Chapter VI: Part 6

A few days later, when lying behind a deserted hut at dusk, Francois heard a noise of military music, and ventured forth on the road leading to the barrier. Many hundreds of the wounded from the frontier were passing, in wagons or on foot. The communes and clubs were out to meet them. The cabarets outside of the gate poured forth a noisy company. The road was full. Who should stop the free citizens or the ladies of the fish-market, come to welcome patriot volunteers? Here was an escort of troops, wild, triumphant greeting of captured Austrian flags, many wounded in wagons, many more afoot, marching wearily. Those who walked the people must aid. The ranks were soon broken, and all was good-natured tumult. Here was help for heroes--wine, bread, eager aid of an arm. Some who were dragging along on crutches, to get a little relief from jolting wagons, were hoisted, to their discomfort, on the shoulders of friendly patriots not eager to volunteer.

Francois, tucking Toto under his cloak, edged himself into the broken ranks of the heroes of Hondschoote and Wattignies. "We are many," he said to a man beside him, as tattered as he, for there was scarcely a rag of uniform. "Jolly to get home again!"

"_Sacre!_ not if they guillotined thy father a week ago."

"_Dame!_ is that so? But patience, and hold thy tongue, citizen. _Tonnerre!_ my leg." He was limping.

"Thy shoulder, friend"--to a blouse. "_Tiens!_ that is better. The Austrian bullets have a liking for one's bones. Crack! crack! I can hear them yet. They do not spare the officers any more than they do the privates."

Should they carry the citizen officer--take care of his sword? Francois thanked them; the citizens must be careful of his leg; and there was Francois on the shoulders of two big Jacobins, like a dozen more; for it was who should help, and a shouting, good-humored crowd. Francois was not altogether well pleased at his elevation; he dropped forward his too well-known face. There was a jam at the barrier. Had these citizen soldiers their passes, as provided? Francois was weak; he suffered, poor fellow! The Jacobins and the women roared derisively: "Passes for heroes?" All order was lost. They were through, and in the Rue d'Enfer. Would the good citizens let him walk? He was heavy, and they were pleased to be relieved of one hundred and ninety-five pounds of wounded hero.

Meanwhile there was some renewed order in the broken formation; yet now and then men fell out to meet sweethearts or friends, usually coming back again to the ranks. The hint was good.

"_Ciel!_ comrade, there is my mother!" The crowd gave way as the hero hobbled out of the line. He called out: "_Mere, mere_--mother! Here! 'T is I--Adolphe. The deuce! she is so deaf."

Where was she? Citizens were eager to help him.

"Ah," he cried, "she saw me not"; and, turning into a side street near the asylum, limped painfully in pursuit of the mother who was afflicted with deafness. Toto followed. Once around a corner, the lameness disappeared. In the gathering dusk he set out for the Cite.

"It must be Quatre Pattes, Toto. Come along. A bad year, my friend, to have lost a father and a mother. No matter; we are in Paris."

He loved the streets. "Ah, there is Notre Dame and the river!" He was happy, and went along laughing, and at last turned into a small cafe near to his old home in the Rue des Chanteurs.

He was tired and hungry, and, as he agreeably remembered, well off, having had small chance to spend the money with which he had been generously provided by Achille Gamel. The bread and cheese were good, and the wine was not bad. He asked for tobacco and a pipe. Would the host find him "L'Ami du Peuple"? He was a sublieutenant, wounded on the frontier; but, _dame!_ to get home was happiness.

Two men sat down by him, and talked. Good Jacobins were these, in the dirty uniforms of the sansculotte army which kept Paris in order at the rate of forty sous a day. "Bad wages, citizen lieutenant," they said.

The hero of the frontier was worse off--no pay for three months. He related his battles; and now he must go.

"Come, Toto." Toto had been wounded at Wattignies; he was well now, and would be promoted. "_Bon soir_, comrades." In fact, he was wildly gay, glad to be back in Paris.

He paused, at last, before a house of the date of Henri II. Its heavy, narrow door, and a slit in the wall for a window, told of days when every man's house was a fortress.

"It is our best chance, Toto; but best may be bad. We must do something." He jingled the bell. The cord was drawn by the concierge within, so as to lift the latch, and Francois entered the hall. To right was the Crab's den, and there within was Quatre Pattes. He saw the thin purple nose, the bleared red eyes, the bearded chin, and the two sticks.

"_Mille tonnerres!_ my child, it is thou. And where hast thou been? There is no thief like thee. Come and laugh for thy old mother." She welcomed him in thieves' slang, vile, profuse, and emphatic. Had he any money? Yes, a little; business was good in the provinces; and would she house him? Here was a louis d'or for _maman_; and what was this abominable _carte de surete_, this new trap? She explained. He need have no fear; she would get him one. He had been in bad company, she had heard; for a Jacobin had told her of the fencing-school, and thither, too late, she had gone to get a little help. He had nearly killed Amar, _le farouche_, and that injured citizen was said to desire his society. But that was long ago; and Paris lived fast, and was gay, and forgot easily.

Francois had no wish to refresh Citizen Amar's memory. He asked lightly if she had ever seen Gregoire, the commissioner to Normandy?

Mme. Quatre Pattes had never seen him. He was of the Great Committee--a patriot of the best, like herself. Did he know Gregoire? He told her frankly that he had been arrested by Gregoire, and had escaped.

