La Vendee by Anthony Trollope
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Anthony Trollope >> La Vendee
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"What will you do with him, M. de Lescure," said Father Jerome in a
whisper, pointing to Denot. "I never before saw the people greedy for
blood; but now they declare that no mercy should be shown to a traitor."
"We must teach them, Father Jerome, that it is God's will that those who
wish to be pardoned themselves must pardon others. You have taught them
lessons more difficult to learn than this; and I do not doubt that in
this, as in other things, they will obey their priest." And as he spoke
de Lescure laid his hand on the Cure's shoulder.
"You won't hang him then?" whispered the Chevalier.
"You wouldn't have me do so, would you, Arthur?"
"Who--I?" said the boy. "No--that is, I don't know. I wouldn't like to
have to say that anybody should be hung; but if anybody ever did deserve
it, he does."
"And you, Father Jerome?" said de Lescure, "you agree with me? You would
not have us sully our pure cause with a cold-blooded execution?"
The three were now standing at an open window, looking into the garden.
Their backs were turned to Santerre and Denot, and they were speaking
in low whispers; but nevertheless Denot either guessed or overheard that
he was the subject of their conversation. The priest did not immediately
answer de Lescure's appeal. In his heart he thought that the
circumstances not only justified, but demanded the traitor's death; but,
remembering his profession, and the lessons of mercy it was his chief
business to teach, he hesitated to be the first to say that he thought
the young man should be doomed.
"Well, Father Jerome," said de Lescure, looking into the priest's face,
"surely you have no difficulty in answering me?"
The Cure was saved the necessity of answering the appeal; for while he
was still balancing between what he thought to be his duty, and that
which was certainly his inclination, Denot himself interrupted the
whisperers.
"M. de Lescure," said he, in the deep, hoarse, would-be solemn voice,
which he now always affected to use. De Lescure turned quickly round,
and so did his companions. The words of a man who thinks that he is
almost immediately about to die are always interesting.
"If you are talking about me," said the unfortunate wretch, "pray spare
yourself the trouble. I neither ask, nor wish for any mercy at your
hands. I am ready to die."
As de Lescure looked at him, and observed the alteration which a few
weeks had made in his appearance--his sunken, sallow cheeks; his wild
and bloodshot eyes; his ragged, uncombed hair, and soiled garments--as
he thought of his own recent intimacy with him--as he remembered how
often he had played with him as a child, and associated with him as a
man--that till a few days since he had been the bosom friend of his own
more than brother, Henri Larochejaquelin, the tears rushed to his eyes
and down his cheeks. In that moment the scene in the council-room at
Saumur came to his mind, and he remembered that there he had rebuked
Adolphe Denot for his false ambition, and had probably been the means
of driving him to the horrid crime which he had committed. Though he
knew that the traitor's iniquity admitted of no excuse, he sympathized
with the sufferings which had brought him to his present condition. He
turned away his head, as the tears rolled down his cheeks, and felt that
he was unable to speak to the miserable man.
Had de Lescure upbraided him, Denot's spirit, affected and unreal as it
was, would have enabled him to endure it without flinching. He would
have answered the anger of his former friend with bombast, and might
very probably have mustered courage enough to support the same character
till they led him out to death. But de Lescure's tears affected him. He
felt that he was pitied; and though his pride revolted against the
commiseration of those whom he had injured, his heart was touched, and
his voice faltered, as he again declared that he desired no mercy, and
that he was ready to die.
"Ready to die!" said the Cure, "and with such a weight of sin upon your
conscience; ready to be hurried before the eternal judgment seat,
without having acknowledged, even in your own heart, the iniquity of
your transgressions!"
"That, Sir, is my concern," said Denot. "I knew the dangers of the task
before I undertook it, and I can bear the penalties of failure without
flinching. I fear them not, either in this world or in any other world
to come."
