Chương Chương 7 · THE WIND

mill should prove too formidable,” said he, from the

threshold, “I may see what can be done with the wind. Good-bye, monsieur

my godfather.”

He was gone, and M. de Kercadiou was alone, purple in the face, puzzling

out that last cryptic utterance, and not at all happy in his mind,

either on the score of his godson or of M. de La Tour d’Azyr. He was

disposed to be angry with them both. He found these headstrong, wilful

men who relentlessly followed their own impulses very disturbing and

irritating. Himself he loved his ease, and to be at peace with his

neighbours; and that seemed to him so obviously the supreme good of life

that he was disposed to brand them as fools who troubled to seek other

things.

Chapter 6. THE WINDMILL

There was between Nantes and Rennes an established service of three

stage-coaches weekly in each direction, which for a sum of twenty-four

livres--roughly, the equivalent of an English guinea--would carry you the

seventy and odd miles of the journey in some fourteen hours. Once a week

one of the diligences going in each direction would swerve aside

from the highroad to call at Gavrillac, to bring and take letters,

newspapers, and sometimes passengers. It was usually by this coach

that Andre-Louis came and went when the occasion offered. At present,

however, he was too much in haste to lose a day awaiting the passing of

that diligence. So it was on a horse hired from the Breton arme that he

set out next morning; and an hour’s brisk ride under a grey wintry sky,

by a half-ruined road through ten miles of flat, uninteresting country,

brought him to the city of Rennes.

He rode across the main bridge over the Vilaine, and so into the upper

and principal part of that important city of some thirty thousand

souls, most of whom, he opined from the seething, clamant crowds that

everywhere blocked his way, must on this day have taken to the streets.

Clearly Philippe had not overstated the excitement prevailing there.

He pushed on as best he could, and so came at last to the Place Royale,

where he found the crowd to be most dense. From the plinth of the

equestrian statue of Louis XV, a white-faced young man was excitedly

addressing the multitude. His youth and dress proclaimed the student,

and a group of his fellows, acting as a guard of honour to him, kept the

immediate precincts of the statue.

Over the heads of the crowd Andre-Louis caught a few of the phrases

flung forth by that eager voice.

“It was the promise of the King... It is the King’s authority they

flout... They arrogate to themselves the whole sovereignty in Brittany.

The King has dissolved them... These insolent nobles defying their

sovereign and the people...”

Had he not known already, from what Philippe had told him, of the events

which had brought the Third Estate to the point of active revolt, those

few phrases would fully have informed him. This popular display of

temper was most opportune to his need, he thought. And in the hope that

it might serve his turn by disposing to reasonableness the mind of the

King’s Lieutenant, he pushed on up the wide and well-paved Rue Royale,

where the concourse of people began to diminish. He put up his hired

horse at the Come de Cerf, and set out again, on foot, to the Palais de

Justice.

There was a brawling mob by the framework of poles and scaffoldings

about the building cathedral, upon which work had been commenced a year

ago. But he did not pause to ascertain the particular cause of that

gathering. He strode on, and thus came presently to the handsome

Italianate palace that was one of the few public edifices that had

survived the devastating fire of sixty years ago.

He won through with difficulty to the great hall, known as the Salle

des Pas Perdus, where he was left to cool his heels for a full half-hour

after he had found an usher so condescending as to inform the god who

presided over that shrine of Justice that a lawyer from Gavrillac humbly

begged an audience on an affair of gravity.

That the god condescended to see him at all was probably due to the

grave complexion of the hour. At long length he was escorted up the

broad stone staircase, and ushered into a spacious, meagrely furnished

anteroom, to make one of a waiting crowd of clients, mostly men.

There he spent another half-hour, and employed the time in considering

exactly what he should say. This consideration made him realize the

weakness of the case he proposed to set before a man whose views of law

and morality were coloured by his social rank.

At last he was ushered through a narrow but very massive and richly

decorated door into a fine, well-lighted room furnished with enough gilt

and satin to have supplied the boudoir of a lady of fashion.

It was a trivial setting for a King’s Lieutenant, but about the King’s

Lieutenant there was--at least to ordinary eyes--nothing trivial. At the

far end of the chamber, to the right of one of the tall windows that

looked out over the inner court, before a goat-legged writing-table with

Watteau panels, heavily encrusted with ormolu, sat that exalted being.

Above a scarlet coat with an order flaming on its breast, and a billow

of lace in which diamonds sparkled like drops of water, sprouted the

massive powdered head of M. de Lesdiguieres. It was thrown back to scowl

upon this visitor with an expectant arrogance that made Andre-Louis

wonder almost was a genuflexion awaited from him.

