The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 6 of 6

"He seems so good that I easily understand your love for him."

"Love for him!" said the Chourineur, with deep and concentrated emotion. "Yes, yes, Martial, – to lie on the earth, eat black bread, be his dog, to be where he was, I asked no more. But that was too much, – he would not consent."

"He has been very generous towards you!"

"Yet it is not for that I love him, but because he told me I had heart and honour. Yes, and that at a time when I was as fierce as a brute beast. And he made me understand what was good in me, and that I had repented, and, after suffering great misery, had worked hard for an honest livelihood, although all the world considered me as a thorough ruffian, – and so, when M. Rodolph said these words to me, my heart beat high and proudly, and from this time I would go through fire and water to serve him."

"Why, it is because you are better than you were that you ought not to have any of those forebodings. Your dream is nothing."

"We shall see. I shall not try and get into any mischief, for I cannot have any worse misfortune than not to see again M. Rodolph, whom I hoped never again to leave. I should have been in my way, you see, always with him, body and soul, – always ready. Never mind, perhaps he was wrong, – I am only a worm at his feet; but sometimes, Martial, the smallest may be useful to the greatest."

"One day, perhaps, you may see him."

"Oh, no; he said to me, 'My good fellow, you must promise never to seek nor see me, – that will be doing me a service.' So, of course, Martial, I promised; and I'll keep my word, though it is very hard."

"Once at Algeria, you will forget all your vexations."

"Yes, yes; I'm an old trooper, Martial, and will face the Bedouins."

"Come, come, you'll soon recover your spirits. We'll farm and hunt together, and live together, or separate, just as you like. We'll bring up the children like honest people, and you shall be their uncle, – for we are brothers, and my wife is good at heart; and so we'll be happy, eh?" And Martial extended his hand to the Chourineur.

"So we will, Martial," was the reply; "and my sorrow will kill me, or I shall kill my sorrow."

"It will not kill you. We shall pass our days together; and every evening we will say, 'brother, thanks to M. Rodolph,' – that shall be our prayer to, him."

"Martial, you comfort me."

"Well, then, that is all right; and as to that stupid-dream, you will think no more of it, I hope?"

"I'll try."

"Well, then, you'll come to us at four o'clock; the diligence goes at five."

"Agreed. But I will get out here and walk to the barrier at Charenton, where I will await M. Rodolph, that I may see him pass."

The coach stopped, and the Chourineur alighted.

CHAPTER XI

THE FINGER OF PROVIDENCE

The Chourineur had forgotten that it was the day after mid-Lent, and was consequently greatly surprised at the sight, at once hideous and singular, which presented itself to his view when he arrived at the exterior boulevard, which he was traversing to reach the barrier of Charenton.

He found himself suddenly in the thickest of a dense throng of people, who were coming out of the cabarets of the Faubourg de la Glacière, in order to reach the Boulevard St. Jacques, where the execution was to take place.

Although it was broad daylight, there was still heard the noisy music of the public-houses, whence issued particularly the loud echoes of the cornets-à-piston. The pencil of Callot, of Rembrandt, or of Goya is requisite to limn the strange, hideous, and fantastical appearance of this multitude.

Almost all of them, men, women, and children, were attired in old masquerade costumes. Those who could not afford this expense had on their clothes rags of bright colours. Some young men were dressed in women's clothes, half torn and soiled with mud. All their countenances, haggard from debauchery and vice, and furrowed by intoxication, sparkled with savage delight at the idea that, after a night of filthy orgies, they should see two women executed on the scaffold prepared for them.

The foul and fetid scum of the population of Paris, – this vast mob – was formed of thieves and abandoned women, who every day tax crime for their daily bread, and every evening return to their lairs with their vicious spoils.[1 - It is calculated that there are in Paris 30,000 persons who have no other means of existence but theft.]

The crowd entirely choked up the means of circulation, and, in spite of his gigantic strength, the Chourineur was compelled to remain almost motionless in the midst of this compact throng. He was, however, willing to remain so, as the prince would not pass the barrier of Charenton until eleven o'clock, and it was not yet seven; and he had a singular spectacle before him.

In a large, low apartment, occupied at one end by musicians, surrounded by benches and tables laden with the fragments of a repast, broken plates, empty bottles, etc., a dozen men and women, in various disguises and half drunk, were dancing with the utmost excitement that frantic and obscene dance called La Chahut.

Amongst the dissipated revellers who figured in this saturnalia, the Chourineur remarked two couples who obtained the most overwhelming applause, from the revolting grossness of their attitudes, their gesticulations, and their language. The first couple consisted of a man disguised as a bear, and nearly covered with a waistcoat and trousers of black sheepskin. The head of the animal, being too troublesome to carry, had been replaced by a kind of hood with long hair, which entirely covered his features; two holes for his eyes, and a long one for his mouth, allowed him to see, speak, and breathe.

