*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1456 ***

AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR


By Honore De Balzac



Translated by Clara Bell and Others



                             DEDICATION

                   To Monsieur Guyonnet-Merville.

  Is it not a necessity to explain to a public curious to know
  everything, how I came to be sufficiently learned in the law to
  carry on the business of my little world? And in so doing, am I
  not bound to put on record the memory of the amiable and
  intelligent man who, meeting the Scribe (another clerk-amateur) at
  a ball, said, "Just give the office a turn; there is work for you
  there, I assure you." But do you need this public testimony to
  feel assured of the affection of the writer?

                                                        DE BALZAC.





AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR


On the 22nd of January, 1793, towards eight o'clock in the evening, an
old lady came down the steep street that comes to an end opposite the
Church of Saint Laurent in the Faubourg Saint Martin. It had snowed so
heavily all day long that the lady's footsteps were scarcely audible;
the streets were deserted, and a feeling of dread, not unnatural amid
the silence, was further increased by the whole extent of the Terror
beneath which France was groaning in those days; what was more, the old
lady so far had met no one by the way. Her sight had long been failing,
so that the few foot passengers dispersed like shadows in the distance
over the wide thoroughfare through the faubourg, were quite invisible to
her by the light of the lanterns.

She had passed the end of the Rue des Morts, when she fancied that she
could hear the firm, heavy tread of a man walking behind her. Then it
seemed to her that she had heard that sound before, and dismayed by the
idea of being followed, she tried to walk faster toward a brightly lit
shop window, in the hope of verifying the suspicions which had taken
hold of her mind.

So soon as she stood in the shaft of light that streamed out across the
road, she turned her head suddenly, and caught sight of a human figure
looming through the fog. The dim vision was enough for her. For one
moment she reeled beneath an overpowering weight of dread, for she could
not doubt any longer that the man had followed her the whole way from
her own door; then the desire to escape from the spy gave her strength.
Unable to think clearly, she walked twice as fast as before, as if it
were possible to escape from a man who of course could move much faster;
and for some minutes she fled on, till, reaching a pastry-cook's shop,
she entered and sank rather than sat down upon a chair by the counter.

A young woman busy with embroidery looked up from her work at
the rattling of the door-latch, and looked out through the square
window-panes. She seemed to recognize the old-fashioned violet silk
mantle, for she went at once to a drawer as if in search of something
put aside for the newcomer. Not only did this movement and the
expression of the woman's face show a very evident desire to be rid as
soon as possible of an unwelcome visitor, but she even permitted herself
an impatient exclamation when the drawer proved to be empty. Without
looking at the lady, she hurried from her desk into the back shop and
called to her husband, who appeared at once.

"Wherever have you put?----" she began mysteriously, glancing at the
customer by way of finishing her question.

The pastry-cook could only see the old lady's head-dress, a huge black
silk bonnet with knots of violet ribbon round it, but he looked at his
wife as if to say, "Did you think I should leave such a thing as that
lying about in your drawer?" and then vanished.

The old lady kept so still and silent that the shopkeeper's wife was
surprised. She went back to her, and on a nearer view a sudden impulse
of pity, blended perhaps with curiosity, got the better of her. The
old lady's face was naturally pale; she looked as though she secretly
practised austerities; but it was easy to see that she was paler than
usual from recent agitation of some kind. Her head-dress was so arranged
as to almost hide hair that was white, no doubt with age, for there was
not a trace of powder on the collar of her dress. The extreme plainness
of her dress lent an air of austerity to her face, and her features were
proud and grave. The manners and habits of people of condition were so
different from those of other classes in former times that a noble was
easily known, and the shopkeeper's wife felt persuaded that her customer
was a _ci-devant_, and that she had been about the Court.

"Madame," she began with involuntary respect, forgetting that the title
was proscribed.

But the old lady made no answer. She was staring fixedly at the shop
windows as though some dreadful thing had taken shape against the panes.
The pastry-cook came back at that moment, and drew the lady from her
musings, by holding out a little cardboard box wrapped in blue paper.

