The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic

"To obey you, Sire, I shall. It was in the year 738 that one of my ancestors, named Amael, a soldier of fortune and companion to Charles Martel, found himself in Anjou, at the Convent of St. Saturnine. My ancestor was commissioned by Charles Martel to keep prisoner in the convent a poor boy of nine, the only son of Thierry IV, the do-nothing King, named Childeric. The child soon died, thus extinguishing, in the last scion of the Merovingians, the stock of Clovis who had covered Gaul with ruins.11 Two centuries and a half later, in 987, at the palace of Compiegne, another of my ancestors, the son of a forester of the royal domain, found himself alone in the chamber of Louis the Do-nothing with that prince; he saw him of a sudden faint, become deadly pale, and writhe in agony. He apostrophized the dying King thus: 'Louis, last year Hugh the Capet, Count of Paris, had your father Lothaire poisoned by the Queen his wife, a concubine of the Bishop of Laon. Louis, you are about to die of poison which your wife, Queen Blanche, has just given you. She has promised Hugh the Capet, her accomplice, to wed him during the coming year.' And so it was; the last of the Carlovingians dead, Hugh the Capet espoused his widow and had himself enthroned King of France.12 There, Sire, that is how royal dynasties are founded and ended."

"These are strange chances, Monsieur Lebrenn," replied Louis XVI. "One of your ancestors charged to watch the last prince of the dynasty of Clovis; another ancestor sees perish the last scion of the monarchy of Charlemagne; and this night you are to watch over me, whom you probably consider as the last King of the dynasty of Hugh Capet. You will soon perceive your error."

"Sire," returned John Lebrenn, "you insisted on knowing the occurrences of which I just spoke, in connection with a question you put to me – "

"Aye, Monsieur Lebrenn; and in spite of the strangeness of the circumstances with which you have just made me acquainted, I repeat my question. What harm have royalty, nobility and clergy ever done to you and yours, that you should hate them so?"

"To begin with, Sire, we know upon what crimes hang the rise and fall of dynasties; consequently we are unable to love and respect a royalty imposed upon us by conquest. All monarchies have had a similar origin. The Count of Boulainvilliers, in this very century, established and demonstrated that the land of the Gauls belonged of fact and of right to the King and the nobility, by the grace of God and the right of their good swords: the Gauls were a vanquished race."

For several seconds Louis did not speak. Then he began brusquely, "Triumph in your hate, monsieur; you are here as the jailer of the descendant of those Kings whom you and your fellows have abhorred for ages."

"The circumstance which has placed me near you, Sire, is of too high an order of morality to evoke in me a sentiment so miserable as that of sated hatred."

"What, then, is the feeling which you do entertain, monsieur?"

"A religious emotion, Sire; such as is bred in every honest heart by one of these mysterious decrees of eternal justice which, sooner or later, manifests itself in its divine grandeur and seizes the guilty ones, in whatever rank they may be stationed."

"So, monsieur, you make me a party to the evil my forefathers may have perpetrated upon their subjects?"

"Monarchs are rightfully regarded as parties to the crimes of their ancestors, the same as they pretend to be masters of the people by virtue of divine right and the conquests of those ancestors. All inheritance carries with it its responsibilities as well as its benefits. You surely would not dispute that, Sire?"

"To-morrow rebellious subjects will arrogate to themselves the right to summon their King before them to trial," murmured Louis, without noticing Lebrenn's question. "The will of heaven be done in all things; it will punish the wicked, and protect the just."

As Louis pronounced these words, the porter of the Temple entered the room, saying, as he handed John the letter from advocate Desmarais, "Citizen officer, here is a letter just brought for you by Citizen Billaud-Varenne, who enjoined me to take it to you at once."

"Good night, Monsieur Lebrenn," said the King; and turning to the porter: "Send me my waiting-man Clery, to help me make my toilet. I wish to retire."

Louis XVI returned to his room, while John Lebrenn, greatly surprised to recognize Desmarais's hand-writing on the envelope which Billaud-Varenne had sent him, quickly tore it open, his heart, in spite of himself, beating loud against his ribs.

