The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy (the little red hen read aloud .txt) 📗

The gunners are moved, frightened too by the decree which has placed them “outside the pale of the law.” Henriot, fearing mutiny if he persisted in the monstrous order to fire, withdraws his troops back to the Hôtel de Ville.

Some follow him; some do not. And Tallien goes back to the Hall of the Convention covered with glory.

Citizen Barras is promoted Commandant of the National Guard and of all forces at the disposal of the Convention, and ordered to recruit loyal troops that will stand up to the traitor Henriot and his ruffianly gendarmes. The latter are in open revolt against the Government; but, name of a name! Citizen Barras, with a few hundred patriots, will soon put reason⁠—and a few charges of gunpowder⁠—into them!

So, at five o’clock in the afternoon, whilst Henriot has once more collected his gendarmes and the remnants of his artillery outside the Hôtel de Ville, citizen Barras, accompanied by two aides-de-camp, goes forth on his recruiting mission. He makes the round of the city gates, wishing to find out what loyal soldiers amongst the National Guard the Convention can rely upon.

Chauvelin, on his way to the Rue de la Planchette, meets Barras at the Porte St. Antoine; and Barras is full of the news.

“Why were you not at your place at the Assembly, citizen Chauvelin?” he asks of his colleague. “It was the grandest moment I have ever witnessed! Tallien was superb, and Robespierre ignoble! And if we succeed in crushing that bloodthirsty monster once and for all, it will be a new era of civilisation and liberty!”

He halts, and continues with a fretful sigh:

“But we want soldiers⁠—loyal soldiers! All the troops that we can get! Henriot has the whole of the Municipal Gendarmerie at his command, with muskets and guns; and Robespierre can always sway that rabble with a word. We want men!⁠ ⁠… Men!⁠ ⁠…”

But Chauvelin is in no mood to listen. Robespierre’s fall or his triumph, what are they to him at this hour, when the curtain is about to fall on the final act of his own stupendous drama of revenge? Whatever happens, whoever remains in power, vengeance is his! The English spy in any event is sure of the guillotine. He is not the enemy of a party, but of the people of France. And the sovereignty of the people is not in question yet. Then, what matters if the wild beasts in the Convention are at one another’s throat?

So Chauvelin listens unmoved to Barras’ passionate tirades, and when the latter, puzzled at his colleague’s indifference, reiterates frowning:

“I must have all the troops I can get. You have some capable soldiers at your command always, citizen Chauvelin. Where are they now?”

Chauvelin retorts drily:

“At work. On business at least as important as taking sides in a quarrel between Robespierre and Tallien.”

“Pardi!⁠ ⁠…” Barras protests hotly.

But Chauvelin pays no further attention to him. A neighbouring church clock has just struck six. Within the hour his arch enemy will be in his hands! Never for a moment does he doubt that the bold adventurer will come to the lonely house in the Rue de la Planchette. Even hating the Englishman as he does, he knows that the latter would not endanger his wife’s safety by securing his own.

So Chauvelin turns on his heel, leaving Barras to fume and to threaten. At the angle of the Porte St. Antoine, he stumbles against and nearly knocks over a man who sits on the ground, with his back to the wall, munching a straw, his knees drawn up to his nose, a crimson cap pulled over his eyes, and his two long arms encircling his shins.

Chauvelin swore impatiently. His nerves were on the rack, and he was in no pleasant mood. The man, taken unawares, had uttered an oath, which died away in a racking fit of coughing. Chauvelin looked town, and saw the one long arm branded with the letter M the flesh still swollen and purple with the fire of the searing iron.

“Rateau!” he ejaculated roughly. “What are you doing here?”

Meek and servile, Rateau struggled with some difficulty to his feet.

“I have finished my work at Mother Théot’s, citizen,” he said humbly. “I was resting.”

Chauvelin kicked at him with the toe of his boot.

“Then go and rest elsewhere,” he muttered. “The gates of the city are not refuges for vagabonds.”

After which act of unnecessary brutality, his temper momentarily soothed, he turned on his heel and walked rapidly through the gate.

Barras had stood by during this brief interlude, vaguely interested in the little scene. But now, when the coalheaver lurched past him, one of his aides-de-camp remarked audibly:

“An unpleasant customer, citizen Chauvelin! Eh, friend?”

“I believe you!” Rateau replied readily enough. Then, with the mulish persistence of a gabby who is smarting under a wrong, he thrust out his branded arm right under citizen Barras’ nose. “See what he has done to me!”

Barras frowned.

“A convict, what? Then, how is it you are at large?”

“I am not a convict,” Rateau protested with sullen emphasis. “I am an innocent man, and a free citizen of the Republic. But I got in citizen Chauvelin’s way, what? He is always full of schemes⁠—”

“You are right there!” Barras retorted grimly. But the subject was not sufficiently interesting to engross his attention further. He had so many and such momentous things to do. Already he had nodded to his men and turned his back on the grimy coalheaver, who, shaken by a fit of coughing, unable to speak for the moment, had put out his grimy hand and gripped the deputy firmly by the sleeve.

“What is it now?” Barras ejaculated roughly.

“If you will but listen, citizen,” Rateau wheezed painfully, “I can tell you⁠—”

“What?”

“You were asking citizen Chauvelin where you could find some soldiers of the Republic to do you service.”

“Yes; I did.”

“Well,” Rateau rejoined, and an expression of malicious cunning distorted his ugly face. “I can tell you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I lodge in an empty warehouse over