The Knight of Maison-Rouge_ A Novel of Marie Antoinette - Alexandre Dumas [87]
“Ha! All that’s needed is a formal denunciation to do the job,” he said. “Hang about for a few minutes and I’ll bring it.”
“What’s going on, then?” asked the president.
“What’s going on,” said the cobbler, “is that the brave citizeness Tison is about to denounce the underhanded machinations of this partisan of the aristocracy, this Maurice, and the ramifications involving another false patriot among his pals who answers to the name of Lorin.”
“Go steady, Simon! Your zeal for the nation may well be leading you astray,” said the president. “Maurice Lindey and Hyacinthe Lorin are true-blue patriots.”
“We’ll see about that in court,” replied Simon.
“Think about it, Simon, the trial will be scandalous for all good patriots.”
“Scandalous or not, what’s that to me? Do you think I’m frightened of a bit of a scandal, me? At least we’ll know the whole truth about those who are traitors.”
“So you persist with this denunciation on behalf of Mother Tison?”
“I’ll make the denunciation myself tonight at the Cordeliers’ club, you make it with the others, citizen president, if you don’t want to declare the arrest of the traitor Maurice.”
“Well then, so be it,” said the president, who, as was usually the case in those unhappy times, cowered before whoever yelled the loudest. “Well then, so be it; we’ll arrest him.”
While the decision was being delivered against him, Maurice had returned to the Temple, where the following note was waiting for him:
Our watch being violently interrupted, I probably won’t see you again until tomorrow morning: come and have breakfast with me. While we’re eating you can bring me up to date about the intrigues and conspiracies uncovered by master Simon.
They say that Simon claims
That a carnation is to blame;
For my part, heaven knows,
I’d lay bets on a rose.
Tomorrow, too, I’ll tell you what Artemisia told me.
Your friend
LORIN
Maurice dashed off his reply:
Nothing new this end; sleep in peace tonight and eat without me in the morning; in view of today’s incidents, I probably won’t be up and about before midday.
I wish I were a zephyr to have the right to send a kiss to the rose of whom you speak.
I’ll allow you to boo my prose as I boo your poetry.
Your friend
MAURICE
P.S. I think the conspiracy was just a false alarm, anyway.
Lorin had in fact left at eleven ahead of the rest of his battalion, thanks to the abrupt motion of the cobbler. He’d consoled himself for this humiliation with a quatrain and, as announced in this quatrain, he went straight to Artemisia’s.
Artemisia was delighted to see Lorin. The weather was wonderful, as we noted earlier, and so she suggested a stroll along the banks of the Seine, and Lorin gladly agreed.
They ambled along the coal port chatting about politics, Lorin recounting his expulsion from the Temple and trying to figure out the circumstances that might have provoked it, when, having gotten as far as the rue des Barres, they spotted a flower girl who, like them, was following the right bank of the Seine upstream.
“Ah! Citizen Lorin,” said Artemisia. “You will, I hope, offer me a bouquet.”
“Why stop at one!” said Lorin. “You can have two if that’s what your heart desires.”
And they both picked up the pace to catch up to the flower girl, who was herself racing ahead as fast as she could go. When she reached the pont Marie, the girl stopped, leaned over the parapet, and emptied her basket into the river.
Single flowers spun for a moment in the air, while clusters fell more rapidly, dragged down by their weight; then both bouquets and individual flowers bobbed on the surface of the water and sped away with the current.
“Hey!” said Artemisia, looking at the flower girl who had such an original way of plying her trade. “It looks like … no, it can’t be … yes, it can … no … yes, it is … Hmmm. How odd!”
The flower girl put a finger to her lips, as though entreating Artemisia to say nothing, and