.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 43241
   :PG.Title: The Adventures of François
   :PG.Released: 2013-07-17
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: \S. Weir Mitchell
   :DC.Title: The Adventures of François
              Foundling, Thief, Juggler, and Fencing-Master during the French Revolution
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1898
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

==========================
THE ADVENTURES OF FRANÇOIS
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   .. _`THE NETS WERE HUNG OVER FRANÇOIS'S SHOULDERS`:

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      :alt: "THE NETS WERE HUNG OVER FRANÇOIS'S SHOULDERS."

      "THE NETS WERE HUNG OVER FRANÇOIS'S SHOULDERS." (See page `18`_.)

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      The Adventures of
      François

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      Foundling, Thief, Juggler, and Fencing-Master
      during the French Revolution

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      By

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      \S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.

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      LL.D. Harvard and Edinburgh

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      New York
      The Century Co.
      1898

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      Copyright, 1897, 1898, by
      THE CENTURY Co.

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      THE DE VINNE PRESS.

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      TO
      PHILIP SCHUYLER

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      IN RECOGNITION OF
      A CONSTANT FRIENDSHIP

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   CONTENTS

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   `I`_

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Of how François the foundling was cared for by the good
fathers of the Benedictine Asylum for Orphans, and of
what manner of lad he was


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   `II`_

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In which François becomes a choir-boy, and serves two
masters, to the impairment of his moral sense


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   `III`_

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Of the misfortunes caused by loss of a voice, and of how a
cat and a damsel got François into trouble—whereupon,
preferring the world to a monastery, he ran away from
the choristers of Notre Dame


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   `IV`_

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Of how the world used François, and of the reward of virtue.
He makes his first friend


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   `V`_

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Of the immorality which may come of an empty stomach,
and of how François became acquainted with a human
crab


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   `VI`_

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Of how François regained a lost friend, and of his adventure
with the poet Horace and another gentleman


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   `VII`_

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Wherein is told how François saved a man's neck and
learned to juggle


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   `VIII`_

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In which François discovers the mercantile value of
laughter, and the Crab takes toll of the jugglers—with
the sad history of Despard, the partner


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   `IX`_

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In which François tells the fortune of the Marquis de
Ste. Luce and of Robespierre, and has his own fortune told,
and of how Despard saw a man of whom he was afraid


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   `X`_

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How Pierre became a Jacobin and how a nation became insane


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   `XI`_

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The juggling firm of Despard, François & Co. is broken
up—Despard goes into politics, and François becomes a
fencing-master


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   `XII`_

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In which Toto is seen to change his politics twice a day—the
mornings and the afternoons quarrel—In which Jean
Pierre André Amar, "*le farouche,*" appears


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   `XIII`_

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Citizen Amar, meeting the marquis, is unlucky and vindictive


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   `XIV`_

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François escapes from Paris and goes in search of a father.
He meets a man who has a wart on his nose, and who
because of this is unlucky


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   `XV`_

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How François finds Despard and has a lesson in politics,
and of what came of it


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   `XVI`_

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How François warns the Marquis de Ste. Luce, and of the
battle on the staircase between the old day and the new


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   `XVII`_

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Of how François, escaping, lives in the wood; of how he
sees the daughter of the marquis dying, and knows not
then, or ever after, what it was that hurt him; of how he
becomes homesick for Paris


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   `XVIII`_

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Wherein is told how François reënters Paris, and lodges
with the Crab; and of how Toto is near to death by the
guillotine.  François meets Despard and the marquis,
who warns him and is warned


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   `XIX`_

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Of the sorrowful life of loneliness, of François's arrest, and
of those he met in prison


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   `XX`_

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Of how François gave Amar advice, and of how the marquis
bought his own head


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   `XXI`_

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How François, having made a bargain with Citizen Amar,
cannot keep it with the man of the wart—How Despard
dies in the place of the marquis—Of François's escape
from prison


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   `XXII`_

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Wherein is told how François baits a crab-trap with the
man of the wart


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   `XXIII`_

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Of how François found lodgings where he paid no rent—Of
the death of Toto—Of how his master, having no
friends on the earth, finds them underground


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   `XXIV`_

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Of how François got into good society underground—Of
what he saw, and of the value of a cat's eyes—From
darkness to light—Of how François made friends for life


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   `EPILOGUE`_

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Wherein is some further account of François and of those
who helped him

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   LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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`The Nets were Hung over François's Shoulders`_ . . . . . . *Frontispiece*

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`François and Toto in the Luxembourg`_

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`Pierre taught François to Juggle with Balls`_

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`'T is a Gargoyle Come Down from the Roof of St. Jacques`_

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`He Paid in Advance the Customary Denier à Dieu`_

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`And so a Dog is Sent to Fetch the Safeguard the People Provide`_

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`He Staggered to Left, to Right, and at last Tumbled in a Heap`_

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`He Held his Way along the Highroad`_

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`The Wanderer Tapped on the Pane`_

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`He Saw a White Face on the Pillow`_

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`Quatre Pattes`_

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`Death to Royal Rats!`_

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`Amar Considered this Novel Specimen of Humanity`_

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`He Pulled the Bell at No. 33 Bis`_

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`"The Little Trap did Work," cried François, behind his Screen`_

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.. _`I`:

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   THE ADVENTURES OF FRANÇOIS

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   FOUNDLING, THIEF, JUGGLER, AND FENCING-MASTER
   DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

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   I

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*Of how François the foundling was cared for by the
good fathers of the Benedictine Asylum for Orphans,
and of what manner of lad he was.*

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In the summer of the year 1777 a lad of
about ten years, clad in a suit of gray,
was playing in the high-walled garden of
the Benedictine Asylum for Orphans in
Paris.  The sun was pleasant, the birds
sang overhead, the roses were many, for the month
was June.  A hundred lads were noisily running
about.  They had the look of being well fed, decently
clothed, and kindly cared for.  An old priest walked
to and fro, at times looking up from his breviary to
say a pleasant word or to check some threatening
quarrel.

Presently he paused beside the boy who was at the
moment intently watching a bird on a branch
overhead.  As the priest turned, the boy had thrown
himself on the grass and was laughing heartily.

"What amuses thee, my son?" said the father.

"I am laughing at the birds."

"And why do they make thee laugh, François!"

"I do not know."

"And I," said the priest, "do not know why the
birds sing, nor why thou dost laugh.  Thou hast a
talent that way.  The good God grant thee always
cause"; and with his eyes on his breviary, and his
lips moving in prayer, he walked away.

The lad fell back again on the grass, and laughed
anew, as if overcome with some jest he shared with
no one but the birds overhead.  This was a kindly
little waif brought hither from the Enfants Trouvés,
nameless except for the card pinned on the basket
in which he lay when the unknown mother left him,
a red-faced baby, to the charity of asylum life.

His constant mirthfulness was a sad cross to some
of the good fathers, for neither punishment, fast, nor
penance got the better of this gaiety, nor served to
repress its instinctive expression.  He had, too,—what
is rare in childhood,—quick powers of observation,
and a certain joy in the world of nature,
liking to lie on his back and watch the birds at work,
or pleased to note the daily changes of flowers or the
puzzling journeys of the ants which had their crowded
homes beneath the lilacs in undisturbed corners of
the garden.  His nearest mother, Nature, meant the
boy to be one of those rare beings who find
happiness in the use of keen senses and in a wakeful
mind, which might have been trained to employ its
powers for the partial conquest of some of her many
kingdoms.  But no friendly hand was here to guide,
no example present to incite or lift him.  The simple
diet provided for the intellect of these little ones was
like the diet of their table—the same for one and
for all.

His head was high, his face long; all his features
were of unusual size, the mouth and ears of
disproportionate magnitude; altogether, a quaint face, not
quite of to-day, a something Gothic and medieval in
its general expression.

The dull round of matins and vespers, the routine
of lessons, the silent refectory meals, went on year
after year with little variation.  The boy François
simply accepted them as did the rest; but, unlike
some of his comrades, he found food for mirth, silent,
gentle, or boisterous, where no other saw cause for
amusement.

Once a week a sober line of gray-clad boys, with
here and there a watchful priest, filed through the
gay streets to mass at St. Eustache or Notre Dame.
He learned, as he grew, to value these chances, and
to look forward with eager anticipation to what they
brought him.  During these walks the quick-minded
François saw and heard a hundred things which
aroused his curiosity.  The broad gardens of the
Luxembourg, the young fellows at unrestricted play, the
river and the boats, by degrees filled him with keen
desire to see more of this outer world, and to have
easy freedom to roam at will.  It was the first flutter
of wings longing for natural flight.  Before they set
out on these journeys, a good father at the great
gateway said to them as they went by: "Look neither
to the right nor to the left, my children.  'T is a day
of prayer.  Remember!"  Alas! what eyes so busy
as those of François?  "Look at this—at that," he
would cry to the lads close to him.  "Be quiet, there!"
said the priests' low voices; and on this Francis's
droll face would begin to express the unspoken
delight he found in the outer world of men and things.
This naughty outside world kept calling him to share
its liberty.  The boy liked best the choir, where his
was the most promising voice.  Here was happiness
such as the use of dexterous hands or observant eyes
also gave him.  Religion was to him largely a matter
of formal service.  But in this, as in secular
education, the individuality of the creature may not be set
aside without risk of disaster.  For all alike there
was the same dull round, the same instruction.
Nevertheless, the vast influence of these repeated
services, and of the constant catechism, he continued
to feel to his latest day.

He was emotional and imaginative, fond of color,
and sensitive to music; but the higher lessons of the
church, which should control the life of action, were
without effect on a character which was naturally one
of exceptional levity.  Such a mind has small power
to apply to the conduct of life the mere rules laid
down for its guidance, and is apt to accept as
personally useful only what comes from the lessons of
experience.





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.. _`II`:

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   II

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*In which François becomes a choir-boy, and serves two
masters, to the impairment of his moral sense.*

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He was about fourteen, and the best of
the choir, when a great change took
place in his life.  He was sent, with
a dozen others, to the vestry of Notre
Dame, and there carefully tested as to
the power and quality of his voice.  The masters of
the choir were exacting, but, to his great delight, he
was thought the best of the four who were finally
selected to fill vacancies among the boy choristers of
the cathedral.  This came about in the autumn of
the year 1781.

The next day he received a long lecture on how he
should behave himself; and thus morally provided,
was sent, with his small belongings in a bag, to the
house of certain of the choir-masters who lived in the
Rue des Chanteurs.  One of the priests who escorted
the four boys stood at the door of the house of the
choir, and saying good-by to them as they went in,
bade them come, if they might, and visit their old
home; and so, with a benediction, sent them forth
into a larger world.

It was not much larger, nor was it as agreeable.
When the good father left them, one Tomas, who
was steward of the choir-house, took the lads in
charge.

"Up with ye, singing-birds!" he cried; "up! up!"  And
this at each story: "It will soon be your best
chance of heaven; up! up!" until they reached a
large attic under the tiles.

It was a dismal place, and hospitable to every
wind that blew.  Each of twelve choir-boys had a
straw mattress on the floor, and pegs where hung his
clothes and the white surplice he wore during
service.  The four newcomers took possession, and were
soon informed by Tomas of their duties.  They must
be up at five to sing before breakfast with the second
chanter.

"Before breakfast!" cried one of the recruits.

"Little animal!" said Tomas.  "Before thou dost
eat there is room to fill thy chest; but after, what
boy hath room?  Breakfast at six and a half; at
seven a lesson.  Thou wilt intone with Père Lalatte."

Thus the day was to be filled; for here were
lessons a-plenty in Latin, and all must learn to read and
to write, for they might be priests some blessed day.

François reflected as Tomas packed the hours with
this and that as one packs a bag.  He made his
face as grave as nature would let it be, and said
it was very nice, and that he liked to sing.  Was
there anything else?  Tomas replied that this first
day they might ask questions, but that after that he
(Tomas) had only one answer, because to have only
one saved thinking.

This amused François, who was prematurely
capable of seeing the fun of things.

When a duller boy who did not apprehend asked
to know more he received an illustration in the form
of a smart smack, which proved convincingly
instructive, and silenced all but François, who asked,
"Please, monsieur, when may we play?" and "Is
there anything more?"

Tomas replied that there was a free hour before
supper, and a little while somewhere about noon in
the garden; also, they must wait on table; and oh,
he forgot the prayers; and then went on to complete
the packing of the day with various small duties in
the nature of attentions to the comfort of Tomas.
With some last words as to the time of the next
meal, the steward left them.

The lads, silent and anxious, arranged their small
possessions.  A little goldfinch in a wicker cage was
Francis's most valued property; he had taught it
many pretty tricks, and now he had been allowed to
bring it with him.  François put the cage on the
window-ledge, and fed his brightly tinted bird from
a small store of millet with which he had filled his
pocket.  Then he looked out to see what prospect
the view from the attic afforded.

The home of the master-choristers was an ancient
house of the days of Henri IV, and leaned so far
over that as the boy looked out he had a sudden fear
lest it should be about to tumble.  The street was
not more than twelve feet wide.  The opposite dwellings
were a full story below the attic from which the
boy looked.  The nearest house across the way had
an ancient stoop.  Others bent back from the line of
the street, and the open windows gave them a look of
yawning weariness which set the boy to gaping in
sympathy.

Above was a mottled wilderness of discolored tiles,
chimney-pots, and here and there gray corner turrets
with vanes which seemed to entertain diverse views
as to the direction whence the wind blew.  Below
was the sunless well of the street.  As he gazed he
saw the broad hats of priests hiding the figures
beneath them.  It interested the boy.  It was new and
strange.  He was too intent to notice that all but he
had gone, obedient to an order of Tomas.

A woman at a window over the way let fall a skirt
she had been drying.  It sailed to and fro, and fell
on the head of a reflective abbé.  The boy broke into
laughter.  A cat climbed on to a chimney-pot, and
was met by a gust of smoke from the flue beside it.
She scrambled off, sneezing.

"What fun!" cried the boy, and laughed again.

"Little beast!" shouted Tomas.  "Must I come
for thee?  'T is not permitted to laugh.  It is forbid
to laugh.  It spoils the voice"—a queer notion
which, to his sorrow, the boy found to prevail in the
house of the choristers.

"How can that be?" said François, boldly.

The man gave him to understand that he was to
obey his betters without answering, and then, taking
the cage from the window, said: "Come—quick,
too!  Thou art late for the dinner, and must do
without it.  There is a singing-lesson.  Off with
thee!"

He was leaving the room when, suddenly, a strange
fury of anger came on the boy.  He snatched the
cage from the man's hand, crying, "My bird!  It is
my bird!"

Tomas caught him, and began to administer a
smart cuffing; but the lad was vigorous and of feline
agility.  He used nails, teeth, and feet.  Then, of a
sudden, he ceased to struggle, and fell on a mattress
in an agony of tears.  The man had set his foot on
the fallen cage, crying:

"I will teach thee a lesson, little animal!"

There lay in the crushed cage the dead bird, still
quivering, a shapeless mass of green and yellow with
a splotch of red.  It was the first lesson of that
larger world toward which the foundling had been
so joyfully looking.

He made no further resistance to the discipline
which followed.  Then came a dark cell and bread
and water for a weary day, and much profit in the
way of experience.  It was a gentle home he had
left.  He had known there no unkindness, nor had
he ever so sinned as to suffer more than some mild
punishment.  The new life was hard, the diet spare.
As the winter came on, the attic proved to be cold.
The winds came in from the tiles above and through
the shrunken window-frames.  Once within, they
seemed to stay and to wander in chilly gusts.  The
dark suits worn by the choir-boys were none too
warm.  If the white surplice were clean, little more
was asked in that direction.  There were long
services twice a day at the great cathedral near by, and
three hours of practice under the eye of a junior
chorister.  The boys were abed at eight, and up at
five; and for play, there were two uncertain hours—after
the noon meal and at seven in the evening—when
they were free to move about a small court
behind the house, or to rest, if they pleased, in the
attic.  Four days in the week there were lessons in
Latin and in reading and writing.  Assuredly the
devil had little of the chance which idle hours are
presumed to give.  But this fallen angel has also
the industry of the minute, and knows how to profit
by the many chances of life.  He provided suggestive
lessons in the habits of the choristers who dwelt
in the stories above the wine-shop on the first floor.
Sounds of gay carouses reached the small garret saints
at night, and gay voices were heard which had other
than masculine notes.  At meal-times the choir-boys
waited on their masters, and fetched their food from
the kitchen.  The lads soon learned to take toll on
the way, and to comfort their shrunken stomachs
with a modest share of the diet of their betters.

"Little rats!" said Tomas the steward, "you will
squeal in purgatory for this; and 't were better to
give you a dose of it here."  And so certain of the
rats, on account of temporary excess of feed, were
given none for a day, and left in a cold cellar to such
moral aids as reflection might fetch.

François sat with his comrades of mishap in the
gloom, and devised new ways of procuring food and
concealing their thefts.

"Rats we are," said François, gaily; "and rats had
need be smart; and who ever heard that the *bon Dieu*
sent rats to purgatory?"  Then he hatched queer
stories to keep up the spirits of the too penitent;
and whether full or empty, cold or warm, took all
that came with perpetual solace of good-humored
laughter.  It was not in him to bear malice.  The
choir-masters liked him, and with the boys he was
the leader.

Most of the dozen choir-bays were dull fellows;
but this sharp-witted François was of other make,
and found in the table-talk of the choristers, and of
the curé's who came now and then to share their
ample fare, food for such thoughts as a boy thinks.
He soon learned, as he grew older, how difficult is
complete sin; how many outlets there are for him
who, being penitent, desires to create new
opportunities for penitence.  François was fast forming
his character.  He had small need to look for
excuses, and a meager talent for regret.  When his
stomach was full he was good, and when it was
empty he must, as he said in after years, "fill it to
squeeze out Satan."

There were singular books about, and for his
education, now that he read Latin fairly well, a manual
on confession.  It was not meant for half-fed
choir-boys.  More fascinating were the confessions of one
Rousseau—a highly educative book for a clever boy
of sixteen.  At this age François was a long-legged,
active fellow, a keen-witted domestic brigand, expert
in providing for his wants, and eagerly desirous of
seeing more of the outside world, of the ways of
which he was so ignorant.  The procession of closely
watched boys went to church and back again to the
old house at least once a day, and this was his only
glimpse of the entertaining life of the streets.  When
left to himself, he liked best in good weather to sit
at the open attic window and watch the cats on the
roofs across the way.  So near were the houses that
he could toss a bone or a crust on to the roof
opposite, and delight to see these Ishmaelites contend for
the prize.  He grew to know them, so that they
would come at dusk to the roof-edge, and contemplate
dietetic possibilities with eager and luminous
eyes.  Being versed in the Bible, as all good
choir-boys should be, he found names for his feline friends
which fitted their qualities; for there, among the
chimneys, was a small world of stirring life which no man
disturbed.  He saw battles, jealousies, greediness, and
loves.  Constancy was not there.  Solomon of the
many wives was king of the tiles; a demure blue cat
was Susannah, for good reasons; and there, too, were
the elders.  It might have seemed to some pitiful
angel a sad picture—this poor lad in the grasp of
temptations, but made for better chances, finding his
utmost joy in the distant company of these lean Arabs
of the desert housetops.





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.. _`III`:

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   III

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*Of the misfortunes caused by loss of a voice, and of how
a cat and a damsel got François into trouble—whereupon,
preferring the world to a monastery, he ran
away from the choristers of Notre Dame.*

.. vspace:: 2

It was in the month of June, in the year
1784, that a female got him into trouble,
and aided to bring about a decision as
to his future.  This was, however, only
one of the distressing incidents which
at the time affected his career, and was not his final
experience of the perils to which attention to the
other sex may expose the unwary.  A few days
before the sad event which brought about a change in
François's life, he was engaged in singing one of the
noble Gregorian chants.  Never had he used his voice
with greater satisfaction.  He was always pleased
and eagerly ambitious when in the choir, and was
then at his best.  This day it seemed to him, as he
sang, that his clear tones rose like a bird, and that
something of him was soaring high among the
resonant arches overhead.  Of a sudden his voice broke
into a shrill squeak.  The choir-master shook a finger
at him, and he fell into a dead silence, and sang no
more that morning.  The little white-robed procession
marched out, and when it reached the gray old
house there was wrath and consternation over the
broken treble.  He was blamed and beaten; but, after
all, it was a too likely misfortune.  If it chanced again
he must go to the Dominican convent at Auteuil, and
perhaps in a year or two would be lucky enough to get
back his voice.  Meanwhile let him take care.  Poor
François did his best; but a week later, amid the
solemnity of a mass for the dead, came once more
that fatal break in the voice.  He knew that his fate
was sealed.

Little was said this time, but he overheard the
head of the choir arranging with Tomas the steward
that the boy should go to Auteuil.  Until then he was
no longer to serve in the choir.

François had seen all this occur before, when, as
was common, some little singer lost control of his
changing voice.  His case was hopeless.  Yet here
was an idle time and no more singing-lessons.  But
a part of the small joys of a life not rich in happy
moments was gone, to come back no more, as he knew
too well.  Of late his fine quality of song had won
him some indulgence, and he had learned how much
a fine voice might mean.  Dim visions began to open
before him, as he heard of how choir-boys had
conquered fame and wealth in France or elsewhere.  One
day the leader of the choir had praised him and his
diligence, and hoped he would never leave them.  He
was told what a great possession was a voice like his,
and had even been envied by the less gifted.  Now
this possession was taken from him, and he was at
once made sadly aware of his loss.  His vanity,
always great, was wounded to the quick.  A little
kindness would have led him to go to the convent
and hopefully bide his time; but nobody cared, or
seemed to care, for him, or to pity what to his active
imagination was a fatal wreck of goodly chances.

For a day or two he went about disconsolate, and
was set to serve in the kitchen or to wait on the man
Tomas, who jeered at his squeaky voice, and called
him "little pig," with additions of some coarser
amenities of language, and certain information as
to the convent life of a lay servant ill calculated to
make Auteuil appear desirable.

In his leisure hours, which now were many,
François took refuge from the jests of his fellows in the
lonely garret.  The people across the way in their
rooms amused him.  The cats were never long
absent.  He watched their cunning search for the nests
of the sparrows, and very soon began to feel again
the invincible lifting power of his comic nature.
Some remembrance of the alarm in the choir-master's
face when his voice broke came upon François, and
he began to laugh.  Just then he saw Solomon on
the roof opposite.  The master of a populous harem
was in the company of the two naughty elders.
Susannah, behind a chimney, was making her modest
toilet with a skilful tongue.  He called her, and held
up a tempting bone.  The shy maiden hesitated.
He called, "Suzanne, Suzanne!" to bring her to the
edge of the tiled roof and near enough to make sure
that the elders would not capture her desired prize.

As he called, a little grisette who was hanging out
clothes to dry kissed her hand to the boy.  François
had seen her before.  She was not attractive.  He
liked his cats better.  "Suzanne, Suzanne!" he
called, as the virgin, looking about her, daintily
picked her way to the edge.  High on the roof-top,
Solomon exhorted the elders, and in a moment backs
were humped, and claws out, and there was bad
language used, which may have been Hebrew, but at all
events appeared to be sufficiently expressive; for
the elders and Solomon, of a sudden rolling over in a
wild scuffle, disappeared on the farther side of the roof.
This was the maid's opportunity, and gratefully
licking her anticipative chops, she crawled to the gutter.

"*Bonne Suzanne*!  *Viens donc*!  Come, come,
Suzanne!" cried the boy.

Of a sudden a smart box on the ear broke up this
pretty love-affair.  There stood Tomas.

"A nice choir-boy!  Talking with that beast of a
grisette!"  Then there were more liberal whacks as
the boy, in a rage, was dragged away, and bidden to
come down-stairs and carry to market the nets used
in place of baskets.  Tomas usually went alone to
buy provisions, but now the choir-boy was free and
could be made of use.

François uttered no complaint.  It was literally
the only time he had had a chance to be in the
streets, except as part of the procession to and from
the church.  He was sore, angry, and resentful of the
ill usage which in the last few days had taken the
place of the growing respect his talent had created.
He took the nets and his cap, and followed Tomas.
"What a chance!" he thought to himself.

The boy concealed the delight he felt, and followed
the steward, who went down to the river and across
it to the open market on the farther bank.  He
stopped here and there to buy provisions and to chat
with the market-women.  When one of them, pleased
with the odd-looking lad, gave him an apple, Tomas
took it from him.  François laughed, which seemed
always to offend the saturnine steward.  He could
not destroy the pleasure of the gay market for
François, who made queer faces at the mistresses of the
stalls, teased the dogs and cats for sale in cages, and
generally made himself happy until they came home
again.

But from this time onward, except for these
excursions, his life was made miserable enough.  He
was the slave of Tomas, and was cruelly reminded
day after day of the misery of him who has a servant
for his master.

At last he learned that the time was near when he
must go to Auteuil.  His voice had been tested again,
and he had been told that there was small hope of its
return.  He began to think of escape.  Once he was
sent alone on an errand to a shop near by.  He
lingered to see some street-jugglers, and paid for it
with a day in a damp cellar.  Within this sad home
he now found only reproaches and unthanked labor.
The choristers laughed at him, and the happier boys
mocked his changed voice.  On the day after his last
experience of the cellar, he was told by Tomas to be
ready to go to Auteuil, and was ordered once again
to follow the steward to market.  He took up the
nets and went after him.  The lad looked back at
the choir-house.  He meant to see it no more.  He
was now seventeen, and in the three years of his stay
had learned many things, some good and some bad.

.. _`18`:

They went past Notre Dame to the quai, and
through rows of stalls along the shores of the Seine.
Tomas soon filled the nets, which were hung over
François's shoulders.  Meanwhile the chattering
women, the birds and cages, the flowers, the moving,
many-colored crowd, amused or pleased the boy, but
by no means turned him from his purpose.

"Come!" cried Tomas, and began to elbow his
way through the noisy people on the river-bank.
Presently François got behind him, and noting his
chances with a ready eye, slipped through between
the booths and darted up the Seine.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`IV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   IV

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*Of how the world used François, and of the reward of
virtue.  He makes his first friend.*

.. vspace:: 2

When Tomas, having won his way out of
the press about a fortune-teller, looked
for François, there was a lost choir-boy
and two days' diet gone none knew
whither—least of all the fugitive.  He
moved away with the speed of fear, and was soon in
the somber network of narrow streets which in those
days made a part of the Île de la Cité the refuge of the
finest assortment of thieves, bravos, gypsies, and low
women to be found in any capital of Europe.

His scared looks and decent black suit betrayed
him.  An old fellow issued from a doorway like a
spider.  "Ha, ha, little thief!" he said; "I will buy
thy plunder."

François was well pleased.  He took eagerly the
ten sous offered, and saw the spider poke a long red
beak into the loaded nets as he passed out of sight
in the dark doorway.  François looked at the money.
It was the first he had ever owned.  He walked
away in haste, happy to be free, and so over a bridge
to the Île St. Louis, with its pretty gardens and the
palaces of the great nobles.  At the far end of the
isle he sat down in the sun and watched the red
barges go by, and took no more care for to-morrow
than does a moth just out of its cocoon.  He caught
up the song of a man near by who was mending a
bateau.  He whistled as he cast stones into the water.
It was June, and warm, and before him the river
playing with the sunset gold, and behind him the
dull roar of Paris.  Ah, the pleasure to do as he
would!  Why had he waited so long?

Toward night he wandered back into the Cité, and
saw an old woman selling fried potatoes, and crying,
"Two sous, two sous!"  He asked for thus much,
and received them in the top of his cap.  The hag
took his ten-sou piece, and told him to begone.
Amazed at this bit of villainy, poor François
entreated her to give him his change.  She called him
a thief, and when a dreadful man sallied out of a
wine-shop and made murderous threats, the boy ran
as fast as he could go, and never ceased until he got
to the river again.  There, like Suzanne, he kept
watch for the foes of property, and at last ate his
potatoes, and began to reflect on this last lesson in
morality.  He had stolen many morsels, many
dinners, and his fair share of wine; but to be himself
robbed of his entire means was calculated to enlarge
his views of what is possible in life, and also
undesirable.  The night was warm; he slept well in an
abandoned barge, but woke up early to feel that
liberty had its drawbacks, and that emptiness of stomach
was one of the large family of needs which stimulate
the ingenuity of man or boy.

Quite at a loss, he wandered once more through
the slums of the Cité, and soon lost himself in the
network of narrow streets to the north of the
cathedral, hearing, as he went, strange slang, which his
namesake François Villon would have better understood
than he.  The filth of the roadways and that
of the tongue were here comparable.  Some boys,
seeing his sober suit of the dark cloth worn by the
choir, pelted him with stones.  He ran for his life,
and falling over a man who was sawing wood,
received a kick for remembrance.  Far away he paused
breathless in a dark lane which seemed unpeopled,
and where the houses leaned over like palsied old
scoundrels who whisper to one another of ancient
crime.  Even to a boy the place was of a sudden
terrible.  There was murder in the air.

He felt, without knowing why, the danger of the
place.  A painted creature, half clad, came out of a
house—a base animal whom the accident of sex had
made a woman.  She called to him to come in.  He
turned and went by her in haste and horror.  A man
in a red shirt ran toward him, crying out some
ordures of speech.  As he fled there was a sudden
peopling of window and doorway with half-naked
drunken men and women.  He had never before seen
such faces.  He was in that pit of crime and bestiality
which before long was to overflow and riot in a
limitless debauch of blood.  The boy's long legs served
him well.  He dodged and ran this way and that.
At the mouth of the *cul-de-sac* a lank boy caught him
by the arm.  François struck him fiercely, and with
a sense of joy in the competence of the first blow he
had ever given one of his own years, he fled again;
nor did he pause until, free from foes, he stood
panting in the open sunshine below the great buttresses
of Notre Dame.

He saw here that no one took notice of him, and,
once more at ease, crossed from the Cité to the right
bank of the Seine.  Thus wandering he came at last
to one of the low bridges which spanned the broad
ditches then bounding the Place Louis XV, where
now is the Place de la Concorde.  The ducks and
swans in these canals delighted him.  He lingered,
liking the gaiety and careless joy of the children with
their nurses.  The dogs, acrobats, musketeers, and
the pomp of heavy, painted carriages rolling by with
servants in liveries, the Swiss guards, the magnificence
of the king's palace, were all to him as a new
world might have been.

He went on, and at last along the Rue St. Honoré
and to the Palais Royal, where, amid its splendid
shops, cafés, jugglers, fortune-tellers, and richly clad
people, he forgot for an hour his poor little stomach
and its claims.  By and by he took note of the
success of a blind beggar.  He watched him for an hour,
and knew that he had in this time gathered in sous
at least a franc.  The shrunken stomach of the boy
began to convert its claims into demands, and with
this hint he put on a sad face and began to beg.  It
was not a very prosperous business; but he stated
his emptiness so pitifully, and his voice had such
sweet, pleading notes, that at last he thus acquired
six or eight sous, and retired to the outer gate to
count them.

The imprudence of estimating wealth in public was
soon made clear to him.  He was seated back of the
open grille, his cap on his lap, when a quick, clawlike
hand, thrust between the railings, darted over his
shoulder, and seized two thirds of his gains.  He
started up in time to see that the thief was the blind
beggar, who was away and lost in the crowd and
among the horses and carriages, to all appearances
in excellent possession of the sense of sight.  Pursuit
was vain.  Francois's education was progressing.  Most
lads thus tormented by fate would have given way
to rage or tears.  François cried out, "*Sathanas!*"
not knowing as yet any worse expletive, and burst
into a roar of laughter.  At least there were three
sous left, and these he put into his pocket.  His
lessons were not over.  The crowd thinned at noon, and
he rose to go in search of food.  At this moment a
gentleman in very gorgeous dress, with ruffles, sword,
and a variety of dazzling splendors, went by, and at
the boy's feet let fall a lace handkerchief.  François
seized it, and stood still a moment.  Then he put it
in his breast, and again stood still.  To take food is
one thing; to steal a handkerchief is quite another.
He was weak with hunger, but he had three sous.
He ran after the gentleman, and cried:

"Here is your handkerchief!"

"A very honest lad," said its owner; "you will
do well in the world "; and so went his way, leaving
to virtue the proverbial reward of virtue.  This time
François did not laugh.  In the Rue St. Honoré he
bought some boiled beans for two sous, and retired
to eat them in peace on the steps of St. Roch.  Soon
he saw a woman with a tin pan come out of a little
shop and after her a half-grown black poodle.  She
set down the pan, and left the dog to his meal.
François reconnoitered cautiously, and giving the
dog a little kick, fled with the pan, and was shortly
safe in an unfrequented passage behind the church.
Here he found that he was master of a chop and a
half-eaten leg of chicken.  He had eaten the chop and
some crusts, as well as the beans, when he became
aware of the black poodle, which, being young, still
had confidence in human nature, and now, with sense
of ownership, thrust his black nose in the pan of
lessening viands.

François laughed gaily.  The touch of friendly
trust gave the lonely boy a thrill of joy, and, with
some reluctance doubtless, he gave the dog what was
left, feeding him in bits, and talking as a comrade to
a comrade.  The poodle was clearly satisfied.  This
was very delightful society, and he was receiving
such attention as flatters a decent dog's sense of his
social position.  The diet was less than usual, but
the company was of the best, and inspired the
extreme of confidence.  There is a charm of equality as
between dog and boy.  Both are of Bohemia.  The
poodle stood up when asked to beg.  He was invited
to reveal his name.  He received with the
sympathetic sadness of the motionless tail the legend of
François's woes.

When at last François rose, the dog followed him
a little way, saying plainly, "Where thou goest I will
go."  But the unlicked pan needed attention; he
turned back to the fleshpots.  Seeing himself
deserted, a vague sadness came upon François.  It was
the shadow of an uncomprehended emotion.  He
said, "Adieu, *mon ami!*" and left the little black
fellow with his nose in the pan.

An hour of wandering here and there brought
François to the palisades around the strong
foundations of the new church of the Madeleine.  Beyond
were scattered country houses, the Pépinières of the
king, and the great English garden of Monceaux
belonging to the Duc d'Orléans.  This fascinating
stretch of trees and green and boundless country
was like a heavenly land to the boy.  No dream
could be more strange.  He set out by the Rue de la
Pologne, and at last went with timid doubt through
the *barrière*, and was soon in the open country.  To
his surprise, he heard a yap at his side, and there
was the little black poodle, apparently as well pleased
as he.  François had no scruples as to ownership.
*Mon Dieu!* had he stolen the dog, or had the dog
stolen him?  They ran along happy, the boy as little
troubled as the dog by questions of conscience.  The
country was not productive of easily won food, but
a few stolen plums were to be had.  A girl coming
from milking gave a jug of milk, which François,
despite keen hunger, shared with his friend.  When
a couple of miles from Paris, he sat down to rest by
the roadside.  The dog leaped on to his lap, and the
boy, as he lay in the sun, began to think of a name
for this new friend.  He tried merrily all the
dog-names he could think of; but when at last he called,
"Toto!" the poodle barked so cordially that
François sagaciously inclined to the belief that he must
have hit upon the poodle's name.  "Toto it shall be,"
he cried.  All that day they wandered joyfully,
begged a crust, and at night slept in an orchard,
the poodle clasped to the boy's bosom—a pair of
happy vagabonds.

When, next day, the pair of them, half starved,
were disconsolately returning toward Paris, an old
woman bade François earn a few sous by picking
strawberries.  But the dog must not range the garden;
he should be tied in the kitchen.  François worked
hard at the matter in hand, taking good toll of the
berries, and at noon went back with the old dame to
her cottage.

"It is five sous, *mon garçon*, and a bowl of milk
thou shalt have, and a bit of meat; and how merry
thou art!"

Alas! as she opened the door the poodle fled past
her with a whole steak in his mouth.  Hot it was,
but of such delicate savor that it gave him courage
to hold on.  The old woman threw a stool after him,
and cried out in wrath that they were both thieves.
Then she turned on poor François with fury and a
broom, so that he had scarce time to leap the fence
and follow the dog.  He found him at last with his
rather dusty prize; and seeing no better thing to do,
he went deep into a wood, and there filled himself as
he had not done for days.  The brigand Toto had
his share, and thus reinforced, they set out again to
return to Paris.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`V`:

.. class:: center large bold

   V

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*Of the immorality which may come of an empty
stomach, and of how François became acquainted with a
human crab.*

.. vspace:: 2

This nomad life was sadly uncertain; but
Toto was a sharp forager, and what
with a sou begged here and there, and
the hospitality of summer, for a while
they were not ill contented.  But at last
François passed two days of such lean living as set
his wits to work.  There was clearly no help for it,
and with a rueful face he entered the shop whence
Toto had followed his uncertain fortunes.

The owner was a pleasant little woman who took
honesty for granted.  Yes, it was her dog; and how
long he had been gone!  Here was a great piece of
twenty sous; and where did he find the poodle?
François declared that he lived near by and knew
the dog.  He had found him in the Rue du Faubourg
St. Lazare.  And was it so far away as that?  He
must be tired, and for his honesty should be well fed.
Thus, rich as never before, and with a full stomach,
he left Toto tied up, and went out into the world
again, lonely and sad.

Needless is it to describe his wanderings, or to
relate how the lonely lad acquired the sharp ways of a
gamin of the streets.  For a while he begged or stole
what food he required.  Some four months later, a
combination of motives led him into theft which was
not mere foraging.

On a cold November day he was again in the
crowded gardens and arcades of the Palais Royal.
He was shabby enough by this time, and was sharply
reminded by the cool nights of the need for shelter.
By chance his eye lighted on the man who shammed
blindness and had stolen his precious sous.  The
beggar was kneeling, cap in hand, with closed eyes,
his head turned upward, entreating pity for his
loss of sight.  There were some sous in his cap.  A
François passed he made believe to add another sou,
and as he did so deftly scooped up the greater part
of the coins.

The blind man cried out; but the boy skipped
aside, laughing, well aware that for the beggar to
pursue him would be hardly advisable, as he might
lose more than he could gain.

A few sous were of small account.  They insured
a meal, but not a lodging.  As he was thus reflecting,
he saw near by and presently beside him the gentleman
who had so highly appreciated the return of his
handkerchief.  The coat pockets were large in those
days, and the crowd was great.  A little white corner
of lace besought Master François, crying, "I am food
and lodging for thee!"  Whereupon it was done, and
a lace handkerchief changed owners.

It cannot be said that these downward steps cost
François any moral discomfort.  He grinned as he
thought of the beggar's perplexity, and laughed
outright as he felt how complete had been his own joy
in the satisfaction of possession could he have made the
owner of the kerchief understand that he had suffered
not merely a theft, but the punishment of injustice.

François was now too well versed in the ways of the
street-boy, too dirty and too ragged, to fear the Cité.
Thither he went, and found a thieves' shop, where he
sold the handkerchief, and got ten francs for what
was worth thirty.

The question of a place where he could be sure of
a bed was his first consideration on coming into his
fortune.  In the long, warm summers of France one
who was not particular could find numerous
roosting-places, but in winter a more constant home was
to be desired.

In the Cité François had occasionally lodged here
and there when he could afford to pay, and had been
turned out when he had no more sous.  Now, being
affluent, and therefore hard to please, he wandered
until he came upon the lodging-house of an old
woman in the Rue Perpignan.  He knew of her as
a dealer in thieves' goods, and as ever ready to shelter
the lucky—and, it was suspected, as willing to betray
those who were persistently unfortunate.

What drew him to this woman's house it were hard
to tell.  She was repulsive in appearance, but,
strangely enough, was clean as to her person, dress,
and abode.  Asylum life had taught François to be
cleanly.  He declares in his memoirs that he was by
habit neat, and that it was the absence of dirt which
first tempted him into a relation which was so largely
to affect his after life.

When he became one of this woman's lodgers he
took a step which was for him of moment.  Now for
the first time he was to be in the company of old and
practised thieves; but he was not yet of an age to be
troubled as to the future or to reflect upon the past.
The horizon of youth is small.

He found plenty of masters to educate him in the
evil business into which he had been driven by
relentless fate.  Never was pupil more ready.  His
hostess appreciated the cleverness of her new lodger,
but it was long before he himself realized how
strange was the aspect and how sinister the nature
of this mother of evil.

Certain historical epochs create types of face.  This
was a period which manufactured many singular
visages.  None was more strange than that which
Mme. Quatre Pattes carried on a body quite as
remarkable.  François speaks of her over and over in
his memoirs, and dwells upon the peculiarities of her
appearance.  I recall well what he said to me, one
evening, of this creature:

"You see, monsieur, I went to one den of thieves
and another until I chanced upon the Crab.  It is
not to be described; for here in a little room was a
witch, crumpled and deformed, sharply bent forward
as to the back from the waist, and—ah, *diablement*
thin!  She was cleanly and even neat, and her room
was a marvel, because over there in the Cité men were
born and lived and died, and never saw a clean thing.
And she was of a strangeness—consider, monsieur;
imagine you a bald head, and a lean face below, very
red, and the skin drawn so tight over the bones as to
shine.  Her eyes were little and of a dull gray; but
they held you.  Her lips were lean, and she kept them
moving in a queer way as if chewing.  I did laugh
when first I saw her, but not often afterward."

When he confided to this clean and horrible
creature what he wanted, she made him welcome.  She
rattled the two sticks which her bent form made
needful for support.  She would house him cheaply;
but he must be industrious—and to sell a lace
handkerchief for ten francs—*tonnerre*!  He needed
caution.  She would be a *bonne maman* to him—she,
Quatre Pattes, "four paws"; the Crab, they called
her, too, for short, and because of her red leanness and
spite; but what was her real name he did not learn
for many a day.  At first her appearance excited in
his mind no emotion except amazement and mirth.
A terrible old crab it was when she showed her
toothless gums and howled obscenities, while her
sticks were used with strange agility.  The quarter
feared her.  M. François had a fortune in his face,
she said; and did he know the *savate*, the art to
kick?  There was a master next door.  And again,
what a face!  With that face he might lie all day,
and who would disbelieve him?  Better to fetch her
what he stole.  She would see that no one cheated
him but herself, and that would be ever so little.
One must live.  When she laughed, which was not
often, François felt that a curse were more gay.
There were devil-women in those days, as the mad
world of Paris soon came to know; and the Crab,
with her purple nose and crooked red claws, was
of the worst.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`VI`:

.. class:: center large bold

   VI

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*Of how François regained a lost friend, and of his
adventure with the poet Horace and another gentleman.*

.. vspace:: 2

Thus François was launched on what he
was pleased to call the business of life,
and soon became expert in the transfer
of property.  Strange to say, he had
little pleasure in the debauchery of
successful crime, and was too good-natured to like
violence.  When he had enough for his moderate wants
he wandered in the country, here and there, in an
aimless, drifting way.  Simple things gave him
pleasure.  He could lie in the woods or on the highway
half a day, only moving to keep in the sun.  He liked
to watch any living creature—to see the cows feed,
to observe the birds.  He had a charm for all animals.
When the wagons went by, dogs deserted them, and
came to him for a touch and a word.  Best of all it
was to sit beside some peasant's beehive, finding there
no enmity, and smiling at the laborious lives he had no
mind to imitate.  Sometimes he yearned for the lost
poodle, and had a pang of loneliness.  That this man
should have had gentle tastes, a liking for nature, a
regard for some of the decencies of life, will not
surprise those who know well the many varieties of the
young criminal class; neither will these be amazed to
learn that now and then he heard mass, and crossed
himself devoutly when there was occasion.  Children
he fascinated; a glance of his long, odd face would
make them leave nurse and toy, and sidle up to him.
In the Cité these singularities made him avoided, while
his growing strength caused him to be feared.  He
sought no friends among the thieves.  "Very
prudent, that," said Mme. Quatre Pattes; "the more
friends, the more enemies."

He was quick and active, and a shrewd observer;
for the hard life of the streets had sharpened his
naturally ready wits, and he looked far older than his
years.  Of a Sunday in May he was walking down
the Rue St. Honoré, feeling a bit lonely, as was not
often the case, when he saw Toto.  He whistled, and
the poodle ran to him, and would no more of the
shop or fat food he liked.

"Toto!  *Mon Dieu*!" he laughed, hugging the dog,
his eyes full with the tears of joy.  "Hast stolen me
again!  Wilt never return me?  'T is no honest dog.
*Viens donc*.  Come, then, old friend."  Joyous in the
company of his comrade, who was now well grown,
he strolled out into the fields, where Toto caught a
rabbit—a terrible crime in those days.

During the next two years the pair fairly prospered.
François, as he used to relate, having risen
in his profession, found a certain pleasure in good
clothes, and being of a dramatic turn, could put
on an air of bourgeois sobriety, or, with a sword
at his side and a bit of lace here and there,
swagger as a lesser gentleman.  If things were very
bad, he sold Toto and all his fine tricks for a round
sum, and in a day or two was sure to find the dog
overjoyed and back again at the garret door.  The
pair were full of devices.  There was Toto, a plated
snuff-box in his mouth, capering before some old
gentle or some slow-pacing merchant; appears
François, resistlessly smiling.

"Has monsieur lost a snuff-box?  My dog?  Yes,
monsieur.  He is honest, and clever too."

Monsieur, hastily searching, produces his own
snuff-box—the indispensable snuff-box of the day.

"No; thanks."  And it is noted that the box he
shows is of gold, and into what pocket it falls.  In
the next crowd Toto knows how to make a disturbance
with some fat lap-dog, and in the confusion
thus created the snuff-box changes owners.

"If the man be sorry, I at least am made happy,"
says François; "and he hath been the better for a
lesson in caution.  I got what I needed, and he what
he required.  Things are very even in this
world."  François had learned philosophy among the curés
and priests of the choir-house.  As he avoided great
risks, and, as I have said, was averse to violence, he
kept clear of detection, and could deceive the police
of the king if by rare chance he were in peril of
arrest.  When the missing property was some minor
article, such as a handkerchief, it was instantly hid
in Toto's mouth.  The dog skipped away, the
outraged master was searched; the bewildered owner
apologized, and the officers were shocked at such a
needless charge.  François talked about his offended
honor, and as he looked at twenty to be a strong
man of full age, the affair was apt to go no further.

Half the cleverness and thought thus devoted to
an ignoble pursuit would have given him success in
more honest ways.  But for a long while no angel
chance tempted him, and it must be admitted that he
enjoyed the game he pursued, and was easily
contented, not eagerly caring to find a less precarious
and less risky mode of life.

Temperament is merely a permanent mood.  François
was like the month of June in his dear Paris.
There might be storms and changes, but his mental
weather had the pleasant insurance of what was in the
order of despotic nature.  And yet to be owner of the
continual sunshine of cheerfulness has its drawbacks.
It deprives a man of some of the wholesome lures of
life.  It dulls the spurs which goad us to resolve.  It
may make calamity too easy of endurance.  To be too
consistently cheerful may be in itself a misfortune.
It had for this vagrant all its values and some of its
defects.  His simple, gay existence, and his flow of
effervescent merriment, kept him happy and thoughtless.
Most persons of this rare type like company;
but François was an exception.  He was better
pleased to be alone with his dog, and usually desired
no other society.  As the poodle could not talk, his
master was given to making answer for him, and
finding no one to his taste among the Crab's villainous
lodgers, kept to himself, and was satisfied.  Nor
did he ever appear to have imagined what the larger
world he knew not held of such human society as
would have comforted that sense of void in his heart
which he acknowledged at times, but had no way
to fill.  When fortune played him some sorry trick,
he laughed, and unconsciously quoted La Rochefoucauld.
"Toto, ah, my Toto, one can never be as
cunning as everybody."  This was apropos of an incident
which greatly amused him.

