“Alas!” said Maurice. “I’m here to find out what’s happened to another poor unfortunate woman.”
“Yes, I know,” said Maison-Rouge. “The woman whose husband pushed her into the Queen’s cell, isn’t that right? The woman who was arrested before my very eyes?”
“Geneviève?”
“Yes, Geneviève.”
“So Geneviève is a prisoner, sacrificed by her husband, sent to her death by Dixmer? … Oh! I see it all, I understand everything now! Tell me what happened, Knight, tell me where she is, tell me how I can find her. Knight … that woman is my life. Do you hear?”
“Well, I saw her; I was there when she was arrested. I too had come to break out the Queen! But Dixmer and I weren’t able to communicate with each other, and so we doubled up and our two plans did harm, not good.”
“And you didn’t save her, at least, your sister, Geneviève?”
“How could I? Iron bars separated me from her. Ah, if you’d been there, if we could have joined forces, that cursed bar would have yielded and we would have saved both women.”
“Geneviève! Geneviève!” murmured Maurice.
Then he looked at Maison-Rouge with a frightening expression of rage.
“And Dixmer, what’s happened to him?”
“I don’t know. He ran one way and I ran the other.”
“Oh!” hissed Maurice between clenched teeth. “If I ever get my hands on him …”
“Yes, I know. But nothing is desperate yet for Geneviève,” said Maison-Rouge, “whereas here, for the Queen … Oh, look, Maurice, you’re a man with a heart, a powerful man; you have friends.… Oh, please, I beg you as one prays to God.… Maurice, help me save the Queen.”
“You think I would?”
“Maurice, Geneviève beseeches you through me.”
“Oh! Don’t say that name, monsieur. How do I know you didn’t sacrifice that poor woman, just like Dixmer?”
“Monsieur,” replied the Knight loftily, “the only person I know how to sacrifice, when I support a cause, is myself.”
At that moment the door to the jurors’ anteroom opened again, just as Maurice was about to reply.
“Silence, monsieur!” said the Knight. “Silence. The jurors are back.”
Maison-Rouge was pale and tottering; he placed his trembling hand on Maurice’s arm.
“Oh!” murmured the Knight. “Oh! My heart is failing me.”
“Courage; get a grip on yourself or you’re finished!” said Maurice.
The Tribunal had indeed returned, and the news of its return spread throughout the corridors and galleries. The crowd surged forward again into the courtroom and the lights seemed to revive all on their own for this decisive and solemn moment.
The Queen was brought back in; she held herself erect, majestically still, regal, her eyes steady and her lips tightly pressed together.
They read her the decree that condemned her to death.
She listened without blanching, without batting an eyelid, without moving a muscle of her face, without giving any appearance of emotion.
Then she turned to the Knight and addressed a long and eloquent gaze to him, as though to thank this man whom she had never seen other than as a monument of devotion. Then, leaning on the arm of the officer of the gendarmerie who commanded the armed forces, she walked out of the tribunal, calm and dignified.
Maurice let out a long sigh.
“Thank God!” he said. “Nothing in her deposition compromised Geneviève. There is still hope.”
“Thank God!” echoed the Knight of Maison-Rouge. “It’s all over and the struggle is at an end. I didn’t have the strength to carry on.”
“Be strong, monsieur!” Maurice whispered.
“I will be strong,” replied the Knight.
They shook hands and both men moved off through two different exits.
The Queen was taken back to the Conciergerie: the bell of the great clock struck four as she stepped inside.
At the far end of the Pont-Neuf, Maurice was stopped by Lorin’s outstretched arms.
“Halt there!” he said. “You can’t pass.”
“Why’s that?”
“First, where are you going?”
“Home. That’s just it: I can, now that I know what’s happened to her.”
“So much the better. But you can’t go home.”
“What’s the reason?”
“The reason is this: two hours ago, the gendarmes came to arrest you.”
“Ah!” cried Maurice. “All the more reason.”
