CHAPTER VIII. THE DEPOT DE LA PREFECTURE
Gerald had scarcely fallen asleep when he was aroused by a rude crash athis door, and looking up, saw the room filled with _gendarmerie_ in fulluniform. A man in plain black meanwhile approached the bed where he lay,and asked if he were called Gerald Fitzgerald.
'A _ci-devant_ Garde du Corps and a refugee too?' said the questioner,who was the substitute of the Procureur du Roi. 'This is the order toarrest you, Monsieur,' said he.
'On what charge, may I ask?' said Gerald indolently.
'It is a grave one,' said the other in a solemn voice, while he pointedto certain words in the warrant.
Gerald started as he read them, and, with a smile of scornful meaning,said--
'Is it alleged that I poisoned the Count de Mirabeau?'
'You are included among those suspected of that crime.'
'And was he poisoned, then?'
'The report of the surgeons who have examined the body is notconclusive. There are, however, sufficient grounds for investigationand inquiry. You will see, sir, that I have told you as much as Imay--perhaps more than I ought.'
Left alone in his chamber that he might dress, Gerald proceeded to makehis preparations with becoming speed. The order committed him to St.Pelagie, a prison then reserved for those accused of great crimesagainst the state. Weighty as such a charge was, he felt in the fact ofan unjust accusation a degree of courageous energy that he had notknown for many a previous day. In the midst of one's self-accusings andmisgivings, an ill-founded allegation brings a certain sense of relief:if this be the extent of my culpability, I may be proud of my conduct,is such satisfactory judgment to address to one's own heart. He wouldhave felt more comfort, it is true, in the reflection, if he did notremember that it was a frequent artifice of the day to accuse men ofcrimes of which they were innocent, to afford time and opportunity toinvolve them in some more grounded charge. Many were sent to Vincenneswho were never afterwards heard of; and what easier, if needed, than todispose of one like himself, without family or friends?
Though nominally committed to St. Pelagie, such was the crowdedcondition of that prison that Gerald was conducted to the 'Depot dela Prefecture,' a horrible den, into which murderers, malefactors,political offenders, and thieves were indiscriminately huddled, untiltime offered the opportunity to sift and divide them. It was a longhall, supported on two ranges of stone pillars, with wooden guard-bedson each side, and between them a space technically called 'the street.'Four narrow windows, close to the roof, admitted a scanty light intothis dreary abyss, where upward of eighty prisoners were alreadyconfined. By a sort of understanding among themselves, for no otherdirection existed, the prisoners had divided themselves into threedistinct classes, each of which maintained itself apart from the others.Such as had committed capital offences or were accused of them, held thefirst rank, and exercised a species of general sway over all. The placeoccupied by them was called 'Le Nid'; they themselves were styled the'Birds of Passage.' The political criminals gathered in a corner named'L'Opinion '; the rest, a large majority, were known as 'Les Ames deboue.'
Gerald had but crossed the threshold of this darksome dungeon when thedoor closed behind him, leaving him almost in total obscurity. The heavybreathing of a number of people asleep, and the low mutterings of otherssuddenly awakened, showed him that the place was crowded, although asyet he could distinguish nothing. Not venturing to stir from the spothe occupied, he waited patiently till by the cold grey light of breakingday he could look at the scene before him. He was not suffered toindulge this contemplation long, for as the sleepers awoke and beheldhim, a general cry was raised to pass him on to the Prevot to beclassed. Gerald obeyed the order, moving slowly up the narrow 'street'to the end of the hall, where sat or rather lay an old man, whoseimprisonment dated upward of forty years back. He was perfectly blind,and so crippled by age and rheumatism as to be utterly helpless; butnotwithstanding his infirmities his voice was loud and commanding, andits tones resounded throughout the length and breadth of the prison.After a brief routine address, informing the new arrival that forthe due administration of that discipline which all societies of mendemanded, he must pledge obedience to the laws of the place, and afterduly promising the same, and swearing it by placing a handful of strawupon his head, Gerald was told to be seated while he was interrogated.
'Not know where you were born,' said the Prevot, 'and yet you callyourself noble! Be it so; and now your charge--what is it?'
'They accuse me of having poisoned Mirabeau.'
'And would that be called a crime?' said one.
'Against whom, I would like to know, could that be an offence?' saidanother. 'Not against the King, whom he had deserted, nor against thepeople whom he betrayed.'
'Silence!--silence in the court!' said the Prevot; then, addressingGerald, he went on: 'with what object did you kill him?'
'I did not poison him--I am innocent,' said Gerald calmly.
'So are we all,' said the Prevot devoutly--'spotless as the snowdrift.Who was she that persuaded you to act?--tell us her name.'
'There was no act, and could have been no suggester.'
'Young man,' said the Prevot solemnly, 'we know of but one capital crimehere, that is, concealment. Be frank, therefore, and fearless.'
'I cannot be sure, if I had done this crime, that I would have confessedit here, but as I have not even imagined it, I repeat to you once more Iknow nothing of it.'
