The English Heiress (24 page)

Achievement of his first objective ruined nearly all hope of achieving the second. Free of the roar and jostle on all sides, Roger became aware that the march was not nearly so haphazard as he had thought. Before he could make the mistake of trying to slip off and thus identify himself as someone not in sympathy with the mob, he recognized “flankers” who prodded and encouraged along those who seemed to be tiring or losing interest. Moreover, he could now make out the individual cries from those in the lead, which the body of the mob had only answered with hoarse roars of approval. “To the Abbaye!” was the cry.

The Abbaye… Roger had heard the name before, and recently, but he could not place it at the moment, wondering—as they came to the once beautiful, now tattered gardens of the Tuileries—whether it could be a meeting place. In the gardens he tried to escape again when the mob spread and the pressure of moving men and women diminished.

“This way!”

“To the Abbaye!”

“Over the bridge!”

“The traitors will not escape us!”

Each cry was another voice, each shift of direction seemed to be blocked by a different body or pair of reaching arms. The last voice, however, struck horror into Roger’s soul. Had they not already been on the bridge—the Pont Royal, it used to be called—Roger would have taken his chances at breaking free because he now knew what the Abbaye was and what the mob’s purpose there would be. The Abbaye was a prison and the mob was set on turning the wild speeches of the radicals into facts. They were going to try to murder the prisoners taken in the domiciliary visitations.

When they came off the bridge, Roger made a determined effort to escape. He swung Leonie around and pushed sideways. This, however, permitted a tattered scarecrow of a man, whose only whole piece of clothing was the red cap of the revolution, to seized Leonie by the arm so violently that he tore her free of Roger’s hold. She screamed with shock and revulsion and pushed at the tatterdemalion and he staggered away, but the damage was done. Others were shoved between Leonie and Roger. The rope around her waist prevented them from being really separated, but Roger could no longer control the direction in which Leonie moved. She tried to stop so that he could come up to her, but that nearly precipitated a real disaster.

The mob was gaining momentum, the whole mass moving forward more nearly at a run than at a march now, and Leonie’s hesitation only resulted in two collisions with people close behind. The first she twisted away from, jerking the rope that Roger had been gathering up out of his hand so that only the fact that it was tied to his wrist prevented his losing her entirely. The second collision all but knocked her from her feet. Leonie shrieked again, this time with fear, realizing what would happen to her if she fell. She made no further effort to go against the tide. Sooner or later, she told herself, they had to stop and then Roger could reach her. Roger had come to the same conclusion almost simultaneously and gave up any notion of pulling back on the rope. Resistless, both were swept along.

Then the pace slackened, and quite suddenly Leonie was pushed into a nearly solid mass of people. This time she was in no danger of falling or being trampled. It was impossible to fall. She put a hand on the rope behind her and tried to wriggle backwards, but that too was impossible. Inexorably, she was pushed ahead into the filthy back of the person in front of her. The pressure grew, forcing her face into the stained, odorous rags until Leonie thought she would smother. Desperately, to keep breath in her body, she slid sideways into the indentation of space where the shoulder of one person pressed against the shoulder of another. And still the pressure behind her grew as more and more people came from the streets to join the mob.

The shoulders Leonie had been pressed against parted slightly, parted more. Leonie pushed back, seeing what was about to happen, but was unable to prevent it. Like an olive pit pressed between thumb and forefinger she was squeezed between the two shoulders and propelled forward into another tattered, smelly back. This time she resisted as long as she could, turning only her head so that her nose would not actually be enveloped by the rags that clothed the body in front of her. She knew Roger would be trying to work his way along the rope to reach her.

It was the feel of the rope, painful as it was, dragging at her body this way and that as people pressed against it, that kept Leonie from panic. In spite of the real dangers she recognized, she did not feel alone or helpless. Still, she could not avoid being pushed sideways again, and again forward, and she began to fear that the rope would snap or be torn from her waist or from Roger’s wrist. The immediate concerns of breathing and hoping that Roger would be able to reach her kept Leonie from realizing that the noise of the crowd was increasing as she was pressed forward and that mingled with the roars and yells of excitement, were screams of terror and pain. It was thus not until nearly an hour later—an hour of being slowly and involuntarily squeezed through one opening and then another, a process that was producing a ponderous type of circulation within the mob—that Leonie found out what was happening.

