The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
his nature, a curious aversion which upon occasion had found an expression almost feral.
The great Montagnard lived simply and was readily accessible. Moreover, Elizabeth Duplay had often opened to the Citizen-Representative Chabot, and he was well known to her, although at the moment, and in the uncertain light of the landing, she had to look twice before she recognized under his preposterous finery one whom she had never seen other than red-bonneted and ill-clad like a man of the people.
He was ushered into a fair room that overlooked the street, a room simple, austere, immaculate as the man who tenanted it. The windows were hung with curtains of Persian blue, softening and subduing the daylight, and there was about the sparse furniture as about the man himself a neat and elegant asceticism.
Robespierre stood before his writing-table, a slight almost boyish figure in a tight coat that was striped in two shades of blue, and all about him—evidences of his abnormal vanity and egotism—reproductions of himself served to decorate his shrine. Here it was a sketch by David; there the portrait in oils which had hung in the Salon two years ago; from the overmantel a bust of himself looked down upon the original, reproducing the meanness of the square face, the cruel spite that was never absent from the lips of that wide mouth, belying the humour to have been suspected from the tilt of his curious nose that was so wide at the root.
When Chabot entered, he was in the act of squeezing an orange into a broad cup. He suffered from an insufficiency of bile, and to excite it drank orange-juice continuously. To see who came, he thrust the horn-rimmed spectacles upwards onto his massive forehead, sparsely covered by the curls of his scrupulously dressed and powdered hair. His myopic green eyes peered across the room, and the set grin that never left his lips widened slightly in recognition.
Beyond that he made no welcoming movement. But having set down the cup, and placed the orange hemisphere upon a plate beside its other half, he stood waiting for Chabot to speak. It was an ominous reception, which in itself informed Chabot of that which he most dreaded.
He closed the door and came forward. He did not strut this morning. He dragged his feet a little. Of the swaggering forward thrust of his incipient paunch which normally announced his aggressive, self-sufficient nature there was little sign. He was pale, and blear-eyed. Even the Polichinelle nose that sprouted from that lamentably sloping forehead seemed to have shrunk overnight to less aggressive proportions. The coward latent in every bully had come to the surface. He had spent the wakeful night in tears, in lamentations of his fate, which he assigned to the malignity of others rather than to any fault in himself. He had played the hypocrite so long that it is possible that he deceived even himself, and that actually he believed at least some part of the tale with which he came to seek the assistance of the one man in France whose power might shield him.
'I disturb you early, Robespierre. But my duty requires it. I come to save the Republic. I hold the thread of the most dangerous conspiracy that has yet been organized for the ruin of Liberty.'
For a long moment the green eyes considered him. They were ice-cold in their regard, and ice-cold was the voice in which at last the arch-priest of Liberty delivered himself.
'Why, then, you must reveal it.'
'Of course. But to do this it is necessary that I should continue to associate with the conspirators. I have pretended to be one with them so that I might penetrate their designs. I have pretended to yield to the temptation of sharing in their plunder, so that I might discover the extent of their aims. I begin to perceive that these are counter-revolutionary: that a terrible, an incredible conspiracy is at work; actively at work; already widespread. It is in my power to have these men taken red-handed, the proofs upon them.'
'No man could render a greater service to his country.'
'Ha! You see that! You see that!'
'It leaps to the eye.' If there was irony in the cold, level voice, it was too subtle for Chabot. He was beginning to take courage.
'It does. Of course it does.'
'You must not hesitate, Chabot.' And then he added, 'You will have proofs. What are they?'
And now what the little scoundrel said was strictly true. He pulled out a packet of assignats.
'Here are a hundred thousand francs. They were handed to me as a bribe not to oppose certain financial projects of these scoundrels. If I had yielded to my natural impulse, which was to reject with horror this monstrous proposal and at once denounce the villains who made it, I must have missed the chance of sounding their design to its infamous depths. You see, Robespierre, how hard a choice was laid before me; what self-control I was forced to summon to my aid. But the thing has gone far enough. I scarcely dare let it go further lest I should myself come under suspicion. For the sake of my country, for the sake of the Republic which has never had a more loyal servant, I have placed myself in jeopardy. But I must clear this up. It is my intention at once to take this packet to the Committee of Public Safety and at the same time reveal the names of the traitors.'
'Then why do you come to me? You are wasting valuable time. The Committee of Public Safety will certainly receive you with the cordiality and gratitude for which the occasion calls.'
Chabot stood hesitating, uneasy, shifting on his feet.
'Make haste, my friend,' the Incorruptible admonished him. 'Make haste.' He stepped aside from the table as he spoke, moving stork-like on his thin legs in their thin silk stockings above his preposterously high heels.
'Yes ... but ... Name of a name! I don't want it supposed from my association with these vile conspirators that I am one of them!'
'Why should it be? Who could suppose this of you!' But there was no warmth of conviction in that voice. Its tone remained dead-level. Its words were mechanical, if they were not actually mocking.
'There are the appearances. All men are not as you, Robespierre. They have not your nice balance of judgment. They make hasty assumptions upon insufficient grounds. That is why I feel myself in need of some security.'
'It is a question, you say, of saving your country. Can such a patriot as you are hesitate from personal considerations?'
'No.' Chabot was vehement. He adopted something of his tribune-manner. 'I am ready enough to die for my country. But I do not want to die under a stigma of guilt. I must think of my family: my mother and my sister. I do not want them to die of broken hearts, and it is what would happen to them. Especially my sister. A fierce patriot my sister, who said to me once, not long ago: "François, if ever it should happen that you should betray the cause of the People, I should be the first to plunge a dagger into your heart."'
'The Roman spirit,' was Robespierre's comment.
'Oh, a Roman of the Romans my sister.'
Robespierre nodded. 'You are fortunate in your family.' He strutted back to the table, and once more took up the half-orange, and the cup, and resumed his squeezing, speaking coldly the while.
'Your alarm is surely idle. You have no cause to doubt that the Committee of Public Safety will coöperate with you in whatever measures may be necessary to discover this conspiracy.'
Chabot turned cold. 'To be sure. To be sure. But if I had some guarantee, if ...'
'You have,' said the icy voice. 'Your intentions are your guarantee. What better could you desire?'
'With you, no more. You know me, Robespierre. You, whose glance penetrates to the heart of things and of men, perceive my intentions clearly. But others may not weigh all the factors quite so scrupulously.'
Robespierre set down the half-orange that was now squeezed to exhaustion. He took up the other half. Holding it to the rim of the cup, he paused, and his green eyes squarely encountered Chabot's uneasy glance.
'What do you want me to do?'
Promptly came Chabot's answer.
'Help me to save the country. Associate yourself with me in this glorious task worthy of your great patriotism. Join hands with me so that together we may crush this hydra of treason. That is the task I offer you. A task whose