The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty

“That is why I am looking round for some other means,” returned Marat, “more expeditious and novel. Do you know whom I expect this evening? one of our brother medicos, a member of the National Assembly whom you must know by name, Dr. Guillotin – “

“The one who moved that the Assembly, expelled from the Session Hall at Versailles, should meet in the Tennis Court a learned man?”

“Do you know what this able citizen has discovered? a marvellous machine which kills without pain, for death must be punishment not torture; he has invented it and we shall try it one of these mornings.”

Gilbert started: this was the second time that this brother Invisible reminded him of the Chief, Cagliostro; no doubt this death-machine was the same he had spoken of.

“But you are lucky – a knock! it is he. Run and open the door, Albertine.”

The hag, who was the wife – rather the female mate of Marat – rose from the stool on which she was squatting, and staggered half asleep towards the door.

Giddy with terror, Gilbert went instinctively towards Sebastian, ready to take him in his arms and flee.

“Just think of an automatic executioner,” said Marat, enthusiastically, “with no need of a man to set it going; which can, if the knife is changed a couple of times, cut off three hundred heads a-day!”

“And add,” said a bland, melodious voice, behind Marat, “which can cut off these heads without other sensation than a slight coolness around the neck.”

“Oh, is this you, doctor?” exclaimed Marat, turning towards a dapper little man of forty or so, whose gentle demeanor and spruce dress made a marked contrast with his host: in his hand he carried a small box such as children’s toys are kept in. “What are you bringing us?”

“A model of my machine, my dear Marat. But I see Dr. Gilbert here, unless I mistake,” said the little dandy, trying to pierce the obscurity.

“The same, sir,” said the other visitor bowing.

“Enchanted to meet you, sir; you are only too welcome, and I shall be happy to have the opinion of so distinguished a man on my invention. I must tell you, my dear Marat, that I have found a skillful carpenter, named Guidon, to make my machine on the working scale. He is dear, though, wanting five thousand five hundred francs; but no sacrifice is too great for me to make for humanity. In two months it will be built, and we can try it: I shall propose it to the Assembly. I hope you will approve of it in your excellent new paper, though, in sober earnest, the machine recommends itself, as you will see with your own eyes, Dr. Gilbert. But a few lines in the People’s Friend will do no harm.”

“Be easy on that score; it is not a few lines but a whole number that I shall dedicate to it.”

“You are too good, Marat; but I am not going to let you puff a pig in a poke.”

He took out of his pocket a much smaller box, in which a sound indicated that some little live thing or several such were fidgeting in their prison. This noise did not escape Marat’s subtle hearing.

“What have you got there?” he asked, putting out his hand towards the box.

“Mind,” said the doctor, drawing it back, “do not let them escape as we could not catch them again; they are mice whose heads we are going to nick off with the machine. What, are you going to leave us, Dr. Gilbert?”

“Alas, yes, sir, to my great regret; but my son, wounded by being run over by a horse just now, has been relieved by Friend Marat, to whom I also owe my own life in an almost similar affair. I have to thank him again. The boy needs a fresh bed, cares and repose: so that I cannot witness your interesting experiment.”

“But you will come and see the one with the real machine, in two months, you promise, doctor?”

“I pledge my word.”

“Doctor,” said Marat, “I need not say, keep my abode secret. If your friend Lafayette were to discover it he would have me shot like a dog, or hung like a thief.”

“Shooting, hanging,” exclaimed Guillotin. “But we shall put an end to these cannibal deaths. We shall have a death, soft, easy, instantaneous, such as old people, disgusted with their life and wishful to pass away like sages and philosophers, will prefer to a natural one. Come and see how it works, Marat!”

And without troubling any farther about Dr. Gilbert, the enthusiast opened his larger box and began to set up on the table a model apparatus which the surgeon regarded with curiosity equal to his enthusiasm.

Gilbert profited by their being so engaged, to carry away Sebastian, guided by Albertine who fastened up the outer door after him.

Once in the street, he felt the night wind chill the perspiration gathered on his brow.

“Heavens,” he muttered, “what will happen to a city where the cellars perhaps hide five hundred lovers of mankind who are occupied with such work as we have a sample of there? one day they will perform in broad daylight before the crowd.”

It was little distance to his house in St. Honore Street.

The cold revived Sebastian but his father would not let him walk. When he knocked at his door, a heavy step was heard approaching.

“Is that you, Dr. Gilbert?” challenged one within.

“That is Pitou’s voice,” said the boy.

“Praise heaven, Sebastian is found,” shouted Pitou on opening the door. “Master Billet,” he shouted still more loudly, “Sebastian is found, and all right, I hope, doctor?”

“Without any serious hurt, anyway,” replied the other, “Come, Sebastian.”

He carried his son up to his bed.

Pitou followed with the light; by his mud-bespattered shoes and stockings it was plain that he had come a long journey.

Indeed, after taking the broken-hearted Catherine home and learning from her lips that her deep sorrow came from Isidore Charny being called away to Paris, he took leave of her and Mother Billet, weeping by her bedside, and went home to Haramont. He walked so slowly that he did not get there until daybreak.

He fell off to sleep so that it was not till he awoke, that he found the youth’s letter. Immediately he started to overtake him.

He girded up with a leather strap, took some bread and with a walking stick in his fist, proceeded to town, where he arrived at eight that night.

He found neither the doctor nor his son at home – only Farmer Billet.

This hearty, robust man, unnerved by the bloody scenes witnessed since the Taking of the Bastile, of which enterprise he was the leader, had no news for Pitou.

Their sad waiting was rewarded by the double arrival.

Though tranquil about Sebastian, Pitou, when sent to bed had his budget to unfold to the farmer. Let no reader think that he revealed Catherine’s secrets and spoke of her amour with the young noble. The honest soul of the Commander of the Haramont National Guard would not stoop to that story. But he told Billet that the harvest was bad, the barley a failure, part of the wheat wind-laid, and the barns but a third full – and that he had found Catherine on the road.

Billet was little vexed about the grain, but the illness of his daughter distressed him.

He ran to Dr. Gilbert with a sad face as the latter was finishing this note to Andrea: “Be of good heart; the child is found, with no one hurt.”

“Dr. Gilbert, you were right to retain me in town where I might be useful; but everything has been going wrong in the country while the good man is away.”

Gilbert agreed with his friend that a hearty buxom girl like Catherine should not faint on the public road. Feeling with a parent, he responded:

“Go home, my dear Billet, since land and family call you. But do not forget that I shall claim you in the name of the country.”

Thus Billet returned home after an absence of three months, although he had intended to be away only a week.

Pitou followed him, bearing twenty-five louis destined from Gilbert for the equipment and maintenance of the Haramont National Guard.

Sebastian stayed with his father.

CHAPTER XVI

THE PORTRAIT OF CHARLES FIRST

A WEEK has passed since the events related. Everybody was saying: The Revolution is finished; the King is delivered from Versailles, and his courtiers and evil counsellors. The King is placed in life and actuality. He had heretofore the license to work wrong; now he has full liberty to do good.

The dread from the riots had brought the conservatives over to the royalty. The Assembly had been frightened, too, and saw that it depended on the King. A hundred and fifty of its members took to flight.

The two most popular men, Lafayette and Mirabeau, became royalists. The latter wanted the other to unite with him to save the crown, but while honorable Lafayette had a limited brain, he did not see the orator’s genius.

Mirabeau was all for the Duke of Orleans, whom Lafayette advised, nay, ordered to quit the kingdom.

“But suppose I come back without your permission?” said the prince.

“Then, I hope you will do me the honor to cross swords with me at the first battle,” replied the marquis.

He was the veritable ruler and the duke had to depart; he did not return until called to be King of the French.

Lafayette had saved the Queen and protected the King; he was perfectly a royalist.

But still, like Gilbert, he was not so much the friend of the King as of the crown.

The monarch had too just a mind not to see this clearly.

Although he had not seen the doctor lately he remembered that this was his day of duty and he called him.

The King was pacing the bedroom, but stopping now and then to look at the Vandyke picture of Charles First, now in the Louvre.

The sovereign of England is painted as a Cavalier, with his horse, as ready for flight as for battle.

This picture seemed fatally the goal of the King’s wanderings.

At the step, Louis turned round.

