CHAPTER VII. THE WIND
He had broken his futile lance with the windmill--the image suggested byM. de Kercadiou persisted in his mind--and it was, he perceived, by sheergood fortune that he had escaped without hurt. There remained the winditself--the whirlwind. And the events in Rennes, reflex of the graverevents in Nantes, had set that wind blowing in his favour.
He set out briskly to retrace his steps towards the Place Royale, wherethe gathering of the populace was greatest, where, as he judged, lay theheart and brain of this commotion that was exciting the city.
But the commotion that he had left there was as nothing to the commotionwhich he found on his return. Then there had been a comparative hushto listen to the voice of a speaker who denounced the First and SecondEstates from the pedestal of the statue of Louis XV. Now the air wasvibrant with the voice of the multitude itself, raised in anger. Hereand there men were fighting with canes and fists; everywhere afierce excitement raged, and the gendarmes sent thither by the King'sLieutenant to restore and maintain order were so much helpless flotsamin that tempestuous human ocean.
There were cries of "To the Palais! To the Palais! Down with theassassins! Down with the nobles! To the Palais!"
An artisan who stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the pressenlightened Andre-Louis on the score of the increased excitement.
"They've shot him dead. His body is lying there where it fell at thefoot of the statue. And there was another student killed not an hour agoover there by the cathedral works. Pardi! If they can't prevail in oneway they'll prevail in another." The man was fiercely emphatic. "They'llstop at nothing. If they can't overawe us, by God, they'll assassinateus. They are determined to conduct these States of Brittany in their ownway. No interests but their own shall be considered."
Andre-Louis left him still talking, and clove himself a way through thathuman press.
At the statue's base he came upon a little cluster of students about thebody of the murdered lad, all stricken with fear and helplessness.
"You here, Moreau!" said a voice.
He looked round to find himself confronted by a slight, swarthy manof little more than thirty, firm of mouth and impertinent of nose,who considered him with disapproval. It was Le Chapelier, a lawyerof Rennes, a prominent member of the Literary Chamber of that city, aforceful man, fertile in revolutionary ideas and of an exceptional giftof eloquence.
"Ah, it is you, Chapelier! Why don't you speak to them? Why don't youtell them what to do? Up with you, man!" And he pointed to the plinth.
Le Chapelier's dark, restless eyes searched the other's impassive facefor some trace of the irony he suspected. They were as wide asunderas the poles, these two, in their political views; and mistrusted asAndre-Louis was by all his colleagues of the Literary Chamber of Rennes,he was by none mistrusted so thoroughly as by this vigorous republican.Indeed, had Le Chapelier been able to prevail against the influence ofthe seminarist Vilmorin, Andre-Louis would long since have found himselfexcluded from that assembly of the intellectual youth of Rennes, whichhe exasperated by his eternal mockery of their ideals.
So now Le Chapelier suspected mockery in that invitation, suspected iteven when he failed to find traces of it on Andre-Louis' face, for hehad learnt by experience that it was a face not often to be trusted foran indication of the real thoughts that moved behind it.
"Your notions and mine on that score can hardly coincide," said he.
"Can there be two opinions?" quoth Andre-Louis.
"There are usually two opinions whenever you and I are together,Moreau--more than ever now that you are the appointed delegate of anobleman. You see what your friends have done. No doubt you approvetheir methods." He was coldly hostile.
Andre-Louis looked at him without surprise. So invariably opposed toeach other in academic debates, how should Le Chapelier suspect hispresent intentions?
"If you won't tell them what is to be done, I will," said he.
"Nom de Dieu! If you want to invite a bullet from the other side, Ishall not hinder you. It may help to square the account."
Scarcely were the words out than he repented them; for as if in answerto that challenge Andre-Louis sprang up on to the plinth. Alarmed now,for he could only suppose it to be Andre-Louis' intention to speakon behalf of Privilege, of which he was a publicly appointedrepresentative, Le Chapelier clutched him by the leg to pull him downagain.
"Ah, that, no!" he was shouting. "Come down, you fool. Do you think wewill let you ruin everything by your clowning? Come down!"
Andre-Louis, maintaining his position by clutching one of the legs ofthe bronze horse, flung his voice like a bugle-note over the heads ofthat seething mob.
"Citizens of Rennes, the motherland is in danger!"
The effect was electric. A stir ran, like a ripple over water, acrossthat froth of upturned human faces, and completest silence followed.In that great silence they looked at this slim young man, hatless,long wisps of his black hair fluttering in the breeze, his neckcloth indisorder, his face white, his eyes on fire.