“Are you mad? What about Geneviève?”
“True. Then where are we going? ”
“To my place—where do you think?”
“You’ve lost me.”
“All the more reason. Follow me.”
And with that, Lorin dragged Maurice away.
47
PRIEST AND BUTCHER
When she quit the Tribunal, the Queen had been taken to the Conciergerie. When she reached her room, she took a pair of scissors and cut off her beautiful long hair, which had only become more beautiful due to lack of powder,1 which had been abolished for over a year now. She wrapped her shorn hair in paper and wrote on the outside: To be divided between my son and my daughter.
She then sat, or rather fell, on a chair and, broken by exhaustion—the hearing had lasted eighteen hours!—she fell asleep. At seven o’clock, the noise of the screen being moved caused her to wake with a start. She looked around in fright and saw a man whom she had never seen before.
“What do they want of me now?” she said.
The man came closer and greeted her as politely as if she were not the Queen.
“My name is Sanson,” he said.
The Queen gave a faint shudder and got out of bed. The name alone spoke volumes.
“You’ve certainly come early, monsieur,” she said. “Couldn’t you wait just a little?”
“No, madame,” replied Sanson, “I was ordered to come.”
These words out of the way, he took a step closer to the Queen. Everything about the man, and about the moment, was dramatic and terrible.
“Ah! I understand!” said the prisoner. “You want to cut off my hair?”
“It has to be done, madame,” said the executioner.
“I am aware of that, monsieur,” said the Queen, “and I wanted to save you the trouble. My hair is there, on the table.
“Sanson looked in the direction the Queen had pointed.
“Only, I’d like it to be passed on to my children tonight.”
“Madame,” said Sanson, “such niceties do not concern me.”
“But I thought …”
“All I have to worry about,” resumed the executioner, “are the belongings of … persons.… Their clothes, their jewelery—and then only when they give them to me formally; otherwise it all goes to la Salpêtrière2 hospital to be handed out to the poor there. It belongs to them after that. A decree of the Committee of Public Safety has ruled that that’s how it works.”
“Be that as it may, monsieur,” Marie Antoinette insisted, “can I count on my hair going to my children?”
Sanson did not answer.
“I’ll see to it that it does,” said Gilbert.
The prisoner threw the gendarme a look of ineffable gratitude.
“Now,” said Sanson, “I came to cut your hair, but since the job’s been done, I can, if you like, leave you alone for a moment.”
“Please do, monsieur,” said the Queen, “for I need to collect myself and pray.”
Sanson inclined his head and left the room.
The Queen found herself alone, for Gilbert had only looked in to say what he had said. While the condemned woman knelt on a chair that was lower than the rest and which served her as a prayer stool, a scene no less terrible than the one we have just recounted was taking place in the presbytery of the little church of Saint-Landry, on the île de la Cité.
The priest of that parish had just gotten up and
his old housekeeper was laying out his modest breakfast when suddenly someone began hammering violently on the presbytery door.
Even these days, an unannounced visit to a priest always signals some event of moment, whether a baptism, a marriage in extremis, or a last confession. But in those days, the visit of a stranger could signal something even more serious. In those days, in fact, the priest was not God’s agent and had to account to men.
But the abbé Girard was among those juror priests3 who had least to fear from such a knock, for he had taken an oath before the Constitution: in him conscience and probity had got the upper hand of self-esteem and the religious spirit. Doubtless abbé Girard accepted the possibility of progress in government and regretted all the abuses committed in the name of divine power, for he had embraced the fraternity of the republican regime while holding on to his God.
“Go and have a look, Missus Hyacinth,” he said. “Go and see who’s banging on our door at this hour in the morning. And if, by any luck, it’s not some pressing service that’s required of me, tell them I’ve been called to the Conciergerie this morning and that I’m obliged to leave very shortly.”
Missus Hyacinth was called Missus Madeleine once upon a time; but she had accepted the name of a flower in exchange for her name, just as Father Girard had accepted the title of citizen in place of that of priest.
