El Dorado

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EL DORADO
by Baroness Orczy

FOREWORD

There has of late years crept so much confusion into the mind of
the student as well as of the general reader as to the identity of
the Scarlet Pimpernel with that of the Gascon Royalist plotter
known to history as the Baron de Batz, that the time seems
opportune for setting all doubts on that subject at rest.

The identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel is in no way whatever
connected with that of the Baron de Batz, and even superficial
reflection will soon bring the mind to the conclusion that great
fundamental differences existed in these two men, in their
personality, in their character, and, above all, in their aims.

According to one or two enthusiastic historians, the Baron de Batz
was the chief agent in a vast network of conspiracy, entirely
supported by foreign money--both English and Austrian--and which
had for its object the overthrow of the Republican Government and
the restoration of the monarchy in France.

In order to attain this political goal, it is averred that he set
himself the task of pitting the members of the revolutionary
Government one against the other, and bringing hatred and
dissensions amongst them, until the cry of "Traitor!" resounded
from one end of the Assembly of the Convention to the other, and
the Assembly itself became as one vast den of wild beasts wherein
wolves and hyenas devoured one another and, still unsatiated,
licked their streaming jaws hungering for more prey.

Those same enthusiastic historians, who have a firm belief in the
so-called "Foreign Conspiracy," ascribe every important event of
the Great Revolution--be that event the downfall of the Girondins,
the escape of the Dauphin from the Temple, or the death of
Robespierre--to the intrigues of Baron de Batz. He it was, so
they say, who egged the Jacobins on against the Mountain,
Robespierre against Danton, Hebert against Robespierre. He it was
who instigated the massacres of September, the atrocities of
Nantes, the horrors of Thermidor, the sacrileges, the noyades:
all with the view of causing every section of the National
Assembly to vie with the other in excesses and in cruelty, until
the makers of the Revolution, satiated with their own lust, turned
on one another, and Sardanapalus-like buried themselves and their
orgies in the vast hecatomb of a self-consumed anarchy.

Whether the power thus ascribed to Baron de Batz by his historians
is real or imaginary it is not the purpose of this preface to
investigate. Its sole object is to point out the difference
between the career of this plotter and that of the Scarlet
Pimpernel.

The Baron de Batz himself was an adventurer without substance,
save that which he derived from abroad. He was one of those men
who have nothing to lose and everything to gain by throwing
themselves headlong in the seething cauldron of internal politics.

Though he made several attempts at rescuing King Louis first, and
then the Queen and Royal Family from prison and from death, he
never succeeded, as we know, in any of these undertakings, and he
never once so much as attempted the rescue of other equally
innocent, if not quite so distinguished, victims of the most
bloodthirsty revolution that has ever shaken the foundations of
the civilised world.

Nay more; when on the 29th Prairial those unfortunate men and
women were condemned and executed for alleged complicity in the
so-called " Foreign Conspiracy," de Batz, who is universally
admitted to have been the head and prime-mover of that conspiracy
--if, indeed, conspiracy there was--never made either the
slightest attempt to rescue his confederates from the guillotine,
or at least the offer to perish by their side if he could not
succeed in saving them.

And when we remember that the martyrs of the 29th Prairial
included women like Grandmaison, the devoted friend of de Batz,
the beautiful Emilie de St. Amaranthe, little Cecile Renault--a
mere child not sixteen years of age--also men like Michonis and
Roussell, faithful servants of de Batz, the Baron de Lezardiere,
and the Comte de St. Maurice, his friends, we no longer can have
the slightest doubt that the Gascon plotter and the English
gentleman are indeed two very different persons.

The latter's aims were absolutely non-political. He never
intrigued for the restoration of the monarchy, or even for the
overthrow of that Republic which lie loathed.

His only concern was the rescue of the innocent, the stretching
out of a saving hand to those unfortunate creatures who had fallen
into the nets spread out for them by their fellow-men; by those
who--godless, lawless, penniless themselves--had sworn to
exterminate all those who clung to their belongings, to their
religion, and to their beliefs.

The Scarlet Pimpernel did not take it upon himself to punish the
guilty; his care was solely of the helpless and of the innocent.

For this aim he risked his life every time that he set foot on
French soil, for it he sacrificed his fortune, and even his
personal happiness, and to it he devoted his entire existence.

Moreover, whereas the French plotter is said to have had
confederates even in the Assembly of the Convention, confederates
who were sufficiently influential and powerful to secure his own
immunity, the Englishman when he was bent on his errands of mercy
had the whole of France against him.

