Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843

I can of course offer but an imperfect transcript of the brave guardsman's narrative; seconded as it was by an intelligent countenance, and that national vividness of voice and gesture which often tell so much more than words. But, to describe its effect on his auditory is impossible. Every countenance was riveted on him, every change of those extraordinary scenes was marked by a new expression of every face round the table. Sighs and tears, wringing hands, and eyes turned on heaven, were universal evidences of the interest excited by his fearful detail. Yet, unused as I was to this quick emotion among my own sober countrymen, I could scarcely wonder even at its wildness. They were listening to the fate of all that belonged to them by affection, loyalty, hope, and possession, on this side of the grave. Every hour was big with the destinies of their king, their relations, and their country. On the events happening, even at the moment, depended, whether a deluge of blood might not roll over France, whether flame might not be devouring their ancient castles, whether they might not be doomed to mendicancy in a strange land, wanderers through the earth, without a spot whereon to lay their head, fugitives forever. Yet the anxiety for those left behind was of a still deeper dye; the loved, the familiar, the honoured, all involved in a tide of calamity, irresistible by human strength or skill.—All so near, yet all so lost; like the crew of some noble ship hopelessly struggling with the winds and waves, within sight of the shore, within reach almost of the very voices of their friends, yet at the mercy of a tremendous element which forbade their ever treading on firm ground.

But there was still much to tell; the fate of the royal family was the general question; and the remainder of the melancholy tale was given with manly sensibility.

"When I recovered my senses it was late in the day; and I found myself in humble room, with only an old woman for my attendant; but my wounds bandaged, and every appearance of my having fallen into friendly hands. The conjecture was true. I was in the house of one of my father's gardes de chasse, who, having commenced tavern-keeper in the Fauxbourg St Antoine some years back, and being a thriving man, had become a 'personage' in his section, and was now a captain in the Fédérés. Forced, malgré, to join the march to the Hotel de Ville, he had seen me in the mêlée, and dragged me from under a heap of killed and wounded. To his recollection I probably owed my life; for the patriots mingled plunder with their principles, stripped all the fallen, and the pike and dagger finished the career of many of the wounded. It happened, too, that I could not have fallen into a better spot for information. My cidevant garde de chasse was loyal to the midriff; but his position as the master of a tavern, made his house a rendezvous of the leading patriots of his section. Immediately after their victory of the morning, a sort of council was held on what they were to do next; and the room where I lay being separated from their place of meeting only by a slight partition, I could hear every syllable of their speeches, which, indeed, they took no pains to whisper; they clearly thought that Paris was their own. Lying on my bed, I learned that the attack on the Hotel de Ville was only a part of a grand scheme of operations; that an insurrection was to be organized throughout France; that the king was to be deposed, and a 'lieutenant of the kingdom' appointed, until the sovereign people had declared their will; and that the first movement was to be a march of all the Parisian sections to Versailles. I should have started from my pillow, to spring sabre in hand among the traitors; but I was held down by my wounds, and perhaps still more by the entreaties of my old attendant, who protested against my stirring, as it would be instantly followed by her murder and that of every inmate of the house. The club now proceeded to enjoy themselves after the labours of the day. They had a republican carouse. Their revels were horrible. They speedily became intoxicated, sang, danced, embraced, fought, and were reconciled again. Then came the harangues; each orator exceeding his predecessor in blasphemy, till all was execration, cries of vengeance against kings and priests, and roars of massacre. I there heard the names of men long suspected, but of whom they now spoke openly as the true leaders of the national movement; and of others marked for assassination. They drank toasts to Death, to Queen Poissarde, and to Goddess Guillotine. It was a pandemonium.

"A drum at length beat the 'Alarme' in the streets; the orgie was at an end, and amid a crash of bottles and glasses, they staggered, as well as their feet could carry them, out of the house. They were received by the mob with shouts of laughter. But the column moved forward; to the amount of thousands, as I could judge by their trampling, and the clashing of their arms. When the sound had died away in the distance, my humble friend entered my room, thanking his stars that 'he had contrived to escape this march.'

"'Where are they gone?' I asked.

