«
 
 WHITE AND RED 
 
 By J. R. HENSLOWE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "DOROTHY COMPTON." 
 
 A passage perillus makethe a port pleasant." 
 
 Ao. is68. Arthur Poole. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 KERBY & ENDEAN, 440 OXFORD STREET 
 
 1882.
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 till 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 
 
 BOOK I.— CLOUDS 
 
 <* 
 
 
 
 
 u 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 tt* 
 
 CENNES, . 
 
 • 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ^ 
 
 M, DE SABRAN, 
 
 * 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 
 PAINT AND POWDER, 
 
 • 
 
 -i 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 
 ON SERVICE, 
 
 
 • 
 
 13 
 
 40 
 
 53 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE GATHERING OF THE WIND, . . -75 
 
 ^
 
 iv Contents. 
 
 BOOK II.— STORMS. 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ''THE WAY OF THE CROSS," . . .91 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PLOTS, . . . . . .102 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BACK AGAIN, . . . . 1 25 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TBE ARRESTS OF THE NONJURORS, . . 147 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE MARTYRS OF THE CARMES, . . 1 56 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE SECOND OF SEPTEMBER, . . 17 1 
 
 CHAPTER XII . 
 
 UNDER THE SURFACE, . . . . 181
 
 BOOK I.— CLOUDS.
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/whitered01hens
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CENNES. 
 
 The sun went down in beauty ; not a cloud 
 Darkened its radiance, yet there might be seen 
 A few fantastic vapours scattered o'er 
 The face of the blue heavens. 
 
 " The red rose a shade more to the left. 
 Turn thy face to me, child. There — a touch 
 of powder and thou wouldst be perfect, little 
 one." 
 
 " But, Gabrielle, Eugene will not let me 
 wear powder." 
 
 " Eugene, indeed ! And would M. Eugene 
 carry his tyranny until you come to Paris ? " 
 
 " I do not think I shall visit Paris. 
 Eugene says — "
 
 4 White and Red. 
 
 " Aeain Eugene ! I know he thinks we 
 are all terribly wicked, and poor Gabrielle 
 the blackest sheep in the flock." 
 
 If so, she was a very handsome one. 
 Tall, lithe, graceful ; a complexion so perfect 
 that her dearest friends all vowed she painted ; 
 masses of dark hair, not powdered at present ; 
 lustrous hazel eyes ; Gabrielle d*e Thouars 
 could, and indeed did, say pretty much what 
 she pleased, sure of an indulgent audience, 
 if composed of the opposite sex. One of her 
 own might be more disposed to be critical, 
 all the more that to the lady herself this was 
 a matter of profound indifference. 
 
 She was at present employing her white 
 fingers in arranging and disarranging some 
 flowers in the fair hair of a girl a few years 
 younger, who, though not without a certain 
 beauty of her own, was a decided foil to 
 Mdlle. de Thouars. 
 
 They w r ere sitting on the steps of an old
 
 Cennes. 5 
 
 moss-grown terrace garden. Behind them was 
 the so-called chateau of Cennes ; Gabrielle 
 used to call it the castle of the Sleeping 
 Beauty. Before them, past the fountain 
 whose waters rose and fell with a soft musical 
 plash, was a fragrant avenue of lime trees, 
 tall and verdant, and murmurous with music 
 of the bees. Down beyond lay the village 
 with its well, where the women were just now 
 congregating for their evening gossip ; and 
 farther off still, the Maine flowing stately to 
 join the Loire, and on its banks, Angers the 
 Black City. Angers, where John of England 
 had held wine and wassail long ago, when 
 Arthur was mustering the vassals of Bretagne 
 to his standard, and where the houses he built 
 still stood, to testify to his unquiet rule. 
 
 All was drowsy and peaceful in that 
 summer, although it was the year 1791. But 
 down in Anjou, even near so "red" a town as 
 Angers, people did not know very much about
 
 6 White and Red. 
 
 what was passing in the capital. There, and 
 further westward, the seigneurs were not what 
 they were in other parts of France, as was 
 very soon to be abundantly testified. It is 
 true, the crops failed year after year there as 
 elsewhere, but there was not the provocation 
 of the forced road-making, nor the wrong and 
 oppression which were to find such stupendous 
 atonement. There were good landlords in 
 some places, and there was a good one here 
 at Cennes. No one complained of him — yet. 
 
 Gabrielle chattered on. 
 
 " Never mind, Eulalie, M. de Limeuil will 
 take you to Paris, and then — " 
 
 Eulalie's pale face flushed a little. 
 
 " But, Gabrielle, I have not seen M. de 
 Limeuil since I was fifteen." 
 
 " So much the better. You will strike 
 him with all the force of novelty, and he will 
 do everything you wish. But is it possible ? 
 Three years ! Ah, that tyrant Eugene ! "
 
 Cennes. 7 
 
 " No, Gabrielle, Eugene is not a tyrant. 
 He is, ah, so good to me," and the grey 
 serious eyes rilled. 
 
 Gabrielle bent her stately head and kissed 
 her. 
 
 " I know, I know — but I like to rouse 
 thee in defence of Eugene. If M. de Limeuil 
 only knew what a rival he had in thy brother. 
 But here he comes, and M. le Cure too." 
 
 Two men came out of one of the tall 
 windows and walked slowly along the flagged 
 pathway, talking earnestly. We shall have 
 something to say of them both before they 
 pass out of this history, so they merit a 
 separate description. Eugene Desire Marie 
 de St Hilaire, count and peer of France, 
 seigneur of Cennes, brother and guardian of 
 little Eulalie, was by no means an ordinary 
 looking person. He was ten years her 
 senior, and a stranger would have added 
 half-a-dozen years to that. He was tall,
 
 8 White and Red. 
 
 well-made, and wore his powder and lace 
 jabot with the inalienable grand air which 
 the consciousness of five - and - twenty un- 
 blemished descents gave to the French noble 
 before the Revolution. He was not hand- 
 some, but had a gentle, refined face, so like 
 his sister's that no one could for a moment 
 mistake the relationship, but what was pen- 
 sive softness in the features of the girl became 
 grave thoughtfulness in those of the man. 
 Pere Florian, the cure of the village, to whom 
 he had been talking, was a spare, slight man, 
 verging on fifty, looking even thinner and 
 more meagre than he really was, in his black 
 soutane. Beneath his tonsure the iron-grey 
 hair fell back from his lean, eager face, 
 remarkable for nothing but the resolute angle 
 of the jaw, and the acute, brilliant eyes. 
 They were, however, enough in themselves 
 to redeem the most ordinary face. Eulalie 
 declared they frightened her. Gabrielle,
 
 Cennes. 9 
 
 whom nothing frightened, said, nevertheless, 
 that Pere Florian's eyes saw through every- 
 body and everything. She got up now and 
 made a curtsy, dropping her eyes demurely, 
 and then looking up mischievously through 
 her long eyelashes at Count Eugene. He 
 did not seem to notice the glance, though he 
 bowed, but addressed his sister. 
 
 " The good father will remain to supper 
 with us, my sister ; he came to speak to me." 
 
 "Is it bad news, mon pere?" asked 
 Eulalie timidly, after an inquisitive glance 
 at Eugene. 
 
 "It is not very pleasant, but one does not 
 hear of the most agreeable things now," said 
 the cure quietly. 
 
 " Ah, then," interrupted Gabrielle, " pray 
 do not tell us anything about it. We love 
 not to hear of disagreeable things. Let us 
 enjoy the flowers, this heavenly evening, and 
 so on, whilst we may."
 
 io White and Red. 
 
 Pere Florian's grave eyes were fixed on her 
 face for a second or two before he answered, 
 
 " Be it so. I trust a day will not come 
 to you speedily, when the sunshine will be 
 blotted out, the flowers withered, and you 
 must listen." 
 
 Gabrielle threw up her handsome head 
 with an imperious gesture. 
 
 " Trust me, mon pere, I never listen to 
 what does not please me." 
 
 " Never mind her ; I want to know the 
 news," said Eulalie. 
 
 " It is not very much after all," said her 
 brother ; " only it is another sign of the times. 
 Gaston Trochu, who went away two years 
 ago, has come back again, and has been 
 making speeches at the forge and elsewhere." 
 
 " Nanette's son ! Is he a Jacobin, then ? " 
 
 " Ah, Jacobin, bonnet-rouge, what you 
 will." 
 
 " But the people will not listen to him,
 
 Cennes. 1 1 
 
 Eugene ; they love thee, thou art good to 
 them," said the faithful little sister. He 
 smiled rather sadly at her. 
 
 " What does that signify ? I cannot stop 
 the motion of a vast machine by standing 
 in front of its wheels. Nay," he added 
 half to himself, " it is more likely to crush 
 me for the venture." 
 
 The priest had been sitting, with clasped 
 hands resting on his knee, looking straight 
 before him, and he now spoke as if following 
 out his own train of thought. 
 
 "'From generation to generation!' oh 
 awful decree that cannot alter. The sins of 
 the fathers shall be visited on the children, 
 even on the innocent." 
 
 Gabrielle had been silent, and seemed, for 
 her, awe-struck, but she looked up now im- 
 patiently. 
 
 " See, my father, you have frightened our 
 little Eulalie, she is pale. Do let us go in."
 
 1 2 White and Red. 
 
 And as no one had any objection to offer, 
 her suggestion was followed. Only, as they 
 passed in at the window, Eugene drew near 
 Pere Florian. 
 
 " Is it coming in our day ? " he said. 
 
 " Look round you, and answer the question 
 to yourself," said the priest in the same tone. 
 
 " Ah, well," rejoined the other, " I think I 
 could be content to suffer, if my pain could 
 wipe away the guilt of oppression ; but she 
 — oh mon pere, not the most innocent — " 
 He glanced at Eulalie, who had passed on 
 into the salon, and stood, her bright hair 
 still crowned with flowers, reflected in the 
 tall mirror at the end of the room, her 
 pensive face upturned to Gabrielle's. 
 
 " Has not the Innocent suffered already for 
 the guilty," said Pere Florian. " Who shall 
 say it is unjust ?
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 M. DE SABRAN. 
 
 For scarce my life with fancy played 
 Before I dreamed that pleasant dream ; 
 
 Still hither, thither, idly swayed 
 
 Like those long mosses in the stream. 
 
 Paris, October. 
 " And so, my Eulalie, M. de Limeuil has 
 made his appearance. The prince has come 
 at last to the castle of the Sleeping Beauty. 
 Has it changed, I wonder ? woke into life ? 
 How often I figure you all to myself. Ah, 
 the dear still evenings ; my little Eulalie 
 silently working at her endless embroidery, 
 and thinking, no doubt, of the coming knight ; 
 thy brother Eugene and Pere Florian knitting 
 their brows over their dominoes, and some- 
 times — yes, sometimes, I wish myself back 
 with you. That is generally after a passage of
 
 1 4 White and Red. 
 
 arms with M. de Maurepas. Why do I fight 
 with him ? On my faith, I cannot tell you. 
 There are not many, I allow, who can compare 
 with him, even here. Not one of the body- 
 guard (alas that they exist no longer) pays a 
 compliment or takes snuff with more finished 
 grace. He is very handsome too, and if I 
 had not been betrothed to him in my cradle, I 
 should doubtless have raved of him. But, as 
 it is, I cannot help quarrelling, and he meets 
 it with such a charming indifference. He 
 makes a superb bow, says something that 
 cuts me — and goes away ! The old, wicked 
 Gabrielle, is it not so ? Ah yes, child, wickeder 
 than ever, and just now I long for nothing so 
 much as to have thee here and make thee 
 wicked too. Tell M. Eugene so with my 
 best compliments. I can imagine how he 
 will look when he sees this ; he reads all thy 
 letters, I know. Never mind ; I have a new 
 " distraction," M. le Chevalier de Sabran.
 
 M. de Sabran. 1 5 
 
 Who is he ? I know no more than thou, 
 except that they say he was the best swords- 
 man and wildest sous-lieutenant in the Regi- 
 ment de Picardie. I do know that he is 
 very charming, that he admires me — a little, 
 and that this displeases M. de Maurepas ; 
 all excellent reasons why I should distinguish 
 him at present. He makes an epigram as 
 neatly at M. Dorat-Cubieres, but it is whis- 
 pered that his sympathies are with the Left, 
 in short, all kinds of mysterious things. But 
 this is the more interesting; it gives a flavour, 
 like olives, you understand, after listening to 
 Madame my aunt, or to M. de Maurepas, 
 who only regrets he did not exchange passes 
 with that stiff M. de Lafayette at Versailles 
 the year before last. Enough said. I run 
 on and on, and some day M. Eugene will 
 tell thee to burn my letters unread lest they 
 contaminate thee. Adieu, my Eulalie, and 
 do not forget Gabrielle."
 
 1 6 White and Red. 
 
 M. de St Hilaire did not proceed to such 
 extreme measures, though his sister dutifully 
 handed him her friend's letter. He smiled 
 indulgently over it, and remarked, 
 
 " M. de Maurepas should marry her out of 
 hand, and take her away. She never saw 
 any one but she tried to torment him. Even 
 you, Eulalie, only you were a willing slave." 
 
 She was looking again at her letter. 
 
 " I have heard that name, De Sabran, 
 somewhere ; I think M. de Limeuil mentioned 
 it," she said, shyly, and looking, not without 
 an effort, at the person in question. He was 
 by no means formidable. A young man 
 looking even younger than his years, with an 
 eager ingenuous face, and, noble though he 
 was, a little of the rusticity of one who had 
 been born and brought up in the Bocage. 
 He and Eulalie de St Hilaire had been 
 affianced as children, had met three years ago, 
 when the boy was eighteen, the girl fifteen,
 
 M. de Sabran. i 7 
 
 and now his mother, having sent him to 
 Cennes, and commanded him to fall in love, 
 he had straightway done so. He thought 
 Eulalie charming, while she was perfectly 
 pleased with him, and liked him — next best 
 to Eugene. They were not to be married 
 yet, so the superior powers decreed, and 
 again they were entirely content to wait. I 
 am afraid there was, at present, but a small 
 mixture of romance in their mutual relations, 
 after all. They were but two children play- 
 ing at being in love ; it was to be hoped that 
 some deeper sentiment would arise, or by 
 and by, there might be a disastrous awaken- 
 ing, a common fate enough, but a sad one for 
 all that, and the tragic end of many such 
 pretty comedies. But all this time Eulalie is 
 waiting for an answer, and Victor de Limeuil 
 is ready to give it. 
 
 " De Sabran ? yes, Mademoiselle is right, 
 without doubt. He is connected with me, 
 
 I. B
 
 iS White and Red. 
 
 though I never saw him, but we heard of 
 him not long since before he left the Regi- 
 ment de Picardie, and was at Rennes. He 
 had three affairs of honour there, and killed 
 his man each time. He plays high, though 
 he is but a cadet, and they have ugly stories 
 about that, though no one would dare to 
 whisper it within a day's march of him ; but 
 I never heard, no, never, anything so bad as 
 that he was democrat. Perhaps, Mademoiselle 
 your friend is mistaken." 
 
 " Nothing more likely," said Eugene; 
 " Mademoiselle Gabrielle does herself no 
 more than justice when she says that her pen 
 runs on." 
 
 But Eulalie shook her head. 
 
 "He must have changed lately. Some of 
 them may have talked him over. Oh, I 
 hope no one will make Gabrielle democrat." 
 
 " You need not fear," said her brother, 
 laughing, but with a tinge of cynicism too ;
 
 M. de Sabran. 19 
 
 " Mademoiselle Gabrielle will talk philo- 
 sophy and freedom with any one who chooses 
 to discuss them with her, provided he can 
 count his sixteen quarterings ; but she is 
 'grande dame' to the tips of her fingers, and 
 could no more be anything else than you, 
 child, could have led the fish-wives to 
 Versailles." 
 
 Eulalie pondered for a few minutes, still 
 with a puzzled expression on her young face, 
 before she got up with a little sigh, and dis- 
 missed the subject from her mind. They 
 were sitting in the dining-room at Cennes, a 
 large room, with two of its four windows 
 looking into the courtyard, and two giving 
 on to the flagged terrace ; through the latter 
 the afternoon sun shone cheerfully, and the 
 autumn flowers in Eulalie's garden held up 
 their bright faces. She walked to the table 
 still covered, and fetching a little basket from 
 a shelf, busied herself in filling it.
 
 20 White and Red. 
 
 " It is for Nanette," she explained, shut- 
 ting it down triumphantly ; " she suffers, and 
 I go to take it to her, if thou wilt let me, 
 Eugene." 
 
 Victor de Limeuil looked up with alacrity. 
 
 "If Mademoiselle is going to walk, may I 
 be permitted to accompany her and carry her 
 basket ? " he said, with a taking mixture of 
 bashfulness and gallantry, 
 
 Eulalie coloured and looked at Eugene, 
 who nodded a cordial assent, and she ran off 
 to fetch her hat and capuchin. 
 
 Her brother stood at the window and 
 watched the pair pass down the garden 
 alley before he turned back to his books 
 and letters. They looked, those two, like 
 a Dresden shepherd and shepherdess, or a 
 pair of Watteau's courtly Arcadians, as they 
 passed down the pathway in the sunshine. 
 So young, so innocent ; life as yet a sealed 
 book to them. They walked on for some
 
 M. de Sabran. 2 1 
 
 paces in silence, a little shy of each other at 
 first, but Victor happily asked some question 
 about Eugene, a subject which instantly un- 
 locked the sister's tongue, and before they 
 reached their destination they were perfectly 
 happy and confidential. The village, so to 
 speak, was but a meagre collection of houses, 
 very poor, but not half so poor as villages 
 further south and east at that period in 
 France. The condition of things in that 
 district was very different, as would be 
 proved in a few months, and there was really 
 no terribly grinding poverty at Cennes. M. 
 de St Hilaire took care of that, according to 
 his lights ; but he could not help a succession 
 of bad harvests, nor keep the wolf from the 
 door in some cases. Children played out- 
 side the doors here and there, meagre little 
 bundles of rags, with brown faces and 
 bony hands. Into one of the huts, a little 
 better than its neighbours, Eulalie led her
 
 2 2 White and Red. 
 
 companion. It was a warm still day, but the 
 sole occupant, a bent but hale old woman, 
 was sitting with her spinning, close to the 
 smouldering sticks on the hearth. She 
 turned a withered brown face and a pair of 
 glittering dark eyes on her visitors as they 
 entered. 
 
 " Is it thou, my angel?" she said, her 
 whole face lighting up. " Ah, but it is good 
 to see thee, and it will not be long now." 
 
 " Thou art full of thy fancies, Nanette," 
 said Eulalie, laying her little hand on the old 
 woman's. " I come often, is it not so ? " 
 
 " Yes, but — but I am to go away," whim- 
 pered Nanette, lifting her apron to her eyes. 
 " I do not want to go, not I, but Gaston 
 says — " 
 
 " Gaston ! where does Gaston want to 
 take thee ? Thou hast thy home here, and 
 Eugene and me — " 
 
 " Ah, yes, so I told him ; but he is head-
 
 M. de Sabran. 23 
 
 strong, the wicked child ; and he said to me, 
 * My mother, thou must come and live with 
 me in Angers, that will be better, I will it,' 
 and / can say nothing." 
 
 " Go and live in Angers ? But I shall not 
 see thee half so often as now. It will not 
 be any better, and I think Gaston is very 
 foolish." 
 
 " It is very true, and I shall be inconsol- 
 able, my cherished," agreed Nanette, with a 
 fresh burst of grief, from which she recovered 
 herself with a sense that she had been want- 
 ing in attention to her guests. 
 
 " I have made thee sad, miserable that I 
 am. Let us speak of other things. Mon- 
 sieur will doubtless forgive me graciously." 
 
 " This is M. de Limeuil," said Eulalie, 
 shyly, and stopped short. Nanette nodded 
 her head sagely, and looked at Victor with 
 her bright dark eyes. 
 
 " Monsieur le Comte is very good to visit
 
 24 White and Red. 
 
 me," she said ; " but one will do much for the 
 sake of a young demoiselle, no doubt" 
 
 Victor was equal to the occasion. The 
 relations of noble and peasant in the Bocage 
 were very different from those which existed 
 in other parts of France, and he was not un- 
 accustomed to visits like this. He was 
 charmed to go anywhere in mademoiselle's 
 society, he said, but still more so to make 
 Nanette's acquaintance. He strongly com- 
 bated the notion of the latter's retirement to 
 Angers, representing the distress it would 
 occasion to Mademoiselle, whose feelings 
 every one was bound to consider. Nanette 
 listened to it all, much pleased, but shook 
 her head mournfully at the last argument, 
 while fully admitting its force. " Gaston 
 was inexorable, Gaston did what he pleased," 
 she said ; " who was she to combat his will ? 
 But she felt she should soon die, separated 
 from her angel, and then might she hope
 
 M. de Sabran. 25 
 
 that M. le Comte would use his powerful 
 influence with Mademoiselle to induce her to 
 visit her (Nanette's) grave occasionally ? " 
 At this affecting climax Eulalie was on the 
 verge of tears, which Nanette seeing, she 
 embraced her, overwhelmed her with thanks 
 for the contents of her basket, and said good- 
 bye quite cheerfully. Victor and Eulalie 
 walked away, the former a little amused, the 
 latter wholly indignant. 
 
 "It is insufferable," said she, with most 
 unusual asperity ; " Eugene lets the people 
 do what they will. Nanette is our vassal. 
 He should not permit Gaston to take her 
 away. But he allowed him to go away with- 
 out a word, and behold he comes back full of 
 new ideas, and one sees what comes of it." 
 
