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Safety might decide at any time to resume operations. The house in town would be deserted anyway.
Her mother had died years ago, and all her other relatives were either dead or absent.
Melanie was reluctant to give a firm estimate of the number of days it would take them to get to Paris. In
these troubled days, travel times were hard to estimate.
Chapter Sixteen
For some five years now, ever since the fall of the Bastille, Paris had served France and the rest of the
world as a seemingly limitless source of news. Tremendous events were reported from the capital almost
every day and the passage of time proved that some of them, including many of the most improbable,
had actually occurred. For example, it had to be accepted as a matter of sober, historical fact that the
king and queen or rather, the individuals who had formerly borne those titles had indeed been
arrested, bullied, and locked up by mere commoners. And that some months later, by decision of the
people, the royal couple were both dead. Their heads had rolled into the basket as easily as those of
ordinary criminals.
Yes, it was still hard to credit. Citizen Louis Capet the man who had once been called by the title King
Louis XVI, who had been the ruler of all France by divine right, anointed by the Church and all but
worshiped by vast numbers of the people that man had been beheaded, slaughtered in public like an
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animal, in January of 1793. His queen, Marie Antoinette, had followed him to the scaffold in October of
the same year, after she had been proven (at least to the satisfaction of her enemies) to be in treacherous
league with the rulers of her native Austria, sworn enemies of all revolutions.
Once everyone understood that those events were really true, it was hard to set any limit at all on
miracles.
Other unbelievable stories, which it would have been easy to dismiss as wild rumor, were actually
confirmed: The tide of war, the real war of armies, had turned again in favor of Prance, riddled though
her armies were with desertions, political harassment, and executions. But meanwhile the majority of
citizens, at least in Paris, were convinced that the most dangerous threat to their lives and happiness lay
close to home. Wild rumors, heard everywhere, declared that bands of brigands, in the pay of royalists
and foreigners, were scouring the countryside, raping and pillaging.
Still, according to the latest word from the frontiers, the Austrian and Prussian armies, commanded by
the Duke of Brunswick, appeared able to make little headway against the armies of the people of France.
Philip's private opinion was that the war might now be going better for France only because her enemies,
watching the revolutionary turmoil, were content to wait for her to tear herself to pieces.
In rapid succession, one generation after another of Revolutionary leaders had risen to power and fallen
again. The time of turnover was now measured in mere months instead of years, and each new faction on
achieving mastery exhibited more savagery than the last. Each was more fanatically dedicated to the
ruthless repression of treasonous plots. And the more .plots were discovered, and their fomenters
executed, the more new examples of treason sprouted into light. Dan-ton, once the unchallenged
champion of the people against their aristocratic oppressors, more lately Robespierre's rival, had been
arrested on March 30, 1794 (10 Germinal, Year Two, of the Revolutionary Calendar), charged with
excessive moderation, and taken to the scaffold on April 5.
On May 7, Robespierre the Incorruptible, the newest and seemingly invincible leader, disturbed by the
atheistic tendencies shown by his colleagues and their spread among the people in general, had
introduced worship of the Supreme Being. June 8 (17 Floral, Year Three) was officially proclaimed the
Festival.
On June 1, British warships commanded by Lord Howe defeated the French fleet in the English
Channel.
Amid the strains and excitement of the journey, and the disturbing joy of Melanie's presence, Radcliffe
almost forgot about the mysterious stranger, calling himself Legrand, whose life he had saved.
For several years now, the routines of planting and harvesting across much of France had been
neglected, and the distribution of food had been disrupted, while armed peasants and other workers
gathered to exchange inflammatory ideas, fears, hopes, and plans.
Lying athwart the travelers' most direct route to Paris were certain towns and villages around which
Melanie thought it wise to detour, whole districts she preferred to avoid because of their reputation for
fanatical enforcement of Revolutionary decrees upon strangers. The American deferred to her judgment [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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