XI
The juggling firm of Despard, François & Co. is broken up—Despard goes into politics, and François becomes a fencing-master.
January, 1791, François, having of late found business slack, had moved to the open place in front of the Palais Royal. He had taught Toto new tricks—to shoulder a musket and to die pour la patrie. Time was telling men’s fortunes quite too fast for comfort. Neither his old devices nor Toto’s recently acquired patriotism was of much avail. Moreover, Pierre was losing interest in the booth as he became absorbed in politics.
“Thou wilt not go to thy sacré club, Pierre,” said François, one night late in February. “Here are two days thou hast left us, the patriot Toto and me, to feed thee and make sous for the poor little maid at Sèvres.”
“She is not at Sèvres.”
“Why not? Thou hast not said a word to me of this.”
“No; I had more important matters to think of.”
François, who was tranquilly smoking his pipe, looked up at his partner. The man had lately worn a look of self-importance.
“Well, what else?”
“The sisters are aristocrats. A good citoyenne hath her. I shall give up the show. The country calls me, Pierre Despard, to save her. The great Robespierre hath asked me to go into Normandy, to Musillon, whence I came. I am to organize clubs of Jacobins.” He spoke with excitement, striding to and fro. He declared that he was not afraid now of any one. To serve France was to have courage.
“And how as to money?” asked François.
He said his expenses would be paid by the clubs. Barnave, Duport, and the deputies of the Right must be taught a lesson. There must be no more kings. The people must rule—the people! He declaimed wildly.
“Fichtre!” cried François, laughing. “It does seem to me that they rule just now.”
Pierre went on with increasing excitement; and would not François go with him?
“Go with thee? Thou sayest we shall be deputies in the new Convention. A fine thing that! And Toto too, I suppose? Not I. I am an aristocrat. I like not thy Robespierre. As to the show, it pays no longer, and I have greased the claws of the Crab until there is no more grease left. I shall take to the streets, Toto and I. And so thou art to be a great man, and to play poodle on thy hind legs for Pétion and the mob?”
Pierre was offended. He rose and stood glaring at François with wide-open eyes; then he said, as if to himself: “The marquis is near Evreux. Let him take heed!”
“Mon Dieu! He will eat thee as he would the frogs of his moat, that man! I am not of those who fear, but if I had angered him—”
“I have named him to the great Robespierre, the just, the good. He will remember him.”
“Then go; and the devil take the whole lot of you!”
“I shall go. But do not say thou art an aristocrat, for then I must hate thee.”
“Grand merci! Thou poor, fat little pug, canst thou hate?”
“Aye, as hell hates.” Upon this Toto took refuge under his master’s bed.
François rose, and, standing in front of the flushed, fat little man, set a hand on each of Pierre’s shoulders and stopped his excited march.
“I cannot understand thee. I never could contrive to hate even a gendarme, and if hell hates, I know not. Thou art helpless as a turtle that is on his back. What use to kick? No; do not answer me. Hear me out. I shall go my way—thou thy way. I served thee a good turn once, and thou hast helped me to a living. Now I like not thy ways; thou art going mad, I think.”
“Perhaps—perhaps,” returned Pierre, gloomily. “Well, c’est fini—’t is done. Now to settle.”
They divided their spare cash; and after that Pierre went to his club, and François to bed and a dreamless sleep.
In the morning he rose early, left his share of the rent on the table, and with a little bag of clothes, and Toto after him, walked away across the Seine, and soon found a small room under the roof. He paid in advance the customary denier à Dieu, and settled down to think.
He was tired of the show, and meant to resume his old trade. His conscience, or so much as he had, was at peace; all France was plundering. Now the nobles were robbed, and now the church.
“The world is on my side,” he laughed, as he sat with Toto on his knees, looking over a wide prospect of chimney-pots and tiles.
Thus began again the life of the thief; but now, thanks to his long training as a juggler, he was amazingly expert. He took no great risks, but the frequent tumults of the streets were full of chances, although it must be said that purses were thinner, watches and gold snuff-boxes rarer, and caution less uncommon than it had once been. If business prospered, he and Toto took long holidays in the country, and did a little hunting of rabbits; for the gamekeeper was no longer a person to be dreaded. Sometimes, lying on the turf, he thought how pleasant would be a bit of garden, and assurance of good diet and daily work to his taste. I fear it would scarcely have been long to his taste. When something like a chance came, he could not make up his mind to accept the heaven-sent offer. He was to see many things and suffer much before his prosperous hour arrived.
