The Mesmerist's Victim

CHAPTER XVIII

THE INNERMOST CIRCLE

THOSE who went out were brothers of the second and third circles, and left seven who were masters in their lodge. They recognized each other by signs proving they were admitted to the high degrees.

Their first care was to close the doors. The presiding officer, who was now Balsamo, showed his ring. On it were graved the letters L. P. D. They stood for Latin words meaning “Destroy the Lilies!” The Lily is the emblem of the House of Bourbon.

This chief was charged with the universal correspondence of the order. The six other highest leaders dwelt in America, Russia, Sweden, Spain and Italy.

He had brought some of the more important messages received to impart them to his associates placed under him but above the files.

The most important was from Swedenborg the spiritualist, who wrote from Sweden:

“Look out in the South, brothers, where the burning sun hatched a traitor. He will be your ruin, brothers. Watch at Paris, for there the false one dwells: the secrets of the Order are in his hands and a hateful sentiment moves him. I hear the denunciation, made in a low voice. I see a terrible doom, but it may fall too late. In the interim, brothers, keep watchful. One treacherous tongue, however ill-instructed, would be enough to upset all our skillfully contrived plans.”

The conspirators looked at one another in mute surprise. The language of the ferocious Rosicrucian and his foresight, to which many examples gave imposing authority, all contributed no little to cloud the committee presided over by the mesmerist.

“Brothers,” he said, “this inspired prophet is seldom wrong. Watch therefore, as he bids us. Like me, now, you know that the war has begun. Do not let us be baffled by these ridiculous foes whose position we undermine. Do not forget, though, that they have an army of fierce hirelings at their disposal – a powerful argument in the eyes of those who do not see far beyond earthly limits. Brothers, be on your guard against the traitors who are bribed.”

“Such alarm seems puerile to me,” said a voice: “we are gaining in strength daily, and are led by brilliant genius and mighty hands.”

Balsamo bowed at this flattery.

“True, but treachery sneaks in everywhere,” remarked Marat, who had been promoted to a superior rank, spite of his youth, and for the first time sat in the superior council. “Think, brothers, that a great capture may be made by increasing the size of the bait. While Chief of Police Sartines, with a bag of silver, may catch a subordinate, the Prime Minister, with one of gold, may buy one of the superiors.

“In our company the obscure brother knows nothing. He may at the most know the names of a few of those above him, but these names afford no information. Our constitution is admirable, but it is eminently aristocratic. The lower members can know nothing and do nothing. They are only gathered to tell them some nonsense, and yet they contribute to the solidity of the building. They bring the mortar and the bricks as others bring the tools and the plan. But, without bricks and mortar, how can you have a Temple? The workman gets but a poor wage, although I for one regard him as equal to the Architect’s clerk, whose plan creates and gives existence to the work. I regard him as an equal, I say, as he is a man and all men are equal, as the philosophers teach, for he bears his portion of misery and fatality like another, more than others, as he is exposed to the fall of a stone or the breaking down of a scaffold.”

“I interrupt you, brother,” said Balsamo. “You are talking wide of the question bringing us together. Your fault, brother, is in generalizing subjects, and exaggerating zeal. We are not discussing whether the constitution of our society is good or bad, but to maintain its firmness and integrity. If I were wrangling with you I should say, ‘No, the organ which receives the movement is not the equal of the genius of the creator; the workman is not on a level with the architect; arms are not equal to the brains.’”

“If Sartine arrests one of our lowliest brothers he will send him to jail just as sure as you or me,” protested the surgeon.

“Granted; but the person will suffer, not the society. It can endure such things. But if the head is imprisoned, the plot stops – the army loses the victory if the general is slain. Brothers, watch for the safety of the Supreme Chief!”

“Yes, but let them look out for us.”

“It is their duty.”

“And have their faults more severely punished.”

“Again, brother, you overstep the regulations of the Order. Are you ignorant that all the members are alike and under the same penalties?”

“In such cases the great ones elude the chastisement.”

