Эжен Сю
The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic
Charlotte was as indifferent as John to the figure of her dowry; but knowing through her mother that the settlement originally was to have been 120,000 livres, buried in the cellar of the house, the young girl was wounded by the secret calculations of her father, who, she thought (nor was she mistaken), in dowering her so niggardly expected to force John Lebrenn to take up his residence with him.
"I must thank you for your offer, Citizen Desmarais," answered John, "but I desire but one thing in the world, the hand of Charlotte. That I have obtained. All the rest is in my eyes but a bauble; it concerns me little, and troubles me not at all."
"Such delicacy does not surprise me, coming from you, my dear John. So you accept the terms of contract, as to the dowry? It is agreed?"
"Perfectly, and without objection."
"In that case, let us at once set about drawing up the marriage articles. The notary awaits us."
"Adieu, Charlotte. I shall at once see the members of the Committee of General Safety about your uncle," added John softly to his betrothed.
"Ah, if I had ever hesitated to leave my father's house," replied the young girl to her lover in like tones, "this last interview with him would have removed my scruples."
"Come, my pupil, let us go," said the lawyer, approaching the young couple. "Adieu, my daughter; tell mother that our dear John will dine here – the betrothal feast!"
"Till we meet again, father," answered the young girl, with a look of intelligence to John, who, accompanying his future father-in-law, left the house.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE KING SENTENCED
If there had ever existed any doubt as to the crimes of high treason charged against Louis XVI, the doubt vanished before the crushing proofs furnished against him during his examination. Deseze, Tronchet and Malesherbes, charged with the defense made their main plea on the royal inviolability guaranteed by the Constitution of 1791.
According to the defense of Louis XVI, and, indeed, according to the text of the Constitution itself, the King, even though he violated the Constitution, even though he betrayed the state, even though he led an invasion upon France, and at the head of foreign troops put the country to fire and sword, even then he incurred no penalty other than that of deposition. Such was the brief of the King's lawyers.
This theory, in which the absurd jostled the monstrous, was not judged worthy of a refutation by the Convention. Capet's accusers placed the question on a higher plane, by affirming and demonstrating the nullity of the Constitutional pact of 1791. Such was the opinion held by Robespierre, St. Just, Condorcet, Carnot, Danton, several Girondins, and, in fact, the great majority of the house.
In the name of justice, of right, and of reason, Louis XVI richly merited the verdict of guilty.
The sovereignty of the people being permanent, indivisible and inalienable, the Constitution of 1791 was radically null and void, in that it provided for the hereditary alienation of a portion of the people's rights, in favor of the ex-royal family. The Conventionists of 1793 were no more in love with the Constitution of 1791 than the Constituents of 1791 were with the monarchical, feudal and religious institutions which had weighed like an incubus on France fourteen centuries long.
A nation has the power, but never the right, to alienate its sovereignty, either in whole or in part, by delegating it to a hereditary family. Such an alienation, imposed amid the violence of conquest, borne out of habits of thought, or consented to in a moment of public aberration, binds neither the present generation nor those to come. Accordingly, the Constitution of 1791 being virtually null in fact, Louis Capet could not invoke the protection of that Constitution, which guaranteed the inviolability of the royal person, and limited his punishment to deposition in a few specified cases. Louis XVI was, then, legally brought to trial. By reconquering its full sovereignty on the 10th of August, the nation invested the Convention with the powers necessary for judging the one-time King. His crimes were notorious and flagrant; their penalty was written in the books of the law, equally for all citizens; he must, then, undergo the penalty for his misdeeds.
I, John Lebrenn, add here some further passages from my diary, relating to the trial, judgment and execution of Louis Capet.
JANUARY 15, 1793. – Having heard the defense submitted by Deseze, one of the attorneys for Louis XVI, the Convention put to a vote this first question:
"Is Louis Capet guilty of conspiracy against liberty and the nation, and of assault on the general safety of the State?"
The Assembly contained seven hundred and forty-nine members.
Six hundred and eighty-three replied:
"Yes, the accused is guilty."
The roll-call being completed, the president of the Assembly announced the decision:
"In the name of the French people, the National Convention declares Louis Capet guilty of conspiracy against liberty and the nation, and of assault on the general safety of the State."
The second question was:
"Shall the decision of the National Convention be submitted to ratification by the people?"
The members who voted for ratification by the people were two hundred and eighty-one; those against ratification, four hundred and twenty-three.
The president announced the result of the vote:
"The National Convention declares the judgment rendered on Louis Capet shall not be sent for ratification to the people."
JANUARY 17, 1793. – To-day and yesterday the sessions of the Convention were permanent, due to the gravity of the situation. The debate turned upon the third question:
"What shall be the penalty imposed on Louis XVI?"