He was in his favorite resort, the Palais Royal, one
June morning, and was at this time somewhat short
of cash.  The Crab had preached him a sharp sermon
on his lack of industry, and he had liked neither the
sermon nor the preacher.  At this moment a young
fellow in fine clothes came by.  François, producing,
as usual, a gaudy snuff-box worth some ten francs,
politely asked of monsieur had he lost this box.
Monsieur took it in his hand.  Yes, yes; he had just
missed it, the gift of his god-father, and was much
obliged.  He let it fall into his pocket, and walked
away.  François looked after him.  "Toto, *nous
sommes volés*—we are sold!"  Then the fun of it, as
usual, overcame him, and he wandered away to the
garden of the Luxembourg, and at last threw himself
on a bench, and laughed as a child laughs, being for
moments quiet, and then given over to uncontrolled
mirth.  Having feasted with honest comfort on all
the humorous aspects of the situation, his hand
chanced to fall on a little book left by some one on
the seat.  He had long ceased to read, for no books
fell in his way, nor could he often have afforded to
buy them even had he had a keen appetite for their
contents.

.. _`FRANÇOIS AND TOTO IN THE LUXEMBOURG`:

.. figure:: images/img-037.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: FRANÇOIS AND TOTO IN THE LUXEMBOURG.

   FRANÇOIS AND TOTO IN THE LUXEMBOURG.

The little vellum-bound volume opened to his
touch, as if used to be generous of what it held.  It
was Latin, and verse.  He knew, or had known,
more than most choir-boys needed of this tongue,
and the talk of the choir-house was, by stringent
rule, in Latin.  But this book was not of a religious
kind; it half puzzled his mind as he read.
Unaccustomed to profane Latin verse, and yet wholly
pleased, he began to murmur aloud the rhythmic
measures:

   |  "Poseimus, si quid vacui sub umbrâ
   |  Lusimus tecum, quod et hunc in annum
   |  Vivat, et plures: age, dic Latinum,
   |      Barbite, carmen.
   |

"It hath a fine sound, *mon ami*; and who was this
Quintus?"  He went on reading aloud the delicious
rhythms for the joy of hearing their billowy flow.
Now and then he smiled as he caught the full
meaning of a line.

The keen-faced poodle sat on the bench beside
him, with a caressing head laid against his shoulder;
the sun was sweet and warm, the roses were many.
The time suited the book, and the book the man.
He read on, page after page of the beautiful Aldine
type, now and then pausing, vexed to be so puzzled
by these half-guessed beautiful riddles.

"Toto, my dog, I would thou didst know Latin.
This man he loved the country, and good wine, and
girls; and he had friends—friends, which you and
I have not."

Then he was lost for an hour.  At last he ceased
to read, and sat with a finger in the book, idly
drifting on the immortal stream of golden song.

"That must have been a merry companion, Toto.
I did hear of him once in the choir-house.  He must
be dead a mighty while ago.  If a man is as gay as
that, it must be horrid to die."

My poor thief was one of the myriad who through
the long centuries had come into kindly touch of the
friend of Mæcenas.  For the first time in his
uncertain life he felt the charm of genius.

Indulgent opportunity was for François always
near to some fatal enmity of chance.  So does fate
deal with the unlucky.  He saw coming swiftly
toward him a tall, strongly built man of middle age.
He was richly dressed, and as he drew near he smiled.

"Ah, monsieur," he said; "I came back in haste to
reclaim my little Horace.  I missed it only when I
got home.  I am most fortunate."

François rose.  He returned the small volume, but
did not speak.

"Monsieur of course knows Horace," said the
gentleman, looking him over, a little curious and more
than a little interested.  Too sure of his own
position to shun any intercourse which promised
amusement, he went on: "No; not know Horace?  Let us
sit awhile.  The sun is pleasant."

François, rather shy, and suspicious of a manner
of man he had never before encountered, sat down,
saying, "I was a choir-boy once.  I know some Latin,
not much; but this sounded pleasant to the ear."

"Yes; it is immortal music.  A choir-boy, you
said; and pardon me, but, *mon Dieu*, I heard you
laugh as I was searching for my book.  You have a
fine gift that way, and there is little to laugh at
nowadays in France."

"Monsieur will excuse me; I am so made that I
laugh at everything and at nothing.  I believe I do
laugh in my sleep.  And just now I laughed
because—because—"

"Well, why did you laugh?"

François glanced at the questioner.  Something
authoritative in his ways made it seem needful to
answer, and what this or any man thought of him
he cared little—perhaps because in his world
opinions went for nothing.  And still he hesitated a
moment.

"Well?"  There was a note of strong surprise in
the voice, as if the owner felt it to be unusual that a
query he put should not evoke instant reply.

"I laughed because I was cheated."

"Charming, that!  May I ask how?  But perhaps—"

"No," said François; "if it amuse monsieur, why
should I care?"  He calmly related his adventure.

The gentleman threw himself back on the seat in
an ecstasy of amusement.  He was out of humor
with the time and with his own world, and bored by
the incessant politics of the day; here was a pleasant
diversion.

"By St. Denis! my friend, you are like the great
Chicot that was fool to King Henry of merry
memory."

"And how, monsieur?"

"How?  He had a long face that laughed ever,
long legs, and a shrewd way of seeming more simple
than he was."

"Monsieur flatters me."

"Ah, and a smart rogue, too.  I may conclude your
profession to be that of relieving the rich of their too
excessive luxuries."

François was enchanted with this ingenious and
unprejudiced companion, who had, like himself, a
sense of the laughable aspects of life.

"Monsieur has hit it," he said gaily; "I am a
thief."

No one had taught him to be ashamed of anything
but failure in his illegal enterprises.

"*Tiens*!  That is droll;—not that you are a thief:
I have known many in my own world.  They steal a
variety of things, each after his taste in theft—the
money of the poor, the character of a man, a woman's
honor."

"I scarcely comprehend," said François, who was
puzzled.

"They lack your honesty of confession.  Could
you be altogether honest if a man trusted you?"

"I do not know.  No man ever trusted me, and
one must live, monsieur."

The gentleman hesitated, and relapsed into the
indifference of a too easy life.  He had been on the
point of offering this outcast a chance.

"*Enfin*, no doubt you are right.  I wish you every
success.  The deuce!  Have you my snuff-box and
my handkerchief?"

"Both," said François.

"Then don't run away.  I could never catch you.
Long legs must be of use in your profession.  The
snuff-box I will ransom.  Let us say fifty francs.  It
is worth more, but it bears my name, and there are
risks."

"Certainly," said François.  "And the handkerchief.
Monsieur is *enrhumé*—has a cold; I could
not deprive monsieur."

The gentleman thanked him, paid over the money
for the box, and, greatly pleased, rose, saying: "You
are a dangerous acquaintance; but I trust we may
meet again.  *Au revoir!*"

François remained on the bench, Toto at his feet
in the sun.  This meeting affected him strangely.  It
had been the first touch of a world remote from his
own.  He did not recognize the fact that he had gifts
which enable men to rise in life.  At times he had had
vague ambitions, but he was at the foot of a ladder,
and the rungs above were broken or not to be seen.
These moods were brief, and as to their cause not
always clear to him.  He was by nature social, and
able to like or to love; but the people of the Cité
were dreadful, and if now and then some broken
refugee from a higher class delighted him for a time,
the eventful hand of justice or what not was apt to
separate them.

As he looked after the gentleman he felt his charm
and the courtesy of his ways as something to be
desired.  His own form of attractiveness, the influence
of joyous laughter and frank approach, he had often
and usefully tested; and perhaps this sense of his own
power to please made him intelligently apprehensive
of what he had just experienced.  Had he seized
eagerly the half-offered help the gentleman suggested
rather than offered, he had been wiser; but it was
literally true that, being when possible honest as to
speech, he had obeyed the moment's impulse.  A
better man than the gentleman would have gone further.
He had lazily reflected, and concluded that to help
this poor devil might be troublesome, and thus the
jewel opportunity lay lost at their feet.  They were
to meet again, and then it was to be the thief's turn.

Now he sat in thought, kicking the ground with
his boot.  Out of the past came remembrances of the
asylum, and how he had been told to be good, and
not to kill or to steal, or to do certain other naughty
things less clear to him then than now.  But this
was a far-away time.  At the choir-house were the
same moral lessons, but they who taught were they
who sinned.  Since then no one had said a word of
reproach to the waif; nor had this great gentleman,
and yet he had left him in the rare mood of
thought-filled depression.

"Wake up, Toto," he cried; "thou art become too
fat.  *En avant aux champs!*"  And, followed by the
poodle, he went away up the Seine, and was gone so
long that Quatre Pattes began to think he had taken
to honest courses and would return no more.

He came back in a fortnight, the better for certain
prosperous ventures.  And thus the days ran on.  If
fortune were against him, and even diet hard to get,
Toto went with the Crab to some distant market
after dusk, and, while she bargained, knew to steal
a cutlet, and to run away with his prize, and make
for home or the next dark lane.  But these devices
failed at times, and thus François's life consisted of
a series of ups and downs.  When lucky he bought
good clothes, for which he had a liking; when
unlucky he pawned them, and went back to garments
no one would take in pledge.

It was in the year 1788 that this adventure
occurred.  He was, as far as was to be guessed, fully
twenty-one years of age.  His life of adventure, of
occasional hardships, and of incessant watchfulness
had already given him the appearance of being a far
older person.

Always an odd-looking lad, as he grew to maturity
his great length of limb, his long face, and ears of
unnatural bigness, gave him such singularity of
aspect as made disguises impossible.

The poodle was an added danger, and for this
reason, when in pursuit of prey, François was forced
to leave the dog with Mother Crab.  Thus time ran
on with such perils as attend the life he led, but with
better fortune than could have been expected.  As to
these later years up to 1790, François, in his memoirs,
says little.  Once—indeed, twice—he left the Crab's
house, only to be driven back by stress of circumstance.
After 1790 his account is more complete, and
here it is that we take up again the fuller story of
his life.

The turmoil of vast governmental and social
changes was disturbing all ranks of life.  If the
Revolution was nursed in the salons, as some say,
it was born in the furrows of the tax-tormented
peasant, and in the seething caldron of the Cité and
the quarters of the starving poor.

François, who cared little what ruler was on top,
or who paid taxes, was aware of the uneasy stir in his
own neighborhood.  Men were more savage.  Murder
and all violent crimes were more common.  That
hungry beast, the mob, began to show its fangs, soon
to be red with blood.  The clubs of all opinions were
busy.  The church was toppling to ruin, its centuries
of greedy gain at an end.  Political lines were
sharply drawn.  The white cockade and the tricolor
were the badges of hostile ranks, still more distinctly
marked by costume.  The cafés were divided: some
were Royalist, some Jacobin or neutral.  Too many
who were of the noble class were flying, or, if more
courageous or less forethoughtful, were gathering
into bitterly opponent camps.  So much of that lower
Paris as felt, yearned, hated, and was hungry, glad
of any change, was pleased amid tumult to find its
chance to plunder and to kill.

The fall of the Bastille in the preceding year had
not seemed important to François.  He had interested
himself in the purses of the vast crowd which
looked on and was too much taken up with the event
to guard the contents of its pockets.  The violence
which came after was not to François's taste; but
these street crowds were admirable for business until
money became scarce, and the snuff-box and the lace
handkerchief disappeared with armorial bearings,
and with the decree of the people that great dames
must no more go in fine carriages.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`VII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   VII

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*Wherein is told how François saved a man's neck and
learned to juggle.*

.. vspace:: 2

In the early spring of this year François
found himself, one day, in a crowd near
to the Porte St. Denis.  He stood high
on his long legs, looking on, while men
on ladders broke up the royal escutcheon
on the stone archway.  It amused him a little to see
how furious they were, and how crazy were the
foolish *poissardes*: these fishwomen, who had so many
privileges under the monarchy, at every blow of the
hammer yelled with delight; and behold, here was
the Crab, Quatre Pattes, far away from her quarter,
hoarse with screaming, a horrible edition of woman
as she stood under the arch, careless of the falling
fragments.  On the edge of the more prudent crowd,
an old man was guilty of some rash protest in the
way of speech.  François heard the cry, "*À bas
l'aristocrate! à la lanterne!*" and saw the Crab leap on
the man like some fierce insect, horribly agile, a thin
gray tress down her back.  Swift and terrible it was.
In a moment he swung writhing from the chain of
the street-lantern, fighting with vain hands to loosen
the rope.  A red-haired woman leaped up and caught
his leg.  There was laughter.  The man above her
hung limp.  François did not laugh.  He tried to
get out of the crowd, away from this quivering
horror.  To do so was not easy.  The crowd was noisy
and turbulent, swaying to and fro, intent on mischief.
As he moved he saw a small, stout man take, with
some lack of skill, a purse from the side-pouch of a
huge fishwoman.  François, being close to the thief, saw
him seized by the woman he had robbed.  In the press,
which was great, François slipped a hand into the
thief's pocket, and took out the purse.  Meanwhile
there were again wild cries of "To the lantern!"
"Up with him!" the woman lamenting her loss, and
denouncing the man who had stolen.  His life was
like to be brief.  Surrounded by these she-devils, he
stood, white, shaking, and swearing he was innocent.
The man's anguish of fear moved François.  "*Dame!*"
he cried, "search the man before you hang him!  I
say, search him!"  While one of them began to act
on his hint, François let the purse fall into the
pocket of the original owner—an easy feat for a
practised hand.  "The man has it not.  Look again
in thy pouch, maman," he cried.  "The man has it
not; that is plain."  When the dame of the market
found her purse, she turned on François, amid the
laughter of her friends.  "Thou art a confederate.
Thou didst put it back thyself."  Indeed, things were
like to go ill.  The crowd was of a mind to hang
some one.  A dozen hands fell on him, while the
man he had aided slipped away quietly.  François
shook off the women, and with foot and fist cleared
a space, for he was of great strength of body.  He
would have earned but a short reprieve had he not
seen the Crab.  He called to her: "*À moi*!  Quatre
Pattes!"  The ring of red-faced furies fell back
for a moment before the rage and power of a man
defending his life.  Half dismayed, but furious, they
shouted: "Hang him!  rail him!" and called to the
men to help them.  Again François was hustled and
struck as the crowd closed in on him.  He struggled,
and called to Toto, whom nothing so disturbed as to
see a rude touch laid on his master.  In an instant
the dog was busy with the stout calves about him,
biting, letting go, and biting again.  The diversion
was valuable, but brief; and soon Toto, who was not
over-valiant, fled to his master, the crowd yelling:
"Kill him!  Hang him and the beast!"  Once more
François exerted his exceptional strength, crying,
"Not while I live!" and catching up the dog under
his arm.  Then he heard the shrill voice of the Crab.
"*À moi!*" he shouted, and struck right and left as
Quatre Pattes, with her sticks, squirmed in under the
great arms of the fishwomen.

"*À moi!*" she cried, "François!"  With her sticks,
and tongue of the vilest, she cleared a space as the
venomous creatures fell back from one more hideous
than themselves.

Meanwhile the accusing dame shook her purse at
the Crab, crying, "He put it back; I felt him do it."  But
the rest laughed, and the Crab faced her with so
fierce a look that she shrank away.

"Off with thee!" said the Crab to François; "thou
wert near to the lantern."

"'T is a Jacobin of the best," she cried to the mob;
"a friend of mine.  You will get into trouble—you
cursed fools!"

The crowd cheered her, and François, seizing the
chance, cried, laughing, "Adieu, mesdames," and in a
moment was out of the crowd and away.  He turned
as many corners as possible, and soon, feeling it safe
to move more slowly, set down the dog and readjusted
his dress.

A minute later he saw beside him the man he had
saved.  "Do not speak to me here," he said; "follow
me at a distance."  The man, still white and shaking,
obeyed him.  At the next turn, as François paused in
doubt which way to go, he met Quatre Pattes.

"The devil nearly got thee, my little boy," she
said; "but a smart thief is worth some trouble to
save.  Pay me for thy long neck, and quick, too."  She
was full *eau-de-vie*, and, as usual then, savage
and reckless.

"More!" she cried—"more!" as he gave her a
franc.  "More, more!  Ungrateful beast, thou art
good to feed me, and for little else.  More, more!  I
say, or I will call them after thee, and this time I
shall have a good pull at the rope.  More, more!"
and she struck him with her stick.  "*Sacré*, waif of
hell!  More! more!" she screamed.  "And that
fellow who helped thee!  I have seen him; I know him."

François turned without a word, and ran as fast as
his long legs would carry him.  Two blocks away he
was overtaken by the other thief.  They pushed on
in silence.

At last François, getting back his somewhat
scattered wits, said: "We can talk now."

"Ah, I understand," said the other; "thou didst
steal her purse from me, and put it back in her
pouch."

"Yes; I took it just as they caught thee; then I
let it fall into her pouch."

"I thank thee, monsieur.  *Dieu*!  I am all in a sweat.
We are of a trade, I perceive.  Why didst thou help me?"

"To keep it was a risk.  My turn might have come
next.  I pitied thee, too."

"I shall never forget it—never."

François laughed.  The fat man looked up at him.
"*Dame!* but thou hast a queer face, and ears like
wings.  'T is a fortune.  Let us have a little wine
and talk.  I have a good idea."

"Presently," said François; "I like not the neighborhood."

Soon they found a *guinguette*, or low liquor-shop,
in the Rue Neuve des Petits Champs, and, feeling at
last secure, had a long talk over a bottle of wine.

François learned that his new acquaintance was
named Pierre Despard, and that he had, for the most
part of his means of living, given up the business of
relieving the rich of their purses.  He explained that
he did well as a conjurer, and had a booth near the
Pont Neuf.  He made clear to François that with his
quick fingers, and a face which none could see and
not laugh, he would be a desirable partner.

"Thou must learn to move those huge ears."  Would
he be his assistant?  When times were bad
they might profit by tempting chances in their old
line of life.

François was just now as near to penitence as his
nature permitted him to be, and his recent peril
disposed him to listen.  The more he reflected as
Despard talked, the more he liked it.  He ended by
saying, "Yes"; and before the Crab had reached home
he had taken away his slender store of garments,
and, with Toto at his heels, found his way to the
room of his new friend, in a little street which ran
into the Rue Basse du Rempart, not far from the
Madeleine.  Thus began a mode of life which he
found fresh and full of satisfaction.

The pair so strangely brought together took a
room in the fifth story, and, with Toto, set up
domestic life on a modest scale.  It was much to
François's contentment.  He had what I may call a side
taste for the respectable, and this new business
seemed to him a decided rise in life.  It was varied
enough to amuse him; nor was it so conventionally
commercial as to lack such adventure and incident
as this wild young reprobate of the Cité had learned
to like.  The new business soon gave the partners
more than enough to live upon.  After their lodging
and diet were provided for, Pierre Despard took two
thirds of what was left, and put it away in a
stocking, at first with some doubt as to his comrade, but
soon with the trust which François was apt to
inspire.  From early morn until noon, Pierre taught
François to do tricks with cards, to juggle with balls,
and to tell fortunes by the lines of the hand.  Toto
was educated to carry a basket and collect sous, to
stand on his head with a pipe in his mouth, and to
pick out a card at a signal.  The rest of the day was
spent in the booth, where they rarely failed to be
well paid.  At evening there was a quiet café and
dominoes, and a modest *petit verre* of brandy.
Meanwhile the peasants burned châteaux, and Protestant
and Catholic hanged one another in the pleasant
South.

.. _`PIERRE TAUGHT FRANÇOIS TO JUGGLE WITH BALLS`:

.. figure:: images/img-053.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "PIERRE TAUGHT FRANÇOIS TO JUGGLE WITH BALLS."

   "PIERRE TAUGHT FRANÇOIS TO JUGGLE WITH BALLS."

Now and then the Paris mob enjoyed a like luxury,
and amid unceasing disorder the past was swept on
to the dust-heaps of history.

The little audience of children and nurses in front of
the booth was as yet nowise concerned as to these vast
changes; nor was Toto disturbed when it was thought
prudent to robe him with a three-colored ribbon.
The politics of the masters of the show varied as their
audiences changed from the children of the rich at
noon to the Jacobin workmen at the coming of dusk.
François personally preferred splendor and the finery
of the great.  He was by nature a Royalist.  Pierre
was silent or depressed, and said little as to his
opinions.  But both had the prudence of men always
too near to poverty to take risks of loss for the sake
of political sentiments in which they had no
immediate interest.

Despard was a somber little man, and nimble, as
some fat men are.  He was as red-cheeked as a
Norman apple, and, at this time, of unchanging gravity
of face and conduct.  Not even François's gaiety could
tempt him to relate his history; and although at
times a great talker, he became so terrified when
frankly questioned as to his past, that François
ceased to urge him.  That any one should desire to
conceal anything was to François amazing.  He was
himself a valuable possession to his morose partner.

"I do not laugh," said Pierre; "nay, not even as a
matter of business.  Thou shalt laugh for two.  Some
day we will go to see the little girl who is at Sèvres,
in a school of nuns.  'T is there the money goes."

This was a sudden revelation to François.  Here
was a human being, like himself a thief, who was
sacrificing something for another.  The isolation of
his own life came before him with a sense of shock.
He said he should be glad to see the child, and when
should they go?





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`VIII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   VIII

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*In which François discovers the mercantile value of
laughter, and the Crab takes toll of the jugglers—with
the sad history of Despard, the partner.*

.. vspace:: 2

Late in the evenings, in the room they
shared, the practice of the early morning
was resumed, and, above all, Pierre was
overjoyed to see what tricks of feature
were within François's control.  He had,
in fact, some of the art of the actor, and was the
master of such surprises of expression as were irresistibly
comic.  By and by the fame of his wonderful visage
spread, and very often the young nobles, with their
white cockades, came to see, or great ladies would
pause to have their palms read.  When palmistry
was to be used, the booth was closed with black
curtains, between which was seen only this long face,
with the flaring ears and laughing eyes.  Presently
a huge hand came out below, the rest of the figure
remaining unseen.  Then, in the quaintest language,
François related wonderful things yet to be, his large
mouth opening so as to divide the merry face as with
a gulf.

It was a time eager for the new, and this
astonishing mask had a huge success.  The booth grew rich,
and raised its prices, so that soon these two pirates
of the Cité sat in wonder over their gains, and Pierre
began to store up a few louis for a bad day, and for
the future of the little maid at Sèvres, where two or
three of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart had found a
new home, and taken again the charge of some of
their scattered flock.

François was fast learning the art of the conjurer;
but at times, sad to say, he yearned for a chance to
apply his newly acquired dexterity in ways which
were more perilous.  He liked change, and had the
pleasure in risk which is common to daring men.
Indeed, he was at times so restless as to require the
urgent counsels of Pierre to keep him tranquil.
Once or twice he must needs insist on a holiday,
and went away with Toto for two days.  They came
back dirty and happy, but to Pierre's relief.  This
uneasy partner was now essential, and more and
more Jacobin and Royalist crowded about the booth
to get a laugh out of the sight of the face which,
appearing through the curtain with hair brushed up
and long brown beard combed down, suddenly grew
as broad as it had been long.  The laugh into which
it broke was so cheery, so catching, so causeless, that
all who saw fell into fits of merriment such as were
not common in those days of danger and anxiety.

Then the partner appeared in front of the booth.
So many wished the man who laughed to read their
palms that Pierre declared it must be for the highest
bidder.  A gay auction took place; and the winner
heard his fate slyly whispered by the voice of many
tones, or it might be that it was loudly read for the
benefit of the crowd, and, amid cries and jeers, the
victim retired with promise of a wife with a negative
dowry in some unexistent section of Paris.  Or,
again, it was an elderly dame who consulted the voice
of fate.  She was to have three husbands, and die
young.  Then another broad hand came forth, and
on it the black poodle upright, with a handkerchief
to his eyes, and his tail adorned with crape.  It was
witty, innocent, and amusing, and delighted this
Paris, which was becoming suspicious, cruel, and
grimly devilish.

Very soon the business in which laughter was
sold for what it would bring in laughter, and for
what men were willing to pay for an honest grin,
began to have incidents which more than satisfied
François's taste for adventure and greatly troubled
Pierre.  The little room of the two conjurers had
flowers in the window, and a caged bird.  These were
François's luxuries.  Pierre did not care for them.
He had begun to read books about the rights of man,
and bits of "The Friend of the People," by Marat.
When François first knew him he liked to gossip
gravely of what went on, as to the changing fashions,
or as to the new "baptism" of the streets, but of the
serious aspect of the tumbling monarchy was not
inclined to speak.  At times, too, he let it be seen
that he was well educated; but beyond this, François
still learned nothing of his past.  One evening
François, gaily whistling, and with Toto after him,
turned the knob of their chamber door.  There was some
resistance.  He called, "Pierre!" and the door yielded.
He went in.  Two candles were burning on their
little dining-table.  Facing him, in a chair, sat the
Crab, Quatre Pattes, the spine bent forward, the
head tilted up to get sight of Pierre, who was
leaning against the wall back of the door.  Her eyes,
a dusky red, were wide open to enlarge the view
which the bend of her back limited.  The beak
between them was purple.  Her mouth, grim and
lipless, was set in deep, radiating wrinkles, and the
toothless gums were moving as if she were chewing.
Her two wrists rested on the curved handles of her
short canes, and her outstretched hands, lean, eager,
and deformed, were moving like the claws of some
ravenous creature of the jungle.

François looked from her to his partner, Despard.
He was standing as if flattened, his eyes upon the
woman, his palms, outspread, set hard on the wall
behind him, a pitiful image of alarm and hatred.

"*Mon Dieu!*" cried François, "what is all this?
What does this she-devil want?"

"Want!  I want money, vagabond thief!  I saw
thee in the booth yesterday.  We are honest, are
we?  And I know him, too.  Him!" and she pointed
at Pierre, who murmured:

"Kill her!  Take her away!"

François laughed.  "Out of this, hag!" and
he laughed again.

"I know that man," she cried.  "*Sacré*, but he is
scared, the coward!  I remind him of old times.  He
must pay—pay, or I will fetch the police.  He knows
me.  Out with the money!  Empty your pockets!"

François shouted: "What, Mother Puzzlebones,
dost thou think to scare an old dog of the Cité?  Art
fit to be mother-in-law of Satan.  Out with thee!
Out of this, I say!  Here is to buy flesh to cover thy
rattlebone carcass."  He threw two francs before her.

The Crab stood up, and beat with her sticks on the
table.  "No francs!  It is gold I will have—red
louis, or I will set the police on thee, and on the fat
fool yonder.  I will find that girl of his.  She must
be fit to sell by this time.  A beauty was her mother."

"Kill her!  Kill her!" said Pierre, wrath in his
words, fear in their tremor.  Of a sudden he seized
a stool, and, mad with some memory of wrong,
leaped forward.  The Crab faced him with courage,
as François tore away the stool, and pushed him
back.  "No murder here.  Keep quiet, idiot!  And
as to thee, thou gutter Crab, out of this!"

Upon this, Toto set up a dismal howl, and made
at the old woman.  A rousing whack from her stick
sent him howling under the bed, where he sat
pensive.  Then she turned on François.

"Look here," she said; "thou hast some sense.
That ass has none.  Let us talk.  Thou canst give
me money or let it alone.  You both know me.  A
word to the police, and up goes the little show."

"Very likely."

"Then make a bargain.  Pay me, and I hold my
tongue.  No use to call me names."

"Well, let us have peace, and talk," said François.
This threat of the Crab as to the officers of the law
might not be vain; she was quite too well informed;
and there was Pierre, white and furious.  François
foresaw tragedy; comedy was more to his taste.

"What wilt thou have, Quatre Pattes?  We are
poor.  Why threaten thy old lodger?"  He was
eager to get her away, in order to understand
matters.  Too much was dark.  Pierre said no more,
but stood staring, angry and yet afraid.

"A louis a week," cried the Crab.

"Nonsense!  These good geese would soon die
of starvation, and then no more golden eggs.  Here
are ten francs.  Each week thou shalt have five."

"*Nom de Dieu!*" groaned Pierre; "and to kill her
were so easy!"

"Not for thee, coward!" shouted the Crab,
knocking her sticks together for emphasis.

"Kill her!" said Pierre, faintly.

"Nonsense!" said François.  "Come to the booth
for it, Crab; not here, mind you, not here—not a
sou here."

"Adieu, my jolly bankers," cried the hag.  "For
the day this will do; then we shall see."  With this,
the sticks rattled on the tiled floor, and she pattered
out of the door, which François shut after her.

"Behold us, netted like larks!" he said, and broke
into a laugh.

"It is not a thing to laugh at," said Pierre, the
sweat rolling down his face.

"No; perhaps not.  Let us take counsel.  But
what troubled thee?  Shall a crippled old woman
ruin two strong men?"

Pierre groaned, and let his face fall on his palms,
making no reply.

"What is it, my friend?"

"I cannot tell thee now.  It were useless; it would
not help.  God has made the little one safe—safe.
One of these days I may have the courage to tell
thee."

His natural reticence and some too dreadful past
combined to keep him silent.  François was puzzled.
He knew the man to be a coward; but his timidity,
followed by this sudden outbreak of murderous fury,
was inexplicable; nor did he comprehend it fully
until later events revealed to him, as he looked back
at this scene, the nature of the morbid changes which
his partner's character had already begun to feel.
"What does it all mean?" he demanded.

"Ask me no more," said Despard.  "Not now—not
now.  She cannot hurt me or mine.  It is hate,
not fear, I have.  But thou?  Why didst thou pay?"

"For good enough reasons," said François; "but
I can take care of myself."  He was by no means
sure of this.  Nevertheless, he laughed as usual, and
said: "Let us have supper; I cannot think when I
am empty."

No more was said.  They ate in silence, and then
Pierre turned to his "L'Ami du Peuple," and
François to a pipe and to his thoughts.  Must he give up
the booth, and wander?  He knew the Crab well
enough to fear her.  The price of her silence would
rise, and to deny her would bring about disaster.
He began to wish he had been honest.  It was too
late now; but France was large, and, after all, he
could laugh at his own embarrassment.  There was
time to think; he had bought that.

They spoke no further of the Crab; but from this
time Pierre became depressed and suspicious at every
knock on the door.  Quatre Pattes came to the booth
with her usual eagerness, and if she chanced to be
full of bad brandy, and too noisy and unappeasable,
François paid her something out of his own share of
their growing profits.  Had he been alone, he might
have done otherwise; but Pierre was timid, watchful,
and talked sadly of the little one at Sèvres.  How
should he manage if the show came to an end?  It
had not been worth much until François joined him.
Before that he had been starving himself to keep
the child in careful hands.  He became increasingly
melancholy, and this especially in the early mornings.
He was apt to say at night, "A day is gone, and
nothing has happened."

François was courageous, and mocked a little at the
jade Fortune.  "What could happen?"  And yet
this shrinking little man, fat, doleful, and full of
fears, sat heavily upon him; and there, too, was this
child whom he had never seen.  *Peste*!  The children
he had known at the asylum were senseless, greedy
little cattle, all of one make.  Perhaps this girl at
Sèvres was no better.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`IX`:

.. class:: center large bold

   IX

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*In which François tells the fortune of the Marquis de
Ste. Luce and of Robespierre, and has his own fortune
told, and of how Despard saw a man of whom he was
afraid.*

.. vspace:: 2

François was soon to be further amazed
by Pierre Despard.  To the last of his life,
François remembered that day.  A cool
October had stripped the king's
chestnut-trees of their glory as clean as the
king himself was soon to be shorn.  The leaves were
rustling at evening across the Place Louis XV, and
covering the water of the canals.  Here, of late, the
tent-booth had been set up for the benefit of the
better society, which still wore the white cockade of the
Bourbons.  A merry group of the actors of the
Comédie was waiting to see François, the maker of faces.
There were Chenard of the Opéra Comique; Fleury
and Saint-Prix, whose gaiety no prison in after days
could lessen, and no fear of death abate.  "Behold,
there is the great Talma," said Pierre, peeping out;
"and the aristos are many to-day.  Art ready, François?"

François was delighted.  The great Talma here,
and actually to see him—François!  He had of late
been acquiring stage ambitions, and taking great
pains to improve the natural advantages of a face
quite matchless in Paris.

Despard peeped in again.  "Yes, François; they
talk of thee, and there are many in the crowd.  They
gather to see Talma.  There are Jacobins, and thy
friends the aristocrats.  Make thou haste.  Art
ready?"

"Yes, yes," said François.  He felt it to be a great,
an unusual occasion.  He had a bright idea.  He
struck with a stick three times on the floor of the
booth, the traditional signal at the Théâtre Français
for the curtain to rise.  A roar of applause outside
rewarded his shrewd sense of what was due to this
audience.

"*Tiens*!  That is good," said La Rive.

The slit in the curtain opened, and, framed in the
black drapery, appeared a face which seemed to have
come out of the canvas of Holbein.  It was solemn,
and yet grotesque, strong of feature, the face, beard,
and hair white with powder; the eyes were shut.

"*Mon Dieu*," said Talma, "what a mask!  'T is stern
as fate."  The crowd stayed motionless and silent.

"Look! look!" said Fleury.  "'T is a study.  To
smile with closed eyes!  Didst thou ever see a man
smile in sleep, Talma?"

It was pretty and odd.  Little curves of mirthful
change crawled downward from the eyes over the
large, grave features; the ears moved; the eyes opened;
and a storm of liberal laughter broke up the quiet
lines of cheek and mouth.

"Bravo! bravo!" cried Talma and the other
actors, while the crowd burst into a roar of applause
and responsive mirth.

"Angels of fun!" cried Saint-Prix, "what a face!
'T is a gargoyle come down from the roof of
St. Jacques de la Boucherie.  Does it go back of nights?
I wonder what next will he do?"

.. _`'T IS A GARGOYLE COME DOWN FROM THE ROOF OF ST. JACQUES`:

.. figure:: images/img-067.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "''T IS A GARGOYLE COME DOWN FROM THE ROOF OF ST. JACQUES.'"

   "''T IS A GARGOYLE COME DOWN FROM THE ROOF OF ST. JACQUES.'"

"*Tiens*!  Wait," said La Rive.

The white face seen above in the slit of the black
curtain became suddenly serious, with moveless eyes
looking past the audience as if into futurity.  Below
appeared two large hands, scrupulously clean, while
the man's figure remained hidden.  There was
something impressive in this artful pose.

"Fortunes, fortunes, *messieurs et dames*!" cried
Pierre.  "Who will have his hand read?
*Avancez*—come!"

A shrill voice on the outskirts of the crowd cried,
"Read Louis Capet's!"  The white cockades turned
to look.  "It were easy to read," said a tall Jacobin.
A gentleman in the black garments of the unprogressive
noblesse turned: "Your card, citizen, or monsieur,
as you like."  The crowd was scarcely stirred by this
politely managed difference.  It was the year of duels.

Two lads pushed forward their tutor, an abbé, as
was plain to see, although few clerics still ventured
to wear their old costume.  He laughed awkwardly,
and timidly laid a fat, well-fed hand on that of
François's.  The grave face of the reader of palms fell
forward to see the fateful lines.  For a moment
François was silent; then the voice which came from
his stolid visage was monotonously solemn, and the
words dropped from it one by one, as if they were
the mechanical product of some machine without
interest in the results of its own action.  One long,
lean forefinger traversed the abbé's palm, and paused.
"An easy life thou hast had.  A woman has troubled
it."  The two pupils were delighted; the crowd
laughed.  "The line of life is broken—broken"—François's
hands went through the pantomime of the
snapping of a thread—"like that."  The abbé drew
back, and could not be persuaded to hear further.
Again there was a pause.  A grisette advanced
smiling, and was sent away charmed with the gifts a
pleasant future held in store.  Pierre exhorted for
a time in vain.  Presently the crowd made way.  A
slight man in breeches and silk stockings came
forward; he was otherwise dressed in the extreme of the
fashion still favored by the court party, but wore no
cockade, and carried two watches, the heavy seals of
which François greatly desired to appropriate.  His
uneasy eyes were covered with spectacles, and around
them his sallow complexion deepened to a dusky,
dull green.  Altogether this was a singular and not a
pleasant face, or so, at least, thought the palm-reader,
a part of whose cunning was to study the expressions
of those who asked his skill.  The man who laid his
hand on François's looked up at the motionless visage
of the ex-thief.  François said: "Is it for the citizen
alone to hear, or for all?"

"For me—for me."

François's voice fell to a low whisper.

"Let the past go," said the listener; "what of the
future?"

"It is dark.  The lines are many.  They are—citizen,
thou wilt be a ruler, powerful, dreaded.  Thou wilt
have admiration, fame, and at last the hatred of man."

"I—I—what nonsense!  Then?"—and he waited,—"then?
What then?  What comes after!"'

"I will tell thee"; and François whispered.

"No more—no more; enough of such foolishness!"  He
was clearly enough disturbed by what
he had heard.  "Thou must think men fools."

"Fate is always a fool, citizen; but the fools all
win, soon or late."

"That, at least, is true, Master Palmister."  Then
a pair of sinister eyes, set deep behind spectacles,
sought those of François.  "Thou hast a strange face,
Master Palm-reader.  Dost thou believe what thou
dost make believe to read on men's palms?"

"Sometimes."

"Now—now?—this time?"

"Yes; I believe."

"I shall not forget thee."

François felt something like a chill between his
shoulders.  The Jacobin stepped aside after depositing
an ample fee in the basket which Toto presented.

There was a murmur in the crowd.  Several persons
looked with curious eyes after the retreating
man, and the conjurer heard some one say: "*Tiens!
C'est drôle*.  It is Robespierre."  His was at this time
not more than a well-known name.  For a minute
no one else came forward.  François saw Pierre slip
hastily into the tent; he knew not why.  A
gentleman came up gaily.  He was dressed splendidly,
with no regard for the leveling tastes of the day.

"The deuce!" he said quickly; "you are my thief!"

"*De grâce*, monsieur!" exclaimed François; "you
will get me into trouble."

"Not I.  Happy to meet you.  I am myself fond
of palmistry.  Come, read me my hand."

François bent over the palm.  He began aloud:
"Ah, here have been many loves."  Then his voice
fell.  "Monsieur is a good swordsman."

"So-so," said the gentleman.

"Monsieur has been unfortunate in his duels."

"*Mon Dieu*!  Yes; I always kill people."

"Monsieur has one remorse."

"*Sapristi*!  Thou art clever, and I lucky to have
but one.  Go on; 't is vastly amusing.  Shall I live
to be old?  My people do."

"Monsieur will have troubles, but he will live to
be old—very old."

"Will he, indeed?  I hardly like that.  If I were
you, I would tell more agreeable fortunes.  To
outlive the joys of life, to be left a stranded wreck,
while the world goes by gay and busy—pshaw!  I
like not that.  You do it well.  Let me read your
own palm.  I have a taste for this art."

François was at once interested.  The gentleman's
strong left hand took that of the thief, and with a
wandering forefinger he ran over the lines of the
palm.  He let it fall, and looked downward at his
own hand.  "It is strange that we shall meet again,
and in an hour of danger.  You will be fortunate,
and I shall not.  You will have—"

"*Tenez*, monsieur—stop!" cried François; "I will
hear no more"; and he drew his hands within the
tent-folds.

"*Dame*! and you are really a believer in it all, my
good thief?  Belief is out of fashion.  I hope you did
tell that cursed Jacobin he would go to a place he
doesn't believe in, but which is a little like France
to-day.  Come and see me if ever you are in trouble
and this trade comes to an end.  I like men who can
laugh.  'T is a pretty talent, and rather gone out
just now.  I am the Marquis de Ste. Luce—or was.
Come and laugh for me, and tell me your story."  He
let fall a gold louis in Toto's basket, and elbowed his
way through the crowd, with "Pardon, monsieur," to
white cockades, and scant courtesy to the Jacobins
and the *demi-constitutionnels*, who were readily known
by their costumes.

As the marquis ceased to speak, François heard a
singular noise in the tent back of him.  He withdrew
his head to see the cause, and a moment later,
reappearing, said he must be excused, because his friend
was ill.  The crowd broke up.  Within the tent lay
Pierre on the ground, in a fit.  François, greatly
alarmed and utterly at a loss, threw water in his face,
and waited.  In a few moments it was over, and the
man, flushed and breathing deeply, lay with red froth
on his lips, as if in a deep sleep.  He was no longer
convulsed; but what further to do the partner knew
not, and sat beside him, not more competent to deal
with this novel situation than was Toto, who walked
about, and scratched his nose, and gave it up.  An
hour went by with Pierre's head resting on François's lap.

At last Despard opened his eyes.  "Take him
away," he said.  The man was delirious.

"Who?"

"Take him away.  Will he kill me?  He killed
her."  A half-hour he wandered in mind, while
François bathed his flushed face.  Then he drew a deep
breath, and said: "What is this?  Where am I?"

François replied: "Thou hast had a fit."

"A fit?  Yes; I have them—not often.  I remember
now.  Has he gone, that devil?—that marquis?"

"Who?  Ste. Luce?  Was it he that troubled thee?"

"Yes; he."

"But what then?"

By and by Pierre sat up.  Seeing him to be quite
himself, but staring about as if in fear, François
said:

"Come, now; I must have the whole story.  What
the mischief has this fine gentleman done to thee?
I am out of patience with thy tiresome mysteries.  I
know him; we have met before.  Perhaps I can help
thee."

"Thou?"

Pierre lay back on the floor, and covered his face.

"*Mon Dieu!*" he cried, "why wilt thou force me to
talk of it?  Oh, to hate, and to be afraid!"  He
started up.  "I am afraid."

"If I hated a man," said François, "*sacré bleu*!  I
would twist his neck."

"If I could! if I could!  I am not like thee.  I
am—am a coward.  That's the truth."

"*Dame!* that is curious."  He regarded the fat
little man with attentive eyes.  "Suppose we have
it all out, and get done with it."

"Done with it?"

"Yes; done with it!  Hast thou often had these
fits before?"

"Yes; and then I am better for a while."

"Tell me all about this man.  I will take care of thee."

"No; God did not: thou canst not."

"Then we must separate.  I am tired of thy nonsense,
and I do not care a rap how soon this business
ends, what with your cursed melancholy and that
jade Quatre Pattes.  Now, out with it!"

Pierre, seated on the floor of the booth, red-eyed
and dejected, looked up piteously at his questioner.
"If I tell thee all, thou wilt despise me."

"Not I.  Go on!  If thou canst speak out like a
man, I may be able to help thee; but if thou art of a
mind to hold thy tongue, it were better we parted.  I
am tired of thy folly."

Thus urged, Pierre told his story, reluctant, with
bowed head, and at times in tears.  François sat over
him on a stool, now and then asking a question, or
waiting patiently when Pierre, choked by overmastering
emotions, was silent for a while.

"I have been unhappy and unlucky from the time
I can first remember," said Pierre.  "My people
belonged to the lesser noblesse, but my father was
poor—oh, very poor.  We had been ruined folks away
there in Normandy for half a century, only a bit of
farm and vineyard left to us.  My mother was of the
bourgeoisie, foolish and pretty.  She died young, and
I was left the only child.  My father treated me ill.  I
had no courage, he said.  It was true.  As I grew up, I
was timid like a girl, and fearful of quarrels.  When
I was about twenty years old I had a trouble with a
brother of this marquis.  He struck me with his whip
because of something I said.  My father learned that
I had excused myself, and was wild with rage.  It
was my bourgeois mother, he said; we had lost all
but honor, and now that too was gone.  He died not
long after, and I, with a few hundred francs, was
driven out to care for myself.  The marquis had a
mortgage on the farm.  I went to a village near by,
and lived awhile as I could until I was down to my
lust sou.  I worked like a peasant in the fields; I was
the servant at an inn.  At last a mountebank
company attracted me, and in despair I went with them
to take care of the horses which served them in their
performances.  By and by I learned sleight of hand,
and fared better.  At last I married a girl who danced
in our company.  She was pretty,—oh, more than
pretty,—and clever, too.  When we came again to
our town, a notary offered me a petty clerk's place,
and I was well contented to settle down.  My wife
was too eager for the society of the bourgeoisie, and
they would have none of that of the dancing-girl.
Then, unhappily, this marquis saw my wife, and how
I know not, but his fine clothes and cunning were too
much for one who was eager for a society she could
not have.  I was busy, and often absent collecting
small debts.  No one warned me.  I was satisfied,
and even put by a little money.

"There was a woman in the village, Mme. Quintette,
a dressmaker, a shameless creature of bad life.  She
might have been then some fifty years old.  'T is now
twelve years ago.  At her house the marquis met my
wife.  One day my Renée was gone, and this Quintette
with her.  It is she who is this Quatre Pattes."

"The deuce!" cried François.  "Now I see."

"More than a year went by.  Thou wouldst have
killed the man.  I could not.  I am a coward, François—a
coward!  God made me so; I can't help it.  One day
an infant was brought to my door, with a note.  *Mon
Dieu*, such a note!  The dying mother in the hospital
with her last money paid a good sister to take the
child to me—to me, of all men!  And would I
pardon her?  François, it was that devil's babe and hers.
Would I forgive her, and keep it?  Wouldst thou
have kept it?"

"No," said François; "not I."

"I did!  I did!  It was like her, all but the eyes.
I grew to love it.  Then there was an accident, a fall,
and the little maid is crippled for life.  It seemed
horrible, but now I thank God, because she is safe
from the baseness of men.  I wanted to die, but I must
live; she has no other friend."

François sat still, pitiful, and deep in thought.  At
last he said: "Why were you so terribly afraid of
that woman?  She could do no worse than ruin our
business."

"I—hast thou ever been afraid thou wouldst
murder some one?  I was.  I would have done it in a
minute hadst not thou come in."

"*Sac à papier*!  Afraid of thyself!  How queer!
Thou wert afraid of thyself?"

"Yes; I am—I was—I am often afraid of myself."

"Let us forget it."

"I cannot.  What can I do?"

"Do?  Nothing."

"But that man—"

"Well, thou art helpless.  I should not be.  Forget.
Thy chance may come."  He was at the end of his
wisdom.  He pitied this weak-hearted coward who so
frankly avowed his defect.  "We will speak of it no
more, Pierre, or not now.  But what brought you to
Paris?  Let us have it all, and get done with it."

"My poor little humpback was hardly six years old
when she came to me, crying, to know why the village
children would not play with her.  She was a
humpback and a bastard.  What was 'bastard'?  I have
always fled from trouble.  One day I took the child
and what little I had, and was away to Paris.  God
knows how it hurt me to hear every evening how she
had been mocked and tormented; one is so foolishly
tender.  In this great city I sought work, and starved.
And when at last she was fading before my eyes, I
stole—my God, I stole!"

"*Dame*! thou art particular.  Must a man starve?"

"When I got money out of a full purse I took, I set
up our little business, and then I found thee.  And
this is all.  I dare say I shall feel better to have told
some one.  I did not want to steal.  I did not steal
after I began with the booth, unless I was in need—oh,
sorely in need.  It was so on that fortunate day
when I was saved by thee.  In thy place I should
have kept the old fishwife's purse."