Andre-Louis felt a sudden surge of exaltation as he realized by instinctthat at one grip he had seized that crowd, and that he held it fast inthe spell of his cry and his audacity.
Even Le Chapelier, though still clinging to his ankle, had ceased totug. The reformer, though unshaken in his assumption of Andre-Louis'intentions, was for a moment bewildered by the first note of his appeal.
And then, slowly, impressively, in a voice that travelled clear to theends of the square, the young lawyer of Gavrillac began to speak.
"Shuddering in horror of the vile deed here perpetrated, my voicedemands to be heard by you. You have seen murder done under youreyes--the murder of one who nobly, without any thought of self, gavevoice to the wrongs by which we are all oppressed. Fearing that voice,shunning the truth as foul things shun the light, our oppressors senttheir agents to silence him in death."
Le Chapelier released at last his hold of Andre-Louis' ankle, staringup at him the while in sheer amazement. It seemed that the fellow was inearnest; serious for once; and for once on the right side. What had cometo him?
"Of assassins what shall you look for but assassination? I have atale to tell which will show that this is no new thing that you havewitnessed here to-day; it will reveal to you the forces with which youhave to deal. Yesterday..."
There was an interruption. A voice in the crowd, some twenty paces,perhaps, was raised to shout:
"Yet another of them!"
Immediately after the voice came a pistol-shot, and a bullet flatteneditself against the bronze figure just behind Andre-Louis.
Instantly there was turmoil in the crowd, most intense about the spotwhence the shot had been fired. The assailant was one of a considerablegroup of the opposition, a group that found itself at once beset onevery side, and hard put to it to defend him.
From the foot of the plinth rang the voice of the students making chorusto Le Chapelier, who was bidding Andre-Louis to seek shelter.
"Come down! Come down at once! They'll murder you as they murdered LaRiviere."
"Let them!" He flung wide his arms in a gesture supremely theatrical,and laughed. "I stand here at their mercy. Let them, if they will, addmine to the blood that will presently rise up to choke them. Let themassassinate me. It is a trade they understand. But until they do so,they shall not prevent me from speaking to you, from telling you whatis to be looked for in them." And again he laughed, not merely inexaltation as they supposed who watched him from below, but also inamusement. And his amusement had two sources. One was to discover howglibly he uttered the phrases proper to whip up the emotions of a crowd:the other was in the remembrance of how the crafty Cardinal de Retz, forthe purpose of inflaming popular sympathy on his behalf, had been in thehabit of hiring fellows to fire upon his carriage. He was in just suchcase as that arch-politician. True, he had not hired the fellow to firethat pistol-shot; but he was none the less obliged to him, and ready toderive the fullest, advantage from the a
ct.
The group that sought to protect that man was battling on, seeking tohew a way out of that angry, heaving press.
"Let them go!" Andre-Louis called down..."What matters one assassin moreor less? Let them go, and listen to me, my countrymen!"
And presently, when some measure of order was restored, he began histale. In simple language now, yet with a vehemence and directnessthat drove home every point, he tore their hearts with the story ofyesterday's happenings at Gavrillac. He drew tears from them withthe pathos of his picture of the bereaved widow Mabey and her threestarving, destitute children--"orphaned to avenge the death of apheasant"--and the bereaved mother of that M. de Vilmorin, a student ofRennes, known here to many of them, who had met his death in a nobleendeavour to champion the cause of an esurient member of their afflictedorder.
"The Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr said of him that he had too dangerous agift of eloquence. It was to silence his brave voice that he killedhim. But he has failed of his object. For I, poor Philippe de Vilmorin'sfriend, have assumed the mantle of his apostleship, and I speak to youwith his voice to-day."
It was a statement that helped Le Chapelier at last to understand, atleast in part, this bewildering change in Andre-Louis, which renderedhim faithless to the side that employed him.
"I am not here," continued Andre-Louis, "merely to demand at your handsvengeance upon Philippe de Vilmorin's murderers. I am here to tell youthe things he would to-day have told you had he lived."
So far at least he was frank. But he did not add that they were thingshe did not himself believe, things that he accounted the cant by whichan ambitious bourgeoisie--speaking through the mouths of the lawyers, whowere its articulate part--sought to overthrow to its own advantage thepresent state of things. He left his audience in the natural belief thatthe views he expressed were the views he held.
