Scaramouche (39 page)

Bontemps shrugged ill-humouredly. "What the devil do I know what I saved. I keep no accounts."

"On the contrary I have a good many accounts before me here which you have kept. Don't waste my time, citizen. Answer me. How much did you save?"

Bontemps became rebellious. "What is your right to question me? You're a damned spy of the committee's, not a judge. You have no authority to try me. It may be within your powers to arrest me, though I doubt even that. And anyway, when the Citizen-Representative Saint-Just comes to hear of it, you'll have a bad quarter of an hour, I promise you. Meanwhile, my friend, the most you can do, the most you dare do is to send me to Paris for trial. Send me, then. Send me, and be damned to you. For I am answering none of your questions. Citizen-Mayor, are you going to abet this fellow? Name of God! You had better go carefully. You had better be warned. The guillotine goes briskly in Paris. You may come to acquaintance with it for this outrage. The Citizen-Representative Saint-Just will require a strict account of you. That's not a man with whom it's safe to trifle, as you should know."

He paused, flushed now with the excitement that had welled up in him whilst he declaimed.

André-Louis spoke quietly to Boissancourt. "Set it all down. Every word of it." He waited until the pretended secretary had ceased to write, then he turned again to the prisoner. He spoke for once very quietly without any of the truculence he had hitherto employed. Perhaps because of the contrast his tone was the more impressive.

"You labour under an error based on the old forms of law. I have said that you know too much law, but that it is out of date. If you are an honest man you will give me every help in deciding whether you are to be sent for trial or not to Soissons. For that is where you will be sent. Not to Paris. The guillotine goes just as briskly in Soissons. As for the Citizen-Representative Saint-Just, upon whose protection you seem to count, you are not to suppose that under the present rule of fraternity and equality there is any man in the State with power to protect a malefactor." His tone hardened again. "I have said that your notions are out of date. You seem under the impression that we are still living in the age of the despots. One other thing. Let me tell you that unless you can dispel the suspicions to which these papers of yours give rise, unless you can satisfactorily explain certain unfavourable circumstances which they suggest, the Citizen-Representative Saint-Just will be fully occupied in answering for himself." With a sudden fierceness, he added, bringing his fist down upon the table as he spoke. "The Republic is no respecter of persons. Get that into your head, Citizen Bontemps. Liberty, equality, and fraternity are not idle words."

The Mayor mumbled eager agreement. He went on to urge the prisoner to answer, and to clear himself.

"I can't perceive," said André-Louis, "why you should hesitate, unless it is out of some false sense of loyalty. False, because no loyalty can save the principal offender. All that you can accomplish by silence and resistance is to find yourself convicted as a full accessory."

Bontemps was not merely cowed; he was visibly frightened. André-Louis' fierce threat shook his confidence in the protection which Saint-Just might be able to afford him. If that protection were removed then was he lost indeed.

"Name of God!" he broke out. "Of what is it that you accuse me? You have not told me even that. I have done nothing for myself."

"You described yourself as a proprietor and farmer. I desire to know the source of the wealth which has enabled you to acquire these extensive tracts of land in La Beauce."

"I described myself wrongly, then." Fear squeezed the truth from him. "A farmer, yes. I have become a farmer. It is more lucrative than being a horse-leech. But a proprietor, no. I am an agent, no more. What use to question me? You have my papers. They will have shown you that I am no more than an agent.

"Whose agent?"

Bontemps still hesitated for a moment. He wrung his hands. Although the air of the room was so cold that their breathing made a mist upon it, yet there were beads of sweat on his pale, bulging brow below the straggle of red-brown hair. At last he answered. "The Citizen-Representative Saint-Just's." As if to excuse the betrayal wrung from him, he added: "The papers must have shown it."

André-Louis nodded. "They do. At least, they indicate it very strongly." Again he waited for Boissancourt to finish writing.

"In the course of the last year, you appear to have received moneys which will aggregate to close upon half a million francs if we make the computation reducing all to the present depreciated values of the Republic's currency."

"If you compute it in that way, I suppose it would amount to about that figure."

"One particularly heavy remittance of a hundred thousand francs reached you only a month ago."

"Yes. Just about a month ago."

"On the seventh of Frimaire, to be exact."

"If you have the date, why question me?"

"This money was sent to you from Strasbourg, I think."

"I don't know."

