Chapter III: Part 3

"_Dame_! and you are really a believer in it all, my good thief? Belief is out of fashion. I hope you did tell that cursed Jacobin he would go to a place he doesn't believe in, but which is a little like France to-day. Come and see me if ever you are in trouble and this trade comes to an end. I like men who can laugh. 'T is a pretty talent, and rather gone out just now. I am the Marquis de Ste. Luce--or was. Come and laugh for me, and tell me your story." He let fall a gold louis in Toto's basket, and elbowed his way through the crowd, with "Pardon, monsieur," to white cockades, and scant courtesy to the Jacobins and the _demi-constitutionnels_, who were readily known by their costumes.

As the marquis ceased to speak, Francois heard a singular noise in the tent back of him. He withdrew his head to see the cause, and a moment later, reappearing, said he must be excused, because his friend was ill. The crowd broke up. Within the tent lay Pierre on the ground, in a fit. Francois, greatly alarmed and utterly at a loss, threw water in his face, and waited. In a few moments it was over, and the man, flushed and breathing deeply, lay with red froth on his lips, as if in a deep sleep. He was no longer convulsed; but what further to do the partner knew not, and sat beside him, not more competent to deal with this novel situation than was Toto, who walked about, and scratched his nose, and gave it up. An hour went by with Pierre's head resting on Francois's lap.

At last Despard opened his eyes. "Take him away," he said. The man was delirious.

"Who?"

"Take him away. Will he kill me? He killed her." A half-hour he wandered in mind, while Francois bathed his flushed face. Then he drew a deep breath, and said: "What is this? Where am I?"

Francois replied: "Thou hast had a fit."

"A fit? Yes; I have them--not often. I remember now. Has he gone, that devil?--that marquis?"

"Who? Ste. Luce? Was it he that troubled thee?"

"Yes; he."

"But what then?"

By and by Pierre sat up. Seeing him to be quite himself, but staring about as if in fear, Francois said:

"Come, now; I must have the whole story. What the mischief has this fine gentleman done to thee? I am out of patience with thy tiresome mysteries. I know him; we have met before. Perhaps I can help thee."

"Thou?"

Pierre lay back on the floor, and covered his face.

"_Mon Dieu!_" he cried, "why wilt thou force me to talk of it? Oh, to hate, and to be afraid!" He started up. "I am afraid."

"If I hated a man," said Francois, "_sacre bleu_! I would twist his neck."

"If I could! if I could! I am not like thee. I am--am a coward. That's the truth."

"_Dame!_ that is curious." He regarded the fat little man with attentive eyes. "Suppose we have it all out, and get done with it."

"Done with it?"

"Yes; done with it! Hast thou often had these fits before?"

"Yes; and then I am better for a while."

"Tell me all about this man. I will take care of thee."

"No; God did not: thou canst not."

"Then we must separate. I am tired of thy nonsense, and I do not care a rap how soon this business ends, what with your cursed melancholy and that jade Quatre Pattes. Now, out with it!"

Pierre, seated on the floor of the booth, red-eyed and dejected, looked up piteously at his questioner. "If I tell thee all, thou wilt despise me."

"Not I. Go on! If thou canst speak out like a man, I may be able to help thee; but if thou art of a mind to hold thy tongue, it were better we parted. I am tired of thy folly."

Thus urged, Pierre told his story, reluctant, with bowed head, and at times in tears. Francois sat over him on a stool, now and then asking a question, or waiting patiently when Pierre, choked by overmastering emotions, was silent for a while.

"I have been unhappy and unlucky from the time I can first remember," said Pierre. "My people belonged to the lesser noblesse, but my father was poor--oh, very poor. We had been ruined folks away there in Normandy for half a century, only a bit of farm and vineyard left to us. My mother was of the bourgeoisie, foolish and pretty. She died young, and I was left the only child. My father treated me ill. I had no courage, he said. It was true. As I grew up, I was timid like a girl, and fearful of quarrels. When I was about twenty years old I had a trouble with a brother of this marquis. He struck me with his whip because of something I said. My father learned that I had excused myself, and was wild with rage. It was my bourgeois mother, he said; we had lost all but honor, and now that too was gone. He died not long after, and I, with a few hundred francs, was driven out to care for myself. The marquis had a mortgage on the farm. I went to a village near by, and lived awhile as I could until I was down to my lust sou. I worked like a peasant in the fields; I was the servant at an inn. At last a mountebank company attracted me, and in despair I went with them to take care of the horses which served them in their performances. By and by I learned sleight of hand, and fared better. At last I married a girl who danced in our company. She was pretty,--oh, more than pretty,--and clever, too. When we came again to our town, a notary offered me a petty clerk's place, and I was well contented to settle down. My wife was too eager for the society of the bourgeoisie, and they would have none of that of the dancing-girl. Then, unhappily, this marquis saw my wife, and how I know not, but his fine clothes and cunning were too much for one who was eager for a society she could not have. I was busy, and often absent collecting small debts. No one warned me. I was satisfied, and even put by a little money.

"There was a woman in the village, Mme. Quintette, a dressmaker, a shameless creature of bad life. She might have been then some fifty years old. 'T is now twelve years ago. At her house the marquis met my wife. One day my Renee was gone, and this Quintette with her. It is she who is this Quatre Pattes."

