Taking the Bastile (54 page)

‘Monsieur de Lafayette is coming : he cannot be more than half a league from Versailles.’

The information is valuable. Gilbert looks around him sees a horse without a rider it belonged to one of the two guards which had just been killed. He leaps into the saddle, and sets off at a gallop on the road towards Paris. The second horse without a rider followed him; but he had scarcely gone twenty paces over the square, when the horse is stopped by the bridle. Gilbert believes his intention has been divined, and that some one wishes to pursue him. They were not thinking of him at all. They think of nothing but obtaining food, and the poor horse is instantly butchered by a hundred knives.

During this time the king had been informed, as Gilbert had been, that General Lafayette was about to arrive. He had signed, at the request of Mounier, his acceptance of the Rights of Man. He had signed, at the request of Madeleine Chambry, the order for corn to be sent to Paris, Furnished with this decree and this order, which it was thought would have tranq utilised all minds, Maillard, Madeleine Chambry, and a thousand of the women had set out on their return to Paris. Just beyond the first houses of Versailles they met Lafayette, who, pressed by Gilbert, was riding at full speed, having ordered the National Guards to follow him as quickly as pouible.

‘Long live the king I’ cried Maillard and the women, waving the decrees above their heads.

‘ What was it, then, you were saving to me of the dangers

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to which his majesty is exposed?’ said Lafayette with astonishment.

‘Come on, general, come on,’ cried Gilbert, continuing to urge him onwards; ‘you shall yourself judge of them.’

And Lafayette spurred on his horse. The National Guards entered Versailles with drums beating and colours flying. At the first sounds of the drum which penetrated the palace, the king felt that some one was respectfully touching his arm. He turned round; it was Andre.

‘Ah ! is it you, Madame de Charny ?’ said he; ‘what is the queen doing?’

‘Sire, the queen sends to entreat that you will leave Versailles, that you will not wait for the Parisians. At the head of your guards and the soldiers of the Flanders regiment, you can go anywhere.’

‘Are you of that opinion. Monsieur de Charny?’ inquired the king.

‘Yes, sire, if you at once determine on passing the frontier; but if not it would be better to remain here.’

The king shook his head, murmuring in a low tone, ‘A fugitive king 1 a fugitive king 1’

Then, turning to Andre, ‘Go and tell the queen to set out alone.’

Andre left the room to execute her mission. Ten minutes afterwards, the queen came in and seated herself by the king’s side.

‘For what purpose have you come here, madame?’ asked Louis XVI.

‘To die with you, sire,’ replied the queen.

At that moment the march of the National Guards was heard under the windows of the palace. Gilbert rapidly entered the room.

‘Sire,’ said he to the king, ‘you have nothing further to apprehend, Monsieur de Lafayette is below.’

The king did not like M. de Lafayette, but he did not carry his feelings further than dislike. The queen frankly hated him, and took no pains to conceal her hatred. Thus Gilbert received no reply, although he had believed that the intelligence he had communicated was the most favourable he could have brought at such a moment. But Gilbert was not a man to allow himself to be intimidated by royal silence.

‘Your majesty has heard?’ cried he to the king, in a

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firm tone. ‘Monsieur d Lafayette is below, and places himself at your majesty’s orders.’

The queen continued silent. The king made an effort to restrain his feelings.

‘Let some one go and tell him that I thank him, and invite him, in my name, to come upstairs.’

An officer bowed and left the room. The queen drew back a step or two. But the king, with a gesture that was almost imperative, made her resume her position. The courtiers formed themselves into two groups. Charny and Gilbert, with two or three others, remained near the king. All the rest retreated behind the queen’s chair.

The footsteps of a man, ascending the staircase alone, were heard, and M. de Lafayette appeared in the doorway.

In the midst of the silence which his appearance produced, a voice, issuing from the group surrounding the queen, pronounced these words : ‘There is Cromwell I’

Lafayette smiled. ‘Cromwell would not have presented himself alone to Charles the First,’ said he.