 As they pursued their way, two men came 
 slowly towards them absorbed in conversa- 
 tion. One was a commonplace individual 
 enough, a stalwart Angevin, black-browed,
 
 26 White and Red. 
 
 black-haired, in the garb of a peasant; bu 
 his companion was a very different person. 
 He was singularly handsome, and though 
 dressed with almost an affectation of plain- 
 ness, his hair unpowdered and falling loose, 
 he had the " air noble " in perfection. 
 
 "Who are these, Mademoiselle?" asked 
 Victor de Limeuil, with natural curiosity, as 
 the strangers approached. 
 
 " That is Gaston Trochu, Nanette's son," 
 whispered Eulalie. " Eugene does not think 
 well of him ; he is a market-gardener in 
 Angers now ; but I do not know the other, 
 he looks like a gentleman, though he is oddly 
 dressed." 
 
 Here they came face to face with the object 
 of their curiosity, and Gaston, as if he had 
 not quite lost the inherent respect for his 
 superiors, made a gesture of respect to 
 Mademoiselle de St Hilaire, though he 
 blushed the next moment, and glanced
 
 M. de Sabran. 27 
 
 sheepishly at his companion, who on his part 
 was intently regarding the young lady and 
 gentleman as they passed. Victor de Limeuil 
 could not forbear looking over his shoulder 
 afterwards. 
 
 " It is very strange/' he said in a low voice. 
 " I never saw him before, but he is like — so 
 like — some one I have seen, or else I have 
 seen his picture. Where was it ? " 
 
 Almost at the same moment, the stranger, 
 as if yielding to an uncontrollable impulse, 
 himself turned back, and again confronted 
 the young pair. 
 
 " A thousand pardons," he said, in a very soft 
 voice, with abow that might have been executed 
 by M. de Richelieu, "but have I the honour 
 to address Mademoiselle de St Hilaire ? " 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur," said Eulalie shyly, and 
 drawing a little nearer to Victor. 
 
 " Then I may perhaps be fortunate enough 
 to give Mademoiselle some news of a dear
 
 2 8 White and Red. 
 
 friend of hers. I had the happiness of seeing 
 Mademoiselle de Thouars a very few days 
 ago in Paris." 
 
 "You have seen Gabrielle, Monsieur?" 
 said Eulalie, quickly, " then — ." She 
 hesitated, and the stranger hastened to 
 relieve her embarrassment. 
 
 " I must present myself," he said, smiling, 
 with another bow, " as Leon de Sabran." 
 
 Victor de Limeuil started, and Eulalie 
 made a curtsy in some confusion. 
 
 " I have then the honour to be Monsieur's 
 relative," said the former, after a moment's 
 hesitation, with creditable composure for his 
 age, to which remark M. de Sabran responded 
 with ready good will. He accompanied the 
 two on their homeward way forthwith, talking 
 with an easy cordiality which did not fail to 
 produce its effect on two such inexperienced 
 listeners. Eulalie, on her part, too shy to 
 say much, walked on, stealing a furtive glance
 
 M. de Sabran. 29 
 
 now and then at her new acquaintance. This, 
 then, was the redoubtable Chevalier de Sabran, 
 for whose sake Gabrielle thought it worth 
 while to flout M. de Maurepas. What terrible 
 things, too, Victor had hinted with regard to 
 him ! He was certainly an ogre, according 
 to Eulalie's simple views, but no one could 
 less resemble one. He had a very gentle, 
 soft voice, surely, and he spoke most sympa- 
 thetically of Madame de Drou, Gabrielle's 
 aunt ; apparently he had a profound admira- 
 tion for her. Was it three duels Victor 
 mentioned ? Here she looked at M. de 
 Sabran. Impossible — Eulalie had no skill 
 in reading character — impossible that those 
 liquid eyes could ever harden, those even 
 white teeth clench doggedly, those soft fingers 
 close in a grasp of steel round his sword-hilt, 
 and drive the blade home relentlessly under 
 his antagonist's guard. She shivered slightly, 
 and gave up that problem. But there was
 
 30 White and Red. 
 
 another to which she found no solution, and 
 yet to which she could not forbear to seek 
 one. What in the world had brought M. de 
 Sabran to Cennes ? And still more wonder- 
 ful, why should he have anything to say to 
 Gaston Trochu ? It was utterly puzzling, but 
 M. de Sabran did not offer to solve the mys- 
 tery, at any rate at present. He showed no 
 disposition to curtail the walk, he did not 
 seem in the least in a hurry, so when they 
 reached the gates under the lime trees, Eulalie 
 felt that hospitality would not suffer her to 
 omit an invitation to enter. She made it 
 falteringly, but he accepted it quite naturally 
 and gracefully, only deferring the visit until 
 the evening. He had left his baggage at the 
 inn, he said, and he would wish to make 
 some change in his dress before he had the 
 honour to attend Mademoiselle and M. le 
 Comte de Saint Hilaire in their own home, 
 and so bowed himself away.
 
 M. de Sabran, 3 r 
 
 M. de St Hilaire looked a little grave and 
 perplexed when he heard of the encounter, 
 but he patted Eulalie's cheek, and told her 
 she had done quite right. When she had 
 gone away to dress, he asked Victor de 
 Limeuil again what he really knew of 
 the Chevalier. Victor, however, could tell 
 very little. He had never before met his 
 kinsman, and whatever he had heard to his 
 discredit was, after all, not much more than 
 vague rumour. No one knew better than 
 Eugene de St Hilaire how often rumour lied, 
 but he also knew that it just as often spoke 
 the truth. 
 
 " Well," he said, " we shall see, but it is 
 very strange that he should come here of all 
 places, and walk about with Gaston Trochu, 
 I suppose Eulalie is quite sure that it was 
 Gaston ? " 
 
 When Pere Florian came up that evening 
 for his game of dominoes, and talk on matters
 
 32 White and Red. 
 
 light and deep with the count, he found a 
 strange guest, who had evidently talked him- 
 self into popularity with the other three. 
 
 M. de Sabran acknowledged with graceful 
 deference the introduction, and then the 
 priest, while joining in the conversation that 
 went on, set himself to examine the stranger 
 carefully, that he might discover if it were a 
 wolf which had crept unawares into this his 
 beloved fold. There was not much to cause 
 apprehension. Leon de Sabran was certainly 
 very charming. His dress was still plain, 
 and to the initiated, on that account, rather 
 alarming, but he was handsome enough to 
 be able to dispense with such adventitious 
 airs. His voice and manner were, as Eulalie 
 thought, " sympathetic," and there was a 
 finished grace about him which made Victor 
 de Limeuil seem rustic in comparison, and 
 even contrasted favourably with St Hilaire's 
 gravity of deportment. Only now and then,
 
 M. de Sab ran. 33 
 
 by reason of very close observation, Pere 
 Florian thought he could detect a hard 
 metallic glitter in the handsome eyes, when 
 any one differed from him in opinion, and cer- 
 tain lines of cruelty round the mobile mouth. 
 He talked a great deal, and talked well, but 
 it was somewhat difficult to follow the lines of 
 his arguments, and they were apt to leave a 
 slight sense of bewilderment on the minds of 
 his hearers. 
 
 " Yes," he said, in response to a question 
 of Eulalie's, " he had had the honour of meet- 
 ing Mdlle. de Thouars frequently : in fact, 
 he had known Madame de Drou for some 
 years, and on his return to Paris, had lost no 
 time in renewing that acquaintance. Mdlle. 
 de Thouars was, he knew, a dear friend of 
 Mdlle. de St Hilaire. Just so, — that was 
 delightful. Then he might venture to say 
 with what admiration Mdlle. de Thouars 
 had penetrated him." A remark which he 

 
 34 White and Red. 
 
 would certainly not have permitted himself to 
 make, had he not perceived at a glance the 
 relations of Victor de Limeuil with the young 
 lady he addressed. 
 
 Eulalie flushed up. 
 
 " Ah, if Monsieur knew her as I do, my 
 dear Gabrielle — " 
 
 " Without doubt my admiration would be 
 redoubled, Mademoiselle would say," he re- 
 joined with a ready smile of comprehension ; 
 " every one who sees Mdlle. de Thouars 
 must admire her, but what a pity that M. the 
 Marquis de Maurepas should pester her with 
 such constant (and unwelcome) attentions." 
 
 " M. le Chevalier is not, it would seem, 
 aware," said Pere Florian, harshly, " that M. 
 de Maurepas is betrothed to her." 
 
 M. de Sabran smiled courteously and 
 bowed slightly. 
 
 " I have heard something of an old con- 
 tract, but that sort of thine is out of fashion
 
 M. de Sabran. 35 
 
 now, and Mdlle. Gabrielle appears to me 
 unlikely to submit to such a bond against 
 her will." 
 
 " How do you know that it is against 
 her will, Monsieur ? " said Eugene. 
 
 De Sabran shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " How does one know anything with re- 
 gard to even the most charming of the sex ? 
 I infer from Mademoiselle's evident impa- 
 tience that M. de Maurepas fatigues her. 
 Believe me, M. le Comte, the chain that 
 binds her is a very slight one, and she needs 
 but little resolution to break the last link." 
 
 Victor de Limeuil glanced uneasily at 
 Eulalie to see what effect this rank heresy 
 had upon her, and she, on her part, felt at 
 least equal dismay. What ideas were these ? 
 Assuredly Gabrielle could not have imbibed 
 them. 
 
 The priest was looking steadily at M. 
 de Sabran, who must have been uncon-
 
 36 White and Red. 
 
 scious of the fact, being apparently absorbed 
 in the contemplation of the picture of the 
 late Count de St Hilaire on the wall 
 opposite. 
 
 " I know Gabrielle de Thouars," said Pere 
 Florian, in his usual incisive tone, " and I do 
 not think so ill of her as Monsieur's opinion 
 would imply." 
 
 M. de Sabran removed his eyes reluctantly 
 from the picture. 
 
 " Mon pere, you mistake. I have 
 already had the honour to express my 
 profound admiration for Mdlle. de 
 Thouars. How, then, could I imply the 
 contrary ? " 
 
 " By assuming that she wishes, without 
 adequate reasons, to set aside a - solemn con- 
 tract," rejoined the priest, whereat the cheva- 
 lier simply lifted his eyebrows and smiled. 
 His host, as the person best calculated to 
 effect a diversion, led the conversation away
 
 M. de Sabran. 3 7 
 
 from Gabrielle, seeing she was likely to 
 prove a castes belli. 
 
 " Did Monsieur know this country well ? 
 Should he make a long stay in the neigh- 
 bourhood ? " Eulalie listened eagerly for the 
 answer, as a solution to the mystery which 
 was puzzling her. No, M. de Sabran knew 
 little of it, but it appeared charming ; he was 
 merely passing through, but found himself 
 under the necessity of remaining for the night 
 in the village. He had walked out to enjoy 
 the scenery, and had fallen in with an intelli- 
 gent person, a peasant or mechanic appar- 
 ently, who was directing him on his way, 
 when he had the felicity to meet Mademoi- 
 selle. 
 
 Mademoiselle being a simple-minded 
 young person, thought it all very natural, 
 though she felt she scarcely appreciated the 
 advantages of a walk with Gaston Trochu. 
 She wondered why Eugene looked grave,
 
 38 White and Red. 
 
 and Fere Florian too, but then he generally 
 did, now, so that did not count for much. 
 
 " Your people here seem happy, M. le 
 Comte," said the visitor. 
 
 " I hope so, T ' said St Hilaire, the shade 
 deepening on his face, " but they are very 
 poor, and poverty is hard to bear. One can 
 do so little in these days — " 
 
 " Eh, but what matter, it is but a few 
 canaille after all," and here M. de Sabran 
 looked full into his host's face. 
 
 " Monsieur, I have never looked on them 
 as such," said Eugene, proudly, "what other 
 seigneurs may be I do not know. Here we 
 strive to do justly by our vassals ; if we fail, 
 we fail." 
 
 " Yes, you have done your best," said Pere 
 Florian, gently, " if it were so all over France 
 — but past generations have sowed the wind, 
 and who shall say what the harvest of the 
 whirlwind shall be ? "
 
 M. de Sabran. 39 
 
 Just then M. de Sabran rose to take leave. 
 He must pursue his journey early next day, 
 he said, and therefore must, though pene- 
 trated with regret, decline M. le Comte's 
 hospitality for the night. 
 
 Eulalie found her tongue on his departure. 
 
 " But he is charming, is he not, Eugene ? " 
 she said eagerly, a little to Victor's discom- 
 fiture. " Why do you look so grave, my 
 brother ? Pere Florian, is not M. de Sabran 
 delightful ? " 
 
 Pere Florian smiled indulgently at her. 
 
 " Keep thy innocent faith, my daughter/' 
 he said ; " it is far better to see only the 
 sheep, where the sheep's clothing is, than to 
 detect the wolf's fangs beneath ;" and with a 
 "peace be with you," he too went away. 
 
 " I never can understand the good father,"' 
 said Eulalie, to herself, despairingly, as she 
 went to bed ; " why should he compare M. 
 de Sabran to a wolf, I wonder."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PAINT AND POWDER. 
 
 Quit the stiff garb of serious sense, 
 And wear a gay impertinence, 
 Nor think, nor speak with any pains, 
 But lay on Fancy's neck the reins. 
 
 Madame la Comtesse de Drou had a re- 
 ception. A small one, for society, as Madame 
 understood the word, had become limited in 
 Paris ; but then there were hardly any of her 
 guests who could not count back their half- 
 score of descents. Madame de Drou her- 
 self was a specimen of a class long since 
 extinct. A few like her survived until the 
 Restoration, looking on at the brief pageant 
 of the first empire, with haughty, contemptu- 
 ous eyes ; clinging fondly to the traditions of 
 their youth, to an order of things for ever
 
 Faint and Powder. 41 
 
 buried and forgotten, with all the more 
 tenacity for that very reason. Madame de 
 Drou had been a beauty in her day, and had 
 made a sensation on her arrival from her 
 convent school, where she collected the alms 
 in the royal chapel, without missing one 
 curtsy, or evincing the slightest embar- 
 rassment. 
 
 Nevertheless, when she married, which 
 was immediately, she had been entirely sub- 
 missive, and had manifested no objection to 
 being buried in the country, for the late 
 count had an unaccountable fancy that way. 
 Madame had appeared at court again on her 
 widowhood, but did not altogether approve 
 of what she saw there. No doubt, things 
 were much better than in the late King's 
 time, but Madame looked doubtfully on her 
 Majesty's taste for wearing muslin frocks 
 and milking the cows, and surely it was a 
 pity that the most Christian King should soil
 
 42 White and Red. 
 
 and oil his royal fingers over locks and bolts 
 quite so much. 
 
 She and Madame de Noailles shook their 
 heads together sometimes, but they both 
 loved the king and queen devotedly, and 
 never allowed any one else to utter a syllable 
 in disparagement of their majesties' favourite 
 pursuits. 
 
 Madame is at present sitting upright near 
 the fire, coffee-cup in hand, stately as a towering 
 powdered " head," Malines lace, and the con- 
 sciousness of Montmorency blood can make 
 her, talking to Madame de Brancas and two 
 or three more near her. Her salon is bright 
 with wax candles which burn in the gilded 
 girandoles on the walls, and the candlesticks 
 on the buhl tables scattered about the room, 
 while the light is absorbed in the velvet 
 curtains hanging before the tall windows, 
 after falling on two or three pictures on the 
 walls between them. A portrait by Mignard
 
 Paint and Powder. 43 
 
 of some fair Montmorency of the days of the 
 great Louis, a pastel by La Tour, and so on. 
 Madame has a pretty taste in art, and the 
 fan that shades her face from the fire was 
 painted by Watteau. 
 
 At the other side of the room stands 
 Gabrielle de Thouars, attired in much the 
 same fashion as her aunt, powder, toupee, 
 and all ; for Madame de Drou disapproves 
 of the new fashions as much for the young as 
 for the old. 
 
 Mdlle. de Thouars looks very handsome, 
 handsomer, perhaps, than in the old garden 
 at Cennes, where she teased Eulalie de St 
 Hilaire, and made wreaths for her, by turns ; 
 yet the expression of her face is hardly 
 as sweet A little disdainful, a little weary, 
 and there is now and then a restless glance 
 at one end of the room ; but she keeps up 
 the ball of conversation gallantly, with a 
 very elegantly dressed man, whose somewhat
 
 44 White and Red. 
 
 effeminate beauty is strangely at variance 
 with a certain reckless daring of expression. 
 
 " Mademoiselle is too cruel," he is saying ; 
 " what are we poor poets to do if we have 
 not the privilege of warning beauty of its 
 dangerous powers ? " 
 
 " Only that you are a little too late, 
 Monsieur," says Gabrielle. "Wherever beauty 
 exists, I will venture to say its possessor is 
 fully aware of it." 
 
 " But not of its power. Do not say so, 
 Mademoiselle, or you will rob your sex of 
 one of its greatest charms, that of tenderness." 
 
 Gabrielle laughs. 
 
 " Do you hear this, Mesdames ? " she says. 
 " M. Dorat-Cubieres accuses us of too much 
 tenderness. See what it is to be a poet." 
 
 " It is the privilege of. a poet to draw on 
 his imagination, is it not ? " says a gentle- 
 man at the other side of the room in a 
 very soft measured voice. M. le Marquis
 
 Paint and Powder. 45 
 
 de Maurepas is leaning back in a deep 
 easy chair, and one would scarcely sup- 
 pose him to have been much interested 
 in the conversation hitherto. His face is 
 an exceedingly refined one, less regularly 
 handsome perhaps than M. de Sabran's, for 
 instance, if one saw them together, yet attrac- 
 tive in its own way, and one or two people 
 would tell you, more fascinating. It is care- 
 fully schooled to an expression of lazy and 
 somewhat supercilious indifference— schooled, 
 because when he chooses to lift those hand- 
 some eyes, there is a certain latent fire in 
 them, which tells of something beneath that 
 languid, critical exterior, if one knew how to 
 get at it. He does not take the trouble to 
 raise the eyes in question at this moment, but 
 contemplates placidly the shapely foot which, 
 crossed on his knee, is within range of his 
 vision, and thus does not see the angry flush 
 which comes, oddly enough, over Mdlle. de
 
 4.6 White and Red. 
 
 Thouar's face as she answers with unaccount- 
 able asperity, 
 
 " Is it also the privilege solely of a poet 
 to pay graceful compliments ? " 
 
 " Only one of them," says M. de Maurepas, 
 sweetly, "M. Dorat-Cubieres can claim so 
 many," — this with such a graceful inclination 
 of the head that the poet could find no pre- 
 text for offence, even had he wished to do so. 
 
 M. de Maurepas had the worst possible 
 opinion of Dorat-Cubieres himself, and a not 
 much better one of his verses, though society, 
 as a rule, raved of them. De Maurepas 
 never forgot that two years back the poet 
 had tied on a red sash to follow the victorious 
 columns in the attack on the Bastile, and had 
 then called himself " citizen and soldier." He 
 altogether disapproved of Madame de Drou's 
 receiving the offender ; but Madame, much 
 as she hated the Jacobins, was no more con- 
 sistent than the rest of her kind. Dorat-
 
 Paint and Powder. 47 
 
 Cubieres was a spoilt favourite, the darling 
 of society, and doubtless had repented him 
 of his errors, in spite of what was stili said of 
 him. Besides, he was a poet, and therefore 
 not accountable for his actions like other 
 people. So she stretched a point and admitted 
 him. There he was, scented, powdered, talk- 
 ing sentiment by the yard, just as if there 
 had never been a terrible day in July, which 
 had seen him in a whirl of dust and blood, 
 of furies and crazy patriots ; and as if he had 
 not stood by when De Launay was slaughtered 
 outside the gates he had tried to defend. 
 Now M. de Maurepas, by way of contrast, 
 had belonged to the gardes-du-corp, only 
 lately disbanded, and his recollections led 
 him to a certain night, also two years back, 
 when this corps feasted the National Guard 
 and the Regiment de Flandre at Ver- 
 sailles, when the king and queen came among 
 them, and all was a mist of loyalty, white
 
 48 White and Red. 
 
 cockades, and strains of " Richard, O mon 
 roi ! " 
 
 " Is \% true," says Madame de Drou, " that 
 Roland de Platiere had a reception last 
 night ? " 
 
 " Madame Roland had," says Dorat- 
 Cubieres laughing. 
 
 " Probably an admirable woman," remarks 
 De Maurepas, "but how fatiguing." 
 
 " Yes," responds the poet, " she has not the 
 art of conversation, but declamation — my 
 faith, how she declaims ! " 
 
 " What would you have ? " says Gabrielle. 
 " She is bourgeoise — she must achieve 
 notoriety somehow." 
 
 " That is a very easy task in these days," 
 says De Maurepas. " A little Plutarch, much 
 assurance, and there is your heroine ready- 
 made." 
 
 " They say," pursues Madame de Drou, 
 holding up her hands, " that this M. Roland
 
 Paint mid Powder. 49 
 
 is likely to come into power. Heavens ! what 
 a reflection ! He was but a little while ago 
 inspector of fabrics at Lyons, and it was only 
 yesterday that he went to Court without 
 buckles. Figure to yourselves, Mesdames, 
 strings in his shoes ! " 
 
 " M. de Sabran frequents Madame Roland's 
 salon/' says Dorat-Cubieres, with a covert 
 glance at Gabrielle, who pretends not to hear, 
 but he proceeds : — " Many people say they 
 are tarred with the same feather. M. de 
 Sabran's sentiments seem to incline towards 
 the democracy, I hear." 
 
