Tales and Novels Volume VI Part 45

About this time some of those discontents had broken out, which preceded the terrible days of the Revolution. As yet, most of the common people, who were honestly employed in earning their own living, neither understood what was going on, nor foresaw what was to happen.

Many of their superiors were not in such happy ignorance--they had information of the intrigues that were forming; and the more penetration they possessed, the more they feared the consequences of events which they could not control. At the house of a great man, with whom she had dined this day, Mad. de Fleury had heard alarming news.

Dreadful public disturbances, she saw, were inevitable; and whilst she trembled for the fate of all who were dear to her, these poor children had a share in her anxiety. She foresaw the temptations, the dangers, to which they must be exposed, whether they abandoned, or whether they abided by, the principles their education had instilled. She feared that the labour of years would perhaps be lost in an instant, or that her innocent pupils would fall victims even to their virtues.

Many of these young people were now of an age to understand and to govern themselves by reason; and with these she determined to use those preventive measures which reason affords. Without meddling with politics, in which no amiable or sensible woman can wish to interfere, the influence of ladies in the higher ranks of life may always be exerted with perfect propriety, and with essential advantage to the public, in conciliating the inferior cla.s.ses of society, explaining to them their duties and their interests, and impressing upon the minds of the children of the poor, sentiments of just subordination and honest independence. How happy would it have been for France, if women of fortune and abilities had always exerted their talents and activity in this manner, instead of wasting their powers in futile declamations, or in the intrigues of party!

CHAPTER VIII.

"E'en now the devastation is begun, And half the business of destruction done."

GOLDSMITH.

Madame de Fleury was not disappointed in her pupils. When the public disturbances began, these children were shocked by the horrible actions they saw. Instead of being seduced by bad example, they only showed anxiety to avoid companions of their own age, who were dishonest, idle, or profligate. Victoire's cousin Manon ridiculed these _absurd_ principles, as she called them; and endeavoured to persuade Victoire that she would be much happier if she _followed the fas.h.i.+on_.

"What! Victoire, still with your work-bag on your arm, and still going to school with your little sister, though you are but a year younger than I am, I believe!--thirteen last birthday, were not you?--Mon Dieu! Why, how long do you intend to be a child? and why don't you leave that old nun, who keeps you in leading-strings?--I a.s.sure you, nuns, and schoolmistresses, and schools, and all that sort of thing, are out of fas.h.i.+on now--we have abolished all that--we are to live a life of reason now--and all soon to be equal, I can tell you; let your Mad. de Fleury look to that, and look to it yourself; for with all your wisdom, you might find yourself in the wrong box by sticking to her, and that side of the question.--Disengage yourself from her, I advise you, as soon as you can.--My dear Victoire! believe me, you may spell very well--but you know nothing of the rights of man, or the rights of woman."

"I do not pretend to know any thing of the rights of men, or the rights of women," cried Victoire; "but this I know, that I never can or will be ungrateful to Mad. de Fleury. Disengage myself from her! I am bound to her for ever, and I will abide by her till the last hour I breathe."

"Well, well! there is no occasion to be in a pa.s.sion--I only speak as a friend, and I have no more time to reason with you; for I must go home, and get ready my dress for the ball to-night."

"Manon, how can you afford to buy a dress for a ball?"

"As you might, if you had common sense, Victoire--only by being a _good citizen_. I and a party of us _denounced_ a milliner and a confectioner in our neighbourhood, who were horrible aristocrats; and of their goods forfeited to the nation we had, as was our just share, such delicious _marangles_, and charming ribands!--Oh, Victoire, believe me, you will never get such things by going to school, or saying your prayers either. You may look with as much scorn and indignation as you please, but I advise you to let it alone, for all that is out of fas.h.i.+on, and may moreover bring you into difficulties.

Believe me, my dear Victoire, your head is not deep enough to understand these things--you know nothing of politics."

"But I know the difference between right and wrong, Manon: politics can never alter that, you know."

