La Vendee by Anthony Trollope

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It is possible that Eleanor had never before spoken to her lover in
language so tender; it is also probable that she had never before asked
of him any request, in which ought of a political nature was concerned.
Be that as it may, as soon as she had finished speaking, her face became
suffused with scarlet, as though she had said something of which she was
ashamed. One would think that there was nothing in the term of
endearment which she had used which could have displeased a betrothed
husband; nothing in the petition she, had made which could have angered
a political friend. Robespierre, however, soon showed that he was
displeased and angered; nay, worse still, that his black, unmanly
suspicion was aroused. To his disordered brain it seemed that Eleanor
was practising on him her woman's wiles for some unworthy purpose, and
that treason lurked in her show of humanity and affection. He believed
that she, who had always believed in him, loved him, almost worshipped
him, had become in an instant false and designing.

He looked her steadily in the face a moment or two before he answered,
and she did not bear calmly the fierce glance of his eye; she saw at
once that she had angered him, and, in spite of her love, she could not
but know how dark and terrible was his anger.

"Who has set you on to talk to me of this?" he said slowly, still
keeping his eyes fixed on hers.

"Set me on, M. Robespierre! what do you mean? Who should have set me
on?"

"There are hundreds, I grieve to say, ready to do so. Some of them are
daily near you. I should have thought, though, that with you I might
have been safe."

"Safe with me! And do you doubt it now--do you doubt that you are safe
with me?" and as she spoke, she laid her hand upon his arm, and
attempted to appeal to his affection. He gently withdrew his arm from
her grasp, and again concealed his face with his hand. "As I stand here
alive before you," continued she, speaking with a more assured voice
than she had hitherto used, "I have not whispered a word to man or woman
upon this subject, but yourself."

Eleanor had risen from her chair when her companion first expressed his
suspicion, and she was now standing; but Robespierre remained seated,
still shading his eyes with his hand, as though he had nothing further
to say to her, and would wish to be alone. She, however, felt that she
could not leave him without some further explanation on her part, some
retraction on his; but she knew not how to set about it. The most
eloquent men in France had found it difficult to explain anything to
Robespierre's satisfaction. No one had yet been able to make him retract
the word which he had spoken.

"Say that you believe me, M. Robespierre," said she; "for mercy's sake,
say that you do not doubt me! Do you not know that I would always obey
you, that your words are always to me the words of truth? I have done
wrong, I doubt not, in speaking to you of public matters. I beg your
pardon, and promise that I will not so transgress again; but before I
leave you, tell me that you do not distrust my fidelity."

"I would still wish to hope, Eleanor, that you are truly anxious for the
welfare of your country, and the safety of your friend," said he, still,
however, without looking up.

"Indeed I am, most anxious; anxious above all things for your welfare
and safety. I should think little of my life, could I give it to promote
the one, or secure the other."

"Tell me then, I conjure you, who are they who have desired you to beg
for the lives of these Vendean rebels," and as he spoke, he leapt from
his chair, and putting his hand upon her shoulder, looked sternly into
her face.

"As God is my judge--"

"Bah! if neither love of your country or of me, nor yet fear of the
punishment due to traitors, will keep you true," (and he slightly shook
her with his hand, as he slowly uttered the last fearful words), "the
judgment of God will not have much effect upon you."

"True!" said the poor girl, almost confounded with her horror at the
charge against her, amid the violence of the man. "True! Oh! Sir, for
mercy's sake, tell me what it is of which you accuse me--tell me what
it is that I have done. No man has spoken of you behind your back words
which you might not yourself have heard. No man has desired me to ask
you to spare the rebels. No man has even dared to hint to me, that I
should do or say ought in opposition to you."

"Some woman has done it then," said he.

"My God! that you should think so foully of me! No, Sir, neither man,
nor woman, nor child. You said that, were it possible, you would wish
that the hand of the executioner might be stayed. It was your own words
that set me on to say what I did. I did not dream that I should
displease you. Tell me, M. Robespierre, tell me that you are not angry
with me, and I will forget it all."

