The Red Cockade Page 3

  CHAPTER III.

  IN THE ASSEMBLY.

  The blow, and the insult with which he accompanied it, put an end forthe moment to my repentance. But short as was the distance across thefloor from the one door to the other, it gave me time to think again;to remember that this was Louis; and that whatever cause I had had tocomplain of him, whatever grounds to suspect that he was the tool ofothers, no friend could have done more to assuage my wrath, nor themost honest more to withhold me from entering on an impossible task.Melting quickly, melting almost instantly, I felt with a kind ofhorror that if kindness alone had led him to interpose, I had made himthe worst return in the world; in fine, before the outer door could beopened to us, I repented anew. When the usher held it for me to pass,I bade him close it, and, to Louis' surprise, turned, and, mutteringsomething, ran back. Before he could do more than utter a cry I wasacross the vestibule; a moment, and I had the door of the Assemblyopen.

  Instantly I saw before me--I suppose that my hand had raised the latchnoisily--tiers of surprised faces all turned my way. I heard a murmurof mingled annoyance and laughter. The next moment I was threading myway to my place with the monotonous voice of the President in my ears,and the scene round me so changed--from that low-toned altercationoutside, to this Chamber full of light and life, and thronged withstarers--that I sank into my seat, dazzled and abashed; and almostforgetful for the time of the purpose which brought me thither.

  A little, and my face grew hotter still; and with good reason. Each ofthe benches on which we sat held three. I shared mine with one of theHarincourts and M. d'Aulnoy, my place being between them. I hadscarcely taken it five seconds, when Harincourt rose slowly, and,without turning his face to me, moved away down the gangway, and,fanning himself delicately with his hat, assumed a leaning positionagainst a desk with his gaze on the President. Half a minute, andD'Aulnoy followed his example. Then the three behind me rose, andquietly and without looking at me found other places. The three beforeme followed suit. In two minutes I sat alone, isolated, a mark for alleyes; a kind of leper in the Assembly!

  I ought to have been prepared for some such demonstration. But I wasnot, and my cheeks burned, as if the curious looks to which I wasexposed were a hot fire. It was impossible for me, taken by surprise,to hide my embarrassment; for, wherever I gazed, I met sneering eyesand contemptuous glances; and pride would not let me hang my head. Formany minutes, therefore, I was unconscious of everything but thatscorching gaze. I could not hear what was going forward. ThePresident's voice was a dull, meaningless drawl to me.

  Yet all the while anger and resentment were hardening me in myresolve; and, presently, the cloud passed from my mind, and left meexulting. The monotonous reading, to which I had listened withoutunderstanding it, came to an end, and was followed by short, sharpinterrogations--a question and an answer, a name and a reply. It wasthat awoke me. The drawl had been the reading of the cahier; now theywere voting on it.

  Presently it would be my turn; it was coming to my turn now. With eachvote--I need not say that all were affirmative--more faces, and yetmore, were turned to the place where I sat; more eyes, some hostile,some triumphant, some merely curious, were directed to my face. Underother circumstances this might have cowed me; now it did not. I waswrought up to face it. The unfriendly looks of so many who had calledthemselves my friends, the scornful glances of new men of ennobledfamilies, who had been glad of my father's countenance, theconsciousness that all had deserted me merely because I maintained inpractice opinions which half of them had proclaimed in words--thesethings hardened me to a pitch of scorn no whit below that of myopponents; while the knowledge that to blench now must cover me withlasting shame closed the door to thoughts of surrender.

  The Assembly, on the other hand, felt the novelty of its position. Menwere not yet accustomed to the war of the Senate; to duels of wordsmore deadly than those of the sword: and a certain doubt, a certainhesitation, held the majority in suspense, watching to see what wouldhappen. Moreover, the leaders, both M. de St. Alais, who headed thehotter and prouder party of the Court, and the nobles of the Robe andParliament, who had only lately discovered that their interest lay inthe same direction, found themselves embarrassed by the very smallnessof the opposition; since a substantial majority must have beenaccepted as a fact, whereas one man--one man only standing in the wayof unanimity--presented himself as a thing to be removed, if the waycould be discovered.

  "M. le Comte de Cantal?" the President cried, and looked, not at theperson he named, but at me.

  "Content!"

  "M. le Vicomte de Marignac?"

  "Content!"