"What is the matter, citoyenne?" he asked.

"Nothing, nothing, my friends," she answered, in a gentle voice. She
looked up at the man as she spoke, as if to thank him by a glance; but
she saw the red cap on his head, and a cry broke from her. "Ah! _You_
have betrayed me!"

The man and his young wife replied by an indignant gesture, that brought
the color to the old lady's face; perhaps she felt relief, perhaps she
blushed for her suspicions.

"Forgive me!" she said, with a childlike sweetness in her tones.
Then, drawing a gold louis from her pocket, she held it out to the
pastry-cook. "That is the price agreed upon," she added.

There is a kind of want that is felt instinctively by those who know
want. The man and his wife looked at one another, then at the elderly
woman before them, and read the same thoughts in each other's eyes. That
bit of gold was so plainly the last. Her hands shook a little as she
held it out, looking at it sadly but ungrudgingly, as one who knows the
full extent of the sacrifice. Hunger and penury had carved lines as easy
to read in her face as the traces of asceticism and fear. There
were vestiges of bygone splendor in her clothes. She was dressed in
threadbare silk, a neat but well-worn mantle, and daintily mended
lace,--in the rags of former grandeur, in short. The shopkeeper and his
wife, drawn two ways by pity and self-interest, began by lulling their
consciences with words.

"You seem very poorly, citoyenne----"

"Perhaps madame might like to take something," the wife broke in.

"We have some very nice broth," added the pastry-cook.

"And it is so cold," continued his wife; "perhaps you have caught a
chill, madame, on your way here. But you can rest and warm yourself a
bit."

"We are not so black as the devil!" cried the man.

The kindly intention in the words and tones of the charitable couple
won the old lady's confidence. She said that a strange man had been
following her, and she was afraid to go home alone.

"Is that all!" returned he of the red bonnet; "wait for me, citoyenne."

He handed the gold coin to his wife, and then went out to put on his
National Guard's uniform, impelled thereto by the idea of making some
adequate return for the money; an idea that sometimes slips into a
tradesman's head when he has been prodigiously overpaid for goods of no
great value. He took up his cap, buckled on his sabre, and came out in
full dress. But his wife had had time to reflect, and reflection, as not
unfrequently happens, closed the hand that kindly intentions had opened.
Feeling frightened and uneasy lest her husband might be drawn into
something unpleasant, she tried to catch at the skirt of his coat, to
hold him back, but he, good soul, obeying his charitable first thought,
brought out his offer to see the lady home, before his wife could stop
him.

"The man of whom the citoyenne is afraid is still prowling about the
shop, it seems," she said sharply.

"I am afraid so," said the lady innocently.

"How if it is a spy?... a plot?... Don't go. And take the box away from
her----"

The words whispered in the pastry-cook's ear cooled his hot fit of
courage down to zero.

"Oh! I will just go out and say a word or two. I will rid you of him
soon enough," he exclaimed, as he bounced out of the shop.

The old lady meanwhile, passive as a child and almost dazed, sat down
on her chair again. But the honest pastry-cook came back directly.
A countenance red enough to begin with, and further flushed by the
bake-house fire, was suddenly blanched; such terror perturbed him that
he reeled as he walked, and stared about him like a drunken man.

"Miserable aristocrat! Do you want to have our heads cut off?" he
shouted furiously. "You just take to your heels and never show yourself
here again. Don't come to me for materials for your plots."

He tried, as he spoke, to take away the little box which she had slipped
into one of her pockets. But at the touch of a profane hand on her
clothes, the stranger recovered youth and activity for a moment,
preferring to face the dangers of the street with no protector save God,
to the loss of the thing she had just paid for. She sprang to the door,
flung it open, and disappeared, leaving the husband and wife dumfounded
and quaking with fright.

Once outside in the street, she started away at a quick walk; but her
strength soon failed her. She heard the sound of the snow crunching
under a heavy step, and knew that the pitiless spy was on her track. She
was obliged to stop. He stopped likewise. From sheer terror, or lack
of intelligence, she did not dare to speak or to look at him. She went
slowly on; the man slackened his pace and fell behind so that he could
still keep her in sight. He might have been her very shadow.