Louis XVI. turned frowningly towards these terrible friends who wished to make an enemy of a man who had hastened to his assistance. Then, addressing Charny : ‘Count,’ said he, ‘I shall remain. Monsieur de Lafayette being here, I have nothing more to fear. Order the troops to withdraw to Rambouillet. The National Guards will be posted at the exterior ditches, the bodyguards at those immediately near the palace.’

Then, turning to Lafayette, ‘Come with me, general, I have to speak with you.’ And as Gilbert was taking a step towards the door, ‘No, doctor,’ cried the king, ‘you will not be one too many; come with us.’

The queen followed them with her eyes, and when the door had closed behind them, ‘Ah I’ cried she, ‘it was to-day that we ought to have escaped from this. To-day, there was still time. To-morrow, perhaps, it will be too late.’ And she, in her turn, left the room.

A great light similar to that of an extensive conflagration, illuminated the windows of the palace. It was an immense bonfire, at which the Parisians were roasting the different joints of the horse they had killed.

The night was tolerably tranquil. The Assembly continued its sitting till three o’clock in the morning. At three o’clock, and before the members separated, they sent two of theii ushers, who took a round through Versailles.

35 TAKING THE BASTILLE

vibited the environs of the palace, and then went round the park. All was, or all appeared to be, quiet.

The queen had wished to leave the palace by the gate which communicated with Trianon, but the National Guards had refused to allow her to pass. She had alleged her fears, and she had been answered that she was safer at Versailles than she could be elsewhere. She had, in consequence, retired to her apartments; and she, in fact, felt reassured, when she saw that the was protected by the most faithful of her guards. At her door she had found George do Charny. He was armed, and leaning upon the small musketoon used by the guards as well as the dragoons. This was unusual : the guards in the interior, of the palace stood sentry with their sabres only. On perceiving him, the queen went up to him.

‘An I it is you, baron,’ she said. Who placed you here ? ‘ ‘

‘My brother, madame.’

‘And where is your brother?’

‘He is with the king.’

‘And why with the king?’

‘Because he is the head of the family he said; ‘and in that capacity has the right to die for the king, who is the bead of the state.’

‘Yes,’ said Marie Antoinette, with a certain degree of bitterness, ‘while you have only the right of dying for the queen.’

‘That would b great happiness for me,’ said the young man, bowing, ‘should God ever permit me to fulfil that duty.’

The queen made a step to withdraw, but a suspicion was gnawing at her heart.

She stopped, and half turning her bead, ‘And the countess,’ she inquired, ‘what has become of her?’

‘The countess, madame, came in about ten minutes since, and she has ordered a bed to be prepared for her in your majesty’s ante-chamber.’

The queen bit her lips. Whenever she had occasion to make inquiry with regard to any of the De Charny family, she was always sure to find that they were rigidly attending to their duties.

‘Thanks, sir,’ said the queen, with a charming gesture of the head and hand at the same time, ‘thanks for your watching so carefully over the queen. You will, in my name, thank your brother for watching over the king so carefully.’

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In the ante-chamber she found Andre, not lying down, but still sitting up and respectfully awaiting her return. She could not prevent herself from holding out her hand to her.

‘I have just been thanking your brother-in-law George, countess she said, ‘and I told him to thank your husband, and I now thank you, in turn.’

Andre made a low courtesy, and stood aside to allow the queen to pass, who then went into her bedroom.

As we have before said, at three in the morning everything was quiet in the palace at Versailles. Gilbert had left it with M. do Lafayette, who had been on horseback for twelve hours, and who was so much fatigued that he could scarcely stand. On leaving the palace he met Billot, who had accompanied the National Guards. He had seen Gilbert set off; he had thought that Gilbert might have occasion for him at Versailles, and he had therefore followed him like the dog who runs to rejoin his master who had left the house without him. It was hoped that this tranquillity would not be disturbed during the night. But they had calculated wrongly.

In almost all popular movements, by which great revolutions are prepared, there is a pausing time, during which people believe that all is terminated, and they they may sleep quietly. They deceive themselves. Behind the men who made the first commotion, there are others who are awaiting the completion of this first movement, calculating that the first, either from fatigue or being satisfied, do not desire to proceed farther and therefore repose. It is then that, in their turn, these unknown men, glide darkly in the shade, take np the movement where it had been abandoned, and urge it onward to its utmost limits; and when they awake those who had opened out the way to them and had laid down half way on the road, they are terrified at the frightful progress which has been made.

