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More than a year had gone by since
then, and Bastien de Croissy had seen all his fondly cherished
hopes turn to despair one by one. There had been no break in the
dark clouds of chaos and misery that enveloped the beautiful land
of France. Indeed they had gathered, darker and more stormy than
before. And now had come what appeared to be the darkest days
of all - the autumn of 1793. The King, condemned to death by a
majority of 48 in an Assembly of over 700 members, had paid with
his life for all the errors, the weaknesses, the misunderstandings
of the past: the unfortunate Queen, separated from her children
and from all those she cared for, accused of the vilest crimes
that distorted minds could invent, was awaiting trial and inevitable
death.
The various political parties - the factions and the clubs -
were vying with one another in ruthlessness and cruelty. Danton
the lion and Robespierre the jackal were at one another's throats;
it still meant the mere spin of a coin as to which would succeed
in destroying the other. The houses of detention were filled to
overflowing, while the guillotine did its grim word day by day,
hour by hour, without distinction of rank or sex, or of age. The
Law of the Suspect had just been passed, and it was no longer
necessary for an unfortunate individual to do or say anything
that the Committee of Public Safety might deem counter-revolutionary,
it was sufficient to be suspected of such tendencies for denunciation
to follow, then arrest and finally death with but the mockery
of a trial, without pleading or defence. And while the Terrorists
were intent on destroying one another the country was threatened
by foes without and within. Famine and disease stalked in the
wake of persecution. The countryside was devastated, there were
not enough hands left to till the ground and the cities were a
prey to epidemics. On the frontier the victorious allied armies
were advancing on the sacred soil of France. The English were
pouring in from Belgium, the Russians came across the Rhine, the
Spaniards crossed the gorges of the Pyrenees, whilst the torch
of civil war was blazing anew in La Vendée.
Danton's cry: "To arms!" and "La Patrie
is in danger!" resounded from end to end of the land. It
echoed through the deserted cities and over the barren fields,
while three hundred thousand "Soldiers of Liberty" marched
to the frontiers, ill-clothed, ill-shod, ill-fed, to drive back
the foreign invader from the gates of France. An epic, what? Worthy
of a holier cause.
Those who were left behind, who were old, or weak, or indispensable,
had to bear their share in the defence of La Patrie. France
was transformed into an immense camp of fighters and workers.
The women sewed shirts and knitted socks, salted meat and stitched
breeches, and looked after their children and their homes as best
they could. France came first, the home was a bad second.
It was then that little Charles-Léon fell ill. That was
the beginning of the tragedy. He had always been delicate, which
was not to be wondered at, seeing that he was born during the
days immediately preceding the Revolution, at the time when the
entire world, such as Louise de Croissy had known it, was crumbling
to dust at her feet. She never thought he would live, the dear,
puny mite, the precious son, whom she and Bastien had longed for,
prayed for, by year until this awful winter when food became scarce
and poor, and milk was almost unobtainable.
Kind old Doctor Larousse said it was nothing serious, but the
child must have change of air. Paris was too unhealthy these days
for delicate children. Change of air? Heavens above! how was it
to be got? Louise questioned old Citizen Larousse:
"Can you get me a permit, doctor? We still have a small
house in the Isère district, not far from Grenoble. I could
take my boy there."
"Yes. I can get you a permit for the child - at least, I
think so - under the circumstances."
"And one for me?"
"Yes, one for you - to last a week."
"How do you mean to last a week?"
"Well, you can get the diligence to Grenoble. It takes a
couple of days. Then you can stay in your house, say, fourty-eight
hours to see the child installed. Two days to come back by diligence..."
"But I couldn't come back."
"I'm afraid you'll have to. No one is allowed to be absent
from permanent domicile more than seven days. You know that, Citizeness,
surely."
"But I couldn't leave Charles-Léon."
"Why not? There is not very much the matter with him. And
country air..."
Louise was losing her patience. How obtuse men are, even the
best of them!
"But there is no one over there to look after him,"
she argued.
"Surely a respectable woman from the village would..."