Nine o'clock struck as the silent man and woman passed again by the
Church of Saint Laurent. It is in the nature of things that calm must
succeed to violent agitation, even in the weakest soul; for if feeling
is infinite, our capacity to feel is limited. So, as the stranger lady
met with no harm from her supposed persecutor, she tried to look upon
him as an unknown friend anxious to protect her. She thought of all the
circumstances in which the stranger had appeared, and put them together,
as if to find some ground for this comforting theory, and felt inclined
to credit him with good intentions rather than bad.

Forgetting the fright that he had given the pastry-cook, she walked on
with a firmer step through the upper end of the Faubourg Saint Martin;
and another half-hour's walk brought her to a house at the corner where
the road to the Barriere de Pantin turns off from the main thoroughfare.
Even at this day, the place is one of the least frequented parts of
Paris. The north wind sweeps over the Buttes-Chaumont and Belleville,
and whistles through the houses (the Hovels rather), scattered over an
almost uninhabited low-lying waste, Where the fences are heaps of earth
and bones. It was a desolate-looking place, a fitting refuge for despair
and misery.

The sight of it appeared to make an impression upon the relentless
pursuer of a poor creature so daring as to walk alone at night through
the silent streets. He stood in thought, and seemed by his attitude to
hesitate. She could see him dimly now, under the street lamp that sent a
faint, flickering light through the fog. Fear gave her eyes. She saw, or
thought she saw, something sinister about the stranger's features. Her
old terrors awoke; she took advantage of a kind of hesitation on his
part, slipped through the shadows to the door of the solitary house,
pressed a spring, and vanished swiftly as a phantom.

For awhile the stranger stood motionless, gazing up at the house. It
was in some sort a type of the wretched dwellings in the suburb; a
tumble-down hovel, built of rough stones, daubed over with a coat of
yellowish stucco, and so riven with great cracks that there seemed to
be danger lest the slightest puff of wind might blow it down. The roof,
covered with brown moss-grown tiles, had given way in several places,
and looked as though it might break down altogether under the weight of
the snow. The frames of the three windows on each story were rotten with
damp and warped by the sun; evidently the cold must find its way inside.
The house standing thus quite by itself looked like some old tower
that Time had forgotten to destroy. A faint light shone from the attic
windows pierced at irregular distances in the roof; otherwise the whole
building was in total darkness.

Meanwhile the old lady climbed not without difficulty up the rough,
clumsily built staircase, with a rope by way of a hand-rail. At the door
of the lodging in the attic she stopped and tapped mysteriously; an old
man brought forward a chair for her. She dropped into it at once.

"Hide! hide!" she exclaimed, looking up at him. "Seldom as we leave the
house, everything that we do is known, and every step is watched----"

"What is it now?" asked another elderly woman, sitting by the fire.

"The man that has been prowling about the house yesterday and to-day,
followed me to-night----"

At those words all three dwellers in the wretched den looked in each
other's faces and did not try to dissimulate the profound dread that
they felt. The old priest was the least overcome, probably because
he ran the greatest danger. If a brave man is weighed down by great
calamities or the yoke of persecution, he begins, as it were, by making
the sacrifice of himself; and thereafter every day of his life becomes
one more victory snatched from fate. But from the way in which the women
looked at him it was easy to see that their intense anxiety was on his
account.

"Why should our faith in God fail us, my sisters?" he said, in low but
fervent tones. "We sang His praises through the shrieks of murderers and
their victims at the Carmelites. If it was His will that I should come
alive out of that butchery, it was, no doubt, because I was reserved for
some fate which I am bound to endure without murmuring. God will protect
His own; He can do with them according to His will. It is for you, not
for me that we must think."

"No," answered one of the women. "What is our life compared to a
priest's life?"

