Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  “Monsieur the Abbot is a profound politician; he is in the right of the matter,” assented Victoria.

  “At the risk of contradicting you, Madam the Marchioness,” objected the Cardinal passionately, “I must declare that the Abbot has only once more exhibited the evil spirit of the Society of Jesus, which has always been a veritable pest to the Church. Our holy mother were well rid of that abominable, execrable society!”

  “So the priest is a Jesuit!” thought Victoria to herself, a light dawning upon her.

  “The true pest of the Church,” retorted Abbot Morlet, “has always been clad in the purple — cardinals and prelates, nearly all sots, imbeciles and peacocks!”

  “The impudence of this priestlet, this scoundrel, this hypocrite!” the Cardinal cried in a fury. “Out of here with the insolent fellow!”

  “By the blood of Christ,” interjected Victoria quickly, addressing the two churchmen, “is this the hour for discord and recrimination? Do you forget, your Eminence, and you, Monsieur Abbot, that at this moment the safety of the Church depends upon the unity of her defenders?”

  All the company, with the sole exceptions of the Cardinal and the Abbot, took up the word: “’Tis true— ’tis evident! Let us not forget. Let us remain united for the conflict!”

  When the tumult had subsided, Victoria took up again her interrupted discourse: “In casting a rapid glance over the past, I did not intend to arouse suspicion among you or raise dissension. In pointing out the faults committed, I wished only to forewarn you against similar errors, and to show you how to escape new mistakes. Please, then, to give me your attention a few minutes longer: The session in the Tennis Court was a brutal challenge hurled in the teeth of royalty. The Queen, who is a woman of valor, understood it; she pressed the King to take energetic measures, and pledged him to have the National Assembly dissolved by force. Louis XVI submitted to the influence of the Queen; on the 28th of June he went into the heart of the Assembly, surrounded by his guards, and through his chancellor ordered the deputies to disperse, abolished their decrees, and annulled their deliberations. He acted the part of a sovereign.”

  “His Majesty indeed displayed great courage that day, and many of the deputies of the nobility and the clergy applauded the act of dissolution and immediately left the chamber,” declared the Duke.

  “The King,” assented Victoria sardonically, “his faithful nobles and his faithful clergy left the hall. But they left the rebels behind them. Then Abbot Sieyès sprang to the tribunal and cried ‘Continue in session, Representatives of the people! We are to-day what we were yesterday!’”

  “But the King did not falter, thank God!” continued the Duke. “His Majesty commanded the Marquis of Brezé to convey to the malcontents his orders to disperse.”

  “Shame and misfortune!” exclaimed the Viscount of Mirabeau. “It was my own brother who then answered Brezé, ‘Go and say to your master who sent you, that we are here by the will of the people, and that we shall never quit this hall save by force of bayonets!’”

  “Very well, Monsieur Viscount! Your brother pointed out to the royal power its means of safety — force of bayonets,” answered Victoria. “By the blood of Christ, what did Louis XVI do to restore the rebels to their senses? Absolutely nothing. Then the latter, encouraged by their immunity from punishment, declared, in their next session, the inviolability of the National Assembly.”

  “Alas, it was upon the motion of my abominable brother that that declaration was carried! God’s blood, I think I could have turned fratricide at the moment,” declared Barrel Mirabeau.

  “Your house was not the only one to tremble at such felony,” Victoria replied. “Did not nearly all the deputies of the nobility, even the most hostile to the revolution, rally around the Third Estate, dragging with them all the clericals?”

  “Should the members of the nobility, then, Madam Marchioness,” objected the Duke, “because the monarchy showed weakness, have abandoned it without attempting to defend it from within the Assembly? No, certainly not.”

  “Sir Duke,” replied Victoria, “the members of the nobility and of the clergy who remained faithful to the throne were in the minority. What could they do for the monarchy? Nothing. Their presence among the ranks of the rebels served only to excuse the slips of the King, for then he could respond with a show of reason, ‘I can not dissolve an Assembly which contains so great a number of my servants.’”