"'To Versailles,' was his shuddering answer.

"Nothing could now detain me. After one or two helpless efforts to rise from my bed, and an hour or two of almost despair, I succeeded in getting on my feet, and procuring a horse. Versailles was now my only object. I knew all the importance of arriving at the palace at the earliest moment; I knew the unprotected state of the king, and knew that it was my place to be near his person in all chances. I was on the point of sallying forth in my uniform, when the precaution of my friend forced me back; telling me, truly enough, that, in the ferment of the public mind, it would be impossible for me to reach Versailles as a garde du corps, and that my being killed or taken, would effectually prevent me from bearing any information of the state of the capital. This decided me; and, disguised as a courier, I set out by a cross-road in hope to arrive before the multitude.

"But I had not gone above a league when I fell in with a scattered platoon of the mob, who were rambling along as if on a party of pleasure; tossing their pikes and clashing their sabres to all kinds of revolutionary songs. I was instantly seized, as a 'courier of the Aristocrats.' Their sagacity, once at work, found out a hundred names for me:—I was a 'spy of Pitt,' an 'agent of the Austrians,' a 'disguised priest,' and an 'emigrant noble;' my protestations were in vain, and they held a court-martial, on me and my horse, on the road; and ordered me to deliver up my despatches, on pain of being piked on the spot. But I could give up none; for the best of all possible reasons. Every fold of my drapery was searched, and then I was to be piked for not having despatches; it being clear that I was more than a courier, and that my message was too important to be trusted to pen and ink. I was now in real peril; for the party had continued to sing and drink until they had nearly made themselves frantic; and as Versailles was still a dozen miles off, and they were unlikely to annihilate the garrison before nightfall, they prepared to render their share of service to their country by annihilating me. In this real dilemma, my good genius interposed, in the shape of an enormous poissarde; who, rushing through the crowd, which she smote with much the same effect as an elephant would with his trunk, threw her huge arms round me, called me her cher Jacques, poured out a volley of professional eloquence on the shrinking heroes, and proclaimed me her son returning from the army! All now was sentiment. The poissarde was probably in earnest, for her faculties were in nearly the same condition with those of her fellow patriots. I was honoured with a general embrace, and shared the privilege of the travelling bottle. As the night was now rapidly falling, an orator proposed that the overthrow of the monarchy should be deferred till the next day. A Fédéré uniform was provided for me; I was hailed as a brother; we pitched a tent, lighted fires, cooked a supper, and bivouacked for the night. This was, I acknowledge, the first night of my seeing actual service since the commencement of my soldiership.

"In ten minutes the whole party were asleep. I arose, stole away, left my newly found mother to lament her lost son again, and with a heavy heart took the road to Versailles. The night had changed to sudden tempest, and the sky grown dark as death. It was a night for the fall of a dynasty. But there was a lurid blaze in the distant horizon, and from time to time a shout, or a sound of musketry, which told me only too well where Versailles lay. I need not say what my feelings were while I was traversing that solitary road, yet within hearing of this tremendous mass of revolt; or what I imagined in every roar, as it came mingled with the bellowing of the thunder. The attack might be commencing at the moment; the blaze that I saw might be the conflagration of the palace; the roar might be the battle over the bodies of the royal family. I never passed three hours in such real anxiety of mind, and they were deepened by the total loneliness of the whole road. I did not meet a single human being; for the inhabitants of the few cottages had fled, or put out all their lights, and shut themselves up in their houses. The multitude had rushed on, leaving nothing but silence and terror behind.

"The church clocks were striking three in the morning when I arrived at Versailles, after the most exhausting journey that I had ever made. But there, what a scene met my eye! It was beyond all that I had ever imagined of ferocity and rabble triumph. Though it was still night, the multitude thronged the streets; the windows were all lighted up, huge fires were blazing in all directions, torches were carried about at the head of every troop of the banditti; it was the bivouac of a hundred thousand bedlamites. It was now that I owned the lucky chance which had made me a Fédéré. In any other dress I should have been a suspicious person, and have probably been put to death; but in the brown coat, sabre, and red cap of the Sectionaire, I was fraternized with in all quarters. My first object was to approach the palace, if possible. But there I found a cordon of the national guard drawn up, who had no faith even in my mob costume; and was repelled. I could only see at a distance, drawn up in front of the palace, a strong line of troops—the regiment of Flanders and the Swiss battalion. All in the palace was darkness. It struck me as the most funereal sight that I had ever beheld.

