The Devil’s Laughter

by Frank Yerby

  “Stay inside, Fleurette!” And very quietly put out his wrists to be bound.

  18

  IT was dark in the Conciergerie, and it stank. The ordinary prisoners, blackguards, footpads, men who made the mistake of having done murder for private ends instead of political ones, were unbelievably filthy. They dropped their excreta upon the straw upon which they slept, then wallowed in it during their rest. All visages of decency, of humanity, had vanished from them. They tormented the better-class political prisoners, standing by to watch while the guards stripped gently-bred women naked, supposedly to search them for weapons, or felt their bodies under their clothing for the same official reason. Jean saw women faint under the brutality dealt them.

  It must end, he thought, it must. If they arrest Fleurette as they did Madame Desmoulins, I pray God to visit his wrath upon their heads! Was Lucienne subjected to this? At least at the end she escaped them; she had her wish—when they laid her out she was beautiful and serene. . . .

  And I—how will I manage the act of dying? Bravely, I hope; for I cannot claim I have not merited it. I helped to make this thing, and it matters not that it took this monstrous form so different from all I ever planned. I made it of envy, hating la Moyte because he was gay and fair. . . . Out of my sense of justice, never realising that justice is even a stranger to the affairs of men. Better to have died with honour at Valmy, Jemappes, Hondeschoote than this.

  But I’ve done what I could. I tried to save the crown; I laboured always on the side of mercy; I’ve killed no one save my country’s enemies.

  Little Fleur, my love, how will you fare? And this child of ours that swells your tender body now, and kicks beneath your heart? I can only pray that God will take care of you and this lovely fruit of our love; for I must leave you now, my sweet, going into deeper darkness than that in which you live. . . .

  He turned to another prisoner, a small man, sitting there, his head sunk upon his breast, lost in pure despair.

  “What day is this?” Jean said.

  “Eh—the ninth of Thermidor,” the small man said.

  The ninth of Thermidor, Jean counted; that would be July 27; and I have been here five days—since the fourth of Thermidor, July 22. What has delayed them so long? So many before, I suppose, that not even Fouquien and Samson can keep abreast. Five days since Nicole died trying to save me. . . . I was ever her evil genius; till I entered her life, she had known only peace; when I helped throw down the system that sustained her, I had doomed her already; the only difference being that I knew her as a person, living, breathing—that I loved her. And it was as a person that she died, with wild courage sacrificing her life for mine, not as an abstraction, a symbol called noble or aristocrat. Men are never abstractions, though we so label them; though we condemn them under the meaningless titles, they still die as Gervais la Moyte died, as men going down to the ultimate loneliness.

  I will die as a Dantonist traitor; but it will not be those empty words whose heads fall into Samson’s basket. It will be a creature unique upon the earth, taking with me dreams, beliefs, hopes, despairs and follies differing from those of any other man, and no sun shall ever rise again upon my like, which has no importance save alone to me.

  Five days, and Fleurette has never once visited me in all that time. She is ill, there is no other explanation. There is not an ounce of cowardice in that tiny body. Of course she’s ill; in her condition, any shock is likely to do her harm. . . . God keep her safe; her and our child. . . .

  But Jean was wrong. Fleurette was not ill. She was simply busy. One hour after they had dragged Jean Paul away, she dried the last hysterical tear from her eyes and sat up, saying to Marianne:

  “Come, help me dress; I have things to do!”

  “What things?” Marianne said.

  Fleurette raised her sightless eyes and her mouth was a line drawn hard across her face.

  “I have to save my husband,” she said. “What else?”

  “But how?” Marianne said, terror rustling through her voice.

  “I shall go to Robespierre himself and beg for mercy. Tell me, Marianne, am I very big?”

  “No—not very,” Marianne said truthfully; “but it shows——”

  “Good! They say that Robespierre is without pity; but I don’t believe it. Jean says he once defended Desmoulins against the Committee. I think he is weak and lets himself be driven into those positions.”

  “Weak!” Marianne snorted; “then how did he get where he is?”

  “Because he is one of those curious people who act a part until they begin to believe it themselves. Jean says he’s horribly stupid; but he believes himself a genius. What’s more, he believes it so firmly, and acts the part so well, that he has been able to convince the rest. There. I’m ready—come. . . .”

  As Marianne led her through the streets to the house of the wealthy Citizen Duplay in the Rue Saint Hononé, where Robespierre lived, Fleurette could feel her trembling.

  “Don’t fear, love,” Fleurette smiled; “he’s only a man, remember; and we are women—hence infinitely superior! Come. . . .”