This time she felt her temper rising. "And you suppose that
I would leave this sick baby in the care of a stranger?"
"Haven't you a relation who would look after him? Mother?
Sister?"
"My mother is dead. I have no sisters. Nor would I leave
Charles-Léon in anyone's care but mine."
The doctor shrugged. He was very kind, but he had seen this sort
of thing so often lately, and he was powerless to help.
"I am afraid..." he said.
"Citizen Larousse," Louise broke in firmly, "you
must give me a certificate that my child is too ill to be separated
from his mother."
"Impossible, Citizeness."
"Won't you try?"
"I have tried - for others - often, but it's no use. You
know what the decrees of the Convention are these days... no one
dares..."
"And I am to see my child perish for want of a scrap of
paper?"
Again the old man shrugged. He was a busy man and there were
others. Presently he took his leave: there was nothing that he
could do, so why should he stay? Louise hardly noticed his going.
She stood there like a block of stone, a carved image of despair.
The wan cheeks of the sick child seemed less bloodless than hers.
* * *
"Louise!"
Josette Gravier had been standing beside the cot all this time.
Charles-Léon's tiny hand had fastened round one of her
fingers and she didn't like to move, but she had lost nothing
of what was going on. Her eyes, those lovely deep blue eyes of
hers that seemed to shine, to emit light when she was excited,
were fixed on Louise de Croissy. She had loved her and served
her ever since Louise's dying mother, Madame de Vadeleur, confided
the care of her baby daughter to Madame Gravier, the farmer's
wife, Josette's mother, who had just lost her own new-born baby,
the same age as Louise. Josette, Ma'me Gravier's first-born, was
three years old at the time and, oh! how she took the little new-comer
to her heart! She and Louise grew up together like sisters. They
shared childish joys and tears. The old farmhouse used to ring
with their laughter and the patter of their tiny feet. Papa Gravier
taught them to ride and to milk the nanny-goats; they had rabbits
of their own, chickens and runner-ducks.
Together they went to the Convent school of the Visitation to
learn everything that was desirable for young ladies to know,
sewing and embroidery, calligraphy and recitation, a smattering
of history and geography, and the art of letter-writing. For there
was to be no difference in the education of Louise de Vandeleur,
the motherless daughter of the distinguished general, aide-de-camp
to His Majesty, and of Josette Gravier, the farmer's daughter.
When, in the course of time, Louise married Bastien de Croissy,
the eminent advocate at the Paris bar, Josette nearly broke her
heart at parting from her lifelong friend.
Then came the dark days of '89. Papa Gravier was killed during
the revolutionary riots in Grenoble; maman died of a broken heart,
and Louise begged Josette to come and live with her. The farm
was sold, the girl had a small competence; she went up to Paris
and continued to love and serve Louise as she had done in the
past. She was her comfort and her help during those first terrible
days of the Revolution: she was her moral support now that the
shadow of the guillotine lay menacing over the household of the
once successful lawyer. La Patrie in danger claimed so
many hours of her day; she, too, had to sew shirts and stitch
breeches for the "Soldiers of Liberty," but her evenings,
her nights, her early mornings were her own, and these she devoted
to the service of Louise and of Charles-Léon.
She had a tiny room in the apartment of the Rue Picpus, but to
her loving little heart that room was paradise, for here, when
she was at home, she had Charles-Léon to play with, she
had his little clothes to wash and to iron, she saw his great
dark eyes, so like his mother's fixed upon her while she told
him tales of romance and of chivalry. The boy was only five at
this time, but he was strangely precocious where such tales were
concerned, he seemed to understand and appreciate the mighty deeds
of Hector and Achilles, of Bayard and Joan of Arc, the stories
of the Crusades, of Godfrey de Bouillon and Richard of the Lionheart.
Perhaps it was because he felt himself to be weak and puny and
knew with the unexplainable instinct of childhood that he would
never be big enough or strong enough to emulate those deeds of
valour, that he loved to hear Josette recount them to him with
a wealth of detail supplied by her romantic imagination.
