“Fired? What about my job?”
“Do you count on remaining a clerk once you’ve got fifty thousand francs to yourself?”
“No, but at least as a clerk and a poor man, I’m pretty sure of not being guillotined.”
“Sure?”
“As good as; whereas if I’m rich and free …”
“You’ll hide your money and go and court a tricoteuse instead of the woman who runs the Puits-de-Noé.”
“Well then, enough said.”
“Tomorrow, at the cabaret.”
“What time?”
“Six o’clock in the evening.”
“You’d better fly, quick, here they come.… I say fly, since I suppose you came down from the roof.”
“See you tomorrow,” Théodore repeated before making good his escape.
It was, indeed, just in the nick of time. The sound of feet and voices was getting closer. You could see that the dark tunnel was already bright with the light of approaching lamps. Théodore ran to the door pointed out to him by the scribe whose hut he had borrowed. He popped the lock with his pliers, reached the window he’d been told about, opened it, slipped down to the ground, and found himself on the cobblestones of the republican street.
But before leaving the Hall of Lost Footsteps, he managed to catch citizen Gracchus questioning Richard and the concierge’s answer:
“The citizen architect was perfectly right: the tunnel goes under Widow Capet’s room; it was dangerous.”
“I should think so!” said Gracchus, who was conscious of uttering the simple truth.
Santerre appeared at the mouth of the stairs.
“What about your workers, citizen architect?” he asked Giraud.
“They’ll be here before the break of day and they’ll put the gate in place without further ado,” answered a voice that seemed to come from the bowels of the earth.
“And you will have saved our nation!” Santerre said, half mockingly, half seriously.
“You don’t know how right you are, citizen general,” muttered Gracchus.
38
THE ROYAL CHILD
Meanwhile, the case for the Queen’s trial had begun to be prepared for judgment, as we saw in the preceding chapter.
Already it was anticipated that only the sacrifice of her illustrious head would satisfy the popular hate that had been so long brewing. Reasons for causing her head to fall were hardly lacking, and yet that deadly prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville, determined to leave no stone unturned, decided to investigate the new avenue of accusation Simon had promised to open up for him.
The day after he and Simon had met in the Hall of Lost Footsteps, a great clamor of arms came to churn the stomachs of the royal prisoners still housed in the Temple. These royal prisoners were Madame Elisabeth, Madame Royale, and the infant, who, having been called Majesty from birth, was now no more than little Louis Capet.
General Hanriot, he of the red, white, and blue panache, the fat squat horse, and the great sword, strode into the dungeon where the royal infant languished, followed by several National Guards.
By the general’s side was a mean-looking clerk of the court, equipped with a writing case and a roll of paper and struggling with an extravagantly long quill. Behind the scribe came the public prosecutor. We’ve already met the man and this is not the last we’ll see of the dry, jaundiced, and chilling old stick, whose bloodshot eyes used to cause even the ferocious Santerre himself to quake in his boots.
A handful of National Guards and a lieutenant brought up the rear.
Simon, smiling a queerly artificial smile and holding his bear-cub cap in one hand and his cobbler’s foot-pull in the other, went ahead to show the committee the way. They came to a room that was dark, spacious, and bare. At the back of the room was the young Louis, sitting on his bed in a state of perfect immobility.
When we last saw the poor child, fleeing from the brutal Simon, there was still a sort of vitality left in him, enough for him to react against the disgraceful treatment of the Temple cobbler. He ran away, he cried out, he sobbed—this meant he was afraid, which meant he was in pain, which meant he still had hope.
Now fear and hope had both vanished. No doubt he still suffered, but if he did, this child martyr who was made to pay so cruelly for the sins of his parents, he kept it buried in the darkest depths of his heart and veiled it under the appearance of complete insensibility.
He did not even raise his head when the commissioners marched up to him. They took their seats without preamble and settled in, with the public prosecutor at the head of the bed, Simon at the foot, the court clerk by the window, and the National Guards and their lieutenant to one side in the shadows.
