Therefore they gave no sign, and, after one more glance at their brazen faces, the chaplain married those who stood before him to each other.
Then he gave them his blessing and his hopes that their union might be prosperous and fruitful, and also-this he did not forget-passed in a sober and righteous manner, after which he dismissed them and exclaimed-
"Now for the undecided ones. Come, you," and he advanced towards where three or four men were making proposals to as many women. "Come you, time runs apace; are you agreed?"
Two men and two women were agreed, the third man was unpropitious in his suit. The woman to whom he offered himself refused to listen to him, to even heed his words or to give any sign that she heard him.
"What is her number?" the priest asked, while the governor by his side bent down and twitched at her coarse prison cloak, which she had drawn close round her shoulders and the lower part of her face, thereby probably to conceal the latter. "What is her number? Let us see," and he looked at his notebook.
"54," the governor said, pointing to the figures sewn on her shoulder.
"54," muttered the chaplain, referring to the paper in his hand and, after that, to a small memorandum book he drew from beneath his cassock. "54. Humph! Ha!" Then, after reading from the book for a few moments, he turned to the rejected suitor and said: "Young man, you do not lose much. She is almost the worst, if not the worst, of all in the list-she is-"
"She may reform-and-and-you see? She is beautiful."
"I see," murmured the chaplain, "that is true. Yet a dower you are best without. What, my son, was your crime?"
"Oh as for that," the fellow stammered, "but little. My uncle was rich; he would give me nothing-a-miser-"
"Precisely. Wherefore you helped yourself. Yet you were an innocent beside this woman whom you now seek to wed. An innocent! She was affianced to a rich man of illustrious family. On the day that was to witness their wedding, on that very day she jilted him and married an English vagabond-a swindler-who, report says, shortly deserted her. But before he did so, they inveigled the one who should have been her husband to their dwelling at night on some vile pretence, and then attempted to strangle him, she doing the deed herself with those hands," and he pointed to the thin white hands of the woman which held the coarse hood about her face. While he continued: "Her victim was found almost throttled at her feet-the exempts swore to it-part of his cravat was in her hand when they rushed in. My man, you are well free of the creature, even if you could by law have wedded her, which is doubtful. The brigand, her husband, may be still alive, plundering, robbing elsewhere."
He finished speaking, and the miserable creature who would have united himself to the woman, shuddered at the escape he had had. Shuddered, too, at the look of despair upon the woman's face, which he took for the fury of a spitfire, as she, lifting her hood, stared up with large, grief-stricken eyes from where she crouched, and said to the chaplain:
"It is a lie! A lie! My husband was no adventurer, while, for that other, would to God he were truly dead. He merited death."
CHAPTER XI
THE CONDEMNED
The prisons had not emptied quite as swiftly as the authorities desired after they had been stuffed full of real and imaginary criminals who were to people New France, with a view to proving that the Mississippi scheme was not such a falsehood as had been stated. The principal cause of this was that trustworthy galleys which could cross the ocean from the western coast of France to the Gulf of Mexico were not obtainable, while of the transports, only three, La Duchesse de Noailles, La Victoire, and La Duchesse de Berri, were fit to make the passage. The consequence was, therefore, that but one prison emptied itself at a time, and that the month of May had come ere, for the detained of the two remaining gaols, La Tournelle and St. Martin des Champs, vessels had been provided for their reception, while even these had to be hired from private owners by the Government.
On the unhappy creatures, whether actual or supposititious malefactors, who had lain in damp and unclean dungeons during the months which had now passed since the period of the great frost, this fact fell with an even greater force of cruelty than anything which the other evil-doers-incarcerated in La Pitié, La Salpêtrière, Bicêtre or Vincennes-had had to undergo, since the incarcerated ones of the latter places had to proceed only to La Rochelle or La Havre or St. Malo, while those of the former had now to set out on a far more terrible journey. They were to march, chained together, to Marseilles, a distance, roughly, of 350 miles from Paris; to cross mountains and vast plains beneath a sun which would be a burning one ere they had accomplished half the distance, and to do so upon nourishment which would scarcely suffice to keep alive those who had to make no exertions whatsoever. The reason for this was that the private owners of the vessels which were to be hired for the purposes of their transport would only consent to let them be chartered for such use on condition that Marseilles was made the port of embarkation. Their ships belonged to, came into, that port; they would be there in the beginning of June, and, if the Government chose to have their convicts ready to proceed on board at that time, they were willing to undertake their transportation to the Gulf. If not, then those vessels must be used for the ordinary business they were employed upon, and, in no circumstances, would they contract to proceed to any other port of France, and certainly to none on the western coast, to await the arrival of the convicts.
