Taking the Bastile (61 page)

Neither could he see who was the cavalier. He could not distinguish his features; but, recognising by his air, by his green velvet hunting coat, by his hat with its broad loop, by the easy and graceful motion of his head, that he must belong to the very highest class of society, hia memory at once reverted to the very handsome young man, the elegant dancer of Villers-Cotterdts his heart, his mouth, every fibre of his nerves, murmured the name of Isidore do Cnarny. And it was so, in fact.

Pitou heaved a sigh, which was very much like a roar; and, rushing anew into the thicket, he advanced within twenty paces of the two young people, then too much occupied with one another to remark whether the noise they heard was caused by the rushing of a quadruped fer of a biped through the underwood. The young man, however, turned his head towards Pitou, raised himself up in his stirrups, and cast a vague look around him. But

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at the same moment, and in order to escape this investigation, Pitou threw himself flat on his face. Then, like a serpent, he glided along the ground about ten paces more, and having then got within hearing distance, he listened.

‘Good-day, Monsieur Isidore,’ said Catherine.

‘Monsieur Isidore 1’ murmured Pitou; ‘I was sure of that.’

The two young people had each let fall their bridle, and had grasped each other’s hands, and remained thus, mute and smiling at each other, while the two hones, no doubt accustomed to each other, were rubbing their noses together, and pawing the green turf by the roadside.

‘You are behind your time to-day, said Catherine, who was the first to speak.

‘To-day ‘ exclaimed Pi ton to himself; ‘it seems that on other days he was not behind time.’

‘It is not my fault, dear Catherine,’ replied the young man, ‘for I was detained by a letter from my brother, which reached me only this morning, and to which I was obliged to reply by return of post. But, fear nothing; to-morrow I will be more punctual.’

Catherine smiled, and Isidore pressed still more tenderly the hand which had been left in his.

‘You have then very late news from Paris?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, then,’ continued she, smiling, ‘so have I. Did you not tell me the other day when similar things happened to two persons who loved each other, that it is called sympathy?’

‘Precisely. And how did yon receive your news, my lovely Catherine?’

‘By Pitou.’

‘And who do you mean by Pitou?’ asked the young nobleman, with a free and joyous air, which changed to scarlet the colour which had already overspread Pitou’s cheeks.

‘Why, you know full well,’ said she. ‘Pitou is the poor lad whom my father took into the farm, and who gave me his arm one Sunday.’

‘Ah t yes,’ said the young nobleman, ‘he whose knees are like knots tied in a table-napkin.’

Catherine laughed. Pitou felt himself humiliated, and was in perfect despair. He looked at the knees, which

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were, in fact, like knots, raising himself on both hands and getting up, but he again fell flat on his face with a sigh.

‘Come, now,’ said Catherine, ‘you must not so sadly illtreat my poor Pitou. Do you know what he proposed to me, just now?’

‘No; but tell me what it was, my lovely one.’

‘Well, then, he proposed to accompany me to La Ferte-Milon.’

‘Where you are not going?’

‘No; because I thought you were waiting for me here; while, on the contrary, it was I who almost had to wait for you.’

‘And why did you not accept the offer of this handsome cavalier? he would have amused us.’

‘Not always, perhaps,’ replied Catherine, laughing.

‘You are right, Catherine,’ said Isidore, fixing his eyes, which teamed with love, on the beautiful girl.

And he caught the blushing girl in his arms, which he clasped round her neck. Pitou closed his eyes that he might not see, but he had forgotten to shut his ears that he might not hear, and the sound of a kiss reached them. When Pitou had somewhat recovered his equanimity, he found that the two young people had moved off to a little distance, and were proceeding on the way, walking their horses. The last words which Pitou could catch were these :

‘Yes, you are right, Monsieur Isidore; let us ride together for an hour; my horse’s legs shall make up the lost time. And,’ added she, laughing, ‘it is a good animal, who will not mention it to any one.’

And this was all the vision faded away. Darkness reigned in the soul of Pitou, as it began to reign over all nature, and, rolling upon the heather, the poor lad abandoned himself to the overwhelming feelings which oppressed his heart. He remained in this state for some time; but the coolness of the evening at length restored him to himself.

‘I will not return to the farm,’ said he, ‘I should only be humiliated, scoffed at. I should eat the bread of a woman who loves another man, and a man, I cannot but acknowledge, who is handsomer, richer, and more elegant than I am. No, my place is no longer at the farm, but at Haramont at Haramont, my own country, where 1 shall.

