Taking the Bastile

"To arms!"

All the loungers in the public strolling grounds took up the call.

All the foreign regiments in the French army were gathered round the capital. It looked like an Austrian invasion, as the regimental names grated on French ears. Their utterance explained the fear in the masses. The young man named them and said that the Swiss troops, camped in the Champs Elysées, with four field pieces, were going to march into the city that night, with Prince Lambesq's Dragoons to clear the way. He proposed that the town defender should wear an emblem different from theirs and, plucking a horse-chestnut leaf, stuck it in his hat. All the beholders instantly imitated him so that the three thousand persons stripped the Palais Royale trees in a twinkling.

In the morning the young man's name was unknown but it was celebrated that night; it was Camille Desmoulins.

Men recognized one another in the crowd, shook hands in token of brotherhood and all joined in with the procession.

At Richelieu Street corner Billet looked back and saw the disappearance of Maggie; the increase of curiosity during the halt was such that more had been added to the poor animal's burden and she had sunk under the surcharge.

The farmer sighed. Then collecting his powers, he called out to Pitou three times like the ancient Romans at the funeral of their king; he fancied a voice made reply out of the bowels of the earth but it was drowned in the confused uproar, ascending to heaven partly cheers and partly threatening.

Still the train proceeded. All the stores were closed; but all windows were open, and thence fell encouragement on the marchers farther to frenzy them.

At Vendome Square, an unforeseen obstacle checked the march.

Like the logs rolling in a freshet which strike up against the piles of a bridge and rebound, the leaders recoiled from a detachment of a Royal German Regiment. These were dragoons, who, seeing the mob surge into the square from St. Honore Street, relaxed the reins of their chargers, impatient at having been curbed since five o'clock, and they dashed on the people at full speed.

The bearers of the litter received the first shock, and were knocked down when it was overthrown. A Savoyard, before Billet, was the first to rise. He picked up the effigy of Prince Orleans, and fixing it on the top of his walking stick, waved it above his head, crying: "Long live the Duke of Orleans!" whom he had never seen, and "Hurrah for Necker!" whom he did not know from Adam.

Billet was going to do the same with Necker's bust, but he was forestalled. A young dandy in elegant attire had been watching it, the easier for him than Billet as he was not burdened with the barrow poles, and he sprang for it the moment it reached the ground.

Up it went on the point of a pike, and, set close to the other, served as rallying-point for the scattered processionists.

Suddenly a flash lit up the square. At the same instant bang went the report, and the bullets whistled. Something heavy struck Billet in the forehead so that he fell, believing that he was killed. But as he did not lose his senses, and felt no hurt except pain in the head, he understood that at the worst he was merely wounded. He slapped his hand to his brow and perceived it was but a bump there, though his palm was smeared with blood.

The well-dressed stripling in front of the farmer had been shot in the breast; it was he who was slain and his blood that had splashed Billet. The shock the latter felt was from Necker's bust, falling from want of a holder, on the farmer's head.

He uttered a shout, half rage, half horror.

He sprang aloof from the youth, writhing in the death-gasp. Those around fell back in like manner, and the yell which he gave, repeated by the multitude, was prolonged in funeral echoes to the last groups in St. Honore Street.

This shout was a new proof of revolt. A second volley was heard: and deep gaps in the throng showed where the projectiles had passed.

What indignation inspired in Billet, and what he did in the gush of enthusiasm, was to pick up the blood-spattered bust, wave it over his head, and cheer with his fine manly voice in protest at the risk of being killed like the patriotic fop dead at his feet.

But instantly a large and vigorous hand came down on the farmer's shoulder and so pressed him that he had to bow to the weight. He tried to wrest himself from the grasp, but another fist, quite as strong and heavy, fell on his other shoulder. He turned, growling, to learn what kind of antagonist was this.

"Pitou?" he cried.

"I am your man – but stop a little and you will see why."

Redoubling his efforts he brought the resisting man to his knees and flat on his face. Scarcely was this done than a second volley thundered. The Savoyard bearing the Orleans bust came down in his turn, hit by a ball in the thigh.