Marseilles was, therefore, decided on as the place to which the miserable wretches still inhabiting La Tournelle and St. Martin des Champs were to proceed. Three days after the marriages which the chaplain of the latter place had performed (as the chaplain of the former had also done) the chain gangs were ordered to set out. The day was fixed-May 15-so, too, was the hour-that of eight o'clock in the morning.
It is possible that upon this earth-beneath the eyes of God-no more horrible nor more heart-rending sight has ever been witnessed than the preparations for the departure, and the actual departure itself, of a chain of galley slaves of both sexes towards the sea coast. And that which was taking place on this 15th of May in the prison of St. Martin des Champs might have wrung the hearts of even those persons who were marble to the core; of even human fiends. Yet, however much the process might be calculated to distress those who looked on, there was a sufficiency of observers to cause the exit from the gaol to be so surrounded that scarcely could the prisoners come forth, and the roads and streets leading to the open country to be so stuffed and congested with lookers-on as to be almost impassable. For to see the "strings," as they were called, depart was ever one of the spectacles of Paris.
Inside the prison, in its huge, vast yard, all were assembled at daybreak-all who were to set out upon that horrible journey on foot which was to know no end until the burning shores of the Mediterranean were reached; the end of a journey which was then to give place to a life of hell passed between close decks in ships none too seaworthy. A life of weeks spent under the eyes of sentries with loaded muskets, of overseers armed with whips coated with hardened pitch; of blasphemous and brutal guards ready to strike with sticks, or the flats of sabres, upon the backs of either men or women who disobeyed their orders and injunctions; a life of horror to be endured until they were set ashore free men and women in the New World. Perhaps the knowledge of that impending freedom enabled some to look forward calmly to what they had learned they would have to endure; perhaps-which was far more probable-none among the murderers and murderesses, the thieves and rogues and lost women, and innocent, guiltless victims, knew or dreamt of what was before them. Far more probable!
All were in the courtyard at daybreak. And now began the ceremony of preparing, of making the toilette de voyage, as it was brutally termed, of the travellers ere they set out upon their journey. Into the vast gaol-yard-called in bitter mockery and spite by generations of convicts who had quitted it on their road to the galleys, the "Court of Honour" – there came now three waggons filled with chains and fetters; carcans, or iron collars, to be fitted on to the necks of men and women alike; iron bolts to join together the chains which attached each of those prisoners to one another. To be rivetted on here in Paris; to be never struck off again until the journey of 350 miles was accomplished, and the human cattle stood upon the crazy decks of the hired transports which were eventually to land them, free at last, amidst the raging surf of the Gulf of Mexico.
Free then, but, until then, condemned convicts in actual fact as much as if, instead of being on their way to the New World, there to begin a new life, they were to step on board the galleys themselves and there begin the hideous existence which France enforced on all those who offended against her laws.
Before, however, these fetters and those chains were rivetted upon their necks and wrists and ankles-rivetted cold, and thereby causing awful agony to all the culprits-one thing had to be done. Those women who, in the course of the months in which they had lain in prison, had given birth to children, were now to be separated from them; separated from them for ever in all likelihood, since it was certain that the mothers would never return to France, and almost equally certain that the children would never be likely to make their way to New France when they grew up. Separated also-since the lawgivers of France boasted that they punished but never persecuted-because these babes had committed no crime; because, too, the Government paid no passage money for children, nor arranged for their sustenance.