"The deuce!" cried Francois. "Now I see."

"More than a year went by. Thou wouldst have killed the man. I could not. I am a coward, Francois--a coward! God made me so; I can't help it. One day an infant was brought to my door, with a note. _Mon Dieu_, such a note! The dying mother in the hospital with her last money paid a good sister to take the child to me--to me, of all men! And would I pardon her? Francois, it was that devil's babe and hers. Would I forgive her, and keep it? Wouldst thou have kept it?"

"No," said Francois; "not I."

"I did! I did! It was like her, all but the eyes. I grew to love it. Then there was an accident, a fall, and the little maid is crippled for life. It seemed horrible, but now I thank God, because she is safe from the baseness of men. I wanted to die, but I must live; she has no other friend."

Francois sat still, pitiful, and deep in thought. At last he said: "Why were you so terribly afraid of that woman? She could do no worse than ruin our business."

"I--hast thou ever been afraid thou wouldst murder some one? I was. I would have done it in a minute hadst not thou come in."

"_Sac a papier_! Afraid of thyself! How queer! Thou wert afraid of thyself?"

"Yes; I am--I was--I am often afraid of myself."

"Let us forget it."

"I cannot. What can I do?"

"Do? Nothing."

"But that man--"

"Well, thou art helpless. I should not be. Forget. Thy chance may come." He was at the end of his wisdom. He pitied this weak-hearted coward who so frankly avowed his defect. "We will speak of it no more, Pierre, or not now. But what brought you to Paris? Let us have it all, and get done with it."

"My poor little humpback was hardly six years old when she came to me, crying, to know why the village children would not play with her. She was a humpback and a bastard. What was 'bastard'? I have always fled from trouble. One day I took the child and what little I had, and was away to Paris. God knows how it hurt me to hear every evening how she had been mocked and tormented; one is so foolishly tender. In this great city I sought work, and starved. And when at last she was fading before my eyes, I stole--my God, I stole!"

"_Dame_! thou art particular. Must a man starve?"

"When I got money out of a full purse I took, I set up our little business, and then I found thee. And this is all. I dare say I shall feel better to have told some one. I did not want to steal. I did not steal after I began with the booth, unless I was in need--oh, sorely in need. It was so on that fortunate day when I was saved by thee. In thy place I should have kept the old fishwife's purse."

"And let me swing?"

"Yes--perhaps; I don't know. I--it is well for me thou wert not a coward."

"_Sacristie_! It appears that not to be a coward has its uses. Now _bon jour_ and adieu to the whole of this business. Let the miserable past go. 'T is bad company, and not amusing. Have no fear; I will take care of thee. Come, let us go home."

"Thou wilt look about a little before we go?"

"Toto, he is mad, this man."

"I sometimes think I am. At night, in my dreams, I have him by the throat, and he laughs, and I cannot hold him. I wake up, and curse in the darkness because I cannot kill him. And then I know it is a debt never to be paid--never."

Francois had had enough of the small man's griefs. Contempt and pity were strangely mingled as he listened to his story.

"I shall let thee talk no more," he said. "But _mille tonnerres_! I cannot help thee to go mad. Let us go and wander in the country to-morrow, thou and I and Toto. It will comfort thee. But no more of this; I will not stand it."

The advice was wholesome, and, as usual, Pierre accepted the orders of his more sturdy-minded friend.

*X*

_How Pierre became a Jacobin and how a nation became insane._

Although the marquis was not again upon the scene, as the months went by Despard became by degrees more gloomy. At night, in place of the gay little cafe, he went out to the club of the Jacobins, and fed full of its wild declamations against the _emigres_ and the aristocrats. It amused Francois, who saw no further ahead than other men. Despard came home loaded with gazettes and pamphlets, and on these he fed his excitement long after his partner was asleep.

When, as time went by, Pierre's vagaries increased, Francois found in them less subject for mirth. The fat little man sat up later and later at night. At times he read; at others he walked about muttering, or moving his lips without uttering a sound. What disturbed Francois most was that the poodle now and then showed fear of Pierre, and would no longer obey him as he had been used to do.

Meanwhile, as Pierre still attended sedulously to business, Francois could find no fault. He himself had become devoted to his art of palm-reading. He bought at the stalls old books, Latin and French, which treated of the subject, and tried to keep up the name his odd ways had made so profitable. Deceit was a part of his working capital; but deceit and credulity are apt to go together, as a great man has well said. Not for many louis would the conjurer have let any one read again the lines of his own hand. When Despard began to teach him the little he himself knew of palmistry, it had caused interest, and after a while a half-belief. This grew as he saw the evident disturbance to which the use of his art gave rise in certain of those who at first appeared to look upon it as an idle jest. The imaginative have need to be wary, and this man was imaginative, and had the usual notions of the gambler and thief as to omens and luck. I have said he had no definite working conscience. I have also said that he possessed an inborn kindness of heart; he had a long memory for benefits, and a short one for injuries. His courage was of fine quality: not even Quatre Pattes could terrify him.