"You know whence the Citizen Saint-Just wrote. For it was he who sent it to you, was it no t?"

"Yes. It came from him. It came from Strasbourg, I believe. Yes. Anything else?"

André-Louis sat back. "Set it all down, Boissancourt. Every word of it. It is important." He turned to the Mayor. "I am discovering much more than I bargained for; a conspiracy of quite another sort from that which I came to investigate. At the beginning of Frimaire the Citizen Saint-Just was in Strasbourg. He was levying heavy punitive fines there. Gold was flowing into his hands to be held in trust by him for the National Treasury, money destined to relieve the sufferings of the faithful people. The Citizen Saint-Just appears to have misappropriated some of this to his own uses. That is what emerges from this investigation. You might add a note to that effect, Boissancourt, for reference later. And take care of these documents. They supply the evidence." He paused, considering for a moment. "That, I think, will do for the moment. I have no more questions. You may remove the prisoner."

Boissancourt finished writing, and presented the minute of the examination to André-Louis. He read it carefully, and signed it. Then he passed it to the Mayor for his countersignature, which was supplied so soon as the Mayor had also satisfied himself that the statement was exact. He looked pale and scared when he set down the pen.

"Name of a name! You have stirred up some terrible matters, citizen."

"And it's my belief we are only at the beginning of them."

The Mayor shivered. After all, the sunlight had passed from the room, and it was very cold there. "We are treading very dangerous ground, citizen."

André-Louis stood up. "Very dangerous to malefactors," he answered with a hardness that reassured the Mayor. "Very dangerous to false patriots who cheat the Republic of her dues, who abuse their office to serve private interests. There is no danger to any other. The Nation will know how to reward those who labour to destroy corruption. There should be great things in store for you, Citizen-Mayor. I hope that you deserve your good fortune."

"I have always been a good patriot."

"I am glad to hear it. Do your duty and fear nothing. Fiat officium, ruat coelum. Let us be going. You will order the Commandant to bring along this fellow Bontemps, and to bestow him safely in the gaol at Blérancourt until we send for him."

CHAPTER XL

THE DOSSIER

In what was still to do at Blérancourt, André-Louis employed a feverish diligence. For he never lost sight of the fact that if a rumour of his activities should reach Paris there would be an abrupt end to his investigations, and his head would probably pay the price of his assumptions of authority. Therefore it was necessary to complete the work with all speed before discovery overtook him.

Also, as the days passed, the members of the Revolutionary Committee, whose President he had arrested, began to grow restive. It may be that these gentlemen were none too easy in their consciences, and not knowing where these investigations, which seemed to be spreading in ever-widening circles, could come to an end, began to be fearful on their own account. They began to question among themselves the extent of the authority of this agent of the Committee of Public Safety. Fortunately, the Mayor stood his friend, and gave him timely warning of these mutterings.

André-Louis took instant action. He ordered the committee to be convened, and appeared before it. The ten members composing it—all of them local tradesmen—rose to receive him when he briskly entered the room in the Mayor's house where they were assembled, Foulard, himself, amongst them.

Peremptorily André-Louis ordered them to sit, and himself remained standing. The historian in him knew that thus he would more effectively dominate them. He planted his feet wide, set his hands behind him, and, hat on head, scowled upon them with those dark eyes of his which he could render so bitter. Thus for a long, almost breathless moment in which he seemed to be weighing them. Then his voice, harsh and arrogant, lashed them without mercy.

"I hear of grumblings amongst you, citizens. It has come to my knowledge that some of you take the view that I am exceeding my authority; that you resent the extent to which I am searching into events that have been happening here in Blérancourt. Let me give you a timely word of warning. If you have a care for your heads, you will heed it. If you had a proper sense of duty to the Republic, a proper patriotism, you would welcome researches whose aim is to uproot that which is noxious to the common welfare; you would welcome all steps, even though they should transcend the bounds of my authority, which are calculated to serve that aim. But let me tell you that far from exceeding my authority I have not yet exerted it to the full. An agent of the Committee of Public Safety is vested with the powers of the Committee itself, and responsible only to the Committee for his actions. If you desire to test my powers to the full, continue to question them. I may then extend my investigations into the affairs of the questioners. For it will be my duty to assume that who resents my inquisitions has in his own conduct cause to fear them." He paused to let that inference sink home. They sat silent and a little abashed, looking furtively at one another.

