“I wonder why she hates me! I thought we were friends.”
“There are no friends these days, little one,” he said almost involuntarily. “Only enemies or the indifferent—They are the least dangerous.”
“There are those whom we love.”
“You are thinking of Amédé?”
“And of you, chéri Bibi.”
“You believed me, didn’t you, little one, when I told you that young Colombe is safely out of harm’s way?”
“Yes,” she said, “I believed you.”
“Then you will hold your tongue about—about what you know?”
“I promise you, chéri Bibi. But I won’t allow Amédé to suffer for what I did,” she added with that determined little air of hers, which Chauvelin had learned to dread.
“He won’t. He can’t,” he declared, whilst an exclamation of impatience at her obstinacy almost escaped him. “Have I not told you—”
“We are waiting, Citizen Chauvelin,” Danou’s unctuous voice broke in at this point. “As you are near the door, perhaps you will call the guard.”
He did. And stood silently by, while Fleurette was ordered to follow the men. She obeyed, after a last, smiling glance at Bibi. No! she was not frightened; she felt sure that he could protect her, and so long as M’sieu’ Amédé was safe—
The last words she said before she finally passed through the door were:
“Poor old Louise! You’ll tell her, won’t you, Bibi, not to fret for me? and tell her to send me my crochet work if she can. I shall have plenty of time on my hands to get on with it.”
XXII
At four o’clock that afternoon the President of the Revolutionary Tribunal sitting at Orange received a summons to accompany Citizen Chauvelin, Representative of the National Convention on special mission, to Paris, there to present his last reports of the cases tried by him since the beginning of the year.
Public Prosecutor Isnard received the same summons; he hastened all in a flurry to the Hôtel de Ville to find Citizen Chauvelin.
“What does it all mean, citizen?” he asked.
Chauvelin shrugged his shoulders.
“I know not,” he replied. “The summons came by courier an hour ago. I have my calèche here. We could start at daybreak tomorrow and be in Valence before dark. The next day should see us in Lyons, and the middle of next week in Paris.”
“Can you not conjecture—?”
Once more Chauvelin shrugged.
“One never knows,” he said. “There must have come some denunciation. You and the President have your enemies, no doubt, as everyone else.”
Public Prosecutor Isnard’s flabby cheeks were the colour of lead.
“I have always done my duty,” he stammered.
“No doubt, no doubt,” Chauvelin responded lightly. “You’ll be able to justify yourself, I feel sure, citizen. But you know what these summons are. Impossible to argue—or to disobey.”
“Yes, I know that. But the business here—”
“What of it?”
“Our prisons are full. A batch of twenty at least should be tried every day. I have forty or fifty indictments ready now and we can keep the guillotine busy for at least a week. All that business will be at a standstill.”
“You will have to work twice as hard on your return, citizen,” Chauvelin retorted dryly.
The arrival of the President of the Tribunal put a temporary stop to the colloquy. He too was flurried and not a little scared. He knew about these summonses that would come from time to time from Paris without any warning. They meant reprimands of a certainty. Perhaps worse. One never knows with leaders of the Government over there. One moment they would shout: “Strike! Strike!” at the top of their voices, “let not the guillotine be idle!” They would frame laws to expedite the extermination of all the traitors and suspected traitors. The next, they would draw back, accuse you of over-zeal, over-cruelty, what not? See how Carrier had suffered! He had been sent to Nantes to purge the city of aristos and bourgeois and calotins; he had done his best; invented a new way of disposing of ninety priests all at once by the mere unmooring of a flat-bottomed craft, laden with those traitors, and on a given signal opening all the hatches and sinking the whole craft with her cargo.
Well! Carrier had done that. He had effectually purged Nantes of traitors. Nevertheless he was summoned to Paris, and his head rolled into the basket on the Place de la République, just as if he had been an aristo. Look at Danton, and at—but why recall it all? Anyhow, what a week of desperate anxiety this would be until Paris was reached. President Legrange had thoughts of flight, of taking refuge in the mountains as others had done. But Public Prosecutor Isnard dissuaded him. What was the good of running away? One always got caught, and then it would of a certainty be the guillotine. Chauvelin too was for immediate obedience.
“I too am summoned,” he said. “We are all in the same boat. As for the business here, it will have to wait until our return.”
Public Prosecutor Isnard could not suppress a taunt.
“There’s your daughter, Citizen Chauvelin,” he said. “We were going to make quick work of her. I had her indictment all ready. In fact the chief witness—a wench who looks like an anaemic rat—was in my study when your summons came.”
“I know, I know,” Chauvelin said with perfect indifference. “Well! all that can wait till our return.”
After which he added lightly: “At daybreak, citizens, my calèche will be ready outside the Chat Noir. I await you then and advise you to eat a good breakfast. Our first stop will be Montélimar, where we can get relays. In the meanwhile I bid you adieu. I still have much work to see to before the close of day.”
For the first time this day Chauvelin heaved a genuine sigh of satisfaction when the two men had departed. His first manoeuvre had succeeded admirably. With the President of the Tribunal and the Public Prosecutor out of the way, the business of the State would be at