De Lescure, overcome with distress, paced up and down the room tifi
Chapeau entered it, and whispered to him, that the peasants outside were
anxious to know what next they were to do, and that they were clamorous
for Denot's execution. "They are determined to hang him," continued
Chapeau, who had induced de Lescure to leave the room, and was now
speaking to him in the hall. "They say that you and M. Henri may do what
you please about Santerre and the soldiers, but that Adolphe Denot has
betrayed the cause, insulted Mademoiselle, and proved himself unfit to
live; and that they will not leave the chateau as long as a breath of
life remains in his body."
"And you, Chapeau, what did you say to them in reply?"
"Oh, M. de Lescure, of course I said that that must be as you and M.
Henri pleased."
"Well, Chapeau, now go and tell them this," said de Lescure: "tell them
that we will not consent that this poor wretch shall be killed, and that
his miserable life has already been granted to him. Tell them also, that
if they choose to forget their duty, their obedience, and their oaths,
and attempt to seize Denot's person, neither I nor M. Henri will ever
again accompany them to battle, and that they shall not lay a hand upon
him till they have passed over our bodies. Do you understand?"
Chapeau said that he did understand, and with a somewhat melancholy
face, he returned to the noisy crowd, who were waiting for their victim
in the front of the house. "Well, Jacques," said one of them, an elderly
man, who had for the time taken upon himself the duties of a leader
among them, and who was most loud in demanding that sentence should be
passed upon Denot. "We are ready, and the rope is ready, and the gallows
is ready, and we are only waiting for the traitor. We don't want to
hurry M. Henri or M. de Lescure, but we hope they will not keep us
waiting much longer."
"You need not wait any longer," said Chapeau, "for Adolphe Denot is not
to be hung at all. M. de Lescure has pardoned him. Yes, my friends, you
will be spared an unpleasant job, and the rope and the tree will not be
contaminated."
"Pardoned him--pardoned Adolphe Denot--pardoned the traitor who brought
Santerre and the republicans to Durbelliere--pardoned the wretch who so
grossly insulted Mademoiselle Agatha, and nearly killed M. le Marquis,"
cried one after another immediately round the door. "If we pardon him,
there will be an end of honesty and good faith. We will pardon our
enemies, because M. de Lescure asks us. We will willingly pardon this
Santerre and all his men. We will pardon everything and anybody, if M.
Henri or M de Lescure asks it, except treason, and except a traitor. Go
in, Jacques, and say that we will never consent to forgive the wretch
who insulted Mademoiselle Larochejaquelin. By all that is sacred we will
hang him!"
"If you do, my friends," answered Chapeau, "you must kill M. de Lescure
first, for he will defend him with his own body and his own sword."
Chapeau again returned to the house, and left the peasants outside,
loudly murmuring. Hitherto they had passively obeyed their leaders. They
had gone from one scene of action to another. They had taken towns and
conquered armies, and abstained not only from slaughter, but even from
plunder, at the mere request of those whom they had selected as their
own Generals; now, for the first time they shewed a determination to
disobey. The offence of which their victim had been guilty, was in their
eyes unpardonable. They were freely giving all---their little property,
their children, their blood, for their church and King. They knew that
they were themselves faithful and obedient to their leaders, and they
could not bring themselves to forgive one whom they had trusted, and who
had deceived them.
Chapeau returned to the house, but he did not go back to M. de Lescure.
He went upstairs to his master, and found him alone with his sister, and
explained to them what was going on before the front-door.
"They will never go away, Mademoiselle, as long as the breath is in the
man's body. They are angry now, and they care for no one, not even for
M. Henri himself; and it's no wonder for them to be angry. He that was
so trusted, and so loved; one of the family as much as yourself, M.
Henri. Why, if I were to turn traitor, and go over to the republicans,
it could hardly be worse. If ever I did, I should expect them to pinch
me to pieces with hot tweezers, let alone hanging."
"I will go down to them," said M. Henri.
"It will be no use," said Chapeau, "they will not listen to you."
"I will try them at any rate, for they have never yet disobeyed me. I
know they love me, and I will ask for Adolphe's life as a favour to
myself: if they persist in their cruelty, if they do kill him, I will
lay down my sword, and never again raise it in La Vendee."
