Chapter XXXV…

Chapter XXXV

IN WHICH ABATUCCI FULFILS THE MISSION THAT HE HAS RECEIVED FROM HIS GENERAL, AND CHARLES THAT WHICH HE RECEIVED FROM GOD

Pichegru glanced around the room to make sure that they were alone, and then, lowering his voice, he said: "Charles, my dear child, you have made a sacred promise in the sight of heaven which you must keep. If there is in this world a promise which should be kept inviolate above all others, it is one that has been made to a dying man. I have told you that I would give you the means to fulfil it, and I now keep my word. You still have the count's foraging-cap?" Charles unbuttoned his coat and showed the general the cap.

"Good! I shall send you to Besançon with Falou. You will go with him to the little village of Boussières, and will give the burgomaster the money intended for his mother; and, as I do not wish that any one should think that this is pillage money, which they certainly would if her son gave it to her himself, I desire that the burgomaster shall hand it to her himself. A letter from me will moreover remain in the village, bearing witness to our new quartermaster's courage. I give you and Falou eight days' leave from the time you reach Besançon; you will doubtless want to show your new uniform."

"And will you give me nothing for my father?"

"A letter when you are ready to start."

Just then Leblanc announced that dinner was ready.

On entering the dining-room the general cast an anxious glance at the table; it was full, and more than full, Pichegru having invited Desaix to dine with him. The latter had brought with him one of his friends who was in Pichegru's army, and whom he had made his aide-de-camp, René Savary, the same who had written Faraud's certificate upon his corporal's stripes. The dinner was as lively as usual, all the officers of the staff being present; only two or three were wounded and those very slightly. After dinner they mounted their horses, and the general, with his entire staff, visited the outposts.

When they returned to the town, the general dismounted and told Charles to do the same; and, giving the two horses to the chasseur in attendance, he told Charles to accompany him to the streets where the shops were located.

"Charles, my boy," he said, "in addition to the official and secret missions with which you are charged, I should like to give you a special one. Will you accept it?"

"Gladly, general," said Charles, clinging to Pichegru's arm. "What is it?"

"I don't know yet. I have a friend at Besançon named Rose; she lives in the Rue Collombier, No. 7."

"Ah!" exclaimed Charles, "I know her, she is our family seamstress. She is a kind-hearted woman about thirty, who limps a little."

"Exactly," said Pichegru, smiling. "The other day she sent me six fine linen shirts which she had made herself. I should like to send her something in return."

"That is a good idea, general."

"But what shall I send? I do not know what would please her."

"Take the advice that the weather itself gives you--buy her a good umbrella. We will use it on the way home. Then I will tell her that you have used it, and it will be all the more precious to her."

"You are right; it will be most useful to her when she goes out. Poor Rose, she has no carriage. Let us go in here."

They were just opposite an umbrella-shop. Pichegru opened and shut ten or twelve, finally selecting a magnificent sky-blue one. He paid thirty-eight francs in paper money at par for it. This was the gift which the first general of the Republic sent to his best friend. The reader will readily understand that I should not have related this incident if it were not historic.

When they returned at night, Pichegru busied himself with his correspondence, telling Charles, who was to start the next day, to sleep well.

It was on this evening that the curious occurrence which I am about to relate took place. It was told to me by little Charles himself, after he had grown to be a man of forty-five, and had become a learned writer, with the great library he had wished for so many years before.

Charles, obeying Saint-Just's decree, threw himself upon his bed all dressed. Like all who wore the uniform, he customarily had a black cravat tied tight around his neck. It was like that which Pichegru himself wore, and which all the staff had adopted; in the first place, out of compliment to the general, and, secondly, in protest against Saint-Just's voluminous neckpieces. Charles, in order to copy the general more exactly, tied his in a little knot on the left side--a fashion which he continued to follow until his death.

Half an hour later, Pichegru, who was working, heard Charles moan. At first he paid no attention to it, thinking that the boy was dreaming; but as the groans became more pronounced, and changed to a rattling in the throat, Pichegru rose, went to the boy, whom he found lying face down, raised his head after slipping his hand under his neck, and untied the knot which was strangling him.

The boy awoke, and, recognizing Pichegru, who was bending over him, asked: "Is it you, general; do you need me?"

"No," replied the general, laughing, "it is you, on the contrary, who needed me. You were uneasy and groaned, and when I came to look at you I had no difficulty in finding what was the matter with you. Any one who wears a tight cravat like us must take care to loosen it a little before going to sleep. I will explain to you some other time how neglect of this precaution might cause apoplexy and sudden death. It is one method of suicide."

And we shall see that it was the one which Pichegru adopted later.

On the next day Abatucci started for Paris, Faraud and his two comrades for Châteauroux, and Charles and Falou for Besançon. A fortnight later Faraud sent word that distribution had been made throughout the Department of the Indre.

The general had already received a letter from Abatucci, written ten days after his departure, telling how he had presented the five flags to the President amid cries of "Long live the Republic!" from all the members of the Convention and the spectators, adding that the President had thereupon confirmed his rank.

Finally, on the fourth day after Charles's departure, before he heard from any one else, Pichegru received the following letter on the 14th Nivôse (3d of January):

MY DEAR GENERAL--The new calendar made me forget one thing, that, by reaching Besançon on the 31st of December, I should be able to wish all my family a happy New Year on the following day.

You, however, did not forget it, and my father feels grateful to you for your kindness and thanks you heartily.

On the 1st of January (old style), after we had wished one another a happy new year, and had embraced each other, Falou and I set out for the village of Boussières. There, as you had directed, we stopped the carriage at the burgomaster's house to whom your letter was addressed; he forthwith summoned the village drummer who announces all important news to the people. He directed him to read your letter over three times so that no mistake should be made, and then he sent him to beat his drum before old Mother Falou's door, who, at the first tap, came to the threshold leaning on her stick. Falou and I were only a few steps away.

As soon as the roll ceased the proclamation began. When she heard her son's name the poor old woman, who had not understood very well, began to cry, asking: "Is he dead? Is he dead?"

An oath, big enough to crack the sky, made her turn, and then, seeing the uniform dimly, she cried: "There he is! There he is!"

And then she fell into her son's arms, and he embraced her amid the applause of the whole village. Thereupon, as the proclamation, which had been interrupted by this little scene, had not been fully understood, it was begun all over again. As the drummer read the last sentence, the burgomaster, who wished to make his little sensation, came forward with a wreath in one hand and the purse in the other. He put the laurel-wreath on Falou's head and the purse in his mother's hand. I could not stay any longer, but I heard later that the village of Boussières had a celebration that day with illuminations, a ball, and fireworks, and that Falou went about among his fellow citizens with his laurel-wreath on his head, like Cæsar, until two o'clock in the morning.

As for me, general, I returned to Besançon to carry out the sad duty which you know about, and of which I will tell you the full particulars when I see you again.

Not until then did I find time to attend to your commission; but after that I hastened to the Rue Collombier, No. 7, and went up to the third floor. Rose recognized me and received me as a little friend; but when she knew that I came from her great friend, then I tell you, general, poor Rose could not say enough. She took me in her arms, kissed me, and wept over me.

"What! did he really think of me?"

"Yes, Mademoiselle Rose."

"Of his own accord?"

"I assure you that it is so."

"And did he choose this beautiful umbrella himself?"

"He himself."

"And he used it when he returned to the hotel?"

"Well, we both used it, but he held it."

Without another word she looked at the handle, kissed it and wept over it. I did not try to check her tears, but wept with her; they were tears of joy, and it would have pained her had I said: "Stop!" Then I told her how satisfied you were with the shirts she had sent you and that you would wear no others. This made her all the worse. Then how we did talk about you! She is going to write you herself and thank you, but she bade me say all sorts of kind things to you from her.

I must also say in regard to my father that you must have told him some pretty stories in regard to his son, for while he was reading he looked at me queerly, and I noticed that his eyes were wet. Like Mademoiselle Rose, he will write to you.

I fear that I have taken more of your time than I deserve; but you have made an important personage of me by intrusting me with three commissions, and so I hope you will pardon this chatter from your little friend. CHARLES NODIER.

THE THIRTEENTH VENDÉMIAIRE

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I. A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

Nearly two years have elapsed since the events recorded in our first volume. In order that our readers may clearly understand those which are to follow we must take a rapid bird's-eye view of the two terrible though inevitable years of 1794 and 1795.

As Vergniaud, and after him Pichegru, had prophesied, the Revolution had devoured her own children. Let us watch the terrible harpy at her work.

On the 5th of April, 1795, the Cordeliers were executed. Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Bazire, Chabot, Lacroix, Hérault de Sechelles, and the poet-martyr Fabre d'Eglantine, author of the most popular of our popular songs, "Il pleut, il pleut, bergère," died together on the same scaffold whither Robespierre, Saint-Just, Merlin (of Douai), Couthon, Collot d'Herbois, Fouché (of Nantes) and Vadier sent them.

Then came the Jacobins turn. Vadier, Tallien, Billaud and Fréron accused Robespierre of having usurped the dictatorship; and Robespierre, his jaw shattered by a pistol-ball, Saint-Just, with lofty countenance, Couthon, both of whose legs had been crushed, Lebas--in short their friends to the number of twenty-two--were executed on the day following the tumultuous one which is known in history as the fatal day of the 9th Thermidor.

On the 10th Thermidor the Revolution was still alive, because the Revolution was immortal, and no rise or fall of parties could kill it. The Revolution still lived, though the Republic was dead. With Robespierre and Saint-Just the Republic was beheaded. On the evening of their execution, the boys were shouting at the doors of the theatres, "Carriages? Who wants a carriage? Want a carriage, bourgeois?" On the next day and the day after that eighty-two Jacobins followed Robespierre, Saint-Just and their friends to the Place de la Revolution.

Pichegru, who was then commander-in-chief of the Army of the North, learned of this bloody reaction. He saw that the hour for blood had passed and the time for filth had come, with Vadier, Tallien, Billaud and Fréron. He sent privately to Mulheim, and Fauche-Borel, the prince's messenger, hastened to him.

Pichegru divined correctly that the ascending period of the Revolution was past. The reactionary or descending period had arrived; blood was still to be shed, but it was the blood of reprisals.

On the 17th of May the hall of the Jacobins--the cradle of the Revolution, the strength of the Republic--was finally closed by a decree. Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, the colleague of the executioner's knife, who was no more guilty than it, since he simply obeyed the orders of the Revolutionary Tribunal as the knife obeyed his own--Fouquier-Tinville was executed, together with fifteen judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal. In order to make the reaction complete the execution took place on the Place de Grève. M. Guillotin's ingenious invention resumed its former place, but the gallows had disappeared--equality in death was decreed.

On the 1st Prairial, Paris discovered that it was starving. Famine drove the inhabitants of the faubourgs to the Convention. Haggard, in tatters, and famished, they invaded the chamber, and the deputy Féraud was killed in trying to defend the president, Boissy d'Anglas. Seeing the confusion which this event brought about in the Convention, Boissy d'Anglas put on his hat. Then they showed him Féraud's head on the end of a pike, whereupon he took off his hat, bowed reverently, and put it on again. But during that performance, Boissy d'Anglas, who had sympathized largely with the Revolution, almost became converted to royalism.

On the 16th of the same month, Louis Charles of France, Duc de Normandie, pretender to the throne under the name of Louis XVII., he of whom the Duc d'Orléans said at a supper: "The son of the Duc de Coigny shall never be my king!" died of scrofula at the Temple, at the age of ten years two months and twelve days. But even in the times of the Republic the old axiom of the French monarchy survived: "The king is dead, long live the king!" and at once Louis de Provence proclaimed himself, on his own private authority, king of France and Navarre, under the title of Louis XVIII.

Then came the terrible day of Quiberon, during which, according to Pitt, "English blood did not flow," and, according to Sheridan, "English honor streamed from every pore."

Meantime the victories of Hoche and Pichegru had borne fruit. In consequence of the recovery of the lines of Weissembourg, at which our readers were present, when the tri-color flag was seen triumphantly waving in the hands of Saint-Just as he crossed the frontier, and floated victoriously over Bavaria, Frederick William, who had been the first to invade French territory, recognized the French Republic and made peace with it. Having captured no territory from each other, the two powers had nothing to restore. But eighty thousand slept on the plains of Alsace and Champagne, and the terrible strife had begun which neither Jena nor Leipsic was to terminate.

Meantime the army of the Eastern Pyrenees had invaded Biscay, Vittoria, and Bilbao. Already master of that part of the frontier to which access was most difficult, the French, whom their last victories had brought to the neighborhood, of Pampeluna, were in a position to capture the capital of Navarre, and open an easy road to the two kingdoms of Castile and that of Aragon. Whereupon the king of Spain made proposals of peace.

This was the second crowned head which had recognized the existence of the French Republic; and in recognizing it, the king tacitly condoned what he no doubt regarded as the murder of Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette.

The peace was signed. Before the necessities of war, family ties ceased to be considered. France abandoned her conquests beyond the Pyrenees, and Spain ceded to France her possessions on the island of Saint-Domingo. But, as we have just said, it is not from the standpoint of material accessions that the question of peace with Spain must be considered. No! the question was a moral one.

This the reader will already have understood. This defection of Charles IV. from the royal cause was an immense step, and one that was far more important than that taken by Frederick William. Frederick William was not bound in any way to the Bourbons of France, while, in signing the peace with the Republic, the Spanish king ratified all the decrees of the Convention.

Meantime the Army of the North, which was engaged with the Austrians, took Ypres and Charleroi, won the battle of Fleurus, recaptured Landrecies, occupied Namur and Treves, reconquered Valenciennes, and took Crève-Cœur, Ulrich, Gorcomm, Amsterdam, Dordrecht, Rotterdam, and The Hague. At last an unheard-of thing happened--something which had never been seen before, and which until then had been absent from the picturesque annals of French warfare; the Dutch men-of-war, frozen in the ice, were captured by a regiment of hussars. This strange feat of arms, which seemed to be a caprice of Providence in behalf of the French, led to the capitulation of Zealand.

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II. A GLIMPSE OF PARIS--THE INCROYABLES

All these great victories naturally had their echo in Paris--Paris, that short-sighted city which has ever had a limited horizon, save when some great national excitement has driven her beyond her material interests. Paris, weary of bloodshed, eagerly sought after pleasure, and was only too glad to turn her eyes toward the theatre of war, so glorious was the drama which was there being enacted.

Most of the players of the Comédie-Française and the Théâtre Feydeau, who had been imprisoned as royalists, had been liberated after the 9th Thermidor. Larive, Saint-Prix, Molé, Dazincourt, Saint-Phare, and Elleviou had been received with frantic applause at the Comédie-Française and at the Feydeau. Everybody rushed to the theatres, where the "Marseillaise" was beginning to give place to the "Reveil du Peuple." And at last the jeunesse dorée (gilded youth) of Fréron began to appear.

Every day we utter those words "Fréron" and "jeunesse dorée" without having a clear idea of what they mean. Let us see.

There have been two Frérons in France; one was an honorable man, an upright and severe critic, who may perhaps have been mistaken, but who erred in good faith. This was Fréron, senior--Elie-Catherine Fréron. The other knew neither law nor faith, his only religion was hate, his sole motive was vengeance, and his one god was self-interest. This was Fréron, junior--Louis-Stanislas Fréron.

The father saw the whole of the eighteenth century pass before him. He was opposed to every innovation in art, and, in the name of Racine and Boileau, he attacked all such in literature. He was opposed to all political innovations, and attacked them in the name of religion and royalty. He recoiled before none of the giants of modern philosophism.[4]

[4] We do not believe that philosophism is good French from the standpoint of the academician, but it expresses our meaning better than philosophy does.

He attacked Diderot, who had come from his little town of Langres in sabots and jacket, half priest, half philosopher. He attacked Jean-Jacques, who had come from Geneva, penniless and without a jacket. He attacked D'Alembert, a foundling discovered on the steps of a church, who was for a long time called Jean Lerond, from the name of the place where he was found. He attacked those great lords called Buffon and Montesquieu. Finally, surviving even the anger of Voltaire, who had tried to injure him with his satire, "The Poor Devil," to kill him with his epigrams, and to annihilate him with his comedy of "The Scotchwoman," he stood up and cried out to Voltaire in the midst of his triumph, "Remember that thou art mortal!"

He died before his two great antagonists, Voltaire and Rousseau. In 1776 he succumbed to an attack of gout, occasioned by the suppression of his journal, "The Literary Year." This had been his weapon, and when it was broken he no longer cared to live.

The son, who had for godfather King Stanislas, and, who had been a schoolfellow of Robespierre, drank to the dregs the draught which public opinion had poured into the paternal cup.

The injuries accumulated during thirty years upon the father's head fell like an avalanche of shame upon the son; and as his heart held neither faith nor fidelity, he could not bear up under them. Belief in a duty nobly fulfilled had made the father invincible. The son, having no counterpoise to the scorn which overwhelmed him, became ferocious; wrongfully held in contempt, since he was not responsible for his father's acts, he resolved to make himself hated on his own account. The laurels which Marat culled in editing "L'Ami du Peuple" destroyed Fréron's rest. He founded "The Orator of the People."

Naturally timid, Fréron could not restrain his cruelty, being too weak and fearful. When sent to Marseilles he became the terror of the city. While Carlier drowned his prisoners at Nantes, and Collot d'Herbois shot his at Lyons with musketry, at Marseilles Fréron did better--he used grape-shot.

One day, after a discharge of artillery, suspecting that some had fallen unharmed with those who were struck, and were counterfeiting death, he called out, in order to save the time necessary to search for them: "Let those who are not harmed stand up, and they will be pardoned."

The unfortunates who were not hurt trusted in his word, and stood up.

"Fire!" said Fréron.

And the gunners began again, doing their work with more accuracy, for this time no one stood up.

When he returned to Paris, Paris had made a step on the road to mercy. The friend of Robespierre became his enemy. The Jacobin took a step backward and became a Cordelier. He scented the 9th Thermidor. He made himself a Thermidorian with Barras and Tallien, he denounced Fouquier-Tinville, and, like Cadmus, he sowed the teeth of the dragon which was called the Revolution, and they sprang up at once amid the blood of the old régime and the filth of the new, in the shape of that jeunesse dorée which took his name, and whose chief he was.

The jeunesse dorée, as distinguished from the sans-culottes, who wore short hair, round jackets, trousers, and the red cap, either wore long tresses of hair, revived from the time of Louis XIII., and called "cadenettes" (from the name of its inventor, Cadenet, a younger son of Luynes), or hair falling over their shoulders, in what was styled "dog's-ears." They also revived the use of powder, and wore it plentifully upon their hair, which was turned back with a comb. Their morning costume consisted of a very short frock-coat and small-clothes of black or green velvet. When in full-dress they wore, instead of this frock-coat, a coat of light color cut square, buttoned over the stomach, with tails coming down to the calves of their legs. Their muslin cravat was high and had enormous ends. The waistcoat was of piqué or white dimity, with broad facings and trimmings; two watch-chains hung over small-clothes of gray or apple-green satin, which came down half-way over the calves of the legs, where they buttoned with three buttons, and were finished off with a knot of ribbon. Silk stockings, striped either red, yellow, or blue, and pumps, which were the more elegant in proportion to their lightness, an opera-hat under the arm, and an enormous cane in the hand, completed the costume of an Incroyable.

Now why did those scoffers, who seize upon everything, call the individuals who compose the gilded youth of Paris the incroyables? We are about to tell you.

Change of dress did not suffice to distinguish a man from the revolutionists, he must also change his pronunciation. A honeyed dialect was substituted for the rude speech of 1793 and the democratic thou; consequently, instead of rolling their r's as the pupils of the conservatory do to-day, they suppressed them altogether, and the letter became very near being entirely lost, like the Greek dative. Its bones were taken out of the language, together with its strength, and instead, as formerly, of giving one another their Parrole d'honneur, with a strong emphasis on the consonant, they contented themselves with giving their Paole d'honneu.

According to circumstances, they had a gande paole d'honneu, or a petite paole d'honneu; but whichever of these two was used to support something either difficult or impossible to believe, the listener, too polite to contradict the person with whom he was conversing, contented himself with saying: "It is incoyable" (incredible), suppressing the r in incroyable.

Whereupon the other would say: "I give you my solemn grande (or, as they said, gande) word of honor."

And then, of course, no doubt remained.

Hence the designation Incroyable changed to Incoyable, given to the jeunesse dorée.

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III. THE MERVEILLEUSES

The incoyable, that hybrid of the Revolution, had his feminine counterpart, like him born of the same epoch. She was called the meiveilleuse.

She borrowed her raiment, not from a new fashion like the incoyable, but from antiquity, from the Greek and Corinthian draperies of the Phrynes and the Aspasias. Tunic, peplum, and mantle, all were cut after the fashion of antiquity. The less a woman had on to conceal her nakedness the more elegant she was. The true meiveilleuse, or merveilleuses--for that of course was the real word--had bare arms and legs, the tunic, modelled after that of Diana, was often separated at the side, with nothing more than a cameo to catch the two parts together above the knee.

But this was not enough. The ladies took advantage of the warm weather to appear at balls and at the promenade with filmy garments more diaphanous than the clouds which enveloped Venus, when she led her son to Dido. Æneas did not recognize his mother until she emerged from the clouds. Incessut patuit dea, says Virgil, "by her step was the goddess known." These ladies, however, did not need to emerge from their clouds in order to be seen, for they were perfectly visible through them, and those who took them for goddesses must have done so only out of courtesy. This airy tissue of which Juvenal speaks became all the rage.

