The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
you headlong down false tracks. Listen to me a moment, Citizen-Representative. In this imperfect world it is not often that good may be done without some harm resulting. In every projected action a wise statesman must consider which is to predominate. These corsairs are robbers. Admitted. To rob is a crime, and a pure republicanism cannot condone crime. Again admitted. But who is robbed? The enemies of France. For whose profit? That of the French Republic. And that which profits the Nation increases her strength and enables her the better to defeat her enemies at home and abroad. Thus there is a little personal harm to the end that there may be a great national good. This is a phase you have not considered. Mankind is not to be served by narrow views, Citizen-Representative. It is necessary to survey the whole field at once. If I steal the weapons from an assassin, I commit a theft, which is a civic offence. But am I merely a robber, or am I a benefactor of mankind?'
There was loud, excited approval from the Freys and from de Batz. Little Léopoldine, who was at table with them, considered with glowing eyes the keen, pale face of the speaker. Chabot sat mute, bludgeoned by an argument which fundamentally was sound.
But, when taking advantage of this, de Batz renewed the appeal to him that he should make himself the champion of the corsairs and procure the repeal of the interdict, the conventional bestirred himself to resist. He waved a plump, ill-shaped, and unclean hand.
'Ah, that, no! Shall I make myself the advocate of robbers? What will be thought of me?'
'So long as you can answer before the tribunal of your conscience, does it matter what will be thought of you elsewhere?' asked André-Louis.
Chabot scanned him for signs of mockery. But found none.
André-Louis continued.
'Not to do that which you acknowledge to be right merely from fear of the appearances is hardly worthy of one who dwells in the pure atmosphere of the Mountain.'
'You are under a misapprehension,' Chabot retorted. 'A man in my position, bearing the sacred trust imposed upon him by the People, must set an example in all the virtues.'
'Agreed. Oh, agreed. But is it a virtue merely to appear virtuous when in your heart you know that your action is not virtuous? Is the shadow more important than the substance, Citizen-Representative?'
'It might be. Suspicion is but a shadow. There may be no substance behind it. Yet if it fall across a man in these days ...' He completed the sentence by a jab with the edge of his hand against his neck and a grim wink.
'So that it comes to this,' said de Batz: 'you are, after all, governed not by virtue, but by fear.'
Chabot became annoyed, and the Freys bestirred themselves to restore harmony. Junius filled the representative's glass, Emmanuel piled his plate. They protested that the repast was being ruined by the discussion. They would lose all the money engaged in the corsair venture and every franc besides rather than spoil the appetite of so worthy a guest.
'For the rest,' said Junius, whilst Chabot fell once more to eating, 'when have you ever known me advocate any measures that were not founded upon the purest republican principles? Look into my history, François, which I have so fully disclosed to you. Remember all the sacrifices of fortune and of the toys that despotism describes as honours which I have made in order to come and dwell in the pure air of a republican nation that shall rival the glories of ancient Rome. Should I, then—can you suspect it?—mislead you now for the sake of a paltry personal profit; a profit which I should never have sought if I had not seen that France would profit to an even greater degree?'
Chabot continued to eat while he listened. He was noisy over it and not at all nice to observe.
André-Louis followed up that shrewd assault upon the ramparts of the representative's apprehensions.
'You do not perceive, and we have hesitated to point out to you, that the action to which we urge you is one in which you should cover yourself with glory. More shrewd than the superficial Delaunay who demanded this decree, you perceive that by favouring the enemies of France it is actually harmful to the best interests of the Republic. I warn you that another will not overlook this as you have been doing, for it leaps to the eye as soon as mentioned. Will you leave it for someone else to garner the laurels with which we invite you to adorn your brows?'
With his mouth full, the representative stared at him. 'What are the arguments that would carry that conviction?'
'You possess them already in what I have said. You shall have more if you need them. It is easy to plead convincingly and eloquently when a man pleads truthfully. Magna est veritas et prevalebit. Here we ask you to state nothing but the truth.'
Chabot continued to stare at him, obviously shaken. Then he emptied his glass at a draught. And whilst he wavered, de Batz briskly pursued the attack.
'You have been prejudiced, Citizen-Representative, because you have misunderstood us. You have imagined that we are asking a service of you, when in fact we are showing you your opportunity.'
'That's it,' said Junius. 'Name of a name! This good Chabot conceives that we are abusing the sacred duty of hospitality to take advantage of a guest. Ah, François! Name of a name! But that is to wrong me terribly.'
'Leave it,' said André-Louis on a sudden note of finality. 'Since that is how Chabot feels, we must not press him. I will see Julien this evening. He will thank me for the chance which Chabot refuses.'
But now Chabot displayed alarm. 'You go so fast!' he complained. 'You reach conclusion before we have even had discussion. If I should come to see clearly that this interdict is against the best interests of the Nation, do you imagine that I should hesitate to demand its repeal? You must tell me more, Moreau. Let me have the arguments in detail. Meanwhile, I take your word for it that they are as pure and convincing as you all assert.'
They applauded him. They congratulated him. They plied him with wine, and whilst he sipped it they talked philosophy and the Redemption of Man, the deliverance of the universe from the thraldom of despotism under which humanity was writhing, and all the rest of the Utopian nonsense by which they would have reduced the world to the famine-stricken, blood-soaked state of France.
It was all very moving. Chabot, under the influence of wine and rhetoric, was brought to the verge of tears by pondering the unhappy lot of his fellow men. All this, however, did not prevent him from turning a languishing eye ever and anon upon the timid Léopoldine. His imagination likened her to a little partridge, so young, so shy, and so tender; a toothsome morsel for an apostle of Freedom, for a patriot who in his superb altruism and self-abnegation was prepared to wade through mud and blood that he might redeem the world.
CHAPTER XXVI
CHABOT TRIUMPHANT
'In Future, François, you will have faith in me, I think.' André-Louis stood with Chabot in the hall of the Tuileries, the antechamber of the Convention, at the foot of the great staircase which had run with blood a year ago, the blood which had washed away the sins of despotism from that erstwhile abode of tyranny, and fitted it to become the palace of the national liberators. They stood under the shadow of the statue of Liberty erected there, symbol of the young Republic trampling upon the ignominies of the overpast age of despots.
Chabot had ascended the tribune that morning to demand the repeal of the interdict upon the corsairs. He had prepared his speech with the collaboration of André-Louis: a masterly achievement couched in Chabot's denunciatory vein. He had denounced everybody denounceable: the reactionaries and foreign agents at home, the foreign powers still under the yoke of tyranny, arming their enslaved multitudes to make war upon the children of Reason and Liberty. It was the sacred duty of all patriots to make war upon the hydra of despotism whenever it reared any of its hideous heads, to attack it at every point where it was vulnerable, to bleed it white, so that its obscene form should no longer sprawl athwart a tortured world, so that its foul breath should no longer poison long-suffering humanity. That was at once a mission—the mission of encompassing