She had been pushed forward once again, but this time there was no one in front of her to stop her progress. She plunged ahead, to be brought up hard against the baton of a man who, she realized later, must be concerned with controlling the mob. At the moment, Leonie realized nothing but the pain of the bump and the force with which the man thrust her back. She gasped and staggered and would have fallen, except that the packing was not so tight at this point in the crowd because the line could bend, and Roger burst out after her and caught her in his arms.

Not realizing who held her, Leonie shrieked. Then, as she turned her head to see who had grabbed her, her eyes swept past the man who had pushed her back and over the entrance to the building a few yards away. Another scream was torn from her, and then another, before she was turned forcibly around and her cries were muffled in Roger’s breast.

The steps of the building were wide and deep, and they were gleaming wet and red with blood—the sections of staircase that could be seen in front of the great doors. The rest, to either side, were obscured by bodies, some of which still twitched as the lifeblood, streaming from gashes made by pikes and sabers, drained away. As Roger watched for some minutes, too horrified to turn his eyes away, a woman came voluntarily, even eagerly, out through the doors. The crowd roared. She paused in surprise. Simultaneously, a saber slashed her, cutting through neck and shoulder, and a pike was thrust into her chest just below her breasts. She did not have time to scream but fell forward as the pike was pulled out. A third man darted forward from the side and dragged the body onto a heap already lying there.

Roger fought back his desire to retch, suddenly aware that he was being poked at with a hard object. It was one of the agents of the commune who was shouting angrily, desiring to know why Leonie was screaming and hiding her face. It was fortunate that Roger did not dare release her. Had his hands been free, he might have acted before he thought and flung himself at the butchers of the bloody shambles. As it was, he was too aware of the need to get Leonie away to permit his outrage to rule him.

“Does she pity these traitors who would murder her and her children if we did not deal with them first?” the agent of the commune demanded.

“She knows nothing about such things,” Roger roared, realizing that to say what he really thought would result in Leonie’s body was well as his own joining the heap. He lifted his left arm, showing the rope and then pointed to its terminus on Leonie’s waist. “She is simple,” he bellowed. “She is only afraid. She does not understand.”

“Are you simple too, to bring such a one here?”

“I could not help it,” Roger replied. “I could not leave her in the café alone when I was drawn out by the crowd. But it would be best if I could take her away from here.”

Leonie had fallen silent. She had recognized Roger’s voice when she drew breath to scream again and she had choked back the cry. The agent of the commune looked around, but the street was clogged with people in all directions.

“It may be best, but it may also be impossible,” he growled. Then he gestured with his head toward the left. “Go that way. When the cart comes to take away the bodies, you can get through behind it.”

The idea was not pleasant, but Roger was now so desperate that he would have accepted a far more unpleasant method—any method, in fact—that would get him and Leonie away. Dragging her with him, he began to work his way along the front of the mob, dodging blows and ignoring curses as he blocked first one and then another person’s view. Soon the mad bellow of the crowd increased again. Roger turned his face away and shielded Leonie’s also. There was nothing he could do. The protest could cost his life and Leonie’s and would still not save a single victim.

The third time the eager peal of the bloodlust rose, Roger was almost up against the wall of the building only ten meters or so from the cross street where the carts would enter. He began to avert his head again from the horror he could not prevent when the ululation of the mob changed. A young man in the remnants of a uniform had dodged the pike thrust aimed at him, spun away from the saber cut and leaped onto the pile of bodies on the steps. From there, another leap carried him halfway down, right in Roger’s direction. Just behind him two pike-wielders struggled over the corpses and in front of him the agents of the Commune of Paris converged, raising their batons.

