Taking the Bastile (45 page)

‘At least, kill me at once, without making me endure these atrocious torments 1 ‘ cried the despairing Foulon.

‘Well, now,’ replied a jeering voice, ‘why should we abridge your torments? you have made ours last long enough.’

‘Finish me, finish me at once !’ cried the wretched man.

During this time, Bailly and Lafayette were begging, supplicating, exclaiming, and endeavouring to get through the crowd; suddenly, Foulon was again hoisted by the rope, which again broke, and their prayers, their supplica-tions, their agony, no less painful than that of the sufferer himself, was lost, confounded and extinguished amid the universal laugh which accompanied this second fall. Bailly and Lafayette, who, three days before, had been the sovereign arbiters of the will of six hundred thousand Parisians a child now would not listen to them the people even murmured at them they were in their way they were interrupting this great spectacle. Billot had vainly-given them all the aid of his uncommon strength; the powerful athlete had knocked down twenty men, but in order to reach Foulon, it would be necessary to knock down fifty, a hundred, two hundred, and his strength is exhausted, and when he pauses to wipe from his brow the perspiration and the blood which is streaming from it, Foulon is raised a third time to the pulley of the lamp-post. This time they had taken compassion upon him. the rope was a new one.

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At last, the condemned is dead, the victim no longer suffers. Half a minute had sufficed to the crowd to assure itself that the vital spark was extinguished. And now that the tiger has killed, he may devour his prey. Th body, thrown from the top of the lamp-post, did not even fall to the ground. It was torn to pieces before it reached it. The head was separated from the trunk in a second, and in another second raised on the end of a pike. At this sanguinary spectacle Bailly was horrified. Lafayette, pale, his drawn sword in his hand, with disgust repulsed the guards who surrounded Him, to excuse themselves for not having been the strongest. Billot, stamping his feet with rage, and kicking right and left, like one of his own fiery Perche horses, returned into the H6tel de Ville, that he might see no more of what was passing on that ensanguined square.

As to Pitou, his fieriness of popular vengeance was changed into a convulsive movement, and he had fled to the river’s bank, where he closed his eyes and stopped his ears that he might neither see nor hear.

Consternation reigned in the H6tel de Ville : the electors began to comprehend that they would never be able to direct the movements of the people, but in the manner which should suit the people.

All at once, a new cry, a new shout, rolling like distant thunder, was heard, proceeding from the opposite side of the river. A courier was seen galloping over the bridge. The news he was bringing was already known to the crowd. The crowd rushed to meet this courier, whom they surrounded; they scent that he has touched their new prey; they feel that he is going to speak of M. Berthier. Interrogated by ten thousand voices, all howling at once, the courier is compelled to reply to them.

‘Monsieur Berthier de Savigny has been arrested at Compiegne.’

Then he proceeds into the H6tel de Ville, where he announces the same tidings to Lafayetre and to Bailly.

‘Good good I knew it,’ said Lafayette.

‘We knew it,’ said Bailly, ‘and orders have been given that he should be kept there.’

‘Kept there?’ repeated the courier.

‘Undoubtedly; I have sent two commissaries with an escort.’

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‘An escort of two hundred men, was it not?’ said an elector; ‘it is more than sufficient.’

‘Gentlemen,’ replied the courier, ‘this is precisely what I was sent to tell you. The escort has been dispersed and the prisoner carried off by the multitude.’

‘Carried ofl I’ exclaimed Lalayette. ‘Has the escort allowed the prisoner to be carried off?’

‘Do not blame them, general; all that it was possible to do, they did. 1

‘But Monsieur Berthier?’ anxiously inquired Bailly.

‘They are bringing him to Paris, and he is at Bourgot by this time.’

‘But should they bring him here,’ cried Bailly, ‘he is lost.’

‘Quick I quick I* cried Lafayette, ‘five hundred men to Bourget. Let the commissioners and Monsieur Berthier stop there let them stop there. During the night, we will consider what is to be done.’

‘But who would venture to undertake such a commission?’ said the courier, who was looking with terror at that waving sea of heads.

It is useless now,’ murmured Bailly, who had been listening to the noises from without. Hush I Do you not hear that?’

