One of those who went out in the crowd, and who, to judge from his dress, was a simple bourgeois of the Marais, addressed one of his neighbours, and laying his hand on his shoulder, although he seemed to belong to a higher class, said to him: “Well, Doctor Gilbert, what do you think of these two acquittals?”

  The one whom he had addressed turned round and looked at the questioner, and seemed as if he wished to recognise the form, the tones of whose voice he had recognised. “Of you, and not of me, my master, must that question be asked — of you who know everything, the present! the past! and the future!”

  “Well, then, I think, after these two shameless acquittals, it will be best to pity the poor innocent fellow to be tried next in this court.”

  “But why do you think,” asked Gilbert, “that the one who will succeed them will be innocent, and succeeding them, will be punished?”

  “For the simple reason,” answered the other with the irony that seemed to be natural to him, “that it is customary, in this world, for the good to suffer for the bad.”

  “Adieu, master,” said Gilbert, taking his hand off Cagliostro, for even in these few words the terrible sceptic will have been recognised.

  “And why adieu?”

  “Because I have something to attend to,” said Gilbert, smiling.

  “You are going somewhere?” — ” Yes.”

  “To whom? — to Mirabeau, to Lafayette, or to the queen?”

  Gilbert stopped, and looked at Cagliostro with an uneasy air.

  “Do you know that you frighten me?” said he.

  “On the contrary, I should reassure,” observed Cagliostro.

  “How so?”

  “Am I not one of your friends?” — ”I believe so.”

  “Be sure, and if you want any proof — ”

  “Well!”

  “Come with me, and I will give you information about these negotiations which you believe are so secret; information go secret, that even you, who seem to be conducting them, know nothing about them.”

  “Listen!’’ said Gilbert; “perhaps you will summon to you some of those influences with which you are familiar. But never mind, things are so dark that I think I would accept a little light even if it came from Satan himself. I will follow you, or you may conduct me.”

  “Oh! be easy; it won’t be far; and it shall be in a place where you are not known; only allow me to hail this coach that is passing; the style of dress in which I have come out prevented my bringing my carriage.” And he made a sign to a coach that was on the other side of the way. The coach drew up, and both got in.

  “Where shall I take you, my jolly bourgeois?” asked the cabman of Cagliostro, as if he knew, in spite of his apparently simple dress, that the latter led the other, and moulded him to his will.

  “Where thou knowest,” said Balsamo, making a kind of masonic sign.

  The coachman looked at Balsamo with astonishment. “Pardon, monseigneur,” said he, “that I did not recognise you at once.”

  “This is never my case,” said Cagliostro, in a firm, sonorous voice, “in spite of their number, I never forget any one, from the highest to the lowest, of my subjects.”

  The driver shut the door to, mounted his box, and drove at a rapid rate to the corner of the Rue Saint-Claude.

  The carriage stopped, and the porter saw the door opened with such rapidity as showed the zeal and respect of the driver.

  Cagliostro made a sign to Gilbert to get out first, and then he himself descended from the carriage.

  “Have you nothing to say to me?” asked he.

  “Yes, monseigneur,” answered the driver; “I was to have made my report this evening, if I were lucky enough to meet you.”

  “Speak then.”

  “That which I have to say, monseigneur, ought not to be heard or listened to by profane ears.”

  “Oh!’’ said Cagliostro, smiling, “he who listens to us is not quite one of the profane ears. “

  This was Gilbert, who had moved some distance.

  But still he could not prevent himself looking at them, and listening a little.

  He saw a smile as the driver spoke flit across the countenance of Balsamo.

  He heard the two names, Monsieur and Favras.

  The report concluded, Cagliostro drew a double louis from his pocket, and wished to give it to the driver. But the latter shook his head. “Monseigneur knows well,” said he, “that it is forbidden to receive money for our reports.”

  “It is not for thy report I wish to pay thee, it is for the drive.”

  “For that I will accept it,” said the driver. And, in taking the louis, he added: “Thanks, monseigneur, my day’s work’s done.’“ And, jumping lightly on his box, he drove off at a round trot, and left Gilbert struck with amazement at what he had just heard.

