Divorced—M. de Fontenay escapes to Spain—The mistress of Tallien—Her influence and his saves many lives—Robespierre—Singular circumstances at the birth of Louis XVII.—The vengeance of the Marquis de —— —Enmity of Robespierre—Arrest of Térèzia—La Force.
Capital letter E

THE next day was the divorce. M. de Fontenay hurried away towards the Pyrenees and disappeared from France and from the life and concerns of the woman who had been his wife.

And Térèzia, released from a marriage she had long disliked and to which no principle of duty or religion bound her, although she could scarcely be called free, fulfilled the conditions and accepted the part offered her willingly enough. She loved Tallien, who worshipped her with a passionate adoration which, far from concealing, they gloried in proclaiming.

Térèzia became a power in Bordeaux. She appeared everywhere in public wearing those scanty Greek draperies so well calculated to display the perfection of her beauty; affecting the attitude of the Goddess of Liberty, with a pike in one hand and the other resting upon the shoulder of Tallien. [309] The populace cheered as she drove about Bordeaux in a magnificent carriage which, had it belonged to a royalist, would have excited their rage. She harangued the Convention with bombastic speeches about women and virtue and modesty, which, to persons not besotted with frantic republicanism, must appear singularly out of place; mingling her exhortations with flattery so fulsome and preposterous that she did not fail to command sympathetic acclamations, especially when she said that she was not twenty years old and that she was a mother but no longer a wife.

Over the whole proceedings of Tallien and Térèzia there was, in fact, an atmosphere and tone that can be best described as “flash”; for no other word seems to be so thoroughly characteristic of themselves, their friends, their sentiments, their speech, and their lives at this time.

That Térèzia was infinitely superior to her lover was not only shown by the progress of years and events, but was obvious in the early days of her liaison with Tallien. For her speeches in public and private were not merely empty bombastic talk. She really did everything in her power to rescue from danger and help in trouble the unfortunate people with whom she was surrounded. For she hated cruelty and bloodshed, and saw no reason or excuse for it; in spite of the sophisms and theories of her republican friends. It made no difference to her to what party or class they belonged; she would help any one who was in trouble and appealed to her. And her power was immense, for Tallien, who held life and death in his hands, was her slave, and [310] even the savage Lacomb and Ysabeau, his colleagues, bowed before the charm of her influence.

The Comité de salut public was composed of Barère, Carnot, Couthon, Billaud-Varennes, Collot-d’Herbois, Robert Lindet, Prieur, Jean-Bon Saint-André, Saint-Just, and Maximilian Robespierre; as bloodthirsty a gang of miscreants as ever held an unfortunate country in their grip.

Of these ruffians the most powerful and influential was Robespierre, who, though cruel, treacherous, and remorseless, was severely moral and abstemious, and whose anger was deeply aroused by the reports he received from Bordeaux.

The life of luxurious splendour and open scandal Tallien led with his mistress irritated him nearly as much as the escape of the victims so frequently spared by his mercy, or rather by the all-powerful influence of the woman to whom all Bordeaux now looked for help and protection; besides which the popularity they both enjoyed at Bordeaux excited his jealous uneasiness.

But he did not at that time recall him to Paris, preferring that he should be a satrap at Bordeaux rather than a conspirator in the Convention; and remarking contemptuously—

“Those sort of men are of no use except to revive vices. They inoculate the people with the licentiousness of the aristocracy. But patience; we will deliver the people from their corrupters, as we have delivered them from their tyrants.” [100]

By caresses, by tyranny, by stratagems, Térèzia opened prison doors, obtained pardons, delivered [311] victims from the guillotine. Immense numbers of people were saved by her exertions. Several times her influence dissolved the Revolutionary Committee; under her reign people began to breathe freely at Bordeaux, and the Terror for a time seemed nearly at an end.

Horrified at the h?tel of Tallien being in the place de l’échafaud, she exclaimed—

“I will not come here again!”

“Well, I will come and live at your h?tel.”

“No, I shall come back here. It is not you who will go away, it is the scaffold.”

To divert his thoughts and attention from the rigours and cruelties, for the perpetration of which he had been sent to Bordeaux, she persuaded him to have his portrait done, and induced him and the artist to prolong the sittings on pretence of making the picture a chef d’?uvre, but in reality to occupy his time and attention; in fact, he was found by some one who called to see him reclining comfortably in a boudoir, dividing his attention between the artist who was painting the portrait and Térèzia, who was also present.

