The Countess of Charny; or, The Execution of King Louis XVI

"I did not understand you," said Billet to the doctor, "but I do the Citizen Cagliostro."

"Just think of their five months' captivity molding this lump – who was born to be a parish beadle – into a statue of courage, patience, and resignation, on a pedestal of sorrow; you sanctified him so that his wife adored him. Who would have dreamed, my dear Gilbert," said the magician, bursting into laughter, "that Marie Antoinette would ever have loved her mate?"

"Oh, if I had only guessed this," muttered Billet, "I would have slain him before! I could have done it easily."

These words were spoken with such intense patriotism that Gilbert pardoned them, while Cagliostro admired.

"But you did not do it," said the latter. "You voted for death; and you, Gilbert, for life. Now, let me give you a last piece of advice. You, Gilbert, strove to be a member of the convention to accomplish a duty; you, Billet, to fulfill vengeance; both are realized. You have nothing more to do here. Be gone."

The two stared at him.

"To-morrow, your indulgence will be regarded as a crime, and on the next day your severity as bad. Believe me, in the mortal strife preparing between hatred, fear, revenge, fanaticism, few will remain unspotted; some will be fouled with mud, some with blood. Go, my friends, go!"

"But France?" said the doctor.

"Yes, France?" echoed Billet.

"Materially," said Cagliostro, "France is saved; the external enemy is baffled, the home one dead. The Revolution holds the ax in one hand and the tri-colored flag in the other. Go in tranquillity, for before she lays them down, the aristocracy will be beheaded, and Europe conquered. Go, my friends, go to your second country, America!"

"Will you go with me, Billet?" asked the doctor.

"Will you forgive me?" asked Billet.

The two clasped hands.

"You must go at once. The ship 'Franklin' is ready to sail."

"But my son?"

Cagliostro had opened the door.

"Come in, Sebastian," he said; "your father calls you."

The young man rushed into his father's arms, while Billet sighed.

"My carriage is at the door," said Cagliostro. Then, in a whisper to the doctor while Billet was asking news of the youth, he said, emphatically:

"Take him away; he must not know how he lost his mother. He might thirst for revenge."

Gilbert nodded and opened a money drawer.

"Fill your pockets," he said to Billet.

"Will there be enough in a strange country?" he asked.

"Bless you! with land at five dollars an acre, cleared, we can buy a county. But what are you looking round for?"

"For what would be no use to me, who can not write."

"I see; you want to send good-bye to Pitou. Let me."

"What have you written?"

"My dear Pitou, – We are leaving France – Billet, Sebastian, and I – and send you our united love. We think that as you are manager of Billet's farm, you do not need anything. One of these days we may write for you to come over and join us.

"Your friend,"Gilbert."

"Is that all?" asked the farmer.

"There is a postscript," said the writer, looking the farmer in the face as he said:

"Billet hopes you will take the best of care of Catherine."

Billet uttered a cry of gratitude and shook Gilbert's hand again.

Ten minutes afterward, the post-chaise carried far from Paris Gilbert and his friend and the son of Andrea of Charny.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE CROWN OF ANGE'S LOVE

A little over a year after the execution of the king and the departure of Gilbert, his son, and Billet, on a fine, cold morning of the hard winter of 1794, three or four hundred persons – that is, a sixth of the population of Villers Cotterets – waited on the square before the manor-house and in the mayor's yard for the coming out of two married folks whom Mayor Longpre was uniting in the holy bonds. These were Ange Pitou and Catherine Billet.

Alas! it had taken many grave events to bring the flame of Viscount Charny, the mother of little Isidore, to become Mistress Pitou.

Everybody was chattering over these events; but in whatever manner they related and discussed them, there was always something to the greater glory of the devotion of Ange Pitou and the good behavior of Billet's daughter.

Only, the more interesting the couple were, the more they were pitied.

Perhaps they were happier than any in the crowd; but human nature is inclined that way – it must pity or applaud!

On this occasion it was in the compassionate vein.

Indeed, what Cagliostro had foreseen, had come on rapidly, leaving a long track of blood after it.

On the 1st of February, 1793, the issue of more paper money was agreed. In March, the fugitive nobles were perpetually banished and their property confiscated. In November, a new kind of religion was proposed instead of the established church.

