A Marriage Under the Terror

A Marriage
Under the Terror

By
Patricia Wentworth

G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
Knickerbocker Press
1910

Published, April, 1910
Reprinted, May, 1910

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

To A Marriage Under the Terror has been awarded in England the first prize in the Melrose Novel Competition, a competition that was not restricted to first stories. The distinguished literary reputation of the three judges—Mrs. Flora Annie Steel, Miss Mary Cholmondeley, and Mrs. Henry de la Pasture—was a guaranty alike to the contestants and to the public that the story selected as the winner would without question be fully entitled to that distinction. In consequence, many authors of experience entered the contest, with the result that the number of manuscripts submitted was greater than that in the competition previously conducted by Mr. Melrose.

Among such a number of good stories individual taste must always play an important part in the decision. It is, therefore, no small tribute to the transcendent interest of the winning novel that, though the judges worked independently, each selected A Marriage Under the Terror as the most distinctive novel in the group.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

[A Purloined Cipher]
[A Forced Entrance]
[Shut out by a Prison Wall]
[The Terror Let Loose]
[A Carnival of Blood]
[A Doubtful Safety]
[The Inner Conflict]
[An Offer of Friendship]
[The Old Ideal and the New]
[The Fate of a King]
[The Irrevocable Vote]
[Separation]
[Disturbing Insinuations]
[A Dangerous Acquaintance]
[Sans Souci]
[An Unwelcome Visitor]
[Distressing News]
[A Trial and a Wedding]
[The Barrier]
[A Royalist Plot]
[A New Environment]
[At Home and Afield]
[Return of Two Fugitives]
[Burning of the Château]
[Escape of Two Madcaps]
[A Dying Woman]
[Betrayal]
[Inmates of the Prison]
[Through Darkness to Light]

A MARRIAGE UNDER THE TERROR

CHAPTER I

A PURLOINED CIPHER

It was high noon on a mid-August morning of the year 1792, but Jeanne, the waiting-maid, had only just set the coffee down on the small table within the ruelle of Mme de Montargis' magnificent bed. Great ladies did not trouble themselves to rise too early in those days, and a beauty who has been a beauty for twenty years was not more anxious then than now to face the unflattering freshness of the morning air. Laure de Montargis stirred in the shadow of her brocaded curtains, put out a white hand for the cup, sipped from it, murmured that the coffee was cold, and pushed it from her with a fretful exclamation that made Jeanne frown as she drew the tan-coloured curtains and let in the mid-day glare. Madame had been up late, Madame had lost at faro, and her servants would have to put up with Heaven alone knew how many megrims in consequence.

"Madame suffers?" inquired Jeanne obsequiously, but with pursed lips.

The lady closed her eyes. Laying her head back against the delicately embroidered pillows, she indicated by a gesture that her sufferings might be taken for granted.

"Madame has the migraine?" suggested the soft, rather false-sounding voice. "Madame will not receive?"

"Heavens! girl, how you pester me," said the Marquise sharply.

Then, falling again to a languid tone, "Is there any one there?"

Jeanne smiled with malicious, averted face as she poured rose-water from a silver ewer into a Sévres bowl, and watched it rise, dimpling, to the flower-wreathed brim.

"There is M. le Vicomte as usual, Madame, and Mme la Comtesse de Maillé, who, learning that Madame was but now awakened, told me that she would wait whilst I inquired if Madame would see her."

"Good Heavens! what an hour to come," said the lady, with a peevish air.

"Madame la Comtesse seemed much moved. One would say something had occurred," said Jeanne.

The Marquise raised her head sharply.

"—And you stand chattering there? Just Heaven! The trial that it is to have an imbecile about one! The glass quickly, and the rouge, and the lace for my head. No, not that rouge,—the new sort that Isidore brought yesterday;—arrange these two curls,—now a little powder. Fool! what powder is this?"

"Madame's own," submitted Jeanne meekly.

The suffering lady raised herself and dealt the girl a sounding box on the ear.

"Idiot! did I not tell you I had tired of the perfume, and that in future the white lilac powder was the only one I would use? Did I not tell you?"

"Yes, Madame"—but there was a spark beneath the waiting-maid's discreetly dropped lids.

The Marquise de Montargis sat bolt upright, and contemplated her reflection in the wide silver mirror which Jeanne was steadying. Her passion had brought a little flush to her cheeks, and she noted approvingly that the colour became her.

"Put the rouge just here, and here, Jeanne," she ordered, her anger subsiding;—then, with a fresh outburst—"Imbécile, not so much! One does not have the complexion of a milkmaid when one is in bed with the migraine; just a shade here now, a nuance. That will do; go and bring them in."

She drew a rose-coloured satin wrap about her, and posed her head, in its cloud of delicate lace, carefully. Her bed was as gorgeous as it well might be. Long curtains of rosy brocade fell about it, and a coverlid of finest needlework, embroidered with bunches of red and white roses on a white satin ground, was thrown across it. The carved pillars showed cupids pelting one another with flowers plucked from the garlands that wreathed their naked chubbiness.

Madame de Montargis herself had been a beauty for twenty years, but a life of light pleasures, and a heart incapable of experiencing more than a momentary emotion had combined to leave her face as unlined and almost as lovely as when Paris first proclaimed her its reigning queen of beauty.

She was eminently satisfied with her own looks as she turned languidly on her soft pillows to greet her friends.

Mme de Maillé bent and embraced her; M. le Vicomte Sélincourt stooped and kissed her gracefully extended hand. Jeanne brought seats, and after a few polite inquiries Mme de Maillé plunged into her news.

"Ma chère amie!" she exclaimed, "I come to tell you the good news. My daughter and her husband have reached England in safety." Tears filled her soft blue eyes, and she raised them to the ceiling with a gesture that would have been affected had her emotion been less evidently sincere.

"Ah! chère Comtesse, a thousand felicitations!"

"My dear, I have been on thorns, I have not slept, I have not eaten, I have wept rivers, I have said more prayers in a month than my confessor has ever before induced me to say in a year. First I thought they would be stopped at the barriers, and then—then I pictured to myself a hundred misfortunes, a thousand inconveniences! I saw my Adèle ill, fainting from the fatigues of the road; I imagined assaults of brigands, shipwrecks, storms,—in short, everything of the most unfortunate,—ah! my dear friends, you do not know what a mother suffers,—and now I have the happiness of receiving a letter from my dearest Adèle,—she is well; she is contented. They have been received with the greatest amiability, and, my friends, I am too happy."