  “Come,” said Cagliostro, who was holding the door open for Gilbert, who never dreamt of entering; “will you not come in, my dear doctor?’’

  “Yes,” said Gilbert, “excuse me.”

  And he crossed the threshold, staggering like a drunken man.

  In the antechamber he saw the same German servant whom he had met there sixteen years before. He was standing in the same place, and held in his hands a similar book; only, like himself, the count, and the very chamber itself, he had aged sixteen years.

  Fritz guessed from his eye the passage down which his master intended to conduct Gilbert, and rapidly opening two doors, he stopped at the third, to see if Cagliostro had any further orders to give.

  This third door was that of the saloon.

  Cagliostro made a sign to Gilbert to enter the saloon, and another to Fritz to retire. Only he said, “I am not at home until further orders.” Then, turning towards Gilbert, “Now, sit down; I am quite at your service dear doctor.”

  Gilbert sighed, and leant his head on his hand. The memories of the past had mastered, for a time, at least, his present curiosity.

  Cagliostro looked at Gilbert as Mephistopheles might have looked at Faust, when that German philosopher imprudently let him go before him.

  All at once, he said: “It seems, dear doctor, that you recognise this room again?”

  “Yes!” said Gilbert; “and it recalls the many obligations I owe you.”

  “Ah! bah! trifles!”

  “In truth,” said Gilbert, addressing himself as much as Cagliostro, “you are a strange man; and if all-powerful reason would permit me to place any faith in the magic stories of the middle ages, I should be tempted to believe that you were a sorcerer, like Merlin, or a melter of gold, like Nicholas Flamel.”

  “To the world I am so, but not to you. I have never endeavoured to deceive you by marvels. You know I have always made you understand everything, and if sometimes you have seen Truth at my summons issue forth from her well, better dressed and clad than is her wont, it is, true Sicilian as I am, that I have a taste for tinsel. But let the events of the past sleep quietly in the past, in their tomb; let us speak of the present — let us speak of the future, if you like.”

  “Count, you have called me back to realities! The future! What if this future were in your hands! What if your eyes could read the indistinct hieroglyphics!”

  “Let us see, then, doctor, how we are as regards these ministerial arrangements.”

  “Ministerial arrangements?”

  “Yes; of our Mirabeau and Lafayette ministry.”

  “That is one of those vague rumours you, like others, have heard repeated, and you wish, by questioning me, to ascertain its truth.”

  “Doctor, you are the very incarnation of doubt, and if there is anything terrible about you, it is that you doubt, not because you do not believe, but because you do not wish to believe. It will be best to tell you, at first, what you know as well as I do, and afterwards I will tell you what I know better than you.”

  “I listen, count.”

  “For the last fifteen days you have spoken to the king of M. de Mirabeau as the only man who can save the monarchy.”

  “It is my opinion, count; hence you will easily understand the present coalition.”

  “It is mine too, doctor; hence the coalition you have presented to the king will fail.”

  “Will fail?”

  “The king, sufficiently struck by what you had told him — pardon me, but I am obliged to commence from the beginning, in order to show you that I am not ignorant of any one phase of the negotiation — the king, I say, sufficiently struck by what you had told him, has conversed with the queen concerning the combination, and the queen was less opposed to the project than the king even; she discussed with you the for and against, and finished by authorizing you to speak to M. de Mirabeau. Is not that the truth, doctor?” said Cagliostro, looking Gilbert in the face.

  “I must confess that to this time you have kept on the right way.”

  “Well, the queen yielded for two reasons; the first is, that she has suffered much, and to propose an intrigue to her is to assist her to forget; the second reason is, that the queen is a woman, and she has been told that M. de Mirabeau is like a lion, a tiger, a bear, and no woman knows how to resist the wish, so flattering to her vanity, to tame a bear, a tiger, a lion. She said, ‘It will be curious to bring to my feet the man who hates me, and cause him to apologise on the very tribune where he insulted me. I shall see him at my knees; this shall be my reward, my vengeance! And if from this genuflexion any good results to France and royalty, so much the better.’ But I tell you that Mirabeau, the man of genius, the man of wit, the great orator, will spend his life and sink into the tomb without ever arriving at what all the world would have him attain to — that is to say, he will never be minister. Ah! mediocrity, after all, dear Gilbert, is a great protection.”