  “Such was, in fact, the response made by his Majesty to the Queen when she secured the recall of Necker and the appointment of a new minister chosen by Monsieur Broglie. Nevertheless, with the assistance of the Marshal, the monarchy will still prove able to overcome the revolution. At least, that is my opinion,” vouchsafed the Count of Plouernel.

  “May God so will it,” rejoined Victoria again. “But up till now the new minister has done nothing but make mistakes—”

  Victoria was interrupted by the entrance of one of the lackeys, whom Plouernel had dismissed from the banquet hall in order that his guests might discuss political affairs confidentially and in safety, who said:

  “The steward, my lord, asks to see you immediately.”

  “Let him enter,” said the Count; and as the lackey went to fetch him, the host explained to his guests: “I charged my steward to send out several of my men in disguise, in order to learn through them what was going on in the several quarters of Paris.”

  “It is indeed very useful, in these days of effervescence,” nodded Victoria, “to keep closely informed on the state of affairs.”

  The steward entered, bowed humbly to the company, and took up his post close by the door, like a servant awaiting orders.

  “Well, Master Robert, what news?” demanded the Count. The company turned around in their chairs and fixed their attention upon the new arrival.

  CHAPTER VII.

  NEWS FROM THE BARRICADES.

  PURSUANT TO THE Count’s order, the steward, bowing again, proceeded with his account of what he had learned.

  “The news, alas, is very bad, my lord,” he began. “One of our men has just arrived from the suburb of St. Antoine. The streets are blocked with barricades; they are forging pikes in the iron-mongers’ and blacksmiths’ shops; the houses are all illuminated. People are carrying up to the roofs of their dwellings beams and paving stones, to hurl down upon the troops of his Majesty Louis XVI, whom may God protect! Women and children are pouring musket balls and making cartridges. They have pillaged the armorers’ shops in the district. In short, the whole of that impious plebs is swarming in the streets, screeching like the damned, especially against her Majesty our good Queen, his Royal Highness the Count of Artois, and their Holinesses our lords the Princes of Conti and Condé.”

  “And what are the pretexts for these insolent cries and rebellious preparations?” asked the Count.

  “My lord, it is the word among this blasphemous people that the court is plotting evil against the deputies of the Third Estate, and that his Majesty our Sire — may God protect him — is preparing to march on Paris at the head of fifty thousand troops, to deliver the suburbs to the flames, blood, sack and pillage, and the girls and women to infamy!”

  “The rabblement is at least aware of the punishment it deserves — and will receive!” cried the younger Mirabeau.

  “What is the feeling in the other quarters,” queried the Count of Plouernel. “Are they also, perchance, boiling over?”

  “In the neighborhood of the St. Honoré Gate the mob has invaded the Garde-Meuble, or King’s Storage-House, and seized the old arms they found collected there. It is a pity, my lord; you can see tattered brigands, in their bare feet, yet casqued and cuirassed, and with lances in their fists. Such magnificent arms in such hands! What a desecration!”

  “Oh, the gallant cavaliers — armed cap-a-pie for the tourney!” cried the Marquis, affecting laughter.

  “Those among this awful horde who have bonnets on,” continued the steward, “have fastened in them cockades of gre
en cloth or paper, as a sign of hope. My lord, it is like a frenzy. Out in the open street the scoundrels hug without knowing each other, and with tears in their eyes, cry, like henhawks ‘To arms, citizens! Down with tyranny! Long live liberty! Long live the nation!’”

  “But the other suburbs,” pursued the Count. “Are they also wrought up like this cursed suburb of St. Antoine?”

  “Aye, my lord — unless it be the suburb of St. Marcel, which is almost deserted. The evil creatures of that district, to the number of twenty thousand, flocked to the City Hall during the day to demand arms. The Provost of the merchants, Monsieur Flesselles, sent them to the Lazarist monks. When the great band of beggars arrived at the holy convent, the good and religious men made answer to them that Monsieur Flesselles was making game of them, for never had a grain of powder or a firearm found its way into the Convent of St. Lazare. Then these bandits from St. Marcel broke out into threats of death against Monsieur Flesselles, and being presently joined by another mob of rascals from the suburb of St. Victor, they went off all together to the Hospital of the Invalids in search of weapons.”