"And your happiness is that of your friends," bowed the Vicomte.

Mme de Montargis' congratulations were polite, if a trifle perfunctory. The convenances demanded that one should simulate an interest in the affairs of one's acquaintances, but in reality, and at this hour of the day, how they did bore one! And Marie de Maillé, with her soft airs, and that insufferable Adèle of hers, whom she had always spoilt so abominably. It was a little too much! One had affairs of one's own. With the fretful expression of half an hour before she drew a letter from beneath her pillow.

"I too have news to impart," she said, with rather a pinched smile. "News that concerns you very closely, M. le Vicomte," and she fixed her eyes on Sélincourt.

"That concerns me?"

"But yes, Monsieur, since what concerns Mademoiselle your betrothed must concern you, and closely, as I said."

"Mademoiselle my betrothed, Mlle de Rochambeau!" he cried quickly. "Is she then ill?"

Mme de Montargis smiled maliciously.

"Hark to the anxious lover! But calm yourself, my friend, she is certainly not ill, or she would not now be on her way to Paris."

"To Paris?"

"That, Monsieur, is, I believe, her destination."

"What? She is coming to Paris now?" inquired Mme de Maillé with concern.

The Marquise shrugged her shoulders.

"It is very inconvenient, but what would you?" she said lightly; "as you know, dear friend, she was betrothed to M. le Vicomte when she was a child. Then my good cousin, the Comte de Rochambeau, takes it into his virtuous head that this world, even in his rural retreat, is no longer good enough for him, and follows Madame, his equally virtuous wife, to Paradise, where they are no doubt extremely happy. Until yesterday I pictured Mademoiselle almost as saintly and contented with the holy Sisters of the Grace Dieu Convent, who have looked after her for the last ten years or so. Then comes this letter; it seems there have been riots, a château burned, an intendant or two murdered, and the good nuns take advantage of the fact that the steward of Rochambeau and his wife are making a journey to Paris to confide Mademoiselle to their care, and mine. It seems," she concluded, with a little laugh, "that they think Paris is safe, these good nuns."

"Poor child, poor child!" exclaimed Mme de Maillé in a distressed voice; "can you not stop her, turn her back?"

The Marquise laughed again.

"Dear friend, she is probably arriving at this minute. The Sisters are women of energy."

"At least M. de Sélincourt is to be congratulated," said Mme de Maillé after a pause; "that is if Mademoiselle resembles her parents. I remember her mother very well,—how charming, how spirituelle, how amiable! I knew her for only too short a time, and yet, looking back, it seems to me that I never had a friend I valued more."

"My cousin De Rochambeau was crazy about her," reflected Mme de Montargis; "he might have married anybody, and he chose an Irish girl without a sou. It was the talk of Paris at the time. He was the handsomest man at Court."

"And Aileen Desmond the loveliest girl," put in Mme de Maillé thoughtlessly; then, observing her hostess's change of expression, she coloured, but continued—"They were not so badly matched, and," with a little sigh, "they were very happy. It was a real romance."

Mme de Montargis' eyes flashed. Twenty years ago beautiful Aileen Desmond had been her rival at Court. Now that for quite a dozen years gossip had coupled her name with that of the Vicomte de Sélincourt, was Aileen Desmond's daughter to take her mother's place in that bygone rivalry?

Mme de Maillé, catching her glance, wondered how it would fare with any defenceless girl who came between Laure de Montargis and her lover. She was still wondering whilst she made her farewells.

When M. le Vicomte had bowed her out he came moodily back to his place.

"It is very inconvenient, Madame," he said pettishly.

"You say so," returned the lady.

"Pardon, Madame, it was you who said so."

The Marquise laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh.

"Of course it was I," she cried. "Who else? It is hardly likely that M. le Vicomte finds a rich bride inconvenient."

Sélincourt's face changed a little, but he waved the words away.

"Mademoiselle is nothing to me," he asserted. "Chère amie, do you suspect, do you doubt the faithful heart which for years has beaten only for one beloved object?"

The lady pouted, but her eyes ceased to sparkle.

"And that object?" she inquired, with a practised glance.

"Angel of my life—need you ask?"

It was indeed unnecessary, since a very short acquaintance with this fervid lover was sufficient to assure any one that his devotion to himself was indeed his ruling and unalterable passion; perhaps the Marquise was aware of this, and was content to take the second, but not the third place, in his affections. She looked at him coquettishly.

"Ah," she said, "you mean it now, now perhaps, Monsieur, but when she comes, when you are married?"

"Eh, ma foi," and the Vicomte waved away his prospective marriage vows as lightly as if they were thistle-down, "one does not marry for love; the heart must be free, not bound,—and where will the free heart turn except to the magnet that has drawn it for so long?"

Madame extended a white, languid hand, and Monsieur kissed it with more elegance than fervour. As he was raising his head she whispered sharply:

"The new cipher, have you got it?"

He bent lower, and kissed the fair hand again, lingeringly.

"It is here, and I have drafted the letter we spoke of; it must go this week."

"The Queen is well?"

"Well, but impatient for news. There is an Austrian medicine that she longs for."

"Chut! Enough, one is never safe."

"Adieu, then, m'amie."

"Adieu, M. le Vicomte."

Monsieur took his leave with an exquisite bow, and all the forms that elegance prescribed, and Madame lay back against her pillows with closed eyes, and the frown which she never permitted to appear in society. Jeanne threw a sharp glance at her as she returned from closing the door upon Sélincourt. Her ears had made her aware of whispering, and now her eyes showed her a small crumpled scrap of paper, just inside the ruelle of Madame's bed. A love-letter? Perhaps, or perhaps not. In any case the correspondence of the mistress is the perquisite of the maid, and as Jeanne came softly to the bedside she covered the little twisted note with a dexterous foot, and, bending to adjust the rose-embroidered coverlid, secured and hid her prize. In a moment she had passed behind the heavy curtains and was scanning it with a practised eye—an eye that saw more than the innocent-seeming figures with which the white paper was dotted. Jeanne had seen ciphers before, and a glance sufficed to show her the nature of this one, for at the foot of the draft was a row of signs and figures, mysterious no longer in the light of the key that stood beneath them. Apparently Jeanne knew something about secret correspondence too, for there in the shadow behind the curtain she nodded and smiled, and once even shook her fist towards the unconscious Marquise. Next moment she was again in evidence, and but for that paper tucked away inside her bodice she would have found her morning a hard one. Madame wished this, Madame wished that; Madame would have her forehead bathed, her feet rubbed, a thousand whims complied with and a thousand fancies gratified. Soft-voiced and deft, Jeanne moved incessantly to and fro on those small, neatly-shod feet, which she sometimes compared not uncomplacently with those of her mistress, until, at last, at the latter end of all conceivable fancies there came one for repose,—the rosy curtains were drawn, and Jeanne was free.