The politics of the time were becoming month by month more troublous to such as kept their heads steady in the amazing tumble of what for centuries had been on top, and the rise of that which had been as long underneath. The increasing interest of Pierre in all that went on surprised Francois, and sometimes, as I have said, amused him. He could not comprehend why he should care whether the king ruled, or the Assembly. This mighty drama was nothing to him. He paid no taxes; he toiled not, nor spun, except nets of deceit; and whether or not commerce died and the plow stood idle in the furrow was to him of no moment. Meanwhile, before the eyes of a waiting, wondering world historic fate was shuffling the cards as neither war nor misrule had shifted them for many a day. Knave and king, spade and club, were now up, now down. Every one was in a new place. The old surnames were replaced by classical appellations. Streets, palaces, and cities were rebaptized with prenominal republican adjectives. Burgundy, Anjou, Navarre, and the other ancient provinces, knew no more their great names heroically famous.

All men were to be equal; all men were free to be what they could. But the freedom of natural or acquired inequality was not to be recognized. There were new laws without end. The Jacobin added a social creed. All men must _tutoyer_. "Your Majesty" was no more to be used. Because the gentles said "thou" and "thee" to one another and to an inferior, all men must "thou" as a sign that all are on a level.

A bit of paper was to be five francs--and take care of thy head if thou shouldst venture to doubt its value. As to all else, men accepted the numberless and bewildering decrees of the Assembly. But the laws of commerce no ruler can break. These are despotic, changeless, and as old as the act of barter between man and man. The assignats fell in value until two hundred francs would scarce buy a dinner. There, too, was a new navy and a new army, with confusing theories of equal rights for sailor, soldier, and captain.

A noble desire arose everywhere to exercise the new functions. What joy to cast a ballot, to act the part of officials, to play at soldiering! All the cross dogs in France are unchained and the muzzles off; and some are bloodhounds. What luxury to be judge, jury, and hangman, like the noble of long ago!

Even childhood caught the temper of the time. It played at being officer and prisoner, built and tore down bastilles, and at last won attention and a law all to itself when some young ruffians hung one of their number in good earnest for an aristocrat.

However indifferent was Francois at this time, the shifting drama amused him as some monstrous burlesque might have done. Its tragedies were as yet occasional, and he was by nature too gay to be long or deeply impressed. There was none he loved in peril, and how to take care of Francois his life had taught him full well.

"_Allons zi gaiement!_" he cried, in the tongue of his old quarter; and kept a wondering, anxious eye on Pierre.

*XI*

_The juggling firm of Despard, Francois & Co. is broken up--Despard goes into politics, and Francois becomes a fencing-master._

January, 1791, Francois, having of late found business slack, had moved to the open _place_ in front of the Palais Royal. He had taught Toto new tricks--to shoulder a musket and to die _pour la patrie_. Time was telling men's fortunes quite too fast for comfort. Neither his old devices nor Toto's recently acquired patriotism was of much avail. Moreover, Pierre was losing interest in the booth as he became absorbed in politics.

"Thou wilt not go to thy _sacre_ club, Pierre," said Francois, one night late in February. "Here are two days thou hast left us, the patriot Toto and me, to feed thee and make sous for the poor little maid at Sevres."

"She is not at Sevres."

"Why not? Thou hast not said a word to me of this."

"No; I had more important matters to think of."

Francois, who was tranquilly smoking his pipe, looked up at his partner. The man had lately worn a look of self-importance.

"Well, what else?"

"The sisters are aristocrats. A good _citoyenne_ hath her. I shall give up the show. The country calls me, Pierre Despard, to save her. The great Robespierre hath asked me to go into Normandy, to Musillon, whence I came. I am to organize clubs of Jacobins." He spoke with excitement, striding to and fro. He declared that he was not afraid now of any one. To serve France was to have courage.

"And how as to money?" asked Francois.

He said his expenses would be paid by the clubs. Barnave, Duport, and the deputies of the Right must be taught a lesson. There must be no more kings. The people must rule--the people! He declaimed wildly.

"_Fichtre!_" cried Francois, laughing. "It does seem to me that they rule just now."

Pierre went on with increasing excitement; and would not Francois go with him?

"Go with thee? Thou sayest we shall be deputies in the new Convention. A fine thing that! And Toto too, I suppose? Not I. I am an aristocrat. I like not thy Robespierre. As to the show, it pays no longer, and I have greased the claws of the Crab until there is no more grease left. I shall take to the streets, Toto and I. And so thou art to be a great man, and to play poodle on thy hind legs for Petion and the mob?"

Pierre was offended. He rose and stood glaring at Francois with wide-open eyes; then he said, as if to himself: "The marquis is near Evreux. Let him take heed!"

"_Mon Dieu_! He will eat thee as he would the frogs of his moat, that man! I am not of those who fear, but if I had angered him--"

"I have named him to the great Robespierre, the just, the good. He will remember him."

"Then go; and the devil take the whole lot of you!"

"I shall go. But do not say thou art an aristocrat, for then I must hate thee."

"_Grand merci_! Thou poor, fat little pug, canst thou hate?"

"Aye, as hell hates." Upon this Toto took refuge under his master's bed.

Francois rose, and, standing in front of the flushed, fat little man, set a hand on each of Pierre's shoulders and stopped his excited march.

"I cannot understand thee. I never could contrive to hate even a gendarme, and if hell hates, I know not. Thou art helpless as a turtle that is on his back. What use to kick? No; do not answer me. Hear me out. I shall go my way--thou thy way. I served thee a good turn once, and thou hast helped me to a living. Now I like not thy ways; thou art going mad, I think."