The missive read, Lebrenn for a moment thought he was dreaming. He hesitated to pin any faith to such unlooked-for good fortune, the realization of his dearest hopes. In vain did he seek to penetrate the motive for the singular condition placed by the lawyer upon his marriage. Examined in turn from the viewpoint of duty, of honor and of delicacy, the condition seemed to him on the whole acceptable; he simply bound himself for the future to a discretion from which he had not, in the past, varied a hair's breadth.

Why attempt to paint the ineffable felicity of John Lebrenn? The night passed for him in a flood of joy.

In the morning he was one of the municipal officers charged to conduct Louis XVI to the bar of the Convention. Towards nine o'clock Chambon, Mayor of Paris, accompanied by a court clerk came to deliver to the King the order to appear before the Convention.

A two-horse coach awaited Louis at the door of the great tower, within the precincts of the Temple. Generals Santerre and Witenkoff were stationed on horseback beside the windows. Louis climbed into the vehicle, and seated himself on the rear seat, beside the Mayor of Paris; John Lebrenn and one of his colleagues in the Municipal Council occupied the front. As soon as the carriage issued from the courtyard of the Temple, the King realized, by the mass of military force with which his route to the National Convention was hemmed in, that the Committee of General Safety had been informed of the royalist intrigue, and had taken steps to make impossible any sudden assault calculated to carry off the prisoner.

While Louis was on his way to the Convention, that sovereign assembly, already two hours in session, was calmly and with dignity transacting public affairs. The trial of the ex-Executive was, no doubt, of prime importance, but to have changed its order of business, or to interrupt it without cause before the appearance of the accused, would have given the Convention almost the appearance of intimidation before the act which it was about to consummate in the teeth of the allied Kings of Europe. The countenances of the various factions presented singular contrasts. The galleries were filled with patriots, who, in common with the Mountain and the Jacobins, saw no safety for the Republic and the Revolution save in the condemnation of Louis XVI to the penalty of death.

The dark and rainy sky of that December day sent its lightning flashes across the windows of the vast hall. The members of the Right and the Swamp seemed weighed down by painful preoccupation; the Mountainists alone were unmoved. One of the latter was speaking to certain articles of a decree introducing some exceptions into the law on Emigrants, when a low rumor running through the chamber heralded Louis's approach. The Mountainist called for order and continued his discussion. The question was put to a vote and carried. Only then did the president, rising in his place, say to the Assembly:

"I wish to inform the Assembly that Louis Capet is at the door. Citizen Representatives, you are about to exercise the right of justice; the Republic expects of you firm and deliberate action; Europe's eyes are turned upon you; history will record your actions; posterity will judge you. The dignity of your session should correspond to the majesty of the French people; the latter is about, through your instrumentality, to give a lesson to Kings and a fruitful example for the emancipation of nations. Citizens in the galleries, forget not that justice presides only over calm deliberations."

Then, addressing the ushers:

"Bring in the accused."

Generals Santerre and Witenkoff advanced to the bar, leading the deposed King between them by the arms; they were followed by Mayor Chambon, and by John Lebrenn and his colleague. Several chairs were arranged near the bar. Louis XVI removed his overcoat, placed it across the back of his seat, took off his hat, and sat down, with his hat on his knees. His large, bulging eyes wandered here and there over the benches of the members with childish curiosity. Then his face took on its usual expression of apathy; his eyelids drooped, his loose lip fell down over his fat and retreating triple chin; he settled himself as best he could in his chair and seemed lost to his surroundings.

The bustle caused in the chamber and galleries by Louis XVI's entry, died out little by little, and Defermont, president of the Convention, took up the examination of the accused on the facts charged against him.

I have just attended the examination of Louis Capet. His answers, hypocritical, evasive, or spun out of the whole cloth; his denials in flat contradiction to verified facts; his obliviousness to all decency, to all dignity, if not as a King, at least as a man, aroused in all present, as they did in me, only pity for this prince who had neither the courage to confess nor the nobility to repent his crimes, but who resorted for his defense to the weapons of the vilest criminal, denial and falsification.

CHAPTER XVI

LEBRENN AND NEROWEG

Night had fallen. Half an hour after his return from the Temple, John Lebrenn was awaiting in silence the result of his sister's consideration of the letter written him by advocate Desmarais the previous evening, and also one from Charlotte received during the day.

Seated at her work table, which was lighted by a small lamp, Victoria hung thoughtfully over the two letters.

