• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“You were seen talking to him.”

“Me?”

“Shaking his hand.”

“Me?”

“Yes—you.”

“Where? When? … Citizen president, you are making it up!” said Maurice, carried away by the conviction of his innocence.

“You’re taking your zeal for the nation a bit far, citizen Maurice,” said the president. “And you’ll be sorry in a moment that you said what you just said, when I give you proof that I’ve spoken nothing but the truth. Here are three different reports accusing you.”

“Well, you wouldn’t credit it!” said Maurice. “Do you really think I’m naïve enough to believe in your Knight of Maison-Rouge?”

“And why wouldn’t you believe in him?”

“Because he is a conspirator bogeyman you always keep up your sleeve, ready to overpower your enemies with talk of some dreadful plot or other.”

“Read the denunciations.”

“I won’t read anything,” said Maurice. “I protest that I have never seen the Knight of Maison-Rouge and that I have never spoken to him. Let anyone who doesn’t believe my word of honor come forward and tell me to my face. I know what I’ll say to him.”

The president gave a shrug. Maurice, not wanting to be outdone by anyone, did the same.

There was something sinister and reserved about the rest of the session, and afterward the president, a brave and good patriot who had been elevated to the first rank of the district by the vote of his fellow citizens, approached Maurice:

“Come with me, Maurice, I’ve got something to say to you.”

Maurice followed the president, who led him to a small cabinet adjacent to the room in which meetings were held. Once they were there, he looked him in the face and put his hand on his shoulder:

“Maurice, I knew and esteemed your father, which means that I esteem you and feel great fondness for you. Believe me, Maurice, you are running a grave danger if you let yourself lose faith—that’s the first sign of decadence in a truly revolutionary mind. Maurice, my friend, once you lose faith, you lose faithfulness. You don’t believe in the enemies of the nation: from that stems the fact that you brush past them without seeing them and you become the instrument of their plots without realizing it.”

“What the devil!” said Maurice. “I know myself, I’m a man who acts from the heart, a zealous patriot. But my zeal doesn’t make me a fanatic: there are twenty so-called plots that the Republic all attributes to the same man. I’d like to see the author of these plots, once and for all.”

“You don’t believe the conspirators exist, Maurice?” said the president. “Well, then, tell me, do you believe in the red carnation for which they guillotined the Tison girl yesterday?”

Maurice started.

“Do you believe in the underground tunnel dug under the Temple garden, running from citizeness Plumeau’s cellar to a certain house in the rue de la Corderie?”

“No,” said Maurice.

“Well, then, do as doubting Thomas did and go and see for yourself.”

“I’m not on guard duty at the Temple and they probably won’t let me in.”

“Anyone can get into the Temple now.”

“How come?”

“Read this report; since you’re so incredulous, I’ll only proceed further by showing you official documentation.”

“What!” said Maurice, reading the report. “It’s gone this far!”

“Keep reading.”

“They’re taking the Queen to the Conciergerie?”

“What of it?” said the president.

“Oh! Oh!” Maurice groaned.

“Do you think it’s on the basis of some dream, what you call imagination, some nonsense, that the Committee of Public Safety has adopted such a serious measure?”

“This measure has been adopted, but it won’t be carried out, like a whole host of measures I’ve seen taken, that’s all.…”

“Read to the end,” said the president.

And he handed Maurice one last report.

“The receipt of Richard, jailer of the Conciergerie!” cried Maurice. “She was committed to prison there at two o’clock this morning.” This time Maurice remained thoughtful.

“The Commune, you know,” the president continued, “acts on the bigger picture. It has carved out a broad and