Society of the Propaganda had assembled and declared its session to be permanent as long as Strasbourg was in danger.
Although Euloge Schneider was a fanatical Jacobin, being in relation to Marat what Marat was to Robespierre, he was excelled in patriotism by the Society of the Propaganda As a result the public prosecutor, powerful as he was, had to reckon with two powers, between which he was obliged to steer his course. That is to say, with Saint-Just, who, strange as it must seem to our readers of the present day, represented the moderate Republican party, and with the Propagande, which represented the ultra-Jacobins. Saint-Just held the material power, but citizen Tétrell possessed the moral power.
Euloge Schneider therefore did not dare to absent himself from the assemblage of the Propagande, which met to discuss the best means of saving the country; while Saint-Just and Lebas, the first to gallop out of Strasbourg into the midst of the firing—where they were easily recognized as the people's representatives by their uniforms and their tri-color plumes—had ordered the gates to be shut behind them, and had taken their places in the first ranks of the Republicans.
When the enemy had been routed, they had immediately returned to Strasbourg and gone to their hotel, while the Propagande continued their debate, although the peril had ceased. This was the reason why Euloge Schneider, who was so particular to admonish others to punctuality, was half an hour late himself.
Charles had profited by this delay to become acquainted with the other three guests who were to be at table with him. They, on their side, having been notified by Schneider, welcomed kindly the boy who had been sent to him to be made into a scholar, and to whom they had each resolved to give an education according to their individual knowledge and principles.
These men were three in number, as we have said; their names were Edelmann, Young, and Monnet.
Edelmann was a remarkable musician, the equal of Gossec in church music. He had also set the poem of "Ariadne in the Isle of Naxos" to music for the stage, and the piece was played in France, in 1818 or 1820. He was small, with a melancholy countenance. He always wore spectacles, which seemed to have grown to his nose; he dressed in a brown coat, which was always buttoned from top to bottom with copper buttons. He had cast in his lot with the Revolutionary party with the violence and fanaticism of an imaginative man. When his friend Diedrich, mayor of Strasbourg, was accused of moderation by Schneider and succumbed in the struggle, he bore witness against him, saying: "I shall mourn for you because you are my friend, but you are a traitor, therefore you must die."
As for the second of the trio, Young, he was a poor shoemaker, within whose coarse exterior Nature, as sometimes happens by caprice, had concealed the soul of a poet. He knew Latin and Greek, but composed his odes and satires only in German. His well-known Republicanism had made his poetry popular, and the common people would often stop him on the street, crying, "Verses! Verses!" Then he would stop, and mounting upon some stone, or the edge of a well, or some adjacent balcony, would fling his odes and satires to the skies like burning, flaming rockets. He was one of those rarely honest men, one of those revolutionists who acted in all good faith, and who, blindly devoted to the majesty of the popular principle, thought of the Revolution only as the means of emancipation for all the human race, and who died like the ancient martyrs, without complaint, and without regret, convinced of the future triumph of their religion.
Monnet, the third, was not a stranger to Charles, and the boy welcomed him with a cry of joy. He had been a soldier, a grenadier, in his youth, and when he left the service had become a priest and prefect of the college in Besançon, where Charles had known him. When he was twenty-eight years of age, and had begun to regret the vows he had taken, the Revolution came to break them. He was tall and stooped a little, was full of kindness and courtesy, and possessed a melancholy grace which attracted strangers to him at first sight. His smile was sad and sometimes bitter; one would have thought that he concealed in the depths of his heart some mournful mystery, and that he besought of men, or rather of humanity, a shelter from his own innocence—the greatest of all dangers at such a time. He had been thrown, or rather had fallen, into the extreme party of which Schneider was a member; and now, trembling because of his share in the popular fury, and because he had been an accomplice in crime, he drifted, with his eyes shut, he knew not whither.
These three men were Schneider's inseparable friends. They had begun to feel alarmed by his prolonged absence, for each of them realized that Schneider was his pillar of strength. If Schneider toppled, they fell; if Schneider fell, they were dead men.
Monnet, the most nervous and consequently the most impatient of them all, had already risen to go for news, when they suddenly heard the grating of a key in the lock and the door was pushed violently open. At the same moment Schneider entered.
The session must have been a stormy one, for upon the ashy pallor of his forehead, blotches of purple blood stood out prominently. Although December was half gone, his face was covered with perspiration, and his loosened cravat showed the angry swelling of his bull-like neck. As he entered he threw his hat, which he had held in his hand, to the other end of the room.
When they saw him, the three men rose as if moved by a common spring, and hastened toward him. Charles on the contrary had drawn behind his chair as if for protection.
"Citizens," cried Schneider, gritting his teeth, "citizens, I have to announce to you the good news that I am to be married in eight days."
"You?" exclaimed the three men with one accord.
"Yes! What an astounding bit of news for Strasbourg when it gets about. 'Haven't you heard?—No.—The Monk of Cologne is to be married.—Yes?—Yes, that is a fact!' Young, you shall write the epithalamium; Edelmann shall set it to music, and Monnet, who is as cheerful as the grave, shall sing it. You must send the news to your father, Charles, by the next courier."
"And who are you going to marry?"
"I don't know anything about that as yet; and I don't care. I have almost a mind to marry my old cook. It would serve as a good example of the fusion of the classes."
"But what has happened? Tell us."
"Nothing much, but I have been interrogated, attacked, accused—yes, accused."
"Where?"
"At the Propagande."
"Oh!" cried Monnet, "a society that you created."
"Have you never heard of children who kill their own fathers?"
"But who attacked you?"
"Tétrell. You know he is the democrat who invented the luxurious party of sans-culottism; who has pistols from Versailles, pistols with fleur-de-lis on them, and horses fit for a prince to ride, and who is, I don't know why, the idol of the people of Strasbourg. Perhaps because he is gilded like a drum-major—he is tall enough for one! It seems to me that I have given enough pledges of good faith. But, no; the coat of a reporting commissioner cannot cover the frock of the Capuchin, or the cassock of the canon. He taunted me with this infamous stain of priesthood, which he says makes me constantly suspected by the true friends of liberty. Who has immolated more victims than I to the sainted cause of liberty? Haven't I cut off twenty-six heads in one month? Isn't that enough? How many do they want?"
"Calm yourself, Schneider, calm yourself!"
"It is enough to drive one crazy," continued Schneider, growing more and more excited, "between the Propagande, which is always saying, 'Not enough!' and Saint-Just, who says, 'Too much!' Yesterday I arrested six of these aristocrat dogs and four to-day. My Hussars of Death are constantly seen in the streets of Strasbourg and its environs; this
