Part 2 — XI NICOLE FORGOES THE SACRIFICE

The Maison Talaru, where Dossonville presented himself the next day, was the strangest of all the strange prisons improvised to suit the needs of the Revolution. Crowded with aristocrats, it remained unmolested, thanks to the enormous sums its lodgers paid for their security. In return, the inmates passed the time in agreeable intercourse, gambling, amusing themselves, and eating well. Schmidt, the jailer, not without a touch of humor, replaced the enormous dogs which attended his confrères by a peaceable lamb, whose neck and feet, decorated with pink bows, never failed to reassure the new arrivals.

Placed in his lucrative position by the aid of Dossonville, Schmidt had nothing to refuse his protector; but, as he was at bottom avaricious, he met him with an anxious query as to the probable duration of Nicole's stay.

"What difference can that make to you?" Dossonville replied.

"The fact is, citoyen," Schmidt began cautiously, "the citoyenne has a room to herself, at your request, which brings me in eighteen livres a day, which makes five hundred and forty livres a month, which makes six thousand six hundred livres a year. It's a good sum."

"Mordieu! what gratitude you must bear me, my friend!"

"Yes, yes!" the jailer hastened to say, but with a doubtful inflection. "The ci-devant Marquis of Talaru has only a little office, and he pays that price."

"But he is the proprietor, I thought?"

"He rented the place to the section for six thousand six hundred livres."

"The price you charge him?"

"Yes."

"Good! So he pays you back, for the privilege of remaining a prisoner in his own home, the amount of your rent. Excellent! And they say we republicans are lacking in wit! As for you, citoyen, reassure yourself; the Citoyenne Nicole is here but temporarily."

"Eh, she can stay as long as she wants," Schmidt said hastily, with an eye to future patronage. "I only wanted you to know that I have gratitude."

"And its extent," Dossonville replied with a smile. "Lead the way with your lamb. Did the citoyenne remain quiet? Did she eat anything?"

"A nothing—a sip and a nibble."

Somewhat apprehensive at this symptom, Dossonville approached her room and entered with a hearty "Well, and how goes it?"

Nicole, still exalted and intense, without replying, came forward, questioning him with a glance.

"Reassure yourself, Nicole; everything is for the best," he said. Then, unable to meet the persistent search of her eyes, he admitted grudgingly: "Javogues is dead."

She inclined her head.

"When you kill a man, you know it. There is an intuition. What do they say of me?"

"Everything turned out miraculously," Dossonville answered joyfully. "My men were on guard. No one entered. Javogues did not betray you. The belief is that you stabbed him to save yourself." Without noticing the revolt in her eyes, he continued eagerly: "You are in no danger. I have routed the Tapedures for the present. In a week I'll transfer you to the Madelonnettes, where I have Barabant safely tucked away. There you can wait until the tide sets against the Terrorists, and—"

He stopped, perceiving his blunder, while Nicole, smiling a little at his confusion, said:

"Why do you stop?"

As he began again lamely, she interrupted:

"No, Dossonville, you see as well as I that it cannot be. Why does every one wish to save me?"

"I do not understand."

"Yes, Dossonville, you do, and you see your mistake. You would make me out a murderess. I am not a murderess. I gave my life to the Nation in exchange for Javogues's. I killed him to save Barabant, to save a hundred others who would perish if he had lived. As a patriot, I killed him to deliver the Nation of a monster. Only my life can justify the deed. Don't you see?" She took his hands in hers, saying: "Dear friend, bring me before the tribunal and I will bless you."

"And Barabant?" Dossonville said desperately.

She shook her head. In her present exaltation all that seemed like another life which she had renounced for martyrdom.

"And Barabant?" repeated Dossonville.

"Tell him I did it to save him. He will venerate my memory." She added slowly: "Then I will hold a place in his heart that no woman can ever take. That will be for the best."

"Nicole, listen to me," cried Dossonville. "Listen, for what I say is true. Denounce yourself, and you will drag Barabant to his death. Once admit your reasons for killing Javogues, and Barabant dies as your accomplice."

"Oh, oh!"

Recoiling before this immense, inexorable obstacle to her purpose, Nicole fell to her knees, imploring him with her hands:

"No, no, Dossonville, you are telling me that to save me."

"Yes, to save you; but it is true. Decide for yourself, but your confession sends to the guillotine every friend you have!"

"Dossonville! Dossonville! You are plunging a dagger into my heart!"

"Listen, Nicole; I swear to you it is the truth," he said, raising her from the floor to a chair. "Denounce yourself now, nothing can save him. I say no more; decide for yourself."