"Thou art the first, my child!" she cried, her jaws champing as if she were eating. "Thou hast a fine taste in the choosing of enemies. I would not be in thy skin for a hundred louis; and now a cat of the night thou must be. I can hide thee awhile; and if thou dost feed me well, the mama-crab will care for thee. No one need know thou art here. Come, get thee a few louis, and we will buy a fine card of safety, and christen thee to suit. Ha, ha! my little one!" and she beat with her sticks on the floor.

Our thief was now back in his garret, having lost as many fair chances of prosperity as did Murad the Unlucky. He reflected much in these late autumn months of 1793, being for his wants rich, and therefore in no necessity to give a thought to methods of getting his daily diet. During the daytime Quatre Pattes insisted on his secluding himself in his garret. At night he left Toto with the Crab, who fed him well, and was therefore liked by a revolutionary dog without prejudices. From these night prowls Francois returned with sad complaints of the way the republicans guarded their slim purses; in fact, at this time he avoided adventures, stole from no one, and gave of his lessening store what barely contented Mme. Quatre Pattes. Were I to say that his goodness came from newly acquired views of life, I should mislead. He was as honest as ever, which is to say he took no thought at all as to ethical questions. We are said to be children of circumstance, which may be described as the environment of the hour. This is true of the feeble; but character was the more despotic parent in this resolute man, who could wrestle strenuously with circumstance. He was a Royalist because he liked show and color and the fine manners of the great; in the past he stole because he knew no other way to live. His admirable health was a contribution to his natural cheerfulness. He still had simple likings--for the country, for animals, and would have had for books had they been easy to get, or had he known how to get those which would have fed his mind and had sauce of interest.

His surroundings would have surely and hopelessly degraded a less permanent character, and a nature without his ingrained gaiety would have taken more steadily some thought of the far future. He knew too well how the thief's life ended: the galleys, the wheel, the lonely death-bed in the hospital. If he reflected on it at all, as he seems to have done at this time, it was because of his long, weary days in the attic. The immediate future at this period did disturb him, but never long. He liked to talk, and, lacking society, talked more and more to himself aloud, with Toto for an audience which never ceased to attend. He who is pleased with his own talk cannot easily be bored; and so he talked, until Quatre Pattes, who loved keyholes and to listen, thought he must be out of his head. She herself was always either silent or boisterous, and was as to this like other beasts of prey. When in calamity Francois was too busy to be serious. When at ease the mirthfulness of his natural man forbade argument as to what the dice-box of to-morrow would offer; for to laugh is to hope, and Francois, as we know, laughed much, well, and often.

There were many times in his life when to have been honestly loved by a woman capable of comprehending both his strength and his weakness would, I think, have given him the chance to live a better life. But how was this possible to one who lived as he lived--who was what he was?

To be merely liked was pleasant to Francois, and appealed with the most subtle form of flattery to his immense self-esteem. The man was sensitive, and in after days, when in an atmosphere of refinement, would never speak of the terrible women he had known too well in the Cite. Having no longer the distraction of the streets, he was at present condemned to live long hours with no society but that of Toto and the animal Quatre Pattes. He bought a small field-glass, and studied the habits of his neighbors far and near, and once more took interest in the feline owners of the roof-tops. Quatre Pattes fed him well, and brought him some of the old gazettes.

He read how, on that frightful 5th of September, now past, one of the five complementary days of the republican calendar, on motion of Barrere, "Terror" was decreed by the Convention to be the order of the day. It was indeed the birth-hour of the Terror. The Great Committee was in power. The revolutionary tribunals were multiplied. The law of suspected persons was drawn with care by the great jurist Merlin of Douai. Behind these many man-traps was the Committee of Public Safety, with despotic power over the persons of all men, and in full control of the prisons. To it the subcommittees reported arrests; it secured the prisoners who were to be tried; it saw to the carrying out of all sentences; it kept the peace in Paris with an array of sansculottes, and fed the guillotine daily. Of this stern mechanism, strong of head and incapable of pity, was Pierre Andre Amar; as, one day, Francois read with his full share of the Terror. There was soon enough of it to supply all France.

Before November came, Francois, pretending to have been in luck, supplied the Crab with six louis. She exacted two more, and how much she kept none may know. He had very few left.

She was as good as her word. "Here, my little one, is the _carte de surete_ from the committee of this section." The description was taken from his passport. He was no more to be Francois, but Francois Beau. If he would denounce one or two people, the committee would indorse his card as that of "a good patriot who deserved well of the country." There was the lame cobbler over the way, who talked loosely, and to whom the Crab owed money; that would be useful and convenient. Francois shivered all down his long back; he would see. Meanwhile, as he considered, Quatre Pattes twisted her bent spine, rattled her two sticks, and looked up at him sidewise with evil eyes, bidding him have a care, and not get his good mama into trouble, or else, or else--Francois felt that some night he might have to wring that wrinkled neck. He was uneasy, and with good reason.

He could bear the confinement no longer, and in December began to find his cash getting low. He had let his beard grow, and taken to long, tight pantaloons and a red cap. He felt that, come what might, he must take the risks of daylight.

The chances against him were small. The numberless denunciations of the winter fell chiefly on the rich, the rash in talk, the foes of the strong heads who were ably and mercilessly ruling France. The poor, the obscure, and the cautious bourgeoisie were as a rule safe until, in the spring, something like a homicidal mania took possession of Robespierre and others, who, although they were the most intelligent of the Great Committee, were never in control of a steady majority, and began to fear for their own heads.

