CHAPTER LXXXV.
MIRABEAU BUYS FLOWERS.
The crowd settled back, chaffering for fish, sorting out vegetables, and running up accounts, while the business of the day went on, and Louison Brisot made an ignominious retreat, for the first time, from the people she had almost ruled by her eloquence and fierce beauty; for those market women had become almost men in their tastes, and looked upon youth and beauty with the admiration of another sex.
A few of Dame Doudel’s nearest neighbors hovered around the fainting girl; but Louison had disappeared from the market before Marguerite came to herself.
The moment she opened her eyes, these warm-hearted women began to encourage and console her. What had she to fear? Why did she faint? Was it because of Louison Brisot? That was foolish—no one minded Louison now. Since it was known that Mirabeau had put her aside, when a proper person was wanted to lay their troubles before the king, she had been of little account. The market women were wives and mothers, honest women, who wanted to earn bread for their children in an honest way; and Mirabeau knew best how they should be represented. If he had wanted Louison Brisot, or Theroigne, to lead them, would he not have said so? But he did nothing of the kind.
“Take this young girl,” he said; “you go to entreat the king, not to insult him. Liberty is grand, it is pure; when she pleads, it should be through innocent lips.” That was what our Mirabeau said—and he was right. “You have spoken for us, little one, and we will let no one wrong you, much less Louison.”
“You are kind, I feel your goodness here,” said the poor girl, pressing a hand to her heart, which was still heavy with pain. “I only wish it possible to deserve the trust you place in me.”
Marguerite spoke wearily, and her mournful eyes filled with tears. The shock that face had given her brought back that awful scene at the Bastille. The girl had a vivid imagination, and for a time the market, with all its gleaming fish, tinted vegetables, and crimson meat-stalls, vanished from her sight—she stood under the shadows of the Bastille, its grim towers shook to the foundation as a vast horde of human beings raged around them, men and women, soldiers and citizens, all crying out for some human life. A human life—whose was it? What was that which came crashing down from the tallest of those towers? The horror of the reality was scarcely more dreadful than the memory that woman’s face brought back upon her with a suddenness that struck the very life from her heart.
“Let me go,” she said, appealing piteously to Dame Doudel; “I have stood here too long. They are all kind; but the air stifles me.”
Marguerite took up her basket of flowers and left the market, followed by kindly words and pleasant looks from the women through whom she passed. With a slow, weary step she wandered away into the street, not once offering her flowers, but walking on dreamily, unmindful where she went, or whom she met. Indeed, she was so utterly heedless of everything around, that a woman was following her all the time, keeping a little way off, and she quite unconscious that the enemy she most dreaded was on her track, bitter and vindictive as a she wolf.
“Will you sell me some flowers?”
Marguerite started, looked up, and saw the strong, ugly face of Count Mirabeau bending over her.
“Some flowers—some flowers!” repeated the girl. “Yes—yes. If—if you want them.”
“Of course, I want them. Let me select, but with your help, though. Shall it be roses, or myrtle?”
“Myrtle, I think,” said the girl, too sad for a choice of the brighter flowers.
“But roses, too, and some of those sweet-smelling things.”
“Here is a bunch in which they are all tied up. Will you take this, monsieur count?”
“You know me again, sweet Marguerite?” said the count, taking the flowers and fastening them among the ruffles in his bosom. “Know me well enough to blush like your own roses; while I have seen that lovely face too often for my peace of mind.”
“Do the flowers please you?” said Marguerite, dropping her eyes under the bold stare Mirabeau fixed upon her.
“Please me? Of course they do. Here is a likeness of the king, if you can forgive the head for the sake of the gold.”
“A Louis d’or,” said Marguerite, hesitating—“a Louis d’or?”
She held the coin a moment, and gave it back again, with a gentle shake of the head.
“What, my little Jacobin, do you hate the king like that? My foster-brother told me a far different story.”
“Hate the king? Oh, no! I love the king, and am no Jacobin, though I do sell flowers, and in some sort belong to the market.”
“Love the king, and refuse to take his likeness, even when stamped on gold, that is beyond belief.”
“It is not that; but you offer me too much. The flowers you have are worth only a few sous. I will take that, but no more.”
“But if I insist upon it?”
“Dame Doudel would not permit me to accept gifts even from monsieur.”
“Dame Doudel! Oh! she sits in the market—I know her well. But what has she to say in this matter? When Mirabeau sees a pretty girl, and she pleases him with her merchandise, or her face, all the old women in France shall not limit his generosity. Take the gold, child—take the gold.”
Still Marguerite shook her head.
“I cannot take it, monsieur count. Dame Doudel is only a good, kind woman, who loves me; but she would never let me receive alms and call it selling.”
Mirabeau was looking earnestly at the girl’s changing face as she spoke.
“You were the girl I sent to the king that day, and a more lovely little embassadress never was chosen.”
Marguerite blushed, but a bright smile flashed over her face.
“I was honored. It frightened me; but I was so grateful that you permitted me to go.”
“There was another person grateful, I doubt not, and that person was the queen, who dreaded something much worse, I will be sworn! I heard all about it, and have never repented the choice we made, though there was some fierce anger among the grand army of women at the time. You stood in the way of more than one whose brazen ambition would have confronted angels with satisfaction.”
“Yes, I know,” answered the girl, lifting her earnest eyes to the count, and speaking with gentle confidence. “There was one in the market, this morning, who reviled me before all the women, as if I had been to blame in something.”
“Indeed! And who was it?”
“They called her Louison.”
“Louison Brisot?”
“Yes, that was the other name—a tall, handsome woman, with eyes like fire.”