 " As yours did once, Monsieur," says 
 Gabrielle with a laugh, and a curtsy that 
 takes off the bitterness of her retort, though 
 there is a dangerous sparkle in her grey eyes. 
 
 " Mademoiselle is correct, as she always 
 is," says the poet ; " but I would venture to 
 observe that Madame Roland's sentiments, 
 and those of her friends, are other than the 
 
 I. D
 
 50 White and Red. 
 
 fiery impulse which animated that deplorable 
 outbreak in which I was so unfortunate as to 
 be concerned." 
 
 " The difference between the Gironde and 
 the Montagne," says Gabrielle maliciously, 
 though in a low voice. 
 
 Dorat-Cubieres tries to answer composedly, 
 but his voice shakes with spite and confusion ; 
 and, poet and man of gallantry as he is, 
 he would like nothing better than to take 
 Mdlle. de Thouars by her slender white 
 throat there and then, and beat her till she is 
 black and blue. He harps on now at the 
 name which has sown such mischievous seed. 
 
 " M. de Sabran has been absent for some 
 weeks, I hear," he says. " Do you know 
 where he is, Mademoiselle ? " 
 
 " M. de Sabran does not favour me with an 
 account of all his movements," says Gabrielle 
 pettishly. " I did not even know that he had 
 not come back."
 
 Paint and Powder. 5 r 
 
 " That is very strange," says her tormentor. 
 " What can lead him to be so long absent at 
 such a time, when there must be so much to 
 enchain him here ? I will endeavour to find 
 out where he is if you, Mademoiselle, will 
 empower me." 
 
 " Not on any account, Monsieur," says 
 Gabrielle, exasperated. " I do not think any 
 of us is sufficiently impressed by this wonder- 
 ful piece of news to wish that you should 
 fatigue yourself so far. When M. de Sabran 
 is tired of the provinces, I have no doubt he 
 will return to Paris." 
 
 As she speaks De Maurepas' eyes are, for 
 once, fixed on her handsome, disdainful face, 
 but before she has well finished he rises and 
 moves languidly to the fire-place, where he 
 takes up an idle, desultory conversation with 
 Madame de Drou and the circle which sur- 
 rounds her. 
 
 Gabrielle sees the movement, but not the 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 5 2 White and Red. 
 
 intent gaze which preceded it, and an offended 
 flush rises on her face as she turns her back 
 alike on the group near the fire and the 
 offending poet, and begins to talk to some 
 one else. 
 
 Nevertheless, when every one has de- 
 parted, and she goes up to her room, she 
 annoys and surprises herself by bursting into 
 tears, though she stoutly maintains she does 
 not know why. 
 
 " I am like Eulalie, poor little soul," she 
 says snappishly to her own reflection in the 
 glass, " who cries if she sees a dead mouse." 
 It is weakness, it is an attack of the nerves, 
 it is anything and everything but the Marquis 
 de Maurepas. All the same, Gabrielle's last 
 remark to herself, as she lays her head on the 
 pillow, is, "I hate him ; " but probably the 
 weather has affected her, and she has a head- 
 ache.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON SERVICE. 
 
 Upon a great adventure he was bond, 
 
 That greatest Gloriana to him gave 
 (That greatest, glorious Oueene of Faery-lond), 
 
 To win him worshippe and her grace to have. 
 
 "Babette, say to Mademoiselle that I request 
 her presence at her earliest convenience," thus 
 Madame de Drou, thoughtfully stirring her 
 chocolate, the next day. She had not, in 
 her own superior fashion, been altogether un- 
 observant of the by-play of last night, and 
 she thought matters ought to come to a 
 crisis. 
 
 Gabrielle showed a becoming alacrity in 
 obeying her aunt's summons, and came forth- 
 with ; fresh, smiling, having overcome, per-
 
 54 White and Red. 
 
 haps forgotten, her uncomfortable cogitations 
 
 of the previous night. 
 
 "Madame my aunt, you are well, I trust ?" 
 
 she said, kissing the old lady's hand. " No- 
 thing is amiss ? " 
 
 "I wish to speak to you seriously, Gabrielle; 
 
 have the goodness to sit down and attend." 
 
 Gabrielle made a little grimace unobserved, 
 but got a low stool and placed herself 
 
 demurely, with her back to the light. 
 
 " Many years ago," began Madame, who 
 was apt to become didactic when she wished 
 to be impressive, " my beloved brother, and 
 your deplored and sainted mother, made the 
 agreement with M. the late Marquis de 
 Maurepas that you should marry his son 
 when both were grown up. That period has 
 now arrived. Not long ago you signified 
 your acquiescence in the arrangement. Now 
 it only remains to carry into effect the wishes 
 of the lamented deceased."
 
 On Service. 55 
 
 " But Madame," said Gabrielle, when her 
 aunt had wound up her flowing periods, 
 "must the wishes of the deceased always super- 
 sede those of the living ? " this with a sus- 
 picion of laughter in her voice. 
 
 " I fail to comprehend you," said Madame 
 de Drou, with added dignity ; " for my part 
 I should always consider them paramount. 
 But, putting that question aside, I again 
 remark that, a few months aeo, when I 
 reminded you of the contract, you made no 
 objection." 
 
 " But M. the Marquis — perhaps he is not 
 equally submissive ? " 
 
 " Even before I spoke to you," rejoined 
 Madame, " M. de Maurepas confided to me 
 his willingness, I should say his eager desire, 
 to carry his father's wishes into effect. He is 
 quite conscious," pursued Madame, drawing 
 herself up, " that in marrying you, he not 
 only marries a De Thouars, though that is
 
 56 White and Red. 
 
 enough, even for a De Maurepas ; but a 
 Montmorency, a Rohan, a — ." 
 
 " So, with all these inestimable advantages, 
 M. de Maurepas is willing to take the insig- 
 nificant person tacked on to them," said 
 Gabrielle, in a tone that struggled between 
 amusement and indignation; "it is satisfactory 
 to be certain of it, for one would never divine 
 it from his manner." 
 
 "His manner is perfect," said her aunt, 
 angrily ; "I do not know what more you 
 would have, unless the insipid chatter of M. 
 de Sabran, whom I suspect to be deeply 
 tainted with Jacobinism, in spite of his blood, 
 which is undoubted. You would not have 
 M. de Maurepas excite himself in the same 
 way?" 
 
 " Not for worlds," said Gabrielle, quickly ; 
 " it would be far too much to expect M. de 
 Maurepas to excite himself about anything, 
 least of all, about me."
 
 On Service. 57 
 
 From the position in which she sat, the 
 angry flush that mounted to her face escaped 
 her aunt, who proceeded calmly. 
 
 " You speak like a child ; the question is 
 of your marriage. It should be before long, 
 and there is nothing at present, as far as I 
 can see, to prevent it. Your portion certainly 
 is not large, but — " 
 
 " Madame," interrupted Gabrielle, who 
 seemed to have made up her mind during 
 her aunt's last deliberate speech, " permit me 
 to ask you to let this matter rest — at least 
 for a time. It seems to me that M. the 
 Marquis should again address himself to you 
 — or me — before we can move with dignity." 
 
 " You, Gabrielle," retorted Madame, " are 
 scarcely so good a judge of dignity as I, or of 
 what is fitting, as you prove by the mere 
 suggestion of M. de Maurepas addressing 
 himself to you." 
 
 " It may be so, Madame," said Gabrielle,
 
 5 8 White and Red. 
 
 getting up, " but unless he does, I decline to 
 consider the question altogether," and with a 
 sweeping curtsy Mademoiselle sailed out of 
 the room, leaving her aunt to sigh over this 
 last act of rank insubordination, and to class 
 it as one of the many signs of the degeneracy 
 of the times. 
 
 Now Gabrielle had not been quite sincere. 
 M. de Maurepas had declared himself to her 
 personally a few months back, and she had 
 then given no answer or an evasive one. 
 She liked to have De Sabran and others at 
 her feet ; she hated to be bound in any way, 
 though in her heart of hearts she knew that 
 she considered no one equal to Raoul de 
 Maurepas. But she chose to consider that 
 he conducted the siege too languidly, and his 
 gentle imperturbability chafed, while it fas- 
 cinated her against her will ; and it irritated 
 her that her flirtations with the butterflies 
 who hovered round her, never seemed to
 
 On Service. 59 
 
 provoke him into the shadow of a remon- 
 strance. She never appeared able to rouse 
 in him any emotion, but all her arts, her wit, 
 and her beauty, seemed to recoil like headless 
 arrows from the shield of his placid self- 
 possession ; and above all things, Gabrielle 
 dearly loved power. For this reason De 
 Sabran's evident devotion conveyed the most 
 subtle flattery to her mind. Surely M. de 
 Maurepas could not care so very much about 
 her or he would take more pains to win her. 
 So she said to herself, impressively, over and 
 over again ; yet in spite of it all, in reviewing 
 her late interview with her aunt, it was pro- 
 voking to find that she was much more angry 
 with herself than with any one else. 
 
 She went out for some fresh air in the 
 course of the day, Babette in attendance ; 
 but the change of scene and stir of life round 
 her did not go far to mend matters, nor 
 ameliorate her feelings of discontent. Once,
 
 60 White and Red. 
 
 however, she forgot herself and her owit 
 trivial and self-inflicted troubles. That was 
 when a carriage passed her slowly, and she 
 recognised, with a low curtsy, the face of the 
 most famous, and perhaps the most sorrowful, 
 woman in France. What were her poor 
 perplexities, the vagaries of M. de Maurepas, 
 the sighs of M. de Sab ran, to the tangle of 
 anxiety, pain, and bewilderment seething 
 under that pale brow. Although the powder 
 on her hair only served to mask the rapidly 
 whitening tresses, once so bright, although 
 care had ploughed furrows on the white fore- 
 head, and hollowed those imperial eyes, yet 
 Marie Antoinette of Lorraine had not yet 
 lost the stately carriage which had marked 
 her in the plenitude of her splendour, her 
 beauty, and her power. Nay, she never did 
 lose it, but, when the bitter end came, she 
 fronted Fouquier-Tinville, and mounted the 
 steps of the guillotine with the same lofty
 
 On Service. 61 
 
 grace which had clothed her when she 
 entered Strasbourg, the bride of the Dauphin, 
 amidst the frantic enthusiasm of France, only 
 eighteen years before. 
 
 Just as Gabrielle de Thouars performed 
 her obeisance, and the Queen bowed her fair 
 head, with the faint, sad smile, which was all 
 she could ever summon now, a woman came 
 up behind, and paused for an instant. 
 
 " Ah, la belle Bourbonnaise," she said, in a 
 clear, loud voice, " art thou there, thou ? I 
 shall see thee lower yet, some day, infame." 
 
 The Queen must have heard it, for her 
 coach-window was open, but the pale face 
 gave no sign of intelligence, and she did not 
 even avert her eyes. Had it come to this, 
 had constant suffering so blunted feeling, 
 that even this petty insult was powerless to 
 sting ? 
 
 Gabrielle started back with a faint excla- 
 mation of horror, and as the royal carriage
 
 62 White and Red. 
 
 passed on, she turned with blazing eyes on 
 the speaker. 
 
 This was a sufficiently remarkable person. 
 A tall handsome woman, very neatly dressed, 
 she might have passed for the wife or sister 
 of an inferior tradesman or mechanic ; but it 
 did not need the red sash round her waist to 
 tell that she was possessed of a decided in- 
 dividuality of her own. 
 
 She met Gabrielle's gaze of scorn and 
 indignation quite calmly and collectedly, with 
 at least an equal amount of pride expressed 
 in her own dark eyes. 
 
 " Well, Mademoiselle," she said, " I meant 
 to say it. What ! there is a day of expiation 
 coming for such as thee too, as well as for 
 her!' 
 
 " It is shameful," said Gabrielle hotly, that 
 this should be allowed — should be possible. 
 Permit me to pass," she added haughtily, for 
 the other barred her road with a certain reck-
 
 On Se7'vice. 63 
 
 less amusement in her face, and Babette was 
 far too frightened to be of any use. 
 
 " A little instruction would be of ereat ser- 
 vice to thee," said the stranger, moving, how- 
 ever, carelessly on one side, " if only to teach 
 thee not to look with such scorn on a dauo-hter 
 of the People. When we meet again, we shall 
 remember each other. I am Philippine Drouet." 
 
 Gabrielle made no answer, but she had her 
 own share of courage, and did not refrain 
 from a last glance, in which she infused all 
 the horror and contempt of which she was 
 capable, as she walked swiftly away. 
 
 She had heard, for it was then well known, 
 the terrible name of her, who, a mere bour- 
 geoise maiden, like so many others of her 
 time, flung herself into the vortex of public 
 excitement, and who, by means of her fatal 
 beauty, her wild enthusiasm, and tameless 
 ferocity had earned a more sinister fame 
 than those who followed her.
 
 64 White and Red. 
 
 They were poles asunder, those two, the 
 demoiselle with her sixteen quarterings, her 
 pride of blood, her reserve of race and educa- 
 tion ; and the daughter of the people, inflamed 
 with mad hatred against order ; order so 
 long abused, so soon to be swept away ; a 
 hatred that would only too easily find its vent 
 in the coming storm. Yet in two qualities 
 they were alike : their courage and their pride. 
 Philippine herself recognised that kinship of 
 spirit as she stood for a few seconds 
 watching Mdlle. de Thouars' receding figure, 
 which lost no whit of its collected grace 
 in the rapid steps which bore it away. 
 
 " She has a bold heart, that one," she said 
 to herself; "I did not think there was one 
 aristocrat of them all, could have looked me 
 down like that, except the Austrian, and she 
 was cool enough that day at Versailles. 
 Well, we should see how either would look 
 if I were holding her in one hand, and my
 
 On Service. 65 
 
 knife at her throat in the other ; " and so say- 
 ing, she too went her way. 
 
 Gabrielle, still trembling and excited from 
 her encounter, was turning into the Hotel 
 Drou, when the Marquis de Maurepas came 
 up from the opposite direction. He bowed 
 profoundly as they met, and spoke in his 
 usual imperturbable manner. 
 
 " May I be permitted to wait on Madame 
 your aunt ? " he said. 
 
 " Assuredly, M. le Marquis," said Gabrielle, 
 stiffly, for she felt her colour coming and 
 going with an aggravating recollection of her 
 aunt's admonitions, and an unreasonable con- 
 viction that M. de Maurepas must also be 
 aware of it. 
 
 The whole time he remained, which was 
 not long, she was in a fever of excitement ; 
 of terror lest he and Madame de Drou should 
 fall to discussing the question of the mar- 
 riage, and then, though she would not own it
 
 66 White and Red. 
 
 to herself, of perverse anger because he had 
 not approached the subject. But he talked 
 the merest platitudes in his ordinary fatigued 
 fashion, until there arrived two or three 
 visitors, and the opportunity was lost for the 
 present, if he had ever intended to take 
 advantage of it. Gabrielle had been, for her, 
 unusually silent, but now that she conceived 
 she was safe, she began to chatter with 
 more than her usual volubility. Presently 
 she related her encounter of that afternoon, 
 at which all present held up their hands and 
 eyes, except M. de Maurepas. 
 
 " Mademoiselle Drouet is a very singular 
 person," he remarked, shrugging his shoulders. 
 " I only once had the honour of seeing her, 
 and that was under circumstances calculated 
 to display her style of eloquence to the best 
 advantage." 
 
 " And where was that ? " asked Madame 
 de Drou.
 
 On Service. 6y 
 
 "It was at Versailles," he answered care- 
 lessly. 
 
 Gabrielle knew, if her aunt had forgotten, 
 that, on that terrible October day, when the 
 crowds from Paris, mad for rapine and blood, 
 poured into the vast palace of the great Louis, 
 Raoul de Maurepas, then of the body-guard, 
 was there, and that it was no fault of his 
 that he had not shared the fate of the faithful 
 two, who were slaughtered on the staircase of 
 the Queen's apartments. But, in her irrita- 
 tion, she put away the recollection from her 
 mind to-night. Why was he always so cool, 
 so unemotional ? she thought, angrily. 
 
 " Ah, she was horrible ; I have no patience 
 to think of her," she said sharply ; " you are 
 too much of a philosopher, M. le Marquis." 
 
 " Perhaps no, perhaps yes," he said with 
 an indolent smile ; " if so, I follow the fashion, 
 and it saves so much trouble, Mademoiselle." 
 
 " Even when it is a bad fashion," she per- 
 sisted. " I think philosophy is out of place now."
 
 68 White and Red. 
 
 " That is a question I shall have to study 
 for the present," he said, " as I contemplate 
 an absence of some time from Paris." 
 
 Gabrielle could not repress a slight start 
 of surprise, neither, to her annoyance, could 
 she keep the blood from mounting to her 
 forehead, but she said nothing. Madame de 
 Drou looked up. 
 
 " Going away, M. le Marquis ? But we 
 shall be inconsolable. Is not this a sudden 
 resolution ? " And as she spoke, she could not 
 forbear a rapid inquisitive glance at her niece. 
 De Maurepas did not look up. 
 
 " A mere whim, of course, Madame, 
 desire of travelling, too much philosophy ; 
 besides, it is very dull here, is it not Made- 
 moiselle ? " and here he did lift his eyes, and 
 glanced at Gabrielle, who, angry, offended, 
 and a little ashamed, chose to detect an under- 
 tone of sarcasm in his quiet words. He is 
 playing fast and loose, the aunt must have
 
 On Service. 69 
 
 told him that I was all ready for him ; he 
 despises me, and shows that he does so; were 
 the thoughts that ran through her mind as 
 she sat, opening and shutting her fan with 
 petulant snaps that Mr Spectator certainly 
 would never have approved. At last, M. de 
 Maurepas rose to take his leave. 
 
 " Shall we not then see you before you 
 start ? " asked Madame de Drou, still in- 
 finitely puzzled. 
 
 " I fear not, Madame," he said ; " I trust 
 not to prolong my stay indefinitely, but a 
 little inquisition into my affairs down in 
 Auvergne is necessary. You do not believe 
 that any less cogent reason could take me 
 away," he added, as he bowed over Madame's 
 slender, jewelled hand. 
 
 Gabrielle got up, and walking to the other 
 side of the room, began turning over the 
 leaves of one of the books on a little gilded 
 table with restless, impatient fingers. She
 
 jo White and Red. 
 
 felt unreasonably provoked to see him bandy- 
 ing idle compliments with the group by the 
 fire. He had — yes, he had humiliated her ; 
 the leaves of the book fluttered still faster ; 
 she was longing that he would go, and yet 
 half hoping that he might remain. He crossed 
 the room gently and deliberately,]and stopped 
 before her, looking now full into her face. 
 It seemed to her as if he compelled her 
 glance. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," he said, his low, soft voice 
 lower even than usual, " I owe it to you to 
 explain the true object of my journey, which 
 has only become known to myself to-day. I 
 go on a secret mission from the Queen. It is 
 a great honour — Mademoiselle will remember 
 that I trust all to her in revealing this 
 much. Adieu." He kissed her hand, and 
 was gone. Gabrielle stood still where he had 
 left her, mechanically fingering her book, 
 until recalled to herself by the necessity of
 
 On Service. 71 
 
 saying good-bye to her aunt's friends, and 
 there she waited, looking down abstractedly 
 into the bright wood fire, while Madame 
 addressed her querulous remarks to her. 
 
 " Very strange, very strange indeed ; how 
 can it be necessary for him to go now ? Be- 
 sides, he should have mentioned it before, 
 and discussed these affairs with me. Gab- 
 rielle, do you not hear ? Is it not strange ? " 
 
 "Very strange," said Gabrielle, in the 
 absent voice of one who has understood 
 nothing which has been said to her. " Ma- 
 dame, will you permit me to say good-night ? 
 I am very tired, and — and my head aches ? " 
 
 Ah yes, she would have liked to call him 
 back now, to say that she was — well — sorry 
 for being so cross ; that she was proud of his 
 selection as a messenger from the Sovereign 
 they were all so ready to die for ; that she 
 was sure none worthier ever did the behest 
 of a Queen since Thibault of Champagne
 
 72 White and Red. 
 
 served Blanche of Castile so nobly ; that — 
 oh, there were a hundred things she could 
 have said, had she only known. But he 
 might not be back for ages, and she did not 
 in the least know where he was going — it 
 was a secret mission, so of course he could 
 not tell her that, she knew ; but it was all a 
 cruel blow, and if Mademoiselle de Thouars 
 had cried the night before, she cried much 
 harder now. She heard hour after hour 
 strike from the little Louis Quatorze clock on 
 her table, as she lay awake and miserable, 
 wondering, with a remorseful and sore heart, 
 if M. de Maurepas was thinking of her, and 
 if he would ever come back again. 
 
 Her feelings of contrition would have been 
 intensified, could she have been present at a 
 scene which was enacted a few hours earlier 
 on that same day. Standing before a table, 
 in one of the Queen's apartments in the 
 Tuileries, was the Marquis de Maurepas.
 
 On Service. 73 
 
 The King was sitting by the table, while at 
 the other side stood Marie Antoinette, a 
 letter in her hand, which she looked over and 
 rapidly folded. Louis XVI. sat silently look- 
 ing on, the now habitual expression of pained 
 perplexity shadowing his broad face ; and it 
 was the Queen who managed the affair. 
 
 She held out the letter as soon as the King 
 had sealed it. 
 
 " M. le Marquis, we trust you." 
 