Besides private parties they met at public balls. People gathered either at the Lycée-Bal or the Hôtel Thélusson to mingle their tears and their plans of vengeance with their dancing. These assemblies were called the "Balls of the Victims," and, indeed, no one was admitted to them unless he or she had had relatives either drowned by Carlier, guillotined by Robespierre, shot by Collot d'Herbois, or blown to pieces by Fréron.

Horace Vernet, who designed costumes for a living, has left a charming portfolio of the costumes of that period drawn from life with that delightful wit with which Heaven had endowed him. Nothing could be more amusing than this grotesque collection, and it is difficult to imagine how an incoyable and a meiveilleuse could meet without laughing in each other's faces.

But some of the costumes adopted by the fops at these balls of the victims were terrible in character. Old General Piré has told me twenty times that he has met incoyables at these balls wearing waistcoats and trousers made of human skins. Those who mourned only some distant relative, like an aunt or an uncle, contented themselves with dipping their little finger in some blood-red liquid; when this was the case they cut off the corresponding finger of their glove, and carried their little pot of blood to the ball to renew the color, as ladies did their rouge-pots.

While dancing, they conspired against the Republic. This was easy, because the Convention, which had its national police, had no Parisian police. It is a singular fact that public murder seemed to have destroyed private murder; and never were fewer crimes committed in France than during the years of '93, '94 and '95. Passions had other outlets.

The moment was approaching, however, when the Convention, that terrible Convention, which had abolished royalty on the 21st of September, when it entered upon its functions to the sound of the guns of Valmy, and had proclaimed the Republic--the moment was approaching when the Convention was to abdicate its power. It had been a cruel mother. It had devoured the Girondins, the Cordeliers, the Jacobins, that is to say, the most eloquent, the most energetic, and the most intelligent of her children. But it had been a devoted daughter. It had successfully battled with foes without and within. It had raised fourteen armies. To be sure, they had been badly clothed, poorly shod, badly cared for, and still more poorly paid. But what did that matter? These fourteen armies not only drove the enemy on all sides from the frontier, but they took the Duchy of Nice and Savoy, marched against Spain and laid hands on Holland.

It created the National Institute, the Polytechnic School, the Normal School, the Conservatories of Art and Science, and established a national budget. It promulgated eight thousand three hundred and seventy decrees, most of them revolutionary. It gave a tremendous strength of character to men and things. Grandeur was gigantic, courage was temerity, and stoicism, impassibility. Never was colder disdain expressed for the executioner; never was blood shed with less remorse.

Do you know how many parties there were in France during the years of '93 to '95? Thirty-three. Would you like to know their names?

Ministerial, Partisans of Civil Life, Knights of the Dagger, Men of the 10th of August, Men of September, Girondins, Brissotins, Federalists, Men of the State, Men of the 31st of May, Moderates, Suspects, Men of the Plain, Toads of the Marsh, Men of the Mountain.

All these in 1793 alone. We now pass to 1794.

Alarmists, Men of Pity, Sleepers, Emissaries of Pitt and Coburg, Muscadins, Hebertists, Sans-Culottes, Counter-Revolutionists, Inhabitants of the Ridge, Terrorists, Maratists, Cut-throats, Drinkers of Blood, Patriots of 1789, Companions of Jehu, Chouans.

Let us add the jeunesse dorée of Fréron, and we come to the 22d of August--the day when the new constitution, that of the year III., after having been debated article by article, was adopted by the Convention. The gold louis was then worth twelve hundred francs in assignats.

It was during this latter period that André-Chénier, the brother of Marie-Joseph Chénier, was beheaded. His execution took place on the 25th of July, 1794, at eight o'clock in the morning; that is to say, on the 7th Thermidor, two days before the death of Robespierre. His companions in the cart were MM. de Montalembert, De Créquy, De Montmorency, De Loiserolles--that sublime old man who took his son's place and cheerfully died in his stead--and finally Roucher, the author of "The Months," who did not know that he was to die with André Chénier until he saw him in the cart, when he uttered an exclamation of joy, and, seating himself near him, recited those beautiful lines of Racine:

Now fortune doth assume a newer trend, Since thee again I find, thou faithful friend; Her wrath already hath unbent, And thus our lot in common blent.

A friend, who dared to risk his life by following the cart in order to prolong the final farewell, heard the two poets speaking of poetry, love and the future. On the way André Chénier recited his last verses to his friend, which he was in the act of writing when he was summoned by the executioner. He had them with him written in pencil; and after having read them to Roucher, he gave them to the third friend, who did not leave him until they had reached the scaffold. They were thus preserved; and Latouche, to whom we owe the only edition we have of André Chénier's poems, was enabled to include them in the volume we all know by heart:

As a last soft breeze, a tender ray, Gleams at the close of a lovely day, So doth my lyre at the scaffold sound its lay; Perhaps e'en now the forfeit I must pay! And e'er the hour its appointed round With fleeting resonance hath wound, Tipping the sixty steps of its allotted time, Unending sleep will close these eyes of mine. And e'er this verse I now begin shall fade, The messenger of Death, ill-omened harbinger of shade, With its black escort of ill-fame Along its darkling corridors will speed my name.

As he mounted the scaffold, André put his hand to his forehead and said with a sigh: "And yet I did have something there!"

"You are mistaken," cried the friend who was not to die; and pointing to his heart he added, "it is there."

André Chénier, for whose sake we have wandered from our subject, and whose memory has drawn these few words from us, was the first to plant the standard of a new poetry. No one before him had written verses like his. Nay, more; no one will ever write like verses after him.

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IV. THE SECTIONS

The day the Convention proclaimed the Constitution of the Year III., every one exclaimed: "The Convention has signed its death-warrant."

In fact it was expected that, as in the case of the Constituent Assembly, it would, by a self-sacrifice little understood, forbid to its retiring members election to the Assembly which was to succeed them. It did nothing of the kind. The Convention understood very well that the last vital spark of Republicanism was hidden within its own body. With a people so volatile as the French, who in a moment of enthusiasm had overturned a monarchy which had endured eight centuries, the children of the Republic could not in three years have become so rooted in their habits and customs as safely to be left to follow the natural course of events. The Republic could be adequately guarded only by those who had created it, and who were interested in perpetuating it.

But who were they?

Who, indeed, save the members of the Convention which had abolished the feudal constitution on the 10th of July and the 4th of August, 1789; which had overturned the throne on the 10th of August, 1792, and which, from the 21st of January to the time of which we are writing, had fought the whole of Europe, had compelled Prussia and Spain to sue for peace, and had driven Austria beyond the frontiers. Therefore, on the 5th Fructidor (August 22), the Convention decreed that the Legislative Assembly should be composed of two bodies--the Council of the Five Hundred and the Council of the Ancients; that the first should comprise five hundred members, upon whom should devolve the duty of originating bills, and the second two hundred and fifty, whose sanction should be necessary to make them law; that these two bodies should include two-thirds of the present Convention, and that one-third only should therefore be composed of new members.

It remained to be seen who should have the responsibility of the choice. Would the Convention itself name those of its members who were to become part of the new body, or would that duty devolve upon the electoral colleges?

On the 13th Fructidor (August 30), after a stormy session, it was decided that the electoral colleges should make the selection. The determination once arrived at, these two days were designated the 5th Fructidor and the 13th Fructidor, respectively.

Perhaps we are dwelling a little longer than is necessary upon this purely historical portion of our work; but we are rapidly approaching the terrible day of the 13th Vendémiaire--the first on which the Parisians heard the sound of cannon in their streets--and we wish to fasten the crime upon its real authors.

Paris then, as now, although in a lesser degree, since its centralization had lasted only four or five years at the time--Paris was then the brain of France. What Paris accepted, France sanctioned. This was clearly demonstrated when the Girondins unsuccessfully attempted to unite the provinces.

Now Paris was divided into forty-eight Sections. These Sections were not royalist; on the contrary, they protested that they were attached to the Republic. Except for two or three, whose reactionary opinions were well-known, none would have fallen into the error of sacrificing so many citizens, among them some truly great men, for a principle, and then have rejected that principle before it had borne fruit. But Paris, terrified at finding herself knee-deep in blood, stopped short three-quarters of the way and roused herself to fight the Terrorists, who wanted the executions to continue, while the city was desirous that they should cease. So that, without deserting the flag of the Revolution, she showed herself unwilling to follow that flag further than the Girondins and the Cordeliers had carried it.

This flag would then become her own, since it sheltered the remains of the two parties we have named. It would henceforth be that of the moderate Republic, and would carry the device: "Death to the Jacobins!"

But the precautions of the Convention were designed to save those few Jacobins who had escaped the 9th Thermidor, and in whose hands alone the Convention wished to place the holy Ark of the Republic.

Without suspecting it, however, the Sections, fearful of a return of the Reign of Terror, served the royalists better than their most devoted friends could have done.

Never had so many strangers been seen in Paris. The hotels were crowded from cellar to garret. The Faubourg Saint-Germaine, which had been deserted for six months, was crowded with returned emigrés, Chouans, refractory priests, men who had been employed on the military trains, and divorced women.

There was a rumor that Tallien and Hoche had gone over to the royalists. The truth was that the latter had converted Rovère and Saladin, and that there was no occasion for them to hold out inducements to Lanjuinais, Boissy d'Anglas, Henry de Larivière and Lesage, who had always been royalists, even when they wore the Republican masks.

It was reported that the royalists had made Pichegru extraordinary offers, and that, although he had refused them at first, he had at last yielded to them, and that, for a million francs in ready money, two hundred thousand francs from the funds, the Château of Chambord, the duchy of Artois, and the government of Alsace, the transaction had been arranged.

Much astonishment was occasioned by the great number of returned emigrés, some with false passports and under assumed names, others giving their real names, and demanding that they should be erased from the list of the proscribed; others with false certificates of residence, which vouched for the fact that they had never left France. Decrees, insisting that all returned emigrés should return to their own districts, and there await the decision of the Committee of Public Safety, were issued in vain. They found means to evade these decrees and to remain in Paris. It was felt, not without uneasiness, that accident alone had not brought so many men of the same political faith to the capital at the same time. It was generally conceded that some malign influence was at work, and that at a given moment the earth would open beneath the feet of one of the numerous parties which abounded in Paris.

A great many gray coats with black and green collars were seen, and every one turned to look at them. They were the Chouan colors. Wherever these young men, who wore the royal livery, were seen, brawls were almost sure to ensue, which thus far had passed for private quarrels.

Dessault and Marchenna, the most famous pamphleteers of the day, covered the walls with posters inciting the Parisians to insurrection. Old La Harpe, the pretended pupil of Voltaire, who began by vowing him the most servile adoration and ended by rejecting him--La Harpe, after being a furious demagogue, during an imprisonment became a most violent reactionary, and insulted the Convention which had honored him. A man named Lemaistre kept a house in Paris where the royalist propagande was openly carried on, and was in communication with several provincial branches. He hoped by increasing their number to convert France into one immense Vendée. There was an important branch at Nantes, which, of course, received its orders from Paris. Now Lemaistre, as was well known, had given a splendid dinner to the electors of Nantes, at the end of which the host, in imitation of the guards of Versailles, had had a dish of white cockades served. Each guest took one and fastened it in his hat.

Not a day passed that did not bring with it news of the death of some patriot by clubbing. The murderer was always either an incoyable or a young man in a gray coat. These attacks usually occurred in the cafés of the Rue de la Loi, formerly the Rue Richelieu, at the restaurateur Garchi's house, at the Théâtre Feydeau, or on the Boulevard des Italiens. The cause of these disturbances was evidently to be found in the opposition made by the Sections to the decrees of the 5th and the 13th Fructidor, which had declared that the council should be composed of two-thirds of the members of the Convention. It is true, as we have already said, that these two-thirds were to be named, not by the Convention itself, as the Sections had at first feared, but by the primary assemblies. Still, they had hoped for a complete change, and for an entirely reactionary Chamber.

A president had at first been talked of; but the monarchical tendencies of that proposed installation were so evident, that Louvet, the Girondin who had escaped being murdered, cried out at the Convention: "Yes, so that a Bourbon may be appointed in a day or two!" On this hint, which showed that a presidency would inevitably lead to royalty, the council was led to propose an executive directory composed of five members, a majority of whom should rule, each member retiring by rotation, and appointing responsible ministers.

These propositions were voted upon in the following manner (for never, even in the most progressive days of the Revolution, had elections been upon such a broad basis as now): Votes were cast at two elevated stages which served as polling places. All citizens of the age of twenty-one met at the primary assemblies, on the 1st Prairial, and selected the electoral colleges. These electoral colleges met on the 20th Prairial to appoint the two councils. The two councils, in their turn, elected the Directory.

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V. THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION LE PELETIER

As the election could not take place on the 1st Prairial, since that date was already past, the 20th Fructidor was appointed.

It was hoped that the first act of the French, reunited after such terrible occurrences, would be like that of the Federation at the Champ de Mars--an act of fraternity, and that a hymn would be sung advocating forgiveness of wrongs. It was on the contrary a sacrifice to vengeance! All the pure, disinterested and energetic patriots were driven from the Sections, which began to organize insurrection. The defeated patriots hurried to the Convention, where they related what had happened, thereby putting the Convention on its guard against the Sections. Furthermore they demanded the restoration of their arms, declaring that they would use them in defence of the Republic.

The next day, and the day following, the Convention realized the full danger of the situation when they saw that, out of the forty-eight Sections composing the population of Paris, forty-seven had accepted the Constitution but had rejected the decrees. The Section of the Quinze-Vingts alone had accepted both the Constitution and the decrees.

On the other hand, the armies, two of which were reduced to inaction by the peace with Prussia and with Spain, voted without reserve, amid cries of enthusiasm. The army of the Sambre-et-Meuse, the only one which was still actively engaged, had conquered at Wattignies, raised the siege of Mauberge, triumphed at Fleurus, given Belgium to France, crossed the Rhine at Dusseldorf, besieged Mayence, and followed with the victories of the Ourthe and the Roer, thus securing the Rhine to France. This army paused upon the battlefield, where it had just won a victory, and over the bodies of the Frenchmen who had just died for liberty, swore fidelity to the Constitution, which, while it put an end to the Terror, still maintained the Republic and the Revolution.

The day which brought the news of this enthusiastic vote was a great one for the Convention and for all true patriots of France. On the 1st Vendémiaire, of the Year IV. (23d September, 1795), the result of the voting was announced. The Constitution was unanimously accepted. The decrees were passed by an immense majority. In some places votes had even been cast for a king--which showed how great was the freedom which had obtained during the two months following the 9th Thermidor.

This news created the greatest excitement in Paris--an excitement at once twofold and varied in character. There was joy among the patriots who sided with the Convention, and fury among the royalist Sections.

Then it was that the Section Le Peletier, known during the Revolution as the Section of the Daughters of Saint Thomas, the most reactionary of all the Sections, and the one whose grenadiers had resisted the men from Marseilles on the 10th of August, set up this decree:

"The power of every constituted body ceases before that of the assembled people."

This decree, favorably voted upon by the Section, was converted into a resolution, and sent to the forty-seven other Sections, who received it with favor. It was a simple method of proclaiming the dissolution of the Assembly.

The Convention was not intimidated. It replied by a declaration and a decree. It declared that if its power was threatened it would retire to one of the provincial towns and there continue to exercise its functions. It decreed that all the territory conquered on the French side of the Rhine, as well as Belgium, Liège, and Luxemburg, should thereafter belong to France. Thus did it reply to the threat of its overthrow by a proclamation of its grandeur.

The Section, treating with the Convention as power with power, then sent its president, at the head of six members, to notify it of what it termed a Measure of Protection; namely, of a decree issued by the Section declaring that, before the will of the assembled people, the powers of all the constituent bodies should cease.

The president was a young man of twenty-four or five, and although he was dressed quietly, a supreme elegance, due more to his bearing than to his garments, was manifest in his whole person. He was attired fashionably, without exaggeration, in a frock-coat of dark red velvet with jet buttons, and buttonholes worked in black silk. A cravat of white foulard with floating ends swathed his neck; a waistcoat of white piqué with bright blue flowers, trousers of pearl-gray tricot, white silk stockings, pumps, and a low, broad-brimmed hat with a pointed crown, completed his attire. He had the clear, fair complexion of a man of the North or East, eyes both piercing and earnest, and fine white teeth, with full red lips. A tri-color sash, folded in such a way that very little of it was visible save the white, girdled his waist, which was admirably shaped; a sword hung from this sash, and he carried two pistols stuck in it.

He advanced alone to the bar of the Convention, and in that tone of lofty insolence which had not yet descended to the bourgeoisie, or to which that class had not attained, he said in a loud voice, addressing the president, Boissy d'Anglas:

"Citizen-Representative, in the name of the Mother Section, of which I have the honor to be president, and in the name of the forty-seven other Sections--the Section of the Quinze-Vingts alone excepted--I come to announce to you that you are deprived of your powers and that your reign is over. We approve of the Constitution, but we reject the decrees; you have no right to nominate yourselves. It is for you to deserve our choice, and not to command it."

"The Convention recognizes no power, either that of the Mother Section or of any other," said Boissy d'Anglas; "and it will treat as rebels all who refuse to obey its decrees."

"And we," said the young man, "will treat as oppressor any power which shall try to impose an illegal act upon us."

"Take care, citizen," said Boissy d'Anglas, in his calm voice, which carried hidden menace in it. "No one has a right to raise his voice above that of the president of this assembly."

"Except me," said the young man--"except me, for I am above him."

"And who are you?"

"I am the sovereign people."

"And who then are we whom the people have elected?"

"From the moment that the people reassembled and deprived you of the power with which they had vested you, you ceased to be of importance. Appointed three years ago, you are weakened, wearied, worn out with the struggle of those three years. You represent the needs of an epoch which is past, and which has disappeared. Could any one, three years ago, have foreseen the events which have taken place? Nominated only three days ago, I represent the will of yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow! You were elected by the people. Admitted! But by the people of '92, whose work it was to tear down royalty, to establish the rights of man, and to drive the foreigner from the frontier, to erect scaffolds, to bring down heads which were too high, and to divide property. But your work is done; whether well or ill it matters not; it is done, and the 9th Thermidor gives you your dismissal. To-day, Men of the Storm, you wish to perpetuate your powers, when the needs which created you have disappeared; when royalty is dead, the enemy driven out, and even property is divided, scaffolds are useless. You desire for your own selfish purposes, your own personal ambition, to perpetuate your powers, to control our choice, and to force yourselves upon the people. The people do not want you. A pure epoch requires pure hands. The Chamber must be purged of the Terrorists, whose names are inscribed in history as the men of September and the men of the guillotine. It must be--it is the logical sequence of the situation, the expression of the conscience of the people, the will of forty-seven Sections; that is to say, of the population of Paris!"

This speech was listened to in astonished silence, but it had scarcely ended in a voluntary pause on the part of the orator, when a terrible uproar burst forth in the Chamber and the tribunes. The young president of the Section Le Peletier had just voiced aloud what every royalist committee, the emigrés, and the Chouans had been whispering at all the street corners for the past fortnight. The question between the monarchists and the Republicans was clearly defined for the first time.

The president of the Convention rang his bell violently to restore order; then, seeing that no attention was paid to it, he put on his hat. Meanwhile the president of the Section Le Peletier, with one hand on his pistols, was calmly waiting until the clamor should have sufficiently subsided for the president of the Convention to reply to him.

It was long before silence could be restored, but order came at last. Boissy d'Anglas made a sign that he wished to speak. He was the very man to reply to such a speaker. The overbearing arrogance of the one was met by the disdainful pride of the other. The monarchical aristocrat had spoken, and the liberal aristocrat was about to reply to him. Although there was a frown upon the president's brow, and his eyes were dark and menacing, his voice was calm.

"You have listened to the orator who has just spoken," he said. "May you judge of the strength of the Convention by its patience. If any man had dared a few months ago to use here the language which the president of the Section Le Peletier has employed, his rebellious utterances would not have been heard to an end. The orator's arrest would have been immediately decreed, and his head would have fallen upon the scaffold the following day. And why? Because in days of carnage we are in doubt about everything, and we therefore destroy everything that may threaten our rights, that we may doubt no more. In the days of peace we pursue a different course, because we are no longer doubtful about our rights, and because, though attacked by the Sections, we have behind us the whole of France and our invincible armies. We have listened to you without impatience, and we can therefore reply to you without anger. Go back to those who sent you; tell them that we give them three days in which to return to their allegiance, and that if they do not voluntarily obey the decrees within three days we shall compel them to do so."

"And you," replied the young man, "if within three days you have not resigned your commission, if you have not withdrawn the decrees, and have not proclaimed the freedom of the elections, we declare to you that Paris will march against the Convention, and that it will feel the anger of the people."

"Very good," said Boissy d'Anglas; "it is now the 10th Vendémiaire--"

The young man did not allow him to finish.

"On the 13th Vendémiaire," said he; "I give you my word that that will be another bloody date to add to your history!"

And rejoining his companions, he went out with them, threatening the entire assembly with a gesture. No one knew his name, for he had been appointed president of the Section Le Peletier through Lemaistre's instrumentality only three days before.

But every one said: "He is neither a man of the people nor a bourgeois; he must be an aristocrat."

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VI. THREE LEADERS

That same evening the Section Le Peletier convened in its committee rooms, and secured the co-operation of the Sections Butte-des-Moulins, Contrat-Social, Luxembourg, Théâtre-Française, Rue Poissonière, Brutus, and Temple. Then it filled the streets of Paris with bands of muscadins (the word is synonymous with incroyables, only with a wider meaning), who went about shouting, "Down with the Two-thirds Men!"

The Convention, on the other hand, mustered all the troops it could command at the camp of Sablons, about six thousand men, under General Menou, who in 1792 had commanded the second camp formed near Paris, and had been sent to the Vendée, where he had been defeated. These antecedents had secured him, on the 2d Prairial, the appointment of general of the interior, and had saved the Convention.

