Chapter X: Part X (2)

However, an object soon drew the general attention so strongly, as to put an end to private curiosity for the time. This was a mask in the uniform of a national guard, but so outrageously fine that his _entrée_ excited an universal burst of laughter. But when, after a few displays of what was apparently all but intoxication, he began a detail of his own exploits, it was evident that the whole was a daring caricature; and as nothing could be less popular among us than the heroes of the shops, the Colonels Calicot, and Mustaches _au comptoir_, all his burlesque told incomparably. The old officers among us, the Vendéans, and all the ladies--for the sex are aristocrats under every government and in every region of the globe--were especially delighted. "Alexandre Jules Cæsar," colonel of the "brave battalion of the Marais," was evidently worth a dozen field-marshals in his own opinion; and his contempt for Vendôme, Marlborough, and Frederick le Grand, was only less piquant than the perfect imitation and keen burlesque of Santerre, Henriot, and our municipal warriors. At length when his plaudits and popularity were at their height, he proposed a general toast to the "young heroism," of the capital, and prefaced it by a song, in great repute in the old French service.

"AVANCEZ, BRAVE GUERRIERS."

"Shoulder arms--brave regiment!
Hark, the bugle sounds 'advance.'
Pile the baggage--strike the tent;
France demands you--fight for France.
If the hero gets a ball,
His accounts are closed--that's all!

"Who'd stay wasting time at home,
Made for women to despise;
When, where'er we choose to roam,
All the world before us lies,
Following our bugle's call,
Life one holiday--that's all!

"When the soldier's coin is spent,
He has but to fight for more;
He pays neither tax nor rent,
He's but where he was before.
If he conquer, if he fall--
_Fortune de la guerre_--that's all!

"Let the pedant waste his oil,
With the soldier all is sport;
Let your blockheads make a coil
In the cloister or the court;
Let them fatten in their stall,
We can fatten too--that's all!

"What care we for fortune's frown,
All that comes is for the best;
What's the noble's bed of down
To the soldier's evening rest
On the heath or in the hall,
All alike to him--that's all!

"When the morn is on the sky,
Hark the gay _reveillé_ rings!
Glory lights the soldier's eye,
To the gory breach he springs,
Plants his colours on the wall
Wins and wears the _croix_--that's all!"

The dashing style in which this hereditary song of the French camp was given by "Colonel Alexandre Jules Cæsar" of the "brave battalion of the Marais," his capitally awkward imitation of the soldier of the old _régime_, and his superb affectation of military nonchalance, were so admirable, that his song excited actual raptures of applause. His performance was encored, and he was surrounded by a group of nymphs and graces, among whom his towering figure looked like a grenadier of Brobdignag in the circle of a Liliputian light company. He carried on the farce for a while with great adroitness and animation; but at length he put the circle of tinsel and tiffany aside, and rushing up to me, insisted on making me a recruit for the "brave battalion of the Marais." But I had no desire to play a part in this pantomime, and tried to disengage myself. One word again made me a captive: that word was now "Lafontaine;" and at the same moment I saw the sylph bounding to my side. What was I to think of this extraordinary combination? All was as strange as a midsummer night's dream. The "colonel," as if fatigued, leaned against the pillar, and slightly removing his mask, I saw, with sudden rejoicing, the features of that gallant young friend, whom I had almost despaired of ever seeing again. "Wait in this spot until I return," was all that I heard, before he and the sylph had waltzed away far down the hall.