There was a limit to what Roger could endure, and he thrust Leonie away to the side. A single glimpse at the young face showed fury not fear, and the ex-officer’s arms were raised to defend himself rather than hopelessly to ward off the coming death blows.

“Stop!” Roger shouted. “This is no traitor or enemy. I know this man. He is from my own town, an honest man, and pressed against his will into the Capet’s service. People,” her cried, turning around, “this is a mistake! Will you see one of you own slaughtered?”

The agents of the commune turned, batons raised, toward Roger. Another leap carried the young man between two of them, almost into Roger’s arms. Roaring, the mob surged forward.

Chapter Thirteen

What had seemed the first step toward a painful, bloody end was actually a move of rescue. Instead of tearing them apart, the surge of the mob enveloped Roger, Leonie and the erstwhile victim. The agents of the commune and the pike-wielders fell back before the wave of movement, recognizing by the laughter and cheers that there had been a new verdict handed down, far more powerful and binding than that of the revolutionary tribunal that had originally tried this case. “The people” who an instant before would have cheered at his death were now, with the wild irrationality of the mob, cheering the prisoner’s escape.

To thwart that many-headed monster was death. The batons of the agents of the commune were only a mark of their office, no defense against the mob. Even the pikes and sabers of those paid to butcher the prisoners would have little effect if the mob disapproved of what was happening. They shrugged and laughed and turned away. Encircled by their “rescuers”, Roger embraced the young man with one arm and Leonie with the other and grinned as broadly as he could force his lips apart.

The three clung together, weak from reaction, all wondering how they would be able to get away before the mood of the mob changed again. Questions—not angry, merely interested and congratulatory—were already being called. No one was yet suspicious, but Roger could not answer any question. No matter what town he claimed for his origin, it was not impossible that someone in the crowd near them would know that he did not speak the proper patois. Moreover, the instant the young man was forced to open his mouth, it would be plain to all that he and Roger could not be countrymen.

The near miraculous rescue and the fact that she could no longer see the shambles of the steps restored Leonie to rationality. She had heard enough people comment on Roger’s accent on the trip to Paris so that she understood the problem at once. Her difficulty, of course, was almost as bad. Not only the Côte d’Or was in her speech but also the mark of the aristocracy. Still, she should be able to say one single word without betraying herself.

“Ami,” she cried, as if she had been shocked and had only just realized whom Roger held in his other arm. Then she twisted past Roger and hung herself on the young soldier’s neck, kissing his cheeks. “Your name?” she hissed into his ear.

“Journiac de St. Méard,” he hissed back.

“Journiac!” Leonie cried. “Cher Journiac.”

Those about them beamed, and then mercifully, the front ranks bellowed as another victim came through the door. In the instant, Roger, Leonie and Journiac were forgotten. As those around them pushed in front to see better, they were able—both men pressed together to shield Leonie—to move back a little way. Another effort, which permitted those farther back to move into the space they left and therefore, come closer to the bloody acts taking place, gained another decimeter or two.

How long it took, none of them could remember. Every move, which drew curses from those they pushed or tread upon, was a fearful chance. At any moment someone might ask why they were moving back rather than forward where “the traitors” were receiving their “just deserts”. Any moment someone might suddenly take it into his head that they, or Journiac, were “escaping”. When they finally pushed their way through the stragglers on the periphery, Leonie and Journiac were near fainting and Roger, although he managed to drag them along, was not much better off. He got them around another corner and then sank gasping into a doorway.

“Thank you. Thank you,” the young man whispered, shaking like a leaf now that he was safe. “Why? Why did you do it? I have never seen you before in my life.”

The accent was refined, the voice steadying already. Roger took another deep breath and sat with his head on his knees, numbly thanking God that he and Leonie were still alive. He made no answer. What could he say? There was no rational reason for what he had done.

“It is a habit with him,” Leonie replied, giddy with relief, her voice trembling between terror and laughter. “I did not know him either, but he came and plucked me out of a riot and saved my life also—and now we are married.”

