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

"Rise, Count," said Victoria, quickly. "It is one of your men."

Robert the steward entered precipitately, bearing in one hand a tray on which lay a despatch. He said to his master:

"A courier from Versailles brought this despatch for my lord. The courier reached the house only with the greatest difficulty. To escape arrest by the people in the streets he was forced to leave his horse some distance from the barrier, and to throw off his royal livery."

"You may go," replied Monsieur Plouernel, as he took the message.

He tore open the envelope and made haste to read the contents of the missive, while Victoria followed him with curiosity burning in her eyes, and said in her most winning voice as she drew close to him, "News of importance, no doubt, my dear Gaston? You seem much moved by it."

"Read, Marchioness, for I have no secrets from you," answered Plouernel, handing the despatch to Victoria. "Judge of the extreme urgency of my information!"

The young woman eagerly grasped the letter, cast her eyes over it, and then said, with a silvery laugh: "But it is in cipher. Give me the key. I cannot read it – without your help."

"True – pardon my distraction," replied the Count, and he read as follows, translating the cipher as he went:

"To-day's events in Paris, and the news from the country, are of such nature that our measures must be pushed forward to execution. Repair to Versailles at once. Let not one of our friends be missing. It will probably be done to-morrow.

"Versailles, seven o'clock in the evening."

"And it is now past midnight!" exclaimed Victoria, "You should have received the message at least two or three hours ago. Whence the delay? Must it be laid to negligence, or treachery? Both suppositions are possible."

"You forget, Marchioness, that the messenger was compelled to use great precautions to enter Paris, and that his precautions in themselves, were quite capable of causing the delay. So that it is neither false play nor carelessness – no one is guilty."

"So it may be. But there is not a moment to lose. You must be off to Versailles at once. Order your carriage immediately. Let your coach-wheels scorch the pavement."

"It would be imprudent to take a carriage into the streets to-night. I shall go on horseback accompanied by one of my men; I shall go towards Great Rock and Queen's Court, till I pick up the road that runs from Courbevoie to Versailles. Then, like the wind for Versailles."

Monsieur Plouernel grasped the young woman's hand and added in a voice of emotion – "God save the throne!"

Victoria turned towards the door, paused a moment on the sill to make a final gesture of farewell, and left the room, musing to herself:

"In order to strike terror to the court, to make their plant miscarry, the people must take the Bastille to-morrow! No hesitation – it must be done!"

CHAPTER IX

FILIAL CONFIDENCES

The home of Monsieur Desmarais, attorney at the court of Paris, deputy of the Third Estate to the National Assembly, the same who had been beaten by the orders of the Count of Plouernel, was situated near the St. Honoré Gate. There he occupied a beautiful dwelling of recent construction and decorated with taste. The day after the banquet participated in at the Plouernel mansion by the heads of the court party, Madam Desmarais and her daughter Charlotte, a charming girl of seventeen, were engaged in a sad interchange of thoughts.

"Ah, my child," said Madam Desmarais, "how troubled I feel at what is going on in Paris!" As her child did not answer, the mother stopped and looked at her. The girl was plunged in deep revery.

For a moment longer the girl maintained her silence. Then, her face suffused and her eyes filled with tears, she fell upon her mother's neck, buried her face in the maternal breast, and murmured in a smothered voice:

"Mother, dear, for the first time in my life I have lacked confidence in you. Pardon your child!"

Surprised and disturbed, Madam Desmarais pressed her daughter to her bosom, dried her tears, urged her to calm herself, and said, embracing her tenderly: "You, to lack confidence in me, Charlotte? You have a secret from me? Am I not, then, your bestest friend?"

"Alas, I fear I had almost forgotten it. Be indulgent toward your daughter!"

"My heaven! What anguish you are putting me to! I can not believe my ears. You – to have committed a fault?"

"I doubted your heart and your justice. I formed a bad judgment of my father and you, who have surrounded me with tenderness since my birth."

"Finish your confidence, painful as it may be. Put an end to my uncertainty," pleaded the mother.

Charlotte drew back a moment; then she proceeded in broken accents:

"About six months ago, we came to live on the second story of this house, then still unfinished. Father was much taken with one of the workmen – "

"You speak of John Lebrenn, the foreman of our ironsmith, Master Gervais?"