Three women had given birth thus to children during the time they lay in the vaults of St. Martin des Champs, which was one of the places of reception for these galley slaves who now figured under the name of colonists; and, not knowing that their babes would ever be torn from them, had rejoiced exceedingly over their birth. For they had hugged the little creatures to their bosoms to keep them warm and to warm themselves; they had kissed and fondled them and crooned strange phrases of maternal love over them; had even looked forward with joy unspeakable to the extra burden which they would have to carry on the long march that they suspected, truly enough, lay before them. And they had passed the helpless things round at night to other women who had been torn, shrieking, from their own offspring, or had been spirited off to gaol ere they could utter one last farewell to them, or give them one last mad embrace; they had passed these newborn babes round surreptitiously in the dark, and when the warders slumbered, to these poor bereft mothers, so that they might pet them a little, call them by the names of their own deserted and lost children, and bring, thereby, some sort of comfort to their aching hearts in doing so. While the women, these other women who had been wrenched away from their offspring, had arranged with those happier ones to assist in the carrying of the infants on the weary march and to help those who owned them, their reward to be that they should hold the little mites within their arms sometimes and, thereby, delude themselves into the belief that it was their own flesh and blood which they were clasping to their aching breasts.
Yet now-now! – those mothers who had been made happy by the coming of the children were to be parted from them for ever. There strode towards one of these mothers who was seated on the stone bench which ran all round the Court of Honour, the Governor of St. Martin des Champs (a stern man who had never possessed either wife or child, nor anything of a home but tents and barracks, during a long life of soldiering) accompanied by a woman from the Hospital of Charity-which preceded by some years the Hospital for Foundlings-a nurse. And she, that mother smiling there, had no idea, no suspicion, of aught that was about to befall her. If any other of the convicts knew-which was doubtful, since few had ever travelled the road before that all were now to set out upon-not one spoke a word or gave a hint of the sorrow that was to light upon the unhappy woman.
"Say farewell to your child," the governor exclaimed. "Quick! there is no time to lose. Bid it adieu; then give it to this good nurse," and he indicated that other woman who accompanied him.
The mother looked up at him with staring eyes. There was, in truth, a half smile upon her face, as though she doubted if she heard aright and was almost amused-if one so wretched as she could ever be amused again! – at the strange, impossible form which the words he must actually have uttered had taken to her ears. Then she said, quietly, "What did monsieur say?"
"Bid your child adieu. Quick!" the governor repeated impatiently; "or it will be taken without your farewells. Quick! I say. There are two others to be dealt with."
"Bid my child-farewell!" she murmured, understanding his words at last. "Bid it farewell. You mean that?" And, now, her eyes stared with a horror that was awful to see. A horror that appalled even this man, whose life had been passed amidst, first, the turbulence of years of rough campaigning, and, next, amidst all the most depraved and savage wild beasts of Paris humanity.
Above the roar of clanking cold iron being fastened upon the chains of men and women, the rivetting and fitting of carcans upon different throats-the white throats of erring women, the knotted, corded throats of men who had worn them before and slaved out portions of their evil lives with those cursed iron bands swathed fast about them-amidst, too, the cheers of the populace outside, through whose ranks, by now, the first chain-that of some men-was passing, that woman's shriek was heard. It rose above all; above hoarse curses from the male savages at the pain caused by the hammer as it struck the edges of their collars together; above yells from the female savages as the same process went on; above, too, the trumpets of the gendarmerie, which, a merciful Government allowed to bray outside the prison gates as an encouragement to the unhappy wretches setting out upon that journey; above everything else that shriek arose.
For she understood now! She knew that the little helpless mass of human life which had lain so warm and snug within her arms for two or three months was to be torn away from her for ever.
"No! No! No!" she moaned, ceasing at last to shriek. "No! No! No. Ah, monsieur, see how small, how helpless it is. My child! My child! My little child! And-monsieur-it is not well-it-it-oh-oh! God, how I have watched over it; cared for it. I have prayed to Him-I, who never prayed before; I, who scarce knew how to form a prayer. It is not well. It cannot live without me. It cannot; it cannot. It is death to part us; death to it and me. And it is so-so helpless-and-so-innocent."
The governor had turned his back upon her. Perhaps her pleading had wrung even his heart! Then the nurse spoke. The nurse, who, because she was a gentle woman, wept.
"Fear not, poor girl," she whispered, even as she strove to take the child from the arms which clasped it so tightly. "Fear not. It shall be well attended to. And, see, here is a number," whereon she gave the unhappy mother a piece of paper, on which she hastily scrawled some figures. "If you ever return you may find it thus-when it grows up-it-what is your name?"
"Le Blanc. I shall never return. Never." Then she moaned again. "My child! My little child! And," she sobbed forth, "see, I had made a sling wherewith to carry it-so-that-it should lie more easily upon my breast. Oh! God-that I-that it-were dead."
Many women had watched this scene, amongst them the two other newly-made mothers, who saw in it what was to be their own fate and the fate of their babes. So, too, had Laure Vauxcelles, herself bearing a collar now around her beautiful neck-a light one, it is true, since the warder whose duty it was to attend to these matters, among other things, had observed that she was young and handsome, and, being himself young, or, at least, not old, had spared her as much as possible. On her left wrist there was fastened a great iron loop-great for so small a wrist! – through which was to run the chain that would attach her to those before and those behind her. To her right wrist was an iron bracelet with a short chain hanging to it, which, a few moments later, would couple her to the woman who would march by her side from Paris to Marseilles-if she ever reached the latter place, which she prayed fervently she might never do.
The chain composed of men was already gone by now; out into the street, beyond the prison gate, it had already passed; out into the bright, warm sun, so cheering to those who had lain in that prison for months-cheering now, but, ere long, to become an awful torture as the days grew hotter and the south was neared. The chain composed of women was about to follow. Of women, amongst whom, perhaps, were others as innocent of guilt as Laure herself; women whom a relentless rival, a rejected lover possessed of power, a suspicious, jealous husband also possessed of power or-which was the same thing-of money, may have consigned to this hellish doom. Women, too, who, although they were the guilty things that Roger, the chaplain, had described them as being, had possibly never walked three consecutive leagues in their lives. Women who, instead, had in many cases ridden in carriages and sedan chairs and coaches provided by their admirers. Yet now-now they set forth to march to Marseilles, nearly 350 miles away by road; to Marseilles, where, in the summer, the sun burned like a flaming furnace, and to which the breeze of the southern sea came hot and sultry as the breath from out of the mouth of a panting dog.
The trumpets of the gendarmerie pealed louder, the mob outside was screaming frantically, people were hanging half-way out of the windows; some boys who had climbed a tree which grew in the dusty, and place beyond the prison gates, were waving their ragged caps and chattering and grimacing. "The female cord" was passing forth. Ahead, went four mounted gendarmes, then, next, four waggons, destined to occasionally give a lift to those women who fell by the wayside, yet did not die at once. They who did so were left behind for the Communes to bury! Now, in the waggons, were seated the galley sergeants. There was no reason why they should walk; they were neither criminals nor women.
Then la Châim issued from the gates, the two leading couples of the double string, as the mob and the boys in the trees called them, passed out. Amidst further roars, hurrahs, encouragements, low jeers and fingerpointings, they came forth; amidst, too, exclamations from some who recognised them. With, also, a woman's shriek issuing now and again from out the mob's tight-packed density-a mother's heartbroken cry perhaps, perhaps a sister's, perhaps a daughter's. Yet, with no sign of sympathy from one set of beings who were witnessing the spectacle; who had paid, and paid well, to thus witness it. Beings-fashionable, well-dressed men and women, who had hired windows at which to sit and see the chains go by, and who drank chocolate and ate chipped bread and cakes and dainty butter brought from the cool north; and laughed and chatted, and made appointments for the Gardens of the Tuileries that night, or for boating parties on the Seine when the evening air was cooling the atmosphere.
Laure passed out, too, at last, manacled, shackled to the dark southern woman who had married the literary man. Passed out with her head bent down, her feet dragging like lead beneath her, her heart beating as though it must burst.
Passed out to what she knew and felt would be her death. To what she prayed might be her death.