Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  It was an extraordinary thing. What were they doing at Versailles?

  That indeed was what M. Barkimel was now explaining to M. Florent, who did not yet know.

  M. Florent, after the excitement of a particularly stirring day and night, was sleeping the sleep of the just when he was suddenly roused from his bed, at an exceptionally early hour, by the unexpected appearance of M. Barkimel.

  To all his questions M. Barkimel would only consent to answer:

  “Get up!”

  “But tell me why.”

  “Get up!”

  “Are we in any personal danger?”

  “We have a serious duty to perform.”

  “Then I am with you,” agreed M. Florent, trembling with anxiety.

  M. Barkimel carried him off to Versailles. He seemed greatly preoccupied, and made no answer to any of his friend’s questions.

  On reaching the town they were not a little surprised to behold a scene of which M. Barkimel, however, claimed to have been forewarned.

  “Are you in the confidence of the gods?” asked M. Florent, taken aback.

  “I knew there would be an attempt to subvert the Republic to-day at Versailles, of course,” bridled M. Barkimel, complacently.

  “You knew all about it, and you bring us into this dangerous mob! What for?”

  “We ought to oppose this attempt, M. Florent.”

  “But I have always heard you say that the heavy hand...”

  “I? You are dreaming. And if I may have said that the heavy hand is sometimes necessary I have always held that it should be on the arm of a staunch Republican and not of a soldier of fortune, M. Florent.”

  “Really, you amaze me. How are we to oppose this attempt to subvert the Republic?”

  “By keeping an eye on M. Hilaire, that’s all. Now do you understand?”

  “Why, less than ever. M. Hilaire has always been one of the most zealous supporters of the Revolution.”

  “Hold your tongue, M. Florent. Here is M. Hilaire. I will tell you presently what you must think about it....”

  “Listen,” continued M. Barkimel a moment later. “This is what happened to me this morning. It was about five o’clock. There was a loud and persistent knocking at my door. I got up, thinking the place was on fire. I opened the door and found myself face to face with a gentleman very neatly dressed in black, holding his bowler hat in his hand, who said meekly:— ‘M. Barkimel, may I have a word with you, if you please?’

  “I told him that one does not wake up people at that early hour. He answered that he was there in my own interests, and had something serious to confide to me on behalf of an important person who desired for the moment to remain nameless.

  “I showed him in. I asked him if he minded my going back to bed. He sat down near me, and, suddenly placing his hand on mine, said: ‘M. Barkimel, would you like to receive a decoration?’”

  On hearing this last unexpected sentence M. Florent flushed crimson and then purple. It seemed as if he were about to choke — truth to tell he gasped for breath. At last he managed to splutter: “It was some practical joker.”

  M. Barkimel in his turn flushed crimson.

  “Why a practical joker?” he stammered. “The man spoke very seriously, and he proved it to me afterwards.... Why a practical joker?”

  “Oh, nothing.... Go on,” coughed M. Florent.

  “Then I told the man,” continued M. Barkimel, “that my greatest ambition was to be an Officier d’Académie.”

  “Of course,” agreed M. Florent, turning pale.

  “I asked my visitor: ‘What must I do to attain this object?’

  “‘You must be a staunch Republican and a faithful friend,’ he answered.

  “‘A faithful friend to whom?’

  “‘Why, M. Hilaire, for instance.’

  “‘Oh, well, that will be easy,’ I said. ‘I have always loved the Republic, and I won’t lose sight of M. Hilaire.’

  “‘Then keep in touch with him more than ever,’ advised my visitor.... ‘With a man like you,’ he added, T will come to the point, for you are possessed of intelligence above the average. You must know then that the staunch Republicans of the Arsenal Club are very surprised at certain of M. Hilaire’s words and deeds.

  “‘They find him sometimes lukewarm and sometimes eccentric. They want to be sure of the secretary to such an influential committee. Now they are aware that he supplies the de Touchais household, the meeting-place of Subdamoun and all his aristocrats.

