The Elusive Pimpernel Baroness Orczy (read more books txt) 📖

“And dost know, Auguste, how we are to be rewarded?”

It is a difficult matter for the human mind to turn very quickly from despair to hope, and the fishermen of Boulogne had not yet grasped the fact that they were to make merry and that thoughts of anxiety must be abandoned for those of gaiety.

Auguste Moleux took out a parchment from the capacious pocket of his coat; he put on his most solemn air of officialdom, and pointing with extended forefinger to the parchment, he said:

“A general amnesty to all natives of Boulogne who are under arrest at the present moment: a free pardon to all natives of Boulogne who are under sentence of death: permission to all natives of Boulogne to quit the town with their families, to embark on any vessel they please, in or out of the harbour, and to go whithersoever they choose, without passports, formalities or questions of any kind.”

Dead silence followed this announcement. Hope was just beginning to crowd anxiety and sullenness out of the way.

“Then poor André Legrand will be pardoned,” whispered a voice suddenly; “he was to have been guillotined today.”

“And Denise Latour! she was innocent enough, the gentle pigeon.”

“And they’ll let poor Abbé Foucquet out of prison too.”

“And François!”

“And poor Félicité, who is blind!”

“M. l’Abbé would be wise to leave Boulogne with the children.”

“He will too: thou canst be sure of that!”

“It is not good to be a priest just now!”

“Bah! calotins are best dead than alive.”

But some in the crowd were silent, others whispered eagerly.

“Thinkest thou it would be safer for us to get out of the country whilst we can?” said one of the men in a muffled tone, and clutching nervously at a woman’s wrist.

“Aye! aye! it might leak out about that boat we procured for⁠ ⁠…”

“Sh!⁠ ⁠… I was thinking of that⁠ ⁠…”

“We can go to my aunt Lebrun in Belgium⁠ ⁠…”

Others talked in whispers of England or the New Land across the seas: they were those who had something to hide, money received from refugee aristocrats, boats sold to would-be émigrés, information withheld, denunciations shirked: the amnesty would not last long, ’twas best to be safely out of the way.

“In the meanwhile, my cabbages,” quoth Auguste sententiously, “are you not grateful to Citizen Robespierre, who has sent this order specially down from Paris?”

“Aye! aye!” assented the crowd cheerfully.

“Hurrah for Citizen Robespierre!”

“Viva la République!”

“And you will enjoy yourselves today?”

“That we will!”

“Processions?”

“Aye! with music and dancing.”

Out there, far away, beyond the harbour, the grey light of dawn was yielding to the crimson glow of morning. The rain had ceased and heavy slaty clouds parted here and there, displaying glints of delicate turquoise sky, and tiny ethereal vapours in the dim and remote distance of infinity, flecked with touches of rose and gold.

The towers and pinnacles of old Boulogne detached themselves one by one from the misty gloom of night. The old bell of the Beffroi tolled the hour of six. Soon the massive cupola of Notre Dame was clothed in purple hues, and the gilt cross on St. Joseph threw back across the square a blinding ray of gold.

The town sparrows began to twitter, and from far out at sea in the direction of Dunkirk there came the muffled boom of cannon.

“And remember, my pigeons,” admonished Auguste Moleux solemnly, “that in this order which Robespierre has sent from Paris, it also says that from today onwards le bon Dieu has ceased to be!”

Many faces were turned towards the East just then, for the rising sun, tearing with one gigantic sweep the banks of cloud asunder, now displayed his magnificence in a gorgeous immensity of flaming crimson. The sea, in response, turned to liquid fire beneath the glow, whilst the whole sky was irradiated with the first blush of morning.

Le bon Dieu has ceased to be!

“There is only one religion in France now,” explained Auguste Moleux, “the religion of Reason! We are all citizens! We are all free and all able to think for ourselves. Citizen Robespierre has decreed that there is no good God. Le bon Dieu was a tyrant and an aristocrat, and, like all tyrants and aristocrats, He has been deposed. There is no good God, there is no Holy Virgin and no Saints, only Reason, who is a goddess and whom we all honour.”

And the townsfolk of Boulogne, with eyes still fixed on the gorgeous East, shouted with sullen obedience:

“Hurrah! for the Goddess of Reason!”

“Hurrah for Robespierre!”

Only the women, trying to escape the town-crier’s prying eyes, or the soldiers’ stern gaze, hastily crossed themselves behind their husbands’ backs, terrified lest le bon Dieu had, after all, not altogether ceased to exist at the bidding of Citizen Robespierre.

Thus the worthy natives of Boulogne, forgetting their anxieties and fears, were ready enough to enjoy the national fête ordained for them by the Committee of Public Safety, in honour of the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel. They were even willing to accept this new religion which Robespierre had invented: a religion which was only a mockery, with an actress to represent its supreme deity.

Mais, que voulez-vous? Boulogne had long ago ceased to have faith in God: the terrors of the Revolution, which culminated in that agonizing watch of last night, had smothered all thoughts of worship and of prayer.

The Scarlet Pimpernel must indeed be a dangerous spy that his arrest should cause so much joy in Paris!

Even Boulogne had learned by experience that the Committee of Public Safety did not readily give up a prey, once its vulture-like claws had closed upon it. The proportion of condemnations as against acquittals was as a hundred to one.

But because this one man was taken, scores today were to be set free!

In the evening at a given hour⁠—seven o’clock as Auguste Moleux, the town-crier, understood⁠—the boom of the cannon would be heard, the gates of the town would be opened, the harbour would become a free port.

The inhabitants