Journiac looked utterly blank, as well he might. He then noticed the rope around Leonie’s waist and bit his lip. Very likely they were both mad and had acted without any reason, but what was he to do now? Mad or not, they had saved his life. Could he simply walk away and abandon them, perhaps leaving them in their madness to be hurt or killed? Yet, if he stayed, what could he do for them?

At this point in the poor bewildered man’s thoughts, Roger lifted his head. “Forgive my wife,” he said. “She is nearly hysterical. Naturally I do not make a habit of saving people in the middle of riots.”

“How many riots have you been in that you can say it is not a habit” Leonie interjected mischievously. “You have done it in the only two you have been in, as far as I know.”

“Leonie!” Roger protested. “Do you want Monsieur de St. Méard to think we are insane?”

“Oh, he thinks so already.” Leonie laughed. “He has been looking at the way you have me leashed. I am afraid he does not think that it is just the thing for a wife to wear when taking an evening stroll on the boulevard with her husband.”

“You are not Marseillais!” Journiac exclaimed as Leonie’s accent finally penetrated from his ear to his brain.

“No,” Roger agreed, and explained briefly how they had been caught up in the mob. “Have you someplace to go?” he asked finally. “I don’t think it is too wise to be out in the streets.”

“Yes, of course—” Journiac started, and then broke off abruptly. “Perhaps I had better not go back. I do not know whether it would be wise to go to my friends.”

“Come with us,” Roger said. “I know the Aunays have another bed, because there was another guest. They are good people. They will let you stay the night, what is left of it. Tomorrow will be soon enough to think what to do.”

Although Roger did not untie Leonie for fear they should come across and be swept up into another mob, they reached the Café Breton without further incident. All along the Capucines they gathered up discarded drinking mugs, Leonie making a sack from the front of her skirt. The café door was open, as it had been left when they had been hustled out, but the place did not seem to have been much damaged. One table and two benches were broken others overturned, and the few bottles of watered wine that had remained were gone, a few smashed on the floor. However, the table that had been drawn across the cellar door was still in place, Roger noted with relief. There was no sign of the Aunays.

They were all exhausted, yet they knew that sleep was out of the question. Leonie first ran up to their room and found Fifi safe, asleep under the bed, which she had learned was her place. She brought the little dog down and then went back into the kitchen. That had been invaded also, but not completely stripped. She found bread and cheese, not fresh but still edible. Roger and Journiac meanwhile had set the room to rights, and Journiac had explained how he had come to be in prison. There were so many reasons, or no reasons, for a gentlemen to be imprisoned these days that she was not even curious.

When she rejoined the men, Roger was saying, “I could not believe it. Why did you all walk out of there, right into the hands of those butchers, as if you were going to freedom?”

“We thought we were,” Journiac replied bitterly. “At least, most of them thought that, or that they were to be transferred to another prison. The reason I am alive—in addition to your courage and generosity, Monsieur Saintaire—is that I had been near a window when a deputation came from the assembly to stop those maniacs from murdering us.”

“This was not ordered by the assembly?” Leonie asked.

“No!” Journiac exclaimed. “How could you think so? They are not bloodthirsty murderers. That is, only Marat and Danton, and perhaps Robespierre— Well, perhaps the whole group from the Cordeliers Club. I know it is not the assembly’s will. Deputy Dessaulz and Deputy Bazaire came and tried to reason with the crowd, but they were driven away.”

“It is worse than I thought,” Roger muttered. “It is bad enough when a government orders its citizens to be slaughtered to achieve some purpose, but this—this is real anarchy. A bad law can be changed, but when there is no law…”

“Then each man must fend for himself,” Journiac sad.

Roger shook his head but did not reply. Pierre’s anarchist ideas and behavior within the confines of a stable society were somewhat amusing. To contemplate the results of each man fending for himself when all control had broken down… Roger saw again the heaps of bodies, the blood running down the steps, and shuddered.

“But if it was not the assembly, who judged you? Why did you think you were being released?” Leonie asked curiously.