  “‘Moreover, he ought to have been present at the Club yesterday, where he was expected, and where the most serious resolutions were passed against the dictatorial intrigues of Jacques I....

  “‘He failed to turn up. Why? And here is the most mysterious fact of all. One of the leading members of the Arsenal Club has disappeared — he did not return home last night. We have every reason to suspect some criminal outrage. I am referring to Citizen Tholosée, whom, perhaps, you know.’

  “‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I know Citizen Tholosée — he is an honest Republican. I have often seen him with M. Hilaire, and been pleased to shake hands with him.’”

  “What humbug!” exclaimed M. Florent. “You have told me a hundred times that that wild fanatic frightened you.”

  “It is exactly because he did frighten me,” returned M. Barkimel, “that I shook hands with him with pleasure. It’s better to be on good than bad terms with persons who frighten you.”

  “What then?” asked M. Florent sharply.

  “Well, then it was agreed that I should keep watch on M. Hilaire ‘for his own good.’”

  “A nice thing indeed!” exclaimed M. Florent. “Are you going to play the spy now?”

  “Come, M. Florent, calm yourself. I said ‘for his own good’ — so that he should come to no harm.... To warn him in time if needs be. And over and above this I shall receive the decoration.”

  M. Florent could not contain himself any longer. He stopped short, folded his arms, and said: “What will you do with it — you a retired umbrella dealer?”

  “I shall wear it in my button-hole,” returned M. Barkimel. “And don’t be angry, pray. I have other things to tell you.... This gentleman did not leave me at once. He said to me: ‘You have a friend equally intelligent who is on intimate terms with M. Hilaire.’”

  “Ah, he said that, did he?” returned M. Florent, now delighted.

  “And he told me that his friend was called M. Florent, and that if he too liked to serve the Republic there would be a decoration for my friend Florent as well.”

  “Oh, I say!” exclaimed M. Florent, whose eyes became moist as he shook his friend’s hand.

  “Does that please you, eh?”

  “M. Barkimel, it is always a pleasure to an honest man to receive a decoration, and, understand me, when this man deserves a decoration as I do....”

  “M. Florent, you shall be decorated. He said to me: ‘He shall have the Mérite Agricole.’”

  M. Florent this time staggered and became ashen gray in the face.

  “M. Barkimel,” he said, choking with indignation, “keep it! I won’t have anything to do with your leek. All very well for you, M. Barkimel, to sell a friend for a decoration, but M. Florent will remain plain M. Florent. Good-bye.”

  “Florent!”

  “Good-bye, I say. I’ve done with you. You are a wretch — and besides, your Republic is done for.”

  “The Republic done for! Anyway, it’s not you who will bring it down.”

  “It is on its last legs. You’ve always made me laugh with your Revolution.”

  As M. Florent was just then surrounded by a sympathetic crowd he turned to it, and pointing to M. Barkimel, whom he no longer regarded as a friend, cried:

  “There’s another man who believes in clubs and revolutionaries.”

  M. Barkimel was at once set upon by a hostile group, who did not let him go until he had shouted: “Long live Major Jacques!”

  M. Florent walked away with an un
holy grin on his face. M. Barkimel went back with a heavy heart to keep an eye on M. Hilaire:

  “I will never forgive him for this,” he said to himself.

  M. Hilaire and his strange companions had not left the hotel courtyard. The door which had closed on Lavobourg was not reopened. As we have mentioned, when he entered the pavilion a hollow exclamation was heard.

  “You did not expect to see me,” said Lavobourg. “No,” returned Sonia. “What are you doing here? More treachery?”

  It was, in fact, Sonia who occupied at that critical moment Madame La Pompadour’s pavilion.

  She had secured the place the night before, aware of its facilities for communicating direct with the Château. But assuredly she had not expected to see Lavobourg.

  Had the prisoner, then, been able to get rid of his bonds? Or had Coudry’s men released him, for they must have already made a search of her house? She trembled for Jacques and his venture.

