In deference to the priority she gave the newcomer, the mistress of the house got up and placed the order herself.
The two men turned their backs to each other, one of them looking out into the street, the other toward the back of the room. Not a word was spoken between them until the mistress of the cabaret had completely disappeared.
When the door was shut behind her and when, by the light of a single candle suspended by a length of wire in such a cunning way that the light could be shared by both tables, the man with the fur cap at last could see, thanks to the mirror facing him, that the room was perfectly deserted, he spoke.
“Good evening,” he said to his companion without looking round.
“Good evening, monsieur,” said the newcomer.
“Well then,” the patriot asked, affecting the same indifference, “where are we?”
“Well then, we’re done.”
“What’s done?”
“As we agreed, I picked a fight with old man Richard over my duties, I said I was hard of hearing and had my dizzy spells, and I keeled over in the middle of the office.”
“Good stuff; and then?”
“And then old man Richard called his wife and his wife rubbed my temples with vinegar, which brought me around.”
“Good! After that?”
“After that, as we agreed between ourselves, I said it was the lack of air that gave me these dizzy spells, given my sanguine temperament, and that the work at the Conciergerie, where there are four hundred inmates at the moment, was killing me.”
“What did they say?”
“Mother Richard felt sorry for me.”
“And old man Richard?”
“He showed me the door.”
“But it’s not enough that he showed you the door
Wait a second: then Mother Richard, who’s a good woman, balled him out for having no heart, seeing as I’ve got a family to feed.”
“And what did he say to that?”
“He said she was right, but that the first requirement for being a wicket clerk was to remain in the prison to which he was attached; that the Republic meant business; and that it cut the heads off anyone who had dizzy spells in the exercise of their duties.”
“Lord!” exclaimed the patriot.
“And he was not wrong, old man Richard; since the Austrian woman’s been there, surveillance has gotten out of hand. The fellows in there would look twice at their own fathers.”
The patriot gave his plate to the dog to lick, and the dog got bitten by the cat.
“Get on with it,” he said.
“To make a long story short, monsieur, I started moaning and groaning, which means I was really sick. I asked for the nurse and assured them my children would die of starvation if my pay was stopped.”
“And old man Richard?”
“Old man Richard said that when you are a wicket clerk, you don’t make babies.”
“But Mother Richard was on your side, I suppose?”
“Luckily! She kicked up quite a stink and attacked him for having no heart, and old man Richard ended up saying to me: ‘Well then, citizen Gracchus, see if you can make a deal with one of your pals who can give you something as a guarantee; send him to me as your replacement and I promise you I’ll see he’s accepted.’ At that I left, saying: ‘Say no more, old man Richard, I’ll find someone.’ ”
“And did you find someone, my brave boy?”
At that moment the mistress of the establishment returned with citizen Gracchus’s soup and pot of rotgut. Neither Gracchus nor the patriot took any notice; but they were not done yet.
“Citizeness,” said the clerk, “I got a small bonus from old man Richard today, so I can afford the pork chop with gherkins and the bottle of Burgundy. Send your servant out to the butcher’s for the chop and go and get me the wine from your cellar, will you?”
The hostess immediately gave the command; a servant slipped out the door into the street, and the hostess through the door to the cellar.
“All right,” said the patriot. “You’re a smart boy.”
“So smart that I’m not fooling myself what’s in store for both of us, whatever you like to promise me. Do you have any idea what we’re risking?”
“Yes, perfectly.”
“Our necks are both on the block!”
“Don’t you worry about mine.”
“It’s not your neck, monsieur, I have to admit, that’s giving me the most worry.”
“It’s your own?”
“Yes.”
“But if I’m paying twice what it’s worth …”
“Steady on, monsieur! A neck is a very precious thing—and so’s the head that’s on it.”
“Yours is not.”
“What! Mine isn’t precious?”
“Not at this point in time, at least.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I mean that your head isn’t worth an obole.1 If I were an agent of the Committee of Public Safety, for instance, you’d be guillotined tomorrow.”
The clerk turned around so swifty the dog started barking at him. He was as pale as a corpse.
“Don’t turn around and don’t look as though you’re going to pass out,” said the patriot. “Just quietly finish your soup. I am not an agent provocateur, my friend. Get me into the Conciergerie, set me up as your replacement, give me the keys, and tomorrow I’ll count you out fifty thousand livres in gold.”
“You’re for real at least?”
“Oh! You’ve got pretty good security! You’re holding my head in your hands.”
The clerk thought about it for a few seconds.
“Come,” said the patriot, who could see him in the mirror. “Come, don’t give in to bad thoughts; if you denounce me, you’ll only have done your duty and the Republic won’t give you a brass razoo. If, on the other hand, you work with me, you won’t have done your duty, and because it’s unjust to do something for nothing in this world, I’ll give you the fifty thousand livres.”
“Oh, I get it all right,” said the clerk. “I stand to gain by doing what you want me to do; but I’m afraid of the consequences.…”
“The consequences! … What is it you have to fear? Come on, it’s not me who’s going to denounce you, on the contrary.”
