"An incident of the first french revolution"

Этот фантастический рассказ о Шарле Жан-Мари Барбару был размещен в журнале Harper's New Monthly Magazine в апреле 1851 года. 

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AN INCIDENT OF THE FIRST FRENCH REVOLUTION.

In the winter of the year 1792, Paris was agitated to the very core, by the most important public question which had yet arisen during the course of the Revolution. The people had hitherto been completely triumphant in their attack on established things. They had overturned the throne, and sent its supporters by thousands to the scaffold or to exile. They had subverted the ancient constitution; and, though no new form of government had yet been arranged, all power lay for the time in the hands of their leaders, of one or another denomination of republicans. The Jacobins, ultimately the dominant faction, had not yet obtained full sway, but had to contend for supremacy in the convention (or senate) of the nation, with the Girondists, a section numbering in its ranks many of the most able and more moderate republicans of France. Daily and bitterly did these two parties struggle at this time against one another Robespierre, Danton, and Marat being the virtual chiefs, whether acting in unison or otherwise, of the Jacobins or violent republicans; while Vergniaud, Guadet, Louvet, Salle, Petion, and others, headed the Girondists or moderates. Matters stood thus before the commencement of the trial of Louis XVI., the question already alluded to as exceeding in importance and interest any to which the Revolution had yet

given birth. On the results of the process hung the life of the king; and men speculated as to the issue with anxiety, mingled with fear and wonderment. Doubts existed as to what might be

that issue doubts excited chiefly by the condition of parties just described. On the whole, the chances seemed in favor of the king before the commencement of his trial, seeing that the Girondists had then a decided ascendancy over their rivals in the convention, and that many of them had strong leanings to the side of mercy. But the unfortunate Louis XVI., whose very mildness made him the scape-goat for the errors of his predecessors, stood in mortal peril in the best view of the case. So felt his friends throughout France, and they were yet numerous, though constrained to look on in silence, and bury their feelings in their own bosoms.  One evening, in the winter mentioned, before the trial of the king had opened, the convention broke after a stormy sitting, and its members separated for their clubs or their homes, to intrigue or to recreate, as they felt inclined. The Girondist leaders, Vergniaud, Guadet, Fonfrene, and others, might then have been seen, as they left the place of sitting, to surround a young man who was speaking loudly and vehemently.

His theme was Robespierre; and bitter were the recriminations which he poured on that too famous individual. Vergniaud and the rest attempted to check the outbursts of wrath, but, at the same time, with peals of laughter at their young colleagues angry violence.

“Come home with me, my good Barbaroux,” said Vergniaud; “we shall hear you more comfortably before a good fire. It is piercingly cold, and I promise you, that, if the vines of Medoc

have to sustain such a season, we need not expect to drink Bordeaux at a reasonable price for fifteen years to come.”

“Fifteen years!” - said Guadet, in a melancholy voice; “and do you then count upon living for another fifteen years, Vergniaud?”

“Why not?” - was the answer; “am I a king that I should fear the anger of the Republic?”

At this moment, a little Savoyard, with his stool at his back, threw himself almost betwixt the legs of Vergniaud, and, holding out a letter, exclaimed, “Which of you, citizens, is the representative Barbaroux?”

“Here,” said Vergniaud, taking the letter from the lad, and handing it to his companion, the irritated young deputy above mentioned, “here is a billet for you, Barbaroux. I should

guess,  that it comes from some ex-marchioness, who wishes to know if the judges of the king are formed like other men, or if you have got horns on your head, and a cloven foot.”

Barbaroux, at this time little more than twenty-seven years of age, was one of the most handsome, as well as beautiful men of his time. Madame Roland, in one phrase, has given us a singular idea of his personal attractions. “He had,” she says, “the head of Antinous upon the frame of a Hercules.” The young representative of  Marseilles (for such was his station) took the note of the Savoyard, and, advancing to a lamp, opened it, and read therein the following words:

“Citizen, if you fear not to accede to an invitation which can not be signed, repair this evening, at nine o’clock, to the street St. Honore, where you will find a coach standing in front of the house, No. 56. Enter the vehicle without fear, and it will conduct you among old friends.”

