A TALE OF THE MONTH OF FLORÉAL IN THE YEAR II
By Anatole France
TO MADEMOISELLE JEANNE CANTEL
I
The turnkey had shut the door of the house of detention upon her who was formerly known as the Comtesse Fanny d’Avernay, whose arrest is described in the gaol register as a step taken “in the interests of public safety,” though her actual crime was that she had given shelter to enemies of the Government.
And now she is actually within the venerable edifice in which, once upon a time, the recluses of Port Royal indulged their craving for solitude and community life combined, and out of which it was easy to contrive a prison without making any structural change.
Seated on a bench whilst the registrar enters her name, she thinks—
“Ah, God, why are these things permitted; and what more do You demand of me?”
The turnkey’s aspect is rather surly than evil, and his daughter, who is pretty, looks enchanting in her white cap, with cockade and knot of ribbons in the national colours. By this turnkey Fanny is conducted to a large courtyard, in the middle of which grows a fine acacia. There she will wait till he has prepared a bed and a table for her in a room which already contains five or six prisoners, for the house is crowded. Vainly each day is the overplus of tenants led to the revolutionary tribunal and the guillotine. Each day anew the committees fill up the gaps thus created.
In the courtyard Fanny catches sight of a young woman busy cutting a device of initials on the bark of the tree, and at once recognizes Antoinette d’Auriac, a friend of her childhood.
“What, you here, Antoinette?”
“And you, Fanny? Get them to put your bed by the side of mine. We shall have countless things to tell one another.”
“Yes, numbers of things…. And Monsieur d’Auriac, Antoinette?”
“My husband? Upon my word, my dear, I had rather forgotten him. It is unfair on my part. To me he has always been irreproachable…. I fancy that at the present moment he is in prison somewhere or other.”
“And what were you doing just now, Antoinette?”
“Pooh!… What o’clock is it? If it’s five, the friend whose name I was interlacing on the bark there with my own has ceased to exist, for at midday he was haled away to the revolutionary tribunal. His name was Gesrin, and he was a volunteer in the army of the North. I made his acquaintance here in the prison. We passed some agreeable hours together at the foot of this tree. He was a worthy young fellow…. But I must set about making you feel at home, my dear.”
And seizing Fanny by the waist, she carried her off to the room where she herself slept, and obtained the turnkey’s promise not to part her from her friend.
They decided that the following morning they would join forces in washing the floor of their room.
The evening meal, meagrely provided by a patriotic eating-house keeper, was served in common. Each prisoner brought his plate and his wooden cover (metal covers were not allowed), and received his portion of pork and cabbage. At that coarse repast Fanny met women whose gaiety astonished her. As in the case of Madame d’Auriac, their headdresses were scrupulously arranged and they wore unimpeachable costumes. Though death was in sight, they had not lost the womanly desire to please. Their conversation was as gallant as their persons, and Fanny was soon abreast of the love affairs which were knit and unknit in these gloomy courtyards where death lent a keener edge to love. Then, overcome with an indescribable agitation, she was seized with a great longing to clasp another hand in her own.
She called to mind the man who loved her, to whom she had never yielded herself, and a pang of regret, cruel as remorse, rent her heart. Tears as scalding as tears of passion coursed down her cheeks. By the light of the smoky lamp which lit up the table she took note of her companions, whose eyes glittered with fever, and she thought—
“We are condemned to die, all of us. How is it that I am sad and perturbed in spirit, whilst for these women life and death are equally a matter of no concern?”
And all night she wept upon her pallet.
II
Twenty long monotonous days have passed heavily by. The courtyard where the lovers were wont to go in search of quiet and shade is deserted this evening. Fanny, stifled in the moist air of the corridors, has just sat down on the mound of turf which encircles the base of the old acacia that gives the courtyard its shade. The acacia is in flower, and the breeze passing through its branches emerges charged with the heavy perfume. Fanny catches sight of a scrap of paper fastened to the bark of the tree underneath the device which Antoinette traced there. On this paper she reads some verses by the poet Vigée, like herself a prisoner.
Here hearts, from taint of treason free,
Calm victims were of calumny.
Thanks to the shade outspread above
They banished grief in dreams of love.
It heard their sighs and tender fears,
They oft bedewed it with their tears.