Perceiving a lean, lantern-jawed young man, with straight, lank black

hair, in a caped riding-coat of brown cloth, and yellow buckskin

breeches, his knee-boots splashed with mud, the scowl upon that august

visage deepened until it brought together the thick black eyebrows above

the great hooked nose.

“You announce yourself as a lawyer of Gavrillac with an important

communication,” he growled. It was a peremptory command to make this

communication without wasting the valuable time of a King’s Lieutenant,

of whose immense importance it conveyed something more than a hint. M.

de Lesdiguieres accounted himself an imposing personality, and he had

every reason to do so, for in his time he had seen many a poor devil

scared out of all his senses by the thunder of his voice.

He waited now to see the same thing happen to this youthful lawyer from

Gavrillac. But he waited in vain.

Andre-Louis found him ridiculous. He knew pretentiousness for the

mask of worthlessness and weakness. And here he beheld pretentiousness

incarnate. It was to be read in that arrogant poise of the head, that

scowling brow, the inflexion of that reverberating voice. Even more

difficult than it is for a man to be a hero to his valet--who has

witnessed the dispersal of the parts that make up the imposing whole--is

it for a man to be a hero to the student of Man who has witnessed the

same in a different sense.

Andre-Louis stood forward boldly--impudently, thought M. de Lesdiguieres.

“You are His Majesty’s Lieutenant here in Brittany,” he said--and it

almost seemed to the august lord of life and death that this fellow had

the incredible effrontery to address him as one man speaking to another.

“You are the dispenser of the King’s high justice in this province.”

Surprise spread on that handsome, sallow face under the heavily powdered

wig.

“Is your business concerned with this infernal insubordination of the

canaille?” he asked.

“It is not, monsieur.”

The black eyebrows rose. “Then what the devil do you mean by intruding

upon me at a time when all my attention is being claimed by the obvious

urgency of this disgraceful affair?”

“The affair that brings me is no less disgraceful and no less urgent.”

“It will have to wait!” thundered the great man in a passion, and

tossing back a cloud of lace from his hand, he reached for the little

silver bell upon his table.

“A moment, monsieur!” Andre-Louis’ tone was peremptory. M. de

Lesdiguieres checked in sheer amazement at its impudence. “I can state

it very briefly...”

“Haven’t I said already...”

“And when you have heard it,” Andre-Louis went on, relentlessly,

interrupting the interruption, “you will agree with me as to its

character.”

M. de Lesdiguieres considered him very sternly.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Andre-Louis Moreau.”

“Well, Andre-Louis Moreau, if you can state your plea briefly, I will

hear you. But I warn you that I shall be very angry if you fail to

justify the impertinence of this insistence at so inopportune a moment.”

“You shall be the judge of that, monsieur,” said Andre-Louis, and he

proceeded at once to state his case, beginning with the shooting of

Mabey, and passing thence to the killing of M. de Vilmorin. But he

withheld until the end the name of the great gentleman against whom he

demanded justice, persuaded that did he introduce it earlier he would

not be allowed to proceed.

He had a gift of oratory of whose full powers he was himself hardly

conscious yet, though destined very soon to become so. He told his story

well, without exaggeration, yet with a force of simple appeal that was

irresistible. Gradually the great man’s face relaxed from its forbidding

severity. Interest, warming almost to sympathy, came to be reflected on

it.

“And who, sir, is the man you charge with this?”

“The Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr.”

The effect of that formidable name was immediate. Dismayed anger, and an

arrogance more utter than before, took the place of the sympathy he had

been betrayed into displaying.

“Who?” he shouted, and without waiting for an answer, “Why, here’s

impudence,” he stormed on, “to come before me with such a charge against

a gentleman of M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s eminence! How dare you speak of

him as a coward....”

“I speak of him as a murderer,” the young man corrected. “And I demand

justice against him.”

“You demand it, do you? My God, what next?”

“That is for you to say, monsieur.”

It surprised the great gentleman into a more or less successful effort

of self-control.

“Let me warn you,” said he, acidly, “that it is not wise to make

wild accusations against a nobleman. That, in itself, is a punishable

offence, as you may learn. Now listen to me. In this matter of

Mabey--assuming your statement of it to be exact--the gamekeeper may have

exceeded his duty; but by so little that it is hardly worth comment.

Consider, however, that in any case it is not a matter for the King’s

Lieutenant, or for any court but the seigneurial court of M. de La Tour

d’Azyr himself. It is before the magistrates of his own appointing that

such a matter must be laid, since it is matter strictly concerning his

own seigneurial jurisdiction. As a lawyer you should not need to be told

so much.”

