The Countess De Charny - Volume II (25 page)

Retracting its decision of two days before, the Assembly

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Repeated the decree dissolving the Commune, whereupon one of its members rose and said : —

“It is not enough to repeal your decree. On passing that measure only two days ago, you declared the Commune deserving of the nation’s gratitude. This is too vague, for some day you may say that while the Commune merited the thanks of the country, such and such members of the Council were not included in the eulogium, and, consequently, such and such members may be prosecuted; so you must say not merely the Commune, but the representatives of the Commune.”

So the Assembly passed a resolution declaring that the representatives of the Commune merited the gratitude of the country.

While the Assembly -was putting this question to the vote, Eobespierre was delivering a long speech at the Communal Council, in which he declared that the Assembly, having destroyed public confidence by its infamous manoeuvres, the Council ought to resign, and do the only thing ■which could now be done to save the country; that is, surrender the power to the people themselves.

This was vague and indefinite, like all Robespierre’s suggestions. Did he mean that the Council should assent to the decree of the Assembly and ask for a new election? That is not very probable.

Or did he mean that the Council was to resign its authority and declare, of its own accord, that the Commune considered itself unable to cope with the weighty responsibil-ities devolving upon it, and desired the people to finish the great work themselves?

If the populace, without any curb and with hearts thirsting for revenge, should undertake to complete the work begun on August tenth, this would mean nothing more nor less than the slaughter of the men who had fought against them on that same August day, and who had since been imprisoned in the various prisons of Paris.

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CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE NIGHT BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND DAYS OF SEPTEMBER.

This was the condition of affairs when, at about nine o’clock on the night of September 1st, Dr. Gilbert’s official — the word servant had been abolished as Anti-Eepublican — entered his employer’s room to say : —

“Citizen Gilbert, the cab is at the door.”

Gilbert drew his hat down over his eyes, buttoned his overcoat up to his throat, and was about to step out, when a man wrapped in a big cloak, and with his face shaded by a broad-brimmed hat, appeared upon the threshold.

Gilbert recoiled a step or two. In the darkness, and at such a time, any one might prove an enemy.

“It is I, Gilbert,” said a kindly voice.

“Cagliostro! ” exclaimed the doctor.

“Even so; only you must not forget that I am no longer called Cagliostro, but Baron Zannone. Still, to you, my dear Gilbert, my heart and name are alike unchanged, and I am always Joseph Balsamo; at least, I hope so.”

“Yes,” replied Gilbert; “and you will need no better proof of it than the fact that I was just going to your house.”

” I suspected as much. In fact, that is the very reason I am here. You know in such times as these I cannot do as Robespierre does, — take a trip to the country.”

“Still, I feared I might not find you; so I am more than glad of this visit. Come in, I beg of you.”

“Certainly; and now what do you desire of me?” asked Cagliostro, following Gilbert into the most secluded room of his suite of apartments.

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“You know what is going on, of course,” began Gilbert.

•’ You mean what will soon be going on,” said Cagliostro, “for everything is remarkably quiet just now.”

“You are right; but something terrible is close at hand. Is it not so?”

“Something terrible indeed; but at times the terrible becomes a necessity.”

“Your sangfroid makes me shudder.”

“And why? I am but an echo, — the echo of fate.”

Gilbert’s head drooped.

“You remember, do you not, Gilbert, what I told you at Bellevue three years ago, when I predicted the death of the Marquis de Favras? I told you then that if the king had a particle of the spirit of self-preservation in his poor little brain, — which I hoped he had not, — he would run away — “

“He did run away.”

” Yes , but I meant that he would flee while there was some possibility of his making his escape. But he did not make the attempt until it was too late. I added, you recollect, that if the king and queen and the nobility resisted, there would be a revolution.”

“Yes, and you were right. The revolution is upon us.”

“Not entirely; but it is coming on finely, my dear Gilbert. Do you also recollect what I told you about a certain machine invented by one of my friends, — Doctor Guillotin? Have you walked through the Carrousel lately? That instrument of death — the same I showed to the queen at the Taverney Château — is working finely there.”