Outwardly Paris was gay. The restaurateurs made money; the people were fed by levies of grain on the farmers; and the tumbrel, on its hideous way, rarely excited much attention. The autumn and winter of '93 were not without peril or adventure for the thief. The Palais d'Egalite, once royal, was his favored resort, and with his well-trained sleight of hand he managed to justify the name of the place by efforts to equalize the distribution of what money was left to his own advantage and to the satisfaction of the Crab.

The dark drama went on; but, except the tricoteuses who, like Quatre Pattes, went daily to see the guillotine at work, comparatively few attended this daily spectacle. Paris, wearied of crime and too much politics, was tired of the monotony of slaughter, which had now no shadow of excuse.

"Would the citizen miss the death of the Austrian, the ex-queen?" He would not; he knew better than to say no to Quatre Pattes. Would he go with her? She could get him a good place, and all Paris would be there. All Paris was not to his desire. He said he would go alone. A walk with this four-footed creature and the rattle of her becketing sticks he liked not. He called his dog, and, avoiding the vast assemblage on the Place of the Revolution, found his way to the Rue St. Honore.

He stood in a crowd against a house. The tumbrel came slowly, and, because of the surging mass of people, paused opposite to him. He looked about him. In a group at a window on the far side of the street he saw a man apparently sketching the sad figure in the cart. It seemed devilish to this poor outcast of the Cite. His face flushed; he asked who that was in the window, at which many were staring. The man he addressed was in black, and looked to be an ex-abbe.

"My son," he said quietly, and with no evidence of caution--"my son, 't is David the painter, he of the Great Committee. He hath no heart; but in another world he will get it again, and then--"

"Take care!" said Francois. The shouting crowd cried: "Messalina! Down with the Austrian!"

Francois looked, and saw the bent figure seated in the cart. Pale it was, with a red spot on each cheek, haggard; her gray hair cut close, pitiful; with pendent breasts uncorseted, lost to the horrors of the insults hurled at her abject state. Francois moved away, and the tumbrel went rumbling on. An hour later he was crossing the broad Elysian Fields amid the scattered crowd. It was over, and few cared. The booths were selling toy guillotines. Of a sudden he missed Toto. He called him, and, hearing him bark, pushed in haste into a large tent filled with women and children and with men in blouses.

"The citizen has not paid," cried the doorkeeper. Francois saw Toto struggling in the hands of a red-bearded man who was crying out: "Enter! enter! Trial and execution of an _emigre_ dog. _Voila_, citizens! Range yourselves." There was the red guillotine, the basket, the sawdust, and poor Toto howling. It was a spectacle which much amused the lower class of Jacobins. "_A bas le chien aristocrate!_"

Francois advanced with his cheerful smile. "The citizen is mistaken; it is my dog."

"Where is his _carte de surete_?" laughed the man. "Up with him for trial!"

Four monkeys were the judges. Jeers and laughter greeted Francois: "No, no; go on!"

He caught the man by the arm. The fellow let fall Toto, who made a hasty exit.

"I denounce thee for an enemy of the republic!" cried the showman. "Seize him! seize him!" Francois broke away, and, using his long arms, reached the entrance. There was no earnest desire to stop him. The doorkeeper caught him by the collar. He kicked as only a master of the _savate_ knows how to kick, and, free of the grip, called to Toto, and plunged into a crowd which made no effort to recapture him. He moved with them, and soon turned to cross the river.

Midway on the bridge he came face to face with Despard. He was ragged and fleshless, the shadow of the well-fed Jacobin he had last seen in the chateau of Ste. Luce.

"_Ciel!_" exclaimed Francois, "thou art starved." He had no grudge against his old partner, but he fully appreciated the danger of this encounter.

He was comforted by the man's alarm. "Come," said Francois, and took him into a little drinking-shop. It was deserted at this time of day. He easily drew out all he desired to know. Mme. Renee was assuredly dead; and he who threw the gauntlet, the butcher, dead also; and three or more on the fatal stairway. Gregoire had punished the village severely; heads had fallen. Pierre's friend Robespierre had abandoned him, had even threatened him--Pierre! but he had escaped any worse fate. He was half famished; and would Francois help him? Francois ordered bread and cheese and wine. He would see what next to do. And what of the marquis? He had not appeared in the lists of the guillotined; but he might readily have died unnamed, and escaped Francois's notice.

"No," said Pierre, sadly; "he lives. Of course he lives. The devil cannot die. He got away from Gregoire. Who could keep that man? But for thee and the accursed commissioner, I should have had my revenge. We shall meet some day."

"Shall I find him for thee?"

"_Dame!_ no. Let us go out. I am uneasy; I am afraid."

"But of what?"

"I do not know. I am afraid. I am accursed with fear. I am afraid as a man is in a dream. Somewhere else I shall cease to fear. Let us go." He was in a sweat of pure causeless terror, the anguish of an emotion the more terrible for its lack of reason. It was the inexplicable torment of one of the forms of growing insanity. Francois looked on, amazed and pitiful. The man's eyes wandered here and there; he got up, and sat down again, went to the door, looked about him, and came back. At last, as Francois began to consider how to be free of a dubious acquaintance, Pierre said drearily:

"Is it easy to die? I should like to die. If I were brave like thee, I should drown myself."