"Once outside the Abbaye de Chelles, I look upon myself as dead," added
the nun who had not left the house, while the Sister that had just
returned held out the little box to the priest.

"Here are the wafers... but I can hear some one coming up the stairs."

At this, the three began to listen. The sound ceased.

"Do not be alarmed if somebody tries to come in," said the priest.
"Somebody on whom we could depend was to make all necessary arrangements
for crossing the frontier. He is to come for the letters that I have
written to the Duc de Langeais and the Marquis de Beauseant, asking them
to find some way of taking you out of this dreadful country, and away
from the death or the misery that waits for you here."

"But are you not going to follow us?" the nuns cried under their breath,
almost despairingly.

"My post is here where the sufferers are," the priest said simply,
and the women said no more, but looked at their guest in reverent
admiration. He turned to the nun with the wafers.

"Sister Marthe," he said, "the messenger will say _Fiat Voluntas_ in
answer to the word _Hosanna_."

"There is some one on the stairs!" cried the other nun, opening a
hiding-place contrived in the roof.

This time it was easy to hear, amid the deepest silence, a sound echoing
up the staircase; it was a man's tread on the steps covered with dried
lumps of mud. With some difficulty the priest slipped into a kind of
cupboard, and the nun flung some clothes over him.

"You can shut the door, Sister Agathe," he said in a muffled voice.

He was scarcely hidden before three raps sounded on the door. The holy
women looked into each other's eyes for counsel, and dared not say a
single word.

They seemed both to be about sixty years of age. They had lived out of
the world for forty years, and had grown so accustomed to the life of
the convent that they could scarcely imagine any other. To them, as to
plants kept in a hot-house, a change of air meant death. And so, when
the grating was broken down one morning, they knew with a shudder that
they were free. The effect produced by the Revolution upon their simple
souls is easy to imagine; it produced a temporary imbecility not natural
to them. They could not bring the ideas learned in the convent into
harmony with life and its difficulties; they could not even understand
their own position. They were like children whom mothers have always
cared for, deserted by their maternal providence. And as a child cries,
they betook themselves to prayer. Now, in the presence of imminent
danger, they were mute and passive, knowing no defence save Christian
resignation.

The man at the door, taking silence for consent, presented himself, and
the women shuddered. This was the prowler that had been making inquiries
about them for some time past. But they looked at him with frightened
curiosity, much as shy children stare silently at a stranger; and
neither of them moved.

The newcomer was a tall, burly man. Nothing in his behavior, bearing,
or expression suggested malignity as, following the example set by the
nuns, he stood motionless, while his eyes traveled round the room.

Two straw mats laid upon planks did duty as beds. On the one table,
placed in the middle of the room, stood a brass candlestick, several
plates, three knives, and a round loaf. A small fire burned in the
grate. A few bits of wood in a heap in a corner bore further witness
to the poverty of the recluses. You had only to look at the coating of
paint on the walls to discover the bad condition of the roof, and the
ceiling was a perfect network of brown stains made by rain-water. A
relic, saved no doubt from the wreck of the Abbaye de Chelles, stood
like an ornament on the chimney-piece. Three chairs, two boxes, and a
rickety chest of drawers completed the list of the furniture, but a door
beside the fireplace suggested an inner room beyond.

The brief inventory was soon made by the personage introduced into
their midst under such terrible auspices. It was with a compassionate
expression that he turned to the two women; he looked benevolently at
them, and seemed, at least, as much embarrassed as they. But the
strange silence did not last long, for presently the stranger began to
understand. He saw how inexperienced, how helpless (mentally speaking),
the two poor creatures were, and he tried to speak gently.

"I am far from coming as an enemy, citoyennes----" he began. Then he
suddenly broke off and went on, "Sisters, if anything should happen to
you, believe me, I shall have no share in it. I have come to ask a favor
of you."

Still the women were silent.

"If I am annoying you--if--if I am intruding, speak freely, and I will
go; but you must understand that I am entirely at your service; that if
I can do anything for you, you need not fear to make use of me. I, and I
only, perhaps, am above the law, since there is no King now."