"If it were put off for a week, or a day, M. Henri, so that they could
get cool; if you could just consent to his being hung, but say that he
was to have four-and-twenty hours to prepare himself, and then at the
end of that time they wouldn't care about it: mightn't that do? Wouldn't
that be the best plan, Mademoiselle?"
"No," said Henri. "I will not stoop to tell them a falsehood; nor if I
did so, would they ever believe me again." And he walked towards the
passage, intending to go down to the front-door.
"Stop, Henri, stop a moment!" said Agatha, "I will go down to them. I
will speak to them. They are not accustomed to hear me speak to them in
numbers, as they are to you, and that of itself will make them inclined
to listen to me. I will beg them to spare the unfortunate man, and I
think they will not refuse me."
She got up and walked to the door, and her brother did not attempt to
stop her.
"Let me go alone, Henri," said she. "You may, at any rate, be sure that
they will not hurt me." And, without waiting for his reply, she
descended the stairs, and walked into the hall. When Chapeau left them,
the crowd were collected immediately in the front of the house and on
the steps, but none of them had yet forced their way into the chateau;
since he had gone upstairs, however, they had pushed open the door, and
now filled the hall; although their accustomed respect for the persons
and property of those above them, had still kept them from breaking into
the room, in which they knew were M. de Lescure and Adolphe Denot. The
foremost of them drew back when they saw Agatha come among them, and as
she made her way to the front-door, they retreated before her, till she
found herself standing on the top of the steps, and surrounded by what
seemed to her a countless crowd of heads. There was a buzz of many
voices among them, and she stood there silent before them a moment or
two, till there should be such silence as would enable them to hear her.
Agatha Larochejaquelin had never looked more beautiful than she did at
this time. Her face was more than ordinarily pale, for her life had
lately been one of constant watching and deep anxiety; but hers was a
countenance which looked even more lovely without than with its usual
slight tinge of colour. Her beautiful dark-brown hair was braided close
to her face, and fastened in a knot behind her head. She was dressed in
a long white morning wrapper, which fell quite down over her feet, and
added in appearance to her natural high stature. She seemed to the noisy
peasants, as she stood there before them, sad-looking and sorrowful, but
so supremely beautiful, to be like some goddess who had come direct from
heaven to give them warning. and encouragement. The hum of their voices
soon dropped, and they stood as silent before her, as though no strong
passion, no revenge and thirst for blood had induced them, but a moment
before, all but to mutiny against the leaders who had led them so truly,
and loved them so well.
"Friends, dear friends," she began in her sweet voice, low, but yet
plainly audible to those whom she addressed; and then she paused a
moment to think of the words she would use to them, and as she did so
they cheered her loudly, and blessed her, and assured her, in their
rough way, how delighted they were to have saved her and the Marquis
from their enemies.
"Dear friends," she continued, "I have come to thank you for the
readiness and kindness with which you have hurried to my protection--to
tell you how grateful I and mine are for your affection, and at the same
time to ask a favour from your hands."
"God bless you, Mademoiselle. We will do anything for Mademoiselle
Agatha. We all know that Mademoiselle is an angel. We will do anything
for her," said different voices in the crowd. "Anything but pardon the
traitor who has insulted her," said the man who had been most prominent
in demanding Denot's death. "Anything at all--anything, without
exception. We will do anything we are asked, whatever it is, for
Mademoiselle Agatha," said some of the younger men among the crowd, whom
her beauty made more than ordinarily enthusiastic in her favour.
"Mademoiselle will not sully her beautiful lips to ask the life of a
traitor," said another. "We will do anything else; but Denot must die."
"Yes, Denot must die," exclaimed others. "He shall die; he is not fit
to live. When the traitor is hung, we will do anything, go anywhere, for
Mademoiselle."