But if Charles-Léon loved to hear these stories of the
past, far more eagerly did he listen to those of to-day, and in
the recounting of heroic adventures which not only had happened
recently, but went on almost every day, Josette's storehouse of
hair-raising narratives was well-nigh inexhaustible. Through her
impassioned rhetoric he first heard of the heroic deeds of that
amazing Englishman who went by the curious name of the Scarlet
Pimpernel. Josette told him about a number of gallant gentlemen
who had taken such compassion on the sufferings of the innocent
that they devoted their lives to rescuing those who were persecuted
and oppressed by the tyrannical Government of the day. She told
him how women and children, old or feeble men, dragged before
a tribunal that knew of no issue save the sentence of death, were
spirited away out of prison walls or from the very tumbrils that
were taking them to the guillotine, spirited away as if by a miracle,
and through the agency of this mysterious hero who identity had
always remained unknown, but whose deeds of self-sacrifice were
surely writ large in the book of the Recording Angel.
And while Josette unfolded these tales of valour, and the boy
listened to her awed and silent, her eyes would shine with unshed
tears, and her lips quiver with enthusiasm. She had made a fetish
of the Scarlet Pimpernel: had enshrined him in her heart like
a demi-god, and this hero-worship grew all the more fervent within
her as she found no response to her enthusiasm in the bosom of
her adopted family, only in Charles-Léon. She was too gentle
and timid to speak openly of this hero-worship to Maître
de Croissy, and Louise, whom she adored, was wont to grow slightly
sarcastic at the expense of Josette's imaginary hero. She did
not believe in his existence at all, and thought that all the
tales of miraculous rescues set down to his agency were either
mere coincidence or just the product of a romantic girl's fantasy.
As for Maurice Reversac - well! little Josette thought him too
dull and unimaginative to appreciate the almost legendary personality
of the Scarlet Pimpernel, so, whenever a fresh tale got about
the city of how a whole batch of innocent men, women and children
had escaped out of France on the very eve of their arrest or condemnation
to death, Josette kept the tale to herself, until she and Charles-Léon
were alone in her little room, and she found response to her enthusiasm
in the boy's glowing eyes and his murmur of passionate admiration.
When Charles-Léon's chronic weakness turned to actual,
serious anemia, all the joy seemed to go out of Josette's life.
Real joy, that is; for she went about outwardly just as gay as
before, singing, crooning to the little invalid, cheering Louise
and comforting Bastien, who spoke of her now as the angel in the
house. Every minute that she could spare she spent by the side
of Charles-Léon's little bed, and when no one was listening
she would whisper into his ear some of the old stories which he
loved. Then if the ghost of a smile came round the child's pallid
lips, Josette would feel almost happy, even though she felt ready
to burst into tears.
And now, as soon as the old doctor had gone, Josette disengaged
her hand from the sick child's grasp and put her arms around Louise's
shoulders.
"We must not lose heart, Louise chérie," she
said. "There must be a way out of this impasse."
"A way out?" Louise murmured. "Oh, if I only knew!"
"Sit down here, chérie, and let me talk to you."
There was a measure of comfort even in Josette's voice. It was
low and a trifle husky; such a voice as some women have whose
mission in life is to comfort and to soothe. She made Louise sit
down in the big armchair; then she knelt down in front of her,
her little hands clasped together and resting in Louise's lap.
"Listen, Louise chérie," she said with great
excitement.
Louise looked down on the beautiful eager face of her friend;
the soft red lips were quivering with excitement; the large luminous
eyes were aglow with a strange enthusiasm. She felt puzzled, for
it was not in Josette's nature to show so much emotion. She was
always deemed quiet and sensible. She never spoke at random, and
never made a show of her fantastic dreams.
"Well, darling?" Louise said listlessly: "I am
listening. What is it?"
Josette looked up, wide-eyed and eager, straight into her friend's
face.
"What we must do, chérie," she said with earnest
emphasis, "is to get in touch with those wonderful Englishmen.
