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“Stop! stop! The King was what they call ‘a fine fellow,’ but the Queen was a wretch. But both were justly condemned to death–both! Look you! if Turgot could have remained at his post, the Revolution would not have broken out. All the reforms in the State, Church, and Society, which we–pardon the expression–have carried through could have been carried through then, if Turgot had been allowed to put his plans into operation. The Queen would not endure the Minister’s retrenchment of her revenue, and plotted for his removal, and the King supported her. That was a great crime. The second was the overthrow of Necker. Then the Queen and her Court minxes ruled. Both King and Queen sought to stir up foreign countries against their own; their correspondence relating to this was discovered, and then the betrayers of their country were condemned to death. Don’t talk of Martyrs, or I shall be angry. For I am angry when I hear lies, and cannot control myself.”

The Count laid his hand on his sword.

“Put your sword in its sheath, young man, or otherwise….”

They sat down on opposite sides of the table, and darted angry glances at each other.

“The ultimate causes,” continued the old man, “may be sought in heaven, but we have here only to do with secondary causes, and those we know. The Revolution was a Last Judgment which had to come, just as it came in England exactly a hundred years before, in 1689.”

“But Cromwell’s republic did not last.”

“Nor does this; but it comes again! But let us rather talk of something cheerful on this last evening. I have been present at everything; I have a strong memory, and can forget nothing. But what shines most brightly through all the dark days is the recollection of the day on the Champs du Mars, the Feast of Brotherhood of July 14, ’90. Twenty thousand workmen were employed to clear it, but, as they could not finish the work by the appointed day, all Paris went out. There I saw bishops, court marshals, generals, monks, nuns, society ladies, workmen, sailors, dustmen, and street-girls levelling the ground with hoes and spades. Finally the King himself made up his mind to join in the work. That was the greatest feat of equalisation which mankind have carried out; the hills were made low, and the valleys filled. At last the great theatre of liberty was ready. At the altar of the Fatherland a fire of perfumed wood was kindled, and Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, with a retinue of four hundred white-robed priests consecrated the flags. The King in civil dress and the Queen sat on the platform, and, as the ‘first citizens of the State,’ took the constitutional oath. All was forgotten; all was forgiven. Half a million people, collected in one place, animated by one spirit, felt themselves that day to be brothers and sisters. We wept, we fell in each other’s arms, we kissed each other. We wept to think what wretches we had been, and how good and amiable we were now. We wept perhaps, also, because we guessed how fragile all this was.

“And afterwards, in the evening, when Paris turned out in the streets and market-places. Families ate their mid-day meal on the pavement; the old and sick were carried into the open air; food and wine were distributed at the public expense. That was the Feast of Tabernacles, the recollection of the Exodus from Egyptian bondage; it was the Saturnalia, the return of the Golden Age! And then….”

“Then came Marat, Danton, and Robespierre.”

“Yes! Robespierre, the most hated of all, was not worse than Louis XI and Henry VIII.”

“A murderer.”

“The judge is not a murderer, nor is the executioner.”

“But the Golden Age passed–as it came.”

“Yet it comes again.”

“Not with Buonaparte!”

“No, not with him, but through him.” “Who is he?”

“A Corsican, born in the same year in which France annexed his country. He will avenge it, and, since he can never feel himself a Frenchman, he will exploit our country only for his own purposes. But nevertheless, in spite of his unparalleled selfishness, his wickedness and crimes, he will serve humanity–for everything serves.”