Scaramouche (26 page)

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 ante-chamber 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 best 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 that 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 a rule of universal brotherhood—and an act of self-defence. It could be opposed only by vile reactionaries and insidious counterrevolutionaries. He would welcome this opposition, for it would disclose the heads that were ripe for the National scythe.

With that formidable threat he stayed opposition before it was raised.

Then he passed on. He pointed out the vulnerability of their enemies upon the seas. The ships of the Bourbon who ruled in Spain and Naples, and whose subsidies maintained abroad the French members of that evil brood, plied the Mediterranean. Austrians sailed there, too, a menace to the shores of France. Even more insidious the keels of the papal galleys ploughed those waters, manned by the myrmidons of a pestilential church, whose poisonous doctrines had for centuries held the souls of men in bondage.

To make war upon these, to conduct against them a holy crusade—if he might employ a word of such evil associations in connection with an aim so lofty and pure—a group of enlightened patriots, whose first motive was the service of the Republic One and Indivisible, had equipped, armed and manned a fleet of vessels. An interdict had been placed upon these ships, upon the ground that their aim was robbery, and that robbery, being an act of anti-civism, was not to be countenanced by an enlightened Republic. Oh, what a sophistry was here! How the shadow of evil was employed to obscure the substance of the good How were men, even the best-intentioned, betrayed by narrow views!

You conceive the remainder of this turgid harangue. The Convention listened, was moved to shame of itself for the decree that it had passed. It might even have been moved to express its condemnation of Delaunay for having demanded this decree, had not Delaunay, in anticipation and self-defence, abased himself in frank acknowledgment of his error as soon as the thunders of applause had ceased to roll in acclamation of Chabot's address. They came not only from the body of legislators, but from the galleries thronged with sectionaries, the women from the markets, the men from the gutter, the riff-raff of Paris which nowadays—ever since the fall of the Girondins—crowded there to keep an eye on the National representatives and to see that they discharged their duties properly.

Never had Chabot enjoyed a greater triumph, and the noise would be ringing even now in the ears of all Paris, borne from the hall of the Convention by the rabble which had acclaimed him.

The man to whom he owed so much, who had persuaded him against his every inclination to undertake this task, was justified of his belief that Chabot would have faith in him in future.

The ex-capuchin, untidily dressed, his red cap pressed upon his unkempt brown curls, stood flushed before him, with a sparkle in his eyes, a suspicion of swagger in the carriage of his compact figure, his dimpled chin held high above the soiled cravat so loosely knotted that it left bare his muscular throat.

"Faith in you? It needed only that your arguments should be clearly presented. I am never slow, Moreau, to perceive where lies the interest of the people. That is my strength." And he passed on, strutting with self-sufficiency.

De Batz materialized out of the crowd that filled the hall and reached André-Louis' side. He pointed with his cane.

"The Citizen-Representative carries his nose in the air."

"Sic itur ad astra," said André-Louis. "He'll walk so now with his gaze on the stars until he comes to the precipice. When he goes over it he'll carry half the Republic with him."

They were joined by Delaunay, who was out of temper.

"Faith, you burrow and burrow like moles, you two. But what comes of it?"

"You are impatient," said de Batz. "A vice, Delaunay."

"I am poor," said the deputy, "and I want money. I doubt if Chabot will ever come into your operations. What need to wait?"

"There is none," said André-Louis. "Invest all you can procure in Freys' corsairs, and riches will follow. The Mediterranean venture has the blessing of Chabot and of the Nation, and is therefore safe for any patriot."

Junius Frey, aglow with satisfaction, came to join them, and carried them off to the hospitalities of the Rua d'Anjou.

On their way they came upon Chabot at the corner of the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, addressing a crowd that formed a bread-queue outside a baker's shop. He was haranguing these starvelings upon republican virtue. He assured them that they suffered in the noblest of all causes, and that the consciousness of this would sustain them in these days of tribulation shared by all. He was promising them that they would emerge into a season of fraternal ease and plenty so soon as by their fortitude they had crushed the vile enemies of freedom who sought to break their lofty republican spirit by subjecting them to these hardships.