Half an hour later a deftly-cloaked figure stood before a table at which a dark-faced man wrote busily—a paper was handed over, a password asked and given.

"Is it enough now?" asked Jeanne the waiting-maid. And the dark-faced man answered, without looking up, "It is enough—the cup is full."

CHAPTER II

A FORCED ENTRANCE

Mademoiselle de Rochambeau had been a week in Paris, but as yet she had tasted none of its gaieties—for gaieties there were still, even in these clouding days when the wind of destiny blew up the storm of the Terror. The King and Queen were prisoners in the Temple, many of the noblesse had emigrated, but what remained of the Court circles still met and talked, laughed, gamed, and flirted, as if there were no deluge to come. To-day Mme de Montargis received, and Mlle de Rochambeau, dressed by a Parisian milliner for the first time, was to be presented to her cousin's friends.

She had not even seen her betrothed as yet,—that dim figure which she had contemplated for so many years of cloistered monotony, until it had become the model upon which her dreams and hopes were hung. Now that the opening of the door might at any moment reveal him in the flesh, the dreams wore suddenly thin, and she was conscious of an overpowering suspense. She hoped for so much, and all at once she was afraid. Husbands, to be sure, were not romantic, not the least in the world, and, according to the nuns, it would be the height of impropriety to wish that they should be. One married because it was the convenable thing to do, but to fall in love,—fi donc, Mademoiselle, the idea! Aline laughed, for she remembered Sister Séraphine's face, all soft and shocked and wrinkled, and then in a minute she was grave again. Dreams may be forbidden, but when one is nineteen they have a way of recurring, and it is certain that Mlle de Rochambeau's heart beat faster than Sister Séraphine would have approved, as she stood by Mme de Montargis' gilded chair and heard the servant announce "M. le Vicomte de Sélincourt."

He kissed Madame's hand; and then hers. A sensation that was almost terror caught the colour from her face. Was this little, dark, bowing fop the dream hero? His eyes were like a squirrel's—black, restless, shallow—and his mouth displeased her. Something about its puckered outline made her recoil from the touch of it upon her hand, and the Marquise, glancing at her, saw all the young face pale and distressed. She smiled maliciously, and reflected on the folly of youth and the kind connivance of Fate.

Sélincourt, for his part, was well enough satisfied. Mademoiselle was too tall for his taste, it was true; her beautifully shaped shoulders and bust too thin; but of those dark grey Irish eyes there could be no two opinions, and his quick glance approved her on the whole. She would play her part as Mme la Vicomtesse very creditably when a little modish polish had softened her convent stateliness, and for the rest he had no notion of being in love with his bride. It was long, in fact, since his small, jaded heart had beaten the faster for any woman, and his eyes left her face with a genuine indifference which did not escape either woman.

"Mademoiselle, I felicitate Paris, and myself," he said, with a formal bow. Mademoiselle made him a stately reverence, and the long-dreamed-of meeting was over.

He turned at once to her cousin.

"You have written to our friend, Madame?"

"I wrote immediately, M. le Vicomte."

He lowered his voice.

"The paper with the cipher on it, did I give you my copy as well as your own?"

"But no, mon ami. Why, have you not got it?"

Sélincourt raised his shoulders.

"Certainly not, since I ask if you have it," he returned.

Madame's delicate chin lifted a little.

"And when did you find this out?" she asked.

"I had no occasion to use the code until yesterday, and then..." the lift of his shoulders merged into a decided shrug.

The Marquise turned away with a slight frown. It was annoying, but then the Vicomte was always careless, and no doubt the paper would be found; it must be somewhere, and her guests were assembling.

Of such stuff were the conspirators of those days,—triflers, fops, and flirts; men who mislaid the papers which meant life and death to them and to a hundred more; women who chattered secrets in the hearing of their lackeys and serving-maids, unable to realise that these were listeners more dangerous than the chairs and tables of their gaily furnished salons. What wonder that of all the aristocratic plots and counterplots of the Revolution there was not one but perished immature? Powdered nobles and painted dames, they played at conspiracy as they played at love and hate, played with gilded counters instead of sterling gold, and in the end they paid the reckoning in blood.

Meanwhile Madame received.

The gay, softly lighted salon filled apace. Day was still warm outside, but the curtains were drawn, and clusters of wax candles, set in glittering chandeliers, threw their becoming light upon the bare shoulders of the ladies and lent the rouge a more natural air.

Play was the order of the day, the one real passion which held that world. Life and death were trifles, birth and marriage a jest, love and hate the flicker of shadow and sunshine over shallow waters; but the gambler could still feel joy of gain or rage of loss, and the faro table demanded an earnestness which religion was powerless to evoke. Mlle de Rochambeau stood behind her cousin's chair. The scene fascinated, interested, excited her. The swiftly passing cards, the heaps of gold, the flushed faces, the half-checked ejaculations, all drew and enchained her attention; for this was the great world, and these her future friends.

At first the game itself was a mystery, but by degrees her quick wits grasped the principle, and she watched with a breathless interest. Madame de Montargis won and won. As the rouleaux of gold grew beside her, she slid them into an embroidered bag, where her monogram shone in pearls and silver and was wreathed by clustering forget-me-nots.

Now she was not in such good luck. She knit her brows, set her teeth into the full lower lip, pouted ominously,—and cheated. Quite distinctly Mademoiselle saw her change a card, and play on smilingly, as the change brought fickle fortune to her side once more. Aline de Rochambeau's hand went up to her throat with a nervous gesture. She wore around it a single string of pearls—milk-white, and of great value. In her surprise and agitation she caught sharply at the necklet, and in a moment the thread snapped, and the pearls rolled here and there over the polished floor. Aileen Desmond had worn them last, a dozen years before, and the silken string had had time to rot since then.

The players took no notice, but Mademoiselle de Rochambeau gave a soft little cry and went down on her knees to pick up her pearls. The greater number were to her hand, but a few had rolled away to the corner of the room. Mademoiselle put what she had picked up into her muslin handkerchief, and slipped it into her bosom. Then she went timidly forward, casting her looks here, there, and everywhere in search of the three pearls which she still missed. She found one under the fold of a heavy curtain, and as she bent to pick it up she heard voices in the alcove it screened, and caught her own name.