"In my disappointment I wandered through the town. The night was rainy, and gusts of wind tore every thing before them, yet the armed populace remained carousing in the streets—all was shouting, oaths, and execrations against the royal family. Some groups were feasting on the plunder of the houses of entertainment, others were dancing and roaring the 'Carmagnole.' One party had broken into the theatre, and dressed themselves in the spoils of the wardrobe; others were drilling, and exhibiting their skill by firing at the king's arms hung over the shops of the restaurateurs. Those shops were crowded with hundreds eating and drinking at free cost. All the cafés and gaming-houses were lighted from top to bottom. The streets were a solid throng, and almost as bright as at noonday, and the jangling of all the Savoyard organs, horns, and voices, the riot and roar of the multitude, and the frequent and desperate quarrels of the different sections, who challenged each other to fight during this lingering period, were absolutely distracting. Versailles looked alternately like one vast masquerade, like an encampment of savages, and like a city taken by storm. Wild work, too, had been done during the day.

"As, wearied to death, I threw myself down to rest on the steps of one of the churches, a procession of patriots happened to fix its quarters on the spot. Its leader, an old grotesque-looking fellow, dressed in a priest's vestments—doubtless a part of the plunder of the night—and seated on a barrel on wheels, like a Silenus, from which, at their several halts, he harangued his followers, and drank to the 'downfal of the Bourbons,' soon let me into the history of the last twelve hours. 'Brave Frenchmen,' exclaimed the ruffian, 'the eyes of the world are fixed upon you; and this night you have done what the world has never rivalled. You have shaken the throne of the tyrant. What cared you for the satellites of the Bourbon? You scorned their bayonets; you laughed at their bullets. Nothing can resist the energy of Frenchmen.' This flourish was, of course, received with a roar. The orator now produced a scarf which he had wrapped round his waist, and waved it in the light before them. 'Look here, citizen soldiers,' he cried; 'brave Fédérés, see this gore. It is the blood of the monsters who would extinguish the liberty of France. Yesterday I headed a battalion of our heroes in the attack of the palace. One of the slaves of the tyrant Capet rushed on me sword in hand; I sent a bullet through his heart, and, as he fell, I tore this scarf from his body. See the marks of his blood.' It may be conceived with what feelings I heard this narrative.—The palace had been sacked, the queen insulted, my friends and comrades murdered. I gave an involuntary groan; his fierce eye fell upon me as I endeavoured to make my escape from this horrible neighbourhood, and he ordered me to approach him. The fifty pikes which were brandished at his word made obedience necessary. He whispered, 'I know you well; you are at my mercy; I have often played the barrel organ outside the walls of your corps-de-garde; you are acquainted with the secret ways of the palace, and you must lead us in, or die upon the spot.' He probably took my astonishment and silence for acquiescence; for he put a musket into my hand. 'This night,' said he, aloud, 'will settle every thing. The whole race of the Bourbons are doomed. The fry may have escaped, but we have netted all the best fish. We have friends, too, in high quarters;' and he shook a purse of louis-d'ors at my ear. 'We are to storm the palace an hour before daybreak; the troops must either join us or be put to death; the king and his tribe will be sent to a dungeon, and France, before to-morrow night, will have at her head, if not the greatest man, the richest fool, in Europe.' He burst out into an irrestrainable laugh, in which the whole party joined; but the sound of cannon broke off his speech; all shouldered pike or musket; I was placed under the especial surveillance of a pair with drawn sabres, which had probably seem some savage service during the night, for they were clotted with blood; and with me for their guide, the horde of savages rushed forward, shouting, to join the grand attack on the defenders of our unfortunate king.