Then they heard iron on the paving stones – the dragoons charged for the second time. One horse, furious and shaking his mane like the steed in the Apocalypse, jumped over the unhappy Savoyard, who felt the chill of a lance piercing his chest as he fell on Billet and Pitou.

The whirlwind rushed to the end of the street, where it engulfed itself in terror and death! Nothing but corpses strewed the ground. All fled by the adjacent streets. The windows banged to. A lugubrious silence succeeded the cheers and the roars of rage.

For an instant Billet waited, held by the prudent peasant; then, feeling that the danger went farther away, he rose on one knee while the other, like the hare in her form, pricked up his ear only without raising his head.

"I believe you are right, Master," said the young man; "we have arrived while the soup is hot."

"Lend me a hand."

"To help you out of this?"

"No: the young exquisite is dead, but the Savoyard is only in a swoon, I reckon. Help me get him on my back. We cannot leave so plucky a fellow here to be butchered by these cursed troopers."

Billet used language going straight to Pitou's heart; he had no answer but to obey. He took up the warm and bleeding body and loaded it like a bag of meal on to the robust farmer's back. Seeing St. Honore Street looked clear and deserted, he took that road to the Palais Royale with his man.

CHAPTER VIII.

PITOU DISCOVERS HE IS BRAVE

The street appeared void and lonesome to Billet and his friend because the cavalry in chase of the Hyers, had gone through the market and scattered after them in the side streets; but as the pair got nearer the Palais Royale, calling out in a hoarse voice by instinct "Revenge!" men began to appear in doorways, up cellars, out of alleys, from the carriage gateways, mute and frightened at the first, but, when assured that the horse-soldiers had gone on, forming the procession anew, they repeated in a low tone, but soon in a loud one: "Revenge!"

Pitou marched behind the farmer, carrying the Savoyard's cap.

Thus the mournful and ghastly cortege arrived on Palais Royale Place, where a concourse, drunk with wrath, were holding council and soliciting the French troops to help them against the foreign ones.

"What are these men in uniform?" inquired Billet, in front of a company, standing under arms, to bar the road from the Palace main doors to Chartres Street.

"The French Guards," answered several voices.

"Oh," said the countryman, going nearer and showing the body of the Savoyard which was lifeless now: "are you Frenchmen and let us be murdered by foreigners?"

The guardsmen shrank back a step involuntarily.

"Dead?" uttered several.

"Dead – murdered, along with lots more by the Royal German dragoons. Did you not hear the charging cry, the shots, the sword-slashes and the shrieks of the defenseless?"

"Yes," shouted two or three hundred voices: "the people were cut down on Vendome Square."

"And so are you the people," shouted Billet to the soldiers: "It is cowardice of you to let your brothers be hacked to pieces."

"Cowardice?" muttered some of the men in the ranks, threateningly.

"Yes, I said Cowardice, and I say it again. Look here," Billet went on, taking three steps towards the point where the protest had risen, "perhaps you will shoot me down to prove that you are not cowards?"

"That is all very good," said a soldier; "you are a honest, blunt fellow, my friend, but you are citizens and you do not understand that soldiers are bound by orders."

"Do you mean to say?" said Billet, "that if you receive orders to fire on us, unarmed men, that you, the successors of the Guards who, at Fontenoy, bade the English shoot first, – would do that?"

"I wager I would not," said the soldier.

"Nor I, nor I," echoed several of his comrades.

"Then stop the others firing on us," continued Billet: "To let the Royal Germans cut our throats is tantamount to doing it yourselves."

"The dragoons, here come the dragoons!" yelled many at the same time as the gathering began to retire over the square to get away up Richelieu Street.

At a distance but approaching, they heard the clatter of heavy cavalry.

"To arms, to arms," cried the runaways.

"Plague on you," said Billet, throwing down the dead Savoyard, "Lend us your guns if you will not use them."

"Hold on till you see whether we won't use them," said the soldier whom Billet had addressed, as he snatched back the musket which the farmer had torn from his grip. "Bite your cartridges, boys – and make the Austrians bite the dust if they interfere with these good fellows."

"Ay, they shall see," said the soldiers, carrying their hands from the cartridge-boxes to their mouths.