Some young men, shouting "Down with the Two-thirds Men!" had met a squad of Menou's soldiers, and refusing to disperse when ordered to do so, they had fired upon the soldiers, who had replied to their pistol-shots with gun-shots, and blood had been shed.

In the meantime--that is to say, on the evening of the 10th Vendémiaire--the young president of the Section Le Peletier, which was then in session at the convent of the Daughters of Saint Thomas (which was situated on the spot where the Bourse now stands), gave up the chair to the vice-president, and, jumping into a carriage, was driven rapidly to a large house in the Rue Nôtre-Dame-des-Victoires, belonging to the Jesuits. All the windows of this house were closed, and not a ray of light escaped them.

The young man stopped the carriage at the gate and paid the driver; then, when the carriage had turned the corner of the Rue du Puit-qui-parle, and the sound of the wheels had died away, he went a few steps further, and, making sure that the street was empty, knocked at the gate in a peculiar manner. The gate was opened so quickly that it was evident that some one was stationed behind it to attend to visitors.

"Moses," said the affiliated member who opened the gate.

"Manou," replied the new-comer.

The gate closed in answer to this response of the Hindoo to the Hebrew lawgiver, and the way being pointed out to the young president of the Section Le Peletier, he proceeded round the corner of the house. The windows overlooking the garden were closed as carefully as those which overlooked the street. The front door was open, however, though a guard stood before it. This time it was the new-comer who said: "Moses!"

And the other replied, "Manou!"

Thereupon the doorkeeper drew back to allow the young president to pass; and he, encountering no further obstacle, went straight to a third door, which admitted him to a room where he found the persons whom he was seeking. They were the presidents of the Sections Butte-des-Moulins, Contrat-Social, Luxembourg, Rue Poissonière, Brutus and Temple, who had come to announce that they were ready to follow the Mother Section, and to join in the rebellion.

The new-comer had hardly opened the door when he was greeted by a man about forty-five years of age, wearing a general's uniform. This was citizen Auguste Danican, who had just been appointed general-in-chief of the Sections. He had served in the Vendée against the Vendéans, but, suspected of connivance with Georges Cadoudal, he had been recalled, had escaped the guillotine by a miracle only, thanks to the 9th Thermidor, and had subsequently taken his place in the ranks of the counter-revolution.

The royalist Sections were at first strongly inclined to nominate the young president of the Section Le Peletier, who was highly recommended by the royalist agency, through Lemaistre, and who had come from Besançon only three days earlier. But the latter, learning that overtures had already been made to Danican, and that, if he were deprived of the command, the Sections would probably feel his enmity, declared that he would be satisfied with second or even third place, always providing that he should have an equal opportunity to take as active a part as possible in the inevitable battle.

Danican left a man of low stature with a twisted mouth and sinister expression to speak to the visitor. This was Fréron. Fréron, repudiated by the Mountain, who abandoned him to the sharp stings of Moïse Bayle; Fréron, once a bigoted Republican, but who had in turn been repudiated with disgust by the Grirondins, who abandoned him to the withering curses of Isnard; Fréron, who, stripped of his false patriotism, though covered with the leprosy of crime, and feeling the need of sheltering himself behind the banner of some party, had joined the royalist faction which, like all parties who are on the losing side, was not too particular as to whom it admitted within its ranks.

We Frenchmen have passed through many revolutions, but not one of us can explain certain antipathies, which, in times of trouble, seem to attach to some political personages, and it appears equally difficult to attempt to explain certain illogical alliances. Fréron was nothing, and had in no way distinguished himself. He had neither mind, character, nor political distinction. As a journalist he was a mere hack, selling to the first comer what was left of his father's reputation and honor. Sent to the provinces as a representative of the people, he returned from Marseilles and Toulon, covered with royalist blood.

Explain it who can.

Fréron now found himself at the head of a powerful party in which youth, energy, and vengeance were conspicuous, a party which burned with the passions of the times--passions which, since the law was in abeyance, led to everything except public confidence.

Fréron had just been relating with much emphasis the exploits of the young men who had come to open rupture with Menou's soldiers.

The young president, on the contrary, reported with the utmost simplicity the occurrences at the Convention, adding that retreat had now become an impossibility. War had been declared between the representatives and the members of the Sections; victory would unquestionably remain with those who marched first to the attack.

But however pressing the matter, Danican declared that nothing could be done until Lemaistre had returned to the session with the person who was with him. He had scarcely finished speaking, however, when the chief of the royalist agencies re-entered the room, followed by a man about twenty-five, with a frank open face, curly blond hair which almost hid his forehead, prominent blue eyes, a short neck, broad chest, and limbs that would have become a Hercules. He wore the costume of the rich peasant of the Morbihan, save that he had added to it a gold braid about an inch wide, that bordered the collar and buttonholes of his coat, as well as the brim of his hat.

As the young leader advanced to meet him, the Chouan held out his hand. It was evident that the two conspirators knew they were to meet, and though unacquainted with each other, their recognition had been mutual.

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VII. GENERAL ROUNDHEAD AND THE CHIEF OF THE COMPANIONS OF JEHU

Lemaistre introduced them. "General Roundhead," said he, designating the Chouan; "Citizen Morgan, leader of the Companions of Jehu," bowing to the president of the Section Le Peletier.

The two young men shook hands.

"Although Fate determined that our birthplaces should be at the two extremities of France," said Morgan, "one conviction unites us. Although we are of the same age, you, general, have already won renown, while I am unknown, or known only through the misfortunes of my house. It is to those misfortunes and my desire to avenge them that I owe the recommendation of the committee of the Jura, and the position which the Section Le Peletier has given me in making me its president on Monsieur Lemaistre's introduction."

"M. le Comte," said the royalist, bowing, "I have not the honor like you to belong to the nobility of France. I am simply a child of the stubble and the plow. When men are called, as we are, to risk their heads on the scaffold, it is well that they should know each other. One does not care to die in the company of those with whom they would not associate in life."

"Do all the children of the stubble and the plow express themselves as well as you do, general, in your country? If so, you do not need to regret that you have been born without the pale of that nobility to which I by accident belong."

"I may say, count," replied the young general, "that my education has not been precisely that of the Breton peasant. I was the eldest of ten children, and was sent to the college at Vannes, where I received a good education."

"And I have heard," added the man whom the Chouan called count, "that it was early predicted that you were destined to great things."

"I do not know that I ought to boast of that prediction, although it has already been fulfilled in part. My mother was sitting in front of our house, holding me in her arms, when a beggar passed, and stopping, leaned upon his stick to look at us. My mother, as was her custom, cut a piece of bread for him and gave him a penny. The beggar shook his head. Then touching my forehead with the tip of his bony finger, he said: 'There is a child who will bring about great changes in his family, and who will cause much trouble to the state.' Then, looking at me sadly, he added: 'He will die young, but he will have accomplished more than most old men,' and he continued on his way. Last year the prophecy was fulfilled as far as my family was concerned. I took part as you know in the insurrection of the Vendée of '93 and '94."

"And gloriously," interrupted Morgan.

"I did my best. Last year, while I was organizing the Morbihan, the soldiers and gendarmes surrounded our house. Father, mother, uncle and children were all carried off to prison at Brest. It was then that the prediction which had been made concerning me when I was a child recurred to my mother's mind. The poor woman reproached me with tears for being the cause of the misfortunes of the family. I tried to console her and to strengthen her by telling her that she was suffering for God and her king. But women do not appreciate the value of those two words. My mother continued to weep and died in prison in giving birth to another child. A month later my uncle died in the same prison. On his deathbed he gave me the name of one of his friends to whom he had loaned nine thousand francs; this friend had promised to return the sum whenever he should ask for it. When my uncle died my only thought was to escape from prison, obtain the money, and apply it to the cause of the insurrection. I succeeded. My uncle's friend lived at Rennes. I went to his house, only to learn that he had gone to Paris. I followed him here and obtained his address. I have just seen him, and faithful and loyal Breton that he is, he has returned me the money in gold, just as he borrowed it. I have it here in my belt," continued the young man, putting his hand to his hip. "Nine thousand francs in gold are worth two hundred thousand to-day. Do you throw Paris in confusion, and in a fortnight all the Morbihan will be in flames!"

The two young men had unconsciously drawn aside from the group and now found themselves in a recess of the window. The president of the Section Le Peletier looked about him, and seeing that no one was within hearing distance, he placed his hand on the young general's arm, and said:

"You have told me of yourself and your family, general; in return I owe you information concerning myself and mine. Morgan is an assumed name. My real name is Edouard de Sainte-Hermine. My father, Comte Prosper de Sainte-Hermine, was guillotined; my mother died of grief, my brother Léon de Sainte-Hermine was shot. In the same way that my father bequeathed his vengeance to my elder brother, so did he bequeath to me both my father's and his own. A boy belonging to his district, who was present at his execution, brought me his foraging-cap--the last fraternal gift that he could send me. It meant, 'It is now your turn!' I began my work at once. Not being able to arouse the Jura and Alsace, which are strongly patriotic, I have with my friends, young noblemen from the vicinity of Lyons, organized bands for the purpose of seizing government money to send to you and your friends in the Morbihan and the Vendée. That is why I wanted to see you. We are destined to clasp hands across the whole of France."

"Only," said the general, laughing, "I hold out mine empty, while you give me yours full."

"That is a slight compensation for the glory which you gain every day, and in which we ourselves shall be wanting. But what will you? Every one must do God's work in the state in which God has placed him. That is why I have hastened here to do something worth doing, while the opportunity serves. What will result from our projected action? None can guess. If we have only Menou to oppose us, the Convention is lost, and on the day following its dissolution, the monarchy will be proclaimed and Louis XVIII. will ascend the throne."

"What, Louis XVIII.?" asked the Chouan.

"Yes, Louis XVII. died in prison; but from the royalist point of view he nevertheless reigned. You know the cry of the French monarchy, 'The King is dead; long live the King!' King Louis XVI. is dead; long live King Louis XVII.! King Louis XVII. dies; long live King Louis XVIII.! The regent succeeds his nephew, not his brother."

"A queer sort of reign, that of the young boy," said the Chouan, shrugging his shoulders. "A reign during which they guillotined his father, mother, brother and aunt; while he was kept a prisoner in the Bastille with a cobbler for a tutor! I must admit, my dear count, that the party to which I have given myself heart and soul is subject to peculiar aberrations which terrify me. Thus, suppose, which God forbid! that his majesty, Louis XVIII., should not ascend the throne for ten or fifteen years, would he still be supposed to have reigned over France during that time, no matter in what corner of the earth he had been hidden?"

"Yes."

"How absurd! But pardon me; I am a peasant, and therefore am not expected to understand everything. But royalty is my second religion, and for that, as for my first, I have faith."

"You are a brave man, general," said Morgan, "and whether or no we meet again I should like to have your friendship. If we do not meet again, it will be because I am dead--either shot or guillotined. In that case, just as my elder brother inherited vengeance from my father, and I in turn from him, so will my younger brother inherit from me. If royalty, thanks to the sacrifices we have made for it, is saved, we will be heroes. If, in spite of those sacrifices, it is lost, then we shall be martyrs. You see that in either case we have nothing to regret."

The Chouan was silent for a moment, then, looking earnestly at the young nobleman, he said: "M. le Comte, when men like you and I meet, and are fortunate enough to serve the same cause, they should swear each other--I will not say eternal friendship, for perhaps the nobleman would not condescend so far to the poor peasant--but an unalterable esteem. M. le Comte, I beg you to accept mine."

"General," said Morgan, with tears in his eyes, "I accept the esteem you offer me, and I offer you more than friendship, I offer fraternity."

Whereupon they threw themselves into each other's arms and embraced as though they were old in friendship.

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VIII. THE MAN IN THE GREEN COAT

Those present at this scene had listened and looked on from a distance without interruption, realizing that they had before them two powerful personalities. The principal of the royalist agency was the first to break the silence.

"Gentlemen," said he, "it is always a gain when two leaders, even when they are about to separate--the one to do battle in the east, the other on the west of France, and though they may never meet again--it is always something gained when they exchange fraternal pledges as the knights of the Middle Ages were wont to do. You are all witnesses of the oath which these two leaders, in a cause which is also our own, have taken. They are men who do more than they promise. One, however, must return to the Morbihan, to unite the movement there with our own. Let us, therefore, take leave of the general who has completed his work in Paris, and turn to our own which has begun well."

"Gentlemen," said the Chouan, "I would gladly offer to remain here and fight with you to-morrow or to-day, but I confess that I know little about street warfare. The war I am used to carrying on is in ditches, ravines, bushes, and thick forests. Here I should be but one more soldier--there a chieftain would be wanting; and, since Quiberon of mournful memory, there are but two of us, Mercier and I."

"Go, my dear general," said Morgan; "you are fortunate to be able to fight in the open with no fear lest a chimney fall upon your head. God bring me to you, or you to me again!"

The Chouan took leave of every one, and more tenderly of his new friend, perhaps, than of his old acquaintances. Then noiselessly and on foot, as if he were the least of the royalist officers, he gained the Barrière d'Orléans, while Danican, Lemaistre, and the young president of the Section Le Peletier laid their plans for the following day. As he departed, they all remarked: "He is a formidable fellow, that Cadoudal!"

About the same time that he whose incognito we have just betrayed was taking leave of Morgan and his companions, and was making his way to the Barrière d'Orléans, a group of those young men of whom we have already spoken crossed from the Rue de la Loi to the Rue Feydeau, shouting: "Down with the Convention! Down with the Two-thirds Men! Long live the Sections!"

At the corner they found themselves face to face with a patrol of patriot soldiers, on whom the last orders of the Convention enjoined the greatest severity against all nocturnal brawlers.

The group equalled the patrol in number, and they received the three summonses required by law with hoots and jeers; their only reply to the third was a pistol-shot which wounded one of the soldiers.

The latter retaliated by a volley which killed one of the young men and wounded several others. The guns being discharged, the two bands were now on an equal footing as regards weapons. Thanks to their enormous canes, which in hands accustomed to wield them became veritable clubs, the men of the Sections could turn aside the bayonets as easily as they could parry the point of a sword in a duel. They could moreover strike blows which, when received on the chest, though they could not pierce like a sword-thrust, were equally dangerous, and when aimed at the head would fell a man as readily as a butcher fells an ox.

As usual, the brawl, which, owing to the number of persons engaged in it, assumed frightful proportions, set the whole neighborhood in a tumult. The uproar and turmoil were increased from the fact that it was the first night of a popular representation at the Théâtre Feydeau, then the fashionable theatre of Paris. They were playing "Toberne, or the Swedish Fisherman," the words by Patras, the music by Bruni; and "The Good Son," the words by Louis Henequin, and the music by Lebrun. Consequently, the Place Feydeau was thronged with carriages and the Passage Feydeau with playgoers on foot.

At the sound of the cries "Down with the Convention! Down with the Two-thirds Men!" and the firing, the carriages started off like so many arrows, some colliding with their neighbors; while the spectators on foot, fearing to be shot, arrested, or stifled in the narrow passage, broke through all barriers. Finally the windows opened, and men's voices could be heard raining imprecations upon the soldiers, while the softer tones of women encouraged the men of the Sections, who, as we have said, were among the handsomest, best-dressed, and wealthiest young men of Paris. The scene was lighted by the lanterns that swung from the arcades.

Suddenly a voice cried out in a tone of great anguish: "Citizen in the green coat, take care!"

The citizen in the green coat, who was face to face with two soldiers, at once realized that he was threatened from behind. He leaped aside with a haphazard blow of his cane, but to such good effect that it broke the arm of the soldier who was attacking him with his bayonet; then he thrust the iron-tipped stick in the face of a man who was just raising the stock of his gun to bring it down on his head. Afterward he looked up at the window whence the warning had come, and threw a kiss at a graceful form that was leaning over the rail of the balcony, and turned just in time to parry a bayonet-thrust before it had time to more than graze his chest.

At that moment help arrived for the soldiers from the Convention. A dozen men from the guard-house rushed up, crying: "Death to the Muscadins!"

The young man in the green coat was at once surrounded, but whirling his stick vigorously around his head, he managed to keep the soldiers at a distance while he beat a retreat toward the arcades. This retreat, not less skilful because less successful than that of Xenophon, was directed toward a massive door with iron panels artistically wrought, which the porter had just darkened by extinguishing the lantern hanging over it. But before this had happened, the young man, with the swift glance of a military leader, had glanced at the door, and discovered that it was not latched. If he could once reach that door, he could spring through it, close it behind him, and be in safety, unless, indeed, the doorkeeper was sufficiently patriotic to refuse a gold louis, which at that time was worth more than twelve hundred francs in paper money--a patriotism which was somewhat problematic.

But as though his enemies had divined his object, the attack redoubled in intensity as he approached the door, and, while the young man was extraordinarily skilful and strong, the fight had already lasted a quarter of an hour and had greatly impaired both his skill and his strength. Still, as the door was now only some two feet distant, he made a last effort, felled one of his adversaries with his stick, sent another reeling with a blow from his fist that landed on the man's chest, and reached the door, only to receive a blow from a gun-stock (fortunately the flat side) just as he pushed it open.

The blow was a violent one. Sparks danced before the young man's eyes, and his blood coursed wildly through his veins. But blinded as he was, his presence of mind did not desert him. He sprang back, propped himself against the door, which he closed with a bang behind him, and tossed a louis, as he had intended, to the porter, who had rushed out of his lodge on hearing the noise. Then, seeing a lighted staircase, he darted toward it, and, clinging to the balustrade, tottered up a dozen steps. Then it seemed to him that the walls of the house were falling and that the stairs were swaying beneath his feet, the staircase gave way, and he seemed to be rolling down a precipice.

Fortunately he had only fainted, but in doing so he had slipped gently down the stairs.

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IX. AN INCROYABLE AND A MERVEILLEUSE

A cooling sensation brought him to. His glance, at first vague and undecided, gradually settled upon his surroundings. They were in nowise disquieting. He was in a boudoir, which was also used as a dressing-room, and was hung with pearl-gray satin dotted with roses. He was lying upon a sofa covered with the same material as the hangings.

A woman stood behind him, supporting his head with a pillow; another on her knees beside him was bathing his head with a perfumed sponge. This was what had caused that soothing sensation of coolness which had restored him to consciousness. The woman, or rather the young girl, who was bathing his head, was pretty and well dressed; but it was the prettiness and elegance of the waiting-maid. The young man's eyes, therefore, did not linger long upon her, but were raised almost immediately to the woman who stood over him, and who could be none other than the mistress. He uttered a cry of delight, for he recognized the same person who had warned him from the window, and he started as though he would rise and go to her; but two white hands, pressing his shoulders, held him down upon the couch.

"Not so fast, citizen Coster de Saint-Victor!" said the young woman; "we must dress your wound first; and after that we will see how far your gratitude will be allowed to carry you."

"Ah! then you know me, citizeness," exclaimed the young man, with a smile that disclosed teeth of a dazzling whiteness and a glance that few women could withstand. He had used the democratic "thou" in this speech.

"In the first place," said the young lady, "I wish to remind you that it is becoming very bad form for a man who follows the fashion as you do to say 'thou,' especially to ladies."

"Alas!" sighed the young man, "it is especially with them that the old fashion had its uses. Brutal as it may be when addressed to a man, 'thou' has a tender charm when a lovely woman is its recipient. I have always contended that the English sustained an incalculable loss when they abandoned its use. But I am too grateful, madame, not to obey you; only allow me to repeat my question, though I change its form: Do you know me?"

"Who does not know the handsome Coster de Saint-Victor, who would be the king of fashion and elegance, if the title of king were not abolished."

Coster de Saint-Victor turned suddenly and looked the young lady full in the face.

"Obtain the restoration of kings, madame," said he, "and I will hail the beautiful Aurélie de Saint-Amour as queen."

"So you know me, too, citizen?" said the young woman, laughing.

"Who does not know our modern Aspasia? This is the first time, though, that I have had the honor of seeing you so near at hand, madame, and--"

"And--you were saying?"

"That Paris has no need to envy Athens, nor yet Barras to envy Pericles."

"Come, come! that blow on the head was not as dangerous after all as I thought."

"What do you mean?"

"Because it has not impaired your wit."

"No," replied Coster de Saint-Victor, kissing her beautiful hand, "but it may have taken away my reason."

Just then the bell rang in a peculiar fashion, and the hand which Coster was holding trembled. Aurélie's waiting-maid rose and looked uneasily at her mistress.

"Madame," said she, "that is the citizen-general."

"Yes," replied the latter, "I recognized his ring."

"What will he say?" asked the maid.

"Nothing."

"What do you mean?"

"I shall not open the door." The courtesan shook her head rebelliously.

"You will not admit citizen-general Barras?" asked the terrified maid.

"What?" cried Coster de Saint-Victor, "was that citizen Barras who rang?"

"Yes," replied Mademoiselle Aurélie de Saint-Amour with a laugh, "and you see he is quite as impatient as ordinary mortals."

"But, madame--" persisted the maid.

"I am mistress in my own house," said the capricious courtesan, "and it pleases me to receive the citizen Coster de Saint-Victor, and it does not please me to receive citizen Barras. I open my door to the first, and I close it to the second, or rather I do not open it to the second."

"Pardon me, my generous hostess," cried Coster de Saint-Victor; "but I cannot permit you to make such a sacrifice. Allow your maid to admit the general, I beg of you, and while he is in your salon I will withdraw."

"And if I admit him only on condition that you do not withdraw?"

"Oh! then I will remain," said Coster, "and very willingly, too, I assure you."

The bell rang for the third time.