  “Then,” asked Gilbert, “the king opposes the arrangement?”

  “Peste! he takes care; he must discuss the matter with the queen, when he has nearly pledged his word. You know, the politics of the king consist in that one word, nearly; he is nearly constitutional, he is nearly a philosopher, he is nearly popular. Go to-morrow to the Assembly, my dear doctor, and you will see what will happen.”

  “Can you not tell me beforehand?”

  “You shall have the pleasure of being surprised.”

  “To-morrow? It is a long time.”

  “Then do better. It is five o’clock; in another hour the Jacobin club will open. You know these Jacobins are night-birds: do you belong to the society?”

  “No; Camille Desmoulins and Danton made me belong to the Cordeliers.”

  “As I said, the Jacobin club will meet in an hour. It is a society well put together, and one in which you will not be out of place — be easy. We will dine together; after dinner we will take a carriage; we will go to the Rue St. Honore, and then, forewarned twelve hours, you will have time, perhaps, to prepare for the blow.”

  “Monseigneur, dinner is served,” said a valet, opening the two leaves of a door leading into the dining-room, splendidly lit and sumptuously furnished.

  “Come,” said Cagliostro, taking the arm of Gilbert.

  Gilbert went with the enchanter, entertaining some hope that he might gain a little light from the conversation, to guide him through the dark night which seemed now to surround him.

  Two hours after, a carriage without liveries and emblazonries stopped before the steps of the Eglise, St. Roch.

  Two men dressed in black descended from the vehicle, and passed along the right side of the street, to the little gateway of the convent of the Jacobins.

  The two new-comers had only to follow the crowd, for the crowd was great.

  “Will you go into the nave, or take a place in the tribunes?” Cagliostro asked Gilbert.

  “I believe,” said Gilbert, “the nave is devoted solely to the members.”

  “Without doubt,” said Cagliostro, smiling, “but do not I belong to all societies? and since I belong to them, do not my friends too? Here is a ticket for you, if you wish; as for me, I have only to speak one word.”

  “They will recognise us as strangers, and make us go out,” observed Gilbert.

  “The society of the Jacobins has been founded three months, there are already sixty thousand members in France, and there will be four hundred thousand before the year is out; moreover, my dear friend,” said Cagliostro, smiling, “here is truly the Grand-Orient, the centre of all secret societies, and not with that imbecile Fauchet, as some think; and if you have not the right to enter here as a Jacobin, you have the right to a place as one of the Rose Cross.”

  “No matter,” said Gilbert, “I like the tribunes best.”

  “To the tribunes, then,” said Cagliostro. And he went to the right, up a staircase which conducted to the improvised tribunes.

  The tribunes were full, but to the first one he addressed Cagliostro had only to make a sign, and speak one word in a low tone, and two men who were seated before him, as if they had been forewarned of his intended arrival, and were only there to guard the seats of himself and Doctor Gilbert, immediately rose and retired.

  The sitting had not as yet commenced. The members of the Assembly were spread confusedly over the nave; some formed themselves into groups, and others promenaded in the narrow space left them by their numerous colleagues, while others sat alone in the shade, leaning against the massive pillars.

  A few lights sprinkled here and there lessened the gloom, and lit up the countenances and figures of those who happened to be standing near them.

  It was easy to see, in spite of the darkness, that in the midst an aristocratic reunion existed. Embroidered coats, and the naval and military uniforms of officers, mottled the crowd, reflecting the light from their gold and silver lacings.

  For the lower class there was a second salle below the first, which opened at a different hour, so that the people and the aristocracy did not elbow each, other. For the instruction of the people they had founded a fraternal society.

