The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty

little man of forty or so, whose gentle demeanor and spruce dress made a marked contrast with his host: in his hand he carried a small box such as children’s toys are kept in. “What are you bringing us?” “A model of my machine, my dear Marat. But I see Dr. Gilbert here, unless I mistake,” said the little dandy, trying to pierce the obscurity. “The same, sir,” said the other visitor bowing. “Enchanted to meet you, sir; you are only too welcome, and I shall be happy to have the opinion of so distinguished a man on my invention. I must tell you, my dear Marat, that I have found a skillful carpenter, named Guidon, to make my machine on the working scale. He is dear, though, wanting five thousand five hundred francs; but no sacrifice is too great for me to make for humanity. In two months it will be built, and we can try it: I shall propose it to the Assembly. I hope you will approve of it in your excellent new paper, though, in sober earnest, the machine recommends itself, as you will see with your own eyes, Dr. Gilbert. But a few lines in the People’s Friend will do no harm.” “Be easy on that score; it is not a few lines but a whole number that I shall dedicate to it.” “You are too good, Marat; but I am not going to let you puff a pig in a poke.” He took out of his pocket a much smaller box, in which a sound indicated that some little live thing or several such were fidgeting in their prison. This noise did not escape Marat’s subtle hearing. “What have you got there?” he asked, putting out his hand towards the box. “Mind,” said the doctor, drawing it back, “do not let them escape as we could not catch them again; they are mice whose heads we are going to nick off with the machine. What, are you going to leave us, Dr. Gilbert?” “Alas, yes, sir, to my great regret; but my son, wounded by being run over by a horse just now, has been relieved by Friend Marat, to whom I also owe my own life in an almost similar affair. I have to thank him again. The boy needs a fresh bed, cares and repose: so that I cannot witness your interesting experiment.” “But you will come and see the one with the real machine, in two months, you promise, doctor?” “I pledge my word.” “Doctor,” said Marat, “I need not say, keep my abode secret. If your friend Lafayette were to discover it he would have me shot like a dog, or hung like a thief.” “Shooting, hanging,” exclaimed Guillotin. “But we shall put an end to these cannibal deaths. We shall have a death, soft, easy, instantaneous, such as old people, disgusted with their life and wishful to pass away like sages and philosophers, will prefer to a natural one. Come and see how it works, Marat!” And without troubling any farther about Dr. Gilbert, the enthusiast opened his larger box and began to set up on the table a model apparatus which the surgeon regarded with curiosity equal to his enthusiasm. Gilbert profited by their being so engaged, to carry away Sebastian, guided by Albertine who fastened up the outer door after him. Once in the street, he felt the night wind chill the perspiration gathered on his brow. “Heavens,” he muttered, “what will happen to a city where the cellars perhaps hide five hundred lovers of mankind who are occupied with such work as we have a sample of there? one day they will perform in broad daylight before the crowd.” It was little distance to his house in St. Honore Street. The cold revived Sebastian but his father would not let him walk. When he knocked at his door, a heavy step was heard approaching. “Is that you, Dr. Gilbert?” challenged one within. “That is Pitou’s voice,” said the boy. “Praise heaven, Sebastian is found,” shouted Pitou on opening the door. “Master Billet,” he shouted still more loudly, “Sebastian is found, and all right, I hope, doctor?” “Without any serious hurt, anyway,” replied the other, “Come, Sebastian.” He carried his son up to his bed. Pitou followed with the light; by his mud-bespattered shoes and stockings it was plain that he had come a long journey. Indeed, after taking the broken-hearted Catherine home and learning from her lips that her deep sorrow came from Isidore Charny being called away to Paris, he took leave of her and Mother Billet, weeping by her bedside, and went home to Haramont. He walked so slowly that he did not get there until daybreak. He fell off to sleep so that it was not till he awoke, that he found the youth’s letter. Immediately he started to overtake him. He girded up with a leather strap, took some bread and with a walking stick in his fist, proceeded to town, where he arrived at eight that night. He found neither the doctor nor his son at home--only Farmer Billet. This hearty, robust man, unnerved by the bloody scenes witnessed since the Taking of the Bastile, of which enterprise he was the leader, had no news for Pitou. Their sad waiting was rewarded by the double arrival. Though tranquil about Sebastian, Pitou, when sent to bed had his budget to unfold to the farmer. Let no reader think that he revealed Catherine’s secrets and spoke of her amour with the young noble. The honest soul of the Commander of the Haramont National Guard would not stoop to that story. But he told Billet that the harvest was bad, the barley a failure, part of the wheat wind-laid, and the barns but a third full--and that he had found Catherine on the road. Billet was little vexed about the grain, but the illness of his daughter distressed him. He ran to Dr. Gilbert with a sad face as the latter was finishing this note to Andrea: “Be of good heart; the child is found, with no one hurt.” “Dr. Gilbert, you were right to retain me in town where I might be useful; but everything has been going wrong in the country while the good man is away.” Gilbert agreed with his friend that