One fine day in April, François, with whom of late fortune had quarreled, was seated in the sun on a bench in the now ill-tended garden of the Luxembourg. The self-made difficulties of the country were affecting more and more the business of the honest, and of that uncertain guild which borrows but never returns. He had a way of taking Toto into his counsels. “What shall we do, little devil?” The poodle barked. “No. These accursed Jacobins are ruining France. What, knock a man on the head at night! Bad dog, hast thou no morals? Va donc! Go to. Thou hast not my close experience of the lantern, and stone walls for a home I like not. Work, thou sayest? Too late; there is work for no one nowadays. Thou wilt end badly, little monster.”
Toto whined, and having no more to say, fell asleep. At this moment François, looking up, saw go by a young woman in black, and with her a boy of perhaps ten years. On the farther side was a tall, well-dressed man of middle age, whom, as he was looking away, François did not recognize. Some bright thing fell unnoticed from the woman’s wrist, and lay in the sun. “Hist, Toto! Look there—quick!” In a moment the dog was away, and back again, with a small miniature set in gold and surrounded by pearls. It was the portrait of a young officer. François hastily put it back into the dog’s mouth, saying: “Go to sleep! Down! down quickly!” The dog, well taught, accepted the trust, and dropped as if in slumber, his head on his paws, while his master studied the weathercocks on the old gray palace. A moment later both the man and the woman turned to look for the lost miniature. Then François saw that it was his old acquaintance the marquis. He had more than once seen him in the garden, where he was fond of walking; but the great seigneur had passed him always without notice. The boy ran back ahead of his grandfather, and coming to François, said innocently:
“Monsieur, have you seen a little picture madame let fall? It is so big, and I saw it only just now on her wrist. Please to help us to look for it. It is my father; he is dead.”
After the boy came the woman, looking here and there on the gravel.
“Dame de Dieu! she is beautiful,” murmured François; “and that sacré marquis!”
The voice he heard was sweet and low, and tender with regret at her loss.
“Has monsieur chanced to see a little miniature?”
Monsieur was troubled, but his pocket and stomach were both empty. Monsieur was distressed. He had seen no miniature.
Next came the marquis.
“Ho, ho!” he said pleasantly. “Here is the citizen my thief again. Have you seen a small miniature?”
François had not.
“Diable! ’T is a pity, monsieur. Well, pardon a ci-devant marquis, but I do think monsieur knows a little too much of that miniature for his eternal salvation. Also, monsieur does not lie as well as might be expected from one in his line of life.”
François rose. He was embarrassed as he saw the tearful face of the woman.
“I was about to say I would look—I would search.”
Ste. Luce smiled. “Suppose we begin with you?”
“I have it not.”
“Well, but where is it? I am not a man to be trifled with. Come, quick, or I must ask the gendarmes yonder for a bit of help.”
François looked at him. There was menace in those cold gray eyes. Should he trust to his own long legs? At this instant he heard a sob, and glancing to the right, saw the woman seated on the bench with her face in her hands, the little fellow at her side saying: “Do not cry, mama; the gentleman will help us.” The gentleman was ill clothed and seedy. He had seen women cry, but they were not like this woman.
“M. le Marquis does me injustice. Permit that my dog and I search a little.”
The marquis smiled again. “Pardieu! and if you search, and meanwhile take a fancy to run, your legs are long; but now I have you. How the deuce can I trust a thief?”
The little lad looked up. “I will go with monsieur to look—and the dog; we will find it, mama.”
“Monsieur may trust me; I will not run away,” said François. “If monsieur desires to search me?”
“I do not search thieves.”
François looked at this strangely quiet gentleman with the large, light-gray, unpleasant eyes, and then at the woman.
“Come, Toto; we must take a look.”
The marquis stood still, quietly watching thief, dog, and boy.
“Renée,” he said, “don’t make a fool of yourself.”
Then from a distance the boy cried, “We found it, mama!” and ran to meet her.