You know who I mean. They have already accomplished miracles on
behalf of innocent men, women and children, of people who were
in a worse plight than we are now."
Louise frowned. She knew well enough what Josette meant: she
had often laughed at the girl's enthusiasm over this imaginary
hero, who seemed to haunt her dreams. But just now she felt that
there was something flippant and unseemly in talking such fantastic
rubbish: dreams seemed out of place when reality was so heart-breaking.
She tried to rise so push Josette away, but the girl clung to
her and would not let her go.
"I don't know what you are talking about, Josette,"
Louise said coldly at last. "This is not the time for jest,
or for talking of things that only exist in your imagination."
Josette shook her head.
"Why do you say that, Louise chérie? Why should you
deliberately close your eyes and ears to facts - hard, sober,
solid facts that everybody knows, that everybody admits to be
true? I should have thought," the girl went on in her earnest,
persuasive way, "that with this terrible thing hanging over
you - Charles-Léon getting more and more ill, till there's
no hope of his recovery..."
"Josette!! Don't!" Louise cried out in an agony of
reproach.
"I must," Josette insisted with quiet force: "it
is my duty to make you look straight at facts as they are; and
I say, that with this terrible thing hanging over us, you must
cast off foolish prejudices and open your mind to what is the
truth and will be your salvation."
Louise looked down at the beautiful, eager face turned up to
hers. She felt all of a sudden strangely moved. Of course Josette
was talking nonsense. Dear, sensible, quiet little Josette! She
was simple and not at all clever, but it was funny, to say the
least of it, how persuasive she could be when she had set her
mind on anything. Even over small things she would sometimes wax
so eloquent that there was no resisting her. No! she was not clever,
but she was extra-ordinarily shrewd where the welfare of those
she loved was in question. And she adored Louise and worshipped
Chalres-Léon.
Since the doctor's visit Louise had felt herself floundering
in such a torrent of grief that she was ready to clutch at any
straw that would save her from despair. Josette was talking nonsense,
of course. All the family were wont to chaff her over her adoration
of the legendary hero, so much so, in fact, that the girl had
ceased altogether to talk about him. But now her eyes were positively
glowing with enthusiasm, and it seemed to Louise, as she gazed
into them, that they radiated hope and trust. And Louise was so
longing for a ray of hope.
"I suppose," she said with a wan smile, "that
you are harping on your favourite string."
"I am," Josette admitted with fervour.
Then as Louise, still obstinate and unbelieving, gave a slight
shrug and a sigh, the girl continued:
"Surely, Louise chérie, you have heard other people
besides me - clever, distinguished, important people - talk of
the Scarlet Pimpernel."
"I have," Louise admitted: "but only in a vague
way."
"And what he did for the Maillys?"
"The general's widow, you mean?"
"Yes. She and her sister and the two children were simply
snatched away from under the very noses of the guard who were
taking them to execution."
"I did hear something about that," was Louise's dry
comment; "but..."
"And of about the de Tournays?" Josette broke in eagerly.
"They are in England now. So I heard."
"They are. And who took them there? The Marquis was in hiding
in the woods near his property: Mme. de Tournay and Suzanne were
in terror for him and in fear for their lives. It was said openly
that their arrest was imminent. And when the National Guard went
to arrest them, Mm. de Tournay and Suzanne were gone, and the
Marquis was never found. You've said it yourself, they are in
England now."
"But Josette darling," Louise argue obstinately, "there's
nothing to say in all those stories that any mysterious Englishman
had aught to do with the Maillys and the Tournays."
"Who then?"
"It was the intervention of God."
Josette shook her pretty head somewhat sadly.
"God does not intervene directed these days, my darling,"
she said; "He chooses great and good men to do His bidding."
"And I don't see," Louise concluded with some impatience,
"I don't see what the Maillys or the Tournays have to do
with me and Charles-Léon."
But at this Josette's angelic temper very nearly forsook her.
"Don't be obtuse, Louise," she cried hotly. "We
don't want to get in touch with the Maillys or the Tournays. I
never suggested anything so ridiculous. All I mean was that they
and hundreds - yes, hundreds - of others owe their life to the
Scarlet Pimpernel."
