Taking the Bastile (44 page)

‘Oh 1 oh !’ cried Billot, somewhat less enthusiastic.

‘It was very amusing,’ continued Pitou, ‘only that everybody could not get at him to give him a b?ow, seeing that there were ten thousand persons hooting after him.’

‘And after this?’ asked Billot, who began to reflect.

‘After that they took him to the president of the Saint Marcel district a good patriot, you know.’

‘Yes Monsieur Aclocjue.’

‘Cloque yes, that is it who ordered him to be taken to the H6tef de Ville, seeing that he did not know what to do with him; so that you will soon see him.’

‘But how happens it that it is you who have come to announce this, and not the famous Saint Jean?’

‘Why, because my legs are six inches longer than his. He had set off before me, but I soon came up with and

FOULON a8g

passed him. I wanted to inform you first, that you might inform Monsieur Bailly of it.’

‘What luck you have, Pitou 1’

‘I shall have much more than this to-morrow.’

‘And how can you tell that?’

‘Because this same Saint Jean, who denounced Monsieur Foulon, proposed a plan to catch Monsieur Berthier, who has run away.’

‘He knows, then, where he is?’

‘Yes; it appears that he was their confidential man, this good Monsieur Saint Jean, and that he received a great deal of money from Foulon and his son-in-law, who wished to bribe him.’

‘And he took the money?’

‘Certainly, the money of an aristocrat is always good to take; but he said : ” A good patriot will not betray his nation for money.” ;

‘Yes,’ murmured Billot, ‘he betrays his masters, that is all. Do you know, Pitou, that your Monsieur Saint Jean appears to me to be a worthless vagabond?’

‘That is possible, but it matters not; they will take Monsieur Berthier as they have taken Master Foulon, and they will hang them nose to nose. What horrid wry faces they will make, looking at each other hey?’

‘And why should they be hanged?’

‘Why, because they are vile rascals, and I detest them.’

‘What 1 Monsieur Berthier, who has been at the farm Monsieur Berthier, who, during his tours into the Isle-de- France, has drunk our milk and eaten of our bread, and sent the gold buckles to Catherine from Paris? Oh, no, no ! they shall not hang him.’

‘Bah I repeated Pitou ferociously, ‘he is an aristocrat a wheedling rascal 1’

Billot looked at Pitou with stupefaction. Beneath the gaze of the farmer, Pitou blushed to the very whites of his eyes. Suddenly, the worthy cultivator perceived M. Bailly, who was going from the hall into his own cabinet; he rushed after him to inform him of the news. But it was now for Billot, in his turn, to be treated with incredulity.

‘Foulon 1 Foulon !’ cried the mayor, ‘what folly I’

‘Well, Monsieur Bailly, all I can say is, here is Pitou, who saw him.’

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ago TAKING THE BASTILLE

‘I saw him, Monsieur Mayor,’ said Pitou, placing hia hand on his heart, and bowing.

They observed that poor Bailly turned very pale; he at once understood the extent of the catastrophe.

‘And Monsieur Acloque sends him here?’ murmured he.

‘Yes, Monsieur Mayor.

‘But how is he sending him?’

‘Oh, there is no occasion to be uneasy,* said Pitou, who misunderstood the anxiety of Bailly; ‘there are plenty of people to guard the prisoner. He will not be carried off.’

‘Would to God he might be carried off 1’ murmured Bailly.

Then, turning to Pitou c ‘Plenty of people what mean you by that, my friend?’

‘More than twenty thousand men, without counting the women,’ said Pitou triumphantly.

‘Unhappy man I’ exclaimed Bailly. ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen assessors !’

And he related to the electors all he had just heard. While he was speaking, exclamations and cries of anguish burst forth from all present. The silence of terror pervaded the hall, during which a confused, distant, indescribable noise assailed the ears of those assembled, like that produced by the rushing of blood to the head in attacks upon the brain. Suddenly a carriage was heard rolling rapidly across the square; it contained two armed men, who helped a third to alight from it, who was pale and trembling. Foulon had at length become so exhausted by the ill-usage he had experienced, that he could no longer walk, and he had been lifted into a coach. Behind the carriage, led on by Saint Jean, who was more out of breath than ever, ran about a hundred young men, from sixteen to eighteen years of age, with haggard countenances and flaming eyes.

They cried, ‘Foulon 1 Foulon 1’ running almost as fast as the horses.