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perhaps, find people who will not think that my knees are like knots made in a table-napkin.’

Having said this, Pitou trotted his good long legs towards Haramont, where, without his at all suspecting it, his reputation and that of his helmet and sabre had preceded him, and where awaited him. If not happiness, at least a glorious destiny.

HOWBVHR, on arriving at Villers-Cotter Sts, towards ten o’clock at night, after having had the long run we have endeavoured to describe, Pitou felt that, however melancholy he might be, it was much better to stop at the Dauphin Hotel and sleep in a good bed, than to sleep canopied by the stars, under some beech or oak in the forest. For as to sleeping in a house at Haramont, arriving there at half-past ten at night, it was useless to think of it. For more than an hour and a half every light had been extinguished, and every door closed in that peace-ful village. Pitou therefore put up at the Dauphin Hotel, where, for a thirty-sous piece, he had an excellent bed, a four-pound loaf, a piece of cheese, and a pot of cider. Pitou was both fatigued and in love, tired out and in despair.

From eleven o’clock to two in the morning, Pitou groaned, sighed, turned, and twisted in his bed, without being able to sleep a wink; but at two o’clock, overcome by fatigue, he closed his eyes, not to open them again till seven. As at Haramont, every one was in bed at half-past ten at night, so at Villers-Cottere’ts everybody is stirring at seven in the morning.

Pitou, on leaving the Dauphin Hotel, again found that his helmet and sabre attracted public attention. Immediately on seeing him, some of the inhabitants of Villers-CotterSts, who had accompanied Pitou from the Abbe Fortier’s door in the Rue de Soissons to Dame Angelique’s door in the Pleux, resolved, in order to continue the ovation to accompany him from Villers-Cotter 6ts to Haramont, on seeing which, the inhabitants of Haramont began to appreciate their compatriot at his just value. It is, however, only justice to them to say that the soil was

4 o6 TAKING THE BASTILLE

already prepared to receive the seed. Pitou’s first passage through Haramont, rapid as it had been, had left some traces in the minds of its inhabitants. In consequence, the inhabitants of Haramont, seeing themselves favoured by this second return of Pitou, which they no longer hoped for, received him with every manifestation of respect and consideration, entreating him to dofi, for a time, his warlike accoutrements, and fix his tent under the four linden trees which overshadowed the little village square, as the Thessalians used to entreat Mars on the anniversary of his great triumphs. Pitou deigned the more readily to consent to this, from its being his intention to fix his domicile at Haramont. He therefore accepted the shelter of a bedroom, which a warlike person of the village let to him ready furnished. The rent of the whole of this was estimated by the proprietor himself at six livres per annum that is to say, the vela* of two dishes of fowl and rice.

The rent being agreed upon, Pitou took possession of his domicile, and supplied those who had accompanied him with refreshments at his own charge; and as these events, without speaking of the cider he had imbibed, had somewhat excited his brain, he pronounced an harangue to them, standing on the threshold of his new residence.

He related his journey to Paris, the riota with regard to the busts, the taking of the Bastille, and the vengeance of the people; he passed lightly over the part he had taken in the combats on the Place Venddme, the square before the Palais Royal, and in the Faubourg Saint Antoine. But the less he boasted, the greater did he appear in the eyes of his compatriots. He proved that popular indignation had been justly excited against speculators; he said two words of Messieurs Pitt, father and son; he explained the revolution by the privileges granted to the nobility and to the clergy ; finally, he Invited the people of Haramont to do that in particular which the people of France had done generally that is to say, to unite against the common enemy. The people of Haramont were enthusiastic, and replied energetically. The revolution was proclaimed with loud acclamation throughout the village. Pitou thought that he bad merely made a speech. Pitou had made a revolution.

He re-entered his own house, regaled himself with a piece of brown bread and the remains of hi* cheese, from

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the Dauphin Hotel, which ho had carefully stowed away in his helmet; then ho went and bought some brass wire, made some snares, and, when it was dark, went to lay them in the forest. That same night Pi ton caught a good-sized rabbit, and a young one about four months old. Towards one in the morning he returned with his first harvest; he hoped to gather another after the passage in the morning. He went to bed, retaining within his breast remains of so bitter a nature of that grief which had so much fatigued his legs the day before, that ha could only sleep six hours consecutively upon the ferocious mattress, which the proprietor himself called a shingle. Pitou therefore slept from one o’clock to seven. The sun was therefore shining upon him through his open shutter while he was sleeping. Through this open shutter, thirty or forty inhabitants of Haramont were looking at him as he slept. He awoke, smiled at his compatriots, and asked them graciously why they had come to him in such numbers and so early. One of them had been appointed spokesman. This man was a wood-cutter, and his name Claude Tellier.