Tears of vexation rose from her loving heart at Louise's obduracy.
She it was who tried to rise now, but this time Louise held her
down: Poor Louise! She did so long to believe - really believe.
Hope is such a precious thing when the heart is full to bursting
of anxiety and sorrow. And she longed for hope and for faith:
the same hope that made Josette's eyes sparkle and gave a ring
of sanguine expectation to her voice.
"Don't run away, Josette," she pleaded. "You don't
know how I envy you your hero-worship and your trust. But listen,
darling: even if your Scarlet Pimpernel does exist - see, I no
longer say that he does not - even if he does, he knows nothing
about us. How then can he interfere?"
Josette drew a sigh of relief. For the first time since the hot
argument had started she felt that she was gaining ground. Her
faith was going to prevail. Louise's scepticism had changed: the
look of despair had gone and there was a light in her eyes which
suggested that hope had crept at last into her heart. The zealot
had vanquished the obstinacy of the sceptic, and Josette having
gained her point could speak more calmly now.
She shook her head and smiled.
"Don't you believe it, chérie," she said gently.
"Believe what?"
"That the Scarlet Pimpernel knows nothing about you. He
does. I am sure he does. All you have to do is just to invoke
him in your heart."
"Nonsense, Josette," Louise protested. "You are
not pretending, I suppose, that this Englishman is a supernatural
being?"
"I don't know about that," said the young devotee,
"but I do know that he is the bravest, finest man that ever
lived. And I know also that wherever there is a great misfortune
or a great sorrow he appears like a young god, and at once care
and anxiety disappear, and grief is turned to joy."
"I wish I could have your faith in miracles, my Josette."
"You need not call it a miracle. The good deeds of the Scarlet
Pimpernel are absolutely real."
"But even so, my dear, what can we do? We don't know where
to find him. And if we did, what could he do for us - for Charles-Léon?"
"He can get you a permit to go into the country with Charles-Léon,
and to remain with him until he is well again."
"I don't believe that. Nothing short of a miracle can accomplish
that. You heard what the doctor said."
"Well, I say that the Scarlet Pimpernel can do anything!
And I mean to get in touch with him."
"You are stupid, Josette."
"And you are a woman of little faith. Why don't you read
your Bible, and see what it says there about faith?"
Louise shrugged. "The Bible," she said coolly, "tells
us about moving mountains by faith, but nothing about finding
a needle in a haystack or a mysterious Englishman in the streets
of Paris."
But Josette was now proof against her friend's sarcasm. She jumped
to her feet and put her arms round Louise.
"Well!" she rejoined, "my faith is going to find
him, that's all I know. I wish," she went on with a comic
little inflection of her voice, "that I had not wasted this
past hour in trying to put some of that faith into you. And now
I know that I shall have to spend at least another hour driving
it into Maurice's wooden head."
Louise smiled. "Why Maurice?" she asked.
"For the same reason," the girl replied, "that
I had to wear myself out in order to break your obstinacy. It
will take me some time perhaps, as you say, to find the Scarlet
Pimpernel in the streets of Paris. I shall have to be out and
about a great deal, and if I had said nothing to any of you, you
and Maurice and even Bastien would always have been asking me
questions: where I had been? why did I go out? why was I late
for dinner? And Maurice would have gone about looking like a bear
with a sore head, whenever I refused to go for a walk with him.
So of course," Josette concluded naïvely, "I shall
have to tell him."
Louise said nothing more after that: she said with clasped hands
and eyes fixed into vacancy, thinking, hoping, or perhaps just
praying for hope.
But Josette having had her say went across the room to Charles-Léon's
little bed. She leaned over him and kissed him. He whispered her
name and added feebly: "Tell me some more... about the Scarlet
Pimpernel... when will he come... to take me away... to England?"
"Soon," Josette murmured in reply: "very soon.
Do not doubt it, my precious. God will send him to you very soon."
Then without another word to Louise she ran quickly out of the
room.
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