 As Raoul de Maurepas took the letter, 
 kneeling, from the fair soft hand, so thin, 
 alas, already, he looked up with something of 
 the same expression in his face as Gabrielle 
 de Thouars noticed a few hours later when 
 he bade her farewell ; something of the same 
 expression with which George Douglas must 
 have said farewell to home and kindred, and 
 steered the boat that carried Mary Stuart to 
 freedom, or with which the chivalrous ances- 
 tor of the same Douglas must have carried
 
 74 White and Red. 
 
 forth the heart of Bruce, on the pilgrimage 
 that was never to be fulfilled. But he made 
 no scene, uttered no protestations. 
 
 " I am most unworthy of such an honour, 
 Madame," he said simply, " but I will try to 
 deserve it. One can always die, at least."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE GATHERING OF THE WIND. 
 
 A small black ominous spot far in the distance, 
 It spread — and spread. 
 
 Eulalie de St Hilaire is sitting- alone in 
 the salle at Cennes. The sunlight streams 
 cheerfully in upon her through the window 
 near. She can hear a distant chorus of 
 cocks and hens, but that is all the company 
 she has. Victor de Limeuil has gone away 
 again, back to his own home in the west, 
 where he will remain for the present in duti- 
 ful attendance on Madame his mother, to 
 whom he is under orders. He and Eulalie 
 will not be married yet — not for an indefinite 
 time, it appears. Eulalie bears his departure 
 very philosophically ; it is right that he
 
 j 6 White and Red. 
 
 should go, you see — an arrangement ; there- 
 fore, she never dreams of disputing the pro- 
 priety or advisability of the matter. She 
 looked a little grave, to be sure, when the 
 horses passed down under the lime trees, but 
 twenty minutes afterwards she could lift as 
 unruffled a smile as ever to Eugene. He 
 is not gone too, and that means a good 
 deal to Eulalie. Eugene himself is not quite 
 satisfied. Is it after all the best thing for the 
 child ? To be sure Victor de Limeuil is every- 
 thing that could be desired, and he would 
 appear to be genuinely attached, but he does 
 not seem to have made any deep impres- 
 sion on Eulalie's heart, which one would sup- 
 pose soft enough in all conscience. It is 
 perplexing, certainly. M. de St Hilaire has 
 seen enough of loveless marriages, and he 
 has never forgotten a wild mirk evening in 
 January, ten years ago, when his mother, a 
 widow, lay dying. He knelt by her, his arm
 
 The Gathering of the Wind. J 7 
 
 round little Eulalie, who clung frightened to 
 him ; and their mother, the memory of her 
 own sorrowful life, and perhaps of some long 
 crushed hope, strong upon her, bade him 
 shield his sister from a like fate. " Find her 
 a fitting marriage, Eugene ; one who loves 
 her, one whom she can love, or it would be 
 better for her to be lying here." He had 
 promised this, and he had tried hard to keep 
 his promise. All the love, all the sentiment 
 of his life had been absorbed into that one 
 protecting affection for his sister, an affection 
 much more like that of a mother for an only 
 child, than the ordinary matter-of-course fra- 
 ternal instinct. He had done his best accord- 
 ing to his lights in this betrothal, but — was it 
 all a mistake ? Eugene de St Hilaire, with 
 all his strength of will and real decision of 
 character, was a man who suffered from an 
 almost morbid distrust of his own judgment, 
 at times ; born of a strained conscientious-
 
 78 White mid Red. 
 
 ness, and this was of course a fruitful source 
 of regret. He could not leave consequences 
 to take care of themselves, even when he 
 knew the actions from which they sprang to 
 be right. As was perhaps natural in such a 
 temperament, he had far less distrust of 
 others than of himself, and, beyond that one 
 absorbing passion of affection for his sister, 
 the one aim of his life was the redress of all 
 grievances within his power. The secluded 
 life he led, and indifferent health, had in- 
 creased the contemplative bent of his mind ; 
 but its practical side had been kept alive by 
 Pere Florian's lofty enthusiasm acting on his 
 own sense of right. Nine nobles out of ten 
 in France would have denounced him, with a 
 contemptuous gesture, as an insane dreamer ; 
 the King himself would probably have 
 recognized in him a kindred soul, with 
 rather more power and opportunity than 
 himself.
 
 The Gathering of the Wind. 79 
 
 Eulalie's work lies on her lap ; but she is 
 at present reading one of Gabrielle de 
 Thouars' voluminous epistles. The latter 
 regards her friend, perhaps, as a sort of 
 safety-valve. At any rate, she tells her 
 rather more of her innermost thoughts and 
 feelings than anyone else, for, careless of 
 tongue as Mdlle. de Thouars appears to be, 
 she has plenty of reserve where she chooses 
 to have concealment. 
 
 " So M. de Sabran has gone, no one 
 knows whither, since he descended on you 
 all so oddly, and so has M. de Maurepas, 
 and joy be with them both," writes Gabrielle. 
 " You would say, only that you are always 
 good natured, that I am rightly served for 
 my vanity. Apparently my society is not 
 so indispensable to these messieurs as one 
 expected. Never mind, I can do without 
 them. I wish, oh, how I wish, that I could 
 wake up some morning and find myself at
 
 80 White and Red. 
 
 Cennes, or, rather, that I could sleep there 
 and never dream. I dream too much, I 
 think, sometimes, and then the awakening is 
 unpleasant. Things look strange here in 
 Paris. Many of our friends have gone. 
 They depart quietly, without leave-taking, 
 and one finds it out by degrees. However, 
 Madame my aunt says nothing of such a 
 step, and I believe nothing will take her 
 away. We waited on her Majesty yesterday. 
 Child, how the Court has changed — how 
 many faces one misses, and above all, how 
 she has altered. It is now three years since 
 I made my first curtsy at Versailles, and in 
 that time what a change ! One admires her 
 still, but it is not what used to be. I wonder, 
 are we on the eve of some terrible event ? 
 Nay, are we already involved, ignorantly, 
 and approaching the crisis ? If so, how 
 blind are many whom I see round us. Ah, 
 well, if one can do nothing, perhaps it is
 
 The Gathering of the Wind. 8 1 
 
 better to be blind ; but you are happier than 
 I, my Eulalie." 
 
 Mademoiselle de St Hilaire, a tranquil 
 figure, sat poring over her letter in the 
 window. The watery sunshine of the 
 showery day slanted in on her fair hair and 
 great cap, as she bent her young head with 
 an infinitely puzzled face. She made a 
 pretty little picture, such as Greuze might 
 have loved to paint, only that there was far 
 more real unconsciousness about her attitude 
 than that great master would have alto- 
 gether appreciated. It was a pity, how- 
 ever, that Victor de Limeuil could not see 
 her. She folded up the letter with a little 
 sigh. 
 
 " I cannot quite understand what Gabrielle 
 means," she said to herself, "but I am afraid 
 she is unhappy. I wish she were here again, 
 and she seems to long for it too, and yet she 
 is beautiful, and has so much admiration, that 
 
 I. F
 
 &2 White and Red. 
 
 it is strange. I suppose she really misses 
 M. de Maurepas after all, and I wonder 
 where M. de Sab ran went after he was here, 
 and we saw him with Gaston. That reminds 
 me, I must go and see Nanette. The poor 
 one must be longing for me." She got up 
 and collected her work with a grave face, for 
 a little pang of regret crossed her mind, at 
 the recollection of her last visit to Nanette, 
 and of her companion on that occasion ; but 
 it was not poignant enough to leave a lasting 
 sting, and she had almost forgotten it by the 
 time the door opened, and M. le Cure put 
 his face into the room. 
 
 "Where is the Count?" he asked, his 
 quick eyes travelling round in search of their 
 object. 
 
 " Good day, my father," said Eulalie, " I 
 do not know where he is, but he cannot be 
 far off." 
 
 " I should like to find him," said the priest,
 
 The Gathering of the Wind. 8 3 
 
 coming in, "and you — are you going out, my 
 daughter ? " 
 
 " I am going to see the poor Nanette. She 
 was suffering the last time ; I have not been 
 for some time, and it cheers her." 
 
 " Then I may spare you the trouble," said 
 Pere Florian. " Nanette is gone.'' 
 
 "Gone, really gone?" cried Eulalie; "then 
 that wicked Gaston — " 
 
 " Ah, you knew, then ? " he rejoined. 
 " Yes, Gaston has taken her off to Angers — " 
 " Then I am sure it was against her will." 
 " So it was, but what could she do ? 
 Gaston was resolved. As a lad, he was idle 
 and improvident ; as a man, he is a very fire- 
 brand of evil. His wife is, as I hear, for she 
 is not of this country, worse still, and in a 
 town like Angers such noxious weeds grow 
 rank." 
 
 " I am so sorry," the tears were standing 
 in Eulalie's eyes. " Nanette was fond of me
 
 84 White and Red. 
 
 always, and now I cannot go and see her ; at 
 least, it will be very seldom." 
 
 The priest looked at her thoughtfully. 
 
 " Poor child," he said at last, " this is one of 
 the least of the sorrows the coming time is 
 bringing you. See, here comes thy brother." 
 
 As M. de St Hilaire came in, Pere Florian 
 took his arm and led him away. 
 
 Eulalie stood still at the window ; her 
 hands hanging down, loosely clasped before 
 her, looking into the garden. 
 
 There was the flagged path down which 
 she and Victor had walked on their way to 
 visit Nanette a week or two back. Close 
 beneath the window was the spot where 
 Gabrielle de Thouars had sat, putting flowers 
 into her hair, on a golden summer evening 
 hot so long ago. Down beyond the lime trees, 
 almost leafless now, she could just see the 
 well in the village street, which she had 
 passed with M. de Sabran. Eulalie was
 
 The Gathering of the Wind. S5 
 
 beginning to connect familiar spots with 
 those who had peopled them, as those do 
 whose quiet uneventful lives are beginning 
 to be crossed by unaccustomed shadows. 
 The sunlight went out suddenly, clouds came 
 drifting overhead, and a shower fell sharply. 
 The leaves yet clinging to their stems, 
 which, a minute back, had flamed in orange 
 and gold and bronze, turned dull under the 
 veil of the storm, and many fluttered to the 
 ground. 
 
 " M. le Cure talks as if sad times were 
 coming. Eugene looks worn. Gabrielle 
 writes in the same way," she thought. " Are 
 they all in the right, I wonder ? Perhaps we 
 shall have to suffer for conscience sake like 
 the holy martyrs. I do not think I could 
 bear much unless Eugene were with me. I 
 sometimes think he must be like the blessed 
 Saint Sebastian. He could endure, I know, 
 but I—"
 
 86 White and Red. 
 
 The shower had passed over quickly. 
 The sun broke out again, and the dripping 
 leaves shone bright, and diamonds of rain- 
 drops sparkled on them. Far away the 
 sunlight smote on the twin towers of the 
 Cathedral of Saint Maurice, watching over 
 Angers ; and past the ruined castle of Philip 
 Augustus, the Maine flowed down to meet 
 the Loire at Caesar's Bridge ; while here and 
 there a sparkle in the valley showed the 
 course of the great river. In the village 
 near at hand, cheerful sounds of life seemed 
 to wake again ; a woman with a red cap 
 came out to the well. 
 
 Eulalie, at the chateau window, turned 
 away with a sigh of relief, as if the end of 
 the shower were really a fortunate omen. 
 " Perhaps nothing very bad will happen after 
 all," she said aloud. " I will write to the dear 
 Gabrielle soon, and Angers is not so far off. 
 1 can still go and see Nanette sometimes." If
 
 The Gathering of the Wind. 8 7 
 
 her spirits were soon depressed, they were as 
 quickly elevated, and with no more reason ; 
 but she was only eighteen, and she had that 
 illimitable inheritance of hope, which is ours 
 for so short a time. I do not think we ever 
 realize while we have it, the value of that 
 boundless possession, and when it is gone it 
 never comes again. It was an armour of 
 proof once, but we must toil on now without 
 it, bruised and weary, and stung with re- 
 membrance. 
 
 Eulalie did not know how long M. le Cure 
 staid talking to Eugene, nor with what an 
 uneasy face the latter bade his guest good- 
 bye, and watched the thin black figure walk- 
 ing with long swift strides along the uneven, 
 muddy road. He did not say much when 
 he came back to the house ; but he spent 
 some hours in writing letters, and when 
 Eulalie, in the evening, gave him, according 
 to custom, all the news of the day, he
 
 *>* White and Red. 
 
 scarcely seemed to attend to her at first. 
 When he did rouse himself to respond, it 
 was when she began to discuss Nanette's 
 departure, but he dismissed that subject with 
 fewer words than she expected.
 
 BOOK II.— STORM
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE WAY OF THE CROSS." 
 
 And against the face 
 Of death and fiercest dangers, durst with brave 
 And sober pace march on to meet a grave. — 
 
 Crashaw. 
 
 The world is nine months older since Victor 
 de Limeuil went away from Cennes in the 
 russet autumn-tide. In Paris, the rush of 
 events has been such as to bewilder those 
 who, passive in the flow of the torrent, are 
 carried on in the headlong race which is 
 bearing France to the era of her deepest 
 degradation. The tempest that has been 
 gathering so long all around the horizon is 
 rolling up now, cloud on cloud, black and 
 lowering and dangerous. The Queen can no 
 longer drive out from fear of insult, nay,
 
 92 White and Red. 
 
 neither she nor Madame Elisabeth dare look 
 from the windows, lest they should be seen 
 by the loiterers on the Terrace des Feuillants. 
 One night even, an assassin is overpowered 
 at the very door of the Queen's apartments. 
 The feast of the Federation takes place, and 
 the King again takes the National oath, but 
 he gains nothing by it ; and the Marseillais 
 enter Paris. Poor King, so forlorn and 
 helpless, so incompetent and yet so innocent, 
 his is perhaps the most piteous figure in all 
 the lurid drama, more so than those of the 
 princesses, for their courage strikes one as 
 of a less passive order. 
 
 Mirabeau, the one who might have guided 
 the vessel of the Revolution into a safe port, 
 died a year ago ; and now, with the many 
 struggling for the helm, it is drifting fast into 
 a sea of blood. 
 
 Eulalie de St Hilaire comes across the 
 courtyard at Cennes in the sunshine. A
 
 " The Way of the Cross." 93 
 
 cheerful clucking from cocks and hens 
 greets her, and a girl's clear voice from within 
 is singing some old Angevin song, which 
 rings out into the cloudless July afternoon. 
 
 Mdlle. de St Hilaire is improved in 
 appearance. She is positively grown ; there 
 is more colour in her face, and more decision 
 in her step as she walks lightly forward on 
 her high heels, clicking in measured time on 
 the stone pavement. Her hands are full of 
 flowers, for she is on her way to the church 
 to make her accustomed offering. Roses, 
 red, white, and pink, lay their fair heads on 
 their dark green leaves, and marigolds lift 
 their round faces with persistent effrontery, 
 suggestive of nothing so little as " burden of 
 sorrow," in spite of Clemence Isaure and her 
 legendary nosegay. There, too, are the white 
 lilies of Mary, and the iris, which may bear, 
 did Eulalie but think of it, a sadder signifi- 
 cance still, for is not this the mystical bios-
 
 94 White and Red. 
 
 som chosen by Saint Louis in the ages of 
 faith, when he placed his beloved France 
 under the perpetual patronage of the Blessed 
 Virgin ? and is not the fleur-de-lis to be dyed 
 in the royal blood which is to be poured out 
 for the sins of the Saintly King's children ? 
 Eulalie adjusts her flowers tenderly, and 
 shades them as much as possible from the 
 sun, as she passes from under the shade of 
 the gateway to the white dusty road outside. 
 The lime trees, robed in their delicate pale 
 green, are alive now with the drowsy bees 
 that love them so well. Black Angers 
 is sleeping on its twin hills in the mellow 
 sunshine — Angers, where John of England 
 " craves harbourage within your city walls," 
 and where, refused it, he proposed to "lay 
 this Angiers even with the ground, then, after, 
 fight who shall be king of it ; " where Rene, 
 king and troubadour, first saw the light ; and 
 where his imperious daughter Margaret, her
 
 " The Way of the Cross." 95 
 
 mighty heart broken, rests in peace, far from 
 the kingdom of her triumph and defeat. The 
 golden summer light invests " the flinty ribs 
 of this contemptuous city " with a tender 
 mystical beauty. Through the valley gleams 
 at intervals the river, and to the blue heavens 
 the fields of flax smile back almost as divine 
 an azure. The glory of the year has reached 
 its height, and seems to pause and dream. 
 The growth and awakening of nature is over, 
 and the time of harvest and ingathering is 
 yet to come. 
 
 It should be a day for happy thoughts, but 
 Eulalie's quiet face is scarcely an index of 
 hers. Perhaps she is thinking of a walk last 
 autumn with M. de Limeuil, perhaps she is 
 wondering when he will come again to Cennes; 
 but whatever may be the burden of her 
 meditations, they do not seem to affect her 
 placidity. Victor writes now and then, under 
 cover to Eugene, very formal, punctilious
 
 96 White and Red. 
 
 epistles, and not many of them, for letter- 
 writing is not a speciality of his by any 
 means, and a rapid correspondence is as yet 
 neither correct nor even possible ; but, such 
 as they are, these letters are abundantly satis- 
 factory to Eulalie. 
 
 It grows very hot, it seems to her, hot and 
 glaring, and the dust covers her feet with a 
 fine powder as she plods on, getting a little 
 out of humour now with her walk. 
 
 11 I wish I had waited," she says. " My 
 flowers will be dead before I get there. It 
 is absolutely stifling ; ah, here comes M. le 
 Cure." 
 
 Pere Florian it was, thinner, darker, more 
 terribly in earnest than ever, toiling along the 
 dusty road with the unflagging energy which 
 neither heat nor cold, sunshine nor rain, ever 
 seemed to affect. 
 
 "Will you tell M. your brother that I 
 will visit him this evening ? I have much
 
 " The Way of the Cross." 97 
 
 to say to him, for I am going away to- 
 morrow." 
 
 He was almost out of sight before Eulalie 
 had recovered her astonishment. Going 
 away ! Here was an extraordinary thing. 
 Pere Florian to go away, who had never 
 been absent for more than a day since she 
 could remember ; who was, night and day, 
 at the beck and call of every one of his flock. 
 Where was he going ? Who was to take his 
 place ? It was inconceivable. 
 
 Pere Florian came up as he had promised 
 that evening, and for a long time he and 
 Eugene walked up and down their favourite 
 path, while Eulalie sat at her work below. 
 At last they came and sat down too, and she 
 could ask the question she was burning to put. 
 
 " My father, why are you going to leave 
 us ? and is it for long ? " 
 
 " I do not know, my daughter," he answered. 
 " I go whither I am sent. A priest has no
 
 98 White and Red. 
 
 will of his own ; but I do not think that I 
 shall come back." 
 
 " Not come back ! Eugene, do you hear ? 
 Never come back to Cennes ! Never see us 
 again ! " cried Eulalie, aghast, dropping her 
 work, which slid to the ground and lay there 
 unheeded, while she clasped her hands with 
 an involuntary gesture of dismay. 
 
 " I wish for my part, that I did not think 
 so," said the priest gently ; " one can be sure 
 of nothing in this sad world of ours." 
 
 "And where are you going?" she said 
 breathlessly. 
 
 " To Paris. I have been sent for." 
 
 Eulalie turned pale as she glanced at her 
 brother. 
 
 " Tell me," she asked falteringly, " is there 
 fresh news ? Anything terrible — " 
 
 " Nothing as yet," answered St Hilaire, 
 " though much is possible. Do not fear, little 
 one, I will tell you all I hear."
 
 " The Way of the Cross." 99 
 
 He looked straight into her face with the 
 strong tender smile she had learnt to know 
 by heart from her babyhood. She slid her 
 hand into his. 
 
 " I am not afraid, Eugene." 
 
 Then she turned once more to Pere Florian, 
 who was regarding them both with an intent 
 gaze, which had a strange admixture of com- 
 passion. 
 
 " My father, what shall we all do without 
 you ? Your poor and the Church — " 
 
 " M. Adhemar, from Angers, will serve the 
 Church for the present ; and for the poor, I 
 leave them in your charge, my child — the 
 only legacy I have to leave, but a very 
 precious one," he said, with his old, kind 
 smile. 
 
 Her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 " My father, I will do what I can, but— 
 
 " Little one, all we can do is imperfect ; let 
 us be sure of that once for all. Ages of
 
 i oo White and Red. 
 
 wrong and oppression have sown a seed in 
 this France of ours, of which we are about to 
 reap the bitter harvest. Our weak hands, 
 yours and mine, can do nothing to stay that 
 hour. Therefore let us do what we can, and 
 leave the rest to the good God. We shall 
 all have to bear a heavy cross, and follow 
 painfully along the Dolorous Way." 
 
 " You have told me always," she said 
 gently, " that there is the cross to carry." 
 
 " Yes," he rejoined; "and the cross that 
 this age has brought upon itself will be almost 
 overpowering, for the tree has been growing 
 for the last two hundred years. Ah, well, 
 
 via crucis, via lucis.' ' 
 
 She shrank a little closer to her brother, 
 without moving her eyes from the priest's 
 stern, sad face. 
 
 " My father," she said timidly, " is not that 
 hard, to suffer for others' wrong-doing ? " 
 
 " Not unjust — it can never be that. But
 
 " The Way of the Cross." 101 
 
 it may be sharp and severe/' he answered 
 slowly, as he looked up into the serene sky 
 whence the sunset had passed away. Only 
 a faint blush still lingered on the far horizon 
 to tell of vanished splendour, and here and 
 there a pale star sparkled into light. 
 
