CHAPTER XX
The Cheval Borgne.
It was close upon midnight.
The place had become suffocatingly hot; the fumes of rank tobacco, ofrancid butter, and of raw spirits hung like a vapour in mid-air.
The principal room in the "Auberge du Cheval Borgne" had been used forthe past five years now as the chief meeting-place of theultra-sansculotte party of the Republic.
The house itself was squalid and dirty, up one of those mean streetswhich, by their narrow way and shelving buildings, shut out sun, air,and light from their miserable inhabitants.
The Cheval Borgne was one of the most wretched-looking dwellings in thisstreet of evil repute. The plaster was cracked, the walls themselvesseemed bulging outward, preparatory to a final collapse. The ceilingswere low, and supported by beams black with age and dirt.
At one time it had been celebrated for its vast cellarage, which hadcontained some rare old wines. And in the days of the Grand Monarchyoung bucks were wont to quit the gay salons of the ladies, in order torepair to the Cheval Borgne for a night's carouse.
In those days the vast cellarage was witness of many a dark encounter,of many a mysterious death; could the slimy walls have told their owntale, it would have been one which would have put to shame the wildestchronicles of M. Vidoq.
Now it was no longer so.
Things were done in broad daylight on the Place de la Revolution: therewas no need for dark, mysterious cellars, in which to accomplish deedsof murder and of revenge.
Rats and vermin of all sorts worked their way now in the undergroundportion of the building. They ate up each other, and held their orgiesin the cellars, whilst men did the same sort of thing in the roomsabove.
It was a club of Equality and Fraternity. Any passer-by was at libertyto enter and take part in the debates, his only qualification for thistemporary membership being an inordinate love for Madame la Guillotine.
It was from the sordid rooms of the Cheval Borgne that most of thedenunciations had gone forth which led but to the one inevitableending--death.
They sat in conclave here, some twoscore or so at first, the rabidpatriots of this poor, downtrodden France. They talked of Libertymostly, with many oaths and curses against the tyrants, and then starteda tyranny, an autocracy, ten thousand times more awful than any wieldedby the dissolute Bourbons.
And this was the temple of Liberty, this dark, damp, evil-smellingbrothel, with is narrow, cracked window-panes, which let in but aninfinitesimal fraction of air, and that of the foulest, most unwholesomekind.
The floor was of planks roughly put together; now they were worm-eaten,bare, save for a thick carpet of greasy dust, which deadened the soundof booted feet. The place only boasted of a couple of chairs, both ofwhich had to be propped against the wall lest they should break, andbring the sitter down upon the floor; otherwise a number of empty winebarrels did duty for seats, and rough deal boards on broken trestles fortables.
There had once been a paper on the walls, now it hung down in strips,showing the cracked plaster beneath. The whole place had a tone ofyellowish-grey grime all over it, save where, in the centre of the room,on a rough double post, shaped like the guillotine, a scarlet cap ofLiberty gave a note of lurid colour to the dismal surroundings.
On the walls here and there the eternal device, so sublime inconception, so sordid in execution, recalled the aims of the so-calledclub: "Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite, sinon la Mort."
Below the device, in one or two corners of the room, the wall wasfurther adorned with rough charcoal sketches, mostly of an obscenecharacter, the work of one of the members of the club, who had chosenthis means of degrading his art.
To-night the assembly had been reduced to less than a score.
Even according to the dictates of these apostles of Fraternity: _"laguillotine va toujours"_--the guillotine goes on always. She had becomethe most potent factor in the machinery of government, of this greatRevolution, and she had been daily, almost hourly fed through theactivity of this nameless club, which held its weird and awesomesittings in the dank coffee-room of the Cheval Borgne.
The number of the active members had been reduced. Like the rats in thecellars below, they had done away with one another, swallowed oneanother up, torn each other to pieces in this wild rage for a Utopianfraternity.
Marat, founder of the organisation, had been murdered by a girl's hand;but Charon, Manuel, Osselin had gone the usual way, denounced by theircolleagues, Rabaut, Custine, Bison, who in their turn were sent to theguillotine by those more powerful, perhaps more eloquent, thanthemselves.
