Mrs. Bearne

MADAME TALLIEN

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[269]

AN abyss of separation lies between the two women whose life-histories have just been related, and the one of whose stormy career a sketch is now to be given.

In education, principles, conduct, and nationality, they were absolutely different, but each of them was typical of the time, the class, and the party to which she belonged.

TÉrÈzia Cabarrus was a Spaniard, though she had also French blood in her veins. Her father, director of an important bank in Madrid, distinguished himself in the financial world, and was created Count by Charles IV.

TÉrÈzia was born at Madrid about the year 1772, and was the only daughter of Count Cabarrus, whose fortunes had rapidly risen, and who being a man of sense and cultivation was resolved to give his children the best possible education.

TÉrÈzia studied Latin with her brothers, spoke Spanish, Italian, and French, with almost equal fluency, conversed with ease and vivacity, sang and danced enchantingly. Besides all this she was so extraordinarily beautiful, that she attracted general attention.

She was still very young when her father sent her to Paris with her brothers to complete their education, in the charge of an old abbÉ, their tutor, but to be also under the care of the Marquis de Boisgeloup and his wife, old friends of their father, in whose family they were to live. When they arrived they found that the Marquis de Boisgeloup, Seigneur de la ManceliÈve and conseiller du Roi et du parlement, had just died.

Mme. de Boisgeloup, however, received the children with the greatest kindness, her two boys were companions for the young Cabarrus, and as for TÉrÈzia, she loved and treated her like a daughter. They lived in the rue d’Anjou, and when the following year her father arrived at Paris and bought a hÔtel in the place des Victoires she still spent less of her time with him than with her.

It was in the days when the Queen was giving fÊtes at Trianon, when the court quarrelled about the music of Gluck and Piccini, and listened to the marvels related by the Comte de Saint-Germain, when every one talked about nature, and philosophy, and virtue, and the rights of man, while swiftly and surely the Revolution was drawing near.

That the head of an excitable, thoughtless girl not sixteen, should be turned by the whirl of pleasure and admiration into which she was launched, cannot be surprising.

Among the numbers of men who made love to her more or less seriously, two were especially conspicuous, the Prince de Listenay and the Marquis de Fontenay.

About the former, who was deeply in love with her, and most anxious to make her his wife, she did not care at all. She found him tiresome, and even the prospect of being a princess could not induce her to marry him. Besides, she had taken a fancy to the Marquis de Fontenay, whom she had first met at the house of Mme. de Boisgeloup, who was much older than herself, and as deplorable a husband as a foolish young girl could choose.

He also had been Conseiller du parlement, first at Bordeaux, then at Paris; though by no means a young man, he was exceedingly handsome, fascinating, and a well-known viveur, added to which he was an inveterate gambler. It was said that when he was not running after some woman he was always at the card-table; in fact his reputation was atrocious. But his charming manners and various attractions won TÉrÈzia’s heart. Mme. de Boisgeloup wrote to Count Cabarrus, who was then in Madrid, saying that the Marquis de Fontenay wished to marry his daughter, and did not care whether she had any fortune or not; the wedding took place, and the young Marquise was installed at his chÂteau of Fontenay near Paris. [83]

At first all went on prosperously. The Marquis de Fontenay did not belong to the haute noblesse, but his position amongst the noblesse de robe was good, and his fortune was at any rate sufficient to enable TÉrÈzia to entertain lavishly, and to give fÊtes which caused a sensation even at Paris, while her beauty became every day more renowned.

Whatever religious teaching she may have received she had thrown off its influence and principles, and ardently adopted the doctrines of the Revolution. Freedom, not only from tyranny, but from religion, law, morality, restraint of any kind, was the new theory adopted by her and by the party to which she belonged.

She was surrounded by those who talked of virtue, but practised vice; her husband was amongst the most corrupt of that vicious society; they soon ceased to care for each other; and she was young, beautiful, worshipped, with the hot Spanish blood in her veins and all the passion of the south in her nature, what but one result could be expected?

The King, the royal family, but especially the Queen, were becoming every day more unpopular, the reforms introduced seemed to do no good, only to incite the populace to more and more extortionate demands. The King, having neither courage nor decision, inspired neither confidence nor respect.

The Comte de Provence, his brother, remarks in his souvenirs: “The court did not like Louis XVI., he was too uncongenial to its ways, and he did not know how to separate himself from it, and to draw nearer to the people, for there are times when a sovereign ought to know how to choose between one and the other. What calamities my unfortunate brother would have spared himself and his family, if he had known how to hold with a firm hand the sceptre Providence had entrusted to him.” [84]

Nothing but reforms were talked of when Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette came to the throne; but of course everything proposed excited the opposition and ridicule of one party or the other.

The following song, one of the many circulating at the time, is a specimen of the least objectionable of its kind:

The Queen had no idea of economy, and the Comte d’Artois was still more extravagant and heedless. Many were the absurd stories told of him, harmless and otherwise. Of the first description is the affair of the wig of M. de Montyon. Arriving early one morning to speak to him, and seeing no servants about, he mistook the door and walked unannounced into a room where he saw a young man in his shirt sleeves, with his hair all rough and his toilette very incomplete, who, astonished at the sudden entrance of a magistrate in an enormous wig, asked him brusquely what he was doing there.

M. de Montyon, taking him for a valet de pied, called him an insolent rascal for daring to speak to him in such a manner; but no sooner were the words spoken than the young man snatched off his wig, rubbed it over his face and ran away with shouts of laughter.

M. de Montyon was furious, he flew into a rage, called till he succeeded in attracting attention, and then, discovering that the young man he had called an insolent rascal was his royal Highness, Monseigneur le Comte d’Artois, hurried away in dismay.

The King hearing of the affair was much amused, but desired his brother to make it right with M. de Montyon, which he did to such good effect, that shortly after he gave him an appointment in his household. The Prince and the excellent magistrate afterwards met again in exile.

Another and more reprehensible episode took place when the Comte d’Artois, then a lad of sixteen, was just going to be married to the younger sister of the Comtesse de Provence, daughter of the King of Sardinia.

It was before the death of Louis XV., the court was at CompiÈgne, and the young Prince, since his marriage was decided, had been less strictly looked after by the Comte de Montbel, his sous gouverneur, who would not usually allow him to go alone into the thicker parts of the forest, not because of wild beasts but of other not less dangerous encounters which were possible.

For some little time the Comte d’Artois had been regarding the sister of one of his valets de pied with an admiration which she was evidently quite ready to return. Finding some difficulty in getting an interview with her, he applied to her brother who, delighted at the fancy of the Prince for his sister, and the probable advantages it might bring, promised his assistance, and arranged that the young girl, who was extremely pretty, should meet him dressed as a peasant in the cottage of a forester of CompiÈgne.

D’Artois accordingly told M. de Montbel that he wished to make an excursion into the forest, but when the carriage came round which had been ordered for him, he said he would rather walk, and took care to go so far out of the way that his tutor was very tired.

The Prince, who was not tired at all, and who had arrived in sight of the cottage, said he would like some milk and would go and see the cows milked.

“You stay here and rest, Montbel,” he continued. “I will come back in a few minutes.”

M. de Montbel had waited for nearly an hour, when suddenly a suspicion seized him. Springing up suddenly he ran to the cottage, opened the door of one room, then another, then a third, and stood still with a cry of consternation.

“Monsieur,” said the Prince, coolly, “was there no one to announce you?”

Launching into angry threats against the valet de pied and his sister, and indignant reproaches to his pupil, M. de Montbel conducted him back to the palace and went straight to the King. But Louis XV., with a fellow-feeling for the grandson whom he considered the most like himself, could not restrain his laughter, ordered fifty louis to be given to the young girl, and dismissed the affair.

The alliances with the House of Savoy were much more popular with the court than that with the House of Austria and Lorraine, [86] and caused continual jealousies and disputes. Foreseeing that such would be the case, Louis XV., before the marriage of the Comte de Provence, thought it necessary to caution him on the subject. Louis XVIII. gives in his memoirs [87] the following account of the interview:—

“When my alliance with the Princess of Piedmont was decided, the Duc de Vauguyon told me that the King desired to speak to me. I trembled a little at an order which differed entirely from the usual regulations, for I never saw Louis XV. without d’Artois, and at certain hours. A private audience of his Majesty without my having asked for it gave me cause for anxiety....

“Louis XV. stood leaning against a great inlaid bureau near the window. My grandfather was just then playing with a beautiful sporting dog of which he was very fond. I approached the King with timidity and embarrassment, but I soon perceived that he was in a good humour....

“‘Bonjour, ProvenÇal,’ [88] he said. ‘You are looking very well, and that is so much the better, ma foi! for it has never been of more importance to you. You are going to be married.’

“‘Your Majesty’s orders have been communicated to me.’

“‘They may have left out something,’ replied he, laughing. ‘I have no time to lose, and I tell you that I wish to be a great-grandfather as soon as possible.’

“‘Sire, I know that it is my duty to obey your Majesty in all things.’

“‘I have no doubt of it; and if circumstances favour you, I hope you will leave M. le Dauphin far behind.’

“I bowed with a half-smile that seemed to amuse the King. But resuming his usually grave and majestic air, he added—

“‘I particularly wished to see you, to warn you that you must take great care that your future wife never forgets what will be due from her to the Dauphine. Their two houses are divided, but all rivalry must be forgotten here, which would disturb the tranquillity of Versailles, and would supremely displease me. I know that you have sense beyond your age, therefore I flatter myself that you will not do, nor allow to be done, anything with regard to the Dauphine which might displease her. Besides, your brother would not suffer it; he loves his wife, and is determined that she shall be respected as she deserves. Keep watch, therefore, upon yours; in fact, see that things go on in such a manner that I am not obliged to interfere.’

“I replied to the King that this would be all the easier to me as I had no greater wish than to be on good terms with my brother and sister-in-law; adding: ‘I know the respect which I owe your Majesty, and that which the heir to the throne has a right to expect from me; in which I hope never to be accused of having failed.’

“‘Very well,’ replied the King; ‘but what I fear is, that notwithstanding your good intentions, you will be surrounded by persons whose influence will mislead you, and owing to evil counsellors, your own abilities may perhaps even lead you to commit follies.’

“‘I am certain, sire,’ I answered hastily; ‘that nobody about me will be able to make me deviate from the line my own reason has already marked out. But as your Majesty has introduced the subject, may I be permitted to suggest that my sister-in-law has already near her some one who is scarcely calculated to maintain a good understanding in the family; I fear the partiality of the AbbÉ de Vermont for the House of Austria.’

“‘Yes, my dear son,’ said the King, making use for the first time of that paternal expression; ‘I know as well as you do that this abbÉ is not well-disposed towards us; but can I take him away from a young woman whom he has educated, [89] and who requires somebody to confide in? Besides, she might choose worse; he is a man without personal ambition, religious and upright, in spite of his leaning to the House of Austria. It will be the Dauphin’s business to keep him within proper limits; and now I have warned you about what made me most uneasy I feel more satisfied, for I desire above all things that the peace of my family should never be troubled.’”