"Perhaps--perhaps," returned Pierre, gloomily. "Well, _c'est fini_--'t is done. Now to settle."

They divided their spare cash; and after that Pierre went to his club, and Francois to bed and a dreamless sleep.

In the morning he rose early, left his share of the rent on the table, and with a little bag of clothes, and Toto after him, walked away across the Seine, and soon found a small room under the roof. He paid in advance the customary _denier a Dieu_, and settled down to think.

He was tired of the show, and meant to resume his old trade. His conscience, or so much as he had, was at peace; all France was plundering. Now the nobles were robbed, and now the church.

"The world is on my side," he laughed, as he sat with Toto on his knees, looking over a wide prospect of chimney-pots and tiles.

Thus began again the life of the thief; but now, thanks to his long training as a juggler, he was amazingly expert. He took no great risks, but the frequent tumults of the streets were full of chances, although it must be said that purses were thinner, watches and gold snuff-boxes rarer, and caution less uncommon than it had once been. If business prospered, he and Toto took long holidays in the country, and did a little hunting of rabbits; for the gamekeeper was no longer a person to be dreaded. Sometimes, lying on the turf, he thought how pleasant would be a bit of garden, and assurance of good diet and daily work to his taste. I fear it would scarcely have been long to his taste. When something like a chance came, he could not make up his mind to accept the heaven-sent offer. He was to see many things and suffer much before his prosperous hour arrived.

One fine day in April, Francois, with whom of late fortune had quarreled, was seated in the sun on a bench in the now ill-tended garden of the Luxembourg. The self-made difficulties of the country were affecting more and more the business of the honest, and of that uncertain guild which borrows but never returns. He had a way of taking Toto into his counsels. "What shall we do, little devil?" The poodle barked. "No. These accursed Jacobins are ruining France. What, knock a man on the head at night! Bad dog, hast thou no morals? _Va donc_! Go to. Thou hast not my close experience of the lantern, and stone walls for a home I like not. Work, thou sayest? Too late; there is work for no one nowadays. Thou wilt end badly, little monster."

Toto whined, and having no more to say, fell asleep. At this moment Francois, looking up, saw go by a young woman in black, and with her a boy of perhaps ten years. On the farther side was a tall, well-dressed man of middle age, whom, as he was looking away, Francois did not recognize. Some bright thing fell unnoticed from the woman's wrist, and lay in the sun. "Hist, Toto! Look there--quick!" In a moment the dog was away, and back again, with a small miniature set in gold and surrounded by pearls. It was the portrait of a young officer. Francois hastily put it back into the dog's mouth, saying: "Go to sleep! Down! down quickly!" The dog, well taught, accepted the trust, and dropped as if in slumber, his head on his paws, while his master studied the weathercocks on the old gray palace. A moment later both the man and the woman turned to look for the lost miniature. Then Francois saw that it was his old acquaintance the marquis. He had more than once seen him in the garden, where he was fond of walking; but the great seigneur had passed him always without notice. The boy ran back ahead of his grandfather, and coming to Francois, said innocently:

"Monsieur, have you seen a little picture madame let fall? It is so big, and I saw it only just now on her wrist. Please to help us to look for it. It is my father; he is dead."

After the boy came the woman, looking here and there on the gravel.

"_Dame de Dieu!_ she is beautiful," murmured Francois; "and that _sacre_ marquis!"

The voice he heard was sweet and low, and tender with regret at her loss.

"Has monsieur chanced to see a little miniature?"

Monsieur was troubled, but his pocket and stomach were both empty. Monsieur was distressed. He had seen no miniature.

Next came the marquis.

"Ho, ho!" he said pleasantly. "Here is the citizen my thief again. Have you seen a small miniature?"

Francois had not.

"_Diable_! 'T is a pity, monsieur. Well, pardon a _ci-devant_ marquis, but I do think monsieur knows a little too much of that miniature for his eternal salvation. Also, monsieur does not lie as well as might be expected from one in his line of life."

Francois rose. He was embarrassed as he saw the tearful face of the woman.

"I was about to say I would look--I would search."

Ste. Luce smiled. "Suppose we begin with you?"

"I have it not."

"Well, but where is it? I am not a man to be trifled with. Come, quick, or I must ask the gendarmes yonder for a bit of help."

Francois looked at him. There was menace in those cold gray eyes. Should he trust to his own long legs? At this instant he heard a sob, and glancing to the right, saw the woman seated on the bench with her face in her hands, the little fellow at her side saying: "Do not cry, mama; the gentleman will help us." The gentleman was ill clothed and seedy. He had seen women cry, but they were not like this woman.

"M. le Marquis does me injustice. Permit that my dog and I search a little."

The marquis smiled again. "_Pardieu!_ and if you search, and meanwhile take a fancy to run, your legs are long; but now I have you. How the deuce can I trust a thief?"

The little lad looked up. "I will go with monsieur to look--and the dog; we will find it, mama."

"Monsieur may trust me; I will not run away," said Francois. "If monsieur desires to search me?"

"I do not search thieves."

Francois looked at this strangely quiet gentleman with the large, light-gray, unpleasant eyes, and then at the woman.