"Ah, well," laughed Francois, "there is the guillotine--short and comfortable."

"Thou wilt not denounce me?" he cried, leaping to his feet. "I have my _carte_; I will let thee see it." He was like a scared child.

"Nonsense!" cried Francois, with good-humored amusement. "I must go. Here is a gold louis. Why dost thou not rob a few Jacobins?"

"Hush! I dare not; I was brave once. Thou didst save me once; help me now. Thou wilt not let me starve?"

"No, indeed. I? Not I. Take care of thy louis; they are scarce. Meet me here at this hour in a week. Adieu. At this hour, mind."

"Art thou going to leave me alone?"

Francois was grieved, but could not remain, and hastened away, while Pierre looked after him with melancholy eyes.

"Come, Toto," he said, as he turned a corner. "The man is mad. Let us thank the _bon Dieu_ we never have had a wife; and the rest of our relatives we have buried--papa and mama, and all the family."

It was not in the man to forget, and a week later he cautiously entered the little cafe to keep his engagement. It was noisy. To his surprise, he saw Pierre declaiming lustily to half a dozen blouses.

"Ah!" he cried, seeing Francois, "_mon ami_, here is a seat. There is good news from the frontier. A glass for the citizen." Clink, clink. "A vous*. Death to royal rats!" He went on in a wild way until the workmen had gone, and Francois stopped him with:

"What the deuce has come to thee?"

"Oh, nothing. I have had one of the fits you know of; I am always better after them. _Diable!_ no marquis could scare me to-day. I saw him last week, I did. I followed him. It is he who would have been scared. I--I missed him in a crowd. In a minute I should have had him, like that," and he turned a glass upside down so as to capture a fly which was foraging on the table--"like _that_," he repeated triumphantly.

Francois watched him, and saw a flushed face, tremulous hands, staring eyes.

"He is afraid; he can't get out"; and the man laughed low, pointing to his prisoner.

"And thou wouldst have denounced him?" said Francis.

"Why not? He is one of them. He is hell; he is the devil! I saw no officers to help me."

"Thou art cracked; thou wilt denounce me next."

Pierre looked at Francois with unusual steadiness of gaze, hesitated, and replied:

"I thought of it; you are all for these people."

Francois, in turn, looked his man over curiously. He had now a queer expression of self-satisfied elation. "A good joke, that," said Francois. "Wait a moment; I left Toto outside." He went to the door, and looked up and down the street. "Wait," he cried to Pierre. "Hang the dog!" And in an instant he had left the citizen to abide his return. Once in his garret, he cried: "Toto, thou hast no sense. The sane scoundrels are bad enough, but why didst thou fetch on me this crazy rascal? And so the marquis got away, Toto. The man with the wart is not as clever as I thought him. But some folks have luck."

The sad winter of the Terror wore on, while Francois continued to live unmolested, and pursued his estimable occupation always with an easy conscience, but often with an uneasy mind.

It was near the end of the pleasant month of May, 1794--the month Prairial of the new calendar. The roses were in bloom. The violets were seeking sunshine here and there, half hidden in the rare grasses of the trampled space of the Place of the Revolution. On the six bridges which spanned the canals, its boundaries, children were looking at the swans. In the middle space, the scaffold and cross-beams of the guillotine rose dark red against the blue sky of this afternoon of spring. Two untidy soldiers marched back and forth beside it. The every-day tragedy of the morning was over; why should the afternoon remember? The great city seemed to have neither heart nor memory. The drum-beat of a regiment going to the front rang clear down the Quai des Tuileries. People ran to see; children and their nurses left the swans. The birds in the trees listened, and, liking not this crude music, took wing, and perched on the beams of the monstrous thing in the center of the Place.

Francois crossed the open ground, with Toto close to heel. The keeper of the little cafe where he liked to sit had just told him that the citizen with whom he had twice come thither had been asking for him, and that with this citizen had also come once a stout man, who would know where Citizen Francois lived. This last was of the fourth section, one Gregoire, a man with a wart.

"Thou didst notice the man?" said Francois, much troubled.

"Notice him? I should think so. _Dame_! I am of the Midi. A wart on a man's nose is bad luck; the mother of that man saw a cocatrice egg in the barn-yard."

"A cocatrice egg! What the mischief is that!"

"_Tiens!_ if you were of the Midi, you would know. When a hen cackles loud, 't is that she hath laid a great egg; the father is a basilisk."

"_Tonnerre!_ a basilisk?"

"Thou must crush the egg, and not look, else there is trouble; thy next child will have warts, or his eyebrows will meet, and then look out!" Francois's superstition was vastly reinforced by this legend.

"_Mon Dieu!_" he cried; "he hath both." This Francois was a bold man when he had to meet danger face to face, but, like a child as to many things, afraid where a less imaginative man would have been devoid of fear.

Just now he had been turning over in his mind the chance of the Crab's betraying him. She had been prowling about his garret, and had stolen a well-hidden score of francs. He dared not complain. What scant possessions he had would fall into her claws if at any minute she might choose to denounce him. Of late, purses were too well guarded. The display of luxury in lace handkerchiefs and gold seals no longer afforded an available resource. Except Robespierre, who defied popular sentiment, few men carried two watches. Quatre Pattes had the appetite of a winter wolf, and was becoming more and more exacting. She asked why he did not sell his rapier. If it were known that he withheld weapons such as the republic claimed, there might be trouble. Why had he not given up his pistols? They were gold-mounted, and had belonged to a grandee of Spain. Why not sell them? They would fetch a deal of money.