  The next name I could not hear, for in my excitement it seemed thatall in the Chamber were looking at me, that voice was failing me, thatwhen the moment came I should sit dumb and paralysed, unable to speak,and for ever disgraced. I thought of this, not of what was passing;then, in a moment, self-control returned; I heard the last name beforemine, that of M. d'Aulnoy, heard the answer given. Then my own name,echoing in hollow silence.

  "M. le Vicomte de Saux?"

  I stood up. I spoke, my voice sounding harsh, and like another man's."I dissent from this cahier!" I cried.

  I expected an outburst of wrath; it did not come. Instead, a peal oflaughter, in which I distinguished St. Alais' tones, rang through theroom, and brought the blood to my cheeks. The laughter lasted sometime, rose and fell, and rose again; while I stood pilloried. Yet thishad one effect the laughers did not anticipate. On occasions the mosttaciturn become eloquent. I forgot the periods from Rochefoucauld andLiancourt, which I had so carefully prepared; I forgot the passagesfrom Turgot, of which I had made notes, and I broke out in a strain Ihad not foreseen or intended.

  "Messieurs!" I cried, hurling my voice through the Chamber, "I dissentfrom this cahier because it is effete and futile; because, if for noother reason, the time when it could have been of service is past. Youclaim your privileges; they are gone! Your exemptions; they are gone!You protest against the union of your representatives with those ofthe people; but they have sat with them! They have sat with them, andyou can no more undo that by a protest than you can set back the tide!The thing is done. The dog is hungry, you have given it a bone. Do youthink to get the bone back, unmouthed, whole, without loss? Then youare mad. But this is not all, nor the principal of my objections tothis cahier. France to-day stands naked, bankrupt, without treasury,without money. Do you think to help her, to clothe her, to enrich her,by maintaining your privileges, by maintaining your exemptions, bystanding out for the last jot and tittle of your rights? No,Messieurs. In the old days those exemptions, those rights, thoseprivileges, wherein our ancestors gloried, and gloried well, weregiven to them because they were the buckler of France. They maintainedand armed and led men; the commonalty did the rest. But now the peoplefight, the people pay, the people do all. Yes, Messieurs, it is true;it is true that which we have all heard, '_Le manant paye pourtout!_'"

  I paused; expecting that now, at last, the long-delayed outburst ofanger would come. Instead, before any in the Chamber could speak,there rose through the windows, which looked on the market-place, andhad been widely opened on account of the heat, a great cry ofapplause; the shout of the street, that for the first time heard itswrongs voiced. It was full of assent and rejoicing, yet no attackcould have disconcerted me more completely. I stood astonished, andsilenced.

  The effect which it had on me was slight, however, in comparison withthat which it had on my opponents. The cries of dissent they wereabout to utter died stillborn at the portent; and, for a moment, menstared at one another as if they could not believe their ears. Forthat moment a silence of rage, of surprise, prevailed through thewhole Chamber. Then M. de St. Alais sprang to his feet.

  "What is this?" he cried, his handsome face dark with excitement. "Hasthe King ordered us, too, to sit with the third estate? Has he sohumiliated us? If not, M. le President--if not, I say," he continued,sternly putting down an
attempt at applause, "and if this be not aconspiracy between some of our body and the _canaille_ to bring aboutanother Jacquerie----"

  The President, a weak man of a Robe family, interrupted him. "Have acare, Monsieur," he said. "The windows are still open."

  "Open?"

  The President nodded.

  "And what if they are? What of it?" St. Alais answered harshly. "Whatof it, Monsieur?" he continued, looking round him with an eye whichseemed to collect and express the scorn of the more fiery spirits. "Ifso, let it be so! Let them be open. Let the people hear both sides,and not only those who flatter them; those who, by building on theirweakness and ignorance, and canting about their rights and our wrongs,think to exalt themselves into Retzs and Cromwells! Yes, Monsieur lePresident," he continued, while I strove in vain to interrupt him, andhalf the Assembly rose to their feet in confusion, "I repeat thephrase--who, to the ambition of a Cromwell or a Retz add theirviolence, not their parts!"

  The injustice of the reproach stung me, and I turned on him. "M. leMarquis!" I cried hotly, "if, by that phrase, you refer to me----"

  He laughed scornfully. "As you please, Monsieur," he said.

