El Dorado: An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Emma Orczy
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mayhap, his small back had often smarted under his vulgar tutor’s rough blows; rather did the pale young face wear the air of sullen indifference, and an abject desire to please, which would have appeared heart-breaking to any spectator less self-seeking and egotistic than was this Gascon conspirator.
Madame Simon had called him to her while her man and the citizen Heron were talking, and the child went readily enough, without any sign of fear. She took the corner of her coarse dirty apron in her hand, and wiped the boy’s mouth and face with it.
“I can’t keep him clean,” she said with an apologetic shrug of the shoulders and a look at de Batz. “There now,” she added, speaking once more to the child, “drink like a good boy, and say your lesson to please maman, and then you shall go to bed.”
She took a glass from the table, which was filled with a clear liquid that de Batz at first took to be water, and held it to the boy’s lips. He turned his head away and began to whimper.
“Is the medicine very nasty?” queried de Batz.
“Mon Dieu! but no, citizen,” exclaimed the woman, “it is good strong eau de vie, the best that can be procured. Capet likes it really—don’t you, Capet? It makes you happy and cheerful, and sleep well of nights. Why, you had a glassful yesterday and enjoyed it. Take it now,” she added in a quick whisper, seeing that Simon and Heron were in close conversation together; “you know it makes papa angry if you don’t have at least half a glass now and then.”
The child wavered for a moment longer, making a quaint little grimace of distaste. But at last he seemed to make up his mind that it was wisest to yield over so small a matter, and he took the glass from Madame Simon.
And thus did de Batz see the descendant of St. Louis quaffing a glass of raw spirit at the bidding of a rough cobbler’s wife, whom he called by the fond and foolish name sacred to childhood, maman!
Selfish egoist though he was, de Batz turned away in loathing.
Simon had watched the little scene with obvious satisfaction. He chuckled audibly when the child drank the spirit, and called Heron’s attention to him, whilst a look of triumph lit up his wide, pale eyes.
“And now, mon petit,” he said jovially, “let the citizen hear you say your prayers!”
He winked toward de Batz, evidently anticipating a good deal of enjoyment for the visitor from what was coming. From a heap of litter in a corner of the room he fetched out a greasy red bonnet adorned with a tricolour cockade, and a soiled and tattered flag, which had once been white, and had golden fleur-de-lys embroidered upon it.
The cap he set on the child’s head, and the flag he threw upon the floor.
“Now, Capet—your prayers!” he said with another chuckle of amusement.
All his movements were rough, and his speech almost ostentatiously coarse. He banged against the furniture as he moved about the room, kicking a footstool out of the way or knocking over a chair. De Batz instinctively thought of the perfumed stillness of the rooms at Versailles, of the army of elegant high-born ladies who had ministered to the wants of this child, who stood there now before him, a cap on his yellow hair, and his shoulder held up to his ear with that gesture of careless indifference peculiar to children when they are sullen or uncared for.
Obediently, quite mechanically it seemed, the boy trod on the flag which Henri IV had borne before him at Ivry, and le Roi Soleil had flaunted in the face of the armies of Europe. The son of the Bourbons was spitting on their flag, and wiping his shoes upon its tattered folds. With shrill cracked voice he sang the Carmagnole, “Ca ira! ca ira! les aristos a la lanterne!” until de Batz himself felt inclined to stop his ears and to rush from the place in horror.
Louis XVII, whom the hearts of many had proclaimed King of France by the grace of God, the child of the Bourbons, the eldest son of the Church, was stepping a vulgar dance over the flag of St. Louis, which he had been taught to defile. His pale cheeks glowed as he danced, his eyes shone with the unnatural light kindled in them by the intoxicating liquor; with one slender hand he waved the red cap with the tricolour cockade, and shouted “Vive la Republique!”
Madame Simon was clapping her hands, looking on the child with obvious pride, and a kind of rough maternal affection. Simon was gazing on Heron for approval, and the latter nodded his head, murmuring words of encouragement and of praise.
“Thy catechism now, Capet—thy catechism,” shouted Simon in a hoarse voice.
The boy stood at attention, cap on head, hands on his hips, legs wide apart, and feet firmly planted on the fleur-de-lys, the glory of his forefathers.
“Thy name?” queried Simon.
“Louis Capet,” replied the child in a clear, high-pitched voice.
“What art thou?”
“A citizen of the Republic of France.”
“What was thy father?”
“Louis Capet, ci-devant king, a tyrant who perished by the will of the people!”
“What was thy mother?”
“A –”
De Batz involuntarily uttered a cry of horror. Whatever the man’s private character was, he had been born a gentleman, and his every instinct revolted against what he saw and heard. The scene had positively sickened him. He turned precipitately towards the door.
“How now, citizen?” queried the Committee’s agent with a sneer. “Are you not satisfied with what you see?”
“Mayhap the citizen would like to see Capet sitting in a golden chair,” interposed Simon the cobbler with a sneer, “and me and my wife kneeling and kissing his hand—what?”
“‘Tis the heat of the room,” stammered de Batz, who was fumbling with the lock of the door; “my head began to swim.”
“Spit on their accursed flag, then, like a good patriot, like Capet,” retorted Simon gruffly. “Here, Capet, my son,” he added, pulling the boy by the arm with a rough gesture, “get thee to bed; thou art quite drunk enough to satisfy any good Republican.”
By way of a caress he tweaked the boy’s ear and gave him a prod in the back with his bent knee. He was not wilfully unkind, for just now he was not angry with the lad; rather was he vastly amused with the effect Capet’s prayer and Capet’s recital of his catechism had had on the visitor.
As to the lad, the intensity of excitement in him was immediately followed by an overwhelming desire for sleep. Without any preliminary of undressing or of washing, he tumbled, just as he was, on to the sofa. Madame Simon, with quite pleasing solicitude, arranged a pillow under his head, and the very next moment the child was fast asleep.
“‘Tis well, citoyen Simon,” said Heron in his turn, going towards the door. “I’ll report favourably on you to the Committee of Public Security. As for the citoyenne, she had best be more careful,” he added, turning to the woman Simon with a snarl on his evil face. “There was no cause to arrange a pillow under the head of that vermin’s spawn. Many good patriots have no pillows to put under their heads. Take that pillow away; and I don’t like the shoes on the brat’s feet; sabots are quite good enough.”
Citoyenne Simon made no reply. Some sort of retort had apparently hovered on her lips, but had been checked, even before it was uttered, by a peremptory look from her husband. Simon the cobbler, snarling in speech but obsequious in manner, prepared to accompany the citizen agent to the door.
De Batz was taking a last look at the sleeping child; the uncrowned King of France was wrapped in a drunken sleep, with the last spoken insult upon his dead mother still hovering on his childish lips.
CHAPTER VIII. ARCADES AMBO
“That is the way we conduct our affairs, citizen,” said Heron gruffly, as he once more led his guest back into his office.
It was his turn to be complacent now. De Batz, for once in his life cowed by what he had seen, still wore a look of horror and disgust upon his florid face.
“What devils