"And let me swing?"

"Yes—perhaps; I don't know.  I—it is well for
me thou wert not a coward."

"*Sacristie*!  It appears that not to be a coward has
its uses.  Now *bon jour* and adieu to the whole of this
business.  Let the miserable past go.  'T is bad
company, and not amusing.  Have no fear; I will take
care of thee.  Come, let us go home."

"Thou wilt look about a little before we go?"

"Toto, he is mad, this man."

"I sometimes think I am.  At night, in my dreams,
I have him by the throat, and he laughs, and I cannot
hold him.  I wake up, and curse in the darkness
because I cannot kill him.  And then I know it is a debt
never to be paid—never."

François had had enough of the small man's griefs.
Contempt and pity were strangely mingled as he
listened to his story.

"I shall let thee talk no more," he said.  "But *mille
tonnerres*!  I cannot help thee to go mad.  Let us go
and wander in the country to-morrow, thou and I and
Toto.  It will comfort thee.  But no more of this; I
will not stand it."

The advice was wholesome, and, as usual, Pierre
accepted the orders of his more sturdy-minded friend.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`X`:

.. class:: center large bold

   X

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*How Pierre became a Jacobin and how a nation became
insane.*

.. vspace:: 2

Although the marquis was not again
upon the scene, as the months went
by Despard became by degrees more
gloomy.  At night, in place of the gay
little café, he went out to the club of
the Jacobins, and fed full of its wild declamations
against the *émigrés* and the aristocrats.  It amused
François, who saw no further ahead than other men.
Despard came home loaded with gazettes and pamphlets,
and on these he fed his excitement long after
his partner was asleep.

When, as time went by, Pierre's vagaries increased,
François found in them less subject for mirth.  The
fat little man sat up later and later at night.  At
times he read; at others he walked about muttering,
or moving his lips without uttering a sound.  What
disturbed François most was that the poodle now and
then showed fear of Pierre, and would no longer obey
him as he had been used to do.

Meanwhile, as Pierre still attended sedulously to
business, François could find no fault.  He himself
had become devoted to his art of palm-reading.  He
bought at the stalls old books, Latin and French,
which treated of the subject, and tried to keep up the
name his odd ways had made so profitable.  Deceit
was a part of his working capital; but deceit and
credulity are apt to go together, as a great man has
well said.  Not for many louis would the conjurer
have let any one read again the lines of his own hand.
When Despard began to teach him the little he
himself knew of palmistry, it had caused interest, and
after a while a half-belief.  This grew as he saw the
evident disturbance to which the use of his art gave
rise in certain of those who at first appeared to look
upon it as an idle jest.  The imaginative have need
to be wary, and this man was imaginative, and had
the usual notions of the gambler and thief as to omens
and luck.  I have said he had no definite working
conscience.  I have also said that he possessed an
inborn kindness of heart; he had a long memory for
benefits, and a short one for injuries.  His courage
was of fine quality: not even Quatre Pattes could
terrify him.

The politics of the time were becoming month by
month more troublous to such as kept their heads
steady in the amazing tumble of what for centuries
had been on top, and the rise of that which had been
as long underneath.  The increasing interest of Pierre
in all that went on surprised François, and sometimes,
as I have said, amused him.  He could not comprehend
why he should care whether the king ruled, or the
Assembly.  This mighty drama was nothing to him.
He paid no taxes; he toiled not, nor spun, except nets
of deceit; and whether or not commerce died and the
plow stood idle in the furrow was to him of no moment.
Meanwhile, before the eyes of a waiting, wondering
world historic fate was shuffling the cards as neither
war nor misrule had shifted them for many a day.
Knave and king, spade and club, were now up, now
down.  Every one was in a new place.  The old surnames
were replaced by classical appellations.  Streets,
palaces, and cities were rebaptized with prenominal
republican adjectives.  Burgundy, Anjou, Navarre,
and the other ancient provinces, knew no more their
great names heroically famous.

All men were to be equal; all men were free to be
what they could.  But the freedom of natural or
acquired inequality was not to be recognized.  There
were new laws without end.  The Jacobin added a
social creed.  All men must *tutoyer*.  "Your Majesty"
was no more to be used.  Because the gentles said
"thou" and "thee" to one another and to an inferior,
all men must "thou" as a sign that all are on a level.

A bit of paper was to be five francs—and take care
of thy head if thou shouldst venture to doubt its value.
As to all else, men accepted the numberless and
bewildering decrees of the Assembly.  But the laws of
commerce no ruler can break.  These are despotic,
changeless, and as old as the act of barter between
man and man.  The assignats fell in value until two
hundred francs would scarce buy a dinner.  There,
too, was a new navy and a new army, with confusing
theories of equal rights for sailor, soldier, and captain.

A noble desire arose everywhere to exercise the new
functions.  What joy to cast a ballot, to act the part
of officials, to play at soldiering!  All the cross dogs
in France are unchained and the muzzles off; and
some are bloodhounds.  What luxury to be judge,
jury, and hangman, like the noble of long ago!

Even childhood caught the temper of the time.  It
played at being officer and prisoner, built and tore
down bastilles, and at last won attention and a law all
to itself when some young ruffians hung one of their
number in good earnest for an aristocrat.

However indifferent was François at this time, the
shifting drama amused him as some monstrous
burlesque might have done.  Its tragedies were as yet
occasional, and he was by nature too gay to be long
or deeply impressed.  There was none he loved in
peril, and how to take care of François his life had
taught him full well.

"*Allons zi gaiement!*" he cried, in the tongue of his
old quarter; and kept a wondering, anxious eye on
Pierre.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XI`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XI

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*The juggling firm of Despard, François & Co. is broken
up—Despard goes into politics, and François becomes
a fencing-master.*

.. vspace:: 2

January, 1791, François, having of late
found business slack, had moved to the
open *place* in front of the Palais Royal.
He had taught Toto new tricks—to
shoulder a musket and to die *pour la
patrie*.  Time was telling men's fortunes quite too fast
for comfort.  Neither his old devices nor Toto's
recently acquired patriotism was of much avail.
Moreover, Pierre was losing interest in the booth as he
became absorbed in politics.

"Thou wilt not go to thy *sacré* club, Pierre," said
François, one night late in February.  "Here are two
days thou hast left us, the patriot Toto and me, to feed
thee and make sous for the poor little maid at Sèvres."

"She is not at Sèvres."

"Why not?  Thou hast not said a word to me of this."

"No; I had more important matters to think of."

François, who was tranquilly smoking his pipe,
looked up at his partner.  The man had lately worn
a look of self-importance.

"Well, what else?"

"The sisters are aristocrats.  A good *citoyenne* hath
her.  I shall give up the show.  The country calls me,
Pierre Despard, to save her.  The great Robespierre
hath asked me to go into Normandy, to Musillon,
whence I came.  I am to organize clubs of Jacobins."  He
spoke with excitement, striding to and fro.  He
declared that he was not afraid now of any one.  To
serve France was to have courage.

"And how as to money?" asked François.

He said his expenses would be paid by the clubs.
Barnave, Duport, and the deputies of the Right must
be taught a lesson.  There must be no more kings.
The people must rule—the people!  He declaimed
wildly.

"*Fichtre!*" cried François, laughing.  "It does seem
to me that they rule just now."

Pierre went on with increasing excitement; and
would not François go with him?

"Go with thee?  Thou sayest we shall be deputies
in the new Convention.  A fine thing that!  And
Toto too, I suppose?  Not I.  I am an aristocrat.  I
like not thy Robespierre.  As to the show, it pays no
longer, and I have greased the claws of the Crab until
there is no more grease left.  I shall take to the streets,
Toto and I.  And so thou art to be a great man, and
to play poodle on thy hind legs for Pétion and the mob?"

Pierre was offended.  He rose and stood glaring at
François with wide-open eyes; then he said, as if to
himself: "The marquis is near Evreux.  Let him
take heed!"

"*Mon Dieu*!  He will eat thee as he would the frogs
of his moat, that man!  I am not of those who fear,
but if I had angered him—"

"I have named him to the great Robespierre, the
just, the good.  He will remember him."

"Then go; and the devil take the whole lot of you!"

"I shall go.  But do not say thou art an aristocrat,
for then I must hate thee."

"*Grand merci*!  Thou poor, fat little pug, canst thou
hate?"

"Aye, as hell hates."  Upon this Toto took refuge
under his master's bed.

François rose, and, standing in front of the flushed,
fat little man, set a hand on each of Pierre's shoulders
and stopped his excited march.

"I cannot understand thee.  I never could contrive
to hate even a gendarme, and if hell hates, I know not.
Thou art helpless as a turtle that is on his back.  What
use to kick?  No; do not answer me.  Hear me out.
I shall go my way—thou thy way.  I served thee a
good turn once, and thou hast helped me to a living.
Now I like not thy ways; thou art going mad,
I think."

"Perhaps—perhaps," returned Pierre, gloomily.
"Well, *c'est fini*—'t is done.  Now to settle."

They divided their spare cash; and after that Pierre
went to his club, and François to bed and a dreamless
sleep.

In the morning he rose early, left his share of the
rent on the table, and with a little bag of clothes, and
Toto after him, walked away across the Seine, and soon
found a small room under the roof.  He paid in
advance the customary *denier à Dieu*, and settled down
to think.

.. _`HE PAID IN ADVANCE THE CUSTOMARY DENIER À DIEU`:

.. figure:: images/img-087.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "HE PAID IN ADVANCE THE CUSTOMARY DENIER À DIEU."

   "HE PAID IN ADVANCE THE CUSTOMARY DENIER À DIEU."

He was tired of the show, and meant to resume his
old trade.  His conscience, or so much as he had, was
at peace; all France was plundering.  Now the nobles
were robbed, and now the church.

"The world is on my side," he laughed, as he sat
with Toto on his knees, looking over a wide prospect
of chimney-pots and tiles.

Thus began again the life of the thief; but now,
thanks to his long training as a juggler, he was
amazingly expert.  He took no great risks, but the frequent
tumults of the streets were full of chances, although
it must be said that purses were thinner, watches and
gold snuff-boxes rarer, and caution less uncommon
than it had once been.  If business prospered, he and
Toto took long holidays in the country, and did a little
hunting of rabbits; for the gamekeeper was no longer
a person to be dreaded.  Sometimes, lying on the turf,
he thought how pleasant would be a bit of garden, and
assurance of good diet and daily work to his taste.  I
fear it would scarcely have been long to his taste.
When something like a chance came, he could not
make up his mind to accept the heaven-sent offer.
He was to see many things and suffer much before his
prosperous hour arrived.

One fine day in April, François, with whom of late
fortune had quarreled, was seated in the sun on a
bench in the now ill-tended garden of the Luxembourg.
The self-made difficulties of the country were affecting
more and more the business of the honest, and of that
uncertain guild which borrows but never returns.
He had a way of taking Toto into his counsels.
"What shall we do, little devil?"  The poodle barked.
"No.  These accursed Jacobins are ruining France.
What, knock a man on the head at night!  Bad dog,
hast thou no morals?  *Va donc*!  Go to.  Thou hast
not my close experience of the lantern, and stone
walls for a home I like not.  Work, thou sayest?
Too late; there is work for no one nowadays.  Thou
wilt end badly, little monster."

Toto whined, and having no more to say, fell asleep.
At this moment François, looking up, saw go by a
young woman in black, and with her a boy of perhaps
ten years.  On the farther side was a tall, well-dressed
man of middle age, whom, as he was looking away,
François did not recognize.  Some bright thing fell
unnoticed from the woman's wrist, and lay in the sun.
"Hist, Toto!  Look there—quick!"  In a moment the
dog was away, and back again, with a small miniature
set in gold and surrounded by pearls.  It was the
portrait of a young officer.  François hastily put it back
into the dog's mouth, saying: "Go to sleep!  Down! down
quickly!"  The dog, well taught, accepted the
trust, and dropped as if in slumber, his head on his
paws, while his master studied the weathercocks on
the old gray palace.  A moment later both the man
and the woman turned to look for the lost miniature.
Then François saw that it was his old acquaintance
the marquis.  He had more than once seen him in
the garden, where he was fond of walking; but the
great seigneur had passed him always without notice.
The boy ran back ahead of his grandfather, and
coming to François, said innocently:

"Monsieur, have you seen a little picture madame
let fall?  It is so big, and I saw it only just now on
her wrist.  Please to help us to look for it.  It is my
father; he is dead."

After the boy came the woman, looking here and
there on the gravel.

"*Dame de Dieu!* she is beautiful," murmured
François; "and that *sacré* marquis!"

The voice he heard was sweet and low, and tender
with regret at her loss.

"Has monsieur chanced to see a little miniature?"

Monsieur was troubled, but his pocket and stomach
were both empty.  Monsieur was distressed.  He had
seen no miniature.

Next came the marquis.

"Ho, ho!" he said pleasantly.  "Here is the
citizen my thief again.  Have you seen a small
miniature?"

François had not.

"*Diable*!  'T is a pity, monsieur.  Well, pardon a
*ci-devant* marquis, but I do think monsieur knows a
little too much of that miniature for his eternal
salvation.  Also, monsieur does not lie as well as might be
expected from one in his line of life."

François rose.  He was embarrassed as he saw the
tearful face of the woman.

"I was about to say I would look—I would search."

Ste. Luce smiled.  "Suppose we begin with you?"

"I have it not."

"Well, but where is it?  I am not a man to be
trifled with.  Come, quick, or I must ask the
gendarmes yonder for a bit of help."

François looked at him.  There was menace in those
cold gray eyes.  Should he trust to his own long legs?
At this instant he heard a sob, and glancing to the
right, saw the woman seated on the bench with her
face in her hands, the little fellow at her side saying:
"Do not cry, mama; the gentleman will help us."  The
gentleman was ill clothed and seedy.  He had
seen women cry, but they were not like this woman.

"M. le Marquis does me injustice.  Permit that my
dog and I search a little."

The marquis smiled again.  "*Pardieu!* and if you
search, and meanwhile take a fancy to run, your legs
are long; but now I have you.  How the deuce can I
trust a thief?"

The little lad looked up.  "I will go with monsieur
to look—and the dog; we will find it, mama."

"Monsieur may trust me; I will not run away," said
François.  "If monsieur desires to search me?"

"I do not search thieves."

François looked at this strangely quiet gentleman
with the large, light-gray, unpleasant eyes, and then
at the woman.

"Come, Toto; we must take a look."

The marquis stood still, quietly watching thief, dog,
and boy.

"Renée," he said, "don't make a fool of yourself."

Then from a distance the boy cried, "We found it,
mama!" and ran to meet her.

The marquis took it as François rejoined the group.

"Ah, Master Thief, you are clever; but it is a little
wet, this trifle, and warm too.  The dog had it all the
while in his mouth.  He is well taught.  Why the
deuce did you give it up?"

The boy began to understand this small drama.  He
had the courage of his breed, and the training.

"Did you dare to steal my mama's picture?"

"Yes; when she let it fall."

"I know now why you were glad to give it back.
It was because she cried."

"Yes; it was because she cried."

"Venire St. Gris!" exclaimed the marquis, who was
pleased to swear like Henry of Navarre.  "You are a
poor devil for a thief.  You have temptations to be
good.  I never have them myself.  I thank Heaven
I have reasonably well used my opportunities to be
agreeably wicked."

"Father!" said the young woman, reproachfully;
and then to François: "If you are a thief, still I
thank you; I cannot tell you how much I thank you."

"And how many louis do you expect, most magnanimous
of thieves?" said the marquis.

The woman looked up again.  "Come to me to-morrow;
I will find a way to help you."

Something of yearning, some sense of a void, some
complexity of novel distress, arose in the thief's mind.

"*Mon Dieu!* madame," he said, turning toward her,
without replying to the marquis, "you are a saint.
I—I will think.  I am not fit for such as you to
talk to."

"Quite true," said the marquis.  "Hast thou thy
purse, Renée?  I forgot mine."

"No, no," she said.  "Come and see us—Rue des
Petits-Augustines—a great house with a gilded gate.
You will come?  I will say they are to let you in.
Promise me that you will come."

"And bring that poodle," added the marquis; "I
will buy him."

François laughed outright—that merry laugh which
half Paris had learned to like, till Paris tired of it and
of its owner.

"Monsieur will pardon me.  I cannot sell my only
friend.  Good day."  And he walked away, the boy
crying after him: "You will come?  Oh, you must
come, because my mama says so."

The marquis muttered: "*Animal*!  If I had your
carcass—no, if I had had you awhile ago in
Normandy, your manners would have been bettered.  But
now the world is upside down.  He will come, Renée.
If thou art quit of him for two hundred francs and a
few lost spoons, thou mayest rest thankful."

François moved moodily away.  Something was
wrong in his world; an angel coming into his crude
life would not have disturbed him as this lady's few
kind words had done, and yet he had left her
unanswered.  He knew he had been a fool, but knew not
why.  He had, too, a notion that he and this marquis
would meet again, but for this he was not eager.  He
recalled the palm-reading.  Had the woman been
alone, he would probably have said a glad "Yes";
but now his inclinations to obey her were sadly diluted
by feelings which he did not analyze, or perhaps could
not have analyzed.  He did not accept the hand thus
stretched out to save him, but for many a day her
tender eagerness and the pleading face which had so
attracted him came before him at times with a look of
reproach.  Is it strange that this glimpse of a nobler
nature and a better life than his own should have
had an influence on this man quite the reverse of
that which its good will sought to effect?  He cannot
be said to have been refined, but he had in him tastes
which are the germs of refinement, and which, when
I knew him, had no doubt produced results.  Probably
he was in 1791 a coarser person, but he must
always have been a man who could be forced by
circumstances to think.

It may have been that the sense of a great gulf
between him and a world he was by nature inclined to
like caused one of those rare spells of despair to
which the gay and over-sanguine are liable.  Of course
he had seen and for brief seasons shared the profligacy
of the Cité,—his memoirs confess this with absolute
frankness,—but these gross lapses had been rare and
brief.  Now he plunged headlong into the worst
vileness of the most dissolute quarter, where few lived
who were not saturated with crime.  I have no desire
to dwell on this part of his life.  A month passed
away, and he was beginning to suffer in health.  This
amazed him.  He had not hitherto known a pang save
that of hunger.  He began to drink *eau-de-vie* to
relieve his sense of impaired strength, and being off his
guard and under the influence of the temporary mood
of rashness which drink is apt to cause, he twice
narrowly escaped arrest.

Under the vivid impression thus created he was
wandering homeward late at night to some low resort
in the Cité, when in the Rue aux Fèves he heard a cry
in front of him.  The moon was bright, and he saw a
man set upon by two fellows.  The person assailed
was staggering from the blow of a club, and fell with
the cry which the thief heard.  Both bandits threw
themselves upon him, and, as he unwisely struggled,
François saw the glitter of a knife.  Clearly this was
no easy prey.  As the three tumbled over in the mud
of the street there was small chance for a decisive use
of the blade.  François, as I have said, had been
always free from crimes of violence, but this affair was
none of his business, and had his pocket been full he
might have left the ruffians and their prey unmolested.
His purse, however, was down to the last sou, and
here was a chance.

He called, "Catch them, Toto!" and, leaping
forward, seized one of the men by the throat and threw
him on his back.  The poodle took a good nip of the
other rascal's leg, and when the man broke away and,
stumbling, ran, pursued him until recalled by François's
whistle.  Meanwhile the assaulted man sat up, a bit
dazed.  The other fellow—it was he of the knife—was
on his feet again, and at once turned furiously on
the rescuer.  François darted to one side, and,
catching him by the neck, throttled him savagely.  His
great length of arm made it impossible for the scamp,
who was short and strong, to reach any vital organ.
But he stabbed François's shoulder over and over.
François's grip on the throat was weakening, when
the victim, now on his feet, struck the man under the
ear, and thus knocked him clean out of François's
failing grip.  He fell headlong, but was up and away in
a moment, while a crowd began to collect.

"Hi! it is François!" some one cried.

"Quick!" said the thief.  "Room there!  Let us
get out of this."  Seizing the man he had saved, he
hustled his way through the crowd and hurried him
toward the bridge.  In a few minutes they were
standing alone by the river, amid the tombs back of Notre
Dame.  Then the man spoke:

"By Heaven! thou hast saved my life.  Hallo! thou
art bleeding.  Here!" and he tied a handkerchief
about his shoulder.  "We shall be in luck to find a
chaise.  Wait!" and he ran away.

François's head was dizzy.  He sat on a tombstone,
well sobered now, but bleeding freely.  It was long
before he heard a horse; and when in the chaise,
where Toto promptly followed him, he fell back, and
knew little more until they stopped in the Rue
St. Honoré.  Here his new acquaintance got out, and
soon returned with a glass of *eau-de-vie*.  With this
aid, and the arm of his host, François was able to
reach a large room in the second story.  He fell on a
couch, and lay still while the other man ran out to
find a surgeon.

On his arrival, François was put to bed in an
adjoining room, and for two weeks of care and good
diet had leave to meditate on the changeful chances of
this wretched world.  For a while he was too weak to
indulge his customary keenness of curiosity.  His
host, M. Achille Gamel, paid him brief visits, and was
singularly unwilling to talk one day, and the next
sufficiently so for the patient to learn that he had been
in the army as a *maître d'armes*, and was now, in his
own opinion, the best fencing-master in France.
Through the partitions could be heard the click, click
of the foils, and now and then the crack of pistols.
After a fortnight François's wounds were fairly
healed, and he began to get back his rosy complexion
and his unfailing curiosity.

One pleasant evening in June, Gamel appeared as
usual.  It was one of his days of abrupt speech.

"Art well?"

"Yes."

"Thou art soon mended."

"Yes."  His brevity begot a like form of answer,
and François was now somewhat on his guard.

"I pay my debts."

"That is true."

"Now thou art well, what wilt thou do?"

"I—I—I shall go away."

"Why didst thou help me?"

"My pocket and paunch were empty.  It seemed a chance."

"Thy two reasons are good.  Who art thou?"

"Who is every one in the Cité?  A thief."

"*Diable!* but thou art honest—in speech at least."

"Yes, sometimes.  I was a conjurer too—for a while."

"Yes, yes, I remember now.  Thou art the fellow
with a laugh.  I see not yet why thou hast helped me.
Thou mightest easier have helped the rascals and
shared their gains."

François began to be interested, and laughed a
laugh which was the most honest of his possessions.

"I dislike clumsiness in my profession," he said.
"Why should the brutality of war be brought into a
peaceful occupation?"  He was half in earnest, half
in jest.

"That is a third reason, and a good one."  It was
difficult to surprise Gamel.  "Suppose we talk
business," he added.

"Mine or thine?"

"Mine.  A moment, Citizen François—permit me.
Pray stand up a moment."

François rose as the fencing-master produced a
tape-measure.  "Permit me," and with no more words
he set one end of the tape on François's shoulder and
carried the length of it to his finger-tips.

François stood still, wondering what it all meant.

"The deuce!" said Gamel, slowly rolling up the
measuring-tape.

"Well, what is it?  What is wrong?"

"Wrong?  Nothing.  It is astonishing!"

"What?"

"This arm of thine."

"Why?"

"It is one and a half inches longer than mine."

"Well?"

"A gift!  To have the longest arm in Paris!  *Mon Dieu!*"

"What of that?"

"A fortune!  Phenomenal!  Superb!  And a chest—and
muscles!  By Hercules, they are as hard as horn!"

"Well?"

"*Diable*!  Thou art dull for a thief."

François had a high opinion of himself.  He said:
"Perhaps.  What next?"

"I need help.  I will teach thee to fence and to
shoot.  Canst thou be honest?  I ask not if thou art."

"Can I?  I do not know.  I have never tried very
long."  Then he paused.  To fence like a gentleman,
to handle a sword, had its temptations.  "Try me."

"Good!  Canst thou be a Jacobin to-day and a
Royalist to-morrow?"

"Why not?"

"The messieurs and their kind fence here in the
morning; after our breakfast come the Jacobins about
two.  I ask not thy politics."

"Why not?" said François, who was the frankest
of men—"why not?  I am an aristocrat.  I am at
the top of my profession.  I like naturally the folks
who are on top."

"France is like a ball now, no top, no bottom, rolling.
Let us be serious."

"*Dieu!* that is difficult.  I want to quit thieving.
It doesn't pay at present.  I accept the citizen's offer.
Does it include my dog?"

"Yes, indeed!  Toto—a treasure!  He will delight
our pupils."

"Good!  He must have a little sword and wear a
white cockade till noon, and then a tricolor."

"And will five francs a week suffice until thou art
fit to teach?  And thy board and lodging—that goes
without saying.  After a while we will talk again."

"'T is a fortune!" said François; and upon this
agreement the pair fell to chatting about the details of
their future work.

"One moment," said François, as Gamel rose.
"What are thy own politics?"

"I will tell thee when I can trust thee," said the
fencing-master.  "Now they vary with the clock."

"I see.  But I have told thee mine."

"Thou wert rash.  I am not."

François laughed merrily, "Good night."  He was
happy to be at rest, well fed, and with something to
do which involved no risk.  Gamel went away, and
François fell to talking to the poodle.

"Toto!  Sit up, my sleepy friend!  Attention!
What dost thou think of M. Achille Gamel?"  The
poodle had been taught when questioned to put his
head on one side, which gave him an air of intelligent
consideration.  "Ah, thou dost think he is as long-legged
as I!  Any fool of a cur can see that.  What else?"

"He has great teeth—big—the better to eat thee,
my dear!  Curly hair, like thine, and as black; a
nose—of course he has a nose, Toto.  Art perplexed, little
friend?  Oh, that is it!  I see.  Thou art right.  He
smiles; he never laughs.  'T is that bothered thee.
Thou dost like him?  Yes.  Thou art not sure?  Nor
I.  We must laugh for two.  The bones are good
here.  That is past doubt.  We will stay, and we will
keep our eyes open.  And listen now, Toto.  We are
honest.  Good!  Dost thou understand?  No more
purses, or out we go.  No stealing of cutlets.  Ah,
thou mayest lick thy chops in vain, bandit!"

A few days later Gamel began to fence with François,
who liked it well.  He was strong, agile, and like
his old friends the cats for quickness of foot.  Gamel
was charmed.

"We must make no mistakes.  The foil held
lightly—so, so!  If you grasp it too strongly you will not
feel the other's blade.  That is better.  'T is the
fingers direct the point.  Thy hand a little higher—so, so!"

They fenced before the pupils came and in the
intervals when none was on hand.  François was tireless.

It was June now, and Robespierre was the public
prosecutor, with Pétion at his side.  Gamel read aloud
the announcement with a coldly stern face.  François
heard it with indifference.

"*Tiens!*" he cried.  "What matters it?  *Dame!*" as
he lunged at the wall, "I do believe my arm is an inch
longer."  He was thinking, as he tried over and over
a new guard, of what a queer education he had had.
Gamel walked away into his own room.  He was a
man who often liked to be alone.  Apt to be
monosyllabic with his pupils, he could at times become
seriously talkative at night over a pipe and a glass.
François began to like him, and to suspect that he in
turn was liked—a matter not indifferent to this poor
devil, who had himself an undeveloped talent for
affection.

"*Mon ami*, Toto!  Let us think.  I might have been
a priest.  What an escape!  Or a great chorister.
That is another matter.  A thief, a street-dog, a
juggler, a *maître d'escrime*.  *Parbleu*!  What next?  We
are getting up in the world.  My palm, little rascal?
Thou wouldst read it.  Ah, bad dog, not I!  Let us
to bed; come along.  It seems too good to last."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XII

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*In which Toto is seen to change his politics twice a
day—the mornings and the afternoons quarrel—In which
Jean Pierre André Amar, "le farouche," appears.*

.. vspace:: 2

The fencing-master took great pains with
his promising *débutant*, and now at last
thought he could trust him to give
lessons.  He gave him much advice, full
of good sense.  He must dress simply,
not in any marked fashion.  And here were the two
cockades, and two for Toto, who was fitted with a toy
sword, and had been taught to howl horribly if François
said, "Citizen Capet," and to do the like if he
cried, "Aristocrat!"

François, gay and a little anxious, followed Gamel
for the first time during the lesson-hours into the
*salle d'armes*.  Toto came after them in full rig, with
a cap and a huge white cockade.  A dozen gentlemen,
most of them young, were preparing to fence.

The poodle was greeted with "Bravo!" and strutted
about on his hind legs with evident enjoyment of the
approval.

"Wait here," said Gamel to François.  "I will by
and by give thee a chance."  François had, of course,
been constantly in the room when the patrons were
absent, and it was now familiar.  It had been part of
the old hotel of some extinct nobleman, and was of
unusual height, and quite forty feet square, with tall
windows at each end; a cushioned bench ran around
the walls, and above it hung wire masks, foils, sabers,
and a curious collection of the arms of past ages and
barbarous tribes.  Chiefly remarkable were the many
fine blades, Spanish or Eastern.  At the side of the
hall, a doorway led into the shooting-gallery, a late
adjunct since the English use of the pistol had been
brought into the settlement of quarrels made savage
by the angry politics of the day.  On one of the walls
of the fencing-room was a large sign on which was
painted: "Achille Gamel, *ci-devant* Maître d'Armes,
Régiment du Duc de Rohan-Chabot.  Lessons in
the small sword, saber, and pistol."  The word "Duc"
was chalked over, but was still easily to be made out.

Presently Gamel came to François in his shirt
and breeches, foil in hand.  "This way, François."  As
they slowly crossed the room, Gamel went on to
say in a low tone of voice: "Don't be too eager.
Take it all as a matter of course.  Don't be nervous.
One must have had a serious affair or two before one
gets over the foil fever.  Remember, you are here to
teach, not to triumph.  There are few here you
cannot touch, but that is not business."

"I understand," said François.

"I will give you for your lesson the best blade in
Paris.  You can teach him nothing.  He is my
foster-brother, the Marquis de Ste. Luce."

"Ste. Luce!"

"Yes; he is here often."

As they approached, the great gentleman came to
meet them, separating himself from the laughing
group of younger men.

"*Ma foi!*" he exclaimed.  "Is this your new blade,
Gamel?"  He caught François's appealing eye, and
showed no sign of having known the thief until they
were apart from the rest and had taken their foils.
Then he said quietly, "Does Gamel know?"

"Yes, monsieur.  I saved his life in a row in the
Cité, and he gives me this chance."

"Good!  I shall not betray you.  But beware!
You must keep faith, and behave yourself."

"Monsieur may trust me."

"And you can fence?"

"A little, monsieur."

"Well, then, on guard!"  The marquis was pleased
to praise the new teacher.  "He has a supple wrist,
and what a reach of arm!"  At last he went away to
Gamel's room, where they were absent a half-hour.
These private talks, François observed later, were
frequent, especially with certain of the middle-aged
gentlemen who took here their morning exercise.

After this first introduction to business, François
sat still when the marquis had left him.  By and by
the gentleman came back, and saying a word of
encouragement to François, went away.

"Take M. de Lamerie, François," said Gamel; and
turning to a gentleman near by, added, "*À vous*,
monsieur."  Others began to select foils and to fence
in couples, so that soon the hall rang with the click,
click of meeting steel.  François was clever enough
to let his pupil get in a touch now and then, and
meanwhile kept him and those who looked on
delighted with his natural merriment.  He was soon
a favorite.  The dog was made to howl at a tricolored
cockade, and proved a great success.  As to the
fencing-lessons, Gamel was overjoyed, and as time ran on
came to trust and to like his thief, who began speedily
to pick up the little well-mannered ways and phrases
he heard about him.  He liked well to be liked and to
be praised for his skill, which week by week became
greater, until none except M. Gamel and the marquis
were able to meet him on equal terms.  The master
of arms was generous; the wages rose.  The clothes
François now wore were better, and when Gamel asked
him to choose a rapier for wear in the street, which
was not yet forbidden, the poor thief felt that he was
in the full sunlight of fortune.

The afternoons were less to his taste.  If a new
pupil arrived, the cook, an old woman, let him in, and
Gamel saw him in an anteroom and settled terms
and hours.  The Jacobins came after two o'clock.
Then the room was unusually full.  The poodle howled
at the name of Louis Capet.  Tricolored cockades
were everywhere.  The talk was of war and the
frontier, the ways of speech were guarded, the manners
not those of the morning.  These citizens were
awkward, but terribly in earnest.  The pistol-gallery was
much in favor; but at this deadly play François was
never an expert.  He did not like it, and was pleased
when the Vicomte de Beauséjour, a favored pupil,
said: "'T is a coarse weapon, François.  Ah, well
enough to enable bulldog English to settle their
disputes over a bone; but, *dame!* quite unfit to be the
arm of honor of gentlemen."  This uncertain property
of honor seemed to François a too insecure kind of
investment.  It was enough to have to take care of
one's pocket; and his being now well lined, François
began to resent the possibility of those sudden changes
of ownership which under other conditions he had
looked upon as almost in the nature of things.

During this summer, and in the winter of '91 and
'92, Gamel was at times absent for days.  Whenever
he returned he was for a week after in his
monosyllabic mood.  François, who was keenly alive to his
present advantages, and who saw how these absences
interfered with their business, began to exercise his
easily excited inquisitiveness, and to meditate on what
was beneath Gamel's frequent fits of abstraction.  His
own life had known disappointments, not always of
his own making.  He dreaded new ones.  The past of
the Cité, Quatre Pattes, Despard, those haunting eyes
of the marquis's widowed daughter, the choristers, the
asylum, the mad street life—all the company of his
uncertain days—were gone.  Now, of late, he began
to have a feeling of uneasy belief that things were
once more about to change.  Nor was the outer life
of the capital such as to promise tranquillity.  A
nation was about to become insane.  It was at this time
like a man thus threatened: to-day it was sane,
to-morrow it might be reeling over the uncertain line
which separates the sound from the unsound.  Had
François been more interested and more apprehensive,
he was intelligent enough to have shared the dismay
with which many Frenchmen saw the growth of
tumultuous misrule.  Indeed, the talk of the morning
fencing-school should have taught him alarm.  But
he had formerly lived the life of the hour, even of the
minute, and as long as he was well fed, housed, and
clothed, his normal good humor comfortably digested
anxiety.

I should wrongly state a character of uncommon
interest if I were to give the impression of a man who
had merely the constant hilarity of a happy child.
He was apt to laugh where others smiled; but, as he
matured, cheerful contentment was his usual mood,
and with it, to the last, the probability of such easily
born laughter as radiated mirth upon all who heard
it, like a companionable fire diffusing its generous
warmth.  He was at this time doing what he most
fancied.  The company suited him.  He liked the
tranquil ways of these courteous gentlemen.  In a
word, he was contented, and for a time lost all desire
to seek change or adventure.  His satisfaction in the
life made him more quiet and perhaps more thoughtful.
He had every reason to be cheerful, and cheerfulness
is the temperate zone of the mind.

At times, on Sundays, in the summer of '92, he
wandered into the country with Toto; but these
holidays were rare.  Now and then the habits of years
brought again the longing for excitement; with the
meal-hours he recovered his common sense, being a
big fellow of sharp appetite and a camel-like capacity
for substantial food.

The feud between the cockades broke out at this
time in duels, which it became the fashion to drive to
the Bois to see.  Women of all classes looked on and
applauded, and few liked it if the affair failed to prove
grave.  François found it entertaining.  The duels
were, in fact, many in the years of grace '91 and '92.

The morning pupils wore their hair in curls, dressed
in short clothes, and defied the new-fashioned
republican pantaloons, which were rising up to the armpits
and descending the legs.  They carried sword-canes,
or sticks like the club of Hercules; a few still wore
the sword.  Brown and gray wore the afternoon
citizens, with long straight hair, short waistcoats, and
long and longer *culottes* above large steel shoe-buckles,
all that were silver having been given to aid the funds
of a bankrupt government.  The morning, which knew
very well who came in the later hours, abused the
afternoon, and this portion of the day returned those
compliments in kind.

Now and then the morning had a little affair with
the afternoon, for the Terror was not yet.  In cafés
and theaters there were constant outbreaks, and men
on both sides eager enough to sustain opinion by the
sword or the pistol.  When one of what François
called "our little domestic difficulties" was on hand,
there was excitement and interest among Royalists
and Jacobins, with much advice given, and huge
disgust when monsieur was pinked by Citizen Chose of
the Cordeliers or of the Jacobin Club.

If the reverse obtained, and some gentleman of ancient
name condescended to run Citizen Chose through the
lungs, there was great rejoicing before noon and black
looks after it.  Here were a half-dozen affairs in a
month, for these were the first blades in France.

There were laws against the duel, but the law changed
too fast for obedience, and fashion, as usual, defied it.
Hatred and contempt were ready at every turn.  Two
abbés fought, and what was left of the great ladies
went to see and applaud.

This duel between morning and afternoon began to
amuse Paris.  But pretty soon neither the master of
arms nor his assistant was as well pleased at the
excessive attention thus drawn to the school of fencing.
Gamel disliked it for reasons which he did not set
forth, and François because he felt that his disturbing
readiness to turn back to a life of peril and
discomfort was like enough to be reinforced by coming
events.  He adored good living, yet could exist on
crusts.  He was intelligent, yet did not like to be
forced to think.  An overmastering sense of the
ludicrous inclined him to take the world lightly.  He liked
ease, yet delighted in adventure.  He distrusted his
own temperament.  He had need to do so.  Excitement
was in the air.  The summer of '92 was unquiet,
and pupils were less numerous, so that François found
time to wander.  The autumn brought no change in his
life, but Gamel became more and more self-absorbed,
and neglected his pupils.  The gentlemen who fenced
in the mornings began to disappear, and the new year
of 1793 came in with war without and tumult within
distracted France.

For several days before the 21st of January, 1793,
strange faces were frequently seen in the morning
hours, or more often late at night.  These passed into
Gamel's room, and remained long.  The marquis,
more thoughtful than usual, came and went daily.
Early on the 20th, Gamel told François that he should
be absent until after the 21st, the day set for the king
to die.  François asked no questions, and was not
deeply grieved to be left in the dark as to what was in
contemplation.  During the previous week there had
been sad faces in the morning hours.  The pupils
were fewer; they were leaving Paris—and too many
were leaving France.  The Jacobins, with whom
François fenced in the latter part of the day, were
wildly triumphant.  They missed Gamel when he was
absent, and asked awkward questions.  It was plain
enough to his assistant that the master of this
turbulent school was a Royalist *enragé*, as men then said.
The assistant was much of his mind, but he was also
far more loyal to one François than to the unfortunate king.

He was not surprised that at the hour of opening
on the 21st no one appeared.  He sat thinking, and a
little sorry for the humbled Louis rumbling over the
crowded streets to his doom.  The prisons were
already becoming crowded; the richer bourgeoisie had
become submissive.  The more able and aggressive
Jacobins were about to seize the reins of power from
the sentimental Girondists.

"Let us think a little," said François to his friend
and counselor Toto.  The poodle woke up, and sat
attentive.  "It is disagreeable to have to think, *mon
ami*; but there are our heads.  Without a head one
cannot eat or enjoy a bone.  Shall we go to the frontier,
and be shot at, and shoot?  *Dame!* a thousand bullets
to one guillotine.  We do not like that.  Let us change
our opinions, Toto, join the clubs, and talk liberty.
Yes; that is thy opinion.  Must we go back to the
streets?  'T is good nowadays to be obscure, and thou
art becoming a public character, Toto."

He read the gazette awhile, practised with the pistol,
and taught the dog a new trick.  Still no one came,
and the day wore on to noon.  At this hour the bell
rang, and the poodle barked, as was his custom.
"Learn to hold thy tongue," said the master.  The
servant had gone, like all Paris, to see a brave man die.

François opened the outer door.  A strongly built
man he had never before seen entered, and, pushing by
him, went without a word into the great room beyond.

"Hallo, citizen!  What dost thou want?" said
François, following him.

"Art thou Citizen Gamel?"

François was not; and what could he do for the citizen?

The man for a moment made no reply, but glanced
searchingly about the hall, while the assistant looked
him over as keenly.  He was a personage not easily to
be forgotten.

"No one else here?" he asked.

"No one."

The questioner was a man not over thirty-five, of
colossal make, and with something about him which
Toto resented.  He began to bark, and then, of a
sudden, fled under a bench, and watched the newcomer.

His features were out of keeping with his height
and breadth.  The Jacobin had small, restless eyes,
a diminutive nose, perhaps broken, and a large-lipped
mouth, which, as he talked, was drawn to one side as
though from some loss of power on the other half of
the face.

"I am Jean Pierre André Amar," he said, with an
air of importance.

"Will the citizen be seated?"

He would not.  He desired to see Citizen Gamel.

François regretted his absence on business.  Amar,
later known as *le farouche*, desired to see the list of
pupils, in order to select an unoccupied morning hour.
Unluckily, the master had the keys.  The citizen
wished to fence, and could come in the morning only;
he was busy after that.  François would mention his
name; perhaps the hours of the morning were full,
but Citizen Gamel would no doubt arrange.

The man with the wandering mouth stood in
thought, said he would return, and then asked
abruptly:

"Art thou his assistant?"

"Yes."

"And thy name?"

"François."

"Has Citizen François a *carte-civique*—a certificate
of citizenship?"

François knew better than to refuse.  "Fetch me
the card, Toto.  'T is on the chair in my room.
*Va*—go!"

"Thou art careless, Citizen François."

François, on this, became short of speech.  Toto
ran back.  "Give it to the citizen."

Amar took it, saying: "It is correct.  And so a
dog is sent to fetch the safeguard the people provide?"

.. _`AND SO A DOG IS SENT TO FETCH THE SAFEGUARD THE PEOPLE PROVIDE`:

.. figure:: images/img-113.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'AND SO A DOG IS SENT TO FETCH THE SAFEGUARD THE PEOPLE PROVIDE?'"

   "'AND SO A DOG IS SENT TO FETCH THE SAFEGUARD THE PEOPLE PROVIDE?'"

François laughed.  "The citizen is particular.  But
here we are good republicans, and have given our
useful arms to the army, and think to go soon
ourselves.  Shall I give the citizen a lesson?"

No; he would call again.  The section wished the
names of all who fenced here.  As the citizen reached
the door, he said, turning:

"Thou art the man who used to laugh in the show.
Robespierre told me of what fortune was read on his
palm.  A great man.  Take care of thy own fortune.
Thou art not of the club.  It may be thou wilt laugh
no more."  This while the distorted mouth went to
left and came back, and the small eyes winked and
wandered.  François thanked him.  He would join
the club, the list should be ready, and so on.

When alone again, François began to reflect on
what was likely to happen.  At any time, Amar might
return with a guard.  On the 23d, as usual during
this sad week, there were no morning pupils; and
still Gamel came not, and François had to manage
the turbulent afternoon pupils alone.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XIII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XIII

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*Citizen Amar, meeting the marquis, is unlucky and
vindictive.*

.. vspace:: 2

A fear vast and oppressive was upon the
great city.  The white cockades were
gone.  François burned all he could
find.  For a week no one came to fence
in the morning.  The afternoons were
full, and there was much inquiry for Citizen Gamel.
On the night of the 24th of this terrible January,
1793, François went out.  Paris was recovering, and,
as usual, forgetful, was eating and drinking and
dancing, while all Europe was ringing with the news
of this murder of a good man too weak for a mighty task.

When, later, François returned to the school of
arms he smelt the odor of a pipe.  "Ah!" he cried,
"Toto, he has come.  'T is none too soon."  Candles
lighted dimly the large hall and the rooms beyond
it.  He heard no sounds, and, suddenly becoming
uneasy, hastened to enter the little salon.  It was
empty, as were all the rooms.  On the bedroom floor
lay scattered clothes.  Scorched leaflets were
fluttering like black crows over the ashes of a dying
fire.  They were fragments of burnt paper.  An open
desk was on the table, and everywhere were signs of
haste.

François ran out to the kitchen, and called their
only servant, a shrewd old woman.  She said: "I
heard thee, citizen.  I was coming to tell thee that
Citizen Gamel has gone."

"Gone!  *Mon Dieu!*"

"He has paid me, and well; and here is a box for
thee, Citizen François.  I hid it under the mattress.
Oh, I have waited, but I am afraid."

François took the box and its key, and went to
his room.  The box contained some five hundred
francs in gold, and as much more in assignats—the
notes of the day, and really worth but little.  In a
folded package were papers and a letter.  It read
thus:

"I am sorry to leave thee.  A business affair has
failed, and I go westward.  I risk this to warn thee
to fly.  For two days thou art safe, but not longer.
If a gentleman calls whom thou knowest, and asks for
*Monsieur* Achille Gamel, tell him all.  I inclose for
thee a passport.  No matter how I got it.  It is good.
Use it soon.  I divide with thee my small store.
Thou hast been honest; stay so.  We may meet in
better times."

François laughed.  "We must go, Toto.  Well, it
has a good side; thou wilt get thinner."  Then he
read the passport.  It described him well: Jean
François, juggler ("Good!"), returning to Normandy;
affairs of family; a father dying.  "Good!  Now I
have one parent at least."  It was in due order.
"Thou hast no papers, Toto; but thy black head is
secure."

At early morning on the 25th of January, he found
a vender of antiquities, and quickly sold him, for two
hundred francs, the antique arms in the fencing-room.
He must remove them that coming night.  Next he
sought a maker of articles for the jugglers who were
still to be found in every town; for neither at this
time nor during the Terror did the people cease to
amuse themselves.  François bought a set of gaily
tinted balls and the conjuring apparatus with which
he was familiar.  Once again in his room, he packed
his clothes in a knapsack and his juggler's material in a
bag that he could carry.  A long cloak which his
master had left he set aside to take, and, thus prepared,
felt that on the whole he had better risk waiting until
the dawn of the following day before he set out on his
wintry journey.  The old woman had already fled in
alarm.

On the following morning, at 9 A.M., François went
into the great hall to secure pistols and the fine Spanish
rapier which Gamel had given him.  Here he paused,
and re-read the passport.  A blank space had been
left for the insertion of the special locality to which
the bearer might wish to go in Normandy.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "that must do.  I will go to
Musillon.  Perhaps I shall find Despard.  He will help
me to recover that desirable papa."  He went back to
Gamel's room, and carefully completed the passport
by inserting the name of the village Musillon.

After this he returned to the hall, talking to the
poodle as he went.  "Toto, thou art uneasy," he said;
"and I too, my friend.  Remember to howl no more
at Jacobins.  Thou art of the Left, a dog of the Left.
*Tiens!* the bell."  He caught up his rapier, and opened
the door.  A powerful, broad-shouldered man entered.
He was clad in gray, and wore the red bonnet the
extreme Jacobins affected, and which Robespierre so
much despised.

"Ah, no one here.  That is well.  I trust Gamel has
gone."

"Ah!" exclaimed François to himself.  "'T is my
confounded marquis.  Now for ill luck."

"Is Monsieur Gamel at home?  *Monsieur* Achille
Gamel?"  He emphasized the title.

François understood, with no great amazement, that
this was the man of whom Gamel's letter spoke.  He
replied, "This way, please, monsieur."

The gentleman followed without a word.

"Read this," said François; "and, pardon me, but
read it quickly.  My head appears to me to be less
securely attached to my body than common."

"*Dame*!  You are as jolly as ever, my delightful
thief."

"I beg that monsieur will read this letter, and at
once.  *Nom de ciel!* there is no time to be lost."  And
still he laughed.  "We are in a trap, monsieur."

