THAT NIGHT

Do we not fail to accord to our nights their true value?  We are ever giving to our days the credit and blame of all we do and mis-do, forgetting those silent, glimmering hours when plans—­and sometimes plots—­are laid; when resolutions are formed or changed; when heaven, and sometimes heaven’s enemies, are invoked; when anger and evil thoughts are recalled, and sometimes hate made to inflame and fester; when problems are solved, riddles guessed, and things made apparent in the dark, which day refused to reveal.  Our nights are the keys to our days.  They explain them.  They are also the day’s correctors.  Night’s leisure untangles the mistakes of day’s haste.  We should not attempt to comprise our pasts in the phrase, “in those days;” we should rather say “in those days and nights.”

That night was a long-remembered one to the apothecary of the rue Royale.  But it was after he had closed his shop, and in his back room sat pondering the unusual experiences of the evening, that it began to be, in a higher degree, a night of events to most of those persons who had a part in its earlier incidents.

That Honore Grandissime whom Frowenfeld had only this day learned to know as the Honore Grandissime and the young governor-general were closeted together.

“What can you expect, my-de’-seh?” the Creole was asking, as they confronted each other in the smoke of their choice tobacco.  “Remember, they are citizens by compulsion.  You say your best and wisest law is that one prohibiting the slave-trade; my-de’-seh, I assure you, privately, I agree with you; but they abhor your law!

“Your principal danger—­at least, I mean difficulty—­is this:  that the Louisianais themselves, some in pure lawlessness, some through loss of office, some in a vague hope of preserving the old condition of things, will not only hold off from all participation in your government, but will make all sympathy with it, all advocacy of its principles, and especially all office-holding under it, odious—­disreputable—­infamous.  You may find yourself constrained to fill your offices with men who can face down the contumely of a whole people.  You know what such men generally are.  One out of a hundred may be a moral hero—­the ninety-nine will be scamps; and the moral hero will most likely get his brains blown out early in the day.

“Count O’Reilly, when he established the Spanish power here thirty-five years ago, cut a similar knot with the executioner’s sword; but, my-de’-seh, you are here to establish a free government; and how can you make it freer than the people wish it?  There is your riddle!  They hold off and say, ’Make your government as free as you can, but do not ask us to help you;’ and before you know it you have no retainers but a gang of shameless mercenaries, who will desert you whenever the indignation of this people overbalances their indolence; and you will fall the victim of what you may call our mutinous patriotism.”