The Countess De Charny - Volume II (6 page)

The vile, insatiate despots dare — Their thirst for gold and power unbounded —

To mete and vend the light and air.

Like beasts of burden would they load us ; Like gods would bid their slaves adore ;

But man is man — and who is more 1 Then shall they longer lash and goad us ? “

A hundred throbbing breasts panted wildly in their longing to answer; and before the last of the above lines had left the poet’s lips, a fierce “Xo! no! no!” burst forth.

Then like a trumpet-blast that stirring chorus again rang out : —

” To arms, to arms, ye brave ! The avenging sword unsheathe ! March on ! March on ! All hearts resolved On victory or death ! “

There was such a commotion in the audience that Rouget was obliged to ask for silence before beginning the fourth stanza; but they all listened with feverish attention as, with a voice that was full of menace now, he sang: —

“Ye tyrants, tremble! Traitors scheming,

By all true hearts ye stand condemned ! Quail ! O’er your pan-icidal dreaming

Punishment dire doth now impend.

Here all are soldiers strong to fight you ; And if they fall in youth’s glad spring.

The earth new heroes forth shall bring, With hands already raised to smite you.”

THE MARSEILLAISE. 51

” Yes, yes ! ” shouted every auditor.

A crowd had come in after the banquet to listen to the speeches and songs, and fathers pushed forward their sous who were old enough to walk, and mothers lifted high above their heads children who still had to be carried.

Then Rouget de I’Isle saw that a verse was still lacking, — the song of the children; and while his companions were enthusiastically repeating the terrible refrain, he leaned his head upon his hand, and, in the midst of all that noise and applause and commotion, he improvised the following stanza : —

” Upon their life-work we will enter,

When our dear parents are no more. May their bright virtues be our mentor

In all the paths they trod before !

Less anxious far to long survive them Than honored graves with them to share,

With pride sublime we ‘11 do or dare, Their deaths avenge, or die beside them ! “

And above the stifled sobs of the mothers, and the enthusiastic shouts of the fathers, the pure voices of girlhood could be heard chanting the refrain : —

” To arms, to arms, ye brave ! Tlie avenging sword unsheathe ! March on ! March on ! All hearts resolved On victory or death ! “

“N’ow on your knees, all of you,” cried Rouget de I’Tsle.

They obeyed.

Rouget alone remained standing. Placing one foot on a neighbour’s chair, as if upon the first step of the Temple of Liberty, and lifting his clasped hands to Heaven, he sang the last stanza, — an invocation to the presiding genius of France: —

” Liberty, can man resign thee,

Who once has felt thy generous flame ?

52 LA COMTESSE DE CHARNY.

Cau duugeous, bolts, aud bars conflue thee,

Or whips thy noble spirit tame ?

Too long the world has wept, bewailing That falsehood’s dagger tyrants wield ; —

But freedom is our sword aud shield, And all their arts are unavailing.”

Then once again every voice joined in that sublime refrain, that De profundis of despotism, — that Magnificat of Liberty : —

” March on ! March on, ye brave ! The avenging sword unsheathe! March on ! March on ! All hearts resolved On liberty or death.”

Wild, intoxicating joy filled every heart. Every person embraced his neighbour, and fair maidens heaped bouquets and floral crowns at the poet’s feet with a lavish hand.

Thirty-eight years afterwards, when he narrated the incidents of that eventful evening to me, — then a young man, — the poet’s brow was still radiant with the sublime aureole of 1792.

Nor is this strange; for the “Marseillaise” is not only a war-cry, but a paean of fraternity. It typifies the powerful hand of France outstretched to the oppressed of all nations. This hymn, indeed, must ever be the last sigh of expiring Liberty, the first glad cry of new-born freedom.

But as the hymn was composed in Strasburg, and chris-tened the Song of the Rhine, how did it happen to suddenly appear in the heart of France under the name of the Marseilles Hymn?

That is what we are about to explain to our readers.

BARBAEOUX’S FIVE HUNDRED. 53

CHAPTER VII.

BARBAROUX’S FIVE HUNDRED.