I was present at the sessions wherein the elected Representatives of the people decided the fate of the Frankish monarchy, imposed on Gaul for fourteen centuries. It was not alone the man, the King, that the Convention decapitated – it was the most ancient monarchy in Europe. It was not only the head of Capet that the Republic wished defiantly to cast at the feet of allied Europe; it was the crown of the last of the Kings.
It was eight in the evening. In response to their names as the roll was called the members of the Convention mounted the tribunal one by one, and in the midst of a solemn silence cast their vote.
This evening, Thursday, at eight o'clock, while throughout the spacious hall one might have heard a pin drop, Vergniaud announced the result:
"The Assembly consists of seven hundred and forty-nine members; 15 are absent on committees, 7 because of illness, 1 without cause, censured; and 5 excused; number remaining, seven hundred and twenty-one.
"Required for an absolute majority, three hundred and sixty-one.
"Members voting for death unconditionally, three hundred and eighty-seven.
"Members voting for imprisonment, irons, or conditional death, three hundred and thirty-four.
"In the name of the people and the National Convention, I declare the penalty of death pronounced against Louis Capet."
January 19, 1793. – The question put by Mailhe, "Shall there be any postponement of Louis XVI's execution?" was discussed during the sessions of the 17th and 18th. At the end of to-day's session, the president put the question to a vote:
"Shall the execution of Louis Capet be postponed, yes or no?"
The vote resulted: for postponement, three hundred and ten; against, three hundred and eighty. The postponement was lost. Pale, and with grief impressed upon his features, Vergniaud again ascended the tribunal and in a trembling voice announced:
"The National Convention declares:
"Article first. – Louis Capet, last King of France, is guilty of conspiracy against the liberty of the nation and of assault upon the general safety of the State.
"Article second. – The National Convention declares that Louis Capet shall suffer the penalty of death.
"Article third. – Notice of the decree which condemns Louis Capet to death shall he sent to the Executive Council.
"The Executive Council is charged to notify Louis XVI of the decree during the day, and to have him executed within twenty-four hours.
"The mayors and municipal officers of Paris shall be enjoined to allow Louis Capet liberty to communicate with his family, and to call upon a minister of the denomination he may elect, to attend his last moments."
At three in the morning of Sunday, January 20, the meeting adjourned; and to cries of "Long live the Nation!" "Long live the Republic!" the multitude poured out of the galleries.
CHAPTER XIX
EXECUTION
Such were the memorable sessions of the National Assembly of the 15th, 17th, 19th and 20th of January, 1793.
Glory to the men of energy, to the inexorable patriots!
JANUARY 21, 1793. – The execution of Louis Capet took place to-day, Monday, the 21st of January, 1793!
My sister and I were present at the death of Louis. A vast throng filled the Place of the Revolution. The scaffold faced the avenue of the Elysian Fields, a short distance from the spot occupied by the statue of Louis XV.
At ten minutes past ten in the morning, a dull rumor, drawing nearer and nearer, announced the arrival of the condemned. My sister and I were not far from the scaffold, behind a line of Municipal Guards. We beheld a two-horse carriage draw up, accompanied by General Santerre and several officers of his staff. Claude Bernard and James Roux, an ex-priest, the municipal officers charged with guarding Capet, alighted first from the carriage, where Louis remained for two minutes' space with his confessor. Then, with firm tread, and supported by the executioners, he ascended the steps of the platform. He was clad in grey trousers and a soft white waistcoat; his purpled face betrayed intense excitement. Suddenly he stepped to the edge of the scaffold, and cried to the people:
"Frenchmen, I am innocent – "
At Santerre's command the roll of drums drowned the rest of the speech. Louis XVI cast a look of rage at the drummers, and cried to them angrily to desist.
The drumming continued. Louis Capet was turned over to Sampson, the executioner-in-chief, and his aides. A few seconds later, the sixty-sixth of these foreign Kings of Gaul had paid the penalty of his crimes, had expiated the wrongs of the monarchy of which he was the last incarnation.
The King's head, held up to the people by the headsman, was greeted with the shouts of the multitude.
No. 155 of Marat's journal terminates its account of the execution of Capet with the following reflections:
"The head of the tyrant has just fallen under the sword of the law; that same blow has overthrown the foundation of monarchy among us. I now believe in the Republic… Not a voice cried for grace during the execution; a profound silence reigned about the scaffold. But when the head of Capet was shown to the people, from all sides rose the cries, 'Long live the Nation! Long live the Republic!' The execution of Louis XVI is one of those memorable events which mark epochs in the life of nations. It will have an immense influence on the fate of the despots of Europe and on those peoples who have as yet not broken their chains."
