The Whites and the Blues (6 page)

When they returned to the H6tel de la Lanterne, the two young friends found poor Madame Teutch in a state of the greatest anxiety. Eugene was beginning to be known in the town where he had spent a month, and some one had told her that the young fellow had been seen near the Haguenau gate with a rifle in his hand. At first she had not believed it, but when she saw him return with the rifle, she was seized with a retrospective terror that doubled the interest of Charles' story. The boy was as enthusiastic as a conscript who has just seen his first battle.

But all this enthusiasm did not make Charles forget that he was to dine with citizen Euloge Schneider at two o'clock. At five minutes of two, having ascended the steps more slowly than he had descended them in the morning, he knocked at the little door to which they led.

CHAPTER V

MADEMOISELLE DE BRUMPT

AT THE first sound of the cannon the Society of the Propagande had assembled and declared its session to be permanent as long as Strasbourg was in danger.

Although Euloge Schneider was a fanatical Jacobin, being in relation to Marat what Marat was to Robespierre, he was excelled in patriotism by the Society of the Propagande. As a result the public prosecutor, powerful as he was, had to reckon with two powers, between which he was obliged to steer his course. That is to say, with Saint-Just, who, strange as it must seem to our readers of the present day, represented the moderate Republican party, and with the Propagande, which represented the ultra-Jacobins. Saint-Just held the material power, but citizen Tetrell possessed the moral power.

Euloge Schneider therefore did not dare to absent him self from the assemblage of the Propagande, which met to discuss the best means of saving the country; while Saint-Just and Lebas, the first to gallop out of Strasbourg into the midst of the firing—where they were easily recognized as the people's representatives by their uniforms and their tri-color plumes—had ordered the gates to be shut behind them, and had taken their places in the first ranks of the Republicans.

When the enemy had been routed, they had immediately returned to Strasbourg and gone to their hotel, while the Propagande continued their debate, although the peril had ceased. This was the reason why Euloge Schneider, who was so particular to admonish others to punctuality, was half an hour late himself.

Charles had profited by this delay to become acquainted with the other three guests who were to be at table with him. They, on their side, having been notified by Schnei-

der, welcomed kindly the boy who had been sent to him to be made into a scholar, and to whom they had each resolved to give an education according to their individual knowledge and principles.

These men were three in number, as we have said; their names were Edelmann, Young, and Monnet.

Edelmann was a remarkable musician, the equal of Gos-sec in church music. He had also set the poem of *' Ariadne in the Isle of Kaxos" to music for the stage, and the piece was played in France, in 1818 or 1820. He was small, with a melancholy countenance. He always wore spectacles, which seemed to have grown to his nose; he dressed in a brown coat, which was always buttoned from top to bottom with copper buttons. He had cast in his lot with the Eev-olutionary party with the violence and fanaticism of an imaginative man. When his friend Diedrich, mayor of Strasbourg, was accused of moderation by Schneider and succumbed in the struggle, he bore witness against him, saying: "I shall mourn for you because you are my friend, but you are a traitor, therefore you must die."

As for the second of the trio, Young, he was a poor shoemaker, within whose coarse exterior Nature, as some times happens by caprice, had concealed the soul of a poet. He knew Latin and Greek, but composed his odes and sa tires only in German. His well-known Eepublicanism had made his poetry popular, and the common people would often stop him on the street, crying, "Yerses! Yerses!" Then he would stop, and mounting upon some stone, or the edge of a well, or some adjacent balcony, would fling his odes and satires to the skies like burning, flaming rock ets. He was one of those rarely honest men, one of those revolutionists who acted in all good faith, and who, blindly devoted to the majesty of the popular principle, thought of the Eevolution only as the means of emancipation for all the human race, and who died like the ancient martyrs, without complaint, and without regret, convinced of the future triumph of their religion.

Monnet, the third, was not a stranger to Charles, and the boy welcomed him with a cry of joy. He had been a soldier, a grenadier, in his youth, and when he left the service had become a priest and prefect of the college in Besangon, where Charles had known him. When he was twenty-eight years of age, and had begun to regret the vows he had taken, the ^Revolution came to break them. He was tall and stooped a little, was full of kindness and courtesy, and possessed a melancholy grace which attracted strangers to him at first sight. His smile was sad and some times bitter; one would have thought that he concealed in the depths of his heart some mournful mystery, and that he besought of men, or rather of humanity, a shelter from his own innocence—the greatest of all dangers at such a time. He had been thrown, or rather had fallen, into the extreme party of which Schneider was a member; and now, trembling because of his share in the popular fury, and be cause he had been an accomplice in crime, he drifted, with his eyes shut, he knew not whither.

These three men were Schneider's inseparable friends. They had begun to feel alarmed by his prolonged absence, for each of them realized that Schneider was his pillar of strength. If Schneider toppled, they fell; if Schneider fell, they were dead men.

Monnet, the most nervous and consequently the most impatient of them all, had already risen to go for news, when they suddenly heard the grating of a key in the lock and the door was pushed violently open. At the same mo ment Schneider entered.

The session must have been a stormy one, for upon the ashy pallor of his forehead, blotches of purple blood stood out prominently. Although December was half gone, his face was covered with perspiration, and his loosened cravat showed the angry swelling of his bull-like neck. As he entered he threw his hat, which he had held in his hand, to the other end of the room.