You, whom a time less menacing
Shall to this bare enclosure bring,
Spare yet awhile the kindly tree
Which anguish quelled, and strength upheld,
And half bestowed felicity.[23]
Ici des cœurs exempts de crimes,
Du soupçon, dociles victimes,
Grâce aux rameaux d’un arbre protecteur,
En songeant à l’amour oubliaient leur douleur.
Il fut le confident de leurs tendres alarmes;
Plus d’une fois il fut baigné de larmes.
Vous, que des temps moins vigoureux
Amèneront dans cette enceinte,
Respectez, protégez cet arbre généreux.
Il consolait la peine, il rassurait la crainte;
Sous son feuillage on fut heureux.
After reading these lines, Fanny relapsed into a thoughtful mood. She mentally reviewed her life, calm and even, her loveless marriage, the state of her own mind, interested in music and poetry, inclined to friendship, sober, untroubled; and then she thought of the love lavished on her by a gallant gentleman, which had wrapped her in its protective folds, yet been accepted unresponsively, as she was better able to realize in the silence of her prison. And, recognizing that she was about to die, she broke down. A sweat of mortal agony rose to her forehead. In her anguish she raised her burning eyes to the star-strewn sky, and wringing her hands murmured—
“Ah, God, give back to me one little gleam of hope!”
At this moment a light footstep approached. It was Rosine, the turnkey’s daughter, coming for a surreptitious talk with her.
“Citizeness,” the pretty girl said to her, “to-morrow evening a man who loves you will be waiting on the Avenue de l’Observatoire with a carriage. Take this parcel; it contains clothes like those I am wearing; during supper you will put them on in your bedroom. You are of the same height and fair colouring as myself. In the dusk we might easily be taken one for the other. A warder who is in love with me, and who has engaged in the plot with us, will come up to your room and bring you the basket which I take when I go marketing.
“With him you will descend the staircase (of which he carries a key) leading to my father’s lodge. On that side of the prison the outer gate is neither locked nor guarded. You will only have to avoid being seen by my father. My lover will place himself with his shoulder against the little window of the lodge and say, as if he were talking to me: ‘Au revoir, Citizeness Rose, and don’t be so mischievous!’ You will then go quietly into the street. Whilst this is going on I shall leave by the main gate, and we shall join one another in the carriage which is to carry us away.”
As she listened to these words, Fanny drank in the breath of spring and reawakening nature. With the whole energy of her being, palpitating with life, she longed for liberty. She could perceive, could taste the safety that was within her grasp. And as into the same draught was distilled an aroma of love, she clasped her hands on her breast to restrain her happiness. But, little by little, consideration, a powerful factor in her character, got the better of sentiment. She gazed steadily on the turnkey’s daughter, and said—
“Why is it, dear child, that you are prepared to devote yourself in this way to the interests of one whom you scarcely know?”
“Oh,” replied Rose, this time forgetting to use the familiar form of speech she had been employing hitherto, “it’s because your kind friend will give me a large sum of money as soon as you are free, and then I shall be able to marry Florentin, my lover. You see, citizeness, that I am working entirely in my own interests. But I am better pleased to be the means of rescuing you than one of the others.”
“I thank you for that, my child, but why the preference?”
“Because you are so dainty, and your good friend must be so weary of being separated from you. It is agreed, isn’t it?”
Fanny stretched out her hand to take the parcel of clothes Rose was offering her.
But immediately afterwards she drew it back.
“Rose, do you realize that if we are discovered it would mean death to you?”
“Death!” exclaimed the young girl. “You terrify me. Oh, no, I didn’t know that!”
Then, as quickly reassured—
“But, citizeness, your kind friend would manage to hide me.”
“There isn’t a spot in Paris that would prove a safe hiding-place. I thank you for your devotion, Rose; but I can’t take advantage of it.”
Rose stood as if thunderstruck.
“But you will be guillotined, citizeness, and I shall not be able to marry Florentin!”
“Be easy, Rose. I can do you a service although I can’t accept what you offer.”
“Oh, no, no! It would be cheating you out of your money.”
The turnkey’s daughter begged and prayed and wept for long enough. She went on her knees and raised the hem of Fanny’s skirt.
Fanny gently pushed the girl’s hand away and turned her head aside. A moonbeam displayed the peacefulness of the fair face.
It was a lovely night, and a light breeze was moving. The prisoners’ tree shook its perfumed branches and scattered its wan flowers upon the head of the voluntary victim.