The marquis was not to be hurried; it was not his
way.  "St. Gris! you can laugh.  I envy you.  In
France men grin, for they must; but laughter is dead.
Ah!" and he fell to considering the letter.  Then he
folded it deliberately.  "Burn it," he said.  "So; that
is well; and now, my good thief, I came to warn
Gamel.  He has wisely fled.  Of course there was a
plot, and, as usual, it failed.  You, who are not in it,
are like enough to pay other folks' debts.  I have a
certain mild interest in honest rascality.  You are
a marked man.  No cabbage of the field is more sure
of the knife.  Go, and soon."

"I have heard from Gamel, monsieur.  He assured
me that I was safe here for a day or two—I know not
how he knew that."

"I do, but I scarcely share his confidence.  Go soon."

"I shall go at dawn to-morrow."

"No; go to-day—this evening."

"I will.  Monsieur will pardon me if I ask if
madame, monsieur's daughter, is well and safe?
There are few who have been kind to me, and—"

"My child is well," said the marquis, "and in
Normandy; but if safe or not, who can say, while these
wolves destroy women and children?  Safe!  I would
give my soul to be sure of that."  His face showed
the transient emotion he felt; and suddenly, as if
annoyed at his own weakness, he drew himself up and
said abruptly: "Go—and go quickly!  I shall leave
at once—"

At this moment the bell rang violently.

"The devil!" cried the marquis.  "Go and see, and
do not shut the inner door; I must hear."  With this
he entered the pistol-gallery and waited.  François
obeyed, and, with the sheathed rapier still in his hand,
crossed the hall.  Again the bell rang.

"He is in a mischief of a hurry.  No noise, Toto!"

As he opened the outer door, the man of the warped
face broke in, and, passing him at once, walked
across the little reception-room and into the great hall
beyond.  Again his height and massive build struck
the fencing-master.

"Where is Gamel, citizen?—and no lies to me!
Where is Gamel, I say?"

"He has gone away.  Why, I do not know.  Will
the citizen search his rooms?"

"Search!  Not I.  I will call the municipals.
What are those rooms over there?  And arms!  Why
have they not been sent to the committee for our
patriot children on the frontier?"

"Perhaps Citizen Amar would kindly inspect them,
and then, if required, we can send them.  Many have
been already sent.  Behold, citizen, a war-club of
Ashantee, a matchlock, a headsman's sword.
*Parbleu!* the guillotine is better."

"I see, citizen; I see.  But now of Gamel.  He was
to be here to-day, I hear.  I will return presently with
the officers; and, friend citizen, it will be well for thee
to assist, and heartily.  This Gamel was in some plot
to save the Citizen Capet.  Like master, like man.
Have ready the lists of those aristocrats who fence
here in the morning.  Thou canst save thy head by
making a clean breast of it.  I shall return in half
an hour.  Have everything ready."

At this the dreaded Jacobin, having looked over
the arms and duly impressed the fencing-master,
moved toward the door of exit.  Should Amar leave
the room, François felt that his own fate was certain.
He had been too much with Gamel.  Less things
every day cost the heads of men.  There was death or
life in the next five minutes.  François was not one to
hesitate.  Preceding the Jacobin, he quietly set his
back to the door, and, locking it, put the key in his
pocket.  This action was so dexterous and swift that
for a moment the Jacobin did not perceive that he
was trapped.  He was thinking if there was anything
more to be said.  He looked up.  "Well, open the
door, citizen."  As he spoke, the two strangest faces
in Paris were set over against each other.  Here was
comedy, with long lean features, twinkling eyes above,
and below the good humor of a capacious mouth set
between preposterous ears.  And there was tragedy,
strong of jaw, long hair lying flat in black, leech-like
flakes on a too prominent brow, and small eyes, deep-set,
restless, threatening, seen like those of a wolf in
cave shelters—a face no man trusted, a face on which
all expressions grew into deformity; not a mere beast;
a terribly intelligent bigot of the new creed, colossal,
alert, unsparing, fearless, full of vanity.

When the citizen commissioner said, "Open," François
replied:

"Not just yet, citizen."

"What is this?" shouted Amar.  "Open, I say, in
the name of the law!"

"Not I."  And François, with a quick motion, threw
off the sheath of the rapier.  It fell with a great
clatter on the far side of the room.

"Open, I say!"

At this moment Ste. Luce came across the hall.

"What the deuce is all this, François?"

Amar turned his square shoulders, and looked at
the marquis.

"I presume thee, too, to be one of this rascal
Gamel's band.  If thou dost think I, Pierre Amar,
am afraid of thee, thou art going to find out thy
mistake.  What is thy name?"

"Go to the devil!" cried the marquis.  The Jacobin
darted toward the window; but François was too quick
for him, and instantly had him by the collar, the point
of the rapier touching his back.  "Move a step, and
thou art a dead man."  The face, crooked with
passion, half turned over the shoulder.

"Misery!  What a beauty!  Didst thou think I
valued my head so little as to trust thee, scum of the
devil's dish-water?"  For some reason this huge
animal filled François with rage, and he poured out a
flood of the abusive slang of the Cité as the marquis
came up.

"Drop that window-curtain!" said the thief.  "And
now, what to do, monsieur?"

The captured man showed the utmost courage, and
no small lack of wisdom.  "Dog of an aristocrat!  I
know thee.  It was thou didst kill Jean Coutier, last
month.  I saw thee, coward!  We knew not thy
name.  Now we shall take pay for that murder."

The marquis grew white to the eyes, with a certain
twitching of the lips to be seen as François again
asked:

"What shall we do with him?  Shall we tie him?"

"No; kill him.  What! you will not?  Give me your
rapier.  'T is but one wolf less."

François was more than unwilling.  The intense
hatred of the noble for the Jacobin he did not share;
indeed, he liked the man's fearlessness, but, nevertheless,
meant to provide for his own security.  His conscience,
such as it was, refused to sanction cold-blooded murder.

"I cannot.  Go away!  I will take care of this rascal."

"There is no time to lose," said the marquis.
"Kill the brute."

"Not I," said François.

"Thou art coward enough to kill a man in cold
blood!" cried Amar.  "This is the fine honor you
talk of.  Better go.  All thy kind are running; but,
soon or late, the guillotine will get thy hog-head, as it
did thy Jew-nosed king's."

"The face and the tongue are well matched," said
Ste. Luce, quietly.  "It will take a good ten minutes
to tie and gag him.  You will not kill him?  Then
give the fellow a blade, and—I will see to the rest.
Are you man enough to take my offer?  Quick, now!"

"Try me.  I am no weakling, like poor Coutier."

"Find him a blade, François.  I will watch him.
Be quick!"  He took the rapier, and stood by the
motionless figure, whose uneasy eyes followed the
thief as he went and came again.

"The blades are of a length, François?  Yes.  Lock
the door.  Ah, it is done.  Good!  Now, keep an eye
on him, François.  Take care of yourself if he has the
luck to kill me.  However, that is unlikely.  Ah, you
have a sword, François."

"The citizen talks a good deal," said Amar, trying
his blade on the floor.

"Yes," said the marquis, negligently untying his
cravat.  "It is so rare, in these democratic days,
that one has a chance to talk with one of you gentlemen."

"Bah!" cried the Jacobin, "we shall see presently."  As
he spoke, he laid his sword on a chair and began
to strip.  As he took off his coat and waistcoat, he
folded them with care, and laid them neatly on a bench.

The marquis also stripped to his waistcoat, but it
was with more haste.  He threw his coat to François,
and took his place in the middle of the room, where
he waited until his slower antagonist, in shirt and
breeches, came forward to meet him.  Both believed
it to be a duel to the death, but neither face showed
to François any sign of anxiety.  The Jacobin said:

"The light is in thine eyes, citizen.  If we were to
move so as to engage across the room—"

"It is of no moment," returned the marquis.  "Are
you ready?"

"Yes."

François saw no better method of disposing of an
awkward business.  Nevertheless, he was uncomfortable.
"What if this devil should kill the marquis?"  He
cried, "On guard, messieurs!" and stepped aside.

The marquis saluted with grave courtesy; but the
Jacobin, obeying the fashion of the schools of fence,
went through the formula of appearing to draw the
sword, and certain other conventional motions
supposed to be exacted by etiquette.  The marquis smiled
as Amar led off in this ceremonious fashion.  These
preliminaries of the *salle d'armes* were usually omitted
or curtailed in serious combats.  The seigneur,
amused, and following Amar's lead, went through the
whole performance.  Meanwhile François looked the
two men over, and was not ill pleased.  This heavy
fellow should prove no match for a practised duelist like
Ste. Luce.  He was soon undeceived.

Both men were plainly enough masters of their
weapon, and for at least two minutes there was no
advantage.  Then Ste. Luce was touched in the left
shoulder, and a distorted grimace of satisfaction ran
over the face of the Jacobin.  The marquis became
more careful, and a minute or two later François saw
with pleasure that Amar was breathing a trifle hard.
He had half a mind to cry: "Wait! wait!  He is
feeling the strain."  He held his peace, and, with Toto,
looked on in silence.  The marquis knew his business
well, and noted the quickening chest movements of
his adversary.  He began to smile, and to make a
series of inconceivably quick lunges.  Now and then
the point of either blade struck fair on the convex
steel shell-like guard which protected the hand.
When this chanced, a clear, sweet note as of a bell
rang through the great hall.  The Jacobin held his
own, and François, despite his anxiety, saw with the
satisfaction of a master how lightly each rapier lay in
the grasp of the duelist, and how dexterously the
fingers alone were used to guide the blades.

Of a sudden the strange face was jerked as it were
to left, and a savage lunge in tierce came perilously
near to ending the affair.  Ste. Luce threw himself
back with the quickness of a boy.  The point barely
touched him.  "St. Gris!" he called out gaily.
"That was well meant.  Now take care!"

"By St. Denis! 't is a master," muttered François.
The marquis seemed of a sudden to have let loose
a reserve of unlooked-for power.  He was here and
there about the massive and by no means unready
bulk of Amar, swift and beautifully graceful.

Then of a sudden the marquis's blade went out as
quick as lightning, and just at the limit of a nearly
futile thrust caught Amar over the right eye.  "*Dame*!
I missed those lanterns of hell!"

The Jacobin brushed away the blood which, running
down his face, made his right eye useless for the
time.

The marquis fell back, and dropped his point.
"The deuce!  The man cannot see.  Tie a
handkerchief around his head."

The Jacobin was not sorry to have time to breathe.

"Thou art more than fair, citizen," said Amar,
getting his breath.

"Thanks," returned the marquis, coldly.  "Make
haste, François."

François took up a lace handkerchief which lay
beside Ste. Luce's coat on the seat where he had cast his
clothes.  While François bound the handkerchief
around the head so as to stop the flow of blood, Amar
turned to his foe.

"Citizen," said the Jacobin, "thou hast been a
gallant man in this matter.  My life was thine to take.
Let it end here.  Thou art a brave man and a good
blade."

Ste. Luce looked at him with an expression of
amused curiosity.

"What else?"

"I will not have thee pursued—on my honor."

"Tie it firmly, François.  You have just heard, my
François, of the last Parisian novelty—a Jacobin's
honor!  Be so good as to hurry, François."

Had the stern Jacobin felt some sudden impulse of
pity or respect?  In all his after days he was
unsparing, and certainly it was not fear which now
moved him.

"As pleases thee," he said simply.  Ste. Luce made
no answer.  Again their blades met.  And now the
marquis changed his game, facing his foe steadily,
while François gazed in admiration.  Ste. Luce's rapier
was like a lizard's movements for quickness.  Twice
he touched the man's chest, and by degrees drove him
back, panting, until he was against the door.  Suddenly,
seeming to recover strength, the Jacobin lunged
in quarte, and would have caught the marquis fair in
the breast-bone had he not thrown himself backward
as he felt the prick.  Instantly he struck the blade
aside with his open left hand, and, as it went by his
left side, drove his rapier savagely through Amar's
right lung and into the panel of the door.  It was
over.  Not ten minutes had passed.

"*Dame!*" he cried, withdrawing his rapier, and
retreating a pace or two.  "He was worth fighting."

The Jacobin's face moved convulsively.  He
coughed, spattering blood about him.  His right arm
moved in quick jerks.  His sword dropped, and stuck
upright in the floor, quivering.

"Dog of an aristocrat!" he cried.  His distorted
face twitched; he staggered to left, to right, and at
last tumbled in a heap, a massive figure, of a sudden
inert and harmless.

.. _`HE STAGGERED TO LEFT, TO RIGHT, AND AT LAST TUMBLED IN A HEAP`:

.. figure:: images/img-131.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "HE STAGGERED TO LEFT, TO RIGHT, AND AT LAST TUMBLED IN A HEAP."

   "HE STAGGERED TO LEFT, TO RIGHT, AND AT LAST TUMBLED IN A HEAP."

The marquis stood still and looked down at his foe.

"What the deuce to do with him?" said François.

"Take his head, and drag him into your room.  We
can talk then."

"Will monsieur take his feet?"

"What!  *I* touch the dog?  No, not I."

François did not like it; but making no reply, he
dragged the Jacobin's helpless bulk after him, and,
once in his room, pulled the mattress off the bed, and
without roughness drew the man upon it.

Amar opened his eyes, and tried to speak.  He
could not; the flow of blood choked him.  He shook
his fist at Ste. Luce.

"Cursed brute," cried François, "be still!  He will
begin to howl presently.  The sons of Satan are immortal."

"We must gag him, François."

"But he will die; he will choke.  See how he
breathes—how hard."

"*Diable!* it is he or I.  Would he spare me, do you
think?  Don't talk nonsense.  Do as I tell you."

François took up a towel.  As he approached,
Amar looked up at him.  There was no plea in his
savage face.

"Go on.  What the deuce are you waiting for?"
said Ste. Luce.

"I cannot do it," said François.  "End it yourself."

"What!  I?  Strangle a dog!  I!  *Dame*!  Let us
go.  What a fool you are!"

"Better go singly, then," said the thief.  He had no
mind to increase his own risks by the dangerous
society of the nobleman.

Amar was silent.  The handkerchief had fallen
from his head, but the wound bled no longer.

"What shall I do with the handkerchief, monsieur?"

"Do?  Burn it.  Faugh!"  François cast it on
the still glowing embers.  "Now my clothes and my
cloak," said Ste. Luce; "and do not lose any time over
that animal."

He washed off the little blood on his clothes, and
dressed in haste, saying: "Lucky that his point struck
on my breast-bone.  'T is of no moment.  The fellow
has left me a remembrance.  I am sorry I did not
have the luck to kill him.  Good-by, François.  May
we meet in better days."  He was gone.

François locked the door after him, and went back
to his room.  He sat down on the floor beside the
mattress.

"Now listen, Master Amar.  Canst thou hear me?
Ah, yes.  Well, I have saved thy life.  Oh, thou wilt
get well,—more 's the pity!—and do some mischief
yet.  Now if I should kill thee I would be pretty
safe.  If I go away, and send thee a doctor, I am a
lost man.  What is that thou art saying?  Ah!"
and he leaned down to hear the broken whisper.  "So
thou wilt have my head chopped off.  Thou art less
afraid than I would be, were I thee.  What shall we
do, Toto?" and he laughed; somehow the situation
had for him its humorous side.

"I can't murder a man," he said.  "If ever I kill a
man, I trust it may be one who hath not thy eyes and
thy one-sided grin.  To be haunted by a ghost like
thee!  The deuce!  Not I!  *Sac à papier*!  I will
take my chance."  He sat down, and wrote a short
note to a surgeon on the farther side of Paris, one
whom he knew to have been much commended to his
pupils by Gamel.

"My unforgiving friend," he said, "I shall lock thee
in.  Thou art too weak to move, and to try will cause
thee to bleed.  This note will get thee a surgeon in
about six hours.  I must leave thee.  Be quiet, and be
good.  Here is a flask of *eau-de-vie*.  Art still of a
mind to give thy preserver to the guillotine?"  The
grim head nodded as the red froth leaked out over
the lips.  "'Yes, yes,' thou sayest.  Thou art in a fine
state of penitence.  I hope we have seen the last of
each other.  One more chance.  Promise me not to be
my enemy.  I will trust thee.  Come, now."

But the Jacobin was past speech.  As François
knelt beside him, he beckoned feebly.

"What is it?"  As he bent lower, a grim smile
went over the one movable side of Amar's face, and,
raising a feeble hand, he drew it across François's neck.

"*Mon Dieu!*" cried he, recoiling, "thou art ripe for
hell.  Adieu, my unforgiving friend; and as thou hast
no God, *au diable*, and may St. Satan look after
thee—for love of thy looks.  Come, doggie!"  He put his
pistols in the back of his belt, set his rapier in the
belt-catch, threw his cloak over all, and picked up his
bag and knapsack.  He took one last look at Amar,
and saying, "By-by, my angel," left him, locking
both doors as he went out.

François passed into the street, followed by the
black poodle.  In the Rue St. Honoré he paid the
boy of a butcher with whom Gamel dealt to take his
note when the midday meal should be over.  And thus
having eased his conscience and regulated the
business of life, he set out to put between him and the
Jacobin as many miles as his long legs could cover.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XIV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XIV

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*François escapes from Paris and goes in search of a
father.  He meets a man who has a wart on his nose,
and who because of this is unlucky.*

.. vspace:: 2

He had been fortunate.  Not more than an
hour and a quarter had gone by since
Amar's entrance, and the mid-hour of
breakfast had probably secured them
from intrusion of foe or friend.  François,
who knew Paris as few men did, strode on through
narrow streets and the dimly lighted passages which
afforded opportunity to avoid the busier haunts of
men.  The barriers were carelessly guarded, and he
passed unmolested into the country.  Once outside of
the city, he took the highroad to Evreux, down the
Seine, simply because the passport of Jean François,
juggler, pointed to Normandy as his destination.
Naturally a man of forethinking sense, he had assumed
that the village whence came Despard should be the
home of that father who was ill.  He knew from his
former partner enough of the village to answer
questions.  It lay westward of Evreux.  France was then
less full of spies and less suspicious than it became in
the Terror; and until he arrived at a small town on the
north bank of the Seine, not far from Poissy, he had
no trouble.  He saw no couriers.  The post went only
once a week.  He was safe, and, to tell the truth,
merry and well pleased again to wander.  His money
was sewed in his garments.  He wore his rapier under
his cloak, but with it he carried the conjurer's thin,
supple blade, which, when he feigned to swallow it, a
spring caused to coil into the large basket-hilt.  His
pistols were strapped behind him, and on his back he
carried his knapsack and small bag of juggling
apparatus.  Thus, clad in sober gray, with the tricolor
on his red cap and a like decoration on the poodle's
collar, he was surely a quaint enough figure.  Long,
well built, and wiry, laughing large between his two
wing-like ears, he held his way along the highroad on
the bank of the winding Seine.

He avoided towns and people, camped in the woods,
juggled and told fortunes at farm-houses for a dinner,
and, as I have said, had no trouble until he came at
midday to the hamlet of Île Rouge.  Here, being
tired, and Toto footsore, he thought he might venture
to halt and sleep at the inn.

It was a little gray French town in the noonday
quiet, scarce a soul in sight, and a warmer sun than
January usually affords on street and steaming
roof-tiles.  Hostile dogs, appearing, seemed to consider
Toto a Royalist.  François tucked him under his arm,
and carelessly entered the stone-paved tap-room of
the "Hen with Two Heads."  He repented too late.
The room was half full.  One of the many
commissioners who afterward swarmed through France was
engaged with the mayor of the commune.  François,
putting on an air of humility, sought out the
innkeeper, and asked meekly to have a room.  As he did
so, a fat man in the red bonnet of the Jacobins called
out from the table where he sat, "Come here!"

François said, "Yes, citizen," and stood at the table
where this truculent person was seated.

He was sharply questioned, and his papers and
baggage were overhauled with small ceremony,
while, apparently at his ease, he liberally distributed
smiles and the kindly glances of large blue eyes.  At
last he was asked why he carried a sword; it was
against the law.  He made answer that he carried two
tools of his trade—would the citizen see?  And when
he had swallowed two feet of his juggler's blade, to
the wonder of the audience, nothing further was said
of the rapier.  At last, seeing that the commissioner
still hesitated, he told, with great show of frankness,
whither he was going, and named Despard as one who
would answer for him.  The mention of this name
seemed to annoy the questioner, who said Despard
was a busy fellow, and was stirring up the citizens at
Musillon.  He, Grégoire, was on his way to see after
him.  He should like to make the acquaintance of that
sick father, and, after all, François might be an *émigré*.
He must wait, and go with the commissioner to Musillon.

François smiled his best; and, when the citizen
commissioner had done with business, might he amuse
him with a little juggling?  Citizen Grégoire would
see; let him sit yonder and wait.  After a few
minutes the great man's breakfast was set before him; the
room was cleared, and the citizen ate, while François
looked him over.

.. _`HE HELD HIS WAY ALONG THE HIGHROAD`:

.. figure:: images/img-139.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "HE HELD HIS WAY ALONG THE HIGHROAD."

   "HE HELD HIS WAY ALONG THE HIGHROAD."

Grégoire was a short, stout man with long hair, a
face round, red, chubby, and made expressionless by
a button-nose, which was decorated with a large
rugose wart.  The meal being over, he went out,
leaving a soldier at the door, and taking no kind of
note of his prisoner.  François sat still.  He was
patient, but the afternoon was long.  At dusk Citizen
Grégoire reappeared, and, as François noted, was a
little more amiable by reason of the vinous hospitality
of the mayor.  He sat down, and ordered dinner.
When it came, François said tranquilly:

"Citizen Commissioner Grégoire, wouldst thou
kindly consider the state of my stomach?  Swallowing
of swords sharpens the appetite."

The commissioner looked up from his meal.  He
was in the good-humored stage of drunkenness.

"Come and eat," he said, laughing.

"He hath the benevolence of the bottle," thought
François.  "Let us amuse him."

The commissioner took off his red bonnet, poured
out a glass of wine, looked at a paper or two in his
hand-bag, and set it on a seat near by, while the
juggler humbly accepted the proffered place.  Then
the poodle was made to howl at the name of Citizen
Capet, and to bark joyously at the mention of Jacobins.
François told stories, played tricks, and drank freely.
The commissioner drank yet more freely.  François
proposed to make a punch,—a juggler's punch,—and
did make a drink of uncommon vigor.  About nine
the commissioner began to nod, and François, who
had been closely studying his face, presently saw him
drop into a deep slumber.  The open bag looked
tempting.  He swiftly slipped a dexterous hand into
its contents, and feeling a wallet of coin, transferred
it to his own pocket.  The temptation had been great,
the yielding to it imprudent; but there was no one else
about, except the careless guard outside the door.
François concluded to replace the wallet; but at this
moment the great Grégoire of the committee woke up.
"That was funny," he said.  "I did not quite catch
the end of it."

"No," said François; "the citizen slept a little."

Grégoire became angry.

"I—I asleep?  I am on duty.  I never sleep on
duty."  The citizen was very drunk.  He got up, and,
staggering, set a foot on Toto's tail.  The poodle
yelped, and the Jacobin kicked him.  "*Sacrée béte!*"  The
poodle, unaccustomed to outrage, retorted by a
nip at a fat calf.  Then the great man asserted himself.

"Hallo, there!  Curse you and your dog!
Landlord! landlord!"  The host came in haste, and two
soldiers.  "Got a safe place?  Lock up this sc-scoundrel,
and k-kill his dog!"  The landlord kindly suggested
a disused wine-cellar.  "Now, no delay.  I'm
Grégoire.  Lock him up!"  Having disposed of the
juggler, the citizen contrived to get out of the room
and to bed with loss of dignity and balance.

A few minutes sufficed to set François in a chilly
cellar, the poodle at his heels; for no one took
seriously the order to kill Toto.  Of the two soldiers, one,
who was young and much amused, brought an old
blanket, and a lantern with a lighted candle set within
it.  Yes, the prisoner could have his knapsack and
bag—there were no orders; but he must give up his
sword.  It was so dark that when François promptly
surrendered his juggler's blade it seemed to satisfy
the soldiers; for who could dream that a man would
carry two swords?  With a laugh and a jest, François
bade them to wake him early.  He called to the young
recruit, as they were leaving, that he would like to
have a bottle of wine, and gave him sufficient small
change to insure also a bottle for these good-humored
jailers.

They took the whole affair as somewhat of a
practical joke.  All would be well in the morning.
When Grégoire was drunk he arrested everybody.
The young soldier would fetch the wine in an hour.
Good night.

François was alone and with leisure to consider the
situation.

"Attention, Toto!" he said.  This putting of
thought into an outspoken soliloquy, with the judicial
silence of the poodle to aid him, was probably a real
assistance; for to think aloud formulates conditions
and conclusions in a way useful to one untrained to
reason.  To read one's own mind, and to hear one's
own mind, are very different things.

"Toto," he said, "we are in a bad way.  Why didst
thou bite that fat beast's calf?  It did thee no good,
thou ill-tempered brute.  'T is not good diet; a pound
of it would make thee drunk.  I shall have to whip
thee, little beast of an aristocrat, if thou dost take to
nipping the calves of the republic."

Toto well knew that he was being scolded.  He
leaped up and licked the thief's face.

"Down, Citizen Toto!  Where are thy manners?
I like better Citizen Grégoire drunk than Citizen
Grégoire sober.  How about my poor papa?  Oh, but
I was an ass to name Despard.  Didst thou observe
that the commissioner's eyebrows meet?  And, Toto,
he has a great wart on his nose.  'T is a man will
fetch ill luck.  I knew a thief had a wart on his nose,
and he was broken on the wheel at Rouen.  Besides,
there was the wallet.  Toto, attention!  Thou dost
wander.  It is all the doings of that *sacré* marquis.  *À
bas les aristocrates*!  Let us inspect a little."  Upon
this he pried about every corner, tried the heavy oaken
door, still gaily talking, and at last sat on an empty
cask and considered the grated window and the
limited landscape dimly visible between its four iron
rods.  The end of a woodpile, about four feet away,
was all that he could see.  This woodpile set him to
thinking.

An hour later the young recruit returned with the
wine.  "I came to see if thou wert safe," he said.
"Like as not Grégoire will forget all about thee
to-morrow.  Wine hath a short memory."

François laughed.  "*Le bon Dieu* grant it.  I can
tell fortunes, but not my own."  And should he tell the
citizen soldier's fortune?  With much laughter it was
told, and the gifts of fateful time were showered on
the soldier's future in opulent abundance.  He would
be with the army on the frontier soon.  He would
marry—*dame!*—a woman rich in looks and lands.  He
would be a general one day.  And this, oddly enough,
came true; for he became a general of division, and
was killed the morning after at Eylau.  Seeing that
this young man had agreeable fashions, the thief
ventured to express his thanks.

"Monsieur—" he began.

"Take care!  *Mon Dieu!* thou must not say that;
'citizen,' please.  The messieurs are as dead as the
saints, and the devil, and the *bon Dieu*, and the rest."

As he did not seem displeased, François said:

"Oh, thou art no Jacobin.  Hast a *De* to thy name?"

This recruit's manners appeared to François a good
deal like those of the young nobles whom he had
taught to fence.

"What I was is of no moment," replied the young
fellow.  "The *De's* are as dead as the saints.  I am
a soldier.  But, pardon me, the citizen may be as frank
as suits his appetite for peril.  I have had my bellyful."

"Frank?  *Dame!* why not?  Up-stairs I was a
Jacobin; down here I am a Royalist.  I was an aide
in Gamel's fencing-school, and, *pardie!* I came away.
Thou canst do me a little service."

"Can I help thee, and not hurt myself?  We—my
people—are grown scarce of late.  I am the last; I
take no risks."

"There will be none.  Bring me a little steel fork
and a good long bit of twine."

"A fork!  What for?"  He had a lad's curiosity.

"To eat with."

"But there is nothing to eat."

"Quite true.  But it assists one's imagination;
and, after all, there may be to-morrow, and to eat with
decency a fork is needed.  A citizen may use his bare
paws, but a monsieur may not use the fingers of equality.
Thou wilt observe how the thought of these tools
of luxury reminds one of messieurs and the like."

The lad—he was hardly over twenty—laughed
merrily.  "Thou art a delightful companion.
Gamel—thou didst say Gamel?"

"I did, monsieur.  Gamel that was the master of
arms in the Rue St. Honoré."

"My poor brother used to fence there.  By
St. Denis! thou must be François!"

"I am."

"Then thou shalt have the tool of luxury.  But,
good heavens! take care.  Thou hast a tongue
which—well, I have learned to bridle mine."

"My tongue never got me into trouble; like my
legs, it is long, and, like them, it has got me out of a
good many scrapes.  I thank thee for the warning.
One knows whom to talk to.  I can be silent.  Oh,
you may laugh.  I did not speak for a day after I first
saw that juggler's tool, the guillotine, in the sun on the
Place de la Révolution.  *Dieu!* behold there is a man
that talks and laughs; and, presto, pass! there is
eternal silence."

"*Âme de St. Denis!* thou art not gay," cried the soldier.

"*Tête de St. Denis* were better.  He was a fellow
for these times—a saint that could carry his head
under his arm when it was chopped off."

The young recruit laughed, but more uneasily.
Not to laugh in some fashion was among the
impossibilities of life when this face-quake of mirth broke
out between those wing-like ears.

He would fetch the tools, and, in fact, did so in a
few minutes.  Then he bade François good night, and
went away.  As soon as he had gone, François retired
to a corner with his lantern to inspect the wallet.
There were three louis, a few sous, and no more.  The
risk was large, the profit small.  In an inner pocket
was a thin, folded paper.  When opened it seemed to
be a letter in due form, dated a month before, but
never sent.  It was addressed to Citizen de la
Vicomterie of the Great Committee.  François whistled.  It
was a furious attack on Robespierre and Couthon,
and an effort to sum up the strength which an assault
on the great leaders would command in the Convention—a
rash document for those days.  Clearly the
writer, whose full signature of Pierre Grégoire was
appended, had wisely hesitated to send it.

"It seems to have been forgotten.  Was he drunk,
Toto?  Surely now we must get out and away.  'T is
a letter of death; 't is a passport worth many louis,
Toto."  He pulled off a shoe, folded the paper neatly,
and pulling up a tongue of leather on the inside sole,
placed the letter underneath, and put on the shoe
again.  He took the louis, threw the wallet under a
cask, and waited.

When the house was still he set to work.  He had
found behind a barrel a long staff used to measure
the height of wine in casks.  On the end of this he
tied securely, crosswise, the steel fork, and then began
to inspect the thin rods of the window, which were but
ill fitted to guard a man of resources.

"Art still too fat?" he said, as he lifted Toto and
managed to squeeze him between the bars.  After that
he began to fish with his stick and fork for a small
log which had fallen from the woodpile and was just
a foot or two out of reach.  Twice he had it, and twice
it broke loose, but now Toto understood, and, seizing
the log, dragged it nearer.  At last François had the
prize.  The rest was easy.  He set the log between
the thin bars, and threw on this lever all the power of
one of the strongest men in Paris.  In place of breaking,
the iron rod bent and drew out of its sockets.  A
second proved as easy, and at last the window-space
was free.  It seemed large enough.  He concluded to
leave his bag; but the knapsack he set outside, and
also his weapons and the conjuring-balls.  Next he
stripped off most of his clothes, and laid these too on
the far side of the window.  Finally his legs were
through, and his hips.  But when it came to the
shoulders he was in trouble.  It seemed impossible.
He felt the poor poodle pulling at his foot, and had
hard work to restrain his laughter.  "*Dame!* would
I grin at *Mère Guillotine*?  Who knows?  How to
shrink?"  He wriggled; he emptied his chest of air;
he turned on his side; and, leaving some rags and a
good bit of skin on the way, he was at last outside.
Here, having reclothed himself, he broke up the
wine-measurer and threw the fork over the wall.  In a few
minutes he was on the highway, and running lightly
at the top of his speed.  At dawn he found a
farm-house which seemed to be deserted—no rare thing in
those days.  He got in at a window, and stayed for
two days, without other food than the crusts he had
carried from the cellar.  The night after, weak and
hungry, he walked till dawn; and being now a good
ten leagues from that terrible commissioner, he
ventured to buy a good dinner and to get himself set over
the Seine.  Somewhat reassured, he asked the way to
Evreux, and, for once in his life perplexed and
thoughtful, went along without a word to Toto.

He had been three weeks on the way, owing to his
need to hide or to make wide circuits in order to avoid
the larger towns.  It was now the February of northern
France, and there was sometimes a little snow, but
more often a drizzling rain.  He had suffered much
from cold; but as he strode along, with a mind more
at ease, he took pleasure in the sunshine.  A night
wind from the north had dried the roads.  It was calm,
cold in the shadows, deliriously warm on the sun-lit
length of yellow highway.  He had lost time,—quite
too much,—but he still hoped to reach Musillon
before that man with the wart arrived.  If so, he would
see Despard, warn him as to Grégoire, and, with this
claim, and their old partnership, on which he counted
less, he might get his passport altered, and lose
himself somewhere.  If he had to remain in the town, he
must see, or be presumed to have seen, that sick
father, and must be promptly adopted if by cruel
circumstances he became unable to journey far enough
from Paris to feel secure.  The distorted face of Amar
haunted him—the man who, to save his own life,
would not even make believe to forgive.  He had no
power within him to explain a man like Amar; and
because the Jacobin was to him incomprehensible, he
was more than humanly terrible.  What possessed
that devil of a marquis to turn up!  And was he now
at his château?  And why had Achille Gamel set
down Normandy in the passport?  And why had he
himself been fool enough to fill up the vacant place
for the name of his destination with that of the only
small town he could recall in that locality?  He had
been in haste, and now a net seemed to be gathering
about him.  He must go thither, or take perilous
chances.  He was moving toward a fateful hour.

"Toto," he said, "let us laugh; for I like not the
face of to-morrow."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XV

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*How François finds Despard and has a lesson in politics,
and of what came of it.*

.. vspace:: 2

At evening he ventured to enter an inn
at Soluce.  A good bed and ample diet
restored his courage; but he learned that
the citizen with a wart, and an escort of
a dozen soldiers, had passed the day
before, on their way to Bvreux.  Would he remain
there, this friendly commissioner?  No one knew.
Evreux was Jacobin to the core.  Then he thought of
the marquis; it was well to be informed.

Yes; the Citizen Ste. Luce lived beyond Musillon.

The citizen juggler declared that he had once been in
his service, but now that all men were equal, he could
not lower the dignity of an equalized nation by serving
him longer.  He learned that the château of the
marquis had not suffered, nor he, as he was never known
to be absent, and no one molested him.  This did
not surprise François.  In the South, at an earlier
date, the peasants had burned hundreds of châteaux,
but these riots had been mercilessly put down.  The
Jacobins meant to have peace in France, and at cost
of blood, if that was requisite.  To have peace at
home was essential to the success of national defense
on the frontier.  In many parts of France, throughout
the whole of the Terror, very many large land-owners
were undisturbed.  In fact, the Terror, and its
precedent punishments, fell with strange irregularity
on the provinces.  The Dukes de Bethune-Charost, de
Luynes, de Nivernais, and others who had not been
active in politics, remained unhurt on their estates.
For the *émigrés* was reserved a bitter hatred.  Nor can
we wonder at this result of the vast exodus which
took place from '89 to '91—"*l'émigration joyeuse*," as it
was called by those who carried off means enough to
live gay lives in Brussels while their country was in
the convulsions of great social and political change.

François made haste to leave at dawn, and by
nightfall was close to the town of Musillon.  He found a
wood road, and was soon deep in one of the marquis's
forests.  In a quiet glade among rocks he put his
effects in security, and, charging Toto to guard them,
set out to inspect the town.  The poodle did not like
it.  He ran back and forth, whining.

"Oh, stop that!" cried François.  "Go back!
Dost thou hear?"

Toto lay down, and set himself to secure what
comfort the situation afforded.

Meanwhile François took to the main road until
close to the village, and then left it for the fields,
cautiously nearing the town, a small place of some twelve
hundred souls.  A monotonous double line of scattered
one-story stone houses lay along the highway.
Avoiding the village, François moved past and around the
red-roofed Norman farm-houses which lay off from
the main highway.  Mounds of earth set around the
houses walled in an orchard and an inclosure of many
acres, so that, seen from the exterior, they had the
appearance of being fortified.  The lights were out,
and François saw no one.  Now and then a sentinel
dog barked as the wanderer went by the gateways,
in wonder at this unusual style of fence.  At last
he turned again toward the road.

The town was quiet.  It was after nine at night.
Having purposely lingered thus long, François
approached the back of the inn, and became sure that it
was empty of guests.  A little beyond it was the
village church, and as this was lighted, he approached
it with care.  The crosses of the burial-ground were
gone.  He stumbled over graves, and at last, standing
on a tomb, got a fair glimpse of the interior of the
church, for many of its windows were broken.  It was
full of people, and the murmur of noisy debate came
to his ears.  He felt that he must learn what was
going on.  With this in view, he kept under the deep
shadow of the wall, and soon saw that the outer porch
was crowded with men and women, listening through
the open door.  Favored by the darkness, he got
unobserved into this mass of deeply occupied people,
and was able at last to catch a little of what was going
on.  Yes; this was the club of Jacobins which his
partner Despard had been sent to organize, one of the
hundreds which soon conquered and led opinion all
through the provinces.

He caught the usual denunciation of *émigrés* and of
the *ci-devant* aristocrats.  He had heard it all before;
it did not help him.

Very soon an elderly man in peasant dress arose
near the door.  He spoke of something which they
had considered as well to be done soon.  He thought
it better to wait until Citizen Commissioner Grégoire
arrived.  To arrest a *ci-devant* aristocrat like Ste. Luce
was of course proper; but the people were excited, and
might do mischief, and they knew that the Great
Committee did not approve of riots.  France must
have rest.  These outbreaks had ended elsewhere in
the deaths of hundreds of peasants.  He bade them
wait, and, in fact, spoke with rare good sense.  He
was roughly interrupted.  His speech was received
with laughter and contemptuous cries, and, to
François's amazement, there was Despard on his feet, not
twenty feet away.  His old partner was somber-looking
and red-eyed, but seemed to have lost his shyness
of speech.  He broke out into violent invectives,
charging the previous speaker with indifference to
the good of France.  This man was no doubt a traitor.
He had been in the service of the *ci-devant*.  He had
advised the people to wait.  Were they not the rulers?
The Jacobin clubs would see to this rat of a
commissioner; let him come.  Then, leaping on a chair, he
began to contrast the luxury in which Ste. Luce lived
with the meager life of the peasant.  He talked of the
great noble's younger life, of his debauchery and
hardness.  All knew what he meant.  Not he alone
had suffered.  How many of the children men liked
to call their own were of noble blood?

His fluent passion, his ease of speech, his apparent
freedom from his usual mood of fear, astonished
François.  At last Despard became more excited,
raved wildly, grew incoherent, paused, burst into
horrors of blasphemous allusion, and, utterly exhausted,
reeled, and dropped into his chair, amid wild applauding
cries and a dozen vain efforts of speakers eager to
be heard.  As if satisfied, the crowd waited no longer
to listen, and issued out in just the mood Despard
had desired to create.  François stepped aside,
unnoticed.  Among the last, surrounded by a gesticulating
group, came Despard, silent, exhausted, his head
bent down.  A voice cried out: "To-night!  Let us
do it to-night!"  Despard said slowly: "No, not
to-night.  He is not there—he is not there.  Perhaps
to-morrow; we shall see.  I must have rest—rest."

"Is he mad?" thought François.  "*Diable*!  How
he hates him!  Why is he not afraid?"  He had once
heard the choir-master tell of a feeble, timid nun who
had killed two people; and this man, he supposed,
might be, like her, crazed.  No matter; he must use
him.  The crowd dispersed, and, following Despard at
a distance, François saw him enter the house of the
village priest, who had long since said his last prayer
in the garden of the Carmelites.

For an hour, and until all was still, François
walked to and fro behind the house.  Suddenly a
door opened and closed.  François moved around the
house.  He saw Despard go out on the road.  After
looking about him, the Jacobin walked swiftly away,
and was soon past the farthest houses.

"*Dame!*" said François, "let us go after him.
What can he mean?  It becomes amusing."  Moving
with care in the shadows at the side of the road, he
followed Despard, who walked down the middle of
the highway, now and then stopping short and cracking
his finger-joints, as he used to do when worried,
or clasping his hands over the back of his neck.

The thief smiled as he went.  He was again the
savage of the streets, with all his keen wits in play,
and vaguely aware of pleasure in the use of his
training.  He looked about him, or stole noiselessly from
one depth of gloom to another across some less
shadowed place.  He put out with care one long leg and
then the other tentatively, like great feelers, and yet
got over the ground with speed, as was required, for
Despard walked at a rate which was unusual.  The
great ears of his pursuer were on guard.  Once, when
Despard stopped of a sudden, François was near
enough to hear him crack his knuckles as he pulled at
them.  As Pierre stood, he threw up a hand as it were
in the eager gesture of a speech, or in silent,
custom-born attestation of some mentally recorded vow.
Then he went onward, silent, and was for a moment
lost to view in the aisles of the forest into which he
turned.  François moved faster, dimly seeing him
again.  The Jacobin hurried on.  The man who
followed him was smiling in the darkness, and was
feeding curiosity with the keen satisfaction he felt in a
chase which was not without a purpose.

Despard seemed to know the great forest well.  It
soon became more open.  He came to a low garden
wall, and, climbing it, was heard to tumble on the
farther side with a crash of breaking earthenware.
He had come down on a pile of garden pots.  The
thief reflected for a moment that his partner must
have lost the agility of his former business, and
himself approached the wall with care.  Moving to one
side, he dropped to the ground, as quiet as a prowling cat.

There was no moon, but the night was clear, and
over against the star-lit space he saw the silhouette of
a vast château—angles, gables, turrets with vanes.
The man whom he hunted moved across the garden,
through rose-hedges, under trees, as if reckless as to
being heard.  Once he fell, but got up without even
an exclamation; and so on and on in stumbling haste
until he stood upon the broad terrace in front of the
building.

François was for a little while at leisure to look
about him.  Despard, with a sudden movement, strode
to the foot of the broad steps which led up to the
lofty doorway of the château.  Here again he stayed
motionless.  François, now used to the partial
obscurity of the night, took quick note of the white
gleam of vases, of a fountain's monotonous murmur,
of statues, dim gray blurs seen against the dark
wood-spaces beyond; the great size of the house he saw, and
that three or four windows showed lights within.

What was Despard about to do?  François waited.
Then he heard now and then, rising and falling, the
faint notes of a violoncello.  At this moment he saw
that Pierre was gesticulating, and at last caught
sound of speech.  He was too far away to be clearly
seen or distinctly heard.  François sat down, took off
his shoes, tied them over his neck, and went down on
all fours.  It was one of his old tricks to amuse thus
the children gathered before the show-booth.  He
could become a bear or an elephant, and knew how to
simulate the walk of beasts.  Now he approached
Despard on his hands and feet, and, seen in the partial
gloom, would have seemed a queer-looking animal.
A closely clipped row of box lay between them and
bordered the broad roadway leading to the portal.

His approach was noiseless.  Even if it had not
been, it is unlikely that Despard would have noticed
it.  The quadruped knelt, and set his eyes to see and
his ears to hear, being now only six feet away.  His
own fate was deeply involved.  He cared little for the
marquis, but up out of the dark of memory came the
tender sweetness of the face of the widowed daughter.
No word of her brief pleading was forgotten by this
man who craved regard, affection, respect,
consideration—all that he had not.  It was only a flash of
thought, and again he was intently receptive.

Despard stood, shaking his arms wildly, looking
here and there, up and down.  At last he spoke, and
so loud that François watched him, amazed at his
unnatural lack of caution.

"To-morrow I, Pierre Despard, shall be master.  I
shall no more be afraid.  I shall see thee tremble on
the tumbrel.  I shall see thee shudder at the knife."

François had an uncontrollable shiver, predictive,
sympathetic.  Could he trust this creature?  There
was no help for it.  He recalled with a smile one of
the Crab's proverbs: "Monsieur Must is a man to
trust."  She had many and vile sayings; this was one
of the few that were not swine-wisdom.

As the man went on speaking, his hands threatened
the silent house or snatched at some unseen thing.
He stood again moveless for a moment, and then
threw out his hands as if in appeal, and called aloud:
"Renée!  Renée! art thou here?  Oh, could he not
have spared thee to me—to me, who had so little?
And he had so much!  Oh, for the name he should
have spared thee!  For the shame—the shame.
Renée, his own child's name.  My Renée is dead, and
his—his Renée lives; but not long—not long."

"*Dieu!*" murmured François.  "Let him have the
man.  *Dame*!  I should have killed him long ago."

Pierre was raving, and was only at times to be
understood.  He seemed to be seeing this lost Renée, and
was now rational and again incoherent or foolishly
vague.

François hesitated; but at this moment a window
on the second floor was cast open, and a man, who
may have heard Despard, showed himself.  François
looked up, and saw a slight figure framed in the
window-space clear against the light behind him.

Despard cried out in tones of terror: "The marquis! the
marquis!" and, turning, fled down the terrace
and along the avenue.

"Queer, that," muttered François.  "He is afraid.
I must have him."  He put on his shoes in haste, and
with great strides pursued the retreating figure,
hearing, as he ran, the servant crying from the window,
"Who goes there?"

A hundred yards away from the house, Despard,
terrified at the nearing steps, turned into a side alley,
and at last tore through a thicket to the left.

In an instant François had him by the collar.  The
captured man screamed like a child in a panic of alarm,
while François shook him as a terrier shakes a rat.

"*Mille tonnerres!* idiot, keep quiet!  Don't kick; it
is no use.  Thou wilt have the whole house after thee.
'T is I—François.  Keep quiet!  Look at me—François.
Dost not hear?"  At last he was quieted.

"What scared thee, *mon ami*?"

"I saw him—I saw the marquis!  I saw him!"

"Monsieur—the marquis?  He is thrice that fellow's size."

They were now seated on the ground, Despard
panting, and darting quick glances to right and left
like a frightened animal.

"Come, Pierre, tell me what all this means.  Art
gone clean out of thy wits?"

"Why dost thou ask?  Thou dost know well
enough.  I have waited—waited.  Now I have him."

"*Dame*!  Thou?  Thou wilt never face him.  Thou
art afraid."

"I am now.  I shall not be to-morrow night.
There will be hundreds.  I shall look!  I shall see!"

"For Heaven's sake," cried François, "talk a little
sense.  A man who fears a mouse to talk of killing
this terrible fellow!"

"The law will kill him, not I.  The law—the knife."

"Stuff!  A certain commissioner, Grégoire, is after
thee, and, worse, after me.  He hath a wart on his
nose.  I ran away to avoid those cursed Jacobins.
Passport all right—name of Jean François.  Mind
thee!  My father is old and failing.  Thou wilt have
to find me a papa.  Grégoire has—he has doubts, this
Grégoire.  So have I.  When I told him you were
my friend, he shut me up in a cellar, and that I liked
not.  I was a fool to run away; but, *mon Dieu!* there
was my errand—to see that poor father—all set out
on my passport, and the man with the wart inquisitive.
I had to get here and find my papa."