“Yes, but the guillotine is too slow, apparently; for sabres, pikes, and daggers seem to be doing their best to help it along.”

“And why? Simply because we have the most hard-headed people in the world to deal with. The nobility and the king and queen received all sorts of warnings; but

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they were of no avail. The Bastille was taken. That lesson did them no good. Then came the October riots. They, too, failed to teach royalty anything. The twentieth of June proved equally unavailing. Then came the tenth of August. Even that profited royalty nothing. They have put the king in the Temple, and the nobility in the Abbaye, Force, and Bicètre prisons ; but all this has taught them nothing. The king rejoices openly over the success of the Prussians at Longwy. In the Abbaye the nobles cheer vociferously for the king and the Prussians. They drink their champagne under the very noses of the poor, and toy with their pâtés and truffles in the very faces of poor wretches who are famishing. This superb indifference extends even to King William of Prussia; for if any one should write to him, ‘ Take care ! if you come one step nearer to the heart of France that step will be the king’s death-warrant,’ he would doubtless reply: ‘ However dangerous the situation of the royal family may be, the invad-ing armies cannot retreat. I hope, with all my heart, to arrive in time to save the king of France; but my chief duty, after all, is to save Europe.’ He is now marching upon Verdun, and there is nothing for us to do but put an end to it.”

“An end to what?”

“To the king, the queen, and the nobility.” “You advise assassinating the king and queen?” “Oh, no; that would be a terrible blunder. They must be tried, convicted, and publicly executed, as in the case of Charles I. of England. We must rid ourselves of them in some way, doctor, and the sooner the better.”

“And who says so?” cried Gilbert. “If you had come to me in the name of Mirabeau, Lafayette, and Vergniaud, and declared this slaughter to be necessary, I should have shuddered, — as I shudder now, — but I should have been half convinced; but upon whose authority do you make this assertion to-day? Upon the authority of Hébert, a huckster; of Collot d’Herbois, an unsuccessful playwright;

VOL. IV. — 14.

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of Marat, a jaundiced-minded creature, whose physician is obliged to bleed him whenever he demands one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand heads. I despise such mediocre creatures as these, — men who fancy themselves magicians, and who clamour for such sudden transitions and terrible crises, and who think it a grand thing to exterminate by a word or sign a living obstacle which Nature has been twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years in creating.”

“My dear Gilbert, you deceive yourself. You style these creatures men, and you do them entirely too much honour. They are merely tools.”

” Tools of destruction ! “

” Yes, but for the benefit of a principle, — the infran-chisement of a nation, and not of one nation alone, but of the entire universe. These men you speak of lack genius, lack loyalty, lack conscience; but they possess something stronger, more inexorable, and more irresistible than either of those attributes, — instinct.”

“The instinct of Attila.”

“Precisely; the instinct of Attila, who called himself the scourge of God, and came down with his horde of barbarians to stamp out the civilisation of Rome, corrupted for four hundred 3’ears by the reigns of such men as Xero, Vespasian, and Heliogabalus.”

“But now, instead of generalising, tell me to what this wholesale slaughter is likely to lead.”

“Oh, it is very easy to answer that question. It will compromise the Assembly, the Commune, and the people. Paris must besmirch herself with blood, in order that Paris — which is really the brain of France — feeling that she has committed the unpardonable sin, may rise as one man and drive the enemy from the sacred soil of Fatherland.”

“But what does all this matter to you? You are not a Frenchman.”

” Can it be, Gilbert, that you, with your superior intelligence and powerful mind, would tell a man not to meddle

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with the affairs of France because he is not a Frenchman? Are not the affairs of France the world’s affairs? Is France striving for herself alone? Did Christ die only for the Jews? Would you cavil at the teachings of an apostle because he was not a Nazarene? But enough ! You desire to ask for the release of some one. Am I not right? Your request is granted already. Tell me the name of the man or woman you wish to save.”

“I wish to save a woman whom neither you nor I can allow to die.”

