Scaramouche (37 page)

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE CITIZEN-AGENT

It must have been somewhere in the neighbourhood of Christmas—his notes are not precise on the point—when André-Louis left Paris on his journey into Picardy, there to assemble the material necessary for the master-stroke by which he now confidently counted upon smashing Saint-Just.

"If you succeed," de Batz had said to him at parting, "the end will be in sight. While you are gone the battle between Danton and Hébert will be fought out. The issue of that struggle is foregone. Hébert will be crushed. The Hébertists will go the way of the Girondins, and the ground will have been cleared for the final struggle for supremacy between Robespierre and Danton. Bring back the means to pull down Saint-Just in shame and disgrace, and Robespierre falls with him, torn down by a people who will by then have lost all their illusions. Before the trees are budding again in the Tuileries Gardens the throne will have been set up once more and you will be celebrating your nuptials at Gavrillac. So to it, André, with all your courage and all your wit. You carry Caesar and his fortunes."

He carried them in a berline down to the little town of Blérancourt in the Aisne. He travelled of course as an agent of the terrible Committee of Public Safety, armed with unimpeachable credentials, and he was accompanied by the colossus Boissancourt, who went with him in the guise of secretary.

His travelling carriage drew up before the principal inn which until lately had been known as the Auberge des Lys. This, however, being a sign too closely associated with the royal standard, had recently been changed to the Auberge du Bonnet Rouge, and a Phrygian cap had now been painted over the fleurs-de-lys which had clustered on the old escutcheon.

André-Louis had dressed himself for the part with studied care. "I take the stage in character," he had informed Boissancourt. "Scaramouche never had a worthier role. We must not neglect the details."

These consisted of a brown frock, tight-fitting, and none too new; buckskins and knee boots with reversed tops; a tricolour sash of taffeta, which he had carefully soiled, a neckcloth loosely knotted, and a round black hat displaying a tricolour cockade. Saving that there were no plumes in his hat, and that he had replaced by a small-sword the sabre usually affected, he had all the appearance of a representative' en mission, which was the impression that he desired to create without insistence.

With the massive Boissancourt rolling solemnly after him, he swaggered into the inn with all that truculence of manner which distinguished the revolutionary officials, those despots of the new regime who modelled themselves upon their worse imaginings of the despots of the old.

Authoritatively he announced his quality and condition, presented Boissancourt as his secretary, demanded the best rooms the landlord could afford him, and desired that the Mayor of Blérancourt and the President of its Revolutionary Committee be summoned at once to attend him.

He made a terrifying stir with his short, sharp sentences, his peremptory manner and his penetrating glance. The landlord bowed himself double in servility. Would the Citizen-Emissary—he knew not how else to call him, and dared not be so familiar as to call him merely Citizen—deign to step this way. The Citizen-Emissary would understand that this was but a poor house. Blérancourt was little better than a rustic village. But such as it was the Citizen-Emissary could depend that the best it commanded would be placed at his disposal. To conduct him, the bowing landlord moved backwards before him as if he were royalty. He protested as he went. His rooms were not such as he could wish to offer the Citizen-Emissary. But the Citizen-Emissary would recognize that he was a poor man, after all, just a country landlord, and perhaps the Citizen-Emissary would not be too exigent.

The Citizen-Emissary, following the retreating, cringing vintner along the narrow stone-flagged passage, addressed his secretary.

"How times have changed, Jerome! And how much for the better. You perceive how the inspiring principles of democracy have penetrated even to this, poor little rustic town. Observe the amiable deportment of this good landlord, who now fills his lungs with the pure air of liberty. How different from the base servility of the old days when the despots stalked through the land. Oh blessed Liberty! Oh glorious Equality!"

Boissancourt blinked, and choked down his laughter.

But the landlord smirked and grinned and cringed the more under that commendation, and so bowed them into a small, square room whose window opened directly on to the courtyard. It was a sitting-room. It was commonly used as a dining-room for travellers desiring to be private. But, of course, during the Citizen-Emissary's honouring visit, it would be reserved entirely for his own use. A bedroom connected with it, and, if the Citizen-Emissary approved, there was another bedroom across the passage which might serve for the Citizen-Emissary's secretary.

The Citizen-Emissary took a turn in the room, surveying it disdainfully, his nose in the air. The walls were whitewashed. Some few pictures decorated them. The great man from Paris inspected them. One was a reproduction of David's "Death of Marat." Before this the Citizen-Emissary bowed his head as if before a shrine. Another was an entirely apocryphal portrait of Doctor Guillotin There was a print of the Place de la Revolution with the guillotine in its midst, and a legend under it: "The National Razor for the Shaving of Traitors". There was a portrait of Mirabeau, and a cartoon representing the triumph of the people over despotism—a naked colossus with one foot upon a coroneted and another upon a mitred homunculus.

"It is very well," said the Citizen-Emissary. "If these represent your sentiments, I felicitate you."

The landlord, a mean, shrivelled little fellow, rubbed his hands in gratification. He grew voluble on the subject of his principles. The Citizen-Emissary, rudely contemptuous, interrupted him.

"Yes, yes. No need to protest so much. I shall see for myself while I am here. There is a good deal I desire to see for myself." There was something minatory in his tone and smile. The landlord observed that his eyes were bitter. He fell silent, waiting.

André-Louis ordered dinner. The landlord desired him to be particular.

"That is for you," he was told. "We have travelled, and we are hungry. See that you feed us in a manner becoming servants of the Nation. It will be a test of patriotism. After dinner I will see your Mayor and the President of your Committee. Let them be warned."

A wave of his hand dismissed the cringing rascal. Boissancourt closed the door. He subdued his deep booming voice to mutter:

"In God's name, don't overdo it."