Leaving her limp with despair, he departed, well satisfied that the leaven would work and that time and reflection would temper her resolve.

The next day, instead of returning, Dossonville sought out Barabant, obtaining from the frantic lover a letter to Nicole, which he had delivered by the medium of Schmidt. Each day, ignoring the demands the girl sent him by the jailer, Dossonville repeated the same tactics, confident in the power of lovers' logic to sway her finally.

One misfortune disturbed his triumph. On the day following Javogues's death, Louison informed him of the execution of Goursac. Dossonville, who from his fruitless efforts to save the Girondin had retained a deep sentiment of admiration for him, was much affected by the news, and yielding to his anger, scoured the city for traces of the three Tapedures. But despite the most diligent search in café, market, and boulevard, not a sign nor an echo could he find of the former despots.

On the ninth day of Nicole's imprisonment, Schmidt handed him a word from the girl, promising to reason over the decision. But Dossonville, though encouraged, divined that she would meet him with fresh arguments, and absented himself, until at the end of a week he received a second message:

"I renounce. Come."

Then, satisfied, he mounted to her room, grumbling to himself:

"Mordieu! one can't talk forever of dying when one is young and is loved!"

To his alarm, she received him without protestations, while her eyes, as they regarded him sadly, conceded the victory, but reproached him for the means.

"I must see him," she said simply. "Take me to him."

"What then?" Dossonville questioned, suspicious of her calm.

"I will do nothing to endanger his life."

"It is a promise?"

"I promise to do nothing that will endanger his life," she repeated carefully.

"She is still determined to sacrifice herself," he thought. "Mordieu! what an idea! Barabant will make her forget."

That night, toward eleven, he conducted the girl to Les Madelonnettes and restored her to Barabant. Only the lantern of the jailer lighted the sleeping halls as Nicole, with a cry, flew to her lover's arms. In their happiness they forgot their protector; but Dossonville, well content, withdrew, drawing after him the guard.

"You seem different," Barabant said at last. "What is it?"

"I have been away from you."

"How could you think of sacrificing yourself?" he said reproachfully.

"I was away from you," she repeated.

"You are here as my wife," he whispered. "Citoyenne Barabant, you understand?"

"Yes."

"But what is the matter? Why do you cry?"

"It is from joy," she said.

Then for the two prisoners began that weary cycle of the prisons, days so incredible that even those who survived looked back to them, doubting their memory. Everything became monotonous; scenes of heart-rending grief, partings of mothers and children, husbands torn from their wives, the experience of every day cloyed in the lassitude that came from too much suffering. Toward six in the afternoon they assembled in the main halls, listening at first with faltering courage, and then with indifference, to the turnkey reading the list of those summoned to the bar of the Revolutionary Tribunal.

The accused passed out, sullen, resigned, hoping, trusting to a straw, indifferent, tired, and their names were heard no more until the following day, when a turnkey, with brutal exultation, read the list of those who had perished on the guillotine.

A shriek, a sob, a curse, perhaps, would be heard, a sudden converging where a woman had fallen unconscious; but the rest stolidly, dully, counted the hours to the next summons. New arrivals, the daily papers, an occasional letter, brought them news of the fantastic, heaving outer world. It was Frimaire, with tales of the drownings at Nantes—republican marriages, where man and woman, tied together, were thrown into the river with brutal jests; Ventose, with its incredible news that Hébert, the savage Père Duchesne, and the bull-dogs of the Terror had fallen; Germinal, more amazing than all—Danton the lion and Camille Desmoulins, beloved of all, swept into the common fate. And all the time the prisons were bursting with suspects arriving by hundreds from the sections, faster than the guillotine could serve them.

In Nivôse the names of the Citoyen and Citoyenne Barabant were called, and hand in hand, without a word, they presented themselves. They entered the rolling chariot, seeing again the unfamiliar streets; but it was not to trial that they were borne, but to another prison, the Bénédictins Anglais. In Germinal they were again called, and once more expecting death, were again transferred, this time to the Prison des Quatre Nations, with a glimpse of the sun on the warm waters of the swollen Seine and the breath of the spring that, as in mockery, brought to their laps a shower of petals from the flowering trees. Twice again transferred, they passed through the Hôtel des Fermes and arrived in Fructidor at Les Carmes.

Here new tortures awaited them from the hands of their captors, clamoring for measures that would empty the prisons of this constantly swelling horde of suspects. First, the newspaper was forbidden them, then all communication with the outside world. On pretext that the aristocrats were tempting the guards by bribery, a search was instituted and all money and valuables were seized. Later, another search was ordered, and all knives, forks, razors, and pins were confiscated, until for a woman to keep a hair-pin exposed her to immediate trial.