The interview closed to the mutual satisfaction of the King and his grandson, neither of them with the slightest idea of any more serious calamity than the quarrels at court between the Houses of Lorraine and Savoy being likely to interfere with the secure and magnificent tranquillity of their lives. But it wanted only eighteen years and a few months to the fall of the Bastille, and though the small-pox cut short the life of Louis XV. before the evil days, they were seen by many of his courtiers as old or older than himself.

But nothing would ever have induced him as long as he lived to allow the States-General to be summoned. He regarded them with an unchanging abhorrence which seems prophetic.

One evening, during his coucher, the conversation turning upon difficulties in the financial situation owing to the refusal of the parliaments of the different provinces to enregister certain taxes, a man highly placed in the King’s household remarked—

“You will see, sire, that all this will necessitate the assembly of the States-General”: whereupon Louis XV., abandoning the calm repose of his usual manner, seized him by the arm, exclaiming vehemently—

“Never repeat those words! I am not bloodthirsty, but if I had a brother and he were capable of offering such advice I would sacrifice him in twenty-four hours to the duration of the monarchy and the tranquillity of the kingdom.” [90]

It was remarked later that under Louis XIV. no one dared think or speak; under Louis XV. they thought but dared not speak; but under Louis XVI. every one thought and spoke whatever they chose without fear or respect.

AS M. ArsÈne Houssaye truly remarks, the French Revolution was not made by the people. They imagine that they made it, but the real authors were Voltaire, Condorcet, Chamfort, the two Mirabeau, La Fayette and his friends, Necker, Talleyrand, Barras, Saint-Just, &c., nearly all gentlemen, mostly nobles; by Philippe-ÉgalitÉ, Duke of OrlÉans and prince of the blood; by Louis XVI. himself.

The new ideas were the fashion, people, especially young people, believed with enthusiastic fervour in the absurd and impracticable state of things they imagined they were about to establish, but meanwhile, though they talked of the rights of man and the sufferings of the people, they went on just the same, lavishing enormous sums upon dress, luxury, and costly entertainments.

The stately order, the devotion and charity which filled the lives of the sisters de Noailles; the absorbing passion for her art which made the happiness, the safety, and the renown of Louise VigÉe, were not for TÉrÈzia. Her very talents were an additional danger and temptation, for they increased the attraction of her extraordinary beauty; and in the set of which her friends were composed there could be no principles of right and wrong, because there was no authority to determine them. For if God did not exist at all, or only as a colourless abstraction, then the words “right” and “wrong” meant nothing, and what, in that case, was to regulate people’s lives? Why not injure their neighbours if it were convenient to themselves to do so? Why should they tell the truth if they preferred to tell lies? To some it would seem noble to forgive their enemies; to others it would seem silly. To some, family affection and respect for parents would appear an indispensable virtue; to others an exploded superstition. It was all a matter of opinion; who was to decide when one man’s opinion was as good as another? But, however such theories might serve to regulate the lives of a few dreamy, cold-blooded philosophers occupied entirely with their studies and speculations, it seems difficult to understand that any one could really believe in the possibility of their controlling the average mass of human beings; who, if not restrained by the fear of a supernatural power which they believe able to protect, reward, or punish them, are not likely to be influenced by the exhortations of those who can offer them no such inducements. Nevertheless, these ideas were very prevalent until Napoleon, who regarded them with contempt, declared that without religion no government was possible, and, whether he believed in it or not, re-established Christianity.

Meanwhile, those who could not believe in God, set up as their guide the abstraction they called Nature, which, if they had followed to the logical consequences, would have led them back to the state of savages. There were, in fact, some who proposed to live out of doors with very scanty clothing, and who had begun to cut down a tree and light a fire when their plans of life were suddenly frustrated by the appearance of the police.

But these were not the directions in which the guidance of Nature led most of her followers. It was not to a life of primitive simplicity and discomfort that TÉrÈzia and her friends felt themselves directed; no, the hÔtel de Fontenay, in the rue de Paradis, and the chÂteau of the same name in the country were the scene of ceaseless gaiety and amusement. La Rochefoucauld, Rivarol, Chamfort, La Fayette, the three brothers de Lameth, all of whom were in love with their fascinating hostess; Mirabeau, Barnave, Vergniaud, Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins—all the leaders of the radical party were to be met at her parties, and most of them were present at a splendid entertainment given by the Marquis and Marquise de Fontenay to the Constituants at their chÂteau, and called, after the fashion of Rousseau, a fÊte À la Nature.

The guests were met at the park gates by young girls dressed in white, who gave them bouquets of flowers; they dined out of doors under the shade of chestnut-trees, while a band played airs from “Richard Coeur-de-Lion,” “Castor et Pollux,” etc.; the only contretemps being a sudden gust of wind which took off the wigs of some of the guests: Robespierre amongst the number. Many beautiful women were present, but none could rival their lovely hostess. Toasts were drunk to her beauty, verses improvised to her Spanish eyes, her French esprit; she was declared the goddess of the fÊte, queen being no longer a popular word.

In all her life she never lost the recollection of the enchantment of that day, and many years later, in her altered surroundings, would say to her children, “Ah! that day was the fÊte de ma jeunesse!”

The first meeting of TÉrÈzia with the man who was to play the most important part in her life took place in the studio of Mme. Le Brun, to be painted by whom was then the height of fashion. Mme. Le Brun, enraptured with her beauty and dissatisfied with her own representation of it, was a long time altering and retouching, and every day saw some new improvement to make.

Mme. de Fontenay became impatient, for the sittings appeared to be interminable, and at last M. de Fontenay begged several of his friends to go and look at the portrait of his wife and give their opinion while it was still in the studio. It was in consequence more crowded than usual one day when M. de Fontenay, being also present, was joining in a conversation going on about David and his pictures.

“You will see,” said Rivarol, “that these haughty Romans whom M. Louis David has brought into fashion with his cold, hard painting, will bring us through a period of Cato and Brutus. It is the law of contrast. After the solemn airs of Louis XIV., the orgies of Louis XV.; after the suppers of Sardanapalus-Pompadour, the milk and water breakfasts of Titus—Louis XVI. The French nation had too much esprit, they are now going to saturate themselves with stupidity.”

“And do you imagine,” cried Mme. Le Brun, “that it is David who has given the taste for the antique? It is not: it is I! It was my Greek supper, which they turned into a Roman orgy, which set the fashion. Fashion is a woman. It is always a woman who imposes the fashion, as the Comtesse Du Barry said.”

“Apropos,” exclaimed Mme. de Fontenay; “have not you begun her portrait?”

“The poor Countess! I am representing her reading a romance with the arms of the King. She is the only person who holds to the King now.”

The conversation was presently interrupted by a young man whom nobody seemed to know.

As Mme. Le Brun had not many servants, he had found nobody to announce him, but entered without the least shyness, and walking up to M. de Rivarol, said that he wanted to speak to him about a pamphlet of his, now being printed at the establishment in which he was employed. There was a passage in it which they could not read or did not understand, and M. de Rivarol’s servant having told him where his master was to be found, he had come after him.

There had been a sudden silence when he entered; no one saluted him but Mme. Le Brun, who greeted him with a smile, but all regarded him with curiosity. His dress was not like those of the gentlemen present, nor of their class at all; it had a sort of Bohemian picturesqueness which rather suited his handsome, striking, sarcastic face; he was very young, not more than about twenty, but he spoke and moved with perfect unconcern amongst the uncongenial society into which he had fallen. Mme. Le Brun, tired of the stupid, contradictory remarks of the amateurs who then, as now, were eager to criticise what they knew nothing about, and nearly always said the wrong thing, exclaimed impatiently—

“You are all bad judges—

“I do not believe one word of your opinions. I am like MoliÈre, I would rather appeal to my servant, but as she is not here I will, if you do not object, ask that young man, who does not look like a flatterer: he will tell us the truth.” And turning to him, she said—

“Monsieur, I have just been hearing so much nonsense about this portrait, that really I don’t know whether I have been working like an artist or a sign-painter.”

“I will tell you, Madame,” replied the young man, with an assurance that surprised every one present. They looked at him with astonishment, and he looked at the portrait, and still more earnestly at the Marquise de Fontenay, upon whom his long, ardent gaze made a strange impression. After a few moments’ silence, Mme. Le Brun said—

“Well, Monsieur, I am waiting for your criticism.”

“My criticism, Madame, is this. It seemed to me just now that they accused you of having made the eyes too small and the mouth too large. Well, if you will believe me, you will slightly lower the upper eyelids and open imperceptibly the corner of the lips. Thus you will have almost the charm of that sculpturesque and expressive face. The eyes will be still brighter when their brilliance shines from between the eyelids like the sun through the branches.”

With a few more words of mingled criticism and compliment, he bowed slightly and turned again to M. Rivarol.

It was Tallien.

The next time they met he was secretary to Alexandre de Lameth. TÉrÈzia was standing on the steps of their hÔtel with Mme. Charles de Lameth when he came with his hands full of letters.

Telling him that Alexandre was not in, Mme. de Lameth asked him to gather a bunch of roses for Mme. de Fontenay, which he did, and picking up one that fell, he kept it, bowed silently, and went in.

TÉrÈzia questioned her friend about him, and was told that he was a good secretary, clever but idle, and of so bad a reputation that M. de Lameth was waiting for an opportunity to get rid of him.

Tallien was the acknowledged son of the maitre-d’hÔtel of the Marquis de Bercy, but strongly suspected of being the son of the Marquis himself, who was his godfather and paid his expenses at a college from which he ran away when he was fifteen. Already an atheist and a revolutionist, besides being a lazy scoundrel who would not work, he was, after a violent scene with the Marquis, abandoned by him, after which he quarrelled with his reputed father, a worthy man with several other children, who declined to support him in idleness, and threatened him with his curse. “Taisez-vous, mon pÈre, cela ne se fait plus dans le monde,” was the answer of the future septembriseur. His mother, however, interposed, and it was arranged that he should continue to live at home and should study in the office of a procureur. Step by step he rose into notoriety, until he was elected a member of the commune of Paris, where he was soon recognised as one of the most violent of the revolutionists.