"Thunder," muttered Billet, stamping his foot: "why did I not bring my old duck-gun along? But one of these pesky Austrians may be laid out and I can get his carbine."

"In the meantime," said a voice, "taking this gun – it is ready loaded."

A stranger slipped a handsome fowling-piece into Billet's hands.

At this very instant, the dragoons rushed into the square, upsetting everybody they ran against.

The officer commanding the French Guards came out three steps to the front.

"Halloa, you gentlemen of the heavy dragoons," he called out. "Halt, please."

Whether the cavalry did not hear him, or did not want to hear him, or, again, were carried on by the impetus of a charge too violent to check, the Germans wheeled by a half-turn to the right and trampled down an old man and a woman who disappeared under the hoofs.

"Fire," roared Billet, "why don't you fire?"

He was near the officer and the order might have been taken as coming from him. Anyway, the French Guards carried their muskets to the shoulder, and delivered a volley which stopped the dragoons short.

"Here, gentlemen of the Guards," said a German officer, coming before the squadron thrown into disorder, "do you know you are firing on us?"

"Yes, by heaven we know it, and you shall know it, too." So Billet retorted, taking aim at the speaker and dropping him with the shot.

Thereupon the reserve rank of the Guards made a discharge and the Germans, seeing that they had trained soldiery to deal with and not citizens who broke and fled at the first shot, pulled round and made off for Vendome Square in the midst of a formidable outburst of hoots and cheers of triumph so that some horses broke loose and smashed their heads against the store shutters.

"Hurrah for the French Guards!" shouted the multitude.

"Hurrah for the Guards of the Country!" said Billet.

"Thank you," said a soldier, "we are given the right name and christened with fire."

"I have been under fire, too," said Pitou, "and it is not as dreadful as I imagined it."

"Now, who owns this gun?" queried Billet, examining the rifle which was a costly one.

"My master," answered the man who had lent him it, and who wore the Orleans livery. "He thinks you use it too handsomely to have to return it."

"Where is your master?" demanded the farmer.

The servant pointed to a half-open blind behind which the prince was watching what happened.

"Is he with us, then?"

"With heart and soul for the people," replied the domestic.

"In that case, three cheers again for the Duke of Orleans!" said the farmer. "Friends the Duke of Orleans is on our side – three cheers for the duke!"

He pointed upwards and the prince showed himself for an instant while he bowed three times to the shouting; short as was the appearance it lifted enthusiasm to the utmost.

"Break open the gunsmith's," shouted a voice in the turbulence.

"Let us go to the Invalid Soldiers Hospital," added some old veterans. "General Sombreuil has twenty thousand muskets there."

"And to the City Hall!" exclaimed others: "Flesselles, Provost of the Traders, has the keys for the town guards' armory and he must give them up."

"To the Hall!" bellowed a fraction of the assemblage.

All flowed away in one or the other of the three directions called out.

During this time the dragoons had rallied around Baron Bezenval and Prince Lambesq on Louis XV. Square.

Billet and Pitou were unaware of this as they followed none of the parties and were left pretty well alone on Palais Royale Square.

"Well, where are we off to, dear Master Billet?" inquired Ange Pitou.

"I should like to follow the crowd," replied the other: "not to the gunmakers', as I have a first-rate gun, but to the City Hall or the military Asylum. Still, as we came to town not to fight, but to learn Doctor Gilbert's address. I think we ought to go to Louis-the-Great's College, where his son is. When I shall have got through with the doctor, we can jump back into the chafing-dish."

His eyes flashed lightnings.

"This course seems logical to me," observed the young peasant.

"So take some weapon, gun or sword, from those beer drinkers lying there," said the farmer, pointing to half-a-dozen dragoons on the pave, "and let us go to the college."

"But these weapons are not mine, but the King's," objected Pitou.

"They are the people's," corrected Billet, whereupon the other who knew the speaker was incapable of wronging a man to the extent of a mustard-seed, went up to the nearest corpse with multiplied caution, and making sure he was lifeless, he took his musket, cartridge-box and sabre.

He wanted to take his hamlet but had his doubts about the defensive armor being "confisticatable" like the offensive arms; while deliberating he listened towards Vendome Square.

