"Alas! full oft on Guilt's victorious car The spoils of Virtue are in triumph borne, While the fair captive, marked with many a scar, In lone obscurity, oppressed, forlorn, Resigns to tears her angel form."--BEATTIE.
A close prisoner in her own house, Madame de Fleury was now guarded by men suddenly become soldiers, and sprung from the dregs of the people; men of brutal manners, ferocious countenances, and more ferocious minds. They seemed to delight in the insolent display of their newly-acquired power. One of those men had formerly been convicted of some horrible crime, and had been sent to the galleys by M. de Fleury. Revenge actuated this wretch under the mask of patriotism, and he rejoiced in seeing the wife of the man he hated a prisoner in his custody. Ignorant of the facts, his associates were ready to believe him in the right, and to join in the senseless cry against all who were their superiors in fortune, birth, and education. This unfortunate lady was forbidden all intercourse with her friends, and it was in vain she attempted to obtain from her gaolers intelligence of what was passing in Paris.
"Tu verras--Tout va bien--Ca ira," were the only answers they deigned to make; frequently they continued smoking their pipes in obdurate silence. She occupied the back rooms of her house, because her guards apprehended that she might from the front windows receive intelligence from her friends. One morning she was awakened by an unusual noise in the streets; and, upon her inquiring the occasion of it, her guards told her she was welcome to go to the front windows and satisfy her curiosity. She went, and saw an immense crowd of people surrounding a guillotine that had been erected the preceding night. Madame de Fleury started back with horror--her guards burst into an inhuman laugh, and asked whether her curiosity was satisfied. She would have left the room;but it was now their pleasure to detain her, and to force her to continue the whole day in this apartment. When the guillotine began its work, they had even the barbarity to drag her to the window, repeating, "It is there you ought to be!--It is there your husband ought to be!--You are too happy, that your husband is not there this moment. But he will be there--the law will overtake him--he will be there in time--and you too!"The mild fortitude of this innocent, benevolent woman made no impression upon these cruel men. When at night they saw her kneeling at her prayers, they taunted her with gross and impious mockery; and when she sank to sleep, they would waken her by their loud and drunken orgies--if she remonstrated, they answered, "The enemies of the constitution should have no rest."Madame de Fleury was not an enemy to any human being; she had never interfered in politics; her life had been passed in domestic pleasures, or employed for the good of her fellow-creatures. Even in this hour of personal danger she thought of others more than of herself: she thought of her husband, an exile in a foreign country, who might be reduced to the utmost distress now that she was deprived of all means of remitting him money. She thought of her friends, who, she knew, would exert themselves to obtain her liberty, and whose zeal in her cause might involve them and their families in distress. She thought of the good Sister Frances, who had been exposed by her means to the unrelenting persecution of the malignant and powerful Tracassier. She thought of her poor little pupils, now thrown upon the world without a protector. Whilst these ideas were revolving in her mind one night as she lay awake, she heard the door of her chamber open softly, and a soldier, one of her guards, with a light in his hand, entered; he came to the foot of her bed, and, as she started up, laid his finger upon his lips.
"Don't make the least noise," said he in a whisper; "those without are drunk, and asleep. Don't you know me?--don't you remember my face?""Not in the least; yet I have some recollection of your voice."The man took off the bonnet-rouge--still she could not guess who he was. "You never saw me in a uniform before nor without a black face."She looked again, and recollected the smith to whom Maurice was bound apprentice, and remembered his patois accent.
"I remember you," said he, "at any rate; and your goodness to that poor girl the day her arm was broken, and all your goodness to Maurice. But I've no time for talking of that now--get up, wrap this great coat round you--don't be in a hurry, but make no noise--and follow me."
She followed him; and he led her past the sleeping sentinels, opened a back door into the garden, hurried her (almost carried her) across the garden to a door at the furthest end of it, which opened into Les Champs Elysees--"La voila!" cried he, pushing her through the half-opened door. "God be praised!" answered a voice, which Madame de Fleury knew to be Victoire's, whose arms were thrown round her with a transport of joy.
"Softly; she is not safe yet--wait till we get her home, Victoire,"said another voice, which she knew to be that of Maurice. He produced a dark lantern, and guided Madame de Fleury across the Champs Elysees, and across the bridge, and then through various by-streets, in perfect silence, till they arrived safely at the house where Victoire's mother lodged, and went up those very stairs which she had ascended in such different circumstances several years before. The mother, who was sitting up waiting most anxiously for the return of her children, clasped her hands in an ecstasy when she saw them return with Madame de Fleury.
"Welcome, madame! Welcome, dear madame! but who would have thought of seeing you here in such a way? Let her rest herself--let her rest; she is quite overcome. Here, madame, can you sleep on this poor bed?""The very same bed you laid me upon the day my arm was broken,"said Victoire.