The Baron de Batz was a man who never justified either his own
ambitions or even his existence; the Scarlet Pimpernel was a
personality of whom an entire nation might justly be proud.

CONTENTS

PART I
I IN THE THEATRE NATIONAL
II WIDELY DIVERGENT AIMS
III THE DEMON CHANCE
IV MADEMOISELLE LANGE
V THE TEMPLE PRISON
VI THE COMMITTEE'S AGENT
VII THE MOST PRECIOUS LIFE IN EUROPE
VIII ARCADES AMBO
IX WHAT LOVE CAN DO
X SHADOWS
XI THE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
XII WHAT LOVE IS
XIII THEN EVERYTHING WAS DARK
XIV THE CHIEF
XV THE GATE OF LA VILLETTE
XVI THE WEARY SEARCH
XVII CHAUVELIN
XVIII THE REMOVAL
XIX IT IS ABOUT THE DAUPHIN
XX THE CERTIFICATE OF SAFETY
XXI BACK TO PARIS
XXII OF THAT THERE COULD BE NO QUESTION
XXIII THE OVERWHELMING ODDS

PART II
XXIV THE NEWS
XXV PARIS ONCE MORE
XXVI THE BITTEREST FOE
XXVI IN THE CONCIERGERIE
XXVIII THE CAGED LION
XXIX FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT
XXX AFTERWARDS
XXXI AN INTERLUDE
XXXII SISTERS
XXXIII LITTLE MOTHER
XXXIV THE LETTER

PART III
XXXV THE LAST PHASE
XXXVI SUBMISSION
XXXVII CHAUVELIN'S ADVICE
XXXVIII CAPITULATION
XXXIX KILL HIM!
XL GOD HELP US ALL
XLI WHEN HOPE WAS DEAD
XLII THE GUARD-HOUSE OF THE RUE STE.ANNE
XLIII THE DREARY JOURNEY
XLIV THE HALT AT CRECY
XLV THE FOREST OF BOULOGNE
XLVI OTHERS IN THE PARK
XLVII THE CHAPEL OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
XLVIII THE WANING MOON
XLIX THE LAND OF ELDORADO

PART I
CHAPTER I
IN THE THEATRE NATIONAL

And yet people found the opportunity to amuse themselves, to dance
and to go to the theatre, to enjoy music and open-air cafes and
promenades in the Palais Royal.

New fashions in dress made their appearance, milliners produced
fresh "creations," and jewellers were not idle. A grim sense of
humour, born of the very intensity of ever-present danger, had
dubbed the cut of certain tunics "tete tranche," or a favourite
ragout was called "a la guillotine."

On three evenings only during the past memorable four and a half
years did the theatres close their doors, and these evenings were
the ones immediately following that terrible 2nd of September the
day of the butchery outside the Abbaye prison, when Paris herself
was aghast with horror, and the cries of the massacred might have
drowned the calls of the audience whose hands upraised for
plaudits would still be dripping with blood.

On all other evenings of these same four and a half years the
theatres in the Rue de Richelieu, in the Palais Royal, the
Luxembourg, and others, had raised their curtains and taken money
at their doors. The same audience that earlier in the day had
whiled away the time by witnessing the ever-recurrent dramas of
the Place de la Revolution assembled here in the evenings and
filled stalls, boxes, and tiers, laughing over the satires of
Voltaire or weeping over the sentimental tragedies of persecuted
Romeos and innocent Juliets.

Death knocked at so many doors these days! He was so constant a
guest in the houses of relatives and friends that those who had
merely shaken him by the hand, those on whom he had smiled, and
whom he, still smiling, had passed indulgently by, looked on him
with that subtle contempt born of familiarity, shrugged their
shoulders at his passage, and envisaged his probable visit on the
morrow with lighthearted indifference.

Paris--despite the horrors that had stained her walls had remained
a city of pleasure, and the knife of the guillotine did scarce
descend more often than did the drop-scenes on the stage.

On this bitterly cold evening of the 27th Nivose, in the second
year of the Republic--or, as we of the old style still persist in
calling it, the 16th of January, 1794--the auditorium of the
Theatre National was filled with a very brilliant company.

The appearance of a favourite actress in the part of one of
Moliere's volatile heroines had brought pleasure-loving Paris to
witness this revival of "Le Misanthrope," with new scenery,
dresses, and the aforesaid charming actress to add piquancy to the
master's mordant wit.

