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The Gods are Athirst, a novel by Anatole France |
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Chapter 8 |
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_ CHAPTER VIII It was the eve of the Festival, a calm, bright evening, and Elodie hanging on Evariste's arm, was strolling with him about the _Champ de la Federation_. Workmen were hastily completing their task of erecting columns, statues, temples, a "mountain," an altar of the Fatherland. Huge symbolic figures, Hercules (representing the people) brandishing his club, Nature suckling the Universe from her inexhaustible breasts, were rising at a moment's notice in the capital that, tortured by famine and fear, was listening for the dreaded sound of the Austrian cannon on the road from Meaux. La Vendee was making good its check before Nantes by a series of startling victories. A ring of fire and flame and hate was drawn about the great revolutionary city. And meantime, she was preparing a superb welcome, like the sovereign state of a vast empire, for the deputies of the primary Assemblies which had accepted the Constitution. Federalism was on its knees; the Republic, one and indivisible, would surely vanquish all its enemies. Waving his arm towards the thronged expanse: "There it was," cried Evariste, "that on the 17th July, '91, the infamous Bailly ordered the people to be shot down at the foot of the altar of the fatherland. Passavant, the grenadier, who witnessed the massacre, returned to his house, tore his coat from his back and cried: 'I have sworn to die with Liberty; Liberty is no more, and I fulfil my oath,'--and blew out his brains." All this time artists and peaceful citizens were examining the preparations for the festival, their faces showing as joyless a joy in life as their lives were dull and joyless; to their minds the mightiest events shrank into insignificance and grew as insipid as they were themselves. Couple by couple they went, carrying in their arms or holding by the hand or letting them run on in front children as unprepossessing as their parents and promising to grow up no whit happier, who in due course would give birth to children of their own as poor in spirit and looks as they. Yet now and again a young girl would pass, tall and fair and desirable, rousing in young men a not ignoble passion to possess, and in the old regret for the bliss they had missed. Near the _Ecole Militaire_ Evariste pointed out to his companion the Egyptian statues designed by David on Roman models of the age of Augustus, and they overheard a Parisian, an old man with powdered hair, ejaculate to himself: "Egad! you might think yourself on the banks of the Nile!" It was three days since Elodie had seen her lover, and serious events had befallen meantime at the _Amour peintre_. The _citoyen_ Blaise had been denounced to the Committee of General Security for fraudulent dealings in the matter of supplies to the armies. Fortunately for himself, the print-dealer was well known in his Section; the Committee of Surveillance of the _Section des Piques_ had stood guarantee of his patriotism with the general committee and had completely justified his conduct. This alarming incident Elodie now recounted in trembling accents, concluding: "We are quiet now, but the alarm was a hot one. A little more and my father would have been clapped in prison. If the danger had lasted a few hours more, I should have come to you, Evariste, to make interest for him among your influential friends." Evariste vouchsafed no reply to this, but Elodie was very far from realizing all his silence portended. They went on hand in hand along the banks of the river, discoursing of their mutual fondness in the phrases of Julie and Saint-Preux; the good Jean-Jacques gave them the colours to paint and prank their love withal. The Municipality of Paris had wrought a miracle,--abundance reigned for a day in the famished city. A fair was installed on the _Place des Invalides_, beside the Seine, where hucksters in booths sold sausages, saveloys, chitterlings, hams decked with laurels, Nanterre cakes, gingerbreads, pancakes, four-pound loaves, lemonade and wine. There were stalls also for the sale of patriotic songs, cockades, tricolour ribands, purses, pinchbeck watch-chains and all sorts of cheap gewgaws. Stopping before the display of a petty jeweller, Evariste selected a silver ring having a head of Marat in relief with a silk handkerchief wound about the brows, and put it on Elodie's finger. * * * * * The same evening Gamelin proceeded to the Rue de l'Arbre-Sec to call on the _citoyenne_ Rochemaure, who had sent for him on pressing business. She received him in her bedchamber, reclining on a couch in a seductive dishabille. While the _citoyenne's_ attitude expressed a voluptuous languor, everything about her spoke of her accomplishments, her diversions, her talents,--a harp beside an open harpsichord, a guitar on a chair, an embroidering frame with a square of satin stretched on it, a half-finished miniature on a table among papers and books, a bookcase in dire disorder as if rifled by the hand of a fair reader as eager to know as to feel. She gave him her hand to kiss, and addressed him: "Greeting, sir juryman!... This very day Robespierre the elder gave me a letter in your favour to be handed to the President Herman, a very well turned letter, pretty much to this effect: "I bring to your notice the _citoyen_ Gamelin, commendable alike for his talents and for his patriotism. I have made it my duty to make known to you a patriot whose principles are good and his conduct steadfast in the right line of revolution. You will not let slip the opportunity of being useful to a Republican.... This letter I carried there and then to the President Herman, who received me with an exquisite politeness and signed your appointment on the spot. The thing is done." After a moment's pause: "_Citoyenne_," said Gamelin, "though I have not a morsel of bread to give my mother, I swear on my honour I accept the duties of a juror only to serve the Republic and avenge her on her foes." The _citoyenne_ thought this but a cold way of expressing gratitude and considered the sentiment high-flown. The young man was no adept, she suspected, at graceful courtesies. But she was too great an admirer of