 Eulalie turned with a little sob and flung 
 her arms round Eugene's neck. 
 
 " I can bear it ; I can bear whatever comes, 
 with thee, Eugene ; but nothing shall part us, 
 oh my brother ! "
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PLOTS. 
 
 A daring pilot in extremity : 
 
 Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high 
 
 He sought the storms : — 
 
 So easy still it proves, in factious times, 
 
 With public zeal to cancel private crimes. 
 
 There is hardly any one, in these days, to 
 come to Madame de Drou's reception. 
 Almost all her friends and acquaintances 
 have vanished out of sight, across the frontier 
 into Germany, or over the Channel into 
 England. A temporary evasion they call 
 it ; but a weary time is to elapse before an 
 altered France will open her arms to them 
 again. They will have to resort to many 
 hard expedients to keep body and soul 
 together in the lands of their exile. Scions
 
 Plots. 103 
 
 of the noblest houses, Vaudreuils, Montmor- 
 encis, Rohans, in spite of their patents of 
 duke and marquis, of their crosses of St 
 Louis, and orders of St Esprit, will teach the 
 humanities, languages, music, very thankfully 
 for a pittance, in many a sleepy old country 
 town in England, where no one cares very 
 much for this Revolution which has reversed 
 everything in the France which is but a dim 
 terra incognita to most of those inert pro- 
 vincial intellects. And when it is over, and 
 a Bourbon comes back, or is brought back, 
 to erect again the throne of Clovis on the 
 ashes of the Empire, they too, these exiles, 
 will return. Will that long martyrdom have 
 taught them nothing ? 
 
 Madame de Drou disapproves altogether 
 of the wholesale departure of her friends. 
 
 "If their majesties had succeeded in reach- 
 ing Metz last year," she says, " I should then 
 have conceived it my duty also to leave
 
 1 04 White and Red. 
 
 this besotted country, but as it is, I remain. 
 What is the advantage of our order if we do 
 not cleave to the crown ? As to Gabrielle, 
 she may go if she wishes. Our cousins near 
 Angers, or Madame de Blamont, at Coblentz, 
 would be charmed to receive her." 
 
 But Gabrielle always repudiates vigorously 
 this view of the matter. She is not, what- 
 ever she may say of herself, as obstinate on 
 some points as her aunt, who entirely declines 
 to see any view of a question which does not 
 please her ; and, as yet, refuses to recognise 
 the possibility of personal danger. Gabrielle 
 can draw her own conclusions from events, but 
 she is quite as stout-hearted as Madame de 
 Drou, and her place is here, at her aunt's 
 side. Neither of them goes out very often 
 now. There is always the chance of some 
 unpleasant encounter in the streets, especially 
 if one's face is familiar to the populace, as 
 having been much at Court. Nevertheless,
 
 Plots. 105 
 
 Gabrielle's spirits are not as yet much cowed. 
 To some minds, the presence of danger, be- 
 fore it becomes imminent, is rather stimulating 
 than otherwise, and besides, she has the in- 
 domitable hopefulness of youth, always ready 
 to see a bright side of events and things, and 
 trying, at any rate, to stifle the apprehensions 
 that will rise up in spite of all her efforts. 
 
 " Mademoiselle resembles summer itself," 
 remarks M. de Sabran, as he sits, coffee cup 
 in hand, in Madame de Drou's apartment. 
 He comes pretty often, and makes himself 
 vastly agreeable, so Madame makes him 
 welcome. This is strange, considering her 
 views, but she knows, and chooses to know, 
 very little about his proceedings ; and con- 
 sidering how little she goes out, and how few 
 there are now to bring her news, it is easy 
 enough to maintain this amount of ignorance. 
 Besides, Madame de Drou has her weak 
 side ; she made up her mind not to leave
 
 106 White and Red. 
 
 Paris, but she has no objection to take other 
 precautions; so when M. de Sabran hesitat- 
 ingly advised her leaving the Hotel Drou as 
 too conspicuous and well known a house, and 
 reducing her establishment, she at once 
 adopted the suggestion, with the saving 
 clause that it was entirely her own original 
 idea, and which she probably believed. But 
 Gabrielle knew better, and it fretted her more 
 than she chose to testify, to see the influence 
 which De Sabran seemed to have established 
 over her aunt. What could it possibly 
 matter to him that they had gone into a 
 small house, and had only Babette for per- 
 sonal attendance ? Yet she can no more 
 help laughing and talking to him in the old 
 way than she can help looking up from under 
 her long eyelashes, with the expression that 
 he, and others, have found so irresistible. 
 He is a deputy, and a Montagnard, and she 
 accuses him audaciously of his Jacobinism,
 
 Plots. 107 
 
 an accusation which only seems to amuse 
 him, for her life is so secluded that she really 
 knows very little of all that the Mountain, 
 and the Gironde too, are doing. 
 
 " Summer ! a thousand thanks for the com- 
 parison, Monsieur, but I scarcely see its force 
 myself," she retorts. 
 
 " Is not summer the most beautiful and 
 joyous of the seasons ? " he says, in his usual 
 inflated style. " What further explanation 
 would you have, Mademoiselle ?" 
 
 " None, certainly, but let me see: beauty, 
 well, let that pass, it is a matter of opinion ; 
 but joyous ! How can I be joyous in a place 
 so empty and dreary ? I wish your friends, 
 the bonnet-rouges, M. le Chevalier, had not 
 driven away every one out of Paris, or that 
 they would bring them back." 
 
 " I think," he remarks, looking at the ceil- 
 ing, with a sinister smile which neither lady 
 notices, " that my friends, as you are pleased
 
 108 White and Red. 
 
 to call them, Mademoiselle, would be only too 
 much delighted to see some of yours again." 
 
 " Gabrielle," says Madame de Drou, stiffly, 
 " you should not call M. de Sabran a friend of 
 such ' canaille.' It is a poor compliment. 
 For it is part of Madame's system of successful 
 self-deception to ignore De Sabran's position 
 and opinions completely. 
 
 " Well, then, not a friend, but a patron," 
 says Gabrielle, boldly ; " do you like that dis- 
 tinction better, Monsieur ? Was it not Du 
 Guesclin who was a captain of Free Lances ? 
 And they called him the best knight in 
 France — in those days." 
 
 She looks him straight in the face, with 
 those fearless grey eyes of hers, as she speaks, 
 her fingers busy over her embroidery at the 
 same time. She can always hold her own in 
 a war of words, and De Sabran admires her 
 all the more for her daring tongue. It stings 
 him so very slightly, and after all, she really
 
 Plots. 1 09 
 
 knows little about him or his doings as yet, 
 he considers. Some day, no doubt, he will 
 undeceive her, but it will be when he has the 
 whip hand of her. That is an agreeable 
 prospect to look forward to. To a mind like 
 his, the process of taming such a spirit offers 
 sufficient difficulties to be a highly interesting 
 study. Meanwhile he enjoys her retorts and 
 quips, and thinks how handsome she looks as 
 she utters them. Such talents are really 
 thrown away in her position. If she were 
 only the least bit of a democrat, she might 
 have a name, and a whole following of 
 patriots. Madame Roland (whom he detests 
 by the way) would be nowhere with her self- 
 consciousness, and her dreary eloquence, and 
 her want of humour. It is a pity, certainly, 
 for he has an innate conviction that nothing 
 
 o 
 
 will ever teach Mdlle. de Thouarsthe popular 
 " argot " of the times, that nothing will bow 
 that stubborn neck to the car of republican
 
 1 10 White and Red. 
 
 excitement, whatever it may call itself for 
 the moment. Those mirthful, mutinous eyes 
 are teaching him, not for the first nor second 
 time, the intoxicating lesson he is only too 
 willing to learn, when his quick ear catches 
 the sound of footsteps below. 
 
 " How can you complain of dulness, 
 Mademoiselle," he remarks ; " here are more 
 visitors. One is, at any rate, coming up 
 stairs/' and as he speaks, the door is opened, 
 and a new guest, in effect, is ushered in. 
 
 Gabrielle starts from her chair with a little 
 cry of astonishment. 
 
 " M. le Cure — Pere Florian ; but what a 
 surprise," she says. ' and when did you come ? 
 and why ? and are they well at Cennes — that 
 dear Cennes ? " 
 
 " M. de St Hilaire and Mdlle. Eulalie are 
 well," he says, in his usual grave tones, as 
 soon as Gabrielle had recovered from her 
 amazement so far as to present him to
 
 Plots. I I I 
 
 Madame de Drou. " For me, I have not 
 been long in Paris ; and I promised our little 
 Eulalie that, if possible, I would try to see 
 you, Mademoiselle, and Madame your aunt." 
 
 " I am very glad," says Gabrielle, still per- 
 plexed, for the priest, never ready at ordinary 
 conversation, relapses into silence, and, glanc- 
 ing round, she is relieved to light on a topic. 
 " Ah, pardon, I should have presented you to 
 M. the Chevalier de Sabran." 
 
 " I should have, recalled myself to M. le 
 Cure's recollection," says De Sabran, with his 
 very best smile, " but that I perceived I was 
 so unfortunate as to be forgotten." 
 
 " I remember you perfectly, Monsieur," 
 says the priest quietly ; " your visit to Cennes 
 was not one to be forgotten ; " to which 
 remark, though apparently not made in the 
 light of a compliment, De Sabran thinks it 
 proper to respond with another smile and 
 bow.
 
 1 1 2 White and Red. 
 
 Gabrielle grows a little impatient of the 
 by-play which she suspects, but does not 
 understand. To be sure, Eulalie did mention 
 some months ago that M. de Sabran had 
 passed through Cennes, but that journey of 
 his which seemed so mysterious at the time 
 has been long forgotten ; neither does it 
 explain Pere Florian's strange manner. Either 
 he has some reason for disliking De Sabran, 
 or his mode of expressing himself is unfor- 
 tunately awkward ; and as the latter conclu- 
 sion is at present the most agreeable to her, 
 she straightway makes up her mind to it. 
 There is a pause. M. de Sabran drinks his 
 coffee placidly and leisurely ; the priest looks 
 steadily before him, each is apparently re- 
 solved to outstay the other, and Gabrielle, 
 who is not without a sense of humour, begins 
 to feel a sensation of amusement at the situa- 
 tion. Pere Florian sits there, long and black 
 and resolute, without an idea of carrying off
 
 Plots. 1 1 3 
 
 things lightly, like nothing so little as the 
 conventional butterfly abbe of the eighteenth 
 century, of which type, indeed, Dorat-Cubi- 
 eres is a specimen, though he, it is true, 
 has succeeded in forgetting that he ever 
 assumed the tonsure. In this instance, it 
 might be Bossuet come to life again, stern, 
 fearless, and unsparing. And there is Leon 
 de Sabran, the product emphatically of the 
 age. Handsome, cynical, daring ; careless of 
 all the traditions of race, believing in nothing 
 higher than himself ; a representative of the 
 genius of young France. Could there be 
 two stronger antitypes ? If Gabrielle de 
 Thouars were a philosopher, — which she is 
 not,— some such thoughts might present 
 themselves to her mind ; as it is, she only 
 feels half inclined to laugh at the state of 
 affairs, and to wish that one or the other 
 would go. At last, M. de Sabran gives it 
 up, and, with a slight smile, rises and takes 
 
 I. H
 
 1 14 White and Red. 
 
 his departure, leaving Pere Florian in posses- 
 sion of the held. " For the moment," he 
 says to himself, as he walks leisurely down- 
 stairs ; " however, I can have you by the heels 
 very soon, M. le Cure." 
 
 " And now," says Gabrielle, " what brings 
 you here, M. le Cure? and have you no more 
 messages to me from Eulalie ? " 
 
 " I have been sent for, and had no choice 
 but to obey," he answers ; " the little Eulalie 
 sent no message but of her unfailing affection. 
 Madame," he adds abruptly, " I have the 
 honour to take my leave," and he rises and 
 moves to the door. 
 
 " Stay," interrupts Gabrielle, for this is 
 more than she can bear, "mon pere, you 
 know something of M. de Sabran — is it not 
 so?" 
 
 He finds his tongue at once, and faces her 
 without further hesitation. 
 
 " I know this — that he came as a fire brand
 
 Plots. 1 1 5 
 
 of evil and sedition among my people last 
 year. If you were one of my flock, Made- 
 moiselle, I would bid you beware." 
 
 Mademoiselle de Thouars throws up her 
 handsome head disdainfully, while an angry 
 flush mounts to the roots of her hair. She 
 walks over to a window and stands looking 
 out, without answering. 
 
 " Are you sure of this, M. le Cure ? " asks 
 Madame de Drou, who looks uncomfortably 
 perplexed ; " it is true that they say — that is, 
 I have heard — that M. de Sabran's opinions 
 are not all one would wish, in fact he is a 
 deputy, but then so many of our noblesse 
 have been tainted, more or less. However, 
 if it is as you say, I must decline to receive 
 him." 
 
 " But I do not believe it/' says her niece, 
 turning sharply round ; " pardon, M. le Cure, 
 but I think you have been deceived. M. de 
 Sabran is a gentleman."
 
 1 1 6 White and Red. 
 
 " Be it so," he answers ; " believe it or not 
 as you will ; but it is true, and remember, 
 Mademoiselle, I have warned you. Once 
 more, adieu, and peace be with you," he ends 
 solemnly as he goes. 
 
 " These priests from the provinces know 
 nothing," remarks Gabrielle, pettishly; "one 
 might as well be living in the middle ages. 
 
 o o c> 
 
 Is it not so, Madame my aunt ?" 
 
 Madame looks up with a sigh, and some- 
 thing like tears in her eyes. 
 
 " I do not suppose the blessed saints knew 
 much of the world either," she answers, slowly; 
 " as for the middle ages, they were the ages 
 of faith. If one had a director like that — " 
 
 Her niece stares at her in amazement. 
 
 " Consider, Madame, how fatiguing it 
 would be. They are like that at Cennes ; 
 but it would not do here." 
 
 If Gabrielle is angry with Pere Florian for 
 putting into words her vague distrust of De
 
 Plots. 1 1 7 
 
 Sabran, she is still more angry with herself 
 when he is gone. Every one knows that the 
 ex-Chevalier is a Jacobin, and therefore it is 
 quite possible that he might have stirred up 
 the people at Cennes and elsewhere. But 
 though she is ready to condone half his 
 republicanism and ignore the rest, this strikes 
 her as a depth of meanness positively revolt- 
 ing. Strange to say, she dislikes Pere Florian 
 for unveiling it to her eyes. But now that he 
 is gone she can only remember the reverence 
 in which Eulalie and her brother hold him, 
 and wish that she could have held her toneue 
 A very contradictory character? Certainly, 
 but that which is in truth her weakness, con- 
 stitutes also one of her charms to some people, 
 and is therefore all the more dangerous to 
 herself, inasmuch as it fosters the caprice 
 which is so strong an element. 
 
 Meanwhile, Pere Florian is walking away 
 swiftly to his temporary lodging ; for he is
 
 1 1 8 White and Red. 
 
 with an old friend and spiritual superior, in 
 the parish of St Sulpice. His head bowed, 
 his eyes fixed on the pavement, he is deep in 
 thought, as he hurries on. Since the summons 
 to repair to Paris reached him, he has been 
 possessed by a strange presentiment. When 
 the heavy country diligence bore him away 
 from Cennes, where he had laboured for 
 eighteen years, something told him that he 
 would never again see those fragrant limes, 
 the well, the peaceful church. As he went, 
 he stretched out his arms and made the sign 
 of the cross over the unconscious village ; 
 and then watched it with patient, yearning 
 eyes, as long as it was visible. With all his 
 rigour towards offenders, Pere Florian's heart 
 is very tender. How he has loved Cennes, no 
 one knows now. How dear those people are 
 to him, simple, ignorant as they are ; even 
 old Nanette, who has gone away to Angers, 
 nay, even Gaston, that erring sheep. As he
 
 Plots. 1 1 9 
 
 walks now through the busy streets his 
 thoughts are far away in Anjou. He will 
 never go back there. A stranger will hear 
 the confessions so long carried to him, other 
 lips will minister at the altar, other hands 
 will bear the chrism to the babe, the holy 
 oil to the dying ; ah, it is hard, hard. " Via 
 Crucis, via lucis," he says again to himself, as 
 he said to Eulalie de St Hilaire, the child he 
 has taught and trained. He will have need 
 to remember that before long. 
 
 A voice pronouncing his name makes him 
 look up, and he once more encounters Leon 
 de Sabran. 
 
 " Well met, M. le Cure," says the latter 
 with well-feigned surprise in his tone, " permit 
 me that I accompany you a little way." 
 
 Pere Florian bows gravely, but does not 
 affect the amount of pleasure testified by his 
 companion. 
 
 11 It gives me infinite satisfaction," begins
 
 1 20 White and Red. 
 
 De Sabran as they walk on together, " to 
 inquire for the amiable family of St Hilaire. 
 I infer from your words in the apartment of 
 Madame de Drou, that they are well ? " 
 
 " Yes, M. le Chevalier, they are well," 
 answers the priest concisely. 
 
 " That visit can never be forgotten," 
 pursues the other, " so Arcadian, so refresh- 
 ing- " 
 
 " Pardon me if I fail to understand you, 
 Monsieur," says Pere Florian, sternly. 
 
 " Delightful as that experience was," says 
 De Sabran, airily, without paying the least 
 attention to the interruption, " it could not 
 but excite surprise that Mdlle. de Thouars 
 should have remained so long in such sylvan 
 retirement last year. It is one thing to be a 
 shepherdess at Trianon, and another to be 
 one in Anjou." 
 
 " Possibly Mademoiselle was happier even 
 there than here," says Pere Florian.
 
 Plots. I 2 I 
 
 " I doubt it, M. le Cure, having the distin- 
 guished honour to know her well. But after 
 all, what does it signify? She is not likely to 
 bury herself in the provinces." 
 
 " M. le Marquis de Maurepas has lands in 
 Auvergne," says the priest ; " they may 
 choose to live there." 
 
 De Sabran shrugs his shoulders con- 
 temptuously. 
 
 " M. de Maurepas has been absent from 
 Paris for many months. Besides, M. le 
 Cure, surely that contract will never be 
 fulfilled." 
 
 " And why not, M. le Chevalier ? As I 
 think I told you once before, I know of no 
 reason to the contrary. Indeed, from my 
 knowledge of Mademoiselle de Thouars, I 
 should say she was a demoiselle very unlikely 
 to break any tie once recognised." 
 
 " Permit me to ask, M. le Cure, if you 
 have any influence with Mademoiselle ? "
 
 1 2 2 White and Red. 
 
 " Why, Monsieur ? " says the priest, stop- 
 ping short, and looking fixedly at his inter- 
 locutor. De Sabran returns his gaze with 
 unruffled composure. 
 
 " Because I would ask you to employ it on 
 my behalf. Wait," he goes on, for he sees 
 the other about to answer, "you may not be 
 aware, probably, that it is possible that you 
 may soon find yourself in a position of 
 danger. From this I can save you, and will, 
 on this condition." 
 
 " I thought so, M. le Chevalier. I do not 
 know that I have any influence with Made- 
 moiselle de Thouars, but this I do know, 
 that from my recollection of your visit to 
 Cennes last year, and what followed, I have 
 thought it right to warn her against you." 
 
 It is a rash speech, and Leon de Sabran's 
 face grows very white and hard, but he bows 
 profoundly. 
 
 " I am infinitely obliged that you should
 
 Plots. 123 
 
 think me of so great consequence, Monsieur 
 le Cure," he says, with a sneer. " I shall not 
 forget, believe me." 
 
 So they part. Pere Florian goes on his 
 way, saddened, but not alarmed in any way 
 at this encounter, and its conclusion. Late 
 at night a very grimy patriot presents himself 
 at the lodging of the deputy Sabran, not far 
 from that of Robespierre and the Church of 
 the Assumption in the Rue St Honore. 
 That personage, a very different being from 
 the dilettante chevalier who was loitering a 
 few hours ago at Madame de Drou's, is 
 writing busily, but this sort of messenger can 
 always gain admittance to him. The present 
 visitor, who, if his patriotism is to be mea- 
 sured by his dishevelled appearance, should 
 be an invaluable auxiliary, despatches his 
 errand in a few words. He merely commu- 
 nicates a certain address, which the other 
 carefully notes down. The latter reads it
 
 1 24 White and Red. 
 
 over musingly, as his delegate stumbles down 
 the stairs. " Near St Sulpice, with the 
 Bishop of Beauvais. Good. Yes, Pere 
 Florian, I have an excellent memory — espe- 
 cially for injuries."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BACK AGAIN. 
 
 My mild entreaty shall not make you guilty. 
 
 Go where you will, the king shall be commanded ; 
 
 And be you kings ; command and I'll obey. 
 
