CECILE DESHAIX
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below and saints above, For love is Heaven and Heaven is love.
The Lay of the Last Minstrel.
In his lodgings at the corner of the Rue-St. Honore and the Rue de la Republique - lately changed, in the all-encompassing metamorphosis, from "Rue Royale" sat the Deputy Caron La Boulaye at his writing-table.
There was a flush on his face and a sparkle in the eyes that looked pensively before him what time he gnawed the feathered end of his quill. In his ears still rang the acclamations that had greeted his brilliant speech in the Assembly that day. He was of the party of the Mountain - as was but natural in a protege of the Seagreen Robespierre - a party more famed for its directness of purpose than elegance of expression, and in its ranks there was room and to spare for such orators as he. The season was March of '93 - a season marked by the deadly feud raging 'twixt the Girondins and the Mountain, and in that battle of tongues La Boulaye was covering himself with glory and doing credit to his patron, the Incorruptible.
He was of a rhetoric not inferior to Vergniaud's - that most eloquent Girondon - and of a quickness of wit and honesty of aim unrivalled in the whole body of the Convention, and with these gifts he harassed to no little purpose those smooth-tongued legislators of the Gironde, whom Dumouriez called the Jesuits of the Revolution. His popularity with the men of the Mountain and with the masses of Paris was growing daily, and the crushing reply he had that day delivered to the charges preferred by Vergniaud was likely to increase his fame.
Well, therefore, might he sit with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes chewing the butt of his pen and smiling to himself at the memory of the enthusiasm of which he had been the centre a half-hour ago.
Here, indeed, was something that a man might live for, something that a man might take pride in, and something that might console a man for a woman's treachery. What, indeed, could woman's love give him that might compare with this? Was it not more glorious far to make himself the admired, the revered, the very idol of those stern men, than the beloved of a simpering girl? The latter any coxcomb with a well-cut coat might encompass, but the former achievement was a man's work.
And yet, for all that he reasoned thus speciously and philosophically, there was a moment when his brow grew clouded and his eyes lost their sparkle. He was thinking of that night in the inn at Boisvert, when he had knelt beside her and she had lied to him. He was thinking of the happiness, that for a few brief hours had been his, until he discovered how basely she had deceived him, and for all the full-flavour of his present elation it seemed to him that in that other happiness which he now affected to despise by contrast, there had dwelt a greater, a more contenting sweetness.
Would she come to Paris? He had asked himself that question every day of the twenty that were spent since his return. And in the meantime the Vicomte d'Ombreval lay in the prison of the Luxembourg awaiting trial. That he had not yet been arraigned he had to thank the efforts of La Boulaye. The young Deputy had informed Robespierre that for reasons of his own he wished the ci-devant Vicomte, to be kept in prison some little time, and the Incorruptible, peering at him over his horn-rimmed spectacles, had shrugged his shoulders and answered:
"But certainly, cher Caron, since it is your wish. He will be safe in the Luxembourg."
He had pressed his protege for a reason, but La Boulaye had evaded the question, promising to enlighten him later.
Since then Caron had waited, and now it was more than time that Mademoiselle made some sign. Or was it that neither Ombreval's craven entreaties nor his own short message had affected her? Was she wholly heartless and likely to prove as faithless to the Vicomte in his hour of need as she had proved to him?
With a toss of the head he dismissed her from his thoughts, and dipping his quill, he began to write.
>From the street came the dull roll of beaten drums and the rhythmical fall of marching feet. But the sound was too common in revolutionary Paris to arrest attention, and he wrote on, heeding it as little as he did the gruff voice of a pastry-cook crying his wares, the shriller call of a milkman, or the occasional rumblings of passing vehicles. But of a sudden one of those rumblings ceased abruptly at his door. He heard the rattle of hoofs and the grind of the wheel against the pavement, and looking up, he glanced across at the ormolu timepiece on his overmantel. It was not yet four o'clock.
Wondering whether the visitor might be for him or for the tenant of the floor above, he sat listening until his door opened and his official - the euphemism of "servant" in the revolutionary lexicon - came to announce that a woman was below, asking to see him.
Now for all that he believed himself to have become above emotions where Mademoiselle de Bellecour was concerned, he felt his pulses quicken at the very thought that this might be she at last.
"What manner of woman, Brutus?" he asked.
"A pretty woman, Citizen," answered Brutus, with a grin. "It is the Citoyenne Deshaix."
La Boulaye made an impatient gesture.
"Fool. why did you not say so," he cried sharply.
"Fool, you did not ask me," answered the servant, with that touching, fraternal frankness adopted by all true patriots. He was a thin, under-sized man of perhaps thirty years of age, and dressed in black, with a decency - under La Boulaye's suasion - that was rather at variance with his extreme democracy. His real name was Ferdinand, but, following a fashion prevailing among the ultra-republicans, he had renamed himself after the famous Roman patriot.
La Boulaye toyed a moment with his pen, a frown darkening his brow.
Then:
"Admit her," he sighed wearily.