a hearty buxom girl like Catherine should not faint on the public road. Feeling with a parent, he responded: “Go home, my dear Billet, since land and family call you. But do not forget that I shall claim you in the name of the country.” Thus Billet returned home after an absence of three months, although he had intended to be away only a week. Pitou followed him, bearing twenty-five louis destined from Gilbert for the equipment and maintenance of the Haramont National Guard. Sebastian stayed with his father. CHAPTER XVI. THE PORTRAIT OF CHARLES FIRST. A week has passed since the events related. Everybody was saying: The Revolution is finished; the King is delivered from Versailles, and his courtiers and evil counsellors. The King is placed in life and actuality. He had heretofore the license to work wrong; now he has full liberty to do good. The dread from the riots had brought the conservatives over to the royalty. The Assembly had been frightened, too, and saw that it depended on the King. A hundred and fifty of its members took to flight. The two most popular men, Lafayette and Mirabeau, became royalists. The latter wanted the other to unite with him to save the crown, but while honorable Lafayette had a limited brain, he did not see the orator’s genius. Mirabeau was all for the Duke of Orleans, whom Lafayette advised, nay, ordered to quit the kingdom. “But suppose I come back without your permission?” said the prince. “Then, I hope you will do me the honor to cross swords with me at the first battle,” replied the marquis. He was the veritable ruler and the duke had to depart; he did not return until called to be King of the French. Lafayette had saved the Queen and protected the King; he was perfectly a royalist. But still, like Gilbert, he was not so much the friend of the King as of the crown. The monarch had too just a mind not to see this clearly. Although he had not seen the doctor lately he remembered that this was his day of duty and he called him. The King was pacing the bedroom, but stopping now and then to look at the Vandyke picture of Charles First, now in the Louvre. The sovereign of England is painted as a Cavalier, with his horse, as ready for flight as for battle. This picture seemed fatally the goal of the King’s wanderings. At the step, Louis turned round. “Oh, is it you, doctor?” he said. “Come in, I am glad to see you.” Leading him up to the painting he said: “Do you know this? where did you see it?” “In Lady Dubarry’s house, when I was a boy, but it deeply struck me.” “Yes, she pretended to be descended from the page who holds the horse. Jeanne Dubarry was the woman chosen by Marshal Richelieu to be the sole feminine ruler over the worn-out monarch Louis XV. and to induce him to shut up the infamous Deerpark, which was the harem ruining the old man. She was an adroit actress and played her part marvellously. She entertained while making sport of him, and he became manly because she persuaded him he was so.” He stopped as if blaming himself for his imprudence in speaking of his grandfather thus openly before a stranger; but one glance at Gilbert’s frank face encouraged him, for he saw that he could speak all to a man who understood every thing. “This melancholy, lofty face,” went on the King, referring to the portrait, “was placed in the strange Egeria’s boudoir, where it heard her impudent laughs and saw her lascivious gambols. Merrily she would take Louis by the arm and show him Charles, saying: ‘Old gossip, this King had his neck cut through because he was too weak towards his Parliament. Take warning about your own!’ Hence Louis broke up his Parliament and died peacefully on his throne. Thereupon we exiled the poor woman, for whom we ought to have been most indulgent. The picture was packed away in the lumber room of Versailles and I never thought about it. Now, how comes it here, in my bedroom? why does it haunt me?” He shook his head. “There is some fate in this.” “Fatality, if the portrait reads no lesson, Sire; Providence if it does. What does it say to your Majesty?” “That Charles lost his throne from having made war on his subjects, and James the Second for having tired his own.” “Like me, then, it speaks the truth.” “Well?” inquired the sovereign, questioning the doctor with his glance. “Well, I beg to ask for your answer to the portrait.” “Friend Gilbert, I have resolved on nothing: I will take the cue from circumstances.” “The people fear that your Majesty purposes war upon them.” “No, sir,” he rejoined, “I cannot make war on them without foreign support and I know the state of Europe too well to rely on that. The King of Prussia offers to enter France at the head of a hundred thousand men; but I too well know his ambitious and intriguing spirit--a petty monarchy which wishes to become a great one, thriving on turmoil and hoping to catch some fish like another Silesia. On her part, Austria places a hundred thousand men at my call; but I do not like my brother-in-law Leopold, a two-faced Janus, whose mother, Marie Theresa, had my father poisoned. “My brother Artois proposes the support of Sardinia and Spain, but I do not trust those powers, led by Artois. Beside him is Calonne, in other words, the Queen’s worst enemy, the one who annotated with his own hand the pamphlet of the Countess Lamotte Valois anent the conspiracy of the Queen’s Necklace, for which she was branded. I know all that is going on yonder. In their last council a debate ensued about deposing me and appointing a regent who would be probably my dear, very dear brother Count Provence. Prince Conde suggested marching with an enemy upon Lyons, ‘whatever happened me at Paris!’ “It is another thing with the Great Empress Catherine; she confines herself to advice, bless her! you can understand that when you reflect