“That is not what the Grand Masters think, brother; but hearken to the end of the letter from the great prophet Swedenborg, one of the greatest among us; here is what he adds:

“The harm will come from one of the great ones – very great – of the Order; or, if not from him directly, the fault will be imputable to him. Remember that Fire and Water may be accomplices: one gives light and the other gives revelations.”

This enigmatical allusion would seem to be to the process of showing the future in the glass of water, which was one of the conjuring experiments of Joseph Balsamo.

“Watch, brothers, (Concluded the seer) over all things and all men!”

“Let us, then, repeat the oath,” said Marat, grasping at his hold in the letter and the chief’s speech, “the oath which binds us and pledges us to carry it out in full rigor in case one of us betrays or is the cause of a treacherous act.”

Balsamo rose and uttered these awful words in a low voice, solemn and terrifying:

“In the name of the Architect of the Universe, I swear to break all carnal bonds attaching me to father and mother, sister and brother, wife, friends, mistress, kings, captains, benefactors, all unto whomsoever I have promised faith, obedience, gratitude or service.

“I vow to reveal to the chief whom I acknowledge according to the rules of the Order, what I have seen, heard, learnt or divined, and moreover to ascertain what happens beyond my knowledge.

“I honor all means to purify the globe of the enemies of truth and freedom.

“I subscribe to the vow of silence; I consent to die as if by the thunderbolt on the day when I deserve punishment and I will wait without remonstrance for the deadly stab to accomplish its work wherever I shall be.”

The seven men repeated the oath, standing up with uncovered heads, a sombre gathering.

“We are pledged to one another,” said Balsamo when the last word was spoken; “let us waste no time in idle arguments. I have a report to make to the Committee on the principal work of the year. France is situated in the center of Europe like its heart, and it makes the other parts of the body live. In its agitations may be sought the cause of the ills of the general organism. Hence I have come out of the East to sound this heart like a physician; I have listened to it, sounded it and experimented with it. A year ago when I began, monarchy was weakening. To-day, vices are destroying it. I have quickened the debauchery and favored what will be deadly.

“One obstacle stood in the way – a man, not merely the First Minister but the foremost man in the realm. It was Choiseul whom I have removed. This important work was undertaken by many intriguers and much hatred during ten years, but I accomplished it in a few months, by means which it is useless to describe. By a secret, which is one of my strong means, the greater as it must remain hidden from all eyes and never be manifested save by its effect, I have overturned and driven away Choiseul. Look at the fruit of the toil: all France is crying for Choiseul and rising to bring him back as orphans appeal to heaven to restore their father. Parliament uses its only right, inertia. But if it does not go on, there will be no work and the wage-earners will earn no money. No money for the workers – no rent, no tax paying – gold, the blood of a realm, will be wanting.

“They will try to make the poor pay – and there will be a struggle. But who will struggle against the masses? not the army, which is recruited from the people, eating the black bread of the farm hand, and drinking the sour wine of the vineyard laborer. The King has his household troops, the foreign regiments, five or six thousand men at the most – what will this squad of pigmies do against an army of giants?”

“Bid them rise!” exclaimed the chiefs.

“Yes, yes, let us set to work,” said Marat.

“Young man, your advice is not asked,” coldly said Balsamo. “Yet you may speak.”

“I will be brief,” said Marat; “mild attempts rock the people to sleep when they do not discourage them. Mere chipping at the stone is the theory of the Rousseaus, who are always bidding us to wait. We have been waiting seven centuries! This poor and feeble opposition has not advanced humanity by a single step. Have we seen one abuse redressed in three hundred years? Enough of these poets and theorists! let us have work and deeds. For three hundred years we have been physicking France and it is high time that the surgeons were called in, with scalpel and lancet. Society is gangrened and we must cut away and apply the redhot iron. A revolt, though it be put down, enlightens slaves more on their power than a thousand years of precepts and examples. It may not be enough, but it is much!”

A flattering murmur rose from several hearers.