 Another surprise is in store for Mademoi- 
 selle de Thouars this same evening. A full 
 hour after Pere Florian's departure, a third 
 visitor presents himself, none other than the 
 Marquis de Maurepas. Let us see what 
 brings him back, now, of all times, when so 
 many of his order have put as many leagues 
 as convenient between themselves and Paris. 
 Long ago he fulfilled that mysterious mission 
 confided to him in the Queen's apartments at 
 the Tuileries, but he has delayed his return 
 because he believed the cause to which he has 
 vowed himself to be best served thus. During
 
 1 26 White and Red. 
 
 this summer, forebodings of evil, amply justi- 
 fied by the result, have pressed themselves 
 upon the Court, and on those in any degree 
 attached to it. Constant fears of assassina- 
 tion possess the minds of the royal family, 
 and so they, in concert with those who still 
 remain to them, devise, in their forlorn state, 
 secret means of defence. At this time five 
 or six hundred nobles of higher or less 
 degree, are living in different hotels near 
 the Tuileries, bearing concealed weapons, 
 and having passwords and cards of admis- 
 sion to the palace ; a self-constituted guard 
 having but one fixed intention, the protection 
 of the royal person. And of this band is 
 Raoul de Maurepas. He can no longer 
 wear his old uniform of the disbanded body- 
 guard, but he is as ready, as in the merry 
 days that are gone, to do all that it imposed 
 on him, ready, with his life in his hand. 
 
 He has only just arrived, just discovered
 
 Back Again. 127 
 
 Madame de Drou's present residence ; he 
 can stay but for a very few minutes ; yet he 
 might, to judge by his manner, have just 
 arrived from a banquet with the Count 
 d'Artois, or from her Majesty's faro-table. 
 His dress is studiously plain, and to a close 
 observer, there are visible lines of care and 
 harass on his face. Madame receives him 
 with marked cordiality ; Mademoiselle with 
 a magnificent curtsy. 
 
 "Ah, M. le Marquis," says the former, 
 " what happiness to see you again. We 
 have been regretting the loss of all our 
 friends, and now you drop on us from the 
 clouds." 
 
 " Madame does me too much honour by 
 the comparison," he says, as he drops into a 
 chair. " Will Madame pardon the late hour 
 of this visit ? I only arrived to-day, and 
 must remain but a short time." 
 
 " I will pardon anything and everything if
 
 1 2 8 White and Red. 
 
 you will give us an account of your doings. 
 We are devoured by dulness here." 
 
 " Then what I could relate would by no 
 possibility relieve you, Madame. It is fatigu- 
 ing to the last extremity." 
 
 " You forget, Madame," says Gabrielle, 
 speaking for the first time, "that M. le 
 Marquis may not choose to tell us very 
 much of his late absence, in which case it 
 would be the worst taste on our part to 
 press for particulars." 
 
 She speaks in a full measured tone, that, 
 she flatters herself, amply conceals the feel- 
 ing of pique that prompts her, but never 
 once raises her eyes, though M. de Maurepas 
 regards her intently. Madame de Drou 
 draws herself up stiffly. 
 
 " I am not accustomed to be schooled 
 by my niece," she remarks ; " but if I 
 were inclined to quarrel with you, Mon- 
 sieur, it might be for your long absence,
 
 Back Again. 129 
 
 and the silence observed towards us. As 
 it is—" 
 
 " As it is, Madame must accord me her 
 forgiveness, and that of Mademoiselle, as I 
 am once more at their feet." 
 
 " And to remain in Paris ? " 
 
 " That is as may be," he answers, a strange 
 expression crossing his face for an instant. 
 There is a pause, and then, to Madame's 
 amazement, her guest, looking at his watch, 
 rises and takes his leave. 
 
 " Already ! " she ejaculates, in great con- 
 sternation. " You have but just arrived, and 
 we expire for news." 
 
 Since her last pettish little speech, Gabri- 
 elle has sat silent, with her eyes fixed on the 
 floor. Now she rises, as if moved by an un- 
 controllable impulse, and hurries after him. 
 She lays her hand lightly on his arm. 
 
 " Monsieur," she says, in a low voice, " I
 
 ] 30 White and Red. 
 
 know there is something beneath all this. 
 Will you not tell me ? " 
 
 She does not notice, in her eagerness, that 
 an expression of hesitation, almost of per- 
 plexity, very unusual to it, comes into his 
 face. It is gone before he speaks. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," he answers, in the same 
 low tone, " when I went away some months 
 ago, I said that I trusted you. May I ask 
 you to return that confidence now for a little 
 while ? " 
 
 He lays his own hand on the white fingers 
 resting on his sleeve, but Gabrielle snatches 
 them away. 
 
 " Enough, Monsieur/' she says ; " I have 
 asked too much it seems," and she turns 
 back into the room within. 
 
 " M. de Maurepas had apparently little to 
 say," says her aunt, with a puzzled and some- 
 what offended expression. 
 
 " So little that he might have spared
 
 Back Again. 1 3 r 
 
 himself the trouble of his visit," rejoins 
 Gabrielle. 
 
 " He has been absent several months," 
 pursues Madame de Drou, still pondering. 
 " Strange that he does not tell us where — " 
 
 " Then, for Heaven's sake, Madame, do not 
 let us ask him. It is of very little importance." 
 
 " Pardon," says Madame, weightily, " it is 
 of great importance, considering the relation 
 in which he stands to you — " But her niece 
 cuts the matter short, and declines to discuss 
 it any further. 
 
 And yet, when she has time to think, her 
 heart smites her, not for the first time that 
 evening. It is she who has chosen wilfully 
 to ignore the tie between them ; if he now 
 fails to recognise it, who is the most to 
 blame ? She knows well enough, when she 
 chooses to consider, that De Maurepas has 
 had no choice in the matter ; that he is 
 bound in honour to say as little as possible
 
 132 White and Red. 
 
 of such a mission as he has had to discharge. 
 She has not really forgotten those few words 
 of his, of which he has reminded her to-night. 
 " Mademoiselle will remember that I trust 
 lier." But she cannot quite trust him. Is 
 she of so poor a nature that perfect trust is 
 impossible to her ? Or, is it that the love of 
 power is so strong within her that she cannot 
 bear that any influence, be it what it may, 
 should be stronger than hers ? " He should 
 have told me all," she says, working round 
 again to her indignant impulses, " and then I 
 should have known how to put confidence in 
 him." Ah, my poor Gabrielle, do you know 
 so little what trustfulness is that you must 
 needs sap its very foundations ? Where 
 would be the need of it if you were told 
 all ? How are you to meet the tempest that 
 is coming ? Verily, with all your fancied 
 strength, Eulalie de St Hilaire is happier, 
 yes, and wiser than you.
 
 Back Again. 133 
 
 It is the 10th of August, one of those dates 
 which stand out with startling distinctness 
 against the mist of revolving events, a mile- 
 stone on a sinister road, for at its close, 
 France has no longer a King, even in name, 
 and he who once bore that name, and wore 
 that heavy crown, has taken another long 
 step on the fatal journey which is bearing 
 him with such frightful velocity to the 
 scaffold. 
 
 All night long the Queen and Madame 
 Elisabeth have been listening from the 
 balconies of the palace to the sinister noises 
 in the city, and the terrible notes of the 
 tocsin ; the King has confessed and been 
 absolved. Raoul de Maurepas and others 
 have been taking measures to resist the ex- 
 pected assault. Mandat, the commandant ot 
 the Tuileries, sent for by the municipality, has 
 been slaughtered on the steps of the Hotel 
 de Ville ; and so the night of suspense
 
 1 34 White and Red. 
 
 wears on ; and day breaks with a lurid 
 splendour that seems a prophecy, for the 
 sky is red as if from the reflection of some 
 great fire. 
 
 And now the Kino- comes forth, to encour- 
 age, by his presence and his speech, the 
 troops placed for his defence, the Swiss 
 guard, faithful to death, the National guard, 
 a very broken reed, and a force of artillery. 
 Is it the King- of France and Navarre ? If 
 
 o 
 
 it had been the first Bourbon sovereign, he 
 would have presented himself in a different 
 way. The " Bon Bearnais " would assuredly 
 have faced his rebellious subjects with helm 
 on head and spur on heel ; he would have 
 known when and where to strike. But this 
 poor descendant has not even the bodily 
 presence which can impress in any degree, 
 and he only utters a few indistinct words as 
 he passes from post to post. She should 
 have been the King, that stately woman,
 
 Back Again. 1 3 5 
 
 who follows him, with head erect and tear- 
 less eyes, proud and unshrinking. Whatever 
 may have been her follies and vanities and 
 heedlessnesses (and surely the crucible of sor- 
 row has burnt them all away now), the hour 
 of danger arouses a sublimity of heroism in 
 Marie Antoinette. Ah, she is still a queen. 
 The Swiss guard, the grenadiers, the citizens, 
 all who look at her now, acknowledge that. 
 There are cries of loyalty, passionate vows 
 of fidelity ; they pray to be allowed to kiss 
 her hand, they beseech her only to touch 
 their arms, they fling their cloaks under her 
 feet . . . Never again. 
 
 Two or three who stand by lift the 
 Dauphin in their arms, and swear to die 
 for him, and the Queen steps forward. 
 Snatching his pistols from the Swiss Com- 
 mandant d'Affry, she gives them to the 
 King. 
 
 " Now is the moment, Sire," she says>
 
 1 36 White and Red. 
 
 eagerly, " save yourself or die with glory, 
 among these your friends." 
 
 Perhaps she is wrong, perhaps the time 
 has past for such enthusiasm. At any rate, 
 the Kings irresolute hands return the 
 weapons to their owner; and he passes on 
 to the Cour Royale. The Queen draws a 
 long breath and clenches her hands tightly, 
 but she controls herself, as the slender 
 cortege comes in sight of the battalions 
 under arms there. De Maurepas and the 
 others who surround the King gather at the 
 windows and balconies, and raise the cry of 
 " vive le roi." It is echoed back at first, but 
 two fresh battalions enter the courtyard and 
 utter no sound. In all haste they are re- 
 moved, and posted further away from the 
 palace ; but as they defile before the King 
 they shout " vive la nation." 
 
 Yes, it is no use. The people are arrayed 
 to-day against the King, and they have the
 
 Back Again. 137 
 
 right of the strongest. His life is absolutely 
 in danger before he comes back from this 
 futile inspection ; insults, threats have accom- 
 panied him to the very doors. 
 
 All night long the Cordeliers have been 
 sitting in the Quartier St Marceau, and there 
 Danton, the Titan of the Revolution, has; 
 raised the " 9a ira." There is no more hesi- 
 tation. The Marseillais are ready ; Santerre, 
 hereafter infamous for cruelty, leads one 
 column of attack, and Westermann the other. 
 As soon as the latter reaches the Carrousel 
 he disposes his troops with perfect address, 
 and then rides slowly forward, with some of 
 the Marseillais and the federes of Brest, to 
 the door of the Cour Royale. He knocks 
 with the pommel of his sword, demanding 
 entrance in the name of the people ; but the 
 Swiss and the National Grenadiers refuse, 
 and he orders five guns to advance and 
 shatter the doors . . . Within, in his study,
 
 1 38 White and Red. 
 
 sits the King. Round him are gathered his 
 own family and immediate attendants. The 
 Queen is sitting near him, her head resting 
 upon her hand, and by the window is Raoul 
 de Maurepas, motionless, but with a heedful 
 alacrity in his attitude as he stands, which 
 shows that no sound from without is lost on 
 him. All are indeed listening, with strained 
 attention. Louis is leaning forward, his 
 hands resting on his knees, and the look of 
 pitiable perplexity deepened on his broad, 
 honest face . . . 
 
 Suspense cannot last for ever ; Roederer, 
 one of the departmental members, penetrates 
 to the royal presence, and demands to 
 speak to the King alone, except for the 
 princesses. 
 
 " Sire," he exclaims, as soon as he and the 
 other delegates are left with the King and 
 his family, " there are not five minutes to 
 lose. Your troops have withdrawn their
 
 Back Again. i 39 
 
 allegiance, the Marseillais occupy the Car- 
 rousel. You can be safe only under the 
 protection of the Assembly." 
 
 The king looks up slowly ; neither fear 
 nor anger in look or voice. 
 
 " I have not seen any great numbers on 
 the Carrousel," he says, vaguely. 
 
 " Sire," says Roeclerer, " there are twelve 
 pieces of cannon, and all the populace are 
 following the Marseillais." 
 
 The Queen makes a step forward. Is it 
 too late, she thinks ; must all be abandoned, 
 honour and fame at one blow ? 
 
 " We have still some troops, Monsieur," 
 she says, haughtily ; " we have still some 
 troops left, I trust." Roederer looks fixedly 
 at her. 
 
 " Yes, Madame," he answers, " but this 
 time it is all Paris that is advancing against 
 you." And he turns again to the King. 
 
 "It is no longer a question of entreaty,
 
 140 White and Red. 
 
 Sire ; there is nothing left, but we must take 
 you by force, if necessary, to the Assembly." 
 
 Louis raises his head, and looks the dele- 
 gate in the face, as if to assure himself of the 
 truth ; then he turns his eyes on the Queen, 
 instinctively ; the weaker nature appealing 
 to the stronger. Who shall say what a 
 struggle rends that proud heart of hers, what 
 bitter humiliation and shame she chokes 
 back, before she says, quietly, " Let us go." 
 
 Meanwhile, those waiting in the ante-room 
 almost hold their breath in suspense. It is 
 certain that the appearance of Roederer and 
 his colleagues augurs something of grave 
 moment, but, nevertheless, every one here 
 present has his life in his hand, ready to lay 
 it down, before a hair of the King's head 
 shall fall. 
 
 Suddenly the door opens, and Roederer 
 appears on the threshold. He raises his 
 hand to command attention, but it is need-
 
 Back Again. 141 
 
 less, for all press forward with breathless 
 anxiety as he speaks. 
 
 " The King and his family go to the 
 Assembly alone, except for the department 
 and ministers. Clear the way." 
 
 Ah, it is all over. What is the use of 
 courage or loyalty, when they are rejected ? 
 What is there to die for, even ? Raoul de 
 Maurepas turns white as death, and tears his 
 cross of St Louis from his breast. With the 
 same fierce impulse he snaps his sword 
 across his knee, and throwing the pieces from 
 him, stands with folded arms to see the next 
 act of the drama. Some others follow his 
 example ; a few even weep tears of shame, 
 but the municipal guard has come, and the 
 hapless cortege is coming forth. 
 
 The King comes first and then the rest. 
 No one looks up except the Queen, and her 
 eyes travel round with the desperate, hunted 
 look of some tortured creature. As those
 
 1 4 2 Wh ite a nd Red. 
 
 woeful eyes meet his, a great sorrow and 
 compunction rise in De Maurepas' heart. 
 He was wrong, hasty — never mind, it was 
 the impulse of a moment, and he can undo 
 it yet. . . . The royal fugitives have gone 
 on. As they cross the threshold, the King 
 asks for the safety of those remaining in the 
 Palace, and is told that all who go out 
 unarmed and without uniform will be un- 
 molested ; an assertion, the terrible false- 
 hood of which will be only too soon tested. 
 
 Some hesitation, some lingering unwilling- 
 ness comes into the King's mind, as he 
 reaches the vestibule leading to the garden. 
 He turns, looking over the heads of his 
 followers, and stops, but it is only to make 
 his old remark. 
 
 " I see no great crowd in the Carrousel." 
 As Roederer repeats his former assertions, 
 the King listens apathetically, and a driven, 
 hopeless expression settles down over his
 
 Back Again. 143 
 
 face. He makes no further expostulation. 
 Wearily he passes over the door sill, wearily 
 he goes forth from the Palace of his fathers 
 — for ever. 
 
 The decree of the ministers is so far soft- 
 ened, that some officers of the Royal house- 
 hold are permitted to accompany their 
 master, and among those the Marquis de 
 Maurepas is enabled to find himself. Thus 
 he escapes the frightful slaughter which rages 
 in the Tuileries after the King's departure, 
 when cruelty runs riot, when the eighty men 
 of the Swiss Guard fall to a man on the 
 steps of the grand staircase, and the house- 
 hold are massacred in one vast hecatomb. 
 Verily, the age of Reason is inaugurated in 
 blood, and even so will it find its expiation. 
 
 And meanwhile, in the hall of the Na- 
 tional Assembly, Louis is looking on at the 
 spectacle of his own degradation. Every one 
 knows the story of that day of horrors.
 
 1 44 White and Red. 
 
 How the King and those who are with him 
 sit for sixteen hours in the tribune of the 
 Logographe ; how they hear even there the 
 shrieks and blows in the courtyard of the 
 Manege, and how at midnight a hasty and 
 squalid lodging is provided for the dis- 
 crowned sovereign. The same unshaken 
 composure sustains him throughout, and yet 
 — is it courage, or the apathy of despair ? 
 When food is brought, he can eat and drink 
 with placid satisfaction, and the unfailing 
 appetite of a Bourbon. Somehow one turns, 
 instinctively, to the two princesses. They 
 make no pretence even at indifference, and 
 yet one is struck by the higher quality of 
 their heroism. Louis the Sixteenth sees his 
 crown pass away from him like a heavy 
 burden which has long oppressed him. 
 Marie Antoinette beholds that downfall as 
 an intolerable shame. So the long hours 
 pass away, and finally, on the 13th, the
 
 Back Again. 145 
 
 prison of the Temple receives them till death 
 brings utter freedom. 
 
 Let us come back to Gabrielle de 
 Thouars. 
 
 All day long has the roar of the people 
 
 surged through the streets of the city so 
 
 soon to be dishonoured, and though their 
 
 present house is, in some degree, removed 
 
 from any great thoroughfare, Madame de 
 
 Drou and her niece have at last realised, if 
 
 they never did before, what this Revolution 
 
 may mean for them. From time to time 
 
 rumours have come to them, distorted no 
 
 doubt, yet bearing a colouring of truth, and in 
 
 no way tending to allay their anxiety. They 
 
 are, neither of them, prostrated by terror, for 
 
 they have the courage of their race, but each 
 
 feels as if she had lived years instead of 
 
 hours, when the summer twilight descends. 
 
 Gabrielle, besides, has her own reasons for 
 
 fear and anguish. Wherever the King may 
 1. k
 
 146 White and Red. 
 
 be, there, she feels, must be Raoul de Maure- 
 pas, and what more likely than that he is 
 lying dead, on some staircase slippery with 
 blood, like the guard at Versailles only three 
 years ago ? 
 
 Who can tell ? How shall she know ? 
 She wrings her hands in that intolerable 
 suspense. She has forgotten all her fancied 
 anger ; that has passed away. She can only 
 remember that he is most likely, if alive, in 
 sore peril, and that she treated him ill the 
 last time she ever saw him. Perhaps she 
 will never see him again. Oh, not that — not 
 that! If she could only see Pere Florian ; 
 she feels that his uncompromising sternness 
 would act like a moral tonic ; but she does 
 not know, and will not for some days, what 
 has befallen him.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE ARRESTS OF THE NONJURORS. 
 
 They muster in the court below, 
 
 Their face is dark with hate ; 
 
 They don their arms, they grasp their swords, 
 
 They thunder at the gate. 
 
 That same ioth of August, at night, lists of 
 the proscribed priests were sent to the 
 different sections of Paris, with orders for 
 their arrest. Pere Florian was sojourning in 
 the parish of St Sulpice, in the same house as 
 De la Rochefoucauld, Bishop of Beauvais, 
 when, late in the evening of that terrible 
 day, an armed band thundered at the door. 
 
 They burst tumultuously in on its being 
 opened in all haste, and confronted the two 
 priests, who faced them composedly. 
 
 " You are the Bishop of Beauvais ? " said
 
 1 48 White and Red. 
 
 one of the intruders, roughly, to the elder of 
 the two. 
 
 " I am," said the Bishop, quietly. " I con- 
 clude you intend to arrest me." 
 
 " Just so," said the new comer ; " but who 
 is this ? " 
 
 " My name is Celestin Florian, cure of the 
 parish of Cennes near Angers." 
 
 "Oh, then, we have nothing to do with you. 
 I am sorry to deprive you of your com- 
 panion, but Monseigneur must accompany 
 us. 
 
 " Stay," said another man, who had not 
 yet spoken, " he may not be on your list, but 
 this is the very priest I have my own in- 
 structions about. Don't be cast down, mon 
 pere, you shall go with Monseigneur after 
 all." 
 
 Without further loss of time the two were 
 led off and placed in the convent of the 
 Cannes, in the Rue Vaugirard, a place
 
 The Arrests of the Nonjurors. 149 
 
 sacred now by the memory of those faithful 
 captives. 
 
 All that night the arrests were going on. 
 Neither charity nor devotion were any safe- 
 guard. The Abbe' Sicard, who had given 
 himself up to the help of the deaf and dumb 
 for many years, was one object of the search, 
 and the Archbishop of Aries was another. 
 Some were placed in the seminary of St 
 Firmin, but a hundred and twenty were im- 
 prisoned in the Carmes. The proceedings 
 were so sudden, that none of the prisoners 
 were provided with any necessaries of life, 
 nor was any preparation made for them in 
 their place of captivity. Forlorn as they 
 were, one of the sectionaries, touched with 
 compassion, even went himself to houses 
 near by to ask for charity, and on this their 
 friends gladly sent in food and beds. For a 
 short time the incarcerated priests were al- 
 lowed to receive the visits of their friends.
 
 1 50 White and Red. 
 
 and to walk in the convent garden ; but this 
 could not last. 
 
 The first symptom of the rapidly approach- 
 ing end was the arrival, to share their cap- 
 tivity, of the aged and infirm priests from the 
 house of S. Francois de Sales, driven through 
 the streets with blows and menaces ; the 
 professors and pupils of S. Sulpice, and the 
 Eudistes, with their superior, Hebert, the 
 King's confessor. On the 2nd September 
 the morning walk of the prisoners was put 
 off, and the guard was changed unusually 
 early. 
 
 " Do not fear, Messieurs," said one of them 
 even then ; " if they come to attack you, we 
 can defend you." 
 