"The little Rochambeau"—just like that.

It was a woman's voice, very clear, and a little shrill, and then a man said:

"She is not bad—she has eyes, and a fine shape, and a delicate skin. Laure de Montargis will be green with jealousy."

The woman laughed, a high, tinkling laugh, like the trill of a guitar.

"The faithful Sélincourt will be straining at his leash," pursued the same voice. "It is time he ranged himself; and, after all, he has given her twelve years."

Another ripple of laughter.

"What a gift! Heaven protect me from the like. He is tedious enough for an hour, and twelve years!—that poor Laure!"

"Chère Duchesse, she has permitted herself distractions." Here the voice dropped, but Aline caught names and shuddered. She rose, bewildered and confused, and as she crossed the room and took her station near Madame again, her eyes looked very dark amidst the pallour of her face. The hand that knotted the fine handkerchief over the last of her pearls shook more than a little, and at a sudden glance of Sélincourt's she looked down, trembling in every limb. M. de Sélincourt, her betrothed, and Laure de Montargis, her cousin,—lovers. But Laure was married. M. de Montargis was with the Princes,—his wife had spoken of him only that day. Oh, kind saints, what wickedness was this?

Aline's brain was in a whirl, but through her shocked bewilderment emerged a very definite horror of the sallow-faced, shifty-eyed gentleman whom she had been taught to regard as her future husband. She shuddered when she remembered that he had kissed her hand, and furtively she rubbed the place, as if to efface a stain. If she had been less taken up with her own thoughts, she would have noticed that whereas the room appeared to have grown curiously quiet, there was a strange sound of trampling, and a confused buzz of speech outside. Suddenly, however, the door was burst open, and a frightened lackey ran in, followed by another and another.

"Madame—a Commissioner—and a Guard—oh, Madame!" stammered one and another.

Mme de Montargis raised her arched eyebrows and stared at the foremost man in displeased silence. He fell back muttering incoherently, and she turned her attention to the game once more. But her guests hesitated, and ceased to play, for behind the lackey came a little procession of three, and with it some of the desperate reality of life seemed to enter that salon of the artificial. A Commissioner of the Commune walked first, with broad tri-coloured sash above an attire sufficiently rough and disordered to bear witness to his ardent patriotism. His lank black hair hung unpowdered to his shoulders, and his fat, sallow face wore an expression of mingled dislike and complacency. He was followed by two blue-coated National Guards, who looked curiously about them and smelled horribly of garlic.

Madame's gaze dwelt on them with a surprised resentment that did not at all distinguish between the officer and his subordinates.

"Messieurs, this intrusion—" she began, and on the instant the Commissioner was by her side.

"Ci-devant Marquise de Montargis, you are my prisoner," and rough as his voice came his hand upon her shoulder. With a fashionable oath Sélincourt drew his sword, and a woman screamed.

("It was the La Rivière," said Mme de Montargis afterwards. "I always knew she had no breeding.")

M. le Commissionaire had a fine dramatic sense. He experienced a most pleasing conviction of being in his element as he signed to the nearest of his underlings, and the man, without a word, drew back the heavy crimson curtains which screened the window towards the street.

The afternoon sun poured in, turning the candle-light to a cheap tawdry yellow, and with it came a sound which I suppose no one has yet heard unmoved—the voice of an angry crowd. Oaths flew, foul words rose, and above the din sounded a shrill scream of—"The Austrian spy, bring out the Austrian spy!" and with a roar the crowd took up the word, "To the lantern, to the lantern, to the lantern!"

There was no uncertainty about that voice, and at that, and the Commissioner's meaning gesture, Sélincourt's sword-arm dropped to his side again. If Madame turned pale her rouge hid it, and her manner continued calm to the verge of indifference. When the shouting outside had died down a little she turned politely to the man beside her.

"Monsieur, your hand incommodes me; if you would have the kindness to remove it"; and under her eye, and the faint, stinging sarcasm which flavoured its glance, he coloured heavily and withdrew a pace. Then he produced a paper, drawing from its rustling folds fresh confidence and a return to his official bearing.

"The ci-devant Vicomte de Sélincourt," he said in loud, harsh tones; and, as Sélincourt made a movement, "You, too, are arrested."

"But this is an outrage," stammered the Vicomte, "an outrage, fellow, for which you shall suffer. On what charge—by what authority?"

The man shrugged fat shoulders across which lay the tri-colour scarf.

"Charge of treasonable correspondence with Austria," he said shortly; "and as to authority, I am the Commune's delegate. But, ma foi, Citizen, there is authority for you if you don't like mine," and, with a gesture which he admired a good deal, he waved an arm towards the street, where the clamour raged unchecked. As he spoke a stone came flying through the glass, and a sharp splinter struck Sélincourt upon the cheek, drawing blood, and an oath.

"You had best come with me before those outside break in to ask why we delay," said the delegate meaningly.

Madame de Montargis surveyed her guests. She was too well-bred to smile at their dismay, but something of amusement, and something of scorn, lurked in her hazel eyes. Then, with her usual slow grace, she took Sélincourt's arm, and walked towards the door, smiling, nodding, curtsying, speaking here a few words and there a mere farewell, whilst the Commissioner followed awkwardly, spitting now and then to relieve his embarrassment, and decidedly of the opinion that these aristocrats built rooms far too long.

"Chère Adèle, 't is au revoir."

"Marquise, I cannot express my regrets."

"Nay, Duchesse, mine is the discourtesy, though a most unintentional one. I must rely upon the kindness of my friends to forgive it me."

Aline de Rochambeau walked after her cousin, but participated in none of the farewells. She felt cold and very bewildered; her only instinct to keep close to the one protector she knew. To stay behind never occurred to her. In the vestibule Madame de Montargis paused.

"Dupont!" she called sharply, and the stout major-domo of the establishment emerged from a group of frightened servants.

"Madame—" Dupont's knees were shaking, but he contrived a presentable bow.

Madame's eyes had lost their smile, but the scorn remained. She spoke aloud.

"Discharge those three fools who ran in just now, and see that in future I have lackeys who know their place," and with that she walked on again. All the way down the grand staircase the noise of the mob pursued them. In the vestibule more of the Guard waited with an officer, and yet another Commissioner. The three men in authority conferred for a moment, and then the Commissioners hurried their prisoners to a side door where a fiacre stood waiting. They passed out, and behind them the door was shut and locked. Then, for the first time, Madame seemed to be aware of her cousin's presence.