Robespierre, in a letter to one of his constituents (second trimester, page 3), penned the following appreciation of the consequences of the great political occurrence:
"Citizens, the tyrant is fallen under the sword of the law. This great act of justice has struck consternation to the hearts of the aristocracy, annihilated the superstition of royalty, and created the Republic. It imparts a character of grandeur to the Convention, and makes it worthy the confidence of France. The imposing and majestic attitude of the people in this solemn hour will cause the tyrants of earth more terror than even the death of their fellow. A profound silence surrounded the scaffold up to the moment the head of Louis XVI fell. That instant, the air shook with the unanimous shout of a hundred thousand citizens, 'Long live the Republic!' It was not the barbarous curiosity of men who came to feast their eyes on the death of a fellow-being; it was the powerful interest of a people, impassioned for liberty, and assuring itself of the fact that royalty had breathed its last… Formerly, when a King died at Versailles, the reign of his successor was immediately ushered in to the tune of 'The King is dead, long live the King!' as if to make the nation understand that despotism was immortal. This time, a whole people, with a sublime instinct, acclaimed: 'Long live the Republic,' to teach a universe that tyranny had died with the tyrant."
May the same lot be reserved for all the Kings.
CHAPTER XX
MARRIAGE OF JOHN LEBRENN
Under date of January 26, 1793, the diary of John Lebrenn bears the record, without comment:
"To-day I espoused Charlotte Desmarais."
Despite the circular addressed by advocate Desmarais to his colleagues in the Convention, and in which he fixed as the date for his daughter's wedding the day of the tyrant's death, Charlotte, without regard for her father's very lively disappointment, and unmindful of his reiterated importunities, would not consent to be married until the 26th of January. With his habitual calculation, considering the union merely as a precaution, the lawyer had chosen Robespierre and Marat as witnesses to the ceremony; those selected by John Lebrenn were Billaud-Varenne and Legendre. The municipal officer of the Section received the vows of the young couple in his office on the evening after the Convention session of January 26. John Lebrenn had several days previously obtained from his old employer, Master Gervais, the deed of his smithy and the lease of the house. The preparations, the modest embellishments of his future home, were finished on the eve of his marriage.
After returning from the offices of the Section, the young couple received the pledges and felicitations of the witnesses, and presently were left alone with Madam Desmarais and her husband, who said to John:
"My dear son-in-law, I leave you an instant to go to look up my daughter's dowry and present it to you."
When Desmarais left the room, his wife addressed her daughter and new-found son:
"My children, this is the decisive instant. I would rather die than live any longer with my husband; but I tremble to think of the rage into which our resolution will throw him. Do not forsake me."
"Dear mother," responded Charlotte, "could you really think that of us? Is not our life bound up with yours?"
"Nevertheless, if he should oppose our separation? He would perhaps be in the right, my children?"
"Reassure yourself, dear mother," quoth John in his turn. "In the first place, the separation will relieve Monsieur Desmarais of one fear, that of being compromised by his relationship with Monsieur Hubert, your brother; who, unfortunately, as you tell me, has refused to accept the proposal made to him in my name."
"Alas, yes; my brother replied that he appreciated your offer, but that he considered it an act of cowardice to remain passive; he wished to retain full freedom to combat the Republic."
"Alas," echoed Charlotte, with a sigh, "I deplore uncle's blindness, but I can not but pay homage to his strength of character."
"True enough, my dear Charlotte, Monsieur Hubert is one of those adversaries whom one admires while fighting. As I have several times told your mother, I hoped that struck especially by the attitude of the people of Paris on the 21st your uncle, who is a man of sense, would recognize how vain would now be any attempt against the Republic," observed John. "In that case, dear mother, Monsieur Desmarais, heretofore so terrified at the perils to which he believed himself exposed by his kinship with Monsieur Hubert, will no doubt see in your determination to leave him nothing but a pledge of his safety for the future, and will hardly dream of holding you back. At least, that is the way it appears to me."
At that moment the attorney returned, holding in his hands a little inlaid casket which he held out to the young artisan with a radiant air, saying:
"My dear son-in-law, I have found in my strong-box, besides the sum I mentioned, a hundred louis, which I add to my daughter's dower."
But seeing John Lebrenn repulse the proffered casket, the attorney added in great surprise: "Come, take the little chest, my dear pupil. It contains, in fine good louis, the dower I promised you, to which I have just added two thousand four hundred livres. Moreover, it is understood that in recompense for the slimness of the dower Charlotte, you, and your sister will lodge and board with me, without, to put it plainly, any expense to you. We shall live as one family."
"Citizen Desmarais," replied John, "before accepting the dower which you offer me and of which I have no need, it is our duty, my wife's and mine, to inform you of our plans. First of all, I shall continue in my station as an iron-worker."
"That is admirable, my dear pupil," exclaimed the lawyer with hastily assumed enthusiasm. "Far from blushing at your condition, far from seeing in the advantage afforded you by your marriage with my daughter an opportunity to renounce honest toil and to live in indolence, you choose to remain a workman. That is indeed admirable!"
