Nérac

“ André answered. “A De Nérac’s sword is not to be soiled with the carrion blood of an English hireling and assassin. The public executioner will deal with you, not I.”
He whistled sharply. Three of the guards swung themselves in by the balcony.
“Disarm and bind that scoundrel,” was the brief order, and in three minutes a wounded prisoner had been securely tied hand and foot. Five minutes later George Onslow was on his way to a police cell, and André was standing alone in the beautiful salon, with the secret despatch and Mont Rouge’s damning letter in his possession. ”

“ The secret whose fascination lured men to their ruin would remain a secret, and the little he had discovered would be [346] buried in the tombs of the De Néracs. This girl had matched herself against all the brains and resources of a great government and had defeated King, mistress, and ministers, not once, but every time. Worse, far worse, what she had done in the past she could repeat in the future. That eternal struggle for power at Versailles which was to be his and Denise’s life from to-day would be haunted and poisoned, perhaps thwarted and brought to ruin, by the same strange treachery. ”

“ O Nero, I will confess to thee that I have talked to Acte; I have talked to Christian slaves—once my fellow-slaves—in thy Palace and the household of Narcissus, and I know that the gods—or that God, if (as they say) there be but one God—is with them. ”

“ That design was the elevation of her Nero, at the first possible moment, to the throne whose dizzy steps were so slippery with blood.
In the achievement of her purpose no question of right and wrong for a moment troubled her. Guilt hid no horror for that fair woman. She had long determined that neither the stings of conscience nor the fear of peril should stop her haughty course. To her, as to most of the women of high rank in the Rome of the Empire, crime was nothing from which to shrink, and virtue was but an empty name. Philosophers she knew talked of virtue. ”

“ A great shout of 'NERO!' 'CAESAR!' Meanwhile AGRIPPINA and SENECA are listening close together. Discordant cries are heard of 'BRITANNICUS!' A slave or attendant on NERO scatters gold in the direction of these discordant cries, which gradually subside, and are lost in one long shout of 'Nero, Imperator.' NERO motions for silence. ”

“ With these words he died, and the spectators were horror-stricken at the wild, staring look of his rigid eyes, which seemed to stand out of his head.
Fidelity! What fidelity had Nero himself shown to God, to human nature, to Rome, to his mother, his adoptive father, his wives, his brother, his tutors, his family, his friends, his slaves, his freedmen, his people, his own self? What more worthless life was ever disgraced by a more contemptible and abject death? ”

“ And the next day after his mother's deliverance, he sent a soldier to her palace, with a guard; and there, where she was deserted even by her last attendant, without pretence of secrecy, they put to death the daughter and the mother of a Cæsar. And Nero only waits to look with a laugh upon the beauty of the corpse, before he returns to resume his government at Rome.
That moment was the culminating moment of the ancient civilization. It is complete in its centralizing power; it is complete in its external beauty; it is complete in its crime. ”

“ In his hands was the sword of Nero, and the secret of his influence lay in the similarity of his vices to those of the Emperor. The career of the man from boyhood upwards had been a career of infamy. He had been a lover of Agrippina, and of her sister, and he had paraded his crime with cynical coolness. With him Nero could always throw off the mask, and display the depths of his own turpitude. He was a tenth-rate Sejanus, only more deeply dyed in infamies. ”

“ Will Vindex conquer? Will Galba conquer? Will the guards be faithful? Shall I be murdered? Answer me these questions, and I will spare thy life, and send thee away with rich rewards.’
‘I answer,’ said the Apostle, ‘as a Prophet of the East answered a king before. If Nero should give me his house full of silver and gold, yet cannot I go beyond the word of the Lord; and the Lord has not bidden me to speak to thee. And what were wealth, and what were all the Empire to me? Thinkest thou, O Emperor, that I fear death? To us Christians to die is to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better ”

“ Nero rose in a passion. Fearful lest she should goad him too far, Poppæa called him to her side and changed her tone.
‘Your home is empty, Nero,’ she said. ‘No child will succeed you. I have a little son. Octavia must be dismissed, if you would have an heir to be Emperor of Rome.’
‘How can I dismiss her?’ said Nero gloomily. ‘Even my freedmen espouse her cause. Doryphorus is for her, and Pallas.’
‘Doryphorus! Pallas!’ she repeated, with a laugh of ringing scorn. ‘An effeminate slave-minion; a miserly dotard! Tush, Cæsar! be a man. Sweep aside these flies. Poison them both ”