"Aline—little fool!—go back—but on the instant—"

"Ma cousine——"

"Go back, I say. Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle, what folly!"

The girl put her hand on the door, tried it, and said, in a low, shaking voice:

"But it is locked——"

"Decidedly, since those were my orders," growled the second Commissioner. "What's all this to-do? Who 's this, Renard? Send her back."

"But I ask you how?" demanded Renard, "since the door is locked inside, and—Heavens, man, they are coming this way!"

Lenoir uttered an imprecation.

"Here, get in, get in!" he shouted, pushing the girl as he spoke. "It is the less matter since the house and all effects are to be sealed up. Get in, I say, or the mob will be down on us!"

Madame gave him a furious glance, and took her seat beside her trembling cousin. Sélincourt and Renard followed. Lenoir swung himself to the box-seat, and the fiacre drove off noisily, the sound of its wheels on the rough cobble-stones drowning by degrees the lessening outcries of the furious crowd behind.

CHAPTER III

SHUT OUT BY A PRISON WALL

The fiacre drew up at the gate of La Force. M. le Vicomte de Sélincourt got down, bowed politely, and assisted Madame de Montargis to alight. He then gave his hand to her cousin, and the little party entered the prison. Mme la Marquise walked delicately, with an exaggeration of that graceful, mincing step which was considered so elegant by her admirers. She fanned herself, and raised a scented pomander ball to her nostrils.

"Fi donc! What an air!" she observed with petulant disgust.

Renard of the dramatic soul shrugged his shoulders. It was vexing not to be ready with a biting repartee, but he was consoled by the conviction that a gesture from him was worth more than many words from some lesser soul. His colleague Lenoir—a rough, coarse-faced hulk—scowled fiercely, and growled out:

"Eh, Mme l'Aristocrate, it has been a good enough air for many a poor devil of a patriot, as the citizen gaoler here can tell you, and turn and turn about's fair play." And with that he spat contemptuously in Madame's path, and scowled again as she lifted her dainty petticoats a trifle higher but crossed the inner threshold without so much as a glance in his direction.

Bault, the head gaoler of La Force, motioned the prisoners into a dull room, used at this time as an office, but devoted at a later date to a more sinister purpose, for it was here in days to come—days whose shadow already rested palpably upon the thick air—that the hair of the condemned was cut, and their arms pinioned for the last fatal journey which ended in the embraces of Mme Guillotine.

Bault opened the great register with a clap of the leaves that betokened impatience. He was a nervous man, and the times frightened him; he slept ill at nights, and was irritable enough by day.

"Your names?" he demanded abruptly.

Mme de Montargis drew herself up and raised her arched eyebrows, slightly, but quite perceptibly.

"I am the Marquise de Montargis, my good fellow," she observed, with something of indulgence in her tone.

"First name, or names?" pursued Citizen Bault, unmoved.

"Laure Marie Josèphe."

"And you?" turning without ceremony to the Vicomte.

"Jean Christophe de Sélincourt, at your service, Monsieur. Quelle comédie!" he added, turning to Mme de Montargis, who permitted a slight, insolent smile to lift her vermilion upper lip. Meanwhile the Commissioners were handing over their papers.

"Quite correct, Citizens." Then, with a glance around, "But what of this demoiselle? There is no mention of her that I can see."

Lenoir laughed and swore.

"Eh," he said, "she was all for coming, and I dare say a whiff of the prison air, which the old Citoyenne found so trying, will do her no harm."

Bault shook a doubtful head, and Renard threw himself with zeal into the role of patriot, animated at once by devotion to the principles of liberty, and loyalty to law and order.

"No, no, Lenoir; no, no, my friend. Everything must be done in order. The Citoyenne sees now what comes of treason and plots. Let her be warned in time, or she will be coming back for good. For this time there is no accusation against her."

He spoke loudly, hand in vest, and felt himself every inch a Roman; but his magniloquence was entirely lost on Mademoiselle, for, with a cry of dismay, she caught her cousin's hand.

"Oh, Messieurs, let me stop! Madame is my guardian, my place is with her!"

Mme de Montargis looked surprised, but she interrupted the girl with energy.

"Silence then, Aline! What should a young girl do in La Force? Fi donc, Mademoiselle!"—as the soft, distressed murmur threatened to break out again,—"you will do as I tell you. Mme de Maillé will receive you; go straight to her at the Hotel de Maillé. Present my apologies for not writing to her, and—

"Sacrebleu!" thundered Lenoir furiously, "this is not Versailles, where a pack of wanton women may chatter themselves hoarse. Send the young one packing, Bault, and lock these people up. Are the Deputies of the Commune to stand here till nightfall listening to a pair of magpies? Silence, I say, and march! The old woman and the young one, both of you march, march!"

He laid a large dirty hand on Mlle de Rochambeau's shoulder as he spoke, and pushed her towards the door. As she passed through it she saw her cousin delicately accepting M. de Sélincourt's proffered arm, whilst her left hand, flashing with its array of rings, still held the sweet pomander to her face. Next moment she was in the street.

Her first thought was for the fiacre which had conveyed them to the prison, but to her despair it had disappeared, and there was no other vehicle in sight.

As she stood in hesitating bewilderment, she was aware of the sound of approaching wheels, and looking up she saw three carriages coming, one behind the other, at a brisk pace. There were three priests in the first, one of them so old that all the solicitous assistance of the two younger men was required to get him safely down the high step and through the gate. In the second were two ladies, whose faces seemed vaguely familiar. Was it a year or only an hour ago that they had laughed and jested at Mme de Montargis' brilliant gathering? They looked at her in the same half uncomprehending manner, and passed on. The last carriage bore the De Maillé crest, but a National Guard occupied the box-seat in place of the magnificent coachman Aline had seen the day before, when Mme de Maillé had taken her old friend's daughter for a drive through Paris.

The door of the chariot opened, and Mme De Maillé, pale, almost fainting, was helped out. She looked neither to right nor left, and when Aline started forward and would have spoken, the National Guard pushed her roughly back.

"Go home, go home!" he said, not unkindly; "if you are not arrested, thank the saints for it, for there are precious few aristocrats as lucky to-day"; and Aline shrank against the wall, dumb with perturbation and dismay.

As in a dream she listened to the clang of the prison gate, the roll of departing wheels, and it was only when the last echo died away that the mist which hung about her seemed to clear, and she realised that she was alone in the deserted street.

