Taking the Bastile (51 page)

‘We are supported,’ said the latter.

‘We are betrayed,’ said the former. .-,

Thus, poor queen, that fatal evening of the ist of October was not an accidental matter; thus, unfortunate woman, you do not regret the occurrences of yesterday you do not repent .

AT Versailles the court was talking heroically against the people. At Paris, they were becoming knight-errants against the court alone : knight-errantry was running about the streets. These knights of the people were wandering about in rags, their hands upon the hilt of a sabre or the butt-end of a pistol, questioning their empty pockets or their hollow stomachs. There was too much wine on the table-cloths of Versailles. Not sufficient flour in the bakers’ shops at Paris. Strange circumstances I a melancholy blindness, which now that we are accustomed to the fall of thrones, will excite a smile of pity from political men. Unhappily, Famine, that spectre which sleeps with so much difficulty, but which so easily awakens Famine had descended, pale and agitated, into the streets of Paris. She listens at all the corners of the streets; she recruits her train of vagabonds and male-factors. The men remember those commotions which had cost so much blood; they recall to mind the Bastille : they recollect Foulon, Berthier. and Flesselles; they fear to have the opprobrious name of assassins again attached to them, and they wait. But the women, who have as yet done nothing but suffer 1 When women suffer, the suffering is triple : for the child, who cries and who ia

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unjust, because it has not a consciousness of the causr for the child who says to its mother, ‘Why do you not give me bread?’ for the husband, who, gloomy and taciturn, leaves the house in the morning to return to it in the evening still more gloomy and taciturn; and finally, for herself, the gainful echo of conjugal and maternal sufferings. The omen burn to do something in their turn; they wish to serve their country in their o*rn way. Besides, was it not a woman who brought about the ist of October at Versailles?

It was therefore for the women, in their turn, to bring about the 5th of October at Paris. Gilbert and Billot were sitting in the Caf6 de Foy, in the Palais Royal Suddenly the door of the coffee-house is thrown open, and a woman enters it much agitated. She denounces tie black and white cockades which from Versailles have invaded Paris; she proclaims the public danger.

It will be remembered that Charny had said to the queen, ‘Madame, there will be really much to apprehend when the women begin to stir themselves.’

This was also the opinion of Gilbert. Therefore, on seeing that the women were actually bestirring themselves, he turned to Billot, uttering only these five words : ‘To the H6tel de Villel’

Since the conversation which had taken place between Billot, Gilbert, and Pitou, Billot obeyed Gilbert upon a single word, a gesture, a sign, for he had fully comprehended that if he was strength, Gilbert was intelligence.

They both rushed out of the coffee-house. When they were near the corn-market, they met a young girl coming out of the Rue Bourdonnais, who was beating a drum. Gilbert stopped, astonished.

‘What can this mean?’ said he.

‘Zounds I doctor, don’t you see,’ said Billot, ‘it is a pretty girl who is beating a drum and really, not badly, on my faith.’

‘She must have lost something,’ said a passer-by.

‘She is very pale,’ rejoined Billot.

‘Ask her what she wants,’ said Gilbert.

‘Hoi my pretty girl!’ cried Billot, ‘what are you beating that drum for?’

‘I am hungry,’ she replied, in a weak but shrill voice, and she continued on her way beating the drum.

‘Oh 1 oh !’ cried Gilbert, ‘this is becoming terrible.’

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And he looked more attentively at the women who were following the young girl with the drum. They were haggard, staggering, despairing. Among these women there were some who had not tasted food for thirty hours. ‘To Versailles 1’ they cried, ‘to Versailles I’

And on their way, they made signs to all the women whom they perceived in the houses, and they called to all the women who were at their windows. A carriage drove by; two ladies were in that carriage : they put their heads out of the windows and began to laugh. The escort of the drum-beater stopped. About twenty women seized the horses, and then, rushing to the coach doors, made the tvp ladies alight and join their group, in spite of their recriminations and a resistance which two or three hard knocks on the head soon terminated.

Behind these women, who proceeded but slowly, on account of their stopping to recruit as they went along, walked a man with his hands in his pockets. This man, whose face was thin and pale, of tafl, lank stature, was dressed in an iron-gray coat, black waistcoat, and small-clothes : he wore a small shabby three-cornered hat, placed obliquely over his forehead. A long sword beat against his thin but muscular legs.