There was such a ring of sincerity in the words that Sister Agathe
hastily pointed to a chair as if to bid their guest be seated. Sister
Agathe came of the house of Langeais; her manner seemed to indicate that
once she had been familiar with brilliant scenes, and had breathed the
air of courts. The stranger seemed half pleased, half distressed when
he understood her invitation; he waited to sit down until the women were
seated.

"You are giving shelter to a reverend father who refused to take the
oath, and escaped the massacres at the Carmelites by a miracle----"

"_Hosanna_!" Sister Agathe exclaimed eagerly, interrupting the stranger,
while she watched him with curious eyes.

"That is not the name, I think," he said.

"But, monsieur," Sister Marthe broke in quickly, "we have no priest
here, and----"

"In that case you should be more careful and on your guard," he answered
gently, stretching out his hand for a breviary that lay on the table. "I
do not think that you know Latin, and----"

He stopped; for, at the sight of the great emotion in the faces of
the two poor nuns, he was afraid that he had gone too far. They were
trembling, and the tears stood in their eyes.

"Do not fear," he said frankly. "I know your names and the name of
your guest. Three days ago I heard of your distress and devotion to the
venerable Abbe de----"

"Hush!" Sister Agathe cried, in the simplicity of her heart, as she laid
her finger on her lips.

"You see, Sisters, that if I had conceived the horrible idea of
betraying you, I could have given you up already, more than once----"

At the words the priest came out of his hiding-place and stood in their
midst.

"I cannot believe, monsieur, that you can be one of our persecutors," he
said, addressing the stranger, "and I trust you. What do you want with
me?"

The priest's holy confidence, the nobleness expressed in every line in
his face, would have disarmed a murderer. For a moment the mysterious
stranger, who had brought an element of excitement into lives of misery
and resignation, gazed at the little group; then he turned to the priest
and said, as if making a confidence, "Father, I came to beg you to
celebrate a mass for the repose of the soul of--of--of an august
personage whose body will never rest in consecrated earth----"

Involuntarily the abbe shivered. As yet, neither of the Sisters
understood of whom the stranger was speaking; they sat with their heads
stretched out and faces turned towards the speaker, curiosity in their
whole attitude. The priest meanwhile, was scrutinizing the stranger;
there was no mistaking the anxiety in the man's face, the ardent
entreaty in his eyes.

"Very well," returned the abbe. "Come back at midnight. I shall be ready
to celebrate the only funeral service that it is in our power to offer
in expiation of the crime of which you speak."

A quiver ran through the stranger, but a sweet yet sober satisfaction
seemed to prevail over a hidden anguish. He took his leave respectfully,
and the three generous souls felt his unspoken gratitude.

Two hours later, he came back and tapped at the garret door.
Mademoiselle de Beauseant showed the way into the second room of their
humble lodging. Everything had been made ready. The Sisters had moved
the old chest of drawers between the two chimneys, and covered its
quaint outlines over with a splendid altar cloth of green watered silk.

The bare walls looked all the barer, because the one thing that hung
there was the great ivory and ebony crucifix, which of necessity
attracted the eyes. Four slender little altar candles, which the Sisters
had contrived to fasten into their places with sealing-wax, gave a
faint, pale light, almost absorbed by the walls; the rest of the room
lay well-nigh in the dark. But the dim brightness, concentrated upon
the holy things, looked like a ray from Heaven shining down upon the
unadorned shrine. The floor was reeking with damp. An icy wind swept in
through the chinks here and there, in a roof that rose sharply on either
side, after the fashion of attic roofs. Nothing could be less imposing;
yet perhaps, too, nothing could be more solemn than this mournful
ceremony. A silence so deep that they could have heard the faintest
sound of a voice on the Route d'Allemagne, invested the night-piece with
a kind of sombre majesty; while the grandeur of the service--all the
grander for the strong contrast with the poor surroundings--produced a
feeling of reverent awe.

