The Gods Will Have Blood

by Anatole France

  ‘Never mind, Maurice 1 Tell me, are you still as lucky with women as you used to be?’

  ‘Alas!’ Brotteaux replied. ‘The doves fly to the bright new dove-cotes and alight no more on the old ruined tower.’

  ‘You are still the same… good-bye, dear friend. Until we meet again.’

  That same evening Henry, the dragoon, paid an uninvited visit to Madame Rochemaure and found her in the act of sealing a letter which he noticed was addressed to the Citizen Rauline at Vernon. The letter, he knew, was for England. Rauline received Madame de Rochemaure’s correspondence from a postilion of the posting service and then sent them on to Dieppe by means of a fishwife. The captain of a fishing boat delivered them under cover of night to a British ship cruising off the coast. An émigré, Monsieur d’Expilly, received them in London and passed them on, if he thought advisable, to the Court of St James.

  Henry was young and handsome; Achilles himself was not such a paragon of graceful youth and vigour when he donned the armour Ulysses offered him. But the Citizeness Rochemaure, once so captivated by the charms of the young hero of the Commune, now regarded him with suspicion. Her attitude had altered since the day she was told that the young dragoon had been denounced to the Jacobins for allowing his zeal to outrun his discretion, and she now feared he might compromise and ruin her. On his side, Henry did not feel that her changed attitude would break his heart; but he was annoyed at having fallen in her favour. He relied on her to meet various expenses in which the service of the Republic had involved him. Also, and by no means least, he knew to what extremities women will proceed, how they can turn in a moment from ardent love to cold indifference, how easily they can bring themselves to sacrifice what they once cherished and destroy what they once held dear. He had therefore begun to suspect that his fascinating mistress might one day have him thrown into prison in order to rid herself of him. Common prudence suggested he should attempt to regain his lost ascendancy and so he had come prepared to use all his charms upon her. He approached her, drew back, approached again, hovered over her, retreated at a run, all in the approved ballet fashion of seduction. Then he flung himself on to a chair and; in his irresistible voice, that voice which he knew went straight to women’s hearts, he extolled the charms of Nature and solitude and finally with a lovelorn sigh proposed an excursion to Ermenonville.

  Meanwhile she was fingering the strings of her harp, striking cords and gazing about her with an expression of bored impatience. Henry suddenly stood up and with a gesture of gloomy resolution informed her he was leaving to join the army and would be at Maubeuge in a few days.

  Her nod of approval revealed neither scepticism nor surprise.

  ‘You congratulate me on my decision?’

  ‘Indeed I do.’

  She was expecting the arrival of a new admirer who was much more to her taste and whom she hoped would prove much more useful, a contrast in every way to Henry. He was another Mirabeau, a Danton turned army contractor, a lion who spoke of pitching every patriot into the Seine, and she was on tenter-hooks, thinking she heard the bell ring every moment.

  To hasten Henry’s departure, she became silent, yawned, fingered the music score, and yawned again. Then, since he made no move to go, she said she had to go out and went into her dressing-room.

  He called to her in a quivering voice:

  ‘Farewell, Louise!… Shall I ever see you again?’ – but his hands were searching in the open writing desk.

  When he reached the street, he opened the letter addressed to the Citizen Rauline and read it with avid absorption. It conveyed indeed a confused picture of the state of public feeling in France. It spoke of the Queen, of the actress, Rose Thévenin, of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and included numerous comments made in confidence by the worthy Brotteaux des Ilettes.

  Having read it to the end and returned it to his pocket, he stood hesitating for a moment; then, like a man who had made up his mind and says to himself ‘let’s get it over with’, he turned and made his way to the Tuileries where he entered the antechamber of the Committee of General Safety.