"Struck with the excellent education of Monsieur John Lebrenn, father offered him the freedom of our library, and made him promise to come and visit us on his holidays. Father therefore considered Monsieur John Lebrenn worthy of admission to our friendship. That is how I must interpret father's actions."

"Your father evinced, perhaps, too much good will towards the young fellow, and my brother has taken my husband to task for authorizing too intimate relations between us and a simple workman. Each should keep his place."

"Uncle Hubert," answered Charlotte, "always showed himself hostile towards Monsieur Lebrenn, and even jealous of him."

"Your uncle Hubert is a banker of wealth, and could have entertained for the protegé of my husband neither jealousy nor animosity."

"Nevertheless, father's 'protegé' has been able to be of value to him, for I have often heard father say to Monsieur John that it was to him and his efforts that he owed his election as deputy for Paris."

"It is a matter of common kindness for my husband to thank this young workman for some services he was able to perform in the interest of his election."

"Allow me, dear mother, to tell you that father does not look at things as you do; for last Sunday he invited Monsieur John to dinner with us, calling him my friend. Father repeated to him several times that, thanks to the progress of the revolution, privileges of birth would be soon wiped out, and that equality and fraternity would reign among men."

"Well, Charlotte! And suppose equality were to reign among men – what conclusion do you draw from that?"

"Monsieur John Lebrenn being the equal of my father, bonds of friendship could exist between them."

"I shall admit, for the moment, that an ironsmith's apprentice might think himself the equal of an attorney at the bar of Paris. What do you conclude therefrom?"

"I hoped you would have understood," stammered the young girl in confusion, and more embarrassed than ever at seeing her mother so far from suspecting the nature of the confidence she was about to make.

Suddenly a dull and heavy roar, prolonged and repeated from echo to echo, shook and rattled the windows of the room.

"What noise is that!" cried Madam Desmarais with a start, and raising her head.

Crash upon crash, more distinct than the first, rattled again the windows and even the doors of the dwelling. At that instant in rushed one of Madam Desmarais's maids, screaming out with affright:

"Madam, Oh, madam! It is the cannon! It is the roar of artillery!"

"Great God!" exclaimed Madam Desmarais, turning pale. "And my husband! To what dangers will he be exposed!"

"Do not worry, dear mother. Father is at Versailles," spoke out Charlotte, now the comforter.

"They are attacking Paris. The counter-attack will lead on to Versailles. There will be uprisings, insurrections, massacres!"

"The suburbs are attacking the Bastille," answered Gertrude, the maid, all of a tremble. "At daybreak our neighbor, Monsieur Lebrenn the ironsmith, armed with sword and gun, placed himself at the head of a troop, and marched upon the fortress."

"Alas, he rushes into the arms of death – I shall never see him more!" cried Charlotte, starting to her feet. And overcome with emotion and fear, she paled, her eyes closed, and she fainted in the arms of her mother and the servant, who bent over her plying their simple restorative cares.

For a long time the detonation of the artillery and the rattle of musketry continued unabated. At length the firing slackened, became desultory, and finally ceased altogether. The tumult gave way to a profound silence. Charlotte regained consciousness. Her face hidden in her hands, she was now seated beside her mother, who regarded her daughter with a severe and saddened look. The older woman seemed to hesitate to speak to the girl; finally she addressed her in a voice that was hard and dry:

"Thank heaven, Charlotte, you have recovered from your faint. Let us continue our interview, that was so unfortunately interrupted. Meseems it is of extreme importance for us all. I can guess its conclusion."

The hard lines in the face of Madam Desmarais and the iciness in her tone took the young girl aback; but overcoming the passing emotion, she raised her head, revealing her countenance wet with tears, and answered:

"I have never practised dissimulation towards you. So, just now, I could not conceal the fears which assailed me for John Lebrenn – for I love him passionately. I have pledged him my faith, I have received his in return. We have sworn our troth, one to the other. There, my dear mother, that is the confidence, I wished to make to you."