The result of the confiscation decree was, that Billet and Gilbert being considered fugitives, their lands were seized for the public good. The same fate befell the estates of the Charnys, the count having been killed and the countess murdered in prison.

The consequence to Catherine was that she was turned out of Billet's farm, which was national property. Pitou wanted to protest, but Pitou was a moderate and a "suspect," and wise souls advised him not to oppose the orders of the nation in will or deed.

So Catherine and Pitou had gone over to Haramont.

She had thought of taking refuge in Daddy Clovis's lodge, but he appeared at the door to lay his finger on his lips and shake his head in token of impossibility; the place was already occupied.

The law on the banishment of refractory priests was still in force, and it is easy to understand that Father Fortier had banished himself, as he would not take the oath. But he had not felt like passing the frontier, and his exile was limited to his leaving his house in charge of his sister, to see the furniture was not stolen, and asking Clovis for shelter, which was granted.

This retreat was only a cave, and it would with difficulty hold, in addition to the corpulent priest, Catherine, little Isidore, and Pitou.

Besides, we recall the refusal of the priest to bury Mrs. Billet. Catherine was not good Christian enough to overlook the unkindness, and had she been so, the Abbe Fortier was too good a Catholic to forgive her.

So they had to give up the idea of staying with old Clovis.

This choice lay between Aunt Angelique's house and Pitou's lodgings at Haramont.

They dared not think of the former. As the revolution had followed its course, Angelique had become more and more diabolic, which seems incredible, and thinner, which seems impossible.

This change in her temper and her physique arose from the fact that the churches were closed at Villers as elsewhere, awaiting the invention of a reasonable and civic cult, according to the Board of Public Instruction. The churches being shut, Aunt Angelique's principal revenue, from letting seats, fell into disuse.

It was the drying up of her income which made her Tartar – we beg pardon, tarter and bonier than ever.

Let us add that she had so often heard the story of Pitou and Billet capturing the Bastile, and had so often seen them start off for Paris whenever any great event was to take place, that she did not in the least doubt that the French Revolution was led by Ange Pitou and Farmer Billet, with Citizens Danton, Marat, Robespierre & Co., playing the secondary parts.

The priest's sister fostered her in these somewhat erroneous opinions, to which the regicidal vote of Billet had given the seal on heated fanaticism.

Pitou ought not to think of placing the regicide's daughter under Angelique's roof.

As for the petty accommodation at Haramont, how could he think of installing two – there were three – souls in two rooms; while if they were comfortable, it would set evil tongues wagging?

It was more out of the question than Clovis's hut.

So Pitou made up his mind to beg shelter for himself of Desire Maniquet. That worthy son of Haramont gave the hospitality which Pitou paid for in kind; but all this did not provide Catherine with a fixed habitation.

Pitou showed her all the attentions of a loving friend and the affection of a brother; but poor Catherine was well aware that he did not love her like friend or brother.

Little Isidore had something of the same idea; for the poor child, having never known the Viscount of Charny, loved him more perhaps, for Pitou was not merely the sweetheart of Catherine, but his slave.

A skillful strategist must have understood that the way to win Catherine's heart was through the help of the little one.

But we hasten to say that no such calculation tarnished the purity of Pitou's sentiments. He was just the simple fellow we met him at the first, unless, on becoming a man, he became simpler than ever.

All his good gifts touched Catherine. She saw that Pitou adored her ardently, to the point of fanaticism, and she caught herself wishing that she could repay so great a love and utter devotion with something better than friendship.

Gradually, by dint of dwelling on her isolation from all the world, Pitou excepted, and on her boy being left alone if she were to die, Pitou again excepted, she came to giving Pitou the only reward in her power – her hand.

Alas, her first love, that perfumed flower of youth, was in heaven!

For six months Catherine had been nourishing this conclusion without Pitou suspecting that the wind was blowing up in his favor, though her welcoming was a shade warmer and her parting a trifle more lingering each time; so she was forced to speak the first – but women take the lead in such matters.

One evening, instead of offering her hand, she held up her cheek for a kiss. Pitou thought she had forgot, and was too honest to take advantage of a mistake.

But Catherine had not let go his hand, and she drew him closer to her. Seeing him still hesitate, little Isidore joined in, saying:

"Why won't you kiss Mamma Catherine, Papa Pitou?"

