicious training.

At school and college Camille carried all before him. He worked assiduously, for he loved learning for its own sake. His classical scholarship distinguished him to the last days of his brief career. All his many writings were full of allusions to, and quotations from, Greek and Roman authors. He wore out six copies of Vertol's " Roman Revolutions," and was never without a volume of this book in his pocket, and one of the " Philippics of Cicero." His love and constant study of antiquity inspired him with republican ideals which became his most marked characteristic. The fierce virtues and independent spirit of the old Roman republicans were reflected in this ardent student of their lives and literature, and he even congratulated him self on the possession of three baptismal Roman names — Camillus, Sulpicius, Lucillus.

At college Camille made many friends, some for life, such as the bold and generous Danton and the eloquent Freron, but his chief friend was Robespierre, who failed him in the supreme moment of trial — in the last and most glorious days of Camille's career. In youth, Robespierre showed no signs of the cruel, sanguinary quali ties which later on caused his name to be handed down to posterity " covered with the curses of the mothers of France." He was even an advo cate for the abolition of capital punishment. He was always cold in manner, and was never led away by his emotions, thus presenting a marked contrast to Camille, who was always swayed by them, although his fine brain develop ment prevented his being a slave to them. Both young men were destined for the Bar. With the intense and enthusiastic nature of the artist, Camille threw himself with -zeal into any pursuit or study which was congenial to him, and it was in the same passionate, all compelling manner that he fell over head and ears in love with little Lucile Duplessis.

But in this case he found that he was " reckoning without his host." M. Duplessis was a keen, shrewd man of business, who had raised himself by strict probity, attention, and constant diligence to a very substantial position in life. Like all men who had made their own fortunes and who were not " born with silver spoons in their mouths," he had an intense admiration for money and men of wealth. He admired all talent, as it was the forerunner of success, but a solid position above all things was what he aimed at himself, and which he hoped to see attained by the future husband of his pet child. With the usual blindness of fathers in such matters, he had failed to perceive that his Lucile was the object of the young man's increasing attentions. He had thought Camille liked to hear his opinions on the state of the country and the necessity of reform — topics in all men's minds at this period.

That a young man, undeniably clever, but almost penniless, should ask him for his daughter's hand amazed him beyond measure. " But what income have you to offer, my friend ? " asked the portly old gentleman, as he leaned back in his comfortable chair in his library, during an interview with Camille. " Little at present," answered Camille readily enough ; " but I do not ask to marry immediately, but merely to be affianced openly to your daughter, as I hope I have won her affections." " Have you spoken to her before speaking to me, sir?" asked M. Duplessis sternly, and with all the typical French father's indignant objection to such a proceeding. " Certainly not, sir," said Camille hastily. " How could you think so? I should not be so dishonourable. But I hope— mind, I only say I hope — I have made myself understood.

There is a language of the eyes as well as the tongue, you know." " Ah ! and so you and Lucile have been speaking with your eyes, have you ? " said M. Duplessis, glancing with a smile at Camille's beautiful black ones, which were now bent so earnestly on his. Camille smiled responsively, and his expressive face lit up most pleasingly, endowing it with additional charm. " Well, well," M. Duplessis continued, " I was young myself once, and don't forget what that means. However, this language had better cease. Lucile is a mere child. I am in no hurry to part with her, but, when the time comes, I have other views for her." " Oh, sir ! " exclaimed Camille, aghast at this information. " Do not say that, I beg. I love her passionately and absorbingly. The thought of her fills my whole being." " Tut, tut," said M. Duplessis impatiently.

" How many other girls have filled your whole being, I wonder." " Not one as Lucile does," said he eagerly ; and, shaking back his long black hair from his broad and beautiful forehead, he looked M. Duplessis firmly in the face. " Of course I have loved, or thought I did, like all other men who have reached the age of twenty-seven, but the thought of Lucile is rapture. She is so sweet, so charming, so lovely. Her laugh is so musical, her heart is so good, that I " " Yes, yes, she is all that," said the father, interrupting the lover's raptures. " I value her quite as much as you do, young man ; in fact, more so, as I am her father, and have known her for seventeen years, while you have not known her intimately for more than as many days. So because I value her so highly, I want to see her married, in the troublous times that are before us, to a man with a cool head, who can keep it, and who has an eye to the main chance.