In spite of his friendships with the leaders of the Revolution, his adoption at first of many of their ideas, and the fÊte Constitutionelle he gave in their honour, M. de Fontenay, like many others, began to see that things were going much further than he expected or wished. He was neither a young, foolish, generous enthusiast like La Fayette, de SÉgur, de Noailles, and their set, nor a low ruffian thirsting for plunder and bloodshed, nor a penniless adventurer with everything to gain and nothing to lose; but an elderly man of rank, fortune, and knowledge of the world, who, however he might have tampered with the philosophers and revolutionists, as it was the fashion to do, had no sort of illusions about them, no sympathy whatever with their plans, and the greatest possible objection to being deprived of his title of Marquis, his property, or his life. In fact, he began to consider whether it would not be more prudent to leave the country and join M. Cabarrus in Spain, for he was not separated from his wife, nor was there any open disagreement between them. They simply seem to have taken their own ways, which were not likely to have been the same. TÉrÈzia was then much more inclined to the Revolution than her husband, believing with all the credulity of youth in the happiness and prosperity it was to establish. Of her life during 1791 and the first part of 1792 little or nothing is known with any certainty, though Mme. d’AbrantÈs relates an anecdote told by a Colonel La Mothe which points to her being in Bordeaux, living or staying with her brother, M. Cabarrus, and an uncle, M. Jalabert, a banker, each of whom watched her with all the jealousy of a Spanish duenna, the brother being at the same time so disagreeable that it was almost impossible to be in his company without quarrelling with him.

Why, in that case, TÉrÈzia should have allowed them to interfere with her appears perplexing, as they would, of course, have had no authority to do so. M. La Mothe proceeded to say that he and a certain M. Edouard de C——, both of whom were in love with her, accompanied them to BagnÈres de Bigorre. There he and Edouard de C—— quarrelled and fought a duel, in which he, M. La Mothe, was wounded; whereupon TÉrÈzia, touched by his danger and returning his love for her, remained to nurse him, while his rival departed; and informing her uncle and brother that she declined any further interference on their part, dismissed them. That the uncle returned to his bank in Bayonne, and the brother, with Edouard de C——, to the army; that Cabarrus was killed the following year; and that, after some time, M. La Mothe and TÉrÈzia were separated by circumstances, he having to rejoin his regiment, while she remained at Bordeaux. [91] But however the principles she had adopted may have relaxed her ideas of morality, they never, as will be seen during the history of her life, interfered with the courage, generosity, and kindness of heart which formed so conspicuous a part of her character, and which so often met with such odious ingratitude.

In the latter part of the summer of 1792 she was in Paris, which, in spite of her revolutionary professions, was no safe abode even for her, certainly not for her husband. The slightest sympathy shown to an emigrÉ, a priest, a royalist, or any one marked as a prey by the bloodthirsty monsters who were rapidly showing themselves in their true colours, might be the death-warrant of whoever dared to show it. So would any word or gesture of disapproval of the crimes these miscreants were ordering and perpetrating. Their spies were everywhere, and the least accusation, very often only caused by a private grudge, was enough to bring a person, and perhaps their whole family, to prison and the scaffold. In the early days of the Terror, the well-known actor Talma, hearing an acquaintance named Alexandre, a member of his own profession, giving vent in a benign voice to the most atrocious language of the Terrorists, indignantly reproached him.

“Que tu es bon!” exclaimed Alexandre, drawing him aside. “Do you think I mean all that?”

“Then why say it?”

“Because that Terrorist is listening.”

“Who do you mean.”

“Who? Why that little Bouchiez,” indicating one of the officials of the theatre. “Whenever he is near me I say the same sort of things. I should say more if I could.”

“And why?”

“Because, if I spoke differently, he would denounce me to the Jacobins and have me guillotined.”

“He! Why, I thought you were friends.”

“We! friends! Allons donc!”

“Vous vous tutoyez.” [92]

“What does that prove? Do not all these brutes say tu nowadays?”

“Well, but you call yourself friends.”

“That’s true; but I don’t like him any the better for that, the wretch! Ah, I hate him! how I hate him! how I hate him! But there he is coming back, so I shall begin again!” And so he did. [93]

To escape from France was now both difficult and dangerous. The first to emigrate had been the Comte and Comtesse d’Artois and their children, the Prince de CondÉ, Duc de Bourbon, Duc d’Enghien, Mlle. de CondÉ, Prince de Lambesc, MarÉchaux de Broglie et de Castries, Duc de la Vauguyon, Comte de Vaudreuil, and a long string of other great names—Mailly, Bourbon-Busset, d’Aligre, de Mirepoix, all the Polignac and Polastron, the AbbÉ de Vermont, &c. They left at night under borrowed names. The Queen fainted when she parted from the Duchesse de Polignac, who was carried unconscious to the carriage by the Comte de Vaudreuil. [94]

The grief of the Duchesse de Polignac was aggravated by the recollection of a sinister prophecy which, although at the time it seemed incredible, was apparently being fulfilled in an alarming manner. The circumstances were as follows:—

The Comtesse d’AdhÉmar, who held a post in the Queen’s household, received one day a note from the Duchesse de Polignac, “Governess of the Children of France,” asking her to go with her to consult a fortune-teller of whom every one was talking. For many persons who declined to believe in God were ready and eager to put confidence in witchcraft, fortune-telling, spiritualism, or any other form of occult proceedings.

Carefully disguising themselves, they set off together—of course, at night—taking only the Duchess’s maid, Mlle. Robert, who, though devoted to her mistress, had been silly enough to persuade her to this folly, and by an old porter belonging to the palace, who knew the way.

Through many little, narrow streets they at last got out into the country, and arrived at the filthy, ruinous cottage where lived the fortune-teller. They gave her each an Écu, not wishing by too lavish a payment to betray themselves, and the Comtesse d’AdhÉmar was the first to place her hand in the dirty, wrinkled one of the old gipsy, who, after telling her that she had had two husbands, and would have no more, added, “You are now in the service of a good mistress, who loves you; but before long she will send you away against her will, but she will no longer be free to do as she chooses.”

Then, taking the hand of Mme. de Polignac she turned it over several times, examining it carefully, and said: “You are, like the other, in the service of the same lady, who loves you so much that she confides to you her most precious jewels. You love her just as much, but still, in a short time you will leave that lady in haste, and what is more, you will not feel tranquil until you have put three great rivers between you and her. She will cry bitterly when you leave her and yet be very glad of the separation.”

Mme. de Polignac shuddered; exclaiming that she would never of her own accord leave her mistress, or if an absence was necessary to her health it should be a short one.

“Oh! for that matter,” said the gipsy, “it will have no limit.”

“What! Shall I never see my mistress again?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because she will die.”

A cry of horror escaped the two friends and Mlle. Robert began to threaten the gipsy.

“Hold your tongue, tÊte-qui-roule,” she cried angrily. “Your body will be food for dogs.”

Horror-stricken and frightened they hurried from the cottage, but the prophecies were all fulfilled. Marie Antoinette rejoiced at their parting as they were going to safety. The three rivers were apparently the Seine, Rhine, and Danube which Mme. de Polignac crossed on her way to Vienna. As to Mlle. Robert, she paid with her life for her faithful affection for her mistress. Insisting on remaining in Paris to look after her interests she was arrested on the 10th of August and perished in the September massacres.

The Queen and the Comte d’Artois were the most hated and threatened of the royal family. Now, as always, they urged the miserable Louis to defend himself as his forefathers would have done; the Prince de CondÉ was of their opinion. Let the King defend himself when his palace was attacked, and, if necessary, sally out at the head of his loyal followers and either save his crown and his life, or, if that could not be, fall gloriously with his sword in his hand like a son of Henri IV., instead of being taken by his own subjects like a rat in a hole.

Such were the exhortations which at one time or another were poured into the King’s ears and to which he would never listen. [95] There was no more to be said. The Comte d’Artois declared he would never leave his brother unless expressly ordered to do so. Louis gave that command, desiring the Prince to escape with his wife and children to their sister Clotilde at Turin; and then with tears and sobs the Comte and Comtesse d’Artois embraced the King and Queen and tore themselves away.

The Comte de Provence did not emigrate so soon. He had been more inclined to liberal ideas and was less unpopular than the Comte d’Artois. It was not until the time of the unfortunate attempt on the royal family that he also resolved to escape, and his plans, being well-arranged and properly carried out, succeeded perfectly.

He was then living in the Luxembourg, and having made all preparations, he went to bed as usual and drew the curtains; the valet-de-chambre, who always slept in a bed rolled into his room, went away to undress. When he was gone, the Comte de Provence got up, passed into his dressing-room, where his devoted friend and confidant, M. d’Avaray, awaited him and helped him to dress. Passing out by a small door that was not guarded, they got into a carriage waiting for them in the courtyard of the Luxembourg and drove away.

He met the Comtesse de Provence as they had arranged, having taken the precaution of escaping separately. They arrived at Brussels in safety, and afterwards joined their brother and sister at the court of the Countess’s father at Turin, where they were joyfully received by the Princess Clotilde, and afterwards rejoined by their aunts. [96]

ON the 10th of August, 1792, as every one knows, the fury of the Revolution broke out in the attack upon the Tuileries. For the third time TÉrÈzia saw Tallien soon after that carnival of horror and bloodshed of which he was one of the leading spirits; when a few days after it she sat in one of the tribunes of the Assembly and applauded the fiery speech in which he defied the enemies of France, for the armies of the allies and the emigrÉs were gathering on the frontier, eager to avenge the atrocities which had been and were being committed, and rescue the royal family. Unluckily it was another failure. The incompetence of the leaders, the delays, the mismanagement, the mistakes, the disasters, cannot of course be entered into in a sketch like this, but the effect it had upon the fate of those still in prison and in danger who remained in the hands of the tigers thirsting for their blood, was terrible indeed.

No sooner had the news of their first ephemeral successes at Longwy and Verdun arrived at Paris, and at the same time the rising in La VendÉe become known, than there was a rush to arms, to the frontier, to drive back the invaders from the soil of France. The revolutionists seized their opportunity to declare that the royalists left in France would help the invaders by conspiring at home. It was enough. The thirst for blood and slaughter, never equalled or approached by any other civilised nation, which characterised the French Revolution, burst forth with unheard of atrocity. The September massacres were the result, and of the order for this horrible crime Tallien and Danton were chiefly accused.

Danton did not attempt to deny the part he had taken, but declared that it was necessary to strike terror amongst their opponents and that he accepted the responsibility.

Tallien had stepped into the place of Guy de Kersaint, deputy of Versailles, who, though a revolutionist, objected to massacres. [97] He tried to explain and excuse them by the fury and excitement of the time when he perceived the horror with which they were regarded, not only by the civilised world at large, but by many of the revolutionists, even by some of his own colleagues. However, the brand of infamy remained attached to his name, notwithstanding his endeavours to clear himself from the suspicion and accusation which have nevertheless always clung to him.

“There are many,” he said in one of his speeches, “who accuse me of being a murderer of the 2nd of September, to stifle my voice because they know I saw it all. They know that I used the authority I possessed to save a great number of persons from the hand of the assassin, they know that I alone in the midst of the Commune, dared throw myself before the sanguinary multitude to prevent their violating the depÔts entrusted to the Commune. I defy any one to accuse me of crime or even of weakness. I did my duty on that occasion....” But the name of “septembriseur” clung to him for ever in spite of his protestations.

Through all this time it is not clear exactly where TÉrÈzia was, probably at Paris and at Fontenay, but the relations between herself and her husband did not improve, and without any violent enmity between them, she had several times thought of getting a divorce from him.

She had not done so, however, and had even consented to his plan of their both leaving France and taking refuge with her father in Spain. She wished no harm to M. de Fontenay, and although in spite of all that had happened she still believed in the Revolution, its principles, and future results, she was horrified at the cruelty and atrocities going on around her at present.

She was conscious also that her own position was not safe. She had many friends amongst the Girondins, and now terrified at their fall she felt that she was compromised by her association with them; her husband was an additional peril to her, for the new abomination called loi contre des suspects was aimed at those against whom no tangible thing could be brought forward, but who might be accused of “having done nothing for the Republic” and would certainly apply to him. M. de Fontenay had hidden himself for a time and then re-appeared, and seeing they were both in great danger she agreed to his proposal and they went first to Bordeaux, intending shortly to put the Pyrenees between themselves and the Revolution. But swiftly and suddenly the danger that had struck down so many of their acquaintances fell like a thunderbolt upon them.

They were staying with an uncle of hers at Bordeaux when she heard one day that an English ship with three hundred passengers, chiefly royalists of Bordeaux, but all of them persons flying from France, was on the point of sailing, but was detained because the captain, whose conduct in this matter one cannot help saying few Englishmen indeed would not have despised, refused to sail until he had received three thousand francs wanting to the sum owing by the emigrants.

Indignant at the avarice which risked the lives of the unfortunate passengers, TÉrÈzia, disregarding the remonstrances and warnings of her husband and uncle, ordered a carriage, drove to find the captain, paid him the three thousand francs, and returned in triumph with a list of the passengers which she had made the captain give her instead of the receipt he wished to write.

But while TÉrÈzia congratulated herself that she had happened to be at Bordeaux, the story got about, and the fierce populace were infuriated at the escape of their intended prey. Their first revenge was directed towards the captain, through whose unguarded talk about “a beautiful woman who looked like a grande dame, and had suddenly appeared and paid him the money,” was the cause of the mischief. They made a furious attack upon him, several of them rushing at him to drag him to the guillotine. But if he was avaricious the English captain was brave and strong, so, drawing his sword with shouts and threats he wounded three or four, drove back the rest, regained his ship, and set sail for England.

As TÉrÈzia was walking in the town with her two uncles they were suddenly surrounded by a furious crowd, who, with shouts of “La voilÀ! La voilÀ! celle qui a sauvÉ les aristocrates,” surrounded her, and in a moment she was separated from her uncles, her mantilla torn off, while angry voices, with fierce threats, demanded the list of fugitives.

“What do you want with me?” she asked coolly, “I am not an enemy of the people; you can see by my cockade that I am a patriot.”

“Let her give us the list!” was the cry.

Seeing at once what was the question, she answered: “You are mistaken, citoyens, those who embarked were not contre-revolutionnaires.”

“Well, then, give us the list for you have it in your bosom!” And one brutal fellow tried to tear her corsage to get it.

Thrusting him away she pulled out the list, held it up to the sans-culottes, and exclaimed with defiance—

“I will never give it you! If you want to get it, kill me!” And she swallowed it.

At that moment Tallien, who had been sent to Bordeaux by the Revolutinary authorities, appeared upon the scene.

“Stop!” he cried; “I know that woman.”

He did not, in fact, recognise her at all, but he wished to save her. Turning to the crowd, he said—

“If she is guilty she belongs to justice. But you are too magnanimous to strike an unarmed enemy, above all, a woman.”

Just then Lacomb, president of the tribunal, who had been told that the aristocrats who went with the English captain were saved by her, came up and ordered her arrest.

At the same time Tallien recognised the Marquise de Fontenay.

TÉrÈzia, therefore, found herself in one of the horrible prisons of that Revolution whose progress she had done everything in her power to assist. In the darkness and gloom of its dungeon she afterwards declared that the rats had bitten her feet.

In a very short time, however, she was summoned out of the prison and conducted by the gaolers into the presence of Tallien.

In the fearful tragedy of the French Revolution, as in many earlier dramas in the history of that nation, one can hardly fail to be struck by the extreme youth of many, perhaps most, of the leading characters, good or bad. And the hero and heroine of this act in the revolutionary drama were young, and both remarkable for their beauty.

Tallien, the member of the Assembly, the blood-stained popular leader, the pro-consul before whom every one trembled in Bordeaux, was five-and-twenty. The Marquise de Fontenay, who stood before him, knowing that her life was in his hands, was not yet twenty.

The position was changed indeed since their first meeting, when, unknown and unconsidered, he was invited, in a manner that could scarcely be called complimentary, to criticise the portrait of the beautiful, fashionable woman who now stood before him as lovely as ever, her face pale, and her soft dark eyes raised anxiously to his, but without any symptom of terror.

From the first moment of this interview Tallien was seized with an overpowering passion for her, which he was compelled to conceal by the presence of the gaoler, who waited to re-conduct the prisoner to her cell, and before whom if he showed either pity or sympathy, in spite of all his power as a leader of the Revolution, he would endanger his own safety and increase her danger. Therefore he only bowed, signed to her to sit down, and took a chair opposite her.

“You recognised me?” she asked.

“Yes, citoyenne; why are you at Bordeaux?”

“Because every one is in prison at Paris; even the revolutionists. And I am a revolutionist.”

“We are not blind,” said Tallien. “We only strike the enemies of the Republic.”

“The prisons are blind, then,” retorted TÉrÈzia; “for both at Paris and here true republicans are groaning in fetters.”

She spoke in the inflated style of the time, which belonged especially to the ranting, extravagant, theatrical phraseology of that strange collection of individuals who now held supreme power in the country so recently the most civilised and polished in the world.

“If the prison is blind, the tribunal is not. Of what are you accused, citoyenne?”

“Of everything, I suppose, since there is nothing they can bring against me.”

“I heard you were intending to emigrate with the ci-devant Marquis de Fontenay.”

“Emigrate? I never thought of such a thing. We were going to Spain to see my father, who is there.”

“Well, citoyenne, I shall give orders for your trial to come on at once before the tribunal. If the citoyen Fontenay is not guilty you are not either. In consequence you will be able to go on and see your father at Madrid.”

“Good God!” cried TÉrÈzia; “appear before your tribunal! But I am condemned beforehand! A poor creature who is the daughter of a count, the wife of a marquis, with a hand like this, which has never done any work but prepare lint for the wounded of the 10th of August.”

“You are wrong, citoyenne, to doubt the justice of the tribunal, we have not created it to assassinate in the name of the law, but to avenge the republic and proclaim innocence.”

He spoke in the pompous jargon of the Revolution, the language of his paper, L’Ami des Citoyens. Then turning to the gaoler he sent him away upon a message. When the door had closed behind the spy of his party, in whose presence even he himself dared not speak freely, he took the hand of TÉrÈzia and said in a gentle voice—

“We are not tyrants.”

To which astounding assertion she replied in those terms of flattery in which alone it was safe to address the individuals who “were not tyrants,” and whose motto was “Liberty, equality, and fraternity.”

“I suppose he who writes so eloquently in L’Ami des Citoyens is also the friend of the citoyennes? If you are my friend, for the sake of the citoyenne, Lameth, [98] do not make me appear before that odious tribunal, on which you do not sit.”

“I cannot help it,” answered he; “the eyes of France are upon me. If I betrayed my commission for the sake of a beautiful woman like you, Robespierre would not have thunderbolts enough to strike me with.”

“Just so,” she said; “you all strike because you are afraid of being struck yourselves.”

“Well; what do you want?”

“You know. I want liberty.”

“I understand.”

“And the liberty of M. de Fontenay.”

“Of that I wash my hands,” he exclaimed hastily. Then softening his voice: “I was told you were divorced?”

“Perhaps so; but at this moment I am more than ever the wife of my husband.”

“But if he is guilty and you are not?”

“Then I will be guilty too.”

There was a moment’s silence, then Tallien spoke.

“Well! it is worthy of the days of antiquity. But in these times it is not to a husband but to the nation that a citoyenne should sacrifice herself. If you have done any wrong to the Republic, it is in your power publicly to expiate it. In public affairs women must preach and set the example. If I ask for your liberty it must be on condition that you promise to be the Egeria of the Montagne, as the Roland was of the Gironde.”

“I know neither the Montagne nor the Gironde. I know the people, and I love and serve them. Give me a serge dress and I will go to the hospitals and nurse the sick patriots.”

“Sister of Charity, is that it? No, no; you must take a more active part; you must stand in the tribune, and kindle the sacred fire in those who are not already burning with the religion of the Revolution. Already I can feel the fire of your words.” And he drew nearer to her.

“It is settled, then, citoyen, is it not? You will give the order for my release? We will start this evening for Spain, and you shall never hear of me again.”

Tallien’s face fell.

“Well! you take everything for granted,” he said. “I am glad to see that if ever you become powerful favours will fall from your hands as if by miracle.”

“I only care for power for the sake of mercy,” she replied. “But now I am not appealing to your clemency, but to your justice.”

“Justice belongs to the people,” replied Tallien, coldly.

The Marquise felt that she had gone too far.

“It is a mistake,” she exclaimed. “If I appealed to justice it would be too slow; but the beauty of clemency is that it is quick.”

And she threw herself upon her knees before him.

“Rise, Madame!” exclaimed the young pro-consul. “I risk my head in this, but what does it matter? You are free.”

And he clasped her in his arms.

At this moment the gaoler returned, accompanied by the aide-de-camp for whom Tallien had sent.

“Adieu, citoyenne,” said Tallien, resuming his official manner. “My aide-de-camp will go at once to the revolutionary tribunal, while I myself explain to the ComitÉ the error of which you are the victim.”

He signed to the gaoler, who conducted Mme. de Fontenay back to her cell; and then sat down to write to Robespierre.

“Every one betrays the Republic. The citoyen Tallien is granting pardon to aristocrats.” [99]

THE next day was the divorce. M. de Fontenay hurried away towards the Pyrenees and disappeared from France and from the life and concerns of the woman who had been his wife.

And TÉrÈzia, released from a marriage she had long disliked and to which no principle of duty or religion bound her, although she could scarcely be called free, fulfilled the conditions and accepted the part offered her willingly enough. She loved Tallien, who worshipped her with a passionate adoration which, far from concealing, they gloried in proclaiming.

TÉrÈzia became a power in Bordeaux. She appeared everywhere in public wearing those scanty Greek draperies so well calculated to display the perfection of her beauty; affecting the attitude of the Goddess of Liberty, with a pike in one hand and the other resting upon the shoulder of Tallien. The populace cheered as she drove about Bordeaux in a magnificent carriage which, had it belonged to a royalist, would have excited their rage. She harangued the Convention with bombastic speeches about women and virtue and modesty, which, to persons not besotted with frantic republicanism, must appear singularly out of place; mingling her exhortations with flattery so fulsome and preposterous that she did not fail to command sympathetic acclamations, especially when she said that she was not twenty years old and that she was a mother but no longer a wife.

Over the whole proceedings of Tallien and TÉrÈzia there was, in fact, an atmosphere and tone that can be best described as “flash”; for no other word seems to be so thoroughly characteristic of themselves, their friends, their sentiments, their speech, and their lives at this time.

That TÉrÈzia was infinitely superior to her lover was not only shown by the progress of years and events, but was obvious in the early days of her liaison with Tallien. For her speeches in public and private were not merely empty bombastic talk. She really did everything in her power to rescue from danger and help in trouble the unfortunate people with whom she was surrounded. For she hated cruelty and bloodshed, and saw no reason or excuse for it; in spite of the sophisms and theories of her republican friends. It made no difference to her to what party or class they belonged; she would help any one who was in trouble and appealed to her. And her power was immense, for Tallien, who held life and death in his hands, was her slave, and even the savage Lacomb and Ysabeau, his colleagues, bowed before the charm of her influence.

The ComitÉ de salut public was composed of BarÈre, Carnot, Couthon, Billaud-Varennes, Collot-d’Herbois, Robert Lindet, Prieur, Jean-Bon Saint-AndrÉ, Saint-Just, and Maximilian Robespierre; as bloodthirsty a gang of miscreants as ever held an unfortunate country in their grip.

Of these ruffians the most powerful and influential was Robespierre, who, though cruel, treacherous, and remorseless, was severely moral and abstemious, and whose anger was deeply aroused by the reports he received from Bordeaux.

The life of luxurious splendour and open scandal Tallien led with his mistress irritated him nearly as much as the escape of the victims so frequently spared by his mercy, or rather by the all-powerful influence of the woman to whom all Bordeaux now looked for help and protection; besides which the popularity they both enjoyed at Bordeaux excited his jealous uneasiness.

But he did not at that time recall him to Paris, preferring that he should be a satrap at Bordeaux rather than a conspirator in the Convention; and remarking contemptuously—

“Those sort of men are of no use except to revive vices. They inoculate the people with the licentiousness of the aristocracy. But patience; we will deliver the people from their corrupters, as we have delivered them from their tyrants.” [100]

By caresses, by tyranny, by stratagems, TÉrÈzia opened prison doors, obtained pardons, delivered victims from the guillotine. Immense numbers of people were saved by her exertions. Several times her influence dissolved the Revolutionary Committee; under her reign people began to breathe freely at Bordeaux, and the Terror for a time seemed nearly at an end.

Horrified at the hÔtel of Tallien being in the place de l’Échafaud, she exclaimed—

“I will not come here again!”

“Well, I will come and live at your hÔtel.”

“No, I shall come back here. It is not you who will go away, it is the scaffold.”

To divert his thoughts and attention from the rigours and cruelties, for the perpetration of which he had been sent to Bordeaux, she persuaded him to have his portrait done, and induced him and the artist to prolong the sittings on pretence of making the picture a chef d’oeuvre, but in reality to occupy his time and attention; in fact, he was found by some one who called to see him reclining comfortably in a boudoir, dividing his attention between the artist who was painting the portrait and TÉrÈzia, who was also present.

The Marquis de Paroy, a royalist, whose father, a Girondist, had just been arrested, wrote to ask for an interview, sending an illustrated petition, in the taste of the day, to the “goddess of Bordeaux,” with a Cupid he called a sans-culotte, &c. Having received an invitation, he went to her house, where, in the ante-rooms, crowds were waiting with petitions in their hands. Presently folding doors were thrown open and TÉrÈzia appeared, exquisitely dressed, asked for the citoyen Paroy, and invited him to come into her boudoir, which was filled with the traces of her pursuits. Music was upon the open piano, a guitar lay upon a sofa, a harp stood in a corner of the room, an easel, a half-sketched-out miniature, a table covered with drawings, colours, and brushes, an embroidery frame, a writing table piled with petitions, notes, and papers. After the first greeting she said—

“I think I remember meeting you at the house of the Comte de l’Estaing with my father, and I hope you will come and see me as often as you can. But let us speak of your father. Where is he in prison? I hope to obtain his release from the citoyen Tallien. I will give him your petition myself, and present you to him.”

She did so on the following day, and Tallien advised him to wait.

“Your father must be a little forgotten in order to save him. It all depends on the president of the tribunal, Lacomb.”

TÉrÈzia asked him to supper to meet the mistress of Ysabeau, whom she thought might influence Ysabeau in his favour. During the supper one of the revolutionary guests, observing a ring with a Love painted on it, and the inscription—

kissed the ring, and handed it round to be kissed by all the rest, who little supposed that it was a portrait of the unfortunate Louis XVII.

The breathing time given to unhappy Bordeaux came to an end. Tallien was recalled, and his place filled by the ferocious Jullien.

But his position at Paris was too powerful and his friends too numerous to allow him to be at once attacked with impunity. It was TÉrÈzia who was to be the first victim. Robespierre dreaded her influence, her talents, her popularity, her opinions, and the assistance and support she was to Tallien.

The crimes and horrors of the Revolution had now reached their climax. Paris was a scene of blood and terror. No one’s life was safe for an hour, houses were closed, the streets, once so full of life and gaiety, were now paraded by gangs of drunken ruffians, men and women, bent on murder and plunder, or re-echoed to the roll of the tumbrils carrying victims to the scaffold. The prisons were crammed, and yet arrests went on every day. The King, the Queen, and the gentle, saintly Madame Elizabeth, had been murdered; the unfortunate Dauphin, now Louis XVII., and his sister were kept in cruel captivity.

It had been remarked that at the moment of the birth of this most unfortunate of princes, the crown which was an ornament on the Queen’s bed fell to the ground, which superstitious persons looked upon as a bad omen.

Still more strange was the incident related by his uncle, the Comte de Provence, heir presumptive to the crown, which he afterwards wore. It happened immediately after the birth of the first Dauphin, elder brother of Louis XVII., whose early death saved him from the fate of his family.

“The same evening I found on my table a letter carefully enclosed in a double envelope, addressed—

“‘Pour Monsieur seul.’

“I inquired in what manner the letter had arrived there, but all those in my service declared they knew nothing about it.

“When I was alone I opened the mysterious letter, and by the light of my lamp I read as follows:—

“I got up and made a copy of this letter ... but on fixing my eyes on the letters in white ink on black paper ... I saw them disappear. I recognised in this phenomenon a chemical preparation by which the mysterious characters would become absorbed after a certain time.” [101]

No trace was ever found of the person who wrote or conveyed the letter.

It is easy to see that the present state of affairs in France offered the most dangerous and the strongest temptation to private vengeance. Any one who had an enemy or who had been offended by any one else, or even who wished to remove some person whose existence was inconvenient to them, had only to “denounce” them for some trifle which they might or might not have said or done; they were sure to be arrested, and most likely to be put to death.

The following story is an example of the kind.

The Marquis de ——, a proud, stern man of a reserved and apparently cold temperament, had a young wife whom he adored. Their married life went on prosperously for some years, at the end of which the young Marquise was seized with a fatal illness. When on her death-bed she confessed to her husband, who was nearly frantic with grief, that she had once, several years since, been unfaithful to him, that remorse in consequence had poisoned her happiness, and that she could not die in peace without his forgiveness. The Marquis consented to pardon her fault on condition that she would tell him the name of her seducer, which she did, after having extorted from her husband a solemn promise that he would not challenge him to a duel, as she feared the blood of one or the other might rest upon her soul.

After her death the Marquis, who had no intention of either breaking his oath or foregoing his vengeance, shut up his chÂteau and went to Paris, though it was in the height of the Terror; for he had heard that his enemy was there, and was resolved to find him. He was a cousin of the young Marquise, the Chevalier de ——, who had in the early days of their marriage stayed a good deal at the chÂteau of the Marquis de ——, and had requited the unsuspicious trust and hospitality of his host by making love to his wife. Then, influenced by the remorse and entreaties of the Marquise, he had gone to Paris, and not been heard of for some time, but was believed to be living there in concealment.

The death of his wife and the revelation she had made to him, plunged the Marquis de —— into such a fearful state that at first his reason was almost overcome; and as he gradually recovered his self-possession the idea occurred to him to take advantage for his own purposes of the rumour circulated, that grief for the loss of his wife had affected his reason.

Accordingly he pretended to be mad, and wandered all day about the streets of Paris, wearing an old Court dress and an enormous wig, talking extravagantly, making foolish jokes, but all the time looking for the Chevalier ——.

His plan succeeded perfectly. He was soon well known to the police as an ex-noble driven mad by the death of his wife, and being considered harmless, was allowed to go where he pleased unmolested.

It was the only safeguard he could have found, as his rank and well-known opinions would have otherwise marked him for destruction.

At last, one day in the rue St. HonorÉ, he came suddenly face to face with his enemy, disguised as a workman.

Rushing to him, he threw his arms round his neck, exclaiming—

“Eh! how are you, mon ami? I am delighted to see you, my dear Chevalier de——”

The Chevalier tried in vain to escape. The apparent madman seized him by the arm.

“Let me go!” he cried. “You are mistaken. I don’t know you.”

“You don’t remember me? Your friend, your relation, the Marquis ——?”

“Yes, I remember you now; but let me go.”

A crowd began to gather, and he went on in a loud voice—

“I recognised you directly in spite of your dress, your beard, your dyed hair, and false scar.”

“Do you wish me to be lost?”

“Lost? Certainly not. I have only just found you, and shall not let you go. I am going to take you to dine with me, my dear Chevalier de ——”

“Speak lower,” implored the Chevalier. “Are you mad?”

“Ah! you, too, call me mad. It is an insult!”

The Chevalier tore away his arm, the Marquis struck him a furious blow, the police interfered, and took them both to the Commissaire de la section. The Marquis was released and the Chevalier —— sent to the Luxembourg.

His friends, hearing of his arrest, organised a plot for his release, established communications with him, and so skilfully arranged that one morning the Chevalier de —— left the Luxembourg disguised as a soldier, passed into the streets, and thought he was saved.

But his enemy stood before him with a smile of triumph.

“Again that wretched madman!” muttered the Chevalier. “Is it God’s justice that puts him always in my way to destroy me?”

“I am enchanted to see you again, my dear Chevalier de ——, and I hope you are in a better humour to-day. Instead of the dinner you refused, accept the dÉjeuner I offer you this morning.”

“For God’s sake, hold your tongue and let me pass,” said the Chevalier in a low voice. “My life depends upon it. Do you hear? do you understand? I have just escaped from prison; I am condemned to death. If you hold your tongue and let me pass I am saved, but if you keep me and call out my name you will kill me.”

“What the devil of a story are you telling me, Chevalier de ——?” cried his tormentor. “Where did you have supper last night? I believe you have drunk too much.”

“Come, Marquis, try to have a spark of reason. It is my life I ask of you—my life.”

“Parbleu, let us live merrily! that is my motto; and let us begin by breakfasting. At any rate, I shall not leave you. Where you go I shall follow, if you run I shall run after you, calling out, ‘Let us go to breakfast, Chevalier de ——’”

Seeing that attention was being attracted to them, the Chevalier in despair put his arm into that of the Marquis, saying—

“Very well, let us go to breakfast then, but keep quiet, I beseech you. Not that way,” as his companion turned towards the Luxembourg.

“Yes, yes! I know the way to the restaurant!” and as he dragged him along in an iron grasp some guards, who had discovered the escape of the prisoner, recognised and seized him.

The Chevalier was taken back to his cell, and, knowing that he had now only a few hours to live, he made his will and wrote the history of this terrible adventure, saying that he could not but forgive the Marquis as he was mad. These papers he confided to a fellow prisoner, and a few hours later was summoned to execution with a number of others.

As the fatal car passed through the streets, for the third time his relentless enemy stood before him, and as a slight delay stopped the car close to him, he called out—

“Ah! Chevalier de ——, where are you going in that carriage? Perhaps to see your mistress, the Marquise de ——?” and the look of triumph and hatred revealed the truth to the victim of his vengeance.

It was dearly bought, however. For some time, for prudence sake, the Marquis kept up his pretence of madness, but after the fall of Robespierre and the Terror he resumed the apparent use of his reason. But the next heir had taken possession of the estates of the family in consequence of the declared madness of its head. The Marquis appealed to the law, but his own notoriety and the last will and letter of the Chevalier —— decided the case against him. He was shut up in the asylum of Charenton, where he lived for many years, resigning himself after a time to his fate, and dying in extreme old age.

Not many days after the Convention had applauded with enthusiasm an extravagant speech about charity, full of absurdities and bombastic sentimentalities, made by TÉrÈzia, Robespierre demanded her arrest of the ComitÉ de salut public.

It has been said that the arrest was made at the end of a fÊte she had been giving at which Robespierre himself was present, and which he had only just left, with professions of the sincerest friendship.

The incident accords so well with the habitual treachery of Robespierre, that if not true it may be called ben trovato; but in fact it is not really certain that it took place.

But it is confidently affirmed that Robespierre pursued TÉrÈzia, with even more than his usual vindictiveness. He begged the Marquis de la Valette, a ci-devant noble and yet a friend of his, to prevent the escape of this young woman whom they both knew, “for the safety of the Republic.” But M. de la Valette, although he was not ashamed so far to degrade himself as to be the friend of Robespierre, shrank from being the instrument of this infamy; and not only warned TÉrÈzia but offered her the shelter of his roof, which, for some reason or other, she declined. She was arrested and sent to La Force, one of the worst prisons of the Revolution, with the additional horror of being au secret. She had too many and too powerful friends to be sacrificed without difficulty and risk, and it was, in fact, his attack upon her that gave the finishing blow to the tottering tyranny of Robespierre.

Robespierre sent Coffinhal, one of his tools, to question her, and she was offered her liberty if she would denounce Tallien, which she indignantly refused to do. Far more than in her former experience at Bordeaux, did she feel that she was already condemned. For then she had only to dread the general cruelty of the Revolutionists, whose rage was certainly excited by the escape of their prey, but who had, beyond doubt, no personal spite against her.

But now she had an enemy, powerful, vindictive, remorseless, and bent upon her destruction. His object was that her trial should take place the next day; but her friends were watching her interests. M. de la Valette and M. Verdun managed to prevent this, and next day a friend of Tallien, meeting him wandering in desperation about the Champs-ElysÉes, said to him—

“You have nothing to fear for the citoyenne Cabarrus; she will not be brought before the tribunal to-day either.”

To gain time in those days was often to gain everything.

In the horrible dungeon in which TÉrÈzia was shut up, she could receive no communications from without; but after a day or two she was told by the gaoler that she had leave to go down into the courtyard in the evening, after the lights were out. To whom she owed this consolation she was not told, but the first evening as she stood enjoying the fresh air, a stone fell at her feet, and on picking it up she found a paper with writing fastened to it. As she could not see to read it by the light of the moon, she had to wait till after sunrise next morning, and then, although the writing was disguised, she recognised the hand of Tallien as she read these words—

“I am watching over you; every evening at nine you will go down to the courtyard. I shall be near you.”

She tried to question the gaoler when he brought her breakfast of black bread and boiled beans, but he only put his finger on his lips. Every evening she went down to the courtyard and a stone with a note from Tallien was thrown to her. He had hired an attic close by, and his mother had, under another name, gained the gaoler and his wife. But at the end of a week the gaoler was denounced by the spies of Robespierre, and TÉrÈzia transferred to the Carmes.

VOLUMES of denunciation, torrents of execration have been and are still poured forth against the Bastille, the tyranny and cruelty it represented, the vast number and terrible fate of the prisoners confined there and the arbitrary, irresponsible power of which it was the instrument.

Many of the stories told and assertions made upon the subject are absolutely false, others greatly exaggerated; although nobody who has ever studied the history of any country would imagine that any prison ever existed anywhere, until within the last few years, without a record of crime, oppression, and cruelty.

When the Bastille was destroyed, and the officers who were accused of nothing but defending the post entrusted to them were murdered, that prison contained seven prisoners, of whom one was detained by the request of his family, four were forgers, one was an idiot, the other unknown. [102]

Three years later, under the rule of the apostles of liberty, fraternity, and equality, there were thousands of prisons of the State crammed with prisoners, besides the supplementary prisons hastily arranged in the ancient convents, palaces, and colleges of Paris.

The hardships and horrors of these prisons, though always terrible, were much worse in some than in others. Far the best were the Luxembourg, Portroyal, then called Port Libre, the convents of the BÉnÉdictins anglais, the convents des Oiseaux and des Anglaises, and one or two others, which, in the slang of the day, were called prisons muscadines. [103] There were congregated most of the prisoners of rank and refinement, although in most of the prisons there was a mixture of classes and opinions. There the food and accommodation was much better and the officials more civil, or rather, less brutal, and for a long time the prisoners were allowed to go into the gardens, orchards, avenues, and courts belonging to them, also to amuse themselves together until a certain hour of the night.

At this time, however, everything even in these prisons had become much worse, [104] the restrictions were severe, the number executed far greater, the gaolers more brutal, and the perils and horrors of those awful dwellings more unheard of.

The Carmes was one of the bad ones, as regards accommodation, but in it were many prisoners belonging to good society, delicate, refined, bearing bravely the privations and dangers of their lot. It was supposed to be one of the aristocratic prisons, though less comfortable than the rest.

If TÉrÈzia had been in immediate danger she would have been sent to the Conciergerie, which was looked upon as the gate of the guillotine; and she knew that the important thing was to gain time. Many had thus been saved; amongst others Mlle. de Montansier, formerly directress of a theatre. She was imprisoned in the Abbaye, and was condemned with a number of others to be guillotined on the following day.

But she was so ill that she could not stand, and as she lay delirious upon her pallet in a high fever, one of her fellow prisoners called to M. Cazotte, who was also imprisoned there, and was famous for having predicted many things which had always come true, especially for his prophecy at the notorious supper of the Prince de Beauvau, at which he had foretold the horrors of the Revolution and the fate of the different guests, now being, or having been, terribly fulfilled. [105]

“Well, Cazotte,” said the other, “here, if ever, is a case for you to call your spirit up and ask him if that poor dying creature will have strength to mount the horrible machine to-morrow.”

He spoke half jokingly, but Cazotte saw no joke at all, but went into a corner without speaking, turned his face to the wall, and remained there in silence for a quarter of an hour, after which he came back with a joyful look.

“La brave fille will not be guillotined at all,” he said, “for I have just seen her die in her bed at an advanced age.”

All laughed at the vision, but the next day she was so ill that her execution was put off, she continued to be so ill that she could not be moved and was forgotten till the 9th Thermidor came and she was saved. She died, as Cazotte had predicted, in her own bed at a great age.

Cazotte himself, after being saved by his daughter from the massacre, was re-arrested as he always foretold. His friends asked in vain why he did not hide, escape, save himself; he only replied—

“What is the use, if my hour has come?”

He was executed as he foretold.

TÉrÈzia was much better off at the Carmes, for she was no longer au secret, but mixed in the day with the rest of the prisoners and shared a cell at night with the Duchesse d’Aiguillon and JosÉphine Vicomtesse de Beauharnais, whose husband, a revolutionary general and a thoroughly contemptible character, had lately been guillotined by his republican friends.

For the only consolation was that now the monsters were turning on each other; there were, in fact, more republicans than royalists in the prisons. Every now and then some blood-stained miscreant was brought in amongst those whose homes he had wrecked, whose dear ones he had murdered, and whose fate he was now to share; while all shrunk in horror from him, or mocked and triumphed as he passed. When Chaumette, the high priest of the Revolution, one of the most blasphemous and blood-stained wretches of all, was brought to the Luxembourg, the prisoners would look through the little guichet where he was shut up, asking each other, “Have you seen the wolf?”

When Manuel, one of the authors of the September massacres, was taken to the Conciergerie and stood before the tribunal, a group of prisoners standing by, regardless of the gendarmes, pushed him against a pillar, still stained with the blood shed on that fearful day, with cries of “See the blood you shed,” [106] and through applause and “bravos” he passed to his doom.

In the cell of TÉrÈzia and her companions had been massacred a number of priests on that occasion, and still upon its wall were the silhouettes marked in blood, where two of the murderers had rested their swords.

And yet amidst all the horrors and miseries even of the six last and most awful weeks of the Terror, in daily peril of death and amongst the most frightful hardships, laughter and jokes were heard in the prisons, friendships and love affairs were formed; every one was the friend of every one.

Those who were going to their death, dined cheerfully for the last time with their companions, and bade them a brave and cheerful farewell.

A young musician, waiting at the Conciergerie for the gendarmes to take him to the tribunal which was his death sentence, remembering that a friend wanted a certain air, went back to his room, copied it, and took it to his friend, saying—

“Mon cher, here is what you wanted; the music is all right, I have just tried it on my flute. I am sorry not to be able to get you some more; I shall not be alive to-morrow.” [107]

There were a thousand prisoners in the Luxembourg alone, and strange romances, thrilling escapes, fearful tragedies, and touching stories could indeed be told of what passed within the walls of those gloomy prisons.

Mme. de la ChabaussiÈre was imprisoned at Port Libre, and her dog stayed with her all the time, her only comfort. He was well-known and a favourite in the prison, he knew all the gaolers and officials, and which of them were kind to his mistress. Of these he was very fond; but those who were not good to her he flew at, biting their legs and fighting with their dogs. However, all the officials liked him and let him stay during the whole time she was imprisoned. When the gaoler came to open the door of her cell he jumped up and licked his hands; when she walked, as at Port Libre they could, in the cloisters and gardens, he went with her; when she came back he rushed in and hid himself in her cell.