The marquis took it as François rejoined the group.
“Ah, Master Thief, you are clever; but it is a little wet, this trifle, and warm too. The dog had it all the while in his mouth. He is well taught. Why the deuce did you give it up?”
The boy began to understand this small drama. He had the courage of his breed, and the training.
“Did you dare to steal my mama’s picture?”
“Yes; when she let it fall.”
“I know now why you were glad to give it back. It was because she cried.”
“Yes; it was because she cried.”
“Venire St. Gris!” exclaimed the marquis, who was pleased to swear like Henry of Navarre. “You are a poor devil for a thief. You have temptations to be good. I never have them myself. I thank Heaven I have reasonably well used my opportunities to be agreeably wicked.”
“Father!” said the young woman, reproachfully; and then to François: “If you are a thief, still I thank you; I cannot tell you how much I thank you.”
“And how many louis do you expect, most magnanimous of thieves?” said the marquis.
The woman looked up again. “Come to me to-morrow; I will find a way to help you.”
Something of yearning, some sense of a void, some complexity of novel distress, arose in the thief’s mind.
“Mon Dieu! madame,” he said, turning toward her, without replying to the marquis, “you are a saint. I—I will think. I am not fit for such as you to talk to.”
“Quite true,” said the marquis. “Hast thou thy purse, Renée? I forgot mine.”
“No, no,” she said. “Come and see us—Rue des Petits-Augustines—a great house with a gilded gate. You will come? I will say they are to let you in. Promise me that you will come.”
“And bring that poodle,” added the marquis; “I will buy him.”
François laughed outright—that merry laugh which half Paris had learned to like, till Paris tired of it and of its owner.
“Monsieur will pardon me. I cannot sell my only friend. Good day.” And he walked away, the boy crying after him: “You will come? Oh, you must come, because my mama says so.”
The marquis muttered: “Animal! If I had your carcass—no, if I had had you awhile ago in Normandy, your manners would have been bettered. But now the world is upside down. He will come, Renée. If thou art quit of him for two hundred francs and a few lost spoons, thou mayest rest thankful.”
François moved moodily away. Something was wrong in his world; an angel coming into his crude life would not have disturbed him as this lady’s few kind words had done, and yet he had left her unanswered. He knew he had been a fool, but knew not why. He had, too, a notion that he and this marquis would meet again, but for this he was not eager. He recalled the palm-reading. Had the woman been alone, he would probably have said a glad “Yes”; but now his inclinations to obey her were sadly diluted by feelings which he did not analyze, or perhaps could not have analyzed. He did not accept the hand thus stretched out to save him, but for many a day her tender eagerness and the pleading face which had so attracted him came before him at times with a look of reproach. Is it strange that this glimpse of a nobler nature and a better life than his own should have had an influence on this man quite the reverse of that which its good will sought to effect? He cannot be said to have been refined, but he had in him tastes which are the germs of refinement, and which, when I knew him, had no doubt produced results. Probably he was in 1791 a coarser person, but he must always have been a man who could be forced by circumstances to think.
It may have been that the sense of a great gulf between him and a world he was by nature inclined to like caused one of those rare spells of despair to which the gay and over-sanguine are liable. Of course he had seen and for brief seasons shared the profligacy of the Cité,—his memoirs confess this with absolute frankness,—but these gross lapses had been rare and brief. Now he plunged headlong into the worst vileness of the most dissolute quarter, where few lived who were not saturated with crime. I have no desire to dwell on this part of his life. A month passed away, and he was beginning to suffer in health. This amazed him. He had not hitherto known a pang save that of hunger. He began to drink eau-de-vie to relieve his sense of impaired strength, and being off his guard and under the influence of the temporary mood of rashness which drink is apt to cause, he twice narrowly escaped arrest.
Under the vivid impression thus created he was wandering homeward late at night to some low resort in the Cité, when in the Rue aux Fèves he heard a cry in front of him. The moon was bright, and he saw a man set upon by two fellows. The person assailed was staggering from the blow of a club, and fell with the cry which the thief heard. Both bandits threw themselves upon him, and, as he unwisely struggled, François saw the glitter of a knife. Clearly this was no easy prey. As the three tumbled over in the mud of the street there was small chance for a decisive use of the blade. François, as I have said, had been always free from crimes of violence, but this affair was none of his business, and had his pocket been full he might have left the ruffians and their prey unmolested. His purse, however, was down to the last sou, and here was a chance.