The Sisters kneeling on each side of the altar, regardless of the
deadly chill from the wet brick floor, were engaged in prayer, while the
priest, arrayed in pontifical vestments, brought out a golden chalice
set with gems; doubtless one of the sacred vessels saved from the
pillage of the Abbaye de Chelles. Beside a ciborium, the gift of royal
munificence, the wine and water for the holy sacrifice of the mass stood
ready in two glasses such as could scarcely be found in the meanest
tavern. For want of a missal, the priest had laid his breviary on the
altar, and a common earthenware plate was set for the washing of hands
that were pure and undefiled with blood. It was all so infinitely great,
yet so little, poverty-stricken yet noble, a mingling of sacred and
profane.

The stranger came forward reverently to kneel between the two nuns. But
the priest had tied crape round the chalice of the crucifix, having no
other way of marking the mass as a funeral service; it was as if God
himself had been in mourning. The man suddenly noticed this, and the
sight appeared to call up some overwhelming memory, for great drops of
sweat stood out on his broad forehead.

Then the four silent actors in the scene looked mysteriously at one
another; and their souls in emulation seemed to stir and communicate the
thoughts within them until all were melted into one feeling of awe and
pity. It seemed to them that the royal martyr whose remains had been
consumed with quicklime, had been called up by their yearning and now
stood, a shadow in their midst, in all the majesty of a king. They
were celebrating an anniversary service for the dead whose body lay
elsewhere. Under the disjointed laths and tiles, four Christians were
holding a funeral service without a coffin, and putting up prayers to
God for the soul of a King of France. No devotion could be purer than
this. It was a wonderful act of faith achieved without an afterthought.
Surely in the sight of God it was like the cup of cold water which
counterbalances the loftiest virtues. The prayers put up by two feeble
nuns and a priest represented the whole Monarchy, and possibly at the
same time, the Revolution found expression in the stranger, for the
remorse in his face was so great that it was impossible not to think
that he was fulfilling the vows of a boundless repentance.

When the priest came to the Latin words, _Introibo ad altare Dei_,
a sudden divine inspiration flashed upon him; he looked at the three
kneeling figures, the representatives of Christian France, and said
instead, as though to blot out the poverty of the garret, "We are about
to enter the Sanctuary of God!"

These words, uttered with thrilling earnestness, struck reverent awe
into the nuns and the stranger. Under the vaulted roof of St. Peter's at
Rome, God would not have revealed Himself in greater majesty than here
for the eyes of the Christians in that poor refuge; so true is it that
all intermediaries between God and the soul of man are superfluous, and
all the grandeur of God proceeds from Himself alone.

The stranger's fervor was sincere. One emotion blended the prayers of
the four servants of God and the King in a single supplication. The holy
words rang like the music of heaven through the silence. At one moment,
tears gathered in the stranger's eyes. This was during the _Pater
Noster_; for the priest added a petition in Latin, and his audience
doubtless understood him when he said: "_Et remitte scelus regicidis
sicut Ludovicus eis remisit semetipse_"--forgive the regicides as Louis
himself forgave them.

The Sisters saw two great tears trace a channel down the stranger's
manly checks and fall to the floor. Then the office for the dead was
recited; the Domine salvum fac regem chanted in an undertone that
went to the hearts of the faithful Royalists, for they thought how the
child-King for whom they were praying was even then a captive in the
hands of his enemies; and a shudder ran through the stranger, as he
thought that a new crime might be committed, and that he could not
choose but take his part in it.

The service came to an end. The priest made a sign to the sisters, and
they withdrew. As soon as he was left alone with the stranger, he went
towards him with a grave, gentle face, and said in fatherly tones:

"My son, if your hands are stained with the blood of the royal martyr,
confide in me. There is no sin that may not be blotted out in the sight
of God by penitence as sincere and touching as yours appears to be."

At the first words the man started with terror, in spite of himself.
Then he recovered composure, and looked quietly at the astonished
priest.

