The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
battened still more greedily upon her misery. An unfortunate dandy crossing the terrace of the Feuillants was seized and butchered as an expression of popular rage, for no better reason than because his head was powdered, and some virago had raised the cry that he dusted his head with flour whilst the people had no bread.
Things began to look so wicked that the National Guards were brought out to restore some order and afford protection to the threatened conventionals until the people's anger should have cooled.
De Batz kept his room in the Rue de Ménars, so that any of those industrious agents of his at their inflammatory work should know where to find him if he were needed. He chafed there in impatience, pacing to and fro in the little salon, and pausing ever and anon to listen to the uproar of that November morning. He was fretted, too, by the absence of André-Louis who had gone out early, leaving no word of what business took him abroad.
It was a little past noon when he returned. His pallor, the compression of his lips, and a feverish glitter in his eyes gave evidence of suppressed excitement.
'Where have you been?' de Batz greeted him.
André-Louis took off the greatcoat in which he was wrapped. 'To receive the thanks of the Committee of Public Safety.' And to the frowning Baron he gave at last the news of what he had done, of the report which he had drawn up for the Committee's information.
'You did this?' There was a rumble of resentment in the Gascon's voice.
'Faith, it was becoming necessary to establish my position. An agent must do something to justify himself. After the outbreak in the Convention yesterday, I foresaw what must happen. I have the measure of Chabot. If I anticipated the betrayal of his associates which he would inevitably make, I hurt no one and profited myself. I take long views, Jean.'
'But very secret ones.' De Batz was annoyed. 'Why did you withhold your confidence?'
'You might have opposed me. You can be obstinate. Besides, I haven't withheld it. I am telling you now. There was no need to tell you at all.'
'Much obliged for your frankness. Whom did you denounce in your report?'
'All those whom I judged that Chabot would denounce—all save one, Benoît, whom I excluded, but whom Chabot betrayed. I might have known he would. Yet Benoît may save himself. As for the others, they make up a fine baker's batch!' He used the cynical term 'fournée' that was already current to describe the daily immolations.
He explained himself a little more. Some of the Baron's annoyance melted. But not all of it. He still complained that André-Louis was too secretive.
'Have I blundered anywhere? You hear what is going on,' André-Louis defended himself. 'My God, Jean, we've raised a storm that will take some calming.'
It was so, indeed. You may read in the Moniteur of the agitations of the days that followed; the furious invectives in the Convention against corruption, by which those who remained sought to restore in themselves the shaken confidence of the people; the very terms of the accusation levelled at Chabot and his associates: 'Peculation and conspiracy tending to vilify and destroy by corruption the Revolutionary Government.'
But the storm was not yet to be allayed. To placate the wrath of the outraged people, many more arrests were decreed, arrests which included the brothers Frey and even the unfortunate Léopoldine. Robespierre himself took fright at the violence of this earthquake which shook the Mountain to its very foundations, and threatened to hurl him from his eminence on its summit. He sent in haste to recall Saint-Just from Strasbourg, so that in this hour of dreadful need he might have beside him that bright revolutionary arch-angel.
Saint-Just arrived, and went earnestly and craftily to work to restore the shaken confidence.
Oratory is impressive according to the lips from which it falls. Saint-Just's lips were believed to be pure. There was faith in him because of his reputation for asceticism and Spartan frugality. He had been an example of all the civic virtues. The purity of morals which he passionately demanded was no more than that which he practised himself.
So that when Saint-Just came to condemn in unmeasured terms the corruption of those fellow conventionals who had been imprisoned, it seemed to the people that at last they heard their own voice presenting an indictment to the Convention.
And so craftily did Saint-Just go to work that he not merely stilled resentment against the Mountain, he actually made capital for it out of the event.
He made of the shameless peculation which had brought about the downfall of Chabot and his associates a pretext for all those evils under which the people groaned and had been growing restive. They went hungry, he assured them, because a pack of rogues had embezzled the public substance. He thanked Heaven that discovery had come before the harm was beyond repair. So soon as the devoted legislators who remained had straightened out the tangle left by that corruption, there would be an end to all distress.
Conquered by his arguments, above all believing in that closing promise, confidence was at last restored, and with it peace and the will to endure the inevitable hardships which the transition from tyranny to liberty was imposing.
Saint-Just's victory on behalf of his party was assisted by a fortunate turn in the tide of war. He was able to point to the good work he had done in Strasbourg. Toulon, it was true, remained a focus of reactionary activity, held by royalists and foreigners, thanks to the wiles of the perfidious Pitt. But elsewhere the arms of the Republic were victorious, and on the frontiers the enemies of Liberty were being firmly held.
Further to divert the public attention came a side-show, a struggle of Titans. Danton and Hébert were locked in death-grips, and it says much for the indomitable courage of Danton that he should have chosen this moment for a trial of strength with one who exercised such control over the Commune, the police, the Revolutionary Army, and even the Revolutionary Tribunal, as the scoundrelly editor of the Père Duchesne, the man who more than any other was the advocate of bloodshed, the enemy of all authority, the anarch who having laboured to dethrone a king had since laboured to dethrone God Himself.
Danton's constructive mind accounted that the ground had been sufficiently cleared by the immolation of the Girondins. In his view it was time to restore order and authority. He had come back from Arcis to preach moderation, and he had met the ruthless opposition of Hébert. Battle was joined between them.
Robespierre held aloof, watching, well-content. Whether intoxicated with the growth of his power, he perceived the way to a dictatorship, or whether he would be content with a triumvirate in which he would rule with his two acolytes Saint-Just and Couthon, it was to his interests that the rival forces represented by Hébert and Danton should first engage each other. He would deal with the survivor when the time came.
Equally watchful was de Batz. It was not without disappointment that he had seen that very promising storm allayed by the eloquence of Saint-Just. At the same time he lent an ear to André-Louis's confident assurances that what had been done once could be done again.
'Next time,' said André-Louis, 'there will be no recovery. Public confidence, badly shaken by this blow, will collapse completely under a second one. Be sure of that.'
'I can be sure of that; but not of another opportunity.'
'Opportunity comes to him who watches. And I am watching. Robespierre is the only incorruptible. This struggle between Danton and Hébert may bring much to light at any moment. I am working with Desmoulins in the Dantonist interest, and so I am at the very centre of present political activities.'
Inspired by some of his confidence, de Batz possessed himself in patience, and laboured unremittingly. His make-believe patriots were mingling with the crowds again, inflaming public opinion in Danton's favour upon every opportunity. His pamphleteers were at work, and André-Louis, as a contributor to the Vieux Cordelier, was seconding with his pen the labours of Desmoulins. He liked Desmoulins, detecting in him a kindred spirit; and he could work with him the more agreeably since this young man at least was not one of the faggots that was being dried for the fire.
Nor was this all. Unremittingly André-Louis studied the ground to