As if to fnrnisli just grounds for declaring the country in danger, the manifesto from Coblentz reached Paris on the 2Sth of July. As we have previously remarked, it was a foolish document, — a threat, and consequently an insult, to France.

The Duke of Brunswick, an exceedingly clever man, considered the document absurd; but the duke was obliged, of course, to bow to the will of the allied sovereigns, who, having received the manifesto all prepared from the hands of the French monarch, imposed it upon the leader of their forces.

According to this manifesto, all Frenchmen were criminals, and every town and village ought to be demolished or burned. As for Paris, that was a modern Nineveh, which should be given over to destruction, and not a single stone be left standing above another.

Such were the contents of the manifesto bearing the date of July 26th, but which reached Paris on the 2Sth. Had an eagle transported it from Coblentz to Paris in its claws? One would suppose so, when one remembers it had traversed a distance of over two hundred leagues in thirty-six hours. The explosion of wrath such a document created can be easily imagined. It was like a spark falling on powder. Every heart bounded with rage and indignation, and every man eagerly girded himself for the fray.

Among these numerous types of manhood there was one which we will now endeavour to depict.

We have already alluded to a man named Barbaroux, who early in July wrote to his friend Rebecqui, “Send me five hundred men who know how to die.”

54 LA COMTESSE DE CHAKNY.

The man who penned these words exerted a powerful influence over his compariots through the potent charm of youth, beauty, and patriotism.

This man was Charles Barbaroux, whose face haunted Madame Roland in the conjugal chamber, and made Charlotte Corday dream of him even at the foot of the scaffold.

Madame Roland began by distrusting him, — and why? Because he was too handsome.

This was the criticism bestowed upon another celebrated Revolutionist, whose head was held aloft by the hand of the public executioner within fourteen months of the day that Barbaroux met the same fate at Bordeaux. This other Adonis was Hérault de Séchelles, who was executed at Paris.

Read what Madame Roland says of him : —

” Barbaroux is frivolous. The adoration women lavish upon him has impaired the earnestness of his sentiments. When I see these handsome young men intoxicated by the admiration they excite, as in the case of Barbaroux and Hérault de Séchelles, I cannot help thinking that they care too much for themselves to care very much for their country.”

She was mistaken, this austere Minerva. His country may not have been Barbaroux’s only divinity, but he at least loved her sufficiently well to die for her.

Barbaroux was scarcely twenty-five years of age. Born in Marseilles of a family of those sturdy seamen who made commerce a poem, his superb form, grace of movement, and personal beauty made him look like a direct descendant of one of those Phocians who transported their gods from the shores of the Permessus to the banks of the Rhone.

Though young, he was already an adept in the art of oratory, a poet of no mean order, a graduate in medicine, and a valued correspondent of Saussure and Marat.

He first attracted public notice during the disturbances which followed the election of Mirabeau in his native

BAKBAROUX’S FIVE HUNDEED. 55

town, and he was soon afterwards made secretary by the City Council.

During the subsequent troubles in Aries, Barbaroux was ever in the foremost ranks, — an armed Antinoils.

He was sent to Paris to give an account of the troubles in Avignon. From his report one might have supposed that he belonged to no party, that his heart, like that of justice, was a stranger alike to friendship and prejudice. He told the exact truth, terrible as it was, and the telling of it made him seem as great as truth itself.

The Girondists had just come into power. The distinguishing characteristic of this party was their genuine artistic taste, or rather their love of the beautiful. They greeted Barbaroux with enthusiasm; then, proud of their new recruit, conducted him straight to Madame Roland.

We know the impression Madame Roland first formed of him. She was amazed, too, at his youth. Her husband had corresponded with Barbarovix for a long time; and the latter’s letters had always been remarkably sensible, accurate, and full of wise counsel. She had never given much thought to this sage correspondent’s age or appearance, but had vaguely supposed him to be a bald-headed, wu-inkled man of forty.

She found him to be a handsome, gay, frivolous young man of twenty-five, devoted to the ladies. In fact, all that fiery, impulsive generation that tiourished in ‘92, to die, prematurely cut down, in ‘93, loved the fair sex.

It was in tliis apparently frivolous head — which Madame Roland considered entirely too handsome — that the idea of the 10th of August first originated.

