"By heaven!" interrupted the Duke, "this is serious, and requires thought. Sacrifice the King!"

"What shall we do with the King?" questioned the Cardinal.

"In other times," replied Victoria, "they shut up do-nothing Kings in, the depths of a cloister. Force Louis XVI to abdicate. The Dauphin is an infant, you will const.i.tute a council of regents, composed of men of inflexibility. The shameless plebeians have too much blood; it will rise to their heads and give them a false energy. Bleed them, bleed them white, by repression and defeat. You have cannons and muskets; bombard them--blow them back into the depths they sprung from!"

"Ah, Marchioness," answered Plouernel, "you are the terrible archangel who with her flaming sword will defend the monarchy and n.o.bility. You are right. Safety lies in the abdication of the King and the formation of an inflexible council of regents. The monarch must be eliminated."

"Your most dangerous enemy, Count of Plouernel," replied she, "is the Third Estate! Has this bourgeoisie not told you, through Sieyes's organ, that up till now it has been nothing, it _which ought to be everything_!

There is the enemy. The people, its intoxication once pa.s.sed, will fall back into its misery and abject submissiveness. Having cried its cry in the public place, hunger will again seize it by the throat. 'The people, always ridden by want, has never the time to carry out the revolutions which it essays.' It is against the bourgeoisie that war to the knife must be carried on."

"For one proof out of a thousand of the truth of that statement,"

a.s.sented the Count, "is not Desmarais the lawyer one of the firiest tribunes in the National a.s.sembly?"

"My dear Count," said the cavalry officer to Plouernel, "did you not once treat a fellow of that name to a good cudgeling?"

"This Desmarais is himself the hero of that episode you refer to--the very same whippersnapper," answered the Count.

Aside Victoria said to herself: "And my brother John is the sweetheart of Mademoiselle Desmarais. A singular coincidence!"

"How did you come to give him his cudgel sauce, Count?" inquired the Cardinal.

"My counsel were arguing before the court a case involving an estate left to my brother, Abbot Plouernel, at present in Rome. Desmarais, forgetting the respect due to a man of my station, had the insolence to speak of me in terms hardly reverent. Informed of the fact by my attorneys, I had Desmarais seized by three of my servants one night as he was leaving his lodgings. They administered to him a sound drubbing with green sticks, after which my first lackey said to him: 'Sir, the thrashing which we have just had the honor of presenting to you, is from Monseigneur Plouernel, our master. Let the lesson be a profitable one.'"

"That," said the Viscount of Mirabeau, "was as good as the exquisite bastinado given to Arouet 'Voltaire' by the orders of the Prince of Rohan. That's the way to treat the bourgeoisie."

"Voltaire perhaps owes his fame to that little chastis.e.m.e.nt," suggested the Duke.

Coming back to the subject which was on everyone's mind, Abbot Morlet was the next to speak. "Madam the Marchioness has just uttered a great truth," said he. "The Church, the n.o.bility and royalty have no more terrible enemy than the bourgeoisie. In a state, three elements are necessary for a good organization--a G.o.d, a King, and a people. In order to carry on production and nourish the representatives of G.o.d and the King, the bourgeoisie should be suppressed."

"You are stingy in your allotments, Abbot," put in the Duke. "Would you, then, suppress the n.o.bility?"

"Who says _King_ says _n.o.bility_, and who says G.o.d says clergy," replied the Abbot. "In other words, if we wish to enjoy our privileges in peace, we must either extirpate or annul the bourgeoisie. Now, if we know how to use the people skilfully, they will come to our aid in this task of extirpation, for the plebeian hates a bourgeois more than he does a n.o.ble."

"Still, we see the populace gone mad over the deputies of the Third Estate. Several of them have already grown to the bulk of idols," said the Count.

"The bourgeoisie is, and will for still a long time remain, as hostile toward the people as it is toward the n.o.bles. The people know this, and that is what renders them hostile to the bourgeoisie," Victoria declared.

"It is marvellous how the thoughts of Madam the Marchioness accord with mine," exclaimed Abbot Morlet. "This antagonism which she has just mentioned will some day, perhaps, be our salvation; for I have no faith in the party of the court, composed in part, as it is, of young mad-caps."

"By heaven, Abbot," the whole company cried with one voice, "but you are impertinent!"

The Abbot shrugged his shoulders and continued impa.s.sively. "The revolution will plunge on in its course. First the royalty and the n.o.bility will fall beneath the blows of the tribunes of the Third Estate. Then will fall the Church--but only to rerise more powerful than before, to rear again the scaffolds and relight the pyres of the Inquisition."

"You are talking nonsense, Abbot," again put in Barrel Mirabeau. "Your prophecies partake of desperation."

