The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
as to ascend the tribune, there to render his explanations.
He began again in his old denunciatory terms. He spoke of treason and conspiracy and of the agents of Pitt and Coburg. But for once the phrases with which he had been wont to rivet the attention of the vulgar earned him only derision. He was interrupted, he was mocked, he was ordered to speak to the point; to tell them, not of Pitt and Coburg, but of himself. And then, when under that volley of sarcasm, for which no past experience had prepared him, he faltered, sweated, stammered, and finally turned in defeat to descend from the tribune, a woman's voice made his blood run cold with her shrill cry:
'To the guillotine!'
That terrible apostrophe was taken up on every side until the vaulted hall rang with it.
It arrested his descent. Leaden-hued of face he stood, and raised his clenched hand above his head. Because it was seen that he was about to speak, the clamours fell silent.
In a cracked voice, oddly unlike his usual smooth oily accents, he screamed at them: 'In despite of my enemies, in despite of revolutionary women, it shall come to be recognized that I am the saviour of the public weal!'
With that vague assertion he stumbled down the steps on knees that were turned to water under him.
He collapsed weakly on a bench against the wall near the tribune, conscious only of glances that were unfriendly and mocking, turned upon him who yesterday had seemed to himself a demi-god.
Dufourny leapt to replace him in the tribune.
'He dares to call himself the saviour of the public weal! He dares! This man who has braved public opinion by marrying a foreigner, an Austrian!'
Chabot reared his head at that. This was an attack from a fresh quarter, on fresh grounds. Did the old one not suffice? Was there a plot here to destroy him? Looking wildly round, his glance met the dark eyes of André-Louis Moreau, regarding him curiously. And something in that glance went through him like a sword of ice. What was Moreau doing here? And what had he been doing in company with that scoundrel Dufourny? He groped in vagueness. Then abandoned that to listen to the damning words that Dufourny was pouring forth.
'What effrontery, what contempt for the people and for popular feeling in the very hour chosen by Chabot for such a marriage! He celebrates it at a time when Antoinette stood for her crimes before the Revolutionary Tribunal, when the Nation, beset by the hirelings of foreign despots, was at the height of its execration of foreigners; when our brothers who are upon the frontiers have left us their widows, their sisters, their relatives, to comfort and succour. It is in such a moment that Chabot contracts a wealthy marriage with an Austrian woman.'
Execration answered and confirmed him. Dufourny paused until it had passed.
'A woman is a garment for a man. If such a garment was necessary for Chabot, he should have remembered that the Nation had proscribed foreign materials. Before taking such a wife, a man should inform himself if those to whom she is related are not legitimately to be suspected of having bonds of interest with the enemies of France.'
At this Chabot bounded to his feet. On this, at least, he could deliver a clear answer. He began to defend the Freys, to speak of Junius as a worthy member of this very club, a philosopher, a patriot, the first thinker in Europe, one who had made sacrifices in coming to live in the benign shadow of the Tree of Liberty.
'Sacrifices which enable him to reckon his wealth in millions,' a voice interrupted him.
Even in the disordered state of his senses, he fancied that he recognized the voice for that of André-Louis Moreau. But he was given little time in which to reflect. The clamours thundered about him again. He was accused now of prevarication, of impudent falsehoods uttered to protect an Austrian Jew, a ghoul who battened on the calamities of the Nation, an agent of Coburg's in their midst.
And to his offences against the Nation was added now the accusation of an offence against humanity. Again it was Dufourny who voiced it, waiting for a moment of silence so that no syllable of it should be lost.
'Before this marriage of yours, Chabot, you had a companion, a mistress, a Frenchwoman, who has since become a mother. What have you done with her? Why did you abandon her, leaving her to starve together with your child?'
At this a menace of violence from the women present was added to the general execration. It was remembered against him that he had been a priest. The very apostasy, which hitherto had magnified him into a shining example of progressive republicanism, was discounted now as something done in the indulgence of a dissolute nature.
Under that formidable onslaught, the ignoble spirit of this man, who had so callously procured the breaking of so many noble spirits, broke at last completely. He burst into tears, and, with wild, lachrymose denunciations of those who now denounced him, he staggered forth from that club which had become for him a place of terrors.
He went home to the elegant apartments and the recently acquired luxuries of the Rue d'Anjou, luxuries for which it now seemed that he was likely to pay with his neck, and as he went he asked himself what enemy was this who so suddenly and without warning had leapt at him out of the void to fasten upon his throat.
The Freys heard his story in dismay. He spared them nothing. But when he spoke of that secret, invisible enemy, the dismay of Junius was converted into contempt. Junius was a hard-headed practical man of affairs. He had no patience with mere instinctive feelings and with a babble of ghostly antagonism. He demanded substance, proofs; and fancied, being practical, that he discovered them for himself.
'Pish! A secret enemy! What secret enemy should you have? Is there some husband whose wife you have debauched? Someone you have swindled? Or the friend or relative of someone whom you have guillotined? Can you think of any such?'
Chabot could not. He had in his time been guilty of all these crimes and more. But he was not aware that he had left any avenger on his heels.
'Well, then! Well, then! Your secret enemy is simply the vulgar envy which any access of prosperity will provoke. Shall a man of your position, of your popularity—the greatest man in France next to Robespierre—be swept away by that mean sentiment? The Jacobins may storm, inflamed by this scoundrel Dufourny. But the Jacobins are not the People. It is the People, the sovereign People, who are the ultimate arbiters in France today. Make your appeal to them. They will not forsake you. Take courage, man.'
He took it, under the vigorous drive of that undaunted Jew. In the night he considered his position and the course to be taken, and he reached a resolve before morning. He would go to Robespierre. The Incorruptible could not be indifferent to his fate. He was too valuable to the party of the Mountain, and a struggle lay ahead of that party.
There were rumours of strife to come, arising out of the discrepancy between Danton's views of policy and Robespierre's. Robespierre would need to rally all his friends about him for that contest. And of them all, with the possible exception of Saint-Just who had been climbing so rapidly of late, none was more valuable than Chabot.
His confidence restored by this reflection and by the perception now of the tale he was to tell, he went off betimes to the Rue Saint-Honoré and the house of the cabinet-maker Duplay, where the Incorruptible was lodged.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE INCORRUPTIBLE
Across a courtyard stacked with broad planks of cedar, walnut, and mahogany, where wood-shavings curled and clung about his ankles, and where a couple of young men were industriously sawing a baulk of timber, the Citizen-Representative Chabot gained the house and ascended the dark staircase to the first floor.
His knock was answered by Elizabeth Duplay, one of the two daughters of the cabinet-maker with whom Maximilien Robespierre was lodged, one of the two vestals who ministered to the arch-priest of the Republic. No breath of scandal had ever blown over these relations. If Robespierre feared money, he feared women more. Indeed, an aversion to women had always