I waited for some time in growing anxiety; but the pleasantry of the night went on as vividly as ever, and some clever _tableaux vivants_ had varied the quadrilles. While the dancers gave way to a well-performed picture of Hector and Andromache from the _Iliad_, and the hero was in the act of taking the plumed helmet from his brow, with a grace which enchanted our whole female population, an old Savoyard and his daughter came up, one playing the little hand-organ of their country, and the other dancing to her tamborine. This was pretty, but my impatience was ill disposed to look or listen; when I was awakened by a laugh, and the old man's mask being again half turned aside, I again saw my friend: the man moved slowly through the crowd, and I followed. We gradually twined our way through the labyrinth of pillars, leaving the festivity further and further behind, until he came to a low door, at which the Savoyard tapped, and a watchword being given, the cell was opened. There our robes and masks were laid aside; we found peasant dresses, for which we exchanged them; and following a muffled figure who carried a lantern, we began our movements again through the recesses of the endless building. At length we came to a stop, and our guide lifting up a ponderous stone which covered the entrance to a deep and dark staircase, we began to descend. I now for the first time heard the cheerful voice of Lafontaine at my side. "I doubt," said he, "whether a hundred years ago any one of us would have ventured on a night march of this kind; for, be it known to you, that we are now in the vaults of the convent, and shall have to go through a whole regiment of monks and abbots in full parade." I observed that, "if we were to meet them at all, they would be less likely to impede our progress dead than alive;" but I still advised Lafontaine to allude as little as he could to the subject, lest it might have the effect of alarming our fair companion. "There is no fear of that," said he, "for little Julie is in love with M. le Comte, our gallant guide; and a girl of eighteen desperately in love, is afraid of nothing. You Englishmen are not remarkable for superstition; and as for me and my compatriots, we have lost our reverence for monks in any shape since the taking of the Bastile."

We now went on drearily and wearily through a range of catacombs, stopping from time to time to ascertain whether we were pursued; and occasionally not a little startled by the sudden burst of sound that came from the revelry above, through the ventilators of these enormous vaults. But the Count had well prepared his measures, had evidently traced his way before, and led us on without hinderance, until we approached a species of sallyport, which, once opened, would have let us out into the suburb. Here misfortune first met us; none of the keys which the Count had brought with him would fit the lock. It was now concluded by our alarmed party, either that the design of escape had been discovered, or that the lock had been changed since the day before. Here was an insurmountable difficulty. To break down the gate, or break through it, was palpably impossible, for it was strongly plated with iron, and would have resisted every thing but a six-pounder. What was to be done? To remain where we were was starvation and death; to return, would be heart-breaking; yet escape was clearly out of the question. The Count was furious, as he tried in vain to shake the solid obstacle; Lafontaine was in despair. I, rather more quietly, took it for granted that the guillotine would settle all our troubles in the course of the next day; and the pretty Julie, in a deluge of tears, charging herself with having undone us all, hung upon the neck of her cavalier, and pledged herself, by all the hopes and fears of passion, to die along with him. While the lovers were exchanging their last vows, Lafontaine, in all the vexation of his soul, was explaining to me the matchless excellence of the plot, which had been thus defeated in the very moment of promised success.

"You perhaps remember," said he, "the letter which the father of Mariamne, that dearest girl whom I shall now never see again in this world, gave you for one of his nation in Paris. On the night when I last saw you, I had found it lying on your table; and in the confusion of the moment, when I thought you killed, and rushed into the street to gain some tidings of you, I took charge of the letter, to assist me in the enquiry. Unlucky as usual, I fell into the hands of a rabble returning from the plunder of the palace, was fired on, was wounded, and carried to the St Lazare. The governor was a man of honour and a royalist, and he took care of me during a dangerous illness and a slow recovery. But to give me liberty was out of his power. I had lost sight of the world so long, that the world lost sight of me, and I remained, forgetting and forgotten; until, within these two days--when I received a note from the head of the family to whom your letter was directed, informing me that you had been arrested and sent to the very prison in which I was--my recollection of the world suddenly revived, and I determined to save you if possible. I had grown familiar with the proceedings of that tribunal of demons, the Revolutionary committee; and as I had no doubt of your condemnation, through the mere love of bloodshed, I concerted with my Jewish friend the plan of having you claimed as a British agent, who had the means of making important disclosures to the government. If this succeeded, your life was saved for the day, and your escape was prepared for the night. This weeping girl is the daughter of the late governor, who has engaged in our plot to save the life of her affianced husband; and now, within an hour of daylight, when escape will be impossible, all our plans are thrown away--we are brought to a dead stand by the want of one miserable key, and shall have nothing more to do than to make up our minds to die with what composure we can."