  “And were received, no doubt, with the gun-fire of the brave veterans sheltered there?” said the Count.

  “Alas, no! my lord. The pensioners made not the slightest resistance, and the scoundrelly people fell into possession of more than thirty thousand guns and several cannon.”

  “The veterans!” gasped the Viscount of Mirabeau. “They, old soldiers, to give up their arms! Do we then face defection and treason on every side! Very well! we shall hang and shoot the invalids, men and officers, to the last one.”

  “Oh, the idea!” shouted the Marquis, with another burst of forced laughter, “So now our bare-feet have thirty thousand guns — and some cannon — which they don’t know how to use!”

  “You have nothing else to tell us?” said Plouernel to the steward.

  “No, my lord.”

  “Then send our men out again for information. The instant they return, come to me with what they have learned.”

  The steward bowed for the third time and withdrew. Upon the faces of the convivial friends blank consternation reigned at the news he had brought. They gazed at one another speechless.

  “Do you know, gentlemen,” at last spoke up the Cardinal, “that all this is getting frightful? The very marrow in my bones is chilled.”

  “It is my opinion,” the Duke answered, “that France will soon be no longer habitable. We shall have to flee abroad.”

  “Come, come, my dear Duke,” said the Count of Plouernel, “a few regiments of infantry, supported by a piece of artillery or two, will suffice to exterminate these upstarts. The French nobility will whip them down. We shall unsheath our swords.”

  “I think the rabble will whip better troops than those, once they have got the smell of gunpowder,” said Abbot Morlet.

  “You are talking nonsense, Abbot,” replied Mirabeau. “It is impossible that bare-footed ragamuffins, poorly armed, and without discipline, should be victorious over seasoned troops. If it ever came to that pass, I should snap my sword.”

  For the first time since the arrival of the momentous news, Victoria spoke: “A traitorous King would prevent you from breaking it; he would order you to return it to its scabbard.”

  “It is for us to have the courage to sacrifice the King to the safety of the monarchy. We shall have all the brave ones—” Mirabeau began.

  “By heaven!” interrupted the Duke, “this is serious, and requires thought. Sacrifice the King!”

  “What shall we do with the King?” questioned the Cardinal.

  “In other times,” replied Victoria, “they shut up do-nothing Kings in, the depths of a cloister. Force Louis XVI to abdicate. The Dauphin is an infant, you will constitute a council of regents, composed of men of inflexibility. The shameless plebeians have too much blood; it will rise to their heads and give them a false energy. Bleed them, bleed them white, by repression and defeat. You have cannons and muskets; bombard them — blow them back into the depths they sprung from!”

  “Ah, Marchioness,” answered Plouernel, “you are the terrible archangel who with her flaming sword will defend the monarchy and nobility. You are right. Safety lies in the abdication of the King and the formation of an inflexible council of regents. The monarch must be eliminated.”

  “Your most dangerous enemy, Count of Plouernel,” replied she, “is the Third Estate! Has this bourgeoisie not told you, through Sieyès’s organ, that up till now it has been nothing, it which ought to be everything! There is the enemy. The people, its intoxication once passed, will fall back into its misery and abject submissiveness. Having cried its cry in the public place, hunger will again seize it by the throat. ‘The people, always ridden by want, has never the time to carry out the revolutions which it essays.’ It is against the bourgeoisie that war to the knife must be carried on.”

  “For one proof out of a thousand of the truth of that statement,” assented the Count, “is not Desmarais the lawyer one of the firiest tribunes in the National Assembly?”

  “My dear Count,” said the cavalry officer to Plouernel, “did you not once treat a fellow of that name to a good cudgeling?”

  “This Desmarais is himself the hero of that episode you refer to — the very same whippersnapper,” answered the Count.

  Aside Victoria said to herself: “And my brother John is the sweetheart of Mademoiselle Desmarais. A singular coincidence!”

  “How did you come to give him his cudgel sauce, Count?” inquired the Cardinal.