Turning to his companions, after reading this mystic note, Barbaroux observed, “You are right, Vergniaud; it is a communication from an ex-marchioness.”

“Ah! I thought so,” replied the other; “and will you accept the invitation?”

“I know not,” was the careless response.

Barbaroux was young, and, without being exactly weary of the agitated public life, which he habitually led, felt any circumstance calculated to take him out of it for a time as a piece of good fortune not to be contemned. He deceived Vergniaud, therefore, when he affected to treat the matter of the billet lightly, in fact,

it seized upon his thoughts exclusively; and he not only spoke no more of Robespierre to his friends, but quitted them upon some slight pre-text soon afterward. He then returned directly to his own home; and, when there, delivered himself up to conjectures respecting the mysterious epistle which he had received. Barbaroux was young, be it again observed, and of a temperament not indisposed to gallantry, though the softer concerns of life had been all but banished from his thoughts more lately. However, the anonymous billet, which came, he felt assured, from a female, directed his reflections a train once not so unfamiliar to them and into the snore so as it spoke of his meeting old friends. With impatience, therefore, he watched the movements of his time-piece, as it indicated the gradual approach of the hour of appointment. The Marseillaise representative felt

no personal alarm respecting the coming adventure. He had never been an advocate of bloodshed in his public character, and knew of none likely to entertain against him sentiments of hostility, or to project snares for his life. No; he confidently assumed the object of the unknown correspondent to be friendly.

Enough, however, about the anticipations of Barbaroux. The hour of nine came, and he hastily left his own residence, to proceed to the Rue St. Honore. There, opposite to No. 56,

he found a coach in waiting. Without a word, he opened the door, leaped inside, and shut himself up with his own hands. In a moment the coachman lashed his horses, and Barbaroux felt himself whirled along for an hour with such rapidity, as, together with the obscurity of the evening, to prevent him completely from discerning the route taken. At length the vehicle stopped abruptly, in a petty street, and before a house of sufficiently mediocre appearance. The gate opened instantly, and the driver, descending from his seat, silently showed Barbaroux into the house, after which the door was closed behind. The young man now found himself in a passage of some length, as was shown

by a distant light. That light speedily increased, and the visitor perceived a young girl approaching him with a lamp in her hand - one of those old iron lamps in which the oil floats openly, and which have the wick at one of the sides. Barbaroux was instantly reminded of the fisher-cots of Marseilles his own well-known Marseilles - where such articles are used constantly by the fishing community. Casting his eyes attentively on the girl, he saw more to remind him of the same ancient sea-port - her cap, colored kerchief, and dress generally, being such as its young women always wore. Her face, too, was not a strange one. Moreover the odor of tar, or that smell peculiar to well-used cordage and sails, struck forcibly on his senses, and strengthened the same associative recollections. Astonished already, Barbaroux felt still more so, when a once familiar voice addressed him in accents strongly provincial, or Marseillaise.

“Charles,” said the girl with the lamp, “you have made us wait. You promised this morning to he earlier here.”

“I promised!” - cried Barbaroux, with amazement, heightened by a sort of impression that he was speaking to a person who ought at the moment to be at two hundred leagues distance.

“Yes! Promised,” continued the girl; “but no doubt, you have been at the office, or have forgotten yourself with the curate of La Major, who makes you study such beautiful plants. Never mind; come with me. Melanie is with her uncle Jean, and I, as I tell you, have been waiting for you more than an hour. Come then!”

Barbaroux scarcely comprehended what was said to him. He found all his senses deceiving him at once, as it were, sight, hearing, and smell; and his imagination transported from the present to the past, had some difficulty in overcoming the first shock of stupefied surprise. Thereafter, he felt a kind of wish to yield himself up voluntarily to what seemed a sweet illusion. He followed the young girl as desired, but soon found new causes for astonishment.

Before him appeared the old screw-stair of a well-known fisher dwelling, with the narrow landing-place, chalky walls, and plastered chimney, with its tint of yellow, to him most familiar of old. He even noted on the plaster an acanthus leaf where such a thing had been once rudely charcoaled by his own hand. In the chimney grate, he beheld an enormous log, the Christmas log, sparkling above the red embers; and he then called to mind that the day was the 24th of December, and the evening Christmas Eve.