"Oh, woe is us! The predictions of my brother are realized. How right he was to reproach my husband for his relations with that workingman! Unworthy daughter!" continued Madam Desmarais addressing Charlotte, "How could you so far forget your duties as to think of uniting your lot with that of a miserable artisan? Shame and ignominy! Dishonor to your family – "

"Mother," replied Charlotte, raising her head proudly, "my love is as noble and pure as the man who calls it forth."

Gertrude, the serving maid, here again broke precipitately into the room, joyfully crying as she crossed the threshold:

"Madam, good news! Your husband has just entered the courtyard."

"My husband in Paris!" exclaimed Madam Desmarais. "What can have taken place at Versailles? Perhaps the Assembly is dissolved! Perhaps he is proscribed, a fugitive! My God, have pity on us!"

She rushed to the door to meet her husband, but checked herself long enough to say to Charlotte:

"Swear to me to forget at once this shameful love. On that condition I consent to withhold from your father all knowledge of the wretched affair."

"My father shall know all!" replied Charlotte resolutely, as Monsieur Desmarais entered the room.

CHAPTER X

DEPUTY DESMARAIS

The deputy of the Third Estate was a man in the prime of life; his intellectual face betrayed more of diplomacy than of frankness. The disorder of his apparel and the perspiration that covered his brow bespoke the precipitancy of his return. His pallor, the contortion of his features, the fear portrayed upon them, disclosed the anxiety of his mind. But his whole expression relaxed at sight of Charlotte and her mother. He pressed them several times in turn to his bosom, and cried joyously:

"Dear wife – dear daughter – embrace me again! I never before thought what a consolation in these cursed times the sweet joys of the domestic hearth would prove."

And again embracing his wife and daughter, the advocate added, "Blessings on you both for your presence. You have made me forget for a moment the atrocities committed by a cannibal people!"

As Monsieur Desmarais uttered these last words, a storm of triumphal outcries, first distant, then gradually drawing nearer, smote upon his ear: "Victory! The Bastille is taken by the people! Down with the court! Down with the traitors! Down with the King! Death to the King! Long live the Nation!"

Then as gradually the cries moved away and died out in the distance.

"The Bastille is taken – but how much blood had to be shed in the heroic attack!" thought Charlotte, endeavoring to curb her apprehensions for John Lebrenn. Then, carrying her handkerchief to her lips to smother a sob, she added to herself, "He is dead, perhaps. O, God, have pity on my grief."

"What mean these cries, my friend?" asked Madam Desmarais of her husband. "Is it possible that the Bastille has fallen into the hands of the people? Can the working classes have overcome the army? In what sort of times do we live?"

"The Bastille is taken! Cursed day – the people are on top!"

Charlotte heard with astonishment the execrations of her father on the victory just won by the people. But before she was able to explain to herself this revulsion in her father's beliefs, Gertrude re-entered the room, calling out through the open door —

"Good news again! Mother Lebrenn, our neighbor, has sent one of her apprentices to inform you that she has just received a note from Monsieur John, saying that he received a slight gunshot wound in the shoulder during the battle – and announcing that the people is everywhere victorious!"

"John Lebrenn!" exclaimed Monsieur Desmarais, enraged. "He took part in that insurrection! Send answer to Mother Lebrenn that I take no interest in parties to massacre!" Then recollecting himself, he added, "No – say to the apprentice that you have delivered the message."

"Not a word of interest, and John wounded," thought Charlotte. "Ah, at least, thanks to You, my God, John's wound is slight. I need not tremble for his life."

"If the revolution one of these days miscarries, it will be the fools of the stamp of this Lebrenn who will be to blame," continued Desmarais bitterly. "They will not comprehend that the ideal government is a bourgeois, constitutional monarchy, amenable to the courts, disarmed, and subordinated to an assembly of representatives of the Third Estate. These miserable workingmen dishonor the revolution by assassination."

"Father," responded Charlotte firmly, her forehead flushed with a generous resolve, "Monsieur John Lebrenn can not be called an assassin."

"I, too, believed in the honesty of that workman whom I showered with favors, in spite of the warnings of your uncle Hubert," replied Desmarais. "But when John Lebrenn takes part in this insurrection, I withdraw my esteem. I look upon him as a brigand!"