“Where are our enemies,” continued the young man; “on the steps of the throne, guarding it as their palladium. We cannot reach royalty but over the bodies of those insolent, gold-coated guards. Well, let us fell them, as we read has been done to the body-guards of tyrants before now. Thus will we get near enough to the gilded idol to hurl it down. Count these privileged heads. Scarce two hundred thousand. Let us walk through the lovely garden, which is France, as Tarquin did in his, and cut off the heads of these flaunting poppies, and all will be done. When dwarfs aim to slay a colossus they attack its feet; when men want to fell the oak they chop at the root. Woodmen, take the ax, let us hack at the base of the tree and it will fall in the dust.”

“And crush you, pigmies,” commented the Supreme Chief in a voice of thunder. “You declaim against poets and you spout fustian. Brother, you have picked up these phrases in some novel you concoct in your garret.”

Marat blushed.

“Do you know what a revolution is?” said the Grand Copt. “I have seen two hundred, and they have tended to nothing because the revolutionists were in too great a haste. You talk of chopping down giant trees. This tree is not an oak but one of those immense redwoods of the far western American forests which I have seen. If they were felled, a horseman starting from the base to avoid the high-up branches would be overtaken and smashed. You cannot wish this. You cannot obtain the warrant from me.”

“I have lived some forty generations of man.”

“Being long-lived, I can be patient. I carry your fate – ay, that of the world in the hollow of my hand. I will not open it to let out the lightnings till I see fit. Let us come down from these sublime hights and walk on the earth.

“Gentlemen, I say with simplicity and full belief, it is not yet time. The King now reigning is the last reflection of the glory of the Great Louis who dazzles still enough to pale your ineffectual fires. A King, he will die royally: of an insolent race but pure-bred. Slay him and that will happen which befel Charles First of England: his executioners will bow to him and courtiers will kiss the ax which lops off his head. You know that England was in too much of a hurry. It is true that Charles Stuart died on the scaffold but the block was a stepping-stone for his son to reach the throne and he died on it.”

“Wait, wait, brothers, for the times are becoming propitious.

“We are sworn to destroy the lilies but we must root them up – not a stalk must be left. But the breath of fate is going to shrivel royalty up to nothing. Draw nearer and hear this – the Dauphiness, though a year wedded – ”

“Well?” asked the chiefs with anxiety.

“She is still as when she came from her mother’s land.”

An ominous murmur, so full of hatred and revengeful triumph as to make all Kings flee, escaped like a blast of hell from the lips of this narrow circle of six heads almost touching, but towered over by Balsamo’s bending down from the stage.

“In this state of things,” he pursued, “two suppositions are presented. The race will die out and our friends will have no difficulties, combats or troubles. As happens every time three Kings succeed, the Dauphin, Provence and Artois will reign but die without posterity – it is the law of destiny.

“The other hypothesis is that the Dauphiness will yet bear children. That is the trap into which our enemies will rush in the belief that we will fall into it. We will rejoice when she is a mother, just like them; for we possess a dread secret, comprising crimes which no power, prestige or efforts can counteract. We can easily make out that the heir which she gives the throne is illegitimate and the more fecund she may be, the worse will appear her conduct.

“This is why, my brothers, that I wait; judging it useless as yet to unchain popular passions to be employed efficaciously when the right time comes.

“Now, brothers, you know how I have employed this year. You see the extent of my mines. Be persuaded that we shall succeed, but with the genius and courage of some, who are the eyes and the brain; with the labor and perseverance of others, who represent the arms; and with the faith and devotedness of others still, who are the heart.

“Be penetrated with the necessity of blind obedience which makes the Grand Copt himself stand ready to be immolated to the will of the Order’s statutes when the day comes.

“There is a good act yet to do, and an evil to point out.

“The great author who came to us this evening and would have joined us but for the stormy behavior of one of our brothers who alarmed the sensitive spirit – he was right as against us and I am sorry one of the profane was in the right before a majority of our society, who know the ritual badly and our aims not at all. Triumphing with the sophisms of his works over our Order’s truths, he represents a vice which I shall extirpate with fire and sword, unless it can be done with persuasion, as I hope. The self-conceit of one of our brothers showed itself vilely. He placed us secondary in the argument. I trust that no such fault will again be committed or else I shall have recourse to discipline.