"Sister," at last said John, "are you more keen-sighted than I in solving the reason for the condition set by Desmarais upon my marriage?"

"Nay, I also am at a loss for an explanation," replied Victoria; "but I suspect some cowardice in the mystery. You often see Billaud-Varenne, he never told you, so far as I know, that he was in close connection with Charlotte's father. And yet I read in Desmarais's letter that he begs you to keep from Billaud-Varenne the secret of your love for his daughter. Doubtless you could easily clear up the matter by seeing Billaud-Varenne and asking him about his relations with Desmarais."

"Would that not be failing in the discretion which Charlotte's father imposes upon me an a condition for my marriage?"

"Not at all. He asks you to keep from his colleague the secret of your love for his daughter. Nothing more. On that subject, my dear brother, you can still be as reserved in your talk with Billaud-Varenne as you have been in the past."

"That is so. I shall go and see him this very evening; I am certain to find him at home. At any rate, does not the condition, placed by Charlotte's father upon our marriage, seem to you, as it does to her and me, acceptable on the score of honor?"

"Surely, brother. And moreover, have you not always guarded with delicacy this secret which Desmarais now asks you to keep? How will it embarrass you to engage yourself upon your honor to continue holding it a secret? In no wise. As to the motive for the condition, what matters it? Go at once to Monsieur Desmarais's; Charlotte, poor child, is counting the hours, the minutes till you come."

"Ah, Victoria," cried John, his breast heaving and his eyes filled with tears, "I can hardly believe my good fortune! To marry Charlotte! To live with her and my beloved sister!"

"Me! To live with you and your wife? It is impossible! Think of the past."

"Victoria, I might once have hesitated to reveal to Charlotte the mystery of your life; it is no longer so, dearest sister. The conduct of my betrothed has proved to me the firmness of her character; I am as sure of her as of myself. She shall know all that has contributed to your sad life, and her dearest wish will be like mine, I am certain – to have you pass the rest of your days with us."

"I admit that your sweetheart's spirit is sufficiently lofty to rise above prejudice. But will it be the same with her family?"

"I answer to that, dearest sister, that there is nothing else for you to do but what I have just indicated. Have you not lived with our parents and with me since the day the Bastille was taken, when you came home to us? Have I not many a time spoken of you to Billaud-Varenne? If he is on intimate terms with Citizen Desmarais, is it not likely that he has spoken to him? In fine, for a last reason, the gravest of all, is it not known in the neighborhood that we live together? Charlotte's father, our neighbor, must be aware of the circumstance. Shall I resign myself to a falsehood, and say that you are not my sister? What would Charlotte and her father think then? What would that young and beautiful woman who shared my lodgings then be in their eyes?"

Victoria remained silent. She found, and, in fact, there was, no answer to John's arguments. The latter, triumphing in his brotherly love, rose, tenderly embraced his sister, and said:

"You see you are convinced of the necessity of my confidence to Charlotte. Now tell me, darling sister, which do you prefer, to live alone or with us?"

The young woman did not answer. Instead, her pale visage was bathed in tears, always so rare in her. After a moment, she pressed her brother to her heart, and murmured in a voice broken with sobs:

"Ah, do not fear that the sight of your good fortune will make my chagrin more bitter. On the contrary, perhaps I shall forget it in seeing you happy."

John tenderly embraced his sister, and set out for Billaud-Varenne's, whom he wished to see before his interview with advocate Desmarais.

Upon being left alone, Victoria pondered long the recent conversation with her brother. Then, lending an ear mechanically to the whistling of the winter's wind without, she bent over the little stove that warmed their humble quarters, and resumed her sewing. Suddenly the young woman uttered a cry of surprise, and jumped to her feet. One of the panes of the dormer window which looked out upon the roof fell with a crash, and as the fragments of glass jangled to the floor, a hand passing through the opening left by the broken pane forcibly shoved the lower sash of the window up in the casing. A great gust of wind filled the room, blew out the lamp, and out of the darkness a muffled, suppliant voice called to Victoria:

"Have pity on me. I am an Emigrant; they are searching for me. I have a hundred louis on me; they are yours if you save me!"

At the same time that the words were pronounced, Victoria heard on the floor the foot-fall of the fugitive, who had introduced himself by the window.