Another man's difficulties took off Pierre's mind
from his own.  He was clear enough now, and asked
questions, some hard to answer, but all reasonable.

François related his story.  The fencing-master had
fallen under suspicion and run away.  He, François,
likewise suspected, had got a passport from a Jacobin
fencing-pupil, and come hither to fall on the neck of
his dear friend Pierre.  It was neat, and hung together
well.  It had many omissions, and as a whole lacked
the fundamental quality of truth, but it answered.
When a man's head is set to save his head, it may not
always be desirable to be accurate.

Pierre reflected; then he cried out suddenly:
"This Grégoire!  That for him!  Let him take
care.  Art thou still a Royalist?"

François was a Jacobin of the best, unjustly
suspected.  He was eager to know what deviltry was in
Pierre's mind as to this marquis; and there, too, was
the daughter.  If he meant to stir these peasants to
riot in order to gratify himself and his well-justified
hatred, that might sadly influence François's fate.
The central power in Paris was merciless to lawless
violence which did not aid its own purposes.

François talked on and on slackly, getting time
to think.  Pierre's speech had troubled him.  He
was puzzled as he saw more distinctly the nature
of the man whom he was forced to trust.  He did
not analyze him.  He merely apprehended and
distrusted one who was to-day a shrinking coward
and to-morrow a man to be feared less for what he
might do than for what he might lead others to do
when himself remote from sources of immediate
physical fear.  François did not—could not—fully know
that he was now putting himself in the power of one
who was the victim of increasing attacks of
melancholy, with intervals of excitement during which the
victim was eagerly homicidal, and possessed for a
time the recklessness and the cunning of the partly insane.

"Come," said François, at last; "you must hide
me until you can find me that papa, or until Citizen
Grégoire has come and gone.  I like him not."

"Nor I," said Pierre.  "But let him take care; I am
not a man to be played with."

François said he should think not, but that if he
meditated an attack on that miserable *ci-devant*
yonder, it were better to wait until Grégoire had come
and gone.

This caution seemed to awaken suspicion.  Pierre
turned, and caught François's arm.  "Thou art a
spy—a spy of the Convention!"

"Thou must be more fond of a joke than was once
thy way.  Nonsense!  I could go back and warn the
marquis.  That would serve the republic, and well,
too; for, by Heaven! if thou art of a mind to burn
houses, Robespierre will shorten thee by a head in no
time."

"Who talks of burning houses?  Am I a fool?  I—Despard?"

"No, indeed.  Thou—" François needed the man's
help, and felt that he was risking his own safety.  He
must at least seem to trust him.  "Dost thou mean
to arrest Ste. Luce?"

"I do."

"But when?"

"Oh, in a day or two; no hurry."

François knew that he was hearing a lie.  "Good,"
he said.  "But I advise thee against violence."

"There will be none.  I control these people.  Thou
shouldst see; thou shouldst hear me speak."

"Let us go," said François, and they returned to
the village without a word on either side.  The hamlet
was quiet.  At the priest's door François said: "Wait
for me.  I must fetch my bundle and Toto.  I left them
in the wood."  Pierre would wait.  In an hour his
ex-partner came back, and before he could knock was
admitted by the anxious Jacobin.

When they were within the house, he told François
that he lived alone.  An old woman cooked for him,
and came in the morning and went away at dusk.
He, François, should have the garret; and, this being
settled, they carried thither cold meats, bread, cheese,
wine, and water, so as to provision the thief for a few
days.  There would be time to talk later.  François
asked a single question, saying frankly that he had
heard Pierre speak to his club.  Certainly he had
power over the people.  What was it he had meant to
do, and when?  Despard hesitated.  Then the
cunning of a crumbling mind came to his aid, and he
replied lightly:

"We shall wait till Grégoire has gone.  I told thee
so already.  Thy advice was good.  I do not know.
We shall see—we shall see."  The door closed after
him.  The man, descending the stair, paused of a
sudden, the prey of suspicion.  Why did François come
hither?  Was he a spy of the marquis—of the
Convention?  He feared François.  To one in his state
of mind little obstacles seem large, great obstacles
small.  He must watch him.  He was in his power.

The man left within the room was not less suspicious.
He hung a cover over the single window, locked
the door, and lay down, with Toto at his feet, and at
his side his rapier and pistols.  He slept a tranquil
sleep.  Most of the next day he sat at the window,
watching through a slit in the curtain the street below
him.  People came and went; groups gathered about
the desecrated church; there was much excitement,
but he could hear nothing.  At dusk he saw a
number of men, some with sticks and pikes, come toward
the priest's house.  Owing to his position, he lost
sight of them as they came nearer, but from the noise
below he presumed them to have entered.  He was,
for many reasons, indisposed to remain uninformed.
He waited.  The noise increased.  Pierre had not
come to visit him, as he had said he would; and where
was that much-desired father?  He laughed.  "Ah,
Toto, one must needs be his own papa."  He had gone
about all day in his stocking-feet to avoid being
overheard.  Now he bade Toto be quiet, and, opening the
door, went cautiously down the stone stairway.  It
was quite dark.  On the last landing he stood, intently
listening.  The hallway below was full of men, and
evidently the two rooms on the ground floor were as
crowded.  He overheard Despard's voice, angry and
strenuous.  The words he could not catch, but the
comments of those in the wide hall were enough.  The
commissioner was coming, and would interfere.
Despard was right.  The marquis was about to fly, to
emigrate.  He must be arrested.  They poured out,
shouting, tumultuous, to join the excited mob in the
street.

François went quickly up the stair.  He cared
little for the marquis, but he cared much for the pale
lady whose face was stamped in his memory.  Moreover,
all this ruin and threatened bloodshed were not
to his mind.  A day's reflection had enabled him to
conclude that, between Grégoire and Despard, the
situation was perilous, and that he had better
disappear from the scene.  Meanwhile he would warn the
marquis, and then go his way.

He put on his shoes, took his bundle, his arms, and
Toto, and, with his cloak on his shoulder, slipped
quietly down-stairs.  The house was empty.  He went
out the back way unseen, observing that the church
was lighted, and seeing a confused mass of noisy
peasants about the door.





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   XVI

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*How François warns the Marquis de Ste. Luce, and of the
battle on the staircase between the old day and the new.*

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It was now close to nine, and again a
bright, cold, starry night.  A long
circuit brought him to the highroad.  A
mile away he struck into a broad avenue,
and, never pausing, pushed on.  His
sense of locality was acute and like that of an animal.
Once or twice he was sure that he heard dull noises
behind him when the sharp night wind blew from the
village.'

"Ah, Toto," he murmured, "keep thou close to heel.
This is our greatest adventure.  I would we were out
of it.  Ah, the château!"  He ran across the flowerbeds,
and with long leaps up the steps, and sounded
a strong summons on the knocker of the great door.
A servant opened it.  "Where is the marquis?"  What
the man said he did not wait to hear.  The
lofty hall was dark, but the principal staircase was
lighted faintly from above.  Without a word, François
hurried past the servant and up the stairs.  From
the broad landing he saw beyond him a lighted
drawing-room, and heard the notes of a violoncello.  There
was the woman, pale and beautiful, in black, her face
upturned, the boy holding before her a sheet of music.
The human richness of the cello's tones sounded
through the great chamber.  Where had he seen the
like?  Ah, that picture in the vestry of Notre Dame—the
face of St. Cecilia!  He had a moment of
intense joy at having come.  Till then he had doubted
if it were wise.  As he stood, the marquis came
toward him quickly from the side of the room, and two
gentlemen left a card-table and started up.

François went in at once, meeting the marquis
within the room.  The music ceased; the woman
cried, "*Mon Dieu!*"  Every one stared at this strange
figure.

"What is it, my man?  *Venire St. Gris!* 't is my
thief!  This way," and he led him aside into a little
room, while the rest, silent and troubled, looked after
them.

"Monsieur, to waste no words, these cursed peasants
are on their way to do here what mischief the devil
knows.  It is you they want.  There is a fool, one
Despard, who leads them.  But, *Dieu!* there is small
time to think."

François, breathless, panting, stood looking about
him, now as always observant, and curious as to this
wonderful room and this impassive gentleman.  Toto,
as well blown as his master, recognizing the value of
a soft rug, dropped, head on legs, meaning to have at
least the minute's luxury and rest.

The marquis stood still in thought a moment.  "I
am greatly obliged to you; and this is twice—twice.
I expected trouble, but not so soon.  Come this way."

François followed.  Toto kept one eye on him, and
slept with the other.  As they reëntered the great
salon, the two gentlemen and Mme. Renée, all visibly
agitated, came to meet them.  "What is it?" they
asked.  The marquis forestalled further inquiry.

"My daughter, our kindly peasants will be here in
an hour—no, half an hour, or less.  Resistance is
useless.  To fly is to confess the need to fly; it is not to
my taste.  You gentlemen are better out of this.  Go
at once—at once!"

"Yes, go!" said madame.  "You cannot help us,
and can only make bad worse."

They wasted no time, and few words passed.  The
little drama played itself quickly.

"Adieu, madame!" Madame courtesied.  The boy
walked over and stood by his grandfather.  He looked
up at his clear-cut face, with its cold smile, and then
at the backs of the retiring gentlemen.  He had a
boy's sense of these being deserters.  They were gone
in hot haste.

Mme. Renée came nearer.  "We thank you—I
thank you"; and she put out her hand.  François
took it awkwardly.  A touch of the hand of this
high-bred, saintly lady, *grande dame* and true woman,
singularly disturbed the man.  The tremor of a strange
emotion ran over him.  He let fall the soft hand, and
drew himself up to the full of his unusual height,
saying: "It is little—very little."

"And now you must go," she said; "and at once."

"Of course—of course," said Ste. Luce.  "Out the
back way.  Victor will show you."  There were no
further thanks.  All such common men had served
the great noble; it seemed of the nature of things.
But the woman said:

"God protect you!  God will know to thank you.
I cannot fitly.  Go—go!"

"I do not mean to go," said François.  "Hark! it
is too late."  He knew not then, or ever, why he stayed.
The boy looked up at him.  Here was another kind
of man, and not a gentleman, either.  Why did he
not go?

An old majordomo came with uncertain steps of
nervous haste, crying: "The servants are gone,
monsieur!  The people are coming up the avenue!
*Mon Dieu!*"

"Indeed!  Now be off with you, Master Thief."

"No."  His head said, "Go"; his heart said, "Stay."

"By St. Denis, but you are a fool!"

François muttered that he had been that always,
and then felt the hand of the boy touch his own.  He
called: "Toto!  Toto!  We will stay."  And the dog,
at ease in all society, selected a yet softer rug.

The marquis troubled himself no further as to François.
He went out of the room, and was back in a minute,
while the uproar increased, and Mme. Renée, at the
window, pleaded with the thief, urging him to fly, or
cried: "They are coming!  Oh, a crowd—a mob—with
torches and arms!  The saints protect us!  Why
will you not go?  Oh, *mon père*—father! thou hast thy
rapier.  What canst thou against hundreds—hundreds?"

The marquis smiled.  "*Costume de rigueur*, my dear.
There will be no bloodshed, my child."

"And they will all run," cried the boy.  "And if
grandpapa has to surrender, he must give up his
sword.  When my papa was taken in America, he
had to—"

"Hush!" said the mother.  The lad was singularly
outside of the tragic shadows of the hour.

François all this while stood near the window, his
cloak cast back, his queer, smile-lit face intent now on
the mob without, now on the woman, the boy, the
man.  "*Dame!*" he muttered.  "We are in dangerously
high society."  He set his knapsack aside, cast
off his cloak, loosened his rapier in its sheath, looked
to the priming of his pistols, and waited to see what
would happen when this yelling thing out yonder
should burst into action.

"They must have made mad haste, madame."

"They are on the terrace.  Mother of Heaven!"
cried the woman.  "They wait!  A man is speaking
to them.  They have torches.  Some go—some go to
right around the house."  A stone splintered the
window-glass, and she fell back.  "Wretches!"

The marquis turned to her.  "Stay here.  I go to
receive our guests."

"No, no!"

"Do as I tell thee.  Be still."  She caught the boy
to her, and fell into a chair, sobbing.  The marquis
called to the quaking majordomo: "Take those two
candelabra.  Set them at the foot of the staircase—the
foot."  The old servant obeyed without words.
The marquis went by him.  He seemed to have
forgotten François, who glanced at Mme. Renée and
followed the master of the house.

There had been a moment's lull outside.  The double
stairway swept down to a landing, and then in one
noble descent to the great deserted hall, where the
faded portraits of lord and lady looked down among
armor and trophies of war and chase.

"Put those lights there—and there.  Get two
more—quick!  Set them on the brackets below.  One must
see.  Put out the lights in the drawing-room.  What,
you here yet, Master Thief?  What the devil are you
doing here?  The deuce!"  As he spoke they were
standing together on the broad landing, before them
the great stair which led down to the illuminated hall
below.  The marquis had meant to meet these people
outside; he was quiet, cool, the master of many
resources.  Surprised at the suddenness of the outbreak,
he still counted, with the courage of habit, on his
personal influence and address.  As the marquis spoke,
the roar without broke forth anew.  A shower of
stones clattered on door and wall and window with
sharp crash and tinkle of breaking glass.  It was
followed by an indescribable tumult—shouts, laughter,
the shrill voices of women, a multitudinous appeal to
fear, ominous, such as no man could hear unmoved.
The animal we call a mob was there—the thing of
moods, like a madman, now destructive, now as a
brute brave, now timid as a house-fly.

They beat on the great doors, and of a sudden
seemed to discover that the servants, in flying, had
not secured them.  The doors gave way, and those in
front were hurled into the hall by the pressure of
those behind.  In an instant it was half full of
peasants armed with all manner of rude weapons.  A
dozen had torches of sheep's wool wrapped about
pitchforks and soaked with tar.  Their red flames
flared up, with columns above of thick smoke.  There
were women, lads.  None had muskets.  Some looked
about them, curious.  Those without shouted and
pressed to get in; but this was no longer easy.  A
few of the boldest began to move up the lower steps
of the great staircase.  At the landing above, in
partial obscurity, stood the marquis and François.  On
the next rise behind them were Mme. Renée and her
boy, unnoticed, unwilling to be left alone.  The
stairway and all above it were darker than the red-lighted
hall, where ravage was imminent.  A man struck
with a butcher's mallet a suit of armor.  It rang with
the blow, and fell with clang and rattle, hurting a
boy, who screamed.  The butcher leaped on the
pedestal and yelled, waving one of the iron gauntlets.
They who hesitated, leaderless, at the foot of the dark
ascent turned at the sound of the tumbled past.

The marquis cried aloud, "Halt, there!"

Some mischievous lad outside cast a club at the
side window of the hall, and the quartered arms of
Ste. Luce, De Rohan, and their kin fell with sharp,
jangling notes on the floor and on the heads of the
crowd.

"Halt, I say!"  The voice rang out of the gloom,
strong and commanding.  The marquis's sword was
out.  "Draw, my charming thief.  *Morituri te salutant*!"

"What?" cried François—"what is that?"

"Nothing.  We are about to die; that is all.  Let
us send some couriers to Hades.  You should have
gone away.  Now you are about to die."

François drew his long rapier.  He was strangely
elated.  "We are going to die, Toto."  The dog
barked furiously.  "Keep back!" cried his master.
Then he heard Pierre Despard's shrill voice cry out:
"Surrender, Citizen Ste. Luce, or it will be worse for
thee."  The mob screamed: "Despard!  Despard!"  He
was hustled forward, amid renewed shouts, cries,
crash of falling vases, and jangling clatter of broken
glass.  The reluctant leader tried to keep near to the
door.  The mob was of other mind.  He was thrust
through the press to the foot of the stair, with cries
of "Vive Despard!  Vive Despard!"  The people on
the stair, fearing no resistance, were pushed up,
shouting, "*À bas les émigrés!*"

"Now, then!" cried the marquis.  "Get back there,
dogs!" The two blades shot out.  A man fell;
another, touched in the shoulder, screamed, and leaped
over the balustrade; the rest fell away, one man on
another, with shrieks and groans.  François caught a
lad climbing on the outside of the gilded rail, and,
with a laugh, threw him on the heads of those below.
A joy unknown before possessed the thief—the lust
of battle, the sense of competency.  He took in the
whole scene, heart, mind, and body alive as never
before.

"*Sang de St. Denis*!  You are a gallant man.  But
we are lost.  They will be on our backs in a moment;
I hear them."  Amid a terrible din, stones and sticks
flew.  A pebble struck the marquis in the face.
"*Dame!*" he cried, furious, and darted down a step or
two, the quick rapier mercilessly stabbing here and
there.  One madder than the rest set a torch to a
priceless tapestry.  It flared up, lighting the great
space and the stair, and doing in the end no harm.
Despard, terrified, was pushed forward to the edge of
the fallen bodies on the staircase.

"Surrender!" he called out in a shriek of fear, for
here before him were the two men he most dreaded
on earth.  The noise was indescribable.  The butcher
beat with the iron gauntlet on a shield beside him;
then he threw the steel glove at François.  It flew
high.  There was a cry from the space behind.  The
little boy screamed shrilly, "They have killed my mama!"

François looked behind him.  There was now light
enough, and too much.  He saw the woman lying, a
convulsed, tumbled heap, on the stair.  The marquis
glanced behind him, and lost his cool quietude.  He
ran down the stair, stabbing furiously.  A half-dozen
dead and wounded lay before him.  In an instant he
was back again beside François, his face bleeding from
the stones and sticks thrown at him.  François was
standing, tall and terrible in his anger, a pistol in his
hand.

"Shall I kill him, monsieur?"

"By Heaven, yes!"

The pistol resounded terribly in the vaulted space,
and the brute who had thrown the gauntlet, swaying,
screamed shrilly, and tumbled—dead.

"Give me your hand!" cried the marquis.  "Thank
you, monsieur; the devil hath a recruit.  Now
follow me.  Let us kill and die.  To hell with this
rabble!"

"Wait," cried François, and, running down the
steps, put out a long arm and caught Despard.  He
hauled him savagely after him, calling out, "Hold the
stair a moment!"  In an instant he was on the landing
above, with his prey.  His sword he let fall, and
set a pistol to Despard's head.  The terror of the
trapped Jacobin was pitiful.  He prayed for life.  He
would let them all go; he would—he would.  François
swung him round to face the suddenly silenced
mob.  "Keep still, or I will scatter your brains, fool!
Tell them to go!  Tell them to go, or, *sang de
Dieu!* thou art a dead man!"

Pierre screamed out his orders: "Go—go—all of
you.  I order—go!"

The beast he had trained and led was of no such
mind.  A man called out, "Die like a man, coward!"  A
stone or two flew.  One struck him.  The storm
broke out anew.

"Say thy prayers.  Thou art dead.  Shall I kill him,
monsieur?"

"No, no; not that man—not him!"

"Mercy!" screamed Despard.

"The deuce!" laughed François.  "It gets warm,
monsieur.  What to do with this coward?  Keep still,
insect!"

The mob had for a little time enough of these
terrible swordsmen on the stair.  It was awed, helpless.
Below lay, head down or athwart, three dead men,
and certain wounded, unable to crawl.  The mob
shrank away, and, with eyes red in the glare, swayed
to and fro, indecisive, swearing.  For a moment no
more missiles were thrown.  They awaited the expected
attack from the rear of the house.

Pierre hung, a limp, inert thing, one arm on the
balustrade, the thief's strong clutch on his neck,
making his shivering bulk a shield against stick and
stone.

"It will soon be over," said the marquis, quietly.
"There!  I thought so."

A dull roar was heard, and the crash of broken
glass from somewhere behind them.

This signal set loose the cowed mob.  Clubs and
stones flew.  Something struck Pierre.  He squealed
like a hurt animal, pain and terror in the childlike cry.
More men crowded in, and the mass, with shout and
cry, surged forward, breaking mirrors and vases, with
frantic joy in the clatter of destruction.

"It is serious this time," cried the marquis.  "Adieu,
my brave fellow."  Another tapestry flared up, slowly
burning.  "Let us take toll, François.  Come!"

"Good, monsieur!  But my fool here—"

At this moment the crowd at the door divided.  A
dozen soldiers broke in, and with them the man of the
wart—Grégoire.

"*Dame!*" cried François; "the Commissioner
Grégoire!  The wart!  It is time to leave."

"Order, here," shouted Grégoire, "in the name of
the law!"  The guard pushed in and made a lane.
One or two persistent rioters were collared and
passed out.  A dead silence fell on all.  The shreds
of the tapestry dropped.  The mob fell back.

"Help! help!" cried Pierre.

"*Morbleu!* dost thou want to die?"

"It is over," said the marquis.  "I prefer my peasants."

Grégoire called out, "Where is the mayor?"  A
reluctant little man appeared.

"Commissioner, these men have slain citizens," he said.

"And they did well.  France wants order.  Out
with you all, or I shall fire on you.  Citizens indeed!
See to that stuff burning."

The peasants, awed, slunk away.  Grégoire coolly
mounted the stairs.

"Hold!" cried the marquis.

"I arrest thee in the name of the law!  Here is my
order."

The marquis took it.

"The light is bad," he said; "but I see it is in
good form.  The law I obey—and muskets"; and
then, in a half-whisper to François: "Run! run!  I
will hold the stairs."

Grégoire overheard him.

"The citizen *émigré*! I arrest him!" and he went
up a step.

"Back!" cried the marquis, lunging fiercely at the
too adventurous commissioner, who leaped down the
stairway with the agility of alarm.

"Fire!" he cried.

"Thanks, monsieur; I can help you no more!" cried
François.  As he spoke, he hurled the unhappy
Despard on top of the commissioner.  They fell in a
heap.  The thief, catching up his rapier, was off and
away through the drawing-room, seeing, as he went,
the woman lying on the floor, her forehead streaming
blood.  He picked up his cloak and knapsack, and,
followed by Toto, ran for his life down a long
corridor to the left.  At the end, he threw open a window,
and dropped, with the dog under his arm, upon the
roof of a portico over a side door.  No one was near.
He called the dog, and fled through the gardens and
into the woods of the chase.





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.. _`XVII`:

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   XVII

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*Of how François, escaping, lives in the wood; of how he
sees the daughter of the marquis dying, and knows not
then, or ever after, what it was that hurt him; of how
he becomes homesick for Paris.*

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The forest was of great extent, and
intersected by wood roads.  Along one of
these François ran for an hour or more,
until he was tired, and had put, as he
believed, some miles between himself
and the citizen with the wart.  The way became more
narrow, the forest more dense.  At last there was
only a broad path.  Now and then he saw the north
star, and knew that he was traveling southward.  He
came out at dawn on an open space, rocky and barren,
a great rabbit-warren, as he knew by the sudden
stampede of numberless rabbits.  He turned aside
into the woods, and a few hundred yards away found
a bit of marsh, and beyond it a brook, with leaf-covered
space beneath tall plane-trees, now bare of foliage.
He drank deep of the welcome water, and sat
down with Toto to rest and think.

"*Mon ami*," he said, "we like adventures; but this
was a little too much."  Then he laughed at the
thought of Pierre's terror; but the man with the wart
was not so funny, and the poor lady who was
St. Cecilia, and that cold-blooded devil of a
marquis—"What a man!"

Here were rabbits for food, and only a forest bed,
but, on the whole, better than the Conciergerie or the
Châtelet.  He slept long, and was cold, fearing to
make a fire.  About eleven next morning he left Toto,
and went with care to the edge of the wood.  He
heard noises, and saw boys setting traps; for now my
lord's rabbits were anybody's rabbits.  The traps
pleased him.  He slipped away.  At evening, being
dreadfully hungry, he went to the warren, took two
rabbits out of the traps, and went back.  The man's
patience was amazing: not until late at night did he
make a fire to cook his meat; but Toto, less exacting,
was fed at once with the raw flesh.

A week went by, with no more of incident than I
have mentioned.  He explored the woods day after
day, and a half-mile away found a farm, whence at
night he took toll of milk, having stolen a pail to aid
him.  It was all sadly monotonous, but what else
could he do?  Once, after a fortnight, he was bold
enough to wander in daylight within the woods near
the château.  It was apparently deserted; at least, he
saw no signs of habitation; nor, later at night, when
he went back, were there lights, except in one room on
the ground floor.

Francis approached with caution, and, looking
through a window, saw an old man seated by the fire.
Making sure that he was alone, the wanderer tapped on
the pane.  The man at the hearthside looked up, and
François saw, as he had suspected, that he was the
majordomo.  Again François tapped, and observing
the inmate move toward the door, he hurried thither.
As they met, François hastened to say that he was the
man who aided the marquis, having himself had the
luck to escape.  Once reassured, the old majordomo
urged François to enter.  But this he would not do.
He had had enough of house-traps.  In the forest they
would be secure.  To this the servant agreed, and
followed him at once.  When at last in the woodland
shelter, François asked: "What of the marquis?"  He
had been taken by Grégoire toward Paris, but
was said to have made his escape.  "A hard man to
hold is my master; and as to the village, it has had
to pay right dearly, too."  Pierre had been arrested,
but was soon set free.  And the little gentleman?
He had been taken to a cousin's house in eastern
Normandy.  François hesitated over his final question;
he himself could not have told why.

.. _`THE WANDERER TAPPED ON THE PANE`:

.. figure:: images/img-181.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "THE WANDERER TAPPED ON THE PANE."

   "THE WANDERER TAPPED ON THE PANE."

"And Mme. Renée?" he exclaimed, and bent
forward, intent.

"The countess?"

"I did not know.  Is she a countess?  Mme. Renée—what
of her?—she who was hurt.  I passed her;
she lay on the upper stair.  There was blood—blood.
The little boy cried to me to help her.  My God!  I
could not.  I—tell me, was she badly hurt?"

"She is dying, monsieur.  Something—a gauntlet,
they say—struck her head.  She has known no one
since."

"Where is she?"

"In the château, with a maid and her aunt.  She
was too ill to be taken away.  She is dying to-night.
They say she cannot last long.  God rest her soul!
'T is the end of everything."

The thief stood still a minute; then he said
resolutely, "I must see her."  This the old servant
declared impossible; but when François swore that he
would go alone, he finally consented to show him
the way, insisting all the time that he would not
be let in.

In a few minutes they were moving down a long
corridor on the second floor.  All was dark until the
majordomo paused at a door under which a line of
light was to be seen.  Here he knocked, motioning his
companion to keep back a little.  The door opened,
and a gaunt middle-aged lady came forth.

"What is it?" she said.

"This man—this gentleman would see the countess."

"What do you want?" she said, facing François.
"My niece is dying—murdered.  You have done your
cruel work.  Would you trouble the dead?"

"Madame," said François, "I am he who held the
stair with the marquis.  I am no Jacobin.  I shot the
man who wounded the countess."

"You!  He is dead."

"Thank God!  May I see the lady?"

"She is dying; why should you see her?"

"Madame, I am a poor unhappy thief.  Once this
lady offered me help—a chance, a better life.  I was
a fool; I let it go by.  I—let me see her."

"Come in," said the gentlewoman; and, with no
more words, he entered after her, and approached the
bed, leaving his dog outside.  What he beheld he
neither forgot nor, I believe, save in his memoirs, ever
spoke of to any one.

He saw a white face on the pillow; a deep-red spot
on each cheek; eyes with the glaze of swift-coming
death.  He fell on his knees beside her, and stayed
motionless, watching the sweat on the brow, the breath
quicken and then stop as if it would not come again.
At last he touched the hand.  It was cold, and he
withdrew his own hand, shrinking back.  He had seen
death, but no death like this.  He said, "Madame."  There
was no answer.  He looked up at the older
woman.  "She is dying; she does not hear."

.. _`HE SAW A WHITE FACE ON THE PILLOW`:

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   :align: center
   :alt: "HE SAW A WHITE FACE ON THE PILLOW."

   "HE SAW A WHITE FACE ON THE PILLOW."

"No; nor ever will in this world."

He turned, bent down, and kissed the fringe of the
coverlet.  Then he arose, shaken by the strongest
emotion life had brought to him.

"I thank you," he said, and moved to the door.
He paused outside.

"Are you sure the beast is dead—the man who did
that—that?"

"Yes."

"I am sorry—sorry."  He shook his long arms in
the air.  "I should like now to kill him
again—again!"  He walked swiftly away, and, not waiting
for the servant, left the house and found his way back
to his forest shelter.

All night long he sat without a fire, indifferent to
poor Toto's efforts to get a little notice, not feeling the
cold, a sorely wounded man, with a scar on his
memory which no after happiness could ever erase.

The next night he found the majordomo, and learned
that the countess was dead.  He took away blankets
and the provisions bountifully supplied, and once
more rejoined his dog.

In this manner the last days of February were
passed; and in March the spring began to appear, but
with it a new peril.  The woodmen went here and
there at work, and thrice he narrowly escaped being
seen.  Early in April his friend the majordomo
disappeared, and the great château was infested with men
who came and went—for what he knew not.

He began to be troubled with a feverish desire to
see the streets of Paris.  At last he made up his mind
to leave his forest shelter; and sometime in April,
having hesitated long, he set out.  He hid all day in
woods, and walked at night, until he reached the
Seine.  With this as a guide, he went on, robbing
hen-houses of eggs, and milking cows, until he was
close to Paris.  How to enter it he did not know.
The times were doubly dangerous.  Spies and
suspicion were everywhere to be dreaded.  His papers had
no certifications from the places he was presumed to
have visited.  Formidable in the background he saw
the man Grégoire, the commissioner with the wart of
ill luck.

How the thief and his dog lived near to Paris in
woods and fields, there is no need to tell in detail.
The month of June was come in this year of 1793.
Marat was ill, and Charlotte Corday on her way to
forestall the decree of nature.  La Vendée was up.
The Girondists had fallen, the great cities of the South
were in uproar, the enemy was on the frontier, and
the rule of France in the competent and remorseless
hands of the Committee of Public Safety.  All around
Paris the country was infested with wandering people
who, for the most part, like François, had good reason
to fear.  There were beggars, thieves, persecuted
nobles, those who had no mind to face the foe as
volunteers.  Now and then François, ever cautious,
picked up a little news on a scrap of gazette found by
the wayside.  He read that Citizen Amar was of the
Great Committee of General Security.  François laughed.

"Toto, dost thou think this will add to thy master's
security?  That was the gentleman with the
emigrative mouth.  *Ami*, he is still alive.  They must be
tough, these Jacobins.  What fun, Toto!  I can see
him pinned to the door like a beetle, and that marquis
with a face, Toto, like a white plaster cast those
Italians used to sell.

"I like not M. Amar.  Toto, we are unhappy in our
acquaintances.  But the man of the wart is the
worst."  This was François's black beast; why, he
could not have said.  Amar, *le farouche*, was really
a more fatal foe.  The citizen who dressed neatly, and
wore spectacles over green eyes, and was in debt to
the conjurer for a not desirable forecast of fortune,
was a yet more sinister acquaintance.  Yet it was
Citizen Grégoire who came to François in dreams, and
the bare thought of whom could chop short a laugh as
surely as Mother Guillotine, the merciless.





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.. _`XVIII`:

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   XVIII

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*Wherein is told how François reënters Paris, and lodges
with the Crab; and of how Toto is near to death by the
guillotine.  François meets Despard and the marquis,
who warns him and is warned.*

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A few days later, when lying behind a
deserted hut at dusk, François heard a
noise of military music, and ventured
forth on the road leading to the barrier.
Many hundreds of the wounded from
the frontier were passing, in wagons or on foot.  The
communes and clubs were out to meet them.  The
cabarets outside of the gate poured forth a noisy
company.  The road was full.  Who should stop the
free citizens or the ladies of the fish-market, come
to welcome patriot volunteers?  Here was an escort
of troops, wild, triumphant greeting of captured
Austrian flags, many wounded in wagons, many
more afoot, marching wearily.  Those who walked
the people must aid.  The ranks were soon broken,
and all was good-natured tumult.  Here was help for
heroes—wine, bread, eager aid of an arm.  Some
who were dragging along on crutches, to get a little
relief from jolting wagons, were hoisted, to their
discomfort, on the shoulders of friendly patriots not
eager to volunteer.

François, tucking Toto under his cloak, edged
himself into the broken ranks of the heroes of
Hondschoote and Wattignies.  "We are many," he said
to a man beside him, as tattered as he, for there was
scarcely a rag of uniform.  "Jolly to get home again!"

"*Sacré!* not if they guillotined thy father a week ago."

"*Dame!* is that so?  But patience, and hold thy
tongue, citizen.  *Tonnerre!* my leg."  He was limping.

"Thy shoulder, friend"—to a blouse.  "*Tiens!* that
is better.  The Austrian bullets have a liking for one's
bones.  Crack! crack!  I can hear them yet.  They
do not spare the officers any more than they do the
privates."

Should they carry the citizen officer—take care of
his sword?  François thanked them; the citizens must
be careful of his leg; and there was François on the
shoulders of two big Jacobins, like a dozen more; for
it was who should help, and a shouting, good-humored
crowd.  François was not altogether well pleased at
his elevation; he dropped forward his too well-known
face.  There was a jam at the barrier.  Had these
citizen soldiers their passes, as provided?  François
was weak; he suffered, poor fellow!  The Jacobins and
the women roared derisively: "Passes for heroes?"  All
order was lost.  They were through, and in the
Rue d'Enfer.  Would the good citizens let him walk?
He was heavy, and they were pleased to be relieved
of one hundred and ninety-five pounds of wounded hero.

Meanwhile there was some renewed order in the
broken formation; yet now and then men fell out
to meet sweethearts or friends, usually coming back
again to the ranks.  The hint was good.

"*Ciel!* comrade, there is my mother!"  The crowd
gave way as the hero hobbled out of the line.  He
called out: "*Mère, mère*—mother!  Here!  'T is
I—Adolphe.  The deuce! she is so deaf."

Where was she?  Citizens were eager to help him.

"Ah," he cried, "she saw me not"; and, turning into
a side street near the asylum, limped painfully in
pursuit of the mother who was afflicted with deafness.
Toto followed.  Once around a corner, the lameness
disappeared.  In the gathering dusk he set out for
the Cité.

"It must be Quatre Pattes, Toto.  Come along.  A
bad year, my friend, to have lost a father and a
mother.  No matter; we are in Paris."

He loved the streets.  "Ah, there is Notre Dame
and the river!"  He was happy, and went along
laughing, and at last turned into a small café near
to his old home in the Rue des Chanteurs.

He was tired and hungry, and, as he agreeably
remembered, well off, having had small chance to
spend the money with which he had been generously
provided by Achille Gamel.  The bread and cheese
were good, and the wine was not bad.  He asked for
tobacco and a pipe.  Would the host find him "L'Ami
du Peuple"?  He was a sublieutenant, wounded on
the frontier; but, *dame!* to get home was happiness.

Two men sat down by him, and talked.  Good
Jacobins were these, in the dirty uniforms of the
sansculotte army which kept Paris in order at the
rate of forty sous a day.  "Bad wages, citizen
lieutenant," they said.

The hero of the frontier was worse off—no pay for
three months.  He related his battles; and now he
must go.

"Come, Toto."  Toto had been wounded at Wattignies;
he was well now, and would be promoted.
"*Bon soir*, comrades."  In fact, he was wildly gay,
glad to be back in Paris.

He paused, at last, before a house of the date of
Henri II.  Its heavy, narrow door, and a slit in the
wall for a window, told of days when every man's
house was a fortress.

"It is our best chance, Toto; but best may be bad.
We must do something."  He jingled the bell.  The
cord was drawn by the concierge within, so as to lift
the latch, and François entered the hall.  To right
was the Crab's den, and there within was Quatre
Pattes.  He saw the thin purple nose, the bleared red
eyes, the bearded chin, and the two sticks.

"*Mille tonnerres!* my child, it is thou.  And where
hast thou been?  There is no thief like thee.  Come
and laugh for thy old mother."  She welcomed him
in thieves' slang, vile, profuse, and emphatic.  Had
he any money?  Yes, a little; business was good in
the provinces; and would she house him?  Here was
a louis d'or for *maman*; and what was this abominable
*carte de sûreté*, this new trap?  She explained.  He
need have no fear; she would get him one.  He had
been in bad company, she had heard; for a Jacobin
had told her of the fencing-school, and thither, too
late, she had gone to get a little help.  He had nearly
killed Amar, *le farouche*, and that injured citizen was
said to desire his society.  But that was long ago;
and Paris lived fast, and was gay, and forgot easily.

François had no wish to refresh Citizen Amar's
memory.  He asked lightly if she had ever seen
Grégoire, the commissioner to Normandy?

Mme. Quatre Pattes had never seen him.  He was
of the Great Committee—a patriot of the best, like
herself.  Did he know Grégoire?  He told her frankly
that he had been arrested by Grégoire, and had
escaped.

"Thou art the first, my child!" she cried, her jaws
champing as if she were eating.  "Thou hast a fine
taste in the choosing of enemies.  I would not be in
thy skin for a hundred louis; and now a cat of the
night thou must be.  I can hide thee awhile; and if
thou dost feed me well, the mama-crab will care for
thee.  No one need know thou art here.  Come, get
thee a few louis, and we will buy a fine card of safety,
and christen thee to suit.  Ha, ha! my little one!"
and she beat with her sticks on the floor.

.. _`QUATRE PATTES`:

.. figure:: images/img-195.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: QUATRE PATTES.

   QUATRE PATTES.

Our thief was now back in his garret, having lost
as many fair chances of prosperity as did Murad
the Unlucky.  He reflected much in these late
autumn months of 1793, being for his wants rich, and
therefore in no necessity to give a thought to
methods of getting his daily diet.  During the daytime
Quatre Pattes insisted on his secluding himself in
his garret.  At night he left Toto with the Crab,
who fed him well, and was therefore liked by a
revolutionary dog without prejudices.  From these
night prowls François returned with sad complaints
of the way the republicans guarded their slim purses;
in fact, at this time he avoided adventures, stole from
no one, and gave of his lessening store what barely
contented Mme. Quatre Pattes.  Were I to say that his
goodness came from newly acquired views of life, I
should mislead.  He was as honest as ever, which is
to say he took no thought at all as to ethical questions.
We are said to be children of circumstance, which
may be described as the environment of the hour.
This is true of the feeble; but character was the more
despotic parent in this resolute man, who could wrestle
strenuously with circumstance.  He was a Royalist
because he liked show and color and the fine manners
of the great; in the past he stole because he knew no
other way to live.  His admirable health was a
contribution to his natural cheerfulness.  He still had
simple likings—for the country, for animals, and
would have had for books had they been easy to
get, or had he known how to get those which would
have fed his mind and had sauce of interest.

His surroundings would have surely and hopelessly
degraded a less permanent character, and a nature
without his ingrained gaiety would have taken more
steadily some thought of the far future.  He knew
too well how the thief's life ended: the galleys, the
wheel, the lonely death-bed in the hospital.  If he
reflected on it at all, as he seems to have done at this
time, it was because of his long, weary days in the
attic.  The immediate future at this period did
disturb him, but never long.  He liked to talk, and,
lacking society, talked more and more to himself
aloud, with Toto for an audience which never ceased
to attend.  He who is pleased with his own talk
cannot easily be bored; and so he talked, until Quatre
Pattes, who loved keyholes and to listen, thought he
must be out of his head.  She herself was always
either silent or boisterous, and was as to this like
other beasts of prey.  When in calamity François
was too busy to be serious.  When at ease the
mirthfulness of his natural man forbade argument as to
what the dice-box of to-morrow would offer; for to
laugh is to hope, and François, as we know, laughed
much, well, and often.

There were many times in his life when to have been
honestly loved by a woman capable of comprehending
both his strength and his weakness would, I think,
have given him the chance to live a better life.  But
how was this possible to one who lived as he lived—who
was what he was?

To be merely liked was pleasant to François, and
appealed with the most subtle form of flattery to his
immense self-esteem.  The man was sensitive, and in
after days, when in an atmosphere of refinement,
would never speak of the terrible women he had
known too well in the Cité.  Having no longer the
distraction of the streets, he was at present condemned
to live long hours with no society but that of Toto
and the animal Quatre Pattes.  He bought a small
field-glass, and studied the habits of his neighbors far
and near, and once more took interest in the feline
owners of the roof-tops.  Quatre Pattes fed him well,
and brought him some of the old gazettes.

He read how, on that frightful 5th of September,
now past, one of the five complementary days of the
republican calendar, on motion of Barrere, "Terror"
was decreed by the Convention to be the order of the
day.  It was indeed the birth-hour of the Terror.  The
Great Committee was in power.  The revolutionary
tribunals were multiplied.  The law of suspected
persons was drawn with care by the great jurist Merlin
of Douai.  Behind these many man-traps was the
Committee of Public Safety, with despotic power
over the persons of all men, and in full control of the
prisons.  To it the subcommittees reported arrests;
it secured the prisoners who were to be tried; it saw
to the carrying out of all sentences; it kept the peace
in Paris with an array of sansculottes, and fed the
guillotine daily.  Of this stern mechanism, strong of
head and incapable of pity, was Pierre André Amar;
as, one day, François read with his full share of the
Terror.  There was soon enough of it to supply all
France.

Before November came, François, pretending to
have been in luck, supplied the Crab with six louis.
She exacted two more, and how much she kept none
may know.  He had very few left.

She was as good as her word.  "Here, my little
one, is the *carte de sûreté* from the committee of this
section."  The description was taken from his
passport.  He was no more to be François, but François
Beau.  If he would denounce one or two people, the
committee would indorse his card as that of "a good
patriot who deserved well of the country."  There
was the lame cobbler over the way, who talked
loosely, and to whom the Crab owed money; that
would be useful and convenient.  François shivered
all down his long back; he would see.  Meanwhile, as
he considered, Quatre Pattes twisted her bent spine,
rattled her two sticks, and looked up at him sidewise
with evil eyes, bidding him have a care, and not get
his good mama into trouble, or else, or else—François
felt that some night he might have to wring that
wrinkled neck.  He was uneasy, and with good reason.

He could bear the confinement no longer, and in
December began to find his cash getting low.  He had
let his beard grow, and taken to long, tight pantaloons
and a red cap.  He felt that, come what might, he
must take the risks of daylight.

The chances against him were small.  The numberless
denunciations of the winter fell chiefly on the rich,
the rash in talk, the foes of the strong heads who were
ably and mercilessly ruling France.  The poor, the
obscure, and the cautious bourgeoisie were as a rule safe
until, in the spring, something like a homicidal mania
took possession of Robespierre and others, who,
although they were the most intelligent of the Great
Committee, were never in control of a steady majority,
and began to fear for their own heads.

Outwardly Paris was gay.  The restaurateurs made
money; the people were fed by levies of grain on the
farmers; and the tumbrel, on its hideous way, rarely
excited much attention.  The autumn and winter of
'93 were not without peril or adventure for the thief.
The Palais d'Égalité, once royal, was his favored
resort, and with his well-trained sleight of hand he
managed to justify the name of the place by efforts
to equalize the distribution of what money was left to
his own advantage and to the satisfaction of the Crab.

The dark drama went on; but, except the tricoteuses
who, like Quatre Pattes, went daily to see the
guillotine at work, comparatively few attended this daily
spectacle.  Paris, wearied of crime and too much
politics, was tired of the monotony of slaughter, which
had now no shadow of excuse.

"Would the citizen miss the death of the Austrian,
the ex-queen?"  He would not; he knew better than
to say no to Quatre Pattes.  Would he go with her?
She could get him a good place, and all Paris would
be there.  All Paris was not to his desire.  He said
he would go alone.  A walk with this four-footed
creature and the rattle of her becketing sticks he liked
not.  He called his dog, and, avoiding the vast
assemblage on the Place of the Revolution, found his way
to the Rue St. Honoré.

He stood in a crowd against a house.  The tumbrel
came slowly, and, because of the surging mass of
people, paused opposite to him.  He looked about
him.  In a group at a window on the far side of
the street he saw a man apparently sketching the sad
figure in the cart.  It seemed devilish to this poor
outcast of the Cité.  His face flushed; he asked who
that was in the window, at which many were staring.
The man he addressed was in black, and looked to be
an ex-abbé.

"My son," he said quietly, and with no evidence of
caution—"my son, 't is David the painter, he of the
Great Committee.  He hath no heart; but in another
world he will get it again, and then—"

"Take care!" said François.  The shouting crowd
cried: "Messalina!  Down with the Austrian!"

François looked, and saw the bent figure seated in
the cart.  Pale it was, with a red spot on each cheek,
haggard; her gray hair cut close, pitiful; with
pendent breasts uncorseted, lost to the horrors of the
insults hurled at her abject state.  François moved
away, and the tumbrel went rumbling on.  An hour
later he was crossing the broad Elysian Fields amid
the scattered crowd.  It was over, and few cared.
The booths were selling toy guillotines.  Of a sudden
he missed Toto.  He called him, and, hearing him
bark, pushed in haste into a large tent filled with
women and children and with men in blouses.

"The citizen has not paid," cried the doorkeeper.
François saw Toto struggling in the hands of a
red-bearded man who was crying out: "Enter! enter!
Trial and execution of an *émigré* dog.  *Voilà*, citizens!
Range yourselves."  There was the red guillotine,
the basket, the sawdust, and poor Toto howling.  It
was a spectacle which much amused the lower class
of Jacobins.  "*À bas le chien aristocrate!*"

François advanced with his cheerful smile.  "The
citizen is mistaken; it is my dog."

"Where is his *carte de sûreté*?" laughed the man.
"Up with him for trial!"

Four monkeys were the judges.  Jeers and laughter
greeted François: "No, no; go on!"

He caught the man by the arm.  The fellow let fall
Toto, who made a hasty exit.

"I denounce thee for an enemy of the republic!"
cried the showman.  "Seize him! seize him!"  Francois
broke away, and, using his long arms, reached
the entrance.  There was no earnest desire to stop
him.  The doorkeeper caught him by the collar.  He
kicked as only a master of the *savate* knows how to
kick, and, free of the grip, called to Toto, and plunged
into a crowd which made no effort to recapture him.
He moved with them, and soon turned to cross the river.

Midway on the bridge he came face to face with
Despard.  He was ragged and fleshless, the shadow
of the well-fed Jacobin he had last seen in the château
of Ste. Luce.

"*Ciel!*" exclaimed François, "thou art starved."  He
had no grudge against his old partner, but he
fully appreciated the danger of this encounter.

He was comforted by the man's alarm.  "Come,"
said François, and took him into a little drinking-shop.
It was deserted at this time of day.  He easily drew
out all he desired to know.  Mme. Renée was assuredly
dead; and he who threw the gauntlet, the butcher,
dead also; and three or more on the fatal stairway.
Grégoire had punished the village severely; heads
had fallen.  Pierre's friend Robespierre had
abandoned him, had even threatened him—Pierre! but he
had escaped any worse fate.  He was half famished;
and would François help him?  François ordered
bread and cheese and wine.  He would see what next
to do.  And what of the marquis?  He had not
appeared in the lists of the guillotined; but he might
readily have died unnamed, and escaped François's
notice.

"No," said Pierre, sadly; "he lives.  Of course he
lives.  The devil cannot die.  He got away from
Grégoire.  Who could keep that man?  But for thee
and the accursed commissioner, I should have had
my revenge.  We shall meet some day."

"Shall I find him for thee?"

"*Dame!* no.  Let us go out.  I am uneasy; I am afraid."

"But of what?"