They then heard, from the direction of the Porte St Martin, a rushing noise like that of the sea when beating over the shingles on a beach.

‘It is too late,’ said Lafayette.

‘They are coming I they are coming I’ murmured the courier. ‘ Do you not hear them ? ‘

‘A regiment 1 a regiment 1’ cried Lafayette, with that generous ebullition of humanity which was the most brilliant feature of his character. .

‘What 1 By God’s death 1’ exclaimed Bailly, who swore perhaps for the first time in his life, ‘you seem to forget that our army ours 1 is precisely that crowd whom you wish to fight.’ And he hid his face in his hands.

The shouts which had been heard in the distance were re-echoed by the people in the streets, and thus communicated to the crowd upon the square with the rapidity of a train of gunpowder. The adjacent streets immediately disgorged a large proportion of that howling mob, who hurried from the square with upraised knives and menacing gestures, towards the Rue St Martin, to meet the new funeral procession.

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THB junction having been accomplished, both parties were equally eager to return to the square. Some of those ingenious persons whom we have seen upon the Place de Greve, presented to the son-in-law the head of Foulon on the head of a pike. M. Berthier was coming along the Rue St Martin. He was in his own cabriolet, a vehicle which at that period was considered as eminently aristocratic. In the midst of all the shouts, the hootings, and the threats of the infuriate mob, Berthier was talking tranquilly with the elector Riviire, the commissary sent to Compiegne to save him, but who, being abandoned by his colleague, had with much difficulty saved ihmself. The people had begun with the cabriolet; they had torn off the head of it, so that Berthier and his companion were completely exposed, not only to the view, but to the blows of the populace. As they moved onwards, his misdeeds were related to him, commented upon, and exaggerated by the popular fury.

‘He wished to starve Paris cried one.

‘He had the rye and wheat cut when it was green; and then, a rise in the price of corn having taken place, he realised enormous sums.’

‘Not only did he do that,’ said they, ‘which was enough in itself, but he was conspiring.’

In searching him they had found a pocket-book. In this pocket-book were incendiary letters, orders for massacre, proof that ten thousand cartridges had been distributed to his agents. So said the crowd. These were all monstrous absurdities; but, as is well known, the mob, when in a paroxysm of rage, gives out, as positive facts, the most absurd improbabilities.

The person whom they accused of all this was a man who was still young, not being more than from thirty to thirty-two years of age, elegantly dressed, almost smiling, though greeted every moment by injurious epithets and oven blows. Two men, irritated at his assurance, had wished to terrify him, and to diminish this self-confidence. They had mounted on each side of the cabriolet, and each of them placed the point of his bayonet on Berthier’s

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breast. But Berthier, brave even to temerity, was not to be moved by such a trifle. He had continued to converse with the elector, as if those two muskets were but inoffensive accessories to the cabriolet.

The mob, profoundly exasperated by this disdain, roared around the vehicle, and waited with impatience for the moment when, instead of a threat, they might inflict a wound. It was then that Berthier had fixed his eyes on a misshapen and bloody object, which was held up and danced before him, and which he suddenly recognised as the head of his father-in-law, and which the ruffians who bore it held down close to his lips. They wished to make him kiss it. M. Riviere, indignant at this brutality, pushed the pike away with his hand. Berthier thanked him by a gesture, and did not even deign to turn round to follow this hideous trophy with his eyes. The executioners carried it behind the cabriolet, holding it over Berthier’s head. They thus arrived on the Place de Grove, and the prisoner, after unheard of efforts by the civic guards, who had been reassembled in some order, was delivered into the hands of the electors of the Hdtel de Ville. The mob, after having hacked away for a while at the cabriolet, which had been left at the foot of the front steps, again placed itself in the most advantageous positions, kept guard on all the issues from the building, made all its preparations, and placed new ropes in the pulleys of the lanterns.

During this time Berthier had entered the grand Hall of Council, as coolly as if all the tumult had reference to some other person, and quietly conversed with the electors. He knew the greater portion of them, and was even intimate with some of them. The latter avoided him with the instinctive terror with which timid minds are inspired by the contact of an unpopular man. Therefore Berthier soon found himself almost alone with Bailly and Lafayette. He made them relate to him all the particulars of Foulon’s death.

