LITMIR.BIZ

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if the declaration brought no more than a murmur of applause from his fellow legislators, it produced a thunder of acclamation from the rabble in the galleries.

      Thereafter he passed to matters of business so slender that they revealed themselves for the pretext and not the reason of his presence in the tribune.

      André-Louis had listened to him in anger and contempt. Filled with pitying concern for Léopoldine, he was at this moment more intent that his India-Company scheme should result in her deliverance than in the restoration of the Bourbons.

      Chabot's place in the tribune was taken by Julien, that other scoundrelly apostate, and André-Louis leaned forward eagerly to hear the attack he was to deliver against the India Company, the burning phrases with which André-Louis himself had supplied this puppet. Julien, however, in concert with Delaunay, had improved upon the original plan. His present address resolved itself into one of those flamboyant exhibitions of logorrhea on the subject of virtue and purity in private and in public life, to which members of the Convention were in these days becoming more and more addicted. It was in the course of this, and no more than in passing, that he alluded to the India Company as one of those organizations abusing the shelter of the State in which it flourished and turning that shelter to purposes not always beneficial to the State itself.

      The allusion brought a sudden attentive stillness to an assembly which hitherto had been a little restless. Somewhere a voice challenged him to be more precise, declared that if he had charges to bring, he should bring them specifically, and not by innuendo.

      'The reproof is just,' said Julien with perfect composure. 'When I began to speak, I had no intention of touching upon this, or else I should have armed myself with the details necessary for a full exposure of an abuse that must be within the knowledge of many of you. For it can be no secret to those of you who are zealous and watchful that the India Company advanced considerable sums of money to the heretofore King, whereby the deliverance of France from the odious rule of despotism was materially retarded.'

      His allusion to their watchfulness and zeal was a cunning gag in their mouths. Which of these deputies, by contradicting him or by demanding instantly the evidential details, would betray himself as without zeal and vigilance? Not one, as he well knew. And he left the matter there.

      When, later, Bazire, who had also been taken by surprise, asked him if, indeed, he were in a position to prove what he had said, Julien smiled his sour, cynical smile and shrugged.

      'What do proofs matter? The price of the stock will show tomorrow whether my shaft has gone home.'

      That his shaft had, indeed, gone home there could be no doubt two days later, by when the stock of the India Company had fallen from fifteen hundred to six hundred francs. Already there was panic among the stockholders.

      The next move was made a week later, and it came from Delaunay.

      He pretended in the speech with which he electrified the Convention that, as a result of the allegations against the Compagnie des Indes which his confrère Julien of Toulouse had let fall in that place, he had been looking into the affairs of the Company, and what he discovered in them had appalled him. From this he passed to a fulminating denunciation of the fraud which the Company had practised in evading a tax justly imposed by the Nation. To defraud the Republic of moneys due to her was to deprive her of her life's blood. Delaunay did not hesitate to describe as a sacrilege the defalcations of which the India Company was guilty.

      The term was received with applause. On Robespierre's atrabilious countenance the tiger-cat grin was observed to spread as if in commendation.

      Then, even as he had wrought up their passions, Delaunay now chilled them again by the motion he put forward. He proposed to dissolve the India Company, placing her directors under the obligation of proceeding to the liquidation of her affairs.

      So inadequate to the crime was the proposed punishment that the Convention, after a gasp of surprise that was almost of anger, broke into a babble of discussion. The President rang his bell for silence, and Fabre d'Églantine was seen to be ascending the tribune to voice the general feeling.

      He moved deliberately, a man slightly above middle height, of graceful build and careful attire. He had been many things in turn: actor, author, poetaster, painter, composer, thief, murderer, blackguard, and gaolbird. In every part assumed, however, the histrion had predominated, and still unmistakably histrionic were his movements, speech, and gestures now that by histrionic arts he had won to a position of eminence in this grotesque parliament. Those very arts served to make him popular with the masses whose sympathies are so easily captured by externals.

      The man, however, was not without ability, and in his sonorous, slightly affected voice he displayed now the prompt grasp of affairs of which his mind was capable.

      He began by complimenting Delaunay upon his diligence in unveiling the turpitude of the India Company; but deplored the inadequacy of the motion with which Delaunay proposed to deal with it.

      'If the Company's administrators are to be left in charge of the Company's liquidation, they are supplied with the means of indefinitely perpetuating it.'

      Delaunay, like André-Louis, who had dictated those very terms, was well aware of this, and awaiting precisely such an objection. Had no one else voiced it, the task would have fallen to Bazire, that other member of this conspiracy. It was a little disconcerting that one who was not in the plot should intervene at this point. But it could not, after all, be serious in its consequences; because they could never have hoped to pack the commission entirely.

      Meanwhile, Fabre, warming to his subject, was becoming more and more inexorable. He professed astonishment that Delaunay should have demanded anything less than the total and immediate extinction of the Company. No measures could be too strong against such a pack of scoundrels. He demanded that the property of these delinquents should immediately be impounded.

      This was pushing matters a little farther than the conspirators had reckoned. But opinions in the Assembly were soon shown to be divided; the Representative Cambon expressed the view that Fabre's demands were too intransigent; that they would be productive of a disorganization in the world of commerce, such as could not ultimately be to the advantage of the Nation. Others followed him, each anxious to parade the purity of his patriotism and earn the applause of the gallery, and the debate might have gone on forever had not at last Robespierre risen in his place to set a term to it.

      Long since departed were the days when men sighed and yawned to behold the mincing representative from Arras preparing to address the Assembly in his dull, monotonous voice. The power that he had become, and for which so much was due to his young ally, Saint-Just, was apparent in the almost awed silence that fell upon the Assembly immediately upon his rising. Even the ribalds in the gallery, who had emancipated themselves from all respect of persons, seemed now to hold their breath before that slight, frail figure. He was dressed with a care that was almost effeminate, in a close sky-blue frock over a striped satin waistcoat. Below this he wore black satin smalls, silk stockings, and buckled shoes whose heels were built up so as to increase his stature. His head emerged from a snowy, elaborately tied cravat, the hair carefully dressed and powdered.

      He stood a moment in silence, his horn-rimmed spectacles pushed up onto his forehead, his myopic eyes peering forth from that lean, pallid countenance with its curiously tip-tilted nose and wide, almost lipless mouth, that was ever set in a tiger-cat grin.

      Then the dull, unimpressive voice droned forth. He desired that the counsel of Fabre should be given weight. But this only after due investigation should have confirmed the charges made. For the rest, the matter was not one for the great body of the Convention, but for a commission which he desired should be formed at once, not only to investigate, but to decree the measures to be taken.

      With that, cold and impassive as he had risen, he resumed his seat. His fiat had gone forth. These were not days in which any man in France would dare to call it in question, unless it were that fearless cyclops, Danton, who was still absent honeymooning at Arcis-sur-Aube. Robespierre had demanded that a commission be formed.

      This was Chabot's clue. It had been concerted that the demand should come from Delaunay. That it came

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