Paris: September, 1792 (The Scarlet Pimpernel)

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04Read by Karen Savage, Waco, Texas, February 2007.

05The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orzee.

06CHAPTER I.

07PARIS.

08SEPTEMBER 1792.

09A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings, that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions, and by the lust of vengeance and of hate.

10The hour, some little time before sunset, and the place, the West Barricade, at the very spot where, a decade later, a proud tyrant raised an undying monument to the nation's glory and his own vanity.

11During the greater part of the day, the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work.

12All that France had boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty and for fraternity.

13The carnage had only ceased at this late hour of the day, because there were other, more interesting sights for the people to witness, a little while before the final closing of the barricades for the night.

14And so the crowd rushed away from the Place de la Grève, and made for the various barricades, in order to watch this interesting and amusing sight.

15It was to be seen every day, for those aristos were such fools.

16They were traitors to the people, of course, all of them, men, women, and children, who happened to be descendants of the great men who, since the Crusades, had made the glory of France, her old noblesse.

17Their ancestors had oppressed the people, had crushed them under the scarlet heels of their dainty buckled shoes, and now the people had become the rulers of France, and crushed their former masters.

18Not beneath their heel, for they went shoeless mostly in these days, but a more effectual weight—the knife of the guillotine.

19And daily, hourly, the hideous instrument of torture claimed its many victims—old men, young women, tiny children—until the day when it would finally demand the head of a king, and of a beautiful young queen.

20But this was as it should be.

21Were not the people now the rulers of France?

22Every aristocrat was a traitor, as his ancestors had been before him.

23For two hundred years now the people had sweated, and toiled, and starved, to keep a lustful court in lavish extravagance.

24Now the descendants of those who had helped to make those courts brilliant had to hide for their lives—to fly, if they wished to avoid the tardy vengeance of the people.

25And they did try to hide, and tried to fly.

26That was just the fun of the whole thing.

27Every afternoon, before the gates closed and the market-carts went out in procession by the various barricades, some fool of an aristo endeavoured to evade the clutches of the Committee of Public Safety.

28In various disguises, under various pretexts, they tried to slip through the barriers, which were so well guarded by citizen-soldiers of the Republic.

29Men in women's clothes, women in male attire, children disguised in beggars' rags.

30There were some of all sorts.

31Cidivans, counts, marquises, even dukes, who wanted to fly from France, reach England, or some other equally accursed country, and there try to rouse foreign feelings against the Glorious Revolution, or to raise an army, in order to liberate the wretched prisoners in the Temple, who had once called themselves Sovereigns of France.

32But they were nearly always caught at the barricades.

33Sergeant Bibaud, especially at the Westgate, had a wonderful nose for scenting an aristo in the most perfect disguise.

34Then, of course, the fun began.

35Bibaud would look at his prey as a cat looks upon the mouse, play with him, sometimes for quite a quarter of an hour, pretend to be hoodwinked by the disguise, by the wigs and other bits of theatrical make-up, which hid the identity of a Cidivans noble marquise or count.

36Oh!

37Bibaud had a keen sense of humour, and it was well worth hanging round that West barricade, in order to see him catch an aristo in the very act of trying to flee from the vengeance of the people.

38Sometimes Bibaud would let his prey actually out by the gates, allowing him to think for the space of two minutes, at least, that he really had escaped out of Paris, and might even manage to reach the coast of England in safety.

39But Bibaud would let the unfortunate wretch walk about ten metres toward the open country.

40Then he would send two men after him, and bring him back, stripped of his disguise.

41Oh!

42that was extremely funny!

43For as often as not, the fugitive would prove to be a woman, some proud Martianess, who looked terribly comical when she found herself in Bibaud's clutches, after all, and knew that a summary trial would await her the next day, and after that, the fond embrace of Madame la Guillotine.

44No wonder that on this fine afternoon in September the crowd round Bibaud's gate was eager and excited.

45The lust of blood grows with its satisfaction.

46There is no satiety.

47The crowd had seen a hundred noble heads fall beneath the guillotine to-day.

48It wanted to make sure that it would see another hundred fall on the morrow.

49Bibaud was sitting on an overturned and empty cask, close by the gate of the barricade.

50A small detachment of citoyen soldiers was under his command.

51The work had been very hot lately.

52Those cursed aristos were becoming terrified, and tried their hardest to slip out of Paris.

53Men, women, and children whose ancestors, even in remote ages, had served those traitorous bourbons, were all traitors themselves, and right food for the guillotine.

54Every day Bibaud had had the satisfaction of unmasking some fugitive royalists, and sending them back to be tried by the Committee of Public Safety, presided over by that good patriot citoyen Fouquier de Tantville.

55Robespierre and Danton had both commended Bibaud for his zeal, and Bibaud was proud of the fact that he, on his own initiative, had sent at least fifty aristos to the guillotine.

56But to-day all the sergeants in command of the various barricades had had special orders.

57Recently, a very great number of aristos had succeeded in escaping out of France, and in reaching England safely.

58There were curious rumours about these escapes.

59They had become very frequent and singularly daring.

60The people's minds were becoming strangely excited about it all.

61Sergeant Grospierre had been sent to the guillotine for allowing a whole family of aristos to slip out of the north gate under his very nose.

62It was asserted that these escapes were organised by a band of Englishmen, whose daring seemed to be unparalleled, and who, from sheer desire to meddle in what did not concern them, spent their spare time in snatching away lawful victims destined for Madame la guillotine.

63These rumours soon grew in extravagance.

64There was no doubt that this band of meddlesome Englishmen did exist.

65Moreover, they seemed to be under the leadership of a man whose pluck and audacity were almost fabulous.

66Strange stories were afloat of how he and those aristos whom he rescued became suddenly invisible as they reached the barricades and escaped out of the gates by sheer supernatural agency.

67No one had seen these mysterious Englishmen.

68As for their leader, he was never spoken of, save with a superstitious shudder.

69Citoyen Fouquier-Tanville would, in the course of the day, receive a scrap of paper from some mysterious source.

70Sometimes he would find it in the pocket of his coat.

71At others, it would be handed to him by someone in the crowd, whilst he was on his way to the sitting of the Committee of Public Safety.

72The paper always contained a brief notice that the band of meddlesome Englishmen were at work, and it was always signed, with a device drawn in red, a little star-shaped flower, which we in England call the Scarlet Pimpernel.

73Within a few hours of the receipt of this impudent notice, the citoyens of the Committee of Public Safety would hear that so many Royalists and Aristocrats had succeeded in reaching the coast, and were on their way to England in safety.

74The guards at the gates had been doubled.

75The sergeants in command had been threatened with death, whilst liberal rewards were offered for the capture of these daring and impudent Englishmen.

76There was a sum of five thousand francs promised to the man who laid hands on the mysterious and elusive Scarlet Pimpernel.

77Every one felt that Bibaud would be that man, and Bibaud allowed that belief to take firm root in everybody's mind.

78And so, day after day, people came to watch him at the west gate, so as to be present when he laid hands on any fugitive Aristo, who perhaps might be accompanied by that mysterious Englishman.

79Bah!

80he said to his trusted corporal.

81Citoyen Grosse-Pierre was a fool.

82Had it been me now at that north gate last week— Citoyen Bibaud spat on the ground to express his contempt for his comrade's stupidity.

83How did it happen, Citoyen?

84asked the corporal.

85Grosse-Pierre was at the gate, keeping good watch, began Bibaud, pompously, as the crowd closed in round him, listening eagerly to his narrative.

86We've all heard of this meddlesome Englishman, this accursed Scarlet Pimpernel.

87He won't get through my gate, Morbleu, unless he be the devil himself.

88But Grosse-Pierre was a fool.

89The market-carts were going through the gates.

90There was one laden with casks, and driven by an old man with a boy beside him.

91Grosse-Pierre was a bit drunk, but he thought himself very clever.

92He looked into the casks—most of them, at least—and saw they were empty, and let the cart go through.

93A murmur of wrath and contempt went round the group of ill-clad wretches who crowded round Citoyen Bibaud.

94Half an hour later, continued the sergeant, up comes a captain of the guard with a squad of some dozen soldiers with him.

95Has a car gone through?

96he asks of Grosse-Pierre breathlessly.

97Yes, says Grosse-Pierre, not half an hour ago.

98And you have let them escape, shouts the captain furiously.

99You'll go to the guillotine for this, Citoyen-sergeant.

100That cart held the concealed Cidevant, Duc de Chalys, and all his family.

101What?

102thunders Grosse-Pierre, aghast.

103Aye, and the driver was none other than that cursed Englishman, the Scarlet Pimpernel.

104A howl of execration greeted this tale.

105Citoyen Grosse-Pierre had paid for his blunder on the guillotine.

106But what a fool!

107Oh, what a fool!

108Bibaud was laughing so much at his own tale, that it was some time before he could continue.

109"'After them, my men!' shouts the captain, he said, after a while.

110"'Remember the reward!

111After them!

112They cannot have gone far!' And with that he rushes through the gate, followed by his dozen soldiers.

113"'But it was too late!' shouted the crowd excitedly.

114"'They never got them!

115Curse that Grosse-Pierre for his folly!

116He deserved his fate!

117Fancy not examining those casks properly!' But these sallies seemed to amuse Citoyen Bibaud exceedingly.