He resumed with an increase of asperity. "If I do not instantly proceed to discover who are the grumblers, and to look into their affairs, it is because my hands are full already. I am content at present to confine myself to the task entrusted to me by the Committee, and to such matters as may arise directly out of it. But at the first sign of any obstacle placed in my way, of any hostile criticism of my actions which might have the result of creating difficulties for me, I shall pursue my critic without mercy or scruple. I will show you, citizens, if you give me reason to think it necessary, that the cause of liberty is not to be denied or impeded. I will show you this, if I have to take off some of your heads to make it clear. There's nothing like blood to wash away mutiny. And mutinous heads are best bestowed in the executioner's basket. Bear that in mind, citizens, and do not give me cause to speak to you again, or it will be in a very different tone."

He paused again. He saw in their hang-dog looks that he had cowed them.

"If any of you has anything to say to me, let him take this opportunity. If any of you has any complaint to voice, let him do so fearlessly and frankly now."

A lantern-jawed fellow named Prieur, a grocer in the village, who in these rhetorical days had developed certain gifts of rustic oratory, shambled to his feet. He rose to reassure the Citizen-Agent that here all were loyal servants of the Committee of Public Safety; that far from placing any obstacles in his path or criticizing the measures which in his wisdom he thought fit to take on the Committee's behalf, their anxiety was to afford him every facility for the full performance of his duty. He went on to assure the Citizen-Agent that no man present had any ground upon which to fear the closest investigation of his actions. Whatever he might have added further was never uttered, for there André-Louis rudely interrupted him.

"Do you make yourself the sponsor of your colleagues? How can you do that? Speak to your own affairs, my friend, if you want me to attach credit to your words."

Abashed, Prieur could only repeat in faltering accents his opening assurances. When he sat down another rose to say precisely the same thing, and after him a third, whom André-Louis refused to hear.

"Am I to listen to each of you in turn assuring me of your loyalty? I have not the time to waste. And what are words? Let rather your actions afford me evidence of your civic virtues."

Upon that he wished them a good day, and abruptly left them.

They gave him no more trouble. On the contrary, after that interview, each member of the Revolutionary Committee vied with his colleagues to display a helpful zeal.

Nevertheless, André-Louis made all haste to complete the evidence of the formidable case he was preparing. At the end of a week he was in a position to take the final step.

Again he ordered the Mayor to convene the Revolutionary Committee. He constituted it into a court of inquiry, and elected to preside over it himself. He commanded that Thuillier and Bontemps should be brought before it.

Before admitting either, however, he had a statement to make and a question to ask.

"You have been brought here to examine the apparently anti-civic conduct of two citizens of the district, one of whom, Thuillier, is your own President. The aim of your inquiry is to determine whether they are to be sent for trial, or whether, their conduct satisfactorily explained, they may be restored to liberty.

"The Citizen Thuillier ordered the arrest here a month or so ago of a man named Thorin whom he charged with conspiracy. Thuillier himself signed the order for this man's arrest, and it was countersigned of necessity by one of you. The Citizen-Commandant Lucas does not at this date remember by whom the order was countersigned. I shall be glad if he who countersigned it will now disclose himself."

There was a pause. André-Louis did not permit it to be unduly protracted.

"I can, of course, send to Paris for the order itself, and thus ascertain. But it will save time and trouble, and it may also avoid suspicion attaching to him, if the member in question will frankly declare himself."

Prieur cleared his throat, and leaned forward in his place at that long table. "I believe I countersigned that order."

"You believe?"

"I countersigned so many that I hesitate to be more precise. But I am almost sure of the order for Thorin's arrest."

"You are almost sure? Stand up, citizen. Come now. You must be quite sure. Thuillier must have said something to impress it upon your memory. He must have urged some good reason for this step. That is what I desire to know."

"Ah yes. I remember now." The Adam's apple in Prieur's stringy throat rose and fell as he swallowed hard. His knuckly hand moved nervously on the green' baize cloth that covered the table against which he leaned. "I remember. Yes, of course. Thuillier told me that Thorin had been guilty of conspiring against the Republic."

"Was that all he told you? Surely he must have satisfied you that this was true before you signed away a man's life? Come, citizen. You have nothing to fear if only you will be frank with the committee. It will, I know, be, clear that you have been victimized. Thuillier was your President. It was natural that you should repose confidence in his word. But there must have been something more than his word."