“I guess so.”
“The day after I’m in place, you do a round at the Conciergerie. I’ll count you out twenty-five rolls of two thousand francs each; the twenty-five rolls will easily fit in your pocket. With the money, I’ll give you a pass for getting out of France. Wherever you go, even if you’re not rich, you’ll be independent.”
“Well then, you’ve got a deal, monsieur, come what may. I’m just a poor devil, I am, a nonentity; I don’t get mixed up in politics. France has always done all right without me and it won’t die if I’m not here. If you’re up to no good, too bad for you.”
“In any case,” said the patriot, “I don’t think I can do any worse than what they’re doing now.”
“Monsieur will permit me not to judge the politics of the National Convention.”
“I admire your philosophical bent and your insouciance, my good man. Now, let’s see, when will you introduce me to old man Richard?”
“Tonight, if you like.”
“Yes, certainly. Who am I?”
“My cousin Mardoche.”
“Mardoche, so be it; I like the name. What do I do for a living?”
“Tailor.”
“From tanner to tailor, it’s just a flick of the wrist.”
“Are you a tanner?”
“I could be.”
“True.”
“What time tonight?”
“In half an hour, if you like.”
“Nine o’clock, then.”
“When will I get the money?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Does that mean you’re filthy rich?”
“I’m well off.”
“An ex-aristo, right?”
“What do you
care!”
“To have money and then give your money away running the risk of getting the chop, ex-aristos must be pretty thick!”
“You can’t have everything! The sans culottes are so smart there’s just not enough to go around!”
“Quiet! Here’s my wine.”
“See you later tonight, outside the Conciergerie.”
“Yes.”
The patriot paid his bill and left. You could hear him call out in a thundering voice from the doorway:
“Hurry it up, citizeness! The chops with gherkins! My cousin Gracchus is dying of hunger.”
“Good old Mardoche!” said the clerk, sipping the glass of Burgundy the cabaret owner had just poured him, gazing upon him tenderly.
41
THE CLERK FROM THE WAR MINISTRY
The patriot had walked out, but he had not gone far. Through the smoky windows he watched the clerk to make sure he didn’t enter into communication with any agents of the republican police, one of the most effective forces that ever existed, for half of society was spying on the other half, not so much for the greater glory of the government as for the greater security of one’s own head.
But nothing the patriot feared occurred, and at a few minutes before nine the clerk got up, chucked the cabaret owner’s chin, and left. The patriot joined him at the quai de la Conciergerie and they went into the prison together. That very night the deal was sealed: old man Richard accepted Mardoche as a replacement clerk, filling in for Gracchus.
But two hours before the deal was clinched in the jail, something happened in another part of the prison that, although without apparent interest, was no less crucial for the principal characters of this story.
The Conciergerie registrar, tired after a long day, was about to put his books away and go home when a man turned up at his office, led by citizeness Richard.
“Citizen registrar,” she said, “this is your colleague from the War Ministry, who comes on behalf of the citizen minister to remove some nuts and bolts the army needs.”
“Ah, citizen,” said the registrar, “you’re a bit late. I was just closing up shop.”
“Dear colleague, forgive me,” replied the newcomer, “but we have so much to do we can hardly get through all our chores except in our spare time, and our spare time, let me tell you, is almost always when others are eating or sleeping.”
“If that’s how it is, do what you have to, my dear colleague; but hurry it up, won’t you, for as you say, it’s time to eat and I’m hungry. Have you got your authorization?”
“Here it is,” said the clerk from the War Ministry, flashing a wallet that his colleague, in a hurry though he was, nonetheless examined scrupulously.
“It all seems to be in order,” said Mother Richard. “My husband has already given it a thorough going-over.”
“Never mind that,” said the registrar, continuing his inspection.
The clerk from the War Ministry waited patiently, like a man used to the strict accomplishment of formalities.
“Marvelous!” said the registrar of the Conciergerie. “You may now begin whenever you like. Do you have many nuts to take out?”
“About a hundred.”
“Then you’ll be at it for several days?”
“Yes, and so, dear colleague, I’d like to set myself up properly here, if you don’t mind, of course.”
“What do you mean?” asked the registrar of the Conciergerie.
“I’ll explain it all to you when I take you to dine at my place this evening; you said you were hungry.”
“And I won’t unsay it.”
“Well then, you can meet my wife—she’s quite a good cook, and you’ll get to know me—I’m not a bad sort.”
“Indeed, yes, that’s the way you strike me; but, dear colleague …”
“Oh, why don’t you just accept without further ado! I’ll buy the oysters at the place du Châtelet on the way and we’ll pick up a chicken from our rôtisseur; we’ll also have two or three little dishes Madame Durand makes to perfection.”
“You’re making my mouth water, dear colleague,” said the registrar of the Conciergerie, dazzled by the kind of menu a registrar in the pay of the Revolutionary Tribunal at the rate of two livres in assignats was not accustomed to, those two livres being in reality scarcely worth two francs.