"John Lebrenn a brigand!" exclaimed Charlotte, unable to restrain her indignation. "Is it you, father, who thus insult a man whom you but now called your friend! What a contradiction in your language!"

"My dear husband," interposed Madam Desmarais, interrupting her daughter to retard an explanation of which she dreaded the issue: "You have not yet told us what compelled your departure from Versailles, and why you are in Paris instead of in session with the National Assembly."

"Last evening and night the most sinister rumors were in circulation about Versailles. According to some, the court party had secured from the King the dissolution of the Assembly. The members of the Left were to be arrested as seditious characters, and imprisoned or banished from the kingdom."

"Great heaven – that is where you sit, my friend! To what danger have you not been exposed!"

"They would not have taken me from my curule chair alive," responded the attorney grandly. "But the court party, frightened by the peals of the cannon at the Bastille, the roar of which carried to Versailles, drew back before the fearsome consequences of such an attempt."

"I breathe again," exclaimed Madam Desmarais with a sigh of relief. "You are neither a fugitive nor proscribed. God be praised!"

"Still, other reports agitated Versailles and the Assembly on the score of the uneasiness in Paris. During the night they saw, from the housetops, the gleam of burning barriers. In the morning a courier despatched by Baron Bezenval, commandant of Paris, brought news to the government that the people of the suburb of St. Antoine, assisted by those from the other suburbs, were besieging the Bastille. This sort of aggression was considered by the majority of the representatives an enterprise as blameworthy as it was senseless. No one could conjecture that a mob of people, in rags, almost without arms, could take a fortress defended by a garrison and a battery of artillery. The attempt was in the highest degree extravagant."

"The victory of the people was truly heroic," answered Madam Desmarais. "It really savors of the miraculous."

"Alas, a few more miracles of that stamp and the royal power is overthrown, and we fall into anarchy," moodily replied the advocate. "The people, drunk with its triumph, will not content itself with wise reforms. Having overthrown the royalty, the nobility, and the clergy, it will turn on the bourgeoisie, and we, its allies during the combat, shall become its victims after the victory. It will push to the end the logic of its principles."

"Good heavens, my friend, you express to-day the same opinions you till lately fought in my brother!"

"Your brother Hubert is a violent man who knows nothing of politics," answered the attorney, much embarrassed by his wife's observation; and he added, "This morning the National Assembly, wishing to ascertain the truth as to the conflicting rumors of events in Paris, commissioned several of its members, myself among the number, to learn by actual witness the march of affairs, and, if possible, to check the shedding of blood. In spite of our haste to the city, when we arrived the people were already masters of the Bastille and had already disgraced their victory by slaughtering the Marquis De Launay, governor of the fortress, and several officers. These murders were then followed by ghoulish scenes, which I beheld with my own eyes. But everything in its time. My colleagues and I went to the City Hall. We succeeded, with much effort, in working our way through the swarms of people in arms. We saw the unhappy Flesselles, President of the Committee of Notables, livid, whelmed with blows and insults, his clothing torn to ribbons, dragged into the square and massacred: after the noble, the bourgeois! Among the assassins I remarked a brawny giant, with the face of a gallows-bird, and a little short man whose visage half vanished under a shock of red beard, evidently false, who dragged at his side a young boy of eight or nine years. At one instant I thought that the unhappy Fleselles might be saved, but the declamations of the red-bearded man and the giant raised to a paroxysm the fury of a band of savages whom they seemed to direct, and I knew then that the Provost of the merchants was lost. The fellow with the red beard drew up to him and cracked his head at one blow, with the butt of his pistol. The savage band hurled itself upon the unfortunate man as he fell to earth, and riddled him with wounds. The giant put the climax to the horrible deed: he cut off the head and impaled it on the end of a pike. Then the whole band of scoundrels, the little boy along with the rest, began to dance around the hideous trophy, singing and shouting."

"My blood freezes in my veins, my friend, when I think of the danger you ran in the midst of that frantic populace," said Madam Desmarais. "Those madmen are worse than cannibals – and Paris seems to be in their power."