  "I fling it back! I repudiate it!" I cried. "M. de St. Alais hascalled me a Retz--a Cromwell----"

  "Pardon me," he interposed swiftly; "a would-be Retz!"

  "A traitor, either way!" I answered, striving against the laughter,which at his repartee flashed through the room, bringing the bloodrushing to my face. "A traitor either way! But I say that he is thetraitor who to-day advises the King to his hurt."

  "And not he who comes here with a mob at his back?" St. Alaisretorted, with heat almost equal to my own. "Who, one man, wouldbrow-beat a hundred, and dictate to this Assembly?"

  "Monsieur repeats himself," I cried, cutting him short in my turn,though no laughter followed my gibe. "I deny what he says. I flingback his accusations; I retort upon him! And, for the rest, I objectto this cahier, I dissent from it, I----"

  But the Assembly was at the end of its patience. A roar of "Withdraw!withdraw!" drowned my voice, and, in a moment, the meeting so orderlya few minutes before, became a scene of wild uproar. A few of theelder men continued to keep their seats, but the majority rose; somehad already sprung to the windows, and closed them, and still stoodwith their feet on the ledge, looking down on the confusion. Othershad gone to the door and taken their stand there, perhaps with theidea of resisting intrusion. The President in vain cried for silence.His voice, equally with mine, was lost in the persistent clamour,which swelled to a louder pitch whenever I offered to speak, and sankonly when I desisted.

  At length M. de St. Alais raised his hand, and with little difficultyprocured silence. Before I could take advantage of it, the Presidentinterposed. "The Assembly of the noblesse of Quercy," he saidhurriedly, "is in favour of this cahier, maintaining our ancientrights, privileges, and exemptions. The Vicomte de Saux aloneprotests. The cahier will be presented."

  "I protest!" I cried weakly.

  "I have said so," the President answered, with a sneer. And a peal ofderisive laughter, mingled with shouts of applause, ran round theChamber. "The cahier will be presented. The matter is concluded."

  Then, in a moment, magically, as it seemed to me, the Chamber resumedits ordinary aspect. The Members who had risen returned to theirseats, those who had closed the windows descended, a few retired, thePresident proceeded with some ordinary business. Every trace of thestorm disappeared. In a twinkling all was as it had been.

  Even where I sat; for no isolation, no division from my fellows couldexceed that in which I had sat before. But whereas before I had had myweapon in reserve and my revenge in prospect, that was no longer so. Ihad shot my bolt, and I sat miserable, fettered by the silence and thestrange glances that hemmed me in, and growing each moment moredepressed and more self-conscious; longing to escape, yet shrinkingfrom moving, even from looking about me.

  In this condition not the least of my misery lay in the reflectionthat I had done no good; that I had suffered for a quixotism, andshown myself stubborn and obstinate to no purpose. Too late, Iconsidered that I might have maintained my principles and yetconformed; I might have stated my convictions and waived them indeference to the majority. I might have----

  But alas! whatever I might have done, I had not done it; and the diewas cast. I had declared myself against my order; I had forfeited allI could claim from my order. Henceforth, I was not of it. It was nofancy that already men who had occasion to pass before me drew theirskirts aside and bowed formally as to one of another class!

  How long I should have endured this penance--these veiled insults andthe courtesy that stung deeper--before I plucked up spirit towithdraw, I cannot say. It was an interposition from without thatbroke the spell. An usher came to me with a note. I opened it withclumsy fingers under a fire of hostile eyes, and found that it wasfrom Louis.

  "If you have a spark of honour"--it ran--"you will meet me, without amoment's delay, in the garden at the back of the Chapter House. Do so,and you may still call yourself a gentleman. Refuse, or delay even forten minutes, and I will publish your shame from one end of Quercy tothe other. He cannot call himself Adrien du Pont de Saux, who puts upwith a blow!"

  I read it twice while the usher waited. The words had a cruel,heartless ring in them; the taunting challenge was brutal in itsdirectness. Yet my heart grew soft as I read, and I had much ado tokeep the tears from my eyes--under all those eyes. For Louis did notdeceive me this time. This note, so unlike him, this desperate attemptto draw me out, and save me from opponents more ruthless, were tootransparent to delude me; and, in a moment, the icy bands which hadbeen growing over me melted. I still sat alone; but I was not quitedeserted. I could hold up my head again, for I had a friend. Iremembered that, after all, through all, I was Adrien du Pont de Saux,guiltless of aught worse than holding in Quercy opinions which theLameths and Mirabeaus, the Liancourts and Rochefoucaulds held in theirprovinces; guiltless, I told myself, of aught besides standing forright and justice.