  The same day, at three o’clock in the afternoon, Évariste Gamelin was seated on the magistrates’ bench with his fourteen colleagues, most of whom he knew, simple, honest, patriotic people – another painter like himself, a surgeon, a cobbler, a ci-devant marquis who had given ample proof of his patriotism, a printer, two or three small tradesmen, a cross-section of the inhabitants of Paris. There they sat, in their workman’s blouse or their bourgeois coat, with their hair close-cut à la Titus, or fashioned à la catogan; with cocked hats tilted over their eyes, round hats on the back of their heads, or red caps of liberty down over their ears. Some were clad in coat, flapped waistcoat and breeches, as under the old régime, others wore the carmagnole and striped trousers of the sans-culottes. Their top-boots, buckled shoes and sabots presented every kind of masculine attire. Since they all had occupied their seats on several occasions already, they appeared to Gamelin very much at their ease and he envied them their unconcern. For himself, his heart was thumping, and there was a roaring noise in his ears, and he seemed to be seeing everything through a mist.

  When the usher proclaimed the opening of the sitting of the Tribunal, three judges took their seats behind a green table on a small raised platform. They wore cockaded hats crowned with large black plumes and over their coats of office a heavy silver medal was hung on a tricolour riband. In front of them, at the foot of the platform, sat the Deputy Public Prosecutor who was similarly dressed. The clerk of the court was seated between the judges and the chair ready to be occupied by the prisoner. To Gamelin these men appeared different from their everyday aspect; they looked nobler, graver, more fearsome, although their manner was ordinary enough as they turned over papers, beckoned to an usher or leaned back to listen to a magistrate or an officer of the court.

  Above the judges’ heads hung the tablets recording the Rights of Man; to their right and their left, against the ancient walls, stood the busts of Marat and Le Peltier Saint-Fargeau. Facing the magistrates’ bench, at the far end of the hall, rose the public gallery. The first row was filled with women, all of whom, young and old, wore the high coif with the pleated tuck hiding their cheeks; their bosoms, most of which, in the fashion of the day, revealed the fullness of the nursing mother, were covered with a crossed white kerchief or the round top of a blue apron. They sat with their folded arms resting on the rail of the tribune. Behind them, scattered among rising tiers of seats, were a mixture of citizens all dressed in the varied clothing which at that time gave such a picturesque character to every gathering. Near the doors, on the right, a space was reserved behind a barrier for the public to stand. The business before this particular section of the Tribunal had attracted the interest of only a few spectators, though doubtless the other Sections also sitting at the moment would be hearing more exciting cases.

  This fact reassured Gamelin a little; as it was, his heart seemed likely to fail him, and if the day had been hotter he would almost certainly have fainted. His eyes took in the most trifling details of the scene around him: the cotton-wool in the ears of the greffier and a blot of ink on the Deputy Prosecutor’s papers. As if through a magnifying glass he could see the capitals of the Gothic columns, sculptured at a time when all knowledge of the classical orders had been forgotten, with wreaths of nettle and holly. But wherever he looked, his eyes returned again and again to that fatal chair, old, covered with red Utrecht velvet, its seat worn and its arms blackened with use. At every door armed National Guards stood guard.

  At last the accused was brought in, escorted by grenadiers, but with his arms unbound, as the law directed. He was a man of about fifty, thin, with a brown face, bald head, hollow cheeks and tight lips, dressed in an old-fashioned coat of bright red. Doubtless it was the fever which made his eyes glitter and gave his cheeks a shiny appearance of varnish. He sat down in the chair. He crossed his extraordinarily thin legs and clasped his huge knotted hands around his kne
es. His name was Marie-Adolphe Guillergues, and he was accused of misusing a supply of forage for the Republican army. The act of indictment listed numerous and serious charges against him, but of no single one of them was there any positive proof. Under examination Guillergues denied most of the charges and tried to dismiss the remainder as not being applicable to himself. He spoke eloquently, in a dry, precise manner, and gave the impression of being a dangerous man to do business with. He had an answer for everything. When the judge asked him an embarrassing question his face betrayed no reaction and his voice remained confident, but his hands; still clasped in front of him, kept twitching as if in agony. Gamelin was fascinated by this and whispered to the colleague next to him, an artist like himself:

  ‘Watch his thumbs!’