"That is what I saw; but unfortunately that is not the only crime there is to deplore. Other murders followed this first one. The blood thus shed threw the populace into a species of frenzy. Finally I was able to escape, to get out of the crowd, and I hastened to you, dear wife, and to our daughter. These are the crimes that the takers of the Bastille either perpetrated, or are accomplices in. By giving the signal for insurrection, they have thrown the people into all the dangers of a revolt. That is why John Lebrenn is no better in my eyes than a common bandit."

"You are unjust, father, toward him whom you called your friend," ventured Charlotte, in a voice firm with resolution. "On reflection you will return to sentiments that are more just to Monsieur Lebrenn."

Struck with astonishment at his daughter's words and tone, the advocate questioned his wife with a look, as if to seek the cause of this strange appeal on the part of Charlotte for Monsieur John.

"It is I, father, who can give you the explanation you seek of my mother. I shall not falter in doing so," said Charlotte; and after a momentary pause she continued:

"I shall not recall to you how many times you have uttered yourself in terms of friendship and esteem for Monsieur Lebrenn. The good opinion you held of him was merited, and I dare vouch that he will continue to show himself worthy of it. I shall not recall to you the proofs of devotion Monsieur Lebrenn has given you, notably at the time of your election. It is not willingly that I bring back to your memory the incident of the outrage of which you were the victim at the instigation of Monsieur the Count of Plouernel, and which you communicated to Monsieur Lebrenn in confidence one evening about two months ago. It costs me much to reopen in your heart that rankling wound. But do you remember the generous choler with which Monsieur Lebrenn was seized at your revelation? 'I am but a mechanic, and without doubt this great lord will consider me unworthy to raise a sword against him,' said Monsieur John to you, 'but I swear to God, I shall punish the wretch with these stout arms that heaven has bestowed upon me.' Already he was bounding towards the door to be off to avenge your insult, when you and my mother stopped him with great difficulty, plying your supplications to make him promise not to attack your enemy. And then, clasping him in your arms, you said to him, your voice quivering with emotion, and your eyes filled with tears, 'Ah, my friend, you shall be my son; for no otherwise than as a son did you feel the insult I received. This mark of attachment, joined to all the other proofs of your affection, renders you so dear to my heart that from this moment I shall look upon you as one of the members of our family. You have won all our hearts – '"

"And what has all this to do with the excesses which Monsieur Lebrenn has been one of the instigators of, and with the assassinations which I have witnessed? Come, speak clearly, explain yourself. I understand nothing of all this pathos."

"By what right, father, do you render Monsieur Lebrenn responsible for a murder to which he was an entire stranger?"

"But whence this great interest, my daughter, in taking the part of Monsieur Lebrenn against your father?"

"In spite of my ignorance of politics, dear father, I know that in attacking the Bastille the people wished to destroy the house of durance where shuddered so many innocent victims. And perhaps Monsieur Lebrenn, in joining himself with the insurgents, hoped to find his father in one of the dungeons of the fortress."

"And if by chance he should discover him!" exclaimed advocate Desmarais, more and more surprised and irritated at his daughter's persistence in defending Lebrenn. "Does that chance absolve him from the excesses for which the taking of the Bastille was the signal? Ought not the responsibility for these acts fall upon those who took part in the attack, among others on Monsieur Lebrenn, who, it seems, is one of the leaders of the insurrection?"

"Does the memory of services rendered, father, weigh so heavily upon you that you seek to evade all recollection of them, under the pretext of a responsibility which you endeavor to load on a generous man for the crimes committed by others?"

"Do you know, Charlotte," answered the advocate severely, after a few moments' reflection, "that your persistence in defending that man would justly give me strange suspicions regarding your conduct?"

"My friend," interrupted Madam Desmarais, "do not attach any importance to a few words which have escaped our daughter in a moment of excitement."

"You are mistaken, dear mother. I am perfectly calm. But I can not submit to hearing a man of heart and honor calumniated without protesting against what I regard as a great wrong to him. Why should I not say to father what I have just said to you, mother – that for two months my faith has been pledged to Monsieur John Lebrenn, that I have sworn to him to have no other husband than he? And I shall add, before you, my father, and you, my mother, that I shall be true to my promise."