“As a lawyer, I am prepared to argue the point. But, as a lawyer I also

realize that if that case were prosecuted, it could only end in the

unjust punishment of a wretched gamekeeper, who did no more than carry

out his orders, but who none the less would now be made a scapegoat,

if scapegoat were necessary. I am not concerned to hang Benet on the

gallows earned by M. de La Tour d’Azyr.”

M. de Lesdiguieres smote the table violently. “My God!” he cried out, to

add more quietly, on a note of menace, “You are singularly insolent, my

man.”

“That is not my intention, sir, I assure you. I am a lawyer, pleading a

case--the case of M. de Vilmorin. It is for his assassination that I have

come to beg the King’s justice.”

“But you yourself have said that it was a duel!” cried the Lieutenant,

between anger and bewilderment.

“I have said that it was made to appear a duel. There is a distinction,

as I shall show, if you will condescend to hear me out.”

“Take your own time, sir!” said the ironical M. de Lesdiguieres, whose

tenure of office had never yet held anything that remotely resembled

this experience.

Andre-Louis took him literally. “I thank you, sir,” he answered,

solemnly, and submitted his argument. “It can be shown that M. de

Vilmorin never practised fencing in all his life, and it is notorious

that M. de La Tour d’Azyr is an exceptional swordsman. Is it a duel,

monsieur, where one of the combatants alone is armed? For it amounts to

that on a comparison of their measures of respective skill.”

“There has scarcely been a duel fought on which the same trumpery

argument might not be advanced.”

“But not always with equal justice. And in one case, at least, it was

advanced successfully.”

“Successfully? When was that?”

“Ten years ago, in Dauphiny. I refer to the case of M. de Gesvres,

a gentleman of that province, who forced a duel upon M. de la Roche

Jeannine, and killed him. M. de Jeannine was a member of a powerful

family, which exerted itself to obtain justice. It put forward just

such arguments as now obtain against M. de La Tour d’Azyr. As you will

remember, the judges held that the provocation had proceeded of intent

from M. de Gesvres; they found him guilty of premeditated murder, and he

was hanged.”

M. de Lesdiguieres exploded yet again. “Death of my life!” he cried.

“Have you the effrontery to suggest that M. de La Tour d’Azyr should be

hanged? Have you?”

“But why not, monsieur, if it is the law, and there is precedent for it,

as I have shown you, and if it can be established that what I state is

the truth--as established it can be without difficulty?”

“Do you ask me, why not? Have you temerity to ask me that?”

“I have, monsieur. Can you answer me? If you cannot, monsieur, I shall

understand that whilst it is possible for a powerful family like that

of La Roche Jeannine to set the law in motion, the law must remain inert

for the obscure and uninfluential, however brutally wronged by a great

nobleman.”

M. de Lesdiguieres perceived that in argument he would accomplish

nothing against this impassive, resolute young man. The menace of him

grew more fierce.

“I should advise you to take yourself off at once, and to be thankful

for the opportunity to depart unscathed.”

“I am, then, to understand, monsieur, that there will be no inquiry into

this case? That nothing that I can say will move you?”

“You are to understand that if you are still there in two minutes it

will be very much the worse for you.” And M. de Lesdiguieres tinkled the

silver hand-bell upon his table.

“I have informed you, monsieur, that a duel--so-called--has been fought,

and a man killed. It seems that I must remind you, the administrator of

the King’s justice, that duels are against the law, and that it is

your duty to hold an inquiry. I come as the legal representative of the

bereaved mother of M. de Vilmorin to demand of you the inquiry that is

due.”

The door behind Andre-Louis opened softly. M. de Lesdiguieres, pale with

anger, contained himself with difficulty.

“You seek to compel us, do you, you impudent rascal?” he growled. “You

think the King’s justice is to be driven headlong by the voice of any

impudent roturier? I marvel at my own patience with you. But I give you

a last warning, master lawyer; keep a closer guard over that insolent

tongue of yours, or you will have cause very bitterly to regret its

glibness.” He waved a jewelled, contemptuous hand, and spoke to the

usher standing behind Andre. “To the door!” he said, shortly.

Andre-Louis hesitated a second. Then with a shrug he turned. This was

the windmill, indeed, and he a poor knight of rueful countenance. To

attack it at closer quarters would mean being dashed to pieces. Yet on

the threshold he turned again.