"Good gracious!" gasped Pitou, turning pale as if about to die, but letting his cold and trembling lip touch her cheek.

Taking the boy up, she put him in Pitou's arms, and said:

"I give you the boy, Ange; will you have the mother?"

This time, it was too much for the swain, whose head swam; he shut his eyes, and while he hugged the child, he dropped on a chair, and panted with the delicacy which only a delicate heart could appreciate:

"Oh, Master Isidore, how very fond I am of you!"

Isidore called Pitou "Papa Pitou," but Pitou called him "Master Isidore."

That is why, as he felt that love for her son had made Catherine love Ange, he did not say:

"Oh, how dearly I love you, Catherine!"

This point settled that Pitou thought more of Isidore than of Catherine, they spoke of marriage.

"I don't want to seem in a hurry," said the man, "but if you mean to make me happy, do not be too long about it."

Catherine took a month.

At the end of three weeks Ange, in full regimentals, went respectfully to pay a visit to Aunt Angelique, with the aim to inform her of his near at hand union with Catherine Billet.

Seeing her nephew from afar, she hastened to shut her door. But he did not hold back from the inhospitable door whence he had once been expelled.

He rapped gently.

"Who is there?" snarled Angelique, in her sourest voice.

"I – your dutiful nephew, Ange Pitou."

"Go on your bloody way, you September man of massacre!" cried Aunt Angelique.

"Auntie, I come to tell you of a bit of news which can not fail to make you jolly, because it is my happiness."

"What is the news, you red-capped Jacobin?"

"I will tell you if you open the door."

"Say it through the door; I shall not open it to a breechless outlaw like you."

"If there is no other way, here you have it – I am going to get married."

The door flew open as by magic.

"Who are you going to marry, you wretched fellow?" asked the old spinster.

"Catherine Billet, please."

"Oh, the villain, the scamp, the regicide!" said the good soul; "he marries a ruined girl! Get you gone, scapegrace; I curse you!"

With a gesture quite noble, she held up her dry and yellow hands toward her nephew.

"Dear aunt," replied the young man, "you ought to know that I am too well hardened to your maledictions to care a fig for them. I only wanted to do the proper thing by inviting you to dance at my wedding; if you won't come, still I have asked you to shake a leg – "

"Shake a – fy, for shame!"

"Fare thee well, sweet Aunt Angelique!"

Touching his cocked hat in the military manner, Pitou made a salute to his relative and hurried away.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE EFFECT OF HAPPY NEWS

Pitou had to tell his intended marriage to Mayor Longpre, who lived hard by. Less set against the Billet family than Aunt 'Gelique, he congratulated Pitou on the match.

Pitou listened to his praise without seeing where he was doing very much of a noble action.

By the way, as a pure Republican, Pitou was delighted to find that the Republic had done away with the publication of the banns and other ecclesiastical trammels which had always galled true lovers.

It was, therefore, settled between the mayor and the suitor that the wedding should take place on the following Saturday, at the town hall.

Next day, Sunday, the sale of the Charny estate and the Billet farm was to come off. The latter, at the upset price of four hundred thousand and the other at six hundred thousand in paper money; assignats were dropping fearfully; the gold louis was worth nine hundred and twenty francs in paper.

But, then, nobody ever saw a gold piece nowadays.

Pitou had run all the way back to acquaint Catherine with the good news. He had ventured to anticipate the marriage-day by forty-eight hours, and he was afraid he should vex Catherine.

She did not appear vexed, and he was lifted up among the angels – his namesakes.

But she insisted on his going once more to Aunt Angelique's, to announce the exact date of the wedding-day and invite her to be at the ceremony. She was the bridegroom's sole relative, and though not at all tender toward him, he ought to do the proper thing on his side.

The consequence was that on Thursday morning, Pitou went over to Villers Cotterets to repeat the visit.

Nine o'clock was striking as he got in sight of the house.

The aunt was not on the door-step, but the door was closed any way, as if she expected his call.

He thought that she had stepped out, and he was delighted.

He would have paid the visit, and a polite note with a piece of wedding-cake after the ceremony would acquit the debt to courtesy.