‘Ange Pitou,’ said he, ‘we have been reflecting the whole night; citizens ought, in fact, as you said yesterday, to arm themselves in the cause of liberty ; only, in order to arm ourselves, the principal thing is wanting.’

‘And what is that?’ asked Pitou, with much interest.

‘Arms 1’

‘Ah 1 yes, that is true,’ said Pitou.

‘We have, however, reflected enough not to allow our reflections to be lost, and we will arm ourselves, cost what it may.’

‘When I went away,’ said Pitou, ‘there were five guns in Haramont; three muskets, a single-barrelled fowling-piece, and a double-barrelled one.’

‘We have now only four guns left,’ rejoined Claude Tellier.

‘ Well, then, with four guns you have already enough to arm five men,’ said Pitou.

‘How do you make that out?’

‘Oh, the fifth will carry a pike 1 That is the way they do at Paris; for every four men armed with funs there is always one man armed with a pike. l”hose pikes are very convenient things they serve to stick the heads upon which have been cut on.’

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‘Oh, oh I’ cried a loud joyous voice, ‘it is to be hoped that we shall not cut ofl heads.’

‘No,’ gravely replied Pitou; ‘if we have only firmness enough to reject the gold of Messrs Pitt, father and son. But we were talking of guns; let us not wander from the question, as Monsieur Bailly says. How many men have we in Haramont capable of bearing arms?’

‘We are thirty-two.’

‘Then there are twenty-eight muskets deficient?’

‘Which we shall never get,’ said a stout man with a good-humoured face.

‘I know where they are to be procured. The people of Paris had no arms neither. Well I Monsieur Marat, a very learned doctor, but very ugly, told the people of Pans where arms were to be found; the people of Paris went where Monsieur Marat told them, and there they found them.’

‘And where did Marat tell them to go?’ inquired Desire Maniquet.

‘He told them to go to the Invalides.’

‘Yes; but we have no Invalides at Haramont.’

‘But I know a place in which there are more than a hundred guns,’ said Pitou.

‘And where is that?’

‘In one of the rooms of the Abb6 Fortier’s college.’

‘The Abbe Fortier has a hundred guns? He wishes, then, to arm his singing boys, the beggarly black cap !’ cried Claude Tellier.

‘I did not say that the guns belong to the Abbe Fortier. They belong to the township.’

‘If they belong to the township, how does it happen that they are in the Abbe Fortier’s house ? ‘

‘They are in the Abbe Fortier’s house, because the house in which the Abb6 Fortier lives belongs to the township, who gives it to him rent free because he says mass and teaches the children of poor citizens gratis. Now, since the Abb6 Fortier’s house belongs to the township, the township has a right to reserve a room in the house that belongs to it, to put its muskets : ah I’

‘That is true,’ said the auditors, ‘the township has the right.’

‘Well, then, let us see; ‘how are we to get hold of these guns tell us that?’

The question somewhat embarrassed Pitou, who scratched his ear.

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‘Yes, tell us quickly,’ cried another voice, ‘for we must go to our work.’

Pitou breathed again : the last speaker had opened to him a door for escape.

‘Work !’ exclaimed Pitou. ‘You speak of arming yourselves for the defence of the country, and you think of work I Do you know what work is? To you, labour consists in splitting wood, in reaping the harvest, in picking up beech-mast, in tying up wheat-sheaves, in placing stones one above another, and consolidating them with cement. In your opinion, I do not work at all. Well, then, you are mistaken, for I alone labour much more than you do all together, for I am meditating your emancipation, for I am dreaming of your liberty, of your equality. A moment of my time is therefore of more value than a hundred of your days. The oxen who plough the ground do but one and the same thing; but the man who thinks surpasses all the strength of matter. I, by myself, am worth the whole of you. Look at Monsieur Lafayette; he is a thin, fair man, not much taller than Claude Tellier. He has a pointed nose, thin legs, and arms as small as the back joints of this chair. As to his hands and feet, it is not worth while to mention them. A man might as well be without. Well 1 this man has carried two worlds on his shoulders, which is one more than Atlas did, and his little hands have broken the chains of America and France. Now, as his arms have done all this, arms not thicker than the back railing of a chair, only imagine to yourselves what arms like mine can do.’