“M. de Lesdiguieres,” said he, “may I recite to you an interesting fact

in natural history? The tiger is a great lord in the jungle, and was

for centuries the terror of lesser beasts, including the wolf. The wolf,

himself a hunter, wearied of being hunted. He took to associating

with other wolves, and then the wolves, driven to form packs for

self-protection, discovered the power of the pack, and took to hunting

the tiger, with disastrous results to him. You should study Buffon, M.

de Lesdiguieres.”

“I have studied a buffoon this morning, I think,” was the punning sneer

with which M. de Lesdiguieres replied. But that he conceived himself

witty, it is probable he would not have condescended to reply at all. “I

don’t understand you,” he added.

“But you will, M. de Lesdiguieres. You will,” said Andre-Louis, and so

departed.

Chapter 7. THE WIND

He had broken his futile lance with the windmill--the image suggested by

M. de Kercadiou persisted in his mind--and it was, he perceived, by sheer

good fortune that he had escaped without hurt. There remained the wind

itself--the whirlwind. And the events in Rennes, reflex of the graver

events in Nantes, had set that wind blowing in his favour.

He set out briskly to retrace his steps towards the Place Royale, where

the gathering of the populace was greatest, where, as he judged, lay the

heart and brain of this commotion that was exciting the city.

But the commotion that he had left there was as nothing to the commotion

which he found on his return. Then there had been a comparative hush

to listen to the voice of a speaker who denounced the First and Second

Estates from the pedestal of the statue of Louis XV. Now the air was

vibrant with the voice of the multitude itself, raised in anger. Here

and there men were fighting with canes and fists; everywhere a

fierce excitement raged, and the gendarmes sent thither by the King’s

Lieutenant to restore and maintain order were so much helpless flotsam

in that tempestuous human ocean.

There were cries of “To the Palais! To the Palais! Down with the

assassins! Down with the nobles! To the Palais!”

An artisan who stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the press

enlightened Andre-Louis on the score of the increased excitement.

“They’ve shot him dead. His body is lying there where it fell at the

foot of the statue. And there was another student killed not an hour ago

over there by the cathedral works. Pardi! If they can’t prevail in one

way they’ll prevail in another.” The man was fiercely emphatic. “They’ll

stop at nothing. If they can’t overawe us, by God, they’ll assassinate

us. They are determined to conduct these States of Brittany in their own

way. No interests but their own shall be considered.”

Andre-Louis left him still talking, and clove himself a way through that

human press.

At the statue’s base he came upon a little cluster of students about the

body of the murdered lad, all stricken with fear and helplessness.

“You here, Moreau!” said a voice.

He looked round to find himself confronted by a slight, swarthy man

of little more than thirty, firm of mouth and impertinent of nose,

who considered him with disapproval. It was Le Chapelier, a lawyer

of Rennes, a prominent member of the Literary Chamber of that city, a

forceful man, fertile in revolutionary ideas and of an exceptional gift

of eloquence.

“Ah, it is you, Chapelier! Why don’t you speak to them? Why don’t you

tell them what to do? Up with you, man!” And he pointed to the plinth.

Le Chapelier’s dark, restless eyes searched the other’s impassive face

for some trace of the irony he suspected. They were as wide asunder

as the poles, these two, in their political views; and mistrusted as

Andre-Louis was by all his colleagues of the Literary Chamber of Rennes,

he was by none mistrusted so thoroughly as by this vigorous republican.

Indeed, had Le Chapelier been able to prevail against the influence of

the seminarist Vilmorin, Andre-Louis would long since have found himself

excluded from that assembly of the intellectual youth of Rennes, which

he exasperated by his eternal mockery of their ideals.

So now Le Chapelier suspected mockery in that invitation, suspected it

even when he failed to find traces of it on Andre-Louis’ face, for he

had learnt by experience that it was a face not often to be trusted for

an indication of the real thoughts that moved behind it.

“Your notions and mine on that score can hardly coincide,” said he.

“Can there be two opinions?” quoth Andre-Louis.

“There are usually two opinions whenever you and I are together,

Moreau--more than ever now that you are the appointed delegate of a

nobleman. You see what your friends have done. No doubt you approve

their methods.” He was coldly hostile.

Andre-Louis looked at him without surprise. So invariably opposed to

each other in academic debates, how should Le Chapelier suspect his

present intentions?

“If you won’t tell them what is to be done, I will,” said he.

“Nom de Dieu! If you want to invite a bullet from the other side, I

shall not hinder you. It may help to square the account.”

Scarcely were the words out than he repented them; for as if in answer

to that challenge Andre-Louis sprang up on to the plinth. Alarmed now,

for he could only suppose it to be Andre-Louis’ intention to speak

on behalf of Privilege, of which he was a publicly appointed

representative, Le Chapelier clutched him by the leg to pull him down

again.