Despite their hunger, his fiery eloquence intoxicated them. A hoarse cry was raised of "Vive Chabot!" and rang in the ears of his friends as they approached the scene. Waving his red cap to the famished crowd, Chabot went off, his own mouth watering at the prospect of the succulent fare that awaited him in the Rue d'Anjou.

They entered the courtyard, a cool, pleasant place on that day of oppressive heat, so thick with shrubs as to have almost the appearance of a little garden. In the middle a fountain played, adorned by a figure of Liberty in bronze, by which the ultra-republican Freys had replaced the sylvan god originally presiding there.

They were merry at table. Chabot, exalted by his success, talked much and drank more. He said such beautiful things that the Freys were moved to embrace him, hailing him as the noblest patriot since Curtius, a man worthy of the highest honours that a grateful nation could bestow. Chabot embraced them in return. He insisted upon embracing André-Louis, by whom he had been inspired, and he took advantage of this atmosphere of fraternity and republican love to embrace also the little Léopoldine, who suffered it in terror and sat afterwards with lowered eyes in a flaming agony of shame.

Junius, acting upon a hint from André-Louis, insisted upon rewarding him.

"It is but fitting that you should share in the benefits that will accrue to the Nation from your championship of the cause of these patriotic corsairs. My brother and I are investing five hundred louis for you in the venture."

Chabot demurred with great dignity. "A noble action should be disinterested. Only thus can the motive remain pure."

"The investment these good Freys are making for you," said André-Louis, "will be multiplied by ten within six months."

Chabot permitted himself a mental calculation. Five thousand louis would be a little fortune. Temptation seized him. He remembered perhaps the delectable Descoings who had slipped through his fingers because he lacked the golden cords with which to bind such a woman to himself, leaving him only the cross-eyed, sour-tempered Julie Berger to comfort his loneliness. He considered this generous repast which he had shared, whilst those wretches to whom he had preached fortitude were tightening their belts in bread-queues. And André-Louis, innocent of appearance, insidious of speech and manner, was driving the temptation home.

"There is a dignity to be maintained by one who is a leader of this great nation, and hitherto, Citizen-Representative, you have lacked the means to maintain it. To such shining qualities, such lofty altruism and such consuming patriotism as are yours, there is no need to add the Spartan virtue of frugality."

The bibulous Chabot embraced them all again, with increasing fervour, and as the little Léopoldine came last the greatest fervour of those embraces fell to her. She fled thereafter in confusion, on the verge of tears, it seemed to André-Louis.

Of this he was to have later confirmation. As he was departing with de Batz, she appeared before them in the courtyard, emerging from behind a clump of laurel. She was white and trembling.

"Monsieur Moreau," she begged, reverting to the unpatriotic title in her distress.

André-Louis stood still. De Batz, after a glance and a lift of his heavy brows, went tactfully on towards the wicket.

"I wanted to say, monsieur," she faltered, and here broke down to begin again. "I hope you...you did not think that I...that I welcomed the...the liberties of the Citizen Chabot."

André-Louis was taken aback. He stared at her, conscious perhaps for the first time of her comeliness and the appeal of her youth. He was troubled.

"The Citizen Chabot is a great man in the State, child," he said, scarcely knowing what he meant.

"What has that to do with it? If he were the King himself it would make no difference to me."

"I believe it, mademoiselle." He too forgot the rule under which they lived. Very gently he added: "You are not answerable to me for your actions."

She looked up at him shyly. Then her eyelids fluttered and her soft brown eyes were lowered again. "I wanted you to know, Monsieur Moreau."

He had never felt more utterly at a loss. Chabot's voice sounded, loud and crowing, behind them on the stairs. She fled in terror, to vanish again amid the laurels. André-Louis, in thankfulness for the interruption, went swiftly on.

Outside the wicket the Baron awaited him, and greeted him with a searching look.

"It is not only politics that brings you to the Rue d'Anjou, mon petit," he asserted, his tone sardonic.

André-Louis, the eyes of his soul at that moment on the fair image of Aline de Kercadiou, answered him impatiently.

"You mistake me. I am not given to banalities. The child may have sensed it in me. What do I know?" He was out of temper. "Lengthen your stride," he added harshly. "That beast Chabot is behind. He comes with a bursting belly to admonish starveling patriots to tighten their belts for the greater glory of this famine-stricken republic."

