The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty

“But you are lucky – a knock! it is he. Run and open the door, Albertine.”

The hag, who was the wife – rather the female mate of Marat – rose from the stool on which she was squatting, and staggered half asleep towards the door.

Giddy with terror, Gilbert went instinctively towards Sebastian, ready to take him in his arms and flee.

“Just think of an automatic executioner,” said Marat, enthusiastically, “with no need of a man to set it going; which can, if the knife is changed a couple of times, cut off three hundred heads a-day!”

“And add,” said a bland, melodious voice, behind Marat, “which can cut off these heads without other sensation than a slight coolness around the neck.”

“Oh, is this you, doctor?” exclaimed Marat, turning towards a dapper little man of forty or so, whose gentle demeanor and spruce dress made a marked contrast with his host: in his hand he carried a small box such as children’s toys are kept in. “What are you bringing us?”

“A model of my machine, my dear Marat. But I see Dr. Gilbert here, unless I mistake,” said the little dandy, trying to pierce the obscurity.

“The same, sir,” said the other visitor bowing.

“Enchanted to meet you, sir; you are only too welcome, and I shall be happy to have the opinion of so distinguished a man on my invention. I must tell you, my dear Marat, that I have found a skillful carpenter, named Guidon, to make my machine on the working scale. He is dear, though, wanting five thousand five hundred francs; but no sacrifice is too great for me to make for humanity. In two months it will be built, and we can try it: I shall propose it to the Assembly. I hope you will approve of it in your excellent new paper, though, in sober earnest, the machine recommends itself, as you will see with your own eyes, Dr. Gilbert. But a few lines in the People’s Friend will do no harm.”

“Be easy on that score; it is not a few lines but a whole number that I shall dedicate to it.”

“You are too good, Marat; but I am not going to let you puff a pig in a poke.”

He took out of his pocket a much smaller box, in which a sound indicated that some little live thing or several such were fidgeting in their prison. This noise did not escape Marat’s subtle hearing.

“What have you got there?” he asked, putting out his hand towards the box.

“Mind,” said the doctor, drawing it back, “do not let them escape as we could not catch them again; they are mice whose heads we are going to nick off with the machine. What, are you going to leave us, Dr. Gilbert?”

“Alas, yes, sir, to my great regret; but my son, wounded by being run over by a horse just now, has been relieved by Friend Marat, to whom I also owe my own life in an almost similar affair. I have to thank him again. The boy needs a fresh bed, cares and repose: so that I cannot witness your interesting experiment.”

“But you will come and see the one with the real machine, in two months, you promise, doctor?”

“I pledge my word.”

“Doctor,” said Marat, “I need not say, keep my abode secret. If your friend Lafayette were to discover it he would have me shot like a dog, or hung like a thief.”

“Shooting, hanging,” exclaimed Guillotin. “But we shall put an end to these cannibal deaths. We shall have a death, soft, easy, instantaneous, such as old people, disgusted with their life and wishful to pass away like sages and philosophers, will prefer to a natural one. Come and see how it works, Marat!”

And without troubling any farther about Dr. Gilbert, the enthusiast opened his larger box and began to set up on the table a model apparatus which the surgeon regarded with curiosity equal to his enthusiasm.

Gilbert profited by their being so engaged, to carry away Sebastian, guided by Albertine who fastened up the outer door after him.

Once in the street, he felt the night wind chill the perspiration gathered on his brow.

“Heavens,” he muttered, “what will happen to a city where the cellars perhaps hide five hundred lovers of mankind who are occupied with such work as we have a sample of there? one day they will perform in broad daylight before the crowd.”

It was little distance to his house in St. Honore Street.

The cold revived Sebastian but his father would not let him walk. When he knocked at his door, a heavy step was heard approaching.

“Is that you, Dr. Gilbert?” challenged one within.

“That is Pitou’s voice,” said the boy.

“Praise heaven, Sebastian is found,” shouted Pitou on opening the door. “Master Billet,” he shouted still more loudly, “Sebastian is found, and all right, I hope, doctor?”

“Without any serious hurt, anyway,” replied the other, “Come, Sebastian.”

He carried his son up to his bed.

Pitou followed with the light; by his mud-bespattered shoes and stockings it was plain that he had come a long journey.

Indeed, after taking the broken-hearted Catherine home and learning from her lips that her deep sorrow came from Isidore Charny being called away to Paris, he took leave of her and Mother Billet, weeping by her bedside, and went home to Haramont. He walked so slowly that he did not get there until daybreak.

He fell off to sleep so that it was not till he awoke, that he found the youth’s letter. Immediately he started to overtake him.

He girded up with a leather strap, took some bread and with a walking stick in his fist, proceeded to town, where he arrived at eight that night.

He found neither the doctor nor his son at home – only Farmer Billet.

This hearty, robust man, unnerved by the bloody scenes witnessed since the Taking of the Bastile, of which enterprise he was the leader, had no news for Pitou.

Their sad waiting was rewarded by the double arrival.

Though tranquil about Sebastian, Pitou, when sent to bed had his budget to unfold to the farmer. Let no reader think that he revealed Catherine’s secrets and spoke of her amour with the young noble. The honest soul of the Commander of the Haramont National Guard would not stoop to that story. But he told Billet that the harvest was bad, the barley a failure, part of the wheat wind-laid, and the barns but a third full – and that he had found Catherine on the road.

Billet was little vexed about the grain, but the illness of his daughter distressed him.

He ran to Dr. Gilbert with a sad face as the latter was finishing this note to Andrea: “Be of good heart; the child is found, with no one hurt.”

“Dr. Gilbert, you were right to retain me in town where I might be useful; but everything has been going wrong in the country while the good man is away.”

Gilbert agreed with his friend that a hearty buxom girl like Catherine should not faint on the public road. Feeling with a parent, he responded:

“Go home, my dear Billet, since land and family call you. But do not forget that I shall claim you in the name of the country.”

Thus Billet returned home after an absence of three months, although he had intended to be away only a week.

Pitou followed him, bearing twenty-five louis destined from Gilbert for the equipment and maintenance of the Haramont National Guard.

Sebastian stayed with his father.

CHAPTER XVI

THE PORTRAIT OF CHARLES FIRST

A WEEK has passed since the events related. Everybody was saying: The Revolution is finished; the King is delivered from Versailles, and his courtiers and evil counsellors. The King is placed in life and actuality. He had heretofore the license to work wrong; now he has full liberty to do good.

The dread from the riots had brought the conservatives over to the royalty. The Assembly had been frightened, too, and saw that it depended on the King. A hundred and fifty of its members took to flight.