"Go and open the door, Suzette," said Aurélie.

Suzette ran out. Aurélie bolted the door of the boudoir behind her, extinguished the two candles which were burning on the dressing-table, and seeking Coster de Saint-Victor in the darkness, pressed her lips to his forehead, and went out murmuring: "Wait for me."

Then she went into the salon from the boudoir just as citizen-general Barras appeared in the door of the dining-room. "And what is this I hear, my beauty," said Barras, "have they been cutting throats under your window?"

"Yes, my dear general, and my foolish Suzette did not dare to open the door for you. I had to tell her three times, before she would obey me, she was so fearful lest one of the combatants had come to demand shelter. In vain I told her that it was your ring. I thought I should be obliged to open the door for you myself. But to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit this evening?"

"A first representation at the Feydeau this evening; and I will take you if you will go with me."

"No, thank you; all this firing and shouting has upset my nerves. I am not well and I prefer to remain at home."

"Very well; but as soon as the piece is over I shall come and ask you for some supper."

"Ah! you did not let me know in time, and I have nothing to offer you."

"Do not worry about that, pretty one; I will pass Garchi's on my way to the theatre and will leave an order for them to send a bisque, a bechamel, a cold pheasant, some shrimps, some ice-cream and fruit--a mere trifle, you perceive."

"My dear friend, you had much better let me go to bed. I warn you that I shall be very cross."

"I will not prevent your going to bed. You can take supper in bed and be cross as comfortably as possible."

"You insist?"

"No, I implore. You know, madame, that you are sole mistress here, and that you have but to order, and that I, as the first of your servants, will obey."

"Oh! can I refuse a man who speaks like that? Go to the theatre, my lord, and your humble servant will await your return."

"My dear Aurélie, you are simply adorable, and I do not see why I have not had bars put at your windows like those of Rosine."

"What would be the good! You are the Count of Almaviva."

"There is no Cherubino hidden in your boudoir?"

"I will not say 'Here is the key,' but 'It is in the door.'"

"Well, see how magnanimous I am; if he is there I am going to give him time to escape. Au revoir, my beautiful goddess of love; expect me in an hour."

"Very well. And when you come back you must tell me about the play. I shall like that better than if I had seen it myself."

"Certainly, only I do not promise to sing it to you."

"When I want to hear singing, my good friend, I will send for Garat."

"And let it be said in passing, my dear Aurélie, that I think you send for him rather too often."

"Oh! do not be uneasy about that. He is protected by Madame Krüdener. She keeps as close to him as his shadow."

"They are putting up a pretty romance between them."

"Yes, in action."

"Are you not a little malicious?"

"Faith, no; I do not care enough. I leave that sort of thing to the great ladies who are virtuous and ugly."

"Once more, won't you come with me to the Feydeau?"

"No."

"Then au revoir."

"Au revoir."

Aurélie accompanied the general to the door of the salon, and Suzette followed him to the outer door of the apartment, which she closed and trebly locked after him. When the beautiful courtesan turned round, Coster de Saint-Victor was waiting for her on the threshold of the boudoir. She sighed, for he was marvellously handsome.

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X. TWO PORTRAITS

Coster de Saint-Victor had not resumed the use of powder; he wore his hair in long, flowing curls, without comb or queue. It was jet-black like his eyelashes, which shaded eyes of a deep sapphire blue, which, according to the expression he chose to give them, were at times gentle and again full of commanding power. His complexion, which was now rather pale owing to his recent loss of blood, was of a rich creamy white; his nose straight, clear-cut and irreproachable; his firm, red lips disclosed magnificent teeth; and the rest of the body, which, thanks to the fashion then in vogue, was clad to display it to the best advantage, was modelled on the lines of Antinous.

The two young people looked at each other for a moment in silence.

"You heard?" asked Aurélie.

"Alas! yes," replied Coster.

"He will sup with me, and it is your fault."

"How so?"

"You made me open the door."

"And you are vexed because he is to sup with you?"

"Of course!"

"Really?"

"I swear it. I am not in a humor to-night to be amiable to people I do not love."

"But to him whom you love?"

"Ah! for him I would be charming," replied Aurélie.

"And suppose," said Coster, "that I could find a way to prevent his supping with you?"

"And?"

"Who would sup with you in his place?"

"What a question. The man who kept him away."

"And then you would not be cross?"

"Oh, no!"

"Give me a pledge."

The beautiful courtesan held up her cheek to him, and he pressed a kiss upon it. Just then the bell rang again.

"Ah! this time I warn you that if it is he who has taken it into his stupid head to return, I shall go away," said Coster de Saint-Victor.

Suzette appeared.

"Shall I open the door, madame?" she asked timidly.

"Certainly, open it."

Suzette opened it. A man carrying a large flat basket on his head came in, saying: "Supper for citizen Barras."

"You hear?" asked Aurélie.

"Yes," replied the incroyable; "but, on the word of Coster de Saint-Victor, he shall not eat it."

"Shall I set the table just the same?" asked Suzette.

"Yes," said the young man, darting from the room; "for if he does not eat it, some one else will."

Aurélie followed him with her eyes as far as the door, then, when it had closed behind him, she cried: "My toilet, Suzette, and make me look more beautiful than you ever did before."

"And for which of the two does madame wish to look beautiful?"

"I do not know myself; but, in the meantime, make me as beautiful as possible for myself."

We have already described the costume of the fashionable ladies of the day, and Aurélie was one of them. A member of a good family of Provence, and playing the part which we have outlined, we have thought it best to leave her the name by which she was known at the time of which we write, and which appears in the police records. Her story was like that of nearly all the women of her class, for whom the Thermidorean reaction was a triumph. A young girl without fortune, she was led astray by a young nobleman, who induced her to leave her home, and who took her to Paris, then emigrated, enlisted in Condé's army, and was killed. She remained alone without other means of support than her beauty and her youth. Picked up by one of the farmers of the public revenues, she soon regained more luxury than she had lost. But the time came when the office of farmer of the revenue was suppressed. The beautiful Aurélie's protector was one of twenty-seven persons who were executed with Lavoisier on the 8th of May, 1794. At his death he left her a large sum of money, of which she had hitherto used only the interest; so that, without being wealthy, the beautiful Aurélie was beyond the reach of want.

Barras, hearing of her beauty and refinement, called upon her, and, after a suitable probation, was accepted as her lover. He was then a handsome man of forty, belonging to a noble family of Provence--a nobility that has been questioned, although those who remember the old saying, "Old as the rocks of Provence, and noble as the Barras," will not doubt the justice of the claim.

At the age of eighteen, Barras was a subaltern in the regiment of Languedoc, but left it to rejoin his uncle, who was governor of the "Ile de France." He was nearly lost in a shipwreck off the coast of Coromandel; but managing by good luck to seize the helm at the right moment, and showing great presence of mind and sound judgment, he reached an island inhabited by savages, where he and his companions remained a month. They were finally rescued and taken to Pondicherry. He returned to Paris in 1788, where a great future awaited him.

At the time when the States-General assembled, Barras, following Mirabeau's example, showed no hesitation; he presented himself as a candidate for the Tiers-Etat, and was accepted. On the 14th of July he was noticed among the crowd that took the Bastille. As a member of the Convention, he voted the death of the king, and was sent to Toulon, after that city was recaptured from the English. His despatch to the Convention is well known.

He proposed simply to demolish Toulon.

When Barras returned to the Convention, he took an active part on all great occasions when the interests of the Revolution were at stake, and he was particularly prominent on the 9th Thermidor. So much so, that, when the new Convention was proposed, he was naturally elected as one of the directors.

We have told his age, and testified as to his personal charm. He was a man about five feet six, with a fine head of hair, which he powdered to conceal his premature grayness. He had remarkably fine eyes, a straight nose, and full lips which set off a sympathetic mouth. Without adopting the exaggerated fashions of the jeunesse dorée, he followed them to a degree of elegance suited to his years.

As for the beautiful Aurélie de Saint-Amour, she had just completed her twenty-first year, entering at the same time upon her majority, and the true period of a woman's beauty, which is in our opinion from her twenty-first year to her thirty-fifth. Her disposition was at once extremely refined, extremely sensual, and extremely impressionable. She possessed the attributes of flower, fruit, and woman--perfume, savor, and pleasure.

She was tall, which at first sight made her seem slender, but thanks to the style of dress then in vogue, it was not difficult to see that she was slender after the fashion of Jean Goujon's Diana. She was fair with those deep brown tints which are to be seen in the hair of Titian's Magdalen. When she wore her hair in the Greek style, with bands of blue velvet, she was superb; but when, toward the end of a dinner, she loosened her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders and framing her cheeks in an aureole, enhancing their fresh camilla tints and peachy down-like surface, and contrasting sharply with her black eyebrows, blue eyes, red lips, and pearly teeth, and when a spray of brilliant diamonds hung from each ear--then she was dazzling.

Now this luxuriant beauty had developed only within the last two years. To her first lover, the only man she had ever loved, she had given the young girl, full of hesitations, who yields, but does not entirely surrender herself. Then all at once she felt the sap of life mounting and growing within her; her eyes opened, her nostrils distended; she exhaled at every pore that love of second youth which succeeds adolescence, which turns its gaze upon herself, and which seeks some object upon which to lavish the pent-up wealth of treasure within. It was then that necessity compelled her to sell rather than to give herself; but even then she looked forward to the time when she should be rich and free to enter upon that liberty of heart and person which is the dignity of every woman.

Two or three times at evening parties at the Hôtel Thélusson, at the Opéra, or at the Comédie Française, she had noticed Coster de Saint-Victor as he paid his court to the most beautiful and distinguished ladies of the period; and each time her heart seemed to leap in her bosom and fly to him. She felt within herself that some day, if she would make advances, this man would belong to her, or rather she to him. And so thoroughly was she convinced of this, that (thanks to the secret voice which oftentimes gives us hints of what the future will bring forth) she was content to wait without much impatience, certain that one day the object of her dreams would pass near enough to her, or she to him, to join them each to each other by the irresistible law that binds steel to magnet.

At last, on the evening when she opened her window to watch the street brawl, she recognized in the thick of the fray the handsome figure which had haunted her solitary nights; and, in spite of herself, she cried out: "Citizen in the green coat, take care!"

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XI. ASPASIA'S TOILET

Aurélie de Saint-Amour might very well have called Coster de Saint-Victor by his name, since she had recognized him; but the handsome young man had many rivals, and consequently many enemies, and to utter his name might have given the signal for his death.

Coster on his side, on regaining consciousness, had recognized her; for, celebrated as she already was for her beauty, she was becoming even better known for her charm of manner and wit--that indispensable complement to beauty that desires to be called queen.

Coster found her marvellously beautiful, but he could vie with Barras neither in point of magnificence nor generosity. Charm and beauty stood him instead of fortune, and he often succeeded with tender words where the most powerful men failed with more material means. Coster was acquainted with all the shameful mysteries of Parisian life, and was incapable of sacrificing a woman's position to a moment of egotism and a mere spark of passion.

Perhaps the beautiful Aspasia, now mistress of an independent fortune sufficient to gratify her desires, and which she was sure of increasing with the notoriety she had already acquired, would have preferred less delicacy and more passion on the young man's part. But in any case she wished to appear beautiful, so that he should love her the more if he remained, and regret her doubly if he were obliged to go away. But whatever her motive, Suzette obeyed her to the letter, uniting all the mysteries of her art to the marvels of nature in making her beautiful, to use her mistress's expression, in that same boudoir into which we introduced our readers in the preceding chapter.

The modern Aspasia, about to assume the dress of the Aspasia of antiquity, was lying on the same sofa on which they had placed Coster de Saint-Victor; but its position had been changed. It now stood between a small mantel-shelf covered with Sèvres statuettes, and a Psyche in a round frame forming an immense wreath of roses in Dresden china. Enveloped in a cloud of transparent muslin, Aurélie had abandoned her head to Suzette, who was arranging a Greek coiffure; this fashion had been revived by political reminiscences, and particularly by the pictures of David, who was then at the height of his fame. A narrow, blue velvet ribbon covered with diamond stars was drawn about the forehead, and above the chignon, from which fell little curls so light that the faintest breath sufficed to set them waving.

Thanks to the flowers of youth which bloomed in her face, and the peach-like down of her complexion, Aurélie could afford to dispense with the powders and cosmetics with which women in those days, as well as the present, plastered their faces.

She would indeed have lost by them; for the skin of her breast and throat had reflections like mother-of-pearl and silver, whose rosy freshness would have been destroyed by even the smallest touch of cosmetics. Her arms, molded in alabaster, slightly tinted by the rays of dawning day, harmonized marvellously with her bust. Each detail of her body, in fact, seemed like a defiance of the most beautiful models of antiquity and the Renaissance; only that Nature, that wonderful sculptress, seemed to have blended the severity of antique art with the grace and delicacy of the modern.

This beauty was so genuine that its possessor seemed herself not quite accustomed to it; and every time that Suzette took off an article of clothing, uncovering some new portion of her mistress's body, Aurélie smiled at herself complacently, but without pride.

She would sometimes remain hours lying on her couch in the warm atmosphere of her boudoir, like the Hermaphrodite of Farnese or the Venus of Titian. This admiration of herself, which was shared by Suzette, who could not refrain from looking at her young mistress with the admiring eyes of a young page, was this time shortened by the vibrating chimes of the clock, as well as by Suzette, who now approached with a chemise of that filmy fabric which is woven only in the East.

"Come, mistress," said Suzette, "I know you are beautiful, no one better. But half-past nine has struck. Never mind, your hair is done, and a very little will finish you."

Aurélie shook her shoulders, like a statue removing a veil, and murmured these two questions, addressed to the supreme power which is called Love: "What is he doing now? Will he succeed?"

What Coster de Saint-Victor was doing--for we will not wrong the beautiful Aurélie by implying that she meant Barras--we are about to inform you.

As we have already said, the Feydeau was giving the first representation of "Toberne, or the Swedish Fisherman," preceded by a little one-act opera called "The Good Son." Barras, when he left Mademoiselle de Saint-Amour, had only to cross the Rue des Colonnes. He arrived when the short piece was about half finished, and, as he was well known as one of the members who had most energetically supported the Constitution, and was likely to be one of the members of the future Directory, his entrance was greeted by murmurs and cries of: "Down with the Decrees! Down with the Two-thirds! Long live the Sections!"

The theatre was above all others the theatre of reactionary Paris. However, those who had come to see the play overcame those who wished to disturb it. Cries of "Down with the interrupter!" rose above the others and quiet was restored. The short piece was finished quietly enough. But the curtain had scarcely fallen, when a young man mounted upon an orchestra-chair, and pointing to the bust of Marat which was opposite that of Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau, exclaimed: "Citizens, why do we suffer this monster with a human face, who is called Marat, to pollute this spot, when, in the place which it usurps and defiles, we might see the citizen of Geneva, the illustrious author of 'Emile,' 'The Social Contract,' and 'The New Héloise'?"

Scarcely had the speaker finished this address, when, from balconies, gallery and pit, a thousand throats took up the cry: "It is he! It is Coster de Saint-Victor! Bravo, Coster, bravo!"

And thirty or more young men from the group which the patrol had dispersed rose and waved their hats and brandished their canes.

Coster drew himself up still higher, and, placing one foot on the back of the stalls, he continued: "Down with the Terrorists! Down with Marat! Down with the bloody monster with three thousand heads! Long live the author of 'Emile,' of 'The Social Contract,' and 'The New Héloise'!"

Suddenly a voice shouted: "Here is a bust of Jean-Jacques Rousseau!"

Two hands raised the bust above the audience. How did the bust of Rousseau come there just when it was wanted? No one knew; but its appearance was hailed none the less with shouts of enthusiasm.

"Down with the bust of Marat! Long live Charlotte Corday! Down with the Terrorists! Down with the assassin! Long live Rousseau!"

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XII. FOR WHICH VOLTAIRE AND ROUSSEAU ARE TO BLAME

This was the manifestation that Coster de Saint-Victor anticipated. He clung to the base of the caryatides which supported the boxes, and pushed, pulled, and assisted by twenty persons, he succeeded in reaching the one occupied by Barras. Barras did not know what the young man wanted, and, although he was not aware of what had passed in Aurélie's apartments, he could not count Coster among his best friends. He therefore pushed back his chair. Coster saw the movement.

"Excuse me, citizen Barras," he said, laughing, "my business is not with you. But I am, like you, a deputy commissioned to dethrone this bust."

And standing upon the railing of the box he struck at the bust with his cane. It tottered, fell to the floor, and crashed into a thousand pieces amid the almost unanimous applause of the audience.

At the same time similar execution was done on the unoffending bust of Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau, who was killed on the 20th of January by the guard of Paris. The same acclamations greeted its fall and destruction. Then two hands raised a bust above the orchestra, saying: "Here is a bust of Voltaire!"

The words were scarcely spoken before the bust flew from hand to hand, and, by a sort of Jacob's ladder, reached the empty niche. Rousseau's bust followed, and the two were installed amid the cries, shouts and acclamations of all present.

But Coster de Saint-Victor, standing upon the railing of Barras's box, waited until silence had fallen. He might have waited for a long time had he not made a motion that he wished to speak. The cries of "Long live the author of 'Emile,' of 'The Social Contract,' and 'The New Héloise'!" mingled with others of "Long live the author of 'Zaïre,' 'Mahomet,' and the 'Henriade'!" died away and were succeeded by shouts of "Coster wants to speak! Speak, Coster! we are listening. Hush! hush! Silence!" Coster made another sign, and, judging that he could at last make himself heard, he shouted: "Citizens, thank citizen Barras, who is here in the box!"

All eyes were turned upon Barras.

"The illustrious general has been good enough to remind me that the same sacrilege which we have just repaired here exists in the chamber of the Convention. In fact, the two commemorative tablets, representing the death of Marat and citizen Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau, from the pencil of the Terrorist David, are still hanging upon the walls."

A cry burst from every throat: "To the Convention, friends, to the Convention!"

"The excellent citizen Barras will see that the doors are opened for us. Long live citizen Barras!"

And the whole audience, who had hooted Barras earlier in the evening, took up the cheer: "Long live Barras!"

As for Barras himself, bewildered by the part which Coster de Saint-Victor had allotted him in the comedy, a part in which it is needless to say he was a nonentity, he rose, and seizing his hat, cane, and overcoat, hastened from his box and ran downstairs in search of his carriage.

But rapidly as he had made his exit from the theatre, Coster, jumping from balcony to balcony, disappeared behind the curtain with a last cry of "To the Convention!" and reached Aurélie's door before Barras had called his carriage.

Suzette hurried to the door, although she had not recognized the general's ring; perhaps she hurried all the more for that reason, and Coster slipped through the half-open door.

"Hide me in the boudoir, Suzette," said he. "Citizen Barras will be here shortly to tell your mistress that he cannot sup with her. It is I who will sup with your mistress."

Scarcely had he uttered these words when a carriage drew up before the door of the house.

"Here! Quick, quick!" cried Suzette, opening the door of the boudoir. Coster de Saint-Victor darted in just as a hurried step sounded upon the stairs.

"Ah! there you are, citizen-general," said Suzette; "I guessed that it was you, and, as you see, I was holding the door open for you. My mistress is waiting impatiently for you."

"To the Convention! To the Convention!" shouted a band of young men who were passing through the street and striking at the pillars with their sticks.

"Oh! what is the matter?" asked Aurélie, appearing at the door, her color heightened with impatience and uneasiness.

"As you see, dear friend, a riot has occurred which deprives me of the pleasure of supping with you. I have come to tell you of it myself, so that you may not doubt my regret."

"Ah! how unfortunate!" exclaimed Aurélie. "Such a lovely supper."

"And such a sweet companion," added Barras, trying to bring forth a melancholy sigh. "But my duty as a statesman before all."

"To the Convention!" howled the mob.

"Au revoir, sweet friend; as you see, I have not a moment to lose if I am to get there before them." And faithful to his duty, as he said, the future director stopped only long enough to reward Suzette's fidelity by thrusting a handful of assignats in her hand, and then rushed down the stairs.

Suzette shut the door behind him, and as she was bolting and locking it, her mistress called out: "What are you doing?"

"As you see, madame, I am fastening the door."

"And Coster, you wretched girl?"

"Look behind you, madame," said Suzette.

Aurélie looked, and as she looked she uttered a cry of joy and surprise. Coster, who had come out from the boudoir on tiptoe, was standing behind her, with his arm held out to her.

"Citizeness," he said, "will you do me the honor to accept my arm and let me conduct you to the dining-room?"

"But how have you done it? What did you do? What did you devise?"

"I will tell you while we are eating citizen Barras's supper," said Coster de Saint-Victor.

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XIII. THE ELEVENTH VENDÉMIAIRE

One of the resolutions passed at the royalist agency in the Rue des Postes, after Cadoudal's departure on the evening to which we have referred, was that a meeting should be held the following evening at the Théâtre of the Odéon.

During the evening, as we have seen, a crowd of men, led by some fifty of the members of the jeunesse dorée, had repaired to the hall of the Convention, but their chief, Coster de Saint-Victor, having disappeared as completely as if he had vanished through some trap-door, the mob and the muscadins beat in vain against the doors of the Convention, whose members had been forewarned by Barras of the attack which was about to be made upon them.

From an artistic point of view, it would have been a great loss if the two pictures, against which the crowd were so incensed, had been destroyed. "The Death of Marat" was in particular one of David's masterpieces.

But the Convention, seeing the dangers to which it was exposed, and knowing that a fresh crater might burst forth in the volcano of Paris at any moment, declared itself in permanent session. The three representatives--Gillet, Aubry and Delmas--who, since the 4th Prairial, had been in command of the forces, were given authority to take all measures necessary for the safety of the Convention. This was done all the more thoroughly when it was learned, through those who had been present at the preparations for the following day, that there was to be a meeting of armed citizens at the Odéon the following evening, and their anxiety reached a culminating point.