She had not Roger’s well-trained, legalistic horror of anarchy or the lack of a clear legal right and wrong. Her world had collapsed and fallen apart long before. She had come to terms with a society gone mad and agreed wholeheartedly with Journiac. Leonie was not beyond being horrified by suffering and death, but when they were over she shook them off. She had suffered so much herself, had lost so much, that to dwell on such things could lead to a total breakdown of her own mind and will. Her stability was now Roger. This last episode, starting with his suggestions to the Aunays and ending with Journiac’s rescue and their own present relative safety, had reinforced the conviction she already had that Roger could do anything.

“Who judged us I cannot say, except that two were renegade priests—their tonsured hair was still growing in—and one other was apparently a shoemaker. They called themselves a revolutionary tribunal. As for why the prisoners thought they were to be released—that was the verdict that tribunal handed down. ‘Release Citizen So-and so.’ For some, who were obviously guilty of some crime, they said ‘La Force’ or ‘La Châtelet’ which implied the prisoners were to be transferred to another prison. There seemed to be nothing to fear.”

He paused, and his eyes grew distant with remembered horror. “Most of us knew we were not traitors, knew we had done no wrong,” he continued. “That we might be snatched up among others by mistake—that was frightening but within reason. But that we should be killed after no more than a minute or two of questioning—without witnesses or counsel… Even the king did not do that. It was inconceivable! It was easier to believe that such a tribunal had indeed been convened to release all those obviously innocent and remand for real trial before proper judges those who might be guilty.”

“What made you suspicious?”

“Mostly that the deputies had not been allowed to speak more than a few words. I was not really suspicious of the tribunal. What I thought was that they either did not know or did not care that the mob outside was ugly. I was thinking of running and dodging, of how to escape the mob, so when I heard the roar… Thank you again, m’sieu, and you also madame.”

Roger gestured away the thanks, frowning over his own unhappy thoughts. There was, however, a gleam of hope in them. If total anarchy came to the city, the watch at the gates might well fail. Perhaps he and Leonie could escape.

This, however, was not the case, Roger found the next day. The Aunays had returned soon after dawn. In their joy at finding the café virtually intact—even many of the cheap mugs back in place—they made nothing of Roger having invited a guest without their approval. They would have consented to his remaining, but Journiac decided he would see if he could contact his friends secretly and left about midmorning. Soon after, Roger took a walk to the nearest gate. Here he asked anxiously for a mythical friend who was supposed to have come into the city a week before.

The guards were civil enough. There had been only three days when the gates were shut to entry, they informed him, so his friend should have come in without difficulty.

“But we have moved and I am afraid my letter with my new direction did not get to him in time. Perhaps someone remembers him going out?”

The guard shook his head firmly. “Not out of this gate, unless he had a special pass. Those names are written on a register and the names of those who passed them out also.”

“Ah, would it be possible for me to look for his name? I do not know whether to write him again or begin to search the city for him.”

“I will ask the captain.”

They would not allow Roger to look at the register, which did not surprise him, but obligingly looked up the common name Roger offered as the name of his friend. It did not happen to be there, which was another disappointment. Roger would have liked to know who was able to sign passes out of the city. A greater disappointment, however, came when Roger asked how long it was likely that the restrictions on leaving would last. He put the question in positive terms—as being a benefit to him by giving him a greater chance to find his friend.

There was no suspicion in the guard’s face, but he shrugged his shoulders. “Ask the Prussians. When they are driven back, we shall be free to come and go as we please.”

Roger had to smile and did so, adding some platitude about how that would not be long because the revolutionary army would cut them to ribbons. He did not get back to the café until late afternoon, where he met more discomforting news that he had to greet as if it were the dearest wish of his heart. Lefranc had been in again—the helpful devil—with word that he had heard of excellent premises where Roger could set up business.

“Shall we go and look, Roger?” Leonie asked eagerly.

There was nothing else she could do, Roger knew, and they set out, Fifi frisking at their heels. When they were alone in the street, he told her what he had learned and said he was sorry.