“Oh, is it you, doctor?” he said. “Come in, I am glad to see you.” Leading him up to the painting he said: “Do you know this? where did you see it?”

“In Lady Dubarry’s house, when I was a boy, but it deeply struck me.”

“Yes, she pretended to be descended from the page who holds the horse. Jeanne Dubarry was the woman chosen by Marshal Richelieu to be the sole feminine ruler over the worn-out monarch Louis XV. and to induce him to shut up the infamous Deerpark, which was the harem ruining the old man. She was an adroit actress and played her part marvellously. She entertained while making sport of him, and he became manly because she persuaded him he was so.”

He stopped as if blaming himself for his imprudence in speaking of his grandfather thus openly before a stranger; but one glance at Gilbert’s frank face encouraged him, for he saw that he could speak all to a man who understood every thing.

“This melancholy, lofty face,” went on the King, referring to the portrait, “was placed in the strange Egeria’s boudoir, where it heard her impudent laughs and saw her lascivious gambols. Merrily she would take Louis by the arm and show him Charles, saying: ‘Old gossip, this King had his neck cut through because he was too weak towards his Parliament. Take warning about your own!’ Hence Louis broke up his Parliament and died peacefully on his throne. Thereupon we exiled the poor woman, for whom we ought to have been most indulgent. The picture was packed away in the lumber room of Versailles and I never thought about it. Now, how comes it here, in my bedroom? why does it haunt me?” He shook his head. “There is some fate in this.”

“Fatality, if the portrait reads no lesson, Sire; Providence if it does. What does it say to your Majesty?”

“That Charles lost his throne from having made war on his subjects, and James the Second for having tired his own.”

“Like me, then, it speaks the truth.”

“Well?” inquired the sovereign, questioning the doctor with his glance.

“Well, I beg to ask for your answer to the portrait.”

“Friend Gilbert, I have resolved on nothing: I will take the cue from circumstances.”

“The people fear that your Majesty purposes war upon them.”

“No, sir,” he rejoined, “I cannot make war on them without foreign support and I know the state of Europe too well to rely on that. The King of Prussia offers to enter France at the head of a hundred thousand men; but I too well know his ambitious and intriguing spirit – a petty monarchy which wishes to become a great one, thriving on turmoil and hoping to catch some fish like another Silesia. On her part, Austria places a hundred thousand men at my call; but I do not like my brother-in-law Leopold, a two-faced Janus, whose mother, Marie Theresa, had my father poisoned.

“My brother Artois proposes the support of Sardinia and Spain, but I do not trust those powers, led by Artois. Beside him is Calonne, in other words, the Queen’s worst enemy, the one who annotated with his own hand the pamphlet of the Countess Lamotte Valois anent the conspiracy of the Queen’s Necklace, for which she was branded. I know all that is going on yonder. In their last council a debate ensued about deposing me and appointing a regent who would be probably my dear, very dear brother Count Provence. Prince Conde suggested marching with an enemy upon Lyons, ‘whatever happened me at Paris!’

“It is another thing with the Great Empress Catherine; she confines herself to advice, bless her! you can understand that when you reflect that she is at table digesting Poland and cannot rise until she has finished her feast. She gives me advice which aims to be sublime but is only ridiculous, considering what has lately occurred. She says: ‘Monarchs ought to proceed on their course like the moon in her orbit, without being disturbed by the baying of curs!’ – that is, the protests of the common people. It appears that the Russian curs merely bark; ours do some biting, as you may learn of my poor Lifeguardsmen, torn to pieces by them.”

“The people thought that your Majesty was going to quit the country.”

“Doctor,” said the King after hesitating, and he laid his hand on the other’s shoulder, “I have promised you the truth and you shall have it thoroughly. Such a matter has been broached; it is the opinion of many faithful servitors surrounding me that I ought to flee. But on the sixth of October night, when weeping in my arms, the Queen besought me never to flee without her, and that we should all depart together, to be saved or die in company. I shall keep my word; and as I do not think that we could flee in such a number without being stopped, a dozen times before we got to the frontier, I conclude that we shall never get away.”