"Ah! friends," said she, "the favour I would ask of you is to spare the
life of this miserable young man. Hear me, at any rate," she continued,
for there was a murmur among the more resolute of Denot's enemies. "You
will not refuse to hear what I say to you. You demand vengeance, you
say, because he has betrayed your cause, and insulted me. If I can
forgive the insult, if my brother can, surely you should do so too.
Think, dear friends, what my misery must be, if on my account you shed
the blood of this poor creature. You say he has betrayed the cause for
which you are fighting. It is true, he has done so; but it is not only
your cause which he has betrayed. Is it not my cause also? Is it not my
brother's? Is it not M. de Lescure's? And if we can forgive him, should
not you also do so too? He has lived in this house as though he were a
child of my father's. You know that my brother has treated him as a
brother. Supposing that you, any of you, had had a brother who has done
as he has done, would you not still pray, in spite of his crimes, that
he might be forgiven? I know you all love my brother. He deserves from
you that you should love him well, for he has proved to you that he
loves you. He--Henri Larochejaquelin--your own leader, begs you to
forgive the crime of his adopted brother. Have we not sufficient weight
with you--are we not near enough to your hearts, to obtain from you this
boon?"
"We will, we will," shouted they; "we will forgive--no, we won't forgive
him, but we'll let him go; only, Mademoiselle, let him go from this--let
him not show himself here any more. There, lads, there's an end of it.
Give Momont back the rope. We will do nothing to displease M. Henri and
Mademoiselle Agatha," and then they gave three cheers for the
inhabitants of Durbelliere; and Agatha, after thanking them for their
kindness and their courtesy, returned into the house.
For some days after the attack and rescue, there was great confusion in
the chateau of Durbelliere. The peasants by degrees returned to their
own homes, or went to Chatillon, at which place it was now intended to
muster the whole armed royalist force which could be collected in La
Vendee. Chatillon was in the very centre of the revolted district, and
not above three leagues from Durbelliere; and at this place the Vendean
leaders had now determined to assemble, that they might come to some
fixed plan, and organize their resistance to the Convention.
De Lescure and Henri together agreed to give Santerre his unconditional
liberty. In the first place, they conceived it to be good policy to
abandon the custody of a man whom, if kept a prisoner, they were sure
the Republic would make a great effort to liberate; and who, if he ever
again served against them at all, would, as they thought, be less
inclined to exercise barbarity than any other man whom the Convention
would be likely to send on the duty. Besides, Agatha and the Marquis
really felt grateful to Santerre, for having shown a want of that
demoniac cruelty with which they supposed him to have been imbued; and
it was, therefore, resolved to escort him personally to the northern
frontier of La Vendee, and there set him at liberty, but to detain his
soldiers prisoners at Chatillon; and this was accordingly done.
They had much more difficulty in disposing of Denot. Had he been turned
loose from the chateau, to go where he pleased, and do what he pleased,
he would to a certainty have been killed by the peasantry. De Lescure
asked Santerre to take charge of him, but this he refused to do, saying
that he considered the young man was a disgrace to any party, or any
person, who had aught to do with him, and that he would not undertake
to be responsible for his safety.
Denot himself would neither say or do anything. Henri never saw him; but
de Lescure had different interviews with him, and did all in his power
to rouse him to some feeling as to the future; but all in vain. He
usually refused to make any answer whatever, and when he did speak, he
merely persisted in his declaration that he was willing to die, and that
if he were left alive, he had no wish at all as to what should become
of him. It was at last decided to send him to his own house at Fleury,
with a strong caution to the servants there that their master was
temporarily insane; and there to leave him to his chance. "When he finds
himself alone, and disregarded," said de Lescure, "he will come to his
senses, and probably emigrate: it is impossible for us now to do more
for him. May God send that he may live to repent the great crime which
he has attempted."
Now again everything was bustle and confusion at Durbelliere. Arms and
gunpowder were again collected. The men again used all their efforts in
assembling the royalist troops, the women in preparing the different
necessaries for the army. The united families were at Durbelliere, and
there was no longer any danger of their separation, for at Clisson not
one stone was left standing upon another.