“Ah! You see,” said the young girl, rousing him by her voice, “we are going to hold the Christmas feast. Come, Charles, enter, and sit down opposite to uncle Jean, and by the side of Melanie. I will take my place on your other hand.”

As the girl spoke, she had opened the door of an inner apartment, and led forward Barbaroux. The latter did indeed see before him uncle Jean; he clasped in his own the hands of Melanie. He beheld all that he had been once wont to see, in short, in the home of uncle Jean, the old seaman of Marseilles. The same veteran weather-glass hung on the wall; the compass was there, too, pointing still, as it pointed of yore. On the table Barbaroux observed the green glasses of Provence; the bottles were the peculiar bottles of uncle Jean; and, amid others, he saw the yellow seals marking the prized Cyprus wine of the ancient mariner of Marseilles. Brown dishes were there of the pottery of Saint Jacquerie - articles to Paris unknown. Edibles lay upon them, too, such as Marseilles draws from sunny Afric: almonds and dates, with figs and raisins, alone, or coin pounded into cakes, after the mode of southern France. All these things confounded the young member of convention. Had he made in a few hours a journey of eight days? Had he retrograded in the way of existence? Had he dreamt of a busy life of three years, since the lime when, under the shade of the church of St. Laurent of Marseilles, he had courted the fair niece of uncle Jean, amid scenes and sights such as now surrounded him? The deputy of Marseilles, the popular conventionist, closed his eyes in doubt. Dreamed he at that moment or had he dreamed for years?

Barbaroux was no weak-minded man, and yet it is not too much to say, that he felt positive difficulty in determining what he saw to be unreal, or, at most but an illusory revival of a former reality; and this difficulty he felt, even though he had in his pocket, and touched with his fingers, a note from Madame Roland, received

in the convention on that very afternoon. On the other hand, the two Provencal girls were assuredly by his side; and,, at the sight of Melanie, upsprung anew that fresh young love which politics had stifled in his heart in its very bud. Was not uncle Jean there, moreover, with his robust form and open features, his kindly smile, and his strong Marseillaise accents? If all was a delusion, as the reason of Barbaroux ever and anon told him, and if a purposed delusion, as seemed more than likely, what could that purpose be? Had uncle Jean and Melanie thus mysteriously encompassed him with souvenirs of former and happy hours, to rekindle the love from which politics had detached him, and to lead him yet into that union once all but arranged? Such might possibly be the case, and the thought tended to check the questions which rose naturally to the young mans lip. He could not, would not, bring a blush to the cheek of Melanie, by asking her explanations so delicate.

These would be voluntarily given, doubtless, in due time. Besides, to speak the truth, he felt so happy to be again by her side, as to shrink from the idea of breaking the spell, and was contented to yield himself up to the soft intoxication of  the moment. He spoke of Marseilles, as if he was actually there, and as if he had no thought save of its passing interests and affairs.

On these matters, uncle Jean and the two girls conversed with him freely, never leaving it to be supposed for an instant, however, that they were at all conscious of being elsewhere, or that Barbaroux had ever been absent from their sides.

Only now and then did Barbaroux catch the glance of Melanie, fixed on him with an unusual expression, made up of mingled tenderness and thoughtful anxiety. His observation, however, made her instantly recur to the same manner displayed by her sister and uncle, who treated him as if they had seen him but a few hours previously. The deputy, after being enlivened by the little supper and. the good wine, even smiled internally to see the extent to which they carried this caution, though it mystified him the more. The window of the chamber in which they sat at their singular Christmas feast, opened suddenly of its own accord.

“Shut that window,” Melanie, said uncle Jean; “the air of the sea is unwholesome by night.”

The window was closed accordingly; but Barbaroux fancied that he had actually heard through it the roll of the waves, and felt on his cheek the freshness of the ocean breeze.

At length the hour of midnight sounded the hour at which, once only in the year, the priest ascends the high altar to say mass the hour of the Saviour’s birth.

“It is midnight,” cried the two girls; “let us proceed to mass”.

