THE FATE OF THE MARQUIS DE GRAMMONT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6488, 17 May 1899, Page 2

THE FATE OF THE MARQUIS DE GRAMMONT.

« AN INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. . {Harmsworth' s Magazine.) The Marquis Henri Marie Alberte Louia de Grammont, in purple velvet and point lace, well peruked, exquisitely perfumed,with silver rapier at his side, and jewelled snuff-box in hand, tripped daintily through the dark shadow of the Quartier Latin, holding a perfumed mouchoir to his nostrils the neighbouring effluvia rendering itself distressing to him. The Marquis had just the atelier of .at- * old friend and schoolmate — one vho painted for the salons. Suddenly an uproar of excited and angry voices, the rattle . of carriage-*wheel!s, the stamping and snorting of horses, "and the painful shriek of a child, fell upon his ear. Sword in hand, he followed the sounds, and soon enough found himself in the midst of a dirty, low-class, quarrelsome, reckless gang. Oaths and cries rent the air. " Down with the pig ! Down with the aristocrat ! He lolls in his carriage, he rolls over one of our little ones, and he is too lazy and too haughty to ' get out and ask why the carriage bumped so." In tho light of the oil wicks, Monsieur de Grammont could see the shining of murderous knives. ' • Suddenly the door of the carriage opened, and the thin, pale-faced, aristocratic-looking man stepped out. He had no fear of the rabble. He was even careful to adjust his hat that brushed against the roof of his coach as he left it. . " Clear- x)ff, you dogs," he said, quietly. "Do. you know that you are delaying met. Do you know that I have an audience of the King ?" . : . ■ .••■ . : "Do you know," returned a wine-house : keeper, mimicking the thin, refined tones, " that' you have trundled one of our little ones to death ?" "Ay ! Do you know that ? " shrieked the. mother — a virago, but a mother for all that. . "Indeed!" said the gentleman, turnin:; on her. " What matter, since the gutters swarm with such brats ? But for goodness' sake don't; let. the King be . kept waiting. See ! here is a louis with which to drink your sorrow into forgetfulness." He tossed a golden coin into the air as he spoke, but it was caught and hurled back into his face, on which he drew his sword. . • Monsieur de Grammont, who despite the dissoluteness of his character, was a man of human mould, here forced his way through the mobj and confronted the gentleman face to face. " Monseigneur le Due de Lions," he said, politely raising his hat. "My dear de Grammont," returned the other, extending his hand, "what bringf you here 1 " ' "Chance," answered the Marquis, refusing the proffered hand. " You are rude, monsieur." "You are inhuman, Monsieur le Due."Here the mob howled, and threw up their caps, and cried, " Vive l'Etranger ! Vive l'Etranger !" " When the King hears of this, Monsieur de Grammont, you will have cause to regret this night. " Nay, Monsieur le Due, the affair must be settled now. You have killed a child ; you have insulted the mother while she yet holds the dead limbs in her arms." You are no father ; I am. I can feel for and sympatoise with so sudden a bereavement. Draw; sir ! " • "What !" cried the Duke, choking with passion. " Fight for the brat of this virago of the slums ! No ! " " Then fight for this." . • " , . The Marquis struck the Duke upon the face, so smartly as to draw bloodNext moment two swords were crossed, and the motley crowd gathered eagerly round to watch the contest— not the least interested of the onlookers being the woman who held in her arms the mangled body of her dead child. It was a fine exhibit of carte and tierce that ensued between these two finished swdrdsmen, and an exhibit new and strange to the rough cut-throats and pocketfilchers of this dark and congested- alley. Like lightning, or the lashes of whips, or writhing serpents that twisted and bent and curled, and then shot straight, and then turned, one round the other, the tempered blades of the two gentlemen assumed a hundred shapes .in the .flickering glimmer of the adjacent oil lamp. Nothing could now be heard but the biting hiss of steel to steel, and the hardj passionate breathing of, the combatants. " Blood ! Blood ! . , :, Blood !" suddenly shrieked the crowd, and. the Due de Lions fell back into the aims, of his footman, while Monsieur de Grammont wiped something off his blade with his perfumed mouohoir. • As the Duke was assisted into his chariot he. shook his white, clenched hand at the triumphant crowd and at his antagonist, exclaiming, "You dogs! you shall pay for this. I'll have ybur houses razed, and yourselves whipped at the cart-tail and branded! And you, De Grammont— you shall hear from the King." As a matter of fact, the Duke died be fore his carriage reached his. hotel. When the mob turned to . congratulate their champion,, he had gone:'' In a moment realising the foolishness 0f ..; 'his 1 action, he had slipped away 'into, the darkness, while yet thei attention of the crowd was concentrated on the wounded Duke; . "Friends and brothers," cried the virago, j still clutching her dead love to her fierce | breast, "the time is nearly ripe when we shall fall upon these oppressors and sweep them from the face of the earth. We have sworn,' and justly sworn, that not one of them who falls into our hands shall escape. From the King downwards we have sworn to annihilate them." "Ay, ay, Mother Broncheau — that we have!" growled the attentive rabble. " But let there be one exception to the vile class ; let one life be held sacred : that of the brave gentleman who has fought and conquered in defence of our wrongs this night." " Ay, ay ! we will spare him when the time comes, for this night's work." Then they dispersed mysteriously, each to his own secret, den or cellar, like rabbits running into their warrens. "I know, I know," muttered the virago, as she hurried home to lay out her child straight and decent, "you say so now, but wait till the time comes. Wait till you are drunk with blood. You'll only remembor that he is an aristocrat then, and a friend of aristocrats and the King. But I, Mother 'Broncheau, will remember. I, the mother of little Pierre here, will risk my life as he risked his in his behalf." Paris was in a bath of blood. It ran in the gutters, did this blood, and it dotted in the sunshine and round the marble steps of the houses where the aristocrats lived. When the drums beat, the tumbrils filled ; when the tumbrils filled, they moved, and all Paris followed in their wake. They went full to the market of La Guillotine when the sun was high ; they returned empty when the sun was low. .•The King was ;^dead; it was a dangerous thing to have known him. . The Queen was dead; better to have been -the confidante of no one than to. have received the gracious friendship of this ill-starred Royal lady. • Paris was in a bath of blood.. A coat-of-arms procured one a halter, and a pair of white hands a place in the tumbrils at this time. Night had settled down, the scaffolds were slippery and deserted and - smoking with the recent sacrifices. The moon, as it . rose, looked crimson, • as though it blushed to gaze on such enormities and the sun fell away in a shamefaced fashion. Through the shadows and the silence the 1 Marquis Henri Marie Alberte Louis de Grammont in sorry apparel with whitened visage, straggling, unkempt hair,slouched chapeau, and fearsome pace, his little son,, the heir to, .the marquisate and estates, dragging at his hand,, ran rather than tripped through the broad streets

that, abounded in the neighbourhood of the Faubourg St Germain. Poor Marquis ! * Whither was ho to fly? He gazed . helplessly and hopelessly up and down the lons, dark street. The spies of the Committee of Public Safety were everywhere. They could see through . walls and hear through them. They were übiquitous. They would slip the head of their brother or sister into the basket sooner than be suspected themselves by Robespierre. The Marquis do Grammont would .not trust his own household for this reason. . The King avcs dead, and he had none to demand justice of. A low hum buzzed through the city this nipht — an angry, threatening, ugly hum. It sounded like the whirr of the knife of the guillotine grinding itself .for to-morrow's butchery.. "Keep in the shadow, my little one;" whispered the Marquis de Grammont; our poor clothes will not make us walk like poor people, depend upon that." "Where are we going, sir?" asked .the child. " God knows !" answered the Marquis. "But we must be brave. His Majesty and the Queen were brave." The little fellow drew himself up to his full height. ■ . "I would not blush to die as the King and Queen died," he said, boldly ; "and: they can do no worse harm to us than was done to them. Besides, father, you have your sword." The Marquis smiled sadly. In the darkness of the street he drew the tiny form of his boy into his embrace. ■ " When the time comes," he whispered, "if it should come, say with your last breath, 'God bless the King and Queen! God rest my soul! God fill the throne of France again!'" ' . . . : ... , . The boy' repeated these words earnestly, and his tones-had scarcely died away when a great rabble and .a shouting, drunken, crowdcame shouldering and stumbling into either end •Of the deserted street. "With knives, and with bludgeons, and with scythes, and with muskets and sabres they came. They were still drunk with blood-lust; nor had the lethargy of' satiety set in after their enjoyment of the gruesome gambols round the guillotine. Fresh from the