“Ah, that, no!” he was shouting. “Come down, you fool. Do you think we

will let you ruin everything by your clowning? Come down!”

Andre-Louis, maintaining his position by clutching one of the legs of

the bronze horse, flung his voice like a bugle-note over the heads of

that seething mob.

“Citizens of Rennes, the motherland is in danger!”

The effect was electric. A stir ran, like a ripple over water, across

that froth of upturned human faces, and completest silence followed.

In that great silence they looked at this slim young man, hatless,

long wisps of his black hair fluttering in the breeze, his neckcloth in

disorder, his face white, his eyes on fire.

Andre-Louis felt a sudden surge of exaltation as he realized by instinct

that at one grip he had seized that crowd, and that he held it fast in

the spell of his cry and his audacity.

Even Le Chapelier, though still clinging to his ankle, had ceased to

tug. The reformer, though unshaken in his assumption of Andre-Louis’

intentions, was for a moment bewildered by the first note of his appeal.

And then, slowly, impressively, in a voice that travelled clear to the

ends of the square, the young lawyer of Gavrillac began to speak.

“Shuddering in horror of the vile deed here perpetrated, my voice

demands to be heard by you. You have seen murder done under your

eyes--the murder of one who nobly, without any thought of self, gave

voice to the wrongs by which we are all oppressed. Fearing that voice,

shunning the truth as foul things shun the light, our oppressors sent

their agents to silence him in death.”

Le Chapelier released at last his hold of Andre-Louis’ ankle, staring

up at him the while in sheer amazement. It seemed that the fellow was in

earnest; serious for once; and for once on the right side. What had come

to him?

“Of assassins what shall you look for but assassination? I have a

tale to tell which will show that this is no new thing that you have

witnessed here to-day; it will reveal to you the forces with which you

have to deal. Yesterday...”

There was an interruption. A voice in the crowd, some twenty paces,

perhaps, was raised to shout:

“Yet another of them!”

Immediately after the voice came a pistol-shot, and a bullet flattened

itself against the bronze figure just behind Andre-Louis.

Instantly there was turmoil in the crowd, most intense about the spot

whence the shot had been fired. The assailant was one of a considerable

group of the opposition, a group that found itself at once beset on

every side, and hard put to it to defend him.

From the foot of the plinth rang the voice of the students making chorus

to Le Chapelier, who was bidding Andre-Louis to seek shelter.

“Come down! Come down at once! They’ll murder you as they murdered La

Riviere.”

“Let them!” He flung wide his arms in a gesture supremely theatrical,

and laughed. “I stand here at their mercy. Let them, if they will, add

mine to the blood that will presently rise up to choke them. Let them

assassinate me. It is a trade they understand. But until they do so,

they shall not prevent me from speaking to you, from telling you what

is to be looked for in them.” And again he laughed, not merely in

exaltation as they supposed who watched him from below, but also in

amusement. And his amusement had two sources. One was to discover how

glibly he uttered the phrases proper to whip up the emotions of a crowd:

the other was in the remembrance of how the crafty Cardinal de Retz, for

the purpose of inflaming popular sympathy on his behalf, had been in the

habit of hiring fellows to fire upon his carriage. He was in just such

case as that arch-politician. True, he had not hired the fellow to fire

that pistol-shot; but he was none the less obliged to him, and ready to

derive the fullest, advantage from the act.

The group that sought to protect that man was battling on, seeking to

hew a way out of that angry, heaving press.

“Let them go!” Andre-Louis called down... “What matters one assassin more

or less? Let them go, and listen to me, my countrymen!”

And presently, when some measure of order was restored, he began his

tale. In simple language now, yet with a vehemence and directness

that drove home every point, he tore their hearts with the story of

yesterday’s happenings at Gavrillac. He drew tears from them with

the pathos of his picture of the bereaved widow Mabey and her three

starving, destitute children--“orphaned to avenge the death of a

pheasant”--and the bereaved mother of that M. de Vilmorin, a student of

Rennes, known here to many of them, who had met his death in a noble

endeavour to champion the cause of an esurient member of their afflicted

order.

“The Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr said of him that he had too dangerous a

gift of eloquence. It was to silence his brave voice that he killed

him. But he has failed of his object. For I, poor Philippe de Vilmorin’s

friend, have assumed the mantle of his apostleship, and I speak to you

with his voice to-day.”

It was a statement that helped Le Chapelier at last to understand, at

least in part, this bewildering change in Andre-Louis, which rendered

him faithless to the side that employed him.