The next day, the 3d of October (11th Vendémiaire), had been set apart for a funeral celebration, to be held in the Hall of Sessions itself, in memory of the Girondins. Several members proposed that the ceremony should be postponed for another day, but Tallien arose and said that it was unworthy of the Convention not to attend to its duties in times of danger even as in times of peace.

In permanent session, the Convention issued a decree ordering all illegal meetings of electors to disperse. The night passed in the midst of uproars which beggar description in all parts of the city. Shots were fired and people were knocked down. Whenever bands of the Sections and the Convention met, blows invariably ensued.

The Sections, on the other hand, in virtue of the rights of sovereignty they had assumed, issued their own decrees. Thus it was as a result of a decree of the Section Le Peletier that the meeting at the Odéon had been set for the 11th Vendémiaire.

Every moment brought in most disastrous news from the towns around Paris where the royalist committee had established its agencies. Risings had occurred at Orléans, Dreux, Verneuil, and Nonancourt. At Chartres, Tellier, the representative, had endeavored to prevent an insurrection, and finding that his efforts were unavailing, he blew out his brains. The Chouans had cut down all the trees planted in honor of the 14th of July--those glorious symbols of the people's triumph. They had hurled the Statue of Liberty into the mud; and in the provinces, as well as in Paris, patriots had been assaulted in the streets.

While the Convention was deliberating against the conspirators, the latter, in their turn, were acting against the Convention. About eleven in the morning the electors began to put in appearance at the Odéon, although only the more adventurous had taken this risk, and had they been counted they would scarcely have comprised a full thousand. In their midst a crowd of young men passed to and fro, shouting, scraping the railings and overturning the seats with their swords. But the number of chasseurs and grenadiers sent by the Sections did not exceed four hundred. More than ten thousand people surrounded the monument, the place of meeting, blocking up the entrances to the hall, and filling the neighboring streets.

If, on that day, the Convention, which was kept fully informed, had but acted with decision, the insurrection could have been suppressed; but once again it resorted to conciliatory measures. They issued a decree declaring the meeting illegal, and specified in one of its articles that all those who should at once disperse would be exempt from punishment. As soon as the decree was issued, some officers of the police, escorted by six dragoons, started from the Tuileries, where the Convention was in session, to command the mob to disperse.

But the streets were crowded with spectators. They wanted to know what the police and the dragoons intended to do; and they impeded them so successfully, that, although they left the palace at three o'clock, it was almost seven before they reached the Odéon, whither they were accompanied by cries, hoots, jeers, and provocations of every sort. From a distance they could be seen in the Place de l'Égalité opposite the monument, on the backs of their horses; and they looked like ships towering above the crowd and tossed upon a stormy sea.

They finally reached the square. The dragoons drew up before the steps of the theatre; the police officers, intrusted with the proclamation, went up under the portico, and there, lighted by torch-bearers, they read the proclamation.

But at the first words, the doors of the theatre flew open, and the "sovereigns," as the men of the Sections were called, came out at a run, followed by the electoral guards. The police were hurled from the top to the bottom of the steps, and the electoral guards charged the dragoons with fixed bayonets. The police disappeared, swallowed up by the crowd, followed by hooting and jeering; the dragoons dispersed, the torches were extinguished, and from the chaos rose cries of "Long live the Sections! Down with the Convention!"

These cries, passing from street to street, finally reached the ears of the Convention itself. And while the victors re-entered the Sections, and, enthusiastic as men always are after a first success, took oath never to lay down arms until the Tuileries should be destroyed, the patriots, even those who opposed the Convention, realizing the dangers now threatening that liberty of which the Convention was the last tabernacle, hastened in a body to offer their services and to demand arms. Some came from the prisons, while others had been ejected from the Sections. A large number of them were officers whose names had been struck off by the chairman of the war committee. Aubry joined them. The Convention hesitated for some time; but Louvet, that indefatigable patriot who had survived the ruin of all the parties, and who was desirous of reopening the Jacobin Club and of arming the faubourgs, insisted so strenuously that he carried the day.

Then not a minute was lost. They assembled all the unemployed officers and gave them the command of the soldiers, putting them all under the orders of brave General Berruyer.

This occurred on the evening of the 11th, just as word arrived of the rout of the police and the dragoons; and it was determined to clear the Odéon by means of an armed force.

In virtue of this order, General Menou directed a column of troops and two pieces of artillery to proceed from the camp at Sablons. But when they reached the Odéon at eleven o'clock at night, they found the square and the theatre empty and deserted. The whole night was spent in arming the patriots and in receiving defiance after defiance from the Sections Le Peletier, Butte-des-Moulins, Contrat-Social, Comédie-Française, Luxembourg, Rue Poissonière, Brutus, and Temple.

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XIV. THE TWELFTH VENDÉMIAIRE

On the morning of the 12th Vendémiaire, all the walls were covered with posters enjoining the national guards to report at their several Sections, which were threatened by the Terrorists, or, in other words, the Convention.

At nine o'clock in the morning the Section Le Peletier declared its sessions permanent, and proclaimed revolt by beating to arms in all the quarters of Paris. The Convention, exasperated, did likewise. Messengers were sent through the streets to reassure the citizens and to vouch for those to whom arms had been given. The air was filled with those strange thrills which betray the fevers of great cities, and which are the symptoms of great events. It was recognized that, so far as the Sections were concerned, the rebellion had gained such strength that it was no longer a question of reclaiming and convincing them, but of crushing them.

None of the days of the Revolution had yet dawned with such terrible presages--not the 14th of July, nor the 10th of August, nor even the 2d of September.

About eleven o'clock in the morning the Convention felt that the moment for action had arrived. Seeing that the Section Le Peletier was the headquarters, it was resolved to disarm it, and General Menou was ordered to march against it with a sufficient body of troops and artillery.

The general came from Sablons and crossed Paris. But when he reached the city he saw something that he had not suspected; namely, that he was opposing the nobility and the richer citizens, the class which represented public opinion. It was not the faubourgs, as he had supposed, which were to be swept with hot shell, it was the Place Vendôme, the Rue Saint-Honoré, the Boulevards, and the Faubourg Saint-Germain.

The man of the 1st Prairial hesitated on the 12th Vendémiaire. He went on, however, but so reluctantly that the Convention was obliged to send Representative Laporte to urge him on. All Paris was watching this great duel. Unfortunately the Section Le Peletier had for a president the man whom we already know from his interviews with the president of the Convention and the Chouan general; he was as rapid in his decisions as Menou was feeble and hesitating.

Therefore it was already eight o'clock in the evening when General Verdières received orders from General Menou to take sixty grenadiers of the Convention, one hundred of the battalion of the Oise, and twenty horsemen, to form a column on the left side of the Rue des Filles-de-Saint-Thomas, and there to await orders.

Scarcely, however, had he entered the Rue Vivienne than Morgan appeared at the door of the Convent of the Daughters of Saint-Thomas, where the Section Le Peletier was in session, and ordered out a hundred of the Sectional party, commanding them to shoulder arms. Morgan's grenadiers obeyed without hesitation. Verdières gave the same order to his troops, but murmurs of dissent were heard.

"Friends," cried Morgan, "we shall not fire first, but when the fighting has once begun you need expect no quarter from us. If the Convention wants war it shall have it."

Verdières's grenadiers wished to reply, but the general called out: "Silence in the ranks!"

He was obeyed. Then he ordered the cavalry to draw their sabres and the infantry to ground arms. In the meantime the centre column arrived by way of the Rue Vivienne, and the right by the Rue Nôtre-Dame-des-Victoires.

The entire assembly had been converted into an armed force; a thousand men issued from the convent and formed in the portico. Morgan, sword in hand, placed himself a few steps in advance of the rest.

"Citizens," he said, addressing the Sectionists under his orders, "you are for the most part married men and fathers of families; I am, therefore, responsible for more lives than yours; as much as I should like to return death for death to these human tigers who have guillotined my father and shot my brother, I command you, in the names of your wives and children, not to fire first. But if our enemies fire a single shot--as you see, I am ten feet in front of you--the first who fires from their ranks perishes by my hand."

These words were uttered amid the most profound silence; for before speaking Morgan had raised his sword to impose silence, and neither his own men nor the patriots had lost a syllable of what he said.

Nothing could have been easier than to have replied to these words with a triple volley, the first from the right, the second from the left, and the third from the Rue Vivienne, in which case this would have amounted merely to pure bravado. Exposed like a target to the bullets, Morgan would necessarily have fallen.

The astonishment was great when, instead of the expected volley, Laporte, after consulting with General Menou, advanced toward Morgan, and the general ordered his men to ground arms. The order was promptly obeyed.

But the astonishment increased, when, after exchanging a few words with Laporte, Morgan said: "I am here only to fight, and because I thought there was to be fighting. When it comes to compliments and concessions, the affair passes into the vice-president's hands, and I will retire."

And returning his sword into the scabbard, he withdrew into the crowd, where he was soon lost. The vice-president advanced in his stead. After a conference, which lasted about ten minutes, a portion of the Sectional troops marched off, turning a corner of the convent to regain the Rue Montmartre, and the Republican troops retired to the Palais Royal.

But scarcely had the troops of the Convention disappeared before the Sectional troops, led by Morgan, reappeared, crying with one accord: "Down with the Two-thirds! Down with the Convention!"

This cry, starting at the convent of the Daughters of Saint-Thomas, spread like wild-fire all over Paris. Two or three churches, which had retained their bells, began to sound the tocsin. This sinister sound, which had not been heard for more than four years, produced an effect more terrible than the booming of cannon. It was the coming of a religious and political reaction, wafted as if upon the wings of the wind.

It was eleven o'clock at night when the unwelcome sound, together with word of Menou's advance and its result, reached the hall where the Convention was in session. All the deputies swarmed into the room, questioning each other, and unable to believe that the positive command to surround and disarm the Section Le Peletier had been disobeyed, and converted into a friendly interview at the end of which both parties had gone their ways.

But when tidings came that the party of the Section, instead of dispersing, had retraced their steps, and, from their convent as from a fortress, defied and insulted the Convention, Chénier sprang to the tribune.

Imbittered by the cruel accusation, which followed him as long as he lived, and even beyond the grave, that he had allowed his brother André to be executed through jealousy, Marie-Joseph Chénier always advocated the harshest and most expeditious measures.

"Citizens!" he cried, "I cannot believe what we have just been told. A retreat before the enemy is a misfortune, but retreat before rebels is treason. Before I descend from this tribune I want to know whether the will of the majority of the French people is to be respected, or whether we are to bow before the authority of the Sections--we, the will of the nation. I demand that the government be called to account before the Assembly for what has taken place in Paris."

Shouts of approbation followed this energetic appeal, and Chénier's motion was unanimously agreed to.

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XV. THE NIGHT OF THE 12TH AND THE 13TH VENDÉMIAIRE

Delaunay (d'Angers), a member of the government, mounted the tribune to reply in its name.

"Citizens," he said, "I have just been told that the Section Le Peletier is hemmed in on all sides."

Applause greeted these words from all sides; but a voice rang out above them, crying: "That is not true."

"And I tell you," continued Delaunay, "that it is true."

"That is not true," repeated the same voice with still greater firmness. "I have just come from the Section Le Peletier, and I know. Our troops have retreated, and the Sectionists are masters of Paris."

Just then the noise of many cries, footsteps, and vociferations resounded in the corridors. A flood of people swept into the room, terrible and resistless as a tidal wave. The tribunes were invaded; the wave flowed round them. A hundred voices cried in the crowd: "To arms! To arms! To prison with General Menou! We are betrayed."

"I demand," cried Chénier, standing upon his seat, "I demand that General Menou be arrested, that he be tried on the spot, and that, if he be guilty, he be shot in the courtyard."

Shouts of "Arrest General Menou!" redoubled. Chénier continued: "I demand that arms and cartridges be distributed anew to all the patriots who ask for them. I demand that a battalion of patriots be formed that shall assume the name of 'The Holy Battalion of '89,' and that they shall swear to die on the steps of the Assembly rather than yield."

Then, as if they had only awaited this motion, four hundred patriots invaded the hall, demanding arms. They were the veterans of the Revolution--the living history of the past six years; the men who had fought under the walls of the Bastille; who, on the 10th of August, had attacked the same château that they were called upon to defend to-day; men covered with scars, the heroes of Valmy and Jemmapes, proscribed because their daring deeds were attached to obscure names, and because they had vanquished the Prussians without organized tactics, and beaten the Austrians without a knowledge of mathematics or even knowing how to spell. They all accused the aristocratic factions of having driven them out of the army. It was the reactionary Aubry who had torn the swords from their hands and the epaulets from their shoulders.

They kissed the guns and swords which were distributed to them, and pressed them to their hearts, exclaiming: "Then we are free, since we are to die for our country!"

Just then an usher entered to announce a deputation from the Section Le Peletier.

"You see," said Delaunay, "that I knew what I was talking about. They have come to accept the conditions imposed upon them by Menou and Laporte."

The usher went out and returned five minutes later.

"The chief of the deputation asks if he and his companions will be safeguarded while he makes a communication to the Convention," he said.

Boissy d'Anglas raised his hand.

"On the honor of the nation," he said, "those who enter here shall go forth as safe and sound as they enter."

The usher retired with the answer. Profound silence reigned in the Assembly. The deputies still hoped, thanks to this unexpected occurrence, to escape from their dilemma by means of conciliatory measures. The silence was broken by the sound of approaching footsteps. All eyes turned toward the door and a shiver ran through the Assembly.

The same young man who had addressed the Convention on the previous occasion headed the deputation. His bearing showed plainly that he had not come to make submission.

"Citizen president," said Boissy d'Anglas, "you have asked to be heard and we listen to you. You have asked to be safeguarded and we accord that demand. Speak therefore."

"Citizens," said the young man, "I hope that you will refuse the last offers of the Sections, for I wish to fight. The happiest day of my life will be when I enter this hall ankle-deep in blood, with fire and sword in my hand."

A threatening murmur ran along the benches of the Convention; a thrill of wonder passed through the tribunes and the group of patriots who were crowded in the corner of the hall.

"Continue," said Boissy d'Anglas; "swell your threats to insolence. You know that you have nothing to fear and that we have guaranteed you your life and liberty."

"For that reason," continued the young man, "I will tell you in a few words what brings me here. It is the sacrifice of my personal vengeance to the general welfare, even including your own. I thought I had no right to send by another this final summons which I now pronounce to you. If to-morrow, at daybreak, the walls are not covered with notices to the effect that the Convention is dissolved in a body, and that Paris and the rest of France are free to choose their own representatives, without any conditions whatever, we shall consider that you have declared war and shall march against you. You have five thousand men, and we sixty thousand, with right on our side as well." Here he drew out a watch set with brilliants. "It wants a quarter to midnight," he continued; "if within twelve hours, that is to say to-morrow at noon, Paris has not received full satisfaction, the hall which shelters you to-night will be torn down stone by stone, and fire will be set to the four corners of the Tuileries, that the royal dwelling may be purified of your sojourn in it. I have spoken."

A cry of vengeance and menace rang through the hall; the patriots who had just been armed wanted to throw themselves upon the insolent orator; but Boissy d'Anglas stretched out his hand:

"I have pledged your word as well as my own, citizens," he said. "The president of the Section Le Peletier must retire as he came, safe and sound. That is the way we keep our word; we shall see how he keeps his."

"Then it is war!" exclaimed Morgan, with a cry of delight.

"Yes, citizen," replied Boissy d'Anglas, "and civil war, which is the worst of all wars. Go, and never appear before us again, for I could not answer for your safety another time."

Morgan withdrew with a smile on his lips. He took with him what he had come to seek, the certainty of a battle on the following day. Nothing could avert it.

Hardly had he left the hall, however, than a frightful tumult arose.

Midnight struck. The 13th Vendémiaire had begun.

Let us leave the Sections at odds with the Convention, since we still have six or eight hours before war shall blaze out, and let us enter one of those mixed salons which were frequented by men of both parties, and where we can consequently obtain more definite news of the Sections than was possible at the Convention.

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XVI. THE SALON OF MADAME DE STAËL, THE SWEDISH AMBASSADRESS

About two-thirds of the way along the Rue du Bac, between the Rue de Grenelle and the Rue de la Plance, stands a massive dwelling which can be recognized to-day by the four Ionic columns which support, two by two, a heavy stone balcony. This was the Swedish embassy, and the celebrated Madame de Staël, daughter of Monsieur de Necker, and wife of the Swedish ambassador, Baron de Staël-Holstein, resided there.

Madame de Staël is so well known that it would perhaps be superfluous to draw her portrait, physical, moral, and intellectual. We will, however, say a few words concerning her. Born in 1766, Madame de Staël was then in the zenith of her genius--we will not say beauty, since she was never beautiful. A passionate admirer of her father, who was only a mediocre man, whatever else may be said for him, she had followed his fortunes, and emigrated with him, although the position of her husband as Swedish ambassador insured her safety.

But she soon returned to Paris, when she drew up a plan for the escape of King Louis XVI., and in 1793 addressed the revolutionary government in the queen's defence, when the latter was brought to trial. Gustavus IV.'s declaration of war with Russia recalled the ambassador to Stockholm, and he was absent from Paris from the day of the queen's death to that of Robespierre's. After the 9th Thermidor, M. de Staël returned to Paris, still as Swedish ambassador, and Madame de Staël, who could not live out of sight of "that gutter of a Rue du Bac," returned with him.

She had but just returned when she opened her salon, where she naturally received all men of distinction, whether they were Frenchmen or foreigners. But, although she had been among the first to espouse the principles of 1789, whether because the voice of reason dictated the course, or the march of events had modified her ideas, she advocated the return of the émigré's with all her might, and so frequently did she ask that their names be erased from the list of the proscribed, particularly that of M. de Narbonne, that the famous butcher Legendre denounced her to the tribune.

Her salon and that of Madame Tallien divided Paris, only Madame de Staël was in favor of a constitutional monarchy, that is to say, something between the Cordeliers and the Girondins.

On this particular evening of the night of the 12th and the 13th Vendémiaire, when the Convention was in the greatest uproar, Madame de Staël's salon was crowded with company. The gathering was very brilliant, and no one, looking at the apparel of the women and the easy carriage of the men would have imagined that people were about to cut each other's throats in the streets of Paris. And yet amid all this gayety and wit, which is never so great in France as in hours of danger, one might have discovered certain clouds, such as summer casts over fields and harvests.

Every new-comer was hailed with bursts of curiosity and eager questioning, which revealed the extent of the interest which the company took in the situation. And then for the moment the two or three ladies who shared the honors with Madame de Staël, either by reason of their wit or beauty, were left alone.

Every one ran to the new-comer, gathered from him whatever he knew, and then returned to his own circle, where the reports were eagerly discussed. By tacit agreement, each lady, who, as we have said, was admitted to the salon by reason of her wit or beauty, held a little court of her own in the reception-room of the Hôtel de Suède; so on this particular evening there was, besides Madame de Staël, Madame de Krüdener and Madame Récamier.

Madame de Krüdener was three years younger than Madame de Staël. She was a Courlandaise, born at Riga, the daughter of a rich landowner, Baron de Witinghof. She married Baron de Krüdener at the age of fourteen, and accompanied him to Copenhagen and Venice, where he filled the rôle of Russian ambassador. Separated from her husband in 1791, she had regained the liberty which had been for a time curtailed by her marriage. She was very charming and very witty, speaking and writing French extremely well. The only thing with which she could have been reproached in that exceedingly unsentimental age, was a strong tendency to solitude and revery. Her melancholy, which was born of the North, and which made her look like a heroine of a Scandinavian saga, lent her a peculiar character in the midst of her surroundings, which tended toward mysticism. Her friends were sometimes angered by a sort of ecstasy which occasionally seized upon her in the midst of a brilliant gathering. But when they drew near her in her inspired moments, and saw her beautiful eyes raised to heaven, they forgot Saint Thérèse in Madame de Krüdener, and the woman of the world in the inspired being. But it was common belief that those beautiful eyes, so often raised to heaven, would deign to regard things earthly the moment that the singer Garat entered the room where she was. A romance which she was then writing, entitled "Valérie, or the Letters of Gustave de Linard to Ernest de G.," was nothing more than the history of their love.

She was a woman of twenty-five or six, with that light hair peculiar to northern latitudes. In her moments of ecstasy her face assumed a marble-like rigidity of expression, and her skin, as white as satin, gave an appearance of truth to the illusion. Her friends, and she had many, although she had as yet no disciples, said that in her moments of lofty abstraction, and communion with supernatural beings, disconnected words escaped her, which nevertheless, like the Pythonesses of ancient times, had a meaning of their own. In short, Madame de Krüdener was a forerunner of modern spiritualism. In our day she would have been called a "medium." The word not being invented at that time, the world contented itself with calling her inspired.

Madame Récamier, the youngest of all the women of fashion of the day, was born at Lyons, in 1777, and was named Jeanne-Françoise-Adélaide-Julie Bernard. She married, in 1793, Jacques-Bose Récamier, who was twenty-six years older than she. His fortune was derived from an immense hat factory founded at Lyons by his father. When he was still quite young, he travelled for the house, after receiving a classical education which enabled him to quote either Virgil or Horace when occasion required. He spoke Spanish, for his business had taken him more particularly into Spain. He was handsome, tall, of light complexion, strongly built, easily moved, generous, and light-hearted; and but slightly attached to his friends, although he never refused to lend them money. One of his best friends, whom he had aided pecuniarily many times, died; he merely said with a sigh: "Another money-drawer closed!"