He called, “Catch them, Toto!” and, leaping forward, seized one of the men by the throat and threw him on his back. The poodle took a good nip of the other rascal’s leg, and when the man broke away and, stumbling, ran, pursued him until recalled by François’s whistle. Meanwhile the assaulted man sat up, a bit dazed. The other fellow—it was he of the knife—was on his feet again, and at once turned furiously on the rescuer. François darted to one side, and, catching him by the neck, throttled him savagely. His great length of arm made it impossible for the scamp, who was short and strong, to reach any vital organ. But he stabbed François’s shoulder over and over. François’s grip on the throat was weakening, when the victim, now on his feet, struck the man under the ear, and thus knocked him clean out of François’s failing grip. He fell headlong, but was up and away in a moment, while a crowd began to collect.
“Hi! it is François!” some one cried.
“Quick!” said the thief. “Room there! Let us get out of this.” Seizing the man he had saved, he hustled his way through the crowd and hurried him toward the bridge. In a few minutes they were standing alone by the river, amid the tombs back of Notre Dame. Then the man spoke:
“By Heaven! thou hast saved my life. Hallo! thou art bleeding. Here!” and he tied a handkerchief about his shoulder. “We shall be in luck to find a chaise. Wait!” and he ran away.
François’s head was dizzy. He sat on a tombstone, well sobered now, but bleeding freely. It was long before he heard a horse; and when in the chaise, where Toto promptly followed him, he fell back, and knew little more until they stopped in the Rue St. Honoré. Here his new acquaintance got out, and soon returned with a glass of eau-de-vie. With this aid, and the arm of his host, François was able to reach a large room in the second story. He fell on a couch, and lay still while the other man ran out to find a surgeon.
On his arrival, François was put to bed in an adjoining room, and for two weeks of care and good diet had leave to meditate on the changeful chances of this wretched world. For a while he was too weak to indulge his customary keenness of curiosity. His host, M. Achille Gamel, paid him brief visits, and was singularly unwilling to talk one day, and the next sufficiently so for the patient to learn that he had been in the army as a maître d’armes, and was now, in his own opinion, the best fencing-master in France. Through the partitions could be heard the click, click of the foils, and now and then the crack of pistols. After a fortnight François’s wounds were fairly healed, and he began to get back his rosy complexion and his unfailing curiosity.
One pleasant evening in June, Gamel appeared as usual. It was one of his days of abrupt speech.
“Art well?”
“Yes.”
“Thou art soon mended.”
“Yes.” His brevity begot a like form of answer, and François was now somewhat on his guard.
“I pay my debts.”
“That is true.”
“Now thou art well, what wilt thou do?”
“I—I—I shall go away.”
“Why didst thou help me?”
“My pocket and paunch were empty. It seemed a chance.”
“Thy two reasons are good. Who art thou?”
“Who is every one in the Cité? A thief.”
“Diable! but thou art honest—in speech at least.”
“Yes, sometimes. I was a conjurer too—for a while.”
“Yes, yes, I remember now. Thou art the fellow with a laugh. I see not yet why thou hast helped me. Thou mightest easier have helped the rascals and shared their gains.”
François began to be interested, and laughed a laugh which was the most honest of his possessions.
“I dislike clumsiness in my profession,” he said. “Why should the brutality of war be brought into a peaceful occupation?” He was half in earnest, half in jest.
“That is a third reason, and a good one.” It was difficult to surprise Gamel. “Suppose we talk business,” he added.
“Mine or thine?”
“Mine. A moment, Citizen François—permit me. Pray stand up a moment.”
François rose as the fencing-master produced a tape-measure. “Permit me,” and with no more words he set one end of the tape on François’s shoulder and carried the length of it to his finger-tips.
François stood still, wondering what it all meant.
“The deuce!” said Gamel, slowly rolling up the measuring-tape.
“Well, what is it? What is wrong?”
“Wrong? Nothing. It is astonishing!”
“What?”
“This arm of thine.”
“Why?”