youth not to excuse some little lack of polish. Gamelin was a handsome fellow, and that was merit enough in her eyes. "We will form him," she said to herself. So she invited him to her suppers to which she welcomed her friends every evening after the theatre. "You will meet at my house men of wit and talent,--Elleviou, Talma, the _citoyen_ Vigee, who turns bouts-rimes with a marvellous aptitude. The _citoyen_ Francois read us his 'Pamela' the other day, the piece rehearsing at the present moment at the _Theatre de la Nation_. The style is elegant and chaste, as everything is that comes from the _citoyen_ Francois' pen. The plot is touching; it brought tears to all our eyes. It is the young _citoyenne_ Lange who is to take the part of 'Pamela.'" "I believe it if you say so, _citoyenne_," answered Gamelin, "but the _Theatre de la Nation_ is scarcely National and it is hard on the _citoyen_ Francois that his works should be produced on the boards degraded by the contemptible verses of a Laya; the people has not forgotten the scandal of the _Ami des Lois_...." "Nay, _citoyen_ Gamelin, say what you will of Laya; he is none of my friends." It was not purely out of kindness that the _citoyenne_ had employed her credit to get Gamelin appointed to a much envied post; after what she had done for him and what peradventure she might come to do for him in the future, she counted on binding him closely to her interests and in that way securing for herself a protector connected with a tribunal she might one day or another have to reckon with; for the fact is, she was in constant correspondence with the French provinces and foreign countries, and at that date such a circumstance was ground enough for suspicion. "Do you often go to the theatre, _citoyen_?" As she asked the question, Henry, the dragoon, entered the room, looking more charming than the youthful Bathyllus. A brace of enormous pistols was passed through his belt. He kissed the fair _citoyenne's_ hand. Turning to him: "There stands the _citoyen_ Evariste Gamelin," she said, "for whose sake I have spent the day at the Committee of General Security, and who is an ungrateful wretch. Scold him for me." "Ah! _citoyenne_," cried the young soldier, "you have seen our Legislators at the Tuileries. What an afflicting sight! Is it seemly the Representatives of a free people should sit beneath the roof of a despot? The same lustres that once shone on the plots of Capet and the orgies of Antoinette now illumine the deliberations of our law-makers. 'Tis enough to make Nature shudder." "Pray, congratulate the _citoyen_ Gamelin," was all her answer, "he is appointed juryman on the Revolutionary Tribunal." "My compliments, _citoyen_!" said Henry. "I am rejoiced to see a man of your character invested with these functions. But, to speak truth, I have small confidence in this systematic justice, set up by the moderates of the Convention, in this complaisant Nemesis that is considerate to conspirators and merciful to traitors, that hardly dares strike a blow at the Federalists and fears to summon _the Austrian_ to the bar. No, it is not the Revolutionary Tribunal will save the Republic. They are very culpable, the men who, in the desperate situation we are in, have arrested the flowing torrent of popular justice!" "Henry," interrupted the _citoyenne_ Rochemaure, "pass me that scent bottle, please...." On reaching home, Gamelin found his mother and old Brotteaux playing a game of piquet by the light of a smoky tallow-candle. At the moment the old woman was calling "sequence of kings" without the smallest scruple. When she heard her son was appointed juryman, she kissed him in a transport of triumph, thinking what an honour it was for both of them and that henceforth they would have plenty to eat every day. "I am proud and happy," she declared, "to be the mother of a juryman. Justice is a fine thing, and of all the most necessary; without justice the weak would be harassed every moment of their lives. And I think you will give right judgment, Evariste, my own boy; for from a child I have found you just and kind-hearted in all concerns. You could never endure wrong-doing and always tried what you could to hinder violence. You compassionated the unfortunate and that is the finest jewel in a juror's crown.... But tell me, Evariste, how are you dressed in your grand tribunal?" Gamelin informed her that the judges wore a hat with black plumes, but that the jury had no special costume, that they were dressed in their every-day attire. "It would be better," returned the good woman, "if they wore wig and gown; it would inspire more respect. Though you are mostly dressed carelessly, you are a handsome man and you set off your clothes; but the majority of men need some fine feathers to make them look imposing; yes, the jury should have wigs and gowns." The _citoyenne_ had heard say that the duties of a juror of the Tribunal carried a salary; and she had no hesitation in asking the question whether the emoluments were enough to live respectably on, for a juryman, she opined, ought to cut a good figure in the world. She was pleased to hear that each juror received an allowance of eighteen livres for every sitting and that the multiplicity of crimes against the security of the State obliged the court to sit very frequently. Old Brotteaux gathered up the cards, rose from the table and addressing Gamelin: "_Citoyen_," he said, "you are invested with an august and redoubtable office. I congratulate you on lending the light of your integrity to a tribunal more trustworthy and less fallible perhaps than any other, because it searches out good and evil, not in themselves and in their essence, but solely in relation to tangible interests and plain and obvious sentiments. You will have to determine betwixt hate and love, which is done spontaneously, not betwixt truth and falsehood, to discriminate which is impossible for the feeble mind of man. Giving judgment after the impulses of your heart, you will run no risk of mistake, inasmuch as the verdict will be good provided it satisfy the passions that are your sacred law. But, all the same, if I was your President, I should imitate Bridoie, I should appeal to the arbitrament of the dice. In matters of justice it is still the surest plan." _ |
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