XII
In which Toto is seen to change his politics twice a day—the mornings and the afternoons quarrel—In which Jean Pierre André Amar, “le farouche,” appears.
The fencing-master took great pains with his promising débutant, and now at last thought he could trust him to give lessons. He gave him much advice, full of good sense. He must dress simply, not in any marked fashion. And here were the two cockades, and two for Toto, who was fitted with a toy sword, and had been taught to howl horribly if François said, “Citizen Capet,” and to do the like if he cried, “Aristocrat!”
François, gay and a little anxious, followed Gamel for the first time during the lesson-hours into the salle d’armes. Toto came after them in full rig, with a cap and a huge white cockade. A dozen gentlemen, most of them young, were preparing to fence.
The poodle was greeted with “Bravo!” and strutted about on his hind legs with evident enjoyment of the approval.
“Wait here,” said Gamel to François. “I will by and by give thee a chance.” François had, of course, been constantly in the room when the patrons were absent, and it was now familiar. It had been part of the old hotel of some extinct nobleman, and was of unusual height, and quite forty feet square, with tall windows at each end; a cushioned bench ran around the walls, and above it hung wire masks, foils, sabers, and a curious collection of the arms of past ages and barbarous tribes. Chiefly remarkable were the many fine blades, Spanish or Eastern. At the side of the hall, a doorway led into the shooting-gallery, a late adjunct since the English use of the pistol had been brought into the settlement of quarrels made savage by the angry politics of the day. On one of the walls of the fencing-room was a large sign on which was painted: “Achille Gamel, ci-devant Maître d’Armes, Régiment du Duc de Rohan-Chabot. Lessons in the small sword, saber, and pistol.” The word “Duc” was chalked over, but was still easily to be made out.
Presently Gamel came to François in his shirt and breeches, foil in hand. “This way, François.” As they slowly crossed the room, Gamel went on to say in a low tone of voice: “Don’t be too eager. Take it all as a matter of course. Don’t be nervous. One must have had a serious affair or two before one gets over the foil fever. Remember, you are here to teach, not to triumph. There are few here you cannot touch, but that is not business.”
“I understand,” said François.
“I will give you for your lesson the best blade in Paris. You can teach him nothing. He is my foster-brother, the Marquis de Ste. Luce.”
“Ste. Luce!”
“Yes; he is here often.”
As they approached, the great gentleman came to meet them, separating himself from the laughing group of younger men.
“Ma foi!” he exclaimed. “Is this your new blade, Gamel?” He caught François’s appealing eye, and showed no sign of having known the thief until they were apart from the rest and had taken their foils. Then he said quietly, “Does Gamel know?”
“Yes, monsieur. I saved his life in a row in the Cité, and he gives me this chance.”
“Good! I shall not betray you. But beware! You must keep faith, and behave yourself.”
“Monsieur may trust me.”
“And you can fence?”
“A little, monsieur.”
“Well, then, on guard!” The marquis was pleased to praise the new teacher. “He has a supple wrist, and what a reach of arm!” At last he went away to Gamel’s room, where they were absent a half-hour. These private talks, François observed later, were frequent, especially with certain of the middle-aged gentlemen who took here their morning exercise.
After this first introduction to business, François sat still when the marquis had left him. By and by the gentleman came back, and saying a word of encouragement to François, went away.
“Take M. de Lamerie, François,” said Gamel; and turning to a gentleman near by, added, “À vous, monsieur.” Others began to select foils and to fence in couples, so that soon the hall rang with the click, click of meeting steel. François was clever enough to let his pupil get in a touch now and then, and meanwhile kept him and those who looked on delighted with his natural merriment. He was soon a favorite. The dog was made to howl at a tricolored cockade, and proved a great success. As to the fencing-lessons, Gamel was overjoyed, and as time ran on came to trust and to like his thief, who began speedily to pick up the little well-mannered ways and phrases he heard about him. He liked well to be liked and to be praised for his skill, which week by week became greater, until none except M. Gamel and the marquis were able to meet him on equal terms. The master of arms was generous; the wages rose. The clothes François now wore were better, and when Gamel asked him to choose a rapier for wear in the street, which was not yet forbidden, the poor thief felt that he was in the full sunlight of fortune.
The afternoons were less to his taste. If a new pupil arrived, the cook, an old woman, let him in, and Gamel saw him in an anteroom and settled terms and hours. The Jacobins came after two o’clock. Then the room was unusually full. The poodle howled at the name of Louis Capet. Tricolored cockades were everywhere. The talk was of war and the frontier, the ways of speech were guarded, the manners not those of the morning. These citizens were awkward, but terribly in earnest. The pistol-gallery was much in favor; but at this deadly play François was never an expert. He did not like it, and was pleased when the Vicomte de Beauséjour, a favored pupil, said: “’T is a coarse weapon, François. Ah, well enough to enable bulldog English to settle their disputes over a bone; but, dame! quite unfit to be the arm of honor of gentlemen.” This uncertain property of honor seemed to François a too insecure kind of investment. It was enough to have to take care of one’s pocket; and his being now well lined, François began to resent the possibility of those sudden changes of ownership which under other conditions he had looked upon as almost in the nature of things.