“It is one and a half inches longer than mine.”
“Well?”
“A gift! To have the longest arm in Paris! Mon Dieu!”
“What of that?”
“A fortune! Phenomenal! Superb! And a chest—and muscles! By Hercules, they are as hard as horn!”
“Well?”
“Diable! Thou art dull for a thief.”
François had a high opinion of himself. He said: “Perhaps. What next?”
“I need help. I will teach thee to fence and to shoot. Canst thou be honest? I ask not if thou art.”
“Can I? I do not know. I have never tried very long.” Then he paused. To fence like a gentleman, to handle a sword, had its temptations. “Try me.”
“Good! Canst thou be a Jacobin to-day and a Royalist to-morrow?”
“Why not?”
“The messieurs and their kind fence here in the morning; after our breakfast come the Jacobins about two. I ask not thy politics.”
“Why not?” said François, who was the frankest of men—“why not? I am an aristocrat. I am at the top of my profession. I like naturally the folks who are on top.”
“France is like a ball now, no top, no bottom, rolling. Let us be serious.”
“Dieu! that is difficult. I want to quit thieving. It doesn’t pay at present. I accept the citizen’s offer. Does it include my dog?”
“Yes, indeed! Toto—a treasure! He will delight our pupils.”
“Good! He must have a little sword and wear a white cockade till noon, and then a tricolor.”
“And will five francs a week suffice until thou art fit to teach? And thy board and lodging—that goes without saying. After a while we will talk again.”
“’T is a fortune!” said François; and upon this agreement the pair fell to chatting about the details of their future work.
“One moment,” said François, as Gamel rose. “What are thy own politics?”
“I will tell thee when I can trust thee,” said the fencing-master. “Now they vary with the clock.”
“I see. But I have told thee mine.”
“Thou wert rash. I am not.”
François laughed merrily, “Good night.” He was happy to be at rest, well fed, and with something to do which involved no risk. Gamel went away, and François fell to talking to the poodle.
“Toto! Sit up, my sleepy friend! Attention! What dost thou think of M. Achille Gamel?” The poodle had been taught when questioned to put his head on one side, which gave him an air of intelligent consideration. “Ah, thou dost think he is as long-legged as I! Any fool of a cur can see that. What else?”
“He has great teeth—big—the better to eat thee, my dear! Curly hair, like thine, and as black; a nose—of course he has a nose, Toto. Art perplexed, little friend? Oh, that is it! I see. Thou art right. He smiles; he never laughs. ’T is that bothered thee. Thou dost like him? Yes. Thou art not sure? Nor I. We must laugh for two. The bones are good here. That is past doubt. We will stay, and we will keep our eyes open. And listen now, Toto. We are honest. Good! Dost thou understand? No more purses, or out we go. No stealing of cutlets. Ah, thou mayest lick thy chops in vain, bandit!”
A few days later Gamel began to fence with François, who liked it well. He was strong, agile, and like his old friends the cats for quickness of foot. Gamel was charmed.
“We must make no mistakes. The foil held lightly—so, so! If you grasp it too strongly you will not feel the other’s blade. That is better. ’T is the fingers direct the point. Thy hand a little higher—so, so!”
They fenced before the pupils came and in the intervals when none was on hand. François was tireless.
It was June now, and Robespierre was the public prosecutor, with Pétion at his side. Gamel read aloud the announcement with a coldly stern face. François heard it with indifference.
“Tiens!” he cried. “What matters it? Dame!” as he lunged at the wall, “I do believe my arm is an inch longer.” He was thinking, as he tried over and over a new guard, of what a queer education he had had. Gamel walked away into his own room. He was a man who often liked to be alone. Apt to be monosyllabic with his pupils, he could at times become seriously talkative at night over a pipe and a glass. François began to like him, and to suspect that he in turn was liked—a matter not indifferent to this poor devil, who had himself an undeveloped talent for affection.
“Mon ami, Toto! Let us think. I might have been a priest. What an escape! Or a great chorister. That is another matter. A thief, a street-dog, a juggler, a maître d’escrime. Parbleu! What next? We are getting up in the world. My palm, little rascal? Thou wouldst read it. Ah, bad dog, not I! Let us to bed; come along. It seems too good to last.”