With an acuteness perfectly wonderful at his age, and with an intellectthat retained much of its former subtlety--for the Prevot had been thefirst lawyer at the Lyons bar--he questioned Gerald as to what hadled to the accusation. Partly to display his own powers ofcross-examination, and partly that the youth's answers imparted aninterest to his story, he prolonged the inquiry considerably. Nor wasGerald indisposed to speak openly about himself; it was a species ofrelief out of the dreary isolation in which he had recently passed hisdays.
To one point the old man would, however, continue to recur withoutsuccess--had some womanly influence not swayed him? Whether his hearthad not been touched, and some secret spring of love had given theimpulse to his character, remained a mystery.
'No man,' said the Prevot, 'ever lived as you allege. He who readsJean Jacques lives like Rousseau; he who pores over Diderot acts thefatalist.'
'Enough of this,' cried a rough, rude voice. 'Is he of us or not?'
It was a 'Bird of Passage' that spoke, impatient for the moment when thenew-comer should pay his entrance fee.
'He is not of you, be assured of that,' said the Prevot, 'and for thepresent his place shall be "L'Opinion."'
By chance--a mere chance--a death on the day before had left avacancy in that section, and thither Gerald was now with due solemnityconducted.
If his present associates were the 'best of the bad' around him, theywere still far from being to his taste. They were the lowest emissariesof every party--the agents employed for all purposes of espionage andcorruption. They affected a sort of fidelity to the cause they servedwhile sober, but once filled with wine, avowed their utter indifferenceto every party, as they avowed that they took bribes from each in turn.Many, it is true, had moved in the better classes of society, werewell-mannered and educated; but even through these there ran the samevein of profligacy, a tone of utter distrust, and a scepticism as to allgood here and hereafter.
One or two of these remembered to have seen Gerald in his days of Gardedu Corps, and were more than disposed to connect him with the scandalscirculated about the Queen; others inclined to regard him as arevolutionist in the garb of the court party; none trusted him, and helived in a kind of haughty estrangement from all. The Prevot, indeed,liked him, and would talk with him for hours long; and to the old manhimself the companionship seemed a boon. He now learned for the firsttime a true account of the great changes 'without,' as he called theworld, and heard with an approach to accuracy the condition in whichFrance then stood.
The sense of indignation a
t a groundless charge, the cruelty ofan imprisonment upon mere suspicion, had long ceased to weigh uponFitzgerald, and a dreamy apathy, the true lethargy of the prison, stoleover him. To lie half sleeping on his hard bed, to sit crouched down,gazing listlessly at the small patch of sky seen through the window, tospell over the names scratched by former prisoners on the plaster, tocount for the thousandth time the fissures in the damp walls--thesefilled his days. His nights were drearier still, tormented withdistressing dreams, to be dispelled only by the gloom of awaking in adungeon.
At intervals of a week or two, orders would come for this or thatprisoner to be delivered to the care of the Marshal of the Temple--noneknew for what, though all surmised the worst, since not one was seen toreturn; and so time sped on, month after month, death and removal doingtheir work, till at last Gerald was the oldest _detenu_ in the sectionof 'L'Opinion.'
The fatuous vacuity of his mind was such that though he heard the voicesaround him, and even tried at times to follow what they said, he couldcollect nothing of it: sometimes the sounds would simply seem to wearyand fatigue him--they acted as some deep monotonous noise might havedone on a tired brain; sometimes they would cause the most intenseirritation, exciting him to a sense of anger he could with difficultycontrol; and at others, again, they would overcome him so thoroughlywith sorrow, that he would weep for hours. How time passed, what he hadhimself been in former years, where and how and with whom he lived, onlyrecurred to him in short fitful passages, like the scenes of some movingpanorama, present for a moment and then lost to view. He would fancy,too, that he had many distinct and separate existences, as many deaths;and then marvel to himself in which of these states he was at thatmoment.
His wild talk; his absurd answers when questioned; the incoherent thingshe would say, stamped him among his fellow-prisoners as one bereft ofreason; nor was there, to all seeming, much injustice in the suspicion.If the chance mention of some name he once knew would start and arousehim, his very observations would appear those of a wandering intellect,since he seemed to have been acquainted with persons the mostopposite and incongruous; and it even became a jest--a sort of prison'plaisanterie'--to ask him whether he was not intimate with this man orthat, mentioning persons the least likely for him ever to have met.
'There goes another of your friends, Maitre,' said one to him: 'theyhave guillotined Brissot this morning; you surely knew him, he editedthe _Droit du Peuple_.'
'Yes, I knew him. Poor Brissot!' said Gerald, with a sigh.
'What was he like, Maitre? was he short and thick, with a beard likemine?'
'No, he was fair and gentle-looking.'
'_Parbleu!_ that was a good guess: so he was.'
'And kind-hearted as he looked,' muttered Gerald.
'He died with Gaudet, Gensonne, Louvet, and four other Maratists. Youhave seen most of them, I 'm sure.'
'Yes. Gaudet and Gensonne I remember; I forget Louvet. Had he a scar onhis temple?'
'That he had; it was a sabre-cut in a duel,' cried one, who added in awhisper, 'he's not the mad fool you take him for.'