“The Comtesse de Charny?”

“The mother of Sebastian.”

“You know that Danton, as minister of justice, holds the keys to her prison, I suppose?”

“Yes, but I also know that you can bid Danton open or close those doors as you will.”

Cagliostro rose, walked to a desk, traced a sort of caba-listic sign on a bit of paper, and handed it to Gilbert.

“There, my son. Go to Danton, and ask of him what you will; but promise me one thing.”

“What is it?”

“There was a time when your promise was given unquestioningly, Gilbert.”

” Yes ; but in those days you did not talk of deluging a nation in blood.”

“Ah, well, promise me that if the king should be tried and put to death, you will follow the advice I then give you.”

“I swear it, if it does not offend my conscience.”

“You are unjust, Gilbert. I have offered you much. Have I ever exacted anything in return?”

“No; and what is more, you have just accorded me a life a thousand times more precious than my own.”

Cagliostro left the house. The cab was still in waiting, and the doctor ordered the coachman to drive him to the Palais de Justice.

When Gilbert was announced, Danton was with his wife,

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— or rather his wife was at his feet, imploring him not to be guilty of such a crime as countenancing the intended massacre; while he, in turn, was trying to make her understand that he could do nothing contrary to the decision of the Commune, unless dictatorial powers were conferred upon him by the Assembly. With the Assembly on his side, there Avas a possibility of success ; without the Assembly, defeat was certain.

” Then die! die, if need be! ” exclaimed the poor woman; “but do not allow the massacre to take place.”

“Men of my stamp don’t care to die in vain,” replied Danton; “but I should be perfectly willing to die if my death would benefit my country.”

Just then Dr. Gilbert was announced.

“I shall not go away,” said Madame Danton, “until I have your promise that you will do everything in your power to prevent this atrocious crime.”

“Eemain, then,” said Danton.

Madame Danton retreated a step or two to give her husband an opportunity to greet the doctor, whom he knew already by sight, as well as by reputation.

“You come very opportunely, doctor,” remarked Dan-ton. ” Had I known your address, I should certainly have sent for you.”

Gilbert bowed to Danton, and seeing a lady standing behind the minister, he bowed to her also.

“This is my wife, doctor, the wife of Citizen Danton, minister of justice, who thinks her husband powerful enough to prevent Marat and Robespierre — backed by the entire Commune — from doing what they please; that is to say, from killing, exterminating, devouring.”

“Tell him, monsieur,” sobbed the poor woman, “that if he permits this massacre, it will cast a stain over his whole life.”

“Nor is that all,” said Gilbert. “If this stain should rest upon the forehead of one man alone, — a man who believed it essential to his country’s welfare that this disgrace

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should attach to his name, — such aman might fling his honour to tiie winds, as Decius flung his body into the abyss, for his country’s sake. But this will be a foul blot upon the escutcheon of France ! “

” But when there is an eruption of Vesuvius, show me a man who is strong enough to check the molten river! When the tide is rising, show me an arm strong enough to hold old Ocean back ! “

” One need look no longer for such an one when Dan-ton’s name is uttered, for he is found. No one need ask where that strong arm may be found; for it acts, and thus dispels all doubts.”

“Look here ! you ‘ve all lost your senses,” cried Danton, impatiently. “Must I say to you what I hardly dare to say to myself? I certainly have the will, and it is equally certain that I have the ability; but whether I have the power or not will depend entirely upon the Assembly. But do you know what is going to happen to me? The very same thing that happened to Mirabeau. I do not inspire the Assembly with terror, like that crazy-headed Marat; nor do I inspire it with confidence, like the incorruptible Robespierre. The Assembly will refuse me the means of saving the country because I am not in very good repute just now. It will argue and bicker and haggle; then people will begin to whisper that my morals are not what they should be, — that I am not a man to be trusted with absolute power even for three days. A committee of worthy men will be appointed, but it will be too late. The massacre will take place, and it will not be France that is blamed , but myself. I shall avert the world’s curse from France by bringing it down upon my own head! “