“I am not here,” continued Andre-Louis, “merely to demand at your hands

vengeance upon Philippe de Vilmorin’s murderers. I am here to tell you

the things he would to-day have told you had he lived.”

So far at least he was frank. But he did not add that they were things

he did not himself believe, things that he accounted the cant by which

an ambitious bourgeoisie--speaking through the mouths of the lawyers, who

were its articulate part--sought to overthrow to its own advantage the

present state of things. He left his audience in the natural belief that

the views he expressed were the views he held.

And now in a terrible voice, with an eloquence that amazed himself,

he denounced the inertia of the royal justice where the great are the

offenders. It was with bitter sarcasm that he spoke of their King’s

Lieutenant, M. de Lesdiguieres.

“Do you wonder,” he asked them, “that M. de Lesdiguieres should

administer the law so that it shall ever be favourable to our great

nobles? Would it be just, would it be reasonable that he should

otherwise administer it?” He paused dramatically to let his sarcasm sink

in. It had the effect of reawakening Le Chapelier’s doubts, and checking

his dawning conviction in Andre-Louis’ sincerity. Whither was he going

now?

He was not left long in doubt. Proceeding, Andre-Louis spoke as he

conceived that Philippe de Vilmorin would have spoken. He had so often

argued with him, so often attended the discussions of the Literary

Chamber, that he had all the rant of the reformers--that was yet true in

substance--at his fingers’ ends.

“Consider, after all, the composition of this France of ours. A million

of its inhabitants are members of the privileged classes. They compose

France. They are France. For surely you cannot suppose the remainder

to be anything that matters. It cannot be pretended that twenty-four

million souls are of any account, that they can be representative of

this great nation, or that they can exist for any purpose but that of

servitude to the million elect.”

Bitter laughter shook them now, as he desired it should. “Seeing their

privileges in danger of invasion by these twenty-four millions--mostly

canailles; possibly created by God, it is true, but clearly so created

to be the slaves of Privilege--does it surprise you that the dispensing

of royal justice should be placed in the stout hands of these

Lesdiguieres, men without brains to think or hearts to be touched?

Consider what it is that must be defended against the assault of us

others--canaille. Consider a few of these feudal rights that are in

danger of being swept away should the Privileged yield even to the

commands of their sovereign; and admit the Third Estate to an equal vote

with themselves.

“What would become of the right of terrage on the land, of parciere on

the fruit-trees, of carpot on the vines? What of the corvees by which

they command forced labour, of the ban de vendage, which gives them the

first vintage, the banvin which enables them to control to their own

advantage the sale of wine? What of their right of grinding the last

liard of taxation out of the people to maintain their own opulent

estate; the cens, the lods-et-ventes, which absorb a fifth of the value

of the land, the blairee, which must be paid before herds can feed on

communal lands, the pulverage to indemnify them for the dust raised on

their roads by the herds that go to market, the sextelage on everything

offered for sale in the public markets, the etalonnage, and all the

rest? What of their rights over men and animals for field labour, of

ferries over rivers, and of bridges over streams, of sinking wells, of

warren, of dovecot, and of fire, which last yields them a tax on

every peasant hearth? What of their exclusive rights of fishing and of

hunting, the violation of which is ranked as almost a capital offence?

“And what of other rights, unspeakable, abominable, over the lives and

bodies of their people, rights which, if rarely exercised, have never

been rescinded. To this day if a noble returning from the hunt were to

slay two of his serfs to bathe and refresh his feet in their blood, he

could still claim in his sufficient defence that it was his absolute

feudal right to do so.

“Rough-shod, these million Privileged ride over the souls and bodies

of twenty-four million contemptible canaille existing but for their own

pleasure. Woe betide him who so much as raises his voice in protest

in the name of humanity against an excess of these already excessive

abuses. I have told you of one remorselessly slain in cold blood for

doing no more than that. Your own eyes have witnessed the assassination

of another here upon this plinth, of yet another over there by the

cathedral works, and the attempt upon my own life.

“Between them and the justice due to them in such cases stand these

Lesdiguieres, these King’s Lieutenants; not instruments of justice, but

walls erected for the shelter of Privilege and Abuse whenever it exceeds

its grotesquely excessive rights.

“Do you wonder that they will not yield an inch; that they will resist

the election of a Third Estate with the voting power to sweep all these

privileges away, to compel the Privileged to submit themselves to a just

equality in the eyes of the law with the meanest of the canaille they

trample underfoot, to provide that the moneys necessary to save this

state from the bankruptcy into which they have all but plunged it shall

be raised by taxation to be borne by themselves in the same proportion

as by others?

“Sooner than yield to so much they prefer to resist even the royal

command.”