"Come, Toto; we must take a look."

The marquis stood still, quietly watching thief, dog, and boy.

"Renee," he said, "don't make a fool of yourself."

Then from a distance the boy cried, "We found it, mama!" and ran to meet her.

The marquis took it as Francois rejoined the group.

"Ah, Master Thief, you are clever; but it is a little wet, this trifle, and warm too. The dog had it all the while in his mouth. He is well taught. Why the deuce did you give it up?"

The boy began to understand this small drama. He had the courage of his breed, and the training.

"Did you dare to steal my mama's picture?"

"Yes; when she let it fall."

"I know now why you were glad to give it back. It was because she cried."

"Yes; it was because she cried."

"Venire St. Gris!" exclaimed the marquis, who was pleased to swear like Henry of Navarre. "You are a poor devil for a thief. You have temptations to be good. I never have them myself. I thank Heaven I have reasonably well used my opportunities to be agreeably wicked."

"Father!" said the young woman, reproachfully; and then to Francois: "If you are a thief, still I thank you; I cannot tell you how much I thank you."

"And how many louis do you expect, most magnanimous of thieves?" said the marquis.

The woman looked up again. "Come to me to-morrow; I will find a way to help you."

Something of yearning, some sense of a void, some complexity of novel distress, arose in the thief's mind.

"_Mon Dieu!_ madame," he said, turning toward her, without replying to the marquis, "you are a saint. I--I will think. I am not fit for such as you to talk to."

"Quite true," said the marquis. "Hast thou thy purse, Renee? I forgot mine."

"No, no," she said. "Come and see us--Rue des Petits-Augustines--a great house with a gilded gate. You will come? I will say they are to let you in. Promise me that you will come."

"And bring that poodle," added the marquis; "I will buy him."

Francois laughed outright--that merry laugh which half Paris had learned to like, till Paris tired of it and of its owner.

"Monsieur will pardon me. I cannot sell my only friend. Good day." And he walked away, the boy crying after him: "You will come? Oh, you must come, because my mama says so."

The marquis muttered: "_Animal_! If I had your carcass--no, if I had had you awhile ago in Normandy, your manners would have been bettered. But now the world is upside down. He will come, Renee. If thou art quit of him for two hundred francs and a few lost spoons, thou mayest rest thankful."

Francois moved moodily away. Something was wrong in his world; an angel coming into his crude life would not have disturbed him as this lady's few kind words had done, and yet he had left her unanswered. He knew he had been a fool, but knew not why. He had, too, a notion that he and this marquis would meet again, but for this he was not eager. He recalled the palm-reading. Had the woman been alone, he would probably have said a glad "Yes"; but now his inclinations to obey her were sadly diluted by feelings which he did not analyze, or perhaps could not have analyzed. He did not accept the hand thus stretched out to save him, but for many a day her tender eagerness and the pleading face which had so attracted him came before him at times with a look of reproach. Is it strange that this glimpse of a nobler nature and a better life than his own should have had an influence on this man quite the reverse of that which its good will sought to effect? He cannot be said to have been refined, but he had in him tastes which are the germs of refinement, and which, when I knew him, had no doubt produced results. Probably he was in 1791 a coarser person, but he must always have been a man who could be forced by circumstances to think.

It may have been that the sense of a great gulf between him and a world he was by nature inclined to like caused one of those rare spells of despair to which the gay and over-sanguine are liable. Of course he had seen and for brief seasons shared the profligacy of the Cite,--his memoirs confess this with absolute frankness,--but these gross lapses had been rare and brief. Now he plunged headlong into the worst vileness of the most dissolute quarter, where few lived who were not saturated with crime. I have no desire to dwell on this part of his life. A month passed away, and he was beginning to suffer in health. This amazed him. He had not hitherto known a pang save that of hunger. He began to drink _eau-de-vie_ to relieve his sense of impaired strength, and being off his guard and under the influence of the temporary mood of rashness which drink is apt to cause, he twice narrowly escaped arrest.

Under the vivid impression thus created he was wandering homeward late at night to some low resort in the Cite, when in the Rue aux Feves he heard a cry in front of him. The moon was bright, and he saw a man set upon by two fellows. The person assailed was staggering from the blow of a club, and fell with the cry which the thief heard. Both bandits threw themselves upon him, and, as he unwisely struggled, Francois saw the glitter of a knife. Clearly this was no easy prey. As the three tumbled over in the mud of the street there was small chance for a decisive use of the blade. Francois, as I have said, had been always free from crimes of violence, but this affair was none of his business, and had his pocket been full he might have left the ruffians and their prey unmolested. His purse, however, was down to the last sou, and here was a chance.

He called, "Catch them, Toto!" and, leaping forward, seized one of the men by the throat and threw him on his back. The poodle took a good nip of the other rascal's leg, and when the man broke away and, stumbling, ran, pursued him until recalled by Francois's whistle. Meanwhile the assaulted man sat up, a bit dazed. The other fellow--it was he of the knife--was on his feet again, and at once turned furiously on the rescuer. Francois darted to one side, and, catching him by the neck, throttled him savagely. His great length of arm made it impossible for the scamp, who was short and strong, to reach any vital organ. But he stabbed Francois's shoulder over and over. Francois's grip on the throat was weakening, when the victim, now on his feet, struck the man under the ear, and thus knocked him clean out of Francois's failing grip. He fell headlong, but was up and away in a moment, while a crowd began to collect.