118He laughed until his sides ached and the tears streamed down his cheeks.

119"'Nay, nay!' he said at last.

120"'Those Aristos weren't in the cart.

121The driver was not the Scarlet Pimpernel.' "'What?

122No!

123The captain of the guard was that damned Englishman in disguise, and every one of his soldiers Aristos!' The crowd this time said nothing.

124The story certainly savoured of the supernatural, and though the Republic had abolished God, it had not quite succeeded in killing the fear of the supernatural in the hearts of the people.

125Truly that Englishman must be the devil himself.

126The sun was sinking low down in the west.

127Bibaud prepared himself to close the gates.

128"'And avant the carts!' he said.

129Some dozen covered carts were drawn up in a row, ready to leave town, in order to fetch the produce from the country close by for market for next morning.

130They were mostly well known to be bull, as they went through his gate twice every day on their way to and from the town.

131He spoke to one or two of their drivers, mostly women, and was at great pains to examine the inside of the carts.

132"'You never know,' he would say, "'and I'm not going to be caught like that fool Grosse-Pierre.' The women who drove the carts usually spent their day on the Place de la Greve, beneath the platform of the guillotine, knitting and gossiping, whilst they watched the rows of tumbrels arriving with the victims the Reign of Terror claimed every day.

133It was great fun to see the aristos arriving for the reception of Madame la guillotine.

134And those places close by the platform were very much sought after.

135Bibaud, during the day, had been on duty on the Place.

136He recognised most of the old hats—tricoteuses, as they were called—who sat there and knitted, whilst head after head fell beneath the knife, and they themselves got quite bespattered with the blood of those cursed aristos.

137"'Eh, la mer!' said Bibaud, to one of those horrible hags.

138"'What have you got there?' He had seen her earlier in the day, with her knitting and the whip of her cart close beside her.

139Now she had fastened a row of curly locks to the whip-handle, all colours, from gold to silver, fair to dark, and she stroped them with her huge, bony fingers as she laughed at Bibaud.

140"'I made friends with Madame guillotine's lover,' she said, with a coarse laugh.

141"'He cut these off for me from the heads as they rolled down.

142He has promised me some more to-morrow.

143But I don't know if I shall be at my usual place.' "'Ah!

144how is that, la mer?' asked Bibaud, who, hardened soldier that he was, could not help shuddering at the awful loathsomeness of this semblance of a woman, with her ghastly trophy on the handle of her whip.

145"'My grandson has got the smallpox,' she said, with a jerk of her thumb towards the inside of her cart.

146"'Some say it's the plague.

147If it is, I shan't be allowed to come into Paris to-morrow.' At the first mention of the word, smallpox, Bibaud had stepped hastily backwards, and when the old hag spoke of the plague, he retreated from her as fast as he could.

148"'Curse you!' he muttered, whilst the whole crowd hastily avoided the cart, leaving it standing all alone in the midst of the place.

149The old hag laughed.

150"'Curse you, citoyen, for being a coward,' she said.

151Bah!

152what a man to be afraid of sickness!

153Oh, bleu, the plague!' Every one was awestruck and silent, filled with horror for the loathsome malady, the one thing which still had the power to arouse terror and disgust in these savage, brutalised creatures.

154"'Get out with you and with your plague-stricken brood!' shouted Bibaud hoarsely.

155And with another rough laugh and coarse jest, the old hag whipped up her lean nag and drove her cart out of the gate.

156This incident had spoiled the afternoon.

157The people were terrified of these two horrible curses, the two maladies which nothing could cure, and which were the precursors of an awful and lonely death.

158They hung about the barricades, silent and sullen for a while, eyeing one another suspiciously, avoiding each other as if by instinct, lest the plague lurked already in their midst.

159Presently, as in the case of Grospierre, a captain of the guard appeared suddenly.

160But he was known to Bibaud, and there was no fear of his turning out to be a sly Englishman in disguise.

161"'A cart!' he shouted breathlessly, even before he had reached the gates.

162"'What cart?' asked Bibaud, roughly.

163"'Driven by an old hag—a covered cart.' "'There were a dozen—an old hag who said her son had the plague?' "'Yes.' "'You have not let them go?' "'Oh, bleh!' said Bibaud, whose purple cheeks had suddenly become white with fear.

164"'The cart contained the Cidevain Comtesse de Tournai and her two children, all of them traitors and condemned to death.

165"'And their driver?' muttered Bibaud, as a superstitious shudder ran down his spine.

166"'Sacre tonnerre!' said the captain.

167"'But it is feared that it was that accursed Englishman himself, the Scarlet Pimpernel.'" End of chapter 1 End of chapter 1