During this summer, and in the winter of ’91 and ’92, Gamel was at times absent for days. Whenever he returned he was for a week after in his monosyllabic mood. François, who was keenly alive to his present advantages, and who saw how these absences interfered with their business, began to exercise his easily excited inquisitiveness, and to meditate on what was beneath Gamel’s frequent fits of abstraction. His own life had known disappointments, not always of his own making. He dreaded new ones. The past of the Cité, Quatre Pattes, Despard, those haunting eyes of the marquis’s widowed daughter, the choristers, the asylum, the mad street life—all the company of his uncertain days—were gone. Now, of late, he began to have a feeling of uneasy belief that things were once more about to change. Nor was the outer life of the capital such as to promise tranquillity. A nation was about to become insane. It was at this time like a man thus threatened: to-day it was sane, to-morrow it might be reeling over the uncertain line which separates the sound from the unsound. Had François been more interested and more apprehensive, he was intelligent enough to have shared the dismay with which many Frenchmen saw the growth of tumultuous misrule. Indeed, the talk of the morning fencing-school should have taught him alarm. But he had formerly lived the life of the hour, even of the minute, and as long as he was well fed, housed, and clothed, his normal good humor comfortably digested anxiety.
I should wrongly state a character of uncommon interest if I were to give the impression of a man who had merely the constant hilarity of a happy child. He was apt to laugh where others smiled; but, as he matured, cheerful contentment was his usual mood, and with it, to the last, the probability of such easily born laughter as radiated mirth upon all who heard it, like a companionable fire diffusing its generous warmth. He was at this time doing what he most fancied. The company suited him. He liked the tranquil ways of these courteous gentlemen. In a word, he was contented, and for a time lost all desire to seek change or adventure. His satisfaction in the life made him more quiet and perhaps more thoughtful. He had every reason to be cheerful, and cheerfulness is the temperate zone of the mind.
At times, on Sundays, in the summer of ’92, he wandered into the country with Toto; but these holidays were rare. Now and then the habits of years brought again the longing for excitement; with the meal-hours he recovered his common sense, being a big fellow of sharp appetite and a camel-like capacity for substantial food.
The feud between the cockades broke out at this time in duels, which it became the fashion to drive to the Bois to see. Women of all classes looked on and applauded, and few liked it if the affair failed to prove grave. François found it entertaining. The duels were, in fact, many in the years of grace ’91 and ’92.
The morning pupils wore their hair in curls, dressed in short clothes, and defied the new-fashioned republican pantaloons, which were rising up to the armpits and descending the legs. They carried sword-canes, or sticks like the club of Hercules; a few still wore the sword. Brown and gray wore the afternoon citizens, with long straight hair, short waistcoats, and long and longer culottes above large steel shoe-buckles, all that were silver having been given to aid the funds of a bankrupt government. The morning, which knew very well who came in the later hours, abused the afternoon, and this portion of the day returned those compliments in kind.
Now and then the morning had a little affair with the afternoon, for the Terror was not yet. In cafés and theaters there were constant outbreaks, and men on both sides eager enough to sustain opinion by the sword or the pistol. When one of what François called “our little domestic difficulties” was on hand, there was excitement and interest among Royalists and Jacobins, with much advice given, and huge disgust when monsieur was pinked by Citizen Chose of the Cordeliers or of the Jacobin Club.
If the reverse obtained, and some gentleman of ancient name condescended to run Citizen Chose through the lungs, there was great rejoicing before noon and black looks after it. Here were a half-dozen affairs in a month, for these were the first blades in France.
There were laws against the duel, but the law changed too fast for obedience, and fashion, as usual, defied it. Hatred and contempt were ready at every turn. Two abbés fought, and what was left of the great ladies went to see and applaud.
This duel between morning and afternoon began to amuse Paris. But pretty soon neither the master of arms nor his assistant was as well pleased at the excessive attention thus drawn to the school of fencing. Gamel disliked it for reasons which he did not set forth, and François because he felt that his disturbing readiness to turn back to a life of peril and discomfort was like enough to be reinforced by coming events. He adored good living, yet could exist on crusts. He was intelligent, yet did not like to be forced to think. An overmastering sense of the ludicrous inclined him to take the world lightly. He liked ease, yet delighted in adventure. He distrusted his own temperament. He had need to do so. Excitement was in the air. The summer of ’92 was unquiet, and pupils were less numerous, so that François found time to wander. The autumn brought no change in his life, but Gamel became more and more self-absorbed, and neglected his pupils. The gentlemen who fenced in the mornings began to disappear, and the new year of 1793 came in with war without and tumult within distracted France.