At the sound of the first words Victoria believed she recognized the voice that came from out the shadows. The young woman was frozen with astonishment.

"O, Providence! O, Justice the Avenger," she exclaimed. "It is he!" Then, transported with fierce joy, she ran in the darkness to the door, which she double locked, put the key in her pocket, and made sure that she had by her the double-barreled pistol she always kept ready and loaded since she became aware of the intentions of the Jesuit Morlet and Lehiron. These precautions taken, Victoria groped about on the bureau for a match, and held it to the stove-grate, while the fugitive, surprised at the silence maintained by the occupant of the garret, repeated again, believing it an irresistible argument to the mistress of so poor a dwelling:

"I am an Emigrant. You have a hundred louis to win by saving me. You have no interest in turning me over to my pursuers."

Victoria replied in a low voice, as she approached the lighted match to a candle on the bureau, "Draw the curtain before the window, lest the wind blow out my light."

The Emigrant hastened to execute the order. Victoria lighted the candle. Its light flooded the garret; and when the Count of Plouernel – for it was that self-same gentleman – turned around once more, he stood petrified at the sight of the woman he beheld before him. In spite of the poverty of her costume, he recognized – Marchioness Aldini! Her black eyes flashed; hatred contributed to her face so fearsome an expression that Plouernel shuddered as he gasped to himself:

"I am lost! Abbot Morlet told me that the Lebrenns dwelt near my refuge. Let me flee!"

He dashed to the door, expecting to open it and reach the stairway, but found it locked. In vain he tried to beat it down.

"Count," coldly said Victoria, in mocking accents, "know that this house is occupied by good patriots. The noise you yourself are making will give the alarm, and you will be arrested on the instant."

"Infamous creature!" shouted Plouernel, wild with rage, but ceasing to shake the door. Then, rapidly approaching Victoria he unsheathed a poniard which he carried concealed in his clothes; "You wish to deliver me to the scaffold. But I shall avenge my death before it occurs! Your life is in my hands."

"Be that as it may," replied the young woman, as she leveled her pistol at the Count's breast. The latter recoiled in terror. Still keeping Plouernel covered, Victoria went up to one of the partitions, struck it with her hand, and called out aloud:

"Neighbor Jerome, are you there?"

"Aye, citizeness," responded Jerome from the other side of the wall, "we are here, my son and I, at your service. We have just come in, and are getting supper."

"My watch is stopped. Do you know what time it is, neighbor?"

"Ten has just sounded from the ex-parish of the Assumption. It is late, neighbor. We wish you a good night."

Plouernel was fairly cornered. He could not think of escaping by the window and the roof – one movement by Victoria would send him rolling to the street below. To break down the door was no less perilous; the two speakers in the garret, and soon all the inhabitants of the house, would run to the young woman's call. And, finally, to attempt to kill her was an expedient as fraught with danger as the other two. He would have to brave two shots at close range and by a sure hand.

Victoria sat down in such a manner as to place her worktable between herself and the Count, and keeping the pistol still in her hand, said:

"Count of Plouernel, you are the head of one of those families which have the honor of tracing their origin back to the early times of conquest. The further you go back in the centuries the more crimes you take to your account, and the more terrible should be the punishment reserved to you. The representatives of these families will pay, like you, Neroweg, Count of Plouernel, the debt of blood."

Victoria was uttering these words in a voice of fierce exaltation when her brother John, who had another key to the door, suddenly entered. His sister's last words to Plouernel fell upon his ear. The Count, at the unexpected apparition of the young artisan, fell back defiantly, and involuntarily clapped his hand again to his dagger.

"John, lock the door," cried Victoria quickly. "This man's name is Neroweg, Count of Plouernel!"

The Count put on a bold front, and said, in an attempt to brazen it out with the young workman, who, he knew, shared the sentiments of his sister with regard to the sons of Neroweg: "Go on, citizen, do your business as purveyor of the scaffold."

Unmoved by the insult, John cast a cold look in the Emigrant's direction and said to his sister:

"How comes the fellow here?"

"He was evidently fleeing from the men sent to arrest him. He climbed to the roof of the next house, and forced his way in by breaking the window."

"So," said John to the Count, "you are an Emigrant, and denounced? They want you for judgment?"