"Never alter that!--there you are quite mistaken," said Manon: "I cannot stay to convince you now--but this I can tell you, that I know secrets that you don't suspect."

"I do not wish to know any of your secrets, Manon," said Victoire, proudly.

"Your pride may be humbled, Citoyenne Victoire, sooner than you expect," exclaimed Manon, who was now so provoked by her cousin's contempt, that she could not refrain from boasting of her political knowledge. "I can tell you, that your fine friends will in a few days not be able to protect you. The Abbe Traca.s.sier is in love with a dear friend of mine, and I know all the secrets of state from her--and I know what I know. Be as incredulous, as you please, but you will see that, before this week is at end, Monsieur de Fleury will be guillotined, and then what will become of you? Good morning, my proud cousin."

Shocked by what she had just heard, Victoire could scarcely believe that Manon was in earnest; she resolved, however, to go immediately and communicate this intelligence, whether true or false, to Mad. de Fleury. It agreed but too well with other circ.u.mstances, which alarmed this lady for the safety of her husband. A man of his abilities, integrity, and fortune, could not in such times hope to escape persecution. He was inclined to brave the danger; but his lady represented that it would not be courage, but rashness and folly, to sacrifice his life to the villany of others, without probability or possibility of serving his country by his fall.

M. de Fleury, in consequence of these representations, and of Victoire's intelligence, made his escape from Paris; and the very next day _placards_ were put up in every street, offering a price for the head of Citoyen Fleury, _suspected of incivisme_.

Struck with terror and astonishment at the sight of these _placards_, the children read them as they returned in the evening from school; and little Babet in the vehemence of her indignation mounted a lamplighter's ladder, and tore down one of the papers. This imprudent action did not pa.s.s un.o.bserved: it was seen by one of the spies of Citoyen Traca.s.sier, a man who, under the pretence of zeal _pour la chose publique_, gratified without scruple his private resentments and his malevolent pa.s.sions. In his former character of an abbe, and a man of wit, he had gained admittance into Mad. de Fleury's society.

There he attempted to dictate both as a literary and religious despot.

Accidentally discovering that Mad. de Fleury had a little school for poor children, he thought proper to be offended, because he had not been consulted respecting the regulations, and because he was not permitted, as he said, to take the charge of this little flock. He made many objections to Sister Frances, as being an improper person to have the spiritual guidance of these young people: but as he was unable to give any just reason for his dislike, Mad. de Fleury persisted in her choice, and was at last obliged to a.s.sert, in opposition to the domineering abbe, her right to judge and decide in her own affairs. With seeming politeness, he begged ten thousand pardons for his conscientious interference. No more was said upon the subject; and as he did not totally withdraw from her society till the revolution broke out, she did not suspect that she had any thing to fear from his resentment. His manners and opinions changed suddenly with the times; the mask of religion was thrown off; and now, instead of objecting to Sister Frances as not being sufficiently strict and orthodox in her tenets, he boldly declared, that a nun was not a fit person to be intrusted with the education of any of the young citizens--they should all be _des eleves de la patrie_. The abbe, become a member of the Committee of Public Safety, denounced Mad. de Fleury, in the strange jargon of the day, as "_the fosterer of a swarm of bad citizens, who were nourished in the anticivic prejudices_ de l'ancien regime, _and fostered in the most detestable superst.i.tions, in defiance of the law_." He further observed, that he had good reason to believe that some of these little _enemies to the const.i.tution_ had contrived and abetted M. de Fleury's escape. Of their having rejoiced at it in a most indecent manner, he said he could produce irrefragable proof. The boy who saw Babet tear down the _placard_ was produced and solemnly examined; and the thoughtless action of this poor little girl was construed into a state crime of the most horrible nature. In a declamatory tone, Traca.s.sier reminded his fellow-citizens, that in the ancient Grecian times of virtuous republicanism (times of which France ought to show herself emulous), an Athenian child was condemned to death for having made a plaything of a fragment of the gilding that had fallen from a public statue. The orator, for the reward of his eloquence, obtained an order to seize every thing in Mad. de Fleury's school-house, and to throw the nun into prison.