"Hi! it is Francois!" some one cried.

"Quick!" said the thief. "Room there! Let us get out of this." Seizing the man he had saved, he hustled his way through the crowd and hurried him toward the bridge. In a few minutes they were standing alone by the river, amid the tombs back of Notre Dame. Then the man spoke:

"By Heaven! thou hast saved my life. Hallo! thou art bleeding. Here!" and he tied a handkerchief about his shoulder. "We shall be in luck to find a chaise. Wait!" and he ran away.

Francois's head was dizzy. He sat on a tombstone, well sobered now, but bleeding freely. It was long before he heard a horse; and when in the chaise, where Toto promptly followed him, he fell back, and knew little more until they stopped in the Rue St. Honore. Here his new acquaintance got out, and soon returned with a glass of _eau-de-vie_. With this aid, and the arm of his host, Francois was able to reach a large room in the second story. He fell on a couch, and lay still while the other man ran out to find a surgeon.

On his arrival, Francois was put to bed in an adjoining room, and for two weeks of care and good diet had leave to meditate on the changeful chances of this wretched world. For a while he was too weak to indulge his customary keenness of curiosity. His host, M. Achille Gamel, paid him brief visits, and was singularly unwilling to talk one day, and the next sufficiently so for the patient to learn that he had been in the army as a _maitre d'armes_, and was now, in his own opinion, the best fencing-master in France. Through the partitions could be heard the click, click of the foils, and now and then the crack of pistols. After a fortnight Francois's wounds were fairly healed, and he began to get back his rosy complexion and his unfailing curiosity.

One pleasant evening in June, Gamel appeared as usual. It was one of his days of abrupt speech.

"Art well?"

"Yes."

"Thou art soon mended."

"Yes." His brevity begot a like form of answer, and Francois was now somewhat on his guard.

"I pay my debts."

"That is true."

"Now thou art well, what wilt thou do?"

"I--I--I shall go away."

"Why didst thou help me?"

"My pocket and paunch were empty. It seemed a chance."

"Thy two reasons are good. Who art thou?"

"Who is every one in the Cite? A thief."

"_Diable!_ but thou art honest--in speech at least."

"Yes, sometimes. I was a conjurer too--for a while."

"Yes, yes, I remember now. Thou art the fellow with a laugh. I see not yet why thou hast helped me. Thou mightest easier have helped the rascals and shared their gains."

Francois began to be interested, and laughed a laugh which was the most honest of his possessions.

"I dislike clumsiness in my profession," he said. "Why should the brutality of war be brought into a peaceful occupation?" He was half in earnest, half in jest.

"That is a third reason, and a good one." It was difficult to surprise Gamel. "Suppose we talk business," he added.

"Mine or thine?"

"Mine. A moment, Citizen Francois--permit me. Pray stand up a moment."

Francois rose as the fencing-master produced a tape-measure. "Permit me," and with no more words he set one end of the tape on Francois's shoulder and carried the length of it to his finger-tips.

Francois stood still, wondering what it all meant.

"The deuce!" said Gamel, slowly rolling up the measuring-tape.

"Well, what is it? What is wrong?"

"Wrong? Nothing. It is astonishing!"

"What?"

"This arm of thine."

"Why?"

"It is one and a half inches longer than mine."

"Well?"

"A gift! To have the longest arm in Paris! _Mon Dieu!_"

"What of that?"

"A fortune! Phenomenal! Superb! And a chest--and muscles! By Hercules, they are as hard as horn!"

"Well?"

"_Diable_! Thou art dull for a thief."

Francois had a high opinion of himself. He said: "Perhaps. What next?"

"I need help. I will teach thee to fence and to shoot. Canst thou be honest? I ask not if thou art."

"Can I? I do not know. I have never tried very long." Then he paused. To fence like a gentleman, to handle a sword, had its temptations. "Try me."

"Good! Canst thou be a Jacobin to-day and a Royalist to-morrow?"

"Why not?"

"The messieurs and their kind fence here in the morning; after our breakfast come the Jacobins about two. I ask not thy politics."

"Why not?" said Francois, who was the frankest of men--"why not? I am an aristocrat. I am at the top of my profession. I like naturally the folks who are on top."

"France is like a ball now, no top, no bottom, rolling. Let us be serious."

"_Dieu!_ that is difficult. I want to quit thieving. It doesn't pay at present. I accept the citizen's offer. Does it include my dog?"

"Yes, indeed! Toto--a treasure! He will delight our pupils."

"Good! He must have a little sword and wear a white cockade till noon, and then a tricolor."

"And will five francs a week suffice until thou art fit to teach? And thy board and lodging--that goes without saying. After a while we will talk again."

"'T is a fortune!" said Francois; and upon this agreement the pair fell to chatting about the details of their future work.

"One moment," said Francois, as Gamel rose. "What are thy own politics?"

"I will tell thee when I can trust thee," said the fencing-master. "Now they vary with the clock."

"I see. But I have told thee mine."

"Thou wert rash. I am not."

Francois laughed merrily, "Good night." He was happy to be at rest, well fed, and with something to do which involved no risk. Gamel went away, and Francois fell to talking to the poodle.