"Forget it all. Yes, things trivial and of no concern are long
remembered, but matters on which depend the life and death of those we
ought to love, are soon forgotten if they are unpleasant. No, Eleanor,
do not forget it all. Do not forget this--remember that I never have,
and never will, allow my feelings as a private man to influence my
conduct as a public functionary. I have many duties to perform; duties
which are arduous, disagreeable, and dangerous, but difficult as they
are, I believe that I am able to perform them. I do not wish for advice,
and I will not permit interference. Now go down, Eleanor; our friends
are below, I heard their steps a while since, as they came in. I have
but a few words to write, and I will join you."

"But you will tell me before I go that we are friends again," said the
poor girl, now weeping. "You will say that you do not distrust me."

"I do not believe that you meant evil to me, but you were indiscreet.
Let that be sufficient now, and bear this in mind, Eleanor--you know the
place you hold in my affections, but were you still nearer to me than
you are; were you already my wife, and the mother of my children, I
would not stand between you and the punishment you would deserve, if you
were untrue to your country."

After hearing this energetic warning, Eleanor Duplay left her lover's
room, firmly believing that she had greatly sinned in speaking as she
had done, but conscious, at any rate, of having intended no evil, either
to him or to the unfortunate country respecting which he expressed so
constant a solicitude.

As soon as she was gone, he again took up the papers which he had
written, and re-read them with great care. In the letter to the two
Commissioners he underscored the passages which most forcibly urged them
to energy in their work of destruction, and added a word here and there
which showed more clearly his intention that mercy should be shown to
none. He then turned to his letter to his brother. In that he said that
Eleanor's conduct had been a source of great comfort to him, and that
he blamed himself for still feeling any reserve with her. He now erased
the passage, and wrote in its stead, "even with Eleanor Duplay I have
some reserve, and I feel that I cannot throw it off with safety!" and
having done this, he, laboriously copied, for the second time, the long
letter which he had written.

When he had finished his task, he left his own chamber, and went down
into a room below, in which the family were in the habit of assembling
in the evening, and meeting such of Robespierre's friends as he wished
to have admitted. The cabinet-maker, and his wife and daughters,
together with his son and nephew, who assisted him in his workshop, were
always there; and few evenings passed without the attendance of some of
his more intimate friends. They were, at first, merely in the habit of
returning with him from the Jacobins' club, but after a while their
private meetings became so necessary to them, that they assembled at
Duplay's on those nights also on which the Jacobins did not meet.

When Robespierre entered the humble salon, Lebas, St. Just, and Couthon
were there; three men who were constant to him to the last, and died
with him when he died. As far as we can judge of their characters, they
were none of them naturally bad men. They were not men prone to lust or
plunder; they betrayed no friends; they sought in their political views
no private ends; they even frequently used the power with which they
were invested to save the lives of multitudes for whose blood the
infuriate mob were eager. Lebas and St. Just were constant to the girls
they loved, and Couthon, who was an object of pity as a cripple, was
happy in the affection of a young wife whom he adored; and yet these
were the men who assisted Robespierre in organizing the Reign of Terror,
and with him share the infamy of the deeds which were then committed.
They were all of them young when they died. They were men of education,
and a certain elevation, of spirit. Men who were able to sacrifice the
pleasures of youth to the hard work of high political duties. Blood
could not have been, was not, acceptable to them; yet under how great
a load of infamy do their names now lie buried!

"We thought you were going to seclude yourself tonight," said Lebas,
"and we were regretting it."

"What have you done with Eleanor," said Madame Duplay, "that she does
not come down to us?"

"I thought to have found her here," answered he; "she left me some
minutes since. She was not in good spirits, and has probably retired for
the night. Tell me, St. Just, do they talk much of tomorrow's trial?"

Robespierre alluded to the trial of Marie Antoinette, as the cruel
farce, which was so called, was then to commence. The people were now
thirsty after her blood, and thought themselves wronged in that she had
been so long held back from their wrath.

"They speak of her execution as of a thing of course," said St. Just;
"and they are right; her sand has well nigh run itself out. I wish she
were now at her nephew's court."

