"General Henriot, I have desired to speak with thee.Next to Robespierre, thou art, or shouldst be, the most powerful man in France.""Hem!--yes, I ought to be.What then?--every man has not his deserts!""Hist!" said the stranger; "thy pay is scarcely suitable to thy rank and thy wants.""That is true."
"Even in a revolution, a man takes care of his fortunes!""Diable! speak out, citizen."
"I have a thousand pieces of gold with me,--they are thine, if thou wilt grant me one small favour.""Citizen, I grant it!" said Henriot, waving his hand majestically."Is it to denounce some rascal who has offended thee?""No; it is simply this: write these words to President Dumas, 'Admit the bearer to thy presence; and, if thou canst, grant him the request he will make to thee, it will be an inestimable obligation to Francois Henriot.'" The stranger, as he spoke, placed pencil and tablets in the shaking hands of the soldier.
"And where is the gold?"
"Here."
With some difficulty, Henriot scrawled the words dictated to him, clutched the gold, mounted his horse, and was gone.
Meanwhile Fouquier, when he had closed the door upon Henriot, said sharply, "How canst thou be so mad as to incense that brigand? Knowest thou not that our laws are nothing without the physical force of the National Guard, and that he is their leader?""I know this, that Robespierre must have been mad to place that drunkard at their head; and mark my words, Fouquier, if the struggle come, it is that man's incapacity and cowardice that will destroy us.Yes, thou mayst live thyself to accuse thy beloved Robespierre, and to perish in his fall.""For all that, we must keep well with Henriot till we can find the occasion to seize and behead him.To be safe, we must fawn on those who are still in power; and fawn the more, the more we would depose them.Do not think this Henriot, when he wakes to-morrow, will forget thy threats.He is the most revengeful of human beings.Thou must send and soothe him in the morning!""Right," said Dumas, convinced."I was too hasty; and now Ithink we have nothing further to do, since we have arranged to make short work with our fournee of to-morrow.I see in the list a knave I have long marked out, though his crime once procured me a legacy,--Nicot, the Hebertist.""And young Andre Chenier, the poet? Ah, I forgot; we be headed HIM to-day! Revolutionary virtue is at its acme.His own brother abandoned him." (His brother is said, indeed, to have contributed to the condemnation of this virtuous and illustrious person.He was heard to cry aloud, "Si mon frere est coupable, qu'il perisse" (If my brother be culpable, let him die).This brother, Marie-Joseph, also a poet, and the author of "Charles IX.," so celebrated in the earlier days of the Revolution, enjoyed, of course, according to the wonted justice of the world, a triumphant career, and was proclaimed in the Champ de Mars "le premier de poetes Francais," a title due to his murdered brother.)"There is a foreigner,--an Italian woman in the list; but I can find no charge made out against her.""All the same we must execute her for the sake of the round number; eighty sounds better than seventy-nine!"Here a huissier brought a paper on which was written the request of Henriot.
"Ah! this is fortunate," said Tinville, to whom Dumas chucked the scroll,--"grant the prayer by all means; so at least that it does not lessen our bead-roll.But I will do Henriot the justice to say that he never asks to let off, but to put on.Good-night! Iam worn out--my escort waits below.Only on such an occasion would I venture forth in the streets at night." (During the latter part of the Reign of Terror, Fouquier rarely stirred out at night, and never without an escort.In the Reign of Terror those most terrified were its kings.) And Fouquier, with a long yawn, quitted the room.
"Admit the bearer!" said Dumas, who, withered and dried, as lawyers in practice mostly are, seemed to require as little sleep as his parchments.
The stranger entered.
"Rene-Francois Dumas," said he, seating himself opposite to the president, and markedly adopting the plural, as if in contempt of the revolutionary jargon, "amidst the excitement and occupations of your later life, I know not if you can remember that we have met before?"The judge scanned the features of his visitor, and a pale blush settled on his sallow cheeks, "Yes, citizen, I remember!""And you recall the words I then uttered! You spoke tenderly and philanthropically of your horror of capital executions; you exulted in the approaching Revolution as the termination of all sanguinary punishments; you quoted reverently the saying of Maximilien Robespierre, the rising statesman, 'The executioner is the invention of the tyrant:' and I replied, that while you spoke, a foreboding seized me that we should meet again when your ideas of death and the philosophy of revolutions might be changed! Was I right, Citizen Rene-Francois Dumas, President of the Revolutionary Tribunal?""Pooh!" said Dumas, with some confusion on his brazen brow, "Ispoke then as men speak who have not acted.Revolutions are not made with rose-water! But truce to the gossip of the long-ago.
