The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-29 00:00:00

Mr. Thornbury's New Novel.

Wildfire. By Walter Thornbury. Three Vols.
Hurst and Blackett.
" Wildfire" is a well selected title for a story,
meant to depict the rapid spread of Democratic fury,
and still further to exemplify the horrors which
heralded in the first great French revolution. The
scene of Mr. Thornbury's novel is laid partly in Paris,
where we are introduced in a very dramatic manner
to some of the principal characters in the story—
namely, Carnot, Deszannettes, and Victor Beau-
jolais, three fellow students, with Rameau, an
ambulant musician, the most interesting and im-
portant agent in carrying out the plot. Carnot and
Deszannettes are warm hearted and noble minded
young men, although out and out supporters of the
specious doctrines of liberty, equality, fraternity.
They soon, however, find, when employed in carrying
out the principles which they profess, that plunder
and the gratification of private revenge are the
motives which actuate the base persons who,
mounting to political power by pandering to the
passions of an ignorant and debased populace,
practise the most wholesale and unheard of cruel-
ties on all classes subject to their ruthless sway.
Disgusted with the brutal conduct of Robespierre
and his satellites, they endeavour to stem the tide
of his grinding tyranny—but being, like the other
Girondins, too timid in their measures, and too slow
in their movements, they let slip the favourable mo-
ment for action, and become the victims of thasystem
which they themselves aided to establish. Both are
condemned to death, and one of them (Carnot)
perishes on the scaffold. The third of the characters
presented to us in the Palais Royal is Victor Beau-
jolais, a moderate Royalist, and lieutenant in the
43d Regiment, of which his father is colonel. Gen.
Beaujolais comes from Avignon, where he com-
mands, to Paris, accompanied by his daughter
Violette, and a certain constitution-framing Abbe,
a diminutive model of Sieyes, to be present, when
his niece Marie takes the veil, but that young lady
not choosing to devote herself to a religious life is
removed from the convent. The revolution breaks
out, and the great interest of the book com-
mences with the departure of the Beaujolais
family from Paris. They settle at Giroflet,
a village between the capital and Orleans,
where they reside in comfort and tranquillity with
the amiable Cure of the parish, until they are dis-
covered by Fauchet, a villainous attorney, who had
ruined the general's eldest brother, and been him-
self expelled from Avignon, covered with infamy
and disgrace, mainly through the exertions of the
general. This man, now risen to power, seeks his
revenge; denounces the entire family of Beaujolais
as aristocrats, and would have arrested them were
they not warned of his machinations by Rameau,
who assists them in their flight. They are pursued,
hut at length reach Avignon, where, supported by
his regiment, which is thoroughly loyal, the general
considers himself in safety. But the inhabitants
of Avignon, like the rest of France, become infected
by Jacobin principles, and the General disperses a
club and arrests its leaders just as Fauchet arrives to
act then as Dictator with uncontrolled powers—he
instantly demands the release of the prisoners,
which is refused, when he excites the "sans
culottes" to rebellion. The castle, strong enough to
resist a siege, is basely delivered to the insurgents
by the commander, a disguised Revolutionist, and
the Hotel de Ville in which the General has en-
trenched himself is stormed, his faithful regiment
is annihilated, and he himself with all .the members
of his family are made prisoners. Through the agency
of Rameau they once more escape, but are again
captured and finally transferred to Paris, where all
are condemned to death by the revolutionary tri-
bunal. The wretch Fauchet becomes enamoured of
Marie, who is betrothed to Victor, and proposes to
release her friends if she consents to marry him.
His proposal is indignantly rejected—she obtains
an interview with Robespierre, pleads the cause
of her relations, and failing to obtain mercy
fir them, betakes herself to Fauchet's hotel,
and agrees to accept him as her husband, provided
he ensures the immediate release of her family.
Fauchet eagerly accepts the proposal, and Marie is
removed to another room while he prepares the
• necessary orders. And now Rameau, who hes fur
some time acted as Fauchet's secretary, and is
thus enabled to thwart his plans, enters. The Dic-
tator, who had but just discovered his infidelity,
denounces his conduct, and shows him the death
warrant of his son, an only child whom he has kept
as a hostage for the father's good conduct. The
interview must be told in the author's own words :
It was a lurid day, without any visible sun; thick, stag-
nant, grey clouds choked the air, and seemed to brood with
a nightmare weight upon the torpid earth. The very
flowers seemed lifeless; the birds flew heavily and were
silent.

Fauchet's room was intensely silent—so silent, that the
sound of a blow-fly bussing against one corner of the glass,
angry at its unintelligible imprisonment, seemed louder
than the drowsy monotonous pulsation of the clock in the
black case that stood on the mantlepiece.
As the door creaked open, Fauchez looked up with a
smile worthy of hell.
" So, so, monsieur," said Fauchet, "so you not only
betray my plans to my enemies, but you release a lady
whom I choose to detain a prisoner. You send
her to Citiz3n Robespierre to undermine me—you think
in fact, to baffle and thwart me—you, a buffoon and para-
site, a poor wandering vagabond, who dies if I choose to
raise my finger. You hare trespassed long enough on my
patience—to-morrow your brat perishes upon the scaffold—
there, no supplication. I have said it—it is inevitable; and
were you not useful to me, you yourself should not survive
him.

" Citizen Fauchet," said Rameau gravely, and without
tears or prayers, drawing his chair closer to the dictator,
" we have many debts to settle—let us settle them now,
there is no time to loose. You wonder why I have secretly
helped those Beaujolais ? I will tell you. You remember
that 30 years ago you led one Louis Beaujolais, a foolish
spendthrift, to his ruin. You forged for him, and urged
him to forge; you made him break his father's heart, and
impoverish his younger brother. Finally, you cast him
off, a disgraced beggar, to die in the West Indies. 1 asn
Louis Beaujolais ! 1 now come to pay my debts to you."
Fauchet started, and moved his chair back, but Rameau
was calm.

" TAme, sorrow, dyed skin, assumed voice and manners,
and bleached hair, effectually concealed me from you. I
entered your service, and bore all your insults, to save my
brother, and atone for my past sins by one good action—to
drag you, if possible, to the scaffold, or some loathsome and
retributive death—to hurl yuu to the red hell gaping for
you I It was I who planned the escape from Giraflet—it
was I prevented the massacre at the Avignon prisons—it
was I denounced you to Robespierre, and warned your col-
leagues of your treachery."
" Scoundrel, I do not believe your story," said Fauchet ;
"though you are base enough even to cheat a galley-slave.
And it it be all true, what have your fine plans brought you
to ? To the guillotine, with your son. Look, the name I
write now gives you but fifteen hours to live. I wed Marie ;
I release from prison those Beaujolais ; I send them out to
beg upon the highway; soon they will be arrested again—
and so will perish a proud bad race. As for you, you will
never see them again, nor they you. I have but to ring
this bell, and you pass straight from here to the axe."
"If I have but fifteen huurs to live," said Rameau, leap-
ing up with the fury and passion of a madman, and seizing
Fauchet by the throat and mouth, with a deadly grip, so
close that he could neither move nor call out, he planted
one knee upon Fauchet's right arm, while he held his left
in the other as in a vice, " you have but fifteen seconds to
breathe. Hell clamours for you. Look on the wall, spawn
of Satan I"
Fauchet looked instinctively, and saw the shadow of an
enormous arm holding a long thin knife. He tried to scream,
but Rameau'o strangulating hand upon his gullet stifled
every sound. Rameau felt slowly, and with a horrible
care and exactitude for the lawyer's heart, and found the
spot which the doctor had that morning pointed out.
" Monster, butcher, incarnation of Satan 1" Rameau said
in a low hoarse voice, " hideous as you are wicked, another
instant and I toss you into hell, where even now, creatures
better than yourself leap for joy, and splash in tho flames
to hear of your coming 1 Forsaken by God I —hated by man 1
—without hope or consolation you are defeated, tricked, and
countermined in the midst of a short triumph, which this
'slow cancels. God himself sent me the weapon that now
pierces you—DIE I"
The thin strong knife rose slowly in the air, it descended
with terrific force, burying itself to the hilt in Fauchet's
heart. The blow was so sure, deep, straight, and true that,
only one drop of blood escaped from the emall orifice of the
wound—the bleeding was internal. There was only a low
groan, and Fauchet fell back in his chair, dead. The
scourge of mankind had gone to his account, and hell
already had received him.
Immediately on perpetrating the murder, Rameau
destroys the 'death-warrants already signed, but he
is discovered, seized, and committed to prison,
where he meets his son and brother, the General,
to whom he discovers himself. They are all pre-
pared for execution, when Robespierre's tyranny
is overthrown. They are released. Marie espouse