"Father," he said, and the other could not miss the tremor in his voice,
"no one is more guiltless than I of the blood shed----"

"I am bound to believe you," said the priest. He paused a moment, and
again he scrutinized his penitent. But, persisting in the idea that
the man before him was one of the members of the Convention, one of the
voters who betrayed an inviolable and anointed head to save their own,
he began again gravely:

"Remember, my son, that it is not enough to have taken no active part in
the great crime; that fact does not absolve you. The men who might have
defended the King and left their swords in their scabbards, will have a
very heavy account to render to the King of Heaven--Ah! yes," he added,
with an eloquent shake of the head, "heavy indeed!--for by doing nothing
they became accomplices in the awful wickedness----"

"But do you think that an indirect participation will be punished?" the
stranger asked with a bewildered look. "There is the private soldier
commanded to fall into line--is he actually responsible?"

The priest hesitated. The stranger was glad; he had put the Royalist
precisian in a dilemma, between the dogma of passive obedience on the
one hand (for the upholders of the Monarchy maintained that obedience
was the first principle of military law), and the equally important
dogma which turns respect for the person of a King into a matter of
religion. In the priest's indecision he was eager to see a favorable
solution of the doubts which seemed to torment him. To prevent too
prolonged reflection on the part of the reverend Jansenist, he added:

"I should blush to offer remuneration of any kind for the funeral
service which you have just performed for the repose of the King's soul
and the relief of my conscience. The only possible return for something
of inestimable value is an offering likewise beyond price. Will you
deign, monsieur, to take my gift of a holy relic? A day will perhaps
come when you will understand its value."

As he spoke the stranger held out a box; it was very small and
exceedingly light. The priest took it mechanically, as it were, so
astonished was he by the man's solemn words, the tones of his voice, and
the reverence with which he held out the gift.

The two men went back together into the first room. The Sisters were
waiting for them.

"This house that you are living in belongs to Mucius Scaevola, the
plasterer on the first floor," he said. "He is well known in the Section
for his patriotism, but in reality he is an adherent of the Bourbons.
He used to be a huntsman in the service of his Highness the Prince de
Conti, and he owes everything to him. So long as you stay in the house,
you are safer here than anywhere else in France. Do not go out. Pious
souls will minister to your necessities, and you can wait in safety for
better times. Next year, on the 21st of January,"--he could not hide an
involuntary shudder as he spoke,--"next year, if you are still in this
dreary refuge, I will come back again to celebrate the expiatory mass
with you----"

He broke off, bowed to the three, who answered not a word, gave a last
look at the garret with its signs of poverty, and vanished.

Such an adventure possessed all the interest of a romance in the lives
of the innocent nuns. So, as soon as the venerable abbe told them the
story of the mysterious gift, it was placed upon the table, and by the
feeble light of the tallow dip an indescribable curiosity appeared in
the three anxious faces. Mademoiselle de Langeais opened the box, and
found a very fine lawn handkerchief, soiled with sweat; darker stains
appeared as they unfolded it.

"That is blood!" exclaimed the priest.

"It is marked with a royal crown!" cried Sister Agathe.

The women, aghast, allowed the precious relic to fall. For their simple
souls the mystery that hung about the stranger grew inexplicable; as for
the priest, from that day forth he did not even try to understand it.



Before very long the prisoners knew that, in spite of the Terror,
some powerful hand was extended over them. It began when they received
firewood and provisions; and next the Sisters knew that a woman had lent
counsel to their protector, for linen was sent to them, and clothes
in which they could leave the house without causing remark upon the
aristocrat's dress that they had been forced to wear. After awhile
Mucius Scaevola gave them two civic cards; and often tidings necessary
for the priest's safety came to them in roundabout ways. Warnings and
advice reached them so opportunely that they could only have been sent
by some person in the possession of state secrets. And, at a time when
famine threatened Paris, invisible hands brought rations of "white
bread" for the proscribed women in the wretched garret. Still they
fancied that Citizen Mucius Scaevola was only the mysterious instrument
of a kindness always ingenious, and no less intelligent.