wine shops were they, too. A dangerous crew, at such a time, for an aristocrat to encounter. - Monsieur de Grammont encircled the form of his- son with one arm — and how damning white the sensitive fingers were— those fingers of the aristocrat. "Are you afraid of death, my chikH", asked he. The boy shook his golden curls like ,a shower of water from his brow. "No, father." " It is near to both of us this moment!" " Then let it come, father !" " Good. With you and me will die an old name, and an unsullied one. But; it will die honourably and fearlessly, thank God!" A big murderer laid his red-wet hands on the shoulders of Monsieur de-Grammoht. " Hullo, citizen !" cried he, " what axe fou skulking in the shadows for? Liberty oves the light of day, not secrecy." The Marquis struck him down, for never before had so plebeian a touch roughly handled that patrician form. In a moment a "babel of voices shrieked forth, "An aristocrat! An aristocrat!" • The mob closed round, and the Marquis and his little boy were brought hopelessly to bay. • "Who are you, that skulk in the shadows?" cried the' murderer with tho red-wet hands. " A gentleman," returned the Marquis. *' So I 'thought," and the crowd howled, and hooted, " Down with Y the aristocrats ! Down with the. aristocrats !" ; . . But .!midst. the striving mass, a'wbmau'a eyes— fierce, wolfish eyes— suddenly fixed their gaze upon the white face of the gentleman, pillowed on the rough stoic wall, Then a gamin cried out, "Why, this is the Marquis de Grammont. His stock is as long and as aristocratic as thau ot Louis himself.'' The crowd pressed closer; staves, muskets, sabres, and reaping hooks, were raised with .murderous intent. In a moment the fury with the fierce eyes made up her mind. , Pushing her way through the crowd, sbe shouted, "Hear me, citizens, hear me— Mother Broncheau." ' Every weapon was lowered. "To what purP° se > Mother. Broncheau? "To this: I have a debt to settle with him— with this aristocrat. He once did me. a wrong. I will make him nght.it now. Clear off, all of you, while I" talk to him. All this while the little boy son of ffie Marquis, kept repeating, "God bless tne King^ and Queen! God rest my soul ! God fill the throne of France again ! Suddenly the woman laid her hand upon the shoulder of the Marquis. "Monsieur" she whispered, hurriedly, " you drew your sword and risked your life for my dead child's sake some months ago. I owe you a debt. How can I repay it?" The Marquis shook her off with disgust ; but the woman persisted. "Shall I save your child?" "My God, woman, you promise much;' but can you perform?" _ ■ "Yes! say the -word, and your child shall live." ' "Honourably?" . "Honourably." "And;!,. myself?" ' : ■"■ Must die, I cannot help you. ' , . ■.;.. The Marquis drew Ms sword; threw it away, kissed his child, and rejoin^, " Save my boy. at any cost." „. ,:,-.■; : Upon which the virago raised :he^ voice in an angry howl. " See !" , she shouted, pointing to the' son of the Marquis, '•'.see; citizens! that is my own flesh ; aud I !ocd. I nursed the. child of this gentleman, Vfrfcen his wife expired, and it died upon my breast: and he, villain that he is, had my little one snatched from his cradle to fill the gap so that his title might be carried on. My boy, my Valentine! n0.0.w shall take him from me now." . And before the astonished and horrned nobleman could interfere^-before the boy himself could elude her grasp, she had dragged vthe little one to her bosom, " You lie,_you hag !" thundered the Marquis. "You are playing me false!" . In. the turmoil and uproar Mother Broncheau pushed her ugly visage close against the delicate white face of the aristocrat. "Ypu fool!" she hissed. "Can't you not see that I am risking my life with these people for your boy's sake? I swear by the memory of my dead child, in whose cause you drew your sword, that I will see your child conveyed to someone of his own, class beyond the seas ere a week has passed. Trust me in this, or claim him, and let his head drop into the basket with yours." "I will trust you, woman." " You do well. May the Mother of God comfort you in. your last moments, citizen." "Then she raised her voice to a higher pitch yet' in her revilings of the aristocrats, shrieking over the turbulence of tne rest, " Down with the stealers of children ! My boy, my Valentine! Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone!" The Marquis de Grammont died with a, smile upon his lins, arid a double blessing on his tongue. ._. He blessed a 'litle gentleman — his boy and successor. ,\: He :blessed a virago" of. the Quartier St Antoine— his boy's preserver. ■■-. .- Years after,' people marvelled' at the at^ tachment of the' young Marquis de ■ Gram.mont;to the woman -w-to .spoke with the , harsh patois of the slums. ■ ' ' .