Still, as he was a conscientious fellow, he went up to the door and knocked; as no answer came to his raps, he called.

At the double appeal of knuckle and voice, a neighbor appeared at her own door.

"Do you know whether or no my aunt has gone out, eh, Mother Fagot?" asked Pitou.

"Has she not answered?" asked Dame Fagot.

"No; she has not, as you see; so I guess she has gone out for a gossip."

Mother Fagot shook her head.

"I should have seen her go out," she said; "my door opens the same way as hers, and it is pretty seldom that in getting up of a morning she does not drop into our house to get some warm ashes to put in her shoes, with which the poor dear lamb keeps her toes warm all the day. Ain't that so, Neighbor Farolet?"

This question was addressed to a fresh character, who likewise opening his door, shoved his conversational oar into the parley.

"What are you talking about, Madame Fagot?"

"I was a-saying that Aunt Angelique had not gone out. Have you seen anything of her?"

"That I hain't, and I am open to wager that she has not gone out, otherwise her shutters would not be open, d'ye see."

"By all that is blue, that is true enough," remarked Pitou. "Heavens, I hope nothing unfortunate has happened to my poor aunt."

"I should not wonder," said Mother Fagot.

"It is more than possible, it is probable," said Farolet, sententiously.

"To tell the truth, she was not over-tender to me," went on Pitou; "but I do not want harm to befall her for all that. How are we going to find out the state of things?"

"That is not a puzzle," suggested a third neighbor, joining in; "send for Rigolot, the locksmith."

"If it is to open the door, he is not wanted," said Pitou; "I know a little trick of prying the bolt with a knife."

"Well, go ahead, my lad," said Farolet; "we are all witnesses that you picked the lock with the best intentions and your pocket-knife."

Pitou had taken out his knife, and in the presence of a dozen persons, attracted by the occurrence, he slipped back the bolt with a dexterity proving that he had used this means of opening the way more than once in his youth.

The door was open, but the interior was plunged into complete darkness. As the daylight gradually penetrated and was diffused, they could descry the form of the old girl on her bed.

Pitou called her by name twice. But she remained motionless and without response. He went in and up to the couch.

"Halloo!" he exclaimed, touching the hands; "she is cold and stark."

They opened the windows. Aunt Angelique was dead.

"What a misfortune!" said Pitou.

"Tush," said Farolet; "a hard winter is coming, and wood never so dear. She saves by departing where the firing is plentiful. Besides, your aunt did not dote on you."

"Maybe so," said Pitou, with tears as big as walnuts, "but I liked her pretty well. Oh, my poor auntie!" said the big baby, falling on his knees by the bed.

"I say, Captain Pitou," said Mme. Fagot, "if you want anything, just let us know. If we ain't good neighbors, we ain't good for anything."

"Thank you, mother. Is that boy of yours handy?"

"Yes. Hey, Fagotin!" called the good woman.

A boy of fourteen stood frightened at the door.

"Here I am, mother," he said.

"Just bid him trot over to Haramont to tell Catherine not to be uneasy about me, as I have found my Aunt 'Gelique dead. Poor aunt!" He wiped away fresh tears. "That is what is keeping me here."

"You hear that, Fagotin? Then off you go."

"Go through Soissons Street," said the wise Farolet, "and notify Citizen Raynal that there is a case of sudden death to record at old Miss Pitou's."

The boy darted off on his double errand.

The crowd had kept increasing till there were a hundred before the door. Each had his own opinion on the cause of the decease, and all whispered among themselves.

"If Pitou is no fool, he will find some hoard smuggled away in an old sock, or in a crock, or in a hole in the chimney."

Dr. Raynal arrived in the midst of this, preceded by the head tax-gatherer.

The doctor went up to the bed, examined the corpse, and declared to the amaze of the lookers-on that the death was due to cold and starvation. This redoubled Pitou's tears.

"Oh, poor aunt!" he wailed, "and I thought she was so rich. I am a villain for having left her to poverty. Oh, had I only known this! It can not be, Doctor Raynal!"

"Look into the hutch and see if there is any bread; in the wood-box and see if there is any fire-wood. I have always foretold that the old miser would end in this way."

Searching, they found not a crumb or a splinter.

