The Light That Lures | Page 9

services
to the Marquis de Lafayette."
Perhaps the man believed him, perhaps he did not, but the result of an
appeal to force was doubtful, and wine was an attraction. He held out
his hand with an air that the welcome of France was in the action. For
the present they could pose as friends, whatever might chance in the
future.
"Sieur Motier the Marquis is now called, but in America that name
would not appeal. We may drown our mistake in wine, the first but
maybe not the last time we shall drink together."
The landlord brought in the wine and departed without being
questioned.
"Sieur Motier," said Barrington, reflectively. "News has traveled

slowly to us in Virginia, and things here have moved quickly. You can
tell me much. This meeting is a fortunate one for me."
Into weeks and months had been crowded the ordinary work of a long
period of time. After nearly three years of strenuous effort, the
Constituent Assembly had come to an end. With Mirabeau as its master
spirit, it had done much, some evil, but a great deal that was good. It
had suppressed torture, done away with secret letters, and lightened the
burden of many grievous taxes. Now, the one man who was able to deal
with the crisis if any man was, the aristocrat who had become the
darling of the rabble, the "little mother" of the fisher-wives, the hope of
even the King himself, was silent. Mirabeau was dead. In fear the King
had fled from Paris only to be stopped at Varennes and brought back
ignominiously to the capital. The Legislative Assembly took the place
of the Constituent Assembly, three parties in it struggling fiercely for
the mastery, one party, that high-seated crowd called the Mountain, red
republicans whose cry was ever "No King," growing stronger day by
day. Nations in arms were gathering on the frontiers of France, and the
savagery of the populace was let loose. The Tuileries had been stormed,
the Swiss Guard butchered, the royal family imprisoned in the Temple.
Quickly the Legislative Assembly had given way to a National
Convention, and the country was ripe for any and every atrocity the
mind of man could conceive.
The patriot, sitting opposite to Barrington and drinking wine at
intervals, told his tale with enthusiasm and with many comments of his
own. He was full of the tenets of the Jacobin and Cordelian Clubs. For
him the world, set spinning on a mad career when the Bastille fell, was
moving too slowly again. There had been a good beginning, truly
something had been done since, but why not make a good end of it?
Mirabeau, yes, he had done something, but the work had grown too
large for him. He had died in good time before the people had become
tired of him. France was for the people, and there must be death for all
who stood in the people's way, and a quick death, too.
"Blood must run more freely, there will be no good end without that,"
he said; "the blood of all aristocrats, no matter what they promise, what

they pretend. From the beginning they were liars. France has no use for
them save to make carrion of."
"And whose power is sufficient for all this?" Barrington asked.
"To-day, no one's. To-morrow;--who shall say? Things go forward
quickly at times. A sudden wave might even raise me to power."
"Then the good ending," said Barrington.
The man caught no irony, he only heard the flattery.
"Then the blood flowing," he laughed; "so, as full in color and as freely
spilt," and he jerked the remains of the wine in his glass across the
room, staining the opposite wall.
"And if not at your word, perhaps at that of Monsieur de Lafayette,
Sieur Motier," Barrington suggested. He wanted the man to talk about
the Marquis.
"He is an aristocrat with sympathies which make no appeal to me. The
people have grown tired of him, too. I am honest, and fear no man, and
I say that Motier has long been at the crossroads. He is, or was, an
honest man, I hardly know which he is now, and even honest men must
suffer for the cause. You say you are his friend, whisper that warning in
his ear, if you see him; say you had it from Jacques Sabatier, he will
have heard of me."
"Certainly, I will tell him," said Barrington, wondering if such a man as
Lafayette could have heard of such a truculent scoundrel as this. "Is he
in Paris?"
"I know nothing of him. He was with the army in the North, but he may
have been recalled. He must obey like the rest of us. Do you ride with
us to Paris