He was not inclined to part with his arms, and least of all with his rapier. At last he gave her one pistol, which she sold; the other he hung high up on a peg set within the chimney, having hidden in its barrel the precious little document he had captured from Citizen Gregoire in that pleasant inn on the Seine, where an agreeable evening had ended with such unaccountable abruptness.

Next to the Crab's treachery, he feared most to meet Despard when the Jacobin should chance to be in one of those aggressive moods which were so puzzling to Francois. But above all did he dread Gregoire, and grew terrified as he reflected on that business of the cocatrice egg and the basilisk.

It seemed as though he were doomed, and this most cheery of men became distinctly unhappy. "That _sacre_ basilisk!" he muttered, and, less on guard than usual, wandered on, taking stock of his perplexities.

Near to the foundations of the Madeleine, where work had long since ceased, he paused to recreate himself with a puppet-show. The vanquished fiend was Citizen _Jean Boule_. He was soon guillotined. The crowd was merry, and Francois, refreshed, contributed his own share of appreciative mirth. In the throng he unluckily set his big foot on the toes of a little Jacobin dressed in the extreme of the fashions these gentry affected. The small man was not to be placated by Francois's abundant excuses, and demanded the citizen's card of safety. It was an everyday matter. No one dared to refuse. There were half-insane men, in those times, who satisfied their patriotism by continually exacting cards from timid women or from any well-dressed man. To decline was to break the law. Francois obeyed with the utmost civility. The little man returned the card.

"The citizen is of the best of the sections, but, _sacre!_ he is heavy."

Much relieved, Francois went on. In the Rue St. Honore the corner of a lace handkerchief invited a transfer, and lace handkerchiefs were rare. As there was a small, well-occupied group looking through a shop-window at a caricature of Mr. Pitt, the occasion appeared propitious, and the handkerchief changed owners.

A minute later a man touched Francois's shoulder.

"Thy card, citizen!"

"The deuce!" said the thief, as he turned. "This gets monotonous. _Mon Dieu_, the marquis!" he exclaimed.

"Hush! Your card. You are followed--watched. There is this one chance." Francis produced his card. The marquis murmured, "Take care; obey me." Holding the card in his hand, he called authoritatively to a municipal guard who was passing. The man stopped, but no one else paused. Curiosity was perilous.

"This good citizen is followed by that man yonder--the one with the torn bonnet. I know the citizen. Here is his card and mine. Just tell that fellow to be careful"; and he slipped his own card of safety into the guard's hand, and under it three louis. The guard hesitated; then he glanced at the card.

"'T is in order, and countersigned by Vadier of the Great Committee. These spies are too busy; I will settle the fellow. Good morning, citizens."

They moved away quietly, in no apparent haste. As they were turning a corner, the thief looked back.

"I am a lost man, monsieur!" He saw, far away, the man of the torn red bonnet, and with him Quatre Pattes. She was evidently in a rage. He understood at once. In the thieves' quarter denunciations were not in favor. She knew too well the swift justice of this bivouac of outcasts to risk being suspected as a traitor to its code. The night before, he had been unable to give her money, and had again refused to sell his weapons. She had angrily reminded him that he was in her power, and he had for the first time declared that he would let the Cite settle with her. He had been rash, and now, too late, he knew it.

He hastily explained his sad case to the disguised gentleman, and was on the point of telling him that this Quatre Pattes was that Mme. Quintette who had once been his agent, and would probably be an enemy not to be despised. He glanced at the marquis, and, wisely or not, held his tongue.

"We must part here," said the gentleman. He had hesitated when chance led him to the neighborhood of the thief in trouble; but he was a courageous man, and disliked to owe to an inferior any such service as Francois had more than once rendered him. Vadier's sign manual on his own card of safety was an unquestioned assurance of patriotism; it had cost him a round sum, but it had its value.

When he said, "I must leave you," the thief returned:

"I am sorry, monsieur; I know not what to do or where to go."

"Nor I," replied Ste. Luce, coldly. "Nor, for that matter, a thousand men in Paris to-day." He had paid a debt, and meant to be rid of a disreputable and dangerous acquaintance. "Better luck to you!" he added.

"May I say to monsieur, who has helped me, that Despard is in Paris, and has seen him?"

The marquis turned. "Why did not you kill him when you had the chance?"

"You forbade me."

"That is true--quite true. Had you done it without asking me, I had been better pleased."

"I had no grudge against him."

"Well, well, thank you, my man; I can look out for myself."

"Will monsieur accept the gratitude of a poor devil of a thief?"

"Oh, that is all right. One word more. It is as well to tell you, my man, how I came to speak to you. When first I observed you, as I fell behind, I saw that terrible old witch with two sticks pointing you out to the fellow with the torn cap; then he followed you."

"It was Quatre Pattes, monsieur. I lodge in her house."

"A good name, I should say. I wish you better luck and safer lodgings. Adieu"; and he went quietly on his way.