"I do not know.  I am afraid.  I am accursed with
fear.  I am afraid as a man is in a dream.
Somewhere else I shall cease to fear.  Let us go."  He
was in a sweat of pure causeless terror, the anguish
of an emotion the more terrible for its lack of reason.
It was the inexplicable torment of one of the forms
of growing insanity.  François looked on, amazed and
pitiful.  The man's eyes wandered here and there;
he got up, and sat down again, went to the door,
looked about him, and came back.  At last, as
François began to consider how to be free of a dubious
acquaintance, Pierre said drearily:

"Is it easy to die?  I should like to die.  If I were
brave like thee, I should drown myself."

"Ah, well," laughed François, "there is the
guillotine—short and comfortable."

"Thou wilt not denounce me?" he cried, leaping
to his feet.  "I have my *carte*; I will let thee see
it."  He was like a scared child.

"Nonsense!" cried François, with good-humored
amusement.  "I must go.  Here is a gold louis.
Why dost thou not rob a few Jacobins?"

"Hush!  I dare not; I was brave once.  Thou didst
save me once; help me now.  Thou wilt not let me
starve?"

"No, indeed.  I?  Not I.  Take care of thy louis;
they are scarce.  Meet me here at this hour in a week.
Adieu.  At this hour, mind."

"Art thou going to leave me alone?"

François was grieved, but could not remain, and
hastened away, while Pierre looked after him with
melancholy eyes.

"Come, Toto," he said, as he turned a corner.  "The
man is mad.  Let us thank the *bon Dieu* we never have
had a wife; and the rest of our relatives we have
buried—papa and mama, and all the family."

It was not in the man to forget, and a week later
he cautiously entered the little café to keep his
engagement.  It was noisy.  To his surprise, he saw Pierre
declaiming lustily to half a dozen blouses.

"Ah!" he cried, seeing François, "*mon ami*, here is
a seat.  There is good news from the frontier.  A
glass for the citizen."  Clink, clink.  "À vous*.  Death
to royal rats!"  He went on in a wild way until the
workmen had gone, and François stopped him with:

.. _`DEATH TO ROYAL RATS!`:

.. figure:: images/img-207.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'DEATH TO ROYAL RATS!'"

   "'DEATH TO ROYAL RATS!'"

"What the deuce has come to thee?"

"Oh, nothing.  I have had one of the fits you know
of; I am always better after them.  *Diable!* no
marquis could scare me to-day.  I saw him last week, I
did.  I followed him.  It is he who would have been
scared.  I—I missed him in a crowd.  In a minute I
should have had him, like that," and he turned a
glass upside down so as to capture a fly which was
foraging on the table—"like *that*," he repeated
triumphantly.

François watched him, and saw a flushed face,
tremulous hands, staring eyes.

"He is afraid; he can't get out"; and the man
laughed low, pointing to his prisoner.

"And thou wouldst have denounced him?" said
Francis.

"Why not?  He is one of them.  He is hell; he is
the devil!  I saw no officers to help me."

"Thou art cracked; thou wilt denounce me next."

Pierre looked at François with unusual steadiness
of gaze, hesitated, and replied:

"I thought of it; you are all for these people."

François, in turn, looked his man over curiously.
He had now a queer expression of self-satisfied
elation.  "A good joke, that," said François.  "Wait a
moment; I left Toto outside."  He went to the door,
and looked up and down the street.  "Wait," he cried
to Pierre.  "Hang the dog!"  And in an instant he
had left the citizen to abide his return.  Once in his
garret, he cried: "Toto, thou hast no sense.  The
sane scoundrels are bad enough, but why didst thou
fetch on me this crazy rascal?  And so the marquis
got away, Toto.  The man with the wart is not as
clever as I thought him.  But some folks have luck."

The sad winter of the Terror wore on, while François
continued to live unmolested, and pursued his
estimable occupation always with an easy conscience,
but often with an uneasy mind.

It was near the end of the pleasant month of May,
1794—the month Prairial of the new calendar.  The
roses were in bloom.  The violets were seeking
sunshine here and there, half hidden in the rare grasses
of the trampled space of the Place of the Revolution.
On the six bridges which spanned the canals, its
boundaries, children were looking at the swans.  In
the middle space, the scaffold and cross-beams of the
guillotine rose dark red against the blue sky of this
afternoon of spring.  Two untidy soldiers marched
back and forth beside it.  The every-day tragedy of
the morning was over; why should the afternoon
remember?  The great city seemed to have neither
heart nor memory.  The drum-beat of a regiment
going to the front rang clear down the Quai des
Tuileries.  People ran to see; children and their
nurses left the swans.  The birds in the trees listened,
and, liking not this crude music, took wing, and
perched on the beams of the monstrous thing in the
center of the Place.

François crossed the open ground, with Toto close
to heel.  The keeper of the little café where he liked
to sit had just told him that the citizen with whom
he had twice come thither had been asking for him,
and that with this citizen had also come once a stout
man, who would know where Citizen François lived.
This last was of the fourth section, one Grégoire, a
man with a wart.

"Thou didst notice the man?" said François, much
troubled.

"Notice him?  I should think so.  *Dame*!  I am
of the Midi.  A wart on a man's nose is bad luck;
the mother of that man saw a cocatrice egg in the
barn-yard."

"A cocatrice egg!  What the mischief is that!"

"*Tiens!* if you were of the Midi, you would know.
When a hen cackles loud, 't is that she hath laid a
great egg; the father is a basilisk."

"*Tonnerre!* a basilisk?"

"Thou must crush the egg, and not look, else there
is trouble; thy next child will have warts, or his
eyebrows will meet, and then look out!"  François's
superstition was vastly reinforced by this legend.

"*Mon Dieu!*" he cried; "he hath both."  This
François was a bold man when he had to meet danger
face to face, but, like a child as to many things, afraid
where a less imaginative man would have been
devoid of fear.

Just now he had been turning over in his mind the
chance of the Crab's betraying him.  She had been
prowling about his garret, and had stolen a well-hidden
score of francs.  He dared not complain.  What scant
possessions he had would fall into her claws if at any
minute she might choose to denounce him.  Of late,
purses were too well guarded.  The display of luxury
in lace handkerchiefs and gold seals no longer afforded
an available resource.  Except Robespierre, who
defied popular sentiment, few men carried two watches.
Quatre Pattes had the appetite of a winter wolf, and
was becoming more and more exacting.  She asked
why he did not sell his rapier.  If it were known that
he withheld weapons such as the republic claimed,
there might be trouble.  Why had he not given up
his pistols?  They were gold-mounted, and had
belonged to a grandee of Spain.  Why not sell them?
They would fetch a deal of money.

He was not inclined to part with his arms, and
least of all with his rapier.  At last he gave her one
pistol, which she sold; the other he hung high up on
a peg set within the chimney, having hidden in its
barrel the precious little document he had captured
from Citizen Grégoire in that pleasant inn on the
Seine, where an agreeable evening had ended with
such unaccountable abruptness.

Next to the Crab's treachery, he feared most to
meet Despard when the Jacobin should chance to be
in one of those aggressive moods which were so
puzzling to François.  But above all did he dread
Grégoire, and grew terrified as he reflected on that
business of the cocatrice egg and the basilisk.

It seemed as though he were doomed, and this most
cheery of men became distinctly unhappy.  "That
*sacré* basilisk!" he muttered, and, less on guard
than usual, wandered on, taking stock of his perplexities.

Near to the foundations of the Madeleine, where
work had long since ceased, he paused to recreate
himself with a puppet-show.  The vanquished fiend
was Citizen *Jean Boule*.  He was soon guillotined.
The crowd was merry, and François, refreshed,
contributed his own share of appreciative mirth.  In the
throng he unluckily set his big foot on the toes of a
little Jacobin dressed in the extreme of the fashions
these gentry affected.  The small man was not to be
placated by François's abundant excuses, and
demanded the citizen's card of safety.  It was an
everyday matter.  No one dared to refuse.  There were
half-insane men, in those times, who satisfied their
patriotism by continually exacting cards from timid
women or from any well-dressed man.  To decline
was to break the law.  François obeyed with the
utmost civility.  The little man returned the card.

"The citizen is of the best of the sections, but,
*sacré!* he is heavy."

Much relieved, François went on.  In the Rue
St. Honoré the corner of a lace handkerchief invited a
transfer, and lace handkerchiefs were rare.  As there
was a small, well-occupied group looking through a
shop-window at a caricature of Mr. Pitt, the occasion
appeared propitious, and the handkerchief changed
owners.

A minute later a man touched François's shoulder.

"Thy card, citizen!"

"The deuce!" said the thief, as he turned.  "This
gets monotonous.  *Mon Dieu*, the marquis!" he exclaimed.

"Hush!  Your card.  You are followed—watched.
There is this one chance."  Francis produced his
card.  The marquis murmured, "Take care; obey
me."  Holding the card in his hand, he called
authoritatively to a municipal guard who was passing.  The
man stopped, but no one else paused.  Curiosity was
perilous.

"This good citizen is followed by that man yonder—the
one with the torn bonnet.  I know the citizen.
Here is his card and mine.  Just tell that fellow to
be careful"; and he slipped his own card of safety
into the guard's hand, and under it three louis.  The
guard hesitated; then he glanced at the card.

"'T is in order, and countersigned by Vadier of the
Great Committee.  These spies are too busy; I will
settle the fellow.  Good morning, citizens."

They moved away quietly, in no apparent haste.
As they were turning a corner, the thief looked back.

"I am a lost man, monsieur!"  He saw, far away,
the man of the torn red bonnet, and with him Quatre
Pattes.  She was evidently in a rage.  He understood
at once.  In the thieves' quarter denunciations were
not in favor.  She knew too well the swift justice of
this bivouac of outcasts to risk being suspected as a
traitor to its code.  The night before, he had been
unable to give her money, and had again refused to
sell his weapons.  She had angrily reminded him that
he was in her power, and he had for the first time
declared that he would let the Cité settle with her.  He
had been rash, and now, too late, he knew it.

He hastily explained his sad case to the disguised
gentleman, and was on the point of telling him that
this Quatre Pattes was that Mme. Quintette who had
once been his agent, and would probably be an enemy
not to be despised.  He glanced at the marquis, and,
wisely or not, held his tongue.

"We must part here," said the gentleman.  He had
hesitated when chance led him to the neighborhood of
the thief in trouble; but he was a courageous man,
and disliked to owe to an inferior any such service as
François had more than once rendered him.  Vadier's
sign manual on his own card of safety was an
unquestioned assurance of patriotism; it had cost him a
round sum, but it had its value.

When he said, "I must leave you," the thief returned:

"I am sorry, monsieur; I know not what to do or
where to go."

"Nor I," replied Ste. Luce, coldly.  "Nor, for that
matter, a thousand men in Paris to-day."  He had
paid a debt, and meant to be rid of a disreputable
and dangerous acquaintance.  "Better luck to you!"
he added.

"May I say to monsieur, who has helped me, that
Despard is in Paris, and has seen him?"

The marquis turned.  "Why did not you kill him
when you had the chance?"

"You forbade me."

"That is true—quite true.  Had you done it
without asking me, I had been better pleased."

"I had no grudge against him."

"Well, well, thank you, my man; I can look out
for myself."

"Will monsieur accept the gratitude of a poor devil
of a thief?"

"Oh, that is all right.  One word more.  It is as
well to tell you, my man, how I came to speak to
you.  When first I observed you, as I fell behind, I
saw that terrible old witch with two sticks pointing
you out to the fellow with the torn cap; then he
followed you."

"It was Quatre Pattes, monsieur.  I lodge in her house."

"A good name, I should say.  I wish you better
luck and safer lodgings.  Adieu"; and he went quietly
on his way.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XIX`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XIX

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*Of the sorrowful life of loneliness, of François's arrest,
and of those he met in prison.*

.. vspace:: 2

François stood still.  He was alone,
and felt of a sudden, as never before,
the solitude of an uncompanioned life.
The subtle influence of the Terror had
begun to sap the foundations of even
his resolute cheerfulness.  It was this constancy of
dread which to some natures made the terrible
certainties of the prisons a kind of relief.  He looked
after the retreating figure as it moved along the *quai*
and was lost to view in the Rue des Petits-Augustines.

"Toto," he said, "I would I had his clever head.
When 't is a question of hearts, *mon ami*, I would
rather have thine.  And now, what to do?"  At last
he moved swiftly along the borders of the Seine, and
soon regained his own room.  The Crab would go to
the afternoon market; her net swung over her arm at
the time he had seen her; and, as she always moved
slowly, he had ample leisure.

He packed his bag, and taking from his pistol the
paper he had secured when in company with Grégoire,
replaced it under the lining of his shoe.  Its value he
very well knew.  After a moment's reflection, he put
his pistol back on the peg high up in the chimney.
He had been in the house nearly an hour, and was
ready to leave, when he heard feet, and a knock at
the locked door.  A voice cried:

"In the name of the republic, open!"  He knew
that he was lost.

"*Dame*!  Toto.  We are done for, my little one";
and then, without hesitation, he opened the door.
Three municipals entered.  One of them said:

"We arrest thee, citizen, as an *émigré* returned."

"*Émigré*!" and he laughed in his usual hearty way.
"If I had been that, no one would have caught me
back in France.  Ah, well, I am ready, citizen.  Here
is an old rapier.  The woman will sell it; better to
give it to thee or to the republic."  He took up his
slender baggage, and followed them.  When they
were down-stairs, he asked leave to see the Crab.
The guard called her out of her den.

"*Chère maman*," said François, "this is thy doing.
These good citizens have my rapier, and the pistol is
gone.  Not a sou is left thee.  Thou hast killed the
goose that laid the golden eggs.  Alas!"

The Crab rattled her claws on the sticks, and these
on the floor, and spat vileness of thieves' slang,
declaring it a wicked lie.  Would they take the
silver-hilted sword?  It was hers, and he owed her rent.
At last, laughing, the guards secured the thief's
hands behind his back, and marched him away to
the revolutionary committee of the section Franklin.
Here no time was lost with the *émigré*, who was sent
off in a hurry to the prison of the Madelonnettes, with
poor Toto trotting after him, much perplexed by the
performance.

François was astounded at the celerity and certainty
of the methods by which he, a free Arab of the streets,
was thus caged.  As usual, it acted on his sense of
humor, and before the dreaded sectional tribunal and
with the municipals he was courageously merry.
When he heard that he was to be sent to the
Madelonnettes, he said:

"But, citizens, I am not of the sex.  *Mon Dieu!* the
Madelonnettes!  'T is not respectable—'t is not
decent"; and he laughed outright.  As no man was
ever so made as to be protected from the infection
of such mirth as the thief's, the judges laughed in
chorus.  One of them, disturbed in his slumber,
awoke, and seeing no cause for this long-visaged
flap-ear so to mock the justice of the republic, he said:

"Thou wilt not laugh long, miserable aristocrat!"

This much delighted François.  "By St. Jacobus,
citizen, I swear to thee I am only an honest thief.  I
did not expect to be made of the fine nobility by a
good democrat like thee."

"Off with him!" said the judge.  "They laugh best
who laugh last."

"No, no," cried the incorrigible; "they laugh best
who laugh most.  *Au revoir*."

"Take him away!  The next case."

The thief was gay, and amused the officers; but
his keen senses were now all on guard, and, too, like
others, he felt relieved at the ending of his life of
suspense and watchful anxiety.  His misfortune was
plainly due to the avarice and needs of the Crab, and
to her belief that he had ceased to be available as a
means of support.

There was a little delay at the front of the old
house of detention; some formalities were to be gone
through with.  François took careful note of it all.
The prison stood in the Rue des Fontaines: a gray
stone building, with a lofty story on the first floor,
and, above, three stories and an attic; a high wall to
left shut in the garden.

On entering a long, dark corridor, his bonds were
removed, his bundle was searched, and what little
money he had was scrupulously restored to him.  He
was stripped and examined, even to his shoes; but as
the tongue of leather was loose only at the toes, the
precious document escaped a very rigorous search.
Poor Toto had been left outside, despite François's
entreaties.  In the cell to which he was consigned
were eight straw mattresses.  He arranged his small
baggage, and was told he was free to go whither he
would above the *rez-de-chaussée*, which was kept for
forgers of assignats and thieves.  The corridor was
some fifty feet long, and smelt horribly.  On the main
floor was the common dining-room.  A separate stair-case
led to a garden of considerable size, planted with
box and a few quince- and other fruit-trees.  At night
two municipals guarded this space, while, outside, the
steps of sentries could be heard when the hours of
darkness brought their quiet.  At 9 P.M. the prisoners,
who assembled in the large hall, answered to their
names; a bell rang, and they were locked in their
cells, or slept as they could in the corridors.  The
richer captives were taxed to support their poor
companions, and even to buy and feed the mastiffs
which roamed at night in the garden.

Much of all this François learned as he arranged
his effects and talked gaily with the turnkey, one
Vaubertrand, a watchful but not unkindly little man.
Thus informed, François, curious as usual, went down
the corridor, and out into the garden.  Here were
quite two hundred men and women, some in careful,
neat dress, many in rags.  He saw, as he looked,
curés, ladies, seamstresses, great nobles, unlucky
colonels, and, as he learned later, musicians, poets;
and, to his surprise, for he knew the theaters,
actors such as Fleury, Saint-Prix, and Champville,
whose delicious laughter the Comédie Française knew
so well.  Here, too, were Boulainvilliers, De Crosne,
and Dozincourt, the ex-kings and heroes of the comic
stage; and there, in a group apart, the fine gentles
and dames who had exchanged Versailles and the
Trianon for this home of disastrous fortunes.

"Yes," said the turnkey; "the citizen is right; 't is
a droll menagerie," and so left him.

François looked at the walls and chained dogs, and
knew at once that the large numbers in the prison
made impossible that solitude in which plans of
escape prosper.  For a while no one noticed him so
far as to speak to him.  The ill-clad and poor kept to
one side of the garden; on the other, well-dressed
people were chatting in the sun.  Women were sewing;
a young man was reciting verses; and De Crosne,
with the child of the concierge on his lap, was telling
fairy-tales.  Ignorant of the etiquette of the prison,
François wandered here and there, not observing that
he was stared at with surprise as he moved among
the better clad on the sunny side of the yard.  He
was interested by what he saw.  How quiet they all
were! what fine garments! what bowing and
courtesying!  He liked it, as he always liked dress and
color, and the ways of these imperturbable great folks.
Beyond this his reflections did not go; nor as yet had
he been here long enough to note how, day by day,
some gentleman disappeared, or some kindly face of
woman was seen no more.  What he did observe was
that here and there a woman or a man sat apart in
self-contained grief, remembering those they had lost.
The thief moved on, thoughtful.

At this moment he heard "*Diable!*" and saw the
Marquis de Ste. Luce.  "What! and have they trapped
you, my inevitable thief?  I myself was bagged and
caged just after I left you.  We are both new arrivals.
Come aside with me."

François followed him, saying he was sorry to find
the marquis here.

"It was to be, sooner or later; and I presume it
will not last long.  I was careless; and, after all,
François, it was my fate—my shadow.  A man does
many things to amuse himself, and some one of them
casts a lengthening shadow as time goes on.  The
shadow—my shadow—well, no matter.  We all have
our shadows, and at sunset they lengthen."

"'T is like enough, monsieur.  'T is like me.  There
is a man with a wart I am afraid of, and it is because
of that wart.  The man is a drunken fool."

"Despard is my wart," said the marquis, dryly.
"As to being afraid, my good François, I never had
the malady, not even as a boy."

"*Dame*!  I have it now; and to get out of this is
impossible."

"I think so.  Did you mention Despard?"

"No; it was monsieur spoke of him."

"Quite true—quite true.  He found me at last.
Confound the fellow!  I did not credit him with
being clever."

"So this is his man with a wart?" thought François,
but made no comment.  He had not fully comprehended
the simile with which this impassive seigneur
illustrated the fact that but one of his many misdeeds
had cast on his future a lengthening shadow of what
he would have hesitated to call remorse.

"François," he said, "you and I are new additions
to this queer collection.  I may as well warn you
that even here spies abound.  Why?  The deuce
knows.  Barn-yard fowls are not less considered
than are we.  It is the tribunal one day; then the
Conciergerie; and next day, *affaire finie*, the business
is over.  Meanwhile, you are in the best society in
France.  There are M. de la Ferté, the Comte de
Mirepoix, the Duc de Lévis, the Marquis de Fleury.
I used to think them dull; calamity has not sharpened
their wits.  *Diable!* but you are welcome."  The
marquis had all his life amused himself with small
regard to what was thought of him or his ways of
recreation.  "'T is a bit of luck to find you here in
this hole."  François could hardly agree with the
opinion, but he laughed as he said so.

"Here comes my old comrade, De Laval Montmorency.
He is still a gay jester.  He says we are
like Saul and that other fellow, Jonathan, except that
in death we shall both of us to a certainty be divided."

"*Ciel!* 't is a ghastly joke, monsieur."

"It has decidedly a flavor of the locality.  I must
not play telltale about you, or they will put you in
the *rez-de-chaussée*, and, by St. Denis!  I should miss
you.  I shall have a little amusement in perplexing
these gentlemen.  Your face will betray you; it used
to be pretty well known.  However, we shall see."

The nobleman last named threaded his way through
the crowd, excusing himself and bowing as he came.

"Ah," he said, "Ste. Luce, another new arrival.
The hotel is filling up.  Good morning, monsieur.
*Grand merci!* 't is our old acquaintance who used to
tell fortunes on the Champs Elysees; told mine once,
but, alas! did not warn me of this.  Well, well, we
have here some queer society.  Take care, Ste. Luce;
this citizen may be a spy, for all thou knowest.  I
assure thee we have to be careful."

"I—I a *mouchard*—a spy?"

"M. de Montmorency has no such idea," said Ste. Luce.
"I shall ask him to respect your desire to be
known by a name not your own.  Permit me to add
that I have less reason to thank some of my friends
than I have to thank this gentleman.  He is pleased
to have mystified Paris for a wager, or no matter
what.  Just now he is—what the deuce is it you call
yourself at present?"

François was delighted with the jest.  "Allow me,
monsieur, to pass as Citizen François.  My real
name—  But you will pardon me; real names are
dangerous."

"And what are names to-day," said the marquis,
"thine or mine?  My friend here—well, between us,
Montmorency, this is he who held the stair with me
in my *ci-devant* château.  Thou wilt remember I told
thee of it.  A good twenty minutes we kept it against
a hundred or so of my grateful people.  He is the
best blade in Paris, and, *foi d'honneur*, that business
was no trifle."

"Who you are, or choose to be, I know not," said
the older noble, "but I thank you; and, *pardieu!*
Ste. Luce is free with your biography."

This was François's opinion.

No one knew distinctly who was this newcomer,
concerning whom, for pure cynical amusement,
Ste. Luce said so much that was gracious.  Any freshly
gay companion was welcomed, if his manners were at
all endurable.  The actors and actresses were
pleasantly received.  The few who remembered the long
face, and ears like sails, and the captivating laugh of
the former reader of palms, were so bewildered by
Ste. Luce's varied statements that the poor thief
found himself at least tolerated.  He liked it.
Nevertheless, as the days went by, and while seemingly
the gayest of the gay, François gave serious thought
to the business of keeping his head on his shoulders.
He told fortunes,—always happy ones,—played tricks,
and cut out of paper all manner of animals for the
little girl, the child of the turnkey.  Toto he gave up
for lost; but on the fourth day the dog, half starved,
got a chance when a prisoner entered.  He dashed
through the guards, and fled up stairs and down,
until, seeing his master in the big hall, he ran to him,
panting.  The head jailer would have removed him,
but there was a great outcry; and at last, when little
Annette, François's small friend, cried, the dog was
allowed to remain.

He was, as the marquis declared, much more interesting
than most of the prisoners, and possessed, as
he added, the advantage over other prisoners of being
permanent.  In fact, they were not.  Every day or
two came long folded papers.  The *ci-devant* Baron
Bellefontaine would to-morrow have the cause of
his detention considered by Tribunal No. 3.
Witnesses and official defenders had been allowed; but
of late, and to *émigrés*, these were often denied.  Also,
witnesses were scarce and easily terrified, so that
batches of merely suspected persons were condemned
almost unheard.  To be tried meant nearly always
the Conciergerie and death.  All cases were supposed
to be tried in the order of their arrests; but great sums
were spent in paying clerks to keep names at the foot
of the fatal dockets of the committee.  The members
of this terrible government survived or died with
much judicial murder on their souls; but countless
millions passed through their hands without one man
of them becoming rich.  Elsewhere, with the lower
officers, gold was an effective ally when it was desired
to postpone the time of trial.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XX`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XX

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*Of how François gave Amar advice, and of how the
marquis bought his own head.*

.. vspace:: 2

It was now about May 26, when, at
evening, a commissioner in a cocked
hat, much plumed and scarfed, came
into the dining-hall.  Toto was between
his master's knees, and was being fed.
François heard a gray-haired old lady exclaim to a
neighbor: "*Mon Dieu! chérie*, look!  'T is the Terror
in person."

The actor Champville cried out gaily: "I must
practise that face.  'T is a fortune for the villain of a
play.  If ever I get out, it will be inestimable."  Alas! he
was in the next day's list,—the *corvée*, they called
it,—and came no more to table.  François looked up,
caught a glimpse of that relentless visage, and dropped
his head again over the slender relics of a not
bountiful meal.  It was Jean Pierre Amar!

The marquis looked up from his plate, but made
no effort to conceal himself.  Amar walked around
the table.  Now and then his mouth wandered to
left.  It was comical, and yet horribly grotesque.  He
seemed to notice no one, and went out to make his
inspection.  Presently a turnkey came and touched
François's shoulder.

"The citizen commissioner would see thee."

"I am ruined—done for!" murmured the thief;
and, followed by Toto, he went after the turnkey.
In the room used as a registering-office, Amar, *le
farouche*, sat handling a paper.

"Ah!" he said.  "Citizen turnkey, leave the suspect
with me, and close the door."  The commissioner
laid a pair of pistols on the table, and looked up at
François.

"Well, citizen, we are met again.  I am free to say
that I had careful search made for thee, and now
good fortune has brought hither not thee alone, but
that infernal *ci-devant* who pinned me like a butterfly."  As
he spoke there was something fascinating in the
concentration of emotion on the active side of this
unnatural face.  François felt the need to be careful.

"Why the devil don't you speak?"

"Will the citizen kindly advise me what answer it
will be most prudent to make?"  And for comment
on his own words, which altogether pleased him, a
pleasant smile drifted downward over his large features.

"*Sacré!* but thou art a queer one, and no fool," said
the Jacobin.  "Thou wilt be dead before long; a
monstrous pity!  I would give my place for thy laugh."

"'T is a bargain to my mind.  Let us change.  I
shall set thee free at once—at once, citizen
commissioner; I bear no malice."

Amar, silent for a moment, stroked his nose with
thumb and finger.

"Thou dost not remind me thou didst save my life."

"No; what is the use?"

"Use?  Why not?"

"Because men like the citizen commissioner do not
lightly change.  I have a too plain recollection of
what I was promised in return for my benevolence.
I should regret it except for—"

"For what?" said Amar.

Then François rose to the height of his greatness.

"I am a Frenchman, even if I am not of thy party.
Had not the country needed thee, that day had been
thy last.  Citizen, as a man thou wouldst set me free;
as a patriot thou wilt bow to the law of the republic.
I am willing to die rather than soil the record of one
to whom France owes so much."  An overwhelming
solemnity of aspect came upon this comedian's face
as it met the gaze of the commissioner.  "Alas! the
country has few such citizens."

"*Tonnerre*!  True—true; it is sad."  The man's
vanity was excelled only by that of the prisoner
before him.  François had personal appreciation of the
influential value of the bait he cast.  A great
diplomatist of the older type was lost when François took
to the war against society in place of that against
nations.

"If the citizen commissioner has no more need of
me, I will go!  To waste his time is to waste the genius
of France."  Not for nothing had François been of
late in the society of the Comédie Française.

"*Tiens*!  Who told thee to go?  I desire to do my
own thinking.  Why art thou here?"

François laughed, but made no other reply.

"Young man, art thou laughing at the Revolutionary
Tribunal?"

"Thou art also laughing, monsieur."  When François
laughed, he who looked at him laughed also.

"*Diable!* yes.  What right hast thou to make an
officer of the Great Committee laugh?  Thou wilt get
into trouble."

"I am in it now, monsieur—up to the neck."

"No 'monsieur' to me, aristocrat!  What brought
thee here?"

'"A greedy woman denounced me.  Could not I
denounce her in turn?"

"*Mort du diable!* that is a fine idea—to let the
denounced also denounce.  It would make things
move.  I will mention that to Couthon."  The half
of the face that was able to express emotion
manufactured a look of ferocious mirth; but it was clear
that he took the proposition seriously.

"It appears that we do not go fast enough, citizen,"
said François.  "In April, 257; in May, so far, only
308.  So say the gazettes.  What if we denounce
Citizens Robespierre and Vadier?  We might go
faster.  Let us denounce everybody, and, last, the
devil."

Amar set an elbow on the table, and, with his chin
in his hand, considered this novel specimen of
humanity.

.. _`AMAR CONSIDERED THIS NOVEL SPECIMEN OF HUMANITY`:

.. figure:: images/img-229.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "AMAR CONSIDERED THIS NOVEL SPECIMEN OF HUMANITY."

   "AMAR CONSIDERED THIS NOVEL SPECIMEN OF HUMANITY."

François had a controlling idea that what chance
of safety there was lay in complete abandonment to
the natural recklessness of his ever-dominant mood
of humor.

"Art thou at the end of thy nonsense, idiot?" said
the Jacobin.

"Not quite; the citizen might denounce himself."

"By all the saints!  Art making a jest of me—me,
Jean Pierre Amar?  Thou must value thy head but
little."

"*Dame!* it was never worth much; and as to saints,
one Citizen Montmorency said yesterday that the
republic hath abolished the noblesse of heaven and
earth too.  Droll idea, citizen"; and he laughed
merrily.

"Oh, quit that infernal laughing!  Thou must be
of the Comédie Française."

"No; I am of the comedy of France, like the rest—like
the commissioner; but the citizen has two ears
for a joke."

"I—I think so"; and he made it manifest by a
twisted, unilateral grin of self-approval.  "That idea
of the citizen—prisoners denouncing—I shall not
forget that.  Wilt thou serve the republic?"

"Why not?"

"These common spies in the prisons are useless.  I
will put an 'M' to thy name on our list; 'M' for
*mouchard*—spy.  That will put thee down at the bottom
whenever the Committee of Safety comes to thy
case.  I am not ungrateful."

"Very good," said François, promptly.  "I am as
honest a Jacobin as the best.  I will serve the republic,
citizen, to the best of my ability."

"Then thou wilt report once a week, especially on
the *ci-devants*.  The head keeper will give thee pen,
ink, and paper, and a chance to write here alone.  I
will so order it.  But beware, citizen!  I am not a
man to trifle with; I do not forget.'7

"I should think not," said François, humbly.

"And when Grégoire comes, in June, thou wilt
report to him."

"I—Grégoire—report—"

"Certainly.  What's the matter?  Off with thee
now.  Ah, that *sacré* Citizen Ste. Luce!  I forgot him.
Tell him his case will come on shortly."

"I am sorry."

"That is to lack patriotism."

"But he and De Crosne are the only people who
amuse me, and it is dull in this bird-cage.  He swears
thou art clumsy with the small sword."

"I—I clumsy!  I should like to catch him somewhere.
I was too fat; but now!" and he smote his
chest.  "Didst thou think me clumsy—me, Pierre Amar?"

"I?  No, indeed.  These aristocrats think no one
else can handle a rapier.  Ah, if I could fence with
the citizen commissioner a little, and then—"

"Impossible."

"He swears thou art coward enough to use the
guillotine to settle a quarrel, and that thou dost fence
like a pigsticker."

Amar, *le farouche*, swore an oath too blasphemous
to repeat.  The great thick-lipped mouth moved half
across so much of his face as could move at all.  He
was speechless with rage, and at last gasped, as he
struck the table: "Me—Amar?  Ah, I should like
well to let him out and kill him; and I would, too,
but there are Saint-Just, and Couthon, and the rest.
Go; and take care how thou dost conduct thyself.
Go!  The *sacré* marquis must take his chance.
Pig-sticker indeed!"

Thus terminated this formidable interview; but,
alas! it was now close to the end of May, and in the
background of June was the man with the wart.

The next day, in the garden, Francis related to
the marquis his interview with the dreaded Jacobin.
The gentleman was delighted.

"*Mon Dieu*!  François, you are a great man; but
I fear it will do no good; my turn must be near.  De
Crosne and poor Fleury got their little billets last
evening, and are off on a voyage of discovery
to-morrow, along with M. de la Morne, and De Lancival, and
more.  They will be in good society.  Did you think
that Jacobin Apollo would be pricked into letting me
out for the chance of killing me?"

"It came near to that, monsieur.  I did say that
you were not much of a blade, after all; that Citizen
Amar was out of condition when you last met; and
that if he and I could fence a little,—outside, of
course,—M. le Marquis would regret the meeting."

"Delicious!  And he took it all?"

"Yes, as little Annette takes a fairy-tale of
M. Fleury's—who will tell no more, poor fellow!"

"But, after all, we are still here.  I envy you the
interview.  *Parbleu!* these fellows do their best, but
they can't take the jests out of life.  I hope the next
world will be as amusing."

As he ceased, François exclaimed:

"By all the saints! there is that crazy fool Despard."

"Despard—Despard?" repeated the marquis.
"That is a contribution to the show.  How the
mischief did he get here?"

The unlucky Jacobin was wandering about like a
lost dog, a shabby, dejected figure.  Toto, at play,
recognized his master's former partner, and jumped
up in amiable recognition.  Despard kicked him, and
the poodle, unaccustomed to rude treatment, fled to
François.  The thief's long face grew savage and
stern; to hurt Toto was a deadly offense.

"Pardon, monsieur," he said to the marquis, and
went swiftly to where Despard stood against the wall.

"Look here, rascal," said François; "if ever thou
dost kick that dog again, I will twist thy neck."

Despard did not seem to take in his meaning.

"It is thou, François.  There is the *ci-devant*—the
marquis.  I followed him.  I—Pierre Despard—I
denounced him.  I did it.  I am not afraid."

"Stuff!  Didst thou hear me?  What have I to do
with *ci-devant* marquises?  Thou hast kicked Toto."

"I see him; I must speak with him."

"*Fichtre!* he is mad," said the thief, and went after
him.

At the coming of Despard, ragged, wild-eyed,
excited, the group about the tall gentleman turned.

Despard paused before him.  "It is my turn now!
I followed—I followed—I denounced thee—I, Pierre
Despard.  They will let me out when thou art to die;
it will be soon.  I will take thy child—thy bastard—my
wife's child.  We will go to see thee—I and thy
hunchback—to see thee on the tumbrel at the guillotine.
She hath thy own cold eyes—frozen eyes.  Thou
wilt know her by those when thou art
waiting—waiting—shivering."

The marquis listened with entire tranquillity.

"One or two more in the audience will matter
little"; and, smiling, he walked away.

A strange tremor seized on the chin and lower lip
of Despard.  He said to François, "Come with me,"
and then, in a bewildered manner, "He isn't afraid
yet.  I—I want him to be afraid."

"*Dame!* thou wilt wait then till the cows roost and
the chickens give milk."

"No; it will come."

"Stuff!  How camest thou here?  Didst thou denounce
thyself?  I have heard of men mad enough to
do that."

"No.  Do not tell.  I trust thee; I always did trust
thee.  I am a spy.  I am to stay here till I want to
be let out, when he—he is tried.  I wanted to watch
him.  Some day he will have fear—fear—and—I—"

"Well, of all the mad idiots!  A mouse to walk
into a trap of his own accord!  *Dieu!* but the cheese
must have smelt good to thee."

"I shall go out when I want to go.  Didst thou
know his daughter is dead?  I am sorry she is dead."

"Yes—God rest her soul!"

"I am sorry she is dead because she cannot be here.
I wish she were here.  If only she were here, it would
be complete.  Then he would be afraid."

"*Bon Dieu!*" cried several, "he will kill him!"  The
thief had caught Pierre by the throat, and, scarce
conscious of the peril of his own strength, he choked
the struggling man, and at last, in wild rage, hurled
him back amid a startled mass of tumbled people.

"Beast!" muttered François, at his full height
regarding angrily the prostrate man.

In an instant the jailers were at his side.  "What
is this?" said they.

"He—he kicked my dog!"

"Did he?  Well, no more of this, citizen."

"Then let him be careful how he kicks my dog;
and take him away, or—"

Pierre needed no further advice.

Presently Ste. Luce came over to François.

"What is wrong?"

"He kicked my dog!"

"Indeed?  Do you know this man well?  Once you
warned me about him.  Where have you met?"

"We juggled together, monsieur, when I used to
read palms.  He is a bit off his head, I think."

"'T is common in France just now, or else the
reverse is.  But he has a damnably good memory.  We
of Normandy say, 'As is the beast, so are his claws.'  The
fellow is of good blood in a way; but, *mon Dieu!*
he is a coward to be pitied.  To be through and
through a coward does much enlarge the limits of
calamity.  If I or if you were to hate a man, for
reasons good or bad, we would kill him.  But a coward!
What can he do?  He has his own ways, not mine or
yours.  His claws are not of the make of mine.  I
have no complaint to make as to his fashion of
revenging himself; but really, revenge, I fancy, must
lose a good deal of its distinctness of flavor when it
waits this long.  It is, I should say, quite twelve
years—quite.  There is a child, he says, or there was.
Do you chance to know anything about it?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever see it?  Is it male or female?"

"A girl, monsieur.  I never saw it."

"How old?"

"I do not know."

"Penitence becomes a question of dates, François.
But it is true—true that I never had the least talent
for regret; and if a man is not capable of regret, why,
François, how the deuce can he achieve penitence?
Don't think I am joking, my most accomplished
thief.  There are men here who—there is M. de—well,
no matter.  There are men here who are honestly
bewailing their past—well, amusements—sins, if you
please.  I cannot.  There are some here who, because
they are noble by descent, are making believe not to
be afraid, and will make believe until the knife falls.
I am not penitent, because I am not; and as to the
knife, I have had a most agreeable life, and should
never have gone on living if life had ceased to
amuse me."

He was now silent awhile, his strong, handsome
features clear to see, as they lay on the scant grass
in the sunshine.  The thief had learned that at times
this great seigneur would talk, and liked to do so;
and that at other times he was to be left to the long
silences which were difficult to secure where this
morbidly gay crowd, of all conditions of men, was
seeking the distraction of too incessant chat.

He rose quietly, and went away to talk with Domville
of the Comédie, who himself was always glad of
the company of François's cheery visage.

In the salon, which was now deserted, he saw
Despard.  Pierre stood at an open window, and was
pulling at his fingers, as François had so often seen
him doing.  He was gazing at the people in the yard.
His eyes wandered feebly here and there, as if without
interest or purpose.  His attitude of dejection touched
some chord of pity in his partner's heart.

"Dame! he must have thought I was rough with
him for a dog—a dog."  He had no mind to explain.

Pierre turned to meet him.  He was not angry, nor
was he excited.  The shifting phases of his malady
had brought to him again the horrible misery of such
melancholy as they who are sound of mind cannot
conceive.  When this torture has a man in its grip,
the past is as nothing; the present a curse; duty is
dead; the future only an assurance of continued
suffering; death becomes an unconsidered trifle;
life—continued life—an unbearable burden.

Poor Pierre said no word of his ex-partner's recent
violence.  The tears were running down his cheeks.
The man at his side was, as usual, gaily cheerful.

"What is wrong with thee?" said François.  "I
was hard on thee, but thou knowest—"

"What is it?" replied Pierre.  "I—it is no matter."

François, surprised, went on: "Can I help thee?"

"No.  I cannot sleep; I cannot eat.  I suffer.  I am
in a hell of despair."

"But how, or why, *mon ami*?"

"I do not know.  I suffer."

"Rouse up a bit.  Why didst chance to come here?
I asked thee that before.  If thou canst get out, go at
once.  Thou art not fit to be in this place.  This devil
of a marquis excites thee.  To be a spy thou shouldst
be ashamed.  Canst thou really get out when it pleases
thee to go?"

"Why not?" said Pierre, in alarm.  "Dost thou
think they will not let me go?  I did not want to be
a spy, but I was half starved.  All I could get I sent
to keep my—his poor little hunchback.  Vadier lent
me some money.  I kept none, not a sou.  I asked
him to let me come here as a spy.  They say my
reports are useless.  I can't help that.  I will go out.
I want to see that man suffer; I want to see him
afraid.  He is not afraid.  Dost thou think he is afraid?"

"No."

For a moment there was a pause, when Pierre, in a
quiet, childlike manner, said: "Dost thou think he ever
will be afraid?"

"No, Pierre; he never will be.  What a fool thou
art to have come here!  'T is not so easy to get out."

"*Mon Dieu!* don't say that.  I—they said—"

"Dost thou believe a Jacobin—and Vadier, the
beast, of all men?"

"Hush!" said Pierre, looking about him suspiciously.
"I must go—I must go.  I must walk; I
cannot keep still."

He remained in this mood of subdued terror and
the deepest melancholy for some days.  Then for a
few hours he followed the marquis about, proclaiming
his own wrongs in a high-pitched voice.  At last
Ste. Luce complained to the keeper, Vaubertrand, who
hesitated to interfere, being puzzled and fearful as to
the amount of influence possessed by this spy of the
Committee of Safety.  He mustered enough courage
at last to tell Despard that he must not speak to the
marquis; and, as he luckily caught him in his mood of
despair and depression, the man timidly promised to obey.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XXI`:

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   XXI

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*How François, having made a bargain with Citizen Amar,
cannot keep it with the man of the wart—How Despard
dies in the place of the marquis—Of François's escape
from prison.*

.. vspace:: 2

The second week of June was over.  The
keeper, who had taken a fancy to the
merry thief, called him aside one
afternoon, and said:

"Thou must write thy report, because
to-morrow comes Citizen Grégoire.  Thou canst use
the office for an hour, as is permitted.  But take care.
Thou dost know how they are treated in the prisons
who are suspected of making these reports to the
committee.  I will come for thee at dusk."

François thanked him, and at the time mentioned
was locked up in the office; for despite Vaubertrand's
amiability, he was careful as to the security of his
prisoners.  As it was now dark, the office table was
lighted by two candles.  He found pen and ink and
paper, but no competent thoughts.  What was he to
say—whom to accuse?  He had made a hasty
contract with Amar, and was of no mind to fulfil his
share of it.  He got up from the desk, and walked
about.  "The deuce!" he said to Toto, who never left
him.  "'T is a scrape of our own making.  I should
have told that scamp with the pretty face to go to
the devil with his spy business.  *Sacristie!* doggie, I
am like that fellow in the play I once saw.  He sold
his soul to the devil, and didn't want to pay up when
the time came.  What to do?"  He had told the
marquis, whom he trusted, of the difficulty he anticipated.

Ste. Luce, much amused, said: "Take me for a
subject.  I am as sure to die as an abbot's capon.  If
you have a conscience, it may rest easy so far as I am
concerned."

François took it seriously.  "I beg of you, monsieur—"

"Oh, a good idea!" laughed the nobleman, breaking
in upon his remonstrance.  "Tell them how you saw
me kill three good citizens that night on the stairs.
By Mars!  François, those twenty minutes were worth
living for.  I was in a plot to rescue the king; tell
them that."

"Not I," grinned the thief.

"Confound it! you are difficult."

And now, as François recalled their talk, his task
was not more easy.  He nibbled the end of his quill,
and looked around him.  At last, as he walked to and
fro, he began to exercise his natural inquisitiveness.
It was never long quiet.  He stared at the barred
windows.  A set of pigeonholes attracted him.  He
glanced hastily over their contents.  "*Tiens!*" he
exclaimed.

Every day or two, about 3 P.M., a clerk of the
Committee of Safety brought a great envelop
stamped with the seal of the republic.  Within was a
paper on which were clearly set out the names and
former titles of the citizen prisoners selected for trial
the night before in joint counsel by the Great
Committee and that of Security.  The keeper copied each
name on to the space in the blank summons kept for
this use, and these fatal papers were then duly
delivered after supper.

François looked at the packet.  It was sealed.  He
knew well what it meant.  It was labeled: "Mandate
of the Tribunals Nos. 4 and 5."

"Toto, we may be among them; we must see."  He
looked about him.  Here were all the writing-table
implements then in use.  He heated a knife, and
neatly loosened the under wax of the seal.  The
death-call lay before him.  He ran over it with
shuddering haste.

"*Dieu!* we are not there.  But, *mon ami*, here is
the marquis!"  His was the last name at the foot of
the first page.  François sat still, his face in his
hands.  At any moment he might be caught.  He
did not heed.

"I must do it," he said.  He saw, as it were
before him, the appealing face of the dead woman,
and felt in remembrance the hand the great seigneur
had given him on the stair.  He had a glad memory
of a moment which had lifted him on to the higher
levels of self-esteem and manhood.

"I will do it, Toto; 't is to be risked; and, *mon
Dieu!* the rest—the rest of them!"  Some he knew
well.  Some had been kind to him.  One had given
him clothes when these were greatly needed.  He
was profoundly moved.

"If I burn it, 't is but to give them a day, and no
more—if I burn it!"

He took scissors from the table, and carefully cut
off the half-inch at the foot of the paper.  It was now
without the name "Ste. Luce, *ci-devant* marquis."  He
tore up the strip of paper, and put the fragments in
the fireplace, behind the unkindled logs.

Next he casually turned the page.  "*Ciel!* this calls
for eleven.  I have left but ten.  They will think it
a blunder.  One will be wanting; that is all."

He used a little melted wax under the large seal,
replaced the warrant in the outer cover, and returned
the document to the pigeonhole whence he had taken
it.  This done, he sat down again, and began to write
his report.

He found nothing to say, except that those he would
have spoken of had been already disposed of; and
now he thought again that he would burn the fatal
paper.  He rose resolute, but at this moment the head
keeper came back.

François was sorry, but he was not used to writing,
and made excuses until at last the man said impatiently:

"Well, thou must settle all that with Amar and
Grégoire.  I gave thee time enough."  Could he have
another chance?  He was told that he should have it;
but now it was supper-time; better not to be missing.
He went out and up-stairs to his place at table.

He had lost his gaiety.  Here and there at the table
were the doomed men and women.  He could not eat,
and at last left the room to wander in the corridors.
Pierre soon found him.  He was eager, anxious, and
full of strange news.

"When will that brute marquis be sent for?  I was
to go out to-day.  They have forgotten.  There is
trouble in the Great Committee.  I hear of it from
Vaubertrand.  Robespierre and Vadier think things
go not fast enough; and the rest—the rest, except
little cripple Couthon and Saint-Just, are opposing
our great Robespierre."

François began to be interested, and to ask
questions.  The gazettes were no longer allowed in the
prisons.  The outer world was a blank to all within
their walls.

Despard, flushed and eager, told him how daily the
exit of the prisoners for trial was met by a mob
clamorous for blood.  Then he began to exhibit
alarm.  Did François think that he, Pierre, might by
chance miss the execution of the marquis?  He would
speak to Grégoire, who was coming next morning.
They should learn not to trifle with a friend of
Robespierre.  When François left him he was gesticulating,
and, as he walked up and down the deserted corridor,
was cracking his knuckles or gnawing his nails.