At her master’s invitation, Missus Hyacinth bustled off down the steps of the small garden where the entrance gate was. She pulled the bolts and a very pale, very agitated young man, but one with a sweet and honest countenance, presented himself.
“Monsieur Father Girard?” he said.
Hyacinth examined the newcomer’s disheveled clothes, long beard, and nervous tremor and it all seemed most inauspicious.
“Citizen,” she said, “there is no monsieur here and no father.”
“Pardon me, madame,” the young man corrected himself, “I mean the ‘server’ of Saint-Landry.”
Despite her patriotism, Hyacinth was impressed by the use of the term madame, which you wouldn’t have used those days to address an empress; yet she answered brusquely.
“You can’t see him; he’s reading his breviary.”
“In that case I’ll wait,” replied the young man.
“But,” said Missus Hyacinth, reverting in the face of his persistence to the initial bad impression of the young man, “you’ll be waiting for nothing, citizen; he’s been called to the Conciergerie and will be leaving this instant.”
The young man went a whiter shade of pale, or rather went from pale to livid.
“So it’s true!” he murmured, then added more loudly: “That’s exactly why I’ve come to see citizen Girard, madame.”
While he was speaking, he’d managed to get inside, gently, it’s true, but firmly, and to bolt the gate behind him; and despite the entreaties and even the threats of Missus Hyacinth, he got into the house and penetrated as far as the priest’s room. When the priest spotted him he gave a cry of surprise.
“Pardon me, Monsieur Father,” the young man blurted in a rush, “but I must talk to you about something very serious. Could I please speak to you in private?”
The old priest knew great suffering when he saw it. He could read a whole saga of passion in the expression on the young man’s face, hear the ultimate anguish in his feverish voice.
“Leave us, Missus Hyacinth,” the curé said.
The young man watched impatiently as the housekeeper, who was used to participating in her master’s secrets, hesitated to withdraw; when she had finally shut the door, he spoke.
“Monsieur curé, you will first want to know who I am. I will tell you. I am an outlaw; I am a man condemned to death, one who lives only through sheer daring. I am the Knight of Maison-Rouge.”
The priest gave a shudder of fear from his great armchair.
“Oh, you have nothing to fear,” said the Knight. “No one saw me come in, and anyone who might have seen me wouldn’t have recognized me. I’ve changed a lot in the last two months.”
“But what is it you want, citizen?” asked the juror priest.
“You are going to the Conciergerie this morning, are you not?”
“Yes, I’ve been summoned by the concierge.”
“Do you know why?”
“Someone sick, someone dying, someone condemned to death, perhaps.”
“You said it: yes, a woman condemned to death awaits you.”
The old priest looked at the Knight in amazement.
“But do you know who the woman is?”
Maison-Rouge went on.
“No … I don’t.”
“Well, the woman is the Queen!”
The priest gave a cry of pain.
“The Queen? Oh! My God!”
“Yes, monsieur, the Queen! I asked around and found out who the priest was they were going to send her. I learned that it was you and I came running.”
“What do you want of me?” asked the priest, alarmed at the Knight’s crazed tone.
“I want … Want is not the word, monsieur! I’ve come to beg you, to implore you, to beseech you.”
“But what for?”
“To get me in with you to see Her Majesty.”
“Oh! But you’re mad!” cried the father. “You’ll get me killed! You’ll get yourself killed!”
“You have nothing to fear.”
“The poor woman has been condemned and that’s it for her.”
“I know; it’s not to try to save her that I want to see her. It’s … Just listen to me, Father; you’re not listening to me.”
“I’m not listening to you because you’re asking me to do the impossible. I’m not listening to you because you’re acting as though you’re deranged,” said the old man. “I’m not listening to you because you’re frightening me.”