These tyrannical measures, designed to provoke complaint, failing of their purpose, the jailers had recourse to petty tyranny, to insults and jibes. Families were separated that they might feel the force of punishment due their crimes. Miniatures of loved ones were snatched from their throats, with the brutal declaration that traitors had no right to consolation. The vilest bread, spoiled meat, decayed herring, were put before them, and when still no complaint was heard the turnkey, nonplussed and furious, exclaimed:

"Damned aristocrats! What, we feed you garbage and you won't complain!"

Of the two, Barabant, tired of the long suspense, no longer retained any desire to struggle. Nicole alone upheld his resolution, encouraging, inspiring, invigorating him with her indomitable gaiety.

In the long months, she had gone resolutely and without subterfuge over the problem of their relations. At first, in the new flush of happiness at again possessing him, she had yielded weakly, and, banishing from her mind the inexorable figure of Javogues, she had turned to life and hope. In the ascendancy that her courage took over the limp resolution of Barabant she felt in herself a new power, and in him a new need for her, that tempted her with the bright vision of marriage.

As she began to reason the mood passed. For the first time she saw him in the company of men of intelligence and education, with whom he discoursed on things that were to her a closed book. Then she realized that between Barabant and herself was a gulf of opportunity and interests which she could never bridge. He too, she soon realized, felt insensibly the distance between them: she passed for his wife, but the constant reiteration never suggested to him what it brought to her. To become his wife was to be a drag to his future; to remain as they were was to count the hours of her youth. So, vaguely, in a confused intuition, the girl, struggling to understand what was barred to her, grew to realize the limitations to her life. It was a tragedy whichever way she sought, but the tragedy had begun at the first breath of love that had awakened her. So renouncing the future, she returned to the thought of sacrifice,—to save Barabant and, appeasing the manes of Javogues, to dwell in her lover's heart a bright memory of youth and devotion, that would abide with him through life. Therein she took her courage and all her consolation.

With the arrival of Thermidor, the Terrorists, checked by the passive attitude of the prisoners, introduced, as suspects among the prisons, spies, who, succeeding by malignant imagination where brutality had failed, denounced to the Committee of Safety a conspiracy by which the prisoners were to escape by ropes from the windows, overpower the guards, and assassinate the Convention.

The pretext was found sufficient and elastic, and the hecatombs began. The spies, called moutons, prepared the lists each night that sent troops of twenty-five or more each day into the fatal chariots,—paralytics, men of seventy, feeble women and maidens,—the crimes of all comprised under the heading of intention to assassinate the Convention. As fast as the prisons were emptied the influx arrived, forcing more transfers.

On the 7th of Thermidor, for the fifth time, Nicole and Barabant were placed in the chariots, to be conveyed to another prison. Then Barabant, utterly tired, rebelled and said:

"At last it is too much. I want to end it. I can endure it no longer. Nicole, let me die now and be through with the suspense. We cannot escape. They are guillotining fifty a day. Next month it will be a hundred. Let us be firm and not await another month of torture."

"Then, Barabant, after all I have done," she said reproachfully, "you would send me to the guillotine?"

"You?"

"I follow where you go."

But their companions cried in alarm: "What are you doing?"

"You'll betray us all!"

"For mercy's sake, be silent!"

Barabant, without energy to pursue long any determination, resigned himself wearily to their protests and the appeal of Nicole.

The chariot rolled out into the streets, where the passers-by, weighted down with the prevailing depression, regarded them without hatred and without curiosity. Their journey led them by the gardens of the Luxembourg, resplendent with green and the glisten of cool fountains. In the chariot some one said:

"Pleasant weather!"

"What good does that do us?" grumbled another.

"I played there as a youngster; but what of that?"

"It does not seem different. How curious!"

"Where are we going?"

"To the Porte-Libre."

"I was there in Prairial."

"What's it like?"

"The same as the rest."

The whispered comments ceased as the prison loomed over them. The carts ground on the cobblestones, passing the gate. From somewhere among them a sigh was heard. A voice said, with a low laugh:

"Here's the inn. All down!"

They passed to the office for identification and enrolment, and on through a square into the strange corridor to the hall, where a score of inmates straggled in curiously to see if they recognized any of the new arrivals. There, to her despair, Nicole beheld, in the shadow of a pillar, screened a little from the crowd, the face she had dreaded for months to encounter—the malignant face of Cramoisin, the Tapedure.