*XIX*

_Of the sorrowful life of loneliness, of Francois's arrest, and of those he met in prison._

Francois stood still. He was alone, and felt of a sudden, as never before, the solitude of an uncompanioned life. The subtle influence of the Terror had begun to sap the foundations of even his resolute cheerfulness. It was this constancy of dread which to some natures made the terrible certainties of the prisons a kind of relief. He looked after the retreating figure as it moved along the _quai_ and was lost to view in the Rue des Petits-Augustines.

"Toto," he said, "I would I had his clever head. When 't is a question of hearts, _mon ami_, I would rather have thine. And now, what to do?" At last he moved swiftly along the borders of the Seine, and soon regained his own room. The Crab would go to the afternoon market; her net swung over her arm at the time he had seen her; and, as she always moved slowly, he had ample leisure.

He packed his bag, and taking from his pistol the paper he had secured when in company with Gregoire, replaced it under the lining of his shoe. Its value he very well knew. After a moment's reflection, he put his pistol back on the peg high up in the chimney. He had been in the house nearly an hour, and was ready to leave, when he heard feet, and a knock at the locked door. A voice cried:

"In the name of the republic, open!" He knew that he was lost.

"_Dame_! Toto. We are done for, my little one"; and then, without hesitation, he opened the door. Three municipals entered. One of them said:

"We arrest thee, citizen, as an _emigre_ returned."

"_Emigre_!" and he laughed in his usual hearty way. "If I had been that, no one would have caught me back in France. Ah, well, I am ready, citizen. Here is an old rapier. The woman will sell it; better to give it to thee or to the republic." He took up his slender baggage, and followed them. When they were down-stairs, he asked leave to see the Crab. The guard called her out of her den.

"_Chere maman_," said Francois, "this is thy doing. These good citizens have my rapier, and the pistol is gone. Not a sou is left thee. Thou hast killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. Alas!"

The Crab rattled her claws on the sticks, and these on the floor, and spat vileness of thieves' slang, declaring it a wicked lie. Would they take the silver-hilted sword? It was hers, and he owed her rent. At last, laughing, the guards secured the thief's hands behind his back, and marched him away to the revolutionary committee of the section Franklin. Here no time was lost with the _emigre_, who was sent off in a hurry to the prison of the Madelonnettes, with poor Toto trotting after him, much perplexed by the performance.

Francois was astounded at the celerity and certainty of the methods by which he, a free Arab of the streets, was thus caged. As usual, it acted on his sense of humor, and before the dreaded sectional tribunal and with the municipals he was courageously merry. When he heard that he was to be sent to the Madelonnettes, he said:

"But, citizens, I am not of the sex. _Mon Dieu!_ the Madelonnettes! 'T is not respectable--'t is not decent"; and he laughed outright. As no man was ever so made as to be protected from the infection of such mirth as the thief's, the judges laughed in chorus. One of them, disturbed in his slumber, awoke, and seeing no cause for this long-visaged flap-ear so to mock the justice of the republic, he said:

"Thou wilt not laugh long, miserable aristocrat!"

This much delighted Francois. "By St. Jacobus, citizen, I swear to thee I am only an honest thief. I did not expect to be made of the fine nobility by a good democrat like thee."

"Off with him!" said the judge. "They laugh best who laugh last."

"No, no," cried the incorrigible; "they laugh best who laugh most. _Au revoir_."

"Take him away! The next case."

The thief was gay, and amused the officers; but his keen senses were now all on guard, and, too, like others, he felt relieved at the ending of his life of suspense and watchful anxiety. His misfortune was plainly due to the avarice and needs of the Crab, and to her belief that he had ceased to be available as a means of support.

There was a little delay at the front of the old house of detention; some formalities were to be gone through with. Francois took careful note of it all. The prison stood in the Rue des Fontaines: a gray stone building, with a lofty story on the first floor, and, above, three stories and an attic; a high wall to left shut in the garden.

On entering a long, dark corridor, his bonds were removed, his bundle was searched, and what little money he had was scrupulously restored to him. He was stripped and examined, even to his shoes; but as the tongue of leather was loose only at the toes, the precious document escaped a very rigorous search. Poor Toto had been left outside, despite Francois's entreaties. In the cell to which he was consigned were eight straw mattresses. He arranged his small baggage, and was told he was free to go whither he would above the _rez-de-chaussee_, which was kept for forgers of assignats and thieves. The corridor was some fifty feet long, and smelt horribly. On the main floor was the common dining-room. A separate stair-case led to a garden of considerable size, planted with box and a few quince- and other fruit-trees. At night two municipals guarded this space, while, outside, the steps of sentries could be heard when the hours of darkness brought their quiet. At 9 P.M. the prisoners, who assembled in the large hall, answered to their names; a bell rang, and they were locked in their cells, or slept as they could in the corridors. The richer captives were taxed to support their poor companions, and even to buy and feed the mastiffs which roamed at night in the garden.

Much of all this Francois learned as he arranged his effects and talked gaily with the turnkey, one Vaubertrand, a watchful but not unkindly little man. Thus informed, Francois, curious as usual, went down the corridor, and out into the garden. Here were quite two hundred men and women, some in careful, neat dress, many in rags. He saw, as he looked, cures, ladies, seamstresses, great nobles, unlucky colonels, and, as he learned later, musicians, poets; and, to his surprise, for he knew the theaters, actors such as Fleury, Saint-Prix, and Champville, whose delicious laughter the Comedie Francaise knew so well. Here, too, were Boulainvilliers, De Crosne, and Dozincourt, the ex-kings and heroes of the comic stage; and there, in a group apart, the fine gentles and dames who had exchanged Versailles and the Trianon for this home of disastrous fortunes.

