Scaramouche - Rafael Sabatini (comprehension books TXT) 📗

the scars of another injury. (A bull had horned him in the face when he was but a lad.) As if that were not enough to render his appearance terrible, his cheeks were deeply pock-marked. He was dressed untidily in a long scarlet coat that descended almost to his ankles, soiled buckskin breeches and boots with reversed tops. His shirt, none too clean, was open at the throat, the collar hanging limply over an unknotted cravat, displaying fully the muscular neck that rose like a pillar from his massive shoulders. He swung a cane that was almost a club in his left hand, and there was a cockade in his biscuit-coloured, conical hat. He carried himself with an aggressive, masterful air, that great head of his thrown back as if he were eternally at defiance.

Le Chapelier, whose manner was very grave, named him to Andre-Louis.

“This is M. Danton, a brother-lawyer, President of the Cordeliers, of whom you will have heard.”

Of course Andre-Louis had heard of him. Who had not, by then?

Looking at him now with interest, Andre-Louis wondered how it came that all, or nearly all the leading innovators, were pock-marked. Mirabeau, the journalist Desmoulins, the philanthropist Marat, Robespierre the little lawyer from Arras, this formidable fellow Danton, and several others he could call to mind all bore upon them the scars of smallpox. Almost he began to wonder was there any connection between the two. Did an attack of smallpox produce certain moral results which found expression in this way?

He dismissed the idle speculation, or rather it was shattered by the startling thunder of Danton’s voice.

“This — Chapelier has told me of you. He says that you are a patriotic —.”

More than by the tone was Andre-Louis startled by the obscenities with which the Colossus did not hesitate to interlard his first speech to a total stranger. He laughed outright. There was nothing else to do.

“If he has told you that, he has told you more than the truth! I am a patriot. The rest my modesty compels me to disavow.”

“You’re a joker too, it seems,” roared the other, but he laughed nevertheless, and the volume of it shook the windows. “There’s no offence in me. I am like that.”

“What a pity,” said Andre-Louis.

It disconcerted the king of the markets. “Eh? what’s this, Chapelier? Does he give himself airs, your friend here?”

The spruce Breton, a very petit-maitre in appearance by contrast with his companion, but nevertheless of a downright manner quite equal to Danton’s in brutality, though dispensing with the emphasis of foulness, shrugged as he answered him:

“It is merely that he doesn’t like your manners, which is not at all surprising. They are execrable.”

“Ah, bah! You are all like that, you — Bretons. Let’s come to business. You’ll have heard what took place in the Assembly yesterday? You haven’t? My God, where do you live? Have you heard that this scoundrel who calls himself King of France gave passage across French soil the other day to Austrian troops going to crush those who fight for liberty in Belgium? Have you heard that, by any chance?”

“Yes,” said Andre-Louis coldly, masking his irritation before the other’s hectoring manner. “I have heard that.”

“Oh! And what do you think of it?” arms akimbo, the Colossus towered above him.

Andre-Louis turned aside to Le Chapelier.

“I don’t think I understand. Have you brought this gentleman here to examine my conscience?”

“Name of a name! He’s prickly as a - porcupine!” Danton protested.

“No, no.” Le Chapelier was conciliatory, seeking to provide an antidote to the irritant administered by his companion. “We require your help, Andre. Danton here thinks that you are the very man for us. Listen now… “

“That’s it. You tell him,” Danton agreed. “You both talk the same mincing - sort of French. He’ll probably understand you.”

Le Chapelier went on without heeding the interruption. “This violation by the King of the obvious rights of a country engaged in framing a constitution that shall make it free has shattered every philanthropic illusion we still cherished. There are those who go so far as to proclaim the King the vowed enemy of France. But that, of course, is excessive.”

“Who says so?” blazed Danton, and swore horribly by way of conveying his total disagreement.

Le Chapelier waved him into silence, and proceeded.

“Anyhow, the matter has been more than enough, added to all the rest, to set us by the ears again in the Assembly. It is open war between the Third Estate and the Privileged.”

“Was it ever anything else?”

“Perhaps not; but it has assumed a new character. You’ll have heard of the duel between Lameth and the Duc de Castries?”

“A trifling affair.”

“In its results. But it might have been far other. Mirabeau is challenged and insulted now at every sitting. But he goes his way, cold-bloodedly wise. Others are not so circumspect; they meet insult with insult, blow with blow, and blood is being shed in private duels. The thing is reduced by these swordsmen of the nobility to a system.”

Andre-Louis nodded. He was thinking of Philippe de Vilmorin. “Yes,” he said, “it is an old trick of theirs. It is so simple and direct - like themselves. I wonder only that they didn’t hit upon this system sooner. In the early days of the States General, at Versailles, it might have had a better effect. Now, it comes a little late.”

“But they mean to make up for lost time - sacred name!” cried Danton. “Challenges are flying right and left between these bully-swordsmen, these spadassinicides, and poor devils of the robe who have never learnt to fence with anything but a quill. It’s just — murder. Yet if I were to go amongst messieurs les nobles and crunch an addled head or two with this stick of mine, snap a few aristocratic necks between these fingers which the good God has given me for the purpose, the law would send me to atone upon the gallows. This in a land that is striving after liberty. Why, Dieu me damne! I am not even allowed to keep my hat on in the theatre. But they - these —s!”