CHAPTER IX.

"Who now will guard bewilder'd youth Safe from the fierce a.s.sault of hostile rage?-- Such war can Virtue wage?"

At the very moment when this order was going to be put in execution, Mad. de Fleury was sitting in the midst of the children, listening to Babet, who was reading aesop's fable of _The old man and his sons_.

Whilst her sister was reading, Victoire collected a number of twigs from the garden: she had just tied them together; and was going, by Sister Frances' desire, to let her companions try if they could break the bundle, when the attention of the moral of the fable was interrupted by the entrance of an old woman, whose countenance expressed the utmost terror and haste, to tell what she had not breath to utter. To Mad. de Fleury she was a stranger; but the children immediately recollected her to be the _chestnut woman_, to whom Babet had some years ago restored certain purloined chestnuts. "Fly!" said she, the moment she had breath to speak: "Fly!--they are coming to seize every thing here--carry off what you can--make haste--make haste!--I came through a by-street. A man was eating chestnuts at my stall, and I saw him show one that was with him the order from Citoyen Traca.s.sier. They'll be here in five minutes--quick!--quick!--You, in particular," continued she, turning to the nun, "else you'll be in prison." At these words, the children, who had clung round Sister Frances, loosed their hold, exclaiming, "Go! go quick: but where?

where?--we will go with her." "No, no!" said Madame de Fleury, "she shall come home with me--my carriage is at the door." "Ma belle dame!"

cried the chestnut woman, "your house is the worst place she can go to--let her come to my cellar--the poorest cellar in these days is safer than the grandest palace." So saying, she seized the nun with honest roughness, and hurried her away. As soon as she was gone, the children ran different ways, each to collect some favourite thing, which they thought they could not leave behind. Victoire alone stood motionless beside Mad. de Fleury; her whole thoughts absorbed by the fear that her benefactress would be imprisoned. "Oh, madame! dear, dear Madame de Fleury, don't stay! don't stay!"

"Oh, children, never mind these things."

"Don't stay, madame, don't stay! I will stay with them--I will stay--do you go."

The children hearing these words, and recollecting Mad. de Fleury's danger, abandoned all their little property, and instantly obeyed her orders to go home to their parents. Victoire at last saw Mad. de Fleury safe in her carriage. The coachman drove off at a great rate; and a few minutes afterwards Traca.s.sier's myrmidons arrived at the school-house. Great was their surprise, when they found only the poor children's little books, unfinished samplers, and half-hemmed handkerchiefs. They ran into the garden to search for the nun. They were men of brutal habits; yet as they looked at every thing round them, which bespoke peace, innocence, and childish happiness, they could not help thinking it was a pity to destroy what _could do the nation no great harm after all_. They were even glad that the nun had made her escape, since they were not answerable for it; and they returned to their employer, satisfied for once without doing any mischief: but Citizen Traca.s.sier was of too vindictive a temper to suffer the objects of his hatred thus to elude his vengeance. The next day Mad. de Fleury was summoned before his tribunal, and ordered to give up the nun, against whom, as a suspected person, a decree of the law had been obtained.

Mad. de Fleury refused to betray the innocent woman: the gentle firmness of this lady's answers to a brutal interrogatory was termed insolence; she was p.r.o.nounced a refractory aristocrat, dangerous to the state; and an order was made out to seal up her goods, and to keep her a prisoner in her own house.

CHAPTER X.

"Alas! full oft on Guilt's victorious car The spoils of Virtue are in triumph borne, While the fair captive, mark'd with many a scar, In lone obscurity, oppress'd, forlorn, Resigns to tears her angel form."--BEATTIE.