"You're bitter in your triumph."

"Triumph! A triumph of foulness over foulness! Those odious, oily Jews with their greed and their hypocrisy Chabot, the convent-rat! Delaunay ready to sell his country that he may purchase him his woman. And we, fawning upon them, that we may fool them to their doom."

"If they are as foul as you perceive them, your conscience should be easy on that score. Besides, there is an end to serve, a cause to be upheld, which justifies any means."

"It is what I ask myself."

"Name of God, what ails you? Hitherto your calculating ruthlessness has almost terrified me at moments. Are you weakening?"

"Weakening?" André-Louis made a rapid examination of conscience. "No. I grow impatient. Impatient for the day that sends the pack of them to the National Barber."

"Faith, then, you have but to proceed as you are doing. The day is not far distant."

CHAPTER XXVII

MATCHMAKING

The Citizen-Representative François Chabot strutted into his sordid lodgings in the Rue St. Honoré with the sense of being by much a greater man than when he had left it that morning to repair to the Convention. He felt indeed like some lesser Atlas bearing the French Nation upon his shoulders.

Godlike and truculent, he came into those shabby two rooms and the presence of Julie Berger. The one and the other offended him. Here was an incongruous Olympus, an incongruous goddess. He spurned her fawning greeting and stamped into the middle of the sordid room to survey it with the eyes of scorn.

"May God damn me," was precisely what he said ("Que Dieu me damn."), "if I will support this longer."

"What offends you, my cherished one?" quoth the cross-eyed in conciliatory accents. Although a scold by nature, here instinct warned her scolding would be out of season.

"What offends me? To the devil with it all, I say!" His left hand on his hip, his head thrown back, he made a sweeping comprehensive gesture with his free right arm. "To the devil with it all! And to the devil with you! Do you know who I am? François Chabot, Deputy for Loir-et-Cher in the National Convention, the wonder of the intellectuals, the idol of the people, the greatest man in France at this moment. And you ask me who I am!"

"I did not ask you, my love," she protested mildly, perceiving that his attack of egomania was unusually violent, and perceiving also that he was not quite sober. "I know who you are. I know what a great man you are. Do I not know it?"

"Oh, you do?" He eyed the ponderous, sagging body so shabby in its faded black, the pallid face that was robbed of comeliness by its squint; he became conscious of the grime upon it, of the horrid, ill-kempt condition of the brown hair, wisps of which thrust untidily from her capacious mob-cap. There was almost dislike of her in that glance of his. "Then, if you know it, how can you suffer that I should continue in these surroundings. Is this a dwelling for a representative of the sacred people? These broken shards, this common furniture, this filthy uncarpeted floor! All this detracts from the dignity of my office. I owe it to myself and to the people whom I represent to house myself in dignity."

She tittered venomously. "Why, so you do, my friend. But dignity costs money."

"Money? What is money?"

"Filth, so you say. But it's useful filth. It brings the things you lack and I lack. What is the use of being a great man? What's the use of having people run after you in the street, point you out to one another, and shout 'Long live Chabot'? What's the use of all this, my cherished one, when we have no money, when we live like pigs in a sty?"

"Who says I have no money?" He snorted furiously. "Money! I have all the money a man desires. It is at my command. I have but to put forth my hand and take it."

"In the name of God, then, put forth your hand. Let me behold this miracle."

"It is done. Mine is the purse of Fortunatus, the hand of Midas."

"Whose purse?" quoth she, wondering had madness this time gone too far for recovery.

He paced the chamber, his chin in the air, his gestures like those of an actor at the Théatre Français. He talked volubly, boasted freely. He owned a fleet in the Mediterranean; the resources of the bank of the Brothers Frey were at his command. He must be better housed than this, better clothed, better...He broke off. He had been about to say better accompanied, but a timely remembrance of her potentialities in venom checked him.

Yet although he did not utter the word, she sensed it, and her smile changed. It grew bitter and cunning. She sat down to observe him. Then she uttered words that administered a cold douche to his exaltation, and brought him to a panic-stricken halt.