Alone! In all her nineteen years she had never been really alone before. As a child in her father's château, as a girl in her aristocratic convent, she had always been guarded, sheltered, guided, watched. She had certainly never walked a yard in the open street, or been touched by a man's hand, as the Commissioner Lenoir had touched her a few minutes since. She felt her shoulder burn through the thin muslin fichu that veiled it so discreetly, and the blood ran up, under her delicate skin, to the roots of the curling hair, where gold tints showed here and there through the lightly sprinkled powder.

It was still very hot, though so late in the afternoon, and the sun, though near its setting, shot out a level ray or two that seemed to make palpable the strong, brooding heat of the evening.

Aline felt dazed, and so faint that she was glad to support herself against the rough prison wall. When she could control her trembling thoughts a little, she began to wonder what she should do. She had only been a week in Paris, she knew no one except her cousin, the Vicomte, and Mme de Maillé, and they were in prison—they and many, many more. For the moment these frowning walls stood to her for home, or all that she possessed of home, and she was shut outside, in a dreadful world, full of unknown dangers, peopled perhaps with persons who would speak to her as Lenoir had done, touch her even,—and at that she flushed again, shuddered and looked wildly round.

A very fat woman was coming down the street,—the fattest woman Mlle de Rochambeau had ever seen, yes, fatter even than Sister Josèphe, she considered, with that mechanical detachment of thought which is so often the accompaniment of great mental distress.

She wore a striped petticoat and a gaily flowered gown, the sleeves of which were rolled up to display a pair of huge brown arms. She had a very broad, sallow face, and little pig's eyes sunk deep in rolls of crinkled flesh. Aline gazed at her, fascinated, and the woman returned the look. In truth, Mlle de Rochambeau, with her rose-wreathed hair, her delicate muslin dress, her fichu trimmed with the finest Valenciennes lace, her thin stockings and modish white silk shoes, was a sufficiently arresting figure, when one considered the hour and the place. The fat woman hesitated a moment, and in that moment Mademoiselle spoke.

"Madame——"

It was the most hesitating essay at speech, but the woman stopped and swung her immense body round until she faced the girl.

"Eh bien, Ma'mselle," she said in a thick, drawling voice.

Mademoiselle moistened her dry lips and tried again.

"Madame—I do not know—can you tell me,—oh! you look kind, can you tell me what to do?"

"What to do, Ma'mselle?"

"Oh yes, Madame, and—and where to go?"

"Where to go, Ma'mselle?"

"Yes, Madame."

"But why, Ma'mselle?"

When anything terrible happens to the very young, they are unable to realise that the whole world does not know of their misfortune. Thus to Mlle de Rochambeau it appeared inconceivable that this woman should be in ignorance of so important an event as the arrest of the Marquise de Montargis and her friends. It was only when, to a puzzled expression, the woman added a significant tap of the gnarled forefinger upon the heavy forehead, and, with a shrug of voluminous shoulders, prepared to pass on, that it dawned upon her that here perhaps was help, and that it was slipping away from her for want of a little explanation.

"Oh, Madame," she exclaimed desperately, "do listen to me. I am Mlle de Rochambeau, and it is only a week since I came to Paris to be with my cousin, the Marquise de Montargis, and now they have arrested her, and I have nowhere to go."

A sound of voices came from behind the great gate of the prison.

"Walk a little way with me," said the fat woman abruptly. "There will be more than you and me in this conversation if we loiter here like this. Continue, then, Ma'mselle—you have nowhere to go? But why not to your cousin's hotel then?"

"My cousin would have had me do so, but the Commissioners would not permit it. Everything must be sealed up they said, the servants all driven out, and no one to come and go until they had finished their search for treasonable papers. My cousin is accused of corresponding with Austria on behalf of the Queen," Mlle de Rochambeau remarked innocently, but something in her companion's change of expression convicted her of her imprudence, and she was silent, colouring deeply.

The fat woman frowned.

"Madame, your cousin, had a large society; her friends would protect you."

Aline shook her head.

"I don't know who they are, Madame. Mme de Maillé, to whom my cousin commended me, is also in prison, and others too,—many others, the driver of the carriage said. I have nowhere to go, nowhere to go, nowhere at all, Madame."

"Sainte Vierge!" exclaimed the fat woman. The ejaculation burst from her with great suddenness, and she then closed her lips very tightly and walked on for some moments in silence.

"Have you any money?" was her next contribution to the conversation, and Mademoiselle started and put her hand to her bosom. Until this moment she had forgotten it, but the embroidered bag containing her cousin's winnings reposed there safely enough, neighboured by her broken string of pearls. She drew out the bag now and showed it to her companion, who gave a sort of grunt, and permitted a new crease, expressive of satisfaction, to appear upon her broad countenance.

"Eh bien!" she exclaimed. "All is easy. Money is a good key,—a very good key, Ma'mselle. There are very few doors it won't unlock, and mine is not one,—besides the coincidence! Figure to yourself that I was but now on my way to ask my sister, who is the wife of Bault, the head gaoler of La Force, whether she could recommend me some respectable young woman who required a lodging. I did not look, it is true, for a noble demoiselle,"—here the smooth voice took a tone which caused Mademoiselle to glance up quickly, but all she saw was a narrowing of the eyes above a huge impassive smile, and the flow of words continued,—"la, la, it is all one to me, if the money is safe. There is nothing to be done without money."

Mlle de Rochambeau drew a little away from her companion. She was unaccustomed to so familiar a mode of speech, and it offended her.

The little, sharp eyes flashed upon her as she averted her face, and the voice dropped back into its first tone.

"Well then, Ma'mselle, it is easily settled, and I need not go to my sister at all to-night. It grows dark so early now, and I have no fancy for being abroad in the dark; but one thing and another kept me, and I said to myself, 'Put a thing off often enough, and you'll never do it at all.' My cousin Thérèse was with me, the baggage, and she laughed; but I was a match for her. 'That's what you've done about marriage, Thérèse,' I said, and out of the shop she bounced in as fine a temper as you'd see any day. She's a light thing, Thérèse is; and, bless me, if I warned her once I warned her a hundred times! Always gadding abroad,—and her ribbons—and her fal-lals—and the fine young men who were ready to cut one another's throats for her sake! No, no, that's not the way to get a husband and settle oneself in life. Look at me. Was I beautiful? But certainly not. Had I a large dot? Not at all. But respectable,—Mon Dieu, yes! No one in all Paris can say that Rosalie Leboeuf is not respectable; and when Madame, your cousin, comes out of prison and hears you have been under my roof, I tell you she will be satisfied, Ma'mselle. No one has ever had a word to say against me. I keep my shop, and I pay my way, even though times are bad. Regular money coming in is not to be despised, so I take a lodger or two. I have one now, a man. A man did I say? An angel, a patriot, a true patriot; none of your swearing, drinking, hiccupping, lolloping loafers, who think if they consume enough strong liquor that the reign of liberty will come floating down their throats of itself. He is a worker this one; sober and industrious is our Citizen Dangeau, and a Deputy of the Commune, too, no less."

