XIX Of the Sorrowful Life of Loneliness, of François’s Arrest, and of Those He Met in Prison
François stood still. He was alone, and felt of a sudden, as never before, the solitude of an uncompanioned life. The subtle influence of the Terror had begun to sap the foundations of even his resolute cheerfulness. It was this constancy of dread which to some natures made the terrible certainties of the prisons a kind of relief. He looked after the retreating figure as it moved along the quai and was lost to view in the Rue des Petits-Augustines.
“Toto,” he said, “I would I had his clever head. When ’t is a question of hearts, mon ami, I would rather have thine. And now, what to do?” At last he moved swiftly along the borders of the Seine, and soon regained his own room. The Crab would go to the afternoon market; her net swung over her arm at the time he had seen her; and, as she always moved slowly, he had ample leisure.
He packed his bag, and taking from his pistol the paper he had secured when in company with Grégoire, replaced it under the lining of his shoe. Its value he very well knew. After a moment’s reflection, he put his pistol back on the peg high up in the chimney. He had been in the house nearly an hour, and was ready to leave, when he heard feet, and a knock at the locked door. A voice cried:
“In the name of the republic, open!” He knew that he was lost.
“Dame! Toto. We are done for, my little one”; and then, without hesitation, he opened the door. Three municipals entered. One of them said:
“We arrest thee, citizen, as an émigré returned.”
“Émigré!” and he laughed in his usual hearty way. “If I had been that, no one would have caught me back in France. Ah, well, I am ready, citizen. Here is an old rapier. The woman will sell it; better to give it to thee or to the republic.” He took up his slender baggage, and followed them. When they were down-stairs, he asked leave to see the Crab. The guard called her out of her den.
“Chère maman,” said François, “this is thy doing. These good citizens have my rapier, and the pistol is gone. Not a sou is left thee. Thou hast killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. Alas!”
The Crab rattled her claws on the sticks, and these on the floor, and spat vileness of thieves’ slang, declaring it a wicked lie. Would they take the silver-hilted sword? It was hers, and he owed her rent. At last, laughing, the guards secured the thief’s hands behind his back, and marched him away to the revolutionary committee of the section Franklin. Here no time was lost with the émigré, who was sent off in a hurry to the prison of the Madelonnettes, with poor Toto trotting after him, much perplexed by the performance.
François was astounded at the celerity and certainty of the methods by which he, a free Arab of the streets, was thus caged. As usual, it acted on his sense of humor, and before the dreaded sectional tribunal and with the municipals he was courageously merry. When he heard that he was to be sent to the Madelonnettes, he said:
“But, citizens, I am not of the sex. Mon Dieu! the Madelonnettes! ’T is not respectable—’t is not decent”; and he laughed outright. As no man was ever so made as to be protected from the infection of such mirth as the thief’s, the judges laughed in chorus. One of them, disturbed in his slumber, awoke, and seeing no cause for this long-visaged flap-ear so to mock the justice of the republic, he said:
“Thou wilt not laugh long, miserable aristocrat!”
This much delighted François. “By St. Jacobus, citizen, I swear to thee I am only an honest thief. I did not expect to be made of the fine nobility by a good democrat like thee.”
“Off with him!” said the judge. “They laugh best who laugh last.”
“No, no,” cried the incorrigible; “they laugh best who laugh most. Au revoir.”
“Take him away! The next case.”
The thief was gay, and amused the officers; but his keen senses were now all on guard, and, too, like others, he felt relieved at the ending of his life of suspense and watchful anxiety. His misfortune was plainly due to the avarice and needs of the Crab, and to her belief that he had ceased to be available as a means of support.
There was a little delay at the front of the old house of detention; some formalities were to be gone through with. François took careful note of it all. The prison stood in the Rue des Fontaines: a gray stone building, with a lofty story on the first floor, and, above, three stories and an attic; a high wall to left shut in the garden.