Those among the men present who looked at the little prisoner with any interest or even curiosity remarked the child’s appalling pallor, his peculiarly distended stomach, which was more than mere bloating, and the strange sagging of his legs, whose joints were beginning to swell.
“This child is very ill,” said the lieutenant with an assurance that made Fouquier-Tinville sit up, ready and raring as he was to begin the interrogation.
Little Capet looked up and scanned the company for the man who had uttered these words in the semidarkness. He recognized the young man who had already once, in the Temple garden, prevented Simon from hitting him. A soft, intelligent light flashed in his dark blue eyes and then was gone.
“Well! If it isn’t citizen Lorin!” cried Simon, thereby calling the attention of Fouquier-Tinville to Maurice Lindey’s friend.
“In person, citizen Simon,” replied Lorin with his imperturbable aplomb.
Furthermore, for although he was always ready to face danger Lorin was not the kind of man to seek it for no reason, he took advantage of the opportunity to greet Fouquier-Tinville, who politely returned his greeting.
“You have observed, I think, citizen,” said the public prosecutor, “that the child is ill; are you a doctor?”
“I have at least studied medicine, even if I’m not a doctor.”
“Well then, what do you think he has?”
“As symptoms of illness, you mean?” asked Lorin.
“Yes.”
“I find he has puffy eyes and cheeks, pale, emaciated hands, swollen knees, and, if I felt his pulse, I’d say, I’m sure, that he had a high pulse rate—something like eighty-five to ninety.”
The child seemed impervious to the listing of his ailments.
“And to what can science attribute the state of the prisoner?” asked the public prosecutor.
Lorin scratched the end of his nose, muttering:
“Philis would like me now to discourse;
But I have nothing to say, of course.”
Out loud, he said: “Good grief, citizen, I’m not familiar enough with little Capet’s daily routine to answer … but …”
Simon lent an attentive ear and cackled behind his hand to see his enemy so close to stepping in it and compromising himself.
“But,” continued Lorin, “I believe he isn’t getting enough exercise.”
“Indeed he isn’t, the little bastard!” said Simon. “He won’t walk anymore.”
The child remained insensible to the cobbler’s outburst. Fouquier-Tinville stood up, went over to Lorin, and spoke to him in a low voice. No one could hear what the prosecutor was saying, but it was clear his words were in the form of questions.
“Oh! Really! Do you think so, citizen? That is a most serious matter … for a mother.…”
“In any case, we’ll get to the bottom of it,” said Fouquier. “Simon claims the boy told him himself, and Simon has taken measures to get him to confess.”
“It would be hideous,” said Lorin. “But I suppose it’s possible: the Austrian woman is not exempt from sin, and, right or wrong, it doesn’t concern me.… They’ve already made a Messalina out of her, but not to be happy with that, to want now to turn her into an Agrippina.…1 It seems to me that’s going a bit too far, I have to admit.”
&
nbsp; “That’s what Simon has reported,” said Fouquier, impassive.
“I don’t doubt Simon said so.… There are those who balk at nothing, for whom no accusation is too vicious, none too improbable.… But don’t you find,” Lorin went on, staring hard at Fouquier, “you who are an intelligent and perceptive man, you who are a powerful man, let’s not forget, don’t you find that to ask a child for such details about the woman whom the most normal and sacred laws of nature command him to respect, is almost to insult humanity as a whole in the person of this child?”
The prosecutor didn’t bat an eye; he took a note from his pocket and showed it to Lorin.
“The Convention orders me to inform; the rest is not my concern. I just inform.”
“Fair enough,” said Lorin, “and I have to admit that if the child really did confess …” The young man shook his head in disgust.
“In any case,” Fouquier continued, “we are not going on Simon’s denunciation alone; the accusation is in the public domain, you see.” Fouquier pulled a second piece of printed matter from his pocket. This was an issue of the tabloid known as Le Père Duchesne, which, as we know, was edited by Hébert.2 The accusation was spelled out in its pages most unambiguously.