“ There is a marvellous force of illumination in a great crime, but it is the lurid illumination of the lightning-flash, revealing to the lost Alpine wanderer the precipices which yawn on every side of him. While the murder was yet to do, Nero could talk of it lightly and eagerly among the accomplices who were in the secret. To the irresponsible Emperor of the world it did not seem so great a matter to order the murder of a mother. ”

“ It was impossible not to observe the towering stature and herculean mould of the Briton, the lithe and sinewy frame of the dark-eyed Asiatic. Then the Prætor once more flung down the napkin, in sign that the fighting should begin. Grouped under the Emperor’s seat, they all uplifted to him their right hands and chanted in monotone their sublime greeting: ‘Hail, Cæsar! we who are about to die salute thee!’
Nero flung them a careless glance, and scarcely broke the animated conversation which he was holding with Petronius. ”

“ Nero shall climb the throne.
SENECA. I will not ask the manner of his death.
In studious ease I have protested much
Against the violent taking of a life.
But lost in action I perceive at last
That they who stand so high can falter not,
But live beyond the reaches of our blame;
That public good excuses private guile.
AGRIPPINA. You, Xenophon and Burrus, stand with me.
Enter BURRUS, right. He salutes the corse of CLAUDIUS
BURRUS. Obedient to the trumpet-call I come.
AGRIPPINA. Say, Burrus, quickly say, how stands our cause
With the Praetorians who unmake and make Emperors? ”

“ Paul was a man the very sight of whom naturally inspired Nero with ferocity. For Nero, whom all the world knew to be a robber, a poisoner, a murderer, a matricide—a sensualist, effeminate, degraded, and unutterably depraved—had become aware that these Christians lived lives of purity and holiness, the possibility of which he affected to deny. And his guilty splendour and luxurious misery were forced at last to blush and tremble before the irresistible weakness of that despised, ragged, fettered prisoner. ”

“ Even Sporus entreated him again and again to show himself a man. It was in vain! In that coward and perverted nature every spark of manliness was quenched. ‘It is not time yet,’ he said. ‘The destined hour has not arrived. How cruel you are to me!’
‘Cruel?’ said Epaphroditus, indignantly; ‘do not we—alone of all your thousands of slaves—risk our lives for your sake? Since you must die, were it not better to die like an Emperor than like a whipped hound?’
‘Well, then,’ whimpered Nero, ‘can’t you at least dig me a grave, one of you? ”

“ Fear not for your reward; it shall be immense when my Nero reigns. But much has first to be done.’
She hurried to her room, and despatched messengers in all directions, though it was now near midnight. She sent to the Priests, bidding them to offer vows to all the gods for the Emperor’s safety; she ordered the Consuls to convoke the Senate, and gave them secret directions that, while they prayed for Claudius, they should be prepared for all emergencies. Special despatches were sent to Seneca and Burrus. ”

“ She must go step by step; but who would dare to say that she would not succeed? The wit and purpose of a woman against the world! ‘Yes, Nero, my Nero, thou shalt be Emperor yet! Thou shalt rule the world, and I have always ruled thee, and will rule thee still. Thy weak nature is under my dominance; and I, whose heart is hard as the diamond, shall be Empress of the world. Nemesis—if there be a Nemesis—must bide her time.’
She murmured the words in a low tone to herself; but at this point her reverie was broken.
CHAPTER II
AGRIPPINA AND NERO ‘Occidat dum imperet.’—Tac. ”

“ Such strange security deepened the impression that he could wield supernatural powers. Afraid to detain him in Rome, Nero ordered him to banishment in the rocky Ægean island of Patmos.104
Thither the Apostle was conveyed, and there, gazing on the sea that burned like glass in the sunlight, he wrote his Apocalypse. In that strange book we can still read the echo of the horror kindled in the heart of an eyewitness by an Emperor who had degenerated into a portent of iniquity, fighting with empoisoned breath and dragon-like fury against the saints of God. ”