Now, with all my respect for your talents and learning, M. Desmoulins, which are of the highest order, coolness of head is the last thing one would expect from you, and as for money, why, you would throw your last guinea to a starving family, and give your only coat off your back to cover a fellow-creature's naked ness. You would espouse the cause of the helpless and friendless, even if it led to your being locked up in the Bastille. All this is very fine, and I admire it immensely, but not in my future son-in-law. I want the husband of Lucile to be a good, steady, stay-at-home young fellow, who would look after her and her children, and perhaps her mother, after I am gone, and take care of them like a respectable bourgeois, such as I have always tried to be." " No one would take care of Lucile more tenderly than I would, M. Duplessis," said Camille, his voice trembling with emotion.

" If the deepest, purest love of the heart of a man such as I am could not make her happy, nothing could. I would shield her from all evil, from all harm, and would devote myself to her." " I don't doubt your love for her, or that you would be kind to her. You would be all right in those respects. I would trust your sense of right and good heart as I would my own ; but it is the nature of the man of genius that I fear," said M. Duplessis very gravely. " Do not misunderstand me. I think you infinitely above most of the other young men whom I invite to my house in talents, eloquence, nobility of character, and insight. I may not perhaps live to see it, but I think you will write your name large on the history of your times ; or you may lose your head ; perhaps both may happen, the two things are not incom patible.

But I should be content with smaller aims and ambitions for my daughter if the man is a good sort of man, with a substantial and certain income. He may not be as interesting to young women as you are, but he will be a safer husband — one that will keep out of all scrapes and make a good man of business." " I fear I shall never be a good man of business," said Camille sighing ; " but I should be a good husband. I have been a good and dutiful son." "I do not doubt it, my friend. One has only to look in your honest face to see that you are incapable of being otherwise." " I am not rich, it is true, and perhaps never may be, but I hope to make a lucrative prac tice at the Bar in time. I have won all my cases so far." " Yes, I know. But you are too fond of mixing yourself up with political matters to give your undivided attention to your own affairs, and this does not pay.

I warrant that every hole and-corner meeting that comes off in Paris you attend religiously. Now do you not ? And 3'ou speak at them. Am I not right ? " " Yes, that is quite true. Who with a heart can help it ? The position of the country gets more and more hopeless. The people starve while the Court dances and revels, and the Ring buys new palaces for his Queen with an empty treasury. No taxes come in ; there is nothing left to be taxed belonging to the poor, and the rich still draw their revenues, when they can get them, with tears of blood from the peasants. But the day of reckoning approaches. France will not much longer see her life-blood drawn from her by wanton nobles and great church men, to be spent in frivolity at court. She will not much longer tolerate the infamous Bourbon race, who have turned our lovely land into a howling wilderness.

Louis XVI. is not bad, per haps, you will say ; but the difference between a weak king and a bad king is nil. Look at Henry III. ! Louis has neither the vices of the Valois nor those of his own race ; but he is a poor, shallow nonentity, ruled by his thoughtless but by no means brainless wife, who cares nothing for the French nation if she can only amuse and dress herself in fine garments. Ah ! what a curse have kings been to France ! Poor, poor France ! Yes," he said, clenching his fist and walking excitedly about the room, and almost forgetting the presence of M. Duplessis, " I hold kings in horror. How could anyone help hating them, tigers that they are ? " " There ! " exclaimed M. Duplessis. " You fly off on your political hobby at the smallest provo cation, and have almost forgotten Lucile in the very act of asking me for her.

I quite agree with all you say, my friend, but I am prudent, and don't run any risk where I can do no good. You will gain nothing by uttering your opinions on all occasions, and you may get more than you bargain for." " Bah ! " said Camille. " Lettres de cachet have somewhat gone out of fashion in the reign of the highly respectable locksmith. A pretty man, truly, to be at the head of a great nation ! A king who cares for only two things, hunting and lock-making ! A king, to justify his kingship, should be a leader of men ; the pioneer of every movement for the improvement of the condition of his people. If not, why does he exist ? Louis has not the vices of his ancestors, I grant you ; but what is there to be said of a king who wastes the golden opportunities for usefulness in work only fit for apprentices ?

He has not a single grand or noble quality, he has no aspira tions, no ideals. He is heavy, old, and enfeebled before his time, not with his own wrong-doing, but that of his race. The 'Augean stable' of the Bourbons must be cleansed once for all, and a Republic declared. I am a republican on principle — from education, inclination, and reason. I pray God I may yet live to cry, ' Vive la Republique ! ' " His voice rang out clearly and resonantly in the stillness of M. Duplessis' pleasant room. " Hush, hush ! " said the cautious and careful bourgeois, "the window is open, do not forget that;" and, rising, he proceeded to shut it, after looking up and down the street. " Fortunately there are few people about at this time of the day, or they would wonder what orgy is taking place in my sober house.

