Charles Lever - Maurice Tiernay, Soldier of Fortune

Loud and wild were the shouts of laughter from this brutal mockery; and for a time it almost seemed as if the ribaldry had turned the mob from the sterner passions of their vengeance. This hope, if one there ever cherished it, was short-lived, and again the cry arose for blood. It was too plain that no momentary diversion, no passing distraction, could withdraw them from that lust for cruelty that had now grown into a passion.

And now a bustle and movement of those around the stairs showed that something was in preparation; and in the next moment the old marquise was led forward between two men.

‘Where is the order for this woman’s execution?’ asked the dwarf, mimicking the style and air of the commissary.

‘We give it – it is from us!’ shouted the mob, with one savage roar.

Gougon removed his cap, and bowed in token of obedience.

‘Let us proceed in order, citizens,’ said he gravely; ‘I see no priest here.’

‘Shrive her yourself, Gougon; few know the mummeries better!’ cried a voice.

‘Is there not one here can remember a prayer, or even a verse of the offices,’ said Gougon, with a well-affected horror in his voice.

‘Yes, yes, I do,’ cried I, my zeal overcoming all sense of the mockery in which the words were spoken; ‘I know them all by heart, and can repeat them from “lux beatissima” down to “hora mortis”’; and as if to gain credence for my self-laudation, I began at once to recite, in the sing-song tone of the seminary —

It is possible I should have gone on to the very end, if the uproarious laughter which rung around had not stopped me.

‘There’s a brave youth!’ cried Gougon, pointing towards me, with mock admiration. ‘If it ever come to pass – as what may not in these strange times? – that we turn to priestcraft again, thou shalt be the first archbishop of Paris. Who taught thee that famous canticle?’

‘The Père Michel,’ replied I, in no way conscious of the ridicule bestowed upon me; ‘the Père Michel of St. Blois.’

The old lady lifted up her head at these words, and her dark eyes rested steadily upon me; and then, with a sign of her hand, she motioned to me to come over to her.

‘Yes; let him come,’ said Gougon, as if answering the half-reluctant glances of the crowd. And now I was assisted to descend, and passed along over the heads of the people, till I was placed upon the scaffold. Never can I forget the terror of that moment, as I stood within a few feet of the terrible guillotine, and saw beside me the horrid basket splashed with recent blood.

‘Look not at these things, child,’ said the old lady, as she took my hand and drew me towards her, ‘but listen to me, and mark my words well.’

‘I will, I will,’ cried I, as the hot tears rolled down my cheeks.

‘Tell the père – you will see him to-night – tell him that I have changed my mind, and resolved upon another course, and that he is not to leave Paris. Let them remain. The torrent runs too rapidly to last. This cannot endure much longer. We shall be among the last victims. You hear me, child?’

‘I do, I do,’ cried I, sobbing. ‘Why is not the Père Michel with you now?’

‘Because he is suing for my pardon – asking for mercy where its very name is a derision. Kneel down beside me, and repeat the “Angelus.”’

I took off my cap, and knelt down at her feet, reciting, in a voice broken by emotion, the words of the prayer. She repeated each syllable after me, in a tone full and unshaken, and then stooping, she took up the lily which lay in my cap. She pressed it to her lips two or three times passionately. ‘Give it to her ; tell her I kissed it at my last moment. Tell her – ’

‘This “shrift” is beyond endurance. Away, holy father!’ cried Gougon, as he pushed me rudely back, and seized the marquise by the wrist. A faint cry escaped her. I heard no more; for, jostled and pushed about by the crowd, I was driven to the very rails of the scaffold. Stepping beneath these, I mingled with the mob beneath; and burning with eagerness to escape a scene, to have witnessed which would almost have made my heart break, I forced my way into the dense mass, and, by squeezing and creeping, succeeded at last in penetrating to the verge of the Place. A terrible shout, and a rocking motion of the mob, like the heavy surging of the sea, told me that all was over; but I never looked back to the fatal spot, but, having gained the open streets, ran at the top of my speed towards home.

As I gained the street, at a distance from the Place, I was able to increase my speed; and I did so with an eagerness as if the world depended on my haste. At any other time I would have bethought me of my disobedience to the père’s commands, and looked forward to meeting him with shame and sorrow, but now I felt a kind of importance in the charge intrusted to me. I regarded my mission as something superior to any petty consideration of self, while the very proximity in which I had stood to peril and death made me seem a hero in my own eyes.

At last I reached the street where we lived, and, almost breathless with exertion, gained the door. What was my amazement, however, to find it guarded by a sentry, a large, solemn-looking fellow, with a tattered cocked-hat on his head, and a pair of worn striped trousers on his legs, who cried out, as I appeared, ‘Halte-là!’ in a voice that at once arrested my steps.

‘Where to, youngster?’ said he, in a somewhat melted tone, seeing the shock his first words had caused me.

‘I am going home, sir,’ said I submissively; ‘I live at the third storey, in the apartment of the Père Michel.’

‘The Père Michel will live there no longer, my boy; his apartment is now in the Temple,’ said he slowly.

‘In the Temple!’ said I, whose memory at once recalled my father’s fate; and then, unable to control my feelings, I sat down upon the steps and burst into tears.

‘There, there, child, you must not cry thus,’ said he; ‘these are not days when one should weep over misfortunes; they come too fast and too thick on all of us for that. The père was your tutor, I suppose?’

I nodded.

‘And your father – where is he?’

‘Dead.’

He made a sign to imitate the guillotine, and I assented by another nod.

‘Was he a Royalist, boy?’

‘He was an officer in the Garde du Corps,’ said I proudly. The soldier shook his head mournfully, but with what meaning I know not.

‘And your mother, boy?’

‘I do not know where she is,’ said I, again relapsing into tears at the thought of my utter desolation. The old soldier leaned upon his musket in profound thought, and for some time did not utter a word. At last he said —

‘There is nothing but the Hôtel de Ville for you, my child. They say that the Republic adopts all the orphans of France. What she does with them I cannot tell.’

‘But I can, though,’ replied I fiercely; ‘the Noyades or the Seine are a quick and sure provision; I saw eighty drowned one morning below the Pont Neuf myself.’

‘That tongue of yours will bring you into trouble, youngster,’ said he reprovingly; ‘mind that you say not such things as these.’

‘What worse fortune can betide me than to see my father die at the guillotine, and my last, my only friend, carried away to prison?’

‘You have no care for your own neck, then?’

‘Why should I – what value has life for me?’

‘Then it will be spared to you,’ said he sententiously; ‘mark my words, lad. You never need fear death till you begin to love life. Get up, my poor boy; you must not be found there when the relief comes, and that will be soon. This is all that I have,’ said he, placing three sous in my palm, ‘which will buy a loaf; to-morrow there may be better luck in store for you.’