And now in a terrible voice, with an eloquence that amazed himself,he denounced the inertia of the royal justice where the great are theoffenders. It was with bitter sarcasm that he spoke of their King'sLieutenant, M. de Lesdiguieres.
"Do you wonder," he asked them, "that M. de Lesdiguieres shouldadminister the law so that it shall ever be favourable to our greatnobles? Would it be just, would it be reasonable that he shouldotherwise administer it?" He paused dramatically to let his sarcasm sinkin. It had the effect of reawakening Le Chapelier's doubts, and checkinghis dawning conviction in Andre-Louis' sincerity. Whither was he goingnow?
He was not left long in doubt. Proceeding, Andre-Louis spoke as heconceived that Philippe de Vilmorin would have spoken. He had so oftenargued with him, so often attended the discussions of the LiteraryChamber, that he had all the rant of the reformers--that was yet true insubstance--at his fingers' ends.
"Consider, after all, the composition of this France of ours. A millionof its inhabitants are members of the privileged classes. They composeFrance. They are France. For surely you cannot suppose the remainderto be anything that matters. It cannot be pretended that twenty-fourmillion souls are of any account, that they can be representative ofthis great nation, or that they can exist for any purpose but that ofservitude to the million elect."
Bitter laughter shook them now, as he desired it should. "Seeing theirprivileges in danger of invasion by these twenty-four millions--mostlycanailles; possibly created by God, it is true, but clearly so createdto be the slaves of Privilege--does it surprise you that the dispensingof royal justice should be placed in the stout hands of theseLesdiguieres, men without brains to think or hearts to be touched?Consider what it is that must be defended against the assault of usothers--canaille. Consider a few of these feudal rights that are indanger of being swept away should the Privileged yield even to thecommands of their sovereign; and admit the Third Estate to an equal votewith themselves.
"What would become of the right of terrage on the land, of parciere onthe fruit-trees, of carpot on the vines? What of the corvees by whichthey command forced labour, of the ban de vendage, which gives them thefirst vintage, the banvin which enables them to control to their ownadvantage the sale of wine? What of their right of grinding the lastliard of taxation out of the people to maintain their own opulentestate; the cens, the lods-et-ventes, which absorb a fifth of the valueof the land, the blairee, which must be paid before herds can feed oncommunal lands, the pulverage to indemnify them for the dust raised ontheir roads by the herds that go to market, the sextelage on everythingoffered for sale in the public markets, the etalonnage, and all therest? What of their rights over men and animals for field labour, offerries over rivers, and of bridges over streams, of sinking wells, ofwarren, of dovecot, and of fire, which last yields them a tax onevery peasant hearth? What of their exclusive rights of fishing and ofhunting, the violation of which is ranked as almost a capital offence?
"And what of other rights, unspeakable, abominable, over the lives andbodies of their people, rights which, if rarely exercised, have neverbeen rescinded. To this day if a noble returning from the hunt were toslay two of his serfs to bathe and refresh his feet in their blood, hecould still claim in his sufficient defence that it was his absolutefeudal right to do so.
"Rough-shod, these million Privileged ride over the souls and bodiesof twenty-four million contemptible canaille existing but for their ownpleasure. Woe betide him who so much as raises his voice in protestin the name of humanity against an excess of these already excessiveabuses. I have told you of one remorselessly slain in cold blood fordoing no more than that. Your own eyes have witnessed the assassinationof another here upon this plinth, of yet another over there by thecathedral works, and the attempt upon my own life.
"Between them and the justice due to them in such cases stand theseLesdiguieres, these King's Lieutenants; not instruments of justice, butwalls erected for the shelter of Privilege and Abuse whenever it exceedsits grotesquely excessive rights.
"Do you wonder that they will not yield an inch; that they will resistthe election of a Third Estate with the voting power to sweep all theseprivileges away, to compel the Privileged to submit themselves to a justequality in the eyes of the law with the meanest of the canaille theytrample underfoot, to provide that the moneys necessary to save thisstate from the bankruptcy into which they have all but plunged it shallbe raised by taxation to be borne by themselves in the same proportionas by others?
"Sooner than yield to so much they prefer to resist even the royalcommand."
A phrase occurred to him used yesterday by Vilmorin, a phrase to whichhe had refused to attach importance when uttered then. He used it now."In doing this they are striking at the very foundations of the throne.These fools do not perceive that if that throne falls over, it is theywho stand nearest to it who will be crushed."