The Moniteur, which so impartially chronicles the events of
those times, tells us under that date that the Assembly of the
Convention voted on that same day a new law giving fuller power to
its spies, enabling them to effect domiciliary searches at their
discretion without previous reference to the Committee of General
Security, authorising them to proceed against all enemies of
public happiness, to send them to prison at their own discretion,
and assuring them the sum of thirty-five livres "for every piece
of game thus beaten up for the guillotine." Under that same date
the Moniteur also puts it on record that the Theatre National
was filled to its utmost capacity for the revival of the late
citoyen Moliere's comedy.

The Assembly of the Convention having voted the new law which
placed the lives of thousands at the mercy of a few human
bloodhounds, adjourned its sitting and proceeded to the Rue de
Richelieu.

Already the house was full when the fathers of the people made
their way to the seats which had been reserved for them. An awed
hush descended on the throng as one by one the men whose very
names inspired horror and dread filed in through the narrow
gangways of the stalls or took their places in the tiny boxes
around.

Citizen Robespierre's neatly bewigged head soon appeared in one of
these; his bosom friend St. Just was with him, and also his sister
Charlotte. Danton, like a big, shaggy-coated lion, elbowed his
way into the stalls, whilst Sauterre, the handsome butcher and
idol of the people of Paris, was loudly acclaimed as his huge
frame, gorgeously clad in the uniform of the National Guard, was
sighted on one of the tiers above.

The public in the parterre and in the galleries whispered
excitedly; the awe-inspiring names flew about hither and thither
on the wings of the overheated air. Women craned their necks to
catch sight of heads which mayhap on the morrow would roll into
the gruesome basket at the foot of the guillotine.

In one of the tiny avant-scene boxes two men had taken their seats
long before the bulk of the audience had begun to assemble in the
house. The inside of the box was in complete darkness, and the
narrow opening which allowed but a sorry view of one side of the
stage helped to conceal rather than display the occupants.

The younger one of these two men appeared to be something of a
stranger in Paris, for as the public men and the well-known
members of the Government began to arrive he often turned to his
companion for information regarding these notorious personalities.

"Tell me, de Batz," he said, calling the other's attention to a
group of men who had just entered the house, "that creature there
in the green coat--with his hand up to his face now--who is he?"

"Where? Which do you mean?"

"There! He looks this way now, and he has a playbill in his hand.
The man with the protruding chin and the convex forehead, a face
like a marmoset, and eyes like a jackal. What?"

The other leaned over the edge of the box, and his small, restless
eyes wandered over the now closely-packed auditorium.

"Oh!" he said as soon as he recognised the face which his friend
had pointed out to him, "that is citizen Foucquier-Tinville."

"The Public Prosecutor?"

"Himself. And Heron is the man next to him."

"Heron?" said the younger man interrogatively.

"Yes. He is chief agent to the Committee of General Security
now."

"What does that mean?"

Both leaned back in their chairs, and their sombrely-clad figures
were once more merged in the gloom of the narrow box. Instinctively,
since the name of the Public Prosecutor had been mentioned between
them, they had allowed their voices to sink to a whisper.

The older man--a stoutish, florid-looking individual, with small,
keen eyes, and skin pitted with small-pox--shrugged his shoulders
at his friend's question, and then said with an air of
contemptuous indifference:

"It means, my good St. Just, that these two men whom you see down
there, calmly conning the programme of this evening's entertainment,
and preparing to enjoy themselves to-night in the company of the late
M. de Moliere, are two hell-hounds as powerful as they are cunning."

"Yes, yes," said St. Just, and much against his will a slight
shudder ran through his slim figure as he spoke. "Foucquier-Tinville
I know; I know his cunning, and I know his power--but the other?"

"The other?" retorted de Batz lightly. "Heron? Let me tell you,
my friend, that even the might and lust of that damned Public
Prosecutor pale before the power of Heron!"

"But how? I do not understand."

"Ah! you have been in England so long, you lucky dog, and though
no doubt the main plot of our hideous tragedy has reached your
ken, you have no cognisance of the actors who play the principal
parts on this arena flooded with blood and carpeted with hate.
They come and go, these actors, my good St. Just--they come and
go. Marat is already the man of yesterday, Robespierre is the man
of to-morrow. To-day we still have Danton and Foucquier-Tinville;
we still have Pere Duchesne, and your own good cousin Antoine St.
Just, but Heron and his like are with us always."

"Spies, of course?"

"Spies," assented the other. "And what spies! Were you present
at the sitting of the Assembly to-day?"