When they saw him, the three men rose as if moved by

a common spring, and hastened toward him. Charles on the contrary had drawn behind his chair as if for protection.

4 ' Citizens,'' cried Schneider, gritting his teeth, '' citizens, I have to announce to you the good news that I am to be married in eight days.''

"You?" exclaimed the three men with one accord.

"Yes! What an astounding bit of news for Strasbourg when it gets about. 'Haven't you heard ?—No.—The Monk of Cologne is to be married.—Yes?—Yes, that is a fact!' Young, you shall write the epithalamium; Edelmann shall set it to music, and Monnet, who is as cheerful as the grave, shall sing it. You must send the news to your father, Charles, by the next courier."

'' And who are you going to marry ?''

"I don't know anything about that as yet; and I don't care. I have almost a mind to marry my old cook. It would serve as a good example of the fusion of the classes."

'' But what has happened ? Tell us.''

''Nothing much, but I have been interrogated, attacked, accused—yes, accused."

"Where?" At the Propagande.''

"Oh!" cried Monnet, "a society that you created. 7 '

"Have you never heard of children who kill their own fathers?"

"But who attacked you ?"

"Tetrell. You know he is the democrat who invented the luxurious party of sans-culottism; who has pistols from Versailles, pistols with fleur-de-lis on them, and horses fit for a prince to ride, and who is, I don't know why, the idol of the people of Strasbourg. Perhaps because he is gilded like a drum-major—he is tall enough for one! It seems to me that I have given enough pledges of good faith. But, no; the coat of a reporting commissioner cannot cover the frock of the Capuchin, or the cassock of the canon. He taunted me with this infamous stain of priesthood, which he says makes me constantly suspected by the true friends

of liberty. Who has immolated more victims than I to the sainted cause of liberty ? Haven't I cut off twenty-six heads in one month? Isn't that enough? How many do they want?"

"Calm yourself, Schneider, calm yourself!"

"It is enough to drive one crazy," continued Schneider, growing more and more excited, "between the Propagande, which is always saying, 'Not enough!' and Saint-Just, who says, 'Too much!' Yesterday I arrested six of these aristo crat dogs and four to-day. My Hussars of Death are con stantly seen in the streets of Strasbourg and its environs; this very night I shall arrest an emigre, who has had the audacity to cross the Rhine in a contraband boat, and come to Plobsheim with his family, to conspire. That is at least a sure case. Ah! I understand one thing now!" he cried, lifting his arm threateningly; "and that is, that events are stronger than wills, and that although there are men who, like the war-chariots of Holy Writ, crush multitudes as they pass, they themselves are pushed forward by the same irresistible power that tears volcanoes and hurls cataracts.''

Then, after this flow of words, which did not lack a cer tain eloquence, he burst into a harsh laugh.

"Bah!" said he, "there is nothing before life, and noth ing after life. It is a waking nightmare, that is all. L* it worth while worrying over it while it lasts, or regretting when it is lost? Faith, no; let us dine. Valeat res ludicra, isn't that so, Charles?"

And preceding his friends, he led the way into the dining-room, where a sumptuous repast awaited them.

"But," said Young, seating himself with the others at the table, "what is there in all that to make you get married within the week?"

"Ah! true, I forgot the best part of the story. When they called me the Monk of Cologne—where I never was a monk—and the canon of Augsburg — where I never was a cannon—they reproached me for my orgies and debauch eries! My orgies! Let me tell you what they were; for

thirty-four years I drank nothing but water and ate noth ing but carrots; it is no more than fair that I should eat white bread and meat now. My debaucheries! If they think I threw my frock to the devil to live like Saint An thony, they are mistaken. Well, there is one way to end all that, and that is to marry. I shall be as faithful a hus band and as good a father of a family as another, if citizen Saint-Just will give me time."

"Have you at least selected the fortunate lady who is to have the honor of sharing your couch?" asked Edelmann.

"Oh!' said Schneider, "so long as there is a woman, the devil himself can look out for her.V

"To the health of Schneider's future wife!" cried Yout~-; "and since he has left the devil to provide her, may he at least send one who is young, beautiful, and rich.' '

"Hurrah for Schneider's wife!" said Monnet sadly.

Just then the door of the dining-room opened, and the old cook appeared on the threshold.

"There is a citizeness here," she said, "who wishes to speak to Buloge Schneider on urgent business.''

"Well," said Schneider, "I know nothing more urgent than my dinner. Tell her to return to-morrow.''

The old woman disappeared, but returned almost imme diately. "She says that to-morrow will be too late."

"Then why didn't she come sooner?"

'' Because that was impossible,'' said a soft supplicating voice in the ante-chamber. "Let me see you, I beg, I im plore you!"

Euloge, with a gesture of impatience, bade the old cook pull the door to and. come close to him. But then, remem bering the freshness and youthfulness of the voice, he said with the smile of a satyr: "Is she young?"

'' Maybe eighteen,'' replied the old woman.

"Pretty?"

"With the devil's own beauty. 11

The three men began to laugh.

"You hear, Schneider, the devil's own beauty.

"Now," said Young, "we need only find out if she is rich, and there is your wife ready to hand. Open the door, old woman, and don't keep her waiting. You ought to know the pretty child if she comes from the devil."