The two armed men were, however, some few steps in advance of them, which gave them the time to push Foulon into the H6tel de Ville, and its doors were closed against the hoarse barkers from without.

‘At last we have him here,’ said his guards to the electors, who were waiting at the top of the stairs. ‘By Heaven 1 it was not without trouble 1’

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‘Gentlemen I gentlemen I’ cried Foulon, trembling, ‘will you save me?’

‘Ah I sir,’ replied Bailly, with a sigh, ‘you have been very culpable.’

‘And yet, sir,’ said Foulon entreatingly, his agitation increasing, ‘there will, I hope, be justice to defend me.’

At this moment the exterior tumult was redoubled.

‘Hide him quickly 1’ cried Bailly to those around him, ‘or ‘

He turned to Foulon.

‘Listen to me,’ said he; ‘the situation is serious enough for you to be consulted. Will you-perhaps it is not yet too late will you endeavour to escape from the back part of the H6td de Ville?’

‘Oh I no,’ exclaimed Foulon; ‘I should be recognised massacred !’

‘Do you prefer to remain here in the midst of us? I will do, and these gentlemen will do, all that is humanly possible to defend you; will you not, gentlemen?’

‘We promise it,’ cried all the electors, with one voice.

‘Oh I I prefer remaining with you, gentlemen. Gentlemen, do not abandon me I’

‘I have told you, sir,’ replied Bailly, with dignity, ‘that we will do all that may be humanly possible to save you.’

At that moment a frightful clamour arose from the square, ascended into the air, and invaded the H6tel de ViUe through the open windows.

‘Do you near? do you hear?’ murmured Foulon, perfectly livid with terror.

In fact, the mob had rushed bowline and frightful to behold from all the streets leading to tae Hdtel de Ville. Bailly went to a window. Knives, pikes, scythes, and muskets glistened in the sunshine. In less than ten minutes the vast square was filled with people. All these voices, and there were more than twenty thousand, cried incessantly I ‘Foulon 1 Foulon I*

Then it was seen that the hundred young men who had been the precursors of this furious mob, pointed out to this howling mass the gate by which Foulon had entered the building; this gate was instantly threatened, and they began to beat it down with the butt ends of their muskets, and with crowbars. Suddenly it new open. The guards of the Hdtel de VUJe appeared upon the front steps, and presented bold front to the crowd. The officers,

292 TAKING THE BASTILLE

moreover, instead of threatening, harangued the crowd in friendly terms, and endeavoured to calm it by their protestations. Bailly had become quite confused. It was the first time that the poor astronomer had found himself in opposition to the popular tempest.

‘What is to be done?’ demanded he of the electors; ‘what is to be done?’

‘We must try him.’

‘No trial can take place when under the intimidation of the mob,’ said Bailly.

‘Zounds 1’ exclaimed Billot, ‘have you not then men enough to defend you?’

‘We have not two hundred men.’

‘You must have a reinforcement, then.’

‘Oh 1 if Monsieur Lafayette were but informed of this !’

‘Well, send and inform him of it.’

‘And who would venture to attempt it? Who could make his way througfi such a multitude?’

‘I would,” replied Billot. And he darted out of the room with the swiftness of an arrow.

THE clamour, which kept on constantly increasing from the square, clearly proved that the exasperation of the mob was becoming greater. It was no longer hatred that they felt, it was abhorrence. The cries of ‘Down with Foulon I Death to Foulon I’ crossed each other in the air, like projectiles in a bombardment. The crowd, which was still augmenting, pressed nearer to the entrance of the H6tel de Ville, till they, as it may be said, almost suffocated the civic guards at their posts. And already there began to circulate among the crowd, and to increase in violence, those rumours which are the precursors of violence. These rumours no longer threatened Foulon only, but the electors who protected him.

‘They have let the prisoner escape I’ said some.

‘Let us go in t let us go in I’ said others.

‘Let us set fire to the H6tel de Ville I’

Bailly felt that, as M. de Lafayette did not arrive, there was only one resource left to them, and this was, that tho electors should themselves go down, mix in with the

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groups, and endeavour to pacify the most furious among them. A general assault was preparing; the walls could not have resisted it.

‘Sir,’ said Bailly to Foulon, ‘if you do not show yourself to the crowd, they will believe that we have allowed you to escape; they will force the door, will come in here, and once here, should they find you, I can no longer be responsible for anything.’