“It’s been written, it’s even in print, but so what? Until I hear such an accusation from the mouth of the child himself—and I mean voluntarily, freely, without threats or under duress—well then …”
“Well then?”
“Well then, whatever Simon and Hébert say, I’d doubt it as much as you do yourself.”
Simon awaited the outcome of this conversation impatiently. The miserable wretch had no inkling of the power exercised over the intelligent man by the gaze he makes out in the crowd when he is suddenly drawn to a complete stranger out of a feeling of sympathy, or repelled by instant hatred. But whether it is a force of repulsion or attraction, the man’s thoughts and even his being suddenly flow to that stranger of equal or greater force that he recognizes in the crowd.
But Fouquier had felt the weight of Lorin’s gaze on him and wanted to be understood by this particular observer.
“The interrogation will begin,” said the public prosecutor. “Clerk of the court, take up your quill.”
The clerk had just been jotting down preliminary notes toward a statement of offense and was waiting, like Simon, like Hanriot, like everyone else, for the confabulation between Fouquier-Tinville and Lorin to end.
Only the child seemed completely oblivious of the scene in which he was the star player; he had readopted the blank mask that had lit up for a moment with the fierce light of a supreme intelligence.
“Silence!” said Hanriot. “Citizen Fouquier-Tinville will now interrogate the infant.”
“Capet,” said the prosecutor, “do you know what has happened to your mother?”
Little Louis swiftly changed color, going from the pallor of marble to a burning red. But he did not reply.
“Did you hear me, Capet?” the prosecutor went on.
Same silence.
“Oh, he hears all right!” said Simon. “But he’s a little monkey; he doesn’t want to answer for fear he’ll be taken for a man and made to work.”
“Answer, Capet,” said Hanriot. “It’s the Committee of the Convention that is interrogating you, and you owe obedience to the law.”
The child went pale again but did not reply.
Simon made a movement of rage; in such brutal and stupid natures, fury is a form of intoxication, accompanied by the same hideous symptoms as intoxication from wine.
“You answer, you little devil!” he shouted, showing his fist.
“Shut up, Simon,” said Fouquier-Tinville, “you do not have the floor.”
These words were out before he could stop himself, for he had formed the habit of so speaking at the Revolutionary Tribunal.
“You hear that, Simon,” said Lorin. “You don’t have the floor. That’s the second time you’ve been told to shut up in my hearing; the first time was when you accused Mother Tison’s daughter, whose head rolled, thanks to you.”
Simon shut up.
“Did your mother love you, Capet?” asked Fouquier.
Same silence.
“They say she did not,” the prosecutor went on.
Something like a faint smile passed over the child’s lips.
“But I told you he told me she loved him a bit too much!” screamed Simon.
“Poor Simon! Isn’t it annoying how little Capet is so chatty in his tête-à-têtes with you but clams up the moment anyone else is around?” said Lorin.
“Oh! If I had him alone!” said Simon.
“Yes, if you had him alone; but you don’t, unfortunately. Oh! If you had him alone, brave Simon, excellent patriot, you’d beat the poor child to a pulp, eh? But you don’t have him alone and you don’t dare touch him in front of the rest of us, you loathsome thug! We are honest people who know that the ancients, on whom we’re trying to model ourselves, respected all that was weak; you don’t dare for you are not alone, and you are not so valiant, my worthy man, when you have children over five foot ten to deal with.”
“You!” hissed Simon, grinding his teeth.
“Capet,” Fouquier resumed, “did you confide in Simon?”
The child did not flinch but gazed directly at the prosecutor with an expression of irony impossible to describe.
“About your mother?” continued the prosecutor.
A flash of scorn fired the boy’s gaze.
“Answer yes or no!” cried Hanriot.
“Answer yes!” shouted Simon, raising his lash over the child, who shivered but made no move to avoid being hit.
All those in attendance gave a cry of revulsion. Lorin went one better; he dashed forward and seized Simon’s wrist before he had a chance to strike.