A phrase occurred to him used yesterday by Vilmorin, a phrase to which

he had refused to attach importance when uttered then. He used it now.

“In doing this they are striking at the very foundations of the throne.

These fools do not perceive that if that throne falls over, it is they

who stand nearest to it who will be crushed.”

A terrific roar acclaimed that statement. Tense and quivering with the

excitement that was flowing through him, and from him out into that

great audience, he stood a moment smiling ironically. Then he waved

them into silence, and saw by their ready obedience how completely he

possessed them. For in the voice with which he spoke each now recognized

the voice of himself, giving at last expression to the thoughts that for

months and years had been inarticulately stirring in each simple mind.

Presently he resumed, speaking more quietly, that ironic smile about the

corner of his mouth growing more marked:

“In taking my leave of M. de Lesdiguieres I gave him warning out of a

page of natural history. I told him that when the wolves, roaming singly

through the jungle, were weary of being hunted by the tiger, they banded

themselves into packs, and went a-hunting the tiger in their turn. M. de

Lesdiguieres contemptuously answered that he did not understand me. But

your wits are better than his. You understand me, I think? Don’t you?”

Again a great roar, mingled now with some approving laughter, was his

answer. He had wrought them up to a pitch of dangerous passion, and they

were ripe for any violence to which he urged them. If he had failed with

the windmill, at least he was now master of the wind.

“To the Palais!” they shouted, waving their hands, brandishing canes,

and--here and there--even a sword. “To the Palais! Down with M. de

Lesdiguieres! Death to the King’s Lieutenant!”

He was master of the wind, indeed. His dangerous gift of oratory--a

gift nowhere more powerful than in France, since nowhere else are men’s

emotions so quick to respond to the appeal of eloquence--had given him

this mastery. At his bidding now the gale would sweep away the

windmill against which he had flung himself in vain. But that, as he

straightforwardly revealed it, was no part of his intent.

“Ah, wait!” he bade them. “Is this miserable instrument of a corrupt

system worth the attention of your noble indignation?”

He hoped his words would be reported to M. de Lesdiguieres. He thought

it would be good for the soul of M. de Lesdiguieres to hear the

undiluted truth about himself for once.

“It is the system itself you must attack and overthrow; not a mere

instrument--a miserable painted lath such as this. And precipitancy will

spoil everything. Above all, my children, no violence!”

My children! Could his godfather have heard him!

“You have seen often already the result of premature violence elsewhere

in Brittany, and you have heard of it elsewhere in France. Violence on

your part will call for violence on theirs. They will welcome the chance

to assert their mastery by a firmer grip than heretofore. The military

will be sent for. You will be faced by the bayonets of mercenaries. Do

not provoke that, I implore you. Do not put it into their power, do not

afford them the pretext they would welcome to crush you down into the

mud of your own blood.”

Out of the silence into which they had fallen anew broke now the cry of

“What else, then? What else?”

“I will tell you,” he answered them. “The wealth and strength of

Brittany lies in Nantes--a bourgeois city, one of the most prosperous in

this realm, rendered so by the energy of the bourgeoisie and the toil of

the people. It was in Nantes that this movement had its beginning, and

as a result of it the King issued his order dissolving the States as now

constituted--an order which those who base their power on Privilege and

Abuse do not hesitate to thwart. Let Nantes be informed of the precise

situation, and let nothing be done here until Nantes shall have given us

the lead. She has the power--which we in Rennes have not--to make her will

prevail, as we have seen already. Let her exert that power once more,

and until she does so do you keep the peace in Rennes. Thus shall you

triumph. Thus shall the outrages that are being perpetrated under your

eyes be fully and finally avenged.”

As abruptly as he had leapt upon the plinth did he now leap down from

it. He had finished. He had said all--perhaps more than all--that could

have been said by the dead friend with whose voice he spoke. But it was

not their will that he should thus extinguish himself. The thunder of

their acclamations rose deafeningly upon the air. He had played upon

their emotions--each in turn--as a skilful harpist plays upon the strings

of his instrument. And they were vibrant with the passions he had

aroused, and the high note of hope on which he had brought his symphony

to a close.

A dozen students caught him as he leapt down, and swung him to their

shoulders, where again he came within view of all the acclaiming crowd.

The delicate Le Chapelier pressed alongside of him with flushed face and

shining eyes.

“My lad,” he said to him, “you have kindled a fire to-day that will

sweep the face of France in a blaze of liberty.” And then to the

students he issued a sharp command. “To the Literary Chamber--at once. We

must concert measures upon the instant, a delegate must be dispatched

to Nantes forthwith, to convey to our friends there the message of the

people of Rennes.”