"Wish rather that she had never come from thence," said Couthon. "She
has brought great misfortunes on France. Could she die a thousand
deaths, she could not atone for what she has done. Not that I would have
her die, if it were possible that she could be allowed to live."

"It is not possible," said Robespierre. "To have been Queen of France,
is in itself a crime which it would have been necessary that she should
expiate, even had she shown herself mistress of all the virtues which
could adorn a woman."

"And she is not possessed of one," said Lebas. "She was beautiful, but
her beauty was a stain upon her, for she was voluptuous. She was
talented, but her talents were all turned to evil, for they only enabled
her to intrigue against her adopted country. She had the disposal of
wealth, with which she might have commanded the blessings of the poor,
and she wasted it in vain frivolities. She was gracious in demeanour,
but she kept her smiles for those only who deserved her frowns. She had
unbounded influence over her husband, and she persuaded him to
falsehood, dishonesty, and treachery."

"Do not deny that she has courage," said St. Just. "She has borne her
adversity well, though she could not bear her prosperity."

"She has courage," said Lebas, "and how has she used it? in fighting an
ineffectual battle against the country who had received her with open
arms. We must all be judged by posterity, but no historian will dare to
say that Marie Antoinette did not deserve the doom which now awaits
her."

How little are men able to conceive what award posterity will make in
judging of their actions, even when they act with pure motives, and on
what they consider to be high principles; and posterity is often as much
in error in its indiscriminate condemnation of actions, as are the
actors in presuming themselves entitled to its praise.

When years have rolled by, and passions have cooled, the different
motives and feelings of the persons concerned become known to all, and
mankind is enabled to look upon public acts from every side. Not so the
actors; they are not only in ignorance of facts, the knowledge of which
is necessary to their judging rightly, but falsehoods dressed .in the
garb of facts are studiously brought forward to deceive them, and men
thus groping in darkness are forced to form opinions, and to act upon
them.

Public men are like soldiers fighting in a narrow valley: they see
nothing but what is close around them, and that imperfectly, as
everything is in motion. The historian is as the general, who stands
elevated on the high ground, and, with telescope in hand, sees plainly
all the different movements of the troops. He would be an inconsiderate
general, who would expect that his officers in action should have had
as clear an idea of what was going on, as he himself had been able to
obtain.

There was no murder perpetrated during the French Revolution, under the
pretext of a judicial sentence, which has created more general disgust
than has that of Marie Antoinette. She came as a stranger to the
country, which on that account owed to her its special protection. She
had been called to France to be a Queen, and her greatest crime was that
she would not give up the high station she had been invited to fill. She
had been a faithful wife to a husband who did not love her till he knew
her well, and who was slow in learning anything. She had been a good
mother to the children, who were born, as she believed, to rule the
destinies of France.

She had clung to a falling cause, with a sense of duty which was as
admirable as her courage, and at last she died with the devoted heroism
which so well became her mother's daughter. But what we now look on as
virtues, were vices in the eyes of the republicans, who were her judges.
Her constancy was stubbornness, and her courage was insolence. Her
innocent mirth was called licentiousness, and the royal splendour which
she had been taught to maintain, was looked upon as iniquitous
extravagance. Nor was this, even in those bloody days, enough to condemn
her. Lies of the basest kind were, with care and difficulty, contrived
to debase her character--lies which have now been proved to be so, but
which were then not only credible, but sure to receive credit from those
who already believed that all royal blood was, from its nature, capable
of every abomination.

When Lebas so confidently predicated the sentence which posterity would
pass on the fall of Marie Antoinette, none of his auditors doubted the
correctness of his prophecy. Posterity, however, more partial to the
frivolities of courts than to the fury of revolutions, has acquitted the
Queen, and passed, perhaps, too heavy a sentence on the judges who
condemned her. Till the power of Satan over the world has been
destroyed, and man is able to walk uprightly before his Maker, the
virtues of one generation will be the vices of another.