"He told me that he acted upon orders from Paris?"

"Paris could know nothing of a conspiracy in Blérancourt save upon information from Blérancourt. You see that, Citizen Prieur?"

"Oh yes. I see that. I see that now. Now that you mention it."

"But you did not see it at the time?"

"I trusted the Citizen-President."

"That is what I have been supposing." André-Louis for once was amiable. "But he must have said whose were the orders he had received from Paris?"

Prieur looked desperately round him. He found all eyes turned upon him, and all were grave. Some seemed to condemn him. He swallowed again, and at last decided to answer.

"He told me that the orders were from the Citizen-Representative Saint-Just."

There was a lively stir, and some murmurings at the mention of that formidable name. Boissancourt, at the table's end, wrote down the answer.

"Did he tell you anything of the nature of the conspiracy?"

"Nothing, Citizen-Agent. I asked, naturally. He answered that it was none of my business."

"It did not occur to you that it was very much your business? That if there was a conspiracy here, there must be other conspirators, and that the arrests could not be confined to this Thorin? This did not occur to you, Citizen Prim?" André-Louis had resumed his Rhadamanthine manner. Prieur's uneasiness increased.

"It may have passed through my mind. But the Citizen-President was insistent, and...and..."

"He coerced you, you would say?"

Prieur nodded slowly. "It comes to that, I suppose." André-Louis looked at him in silence. Then abruptly he shifted his ground.

"Let us pass on. The order was from the Citizen-Representative Saint-Just. Tell me, citizen, had you ever before heard the name of this man Thorin connected in any way with that of Saint-Just?"

"I had heard what everybody in Blérancourt has heard. Thorin made no secret of his trouble. He accused Saint-Just of having seduced his wife, of having taken her to Paris, where it is said that he keeps her now. Anyone in Blerancourt will tell you this."

"Ah! It explains a note from Saint-Just found among the papers of Thuillier. Yes, I think it explains it completely. You have that, Boissancourt?" He paused. He was smiling a little. "It is practically established that there has, indeed, been a conspiracy with which Thorin is connected. But he seems to be connected with it rather as the victim. You may sit down, Citizen Prieur. Citizen-Commandant, order Thuillier to be brought before us."

Prieur sank down limply into his seat. His colleagues surveyed him between censure and compassion.

Thuillier was brought in between guards. He walked firmly, his head high, his glance arrogant, his jaw more prominent than ever.

He broke into menaces, uttered with a deal of foulness, as to what would happen to them all when his friends in Paris came to know of this. André-Louis let him run on. Then with a crooked smile he turned to the committee.

"You hear his assurances, his confidence in his friends in Paris—by which he means his friend in Paris. This unhappy Thuillier is under the delusion that the rule of tyranny still prevails in France; that there has merely been a change of tyrants. He and his friend in Paris are likely very soon to discover their error." To the prisoner he added: "My secretary, there, is setting down every word you utter. So you had better weigh your words carefully, because the Committee of Public Safety will certainly weigh them. In fact, if you will accept a piece of friendly advice, you will be silent. You have been brought here not to speak, but to listen."

Thuillier glowered at him, but prudently accepted his advice.

André-Louis was brief. "There is no need to question you. The case is complete. It is established—very fully established—by the documents found in your possession, which I have here, and by the evidence of a member of this committee, that you arrested Thorin and sent him to Paris upon orders from the Citizen Saint-Just. That the charge of conspiracy upon which he was arrested was entirely false is also established by the utter lack of evidence of any conspiracy at all, and by the fact that no other arrest has been made on this ground. As I pointed out to you before, a man cannot conspire alone. Seeking further, we find in these sworn statements of Thorin's sister and Thorin's cousin, that the Representative Saint-Just carried off the wife of this Thorin and has kept her under his protection in Paris. All the village can testify that Thorin was raging and complaining in a manner likely to bring the Representative, Saint-Just into deserved disrepute. The Citizen Saint-Just's despotic act in having this man thrown into prison is at once explained.

"The Representative Saint-Just will have to answer for himself when I lay my report before the Committee of Public Safety. You will have to answer for having been his accomplice in this abhorrent act of tyranny, in this loathsome abuse of trust. If you have anything to say that will mitigate your part this is your opportunity.