"Toto! Sit up, my sleepy friend! Attention! What dost thou think of M. Achille Gamel?" The poodle had been taught when questioned to put his head on one side, which gave him an air of intelligent consideration. "Ah, thou dost think he is as long-legged as I! Any fool of a cur can see that. What else?"

"He has great teeth--big--the better to eat thee, my dear! Curly hair, like thine, and as black; a nose--of course he has a nose, Toto. Art perplexed, little friend? Oh, that is it! I see. Thou art right. He smiles; he never laughs. 'T is that bothered thee. Thou dost like him? Yes. Thou art not sure? Nor I. We must laugh for two. The bones are good here. That is past doubt. We will stay, and we will keep our eyes open. And listen now, Toto. We are honest. Good! Dost thou understand? No more purses, or out we go. No stealing of cutlets. Ah, thou mayest lick thy chops in vain, bandit!"

A few days later Gamel began to fence with Francois, who liked it well. He was strong, agile, and like his old friends the cats for quickness of foot. Gamel was charmed.

"We must make no mistakes. The foil held lightly--so, so! If you grasp it too strongly you will not feel the other's blade. That is better. 'T is the fingers direct the point. Thy hand a little higher--so, so!"

They fenced before the pupils came and in the intervals when none was on hand. Francois was tireless.

It was June now, and Robespierre was the public prosecutor, with Petion at his side. Gamel read aloud the announcement with a coldly stern face. Francois heard it with indifference.

"_Tiens!_" he cried. "What matters it? _Dame!_" as he lunged at the wall, "I do believe my arm is an inch longer." He was thinking, as he tried over and over a new guard, of what a queer education he had had. Gamel walked away into his own room. He was a man who often liked to be alone. Apt to be monosyllabic with his pupils, he could at times become seriously talkative at night over a pipe and a glass. Francois began to like him, and to suspect that he in turn was liked--a matter not indifferent to this poor devil, who had himself an undeveloped talent for affection.

"_Mon ami_, Toto! Let us think. I might have been a priest. What an escape! Or a great chorister. That is another matter. A thief, a street-dog, a juggler, a _maitre d'escrime_. _Parbleu_! What next? We are getting up in the world. My palm, little rascal? Thou wouldst read it. Ah, bad dog, not I! Let us to bed; come along. It seems too good to last."

*XII*

_In which Toto is seen to change his politics twice a day--the mornings and the afternoons quarrel--In which Jean Pierre Andre Amar, "le farouche," appears._

The fencing-master took great pains with his promising _debutant_, and now at last thought he could trust him to give lessons. He gave him much advice, full of good sense. He must dress simply, not in any marked fashion. And here were the two cockades, and two for Toto, who was fitted with a toy sword, and had been taught to howl horribly if Francois said, "Citizen Capet," and to do the like if he cried, "Aristocrat!"

Francois, gay and a little anxious, followed Gamel for the first time during the lesson-hours into the _salle d'armes_. Toto came after them in full rig, with a cap and a huge white cockade. A dozen gentlemen, most of them young, were preparing to fence.

The poodle was greeted with "Bravo!" and strutted about on his hind legs with evident enjoyment of the approval.

"Wait here," said Gamel to Francois. "I will by and by give thee a chance." Francois had, of course, been constantly in the room when the patrons were absent, and it was now familiar. It had been part of the old hotel of some extinct nobleman, and was of unusual height, and quite forty feet square, with tall windows at each end; a cushioned bench ran around the walls, and above it hung wire masks, foils, sabers, and a curious collection of the arms of past ages and barbarous tribes. Chiefly remarkable were the many fine blades, Spanish or Eastern. At the side of the hall, a doorway led into the shooting-gallery, a late adjunct since the English use of the pistol had been brought into the settlement of quarrels made savage by the angry politics of the day. On one of the walls of the fencing-room was a large sign on which was painted: "Achille Gamel, _ci-devant_ Maitre d'Armes, Regiment du Duc de Rohan-Chabot. Lessons in the small sword, saber, and pistol." The word "Duc" was chalked over, but was still easily to be made out.

Presently Gamel came to Francois in his shirt and breeches, foil in hand. "This way, Francois." As they slowly crossed the room, Gamel went on to say in a low tone of voice: "Don't be too eager. Take it all as a matter of course. Don't be nervous. One must have had a serious affair or two before one gets over the foil fever. Remember, you are here to teach, not to triumph. There are few here you cannot touch, but that is not business."

"I understand," said Francois.

"I will give you for your lesson the best blade in Paris. You can teach him nothing. He is my foster-brother, the Marquis de Ste. Luce."

"Ste. Luce!"

"Yes; he is here often."

As they approached, the great gentleman came to meet them, separating himself from the laughing group of younger men.

"_Ma foi!_" he exclaimed. "Is this your new blade, Gamel?" He caught Francois's appealing eye, and showed no sign of having known the thief until they were apart from the rest and had taken their foils. Then he said quietly, "Does Gamel know?"

"Yes, monsieur. I saved his life in a row in the Cite, and he gives me this chance."

"Good! I shall not betray you. But beware! You must keep faith, and behave yourself."

"Monsieur may trust me."

"And you can fence?"

"A little, monsieur."