There was a storm in the air. Formidable clouds were scurrying wildly to and fro; but it was Barbaroux who first conceived the idea of concentrating them over the tiled roof of the Tuileries.

Before any one else had made any plan, ho wrote to Rebecqui, “Send me five hundred men who know how to die!”

56 LA COMTESSE DE CIIARNY.

Ah, the real King of France now was the King of the Revolution, who wrote for five hundred men who knew how to die, and to whom they were sent as artlessly and freely as he had sent for them.

Eebecqui had selected them himself from the French faction at Avignon. They had been fighting only two years, but they had been hating for ten generations. They had fought at Toulouse, at Nîmes, and at Aries; so they were accustomed to bloodshed, and did not consider fatigue even worth talking about.

On the appointed day they set out upon this long, tire-some march of two hundred and twenty leagues as if it were a slight jaunt. And why not? They were stalwart sailors, and sturdy peasants with faces burned by the sirocco or the mistral, and with hands blackened with tar and callous from labour.

During a halt made near Orgon, in the department of Aries they received the words and music of Rouget de I’Isle’s hymn. Barbaroux had sent it to them to make their journey seem shorter.

One of them deciphered the music and sang the words; then with a great outburst of enthusiasm they all joined in the terrible chant, — much more terrible than Rouget himself had imagined ; for, in passing through the mouths of these sons of Marseilles, the song seemed to have undergone an entire change of character. It was no longer a fraternal hymn, an appeal to resist the invader, but a wild chant of extermination and death.

The little band marched through one town after another, electrifying France by the ardour with which they sang this new song.

When he knew they had reached Montereau, Barbaroux informed Santerre, and Santerre promised to meet them at Charenton with forty thousand men. With Santerre ‘s forty thousand men, headed by his own five hundred, Barbaroux intended to carry the city-hall and the Assembly by storm, then capture the Tuileries, as the

BARBAROUX’S FIVE HUNDRED. 57

people had captured the Bastille on the 14th of July, and then establish a republic on the ruins of that Florentine palace.

Barbaroux and Eebecqui went to Charenton to await the coming of Santerre and his forty thousand men.

He arrived with two hundred.

Possibly he did not propose to give outsiders the glory of such an achievement.

The little band marched through the city to the Champs Elysees, where they were to encamp, singing the Marseillaise. A banquet was to be given to them the next day, and the banquet took place ; but between the Champs Elysees and the revolving bridge — a few rods distant — were stationed several battalions of grenadiers which the palace had placed as a safeguard between the new-comers and itself.

The Marseillais and the grenadiers displayed unmistakable animosity from the very first. They began with an interchange of opprobrious epithets, which speedily led to blows. At the first show of blood the Marseillais sounded the call to arms, seized their guns, and charged with their bayonets. The grenadiers succumbed under the first attack; but fortunately the palace, with its massive iron gates, was behind them, and the revolving bridge protected their flight and served as a protection from their foes.

The fugitives found a shelter in the king’s apartments. Tradition says that one of the wounded was even cared for by the queen’s own hands.

The confederates, the Marseillais, and the Bretons numbered five thousand men; and these five thousand men were a power, — not by reason of their number, but of their faith and courage.

They were thoroughly impregnated with the spirit of the Revolution.

On the 17th of July they sent an address to the Assembly : —

58 LA COMTESSE DE CHARNY.

” You have declared the country in danger,” they said; “but do you uot phvce yourselves, too, iu a dangerous position by prolonging the reign of traitors f Send for Lafayette, suspend the chief executive, disst)lve the directories, and strengthen the judicial power.”

On August 3rd, Petion himself repeated this demand, and in behalf of the municipality insisted upon a resort to arms. It is true, however, that there were two dogs behind him, snapping at his legs, — Danton and Sergent.

“The municipality denounces the executive power,” said Petion. “To cure the evils from which Prance is now suffering, we must attack them at the very root, and at once. We would prefer that the king’s suspension from office be only temporary, but the Constitution forbids that; and as he is continually referring and appealing to the Constitution, we not only ask his abdication, but demand it.”