"Yes," said the turnkey; "the citizen is right; 't is a droll menagerie," and so left him.

Francois looked at the walls and chained dogs, and knew at once that the large numbers in the prison made impossible that solitude in which plans of escape prosper. For a while no one noticed him so far as to speak to him. The ill-clad and poor kept to one side of the garden; on the other, well-dressed people were chatting in the sun. Women were sewing; a young man was reciting verses; and De Crosne, with the child of the concierge on his lap, was telling fairy-tales. Ignorant of the etiquette of the prison, Francois wandered here and there, not observing that he was stared at with surprise as he moved among the better clad on the sunny side of the yard. He was interested by what he saw. How quiet they all were! what fine garments! what bowing and courtesying! He liked it, as he always liked dress and color, and the ways of these imperturbable great folks. Beyond this his reflections did not go; nor as yet had he been here long enough to note how, day by day, some gentleman disappeared, or some kindly face of woman was seen no more. What he did observe was that here and there a woman or a man sat apart in self-contained grief, remembering those they had lost. The thief moved on, thoughtful.

At this moment he heard "_Diable!_" and saw the Marquis de Ste. Luce. "What! and have they trapped you, my inevitable thief? I myself was bagged and caged just after I left you. We are both new arrivals. Come aside with me."

Francois followed him, saying he was sorry to find the marquis here.

"It was to be, sooner or later; and I presume it will not last long. I was careless; and, after all, Francois, it was my fate--my shadow. A man does many things to amuse himself, and some one of them casts a lengthening shadow as time goes on. The shadow--my shadow--well, no matter. We all have our shadows, and at sunset they lengthen."

"'T is like enough, monsieur. 'T is like me. There is a man with a wart I am afraid of, and it is because of that wart. The man is a drunken fool."

"Despard is my wart," said the marquis, dryly. "As to being afraid, my good Francois, I never had the malady, not even as a boy."

"_Dame_! I have it now; and to get out of this is impossible."

"I think so. Did you mention Despard?"

"No; it was monsieur spoke of him."

"Quite true--quite true. He found me at last. Confound the fellow! I did not credit him with being clever."

"So this is his man with a wart?" thought Francois, but made no comment. He had not fully comprehended the simile with which this impassive seigneur illustrated the fact that but one of his many misdeeds had cast on his future a lengthening shadow of what he would have hesitated to call remorse.

"Francois," he said, "you and I are new additions to this queer collection. I may as well warn you that even here spies abound. Why? The deuce knows. Barn-yard fowls are not less considered than are we. It is the tribunal one day; then the Conciergerie; and next day, _affaire finie_, the business is over. Meanwhile, you are in the best society in France. There are M. de la Ferte, the Comte de Mirepoix, the Duc de Levis, the Marquis de Fleury. I used to think them dull; calamity has not sharpened their wits. _Diable!_ but you are welcome." The marquis had all his life amused himself with small regard to what was thought of him or his ways of recreation. "'T is a bit of luck to find you here in this hole." Francois could hardly agree with the opinion, but he laughed as he said so.

"Here comes my old comrade, De Laval Montmorency. He is still a gay jester. He says we are like Saul and that other fellow, Jonathan, except that in death we shall both of us to a certainty be divided."

"_Ciel!_ 't is a ghastly joke, monsieur."

"It has decidedly a flavor of the locality. I must not play telltale about you, or they will put you in the _rez-de-chaussee_, and, by St. Denis! I should miss you. I shall have a little amusement in perplexing these gentlemen. Your face will betray you; it used to be pretty well known. However, we shall see."

The nobleman last named threaded his way through the crowd, excusing himself and bowing as he came.

"Ah," he said, "Ste. Luce, another new arrival. The hotel is filling up. Good morning, monsieur. _Grand merci!_ 't is our old acquaintance who used to tell fortunes on the Champs Elysees; told mine once, but, alas! did not warn me of this. Well, well, we have here some queer society. Take care, Ste. Luce; this citizen may be a spy, for all thou knowest. I assure thee we have to be careful."

"I--I a _mouchard_--a spy?"

"M. de Montmorency has no such idea," said Ste. Luce. "I shall ask him to respect your desire to be known by a name not your own. Permit me to add that I have less reason to thank some of my friends than I have to thank this gentleman. He is pleased to have mystified Paris for a wager, or no matter what. Just now he is--what the deuce is it you call yourself at present?"

Francois was delighted with the jest. "Allow me, monsieur, to pass as Citizen Francois. My real name-- But you will pardon me; real names are dangerous."

"And what are names to-day," said the marquis, "thine or mine? My friend here--well, between us, Montmorency, this is he who held the stair with me in my _ci-devant_ chateau. Thou wilt remember I told thee of it. A good twenty minutes we kept it against a hundred or so of my grateful people. He is the best blade in Paris, and, _foi d'honneur_, that business was no trifle."

"Who you are, or choose to be, I know not," said the older noble, "but I thank you; and, _pardieu!_ Ste. Luce is free with your biography."

This was Francois's opinion.