 But the decree had gone forth, and the 
 time was very short now. Rumours of the 
 coming slaughter were whispered in different 
 directions, and the friends of the captives im- 
 plored the authorities for mercy, not without
 
 The Arrests of the Nonjurors. 1 5 1 
 
 effect in some cases. Even Robespierre, 
 Marat, and Danton saved certain priests in 
 whom they were interested. 
 
 Gabrielle de Thouars, horror-stricken at 
 the vague possibilities she heard suggested, 
 flung her pride to the winds with character- 
 istic impetuosity, and sent an urgent message 
 to the citoyen Sabran, demanding an inter- 
 view. He came at once, and she began 
 without delay. 
 
 "Do not let us fence with each other any 
 longer, Monsieur," she said hurriedly; " there 
 is some horrible plot against the imprisoned 
 priests. You can, I know, do what I ask of 
 you. Save Pere Florian, I beseech you." 
 
 "You over- rate my influence, Mademoi- 
 selle," he answered ; " besides, I know of no 
 such plot as you apprehend — " 
 
 He stopped, for a look of contempt, 
 such as she could not control, passed over 
 Gabrielle's face.
 
 152 VV kite and Red. 
 
 " You appear incredulous, Mademoiselle," 
 he said, with rising anger. 
 
 " Pardon," she replied; u but you were pre- 
 sent at the Hotel de Ville during the in- 
 famous proceedings of the 1 oth of last month 
 —and not with the King." 
 
 " It is scarcely prudent, in that case, to 
 stigmatize them as infamous," he said, quietly. 
 
 " That is true," she rejoined, impetuously, 
 as she recollected herself; "Forget what I 
 said, M. le Chevalier, only — save Pere 
 Florian." 
 
 " And why, Mademoiselle ? " he asked, 
 coldly. 
 
 " Because he is the dear friend of M. de 
 St Hilaire and of his sister — the friend of 
 years. They showed you hospitality last year." 
 
 " Why not say for your own sake ? " he 
 said, unmoved. " Mademoiselle must know 
 that there is little my devotion would not 
 attempt for her sake."
 
 The Arrests of the Nonjurors. 153 
 
 " Well then, Monsieur, for my sake," she 
 said hastily, with the old smile just a little 
 forced. 
 
 " Be it so," he answered slowly; "that 
 shall nerve my best endeavours." 
 
 But as he turned to go the door opened, 
 and Madame de Drou walked in slowly and 
 feebly, yet with unabated dignity. Obstinate 
 as she had long been with regard to M. de 
 Sabran, and steadily as she had persisted in 
 ignoring his public proceedings, the 10th 
 August had been too much for her. She 
 greeted him now with a freezing curtsy, and 
 proceeded, in a few ponderous sentences, to 
 discuss the present deplorable state of affairs. 
 
 " For my part, all ideas are centred in the 
 intolerable fact of their majesties' imprison- 
 ment," she said, as soon as she was established 
 in her arm-chair. " Of course such a state 
 of things cannot continue ; but while they do, 
 all other considerations must bow.-— Thy
 
 1 54 White and Red. 
 
 marriage must be put off, my child," she 
 added, turning to her niece, and tapping her 
 snuff-box with a pretty hand, still white and soft. 
 
 Now this remark she made of set purpose. 
 She had not the remotest idea where the 
 Marquis de Maurepas might be, but the 
 Chevalier de Sabran, or the citoyen Sabran, 
 if he preferred that appellation, was no doubt 
 an admirer of Gabrielle's ; and since it ap- 
 peared only too clear that he was the reddest 
 of republicans, he must be made to under- 
 stand that to address a De Thouars was too 
 preposterous to be tolerated. Gabrielle's 
 quick wit saw that this was, at that moment, 
 an unlucky remark, and she would have 
 spoken, but before she could open her lips 
 De Sabran interposed. 
 
 " Have I then, Madame, the happiness to 
 offer my felicitations ? " he said, in a very 
 gentle voice. " Is the marriage of Made- 
 moiselle an affair arranged ? "
 
 The Arrests of the Nonjurors. 155 
 
 " Undoubtedly, Monsieur," answered Ma- 
 dame promptly. "It has long been settled, 
 and I trust will very soon be concluded. For 
 me, I shall have lived long enough then, and 
 M. the Marquis de Maurepas is in every way 
 admirable." 
 
 " Madame is right in all respects," he 
 answered. " I again ask leave to felicitate 
 Mademoiselle, and to say adieu." 
 
 As he went away his eyes met Gabrielle's 
 for a moment, and she turned pale, for that 
 glance communicated to her an indefinable 
 pang of apprehension, though not for herself. 
 She had, it is true, one talisman of hope in 
 the shape of a few words on a scrap of paper 
 brought to her on the 14th of the month 
 before, for they told her that Raoul de Maure- 
 pas was safe, though they gave no clue as to 
 his whereabouts. We shall hereafter see how 
 he fared.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE MARTYRS OF THE CARMES. 
 
 By good S. Denys' Altar, straight 
 
 The Bishop takes his place ; 
 
 A gleam of twilight softly falls 
 
 Upon his reverend face. 
 
 He standeth there with clasped hands, 
 
 Each chapel groweth dim, 
 
 Night cometh fast o'er all the earth, 
 
 But never more on him. 
 
 It was the afternoon of the 2d of September, 
 still soft and clear, a very day of God. On 
 peaceful uplands and wide fields far and near 
 the reapers were gathering in the harvest. 
 All the hope was come to fulfilment, all the 
 glory of the year had reached its culminating 
 point. Fruit hung ripe and thick and ruddy. 
 . . . And here in Paris, under the same glad
 
 The Martyrs of the Cannes. 1 5 7 
 
 sunlight, the same pure sky, men were making 
 ready for a carnival of unspeakable horror. 
 
 Some of the friends of the imprisoned 
 priests came to visit them that morning, and 
 went away in tears. Among these visitors 
 was De Sabran, who, for his part, testified no 
 tendency to such lachrymose exhibition. He 
 sought out Pere Florian without loss of time, 
 and addressed him without any circumlocution, 
 for he knew the man he had to deal with. 
 
 " Monsieur," he said, " I am come to save 
 you — no matter from what — but there is no 
 time to lose." 
 
 " And your condition, Monsieur ? " asked 
 the priest. 
 
 De Sabran smiled approvingly. 
 
 " You are quite right," he said. "It is 
 needless to say I have a condition to pro- 
 pound, but it is a very simple one. Write 
 me here a letter addressed to Mdlle. de 
 Thouars, assuring her, on your faith, or how
 
 1 5 8 White and Red. 
 
 you please to put it, that the Marquis de 
 Maurepas is dead. It is but stretching a 
 point. If he is not, he soon will be. Sign 
 your own name, you understand. Say then, 
 my father, it is quite simple, is it not ? " 
 
 " Quite simple," answered Pere Florian. 
 " I reject it." 
 
 " One moment. Have you considered the 
 alternative ? It is between life — and death. 
 It cannot signify to you. Why should you 
 care if this emigre live or die ? " 
 
 " I do not know him at all ; but I know 
 what truth is, and I will not lend a finger to 
 bring you any closer to that lady." 
 
 " Consider," reiterated De Sabran. 
 
 11 I have considered. Leave me, Monsieur, 
 I entreat you, and I pray God to bring you 
 to a better mind." 
 
 He did not know, he never was to know, 
 that it was to this man he in especial owed 
 his imprisonment. It would have been just
 
 The Martyrs of the Cannes. 159 
 
 the same, except that there might have risen 
 up in his mind a greater fervour of personal 
 forgiveness and of pity. Yes, pity, though 
 he, the priest, was a helpless captive in deadly 
 peril, and his tempter was the successful 
 republican, the idol for the present, at least 
 of some of his party, holding the reins of an 
 utterly irresponsible power. Something like 
 compunction came for an instant into De 
 Sabran's cold, cynical heart, as he met Pere 
 Florian's steadfast eyes, but he banished it at 
 once. It was weak to regret it. The priest 
 was but an obstacle in his way ; he might 
 have been useful, perhaps, if he had chosen, 
 but as it was, he was better disposed of. He 
 would very soon be able to solve the mystery 
 of his coming fate. 
 
 At two o'clock a commissary arrived, who 
 called over the names of the captives, and 
 they were sent into the convent garden. At 
 its further end was an alley, between a hedge
 
 160 White and Red. 
 
 and the wall dividing the garden from the 
 Benedictines of the Blessed Sacrament, and 
 here some took refuge. The rest gathered 
 in and near a little oratory, and there said ves- 
 pers solemnly, for they knew the end was near. 
 
 They were still kneeling when a frightful 
 noise arose at the garden gate, which was 
 suddenly burst open, and seven or eight men 
 rushed in. They were all young, all wore 
 the bonnet-rouge, red sash and cravat — the 
 terrible " Red Brothers of Danton." 
 
 " Monseigneur," said Pere Florian to the 
 Archbishop of Aries, who was near the 
 oratory, " this time they are really come." 
 
 " Ah, well, dear friend," said the Arch- 
 bishop, " let us thank God that we have to 
 offer our lives to Him in such a cause." 
 
 The first to fall was the Abbe" Girault, 
 director of the Ladies of St Elizabeth, who 
 was struck down while reciting his breviary, 
 and then the carnage went on.
 
 The Martyrs of the Cannes. i 6 i 
 
 Those of the assailants who advanced to 
 the oratory asked threateningly for the Arch- 
 bishop, and reaching the group of priests, 
 first addressed the Abbe Pannonie, who made 
 no answer, hoping to save the Archbishop, 
 but, putting the others aside, the latter 
 stepped calmly forward in answer to the 
 shouts of his name, his hands crossed on his 
 breast. With one more effort to save him, 
 Pere Florian threw himself before him and 
 held him back. 
 
 " Let me pass," said the Archbishop ; " if 
 my blood will satisfy them, what does it 
 signify if I die ? — I am he whom you seek," 
 he added. 
 
 There arose a wild outcry. 
 
 " Ah, wretch, thou art then the Archbishoj" 
 of Aries ? " they cried. 
 
 " I am he," he repeated, steadily. 
 
 " Thou art he who shed the blood of so 
 many patriots at Aries ? " 
 
 I. L
 
 1 62 White and Red. 
 
 " Never," he said indignantly. " I have 
 never injured any one," but a blow with a 
 sword silenced him, and six wounds laid him 
 dead on the ground. 
 
 Some of the priests who stood near were 
 slain at once, others dispersed for the moment 
 over the garden. Pere Florian was drawn 
 back by some of his brethren into the oratory, 
 where the assassins fired on them through 
 the railings which surrounded it. At this 
 juncture a commissary and a fresh band 
 arrived, and changed the order of pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 " Stay," he cried, " it is not thus that you 
 must work. The vengeance of the People is 
 just ; but the innocent must be spared." 
 
 On this, the commandant of the porte at 
 the end of the garden, ordered the priests 
 back to the church. There, in the sanctuary 
 and before the high altar, they confessed each 
 other, and recited the office for the dying.
 
 The Martyrs of the Cannes . 163 
 
 Into the church poured the Red Brothers 
 of Danton, impatient to complete their work ; 
 but the commandant again interposed, saying 
 that the priests had not yet been judged. 
 His unruly followers interrupted him. 
 
 " No matter," said they ; " they are all 
 guilty and must die." 
 
 However, some sort of hasty tribunal was 
 improvised by means of a table which the 
 commissary placed near the corridor leading 
 from the left of the altar to a double staircase ; 
 and at the top of a flight of steps were posted 
 two of the assailants. 
 
 In the midst of the wild uproar, before 
 these arrangements were completed, the 
 Bishop of Beauvais, who had been wounded 
 in the oratory, was carried in, and laid down. 
 His brother, the Bishop of Saintes, hurried 
 to embrace him, but was not permitted to 
 remain with him. The assassins by this time 
 were gathered in the nave of the church,
 
 1 64 White and Red. 
 
 which was divided from the sanctuary by the 
 grille, which they were unable to force, but 
 matters were speedily arranged to their satis- 
 faction. 
 
 The proceedings were very simple, for it 
 was needful to appease these last as far and 
 as soon as possible. The priests kneeling 
 before the High Altar were called down, two 
 by two, and merely asked if they still refused 
 to take the constitutional oath. At each 
 answer they were led through the door-way 
 at the top of the steps, where the two assassins 
 posted there struck them first, and they were 
 passed to others below, who finished the 
 work to the glory of the nation. 
 
 The Bishop of Saintes, when his name was 
 called, lingered for one moment to kiss the 
 altar, and then passed forth with the lofty 
 serenity with which he had led many a pro- 
 cession in his own cathedral, and after him 
 came the general of the Eudistes, already
 
 The Martyrs of the Cannes. 165 
 
 wounded by the side of the Archbishop of 
 Aries. 
 
 In a side chapel of the nave, lay the Bishop 
 of Beauvais, and by him knelt Pere Florian. 
 They had already confessed, and now spoke 
 from time to time, in spite of the pain which 
 one was suffering, with the serene composure 
 of those who have already passed through 
 the bitterness of death. As each succeeding 
 victim met his death, the cry of " Vive la 
 Nation" came pealing down the arches of the 
 church, and the steady call of that sinister 
 muster-roll told how short the time was 
 growing. 
 
 Did recollections of peaceful days down in 
 Anjou, of the daily round from prime to com- 
 pline, fulfilled for so many years at Cennes, 
 come to trouble Pere Florian at this supreme 
 hour ? Perhaps it all seemed to him as a 
 dream, as if that past was only a realm of 
 shadows ; and this, the dishonoured church,
 
 1 66 White and Red. 
 
 the cries, the blows, the work of death, the 
 only reality after all. 
 
 "It must be coming near, my brother," 
 said the Bishop, his voice faint, his face 
 wrung with pain ; " and it is welcome, if it be 
 to glorify the good God." 
 
 11 Monseigneur," said Pere Florian, " we 
 are honoured in that He accepts our blood 
 at this hour, for the sake of France." 
 
 So amid terror and pain these two Confes- 
 sors of the Faith awaited their doom. 
 
 " The Bishop of Beauvais ! Where is the 
 Bishop of Beauvais ? " came the cry, and two 
 of the Red Brothers dashed into the chapel. 
 
 " I am willing to die with my brethren," 
 said the Bishop, meekly ; " but my thigh is 
 broken, and I cannot stand. Help me to 
 walk." 
 
 " That is easily arranged, Monseigneur," 
 said one of his executioners ; " we will lead 
 you.
 
 The Martyrs of the Carmes. J 67 
 
 " I will go with you, and help to support 
 you," said Pere Florian, rising to his feet ; but 
 he was repulsed. 
 
 " Not so fast, good father," said the last 
 speaker ; " your turn will come soon enough. 
 At present we will act as the sub-deacons of 
 Monseigneur." 
 
 As the Bishop was lifted up by his rough 
 supporters, he turned and crossed his com- 
 panion. 
 
 " A sharp road, my brother, but a short 
 one," he gasped, as Pere Florian fell once 
 more on his knees to receive that last epis- 
 copal blessing. 
 
 Then the Bishop was dragged away by the 
 arms, and the priest was left for the few short 
 minutes that remained to him. 
 
 Alone — friendless. Would they ever know 
 his fate at home ? or would his end be swal- 
 lowed up in the mystery which must attend 
 such wholesale slaughter ? Only one of
 
 1 68 White and Red. 
 
 many ; who would know or care ? Ah, well, 
 there had at least been no self-seeking in this 
 doom that had come upon him. He had 
 striven after duty ; he had foreseen, with an 
 aching heart, the vengeance that would come 
 on the wrongs of centuries ; and if his frail life 
 was to go down in the vortex it did not much 
 matter after all. If France was to rise again, 
 purified after this terrible cleansing, he was 
 ready that his blood should help. It came in 
 the road of simple obedience ; that was 
 enough. 
 
 " Celestin Florian." 
 
 He passed silently into the nave, his eyes 
 fixed on his breviary, reciting the office of 
 compline, for four hours had passed since the 
 slaughter had begun. The sanctuary was 
 empty and deserted now. The High Altar 
 from which so many martyrs had passed to 
 their passion, wrapped in gloom, rose above 
 its flight of steps. The shadows of the Sep-
 
 The Martyrs of the Cannes. 1 69 
 
 tember night were falling, dim and solemn, as 
 Pere Florian came forth. 
 
 By the table, placed to the left near the cor- 
 ridor, stood the commissary; and in the nave 
 and at the doorway were gathered the Red 
 Brothers, who had, by this time, established 
 an irrefragable right to their sinister name. 
 
 " Celestin Florian, do you still refuse the 
 oath of the Civil Constitution ? " 
 
 He did not lift his eyes, but he said, quite 
 firmly and distinctly, 
 
 " I do refuse." 
 
 Then he passed on through the doorway, 
 to be received, beyond it, with pike and 
 sword. Before him lay, as they fell, the 
 bodies of the many slain on the blood-stained 
 floor of the church. 
 
 He looked steadily at them before his 
 breviary dropped from his failing hands ; and 
 he uttered the last words of Francis Xavier, 
 the saint and martyr.
 
 1 70 White and Red. 
 
 "In Te, Domine, speravi, non confundar 
 in ceternum," he said, in a clear loud voice, 
 as he went down under the pikes of the Red 
 Brothers of Danton. 
 
 Was it all in vain — is it still in vain, that 
 those two hundred died in the Convent of 
 the Carmes, besides the many who were fall- 
 ing elsewhere in Paris, in one vast hecatomb 
 of victims ? Who shall say ? To some, as 
 to Pere Florian, it may have appeared as a 
 solemn expiatory sacrifice. This we know, 
 at least, that faithful endurance and great 
 patience cannot be wasted, even though their 
 results be never seen on this side the grave.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE SECOND OF SEPTEMBER. 
 
 They made themselves a fearful monument, 
 The wreck of old opinions. 
 
 All through that terrible day Madame de 
 Drou and her niece watched and waited ; 
 listening to the ghastly rumours which 
 came at intervals, hearing sometimes the 
 clamour of the frantic populace, which re- 
 called the doings of the ioth of August. But 
 not until the next morning did they know 
 with any certainty of the unutterable horrors 
 of that day and night. It was on that night 
 that Bilhaud de Varennes arrived at the 
 prison of the Abbaye to give each of the 
 self-constituted executioners their wages of 
 twenty-four livres. " Think you," said one, 
 " that I have only earned twenty-four livres ?
 
 1 72 White and Red. 
 
 I have killed more than forty with my own 
 hand." It was on that night that the 
 prisoners of La Force, including those 
 attached to the Court whose lives were 
 spared on the 10th of August, were brought 
 before the tribunal, and among them, Marie 
 Josephe, Princesse de Lamballe, the Queen's 
 dearest friend, who had even followed her to 
 the Temple. She, too, fell on a pile of dead, 
 and her head, the long hair dressed and pow- 
 dered as of old, was borne off on a pike, 
 to be displayed before the windows of the 
 Royal prisoners, in order that " the Austrian" 
 might look her last on it. She was spared 
 that sight of anguish, however, by the King's 
 interposition. And at S. Germains, the 
 Bernardines, Salpetriere, Conciergerie, and 
 Chatelet, the work of death went on. At 
 intervals the executioners, weary of slaughter, 
 hungry and thirsty, would rest, sitting on the 
 heaps of slain, while food was brought to
 
 The Second of September. i 73 
 
 them, and then refreshed, they would fall to 
 work again. 
 
 Something of the truth, though, it is true, 
 but a little of it, came occasionally to the 
 obscure and humble house where the aunt 
 and niece were sojourning. Little though 
 they really knew, that little was sufficiently 
 appalling to the three helpless women who 
 were the sole inhabitants of the house. But 
 whatever their personal fears might be, some 
 powerful influence protected them. Early 
 that afternoon a letter was brought to Mdlle. 
 de Thouars, left, said Babette, by a lad, who 
 ran away as soon as he had delivered it. It 
 contained only a few words. 
 
 " Fear nothing, whatever happens ; but, I 
 implore you, remain at home. Let nothing 
 tempt you to leave the house." 
 
 There was neither date nor signature, but 
 it was easy to conjecture that it came from 
 De Sabran. Nevertheless, neither she nor her
 
 1 74 White and Red. 
 
 aunt felt as yet sufficient confidence in his 
 powers of protection, to acknowledge their 
 fears fully allayed. At such a time of wild 
 anarchy and ungoverned fury, what could he 
 do had he ten times the power he assumed 
 to have ? 
 
 Hourly they expected to be arrested, or 
 slaughtered in their own home, and the long 
 watches of that night Madame de Drou 
 spent on her knees at the end of her room, 
 which she had hastily fitted as an oratory on 
 coming into the house. Sometimes Gabri- 
 elle would join her for a little while, but 
 suspense made her too restless to remain 
 long anywhere. She wandered from room 
 to room, sometimes standing for a few 
 minutes by a window listening, with a white 
 face and quivering lips, to the awful sounds 
 which would come at times from the different 
 scenes of slaughter on the soft September 
 breeze. Perhaps Raoul de Maurepas was
 
 The Second of September. 1 7 5 
 
 at last among- the victims. Yes, it is true 
 she knew that he had escaped after the 10th. 
 She had the few words which told her so 
 safely hidden away ; but that was so long 
 ago, what might not have happened since ? 
 The Mignard portrait smiled down on her 
 from the wall as it used to do in the Hotel 
 Drou. Did that lovely face ever cloud with 
 the weight of such trouble, she wondered 
 vaguely once. Was it always sunshine and 
 flowers, Marly and Fontainebleau, in those 
 old days of the Roi Soleil ? She did not 
 think, nay, perhaps she would not have 
 understood, that the assassins of the Abbaye 
 and elsewhere were merely exacting terrible 
 payment for the long past glories of dead 
 kings, which had been built up on the wrongs 
 of the people. She did not think of all this, 
 she only thought that the careless beauty of 
 the face smote her with a sense of injury, 
 like that other self of such a short time
 
 i y6 White and Red. 
 
 back, on which she looked with a sort of 
 envy. 
 