“He is right,” said Le Chapelier. “The thing has become unendurable, insufferable. Two days ago M. d’Ambly threatened Mirabeau with his cane before the whole Assembly. Yesterday M. de Faussigny leapt up and harangued his order by inviting murder. ‘Why don’t we fall on these scoundrels, sword in hand?’ he asked. Those were his very words: ‘Why don’t we fall on these scoundrels, sword in hand.’”

“It is so much simpler than lawmaking,” said Andre-Louis.

“Lagron, the deputy from Ancenis in the Loire, said something that we did not hear in answer. As he was leaving the Manege one of these bullies grossly insulted him. Lagron no more than used his elbow to push past when the fellow cried out that he had been struck, and issued his challenge. They fought this morning early in the Champs Elysees, and Lagron was killed, run through the stomach deliberately by a man who fought like a fencing-master, and poor Lagron did not even own a sword. He had to borrow one to go to the assignation.”

Andre-Louis - his mind ever on Vilmorin, whose case was here repeated, even to the details - was swept by a gust of passion. He clenched his hands, and his jaws set. Danton’s little eyes observed him keenly.

“Well? And what do you think of that? Noblesse oblige, eh? The thing is we must oblige them too, these —s. We must pay them back in the same coin; meet them with the same weapons. Abolish them; tumble these assassinateurs into the abyss of nothingness by the same means.”

“But how?”

“How? Name of God! haven’t I said it?”

“That is where we require your help,” Le Chapelier put in. “There must be men of patriotic feeling among the more advanced of your pupils. M. Danton’s idea is that a little band of these - say a half-dozen, with yourself at their head - might read these bullies a sharp lesson.”

Andre-Louis frowned.

“And how, precisely, had M. Danton thought that this might be done?”

M. Danton spoke for himself, vehemently.

“Why, thus: We post you in the Manege, at the hour when the Assembly is rising. We point out the six leading phlebotomists, and let you loose to insult them before they have time to insult any of the representatives. Then to-morrow morning, six — phlebotomists themselves phlebotomized secundum artem. That will give the others something to think about. It will give them a great deal to think about, by —! If necessary the dose may be repeated to ensure a cure. If you kill the —s, so much the better.”

He paused, his sallow face flushed with the enthusiasm of his idea. Andre-Louis stared at him inscrutably.

“Well, what do you say to that?”

“That it is most ingenious.” And Andre-Louis turned aside to look out of the window.

“And is that all you think of it?”

“I will not tell you what else I think of it because you probably would not understand. For you, M. Danton, there is at least this excuse that you did not know me. But you, Isaac - to bring this gentleman here with such a proposal!”

Le Chapelier was overwhelmed in confusion. “I confess I hesitated,” he apologized. “But M. Danton would not take my word for it that the proposal might not be to your taste.”

“I would not!” Danton broke in, bellowing. He swung upon Le Chapelier, brandishing his great arms. “You told me monsieur was a patriot. Patriotism knows no scruples. You call this mincing dancing-master a patriot?”

“Would you, monsieur, out of patriotism consent to become an assassin?”

“Of course I would. Haven’t I told you so? Haven’t I told you that I would gladly go among them with my club, and crack them like so many — fleas?”

“Why not, then?”

“Why not? Because I should get myself hanged. Haven’t I said so?”

“But what of that - being a patriot? Why not, like another Curtius, jump into the gulf, since you believe that your country would benefit by your death?”

M. Danton showed signs of exasperation. “Because my country will benefit more by my life.”

“Permit me, monsieur, to suffer from a similar vanity.”

“You? But where would be the danger to you? You would do your work under the cloak of duelling - as they do.”

“Have you reflected, monsieur, that the law will hardly regard a fencing-master who kills his opponent as an ordinary combatant, particularly if it can be shown that the fencing-master himself provoked the attack?”

“So! Name of a name!” M. Danton blew out his cheeks and delivered himself with withering scorn. “It comes to this, then: you are afraid!”

“You may think so if you choose - that I am afraid to do slyly and treacherously that which a thrasonical patriot like yourself is afraid of doing frankly and openly. I have other reasons. But that one should suffice you.”

Danton gasped. Then he swore more amazingly and variedly than ever.

“By —! you are right,” he admitted, to Andre-Louis’ amazement. “You are right, and I am wrong. I am as bad a patriot as you are, and I am a coward as well.” And he invoked the whole Pantheon to witness his self-denunciation. “Only, you see, I count for something: and if they take me and hang me, why, there it is! Monsieur, we must find some other way. Forgive the intrusion. Adieu!” He held out his enormous hand..

Le Chapelier stood hesitating, crestfallen.

“You understand, Andre? I am sorry that… “

“Say no more, please. Come and see me soon again. I would press you to remain, but it is striking nine, and the