“Father, don’t worry,” said the young man, trying to calm down a bit. “Father, believe me, I haven’t lost my mind! The Queen is finished, I know; but if I could just prostrate myself at her knees, for just one second, it would save my life. If I don’t see her I’ll kill myself, and since you know the cause of my despair, you will have killed both my body and my soul at once.”
“Son, son,” said the priest, “you’re asking me to sacrifice my life! Think about it: old as I am, my existence is still indispensable to many unfortunate souls. Old as I am, to go looking for death myself is to commit suicide.”
“Don’t refuse me, Father,” replied the Knight. “Listen! You need a server, an acolyte; take me along, bring me with you.”
The priest tried to rally his firmness, which was beginning to waver.
“No,” he said. “No, I would be failing in my duties. I swore an oath to the Constitution and I swore in all sincerity, with my heart, my soul, and my conscience, to support the Revolution. The woman condemned is a guilty queen. I would accept dying if my death were useful to my fellows; but I do not want to fail in my duty.”
“But,” cried the Knight, beside himself, “I tell you, I repeat, I swear that I don’t want to save the Queen. Listen, I swear on this Bible, on that crucifix, I swear I’m not going to the Conciergerie to prevent her from dying.”
“Well then, what do you want?” asked the old man, moved by that note of despair that cannot be feigned.
“Listen,” said the Knight, whose soul seemed to burst forth from his mouth. “She was my protectress, my liege lady; she has a certain attachment to me. Seeing me in her final hour will be, I’m sure, a consolation for her.”
“That’s all you want?” asked the priest, his resolve shaken by the irresistible tone.
“Absolutely all.”
“You’re not cooking up some plot to try to free the condemned woman?”
“None. I am a Christian, Father, and if there’s a shadow of a lie in my heart, if I hope for her to live, if I am working toward that end in any way, may God punish me with eternal damnation.”
“No, no! I can’t promise you anything,” said the priest, his
mind once more haunted by all the great and numberless dangers of such recklessness.
“Listen, Father,” said the Knight in a tone of deep suffering, “I’ve spoken to you so far as a dutiful son. I’ve spoken to you only from charitable Christian feelings. Not a bitter word, not one threat has passed my lips, and yet my head is in turmoil; and yet my blood is boiling with fever; and yet despair is gnawing at my heart; and yet I am armed. See? I have a dagger.”
And the young man drew from his breast a fine gleaming blade, which threw a livid reflection over his trembling hand. The priest jumped nimbly back.
“Do not fear,” said the Knight with a sad smile. “Others, knowing you to be so faithful to your word, would have frightened you into swearing an oath. No, all I did was beg you, that’s all; and I beg you again, my hands joined in prayer, my forehead to the floor: do what you can so that I can see her for one moment. And take this—it’s your guarantee.”
He pulled out of his pocket a note, which he presented to abbé Girard, who unfolded it and read the following words:
I, Armand, Knight of Maison-Rouge, declare, in God’s name and upon my honor, that I have, by the threat of death, forced the worthy curé of Saint-Landry to take me to the Conciergerie despite his refusal to do so and his strong repugnance for the task. In witness whereof, I have signed,
MAISON-ROUGE
“All right!” said the priest. “But swear to me again that you won’t do anything stupid; it’s not enough for me that my life be saved. I’m also responsible for yours.”
“Oh! Don’t worry about me!” said the Knight. “You agree to do it?”
“I have to, since you want it so badly. You will wait for me down below, and when she goes into the office, you’ll see her then.…”
The Knight seized the old man’s hand and kissed it with the same fervor and respect as if he were kissing a crucifix.
“Oh!” murmured the Knight. “At least she’ll die like a queen and the hand of the butcher won’t touch her!”
48
THE CART
The moment he obtained the consent of the curé of Saint-Landry, Maison-Rouge dashed to a half-open closet that he recognized as the grooming booth where the priest completed his toilet. There, in a sleight of hand, his beard and mustache fell under the razor, and it was only then that he could see for himself how horribly pale he was. It was frightening.
Knight of Maison-Rouge Page 39