Part 31 (1/2)
The cart jolted onward through the dense and jeering crowd until it reached the foot of the steps leading to the awful guillotine. The aged man and his youthful companion were yet crying ”Vive le Roi!” The Republican, accursed of _Moderantisme_, was still regarding them with an air of ironical compa.s.sion. The priest was yet reciting prayers and canticles with the three women. None of these unfortunates paid the slightest attention either to the hooting mob or the dreadful doom from which but a few instants separated them.
The cart suddenly stopped and the condemned were roughly ordered to leave it. They did so mechanically and without resistance. The executioner's a.s.sistants seized upon them, dragging them into an open s.p.a.ce, as if, instead of human beings, they had been merely dumb animals, awaiting slaughter in a butcher's shambles. The sans-culottes cheered; the tricoteuses, seated in knots, clapped their hands wildly in savage joy, delighted that more blood was speedily to be spilled. It was an appalling scene, steeped in horror.
Coursegol moved towards Dolores to put his arm about her and sustain her trembling form. He was rudely pulled back by the a.s.sistant who had him in charge.
”If you are a man and have a heart, show some mercy!” he pleaded. ”Let me go to my daughter who is about to die!”
The a.s.sistant gave a demoniac scowl.
”There is no mercy for the enemies of the Republic!” he snarled. ”Remain where you are!”
Dolores glanced at Coursegol tenderly. The utmost thankfulness was in her look. But she uttered not a word. She felt that speech would merely augment her companion's misery and her own.
Those of the mob who were near enough to catch the a.s.sistant's brutal reply to Coursegol applauded it. Their hearts seemed turned to stone.
Not a morsel of pity or human feeling was left in them. They were like so many wild beasts eager to lap blood.
The executioner had bared his brawny arms for his fiendish task. His face glowed with intense satisfaction.
”Come,” said he, addressing his a.s.sistants. ”We are wasting the Nation's time and keeping hosts of patriots waiting for their just revenge. Death to the enemies of the Republic!”
An officer unfolded a soiled and crumpled paper. He began to call the death-roll.
The aged Royalist went to the guillotine first. In an instant the huge knife descended; his life blood gushed forth and his head fell into the basket. The executioner grasped the head by its white locks and held it up, streaming with gore, to the gaze of the howling concourse.
”So perish all who hate France and liberty!” he shouted.
His shout was taken up and repeated from one end of the Place de la Revolution to the other.
”So perish all who hate France and liberty!”
It was a sublime mockery of justice, a deliberate treading under foot of all the rights of man. The sans-culottes and the tricoteuses rivaled each other in the loudness and strength of their applause.
The youthful Royalist was the next victim, and the preceding scene with all its horrors was repeated.
Then the Republican, accused of _Moderantisme_, met his fate, then the priest, and then, one by one, the three women, each execution having a similar finale.
Dolores and Coursegol alone were left of all the condemned. They looked at each other, encouraging each other to be brave by signs and glances.
The officer with the death-roll read Dolores' name. Coursegol bowed his head, trembling in every limb. The supreme moment had come. The fainting girl was dragged forward. Her foot was already on the first step of the guillotine platform, when suddenly there was a great commotion in the crowd and a stentorian voice cried out:
”In the name of the Republic, hold!”
At the same instant the throng parted like a wave of the ocean and three men appeared at the foot of the guillotine. Two of them were clerks from Robespierre's bureau, clad in the well-known uniform and wearing the revolutionary c.o.c.kade. The third was Bridoul. He wore the dress of the terrible Committee of Public Safety. It was he who had uttered the stentorian cry:
”In the name of the Republic, hold!”
The a.s.sistant who was dragging Dolores forward paused, astounded. The executioner dropped his arms to his sides and glanced at the three men in speechless amazement. An interruption of the guillotine's deadly work was something that had never yet come his knowledge or experience in the b.l.o.o.d.y days of the Reign of Terror. He could not comprehend it. The suddenly silenced mob was equally unable to grasp the situation. What could be the matter? Had the flinty and inexorable Robespierre turned fainthearted at last? No! That was impossible! The patriots waited with open mouths for an explanation of this bewildering phenomenon.
As for Dolores, she saw nothing, heard nothing. At the foot of the guillotine steps she had fainted dead away in the a.s.sistant's arms.