Your feelings carry you along impetuously like a torrent, and you will carry many with you. With your fire and en thusiasm you would easily create a whirlpool of passions, but in it all you yourself might be destroyed. What then would become of Lucile ? The husband I hope to see her wed must have prudence above all things. Money I do not stand out for, to the same extent, though I should like to see her suitor endowed with more means than you have, my friend ; but still that is not my first consideration, as I have enough for both. I can give Lucile a handsome dowry, and mean to do so, if she marries the man of my choice, but that is not you." " Have you decided upon the man ? " Camille asked, his usually pale face becoming even paler as M. Duplessis rose from his seat to bring the interview to a close.

" No. I have one or two probably likely suitors in my mind, but there is plenty of time to think about that later on. I don't want to part with my child to the first man who asks me for her, as if I were glad to be rid of her. She is happy enough with her old father and mother." " As long as she is not betrothed to another of her own free will, I shall never give up hope of winning her, sir. I adore Lucile. I believe she loves me, and if she does, she will wait for me until I have shown myself worthy of your confidence." He bowed gracefully to M. Duplessis and passed out of the room, congratulating him self that he had kept his sarcastic tongue in sub jection, and that he had said nothing to wound the self - esteem of the worthy but essentially commonplace M. Duplessis. On closing the library door behind him, Camille was conscious of the blushing face of Lucile appearing in the opening of the doorway on the other side of the hall.

" Come in, M. Desmoulins," she said, drawing him into the room. " Mamma wishes to see you." "Well, my friend," said the kind-hearted lady, " has your interview with my husband been to your mind ? " She was sitting very uprightly in a high-backed chair, and was dressed in a handsome black satin dress, crossed over with a white muslin fichu, and wore a large frilled white cap on her still pretty brown hair, as yet untouched with grey. " Far from it, madam," said Camille sadly. " It has plunged me into the depths of woe, but not of despair. Your mother," he continued, turning to Lucile, " knew the nature of my errand to your father to-night. It was to ask his permission to be affianced to you, dearest Lucile, for I love you deeply and truly. But M. Duplessis refuses me." Lucile's face turned from rosy red to pallor.

" He has other views for you, and so I cannot force my suit upon him at present. But understand, dear Lucile, I shall never give up the hope of making you my wife until you are married to another whom you love." " I can never love anyone else," said Lucile, simply, and raising her large blue eyes to his dark, passionate ones. " Then you do love me, dearest ! " he exclaimed, a warm flush spreading over his pale face. He looked radiant with joy. " Say to me once, ' I love you, Camille.' Let me go away with the words ringing in my ears "—taking her hand and pressing it fondly. "I love you, Camille," said Lucile tenderly, "and can never love or marry anyone but you. If I am not your wife, no one else shall claim me at the altar." " My darling girl," he said rapturously, kissing her hand, "if you love me, I care for nothing else.

I can wait. We can wait, madam," he said, turning to Madame Duplessis, who smiled be nignly on the lovers. She was heart and soul for Camille. The ardent and sympathetic young man had won her over to his cause in the first instance by his gallant bearing, manliness, and strength of character, which never fail to appeal to women of all ages. "Yes, you must wait," she said, "but there is plenty of time before you. You love each other. That is well. Show M. Duplessis by your fidelity and steadfastness of character that he may safely trust our child to you. Remember / have full confidence in you, Camille" — calling him by his Christian name for the first time. 2 — "I know it, madam, and thank and bless you for it," said the emotional young man, tears rising to his eyes at this mark of Madame Duplessis' regard ; and still holding Lucile's hand, he took that of her mother and pressed it respectfully to his lips.

"M. Duplessis fears I am not prudent enough to marry. He thinks I may land myself in difficulties by my vigorous and plain speaking on behalf of our suffering country. I hope not, but I must fulfil my destiny whatever it may be." "Yes, yes, indeed," said Lucile eagerly. "I would spur you on to do noble deeds, not hold you back. I would not have you hampered in your work by the thought of me." "Thank you, my darling, for those words a thousand times," said Camille passionately. "The thought of what you say will inspire me, if I need inspiration. My Lucile, my angel ! I love you more than ever, if possible, for those words, and bless you for them." "I would not be a drag upon you, Camille," said the young girl; "I sympathise too deeply with all I have heard you utter to my father and M. Robespierre about the people's sufferings, and our duty towards the weak and oppressed.

