CITOYENNE THÉROIGNE had not, it is to be supposed, the wit of a Mohl, or the tact of a Recamier; but her sensuous and long-practised beauty so vindicated her sins of omission in these respects as to procure her reunions a social distinction than which none more catholic was accorded the salons of a later period. At her rooms in the Rue de Rohan she held, and had long held, weekly Sunday séances, of a quasi-political character, at which revolutionary propagandists of such opposed principles as Mirabeau, Brissot, Pétion were in turn, or out of it, to be met. Thither sometimes came Philip of Orleans, with his sick, affable smile; thither Desmoulins, galvanic and stuttering, the “attorney-general to the lantern”; thither the poet Joseph Chénier; thither the younger Sieyes, eager to sniff the incense exhaled to his less accessible brother, to whose exalted virtues Théroigne, by some queer freak of contrariety, consistently and reverently testified. To what earlier condescensions on her part were due her present political intimacies it need not here be questioned. One form of sympathetic largesse is part of the necessary equipment of women of a naturally assimilative character.
She had adaptability; for four years her face and figure had brought her a succession of ardent ministers to it. Thus, nourished on the unconsidered mental pabulum of manifold intellects, she was become an omniparous vessel, brazen and beautiful—emitting such a medley of discordant sounds as had once the window bells, to Ned, in the “landlust” of her native village. Yet, through all, whatever her inconsequent show of principles, detestation of a social system to the abuse of which she attributed her early downfall abided within her unwaveringly, and induced her to those deeds of violence that, in the end, alienated from her all those of her once familiars to whom Reason figured as something higher than the goddess of licence.
But still she had a store of reflected light with which to illuminate her Sunday reunions.
* * * * * * * *
“Citoyenne,” said an acrid young patriot, whose eyes were just cut apart by the mere blade of a nose, and who wore a little silver guillotine for a seal, “whither wilt thou fly when the Brunswicker enters to make good his manifesto?”
“At his throat, Pollio,” (the company clapped its hands).
“To hang round his neck?”
“Ay, like a millstone.”
“But, indeed,” said the young man, affecting to show trouble, “thou wilt surely be included amongst the proscribed.”
“There will be none!” cried the girl: “the capitol is saved! the geese have begun to cackle!”
Pollio, amidst the laughter, shook his head in pretended distress.
“It is all very well. Yet not Paris but the world were lost to see our Judith under a wall, the mark to a platoon of dirty jägers.”
Théroigne came to her feet. Her cheeks were flushed; her thick brown curls were slumbrous shadows upon the pale slopes of her shoulders. She was dressed quite simply, in the suggestiveness (something misread) of virgin white.
But she was not at her ease. Radiant, glowing, voluptuous (she always looked, this woman, as if she were but just risen from a warm bed), there had yet been all the evening an unwonted rigidity in her manner, a distraught expression in her face, such as that with which one vouchsafes to another the shadow of an attention whose substance is given elsewhere. She would break into feverish fits of merriment. She would start and seem to listen, as if to some tiny voice making itself heard within the compass of many voices. It may have passed unregarded, this spasmodic manner of distraction; it may have been observed and accepted as a new accent to charms so many-humoured. The times took little note, little surprise, of unaccustomed tricks of speech or feature. It was because men and women had so lost sight of what were their true selves that moods passed for convictions.
Now she stood like a Pythoness, the light from above falling upon her head, rounding and sleepily caressing all the fair curves of her figure, of the smooth naked arm she raised as in inspiration.
“It is not the Brunswicker I fear,” she cried. “It is the enemy from within—from within!”
She dropped her hand to her heart, as if that were her secret foe.
“Citoyenne,” whispered a voice in her ear, “there is one waiting in the foyer that is peremptory to see thee.”
She stared a moment, with a lost expression; then looked aside, half in anger, to see her country Grisel regarding her appealingly.
“What one, little fool—little Bona?”
“Indeed, I do not know. He implored me by the love of God.”
Théroigne laughed uneasily.
“Rather by the love that is gratuitous, thou little grand’-bêta. Hush! Go before, and I will follow.”