“So you accept?”
“I accept.”
“In that case, the work can wait till tomorrow. That’s enough for this evening; let’s go.”
“Right you are.”
“Are you coming?”
“One second; just let me go and alert the gendarmes guarding the Austrian woman.”
“Why do you need to alert them?”
“So they know I’m going out and therefore there is no one in the office; they can keep an ear out for any suspect noise.”
“Ah, of course! Excellent precaution, I must say!”
“You understand, don’t you?”
“Perfectly. Off you go.”
The registrar of the Conciergerie did indeed go off and hammer at the wicket door, which one of the gendarmes opened.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
“Me! The registrar, you know. I’m off. Good night, citizen Gilbert.”
“Good night, citizen registrar.”
And the wicket closed again.
The clerk from the War Ministry had followed the whole scene with the closest attention, and when the door to the Queen’s cell was open, his gaze had rapidly plunged into the depths of the first compartment. He had seen the gendarme Duchesne at the table, and had assured himself that the Queen had, in fact, only two guards.
It goes without saying that when the registrar of the Conciergerie returned, his colleague once more looked as blank as he could possibly get his physiognomy to look.
As they were leaving the Conciergerie, two men were making their way in. These two men were citizen Gracchus and his cousin Mardoche. Cousin Mardoche and the clerk from the War Ministry, each with a movement that seemed to arise from a similar feeling, pushed their respective headgear down over their eyes the moment they saw each other—the one his fur cap, the other his broad-brimmed hat.
“Who are those men?” asked the clerk from the War Ministry.
“I only know one of them: he’s a wicket clerk name of Gracchus.”
“Ah!” said the other man with affected indifference. “So wicket clerks can leave the Conciergerie?”
“They have their day off.”
The investigation was left there as the two new pals took the pont-au-Change. At the corner of the place du Châtelet the clerk from the War Ministry, as he had said he would, bought a bucket of twelve dozen oysters. Then they went on their merry way along the quai de Gesvres.
The War Ministry clerk’s home was very simple: citizen Durand lived in a three-room apartment on the place de Grève in a house without a porter. Each tenant had a key to the alley, and it was agreed that they would alert one another if one of them accidentally locked themselves out by knocking once, twice, or three times with a hammer, according to which floor they lived on: whoever was expecting someone and recognized the signal would then come down and open the door. But citizen Durand had his key in his pocket and didn’t need to knock.
The Palais registrar found Madame Durand very much to his liking. She was, in fact, a charming woman, whose face was made powerfully attractive at a glance by an expression of deep sadness that suffused her entire physiognomy. It is a known fact that sadness is one of the surest means of seduction available to good-looking women; sadness makes all men amorous, without exception—even registrars, for, whatever they say, registrars are men, and no matter how fiercely proud or hardhearted a man is, there isn’t one who doesn’t hope to console a pretty woman so afflicted and turn the white roses of a pallid complexion into gaily blushing roses, as the citizen poet Dorat would say.
The two clerks supped with gusto; only Madame Durand had no appetite. Yet questions were bandied back a
nd forth in between mouthfuls. The war clerk asked his colleague, with a truly remarkable curiosity in these times of everyday tragedy, what went on in the Palais on days of judgment and what were the means of surveillance. The Palais registrar, delighted to have such an attentive audience, happily supplied answers, rabbiting on about the practices of the jailers, those of Fouquier-Tinville, and finally those of Sanson,1 the star performer in the tragedy staged on a daily basis in the place de la Révolution.
Then, addressing himself to his colleague and host, he asked him in turn about his ministry.
“Oh!” said Durand. “I’m not as informed as you are, being a person infinitely less important. I’m just the secretary of the appointed clerk of the place; I do the hard work for the chief clerk. As an obscure employee, I get the pain, the illustrious get the gain: that’s how it goes in all bureaucracies, even revolutionary ones. The earth and the sky may shift one day, but bureaucracies won’t.”
“Well then, I’ll lend you a hand, citizen,” said the Palais registrar, won over completely by his host’s good wine and especially by the beautiful eyes of the host’s wife.
“Oh, thank you!” cried the man to whom this gracious offer was made. “Any change of routine or location is a distraction for a poor employee, and I fear my work at the Conciergerie will end sooner rather than later. But as long as I can take Madame Durand with me every night, since she’d be bored on her own here …”
“I don’t see why not,” said the Palais registrar, delighted with the lovely distraction his colleague promised him.
“She can tell me which nuts to remove,” continued citizen Durand.
“And then, from time to time, if tonight’s supper wasn’t too terrible, you can come and have the same again.”
“Yes, but not too often,” said the Palais registrar fatuously, “for I must tell you there’d be hell to pay if I came home any later than usual to a certain little house in the rue du Petit-Musc.”
“Well then, we’ve got ourselves an excellent arrangement,” said Durand. “Wouldn’t you say, darling?”
Madame Durand, extremely pale and extremely sad always, looked up at her husband and answered: