The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic

"To this story of my sad life," declared Victoria, "there is nothing to add. Only to-day did I learn the name of the generous stranger to whom I owe my release from prison; and again I declare myself ready to pledge my devotion and service to the cause of humanity. Let the war upon the oppressors be implacable!"

"From the most obscure to the most illustrious, all devotion is equal in the eyes of our great cause, and in the eyes of its most noble martyr, the immortal crucified master of Nazareth," added the initiator, drawing aside the curtains of the dais and disclosing a Christ on a crucifix, surmounted with the level of equality. Then he continued, speaking to Victoria, "Woman, in the name of the poor carpenter of Nazareth, the friend of the sorrowing and the disinherited, the enemy of the priests and the rulers of his day – woman, do you swear faith, love, and obedience to our cause?"

"I swear!" answered Victoria in a ringing voice, raising her hands toward the crucifix. "I swear faith and obedience to our cause!"

"You are now ours as we are yours," replied the officiant, dropping the curtains. "From to-morrow on you will receive our instructions from our brother Franz. To work! The opening of the States General shall be the signal for the enfranchisement of the people. The thrones shall disappear beneath the scourge of the revolution!"[4 - See, for details of these scenes, and the questions and discourse of the initiators, Luchet's Essays on the Illuminati, chap. V. p. 23, and following; also Robinson, Proofs of a Conspiracy against All the Religions and all the Governments of Europe, vol. I, p. 114 and following.]

At that moment the watch posted in the corridor of the Voyant temple of liberty struck thrice precipitately on the door, giving the alarm. The lights which had cast their radiance over the meeting went out as if by magic, and a profound darkness took possession of the underground chamber.

From the obscurity was heard the voice of Anacharsis Clootz, the masked officiant, saying to the other Voyants who had been present at the initiation of Victoria Lebrenn:

"Baboeuf, go with Buonarotti, Danton and Condorcet by the right exit. I shall take the left, together with Franz, Loustalot, and our neophyte."

CHAPTER IV

LITTLE RODIN

While Anacharsis Clootz, the rich Dutch banker, later to be known as the "Orator of the Human Race," was thus presiding at the initiation of Victoria Lebrenn into the sect of the Voyants, Samuel, left alone with his wife by the departure of Franz of Gerolstein and his companion, had been just preparing to continue his dictation to Bathsheba, when he heard the street-outlook rapping discreetly at the gate. Samuel, hastening at the call, found the watcher holding by the hand a young boy who cried bitterly.

"The poor little fellow has lost his way," said the lookout, passing the boy in to Samuel. "I found him sitting down there by the buttress of the gate, sobbing. You would better keep him with you for the night, and to-morrow, in the daylight, he can be taken back to his folks – if you can find out from him where he lives."

Touched by the child's grief, Samuel took him into the lower room and both he and Bathsheba bent all their energies toward quieting him. The boy seemed to be about nine or ten years old. He was poorly clad, and of a wan and ailing appearance. His face presented none of the smiling prettiness usual with children of his age. His peaked features, his sickly and cadaverous pallor, his thin, pale lips, his sly and shifty, yet keen and observing glance – revealing a precocious cleverness – in fine, something low, mean and crafty in the look of the boy would, no doubt, have inspired aversion rather than sympathy in the breasts of the couple were it not for the cruel desertion of which he seemed the victim. Hardly had he entered the room when he dropped to his knees, crossed himself, and clasping his hands exclaimed through his tears:

"Blessed be You, Lord God, for having pitied Your little servant and led him to this good sir and this good lady. Save them a place in Your paradise!"

Dragging himself on his knees toward the Jew and his wife, the urchin kissed their hands effusively and with far too great a flood of gratitude for sincerity. Bathsheba took him on her knees, and said to him as she wiped his tear-stained face, "Don't cry, poor little one. We'll take care of you to-night, and to-morrow we'll take you home. But where do you live, and what is your name?"

"My name is Claude Rodin," answered the child; and he added, with a monstrous sigh, "The good God has been merciful to my parents, and took them to His holy paradise."

"Poor dear creature," answered Samuel, "you are, then, an orphan?"

"Alas, yes, good sir! My dear dead father used to be holy water dispenser at the Church of St. Medard. My dear dead mother used to rent out chairs in the same parish. They are now both with the angels; they are walking with the blessed saints."

"And where do you live, my poor child?"

"With Monsieur the Abbot Morlet, my good lady; a holy man of God, and my kind god-father."

"But how did it happen, my child, that you went astray at this late hour of the night?" asked Samuel. "You must have left home all alone?"

"Just after benediction," answered little Rodin, crossing himself devoutly, "Monsieur the Abbot, my good god-father, took me to walk with him in the Place Royale. There were a lot of people gathered around some mountebanks. I sinned!" cried the boy, beating his chest in contrition, "the Lord God punished me. It is my fault – my fault – my very great fault! Will God ever forgive me my sin?"

