Il ne veulent plus perdre un moment d'une nuit si precieuse.
Lacretelle, tom.xii.
(They would not lose another moment of so precious a night.)It was late that night, and Rene-Francois Dumas, President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, had re-entered his cabinet, on his return from the Jacobin Club.With him were two men who might be said to represent, the one the moral, the other the physical force of the Reign of Terror: Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Accuser, and Francois Henriot, the General of the Parisian National Guard.
This formidable triumvirate were assembled to debate on the proceedings of the next day; and the three sister-witches over their hellish caldron were scarcely animated by a more fiend-like spirit, or engaged in more execrable designs, than these three heroes of the Revolution in their premeditated massacre of the morrow.
Dumas was but little altered in appearance since, in the earlier part of this narrative, he was presented to the reader, except that his manner was somewhat more short and severe, and his eye yet more restless.But he seemed almost a superior being by the side of his associates.Rene Dumas, born of respectable parents, and well educated, despite his ferocity, was not without a certain refinement, which perhaps rendered him the more acceptable to the precise and formal Robespierre.(Dumas was a beau in his way.His gala-dress was a BLOOD-RED COAT, with the finest ruffles.) But Henriot had been a lackey, a thief, a spy of the police; he had drunk the blood of Madame de Lamballe, and had risen to his present rank for no quality but his ruffianism;and Fouquier-Tinville, the son of a provincial agriculturist, and afterwards a clerk at the Bureau of the Police, was little less base in his manners, and yet more, from a certain loathsome buffoonery, revolting in his speech,--bull-headed, with black, sleek hair, with a narrow and livid forehead, with small eyes, that twinkled with a sinister malice; strongly and coarsely built, he looked what he was, the audacious bully of a lawless and relentless Bar.
Dumas trimmed the candles, and bent over the list of the victims for the morrow.
"It is a long catalogue," said the president; "eighty trials for one day! And Robespierre's orders to despatch the whole fournee are unequivocal.""Pooh!" said Fouquier, with a coarse, loud laugh; "we must try them en masse.I know how to deal with our jury.'Je pense, citoyens, que vous etes convaincus du crime des accuses?' (Ithink, citizens, that you are convinced of the crime of the accused.) Ha! ha!--the longer the list, the shorter the work.""Oh, yes," growled out Henriot, with an oath,--as usual, half-drunk, and lolling on his chair, with his spurred heels on the table,--"little Tinville is the man for despatch.""Citizen Henriot," said Dumas, gravely, "permit me to request thee to select another footstool; and for the rest, let me warn thee that to-morrow is a critical and important day; one that will decide the fate of France.""A fig for little France! Vive le Vertueux Robespierre, la Colonne de la Republique! (Long life to the virtuous Robespierre, the pillar of the Republic!) Plague on this talking; it is dry work.Hast thou no eau de vie in that little cupboard?"Dumas and Fouquier exchanged looks of disgust.Dumas shrugged his shoulders, and replied,--"It is to guard thee against eau de vie, Citizen General Henriot, that I have requested thee to meet me here.Listen if thou canst!""Oh, talk away! thy metier is to talk, mine to fight and to drink.""To-morrow, I tell thee then, the populace will be abroad; all factions will be astir.It is probable enough that they will even seek to arrest our tumbrils on their way to the guillotine.
Have thy men armed and ready; keep the streets clear; cut down without mercy whomsoever may obstruct the ways.""I understand," said Henriot, striking his sword so loudly that Dumas half-started at the clank,--"Black Henriot is no 'Indulgent.'""Look to it, then, citizen,--look to it! And hark thee," he added, with a grave and sombre brow, "if thou wouldst keep thine own head on thy shoulders, beware of the eau de vie.""My own head!--sacre mille tonnerres! Dost thou threaten the general of the Parisian army?"Dumas, like Robespierre, a precise atrabilious, and arrogant man, was about to retort, when the craftier Tinville laid his hand on his arm, and, turning to the general, said, "My dear Henriot, thy dauntless republicanism, which is too ready to give offence, must learn to take a reprimand from the representative of Republican Law.Seriously, mon cher, thou must be sober for the next three or four days; after the crisis is over, thou and I will drink a bottle together.Come, Dumas relax thine austerity, and shake hands with our friend.No quarrels amongst ourselves!"Dumas hesitated, and extended his hand, which the ruffian clasped; and, maudlin tears succeeding his ferocity, he half-sobbed, half-hiccoughed forth his protestations of civism and his promises of sobriety.
"Well, we depend on thee, mon general," said Dumas; "and now, since we shall all have need of vigour for to-morrow, go home and sleep soundly.""Yes, I forgive thee, Dumas,--I forgive thee.I am not vindictive,--I! but still, if a man threatens me; if a man insults me--" and, with the quick changes of intoxication, again his eyes gleamed fire through their foul tears.With some difficulty Fouquier succeeded at last in soothing the brute, and leading him from the chamber.But still, as some wild beast disappointed of a prey, he growled and snarled as his heavy tread descended the stairs.A tall trooper, mounted, was leading Henriot's horse to and fro the streets; and as the general waited at the porch till his attendant turned, a stranger stationed by the wall accosted him:
