FALSE FREEDOM. A TALE OF THE REIGN OF TERROR.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 24, 8 October 1886, Page 5

FALSE FREEDOM. A TALE O F TH E REIG N OF TERROR.

(From the French by Mra. Cashel Hoey.)

CHAPTER XVl.— (Continued.)

Lise crossed a lobby which was so dark that it had been found absolutely necessary to light it with a miserable smoky lamp ; beyond were some less dark rooms, whose floors were heaped up with packets of every imagiaable size and shape. Some of these bundles had fallen open, and displayed their contents — clothing, soiled linen, stockings, papers, broken timepieces, torn pictures with their frames broken, weapons of several kinds, were ly <ng about here and there. This was the booty which the agents of the Comite had carried off from the bouses of the arrested "suspects." Ihe scene was like a dirty Mont-de-Pi6t6, or the storehouse of a gang of thieves. All these things, piled up together for months, added their effluvia to the pestilential atmosphere which indicated tbe vicinity of the Republican Government. Lise arrived at a second waiting-room, as bare and ill-smelling as the place in which the general sittings of the Comite were held ; the waiting-room itself gave ingress to bureaux in which the special business of the commission was transacted.

A number of old men and children— a sad spectacle of feebleness — and of young women and girls — a touching sight — occupied the antechamber ; all were seated on wooden benches, all were silent with knitted brows, haggard faces, and red eyes. Whenever a door was opened they looked up anxiously, and their countenances presented a mixed expression that struck Lise strongly. Bach awaited with impatience, and yet with dread, the arrival of the moment when he or she should be summoned. They had so little chance of being heard 1 They had already been so often sent away with brutal rudeness, when they had come to intercede for the son, the husband, the mother, the daughter, whose liberty they desired to procure, whose innocence they were prepared to prove. This time, perhaps, they might be moie fortunate, and until now hope had not deserted them ; but when they should have had their audience, what would remain ?

Ushers as ragged as those in the first room, with faces equally gloomy and voices equally hoarse, g* ndarmes with insolent and mocking eyes were walking up and doivn, as keepers in a zoological collection walk up and down before the cages of the great carnivora : authoritative, and at the same time distrustful and suspicious. *' What do you want ? " said one of the ushers to Lise.

" I want to speak to citizen Dubarran."

" Ha ! So you reckon on your pretty little phiz to soften our hearts, do you 1 All the pretty girls in France are at our feet. Hollo 1 Coulongeon, look heie 1 "

" Citizen Dubarran is expecting me ; lam sent by one of his friends."

"Ho 1 ho I Coulongeon, here's some fresh fruit. This has not come our way before. The little minx is really pretty. Get yon gone, I tell you. Citizen Dubarrau is an austere man ; he will have nothing to say to a baggage like you ; but if you choose to ask me for my protection nicely and prettily, I may be able to do something for you. Eb, Coulongeon ! " The personage addressed by the usher was a little man with a smiling face and a cunning eye, who kept a public writer's itall at the gates of the Comite, where he passed almost all his days, in the character of a spy in the brigade of Heron the Commandant- in-Chief of the sbirri of the Surete Generale.

" She 3eems to me to know what she wants. We must l»t her pass," said he to the usher. " Oome citizeness, lam going fco introduce you."

He preceded Lise into an adjoining room, where two very young girls, their hands clasped and their cheeks bathed in tears, were uttering imploring entreaties to a short man, whose very black hair was tied behind with a piece of thick cord. Coulongeon nodded to Lise, to convey to her that this man was Dubarran. Lise looked at him with mingled curiosity and anguish. This was the man on whom the rescue of her father depended I

The impression he made on her was not unfavourable, and the girl said to herself that Bhe ought not to abandon hope. In spite of the coarseness and even the dirt of his attire, Dubarran displayed ease of manner, and notwithstanding his hard and dry voice, his manner of speaking indicated good birth and careful education. His cold glance occasionally had a troubled expression which indicated a nature susceptible of emotion. His complexion was pale ; dark linet were under his eyes ; his countenance was haughty and disdainful. These were characteristic marks of the members of the Government Comites. They were accustomed to work at night, which accounted for the livid hue of their cheeks, and they were accustomed to absolute dominion more complete than any other tyranny recorded by man — one which displayed the most insolent contempt for humanity. Nevertheless, Lise detected, with astonishment, an expression of dread in Dubarran'a face as his eyes followed the movements of the two girls. She did not know that the despots who then ruled her country were so conscious of the intolerable monstrosity of their tyranny, and found it so hard to reckon upon the cowardice of all France, that in every supplicant they suspected a Charlotte Corday. When he perceived Lise approaching him, under the guidance of Coulongeon, he turned his back on the two petitioners, who withdrew in an agony of grief. " Who are you, citizeness 1 " he asked, in a sharp tone, •' and what do you want ? "

"I am the daughter of the magistrate of the Section of the Bonnet- Rouge, a man so well known for bis patriotism that all Paris calls him the virtuous Dubois."