"So the Freys have bribed you, eh? They've paid you well to get a repeal of the decree against their corsairs. Behold your fleet, my friend."

His eyes stood forward on his face. He made a noise in his throat like the inarticulate growl of a beast. For a moment she cowered in terror, believing that he was about to leap upon her. This indeed was his impulse: to strangle that vile throat of hers so that never again should it utter such a blasphemy. But prudence mastered rage. How much did this woman know?

"What's that you say, Jezebel?"

"What I know." She laughed at him, perceiving herself safe again. "What I know. Do you suppose that I can't read because I am cross-eyed, or do you suppose my education was neglected?"

"Read? What have you read?"

"The speech that was written for you by somebody; the Freys be like. Ha, ha! You'd like the people to know that, wouldn't you? That those foreign Jews put words into your mouth so that you may seduce the representatives and the people, and that they pay you for the dirty job. A patriot, you! You! The greatest man in France, the wonder of the intellectuals, the idol of the people! You!" The scold's nature had come uppermost. Malice poured from her in a foul torrent of mockery.

"Silence, harridan!" He was livid. But she saw that he was no longer dangerous. Pusillanimous she knew him, this woman from whom he had no secrets, and she saw how fear was sobering and subduing him.

"I'll not be silent. Not I. Why should I be silent?"

"Because if I have more of this, I'll fling you back into the street from which I took you."

"So that I may tell the people how you sold yourself to the Austrian Jews?"

He eyed her with formidable dislike. "Putaine!" With that vile word he swung aside and went to sit down. He was suddenly limp. He had nursed a snake in his bosom. This woman might have the will, as she had the power, to ruin him. He must temporize, conciliate. Threats could not avail him against one who held all the weapons.

Meanwhile she raged on. That foul name contemptuously flung had acted as a goad. Her strident voice—the voice with which Nature seems ever to endow the shrew—shrilled up. It floated out through the open windows, and could be heard in the street below. Neighbours paused to listen, smiled and shrugged. The Citizen-Representative Chabot was at one of his love-scenes with his borgnesse. He might rule a Nation, but he would never rule that woman.

He strove to calm her. "Quiet, my dear! In Heaven's name, a little calm! Sh! The neighbours will hear you! Listen now, my dove! Listen! I supplicate, my little one!"

Not until she was out of breath, invective momentarily exhausted, did he really have an opportunity. He seized it, and talked rapidly. He reasoned. It was not at all as she supposed. He presented the case to her as the Freys and André-Louis had presented it to him. What he had done, he had done from a sense of duty. The rewards that came to him were rewards that he might take with an easy mind, and for which he could answer freely before the tribunal of his conscience.

She listened, sneering. Then perceiving profit perhaps in accepting these explanations, she ceased to sneer. She demanded.

"I understand. I understand, my love. You are right. We should be better housed, better fed, better clad. Look at me. I am in tatters. Give me ten louis, that I may go and buy myself a gown to do you credit." She rose and held out her hand.

"In a few days," he answered readily, thankful that the storm had passed.

"Now," she insisted. "At once. Since you are rich I will not go in rags a moment longer. Look at this gown. It goes to pieces if you pull it."

"But I have no money yet. That is to come."

"To come? When?"

"What do I know? In a few days, a few weeks, perhaps."

"A few weeks!" She was shrill again. "Why, what a fool you are, Chabot! In your place..." She checked.

More cunning than Chabot in the minutiae of life, she perceived what he had overlooked, the omission which in his place she would never have been so foolish as to have made. As it was she could correct it.

Two mornings later she blossomed forth in a new gown, striped red and black, high-waisted as the fashion was, new shoes and stockings, and a new mob-cap under which her hair for once was tidily disposed. The Citizen-Representative opened his eyes, and demanded explanations. She tittered and was archly mysterious.

"We are not all of us such fools as you, Chabot. I am not one to go thirsty when there's a well within reach."

That was all that she would tell him, and he went off perplexed, the mystery unsolved. Junius Frey could have solved it for him, and had thought of doing so. But upon further reflection the financier preferred to seek the Citizen Moreau and his friend de Batz, of whose judgment and ability he had by now been afforded such signal proof.

