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Marie Antoinette Romances, Vol 2: The Mesmerist's Victim

<h2>CHAPTER II. THE FIELD OF THE DEAD.</h2> TO great tempests succeeds calm, dreadful but reparative. At two o’clock in the morning a wan moon was playing through the swift-driving white clouds upon the fatal scene where the merry-makers had trampled and buried one another in the ditches. The corpses stuck out arms lifted in prayers and legs broken and entangled, while the clothes were ripped and the faces livid. Yellow and sickening smoke, rising from the burning platforms on Louis XV. Place, helped to give it the aspect of a battlefield. Over the bloody and desolate spot wandered shadows which were the robbers of the dead, attracted like ravens. Unable to find living prey, they stripped the corpses and swore with surprise when they found they had been forestalled by rivals. They fled, frightened and disappointed as soldier’s bayonets at last appeared, but among the long rows of the dead, robbers and soldiers were not the solely moving objects. Supplied with lanterns prowlers were busy. They were not only curious, but relatives and parents and lovers who had not had their dear ones come home from the sightseeing. They came from the remotest parts for the horrible news had spread over Paris, mourning as if a hurricane had passed over it, and anxiety was acted out in these searches. It was muttered that the Provost of Paris had many corpses thrown into the river from his fears at the immense number lost through his want of foresight. Hence those who had ferreted about uselessly, went to the river and stood in it knee-deep to stare at the flow; or they stole with their lanterns into the by-streets where it was rumored some of the crippled wretches had crept to beg help and at least flee the scene of their misfortune. At the end of the square, near the Royal Gardens, popular charity had already set up a field hospital. A young man who might be identified as a surgeon by the instruments by his side, was attending to the wounded brought to him. While bandaging them he said words rather expressing hatred for the cause of their injuries than pity for the effect. He had two helpers, robust reporters, to whom he kept on shouting: “Let me have the poor first. You can easily pick them out for they will be badly dressed and most injured.” At these words, continually croaked, a young gentleman with pale brow, who was searching among the bodies with a lantern in his hand, raised his head. A deep gash on his forehead still dropped red blood. One of his hands was thrust between two buttons of his coat to support his injured arm; his perspiring face betrayed deep and ceaseless emotion. Looking sadly at the amputated limbs which the operator appeared to regard with professional pleasure, he said: “Oh, doctor, why do you make a selection among the victims?” “Because,” replied the surgeon, raising his head at this reproach, “no one would care for the poor if I did not, and the rich will always find plenty to look after them. Lower your light and look along the pavement and you will find a hundred poor to one rich or noble. In this catastrophe, with their luck which will in the end tire heaven itself, the aristocrats have paid their tax as usual, one per thousand.” The gentleman held up his lantern to his own face. “Am I only one of my class?” he queried, without irritation, “a nobleman who was lost in the throng, where a horse kicked me in the face and my arm was broken by my falling into a ditch. You say the rich and noble are looked after—have I had my wounds dressed?” “You have your mansion and your family doctor; go home, for you are able to walk.” “I am not asking your help, sir; I am seeking my sister, a fair girl of sixteen, no doubt killed, alas! albeit she is not of the lower classes. She wore a white dress and a necklace with a cross. Though she has a residence and a doctor, for pity’s sake! answer me if you have seen her?” “Humanity guides me, my lord,” said the young surgeon with feverish vehemence proving that such ideas had long been seething within his bosom; “I devote myself to mankind, and I obey the law of her who is my goddess when I leave the aristocrat on his deathbed to run and relieve the suffering people. All the woes happened here are derived from the upper class; they come from your abuses, and usurpation; bear therefore the consequences. No lord, I have not seen your sister.” With this blasting retort, the surgeon resumed his task. A poor woman was brought to him over whose both legs a carriage had rolled. “Behold,” he pursued Philip with a shout, “is it the poor who drive their coaches about on holidays so as to smash the limbs of the rich?” Philip, belonging to the new race who sided with Làfayette, had more than once professed the opinions which stung him from this youth: their application fell on him like chastisement. With breaking heart, he turned aloof on his mournful exploration, but soon they could hear his tearful voice calling: “Andrea, Andrea!” Near him hurried an elderly man, in grey coat, cloth stockings, and leaning on a cane, while with his left hand he held a cheap lantern made of a candle surrounded by oiled paper. “Poor young man,” he sighed on hearing the gentleman’s wail and comprehending his anguish, “Forgive me,” he said, returning after letting him pass as though he could not let such great sorrow go by without endeavoring to give some alleviation, “forgive my mingling grief with yours, but those whom the same stroke strikes ought to support one another. Besides, you may be useful to me. As your candle is nearly burnt out you must have been seeking for some time, and so know a good many places. Where do they lie thickest?” “In the great ditch more than fifty are heaped up.” “So many victims during a festival?” “So many?