Some one drew aside the portière; she passed out, with a smile that fled from her face as she descended the stairs. Under the dim oil-lamp in the hall a cloaked figure was standing. As she came upon it, she saw it was the English lord. The warmth and fragrance of a remoter atmosphere that she brought with her shivered into frost on the instant. That was inevitable; yet she would always have foregone many plenary indulgences to draw this man into sin on her account.
He took a quick step forward, made as if to seize her by the arm—but checked the impulse.
“You must come with me!” he whispered.
She exclaimed, incredulous, “Come with you!” then quickly bent forward, and looked intensely into his face.
“Why does your voice break? Is it some trouble of your own, and you seek me—me out of all the world?”
“It is not of my own.”
“Whose, then?”
“Yours.”
“Mon Dieu!” she cried, with a little sharp laugh of mockery. “I know of none—of no trouble or pleasure—that is our mutual concern.”
He clapped his hand roughly at that on her naked shoulder. His fingers clawed angry marks in the flesh.
“Ah!” she cried, “you hurt me!”
“Hurt!” he echoed. “Do you know what they are doing to-night in this devil’s city of yours?”
He caught only a faint protesting murmur from her lips.
“God wither you if you do!” he said hoarsely. “They are murdering the prisoners. Do you hear?—in all the prisons they are murdering the prisoners; and Basile de St Denys is one of them!”
She sprang back from him. Her face was like a face seen in moonlight—white, round a black glare of eyes.
“You lie!” she cried. “He at least is dead already!”
He came at her again—seized her in a very fiend’s grip.
“Is it a time to equivocate? You know, as I, how your wicked hand miscarried on that day. The man is in prison. I myself saw him borne thither three days ago. You must come, and quickly, to be of use. There is no question but that.”
She shook herself free, standing back so that her face seemed to twitch and palpitate in the gusty sway of the lamp-light.
“You are imperious,” she muttered.
“It must not be,” he cried violently, “this horrible thing. You can save him if you will.”
“And can you so master your loathing of me as to ask it?” she said.
“I swear—deny yourself this gratification of a lust so inhuman, and I will think better of you than ever before.”
“That will be compensation for all I have suffered,” she said.
Her voice seemed too toneless, too passionless even for irony. She stood without a movement before him, the marks of his clutch slowly fading from her shoulder.
“Théroigne,” he cried, “you have the chance to a little atone. You will not so clinch your damnation! In the name of God, Théroigne! This man was the father of your child.”
“True,” she said, “of my dead child. I will come, monsieur.”
He gave a gasp of terrible relief.
“Hurry!” he said, “or it will be too late.”
She had already seized a cloak from a recess: in a moment they were speeding on their way together.
He talked to her as they hurried on—half unconsciously, almost hysterically. He told of his chance encounter, of Basile’s degradation, of anything or nothing. It was such emotional gabble as even reserved men vent during the first moments of respite from intolerable anguish. His voice echoed back from the silent houses. He did not even notice that the girl returned him never an answer, so assured was he now of her sympathy.
The streets were curiously still and deserted, the familiar life of them all shrunk and cowering behind a thousand lightless blinds. Now and again phantom cries seemed wafted to them from remote quarters; now and again a glimmer of torches would flash from far perspectives, and travel a moment on the blackness and vanish.
It was a weary way by which they must go. The man led his companion through the Place du Carousel down to the river, along the endless line of quays by the wash of night-bound waters, over the Isle St-Louis and the street of the two bridges; again, along the gloomy quay of St-Bernard, and so into the dark leafy boulevard that ran southwards to the thieves’ prison. And here, for the first time, a spectral suggestion, an attenuated wind of sounds, began to take shape and body; and here suddenly the girl gave a quick gasp, and jerked to a stop.
“The Salpétrière!” she muttered, clutching her cloak to her throat.
“The Salpétrière, Théroigne.”
She seemed to turn her head and look at him. Then on again she went, and he followed.