‘Yes,’ said he, ‘I can understand it. They hate us, because we are the instruments with which royalty has tortured the people.’

‘Great crimes are laid at your door, sir,’ said Bailly austerely.

‘Sir,’ replied Berthier, ‘if I had committed all the crimes with which I am reproached, I should be less or

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more than man a wild beast or a demon. But I shall be tried, I presume, and then the truth will be ascertained.’

‘Undoubtedly,’ said Bailly.

‘Well, then, rejoined Berthier, ‘that is all I desire. They have my correspondence, and it will be seen whose orders I have obeyed; and the responsibility will fall on those to whom it rightly appertains.’

The electors cast their eyes upon the square, from which arose the most frightful clamour. Berthier understood this mute reply.

‘Install yourselves, gentlemen,’ said Bailly to the electors; ‘we must now proceed to the examination of the charges against the accused.’

‘Be it so,’ said Berthier : ‘but I must warn you of one thing, gentlemen, and that is, that I am perfectly exhausted. For the last two days I have not slept. To-day, from Compiegne to Paris, I have been pushed about, beaten, dragged along. When I asked for something to eat they offered me hay, which is not excessively refreshing. Therefore, give me some place where I can sleep, if it be only for an hour.’

At that moment Lafayette left the room for a short time, to ascertain the state of matters outside. He returned more dispirited than ever.

‘My dear Bailly,’ said he to the mayor, ‘exasperation is at its height; to keep Monsieur Berthier here would be exposing ourselves to a siege. To defend the Hotel de Ville would be giving these furious madmen the pretext which they wish. Not to defend the H6tel de Ville would be acquiring the habit of yielding every time we are attacked.’

During this time, Berthier sat down, and then stretched himself at full length upon a bench. He was preparing himself to sleep. The desperate howls from below were audible to him, for he was near an open window; but they did not disturb him. His countenance retained the serenity of a man who forgets all, to allow sleep to weigh down his eyelids. Bailly was deliberating with the electors and Lafayette. Lafayette was rapidly taking the votes of the electors; after which, addressing the prisoner, who was beginning to slumber, ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘be pleased to get ready.’

Berthier heaved a sigh, then, raising himself on his elbow. ‘Ready for what?’ he inquired.

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‘These gentlemen have decided that you are to be transferred to the Abbaye.’

‘To the Abbaye? Well be it so,’ said the intendant. ‘But,’ continued he, looking at the confused electors, and whose confusion he readily comprehended; ‘but, one way or the other, let us finish this.’

And an explosion of anger and furious impatience long restrained burst forth from the square.

‘No, gentlemen, no,’ exclaimed Lafayette, ‘we cannot allow him to depart at this moment.’

Bailly’s kind heart and undaunted courage impelled him to come to a sudden resolution. He went down into the square with two of the electors, and ordered silence. The people knew as well as he did what he was about to say; but, as they were fully bent on committing another crime, they would not listen.

Bailly, seeing that it would be impossible for him to profier even a syllable, returned into the H6tel de Ville, pursued by cries of ‘Berthier 1 Berthier 1’

But other cries resounded in the midst of those, and these were, ‘To the lantern 1 to the lantern 1’

On seeing Bailly come back pale and disheartened, Lafayette rushed out in his turn. He is young, he is ardent, he is beloved. That which the old man could not effect, his popularity being but of yesterday, he. Lafayette he, the friend of Washington and of Necker, would undoubtedly obtain at the first word. But in vain was it that the people’s general threw himself into the most furious groups. In vain did he speak in the name of justice and humanity. Repulsed step by step, he threw himself upon his knees on the perron of the H6tel de Ville, conjuring these tigers, whom he called his fellow-citizens, not to dishonour the nation, not to dishonour themselves, not to elevate to the rank of martyrs guilty men, to whom the law would award a degrading death, which degradation was a portion of their punishment. As he persisted in his entreaties, he was at last personally threatened in his turn; but he defied all threats. Some of these furious wretches drew their knives, and raised them as if to strike. He bared his breast to their blows, and their weapons were instantly lowered. But if they thus threatened Lafayette, the threat .was still more serious to Berthier. The electors had all seen Lafayette vainly contending against the tempest. Their last