Having finished his story, the narrator wrapt up his head in his cloak, and laid himself down like one determined never to rise again. The Count and his Julie were so engaged in recapitulating their sorrows, sitting side by side on a tombstone, like a pair of monumental figures, that they had neither ear nor eye for any thing else; but my English nature was made of sterner stuff, and thinking that at the last I could but die, I took the lantern and set sturdily to work to examine the gate. It was soon evident that it could be neither undermined nor broken down by any strength of ours; but it was also evident that the lock was the old one which had closed it perhaps for the last century, and that the right key was the only thing wanting. Leaving Lafontaine in his despair lying at the foot of the monument, on which the lovers sat murmuring like a pair of turtle doves, I determined to make a thorough search for the missing key, and made my way back through all the windings of the catacomb, tracing the ground step by step. Still no key was to be found. At last I reached the cell where we had changed our dresses, and examined table, floor, and chair. Still nothing was to be found; but, unluckily, the light of the lantern glancing through the loop-hole of the cell, caught the eye of the sentinel on the outside, and he challenged. The sound made me start; and I took up one of the robes to cover the light. Something hard struck my hand. It was in the gown of the Savoyard's daughter. I felt its pockets, and, to my infinite astonishment and delight, produced the key. The pretty Julie, who had procured it, had forgotten every thing in the rapture of meeting her lover, and had left it behind her when she threw off her masquerading costume.

I now hastened back with the rapid step becoming the bearer of good tidings, and revived the group of despair. The key was applied to the lock, but it refused to move, and we had another pang of disappointment. Lafontaine uttered a groan, and Julie poured another gush of tears upon her companion's shoulder. I made the experiment again; the rust of the lock was now found to have been our only hinderance; and with a strong turn the bolt flew back, and the door was open.

We had all been so much exhausted by agitation, and the dreary traverse of the catacomb, that the first gush of fresh air conveyed a sensation almost of new life. The passage had probably been formed in the period when every large building in Paris was a species of fortress; and we had still a portcullis to pass. When we first pushed against it, we felt another momentary pang; but age had made it an unfaithful guardian, and a few stout attacks on its decayed bars gave us free way. We were now under the open sky; but, to our consternation, a new and still more formidable difficulty presented itself. The moat was still to be passed. To attempt the drawbridge was hopeless; for we could hear the sentinel pacing up and down its creaking planks. The moment was critical; for a streak of grey light in the far east showed that the day was at hand. After resolving all imaginable plans, and abandoning them all as fruitless; determining, at all events, never to return, and yet without the slightest prospect of escape, except in the bottom of that sullen pool which lay at our feet--the thought occurred to me, that in my return through the vault I had stumbled over the planks which covered a vault lately dug for a prisoner. Communicating my idea to Lafontaine, we returned to the spot, loaded ourselves with the planks, and fortunately found them of the length that would reach across the narrowest part of the fosse. Our little bridge was made without delay, and Lafontaine led the way, followed by the count and Julie, I waiting to see them safe across, before I added my weight to the frail structure. But I was not yet fated to escape. The sentinel, whose vigilance I had startled by my lantern in the cell, had given the alarm; and, as I was setting my foot on the plank, a discharge of fire-arms came from the battlement above. I felt that I was struck, and a stunning sensation seized me. I made an attempt to spring forward, but suddenly found myself unable to move. The patrol from the drawbridge now surrounded me, and in this helpless state, bleeding, and as I thought dying, I was hurried back into the St Lazare.

After a fortnight's suffering in the hospital of the prison, which alone probably saved me from the guillotine, then almost the natural death of all the suspected, I was enabled to get on my feet again. I found the prison as full as ever, but nearly all its inmates had been changed except the Vendéans, whom the crooked policy of the time kept alive, partly to avoid raising the whole province in revolt, partly as hostages for their countrymen.