Married during the Terror, he was present at executions even on his wedding-day, just as he had been on the day previous, and would be on the following day. He saw the king and the queen die, together with Lavoisier and the twenty-seven farmers-general; Laborde, his most intimate friend; and, in short, almost all those with whom he had either business or social relations. When asked why he displayed such assiduity in attending the sad spectacle, he replied: "I wish to familiarize myself with the scaffold."

And in fact he escaped being guillotined almost by a miracle. He did, however, escape; and the sort of supernumerary time he had spent with death was of no value to him.

Was it in consequence of this daily contemplation of nothingness that he forgot his wife's beauty, so that he bore her only a paternal affection; or was it one of those imperfections by means of which capricious nature often renders sterile her most beautiful works? Be that as it may, the fact that she was a wife in name only remains a mystery but no secret.

And yet, at the age of sixteen, when Mademoiselle Bernard became his wife, her biographer tells us that she had passed from childhood into the splendor of youth. A supple, elegant figure, shoulders worthy of the Goddess Hebe, a perfectly shaped and exquisitely formed neck, a small red mouth, teeth like pearls, arms which were charming though a little thin, chestnut hair which curled naturally, a nose both regular and delicate, although thoroughly French, a complexion of incomparable brilliancy, a face replete with candor (though at times it sparkled with mischief), whose gentle expression lent it an irresistible charm, a manner at once insolent and proud, the best set head in the world--with all these graces it might most truly have been said of her, as Saint-Simon said of the Duchesse de Bourgogne: "Her bearing was that of a goddess enthroned upon clouds."

The little courts appeared as independent of each other as though they had been held in separate houses; but the principal one, through which the others were reached, was ruled by the mistress of the dwelling. This lady, as we have said, was Madame de Staël, already known in politics through the interests she had brought to bear in order to obtain the appointment of M. de Narbonne as minister of war, and in literature through her enthusiastic letters concerning Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

She was not beautiful, and yet it would have been impossible to pass her unnoticed, or to come in contact with her without realizing that hers was one of those natures which sow words upon the field of thought as a laborer sows his grain in the furrows. This evening she wore a dress of red velvet, opening at the sides over a petticoat of straw-colored satin; she had on a turban of straw-colored satin with a bird of paradise, and she was nibbling a sprig of flowering heather between her thick lips, which nevertheless disclosed beautiful teeth. Her nose was somewhat too strong, and her cheeks too tanned, but her eyes, eyebrows and forehead were wonderfully beautiful. Matter or divinity, there was power there.

Standing with her back to the mantel, with one hand leaning upon it, while she gesticulated with the other like a man, and still holding the heather from which she now and then bit off a piece with her teeth, she was talking to a young man, her ardent adorer, whose fair, curly hair shaded his face and fell almost to his shoulders.

"No, you are mistaken, my dear Constant. No, I am not against the Republic. Quite on the contrary, those who know me know with what ardor I adopted the principles of '89. But I have a horror of sans-culottism, and vulgar loves. As soon as it became apparent that Liberty, instead of being the most chaste and beautiful of women, was a mere vulgar courtesan who passed from Marat's arms to those of Danton, and thence to Robespierre's, my respect for her ceased. Let there be no more princes, no more dukes, no more counts, no more marquises; I am perfectly willing. Citizen is a fine title when it is addressed to Cato; citizeness is even more noble when Cornelia is its object. But to be on intimate terms with my laundress, and to talk familiarly with my coachman, is more than I can agree to. Equality is a fine thing, but the word equality needs to be defined. If it signifies that education must be equal for all at the expense of the government, then it is most excellent; that all men shall be equal before the law, still more excellent. But if it means that all French citizens shall be of the same height, cut, and physical appearance, then it becomes the law of Procrustes, and not a proclamation of the rights of man. If I had to choose between the law of Lycurgus and that of Solon, between Sparta and Athens, I should choose Athens, and, furthermore, the Athens of Pericles, and not that of Pisistratus."

"Well!" replied the handsome young man to whom this social sally was addressed, with his witty smile, and who was none other than Benjamin Constant, "you would be wrong, for you would choose Athens in her decline, and not at her rise."

"Her decline? With Pericles? It seems to me that on the contrary I choose her in all her splendor."

"Yes; but, madame, nothing begins with splendor. Splendor is the fruit which is preceded by the buds, the flowers, and the leaves. You will have none of Pisistratus, and you are wrong. It was he who, in placing himself at the head of the poorer classes, prepared the future greatness of Athens. As for his two sons, Hipparchus and Hippias, I abandon them to you. But Aclysthenes, who increased the number of senators to five hundred, as our Convention has just done, began the period of the great Persian wars. Miltiades defeated the Persians at Marathon; Pichegru has just conquered the Prussians and the Austrians. Themistocles destroyed the Persian fleet at Salamis; Moreau has just captured the Dutch fleet by a cavalry charge. It is even more original. The liberty of Greece sprang from the very wars which seemed to threaten her with inevitable destruction, as ours has from our war with foreign powers. Then it was that the privileges were extended; then it was that the archons and magistrates were chosen from all classes irrespective of degree. Moreover, you forget that Æschylus was born during this fertile period. Illuminated by the unconscious divination of power, he created the character of Prometheus; or, in other words, the revolt of man against tyranny--Æschylus, the younger brother of Homer, who seems nevertheless the elder."

"Bravo! bravo!" said a voice. "You are strong in literature, upon my word. But in the meantime they are cutting one another's throats in the Section Le Peletier and the Quartier Feydeau. There, just hear the bells! They have returned from Rome."

"Ah! is it you, Barbé-Marbois," said Madame de Staël, addressing a man in the forties, very handsome, but with the pomposity and vapidity which is so often met with in palaces and among diplomats--a very honest man for all that, and the son-in-law of William Moore, the president and governor of Pennsylvania. "Where do you come from?"

"Straight from the Convention."

"And what are they doing there?"

"Arguing. They have outlawed the Sectionists and are arming the patriots. As for the Sectionists, they have already found the bells, which proves that they are monarchists in disguise. To-morrow they will find their guns, and then there will be a fine rumpus."

"What can you expect?" asked a man with straight hair, hollow temples, livid skin, and a crooked mouth; a man who was ugly with the twofold ugliness of man and beast. "I kept telling them at the Convention, 'As long as you do not have an organized police and a minister of police--one who is not only appointed to the office but fitted for it--things will go to the devil.' Well, I who have a dozen fellows under me for the pleasure of it--I who am an amateur policeman because I like the business--I am better informed than they."

"And what do you know, Monsieur Fouché?" asked Madame de Staël.

"Faith, madame, I know that the Chouans have been convoked from all parts of the kingdom, and that the day before yesterday, at Lemaistre's house--you know Lemaistre, baroness?"

"Is he not the agent of the princes?"

"That's the man. Well, the Jura and the Morbihan shook hands there."

"Which means--?" asked Barbé-Marbois.

"Which means that Cadoudal renewed his vow of fidelity, and the Count de Sainte-Hermine his oath of vengeance."

The other salons had diverged toward the first one, and were gathering around the new-comers who brought the news which we have already heard.

"We know who Cadoudal is," replied Madame de Staël. "He is a Chouan, who, after fighting in the Vendée, has crossed the Loire; but who is this Comte de Sainte-Hermine?"

"The Comte de Sainte-Hermine is a young noble who belongs to one of the best families of the Jura. He is the second of three sons. His father was guillotined, his mother died of grief, his brother was shot at Auenheim, and he has sworn to avenge his father and his brother. The mysterious president of the Section Le Peletier, the famous Morgan who insulted the Convention in its own hall of assembly, do you know who he is?"

"No."

"Well, he is the man."

"Really, Monsieur Fouché," said Benjamin Constant, "you have missed your vocation. You ought to be neither priest, sailor, deputy, nor representative; you should be minister of police."

"And if I were," replied Fouché, "Paris would be quieter than it is now. I ask you, is it not perfectly absurd to quail before the Sections? Menou ought to be shot."

"Citizen," said Madame Krüdener, who affected republican forms of speech, "here is citizen Garat; he has just come in, and perhaps he can give us some news. Garat, what do you know?" And she drew into the circle a man of thirty-three or four, elegantly dressed.

"He knows that one minim is worth two crotchets," said Benjamin Constant, mockingly.

Garat rose on the tips of his toes to discover the author of this joke at his expense. He was strong on minims, a matchless singer, and, furthermore, one of the most perfect incroyables that the witty pencil of Horace Vernet has bequeathed to us. He was a nephew of the Conventional Garat, who wept as he read Louis XVI.'s sentence of death. Son of a distinguished lawyer, his father wished to make a lawyer of him, but nature and education produced a singer; for the former had endowed him with one of the most beautiful voices the world has ever heard.

An Italian named Lamberti, together with François Beck, the director of the theatre at Bordeaux, gave him music lessons; which inspired him with such a passion for music that when he was sent to Paris to take a course in law he took a course in singing instead. When his father heard of this he stopped his allowance. The Comte d'Artois then appointed him his private secretary, and had him sing before Marie-Antoinette, who immediately admitted him to her private concerts.

Garat thus became completely estranged from his father, for nothing will estrange father and son quicker than the withdrawal of the latter's allowance. The Comte d'Artois intending to visit Bordeaux, he suggested that Garat accompany him. The latter hesitated at first, but the desire to let his father see him in his new position induced him to go. At Bordeaux he found his old master Beck in penury, and he arranged a concert for his benefit. Curiosity to hear a man from their own department, who had already attained fame as a singer, prevailed, and the people of Bordeaux flocked to hear him. The receipts were enormous, and Garat's success was so great that his father, who was present, left his place and threw himself in his son's arms. In consequence of this amend, coram populo, Garat forgave him.

Garat remained an amateur until the beginning of the Revolution; but the loss of his fortune compelled him to become a professional artist. In 1793 he started for England, but the vessel in which he sailed, driven by contrary winds, landed him at Hamburg instead. Seven or eight concerts, which were attended with great success, enabled him to return to France with a thousand louis, which were each worth seven or eight hundred francs in paper money. Upon his return he met Madame Krüdener, and became intimate with her.

The Thermidorean reaction adopted Garat, and there was not, at the time of which we are speaking, a great concert, a brilliant gathering, or an elegant exhibition, at which he did not figure as the foremost of the artists, singers or invited guests. This good fortune made Garat very susceptible, as we have seen, and there was nothing astonishing in the fact that he looked about him to see who had declared that his musical knowledge was limited to the incontrovertible fact that one minim is worth two crotchets. It must be remembered that it was Benjamin Constant, another incroyable, not less susceptible than Garat upon the point of honor, who had spoken.

"Look no further, citizen," said he, holding out his hand; "it is I who advanced that daring opinion. If you do know anything else tell it to us."

Garat pressed the hand as frankly as it had been offered.

"Faith, no," he said; "I have just come from Cléry Hall. My carriage could not pass the Pont-Neuf, which was guarded, so I was obliged to get here by the quays, where the drums are making a devil of a noise. I crossed the Pont Égalité. It is raining in torrents. Mesdames Todi and Mara sang, exquisitely, three or four selections from Gluck and Cimarosa."

"What did I tell you?" asked Benjamin Constant.

"Is it indeed drums that we hear?" asked a voice.

"Yes," replied Garat, "but they are relaxed by the rain, and nothing is more lugubrious than the sound of wet drums."

"Ah! here is Boissy d'Anglas," exclaimed Madame de Staël. "He has probably come from the Convention, unless he has resigned his position as president."

"Yes, baroness," said Boissy d'Anglas, with his melancholy smile, "I have come from the Convention; and I wish I could bring you better news."

"Good!" said Barbé-Marbois, "another Prairial?"

"If that were all," sighed Boissy d'Anglas.

"What is it, then?"

"Unless I am much mistaken, all Paris will be in flames to-morrow. And this time it is indeed civil war. The Section Le Peletier replied to our last summons that 'The Convention has five thousand men, and the Sections sixty thousand; we will give the Conventionals until daybreak to-morrow to vacate the hall of sessions. If it is not done by that time we will drive you out.'"

"And what do you intend to do, gentlemen?" asked Madame-Récamier, in her soft and charming voice.

"Why, madame," replied Boissy d'Anglas, "we intend to emulate the Roman senators when the Gauls invaded the Capitol; we shall die at our posts."

"Would it be possible to see that?" asked M. Récamier with the utmost self-possession. "I have seen the Convention massacred by piecemeal, and I should like to see it done in a body."

"Be there to-morrow about one o'clock," replied Boissy d'Anglas, with the same imperturbable calm. "That is probably when the struggle will begin."

"Oh, not at all," cried a new arrival; "you will not secure the glory of martyrdom for yourselves, you are saved."

"Come, no pleasantries, Saint-Victor," said Madame de Staël to the last speaker.

"Madame, I never jest," said Coster de Saint-Victor, greeting Madame de Staël, Madame de Krüdener, and Madame Récamier with a comprehensive bow.

"But what is the news? What do you mean by this universal salvation?" asked Benjamin Constant.

"The news, ladies and gentlemen--I beg pardon, citizens and citizenesses--is that, in accordance with a proposition of the citizen Merlin of Douai, the National Convention has just decreed that Brigadier-General Barras is to be appointed commander of the armed forces, in reward for his services in Thermidor. It is true he cannot make long speeches, but he excels in the construction of short, but vehement and energetic phrases. Do you not see that since General Barras is to defend the Convention, the Convention is saved? And now that I have done my duty in reassuring you, baroness, I am going home to make my preparations."

"For what?" asked Madame de Staël.

"To fight against him to-morrow, madame, and right willingly too."

"Then you are a royalist, Coster?"

"Why, yes," replied the young man; "I find that there are more pretty women in that party than in the others. And then--and then--then I have other reasons which are known only to myself."

And bowing a second time with his accustomed elegance, he went out, leaving everybody to comment upon the news he had brought, and which, it is needless to say, did not completely reassure them, Coster de Saint-Victor notwithstanding.

But as the tocsin was ringing ever louder and louder, as the drums continued to beat, and the rain was still falling, there was no hope of further news, and as the bronze clock representing Marius among the ruins of Carthage was chiming the hour of four, they called their carriages, and went away, secretly uneasy, but outwardly confident.

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XVII. THE HOTEL OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN

As Coster de Saint-Victor had announced, Barras had been appointed about one o'clock in the morning commander of the forces within and without Paris, and all civil and military authorities were placed under his orders.

This choice did not deserve Coster de Saint-Victor's derision. Barras was brave, cool, and devoted to the cause of liberty, and at Toulon he had given irrefutable proofs of his bravery and patriotism. He did not deceive himself in regard to the danger of the situation, and the terrible responsibility which rested upon his shoulders. Nevertheless, he remained perfectly calm. Even while pushing his appointment with all his might, he had known of an auxiliary, unknown to all others, upon whom he could rely.

He therefore left the Tuileries immediately after his nomination, attired in a long dark overcoat, and hesitated a moment whether to take a carriage or not; but thinking that a carriage would attract notice and might be stopped, he drew a large pair of pistols from his pocket, and contented himself with securing them in his deputy's sash beneath his overcoat. Then he set off on foot through the Echelle wicket. He went along the Rue Traversière, passed the Palais Royal, followed the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs for a few steps, and found himself opposite the Rue des Fosses-Montmartre. It had been pouring in torrents during all this time.

Everything was in frightful confusion, a fact of which Barras was well aware. He knew that the artillery was still in the camp at Sablons, and that it was guarded by one hundred and fifty men only. He also knew that there were only eighty thousand cartridges in the magazine, and that there were no provisions and no brandy. He knew that all communication with the staff, who had their headquarters on the Boulevard des Capucines, was cut off by the Sectionists of the Club Le Peletier, who had extended their line of sentinels from the Rue des Filles de Saint-Thomas as far as the Rue Saint-Pierre-Montmartre and the Place Vendôme. He was aware of the exasperated pride of the Sectionists, who, as we have seen, had raised the standard of revolt; he knew of the expedition of the preceding day, so shamefully conducted by Menou, and so vigorously received by Morgan, which had doubled their actual strength and quadrupled their moral strength.

On all sides the report was rife that this Section, hemmed in by thirty thousand Conventionals, had overawed them by their courage, and had repulsed them, and forced them to shameful retreat by the skilful disposition of their troops.

Every one spoke of the audacity which Morgan had displayed in placing himself between the two troops, of his lofty air, and that hauteur with which he had addressed General Menou and Representative Laporte. It was whispered, but whispered with the greatest precautions, that he was a great personage, a very great personage, who had only returned to Paris some three or four days before, bearing letters of the highest recommendation to the royalist committees in Paris from the royalist committees in London.

The Convention was already no longer hated; it was despised. And, in truth, what had the Sections to fear from it, spared because of its weakness? They had united during the night of the 11th, and on the 12th had sent detachments to support the Mother Section. They therefore felt that the National Convention would be annihilated, and were prepared to sing the De Profundis over its corpse.

Thus, on his way across Paris, Barras was constantly confronted by one or another of those Sections which had come to the assistance of the Mother Section, and who accosted him thus: "Who goes there?"

To which he replied: "A Sectionist."

At every few steps he met a drummer beating a mournful recall or general on his relaxed drum, the lugubrious and sinister sound of his mournful performance being better suited to a funeral procession than to their actual purpose. Furthermore, men were seen gliding through the streets like shadows, knocking at doors, and calling upon other men to arm and repair to the Sections to defend their wives and children, whose throats the Terrorists had sworn to cut. Perhaps these attempts would have been less successful in broad daylight; but the mystery which clings to deeds of the night, entreaties in low tones, as if in fear lest assassins should overhear the whispered communication, the mournful and incessant beating of the drums and the ringing of the bells--all this caused anxiety and trepidation throughout the city, and foretold something indefinite but terrible that was impending.

Barras saw and heard all that. He was no longer judging of the city from mere reports; he was feeling its pulse with his own finger. Thus when he left the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, he hastened his steps almost to a run as he fled across the Place des Victoires; then gliding along the Rue Fosses-Montmartre, keeping in the shadow of the houses, he finally reached the door of the little hotel of "The Rights of Man." Having gone thus far, he stopped and took a few steps backward, in order to read the sign which he sought by the fitful light of the lamp; after which, approaching the door, he rapped vigorously with the knocker.

A man-servant was in attendance, and he, probably judging from the vigorous knocking that some one of importance was without, did not keep him waiting long. The door opened cautiously.

Barras slipped through the opening and shut the door behind him. Then, without waiting to enlighten the servant as to the cause of all these precautions, he asked: "Citizen Bonaparte lodges here, does he not?"

"Yes, citizen."

"Is he at home?"

"He returned about an hour ago."

"Where is his room?"

"No. 47, on the fourth floor at the end of the corridor."

"Right or left?"

"Left."

"Thanks."

Barras hastened up the stairs, soon reaching the top of the four flights, took the corridor to the left, and stopped before the door of No. 47. Once there, he knocked three times.

"Come in," said a curt voice, which seemed made to command.

Barras turned the handle and entered. He found himself in a room furnished with a curtainless bed, two tables, one large and the other small, four chairs and a globe. A sword and a pair of pistols hung on the wall. A young man, completely dressed, except for his uniform, was seated at the smaller of the two tables, studying a plan of Paris by the light of the lamp.

At the sound of the opening door, the occupant of the room turned half-way around in his chair to see who the unexpected visitor, who came at such an hour, could be. As he sat thus the lamp lighted three-quarters of his face, leaving the rest in shade.

He was about twenty-three or four, with an olive complexion, somewhat lighter at the temples and forehead. His straight black hair was parted in the middle and fell down below his ears. His eagle eye, straight nose and strong chin and lower jaw, increasing in size as it approached his ears, left no doubt as to the trend of his abilities. He was a man of war, belonging to the race of conquerors. Seen thus, and lighted in this way, his face looked like a bronze medallion. He was so thin that all the bones in his face were plainly discernible.

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XVIII. CITIZEN BONAPARTE

Barras closed the door and stepped within the circle of light cast by the lamp. Then only did the young man recognize him.

"Ah! is it you, citizen Barras?" he asked without rising.

Barras shook himself, for he was drenched, and tossed his dripping hat upon a chair. The young man continued to watch him attentively.

"Yes, it is I, citizen Bonaparte," said he.

"What wind has blown you to the poor soldier's cell at this hour. A mistral or a sirocco?"

"Mistral, my dear Bonaparte; a mistral of the most violent kind."

The young man gave a dry, harsh laugh, which showed his small, sharp, white teeth.

"I know something about it," he said. "I took a walk through Paris this evening."

"And what is your opinion?"

"It is that, as the Section Le Peletier intimated to the Convention, the storm will burst to-morrow."

"And what were you doing in the meantime?"

The young man rose, and pointing with his index finger to the map on the table, he said: "As you see, I was amusing myself by planning what I would do if I, instead of that imbecile Menou, were general of the interior, in order to put an end to all these talkers."

"And what would you do?"

"I would try to secure a dozen cannon which would talk louder than they."

"Did you not tell me one day at Toulon that you had witnessed the rising of the 20th of June from the terrace beside the ornamental waters?"

The young man shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

"Yes," he said, "I saw your poor King Louis XVI. put on the red cap, which did not prevent his head from falling, and which only disgraced it. And I even said to Bourrienne, who was with me that day, 'How could they admit that rabble to the château? They should have swept four or five hundred out with cannon, the rest would have run out of themselves.'"

"Unfortunately," resumed Barras, "to-day there are five thousand instead of five hundred to be swept out."

The young man smiled carelessly.

"A difference of number, that is all," he replied; "but what ultimate difference, so long as the result is the same? The rest is a mere matter of detail."