A terrific roar acclaimed that statement. Tense and quivering with theexcitement that was flowing through him, and from him out into thatgreat audience, he stood a moment smiling ironically. Then he wavedthem into silence, and saw by their ready obedience how completely hepossessed them. For in the voice with which he spoke each now recognizedthe voice of himself, giving at last expression to the thoughts that formonths and years had been inarticulately stirring in each simple mind.
Presently he resumed, speaking more quietly, that ironic smile about thecorner of his mouth growing more marked:
"In taking my leave of M. de Lesdiguieres I gave him warning out of apage of natural history. I told him that when the wolves, roaming singlythrough the jungle, were weary of being hunted by the tiger, they bandedthemselves into packs, and went a-hunting the tiger in their turn. M. deLesdiguieres contemptuously answered that he did not understand me. Butyour wits are better than his. You understand me, I think? Don't you?"
Again a great roar, mingled now with some approving laughter, was hisanswer. He had wrought them up to a pitch of dangerous passion, and theywere ripe for any violence to which he urged them. If he had failed withthe windmill, at least he was now master of the wind.
"To the Palais!" they shouted, waving their hands, br
andishing canes,and--here and there--even a sword. "To the Palais! Down with M. deLesdiguieres! Death to the King's Lieutenant!"
He was master of the wind, indeed. His dangerous gift of oratory--agift nowhere more powerful than in France, since nowhere else are men'semotions so quick to respond to the appeal of eloquence--had given himthis mastery. At his bidding now the gale would sweep away thewindmill against which he had flung himself in vain. But that, as hestraightforwardly revealed it, was no part of his intent.
"Ah, wait!" he bade them. "Is this miserable instrument of a corruptsystem worth the attention of your noble indignation?"
He hoped his words would be reported to M. de Lesdiguieres. He thoughtit would be good for the soul of M. de Lesdiguieres to hear theundiluted truth about himself for once.
"It is the system itself you must attack and overthrow; not a mereinstrument--a miserable painted lath such as this. And precipitancy willspoil everything. Above all, my children, no violence!"
My children! Could his godfather have heard him!
"You have seen often already the result of premature violence elsewherein Brittany, and you have heard of it elsewhere in France. Violence onyour part will call for violence on theirs. They will welcome the chanceto assert their mastery by a firmer grip than heretofore. The militarywill be sent for. You will be faced by the bayonets of mercenaries. Donot provoke that, I implore you. Do not put it into their power, do notafford them the pretext they would welcome to crush you down into themud of your own blood."
Out of the silence into which they had fallen anew broke now the cry of
"What else, then? What else?"
"I will tell you," he answered them. "The wealth and strength ofBrittany lies in Nantes--a bourgeois city, one of the most prosperous inthis realm, rendered so by the energy of the bourgeoisie and the toil ofthe people. It was in Nantes that this movement had its beginning, andas a result of it the King issued his order dissolving the States as nowconstituted--an order which those who base their power on Privilege andAbuse do not hesitate to thwart. Let Nantes be informed of the precisesituation, and let nothing be done here until Nantes shall have given usthe lead. She has the power--which we in Rennes have not--to make her willprevail, as we have seen already. Let her exert that power once more,and until she does so do you keep the peace in Rennes. Thus shall youtriumph. Thus shall the outrages that are being perpetrated under youreyes be fully and finally avenged."
As abruptly as he had leapt upon the plinth did he now leap down fromit. He had finished. He had said all--perhaps more than all--that couldhave been said by the dead friend with whose voice he spoke. But it wasnot their will that he should thus extinguish himself. The thunder oftheir acclamations rose deafeningly upon the air. He had played upontheir emotions--each in turn--as a skilful harpist plays upon the stringsof his instrument. And they were vibrant with the passions he hadaroused, and the high note of hope on which he had brought his symphonyto a close.
A dozen students caught him as he leapt down, and swung him to theirshoulders, where again he came within view of all the acclaiming crowd.
The delicate Le Chapelier pressed alongside of him with flushed face andshining eyes.
"My lad," he said to him, "you have kindled a fire to-day that willsweep the face of France in a blaze of liberty." And then to thestudents he issued a sharp command. "To the Literary Chamber--at once. Wemust concert measures upon the instant, a delegate must be dispatchedto Nantes forthwith, to convey to our friends there the message of thepeople of Rennes."
The crowd fell back, opening a lane through which the students borethe hero of the hour. Waving his hands to them, he called upon them todisperse to their homes, and await there in patience what must followvery soon.