The noise increased to their every onward step. Ambiguous sounds resolved themselves into sounds unnamable. Dim light, seen phantomly ahead, flared out in a moment across their path, as if some hellish furnace were refuelling. And then, in an instant—as it were stokers labouring at the mouth of flame—a scurry of fantastic shapes, grotesquely busy about the entrance to a lighted yard, grew into their vision.
Ned turned upon his companion.
“Take my arm,” he said, in a ghastly voice.
She shrank from him.
“Not unless it is thou needst support,” she whispered.
He seized her hand, and reached and drove into the thick of the bestial throng, dragging her after him. A horrible reek seemed to fasten upon his brain.
“Malédiction!” shrieked a filthy Alsatian, whom he had sent reeling with his elbow; “but I will teach thee the answer to that!”
He swung up a bloody cleaver, clearing a space about him. The girl, on the thought, ran under his guard.
“Théroigne!” screamed a woman’s voice across the yard. “It is la belle Liégeoise—our little amazon!”
Her cloak had fallen apart. She was revealed to these her friends. At the word, a roar went up from the mob; the offending patriot was struck down, trampled upon; the girl herself stamped upon his face.
“Hither!” screamed the voice again, “to the best seats in all the theatre!”
Then at once Ned felt himself urged forward. He went, dazed. His feet slid on the stones—plashed once or twice. He saw a great light—light jumping from the brands held high by a lurid row of women stationed on the topmost step of the shallow flight that led to the great door. He saw Théroigne seized and embraced by these harpies. Her skirt, that had been all white, bore a clownish fringe of crimson.
“I cannot stay here,” she cried. “I have business within.”
They answered, clattering: “Get it over and return, little badine, for the sight is good.”
The next moment he and the girl were at the door. A group of four, issuing, scrambled past, almost upsetting them. A patriot to each shoulder and one fastened on like a dog at the back! It seemed an extravagant guard to one sick collapsed thing borne in the midst. They ran it down the steps; the torches fluttered and poised steady. Ned flung himself through the doorway, crushing his hands against his ears. Somebody touched and led him forward.
As his brain cleared, he saw that he was standing—somewhat apart from any other—in a large, dimly lighted room. A man of a fierce and sensual mould of feature was seated hard by at a table, a great open register before him, a tin box of tobacco and some bottles within his ready reach. Round about lolled on benches pulled away from the walls, perhaps a dozen, more or less tipsy, judges (saving the mark!) subordinate to the president. A couple of men with red-stained arms and in steaming shirts stood by the closed door. An old dumb-faced turnkey held his hand to the lock.
A voice—a name lately uttered, still rang confusedly in his memory. What did it signify? He caught at his reeling faculties.
“Behold, citizeness, the man!”
All in an instant, it seemed, the room sank into profound stillness. He struck the film from his eyes, and saw St Denys.
The wretched creature stood before the table, between guards. He appeared utterly amazed and demoralised. Even in the moment of terror, Ned shrunk to see how the brute had come to predominate in that handsome debauched face.
Then, suddenly, the harsh voice of the president shattered the silence.
“Your name—your profession?”
“St Denys, by principle and practice a demagogue,” faltered the prisoner.
“Dost know of what thou art accused?”
“I am innocent, M. le président—before God, I am innocent!”
Something white moved forward—struck him on the shoulder.
“And before me, Basile de St Denys?”
He whipped about, and uttered a cry like a trapped hare.
“It is enough,” said the judge, with admirable intuition. He was by this time so far sated with his feast of blood that a nicely balanced “situation” was like an olive to his wine. He would not cheapen the flavour by unduly extending it.
“The citoyenne Théroigne pronounces sentence,” he said. “I wash my hands of the matter. Let the prisoner be enlarged.”
He took a gulp from a glass at his side, and bent to write in his book. His guards laid hands on their victim. With a shriek, St Denys tore himself free, and fell at the feet of the woman.
“Théroigne!” he cried, abasing himself before her—clutching at her skirt, “don’t let them take me—me, that have lain in your arms!”
Grovelling on the floor, he turned his agonised face to the president.
