Rafael Sabatini - The Baker of Rousillon

It was in Brumaire of the year 2 of the French Republic, One and Indivisible--November of 1793 by the calendar of slaves--that, whilst on my way to rejoin my regiment--then before Toulon--I was detained in Rousillon by orders of no less a personage than Robespierre himself, and billeted for three days upon a baker and dealer in wines of the name of Bonchatel.

This Bonchatel proved an excellent host. He was a man of whimsical and none too loyal notions concerning the Republic, and to me he expressed those notions with an amusing and dangerous frankness, explaining his indiscretion in so trusting me by the statement that he knew an officer was not a mouchard.

Had not Fate decreed that Bonchatel should have an enemy who gave him some concern, it is likely I had found him a yet pleasanter host--though it is also likely that he had continued a baker to the end of his days. As it was, he would fall ever and anon into fits of abstraction; his brow would be clouded, and his good-humoured mouth screwed with concern. To the dullest it might have been clear that he nursed a secret sorrow.

"Citizen-Captain," said he on the second day of my sojourn at his house, "you have the air of a kind-hearted man, and I will confide in you a matter that vexes me not a little, and fills me at times with the gravest apprehensions."

And with that he proceeded to relate how a ruffianly cobbler, originally named Coupri, but now calling himself Scævola to advertise his patriotism, who--by one of the ludicrous turns in the machinery of the Revolution--had been elected President of the Committee of Public Safety of Rousillon, had cast the eyes of desire upon Amélie (Bonchatel's only daughter) and sought her to wife. Ugly as the Father of Sin himself, old and misshapen, the girl had turned in loathing from his wooing, whilst old Bonchatel had approved her attitude, and bidden the one-time cobbler take his suit to the devil.

"I saved my child then," my host concluded, "but I am much afraid that it was no more than a postponement. This Scævola swore that I should bitterly regret it, and since then he has spared no effort to visit trouble upon me. Should he succeed, and should the Committee decree my imprisonment, or my death even, upon some trumped-up charge, I shudder to think of what may befall my poor Amélie."

I cheered the man as best I might, making light of his fears and endeavouring to prove them idle. Yet idle they were not. I realised it then, knowing the power that such a man as Scævola might wield, and I was to realise it yet more keenly upon the morrow.

I was visited in the afternoon of the next day by a courier, who brought me a letter from "the Incorruptible," wherein he informed me that he would be at Rousillon that night at ten o'clock. He bade me wait upon him at the Mairie, keeping his coming a secret from all without exception.

Now between my receipt of that letter and the advent in Rousillon of the all-powerful Robespierre there was played out in the house of Bonchatel a curious comedy that had tragedy for a setting.

Scarce was my courier departed, when into the shop lounged an unclean fellow in a carmagnole, who demanded a two-pound loaf of bread. Misliking his looks, Bonchatel asked to see his money, whereupon, with a curse upon all aristo-bakers who did not know a patriot and a true man when they saw one, the fellow produced a soiled and greasy assignat for twenty francs, out of which he bade him take payment. But Bonchatel shook his head.

"If you will have my bread, my friend, you must pay money for it."

"Name of a name, citizen," roared the other, "what am I offering you?"

"A filthy scrap of worthless paper," returned Bonchatel, stung to so fittingly describe it by the other's insolence.

There was an evil gleam in the patriot's bloodshot eye.

"Now, by St. Guillotine, I would citizen Scævola had heard those words, and you would have done your future baking in another oven, wherein you would have played the rôle of the loaf," he rejoined. "Do you, miserable federalist that you are, dare to apply such terms to an assignat of the French Republic?

"My friend," said Bonchatel, endeavouring to hedge, "I spoke hastily, maybe. But tell me: to whom shall I tender that paper in my turn? Who will accept it as money?"

"Why, any man that is not a traitor to the Nation."

"Then it must be that there are none but traitors in France. See you, my friend, I have upstairs a trunk full of these notes, which have been tendered me of late, and which I have taken, but which none will take from me."

"The Republic will cash them, failing all others," cried the customer.

"The Republic?" blazed Bonchatel, with fresh indiscretion. "Out of empty coffers?"

"Look you, citizen-baker," said the other, with that air of exaggerated toleration that marks a temper at its lowest ebb. "I am not come here to talk politics, but to buy bread. Will you or will you not sell it me?"

"I will gladly, for payment of coin."

"You definitely refuse this assignat?"

"Definitely."

The patriot gathered up the rejected note, folded it with ostentation, and moved towards the door. On the threshold he turned. "You will be sorry for this, citizen," he threatened, and was gone.

Poor Bonchatel looked at me out of a face that had grown very pale. "You see, Captain, how I am persecuted," he complained.

"I see that you have behaved in a very unwise and hot-headed manner," I answered, though not unkindly. "Surely you had done better to have given this fellow the loaf he wanted, rather than take the consequences of his complaint to the Revolutionary Committee."

"Give him the loaf?" returned Bonchatel. "But that would not have been all! I should have been forced also to give him change in silver for his twenty francs."

"Even that might be easier to suffer than--" I stopped.

"Than the guillotine, you would say, Captain. But, my faith, if I must die, I would as soon be guillotined as starved; and if this state of things is to continue I must assuredly come to penury ere long. I did not exaggerate when I told him that I had a boxful of assignats. They have been forced upon me in this manner, and unless I am to be utterly ruined I must cry halte-là, once and for all, and refuse paper that I cannot in my turn convert into money without turning informer. Let them guillotine me and make an end of it," he concluded stoically, as he dropped into a chair.

"And your daughter?" I ventured.

"Ah, Bon Dieu, yes. What is to become of her, misérable that I am!"

The tyranny and injustice of the thing revolted me. Was there nought I might do? Then, in a flash, I remembered Robespierre's approaching visit. I would appeal to him. Yet when he came to learn the charge that was advanced against Bonchatel he would be little likely to pity him. I thought hard whilst Bonchatel sat cursing his fate and praying for the damnation of Scævola, yet without at the moment arriving at any solution of the difficulty.

At eight o'clock that night there came a loud knocking at Bonchatel's door, and a moment later the baker, very pale and trembling, entered my room. "He is here, Captain," he cried. "Scævola himself has come, and he has brought the whole Committee with him."

"Peste," I ejaculated, "he has himself well attended, this cobbler-president. You had best admit them, my friend," I added, and as I spoke I was thinking busily.

"My boy has gone to open. What shall I do, Captain? Can you give me no help?" In his despair he was rocking his arms to and fro.

"Tell me," I inquired, "is the Committee of Rousillon given to extreme measures?"

"The Committee of Rousillon is Scævola. What he wills, the others do--and they call this liberty and equality. God help poor France!"