He followed, looking, listening, devouring everything with his piercing eyes, which rolled beneath his black eyelids.

‘Hey 1 why, yes,’ cried Billot, ‘I certainly know that face, I have seen it at every riot.’

‘It is Maillard, the usher,’ said Gilbert.

‘Ah 1 yes, that’s he the man who walked over the plank after me at the Bastille; he was more skilful than I was, for he did not fall into the ditch.’

Maillard disappeared with the women at the corner of a street. Billot felt a great desire to do as Maillard had done, but Gilbert dragged him on to the Hotel de Ville. They knew at the H6tel de Ville what was going on in Paris. But they scarcely noticed it. Of what importance was it, in fact, to the phlegmatic Bailly or to the aristocrat Lafayette, that a woman had taken it into her head to beat a drum? It was anticipating the carnival, and that was all. But when, at the heels of this woman who was beating the drum, they saw two or three thousand women when, at the sides of this crowd which was increasing every minute, they saw advancing a no less considerable

33 TAKING THE BASTILLE

troop of men, smiling in a sinister manner, and carryfng their hideous weapons when they understood that these men were smiling at the anticipation of the evil which ihese women were about to commit, an evil the more irre-mediable from their knowing that the public forces would not attempt to stop the evil before it wan committed, and that the legal powers would not punish afterwards, they began to comprehend the serious nature of th circumstances.

In about half an hour, there were ten thousand women assembled on the Place de Greve. These ladies, seeing that their numbers were sufficient, began to deliberate with their arms akimbo. The deliberation was by no means a calm one; those who deliberated were for the most part porteresses, market women, and prostitutes. Many of these women were royalists, and far rotn thinking of doing any harm to the king and queen, would have allowed themselves to be killed to serve them. The noise which was made by this strange discussion might have been heard across the river, and by the silent towers of Notre-Dame,

The result of tb* deliberation was as follows : ‘Let us just go and burn the Hotel de Ville, where so many musty papexs are made out to prevent our eating our daily food.’

And in the Hotel de Ville they were at that moment trying a baker who had sold bread to the poor under weight. The guards of the H&tel de Ville wished fce save the unhappy culprit, and used all their strength to effect it. The women rushed on these guards, dispersed them, made a forcible entry into the Hotel de Ville, and the sack began. They wished to throw into the Seine all they could not carry away. The men were, therefore, to be cast into the water the building itself set fire to. There was a little of everything in the Hotel de Ville. In the first place there were three hundred electors. There were also the assistants. There were the mayors of the different districts.

‘It would take a long time to throw all these men into the water,’ said a woman who was in a hurry to conclude the a flair.

‘They deserve it richly, notwithstanding,’ observed another.

‘Yes; but we have no time to spare.’

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‘Well, then.’ cried another, ‘the quickest way will be to burn them all, and everything with them.’

They ran about looking for torches, and to get faggots to set fire to the municipality. While this was doing, in order net to lose time, they caught an abbe, the Abbe Lefevre Dormesson, and strung him up. Fortunately for the abbe, the man in the gray coat was there; he cut the rope, and the poor abbe fell from a height of seventeen feet, sprained one of his feet, and limped away amidst shouts of laughter from these Megaeras. The reason for the abbe being allowed to get away was that the torches were lighted, and the incendiaries had already these torches in their hands, and they were about to set fire to the archives; in two minutes the whole place would have been in a blaze.

Suddenly the man in the great coat rushed forward and snatched torches and faggots out of the women’s hands the women resisted the man lays about him right and left with the lighted torches, setting fire to their petticoats, and while they were occupied in extinguishing it, he extinguished the papers which had already been ignited. Who, then, is this man who thus opposes the frightful will of ten thousand furious creatures ? A frantic chorus arose from them, threatening him with death, and to these threats deeds were added. The women surrounded the man with the gray coat, and threw a rope round his neck. But Billot hastened forward. Billot was determined to render the same service to Maillard which Maillard had rendered the abbe. He grasped the rope, which he cut into three pieces, with a well-tempered and sharp knife, which at that moment served its owner to cut a rope, but which in an extremity, wielded as it was by a powerful arm, might serve him still more importantly. And while cutting the rope and getting piece by piece of it as he could, Billot cried, ‘Why, you unfortunate wretches, you do not then recognise Monsieur Maillard?’