Mlle de Rochambeau, slightly dazed by this flow of conversation, felt a cold chill pass over her. Commissioners of the Commune, Deputies of the Commune! Was Paris full of them? And till this morning she had never heard of the Commune; it had always been the King, the Court; and now, to her faint senses, this new word brought a suggestion of fear, and she seemed for a moment to catch a glimpse of a black curtain vibrating as if to rise. Behind it, what? She reeled a little, gasped, and caught at her companion's solid arm. In a moment it was round her.

"Courage, Ma'mselle, courage then! See, we are arrived. It is better now, eh?"

Mademoiselle drew a long breath, and felt her feet again. They were in an alley crowded with small third-rate shops, and so closely set were the houses that it was almost dark in the narrow street. Mme Leboeuf led the way into one of the dim entrances, where a strong mingled odour of cabbages, onions, and apples proclaimed the nature of the commodities disposed of.

"Above, it will be light enough still," asserted Rosalie between her panting breaths. "This way, Ma'mselle; one small step, turn to the left, and now up."

They ascended gradually into a sort of twilight, until suddenly a sharp turn in the stair brought them on to a landing with a fair-sized window. Opposite was a gap in the dingy line of houses, and through this gap shone the strong red of the setting sun.

Mlle de Rochambeau looked out, first at the gorgeous pageant in the sky, and then, curiously, at the strangeness of her new surroundings. She saw a tangle of mean slums, streets nearly all gutter, from which rose sounds of children squabbling, cats fighting, and men swearing. Suddenly a woman shrieked, and she turned, terrified, to realise that a man was passing them on his way down the stair.

She caught a momentary but very vivid impression of a tall figure carried easily, a small head covered with short, dark, curling hair, and a pair of eyes so blue and piercing that her own hung on them for an instant in surprise before they fell in confusion. The owner of the eyes bowed slightly, but with courtesy, and passed on. Madame Leboeuf was smiling and nodding.

"Good evening, Citizen Dangeau," she said, and broke, as he passed, into renewed panegyrics.

CHAPTER IV

THE TERROR LET LOOSE

Jacques Dangeau was at this time about eight-and-twenty years of age. He was a successful lawyer, and an ardent Republican, a friend of Danton, and a fairly prominent member of the Cordeliers' Club.

Under a handsome, well-controlled exterior he concealed an unbounded enthusiasm and a passionate devotion to the cause of liberty. When Dangeau spoke, his section listened. He carried always in his mind a vision of the ideal State, in the service of which a race should be trained from infancy to the civic virtues, inflamed with a pure ambition to spend themselves for humanity. He saw mankind, shedding brutishness and self, become sober, law-abiding, just;—in a word, he possessed those qualities of vision and faith without which neither prophet nor reformer can influence his generation. Dangeau had the gift of speech, and, carried on a flood of burning words, some perception of the ultimate Ideal would rise upon the hearts of even the most degraded among his hearers. For the moment they too felt the glow of a reflected altruism, and forgot that to them, and to their fellows, the Revolution meant unpunished pillage, theft recognised, and murder winked at.

As Dangeau walked through the darkening streets his heart burned in him. The events of the last month had brought the ideal almost within grasp. The grapes of liberty had been trodden long enough in the vats of oppression. Now the long ferment was nearing its close, and the time approached when the wine of life should be free to all; and that glorious moment of anticipation held no dread of intoxication or excess. Truly a patriot might be hopeful at this juncture. Capet and his family, sometime unapproachable, lay prisoners now, in the firm grip of the Commune, and the possession of such hostages enabled Paris to laugh at the threats of foreign interference. The proclamation of the Republic was only a matter of weeks, and then—renewed visions of a saturnian reign,—peace and plenty coupled with the rigid virtues of old Rome,—rose glowingly before his eyes.

As he entered the Temple gates he came down to earth with a sigh. He was on his way to take his turn of a duty eminently distasteful to him,—that of guarding the imprisoned King and his family. As a patriot he detested Louis the Tyrant, as a man he despised Louis the man; but the spectacle of fallen greatness was disagreeable to his really generous mind, and he was of sufficiently gentle habits to revolt from the position of intrusive familiarity into which he was forced with regard to the women of the party.

The Tower of the Temple, where the unfortunate Royal Family of France were at this time confined, was to be reached only by traversing the Palace of the same name, and crossing the court and garden where the work of demolishing a mass of old houses, which encroached too nearly upon Capet's prison, was still proceeding. Patriotic ardour had seen a spy behind every window, a concealed courtier in every niche; so the buildings were doomed, and falling fast, whilst from the debris arose a strong enclosing wall pierced by a couple of guarded entries. Broken masonry lay everywhere, and Dangeau stumbled precariously as he made his way over the rubble. The workmen had been gone this half-hour, but as he halted and called out, a man with a lantern advanced and piloted him to the Tower.

The Commune was responsible for the prisoners of the Temple, and the actual guarding of them was delegated to eight of its Deputies. These were on duty for forty-eight hours at a stretch, and were relieved by fours every twenty-four hours.

As Dangeau entered the Council-room, those whose term of duty was finished were already leaving. The office of gaoler was an unpopular one, and most men, having once satisfied their curiosity about the prisoners, were very unwilling to approach them again. The sight of misfortune is only pleasing to a mind completely debased, and most of these Deputies were worthy men enough.

Dangeau was met almost on the threshold by a fair-haired, eager-looking youth, who hailed him warmly as Jacques, and, linking his arm in his, led him, unresisting, into the deep embrasure of the window.

"What is it, Edmond?" inquired Dangeau, an unusually attractive smile lighting up his rather grave features. It was plain that this young man roused in him an amused affection.

"Nothing," said Edmond aloud, "but it is so long since I saw you. Have you been dead, buried, or out of Paris?"