"I was. I heard the new decree which already has passed into law.
Ah! I tell you, friend, that we do not let the grass grow under
our feet these days. Robespierre wakes up one morning with a
whim; by the afternoon that whim has become law, passed by a
servile body of men too terrified to run counter to his will,
fearful lest they be accused of moderation or of humanity--the
greatest crimes that can be committed nowadays."

"But Danton?"

"Ah! Danton? He would wish to stem the tide that his own passions
have let loose; to muzzle the raging beasts whose fangs he himself
has sharpened. I told you that Danton is still the man of to-day;
to-morrow he will be accused of moderation. Danton and moderation!
--ye gods! Eh? Danton, who thought the guillotine too slow in its
work, and armed thirty soldiers with swords, so that thirty heads
might fall at one and the same time. Danton, friend, will perish
to-morrow accused of treachery against the Revolution, of moderation
towards her enemies; and curs like Heron will feast on the blood of
lions like Danton and his crowd."

He paused a moment, for he dared not raise his voice, and his
whispers were being drowned by the noise in the auditorium. The
curtain, timed to be raised at eight o'clock, was still down,
though it was close on half-past, and the public was growing
impatient. There was loud stamping of feet, and a few shrill
whistles of disapproval proceeded from the gallery.

"If Heron gets impatient," said de Batz lightly, when the noise
had momentarily subsided, the manager of this theatre and mayhap
his leading actor and actress will spend an unpleasant day
to-morrow."

"Always Heron!" said St. Just, with a contemptuous smile.

"Yes, my friend," rejoined the other imperturbably, "always Heron.
And he has even obtained a longer lease of existence this
afternoon."

"By the new decree?"

"Yes. The new decree. The agents of the Committee of General
Security, of whom Heron is the chief, have from to-day powers of
domiciliary search; they have full powers to proceed against all
enemies of public welfare. Isn't that beautifully vague? And
they have absolute discretion; every one may become an enemy of
public welfare, either by spending too much money or by spending
too little, by laughing to-day or crying to-morrow, by mourning
for one dead relative or rejoicing over the execution of another.
He may be a bad example to the public by the cleanliness of his
person or by the filth upon his clothes, he may offend by walking
to-day and by riding in a carriage next week; the agents of the
Committee of General Security shall alone decide what constitutes
enmity against public welfare. All prisons are to be opened at
their bidding to receive those whom they choose to denounce; they
have henceforth the right to examine prisoners privately and
without witnesses, and to send them to trial without further
warrants; their duty is clear--they must 'beat up game for the
guillotine.' Thus is the decree worded; they must furnish the
Public Prosecutor with work to do, the tribunals with victims to
condemn, the Place de la Revolution with death-scenes to amuse the
people, and for their work they will be rewarded thirty-five
livres for every head that falls under the guillotine Ah! if
Heron and his like and his myrmidons work hard and well they can
make a comfortable income of four or five thousand livres a week.
We are getting on, friend St. Just--we are getting on."

He had not raised his voice while he spoke, nor in the recounting
of such inhuman monstrosity, such vile and bloodthirsty conspiracy
against the liberty, the dignity, the very life of an entire
nation, did he appear to feel the slightest indignation; rather
did a tone of amusement and even of triumph strike through his
speech; and now he laughed good-humouredly like an indulgent
parent who is watching the naturally cruel antics of a spoilt boy.

"Then from this hell let loose upon earth," exclaimed St. Just
hotly, "must we rescue those who refuse to ride upon this tide of
blood."

His cheeks were glowing, his eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. He
looked very young and very eager. Armand St. Just, the brother of
Lady Blakeney, had something of the refined beauty of his lovely
sister, but the features though manly--had not the latent strength
expressed in them which characterised every line of Marguerite's
exquisite face. The forehead suggested a dreamer rather than a
thinker, the blue-grey eyes were those of an idealist rather than
of a man of action.

De Batz's keen piercing eyes had no doubt noted this, even whilst
he gazed at his young friend with that same look of good-humoured
indulgence which seemed habitual to him.

"We have to think of the future, my good St. Just," he said after
a slight pause, and speaking slowly and decisively, like a father
rebuking a hot-headed child, "not of the present. What are a few
lives worth beside the great principles which we have at stake?"

