Gilbert got down while the carriage went on.
A gardener was keeping the house which he showed to the inquirer. It belonged to St. Denis Abbey and was for sale under the decree confiscating Church property. Over against the gardener's lodge was another, a summerhouse simply overgrown with flowers. Mirabeau's passion for them made this sufficient lure; for this alone he would have taken the house.
"Is this little cottage, this Temple of Flora, on the property?" he asked.
"Yes, sir: it belongs to the big house but it is at present occupied by a lady with her child, a pretty lady, but of course she will have to go if the house and estate are bought."
"A lovely neighbor does no harm," said the count: "Let me see the interior of the house."
The rooms were lofty and elegant, the furniture fine and stylish. In the main room Mirabeau opened a window to look out and it commanded a view of the summerhouse. What was more, he had a view of a lady, sewing, half reclining, while a child of five or six played on the lawn among flowering shrubs.
It was the lady tenant.
It was not only such a pretty woman as one might imagine a Queen among the roses, but it was the living likeness of Queen Marie Antoinette and to accentuate the resemblance the boy was about the age of the Prince Royal.
Suddenly the beautiful stranger perceived that she was under observation for she uttered a faint scream of surprise, rose, called her son, and drew him inside by the hand, but not without looking back two or three times.
At this same moment Mirabeau started, for a hand was laid on his shoulder. It was the doctor who reported that the peasant's child had caught swamp fever from being set down beside a stagnant pool while the mother reaped the grass. The disease was deadly but the doctor hoped to save the sufferer by Jesuit's Bark, as quinine was still styled at this date.
But he warned his friend against this House in the Marsh, where the air might be as fatal to him as that of the senate house, where bad ventilation made the atmosphere mephitic.
"I am sorry the air is not good, for the house suits me wonderfully."
"What an eternal enemy you are to yourself? If you mean to obey the orders of the Faculty, begin by renouncing the idea of taking this residence. You will find fifty around Paris better placed."
Perhaps Mirabeau, yielding to Reason's voice, would have promised; but suddenly, in the first shades of evening, behind a screen of flowers, appeared the head of a woman in white and pink flounces: he fancied that she smiled on him. He had no time to assure himself as Gilbert dragged him away, suspecting something was going on.
"My dear doctor," said the orator, "remember that I said to the Queen when she gave me her hand to kiss on our interview for reconciliation: 'By this token, the Monarchy is saved.' I took a heavy engagement that time, especially if they whom I defend plot against me; but I shall hold to it, though suicide may be the only way for me to get honorably out of it."
In a day Mirabeau bought the Marsh House.
CHAPTER II.
THE FEDERATION OF FRANCE.
All the realm had bound itself together in the girdle of Federation, one which preceded the United Europe of later utopists.
Mirabeau had favored the movement, thinking that the King would gain by the country people coming to Paris, where they might overpower the citizens. He deluded himself into the belief that the sight of royalty would result in an alliance which no plot could break.
Men of genius sometimes have these sublime but foolish ideas at which the tyros in politics may well laugh.
There was a great stir in the Congress when the proposition was brought forward for this Federation ceremony at Paris which the provinces demanded. It was disapproved by the two parties dividing the House, the Jacobins (So called from the old Monastery of Jacobins where they met) and the royalists. The former dreaded the union more than their foes from not knowing the effect Louis XVI. might have on the masses.
The King's-men feared that a great riot would destroy the royal family as one had destroyed the Bastile.
But there was no means to oppose the movement which had not its like since the Crusades.
The Assembly did its utmost to impede it, particularly by resolving that the delegates must come at their own expense; this was aimed at the distant provinces. But the politicians had no conception of the extent of the desire: all doors opened along the roads for these pilgrims of liberty and the guides of the long procession were all the discontented—soldiers and under-officers who had been kept down that aristocrats should have all the high offices; seamen who had won the Indies and were left poor: shattered waifs to whom the storms had left stranded. They found the strength of their youth to lead their friends to the capitol.
Hope marched before them.
All the pilgrims sang the same song: "It must go on!" that is, the Revolution. The Angel of Renovation had taught it to all as it hovered over the country.
To receive the five hundred thousand of the city and country, a gigantic area was required: the field of Mars did for that, while the surrounding hills would hold the spectators; but as it was flat it had to be excavated.
Fifteen thousand regular workmen, that is, of the kind who loudly complain that they have no work to do and under their breath thank heaven when they do not find it—started in on the task converting the flat into the pit of an amphitheatre. At the rate they worked they would be three months at it, while it was promised for the Fourteenth of July, the Anniversary of the Taking of the Bastile.
Thereupon a miracle occurred by which one may judge the enthusiasm of the masses.
Paris volunteered to work the night after the regular excavators had gone off. Each brought his own tools: some rolled casks of refreshing drink, others food; all ages and both sexes, all conditions from the scholar to the carter; children carried torches; musicians played all kinds of instruments to cheer the multitude, and from one hundred thousand workers sounded the song "It shall go on!"
Among the most enfevered toilers might be remarked two who had been among the first to arrive; they were in National Guards uniform. One was a gloomy-faced man of forty, with robust and thickset frame; the other a youth of twenty.
The former did not sing and spoke seldom.
The latter had blue eyes in a frank and open countenance, with white teeth and light hair; he stood solidly on long legs and large feet. With his full-sized hands he lifted heavy weights, rolling dirt carts and pulling hurdles without rest. He was always singing, while watching his comrade out of the corner of the eye, saying joking words to which he did not reply, bringing him a glass of wine which he refused, returning to his place with sorrow, but falling to work again like ten men, and singing like twenty.
These two men, newly elected Representatives by the Aisne District, ten miles from Paris, having heard that hands were wanted, ran in hot haste to offer one his silent co-operation, the other his merry and noisy assistance.
Their names were François Billet and Ange Pitou. The first was a wealthy farmer, whose land was owned by Dr. Gilbert, and the second a boy of the district who had been the schoolmate of Gilbert's son Sebastian.
Thanks to their help, with that of others as energetic and patriotically inspired, the enormous works were finished on the Thirteenth of July 1790.
To make sure of having