He found them at home when Tissot admitted them to their lodging in the Rue de Ménars. He made no attempt to minimize his uneasiness, which indeed scarcely needed expressing, for the signs of it were in his countenance. He rumbled forth a flood of lamentations in his deep guttural voice. He announced that they were sold, betrayed. That puffed-up fool Chabot had allowed their secret to be discovered. His indiscretion had forged a sword which was being held over the head of Junius. He was being shamelessly blackmailed.

"Blackmailed!" It was André-Louis who stirred to that word, adducing the whole story from it. "Let me know by whom. I have a short way with blackmailers."

His grim confidence in himself was inspiring. Frey entered into explanations. Chabot had a housekeeper—this was the euphemism he employed to describe Julie—who was a traitress. She had discovered details of the business of the corsairs, and she had come to him yesterday to demand money.

"Did you give her any?"

"What else could I do? For the moment I have stopped her mouth with twenty louis."

André-Louis shook his head. "Not enough."

"Not enough! Oh, my God! But I am then to give everything away? Chabot himself has had—"

"No matter what Chabot has had. You should have given her two hundred. That would have compromised her. I would have done the rest for you."

But de Batz joined issue with him. "You can't deal with her as you dealt with Burlandeux. She is in possession of dangerous facts."

André-Louis retired from the debate, and left it to de Batz and Junius. They concluded nothing. And this, after. Junius had gone again, his panic undiminished, de Batz revealed to be precisely what he desired. He rubbed his hands and laughed.

"The thing is done, I think. Let the fair Julie precipitate the avalanche."

But André-Louis was scornful. "Is that your notion of an avalanche, Jean? Why, it's scarcely a snowball. Let Julie dare to throw it at the idol of the mob, and her head will pay for her temerity. I waste no thought on her. I have work to do this morning. I am to write an article for the Pere Duchesne in praise of Chabot, for his labours of two days ago." He smiled grimly. "The higher we hoist him, the heavier the crash when he comes down. And I have promised Hébert an article demanding the expropriation of all foreign property in France. That should be popular."

You may still read both those articles, the one a paean of praise, the other a bitter Philippic, both couched in the flamboyant inflammatory jargon of that Age of Reason, and both bearing the signature Scaramouche, a nom de guerre which he was already rendering famous.

De Batz, however, was dubious of the timeliness of the second article. He accounted it premature, and said so at length. "It will definitely ruin the Freys, and we may still need them for our purposes."

André-Louis laughed. "It would ruin the Freys if it were not for Chabot. Chabot will be moved to protect them. Don't you see? That is the trap in which I hope to take him. Lebrun will help him. Both will be compromised, and the compromising of two such prominent conventionals should set up a fine stench for the people's nostrils."

But de Batz was persuaded that Chabot would take fright, and leave the Freys to their fate. "The fellow is a poltroon. You are forgetting that."

"I am forgetting nothing. In the matter of money Chabot has tasted blood: the merest taste. But it has given him an appetite for more. He'll not allow the source of it be cut off without a struggle. Leave this to me, Jean. I see very clearly where I am going."

De Batz, however, for all his faith in his remorselessly shrewd and energetic associate, was not reassured. He brooded over the matter. With brooding his persuasion grew that it would require stronger bonds than those now binding Chabot to the Freys before the conventional could be moved to take the risk of defending the brothers from the proposed decree of expropriation. Here was a problem for his ready wits. The thought of Julie Berger intruded upon his brooding, and suddenly he was inspired. The inspiration took him forthwith to the Rue d'Anjou.

The brothers received the Baron in the green-and-white salon, over whose elegancies presided an austere bust of Brutus set upon a tall marble-topped console. Conceiving his visit to be concerned with this distressing business of the Berger, they enlarged upon it at once.

"Be easy," the Baron confidently reassured them. "What she can do at present is less than nothing. She holds no proof. A man in Chabot's position is not to be destroyed by an unsupported denunciation. It would recoil upon the head that utters it. If Julie were to commit this indiscretion, fling this handful of mud at the popular idol, she would get herself torn to pieces for her pains. Make that clear to her next time she seeks you, and send her packing."