" The Section of the Bonnet-Rouge is, indeed, renowned on account of its civism and its love of the Mountain," he answered lets harshly ; " and I am free to say that the name of its magistrate has reached us, Bunounded by that aureole with which the democracy, great in all its actions, takes pleasure in crowning its faithful servants. What do you want from me ? "

" My worthy father has been arrested by order of some persons who .re jealous of his integrity and the purity of his civ? 8 m?» P -««. if i,- ii c C&mmi99ar y clouded over. He was, in common with all bis colleges, the slave of the Terror, created and kept m motion by themselves. Like those profligate masters who become the tools of the servants whom they have corrupted, they trembled before the popular opinion they had at first feigned to venerate, so as to crush out the more easily all resistance among the honest and intelligent classes of the nation.

v \'}l is \ grave P reßum Ption of your father's guilt, girl, that he should have been arrested by the chiefs of a Pamian Section." " Citizen Commissary," replied Lise, eagerly, " the Section which a few months ago nominated my father its magistrate by acclamation is not really concerned in this iniquity. It is the doing of come base wretches who were furious at hearing him called the virtuous Dubois.' And, besides, we have for our neighbour a respectable citizenesss, named Madelon—"

*v £ hal . f - Bmile crossed, but did not brighten, the countenance of the Commissary.

Ah, said he, " You tell me the old story of Aristidea the Just, and since our masters, the republicans of old, relate it, it is true, and may be quoted. Do you know the cause of this arrest?— the affair Dubois Joh, Citizen Heron ? " continued he, addressing a person who came m that moment.

Ltse turned, and on seeing the individual to whom Dubarran spoke, she could not repress a shudder. He was a tall, bony man, whose face reminded the beholder of a carrion -eating bird of prey lie went to Dubarran, and said in an undertone : "He is i particularly— very particularly— recommended to Herman by —here he nodded emphatically—" him." The countenance of the Commissary changed suddenly ; his eyes blazed with anger : " Begone, viper I " he cried hoarsely. " Let me not see you here again ; go, and look after yourself, instead of interceding for others ; for the daughter of a vile being like him who has become the enemy of the people and of the eminent citizen Robespierre, cannot long elude the justice of the people. Begone, base offspring of a scoundrel , if you don t want to be turned out by force." Lise, in utter bewilderment, followed Coulongeon, who led her in silence to the staircase.

' J 'TlllT 111 i et y° u off for fiv e livres ' assignats,' " said he. " I thought the affair would have turned out better ; if it had succeeded it wo«ld have been a hundred. That is my scale of charges for introducing persecuted innocence into the sanctuary— ha, ha I— of protecting virtue."

Madelon waited patiently at the courtyard. She said nothing when Use gave her, in an excited febrile voice, the details of her interview with Dubarran. They retraced their steps to the Rue de Sevres ; the old woman keeping unbroken silence uatil they had reached the magistrate's house.

Then she s^oke, with her eyes fixed gloomily on the ground. •I nursed this man," she said ; " I reared him ; I did not rear him that he should be so cowardly. The Revolution must come from the devil if it thus debases men's minds. They all quake before Robespierre. I hive seen this Robespierre of theirs ; he did not dare to look me in the face ; and thpy all tremble before him-they who are brave, while he is an utter poltroon. I say it is the Revolution that they see in him. Dubarran will be punished ; I pray our Lord Jesus Christ it may not be by the punishment that I fear. As for me, I would gladly die, now that I have seen my nursling fall so low. But you, you must still strive to pave your father, although he. too, is punished in like manner as he has sinned, and scourged with the rods which he blessed while they drew the blood of others. Since Robespierre is master, you have no resource except to address yourself to the friends of Robespierre. I dare not look at you, nor at any one, any more ; but I will not die until I have put Dubarran to shame, though it should cost my life and his also." Sfee walked quickly away toward the adjoining house, and entered it without having cast a glance in the direction of Lise, who etood gazing after her, almost stupefied. The poor child had begun by striving courageously against the Terror, but now she felt the numbing serpent-bite of that fatalism which was the great moral malady of the time. She went into the house, shaking her head mournfully. Robespierre's friends! These were Emilie, and the Crassus and Duplay families I Had not Paul, whose wits were bright and whose heart was true, positively assured her that any advance made to them would only render the situation worse ?