“Well, Sire, there is indeed no need of the foreigners. What would be the use until you shall exhaust your own resources? My advice is that we are only beginning the fight and that the Taking of the Bastile and the attack on the Palace at Versailles are only the two first acts in the tragedy to be played by France under the eyes of Europe.”

“I hope you are mistaken, sir,” replied Louis, slightly turning pale: “My police tell me nothing like this.”

“I have no police or information to check them; but in my position I am the natural conductor between the heavens and what is still concealed in the bowels of the earth. Sire, what we have experienced is merely the rumble that runs before the earthquake; we have yet to meet the lava, the fire and the smoke. I fear that the Revolutionary torrent will run ahead of us. There are only two methods to save yourself. One is to place yourself on the foremost breaker and be carried on with it.”

“I do not wish to go where it would carry me.”

“The second is to place a barrier across the tide. It is Genius and Popularity in one dam: and it is named Mirabeau.”

“The King looked Gilbert in the face as though he had misunderstood him; then turning to the portrait, he said:

“What would you have replied, Charles Stuart, if when you felt the ground quake beneath your feet, some one had suggested your leaning on Cromwell?”

“He would have refused, and rightly; for there is no likeness between Cromwell and Mirabeau.” Such was Gilbert’s answer.

“They were both traitors.”

“Sire,” replied the other with profound respect but invincible firmness; “neither were traitors: Cromwell was a rebellious subject, and Mirabeau is a discontented nobleman.”

“What is he discontented with?”

“With his father, who locked him up in prison; the courts which condemned him to death; with the King who miscomprehended and still miscomprehends his genius.”

“The spirit of a public man is honesty,” said the King quickly.

“The reply is fine, worthy of Titus, Trajan or Marcus Aurelius, unluckily many examples arise to the contrary.”

“How can you ask me to confide in a man who has a price?”

“Because he is a man of his price. If he will sell himself for a million, it is a bargain. Do you think he is worth twice a Polignac?”

“You are pleading for a friend.”

“I have not that honor: but he has a friend who is of the Queen’s party, too.”

“Count Lamarck? We cast it up to him every day.”

“On the contrary, your Majesty ought to dissuade him breaking the friendship with him, under pain of death. Mirabeau is a noble, an aristocrat, a King’s-man above all. He was elected by the people because the nobles scorned him and he had sublime disdain of the means to attain an end which genius thirsted for. You may say that he will never quit the party of his constituents to join the court party? Why is there not union of the court and plebeians? Mirabeau could make them one. Take him, my lord! To-morrow, rebuffed by your despisal, he may turn against you, and then you will say, as the portrait of your Martyr King will say: All is lost!”

“I will talk this over with the Queen, sir,” said the monarch, having turned pale and hesitatingly glanced at the royal portrait. “She may decide on speaking with Mirabeau: but I will not. I like to be able to shake hands with those I confer with, and I could never take the hand of a Mirabeau, though my life, my liberty, and my throne were at stake – After she shall have seen him, we will see – “

“I pray God that it will not be too late.”

“Do you believe the peril so imminent?”

“Sire, do not let the portrait of Charles First be removed from your room,” said Gilbert; “it is a good adviser.”

Bowing, he went forth as another visitor appeared on the sill. He could not restrain from a cry of surprise. This gentleman was Marquis Favras, whom he had met at Cagliostro’s a week or so before and to whom the magician had predicted a near and shameful death.

CHAPTER XVII

THE KING ATTENDS TO PRIVATE MATTERS

LOUIS the King displayed the usual irresolution in dealing with Favras’ proposition, approved by the Queen, to make a rush out of the kingdom. He reflected all the night and at breakfast called for Count Charny.

He was still at table when the officer walked in.

“Won’t you take breakfast with me, count?”

Charny was obliged to excuse himself from the honor as he had broken his fast.

“I must ask you to wait a while as I never care to speak of important matters while at meals and I have something to talk over with your lordship. Let us speak of other matters for the moment. Of yourself, for instance. I hear that you are badly lodged here; somewhere in the garret, my lord, while the countess is lodging in Paris.”

“Sire, I am in a room of my own choice: the countess is dwelling in her own house in Coq-Heron Street.”

“I must confess my ignorance; is it near the palace?”

“Tolerably, Sire.”

