THE CONCIERGERIE
It wanted but a few minutes to noon as the condemned of the day were being brought out of the Conciergerie to take their places in the waiting tumbrils. Fourteen they numbered, and there was a woman amongst them as composed as any of the men. She descended the prison steps in nonchalant conversation with a witty young man of some thirty years of age, who had been one of the ornaments of the prerevolutionary salons. Had the pair been on the point of mounting a wedding coach they could not have shown themselves in better spirits.
Aristocrats, too, were the remaining twelve, with one exception, and if they had not known how to live, at least they could set a very splendid example of how to die. They came mostly in pairs, and the majority of them emulating the first couple and treating the whole matter as a pleasantry that rather bored them by the element of coarseness introduced by the mob. One or two were pale, and their eyes wore a furtive, frightened look. But they valiantly fought down their fears, and for all that the hearts within them may have been sick with horror, they contrived to twist a smile on to their pale lips. They did not lack for stout patterns of high bearing, and in addition they had their own arrogant pride -the pride that had brought them at last to this pass - to sustain them in their extremity. Noblesse les obligeait. The rabble, the canaille of the new regime, might do what they would with their bodies, but their spirits they could not break, nor overcome their indomitable pride. By the brave manner of their death it remained for them to make amends for the atrocious manner of their lives, and such a glamour did they shed upon themselves by the same brave manner, that it compelled sympathy and admiration of those that beheld them, and made upon humanity an impression deep enough to erase the former impression left by their misdeeds.
Like heroes, like sainted martyrs, they died, these men who, through generation after generation, had ground and crushed the people 'neath the iron heel of tyranny and oppression, until the people had, of a sudden, risen and reversed the position, going to excesses, in their lately-awakened wrath, that were begotten of the excesses which for centuries they had endured.
Last of this gallant and spruce company (for every man had donned his best, and dressed himself with the utmost care) came Caron La Boulaye. He walked alone, for although their comrade in death, he was their comrade in nothing else. Their heads might lie together in the sawdust of Sanson's basket, but while they lived, no contact would they permit themselves, of body or of soul, with this sans-culotte. Had they known why he died, perhaps, they had shown him fellowship. But in their nescience of the facts, it would need more than death to melt them into a kindness to a member of the Convention, for death was the only thing they had in common, and death, as we have seen, had not conquered them.
As he was about to pass out, a gaoler suddenly thrust forward a hand to detain him, and almost simultaneously the door, which had swung to behind the last of his death-fellows, re-opened to admit the dapper figure of the Incorruptible.
He eyed Caron narrowly as he advanced into the hall, and at the composure evident in the young man's bearing, his glance seemed to kindle with admiration, for all that his lips remained cruel in their tightened curves.
Caron gave him good-day with a friendly smile, and before Robespierre could utter a word the young man was expressing his polite regrets at having baulked him as he had done.
"I had a great object to serve, Maximilien," he concluded, "and my only regret is that it should have run counter to your wishes. I owe you so much - everything in fact - that I am filled with shame at the thought of how ill a return I am making you. My only hope is that by my death you will consider that I have sufficiently atoned for my ingratitude."
"Fool!" croaked Robespierre, "you are sacrificing yourself for some chimaera and the life you are saving is that of a very worthless and vicious individual. Of your ingratitude to me wee will not speak. But even now, in the eleventh hour, I would have you bethink you of yourself."
He held out ]his hands to him, and entreaty was stamped upon Robespierre's countenance to a degree which perhaps no man had yet seen. "Bethink you, cher Caron - " he began again. But the young man shook his head.
"My friend, my best of friends," he exclaimed, "I beg that you will not make it harder for me. I am resolved, and your entreaties do but heighten my pain of thwarting your - the only pain that in this supreme hour I am experiencing. It is not a difficult thing to die, Maximilien. Were I to live, I must henceforth lead a life of unsatisfied desire. I must even hanker and sigh after a something that is unattainable. I die, and all this is extinguished with me.
At the very prospect my desires fade immeasurably. Let me go in peace, and with your forgiveness."
Robespierre eyed him a moment or two in astonishment. Then he made an abrupt gesture of impatience.