The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 3 of 6

"But that is not all!" said La Louve. "La Goualeuse must ask our pardon for having called us cowards. She must and she shall! If we don't put a stop to her goings on, she will soon leave us without the power of saying our soul is our own, and we are great fools not to have seen this sooner."

"Make her ask our pardon."

"On her knee."

"On both knees."

"Or we will serve her precisely the same as we did her protégée, Mont Saint-Jean!"

"Down on her knees! Down with her!"

"Lo! we are cowards, are we?"

"Dare to say it again!"

Fleur-de-Marie allowed this tumult to pass away, ere she replied to the many furious voices that were raging around her. Then, casting a mild and melancholy glance at the exasperated crowd, she said to La Louve, who persisted in vociferating, "Will you dare to call us cowards again?"

"You? Oh, no, not you! I call this poor woman, whom you have so roughly treated, whom you have dragged through the mud, and whose clothes you have nearly torn off, a coward. Do you not see how she trembles, and dares not even look at you? No, no! I say again, 'tis she who is a coward, for being thus afraid of you."

Fleur-de-Marie had touched the right chord; in vain might she have appealed to their sense of justice and duty, in order to allay their bitter irritation against poor Mont Saint-Jean; the stupid or brutalised minds of the prisoners would alike have been inaccessible to her pleadings; but, by addressing herself to that sentiment of generosity, which is never wholly extinct, even in the most depraved characters, she kindled a spark of pity, that required but skilful management to fan into a flame of commiseration, instead of hatred and violence. La Louve, amid their continued murmurings against La Goualeuse and her protégée, felt, and confessed, that their conduct had been both unwomanly and cowardly.

Fleur-de-Marie would not carry her first triumph too far. She contented herself with merely saying:

"Surely, if this poor creature, whom you call yours, to tease, to torment, to ill-use, – in fact, your souffre douleur, – be not worthy of your pity, her infant has done nothing to offend you. Did you forget, when striking the mother, that the unborn babe might suffer from your blows? And when she besought your mercy, 'twas not for herself, but her child. When she craves of you a morsel of bread, if, indeed, you have it to spare, 'tis not to satisfy her own hunger she begs it, but that her infant may live; and when, with streaming eyes, she implored of you to spare the few rags she had with so much difficulty collected together, it arose from a mother's love for that unseen treasure her heart so loves and prizes. This poor little patchwork cap, and the pieces of old mattresses she has so awkwardly sewed together, no doubt appear to you fit objects of mirth; but, for my own part, I feel far more inclined to cry than to laugh at seeing the poor creature's instinctive attempts to provide for her babe. So, if you laugh at Mont Saint-Jean, let me come in for my share of your ridicule."

Not the faintest attempt at a smile appeared on any countenance, and La Louve continued, with fixed gaze, to contemplate the little cap she still held in her hand.

"I know very well," said Fleur-de-Marie, drying her eyes with the back of her white and delicate hand, – "I know very well that you are not really ill-natured or cruel, and that you merely torment Mont Saint-Jean from thoughtlessness. But consider that she and her infant are one. If she held it in her arms, not only would you carefully avoid doing it the least injury, but I am quite sure, if it were cold, you would even take from your own garments to cover it. Would not you, La Louve? Oh, I know you would, every one of you!"

"To be sure we would, – every one pities a tender baby."

"That is quite natural."

"And if it cried with hunger, you would take the bread from your own mouth to feed it with. Would not you, La Louve?"

"That I would, and willingly, too! I am not more hard-hearted than other people!"

"Nor more are we!"

"A poor, helpless, little creature!"

"Who could have the heart to think of harming it?"

"They must be downright monsters!"

"Perfect savages!"

"Worse than wild beasts!"

"I told you so," resumed Fleur-de-Marie. "I said you were not intentionally unkind; and you have proved that you are good and pitying towards Mont Saint-Jean. The fault consisted in your not reflecting that, although her child is yet unborn, it is still liable to harm from any mischief that befalls its mother. That is all the wrong you have done."

"All the wrong we have done!" exclaimed La Louve, much excited. "But I say it is not all. You were right, La Goualeuse. We acted like a set of cowards; and you alone deserve to be called courageous, because you did not fear to tell us so, or shrink from us after you had told us. It is nonsense to seek to deny the fact that you are not a creature like us, – it is no use trying to persuade ourselves you are like such beings as we are, so we may as well give it up. I don't like to own it, but it is so; and I may just as well confess it. Just now, when we were all in the wrong, you had courage enough, not only to refuse to join us, but to tell us of our fault."

"That is true enough; and the fair-faced girl must have had a pretty stock of courage to tell us the truth so plainly to our faces."

"But, bless you, these blue-eyed people, who look so soft and gentle, if once they are worked up – "

"They become courageous as lions."

"Poor Mont Saint-Jean! She has good reason to be thankful to her!"

"What she says is true enough. We could not injure the mother without harming the child also."

"I never thought of that."

"Nor I either."

"But you see La Goualeuse did, – she never forgets anything."

"The idea of hurting an infant! horrible! Is it not?"

"I'm sure there is not one of us would do it for anything that could be offered us."

Nothing is more variable than popular passion, or more abrupt than its rapid transition from bad to good, and even the reverse. The simple yet touching arguments of Fleur-de-Marie had effected a powerful reaction in favour of Mont Saint-Jean, who shed tears of deep joy. Every heart seemed moved; for, as we have already said, the womanly feelings of the prisoners had been awakened, and they now felt a solicitude for the unhappy creature in proportion as they had formerly held her in dislike and contempt. All at once, La Louve, violent and impetuous in all her actions, twisted the little cap she held in her hand into a sort of purse, and feeling in her pocket brought out twenty sous, which she threw into the purse; then presenting it to her companions, exclaimed:

"Here is my twenty sous towards buying baby clothes for Mont Saint-Jean's child. We will cut them out and make them ourselves, in order that the work may cost nothing."

"Oh, yes, let us."

"To be sure, – let us all join!"

"I will for one."

"What a capital idea!"

"Poor creature!"

"Though she is so frightfully ugly, yet she has a mother's feelings the same as another."

"La Goualeuse was right. It is really enough to make one cry one's eyes out, to see what a wretched collection of rags the poor creature has scraped together for her baby."

"Well, I'll give thirty sous."

"And I ten."

"I'll give twenty sous."

"I've only got four sous, but I'll give them."