This man – one of the prisoners escaped from La Force (amongst whom were Barbillon and the two murderers arrested at the ogress's at the tapis-franc, at the beginning of this recital) – this man so masked was Nicholas Martial, the son and brother of the two women for whom the scaffold was prepared but a few paces distant.

Induced into this act of atrocious insensibility and infamous audacity by one of his associates, this wretch had dared with this disguise to join in the last revels of the carnival. The woman who danced with him, dressed as a vivandière, wore a round leather cap with ragged ribands, a kind of bodice of threadbare red cloth, ornamented with three rows of brass buttons, a green skirt, and trousers of white calico. Her black hair fell in disorder all about her head, and her haggard and swollen features evinced the utmost effrontery and immodesty. The vis-à-vis of these dancers were no less disgusting.

The man, who was very tall, and disguised as Robert Macaire, had so begrimed his features with soot that it was impossible to recognise him, and, besides, a large bandage covered his left eye; the white of the right eye being thus the more heightened, rendered him still more hideous. The lower part of the Skeleton's countenance (for it was he) disappeared in a high neckcloth made of an old red shawl.

Wearing an old, white, napless hat with a crushed side, dirty, and without a crown, a green coat in rags, and tight mulberry-coloured pantaloons, patched in every direction, and tied around the instep with pieces of packthread, this assassin outraged the most outré and revolting attitudes of the Chahut, darting from right to left, before and behind, his lanky limbs as hard as steel, and twisting and twining, and springing and bounding with such vigour and elasticity, that he seemed set in motion by steel springs.

A worthy coryphée of this filthy saturnalia, his lady partner, a tall and active creature with impudent and flushed features, attired en débardeur, wore a flat cap on one side of a powdered wig with a thick pigtail, a waistcoat and trousers of worn green velvet, adjusted to her shape by an orange scarf, with long ends flowing down her back.

A fat, vulgar, coarse woman, the brutal ogress of the tapis-franc, was seated on one of the benches, holding on her knees the plaid cloaks of this creature and the vivandière, whilst they were rivalling the bounds, and jumps, and gross postures of the Skeleton and Nicholas Martial.

Amongst the other dancers there was a lame boy, dressed like a devil, by means of a black net vest, much too large for him, red drawers, and a green mask hideous and grotesque. In spite of his infirmity, this little monster was wonderfully agile, and his precocious depravity equalled, if it could not exceed, that of his detestable companions, and he gambolled as impudently as any of them before a fat woman, dressed as a shepherdess, who excited her partner the more by her shouts of laughter.

No charge having been raised against Tortillard (our readers have recognised him), and Bras Rouge having been for the while left in prison, the boy, at his father's request, was reclaimed by Micou, the receiver of the passage of the Brasserie, who had not been denounced by his accomplices.

As secondary figures in this picture, let imagination conceive all there is of the lowest, most shameful, and most monstrous, in this idle, wanton, insolent, rapacious, atheistical, sanguinary assemblage of infamy, which is most hostile to social order, and to which we would call the attention of all thinking persons as our recital draws to a close.

Excited by the shouts of laughter and the cheers of the mob assembled around the windows, the actors in the infamous dance cried to the orchestra for a finale galop. The musicians, delighted to reach the end of their labours, complied with the general wish, and played a galoppade with the utmost energy and rapidity. At this the excitement redoubled; the couples encircled each other and dashed away, following the Skeleton and his partner, who led off their infernal round amidst the wildest cries and acclamations.

The crowd was so thick, so dense, and the evolutions so multiplied and rapid, that these creatures, inflamed with wine, exercise, and noise, their intoxication became delirious frenzy, and they soon ceased to have space for their movements. The Skeleton then cried, in a breathless voice, "Look out at the door! We will go out on to the boulevard."

"Yes, yes!" cried the mob at the windows; "a galop as far as the Barrière St. Jacques!"

"The two 'mots' will soon be here."

"The headsman cuts double! How funny!"

"Yes, with a cornet-à-piston accompaniment."

"I'll ask the widow to be my partner."

"And I the daughter."

"Death to the informers!"

"Long live the prigs and lads of steel!" cried the Skeleton in a voice of thunder, as he and the dancers, forcing their way in the midst of the mass, set the whole body in motion; and then were heard cries, and imprecations, and shouts of laughter, which had nothing human in their sound.

Suddenly this uproar reached its height by two fresh incidents. The vehicle which contained the criminals, accompanied by its escort of cavalry, appeared at the angle of the boulevard, and then all the mob rushed in that direction, shouting and roaring with ferocious delight.

At this moment, also, the crowd was met by a courier coming from the Boulevard des Invalides, and galloping towards the Barrière de Charenton. He was dressed in a light blue jacket with yellow collar, with a double row of silver lace down the seams, but, as a mark of deep mourning, he wore black breeches and high boots; his cap also, with a broad band of silver, was encircled with crape, and on the winkers of his horse were the arms of Gerolstein.