Port Libre was a large building—several buildings, in fact—with great corridors warmed by stoves; many of the rooms had fireplaces and there was a great salon where the richer prisoners dined. In the evening there were concerts, games, lectures, &c., or people read, wrote, and worked. Collections were made to pay for wood, lights, stores, extra furniture, water—the richer paid for the poorer. Every one brought their own lights and sat round a great table; a few sans-culottes were there, but the society for the most part was extremely good. Little suppers were given by different prisoners to their friend, better food could be got by paying, also books, letters, parcels, and newspapers. At 9 p.m. was the appel, but they might afterward return to the salon, meet in each other’s rooms, or even get leave from the concierge to visit their friends in the other buildings. Outside were three walks: the garden, the cloisters, and the cour de l’accacia, with palisades and a seat of grass under a great accacia. Often they sat out till eleven at night, and those whose rooms were close by sometimes spent the whole night out of doors.

This was one of the best prisons, but during the six weeks before Thermidor even this was much changed for the worse, brutal ruffians taking the place of milder gaolers, and food unfit to eat being supplied.

Many heroic people, women especially, managed to get stolen interviews with those belonging to them shut up in the different prisons. Mme. de Beuguot used to visit her husband disguised as a washer-woman, and through her devotion, courage, and good management he was ultimately saved. Some bribed or persuaded the more humane gaolers, and one man was visited through all his imprisonment by his two little children who came with no other guardian than their large dog. The faithful creature brought them safe there and back every day, watching carefully that they were not run over.

The prison of the Carmes was a very different abode to Port Libre, and it was just at its worst time, but still TÉrÈzia used afterwards to declare that she, after a time, got accustomed to the horrors of the prison. The constant presence of death made them more and more callous, and they would play games together like children, even enacting the scenes of execution which they had every prospect of going through in reality. Their room, or cell, looked out into the garden, through a grating, into which, however, they could not go; a single mattress in a corner served for their bed.

The Duchesse d’Aiguillon had obtained leave to have a thimble, needles, and scissors, with which she worked. JosÉphine read and worked; TÉrÈzia told stories and sang.

The hand of Charlotte Corday had sent Marat to his own place; Danton and Camille Desmoulins, beginning to have some slight glimmerings of mercy and humanity, had been denounced and executed; Robespierre was still triumphant, with his friends and satellites, Couthon, St.-Just and David. With them and FoulquiÈr-Tinville, Paris was like hell upon earth. Long lists of victims, numbers of whom were women, went every day to the guillotine; the populace were getting weary of blood and slaughter. Again Tallien made an attempt to get the release of TÉrÈzia, even suggesting that it was time to stop the murder of women. Even David agreed; but Robespierre was inexorable.

On the morning of the 4th Thermidor a dagger had been mysteriously sent to Tallien, without a word of explanation. No one knew who had brought it; there it was upon his table. But he knew the dagger, and what it meant. It was a Spanish poignard which belonged to TÉrÈzia. It was then that he went and made his last and useless appeal to Robespierre. TÉrÈzia had again been removed to La Force, and on the 7th Thermidor he received a letter from her.

“La citoyenne Fontenay to the citoyen Tallien, rue de la Perle, 17.

“The administrateur de police has just left; he has been to tell me that to-morrow I go to the tribunal, which means to the scaffold. It is indeed unlike the dream I had last night, that Robespierre was dead and the prisons open; but thanks to your incredible cowardice, there will soon be nobody left in France capable of realising it.”

He answered immediately—

“Have as much prudence as I will have courage, but calm your head.”

Then he went to find Barras and FrÉron.

But TÉrÈzia had nearly lost all hope. She had waited and waited, always expecting help—for Tallien was powerful among the leaders of the government. But when she was taken from the Carmes back to La Force, she knew that her time had come, and now the gaoler had told her that it was not worth while to make her bed, as it was to be given to another.

With anguish she saw one cartload of prisoners leave, and she trembled every moment lest she should hear the sound of the wheels of a second in the courtyard of the prison.

But the next day passed and she was not called for. All day she waited in a feverish, terrible suspense that can well be imagined; night came and she was still spared. Morning dawned, the morning of the 9th Thermidor. The weather was frightfully oppressive, and in all the prisons in Paris they were stifling from the heat, for the late cruel restrictions had put an end, even in the more indulgent prisons, to the possibility of walks in garden or cloister and the chance of fresh air. But as the long, weary day wore on, there seemed to be some change approaching; there was an uneasy feeling about, for there had lately been rumours of another massacre in the prisons, and the prisoners, this time resolving to sell their lives dearly, had been agreeing upon and arranging what little defence they could make. Some planned a barricade made of their beds, others examined the furniture with a view to breaking it up into clubs, a few brought carefully out knives they had managed to conceal in holes and corners from the prison officials, some filled their pockets with cinders and ashes to fling in the faces of their assailants, and so escape in the confusion, while others, republicans and atheists, felt for the cabanis, a poison they carried about them, and assured themselves that it was all safe and ready for use.

They waited and listened. There was certainly more noise in the streets, something was evidently going on; but there was no attack upon any of the prisons; on the contrary, it was the gaolers who were undoubtedly alarmed. Their whole tone and manner changed from brutal insolence to civility and indulgence. When evening approached they were running about from one room to another with looks of dismay, while the terror of the prison spies was uncontrolled.

In the Luxembourg, between six and seven in the evening, a prisoner whose room was at the top of the palace came down and said that he heard the tocsin. In breathless silence all listened, and recognised that fearful sound. Drums were beating, the noise and tumult grew louder and nearer, but whether it meant life or death to them they could not tell; only the discouraged and anxious demeanour of the officials gave them hope. In spite of the opposition of the gaolers several of them rushed up the stairs and got out on the roof to see what was going on. In the rue Tournon they saw an immense crowd with a carriage in the midst, which by the clamour around it they knew must contain some important person. It stopped before the Luxembourg, the name of Robespierre was spoken; it was sent on with him to the Maison Commune.

The clamour died away; all night reassuring proclamations were heard about the streets.

The next morning all was changed. The cringing, officious, timid civility of their tyrants left but little doubt in their minds. They clasped each other’s hands, even then not daring to speak openly or show their joy, until the news, first a whisper, then a certainty, assured them that Robespierre was dead.

Then TÉrÈzia knew that she was safe, and that Tallien, for her sake, had overthrown the monster and broken the neck of the Terror. Soon he appeared in triumph to throw open the gates of La Force, and the following day TÉrÈzia, accompanied by FrÉron and Melun de Thionville, went herself to the club of the Jacobins and closed it without any one venturing to take the keys from her.

When Pitt heard of it he remarked, “That woman is capable of closing the gates of hell.”

ROBESPIERRE was dead, and Tallien, for the time, reigned in his stead; and with him and over him, TÉrÈzia, or, as she may be called, Mme. Tallien, for although Tallien before spoke of her as his wife, it was only after the 9th Thermidor that some sort of marriage ceremony was performed. But the name she now received, amongst the acclamation of the populace, was “Notre Dame de Thermidor.” For it was she who had brought about the deliverance of that day; for her and by her the Terror had been broken up; and although the Thermidoriens, led by Tallien, Barras and FrÉron, had re-established or continued the ComitÉ de Salut Public, the greater number of the blood-stained tyrants who ruled the Revolution still remained, and many horrors and tyrannies for some time longer went on; still there was at once an enormous difference. The revolutionary gang had, of course, not altered its nature, those of whom it was composed were the same, cruel, remorseless, and steeped in crimes; but however much they wished it they could not continue to carry on the terrorism against which the anger of the populace was now aroused.

The people had had enough; they were tired of blood and murder. Even before Thermidor they had begun to murmur as the cars of victims passed through the streets; a reaction had begun.

The prisons were thrown open, the Directoire was far milder than the Convention, pardons were obtained in numbers, especially by TÉrÈzia, who, when she could not succeed in saving persons in danger in any other way, had often risked her own safety to help and conceal them.

Paris seemed to be awaking into life again; the streets were more animated, the people to be seen in them were more numerous and did not all look either brutal or terror-stricken. Art, literature, and social gaiety began to revive.

One of the odious, inevitable republican fÊtes was, of course, given to celebrate the events of Thermidor. Mme. Tallien opened a salon, where, as in the others then existing, the strange, uncouth figures of the sans-culottes mingled with others whose appearance and manners showed that they were renegades and traitors to their own order and blood.

Conspicuous amongst these was Barras, who, though his hands were deeply dyed in the blood of the Terror, belonged to one of the noblest families in Provence.

“Noble comme un Barras,” was, in fact, a common saying of the country.

His was the leading salon of Paris at that time, and Mme. Tallien was the presiding genius there. Music, dancing, and gambling were again the rage, the women called themselves by mythological names and wore costumes so scanty and transparent that they were scarcely any use either for warmth or decency; marriages, celebrated by a civic functionary, were not considered binding, and were frequently and quickly followed by divorce. Society, if such it could be called, was a wild revel of disorder, licence, debauchery, and corruption; while over all hung, like a cloud, the gloomy figures of Billaud-Varennes, Collot d’Herbois, BarÈre, and their Jacobin followers, ready at any moment to bring back the Terror.

So it was on a volcano that they feasted and sang and danced and made love, and TÉrÈzia was the life and soul of the pandemonium which had taken the place of the graceful, polished, cultivated society of the ancien rÉgime.

Her first care had been to release from the Carmes her fellow-prisoners, JosÉphine de Beauharnais and Mme. d’Aiguillon, who now formed an intimate part of her society and that of Barras. To them also came Mme. de Stael, wife of the Swedish Ambassador, the beautiful Mme. Regnault-de-Saint-Jean-d’Angely, Mme. Cambys, and many others thankful to escape from the shadows of prison and death to the light of liberty and pleasure. The restraints of religion and morality were, of course, non-existent; liaisons and licence were the order of the day, and TÉrÈzia was not likely to be an exception to the general custom. She had, besides her daughter by Tallien, other children, who, as no other name belonged to them, were called Cabarrus. And her being or calling herself Tallien’s wife was no reason why she should renounce her natural right to love any one else where, when, and as often as she pleased.

And Barras pleased her. His distinguished appearance and manners contrasted with those of her present surroundings, and recalled the days when she lived amongst people who were polite and well-bred, knew how to talk and eat and enter a drawing-room, and behave when they were in it; and who wore proper clothes and did not call each other “citoyen,” or any other ridiculous names, and conversation was delightful, and scenes and memories of blood and horror unknown. It may well have been at this time that she began to yearn after that former existence she had been so rashly eager to throw away.