VOLUME III
CHAPTER I
ROBESPIERRE'S CHARACTER.
We will now jump over a space of nearly three months, and leaving the
chateaux of royalist La Vendee, plunge for a short while into the heart
of republican Paris. In the Rue St. Honore lived a cabinet-maker, named
Duplay, and in his house lodged Maximilian Robespierre, the leading
spirit in the latter and more terrible days of the Revolution. The time
now spoken of was the beginning of October, 1793; and at no period did
the popularity and power of that remarkable man stand higher.
The whole government was then vested in the Committee of Public
Safety--a committee consisting of twelve persons, members of the
Convention, all of course ultra-democrats, over the majority of whom
Robespierre exercised a direct control. No despot ever endured ruled
with so absolute and stringent a dominion as that under which this body
of men held the French nation. The revolutionary tribunal was now
established in all its horror and all its force. A law was passed by the
Convention, in September, which decreed that all suspected people should
be arrested and brought before this tribunal; that nobles, lawyers,
bankers, priests, men of property, and strangers in the land, should be
suspected unless known to be acting friends and adherents of the
ultra-revolutionary party; that the punishment of such persons should
be death; and that the members of any revolutionary tribunal which had
omitted to condemn any suspected person, should themselves be tried, and
punished by death. Such was the law by which the Reign of Terror was
organized and rendered possible.
At this time the Girondists were lying in prison, awaiting their trial
and their certain doom. Marie Antoinette had been removed from the
Temple to the Conciergerie, and her trial was in a day or two about to
commence. Her fate was already fixed, and had only to be pronounced.
Danton had retired from Paris to his own province, sick with the
shedding of so much blood, jealous of the pre-eminence which Robespierre
had assumed; watching his opportunity to return, that he might sell the
republic to the royalists; equally eager, let us believe, to save his
country as to make his fortune, but destined to return, only that he
also might bend his neck beneath the monster guillotine. Marat, the
foulest birth of the revolution, whose licentious heat generated venom
and rascality, as a dunghill out of its own filth produces adders'
eggs--Marat was no more. Carnot, whose genius for war enabled the French
nation, amidst all its poverty and intestine contests, even in the pangs
and throes of that labour in which it strove to bring forth a
constitution, to repulse the forces of the allied nations, and prepare
the way for future conquests, was a member of the all-powerful
Committee, and we cannot suppose that he acted under the dictation of
Robespierre; but if he did not do so, at any rate he did not interfere
with him. The operations of a campaign, in which the untaught and
ill-fed army of republican France had to meet the troops of England,
Flanders, Prussia, Austria, Sardinia, and Spain, besides those of
royalist France, were sufficient to occupy even the energies of Carnot.
Robespierre, in the Convention and in the Committee, was omnipotent; but
he also had his master, and he knew it. He knew that he could only act,
command, and be obeyed, in union with, and dependence on, the will of
the populace of Paris; and the higher he rose in that path of life which
he marked out for himself with so much precision, and followed with se
much constancy, the more bitterly his spirit chafed at the dependence.
He knew it was of no avail to complain of the people to the people, and
he seldom ventured to risk his position by opposing the wishes of the
fearful masters whom he served, but at length he was driven to do so,
and at length he fell.
Half a century has passed since Robespierre died, and history has become
peculiarly conversant with his name. Is there any one whose character
suffers under a more wide-spread infamy? The abomination of whose deeds
has become more notorious? The tale of whose death has been oftener
told; whose end, horrid, fearful, agonized, as was that of this man, has
met with less sympathy? For fifty years the world has talked of,
condemned, and executed Robespierre. Men and women, who have barely
heard the names of Pitt and Fox, who know not whether Metternich is a
man or a river, or one of the United States, speak of Robespierre as of
a thing accursed. They know, at any rate, what he was--the demon of the
revolution; the source of the fountain of blood with which Paris was
deluged; the murderer of the thousands whose bodies choked the course
of the Loire and the Rhone. Who knows not enough of Robespierre to
condemn him? Who abstains from adding another malediction to those which
already load the name of the King of the Reign of Terror.
