The Goddess of Reason 4
Eh?
DE L’ORIENT
She plays the firebrand.
COUNT LOUIS
Bah!
DE L’ORIENT
She hath
The loveliest face!
COUNT LOUIS
Hm!
THE ABBÉ
I am unscathed.
De Vardes is slightly wounded!
ALL
Oh!
COUNT LOUIS
Morbleu!
And how did it happen, Monsieur l’Abbé?
THE ABBÉ
Behold us at our ease in the great hall,
De Vardes and I, a-musing o’er piquet!
Voltaire beside us, for we read “Alzire,”
A wine as well, more suave than any verse;
A still and starlit night, soft, fair, and warm;
Wax-lights, and roses in a china bowl.
He laid aside his sword and I my cap,
All tranquilly at home, the Two Estates!
He held carte blanche, I followed with quatorze.
The roses sweetly smelled, the candles burned,
At peace we were with nature and mankind.—
A crash of painted glass! a whirling stone!
A candle out! the roses all o’erturned!
The thunder of a log against our doors!
A clattering of sabots! a sudden shout!
_Morbec, Morbec, it is thy Judgment Night!
Admission, admission, Aristocrats!_
Red turns the night, the servants all rush in.
_Sieur! Sieur!_ the lackeys moan and wring their hands.
_Give, give!_ the terrace croaks. _Burn, Morbec, burn!_
The great bell swings in the windy tower
Till the wolves in the forest pause to hear.
_Fall, Morbec, fall! France has no need of thee!_
Upsprings a rosy light! a smell of smoke!
Mischief’s afoot! The Baron of Morbec
Lays down his cards and takes his rapier up,
Hums _Le Sein de sa Famille_, shuts _Alzire_,
Resignedly rises—
COUNT LOUIS (_rubbing his hands_)
Expresses regret
That monsieur his guest—
THE ABBÉ
Should be incommoded
And turns to the door. I levy the tongs.
The seneschal Grégoire hauls from the wall
An ancient arquebus! The lackeys wail,
And nothing do, as is the lackey’s wont!
Again the peasants thunder at the door!
_Open, De Vardes! Oh, hated of all names!
The new is as the old! Death to De Vardes!_
The log strikes full, and now a panel breaks;
In comes a hand that brandishes a pike;
A voice behind, _We’ve come to sup with thee!
For thou hast bread and we have none, De Vardes!_
THE ENGLISHMAN
Ha, ha! ha, ha! ha, ha!
COUNT LOUIS
You laugh, monsieur?
THE ABBÉ
I like calmness myself. Calm of the sea,
Calm skies, the calm spring, and calmness of mind!
A tempest’s plebeian! So I admired
René de Vardes when he walked to the door
And opened it! Behold the whole wolf pack,
As lean as ‘twere winter! canaille all!
Sans-culottes and tatterdemalions,
Mere dust of the field and sand of the shore;
Humanity’s shreds would follow the mode,
And burn the château of their rightful lord!
De Vardes’ peasants in fine. _Mort aux tyrans!
À bas Aristocrat! Vive la patrie!
Vive la Révolution!_ In they pressed,
Gaunt, haggard, and shrill, and full in the front—
Young and fair, conceive! dark-eyed and red-lipped—
A fury, a mænad, a girl called—
DE L’ORIENT
Yvette!
THE ABBÉ
So they named her, the peasants of Morbec,
Named and applauded the dark-eyed besom!
When, De Vardes’ drawn rapier just touching
Her breast-knot of blue as she stood in his path,
Up went her brown hand, armed with a sickle!—
De Vardes is a known fencer,—‘tis lucky!
His wound is not deep, and in the left arm!
THE VIDAME
She may hang for that! How high I forget
The gallows should be—
COUNT LOUIS (_offering his snuff-box_)
Monsieur le Vidame,
Thirty feet, I believe!
THE VIDAME
But not in chains—
COUNT LOUIS
No! It was the left arm.
DE L’ORIENT
What did De Vardes?
THE ABBÉ
De Vardes, with Liancourt and Rochefoucauld,
Holds that the peasant doth possess a soul!
I think it hurt him to the heart that he,
New come to Morbec, and unknown to these,
His vassals of the village, field, and shore,
Should be esteemed by them an enemy,
A Baron Henri come again, forsooth!
But since ‘twas so, out rapier! parry! thrust!
Diable! he’s a swordsman to my mind!
The mænad with the sickle he puts by;
Runs through the arm a clamourer of corvée,
Brings howling to his knees a sans-culotte,
And strikes a flail from out a claw-like hand!
They falter, they give way, the craven throng!
The women cry them on; they swarm again.
His bright steel flashes, rise and fall my tongs!
But the lackeys are naught, and Grégoire finds
A flaw in his musket; he will not fire!
Pardieu! the things this Revolution kills!
There is no faithfulness in service now!
Our peasants grow bold. Ma foi! we’re at bay!
De Vardes and De Barbasan, rapier, tongs!
Wild blows and wild cries, blown smoke and a glare,
And the girl Yvette with her reaping hook
Still pushed to the front by the women there!
Upon De Vardes’ white sleeve the blood is dark,
And his breath comes fast! I see the event
As ‘twill look in print in Paris next week,
In _L’Ami du Peuple or Journal du Roi_!
“The Vain Defence of an Ancient Château!
When we Burn so Much, why not Burn the Land?”
And I break with my tongs a young death’s-head
That’s bawling—What think you?—_Vive la République._
COUNT LOUIS
Death and damnation!
THE ABBÉ
So I said! And then,
Quite, I assure you, in time’s very nick,
The saint De Vardes prays to smiled on him!
A thunder clap!—_Pas de charge! En avant!_
Captain Fauquemont de Buc and his Hussars!
DE BUC
Warned by the saint, we galloped from Auray!
THE ABBÉ
Like the dead leaves borne afar on the blast,
Or like the sea mist when the sun rises,
Or like the red deer when the horn’s sounded,—
Like anything in short that’s light o’ heel,—
Vanished our peasants! The women went last;
And last of all the mænad with the eyes!
Jesu! She might have been Jeanne d’Arc, that girl!
The man who captures her has a hand full!—
To the deep woods they fled, are hunted now.—
De Vardes and I gave welcome to De Buc,
Put out the fire, attended to our wounds,
Resumed our cards, and finished our _Alzire_—
The Château of Morbec stands, you observe!
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