  The first witness for the prosecution alleged a number of most damaging facts. Those who followed him, however, appeared loath to testify against the prisoner. The Deputy Public Prosecutor spoke strongly but rather vaguely about specific charges. The advocate for the defence adopted a tone of bluff conviction of his client’s innocence and so aroused a sympathy for the accused which he had failed to earn by his own efforts. The sitting was then suspended and the magistrates assembled in the room provided for their deliberations. After a confused and confusing discussion, they found themselves divided almost equally in their opinion. On the one side were the unemotional men of reason whom no feelings could move; on the other were those who let their feelings sway them, who could not be approached by argument, only by appeals to their hearts. These always voted guilty. They were the true, pure, unadulterated metal of the Revolution; their only thought was for the safety of the Republic and they cared less than nothing for anything else. Their attitude strongly impressed Gamelin who felt it was with them that his own sympathies lay.

  ‘This Guillergues,’ he thought, ‘is a cunning rogue, a villain who has speculated with the forage intended for our cavalry. To acquit him would be to let a traitor escape, to betray our army.’ And with the thought, Gamelin could see the Hussars of the Republican Army, mounted on undernourished, stumbling horses, being cut to pieces by the enemy’s sabres… ‘Yet supposing Guillergues was really innocent…?’

  Suddenly he recalled Jean Blaise, similarly suspected of misusing army supplies. There must be many others like Guillergues and Blaise, contriving disaster and the downfall of the Republic! An example had to be made. But supposing Guillergues were innocent…?

  ‘There is no proof,’ Gamelin said aloud.

  ‘There never is,’ retorted the foreman, shrugging his shoulders; he was made of the true, pure metal!

  Finally, there were found to be seven voting guilty and eight voting innocent.

  They re-entered the hall and the sitting was resumed. The magistrates were required to give reasons for their verdict, and each spoke in turn facing the vacant chair. Some spoke at length, other confined themselves to one sentence; a couple babbled unintelligibly.

  When Gamelin’s turn came, he stood up and said:

  ‘When considering a crime so great as stealing the sinews of victory from the defenders of our country, we need to be shown positive proof of guilt. We have not been shown any such proof.’

  By a majority of votes the accused was declared not guilty.

  Guillergues was brought in again and stood before his judges amid a murmur of sympathy from the spectators which gave him an indication of the nature of the verdict. He became a different man. His face lost its harshness, his lips relaxed. Now the impression he gave was that of a venerable and innocent man. The President read out the verdict in a voice filled with emotion; the audience burst into applause. The gendarme who had escorted Guillergues embraced him. The President summoned him on to the platform and also embraced him. Then the magistrates all kissed him. Gamelin’s eyes were hot with tears.

  Outside, the countryard of the Palais, lit by the last rays of the setting sun, was packed with an excited, howling mob. The day before, the four Sections of the Tribunal had pronounced thirty sentences of death, and on the steps of the great staircase a crowd of tricoteuses were sitting waiting to see the tumbrils leave. But as he descended the steps among the mass of people, Gamelin saw nothing and heard nothing. He was overcome by his own act of justice and humanity, and full of self-congratulation at having recognized innocence when he saw it. All the while and smiling through her tears, Élodie stood waiting in the courtyard; she flung herself into his arms and lay there as if in a faint. When she had recovered, she said:

  ’Évariste! You’re good, you’re so noble, you’re so generout! Listening to you in there, your voice was so gentle and so manly – it seemed as though it were going right through me like magnetic waves. I was electrified by it. I stared at you on your bench. I could see only you. And you, my dear, you never guessed I was there? I was in the gallery, in the second row, on the right. Oh, isn’t it wonderful to have done something good! It was you who saved that poor man. Without you, he was done for. You’ve given him back to life, to all his beloved ones. At this very moment, he must be blessing you. Oh, Évariste, how happy and proud I am to be in love with you!’

  Their arms around each other, pressed close together, they walked through the streets feeling as though they were floating on air.

  They were going to the Amour Peintre.