As they spoke, the girls rose from table, and, in doing so, overturned, by accident or intention, the two candles by which the room was lighted. Barbaroux found himself a second time in the dark; but speedily his arms were seized by the girls, one on each side, and he was noiselessly led down into the dark passage by which he had entered. Barbaroux had often stolen an embrace from Melanie in such circumstances as the present, and he here found himself repaid by a voluntary one from herself. For a moment her arm lingered around him, and was then withdrawn in silence. The door was then opened for him, and, in another second of time, he stood alone in the street, with the coach in waiting which had brought him thither. Confusedly and mechanically he entered the vehicle, and was here long set down in the Rue St. Honore, at liberty to regain his own home.

Deeply as he was impressed by this remarkable incident, Barbaroux did not think it necessary to disclose the particulars to Vergniaud and his other political companions; but he made a confidant of Madame Roland.

“It is plain,” said he, concludingly to that lady, “that the whole was a purposed plan of deception or illusion. It is the story of Aline put in action for my especial benefit, but surely without end, without sufficing grounds.  Wherefore employ such chicanery with a man like me? It would have been better to have addressed me frankly, and so have reminded me of the past, than to have resorted to a scheme which, though impressive at the time, can only move me now to a smile. Yes, madame, I would say - that the issue might possibly have been more agreeable to their wishes, had they dealt with me less mysteriously. But what inducement can have made uncle Jean go in with such a step, really puzzles me. He is a man who dies of ennui when out of sight of the sea for a day. Besides, though he did love me once, I

believe that he at heart hates the convention, with all belonging to it, and favors the Bourbons.”

“Even if the intention,” replied Madame Roland, “was only to recall your old love, to your recollection, Barbaroux, there is something pretty in the idea. It is as if your Melanie, in putting her home, her friends, and herself, before you in their perfect reality, had said, - ‘This is all I can offer - all save my love. ‘But there is something more under it than all this, Barbaroux, “ - pursued the lady, after reflecting gravely for some time. They gave you no verbal explanation, you say; but did they leave you no clew otherwise? Did you wear your present dress yesterday?”

“I did, madame.”

“Have you examined its pockets?”

“No,” said Barbaroux, “but I shall do so immediately.”

The young member of convention accordingly put his hands into his pockets, and was not slow to discover there, as Madame Roland had acutely conjectured, a complete solution of his whole enigma. He found a paper bearing his address, in which an offer was made to him of the hand of the woman he (once, at least, had) loved, with a dowry of five hundred thousand francs, and the prospect of enjoying anew all the pleasures of his happy youth, provided that he supported the Appeal to the People on behalf of Louis XVI. - Provided, in short, that he lent his influence to save the life, at all events, of the king. That such an appeal would have saved Louis from the scaffold, all men at the time believed. The Jacobins obviously thought so, since they obstinately denied him any such chance of escape.

It is probable that the monetary clause in this proposal would alone have prevented its entertainment by the young deputy for Marseilles. Be this as it may, the romantic scheme which the friendship of uncle Jean, and the love of Melanie, had led them to enter upon, at the instance, doubtless of the other friends of Louis, for inducing Barbaroux to befriend the king, and for wiling himself from the dangerous vortex of political turmoil, ended in nothing. Within a few weeks - nay, a few days afterward – began that life-and-death struggle between the Girondists and Jacobins, which only terminated with the total fall of the former party, and the condemnation to the scaffold of all its leaders. To the honor of Barbaroux, be it told that, without a bribe, he supported the Appeal to the People, and had he had the power would have saved the ill-fated king from the extreme and bloody penalty of the guillotine. But the infuriate councils of Robespierre and Marat prevailed; and Barbaroux, with five companions, fled for safety to the Gironde, that southern portion of France, of which Bordeaux is the capital, and whence they had derived their party name.

They found there, however, no safety; they were hunted down like wild beasts by the dominant faction, and every man of them was taken and beheaded, or otherwise perished miserably, with

the exception of Louvet, who subsequently recorded their perils and their sufferings. Barbaroux, the young, gay, handsome and brave Barbaroux, died on the scaffold, while Petion met the death of a wild beast in the fields starved while in life, and mangled by wolves when no more. Well had it been for Barbaroux, had he yielded timeously to the loving call of Melanie, made so romantically and mysteriously. It was not so destined to be.