Her love for Tallien was beginning to wane. It had never been more than a mad passion, aroused by excitement, romance, and the strange circumstances which threw them into each other’s way; and kept alive by vanity, interest, gratitude, and perhaps above all by success. She wanted Tallien to be a great power, a great man; and she was beginning to see that he was nothing of the sort. If, when Robespierre fell, instead of helping to set up a government composed of other men, he had seized the reins himself, she would have supported him heart and soul, shared his power, ambition, and danger, and probably her admiration and pride might have preserved her love for him. But Tallien had not the power to play such a part; he had neither brains nor character to sway the minds of men and hold their wills in bondage to his own. And now he was in a position which in any line of life surely bars the way to success: he was neither one thing or the other.

Between him and the royalists were the September massacres, rivers of blood, crimes and blasphemies without end.

Between him and the Jacobins, the death of Robespierre and the destruction of the Montagne.

And he saw that his influence was declining and with it the love of the woman to whom he was still devoted.

Of course there were disputes and jealousies as time went on. It is of Tallien that is told the story of his complaint to his wife—

“Tu ne me tutoies plus!” and of her answer—

“Eh bien! va-t-en.”

Their first house in Paris was a sort of imitation cottage, after the execrable taste of the day, in the Champs-ElysÉes, from which they moved into a hÔtel in the rue de la Victoire, which was for some time the resort of all the chiefs of their political party, and the scene of constant contention between the Thermidoriens and the remnants of the Montagne. The discussions were generally political, and often violent; they would have been abhorrent to the well-bred society of former days.

Barras was the leading spirit in this society, and for some time he was at TÉrÈzia’s feet. But if Tallien was not a great man, neither was Barras; amongst all the unscrupulous ruffians of the revolutionary party there did not appear to be one superior enough to his fellows to command or lead them.

And yet there was one: “a young, pale, sickly-looking Italian,” who lived in a third-rate inn, wore a shabby uniform, and frequented the parties of Barras and the rest. He was not a conspicuous figure nor a particularly honoured guest; his military career had been apparently ruined by the spite of his enemies; he seemed to have no money, no connections, and no prospects. But in a few years all of them—all France and nearly all Europe—were at his feet, for it was Napoleon Buonaparte.

His career, however, was even now beginning; and not long after TÉrÈzia, in the height of her beauty and power with Paris at her feet, rejected his love-making but accepted his friendship, he was sent to Italy and began the series of triumphs which were to raise him to the throne of France.

As time went on TÉrÈzia found that her influence as well as that of Tallien was rapidly declining. Her salon was not at all likely to last long. Those of the court and of society before the Revolution had been of an entirely different order; held by women who, besides their beauty or other attractions, were in an assured position, surrounded by well-known connections and friends, forming an intimate society sure to be met at their houses, and always ready to carry on conversation, avoid all topics likely to give offence, and make themselves generally agreeable. Nobody was admitted there who was not accustomed to the usages of the world or who would interfere with the harmony and general tone of the house. People went there, not to engage in political discussions or to make love to their hostess, but to spend a pleasant evening and meet the friends they knew and liked. These salons continued to be frequented by their usual guests year after year without any more change than the lapse of time inevitably brings.

Laure Permon, Duchesse d’AbrantÈs, than whom no one was a better judge of these matters, observes—

“To ‘receive’ is to have an open house, where one can go every evening with the certainty of finding it lighted up and inhabited, the host ready to receive one with pleasure and courtesy. For that, it is not an absolute necessity to have a superior intellect, to descend from Charlemagne, or to possess two hundred thousand livres de rentes; but it is absolutely necessary to have knowledge of the world and cultivation, qualities which everybody does not possess.”

The sort of people who frequented the salon of Mme. Tallien had no such ideas. They were a miscellaneous horde collected from the most opposite sources, many of whom were strangers to each other or disliked and feared each other, and who went there for different reasons. When Tallien became less powerful her salon became less and less full; when men ceased to be in love with her they left off going there.

The infatuation of Barras for her began also to cool. He left off going to her as at one time to consult her about everything. If he wished to see her, or she to see him, she must go to him at the Luxembourg.

And step by step she was drawing away from the Revolution. She had had enough of it, and she began to feel that disgust and horror were taking the place of the frantic admiration she had entertained for it in former years. And the finishing stroke was put by hearing herself called, as she walked with Tallien in Cours la Reine one evening, “Notre Dame de Septembre.”

Tallien heard it too, and it was like a blow to him. Do and say what he might, he could never shake off the stain of the September massacres, and time only increased the horror with which they were regarded.

The name, applied to TÉrÈzia, was a cruel injustice, and, with the ingratitude so often to be met with, now that she was less powerful and people were not in need of her protection, they forgot or neglected or slandered her, and that accursed name was frequently to be heard.

In her altered state of mind Tallien was associated with all the horrors she longed to forget, and she began to wish to free herself from a marriage which in her eyes was only a contract entered into for mutual convenience, to be ended when no longer desirable.

Tallien had saved her life twice, and she had given him her youth and beauty and fortune; she probably thought they were quits. Her connection with him had lasted five years, and now her passion both for him and for the Revolution had burnt itself out, she was in all the splendour of her beauty and not more than five-and-twenty years old. Most of her life lay before her.

If she no longer cared for Barras nor he for her, there were plenty of others ready to worship her. M. Ouvrard, a millionaire who was under an obligation to her, heard her complain that she had no garden worth calling one. Some days later he called for her in his carriage, and took her to the door of a luxurious hÔtel in the rue de Babylone. Giving her a gold key, he bade her open the door, and when she had given vent to her raptures over the sumptuous rooms and shady garden, he told her that her servants had already arrived; she was at home—all was hers.

Tallien had no wish to separate from TÉrÈzia. He cared more for her than she for him, but he saw that her love was gone; he had failed with her as with everything else. He submitted, and begged to be allowed to accompany Napoleon to Egypt, why, no one could understand, unless he feared he might share the fate of Billaud-Varennes, Collot d’Herbois, BarÈre, and other of his regicide friends, meditating at Cayenne upon the result of the Revolution. [108]

TÉrÈzia remained at Paris, which was soon transformed by the wonderful genius who rose to supreme power upon the ruins of the chimeras with which she and her friends had deluded themselves. The men of the Revolution, regicides and murderers, fled from the country. Napoleon was an enemy of a different kind from Louis XVI., and he was now the idol of the people. His strong hand held the reins of government, his mighty genius dominated the nation and led their armies to victory; the fierce, unruly populace quailed before him. He scorned the mob and hated the Revolution.

“Saturday—of Messidor!” he exclaimed, when ordering the Moniteur to be dated on a certain day. “We shall be laughed at! But I will do away with the Messidor! I will efface all the inventions of the Jacobins!” [109]

Barras fled to Brussels; Tallien, his part played out and his power and position gone, returned to France, the last link broken between him and TÉrÈzia. He did not wish for a divorce, but he was obliged to consent to one. And he had himself been one of its most fervent advocates.

Napoleon gave him a consulship at Alicante, where he spent some years. Before he went, Ouvrard offered him the cottage in the Champs-ElysÉes and a pension of twelve thousand francs, which he refused with indignation. He was again a journalist, and would live by his pen.

He returned to Paris when he left Spain, and lived there, poor, sickly, and forgotten by all but TÉrÈzia, then Princess de Chimay. She was nearly his only friend. She visited him often, and though he would never take money from her, she persuaded him to accept a refuge in the house in the Champs-ElysÉes called the ChaumiÈre, their first dwelling in Paris.

For some years TÉrÈzia continued to live at Paris, where she had witnessed so many transformations and passed through the extremes of prosperity and adversity.

Many friends were about her; her beauty and fascination were as remarkable as ever. From numbers of people she met with the affection and gratitude which, however they might deplore and disapprove of the laxity of her morals, no one who was not altogether contemptible would fail to render to a woman who had saved their life or the lives of those they loved.

Others there were who showed the basest ingratitude. The Marquise de —— had been saved by Mme. Tallien, and hidden for three weeks in her boudoir. Not even her maid knew of her presence there. TÉrÈzia herself not only brought her food and waited upon her, but obtained her pardon and got part of her fortune restored to her. For some time she appeared very grateful, and as long as Tallien was powerful she came constantly to see TÉrÈzia, often asking for fresh favours.

When Tallien had fallen and Napoleon was supreme she ceased to go near her.

A man of her acquaintance, disgusted by her conduct, remarked one day—

“Mme. Tallien is indignant at your ingratitude; she saved your life, and I advise you to go and see her.”

To which she replied, “Comment donc! I have a horror of ingratitude. Of course I intend to go and see her. I owe her a great deal, and I will prove it by doing so. But you understand that I am obliged to consider appearances for the sake of my family, and her reputation forces me to show a reserve which I regret. If you will ask her when I shall find her alone I shall go and see her at once.”

“Tell her,” said Mme. Tallien, “that I am dÉsolÉe not to be able to receive her, but I am never alone, because I am always surrounded by those to whom I have had the happiness to be of use.”

Mme. de Boufflers, Mme. de Sabran, and their families, on the other hand, were always assiduous in their attentions to her, and would refuse other invitations to go to her.

JosÉphine, now the wife of Napoleon, and head of society in Paris, had not forgotten her, and was anxious to receive her at court, but this Napoleon would not allow, greatly to the disappointment and sorrow of them both.

JosÉphine cried and entreated in vain, pointing out the ingratitude he was forcing her to display; but though he always retained his private friendship for TÉrÈzia, he told JosÉphine that only respectable women could be received by the wife of the First Consul.

In 1805 she again married, and this time her husband was in every respect the incarnation of all that she had hitherto opposed and objected to.

A royalist, an emigrÉ, a Prince; but the only man she never ceased to love, and of whom she said, “He was her true husband.”

Joseph, Comte de Caraman, who soon after their marriage became Prince de Chimay, was the third son of the Duc de Caraman, Governor of Provence. He emigrated with the Princes, and, being an excellent musician, gained his living by his violin. He established himself at Hamburg, and there gave lessons.

After the Revolution he returned with the other emigrÉs, and soon after received the inheritance of his uncle, the fourteenth Prince de Chimay, and of the Holy Roman Empire and Grandee of Spain.

They went to live at the ancient castle of Chimay, [110] where they led an intellectual and splendid life, surrounded by the great artists, musicians, and literary men of the day, and by many devoted friends. They spent their winters in Brussels, but a bitter drop in TÉrÈzia’s cup of happiness was the absolute refusal of the King and Queen to receive her at court. The Prince, who was the King’s Chamberlain, had to go without her.

He always adored her, saying she was the good genius of his house. They passed their lives happily together until her death, which took place at Chimay in January, 1835, surrounded by her children, whom she adored. They had several besides her former ones, whom she neither concealed nor separated from.

Tallien’s daughter, one of whose names was “Thermidor,” married a Narbonne-Pelet. Another daughter, the Marquise de Hallay, inherited her beauty, and was an extraordinary likeness of herself. One of her sons, Dr. Edouard Cabarrus, was with her amongst the rest when she died, and the last words she spoke to her children were in the soft caressing Spanish of her early youth.