Maurice Tiernay, Soldier of Fortune. Lever Charles James
Safety, containing the names of above seven hundred Royalists, who were condemned to death, and who were to be executed in three tournées, on three successive days.
For sometime back the mob had not been gratified with a spectacle of this nature. In the ribald language of the day, the ‘holy guillotine had grown thirsty from long drought’; and they read the announcement with greedy eyes, commenting as they went upon those whose names were familiar to them. There were many of noble birth among the proscribed, but by far the greater number were priests, the whole sum of whose offending seemed written in the simple and touching words, ancien curé, of such a parish! It was strange to mark the bitterness of invective with which the people loaded these poor and innocent men, as though they were the source of all their misfortunes. The lazy indolence with which they reproached them seemed ten times more offensive in their eyes than the lives of ease and affluence led by the nobility. The fact was, they could not forgive men of their own rank and condition what they pardoned in the well born and the noble! an inconsistency that has characterised democracy in other situations beside this.
As I ran my eyes down the list of those confined in the Temple, I came to a name which smote my heart with a pang of ingratitude as well as sorrow – the ‘Père Michel Delannois, soi disant curé de St. Blois’ – my poor friend and protector was there among the doomed! If, up to that moment, I had made no effort to see him, I must own the reason lay in my own selfish feeling of shame – the dread that he should mark the change that had taken place in me, a change that I felt extended to all about me, and showed itself in my manner as it influenced my every action. It was not alone that I lost the obedient air and quiet submissiveness of the child, but I had assumed the very extravagance of that democratic insolence which was the mode among the leading characters of the time.
How should I present myself before him, the very impersonation of all the vices against which he used to warn me – how exhibit the utter failure of all his teachings and his hopes? What would this be but to embitter his reflections needlessly. Such were the specious reasons with which I fed my self-love, and satisfied my conscience; but now, as I read his name in that terrible catalogue, their plausibility served me no longer, and at last I forgot myself to remember only him.
‘I will see him at once,’ thought I, ‘whatever it may cost me – I will stay beside him for his last few hours of life; and when he carries with him from this world many an evil memory of shame and treachery, ingratitude from me shall not increase the burthen.’ And with this resolve I turned my steps homeward.
CHAPTER III. THE ‘TEMPLE’
At the time of which I write, there was but one motive principle throughout France – ‘Terror.’ By the agency of terror and the threat of denunciation was everything carried on, not only in the public departments of the state, but in all the common occurrences of everyday life. Fathers used it towards their children – children towards their parents; mothers coerced their daughters – daughters, in turn, braved the authority of their mothers. The tribunal of public opinion, open to all, scattered its decrees with a reckless cruelty – denying to-day what it had decreed but yesterday, and at last obliterating every trace of ‘right’ or ‘principle’ in a people who now only lived for the passing hour, and who had no faith in the future, even of this world.
Among the very children at play, this horrible doctrine had gained a footing: the tyrant urchin, whose ingenuity enabled him to terrorise, became the master of his playfellows. I was not slow in acquiring the popular education of the period, and soon learned that fear was a ‘Bank’ on which one might draw at will. Already the domineering habit had given to my air and manner all the insolence of seeming power, and, while a mere boy in years, I was a man in all the easy assumption of a certain importance.
It was with a bold and resolute air I entered the restaurant, and calling Boivin aside, said —
‘I have business in the Temple this morning, Boivin; see to it that I shall not be denied admittance.’
‘I am not governor of the gaol,’ grunted Boivin sulkily, ‘nor have I the privilege to pass any one.’
‘But your boys have the entrée; the “rats” (so were they called) are free to pass in and out.’
‘Ay, and I’m responsible for the young rascals, too, and for anything that may be laid to their charge.’
‘And you shall extend this same protection to me, Master Boivin, for one day, at least – nay, my good friend, there’s no use in sulking about it. A certain friend of ours, whose name I need not speak aloud, is little in the habit of being denied anything; are you prepared for the consequence of disobeying his orders?’
‘Let me see that they are his orders,’ said he sturdily – ‘who tells me that such is his will?’
‘I do,’ was my brief reply, as, with a look of consummate effrontery, I drew myself up and stared him insolently in the face.
‘Suppose, then, that I have my doubts on the matter – suppose – ’
‘I will suppose all you wish, Boivin,’ said I interrupting, ‘and even something more; for I will suppose myself returning to the quarter whence I have just come, and within one hour – ay, within one hour, Boivin – bringing back with me a written order, not to pass me into the Temple, but to receive the body of the Citizen Jean Baptiste Boivin, and be accountable for the same to the Committee of Public Safety.’
He trembled from head to foot as I said these words, and in his shaking cheeks and fallen jaw I saw that my spell was working.
‘And now, I ask for the last time, do you consent or not?’
‘How is it to be done?’ cried he, in a voice of downright wretchedness. ‘You are not “inscribed” at the secretaries’ office as one of the “rats.”’
‘I should hope not,’ said I, cutting him short; ‘but I may take the place of one for an hour or so. Tristan is about my own size; his blouse and badge will just suit me.’
‘Ay, leave me to a fine of a thousand francs, if you should be found out,’ muttered Boivin, ‘not to speak of a worse mayhap.’
‘Exactly so – far worse in case of your refusing; but there sounds the bell for mustering the prisoners – it is now too late.’
‘Not so – not so,’ cried Boivin, eagerly, as he saw me prepared to leave the house. ‘You shall go in Tristan’s place. Send him here, that he may tell you everything about the “service,” and give you his blouse and badge.’
I was not slow in availing myself of the permission, nor was Tristan sorry to find a substitute. He was a dull, depressed-looking boy, not over communicative as to his functions, merely telling me that I was to follow the others – that I came fourth in the line – to answer when my name was called ‘Tristan,’ and to put the money I received in my leathern pocket, without uttering a word, lest the gaolers should notice it.
To accoutre myself in the white cotton nightcap and the blouse of the craft was the work of a few seconds; and then, with a great knife in my girdle, and a capacious pocket slung at my side, I looked every inch a ‘Marmiton.’
In the kitchen the bustle had already begun, and half-a-dozen cooks, with as many under-cooks, were dealing out ‘portions’ with all the speed of a well-practised performance. Nothing short of great habit could have prevented the confusion degenerating into downright anarchy. The ‘service’ was, indeed, effected with a wonderful rapidity; and certain phrases, uttered with speed, showed how it progressed. ‘Maigre des Curés,’ – ‘finished.’ ‘Bouillon for the “expectants,’” – ‘ready here.’ ‘Canards aux olives des condamnées,’ – ‘all served.’ ‘Red partridges for the reprieved at the upper table,’ – ‘despatched.’ Such were the quick demands, and no less quick replies, that rung out, amidst the crash of plates, knives, and glasses, and the incessant movement of feet, until, at last, we were all marshalled in a long line, and, preceded by a drum, set out for the prison.
As we drew near, the heavy gates opened to receive, and closed behind us with a loud bang that I could not help feeling must have smote heavily on many a