Yet it is not impossible that some apologist may be found for the blood
which this man shed; that some quaint historian, delighting to show the
world how wrong has been its most assured opinions, may attempt to
vindicate the fame of Robespierre, and strive to wash the blackamoor
white. Are not our old historical assurances everywhere asserted? Has
it not been proved to us that crooked-backed Richard was a good and
politic King; and that the iniquities of Henry VIII are fabulous?
whereas the agreeable predilections of our early youth are disturbed by
our hearing that glorious Queen Bess, and learned King James, were mean,
bloodthirsty, and selfish.
I am not the bold man who will dare to face the opinion of the world,
and attempt to prove that Robespierre has become infamous through
prejudice. He must be held responsible for the effects of the words
which he spoke, and the things which he did, as other men are. He made
himself a scourge and a pestilence to his country; therefore, beyond all
other men, he has become odious, and therefore, historian after
historian, as they mention his name, hardly dare, in the service of
truth, to say one word to lessen his infamy.
Yet Robespierre began his public life with aspirations of humanity,
which never deserted him; and resolutions as to conduct, to which he
adhered with a constancy never surpassed. What shall we say are the
qualifications for a great and good man?--Honesty. In spite of his
infamy, Robespierre's honesty has become proverbial. Moral conduct--the
life he led even during the zenith of his power, and at a time when
licentiousness was general, and morality ridiculous, was characterized
by the simplicity of the early Quakers. Industry--without payment from
the State, beyond that which he received as a member of the Convention,
and which was hardly sufficient for the wants of his simple existence,
he worked nearly night and day in the service of the State. Constancy
of purpose--from the commencement of his career, in opposition at first
to ridicule and obscurity, then to public opinion, and lastly to the
combined efforts of the greatest of his countrymen, he pursued one only
idea; convinced of its truth, sure of its progress, and longing for its
success. Temperance in power--though in reality governing all France,
Robespierre assumed to himself none of the attributes or privileges of
political power. He took to himself no high place, no public situation
of profit or grandeur. He was neither haughty in his language, nor
imperious in his demeanour. Love of country--who ever showed a more
devoted love? For his country he laboured, and suffered a life which
surely in itself could have had nothing attractive; the hope of the
future felicity of France alone fed his energies, and sustained his
courage. His only selfish ambition was to be able to retire into private
life and contemplate from thence the general happiness which he had
given to his country. Courage--those who have carefully studied his
private life, and have learnt what he endured, and dared to do in
overcoming the enemies Of his system, can hardly doubt his courage.
Calumny or error has thrown an unmerited disgrace over his last wretched
days. He has been supposed to have wounded himself in an impotent
attempt to put an end to his life. It has been ascertained that such was
not the fact, the pistol by which he was wounded having been fired by
one of the soldiers by whom he was arrested. He is stated also to have
wanted that firmness in death which so many of his victims displayed.
They triumphed even in their death. Louis and Vergniaud, Marie
Antoinette, and Madame Roland, felt that they were stepping from life
into glory, and their step was light and elastic. Robespierre was
sinking from existence into infamy. During those fearful hours, in which
nothing in life was left him but to suffer, how wretched must have been
the reminiscences of his career! He, who had so constantly pursued one
idea, must then have felt that that idea had been an error; that he had
all in all been wrong; that he had waded through the blood of his
countrymen to reach a goal, which, bright and luminous as it had
appeared, he now found to be an ignis fatuus. Nothing was then left to
him. His life had been a failure, and for the future he had no hope. His
body was wounded and in tortures; his spirit was dismayed by the insults
of those around him, and his soul had owned no haven to which death
would give it an escape. Could his eye have been lit with animation as
he ascended the scaffold! Could his foot have then stepped with
confidence! Could he have gloried in his death! Poor mutilated worm,
agonised in body and in soul. Can it be ascribed to want of courage in
him, that his last moments were passed in silent agony and despair?
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