A close prisoner in her own house, Mad. de Fleury was now guarded by men suddenly become soldiers, and sprung from the dregs of the people; men of brutal manners, ferocious countenances, and more ferocious minds. They seemed to delight in the insolent, display of their newly-acquired power. One of these men had formerly been convicted of some horrible crime, and had been sent to the galleys by M. de Fleury.

Revenge actuated this wretch under the mask of patriotism, and he rejoiced in seeing the wife of the man he hated a prisoner in his custody. Ignorant of the facts, his a.s.sociates were ready to believe him in the right, and to join in the senseless cry against all who were their superiors in fortune, birth, and education. This unfortunate lady was forbidden all intercourse with her friends, and it was in vain she attempted to obtain from her jailers intelligence of what was pa.s.sing in Paris.

"Tu verras--Tout va bien--Ca ira," were the only answers they deigned to make: frequently they continued smoking their pipes in obdurate silence. She occupied the back rooms of her house, because her guards apprehended that she might from the front windows receive intelligence from her friends. One morning she was awakened by an unusual noise in the streets; and upon her inquiring the occasion of it, her guards told her she was welcome to go to the front windows, and satisfy her curiosity. She went, and saw an immense crowd of people surrounding a guillotine, that had been erected the preceding night. Mad. de Fleury started back with horror--her guards burst into an inhuman laugh, and asked whether her curiosity was satisfied. She would have left the room; but it was now their pleasure to detain her, and to force her to continue the whole day in this apartment. When the guillotine began its work, they had even the barbarity to drag her to the window, repeating, "It is there you ought to be!--It is there your husband ought to be!--You are too happy, that your husband is not there this moment. But he will be there--the law will overtake him--he will be there in time--and you too!"

The mild fort.i.tude of this innocent, benevolent woman made no impression upon these cruel men. When at night they saw her kneeling at her prayers, they taunted her with gross and impious mockery; and when she sunk to sleep, they would waken her by their loud and drunken orgies: if she remonstrated, they answered, "The enemies of the const.i.tution should have no rest."

Mad. de Fleury was not an enemy to any human being; she had never interfered in politics; her life had been pa.s.sed in domestic pleasures, or employed for the good of her fellow-creatures. Even in this hour of personal danger she thought of others more than of herself: she thought of her husband, an exile in a foreign country, who might be reduced to the utmost distress, now that she was deprived of all means of remitting him money. She thought of her friends, who, she knew, would exert themselves to obtain her liberty, and whose zeal in her cause might involve them and their families in distress.

She thought of the good Sister Frances, who had been exposed by her means to the unrelenting persecution of the malignant and powerful Traca.s.sier. She thought of her poor little pupils, now thrown upon the world without a protector. Whilst these ideas were revolving in her mind, one night, as she lay awake, she heard the door of her chamber open softly, and a soldier, one of her guards, with a light in his hand, entered: he came to the foot of her bed; and, as she started up, laid his finger upon his lips.

"Don't make the least noise," said he in a whisper; "those without are drunk, and asleep. Don't you know me?--Don't you remember my face?"

"Not in the least; yet I have some recollection of your voice."

The man took off the bonnet-rouge--still she could not guess who he was.--"You never saw me in an uniform before, nor without a black face."

She looked again, and recollected the smith, to whom Maurice was bound apprentice, and remembered his _patois_ accent.

"I remember you," said he, "at any rate; and your goodness to that poor girl the day her arm was broken, and all your goodness to Maurice--But I've no time for talking of that now--get up, wrap this great coat round you--don't be in a hurry, but make no noise, and follow me."

She followed him; and he led her past the sleeping sentinels, opened a back door into the garden, hurried her, almost carried her, across the garden, to a door at the furthest end of it, which opened into Les Champs Elysees--"La voila!" cried he, pus.h.i.+ng her through the half-opened door. "G.o.d be praised!" answered a voice, which Mad. de Fleury knew to be Victoire's, whose arms were thrown round her with a transport of joy.

"Softly; she is not safe yet--wait till we get her home, Victoire,"