  ‘Let’s not go through the shop,’ Élodie said when they reached the oratory.

  She made him enter by the coach door and go up to her apartment with her. On the landing, she took a heavy iron key out of her reticule.

  ‘You’d think it was a prison key,’ she said. ‘You are going to be my prisoner, Évariste.’

  They passed through the dining-room and went into the girl’s bedroom.

  Évariste felt upon his lips the cool, freshness of Élodie’s lips. He held her to him, pressing closely. Her head thrown backwards, her eyes half-closed, her hair falling loose, her whole body ready to surrender, she escaped his hold and ran, as if running in her sleep, to push in the bolt on the door…

  Night had long fallen when the Citizeness Blaise opened the door of her apartment for her lover and said to him softly in the darkness:

  ‘Good-bye, my love! This is the time my father usually returns. If you hear any noise on the staircase, run back up quickly to the top floor and don’t come down until you’re quite sure there’s no danger of being seen. To get the door on the street opened, knock three times on the concierge’s window. Good-bye, dear heart! Good-bye, my soul!’*

  When he found himself in the street, he saw the window of Élodie’s room open slightly and a tiny hand pluck a red carnation which fell at his feet like a drop of blood.

  XII

  ONE evening when old Brotteaux arrived in the Rue de la Loi with a gross of dancing dolls for the toy merchant, Citizen Caillon, usually polite and quiet spoken, stood there stiff and unsmiling amongst his dolls and Punch and Judies and gave Brotteaux a far from generous welcome.

  ‘You must be more careful, Citizen Brotteaux,’ he began, ‘far more careful! There is a time for laughing and a time for being serious. Jokes are sometimes taken seriously. A member of the Committee of Safety of the Section inspected my shop yesterday and when he saw your dancing dolls he declared they were anti-revolutionary.’

  ‘It is you who are joking!’ Brotteaux exclaimed.

  ‘By no means, citizen, by no means. He said your little dolls insidiously mocked at the National representatives. In particular, you had caricatured Couthon, Saint-Just and Robespierre, and he seized the lot. It’s a complete loss to me, to say nothing of the grave risk you’ve exposed me to.’

  ‘But it’s not possible! How could any sane man imagine these Harlequins, these Scaramouches, these Colins and Colinettes, which I’ve painted just as Boucher used to fifty years – how could any sane man take them to be parodies of Couthon and Saint-Just?’

  ‘Its possible you did not do it deliberately and with malice, though a man so versatile as you is always to be distrusted. Never
theless, it’s a dangerous game to play. I’ll give you an example how dangerous. Natoile, who runs that little outdoor theatre in the Champs-Elysées, was arrested the day before yesterday for anti-patriotism, just because he made Polichinelle poke fun at the Convention.’

  ‘Now you listen to me,’ Brotteaux said, lifting the cloth which covered his little dangling toys. ‘Look at those masks and faces. Are they or are they not simply characters from plays and mimes? Just how could you let yourself be persuaded, Citizen Caillon, that I was making a mockery of the National Convention?.’

  Brotteaux was completely taken aback. He had always made great allowance for human folly, but had never thought it could go so far as to suspect his Scaramouches. Repeatedly he protested his and their innocence; but the Citizen Caillon was adamant.

  ‘Take your dolls away, Citizen Brotteaux. I have the highest esteem for you but I don’t intend being blamed or getting into trouble on your account. I mean to remain a good citizen and to be treated as such. Good evening to you Citizen Brotteaux, and take your dolls away.’

  The old man set out for home again, carrying his now suspect dolls over his shoulder at the end of the pole, mocked at by children who took him for the rat-poisoner. He felt in the depths of despair. He did not, certainly, depend entirely for a living upon his dolls; he sometimes used to paint portraits for young recruits starting for the army and wanting to leave their likeness behind for their sweetheart, charging them twenty sous a piece, and painting them under the archways of doors, or in one of the market halls among the darners and old-clothes menders. But these petty jobs took him much time and care, and he was not nearly so good at painting portraits as he was at making dancing dolls.