"Oh, why did she not tell me this?" mourned Pitou. "I would have chopped up some wood for her and done some poaching to fill the larder. It is your fault, too," the poor fellow added, accusing the crowd; "you ought to have told me that she was in want."

"We did not tell you that she was in want," returned wiseacre Farolet, "for the plain reason that everybody believed that she was rolling in riches."

Dr. Raynal had thrown the sheet over the cold face, and proceeded to the door, when Pitou intercepted him.

"Are you going, doctor?"

"Why, what more do you expect me to do here?"

"Then she is undoubtedly dead? Dear me, to die of cold and hunger, too!"

Raynal beckoned him.

"Boy, I am of the opinion that you should none the less seek high and low," he said.

"But, doctor, after your saying she died of want – "

"Misers have been known to die the same way, lying on their treasures. Hush!" he said, laying a finger on his lips, and going out-doors.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE EASY-CHAIR

Pitou would have pondered more deeply on what the doctor told him, only he spied Catherine running up, with her boy in her arms.

Since there was no doubt that Aunt Angelique had died of privation, the eagerness of the neighbors to help her nephew had lessened. So Catherine arrived most timely. As she might be considered the wife of Pitou, it was her place to attend to his aunt, which the good creature set about doing with the same tenderness she had shown awhile before to her own mother.

Meanwhile, Pitou ran out to arrange for the funeral, which would be at two days' time, as the suddenness of the death compelled retention of the remains forty-eight hours. Religious ceremonies being suppressed for funerals as for marriages, he had only to do business with the sexton and the grave digger, after the mayor.

Before he departed, Catherine suggested that the marriage should be deferred for a day or two, as it would look strange for an act so important and joyous as a wedding to be performed on the same day as he conducted his aunt's remains to the cemetery.

"Besides, my dear, it is bad luck to have a wedding while a grave is open."

"Stuff," said Pitou; "from the moment I am your husband, I defy misfortune to get a grip on me."

"Dear Pitou, let us put it off till Monday," said the bride, holding up her hand to him; "you see that I am trying to make your wishes suit proprieties."

"But two days is a deuce of a long time, Catherine."

"Not when you have been waiting five years."

"A lot of things may happen in forty-eight hours," moaned Pitou.

"My falling off in love can not happen, Ange; and as you pretend that is the only thing in the world which concerns you – "

"Lord, yes, Catherine; the only – only thing!"

"Why, then, look here, Isidore, say to Papa Pitou: 'Do not be afraid, Papa Pitou; mamma loves you dearly, and will always love you.'"

The child repeated this in his pretty voice.

On this assurance, Pitou made no difficulty about going to the mayor's. He returned in about an hour, with all settled and paid for. With what money he had left he laid in a stock of wood and food for a couple of days.

It was high time that the firing had come into the old, weather-worn house, where the wind poured in at many a chink, and they might perish of cold. Pitou had found Catherine half frozen when he got back.

According to Catherine's wish, the marriage was postponed until Monday.

The intermediate time passed with the pair mourning by the death-bed.

Despite the huge fire Pitou kept roaring, the wind came in so sharp and chill that Pitou acknowledged that if his aunt had not died of hunger she must have been carried off by cold.

The time came for the removal of the corpse, the transit not taking long, as Aunt Angelique's dwelling adjoined the burial-ground.

All of that quarter and other representatives of the town went to the funeral, which Pitou and Catherine led as the chief mourners.

When the ceremony terminated, Pitou thanked those attending in his name and that of the dead, and they all filed before him, throwing holy water into the old maid's grave.

When left alone, Pitou looked round for Catherine, and saw her and Isidore kneeling on another grave where cypresses were planted. It was Mother Billet's. Pitou had dug those four cypresses in the woods and transplanted them. He did not care to disturb them in this pious occupation, but thinking that Catherine would be very cold at the end of her devotions, he determined to run on before and have a good fire blazing at her return.

Unfortunately, one thing opposed the realization of this good intention – they were out of wood. Pitou was in a pinch, for he was out of money, too.

He looked around him to see if there was nothing good to burn. There was Aunt Angelique's bread-safe, bed, and easy-chair. The bed and cupboard were not unworn, but they were still good; while the arm-chair was so rickety that nobody but the owner had ever risked themselves in it. It was therefore condemned.