It was merely a case of who could shout the loudest at an assembly ofthe National Convention.
_"La guillotine va toujours!"_
After the death of Marat, Merlin became the most prominent member of theclub--he and Foucquier-Tinville, his bosom friend, Public Prosecutor,and the most bloodthirsty homicide of this homicidal age.
Bosom friend both, yet they worked against one another, undermining eachother's popularity, whispering persistently, one against the other: "Heis a traitor!" It had become just a neck-to-neck race between themtowards the inevitable goal--the guillotine.
Foucquier-Tinville is in the ascendant for the moment. Merlin had beengiven a task which he had failed to accomplish. For days now, weekseven, the debates of this noble assembly had been chiefly concerned withthe downfall of Citizen-Deputy Deroulede. His popularity, his calmsecurity in the midst of this reign of terror and anarchy, had been aterrible thorn in the flesh of these rabid Jacobins.
And now the climax had been reached. An anonymous denunciation hadroused the hopes of these sanguinary patriots. It all sounded perfectlyplausible. To try and save that traitor, Marie Antoinette, the widow ofLouis Capet, was just the sort of scheme that would originate in thebrain of Paul Deroulede.
He had always been at heart an aristocrat, and the feeling of chivalryfor a persecuted woman was only the outward signs of his secretadherence to the hated class.
Merlin had been sent to search the Deputy's house for proofs of thelatter's guilt.
And Merlin had come back empty-handed.
The arrest of a female aristo--the probable mistress of Deroulede, whoobviously had denounced him--was but small compensation for the failureof the more important capture.
As soon as Merlin joined his friends in the low, ill-lit, evil-smellingroom he realised at once that there was a feeling of hostility againsthim.
Tinville, enthroned on one of the few chairs of which the Cheval Borgnecould boast, was surrounded by a group of surly adherents.
On the rough trestles a number of glasses, half filled with rawpotato-spirit, gave the keynote to the temper of the assembly.
All those present were dressed in the black-shag spencer, the seedyblack breeches, and down-at-heel boots, which had become recognised asthe distinctive uniform of the sansculotte party. The inevitablePhrygian cap, with its tricolour cockade, appeared on the heads of allthose present, in various stages of dirt and decay.
Tinville had chosen to assume a sarcastic tone with regard to his whilombosom friend, Merlin. Leaning both elbows on the table, he was pickinghis teeth with a steel fork, and in the intervals of his interestingoperation, gave forth his views on the broad principles of patriotism.
Those who sat round him felt that his star was in the ascendant andassumed the position of satellites. Merlin as he entered had grunted asullen "Good-eve," and sat himself down in a remote corner of the room.
His greeting had been responded to with a few jeers and a good manydark, threatening looks. Tinville himself had bowed to him with mocksarcasm and an unpleasant leer.
One of the patriots, a huge fellow, almost a giant, with heavy, coarsefists and broad shoulders that obviously suggested coal-heaving, had,after a few satirical observations, dragged one of the empty winebarrels to Merlin's table, and sat down opposite him.
"Take care, Citizen Lenoir," said Tinville, with an evil laugh,"Citizen-Deputy Merlin will arrest you
instead of Deputy Deroulede, whomhe has allowed to slip through his fingers."
"Nay; I've no fear," replied Lenoir, with an oath. "Citizen Merlin istoo much of an aristo to hurt anyone; his hands are too clean; he doesnot care to do the dirty work of the Republic. Isn't that so, MonsieurMerlin?" added the giant, with a mock bow, and emphasising theappellation which had fallen into complete disuse in these days ofequality.
"My patriotism is too well known," said Merlin roughly, "to fear anyattacks from jealous enemies; and as for my search in theCitizen-Deputy's house this afternoon, I was told to find proofs againsthim, and I found none."
Lenoir expectorated on the floor, crossed his dark hairy arms over thetable, and said quietly:
"Real patriotism, as the true Jacobin understands it, makes the proofsit wants and leaves nothing to chance."
A chorus of hoarse murmurs of "Vive la Liberte!" greeted this harangueof the burly coal-heaver.