'You used to be Gabriel Riquetti in times past?' asked another gravely.
'No--that is--not I; but--I forget how it was--we were--I'll remember itby and by.'
'Why, you told me a few days back that you were Mirabeau.'
'No, no,' said another, 'he said he was Alfieri; I was present.'
'Mirabeau's hair was long and wiry. It was not soft like mine,' saidGerald. 'When he shook it back, he used to say, "I'll show them theboar's head."'
'Yes. He's right, that was a favourite saying of Mirabeau's,' whisperedanother.
'And they are all gone now,' said Gerald with a deep sigh.
'Ay, Maitre, every man of them. All the Girondins; all the friends ofliberty; all the kind spirits who loved men as their brothers; and theguillotine better than the men.'
'And Vergniaud and Fonfrede, you surely knew them?'
Gerald shook his head.
'It was your friend Robespierre sent them to the knife.' Gerald started,and tried to understand what was said.
'Ask him about La Gabrielle,' whispered another. 'What of La Gabrielle?she was Marietta,' cried Gerald wildly.
'She might have been. We only knew her as she figured before our owneyes. In November last she was the Goddess of Reason.'
'No, no; I deny it,' cried another; 'La Gabrielle had fled from Francebefore.'
'She was the Goddess of Reason, I repeat,' said the other. 'She thatused to blush scarlet, when they led her out, after the scene, toreceive the plaudits of the audience, stood shameless before the mob onthe steps of the Pantheon.'
'And I tell you her name was Maillard; it was easy enough to mistake herfor La Gabrielle, for she had the same long, waving, light-brown hair.'
'Marietta's hair was black as night,' muttered Gerald; 'her complexion,too, was the deep olive of the far south, and of her own peculiar race,_I_ ought to know,' added he aloud; 'we wandered many a pleasant miletogether through the valleys of the Apennines.'
The glance of compassionate pity they turned upon him showed how theyread these remembrances of the past.
'Which of you has dared to speak ill of her?' cried he suddenly, as agleam of intelligence shot through his reverie. 'Was it you? or you? oryou?'
'Far be it from _me_,' said Courtel, a young debauchee of the Jacobinparty; 'I admire her much. She has limbs for a statuary to match; andthough this poor picture gives but a sorry idea of such perfections, itis not all unlike!'
As he spoke, he drew forth a coarse print of the Goddess of Reason, asshe stood unveiled, almost unclad, before the populace.
Gerald caught but one glance at the ribald portrait, and then with aspring he seized and tore it into atoms. The action seemed to arouse inhim all the dormant passion of his nature; for in an instant he clutchedCourtel by the throat, and tried to strangle him. It was not withouta severe struggle that he was rescued by the others, and Gerald thrownback, bruised and beaten, on his bed.
From this unlucky hour forth Gerald's comrades held themselves all alooffrom him. He was no longer in their eyes the poor and harmless objectthey had believed, but a wild and dangerous maniac. His life henceforthwas one unbroken solitude; not a word of kindness or sympathy met hisear. The little fragments of cheering tidings others interchanged, noneshared with him, and he sank into a state of almost sleep. Nor was it asmall privilege to sleep, while millions around him were keeping theirorgie of blood; when the cries of the dying and the shouts of vengeancewere mingled in one long, loud strain, and the monotonous stroke of theguillotine never ceased its beat. Sleep was, indeed, a boon, when thewakeful ear and eye had nought but sounds and sights of horror beforethem. What a blessing not to watch the street as it trembled beforethe fatal car, groaning under its crowd of victims. To see them, withdrooped heads and hanging arms, swaying as the rude plank shook them,not lifting an eye upon that cruel mob, whose ribald cries assailedthem, and who had words of welcome but for _him_ who followed on a low,red-coloured cart, pale, stern, and still--the headsman. The thirstyearth was so drunk with carnage that, in the words of one of theConvention, it was said: 'We shall soon fear to drink the water of thewells, lest it be mixed with the blood of our brothers!'
Out of this deep slumber, in which no measure of time was kept, a loudand deafening shock aroused him. It was the force of the mob, who hadbroken-in the prison-doors, and proclaimed liberty to the captives.Robespierre had been guillotined that morning; the 'Terror' was over,and all Paris, in a frenzy of delight, awoke from its terrible orgie ofblood, and dared to breathe with freedom. The burst of joy that brokeforth was like the wild cry of delight uttered by a reprieved criminal.
Few in that vast multitude had less sympathy with that joy than GeraldFitzgerald. Of the prisoners there was not one except himself who hadnot either home or friends to welcome him. Many were met as they issuedforth, and clasped in the arms of loving relatives. Mothers and wives,sisters and brothers were there; children sprang wildly t
o theirfathers' breasts, and words of love and blessing were heard on everyside.
'Who is that yonder: the poor, sickly youth, that creeps along byhimself, with his head down?' whispered a happy girl at her brother'sside.
'That is the "Maitre Fou!"' said he carelessly; 'I think he scarcelyknows whither he is going.'
Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier: A Novel Page 33