Taking the Bastile

Taking the Bastille. CHAPTER I

THE HERO OF THE HISTORY

ON the borders of Picardy and the province of Soissons, and on that part of the national territory which, under the name of the Isle of France, formed a portion of the ancient patrimony of our kings, and in the centre of an immense crescent formed by a forest of fifty thousand acres which stretches its horns to the north and south, rises, almost buried amid the shades of a vast park planted by Francis I. and Henry II., the small city of Villers-Cotterftts. This royal chateau had become almost uninhabited since the death of Louis-Philippe of Orleans; his son, Philippe d’ Orleans, afterwards called Egalite, having made it descend from the rank of a royal residence to that of a mere hunting rendezvous. At the period at which this history commences, royal affairs, though already somewhat tottering, had not yet fallen to the low degree to which they have fallen in our days. The chateau was no longer inhabited by a prince, ‘tis true, but it had not yet become the abode of beggars; it was simply uninhabited, excepting the indispensable attendants required for its preservation; among whom were to be remarked the doorkeeper, the master of the tennis court, and the house steward; and therefore the windows of this immense edifice fronting the park, and others on a large ccort which was aristocratically called the square of the chateau, were all dosed, which added not a litue to the gloominess and solitary appearance of this square, at one of the extremities of which rose a small house, regarding which the reader, we hope, will permit us to say a few words.

It was the abode of the chaplain of the chateau, who, notwithstanding the absence of the master, performed mass every Sunday in the seignorial church. He had a small pension, and, besides this, had the charge of two purses, the one to send a scholar yearly to the college of Plessis, the other for one to the seminary at Soissons. It

6 TAKING THE BASTILLE

is needless to say that it was the Orleans family who supplied these purses; founded, that of the seminary, by the son of the Regent, that for the college by the father of the prince; and that these two purses were the objects of ambition to ail parents, at the same time that they were a cause of absolute despair to the pupils, being the source of extraordinary compositions, which compositions were to be presented for approval of the chaplain every Thursday.

Well, one Thursday in the month of Jury, 1789, after a silence of some duration, broken only by the rustling of those leaves as they whirled against each other upon the beaten ground of the square, or by the shrill cry of the martin pursuing flies as it skimmed along the ground, eleven o’clock resounded from the pointed and slated belfry of the town hall. Instantly, a hurrah, loud as could have been uttered by a whole regiment of fusiliers, accompanied by a rushing sound like that of the avalanche when bounding from crag to crag, was heard : the door was opened, or rather burst open, and gave egress to a torrent of boys, who^ spread themselves over the square, when instantly some* five or six joyous and noisy groups were formed, the one around a circle formed to keep peg-tops prisoners, another about a game of hop-scotch, traced with chalk upon the ground, another before several holes scientifically hollowed out, where those who were fortunate enough to have sous might lose them at pitch and toss.

At the same time that these gambling and playful scholars assembled to play upon the square, those who were called good and reasonable boys, and who, in the opinion of the gossips, must be the pride and joy of their respective parents, were seen to detach themselves from the general mass, and by various paths, though with slow steps, indicative of their regret, walking, basket in hand towards their paternal roofs, where awaited them the slice of bread and butter, or of bread and preserved fruit, destined to be their compensation for the games they had thus abjured. The latter were in general dressed in jackets in tolerably good condition, and in breeches which were almost irreproachable; and this, together with their boasted propriety of demeanour, rendered them objects of dension and even of hatred to their less well-dressed, and. above all. loss well-diaciplined companions.

THE HERO OF THE HISTORY 7

Besides the two classes we have pointed out under the denomination of gambling and well-conducted scholars, there was still a third, which we shall designate by the name of idle scholars, who scarcely ever left school with the others, whether to play in the square or to return to their paternal homes. Seeing that this unfortunate class were almost constantly, what in school language is termed, kept which means to say, that while their companions, after having said their lessons and written their themes, were playing at top or eating their bread and jam, they remained nailed to their school benches or before their desks, that they might learn their lessons or write theii themes during the hours of recreation, which they had not been able to accomplish satisfactorily during the class.