  But the usher waited. I took from the desk before me a scrap of paper,and wrote my answer. "Adrien does not fight with Louis because St.Alais struck Saux."

  I wrapped it up and gave it to the usher; then I sat back a differentman, able to meet all eyes, with a heart armed against allmisfortunes. Friendship, generosity, love, still existed, though thegentry of Quercy, the Gontauts, and Marignacs, sat aloof. Life wouldstill hold sweets, though the grass should grow in the walnut avenue,and my shield should never quarter the arms of St. Alais.

  So I took courage, stood up, and moved to go out. But the moment I didso, a dozen Members sprang to their feet also; and, as I walked downone gangway towards the door, they crowded down another parallel withit; offensively, openly, with the evident intention of intercepting mebefore I could escape. The commotion was so great that the Presidentpaused in his reading to watch the result; while the mass of Memberswho kept their places, rose that they might have a better view. I sawthat I was to be publicly insulted, and a fierce joy took the place ofevery other feeling. If I went slowly, it was not through fear; thepent-up passions of the last hour inspired me, and I would not havehastened the climax for the world. I reached the foot of the gangway,in another moment we must have come into collision, when an abruptexplosion of voices, a great roar in the street, that penetratedthrough the closed windows, brought us to a halt. We paused, listeningand glaring, while the few who had not stood up before, rosehurriedly, and the President, startled and suspicious, asked what itwas.

  For answer the sound rose again--dull, prolonged, shaking the windows;a hoarse shout of triumph. It fell--not ceasing, but passing away intothe distance--and then once more it swelled up. It was unlike anyshout I had ever heard.

  Little by little articulate words grew out of it, or succeeded it;until the air shook with the measured rhythm of one stern sentence."_A bas la Bastille! A bas la Bastille!_"

  We were to hear many such cries in the time to come, and growaccustomed to such
alarms; to the hungry roar in the street, and theloud knocking at the door that spelled fate. But they were a new thingthen, and the Assembly, as much outraged as alarmed by this secondtrespass on its dignity, could only look at its President, and mutterwrathful threats against the _canaille_. The _canaille_ that hadcrouched for a century seemed in some unaccountable way to be changingits posture!

  One man cried out one thing, and one another; that the streets shouldbe cleared, the regiment sent for, or complaint made to the Intendant.They were still speaking when the door opened and a Member came in. Itwas Louis de St. Alais, and his face was aglow with excitement.Commonly the most modest and quiet of men, he stood forward now, andraised his hand imperatively for silence.

  "Gentlemen," he said, in a loud, ringing voice, "there is strangenews! A courier with letters for my brother, M. de St. Alais, hasspoken in the street. He brings strange tidings."

  "What?" two or three cried.

  "The Bastille has fallen!"

  No one understood--how should they?--but all were silent. Then, "Whatdo you mean, M. St. Alais?" the President asked, in bewilderment; andhe raised his hand that the silence might be preserved. "The Bastillehas fallen? How? What is it?"

  "It was captured on Tuesday by the mob of Paris," Louis answereddistinctly, his eyes bright, "and M. de Launay, the Governor, murderedin cold blood."

  "The Bastille captured? By the mob?" the President exclaimedincredulously. "It is impossible, Monsieur. You must havemisunderstood."

  Louis shook his head. "It is true, I fear," he said.

  "And M. de Launay?"

  "That too, I fear, M. le President."

  Then, indeed, men looked at one another; startled, pale-faced, askingeach mute questions of his fellows; while in the street outside thehum of disorder and rejoicing grew moment by moment more steady andcontinuous. Men looked at each other alarmed, and could not believe.The Bastille which had stood so many centuries, captured? The Governorkilled? Impossible, they muttered, impossible. For what, in that case,was the King doing? What the army? What the Governor of Paris?

  Old M. de Gontaut put the thought into words. "But the King?" he said,as soon as he could get a hearing. "Doubtless his Majesty has alreadypunished the wretches?"