  “Who was the first to play the traitor?” he asked in a hoarse voice. “It’s all very well for you to talk — you who nearly had me assassinated. Oh, I knew that I should find you here — in this place. It is so convenient for lovers at Versailles. Do you remember?” he added with a jeer that almost ended in tears. “Ah, Sonia, you have lost all shame.”

  “Whatever happens, I ask your forgiveness.”

  “You do not need my forgiveness. I have had my revenge,” he returned.

  “What else have you done?” she asked in apprehension.

  “I don’t know if Jacques will succeed.... That is quite possible, but at least I shall have the consolation of having done my uttermost to bring about his failure.”

  She drew him before her, shook him by the shoulders. Her eyes were hard, her lips quivered, her hands tore at him.

  “What do you say!”

  “I’ve been to Flottard, the Military Governor of Paris, and warned him, and I’m pretty sure I was in time to enable him to do his work well. Before coming here I had the pleasure of hearing that, thanks to me, they were able to lay hands on General Mabel as he was preparing to leave the Place de l’Etoile for Versailles to put himself at the head of his troops. Mabel was arrested and thrown into the Conciergerie Prison like a criminal.”

  She was no longer listening to him. It meant that he had dealt them a terrible blow. She was thinking only of how to warn Jacques, who must certainly be unaware of it.

  Just then the door gave way as if it had been wrested from its hinges and a mob burst into the room. It was Pagès’s gang searching on all sides for an entrance into the Château; someone had suggested this way to them.

  Pagès bowed and made an apology, but suddenly he and his men recognized Lavobourg and Sonia Liskinne. There was no doubt in their minds that these two were in hiding there to conspire against the State. If the general rumor could be believed, they were the leading spirits in the coup d’état.

  “Here are our hostages! Here are our prisoners! Subdamoun’s spies!” they cried.

  On the other hand they were in haste to make their way into the National Assembly. As it happened members of the Arsenal Club came running up and offered their services, which were accepted. Sonia and Lavobourg were surrounded by these sinister-looking persons speaking a fearsome slang. They seemed to be under the leadership of a little old man in whom Sonia recognized the peanut dealer of the night before. He gave her, by stealth, a nod of understanding and she breathed more freely again.

  But when one of their chance jailers returned from the courtyard with the news that Major Jacques had been assassinated she uttered a piercing shriek, while the little old man darted into the park with the agility of a youth of twenty....

  CHAPTER XIX

  “STAKE YOUR MONEY — THE GAME BEGINS”

  LET US RETURN to Pagès who, followed by a few friends, the most violent members of his party, had managed to gain admission into the Hall of Congress by the staff entrance.

  The Deputies behind him shouted repeatedly, “Outlawed! Outlawed!” and other members of the party under the vehement leadership of Coudry, already at grips with their adversaries, took up the cry, “Outlawed! Outlawed!” shaking their fists at Major Jacques.

  Up to that time the great majority of representatives had succeeded in thrusting back from the hemicycle the fanatics of the Extreme Left and in protecting the voting which was being continued with the utmost speed, for the aim of the newcomers was neither more nor less than to prevent the voting — to render it impossible.

  In the midst of the storm Jacques strove to divert their fury to his own head. Meantime the voting went on. He shouted. He orated. He excited his opponents in a voice of thunder which they had not suspected him to possess, and succeeded in equalizing the effect produced by Pagès and his supporters.

  “You are on the brink of a volcano. Lose no time in extinguishing it,” he cried. “Let us safeguard Liberty! Let us save Equality.”

  “Outlawed! Outlawed! Death to the Dictator!”

  “The advocates of the scaffold for political opponents,” yelled Jacques, “are gathering together their party and preparing to carry out their horrible schemes. Let us hurry! For my part I desire only to save the Republic.”

  “Outlawed!”

  “I claim to have given sufficient pledges of my devotion to the country.... Long live France!”

  With an irresistible rush Coudry and his followers reached Jacques and his supporters. The encounter became a scrimmage.

  “Our liberty is being violated,” cried Jacques to the President. “The voting should be declared over and the result read out. The country must have no further dealings with this gang of madmen.”

