Читать книгу The Whites and the Blues - Alexandre Dumas - Страница 32

Table of Contents

The night passed, as we have seen, without anything being heard from Tétrell; the day passed also. At five o'clock in the afternoon, as they had received no news, Eugene and Augereau resolved to go where they could get some information. They returned to the Hôtel de la Lanterne, and there they heard some indeed.

Madame Teutch, in despair, told them that her little Charles had been arrested at eight o'clock in the morning, and taken to prison. All day she had waited to see Saint-Just, and had been unable to do so until five o'clock in the afternoon, when she had given him Charles's note.

Saint-Just had said to her: "Very well, if what you have told me is true he shall be set at liberty to-morrow."

Madame Teutch had come away with some slight hope; citizen Saint-Just did not seem as ferocious as he was reported to be.

Charles, although he was sure of his innocence, since he had never had anything to do with politics in his whole life, grew impatient as the day passed without bringing him any news; but his impatience changed to uneasiness when the whole morning of the next day passed and the representative of the people did not send for him.

Saint-Just was not to blame, for he was one of the most scrupulous men in the world where a promise was concerned. A grand tour of inspection had been decided upon for the next day at dawn, that he might ascertain whether the orders he had given were being carried out. He did not return to his hotel until one o'clock, and then, remembering the promise he had given, he sent word to the prison that little Charles should be brought to him.

Saint-Just had been wet to the skin during the morning's excursion, and when the boy entered his room he was just putting the finishing touches to his fresh toilet by tying his cravat.

The cravat, as is well known, was the essential point of Saint-Just's toilet. It was a scaffolding of muslin from which rose a handsome head, and it was partially intended to conceal the immense development of the jaws, which is often noticeable in beasts of prey and in conquerors. The most remarkable feature about Saint-Just's face was his large, limpid eyes, earnest, deep, and questioning, shadowed by heavy eyebrows which met above the nose whenever he frowned in impatience or, preoccupation. He had the pale complexion of that grayish tint so common to many of those laborious toilers of the Revolution, who, fearing a premature death, added nights to days in order to finish the terrible work which the genius that watches over the grandeur of nations, and which we dare call Providence, had intrusted to them. His lips were soft and fleshy, as befitted those of the sensual man whose first literary effort had expressed itself in an obscene book, but who, by a prodigious effort of will, had succeeded in dominating his temperament, and in imposing upon himself a life of continence as far as women were concerned. While adjusting his cravat, or arranging the silky ends of his magnificent hair, he dictated to a secretary the orders, decrees, laws, and judgments which were destined to cover the walls of the most frequented squares, crossroads, and streets of Strasbourg, and which were posted in two languages.

In fact, so great was the sovereign, absolute, and aristocratic power of the representatives of the people who were sent to the armies, that they thought no more of cutting off heads than of switching off the top of some wayside plant. But that which rendered the style of Saint-Just's decrees remarkable was their conciseness and the brief, sonorous, and vibrating voice in which he pronounced them. The first time that he spoke in the Convention, he demanded the king's arrest; and at the first words of the speech, cold, sharp, and cutting as steel, there was not one present who did not feel with a shudder that the king was doomed.

When his cravat was tied Saint-Just turned to put on his coat, and saw the boy who was waiting.

He looked at him, trying to remember who he was; and then, suddenly pointing to the mantel-piece, he asked: "Was it you whom they arrested yesterday morning, and who sent me a note by the landlady of your inn?"

"Yes, citizen," answered Charles; "it was I."

"Then the men who arrested you allowed you to write to me?"

"I wrote before I was arrested."

"How was that?"

"I knew that I was going to be arrested."

"And you did not hide yourself?"

"What for? I was innocent, and they say that you are just."

Saint-Just looked at the boy in silence. He himself looked very young just then, with his shirt of whitest linen and large sleeves, his white waistcoat, and his artistically tied cravat.

"Are your parents emigrants?"

"No, citizen; my parents are not aristocrats."

"What are they?"

"My father presides over the tribunal of Besamjon, and my uncle is commander of a battalion."

"How old are you?"

"A little over thirteen."

"Come nearer."

The boy obeyed.

"Upon my word, it's true," said Saint-Just; "he looks like a little girl. But you must have done something to be arrested."

"Two of my compatriots, citizens Ballu and Dumont, came to Strasbourg to secure the release of Adjutant-General Perrin. I knew that they were to be arrested during the night, and I sent them a little note of warning. My handwriting was recognized. I thought I was doing right. I appeal to your heart, citizen Saint-Just!"

Saint-Just placed his hand, which was as white and well cared for as that of a woman, upon the boy's shoulder.