  As for the Jacobins, they were at this time a military society; aristocratic, intellectual and, above all, literary and artistic.

  In reality, men of letters and artists were in a majority.

  Gilbert cast a long look at this brilliant assembly, recognising each, and calculating in his mind all their different capacities.

  Perhaps this loyal assembly comforted him somewhat.

  “In one word,” said he to Cagliostro, “what man do you see among all these men who is really hostile to royalty?”

  “Should I examine them with the eyes of all the world, with yours, with those of M. Necker, with those of the Abbe Maury, or with my own?”

  “With your own,” said Gilbert. “Is it not fit that they should be examined by the eyes of a sorcerer?”

  “Very well, then; there are two who are hostile to royalty.”

  “Oh! that’s not many among four hundred men.”

  “It is enough, if one of these two men is to be the slayer of Louis XVI. and the other his successor!”

  Gilbert started. “Oh!” murmured he, “are there here a future Brutus and a future Caesar?”

  “No less, my dear doctor.”

  “You will point them out, will you not, count?” said Gilbert, with a smile of doubt upon his brow.

  “Oh, unbeliever, whose eyes are covered with scales!” murmured Cagliostro. “I will do more if you wish; I will let you touch them with your finger: with which one will you begin?”

  “I think with the destroyer. I have a great regard for chronology. Let us begin with Brutus.”

  “Thou knowest,” said Cagliostro, becoming animated, as if he were inspired, “thou knowest that men do not always pursue the same end by the same means. Our Brutus will not resemble in any way the Brutus of old.”

  “Only another reason why I should wish to see him.”

  “Very well,” said Cagliostro, “look at him!”

  And he stretched his arm in the direction of a man who leant against the pulpit, whose head only, just at this moment, stood forth in the light, the rest of the body being in the shade.

  This head, pale and livid, seemed like a head nailed in the ancient days of proscription to the tribune.

  The eyes alone seemed to sparkle with an expression of hatred almost disdainful, with the expression of a viper that knows its tooth contains a mortal venom. They followed in their numerous evolutions the fiery and wordy Barnave.

  Gilbert felt a chill run through his whole body. “Really,” said he, “you have warned me beforehand; there is here neither the head of Brutus nor that of Cromwell.”

  “No!” said Cagliostro, “but it is perhaps that of Cassius. You know, my dear fellow, what Caesar said: ‘I do not fear all these fat men, these bon-vivants, who pass their days at the table and their nights in orgies; no! those that I fear are the dreamers, with their thin bodies and pale visages.’“

  “He whom you have pointed out certainly fulfils these last conditions.”

  “Then do you not know him?” asked Cagliostro.

  “Ay!” said Gilbert, looking at him with attention; “I know him, or rather I recognise him as a member of the National Assembly.”

  “You are right!”

  “For one of the most long-winded orators of the Left.”

  “You are right!”

  “No one listens when he speaks.”

  “You are right!”

  “A little lawyer of Arras, called Maximilien de Robespierre.”

  “Quite right! Now look at this head with attention.”

  “I do.”

  “What do you see?”

  “Count, I am not a Lavater.”

  “No, but you may be a disciple.”

  “I see there is an expression of hatred to genius.”

  “That is to say, that you too judge him like the rest of the world. Yes, it is true, his voice, feeble and a little sharp; his thin and sad face; the skin of his forehead, which seems drawn tightly over his skull, like yellow and immovable parchment; his glassy eye, which only now and then lets a flash of greenish light escape, and then immediately grows dull; this continual discord of the muscles and the voice; this laborious physiognomy, fatigued through its very immobility; this invariable olive-coloured dress — yes, I can understand that all this ought not to make any very great impression on an Assembly so rich in orators; one which Has the right to be difficult to please, accustomed as it is to the lion-like face of Mirabeau, to the audacity of Barnave, to the sharp repartee of Maury, the warmth of Cazales, and the logic of Sieyes; but we cannot reproach him, as Mirabeau, with immorality; he is an honest man; he will not desert his principles, and if ever he deserts the law, it will be to destroy the old text with the new law.”