  But his voice was drowned in the din, and by this time more Deputies of the Opposition had arrived from Paris and entered the precincts, reinforcing Pagès, Coudry and Mulot.

  The tumult increased.

  “Down with the Dictator! Down with the tyrant! Outlawed!”

  Had not two sturdy ushers stood beside him and sent those who came too near him sprawling with their fists he would have been torn to pieces. He was face to face with the most violent Communists who had stepped over the benches.

  He felt as if a weight lay on his chest; his eyes grew dim. But the sound of arms was heard in the corridor, and a platoon of colonial troops came to the rescue of its chief in danger. A frightful disorder, an incredible uproar ensued. The voting was stopped.

  The President tried to speak but was unable to make himself heard. Only the soldiers were able to put a little order in the hideous confusion. At last they released Jacques from the clutches of the madmen by making a rampart of their bodies. He was taken outside.

  He appeared in the courtyard ghastly pale, his features distraught, his head sunk on his shoulders, almost fainting, held up by two colonial soldiers.

  Inside the building the revolutionaries, repeating their battle-cry, “Outlawed!” turned their attention to the President’s platform and were now climbing the steps. The ballot boxes were thrown down and smashed.... And Deputies shook their fists at the President, whose only hope was in the intervention of the regular troops, for whom he was waiting. He declared the voting closed.

  Let the soldiers come! Even now they could save the situation.

  From the courtyard, the Place d’Armes, the street outside and the parade shouts went up: “To arms! To arms!” The rumor spread that an attempt had been made on the life of the idol of the day, and a thousand voices clamored for the army to save the nation.

  But whose orders was the army to obey — the orders of its chief, General Mabel?... General Mabel was nowhere to be seen, and rumor declared that he was a prisoner. Would the army obey the orders of the President of the National Assembly?

  But rumor also declared that Ministers and members of the Government were hastening to Versailles and the President was to be impeached for violating the Constitution.

  And Jacques? Were his fame and popularity sufficient to carry troops which had never come into direct ass
ociation with him?

  In reality Jacques could depend only upon his own battalion. After a moment of weakness he completely regained his strength and vigor. Men crowded about him. He asked for a horse. A captain surrendered his own to him.

  He rode over to his colonial troops and was received with a storm of cheering. He asked for silence, and proceeded to denounce the revolutionaries in unmeasured language:

  “They are villains — traitors to their country.... I was suggesting means by which the Republic could be saved and they attempted to assassinate me.”

  He wore a grim expression:

  “Soldiers, can I rely on you?” he cried.

  There was a thunder of acclamation, but the colonial soldiers alone were cheering. The other troops looked as if they were turned to stone.

  Just then a body of Deputies emerged from the Hall of Congress bringing with them the President, who was on the verge of collapse.

  It seemed as if the revolutionaries by their incredible violence and audacity, for they were still small in numbers, were masters of the parliamentary domain. Nevertheless the President had the strength to shout to the impassive soldiers:— “Save the Republic! Drive out these sedition mongers!

  The vote has been passed! The Duumvirate has been proclaimed!”

  “You hear the President’s declaration,” cried Jacques. “I entrust my soldiers with the duty of liberating the majority of the nation’s representatives. Forward, my lads!”

  He put himself at the head of the small column which marched into the Château. The loud roll of the drums was heard, and the drummers marched into the Gallery of Busts, beating their drums continuously as the colonial troops swept through the Hall of Congress and expelled all those who clung there still and, like Pagès and Coudry, threatened to die where they were.

  It was a formidable task, and the sight of the bayonets threw the revolutionaries into the most gloomy fanaticism. They now thought that all was lost. They held on to their seats, and the soldiers were obliged to take them in their arms and carry them out as though they were unruly children.

  And outside the air resounded with tremendous shouts of:— “Long live the Republic!... Long live Hérisson!... Long like Flottard!” while Pagès’s voice could be heard yelling:— “To the Orangery! To the Orangery! It can hold the entire National Assembly.... Let us appoint a Committee of Public Safety.”