Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini (best color ebook reader txt) 📕

fire upon his carriage. He was in just such case as that arch-politician. True, he had not hired the fellow to fire that pistol-shot; but he was none the less obliged to him, and ready to derive the fullest, advantage from the act.

The group that sought to protect that man was battling on, seeking to hew a way out of that angry, heaving press.

“Let them go!” André-Louis called down⁠ ⁠… “What matters one assassin more or less? Let them go, and listen to me, my countrymen!”

And presently, when some measure of order was restored, he began his tale. In simple language now, yet with a vehemence and directness that drove home every point, he tore their hearts with the story of yesterday’s happenings at Gavrillac. He drew tears from them with the pathos of his picture of the bereaved widow Mabey and her three starving, destitute children⁠—“orphaned to avenge the death of a pheasant”⁠—and the bereaved mother of that M. de Vilmorin, a student of Rennes, known here to many of them, who had met his death in a noble endeavour to champion the cause of an esurient member of their afflicted order.

“The Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr said of him that he had too dangerous a gift of eloquence. It was to silence his brave voice that he killed him. But he has failed of his object. For I, poor Philippe de Vilmorin’s friend, have assumed the mantle of his apostleship, and I speak to you with his voice today.”

It was a statement that helped Le Chapelier at last to understand, at least in part, this bewildering change in André-Louis, which rendered him faithless to the side that employed him.

“I am not here,” continued André-Louis, “merely to demand at your hands vengeance upon Philippe de Vilmorin’s murderers. I am here to tell you the things he would today have told you had he lived.”

So far at least he was frank. But he did not add that they were things he did not himself believe, things that he accounted the cant by which an ambitious bourgeoisie⁠—speaking through the mouths of the lawyers, who were its articulate part⁠—sought to overthrow to its own advantage the present state of things. He left his audience in the natural belief that the views he expressed were the views he held.

And now in a terrible voice, with an eloquence that amazed himself, he denounced the inertia of the royal justice where the great are the offenders. It was with bitter sarcasm that he spoke of their King’s Lieutenant, M. de Lesdiguières.

“Do you wonder,” he asked them, “that M. de Lesdiguières should administer the law so that it shall ever be favourable to our great nobles? Would it be just, would it be reasonable that he should otherwise administer it?” He paused dramatically to let his sarcasm sink in. It had the effect of reawakening Le Chapelier’s doubts, and checking his dawning conviction in André-Louis’ sincerity. Whither was he going now?

He was not left long in doubt. Proceeding, André-Louis spoke as he conceived that Philippe de Vilmorin would have spoken. He had so often argued with him, so often attended the discussions of the Literary Chamber, that he had all the rant of the reformers⁠—that was yet true in substance⁠—at his fingers’ ends.

“Consider, after all, the composition of this France of ours. A million of its inhabitants are members of the privileged classes. They compose France. They are France. For surely you cannot suppose the remainder to be anything that matters. It cannot be pretended that twenty-four million souls are of any account, that they can be representative of this great nation, or that they can exist for any purpose but that of servitude to the million elect.”

Bitter laughter shook them now, as he desired it should. “Seeing their privileges in danger of invasion by these twenty-four millions⁠—mostly canailles; possibly created by God, it is true, but clearly so created to be the slaves of Privilege⁠—does it surprise you that the dispensing of royal justice should be placed in the stout hands of these Lesdiguières, men without brains to think or hearts to be touched? Consider what it is that must be defended against the assault of us others⁠—canaille. Consider a few of these feudal rights that are in danger of being swept away should the Privileged yield even to the commands of their sovereign; and admit the Third Estate to an equal vote with themselves.

“What would become of the right of terrage on the land, of parciere on the fruit-trees, of carpot on the vines? What of the corvées by which they command forced labour, of the ban de vendage, which gives them the first vintage, the banvin which enables them to control to their own advantage the sale of wine? What of their right of grinding the last liard of taxation out of the people to maintain their own opulent estate; the cens, the lods-et-ventes, which absorb a fifth of the value of the land, the blairée, which must be paid before herds can feed on communal lands, the pulvérage to indemnify them for the dust raised on their roads by the herds that go to market, the sextélage on everything offered for sale in the public markets, the étalonnage, and all the rest? What of their rights over men and animals for field labour, of ferries over rivers, and of bridges over streams, of sinking wells, of warren, of dovecot, and of fire, which last yields them a tax on every peasant hearth? What of their exclusive rights of fishing and of hunting, the violation of which is ranked as almost a capital offence?

“And what of other rights, unspeakable, abominable, over the lives and bodies of their people, rights which, if rarely exercised, have never been rescinded. To this day if a noble returning from the hunt were to slay two of