“Oh, yes! I recognize the description. So she dared to assail you. My favor has driven the creature mad, or she would not have found the courage to attack any one Mirabeau has exalted by his notice. This shall not happen again, I will answer for that.”
“Oh! I am not afraid. It is only the sight of her face that can hurt me.”
“Her face? Why it is bold enough, but one of the handsomest in Paris.”
“Oh, it is terrible!” cried the girl, shuddering. “If I could only forget it.”
“Why, what can distress you so in Louison’s face? Surely, it has done you no harm.”
“I saw her kill a man with her own hands, only because he was faithful to the king.”
The poor girl trembled as she spoke; her sweet, young face grew cold and white; and the eyes that she lifted to Mirabeau were full of the anguish she could not speak.
“Louison Brisot has much to answer for, and she shall some day give a strict account,” said Mirabeau, sternly; “but let her pass now—I have something else to talk of. This man, was he your friend, and did he love the king?”
“Better than his own life, or he would have joined the insurgents and been saved,” answered the girl, promptly.
“And you? Remember, child, it is an unpopular, if not a dangerous thing, to speak well of Louis, or his wife.”
“I know it—Mother Doudel has warned me; but I sometimes think it is cowardice not to say the truth. My father suffered wrong from the old king, but loves Louis and his queen well enough to die for them. In that I am like my father.”
“You are a brave girl!” exclaimed Mirabeau, reaching forth his hand, which took hers in a firm clasp. “I did not expect this. So you would serve the king. Well, well, it may be that the chance will be given you. If it should, what then? Would all this bright courage fail?”
“You ask this because I fainted that day at Versailles. I was so young—so very, very young, and all that crowd of women terrified me.”
“But are you so much older now?”
“Yes; years on years. It is a long, weary time since then—every day a year.”
“But can you be silent?”
“If silence will serve the king, I can be dumb.”
The pallor had left her face now, and it was kindled up with a generous glow that spoke well for the courageous soul within.
“But if Dame Doudel should not approve?”
“In this I would not ask her; that which my father approves I will abide by. His first lesson was duty to my God; his next, duty to my sovereign—loyalty with him is sacred as religion.”
“Strange girl,” muttered the count, who gave that forced respect for conscience and religion, which simple truth wrings even from infidels. “Strange, brave girl!”
Perhaps the man was contrasting his own mixed, and, to a certain extent, ignoble motives, with her pure heroism; for his eyes sunk abashed from the earnest purpose kindling in hers, and he began to pick the flowers to pieces which had just been fastened in his bosom.
“Don’t!” she said, with tender pathos in her voice. “Don’t! you will hurt them!”
“Hurt them!” repeated the count; “hurt them! Would to heaven I had never done worse things than that. But tell me where you live, in the old place?”
Marguerite gave Dame Doudel’s address.
“I shall not come myself, perhaps, but you will hear from me. Remember, my name should not be mentioned. No one must be informed that we have met. If you wish to serve the king, it must be cautiously. Some friends of his have need of a trusty messenger, who can pass in and out of the palace unsuspected; you would not hesitate?”
“No.”
“But neither your mother nor Dame Doudel must know.”
“I will not tell them.”
“It may prove dangerous in the end.”
“I am not afraid of any danger that comes only to myself; but that which I do must not harm Dame Doudel or my mother.”
“Of course. It is for their safety that they should know nothing.”
“Then, if danger comes, it will only reach me.”
“Be cautious, and there is no danger.”
“It is hardly worth while to be cautious for myself, so few people would miss me if I were to die before night; there is my father—and one other.”
“And who is this one?”
“I had better not tell—he might not like it.”
“_He!_ Well, I must not ask. But perhaps Jacques could tell me.”
“Monsieur Jacques, no, no. He seldom comes near us now.”
Marguerite did not see the smile that passed over that mouth, or the laughter that sparkled in the eyes that Mirabeau bent upon her. Her mind had gone back tenderly to the prisoner of the Bastille, and she wondered in her heart what he would do if any harm should take her away from him.
“Oh, yes!” she murmured; “there is good reason that I should be careful.”
“The best reason in the world,” answered Mirabeau; “for, without caution, you can do nothing for our friends at St. Cloud—with it, a great deal.”
“Then you also are friendly to the king?”
Mirabeau looked into the girl’s face with a strange, puzzled expression in his own. The simple truth that he read there was enough. One element of this man’s power lay in his almost intuitive knowledge of character, and in the prompt selfishness with which he seized upon the talent and labors of other men, adapting them to his own genius so completely that even to himself he seemed to make them entirely his own. The firm resolution which lay in her heart was made known to the man. As a gentle, truthful girl, he would not have trusted her, but he saw more than that, and spoke out frankly.
“Yes, my girl, I _am_ friendly to the king. I am so friendly to this great nation, too, that the one grand aim of my life shall be to bring the people and the court into harmony.”
“Oh! if you could! If you only could!” cried the girl. “It is the work of an angel you undertake.”
“That is why Mirabeau seeks an angel to help him,” he said, bending his head toward the flower girl, as if she had been a duchess.
“Do not mock me, monsieur. I am only a poor girl, with so few to care for in the world, that I can afford to take a little danger on myself. When you want me, I shall not stand back.”
“I am sure of that, and say, good morning! knowing that I have one true friend more.”
As Mirabeau said this, he lifted his hat with a courteous bend of the head, and swept down the street, forgetting to pay the sous which Marguerite had named as a fair price for her flowers. In this one act the nature of that little, great and most wonderful man, betrayed itself. He was ready to toss away gold for a tuft of flowers, but forgot entirely the trifling sum which was their just value. Prodigality has always a germ of meanness lying at the core. All this time Louison Brisot had been watching them.