“Now, brothers, propagate the faith with mildness and persuasion. Insinuate rather than impose, and do not try to make truths enter with hammer and ax blows like the torturers who use wedge and sledge. Remember that we shall be acknowledged great only after having proved that we have done good, and that will only happen when we shall appear better than those round us. Remember, too, that the good are nothing without science, art and faith; nothing beside those whom the Divine Architect has stamped with a peculiar seal to command men and rule an empire.

“Brothers, the meeting adjourns.”

He put on his hat and wrapped himself in his mantle. Each freemason went out in his turn, alone and silent so as not to awaken suspicion. The last with the Supreme Master was the Surgeon Marat.

Very pale, he humbly approached him for he knew the terrible speaker’s power was unlimited.

“Master, did I commit a fault?” he inquired.

“A great one, and all the worse as you are not conscious that you did so,” replied the man of mystery.

“I confess it; not only ignorant, but I thought I spoke becomingly.”

“Pride – destructive demon! men hunt for fever in the veins and search for the cancer in the vitals, but they let pride shoot up such roots deeply in their heart as never to be able to wrench them out.”

“You have a very poor opinion of me, master,” returned Marat. “Am I so paltry a fellow that I am not to be counted among my equals? Have I culled the fruit of the tree of knowledge so clumsily that I am incapable of saying a word without being taxed with ignorance? Am I so lukewarm a member that my conviction is suspected? Were this all so, still I exist by reason of my devotion to the masses.”

“Brother, it is because the spirit of evil contends in you with that of good and seems to me to promise to overpower it one day, that I undertake to correct you. If I succeed it will be in one hour, unless pride has the upperhand of all your other passions.”

“Master, make an appointment which I will keep.”

“I will call on you.”

“Mind what you promise. I am living in a garret in Cordelier’ Street. A garret, mark you, while you – ” he emphasized the word with an affectation of proud simplicity.

“While I – ”

“While, so they say, you live in a palace.”

The master shrugged his shoulders as a giant might do when jeered at by a dwarf.

“I will call upon you in your garret in the morning.”

“I go to the dissection hall at daybreak and then to the hospital.”

“That will suit me very well; I should have suggested it if you had not said it.”

“You understand – early – I do not sleep much.”

“And I never sleep at peep of day,” said Balsamo.

Upon this they separated, as they had reached the street door, dark and lonely on their going forth as it had been noisy and lively when they went in.

CHAPTER XIX

BODY AND SOUL

BALSAMO was punctual and found, at six o’clock, Marat and his servant, a woman of all work, decking up the room with flowers in a vase in honor of the visitor. At sight of the master, the surgeon blushed more plainly than was becoming in a stoic.

“Where are we first going?” asked Balsamo when they got down to the street door.

“To Surgeon’ Hall,” was the reply. “I have selected a corpse there, a subject which died of acute meningitis; I have to make some observations on the brain and do not wish my colleagues to cut it up before I do.”

“Let us to the hall, then.”

“It is only a couple of steps; besides, you need not go in; you might wait for me at the door.”

“On the contrary, I want to go in with you and have your opinion on the subject, since it is a dead body.”

“Take care,” said Marat; “For I am an expert anatomist and have the advantage of you there.”

“Pride, more pride,” muttered the Italian.

“What is that?”

“I say that we shall see about that. Let us enter.”

Balsamo followed him without shrinking into the amphitheatre, on Hautefeuille Street. On a marble slab in the long, narrow hall were two corpses, a man’s and a woman’s. She had died young: he was old and bald; a wornout sheet veiled their bodies but half exposed their faces.

Side by side on the chilly bed, they might never have met in life and if their souls could see them now, they would have been mutually surprised at the neighborhood.

Marat pulled off the shroud of coarse linen from the two unfortunates equalised by death under the surgeon’s knife. They were nude.

“Is not the sight repugnant to you?” asked Marat with his usual braggadocia.