"You are still a child," he replied, "and I will only say this: There is a sentiment even more holy than love of one's countrymen; it is love of one's country. Before being citizens of the same town we are children of the same country. A day will come when reason will have advanced sufficiently to value humanity more than patriotism, when all men will be brothers, all nations as sisters, when tyrants will be the only enemies. You yielded to an honorable sentiment, the love of your neighbor, which is enjoined by the Evangelist; but in yielding to it you have forgotten a sentiment which is yet higher, more sacred, more sublime. Devotion to your country should come before everything else. If these men were enemies of their country, if they had transgressed its laws, you should not have interfered between them and the knife. I have no right to set myself up as an example, being one of the humblest servants of liberty; but I serve her according to my ability, I cause her to triumph whenever it lies within my power to do so; that is my sole ambition. Why am I to-day so calm and so proud of myself? It is because I have this very day, at the price of my own heart's blood, given a proof of respect for the law which I myself made."

He paused a moment to make sure that the child was listening attentively. The boy did not lose a syllable. On the contrary, as if already preparing to transmit them to posterity, he was storing in his memory the words which fell from that strong mouth. Saint-Just continued:

"Since the shameful panic of Eisemberg, I issued a decree which forbade any soldier or officer to go to bed without being fully clothed. Well, on my tour of inspection this morning I looked forward to meeting a friend from my own part of the country, coming, like me, from the department of the Aisne; like me, from Blérancourt; and, like me again, a pupil in the college of Soissons. His regiment arrived yesterday, in the village of Schiltigheim. I directed my course therefore toward the village, and asked in what house Prosper Lenormand was lodged. It was pointed out to me, and I hastened thither. His room was on the first floor, and, although I have great control over myself, my heart beat high, as I mounted the stairs, at the thought of seeing my friend again after five years of separation. I entered the first room, calling out: 'Prosper! Prosper! Where are you? It is your old chum, Saint-Just.'

"I had no sooner spoken than the door opened, and a young man, clad only in his night-shirt, threw himself into my arms, crying: 'Saint-Just; my dear Saint-Just!'

"I wept as I pressed him to my heart, for that heart was about to receive a terrible blow.

"The friend of my childhood, whom I now saw for the first time after five years—he whom I had sought out myself, so eager was I to meet him again—he had violated the law which I had promulgated only three days before. He had incurred the death penalty.

"Then my heart yielded before the power of my will, and, turning to those present, I said calmly: 'Heaven be doubly praised, since I have seen you again, and since I can give, in the person of one so dear to me, a memorable lesson of discipline and a grand example of justice by sacrificing you to the public safety.'

"Then, speaking to those who accompanied me, I said: 'Do your duty.'

"I then embraced Prosper for the last time, and at a sign from me they conducted him out of the room."

"What for?" asked Charles.

"To shoot him. Was he not forbidden, under penalty of death, to go to bed with his clothes off?"

"But you pardoned him?" asked Charles, moved to tears.

"Ten minutes later he was dead."

Charles uttered a cry of terror.

"Your heart is still weak, poor child; read Plutarch and you will become a man. And what are you doing in Strasbourg?"

"I am studying, citizen," replied the child. "I have only been here three days."

"And what are you studying in Strasbourg?"

"Greek."

"It seems to me it would be more logical to study German. Besides, of what use is Greek, since the Lacedæmonians have written nothing?" Then, after a moment of silence, during which he continued to look curiously at the boy, he asked: "And who is the learned man who gives lessons in Greek in Strasbourg?"

"Euloge Schneider," answered Charles.

"What! Euloge Schneider knows Greek?" asked Saint-Just.

"He is one of the first Greek scholars of the day; he has translated Anacreon."

"The Monk of Cologne," exclaimed Saint-Just. "Euloge Schneider a Greek scholar! Well, so be it; go learn Greek of Euloge Schneider. But if I thought," he continued in a quivering voice, "that you would learn anything else of him I would rather strangle you."

Stunned by this outburst, the boy stood silent and motionless, leaning against the wall like a tapestried figure.

"Oh!" cried Saint-Just, becoming more and more excited, "it is traffickers like him, with his Greek, who destroy the holy cause of the Revolution. It is they who send forth mandates to arrest children thirteen years of age because they lodge in the same inn where the police have found two suspected travellers. It is thus that these wretches seek to curry favor with the Mountain. Ah, I swear to Heaven that I will soon do justice to these attempts which endanger our most precious liberties. There is urgent need of prompt justice, which shall serve as an example; I will execute it. They dare to reproach me with not giving them enough corpses to devour. I will give them some! The Propagande wishes blood! It shall have it. And, to begin with, I will bathe it in the blood of its leaders. If I can only find a pretext, if I can only have justice on my side, they shall see!"

Saint-Just, losing his cold calmness, became terrible in his threats; his eyebrows met and his nostrils dilated like those of a hunted lion; his complexion turned ashen; he seemed to be looking for something animate or inanimate to crush.

Just then a messenger, who had recently dismounted, as could be seen from the splashes of mud flecking his garments, entered precipitately, and, approaching Saint-Just, said a few words to him in an undertone. At these words an expression of joy, mingled with doubt, flitted across the representative's face. The news which had just been brought to him was so welcome that he dared not believe it.