 "If thou wert but at Cennes — anywhere 
 out of Paris," said Madame de Drou once. 
 "My child, I promised to protect thee, and 
 how have I kept my word ? " 
 
 Gabrielle knelt down by her, and put her 
 arm round her. 
 
 " Calm thyself, my aunt," she said, though 
 her own hands were cold and shaking with 
 terror ; " if I were away I should come 
 back again. I could not be parted from 
 thee." 
 
 " I could die myself, as a De Thouars 
 knows how," went on Madame, piteously, 
 " but thee, Gabrielle, so young — " 
 
 "It is no worse for me than for thee, and 
 am not I also a De Thouars ? Besides, 
 there is this letter which promises us 
 safety ? " 
 
 But Madame obviously placed little confi-
 
 The Second of September. 1 7 7 
 
 dence in so mysterious a communication, and 
 refused to be comforted. 
 
 So the nieht wore on, and it drew towards 
 morning, though the sky was darker than it 
 had yet been, and that strange chill struck 
 on the air which comes at the turn of the 
 night. 
 
 Gabrielle had wandered back to her post 
 at the window, though there was little to be 
 gained by such a watch ; but suddenly the 
 silence which had prevailed in the immediate 
 neighbourhood was broken, and there came 
 the hurried tramp of many feet down the 
 narrow street for the first time that night. 
 Her heart gave one bound, and then seemed 
 to stop beating, for she fully believed the 
 end had really come. Babette, who had 
 fallen asleep, worn out with fear and watch- 
 ing, awoke, and flung herself on her knees 
 in extremity of terror. Gabrielle would fain 
 have turned back into her aunt's room, but 
 
 I. M
 
 lyS White and Red. 
 
 she seemed powerless to move from the 
 window, and she stood there, unconscious of 
 Babette's prayers and tears from the other 
 side of the room. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, for the love of the blessed 
 saints come away, they will see you, and then 
 they will kill us all," she entreated ; but 
 Gabrielle felt as if her limbs had turned to 
 lead, and as if some imperative instinct bade 
 her gaze at the scene without. 
 
 The footsteps rang in some sort of rude 
 time, and many voices were uplifted in an 
 awful chant, which she heard then not for the 
 last time, a song which seemed to freeze the 
 blood in her veins as she listened and looked, 
 for the dance was the Carmagnole. A glare 
 of torches lit up the street, and, as she stood, 
 stricken and dumb with horror, the red light 
 smote full on one face upturned — the face of a 
 woman — a face which she recognised at once, 
 which seemed to grow suddenly out of the
 
 The Second of September. 1 79 
 
 whirl of smoke and flame, in the midst of the 
 trampling, shouting crew, in a sinister halo 
 of pikes and axes and torches, the face of 
 Philippine Drouet. In its fierce and terrible 
 beauty it seemed, to Gabrielle's strained and 
 bewildered imagination, like the head of a 
 Medusa, and as if it exercised the same 
 baneful influence, for, though she would have 
 given an empire to have covered her own, to 
 have shrunk back, she was powerless, and 
 her arms hung as if benumbed. That Philip- 
 pine saw a woman's figure at the window 
 was certain ; that she recognised her was 
 very unlikely ; but she beckoned to her with 
 a derisive gesture. 
 
 " Good night, citoyenne," she shouted, as 
 she halted beneath the window, " this is a 
 little entertainment, this. Permit me to pre- 
 sent to you one of your friends. La Lam- 
 balle has gone another way to make a visit 
 to a distinguished person."
 
 i8o White and Red. 
 
 What more she said was lost in the wild 
 uproar that prevailed round her, but Gabrielle's 
 swimming eyes could see, upheld on a pike, 
 and looming through the smoke of the 
 torches, a woman's severed head, which her 
 reeling senses told her was familiar to her. 
 How often had she seen it, crowned with 
 jewels, powdered and perfumed, at the 
 Tuileries ! at Madame de Drou's receptions, 
 — and now . . . She did not hear other voices 
 say that there were no aristocrats here — that 
 this house was inhabited by good patriots, 
 friends of Sabran ; she did not see Philippine 
 Drouet and her sisters resume the mazes of 
 the Carmagnole, for as the grisly procession 
 swept on, and the street returned to its 
 normal quiet, she sank down on the floor and 
 fainted dead.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 UNDER THE SURFACE. 
 
 Tell faith it fled the city, 
 
 Tell how the country erreth, 
 
 Tell manhood shakes off pity, 
 
 Tell virtue lust preferreth. 
 
 Raleigh. 
 
 And where, all this time, was the Marquis de 
 Maurepas ? To solve that problem, we must 
 come back to the events immediately succeed- 
 ing the ioth of August. 
 
 We have seen that he, faithful to his 
 allegiance, was one of those who had suc- 
 ceeded in remaining near the person of the 
 King during the proceedings in the Hotel de 
 Ville. When that apparently interminable 
 sitting was over, the royal captives were 
 taken to rooms hastily prepared for them, in 
 the upper part of the monastery of the
 
 182 
 
 White and Red. 
 
 Feuillants. Here De Maurepas and a few 
 more lay down at the King's door, wrapped 
 in their cloaks, guarding him for, it might be, 
 the last time. 
 
 They remained with him throughout the 
 next and the succeeding day, and then — they 
 were parted for ever. That evening the 
 supper of the King and Queen was, for the 
 last time, served according to court etiquette, 
 the faithful five, who still remained, standing 
 behind them. The King said but little, but 
 he lingered long over the meal, knowing 
 well that those familiar faces would soon be 
 gone. One by one they knelt and kissed his 
 hand, a last sad act of homage, and then San- 
 terre's guard came in. 
 
 " I am indeed a prisoner," said the poor 
 King, bitterly ; " King Charles of England 
 was better off than I. His friends were 
 allowed to attend him to the scaffold. " 
 
 The Queen did not speak ; the iron had
 
 Under the Surface. 183 
 
 entered into her soul too deeply ; but the look 
 she gave De Maurepas was more than suffi- 
 cient, more, far more than any eager words 
 of gratitude. 
 
 He and his companions were allowed one 
 chance of escape : they were free — so far — to 
 go where they pleased. They went down a 
 back staircase, and, having put on borrowed 
 clothes, for better disguise, passed out sepa- 
 rately, to mingle with the crowd. 
 
 As Raoul de Maurepas paused, in some 
 hesitation, for he had by no means made up his 
 mind as to his wisest course, a private of the 
 National Guard looked hard at him, and, to 
 his extreme amazement, swiftly grasped his 
 arm. 
 
 " Wait," he said, in a low voice, " and I 
 will take you home." 
 
 Late as it was there was plenty of light in 
 the street, but even to De Maurepas' quick 
 eyes, his captor's face was entirely strange,
 
 1 84 White and Red. 
 
 and his action, to say the least, suspicious. 
 However, the Marquis, seeing nothing better 
 to do, called his usual sang-froid to his 
 aid, and did as he was told. The stranger, 
 who appeared merely to be loitering outside 
 the Feuillants, was evidently waiting for some 
 one, for a man presently approached and 
 whispered a few words in his ear, before dis- 
 appearing in the crowd. The former then 
 immediately set off at a round pace, retaining 
 his hold on De Maurepas. He thus threaded 
 two or three streets, and finally hurried his 
 prize into a small grocer's shop, which he 
 instantly locked and barred behind him. 
 Then leading the way into the room at^the 
 back, he paused to take breath, while disen- 
 cumbering himself of his arms, which ob- 
 viously caused him some discomfort. 
 
 " You are at home now, M. le — citoyen, I 
 mean," he said at last. 
 
 " You are extremely kind to say so," said
 
 Under the Surface. 185 
 
 De Maurepas, " but may I ask why such a 
 flattering honour is conferred on me ? " 
 
 " Oh, as to that," said the grocer, "the fact 
 is, I am an Auvergnat, and I know — that is, I 
 have heard — that you are a good seigneur 
 down there." 
 
 " And so you give me shelter, Monsieur," 
 said De Maurepas, smiling. 
 
 " Just so," rejoined his preserver, " but for all 
 that, I am a good patriot," he added, assuming 
 a frown in a hurry, as if he had suddenly re- 
 membered the character he was bound to 
 support, and busying himself in preparing 
 food. He was evidently extremely reluc- 
 tant to enter into any explanations, but he 
 was, naturally, by no means reticent, and his 
 guest speedily extracted from him all he 
 really knew. 
 
 " You are in special danger, Monsieur," he 
 said ; your name was denounced to-day, 
 though I do not know by whom, and you
 
 1 86 White and Red. 
 
 might have been taken at any moment. 
 Monsieur will be safe if he remains here, but 
 he must assume disguise. All the world 
 knows I expect my nephew to help me, and 
 if Monsieur would adopt that character — " 
 
 " I have no doubt I might easily adopt a 
 much worse one," said the Marquis gravely, 
 " but pardon me if I fail to comprehend how 
 you can take so much trouble for me, simply 
 because you have heard of me down in the 
 provinces." 
 
 "Well, then, M. le Marquis," said the 
 grocer, whose heart was expanding under 
 the influence of supper, " it is soon told. 
 Though I have been living here for some 
 years now, I have not forgotten the country 
 down there, nor any of the faces I once 
 knew. There was an old woman down there 
 once — it is not likely that Monsieur remem- 
 bers her, though she was a vassal of his. 
 She was old, and sick, and poor, and the
 
 Under the Surface. 187 
 
 winter was very hard. The harvest was 
 nothing that year. Monsieur knows what 
 the harvests have been often. She was 
 gathering wood painfully in the forest, for it 
 is hard to go without fuel when there is no 
 meal in the chest, and the forester of the 
 seigneur found her. We know, you and I, 
 what the forest laws were, and he chose to 
 believe that she was after some harm ; that 
 she was sent by her friends, that — I know 
 not what. He was dragging her away, — if 
 he had killed her, no one would have done 
 anything to him — when a boy came quickly 
 up, and bade him let the woman go. He 
 durst not disobey, for the lad was the seig- 
 neur. Nay, more than that, the young noble 
 led her home, lending his own arm to guide 
 her ; he sent her firewood enough to fill her 
 shed, he brought her food and money him- 
 self. I was not there, but I heard of it, and 
 I have never forgotten it."
 
 1 88 White and Red. 
 
 Raoul de Maurepas looked up. 
 
 " That was old Madelon Dutollet. How 
 did you — " 
 
 " Monsieur, she was my mother," said the 
 grocer, simply, though his voice trembled. 
 
 " Ah, but it was so long ago." 
 
 " Good deeds live in remembrance," said 
 Dutollet. " If you were only a boy, Monsieur, 
 I was a man, and when I heard of it, though 
 my mother died soon after, I vowed to 
 myself that I would remember it while I 
 lived." 
 
 Good deeds live in remembrance. The 
 Marquis de Maurepas smiled half cynically, 
 but he sighed too. Yes, it was long ago. 
 Years had passed since he had seen the green 
 forest, the mountains, the old chateau down 
 in Auvergne — years during which he had 
 thought very little of them, save when he 
 heard from his intendant. And all this time 
 this man had cherished the recollection of
 
 Under the Surface. 189 
 
 that one impulsive action, prompted more 
 by a boyish feeling of chivalry than by any 
 principle of charity. There might have been 
 many a bitter winter since, but the hearths 
 had been black as far as he knew. He had 
 not been there to see that his vassals had been 
 clothed and fed. He had not oppressed them 
 knowingly, he had simply forgotten them. 
 A strong resolution rose up in his heart as he 
 pondered. When all this mad revolt should 
 be quelled, and things were settled, he would 
 go down there and try to be of some use. 
 Yes, it would be frightfully, appallingly dull, 
 but he would do it. He looked curiously at 
 his host, who was discussing his meal with 
 placid relish. 
 
 " And how, Monsieur," he said, " since you 
 show so much kindness to me, does it happen 
 that you are a patriot at all ? " 
 
 The man's whole expression changed at 
 once. A certain grim determination came
 
 1 90 White and Red. 
 
 over his face, ordinarily so stolid, and a fierce 
 fire blazed up in his eyes. 
 
 "Shall I tell you, M. le Marquis?" he said, 
 in a harsh low voice. "If we sat here for 
 a week I could not tell you a tithe of the 
 reasons. Yes, they make me hate to think 
 that you are a noble, that you are, or would 
 have been, my seigneur, with power of life 
 and limb — " 
 
 " I had forgotten that," said De Maurepas 
 smiling ; "to be sure, so you are." 
 
 " Monsieur, I could not bear it. I was a 
 lad, but my heart was on fire with the wrongs 
 of our people, and I ran away. I made my 
 way here, and, little by little, I prospered. 
 That has nothing to do with it. My grand- 
 father, a poor farmer, had still a little ground. 
 He had sown his corn, and the harvest was 
 nearly ripe, when a gay cavalcade came riding 
 by — the Marquis and his friends and grooms. 
 My grandfather, seeing they were about to
 
 Under the Surface. 1 9 r 
 
 pass through his little field, besought them 
 to spare it. Of course they gibed at him — 
 there was a lady there too — and through the 
 standing corn they rode. One of the grooms, 
 as he followed, struck the poor serf across 
 the face, and he, maddened for the moment, 
 wrenched away the whip and returned the 
 blow. That was enough — he was seized and 
 flogged for that insult. Monsieur, he did not 
 die under the lash, for he lived three days, 
 but no one dared to succour him. I was a 
 little child, but my mother led me secretly to 
 his poor bedside, and I have not forgotten. 
 
 " My grandmother was turned out of that 
 lonely home and sheltered with us for a little 
 while, but she died of a broken heart, if such 
 things be. 
 
 " I had a brother, older than I, weak and 
 sickly from his childhood. He was forced to 
 labour at the corvee, though they knew that 
 he was dying — that he could hardly drag his
 
 1 9 2 White and Red. 
 
 failing limbs to and fro. He came home one 
 evening for the last time. Before sunrise he 
 had died in our mother's arms. 
 
 " These things are true. I have seen them, 
 and many more like them. It will take much 
 to wipe the memory out of our hearts. I 
 resolved that I, at least, would never submit 
 to such things. I fled as I have said, and I 
 vowed then that if there came a day when 
 our wrongs should be redressed, I would lend 
 hands, and strength, and life if need be." 
 
 Raoul de Maurepas had listened, his head 
 bowed down. A sensation altogether new 
 had possessed him while the tale was told, 
 more painful and humiliating than he had 
 ever felt in his life before, of shame for 
 the sins of his forefathers, and relatively 
 for his own. Suddenly he seemed to be 
 brought face to face with a stern truth 
 he had never cared to grapple with before. 
 Yes, it was unpleasant, he the noble, the
 
 Under the Stii'f ace. 193 
 
 darling of society, was humbled by this 
 obscure person, who was moreover his pre- 
 server. There was stuff under the butterfly 
 exterior, something quite different in kind, 
 though alike in degree, to the chivalry which 
 had carried him to the Tribune of the 
 Logographe. 
 
 He looked up as Dutollet paused, and 
 there was positively a blush on the hand- 
 some, refined face. 
 
 " And yet—you have saved me," he said 
 simply, stretching out his hand across the 
 table. " Denounce me to the section to-ni^ht, 
 and I will not even think a reproach." 
 
 The excitement was fading out of his 
 preserver's face as he took the offered hand. 
 
 " Monsieur," he said, " I have sworn it. I 
 will save you." 
 
 He kept his word, though sometimes with 
 infinite difficulty ; but there was no one else 
 in his house to tell tales, and the fugitive,
 
 1 94 White and Red. 
 
 having adopted disguise, passed indifferently 
 well for the expected nephew, even through 
 the inquisition into different houses which 
 preceded the September massacres. 
 
 He might perhaps have succeeded in leav- 
 ing Paris, in spite of the rigid scrutiny to 
 which all travellers were subjected ; but he 
 had two reasons for remaining, at all hazards, 
 and he was not one to count personal risk in 
 such matters. 
 
 He might find some means of communica- 
 tion with the prisoners of the Temple — and he 
 was near Gabrielle de Thouars. 
 
 Gradually, under various disguises, he 
 came to recognise many who were, like him- 
 self, plotting, almost against hope, for the 
 King's release. Those disguises took many 
 strange forms, even to that of the municipals 
 of the guard surrounding the captives ; and 
 by as strange and subtle means did they 
 manage to communicate with the latter.
 
 Under the Surface. 195 
 
 Some obtained access to the lofty houses 
 which commanded a view of that melancholy 
 garden where the king and princesses daily 
 walked, and assured them from thence that 
 somewhere still there were loyalty and devo- 
 tion only waiting to manifest themselves. 
 Now it was a few lines written on a large 
 sheet of paper displayed but for two or three 
 moments ; now a handkerchief of some bright 
 colour was waved. Indeed Hue, the King's 
 valet, was able to convey, occasionally, letters 
 written with sympathetic ink, which the queen 
 and Madame Elisabeth would find in the 
 pipes of the stove in the ante-chamber. 
 
 Many and many a plot was devised for the 
 deliverance of the hapless prisoners, and only 
 just failed of execution, and in most of these 
 the Marquis de Maurepas had a hand, the 
 most reckless and daring of conspirators, as 
 he had been the most indolent and careless 
 of his kind in other days.
 
 196 White and Red. 
 
 He ascertained very speedily that Madame 
 de Drou and her niece were under the power- 
 ful protection of a member of the Convention, 
 but though he sent to assure them of his 
 existence and present safety, he did not hazard 
 a visit, believing that it might possibly com- 
 promise their security. Still he waited and 
 hoped. He was young and sanguine enough 
 to believe that the outrageous anarchy he 
 saw seething round him could not endure 
 long, and, in spite of Dutollet's revelations, 
 he was neither philosopher nor deep thinker 
 enough to fully perceive that that very 
 anarchy was only the rebound, the outcome, 
 of centuries of oppression, misgovernment, 
 and radical evil. 
 
 Once he thought that his toils were re- 
 warded. The autumn had passed in fruitless 
 endeavours on his part, and January brought 
 the Kings trial and its concluding tragedy ; 
 in strange coincidence, as to the month, with
 
 Under the Surface. 197 
 
 that of his prototype in misfortune, King 
 Charles of England, whose history had, 
 through his captivity, so strong a fascination 
 for him. Seeing the inevitable result of that 
 trial, De Maurepas and a few others had, 
 with ceaseless labour and all imaginable 
 secrecy, organised a daring, if desperate, plan 
 of deliverance. Three thousand young men, 
 enrolled and armed for the purpose, were to 
 rise at a given signal and raise an insurrec- 
 tion in Paris, supported, as was supposed, by 
 the great General Dumouriez. On the day 
 of the piteous deed, as the carriage of the 
 doomed King passed the spot where several 
 streets met, between the Portes Saint Denis 
 and Saint Martin, there was a sudden con- 
 fusion and the horses stopped. 
 
 Raoul de Maurepas and seven or eight 
 others broke from the Rue Beauregard, and 
 clearing a way through the crowd, and even
 
 1 98 White and Red. 
 
 through the guard, dashed at the carriage, 
 sword in hand, crying, 
 
 " Help, those who would save the King!" 
 This was the signal, but by some un- 
 accountable treachery or mistake, it was not 
 responded to, and the conspirators, foiled at 
 the moment from which they had hoped so 
 much, had no resource but to make good 
 their escape. In the confusion they again 
 penetrated through the line of the National 
 Guard. A detachment pursued them, and a 
 few were overtaken and killed, the others 
 succeeding in eluding their pursuers. 
 
 On that day Leon de Sabran, who had 
 voted for death at the trial, like all the 
 Montagne, and indeed the Gironde too, was, 
 with his usual acute interest in passing 
 events and the humours of the populace, 
 mingling with the crowd waiting here to see 
 Louis Capet pass on his way to death. In 
 spite of disguise, De Sabran recognised the
 
 Under the Surface. 199 
 
 Marquis de Maurepas at once, though he 
 lost sight of him almost as speedily. 
 
 " Where does he spring from ? " he medi- 
 tated. " I thought he had got away long 
 ago, and left his plighted bride in the lurch. 
 Well, so much the worse for him. I must 
 find him out and be able to lay my finger on 
 him if necessary." 
 
 However, for some time he took no steps 
 in the matter. He did not feel any par- 
 ticular animosity towards his rival now. He 
 believed he held the winning hand himself, 
 and De Maurepas' chances under present cir- 
 cumstances were so bad that he could afford 
 to despise him. Besides, he did not believe 
 that Mdlle. de Thouars had ever cared very 
 much about M. de Maurepas, or she would 
 surely never have played into his own hands 
 as she had done. But Leon de Sabran, though 
 remarkably acute in his ordinary estimate of 
 men and things, and watching the wheel of
 
 200 White and Red. 
 
 fortune with a steady and accurate eye to his 
 own interest, knew very little of the turns 
 and windings of a woman's mind, though he 
 prided himself on an intimate knowledge of 
 that labyrinth. 
 
 END OF VOL I. 
 
 London: 
 Kekby and Endean, Printers, &c., 440 (late 190) Oxford Street. 
 
 «/
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 823H3952W C001 v.1 
 White and red. 
 
 , lllllfllllllllllllllllllll 
 
 3 0112 088985657 
 
 »