“Let go of me!” Simon hissed, purple with rage.
“You see,” said Fouquier, “there’s no harm in a mother loving her son. Tell us in what way your mother loved you, Capet. It could help her.”
The young prisoner gave a start at the idea that he could help his mother.
“She loved me the way any mother loves her son, monsieur,” he said. “There is only one way a mother loves her children or children love their mother.”
“And I say, you little snake, that you told me your mother …”
“You must have dreamed it,” said Lorin. “You must often have nightmares, Simon.”
“Lorin! Lorin!” hissed Simon.
“Yes, Lorin … go on! You can’t beat Lorin, you know: he’s the one who beats others when they’re horrible. There’s no way you can denounce me, either, for what I did in stopping your arm I did in front of General Hanriot and citizen Fouquier-Tinville, who approved. And they aren’t lukewarm, those two! So there’s no way you can have me guillotined like Héloïse Tison. It is annoying, I agree, even infuriating, but that’s how it is, my poor Simon!”
“You’ll keep!” replied the cobbler, cackling, as usual, like a hyena.
“Yes, friend,” said Lorin. “But I hope, with the help of the Supreme Being—ah! you were hoping I’d say ‘God’!—I hope with the help of the Supreme Being and my trusty sword to rip your guts open beforehand. Now get out of the way, Simon, I can’t see.”
“Bastard.”
“Shut your mouth. I can’t hear.” Lorin crushed Simon with a look.
Simon balled his hands, whose ingrained dirt he was so proud of, into fists; but as Lorin said, he was forced to restrict himself to that gesture.
“Now that he has started to speak, no doubt he’ll continue,” said Hanriot. “Go on, citizen Fouquier.”
The child withdrew into his silence.
“You see, citizen, you see!” said Simon.
“The obstinacy of this child is odd,” said Hanriot, troubled in spite of himself by such perfectly royal steadfastness.
“He’s been getting bad advice,” said Lorin.
“From whom?” demanded Hanriot.
&nbs
p; “His boss, of course!”
“You’re accusing me?” cried Simon. “You think you can denounce me? Ha! That’s funny.…”
“Let’s try a little kindness, see if that wins him over,” said Fouquier.
Turning back to the child who you’d have thought completely oblivious, he said:
“Come, my child, answer the National Commission; don’t aggravate your situation by refusing to provide useful clarification. You told citizen Simon your mother used to stroke you, you described the way she used to stroke you, her way of loving you.”
Louis gave each of the assembled company a look that filled with hate when it alighted on Simon. But he did not respond.
“Are you unhappy?” asked the prosecutor. “Are you badly lodged, badly fed, badly treated? Would you like more freedom, a different diet, a different prison, a different guardian? Would you like a horse to ride? Would you like us to grant you the company of children your own age?”
Louis sank into the profound silence which he had only broken to defend his mother. The Commission remained speechless with amazement. Such firmness, such intelligence were incredible in a child.
“Hmmph! These kings!” said Hanriot in a lowered voice. “What a race! They’re like tigers: even when they’re small, they’re nasty.”
“How do I write the report?” asked the embarrassed court clerk.
“The only thing for it is to get Simon to do it for you,” said Lorin. “There’s nothing to write, which will suit him to a tee.”
Simon showed his fist to his implacable enemy; Lorin started to laugh.
“You won’t laugh like that the day you sneeze in the sack,” said Simon, beside himself with fury.
“I don’t know if I’ll go before or after you in the little ceremony you threaten me with,” said Lorin. “But what I do know is that a lot of people will laugh the day it’s your turn. Ye Gods! … I said ‘Gods’ in the plural.… Gods! You’ll look ugly that day, Simon! You’ll be hideous.”
With that Lorin withdrew behind the Commission, laughing cheerfully.
There was nothing further for them all to do but leave. As for the child, once freed from his interrogators, he began to softly sing a melancholy little song sitting on his bed: it was one of his father’s favorites.
The Knight of Maison-Rouge Page 33