"It seems to me that the Royal Germans are coming back again," he said.

Indeed a troop of horse was heard coming at the walking gait.

"Quick, quick, they are returning," said Pitou.

"Billet looked around to see what means of resistance were offered, but the place was almost deserted.

"Let us be off," said he.

He went down Chartres Street, followed by Pitou who dragged the sabre after him by the scabbard-straps, not knowing how it ought to be hooked up till Billet showed him.

"You looked like a traveling-tinker," he said.

On Louis XV. Square they met the column, started off to go over the river to the Invalides but stopped short. The bridges and the Champs Elysées were blocked.

"Try the Tuileries Garden bridge," suggested Billet.

It was quite a simple proposition; the mob accepted it and followed Billet: but swords shining half way to the Gardens indicated that cavalry intercepted the march to that bridge.

"These confounded dragoons are everywhere," grumbled the farmer.

"I believe we are caught," said his friend.

"Nonsense, five or six thousand men are to be caught, and we are that strong."

The dragoons came forward, slowly, but it was an advance.

"The Royale Street is left us," said Billet; "come this way, Ange."

But a line of soldiers shut this street up.

"It looks as though you were right," said the countryman.

"Alas!" sighed Ange, who had followed him like his shadow.

All his regret at not being wrong was shown in the single word by the tone it was spoken in.

By its clamor and motion the mob showed that it was no less sensible than he about the quandary all were in.

Indeed, by a skillful manœuvre, Prince Lambesq had encircled the rioters in a bow of iron, the cord being represented by the Tuileries garden-wall, hard to climb over, and the drawbridge railing, almost impossible to force. Billet judged that the position was bad. Still, being a cool fellow, full of resources when the emergency rose, he looked round him. Seeing a pile of lumber by the riverside, he said:

"I have a notion, Pitou; come along."

Billet went up to a beam and took up one end, making a nod to his followers as much as to say, "Take your end of it."

Pitou was bent on helping his leader without questioning: he had such trust in him that he would have gone down into sheol without grumbling on the length of the road or how the heat increased as they got on. The pair returned to the waterside walk, carrying a burden which half a dozen ordinary men would have sunk under.

Strength is always an object of admiration to the crowd. Although very closely packed, way was made for the peasants. Catching an idea of the work ahead, some men walked before the joist-carriers, calling out: "Clear the way, there!"

"I say, Father Billet, are we to make a long job of this?" asked Pitou when they had gone some thirty strides.

"Up to that gateway."

"I can go it," replied the young man laconically, as he saw it was about as much farther and the crowd, having an inkling of the plan, cheered them.

Besides, some helped to carry and the beam went on much more rapidly. In five minutes they stood before the gates.

"Now, then, heave and all together," said Billet.

"I understand," said Pitou. "This is what the ancient Romans called a battering-ram."

The piece of timber set going, was banged with a terrible blow against the gate lock.

The military on guard within the gardens, ran to check this inroad. But at the third swing the gates yielded, and the multitude flowed into the dark gap.

By the movement, Prince Lambesq perceived that the netted rioters had found an outlet. Rage mastered him to see his prisoners escape. He started his horse forward to learn what was the matter, when his men, thinking he was leading a charge, followed him closely. The horses were heated with their recent work, and could not be restrained. Thirsting for retaliation for their check on Palais Royale Square, the men did not probably try hard to restrain them.

The prince, seeing that it was impossible to stop the movement, let himself be carried away, and a shriek of frightful intensity from women and children rose to heaven as a claim for its vengeance.

A dreadful scene took place in the gloom. The victims went mad with pain while they who charged were mad with fury.

A kind of defense was organized and chairs were flung at the cavalry. Struck on the head, Prince Lambesq replied with a sword cut, without thinking that he was striking the innocent for the guilty. An old man was sent to the ground. Billet saw this and he uttered a shout. At the same time he took aim with his rifle and the prince would have been killed but for his horse having reared at the very instant. It received the bullet in the neck and died instantly.

The fallen Prince was believed slain, and the dragoons rushed into the Tuileries Gardens, firing their pistols at the fugitives.