“It makes me sad,” replied the other.

“From not being habituated to it,” said the dissector. “I see the thing daily and I feel neither sadness nor dislike. We surgical practitioners have to live with the lifeless and we do not on their account interrupt any of the functions of our life.”

“It is a sad privilege of your profession.”

“And why should I feel in the matter? Against sadness, I have reflection; against the other thing, habit. What is to frighten me in a corpse, a statue of flesh instead of stone?”

“As you say, in a corpse there is nothing, while in the living body there is – ”

“Motion,” replied Marat loftily.

“You have not spoken of the soul.”

“I have never come across it when I searched with my scalpel.”

“Because you searched the dead only.”

“Oh, I have probed living bodies.”

“But have met nothing more than in dead ones?”

“Yes, pain; you don’t call that the soul, do you?”

“Do you not believe in the soul?”

“I believe in it but I may call it the Moving Power, if I like.”

“Very well; all I ask is if you believe in the soul; it makes me happy to think so.”

“Stop an instant, master,” interrupted Marat with his viper-like smile: “let us come to an understanding and not exaggerate; we surgical operators are rather materialists.”

“These bodies are quite cold,” mused Balsamo aloud, “and this woman was good-looking. A fine soul must have dwelt in that fine temple.”

“There was the mistake – it was a vile blade of metal in that showy scabbard. This body, master, is that of a drab who was taken from the Magdalen Prison of St. Lazare where she died of brain fever, to the Main Hospital. Her story is very scandalous and long. If you call her moving impulse a soul, you do ours wrong.”

“The soul might have been healed and it was lost, because no physician for the soul came along.”

“Alas, master, this is another of your theories. Only for bodies are there medicines,” sneered Marat with a bitter laugh. “You use words which are a reflection of a part of ‘Macbeth,’ and it makes you smile. Who can minister to a mind diseased? Shakespeare calls your ‘sou’ the mind.”

“No, you are wrong, and you do not know why I smile. For the moment we are to conclude that these earthly vessels are empty?”

“And senseless,” went on Marat, raising the head of the woman and letting it fall down on the slab with a bang, without the remains shuddering or moving.

“Very well: let us go to the hospital now,” said Balsamo.

“Not until I have cut off the head and put it by, as this coveted head is the seat of a curious malady.”

He opened his instrument-case, took out a bistory, and picked up in a corner a mallet spotted with blood. With a skilled hand he traced a circular incision separating all the flesh and neck muscles. Cleaving to the spine, he thrust his steel between two joints and gave with the maul a sharp, forcible rap. The head rolled on the table, and bounced to the ground. Marat was obliged to pick it up with his moistened hands. Balsamo turned his head not to fill the operator with too much delight.

“One of these days,” said the latter, thinking he had caught his superior in a weak moment, “some philanthropist who ponders over death as I do over life will invent a machine to chop off the head to bring about instantaneous extinction of the vital spark, which is not done by any means of execution now in practice. The rack, the garrote the rope, these are all methods of torture appertaining to barbarous peoples and not to the civilized. An enlightened nation like France ought to punish and not revenge: for the society which racks, strangles and decapitates by the sword inflicts punishment by the pain besides that of death alone, the culprit’s portion. This is overdoing the penalty by half, I think.”

“It is my opinion, too. What idea do you have of such an instrument?”

“A machine, cold and emotionless as the Law itself; the man charged with the inflection is affected by the sight of the criminal in his own likeness; and he misses his stroke, as at the beheading of Chalais and of the Duke of Monmouth. A machine would not do that, say, a wooden arm which brought down an ax on the neck.”

“I have seen something of the kind in operation, the Maiden, it is called in Scotland, and the Mannaja, in Italy. But I have also seen the decapitated criminals rise without their heads, from the seat on which they were placed, and stagger off a dozen paces. I have picked up such heads, by the hair, as you just did that one which tumbled off the table, and when I uttered in the ear the name with which it was baptized, I saw the eyes open to see who called and showed that still on the earth it had quitted one could cry after what was passing from time to eternity.”