"So much so that you were defeating the insurgents when I came in?"

"I was making the endeavor."

"And you had your plan laid out?"

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"That depends. How many soldiers can you call upon?"

"Five or six thousand, including the Holy Battalion of Patriots."

"With that number it is useless to think of attacking forty-five or fifty thousand in the streets. I tell you that plainly."

"Would you evacuate Paris?"

"No, but I would convert the Convention into an intrenched camp. I would await the attack of the Sections, and I would annihilate them in the Rue Saint-Honoré, the Place du Palais-Royal, and along the quays and the bridges."

"Well," said Barras, "I will adopt your plan. Will you attend to the execution of it?"

"I?"

"Yes, you."

"In what capacity?"

"As second general of the interior."

"And who is to be general-in-chief?"

"General-in-chief?"

"Yes."

"Citizen Barras."

"Then I accept," said the young man, holding out his hand, "but on one condition."

"What, you are making conditions?"

"Why not?"

"Go on."

"If we succeed, and order is restored by to-morrow evening, I can count upon you if war is declared with Austria, can I not?"

"If we succeed to-morrow, in the first place you shall have all the glory, and I shall ask the chief command of the Armies of the Rhine and the Moselle for you."

Bonaparte shook his head. "I will go neither to Holland nor to Germany," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because there is nothing to be done there."

"Where do you wish to go?"

"To Italy. It is only in Italy, on the battlefields of Hannibal, Marius and Cæsar that there is anything to be done."

"If there is war in Italy you shall be placed in charge of it, I give you my word of that."

"Thank you. And now let us think of to-morrow. There is no time to lose."

Barras drew out his watch and looked at it.

"I should think not," he said; "it is already three o'clock in the morning."

"How many cannon have you at the Tuileries?"

"Six four-pounders, but no gunners."

"They can be found. Bronze is scarcer than flesh. How many rounds can be fired?"

"Oh! eighty thousand at the outside."

"Eighty thousand--just enough to kill eighty men, supposing that one shot out of a thousand does execution. Luckily we still have three hours of darkness left to us. We must have all the guns brought from the camp at Sablons, so that, in the first place, the enemy cannot seize them, and then because we need them ourselves. We must take enough men from the gendarmerie and from the battalion of '89 to man the guns, and we must send for at least a million cartridges from Meudon and Marly. Finally we must find officers upon whom we can depend."

"We have all those who were deposed by Aubry and who have enlisted in the Holy Battalion."

"Splendid! They are men of action rather than intelligence, and that is what we need." And the young officer rose, buckled on his sword, buttoned his coat, and blew out his light, murmuring, "Oh! Fortune, Fortune! do I at last hold you within my grasp?"

The two men went out and directed their steps toward the Convention. Barras noticed that the young man did not lock his door, which showed that he had nothing of value to lose.

Five hours later--that is to say, at eight in the morning--this is what the two officers had accomplished.

They reached the camp at Sablons in time to bring the artillery to Paris. They established a manufactory of cartridges at Meudon. They planted guns at every avenue, and masked batteries were erected in the event of any of the outlets being carried. A battery, consisting of two eight-pounders and two howitzers, was erected on the Place du Carrousel to cover the columns and to fire on the windows of the houses from which weapons could be brought to bear upon the place. General Verdier commanded at the Palais National. Means of subsistence for the Convention and its soldiers were thus assured for four or five days in case of blockade. Guns and troops were stationed in and around the building occupied by the Convention--in the cul-de-sac of the Dauphin, in the Rues de Rohan and Saint-Nicaise, at the Palais-Égalité, at the Pont de la Révolution, and the Place Vendôme. A small body of cavalry and two thousand infantry were kept in reserve at the Carrousel and in the garden of the Tuileries.

Thus this great Convention of France, which had overturned a monarchy that had endured for centuries; which had made every throne in Europe tremble; which had driven the English from Holland, and the Austrians and the Prussians from Champagne and Alsace; which had driven the Spanish troops one hundred and eighty miles beyond the Pyrenees, and destroyed the two Vendées--this great Convention of France, which had just united Belgium, Nice, Savoy, and Luxemburg to France, whose armies, passing like a whirlwind through Europe, had leaped the Rhine as though it had been a brook, and threatened to pursue the eagle of Hapsburg to Vienna; this National Convention possessed nothing in Paris but the banks of the Seine, from the Rue Dauphine to the Rue du Bac, and only those parts of the city on the other side of the river which were included between the Place de la Révolution and the Place des Victoires; and to defend itself against all Paris it had only five thousand men and a general who was almost unknown.

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XIX. CITIZEN GARAT

On several points, and particularly along the Pont-Neuf, the sentinels of the Sections and those of the Convention were so near to one another that they could easily talk together.

A few unimportant skirmishes occurred during the morning. The Section Poissonière stopped the men and the guns who were on their way to the Section Quinze-Vingts. That of Mont-Blanc captured a convoy of provisions intended for the Tuileries. A detachment from the Section Le Peletier took possession of the bank. And finally Morgan, with a corps of five hundred men, almost all émigrés or Chouans, all wearing collars and pompons of green, advanced toward the Pont-Neuf, while the Section of the Comédie-Française descended by way of the Rue Dauphine.

About four o'clock in the afternoon nearly fifty thousand men surrounded the Convention. It seemed as though gusts of fierce breath and furious menace could be felt in the air. During the day the Conventional party held several parleys with the Sectionists. Both sides were feeling their opponent's pulse. For example, toward noon, Representative Garat was directed to carry a decree from the Convention to the Section de l'Indivisibilité. He took an escort of thirty horsemen, fifteen chasseurs and fifteen dragoons. The battalions of the Museum and the French guards, which had joined the Convention, and which were stationed in and about the Louvre, presented arms when he appeared.

As for the Pont-Neuf, it was guarded by Republicans, under the command of that same General Cartaux who had been Bonaparte's superior officer at Toulon, and who was not much surprised to find the positions reversed. At the Pont du Change, Garat found a battalion of Sectionists who stopped him. But Garat was a man of action. He drew his pistol and commanded the thirty men to unsheath their swords. At sight of the pistols and the naked steel, the Sectionists let them pass.

Garat was charged with the task of winning the adherence of the Section de l'Invisibilité to the Convention. But despite his persuasions, it persisted in its determination to remain neutral. Garat's next duty was to ascertain whether the battalions of Montreuil and Popincourt intended to support the Sections or the Convention; he therefore made his way to the faubourg. At the entrance of the main street he found the battalion of Montreuil under arms. At sight of him, they shouted with one accord: "Long live the Convention!"

Garat wanted to take the battalion back with him, but they were waiting for Popincourt's force, which had also declared for the Convention. They told him, however, that two hundred men of the Quinze-Vingts Section had remained behind, and were desirous of going to the assistance of the Convention. Garat learned where they were, and went to them to question them.

"March at our head," they said, "and we will follow you."

Garat put his fifteen dragoons at their head and his fifteen chasseurs in the rear, and marched in front of the little troop, pistol in hand; and the two hundred men, of whom only fifty were armed, started for the Tuileries. They passed before the Montreuil battalion; the Popincourts had not arrived as yet. The Montreuils wished to march with them, but their commander demanded an order from Barras. Upon his return to the Tuileries, Garat sent him one by an aide-de-camp. The battalion started at once and arrived in time to take part in the action.

Meantime, Cartaux had assumed command of the detachment with which he was to defend the Pont-Neuf. He had only three hundred and fifty men and two pieces of artillery. He sent word to Bonaparte that he could not hold the position with so small a force.

For reply he received the following, in an almost illegible scrawl:

You will hold out to the last extremity.--BONAPARTE.

This was the first written order ever given by the young general; it is a good example of his concise style.

But about two o'clock in the afternoon, a column of a thousand or twelve hundred men, composed of Sectionists of the Unité and the Fontaine-de-Grenelle, advanced upon that part of the Pont-Neuf contiguous to the Rue Dauphine. There it was stopped by a military outpost. Then one of the Sectionists, carrying a magnificent bouquet, tied with tri-colored ribbon, came forward from the ranks. Cartaux sent an aide-de-camp to forbid the column to advance unless they could show an order from the Committee of Public Safety or from General-in-chief Barras.

The aide-de-camp returned, accompanied by the commander of the Unité, who declared, in the name of the two Sections, that he bore the olive-branch and wished to fraternize with the general and the troops under his orders.

"Go and tell your president," said Cartaux, "that it is not to me, but to the National Convention that you should carry your olive-branch. Let a deputation of four unarmed men be selected, and I will have them conducted in safety to the Convention, which alone can receive this symbol of peace and fraternity."

This was not the reply that the leader expected to receive; he therefore replied that, after deliberation, they would return again in a still more fraternal manner. Thereupon the leader retired, and the two Sections were shortly after drawn up in line of battle along the Quai Conti and Quai Malaquais. This disposal of forces denoted hostile intentions which soon became evident.

About three o'clock in the afternoon, Cartaux saw a column advancing along the Rue de la Monnaie, of such strength that its front filled the entire street; and, although he was standing on the highest point of the Pont-Neuf, he could not see the end of it. A third column arrived at the same time by the Quai de la Ferraille, while a fourth filed behind the others to cut off the Pont-Neuf by the Quai de l'École.

Notwithstanding the order which he had received to hold the position to the last extremity, General Cartaux saw clearly that he had not a moment to lose if he wished to retire safely without betraying his weakness to the enemy. The gunners immediately received the order to limber up. Two companies led the way as far as the garden of the Infanta, followed by the two guns.

The remainder of the troop was divided into four companies; one facing the Sectionists, who were advancing along the Rue de la Monnaie; another threatening the column on the Quai de la Ferraille, and the others covering the retreat of the artillery. The column of the Pont-Neuf remained in the centre to arrest the column of the Unité, and to mask the manœuvre.

Scarcely had Cartaux taken up his position in the garden of the Infanta, than he recalled the two companies who were facing the Rue de la Monnaie and the Quai de la Ferraille, together with the cavalry. The movement was executed in splendid order, but the Sectionists immediately occupied the abandoned post.

In the meantime Garat returned with his fifteen chasseurs, fifteen dragoons, and the two hundred and fifty men of the Section of the Quinze-Vingts, of which only fifty were armed. The Pont-Neuf bristled with bayonets. He thought they belonged to the Republicans whom he had left on guard there. But once in their midst he realized, from their green collars and pompons, that he had to do not only with Sectionists, but with Chouans. At that moment the commander of the Sectionists, who was none other than Morgan, advanced toward him, and recognized in him one of the men whom he had seen at the Convention.

"I beg your pardon, Monsieur Garat," said he, taking off his hat, "but you seem to be in some trouble, and I should like to assist you if possible. What can I do for you?"

Garat recognized him also, and immediately saw through the jest. But preferring to adopt another tone, he drew his pistol, and, cocking it, said: "Monsieur, I want a passage for myself and my men."

But Morgan continued, still in the same jesting tone: "Nothing could be more reasonable, and indeed we owe it to you, if only for General Cartaux's civility in yielding this post to us without a struggle. But uncock your pistol. Misfortunes happen so easily! Suppose it went off by accident; my men would think you had fired upon me, and they would cut you to pieces, you and your little troop, which is only half armed as it is. That would displease me greatly, as people would say that we had taken advantage of our superior numbers."

Garat uncocked his pistol.

"But why are you here, anyway?" he asked.

"As you see," said Morgan, with a laugh, "we have come to help the Convention."

"Commander," said Garat, jokingly, "you must admit that you have a strange way of helping people."

"Come, I see you do not believe me," said Morgan, "and that I must tell you the truth. Well, then, there are a hundred thousand of us in Paris, and a million in France. Is that not so, Coster?"

The young muscadin whom he addressed, and who was armed to the teeth, contented himself with a nod, accompanied by the single word: "More!"

"You see," said Morgan, "my friend here, Coster de Saint-Victor, who is a man of honor, confirms what I have just told you. Well, we are more than a hundred thousand strong in Paris, and more than a million strong in France, and we have sworn to exterminate the Conventionals, to destroy the building in which the king's death-warrant was signed, and whence so many death-warrants, like flights of ill-omened birds, have issued. Not only shall the men be punished, but the expiation must extend to the very stones. To-morrow not a member of the Convention will be alive; not a stone will remain standing in the building where the Convention sits. We shall sow the place where it stood with salt, and the ground on which it was built shall be handed over to the execration of posterity."

"If you are so sure of the results of the day, commander," said Garat, resuming his jesting tone, "it ought to make little difference to you whether you have two hundred men more or less to fight against."

"No difference at all," replied Morgan.

"In that case, I ask you for the second time to let me pass. I prefer to die with my colleagues, and to find a tomb in this building which you are going to bring down upon our heads."

"Then dismount from your horse, give me your arm, and let us go first. Gentlemen," continued Morgan, addressing his men with that inflection of the voice which, without suggesting the incroyable, betrayed the aristocrat, "let us play fair. Citizen Garat asks to be allowed to go to the defence of the Convention with his two hundred and fifty men, of whom only fifty are armed. His request seems to me to be so reasonable, and the poor Convention is in such sore straits, that I do not think we ought to oppose his kindly sentiments."

Bursts of ironical laughter welcomed this motion, which did not need to be put to the vote to be passed. A clear path was made at once, and, with Morgan and Garat at their head, the little column advanced.

"A pleasant journey!" cried Coster de Saint-Victor after them.

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XX. THE OUTPOSTS

Morgan pretended not to have noticed that he had passed his own outposts. He continued to advance arm in arm with Garat as far as the colonnade. He was one of those rigidly honest men who have confidence in his enemies even, and who believed that, in France at least, courage was the truest prudence.

When he reached the colonnade of the Louvre, Morgan found himself not more than twenty paces distant from the ranks of the Conventionals, and less than ten from the spot where General Cartaux stood leaning on his sword. Cartaux was magnificently dressed, and wore a hat with a tri-color plume which dangled so low before his eyes that he was greatly annoyed by it.

"You have a magnificent drum-major there," said Morgan; "I congratulate you upon him."

Garat smiled. It was not the first time that this mistake had been made, either voluntarily or involuntarily.

"That is not our drum-major," he said, "it is our commander, General Cartaux."

"Ah! the devil! He is the man who might have taken Toulon, and who, instead, allowed it to be captured by a little artillery officer named--what was his name, anyhow?--named Bonaparte, I believe. Ah! introduce me to this worthy officer; I adore handsome men and particularly handsome uniforms."

"Willingly," said Garat; and they advanced toward General Cartaux.

"General," said Garat to the colossus in uniform, "I have the honor to present to you the citizen-president of the Section Le Peletier, who has not only courteously made way for me through his men, but who has accompanied me thus far lest any mishap should befall me."

"Citizen," said Cartaux, drawing himself up in order not to lose an inch of his height, "I join with citizen-conventional Garat in thanking you."

"There is no necessity to do so, general," said Morgan, with his accustomed courtesy. "I saw you from a distance and wished to make your acquaintance. Besides, I wished to ask you whether you did not think it would be well for you to yield me this post, as you did the other, without bloodshed."

"Is that a jest or a proposition?" asked Cartaux, his coarse voice growing louder.

"It is a proposition," said Morgan, "and a serious one at that."

"It seems to me that you are too much of a soldier, citizen," said Cartaux, "not to understand the difference between this position and the other. The other can be attacked on four sides, while this can be reached on two only. Now, as you perceive, citizen, here are two guns ready to receive all those who approach by way of the quays, and two more for those who come through the Rue Saint-Honoré."

"But why do you not open fire, general?" asked the president, carelessly. "There is a fine range for cannon between the garden of the Infanta and the Pont-Neuf--scarcely a hundred feet."

"The general, wishing to place all responsibility of bloodshed upon the Sectionists, has forbidden us to open fire."

"What general? Barras?"

"No. General Bonaparte."

"Why, is that your little officer of Toulon? So he has made his way up until now he is a general like you."

"More of a general than I am," replied Cartaux, "since I am under his orders."

"How disagreeable that must be for you, citizen, and what a piece of injustice! You who are six feet tall to have to obey a young man of twenty-four, who, they say, is only five feet one."

"Do you know him?" asked Cartaux.

"No, I have not the honor."

"Well, open fire, and this evening--"

"This evening?"

"This evening you will know him, I promise you."

At that moment the drums were heard beating a salute, and a group of staff-officers emerged through the gate of the Louvre, among whom Barras was noticeable for the splendor of his uniform and Bonaparte for the simplicity of his.

He was, as we have said, short and thin, and as, from where Morgan stood, it was impossible to distinguish the fine lines of his face, he looked insignificant, riding as he was behind Barras.

"Ah," said Morgan, "that is something new!"

"Yes," replied Garat. "See! there is General Barras and General Bonaparte; they are going to visit the outposts."

"And which of the two is General Bonaparte?" asked Morgan.

"The one on the black horse."

"Why! he is a child who has not yet had time to grow," said Morgan, shrugging his shoulders.

"Don't worry," said Cartaux, laying his hand on Morgan's shoulder, "he will grow."

Barras, Bonaparte, and the rest of the staff continued to advance toward General Cartaux.

"I will stay," said Morgan; "I should like to see this Bonaparte close at hand."

"Then hide behind me, or, rather, behind Cartaux," said Garat; "you will have more room."

Morgan drew back and the cavalcade approached the general. Barras drew rein before General Cartaux, but Bonaparte rode forward a few steps further, and remained alone in the middle of the quay. As he was only half a musket shot from the Sectionist ranks, several muskets were aimed at him; whereupon Morgan sprang forward, and, with one bound, placed himself between the Sectionists and the general's body. Then, with a wave of his hat, he commanded them to lower their muskets.

Bonaparte rose in his stirrups, apparently unmindful of what had just taken place before him. The Pont-Neuf, the Rue de la Monnaie, the Quai de la Vallée, the Rue de Thionville, and the Quai Conti as far as the Institute, were thronged with armed men. As far as the eye could reach along the Quai de l'École, the Quai de la Mégisserie, and the Quai des Morfondus, muskets gleamed in the sun, thick as spears of wheat in a wheat field.

"How many men do you think there are before you, citizen Cartaux," asked Bonaparte.

"I could not say exactly," replied Cartaux. "In open country I could guess within a thousand men, but here in the streets and quays I cannot make even an approximate guess."

"General, if you want to know the exact number," said Garat, "ask the citizen who has just prevented those men from firing upon you. He can tell you."

Bonaparte glanced at the young man as if he now saw him for the first time.

"Citizen," said he with a slight bow, "will you be good enough to give me the information I desire?"

"I think, monsieur," said Morgan, taking care to address the Republican general in the manner used before the Revolution, "you asked the number of men opposed to you?"

"Yes," replied Bonaparte, fixing a penetrating eye upon his interlocutor.

"Before you, monsieur," resumed Morgan, "there are, visible or invisible, some thirty or thirty-two thousand men; ten thousand men in the direction of the Rue Saint-Roch; ten thousand between the Place des Filles de Saint-Thomas and the Barrière des Sergents. In the neighborhood of fifty-six thousand, as you see."

"Is that all?" asked Bonaparte.

"Do you not think that is enough to oppose to your five thousand?"

"You say you are sure of the number?" asked Bonaparte without replying to the other's question.

"Perfectly so, since I am one of their principal leaders."

A flash gleamed in the young general's eye, and he stared at Cartaux.

"How comes it that the citizen-Sectionist is here?" he asked; "is he your prisoner?"

"No, citizen-general," replied Cartaux.

"Did he come under a flag of truce?"

"No."

Bonaparte frowned. "But there must be some reason why he is in your ranks," he said.

"Citizen-general," said Garat, advancing, "I was with one hundred and fifty men, whom I had recruited in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, when we fell in with citizen Morgan and his troops. In order that neither I nor my men should suffer harm, he himself brought me here with a generosity and loyalty deserving of the utmost gratitude. Citizen Morgan, I thank you for the service you have rendered me, and I assert that not only have we no pretext for detaining you here, but that if we did so it would be in flagrant violation of honor and the rights of man. Citizen-general Bonaparte, I therefore ask your permission for the citizen to retire."

And Garat, advancing toward Morgan, clasped his hand, while Bonaparte, waving his hand toward the Sectionist outposts, made a sign to Morgan to return to his men. The latter bowed courteously to Bonaparte and walked slowly off, whistling the air of "La Belle Gabrielle."

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XXI. THE STEPS OF SAINT-ROCH

As soon as Morgan had joined the Sectionists, and stood facing Bonaparte, the latter saluted him by drawing his sword, and then, turning to Cartaux, he said:

"You did well, general, to abandon the Pont-Neuf, in spite of the order which I gave you. You could not hold it with three hundred men against thirty-two thousand. But here you have more than a thousand men, and this is the Thermopylæ of the Convention; you must die rather than yield a single step. Come, Barras!"

Barras saluted General Cartaux and followed Bonaparte as though he were already accustomed to receiving orders from him. Then, continuing along the Quai, the young general ordered two guns to be placed a little below the balcony of Charles IX., to command the flank of the Quai Conti. Then, continuing to follow the Quai, he entered the court of the Carrousel. He had left by the swing-bridge at the extreme end of the Tuileries, had crossed the Place de la Révolution--where there was a strong reserve force of men and artillery--had followed the line of the Feuillants, the Place Vendôme, the Cul-de-sac du Dauphin, the Rue Saint-Honoré, and had then returned by way of the Louvre and re-entered by the Carrousel.

Just as Bonaparte and Barras disappeared within the gate of the Carrousel, a messenger bearing a flag of truce was introduced to them with all the ceremonial customary among men all over the civilized world when treating with fortified towns. The bearer approached them through the gate of L'Echelle, on the opposite side of the Carrousel, and was preceded by a trumpeter. Questioned as to his errand, he said that he came with proposals from citizen Danican, general-in-chief of the Sectionists.

