PIERRE, SANSCULOTTE BY LA SALLE CORBELL PICKETT.

You wonder why the world should be so fair to me today—to me, Pierre of the People, the poor oppressed people, whose heart’s blood has been crushed out until it rushed forth in floods that cover the streets of Paris with a crimson stain?

Even for me the sun shines today and the flowers bloom with a fragrance they never breathed before—the red stains that clot the dust in the street are great crimson roses blossoming with a glory never before worn by flowers.

“Pierre,” said Monsieur le Géneral, “you are not a traitor to France, are you?”

“No, Monsieur,” I said sturdily, setting my teeth and giving him as steady a look as he was bending upon me.

I told the truth. We who would free France from the rule of the aristocrats are not traitors. Rather are they traitors who would make of our nation a stagnant pool of slavery and corruption.

Monsieur le Géneral looked at me again, keenly.

“We may not agree upon definitions.”

“My definitions are from the book of real life, Monsieur le Géneral. They are always in agreement with the truth. Monsieur knows, though, that he may trust me for himself, however my definitions may differ from his own. He has not forgotten that I saved his life once from an English sword. I know the memory is graven upon the mind of Monsieur le Géneral as deeply as the scar is cut in my arm.”

“I think you love me, Pierre,” he replied.

I laid my hand on my heart, bowing till my head almost touched one of the crimson roses in the velvet of Monsieur’s carpet.

“More than my life, Monsieur.”

What could I say fairer than that, for was not life the dearest thing to me then?

So matters stood with my lord and me on that morning when he sent me with a missive to Mademoiselle Denise. To her or to another, what mattered it to me? They were all young demoiselles and, as such, of far less consequence than the silver mounting of my lord’s pistols or the flash of his gold-sheathed sword.

As I crossed the courtyard a dark-eyed page, idling by the fountain that sparkled in the sun, was singing:

With that refrain ringing in my ears, “Never a rose like my lady’s face,” I went from the shining flood of sunshine into a hall that seemed like dusky twilight after the outside brilliance. But in the centre was a space where the sunlight drifted down through an open window into a circle of radiance and in the middle of it stood Mademoiselle, a shining figure that dimmed all other light. She was clad in white and gold, and the long folds of her robe lay in shimmering snow along the marble floor. Her amber hair was like a river that the morning sun-rays cross. Her eyes shone like great sapphires set under long lashes of gold and arched over by golden brows. It was as if the light of a thousand suns had centered in one fair woman.

The scar, once a proud and happy place upon my arm, burned as if a coal of fire had been dropped upon it and for one wild moment I could have cut from me the arm that had interposed to save the life of my master. Then I knelt before her, when she had waved her hand for my approach, and presented the letter. She looked at it carelessly and turned her eyes from it to me where I knelt and beckoned me to rise.

“Tell me of yourself,” she said in a voice that was like the softest strain of a lute. “Who are you?”

Who was I? Yesterday I would have said a man. Had I not done a man’s part in battle? Was it not a man’s right arm that had stretched itself forth to save a great life? Now I was—nothing. There was not a grain of dust in the streets of Paris smaller than I.

“Nothing, my lady,” I said, not daring to lift my eyes to her face, nor scarcely to look at her hand lying like a white lily on the snow of her gown.

“That proves you very much,” she said, “for a man never thinks himself nothing till he has a standard of merit with which to compare himself and the possession of such a standard is a proof of worth.”

“I am only Pierre—the servant of Monsieur le Géneral.”

With what pride I should yesterday have avowed myself the servant of so brave a soldier and so grand a gentleman. With what hatred of him and what contempt for myself did I make that statement today. Did not the great gulf between the gold and white Queen of the World deepen and widen infinitely with the significance of my words?

“Monsieur le Géneral is fortunate.”

She wrote a line on a leaf from a gold and white tablet and gave it to me, sealed with a golden seal.

I bowed low and went out from her presence with my face toward her. At the entrance I lifted my eyes and looked dazzled at the spot of light in the centre of the great hall. Thus I passed out into the courtyard flooded with sunlight which seemed dim in comparison with that supernal radiance.

The dark-eyed page had seated himself on the rim of the basin into which the fountain fell with a tinkling music that kept rhythm with the song he was still singing. With the refrain yet ringing in my ears, “Never a rose like my lady’s face,” I went back to Monsieur le Géneral with the missive she had given me.

A little later the blood of the Paris streets spattered to the gold robes of the court. I saw the head of Monsieur le Géneral carried by me on a spike and the dark-faced, ragged man who bore it sang a ribald song as he looked mockingly up into the face, one word of which would have been his death-warrant had it been uttered when that head yet sat upon the stately shoulders. For a moment a sorrowful thought of the days when I loved him lay like a cloud upon my mind, but what time was there then for thinking of love—at least of that love.

I left the crowd of raging demons and ran across the courtyard where the fountain yet tinkled merrily down into the basin. No dark-eyed page loitered there and sang of the red rose and his lady’s face to the music of the falling water. I dashed past the fountain and ran into the great hall. It was empty and there was the print of muddy feet trampled over the marble floor. I went to the Leader of the People.

“Where is Mademoiselle Denise?”

His wicked eyes flashed vindictively.

“Ah, Pierre, if you owe a grudge to the aristocracy of France you can feed to it now the most luxurious viands of earth. Even she is offered to the vengeance of justice and her head will grace a pike as none other has ever done.”

I threw myself down before him.

“Citizen, what has she done to you or to France?”

“Done? She has done nothing. She is. That is the crime of an aristocrat.”

I pleaded with him for the life of that woman whose gold and white beauty was the fairest thing I had ever gazed upon and whose beautiful heart looked out from eyes that showed all its goodness and truth. Citizen Beauget had received many services at my hands in the days when I was near the powers of the court because the favorite of the king had owed his life to me.

“Eh!” he cried. “A citizen of France seeking to save the life of one of the oppressors of France? Ah, I have it. If she will marry you, good Pierre, her life is yours. Ha, the white and gold lily of the court marry Pierre, the Sansculotte! Beautiful thought! Perhaps she will wish to save her life.”

Then I stood up before him and looked at him with a scorn before which he dropped his gaze.

“Citizen Beauget, Mademoiselle will marry where she loves or kiss the cruel ‘Maiden of Liberty’ with pure lips and a brave heart.”

But I took the paper he gave me and went straight to the prison where she stood, and even there space was bright because of her. She turned and looked at me and the glow that comes once to a woman’s face was in hers when her eyes fell on me.

“You have come to help me die,” she said reaching out her hand.

I took the hand and fell upon my knees and pressed it to my lips.

“Nay, not so, Mademoiselle. I come to bid you live, if I read truly what is written on your face.”

Hand in hand we went out into the night and neither the terror of the living nor the faces of the dead staring up into the moon-lit sky marred the peace that filled our hearts.