A cloud had been forming for the space of fifteen hundred years; at the end of fifteen hundred years it burst.
You are putting the thunderbolt on its trial.”
The Bishop felt, without, perhaps, confessing it, that something within him had suffered extinction.
Nevertheless, he put a good face on the matter. He replied:—
“The judge speaks in the name of justice; the priest speaks in the name of pity, which is nothing but a more lofty justice.
A thunderbolt should commit no error.”
And he added, regarding the member of the Convention steadily the while,
“Louis XVII.?”
The conventionary stretched forth his hand and grasped the Bishop’s arm.
“Louis XVII.! let us see.
For whom do you mourn? is it for the innocent child? very good; in that case I mourn with you.
Is it for the royal child?
I demand time for reflection.
To me, the brother of Cartouche, an innocent child who was hung up by the armpits in the Place de Greve, until death ensued, for the sole crime of having been the brother of Cartouche, is no less painful than the grandson of Louis XV., an innocent child, martyred in the tower of the Temple, for the sole crime of having been grandson of Louis XV.”
“Monsieur,” said the Bishop, “I like not this conjunction of names.”
“Cartouche?
Louis XV.?
To which of the two do you object?”
A momentary silence ensued.
The Bishop almost regretted having come, and yet he felt vaguely and strangely shaken.
The conventionary resumed:— “Ah, Monsieur Priest, you love not the crudities of the true.
Christ loved them.
He seized a rod and cleared out the Temple.
His scourge, full of lightnings, was a harsh speaker of truths.
When he cried, ‘Sinite parvulos,’ he made no distinction between the little children.
It would not have embarrassed him to bring together the Dauphin of Barabbas and the Dauphin of Herod.
Innocence, Monsieur, is its own crown.
Innocence has no need to be a highness.
It is as august in rags as in fleurs de lys.”
“That is true,” said the Bishop in a low voice.
“I persist,” continued the conventionary G——
“You have mentioned Louis XVII. to me.
Let us come to an understanding.
Shall we weep for all the innocent, all martyrs, all children, the lowly as well as the exalted?
I agree to that.
But in that case, as I have told you, we must go back further than ‘93, and our tears must begin before Louis XVII.
I will weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep with me over the children of the people.”
“I weep for all,” said the Bishop.
“Equally!” exclaimed conventionary G——; “and if the balance must incline, let it be on the side of the people.
They have been suffering longer.”
Another silence ensued.
The conventionary was the first to break it.
He raised himself on one elbow, took a bit of his cheek between his thumb and his forefinger, as one does mechanically when one interrogates and judges, and appealed to the Bishop with a gaze full of all the forces of the death agony.
It was almost an explosion.
“Yes, sir, the people have been suffering a long while.
And hold! that is not all, either; why have you just questioned me and talked to me about Louis XVII.?
I know you not.
Ever since I have been in these parts I have dwelt in this enclosure alone, never setting foot outside, and seeing no one but that child who helps me.
Your name has reached me in a confused manner, it is true, and very badly pronounced, I must admit; but that signifies nothing: clever men have so many ways of imposing on that honest goodman, the people.
By the way, I did not hear the sound of your carriage; you have left it yonder, behind the coppice at the fork of the roads, no doubt.