No one knew distinctly who was this newcomer, concerning whom, for pure cynical amusement, Ste. Luce said so much that was gracious. Any freshly gay companion was welcomed, if his manners were at all endurable. The actors and actresses were pleasantly received. The few who remembered the long face, and ears like sails, and the captivating laugh of the former reader of palms, were so bewildered by Ste. Luce's varied statements that the poor thief found himself at least tolerated. He liked it. Nevertheless, as the days went by, and while seemingly the gayest of the gay, Francois gave serious thought to the business of keeping his head on his shoulders. He told fortunes,--always happy ones,--played tricks, and cut out of paper all manner of animals for the little girl, the child of the turnkey. Toto he gave up for lost; but on the fourth day the dog, half starved, got a chance when a prisoner entered. He dashed through the guards, and fled up stairs and down, until, seeing his master in the big hall, he ran to him, panting. The head jailer would have removed him, but there was a great outcry; and at last, when little Annette, Francois's small friend, cried, the dog was allowed to remain.

He was, as the marquis declared, much more interesting than most of the prisoners, and possessed, as he added, the advantage over other prisoners of being permanent. In fact, they were not. Every day or two came long folded papers. The _ci-devant_ Baron Bellefontaine would to-morrow have the cause of his detention considered by Tribunal No. 3. Witnesses and official defenders had been allowed; but of late, and to _emigres_, these were often denied. Also, witnesses were scarce and easily terrified, so that batches of merely suspected persons were condemned almost unheard. To be tried meant nearly always the Conciergerie and death. All cases were supposed to be tried in the order of their arrests; but great sums were spent in paying clerks to keep names at the foot of the fatal dockets of the committee. The members of this terrible government survived or died with much judicial murder on their souls; but countless millions passed through their hands without one man of them becoming rich. Elsewhere, with the lower officers, gold was an effective ally when it was desired to postpone the time of trial.

*XX*

_Of how Francois gave Amar advice, and of how the marquis bought his own head._

It was now about May 26, when, at evening, a commissioner in a cocked hat, much plumed and scarfed, came into the dining-hall. Toto was between his master's knees, and was being fed. Francois heard a gray-haired old lady exclaim to a neighbor: "_Mon Dieu! cherie_, look! 'T is the Terror in person."

The actor Champville cried out gaily: "I must practise that face. 'T is a fortune for the villain of a play. If ever I get out, it will be inestimable." Alas! he was in the next day's list,--the _corvee_, they called it,--and came no more to table. Francois looked up, caught a glimpse of that relentless visage, and dropped his head again over the slender relics of a not bountiful meal. It was Jean Pierre Amar!

The marquis looked up from his plate, but made no effort to conceal himself. Amar walked around the table. Now and then his mouth wandered to left. It was comical, and yet horribly grotesque. He seemed to notice no one, and went out to make his inspection. Presently a turnkey came and touched Francois's shoulder.

"The citizen commissioner would see thee."

"I am ruined--done for!" murmured the thief; and, followed by Toto, he went after the turnkey. In the room used as a registering-office, Amar, _le farouche_, sat handling a paper.

"Ah!" he said. "Citizen turnkey, leave the suspect with me, and close the door." The commissioner laid a pair of pistols on the table, and looked up at Francois.

"Well, citizen, we are met again. I am free to say that I had careful search made for thee, and now good fortune has brought hither not thee alone, but that infernal _ci-devant_ who pinned me like a butterfly." As he spoke there was something fascinating in the concentration of emotion on the active side of this unnatural face. Francois felt the need to be careful.

"Why the devil don't you speak?"

"Will the citizen kindly advise me what answer it will be most prudent to make?" And for comment on his own words, which altogether pleased him, a pleasant smile drifted downward over his large features.

"_Sacre!_ but thou art a queer one, and no fool," said the Jacobin. "Thou wilt be dead before long; a monstrous pity! I would give my place for thy laugh."

"'T is a bargain to my mind. Let us change. I shall set thee free at once--at once, citizen commissioner; I bear no malice."

Amar, silent for a moment, stroked his nose with thumb and finger.

"Thou dost not remind me thou didst save my life."

"No; what is the use?"

"Use? Why not?"

"Because men like the citizen commissioner do not lightly change. I have a too plain recollection of what I was promised in return for my benevolence. I should regret it except for--"

"For what?" said Amar.

Then Francois rose to the height of his greatness.

"I am a Frenchman, even if I am not of thy party. Had not the country needed thee, that day had been thy last. Citizen, as a man thou wouldst set me free; as a patriot thou wilt bow to the law of the republic. I am willing to die rather than soil the record of one to whom France owes so much." An overwhelming solemnity of aspect came upon this comedian's face as it met the gaze of the commissioner. "Alas! the country has few such citizens."

"_Tonnerre_! True--true; it is sad." The man's vanity was excelled only by that of the prisoner before him. Francois had personal appreciation of the influential value of the bait he cast. A great diplomatist of the older type was lost when Francois took to the war against society in place of that against nations.

"If the citizen commissioner has no more need of me, I will go! To waste his time is to waste the genius of France." Not for nothing had Francois been of late in the society of the Comedie Francaise.

"_Tiens_! Who told thee to go? I desire to do my own thinking. Why art thou here?"

Francois laughed, but made no other reply.

"Young man, art thou laughing at the Revolutionary Tribunal?"

"Thou art also laughing, monsieur." When Francois laughed, he who looked at him laughed also.