CHAPTER III

THE LAST DAY AT DURBELLIERE

After the re-capture of Durbelliere, and the liberation of Santerre, the
Vendeans again assembled in arms in different portions of the revolted
district, and fought their battles always with valour, and not
unfrequently with success. They did not, however, again form themselves
into one body, till the beginning of October, when news having reached
them that a large army, under fiercer leaders, was to be sent by the
Republic for their extermination, it became necessary to take some
decided step for their own protection. The Vendean Generals then decided
to call together all the men they could collect at Chatillon, a town in
the very centre of their country, and there also to prepare such a
quantity of military stores and ammunition, as would make the place a
useful and secure basis for their movements.

Some jealousy had arisen among the Generals; and on the death of
Cathelineau, d'Elbee had been chosen Commander-in-Chief, through the
influence of those who were envious of the popularity of M. de Lescure.
On the latter, however, the management of the war depended; and though
his exertions were greatly impeded by the factious spirit which
unfortunately prevailed among the royalists, he nevertheless succeeded
in collecting, equipping, and maintaining a considerable army. The
republican troops of Lechelle and Thurreau were not long in making their
way to the devoted district, and tidings soon reached Chatillon that
they were devastating the country round Doue and Vihiers, and that
parties of them had advanced to the neighbourhood of Cholet.

It was then determined at Chatillon that the royalist army should
advance towards the republicans: that they should fight them on the
first field of battle on which they could meet them, and that if beaten,
they should cross the Loire into Britanny, and make their way to the
coast, to meet the succour which had been promised them from England.
Every day that the battle was delayed, hundreds of children and women
perished in cold blood, numberless humble dwellings were reduced to
ashes. The commands of Robespierre were being executed; the land was
being saturated with the blood of its inhabitants.

De Lescure and Larochejaquelin were both staying at Chatillon. But
Chatillon is but a league or two from Durbelliere, and one or the other
of them was almost daily at the chateau. They had many cares upon them
besides those of the army; cares which, though not productive of so much
actual labour, sat, if possible, heavier on their hearts. What were they
to do with those dear but weak friends who were still at the chateau?
three loving and beloved women, and an infirm old man, more helpless
even than the women! They could not be left at Durbelliere, for the
chateau would doubtless, before long, be again taken by some marauding
party of their enemies, and any death would be preferable to the fate
which would there await them.

Henri now felt the weight of those miseries which his father had
foretold; when he, flushed with the victory at Saumur, returned home
after the campaign in which he had first drawn his sword so gloriously.
He felt that he had done his duty, and therefore he regretted nothing;
but he also felt that he might probably soon be without the power of
protecting those who were so much dearer to him than his life, and the
suffering arising from such thoughts was almost more than he could bear.

It was at last determined that the whole party should leave the chateau,
and go over to Chatillon--there would be at any rate a better chance
of security there than at Durbelliere, and also better means of escape,
should the town fall into the hands of their enemies.

It was a grievous thing to tell that old man that he must leave the
house, where he had spent his quiet life, and go to strange places, to
finish the short remainder of his days amid the turmoil of battles, and
the continual troubles and dangers of a moving army. Nevertheless he
bore it well. At first he beseeched them to leave him and old Momont,
among his birds and cherry trees, declaring that nothing that the blues
could do to him would be to him so calamitous as his removal from the
spot in which he had so long taken root. But his children soon made him
understand that it was impossible that they could abandon him, a cripple
as he was, unattended, and exposed to the certain fury of the
republicans. He yielded, therefore, and when the sad day came, he blamed
no one, as they lifted him into the huge carriage, in which he was
removed to Chatillon. To the last he was proudly loyal to the King; and,
as he was carried over the threshold of his door, he said, that if God
would grant him another favour in this world, it would be, that he might
return once more to his own home, to welcome there some scion of his
royal master's house.