“She did not denounce me, monsieur! your generosity misinterpreted her motive.” (He caught again at the dress, writhing in his dreadful shame.) “Say you did not mean it! Give me a little time to repent. I have wronged you, Théroigne; but I never ceased to love you in my heart. Give me time, in mercy, and I will explain. You have not seen. You don’t know the foulness and the horror of it!—Théroigne!”
Looking up, he saw the stony impassibility of her face, and sank upon the boards, moaning “Pardon—pardon!”
She stood gazing down upon this poor revealed baseness—this idol self-deposed.
“Pardon!” she said at last, in a quiet, even passionless voice. “And do you conceive, monsieur, the exorbitance of your demand? But I will put the case to these citizens, and take their verdict.”
She raised her beautiful hard face, addressing the board—
“What price, messieurs, for an innocence ravished under pretext of a union of free-wills—a union that was to be more indissoluble than marriage, yet that lasted only a summer’s day? What price for a broken contract when the shame threatened; for the dastardly desertion of a wounded comrade; for the bitter desolation of a heart doubly widowed and slandered through its trust? What price for the ruined honour of a family, for the curse of a father? What price for exile from all the peace of life; for—my God! what price for a faith, that was so beautiful, destroyed; for a name that necessity has made infamous amongst men?”
She paused, and a loud murmur from her listeners eddied through the room. She caught at her skirt, seeking to release it from the clutch of him that held it. It was doubtful if the dying wretch took in much of the significance of her words. He crouched there, only whimpering and swaying and entreating her half articulately.
“Thou wouldst always teach me the immortality of such a faith,” she cried in quick passionateness, “whilst thou wert giving me to an immortality of shame.”
Suddenly she threw her hands to her face.
“Oh me! oh me!” she wailed in a broken voice.
For the first time some core of anguish in Ned seemed to melt and weep itself away.
“It is come at last,” his heart exulted. “She will pardon him.”
As swiftly as it had seized her the emotion fled. She held out her open palms, as if in a devil’s blessing, above the prostrate man.
“They are soiled with blood!” she cried. “Let the victims, when my name is execrated, testify against you, not me!”
She seemed to listen to the moaning entreaty that never ceased at her feet. The president shifted in his chair and was restless with some papers. This situation—it was interesting, tragic, spiced with unexpected revelation; but the occasion, apart from it, was peremptory; the killers were clamorous outside over the unaccountable break in the programme.
“My honour,” cried Théroigne, “my early innocence, my faith and peace of mind! If I name the return to me of these as the price of blood, what is thy answer?”
His moaning rose only like a wind of despair. She drew herself erect and turned to the judges.
“Messieurs—the price?”
The whole company seemed to spring to its feet. A roar went up from it—and subsided.
“It is answered,” said the president. “Take M. St Denys away.”
There was a scurrying forward of men—a sudden stooping—a struggle. Shriek after shriek came from the ground. Ned leapt into the fray like a madman.
“To subscribe,” he screamed, “to the revengeful fury of a wanton! It is not liberty or justice. Why, look at her, look at her. The beast that would murder twenty innocents to secure the destruction of one that had wounded her vanity. Gentlemen! to be so governed by a harlot—to be——!”
He choked as he fought. There were savage hands at his throat.
“Do not harm him. I would not have him harmed.”
It was Théroigne that spoke. She stood apart, white and chill as a figure of ice.
He spat curses at her, that mingled with the deadlier tumult. Monsieur le président made his voice heard above the din.
“Eject this person, without hurt, from the rear of the prison.”
Seized, then, despite his frantic struggles; protesting; striving for foothold; conscious always of the desperate outcry—faint, and fainter—of the unhappy man he had sought to befriend, Ned felt himself hurried along corridors, borne down steps and by way of echoing dank vaults—thrust violently into a world of spacious silence.
A door shut with a steely clang behind him. Before, stretched a desolate waste tract of fields. The moon was at its full-flood light, and the whole world seemed to float quietly on a sea of peace.
He threw himself, face-downwards, amongst the tufts of coarse grass, and cried upon the flood to overwhelm him.