The crowd fell back, opening a lane through which the students bore

the hero of the hour. Waving his hands to them, he called upon them to

disperse to their homes, and await there in patience what must follow

very soon.

“You have endured for centuries with a fortitude that is a pattern to

the world,” he flattered them. “Endure a little longer yet. The end, my

friends, is well in sight at last.”

They carried him out of the square and up the Rue Royale to an old

house, one of the few old houses surviving in that city that had risen

from its ashes, where in an upper chamber lighted by diamond-shaped

panes of yellow glass the Literary Chamber usually held its meetings.

Thither in his wake the members of that chamber came hurrying, summoned

by the messages that Le Chapelier had issued during their progress.

Behind closed doors a flushed and excited group of some fifty men, the

majority of whom were young, ardent, and afire with the illusion of

liberty, hailed Andre-Louis as the strayed sheep who had returned to the

fold, and smothered him in congratulations and thanks.

Then they settled down to deliberate upon immediate measures, whilst the

doors below were kept by a guard of honour that had improvised itself

from the masses. And very necessary was this. For no sooner had the

Chamber assembled than the house was assailed by the gendarmerie of M.

de Lesdiguieres, dispatched in haste to arrest the firebrand who was

inciting the people of Rennes to sedition. The force consisted of fifty

men. Five hundred would have been too few. The mob broke their carbines,

broke some of their heads, and would indeed have torn them into pieces

had they not beaten a timely and well-advised retreat before a form of

horseplay to which they were not at all accustomed.

And whilst that was taking place in the street below, in the room

abovestairs the eloquent Le Chapelier was addressing his colleagues

of the Literary Chamber. Here, with no bullets to fear, and no one

to report his words to the authorities, Le Chapelier could permit his

oratory a full, unintimidated flow. And that considerable oratory was as

direct and brutal as the man himself was delicate and elegant.

He praised the vigour and the greatness of the speech they had heard

from their colleague Moreau. Above all he praised its wisdom. Moreau’s

words had come as a surprise to them. Hitherto they had never known

him as other than a bitter critic of their projects of reform and

regeneration; and quite lately they had heard, not without misgivings,

of his appointment as delegate for a nobleman in the States of Brittany.

But they held the explanation of his conversion. The murder of their

dear colleague Vilmorin had produced this change. In that brutal deed

Moreau had beheld at last in true proportions the workings of that evil

spirit which they were vowed to exorcise from France. And to-day he had

proven himself the stoutest apostle among them of the new faith. He had

pointed out to them the only sane and useful course. The illustration he

had borrowed from natural history was most apt. Above all, let them pack

like the wolves, and to ensure this uniformity of action in the people

of all Brittany, let a delegate at once be sent to Nantes, which had

already proved itself the real seat of Brittany’s power. It but remained

to appoint that delegate, and Le Chapelier invited them to elect him.

Andre-Louis, on a bench near the window, a prey now to some measure of

reaction, listened in bewilderment to that flood of eloquence.

As the applause died down, he heard a voice exclaiming:

“I propose to you that we appoint our leader here, Le Chapelier, to be

that delegate.”

Le Chapelier reared his elegantly dressed head, which had been bowed

in thought, and it was seen that his countenance was pale. Nervously he

fingered a gold spy-glass.

“My friends,” he said, slowly, “I am deeply sensible of the honour

that you do me. But in accepting it I should be usurping an honour

that rightly belongs elsewhere. Who could represent us better, who more

deserving to be our representative, to speak to our friends of Nantes

with the voice of Rennes, than the champion who once already to-day has

so incomparably given utterance to the voice of this great city? Confer

this honour of being your spokesman where it belongs--upon Andre-Louis

Moreau.”

Rising in response to the storm of applause that greeted the proposal,

Andre-Louis bowed and forthwith yielded. “Be it so,” he said, simply.

“It is perhaps fitting that I should carry out what I have begun, though

I too am of the opinion that Le Chapelier would have been a worthier

representative. I will set out to-night.”

“You will set out at once, my lad,” Le Chapelier informed him, and now

revealed what an uncharitable mind might account the true source of his

generosity. “It is not safe after what has happened for you to linger an

hour in Rennes. And you must go secretly. Let none of you allow it to

be known that he has gone. I would not have you come to harm over this,

Andre-Louis. But you must see the risks you run, and if you are to be

spared to help in this work of salvation of our afflicted motherland,

you must use caution, move secretly, veil your identity even. Or else

M. de Lesdiguieres will have you laid by the heels, and it will be

good-night for you.”