  The answer came from an unexpected quarter, in words as littleexpected. M. de St. Alais, to whom Louis had handed a letter, rosefrom his seat with an open paper in his hand. Doubtless, if he hadtaken time to consider, he would have seen the imprudence of makingpublic all he knew; but the surprise and mortification of the news hehad received--news that gave the lie to his confident assurances, newsthat made the most certain doubt the ground on which they stood, sweptaway his discretion. He spoke.

  "I do not know what the King was doing," he said, in mocking accents,"at Versailles; but I can tell you how the army was employed in Paris.The Garde Francaise were foremost in the attack. Besenval, with suchtroops as have not deserted, has withdrawn. The city is in the handsof the mob. They have shot Flesselles, the Provost, and electedBailly, Mayor. They have raised a Militia and armed it. They haveappointed Lafayette, General. They have adopted a badge. Theyhave----"

  "But, _mon Dieu!_" the President cried aghast. "This is a revolt!"

  "Precisely, Monsieur," St. Alais answered.

  "And what does the King?"

  "He is so good--that he has done nothing," was the bitter answer.

  "And the States General?--the National Assembly at Versailles?"

  "Oh, they? They too have done nothing."

  "It is Paris, then?" the President said.

  "Yes, Monsieur, it is Paris," the Marquis answered. "But Paris?" thePresident exclaimed helplessly. "Paris has been quiet so many years."

  To this, however, the thought in every one's mind, there seemed to beno answer. St. Alais sat down again, and, for a moment, the Assemblyremained stunned by astonishment, prostrate under these new, thesemarvellous facts. No better comment on the discussions in which it hadbeen engaged a few minutes before could have been found. Its Membershad been dreaming of their rights, their privileges, their exemptions;they awoke to find Paris in flames, the army in revolt, order and lawin the utmost peril.

  But St. Alais was not the man to be long wanting to his part, nor oneto abdicate of his free will a leadership which vigour and audacityhad secured for him. He sprang to his feet again, and in animpassioned harangue called upon the Assembly to remember the Fronde.

  "As Paris was then, Paris is now!" he cried. "Fickle and seditious, tobe won by no gifts, but always to be overcome by famine. Best assuredthat the fat bourgeois will not long do without the white bread ofGonesse, nor the tippler without the white wine of Arbois! Cut theseoff, the mad will grow sane, and the traitor loyal. Their NationalGuards, and their Badges, and their Mayors, and their General? Do youthink that these will long avail against the forces of order, ofloyalty, against the King, the nobility, the clergy, against France?No, gentlemen, it is impossible," he continued, looking round him withwarmth. "Paris would have deposed the great Henry and exiled Mazarin;but in the result it licked their shoes. It will be so again, only wemust stand together, we must be firm. We must see that these disordersspread no farther. It is the King's to govern, and the people's toobey. It has been so, and it will be so to the end!"

  His words were not many, but they were timely and vigorous; and theyserved to reassure the Assembly. All that large majority, which inevery gathering of men has no more imagination than serves to paintthe future in the colours of the past, found his arguments perfectlyconvincing; while the few who saw more clearly, and by the light ofinstinct, or cold reason, discerned that the state of France had noprecedent in its history, felt, nevertheless, the infection of hisconfidence. A universal shout of applause greeted his last sentence,and, amid tumultuous cries, the concourse, which had remained on itsfeet, poured into the gangways, and made for the door; a desire to seeand hear what was going forward moving all to get out as quickly aspossible, though it was not likely that more could be learned than wasalready known.

  I shared this feeling myself, and, forgetting in the excitement of themoment my part in the day's debate, I pressed to the door. TheBastille fallen? The Governor killed? Paris in the hands of the mob?Such tidings were enough to set the brain in a whirl, and breedforgetfulness of nearer matters. Others, in the preoccupation of themoment, seemed to be equally oblivious, and I forced my way out withthe rest.

  But in the doorway I happened, by a little clumsiness, to touch one ofthe Harincourts. He turned his head, saw who it was had touched him,and tried to stop. The pressure was too great, however, and he wasborne on in front of me, struggling and muttering something I couldnot hear. I guessed what it was, however, by the manner in whichothers, abreast of him, and as helpless, turned their heads andsneered at me; and I was considering how I could best encounter whatwas to come, when the sight which met our gaze, as we at last issuedfrom the narrow passage and faced the market-place--two steps belowus--drove their existence for a moment from my mind.