"You have endured for centuries with a fortitude that is a pattern tothe world," he flattered them. "Endure a little longer yet. The end, myfriends, is well in sight at last."
They carried him out of the square and up the Rue Royale to an oldhouse, one of the few old houses surviving in that city that had risenfrom its ashes, where in an upper chamber lighted by diamond-shapedpanes of yellow glass the Literary Chamber usually held its meetings.Thither in his wake the members of that chamber came hurrying, summonedby the messages that Le Chapelier had issued during their progress.
Behind closed doors a flushed and excited group of some fifty men, themajority of whom were young, ardent, and afire with the illusion ofliberty, hailed Andre-Louis as the strayed sheep who had returned to thefold, and smothered him in congratulations and thanks.
Then they settled down to deliberate upon immediate measures, whilst thedoors below were kept by a guard of honour that had improvised itselffrom the masses. And very necessary was this. For no sooner had theChamber assembled than the house was assailed by the gendarmerie of M.de Lesdiguieres, dispatched in haste to arrest the firebrand who wasinciting the people of Rennes to sedition. The force consisted of fiftymen. Five hundred would have been too few. The mob broke their carbines,broke some of their heads, and would indeed have torn them into pieceshad they not beaten a timely and well-advised retreat before a form ofhorseplay to which they were not at all accustomed.
And whilst that was taking place in the street below, in the roomabovestairs the eloquent Le Chapelier was addressing his colleaguesof the Literary Chamber. Here, with no bullets to fear, and no oneto report his words to the authorities, Le Chapelier could permit hisoratory a full, unintimidated flow. And that considerable oratory was asdirect and brutal as the man himself was delicate and elegant.
He praised the vigour and the greatness of the speech they had heardfrom their colleague Moreau. Above all he praised its wisdom. Moreau'swords had come as a surprise to them. Hitherto they had never knownhim as other than a bitter critic of their projects of reform andregeneration and quite lately they had heard, not without misgivings,of his appointment as delegate for a nobleman in the States of Brittany.But they held the explanation of his conversion. The murder of theirdear colleague Vilmorin had produced this change. In that brutal deedMoreau had beheld at last in true proportions the workings of that evilspirit which they were vowed to exorcise from France. And to-day he hadproven himself the stoutest apostle among them of the new faith. He hadpointed out to them the only sane and useful course. The illustration hehad borrowed from natural history was most apt. Above all, let them packlike the wolves, and to ensure this uniformity of action in the peopleof all Brittany, let a delegate at once be sent to Nantes, which hadalready proved itself the real seat of Brittany's power. It but remainedto appoint that delegate, and Le Chapelier invited them to elect him.
Andre-Louis, on a bench near the window, a prey now to some measure ofreaction, listened in bewilderment to that flood of eloquence.
As the applause died down, he heard a voice exclaiming:
"I propose to you that we appoint our leader here, Le Chapelier, to bethat delegate."
Le Chapelier reared his elegantly dressed head, which had been bowedin thought, and it was seen that his countenance was pale. Nervously hefingered a gold spy-glass.
"My friends," he said, slowly, "I am deeply sensible of the honourthat you do me. But in accepting it I should be usurping an honourthat rightly belongs elsewhere. Who could represent us better, who moredeserving to be our representative, to speak to our friends of Nanteswith the voice of Rennes, than the champion who once already to-day hasso incomparably given utterance to the voice of this great city? Conferthis honour of being your spokesman where it belongs--upon Andre-LouisMoreau."
Rising in response to the storm of applause that greeted the proposal,Andre-Louis bowed and forthwith yielded. "Be it so," he said, simply."It is perhaps fitting that I should carry out what I have begun, thoughI too am of the opinion that Le Chapelier would have been a worthierrepresentative. I will set out to-night."
"You will set out at once, my lad," Le Chapelier informed him, and nowrevealed what an uncharitable mind might account the true source of hisgenerosity. "It is not safe after
what has happened for you to linger anhour in Rennes. And you must go secretly. Let none of you allow it tobe known that he has gone. I would not have you come to harm over this,Andre-Louis. But you must see the risks you run, and if you are to bespared to help in this work of salvation of our afflicted motherland,you must use caution, move secretly, veil your identity even. Or elseM. de Lesdiguieres will have you laid by the heels, and it will begood-night for you."
Scaramouche: A Romance of the French Revolution Page 7