"My situation had grown more trying at every moment, but escape was impossible, and my next thought was to make the best of my misfortune, enter the palace along with the crowd, and, when once there, die by the side of my old comrades. I had, however, expected a sanguinary struggle. What was my astonishment when I saw the massive gates, which might have been so easily defended, broken open at once—a few random shots the only resistance, and the staircases and ante-rooms in possession of the multitude within a quarter of an hour. 'Where is La Fayette?' in wrath and indignation, I cried to one of the wounded garde-du-corps, whom I had rescued from the knives of my sans-culotte companions. 'He is asleep,' answered the dying man, with a bitter smile. 'Where are the National Guard whom he brought with him last night from Paris?' I asked, in astonishment. 'They are asleep, too,' was the contemptuous answer. I rushed on, and at length reached my friends; tore off my Fédéré uniform, and used, with what strength was left me, my bayonet, until it was broken.

"I shall say no more of that night of horrors. The palace was completely stormed. The splendid rooms, now the scene of battle hand to hand; the royal furniture, statues, pictures, tossed and trampled in heaps; wounded and dead men lying every where; the constant discharge of muskets and pistols; the breaking open of doors with the blows of hatchets and hammers; the shrieks of women flying for their lives, or hanging over their wounded sons and husbands; and the huzzas of the rabble, at every fresh entrance which they forced into the suites of apartments, were indescribable. I pass over the other transactions of those terrible hours; but some unaccountable chance saved the royal family—I fear, for deeper sufferings; for the next step was degradation.

"The rabble leaders insisted that the king should go with them to Paris. Monsieur La Fayette was now awake; and he gave it as his opinion that this was the only mode of pleasing the populace. When a king submits to popular will, he is disgraced; and a disgraced king is undone. It was now broad day; the struggle was at an end; the royal carriages were ordered, and the garde-du-corps were drawn up to follow them. At this moment, the barrel-organ man, my leader of the night, passed me by with a grimace, and whispered, 'Brother Fédéré, did I not tell you how it would be? The play is only beginning; all that we have seen is the farce.' He laughed, and disappeared among the crowd.

"There was one misery to come, and it was the worst; the procession to Paris lasted almost twelve hours. It was like the march of American savages, with their scalps and prisoners, to their wigwams. The crowd had been largely increased by the national guards of the neighbouring villages, and by thousands flocking from Paris on the intelligence of the rabble victory. Our escort was useless; we ourselves were prisoners. Surrounding the carriage of the king, thousands of the most profligate refuse of Paris, men and women, railed and revelled, sang and shouted the most furious insults to their majesties. And in front of this mass were carried on pikes, as standards, the heads of two of our corps, who had fallen fighting at the door of the queen's chamber. Loaves, borne on pikes, and dipped in blood, formed others of their standards. Huge placards, with the words, 'Down with the tyrant! Down with the priests! Down with the nobles!' waved above the heads of the multitude. 'Make way for the baker, his wife, and the little apprentice,' was shouted, with every addition of obloquy and insolence; and in this agony we were forced to drag on our weary steps till midnight. One abomination more was to signalize the inhuman spirit of the time. Within about a league of Paris, the royal equipages were ordered to halt; and for what inconceivable purpose? It was, that the bleeding heads of our unfortunate comrades might be dressed and powdered by the village barber—to render them fit to enter Paris. The heads were then brought to the carriage windows, for the approval of the royal prisoners; and the huge procession moved onward with all its old bellowings again.

"We entered the city by torchlight, amid the firing of cannon; the streets were all illuminated, and the mob and the multitude maddened with brandy. Yet the scene was unlike that of the night before. There was something in the extravagances of Versailles wholly different from the sullen and frowning aspect of Paris. The one had the look of a melodrame; the other the look of an execution. All was funereal. We marched with the king to the Place du Carrousel, and when the gates of the palace closed on him, I felt as if they were the gates of the tomb. Perhaps it would be best that they were; that a king of France should never suffer such another day; that he should never look on the face of man again. He had drained the cup of agony; he had tasted all the bitterness of death; human nature could not sustain such another day; and, loyal as I was, I wished that the descendant of so many kings should rather die by the hand of nature than by the hand of traitors and villains; or should rather mingle his ashes with the last flame of the Tuileries, than glut the thirst of rebellion with his blood on the scaffold."