—I have looked upon a thousand dead—and have not yet come upon my sister.” “Your sister?” “She was lost in that direction. I have found the bench where we were parted. But of her not a trace. I began to search at the bastion. The mob moved towards the new buildings in Madeleine Street. There I hunted, but there were great fluctuations. The stream rushed thither, but a poor girl would wander anywhere, with her crazed head, seeking flight in any direction.” “I can hardly think that she would have stemmed the current. We two may find her together at the corner of the streets.” “But who are you after—your son?” questioned Philip. “No, an adopted youth, only eighteen, who was master of his actions and would come to the festival. Besides, one was so far from imagining this horrid catastrophe. Your candle is going out—come with me and I will light you.” “Thanks, you are very kind, but I shall obstruct you.” “Fear nothing, for I must be seeking, too. Usually the lad comes home punctually,” continued the old man, “but I had a forerunner last evening. I was sitting up for him at eleven when my wife had the rumor from the neighbors of the miseries of this rejoicing. I waited a couple of hours in hopes that he would return, but then I felt it would be cowardly to go to sleep without news.” “So we will hunt over by the houses,” said the nobleman. “Yes, as you say the crowd went there and would certainly have carried him along. He is from the country and knows no more the way than the streets. This may be the first time he came to this place.” “My sister is country-bred also.” “Shocking sight,” said the old man, before a mound of the suffocated. “Still we must search,” said the chevalier, resolutely holding out the lantern to the corpses. “Oh, here we are by the Wardrobe Stores—ha! white rags—my sister wore a white dress. Lend me your light, I entreat you, sir.” “It is a piece of a white dress,” he continued, “but held in a young man’s hand. It is like that she wore. Oh, Andrea!” he sobbed as if it tore up his heart. The old man came nearer. “It is he,” he exclaimed, “Gilbert!” “Gilbert? do you know our farmer’s son, Gilbert, and were you seeking him?” The old man took the youth’s hand, it was icy cold. Philip opened his waistcoat and found that his heart was quiet. But the next instant he cried: “No, he breathes—he lives, I tell you.” “Help! this way, to the surgeon,” said the old man. “Nay, let us do what we can for him for I was refused help when I spoke to him just now.” “He must take care of my dear boy,” said the old man. And taking Gilbert between him and Taverney, they carried him towards the surgeon, who was still croaking: “The poor first—bring in the poor, first.” This maxim was sure to be hailed with admiration from a group of lookers-on. “I bring a man of the people,” retorted the old man hotly, feeling a little piqued at this exclusiveness. “And the women next, as men can bear their hurt better,” proceeded the character. “The boy only wants bleeding,” said Gilbert’s friend. “Ho, ho, so it is you, my lord, again?” sneered the surgeon, perceiving Taverney. The old gentleman thought that the speech was addressed to him and he took it up warmly. “I am not a lord—I am a man of the multitude—I am Jean Jacques Rousseau.” The surgeon uttered an exclamation of surprise and said as he waved the crowd back imperiously: “Way for the Man of Nature—the Emancipator of Humanity—the Citizen of Geneva! Has any harm befallen you?” “No, but to this poor lad.” “Ah, like me, you represent the cause of mankind,” said the surgeon. Startled by this unexpected eulogy, the author of the “Social contract” could only stammer some unintelligible words, while Philip Taverney, seized with stupefaction at being in face of the famous philosopher, stepped aside. Rousseau was helped in placing Gilbert on the table. Then Rousseau gave a glance to the surgeon whose succor he invoked. He was a youth of the patient’s own age, but no feature spoke of youth. His yellow skin was wrinkled like an old man’s, his flaccid eyelid covered a serpent’s glance, and his mouth was drawn one side like one in a fit. With his sleeves tucked up to the elbow and his arms smeared with blood, surrounded by the results of the operation he seemed rather an enthusiastic executioner than a physician fulfilling his sad and holy mission. But the name of Rousseau seemed to influence him into laying aside his ordinary brutality. He softly opened Gilbert’s sleeve, compressed the arm with a linen ligature and pricked the vein. “We shall pull him through,” he said, “but great care must be taken with him for his chest was crushed in.” “I have to thank you,” said Rousseau, “and praise you—not for the exclusion you make on behalf of the poor, but for your devotion to the afflicted. All men are brothers.” “Even the rich, the noble, the lofty?” queried the surgeon, with a kindling look in his sharp eye under the drooping lid. “Even they, when they are in suffering.” “Excuse me, but I am like you a Switzer, having been born at Neuchatel; and so I am rather democratic.” “My fellow-countryman? I should like to know your name.” “An obscure one, a modest man who devotes his life to study until like yourself he can employ it for the common-weal. I am Jean Paul Marat.” “I thank you, Marat,” said Rousseau, “but in enlightening the masses on their rights, do not excite their revengeful feelings. If ever they move in that direction, you might be amazed at the reprisals.” “Ah,” said Marat with a ghastly smile, “if it should come in my time—should I see that day—— ” Frightened at the accent, as a traveler by the mutterings of a coming storm, Rousseau took Gilbert in his arms and tried to carry him away. “Two willing friends to help Citizen Rousseau,” shouted Marat; “two men of the lower order.” Rousseau had plenty to choose among; he took two lusty fellows who carried the youth in their arms. “Take my lantern,” said the author to Taverney as he passed him: “I need it no longer.” Philip thanked him and went on with his search. “Poor young gentleman,” sighed Rousseau, as he saw him disappear in the thronged streets. He shuddered, for still rang over the bloody field he surgeon’s shrill voice shouting: “Bring in the poor—none but the poor! Woe to the rich, the noble and the high-born!” <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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