The two generals led him to the hall of the Convention, where the bandage covering his eyes was removed. Then, in a threatening voice, he offered peace on condition that the battalion of the Patriots should be disarmed and the decrees of Fructidor repealed. Then the Convention gave way to a weakness, which, to their shame, is often manifest in large assemblies. And the strangest part of all was that this weakness emanated from a quarter where the greatest strength had been looked for.

Boissy d'Anglas, so grand, so firm, so like the ancients on the 1st Prairial, now descended from the tribune, and offered the Sectionists, not what they had demanded, but a conference with Danican, in which they might come to an understanding. Another deputy proposed to disarm all those patriots of '89 whose conduct during the Revolution had been reprehensible. Finally a third proposed a more reprehensible measure than the preceding ones; namely, to trust to the good faith of the Sections. Lanjuinais, who had so resolutely withstood the Jacobins and who had dared to oppose the massacres of September, yielded to fear, and suggested that it would be well to accept the proposals of these "good citizens." Now the "good citizens" were none other than the Sectionists.

One of the Conventionals went even further, crying: "I am told that some assassins have crept into the battalion of the patriots of '89. I demand that they be shot."

But then Chénier sprang to the tribune. The poet's head was conspicuous among all that throng of heads. His brow was inspired, not by the muse of drama, but by the genius of patriotism.

"I am in truth amazed," he cried, "that you should dare to consider the demands of the revolted Sections. There can be no middle course for the Convention. Victory or death! When the Convention has conquered, it will be time enough to separate the guilty from those who are only misguided. Talk of assassins," he continued; "what of the assassins in the revolted parties!"

Lanjuinais ascended the tribune and said: "I foresee civil war."

Twenty voices cried out at the same time: "Civil war! It is you who are bringing it about."

Lanjuinais endeavored to reply, but cries of "Down! Down!" came from all parts of the hall.

It is true that just then they had seen General Bonaparte receive some stacks of arms.

"For whom are these arms?" they cried.

"For the Convention, if it is worthy of them," replied he.

The inspiration breathed by the young general's reply thrilled every heart.

"Arms! Give us arms!" cried the Conventionals. "We will die together!"

The Convention, humiliated for a moment, had recovered itself. The lives of its representatives were not yet saved, but their honor was. Bonaparte profited by the spark of enthusiasm which he had just kindled. Each deputy received a musket and a packet of cartridges. Barras exclaimed: "We are going to die in the streets in defence of the Convention. It is for you to die here, if need be, in defence of liberty."

Chénier, who had been the hero of the session, ascended the tribune again, and, with that eloquence which is akin to grandeur, he raised his arms to heaven, saying: "O Thou, who for the last six years hath guided the ship of the Revolution through the most frightful tempests, amid the rocks of contending parties; Thou, through whose aid we have conquered Europe without a government and without rulers, without generals, and with soldiers without pay, O thou, Genius of Liberty, watch over us Thy last defenders!"

At that moment, as though in answer to Chénier's prayer, the first shots were heard. Every deputy seized his musket, and, biting off his cartridge, loaded it. It was a solemn moment, during which nothing but the sound of ramrods in the musket barrels was heard.

Ever since early morning the Republicans, provoked by the grossest insults and even by occasional shots, had obeyed with heroic patience the order not to fire. But attacked this time by a volley from a court which the Sectionists had captured, and seeing one Republican drop dead, and others, wounded, totter and even fall, they replied by a volley.

Bonaparte at the first shot hastened into the court of the Tuileries.

"Who fired first?" he asked.

"The Sectionists," came the answer from all sides.

"Then all is well," he said. "And it will not be my fault if our uniforms are reddened with French blood."

He listened; it seemed to him that the firing was heaviest in the direction of Saint-Roch. He set out at a gallop, and found two pieces of artillery at the Feuillants, which he ordered to be limbered up, and advanced with them to the head of the Rue du Dauphin.

The Rue du Dauphin was a furnace. The Republicans held the street and were defending it. But the Sectionists occupied all the windows, and stood in groups upon the steps of the church of Saint-Roch, whence they were raining a hail of bullets upon their adversaries.

Bonaparte arrived at this moment, followed by his two pieces of artillery and the battalion of '89. He ordered the two officers of the battalion to advance into the Rue Saint-Honoré, amid and in spite of the terrible fusillade, and wheel one to the right and the other to the left.

The officers called their men, executed the requisite manœuvre, and fired in the direction designated, one toward the Palais Royal and the other toward the Place Vendôme. At the same moment a hurricane of fire swept along behind them. It was caused by General Bonaparte's two cannon, which vomited fire simultaneously and covered the steps of the church of Saint-Roch with corpses and blood.

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XXII. THE ROUT

When the smoke from the cannon had cleared, the Sectionists who remained standing could see, not fifty paces from them, Bonaparte on horseback in the midst of his gunners, who were reloading their guns. They replied to the cannonade by a heavy fire. Seven or eight of the gunners fell, and Bonaparte's black horse sank to the ground, shot dead by a bullet in the forehead.

"Fire!" cried Bonaparte as he fell.

The cannon thundered a second time. Bonaparte had time to rise. He had concealed the battalion of '89 in the Cul-de-sac de Dauphine, which they had reached through the stables.

"This way, volunteers!" he cried, drawing his sword.

The battalion of volunteers rushed toward him with drawn swords. They were tried men who had seen all the first battles of the Revolution. Bonaparte noticed an old drummer standing in a corner.

"Come here," he said, "and beat the charge."

"The charge, my boy," said the old drummer, who saw that he had to do with a young man of twenty-five; "you want the charge? well, you shall have it; and a warm one."

And, placing himself at the head of the battalion of '89, he beat the charge. The regiment marched straight to the church steps, and, with their bayonets, pinned to the doors all the Sectionists who had remained standing.

"At a gallop to the Rue Saint-Honoré!" shouted Bonaparte.

The cannon obeyed as if they understood the command. The guns had been reloaded while the battalion of volunteers were marching against Saint-Roch.

"Wheel to the right!" said Bonaparte to the gunners in charge of one of the cannon.

"To the left," he cried to the others.

Then, to both at the same time, he shouted: "Fire!"

And he swept the whole length of the Rue Saint-Honoré with two charges of grape-shot.

The Sectionists, annihilated, without being able to tell whence the thunderbolt had fallen, took refuge in the church of Saint-Roch, in the Théâtre du République, now the Théâtre-Française, and in the Palais-Égalité. Bonaparte had put them to flight, had broken and dispersed their ranks; it was for others to drive them from their last intrenchments. He mounted another horse which was brought him, and shouted: "Patriots of '89, the honor of the day is yours! Finish what you have so well begun."

These men who did not know him were astonished at being commanded by a boy. But they had seen him at work and were dazzled by his calmness under fire. They scarcely knew his name; they certainly did not know who he was. They put their hats on the ends of their muskets and cried: "Long live the Convention!"

The wounded, who were stretched along the side of the houses, raised themselves upon the doorsteps or clung to the gratings of the windows, shouting: "Long live the Republic!"

The dead lay in heaps in the street, and blood poured through the gutters as in a slaughter house, but enthusiasm hovered over the corpses.

"I have nothing more to do here," said the young general.

And putting spurs to his horse, he rode across the Place Vendôme, which was now empty, and reached the Rue Florentin almost in the midst of the fugitives whom he seemed to be pursuing, and from thence he passed into the Place de la Révolution.

There he directed General Montchoisy, who was in command of the reserves, to form a column, to take two twelve-pounders, and to advance by way of the Boulevard to the Porte-Saint-Honoré, in order to return to the Place Vendôme; from there he was to effect a junction with the guard attached to the staff in the Rue des Capucines, and with it to return to the Place Vendôme, and thus drive out all the Sectionists who might remain there.

At the same time General Brune, obeying General Bonaparte's order, passed through the Rues Nicaise and Saint-Honoré. All the Sectionists from the Barrière des Sergents to the Place Vendôme, attacked on three sides at once, were either killed or taken prisoners. Those who escaped by the Rue de la Loi, formerly the Rue Richelieu, erected a barrier at the head of the Rue Saint-Marc.

It was General Danican who made this attempt with some ten thousand men, whom he had gathered together at the point nearest the Convention, believing he had only to force the wicket of L'Echelle to reach the Assembly. Wishing to reserve all the honors of the day for himself, he had forbidden Morgan, who commanded on the Pont-Neuf, and Coster de Saint-Victor, who was stationed at the Quai Conti, to take a single step.

Suddenly Morgan perceived Danican with the remnant of his ten thousand men advancing through the Rue des Halles and the Place du Châtelet. The impetus thus given extended to the Quai du Louvre and also to the Quai Conti. This was the movement which Bonaparte had foreseen when he left the church of Saint-Roch.

From the Place de la Révolution he saw them advancing in close columns, on the one side from the garden of the Infanta and on the other from the Quai Malaquais. He sent two batteries to take up their positions on the Quai des Tuileries, and ordered them to commence firing at once diagonally across the river. He then set off at a gallop for the Rue du Bac, turned three guns, ready loaded, upon the Quai Voltaire, and cried "Fire!" just as the column emerged from behind the Institute.

Obliged to march in a compact body, as they passed between the monument and the quai, the Sectionists massed into a deep but narrow body, and it was at this moment that the artillery commenced to fire, and the shot swept through their ranks, literally mowing down the battalions as with a scythe. The battery consisted of six guns, of which only three were fired at a time, the other three reloading and then firing again in turn; consequently the firing was incessant.

The Sections wavered and drew back. Coster de Saint-Victor put himself at their head, rallied them, and was the first to cross the narrow passage. His men followed him. The cannon thundered on their flank and in front. His men fell around him while he remained standing about ten feet in front of the mutilated column, the remnant of which rapidly withdrew.

The young chief sprang upon the parapet of the bridge, where he stood, a target for every shot, and harangued them--insulted them, even. Stung by his sarcasms, the Sectionists attempted once again to cross the passage. Coster leaped from the parapet and again put himself at their head.

The artillery made terrible havoc as the shot plowed through the ranks; a single shot killing or wounding at least three or four men. Coster's hat, which he held in his hand, was carried away, but the hurricane of fire passed around him without touching him.

Coster looked around only to find himself alone. He recognized the impossibility of restoring the courage of his followers; then he glanced in the direction of the Quai du Louvre, and saw that Morgan was waging deadly battle there with Cartaux. He darted through the Rue Mazarin to the Rue Guénégaud, and thence to the summit of the Quai Conti, which was heaped with dead, exposed as it was to the fire of the battery on the Quai des Tuileries. On his way he rallied round him a thousand men, crossed the Pont-Neuf with them, and emerged at their head upon the Quai de l'École.

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XXIII. THE VICTORY

The struggle on this side was indeed terrible! Scarcely had Morgan, who was boiling with impatience, heard Danican's voice, still a long distance behind, crying "Forward!" than he fell like an avalanche upon Cartaux's men. The movement was so rapid that the latter had not even time to present arms and fire. They aimed at random, and then received Morgan and his men at the point of their bayonets.

The battery under the balcony of Charles IX. narrowly escaped capture, so unexpected was the attack. The Sectionists were not more than ten feet away from the guns when the gunners instinctively lowered their matches and fired.

It would be impossible to describe the horrible and bloody gap which these three guns, fired thus simultaneously, made in the closely packed ranks before them; it was like a breach in a wall. The advance of the Sectionists was so rapid, however, that even this breach did not check them. But at that moment bullets rained like hail upon the ranks of the Sectionists from the colonnade of the Louvre, which was covered with sharpshooters.

Meantime a hand-to-hand battle was being waged in the open space before the Louvre. The Sectionists were in fact caught between two fires. All the houses in the Rue des Poulies, the Rue des Fosses-Saint-Germain- l'Auxerrois, and the Rue des Pretres overlooking the garden of the Infanta, vomited forth fire and death.

Morgan had promised himself to take Cartaux prisoner. He contrived to reach him, but Cartaux sought shelter behind the bayonets of his men. For a moment it was a duel to the death all along the line. The Sectionists, repulsed by the bayonets, drew back a step, reloaded their guns, fired pointblank, and then, reversing their weapons, used them as clubs, and tried to fight their way out of the circle of fire which surrounded them. But nothing could break it.

Suddenly Morgan felt something give way behind him. The artillery, which had continued its deadly work, had cut his column in two, and it was obliged to incline to the right to maintain its position near the Louvre.

There was now a large open space between the Rue de la Monnaie and the Pont-Neuf; the Sectionists, not daring to risk themselves upon the Quai du Louvre, had sought shelter behind the houses in the Rue de la Monnaie and the parapet of the Pont-Neuf. Morgan was therefore obliged to retreat; but just as he reached the upper part of the Pont-Neuf, Coster de Saint-Victor came rapidly down the Rue Guénégaud. The two young men recognized each other, uttered a cry of joy, and carrying their men with them by the mere force of example, returned with redoubled fury to that Quai du Louvre which they had been forced to abandon shortly before.

Here the same butchery recommenced. Bonaparte had taken his measures with admirable precaution, and the Louvre was impregnable. Artillery, muskets and shells rained death from every side. Folly alone could have continued such a struggle.

On the other hand, Cartaux, who saw the wavering of the Sectionists, who were in reality sustained by the courage of two men alone, ordered his men to fire for a last time, and then, forming in column, to advance at double-quick.

The Sectionists were annihilated. More than half of them were lying on the pavement. In the last rank, Morgan, with only a fragment of his sword left in his hand, and Coster de Saint-Victor, who had bound up a flesh wound in the thigh with his handkerchief, had recoiled like two lions forced to retreat before their hunters.

By half-past six everything was over, every column broken and dispersed. Two hours had sufficed to accomplish this tremendous defeat. Of the fifty thousand Sectionists who had taken part in the fight, scarcely a thousand were left, and they were scattered broadcast--some in the church of Saint-Roch, some in the Palais-Égalité, others behind the barricade in the Rue de la Loi, and others at the windows of the houses. As night was coming on, and Bonaparte wished to save the innocent from suffering with the guilty, he ordered his men to pursue the Sectionists as far as the Pont du Change and the boulevards, but with guns loaded with powder only. Their terror was so great that the noise alone would be sufficient to make them flee.

At seven in the evening Barras and Bonaparte entered the hall of the Convention together in the midst of the deputies, who laid down their weapons to clasp their hands.

"Conscript fathers," said Barras, "your enemies are no longer! You are free and the country is saved!"

Cries of "Long live Barras!" echoed on all sides. But he shook his head, and, commanding silence, continued: "The victory is not mine, citizen representatives. It is due to the prompt and skilful arrangements of my young colleague, Bonaparte."

And as the shouts of gratitude continued, gathering in vehemence because their terror had been so great, a ray of the setting sun shone across the vaulted ceiling, framing the calm, bronze head of the young victor in an aureole of purple and gold.

"Do you see?" said Chénier to Tallien, regarding the shaft of light as an omen. "If that were Brutus!"

That same evening Morgan, safe and sound by a miracle, passed the barrier without being stopped, and took the road to Besançon. Coster de Saint-Victor, thinking that nowhere could he be better concealed than in the house of Barras's mistress, sought shelter of the beautiful Aurélie de Saint-Amour.

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XXIV. THE SWORD OF THE VICOMTE DE BEAUHARNAIS

After events like these, when cannon have thundered in the public squares and blood has run in the streets of the capital, society is always thrown into a turmoil from which it takes a long time to recover.

Although the 14th Vendémiaire had sufficed to remove the most noticeable traces of the combat as well as the corpses, the people continued for a long time to discuss that terrible day, which had resulted in restoring to the Convention threatened with destruction--that is to say, to the Revolution and its authors--the power which they needed to establish those institutions, fear of which had produced the event which we have just related.

The Convention understood so thoroughly on the morning of the 14th that its power was fully restored, that it did not trouble itself as to what had become of the Sectionaries, who had disappeared without leaving any trace of their passage other than the blood they had shed, and which had disappeared during the following day, if not from the memories of the citizens, at least from the pavement of the streets.

They contented themselves with dismissing the staff of the National Guard, disbanding the chasseurs and grenadiers, who were almost all young men, placing the National Guard under the orders of Barras, or rather his young colleague, Bonaparte, to whom the former had abandoned almost all the active part of the work. They also commanded the disarming of the Section Le Peletier, and the Section Théâtre Français, and finally formed three commissions to try the leading members of the Sectionists, who had almost entirely disappeared.

Anecdotes of the day were related for some time--this day which was destined to leave so lasting and bloody an impression upon the minds of Parisians. The magnificent words which had fallen from the lips of the wounded, or rather from the wounds themselves, on that day of supreme patriotism, were repeated and extolled. They told how the wounded, who had been carried to the Convention in the Salle des Victoires, which had been transformed into a hospital, had been cared for by the gentle hands of the wives and daughters of the members of the Convention, who assumed the rôle of Sisters of Charity.

They praised Barras for choosing his second with such unerring judgment at the first glance, and that second, who, unknown to them on the previous evening, had burst upon them like a god from the midst of thunder and lightning.

Descending from this brilliant pedestal, Bonaparte remained general of the interior; and to be within reach of the staff, who had their headquarters on the Boulevard des Capucines, in what had formerly been the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he took two rooms in the Hôtel de la Concorde, Rue Neuve-des-Capucines.

A young man was introduced into the room which he used for a study, under the name of Eugene de Beauharnais.

Although he was already besieged by petitioners, Bonaparte had not yet reached the point of drawing a sharp line as to whom he would or would not receive. Besides, the name of Beauharnais awakened only pleasing memories. He therefore gave orders that the young man was to be admitted.

For those of our readers who have already seen him at Strasbourg some three years earlier, it will suffice to say that he was a handsome young man of sixteen or seventeen years of age.

He had large eyes, thick black hair, red lips, white teeth, and aristocratic hands and feet--a mark of distinction which the general immediately noticed--and apart from the embarrassment inseparable from a first interview, he had that attractive modesty which is so becoming in youth, above all when its possessor appears as a supplicant.

From the time he entered the room Bonaparte watched him attentively, which did not tend to lessen Eugene's timidity.

But suddenly shaking the feeling off as if it were unworthy of him, he raised his head, and, drawing himself up, said: "After all, I do not see why I should hesitate to proffer a request which is both pious and loyal."

"I am listening," said Bonaparte.

"I am the son of the Vicomte de Beauharnais."

"Of the citizen-general," corrected Bonaparte gently.

"Of the citizen-general, if you prefer," said the young man, "and if you insist upon Republican forms."

"I insist upon nothing," replied Bonaparte, "save that which is clear and concise."

"Well," resumed the young man, "I come to ask at your hands, citizen-general, the sword of my father, Alexandre de Beauharnais, who was a general like yourself. I am sixteen years old, and my military education is almost completed. It is for me to serve my country now. I hope some day to wear at my side the sword which my father wore. That is why I have come to ask you for it."

Bonaparte, who liked clear, precise replies, was much prepossessed by this firm, intelligent language.

"If I should ask you for more information concerning yourself and your family, citizen," asked Bonaparte, "would you attribute the request to curiosity or to the interest with which you have inspired me?"

"I should prefer to think that the report of our misfortunes had reached your ears," replied the young man, "and that it is to that I owe the kindness with which you have received me."

"Was not your mother a prisoner also?" asked Bonaparte.

"Yes, and she was saved almost by a miracle. We owe her life to citizeness Tallien and to citizen Barras."

Bonaparte reflected a moment. "How does your father's sword happen to be in my hands?"

"I do not say that it is in your hands, but you can have it restored to me, though. The Convention ordered the disarming of the Section Le Peletier. We are living in our old house in the Rue Neuve-des-Mathurins, which the general had restored to us. Some men came to my mother and asked for all the weapons in the house. My mother gave orders that they should take a double-barrelled hunting gun of mine, a single-barrelled rifle which I bought at Strasbourg, and finally my father's sword. I regretted neither the double-barrelled gun nor the rifle, though I took pride in the memories which they recalled. But I regretted, and I confess still regret, that sword which fought so gloriously in America and France."

"If you were to see the weapons which formerly belonged to you," said Bonaparte, "you would probably recognize them."

"Beyond doubt," replied Eugene.

Bonaparte rang and a sub-officer entered.

"Accompany citizen Beauharnais to the rooms where they have put the arms belonging to the Sections," said Bonaparte. "You will allow him to take those which he will point out to you."

And he held out his hand to the young man, the hand which was to lift him so high. Ignorant of the future, Eugene darted toward it and kissed it gratefully.

"Ah, citizen!" said he, "my mother and sister shall know how good you have been to me, and, believe me, they will appreciate it as much as I do."

Just then the door opened and Barras entered without being announced.

"Ah!" said he, "here I am on ground with which I am doubly familiar!"

"I have already told citizen Bonaparte how much we owe you," replied Eugene, "and I am happy to repeat before you, that without your protection the widow and children of General Beauharnais would probably have died of hunger."

"Died of hunger!" said Bonaparte, laughing. "That is a death which only those officers whom Aubry has placed on the retired list need fear."

"I was indeed wrong," said Eugene. "For while my mother was in prison, I worked with a carpenter where I earned my daily bread, and my sister was with a seamstress who supported her out of charity."

"Well," said Barras, "the bad days are over and the good ones have returned. What has brought you here, my young friend?"

Eugene told Barras the reason of his visit.

"Why did you not come to me," asked Barras, "instead of disturbing my colleague?"

"Because I wished to meet citizen-general Bonaparte," replied Eugene. "It seemed to me that it would be a good omen if he returned me my father's sword."

And, bowing to the two generals, he went out with the officer, much less embarrassed than when he had come.

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