"Citizen Desmarais, I hasten to disabuse you of a misunderstanding that exists between us. Upon mature consideration my wife and I have decided to dwell in our own house, completely separated from you."
"What do you mean!"
"I mean, Citizen Desmarais, that my former employer has sold me his establishment. Whence it follows that my labors and the care of my forge will oblige me, as well as my wife, to live elsewhere than here with you. I have, in consequence, hired the house previously occupied by my old master, and this very night my wife and I shall take possession of our new abode. The question has been considered and settled."
"Aye, father," added Charlotte. "Such is, indeed, our firm resolution."
At these words, pronounced by John Lebrenn and Charlotte in a voice that admitted of no reply, advocate Desmarais turned livid with rage and amazement. Forgetting now all his tricks of dissimulation, distracted with fear, and exasperated by what he took as an indignity on the part of his daughter and her husband, the lawyer cried to Charlotte, as he shook with anger and fright:
"Treason! Shameful treason! Heartless, unnatural daughter! This is the gratitude with which you repay my bounties to you? You would have the audacity to leave your father's house, would you! And you – " he added, turning tempestuously upon John Lebrenn, "and you, traitor, how dare you thus abuse my confidence, my generosity?"
"Not another word in that tone, Citizen Desmarais," interposed John. "Do not oblige me to forget the respect I owe the father of my wife; do not oblige me to tell you for what reasons your daughter – and her mother – have resolved to fix their abode elsewhere than with you."
"My wife! She also – would dare – " cried the lawyer, his rage redoubling till it almost choked him.
"Yes, monsieur, I also wish to leave you," replied Madam Desmarais. "You have treated me most cruelly, because my unhappy brother, a proscript and a fugitive, came to ask of you a few hours' shelter. You denounced me to the commissioner of our Section, adjured him to hale me away as a prisoner. You have even gone so far as to declare to me, 'If it were necessary, madam, in order to save my life, to send you to the scaffold – I would not hesitate an instant. Just now I must roar with the tigers; but then I should become a tiger.'"
"Hold your tongue!" shrieked the advocate, in a frenzy. "Do you wish to get my head cut off, gabbling like that before this man who perhaps awaits but the moment to settle me? Serpent that he is, whom I have warmed in my bosom!"
"Citizen Desmarais," replied Lebrenn, half in pity, half in disgust, "it depends upon you alone to put an end to your alarms, to the terrors by which you are assailed and of which those about you are the first victims. Cease to display in exaggerated form opinions which are at fisticuffs with your real belief. Renounce your public career. The weakness of your character, the uneasiness of your conscience, evoke fantasms before your eyes."
"It is a plot against my life!" continued Desmarais wildly. "They want to draw upon my head the fury of the Jacobins, and have me packed off to the scaffold. They want to be rid of me so that my dutiful daughter and son-in-law may play ducks and drakes with my fortune! But the old fox knows the trap! I shall stay at the Convention. My daughter and son-in-law may take themselves off, if they so wish; but as for you, Citizeness Desmarais, you shall not leave this house. The wife, according to the law, is bound to reside at the home of her husband."
"I will live with you no longer," resolutely replied Madam Desmarais. "A hundred times rather die!"
"Once would suffice, worthy wife! And it would be good riddance to a most abominable burden."
"Come, mother," said Charlotte, wroth at her father's brutal language. "Come. You shall not remain here another instant."
"Your mother shall stop where she is," cried the lawyer threateningly. "As for you, my daughter – as for you, my son-in-law – I shall denounce your execrable complot to my friends of the mad-men's party, to Hebert, to James Roux the disfrocked priest, to Varlet. Get you hence – I drive you from my house." Then seizing his wife by the arm, Desmarais added, "But not you. You stay!"
"You will please to allow my mother full control over her own actions, Citizen Desmarais," said Lebrenn calmly, and mastering his indignation. "Unhand her!"
"Get out of here, scoundrel!" retorted the attorney, still holding his wife by the wrist. "Get out of here, at once!"
"For the last time, Citizen Desmarais," quoth John Lebrenn. "Allow Madam Desmarais to follow her daughter, as is her desire. My patience is at an end, and I can not much longer tolerate the brutality I see here."
"Would you have the boldness to raise your hand against me, wretch!" replied the advocate, foaming with rage, and roughly wrenching his wife's arm. "Malediction on you both."
"Aye, I shall succor your wife from your wretched treatment," John answered; and seizing the lawyer's wrist with his iron hand as if in a vise, he forced the attorney to release his almost fainting spouse. She, on her part, made all haste to leave the now intolerable presence of her husband, and, supported by Charlotte, disappeared into the next room.
As John left the parlor to rejoin his bride and his second mother, advocate Desmarais, hiding his face in his hands, sank into an arm-chair, crying:
"Abandoned by wife, abandoned by daughter! Henceforth I am condemned to live alone!"
