CHAPTER XCV.
THE FRAUD OF FASCINATION.
“Ah! you have thought better of it—I knew that it would be so,” said Mirabeau, receiving the woman he had parted with in such bitter anger, with a broad, frank smile. “Why will you degrade yourself with miserable threats, my beautiful friend?”
“Threats! Only threats! Nay, it was something more. I am not to be defied with impunity.”
“Defied! No. With me it was confidence, not defiance.”
“Confidence! How?”
“How? Not even yourself, Louison, can make me believe you capable of a mean action.”
“A mean action! But you had concealments with me.”
“Only for a time. In a few days you would have known everything.”
“You made a confidant of that woman, Du Berry, who is worse than an aristocrat, and only claims to be one of us when all else reject her.”
“On the contrary—I made her my tool.”
“You invited that insolent woman, Theroigne de Mericourt, to your table, while I was almost driven from your door.”
Mirabeau laughed till the ruffles on his broad bosom shook again.
“Ah! you heard of that! Why, the whole troop of rioters forced themselves upon me—these two women with the rest. Robespierre, Marat, and some others, members of the Assembly, all came in a little mob together. I could but entertain them. Such men resent neglect.”
“But Madame Du Berry! I was here—I overheard your conversation with that woman.”
“Then you only learned one fact, that I considered her a useful instrument, by which a great end might be attained. She still has friends at court. I wished to draw myself into communication there.”
“Yes, I know,” answered Louison, with a bitter laugh. “You wished to visit a little temple in the grounds at St. Cloud.”
Mirabeau winced, but the smile never left his lips as she went on.
“You desired, above all things, to kneel at the feet and kiss the hand of the queen. For a citizen of France, sworn to make her people free, it was a glorious ambition.”
“Go on,” said the count, leaning back in his chair—“go on. What more have you learned?”
“What more? Why, that the kneeling was done—the kiss given. I saw your perjured lips on the Austrian’s hand with my own eyes. The whole base treason was made plain to me then, as it is now, when I have your letter at command.”
Mirabeau’s eyes flashed. She had the letter still in her possession. His greatest anxiety was laid at rest.
“Then,” he said, with a pleasant, mellow laugh, “you have been playing the spy upon me all this time. Quite unnecessary, my friend. When my plans were matured you would have had them all. These others were my instruments; you had a grander and higher role to play.”
“Yes, I understand, that of a cast-off garment when the fashions change, or an orange when the juice is exhausted,” answered the woman, tartly, but wavering a little in her bitter unbelief.
“Mon Dieu! how thoroughly you play the jealous dame, Louison. I had hoped better things of you; but it is folly, I suppose, to expect broad confidence and a clear understanding of great aims in any woman.”
Louison flushed angrily. It had been her pride to mate her own bold spirit with that of Mirabeau.
“Wise men or women do not act blindly when nations are at stake,” she said, in a tone that was becoming more and more apologetic. “Deceive me in ever so little, and you deceive me in everything.”
“But I have not deceived you, my beautiful tigress!”
“You have met the queen?”
“Granted.”
“Taken money from the queen?”
“That is false—a wicked slander that would blister honest lips,” cried the count, sitting upright, and flashing a storm of fierce wrath upon her.
Louison looked around the magnificent room, and bent her splendid eyes upon him in silent unbelief. He understood the expression of her face, and answered it.
“All this costs me nothing. It is the property of a refugee, and I seized upon it as a servant of the people.”
“To ape the manners of an aristocrat,” answered Louison, with a faint sneer.
“To win the power which shall hurl down aristocrats to a level with the people, or lift Mirabeau and those he loves above that of any monarch. Tell me, Louison, how will France be served best, by destroying all fixed laws, or by placing a man who has a genius for government in control of a weak and yielding king? The time may come, girl, when Marie Antoinette will find the woman who aids Mirabeau in carrying out the broad designs which fill his mind, lifted above herself in power, while she has only the name of queen, another——”
“But that woman?”
“Need I name her?” cried the count, taking Louison’s hand in his, and lifting his face to hers with an expression that made her heart swell.
“Still, Mirabeau, it is useless to say that of late you have ceased to regard me.”
“Because I have had momentous plans in my mind; because it seemed to me needful that the world should think with you, that there is neither love nor confidence between us. It is important that I should have one firm and trusting friend among my enemies. I had designed you for the position, Louison. What human being is there who can so readily win admiration and confidence? In their clubs, and in their private committees, I wish you to be the soul. It was this desire that made me seem less cordial than of old. I was willing my foes should think that we had quarreled. In order that you might get your part well it was necessary that you should feel it a reality. When the idea was once established, I should have taught you how false it was by deeper devotion, more perfect confidence. But you felt these preliminaries too keenly and became dangerous.”
“Because I loved you. Oh, Mirabeau! it was from my great love which you seemed to outrage.”
Louison threw herself upon her knees, and reached up her arms to Mirabeau with a great longing for some return of tenderness, which she had thought lost to her forever. This gesture disturbed the letter which she had thrust deep down in her bosom, and the edge came up through the loose folds of her dress. Mirabeau saw it, and his eyes flashed fire. She caught their light, and grew gentle and yielding as a child under it. Surely the man loved her, or his face would never have brightened like that! How childish and wayward she had been! It was magnanimous in Mirabeau to forgive her so readily; but then his nature was so grand—no wonder the people adored him. Surely, if he could control the monarch of France, all must be well with the masses.
“How could I distrust you so?” she murmured, resting her head against him. “Look on me, beloved, and say that I am forgiven.”
He did look upon her with an expression that had made many a heart beat faster to their peril.
“But you have not told me all?” he said, gently. “There was another letter. How did you reach it?”
“Another letter? The queen’s answer. I waited for it, hoped for it; but the little wretch would not give it up.”
“What wretch? Nay, nay! do not turn your head from me, Louison. Confidence, to be perfect, must be mutual. Tell me what more you have been doing.”
Louison told him how she had put Zamara on the track of his enterprise, and confessed, with burning shame, the defeat that wary dwarf had brought upon her.
“So he has the document!” said Mirabeau, carelessly. “No matter; we will soon get it from him. I will force him to give it into your possession before you leave the house, late as it is. Henceforth there shall be no half confidence between us.”
Louison smiled, and her eyes shone triumphantly—some generous impulses always exist in a woman who loves. Mirabeau’s forbearance brought all that was good in that hard nature to the surface. She remembered, with a pang of remorse, that the most dangerous action that had sprung out of her jealousy was still untold—her interview with Robespierre. While Mirabeau wrote a few brief lines and folded them, she thought of this, and hesitated how to tell him that which would not fail to stir his anger. The count was occupied with other things, and left her, for a time, unnoticed at his feet, while he touched a bell on the table, and gave some orders to a servant.
Louison started when she heard them.
“Take this to Madame Du Berry, she will send her attendant, the dwarf, back with you. See that the imp speaks to no one. If he attempts to evade you, bring him in your arms; but do not quite strangle him.”