And had any one followed the path which led into the schoolroom, and which the pupils had just used, in the inverse sense, to get out of it, they would have heard, on entering this courtyard, a loud harsh voice resounding from the upper part of a staircase, while a scholar, whom our impartiality as historians compels us to acknowledge as belonging to the third class we have mentioned, was precipitately descending the said staircase, making just such a movement with his shoulders as asses are wont to do when endeavouring to rid themselves of a cruel rider.

‘Ah 1 miscreant; uh 1 you little excommunicated villain,’ cried the voice, ‘away with you; vade, va.de I Remember that for three whole years hare I been patient with you, but there are rascals who would tire the patience of even God Himself. But now it is all over. Take your squirrels, take your frogs, take your lizards, take your silkworms, take your cock-chafers, and go to your aunt, go to your uncle if you have one, or to the devil if you will, so that I never more set eyes upon you; vade, vade I ‘

‘Oh 1 mj good Monsieur Fortier, do pray forgive me,’ replied the other voice, still upon the staircase and in a supplicating tone; ‘is it worth your while to put yourself into such a towering passion for a poor little barbarism and a few solecisms, as you call them?’

‘Three barbarisms ana seven solecisms in a theme of only twenty-five lines 1’ replied the voice, in a rougher and still more angry tone.

‘It has been so to-day, sir, I acknowledge; Thursday is always my unlucky day; but if by chance to-jaorrow

8 TAKING THE BASTILLE

my theme should be well written, would you not forgive me my misfortunes of to-day? Tell me now, would you not, my good abbe?’

‘On every composition day for the last three years you have repeated that same thing to me, you idle fellow, and the examination is fixed for the first of November, and I, on the entreaty of your aunt Angelique, have had the weakness to put your name down on the list of candidates for the Soissons purse : I shall have the shame of seeing my pupil rejected, and of hearing it everywhere declared that Pitou is an ass Angelus Petowus a sinus est.’

Let us hasten to say that the kind-hearted reader may from the first moment feel for him all the interest he deserves, that Ange Pitou, whose name the Abbe Fortier had so picturesquely Latinised, is the hero of this story.

‘ Oh ! my good M. Fortier 1 oh 1 my dear master 1 ‘ replied he in despair.

‘I, your master 1’ exclaimed the abbe, deeply humiliated by the appellation. ‘ God be thanked, I am no more your master than you are my pupil. I disown you I do not know you. I would that 1 had never seen you. I forbid you to mention my name, or even to bow to me. Retro, miserable boy, retro ‘

‘Oh I M. l’Abb6,’ insisted the unhappy Pitou, who appeared to have some weighty motive for not falling out with his master; ‘do not, I entreat you, withdraw your interest for me on account of a poor halting theme.’

‘Ah!’ exclaimed the abbe, quite beside himself on hearing this last supplication, and running down the four first steps of the staircase, while Ange Pitou jumped down the four bottom ones, and could thus be seen from the courtyard. ‘Ah! you are chopping logic when you cannot even write a theme; you are calculating the extent of my patience, when you know not how to distinguish the nominative from the vocative.’

‘You have always been so kind to me, Monsieur l’Abb6,’ replied the committer of barbarisms, ‘and you will only have to say a word in my favour to my lord the bishop.’

‘Would you have me belie my conscience, wretched boy 1* cried the infuriated abbe.

‘If it be to do a good action, Monsieur 1’Abbe, the God of Mercy will forgive you for it. And besides, who knows, the examiners perhaps will not be more severe towards me than they were towards my foster-brother, Sebastian

Gilbert, when last year he was a candidate for the Paris purse; and he was a famous fellow for barbarisms, if ever there was one, although he was only thirteen years old, and I am seventeen.’