On entering a long, dark corridor, his bonds were removed, his bundle was searched, and what little money he had was scrupulously restored to him. He was stripped and examined, even to his shoes; but as the tongue of leather was loose only at the toes, the precious document escaped a very rigorous search. Poor Toto had been left outside, despite François’s entreaties. In the cell to which he was consigned were eight straw mattresses. He arranged his small baggage, and was told he was free to go whither he would above the rez-de-chaussée, which was kept for forgers of assignats and thieves. The corridor was some fifty feet long, and smelt horribly. On the main floor was the common dining-room. A separate stair-case led to a garden of considerable size, planted with box and a few quince- and other fruit-trees. At night two municipals guarded this space, while, outside, the steps of sentries could be heard when the hours of darkness brought their quiet. At 9 P.M. the prisoners, who assembled in the large hall, answered to their names; a bell rang, and they were locked in their cells, or slept as they could in the corridors. The richer captives were taxed to support their poor companions, and even to buy and feed the mastiffs which roamed at night in the garden.
Much of all this François learned as he arranged his effects and talked gaily with the turnkey, one Vaubertrand, a watchful but not unkindly little man. Thus informed, François, curious as usual, went down the corridor, and out into the garden. Here were quite two hundred men and women, some in careful, neat dress, many in rags. He saw, as he looked, curés, ladies, seamstresses, great nobles, unlucky colonels, and, as he learned later, musicians, poets; and, to his surprise, for he knew the theaters, actors such as Fleury, Saint-Prix, and Champville, whose delicious laughter the Comédie Française knew so well. Here, too, were Boulainvilliers, De Crosne, and Dozincourt, the ex-kings and heroes of the comic stage; and there, in a group apart, the fine gentles and dames who had exchanged Versailles and the Trianon for this home of disastrous fortunes.
“Yes,” said the turnkey; “the citizen is right; ’t is a droll menagerie,” and so left him.
François looked at the walls and chained dogs, and knew at once that the large numbers in the prison made impossible that solitude in which plans of escape prosper. For a while no one noticed him so far as to speak to him. The ill-clad and poor kept to one side of the garden; on the other, well-dressed people were chatting in the sun. Women were sewing; a young man was reciting verses; and De Crosne, with the child of the concierge on his lap, was telling fairy-tales. Ignorant of the etiquette of the prison, François wandered here and there, not observing that he was stared at with surprise as he moved among the better clad on the sunny side of the yard. He was interested by what he saw. How quiet they all were! what fine garments! what bowing and courtesying! He liked it, as he always liked dress and color, and the ways of these imperturbable great folks. Beyond this his reflections did not go; nor as yet had he been here long enough to note how, day by day, some gentleman disappeared, or some kindly face of woman was seen no more. What he did observe was that here and there a woman or a man sat apart in self-contained grief, remembering those they had lost. The thief moved on, thoughtful.
At this moment he heard “Diable!” and saw the Marquis de Ste. Luce. “What! and have they trapped you, my inevitable thief? I myself was bagged and caged just after I left you. We are both new arrivals. Come aside with me.”
François followed him, saying he was sorry to find the marquis here.
“It was to be, sooner or later; and I presume it will not last long. I was careless; and, after all, François, it was my fate—my shadow. A man does many things to amuse himself, and some one of them casts a lengthening shadow as time goes on. The shadow—my shadow—well, no matter. We all have our shadows, and at sunset they lengthen.”
“’T is like enough, monsieur. ’T is like me. There is a man with a wart I am afraid of, and it is because of that wart. The man is a drunken fool.”
“Despard is my wart,” said the marquis, dryly. “As to being afraid, my good François, I never had the malady, not even as a boy.”
“Dame! I have it now; and to get out of this is impossible.”
“I think so. Did you mention Despard?”
“No; it was monsieur spoke of him.”
“Quite true—quite true. He found me at last. Confound the fellow! I did not credit him with being clever.”
“So this is his man with a wart?” thought François, but made no comment. He had not fully comprehended the simile with which this impassive seigneur illustrated the fact that but one of his many misdeeds had cast on his future a lengthening shadow of what he would have hesitated to call remorse.
