An Episode Under the Terror

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AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC



Translated By
Clara Bell and others



DEDICATION

To Monsieur Guyonnet-Merville.

Is it not a necessity to explain to a public curious to know
everything, how I came to be sufficiently learned in the law to
carry on the business of my little world? And in so doing, am I
not bound to put on record the memory of the amiable and
intelligent man who, meeting the Scribe (another clerk-amateur) at
a ball, said, "Just give the office a turn; there is work for you
there, I assure you"? But do you need this public testimony to
feel assured of the affection of the writer?

DE BALZAC.



AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR



On the 22nd of January, 1793, towards eight o'clock in the evening, an
old lady came down the steep street that comes to an end opposite the
Church of Saint Laurent in the Faubourg Saint Martin. It had snowed so
heavily all day long that the lady's footsteps were scarcely audible;
the streets were deserted, and a feeling of dread, not unnatural amid
the silence, was further increased by the whole extent of the Terror
beneath which France was groaning in those days; what was more, the
old lady so far had met no one by the way. Her sight had long been
failing, so that the few foot passengers dispersed like shadows in the
distance over the wide thoroughfare through the faubourg, were quite
invisible to her by the light of the lanterns.

She had passed the end of the Rue des Morts, when she fancied that she
could hear the firm, heavy tread of a man walking behind her. Then it
seemed to her that she had heard that sound before, and dismayed by
the idea of being followed, she tried to walk faster toward a brightly
lit shop window, in the hope of verifying the suspicions which had
taken hold of her mind.

So soon as she stood in the shaft of light that streamed out across
the road, she turned her head suddenly, and caught sight of a human
figure looming through the fog. The dim vision was enough for her. For
one moment she reeled beneath an overpowering weight of dread, for she
could not doubt any longer that the man had followed her the whole way
from her own door; then the desire to escape from the spy gave her
strength. Unable to think clearly, she walked twice as fast as before,
as if it were possible to escape from a man who of course could move
much faster; and for some minutes she fled on, till, reaching a
pastry-cook's shop, she entered and sank rather than sat down upon a
chair by the counter.

A young woman busy with embroidery looked up from her work at the
rattling of the door-latch, and looked out through the square
window-panes. She seemed to recognize the old-fashioned violet silk
mantle, for she went at once to a drawer as if in search of something
put aside for the newcomer. Not only did this movement and the
expression of the woman's face show a very evident desire to be rid
as soon as possible of an unwelcome visitor, but she even permitted
herself an impatient exclamation when the drawer proved to be empty.
Without looking at the lady, she hurried from her desk into the back
shop and called to her husband, who appeared at once.

"Wherever have you put?----" she began mysteriously, glancing at the
customer by way of finishing her question.

The pastry-cook could only see the old lady's head-dress, a huge black
silk bonnet with knots of violet ribbon round it, but he looked at his
wife as if to say, "Did you think I should leave such a thing as that
lying about in your drawer?" and then vanished.

The old lady kept so still and silent that the shopkeeper's wife was
surprised. She went back to her, and on a nearer view a sudden impulse
of pity, blended perhaps with curiosity, got the better of her. The
old lady's face was naturally pale; she looked as though she secretly
practised austerities; but it was easy to see that she was paler than
usual from recent agitation of some kind. Her head-dress was so
arranged as to almost hide hair that was white, no doubt with age, for
there was not a trace of powder on the collar of her dress. The
extreme plainness of her dress lent an air of austerity to her face,
and her features were proud and grave. The manners and habits of
people of condition were so different from those of other classes in
former times that a noble was easily known, and the shopkeeper's wife
felt persuaded that her customer was a _ci-devant_, and that she had
been about the Court.

"Madame," she began with involuntary respect, forgetting that the
title was proscribed.

But the old lady made no answer. She was staring fixedly at the shop
windows as though some dreadful thing had taken shape against the
panes. The pastry-cook came back at that moment, and drew the lady
from her musings, by holding out a little cardboard box wrapped in
blue paper.

"What is the matter, citoyenne?" he asked.

"Nothing, nothing, my friends," she answered, in a gentle voice. She
looked up at the man as she spoke, as if to thank him by a glance; but
she saw the red cap on his head, and a cry broke from her. "Ah! _You_
have betrayed me!"

The man and his young wife replied by an indignant gesture, that
brought the color to the old lady's face; perhaps she felt relief,
perhaps she blushed for her suspicions.

"Forgive me!" she said, with a childlike sweetness in her tones. Then,
drawing a gold louis from her pocket, she held it out to the
pastry-cook. "That is the price agreed upon," she added.

There is a kind of want that is felt instinctively by those who know
want. The man and his wife looked at one another, then at the elderly
woman before them, and read the same thoughts in each other's eyes.
That bit of gold was so plainly the last. Her hands shook a little as
she held it out, looking at it sadly but ungrudgingly, as one who
knows the full extent of the sacrifice. Hunger and penury had carved
lines as easy to read in her face as the traces of asceticism and
fear. There were vestiges of bygone splendor in her clothes. She was
dressed in threadbare silk, a neat but well-worn mantle, and daintily
mended lace,--in the rags of former grandeur, in short. The shopkeeper
and his wife, drawn two ways by pity and self-interest, began by
lulling their consciences with words.

"You seem very poorly, citoyenne----"

"Perhaps madame might like to take something," the wife broke in.

"We have some very nice broth," added the pastry-cook.

"And it is so cold," continued his wife; "perhaps you have caught a
chill, madame, on your way here. But you can rest and warm yourself a
bit."

"We are not so black as the devil!" cried the man.

The kindly intention in the words and tones of the charitable couple
won the old lady's confidence. She said that a strange man had been
following her, and she was afraid to go home alone.

"Is that all!" returned he of the red bonnet; "wait for me,
citoyenne."

He handed the gold coin to his wife, and then went out to put on his
National Guard's uniform, impelled thereto by the idea of making some
adequate return for the money; an idea that sometimes slips into a
tradesman's head when he has been prodigiously overpaid for goods of
no great value. He took up his cap, buckled on his sabre, and came out
in full dress. But his wife had had time to reflect, and reflection,
as not unfrequently happens, closed the hand that kindly intentions
had opened. Feeling frightened and uneasy lest her husband might be
drawn into something unpleasant, she tried to catch at the skirt of
his coat, to hold him back, but he, good soul, obeying his charitable
first thought, brought out his offer to see the lady home, before his
wife could stop him.

"The man of whom the citoyenne is afraid is still prowling about the
shop, it seems," she said sharply.

"I am afraid so," said the lady innocently.

"How if it is a spy? . . . a plot? . . . Don't go. And take the box
away from her----"

The words whispered in the pastry-cook's ear cooled his hot fit of
courage down to zero.

"Oh! I will just go out and say a word or two. I will rid you of him
soon enough," he exclaimed, as he bounced out of the shop.

The old lady meanwhile, passive as a child and almost dazed, sat down
on her chair again. But the honest pastry-cook came back directly. A
countenance red enough to begin with, and further flushed by the
bake-house fire, was suddenly blanched; such terror perturbed him that
he reeled as he walked, and stared about him like a drunken man.

"Miserable aristocrat! Do you want to have our heads cut off?" he
shouted furiously. "You just take to your heels and never show
yourself here again. Don't come to me for materials for your plots."

He tried, as he spoke, to take away the little box which she had
slipped into one of her pockets. But at the touch of a profane hand on
her clothes, the stranger recovered youth and activity for a moment,
preferring to face the dangers of the street with no protector save
God, to the loss of the thing she had just paid for. She sprang to the
door, flung it open, and disappeared, leaving the husband and wife
dumfounded and quaking with fright.

Once outside in the street, she started away at a quick walk; but her
strength soon failed her. She heard the sound of the snow crunching
under a heavy step, and knew that the pitiless spy was on her track.
She was obliged to stop. He stopped likewise. From sheer terror, or
lack of intelligence, she did not dare to speak or to look at him. She
went slowly on; the man slackened his pace and fell behind so that he
could still keep her in sight. He might have been her very shadow.

Nine o'clock struck as the silent man and woman passed again by the
Church of Saint Laurent. It is in the nature of things that calm must
succeed to violent agitation, even in the weakest soul; for if feeling
is infinite, our capacity to feel is limited. So, as the stranger lady
met with no harm from her supposed persecutor, she tried to look upon
him as an unknown friend anxious to protect her. She thought of all
the circumstances in which the stranger had appeared, and put them
together, as if to find some ground for this comforting theory, and
felt inclined to credit him with good intentions rather than bad.

Forgetting the fright that he had given the pastry-cook, she walked on
with a firmer step through the upper end of the Faubourg Saint Martin;
and another half-hour's walk brought her to a house at the corner
where the road to the Barriere de Pantin turns off from the main
thoroughfare. Even at this day, the place is one of the least
frequented parts of Paris. The north wind sweeps over the
Buttes-Chaumont and Belleville, and whistles through the houses (the
Hovels rather), scattered over an almost uninhabited low-lying waste,
Where the fences are heaps of earth and bones. It was a
desolate-looking place, a fitting refuge for despair and misery.

The sight of it appeared to make an impression upon the relentless
pursuer of a poor creature so daring as to walk alone at night through
the silent streets. He stood in thought, and seemed by his attitude to
hesitate. She could see him dimly now, under the street lamp that sent
a faint, flickering light through the fog. Fear gave her eyes. She
saw, or thought she saw, something sinister about the stranger's
features. Her old terrors awoke; she took advantage of a kind of
hesitation on his part, slipped through the shadows to the door of the
solitary house, pressed a spring, and vanished swiftly as a phantom.

For awhile the stranger stood motionless, gazing up at the house. It
was in some sort a type of the wretched dwellings in the suburb; a
tumble-down hovel, built of rough stones, daubed over with a coat of
yellowish stucco, and so riven with great cracks that there seemed to
be danger lest the slightest puff of wind might blow it down. The
roof, covered with brown moss-grown tiles, had given way in several
places, and looked as though it might break down altogether under the
weight of the snow. The frames of the three windows on each story were
rotten with damp and warped by the sun; evidently the cold must find
its way inside. The house standing thus quite by itself looked like
some old tower that Time had forgotten to destroy. A faint light shone
from the attic windows pierced at irregular distances in the roof;
otherwise the whole building was in total darkness.

Meanwhile the old lady climbed not without difficulty up the rough,
clumsily built staircase, with a rope by way of a hand-rail. At the
door of the lodging in the attic she stopped and tapped mysteriously;
an old man brought forward a chair for her. She dropped into it at
once.

"Hide! hide!" she exclaimed, looking up at him. "Seldom as we leave
the house, everything that we do is known, and every step is
watched----"

"What is it now?" asked another elderly woman, sitting by the fire.

"The man that has been prowling about the house yesterday and to-day,
followed me to-night----"

At those words all three dwellers in the wretched den looked in each
other's faces and did not try to dissimulate the profound dread that
they felt. The old priest was the least overcome, probably because he
ran the greatest danger. If a brave man is weighed down by great
calamities or the yoke of persecution, he begins, as it were, by
making the sacrifice of himself; and thereafter every day of his life
becomes one more victory snatched from fate. But from the way in which
the women looked at him it was easy to see that their intense anxiety
was on his account.

"Why should our faith in God fail us, my sisters?" he said, in low but
fervent tones. "We sang His praises through the shrieks of murderers
and their victims at the Carmelites. If it was His will that I should
come alive out of that butchery, it was, no doubt, because I was
reserved for some fate which I am bound to endure without murmuring.
God will protect His own; He can do with them according to His will.
It is for you, not for me that we must think."

"No," answered one of the women. "What is our life compared to a
priest's life?"

"Once outside the Abbaye de Chelles, I look upon myself as dead,"
added the nun who had not left the house, while the Sister that had
just returned held out the little box to the priest.

"Here are the wafers . . . but I can hear some one coming up the
stairs."

At this, the three began to listen. The sound ceased.

"Do not be alarmed if somebody tries to come in," said the priest.
"Somebody on whom we could depend was to make all necessary
arrangements for crossing the frontier. He is to come for the letters
that I have written to the Duc de Langeais and the Marquis de
Beauseant, asking them to find some way of taking you out of this
dreadful country, and away from the death or the misery that waits for
you here."

"But are you not going to follow us?" the nuns cried under their
breath, almost despairingly.

"My post is here where the sufferers are," the priest said simply, and
the women said no more, but looked at their guest in reverent
admiration. He turned to the nun with the wafers.

"Sister Marthe," he said, "the messenger will say _Fiat Voluntas_
in answer to the word _Hosanna_."

"There is some one on the stairs!" cried the other nun, opening a
hiding-place contrived in the roof.

This time it was easy to hear, amid the deepest silence, a sound
echoing up the staircase; it was a man's tread on the steps covered
with dried lumps of mud. With some difficulty the priest slipped into
a kind of cupboard, and the nun flung some clothes over him.

"You can shut the door, Sister Agathe," he said in a muffled voice.

He was scarcely hidden before three raps sounded on the door. The holy
women looked into each other's eyes for counsel, and dared not say a
single word.

They seemed both to be about sixty years of age. They had lived out of
the world for forty years, and had grown so accustomed to the life of
the convent that they could scarcely imagine any other. To them, as to
plants kept in a hot-house, a change of air meant death. And so, when
the grating was broken down one morning, they knew with a shudder that
they were free. The effect produced by the Revolution upon their
simple souls is easy to imagine; it produced a temporary imbecility
not natural to them. They could not bring the ideas learned in the
convent into harmony with life and its difficulties; they could not
even understand their own position. They were like children whom
mothers have always cared for, deserted by their maternal providence.
And as a child cries, they betook themselves to prayer. Now, in the
presence of imminent danger, they were mute and passive, knowing no
defence save Christian resignation.

The man at the door, taking silence for consent, presented himself,
and the women shuddered. This was the prowler that had been making
inquiries about them for some time past. But they looked at him with
frightened curiosity, much as shy children stare silently at a
stranger; and neither of them moved.

The newcomer was a tall, burly man. Nothing in his behavior, bearing,
or expression suggested malignity as, following the example set by the
nuns, he stood motionless, while his eyes traveled round the room.

Two straw mats laid upon planks did duty as beds. On the one table,
placed in the middle of the room, stood a brass candlestick, several
plates, three knives, and a round loaf. A small fire burned in the
grate. A few bits of wood in a heap in a corner bore further witness
to the poverty of the recluses. You had only to look at the coating of
paint on the walls to discover the bad condition of the roof, and the
ceiling was a perfect network of brown stains made by rain-water. A
relic, saved no doubt from the wreck of the Abbaye de Chelles, stood
like an ornament on the chimney-piece. Three chairs, two boxes, and a
rickety chest of drawers completed the list of the furniture, but a
door beside the fireplace suggested an inner room beyond.

The brief inventory was soon made by the personage introduced into
their midst under such terrible auspices. It was with a compassionate
expression that he turned to the two women; he looked benevolently at
them, and seemed, at least, as much embarrassed as they. But the
strange silence did not last long, for presently the stranger began to
understand. He saw how inexperienced, how helpless (mentally
speaking), the two poor creatures were, and he tried to speak gently.

"I am far from coming as an enemy, citoyennes----" he began. Then he
suddenly broke off and went on, "Sisters, if anything should happen to
you, believe me, I shall have no share in it. I have come to ask a
favor of you."

Still the women were silent.

"If I am annoying you--if--if I am intruding, speak freely, and I will
go; but you must understand that I am entirely at your service; that
if I can do anything for you, you need not fear to make use of me. I,
and I only, perhaps, am above the law, since there is no King now."

There was such a ring of sincerity in the words that Sister Agathe
hastily pointed to a chair as if to bid their guest be seated. Sister
Agathe came of the house of Langeais; her manner seemed to indicate
that once she had been familiar with brilliant scenes, and had
breathed the air of courts. The stranger seemed half pleased, half
distressed when he understood her invitation; he waited to sit down
until the women were seated.

"You are giving shelter to a reverend father who refused to take the
oath, and escaped the massacres at the Carmelites by a miracle----"

"_Hosanna_!" Sister Agathe exclaimed eagerly, interrupting the
stranger, while she watched him with curious eyes.

"That is not the name, I think," he said.

"But, monsieur," Sister Marthe broke in quickly, "we have no priest
here, and----"

"In that case you should be more careful and on your guard," he
answered gently, stretching out his hand for a breviary that lay on
the table. "I do not think that you know Latin, and----"

He stopped; for, at the sight of the great emotion in the faces of the
two poor nuns, he was afraid that he had gone too far. They were
trembling, and the tears stood in their eyes.

"Do not fear," he said frankly. "I know your names and the name of
your guest. Three days ago I heard of your distress and devotion to
the venerable Abbe de----"

"Hush!" Sister Agathe cried, in the simplicity of her heart, as she
laid her finger on her lips.

"You see, Sisters, that if I had conceived the horrible idea of
betraying you, I could have given you up already, more than once----"

At the words the priest came out of his hiding-place and stood in
their midst.

"I cannot believe, monsieur, that you can be one of our persecutors,"
he said, addressing the stranger, "and I trust you. What do you want
with me?"

The priest's holy confidence, the nobleness expressed in every line in
his face, would have disarmed a murderer. For a moment the mysterious
stranger, who had brought an element of excitement into lives of
misery and resignation, gazed at the little group; then he turned to
the priest and said, as if making a confidence, "Father, I came to beg
you to celebrate a mass for the repose of the soul of--of--of an
august personage whose body will never rest in consecrated earth----"

Involuntarily the abbe shivered. As yet, neither of the Sisters
understood of whom the stranger was speaking; they sat with their
heads stretched out and faces turned towards the speaker, curiosity in
their whole attitude. The priest meanwhile, was scrutinizing the
stranger; there was no mistaking the anxiety in the man's face, the
ardent entreaty in his eyes.

"Very well," returned the abbe. "Come back at midnight. I shall be
ready to celebrate the only funeral service that it is in our power to
offer in expiation of the crime of which you speak."

A quiver ran through the stranger, but a sweet yet sober satisfaction
seemed to prevail over a hidden anguish. He took his leave
respectfully, and the three generous souls felt his unspoken
gratitude.

Two hours later, he came back and tapped at the garret door.
Mademoiselle de Beauseant showed the way into the second room of their
humble lodging. Everything had been made ready. The Sisters had moved
the old chest of drawers between the two chimneys, and covered its
quaint outlines over with a splendid altar cloth of green watered
silk.

The bare walls looked all the barer, because the one thing that hung
there was the great ivory and ebony crucifix, which of necessity
attracted the eyes. Four slender little altar candles, which the
Sisters had contrived to fasten into their places with sealing-wax,
gave a faint, pale light, almost absorbed by the walls; the rest of
the room lay well-nigh in the dark. But the dim brightness,
concentrated upon the holy things, looked like a ray from Heaven
shining down upon the unadorned shrine. The floor was reeking with
damp. An icy wind swept in through the chinks here and there, in a
roof that rose sharply on either side, after the fashion of attic
roofs. Nothing could be less imposing; yet perhaps, too, nothing could
be more solemn than this mournful ceremony. A silence so deep that
they could have heard the faintest sound of a voice on the Route
d'Allemagne, invested the night-piece with a kind of sombre majesty;
while the grandeur of the service--all the grander for the strong
contrast with the poor surroundings--produced a feeling of reverent
awe.

The Sisters kneeling on each side of the altar, regardless of the
deadly chill from the wet brick floor, were engaged in prayer, while
the priest, arrayed in pontifical vestments, brought out a golden
chalice set with gems; doubtless one of the sacred vessels saved from
the pillage of the Abbaye de Chelles. Beside a ciborium, the gift of
royal munificence, the wine and water for the holy sacrifice of the
mass stood ready in two glasses such as could scarcely be found in the
meanest tavern. For want of a missal, the priest had laid his breviary
on the altar, and a common earthenware plate was set for the washing
of hands that were pure and undefiled with blood. It was all so
infinitely great, yet so little, poverty-stricken yet noble, a
mingling of sacred and profane.

The stranger came forward reverently to kneel between the two nuns.
But the priest had tied crape round the chalice of the crucifix,
having no other way of marking the mass as a funeral service; it was
as if God himself had been in mourning. The man suddenly noticed this,
and the sight appeared to call up some overwhelming memory, for great
drops of sweat stood out on his broad forehead.

Then the four silent actors in the scene looked mysteriously at one
another; and their souls in emulation seemed to stir and communicate
the thoughts within them until all were melted into one feeling of awe
and pity. It seemed to them that the royal martyr whose remains had
been consumed with quicklime, had been called up by their yearning and
now stood, a shadow in their midst, in all the majesty of a king. They
were celebrating an anniversary service for the dead whose body lay
elsewhere. Under the disjointed laths and tiles, four Christians were
holding a funeral service without a coffin, and putting up prayers to
God for the soul of a King of France. No devotion could be purer than
this. It was a wonderful act of faith achieved without an
afterthought. Surely in the sight of God it was like the cup of cold
water which counterbalances the loftiest virtues. The prayers put up
by two feeble nuns and a priest represented the whole Monarchy, and
possibly at the same time, the Revolution found expression in the
stranger, for the remorse in his face was so great that it was
impossible not to think that he was fulfilling the vows of a boundless
repentance.