‘Oh I I did not know that I was so much execrated 1’ exclaimed Foulon, and, supported by Bailly, he dragged himself to the window.

A fearful cry resounded immediately on his presenting himself. The guards were driven back, the doors broken in; a torrent of men precipitated themselves up the staircase into the corridors, into the rooms, which were invaded in an instant. Bailly threw around the prisoner all the guards who were within call, and then he began to harangue the crowd. He wished to make these men understand that to assassinate might sometimes be doing justice, but that it was never an act of justice. He succeeded, after having made the most strenuous efforts, after having twenty times perilled his own existence.

‘Yes, yes,’ cried the assailants, ‘let him be tried 1 let him be tried I but let him be hanged I’

They were at this point in the argument when General de Lafayette reached the Hdtel de Ville, conducted there by Billot. The commander-in-chief of the National Guard had the way cleared for him, and addressing the crowd, repeated, though in more energetic terms, every argument that Bailly had endeavoured to enforce. His speech produced a great effect on all those who were near enough to hear it, and the cause of Foulon was completely gained in the elector’s hall. But on the square were twenty thousand furious people, who had not heard M. de Lafayette, and who remained implacable in their frenzy.

‘Come, now,’ said Lafayette, at the conclusion of his oration, very naturally imagining that the effect he had produced on those who surrounded liim had extended to all outside; ‘come, now, this man must be tried.’

‘Yes,’ cried the mob.

‘And consequently I order that he be taken to prison,* added Lafayette.

‘To prison 1 to prison 1’ howled the mob.

294 TAKING THE BASTILLE

At the same time the general made a sign to the guards of the Hotel de Ville, who led the prisoner forward.

The crowd outside understood nothing of all that was going on, excepting that their prey was about to appear. They had not even an idea that any one had the slightest hope of disputing it with them. Billot had placed himself at the window with several electors, whom Bailly also joined, in order to follow the prisoner with their eyes while he was crossing the square, escorted by the civic guards. On the way, Foulon here and there addressed a few incoherent words to those around him, which, although they were protestations of confidence, clearly evinced the most profound and ill-disguised terror.

‘Noble people,’ said he, while descending the staircase, ‘I fear nothing; I am in the midst of my fellow citizens.’

And already bantering laughs and insults were being uttered around him, when suddenly he found himself outside of the gloomy archway at the top of the stone steps which lead into the square. Immediately one general .cry, a cry of rage, a howling threat, a roar of hatred, burst from twenty thousand lungs. On this explosion of the public feeling, the guards conducting the prisoner are lifted from the ground, broken, dispersed; Foulon is seized by twenty powerful arms, raised above their shoulders, and carried into the fatal corner, under the lamp-post, ignoble and brutal executioner of the anger of the people, which they termed their justice. Billot from his window saw all this, and cried out against it; the electors also did all they could to stimulate the guards, but they were powerless. Lafayette, in despair, rushed out of the Hdtel de Ville, but he could not break through the first rank of that crowd, which spread out like an immense lake between him and the victim.

The actors in this scene were playing with their victim, as would a troop of tigers with an inoffensive prey. They were disputing who should hang Foulon; at last they understood that if they wished to enjoy hii agony, it was necessary that their several functions should be agreed upon. Some of them raised up Foulon, who had no longer strength enough to cry out. Others, who had taken off his cravat and torn his coat, placed a rope round his neck. And others, who had climbed up the lamp-post, had handed to their companions below the rope which they put round the neck of the ex-minister. For a moment they

THE FATHER-IN-LAW 295

raised Foulon above their heads and showed him thus to the crowd a rope twined round his neck, and his hands tied behind him. Then, when the crowd had had due time to contemplate the sufferer, when they had clapped their hands sufficiently, the signal was given, and Foulon, pale and bleeding, was hoisted up to a level with the lantern, amid a hooting more terrible even than death. All those who, up to that time, had not been able to see anything, then perceived the public enemy raised above the heads of the crowd. New shouts were then heard I but these were against the executioners. Were they about to kill Foulon so expeditiously ? The executioners merely shrugged their shoulders, and pointed to the rope. The rope was old; it could be seen to give way, strand by strand. The despairing movements which Foulon made in his agony at length broke the last strand; and Foulon, only half-st’rangled, fell heavily upon the pavement.