Feeling that he had gained the ear and approval of the gallery, Lenoirseemed, as it were, to spread himself out, to arrogate to himself theleadership of this band of malcontents, who, disappointed in their lustof Deroulede's downfall, were ready to exult over that of Merlin.
"You were a fool, Citizen Merlin," said Lenoir with slow significance,"not to see that the woman was playing her own game."
Merlin had become livid under the grime on his face. With this ill-kemptsansculotte giant in front of him, he almost felt as if he were alreadyarraigned before that awful, merciless tribunal, to which he had draggedso many innocent victims.
Already he felt, as he sat ensconced behind a table in the far corner ofthe room, that he was a prisoner at the bar, answering for his failurewith his life.
His own laws, his own theories now stood in bloody array against him.Was it not he who had framed the indictments against General Custine forhaving failed to subdue the cities of the south? against GeneralWesterman and Brunet and Beauharnais for having failed and failed andfailed?
And now it was his turn.
These bloodthirsty jackals had been cheated of their prey; they wouldtear him to pieces in compensation of their loss.
"How could I tell?" he murmured roughly, "the woman had denounced him."
A chorus of angry derision greeted this feeble attempt at defence.
"By your own law, Citizen-Deputy Merlin," commented Tinvillesarcastically, "it is a crime against the Republic to be suspected oftreason. It is evident, however, that it is quite one thing to frame alaw and quite another to obey it."
"What could I have done?"
"Hark at the innocent!" rejoined Lenoir, with a sneer. "What could hehave done? Patriots, friends, brothers, I ask you, what could he havedone?"
The giant had pushed the wine cask aside, it rolled away from under him,and in the fulness of his contempt for Merlin and his impotence, hestood up before them all, strong in his indictment against treasonableincapacity.
"I ask you," he repeated, with a loud oath, "what any patriot would do,what you or I would have done, in the house of a man whom we all _know_is a traitor to the Republic? Brothers, friends, Citizen-Deputy Merlinfound a heap of burn paper in a grate, he found a letter-case which hadobviously contained important documents, and he asks us what he coulddo!"
"Deroulede is too important a man to be tried without proofs. The wholemob of Paris would have turned on us for having arraigned him, forhaving dared lay hands upon his sacred person."
"Without proofs? Who said there were no proofs?" queried Lenoir.
"I found the burnt papers and torn letter-case in the woman's room. Sheowned that they were love letters, and that she had denounced Derouledein order to be rid of him."
"Then let me tell you, Citizen-Deputy Merlin, that a true patriot wouldhave found those papers in Deroulede's, and not the woman's room; thatin the hands of a faithful servant of the Republic those documents wouldnot all have been destroyed, for he would have 'found' one letteraddressed to the Widow Capet, which would have proved conclusively thatCitizen-Deputy Deroulede was a traitor. That is what a true patriotwould have done--what I would have done. _Pardi!_ since Deroulede is soimportant a personage, since we must all put on kid gloves when we layhands upon him, then let us fight him with other weapons. Are wearistocrats that we should hesitate to play the part of jackal to thiscunning fox? Citizen-Deputy Merlin, are you the son of some ci-devantduke or prince that you dared not _forge_ a document which would bring atraitor to his doom? Nay; let me tell you, friends, that the Republichas no use for curs, and calls him a traitor who allows one of herenemies to remain inviolate through his cowardice, his terror of thatintangible and fleeting shadow--the wrath of a Paris mob."
Thunderous applause greeted this peroration, which had been deliveredwith an accompaniment of violent gestures and a wealth of obsceneepithets, quite beyond the power of the mere chronicler to render.Lenoir had a harsh, strident voice, very high pitched, and he spoke witha broad, provincial accent, somewhat difficult to locate, but quiteunlike the hoarse, guttural tones of the low-class Parisian. Hisenthusiasm made him seem impressive. He looked, in his ragged,dust-stained clothes, the very personification of the squalid herd whichhad driven culture, art, refinement to the scaffold in order to make wayfor sordid vice, and satisfied lusts of hate.