The noble ladies in the garret could no longer doubt that their
protector was the stranger of the expiatory mass on the night of the
22nd of January, 1793; and a kind of cult of him sprung up among them.
Their one hope was in him; they lived through him. They added special
petitions for him to their prayers; night and morning the pious souls
prayed for his happiness, his prosperity, his safety; entreating God to
remove all snares far from his path, to deliver him from his enemies,
to grant him a long and peaceful life. And with this daily renewed
gratitude, as it may be called, there blended a feeling of curiosity
which grew more lively day by day. They talked over the circumstances
of his first sudden appearance, their conjectures were endless; the
stranger had conferred one more benefit upon them by diverting their
minds. Again, and again, they said, when he next came to see them as he
promised, to celebrate the sad anniversary of the death of Louis XVI.,
he could not escape their friendship.

The night so impatiently awaited came at last. At midnight the old
wooden staircase echoed with the stranger's heavy footsteps. They had
made the best of their room for his coming; the altar was ready, and
this time the door stood open, and the two Sisters were out at the
stairhead, eager to light the way. Mademoiselle de Langeais even came
down a few steps, to meet their benefactor the sooner.

"Come," she said, with a quaver in the affectionate tones, "come in; we
are expecting you."

He raised his face, gave her a dark look, and made no answer. The sister
felt as if an icy mantle had fallen over her, and said no more. At the
sight of him, the glow of gratitude and curiosity died away in their
hearts. Perhaps he was not so cold, not so taciturn, not so stern as he
seemed to them, for in their highly wrought mood they were ready to pour
out their feeling of friendship. But the three poor prisoners understood
that he wished to be a stranger to them; and submitted. The priest
fancied that he saw a smile on the man's lips as he saw their
preparations for his visit, but it was at once repressed. He heard mass,
said his prayer, and then disappeared, declining, with a few polite
words, Mademoiselle de Langeais' invitation to partake of the little
collation made ready for him.

After the 9th Thermidor, the Sisters and the Abbe de Marolles could go
about Paris without the least danger. The first time that the abbe went
out he walked to a perfumer's shop at the sign of _The Queen of Roses_,
kept by the Citizen Ragon and his wife, court perfumers. The Ragons
had been faithful adherents of the Royalist cause; it was through their
means that the Vendean leaders kept up a correspondence with the Princes
and the Royalist Committee in Paris. The abbe, in the ordinary dress of
the time, was standing on the threshold of the shop--which stood between
Saint Roch and the Rue des Frondeurs--when he saw that the Rue Saint
Honore was filled with a crowd and he could not go out.

"What is the matter?" he asked Madame Ragon.

"Nothing," she said; "it is only the tumbril cart and the executioner
going to the Place Louis XV. Ah! we used to see it often enough last
year; but to-day, four days after the anniversary of the twenty-first of
January, one does not feel sorry to see the ghastly procession."

"Why not?" asked the abbe. "That is not said like a Christian."

"Eh! but it is the execution of Robespierre's accomplices. They defended
themselves as long as they could, but now it is their turn to go where
they sent so many innocent people."

The crowd poured by like a flood. The abbe, yielding to an impulse of
curiosity, looked up above the heads, and there in the tumbril stood the
man who had heard mass in the garret three days ago.

"Who is it?" he asked; "who is the man with----"

"That is the headsman," answered M. Ragon, calling the executioner--the
_executeur des hautes oeuvres_--by the name he had borne under the
Monarchy.

"Oh! my dear, my dear! M. l'Abbe is dying!" cried out old Madame Ragon.
She caught up a flask of vinegar, and tried to restore the old priest to
consciousness.

"He must have given me the handkerchief that the King used to wipe his
brow on the way to his martyrdom," murmured he. "... Poor man!... There
was a heart in the steel blade, when none was found in all France..."

The perfumers thought that the poor abbe was raving.

PARIS, January 183l.




ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

     Beauseant, Marquis and Comte de
       Father Goriot

     Ragon, M. and Mme.
       Cesar Birotteau






End of Project Gutenberg's An Episode Under the Terror, by Honore de Balzac

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