For several days before the 21st of January, 1793, strange faces were frequently seen in the morning hours, or more often late at night. These passed into Gamel’s room, and remained long. The marquis, more thoughtful than usual, came and went daily. Early on the 20th, Gamel told François that he should be absent until after the 21st, the day set for the king to die. François asked no questions, and was not deeply grieved to be left in the dark as to what was in contemplation. During the previous week there had been sad faces in the morning hours. The pupils were fewer; they were leaving Paris—and too many were leaving France. The Jacobins, with whom François fenced in the latter part of the day, were wildly triumphant. They missed Gamel when he was absent, and asked awkward questions. It was plain enough to his assistant that the master of this turbulent school was a Royalist enragé, as men then said. The assistant was much of his mind, but he was also far more loyal to one François than to the unfortunate king.
He was not surprised that at the hour of opening on the 21st no one appeared. He sat thinking, and a little sorry for the humbled Louis rumbling over the crowded streets to his doom. The prisons were already becoming crowded; the richer bourgeoisie had become submissive. The more able and aggressive Jacobins were about to seize the reins of power from the sentimental Girondists.
“Let us think a little,” said François to his friend and counselor Toto. The poodle woke up, and sat attentive. “It is disagreeable to have to think, mon ami; but there are our heads. Without a head one cannot eat or enjoy a bone. Shall we go to the frontier, and be shot at, and shoot? Dame! a thousand bullets to one guillotine. We do not like that. Let us change our opinions, Toto, join the clubs, and talk liberty. Yes; that is thy opinion. Must we go back to the streets? ’T is good nowadays to be obscure, and thou art becoming a public character, Toto.”
He read the gazette awhile, practised with the pistol, and taught the dog a new trick. Still no one came, and the day wore on to noon. At this hour the bell rang, and the poodle barked, as was his custom. “Learn to hold thy tongue,” said the master. The servant had gone, like all Paris, to see a brave man die.
François opened the outer door. A strongly built man he had never before seen entered, and, pushing by him, went without a word into the great room beyond.
“Hallo, citizen! What dost thou want?” said François, following him.
“Art thou Citizen Gamel?”
François was not; and what could he do for the citizen?
The man for a moment made no reply, but glanced searchingly about the hall, while the assistant looked him over as keenly. He was a personage not easily to be forgotten.
“No one else here?” he asked.
“No one.”
The questioner was a man not over thirty-five, of colossal make, and with something about him which Toto resented. He began to bark, and then, of a sudden, fled under a bench, and watched the newcomer.
His features were out of keeping with his height and breadth. The Jacobin had small, restless eyes, a diminutive nose, perhaps broken, and a large-lipped mouth, which, as he talked, was drawn to one side as though from some loss of power on the other half of the face.
“I am Jean Pierre André Amar,” he said, with an air of importance.
“Will the citizen be seated?”
He would not. He desired to see Citizen Gamel.
François regretted his absence on business. Amar, later known as le farouche, desired to see the list of pupils, in order to select an unoccupied morning hour. Unluckily, the master had the keys. The citizen wished to fence, and could come in the morning only; he was busy after that. François would mention his name; perhaps the hours of the morning were full, but Citizen Gamel would no doubt arrange.
The man with the wandering mouth stood in thought, said he would return, and then asked abruptly:
“Art thou his assistant?”
“Yes.”
“And thy name?”
“François.”
“Has Citizen François a carte-civique—a certificate of citizenship?”
François knew better than to refuse. “Fetch me the card, Toto. ’T is on the chair in my room. Va—go!”
“Thou art careless, Citizen François.”
François, on this, became short of speech. Toto ran back. “Give it to the citizen.”
Amar took it, saying: “It is correct. And so a dog is sent to fetch the safeguard the people provide?”
François laughed. “The citizen is particular. But here we are good republicans, and have given our useful arms to the army, and think to go soon ourselves. Shall I give the citizen a lesson?”
No; he would call again. The section wished the names of all who fenced here. As the citizen reached the door, he said, turning:
“Thou art the man who used to laugh in the show. Robespierre told me of what fortune was read on his palm. A great man. Take care of thy own fortune. Thou art not of the club. It may be thou wilt laugh no more.” This while the distorted mouth went to left and came back, and the small eyes winked and wandered. François thanked him. He would join the club, the list should be ready, and so on.
When alone again, François began to reflect on what was likely to happen. At any time, Amar might return with a guard. On the 23d, as usual during this sad week, there were no morning pupils; and still Gamel came not, and François had to manage the turbulent afternoon pupils alone.