At that well-known and redoubtable name all these women at once paused; they looked at each other, and wiped the perspiration from their brows,

A conqueror of the Bastille I and that conqueror Maillard I Maillard. the usher of the Chatelet 1 Long live Maillard I’

Threats were immediately turned into caresses; they embrace Maillard, and all cry, ‘Long live Maillard 1*

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Maillard exchanged a hearty shake of the hand and a look with Billot.

Maillard had resumed an influence over these women, which was so much the greater from their reflecting that they had committed some trifling wrong towards him, and which he had to pardon. But Maillard was an old sailor on the sea of popular fury; he knew how to speak to these human waves, when they allow you time enough to speak. Moreover, the moment was auspicious for being heard. They had all remained silent around Maillard. Maillard would not allow that Parisian women should destroy the municipal authorities, the only power to protect them; he would not allow them to annihilate the civic registers, which proved that their children were not all bastards. The harangue of Maillard was of so novel a nature, and delivered in so loud and sarcastic a tone, that it produced a great effect. No one should be killed nothing should be burnt.

But they insist on going to Versailles. It is there that exists the evil. It is there that they pass their nights in orgies, while Paris is starving. It is Versailles that devours everything. Corn and flour are deficient in Paris, because, instead of coming to Paris, they are sent direct from Corbeil to Versailles. Since these women are organised into troops, since they have muskets, cannon, and gunpowder and those who have not muskets nor gunpowder have pikes and pitchforks they ought to have a general.

‘And why not? the National Guard has one.’

Lafayette is the general of the men. Maillard is the general of the women. M. Lafayette commands his do-little grenadiers, which appear to be an army of reserve, for they do so little when there is so much to be done. Maillard will command the active army. The campaign will not be a long one; but it will be decisive.

IT was really an army that Maillard commanded. It had cannon deprived of carriages and wheels, it is true; but they had been placed on carts. It had muskets many of which were deficient in locks and triggers, it is true; but every one had a bayonet. It had a quantity of other

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weapons very awkward ones, it is true; but they were weapons. It had gunpowder, which was carried in pocket-handkerchiefs, in caps, and in pockets; and in the midst of these living cartouche-boxes walked the artillerymen with their lighted matches.

Maillard at one glance appreciated the feelings of his army. He saw that it would be of no use to keep it on the square where it had assembled, nor to confine it within the walls of Paris, but to lead it on to Versailles, and once arrived there, to prevent the harm which it might attempt to do.

This difficult, this heroic task, Maillard was determined to accomplish. And, in consequence, Maillard descends the steps and takes the drum which was hanging from the shoulders of the young girl.

Dying with hunger, the poor young girl has no longer strength to carry it. She gives up the drum, glides along a wall, and falls with her head against a post. Maillard asks her name. She replies that it is Madeleine Chambry. Her occupation had been carving in wood for churches. But who now thinks of endowing churches with those beautiful ornaments in wood, those beautiful statues, those magnificent basso-relievos, the masterpieces of the fifteenth century? Dying with hunger, she had become a flower-girl in the Palais-Royal. But who thinks of purchasing flowers when money is wanting to buy even bread ? Being no longer able to sculpture her fruits in oak being no longer able to sell her roses, her jessamines, and lilacs, Madeleine Chambry took a drum, and beat the terrible reveil!6 of hunger.

She also must go to Versailles she who had assembled all this gloomy deputation; only, as she is too feeble to walk, she is to be carried there in a cart. When they arrive at Versailles, they will ask that she may be admitted into the palace, with twelve other women; she is to be the famished orator, and she will there plead before the Icing the cause of all those that are starving. This idea of Maillard’s was much applauded. They did not before this know why they were going there; they did not know what they were going to do there. But now they know; they know that a deputation of twelve women, with Madeleine Chambry at their head, are going to supplicate the king, in the name of hunger, to take compassion on his people. Somewhere about seven thousacJ women were