"Well, then, on guard!" The marquis was pleased to praise the new teacher. "He has a supple wrist, and what a reach of arm!" At last he went away to Gamel's room, where they were absent a half-hour. These private talks, Francois observed later, were frequent, especially with certain of the middle-aged gentlemen who took here their morning exercise.

After this first introduction to business, Francois sat still when the marquis had left him. By and by the gentleman came back, and saying a word of encouragement to Francois, went away.

"Take M. de Lamerie, Francois," said Gamel; and turning to a gentleman near by, added, "_A vous_, monsieur." Others began to select foils and to fence in couples, so that soon the hall rang with the click, click of meeting steel. Francois was clever enough to let his pupil get in a touch now and then, and meanwhile kept him and those who looked on delighted with his natural merriment. He was soon a favorite. The dog was made to howl at a tricolored cockade, and proved a great success. As to the fencing-lessons, Gamel was overjoyed, and as time ran on came to trust and to like his thief, who began speedily to pick up the little well-mannered ways and phrases he heard about him. He liked well to be liked and to be praised for his skill, which week by week became greater, until none except M. Gamel and the marquis were able to meet him on equal terms. The master of arms was generous; the wages rose. The clothes Francois now wore were better, and when Gamel asked him to choose a rapier for wear in the street, which was not yet forbidden, the poor thief felt that he was in the full sunlight of fortune.

The afternoons were less to his taste. If a new pupil arrived, the cook, an old woman, let him in, and Gamel saw him in an anteroom and settled terms and hours. The Jacobins came after two o'clock. Then the room was unusually full. The poodle howled at the name of Louis Capet. Tricolored cockades were everywhere. The talk was of war and the frontier, the ways of speech were guarded, the manners not those of the morning. These citizens were awkward, but terribly in earnest. The pistol-gallery was much in favor; but at this deadly play Francois was never an expert. He did not like it, and was pleased when the Vicomte de Beausejour, a favored pupil, said: "'T is a coarse weapon, Francois. Ah, well enough to enable bulldog English to settle their disputes over a bone; but, _dame!_ quite unfit to be the arm of honor of gentlemen." This uncertain property of honor seemed to Francois a too insecure kind of investment. It was enough to have to take care of one's pocket; and his being now well lined, Francois began to resent the possibility of those sudden changes of ownership which under other conditions he had looked upon as almost in the nature of things.

During this summer, and in the winter of '91 and '92, Gamel was at times absent for days. Whenever he returned he was for a week after in his monosyllabic mood. Francois, who was keenly alive to his present advantages, and who saw how these absences interfered with their business, began to exercise his easily excited inquisitiveness, and to meditate on what was beneath Gamel's frequent fits of abstraction. His own life had known disappointments, not always of his own making. He dreaded new ones. The past of the Cite, Quatre Pattes, Despard, those haunting eyes of the marquis's widowed daughter, the choristers, the asylum, the mad street life--all the company of his uncertain days--were gone. Now, of late, he began to have a feeling of uneasy belief that things were once more about to change. Nor was the outer life of the capital such as to promise tranquillity. A nation was about to become insane. It was at this time like a man thus threatened: to-day it was sane, to-morrow it might be reeling over the uncertain line which separates the sound from the unsound. Had Francois been more interested and more apprehensive, he was intelligent enough to have shared the dismay with which many Frenchmen saw the growth of tumultuous misrule. Indeed, the talk of the morning fencing-school should have taught him alarm. But he had formerly lived the life of the hour, even of the minute, and as long as he was well fed, housed, and clothed, his normal good humor comfortably digested anxiety.

I should wrongly state a character of uncommon interest if I were to give the impression of a man who had merely the constant hilarity of a happy child. He was apt to laugh where others smiled; but, as he matured, cheerful contentment was his usual mood, and with it, to the last, the probability of such easily born laughter as radiated mirth upon all who heard it, like a companionable fire diffusing its generous warmth. He was at this time doing what he most fancied. The company suited him. He liked the tranquil ways of these courteous gentlemen. In a word, he was contented, and for a time lost all desire to seek change or adventure. His satisfaction in the life made him more quiet and perhaps more thoughtful. He had every reason to be cheerful, and cheerfulness is the temperate zone of the mind.

At times, on Sundays, in the summer of '92, he wandered into the country with Toto; but these holidays were rare. Now and then the habits of years brought again the longing for excitement; with the meal-hours he recovered his common sense, being a big fellow of sharp appetite and a camel-like capacity for substantial food.

The feud between the cockades broke out at this time in duels, which it became the fashion to drive to the Bois to see. Women of all classes looked on and applauded, and few liked it if the affair failed to prove grave. Francois found it entertaining. The duels were, in fact, many in the years of grace '91 and '92.

The morning pupils wore their hair in curls, dressed in short clothes, and defied the new-fashioned republican pantaloons, which were rising up to the armpits and descending the legs. They carried sword-canes, or sticks like the club of Hercules; a few still wore the sword. Brown and gray wore the afternoon citizens, with long straight hair, short waistcoats, and long and longer _culottes_ above large steel shoe-buckles, all that were silver having been given to aid the funds of a bankrupt government. The morning, which knew very well who came in the later hours, abused the afternoon, and this portion of the day returned those compliments in kind.