Part 62

I was escorted from room to room, each door guarded by an uncouth soldier, and shut promptly as I passed.

I must have gone through at least seven rooms before I reached the sanctuary in which Monsieur Raoul Rigault held his audience.

This autocrat, whom the republicans (to their eternal shame be it said) had placed in power after the 4th of September, is (and was then) the most successful specimen of a scamp that the human race has ever produced. At this moment Rigault has more power than any one else in Paris.

When the guard opened the door he pointed to the table where Raoul Rigault was seated writing (seemingly very absorbed). He appeared to me to be a man of about thirty-five or forty years old, short, thick-set, with a full, round face, a bushy black beard, a sensuous mouth, and a cynical smile. He wore tortoise-shell eyeglasses; but these could not hide the wicked expression of his cunning eyes.

I looked about me and noticed that the room had very little furniture; there was only the table at which the Prefect sat and two or three plain chairs. Just such a chamber as Robespierre might have occupied during his République. There were two gendarmes standing behind Rigault's chair waiting for orders, and a man (of whom I did not take particular notice) leaning against the mantelpiece at the other end of the room.

I approached the table, waiting like a culprit for the all-powerful Rigault to look up and notice me.

But he did not; he continued to be occupied with what he was doing. So I ventured to break the ice by saying, "Monsieur, I have come to procure a passport, and here is Mr. Washburn's card (the American Minister) to tell you who I am."

He took the card without condescending to look at it, and went on writing.

Getting impatient at his impertinence, I ventured again to attract his attention, and I said, as politely as possible (and as Mademoiselle could have wished), "Will you not kindly give me this passport, as I wish to leave Paris as soon as possible?"

Thereupon he took up the card, and, affecting the "Marat" style, said, "Does the citoyenne wish to leave Paris? Pourquoi?"

I answered that I was obliged to leave Paris for different reasons.

He replied, with what he thought a seductive smile, "I should think Paris would be a very attractive place for a pretty woman like yourself."

How could I make him understand that I had come for a passport and not for conversation?

At this moment I confess I began to feel dreadfully nervous, seeing the powerless situation in which I was placed, and I saw in imagination visions of prison-cells, handcuffs, and all the horrors which belong to revolutions. I heard the sonorous clock in the tower strike the hour, and realized that only minutes, not hours, had passed since I had been waiting in this dreadful place.

"Monsieur," I began once more, "I am rather in haste, and would thank you if you would give me my passport."

Upon which he took Mr. Washburn's so-much-looked-at card, scrutinized it, and then scrutinized me.

"Are you La Citoyenne Moulton?"

I answered, "Yes."

"American?"

I replied I was, and in petto--mighty glad I was to be so.

"Does the American Minister know you personally?"

"Yes, very well."

"Why do you wish to deprive us of your presence in Paris?"

I repeated that my affairs required my presence elsewhere.

I saw he was taking no steps toward making out my passport, and I became more agitated and unnerved and said, "If it is impossible for you, Monsieur, to give me the passport, I will inform Mr. Washburn of the fact, and he will no doubt come to you himself for it."

This seemed to arouse him, for he opened a drawer and took out a blank to be filled for a passport, with an impatient shrug of his shoulders, as it he was bored to death.

Now followed the most hateful and trying quart d'heure I ever passed in my life. I fancy Raoul Rigault had never been in the society of a lady (perhaps he had never seen one), and his innate coarseness seemed to make him gloat over the present situation, and as a true republican, whose motto is Égalité, Fraternité, Liberté, he flattered himself he was on an equality with me, therefore he could take any amount of liberty. He took advantage of the unavoidable questions that belong to the making out of a passport, and showed a diabolical pleasure in tormenting la citoyenne who stood helplessly before him.

When it came to the description and the enumerating of my features, he was more obnoxious than I can express. Peering across the table to see whether my eyes were brown or black, or my hair black or brown, he never lost an opportunity to make a fawning remark before writing it down. He described my teint as pâle; I felt pale, and think I must have looked very pale, for he said: "Vous êtes bien pâle, Madame. Voudriez-vous quelque chose à boire?" Possibly he may have meant to be kind; but I saw BORGIA written all over him. I refused his offer with effusion.