After supper the varied groups collected in the salon.
The women embroidered.  A clever artist was busy
sketching the head of a girl of twenty for those she
loved, who were to see her living face no more.  Some
played at cards.  Here and there a man sat alone,
waiting, stunned by the sure approach of death.  The
marquis was in gay chat with the Vicomte de Beauséjour.

"Ah, here is my mysterious gentleman!" cried
Ste. Luce.  "They have bets on you.  Tell these
gentlemen who you really are.  They are puzzled."

François smiled.  He was pleased to do or say
anything which would take his thoughts off the near
approach of the messenger of doom.  He said:

"M. le Marquis knows that I am under an oath."

"*Pardie!* true, true; I have heard as much."

"The bets stand over," said a gray old man, M. de
l'Antilhac.  "We knew you as a juggler."

"Yes, and a fencing-master," said Du Pin.

"You are both right.  These times and the king's
service set a man to strange trades.  Well, gentlemen,
I am not to be questioned.  Tales lose heads."

They laughed.  "Pardon me," said a younger man.
"The marquis was about to tell us of the delightful
encounter you had on his staircase.  'T is like a legend
of the days of Henri IV of blessed memory."

"Tell them," said Ste. Luce.

"The marquis does me much—*Dieu!*" François
cried, and fell back into a chair, weak as a child.  The
turnkey went by him with the fatal missives.

"Art thou ill?" said De l'Antilhac.  "What is it?"

"Yes," said François.  "Excuse me.  He—he—"  And,
as it were fascinated, he rose and went after the
keeper.

Vaubertrand paused behind a gentleman who was
playing piquet.

"Citizen Ste. Michel," he said, and passed on, as he
laid the summons before the player.

"At last!" said the man thus interrupted.  "Quatre
to the king—four aces.  Let it wait."

Vaubertrand moved on.  François followed him.

The calls to trial and death were distributed.  A man
rolled up the fatal paper without a word, and lighted
his pipe with it.  One of those who sat apart took his
summons, and fell fainting on the floor.

"Nothing for me?" said the marquis.

"Not yet, citizen."

"I was never before so neglected."

The game went on.  Here and there a woman
dropped her embroidery and sat back, thinking of
the world to come, as she rolled the deadly call to
trial in her wet fingers, and took refuge in the strength
of prayer.

François felt as if it were he who had condemned
these people.  He went to his cell, and tossed about
all night, sleepless.  Rising early, he went out into the
garden.  After breakfast the keeper said to him:

"Thou shouldst have had thy report ready.  Grégoire
is coming to-day.  He is before his time.  If he
is drunk, as usual, there will be trouble.  That fool
Despard is wild to-day.  He will be sure to stir up
some mischief.  All the *mouchards* will be called."

"Despard is an idiot.  He is raving one day, and
fit to kill himself the next.  Get him out of this."

"*Dame*!  I should be well pleased.  He swears I keep
him here.  He will—ah, *mon Dieu!* the things he
threatens.  I am losing my wits.  My good François,
I have been kind to thee, and I talk rashly.  I wish I
had done with it all."

"And I too, citizen; but thou art safe with me."

As the jailer spoke, he looked over his list of those
summoned.  "*Sacré bleu!* here is a list which calls for
eleven, and there are only ten names!"

"Some one has made a mistake."

"No doubt.  But Grégoire never listens.  Pray
God he be sober.  Be in the corridor at nine;
Grégoire will want to see thee."

François would be on hand.  As to the report, he
should wish to ask how to draw it up.  He found a
quiet corner in the courtyard, and began to think
about the man with the wart—the man of whom he
knew so little, and whom he feared as he had never
before feared a man.  The every-day horror and
disturbance of the morning had begun.  Officers were
coming and going; names were called; there were
adieus, quiet or heartrending.  The marquis was
tranquilly conversing, undisturbed by the scene, which
was too common to trouble those who had no near
friend or relation in the batch of prisoners called for
trial.  François had seen it all, day after day.  It
always moved him, but never as now.

He stood looking at a young woman who was
sitting with the order in her lap, her eyes turned
heavenward as if in dumb appeal.  Now and then she
looked from one man to another, as if help must
come.

François glanced at the marquis; he was the center
of a laughing group, chatting unconcerned.

"*Ciel!* has the man no heart?" he murmured.
"Why did I save him even for a day?  The good God
knows.  It must make life easy to be like him."  The
marquis would have been amazed to know that the
memory of a white, sad woman's face, and of one
heroic hour, had given him a new lease of life.

"Ah, Toto," said the thief to himself, "we held that
stair together, he and I."  The thought of an
uplifting moment overcame him.  A sudden reflection
that he might have been other than he was flushed
his face.

"Ah, my friend Toto, we could have been
something; we missed our chance in the world.  Well,
thou dost think we had better make a fight for it.
Life is agreeable, but not here.  Let us think.  There
is one little card to play.  Art thou up to it?  Yes!
I must go now.  Thou wilt wait here, and thou wilt
not move.  In an hour I shall be with thee; and,
meanwhile, behold a fine bone.  No, not yet, but when
I come.  Attention, now!"

He turned his back to the prison, took off a shoe,
and extracted a paper, which he folded so as to be
small and flat.  Then he produced a bit of a kid
glove he had asked from Mme. Cerise of the Comédie
Française.  In it he laid the paper, and put the little
packet, thus protected, in the dog's mouth.  "Keep
it," he said.  "It is death—it is life."  The dog lay
down, his sharp black nose on his paws, shut his eyes,
and seemed to be asleep.  He had done the thing
before.

When François entered the corridor he found the
keeper.

"Come," said Vaubertrand.  "The commissioner
is in a bad way, and drunk, too.  He is troubled, I
think, and the citizens who are outside reproach him
that the supply for the guillotine is small, and the
prisons full.  What have I done to be thus tormented?
There will be a massacre.  *Ciel!* I talk too much.  I
have favored thee.  Take care—and thou canst laugh
yet."  Whereupon François laughed anew, and went
after him.

The large hall on the first floor was unusually full.
There was much confusion.  The great street door, as
it was opened wide and shut again in haste, gave a
not reassuring glimpse of men in red bonnets roaring
the *Ça ira*.  Over all rose the shrill tongues of the
women of the markets.  A new batch of prisoners
was pushed in, the keeper declaring he had no room.
Officers of the Committee of Safety untied the hands
of the newcomers, and ranged them on stone benches
to the left.  On the right were those who were called
to trial.  François stood aside, watchful.

Pierre Despard was waiting, flushed and anxious.
As a spy, he had leave from Vaubertrand to descend
in order to state his case to Grégoire.  He went hither
and thither, noisy, foolish, gesticulating.  He was now
in his alternate mood of excitement, and soon began
to elbow his way toward the office.

"Citizen La Vaque is summoned."

A tall man answered from the bench.  Then another
and another was called.  The officers went down the
line, and, paper in hand, verified the prisoners.  They
were taken, one by one, into a side room by a second
officer, and their hands secured behind their backs.

At last the first officer said: "Here are but ten,
Citizen Vaubertrand, and the list calls for eleven.
The keeper must see the commissioner."  The officer
in charge reproached Vaubertrand for neglect.  The
man with the wart came out from the office.

"Silence!" he cried.  "What is this?"

The matter was explained, or was being set forth,
when the door opened, and another half-dozen
unfortunates were rudely thrust in, while the crowd made
a furious effort to enter.  Grégoire turned pale.

"Thou shalt answer for this.  Find another.  I
shall hear of it, and thou, too."

Meanwhile, Despard, too insane to observe Grégoire's
condition, and lost to all sense of anything but his own
sudden wish to escape, was frantically pulling the
furious commissioner by the arm.

"Citizen," he cried, "I must be heard!  Dost hear?
Thou wilt repent.  I am the friend of Robespierre."

Grégoire paid no attention; he was half drunk, and
raging at poor Vaubertrand.

"I will report thee," cried Despard.  "I denounce thee!"

Grégoire turned upon him in a rage.

"Who is this?" he cried.

"I am Despard of the fourth section.  I will let
thee know who I am."  In his madness he caught
Grégoire by the collar and shook him.

Grégoire called out: "Take away this fool!
What! threaten me—me—Grégoire!  All, thou art the rascal
who plunders châteaux.  I know thee.  Thou dost
threaten an officer of the Committee of Safety.  Tie this
fellow; he will do for the eleventh.  Quick, quick!"

There was no hesitation.  The officers seized their
prey, and Grégoire, growling, went again into the office.

Pierre fought like the madman he was, but in a
minute was brought back screaming and added to
the corvée.  It was complete.  He was carried out
raving, amid the yells and reproaches of the mob,
which broke up and went along with the wagons.

Again there was quiet in the hall, where the thief
stood in wonder, horror-stricken.  "It is I that have
killed him—he who did long to see another die.  And
for him to die in the place of the marquis—*dame!* it
is strange."

"*Ciel!*" cried Vaubertrand, wiping the sweat from
his brow.  "This is the second they took this way to
make up for some one's blunder.  Come, and have a
care what you say.  He is half drunk."

François entered the office.

"Who is this?" said Grégoire, facing him, with his
large, meaningless face still flushed and angry.

Vaubertrand pushed forward the reluctant François.
"It is one of the reporters, citizen commissioner."

"Ahem!  One of Citizen Amar's appointments,"
said Grégoire.  "Thou canst go, Citizen Vaubertrand";
and he looked up as he sat at the table.

"Thy name?"

"François," said the thief.

"Thy occupation?"

"Juggler."

The citizen commissioner was on the uncertain
line between appearance of sobriety obtained by
effort and ebriety past control.  As he interrogated
François his head dropped forward.  He recovered
himself with a sharp jerk, and cried sharply:

"Why dost thou not answer?  I said, How didst
thou get here, and who gave thee thy order to
report?"

"Citizen Amar; he is a friend of mine."

"Is he?  Well, where is thy *sacré* report?"

"I should like to tell the citizen commissioner
what I have to say.  I—I did not know just how to
frame it."

Meanwhile Grégoire was considering him with
unsteady eyes.  "Ah, now I have it; now I remember
thee.  Thou art an *ex-émigré*.  I shall attend to thee.
It was thou who stole my wallet of papers; and thou
couldst laugh, too.  *Ciel!* what a laugh!  Try it now."

François replied that he was no *émigré*; as to the
rest, he could explain; and leaning over, he said
quietly:

"You will do well to hear what I have to say."

"'You will do well'!  Idiot!  Why dost thou say
'you, you'?  Cursed aristocrat that thou art!  Say
'thou' when thou dost address me, or I shall—where
is that report?"

"If the citizen will listen.  There was in that wallet
a little paper addressed to Citizen de la Vicomterie.
*Dame!* it was good reading, and I have it still."

"Thou hast it?  Thou wilt not have it long."

Grégoire was not over-intelligent, and had now the
short temper of drink.  The prisoner tried to get a
moment in which to explain that another held the
document.

Grégoire was past hearing reason.  "Officers,
here! here!" he cried.  "Search this man!  Search him.
Strip him.  Here! here!"

François did not stir.  "When thou hast done we
can talk."

"Hold thy tongue!  Search him."

"*Ma foi*, marquis," said the thief, later, "they did it
well.  They even chopped up the heels of my shoes.
And my coat!  *Sacre*!  The good keeper gave me
another.  In our cell, as I learned, they went through
the beds and Heaven knows what else.  I was well
pleased, I can tell thee, when it was all over."

The commissioner had now cooled down.  "Put on
thy clothes," said Grégoire, and himself shut the door.
It was François's turn.

"Citizen," he said, "didst thou think me fool enough
to leave within reach that little letter of thine to the
good citizen of the committee—to—ah, yes, La
Vicomterie is his name.  I am not an *émigré*, only a poor
devil of a thief and a juggler.  I do not love Citizen
Robespierre any better than some others love him—some
I could name.  But one must live, and the day
I go out to thy infernal tribunal, Robespierre will
have thy letter.  A friend will go himself and lay it
before the committee."

Grégoire grew deadly pale, all but the wart, which
remained red.  "I am betrayed!"

"Wait a little.  Thou art not quite lost, but thou
wilt be unless—"

"Unless what?"

"Unless thou wilt open that door and set me free.
I have no grudge against thee.  I will arrange to have
for thee the letter, and must receive from thee a new
*carte de sûreté*, and a good passport on business of
the Committee of Safety."

The commissioner was partly sobered.  "How shall
I know that thou wilt keep thy word?"

"Thou wilt not know until I do.  Why should I not?"

"But the letter may be lost."

"Well, what then?  Thou wilt be safe, and have
one less life to answer for to the devil when he gets thee."

"Talk business.  There is no devil."

"I don't agree with thee.  His name is Robespierre.
The mischief is that it is I who do not trust thee.
Thou hast a wart, citizen.  Men who have warts are
unlucky to meet.  But take care, because I am a
desperate man, and most extremely value my head.
If thou shouldst fail to—"

"No, no; I promise."

"Good, then."

"Wait; I will write out the papers."

"I shall not hurry thee.  I must pack up.  I will
be back in half an hour.  Be so kind as to arrange
that I may return without hindrance."

François went at once to the garden, and called
Toto.  Then he hastened to his *cachot*, or cell, and,
finding himself alone, shut the door, took the little
packet from Toto's mouth, and gave him the promised
bone.  He placed the paper inside his stocking, and
secured it with a pin.  Next he gathered up his
small effects, left his mangled coat on the bed of a
fellow-prisoner, and descended thoughtfully to the
office.

He was glad to see that the man of the wart was
sitting apparently inattentive to the piles of accounts
before him.  "Clearly, the citizen is worried," said
François to himself.

"I have thy papers.  One had to be sent out for
a signature.  Here is thy card of safety, and
reapproved as that of a citizen who has denounced an
*ex-émigré*.  Also, behold a passport, and an order
from the Committee of Safety to leave Paris on business
of the republic.  All are in the name of Citizen
François, juggler."

"The citizen has been thoughtful."

"*Sacré*!  I never do things by halves; I am
thorough.  And now, as to the paper?"

"It will be best for thee to come, at twelve to-day,
to No. 33 *bis* Rue Perpignan.  There I will take thee
to my old room, or another, and make good my side
of the bargain.  After that, I have the agreeable hope
never to meet thee again."

"I will be there at noon."

François's watchful ear detected a certain emphasis
on the "I" of this phrase, which made him suspicious.
He said quietly:

"Citizen, thou hast sold me my head.  I shall give
thee thine.  Afterward I shall be in thy power."

"Yes, yes; that might be so with Amar or Couthon,
but not with André Grégoire."

"*Tiens!*" said the thief, "what is this?  'André'?
This order is signed 'Alphonse Grégoire.'  The citizen
must have been absent-minded.  Look!"

Grégoire flushed.  "True, true.  I will write a
second.  I was troubled."

François stood still, received the second order, and,
saying, "*Au revoir*, citizen," was about to leave, when
a thought seemed to strike him.  He paused.  "There
is here a *ci-devant* marquis you may recall—Ste. Luce."

"Well?"

"Put his name at the foot of the file of the accused
and keep it there.  Get a clerk to do it.  The citizen
is aware that it is done every day."

"Impossible!  Art thou insane?  I run risk enough
with thy order and passport.  But this I dare not do.
There are limits."

"Do it, or I throw up my bargain.  By Heaven, I
am in earnest!  Come, what will it cost?  Will one
hundred louis d'or do the business?"

Grégoire reflected.  What more simple than to say
yes, pocket the money, and let things take their
course?

"I will do it for that—I mean I can have it done."

"Then give me ten minutes."

"I will wait."

The rich throughout these evil days were allowed
to have in prison as much money as they could get
from without.  About March of this sad year they
were told that they must feed the poorer captives,
and were regularly assessed.  François was aware
that the marquis was well provided.  He found him in
the garden, and asked him to step aside.

"I am free, monsieur," he said.  "No matter how.
And I have bargained for your own head."  He
briefly related so much of his talk with Grégoire as
concerned the marquis.

Ste. Luce looked at him.  "*Pardie*!  You are an
unusual type of thief—or man.  I would thank you
if I considered my head worth much.  But, after all,
it is a natural attachment one's body has for one's
head, or one's head for one's body, to put it correctly.
Will it be wasted money, my admirable thief, or will
the rascal keep his word?"

"Yes; he will keep his word—after we get through
with the affair."

"You are a great man, François, but I have not
the money.  I lost it last night to Delavigne.  I will
get the loan of it.  Rather a new idea to borrow one's
head!  Wait a little."  He came back in a few minutes.
"It pretty well cleaned out two of them.  Good luck
to you; and if ever we are out of this hole, we must
fence a little.  By the way, I hear they took that
poor devil Despard to-day.  It is a relief.  He bored
me atrociously."

"Yes; they took him in your place, monsieur.  It
was to have been to-day—"

"To-day!  In my place?  *Tiens!* that is droll."

"Yes."

"But how—why?"

"No matter now.  I will tell monsieur some day."

"Are you a magician, Master François?"

"I was.  But I did not desire this man's death."

"And the guillotine will have him, and he will not
be on hand to see me scared.  *Ciel!* but it is strange.
Alas! the disappointments of this mortal life!  Good
luck to you, and *au revoir*.  I thank you."

A few minutes later, Grégoire, having carefully
disposed of the gold about his ample person, escorted
Citizen François to the outer door.  The look with
which the commissioner with the wart regarded the
retreating back and the big ears of François was
unfriendly, to say the least.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XXII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XXII

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*Wherein is told how François baits a crab-trap with
the man of the wart.*

.. vspace:: 2

François understood the risks of his
position.  For a time he was safe.  After
he gave up that precious paper he would
be at Grégoire's mercy.  "More or less,"
muttered the thief, with a laugh which
set Toto to capering.  He went toward the Seine,
looked in the shop-windows, and had a bite and a
good bottle of wine, for the marquis had insisted on
giving him ten louis for his own use.  About
half-past eleven he turned into the Rue Perpignan, and
rang the bell at No. 33 bis.

"Come, Toto," he said, as he went in.  "We owe
Mme. Quatre Pattes a little debt.  Let us be honest
and pay."  He closed the door behind him, and heard
the sharp voice of the concierge: "Who goes there?
Speak, or I will be after thee."  He drew back, and
looked in through the glassed door of the Crab's room.
He knew she would not sally out.  Why should she?
Her house was only a hive of thieves and low women,
who were driven away when they could not pay, and
who rarely plundered one another.

He had never before so carefully inspected his
landlady.  She was seated at a table, about to drink
a cup of cocoa.  The room, the table, the little
well-swept hearth, were all as clean as care and work could
keep them.  The woman herself was no less neat than
her surroundings, yet she seemed one who belonged
to the sties of the Cité's lowest life.  There was
something strangely feline in the combination of animal
appearance with the notable cleanliness of her patched
clothes, her person, and her abode.  Her back, bent
forward from the waist, and rigid, forced her to turn
her head up and to one side to attain a view of the
face of man.  The same need kept her red eyes wide
open.  The malady which caused this distortion had
ceased to be active.  It had scarcely affected her
general health.  Like many of those who have suffered
from the more common forms of the disease which
makes the hunchback, she possessed amazing strength.

Now, as François stood hesitating, watchful, she
sat at table before him, intent on her meal, looking
here or there for bread or salt, her head swaying
from side to side.

"If she were to bite a man, he would be as good as
dead," murmured the thief.  "What is it she is like?
Ah, 't is the vipers in the wood of Fontainebleau.
*Bonjour, maman*," he cried gaily, as he went in.

Taken by a sharp surprise, she gripped at her two
sticks on the table, but missed them.  They fell
clattering, and her shaky hands dropped on her lap.  She
lacked not courage.  As she sat crouched, the bald
head, red-eyed and vigilant, was held back to watch
this enemy.

Toto ran in, and fawned at her feet.

"Enchanted to see you, *maman*."  By this time she
had her wits about her, and, hearing no accusing
charges, felt more at ease.

"Come back again, art thou, my fine thief-bird?
Did he fly to his nest?  Ha! he knows who will take
care of him.  That *sacré* shoemaker it was who
denounced thee.  Didst thou think it was thy little
maman?  Thou didst scold me.  But how didst thou
get out?"

"Ah, no matter now," said François.  "I have
work on hand for thee.  If I mistrusted thee, it
is not here I should have come.  Sometime we will
have a little *eau-de-vie* and a pipe, *maman*, and I
will tell thee all about it.  Wouldst thou serve
the republic, and be well paid for it?  Here, take
thy sticks; thou art fit for anything only when thou
hast all thy four legs.  Listen, now; and, to begin,
thou canst read a little—enough to understand this
passport, and this order from the Great Committee
of Safety?"

She looked eagerly over the papers.  "Yes, yes."

"And thou canst read this still better."  He let a
gold louis drop on the table.  She put out a claw,
and, failing through tremor to pick it up, drew it to
the edge, and for a moment held it under her eyes; then
she put it into her mouth, and, apparently satisfied,
chewed on it, moving her lower jaw from side to side.

"A good purse, *maman*.  It would be a bold man
or a blind would steal thy head for the gold.  Heads
always lose in our France to-day; thy own is none
too sure, *maman*."

"If thou art thinking to scare Quatre Pattes, it
won't do.  Ha! it won't pay."  She looked as if it
would not.

François saw that he had made a misplay.  He
laughed his best.  "*Nom de diable!* thou didst like a
joke once.  No matter.  My time is short.  I expect
a citizen in a few minutes.  Is my old room empty?"

"Yes, and half the rest.  I tell thee, *mon fils*, I have
missed thee."

"Give me the key, and pen, ink, and paper.  These
will do.  Thy ink is dry.  A little water—so.  I shall
come down in a minute or two, and take the citizen
up with me.  After that I shall come down alone.
The citizen will be locked up."

"Good.  Will he be alive?  I will have no tricks;
they get one into trouble."

"Alive!  Yes; he will howl."

"Ah, he will howl.  What shall I get?"

"He will pay to get out."

"He will pay—how much?"

"One—two—three hundred francs."

"Pshaw!  Paper?"

"No; gold.  At four to-morrow—no later, no sooner—at
four to-morrow thou wilt let him out; and, mind
thee, Dame Quatre Pattes, this is business of the
republic.  What happens to him after he is let out is of
no moment.  He may very likely make a fuss; he is
bad-tempered.  Wilt thou take the risk?"

"I—Quatre Pattes?  Three hundred francs!  I?"

"If I return not to give further orders before twelve,
thou mayst ask the municipals to be here at four.
That will save trouble.  He will then be in no way to
swear thou hast his money.  That may be the best
plan.  I have no mind to get thee into trouble.  Now,
hold thy tongue; and remember, it will be the little
cripple Couthon who will reckon with thee if in this
business thou dost fail."

"This is all very well if thou dost not return; but
who will pay me if thou art of a mind to come and
take him away thyself?"

"'T is a sharp old Crab," laughed François.  "If I
come for him, I promise thee he shall pay thee full
rent; and here is his *denier à Dieu, maman*."  He cast
another louis in her lap.  "If I come not by noon,
get all you can, and denounce him as a suspect; but
remember—not till four."

"*Queue du diable*!  'T is a fine transaction," cried
the Crab, and knocked her sticks together for emphasis.
"We will bleed him like a doctor; we will send in the
bill under the door; and then—we will have some nice
municipals for sextons.  Ha! ha!  It is well to have
the credit on one's little *carte de sûreté*."

François assured her that the plan was good.  At
this point, however, she became suddenly suspicious.
She stood crouching over her sticks, the snake-like
head slowly moving from side to side, her eyes searching
the thief's smiling face.  "Why is the man to be
kept?  What is it?"

He expected this.  "Ask Couthon the palsied that,
thou imbecile.  I will take him elsewhere.  There are
a dozen houses where they ask no questions.  Yes or no?"

"Yes, yes!"  Caution was put to sleep by greed;
or, more truly, by want, which was nearing its
extremity.

He felt secure.  "If he should ring before I get
down-stairs, let him wait.  Now, the ink and key."

"Is he to make his will?  Thou wilt not be long?"

"No; I want something that I left."

"Ah! thou didst leave something?"

"Yes, and thou didst not find it, *maman*.  Fie, fie,
for a clever woman!  Well, if thou didst not find it,
few could.  Wait, now."

He went swiftly up-stairs with Toto, and unlocked
the door, leaving the key outside in the lock.  He put
the writing-materials on a table.  In the chimney, just
within reach of his farthest touch, he found his pistol.
It was not loaded, and he had no powder to recharge
it.  He laughed as, putting it behind him in his
waist-belt, under his cloak, he descended the stair.

"All is right.  *Cordon*, if you please," he cried from
the hall.  He had not waited outside five minutes
when Grégoire appeared, in ordinary dress, without
the official feathered hat or the scarf of a functionary.
He was now sober enough, but uneasy, and looked
about him as if fearing recognition.

"Come," said François.  They mounted the ill-smelling
stairway to the attic.  Neither spoke.  Once
they were within the room, François said: "Sit
down."  He took a stool, placing himself between
Grégoire and the door.  "To business," he said, and
slipped out the famous letter from Grégoire to De la
Vicomterie.  He glanced at it, laughing.  "There are
three or more heads in this," he said.  "Robespierre
would pay well for it, or Saint-Just.  One might put
it up at auction.  There would be high bidding."

Grégoire said: "I have paid for it.  Give it to
me—give it to me!"

"No hurry, commissioner."  The thief enjoyed the
situation.  "Let us talk a little.  Let us make things
a trifle safer.  Have the kindness to write a receipt for
one hundred louis d'or accepted by thee as security for
the head of one Louis de Ste. Luce, *ci-devant* marquis."

"Not I!" cried Grégoire, starting up.

"Ah, I think thou wilt"; and, with this, François
drew his quite harmless pistol, and cocked it.

"Dost thou mean to murder me?  Help! help!  Murder!"

François seized him by the throat and thrust him
down on to the chair.

"The devil!  Fat fool! must I really kill thee?
Hold thy tongue.  Toto," he said, "just look at this
gentleman.  He is afraid, a coward—he who has killed
so many—so many brave men and women, who died
and showed no fear.  Keep the door, Toto.  There,
now, citizen; write it, and quick, too, or—"

"But it is my death."

"What do I care?  It is certain death unless thou
dost keep faith.  Once the marquis is free, and I am
secure, I will burn it.  That is all.  Thou art forced
to trust me.  The situation is simple, and rather
different from what it was at nine this morning.
Thou art trapped."

It was true, and Grégoire knew it.  He drew his
chair to the table, and wrote a few lines as the thief
dictated.  François added a request for a date.  "Thou
art not clever with a pen," he said; "thy hand shakes."

"I am a lost man!"

"No; by no means.  But look out for my marquis.
He ought to be very precious to thee, because—because
if there should be any accident to him or to me, my
friend will promptly place this harmless receipt in the
hands of Saint-Just; and then—"

Grégoire sat in a cold sweat, saying at intervals:
"I am lost.  Let me go."

"Not quite yet.  Give me ten louis."

"I—I can't.  I left the money at home."

"Thou art lying.  I heard it rattle when I shook
thee.  I might take it all.  I am generous, just, like
the incorruptible man with the green around his eyes,
one Robespierre.  Come, now."

Grégoire, reluctant, counted out the gold.  "Let
me go," he said.  There were scarce left in him the
dregs of a man.  He rose, pale and tottering.

"Not quite yet, my friend.  Thou wilt wait here a
little while.  Then a citizen hag will come up and let
thee out.  But be careful; no noise.  The gentlemen
who inhabit this mansion like not to be disturbed
in their devotions.  Moreover, they are curious, and
generally inquisitive as to purses.  Thou hast a few
hours for reflection on thy sins.  Pray understand
that this little paper will be put in the hands of a
friend of the marquis; I shall not keep it.  The trap
will be well set.  Am I clear?"

The commissioner made no reply.

"I forgot," said Francis.  "Here is thy letter.  I
keep my word.  The receipt is enough."

The compromising document lay on the table,
unnoticed by Grégoire.  He fell back, limp and cowed,
gripping the seat with both hands to save himself from
slipping ont of the chair.  The sweat ran down his
face.  When François, calling to the poodle, left him
alone, he made no motion; he was like a beaten cur.

"Come, Toto," said François, as he locked the door.
"That for his wart!  It is not as big as it used to be,
and it is not in the middle of his nose."  He went
down to the room of the concierge, and threw the key
of his room in her lap.

"He is very quiet, thy patient up-stairs; he hath a
chill."

Quatre Pattes, standing by, nodded, and looked up.
"Is he alive?  No lies, young man."

"Alive?  Not quite; only well scared.  Imagine
thyself one day on the red stair, and the basket all
ready, and so neat,—thou art fond of neatness,—all
as clean as thy room; and the knife—"

"Shut up that big jaw!  I am Quatre Pattes.  Dost
thou want to frighten me?"

"I?  By *St. Fiacre*, no!  I only want to let thee
understand how the citizen on the fourth floor feels."

"He will bleed the better, my dear."  She rattled
the sticks, and looked up at François, her head
swaying as the head of the cobra sways.  She was still in
some doubt as to this too ready pupil, whom she had
taught so much.  "Art thou trying to fool Mother
Quatre Pattes?"

"Oh, stuff!  Go up and speak to the man.  But
take care; this is no light matter to put thy claws
into.  The man will rage; but a day without diet will
quiet him a good bit.  Then thou canst begin to make
thy little commercial arrangement."

"Two hundred—three hundred.  No rags, no assignats."

"Might get four hundred, Mother Crabby.  There
will be two sides to the question."

The old woman laughed a laugh shrill and virulent.

"Two sides?  I see—inside and outside.  All right."

François stood in the doorway as she spoke.

"By-by, *maman*; and don't frighten him too much.
Thy style of beauty is not to the taste of all men.
Folks are really afraid of thee, *maman*.  Don't make
it a part of the bargain that he marry thee."

"Good idea, that!  And when shall I see thee?"

"Possibly to-morrow; certainly within a week or
so.  I may have a few days' work for the committee
in Villefranche—dirty country, filthy inns, not like
thy room"; and he glanced at it.  "I always do like
to see how neat it is, and how clean.  It would please
Sanson.  He is so particular; keeps things clean and
ready—always ready."

"'T is true," said Quatre Pattes, and clattered away
up the hall.

François heard her sticks on the stair, and her shrill
laughter.  "Thy cheese is poisoned, old rat," he said.

Once secure of the absence of his too observant
landlady, François called to Toto and went out of the
house.  It was now about half-past one.  No
suspicious persons were visible.  He had doubted this
Grégoire.  He had no mind to leave Paris, but when
asking a passport he meant that Grégoire should think
he had done so.  He moved away, with the dog at
his heels, and presently stood awhile in deep thought,
at the end of the street.  Grégoire was safe; he could
harm no one for a day, and after that would be the
last man in Paris to trouble François.  Amar was to
be feared, but that was to be left to chance and
cautious care.  Quatre Pattes?  He smiled.  "'T is as
fine as a play, Toto.  Here comes the last act.  Can
we go away and not see it?"  He looked back.  The
shoemaker whom the Crab had wished him to denounce,
with a view to the eternal settlement of her
debts, was standing at his door in the sun, just
opposite to No. 33 bis.  It was a good little man, lame of
a leg, hard-working and timid.

"It is not to be resisted, Toto.  Come, my boy."
He went back, and pulled the bell at No. 33 bis.  No
one answered.  He rang three times, and became sure
that, as he had anticipated, the Crab had at once
gone up to see how much of truth there was in his
statement.

.. _`HE PULLED THE BELL AT No. 33 BIS`:

.. figure:: images/img-269.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "HE PULLED THE BELL AT No. 33 BIS."

   "HE PULLED THE BELL AT No. 33 BIS."

Thus assured, he looked about him.  He saw no one
he had need to fear.  He crossed the street, and spoke
to the cobbler.

"Come into thy shop; I want to speak to thee."  When
within, he said: "I have been arrested, and
let out—praise be to the saints!  I have just now seen
the old Crab.  She owes thee money?"

"Not much."

"No matter.  She has asked me to denounce thee,
my poor friend.  I came to warn thee."

The cobbler gasped.  "*Dieu!* and my little ones!
I have done nothing—I assure thee, nothing."

"Nor I, my friend.  Now, listen.  I am lucky enough
to be in a little employment for the Great Committee.
I mean to save thee."

"And canst thou do that?"

"Yes, yes.  Something will happen to-morrow,
about four o'clock; and after that no fear of the hag.
I must see it; it is my business.  Can I stay a day—I
mean until then—in the little room here above thy shop?"

"Why not?  The children are with my sister.  They
shall stay till to-morrow night."

He followed the overjoyed cobbler up to the room
above his shop, sent him out to buy food and wine,
and sat down to await events.  The cobbler came back
with a supply of diet and the gazettes.  François sat
behind the slats of the green window-shades, and
laughed, or talked to Toto, or read, while at intervals
he watched No. 33 bis.  He read of how Charleroi had
been taken, and of the recovery of Fleurus.  It
interested him but little.

"They have cut off the head of the devil, and got
a new god, my good poodle.  *Tenes*!  Hold!
Attention!"  He saw Quatre Pattes clatter out.  It was
about 4 P.M.  She had no market-net.  She was
decisively bent on some errand, and moved with unusual
celerity, her back bent, her head strained upward to
get a sufficient horizon.

"It is altogether pleasant, *ami*.  She will not wait
till twelve to-morrow.  She has gone to denounce him.
Get up.  Here is a nice bite for thee.  She is shrewd,
our snake.  If she plunders M. Grégoire,—and she
will, too,—she knows what he will do when he is out.
He will denounce her.  The play is good, Toto.  The
money she will have, if we know her.  But, mm ami,
if he makes her believe through the door that he is
the great Grégoire of the wart, and she lets him out,
and is scared, and asks no pay, Toto, 't is nevertheless
a scotched snake she will be.  The Wart will want
to be revenged for low diet and loss of the republic's
time.  *Mordieu*!  Toto, let us bet on it."

He read his gazettes, and waited.  At six that
afternoon the Crab came home.  At nine François went to
bed.  Twice he awakened, laughing; he was thinking
about Grégoire.  The cobbler came in at six with
breakfast, and François warned him to be careful.

At ten in the morning Quatre Pattes appeared at
her door, and chatted with one or two dames of the
fish-market.  She rattled her sticks, and talked volubly.
She was in the best of humors.

No new thing took place till three o'clock, when
two municipal guards paused at her door.  She came
forth, spoke to them, and went in, leaving the door
open.  A third joined them.  They loitered about.
Ten minutes went by.  François grew more and more
eager as he watched.

"Ho, ho, Toto," he exclaimed, "there was a noise!
The fool! she has gone up alone to let him out."

It was true.  Grégoire had yielded in all some three
hundred francs, and, as ordered, had slipped the money
under the door, piece by piece, while Quatre Pattes sat
and counted it with eyes of greed.  She came down
and hid the last of it.  Now she went up again, rather
liking the errand.  She was absolutely fearless.  She
opened the door, and stood aside.  "Come out," she
said, "little man."

Grégoire was past restraining his rage.  "She-devil!"
he cried, and struck at her in a fury of
passion.  He ran past her down the stairs, the terrible
woman after him.  She was wonderfully quick, but
the man's fear was quicker.  At the last stairway she
found him beyond her reach, and, cursing him in
fluent slang of the quarter, she threw one of her sticks
at him.  It caught him on the back of the neck, and
he fell headlong into the hallway.  In an instant he
was up and staggering into the street.  As he came
forth two guards seized him.  "In the name of the
law!"  Quatre Pattes came swiftly after him,
screaming out: "Take him!  I denounce him!  He is an
aristocrat!"

What she and François saw was unpleasant for her.

"*Nom de Ciel!* 't is the Citizen Grégoire!" cried the
third guard.

Grégoire was for an instant speechless and
breathless.  The guards fell back.

"Arrest me?—me, Grégoire!  Have you an order
to arrest me?"  He was not quite at ease.

"No, no, citizen.  It is clearly a mistake.  We were
to arrest a *ci-devant*."

Quatre Pattes stood up, pallid.

"Take this woman!" cried Grégoire.  "I will send
an order.  The Châtelet, and quick!"

"The little trap did work," cried François, behind
his screen.  "How she squeals—like a pig, a pig!
She will give up the money.  The citizens and she
disappear within."

.. _`"THE LITTLE TRAP DID WORK," CRIED FRANÇOIS, BEHIND HIS SCREEN`:

.. figure:: images/img-273.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'THE LITTLE TRAP DID WORK,' CRIED FRANÇOIS, BEHIND HIS SCREEN."

   "'THE LITTLE TRAP DID WORK,' CRIED FRANÇOIS, BEHIND HIS SCREEN."

"This woman stole it!" roared the great man, as
they came out.  "Take her away."

When they came to lay final hands on her, she
was like a cat in a corner.

"*Chien de mon âme*! 't is a fine scrimmage," cried
François, "and the street full."

The sticks rattled; and when they were torn from
her, she used tooth and claw, to the joy of a crowd
appreciative of personal prowess.  At last she was
carried away, screaming, and exhausted as to all but
her tongue.

The commissioner with the wart readjusted his
garments and his dignity.  The crowd cried: "*Vive
Grégoire!*" and the hungry Jacobin went his way,
furious, in search of dietetic consolation.

"The show is over, Toto," said François, as he sat down.

Presently came the cobbler, curious, and much relieved.

"Ask no questions," said François.  "Here is a little
money."

"But, citizen, it is a gold louis."

"The show was worth the price of admission.  Thou
art welcome.  Hold thy tongue, if thou art wise.  At
dusk I shall slip out.  Thou art safe.  The Crab will
denounce no more of her neighbors."

"Two she hath sent to the knife," said the cobbler.

"*Dieu!* how the *tricoteuses* will grin!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XXIII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XXIII

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*Of how François found lodgings where he paid no
rent—Of the death of Toto—Of how his master, having
no friends on the earth, finds them underground.*

.. vspace:: 2

At dusk François went out, and was soon
moving rapidly across Paris.  He was
in search of lodging, food, and security.
In an hour or less he was in the
half-peopled quarter of St. Antoine.  Near the
barrier he turned aside, and stood considering a little
house in what seemed to have been a well-kept garden.
On the gate was the large red seal of the republic.  It
was safe for a night.  If he took a lodging, he must
show all his papers, and have his name set out, with
his business, on a placard such as was nailed to the
outer door of every house in Paris.  His name, as a
new lodger, must be reported to the sectional
committee.  He was widely known, and, alas! too peculiar
to escape notice long.  Now he needed time to think.
He wandered awhile, ate in a small café, bought wine
and bread, at night climbed the garden wall, and
without much trouble found his way into the house.
It was a sorry sight.  The arrests must have been
sudden and pitiless.  The kettle stood on the dead
embers.  The bread, burned black, was in the oven.
A half-knit stocking lay on a chair.  Up-stairs and
down, it was the same.  The open drawers showed
evidence of search.  A dead bird lay starved in a cage.
The beds were unmade.  The clock had stopped.  He
found some scant provisions, unfit for use.  It seemed
a gardener's house.  The place oppressed him, but it
answered his purpose.  His dog troubled him.  Toto
was, like himself, conspicuous, and he felt forced
during the daytime to leave him locked up in the
house.  But Toto was sagacious, and had learned to
keep quiet.  For several days François lived at
daylight in the streets and cafés, returning at night, to
get away again before dawn.  In the quiet little
taverns where he went for food and shelter he made
himself small, and hid in corners; nor, at this time,
did he laugh much.  He bought the gazettes, and read
them with intelligent apprehension of the fact that
change was in the air.  Robespierre had never had
with him a majority of his colleagues, and now he was
becoming more and more conscious of his insecure
hold on the Convention.  As long as the ex-nobles or
the foes of the republic suffered, it was of little
moment to the representatives; but when the craving for
blood, not justified by any political reasons, sent too
many of their body to the block, the unease of the
Terror began to be felt within their own hall.  To be
timid, cautious, or obscure had once been security.
It was so no longer.  That terrible master still had
his way, and, one by one, the best brains of the
opponents of the Jacobins were sent to perish on the
scaffold.  The Convention began to feel the need for
associative self-defense.  Revenge, fear, and policy
combined to aid the enemies of this extraordinary
person.  Like Marat, he began to show physically
the effects of a life full of alarms; for this monster
dreaded darkness, trembled at unusual noises, and
remained to the last the most carefully dressed man
in Paris.  To understand him at all, one must credit
him in his early political life with a sincere love of
country, and with willingness to sacrifice himself for
others.  It is impossible to regard him as entirely
sound of mind at a later date.  He became something
monstrous—a mixture of courage, cowardice, blood-madness,
self-esteem, and personal vanity.  But there
were men who loved him to the last.

It was now early in July, the month Thermidor.
François began, as usual, to weary of a life of
monotonous carefulness.  His supply of money was ample.
He was well fed and, so far, safe.  He sat night after
night in darkness, and thought of the lady of the
château.  He knew that her father was thus far
secure; his name was not in the daily lists of the victims;
and these were many, for on the 22d Prairial (June
10) a decree deprived the accused of counsel, and of
the right to call witnesses.  The end was near.

One evening about nine, as he came near to the
garden, he saw lights in the house.  Toto was found
waiting outside of the gate.  A girl came forth, and
soon returned with a net of vegetables.

"*Ciel*!  Toto," said François, "the poor things have
been released, and thou wert clever to get out.  We
are glad, thou and I; but they have our house."  He
had left nothing at this lodging, having nothing to
leave.  He walked away, puzzled, and, wandering,
scarce aware of whither he went, found himself at
last in the Rue de Seine.  It was getting late, and he
began to look about him for a new lodging.

"We must find an empty house, Toto.  The seal of
this cursed republic is our best chance."  He did not
need to look far.  In the Rue de Seine he came upon
a small two-story shop.  Beside it was a wide gateway,
on which he saw with difficulty, but felt readily,
the seal no one dared to violate.  He concluded that
there must be a deserted house beyond it, in a
garden.  He passed around by the *quai*, and entered
the Rue des Petits-Augustines, and stood before the
mansion of Ste. Luce.  A light was in an upper room.
Some one was in charge.  On either side were railings
and a garden.  It was now ten o'clock, and no one
visible in the long street of old houses, once the homes
of the great French nobles.  He pushed the poodle
between the rails, and readily pulled himself up and
dropped at his side.  Once within, he moved with care
across to the wall behind the mansion, and soon saw
that he was not in the garden of the marquis, but in
the larger domain of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt.
His object was to find his way into the
house which had an outlet on the Rue de Seine.  As
he was arranging his clothing to climb a tree near to
the wall, he suddenly paused.  "Toto," he exclaimed,
"we have been robbed,—we—first-class thieves,—and
we know not when it was.  Ah, it was at that café,
as we came out.  Well done, too.  Not a sou.  Weep,
Toto; we are broken."

He lost no more time in lamentation, but climbed
the tree, looked over, came down, pulled up the dog,
and descended on the farther side of the wall.

He was now in a small garden.  Near him, and
close to the wall, was a little plant-house.  On the
farther side of a grassy space stood a hotel of moderate
size, with the front court, as he presumed, opening
on the Rue de Seine.  On each side, as he saw clearly,
for the night was bright and the moon rising, there
were high flanking walls.  After assuring himself that
the house was empty, François found a trellis covered
with old vines, and, climbing this, entered the hotel by
a convenient balcony.  He was safe for the night, and
at leisure to explore his new dwelling.  He feared to
strike a light, but he could see dimly that there were
pictures, books, china.  Evidently this had been the
home of people of wealth.  As the moon rose higher,
he saw still better, and began to realize the fact that
here were evidences of hasty flight.  In a room on the
second floor was a secretary, and this François readily
opened.

"Toto," he said, "we are rich again."  He had
found forty louis in a canvas bag which comfortably
fitted his side pocket.  In the larder he came upon
meat, cooked and uncooked, mostly unfit for use, stale
bread, and cheese.  Once satisfied, he went over the
house, and then the garden, taking pains at last to
set a ladder against the wall of the Rochefoucauld
property.

The glass-house was in disorder, the plants lying
about, uncared for.  His foot struck an iron ring
attached to a trap-door.  There were staples for
padlocking it, but no padlock.  He concluded this to be
the opening to a wine-cave or -cellar, and lifted the
trap.  It was dark below.  He ventured down the
steps a little way, and then stood still to listen.
Hearing noises below him, he retreated in haste.  He was,
as has been said, superstitious.

"That is strange!  We will look about when it
is day, Toto—not now."

Concluding to sleep out of doors, he accordingly
arranged for his comfort by taking a pillow and
blankets from the house; for now he had opened a
door below, and was in full possession.  Suites of
apartments which he dared not use for sleep, and a
pretty little library, overlooked the small estate of the
garden.

No occupied dwelling was in view.  Great trees in
the grounds of La Rochefoucauld and Ste. Luce
partially hid the houses, and, what was of more moment,
shut off the sight of François's refuge.  It was, of
course, possible that at any time he might be
disturbed by the coming of the officers, or, what was to
be feared less, that of the owners.  But he was not
a man to be continually anxious.  The outer front
door had a bar, and this he dropped into its socket.
The side walls were high.  He could hear any one
who attempted to enter.  His way out at the back
was made easy by the ladder he had set in place.  At
dusk he began to be fully at ease, and after a day or
two was hardly less so in the sun-lit hours.

On the morning of the third day, much at home,
he sat behind the little plant-house, with Toto at his
feet, and a book in his hand, for in the library he
found several which excited his interest.  Now he
was deep in a French translation of the travels of
Marco Polo.  Suddenly he heard a noise of steps.
He fell back, caught Toto with a warning grasp on
the jaw, and lay still.  He was so hidden in the
narrow space between the plant-house and the wall of
the garden as to be for the time secure.  No longer
hearing anything alarming, he rose and looked
cautiously through the double glass and the sheltering
plants which were between himself and the mansion.
In a few minutes a tall man came out of the plant-house,
went into the dwelling, and by and by returning
with blankets and a basket, passed into the plant-house,
and was lost to sight.  He soon came out
again with a lad, and after several such journeys to
the main house, whence each time he fetched something,
they reëntered the plant-house, and came forth
no more.

This incident greatly amazed the thief.  "Toto," he
said, "there must be a trap below!  'T is a lower
cellar it leads to, and there are people beneath.  *Hélas*,
Toto! no sooner are we gentlemen with an estate
than, presto! a change, and it is get up and go.  It
were better we took to the woods and saw far countries,
like this M. Polo."  Toto regarded his master with
attentive eyes, the long black tail wagging.  He seemed
to comprehend François's difficulties, or at least to feel
some vague desire to help and comfort.

"Yes, yes; it is time we settled down, *mon ami*.
Behold, we get a little money and wherewithal to
live; we hurt no one; we cultivate our minds with
travel; we start fresh, and are honest, having
enough,—which is a good foundation for honesty,—and
then—*eh bien!* my friend; let us laugh"; and he lay on
his back, and tumbled the dog about.

He was in the garden, near to the dwelling, a day
later, when he heard noises as of steps in the La
Rochefoucauld grounds.  He climbed the ladder, and,
without showing himself, listened.  There were voices,
and now and then he caught a phrase.  These were
municipal guards.  He beckoned to Toto, and,
crossing the garden, entered the house, meaning to watch
his new neighbors from a window.