"n.o.bility and royalty will disappear in the tempest," pursued the Abbot, "but it remains with us to make that disappearance one of the phases of a rebirth that will establish theocracy more powerful than ever. The instant will be decisive, momentous. It may one day come about that the bourgeoisie will merge its cause with that of the populace; that it will establish education free, unified, common, and uncontrolled by the Church; that it will abolish private property, making common to each and all the tools of production. Should the bourgeoisie decide thus to emanc.i.p.ate the proletariat, Throne and Altar are done for forever. It is for us, then, to nurse the antagonism already existent between the two, to envenom their mutual mistrust and reproaches. We must inflame the fear of the bourgeoisie for the populace; we must kindle the mistrust of the laborers toward the bourgeois; we must p.r.i.c.k the people on to excess; above all we must invoke to pillage and ma.s.sacre that furious beast which is not the people, but which in times of revolution is confounded with it--it is the _red specter_ which we must make use of to terrify the bourgeoisie and drive it to sunder its cause from that of the people. That is how we can countermine the revolution, and force the sovereigns of Europe to unite, to invade France, and to exterminate our enemies. Let us mingle, in disguise, with the people; let us provoke and irritate their appet.i.te for blood. Let us and our agents strike the first blows--pillage--burn--mow off heads--those of our friends, too, for we must above all avert suspicion; make the blood pour, to rouse the beast and put it in appet.i.te for sack and ma.s.sacre!"

Even Barrel Mirabeau was taken aback at this diatribe. "G.o.d's death, Sir Abbot," he cried with horror, "do you take us for gallows-tenders?"

"To make of us mowers of heads!" cried the Count of Plouernel. "'Tis insanity!"

"What exquisite fastidiousness!" retorted Morlet.

"You must have clean lost your senses, Abbot," returned Plouernel. "To dare to propose such a role to us--to make hyenas out of us!"

"We sons of the Church," answered the Abbot, "shall then a.s.sume the role ourselves, if it is so repugnant to you, gentlemen of the n.o.bility.[8]

You fear to soil your lace cuffs and silk stockings with mire and blood; we of the clergy, less dainty, and arrayed in coa.r.s.er garb, are free from any such false delicacy. We shall roll up our cuffs to the elbow, and perform our duty. We shall save you, then, my worthy gentlemen, with or without your aid; that will be an account to be settled afterwards between us."

"The priest has been vomited forth from h.e.l.l," thought Victoria, to herself. "He is a demon incarnate."

"We shall know how to save the monarchy, Sir Abbot," replied the Count of Plouernel to his friend Morlet, "even without the need of you folks of the Church; have no worry on that score. You forget that it was our sword which established the monarchy in Gaul and revived the Catholic Church, fourteen centuries ago, without the aid of the ca.s.socks of that time."

"Fine words--but empty," answered the Abbot. "If you are indeed so determined to draw the sword, Monsieur Count, will you then please tell me why, this very day, you resigned into the hands of the King the command of your regiment? Your boast comes at a poor season."

"You well know why, Monsieur Abbot," the Count retorted. "My regiment grew uncontrollable. The evil, however, dates far back. The first symptoms of insubordination in the French Guards showed themselves two years ago. A sergeant named Maurice"--Victoria shuddered--"had the insolence to pa.s.s me without saluting; and after I took off his cap with a stroke of my cane, he had the audacity to raise his hand against his colonel. I handed the mutineer over to the scourges till he dropped dead. That is how I avenge my honor."

As Monsieur Plouernel thus told the story of Sergeant Maurice, Victoria was unable to control herself. Her features contracted, and she fixed on Plouernel a look of menace. Then a sudden flush overspread her features. None of this was lost upon the Abbot. "What is this mystery?"

he pondered. "The Marchioness casts an implacable look at the Count, then she blushes--she who till now has been as pale as marble. What can there have been between this Italian Marchioness and this sergeant in the French Guards, now two years dead?"

At that moment the steward again entered the banquet hall and approached the Count of Plouernel.

"What news, Robert?" asked the latter.

"Terrible, my lord!"

"My Robert is not an optimist," explained Plouernel to the company. "In what does this terrible news consist?"

"The barriers of the Throne and St. Marcel are on fire. Everywhere the tocsin is clanging. The people of the districts are gathering in the churches."

"Behold the sway of our holy religion over the populace--they pray before the altars," cried the Cardinal briskly.

"Alas, my lord, it is not to pray, at all, that the rebels are swarming into the churches, but to listen to haranguers, and among others a comedian by the name of Collot D'Herbois, who preaches insurrection.

They trample the sacred vessels under foot, spit on the host, and tear down the priestly ornaments."

"Profanation! Sacrilege!" exclaimed the Cardinal, suddenly modifying his ideas on the sway of his faith over the people.

"One of our men," continued the steward, "saw them putting up bills which the rabble read by the light of their torches. One of the placards read: 'For sale, because of death, the business of Grand Master of Ceremonies. Inquire of the widow Breze.'"

"Ah, poor Baked one," sang out the Marquis, making a hideous pun on the unfortunate officer's name, "you are cooked! All they have to do now is to eat you!"

"On other placards were written in large letters, 'Names of the Traitors to the Nation: Louis Capet--Marie Antoinette--Provence--Artois--Conti--Bourbon--Polignac--Breteuil--Foulon'--and others."

"That is intended to point out these names to the fury of the populace!"

gasped the Viscount of Mirabeau.

"The rumor runs through Paris that to-morrow the people will rise in arms and march on Versailles."

"So much the better," exclaimed the Viscount. "They will be cut to pieces, this rabble. Cannoniers--to your pieces--fire!"