The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic. Эжен Сю
if he could not believe what he heard. "What – "
At that moment Lorrain left the hall, walking backward as his master entered.
Count Gaston of Plouernel had reached at this time his thirtieth year. The facial traits of his Germanic ancestry were reproduced in him. The whole effect of his person was one of audacity, haughtiness and arrogance. He presented the accepted type of the great seigneur of his time, and wore with grace his costume of plain blue cloth of Tours, spangled with silver and embroidered in gold. His taffeta vest was half lost to view under the billows of Alençon point lace which formed his shirt frill and rivalled for costly workmanship the flowing ruffles of his cuffs. His red-heeled shoes were fastened with diamond buckles. Diamonds also glittered in the hilt of his small-sword, which he wore ostentatiously slung under one of the tails of his coat.
At the sight of Abbot Morlet the Count seemed greatly surprised. He cordially extended to him his hand, however, saying:
"Well! good day, holy Father. What good wind blows you to us? I thought you at this time still a hundred leagues from Paris!"
"I just got in, and after attending to some indispensable duties, hurried over to you, to communicate to you, my dear Count – to you, one of the leaders of the court party – important information I had picked up during my trip through several of our provinces. Judge of my surprise! When I arrived here, I learned from your first lackey – that you had this very day given up the command of your regiment. That's the way of it. The monarchy, the nobility, the clergy, are attacked as they never have been through the worst days of our history. And it is at such an hour that you, one of the greatest lords of France, you, a man of spirit and of courage, sheath your sword – at this hour when the battle is engaged with the Third Estate! Ah, Count, if you did not belong to the house of Plouernel, I would say that you were a coward and a traitor. But, as you are neither coward nor traitor, I shall make bold to say that you are a madman."
"On the contrary, my dear Abbot, never have I acted more wisely. Never have I more studiously served our cause, or proven better my signal devotion, not to the King – his weakness revolts me – but to the Queen, to royalty!"
"So, you have judged it wise and politic to abandon the command of your regiment in our present circumstances? Is it for me, only to-day arrived, to have to inform you that Paris is laboring under the greatest excitement, and perhaps on the verge of a formidable insurrection? Didn't I see them, on the other side of the Seine, beginning to throw up their barricades? Didn't I meet on every street corner groups of malcontents, harangued by caballers of the Third Estate?"
"That is all true, Abbot. We are drawing near the moment of a decisive crisis. The fever of revolution has lasted since day before yesterday, since Saturday, the 11th of July. The first act took place in the Palais Royal,6 when the recall of Necker became known to the public. A young man named Camille Desmoulins stirred up the gullible clowns in the gardens by crying out that the King was centering his troops on Paris, with the purpose of dissolving the National Assembly, arresting the leaders, and massacring the people of Paris. The most resolute of his hearers cried To arms! To the barricades! and suited the action to the word. Bezenval, the military commander of Paris, informed of the tumult, ordered the dragoons of the Marquis of Crussol to horse. The dragoons sabered the rabble. But that only angered the populace, and the agitation spread to the suburbs. A soldier of my command told the people that several French Guards had been sent to the Abbey Prison; for you must know, good Father, that insubordination had crept into my regiment. I had sent the mutineers in irons to the Abbey to await the time to administer to them the scourging they deserved, when the populace hurled themselves against the prison, put to rout the sentries, and liberated the mutinous Guards. The latter received as great an ovation as if they had had the honor of being Monsieur Necker, or Monsieur Mirabeau!"
"This detestable spirit of rebellion is only too like that which infests many of our provinces. But these saturnalia were, I hope, put down with the greatest severity?"
"Not a whit, my dear Father. A King who pretends to the title of 'Father of the people' does not punish them – or very little. What was the result? The mildness of the reproof redoubled the rabble's audacity. The success of the expedition against the Abbey whetted their appetite, and they turned their attention to the prison of La Force, where they delivered all the debtors. The insurrection growing more and more serious, the Prince of Lambesc at length received orders from Marshal Broglie, the new Minister of War, to mount his regiment, the Royal Germans, and charge upon this impious populace, then excitedly huddled in the garden of the Tuileries. At the same time I was ordered to bring up my regiment, to support, if necessary, the cavalry of Lambesc."
"The French Guards commanded by a colonel like you, Count, should easily mow down these rebels. And yet you abandon your command. Your conduct is an enigma."
"On the contrary, nothing is more clear. Do you know the difference between a German and a Frenchman?"
"What do you mean?"
"Picture to yourself a tribune of the cross-roads, an insolent droll named Gonchon,7 who never spoke of himself but in the third person, come to harangue the German soldiers in the name of the brotherhood of man. The German soldier, understanding nothing of that demagogic trash, draws at the command of his colonel, and sabers both Gonchon and the mob! That is what the dragoons of Lambesc did; that is what the cavalry of Berchiny would have done gladly, and the cavalry of Esterhazy and of Roëmer, or the regiments of Desbach, of Salis, or the Royal Swiss."
"Good! That is the medicine for this canaille."
"But hardly had Lambesc and his horse sabered the rabble in the garden of the Tuileries, when that very mob poured back into Louis XV Place, where I had stationed myself at the head of my regiment in battle array. I gave the order to fire on the ructious rabble. Murmurs broke out among the soldiers in the ranks; some made answer, We will not fire on the people! I ordered the mutinous men to be seized and shot on the spot. The murmurs grew louder. I repeated the order. Bang! Several soldiers struck me in the face! Whole companies broke ranks, waving the butts of their muskets in the air."
"Everything is lost if we cannot count on the army!" cried the Abbot in dismay.
"You have said it, Abbot – unless the court party is resolved to serve royalty to the exclusion of the King. In the face of the stand taken by my men, there was nothing to do but march them back to their quarters. This morning I repaired to Versailles, and on gaining an audience with the King I pleaded with his Majesty to authorize me to call a court-martial to judge and condemn to death within the hour about a hundred soldiers and under-officers of my regiment, the ringleaders of the revolt. After long consideration, his Majesty answered with a sour air that 'if it was a matter of shooting a half dozen or so insubordinates, he saw no great obstacle in the way, but that he would not listen at all to any mass slaughters.' Thereupon the King crabbedly turned his back on me, shrugged his shoulders, and took himself off to his private apartments. That is why, my good Father, I have renounced my command in the French Guards. But reassure yourself," he added, in response to the dumbfounded look the Abbot wore. "I shall remain neither passive nor idle. I hope to serve our cause more actively, and, without contradiction, more usefully, now, than if I still were at the head of my regiment."
"That assurance overwhelms me with joy, dear Count," cried the Abbot "What are your plans?"
"First, I give to-night a supper, a convivial repast in which I bring together the influential heads of the court party, for the purpose of deciding on our final measures – presided over by the most remarkable and adorable woman I have ever met."
The Jesuit gazed at Monsieur Plouernel in amaze, and answered: "Are you speaking seriously? Are you really dreaming of having a political meeting of such importance presided over by – a woman?"
"Your astonishment will cease, my dear Abbot, when you make the acquaintance of Madam the Marchioness Aldini, a Venetian by birth, the widow of Marquis Aldini, a great Florentine lord who left his wife an immense fortune. The Marchioness has resided in Paris for now nearly a month."
"You know the lady for only a month, and you dare initiate her into the secrets of our party!"
"Oh,
The old palace of the Bourbons, now abandoned to cheap lodgings and hucksters' booths.
All the persons and facts cited in this story as of historic importance, are authentic.