He went up-stairs to the third story under the roof.
As he moved toward a window, he heard a sound
below.  He ran down the stair, and stood on the
lower landing-place, facing the front door.  "We are
gone, Toto!"  For once he was at a loss, and stood
still, in doubt what to do.

There were voices outside.  The hall door had been
unlocked, but the bar held it fast.  After a minute or
two they seemed to have given up the idea of
entering.  François waited a few minutes, and began to
descend the stairs.  Then he heard quick footfalls in
the room to the left on the level of the landing above
him.  Some one must have entered by a window on
the second floor.  He turned, perplexed, instinctively
drew his useless pistol, and began to go faster.
Suddenly the steps above him quickened.

A man on the staircase landing behind him cried:
"Halloo!  Surrender, in the name of the republic!"  François
jumped, taking the stairs below him in one
leap, but, tripping over Toto, fell headlong in the hall.
The dog sprang after him, and alighted on his master's
back.  A pistol-shot rang out.  The dog fell dead with a
ball in his brain.  François was on his feet.  He cast a
glance at the faithful friend of many a day.  His own
long, strange face became like that of a madman.
He dashed up the stair, a second ball missing him
narrowly.  Through the smoke he bounded on his
enemy.  He caught the man by the right arm, wrested
the pistol from him, and, scarce feeling a blow from
the fellow's left hand, struck him full in the face with
the butt of the pistol.  The blood flew, and the man
staggered, screaming.  A second blow and a third fell.
Twisting his victim around, François hurled him down
the stair.

"Beast!" he cried; and, leaping over him, stooped
a moment, kissed the quivering little body of his friend,
and, with tears streaming from his eyes, stood still.
Loud cries from beyond the wall of the garden recalled
his energies.  The noise at the door was heard again.
He ran out and across into the plant-house, pulled
up the trap, and, descending, closed it.  Then he stood
puzzled.  It was dark; he could see nothing.  He fell
on his knees, and began hastily to grope about until
he felt an iron ring attached to the trap-door of what
he presumed to be the entrance to a yet lower cellar.

"It is this or death," he muttered under his breath,
and stood reflecting, having heard no sounds
approaching overhead.  Thinking it better to see and
be seen by those below, he struck his flint on the steel,
and, with the aid of a morsel of paper and his kindling
breath, soon had a light.  Then he saw near by a
lantern with a candle within it.  He lighted it, and held
it in one hand.  This done, he knelt again, and with
a quick movement set open the trap-doorway.  What
he saw was a man and the muzzle of a pistol.  The
man cried out: "If you move, you are dead!"

"I am not a municipal, monsieur.  I am only a
thief.  Let me come down, for God's sake!  I am
flying from those rascals who are in the house."

"I have half a mind to blow your brains out."

"*Ciel*!  I hope you will not have a whole mind.  It
would only call those scoundrels.  I stole a little from
the house—I return it"; and he dropped the bag of
louis.  It fell on the head of a small boy below, unseen
in the gloom.  He howled lustily.

"*Diantre!* keep quiet!" cried the man.

"Oh, let him come down, duke; he is welcome."  It
was the voice of a woman out of the deep darkness.
Tender and clear it was.

"Be quick, then, rascal!  Down with you."

The thief waited for no second invitation.  The
duke descended; François's long legs came after.  He
paused to arrange some loose staves, that, in falling,
they might conceal the trap.  Then he blew out the
candle, and was in total darkness, but where or with
whom he knew not.

"Have a care how you move," said the voice of the
woman.  "We are in great peril.  Come down quietly."

"May all the saints bless you!" said François, and
sat down on the lower step.  For a while all was still.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XXIV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XXIV

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*Of how François got into good society underground—Of
what he saw, and of the value of a cat's eyes—From
darkness to light—Of how François made friends for life.*

.. vspace:: 2

"It was dark indeed; I had never imagined
such darkness," says François in his
memoirs.[#]  He adds that he has heard
the story of this wonderful escape from
the catacombs told over and over by
M. des Illes.  He does not consider that it did him
(François), the principal person, sufficient justice.  He
had also heard the old Duke Philippe relate the matter,
and it was incredible how crooked he got it.  But, then,
Duke Philippe was a man who had no sense of humor.
As to his dear Mme. des Illes, when she did tell this
story, the baby was the chief hero.  Duke Henri,—that
is, the present man,—although only a lad when
these events took place, remembered them well.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] See Epilogue.

.. vspace:: 1

"When he was seventeen," says François, "we used
to fence together.  I have often heard him relate to
the other young fellows how we made our escape; but
Duke Henri has too much imagination, and that, you
see, makes a man inaccurate.  I knew two very
accomplished thieves who were inaccurate.  I am not.
Duke Henri's tale got stronger, like wine, as time
went on.  The rats grew to be of the size of cats;
three of them pulled the baby out of madame's lap.
And as to the people we killed, it would have satisfied
M. Dumas, who is the greatest and most correct of
such as write history."

The present author grieves that he has not the
narration of this famous escape at the hands of
Mme. des Illes and the two dukes, father and son.  Those
who have found leisure to read "A Little More
Burgundy" have heard Des Illes's narrative as M. des
Illes related it.  Those who have not read that
rendering may incline to hear François's own statement
of what happened after he thus found himself in
darkness with people he had never seen.  I have
followed his memoir pretty closely.  It tells some
things of which the other people concerned did not
know.  Evidently he considered it a less tragic affair
than did they.  It has been needful to condense
François's account, and to do this especially where
he speaks of his own intermediate adventures, which
were singular enough.

When, as I have said, François, obeying Duke
Philippe, put out his lantern, he sat still awhile, and
said nothing.  Like the rest, he was fearful lest the
officers he had disturbed so rudely should make a
too effective search.  Their inspection of the upper
cellar would be perilous enough.  The anxious people
beneath held their breaths when a man overhead
stumbled across the staves the thief had set to fall
on the trap-door.  After a while all noises faded
away, and in the evening the duke proposed to
reconnoiter once more; but when he tried to lift the trap,
it was found impossible to do so.  The municipals, in
their examination, must have rolled a full barrel of
wine upon the door.  This discovery was, or seemed,
an overwhelming calamity.

François during the day came to understand that
here in the darkness were Duke Philippe de St. Maur,
his son Henri, a lad, another rather older boy, Des
Illes, Mme. des Illes, and the baby, who made himself
terribly well known by occasional protests in the
tongue of babyhood.  As the thief became accustomed
to the gloom and the company, his usual cheeriness
returned; and when they could not open the trap he
began to propose all manner of schemes.  He would
bore a hole and let out the wine, and so lighten the
barrel.  He would shoot a ball through the trap and
the barrel, and thus let out the weight of wine.  The
duke, who never lost respect for his own dignity, was
disgusted, and would listen to none of his counsels.

Toward bedtime the baby began to wail dismally;
the boys sobbed; and Mme. des Illes cried out to them
that they should be ashamed to complain, and then,
by way of comment, herself burst into tears; while
the duke stumbled about, and swore under his breath.
This was all very astonishing to François, who had
seen little of any world but his own, and to whom
calamity served only as a hint to consider some way
to escape its effects.  He remained silent for a while,
after the duke had let him plainly understand that he
was a fool and had better hold his tongue.  This
lasted for a half-hour, during which he sat still,
thinking, with full eyes, of his dead dog.  By degrees the
children grew quiet, and the baby, having exhausted
his vocabulary and himself, fell asleep.  Then the
duke said irritably:

"Why the deuce don't you do something, Master
Thief?  If you can get into places where you do not
belong, why cannot you get out of this abominable box?"

François laughed.  "Get out I would, and gladly;
but how?  We might wait, monsieur, till they drink
up the wine, or until it dries up, or—"  But here the
boys laughed, and even the duke forgot himself, and
said François was a merry fellow.  Indeed, he was of
use to them all; for, soon becoming at ease, he regaled
the boys with his adventures; but how many he
invented I do not know.  Some were queer, and some
silly; but all tales are good in the dark, for then what
can one do but attend?

After a while, all being still, François lighted his
lantern, on which Duke Philippe said: "Put out that light;
we have too few candles as it is; and keep quiet.  You
are prowling about like a cat on the tiles, and twice
you have stumbled over my legs."

"But I have twice said I was sorry," said François,
getting tired of this duke with an uncertain temper,
who repeated: "Put out that light, and sit down."

Then madame spoke: "He may have a reason to
want to see and to move about."

"'T is so," said François.  "If I walk, my wits
walk; if I sit, they go to sleep; and as to cats,
madame, I am a street cat"; and, thinking of
Suzanne, he laughed.

"Ah, confound your laughing!"  The duke felt
that to laugh at a joke he did not share was, to say
the least, disrespectful.  "What is there to laugh at?"

François, who had been moving as he spoke, was
suddenly elated.  He said it was Suzanne he was
thinking of; and when madame would know if she
were his wife, the duke was silent out of lack of
interest for low company, and François began to tell
about the elders and the Hebrew maid, and of the
Amalekites who lived on the next roof.  The boys
were charmed, and madame said, "Fie! fie!" but it
served to amuse.  An hour later he began to move
about restlessly, and at last cried out, from the far end
of the cellar:

"This way, monsieur; what is this?  A candle—and
quick!"  When they all came to see, he rolled aside
an empty cask, and showed a heavy planking.  He
seized the decayed timbers and tore them away, so
that as they fell a black gap was to be seen.  The
air blew in, cool and damp.

"*Mon Dieu!* 't is the catacombs.  My husband's
grandfather cut off this end for a wine-cave.  It is
strange I should have quite forgotten it."

"But what then?" said the duke.  "It is only a
grave you have opened.  You might as well have
kept quiet."

The thief's feelings were hurt; he began to care
less and less for this useless nobleman.

Madame said thoughtfully: "It may be a way out.
If it come to the worst, we can but try it."

"Madame is right; and as to keeping quiet, I never
could.  Sleeping cats catch no rats."  He believed in
his luck.  "We shall get out," he said, with cool
assurance.  "I always do.  I have been in many scrapes.
I got out of the Madelonnettes, and I was once near
to decorating a rope."

"A rope!" exclaimed madame.

"Yes.  *Parbleu*!  I wear my cravat loose ever since.
I like to have full swing, but not in that way."  He
was gay and talkative.  The boys liked it; but not so
the duke, who said:

"Well, what next?"

"We must explore.  I will enter and see a little."

"But," said the woman, "you will get lost; and
then, what to do?"  She had come to trust the thief.
He saw this, and liked it.  "If we lose you, what
shall we do?—what *shall* we do?"

The thief turned to her as he stood, lantern in hand.
He was grave.  "Madame, I am a poor thief of the
streets; I have had to live as I could; and since I was
a boy I can count the kind words ever said to me by
man or woman.  I shall not forget."

Madame was moved, and said they were all alike
come upon evil days, and that perhaps now he would
turn from his wicked ways.

Poor François was not quite clear as to his ways
having been wicked.

"Well, if you are going," said the duke, "you had
better be about it."

It was then young Des Illes said he must have a
string, like people who went into caves, else he might
never find his way back.  The thief thought it a fine
idea; and here was madame's big ball of knitting-wool.
With no more delay, he took it, and leaving
an end in Des Illes's hand, boldly walked away
into the darkness with his lantern, and was soon lost
to view.

When he came back to this anxious company, he
had to report such a tangle of passages as caused him
to say that to try to escape through these must be a
last resort.  He thought they might live on the rats
if provisions gave out, but they must eat them raw.

"*Hélas!* what a fate!" said madame.

The little Duke Henri spoke eagerly, and said the
Chinese ate rats.

"But not raw," cried the young Des Illes, which set
them all to laughing.

Soon again they were quiet, because talk in the dark
does not prosper.  A little later madame called softly
to the thief to sit by her, and would hear of his life.
François related his exploits with pride.  She made no
comment, but said at last: "Your name, my friend?"  And
when he replied, "François," she declared that
he was no more to be any one's thief, but always
François; and this was a hint to the duke, who took it in
silence, and was evidently depressed.

After this, madame bade the boys say their prayers;
and soon all were asleep, except François, who sat
against a cask, and saw Toto's brown eyes in the
darkness.

At last the morrow came.  The provisions were
shared, and, as usual with François, his spirits rose
as he filled his stomach.  He held the baby, and was
queerly interested in this mystery of unwinking eyes.
Might he give it of the bottle?  He satisfied the child,
who seemed fearless of that long, good-humored face.
Might he hold it longer?  It would relieve madame.
He sang low to it a queer thief-song, and then another
none there could understand.

"*Ciel!*" said the duke, who had slept off his splenetic
mood; "you have a fine voice."

"Ah, would it were a hymn," said madame, "or a
psalm of Clément Marot!"

"I know no hymns," said François, "but only some
old choir chants."

Upon this he began to sing, low and sweet, one of
the old Latin songs:

   |  Salve, mundi salutare,
   |  Salve, salve, Jesu care!
   |  Cruel tuæ me aptare
   |  Vellem vere, tu sols quare,
   |    Da mihi tui capiam.
   |

The rich voice which in his boyhood days had soared
like a lark up among the arches of Notre Dame had
come again.  He heard himself with wonder and with
sad thoughts of the chances his boyish haste had
forever lost for him.

"And you a thief!" cried madame.  "Where—where
did you learn—"

But at this moment noises overhead put an end to
all but listening.  At last François said: "They
move the casks.  It were well to take to the caves."  And
this was hastily agreed to, when, of a sudden,
the noises ceased.

François still urged instant flight; but the duke
said, "No; we must wait," and gave no reasons.  The
thief did not agree, but held his tongue, as Mme. des
Illes said nothing, and since, after all, this was a
duke.

An hour later he started up.  "By Heaven, they
are at the trap!"

The duke was no coward.  He ran up the steps,
pistol in hand, and gave his second weapon to
François, who stood below.  The trap was cast wide open,
and a big municipal was seen stooping over the open
space; for beyond him the cellar was well lighted up.
The duke fired without an instant's indecision.

"By St. Denis! 't is a man, this duke," cried
François, as the officer pitched head down into the cave.
The thief set a foot on him as he lay, and reached up
the second pistol to the duke, while young Des Illes,
too curious for fear, crawled up the broad stone stairs
to see.  The thief heard a second shot, and followed
the lad.  There were several candles set on casks, and
through the smoke he saw a municipal in a heap at
the far end of the upper cellar.  He was groaning
piteously.

"Load again, monsieur," cried François.  "Quick! there
may be more."  He himself went past the duke,
and young Des Illes after him.  He turned the officer
over.

"He is not dead," he said.  "Best to finish him."

But here was madame at his side, saying: "No,
no!  No more—I will not have it.  *Mon Dieu!* it is
bad enough.  I will have no murder."

"Then let us go back; he is as good as dead."

"*Mon Dieu!  Mon Dieu!*" cried the woman; and so
in haste the upper trap was closed, and all went again
down to the cave.

The officer below was dead, with a ball through his
head.  Mother and children huddled away in the far
corner, scared.  The duke said:

"What now must we do?"

"We must go, and at once," said François.  "They
will soon come back, and then—"

"Yes, yes," cried madame; "you are right.  You
were right; we should have gone before, and saved
all this bloodshed."

The duke made no comment, except to mutter, "I
suppose so"; and at once began to assist François's
preparations for flight.

And now the thief's readiness and efficiency were
shown.  He arranged every one's loads, filled baskets,
laughed over a shoulder at the boys as he strapped
blankets on the duke, and at last loaded himself with
all that was left.  They took the arms of the dead
man, and soon trooped out into the darkness.  The
duke, who at once went on ahead, carried a lantern.

At the first turn, François called out to wait, and
ran back.  The duke swore.  He was now eager to
go on, and declared that the thief would deliver them
up, and save his own head.  But madame was of
other mind, and so they stood expectant.  At last
came François, laughing.

"Ah, monsieur, this comes of honest company.  I
forgot the bag of gold.  And these—these are priceless.
I have the fellow's clothes.  When a man does
not resist, the temptation is great; neither did he
assist."

"Stop that talk, and come on.  Are we going to
set up a shop for old clothes?"

François fell behind.  "The duke would make a
poor thief," he said to the boys.  Young Henri de
St. Maur said: "You are insolent.  My father a thief!"

"*Tiens*!  There are times when to steal is virtue.
*Allons donc!*" and he strode on, laughing, and telling
the boys stories.

There were many little incidents that day, but the
worst was at evening, when they found a great cave,
lofty and wide, where had been cast, long before, the
bones out of the overfilled cemeteries.  Here it was
that skulls fell from the great heap, and rolled away
on every side into the darkness, while the rats ran
out in armies.  The thief was of all the most alarmed,
and stood still, saying paternosters and aves by the
dozen.  After this they went on aimlessly, now and
then hearing overhead the roar and rumble of wagons.
Their nights proved to be full of sore trials.  The rats
assembled, and grew bolder.  One bit the baby, who
cried until the thief lighted a candle and watched
while the rest slept, or tried to do so.

The dismalness of, these underground labyrinths
was such as no man could imagine.  One day they
walked a half-mile through a wet cave-passage so
narrow that two persons could not move abreast.  It
ended in a blank wall, and they were forced to go
back, over shoe-top in water.  Or, again, they went
up rude stairs, stumbling, but hopeful, only to descend
once more into the depths of the earth.  Now and
then a putrid rain fell on them, and at every turn the
rats fled by them, now one and now a scurry of
countless troops.  Twice a mass of rock fell in some
distant passage, and strange echoes reverberated in
cavern spaces, so that the boys cried out in terror, and
even François shivered at the thought of how they
might be buried alive by one of these downfalls.  Each
sad day of weariness had its incident of terror or
disappointment; and still, with lessening hope, they
trailed on after the dim light which the duke carried
as he led them—none knew whither.  Each morning
they rose cold, wet, and unrefreshed, ate of their
lessening food, and after some little talk as to how
this day they should keep turning to left or to right,
set out anew, the duke still in advance, with an
ever-changing mind as to where they were or what they
should do.  As day followed day, their halts became
more frequent.  They lingered where the dripping
rain from the sewage of the great city overhead was
least; or at times paused suddenly to listen to
mysterious sounds, or to let the rats go by them, splashing
in the noisome puddles underfoot.  The night was as
the day, the day as the night.  They had no way to
tell the one from the other, except by the duke's watch.

So confusing was this monotonous tramp underground,
the days so much alike, that at last these sad
people became bewildered as to how long they had
wandered.  Their food was becoming less and less,
and on the evening of the fifth day the duke and
François knew that very soon their stock of candles
would be exhausted.  These had, in fact, been of small
use, except to keep the scared children more cheerful
when night came on and the rats grew bold.

This evening of the fifth day, and earlier than usual,
Mme. des Illes declared of a sudden that she could
go no farther, and must rest for the night.  The duke
had a new plan, and urged her to go on.  She cried
over the baby on her lap, and made no answer.  They
sat down to pass another night of discomfort.  After a
little talk with the boys, François drew apart from the
rest, and began to think over the wanderings of the
day.  Their situation this evening was somewhat better
than it had usually been, for they sat in a dry end of
one of the many excavations, and did not feel the
cold, moist winds which howled along these stony
caves, carrying a changeful variety of unwholesome
stenches.  A silent hour went by in utter darkness.
At times François rose to drive away adventurous
rats.  At last he lighted a candle, and set it at the
open end of the cul-de-sac.  When he saw that the
rats would not pass the lantern, he whispered to
madame of this, and that he meant to explore a little,
and bade her have no fear.  The duke had thus far
had his own way, and it had not been to François's
taste.  He took a second lantern, and moved off around
a corner, resolute to find a means of escape.  The duke
ordered him to return and to put out the candle.
François made no reply.  He counted the turns as he
went on, and listened for the noise of vehicles above him.

"A pretty duke, that!" he said.  "I should have
made as good a one.  I like better that devil of a
marquis; but *diantre!* neither is much afraid—nor I, for
that matter."

Sometimes he turned back, at others went on boldly,
noting whence blew any current of warmer air.  At
last he came upon an enormous excavation.  In the
middle was a mass of partly tumbled stone, laid in
courses.  This broken heap was large, and irregularly
conical.  He moved around it in wonder, having seen
nothing like it in his explorations.  He turned the
yellow and feeble lantern-light upon the heap, and at
first concluded that the old makers of these quarries
had here built for themselves a house, which had fallen
to ruin.

But where was he, and what part of Paris was over
his head?  He remembered at last to have heard that
these catacombs were once used as receptacles for the
dead, in order to relieve the overpeopled graveyards.
Had he been less alarmed, he might have guessed
where he was when they came upon the bones; for
that must have been near to the cemetery of the
Church of the Innocents.  But while the duke had
led, François had taken less than his usual active
notice, and had been content to follow.  Here, now,
was a new landmark.  This before him could be no
dwelling of quarriers, but must be a house fallen into
the great cave.  He had heard of such happenings.
To be certain where and on what street so strange a
thing had occurred would afford knowledge as to the
part of Paris under which he stood.  He would ask
the duke; he might know.  Thus reflecting, he began
to walk around the tumbled mass.  A vast amount of
earth must have come down with it.  He pried here
and there, and at last found a gap in the ruin, and
crawled in between fallen timbers until he could stand
up.  On one side was a wall and a wide chimney-place,
and on the top of this wall the great beams of the
ceiling still rested.  Their farther ends lay on what
seemed the wreck of the opposite wall, thus leaving a
triangular space filled in at each side by broken stone.
Amid this were the crushed steps of a staircase, quite
blocked up.  The lantern gave little light.  Only close
to the fireplace could the tall thief stand erect.  He
turned his lantern, and cried out:

"Ye saints!"  Close beside him were the remains
of a high-backed chair, and on these, and beside them,
portions of the bones of a man.  Two great jack-boots
lay beside him, gnawed by rats.  His skull was broken,
and lay where the eager animals had dragged it.

Few could have stood here alone, and not felt its
terror and its mystery.  François stood a moment,
appalled, and unable to think or to observe.  At last
he began to study the place with care and increasing
interest.  A rusty sword, sheathed, was caught in the
arm of the ruined chair.  Here and there lay bits of
gold lace.  He picked up the rusted clasp of a purse,
gnawed by the rats.  Near it lay scattered a number
of gold and silver coins, a rosary, and a small ring set
with red stones.  He put them all in his pocket.  There
was scarce a remnant of the man's dress.

François looked at the tumbled bones.  "*Mon
Dieu!*" said he; "am I like that?" and turned to see
what else was here.  On the lowest stair was a glint
of yellow—a cross of gold.  "Good luck!" he cried.
On the hearth was a copper kettle, green with rust.
Soon he began to see better, and at last found a
fragment of wood less damp than the rest of the floor and
what lay upon it; for a steady, slow, irregular rain
fell in drops, with dull patter here and there.  He
shaved off some slivers of the wood, and, getting at
the drier inside, soon, with paper from his pouch, made
a fire on the stone pavement.  Presently he had a
bright little blaze, and in the brilliant glow began to
shed his terror.  He found other wood, and nourished
the flame.  But when he saw that the fragments were
from the end of a crushed cradle, he ceased to use
them; because here were little bones lying scattered,
and the man guessed at the extent of the tragedy, and
was strangely stirred.  He moved to and fro in the
tent-like space in awe and wonder, in thought
reconstructing the house, and seeming to share in the
horror of its story.

Before leaving, he looked again at the overturned
chair, the stones lying about it, and the moldering
remains of the man.  He must have been asleep, and
died instantly when the house fell into the great cave.
There was no more to be seen.  "God rest his soul!"
said the thief, and crawled backward out of the tangle
of broken beams and stones.

In a few minutes he was again with those he had
left, and, saying only, "'T is well, madame; we shall
get out," fell into a peaceful sleep.

The next day every one dragged on wearily, the duke
still leading, and François hoping that he would be
asked advice.  The water rained on them a noisome
downfall, the rats came out in hordes; and still
François cheered his companions, now carrying the baby,
and now encouraging the tired boys.

I have not given in full detail all the miseries of
these weary days and sorrowful nights.  They have
been more fully told elsewhere by one who felt them
as more serious than did François, whose narrative I
now am following.  These unhappy victims of the
Terror had been altogether six days in the cave, but
François not so long.  By this time their spirit was
quite broken.  The thief alone remained gay, hopeful,
and even confident, but saw clearly enough that these
people, used to easy lives, could not endure much
longer the strain of this unguided wandering in the
dark and somber alleys of this horrible labyrinth of
darkness and foul odors.  The duke seemed also to
be of a like mind, for on the morning of the seventh
day he awakened François at six, and, of a sudden
grown sadly familiar, whispered low to him:

"Is there any hope?  Madame and the boys are
failing.  Soon we shall have to carry them."

"We shall get out," said François.

"But how? how?  Why to-day any more than
yesterday?  Do you think of any way to help us?"

"If monsieur will permit me to lead—"

"Good!  Why did you not say so before?"

François made no direct reply, but asked: "Did
ever a house fall into these quarry-caves?"

"A house?  Why do you ask?  Yes; it was long
ago.  The house of the lieutenant of the guard it was.
I do not recall the date.  A house in the Rue des
Pêches."

"Will this help to know when it was?" and
François showed his coins and told his story.

"Yes, yes; I see.  How wonderful!  These are of
the time of Francis I."

"Rue des Pêches?"

"Yes; it is now the Rue des Bon Secours.  It is
close to the Asile des Innocents."

"*Dieu!* monsieur, then I know.  I think we may
get out to-day; but it may be well not yet to tell
madame.  I think we are still near to the fallen
house."

"Then you shall lead," said the duke.  "*Tiens!* a
queer fellow, this thief," he muttered, and went to
waken the sleeping children.  No word was said as
to the house of the lieutenant of the guard, but
François refreshed the tired party by promising a speedy
glimpse of day.  For, now that the candles were few,
they thought more of this than of the perils which
the daylight might bring.

The thief led, and all day long they went on and
on.  Once he was quite dismayed to find that he had
lost his way, and once came to the very entrance of
the cave he had left the night before.  The duke again
became querulous and dissatisfied; but François only
laughed, and, resolutely concealing his mistake,
retraced his steps.  It was near to seven o'clock in the
evening of July 28 when the thief bade them rest,
and he would be back soon.  The duke said something
cross; but François made no reply, and, turning
a corner, lost sight of his party.  He took careful
note of the turns and windings of this maze, and now
and then found himself in a blind alley, and must of
need turn back.  At the far end of one of these recesses
he saw in the gloom two great, green, phosphorescent
eyes.  Like mighty jewels they were, set in the
darkness.  They were soon lost to view, and came and
went.  "They are cats," he murmured; "and what a
hunting estate they have!  Ye saints! if I had here
my poor Toto!"  He began to move toward these eyes,
which shot back the light his lantern gave.  There were
three sets of the pale-green jewels, and now their
owners were maneuvering to escape.  He began to
use caressing cat-talk, such as had won the heart of
Suzanne, and, falling on his knees, crept closer.  Then
there was a quick rush past him of his feline game;
but one cat was indecisive, and he had her by the leg.
He paid well for his audacity, but held on, and pretty
soon began to exercise the curious control he had over
all animals.  At last pussy lay still and panting.
When the scared animal grew quiet, he set her down.
For a moment she hesitated, and then began to move
away.  As he followed she ran.  He cast the lantern-light
before her, and pursued her with all speed.
Once or twice she was nearly lost to view.  Then she
turned a corner, and another, and of a sudden fled
toward a distant archway, through which he saw the
light of day.  A great rush of warm air went by him.
He stood still, murmuring aves.  To his surprise, he
was near to the place where he had left his
companions.  He stood a moment in deep thought.  "We
are out at last," he murmured.  "But *ciel!* there is
much to think about.  We may have too much light."

He went back and told of the discovery, but of the
cat not a word.  The duke said: "I thought we should
soon get out; come, let us be off."

Madame said gently: "Let us kneel before we go,
and thank the good God for this friend he sent us in
our trouble."  Then they all knelt, and she prayed,
speaking her thankfulness to Heaven, with at the end
a word as to her husband, and also asking God's mercy
for him who had led them forth out of darkness into
light.  When François heard her, he was disturbed as
he had never been in all his days.  When a man like
François sheds tears, it is a great event in his life.
He rose from his knees, and asked the duke and the
rest to go with him; and thus it was that in a few
minutes they stood fifty feet from an open archway,
through which came the level light from the western sky.

The duke was moved at last to say how clever
François had been; and how had he managed it?
The thief declared it had been easy; but the cat got
no credit, and never was praised, then or ever, for her
share of their escape.  Set in this rocky frame before
them was a picture as it were of a disused quarry,
and beyond it vineyards, with yet farther a red-tiled
housetop.  Here it was, as they paused, that madame
said solemnly, with tears in her eyes:

"'God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good.'"

After the duke and François had peeped out, and
seen no one, the duke began to set forth a variety of
schemes as to what they should do.  None of these
was very wise, and at last madame turned to François.
He had disappeared, but presently came again, dressed
in the clothes of the dead officer.  He wore his sword
and pistols, and now, as seen clearly in the light of
day, was certainly a queer enough figure.  The
garments were too short below and too wide above, and
over them rose the long face, the broad mouth, and
the huge ears.  The boys, who looked on their troubles
as at an end, set up a shout of laughter.

"The deuce!  I shall arrest you, citizens," cried
François.  "And first, monsieur."  He explained that
he proposed to tie the duke's hands behind his back,
and with, as was usual, one end of the rope in his
hand, would conduct the *ci-devant* into Paris by the
Barrière d'Enfer.  The weeping widow would follow,
with the two children, to see the last of their poor papa.

The duke was disgusted, but pretended to be much
amused.  "Well, it is a pretty comedy," he said, as
Mme. des Illes insisted.

"*Dame!*" said the thief, "but the tragedy is not far away."

"And what is to come after?" said she.  "Had we
not better wait till night?"

"No.  The guards are doubled at night.  It is
boldness which will win."

"And what then, François?"

"I must find for you a refuge while I go to see if
M. des Illes may not have returned; for, madame, you
have assured me that he would be released.  Pray
God it is so.  And what better is there?"  The duke
was forced to consent.

A rope found in the officer's pocket made part of
François's spoil.  He tied the duke's hands, and
showed him how, at need, a pull would release them.
The gold was divided.  All else they left.  François
reported the way clear, and they set out.  But the
boys giggled so much at the duke and his indignant
face that François paused.

"*Dame!*" he cried, "madame must weep."  She was
already doing that, her mind on the fate of M. des
Illes.  "If you boys are fools, and laugh, we are lost.
Cry, if you can; but, for the love of Heaven, do not
look about you, or smile.  Take a hand of madame—so.
Cry, if ever you mean to get away safe."

The road beyond the quarry was little used, and
they went on, the duke furious.  When they met any
one, François cried: "Get on, aristocrat!  Pig of a
*ci-devant*, march!"

Duke Philippe muttered: "*Sacré*, thief!" and got
a smart jerk of the rope, and more abuse, until the
fun of it nearly upset the thief, who could scarce
contain himself.  At the Barrière d'Enfer were but
two guards; nor were there as many people in the
streets as usual.

Suddenly François halted at the summons to leave
his prisoner with one of the two men, and to enter the
little office and exhibit his papers, as was needful.

"*Dame!*" muttered the thief, "one cannot know all
things.  I forgot about the papers."  He showed,
however, no indecision.  "Guard this wretch, citizen,"
he said.  "Here, take the rope.  He is a returned
*émigré*."  The man took the rope.  "I shall not be
long."  So saying, he went in after the second guard,
closing the door behind them.  The man sat down
at a desk, and opened a blank-book, saying: "The
order, citizen."

"I am afraid it is lost," said François, eagerly
searching his acquired pockets.  "The mischief!
What to do?"

"To do?  Thou must wait till the lieutenant comes
back.  He has gone to see the fun."

"Fun!  What fun?"

At this moment the man rose hastily.  "*Diable!*
thou art François!  I thought I knew thy voice.
There are orders to arrest thee.  Citizen Amar
desires thy society.  Best make no fuss.  I arrest thee.
I am in luck.  It is sure promotion.  What trick art
thou up to?  And those folks outside, who axe they?"

"But thou, an old thief, to arrest a comrade!  Surely
thou wilt not."

"No use.  Come! no nonsense."

François put out a pleading hand.  "But they will
kill me, comrade."  He looked all the alarm needed.

"Bah!"

In an instant the strongest grip of the Cité was on
the man's throat, and closed as a vise closes.  A faint
cry escaped as the man struggled.  François threw a
leg back of the fellow, and as he fell dropped on his
chest.  It was brief.  The man's heels clattered on the
floor; he was still.  The thief rose.  The man was to
appearance dead.  He would revive, perhaps.  "*Peste!*"
cried François, "it is hard to keep one's head."

Seizing a paper from the table, François went out of
the door, closing it after him, and coolly caressing a
cat on the step.  He said to the guard that his
comrade would be out by and by, and that it was all
right.  As he spoke he waved the paper, and, taking
the rope, went on, crying: "Get up, *ci-devant*!"  As
they got farther away he hurried the duke.  "Death
is behind us.  Get on.  Faster—faster!"  He twisted
and turned, and was not at ease until they were deep
in the sinuous, box-hidden paths of the Luxembourg.

Very few people were to be seen, and these looked
at or after them with curiosity.

"We must be a queer party.  Get on, citizen.  Thou
art lazy.  Thou wilt soon have a fine carriage."  He
was terribly anxious.  "*Sacré*, monsieur!  For the
love of the saints, go on, and quicker!"

"What the deuce is it?" said the duke.

"That beast at the barrier knew me.  He was an
old thief."

"And what then?  Why were we not stopped if he
knew you?"

"He does not know me nor anybody now."

"*Foi d'honneur*, but you are a brave fellow!"

"Thanks; but make haste."

At last they were in the long Rue de Varennes,
where they saw a great crowd filling the street, and
were soon in the midst of a mass of excited people.

François cried out: "Room, citizens, room!"

An old woman shook her fist at him, yelling furiously:
"Cursed Jacobin!"

The people were wild; and presently a man hustled
the supposed officer.  Others cried fiercely: "Hang
him!" Another screamed out: "Robespierre is
dead!" and the crowd took up the cry.  A dozen
hands seized on François.

"What the deuce is all this?" he shouted.  "Take
care, or the law will have you."

"Robespierre is dead!  *À la lanterne!*"

Upon this, the duke exclaimed: "Let him go; it
is a good fellow, and not an officer"; and then, amid
a maddening tumult, succeeded in hastily explaining
enough to secure the release of the officer.

"*À bas la guillotine!*" cried François.  "Down with
the Terror!"

The crowd thickened, and went its way with wild
cries.  Meanwhile the boy Des Illes was lost, and
madame in tears.  They went on, asking questions,
and hearing of the execution of Robespierre, Couthon,
Saint-Just, and the rest.  The thief said: "Let us go
straight to M. des Illes's house."

At the door madame fell into her husband's arms;
and soon after dusk the boy came running back with
his father, who had gone out to search for him.

Then all was hastily made clear, and the long story
told of Des Illes's release, and how he had found the
dog, and in the cave the Jacobins both dead, and of
his vain efforts to discover his own people.  They
were fed and reclothed; and now, it being ten at night
of this 10th Thermidor, François rose.  "I must go,"
he said.

"You?  Never!" said madame.  "Our house is
your home for life.  You will wander and sin no more."

On this, François looked about him, from one kind
face to another, and sat down, and broke into tears.

"It shall be as madame desires.  I am her servant."

And this is the end of the adventures of François,
the thief.  Let who will judge him.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`EPILOGUE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   EPILOGUE

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

*Wherein is some further account of François and of
those who helped him.*

.. vspace:: 2

In a little book which has found many friendly
readers I related a strange story of the
French Revolution.[#]  In it was promised
some further account of the most remarkable
of the personages concerned.  I
have now fulfilled my desire to relate the adventures
of François.  The singular incidents I record are not
without foundation.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] "A Madeira Party," The Century Co., which contains a tale
called "A Little More Burgundy," to which the reader is referred.

.. vspace:: 1

In the story above mentioned I have told how I
chanced to meet François and those with whom he
spent his days after the stormy period during which
they first came together.  My acquaintance with
M. des Illes and the old Duc de St. Maur slowly
ripened into friendship.  I was a lonely student in the
Latin Quarter, and felt deeply the kindness which
never ceased insisting that their house should be to
me a home.  In the summer, and often after that, I
was a guest at Des Illes's château in Touraine.  There
I came to know François, as one may know a French
or an Italian servant.  During these visits he acted
as my valet, serving me with admirable care, and
never better pleased than when I invited him to talk
about himself.  He had long since shed his thief-skin,
but I fear that it was only the influence of fortunate
circumstances which left him without excuse to be or
to seem other than as honest as the rest of the world
about him.

I have known a great variety of disreputable folk
in my lifetime, but never one who had so many
winning qualities, or who was so entirely at his ease.  A
scamp in the company of men of better morals
usually becomes hypocritical or appears awkwardly
aware of breathing an atmosphere to which he is
unused.  François had no such difficulties.  For half
a century he had been for Des Illes something
between friend and servant.  His former life and habits
were well known to the few who came to his master's
house.  He was comfortable, with some forty thousand
francs in the *rentes*, for his old acquaintance, the
marquis, had not forgotten his services.  He had no
necessity to exercise what he still tranquilly called his
profession.  Like a clever street-dog adopted by a
respectable family, though for a time uneasy, he ceased
by degrees to wander for the joy of stealing a bone,
and became contented with the better and less
perilous chances of a dinner at home.

I learned from M. de St. Maur, the duke's son, that
while Mme. des Illes lived François remained the most
domestic of animals.  Her death caused him a grief
so profound that for a time his master was troubled
lest his reason might suffer.  She herself would never
hear a word against him.  Unlike her husband, she
was a fervent Protestant, and had now and then
some vain hope of converting François.  While she
lived he considered himself her special servant, but
after her death transferred his regard to young
Des Illes, the son.  For many months François
pined, as I have said.  He then became restless,
disappeared for a week at a time, and it is to be
feared that once, or more often, he courted
temptation.  When I knew him all this was in a remote
past.  At the château he usually came to my
bedroom an hour before dinner to set out my evening
dress, and was pretty sure, when this was done, to
put his head in my little salon and ask if I needed
anything.  Perhaps, like M. des Illes, I might desire
a *petit verre* of vermuth for the bettering of
appetite.  As I soon found what this meant, I commonly
required this sustaining aid.  When by and by he
returned, carrying a neat tray with vermuth and
cognac, it came to be understood that he should be
led into talk of himself over the little glass, which
would, I am sure, have paid toll before it got back
to the buffet.  Pretty soon I got into the way of
making him sit down, while I drew from by no means
unwilling lips certain odd stories which much amused
me.  With an English or Irish servant such familiar
intercourse would have been quite impossible; but
François, who had none of the shyness of other
races, soon came to be on as easy terms with me
as he was with M. des Illes.  When I asked him one
evening to tell me his own story of the famous
escape through the catacombs, he said, "But it is
long, monsieur."  When I added, "Well, sit down;
I must have it," he replied simply, "As monsieur
wishes," and, taking a chair, gave me an account of
their escape, in which he drew so mirthful a picture
of the duke's embarrassments that I saw how little
of the humor of the tale M. des Illes had allowed
himself to put into his recital.

Francis's long life amid people of unblemished
character had by no means changed his views.  Yes,
he had been a thief; but now he was out of business.
He had retired, just as M. des Illes had done, there
being no longer any cause why he should relieve his
own necessity by lessening the luxury of others;
monsieur might feel quite secure.

As for politics, he was all for the Bonapartes, who,
he said, were magnificent thieves, whereas he had
never been able to rise to the very highest level of
his business.  M. des Illes objected, and the last time
he had indulged himself in a prolonged absence—monsieur
would comprehend that this was many
years ago—there had been a serious quarrel; and
how could he annoy so good a master, even though
they disagreed as to matters political?  If monsieur
were still curious as to his life, he had a few pages in
which he had set down certain things worth
remembering, and would monsieur like to see them?
Monsieur would very much like to read them.  Thus
came into my possession this astonishing bit of
autobiography, which at last I had leave to copy.  It was
oddly written, in a clear hand, and in a quaint and
abrupt style, from which, in my use of it, I have
generally departed, but of which I fear some traces
may yet be seen.

Two evenings later, and before I had found leisure
to read all of it, François said to me, "Does monsieur
think to give my poor little account to the world?"  I
said I did not.  At this I saw his very expressive
face assume a look which I took to mean some form
of regret.  As he spoke he was standing in the
doorway, and was now and then mechanically passing a
brush over my dress-coat.  Presently he said: "I
only desired not to have set forth in France, when I
am gone, such things as might give concern to M. des
Illes, or trouble him if he should outlive me."

I replied that it should never be published; and
when, after this, he lingered, I added, "Is that as
you desire?"  It was not.  His vanity was simple
and childlike, but immense.

"Monsieur will find it entertaining," he said; and
I, that this was sure to be the case, and that it were
a pity the world should lose so valuable a work.
At this his lean face lighted up.  Perhaps in English
it might some day be of interest to monsieur's
friends; and as he understood that the English were
given to stealing whole countries belonging to feeble
folks, it might seem to them less unusual than it
would to people like those of France.  But monsieur
was not English.  He asked my pardon.  I kept a
grave face, and inquired if it were a treatise on the
art of theft.

This embarrassed him a little, and he made answer
indirectly: did monsieur entirely disapprove this
form of transfer?  He seemed to regard it as merely
a manner of commercial transaction by which one
man alone profited.  I returned that as to this
nations held diverse opinions, and that some Oriental
people considered it a creditable pursuit, but that
personally it did seem to me wrong.

M. des Illes was distinctly of that opinion; but,
after all, his (François's) account of what he had seen
and been was not limited to mere details of business,
and I might discover his adventures to have other
interest.  When he heard at last that some day I
might, through his writings, enlighten the nations
outside of the pale of Gallic civilization, he went
away with the satisfied air of a young author who
has found a publisher with a just appreciation of his
labors—a thing both rare and consolatory.

His personal history, as I have said, was well
known to the entire household; nor did he resent
a jest now and then as to his disused art, if it came
from one of a rank above his own.  The old duke
would say, "Any luck of late in snuff-boxes,
François?"

"M. le Duc knows they are out of fashion."

"*Eh bien*; then handkerchiefs?"

"*Diable!*" says François.  "They are no more of
lace; what use to steal them?  M. le Duc knows that
gentlemen are also out of fashion.  M. le Bourgeois
is too careful nowadays."

"True," says the duke, and walks away, sadly reflective.

This François was what people call a character.
He had a great heart and no conscience; was fond of
flowers, of birds, and of children; pleased to chat of
his pilferings, liking the fun of the astonishment he
thus caused.  Had he really no belief in its being
wrong to steal?  I do not know.  The fellow was so
humorous that he sometimes left one puzzled and
uncertain.  He went duly to mass and confession,
but—"*Mon Dieu*, monsieur; nowadays one has so
little to confess, M. le Curé must find it dull."

When I would know his true ethics as to thine and
mine, he cried, laughing, "*Le mien et le tien*; 't is but
a letter makes the difference, and, after all, one must
live."  It seemed a simple character, but there is no
such thing; all human nature is more complex than
they who write choose to think it.  If character were
such as the writer of fiction often makes it, the world
would be a queer place.

He is dead long ago, this same François, as my old
friend Des Illes wrote me a few years later.  He was
very fond of a parrot he had taught to cry, "*Vive
Bonaparte!*" whenever the aged duke came by his
perch.  One morning Poll was stolen by some adroit
purveyor of parrots.  This loss François felt deeply,
and vastly resented the theft,—in fact, he described
himself as being humbled by the power of any one
to steal from a man bred up to the business,—and so
missed his feathered companion that for the first time
he became depressed, and at last took to his bed.  He
died quietly a few weeks after, saying to the priest
who had given him the final rites of the church:
"M. le Curé—the gold snuff-box the duke gave
you—"  "Well, my son?"  "The left-hand pocket is
the safer; we look not there."  Then, half wandering,
he cried: "Adieu, Master Time!  Thou art the best
thief, after all"; and so died, holding Des Illes's hand.

I learned from the duke and his son, as well as
from M. des Illes, many more facts as to François
than he himself recorded; the good old Curé Le
Grand, who was a great friend of mine, also
contributed some queer incidents of François's life; and
thus it was that, when years had gone by, and I
became dependent on my pen, I found myself able to
write fully of this interesting product of Parisian life.

After considering the material in my possession, I
soon discovered that it would not answer my purpose
to let François's broken memoirs tell his story.  There
were names and circumstances in them which it were
still unwise to print.  Much of what I may call the
scenery of his somewhat dramatic adventures was
supplied by the singular knowledge of the Revolution
which the curé delighted to furnish.  The good
priest was by far the most aged of this group, and
yet to the last the most clear as to memories of a
tragic past.  Thus it came that I was led to write
my story of François in the third person, with such
enlightening aid as I obtained from those who knew
him better than I.

In his defense I may be permitted to quote the
curé's cautiously worded opinion:

"Oh, monsieur, no man knows another, and every
man is ever another to himself.  For you François is
a thief, strangely proud of an exceptional career and
of his victories over the precautions of those from
whom he stole.  Is it not so, monsieur?"  I said it
was.  "But the *bon Dieu* alone knows all of a man.
I was not a priest until after the great wars.  God
pardon me, but I like still to tell tales of Jena and
Austerlitz, and of what we did in those days of
victory.  To kill men!  The idea now fills me with
horror, and yet I like nothing better, as monsieur well
knows, than to talk of those days of battle.  And
François—'t is much the same.  How could one live
with these dear people, and get no lesson from their
lives?  Our gay, merry-minded François loved to
surprise the staid folks who came hither to visit us;
but I know that—ah, well, well, priests know many
things."

I thanked him, but still had doubts as to whether
the moral code of our friend François was ever
materially altered by precept, example, or by the lack
of necessity to carry on his interesting branch of
industry.

Before telling his story I like to let him say for
himself the only apologetic words I could discover in
this memoir:

"I have no wish to write my whole life.  I want to
put down some things I saw and some scenes in which
I was an actor.  I am now old.  I suppose, from what
I am told, that I was wicked when I was young.  But
if one cannot see that he was a sinner, what then?
The good God who made me knows that I was but a
little Ishmaelite cast adrift on the streets to feed as
I might.  I defend not myself.  I blame not the
chances of life, nor yet the education which fate gave
me.  It was made to tempt one in need of food and
shelter.  'T is a great thing to be able to laugh easily
and often, and this good gift I had; and so, whether
in safety or in peril, whether homeless or housed, I
have gone through life merry.  I had thought more,
says M. le Curé, had I been less light of heart.  But
thus was I made, and, after all, it has its good side.
I have always liked better the sun than the shadow;
and as to relieving my wants, are the birds thieves?"

I noticed on the margins of François's memoirs
remarks in a neat female handwriting, which he told
me were made by Mme. des Illes, who alone had read
his story.

At the end I found written: "If ever another
should read what is set down in these pages, let them
have the comment of charity.  He who wrote them
was by nature gifted with affection, good sense, and
courage.  He had many delicacies of character, but
that of which nature meant to make a gentleman
and a man of refinement, desertion and evil fortune
made a thief and a reprobate.  She who wrote this
knew him as no one else did, and, with God's help,
drew him out of the slough of crime and into a long
life of honest ways.  CLAIRE DES ILLES."

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