"The restoration of the monarchy--I know," retorted St. Just,
still unsobered, "but, in the meanwhile--"

"In the meanwhile," rejoined de Batz earnestly, "every victim to
the lust of these men is a step towards the restoration of law and
order--that is to say, of the monarchy. It is only through these
violent excesses perpetrated in its name that the nation will
realise how it is being fooled by a set of men who have only their
own power and their own advancement in view, and who imagine that
the only way to that power is over the dead bodies of those who
stand in their way. Once the nation is sickened by these orgies
of ambition and of hate, it will turn against these savage brutes,
and gladly acclaim the restoration of all that they are striving
to destroy. This is our only hope for the future, and, believe
me, friend, that every head snatched from the guillotine by your
romantic hero, the Scarlet Pimpernel, is a stone laid for the
consolidation of this infamous Republic."

"I'll not believe it," protested St. Just emphatically.

De Batz, with a gesture of contempt indicative also of complete
self-satisfaction and unalterable self-belief, shrugged his broad
shoulders. His short fat fingers, covered with rings, beat a
tattoo upon the ledge of the box.

Obviously, he was ready with a retort. His young friend's
attitude irritated even more than it amused him. But he said
nothing for the moment, waiting while the traditional three knocks
on the floor of the stage proclaimed the rise of the curtain. The
growing impatience of the audience subsided as if by magic at the
welcome call; everybody settled down again comfortably in their
seats, they gave up the contemplation of the fathers of the
people, and turned their full attention to the actors on the
boards.

CHAPTER II
WIDELY DIVERGENT AIMS

This was Armand S. Just's first visit to Paris since that
memorable day when first he decided to sever his connection from
the Republican party, of which he and his beautiful sister
Marguerite had at one time been amongst the most noble, most
enthusiastic followers. Already a year and a half ago the
excesses of the party had horrified him, and that was long before
they had degenerated into the sickening orgies which were
culminating to-day in wholesale massacres and bloody hecatombs of
innocent victims.

With the death of Mirabeau the moderate Republicans, whose sole
and entirely pure aim had been to free the people of France from
the autocratic tyranny of the Bourbons, saw the power go from
their clean hands to the grimy ones of lustful demagogues, who
knew no law save their own passions of bitter hatred against all
classes that were not as self-seeking, as ferocious as themselves.

It was no longer a question of a fight for political and religious
liberty only, but one of class against class, man against man, and
let the weaker look to himself. The weaker had proved himself to
be, firstly, the man of property and substance, then the
law-abiding citizen, lastly the man of action who had obtained for
the people that very same liberty of thought and of belief which
soon became so terribly misused.

Armand St. Just, one of the apostles of liberty, fraternity, and
equality, soon found that the most savage excesses of tyranny were
being perpetrated in the name of those same ideals which he had
worshipped.

His sister Marguerite, happily married in England, was the final
temptation which caused him to quit the country the destinies of
which he no longer could help to control. The spark of enthusiasm
which he and the followers of Mirabeau had tried to kindle in the
hearts of an oppressed people had turned to raging tongues of
unquenchable flames. The taking of the Bastille had been the
prelude to the massacres of September, and even the horror of
these had since paled beside the holocausts of to-day.

Armand, saved from the swift vengeance of the revolutionaries by
the devotion of the Scarlet Pimpernel, crossed over to England and
enrolled himself tinder the banner of the heroic chief. But he
had been unable hitherto to be an active member of the League.
The chief was loath to allow him to run foolhardy risks. The St.
Justs--both Marguerite and Armand--were still very well-known in
Paris. Marguerite was not a woman easily forgotten, and her
marriage with an English "aristo" did not please those republican
circles who had looked upon her as their queen. Armand's secession
from his party into the ranks of the emigres had singled him out
for special reprisals, if and whenever he could be got hold of,
and both brother and sister had an unusually bitter enemy in their
cousin Antoine St. Just--once an aspirant to Marguerite's hand,
and now a servile adherent and imitator of Robespierre, whose
ferocious cruelty he tried to emulate with a view to ingratiating
himself with the most powerful man of the day.

Nothing would have pleased Antoine St. Just more than the
opportunity of showing his zeal and his patriotism by denouncing
his own kith and kin to the Tribunal of the Terror, and the
Scarlet Pimpernel, whose own slender fingers were held on the
pulse of that reckless revolution, had no wish to sacrifice
Armand's life deliberately, or even to expose it to unnecessary
dangers.

Thus it was that more than a year had gone by before Armand St.
Just--an enthusiastic member of the League of the Scarlet
Pimpernel--was able to do aught for its service. He had chafed
under the enforced restraint placed upon him by the prudence of
his chief, when, indeed, he was longing to risk his life with the
comrades whom he loved and beside the leader whom he revered.

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