André-Louis smiled, and Boissancourt, too, observed that André-Louis' eyes were bitter.

"That is impossible. There never have been such despots in the land as the apostles of equality. Besides, it's amusing to see these poor rats dance to the tune which they themselves have called."

"Maybe. But we are not here to amuse ourselves."

If the dinner was to be a test of patriotism, the landlord proved himself a patriot of the stoutest. There was a broth containing the essences of real meat, a tender and well-nourished capon roasted with loving care, a bottle of wine which made them dream themselves on the banks of the Garonne and the purest wheaten bread they had tasted in months. There were other things that mattered less. They were waited upon by the landlord's wife and daughter with fearful solicitude.

"Well, well. They don't starve in the country, it seems," said Boissancourt, "whatever they may do in Paris."

"Members of the government do not starve anywhere," snapped André-Louis. "That is what we are presently to demonstrate to the starving people."

After dinner, when the table had been cleared, the Mayor of Blérancourt arrived, a portly, moon-faced little man of forty, named Foulard, sandy-haired, with dark little eyes that were red and sore-looking. An air of consequence invested him. Perceiving it, André-Louis took the offensive at the outset. He did not rise to receive the Mayor. He looked at him across the table, on which some papers were now spread, and there was reproof in the glance which he fixed upon the sash of office in which that functionary's paunch was swathed.

"So you are the Mayor, eh? You're a thought too well nourished, citizen. In Paris patriots grow lean."

The Citizen Foulard was taken aback. The assurance went out of him visibly. His little eyes blinked at the massive Boissancourt standing behind André-Louis' chair. But he was too intimidated by his reception to point out that there were no signs of emaciation about the Citizen-Emissary's secretary.

"Life," he stammered, "is...is not so...so hard on us in the country."

"So I perceive. You grow fat. And you do other things. It is about these other things that I am here." Thus aggressively he took the initiative. The Mayor, who had come to question, found that it was himself was to be questioned; and before the harsh menace of that voice, the stern contempt of that lean countenance, he grew instantly submissive. "Before we come to business, Citizen-Mayor, you had better take a look at my credentials, so that you may know my authority." He took up a card from the table. It was his commission as an agent of the Committee of Public Safety. He proffered it.

The Citizen Foulard came forward almost timidly. He studied the card a moment, and returned it. "Perfectly, Citizen-Agent. Perfectly."

"And now we are waiting for your President and your Commandant." Under the table André-Louis tapped his booted foot impatiently. "You do not hurry yourselves in Blérancourt."

The door opened as he spoke, and the landlord announced: "Citizen-Emissary, the Citizen-President and the Citizen-Commandant."

They came in with airs of arrogance. Thuillier, the local despot, the provincial pro-consul, who was Saint-Just's friend and agent, was rendered very sure of himself by virtue of his intimate association with that great man. He came first, a vigorous, youthful fellow of middle height, with glossy black hair, a swarthy complexion, and an expression rendered truculent by his heavily undershot jaw. He was ill-dressed in black, and as President of the local Revolutionary Committee he was girt with a sash of office. He was closely followed by Lieutenant Lucas, who commanded the detachment of National Guards stationed in Blérancourt, and was nominally styled the Commandant. The Lieutenant was young and fair, and looked amiable. In his blue uniform with its white facings and red woollen epaulettes he had almost the air of a gentleman.

André-Louis' eyes played over them. He retained his seat, and his expression remained forbidding. Weighing the Citizen Thuillier at a glance, he did not give him time to speak, but adopted tactics similar to those which had succeeded with the Mayor.

"You have kept me waiting. In the days of the despots the time of an official might be wasted with impunity. In these days it is recognized that his time is not his own to waste. It belongs to the Nation which employs him."

Like the Mayor before him, Thuillier was visibly shaken. Formidable must be the authority of a man who permitted himself to take such a tone with the President of a Revolutionary Committee. But since Thuillier's self-assurance was better grounded than the Mayor's, it was not so easily demolished. Recovering, he spoke arrogantly.

"You do not need to instruct me in my duty, citizen."

"I trust not. But if I perceive the need, I shall not hesitate. Best look at this, Citizen-President." And again he proffered his commission.

Thuillier scanned it. He observed that among the signatures it bore was that of Saint-Just: He was impressed, the more so since he was vague on the subject of the functions of an agent of the Committee of Public Safety. He had had to deal before now with one or two representatives en mission, and was well aware of their wide powers. An agent of the Committee of Public Safety was something new in his experience. Aware that it could not be otherwise, since agents of the committee were never sent upon such missions, André-Louis assumed that he would be taken at his own self-valuation, and that he must depend upon arrogance to establish by implication that the authority vested in him was unlimited.

"Let the Commandant see it too, so that he may know by what authority I give him orders should the need to do so arise."

Here was an encroachment. Thuillier frowned. "If you have orders for the Commandant, he will take them from the Mayor or from me."

André-Louis looked him sternly between the eyes. "As long as I am in Blérancourt, the National Guard will take its orders also from the Committee of Public Safety, through me, its agent. Let that be clear. I am not here to trifle or to argue about forms. I have business to discharge. Grave business. Let us come to it. Boissancourt, set chairs for the citizens."

They took the chairs which Boissancourt placed for them beyond the table, facing André-Louis, and the three of them looked at the Citizen-Agent and waited. The Mayor blinked his red-rimmed eyes in apprehension. Thuillier scowled haughtily. Lucas lounged, nursing his sabre, his air indifferent.

André-Louis sat back and pondered them, his expression wolfish.

"And so," he said slowly, "it seems that here in this innocent-looking little country village you permit yourselves to conspire, you harbour reactionaries, you plot against the Republic One and Indivisible."