I understand your ideas, and would like to help you in your work. I do not like to lead my petted, spoiled existence while so many other girls — perhaps better ones than I am — are suffering from want or privation. It would be a privilege to help a noble man in his life's work." "Ah, is she not a treasure, madam?" exclaimed Camille warmly, and pressing the young girl in his arms. "When we are married — and we shall be one day, I know, I feel it in my heart, in my soul — what a helpmeet she will prove to one who longs to serve his country ! I pray God to make me worthy of the trust of her pure love, and to enable me to shake off all that is petty or ignoble in my nature, and to help me to rise to the height of my destiny." He pressed his lips to Lucile's, with the never-to-be-forgotten first kiss of love ; and in spite of M. Duplessis and his determination, the lovers were in as blissful a state of happiness as it is possible to be on earth.

Chapter II The Crookedness Of True Love's Path

Until Lucile had met Camille, like most young girls of her age, she did not understand her own feelings. The strict education which she had received in her convent school, combined with the early religious training she had had from her good and conscientious mother, and her own innate devotional feelings, had inclined her to wards a conventual life. She had felt her heart rise in adoration of her Creator, and, in her ad miration of His glorious works and the veneration she felt for His attributes, she had worked herself into a state of exaltation, which in an earlier epoch would have caused her to seek her fancied vocation in a convent. The heart of the young maiden was expanding, though she knew it not. In lieu of the perfect man whom each young girl hopes to meet on earth to complete her own nature, she turned in adoration to the One Perfect Being above, who alone met all the aspirations and desired qualities of her heart.

She looked around her with her bright intel ligence, and saw that while the world of God was "very good," man had done his best to mar his Creator's works by sin and wickedness. Never in the history of modern civilisation had society arrived at such a pitch of corruption as in France a hundred years ago. The suffering was intense, owing to many generations of bad government, the profligacy and extravagance of the ruling classes, and the monstrous system of taxation, by which the vast estates of the nobles and great churchmen, who took all that was best in the land, were left untaxed, and the poor, who had so little, were ground down by imposts, which to us, born in happier times, seem almost incon ceivable. At last, the poor had nothing left to tax. Starvation and misery stared millions of people in the face.

The land was not deemed worth cultivation by the peasant, who was despoiled of his meagre profits by his seigneur, who could come down on him at any moment and take from him all that he had. " With barely bread to eat, water to drink, straw to sleep on, or a hut to shelter him, his condition was worse than that of savages," in many parts of France. Many people ate dead carrion, and women smothered their children rather than see them die the slow and agonising death of starvation. In some districts people died " as thick as flies, of poverty, and the living ate grass." D'Argenson said, " The peasants are no longer aught but poor slaves, beasts of burden fastened to a yoke." In Paris, in the previous reign, a poor man once clung to the carriage of the Ring, and held out a loaf of adul terated black bread for him to see, crying, " Misery, famine !

See what they make us pay three sous a pound for." The harvests failed, the ground was barren, in one of the fairest and finest countries in the world. The toiling masses saw their money spent in debauchery by the great ones of the earth, who cared naught for their sufferings, and steeped themselves in pleasure to the lips. No wonder that bitter hate surged up in the minds of the oppressed for their selfish task-masters and superiors, who were dead to feelings of pity and mercy, or that the miserable wretches indulged in ferocious joy over the sorrows and sufferings of the "aristocrats" when the day of reckoning came. It startles many who study the history of those times to find that when the hour of vengeance came, the women seemed even more ferocious than the men ; but a little thought will explain this.

Thousands of mothers in France had seen their children die before their eyes of hunger, cold and nakedness, or grow up miserable mental and physical abortions — "un taught, uncomforted, unfed." From this sight they could never escape. The men had certain work to perform, which relieved their minds for the time being, but the women were compelled to stop at home and witness their children's misery in all its terrible details, and toil and suffer them selves so painfully, that women of thirty-five looked sixty, and died in what should have been their prime, worn out in body and mind. Little Lucile was startled and horrified, in gazing forth upon the world around her, to find that the ideal life, upon the thought of which she so fondly lingered, did not exist. Misery, suffering, selfishness, and wrong-doing were rife in Paris— the heart of France, to which all that was of evil gravitated, as well as any that was of good.