Henri, de Lescure, and the little Chevalier, all came over to spend the
last day at Durbelliere, and a melancholy day it was. Madame de Lescure,
Marie, and Agatha were also there, and all the servants, most of whom
had been born in the family, and all of whom, excepting Chapeau and one
maid, were now to be sent abroad to look for their living in a country
in which the life itself of every native was in hourly danger. Hard they
begged to be allowed to link their fate to that of their young mistress,
declaring that they would never more complain, even though they were
again called out to die, as they had been on that fearful evening when
Santerre had found himself unable to give the fatal order. It was
impossible--the safety of four women, who would probably have to be
carried backwards and forwards through a country bristling with hostile
troops, was a fearful burden to the young leaders; it would have been
madness for them to increase it. The wretched girls, therefore, prepared
to make their way to the homes of their relatives, knowing that those
homes would soon be turned into heaps of ashes. It was a bright warm
autumn day this, the last which the Larochejaquelins were to pass
together in the mansion in which they had all been born. The men came
over early, and breakfasted at the chateau, and both Henri and Arthur
worked hard to relieve the sadness of the party with some sparks of
their accustomed gaiety; the attempt, however, was futile; they each
felt that their hours of gaiety were gone by, and before the meal was
over, they had both resolved that any attempt at mirth that day, would
be a stretch of hypocrisy beyond their power.

When breakfast was over, the Marquis begged that, for the last time, he
might be wheeled round the garden-walks, which he loved so well, and
accordingly he was put into his chair, and, accompanied by his children
and friends, was dragged through every alley, and every little
meandering path. He would not spare himself a single turn--he had a tear
to give to every well-known tree, an adieu to make to every painted
figure. To de Lescure and the others, the comic attitudes of these
uncouth ornaments was, at the present moment, any thing but interesting;
but to the Marquis, each of them was an old and well-loved friend, whom
even in his extremity he could hardly bring himself to desert. On their
return into the house from the garden, they began to employ themselves
with arranging and packing the little articles which they intended to
take with them. They had all counted on having much to do during the
short hours of this one last day; on being hurried and pressed, so as
to be hardly able to get through their task; but instead of this their
work was soon done, and the minutes hung heavy on their hands. They
would not talk of the things which were near their hearts, for they
feared to add to each other's misery; they strove therefore to talk on
indifferent subjects, and soon broke down in every attempt they made at
conversation.

Agatha never left her father's side for a moment, and though she seldom
spoke to him, she did a thousand little acts of sedulous attention,
which showed him that she was near to him. Her gentle touch was almost
as precious to him as her voice. De Lescure sat near his wife the whole
day, speaking to her from time to time in a whisper, and feeling the
weight upon his spirits so great that even with her he could hardly talk
freely. He was already without a roof which he could call his own, and
he was aware his friends would soon be equally desolate; such hitherto
had been the result of their gallant enterprise.

Henri had much to say--much that he had made up his mind to say to Marie
before he left Durbelliere, but he put off the moment of saying it from
hour to hour, and it was not till near midnight that it was said. Marie
herself, bore herself more manfully, if I may say so, than any of them;
she really employed herself, and thought of a thousand things conducive
to their future comfort, which would have been forgotten or neglected
had she not been there. The little Chevalier tried hard to assist her,
but the pale sad face of Agatha, and the silent tears which from time
to time moistened the cheeks of the Marquis, and told how acute were the
sufferings which he tried in vain to hide, were too much for the poor
boy; he soon betook himself alone into the cherry grove, where he
wandered about unseen, and if the truth must be told, more than once
threw himself on the ground, and wept bitterly and aloud.

They sat down to dinner about three o'clock; but their dinner was, if
possible, a worse affair than their breakfast. They were not only sad,
but worn out and jaded with sorrow. The very servants, as they moved the
dishes, sobbed aloud; and at last, Momont, who had vainly attempted to
carry himself with propriety before the others, utterly gave way, and
throwing himself on to a chair in the salon, declared that nothing but
violence should separate him from his master.

"It is five-and-fifty years," said he, sobbing, "since I first waited
on Monseigneur. We were boys then, and now we are old men together It
is not natural that we should part. Where he goes, I will go. I will
cling to his carriage, unless they cut me down with swords."

No one could rebuke the old man--certainly not the master whom he loved
so well; and though they knew that it would be impossible to provide for
him, none of them at the moment had the heart to tell him so.

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