“Jacques saw no harm in repeating this message. Clément listened in silence, watching Virginie with an air of infinite tenderness.
“‘Will you not try him, my cherished one?’ he said. ‘Towards you he may mean well’ (which makes me think that Virginie had never repeated to Clément the conversation which she had overheard that last night at Madame Babette’s); ‘you would be in no worse a situation than you were before!’
“‘No worse, Clément! and I should have known what you were, and have lost you. My Clément!’ said she, reproachfully.
“‘Ask him,’ said she, turning to Jacques, suddenly, ‘if he can save Monsieur de Créquy as well, – if he can? – O Clément, we might escape to England; we are but young.’ And she hid her face on his shoulder.
“Jacques returned to the stranger, and asked him Virginie’s question. His eyes were fixed on the cousins; he was very pale, and the twitchings or contortions, which must have been involuntary whenever he was agitated, convulsed his whole body.
“He made a long pause. ‘I will save mademoiselle and monsieur, if she will go straight from prison to the mairie, and be my wife.’
“‘Your wife!’ Jacques could not help exclaiming, ‘That she will never be – never!’
“‘Ask her!’ said Morin, hoarsely.
“But almost before Jacques thought he could have fairly uttered the words, Clément caught their meaning.
“‘Begone!’ said he; ‘not one word more.’ Virginie touched the old man as he was moving away. ‘Tell him he does not know how he makes me welcome death.’ And smiling, as if triumphant, she turned again to Clément.
“The stranger did not speak as Jacques gave him the meaning, not the words, of their replies. He was going away, but stopped. A minute or two afterwards, he beckoned to Jacques. The old gardener seems to have thought it undesirable to throw away even the chance of assistance from such a man as this, for he went forward to speak to him.
“‘Listen! I have influence with the gaoler. He shall let thee pass out with the victims tomorrow. No one will notice it, or miss thee – They will be led to trial, – even at the last moment, I will save her, if she sends me word she relents. Speak to her, as the time draws on. Life is very sweet, – tell her how sweet. Speak to him; he will do more with her than thou canst. Let him urge her to live. Even at the last, I will be at the Palais de Justice, – at the Grève. I have followers, – I have interest. Come among the crowd that follow the victims, – I shall see thee. It will be no worse for him, if she escapes’ –
“‘Save my master, and I will do all,’ said Jacques.
“‘Only on my one condition,’ said Morin, doggedly; and Jacques was hopeless of that condition ever being fulfilled. But he did not see why his own life might not be saved. By remaining in prison until the next day, he should have rendered every service in his power to his master and the young lady. He, poor fellow, shrank from death; and he agreed with Morin to escape, if he could, by the means Morin had suggested, and to bring him word if Mademoiselle de Créquy relented. (Jacques had no expectation that she would; but I fancy he did not think it necessary to tell Morin of this conviction of his.) This bargaining with so base a man for so slight a thing as life, was the only flaw that I heard of in the old gardener’s behaviour. Of course, the mere reopening of the subject was enough to stir Virginie to displeasure. Clément urged her, it is true; but the light he had gained upon Morin’s motions, made him rather try to set the case before her in as fair a manner as possible than use any persuasive arguments. And, even as it was, what he said on the subject made Virginie shed tears – the first that had fallen from her since she entered the prison. So, they were summoned and went together, at the fatal call of the muster roll of victims the next morning. He, feeble from his wounds and his injured health; she, calm and serene, only petitioning to be allowed to walk next to him, in order that she might hold him up when he turned faint and giddy from his extreme suffering.
“Together they stood at the bar; together they were condemned. As the words of judgment were pronounced, Virginie tuned to Clément, and embraced him with passionate fondness. Then, making him lean on her, they marched out towards the Place de la Grève.
“Jacques was free now. He had told Morin how fruitless his efforts at persuasion had been; and scarcely caring to note the effect of his information upon the man, he had devoted himself to watching Monsieur and Mademoiselle de Créquy. And now he followed them to the Place de la Grève. He saw them mount the platform; saw them kneel down together till plucked up by the impatient officials; could see that she was urging some request to the executioner; the end of which seemed to be, that Clément advanced first to the guillotine, was executed (and just at this moment there was a stir among the crowd, as of a man pressing forward towards the scaffold). Then she, standing with her face to the guillotine, slowly made the sign of the cross, and knelt down.
“Jacques covered his eyes, blinded with tears. The report of a pistol made him look up. She was gone – another victim in her place –and where there had been a little stir in the crowd not five minutes before, some men were carrying off a dead body. A man had shot himself, they said. Pierre told me who that man was.”
Chapter 9
After a pause, I ventured to ask what became of Madame de Créquy, Clément’s mother.
“She never made any inquiry about him,” said my lady. “She must have known that he was dead; though how, we never could tell. Medlicott remembered afterwards that it was about, if not on – Medlicott to this day declares that it was on the very Monday, June the nineteenth, when her son was executed, that Madame de Créquy left off her rouge and took to her bed, as one bereaved and hopeless. It certainly was about that time; and Medlicott – who was deeply impressed by that dream of Madame de Créquy’s (the relation of which I told you had had such an effect on my lord), in which she had seen the figure of Virginie – as the only light object amid much surrounding darkness as of night, smiling and beckoning Clément on – on – till at length the bright phantom stopped, motionless, and Madame de Créquy’s eyes began to penetrate the murky darkness, and to see closing around her the gloomy dripping walls which she had once seen and never forgotten – the walls of the vault of the chapel of the De Créquys in Saint Germain l’Auxerrois; and there the two last of the Créquys laid them down among their forefathers, and Madame de Créquy had wakened to the sound of the great door, which led to the open air, being locked upon her – I say Medlicott, who was predisposed by this dream to look out for the supernatural, always declared that Madame de Créquy was made conscious in some mysterious way, of her son’s death, on the very day and hour when it occurred, and that after that she had no more anxiety, but was only conscious of a kind of stupefying despair.”
“And what became of her, my lady?” I again asked.
“What could become of her?” replied Lady Ludlow. “She never could be induced to rise again, though she lived more than a year after her son’s departure. She kept her bed; her room darkened, her face turned towards the wall, whenever any one besides Medlicott was in the room. She hardly ever spoke, and would have died of starvation but for Medlicott’s tender care, in putting a morsel to her lips every now and then, feeding her, in fact, just as an old bird feeds her young ones. In the height of summer my lord and I left London. We would fain have taken her with us into Scotland, but the doctor (we had the old doctor from Leicester Square) forbade her removal; and this time he gave such good reasons against it that I acquiesced. Medlicott and a maid were left with her. Every care was taken of her. She survived till our return. Indeed, I thought she was in much the same state as I had left her in, when I came back to London. But Medlicott spoke of her as much weaker; and