  But when the domestic of Duplay mounted to Maximilien’s chamber and announced that the pregnant wife of a jailed man was below seeking an audience, Robespierre snarled:

  “I won’t see her! You know I abhor women—and particularly pregnant ones! Send her away. . . .”

  He did not sense the courage of the woman who waited below. The next day she was back again, and the next. Twice he escaped her by plunging headlong into his carriage; but he could not escape for ever.

  Fleurette caught up with him finally while he was walking on the Champs-Elysées with Eleonore Duplay, rich Duplay’s daughter, the two of them accompanied by Robespierre’s giant great Dane, Brount.

  “Citizen Robespierre,” she said, clutching his arm; “you must save my husband!”

  “And who, pray, is your husband?” Robespierre said in his dry voice.

  “Jean Paul Marin,” Fleurette blurted; “he has never done you harm and. . . .”

  “Marin!” Robespierre shrieked, his voice shrill, womanish. “Citoyenne, your husband was one of the most relentless of my enemies! Save him, pah! A Dantonist and a traitor! Why should I save him?”

  But the gentle Eleonore, clutching his arm, whispered:

  “Max—can’t you see she’s both pregnant—and blind?”

  “So?” Maximilien screeched. “What is that to me? I am responsible for neither state! Come, Eleonore. . . .”

  He started to walk away. But Fleurette, standing there trembling, had the last word:

  “I charge you to remember, Citizen,” she said, “there was once a man called Manat—and a woman named Charlotte Corday!”

  Maximilien Robespierre turned, looking at her thoughtfully through the thick lenses of his spectacles. He opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out of it—no sound at all. And had not Fleurette Marin been blind, she would have seen that his face was as white as death.

  There was something afoot. Jean Paul knew that. That whole night of Thermidor ninth the streets had echoed with marching and counter-marching. From the roof-tops men waved lanterns at the prisoners, and held them up to their own faces so that the prisoners could see their smiles.

  Rumours flew from cell to cell as bearded faces thrust themselves against the bars:

  “‘Tis said Robespierre’s been arrested! They’ve got him at last—” the words themselves being drowned in a wild burst of cheering. But the joy didn’t last long. Close to midnight a wild-voiced citizen appeared at the gates of the Conciergerie crying: “All is lost! He’s free! Robespierre is free—and they plan a new massacre of prisoners!”

  Jean Paul got up from his pallet of straw. A vein stood at his temple and beat with his blood. He bent and rubbed his stiffened limbs, thinking:

  When, in all this time, Jean Marin, have you played the man? Nicole died like a heroine, but you went with them—a sheep to the slaughter! Have they truly broken you, then
, that you accept assassination at the hands of cowards without a struggle?

  He straightened up, and a low chuckle escaped his lips. One of the other prisoners, hearing it, went cold all over.

  At Valmy I was a man, at Jemappes, more. I have cowed the mob two dozen times, but I let my spirit flag, I grew weary, and accepted too much. But nothing measures to the last inch the spirit of a man better than what he refuses to accept. . . . Alors, you bastards! My head may decorate your pikes; but, by my faith, it shall cost you dear!

  He was moving then towards the iron gate that separated the huge common cell from the hallway and the outer gates.

  “Guard!” he called, his voice dark thunder.

  The guard came running up, fury in his face.

  “Closer,” Jean smiled; “I have valuable information to give thee!”

  “What is it?” the guard said suspiciously.

  “They plan a prison break,” Jean whispered; “I tell you, to gain some clemency for myself. Come closer, man; they’ll kill me if they hear!”

  The guard moved in, too close. Jean’s big hands were about his neck, squeezing until the tint of blue appeared in the man’s face.

  “Your keys!” he laughed; “or, by Max Robespierre’s Supreme Being, you die!”

  The guard had scant reason to play the hero. He passed over the keys. Jean kept his left hand about his throat, it alone having strength enough to kill him, and unlocked the door. Then, still holding the guard with his left, he smashed his right fist into the man’s face with force enough to fell an ox. When he released him the guard sank to the stones without a sound.

  Jean bent over and picked him up. Weaponless, he had need of the guard, living, to persuade the others not to shoot, to let him through. Then, turning, he called to the others:

  “Who is with me! Who’ll make a break for it?”

  They hunched in their corners and stared at him, abject terror in their eyes.

  Jean stared back, then soaring, merciless, mocking, he loosed his terrible laughter.

  “Alors!” he boomed, “die, then, like the rats you are!”

  He marched straight for the door, carrying the guard. From the little hut beside the main gate another turnkey came flying out, crying:

  “What ails him, is he sick?”