"The marauder has the impudence to question me!" answered the Count with a burst of sardonic laughter. "A switch for the rascal!"

"Count of Plouernel," returned John Lebrenn imperturbably, "I am of a different opinion from my sister on the nature of the punishment to be meted out to you. The Revolution, in abolishing royalty, nobility and clergy, has already chastised the crimes of the enemies of the people: The evil your race has done to ours is expiated. Count of Plouernel, the conquered have taken their revenge upon the conquerors, the nation has re-entered upon her sovereignty. The Republic is proclaimed; justice is done!"

"Blood of God!" exclaimed Plouernel, "the beggar has the insolence to grant me grace in the name of the people!"

"Count of Plouernel, your judges and not I will grant you grace, if you merit it," answered John, controlling himself under the goading flings of the Emigrant. "If it were for me to say, you would remain in France unmolested, like so many other ex-nobles. I would leave you in peace, I swear it before God! in spite of all the wrong your family has heaped upon mine. I would have pardoned you, Count of Plouernel, and I shall tell you why I would have shown myself thus clement: A century or more ago, one of my forefathers, Nominoë, said to Bertha of Plouernel, who loved him with a love as passionate as his own, 'I experience I know not what emotions at once sad and tender, in loving in you a descendant of that race which, from infancy, I have been taught to execrate. You are in my eyes, Bertha, an angel of pardon and concord. In you, I absolve your ancestors; instead of making you party to their iniquities, I transfer to them your virtues. You ransom the evil ones of your race, as Christ, they say, ransomed the world by his divine grace.'

"It is in memory of these words of my ancestor Nominoë," proceeded Lebrenn, "that I would have pardoned you, Count of Plouernel, in making you share, not in the crimes of your stock, but in the virtues of that young girl and in the qualities of another of your blood, a Protestant and republican in his time, Colonel Plouernel, the friend of the great Coligny and of my ancestor Odelin, the armorer of La Rochelle."

"You lie," cried the Count of Plouernel, furiously. "Never did woman or maid of the house of Plouernel dishonor herself with love for a vassal! As to Colonel Plouernel, a turn-coat and a Protestant, he is the shame of our family; as such, he may, indeed, have played the part of friend to a base plebeian."

"Accordingly, I would have pardoned, Count, the evil done by your family to mine," John Lebrenn continued unperturbed. "But though I have the right to show myself generous to my personal enemy, my duty as a citizen forbids me to furnish asylum to an enemy of the nation and the Republic, to a monarchist conspirator."

"O, the hypocrite!" exclaimed the Count. "All the while pretending a generosity which would be an insult to me, the clown wants to gratify his hatred by sending me to the scaffold!"

"I have told you that duty prevents my affording asylum to an enemy of the Republic; but I am not an informer, I would not deliver up even my personal enemy when he has sought shelter under my roof. Leave this place. Go down the stairs softly, and you may gain the street. The gate is not locked. If you were not under the shadow of a capital accusation, I would chastise you as you deserve for your insults. So, out of here! my ex-gentleman."

"Ah, miserable vassal," replied Plouernel, pale with rage. "You dare to threaten me!" And suddenly throwing himself upon Lebrenn, he dealt him a blow that crimsoned the side of his face.

"The fellow now belongs to me," grimly muttered John. He went to the corner where his tools lay, and arming himself with a bar of iron which he found there, tossed to the Count a sword which hung on the wall, saying, as he did so:

"Come, Count of Plouernel; take the weapon, and guard yourself!"

"John," shrieked Victoria in terror, "your bar is no match for his saber. You shall not expose your life so!"

Plouernel drew the sword from its sheath and prepared to defend himself, while Victoria, unable to intervene, shudderingly followed the duel.

"Son of the Nerowegs," cried John, brandishing his bar of iron, "my avenging arm is about to fall upon you."

"I await it," coolly replied the Count, putting himself on his guard. The robust iron-worker advanced upon his adversary, describing with his weapon a figure-of-eight so lusty, so rapid, and to which the vigor of his wrist lent such force that, encountering the sword at the moment when the ex-colonel was about to lunge, the iron bar broke down the latter's guard, and descended heavily upon his skull. Almost without losing a drop of blood, and without a single cry, the Count dropped in his tracks, and rolled upon the floor like an ox smitten with a sledge.