But they, having plenty of room, dodged behind the trees.

Billet tranquilly reloaded his fowling-piece.

"You are right, Pitou, we have come to town on time," he said.

"And I think I am becoming brave," remarked Pitou, standing the pistol fire of a horseman and spilling him out of the saddle with his musketoon; "it is not so hard as I thought."

"That's so," replied the other, "but useless bravery is bravado. Come along, and don't let your sword trip you up."

"Wait for me, Father Billet, for I do not know Paris like you do; and without you, I shall go astray."

"Come, come," said the farmer, leading him along the river terrace until they had distanced the troops advancing by the quays as rapidly as they could to help the Lambesq Dragoons, if needed.

At the end of the terrace, he sat on the parapet and jumped down on the embankment running along the river. Pitou did the same.

CHAPTER IX.

"TO THE BASTILE!"

Once on the river edge, the two countrymen, spying arms glitter on the Tuileries Bridge, in all probability, not in friendly hands, lay down in the grass beneath the trees, and held a council.

The question was, as laid down by the elder, whether they ought to stay where they were, in comparative safety, or return into the action. He waited for Pitou's opinion.

Pitou had grown in the farmer's estimation, from the learning he had shown down in the country and the bravery he showed this evening. Pitou instinctively felt this, but he was naturally so humble that he was only the more grateful to his friend.

"Master," he said, "it is clear that you are braver and I less of a coward than was supposed by ourselves. Horace the poet, a very different character from you, flung down his weapons and took to his heels at the first conflict he was in. This proves that I am more courageous than Horace, with my musket, cartridge-box and sword to show for it. My conclusion is that the bravest man in the world may be killed by a bullet. Ergo, as your design in quitting the farm was to come to Paris on an important errand – "

"By all that is blue, the casket!"

"You have hit it; and for nothing else."

"Then, if you are killed, the business will not come off."

"Quite so. When we shall have seen the doctor, we will return to politics as a sacred duty."

"Come on then, to the college where is Sebastian Gilbert," said Billet, rising.

"Let us go," added Pitou, rising but reluctantly so soft was the grass. Besides good Pitou was sleepy.

"If anything happens me, you must know what to say to Dr. Gilbert in my stead. But be mute."

Ange was not saying anything, for he was dozing.

"If I should be mortally wounded you must go to the doctor and say – Bless me, the boy's asleep – "

Indeed, Pitou was snoring where he had sunk down again.

"After all, the college will be shut at this hour," thought Billet; "we had better take a rest."

Dawn appeared when they had slept three hours; but the day did not bring any change in the warlike aspect of Paris.

Only, there were no soldiers to be seen. The populace were everywhere. They were armed with quickly made pikes, guns of which most knew not the use, and old time weapons of which the bearers admired the ornamentation. After the military had been withdrawn they had pillaged the Royal Storage Magazines. Towards the City Hall a crowd rolled a couple of small cannon. At the Cathedral and other places the general alarm was rung on the big bells. Out from between the flagstones, so to say, oozed the lowest of the low, legions of men and women, if human they were, pale, haggard, and ill-clad, who had been yelling "Bread!" the night before, but howled for "Weapons!" now.

Nothing was more sinister than these spectres who had been stealing into the capital from all the country round during the last few months. They slipped silently through the bars and installed themselves in the town like ghouls in a cemetery.

On this day all France, represented in the capital by these starvelings, called out to the King: "Make us free!" while howling to heaven: "Feed us."

Meanwhile Billet and his pupil were proceeding to the college. On the way they saw the barricades growing up, with even children lending a hand and the richest like the poorest contributing some object that would build the wall. Among the crowds Billet recognized one or two French Guardsmen by their uniform, who were drilling squads and teaching the use of firearms, with the women and boys looking on.

The college was insurrection also. The boys had driven out the masters and were attacking the gates to get out with threats which terrified the tearful principal.

"Who of you is Sebastian Gilbert?" demanded Billet in his stentor's voice after regarding the intestine war.

"I am he," replied a boy of fifteen, of almost girlish beauty, who was helping three or four schoolfellows to bring up a ladder with which to scale the wall as they could not force the lock. "What do you want of me?"