‘Ah ! indeed; and this is another precious stupidity which you have uttered,’ cried the abbe, coming down the remaining steps, and in his turn appearing at the door with his cat-o’-nine-tails in his hand. ‘Yes, I say stupidity,’ continued the abbe, crossing his arms and looking indignantly at his scholar; ‘Why, it was precisely because Gilbert was so much younger, that they were more indulgent towards a child than they would have been to a great simpleton of nearly eighteen.’

‘Yes, and because he is the son of M. Honore Gilbert, who has an income of eighteen thousand livres from good landed property, and this on the plain of Pillalen,’ replied the logician in a piteous tone.

The Abb6 Fortier looked at Pitou, pouting his lips and knitting his brows.

‘This is somewhat less stupid,’ grumbled he, after a moment’s silence and scrutiny. ‘And yet it is but specious.’

‘Oh 1 if I were the son of a man possessing an income of eighteen thousand livres 1’ repeated Ange Pitou, who thought he perceived that his answer had made some impression on the professor.

‘Yes, but you are not so, and to make up for it, you are as ignorant as the clown of whom Juvenal speaks a profane citation,’ the abbe crossed himself, ‘but no less just Arcadius juvenis. I would wager that you do not even know what Arcadius means?’

‘Why, Arcadian, to be sure,’ replied Ange Pitou, drawing himself up with the majesty of pride.

‘And what besides?’

‘Besides what?’

‘Arcadia was the country of donkeys, and with the ancients as with us, asinus was synonymous with stultus.’

‘I did not wish to understand your question in that sense,’ rejoined Pitou, ‘seeing that it was far from my imagination that the austere mind of my worthy prp-ceptor could have descended to satire.’

The Abbe Fortier looked at him a second time, and wi^ as profound attention as the first.

‘Upon my word 1’ cried he, somewhat mollified bv the

io TAKING THE BASTILLE

incense which his disciple had offered him; ‘there are really moments when one would swear that the fellow is leas stupid than he appears to be.’

‘Come. Monsieur 1’Abbe,’ said Pitou. who, if he had not heard the words the abbe had uttered, had caught the expression which had passed over his countenance, of a return to a more merciful consideration; ‘forgive me this time, and you will see what a beautiful theme I will writ* by to-morrow. 1

‘Well, then, I will consent,’ said the abbe, placing, in sign of truce, his cat-o’-nine-tails in his belt and approaching Pitou, who observing this pacific demonstration, made no further attempt to move.

Oh I thanks, thanks,’ cried the pupil.

‘Wait a moment, and be not so hasty with your thanks. Yes. I forgive you. but on one condition.’

Pitou hung down his head, and as he was now at the discretion of the abbe, he waited with resignation.

‘It is that you shall correctly reply to a question I shall put to you.’

There was a momentary silence, during which the joyous cries of the schoolboys who were playing on the square reached the ears of Ange Pitou. He sighed deeply.

‘Quid virtus, quid reltgio ? ‘ asked the abbe.

These words, pronounced with all the pomposity of a pedagogue, rang in the ears of poor Ange Pitou like the trumpet of the angel on the day of judgment : a cloud passed before his eyes, and such an effect was produced upon his intellect by it, that he thought for a moment he was on the point of becoming mad. A prolonged noise was heard, as the professor slowly inhaled a pinch of snuff. Pitou clearly saw that it was necessary to say something.

Nesfto,’ he replied, hoping that bis ignorance would be pardoned by his avowing that ignorance in Latin.

‘You do not know what is virtue I* exclaimed the abbe, choking with rage; ‘you do not know what ia religion 1*

‘I know very well what is it in French,’ replied Ange, ‘but I do not know it in Latin.’

‘Well, then, get the* to Arcadia, juvcms; all is now ended between us, pitiful wretch I’

Pitou was so overwhelmed that he did not move a step, although the Abbe Fortier had drawn his cat-o’-nine-taiis from his belt with as much dignity aa the commander of