  “Yes,” Jean said; “I think he’s dying. . . .”

  The turnkey came close. Then:

  “You’re a prisoner!” he shrilled; “how on earth—”

  It was the last sound he made. Jean dropped the unconscious guard with one motion and came up from the floor, hooking the turnkey’s head right and left and right again, smashing the blows home, and the turnkey, hanging there, taking it, unconscious on his feet, so that when Jean Paul dropped his hands and stood back, the man fell forward on his face.

  In the little booth there was a brace of pistols. Jean took them, sticking one in his belt; then, picking up the turnkey, because he was smaller and lighter than the guard he had intended originally to use as hostage, he cradled him in his arms, with the muzzle of the cocked pistol jammed into his throat just below his chin.

  He marched on then to the outer gates. The guards sprang towards him, pikes and pistols levelled.

  “Alors, ye dogs!” Jean laughed; “drop your pretty toys! One shot from you and your master dies!”

  They fell back and let him pass, and at the street gates it was the same.

  “Do not follow me!” Jean roared at them, satanic laughter bubbling through his voice; “your friend and I will make a long promenade! If you want him back again, by God’s love do not follow me!”

  The night’s events had unnerved them; they had no stomach for such work. Jean walked along across the bridge to the Right Bank, laughing softly to himself; never in years had he found life so amusing. At the intersection of the Avenue Henri Quatre and the Rue Saint-Antoine he dropped his burden and ran, making quite remarkable speed through the dark street.

  The Rue Saint-Antoine was alive with people, though it was now one o’clock of the morning of Thermidor tenth. From them Jean had the story:

  “Yes, he was freed! The jailors at Luxembourg were afraid to receive him. They took him to the Maine, but the officials there are his friends . . .”

  “Wait, Citizen! He’s no longer at the Main!” a newcomer cried; “he’s broken his arrest and gone to the Hôtel de Ville!”

  “Then,” Jean roared exultantly, “he’s hors de loi—he’s an outlaw now, Citizens! And he can now be shot like the whining dog he is! Let me through, mes amis—this, this is work for my hands!”

  He bounded up the stairs towards his flat, taking them three at a time. He threw the door open, without thinking about it, until he heard Fleurette’s and Marianne’s double scream.

  “Jean!” Marianne gasped. “Name of God! How on earth . . .”

  “Jean,” Fleurette cried; “Jean, my darling, how—oh, Jean, tell me how . . . ?”

  “There’s no time, love,” Jean laughed. “I broke out of jail, but that’s not important now. But know this, love—by morning I shall be a free man, or I shall be dead; but you can tell my son I died with my hands unbound and a brace of pistols in them!”

  “Jean, Jean, you’re mad!” Fleurette whispered.

  “No—sane for the first time in a long while. Fighting is my métier, not tame submission! Love, give me my coat, my cane, and my pistols. Marianne—powder and ball—you know where I keep them. Wrap them in something, because it’s starting to rain. . . .”

  He kissed Fleurette hard.

  “Robespierre’s at the Hôtel de Vile,” he said. “This night good men must end his tyranny once and for all. We’ll win, I think, my love; but if we do not . . .”

  “I can tell our son,” Fleurette whispered, “that his father was a brave man and a gallant gentleman—who died like one, not bound to a plank stained with the blood of cowards!”

  “Fleur!” Marianne gasped; “how can you say such a thing?”

  “Because it’s true,” Fleurette exulted; “only because it’s true!”

  Then Jean was gone, thundering down the stairs.

  She sat there the remainder of the night, ignoring the discomfort of her swollen body, listening at the window until the dawn was so far advanced that she felt the sun’s heat upon her sightless face, and she sitting there, still not moving, waiting, hearing far off the first rows of exultation, growing louder, louder until they rolled into the street below, borne on a wild rush of feet, and people shouting:

  “He’s dead! He’s dead! The Tyrant is slain and the Terror is over!”

  She got up then and went slowly down the stairs and mingled with the crowd. She had it all from them—how Robespierre had died screaming, how the Convention had already decreed a general release of prisoners jailed under the Terror.

  So all he had to do was to wait, she thought, and he would have been freed anyway. But waiting is for cowards—and my Jean is too much man! I’m glad he didn’t wait—that he fought his way out, took his place in this, that with his own big hands he turned the world upside down! Such good hands, my Jean’s—so strong—so gentle— Then she heard his great laughter booming above the roar of the crowd, and his big voice calling: “Fleurette!” and she was off, running wildly towards the sound.

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  Scanned and proofed by Amigo da Onça