The Marquis de Paroy, a royalist, whose father, a Girondist, had just been arrested, wrote to ask for an interview, sending an illustrated petition, in the taste of the day, to the “goddess of Bordeaux,” with a Cupid he called a sans-culotte, &c. Having received an invitation, he went to her house, where, in the ante-rooms, crowds were waiting with petitions in their hands. Presently folding doors were thrown open and Térèzia appeared, exquisitely dressed, asked for the citoyen Paroy, and invited [312] him to come into her boudoir, which was filled with the traces of her pursuits. Music was upon the open piano, a guitar lay upon a sofa, a harp stood in a corner of the room, an easel, a half-sketched-out miniature, a table covered with drawings, colours, and brushes, an embroidery frame, a writing table piled with petitions, notes, and papers. After the first greeting she said—

“I think I remember meeting you at the house of the Comte de l’Estaing with my father, and I hope you will come and see me as often as you can. But let us speak of your father. Where is he in prison? I hope to obtain his release from the citoyen Tallien. I will give him your petition myself, and present you to him.”

She did so on the following day, and Tallien advised him to wait.

“Your father must be a little forgotten in order to save him. It all depends on the president of the tribunal, Lacomb.”

Térèzia asked him to supper to meet the mistress of Ysabeau, whom she thought might influence Ysabeau in his favour. During the supper one of the revolutionary guests, observing a ring with a Love painted on it, and the inscription—
“Qui que tu sois, voilà ton ma?tre
Il l’est, le fut, ou bien doit l’être,”

kissed the ring, and handed it round to be kissed by all the rest, who little supposed that it was a portrait of the unfortunate Louis XVII.

The breathing time given to unhappy Bordeaux [313] came to an end. Tallien was recalled, and his place filled by the ferocious Jullien.

But his position at Paris was too powerful and his friends too numerous to allow him to be at once attacked with impunity. It was Térèzia who was to be the first victim. Robespierre dreaded her influence, her talents, her popularity, her opinions, and the assistance and support she was to Tallien.

The crimes and horrors of the Revolution had now reached their climax. Paris was a scene of blood and terror. No one’s life was safe for an hour, houses were closed, the streets, once so full of life and gaiety, were now paraded by gangs of drunken ruffians, men and women, bent on murder and plunder, or re-echoed to the roll of the tumbrils carrying victims to the scaffold. The prisons were crammed, and yet arrests went on every day. The King, the Queen, and the gentle, saintly Madame Elizabeth, had been murdered; the unfortunate Dauphin, now Louis XVII., and his sister were kept in cruel captivity.

It had been remarked that at the moment of the birth of this most unfortunate of princes, the crown which was an ornament on the Queen’s bed fell to the ground, which superstitious persons looked upon as a bad omen.

Still more strange was the incident related by his uncle, the Comte de Provence, heir presumptive to the crown, which he afterwards wore. It happened immediately after the birth of the first Dauphin, elder brother of Louis XVII., whose early death saved him from the fate of his family.

“The same evening I found on my table a [314] letter carefully enclosed in a double envelope, addressed—

“‘Pour Monsieur seul.’

“I inquired in what manner the letter had arrived there, but all those in my service declared they knew nothing about it.

“When I was alone I opened the mysterious letter, and by the light of my lamp I read as follows:—

“‘Console yourself. I have just cast the horoscope of the child now born. He will not deprive you of the crown. He will not live when his father ceases to reign. Another than you, however, will succeed Louis XVI.; but, nevertheless, you will one day be King of France. Woe to him who will be in your place. Rejoice that you are without posterity; the existence of your sons would be threatened with too great calamities, for your family will drink to the dregs the most bitter contents of the cup of Destiny. Adieu! Tremble for your life if you try to discover me.—I am

“‘Death.’

“I got up and made a copy of this letter ... but on fixing my eyes on the letters in white ink on black paper ... I saw them disappear. I recognised in this phenomenon a chemical preparation by which the mysterious characters would become absorbed after a certain time.” [101]

[315]

No trace was ever found of the person who wrote or conveyed the letter.

It is easy to see that the present state of affairs in France offered the most dangerous and the strongest temptation to private vengeance. Any one who had an enemy or who had been offended by any one else, or even who wished to remove some person whose existence was inconvenient to them, had only to “denounce” them for some trifle which they might or might not have said or done; they were sure to be arrested, and most likely to be put to death.

The following story is an example of the kind.

The Marquis de ——, a proud, stern man of a reserved and apparently cold temperament, had a young wife whom he adored. Their married life went on prosperously for some years, at the end of which the............