The story left us all melancholy for a while; bright eyes again overflowed, as well they might; and stately bosoms heaved with evident emotion. Yet, after all, the night was wound up with a capital cotillon, danced with as much grace, and as much gaiety too, as if it had been in the Salle d'Opera.

I rose early next morning, and felt the spirit-stirring power of the sea breeze. In those days, Brighton covered but the borders of the shore. It was scarcely more than a little line of fishermen's cottages, fenced against the surge by the remaining timbers of boats which had long seen their last adventure. Scattered at distances of at least a quarter of a mile from each other, lay some houses of a better description, a few deeply embosomed in trees, or rather in such thickets as could grow in the perpetual exposure to the rough winds and saline exhalations of the Channel. Of those, the one in which I had taken up my present residence was amongst the best; though its exterior was so unpresuming, that I was inclined to give Mordecai, or rather his gay heiress, credit for humility, or perhaps for the refinement of striking their visiters with the contrast between its simplicity of exterior and richness of decoration within.

It was a brisk, bright morning, and the waves were curling before a lively breeze, the sun was glowing above, and clusters of vessels, floating down the Channel, spread their sails like masses of summer cloud in the sunshine. It was my first sight of the ocean, and that first sight is always a new idea. Alexander the Great, standing on the shores of the Persian Gulf, said, "That he then first felt what the world was." Often as I have seen the ocean since, the same conception has always forced itself on me.

In what a magnificent world do we live! What power, what depth, what expanse, lay before me! How singular, too, that while the grandeur of the land arises from bold irregularity and incessant change of aspect, from the endless variety of forest, vale, and mountain; the same effect should be produced on the ocean by an absence of all irregularity and all change! A simple, level horizon, perfectly unbroken, a line of almost complete uniformity, compose a grandeur that impresses and fills the soul as powerfully as the most cloud-piercing Alp, or the Andes clothed with thunder.

This was the ocean in calm; but how glorious, too, in tempest! The storm that sweeps the land is simply a destroyer or a renovator; it smites the surface, and is gone. But the ocean is the seat of its power, the scene of its majesty, the element in which it sports, lives, and rules—penetrating to its depths, rolling its surface in thunder on the shore—changing its whole motion, its aspect, its uses, and, grand as it is in its serenity, giving it another and a more awful grandeur in its convulsion. Then, how strangely, yet how admirably, does it fulfil its great human object! Its depth and extent seem to render it the very element of separation; all the armies of the earth might be swallowed up between the shores of the Channel. Yet it is this element which actually combines the remotest regions of the earth. Divisions and barriers are essential to the protection of kingdoms from each other; yet what height of mountain range, or what depth of precipice could be so secure as the defence so simply and perpetually supplied by a surrounding sea? While this protecting element at the same time pours the wealth of the globe into the bosom of a nation.

Even all this is only the ocean as referred to man. How much more magnificent is it in itself! Thrice the magnitude of the land, the world of waters! its depth unfathomable, its mountains loftier than the loftiest of the land, its valleys more profound, the pinnacles of its hills islands! What immense shapes of animal and vegetable life may fill those boundless pastures and plains on which man shall never look! What herds, by thousands and millions, of those mighty creatures whose skeletons we discover, from time to time, in the wreck of the antediluvian globe! What secrets of form and power, of capacity and enjoyment, may exist under the cover of that mighty expanse of waves which fills the bed of the ocean, and spreads round the globe!

While those and similar ramblings were passing through my mind, as I sat gazing on the bright and beautiful expanse before me, I was aroused by a step on the shingle. I turned, and saw the gallant guardsman, who had so much interested our party on the night before. But he received my salutation with a gravity which instantly put an end to my good-humour; and I waited for the dénouement, at his pleasure. He produced a small billet from his pocket, which I opened, and which, on glancing my eye over it, appeared to me a complete rhapsody. I begged of him to read it, and indulge me with an explanation. He read it, and smiled.