There was a very different impulsion during this terrible night, and given by two troops who had arrived at Versailles the one in the evening, the other during the night. The first had come because it was hungry, and it asked for bread. The second had come from hatred, and aitked for vengeance. We know who it was led on the first Maillard and Lafayette.

But now, who was it that led on the second? History

360 TAKING THE BASTILLE

mentions not their names; but as history has failed in this, tradition names.

MARAT. We already know him; we have seen him at the f fites given at the marriage of Marie Antoinette, cutting off legs and arms on the Place Louis XV.; we have seen him in the square before the H6tel de Ville, urging on the citizens. At length we see him gliding along in the night, like those wolves who prowl along the sheepfolds, waiting until the shepherds shall be asleep, to venture on their sanguinary work.

VBRRIERB. As to this one, we have mentioned his name for the first time. He was a deformed dwarf, a hideous hunchback, but whose legs appeared immeasurably long in proportion to his body. At every storm which disturbed the depths of society, this sanguinary monster was seen to rise with the scum and agitate himself upon its surface. Two or three times during the most terrible tumults he was seen passing through Paris, huddled upon a black charger, and similar to one of the figures in the Apocalypse.

THB DUKE D’AIGUILLON. The Duke d’Aiguillon; that is to say, one of the most inveterate enemies of the queen, and who disguised as a woman.

It was therefore said that these three men, Marat, Verrire, and the Duke d’Aiguillon arrived at Versailles, at about four o’clock in the morning. They were leading the second troop of which we have spoken. They came to pillage and to assassinate. About naif -past five in the morning the palace was startled from its sleep. A musket-shot had been fired in the marble courtyard. Five or six hundred men had suddenly presented themselves at the gate, and exciting, animating, pushing on each other, some of them had climbed over the railings, while the others, by a united effort, at length forced open the gate. It was then that a shot fired by the sentinel had given the alarm. This shot had divided this group of pillagers, whose aim was to obtain possession of the plate in the palace; and that some of them, perhaps, to seize upon the king’s crown. One of the groups goes to attack the queen’s apartments, the other ascends towards the chapel that is to say, towards the apartments of the king.

Let us follow the one proceeding towards the king’s apartments. The whole of the king’s guards at that moment consisted of a sentinel, who was guarding the door, and an officer, who rushed precipitately out of the

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ante-chamber, armed with a halberd which he had snatched from the hand of a terrified Swiss.

‘Who goes there ?’ cried the sentinel : ‘who goes there ?’

And as no answer was given, and as the flood of men still ascended, ‘Who goes there?’ he cried for the third time. And he levelled his musket.

The officer feels at once what would be the result of a shot fired in the apartments; he strikes up the sentinel’s gun, and, rushing towards the assailants, he places his halberd across the top of the staircase, thus completely preventing any one from passing.

‘Gentlemen 1 gentlemen 1’ cried he, ‘what do you want? What do you require?

‘Nothing nothing,’ said several voices; ‘let us pass, we are good friends of his majesty.’

‘You are good friends of his majesty, and you make war on him?

This time there was no answer a laugh and nothing else. A man seized the stock of the halberd that the officer would not leave go of. To make him quit his hold, the man struck his hand. The officer snatched the halberd from the hands of his adversary, grasped the oaken stock with both of his, and, dealing his adversary a blow on the head with all his strength, broke bis skull. During this time the sentry had opened the door of the ante-chamber and called for assistance. Five or six guards came out.

‘ Gentlemen ! gentlemen 1 ‘ said the sentinel , ‘ assist Monsieur de Charny I*

The sabres sprang from the scabbard, glittered for an instant in the light of the lamp which burnt above the staircase, and, to the right and left of Charny, furiously attacked the assailants. Cries of pain were heard, blood flowed, the wave of people retreated down the steps, and showed them covered with blood. The door of the ante-chamber opened again, and the sentinel cried : ‘Enter, gentlemen : the king orders it I’