“François,” he said, “you and I are new additions to this queer collection. I may as well warn you that even here spies abound. Why? The deuce knows. Barn-yard fowls are not less considered than are we. It is the tribunal one day; then the Conciergerie; and next day, affaire finie, the business is over. Meanwhile, you are in the best society in France. There are M. de la Ferté, the Comte de Mirepoix, the Duc de Lévis, the Marquis de Fleury. I used to think them dull; calamity has not sharpened their wits. Diable! but you are welcome.” The marquis had all his life amused himself with small regard to what was thought of him or his ways of recreation. “’T is a bit of luck to find you here in this hole.” François could hardly agree with the opinion, but he laughed as he said so.
“Here comes my old comrade, De Laval Montmorency. He is still a gay jester. He says we are like Saul and that other fellow, Jonathan, except that in death we shall both of us to a certainty be divided.”
“Ciel! ’t is a ghastly joke, monsieur.”
“It has decidedly a flavor of the locality. I must not play telltale about you, or they will put you in the rez-de-chaussée, and, by St. Denis! I should miss you. I shall have a little amusement in perplexing these gentlemen. Your face will betray you; it used to be pretty well known. However, we shall see.”
The nobleman last named threaded his way through the crowd, excusing himself and bowing as he came.
“Ah,” he said, “Ste. Luce, another new arrival. The hotel is filling up. Good morning, monsieur. Grand merci! ’t is our old acquaintance who used to tell fortunes on the Champs Elysees; told mine once, but, alas! did not warn me of this. Well, well, we have here some queer society. Take care, Ste. Luce; this citizen may be a spy, for all thou knowest. I assure thee we have to be careful.”
“I—I a mouchard—a spy?”
“M. de Montmorency has no such idea,” said Ste. Luce. “I shall ask him to respect your desire to be known by a name not your own. Permit me to add that I have less reason to thank some of my friends than I have to thank this gentleman. He is pleased to have mystified Paris for a wager, or no matter what. Just now he is—what the deuce is it you call yourself at present?”
François was delighted with the jest. “Allow me, monsieur, to pass as Citizen François. My real name— But you will pardon me; real names are dangerous.”
“And what are names to-day,” said the marquis, “thine or mine? My friend here—well, between us, Montmorency, this is he who held the stair with me in my ci-devant château. Thou wilt remember I told thee of it. A good twenty minutes we kept it against a hundred or so of my grateful people. He is the best blade in Paris, and, foi d’honneur, that business was no trifle.”
“Who you are, or choose to be, I know not,” said the older noble, “but I thank you; and, pardieu! Ste. Luce is free with your biography.”
This was François’s opinion.
No one knew distinctly who was this newcomer, concerning whom, for pure cynical amusement, Ste. Luce said so much that was gracious. Any freshly gay companion was welcomed, if his manners were at all endurable. The actors and actresses were pleasantly received. The few who remembered the long face, and ears like sails, and the captivating laugh of the former reader of palms, were so bewildered by Ste. Luce’s varied statements that the poor thief found himself at least tolerated. He liked it. Nevertheless, as the days went by, and while seemingly the gayest of the gay, François gave serious thought to the business of keeping his head on his shoulders. He told fortunes,—always happy ones,—played tricks, and cut out of paper all manner of animals for the little girl, the child of the turnkey. Toto he gave up for lost; but on the fourth day the dog, half starved, got a chance when a prisoner entered. He dashed through the guards, and fled up stairs and down, until, seeing his master in the big hall, he ran to him, panting. The head jailer would have removed him, but there was a great outcry; and at last, when little Annette, François’s small friend, cried, the dog was allowed to remain.
He was, as the marquis declared, much more interesting than most of the prisoners, and possessed, as he added, the advantage over other prisoners of being permanent. In fact, they were not. Every day or two came long folded papers. The ci-devant Baron Bellefontaine would to-morrow have the cause of his detention considered by Tribunal No. 3. Witnesses and official defenders had been allowed; but of late, and to émigrés, these were often denied. Also, witnesses were scarce and easily terrified, so that batches of merely suspected persons were condemned almost unheard. To be tried meant nearly always the Conciergerie and death. All cases were supposed to be tried in the order of their arrests; but great sums were spent in paying clerks to keep names at the foot of the fatal dockets of the committee. The members of this terrible government survived or died with much judicial murder on their souls; but countless millions passed through their hands without one man of them becoming rich. Elsewhere, with the lower officers, gold was an effective ally when it was desired to postpone the time of trial.