I Will Repay Baroness Orczy (philippa perry book .txt) 📖

of the Republic those documents would not all have been destroyed, for he would have ‘found’ one letter addressed to the Widow Capet, which would have proved conclusively that Citizen-Deputy Déroulède was a traitor. That is what a true patriot would have done⁠—what I would have done. Pardi! since Déroulède is so important a personage, since we must all put on kid gloves when we lay hands upon him, then let us fight him with other weapons. Are we aristocrats that we should hesitate to play the part of jackal to this cunning fox? Citizen-Deputy Merlin, are you the son of some ci-devant duke or prince that you dared not forge a document which would bring a traitor to his doom? Nay; let me tell you, friends, that the Republic has no use for curs, and calls him a traitor who allows one of her enemies to remain inviolate through his cowardice, his terror of that intangible and fleeting shadow⁠—the wrath of a Paris mob.”

Thunderous applause greeted this peroration, which had been delivered with an accompaniment of violent gestures and a wealth of obscene epithets, quite beyond the power of the mere chronicler to render. Lenoir had a harsh, strident voice, very high pitched, and he spoke with a broad, provincial accent, somewhat difficult to locate, but quite unlike the hoarse, guttural tones of the low-class Parisian. His enthusiasm made him seem impressive. He looked, in his ragged, dust-stained clothes, the very personification of the squalid herd which had driven culture, art, refinement to the scaffold in order to make way for sordid vice, and satisfied lusts of hate.

XXI A Jacobin Orator

Tinville alone had remained silent during Lenoir’s impassioned speech. It seemed to be his turn now to become surly. He sat picking his teeth, and staring moodily at the enthusiastic orator, who had so obviously diverted popular feeling in his own direction. And Tinville brooked popularity only for himself.

“It is easy to talk now, Citizen⁠—er⁠—Lenoir. Is that your name? Well, you are a comparative stranger here, Citizen Lenoir, and have not yet proved to the Republic that you can do ought else but talk.”

“If somebody did not talk, Citizen Tinville⁠—is that your name?” rejoined Lenoir, with a sneer⁠—“if somebody didn’t talk, nothing would get done. You all sit here, and condemn the Citizen-Deputy Merlin for being a fool, and I must say I am with you there, but⁠—”

“Pardi! tell us your ‘but’ citizen,” said Tinville, for the coal-heaver had paused, as if trying to collect his thoughts. He had dragged a wine barrel to collect his thoughts. He had dragged a wine barrel close to the trestle table, and now sat astride upon it, facing Tinville and the group of Jacobins. The flickering tallow candle behind him threw into bold silhouette his square, massive head, crowned with its Phrygian cap, and the great breadth of his shoulders, with the shabby knitted spencer and low, turned-down collar.

He had long, thin hands, which were covered with successive coats of coal dust, and with these he constantly made weird gestures, as if in the act of gripping some live thing by the throat.

“We all know that the Deputy Déroulède is a traitor, eh?” he said, addressing the company in general.

“We do,” came with uniform assent from all those present.

“Then let us put it to the vote. The Ayes mean death, the Noes freedom.”

“Ay, ay!” came from every hoarse, parched throat; and twelve gaunt hands were lifted up demanding death for Citizen-Deputy Déroulède.

“The Ayes have it,” said Lenoir quietly, “Now all we need do is to decide how best to carry out our purpose.”

Merlin, very agreeably surprised to see public attention thus diverted from his own misdeeds, had gradually lost his surly attitude. He too dragged one of the wine barrels, which did duty for chairs, close to the trestle table, and thus the members of the nameless Jacobin club made a compact group, picturesque in its weird horror, its uncompromising, flaunting ugliness.

“I suppose,” said Tinville, who was loth to give up his position as leader of these extremists⁠—“I suppose, Citizen Lenoir, that you are in position to furnish me with proofs of the Citizen-Deputy’s guilt?”

“If I furnish you with such proofs, Citizen Tinville,” retorted the other, “will you, as Public Prosecutor, carry the indictment through?”

“It is my duty to publicly accuse those who are traitors to the Republic.”

“And you, Citizen Merlin,” queried Lenoir, “will you help the Republic to the best of your ability to be rid of a traitor?”

“My services to the cause of our great Revolution are too well known⁠—” began Merlin.

But Lenoir interrupted him with impatience.

“Pardi! but we’ll have no rhetoric now, Citizen Merlin. We all know that you have blundered, and that the Republic cares little for those of her sons who have failed, but whilst you are still Minister of Justice the people of France have need of you⁠—for bringing other traitors to the guillotine.”

He spoke this last phrase slowly and significantly, lingering on the word “other,” as if he wished its whole awesome meaning to penetrate well into Merlin’s brain.

“What is your advice then, Citizen Lenoir?”

Apparently, by unanimous consent, the coal-heaver, from some obscure province of France, had been tacitly acknowledged the leader of the band. Merlin, still in terror for himself, looked to him for advice; even Tinville was ready to be guided by him. All were at one in their desire to rid themselves of Déroulède, who by his clean living, his aloofness from their own hideous orgies and deadly hates, seemed a living reproach to them all; and they all felt that in Lenoir there must exist some secret dislike of the popular Citizen-Deputy, which would give him a clear insight of how best to bring about his downfall.

“What is your advice?” had been Merlin’s query, and everyone there listened eagerly for what was to come.

“We are all agreed,” commenced Lenoir quietly, “that just at this moment it would be unwise