"But what great sin did you commit?" questioned Bathsheba.

"Mountebanks are heretics, fallen, and destined for hell," answered little Rodin, pressing his lips together with a wicked air, and striking his breast again. "I sinned, hideously sinned, in watching the games of those reprobates. The Lord God punished me by separating me from my good god-father. The swaying of the crowd carried him away from me. No use to look for him! No use to call him! It was impossible to find him. It was my very great fault!"

"And how did you get here from the Place Royale? The two points are far apart."

"Having said my prayers, both mental and oral, several times, in order to call to my aid the divine pity," replied Rodin emphatically and with an air of beatitude, "I started out to find my way home, away down at the end of the Roule suburb, near the Folie-Beaujon."

"Poor child," interrupted Bathsheba. "More than a league to travel! How I pity the dear child. Go on with your story," she said to him.

"It is a long way, true enough," added Samuel, "but all he had to do was to follow the boulevards. How did you come to lose the road?"

"A worthy gentleman, of whom I inquired the way, told me I would reach home quicker by taking another street. I walked all evening, but all I did was to get lost. The wrath of the Lord pursued me!" After sighing and beating his breast again, little Rodin continued: "Then, at last, passing your house, I felt so tired, so tired, that I fell on your door-step from weariness, and prayed the good God to come to my help. He deigned to hear the prayer of His little servant, and so you came to pity me, my good sir and lady. May God receive you in heaven!"

"You shall spend the night here, dear child, and to-morrow we will take you back to your god-father – so don't weep any more."

"Alas, good sir, the holy man will be so anxious! He will think me lost!"

"It is impossible now to calm his anxiety. But are you hungry or thirsty? Will you have something to eat or drink?"

"No, good mistress; only I'm terribly sleepy, and wish I could lie down."

"I can well believe it," said Bathsheba, addressing her spouse; "after such fatigue and worry, the little fellow must be worn out. It is only natural that he should be dying to go to sleep."

"But where shall we put him? We are in a tight fix. We have but one bed."

"Oh, good sir," eagerly broke in little Rodin, "don't put yourself out for me. I shall sleep very well right there, if you will let me;" and the boy indicated a re-enforced and brass-bound chest which his keen eye had spied, and which formed a seat at the further end of the room. "That will do me, very well."

"I never thought of the chest," remarked Samuel. "The boy is right. At his age one sleeps anywhere. With plenty of warm covering he will pass the night there almost as comfortably as in his own bed. It all comes out for the best."

"I'll go fetch a cushion and a cloak, and fix him up as well as possible," added Bathsheba, leaving the room.

The boy sat down and huddled himself together as if unable to resist the lassitude and sleep which weighed upon him. His head sank upon his chest, and his eyes closed. But immediately peeping under his lids he saw on the table close beside him pens, ink, and several sheets of freshly written paper. It was Samuel's unfinished letter to Levi.

"I surely was inspired in asking to sleep here," murmured the boy, aside; "let me recall without forgetting anything the orders of my good god-father," he thought, as the Jew's wife returned with the makeshift bedding she had gone in search of.

"Here, dear boy," she said, "I'll put you to bed and tuck you in well from the cold."

Simulating a heavy sleep, the urchin did not stir.

"Poor creature – asleep already," said Bathsheba. "I'll have to carry him." Lifting little Rodin in her arms she placed him on the chest, while Samuel arranged the cushion under his head and covered him up with the cloak. These cares completed, Samuel and his wife turned again to the completion of the note to their cousin Levi; but his thoughts having been disarranged by the frequent interruptions, Samuel asked his wife to re-read the letter from the beginning, after which he finished it, while the young boy was seemingly sound asleep.

Bathsheba had just taken down the last of her husband's dictation when suddenly another rap resounded at the gate.

"Samuel," cried the Jewess, pale and trembling, "that time the watcher gave the alarm signal."

Samuel went to the gate, opened the wicket and asked the lookout:

"What is up?"

"For nearly quarter of an hour I have remarked two men, closely wrapped in their cloaks, who came in from St. Gervais Street, and halted at the corner of the garden wall. They examined the house minutely. Immediately I fell on one of the stone benches in the dark passageway and pretended to be asleep. Two or three times they passed by without noticing me; they kept walking up and down, now examining the exterior of the building, now conversing in low tones. Finally they saw me, and said aloud – 'There is a wine-bibber sleeping himself sober.' They walked once more to some distance; then returning towards me, I heard them utter these words: 'And now, let us report to the sergeant.' They quickened their steps and vanished around the corner of St. Francois Street. Now you are warned, Master Samuel."

"When you first observed them, was anyone within?" asked Samuel. "Are you sure of that, lookout?"

"No one – except the child I brought to you, and whom you took in yourself."

"These two men must be attached to the police, since they intended to go straight to the sergeant; could their suspicions as to what went on here have been awakened by their observations to-night?"