  “My counsel were arguing before the court a case involving an estate left to my brother, Abbot Plouernel, at present in Rome. Desmarais, forgetting the respect due to a man of my station, had the insolence to speak of me in terms hardly reverent. Informed of the fact by my attorneys, I had Desmarais seized by three of my servants one night as he was leaving his lodgings. They administered to him a sound drubbing with green sticks, after which my first lackey said to him: ‘Sir, the thrashing which we have just had the honor of presenting to you, is from Monseigneur Plouernel, our master. Let the lesson be a profitable one.’”

  “That,” said the Viscount of Mirabeau, “was as good as the exquisite bastinado given to Arouet ‘Voltaire’ by the orders of the Prince of Rohan. That’s the way to treat the bourgeoisie.”

  “Voltaire perhaps owes his fame to that little chastisement,” suggested the Duke.

  Coming back to the subject which was on everyone’s mind, Abbot Morlet was the next to speak. “Madam the Marchioness has just uttered a great truth,” said he. “The Church, the nobility and royalty have no more terrible enemy than the bourgeoisie. In a state, three elements are necessary for a good organization — a God, a King, and a people. In order to carry on production and nourish the representatives of God and the King, the bourgeoisie should be suppressed.”

  “You are stingy in your allotments, Abbot,” put in the Duke. “Would you, then, suppress the nobility?”

  “Who says King says nobility, and who says God says clergy,” replied the Abbot. “In other words, if we wish to enjoy our privileges in peace, we must either extirpate or annul the bourgeoisie. Now, if we know how to use the people skilfully, they will come to our aid in this task of extirpation, for the plebeian hates a bourgeois more than he does a noble.”

  “Still, we see the populace gone mad over the deputies of the Third Estate. Several of them have already grown to the bulk of idols,” said the Count.

  “The bourgeoisie is, and will for still a long time remain, as hostile toward the people as it is toward the nobles. The people know this, and that is what renders them hostile to the bourgeoisie,” Victoria declared.

  “It is marvellous how the thoughts of Madam the Marchioness accord with mine,” exclaimed Abbot Morlet. “This antagonism which she has just mentioned will some day, perhaps, be our salvation; for I have no faith in the party of the court, composed in part, as it is, of young mad-caps.”

  “By heaven, Ab
bot,” the whole company cried with one voice, “but you are impertinent!”

  The Abbot shrugged his shoulders and continued impassively. “The revolution will plunge on in its course. First the royalty and the nobility will fall beneath the blows of the tribunes of the Third Estate. Then will fall the Church — but only to rerise more powerful than before, to rear again the scaffolds and relight the pyres of the Inquisition.”

  “You are talking nonsense, Abbot,” again put in Barrel Mirabeau. “Your prophecies partake of desperation.”

  “Nobility and royalty will disappear in the tempest,” pursued the Abbot, “but it remains with us to make that disappearance one of the phases of a rebirth that will establish theocracy more powerful than ever. The instant will be decisive, momentous. It may one day come about that the bourgeoisie will merge its cause with that of the populace; that it will establish education free, unified, common, and uncontrolled by the Church; that it will abolish private property, making common to each and all the tools of production. Should the bourgeoisie decide thus to emancipate the proletariat, Throne and Altar are done for forever. It is for us, then, to nurse the antagonism already existent between the two, to envenom their mutual mistrust and reproaches. We must inflame the fear of the bourgeoisie for the populace; we must kindle the mistrust of the laborers toward the bourgeois; we must prick the people on to excess; above all we must invoke to pillage and massacre that furious beast which is not the people, but which in times of revolution is confounded with it — it is the red specter which we must make use of to terrify the bourgeoisie and drive it to sunder its cause from that of the people. That is how we can countermine the revolution, and force the sovereigns of Europe to unite, to invade France, and to exterminate our enemies. Let us mingle, in disguise, with the people; let us provoke and irritate their appetite for blood. Let us and our agents strike the first blows — pillage — burn — mow off heads — those of our friends, too, for we must above all avert suspicion; make the blood pour, to rouse the beast and put it in appetite for sack and massacre!”