“What does this mean that after only three years of married life, you have separate establishments?”

“Sire, I have no answer to make than that my lady wishes to live alone. I have not had the pleasure of seeing her since your Majesty sent me for news. That is, better than a week ago.”

The King understood grief more readily than melancholy and noticed the difference in the tone.

“Count, there is some of your fault in this estrangement,” said the monarch, with the familiarity of the family man, as he called himself.

“The man must be to blame when so charming a woman keeps aloof from him. Do not tell me that this is none of my business: for a king can do a great deal by speaking a word. You must treat the lady ungratefully, for she loves you dearly – or did when Lady Taverney.”

“Sire, you know that one must not dispute with a king.”

“I do not know that the signs were visible to me alone; but this I know very well that on that dreadful October night, when she came to join us, she did not lose sight of you throughout, and her eyes expressed all her soul’s anguish, so much so that I saw her make a movement to fling herself between you and danger when the Bullseye Saloon door was beaten down.”

Count Charny was not softened; he believed he had seen something of this sort: but the details of his recent interview with his wife were too distinct for him to have his opinion shaken.

“I was paying all the more attention to her,” went on Louis, “from the Queen having said when you were sent to the City Hall while I was on my journey to Paris, that she almost died of distress in your absence and of joy at your return.”

“Sire,” replied Charny with a sad smile, “God had allowed those who are born above us to receive in birth as a privilege of their rank, the gift of seeing deeper into one’s heart than oneself can do; the King and the Queen have perceived secrets unrevealed to me: but my limited vision prevents me seeing the same. Therefore I beg to be employed on any dangerous errand or one that would take me to a distance without considering the great love of the Countess of Charny. Absence or danger will be equally welcome, coming at least for my part.”

“Nevertheless, a week ago, you appeared wishful to stay in town when the Queen desired to despatch you to Italy.”

“I deemed my brother adequate for the position and reserved myself for a mission more difficult or dangerous.”

“Then count, this is the very time when I have a difficult task to entrust to you, that with danger to you in the future, that I spoke of the countess’s isolation and wished her to have a lady friend’s company while I took away her husband.”

“I will write to the countess, yes, write: for from the way she last received me, I ought in that manner acquaint her with my movements.”

“Say no more on this head; I will talk it over with the Queen during your absence,” said Louis, rising. “Faith, the medical lights are right to say that things look differently as you handle them before or after a hearty meal. Come into my study, count; I feel in a mood to talk straight out to you.”

Charny followed, thinking how much Majesty lost by this material side, for which the proud Marie Antoinette was always carping at him.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE KING ATTENDS TO PUBLIC MATTERS

THOUGH the King had been only a fortnight in the Tuileries he had two places fitted out completely for him. The forge was one, the study the other.

Charny walked up to the desk at which his royal master seated himself without looking round at the papers with which he was familiar.

“Count Charny,” began the King at last, yet seeming to halt, “I noticed one thing, on the night of the attack by the rioters, you stood by me while you set your brother on guard over the Queen.”

“Sire, it was my right as head of my family, as you are chief of the realm, to die for you.”

“That made me think, that if ever I had a secret errand, difficult and dangerous, I could rely on your loyalty as a Frenchman, and on your heart as a friend’s.”

“Oh, Sire, however the King may raise me, I have no pretension to believe that I shall be more than a faithful and thankful subject.”

“My lord, you are a grave man though but thirty-six; you have not passed through recent events without drawing some conclusion from them. What do you think of the situation and what would be your means to relieve me, if you were my Premier?”

“Sire, I am a soldier and a seaman,” returned Charny, with more hesitation than embarrassment, “these high social questions fly over my head.”

“Nay, you are a man,” said the sovereign with a dignity in holding out his hand which sprang from the quandary; “another man, who believes you to be his friend, asks you, purely and simply, what you, with your upright heart and healthy mind, would do in his place.”

“Sire, in a no less serious position, the Queen asked my opinion: the day after the Taking of the Bastile, when she wanted to fling the foreign legions upon the mobs. My reply would have embroiled me with her Majesty had I been less known to her and my respect and devotion less plain. I said that your Majesty must not enter these walls as a conqueror if he could not as a father of his people.”