“ Nero felt a spasm of terror when the philosopher expressed a doubt whether sullen misery might not flash up into rage, and cause a formidable rebellion. For want of houses, the people were huddling into tombs and catacombs. Nero, therefore, took the hint that he should offer the Campus Martius and the monuments of Agrippa—his porticoes, baths, gardens, and the Temple of Neptune—as a refuge for the shivering throngs whom the flames had driven from their homes. ”

“ For Paul did not in the least fear him, and Paul’s courage was so marvellous to those who were accustomed to the pusillanimity of senators, who went away and committed suicide if Nero did but frown at them, that the courtiers and soldiers turned their eyes from the purple of the world’s master to gaze upon the rags of this sick prisoner who stood there with his pale countenance, his stooping figure and thin sable-silvered hair, more dauntless in chains, and under the axe of doom, than the Emperor amid his guards. ”

“ Agrippa, and Berenice, and Festus, and even Felix, spoke well of him.’
‘They are the enemies of our race,’ said the High Priest, ‘and they deceive thee, O Emperor. It is this very Paulus who turns the world upside down, and not only preaches against our holy law, but forbids to pay tribute to Cæsar, and teaches men to worship Jesus as their king.’
‘Do they dare to set up another king than Cæsar?’ exclaimed Nero, hotly. ‘This must be seen to.’
‘I have heard of them,’ said Poppæa. ‘It is they, and not the Jews, who hate the whole human race.’
‘I am sorry I let that Paulus go,’ said Nero. ”

“ Nero was lord of Rome. Chance had placed a weak and immoral boy in unlimited control of the greatest of nations. Utterly destitute of principle, he gradually descended into the deepest vice and profligacy, which was soon succeeded by the basest cruelty and treachery. And one of the first victims of his treachery was his own mother, who had murdered her husband, the Emperor Claudius, to place him on the throne, and had now committed the deeper fault of attempting to control her worthless and faithless son. ”

“ Nero frowned, but Burrus only added: ‘There are no accusers. You are relying on the sole voice of Paris, a freedman of a hostile family, and you have only heard his story late at night during a drinking bout. Surely the life of even a common citizen ought not to be sworn away so cheaply, much less the life of an Empress.’
Nero, sobered by the gravity of these considerations, still kept a sullen silence; but Burrus would not yield.
‘Cæsar, we will examine her at earliest dawn. If we find her guilty she shall die.’
By this time the Emperor’s terror had exhausted itself, and he was weary. ”

“ And again, moved by strong passion, he spurned him with his foot.
‘Is there one house in Rome, father,’ she said, ‘in which there are not thieves? in which there are not men—aye, and women too—who steal, and would murder if they could? Is he worse than thousands whom yet we do not see chained in the prisons or rotting on the crosses? And have we not all sinned? and did not Jesus say, “Forgive one another your trespasses”?’
A half-suppressed groan from Onesimus stopped the conversation.
‘I know not what to do,’ said Nereus. ‘Go back, my child, to your cell and to your distaff. ”

“ Even Nero was amazed at the abandon of welcome, the delirium of ostentatious applause with which he was received, while his hands were still red-wet with his mother’s blood. The people thronged forth by their tribes to greet him. The senators were in festal array. They were surrounded by their wives and children. Stages had been built all along the road, in which the spectators had purchased their places to look on as at a triumph. Incense burned in the streets; the shouts of myriads of voices rent the air. ”

“ If Nero had been a man—if there had been in his passion for her a single ennobling element—she might have retained him in her bondage for long years, as she could certainly have retained Otho. But already Nero preferred to her society the flattery of parasites and minions, and at this very time, though she was very sick and languid with the approach of motherhood, to which she looked forward with neither hope nor happiness, he had left her to her weary solitude, and for days had scarcely so much as seen or talked with her. ”

“ A rege petitur.’
‘Let Nero,’ he said, ‘at least accord me the privilege of holding my tongue.’ We can only regret that he did not rise to an energy which might have startled the degenerate nobles from the pusillanimity which yielded everything in despair of striking a blow. Thrasea might, indeed, have been murdered in the Senate-house, but such a murder would have aroused a reaction and precipitated a beneficent revolution. Daring is contagious, and one dauntless spirit may flash nobleness into a host of slaves. ”