On my recovery, I had expected to be put down once more in the list for trial; but it reached even the prison, that the government were in a state of alarm for themselves, which prevented them from indulging their friends in the streets with the national amusement. The chance of mounting the scaffold themselves had put the guillotine out of fashion; and two or three minor attempts at the seizure of the Jacobin sceptre by the partisans of the Girondists and Cordeliers, had been put down with such difficulty, that even the Jacobin Club had begun to protest against bloodshed, through the prospect of a speedy retaliation. Thus we were suffered to linger on. But, "disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery, thou art a bitter draught," and the suspense was heart-sickening. At length, however, a bustle outside the walls, the firing of alarm guns, and the hurrying of the national guard through the streets, told us that some new measure of atrocity was at hand, and we too soon learned the cause.

The army under Dumourier had been attacked by the Austrians under Clairfait, and had been defeated with heavy loss; despatches had been received from their favourite general, in all the rage of failure, declaring that the sole cause of the disaster was information conveyed from the capital to the Austrian headquarters, and demanding a strict enquiry into the intrigues which had thus tarnished the colours of the Republic. No intelligence could have been more formidable to a government, which lived from day to day on the breath of popularity; and, to turn the wrath of the rabble from themselves, an order was given to examine the prisons, and send the delinquents to immediate execution. It may be easily believed that the briefest enquiry was enough for vengeance, and the prisoners of St Lazare were the first to furnish the spectacle. A train of carts rattled over the pavement of our cloisters, and we were ordered to mount them without delay. The guard was so strong as to preclude all hope of resistance; and with all the pomp of a military pageant, drums beating, trumpets sounding, and bands playing _Ça Ira_ and the _Marseillaise_, we left our dreary dwelling, which habit had now almost turned into a home, and moved through the principal streets of the capital, for the express purposes of popular display, in the centre of a large body of horse and foot, and an incalculable multitude of spectators, until in the distance we saw the instrument of death.

* * * * *

THE CHILD'S WARNING.

There's blood upon the lady's cheek,
There's brightness in her eye:
Who says the sentence is gone forth
That that fair thing must die?

Must die before the flowering lime,
Out yonder, sheds its leaf--
Can this thing be, O human flower!
Thy blossoming so brief?

Nay, nay, 'tis but a passing cloud,
Thou didst but droop awhile;
There's life, long years, and love and joy,
Whole ages, in that smile--

In the gay call that to thy knee
Brings quick that loving child,
Who looks up in those laughing eyes
With his large eyes so mild.

Yet, thou art doom'd--art dying; all
The coming hour foresee,
But, in love's cowardice, withhold
The warning word from thee.

God keep thee and be merciful!
His strength is with the weak;
Through babes and sucklings, the Most High
Hath oft vouchsafed to speak--

And speaketh now--"Oh, mother dear!"
Murmurs the little child;
And there is trouble in its eyes,
Those large blue eyes so mild--

"Oh, mother dear! they say that soon,
When here I seek for thee,
I shall not find thee--nor out there,
Under the old oak-tree;

"Nor up stairs in the nursery,
Nor any where, they say.
Where wilt thou go to, mother dear?
Oh, do not go away!"

Then was long silence--a deep hush--
And then the child's low sob.
_Her_ quivering eyelids close--one hand
Keeps down the heart's quick throb.

And the lips move, though sound is none,
That inward voice is prayer.
And hark! "Thy will, O Lord, be done!"
And tears are trickling there,

Down that pale cheek, on that young head--
And round her neck he clings;
And child and mother murmur out
Unutterable things.

_He_ half unconscious--_she_ deep-struck
With sudden, solemn truth,
That number'd are her days on earth,
Her shroud prepared in youth--

That all in life her heart holds dear,
God calls her to resign.
She hears--feels--trembles--but looks up,
And sighs, "Thy will be mine!"

C.

* * * * *

THE TWO PATRONS.