"Since the arm you pinched just now is reasonably solid flesh and blood, you may conclude that during the past fortnight Paris has been rendered inconsolable by my absence," said Dangeau, laughing a little.

Edmond Cléry threw an imperceptible glance at his fellow-Commissioners. Two being always with the prisoners, there remained four others, and of these a couple were playing cards at the wine-stained table, and two more lounged on the doorstep smoking a villanously rank tobacco and talking loudly.

Certainly no one was in the least interested in the conversation of Citizens Dangeau and Cléry. Yet for all that Edmond dropped his voice, not to a whisper, but to that smooth monotone which hardly carries a yard, and yet is distinctly audible to the person addressed. In this voice he asked:

"You have not been to the Club?"

Dangeau shook his head.

"Nor seen Hébert, Marat, Jules Dupuis?"

An expression of distaste lifted Dangeau's finely cut lip.

"I have existed without that felicity," he observed, with a slightly sarcastic inflexion.

"Then you have been told—have heard—nothing?"

"My dear Edmond, what mysteries are these?"

Edmond Cléry leaned a little closer, and dropped his voice until it was a mere tenuous thread.

"They have decided on a massacre," he said.

"A massacre?"

"Yes, of the prisoners."

"Just Heaven! No!"

"It is true. Things have fallen from Hébert once or twice. He and Marat have been closeted for hours—the devil's own alliance that—and the plan is of their hatching. Two days ago Hébert spoke at the Club. It was late, Danton was not there. They say—" Cléry hesitated, and stole a glance at his companion's set face,—"they say he wishes to know nothing."

"A lie," said Dangeau very quietly.

"I don't know. There, Jacques, don't look at me like that! How can I tell? I tell you my brain reels at the thought of the thing."

"What did Hébert say? He spoke?"

"Yes; said the people must be fleshed,—there was not sufficient enthusiasm. Paris as a whole was quiescent, apathetic. This must be changed, an elixir was needed. What? Blood,—blood of traitors,—blood of aristocrats,—oppressors of the people. Bah!—you can fancy the rest well enough."

"Did any one else speak?"

"Marat said the Jacobins were with us."

"Robespierre?"

"In it, of course, but would n't dirty those white hands for the world," said Cléry, sneering.

"No one opposed it?"

"Oh, yes, but hooted down almost at once. You know Dupuis's bull voice? It did his friends a good turn, bellowing slackness, lack of patriotism, and so on. I wish you had been there."

Dangeau shook his head.

"I could have done nothing."

"Ah, but you could; there 's no one like you, Jacques. Danton thunders, and Marat spits out venom, and Hébert panders to the vile in us, but you really make us see an ideal, and wish to be more worthy of it. I said to Barrassin, 'If only Dangeau were here we should be spared this shame.'"

The boy's face flushed as he spoke, but Dangeau looked down moodily.

"I could have done nothing," he repeated. "If they spoke as openly as that it is because their plans are completed. Did you hear any more?"

Edmond looked a little confused.

"Not there,—but—well, I was told,—a friend told me,—it was for to-morrow," and he looked up to find Dangeau's eyes fixed steadily on him.

"A friend, Edmond? Who? Thérèse?"

Cléry coloured hotly.

"Why not Thérèse, Jacques?"

"Oh, if you like to play with gunpowder it's no business of mine, Edmond; but the girl is Hébert's mistress, and as dangerous as the devil, that's all. And so she told you that?"

Cléry nodded, a trifle defiantly.

"To-morrow," said Dangeau slowly; "where?"

"At all the prisons. One or two of the gaolers are warned, but I do not believe they will be able to do anything."

Dangeau was thinking hard.

"They sent me away on purpose," he said at last.

"Curse them!" said Cléry in a shaking voice.

Dangeau did not swear, but he nodded his head as who should say Amen, and his face was bitter hard.

"Is anything intended here?" he asked sharply.

"No, not from head-quarters; but Heaven knows what may happen when the mob tastes blood."

Dangeau gave a short laugh.

"Why, Jacques?" said Cléry, surprised.

"Why, Edmond," repeated Dangeau sardonically, "I was thinking that it would be a queer turn for Fate to play if you and I were to die to-morrow, fighting in defence of Capet against the people."

"You would do that?" asked Edmond.

"But naturally, my friend, since we are responsible for him."

He had been leaning carelessly against the wall, but as he spoke he straightened himself.

"Our friends upstairs will be getting impatient," he said aloud. "Who takes the night duty with me?"

Cléry was about to speak, but received a warning pressure of the arm. He was silent, and Legros, one of the loungers, came forward.

Dangeau and he went out together. Upstairs silence reigned. The two Commissioners on duty rose with an air of relief, and passed out. The light of a badly trimmed oil-lamp showed that the little party of prisoners were all present, and Dangeau saluted them with a grave inclination of the head that was hardly a bow. His companion, clumsily embarrassed, shuffled with his feet, spat on the floor, and lounged to a seat.

The Queen raised her eyebrows at him, and, turning slightly, smiled and nodded to Dangeau. Mme Elizabeth bowed abstractedly and turned again to the chessboard which stood between her and her brother. Mme Royale curtsied, but the little Dauphin did not raise his head from some childish game which occupied his whole attention. His mother, after waiting a moment, called him to her and, laying one of her long delicate hands on his petulantly twitching shoulder, observed gently:

"Fi donc, my son; did you not see these gentlemen enter? Bid them good evening!"

The child tossed his head, but as his father's gaze met him, he hung it down again, saying in a clear childish voice, "Good evening, Citizens."

Mme Elizabeth's colour rose perceptibly at the form of address, but the Queen smiled, and, giving the boy's shoulder a little tap of dismissal, she turned to Dangeau.

"We forget our manners in this solitude, Monsieur," she said in her peculiarly soft and agreeable voice. Then after a pause, during which Dangeau, to his annoyance, felt that his face was flushing, "It is Monsieur Dangeau, is it not?"

"Citizen Dangeau, at your service."

Marie Antoinette laughed; the sound was pleasing but disturbing. "Oh, my good Monsieur, I am too old to learn these new forms of address. My son, you see, is quicker"; the arch eyes clouded, the laugh dropped to a sigh, then rippled back again into merriment. "Only figure to yourself, Monsieur, that I have had already to learn one new language, for when I came to France as a bride, all was strange—oh, but so strange—to me. I had hard work, I do assure you; and that good Mme de Noailles was a famous task-mistress!"

"Should it be harder to learn simplicity?" said Dangeau, a faint tinge of bitterness in his pleasant voice.